The Rocks of Deer Creek - Pages 13-46



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DESCRIPTION OF THE ROCKS.

The Rocks of Deer Creek are in Harford County, Maryland, distant nine 
miles north-east of Bel Air, the county seat, and seven miles south of the 
boundary line between Maryland and Pennsylvania. The waters of Deer Creek, 
forcing their way at an indefinite time past through Rock Ridge, have left 
on either side an immense pile of massive rocks, three hundred and eighty-
five feet in height, which, with the plunging waters of the romantic river 
which runs at their base and the contiguous scenes, constitute a rare 
picture of sublimity and beauty. The western rocks are more accessible, 
and of greater attraction to visitors. The view from them is less 
obstructed and more distant, embracing within its range bill and dale, 
forest and field, river and brook, farm-house and hamlet. On them are the 
King and Queen Seats. To the verge of their precipice was driven, by a 
madman, Bold Hector, that noble horse, which was as deserving of a 
monument as was Bucephalus, the war horse of Alexander. At their base the 
Eagle was killed, and also the last wolf and the last deer. These, with 
other historical incidents, increase the interest felt in the Rocks, the 
monuments of mighty and mysterious forces exerted in the unknown past.

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Every genuine Harfordonian is enthusiastic in his admiration of the Rocks. 
They are with him the Great Curiosity; they belong to him; he is proud of 
them. He loves them, because associated with them are memories of happy 
hours passed with congenial associates on their summits or at their base 
by the waters of his favorite stream. Their inspirations are sweet to him, 
and their presence creates sympathies loving and tender. In their presence 
he has a higher appreciation of Nature, and an intenser sympathy with the 
spirit of poetry which dwells amid such scenes. Here, as beautifully 
expressed by our own great poet, whose highest, purest inspirations are 
due to that "sweet spirit which fills the world;" here, amid everlasting 
hills, mountain and shattered cliff, and green valley, and river and 
brook, and the silent majesty of deep woods--
In many a lazy syllable repeating
Their old poetic legends to the winds,
his thoughts are uplifted from earth. And such also is the interest he 
feels in the general library of the Rocks, consisting of many volumes of 
rare informations.

Will the coming of the Railroad and the development of the commercial and 
business life, as has been feared, lessen the attractions of the Rocks? 
The poetries of Nature will still be there, and the presence of the 
accidents of artificial life may heighten by contrast the interest, making 
the poetries of Nature more poetical. Happily, the approach by the 
Railroad, especially from the South, will open up a view of the Rocks 
surpassing in attractiveness.

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Passengers from that direction, in crossing the bridge over the Creek at 
the head of the dam, will have a view of the upper portion of the Rocks, 
which by a well known quality of the mind will exaggerate the whole 
picture. Mightier structures they will seem to be, having their 
foundations in greater depths, because their summits tower upward, 
touching the heavens. The Rocks, their legends and history, the poetries 
of Nature made more poetical by the contrasts suggested by the thundering 
train and smoking locomotive, will ever be sources of interest; and that 
singular enthusiasm felt by those whose dwelling-places are not distant 
from the Great Curiosity will abide.

RAZUKA;
A LEGEND OF ROCK RIDGE LAKE.

The Rocks of Deer Creek are the great natural curiosity of Harford County, 
Md. Who first discovered them? What was their condition at the time of 
discovery? These questions may not be capable of satisfactory answers. A 
tradition of the distant and uncertain past is that the first white man 
who visited that locality did not find it as it now is. Instead of the 
gorge, and the rocks, and the river running at their base, there was an 
impact

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rock ridge, holding against its gigantic breast the waters of a mighty 
lake, and throwing from its summit, four hundred feet in height, the 
waters of Deer Creek. The physical features of the ridge, and the 
characteristics of the low lands for at least five miles above it, justify 
the conjecture that the traditionary lake and cataract are not myths. In 
the absence of certain historical information, it may be allowable to 
accept the tradition as in accordance substantially with the facts. Of the 
name of the first discoverer we have no available knowledge. If his name 
is recorded, it may be found in some musty volume of some foreign library. 
There is a bare possibility that some adventurer, associated with the 
expedition of the celebrated Captain John Smith, the thunder of the colony 
of Jamestown, Virginia, who in his exploration of the Chesapeake Bay and 
its tributaries, sailed as far as the mouth of the Susquehanna river, may 
have heard, on the arrival of the expedition at that locality, of the 
wonders of the not distant wilderness--scarce a day's journey--and that he 
was the first civilized man who gazed upon those wonderful exhibitions of 
nature. It may be that to a Jesuit father, who had penetrated the 
wilderness in the prosecution of his sacred mission, the honor of 
discovery is due. These holy fathers were the earliest explorers of our 
Western territories and inland seas and rivers. They were the spiritual 
guides and counsellors of many of the North American Indians, and in the 
furtherance of their work rescued many a wonder of nature from the gloom 
of the primeval forest. But even though these conjectures be inadmissible, 
and we should be left to the judgment that at the discovery of this

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continent by Columbus, in 1492, the Rocks and the Ridge were essentially 
what they are at the present time, such a conviction does not destroy our 
faith in the existence of the lake and fall at some more distant period in 
the past. The testimony of the ridge and valleys assures our belief. We 
naturally regret that the pent-up waters of Deer Creek exerted so soon 
that resistless energy which clove asunder a mountain and reduced their 
volume to the comparatively small stream of to-day. There is beauty in the 
sinuous Deer Creek, threading its way between abrupt wooded hills and 
along fertile valleys; also sublimity in the Rocks and rapids as they now 
are; but how much more of grandeur in the mighty lake and the lofty 
cataract, rivalling the Falls of Montmorenci or those of the Yosemite 
Valley.

