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Digital Paxton: Digital Collection, Critical Edition, and Teaching Platform Redrawing History Redrawing History: Indigenous Perspectives on Colonial America, a two-year project funded by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, connects Native American artists with the Library Company’s rich collections and far-reaching scholarly community. Partnering with artist Weshoyot Alvitre (Tongva), author Lee Francis (Laguna Pueblo), and the indigenous publisher Native Realities Press, the Library Company will publish a graphic novel that reinterprets the Paxton massacre from the perspective of the Conestoga. Dr. Will Fenton, will serve as creative director, connecting the creative team with an advisory board of scholars, local tribal leaders, and educational specialists, and making new archival records accessible via his digital humanities project, Digital Paxton. Published, printed, and distributed by Native American businesses, the graphic novel will include a curriculum to facilitate use in secondary and post-secondary classrooms. Original artwork will be exhibited at the Library Company together with the original collection items that inspired it. And a slate of public programs, including a colloquium and public readings, will engage local audiences; conference presentations will bring the project and its model to academic audiences.

A Conference Between the Devil and Doctor Dove

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1. A Conference Between the Devil and Doctor Dove

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1. A Conference Between the Devil and Doctor Dove
2. The Counter Medley
3. The Election, a Medley A pro-Franklin cartoon depicting a crowd gathered to vote at the Philadelphia courthouse during the Pennsylvania Assembly Election of October 1764. The print advocates Franklin's appointment as provincial agent to Britain despite his election loss which was a result of his double-sided politics in dealing with the "Paxton Boys;" white frontiersmen who murdered peaceful Native Americans. Contains thirty-three verses attributed to Rev. Isaac Hunt to be sung to various tunes. Created as an attack on satirist James Dove, referred to in this title as "Squire Lilliput Professor of Scurrility," in response to his anti-Franklin print, "The Paxton Expedition." The courthouse crowd includes caricatures of James Dove and five African Americans, including a woman stating "Mase Lidiput you puchuss a me;" a reference to a character pursued sexually by Dove in an earlier anti-Dove cartoon, "A Conference between the Devil and Mr. Dove" (1764). Place and date of publication provided by Snyder and Murrell. Possibly after the work of Henry Dawkins. Manuscript note on recto in Watson's hand: Wrote by the Revd. Isaac Hunt at or before 1764 - when Franklin was made agent to London for this "Medley" says "Franklin will be agent." [and] Property of John F. Watson. Manuscript note on verso: Purchased from John F. Watson, Esq. June 14 1860. C.P. [Charles Poulson].
4. The Election, Humbly Inscribed to the Saturday Nights Club
5. Franklin and the Quakers
7. An Indian Squaw King Wampum Spies
8. A New Song Suitable to the Season A cartoon supporting the Old Ticket Party of Pennsylvania which advocated a conversion from a proprietary government to a royal colony. Depicts well-to-do Philadelphians in a tavern drinking and singing "Huzza Old ticket, Old Ticket Forever." An African American servant serves the men as he states in patois his support of the Old Ticket. As the devil exits the tavern, he indicates his support for the New Ticket Party which supported the existing proprietary government. Contains an electioneering song of six verses from which the depicted Philadelphians sing verses. The tavern was often used as a place to canvass election support and treat voters. Possibly the work of Henry Dawkins. See also: Evans 10093.
9. The Paxton Expedition
Contents of this path:
1. Account for Maintaining Indians at Lancaster, December 27, 1763
2. Account of the Indian murders, December 27, 1763
3. An Act for Preventing Tumults and Riotous Assemblies
4. The Address of the People Called Quakers In defense of their conduct towards the Indians and settlers. "Signed on behalf and by order of a committee, appointed to represent our religious society in Pennsylvania and New-Jersey, at a meeting held in Philadelphia, the 25th of the second month, 1764. Samuel Emlen, Jun. clerk."--p. 11. Evans, C American bibliography, 9670; English short title catalogue (ESTC), W5867; Hildeburn, C.R. Pennsylvania, 1941.
5. An Address of Thanks to the Wardens of Christ Church and St. Peters An address of thanks to the wardens of Christ Church and St. Peters, : and the Reverend W----S----h. D.D. [i.e. William Smith] provost of the college and tool to the p----r, and J---b D---e A.M. and MV.D. [i.e. Jacob Duche] From F---- A.----n D.D. [i.e. Francis Alison] and J---n E----g [i.e. John Ewing] in their own name and in the name of all the Presbyterian ministers in Pennsylvania. ... Reverend and worthy gentlemen; Permit us to return you ... our most sincere thanks for opening your church doors to dissenters in general, and us on particular ... to carry into execution a scheme of the utmost importance for the advantage of our profession; the down-fall of monarchy; and the support of a republican government ...
6. An Address to the Rev. Dr. Alison Relates to the dissensions caused by the Indians. Possibly written by Joseph Galloway. Half-title: An address to the Rev. Dr. Alison, the Rev. Mr. Ewing, &c. being a vindication of the Quakers. Place of publication and printer's name supplied by Evans. Signatures: pi_ A-C? D_ (D2 verso blank). Errata note, p. 47. Evans, C. American bibliography, 9892; English short title catalogue (ESTC), W6245; Hildeburn, C.R. Pennsylvania, 2098; Sabin, J. Dictionary of books relating to America from its discovery to the present time, 66908.
