Potter County History

Who were the first "white" men in Potter County?

"The first white man known to have been in this area was Bishop David Zeisberger, the Moravian missionary, who, in 1767, conducted his Delaware Indian converts from Friedenshuetten, present Wyalusing, Bradford County, to near the present site of Punxsutawney, Jefferson County. Surveys running the boundary line between New York and Pennsylvania, started their work in 1776, but the line was not determined until 1786-87. Colonel Daniel Brodhead let his Pennsylvania regiment through the county following the Sullivan campaign into the county of the Six Nations in 1779. In 1788, New Englanders, under General Rufus Putnam, traveled up the West Branch of the Susquehanna, then into the Simmemahoning, in canoes, thence trekked over the Allegheny Divide at Keating Summit on their way to settle at Marietta, Ohio."

Reference: Chronicles of Central Pennsylvania, by Frederic A. Godcharles, Lewis Historical Publishing Company, Inc., 1944, Vol. VII, page 307. [Since this reference has lots of typographical errors, be careful using it. Dan]


Page maintained by Dan Hyde, hyde at bucknell.edu Last update March 17, 1997

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Daniel C. Hyde



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