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Walking Purchase Collection

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The following 58 manuscripts are available at Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens and at the Huntington Digital Library. The Walking Purchase collection contains correspondence and documents related to the Walking Purchase and the 1756-1758 Councils of Easton retained by the office of Pennsylvania's governor William Denny. Materials include abstracts, depositions, letters, maps, memoranda, notes, extracts, petitions, proceedings, responses, speeches, and various miscellany.

The Walking Purchase was an alleged agreement between the Penn family, the original proprietors of the Province of Pennsylvania in the colonial era, and the Lenape Native Americans (also known as the Delaware Indians). In 1737, Thomas and John Penn, Proprietors, presented the Delaware Indians with what they said was the 1686 treaty that entitled them to a tract extending "as far as a man can goe a day and a half." They then hired several men who ran, not walked, for a day and a half along a set course in the Lehigh Valley; this yielded a territory the size of Rhode Island (nearly 1,100 square miles or 1.2 million acres). The Delaware Indians tried to challenge the deal, only to be forced off their ancestral land in 1742. Their land was quickly sold off to settlers who poured into Pennsylvania, netting the Penn family a considerable fortune. Despite several inquiries at the Councils of Easton (1756-1758) as to the legality of the original Walking Purchase treaty it was declared authentic and on June 23, 1762, Chief Teedyuscung signed a statement acknowledging the legality of the Walking Purchase.

Special thanks are due to Gayle Richardson, Catalog Librarian and Archivist at the Huntington Library, who created the Walking Purchase Collection cataloging record and finding aid.

Materials are arranged roughly chronologically below.

Contents of this path:

  1. Map of the land between the Delaware and Susquehanna Rivers, June 7, 1719
  2. Excerpts from the Minutes of the Board of Property, 1727-37
  3. Goods received, September 7, 1732
  4. Letter to Governor Penn, March 22, 1732/3
  5. Notes to James Steel, ca. 1732-35
  6. Map of the Delaware River, ca. 1735
  7. Letter to the Lenape Chiefs, May 20, 1740
  8. Letter to Governor Thomas, January 3, 1741
  9. Letter to Governor Thomas (attestation), January 3, 1741
  10. Letter to the Allegheny Chiefs, October 20, 1741
  11. Proclamation of Peace, August 3, 1756
  12. Letter to Richard Peters, December 11, 1756
  13. Memorandum on the Delawares, 1756
  14. Abstract of a bill (Penn v. Baltimore), ca. 1757
  15. Hyder deposition, March 1, 1757
  16. Marshall deposition, March 1, 1757
  17. Brown deposition, March 5, 1757
  18. Peters deposition, 1757
  19. Smith deposition, March 15, 1757
  20. Conference between Croghan and Teedyuscung, August 1, 1757
  21. Garrison at Fort Halifax, August 1, 1757
  22. Terms sent to Teedyuscung, August 1, 1757
  23. Croghan and Weiser despositions, August 2, 1757
  24. Budge and Biddle depositions, August 2, 1757
  25. Shoemaker and Drake depositions, August 2, 1757
  26. Account of the Indian reaction to Teedyuscung, August 3, 1757
  27. Letter to Richard Peters, August 3, 1757
  28. Extracts from a journal, August 7-8, 1757
  29. Letter to Governor Denny, August 12, 1757
  30. Hyndshaw deposition, August 31, 1757
  31. Proprietors' defense against Indian claims, August 1757
  32. Memorandum on Easton, August 3, 1757
  33. Lisle deposition, August, 1757
  34. Weiser deposition, September 24, 1757
  35. Allen, Hamilton, Peters, and Lyell depositions, September 1757
  36. Allen, Hamilton, Peters and Denny depositions, October 1757
  37. Allen, Hamilton, Peters, Scull, and Denny depositions (fair copy), December 6, 1757
  38. Allen, Hamilton, Peters, Scull, and Denny depositions (heavily corrected), December 6, 1757
  39. Letter to Governor Denny, December 8, 1757
  40. Letter to Conrad Weiser, December 24, 1757
  41. Copy of the alleged 1686 treaty, ca. 1757
  42. Excerpt from August 24, 1737 Minutes, ca. 1757
  43. Misc. manuscripts and fragments, ca. 1757-62
  44. Speech on behalf of the Delaware Indians, September 18, 1758
  45. Peters and Scull depositions, December 30, 1758
  46. Petition to the King, February 2, 1759
  47. Response to Franklin's petition, August 29, 1759
  48. Response to Thomson's pamphlet, 1759
  49. Peters deposition, May 28, 1762
  50. Extracts from the alleged 1686 diary, June 1762
  51. Papers respecting Teedyuscung's complaint, June 1762
  52. Account of a conversation between Joseph Fox and the Governor, June 21, 1762
  53. Present at Easton, June 22, 1762
  54. Proceedings at Easton, June 22, 1762
  55. Speeches to the Indians at Easton, June 22, 1762
  56. Account of the conversation between Galloway and Chew, June 24, 1762
  57. Maxwell deposition, April 3, 1765
  58. Smith deposition, April 3, 1765

Contents of this tag:

  1. Manuscripts