ISLE OF QUE IN SNYDER COUNTY

The Isle of Que in Snyder County is an island on the west branch of the Susquehanna River, a half-mile wide and five miles long, near Selinsgrove. It’s said that Native Americans originally used the southern end of the island as a burial ground.

Historians report Conrad Weiser, who acted as an interpreter between the Indians and whites, once owned the Isle of Que. Whether fact or part of folklore, Weiser was said to be envious of the beautiful “island” and traded his gun to Chief Shikellamy in exchange for the Isle of Que. Several generations of the Weiser family did make the Isle their home.

Just how the Isle of Que received its name is also up for debate. Some say Weiser named the island, while others say the French who explored or traded in the area, gave the island its name.

J. F. Meginness, in his history of the West Branch Valley, reported the first white settler on the Isle of Que is believed to have been Christian Fisher. “Christian, in his youthful days, was not what his surname would indicate. In fact, he was a hard goer, a prime hand at a fight, a horse race, or a drinking bout. At length his father, finding remonstrances unavailing, notified him that he must now shift for himself. At the same time, he offered him a large tract of land on the Isle of Que—then in the heart of the wilderness—which Christian accepted.

 Christian's bed was spread for the first night at the foot of a tree. Next morning he commenced a hut, in which for a year or two he found shelter and began cultivating and populating the isle.

Meginness wrote that some nearby islands also played prominently in the economy of the area because of the abundance of shad in the Susquehanna River.

“The cluster of islands, in the Susquehanna, opposite the Isle of Que were first settled and cultivated by old Jimmy Silverwood, an Englishman, who used pompously to entitle himself " master of the seven islands;" which title borne across the Atlantic in his letters, gave his English relations and friends an undue idea of his wealth and consequence. Could the old man have transferred his islands to England, their extent and fertility would have made their possessor a rich landholder, and even here, had he known how to take care of his property, he might have become a man of considerable fortune.

Soon after Silverwood came into possession of the islands, the country began to be filled with people, and shad became a good article in the home market, and Silverwood's islands presented several excellent localities for fisheries. Immense numbers were caught; three, four, and five thousand at one haul of the seine being not uncommon—and even at the low price of six dollars per hundred, they were a source of profit. Silverwood made money, but, alas he did not make provision for the future; he spent, and suffered his sons to spend, as if the shad fisheries were an inexhaustible mine of wealth. Of course, he died poor and left a poor family behind.”

The Isle of Que in the twenty-first century, because of the propensity of flooding, allows no commercial buildings. It’s become a destination for bikers, joggers, kayakers, and nature lovers, a short distance from the town of Selinsgrove.