Part II
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CHAPTER XV BRODHEAD'S RAID UP THE ALLEGHENY P. 95 The raids on the Pennsylvania and Virginia frontier in 1778 were made by the Indians of the Ohio country; those of 1779 by the Senecas and Muncys of the North, from the upper tributaries and headwaters of the Allegheny. The western tribes were temporarily disorganized by Clark's capture of Hamilton, the governor of Detroit, at Vincennes, in February, 1779, and by a destructive raid by Kentuckians on the Shawnee towns on the Scotia, in May, 1779. The Seneca tribe of Western New York was the largest of the Six Nations. Its warriors were second only to the Mohawks in courage and military prowess. Under Cornplanter, Guyasuta and other war captains they distressed a wide extent of country in New York and Pennsylvania and decorated their huts in the valley of the Genesee with the scalps of hundreds of white persons. It was to these marauders that Colonel Brodhead directed his attention, and he begged General Washington for permission to lead an expedition into the Seneca land. Early in the summer the Commander-in-chief directed the formation of a large army under General John Sullivan, to invade the Iroquois territory from the east, and about the middle of July Colonel Brodhead received permission from General Washington to undertake a movement of co-operation up the Allegheny valley.1 P. 96 Amid great difficulty Brodhead acted promptly, for he was prepared to depart from Fort Pitt within four weeks from the time he received Washington's letter. He had been making preparations for such an expedition ever since he took command of the department. Workmen from Philadelphia had built 60 boats, some in the form of large skiffs and others hollowed out of great poplar logs. Extra horses were ready, and a large drove of live cattle had been brought over the mountains. In June Lieutenant Colonel Bayard built a stockade at Kittanning, which was called Fort Armstrong, after General John Armstrong, of Carlisle. This served as a sort of way-station on the march. The last remnant of the garrison of Fort Laurens, on the Tuscarawas, came into Fort Pitt early in August and Colonel Brodhead was then ready to proceed.2 The expedition left Pittsburg on August 11, 1779. It numbered 605 men. Small garrisons of regulars were left in forts McIntosh, Pitt, Crawford and Armstrong. A part of the force consisted of militiamen and volunteers from the surrounding country, to whom Brodhead had promised a share of the plunder. A small band of Delawares accompanied the expedition, and acted with the scouting parties under Brady and Hardin. The flour, liquors and other provisions were conveyed by boats up the Allegheny river as far as the south of the Big Mahoning. The main body marched along the eastern bank, past Forts Crawford and Armstrong. The cattle followed under a strong guard. Amid these conditions progress was necessarily slow. When the army reached the mouth of the Mahoning, a heavy rain set in and continued for four days. Tents were insufficient to shelter the whole force. The men suffered great discomfort, and many were afflicted with rheumatism. The supplies were taken from the boats and loaded on the horses, and when the rain ceased the expedition proceeded under most unfavorable conditions. P. 97 At this point the army left the river, which flows down from the northwest, and followed an Indian trail which ran almost due North through the forest wilderness of what is now Clarion county. The use of this path stretched out the army into a long, thin line, whose weakness was covered by the scouts, kept well out in front and on flank. This trail was so bad that on the return Brodhead preferred another route. Even now the country is a rough one. The woods were full of broken timber, and many swollen streams were forded. The trail crossed the Tionesta near its mouth and returned to the Allegheny river at the site of an old Indian town which Brodhead called Cushsushing. This is a Delaware name, more accurately written Quoshquoshink, and means Place of Hogs. It had for a few years been deserted, but was marked by the ruins of the Indian huts. It was not far from the present town of Tionesta.3 At Cushcushing the troops crossed the Allegheny river to the right bank and pushed on toward the mouth of Brokenstraw creek. At that place there had been an Indian town called Buckaloons, but this was known to be deserted. Brodhead hoped, however, to strike the Senecas at their village of Conewago, at the mouth of what is now called Conewango creek, where Warren has been built.4 A few miles below the Brokenstraw, the expedition had its only fight with the savages. It was near Thompson, a station on the western New York & Pennsylvania railroad, where there is an island in the Allegheny river. In that neighborhood the river hills are high and so close to the stream, that there are, in some places, very narrow passes. It was in one of these passes that the encounter took place.5 P. 98 Lieutenant Hardin was in advance, with 15 white scouts and eight Delaware Indians, when they discovered, coming down the river, seven canoes, containing more than 30 Seneca warriors. The captain of this war party, on its way to raid the settlements, may have been Guyasuta. Tradition has assigned the command to Cornplanter, but at that time Cornplanter was in the Genesee country, trying to withstand the advance of Sullivan's army. Each party observed the other at almost the same moment. The Senecas at once ran their canoes to shore, threw off their shirts and prepared for battle. The Indians always entered a conflict as nearly naked as possible. The boldness with which the savages prepared for the fray shows that they did not believe their opponents to be numerous. They would never have prepared for the fight in this manner had they suspected the presence of a large force. Both sides took to trees and rocks and began a sharp fusillade. For only a few minutes this conflict lasted, when another party of scouts, moving over the hills, took the Senecas in flank and poured down a hot fire upon them. At the sound of the firing in front Brodhead formed his column so as to protect the pack-train and then hurried forward with reinforcements. He was just in time to witness the retreat of the