Indian Trader/ Interpreter connection Paxton PA to Canada

Indian Trader/ Interpreter connection Paxton PA to Canada

1765       Margaret Powel - 75 ac 80 ps surveyed for warrant of 23 Aug 1765 for land across Powells Ck in Halifax Twp, Dauphin County. Parcel over the Blue Hills of Peters Mountain, near Forster’s Falls and near James Reed place including improvements made by John Powell while living 25 years on said property. This parcel on the eastside of Susquehanna R. Between land of Jacob Grebill to north and John Newbecker to the south; who acquired parcel in 1815. Application notes that she is widow of John Powel and acts for interest of herself and children. Originally the Powel parcel was 135 ac before lower half sold to Newbecker.
1765       Thomas McKee on 17 Oct, 1765 entered a Caveat (warning) with the Survey Office against the acceptance of a survey made for Margaret Powell in pursuance of her Application No. 608 of 23 Aug 1765 for 100 ac of land and improvements in Lancaster County. McKee alleging that he had purchased the premisses at a Sheriff’s Sale years ago and had possessed the same. Margaret Powel filed a legal action against Thomas McKee in 1767.
1766       Thomas McKee took out application for 100 ac and Survey in Consequence of land left by John Powell will to wife and children because Powell Estate indebted to McKee (See Powell Will of 1747, proven after 1748.). This claim by Mckee was questioned in court.

Google Books

Minutes of the Board of Property and Other References to Lands in ..., Volume 1

 edited by William Henry Egle

  1767

At a Meeting of the Board at the Land Otfice on Monday the 31st of August 1767 present The Sec ry Mr Tilghman The Surveyor Gen l Mr Lukens Margaret Powell agt on Caveat Thomas McKee Thomas McKee not appearing & sending an Excuse by Letter that Notice was not served upon him till soon after his Return home from a Journey to Philadelphia The Board took into Consideration the papers laid before them by the Widow Powel & her Allegations By Which it appears that her husband John Powell about the Year 1736 settled upon the place in Dispute and lived thereon about 12 Years & dyed in the Year 1748 making his Will and leaving Thomas McKee John Allison & the said Margaret Executors And that the said McKee & Allison took upon them the Execution of the Will and the Land and Improvements vere returned in the Inventory of the Estate That McKee took possession as she alledges of the plantation forcibly and put a Tenant into it and received Rent for 5 Years That in the Year 1765 she returned to the possession of the Land obtained on Application for 100 A's and had a Survey in Consequence That in the Year 1766 T McKee took an Application for the same That Powell by his Will left his Estate amongst his Wife and Children therefore it is determined by the Board that said Margaret Powells Survey be accepted and have a Confirmation unless Thomas McKee at the last Monday in December support his Allegation that the Estate of Powell was largely indebted to him and was sold or retained by him for the Satisfaction of his Debt and that there was not suflicient Assets besides sufficient to satisfy him And of this Margaret Powell is to give McKee thirty Days Notice at least Valentine Shiteacre al's Shadacre 1 BOARD OF PROPERTY 139

At a Meeting of the Board of Property at the Governors on Monday the 28th Day of December Anno Domini 1767 present The Governor The Sec ry Mr Tilghman The Rec r Gen 1 Mr Hockley Margaret Powell agt On Caveat Thomas McKee Thomas McKee having been duly cited & not showing Cause this Day against the Governors Judgment of the last Monday in August last that Judgment is now confirmed BOARD OF PROPERTY 207

McKEE, ALEXANDER - Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online

 

1771-1800 (Volume IV)

McKEE, ALEXANDER, Indian agent, furtrader, and local official; b. c. 1735 in western Pennsylvania, son of Irish trader Thomas McKee and a Shawnee woman (or possibly a white captive of the Indians); d. 15 Jan. 1799 on the Thames River, Upper Canada.

      As a young man Alexander McKee was a lieutenant in the Pennsylvania forces during the early part of the Seven Years’ War. He entered the Indian department in 1760 as an assistant to George Croghan and until the outbreak of the American revolution he served the department and traded, achieving considerable importance among the tribes north of the Ohio River. He was married to a Shawnee woman and in the early 1770s had a home in one of the Shawnee villages on the Scioto River (Ohio).

      As McKee was sympathetic to the British cause at the beginning of the revolution, he was kept under surveillance. In March 1778, with Matthew Elliott*, Simon Girty*, and others, he fled from the Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh, Pa) region into the Ohio country. Later in the year he joined the British at Detroit. The Americans considered his departure a major blow because McKee had extensive influence among the Indians. At Detroit he became a captain and interpreter in the Indian department and for the rest of the revolution helped direct operations among the Indians in the Ohio valley against the Americans. He participated in many of the main actions in that region, including Henry Hamilton’s capture of Vincennes (Ind.) in 1778, Henry Bird’s expedition against Kentucky in 1780, and the attack on Bryant’s Station (near Lexington, Ky) in August 1782.

      After the revolution McKee obtained land on the Canadian side of the Detroit River, but he served at Detroit as deputy agent in the Indian department, which used his influence among the tribes in present Ohio and Indiana to encourage Indian resistance to American settlement beyond the Ohio River. He also traded along the Miamis (Maumee) River and was a prominent leader in the Detroit River region. He became lieutenant-colonel of the local militia in the late 1780s, justice of the Court of Common Pleas for the District of Hesse in 1788, member of the district land board in 1789, and lieutenant for the county of Essex in 1792.

      When in the early 1790s full-scale hostilities broke out between the Americans and the Indian tribes, McKee and his assistants helped to gather and supply the Indians who resisted American expeditions [seeEgushwa]. With John Graves Simcoe*, lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, he tried to devise a workable plan for an Indian buffer state between American and British possessions. McKee played a major role in organizing the Indians to meet Major-General Anthony Wayne’s advances in 1793 and 1794 and was present at the battle of Fallen Timbers (near Waterville, Ohio) in August 1794, but only as an observer. Wayne’s victory and the failure of the British regulars to support the Indians diminished British influence among the tribes. McKee was given formal command of Indian affairs in Upper Canada at the end of 1794 when he was appointed deputy superintendent and deputy inspector general of Indian affairs.

      After the British withdrew from Detroit in 1796, McKee made his home on the Canadian side of the river. At his death three years later he was living on the Thames River. In the tumultuous years of the 1790s he had been the most important official organizing Indian resistance to the American advance across the Ohio River. To him, the British policy was not merely official, it was the culmination of a lifetime spent with the Indians of the Ohio valley. His son Thomas* also served in the Indian department, becoming agent at Amherstburg in 1801.

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   "John Powel or Powell  my ancestor on my moms side was an Indian trader and may have been part Indian he lived  traded on Indian lands decades before settlers with people Like the Girty's and the McKee's , Interesting to note Thomas McKee was executor to his will, perhaps the most famous Indian trader in PA and whom son went on to be a famous Indian Interpreter and Agent working with my French Canadian Indian Interpreter ancestors at places like Fallen Timbers and Sackville, Thomas McKee may have been a scoundrel he seams to have worked both sides of the coin profiteering any way he could on the other hands the Boys many whom were half bloods or raised like Indians including Alexander his son and his friend Simon Girty whom were born Native to this land had legitimate beef this was there home, this was there culture, they remember when there homes were bunt down by the colonial authorities outside their jurisdiction. There is no wonder why they were loyalist and sided with the Six Nations". Kevin Lajiness