7. The Addition to the Epitaph "A burlesque in the form of a prayer to the Devil."--Hildeburn. Text begins: Thou great Prince of Darkness! Thou author of all rebellions and insurrections, whether Paxtonian or others! Thou Father of my friend the Kirk. Concerns the Paxton Boys' march on Philadelphia. The target of this satirical piece sided with the Paxton Boys, and opposed Benjamin Franklin's negotiations. At head of title, within an ornament (Reilly 120): The authentic one. Attributed by Evans to David James Dove. Imprint supplied by Evans.
8. An Answer to the Pamphlet Entitled "The Conduct of the Paxton Men"
9. Apology of the Paxton Volunteers
10. A Battle! A Battle!
11. A Battle! A Battle! (Extended)
12. Benjamin Franklin to Richard Jackson, June 27, 1763
13. Benjamin Franklin to Richard Jackson, February 11, 1764
14. By the Honourable John Penn By the Honourable John Penn, Esq; lieutenant-governor and commander in chief of the province of Pennsylvania, and counties of New-Castle, Kent and Sussex, on Delaware, a proclamation. : Whereas on the twenty-second day of December last I issued a proclamation, for the apprehending and bringing to justice a number of persons, who ... had inhumanely killed six of the Indians, who had lived in Conestogoe Manor ... Given under my hand, and the great seal of the said province, at Philadelphia, the second day of January ... one thousand seven hundred and sixty-four.
15. Christopher Schultze to Israel Pemberton, August 29, 1760
16. Christopher Towne to Israel Pemberton, April 25, 1756
17. A Letter from Batista Angeloni Extracted from Shebbeare's Letters on the English nation, also published pseudonymously. Cf. the Dictionary of national biography. Probable place and date of publication suggested by Hildeburn. "The Cloven-Foot discovered."--p. 7-8, in verse. An attack on the Quakers for their dealings with and support of the Indians. Evans, C. American bibliography, 9838; English short title catalogue (ESTC), W13438; Hildeburn, C.R. Pennsylvania, 2013.
18. A Letter From Batista Angeloni (Reprinted) Extracted from Shebbeare's Letters on the English nation, also published pseudonymously. Cf. the Dictionary of national biography. Probable place and date of publication suggested by Hildeburn. "The Cloven-Foot discovered."--p. 7-8, in verse. An attack on the Quakers for their dealings with and support of the Indians. Evans, C. American bibliography, 9838; English short title catalogue (ESTC), W13438; Hildeburn, C.R. Pennsylvania, 2013.
19. Commission for Timothy Horsfield, July 11, 1763
20. The Conduct of the Paxton Men Impartially Represented A defense of the Paxton boys, in reply to Benjamin Franklin's "A narrative of the late massacres, in Lancaster County, of a number of Indians." Attributed to Thomas Barton by Hildeburn and Evans. Also attributed to the Rev. John Ewing. Cf. Egle, W.H. History of the counties of Dauphin and Lebanon, 1883, p. 68. An added title page identifies John Creaig of Lancaster as bookseller. Signatures: pi [A]? B-D? E1. Evans, C. American bibliography, 9594; English short title catalogue (ESTC), W37505; Hildeburn, C.R. Pennsylvania, 1957
22. A Conference Between the Devil and Doctor Dove
23. The Congregational Diary of Lancaster Moravian Church, December 27-28 , 1763
24. Conversation with the Indians, April 19, 1756
25. Cool Thoughts on the Present Situation of Our Public Affairs Caption title: A letter to a friend in the country. With a half-title. Signed on p. 22: A.B. Attributed to Benjamin Franklin by Evans. First published as a supplement to the Pennsylvania journal, Apr. 26, 1764. Dated on p. 5: Philadelphia, April 12, 1764. Signatures: [A]? B? (B4 blank). Evans, C. American bibliography, 9663; English short title catalogue (ESTC), W16998; Hildeburn, C.R. Pennsylvania, 1990; Howes, W. U.S.iana (2nd ed.), F319
27. The Counter Medley
28. A Declaration and Remonstrance On the massacre of the Conestoga Indians by the "Paxton Boys" and the Indian policy of the Pennsylvania authorities. "Signed on behalf of ourselves, and by appointment of a great number of the frontier inhabitants. Matthew Smith. James Gibson. February 13th, 1764."--p. 18. Printer's name and place of publication supplied by Evans. Evans, C. American bibliography, 9630; English short title catalogue (ESTC), W37880; Hildeburn, C.R. Pennsylvania, 1969
29. A Dialogue Between Andrew Trueman and Thomas Zealot
30. A Dialogue, Containing Some Reflections on the Late "Declaration and Remonstrance"
31. Edward Shippen to John Elder, December 16, 1763
32. Edward Shippen to James Burd, January 19, 1768
33. The Election, a Medley A pro-Franklin cartoon depicting a crowd gathered to vote at the Philadelphia courthouse during the Pennsylvania Assembly Election of October 1764. The print advocates Franklin's appointment as provincial agent to Britain despite his election loss which was a result of his double-sided politics in dealing with the "Paxton Boys;" white frontiersmen who murdered peaceful Native Americans. Contains thirty-three verses attributed to Rev. Isaac Hunt to be sung to various tunes. Created as an attack on satirist James Dove, referred to in this title as "Squire Lilliput Professor of Scurrility," in response to his anti-Franklin print, "The Paxton Expedition." The courthouse crowd includes caricatures of James Dove and five African Americans, including a woman stating "Mase Lidiput you puchuss a me;" a reference to a character pursued sexually by Dove in an earlier anti-Dove cartoon, "A Conference between the Devil and Mr. Dove" (1764). Place and date of publication provided by Snyder and Murrell. Possibly after the work of Henry Dawkins. Manuscript note on recto in Watson's hand: Wrote by the Revd. Isaac Hunt at or before 1764 - when Franklin was made agent to London for this "Medley" says "Franklin will be agent." [and] Property of John F. Watson. Manuscript note on verso: Purchased from John F. Watson, Esq. June 14 1860. C.P. [Charles Poulson].
