Kuskuskies on the Beaver

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Mahoning, on the Big Beaver, and others still farther down, between that and Moravia. But the evidence points strongly to the site of Eden-burg as the location of this once famous Indian town.   It is at least certain there was a village where Edenburg stands, which was divided into two parts, one a short distance farther up the river than the other. ... In the vicinity have been picked up gun-flints, oxidized bullets, flattened and battered, old gun-locks and gun-barrels, bayonets, etc. . . . Many bones have also been found.   Near the Town was a burial ground, containing, among other relics, an interesting mound, originally some fifty feet in circumference, and about six feet high.   This mound was examined some years since, and found to contain several layers of human skeletons; flag-stones were placed in regular order around the bodies, and the whole covered with earth.   Nearby were quite a large number of bodies, buried separately.   Large numbers of flint chips and arrow-heads have been picked up in the vicinity.   The location of the village was on the south side of the Mahoning, the principal part being below the present village of Edenburg, and close to the river. ... In 1770, at the request of Pakanke, the Moravians removed from their settlement on the Allegheny River, and settled on the Big Beaver, five miles below Newcastle, near the present site of Moravia Station." DeSchweinitz, in his Life and Times of David Zeisberger states that in 1770, old Kaskaskunk (of the Delawares) was at the confluence of the Shenango and Mahoning, which form the Beaver; while New Kaskaskunk stood near, or perhaps on, the site of Newcastle, at the mouth of the Neshannock.   In Mathews's History of Butler County the site of Cushcushkunk, or Koshkoshkung, is fixed as at Newport, Lawrence County (about two miles below Moravia).

Frederick Post, in his Journal for August 14 and 17, 1758, writes of this place at that time (then occupied by the Delawares): "Cush-cushking is divided into four towns, each at a distance from the others, and the whole consists of about ninety houses and two hundred able warriors .... The Frenchmen came and would speak with me; there were then fifteen of them building houses for the Indians; the captain is gone with fifteen to another town." In his Journal, under date of November 16, 1758, Post writes: "Went down a long valley [McKee Run Valley?] to Beaver Creek, through old Kushkushking, a large spot of land, about three miles long." This was the extensive bottom lying in what is now Taylor Township, Lawrence County, on the east side of the Beaver, between the present East Moravia and Newcastle Junction. Anyone who has seen the wide, flat valley along the Tuscarawas River in Coshocton County, Ohio, or the "Great Plain called Maguck," (Pickaway Plains) on the Scioto, in Pickaway County, Ohio, both formerly most populous centres of the Indian races in that State, will readily under-