An ancient bard, whose name is unknown, sang of the Rocks of Deer Creek:

A bare and isolated rock,
On which no tuft of moss has ever grown;
In front a precipice descends far down,
Where a rapid river sweeps along.
Behind, nature has shaped an opening in the cliff
(Which looks with frowning brows upon the scene),
To the resemblance of a lovely garden;
There wild flowers bloom, and scent the evening breeze;
There birds resort and warble all day long;
There lovers meet and whisper tales of love.

I have italicized the last line, and for two reasons; first, because it is 
as true of the present as the past; and second, because it recalls the 
legend of the Lake and the Rocks, which was learned from the aged and 
venerable hermit of the Otter Rock.

There once lived on the northern borders of the lake, in the wigwam of her 
father, a noted chieftain

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in his day, an Indian maiden of exceeding beauty and rare fascination. 
This latter statement may be received with incredulity by those who have 
not had the opportunity of observing the North American Indians in their 
natural state, removed from the Contamination of civilization. The hermit 
assured me that it is nevertheless true, and I proceed in his own language 
to describe the attractions of Razuka, the Beauty of the Lake:

"Slender, delicate and elastic as a reed swaying in the currents of a 
gentle breeze, above the ordinary height, while all the outlines of her 
graceful figure displayed the lithe and fragile symmetry of girlish years 
with the mature development of perfect womanhood. Her brow and face were 
dark, and the rich blood crimsoned her full pouting lips, and flushed 
peach-like through the golden hue of her cheeks with as warm a tide as 
ever burned in the impassioned cheeks of an Anglo-Norman beauty. Her long 
straight hair was of the deepest black. Her eyes had the long almond 
orbits and long fringed lashes, which are deemed the rarest charms of 
Italian beauty, and the large soft pupils of the deepest, clearest hazel 
swam in a field of nacry bluish lustre, which could be compared to nothing 
but the finest mother-of-pearl. Her teeth were of perfect whiteness, and 
her features had a harmony and unison entirely their own, a soft, 
tranquil, half unconcious majesty of stillness."

Such is the very imperfect recollection of the description of the beauty 
of Razuka, the loveliest of her tribe. Habituated to labor, as all Indian 
women are, it was but pastime to paddle the light bark canoe, which was 
her favorite employment. On

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the lake alone, angling for the fish which abounded in it, she passed many 
days of her happy life. This life, so free from the anxieties and 
perplexities of the artificial life of civilized communities, might have 
been protracted indefinitely but for the possession of the personal 
attractions that entitled her to the name she bore, Razuka, the Beauty of 
the Lake. Not only the young men of her own tribe, but those of other and 
distant tribes, were wont to seek her presence at the wigwam of her 
father, or gathering on the shores of the lake, gaze with fixed look upon 
the Beauty shooting her frail canoe with the speed of the arrow through 
the glassy waters. At one time, having passed entirely over the lake to 
the opposite shore, she was attracted by the beauty of a wild rose, some 
distance from the bank, and was about making an effort to secure it, when 
she heard the rumbling of the not distant thunder. Turning her face to the 
west, she observed a portentous storm-cloud gathering on the horizon. 
Anxious, she turned the prow of the boat homeward and rowing with energy, 
reached the middle of the lake, when the storm fell in its fury upon the 
waters. Standing upon the shore near the wigwam was a young man of another 
tribe, who had been smitten by the charms of Razuka, and solicitous for 
the welfare of her whose life was evidently imperilled, entered hurriedly 
a canoe lying near by, and pushed out rapidly upon the storm-lashed lake 
to rescue, if possible, the endangered. Happily he reached her, and taking 
her into his stronger boat, after almost superhuman exertion, brought her 
in safety to her home. The rescuer, whose timidity had hitherto deterred 
him from any marked demonstration

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of interest in Razuka, now very naturally hoped that the heroic deed he 
had done would recommend him to the favorable consideration of the chief, 
the father of the saved; and having awakened the sentiment of gratitude in 
the mind of the daughter, it might eventually lead to the possession of 
the prize he coveted. Under ordinary circumstances, such doubtless would 
have been the case, but unhappily for the cherished hopes of the noble 
rescuer, Razuka had, unknown to her family, reciprocated the affections of 
another. Chocorea, the son of a Maquas chief, was the favored one. The 
father of Razuka, ignorant that the interest of his daughter was 
endangered, and feeling the obligation of gratitude, would have encouraged 
the aspirations of the saviour of his idolized child. He intimated to 
Razuka that possibly her union with the Swan might promote her happiness, 
and if so, to himself the alliance would not be objectionable. Desirous to 
undeceive her father, and unwilling that her rescuer should cherish a hope 
that could not be realized, she frankly declared that her heart belonged 
to another--to Chocorea, the son of the chief of the Massawomikes, the 
inveterate foes of her tribe.

"Never," said the chief, her father, "shall the daughter of a 
Susquehannock wed the son of a Maquas," (the Massawomikes were sometimes 
so called.) "The Maquas are dogs. These forests had been from time 
immemorial the undisturbed hunting-grounds of my people, and in this lake 
they caught at pleasure the white belly and the blue fin, and below the 
falls, in the water of our river, the shad, the herring and the eel; and my

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people had hoped that they would sit by their fires unmolested, and smoke 
their pipes in peace while sun and moon endured; but, alas! in an evil day 
the prowling wolves of the frozen lakes and haunted forests, the sneaking 
Maquas, came, and but for the strength of my arm and the arms of my noble 
braves, many of whom fell by the arrows of the hated ones, my people would 
have been swept from the earth, as the north wind sweeps the dry leaves 
from the woodlands. Murderers the Maquas are--robbers, sneaks! No Maquas 
shall ever wed the daughter of Nieskan, the Susquehannock, and the life of 
the insolent shall atone for his presumption." This threat was put into 
execution.