34. Explanatory Remarks on the Assembly's Resolves
35. Franklin and the Quakers
36. Friends' Address to the Governor, April 1756
37. General Forbes to Israel Pemberton, January 15, 1759
39. Governor Hamilton to Papunehan, October 12, 1761
40. An Historical Account of the Late Disturbance Signed on p. 8: From a true countryman. A subsequent impression (Evans 9697, Hildeburn 2003) has imprint: "Printed by Anthony Armbruster, in Moravian-Alley." That impression notes on the title page: "[Fist] The second edition, may be called a piracy. I said printed at Rome: I meant nothing but [cross] Printed in Second-Street, by Andrew Steuars-Stockfish." A.S. and Andrew Steuars-Stockfish evidently refer to Andrew Steuart, who also printed an edition of the work (not in Evans or Bristol). Evans, C. American bibliography, 9696; English short title catalogue (ESTC), W39302; Hildeburn, C.R. Pennsylvania, 2002.
41. An Historical Account of the Late Disturbance (Reprinted)
42. A Humble Attempt at Scurrility In reply to an attack on Benjamin Franklin by John Hughes. Attributed to Isaac Hunt in the Dictionary of American biography. Ascribed to the press of Anthony Armbruster by Evans. "Prologue to the coffee-house politician, or The justice caught in his own trap."--p. vii-viii. "Thirteen descriptions of the great A. drawn from the life by that celebrated master D---d J--s D-ve, poet laureat to the Pr---ry Party."--p. 38-42. Signatures: [A]? B-E? F_ (F2 verso blank). "Errata."--p. [43]. Evans, C. American bibliography, 10014; English short title catalogue (ESTC), W12797; Hildeburn, C.R. Pennsylvania, 2134; Sabin, J. Dictionary of books relating to America from its discovery to the present time, 25637.
43. An Indian Squaw King Wampum Spies
45. Israel Pemberton, Captive Inquiry As the French and Indian Wars wind down, The Commissioners for Indian Affairs are negotiating to secure the release of the white settlers that are still being held prisoners by the Indians. However even before a general Treaty, Trustees of the Mennonite Church are attempting to accelerate this release by offering the Indians 'presents' if they would escort the white prisoners from their lands to Pittsburgh. This gesture is to be considered payment for the cost and inconvenience to the Indians for this journey, and not as a ransom for releasing the white prisoners...Letter written by Israel Pemberton addressed to the Indian Affairs Commission inquiring about an agreement to instruct agents in Indian towns along the frontier to look into how many captives are in each town, and their physical descriptions. He also implores the commission to ask the agents to make inquiries to the "dispositions" of the Indians holding captives, as well as their readiness to accept ransom in exchange for release of captives.
46. John and Richard Penn to the Friendly Association, September 5, 1760
47. Journal of Christian Frederick Post, June 20, 1758
48. A Letter From a Clergyman in Town
49. A Letter From a Gentleman at Elizabeth Town to his Friend in New York
50. A Letter From a Gentleman in Transilvania to his Friend in America
51. Letter from Albrecht Ludolph Russmeyer to Nathanael Seidel, January 2, 1764
52. Letter from Matthaus Hehl to the Church Leadership, December 29, 1763
53. The Life and Adventures of a Certain Quaker Presbyterian Indian Colonel
54. A Looking-Glass for Presbyterians (Inscribed: J. Arbo) Inscribed: J. Arbo (Expanded). "To the friends of Pennsylvania and lovers of liberty. This Looking-glass is with much affection and great respect inscribed by a Pennsylvanian."--p. 3. Attributed to Isaac Hunt by Evans. Ascribed to the press of Anthony Armbruster by Evans. "Appendix. The substance, of a council held at Lancaster August the 28th 1764, by a committee of Presbyterian ministers .."--p. [25]-34. "A dialogue between a churchman in the country, and a Presbyterian in the city of Philadelphia."--p. 35-38. "A letter from a gentleman in Transilvania"--p. 38-43, signed: Jack Traveller, Weissenburgh in Transilvania, August 1st, 1764. Attributed to Isaac Hunt in the Dictionary of American biography. Signatures [A]? B-E? [F]1 ([F]1 verso blank). Evans, C. American bibliography, 9703; English short title catalogue (ESTC), W1775.
55. A Looking-Glass for Presbyterians (Numb. I)
56. Manuscript Copy of Remonstrance, February 13, 1764 Manuscript copy of remonstrance from Matthew Smith and James Gibson to Governor John Penn. They position themselves as representatives of public opinion, submit nine points that decry the perceived underrepresentation of the western counties in the Assembly and bill changing trial location of persons charged with killing Indians, allege that Indians under government protection conspired with others to plan attacks, lament lack of public funds for the care of wounded frontier residents, request new bounties for Indian scalps, request embargo to effect return of captives, accuse private individuals of trading and treating with enemies of the province, and requests Fort Augusta garrison be ordered to take more proactive measures. Handwritten copy, perhaps draft. 13 February 1764. Gift of Paul and Judy Ware, 2009.
57. Message to the Governor, October 12, 1761
58. A Narrative of the Late Massacres Generally attributed to Benjamin Franklin. Ascribed to the press of Franklin and Hall by Miller on the basis of the typeface used. Evans, Hildeburn, and P.L. Ford suggest Anthony Armbruster as printer. Sabin says "Written and printed by Franklin." Signatures: A-B? (B8 verso blank). Evans, C. American bibliography, 9667; English short title catalogue (ESTC), W17009; Hildeburn, C.R. Pennsylvania, 1992; Miller, C.W. Franklin, 807; Sabin, J. Dictionary of books relating to America from its discovery to the present time, 25557.
