Tuesday, 24 June 2008

Tom Quick “The Avenger of the Delaware”


Tom Quick was born in Milford, Pennsylvania in 1734. His father, Thomas Quick, Sr., emigrated from Ulster County in 1733 and was a descendent of well to do ancestors who came from Holland in the late 17th century. Thomas Sr. built a log cabin and settled on valuable lands around Milford. Hunting and fishing were his principal pursuits, together with clearing his lands. Eventually he built a saw mill and a grist mill along a tributary of the Delaware River.

Tom Jr. was his first born and grew up to be tall and broad shouldered with high cheek bones. His youth was spent with the Indians of the Delaware Valley. He became familiar with their language, engaged in many of their sports, hunted and fished with them and became an expert marksman with a rifle. While his brothers and sisters were attending school, Tom was off hunting and trapping with the Indians.

The friendliness with the Indians did not last. While the Indians were reaping the rewards and hospitality shown by the Quick family, there were other influences at work which led the Indians to break off relations with them. This change in feeling did not go unnoticed by the Quick family and while they remained friendly, they did not mingle with the Indians as they had before. Unsuspecting of any treachery, the Quicks went about their business as usual.

On a trip along the Delaware River one winter day in 1756 Tom Jr., his brother and father were unarmed and got ambushed by the Indians. Thomas Sr. was shot by an Indian named Muswink and lay severely wounded. Tom and his brother tried to carry their father across the river. Thomas Sr. told his sons, as he lay dying, to leave him and try to escape to save the family. They ran across the Delaware, and finding they were not pursued, turned cautiously back to see what became of their father. The Indians were war-whooping and rejoicing as they scalped and then beheaded their father. It was at this moment in time that Tom resolved that he would avenge the death of his father. After the Indians left they gathered up the remains of his body and gave him a Christian burial. The day his father was buried Tom took his knife in his right hand and his rifle in his left, looked up to heaven and exclaimed:

By the point of the knife in my right hand and the deadly bullet in my left:

By Heaven and all that there is in it and by earth and all that there is on it:

By the love I bore my father; here on this grave I swear eternal vengeance against the whole Indian race……A voice from my father’s grave cries, Revenge! Eternal Revenge!

He took on the name “The Avenger of the Delaware” and lived up to his new found title. He became a wanderer throughout the valley of the Upper Delaware, remaining hermit-like in remote caves and cabins. One of his favorite hangouts was a cave at Hawk’s Nest, just north of Port Jervis. From this vantage point he could see the entire valley, scope out Indians that may walk along the riverbed, and hone his shooting skills.

Tom had a gun that was 7 feet, 4 inches long and it carried a ball one inch in diameter. He called it “Long Tom.” It was said that one time he shot 3 Indians with one bullet.

Of all the Indians Tom had killed the one that he relished most was when he met up with Muswink, the killer of his father, at Deckers Tavern on the Neversink River. Muswink was drunk and telling Tom that “the war was over.” Tom told him the war was not over for him he drug Muswink out the door and put a bullet through his head.


It is said that Tom died of smallpox in 1796. The Indians, learning of his death, dug up his body and cut it into little pieces and then distributed the remains to various tribes, then gloated over them. The contagious smallpox broke out among them and slew more Indians in his death than in his life.

Some say he killed a hundred Indians. Others say it was only a dozen, but one thing is sure – Tom was looked upon by the settlers as a protector of their homes and the guardian of their wives and children. The settlers were proud to think that one of their own had the courage to face the whole Indian Nation and send many of them to the Great Hunting Ground. Many historians have eulogized his merits, and then on August 28, 1889, his descendants unveiled a monument to his memory in the presence of over 1,000 dignitaries and townspeople in Milford.

On the monument there is an emblem of a wreath, and says that Tom Quick was the first white child born within the limits of the Borough of Milford. It also says “Tom Quick, the Indian Slayer” and “The Avenger of the Delaware.” On the side of the monument is a tomahawk, canoe paddle, scalping knife, wampum, and an inscription which states that, maddened by the death of his father, he never abated his hostility to the Indians till his death 40 years afterwards.

The monument has stood in Milford for more than 100 years. Then, just before Christmas of 1997, someone used a sledgehammer to smash and damage the monument. Borough officials in Milford took the monument down and took it to a secret location. In 1999, two years after the monument was smashed, 200 people with American Indian roots and their supporters descended on Milford for a rally in front of the county courthouse.

One of the Indian supporters said “We are here to ask you to stop thinking of Tom Quick as a folk hero and see him for what he really was: a murderous, hate-filled, racist killer.” The protest squelched any immediate plans Milford Borough Council may have had for restoring the monument.

Anti-monument letters from all over the country poured in and were collected by Borough Council. In 2001 the debate in Milford went national.

Chuck “Gentle Moon” Demund, sub-chief of the Lenape Nation said “This is a monument to a mass murderer and a drunken fool who bragged about killing people.” but failed to recount the countless examples of native savagery vested apon the white settlers.

Milford Borough leaders teamed up with the Pike County Historical Society to restore the monument and to add an interpretive panel. They say that the 9 foot tall obelisk is part of the region’s history and should be put back on display, and rightly so.

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

Flower Power with Marianne North (1830-1890)

Thanks to a tip from a reader, I present to you the botanical paintings of Marianne North. I have chosen paintings of plants that mean something to me, and not just because they are pretty blommetjies...but read about the artist first..