In the twilight of the same evening when these ominous words were uttered, 
Razuka met Chocorea in the glen (their usual place of meeting), in the 
rear of her father's wigwam. That interview was hurried and anxious, and 
resulted in the determination of Razuka to leave the wigwam of her father 
for the distant home of her hated lover. A meeting was appointed for the 
ensuing evening to determine the time and mode of their departure. That 
interview never took place. On the morning of that day, by the hand of the 
angered father, Chocorea, the lover of Razuka, was slain, and his body was 
thrown into the lake. The report of a firearm announced the fearful 
tidings to Razuka, and life for her had no further charms.

Standing, like some grim sentinel, on the southern border of the lake, was 
a gigantic and precipitous rock, which threw its shadows upon its waters. 
To the summit of this eminence Razuka, immediately upon the report of the 
death of Chocorea,

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made her way, and, fastening to her body a stone of heavy weight, secured 
by a cord made of the bark of the birch tree, threw herself into the dark 
waters.

--"On the strand
Two sleeping bodies afterward were found,
Chocorea and Razuka, joined in death
As they had been in life. Their spirits, too,
(So the untutored children of the woods
Believed) had gone to happier grounds--
The Red Man's paradise--to live and love
Forever there."

And furthermore, the legend says that at that lone rock, where Razuka met 
her fate, is seen at summer eve a great enchantress,

--"Who will sometimes pour
Such glowing tales of love into your ear,
That, in a transport, you will spread your arms,
And clasp a lovely vision."



THE LAST KING AND QUEEN OF THE ROCKS OF DEER CREEK.

On the right bank of Deer Creek, nearly opposite the present residence of 
E. S. Rogers, Esq., was, two centuries ago, a village of the Susquehannock 
Indians. Five miles above, on the same stream, fifty yards from where the 
mill of James Stansbury, Esq., is located, was another village of

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the same Indians. Two and one-half miles southeast of the Rocks, on the 
land now in the occupancy of Bennett Grafton, Esq., was a third village. 
Each of these villages had its own chief, but, for mutual protection and 
aid, were confederate, acknowledging the supremacy of the chief whose 
location was in the vicinity of the Rocks. This chief bore the not 
uncommon Indian name of Bald Eagle. The chief of the upper village was 
Great Bear; of the lower, Lone Wolf.

In the autumn of the year Lone Wolf, accompanied by several of his braves, 
visited the Iroquois, then living in the northern part of what is now the 
State of New York. While there he became enamoured with an Ojibway maiden, 
who had been captured by the Iroquois in her infancy; and adopted by their 
chief, was brought up in his wigwam as his own daughter. The stay of the 
visitors was protracted until the snow began to whiten the earth and the 
ice to cover the waters, and Lone Wolf would fain have tarried until the 
snow and ice were melted again. In the charms of the Fern-Shaken-by-the-
Wind, as she had been named by her captors, he had found an attraction 
stronger than that he felt for his own people in the South country. But 
failing in his efforts to win the affections of the Fern, he resorted to 
diplomacy, hoping that time, with assiduity of attention, would soften the 
maiden's heart, and she would ultimately become his wife. The time of his 
departure having come, he besought the Iroquois chief to allow his adopted 
daughter and her brother to accompany him to his distant home, promising 
to return them safely, and laden with valuable presents, when the trees 
put forth

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their leaves again. This request was granted. The Fern and her brother 
accompanied Lone Wolf to his home. Two moons after their arrival the 
braves of the three confederate villages were summoned to attend a great 
council, to be held at the Rocks. At the time appointed Bald Eagle and his 
wife, as was their custom on such occasions, took their places in the 
seats on the Rocks known as the King and Queen seats, the braves of the 
tribe and their confederates sitting upon the ground beneath or leaning 
against the interspersed trees. At a short distance beyond the circle of 
the assembled warriors sat the women and children of the tribes and their 
Iroquois visitors. The Fern and her brother listened attentively to the 
speeches of the different orators. Nor were they unobserved, the maiden 
particularly. She could not fail to attract attention, for to perfection 
of form and great symmetry of features, was added a dignity of manner 
rarely equaled. Among the braves most attracted by the charms of the Fern 
was The-Bird-that-Flies-High, eldest son of Bald Eagle, and prospective 
heir to the supreme chieftainship or kingship, as it was sometimes 
designated. This young brave, taking advantage of a short recess had by 
the council, approached the Fern, and offered her as a present a trinket 
of exceeding brilliancy and apparently of great value, which she 
graciously accepted. This was observed by Lone Wolf, who, under the 
influence of an unconcealed jealousy, rushed to the spot where the maiden 
and her admirer were standing, and seizing the trinket, violently wrenched 
it from her hands, and throwing it upon the ground, trampled it under his 
feet. Ordinarily such an act

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would have been promptly resented, but the Bird had too much regard for 
the dignity of the occasion, and too much respect for the character and 
authority of his father, the confederate chief, to notice it by immediate 
and violent resentment. He quietly withdrew from the presence of the 
maiden, entertaining, however, the purpose to avenge the insult when the 
fitting opportunity arrived. That opportunity was not long delayed.

