"AN ATTEMPT TO BURN JOHN HARRIS"

o          
RootsƒRevolution:

America's   Covered   Past

{ Harris Research II: Aesthetic Detail and Justification }

Introduction

John Harris Senior, as depicted in the painting by William S. Reeder is unlikely an image of Harris as he lived. As Benjamin Franklin was the prominent political force from Pennsylvania, Reeder more likely was depicting a semblance of Franklin. Reeder, in his "An Attempt to Burn John Harris", would have been depicting an American archetypical patriot, incorporating elements from William Penn, Franklin, and possibly others. There were surviving members of the Indian tribes, further out west by this time, and several artists documenting specific details of each subculture. Judging from the clothing and anatomical rendering of them, it is unlikely that Reeder took any but a cursory study of Native American culture. It is unclear, as to the exact location in the painting, and determining exact changes to the topography and riverbank are speculative and undocumented. Harris' homestead and Trading Post depicted in "An Attempt to Burn John Harris" are most likely not an attempt at an exact replica. The painting is most likely heavily influenced by the work of Benjamin West, a Philadelphia prodigy, later the President of England's Royal Academy of Art from: 1792 to 1805 (racollection.org.uk).

"An Attempt to Burn John Harris"; lithographic reproduction after the painting by William S. Reeder, circa. 1840

John Harris

In the painting, the central figure of Harris is tied to a mulberry tree, his gray hair is long and hangs to the sides of his face, as did the wigs men wore in that day, but were no longer fashionable in the 1840's, when the painting was painted.

The fashion for wearing the full-bottomed wig divided into three masses of curls did not last very long, owing to the growing consciousness of its inconvenience, even among the leisured. Later, the wig was of equal length all round, but sometimes the portion at the back was divided into two, the ends being tied with ribbons. This fashion persisted among old men until about 1760, but in general wigs became smaller about 1720, and continued to diminish in size throughout the century.(americanrevolution.org)

Even though the scene depicted on the riverbank, was estimated to have taken place in 1718, an element of coincidental reality still exists, in that colonial fronteirsman such as Harris, likely did not wear a wig as well. This fact is noted by the image generously provided by the Yorkshire Museum, of the old man reading. The gray hair, however, may be close to the truth. Harris was born about 1675, making him age 43 at the time of this event.

Since fashion was more or less a less rigid, and more subjective expression of one's life, in the eighteenth century than in twenty-first century United States of America, it would not be unkind to suggest that Edward Shippen's style of dress was very influential to John Harris, Sr.'s style of clothing. As this was a formal, History Painting completed in the Victorian Era, the man tied to the tree in Reeder's depiction would be more formally dressed, and differently, than he may have been had this been an actual occasion.

Clothing style John Harris would have worn, may have been similar to the image of the Minuteman or Revolutionary American, which a contemporary American may hold in their imagination.

Coats and waistcoats [were] very long with large pockets in the flaps of each. The stockings were worn outside the breeches, drawn up over the knee, but gartered below. Stockings could be of coloured silk - blue or scarlet - with gold or silver clocks, but youths and poorer men wore black stockings of wool. In winter the curious fashion was followed of wearing several pairs of stockings at once.

Harris operated a Trading Post for the most part, and added a paid Ferry crossing around 1722 after he had children. The riverbank may have been muddy. Frontiersman often wore full- length boots. If Harris wore boots as most men who operated colonial outposts did, this would contradict Reeder's portrayal of a man in tights, revealed by shorts, or breeches.

To contrast, and suggest hypothetical derrivative clothing styles to the imagination, as Reeder would have done in his research; himself, also being under the influence of contemporary socio-political standards; this image of society gentleman from the same early 1700's category of northern English attire and style, suggests a starting point for such derivations. This image was also most generously provided by the Yorkshire Museum Trust.

Immense numbers of diamonds were worn both by men and women, for since the Dutch improvements in diamond cutting at the beginning of the century, the stones could be made to present a much more brilliant effect than formerly.

Cuffs were still large and sometimes heavily embroidered, but disappeared from hunting and riding coats. Riding was also responsible for a modification of the coat-tails. These were buttoned back, and soon became merely ornamental, i.e. the revers were formalised as part of the decoration of the coat, thus making the wider opening at the front of the coat permanent. The last vestige of this buttoning back is to be seen in the two black buttons in the small of the back of a modern morning or evening coat and in the more elaborate arrangement of buttons on the back lower edge of a soldier's tunic.

At the beginning of the century the increased facilities for trade with the East, due to the growing success of the East India Company, led to the introduction of vast quantities of Indian calicoes, which soon became very popular. English cloth manufacturers grew alarmed, and Acts of Parliament were passed, both by Queen Anne and George I, prohibiting the use of calicoes, silks, etc., from India, Persia, and China. These were, however, extensively smuggled, and Steele, in his plea for the weavers of England, gives an interesting list of the materials they had displaced: brilliants, pulerays, antherines, bombazines, satinets, chiverets, oraguellas, grazetts (flowered and plain), footworks, coloured crapes (although most crape was made in Italy and was regarded by rigid Protestants as Popish), damasks, and worsted tammy draughts.(americanrevolution.org)

As a Welshman, Harris would have been proud of his ancestry. The hardy people across the sea to Ireland often wore a skullcap of wool, called a "monmouth cap". This is the origination of the "sock-hat" made fashionable by the British Navy. It is still in fashion today. The color red, long-symbolized a magical element in that Celtic region, and witches were described as wearing red hats. Originally, Leprechauns, Sea People (Morudh [pronounced Merrow] ), and sometimes Faeries (Daoine Sidhe [pronounced Deenee Shee] ), were never without their bright red cap... or at the very least a bright red jacket.

"Red is the color of magic in every country, and has been so from the very earliest times. The caps of fairies and mgicians are well-nigh always red."—W.B. Yeates

For this reason, Harris would have likely wore a bright red knitted woolen hat most days in season, as it was a working tradition in all of England for hundreds of years. In the colonies red had come to stand out in the green woods, and was associated strongly with England, (or by this time after the unification with Scotland in 1707, Great Britian). Acts of Union

"If your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps; which, your majesty know, to this hour is an honourable badge of the service; and I do believe, your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy's day." (Shakespeare, Henry V, Act IV, Scene VII.)

One other noticible difference, is the length of the waistcoat Harris wears in the painting. In the Victorian Era, waistcoats were out, so Reeder has Harris wearing a slightly exaggerated vest, instead of a full-length waistcoat, cut longer in Harris' day. Depending on the season, Harris may or may not have even worn a jacket. One might imagine Harris as a stocky, broad-shouldered, diminutive -yet thoroughly affable fellow, putting about his riverbank property in his long waistcoat and bright red hat. He was a steadily-moving gentle fellow, with the bright, black-rimmed eyes of a southern Celtic islander. His broad, sharp smile greeting traveler or trader alike; Native American, European American, and African American.

A vest replaces the waistcoat at this time, they were still very decorative with no collar.(wikipedia.org)

Men's coats were so long that they almost concealed the breeches, and the, waistcoats were almost as long as the coats. Shoe-buckles came in with William III, and were at first very small. They soon grew larger, and were often ornamented with jewels.(americanrevolution.org)

A very influential Colonial American individual was Edward Shippen. Shippen was close friends with Harris and was responsible for Harris' success and marriage.

