The 1775 Penn deed to the surviving relations of Sheehays

The following is a transcription of a document created 12 years after the supposed extinction of the Conestoga-Susquehannock people. It cedes the land claims of Sheehays’ surviving relations who had not returned from New York, where they found refuge among the Oneida.

Connuausshay and others, surviving relations of Sohaes (Sheehays), to John Penn, esq.,

We, the subscribers, the surviving relations of Sohaes within named, do hereby acknowledge to have received from the Honorable John Penn, esq., three hundred dollars over and above the within mentioned consideration of two hundred pounds, in full satisfaction for all the claim and demand whatever, which the representatives of the said Sohaes may have to the within mentioned five hundred acres of land, part of the Conestogoe Manner, where said Sohaes and his family lived by the permission of the proprietaries of Pennsylvania.

Witness our hands, at Philadelphia, this twentieth day of May, in the year 1775. Oon-nawaussliy, a Chief of Connandasago, In behalf of himself and Ayeneral-haw and Awewenwandaw or Isaac, of the same tribe, present; Tahondo, of Cheoquagy, in behalf of himself and Ayendedry, alias John Hudson, and Mo-waw-hay or Billy George of the Cayuga tribe. Witness present at signing and paying the money (this being first interpreted to them) James Tilghman, Edw. C. Shippen jr., Wlm. Logan, Andrew Allen, Joseph Shippen, Jr.

Isaac Still, interpreter.