"INDIAN ROCK." 



BY SANFORD OIMKNSKTTER. 



Years liefore the coining of Onas,''' when the waters of 

 Ridley Creek swept through woodland aisles cooled in the 

 shade of the forest primeval, the neighborhood of Sycamore 

 Mill was the haunt of the Lenape. 



These red men, called by the English " Delawares," were a 

 branch of the Algonkin stock, part of whose holdings fell 

 within the basin of the river Delaware. The Pennsylvania 

 Lenape included three sub-tribes, the Minsi, the Unami and 

 the Unalachtigo, whose totemic emblems, or animals from 

 which a mysterious descent was claimed, were respectively 

 the wolf, the turtle and the turkey. The Minsi occupied the 

 highlands of the Delaware north of the junction of the Lehigh. 

 The hunting grounds of the Unami lay south of the Lehigh 

 valley, while still further to the soirth roamed the Unalachtigo, 

 whose chief town nestled near the site of modern Wilmington. 

 The banks of Crum and Ridley Creeks and the lands between 

 were peopled by the Okahoki, a band said to have been a divi- 

 sion of the turkey clan. Such was the situation when, in the 

 quaint lines of the " Walam Olum," f 



".\l this time while?; came on the eastern sea.'" 



After a northward ct)urse through Middletown Township 

 there flows into Ridley Creek below Sj'camore Mill an humble 

 stream called Dismal Run. At a certain point in the path of 

 the latter, flanked by wooded hillsides studded with fern- 

 draped rocks, a purling brook comes out of the west. From 

 a deep, rich soil giant trees stretch forth their arms as if to 

 catch the great, white boats that sail the boundless sea of blue 



"William I'enn. "To explain the name Penn to the Indians a 

 feather \va- shown them, ]irol)ably a cj\iill pen, and hence they gave the 

 translation Wonach, corrnpted into Onas." — D. (t. Brinton, M. D.. in 

 "The Lena])e and their I^e.^iend^;." 



tTiie nnlional e])ic of (he ])t-laware>. 