59. A Narrative of the Late Massacres (Inscribed: From James Pemberton to William Cobbett) Inscribed: From James Pemberton to William Cobbett. Generally attributed to Benjamin Franklin. Ascribed to the press of Franklin and Hall by Miller on the basis of the typeface used. Evans, Hildeburn, and P.L. Ford suggest Anthony Armbruster as printer. Sabin says "Written and printed by Franklin." Signatures: A-B? (B8 verso blank). Evans, C. American bibliography, 9667; English short title catalogue (ESTC), W17009; Hildeburn, C.R. Pennsylvania, 1992; Ford, P.L. Franklin bibliography, 272; Miller, C.W. Franklin, 807; Howes, W. U.S.iana (2nd ed.), F327; Sabin 25557.
60. Nathaniel Holland to Israel Pemberton, September 17, 1760
61. Nathaniel Holland to Israel Pemberton, December 20, 1761
62. A New Song in High Vogue in Northampton County
63. Observations on a Late "Epitaph"
64. The Paxton Boys: a Farce
65. The Paxton Expedition
66. The Paxtoniade
67. Petition of the Inhabitants of Lancaster County
68. The Plain Dealer, Numb. I
69. The Plain Dealer, Numb. II Numb. II. Mistakenly attributed by Evans to Hugh Williamson, author of numbers 1 and 3. Cf. the Advertisement in number 3, where it is stated: The author of this is obliged to the gentleman, who wrote the piece which was published on Teusday [sic], by the title of Plain dealer, no. 2. As his endeavours to prevent the people from being deceived by the chicane of a faction, prove him to be a friend to the oppress'd inhabitants of this province. Dated May 7, 1764. Imprint supplied by Evans. Evans, C. American bibliography, 9877; English short title catalogue (ESTC), W15609; Hildeburn, C.R. Pennsylvania, 2086.
70. The Plain Dealer, Numb. III
71. The Quaker Unmasked Defending the Paxton Boys; also suggesting that the Quakers were enamored of both Indian squaws and Indian trade. Cf. Dictionary of American biography. Signed on p. 13: Philopatrius. Second-Street, Philadelphia, February 18, 1764. Attributed to David James Dove in the Dictionary of American biography. "Postscript."--p. 14-15. Bookseller's advertisement, p. 16. Evans, C. American bibliography, 9647; English short title catalogue (ESTC), W32375; Hildeburn, C.R. Pennsylvania, 1982 1982.
72. The Quaker Vindicated
73. The Quakers Assisting to Preserve the Lives of the Indians
74. The Quakers Assisting to Preserve the Lives of the Indians (No. II)
75. The Quakers Grace, Prayer, and Thanksgiving
76. Remarks on the Quaker Unmasked
77. Remarks upon "The Delineated Presbyterian Played Hob With"
78. A Scene in the First Act of the New Farce
79. A Serious Address (First Edition)
80. A Serious Address (Second Edition)
81. A Serious Address (Fourth Edition) A Serious address, to such of the inhabitants of Pennsylvania, as have connived at, or do approve of, the late massacre of the Indians at Lancaster; or the design of killing those who are now in the barracks at Philadelphia. : The demand for this piece has been so great, that this fourth edition is call'd for in a few days! To which is now added, a dialogue between Andrew Trueman and Thomas Zealot, about the killing the Indians at Connestogoe and Lancaster. (An excellent piece!)
82. The Squabble (First Edition) A political satire on affairs in Pennsylvania. Ascribed to the press of Anthony Armbruster by Evans. English short title catalogue (ESTC), W29925; Hildeburn, C.R. Pennsylvania, 2065; Sabin, J. Dictionary of books relating to America from its discovery to the present time,, 89940; Stoddard, R.E. A bibliographical description of books and pamphlets of American verse printed from 1610 through 1820, 159; Wegelin, O. Early American poetry, 789.
83. The Squabble (Second Edition) Second Edition. A political satire on affairs in Pennsylvania. The second edition is ascribed to the press of Anthony Armbruster by Evans 9564 and 9565. Signatures: A?. Not in: Evans, C. American bibliography. English short title catalogue (ESTC), W41575; Sabin, J. Dictionary of books relating to America from its discovery to the present time, 89940; Stoddard, R.E. A bibliographical description of books and pamphlets of American verse printed from 1610 through 1820, 158.
84. The Squabble (Third Edition) Printed from the First Edition (Third Edition Inferred). A political satire on affairs in Pennsylvania. Parentheses substituted for square brackets in imprint transcription. Date of publication supplied by Evans 9564 and 9565. "Frontispiece" on p. [4] is of "Thyrsis, with a Pr*sb*t*rian nose. Corin, with a Q**k*ronian nose." Evans, C. American bibliography, 9565; English short title catalogue (ESTC), W29926; Hildeburn, C.R. Pennsylvania, 2066 2066; Sabin, J. Dictionary of books relating to America from its discovery to the present time,, 89940; Stoddard, R.E. A bibliographical description of books and pamphlets of American verse printed from 1610 through 1820, 160; Wegelin, O. Early American poetry, 790.
85. The Substance of a Council Held at Lancaster
87. Various Memoranda, 1760
88. What is Sauce for a Goose is also Sauce for a Gander Satirical epitaph on Benjamin Franklin written by Hugh Williamson. Cf. Ford, P.L. Franklin bibliography, 1889, entry 997. Signatures: A4 (A4 verso blank). Not in: Evans, C. American bibliography; Bristol, R.P. Supplement to Charles Evans' American bibliography; Shipton, C.K. National index of American imprints through 1800. Not in: Evans, C. American bibliography; Sabin, J. Dictionary of books relating to America from its discovery to the present time, 104455.
89. What is Sauce for a Goose is also Sauce for a Gander (LCP copy) Satirical epitaph on Benjamin Franklin written by Hugh Williamson. Cf. Ford, P.L. Franklin bibliography, 1889, entry 997. Signatures: A4 (A4 verso blank). Not in: Evans, C. American bibliography; Bristol, R.P. Supplement to Charles Evans' American bibliography; Shipton, C.K. National index of American imprints through 1800. Not in: Evans, C. American bibliography; Sabin, J. Dictionary of books relating to America from its discovery to the present time, 104455. Not in: Evans, C. American bibliography; Sabin, J. Dictionary of books relating to America from its discovery to the present time, 104455.
90. William Patterson to Israel Pemberton, June 10, 1771

