LANCASTER COUNTT. 117 



Hans Frantz, Schenk, and others, settled on the banks of 

 Conestoga; Joseph Cloud, in 1717, took up 500 acres 

 near Pequea creek. The same year, settlements were 

 began on the banks of Octoraro, William Grimson^ 

 constable of Sadsbury township, in 1717, was among 

 the first settlers on the Octoraro; his neighbors were the 

 Cooksons, Mayes, Jervis, Irwins, and some years after- 

 wards, the Pattersons, Darbys, Mackrels, Leonards, 

 Jones, Steels, Matthews, Cowens, Murrays, Millers, 

 Allisons, Mitchels, and others, all of whom¥ettled oh or 

 near Octoraro. 



The Swiss settlement received an augmentation in 

 1715-16 and 17; besides those already named, were 

 Hans Mayer, Hans Kaigy, Christian Hearsey, Hans 



Indians, paid him regular night visits to shelter with him, and 

 sleep by the side of a genial fire. They were on perfect terms 

 of intimacy and friendship ; the Indians frequently supplied 

 him and family with fish and venison, which they gave in ex- 

 change for bread. Fish were very abundant in the Conestoga 

 and all the streams of the country ; these they took with nets 

 made of bark, or speared them with a gig made of Ashwood.— 

 The inventive genius of the Indian is known to all who have 

 spent some time among them, or are conversant with their 

 mscJianism. Perhaps the reader may wish to know how to 

 make a fish-gig, if he should ever be placed in the Indians* 

 situation, we will tell, as we were told, how the Hickory 

 Indians, on Conestoga, made theirs. Christian Kreider, grand- 

 son of the first settler, says, " The Indians took a very slender 

 sapling of Ashwood,-^this kind of wood was preferred on 

 account of its hardness: and burned it to a point atone end;" 

 this, says the reader,. is simple. So it is, just as easy to be 

 done as setting up an egg on the point end, or the discovery of 

 America, after it is known. The reader, especially our young 

 friends, would, we think, be pleased to know how the fish 

 were secured with a barbless, pointed stick. The Indian is 

 never at a loss to take a fish, if he has no net, he takes either 

 his bow and arrow or his spear^ such an one one as has just 



