ten hired men to fence in a cornfield, for the Indians, according to your Honor's order." He says he left them a sack of flour, and that he left another at Canasoragy, about ten miles below Otstuacky. In the Journal of Mack and Grubé from Bethlehem to Quenischaschachki, they say: "In the afternoon of Sunday, Aug. 26, 1753, we launched our canoe and paddled up the river. Four miles above Shamokin we came to Logan's place On the 27th we arrived at John Shikellimy's hunting-lodge After dinner we came to the mouth of Muncy Creek, forty miles above Shamokin. As the Susquehanna was high, and current rapid, we left our canoe in care of an Indian acquaintance, shouldered our packs, and keeping along the banks of the river, arrived at Otstonwakin in the evening." The distances are not to be depended upon, but a town at the mouth of Loyal Sock, now called Montoursville, and known over a hundred years ago as Otstuagy or Otstuacky or Otstonwakin, was in 1742 the residence of Madame Montour. She was with the Indians in June, 1744, at Lancaster at the treaty there made, and stated to Mr. Marsh that she was a daughter of a French Governor of Canada, that she was captured by the Five Nations at about the tenth year of her age, that she had married a famous Captain of those nations, by whom she had several children, and that her husband had been killed about fifteen years before, being about 1729. And that since his death she has not been married. She also stated that it was then near fifty years since she had been captured, making her in 1744 near sixty years of age. Spangenberg visited her at Shamokin in 1745, but after that I find no mention of her, and the time and place of her death are unknown. There is no authority for believing that she was alive, much less present, thirty-six years later, at the massacre of Wyoming. No history or authentic tradition connects Madame Montour with the shedding of any blood white or Indian; the whole tenor of her life forbids it, and the attempt to enhance the romance of a locality or a tragedy by naming her in connection with it, must be a failure.

That there was at the massacre of Wyoming an Indian

woman of consequence, who was known as "Queen Esther," is so confidently and widely asserted that it may scarcely be doubted that she was the bloody and brutal executioner seems also certain, if the statements of escaped prisoners are trustworthy. She is alleged to have been old, is called by Mr. Miner "The Old Fury," and it is said that in 1779, her place and village on the banks of the Susquehanna was burned by Sullivan's expedition. The Montours were at the battle of Wyoming. Twenty-five years afterward a couple of Indians, known as Stuttering John and Roland Montour, admitted that, in a denial as to the participation of Brant in that massacre. But these Montours were not descendants of Madame Montour. The name Roland seems to have been a favorite, and it is entirely possible, therefore, that a Capt. Roland Montour may have been at that celebrated massacre. When we learn, also, that the Chief, wounded fatally at Freeland's Fort, and buried at Painted Post, was a son of Queen Esther, we may pretty safely conclude that the Queen Esther of the massacre may have been Madame Montour's sister-inlaw. John and Catrina were all their lives unrelenting enemies of the English Colonists. Mr. Day speaks of “the celebrated Catharine Montour, sometimes called Queen Esther, whose more permanent residence was at Catharinestown, at the head of Seneca Lake, as being a half-breed, who had been well educated in Canada. Her reputed father was one of the French Governors of that Province, and she herself was a lady of comparative refinement. She was much caressed in Philadelphia, and mingled in the best society. She exercised a controlling influence among the Indians, and resided in this quarter [Tioga Point, Bradford County] while they were making their incursions upon the Wyoming settlements. It has been even suspected that she presided at the bloody sacrifice of the Wyoming prisoners after the battle; but Col. Stone, who is good authority upon the history of the Six Nations, utterly discredits the story."

Madame Montour did spend a good deal of her time in Philadelphia between the years 1729 and 1734, or even later, but how much she was caressed, and how much she mingled

in the best society is unknown. She was then a widow for the second time, according to some authorities, and if French, or of French extraction, she may have been a dashing one. Of her age we can only conjecture; but her son Andrew was a man with a family in 1748, and in 1733 her daughter Margaret is spoken of as being then married. Madame was probably born before the year 1690, and was no longer young at her first appearance in our history.