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Introduction
Welcome to Digital Paxton, an archive, critical edition, and teaching platform devoted to the 1764 Paxton pamphlet war.
The conclusion of French-Indian War was supposed to eliminate the threat of frontier violence from the Pennsylvania backcountry. However, despite English claims to vast, uninterrupted swathes of North America, Ottawa tribesman Chief Pontiac rejected imperial authority. He led the Delaware and Shawnee tribes in a series of attacks on English forts across the Midwest in what came to be called Pontiac’s War.

Fearing new attacks on their Paxtang settlement (a suburb of what is today Pennsylvania’s capitol, Harrisburg), a group of Scotch-Irish militiamen fixed their sights on the Conestoga (Susquehannock), a tribe who had peaceably inhabited a tract of land outside Lancaster for three generations.

These “Paxtang Men” or “Paxton Boys” sought to expunge the Conestoga—and any other Indians they could find—from the Pennsylvania colony. They marched on Conestoga Indiantown, murdered all the residents they could find, and torched their cabins. After the colonial government determined that the killings ought to be classified as murder, governor John Penn announced a reward for the Paxtons’ capture and placed the remaining Conestoga in the custody of the Lancaster jailhouse. The Paxton Boys broke into the facility and murdered the remaining Conestoga. They publicly desecrated the victim's bodies and vowed to march on Philadelphia, where other peaceable Moravian Indians were being sheltered. The Paxton Boys were met in Germantown, six miles outside Philadelphia, by a delegation led by none other than Benjamin Franklin, who persuaded their leaders to enumerate their grievances in Declaration and Remonstrance, which sparked a vigorous debate about the authority of the colonial government.

Critics contended that in murdering the Conestoga, the Paxtons had flouted the government’s agreement with the natives, and in pursuing them in the Lancaster jailhouse they had defied the rule of law. One critic argued that “malice and party-spirit” motivated the Paxtons and their sympathizers. He advised: “Let the Friends of Pennsylvania lay aside the animosities which have been raised and maintained by the wicked and weak.”

For their part, Paxton apologists held that the pacifist principles of the Quaker-dominated Assembly had long kept the government from protecting the lives of backcountry settlers. “It is an inexpressible Absurdity,” wrote one apologist, “that a warlike People should be governed by Persons of Quaker Principles, and especially in Time of War.”

Critics and apologists rushed to shape popular opinion using pamphlets, which were produced from one or more sheets of paper printed on both sides and folded in halves, thirds, or fourths. Thanks to simplicity and economy of these materials, pamphlets could be produced quickly and in great volume. The Paxton debate comprised more than one-fifth of the Pennsylvania colony’s total printed material in 1764, making it one of the most important pamphlet wars of the colonial period.

Waged in pamphlets, political cartoons, broadsides, and correspondence, the pamphlet war featured some of Pennsylvania’s preeminent figures, including governor William Penn and founding father Benjamin Franklin. At stake was much more than the conduct of the Paxton men. Pamphleteers used the debate over the behavior of the Paxtons to stake claims about settlement practices, race and ethnicity, masculinity and civility, and religious association in pre-Revolutionary Pennsylvania.

Digital Paxton serves as both an archive and a critical edition of that pamphlet war.

Digital Paxton as Archive
As an archive, Digital Paxton collects more than 175 political cartoons, manuscripts, broadsides, pamphlets, and German-language translations of pamphlets related to the Paxton incident. The original papers reside at the American Philosophical Society, the Bethlehem Moravian Archives, Haverford College Quaker and Special Collections, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the Library Company of Philadelphia. Currently, Digital Paxton features more than 1,600 free, open-source, print-quality (300 dpi) images. In the future, I hope to expand the archive to include materials residing at Lancaster History and the Historical Society of Dauphin County.

Every digitized item features all the metadata available in the Library Company catalog related to printer, pagination, and authorial attribution. You can access that metadata by clicking the “Details” tab below any image. More than one-third of the corpus is fully-transcribed, and I will add new transcriptions on a weekly basis and communicate updates using Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. As they become available, transcriptions will appear in “Annotations” tabs below images. This is a large project, and I welcome your contributions.

To jump directly to the Paxton archive, click here.

Digital Paxton as Critical Edition
In 1957, historian John Raine Dunbar created the first critical edition to the 1764 pamphlet war, The Paxton Papers. While Dunbar’s Papers has served scholars well, it suffers from three limitations: it’s dated, limited in scope, and not easily accessible.

