Playwicky Indian Town: Chief Tammany and the Lenape Land Sale
Near Trenton, Pennsylvania
Down the slope from here, near the springs and the run, sat Playwicky, a Lenape village that stood in sixteen eighty-two when William Penn first arrived in Pennsylvania. The Lenape, also called the Lenni-Lenape or Delawares, were organized into clans. Playwicky was home to the Unami group, whose totem was the tortoise.
The village's chief was Tammany, who in sixteen eighty-three signed an agreement with Penn conveying the land between Neshaminy and Pennypack Creeks. Tammany became famous among early colonists for his fair dealing and his friendship with Penn. Decades after his death, his name was so celebrated that it became the namesake of Tammany Hall in New York, though that organization would eventually carry a very different reputation.
The spring and valley where his village stood are long absorbed into the Pennsylvania landscape.
