Tutelo in Carbon County, PA

[Pats]

"Have you ever heard of the Tutelo tribe being in the Carbon County, PA area, specifically around Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe) and the Lehighton/Mahoning Valley area? Although I have known for years there was a Native American in the Shellhammer/Cunfer family, I just recently learned she may have been a Tutelo. I had never heard of the tribe before, but I have been told she was a member of the Tutelo tribe of Mauch Chunk.

Also, is there anything that would have caused a name change that had to be recorded? Years ago I was told there was a name change involved and that it was recorded in Washington, D.C. However, the appearance of the Indian in the family predates Washington D.C.'s existence."

[Linda]

What was the source of the report that she was Tutelo? Was this something passed down in the family, or something someone surmised from recent research?

The Tutelo were changing over to English names in the mid-1700's, so yes, Washington DC wasn't there yet, though perhaps a family story added that in when the original story was that it was reported to the governnent (wherever located at that time). Although . . . some may have been making that transition around Revolutionary War times.

[Pats]

I located someone who was a descendant of my great-greatgrandfather's brother. She told me that it was always known in her family that "the Indian was a full-blooded member of the Tutelo tribe."

[Linda]

Treasure that family story, it's quite rare. How close is that to Paxtang? That was a documented location for the Saponi/Tutelo in the 18th century. There are a number of historical articles linked from the first page of the site. I had Indian family in PA myself from a tribe I believe part of these VA/NC Siouan nations. (You can read about that in my Blackfoot article.)

What names were in that line?

[DAJ42]

Treasure that family story, it's quite rare. How close is that to Paxtang?

IIRC, Schuylkill County separates Carbon County form Paxtang's Dauphin County.

[DAJ42]

Lehighton was founded on the ruins of the Moravian mission site of Gnadenhutten. Like the Paxtang area, the Lehighton area seems to have been a melting pot for many different tribes. It wouldn't be surprising for some Tutelo to have settled there.

[Linda]

There's 90 miles between Jim Thorpe, PA and Paxtang, PA.

See the timeline linked from the home page, http://www.saponitown.com/timeline.htm. There are more PA locations for the Tutelo, like Shamokin and Ithaca (or is Ithaca a present name for Shamokin??) Tioga. In short, yes, the Tutelo were in PA.

My own family was in Tuscarora Path Valley, Chambersburg. That Path was used by all kinds of Indians coming out of the upper south.

There's an old, 100 year old article here at http://tuscaroras.com/pages/history/path_valley_1.html about the Tuscarora in that valley. I discovered it while trying to find out more about my family, then contributed it to the Tuscaroras site. The point is that, once the tribes of the Upper South were disrupted, many refugeed to the Six Nations, who were then located in New York. The Iroquois had routed the Susquehhanah from their traditional lands (the Susquehanna watershed, duh.) Once those tribes were gone, they faced the unpleasant prospects of white settlers invading this now empty region, so they populated it with a number of uprooted tribes from all over. The Tutelo were some of these people. The last historical mention of tribal Tutelo were those who were adopted by the Cayuga as they made their way into Canada.

The Six Nations went to Canada because they sided with the British during the Revolutionary War and fought against the Americans. Their loss of Pennsylvania and the underhanded way in which it was lost was one of the motivators in them deciding to fight against the Americans.