The past sixty years have seen significant Paxton research and scholarship, enabled, in no small part, by Dunbar’s edition. Dunbar’s introduction offers a useful entry point to the study of the Paxton incident, it obviously does not reflect the vast and varied work scholars are doing today. In the past several years alone, MCEAS organized a 250th anniversary Paxton conference from which Early American Studies culled an impressive special issue.

Dunbar’s corpus is also quite selective. While he curated twenty-eight pamphlets in Papers, Alison Gilbert Olson later identified sixty-three pamphlets and ten cartoons. Even that tally does not account for the complete range of Paxton material, given that many cartoons are nested inside of pamphlets, many of which circulated in multiple editions throughout 1764.

Finally, the Dunbar Papers is out of print, and when it can be found, it’s expensive. Though many of the Paxton pamphlets are available online, access remains either ad hoc or expensive. Several pamphlets are available in the Internet Archive. Many more are searchable via Readex Early American Imprints. However, in both instances, readers must identify specific pamphlets to retrieve results, and, in the case of Readex, they will need to affiliate with an institution that has purchased access to them. Perhaps most important, search-based discovery flattens what was a heated exchange in which writers address, answer, examine, counter, and unmask one another. Current digital access makes it difficult to discern derivation (who’s responding to whom) and authorship (writers employ a variety of pseudonyms).

Digital Paxton seeks to address each of these limitations.

As a web-based critical edition, Digital Paxton will accommodate three forms of critical context: historical overviews (nested inside this introductory path), conceptual keyword essays, and teaching materials designed by and for secondary and post-secondary educators. This introduction models my iterative approach: since the site launched, I have revised and expanded this introduction to include a more expansive critical apparatus.

Digital Paxton’s online format ameliorates issues of access, scope, and design. Thanks to the generosity of partnering institutions, Digital Paxton provides free, print-quality images with rich metadata and, in many instances, full-text transcriptions. Because Digital Paxton does not need to be printed or reprinted, it can accommodate new materials and scholarly contributions as they become available. For example, I recently added high-resolution imagery of an Edward Hicks’s painting, courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Thanks to its foundation in Scalar, an open-source, online publishing platform developed by the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture (USC), Digital Paxton supports multiple narratives (Paths) using archival contents. I currently use paths to create sequences of content, as with this introduction.

Using Digital Paxton
You may navigate the Paxton archive by several avenues. I recommend you begin by following this introductory path (the sequence of items listed below Contents) to access five contextual essays, beginning with an overview of the Paxton riots authored by Kevin Kenny, an historian at Boston College who quite literally wrote the book on them. With the permission of the Encyclopedia for Greater Philadelphia, we have excerpted an essay on the relationship between Pontiac's War and the Paxton rebellion, written by Michael Goode an historian at Utah Valley University. Jack Brubaker, a Lancaster journalist and author, has authored an essay on the immediate and long-term aftermath of the Conestoga massacre. Darvin Martin, an advisor to the Circle Legacy Center, provides a history of Conestoga Indiantown, its people, and their displacement after the Paxton march. Finally, I have created a digital companion that both reproduces and extends an exhibition that is currently on display at the Library Company of Philadelphia. My hope is that this exhibition will serve as the basis of a more expansive approach to the 1764 pamphlet war.

Upon completing the introductory path, you will find yourself in the Archive, where you may filter by type of content (pamphlets, manuscripts, broadsides, political cartoons, and art).

You may also navigate Digital Paxton using the Table of Contents, accessible when you hover over the menu icon in the upper left corner of any screen. You may click any associated arrow to preview the contents of a section. Below the Table of Contents, you can access the Index, which allows you to filter items by type. Filtering for Paths will allow you to browse sequences of content, such as pamphlets or collections of pamphlets. Filtering for Media will enable you to browse all individual pages of archival items. Alternatively, you may perform a keyword search by clicking the magnifying glass in the menu bar.

Readers may choose to dip into the Paxton archive using conceptual Keywords, modeled on the work of Raymond Williams (Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society) and, more recently, Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler (Keywords for American Cultural Studies). Authored by Paxton scholars, these essays theorize and historicize a keyword in the Paxton debate using primary source material available in the Paxton archive and secondary sources as further readings. I'm delighted to share essays from Benjamin Bankhurst (Shepherd University), Nicole Eustace (New York University), Scott Paul Gordon (Lehigh University), James P. Myers, Jr. (Gettysburg College), and Judith Ridner (Mississippi State University). Alongside full-length essays dedicated to eighteenth-century material culture, condolence rituals, the idea of elitism, and the use of anonymity, Digital Paxton also supports Wiki-style contextual tags. To that end, Scott Paul Gordon has authored tags for the Moravians, Christian Indians, and Edward Shippen.

To facilitate greater knowledge of and access to the Paxton massacre, the site also includes a Pedagogy section where secondary and post-secondary educators may contribute lesson plans. Educators at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania have created a multi-part high school lesson plan. Montgomery Wolf (University of Georgia) has submitted an innovative assignment in which students create podcasts using the Digital Paxton archive. And Benjamin Bankhurst (Shepherd University) and Kyle Roberts (Loyola University Chicago), who are co-teaching an undergraduate history course about the American Revolution, have shared a Digital Paxton transcription assignment.

In conducting that assignment, Loyola graduate students Kate Johnson, Marie Pellissier, and Kelly Schmidt created documentation to support crowdsourcing transcriptions using an open-source platform called FromThePage. I have created a Transcriptions section to surface transcribed materials, to showcase their documentation, and to solicit your contributions. To that point, I have also added a Public Outreach section that foregrounds various project milestones, including collaborations, talks, and publications.

As evidenced by our collaborative approach to transcriptions, Digital Paxton wouldn't be possible without the contributions of countless individuals and institutions, and I encourage visitors to use the Creators section to acknowledge the individuals behind the technology. Invisible labor is labor nevertheless.

