White Peter

John Peter Klingensmith

 In 1769, Philip Klingensmith established Fort Klingensmith, a defense against marauding Indians  at what is now  Jeannette, Penna., not far from the site of British Col. Bouquet's battle at Bushy Run in 1763,  near present day Greensburg.   Philip descended from a family that came to America in 1670 fleeing religious persecution from what is now Germany.   He was one of the first white settlers to Westmoreland County, where he farmed and hunted to provide for his family.
In 1781, during the American Revolution, the Seneca Indians who sided with the British, attacked Fort Klingensmith killing Philip, as well as about twenty-five other settlers. Philip's sons Casper, 16,  and John Peter, 8, were taken by the Indians.  Casper managed to escape and return home, but John Peter, due to his young age, did not.  John Peter was taken to an area of upstate New York where he was raised by the Indians as an Iroqouis warrior.  John Peter became proficient at hunting, fishing, tracking and other native skills.  John Peter was eventually adopted into the Indian community, and for all intents and purposes was totally Indian.  John Peter was a member of the Oneida Nation, one of the Six Nations of the Iroqouis Confederation loyal to the British.  However, during the American Revolution, it was the Oneida who broke the "covenant chain" of the Iroqouis Confederation to bring much needed food to General George Washington's troops at the very cold winter encampment at Valley Forge (the Oneida are snubbed to this day by the rest of the Iroqouis for this deed).

At seventeen years of age, John Peter married a Seneca woman named "Molly" (her white name).
By the time he was in his mid twenties, John Peter was tribal chief of the Oneida, a distinction shared by no other white man to this date.   He was delegate to the Iroqouis Council and a staunch advocate of peace.  He was given the name "Good Peter" because of his wise leadership. 

During the War of 1812, Peter helped to defend Canada from the invasion of the United States.
He helped to repel the American forces. His white family in western Penna., thinking him long dead, found out about his deeds in the War of 1812, and invited him to return to his home area to live among relatives.

Questioned by his white relatives as to whether he was really Peter Klingensmith, he proved to his brothers and sisters that he indeed was John Peter, by pointing out many things that he remembered as a youth prior to his capture.  By this time, Peter was totally Indian in appearance and in the manner in which he strode and conducted himself.  He had trouble remembering his family's language, which was a combination of German and English.  His head was shaved with only a scalplock in the back, and his earlobes had been cut and stretched in the Indian manner in order to be decorated with silver jewelry.  All facial hair had been removed. His clothing was that of the Indians, as was his Seneca wife's clothing. They wrapped themselves in cloth trade blankets and wore some regalia made from trade cloth. Other clothing was traditional deer and elk hide leather garments.

Peter farmed near present Delmont for a few years, but his relatives kept insisting that he rid himself of his Seneca wife, which he refused to do.   After much hassle over his wife's Seneca heritage, he and his wife moved back to Canada, where they resided for many years.  Peter died in 1855 at the age of 82, and he and his wife are buried in Ontario.

White Peter, or "Good Peter", is my 4x great-grandfather, and his Seneca wife "Molly Indian", of course, is my 4x great-grandmother. I honor both of them.  I also share heritage of the Shawnee, which is the tribal heritage of my mother.  Shawnee territory was all of western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio.
      
We hold our annual "Klingensmith" family reunions between Bushy Run and Historic Hannastown.

The names of many of the first white settlers to western Penna., as well as those of Indian descendants of White Peter and other tribes, now appear on the family rolls.  The descendants of those, white settlers and Indian, who fought the sixty years (1754-1814) of bloody frontier warfare so long ago, are now all one family. 




By: Ken "Lonewolf" Long / Shawnee-White Madoc-Seneca-Oneida - Pictured Above