Of Council Rock, Teedyuscung and "the Place of Solemn Assembly Visited by Delaware Indians"

"Teedyuscung," as he is know by the locals, gazes out over the Wissahickon
Creek toward the West. As he appeared in 2011.

 

Since I was a youth, I have enjoyed hiking in Valley Green—a beautiful stretch of Fairmount Park in Philadelphia along the Wissahickon Creek. A destination I have particularly favored is the limestone statue of an Indian which most of us locals have long referred to as Teedyuscung, chief of the Delawares. Originally placed on the spot in 1902, the statue is 12 feet high and the work of noted Scottish-American sculptor, John Massey Rhind. It sits high above Council Rock on a bluff commanding the east bank of the Wissahickon Creek. This picturesque location was so named because of its association with Lenape councils which took place there in olden days. I have been blessed to be able to share this pleasant spot with my own children and we have made the trek many times.

Sad to say, Valley Green has not been spared the ravages of Kenney-era Philadelphia. For reasons that remain obscure, the park has recently become a major party spot for revelers from out of state. Not that this is a bad thing on its face—the park is a public area that should be enjoyed by all. The problem is that many of the visitors who are part of the recent surge come to bathe in the creek (supposedly prohibited), set up grills and campsites, regale all and sundry with obnoxiously loud music, and leave piles of their filth behind for others to clean up. Things have gotten bad enough that locals are staging protests and Philly police have been blocking off parking lots, to little avail.

But honestly, the recent travails along Forbidden Drive are not what spurred me to write. It was, instead, a surprising complaint I heard from some representatives of the politically-obsessed but historically-challenged segment of society about the Indian statue specifically and any kind of Native American-inspired public art more generally. These are the folks who can't be bothered to read and analyze actual historical documents, but happily follow Howard-Zinn-style ersatz-history down whatever blind alleys it leads. Far from seeing the statue as an homage to Teedyuscung and the long departed Delawares (as it was intended), they claim that because it is not historically correct, the statue should be removed and/or replaced. Furthermore, they say, the rock upon which it sits was never a council site for the Lenape.

If this is starting to sound similar to my previous post about the statue of Christopher Columbus that was recently removed from Cooper River Park in New Jersey, keep reading.

Teedyuscung in Philadelphia
wearing his colonial-era finery.

With regard to the first issue, the statue does indeed show a Native American brave wearing a war-bonnet more typical of the Plains tribes of the 19th century than a Delaware of the mid-18th century. Interestingly, however, the only rough period depiction of Teedyuscung I could find showed him in a British great coat more reminiscent of William Penn than Tamanend (see image at right). I don't suppose that the complainants above would approve of a statue showing the Delaware chief in such garb, of course.

It is noteworthy that Rhind, the sculptor, never intended to depict Teedyuscung in this work, but rather a Native American figure looking toward the West, symbolizing the departure of the Delaware for Indian territory after the Treaty of Easton in 1758. According to the Friends of the Wissahickon Valley website:

“At the dedication of the statue, which was an event attended by the elite of the city and even by the governor of Pennsylvania, a presenter referred to the statue as 'Tedyuscung' and the name has persisted.” 

The presenter above may be forgiven this faux pas in that the existing stone statue replaced two wooden images that actually did depict Teedyuscung that had stood in the same spot but had deteriorated over the years. More about this below. 

So the claim that the statue is not a historically accurate representation of Teedyuscung is a red herring. It was never intended to be. That said, the statue itself is a beautiful piece of public art in perfect harmony with its surroundings, is a fitting tribute to Native peoples, and has its own very interesting history within local lore that should be respected. 

The second claim – that there is no evidence that Council Rock was ever an Indian meeting place – is simply not true. A post at the Hidden City site entitled “Monument to Ignorance” claims: “There is in fact little evidence that the Lenape lived along the Wissahickon. It is believed they came there to hunt and fish but that was all. Indeed, historians have found no evidence that so called 'council rock' was ever used as a gathering spot and a visit to the location reveals a rather small bluff that would hardly be a good location for a mass gathering.” 

