The Lancaster Treaty of 1744: with Related Documents, edited with an introduction by James H. Merrell

So many books, so little time.  If that is your lament too, and you want to get your arms around a subject like, for instance, the Great Wagon Road, put this little (pp. 144) gem at the top of your list.

The Lancaster Treaty of 1744 is a tight, little bundle of invaluable information.   At its heart it is a reprint of Benjamin Franklin's publication of the minutes from the treaty negotiation at which the Iroquois signed over to the English the lion's share (no pun intended) of their lands west of Virginia.  The treaty was necessitated by a collision between Iroquois warriors on The Warriors Path and Virginia frontier people anxious to defend their Shenandoah lands.  The collision threatened a general frontier war and the colonial governments of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, the colonies that had the most to lose and the particular objects of Iroquois dissatisfaction agreed to meet  and treat and try to bury bloody memories under wampum and paper.  To make the long story short, the treaty worked and the Iroquois agreed to allow English to settle along and travel on the Warrior's Path if the English would agree to quite messing with Iroquois en route to killing Catawba in the Carolinas.  From this treaty we date the origin of The Great Wagon Road, one of America's most important early migration routes.  It connected Philadelphia, PA to Augusta, GA and carried tens of thousands of our ancestors into the Carolina backcountry in the last half of the 18th century.  So, for that reason alone the treaty has interest for students of our early colonial backcountry.  Beyond that interest, though, this collaboration between Ben Franklin, the recorder of the treaty, the interpreter, the participants, and Merrell, the Editor offers a far more refined picture of native diplomacy and interaction with their foreign neighbors than one normally finds in books on America's frontiers.

Part of the Bedford Series in History and Culture, a republication of primary sources, The Lancaster Treaty.....packs a lot into a few pages.  But between his introduction and his footnotes, the bibliography and time line, Merrell has provided us much more than just a reprint of Franklin's text.  Merrel teaches at Vassar so it is probably just a reflex that at the end of the book, he even includes a list of questions useful for high school and college students.

James H. Merrell is one of the finest historians working in the area of colonial American frontiers, the meting grounds for natives and newcomers.  His particular area of interest is Iroquoia, but that has led him into the southeast, our country, on two occasions.  The Iroquois' most persistent Native American enemies were the Catawba, the Sioux speaking folk of the southeast.  Perhaps because of their bitter and persistent hatred of the Iroquois, Merrell wrote what is, more or less, the definitive work on the Catawba: The Indians' New World: Catawbas and Their Neighbors from European Contact through the Era of Removal(  Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1989).  And to better understand how contact between Europeans and Indians actually occurred, he studied the people who bridged the two worlds in a truly wonderful work on, Into the American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier (NY: Norton & Co, 1999).  In all three books the reader gets a lot more than the titles imply.  Things really weren't as simple as Red and White. 

Migration Tails Project Concept and Plan

To the left you see a map of what we surmise to be the Great Wagon Road (GWR) migration impact in NC.  Here we have toggled the major roads in those counties different colors.  Green counties are counties through which passed major channels of the GWR.  Salmon colored counties are counties that attribute a major part of their early migrants to the GWR.  For purposes of conceptualizing the GWR we have presumed that it impacted counties between the western waters of the Neuse and the waters as far west as the Green and Broad River drainages.  In effect the GWR seems to have provided a, if not the major stream of migrants into the piedmont.

These assumptions result in identifying nine core counties, counties carrying traces of the GWR itself, and thirty-one destination counties.  Essentially, the destination counties lie between the mountains and the fall line at the east of the piedmont.  Certainly there were exceptions and there is no certainty that all the counties so identified were major recipients of GWR traffic, but for planning purposes, this appears to be the general zone of GWR impacts in NC.