Ten days after the close of the council, there was a gathering of the 
tribes at the lower village, to participate in the ceremonial connected 
with the rite of purification, a rite imperative in the case of every male 
infant of the tribe at its eighth day. From a grove of stately oaks, one 
of which may be seen at this present time, one hundred yards east of the 
spot on which now stands the house of Mr. Grafton, a procession moved 
toward Deer Creek, in the waters of which the child was immersed by the 
venerable priest of the lower village. The rite performed, the procession 
returned in the order in which it came. The remaining portion of the day 
was spent in feasting and dancing, in which the Bird participated with 
seeming enjoyment and forgetful apparently of his purpose to avenge the 
insult perpetrated by Lone Wolf. True, however, to the instincts of his 
race, that purpose was still cherished, and only awaited the opportunity 
of its accomplishment. When about to leave for his village, he challenged 
Lone Wolf to a trial of skill with the bow and arrow, to take place at the 
Rocks early on the morning of the succeeding day, suggesting at the same 
time the Fern as umpire, whose decision would be respected by all. These 
propo-

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sitions were gladly accepted by Lone Wolf, as the trial proposed would 
afford him an opportunity of displaying his acknowledged skill, and also 
of enjoying the society of the Fern. On the following day, before the 
frosts had been melted by the rising sun, the contestants met at the place 
designated. The contest continued until the shadows fell upon the roots of 
the trees, when Lone Wolf was declared the victor. The crown of laurel was 
placed on his brow by the umpire, accompanied by a few words complimentary 
to the skill of the victor, and seemingly expressive of personal interest. 
The Bird was excited to madness by the seeming preference of the Fern for 
Lone Wolf, and remembering the insult, suddenly grasped his rival, and 
rushing with the speed of lightning to the edge of the precipice, threw 
him headlong into the abyss below. As he was falling, a few plaintive 
notes of the death-song were beard, and the voice of Lone Wolf was hushed 
forever.

The Bird made no effort to escape. Submissive to the immemorial custom and 
imperative law of his race, he sternly awaited the coming of the avenger, 
and would certainly have been slain, but for the interposition of the 
Fern. Drawing from the pocket of a belt which she wore the trinket of two 
jewels that had not been damaged seriously, she offered them to the sister 
of Lone Wolf, his only surviving relative, as an atonement for the blood 
of her brother. The offering was accepted by her, as also by her tribe. 
That trinket of two jewels was the Ar and Thar, erroneously supposed to 
have been lost by the ancestors of the present race of Indians in their 
migration to this continent from the East. It

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had been preserved in the family of Bald Eagle, and highly valued, as its 
possession gave prosperity, and conferred princely authority and rule. 
That the Fern should have parted with such a treasure is understood in the 
light of the fact that she had cherished an attachment for the Bird, and 
secretly hoped to become his wife.

Three moons subsequently, at the feast of the coming spring, always 
observed when the first birds made their appearance, there was another 
gathering of the tribes at the Rocks, to witness the celebration of the 
nuptials of the Bird-that-Flies-High and of the Fern-Shaken-by-the-Wind. 
Following immediately this ceremony was the consummation of a design that 
Bald Eagle had long entertained. Aged and wearied with the 
responsibilities and labors pertaining to his position as chief ruler of 
the confederate tribes, he abdicated his authority, and nominated his son 
as his successor. His choice was ratified by all the tribes. Conducted by 
the aged priest of the upper tribe to the seats on the Rocks, the Bird-
that-Flies-High and the Fern-Shaken-by-the-Wind were formally declared 
King and Queen of the confederate tribes.

They were the last King and Queen of the Rocks of Deer Creek. Ere many 
moons waxed and waned the pale faces came. Driven from their homes and 
from the graves of their forefathers, the confederate tribes fled to the 
land of the setting sun, finding their last hours and their graves among 
strangers in the distant wilderness.

Lone Wolf, whose romantic history and tragic death have been related, was 
buried on the banks of Deer Creek, about six hundred yards above the

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present residence of Joshua Rutledge, Esq., and often, during the autumnal 
nights, in the faint light of the waning moon, is seen at that locality a 
strange apparition. It is thought to be the spirit of the murdered 
chieftain mingling with the shadows that fall on the rippling waters.



THE LAST INDIAN OF DEER CREEK.

Mingo Park is the name of the estate of our well-known and respected 
fellow-citizen, James Stansbury, Esq. This place is most appropriately 
named. It is derived from Mingo Hill, an abrupt eminence immediately 
opposite the residence of that gentleman, at the base of which runs and 
ripples the waters of the far-famed Deer Creek. The hill itself takes its 
name from Mingo--one of the Mingoes--whose wigwam was located on the 
lowlands, an hundred yards or more above the position now occupied by the 
mill of Mr. Stansbury, and on the left bank of the stream.

The Mingoes have become celebrated in Indian history. They originally 
occupied a large part of the territory now included in the State of New 
York. They were known by several names. The English called them the Five 
Nations, because they constituted a confederacy of that number of distinct 
nations, increased to six by the accession of the

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Tuscaroras of Carolina. The French called them Iroquois; the Dutch, 
Maquas, and the Virginia Indians gave them the name of Massawomikes. At 
home they were known by the name of Mingoes. At first their habits had 
been rather agricultural than warlike, but unhappily for their peace, and 
the well-being of others of their race, they were attacked by the powerful 
tribe of the Adirondacks, then occupying the country three hundred miles 
above Trois-Rivieres in Canada. Necessity drove them to war, and by their 
prowess and success they earned the proud title of the Romans of the West. 
Nearly exterminating the Adironacks, and proudly exalting themselves on 
their overthrow, the Iroquois or Mingoes grew rapidly to be the leading 
tribe of the North, and finally of the whole continent. But, like many of 
the mighty nations of the earth, they have yielded to a superior force, 
and there now remains only an handful to recount mournfully the mighty 
deeds of their valorous fathers. Another race, with its teeming millions, 
occupies their hunting-grounds and controls their waters. Their fate is 
the melancholy recollection of a greatness never to be recovered, and the 
agonizing anticipation of the utter extinction of their race.