In making that claim, Hidden City does not provide a citation to the research of those “historians who have found no evidence.” They do, however, make passing mention of an article by Rev. Thomas Middleton (1842-1923), a Catholic priest who was a convert from Quakerism and who later in life served as president of Villanova College. A read over Fr. Middleton’s article, entitled "Some Memoirs of Our Lady’s Shrine at Chestnut Hill, PA. AD 1855-1900", provides some fascinating evidence that Hidden City apparently overlooked—or disregarded. I am happy to post the following excerpt from this forgotten piece of history: 

“…There can be no question that at Chestnut Hill on the north bank of the picturesque Wissahickon is yet to be seen the place of solemn assembly visited by Delaware Indians, known to them as Council, (though now more commonly styled Indian,) Rock—an unfailing object of curiosity to passers-by on the Wissahickon road. In this reference to Council Rock, no pointed allusion is intended to their yearly visits thither of the Delaware Indians from Bethlehem, all Moravians, I should say. That members of this particular tribe with their chieftains, one of them Tedyuscung, whose name is famed in story and song, came periodically on pilgrimage to Chestnut Hill is unquestioned.

At Council Rock, April 2011.

But while there is no positive evidence, as must be said in all honesty, that Catholic Indians were settled at the Hill, or thereabouts, or even visited it, still, unless I am mistaken in my reasoning, there is a fair, even strong, probability, that while on their road to St. Joseph’s, or the city, and their return home, these same Indians were wont too with their other forest brethren to gather at Council Rock or matters of tribal or family discussion.

In his boyhood days the writer was acquainted with two aged maiden ladies—the Misses Lydia and Susan Piper, daughters of John Piper, whose residence (as it too had been their father’s) was a few years ago on the purchase of the property of Charles A. Newhall transformed by him into a coach-house. These two old dames (now many years dead) told the father of the writer how in their girlhood days, the Indians (we have been speaking of,) in their yearly pilgrimage to Council Rock never failed in passing by to stop at their father’s house, for hospitality on their way to the spot, that for ages maybe had been the meeting-place of their sires. John Piper was regarded by these wild children of the forest as their friend. From him they got food and drink; and were given shelter in his barn—a very tumble-down affair, just across Chestnut avenue in front of what once was the old Piper homestead.

Near by the “barn” or the ruins of it, the observer may yet descry their lines, though now barely distinguishable from the surrounding soil, are (or rather were) mounds of aboriginal construction, apparently used for burial purposes, as therein at one time (so the writer has been told) could be found interred various relics of Indian make, but of late years overturned and rifled of their contents by curio-seekers. Usually the visit to the Hill of these forest pilgrims lasted a month, during which time they were engaged chiefly in “pow-wows” around the Rock.

The "apse" described by Fr. Middleton
as it appeared in 2019.

And now having referred to the fact of Indian visits to the Hill, we come to their place of meeting on the Wissahickon, at Council Rock, about midway between the mansion of Chancellor C. English and the creek. The writer remembers when a boy visiting that famous shrine of Indian veneration, then apparently changed little from its primeval form and appearance. Projecting form under the hollowed front of this rock, that by art, or (as seems more probably) by nature, I know not which, had been scooped out like some rudely fashioned tiny chapel apse, was a ledge or shelf-like stone—something that might have served for a seat, or throne, for aboriginal chieftains, or may be as an altar of worship. All over the inner face of this cave, easily distinguishable then, were marks, symbolic signs, of odd-looking shape, of strokes and curves, or crooked lines, drawn in what seemed to be red and blue paints, which the writer remembers he was told, were inscriptions in Indian sign-language. These symbols, plain enough to view in the ‘50s, at the time of his earliest visits thither, are now no longer to be seen.

In those days, Council Rock was sheltered in the woods, and by the very fact of its solitude guarded from profanation. Trees and thick undergrowth of bushes and vines, which covered the Wissahickon hills, cut off all view of the Rock from around, while the very existence of the spot was known to but a few persons, and honored by still fewer.