Senecas. They quickly discovered that they were overpowered and took to rapid flight. Some of them leaped into the river and waded and swam across. The shooting of the scouts was so accurate that the savages dared not pause on the shore to push off their canoes. Most of the Indians escaped along the bank and were soon out of sight amid the trees and thickets. P. 99 Five dead Indians lay on the field. Several gone away wounded, leaving trails of blood. Eight of their guns were left behind, as well as their seven canoes, containing their blankets, shirts and provisions. Only three of Brodhead's men were wounded, and they so slightly that they continued on the march the following morning. One of the wounded was Jonathan Zane, the wheeling scout and guide, who received a nip in the arm, and the two others were Nanowland, the young Delaware chief, and Joseph Nicholson, the interpreter. The army went into camp near the scene of conflict, and on the following morning moved up to the Brokenstraw. Here Brodhead decided to leave his stores and baggage and march light to Conewago. A rude breastwork, guarded by fallen trees and bundles of fagots, was constructed on a high bluff commanding an extensive view up and down the river. A captain and 40 men remained in charge, and the expedition pushed on for Conewago. There Brodhead was disappointed by finding the Iroquois town deserted and the huts falling to decay. This was as far as his guides were acquainted with the country, but the commander determined to follow an Indian trail which led over the hills toward the northeast. After a march of 20 miles the troops came again within sight of the Allegheny river, and from a hilltop discovered a number of Indian villages, surrounded by great fields of splendid corn and patches of beans, squashes and melons. This Iroquois settlement extended for eight miles along the fertile bottom land of the Allegheny river, where the Cornplanter reservation was afterward established. The soldiers hurriedly descended into the villages, but found that all the houses were deserted. The Indian spies had discovered the approach of the Americans, and the warriors fled so hurriedly with their women and children that they had left behind many deer skins and other articles of value. P. 100 The Iroquois had long before this learned to build substantial log houses, even squaring the timbers as the white pioneers did. In this Allegheny river settlement there were about 130 houses, some of them being large enough for three or four families. In the uppermost village stood a great war post, painted and decorated with dog skins, and that village was evidently the dwelling place of the chief. In his report to Washington, Brodhead wrote: "The troops remained on the ground three whole days, destroying the towns and corn fields. I never saw finer corn, although it was planted much thicker than is common with our farmers. The quantity of corn and vegetables destroyed at the several towns, from the best accounts I can collect from the officers employed to destroy it, must certainly exceed 500 acres, which is the lowest estimate, and the plunder taken is estimated at $3,000. From the great quantity of corn in the ground and the number of new houses built and building, it appears that the whole Seneca and Muncy nations intended to collect in this settlement." On the return march the supplies were picked up at Buckaloons, and the troops marched across country to French creek. At Oil creek the soldiers rubbed themselves freely with the oil which they found floating on the water, and received great relief from their rheumatic pains and stiffness. For many years this petroleum was called Seneca oil, and was supposed to be valuable only for its medicinal qualities. The army reached French creek at the mouth of Conneaut creek, where the Muncy town of Maghingue-chahocking was found to be deserted. It was composed of 35 large huts, which were burned. The Muncys formed a branch of the Wolf clan of the Delawares, and had long lived and associated with the Iroquois. Their reputation as thieves, murderers and general reprobates was very bad. P. 101 The army descended French creek almost to its mouth and thence returned to Fort Pitt by what is known as the Venango path. This was an old Indian trail running almost due north and south through the heart of Butler county. It crossed Slippery Rock and Connoquenessing creeks, and came down to the Allegheny river along the course of Pine creek. It was a much more direct route than that followed by the troops in marching northward, along the course of the Allegheny river. It is said that Slippery Rock creek received its name from an accident that occurred during this return march. The troops crossed the creek at a point where the bed of the stream is composed of smooth, level rock, like a floor. On this the horse of John Ward slipped and fell and severely injured the rider. The expedition arrived at fort Pitt on September 14, without the loss of a single man or horse. In summing up the results, Brodhead wrote: "I have a happy presage that the counties of Westmoreland, Bedford and Northumberland, if not the whole western frontier, will experience the good effect of it. Too much praise cannot be given to both officers and soldiers of every corps during the whole expedition. Their perseverance and zeal during the whole (through a country too inaccessible to be described) can scarcely be equaled in history." The thanks of Congress were voted to Colonel Brodhead, and in a general order, issued on October 18, General Washington said: "The activity, perseverance and firmness which marked the conduct of Colonel Brodhead, and that of all the officers and men of every description in this expedition, do them great honor, and their services entitle them to the thanks and to this testimonial of the General's acknowledgment."