The Mingo whose history we record had, as we have seen, his home among the 
wild, weird scenes of the Upper Deer Creek. His wigwam at first was one of 
many, for in the locality designated there was a considerable village of 
his tribe. The coming of the white man drove them from their homes, and 
they migrated northward and westward, resting for a time in the forests of 
Pennsylvania and on the plains of Ohio. Mingo alone remained,

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occupying his wigwam, with his wife and children, and finding his support 
in the waters of Deer Creek and in the wooded hills that bordered it. The 
reason of this seemingly singular procedure is, as will appear, but 
another illustration of the mysterious nature of man and the power of a 
sentiment.

The Mingoes of Deer Creek made frequent forays upon the Indians living on 
the waters of the lower Patapsco, and occasionally extended their 
incursions into Eastern Maryland and Virginia. In one of their adventures 
they penetrated the country as far south as the eastern shore of the 
Chesapeake Bay, opposite the mouth of the Potomac, and attacking suddenly 
and unexpectedly, surprised and captured a large village, with much booty 
and some prisoners. Among the captives was Watumpka, the daughter of 
Wesaco, in his day the most celebrated chieftain of the Wicomicos. Brought 
by her captors to the Rocks of Deer Creek, which at the period referred to 
was the general rendezvous of the Mingo warriors of the vicinity, and from 
which they conducted their warlike expeditions, and to which they returned 
to make distribution of the common spoils,--happily for Watumpka, in the 
allotment of the prisoners, she fell to the share of Mingo, who had 
participated in the expedition. This youthful warrior had seen twenty 
summers. He had already at that age developed into the noblest type of 
manhood. Six feet in height, of corresponding weight, straight as the 
arrow he let go from his bow, of perfect features, rather Roman than 
Indian, and of dignified mien, he was the admiration of his tribe. Added 
to these physical attractions was a mind and heart intellectual, 
sympathetic and loving. The artist

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would have selected him as his ideal, and the female heart chosen him as 
its possession forever. Of Watumpka it might have been said, Indian though 
she was, what the immortal bard said of the gentle Desdemona:

"A maiden never bold,
Of spirit so still and quiet that her motion
Blushed at itself."

And of the attractions of her person what Michael Cassio said of the 
gentle maiden:


"Tempests themselves, high seas and howling winds,
As having sense of beauty, do omit
Their mortal natures, letting safe go by
The divine" Watumpka.

Mingo saw and was conquered. His captive was the captor. Watumpka 
submitting resignedly to the fate of the captured--expatriation from her 
home--and yielding to the ardent wooing of her lover, consented to become 
his bride. The celebration of the nuptials was in accordance with the 
rites of the Mingoes, after which she occupied with her husband his wigwam 
on the banks of the Upper Deer Creek. There, under the shadows of Mingo 
Hill, in the quiet and patient performance of the duties of her position 
as with and mother, she passed the days of her allotted life. Not indeed 
without feeling the weight of the shadows that fell upon her heart in the 
recollection of the happy scenes of childhood and youth, and in the 
remembrance of the loss of a noble father and the care of a tender mother. 
These were but occasional experiences. The duties of life and the sense of 
the affections of him she had chosen generally absorbed her thought.

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How long Mingo remained on Deer Creek after the occupancy of the country 
by the whites is not known. The ancestors of some of the present residents 
of upper Harford knew him to have been there several years after they had 
settled in the neighborhood--among them Richard Deaver, the great-
grandfather of the present George and Richard Deaver, Seniors. That after 
a time he followed his tribe westward is conjectured; but if so, not until 
after the death of Watumpka, his captured bride. By the side of the river, 
under the shadows of the trees, was laid in deepest grief what was mortal 
of Watumpka, the child of Wesaco the Wicomico, and the wife of Mingo the 
Massawomike. And it is not difficult, we think, for the occupants of Mingo 
Park, as they sit by the blazing fire in the winter nights, to imagine 
that they hear the voice of Mingo, who long since joined Watumpka in the 
land of spirits, mingling with the voices of the winds without. It is the 
voice of the shade of the yet living and loving Mingo, which seeks to 
commune with the shade of the still living and loving Watumpka.

Honnis, a venerable chief of the Wyandots, said to an acquaintance of the 
writer of this narrative, that the warriors of his nation were called upon 
to put each one grain of corn into a wooden tray that would hold more than 
half a bushel, and that before all had done so the tray was full and 
running over. The Mingoes were a more numerous and powerful nation, 
covering a great tract of country, estimated to have been twelve hundred 
miles in length and seven hundred miles in breadth. Along the Susquehanna 
and its tributaries, among the forests

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of Deer Creek and in its valleys, were once many of these people. There 
remained for a while after their departure a single representative of this 
once mighty nation. He lingered because his captive wife, the beautiful 
and loving Watumpka, was alien to his people. They had killed her father, 
Wesaco, the honored chief of the Wicomicos, and made her a captive in a 
strange land and among a strange people. Obedient to a mysterious quality 
of the human mind, she became the wife of a Mingo, participating in his 
toils and sharing in his sympathies. Him alone she loved, and for him and 
the children she bore to him she lived--to the Mingoes alien forever,--a 
sentiment that led her to end her life and find her grave among the pale 
faces, also the inexorable foes of her race.



THE HERMIT OF THE OTTER ROCK.

