Behind the Marker
The influx of Scots-Irish settlers into the Pennsylvania backcountry in the mid-eighteenth century caused considerable tension with local Indians. In 1749 Iroquois chiefs meeting with Pennsylvania officials complained that trespassers were settling on land reserved for the Delaware and Shawnee Indians along the Juniata River and its tributary creeks.

The Penn family, which hoped to profit from the eventual sale of these lands, was no more anxious to see squatters in this region than the Indians were. Therefore, in May 1750 the governor dispatched Indian agents Richard Peters and Conrad Weiser to evict the settlers there. Peters and Weiser recruited the help of fur trader George Croghan and several local magistrates before crossing the Susquehanna River at Harris's Ferry (modern Harrisburg). After joining with some local Iroquois, they crossed the Tuscarora Mountains and spent several days confronting the trespassers in their small communities, forcibly evicting some and burning their homes. One such confrontation gave the town of Burnt Cabins its name.

Some of the settlers confronted by Peters and Weiser objected to their treatment because the Penn family had encouraged them to settle there years earlier to assert Pennsylvania's possession of territory claimed by Maryland. Peters allowed them to stay until he received further instruction from the governor. Otherwise, the burning of the trespassers' cabins did little to forestall the tide of Scots-Irish emigrants crossing the Susquehanna. Just five months after their expedition across the Tuscarora Mountains, Peters wrote to Weiser, "The People over the Hills are combin'd against the Government, [and] are putting in new Cropps and bid us Defiance."