CHAPTER XVI P. 102 A winter and a summer, each remarkable in its way, followed the expedition of Brodhead to the upper Allegheny. These seasons were known as "the winter of the deep snow" and "the summer of the big harvest." The soldiers and settlers on the frontier were much indebted to the character of that winter for their immunity from Indian raids. It bound their enemies, but also afflicted them. Hunger and cold are probably preferable, however, to the torch, the rifle and the scalping knife of the savage. While the incursions to the Seneca country had much to do with checking the savage inroads in the autumn, the border was poorly prepared for defense during the winter. The Indian raids of the spring and summer of 17790 had interfered with sowing and reaping, and there was small surplus of food in the barns and cellars of the settlers. A quarrel in the autumn between Colonel Brodhead and the militia officers of Westmoreland county prevented co-operation on any system for guarding the border. Had the ensuing season been an open one, Westmoreland county would have been devastated. During the 12 months beginning with November, 1779, the influence of the weather on human affairs was strongly manifested. P. 103 Both Colonel Brodhead, the regular officer in command of the Western Department, and Archibald Lochry, the County Lieuntenant of Westmoreland, claimed authority over the two companies of rangers formed in Westmoreland. On the approach of winter, Brodhead ordered these two companies to evacuate Forts Armstrong and Crawford, where they lacked supplies and clothing, and join the regulars at Fort Pitt. Lochry ordered them to Hannastown, that he might post them along the line of the Kiskiminetas river. Much time was wasted by the dispute, but Lochry showed that he had authority to direct the movements of the rangers except in times of aggressive action, and they marched to Hannastown. Then Brodhead, in a fit of pique, refused to provide the rangers with food and ammunition, although they were in the continental service. Lochry had no supplies for them, and he was forced to quarter them, in little parties of four and five, at the houses of the principal settlers. These settlers were willing to feed the men out of their slender stores, rather than lose their protection.1 The winter of 1779-80 began and continued until march. It was perhaps the severest winter in the history of the United States. In January the harbor of New York was frozen over so solidly that the British drove laden wagons on the ice from the city to Staten Island. In Western Pennsylvania the snow began to fall heavily about the holidays and was followed by exceedingly cold weather for two months. The snow accumulated at intervals, and by February 1 was four feet deep in the woods and on the mountains. This stopped all the supply trains from the East, and the garrison at Fort Pitt suffered severely for food and clothing. Many of the soldiers were without shoes, and scouting expeditions were out of the question. The officers were without money or credit, and were reduced to extreme straits. Delaware Indians, who visited the fort in the fall, clung to it all winter, and seem to have found whiskey easier to procure than bread.2-3 P. 104 Great was the destruction of animals and birds in the forest. The snow was so deep that they could not get food, and when the spring came the hunters found only the dead bodies of deer, turkeys and smaller game. The Indians suffered sorely in their woodland villages. Especially was the destitution great among the Senecas, whose corn and vegetables had been destroyed by Sullivan and Brodhead. In Western New York scores of Senecas died of starvation and cold. Increased hatred of the Americans was the result, and revenge is very sweet to the Indian. This hard winter so weakened and distressed the Senecas that when spring came they could not renew their raids on Westmoreland county. Their hunters found it necessary to look for game, and this was exceedingly scarce and poor. The settlers of Westmoreland thus enjoyed an unusual opportunity to plant their fields and gardens, but this immunity was not granted to the inhabitants of the region between the Monongahela and Ohio rivers, under the jurisdiction of Virginia. That part of the frontier was troubled by the Indians of the Ohio tribes, either Shawnees from the Scioto, or Wyandots and Muncys from the Sandusky. These tribes had not been without plentiful stores of corn, and had passed a comfortable winter. They were supplied with guns, ammunition and clothing by the British at Detroit and were ready to take the warpath as soon as the snow began to melt. The Shawnees were occupied with the growing and aggressive settlements of Kentucky. The bold warriors of The Wyandot or Huron fell upon the settlements on the Ohio river and its tributaries. On a Sunday morning, March 12, 1780, a party of five men and six children were at a sugar camp on Raccoon creek, in the southern end of what is now Beaver county. They had probably been at the camp all night, boiling the maple syrup. At dawn a party of Wyandots, having crept up cautiously, shot and tomahawked the five men and carried away the children, three boys and three girls. This was the first blow of the opening season. Others followed, along the Ohio border. In some instances the Indians only stole horses or slaughtered cattle and hogs. P. 105 Toward the end of March a band of Muncy warriors, led by Washmash, a notorious bandit, attacked d and captured a flatboat going down the Ohio to Kentucky. Three men were killed and 21 men, women and children were captured.4 On April 27 Colonel Brodhaed wrote to the president of Pennsylvania: "Between 40 and 50 men, women and children have been killed or taken from what are now called the counties of Yohogania, Monongalia and Ohio, but no damage is yet done in Westmoreland."5 Brodhead wrote to the militia officers of the frontier counties to get men ready to aid him in an expedition against the Ohio Indians, but when he began to make his preparations he found that he could not gather enough provisions for a week ahead.6 Throughout the war the western garrisons were hampered by lack of commissary supplies. The cost of carrying stores over the mountain roads was great, frequently exceeding the original cost of the articles. The pack trains were delayed by many circumstances. There were frequent robberies, sometimes by the men in charge of the transportation. Money was scarce, officials were incompetent, and administration lacked system. A great part of the expense and labor was wasted on whiskey, which was considered a necessary feature of the commissary supply. Westmoreland county raided a few militiamen, who reoccupied posts along the Allegheny and Kiskiminetas rivers. The state was so poor and so slow that for two months the expense was paid by a subscription among the principal settlers. The governing authorities at Philadelphia were, in fact, losing faith in the militia, and even in regulars, as a means of frontier protection. In spite of these soldiers, permanent and temporary, the Indians made their raids and their slaughters year after year, with trifling losses to themselves. The Supreme Executive Council decided to try another method, and rewards were offered for Indian and tory prisoners and scalps; $1,500 for a make prisoner and $1,000 for a male scalp. It was hoped that this would stimulate the young men of the frontier to active operation. 