LANCASTER COUNTY. 301 



Indians had massacred and scalped many of the inhabi- 

 tants, not more than forty miles above Harris's Ferry, 

 (Harrisburg). About forty-five persons from Paxton 

 immediately proceeded to the spot, where they found 

 fourteen bodies shockingly mangled, which they in- 

 terred." At Reading, October 22 ^ 1755, says Conrad 

 Weiser, the people are in a great consternation, coming 

 down, leaving their plantations and corn behind them ; 

 twenty-five persons, men, women and children, killed, 

 scalped and carried away on the 16th October; thirteen 

 killed, who were men, and elderly women, and one 

 child; the rest being young women and children carried 

 away ; a house burnt up. Many had been alarmed 

 before. 



The defeat of Braddock's army, July 9, 1755, threw 

 the inhabitants into the utmost consternation. " All the 

 females and children of the settlements, at Wright's 

 Ferry, numbering about thirty, were removed to Phila- 

 delphia, where they spent the winter. They occupied a 

 house in Chestnut street, which has since been pulled 

 down to make room for the Arcade. The men only 

 rem.ained."* 



Toward the close of the year, 1755, a large number 

 of French neutrals were transported from Nova Scotia 

 into the different English provinces of America; and 

 many of these unfortunate persons, men, women and 

 children, destitute of means to support themselves, were 

 thrown into Lancaster county, and became a public 

 charge to the inhabitants. 



While preparations were making on the part of Eng- 

 land to carry on the war against the French, in 1755, an 

 expedition was undertaken against Nova Scotia, under 

 the command of Colonel Monckton. The expedition 



*D. Goheen. 



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