Indian problems

 I have been thinking about the fact that my Elliot family moved to NC in 1763.  I am working on the migration path taken by John and Sarah Elliott that put them on the Pennsylvania frontier by the years between 1722 and 1763.  And the idea started nagging in the back of my head that the reason for the move to NC was Indian problems.  

I am quite sure that my Moore family moved from Berks County, PA to NC because of Indian troubles.  And I know that Phil Hawkins' Hawkins family moved from a more western part of Virginia to Louden County, Virginia and then on to SC because of Indian troubles.

So I was intrigued to know what was happening in the Susquehanna valley and the land to the west of the Susquehanna in the time period in which the Elliotts were living there.  And my gut feeling was right.  There were troubles.  I am still working on where John and Sarah Elliott's family were living from 1722 to 1763, so skip to the post below to see this work in progress.  But what I do know is that when their son's, Jacob and Abraham, moved their families to NC in 1763, they took certificates from Warrington Monthly Meeting to their new home New Garden Monthly Meeting in NC. 

When Sarah Elliott Farmer's daughter Phebe married Alexander Frazier, Sarah is said to be "of Manchester".  Manchester is in York County, PA.  It is just west of the Susquehanna River and just north of the town of York and  southeast of Newberrytown.  It is 13 miles between Newberrytown and Manchester.

The below answers a lot of questions for me.

Newberry Meeting, in Newberrytown, York County, was informally known as Redlands. Friends in Manchester and Newberry Townships, on the "west side of the Susquehanna," obtained permission from Sadsbury Monthly Meeting to hold a meeting for worship in 1738. Newberry Preparative Meeting became a part of the Warrington Monthly Meeting when the latter was set off in 1747..... 

http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~paxson/genealogy/graphics-pax/mtghse.html

So almost certainly, Sarah and John Farmer were a part of the Newberrytown preparatory meeting (also called Redlands) that had first been under Sadsbury....but by 1747 was under Warrington Monthly Meeting.  So they would not have had to transfer their membership from Sadsbury to Warrington...it would have happened automatically in 1747.  I can not remember if John Farmer also took a certificate with him to NC or only Sarah....I will check this at a later time.

So here is a better map of York county where Sarah and John farmer were living after it was formed in 1749.  There home was in Lancaster County in 1748 when daughters Phebe and Sarah were married in 1748.  You can see from the map below that the part of Lancaster west of the Susquehanna became York.

I found a website with interesting information while googling about the Indian troubles.   I didn't want to loose this thought from this website  ....so here it is even though it is actually about earlier generations rather than Indian troubles:

Before Pennsylvania in 1655-1681, the main Quaker settlements were in New England (i.e., Rhode Island), New Amsterdam (i.e., New York), Long Island, Maryland, Virginia, and the West Indies. In 1675-1682, records from southern NJ, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, should also be examined -- in 1674 a group of Quaker investors, including Penn, bought a stake in the New Jersey colony, and divided it into East Jersey and West Jersey. West Jersey became the first Quaker colony in America, but it eventually went bankrupt and was rejoined to East Jersey in 1702 to form a royal colony. 

Ward, Matthew. Breaking the Backcountry: The Seven Years’ War in Virginia and Pennsylvania, 1754-1765. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004.

https://haygenealogy.com/hay/quaker/quaker-PA.html

 In 1763, renewed hostilities sparked by military occupation and land-grabbing broke out in western Pennsylvania. Pontiac’s War (1763-65) plunged the Pennsylvania frontier into another wave of violence, including an Indian siege at Fort Pitt (the British post built on the site of the old Fort Duquesne), during which British officers discussed using smallpox as a biological weapon against the enemy. In Lancaster County, a group of colonial vigilantes known as the Paxton Boys murdered the Native population of Conestoga Indian Town, which had been allied with the Pennsylvania government since 1701. The Paxton Boys then marched on Philadelphia, threatening to kill Indians from the Moravian missions who had sought refuge there, but intervention by Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) and other city leaders prevented further violence.

https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/native-american-pennsylvania-relations-1754-89-2/

Remember that the Quakers did not believe in any sort of violence.  They did not want to fight with the Indians!  Not even to save their land.  And what I know is that my Jacob Elliott was a devout Quaker.  He proved it many times after the move to NC.  He refused to pay taxes to support the Revolutionary War.  He was tied to a tree and threatened with death if he didn't join the forces to fight in the Revolution. ....and Chose death to fighting!  It makes sense that our Elliott/Farmer family group chose to migrate to a safer location.  One of John and Sarah's children "got the farm" and remained in York County where he died in 1803.

There is an easy to read account of what was going on in the Pennsylvania outlying areas during the French and Indian War in Chapter 4 of Judith Ridner's book:  The Scots Irish of Early Pennsylvania A Varied People. It is in my library.