the Six Nations were the active allies of the French, who were in possession of all the territory back of the fringe of English provinces along the coast. Supported by this alliance, these Indians, in violation of their treaties and grants to Penn, overran the back country along the Susquehanna and massacred the white settlers there without mercy. These frontier settlements were never entirely free in those days from the cruel attacks of these roaming Indians. After Braddock's defeat the country west of the Susquehanna was overrun by them. Their cruelties continued, with more or less severity, for many years. The scattered clearings which the white men had made in that wild outlying wilderness had few intervals of peace. They were entirely at the mercy of their stealthy enemies. Not one in twenty of the settlers had a gun, and their cabins were not even protected by a lock or bolt on the door. They lived in a constant state of fear. The slightest noise, even the barking of a dog, would wake them in the night and fill their minds with terror. Their nerves were in such a shattered condition that they fled from their homes upon the slightest alarm. These Indian massacres were particularly severe in the valley of the Juniata in 1763. When the danger was removed, the horror of these atrocities naturally filled the minds of the survivors with violent hatred toward every creature in the form of an Indian, and with a burning desire for revenge. In this frame of mind their attention was turned to the remnant of the peaceful tribe that remained on the Conestoga reservation. An armed body of horsemen, known as the "Paxson boys," rode down from these back counties and brutally massacred all the Indians they found there, without any provocation, except that they belonged to the same savage race at whose hands their neighbors had suffered. But a small remnant remained on the reservation. Some of them worked in the forge. Some were out through the valley selling their baskets and brooms, and rendering such services to their white neighbors as they were accustomed to perform. When the news of the murders reached them, their white friends tried to secure protection for them by shutting them up in the jail at Lancaster, but the same armed band pursued them there, and they suffered the fate of their kinsmen on the reservation. Thus the last remnant of the Indians, who for so many years had been familiar figures every day along the creek, disappeared from the Conestoga Valley. This was known throughout the country as the "Paxson Massacre." The vacant reservation was afterwards handed over to the Rev. Thomas Barton as glebe land for St. James' Church, Lancaster, and ten years later, when he took refuge within the British lines at New York, the reservation was taken possession of by the State. CHAPTER IV. The children of David and Elizabeth Jones-Major John JonesColonel Jonathan Jones-His career-Caleb Jones, EsquireMarriage of Jonathan Jones-John Davies-His home in Cumru Township-Breaking out of the Revolution-Jehu Jones-Owen Glancy-The Pawling family-The War of 1812-English scholars in the Conestoga Valley-Changes in the Conestoga Valley. D AVID and Elizabeth Jones had six children: beth, and Mary. The second of them, Jonathan, was the grandfather of the subject of this biography. John, the eldest son, became a member of the first Committee of Safety of Berks County, Pennsylvania, in 1774, and was first a captain and afterwards a major in Grubb's battalion of "Associators," raised late in 1776 for service in the Jerseys while the Continental army was engaged in active operations around New York. The third son, Caleb, was a justice of the peace, an office of dignity and importance in those early days when offices were few, and held only by those whose position in the community was one of recognized prominence. Jonathan, the second son, became the most distinguished of the three. These three brothers, who were among the most prominent residents of the Conestoga Valley in their day, lie buried, with their kindred, in the churchyard of old Bangor Church, on the east side of the walk leading from the gateway through the churchyard to the door of the old church. Two sedate cedar trees, that had outlived more than one generation of worshippers within this church, stood like sentinels on either side of this gateway, and, no doubt, stand there still. Jonathan Jones was born on his father's estate in Caernarvon Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania, in November, 1738, forty-one years before the village of Morgantown was laid out. He was twenty-five years old when the news of the "Paxson Massacre" startled the people of the valley as nothing had ever startled them before. In his infancy Welsh was still the language spoken in his father's household. It was the first language with which he became familiar. The nursery tales he heard were the same that had been told in Wales for centuries. As soon as he was able to understand, his mother read to him out of her Welsh Bible. In his twenty-second year Jonathan Jones was married (May 2, 1760) by the Rev. Thomas Barton to Margaret Davies, daughter of John and Mary Davies. John Davies was the grandson of William Davies of Radnor, of whom we have spoken in a preceding chapter. From him, therefore, the subject of this biography traces his descent through both the male and the female line. John Davies was one of those Welshmen who in 1738, after all the lands in the Conestoga Valley had been taken up, made their way through "The Forest" to the fertile valley of the Schuylkill, and settled in what has since been known as Cumru Township, Berks County. The tract of land which John Davies bought lay three miles back from the river, in the unbroken wilderness. The nearest towns were Lancaster and Lebanon, and the only highway through the country ran from the Welsh settlements on the Tulpehocken to Philadelphia, across a ford of the Schuylkill and along what afterwards became the main street in Reading. This highway has since been known as the "Perkiomen Turnpike." It was not until ten years later that the town of Reading was laid out at the foot of the mountain, on the other side of the Schuylkill. Margaret Davies, who, when she grew up, was known among her acquaintances as "pretty Peggy Davies," was two years old when her father built his house of logs upon the virgin soil of this new country. In the course of time he replaced this log cabin with a substantial mansion of red sandstone. This house is still standing, and bids fair to stand for many years to come as a connecting link between those remote times and the future. His estate was known by the name of "Angelica," and in 1777 became the home of General Thomas Mifflin, afterwards for many years Governor of Pennsylvania. In 1824 it was purchased by the county of Berks, and has since been used as the almshouse farm. It is situated in a |