When Harris landed in Philadelphia, his total wealth was 16 guineas (about $81.76) but he began to improve his fortune through contracts to clear land and open streets in the city of Philadelphia. He formed a firm and lifelong friendship with Edward Shippen, First Mayor of Philadelphia, justice of the State Supreme Court, the later president of the Provincial Council, and married Shippens niece Esther Sey (Say), also a native of Yorkshire, England. He developed cordial relations with the Penn family as well.(associatepublisher.com)

In the beginning of the English occupation of the eastern, now Pennsylvanian, region, the first elected Mayor of Philadelphia, Edward Shippen, sent John Harris Sr. to the "frontier" of Central PA, with the expressly stated purpose of keeping an eye on the French, and establishing good relations with the Natives. He followed nobly to this purpose in the tradition of that example set by William Penn, owner and founder of Pennsylvania. We can assume that Harris' choice of a location adjacent the remnant Susquehannok, or Shawanese tribe, was no coincidence.

We first hear of him after his arrival in Philadelphia as a contractor for clearing and grading the streets of that ancient village. In 1698 his name is appended to a remonstrance to the Provincial Assembly against the passage of an act disallowing the franchise to all persons owning real estate less in value than fifty pounds. The memorial had its effect, and the objectionable law was repealed. By letters of introduction to Edward Shippen, the first mayor of Philadelphia, that distinguished gentleman became his steadfast friend, and through his influence, no doubt, were secured those favors which induced him eventually to become the first permanent settler in this locality.(maley.net)

Harris took to his task expertly, garnering similar praise as Pennsylvania's founder, William Penn himself, for his trustworthiness and good nature.(newworldencyclopedia.org)

"He was as honest a man as ever broke bread" was the high eulogium pronounced by Parson Elder, of blessed memory, as he spoke of the pioneer in after years.(maley.net)

It is evident that John Harris Senior was carefully stewarding this good reputation, also like William Penn, in spite of world and local politics, common prejudice and local custom, in his treatment of the Indians, although he may have been unaware of the exact overarching Crown strategy, as he seemed to achieve a reputation of good, honest standing with all Indian tribes. This may have been simply good business sense.

A helpful similarity, which may speak to deeper family ties, or merely a topic of familiarity for conversation, amongst strangers meeting in a foreign, unfamiliar, and at times hostile new land, was the coincidence of Shippen's wife's family being from a long line of Brewmasters and Innkeepers in Boston (ancestry.com). As both John Harris and Edward Shippen's wife were from a tradition of Brewmasters, this may have proved an invaluable means of introduction, for a roadworker to the Mayor.

Born in the county of Yorkshire, England, although of Welsh descent, about the year 1673, he was brought up in the trade of his father, that of a brewer. Leaving his home on reaching his majority, he worked at his calling some time in the city of London, where he joined, a few years afterwards, a company from his native district, who emigrated to Pennsylvania two or three years prior to Penn's second visit to his Province.(maley.net)

Harris, Shippen and Penn, all had close ties to Yorkshire, England, and each other. It is then no surprise, to discover that Esther Say, to become Esther Harris, was also from Yorkshire, whom John Harris met at his friend, Philadelphia's first elected Mayor, Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court, and founder of Princeton University, Edward Shippen's home. These commonalities suggest a bond that imitated a family intimacy between the two men. (princeton.edu).

During John Harris' frequent visits to Philadelphia he met at the house of his friend Shippen, Miss Esther Say, like himself not over young, from his native Yorkshire, and in the latter part of the year 1720 married her. The wedding took place either at the Swedes church, Wicaco, or at Christ church, both being members of the Church of England. Among the early colonists who settled in Philadelphia were a number of the name of Say, but to which family Esther Harris was connected is not to be ascertained with certainty. She was kinswomen to the Shippens, and of course respectively connected. A remarkable woman, she was also well calculated to share the love, the trials, the hardships and the cabin of the intrepid pioneer.(maley.net)

It has been noted that Yorkshire holds some significance to John Harris Sr.. York, England, lies within Yorkshire. A heavily fortified ancient Roman military complex, it has been conquered and reconquered for centuries, a crucially contested location between the Celtic, Nordic, Anglo-Saxon, and Classical Mediterranean forces. At this time, these contestants were represented by the Scottish house of Stuart versus the Dutch Crown and the French Catholics. William Penn, who obtained the land deed from the English Crown for Pennsylvania, was also connected well to Yorkshire, through his father, Admiral Penn, and this relationship began in childhood.

Admiral Penn, assigned to rebuilding the British Navy for war with the Dutch, asked that his son serve as personal assistant. Young William must have gained a valuable inside view of high command. Admiral Penn also used his son as a courier delivering military messages to King Charles II. Young William developed a cordial relationship with the King and his brother, the Duke of York, the future King James II.(quaker.org).

Penn, like Franklin and other early Americans, gained a reputation for self-sacrifice in exchange for benefits and leniencies to be afforded to the common man. These leniencies, to be obtained from the power structure of resource-hoarding royalty and aristocracy. This structure was often comprised of one family and it's extensions. It refined a method into habit, to cultivate the capacity amongst a small group of people, to maintain control over whatever wealth or resources were determined valuable by the population, at any point in time.

William Penn was an adaptation of this anti-democratic capacity, who became a seeming traitor to it's habits. He used his noble influence to become a lawyer, attack the oligarchical aristocratic authority, and gain support from the common and the disenfranchised majority. He did this, not only in England, but also in Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, and the Netherlands. In keeping with the true British character, Penn found a place for the discontented, to construct the common good. Penn became associated with the Quakers in Cork, Ireland, (british-history.ac.uk), and married within the new community (chorleywood-pc.gov.uk). The Quakers were part of a resulting wave of, what was referred to as, "non-confomist religious principles", and was essentially a tradition of anti-Catholic reverberations caused by England's split from the Catholic Church in the 1500's.

While supervising his father's Irish estates, Penn was drawn into the Quaker world. His conversion to Quakerism was inspired by the simple piety (religious devotion) of their religion and the need to provide relief for victims of persecution. At the age of twenty-two, against his father's wishes, Penn became a Quaker advocate, or supporter. His marriage in 1672 to Gulielma Maria Springett, of a well-known Quaker family, completed his religious commitment.(notablebiographies.com)

Penn mounted a legal attack on the aristocratic religious rule of the oligarchs, in favor of a materialistic possessions-based lifestyle, using the tool of the powerful against them. Penn redefined religious principles, the tool the powerful used to justify their wealth, to favor a materialist reality.

Penn decided to challenge the Conventicle Act by holding a public meeting on August 14, 1670. The Lord Mayor of London arrested him and his fellow Quakers as soon as he began expressing his nonconformist religious views. At the historic trial, Penn insisted that since the government refused to present a formal indictment--officials were concerned the Conventicle Act might be overturned--the jury could never reach a guilty verdict. He appealed to England's common-law heritage: "if these ancient and fundamental laws, which relate to liberty and property, and which are not limited to particular persuasions in matters of religion, must not be indispensably maintained and observed, who then can say that he has a right to the coat on his back? Certainly our liberties are to be openly invaded, our wives to be ravished, our children slaved, our families ruined, and our estates led away in triumph by every sturdy beggar and malicious informer--as their trophies but our forfeits for conscience's sake.".(quaker.org).

He was imprisoned several times (ushistory.org), and in the Tower of London from 1668 to 1669 (gwyneddfriends.org).

Penn's threats, and old, English, nationalistic fears were realized when William of Orange took the throne of England aside Mary. William was Dutch. Penn's father had fought the Dutch for Oliver Cromwell after he beheaded Charles I. Mary was the daughter of James II, Duke of York, Penn's childhood acquaintance.

