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| Edward Marshall running the Indian Walking Purchase accompanied by his "road crew" |
The
Indian Walking Purchase was performed for the proprietaries of Pennsylvania in
1737 and resulted from a treaty negotiated by the sons of William Penn with the
Lenape Indian Tribe of Delaware. The
treaty defined the process for establishing an amount of land and its borders
to be conveyed to the English by the Lenape tribe. The treaty called for the amount of land to
be determined by the distance a man could walk in a day and a half. Edward Marshall and two other men were
commissioned by the Penn brothers to make the walk. The two men, not being able to maintain the
pace set by Edward, dropped out early in the walk. Edward completed the two days at a brisk run,
covering approximately 63 miles. There were
strong feelings among the Native Americans that they had been cheated out of
their land by the Indian Walking Purchase and it is believed that it this was a
significant reason for the deterioration in the relationship between the
Indians and the English leading up to and following the French and Indian
War. By 1755, over 50 settlers had been
killed in Indian attacks with the bounds of the Walking Purchase, including
Edward Marshall’s wife, oldest daughter, and son. Generations later his descendant Oscar Marshall had five daughters - Edith, Alice, Ruth, Bertha and Venna Jean.
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| Chuck Stone (middle) with his road crew. Dale Marie Potter-Clark, Matt and Keith Stone and Harvey Boatman. Chuck ran 70 miles in a little less time (at 58years old) than Edward Marshall ran 63 miles (at 27 years old). Humbly, as always, Chuck said "but he didn't have fancy running shoes." |
In 2013 Chuck Stone, a son of Ruth, ran the course of the "Indian Walking Purchase" done by his 6th g-grandfather Edward Marshall 226 years before. Chuck's road crew consisted of his sons Matt and Keith and his first cousin Harvey Boatman - son of Bertha. Photographer was Dale Marie Potter-Clark - Harvey's life partner and the family historian who uncovered this Marshall connection. Upon completion of Chuck's 70 mile run a time capsule was buried at the finish point. Bill Landauer - a reporter from the Allentown Morning Call - followed us on day #2 and wrote an article for that newspaper. To read the story and to see a video interview of Chuck follow this link. To access Dale's pictures of the run see the slideshow in the right column.
The direct line from Oscar Verus Marshall to Edward Marshall:
Oscar Verus Marshall 1898
- 1970
John Franklin Marshall 1869
- 1946
Charles C. Marshall 1842
– about 1920
John Marshall 1818
- 1896
John W. Marshall 1785
- 1871
Peter Marshall 1759
- 1806
Edward Marshall 1710
– 1789
do you know exactly where the walking party of a dozen people slept that night? i believe it was in front of my house-3324 howertown road northampton, right on howertown road, they knew this was going to be the new road in future, they knew whetre they were going to stop for the night, they climbed a bit of incline before they stopped as your great ancestor grasp a sapling at the summit exhaustion. i also believe lynford lardner put stenton tavern on this spot to celebrate it, but as you might know stenton tavern was destroyed by natives in oct 8 1763 supposedly. cool stuff this history. anyway i am curious how positive you are as to where they pit stopped. my personal interests besides possiobly living on the spot, is the fact my son does these tough mudder/spartan events, and many top people stay here often, thought that could be cool as i see those early runners as the same. thanks for posting, i would love to retrace the route too, but ill think i will walk a little, maybe time to have a smoke and shoot a picture with my phone:) new age times
ReplyDeleteI did a fair amount of reading to determine the route for retracing on our run. I didn't find an exact location. We ended at the stone historic marker in Northampton. The marker says they slept a half mile from the Indian town Hockendauqua which is 3/4th of a mile northwest of the marker.
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