A Bucks County man was blamed for betraying the Lenape, but was Walking Purchase his fault?

Imagine entering a walk-a-thon to see who can go farthest in 18 hours. Entrants receive $750. The winner gets a 500-acre Bucks County estate. You win but receive no reward. Worse, you become a hunted man. Your pregnant wife and son are murdered. Your teenage daughter is shot.

As improbable as this might seem, meet Edward Marshall. If he could be reincarnated, he likely would tell his story as follows to me and my grandson Dashiell:

“I was born a Quaker in 1715 in Philadelphia. I was big for my age with strong bones. I liked to run and never tired. I spent much of my youth around Newtown. When I was a teen, I moved to Tinicum and married Elizabeth Oberfeldt. I made a living hunting and selling pelts. I had no idea William Penn’s sons had run up debts they couldn’t pay. Thomas Penn who governed Pennsylvania dreamed up taking the Lehigh Valley from the Lenape Indians so his family could sell it. But first he had to convince the tribe that 50 years earlier papa Penn signed a treaty and paid the Lenape for land above Wrightstown. The western border was to be set by a day-and-a-half walk that never happened.

“Tom Penn showed Lenape chiefs an unsigned copy of the treaty. It looked fake. None recalled any such deal. Penn calmed them into believing the purchase would be only those lands below Tohickon Creek some 15 miles from Wrightstown, not the Lehigh Valley cherished by the tribe. Of course I wasn’t party to any of this.

“The Penns chose three runners -- me, Newtown’s James Yates and Bethlehem’s Solomon Jennings. We each got 5 pounds in English sterling, about $750 in your money. Whoever traveled farthest was promised 500 acres in Bucks. What the Indians didn’t realize is a clear footpath had been blazed for us through woodlands far beyond Tohickon Creek.

Postcard from the edge of time: Post card arrives in Levittown 64 years after being sent from Miami Beach

Is mismarked FDR dime worth big money? Unveiling the true value of rare 1982 dimes going around in Bucks County

“Our walk began at 6 a.m. on Sept. 19, 1737, at Wrightstown’s Quaker meetinghouse. The Penn team and Indians followed. The county sheriff was timekeeper. I traveled light wearing flexible moccasins. The Penns pushed us and provided rum, sugar and lime juice to speed us along. We seldom stopped. Indians complained we were running. They were ignored. The rum got to Jennings. He dropped out after 10 miles. By 6 p.m., Yates and I had crossed the Lehigh River, angering the Indians. We camped and resumed the walk at 8 a.m. It was rainy. Jennings got hurt jumping a creek and dropped out. I kept going. At 2 p.m. the sheriff called a halt. I collapsed beside a chestnut tree in today’s city of Jim Thorpe. I had gone 66 miles in 18 hours.

“Penn surveyors squared off the northern border of the purchase from the tree to the upper Delaware River near the New York border. That added 1,500 square miles to Bucks including the Lehigh Valley which the Penns began selling. The Lenape sued but lost.

“Fifteen years after the walk, I relocated my family near Stroudsburg. The forced removal of Indians from the Walking Purchase infuriated them. I became their main target. Sixteen warriors raided my home when I was away chopping wood on May 25, 1757.  They scalped, kidnapped and killed my pregnant wife. Our daughter Catherine, 14, was wounded but she and our eight other children escaped into the woods. With my new rifle, I repelled another attack a few months later that took the life of my eldest son Peter. After that, whenever I saw an Indian, I’d raise my gun, shut one eye and we would never meet again. I later married Elizabeth Weiser and moved back to Tinicum to a Delaware River island I inherited from my brother.

“At age 70, I live there with Liz and 8 of our own children. Clearly, the Indians view my preserved rifle at Mercer Museum as a symbol of the theft of their land. My family and I, however, see it as insuring our survival. The Lenape never will forgive me. I never will forgive them. I also am bitter over the Penn Family reneging on the 500 acres they owe me.”

Sources include “History of the Indian Walk” by William J. Buck (1886) and “The Indian Walking Purchase” by Dr. B.F. Fackenthal, Jr. (1925). Thanks to Mercer Museum’s Cory Amsler for allowing Dashiell and me to inspect and handle Edward Marshall’s heavy, 268-year-old rifle.

Carl LaVO can be reached at carllavo0@gmail.com

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: The story of the Walking Purchase: How one man's stamina led to tragedy