'Enormous' Native American Longhouse, Upcoming Archaeology Dig Topic of NCC8 Meeting

This circa-1964 photograph shows the excavators and guests at the Montoursville Boro site. Wooden stake markers are placed in many of the postmolds to outline the footprint of the Proto-Iroquoian longhouse. Photo courtesy of the Hutchinson Family.

 Local avocational archaeologists are gearing up for a new season in the field, returning to and exploring significant Indian village sites near the Loyalsock Creek and the West Branch of the Susquehanna River.

Northcentral Chapter No. 8 of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology will host its March meeting at 6 p.m. Monday, March 2 at the Taber Museum, 858 W. Fourth St. 

At the meeting, President Tank Baird will present a slideshow tracing the chapter’s recent work at the Glunk Site (36LY0345), a Woodlands-period Native American site, and explore the Montoursville Boro Site (36LY0034), an enormous Native American longhouse excavated in 1963-64 by local amateur archaeologists Bill Hutchinson, Bob Higgins and Clark Kahler.

The public is encouraged to attend and learn more about the society's endeavors, and there will be artifacts from the current archaeology dig on display.

The Plum Tree Massacre and the Iroquois War on Colonial Expansion

Portrait of Joseph Brant,
painted while visiting Englandat age 33 by George Romney.

By Tank Baird

The date was June 10, 1778.  In the East, the Revolutionary War raged and Colonial forces under Gen. George Washington were seeing key victories producing a turning point in the conflict. People living in present-day Lycoming County, also were part of that war. They were fighting for their lives against an enemy and ally of the British, whose very plan of attack included ambushes and lightning raids designed to ignite as much terror as possible. Also according to plan, these attacks were creating a second front to drain men and material from Washington's fight.

The land that would later include Williamsport had only one small settlement at Jaysburg (the modern Newberry section). But there was a problem with that location, and indeed any farms, forts and settlements west of Lycoming Creek, including those at the future towns of Jersey Shore and Lock Haven. They were on Iroquois land.