Only two daughters survived: Mary (born 30 April 1662) and Anne (born 6 February 1665). Samuel Pepys wrote that James was fond of his children and his role as a father, writing that he played with them "like an ordinary father", a contrast to the distant parenting common to royals at the time.(wikipedia.org)

English fears were heightened, as James II's cousin, Loius XIV's bloodline appeared to be ascending to the throne of Spain. As England had removed James from his throne for revealing that he had been secretly a Catholic, England chose the seemingly lesser of two evils, as the Netherlands were a similar haven for religious tolerance. If they had not removed James, the consequence of innaction would effectively unite the Catholic world against nonconformist, Anglican, England. Thus, the traditional aristocratic opinion, regarding property as being the right of possession only of the most wealthy, simply because they were most wealthy, became most unpleasant. Using this logic, the expansive wealth of Spain alone would easily turn England into a lapdog for the Pope. The Netherlands, wealthy and central to world trade as it was, could never hope to combat Spain, France, Portugal, and the Catholic Church, who were far wealthier together. The Nonconformists: the Dutch and English, had a tense bond, with England at a severe disadvantage. With Netherland's control of New World trade in New York (then New Amsterdam), and their newly gained influence over the British Crown itself, England's Aristocracy realized, they alone, would lose the very coat off their backs, if they did not accept some form resistant method of religious tolerance.

In hindsight, this was an easy win for William Penn, as British sympathy and political strategy had been aligned closely with anti-European mainland sentiment (british-history.ac.uk). England then, if it hadn't already, realized that William Penn had national interests at heart all along.

It was here that this covert, anti-nationalistic, anti-Dutch, anti-Catholic, Yorkshire-centric, Crown strategy was gestated; that English power felt the will to bend instead, and not to break. Yorkshire becomes a stand-alone entity at this moment. Old friends and loyal subjects begin making noticible, strategic gestures, towards an unlikely, seemingly impossible dream: English freedom. The responsibility is left to Anne, Queen Mary's sister, and James II's daughter. This is not immediately evident, and in fact, so well crafted, that to this day, historical convention insists that the endeavor was no more that inner-family religious conflict, inbreeding, and disease.

During this period, Prince George and Princess Anne suffered great personal misfortune. By 1700, the future Queen had been pregnant at least eighteen times; thirteen times, she miscarried or gave birth to stillborn children. Based on her foetal losses and physical symptoms, a medical historian has diagnosed disseminated lupus erythematosus. Of the remaining five children, four died before reaching the age of two years. Her only son to survive infancy, William, Duke of Gloucester, died at the age of eleven on 29 July 1700, precipitating a succession crisis. William and Mary had not had any children; thus, Princess Anne, the heir apparent to the Throne, was the only individual remaining in the line of succession established by the Bill of Rights 1689. If the line of succession were totally extinguished, then it would have been open for the deposed King James or his son James Francis Edward Stuart (the "Old Pretender") to claim the Throne. Thus, to preclude a Catholic from obtaining the Crown, Parliament enacted the Act of Settlement 1701, which provided that, failing the issue of Princess Anne and of William III by any future marriage, the Crown would go to Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and her descendants, who descended from James I of England through Elizabeth Stuart. Dozens of genealogically senior claimants were disregarded due to their Catholicism. Anne acquiesced to the new line of succession created by the Act of Settlement. William III died on 8 March 1702 and Anne was crowned on 23 April 1702. (wikipedia.org)

The British Royal family is traditionally portrayed as bumbling, Catholic-hating sluggards, who blindly stumble into victory over world trade and world domination, to become the most expansive world union in history. England's success lies not in good fortune, born of beggarly religious conversion and disease. This consequence was a result of more than blind luck, and the majority of it involved a passionate, intelligent, and good-hearted aristocrat named William Penn.

Whilst the British power structure struggled with looming demise, William Penn is persecuted relentlessly. He wins an extremely important legal precedent for England, perhaps it's most important, ensuring that a Jury cannot be imprisoned for making an unpopular verdict. He then, inherits his father's estate. He had previously preached all over Europe, as an English political dissident, battling high-profile, well-publicized, legal cases, to the benefit of the poor, neglected, over-taxed, and downtrodden; all the while, unwittingly raising an army of the disenfranchised majority of European society. These people were to become the population of the future Pennsylvania. Solidly anti-Catholic, they were also predictably independent-minded. They could not be taken by force, and England did not influence them. Even though Britain, and world trade, came under the Dutch nearly completely, and existed, soley beholden to the mercy of the Catholic majority, these "Pennsylvania Dutch"; primarily Scotts-Irish, German peoples; would remain in the wings, unwitting reservists for the British Crown. The Crown henceforth, becomes a deceptive facade, and Yorkshire becomes it's true sanctuary. The Royal Family becomes no more than a feint with true power being negotiated, in the end, by Queen Anne herself.

This noble service of William Penn, and his benefit to the Crown, is memorialized by the story told by John Harris, Sr., which William S. Reeder memorialized, about the year 1840, in the painting, "An Attempt to Burn John Harris". In the story, and the painting, the service of both William Penn, as well as John Harris Senior, are commemorated. William Penn's service was honored by Harris, by his desire to be buried beneath a mulberry tree. This was the same tree, to which he said, he was tied to by Indians.

"An Attempt to Burn John Harris"; lithographic reproduction after the painting by William S. Reeder, circa. 1840

Landscape

The location, was also the native peoples' crossroads, and had been for thousands of years.The river-crossing where Harris set his Trading Post and Ferry service, were a naturally formed transportation route, linking North America's native peoples and amimal species, a veritable "super-highway" for trade and hunting. The valley is backed by mountains which cradle it, and run parallel to the ocean. The weather is kept mild as a result, and the mountains offer a strategic backing, for use in any military event: as shelter to flee to, to observe from, to ambush behind. The natural mountain crossing offers obvious transportation advantages. The river, running through the mountains and counter to them, north and south, enhance these strategic and transport advantages to an infinite degree. At one point in the early post-Revolutionary history of the United States, the current Capitol City of Pennsylvania, was considered as a viable alternative to the District of Columbia, as a location for the national Capitol of the fledgling country. Harrisburg, it could be said, was Franklin's 'Turkey', to Adams' 'Eagle', of Washington D.C.. And it was Eden to John Harris.

It was during one of his expeditions that Harris first beheld the beauty and advantages of the location at Paxtang. It was the best fording place on the Susquehanna, and then, as now in these later days, on the great highway between the North and South, the East and West. Annually the chiefs of the Five Nations went to the Carolinas, where were located their vast hunting-grounds, and these, returning with peltries, found need of a trading-post.(maley.net)

The scene did not likely occur in the daytime with so many observers. There were not Indian women playing with sticks, along the sandy riverbank. The riverbank was more probably muddy and heavily trodden and grooved from trains of horses and wagons fording the river, and stopping to pick up furs from Harris on their way to major cities, like Philadelphia. The river was described as shallowest at the point Harris chose, and this was a reason he set up a Ferry-crossing there, shortly after he had children.

In Reeder's depiction, Harris' homestead is on a bluff, overlooking the river. This may not be the case. The Susquehanna is an old river. Slow moving, it curves regularly and floods often. The river runs through fairly flat lands, and breaks free of the mountains just north of Harrisburg. It curves even more dramatically on it's course through the Appalachians, on it's way to Harrisburg. This indicates that, unlike most younger rivers, it does not increase in speed very much. Because of it's age and slow speed, there is not a large amount of sediment being carried from the mountains. In present-day Harrisburg, the river-crossing is so conveniently placed by time, a great number of bridges have been built to accommodate the traffic, which has not slowed for a thousand years. Multiple large-scale automobile, train, and pedestrian bridges are lined up in close proximity to Harris' original Post. Large amounts of soil have been pushed to the riverbank into this area, in order to curb flooding, level roadways, build real-estate, and raise bridges above the flood waters, which regularly kiss their bottoms. Logging was the first major industry to bring massive changes to the riverbanks along the ancient Susquehanna River. Then the coal industry brought coal barges, scraping along it's insides, replacing the jostling, chaotic flow of log-jams, with heavy, black paste. The coal barges laid so much coal dust in the bottom of the river, that men made great fortunes, and built huge mansions along the river, with the money they earned by cutting the packed coal-silt from the river-bottom into squares, hauling it from the water, and selling it.

