David Oleksa, Durham Historical Society
Four hundred years ago, the area we now know as Durham Township looked a lot different than it does now. Dark forest covered the entire landscape and the only areas that saw sunlight were the narrow strips of land bordering the streams and the Delaware River. It was said that a squirrel could travel from the far north to what is now known as Florida and as far west as the Mississippi River without once touching the ground.
In this dark and quiet environment lived the first inhabitants, the Lenni Lenape. They were a peaceful people who lived in domed huts made of a wooden framework covered with slabs of bark.
They subsisted through hunting the forest animals, the fish in the waterways and the simple foodstuffs garnered from small fields of corn, beans and squash. During the summer months, they would travel as far as what is known as the Jersey shore to gather shellfish.
The villages in which the Lenape lived would be used for several years and then the colony would move to another location, often just a mile or two away. This way they could make new fields as the old ones renewed.
Their tools were crude, usually made out of stone; many are still being found, especially in the springtime when the farmers have finished their plowing.
The Shawnee was another tribe that occasionally lived in the area. The two tribes were able to live peaceably with one another although on at least one occasion a major battle occurred when an argument started between boys from each tribe over a large grasshopper that one of them had captured. First the mothers got involved and then the fathers and before long, the two tribes were feuding. The outcome was the loss…
Pleasant Hill Lake near Loudonville, Ohio. 
FILE – Shannon Holsey, president of the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe, speaks to reporters after giving the annual State of the Tribes address in the Wisconsin state Capitol Tuesday, April 4, 2017, in Madison, Wisc. Indigenous students from any of Wisconsin’s 11 tribes will be able to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison for free beginning next fall, Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin announced Monday, Dec. 18, 2023. Holsey called the aid program “cycle-breaking” for Indigenous youth. Photo by Cara Lombardo /THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
