Sebastian Leininger

The massacre at Penn's Creek
Before dawn on October 16, a group of eight Lenape warriors attacked the settlement of Penn's Creek. The warriors' names were Kech Kinnyperlin, Joseph Compass and young Joseph Compass, young Thomas Hickman, Kalasquay, Souchy, Machynego and Katoochquay.

After firing several shots, the Lenape first attacked the Swiss farmer Jean Jacques Le Roy[n before setting his house on fire. His body was later found partially burned with two tomahawks still buried in his forehead. A spring that emerges from the ground near the site where his body was discovered is today known as Le Roy's Spring, and the tiny stream that flows from it into Penn's Creek is known as Sweitzer's (Swisser's) Run.

Le Roy's son, also named Jean Jacques and called Jacob, fought with his father's killers but was overpowered and taken captive, along with his 12-year-old sister Marie and another young girl who was living in the house (Mary Ann Villars). When a neighbor of Le Roy's by the name of Bastian rode up on horseback, he was shot and then scalped.

Two of the Lenape then traveled to the Leininger household, approximately a half-mile away. There, they demanded rum, but none was in the house so they were given tobacco instead. After they smoked a pipe, they stated "We are Allegheny Indians, and your enemies. You must all die!". They shot Sebastian Leininger and tomahawked his 20-year-old son before taking his daughters, 12-year-old Barbara and 9-year-old Regina, captive. Mrs. Leininger and another son were away at a mill and were thus spared.

Several of the Lenape took the prisoners (as well as horses and provisions they had plundered) from the Le Roy and Leininger households into the forest where they were joined by the rest of the Lenape warriors, who brought with them six scalps and stated that they had had a good hunt that day. Later, some of the Lenape went back into the settlement and resumed killing, returning in the evening with nine more scalps and five more prisoners: Hanna Breilinger's husband, Jacob, had been killed and she and her two children taken captive. A settler named Peter Lick was also taken along with his two sons, John and William.

Of the fourteen settlers murdered at Penn's Creek, thirteen were men and elderly women, and one was a two-week-old infant. One unidentified man was wounded but escaped and made his way to a nearby settlement to report what had happened.