A certain amount of dams have been added among the bridges, which has altered the time-worn pattern of silt distribution along the river-bottom. Agriculture has been one of Pennsylvania's leading industries for decades, and water from the Susquehanna has been brought to the fields, to irrigate crops. The water, once poured over the loose, tilled, rocky soil, drains quickly back to the river, carrying with it a quantity of new deposits, for the now extremely shallow, river. The old river, shallow as old rivers are, now measures less than four feet in depth, at Harris' crossing. Suffice it to say, the general rule of an old river, is that it is shallow, floods wide, and curves often. A slow-moving river is ideal to trade along and travel, it's shallow banks make pulling one's canoe to shore very convenient.

Geologically, the river is extremely ancient, often regarded as the oldest or second oldest major system in the world. It is far older than the mountain ridges through which it turns, most of which were formed in uplift events of the early Cenozoic era. Like the Hudson,Delaware and Potomac rivers, the basin was well-established in the flat plains that existed during the Mesozoic era. There is evidence that the flow of the ancient Susquehanna was established early enough that it predated the Appalachian orogeny over 300 million years ago, meaning that the river was in existence well before Pangea broke up and formed the Atlantic Ocean.(wikipedia.org)

This large amount of rearrangement of the riverbanks, make it nearly impossible to determine what the spot, upon which the Harris Post stood, looked like three centuries ago. Harris himself contributed to this, no doubt, and may have used some of his skills acquired by building roads in Philadelphia. He may have cleared, graded, raised and altered the natural topography quite a bit in his time there.

Many fur-traders in the west, a hundred years later, built their shacks into hills to prevent theft of their fur pelts. Made simply of logs and dried mud, they essentially were disguised as a small hill from the rear view. Harris most definitely, being a well-connected Englishman, and skilled engineer, did not live in a log hut. More realistically, he lived in something more akin to a small castle, or English stone Mill-house with flood-walls, lacking the large mill-wheel and sluice.

About 1766, after the end of the French and Indian War, John, Jr. decided that it was about time for his family to have a more substantial house than the one that his father had built. The old home's location by the river had meant that the family had to leave during the periodic flooding. From this experience, John, Jr. knew that the river had never reached the top of a certain rise of ground even during the worst floods. So he chose the current site and had the front section of the house built with locally quarried limestone.(dauphincountyhistory.org)

It is evident that John Harris Junior, was not the engineer or strategist his father was. The mansion he built is no safer from floods than his father's original location, as it is near Shipoke, an historic neighborhood on the southern edge of Harrisburg, which has the worst, and most frequent floods in the city.

Pennsylvania Masonry-work is some of the finest and most unique in the world. Owing to the rockiness of the soil, Harris Junior's father, surely would have used it. As a road-builder and paver, he had the ability to gather a crew, and complete a job. In that day this occupation required a vastly more thorough skillset than 21st century road builders. It is barely the same profession. City roads were often paved with stone, drainage dug by hand, curb was quarried and hewn to custom fit... and Philadelphia has some of the most sophisticated examples of this in all of world history. It is well known that Franklin himself, had a hand in refining early Philadelphia's civil systems. These were talented individuals. Harris is underwhelmed by modern understanding of him. To become good friends with the Mayor of an important colonial city, Harris most likely was an expert builder and engineer. A Pilgrim-style, thatched-roof, log-trimmed, sloppily-constructed, fort, as depicted in Reeder's painting, is probably not the architectural legacy of John Harris Sr.. It is written, that he built a compound, with several adjoining sheds to store his furs and keep them safe from theft. Indians, loyal to him, were always around his place. As Indians in this period often supply the role of service personnel in this era; butlers, messengers, maids, laborers and even the nanny for white children; it is likely that Harris maintained a number of such relationships, probably loosely tendered and amicable. Harris is described as a generous man and had no shortage of income as a result of his location. The Fur Trade was more lucrative than the Diamond Trade in those days.

The fort in reeder's painting is more of a Civil War era military structure that has been married, in a strange way, to a Jamestown or early settlment style of building. It even appears to have a thatched roof. Most successful colonialists evidently felt a strong need to imitate the architectural styles they were accustom to in Europe. This imitation was extreme in scope. Harris may have built more along these more "civilised" lines.

John Harris Senior, realistically, probably had several locations for his family. The children were probably educated in Philadelphia, and owing to a record in Philadelphia regarding a feud between Harris and his wife, wherein Harris angrily severs all financial responsibility to her, and her Uncle being one of the most influential colonial Americans, likely spent a lot of time in the city.

He formed a firm and lifelong friendship with Edward Shippen, First Mayor of Philadelphia, justice of the State Supreme Court, the later president of the Provincial Council, and married Shippens niece Esther Sey (Say), also a native of Yorkshire, England. He developed cordial relations with the Penn family as well.(associatepublisher.com)

His Trading Post was likely not their primary residence. By the time his children had been born about 1720, Harris had been running a profitable fur trading business for near twenty years. He had been, what in modern times is referred to as a Civil Engineer, in one of the largest Colonial cities. Being a trusted associate of the Mayor and Governor of a major commercial center, would have provided Harris with the financial means to make choices, and be afforded luxuries, not commonplace in colonial society. The New World was commerce on a scale Europe was not used to. It brought wealth unparalleled at any other point in history, to more people than ever. The hardships of colonial life were often exaggerated by colonial settlers as a form of self protection from one's envious neighbors. The population was so small, that everyone had a political stake in whatever issue faced them. Often re-tellings of re-tellings, being similar in their factual description, are not closer to actuality as well. While hardships did occur, lawlessness and readily available scapegoats, proved the major obstacle to frontier life in North America.

"An Attempt to Burn John Harris"; lithographic reproduction after the painting by William S. Reeder, circa. 1840

Indians

The Indians who allegedly tied John Harris Senior to a tree along the banks of the Susquehanna River in the location of modern day Harrisburg, circa. 1718, had loyalties to the Dutch or French. They were Iroquois, or at least some northern vestige tribe belonging to the Mohawk Nation. These native people were very Europeanized, and had been dependent on European manufacturing for hundreds of years by the time of this event.

There were other problems with the fur trade. Competition between tribes over hunting grounds became more pronounced after the Europeans' arrival. Tensions also caused increased conflict among the English, the French, and the Dutch. The competition between the English and the French culminated in the French and Indian War. The Native American chiefs saw that each side was using them, but because of the Indians' dependence on white goods, they had to become involved in these conflicts. (ohiohistorycentral.com)

This area was evidently well-known by Native American inhabitants to be The Garden of Eden, and competition between tribes, which had been tense for thousands of years, completely destroyed their way of life. The event in particular, the attempted burning and tying to a tree, may be a fabrication, in detail, but most certainly an actual occasion in general description. Native Americans most certainly harassed John Harris, probably quite regularly. Native Americans believably would have more motive to provoke Harris' neighbors, the small vestige Shawanese tribe across the river, by harassing Harris, seeing that tribes such as the Iroquois, had been at war with each other for hundreds of years. The Iroquois, being the most likely assailants, were the major component of the Mohawk, or Five Nations. This was essentially the vestiges of a large collection of Native groups, that allied themselves with European forces in a military sense, to possess land, and control the distribution of preferred goods. The Shawanese were enemies with these northern tribes, and so were not included in the alliance.

Most artists throughout the colonial period did not document the likeness of native "Indians" faithfully. They were idealized and romanticized suggestions, made to titillate the fancy, imagination and fantasy of Europeans still living in Europe. Usually, artists did not have a first-hand witness of the Indian, their depictions were from second-hand information, gleaned from tipsy-tales of adventurers. Many Indians in reproductions of the day, wore some version of the Classical 'Toga'. To add to the confusion, art scholars of that time believed, that to be a successful professional painter or draughtsman, the figure should be idealized, and modified to conform to a Greco-Roman style. Documentary, or "realism", was considered to be unprofessional.