Marianne North was a remarkable Victorian artist who travelled the globe in order to satisfy her passion for recording the world’s flora with her paintbrush. The result of these epic journeys can be seen in the North Gallery at Kew, where tier upon tier of brightly coloured paintings of flowers, landscapes, animals and birds are arranged. There are 832 paintings, all completed in 13 years of travel round the world.

Marianne was devoted to her father Frederick North who was Liberal MP for Hastings. When he died in 1869 it had a profound effect on her for until then all life had centred on him. In 1871 at the age of 40 Marianne began her astonishing series of trips around the world.
Between 1871 and 1885 she visited America, Canada, Jamaica, Brazil, Tenerife, Japan, Singapore, Sarawak, Java, Sri Lanka, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the Seychelles and Chile. Some of the plants she painted proved new to science and one genus and four species were named in her honour. She took a year off from travelling in 1881-1882 to arrange her pictures in the Gallery, which was built at her own expense and designed by James Ferguson, the architectural historian.
Marianne North retired to Gloucestershire, where she died on 30th August 1890.
I have selected my choice of botanical paintings from the South African Gallery.
View of the Mountains from the railway between Durban and Maritzburg, Natal
..I like this painting because it is the picture in my minds eye of the landscapes we travelled through on our way to spend holidays at the sea side. Even though it is of Natal, it reminds me of many places in South Africa.

Bird of Paradise, Strelitzia reginae with Sugar Birds
My Granny in East London had a row of these beauties growing near her wash line. They were always there, all my life right up until she sold her house just a few years before she passed away. That row of Stralitzia's grew into almost a hedge they were so thick and clumped together.


Aloe, Aloe latifolia
Aloe's now what would a 'rockery' be without one or two of these baby's in the back ground to create height... no a 'rockery' is not a Bobby Angel and Barbara Ray concert at Babsfontein, it is a indigenous cactus and succulent garden, usually enhanced with the addition of broken old wagon wheels, rusty old farming implements or brightly painted Gnomes.

Pendulous Sparaxis and Long-tailed Finch in Van Staaden's Kloof.
Okay, now I don't know this pretty pink bell shaped flower..but...I do know the birdie! Long tailed finch is just the lala name for it, I knew this bird as a 'Flapp'. Where I lived in Lichtenburg and Mafeking we used to see many of them flying around the farm lands and across the veld. Sometimes those tail feathers were so long and heavy the bird sukkeled to fly. Many years later, after I was married, I used to work as a display artist for Edgars and I travelled to all the small little Edgars stores in the West Transvaal, my area was from Potch, Stilfontein, Klerksdorp, Lichtenburg, Mafeking, Wollies and Schweitzer Reineke...in all my travels in the years I was with Edgars, I never saw one Flapp flying in the veld...I don't know why...they just became scarce. So sad, because they were really beautiful!

Proteus, Protea mellifera . Well what can one say about the Protea, it is only our national flower. This one in this painting is the small pink one, but my fav is the very big one, but Marianne North didn't do it justice in her painting of it, so I will put a good photo of one up in the side bar where it deserves a permanent display!


The Kaffir Plum, painted in the Perie Bush, South Africa .. I don't know this plant either, but I love it's name...it looks like a cuzzin of a num num..but I wouldn't take a chance to eat it..it might give you jippo guts..I know if you eat the 'fruit' of a cycad you can die of tummy ache and spuitpoep that lasts for days.



Amantungula in Flower and Fruit and Blue Ipomoea, South Africa ..now this red fruit with the little white star flower is a num num..! ...oh boy...I know num num's from when I was very little, and I could swear the artist sat up at the Hob Nob by Bonza Bay and looked out across the lagoon toward the beach when she painted this...it looks so much like that spot. I used to go with my grand father, he was actually a step grand pappie, and I always called him John, and he used to take me with fishing down at Bonza Bay and the num nums used to grow in the thick bush near the beach. You can eat them, they have like a spongy texture, and a funny taste that I haven't tasted for so long I can hardly remember it. A person was always very lucky if you could find a ripe one, because there were lots of num num hunters around. Black num num hunters who would eat the fruit green instead of leaving it to ripen because they were scared someone else would get to it before them...I bet a person can't take the doggies for walkies at 5:00 in the morning on the beach at Bonza Bay anymore..! The pretty blue trumpets are Morning Glory's..it's a creeper, I actually have them growing on the stoep here where I am, they are great.. who can say no to a beautiful Morning Glory..?

Clivia miniata and Moths ..Ahhh..a Clivia...oh what a queen she is..!...my Ouma was mad about a them, but they grew better at the coast than up country. Now I had a Clivia, and when it made seed I gave the seed to my uncle Chris, he was my Ouma's younger brother, and he had a very green thumb. He grew Clivias from seed, which is quite something let me tell you...actually he could grow anything. Him and I shared a 'thing' for Lithops..I think they are very naughty little plantjies..but I never mentioned to uncle Chris what I thought they looked like..*wink wink*
I actually have a whole lot of photos i took at the nursery here near me of the Lithops, little porno plantjies, imported to Germany from South Africa... They also remind me of Professor Christo Pienaar...remember him on Veld Focus...siestog, he is also dead long ago..*sigh*
nou ja..
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