On March 24, Captain James Patterson with his scouting party of borderers fell in with a party of Indians on Middle Creek, now Snyder County, attacked them, killed and scalped one and put the rest to flight. On their return, Patterson reported that the country from the forks of the Susquehanna to the Juniata was “swarming with Indians, looking for scalps and plunder, and burning all the houses and destroying all the grain which the fugitive settlers had left in the region.” The Indians who committed these depredations were of the Delaware Nation; there were no Shawnee among them. They had their headquarters on the North Branch at Nescopeck and Wyoming, and were so incited by the craftiness of the French that they threatened “to break the heads of any of their own race who advised peace with the English.” ---------- John Penn, “The American,” Born in Slate-Roof House January 29, 1700 When William Penn crossed the ocean in the Canterbury to visit his province in 1699, he came up to Chester, December 1. Two days later Penn reached Philadelphia, and made a formal call upon his deputy, Governor William Markham, and other dignitaries of the town and province. From Markham’s house Penn proceeded to the Friends’ meeting house at Second and High Streets, and took part in the afternoon meeting, offering a prayer and delivering one of those short incisive addresses in which he was so happy. Penn was very well received by all classes, says James Logan, who had come out with the Governor and was in constant attendance upon him. After the meeting was over and the Friends had dispersed to their homes, Penn and his suite went to the house of Edward Shippen, and lived there for a month. About January 14 he took up his residence in the “Slate-Roof House,” which was his home during his sojourn in his province. On January 29, his son John, known as “The American,” was born. John was the only one of William Penn’s children born in his province. This old mansion when first built was the largest house in Philadelphia, and better known than any other, not excepting the “Letitia House,” of any place of historic interest connected with William Penn and the city he founded. The Slate-Roof House was built on the southeast corner of Second Street and Norris Alley, the site for many years of the Chamber of Commerce. The house was built by Samuel Carpenter, and it stood until 1867. Besides being the residence of Penn in 1699, James Logan entertained Lord Cornbury there in 1702 and Governor James Hamilton, Mrs. Howell and Mrs. Graydon were successively its occupants, the ladies using it for a boarding house.