Ancestor stories. (Read 1,353 times)

In the 1750’s, when the first white settler came to the upper Delaware Valley region known as Cushetunk, they found deep, virgin, forest of white pine, many towering hundreds of feet into the clear atmosphere. The river itself was cleaner, deeper and faster running than today’s Delaware. Not a soul, not even the Lenape Indians who used it as their hunting grounds, lived there the year round.
(Stories of the Raftsmen: Town of Delaware Bicentennial Commission, 1975-1976)

Daniel Skinner (my great, great, grandfather on my grandma’s side, Sarah Skinner Price) came to the Upper Delaware Valley along with his farther Joseph Skinner to take possession of the valley under a grant of the provincial government of Connecticut. Joseph was a proprietor in the Delaware Company. The family settled on a long stretch of lowland boarding the river on the Pennsylvania side. Latter years Daniel gave to these lowlands the name of Tammany Flats, in honor of St. Tammany the celebrated Indian Chief of the Lenape tribe.

On the river below Cushetunk is a waterfall that was named after the Skinner Family. Skinners Falls. Daniel Skinner later became known as the Lord High Admiral of the Delaware for his rafting of large white pine logs down the Delaware River to Philadelphia for construction of sailing ships. He is given credit for floating the first timber raft down the river and over Skinners Falls. This task was done in 1764. The long tall logs made excellent sail masts.

In the mid 1750’s Joseph Skinner journeyed from home on business concerning the title to his lands and was never again seen alive. Later his remains were found within two miles of his homestead, on the bank of a small stream. A prayer book found in one of his pockets had his name written in it. He had been shot. It was believe he might have met death at the hands of a band of Indians .
Sometime in November 1762 a party of Indians went to kill or drive the settlers out of the Delaware Valley. They were discovered by two of Skinners sons and the settlers banded together and sent for reinforcements. The Indians were driven off but not before two settlers were shot and Killed.