Hockendauqua - PLAQUE
Allen Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
HOCKENDAUQUA INDIAN TOWN of the noted Chiefs LAPPAWINZO and TISHCOHAN who treated with the Penn proprietors of Pennsylvania, in the famous Walking Purchase, was located in the present Northampton upon the east bank of the Lehigh River three fourths of a mile to the northwest of this marker. The fleet-footed youth EDWARRD MARSHALL and his associates of the walk of a day and a half September 19-20, 1737 crossed Hokendauqua creek a half mile below this point on the stream and slept the first night in the woods a half mile from the Indian Town. The survey line of the purchase was run later in 1737 1 3/10 miles to the east.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In the tangled early history of Penn's Woods, this ground sat beside an Lenape (Delaware) town near the Lehigh River, home to leaders the colonists knew as Lappawinzo and Tishcohan. Their names are bound to the notorious Walking Purchase of 1737, when Pennsylvania's proprietors used a decades-old, dubiously drawn deed to claim land measured by a day-and-a-half's walk. The colony hired fast, trained walkers like Edward Marshall, who strode far beyond what any ordinary traveler could cover, extending the boundary and stripping the Lenape of vast holdings.
Why it matters
The Walking Purchase became a byword for how treaty and paper could be turned against Native nations, poisoning relations that later flared into frontier war.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early 1700s the Lehigh Valley belonged, in every meaningful sense, to the Lenape. Along the river the colonists came to call the Lehigh stood Native towns where families lived, farmed, hunted, and governed themselves under their own leaders. This was Penn's Woods only on English paper; on the ground it was a living Lenape landscape.
By the 1730s that landscape was under mounting pressure. William Penn's heirs, now running the colony, were pushing settlement northward and looking for legal footing to open the valley to colonists. The Lenape towns of the Lehigh sat squarely in the path of that ambition, close enough to the advancing frontier to feel its weight.
Hockendauqua was one such town, set on the east bank of the Lehigh River. Its people and their leaders would find themselves drawn into a transaction that has echoed through American memory ever since — one built not on open conquest but on a decades-old, dubiously drawn deed and a colony's determination to enforce it.
People & events
This ground sat beside Hockendauqua Indian Town, home to the noted chiefs the colonists knew as Lappawinzo and Tishcohan. These were men of standing, leaders who treated with the Penn proprietors and whose names became bound to the famous Walking Purchase. To meet their story is to meet the Lenape not as a faceless people but as named leaders negotiating for their homeland.
The event that swept over them unfolded on September 19 and 20, 1737. The colony sent out fast, trained walkers to measure land by a day-and-a-half's travel, and the marker records how that walk brushed past this place. Edward Marshall and his associates crossed Hockendauqua Creek a half mile below this point and slept the first night in the woods, a half mile from the Indian town itself. The walkers moved with a speed meant to stretch the boundary as far as legs could carry it.
What began as a walk was finished with a survey. Later in 1737 the purchase line was run more than a mile to the east, fixing on the map a claim that the Lenape had never imagined agreeing to. For Lappawinzo, Tishcohan, and their people, the result was the loss of vast holdings — including the country around their own town.
Its place in the American story
Hockendauqua's story is inseparable from the Walking Purchase, which became a byword for a hard truth in American history: that treaty and paper could be turned into weapons against Native nations. Here the abstract injustice has an address and human faces — a town by the river, and two named chiefs whose trust was spent.
The episode marked a turning point in the mid-Atlantic. Pennsylvania had prided itself on fair dealing, and the manner of this land grab — leaning on an old, questionable deed and a specially trained walk — did lasting damage to relations between the colony and the Lenape. Broken faith here helped poison the wider frontier.
Those poisoned relations mattered nationally. The resentment seeded by transactions like this one fed into the frontier conflicts that would later engulf the region. Remembering Hockendauqua is remembering that the American story includes not only settlement and growth but the displacement of the people who were already home.
If you visit
Come to this spot in Allen Township with the river in mind. The marker points you toward the east bank of the Lehigh, three-quarters of a mile to the northwest, where Hockendauqua Indian Town once stood. You won't see the town, but knowing its direction turns the landscape into something more than scenery — it becomes the site of a living community that history displaced.
Let the small distances in the story orient you: the creek crossing a half mile below, the walkers' camp a half mile from the town, the survey line more than a mile east. Standing here and tracing those bearings, you can almost feel the geometry of the Walking Purchase closing in around a people's home.
This marker rewards a slower, more reflective visit, and it links naturally with nearby markers that follow the 1737 walk through Northampton County. Read them together and the valley reveals its deeper layer — not just farms and roads, but the remembered ground of the Lenape and the leaders who spoke for them.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Lappawinzo
- · Tishcohan
- · Edward Marshall
Related events
- · Walking Purchase
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Walking Purchase
Allen Township, PA · est. 1947
In September 1737, colonial officials invoked a disputed deed to claim as much land as a man could walk in a day and a half, and the swift Edward Marshall and his companions covered a startling distance well beyond what the Lenape had expected. Their route carried them past this point, across Hokendauqua Creek, and near a Native town, seizing far more territory than the Lenape believed they had agreed to surrender. The so-called Walking Purchase became infamous as a symbol of colonial deception.
Walking Purchase
Allen Township, PA · est. 1948
In 1737 Pennsylvania's proprietors invoked a supposed 1686 deed that promised land stretching as far as a man could walk in a day and a half. Rather than an honest stroll, Thomas Penn hired trained runners and cleared paths to push the boundary to its farthest possible limit, seizing far more Lenape land than the tribe expected. In doing so he abandoned the fairer dealings of his father, William Penn, and poisoned relations between the colony and its Native neighbors.
The Famous Indian Walk - PLAQUE
Allen Township, PA · est. 1925
This marker follows the route of the 1737 "Walking Purchase," the day-and-a-half walk from Wrightstown that Pennsylvania's proprietors used to lay claim to a vast swath of Lenape land. Edward Marshall and his fellow walkers pressed nearly to present Mauch Chunk, passing Hockendauqua Indian Town on the way; a formal survey line was run afterward by Surveyor General Benjamin Eastburn. The lands taken stretched far beyond anything the Delaware believed they had agreed to.
Heckewelder House
Bethlehem, PA · est. 1953
This 1810 house recalls John Heckewelder, the Moravian missionary who spent decades among Native peoples on the frontier as a preacher, interpreter, and keen observer of their lives. His written works on American Indian languages and customs became important early sources, drawn on by scholars and even by novelists shaping the nation's image of the frontier. In an age of mounting conflict and displacement, Heckewelder tried to bridge two worlds through faith and the written word.