One of the founding purposes of the Royal Academy of Arts was to establish a free school of art which would train a new generation of artists. Students at the Royal Academy Schools were taught drawing from casts of Antique statues, Life drawing, and copying and studying of Old Masters paintings and engravings. A Library was also provided where students could study subjects from the civilisations of ancient Greece to military and religious festivals, ceremonies and costume.(racollection.org.uk)

Indians wove the most intricate and beautifully sophisticated garments with the durable glass European-made beads. They had formerly used shells, hammered bronze, wood, bored stone, bones, and clay to make beads, and other items in Eastern North America. They wore skirts, capes, leather leggings, and leather sown around the foot, depending on the season. A common adaptation that was most likely mistaken for a sash in many European depictions, was actually a brilliantly woven strap, used for carrying things. This most simple method, was often the most prominent tribal association method along the trade routes, and the woven patterns are the most obvious identifier of differring tribes. The Shawanese living across the river from John Harris Sr., used patterns and shapes that were more organic, fluid and colorful. Straps from the northern region, near New York State; also known as the Mowhawk, Five, and Six Nation; were markedly more angular, and usually simple zig-zag stripes and bold linear patterns.

During the 1700's in England, the military developed a very inexpensive red, vegetable -based, semi-permanent fabric dye. This quickly became a valuable trade and conquest item to the Indians, as the cape was a traditional item of wear. This process was put into practice under Oliver Cromwell, a Welshman, whom Admiral Penn may have encountered in this land of their origin. This may be the reason for the Admiral's being appointed to that position by Cromwell. It apparently did not hurt Penn's standing with the new administration in 1658, when Cromwell's term was ended by malaria.

Whether scarlet or red, the uniform coat has historically been made of wool with a lining of linen to give shape to the garment. The modern scarlet wool is supplied by "Abimelech Hainsworth" and is much lighter than the traditional material, which was intended for hard wear on active service. It should be noted, however, that in the days of the musket (a weapon of limited range and accuracy) and black powder, battle field visibility was quickly obscured by clouds of smoke. Bright colours enhanced morale and provided a means of distinguishing friend from foe without significantly adding risk. Furthermore, the vegetable dyes used until the 19th century would fade over time to a pink or ruddy-brown, so on a long campaign in a hot climate the colour was less conspicuous than the modern scarlet shade would be. During the English Civil War red dyes were imported in large quantities for use by units and individuals of both sides. The ready availability of this pigment made it popular for military clothing and the dying process required for red involved only one stage. Other colours involved the mixing of dyes in two stages and accordingly involved greater expense. In financial terms the only cheaper alternative was the grey-white of undyed wool - an option favoured by the French, Austrian, Spanish and other Continental armies. The formation of the first English standing army (Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army in 1645) saw red clothing as the standard dress. As Carman comments (p24) "The red coat was now firmly established as the sign of an Englishman".(wikipedia.org)

Many were contracted as mercenary raiders for the French, Dutch, or whatever competing faction benefitted them at the present, just prior to the erruption of the French and Indian Wars. Traditional warriors, who had battled in chance meetings in the shared hunting ground of the Ohio River Valley with other regional continental tribes for hundreds of years in competition for hunting grounds, were happy to continue this behavior for glass beads, axe heads, metal pots, and many other essential European manufactured products.

Indians gradually adopted European woven cloth, copper kettles, and sharp-edged iron tools as substitutes for their own native-made clothing, pottery, and stone tools. In exchange for these items, they gave the Europeans animal pelts, and, as time progressed, land. This exchange set up an economic relationship in which the Indians became dependent on European trade, even as supplies of fur-bearing animals in their homelands diminished.(explorepahistory.com)

By Reeder's time, most Indian Tribes had adopted European dress and habits to a remarkable degree. The photo below is of a Shawnee man from 1869, roughly 30 years after Reeder's painting was estimated to've beeen done.

Even in the early 1700's, Indian clothing styles and habits had changed, and were nearly identical to the European. Until conflict with Europeans spurred fierce fundamentalist movements, Indians lived very "civilized" lives. Indians wore European style clothing, used purchased flour, drank barrelled whisky, used iron axe-heads, shot muskets with lead bullets. Fabrics, cookware, tools, weapons and food, were imported from Europe and used by Indians and Colonists alike for nearly four centuries. Hunters and warriors, traditionally a functionally indistictive occupation, were relegated to a ceremonial position.

When the smoke cleared, white attitudes had shifted decisively in favor of Indian dispossession and exile, while Indians were drawn to nativist movements that urged them to reject association with white society.(explorepahistory.com)

Many Europeans, in a lawless frontier, took advantage of this vulnerability of the natives, as their governments did, for centuries. It became standard policy to insinuate Indians for theft, suspicion, or mayhem. It was common also, for European colonists to conduct terrorist attacks upon their own citizenry, and blame the "poor savage", as the Indian was referred to on many occasions. Night raids on European settlements became common also, and were the principle factor in the Native peoples removal and near extermination.

Indians pushed to the wall by fraudulent land purchases and colonial intrusions on their lands fought tenaciously to retain control of the upper Susquehanna, Allegheny, and Ohio valleys. This intercultural warfare grew increasingly vicious during Pontiac's Rebellion and the American Revolution. Tales of Indian atrocities committed against frontier communities gave license to equally murderous reprisals by white Pennsylvanians. When the smoke cleared, white attitudes had shifted decisively in favor of Indian dispossession and exile, while Indians were drawn to nativist movements that urged them to reject association with white society.(explorepahistory.com)

This war-like, ambush activity, was not part of traditional Native American methodology and behavior, when dealing with unfamiliar peoples, but has become an identifying aspect of them.

To a certain extent the variety of responses met by the English reflected the diversity of a village world. But as subjects of Powhatan, the Indians' wide-ranging behaviors also reflected a policy of testing the newcomers' strength and ineptitude, asserting military strength, and leaving the door open for alliance and trade.(nps.gov)

Most warriors ventured out of their villiages. Women, children, and the elderly Indians stayed home. Many smeared themselves periodically with red clay, to keep bugs away, and balance bacteria levels on the skin to avoid illness and stench. Thus, the European settler, anxious in their new environment, saw bright red young men, dressed to intimidate, anxious in their own right, wearing thick red face plaster, as think as the white worn by French Aristocracy. These hunters dressed in garish camoflauge that frequently involved skulls and bones. They painted patterns on their faces for the same reason certain modern soldiers, football players, or stage actors do. They sought to blend into their environment, and gain the advantage of fright upon whoever they encountered, be it man or beast. Their camoflauge and face paint had developed into an extremely refined art form by the time Europe ventured across the pond to make their aquaintance. Native face paint imitated fur patterns, insect coloring, flower blooms, and shadows through the trees. They looked like wolves, deer fawn, snake, and dragonfly. They took the skins from animals they hunted, and wore them to keep warm; to look like them, to more effectively hunt them in the future. They bleached and dried the skull and bones of animals, small and large, and strung them about their figure. It was common among the tribes near Harris' location, to have a half-shaved head, spiked in the middle and on the top like a mohawk, dyed red, and crested in the front by a songbird's skull.

Many of these young men, working as European mercenaries, would be wearing military jackets, swords, belts, and other items, taken from European soldiers whom they had ambushed and killed. It is imagined, that a traditional male fear, might have be used to intimidate certain Europeans in certain circumstances, that being, the killing of wives or daughters. Indians may well have worn flowered hats and bonnets, stolen from the corpses of European women they had murdered, and worn them during high profile raids.

