Bloody Springs massacre

On October 1, 1757, during the French and Indian War, Lenape warriors struck homesteads in an area that would later become Berks County, Pennsylvania. The Spatz family, along with other settlers, lost their lives near a spring close to what is today Strausstown, Pennsylvania, and their blood turned the water red at that site. Knowledge of this event has survived through generations of the Degler family, whose farm sat next to the Spatz homestead.

Background

William Penn had reached a peace accord with the Lenape tribe back in 1682, yet German settlers later drove the Lenape from Berks County by means of the 1737 Walking Purchase and further land transactions the Lenape considered unjust. As time passed, the Lenape were driven farther up the Schuylkill River. Eventually they departed Berks County altogether and headed toward Ohio in the west, harboring deep resentment over their displacement. During the 1750s, French backers began encouraging Lenape war parties to strike settlers in Berks County through small-scale raids. As hostilities between the English and French intensified, the Six Nations aligned themselves with the British. A portion of the Lenape, guided by warriors including Shingas and Captain Jacobs, threw their support behind the French and launched attacks on Pennsylvania settlements, while others, among them Teedyuscung, worked to preserve friendly ties with the provincial government.

By the time the Bloody Spring massacre occurred, Tulpehocken Township sat on the frontier line of the French and Indian War, with the handful of European families who had settled north of the Blue Mountain abandoning their farms and retreating south. Notably, this war stands as the sole armed conflict to have claimed lives within Berks County's boundaries.

Conrad Weiser, who served for many years as Pennsylvania's representative to the Six Nations in what is now central New York, oversaw the building of defensive forts meant to shield German farming families in the northern reaches of Tulpehocken Township, an area later organized as Upper Tulpehocken Township in 1820, from attacks by Native Americans. Fort Northkill numbered among these defensive structures, going up in early 1756 in response to the first Lenape incursion the previous November. Unfortunately, this modest stockade, measuring roughly 32 feet on each side, suffered from shoddy construction, and the quickly assembled shelter within proved inadequate for protecting refugees during harsh weather. Then in 1757, Lenape fighters turned their attention to settlers living south of the Blue Mountain, targeting areas near the Spatz and Degler homesteads.

Over the course of the French and Indian War, the Lenape killed one hundred and fifty residents of Berks County and took roughly another 150 captive. Among the dead were Amish residents of Berks County, whose religious convictions against violence did not spare them when the Lenape struck their homes. Numerous women and children were seized as well. While ransom often secured the return of captives, this was not always the outcome. When the war finally ended, some of those who had been taken chose to stay among the tribes that had captured them, having by then become part of the tribal community themselves.

Massacre of the Spatz family

Near Fort Northkill in Tulpehocken Township, Lenape warriors from the Ohio Valley struck on October 1, 1757. Accounts of what happened to the Spatz and Degler families vary widely, and historians have never located military journals or official colonial documents from that time confirming the details. According to some tellings, a member of the Spatz household had killed an Indian, prompting his fellow tribesmen to wipe out all six people in the family as payback. This slaughter, along with the deaths of nearby settlers, took place beside a spring close to what is now Strausstown, likely Little Northkill Creek, which some call Degler Spring, a tributary feeding into Northkill Creek. Witnesses described the water turning red from the family's blood. Residents sent word to Conrad Weiser in Reading requesting assistance, and Captain Oswald responded by dispatching two lieutenants along with forty soldiers from the Royal American Regiment to protect people in the area.

People often mix up this event with the Hochstetler massacre, a separate attack that had taken place twelve days prior at the neighboring Northkill Amish Settlement.

The Degler chest

Arriving from Germany in 1738, Frederick Degler put down roots on what was then the northern edge of Berks County, in the area now known as Strausstown, within Upper Tulpehocken Township, Pennsylvania. Among his possessions was a cedar chest that would later become a cherished piece of family history.

For a time, Degler enjoyed friendly ties with the Native Americans nearby, frequently offering them food. But as raids on Pennsylvania settlements grew more frequent and dangerous, he moved his family to the safety of Fort Northkill. This decision led the Indians to believe he had turned against them, and in response they struck his home.

The violence began with the slaying of the Spatz family, after which the Lenape made their way to the Degler property and tore through it. Convinced that Degler himself might be concealed inside, they hacked open his cedar chest with tomahawks. When Degler came back and found what had happened, the Indians expressed regret for damaging the chest. To show that friendship had been restored, they mended the split lid and carved into it two fish, representing the food the Deglers had once shared with them, a heart standing for friendship, and a pair of crossed canoe paddles symbolizing peace. Degler himself added his initials to the chest along with the year 1757.

Memorialization

On June 19, 1915, the Historical Society of Berks County set a stone marker at the site where the massacre occurred.