7 P. 106 Early in May, Brodhead sent Godfrey Lanctot, a Frenchman who spoke several Indian languages, to visit the Ohio tribes and endeavor to persuade them into peace, but his efforts were fruitless. The Shawnees, Wyandots and Muncys would not listen to him.8 In May the Senecas, having somewhat recovered from the blow inflicted upon them, came down the Allegheny again in small bands and did considerable damage in Westmoreland. They killed and captured five person near Ligonier, burned Laughlin's mill, killed two men on Bushy run and killed two on Braddock's old road near Turtle creek.9 The settlers left their scattered homes and gathered in the stockade forts and blockhouses, but the danger was soon over. The season was a very dry one, and the Allegheny river became so low that even the Indian canoes could not navigate it. The incursions from the north thereupon ceased. Danger still threatened from the west and Brodhead received a report that an army of British and indians was assembling on the Sandusky river, in preparation for an attack in force on Fort Pitt. He directed Lieutenant Brady to take a few chosen men, go to Sandusky and find out what was going on there. With five white companions and two Delawares, all dressed and painted like Indians, Brady set out late in May. His journey was a long, arduous and dangerous one. As they approached the Wyandot country the scouts traveled only by night, hiding in the thickest woods by day. One of the Delwares lost heart and returned to Fort Pitt. P. 107 Brady and his men drew near the Wyandot capital, near Upper Sandusky, and at night the lieutenant and one Delaware companion waded to a wooded island, directly opposite the Indian town. There they lay in a thicket all the next day, watching the savages enjoying a horse race near the river bank. The town was overcrowded with warriors, and their festivities indicated preparations for the warpath. At nightfall Brady and his Indian withdrew, rejoined their waiting companions and hurried away toward Fort Pitt. About two miles from Sandusky they surprised and captured two young squaws at an Indian camp, and took them along, thinking they might give valuable information. At the end of six days one of the squaws escaped. The food carried by the scouts was exhausted, and for a week they lived on berries. Game was exceedingly scarce. Brady shot an otter, but its flesh was so rank that even these hungry men could not eat it. Near the old Indian town of Kuskuskee, at the junction of the Mahoning and Shenango rivers, when their powder was reduced to only two charges, Brady saw a deer and was able to approach within certain shooting distance of it. He pulled the trigger, but his gun flashed in the pan. He quickly stirred up the priming, and was preparing again to fire, when he heard human voices, the voices of Indians. Keeping well concealed, he saw, coming along a trail through the forest, an Indian captain riding a gray horse, followed by six warriors afoot. Riding behind the captain was a captive woman, and the Indian held the woman's child in his arms. Brady knew the woman was Mrs. Jennie Stoops, of the Chartiers creek settlement, and he did not hesitate for an instant. As the Indian leader came opposite him he took careful aim and shot him through the head. The savage fell dead from his horse, dragging the woman and child with him. Brady dashed forward, shouting for his men to come on. The surprised warriors fired a shot or two and fled into the woods. Brady lifted the woman. She did not know him for a white man. "I am Sam Brady," he said; "follow me." Then he seized the child and hurried away, followed by the woman. He found his men, cowering in the thickets. In their fear and excitement, they had allowed the other Wyandot squaw to escape. P. 109 After going a few miles along the trail toward Fort McIntosh, the scouts met a band of settlers from the Chartiers valley, pursuing the marauders. Mrs. Stoops and her infant were restored unharmed to the husband and father. Brady then returned with a party to the scene of the adventure, where he found and scalped the Wyandot captain. He returned to fort Pitt, after an absence of 32 days. The one Delaware who had run away had reported that the whole party had been killed or captured, and so great was the joy of the garrison over Brady's return that he was greeted with volley after volley of musketry as he crossed the river and entered the fort. Colonel Brodhead recommended Brady's promotion, and on July 25, the Supreme Executive Council made him a captain, dating his commission and pay from the preceding September.10
CHAPTER XVII P. 109 During the summer of 1780 the soldiers in Fort Pitt were hungry in the midst of plenty. It was a strange situation. The wheat harvest was bounteous, and afterward the corn came very heavy. It has often been noted that the land yields well when the winter has been hard. Some say that the deep frost, stirring and loosening the soil, makes the earth richer. The gardens are more productive in vegetables, but severe cold is hard on the fruit trees. After the Westmoreland farmers had cut and threshed their wheat, beating it out with the flail, the streams were so dry that no mills could run, and so there was no flour for Colonel Brodhead to buy.1 But this was not the only reason he did not get food for his garrison. His men suffered for fresh meat, and the farmers would not sell their cattle. To be honest with them, they did not have many cattle to sell. The Indian raids of the preceding three years had been destructive to the love stock. A dozen Indians would kill