[20] The French had retained the Iroquois deputies in order to secure from them the French prisoners in their hands. La Galissonière, the governor wrote to his home government in 1748, that he should persist in retaining their (the Iroquois) people, until he recovered the French. The governor of New York demanded the Mohawks, on the ground of their being British subjects, a claim the French refused to admit. The matter was finally adjusted without an Indian war, although it caused much irritation. See O’Callaghan (ed.), _New York Colonial Documents_ (Albany, 1858), x, p. 185.—ED. [21] Kuskuskis was an important centre for the Delaware Indians, on the Mahoning Branch of Beaver Creek, in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania. It consisted of separate villages scattered along the creek, one of which, called “Old Kuskuskis,” was at the forks, where New Castle now stands. See Post’s _Journal_, _post_.—ED. [22] The Indian town at the mouth of Beaver Creek, where the town of Beaver now stands, was known indifferently as King Beaver’s, or Shingas’s Old Town (from two noted Delaware chiefs), or Sohkon (signifying “at the mouth of a stream”). This was a noted fur-trading station, and after the building of Fort Duquesne, the French erected houses here, for the Indians. It was the starting place for many a border raid, that made Shingas’s name “a terror to the frontier settlements of Pennsylvania.” See Post’s experiences at this place in 1758, _post_.—ED. [23] Andrew Montour was the son of a noted French half-breed, Madame Montour, who being captured by the Iroquois in her youth married an Oneida chief and was a firm adherent of the English. Montour’s services for the English were considerable. He was an expert interpreter, speaking the languages of the various Ohio Indians, as well as Iroquois. First mentioned by Weiser in 1744, when he interpreted Delaware for his Iroquois, he assisted in nearly all the important Indian negotiations from that time until the treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768, being employed in turn by the Pennsylvania, Virginia, and New York governments, and the Ohio Company. In 1754, he was with Washington at the surrender of Fort Necessity. Several times he warned the settlements of impending raids, among other services bringing word of Pontiac’s outbreak. He accompanied Major Rogers as captain of the Indian forces, when the latter went to take possession of Detroit; and in 1764 commanded a party against the recalcitrant Delawares. He received for his services several grants of land in Western Pennsylvania, as well as money. For a detailed biography see Darlington’s _Gist_, pp. 159-175.—ED.