There was no easy way of approach to the Rock—in fact, but few people seemed to know of it—some by the woodpaths, rough at best and unenticing, that winding snake-like among the trees led thither. At that time too along the creek, there was no drive, nor any Chestnut avenue running back (as now) from Thomas’ Mill road to within a short distance from the Rock. So that with the place little known, and the traditions centering around it in keeping of only a few persons, there was no mutilation of the shrine; no defacing the lines of it, no scratching out the symbols on it. Now the seat-like shape of this inner shelf in the cave has disappeared in large part—chipped away by relic-hunter, or thoughtless visitor….”

Also intriguing is Fr. Middleton’s further account describing the first image Teedyuscung which was placed on the spot to honor the Delaware chief. In fact, he had a personal connection to this wooden effigy erected in 1856. In the same article as above, he says: 

“The writer of these lines was witness too of the erection on the summit of Council Rock, mainly by the energy of his father, of the first image (in wood) of the venerable Tedyuscung, chief of the Delawares, and remembers moreover the many researches made in old books, and many discussions held by the parties of interest, to determine just how to guide the artist that was to paint the wooden icon of the departed Leni-Lenape brave and adorn him with colors proper to his race and tribe."

Fr. Middleton goes on to record the costs associated with erecting this first statue in detail. In a footnote below this passage, Fr. Middleton adds: “From the Germantown Telegraph I learn that the figure of Tedyuscung standing on the rock was placed in position on July 18, (Friday) 1856, “in commemoration of (his) last visit to the spot, which happened just one hundred years ago.” 

Fr. Middleton’s article may be read in its entirety here as part of a collection compiled by the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia ~ Some Memoirs of Our Lady’s Shrine at Chestnut Hill, PA. AD 1855-1900. 

I found all of this to be fascinating and very compelling. 

Council Rock in the Wissahickon valley has a long and storied history, mostly unknown these days to those of us who grew up in the region. And if it must be pointed out that the statue on the Rock is not strictly accurate as to the figure’s dress, I say, “So what?” The concept of artistic license and symbolism is a long honored practice. If we start quibbling over the historical accuracy of works of art, then Joan of Arc on the Parkway will have to be replaced with a figure wearing more accurate 15th century French armor and the St. Gaudens Diana in the Art Museum atrium will have to come down because her hair-style is too 19th century for a supposed Roman goddess. Sadly, I have little doubt that the neo-ignorati who wish to dismount "Teedyuscung" at Council Rock would likely approve these innovations as well. Beauty and tradition are words that seem positively anathema to them.

By way of epilogue to this already overly-long article, allow me to add another interesting tid-bit from Fr. Middleton’s article about a fixture that should be immediately recognizable to anyone who frequents Forbidden Drive:

The Pro Bono Publico fountain as it appears
today.

Here on a quarter acre of land purchased by Mr. Cooke for this purpose and subsequently donated by him to the city of Philadelphia, was erected this granite fountain, on the design of one he had chanced upon in his travels in Europe. The writer remembers well the several phases in the genesis of this work of beneficence—the hewing of the granite in his father’s quarry, where the fountain was made, the chisellings and inscriptions on it by the hand of Richard Hunt, a stone-cutter; its erection on the spot it now adorns; and finally the fact that when connection had been made with the springs—there was a whole nest of them—at the rear of the monument on the hill-side, he was witness of the jubilee of the builders in their hailing the fountain as a boon to the public—PRO BONO PUBLICO—for the public good—being one of the inscriptions on it. ESTO PERPETUA—be thou everlasting—the other. And drinking therefrom, men and beasts straightway went their road refreshed and enlivened. (Middleton, page 26) 

Lamentably, it seems that the builders of yesteryear may have been overly optimistic in hopes that the works of their hands would remain in perpetuity. The facade mentioned above may still be seen on Forbidden Drive, but the fountain itself was sealed up in the 1950s because the water had become tainted. 

Our own age seems to be polluted with a foreign ideology that favors vandalism and destruction over inspiration and creativity. Too many of our young people were never taught to treasure and enhance their unique local heritage and have instead been fooled into a deleterious mindset reminiscent of students during the Cultural Revolution in China: that the past must be relentlessly swept away in the mindless pursuit of ephemeral material gains and counterproductive political changes.