Wampum Wampum Wampum is a traditional shell bead of the Eastern Woodlands tribes of American Indians. It includes the white shell beads fashioned from the North Atlantic channeled whelk shell and the white and purple beads made from the quahog or Western North Atlantic hard-shelled clam. It was used by the northeastern Indian tribes as a form of gift exchange, and the colonists adopted it as currency in trading with them. Eventually, the colonists developed more efficient methods of producing wampum, which caused inflation and ultimately its obsolescence as currency. Wampum was often kept on strings like Chinese cash. Before European
Wampum, Pennsylvania of families and 17.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 22.9% of those under age 18 and 13.9% of those age 65 or over. Wampum had its own school district called Wampum Public Schools from 1914-1962. The district also included students from nearby Chewton and, after 1954, New Beaver. Since 1962, children in Wampum proper and Chewton have attend Ellwood City Area School District, which is considered the legal successor to Wampum Public Schools due to state-mandated school consolidation in the 1960s. Due to a dispute with the former Big Beaver Township School District that had an