As European clothing styles were not designed for intimidation in the same sense, the sight of an Indian in the woods would have been unpleasant and fearsome to most Europeans. Over time, this was developed into hatred. John Harris Junior, the founder of Harrisburg City, addressed the issue of the trouble with native populations in his correspondence with his father's friend and former Mayor of Philadelphia, as was the popular sentiment of the day.

At this period [French and Indian War] also we find an extensive correspondence between John Harris, Conrad Weiser and others and Edward Shippen, complaining of the insecurity of life and property owing to the depredations of the Indians; and their tenor is a continual and just complaint of the outrages committed by the savages, and urgent requests to the authorities for protection and arms, etc.(maley.net)

Native American peoples had been courted by the English since the early 1600's, and were specifically cultivated to be an important strategic economic and military association. As the English had arrived to the New World relitavely late in the game, they gained the benefit of having certain extremely disenfranchised elements to choose from, and work with. The Shawanese, originally the mighty Susquehannok Tribe of John Smith description, were a natural ally for the English hopes of influencing New World trade, as both were rather underdogs, in their respective neighborhoods. John Smith cultivated his relationship with this tribe delicately, having most extravagant relations with the group, starting with his lavish description of them in his Journal entry, partially also, a publicity campaign for his European beneficiaries.

Upon this river inhabit a people called Susquehannock. . . . 60 of those Susquehannocks came to the discoverers [Smith's party] with skins, bows, arrows, targets, beads, swords, and tobacco pipes for presents. Such great and well proportioned men are seldom seen, for they seemed like giants to the English, yea and to the neighbors [other Indians], yet seemed of an honest and simple disposition, with much ado restrained from adoring the discoverers as gods. Those are the most strange people of all those countries, both in language and attire; for their language it may well beseem their proportions, sounding from them, as it were a great voice in a vault, or cave, as an echo. Their attire is the skins of bears and wolves; some have cassocks made of bear heads and skins that a man's neck goes through the skin's neck, and the ears of the bear fastened to his shoulders behind, the nose and teeth hanging down his breast, and at the end of the nose hung a bear's paw; the half sleeves coming to the elbows were the necks of bears and the arms through the mouth with paws hanging at their noses. One had the head of a wolf hanging in a chain for a jewel, his tobacco pipe three quarters of a yard long, prettily carved with a bird, a bear, a deer, or some such device at the great end, sufficient to beat out the brains of a man, with bows and arrows and clubs suitable to their greatness and conditions. These [Indians] are scarce known to Powhatan. They can make near 600 able and mighty men and are palisaded in their towns to defend them from the Massawomeks, their mortal enemies.-Captain John Smith, founder of Jamestown, VA, USA(explorepahistory.com)

Later, this carefully cultivated alliance between the Susquehannoks and the English became more evident during Bacon's Rebellion. England rule immediately exacted most swift retribution for the drunken slaughter of the wrong native tribe by the inhabitants of the former Jamestown vicinity.

Two militia captains (both with a history of aggression toward the Indians) went after the Doeg, but with little discrimination, also killed 14 friendly Susquehannok in the process. A series of retaliatory raids ensued. John Washington took a party from Virginia into Maryland, and with Maryland militia surrounded a Susquehannock fort. Although the Susquehannock held out for six weeks, when six chiefs came out to parley, the colonists attacked and killed them. Seeking to avoid escalation of war with the tribes, Governor Berkeley advocated a policy of containment of the Native American threat. He proposed building several defensive forts along the frontier. Frontier settlers thought the plan both expensive and inadequate. They questioned it as an excuse to raise tax rates.(wikipedia.org)

Governor Berkley was immediately recalled to England, and British troops were sent to Virginia. Seven years after the conflict had subsided, he was reinstated.

It would be easy for the Indians to be coerced, convinced, or bribed to harass the English settlers. harassing John Harris would be politically usefull because he had ties to Philadelphia politics, and was from the same region in England that the Royal family hailed from, Yorkshire. It is also possible that these assailants were simply rogue, and not coerced in the least. The Dutch were the first europeans they had been introduced to, and the Netherlands was a powerhouse of character, devotion, and solid work ethic that still is in evidence in the twenty-first century. The Netherlands persistent attitude fueled the Renaissance single-handedly, and the natives in trade with them in the New York State region, most surely considered themselves Dutch-Indian to some degree. With citizenship, there comes a sense of entitlement. The Indians harassing Harris may have, in their minds, believed they were being patriotic. For whatever reason, this alleged behavior, which most likely took place on a regular basis, served as the background information Britain's Queen Anne needed to confirm her suspicions about Britain's relationship with the Dutch. Their interests were intertwined by marriage; her sister Mary to William of Orange, by religion; a non-Catholic majority, and by economic interests; the Dutch had essentially funded the establishment of John Smith's famed Jamestown Colony (England's first permanent New World occupation), as well as used the British Isles as their seaport, owning the majority of commercial harbors there. England's power structure were losing their identity and autonomy. What was to be the largest empire to ever control the earth's population, was nearly invisible, and had been relegated to nothing more than a collection of island-people, who had leased their land and livelihood to foreign entities.

The Royal Family maintained a sense of duty to their independent rule. Queen Anne needed to determine whether or not she could trust the Dutch, to determine what type of action she would need to take, to enable England to remain competitive in the current world economy. That natives, harassing one or more of England's few footholds on trade in the New World, would have directed Anne to more aggressively distrust England's Dutch partenership. This information came, in part, from the Trading Post at the Indian crossroads, operated by the Englishman, John Harris, Senior. The information was most likely communicated to Anne through trusted associations. These associations were likely long-established through time, and most likely related to geographical proximities. The common factor is Yorkshire.

John Harris Senior developed positive relationships with his Indian trading partners. His Post and Ferry were very successful because of their location at the nort-south, east-west crossroads and river mountain pass, and the direct route to the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. William Penn secured the territory of Pennsylvania as the first Governor of Pennsylvania. He was an outspoken religious nonconformist. He became a conduit for disenfranchised european immigrants. Thus, Pennsylvania became extremely dependent on European manufacturing. Harris' Post became a very strategic location. Pennsylvania became the essential keystone in European trade. Europeans wore beaver hats. John Harris became a secret agent of the British Crown.

The difficult problem of alcohol in the fur trade was never eliminated. In fact, its effect on the Indians increased as the fur-bearing animals were depleted and the Indians began to surrender their lands. Eventually the fur trade moved into the West, beyond the Mississippi. There the beaver was reduced to virtual extinction during the nineteenth century. (ohiohistorycentral.com)

Harris held Pennsylvania solidly in England's grasp. William Penn returned to England. He had given it to itself and it's inhabitant's will, he contested the issue until his body could no longer sustain the weight of constant contention. His heart failed, he became paralyzed, and was bedridden until his death in 1718.

Penn had wished to settle in Philadelphia himself, but financial problems forced him back to England in 1701. His financial advisor, Philip Ford, had cheated him out of thousands of pounds, and he had nearly lost Pennsylvania through Ford's machinations. The next decade of Penn's life was mainly filled with various court cases against Ford. He tried to sell Pennsylvania back to the state, but while the deal was still being discussed, he was hit by a stroke in 1712, after which he was unable to speak or take care of himself. Penn died in 1718 at his home in Ruscombe, near Twyford in Berkshire, and was buried next to his first wife in the cemetery of the Jordans Quaker meeting house at Chalfont St Giles in Buckinghamshire in England. His family retained ownership of the colony of Pennsylvania until the American Revolution.(newworldencyclopedia.org)

Conclusion

The parallels between Harris and Penn are unavoidable. Incapacitated, their posessions, plundered and abused, both having incredibly politically impactful positions, are causes one might have to hazard to make these simple, yet easily overlooked connections.