I hope that you enjoy Digital Paxton, and I invite you to share your thoughts, suggestions, and discoveries using any of the aforementioned social media platforms. By design, Digital Paxton is a work in progress, and I hope that it will become a richer, more useful tool. Thank you for contributing to the project.
Using Digital Paxton Digital Paxton is a digital collection, critical edition, teaching platform devoted to the 1764 pamphlet war.

Digital Paxton as Digital Collection
As a digital collection, Digital Paxton hosts more than 200 political cartoons, books, broadsides, manuscripts, and newspaper issues related to the Paxton incident. The original papers reside at 20 different archives, research libraries, and cultural institutions, including the American Philosophical Society, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Library Company of Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. At present, Digital Paxton features more than 2,500 free, print-quality (300 dpi) images.

Every digitized item features metadata available in the Library Company of Philadelphia's catalog related to printer, pagination, and authorial attribution. You may access that metadata by clicking the "Details" tab below any image of by clicking "Additional metadata" in its parent.

About half of the corpus is fully-transcribed. Transcriptions are configured to appear as Annotations that automatically overlay when you cursor over the top left quarter of an image. New transcriptions will be added on a regular basis and announced via Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. All transcriptions are fully searchable and will be collected in Transcribed Records. We welcome reader contributions using the project’s crowd-sourced Transcriptions platform.

Digital Paxton as Critical Edition
In 1957, historian John Raine Dunbar created the first critical edition to the 1764 pamphlet war, The Paxton Papers. While Dunbar’s Papers has served scholars well, it suffers from three limitations: it’s dated, limited in scope, and not easily accessible.

The past sixty years have seen significant Paxton research and scholarship, enabled, in no small part, by Dunbar’s edition. Dunbar’s introduction offers a useful entry point to the study of the Paxton incident, it obviously does not reflect the vast and varied work scholars are doing today. In the past several years alone, the McNeil Center for Early American Studies organized a 250th anniversary Paxton conference from which Early American Studies culled an impressive special issue.

Dunbar's corpus is also quite selective. While he curated twenty-eight pamphlets in Papers, Alison Olson later identified sixty-three pamphlets and ten cartoons. Even that tally does not account for the complete range of Paxton material, given that many cartoons are nested inside of pamphlets, many of which circulated in multiple editions throughout 1764.

Finally, the Dunbar Papers is out of print, and when it can be found, it’s expensive. Though many of the Paxton pamphlets are available online, access remains either ad hoc or expensive. Several pamphlets are available in the Internet Archive. Many more are searchable via Readex Early American Imprints. However, in both instances, readers must identify specific pamphlets to retrieve results, and, in the case of Readex, they will need to affiliate with an institution that has purchased access to them. Perhaps most important, search-based discovery flattens what was a heated exchange in which writers address, answer, examine, counter, and unmask one another. Current digital access makes it difficult to discern derivation (who’s responding to whom) and authorship (writers employ a variety of pseudonyms).

Digital Paxton seeks to address each of these limitations.

As a web-based critical edition, Digital Paxton will accommodate three forms of critical context: historical overviews (nested inside Historical Overview), conceptual keyword essays (Keywords), and teaching materials designed by and for secondary and post-secondary educators (Education).

Digital Paxton's online format ameliorates issues of access, scope, and design. Thanks to the generosity of partnering institutions, Digital Paxton provides free, print-quality images with rich metadata and, in many instances, full-text transcriptions. Because Digital Paxton does not need to be printed or reprinted, it can accommodate new materials and scholarly contributions as they become available.

Thanks to its foundation in Scalar, an open-source, online publishing platform developed by the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture, Digital Paxton supports multiple narratives (Paths) using a common library. Digital Paxton uses paths to create sequences of content, as with this introduction. You may access the contents of a pathway by scrolling to the bottom of the page (listed below Contents) or by using the arrows in the wings (in the left and right hand margins) to access the next or previous page in a pathway.

Using Digital Paxton
You may navigate the Paxton corpus by several avenues. We recommend that you click the blue button at the bottom of this page to progress to Historical Overview. That pathway features six brief essays, beginning with a piece by Kevin Kenny, who quite literally wrote the book on the Paxton riots. With the permission of the Encyclopedia for Greater Philadelphia, we have excerpted an essay on the relationship between Pontiac's War and the Paxton rebellion, written by historian Michael Goode. In the next essay, historian Jay Donis looks ahead to the next year in order to compare the violence of Black Boys to that of the Paxton Boys. Historian Judith Ridner and literary scholar Scott Paul Gordon attend to the visual culture and manuscript records that haven't, traditionally, been associated with the public debate.

Jack Brubaker, a Lancaster journalist and author, has authored an essay on the immediate and long-term aftermath of the Conestoga massacre. Darvin Martin, an adviser to the Circle Legacy Center, provides a history of Conestoga Indiantown, its people, and their displacement after the Paxton march. Finally, editor Will Fenton has created framework that situates the Paxton massacre in a longer lineage of settler colonialism that extends from the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) through the Northwest Ordinance (1787). This “new looking-glass” seeks to serve as a new, more capacious framework for thinking about the pamphlet war, as well as those who could not participate in it.

Upon completing this Historical Overview, you will find yourself in the Digital Collection, where you may filter by type of content: artwork, broadside, manuscript, pamphlets, or political cartoon.

