The famous Minnisink patent covered

lands which had been purchased from them but never paid for, the purchasers having made the grantors drunk pending the execution of the deed, obtained their signatures when they knew

not what they were doing, and then refused the promised com The pensation on the plea that it had already been given.

Esopus chiefs, and the Hackinsacks and Tappans, joined in the the borders of New Jersey and New York, as well complaint ;

Memoirs Historical Society of Pcnnsylvania, v, 68.

" An

old

elderly man who lived in the

Highlands, and at whose house I dined on my way from New York some years ago, told me that he lived with or in the neighborhood of one Depuy, and was present when the said Depuy purchased the Minnisink lands from the Indians ; that when they were to sign the deed of sale he made them

drunk and never paid

them the purchase money agreed upon, He heard the Indians frequently comand declare that they would never be easy until they had satisplain of the fraud,

faction for their "lands."

Manuscripts of

JVm. Johnson, xxiv, 14. Depuy was probably the agent employed to make the He was well known to the purchase.

Sir

.

Moravians,

his

residence

being

on the

Mine Road, which they traveled.

Memorials of Moravian Churchy i, 46. " The examinant (John Morris) says he often heard the Delawares say that the reason of their quarrelling with and killing the English in that part of the country was on account of their lands which the Pennsylvania government cheated them out of, and drove them from their settlement at Shamokin by crowding upon them, and by that means spoiled their hunting, and that the people of Minnisink used to make the Indians always drunk