1763, Dec] MASSACRE IN LANCASTER JAIL. 127 



magistrates, with their best exertions, could have 

 availed to prevent the massacre ; for so well was 

 the plan concerted, that, within ten or twelve 

 minutes after the alarm, the Indians were dead, 

 and the murderers mounted to depart. 



The people crowded into the jail-yard to gaze 

 upon the miserable spectacle ; and, when their 

 curiosity was sated, the bodies were gathered 

 together, and buried not far from the town, where 

 they reposed three quarters of a century ; until, at 

 length, the bones were disinterred in preparing the 

 foundation for a railroad. 



The tidings of this massacre threw the country 

 into a ferment. Various opinions were expressed ; 

 but, in the border counties, even the most sober 

 and moderate regarded it, not as a wilful and delib- 

 erate crime, but as the mistaken act of rash men, 

 fevered to desperation by wrongs and sufferings.^ 



When the news reached Philadelphia, a clamor- 

 ous outcry rose from the Quakers, who could find no 



1 Extract from a Letter — Bjev. Mr. Elder to Colonel Burd: — 



•' Paxton, 1764. 



"Lazanis Stewart is still threatened by the Philadelphia party; he 

 and his friends talk of leaving — if thev do, the province will lose some 

 of their truest friends, and that bv the faults of others, not their own ; for 

 if any cruelty was practised on the Indians at Conestogne or at Lancaster, 

 it was not by his, or their hands. There is a great reason to believe that 

 much injustice has been done to all concerned. In the contrariness of 

 accounts, we must infer that much rests for support on the imagination 

 or interest of the witness. The characters of Stewart and his friends 

 were well established'. Ruffians nor brutal they were not; humane, 

 liberal and moral, nay, rehgious. It is evidently not the wish of the 

 party to give Stewart a fair hearing. AH he desires, is to be put on trial, 

 at Lancaster, near the scenes of the horrible butcheries, committed by 

 the Indians at Tulpehocken, &c., when he can have the testimony of 

 the Scouts or Rangers, men whose services can never be sufficiently 

 rewarded." 