While Harris was probably accused of giving Indian traders less than the worth of their trade goods, this was so commonplace an accusation, it was more likely meant to be a joke to Harris' contemporaries.

These wicked Whiskey Sellers, when they have once got the Indians in liquor, make them sell their very clothes from their backs. In short, if this practice be continued, we must be inevitably ruined. (ohiohistorycentral.com)

It is far more likely, when put into historical perspective, that Harris was telling the tale which he meant to be retold by his grave under the mulberry tree along the river. The importance of which, can know no bounds.

Robert Harris, a grandson of the Indian trader, stated it as a fact in which he believed. According to a memorandum, made in his lifetime, he stated that a band of Indians came to the house of his grandfather and demanded rum. He saw that they were intoxicated, and he feared mischief if he gave them more rum. They became enraged and tied him to the tree for burning. The alarm was given, and Indians from the opposite side of the river came and after a struggle released him.(maley.net)

Others are buried beneath the tree with him, and it may yield another clue, to the true importance of this man Harris.

It appears from letters of John Harris, written to Governor Morris, that an Indian named Half King, also called Tanacharisson, died at his house on the night of the 1st of October, 1754. Rupp says that "he had his residence at Logstown, on the Ohio, fourteen miles below Pittsburgh, on the opposite side. George Washington visited him in 1753, and desired him to relate some of the particulars of a journey he had shortly before made to the French Commandant at Fort Duquesne." We find this note among the votes of Assembly, 1754: "Dec. 17, Post Meridian, 1754. - The Committee of Accounts reported a balance of L10 15s. 14d. due to the said John Harris for his expenses, and L5 for his trouble, &c., in burying the Half-King and maintaining the sundry Indians that were with him." It may be interesting to know that the Half King was buried near the first John Harris at the foot of the mulberry tree.(maley.net)

The burial place was to ensure that history remembered his story. The story was a Memorial to William Penn.

Background Research for Harris Project

The Iroquois, having absorbed several tribes to constantly combat several different European forces; and different combinations of which, depending on the year; had longstanding trade dependencies: first with the Dutch, who had arrived early to the New World, and then with France. This odd alliance was made easy by the English presence in Canada, as the Iroquois were from that northern and Great Lakes region. After trading with the Dutch for a long while, the Iroquois Nation -as they were sometimes called, began supporting the Dutch -perhaps forced or provoked by them, in a subtle campaign against the British; probably in exchange for usage of formerly-owned lands in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Years earlier, major constituents of the Iroquois Nation, the Lenape, had been driven from there and dissolved. New York being the Lenape's original homeland, during this period called New Amsterdam, was then controlled by the Dutch. The Dutch, of course, supported any reduction of British presence in the New World, as the British sat in the middle of the trade routes from the south and west of the eastern seaboard, and some ways inland, of the North American continent. This placed the British in a middleman position, enabling them to control the trade with New York, and inevitably driving up the cost of the goods en route to European markets.

Upon the start of the French and Indian Wars, the Iroquois, or Five Nations, as they were also known, made a public alliance with the English. This was made easy by the English presence in Canada many years hence, but was essentially determined by Dutch influence. When the Dutch gained control of England; disguised as inner-family religious conflict by the British Monarchy, called, the Glorious Revolution; they also gained control of the southern and western trade routes. As a result, the cost of American goods, especially furs, dropped in Europe. This would on the one hand stimulate the European economy, but on the other, would cost the English their sovereign and independent rule of England. The English, in order to establish this alliance, had apparently convinced the Iroquois Nation that the threat from France was greater than the threat from the Dutch. Since the Indian looked naturally for an opportunity to take vengeance of any European, the British/Dutch forces then had the benefit of all the native armies to fight the French. Though Spain was the overarching Indian concern, the lucrative fur trade with the Dutch in New York harbor seemed to be the immediate incentive for the Indians to fight in Queen Anne's Wars -as the bulk of this conflict is called. This seems to be true for all parties involved. The Rum trade was extremely popular as well, and may have also been a major factor deciding involvement, for all parties mentioned.

The Spanish were feared by the Indian, because Indian traders from the south and north, regularly interacted with vestiges in their former homeland; after having moved south and westward, especially in poor growing seasons; and were well aware of the Spanish dominance on the American continent @ large. Fearing stories of brutality @ the hands of the Spanish, Catholic symbols and clothing styles also became an important element in coagulating the Iroquois Nation and mobilizing them against the French in the northeast region of North America. Catholic nations were easily recognized by native forces because of the severity of the effects of the ongoing Inquisition in Europe. Most troops had @ least one Priest with them and individuals in common, wore as many Catholic symbols as they could afford, to show their loyalty to the Catholic Church. Even down to the length of the sleeve, or shape of an officer's cape, the Native could easily identify a Catholic from a considerable distance.

This public Iroquois alliance, however, did not deter the Iroquois from attacking the English and harassing them in general and regularly; especially as they most probably were continually encouraged by the Dutch to do so. This was done in secret for the most part, the Iroquois used modern-day ( 2012 ) guerrilla warfare -or night raids, as their standard military tactic. The Dutch, constantly threatened by all Europe; especially seen most evident in the Anglo-Dutch Wars consistently raging on the European continent; were, at this point of issue, just prior to 1702 when Queen Anne's reign began, finally victorious against the British, and had recently gained control of English trade. This was accomplished by the Glorious Revolution, which removed the recently-late-convert-Catholic, King James II, and placed King William of the Netherlands, and Queen Mary, James' daughter, on the throne of England.

The English were made aware of this conflict with the Dutch, in spite of the royal combination of William and Mary. The assumed, the intended, and expected, public cooperation between the two European powers did not disguise, apparently, this regular guerrilla behavior of the Iroquois. This knowledge helped Queen Anne quickly resolve the Dutch situation in England with her brother-in-law William, precisely because of that knowledge of the Iroquois conduct, passed on from the New World -possibly through non-conformist religious circles in Yorkshire, England.

The English also defended themselves against the Iroquois peacefully, without the destruction of their public alliance with the Indian nation, and maintained their relationship with the Dutch against the French and Spanish, precisely because of their good relations with the vestige tribes like the Shawanese, in spite of great difficulty caused by the radical behavior of Englishmen Nathanial Bacon and Governor William Berkeley, in Jamestown, Virginia. Bacon's Rebellion, like the John Harris event, also involved alcohol as the inciting influence -not the English Rum from Boston however; the French Brandy was used to lubricate Bacon's Rebellion.

The event which is @ this point of argument, took place along the Susquehanna River in what was to become Harrisburg, a city named in memorial of that bond, carefully cultivated with the friendly Shawanese Indian Tribe. Shawanese was the term referring to a Central Pennsylvanian native tribe, originally met by John Smith, and referred to as the Susquehannock Tribe, shortly after he had successfully re-founded the colony of Jamestown. The Susquehannock had first traded with the Dutch as the Iroquois had, and as a result, had been killed off almost entirely, by smallpox. The French then began influencing the trade routes in that region and the surviving group became known as the Shawanese. They had most likely absorbed some Lenape and other wounded, fractionate tribes, as the Iroquois had, before they were pushed to Ohio. They began to be called the Shawnee in Ohio, before the new American government, much later, relocated most to reservations in Oklahoma. The Shawanese had been long-time enemies of the Iroquois, even though they both spoke a similar Algonquin-dialect. Harrisburg lies within that tract of land acquired by William Penn, from the previously mentioned Lenape native group, some time after they had been driven from New York by the Dutch, and before they ceased to be referred to as a major influence in the north east of the North American continent. This positive relationship with the Shawanese tribe, was carefully maintained by Englishmen like John Harris. John Harris had moved from Philadelphia, where he laid roads in the young city, to what was to become Harrisburg, and ran a ferry-crossing and trading outpost on the opposite side of the Susquehanna River from the Shawanese. This was slightly inland, and directly in the path, of the Indian trade route along the east coast of North America, between the Dutch in the north, and the furs coming up from the south and west, in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania and Ohio were a hotly contested region by the Europeans, as it had been for centuries by the Indians. Even though all the native Indian tribes still favored the Ohio River Valley as hunting grounds, the beaver and other fur-animals had been vastly depleted from the region and the majority of any massive quantities of fur came from further away and inland. The Iroquois had claimed this region from the Shawanese with the Europeans' help by this time, even though most remaining Indians used it as a hunting ground.