The Great Wagon Road project continues apace.  Our kick-off meeting is still on for March 25th.  And we're already planning a follow-up meeting for April where we'll begin thinking about how to cooperate with our neighboring states.  Logistically, heritage trail development is complicated.  We are evaluating software and various other technologies to see if we can't minimize the cost of developing, deploying, and managing trails, and we need all the help we can get.  If you have any experience in trail development or in associated technologies and have some time to spare, get involved. 


So far we  know we will need to acquire and/or master certain aspects of:

• travel and tourism,
  
• data base and website development, and
  
• remote learning and virtual meeting

Of course, we will also need expertise in:

• grant writing
• graphics design, and
• contracting and contract management

There is plenty to be done, and the less it costs us to do these many things, the more money there will be for developments at the local level, and that is really what this project is all about.  All history, like all politics, should be local.  We are who are because of who we were, and the clearer vision we have of the latter the better will be our understanding of the former.  There is a nice reciprocal relationship between good history, good understanding, and good citizenship that heritage tourism can encourage, and that too makes this project particularly satisfying.  So lend a hand if you can.

At the presentation in Union County last weekend we announced our county chapter program and the announcement was well received.  There were historical society and genealogist present from both Union and Stanley Counties who felt their counties would benefit from a TPA chapter.and there seemed to be some comfort at speaking for Anson County's enthusiasm as well.  The proposal presented is that each county pay an annual $250 Chapter membership.  The TPA will then come to town on a mutually agreeable date and train chapter members in how to locate, map, and report remnants of early infrastructure. 

Key to the success of our project is informing county officials of the existence of archaeologically sensitive soils in their county.  Currently, the only soils so recognized are soils accidentally identified as such as part of federally mandated Environmental Impact Study.  That doesn't necessarily protect anything of local importance.  Those studies reflect only federally mandated criteria of importance.  Local heritage may have different standards.  Local memory may weight artifacts disdained by federal standards.  So, it is essential that county planners and elected officials be told were their archaeology is likely to lie, not so much to protect that archaeology (which is usually on private lands beyond any protection), but so as to allow county planners and elected officials to make informed decisions about whether or not to destroy their archaeological remnants.  As accidental destruction by urban sprawl is the greatest threat to our archaeological record, we need this sort of minimal sensitivity.

Of course, that is why we seek old trade routes in the first place; the archaeology (for the most part) lies within feet of their center lines.  We want local folks to map these roads as much as possible.

Twice Weekly Field Sorties Start in February

We are still trying to get into the field twice a week for pro bono mapping.  Last week we only made it once but we did find some material remnants at a site that may be Dicky's Mill on Deep Creek in Alamance County, NC where there was a Revolutionary War skirmish.  There was enough material found to warrant a revisit  and some probing.

This week we intend to visit the vicinity of of Mount Willing on the Alamance-Orange County line in NC.  This community (?), this place name at a highway nexus remained on the maps for a long time.  Why, we don't know.  This week's visit will be to determine if there are an vestiges of what should have been an early colonial trade hamlet.

TPA Volunteer Coordinator Sought

We are still looking for a Volunteer Coordinator:

We have an impressive list of volunteers under-used to a fault.  So we would like one of those volunteers to step forward and assume responsibility for organizing and coordinating both volunteers and volunteer activities.  Our volunteer cadre are located all over the state so it matters little where the coordinator resides; all activities will be launched and directed via the internet.  So, if you can commute from home and don't mind emailing and scheduling events with strangers, please, contact Tom at the TPA office ( This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it , 919-644-0600) and help us harvest some volunteer hours.

Board Members and field survey folk, event volunteers and all other volunteers should keep track of the hours and mileage they expend on TPA work.  The TPA can use these hours as matches against some grants so they have great value to us beyond the work performed in those hours.  Our new coordinator will also probably gather such statistics for us.  Please, if you have an hour or so per week, step up.

