Tulpehocken Path: The Six Nations Road to Philadelphia
Near Reading, Pennsylvania
Long before European roads crossed this landscape, an Indian path wound south from Shamokin, the village at present-day Sunbury, over the mountains, arriving at the home of Conrad Weiser in the Tulpehocken Valley. Weiser was Pennsylvania's most trusted interpreter and diplomat, and the path that led to his door was one of the most politically important routes in colonial America. Chiefs of the Six Nations, the great Iroquois Confederacy, traveled this path carrying what the marker calls words of wampum, the diplomatic messages and treaty strings that bound nations together.
Their destination was Philadelphia and the Quaker proprietors, whom they called Brother Onas, a name tied to William Penn and his successors. Every time a delegation walked this path, the future of Pennsylvania's frontier hung in the balance.