a great many domestic animals. They not only shot the animals for their own eating, but slaughtered them out of pure wantonness and to deprive the white men of food. P. 110 The settlers were reluctant to part with their cattle, because Colonel Brodhead had no good money to pay for them. He could offer nothing but due bills, to be redeemed by the government in its continental currency. This currency the western farmers did not desire, because it was so depreciated that $40 of it were equal to but $1 of the money of the state of Pennsylvania. Moreover, to get these due bills redeemed it was necessary to carry them or send them all the way to Philadelphia. The Colonel might have been more successful with state money, but of that he did not have much. It maintained its credit largely because it was scarce. Even the state money, in this year of 1780, was not in full favor west of the Allegheny Mountains.2 The pioneers conceived that they had been neglected by the state, and a spirit of discontent and sedition was widely prevalent on the western border. This had been stimulated by the territorial dispute between Pennsylvania and Virginia, which involved the entire Monongahela valley region. Many of the pioneers favored the erection of a new state, to be composed of the over-mountain lands of Pennsylvania and Virginia, believing that they would receive better treatment from a state capital in the Ohio valley, than from the distant governments at Philadelphia and Richmond. The agitation for a new state was vigorous during this summer, and the settlers who favored it looked with hostility upon the garrison of regular soldiers kept at Fort Pitt. The removal of that garrison by starvation would not have been considered by the pioneer as a calamity.3 Colonel Brodhead was driven to many expedients to get food. On August 18, 1780, he wrote to the president of Pennsylvania: "The troops have been without bread for several days and begin to murmur; but I expect to get a little grain chopped in a bad horse mill near this place, and, if possible, prevent a mutiny until a further supply can be procured. I hear the pack horse men have left the service, so that not a shilling have we to purchase with."4 At this time the lack of food had compelled the evacuation of Forts Armstrong and Crawford on the Allegheny river. P. 111 The Pennsylvania authorities gave up the plan of carrying supplies to Fort Pitt on horses from the eastern part of the state, and made effort to furnish the garrison from the county of Westmoreland. For this work they appointed William Amberson, one of the earliest settlers of Pittsburg, as commissary, and directed him to furnish flour, corn and whiskey to Colonel Brodhead. Amberson seems to have been but partially successful in getting supplies, for on September 5 Colonel Brodhead wrote: "The troops have alternately been destitute of bread and meat. At present I am not possessed of two days' allowance, and I have a dull prospect as to further supplies. I have been compelled to hire a few horse to send to the mills below...Unless something is speedily done, these posts, which are of the utmost importance, must be evacuated, and the country will, of course, be deserted, or, as some have hinted, join the enemy.5 About a week after this letter was written, the entire garrison of Fort Pitt paraded one morning before the house of Colonel Brodhead, ragged and gaunt, led by their sergeants. When the commander asked the cause of the demonstration, the sergeants replied that the men had been without bread for five days and were hungry. Colonel Brodhead was able to tell them only that every effort was making to get food for them, and that, during the period of scarcity, their officers were suffering equally with the rank and file. The men were well behaved and quietly returned to their barracks. A few days afterward a few horse loads of flour and some live cattle arrived from Cumberland county, but this supply did not last long.6 During this time the surrounding country was being ravaged by the Indians, and a starving garrison could offer no protection. On August 11 a party of Wyandot Indians killed ten men near the site of Morgantown, W. Va.7 On September 4 two settlers were killed near Robinson's run, now in Allegheny county. The same day two men going down the Ohio river in a canoe to Wheeling were fired upon from the bank, and one of them was wounded.8 About the middle of September the Wyandots fell upon the settlements on Ten Mile creek and killed and carried away seven persons.9 Brodhead was fretting over his compulsory inaction. Time and again he summoned the militia to rally for a raid into the Wyandot land and each time he was baffled by the lack of supplies. P. 112 At length, in September, Colonel Brodhead, driven to desperation, determine to take extreme measures to get food for his hungry soldiers. He had received from the continental authorities permission to take supplies by force from the inhabitants, in case of dire need, and to this resort he was now driven. He chose Captain Samuel Brady to do this work, with a detachment from his company.10 Brady was instructed to attempt to buy cattle and sheep only from those who had them to spare, and, if the farmers would not sell, he was then to take the animals by force. He was not to molest the poor or those who had suffered from the Indians. All cattle and sheep seized were to be appraised and Brady was to give a receipt for them, so that the owners might have a chance some time to recover from the United States government. Brady went into the country along Chartiers creek and on the western side of the Monongahela river, while Lieutenant Uriah Springer headed another party east of the Monongahela. News of Brady's mission seems to have spread rapidly before him. May of the larger herds of cattle were driven into secluded forest recesses. In few places did the soldiers find stock to be spared, within the terms of their instructions. They did get some and sent them back to the fort, but they were not sufficient for the daily wants of the garrison. There was show of strong resistance to the impressing squad. In some places Brady was threatened of trespass. Crowds of angry and armed settlers gathered and made show of forcible resistance. Brady's instructions commanded him not to provoke