LANCASTER COrXTY. 337 



plac6 our wives, girls and and children within, that 

 they may be in safety. * * * -^ These are fearful 

 times. God only knows hov/ they will end. 



I am yours, 



Edward Shippen, 

 Another, dated Lancaster, December 5, 1755. 



Honored Sir: — The fort we have agreed to build, is 

 as follows: For the stockage, the logs split in the mid^ 

 die, and set on end, three feet in the ground, placed on 

 the north side of the town, between Queen and Duke 

 street; with curtains 100 feet. Tiie planks of the 

 bastions, 16 feet; and the saws of said bastions, 30 feet 

 each. . Yours, 6cc., 



Edward Shippen. 



James Hamilton^ Esq., Bush Hill. 



Marauding parties of French and Indians were still 

 on the frontiers in January, 1756, attacking the settle- 

 ments on the Juniata river, murdering and scalping such 

 of the inhabitants as did not escape, or were not pri- 

 soners. To guard against these devastations, a chain of 

 forts and block-houses were built, garrisoned with from 

 twenty to seventy-five provincials, as the situation and 

 importance of the places required. 



"The friendly Indians vv^ere gathered in from the 

 Susquehanna to Philadelphia, lest they should be mis- 

 taken for enemies. These did not remain long at Phila- 

 delphia, headed by their leaders. Scarroyady and INIon- 

 tour — they merited praise from the whites — at the risk of 

 their lives they visited the several tribes of Indians 

 seated along the Susquehanna, to dissuade them from 

 taking up arms. 



While preparations were in progress to wage war with 

 certainty against the Shawanese and Delawares,. iu- 