Years ago--I will not say how many--there lived in the Valley of Virginia 
a family of English origin. They had emigrated to America, not to better 
their worldly condition, but to relieve themselves, if possible, of the 
shadow of a great trouble which had fallen upon them at their former home. 
The head of the household was of noble birth--the blood of the -- ran in 
his veins. Unhappily his temper was irascible, and he lacked ability to 
control its

Page 34

violence. In a controversy with a fellow-nobleman he yielded to its 
exactions, and struck a blow that almost instantly proved fatal to his 
antagonist. Conscious of the insufficiency of the provocation that led to 
the fatal result, and properly fearing the majesty of that equal justice 
which is a distinguishing characteristic of English law, he fled his 
country, and under an assumed name came to America, and found, as he 
thought, a refuge of safety in the province of New Jersey. Having brought 
with him abundant means, he purchased an estate in the vicinity of what is 
now --, and made preparation for the reception of his family. The large 
reward that had been offered for his arrest stimulated inquiry, and it was 
learned that he had fled to America. Detectives were put upon his track, 
and they were likely to accomplish the arrest of the object of their 
search. Information of these facts coming to the knowledge of the criminal 
and fugitive, he suddenly and secretly left the locality in which he had 
been living, and by concealed travel eventually reached the forests of 
Virginia. Purchasing from Lord Fairfax, then proprietor of the northern 
neck of Virginia, a tract of land consisting of two thousand acres, a few 
miles east of the present site of --, he again prepared for the reception 
of his wife and children. Here he was secure, and was in a brief time 
rejoined by his family. At that distant period of the past there were not, 
as now, large towns, substantially built, and attractive villages, with 
communities in town and country possessing all the refinements of highly 
cultured society. There was not a hamlet; only an occasional cabin, 
connected by paths or the blazings of the trees, and

Page 35

with rare exceptions, the few, isolated inhabitants were as rude and 
uncultivated as their surroundings. An exception was the family of noble 
lineage. The oldest child of that family was a son, and at the time of 
which we write was a young man twenty-four years of age, of cultivated 
mind, and of much personal attraction. In heart he was as his mother, a 
woman of gentle nature and sweetness of disposition. And from her he 
inherited a love of solitude. Though she was the wife of a nobleman of 
large wealth, and constrained by her position when at home to mingle much 
in society, it was always without pleasure, and gladly intermitted. This 
predisposition to solitude was intensified by the occurrence which led to 
the removal of the family to America. In its wilds at that day, where 
solitude reigned almost supreme, Walter -- realized the fullest 
gratification of the inherited and now cultivated predisposition. He 
communed with nature and with his own spirit, saddened by the remembrance 
of a great misfortune.

Calamities come not singly. To that family of stricken ones death came in 
the character of a mysterious plague, and all save Walter -- fell victims 
to its relentless power. The solitude that he had coveted and enjoyed, now 
intensified, became insupportable, and he sought relief from its 
oppressions. Having heard from a trapper of the wild of northeastern 
Maryland, with its wondrous lake abounding in fish, of the cataract 
falling from the summit of a rocky ridge four hundred feet in height, and 
of the rapid river, in the waters of which the otter and the beaver 
abounded, and of the forests in which roamed the elk, the bear and the 
deer, he resolved

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to make it his home, where, undisturbed by human associations, he might 
commune alone with nature and the denizens of forest and river; and 
forgetting, if such were possible, that crime of a parent which had 
smitten his heart with an inexpressible anguish, wait patiently and 
submissively for that event which comes to all. Early on the morning of 
May -- he bade adieu to the forests of Virginia, and, after a fatiguing 
journey of some days, reached his destination. He had not been deceived by 
the representations of the trapper. He found lake and cataract, waters 
abounding in fish and forests in game. About one-half mile east of the 
Rocks of Deer Creek is a massive rock projecting from a precipitous bill 
into the water. The rock is cavernous, and was a home of otters; hence its 
name, the "Otter Rock." On the hill, one hundred yards above the rock, in 
a thick growth of laurel, the hermit erected a rude hut of fallen logs. 
The cabin was well concealed from view by the thicket of undergrowth, and 
having to and from it a narrow, circuitous path, he deemed himself secure 
from intrusion. The once "petted child of fortune" took up his abode in 
this solitary place of the wilderness, trusting in his skill in the use of 
gun and trap and hook to supply him with the material necessary to sustain 
his physical life, and hoping to escape the recollections of the great 
wrong that had poisoned so soon the springs of his earthly felicity.

Solitude, to be advantageous, must be for a season only. Communing with 
ones self cannot long be protracted. Too long apart from his follows, man 
will conjure up a thousand beings to converse with his thoughts; he will 
give sentiment and even language

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to inanimate objects. The wild man will people the solitudes of the 
wilderness with society, and the untutored man in his solitary watchings 
and walkings among hills and valleys has his fears aroused by traditions 
of places haunted by spirits and ghouls. Where human associations break 
not the monotony of speechless existence, there it always is
"Fast in the wilderness and dream of spirits."

So it became with the hermit. Now he lived in an ideal world. Educated 
from his youth to believe in spiritual existences, he peopled the 
solitudes with real though invisible beings, and often in his dreams, as 
also in his waking reveries, communed with them. The Puckwudjimmenees--
those fairy beings whom the Algonquins thought planted the acorns from 
which the forests of oaks grow--not infrequently to his vision
"-- came fleeting by
In the pale autumnal ray."

In the vicinity of his retreat was a gentle spring of cool, limpid water, 
which he imagined was haunted by those mysterious little people. There is, 
perhaps, some apology for the superstition, for an ancient legend tells
"How that old fountain was peopled erst by fairies;
That the spirit of their spells
And flowery rites yet on its margin tarries,
And that upon the summer eve, in the silent air still lingers
The wild, sweet music of a hand of fay-like singers."

