Shikellamy's Dream

This statue of Shikellamy stands in Conrad Weiser Park in Womelsdorf, Berks County, Pennsylvania.

A very old tradition (oral) tradition is our sole authority for the statement that one day Shickellamy said to Conrad Weiser: ‘I have had a dream. I dreamed that Tarachiawagon gave me a new rifle.’ Conrad, who owed much of his success to his strict observance of Indian etiquette (which believed all dreams would eventually come true), is said to have answered the dream with the rifle, and then to have spoken for himself. ‘I, too, have had a dream,’ he said. ‘I dreamed that Shickellamy gave me an island in the Susquehanna,’ and he indicated the Island of Que at the mouth of Penn’s Creek, on the site of what is now the town of Selinsgrove. The old chief, we are told, matched Weiser’s politeness, but, ‘Conrad,’ he said, ‘let us never dream again.’

Taken from Conrad Weiser, Friend of Colonist and Mohawk (p 52) by Paul A. W. Wallace.