SUSQUEHANNA

county, northeastern Pennsylvania, U.S., consisting of a mountainous region of the Allegheny Plateau bounded by New York state to the north. In addition to Stillwater and Quaker lakes, the principal waterways are the Susquehanna and Lackawanna (west and east branches) rivers and Meshoppen, Tunkhannock, Snake, and Starrucca creeks. Salt Springs State Park is located north of Montrose, the county seat. Hallstead and Great Bend were founded in 1787 along the Susquehanna River near the site of Tuscarora, an old Indian settlement. The county was created in 1810; its name probably was derived from two Delaware Indian words: sisku (mud) and hanne (river). The main economic activities are agriculture (milk and hay) and manufacturing (search and navigation equipment). Susquehanna county is one of seven completely rural counties in Pennsylvania. Area 823 square miles (2,132 square km). Pop. (1990) 40,380; (1996 est.) 42,002. also called Susquehannock, or Conestoga Iroquoian-speaking American Indians who lived in palisaded towns along the Susquehanna River in what are now New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Little is known of Susquehanna political organization, but they are thought to have been subdivided into several subtribes and clans; the name may have referred originally to a confederacy of tribes. Like other Iroquoian tribes, they were semi-sedentary agriculturalists. The Susquehanna were first described by Capt. John Smith, who explored the upper Chesapeake Bay area in 1608. Throughout the historical period they were at war with the Iroquois, who conquered them in 1676 and forced them to settle near the Oneida in New York. They were later allowed to return to their former territory along the Susquehanna River. Epidemics steadily reduced their number (estimated to have been about 5,000 in 1600), and in 1763 the 20 remaining Susquehanna were massacred by whites inflamed by accounts of an Indian war on the Pennsylvania frontier, several hundred miles away.