Song of Blue Moccasin (Perry County, Pennsylvania Frontier Series)
Page 1
Table of Contents
Foreword
Introduction
1 Late Winter 1778
2 The Journey Begins
3 Shatto's
4 Proposal
5 Preparing
6 North to Tioga
7 Esther's Town
8 Esther
9 Tioga
10 Oquaga
11 Butler
12 Deerfoot
13 Amos Brink
14 First Words
15 The Song of Blue Moccasin
16 Pursuit
17 Hornsock's
18 Mary
19 Return
Epilogue
About Roy Chandler
Books by Roy Chandler
Printing History
e-Book Edition: 2012
Katherine R. Chandler, Publisher
St. Mary's City, MD
First Hardback Edition: Bacon & Freeman, 1989
Deer Lake, Pennsylvania
Second Hardback edition: Iron Brigade Armory, 2004
Jacksonville, North Carolina
Title of this volume: Song of Blue Moccasin
Copyright: 1989, Katherine R. Chandler
Although many of the incidents included in this volume are historically recorded, the story as told herein is a novel.
For
Kenneth P. Stuart
An Historian's Historian
A Dedicated Educator
A Superb Classroom Teacher
My friend
Foreword
The setting for this story is the late 1700's. Song of Blue Moccasin by Roy F. Chandler adventures with James Cummens, a half-Delaware Indian. In his white life, Cummens is a wealthy and socially accepted businessman in the city of Philadelphia. As Blue Moccasin, he is an honored storyteller, interpreter, and message carrier among the Indian nations of the eastern seaboard. Blue Moccasin is able to spin finely woven tales with rich images and sharply honed details. As the finest of storytellers, Blue's words are like song to his listeners.
Each night at bedtime, I tell stories to my audience of two: Scott Harrison Cameron and Shawn Patrick Cameron. My boys know the adventures of the Shattos, Tim Murphy, Jack Elan, and now Blue Moccasin. Imagine a four year old whose hero is frontiersman Rob Shatto and who talks about going out to "scout our land."
Many an evening, I have been unable to put down a Chandler book and have read on through the night. Rocky's stories (everyone uses his nickname), like Blue Moccasin's, are rich and finely crafted to pique and hold a reader's interest. It is important to me to share Rocky's books with my sons, not just because they are entrancing stories, but because they embody the notion that a man's word is his bond, that honor is a way of life, that a man can control his destiny, and that some things are worth fighting for.
Who is Blue Moccasin, you ask?
"Blue Moccasin is the voice of the old ones. He is the speaker of thoughts that glitter like stars. His are the messages of great thinkers and common hunters. To hear the telling of Blue Moccasin is to know the speakers, to see through their eyes, to feel with their hearts."
Who is Rocky Chandler?
A storyteller to rival Blue Moccasin and this is one of his best.
Timothy Cameron
Sheriff, St. Mary's County, MD
Introduction
This novel is not about music, as we today know it. This "song" concerns spoken words.
It is known that American Indian speakers possessed remarkable abilities to paint word pictures. Even when translated into English, their speeches sing with handsome metaphor and resound with lyrical passages.
Without writing, speech making, storytelling, and message carrying were finely honed and were cherished skills within Indian society.
Indian presentations possess clarity and richness seldom encountered in our rapid-fire news commentaries, or more appropriately compared, in our political monologues.
Our forefathers, the framers of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights demonstrated similar talents for saying things with style, grace, and clarity. One wonders when we lost it.
This tale is of those earlier times (1778-79) when words and ideas crackled with greatness. Divine inspiration? Some believe so.
Blue Moccasin, you will find, was among the finest of Indian communicators, and his words were song.
Song of Blue Moccasin speaks of the frontier and the Iroquois League during a turbulent and often barbarous period during our Revolutionary War. In this book we revisit old friends, ones we met before in my frontier book series. We live with them through new adventures, some violent, others thought provoking. These are violent stories occurring during a physical and explosive era. When the furies of border war struck the settlers of our earliest frontiers, reason and logic fled. Hatred and violence were fed by tomahawk and musket. Only the power of persuasive counseling and brilliant oratory could delay and possibly divert soulless hungers for vengeance and justice through murder, rape and pillage.
Journey with frontiersman Rob Shatto and the honored Delaware message carrier Blue Moccasin as they answer General George Washington's plea to face the embittered Iroquois tribes and forestall the savagery of hostile uprisings along the not-so-distant New York and Pennsylvania frontiers.
Roy Chandler
Author
In the year 1778, the tribes of the Iroquois League were geographically positioned as shown on this map. The Tuscarora are not clearly delineated because they were latecomers and more scattered.
1 Late Winter 1778
To the British Army of Occupation, James Cummens, a wealthy Philadelphia merchant without sympathy to their cause, was suspected of aiding the rebellious rabble wintering beyond the city.
The British could tolerate an influential colonial's coldly personal courtesy, but evidence of material aid to the American uprising would permit confiscation of the Cummens' goods and warehouses and imprisonment of James Cummens himself.
