Queen Esther Montour

Madame Montour was the mother of several important figures, one of which being ‘Queen’ Esther Montour. Esther was an Iroquois woman who lived in a town somewhere between the towns of Athens, Sayre, and Waverly Pennsylvania. Her town had over 500 citizens and she was known to be against liquor.

Esther was born about 1720, she married a Munsee Delaware chief named Eghobund (Peter Quebeck). This couple lived together at the village Sheshequin (Ulster), near Cash's Creek. Most sources describe her as a Christian with "proper beliefs", who was loyal, both to Indians, and to the English and French (her grandmother or mother Madame Montour's people). In fact, the English are the ones who gave her the title "queen."

When her husband died in 1772, Queen Esther inherited the sole leadership of the Munsees. Around this time she settled below Tioga Point, moving from Painted Post. Her new home was known as Queen Esther's Town, and this town on the river flats supposedly had 70 log and plank houses, including Esther's own castle (a strong building of hewn planks, with a thatched roof with a covered porch). The settlement was surrounded by pastures, orchards and five miles of corn fields.

Legend goes, that upon learning of the death of her son after a violent argument with a drunk man, Queen Esther ordered a raid on the nearby town as payment for his death. The exact number of victims killed in the raid has been debated but documents report of a man by the name of Arthur Van Rossum and his wife Janna of Sayre were killed and scalped on September 27, 1778. A military force of nearly 200 men formed and then followed up from the river and reached her hilly town and engaged in battle with her warriors. Eventually the Iroquois warriors succumbed to the military force and Queen Esther tried to flee alongside the women and children of her town.

Historians have argued over the exact details of what occurred next, but the widely accepted claim is that Hartley and his men caught up with the fleeing villagers and forced them to march to a nearby pond. The women and children were lined up on the pond's bank and executed in mass numbers as Queen Esther was forced to watch the ordeal. The bodies of the victims were then dumped into the water to deny them of the proper burial practiced by the Iroquois people. Queen Esther was then lynched by a nearby oak tree and dismembered before being thrown into the pond with the murdered villagers. Early documents have reported that the screams of the victims could be heard from the town of Athens which was over several miles away.

Following this event, it was believed that the queen placed a curse on the area of her murder, at least according to one of the militants journals. As early as the 1800s, townspeople reported hearing echoing screams in the woods and surrounding areas, believed to be the spirits of the murdered villagers. Hunters have even reported seeing a young girl weeping while hanging from the branches of an old oak tree, and once investigated, it appears she was never there in the first place. However, after investigating, many hunters report that their firearms failed them, possibly an attempt at keeping her villagers from being killed.

Have you ever heard the screams in the Pennsylvania woods? Have you ever heard about the massacre of the village and what led to it?

Chat soon,

Valkyrie