violence, without extreme cause, but the signs began to multiply that the country was preparing to rise against him. It was probably the most unpleasant task he was ever called upon to perform. He was himself a farmer, and could not fail to sympathize with these badgered and distressed pioneers. For two months he and Springer were kept in the field before the persistent Brodhead ordered their withdrawal. P. 113 Early in October, when Brodhead had hoped that Brady would bring enough beef and mutton to supply an expedition into the Wyandot country, he sent out another appeal to the lieutenants for the adjacent counties to raise volunteers and join him at Fort Pitt. This appeal was a total failure. Colonel Beelor, of Yohogania county, replied that he could not get volunteers. The only way he could help Brodhead was to draft men, and this he feared to attempt, as he did not know whether to proceed under the law of Pennsylvania or Virginia. It was just about this time that the governments of the two states were coming to an agreement on the boundary line, and reports had reached the frontier that all the disputed territory would fall within the bounds of Pennsylvania. These reports caused legal chaos in what is now Southwestern Pennsylvania. The laws of Virginia lost their binding effect and the executive and judicial machinery of Pennsylvania had not yet been extended over the region so long in contention. Thus it was that Beelor found himself powerless to act, and in signing his name to his letter to Brodhead he rather pathetically added, "Without law to protect me."11 The reply of Colonel William McCleery, of Monongalia county, is interesting as revealing the stubborn self-reliance of the Scotch-Irish settlers on the upper Monongahela and Cheat rivers. The militia officers of that county met and decided that they could not spare any men to assist the regulars in an expedition to the northwest. Colonel McCleery wrote: P. 114 "From his (Brodhead's) never having it in his power, for want, as we conceive, of the necessary supplies to put his schemes in execution, during the whole course of last summer and fall, and our unhappy people daily falling an easy prey to the enemy, obliges them to throw off dependence on any natural aid on this side of the mountains this fall, but that of themselves, for their relief, and therefore they mean to embody and take the most plausible methods for their defense, and under the circumstances they think their number is already too small without any division."12 The Delaware chiefs, still true to their alliance with the Americans, came to Fort Pitt with a large band of warriors, to take part in the Wyandot campaign. Their chagrin was keen when Brodhead told them of his poverty and want of food, and that they could not have the opportunity of going with him on a war raid. While these Indians, with their women and children, were encamped near the fort, a large party of settlers from Hannastown, led by militia officers, marched to Fort Pitt for the purpose of attacking the friendly savages. A majority of the pioneers of that day did not distinguish between one redskin and another. All were "pizen varmints," and equally deserving of death. Colonel Brodhead was forewarned and threw a heavy guard of regulars around the Indian camp. The design of the Westmorelanders was frustrated, and they were forced to return with bloodless hands to Hannastown. The same spirit which animated them led the men of Washington county, 16 months afterward to murder Christianized Delawares at Gnadenhuetten.13 P. 115 It was fortunate for Brodhead that he was able to protect these Indians, for he found use for them after the failure of Brady's cattle impressment. He made arrangement for a considerable body of them, as well as some of the best hunters among his soldiers, to the Great Kanawha valley, to spend the winter there hunting buffaloes and to bring the meat to Fort Pitt as soon as the river should open in the spring.14 It was to such measures that he was driven to feed his soldiers. During the winter, however, some meat and flour were procured from the eastern counties, and the garrison managed to live without leaving any record of a death from actual starvation. The number of the garrison during the winter of 1780-81 was about 300.
CHAPTER XVIII P. 116 The aflictions and daring deeds of the pioneers of the Derry settlement during the Revolution will illustrate the experience of other districts in the Westmoreland country. Derry was a long, triangular territory near the northern border of the county, bounded on the east by Chestnut Ridge, on the north by Conemaugh river, and on the southwest by Loyalhanna creek. Its first settlers wee from the Cumberland Valley, and were either natives of Derry, in Ireland, or their immediate descendants. The circumstances under which these pioneers went to the border show that they were bold and self-reliant. The time was a year or two prior to the purchase of the land from the Indians, and the settlers were trespassers. Yet they fearlessly penetrated the forest, built their cabins and hewed out their clearings, taking their chances of withstanding the savages on the one hand and the colonial authorities on the other. When the land office opened, in the spring of 1769, most of these Derry "squatters" were successful in obtaining warrants for their holdings. The leaders in this Derry settlement were Robert Barr, James Wilson, John Pomeroy, William Guthrie, John Shields, Samuel Craig and Richard Wallace. A few of their compatriots, among them Charles Campbell and George Findley, ventured to settle north of the Conemaugh river, in the valley of Blacklick creek, where they were in the most exposed situation in all the border region. . P. 117 The cabins of the Derry men were of logs, and, being furnished with loop-holes for rifles, were capable of stout defense against the Indians. Richard Wallace built on a hill near the Conemaugh, about a mile and a half south of the site of Blairsville. He erected a grist mill which ground the grain of the entire settlement. When Dunmore's war began, in the spring of 1774, he constructed a strong stockade around his house, which afforded a refuge for the neighborhood. This stockade became know as Fort Wallace. . About five and a half miles to the southwest, on