The founding of the United States was shaped by inspirational figures authoring remarkable tales long since forgotten — or since erased.
Tamanend is one of them.
More commonly called King Tammany, or Saint Tammany, he was a 17th-century Lenni Lenape (Delaware) chief who found a friend and ally in English Quaker William Penn — who settled the region in 1682.
Tammany was revered as the “Patron Saint of America” by the generation of the Founding Fathers and the patriots who fought, bled and died for the cause of American independence.
“The Pennsylvania troops under Washington’s command were the first to raise their banners on which were inscribed ‘St. Tamanend,'” Leon Nelson Nichols wrote in 1892 in “The History of Tammany,” which chronicles both the life of the man and the influential patriotic Tammany societies he inspired around the new nation.
Lenni Lenape chief Tammany was dubbed the “Patron Saint of America” by the generation that fought for American independence. This is an idealized composite portrait by Fritz Bade from descriptions of the man, as featured in the 1938 book, “The Tammany Legend” by Joseph White Norwood.
Nichols added, “Soon other troops caught the zeal for Saint Tamanend until at last the whole American army had adopted the chief as its patron saint.”
“Tamanend … played a prominent role in the establishment of peaceful relations among the Native American tribes and the English settlers who established Pennsylvania,” reports DelawareTribe.org, the official website of the Delaware tribe of Indians.
He was feted each May, most notably in the Mid-Atlantic states.
“This is King Tammany’s Day … The People here…