It is easy therefore, to think of the Iroquois as the agressors in the John Harris event. One might imagine then, after a miserable hunting party, these Iroquois, made more and more unsuccessful because of the voracious European appetite for furs; with memories of their conquered homeland, paid and goaded by those same Dutch neighbors to venture a little ways down the Susquehanna to the south, in hopes of driving the English out by harassment and provoking a fight with their long-time enemies, the Shawanese. The Indian were often used to induce conflict, willing participants or not, for the Europeans; such as in the Boston Tea Party, when white terrorists dressed as Indians to attack British trade goods. So these Iroquois came willingly or not, to trade; what for them must have been a miserable bounty; for what they would inevitably determine; regardless of the fair-market-value, or quality of payment in exchange; to be far less than their perceived worth -that fur they had brought to trade for Rum. It would be then only another short step to the think of the Indians becoming enraged after drinking Rum. Tired, resentful, and looking for a fight, these bullying Iroquois, wanting to humiliate this white shop-keep, tied him to a tree and taunting his Indian protectors, easily in sight across the river, they started a fire beneath him. John Harris greatly played up the story of his potential burning @ the hands of these Iroquois -even going as far as being buried beneath the very Mulberry tree, upon that very spot, so as to re-enforce both the longstanding relationship with the Shawanese, and also to downplay Bacon's Rebellion in favor of John Smith's original trade with the Susquehannok peoples. This legend was an effective effort by the English to control the fur trade route and, "divide their forces" to the Indian perception. The English became both ally and enemy, a tactic used often by the Indian, especially the Iroquois from the north, forced by their dependency on the Dutch, and resentment of all Europeans. This strange guerrilla tactic was adopted, almost immediately by the colonialists during the American Revolutionary Period, without it, they could not have gained freedom from Britian.

It is worth mentioning again, the obvious relevance of both John Harris and Queen Anne, being originally from Yorkshire, England. Queen Anne ruled England and held great influence in France, and Italy, as well as the Netherlands. Pope Clement XI; who had grown up near Tuscany as a wealthy landowner in Urbino, in northern Italy; had developed an unexpected alliance with Queen Anne against Spain and France in The War of Spanish Succession 1701-1714. This was merely four years before the Harris' event, said to have taken place in about 1718. This war in Europe was fought to prevent Philip V from obtaining the Spanish throne. This was an attempt by France of a union and absorption of Spain by France's Louis XIV by Royal appointment of Philip V. Philip V was the son of the Dauphin and the same family as Louis XIV. Spain, which had become an increasing threat to Papal territory as a result of their ruthless behavior in the New World and absorption of wealth from there, was well on their way to continuing expansion eastward, and was an immediate threat to the Papal territory, all of Europe, as well as the Pope's own family in Albania; and moreso if they had combined with France. The Iroquois were obviously unaware of the role of the Catholic church as an ally against the French in European conflicts of the day, and neither they nor the British seemed to let their guard down against the 'papists' ( the French and Spanish in the New World ), as they were insultingly referred to in the colonial outposts and by the Quaker leadership in Philadelphia. Britain had recently removed Catholic rule from it's shoulders in the Glorious Revolution,( 1688 ), and the resulting removal of James II, ( who was both Queen Anne and Queen Mary's father ). With the predictable death of all twenty or so of Mary's children ( most in the womb, and others near a decade alive ), her own death by smallpox infection in 1694, and William III's death on March 8, 1702, Queen Anne rid England of both Dutch rule, and Catholic influence, while obtaining control of Dutch trade in the New World, in one fell swoop, on April 23rd, 1702. The Iroquois however, were simply aware that the Spanish and French were Catholic because of their manner of dress, Priests that traveled with them, and symbols worn by the faithful. Therefore, the Catholic was the greatest threat to them. They may have otherwise been less willing to accept the Dutch and English, and the outcome of Queen Anne's Wars may have been quite different without their help in the fight. The severity of the Catholic Inquisition, in spite of the Pope's siding with the NonConformists against the Catholic forces of France and Spain, therefore prevented those forces from dominating, or even uniting in common goal. As a result, "An Attempt to Burn John Harris", becomes extremely important to the balance of power in Europe. John Harris insisted on being buried under that mulberry tree to mark an extremely important occasion in history. He sacrificed himself in death, to be a martyr in the grave, for English goodwill and purpose, to ensure that memory not be simply a myth or silly story, but to mark a true event that secured English power in North America. His family was not impressed and fought his decision to be buried, not in a proper cemetery, but under a tree, along the river. After his death, for years successive generations of his family tried to dig him up and move him.

Thus, the efforts of a mere ferry-crossing, patiently and quietly maintained by John Harris, was of extreme importance to world commerce @ the time of his alleged harassment in 1718. This event, involving a few natives and some Rum, determined the balance of power for all of Europe in the 18th century. The information maintained ( evidence against the fraudulent Iroquois and Dutch alliance ), and passed along through channels of trust of commonality ( namely the NonConformist religious sect and Yorkshire birthrights ), enabled the English rulers to accurately identify enemies and threats to the security of modern economic structure and commerce. If this scuffle for 'a quick dizzy' had not taken place, the American Revolution would not have been possible. It becomes obvious, that John Harris was in fact an important political agent when viewed from this perspective, and that his birth in Yorkshire was no coincidence or irrelevancy. That an Indian faction, which was probably Iroquois, allegedly stopped to harass John Harris was not an isolated event, or even an unlikely mythical retelling. The significance of his being buried @ the very spot also, from this same perspective, is discovered, a much more internationally-politically significant event, and much less a trite monument to subjective, singular colonial frontier life experience and it's hazards, than has previously been awarded to it. This event is therefore, one of the most important memorials in the formation of the United States of America in the pre-Revolutionary period.

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, October 3, 1753, Iroquois Confederacy to the Governor of Pennsylvania:

"Your Traders now bring scarce anything but Rum and Flour; they bring little powder and lead, or other valuable goods. The Rum ruins us. We beg you would prevent its coming such quantities by regulating the Traders. We never understood the Trade was to be for Whiskey and Flour. We desire it may be forbidden, and none sold in the Indian Country; but if the Indians will have any they may go among the inhabitants and deal with them for it. When these Whiskey Traders come, They bring thirty or forty kegs and put them down before us and make us drink, and get all the skins that should go to pay the debts we have contracted for goods bought of the Fair Traders; by this means we not only ruin ourselves but them too. These wicked Whiskey Sellers, when they have once got the Indians in liquor, make them sell their very clothes from their backs. In short, if this practice be continued, we must be inevitably ruined."

Remake of Harrisburg Classic Underway

(blog entry date:Wednesday, April 7, 2010)

Research has begun in a major studio undertaking. Molloy will remake the famous "An Attempt to Burn John Harris" by the artist William S. Reeder in about 1840. The painting was acquired by the State Museum of Pennsylvania in 1977 and currently hangs in the Governor's Mansion in Harrisburg, PA, USA.

“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”

—Chief Tecumseh, Shawnee Nation, protectors and saviors of the life of John Harris Sr., founder of Harrisburg.