The Poconos
History

Colonial Era Land Grabs

The Poconos was unsettled and loosely administered up until 1718, when he died, by William Penn, for whom the state of Pennsylvania was named. There were very few European settles in the Poconos, and therefore there was little conflict over land with the local Native Americans. People like Nicholas DePuis could survive happily and prosper. However, after William Penn died and his policies and good will slowly faded out, and as more amore settlers arrived in the Poconos, mostly German and English, relations fell apart. The German and English newcomers were particularly greedy for land, and employed ruthless and devious tactics to swindle the Native Americanss from most of the land that we now call the Poconos. They also made our Mr. DePuis pay again for the land he had already lived on and farmed for years and years.

One famous swindle was called the Walking Purchase. Thomas Penn was now in power, son of William Penn, and Thomas abused his power left and right. He used the Walking Purchase, which had actually been devised by his father, but never really implemented, and certainly not abused as the son did. In 1737 the Lenape were misled by the younger Penn to believe that this treaty would result in their ceding only so much land to the new settlers, up to the area of the Delaware Water Gap. The treaty states that the Lenape were to give up land covered by the distance that one man could walk in a day and a half. Penn hired lots and lots of men, athletes, really, and promised land & money to the one who made it the furthest. They raced their way across the Poconos, every step meaning more land ceded to Penn from the Lenapes. The winner was Edward Marshall, who made it 68 and a half miles across the area...twice the distance they'd been led to believe any man would make it. The Lenape had been led to believe by Penn that they would lose about half the amount of land that they actually did lose as a result of the Walker Purchase. Penn didn't even draw the boundaries the way he originally had said he would...resulting in of course more land taken from the Lenapes.

The Walker Purchase and other land grabs caused the Lenapes to fight back, and there were many years of severe bloodshed, scalping, kidnapping, and murder. The legacy of Edward Marshall lives on today in the town of Marshalls Creek, which took its name from this famous walker. The end of the general war in the colonies at the time, the French and Indian War, also brought the end of so much blooshed in the Poconos as well.

Coal and Gangs

The Molly Maguires were Irish coalworkers striking back at greedy oppressive coal barons. There was practically no federal regulation of labor at the time, and coal workers had it bad. The workers fought back with assassination and terror. Public opinion finally turned against the Molly Maguires and an 1873 undercover sting operation dissolved the group.

Two Types of Floods

In 1955, after decades of tourism expansion in the Poconos, double hurricane action in the region caused severe flooding and lots of deaths. Buildings and bridges were washed away, 20,000 homes were destroyed and as a result tourism dropped dramatically. Hotel occupancy rates went from nearly totally full down to only one in five rooms occupied.

The government's solution to future flood control was to purchase lots of land along the river and create a dam. Small villages were practically wiped out, and tourism stopped dead in places where local residents were bought out for the massive project. They never even built the dam, and the people never got their land back, either. The land became the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in the mid-1960s.

The second type of flood involves people...a flood of new commuting residents from New York City and New Jersey. These are urban professionals who can afford expensive homes and whose arrival is causing property taxes to rise, as well as the sense of alarm for locals. In a scenario that seems to ironically re-create the dynamic of the Indian wars of more than two hundred years ago, new settlers are clashing with old settlers, only this time, thank goodness, there's no bloodshed.

Throughout the bloodshed, the industrialization, the natural disaters and the property tax wars, The Poconos has remained one of the nicest spots on earth, whose lakes and streams and waterfalls have always drawn people here, and will continue into our future to offer respite, relaxation, and excitement to all vacationers who venture here.