That the Montours, Roland, John, and Catharine were half-breeds, children of a French Governor of Canada, is altogether probable; but that Catharine, the sister of Roland, ever was the educated and refined and caressed lady of the best society of Philadelphia, is an entire misapprehension. There is no evidence that Catharine ever was in Philadelphia. Mr. Pearce asserts, notwithstanding Col. Stone's denial, that 66 Queen Esther" was at the massacre. If he means by "Queen Esther," Madame Montour, the French woman, the wife of Roland Montour, he is mistaken; but if he means Catrina Montour, the sister of Roland and John, then he may be right. The authority from whom Mr. Day quotes, has evidently confounded the two women. Madame Montour and Catharine Montour were very different persons. The Christian name of Madame Montour is not given in any authority which has come under my observation; and the person who had her castle at Tioga Point, and her town at the head of Seneca Lake was not the wife or widow of Roland Montour. Madame Montour had a daughter Margaret; might not that have been, too, the name of the mother? Between her and John and Catrina, there seems to have been no intercourse, at least they are never mentioned in connection with her, nor named as of her family. It is alleged that John and Catreen were both at the taking of Fort Freeland in July, 1779, that John received a wound there which proved fatal, and that he was buried at the "Painted Post." The probabilities of this

Judge McMaster, in his History of Steuben County, says that " Captain Montour, the Chief who was buried at the Painted Post, was a son of Queen Catharine, of Seneca Lake; and that he died of wounds received at Free

story being true are increased when we remember the number of persons taken prisoners at that time, and that many of them returned from captivity, to whom the facts must have been well known, and by whom they would be correctly and graphically related.

In view of all the evidence now attainable, it seems possible that Madame Montour may have been of pure French extraction, and that Roland and his brother and sister may have been half-breeds. At any rate Madame is always spoken of as a French woman, and never as a half-breed, while Catharine is always distinguished as half-breed, although the brothers are seldom if ever so designated.

So much it has seemed necessary to say, that the truth of history might be vindicated, and the confusion or error which the authorities leave upon the mind might be dispelled-that the good reputation of Madame Montour might be as immovable as the rocks that underlie the beautiful Ridge which perpetuates her name, and that her memory should be as green and grateful as the pines that clothe its sides and wave over its summit.

N. B.-The spelling of the proper names is in accordance to my authorities, scarcely any two spelling the Indian names alike. J. G. F.

land's Fort." He does not give the first name, and we are unable to tell whether it was John or Roland. It seems impossible to arrive at any certainty in these matters. Mr. Miner, in a note in his History of Wyoming, says that "Roland Montour, a half-blood," was at the massacre in 1778; but Mr. Carey, his informant, does not tell who Roland was. It is altogether probable that the same young warrior was at Freeland's Fort in July, 1779.

THE DESCENDANTS OF JÖRAN KYN, THE FOUNDER

OF UPLAND.

BY GREGORY B. KEEN.

(Continued from Vol. II., page 456.)

6. ERICK KEEN,3 son of Hans and Willemka Keen, was born at Upland, and removed with his father's family up the Delaware, where he grew to manhood, and married Catharine, daughter of Jan Claassen, younger sister of his brother Matthias Keen's wife. Through her he inherited fifty acres of land in Bristol Township, Bucks Co., Pa., part of his fatherin-law's estate. He purchased, March 4, 1702-3, from his cousin Maons Keen three acres of land and meadow in Chester Township, Burlington Co., N. J., but whether he ever resided there cannot now be ascertained. On the 25th of January, 1706-7, his mother and brothers deeded to him a hundred acres acquired by Matthias Keen from Erick Möllicka, originally one of his father Hans Keen's tracts (the lower one of the two ascribed to "Enock and Keene" upon Holme's Map), situated on the Delaware River, at the mouth and along the eastern side of Wissinoming Creek. Erick Keen was already in possession of it, and he continued to dwell on it, engaged in agricultural pursuits, the rest of his life. His name appears in Pastor Andrew Rudman's list of the Lutheran congregation of Wicacoa in 1697-8, and in the first list of pewholders in Gloria Dei Church in 1705, and among contributors to the salaries of the Swedish clergy at sundry times. He subscribed to the erection of the present Church edifice in 1700, and lived to contribute to the repair of it in 1738, and aided in 1717 in building the parsonage at Passyunk, and was for many years Vestryman and Warden of the Congregation of Wicacoa. He was one of the gentlemen who made the present of American fur to Mr. Secretary Lilljeblad, spoken of in the account of Matthias Keen, and signed the petition, also there referred