of the war.” As however, each motion was supported by the delegates from the interested State alone and opposed by all the others, the report of the committee was finally adopted.[1]
Atlee served as Lieutenant of Lancaster county, a position of much labor and responsibility, in 1780; and in 1783 was elected a member for that county of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania. On the 23d of February, 1784, he, William Maclay, and Francis Johnston were appointed commissioners to treat with the Indians for the unpurchased lands within the limits of the State.
They met the chiefs of the Six Nations at Fort Stanwix, N. Y. (Rome), on the 24th of October, and these transactions, which secured to Pennsylvania the title to land now forming fourteen entire counties and portions of others, are worthy of a brief reproduction. Atlee, on behalf of the commissioners, said to the Indians, that the young men who were now numerous required more territory, and that they, according to the customs of their forefathers, had come to purchase, so that the settlements might be made in peace; that for this purpose they had brought a valuable and suitable cargo as a compensation, but that since the lands were remote a great consideration ought not to be expected. The Indians took a day to deliberate, and replied through a chief of the Senecas that it was not their wish to part with so much of their hunting-grounds, and they pointed out a line which they hoped would prove satisfactory.
This proposition the commissioners rejected, adding that the privilege of hunting might be retained, and that they had an assortment of goods of the first quality
- ↑ Journals of Congress.
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