a tributary of the Loyalhanna, settled Robert Barr and his sons, and when the Revolution began a stockade was constructed there, known as Fort Barr. A mile farther south, immediately overlooking the Loyalhanna, was the log house of john Shields, and it also was surrounded by a stockade. These three stockades were the strong places of the Derry settlement, frequently assailed but never overcome by the savages. Robert Barr's two sons-in-law, James Wilson and John Pomeroy, dwelt in isolated clearings between Fort Barr and fort Wallace. . The official records of Pennsylvania contain only occasional references to the perils of the Derry settlement during the revolution. Details of the adventures of the pioneers have been preserved in the family traditions, and some of these have been collected in print. These traditions are far from trustworthy, save as corroborated or corrected by contemporary records. Two events are sometimes mingled into one, circumstances are distorted or exaggerated, and dates are often far out of the way. The men who cleared the woods and fought the savages were either unlettered or too busy with deeds to find time for writing. The human memory is very fallible, and tradition is a fragile support for the historian; yet it serves to give life and color to the dull statements of official reports. . P. 118 It was in harvest time of 1777 that the Indians first raided the northern border of Westmoreland. North of the Kiskiminetas a few men were killed or captured, and the Blacklick settlers fled away to Fort Wallace with their wives and cattle. Among the fugitives were Randall Laughlin, whose horses escaped from the pasture at Fort Wallace and returned to the Blacklick farm. Laughlin determined to venture back after them, and was accompanied by four of his neighbors, Charles Campbell, a major of the militia; two brothers Gibson, and a man of the name of Dixon. In safety they reached Laughlin's cabin, and while resting there on Sept. 25, they were surprised and surrounded by a band of savages, probably Wyandots, led by a Frenchman. On the promise that their lives would be spared, the settlers surrendered. They were permitted to write a note, describing their capture, and to tack it on the cabin door. Then they were hurried away, through the wilderness, to Detroit. Rangers who went in search of the missing men, found the note on the door and within the cabin four printed proclamations, from Governor Hamilton, of Detroit, offering reward to all who would desert the American cause. Along the Blacklick valley the rangers discovered the scalped bodies of four settlers, whose lives had been the forfeit of their temerity. 1 Major Campbell and his companions were taken to Quebec, where they were liberated on exchange in the fall of 1778. Dixon and one of the Gibsons died on shipboard during the voyage to Boston, but three others returned to the Westmoreland frontier, where Campbell subsequently attained high position. Several small parties of savages prowled through the Derry settlement during the autumn of 1777, stealing and killing live stock and burning deserted cabins. The settlers kept close in the three forts and suffered little personal injury. On November 1, Lieutenant Samuel Craig, who lived near Shield's fort, was riding toward Ligonier for salt, when he was waylaid and killed or captured at the western base of Chestnut Ridge. Rangers found his beautiful mare lying dead near the trail, with eight bullets in her, but not the slightest trace of the rider was ever discovered.2 P. 119 Three days after the taking of Craig, the Indians attacked Fort Wallace. The savages opened fire from the edge of the woods on one side of the fort, while on the other side a white man appeared, wading in the shallow water up the tail race of the mill and waving a red flag. His action was a mystery to the defenders of the stockade, but their curiosity did not restrain their triggers. As the flag bearer approached the palisade, he received a volley and fell dead with seven bullets in his body. In a bag suspended from a cord around his neck were found two proclamations like those left in Randall Laughlin's cabin on the Blacklick. He was one of Hamilton's emissaries from Detroit, and when he fell his savage followers glided away into the woods.3 The Indians did not leave the settlement. Major James Wilson, working about his farm, heard the firing of guns at the cabin of a neighbor. Wilson got his rifle and went to investigate. He found his neighbor's body, the head being severed and lying near. Wilson then hurried his wife and children to Fort Barr, and a party of the borderers, led by Robert Barr, was soon gathered to pursue the marauders. This party included two of the most experienced Indian trailers on the frontier, Major James Smith and Captain John Hinkston. The Indians were followed across the Kiskiminetas toward the Allegheny river, and were overtaken near Kittanning. A sharp conflict ensued, five of the savages were killed and the others were dispersed. The dead savages were scalped, and the ghastly trophies were sent to Philadelphia for reward.4 In the spring of 1778 the Indians came down again, across the Kiskiminetas and the Conemaugh. On April 28 a score of rangers, under the command of Captain Hopkins, who had gone out from Fort Wallace, were surprised by a superior force of savages in the forest and were defeated after a hard fight. Nine of the rangers were slain and their bodies left behind; Captain Hopkins was slightly wounded, and four Indians fell.5 P. 120 This is probably the combat in which Ebenezer Finley took part, described in Dr. Joseph Smith's "Old Redstone.6 Ebenezer was the son of the celebrated pioneer preacher, Rev. James Finley, and, according to the story related of him, was serving a tour at Fort Wallace as a member of a small militia company from the Monongahela valley. A horseman dashed into the fort, with an alarm that Indians were in the vicinity, that he had left tow men and a woman coming in through the woods afoot, and that they must be overtaken if not rapidly succored. Eighteen or twenty militiamen sallied forth, and, at a distance of about a mile and a half from the fort, fell into an Indian ambush. After the first exchange of shots, the militiamen retreated, and a running fight took place