Such solitude could not be sustained, and the hermit turned to the living 
instincts around him

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for relief. In so doing he found pleasure. He found in his communings with 
the occupants of forest and lake, grove and river, rare and exquisite 
enjoyments, joys denied him by the presence of civilized life, and not 
found in the dreamy existence he had been living. The birds entertained 
him with rarest songs of sweetest melodies, and to his ear the howl of the 
wolf and the cry of the panther were music. So also the scream of the 
eagle and the hissing of the serpent. With all the habitants of woods and 
waters he cultivated intimate relations. He recognized them as friends, 
and deported himself towards them as such. His friendship was 
reciprocated, and on their part was confiding. Had he been seen in his 
wanderings through the woodlands, or in his solitary walkings by the 
river's side, strange phenomena would have been witnessed. The birds 
accompanied him, flitting after him from tree to tree, or bush to bush, 
reluctant, seemingly, to be absent from one whom they manifestly esteemed 
and loved. The fish recognized his voice, and upon his appearance on the 
banks of the streams would gather to his presence. They fed from his hand 
as trustingly as the child feeds from the hands of a loving mother. The 
raccoon, the opossum, the wildcat and the timid deer were equally 
confiding. An Adam in his Eden, he ruled the beasts of the field, the 
birds of the air, and the fishes of the waters. If his physical 
necessities required the offering of the confiding, that sacrifice was 
made with the utmost tenderness and consideration.

The hermit was not always indifferent to human associations. Rarely, 
indeed, did he leave his seclusion to mingle with men. At distant 
intervals the

Page 39

hermitage was visited by persons prompted by curiosity, if by no other 
motive. These rare occasions were enjoyed by him, and to his visitors were 
of great interest. His facility of communication was great, and at the 
times referred to his conversations were intensive in their character, the 
logical reaction from the life of seclusion he had led.

Age came to the hermit, and with it thoughts of other days and sweeter 
joys. Present to his vision often was the image of his mother, and in the 
slumbers of the night he would dream that he heard her, as in the days of 
his childhood, breathing blessings upon him. He awoke to find it but an 
illusive dream. Sickness came, and with it fever, picturing images of 
terror. The vigils of the night brought with them the sense of loneliness, 
and the mornings gave no relief. Alone in the wilderness, without the 
sympathy of his kind, and by infirmity denied the happiness he had derived 
from association with the instincts around him, he passed the days of his 
closing life. He was then heard to say he was thinking of his mother--

"Thy gentle hand seems lightly still caressing
The flaxen hair so loved, so prized by thee,
And as in days gone by, I hear thy blessing
Breathed, oh! so earnestly."

The end came. The solitary watcher by the couch of the departing was a 
lone star. Looking upward, he gazed long and intently upon it, and 
interpreted the beautiful phenomenon as prophetic of joys beyond it, where 
He abides who dwells in the light inaccessible. His last earthly vision 
was the fading image of his mother.

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"Even thine image now, The image of the lovely form, that shone,
The starlight of my childhood, seems to fade
From memory's vision. 'Tis as some pale tint
Upon the twilight wave, a broken glimpse
Of something beautiful and dearly loved
In far gone years, a dim and tender dream,
That, like a faint bow, on a darkened sky,
Lies on my clouded brain."

Times change, and men and things change with them. The lake and cataract 
no longer exist. Under the shadows of the Rocks human habitations are 
built. The waters of Deer Creek are utilized in the production of the 
necessities and conveniences of civilized and, in a certain sense, 
artificial life. The rude hut of the hermit has long since disappeared, 
and the progress of the age threatens greater innovations. But a very 
brief space of time ago men of singular mien were seen among the hills and 
along the valleys of Deer Creek, with peculiar instruments in their hands, 
measuring the surface of the earth as they passed. Unknowingly they stood 
on the very spot on which rested the Hermit of the Otter Rock, and had 
they not been so intent on pursuing their curious vocation, they might 
have heard the voice of a mysterious though invisible stranger bidding 
them, "Begone!" For have not these men reported that these hills and 
valleys shall soon reverberate with the loud whistlings of the 
"locomotive" and the thunderings of the "train?" And such will be the 
substitution for the poetries of nature in the solitudes of the wilderness.



Page 41

THE ROBBER'S DEN; OR, THE LEARNED PHILOLOGIST.

A short distance above the Otter Rock, on the opposite bank of Deer Creek, 
and in view of the Rocks, is a large cavernous rock, that was, as 
tradition informs us, in the far past the retreat of an unhappy man, whose 
hands, like those of Ishmael, the brother of Isaac, the son of Abraham, 
were against every man, and every man's hand against him. The entrance to 
the cave is now partially closed by portions of its roof, which have 
fallen. Directly opposite, and near to the water, was a narrow path, used 
at first by the Indians in their journeyings to and from the Rocks of Deer 
Creek and the waters of the Chesapeake Bay and Patapsco River, afterwards 
by the original white settlers in their travel from one neighborhood to 
another.

The occupant of the cavern had been reared in affluence and amidst 
elevating and refining associations. Born in Germany, he received his 
early education in a gymnasium, an institution answering to an American 
college. Afterwards he became a student of the University of Heidelberg, 
one of the largest educational institutions of a land which has ever been 
distinguished for its ripe scholars and learned philosophers. Immediately 
after the completion of his scholastic studies, he entered the service of 
the government as an attache' of an Ambassador to the English Court. Of 
great acuteness of intellect, well skilled in international law and the 
art of diplomacy, and ever prompt and faithful in

Page 42

the discharge of the duties of his position, he won the confidence of his 
superiors, and was recommended to preferment. Unhappily, at that period of 
English history, the Court was corrupt; from the monarch down to the 
humblest servant of the State, profligacy of manners generally prevailed. 
Truth, honor, integrity, virtue, were words that had no meaning, for the 
sentiments, principles and actions of which they are the representatives 
had no existence. Influenced by such examples, his moral force was 
weakened and his sense of right obscured. The tempter came to him in the 
guise of a gilded bait--the love of money--that not for its own sake, but 
for the ability it would give him to gratify his depraved appetites and 
propensities. The German government has always been characterized by a 
commendable frugality, not parsimoniousness, but a generous economy. 
Hence, the salary and perquisites of the attache' sufficed to maintain the 
dignity of his position, but were not enough for its abuse. The Embassy, 
having failed on several occasions to receive remittances of money that 
had been made in the usual manner, employed the services of English 
detectives, who, after several failures, succeeded in fixing the crime of 
the abstraction of the funds on the subordinate.