Lord General Howe had personally admonished his provost to watch carefully the diverse Cummens' interests.
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Philadelphia
From his second story window, Cummens studied the night glitter of wet cobbles and searched the shadows for lurking figures. None seemed about, and the wharfs lay silent in the clammy cold of dying winter.
Two men crouched before his low hearth fire, absorbing heat as the sun-parched might gulp water. The men were nondescript, small in size, worn in clothing. Patched cloaks had been thrown aside to better receive the fire heat, and a spicy tang of long unwashed bodies thickened the room's air.
With steam rising from his pant legs, a croucher eased back. He coughed and snorted phlegmily before spitting into the fire.
"Damnation, Blue, your fire sinks in better than a swill of hot rum."
James Cummens, called Blue Moccasin by many on the frontier turned from his window with a half-smile. "If you were not in need of all of your wits, you would have the rum as well, Mark." He shook his head in shared misery.
"Valley Forge is a strong position, but without supplies and reinforcements there won't be enough of you left to man the revetments."
The second man grunted and rose stiffly. His joints cracked in protest, and he took a moment to shake each leg, as though limbering for a run.
"Well, there ain't no moving now. Men'll come back once spring gets on, and Congress has promised supplies that are already overdue."
Cummens went to his desk, his moccasins silent on the carpeted floor but appearing particularly out of place within the room's
luxurious appointments.
"Promises make thin gruel, Richard."
"You're right, Blue, but the General has little choice. Too many are sick, and we've no quarters to move into, anyway."
He stretched, joints again snapping loudly, and scrubbed furiously at an itching scalp. "We're hanging out of our britches, and a few are next to naked. We're starved down to bone and skin, and we're lousy with crawling things. I doubt we could field a regiment, but General Washington is stickin', and so will we."
"When the warmer weather breaks, men'll get well and others will come in. Then, we'll fight, Blue." Richard Wagner's weathered features tightened. "We've scores to settle with them red coat Hessians."
James Cummens was awed. Starved, unappreciated by too many, regularly defeated in battle, and reduced to mere hundreds, Washington's army hung on. Those left were tougher than the rawhide they wrapped around their feet and sometimes chewed for sustenance.
Wagner was a major, his companion a common soldier. Yet, there was little observable difference. Neither had been paid in nearly a year, and they spoke and acted as equals. The major was in charge, but they shared and decided as travelers might. Neither seemed dismayed by the presence of the wealthy and powerful James Cummens of Philadelphia.
Wagner spoke, "You've got the general's answer to your letter, and the night's passing. Best we ease on out of town. The road's long, and mounted patrols are usually poking about. Last thing we need is to have your supplies took or run off."
Cummens shifted almost irritably. "What I am sending won't feed a company, Richard. Howe has me watched day and night. No ships come in because the British would confiscate the cargoes. I manage the few horse loads I send by shuffling what we have until the watchers lose track."
Wagner was appreciative. "If the rest of those who could, gave even a little, we'd be eating fat instead of hoping a horse will die. The ones that grind my gut the most is the Quakers. They've got barns full but won't help a lick."
Cummens sighed, "Religion makes strange accommodations, Richard. The Quakers' unwillingness to support war assists those shipped here to make war."
"More than a few stand with the British, anyway." Wagner did not sound forgiving.
"Those who do will likely leave when the British evacuate the city."
"You think they're really going to move out of Philadelphia, Blue?"
"The favored rumor is that when Sir Henry Clinton assumes command, he plans to consolidate in New York."
"When'll that be, do you think?"
"It may never happen, Richard, but if Clinton does withdraw, it will be this summer. Whatever his plans are, he will begin immediately. Howe is being replaced because of his inability to whip us. Clinton will not wait for the same fate."
Washington's couriers slipped into the night and were gone across yards and through alleys. Near Germantown, Cummens' pack animals waited their guidance. A single wagon could have carried the horse loads, but roads were watched where fields and woods might not be.
At his desk, James Cummens wondered again at the willingness of otherwise common men to give all they possessed, often including life, in pursuit of an idea. Freedom was a heady draught, but the fight against a nation of vast military power and unmatched economic strength required suffering beyond reason.
Until now, Cummens' value to the revolution had been in material support of men in the field. Before the British occupied the city, his contribution had been substantial. Since then, Cummens had diverted his merchant fleet to other ports, and commerce had dwindled to a comparative trickle.
But now a chance to perform personal service had appeared. Men had come requesting not Cummens' gold, silver, or produce but the skills and wiles of his younger days. Here appeared an opportunity to serve as no other could. Cummens' toes curled in his moccasins at thought of the challenge, and he turned to General George Washington's letter.
The letter's seal was an unstamped tallow blob, and the pen had scratched and spat on the rough paper. Unsigned and outwardly innocuous in content, if intercepted, the document would have disclosed little. It bore no address and said only,
To face one is difficult enough; another could be too much.
