Note: Portions of this quotes records spelled in Old English. Spelling as recorded in the records.

This Edmund Cartledge Jr was born March 6, 1689/90 in Darby, Delaware County, Pennsylvania and died about 1740 in Darby, Chester County, Pennsylvania. In about 1711 he married Ann Richardson in Pennsylvania. Ann was born in 1672 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and died there in 1724. Ann was a widow (of Edward Lane) at the time she married Edmund. She was the daughter of Samuel Richardson who was a Provincia Councillor and Philadelphia Judge.

Two of the few Quakers who embarked in Indian trade were John and Edmund Cartledge from the Conestoga area of present Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. They traveled down Little Owens and Owens Creeks to what is now Stualls Ford of the Monocacy River, a round which eventually became known as “Cartleges Old Road.” In the course of their travels they worked as intermediaries between Indians and the Pennsylvania authorities in efforts to maintain friendly and peaceful relations with the Indian tribes and to gover which encroachments. Unfortunately in early February of 1721/22 while trading rum for skins whith a Seneca warrior named Sawantaeny, who was hunting on “the Manakassy,” an altercation arose as a result of the liquor and Sawantaeny was killed. Reverberations were inevitable. (See Cartledge Trial). This was supposedly the first time an Englishman in Pennsylvania to kill an Indian. Early Colonial Times In Bedford County Prior to 1750 lists Edmund as one of the earliest traders in western Pennsylvania. In fact, Edmunds Swamp, now Buckstown, Somerset County, was named for Edmund Cartledge.

At the time around the trial, Edmund’s Conestoga settlement was about seven miles, as the crow flies, up the Creek from that of his brother John, on a loop of Mill Creek, a tributary of the Conestoga, in West Lampeter Township, a little to the south of the City of Lancaster and about a mile east of Lyndon. After the trial was over, Edmund purchased from Chief Wiggoneeheenah, of the Delawares, a tract adjoining his own plantation, lying in a turn of Conestoga Creek, called Indian Point. Among the Logan Mss. In The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, is the original deed, dated April 8, 1725. Indian Point is southeast of Lancaster City.

Edmund appeared to have been very active in the affairs of his region. The following includes him in reports about intra-structure construction. From History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania:

The Amosland Road - The present Amosland road is generally accepted by local historians as comparatively a modern highway, and that the Lazaretto road is the one intended in the following report of the gand jury, arguing that because the present Amosland road does not go to Darby Creek, it is clearly not the one indicated in the old return, which sets forth: “Upon the 9th day of the 12th month, 1687, By virtue of an Order from the last County Court, given us whose names are hereunto subscribed, being the Grand Jury for to lay out a highway that should serve for Marple, Newtown, Springfield, and the inhabitants that way to the landing-place at Amosland, did, upon the above day written, Begin at a roadway on the lands of George Maris, which Road goeth from Chester through Marple to Newtown, 8oe(??) from the Road Through Bartholomew Coppock’s land, near his house, his house being on the left hand, Soe through Robert Taylor’s land, straight on through more of George Maris his land, Soe bearing a little on the right hand through George Simcock’s land, leaving his plantation on the left, adjoining to Amosland, so unto the King’s Road that comes from Darby, marking the trees as we came, so on to the landing-place by the maine creek-side beyond Morton Mortonsen, his house”

This report was signed by William Garrett, Richard Parker, Edmond Cartlidge, Thomas Bradshaw, and Thomas Fox.

According to the History of Lancaster and York Counties : from the earliest settlements made within them, in the former, from 1709, Edmund was appointed in 1729 to be a supervisor of the township of Conestoga. History of Pittsburgh and environs: from prehistoric days to the beginning of the American Revolution states: “In 1732 Governor Gordon, of Pennsylvania, sent Edmund Cartledge, a Quaker and a trader of some influence, on a mission to the Allegheny Indians to persuade them to return to Central Pennsylvania, within the range of English control – mostly Quaker control. Cartledge went to Kittanning and held conferences with the Delawares and Shawanese there, and on his return reported that (Pierre) Chartier had been of great service to him, and that he considered Chartier to be well inclined to the Pennsylvnania interests. Neither of the tribes returned eastward, nor did they intend to. Chartier was only deceiving Chartledge. Chartier was a French spy and wanted to remain one. French agents were circulating freely among the Indians in the Allegheny region.”

An Old Philadelphia Land Title states: John Cartlidge (1684-1722) and his brother Edmund Cartlidge (1689-1740) sons of the first Edmund, were noted Indian traders and agents. John was an interpreter for the Delaware Indians and Indian agent of the Penn Proprietary. He was the first of the King’s Magistrates in what is now Lancaster County. After residing some years in Plymouth Township, now in Montgomery County, where Quaker meetings were held at John’s house, the brothers removed, about 1712, to what at that day was the frontier region of Conestoga, in the present Lancaster County. John Cartlidge’s new abode was on a 300 acre tract, adjoining, on the south, the historic Conestoga Indian Town, in what is now Manor Township, Lancaster County, four miles southwest of Millersville, on the road to Safe Harbor. In 1721, as noted in a July issue of The American Mercury, Sir William Keith, the Governor, and all his Company, “were hansomly entertained and treated at the House of John Cartlidge Esq.; during their Stay at Conestogoe” for the Indian Treaty.