You may also navigate Digital Paxton using the Table of Contents, accessible when you hover over the menu in the upper left corner of any screen. You may click any associated arrow to preview the contents of a section. Below the Table of Contents, you can access the Index, which allows you to filter items by type. Filtering for Paths will allow you to browse sequences of content, such as pamphlets or collections of pamphlets. Filtering for Media will enable you to browse all individual pages of records. Alternatively, you may perform a keyword search by clicking the magnifying glass in the menu bar.

Readers may choose to dip into the digital collection using conceptual Keywords, modeled on the work of Raymond Williams (Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society) and, more recently, Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler (Keywords for American Cultural Studies). Authored by Paxton scholars, these six essays theorize and historicize a keyword in the Paxton debate using primary source material available in the digital collection and secondary sources as further readings. We’re delighted to share essays from Benjamin Bankhurst (Shepherd University), Nicole Eustace (New York University), Scott Paul Gordon (Lehigh University), Angel Luke O'Donnell (King's College London), James P. Myers, Jr. (Gettysburg College), and Judith Ridner (Mississippi State University). Alongside full-length essays dedicated to eighteenth-century material culture, condolence rituals, the idea of elitism, and the use of anonymity, Digital Paxton also supports Wiki-style contextual tags. To that end, Scott Paul Gordon has authored tags for the Moravians, Christian Indians, and Edward Shippen.

To facilitate greater knowledge of and access to the Paxton massacre, the site also includes a Education section where secondary and post-secondary educators may contribute lesson plans. Educators at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania have created a multi-part high school lesson plan. Montgomery Wolf (University of Georgia) has submitted an innovative assignment in which students create podcasts using the Digital Paxton library. And Benjamin Bankhurst (Shepherd University) and Kyle Roberts (Loyola University Chicago), who are co-teaching an undergraduate history course about the American Revolution, have shared a Digital Paxton transcription assignment.

In conducting that assignment, Loyola graduate students Kate Johnson, Marie Pellissier, and Kelly Schmidt created documentation to support crowdsourcing transcriptions using an open-source platform called FromThePage. We have created a Transcriptions section to surface transcribed materials, to showcase their documentation, and to solicit your contributions. To that point, we have also added a Public Outreach section that foregrounds various project milestones, including collaborations, talks, and publications.

As evidenced by our collaborative approach to transcriptions, Digital Paxton wouldn't be possible without the contributions of countless individuals and institutions, and we encourage visitors to use the Credits section to acknowledge the individuals behind the technology. Invisible labor is labor nevertheless.

We hope that you enjoy Digital Paxton, and we invite you to share your thoughts, suggestions, and discoveries using any of the aforementioned social media platforms. By design, Digital Paxton is a work in progress, and we hope that it will become a richer, more useful tool with time. Use the Contact page to get involved or to submit queries, questions, or suggestions. Thank you for contributing to the project.
Franklin's Royal Problem As the petition for royalization circulated the Assembly, some of the colony’s preeminent statesman weighed in. John Dickinson, who would later serve on the First Continental Congress, delivered a speech to the assembly that downplayed support for royalization and rejected the petition’s invocation of “a Spirit of Violence, Riot and Confusion prevail[ing] among us.” That speech was later published with a preface, an epitaph to William Penn, authored by William Smith, the Episcopalian priest who wrote A Brief State of the Province of Pennsylvania, ten years earlier. That summer, Benjamin Franklin embraced the form of the epitaph to attack the proprietors in a preface to Joseph Galloway’s rebuttal to Dickinson. The response to Franklin’s epitaph was both vehement and personal.
Joseph Galloway, A Speech, Delivered in the House of Assembly of the Province of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1764).
Joseph Galloway, a key figure of the Quaker Party, delivered this speech assailing the proprietors, whom he deemed unable to address the threat of mob rule revealed by the Paxton debate. In the print version, Benjamin Franklin penned a preface that blamed Richard and Thomas Penn for the colony’s troubles:
They refus’d the necessary Laws / For the Defence of their People, / And suffer’d their Colony to welter in its Blood ….They, / Foolishly and cruelly, / Taking Advantage of public Distress” sought “to reduce them / To the most abject Slavery.
Hugh Williamson, What is Sauce for a Goose is also Sauce for a Gander (Philadelphia, 1764).
Hugh Williamson, author of the Plain Dealer, returned to the fray to write this satirical epitaph on Benjamin Franklin. Williamson characterizes Franklin as addicted to “POPULARITY” and accuses him of “Zig Zag Machination.”
Isaac Hunt, A Conference Between the Devil and Doctor Dove (Philadelphia, 1764).
Isaac Hunt, whom Peter Silver has called a “one-man pamphlet shop during the Paxton crisis,” personalized the Paxton debate. Assuming that Dove wrote Sauce, Hunt depicts Dove in a conference with the devil followed by a satirical epitaph that accuses him of sexual immorality.
Isaac Hunt, The Addition to the Epitaph (Philadelphia, 1764).
Likely intended to have been included with Conference, Hunt’s Addition showed Dove pleading for the devil’s assistance in opposing Franklin and other prominent assembly members.
Continue to Democracy and Dispossession: The Legacy of the Paxton Crisis.

A Conference Between the Devil and Doctor Dove

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Welcome to Digital Paxton, an archive, critical edition, and teaching platform devoted to the 1764 Paxton pamphlet war.

Joseph Galloway, A Speech, Delivered in the House of Assembly of the Province of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1764).

Hugh Williamson, What is Sauce for a Goose is also Sauce for a Gander (Philadelphia, 1764).

Isaac Hunt, A Conference Between the Devil and Doctor Dove (Philadelphia, 1764).

Isaac Hunt, The Addition to the Epitaph (Philadelphia, 1764).

Continue to Democracy and Dispossession: The Legacy of the Paxton Crisis.