Six are the greater hazard, but yours and "S" could also prove difficult.
Good fortune,
Cummens rose and poked thoughtfully at his fire. When flames brightened, he dropped the strangely worded letter across them and stirred in the quickly charred remains.
So, the general concurred. Cummens had assumed he would, but a commander-in-chief should know of schemes, even those undertaken in his behalf.
While Washington faced the British army and its Hessian mercenaries with his small bands of volunteers and scraped together militias, British agents agitated on another front.
To the west and the north, powerful Indian nations stirred, scratching at old wounds while wondering if opportunity for them lay in whites warring against each other.
The British were sending agents among the tribes. The British offered guns and the support of their powerful king. An English Colonel Hamilton at Detroit paid in coin for white scalps. The Delaware and the Shawnee, long displaced into the Ohio country, always fought white encroachment from their scattered villages. Would they move as one against the settlements?
Washington's letter really said,
I can fight the British, but I cannot split my forces to battle Indians as well.
The Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy are the great danger. They could unleash thousands of warriors and massacre until the western border collapsed.
The Delaware (Blue Moccasin's people) and the "S" (for Shawnee) can also cause serious damage.
The letter concluded with Good fortune, which supposed that James Cummens might attempt to somehow blunt such frontier savagery.
An implication that a Philadelphia merchant, no matter how wealthy or how broad his influence, could affect the activities of entire tribes, nations, and confederacies of hostile Indians appeared fatuous, but the appeal was not to James Cummens. The possibilities lay in the old days when James Cummens, the half-Indian called Blue Moccasin, had served as message carrier among the tribes north of the Potomac River.
Blue Moccasin, barely a stripling, had carried his forked stick to the hearths of the Onondaga. He had led the way for The Warrior's magical confrontation in the lands of the Huron. The name of Blue Moccasin was known among the tribes. It was a name couched in the codes of honor of a time almost gone.
Long buried were the great Indian chieftains and mighty warriors. Lesser chiefs sought to emulate them, but the times were changed, and whites with their riches of guns and blankets sickened proud Indian ways.
Once, warrior societies had fought for the honor of tribe and self. All then lived free on the lands of the Great Spirit and claimed only a right to hunt and camp within vast areas.
Now, the societies were barely names. Chiefs struggled among themselves for power and white possessions. Warriors fought for loot and lusted in the torture and killing.
Still, the appreciation of old ways lingered. Honor was known and admired. Could Blue Moccasin return to The People to work again his magic of tongue and gesture? Could an honored carrier of messages, compatriot of great ones long vanished, become himself a counselor of influence?
There was the challenge James Cummens held in his thoughts. There lay the opportunity no other could seize, but it had been long since he had run great distances, camped in deep forests, and tapped his finger drum while relating important messages.
Would the forked stick still afford safe passage? Would councils sit for his speaking? Would villages gather for his announcements? Only trial could tell for certain.
The youthful Blue Moccasin had rushed among The People with joyous abandon. He alone could tweak the noses of great men. Only he had leaped playfully at The Warrior-and been accepted.
Those had been years of wildest adventure. Then, he had felt immortal, as though beyond the reach
of knife, arrow, or angry bear. Weighty tree branches might fall on others, some would suffer crippling accidents or weakening sickness, but not Blue Moccasin.
Until he had taken his father's businesses with the white life that was their companion, he had floated as free as the forest animals and as flighty as the birds of the fields. Life had been at its richest then, and James Cummens had never forgotten its flavor.
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At forty-one years, James Cummens was barely average in height and as light-boned as a deer. His weight had not changed a stone since his youth and, although strands of gray contrasted with the Indian black, his hair was thick without the receding "widow's peak" common to whites. James Cummens was half Delaware Indian. Although the fact was not openly mentioned, the mixed blood separated him from some of Philadelphia's fanciful society. Cummens' long, black hair, often braided in Delaware fashion could revive questions of lineage. Eyes as blue as summer sky sparkled and offset a skin hued darker than most-and further confused questioners of his heritage.
The blue moccasins he wore in private were familiar only to intimates.
How long had it been since the passing of the great times? Cummens supposed the ending of Pontiac's Conspiracy in 1764 was a good marker.
Rob Shatto had crushed the Shawnee, Two Nose, and his warriors. The fort at Robinsons' had turned Pontiac's cutting edge, and Colonel Bouquet had inflicted a final defeat of the hostiles at Bushy Run. The Warrior had died in that time, and the sacred ground between Kittatinny and Tuscarora Mountains had seen its last fighting.
Fourteen years had passed since hostiles had roamed to the outskirts of Carlisle. Could they come again? Perhaps. If they rose as one, the Six Nations of the Iroquois could field an army of warriors.
Warriors? James Cummens' lips thinned. Few now were real warriors. The fighters that would lope the ancient warpaths would lack the training of old. Theirs would be only cunning and savagery, but with white men gone to their army, the frontier lay like a ripened melon ready for plucking.