The young man, receiving timely information that suspicion had fallen on 
him, immediately, in the habit of an English laborer, went on board a 
Dutch vessel then lying in the Thames, which in a few hours thereafter 
hoisted sail for America. Arrived at new New York, he deemed it unsafe to 
remain, and having heard of the wilds of Southern Pennsylvania, journeyed 
thitherward. And after

Page 43

a fatiguing travel of many days, through forests and swamps, and crossing 
broad rivers, he reached a locality one-half mile east of the present site 
of Fawn Grove, York county. He built a rude hut of bark, a few yards above 
the spring, on the farm now in the occupancy of Thomas H. Wright, Esq., 
and there tarried for a time, subsisting on the game the forest afforded 
and the trout caught in the waters of Wild Cat Branch. His stay would 
probably have been protracted, but ascertaining a few months after his 
coming that several families of English--supposed to have been members of 
the Society of Friends --had migrated to his vicinity, he hurriedly left, 
and directing his steps southward, found himself in a few hours amidst the 
rugged hills and dense forests in the vicinity of the Rocks of Deer Creek, 
and believing that here, if anywhere, he would be safe from the pursuit of 
justice, he chose as the place of his refuge the rock now known as the 
Robber's Den.

Better thoughts came to the unfortunate, and he resolved to expiate, by 
penitence and reformation, if such could be, the sin that had made him an 
outcast and a fugitive in the wilds of America. There was, indeed, no 
church in the wilderness, at the altars of which he could bow, no 
clergyman to instruct and comfort, but He against whom he had most sinned, 
who is not confined to temples built with hands, was there in that "void 
waste," to witness his tears and hear his cries. Alas! there needed only 
the presence of the tempter and the occasion of temptation--where are they 
not?--to call forth again the vicious elements of character that had not 
been destroyed, only suppressed. At that time Mason and Dixon were running 
and marking the boundary

Page 44

line between the provinces of Maryland and Pennsylvania, and their party 
had in the progress of their work reached a point near where the road from 
Fawn Grove to Fellowship Methodist Episcopal Church crosses Wild Cat 
Branch. At a spring near by, now on the farm of J. L. Glenn, Esq., they 
had encamped for a few days to await supplies of provisions from 
Philadelphia, by way of Joppa, then a seaport town in the province of 
Maryland. From what is now Forest Hill, there ran northward toward the 
camp of the surveyors the Indian trail of which I have written, along 
which the packed mules must pass.

On the morning of what promised to be a bright autumnal day, the rubber 
was awakened from his somewhat protracted slumbers by the cries of the 
muleteers then approaching. Hastily seizing his gun, he made rapidly for 
the summit of Rock Ridge, one mile southwest of the Rocks, and secreting 
himself, awaited the coming of the train. In less than an hour it reached 
that point of the path, and being in range with his rifle, he fired, 
killing the leading mule. This so alarmed the drivers that they hastily 
abandoned the mules, and ran in the direction of their camp. Hiding the 
spoils in a secure place, the robber left the locality of his Den for a 
time, to avoid the search that he feared would be made for him. In a few 
weeks he returned to the cave.

In the Den the once accomplished gentleman and honored scholar and 
diplomate, but now degraded and dishonored man, passed several years of 
his life, issuing therefrom, as necessity constrained him, to prey upon 
the unsuspecting and often unarmed

Page 45

travelers. His many deeds of cruel daring are recorded in the "Book of the 
Chronicles of the Rocks of Deer Creek," but, sadly for our knowledge, 
these chronicles are written in a language to which we have no adequate 
key. There has come down to us the interpretation of a few words of the 
now obsolete language, which gives us some faint idea of the difficulty of 
translation by the most skilled philologists, if a translation is possible 
at all. The words are: Nummatchakodtautamoonkanunnonnash--our lusts; 
Kummogkodonattootimmooetiongannunnonash--our questions; and 
Noowomantammoonkauunaunash--our loves. Whether this was the language of 
the Susquehannocks, who originally occupied the country in the vicinity of 
the Rocks, or of the Lenopes, who possessed the country eastward and 
northward, or of the Mingoes, who at one period dominated both of these 
nations, we have not been advised. It may be an admixture of the three, as 
it is known that the intermingling of tribes did modify dialects. Nor do 
we know whether the learned may or may not find in the words resemblance 
to the family of Semetic languages--the Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, Punic, 
Aramean, Syriac, Ethiopic, Hymyaritic. If such could be shown to be the 
case, then we might hope for the ultimate translation into English of the 
"Book of the Chronicles of the Rocks of Deer Creek." Such a result would 
also establish the theory of the eastern origin of the Indians of North 
America.

The coming of new settlers made the habitation of the robber and 
philologist untenantable. He could not expose himself to the certainty of 
detection. Furthermore, just at that time a paper was found

Page 46

by him in the path opposite the Den; its contents were as follows: "By the 
King, a proclamation for the more effectual reducing and suppressing of 
pirates and privateers in America, as well on the sea as on the land in 
great numbers, committing frequent robberies and piracies, which hath 
occasioned a great prejudice and obstruction to trade and commerce, and 
given a great scandal and disturbance to our government in those parts."--
London Gazette.

Whither he went, we do not know; and the only remembrance of the unhappy 
man is the "Book of the Chronicles of the Rocks of Deer Creek." Who can 
translate it?