April First Sunday Hike on Mount Tirzah in Person County, NC

On April 6th we will hike along the remnants of a packhorse road atop Mount Tirzah in Person County, NC.  This is, we believe, the course of the upper trading path, the high road, so to speak, of the original Petersburg trail. Packhorsemen crossed the Roanoke River north at Moniseep ford, in Brunswick County, VA and proceeded on virtually a straight line to Mount Tirzah, crossing the Tar River in its higher reaches, and crossing the east fork of the Neuse, the Flat River just above its forks.  We will walk from the top of Mount Tirzah down to the ford over the North Fork of the Flat River.  The Google view to the right shows the intersection where we'll meet and the beginning of the line we'll walk. 

Mount Tirzah is a few miles east of Highway 501 at Timberlake, NC, north of Durham, south of Roxboro.  Click here for a Google map of the area.   We will meet and park at the little store just east of the intersection atop Mount Tirzah at 2 PM and we'll return to that point by 4 PM.  The hike itself is mostly along unprepared and uneven surfaces.  The terrain is slightly sloping and, with luck, the leaves will not yet have burst the buds and we'll be able to see quite a bit.  Be prepared for insects though.  Wear footwear appropriate to open woodland. 

This may be the last time we will visit this site as the property recently came out of an estate and is being sold off to developers.  There are already new houses crowding the trail at its top, and it is only a matter of time before neighbors begin reclaiming the "old gully" for their yards and preventing strangers from passing through.

March First Sunday Hike at Moorefields

The Trading Path Association will host a meeting of planners, economic development, and tourism officials and historians from the counties through which the Great Wagon Road (GWR) once passed.  This is the kick off meeting for the creation of a Great Wagon Road Migration Trail that will follow the route of the GWR from Virginia through North Carolina to South Carolina.  The GWR, purchased from the Iroquois in 1744, came into use about the time that North Carolina finally began to clear its many conflicted land titles thus making the land suitable for secure settlement.  It may have been the channel through which most of the Old North State's settlers made their way south from Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and points north.

Southern Campaigns of the American Revolution (SCAR) Battlefield Tour, March 29th

The Corps of Discovery of SCAR, in cooperation with the Sons (SAR) and Daughters (DAR) of the American Revolution has organized a car tour of three Revolutionary War sites (two battlefields and a British Army camp site) for March 29th.  We will visit Clapps Mill battlefield, Pyles Defeat/the Hacking Match site, and the area where General Cornwallis camped his army (around Alamance Battleground).  Each stop will have an expert interpreter to walk participants through the events and Tom Magnuson will be along to tie things together.  This is an all day event and as the date approaches we'll provide more details.  We know now that we'll meet in the morning at Lake Macintosh, near the Clapps Mill monument.  We have a general idea of how we'll handle lunch.  And we know how we'll end the day, but details need to be firmed up before announcing more.  As the date approaches you'll probably be able to get detailed information at the SCAR website.  Meanwhile, the TPA will post the latest information on its Events list as well.

Upcoming Public Talks

April 3rd, Oxford, NC, NC Humanities Forum talk for the Granville County Genealogists

At 6:30 PM, Thursday, April 3rd Tom will speak to the Granville County Genealogical Society at the R.H. Thornton Library in downtown Oxford.  The talk will be on colonial transportation with emphasis given to certain old roads and stream crossings in Warren, Granville, and Franklin Counties.  As a Humanities Council event, this talk is open to the public.

April 16th, Presentation to the Historic Properties (HPC) Commission in Hillsborough, NC

This presentation will be one more in a long series of training and education moments with the public commission charged with protecting Orange County, NC's heritage properties.  The TPA has for some years been trying to convince the HPC that "properties" means more than architecturally interesting structures, that preservation has gotten past taking care of dead rich guys' houses.  We will prevail eventually.

May 10th, Carrboro, NC, Annual DOGs Show

May 10th at the Town of Carrboro Century Center at the corner of Main and Hillsborough Streets Tom will hold a workshop of sorts for the Durhams-Orange Genealogical Society's (DOGS)annual day-long show and tell.  At this event genealogists and historians, amateur and professional show off their work and make themselves available to the public to answer questions about their work in particular but also about research in general.  This is a a public even

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