nearly to the gate of the fort. Many of the white men "were shot down or tomahawked." Finley fell behind while trying to prime his gun, and was in imminent danger of being overtaken. Putting forth extra effort, he succeeded in passing a comrade by striking the other man on the shoulder with his elbow, and a moment later this comrade was felled with a tomahawk. Thus young Finley saved himself by sacrificing the life of another, and the pious author would have it tat Finley escaped by the interposition of Providence. Rev. James Finley was I Philadelphia at the time, and at the very hour of the ambuscade was affected by a strong impression that his son was in danger. He betook himself to intense prayer, and after a short period was relieved by a feeling that the danger had passed. It was not until several weeks later that he learned the nature of his son's peril and the manner of his escape. P. 121 Certain family traditions of the Derry settlement relate to another bitter combat with the savages in the immediate neighborhood of Fort Wallace, at an uncertain period during the Revolution. This affair may have taken place during the summer of 1778, for it is known that desperate inroads were made by the Indians at that time into the northern precincts of Westmoreland.7 The story goes that signs of Indians were seen near Fort Barr, and the settlers throughout the southern part of Derry took refuge there. They were preparing to withstand an attack, when brisk firing was heard in the direction of fort Wallace. Major James Wilson, at the head of about forty men, promptly set out from Barr's to the relief of the other post. They arrived within sight of fort Wallace, which they found heavily besieged, but as soon as Wilson's company appeared, the savages turned upon it and assailed it in overwhelming force. The principal conflict took place on a bridge over a deep gully, about 500 yards from the fort. Several Indians were there slain and others were thrown over the bridge; but Wilson's party was forced to retreat and fought desperately all the way back to Fort Barr. During this retreat two of Robert Barr's sons, Alexander and Robert, were killed, but their bodies were saved from the scalping knife. All others gained the stockade in safety, and the Indians soon afterward disappeared from the settlement.8 P. 122 No record has been found of further Indian attacks on the Derry district until the spring of 1781. On the first day of April, while Colonel John Pmeroy and at least three hired men were at work in a field, they were fired upon by Indians and one of the men was killed. Pomeroy fled to his cabin, while the two hired men ran for Fort Barr, about a mile away. Only one of them reached the fort, where he related what had occurred. Very few men were in the fort, but James Wilson and James Barr mounted horses and rode away to Pomeroy's assistance. From a hilltop near the house they saw several Indians skulking about Pomeroy's barn, but no sound came from the cabin. Wilson called out, "Pomeroy, are you alive?" From the cabin came the lusty response, "Yes, come on and we'll kill all the rascals yet." Wilson and Barr left heir horses, made a dash for the dwelling and entered it unharmed. There they found that the owner and his wife Hannah had been making a gallant defense for nearly three hours. They had hidden their children under the heavy oak floor and had betaken themselves to the loft, from whose port holes Pomeroy had been firing. He had two good rifles, and, while he was handling one, Hannah loaded the other, taking, meanwhile, frequent liberal pinches of snuff. Upon the arrival of Wilson and Barr, the Indians, who were few in number, ran into the woods. The children were drawn from their hiding place and Pomeroy's family was conducted, without molestation, to Fort Barr.9 On the following day Colonel Archibald Lochry, the county lieutenant, arrived in the settlement with a company of militia and visited Pomeroy's farm. The dwelling had been broken open by the Indians, and nearly all the contents carried away. In the field the body of the scalped laborer was found and buried. A second hired man, who had fled, was never found.10
CHAPTER XIX P. 123 Colonel Brodhead was never able to execute his design to lead a force against the Wyandot or the Shawnee towns in Ohio. He had expected to get help, for such an expedition, from the Delaware warriors at Coshocton, but in the spring of 1781 a change in the situation impelled him to strike the Delawares themselves. Until the beginning of that year the Delawares took no part, as a tribe, in the war against the frontier. The alliance with the United States, made by their three principal chiefs in the autumn of 1778, was outwardly observed for more than two years. The death of White Eyes had been followed by the election of Killbuck, a famous medicine man and warrior, to the office of chief sachem, and he proved himself to be an unswerving friend to the Americans. It was soon developed, however, that he represented a minority of his tribe. His influence was sufficient merely to delay the union of the Delawares with the other hostile nations. Brodhead had nothing to give to the Indians; British agents from Detroit gave not only promises but presents. Envoys from the Senecas, the Wyandots, the Miamis and tribes farther to the west visited the Delaware towns often, threatening and persuading and using all savage arts to draw the chiefs and warriors into the league against the Americans. Raiding parties going homeward from the frontier flaunted their trophies in the Delaware villages and stirred the envy and ambition of the young bucks. The Indian inclines to war rather than to peace. Captain Pipe became the leader of the war party and soon controlled the tribal council. P. 124 In February, 1781, during the absence of Killbuck at Fort Pitt, the council at Coshocton yielded to the pressure, voted to join the hostile league and permitted bands of warriors to go out against the Pennsylvania and Virginia border. Killbuck feared to return to Coshocton, for threats had been boldly uttered against his life. He made his residence with the Moravians or United Brethren and their converted Indians at Salem, on the western bank of the Tuscarawas river, 14 miles below New Philadelphia. He even professed conversion to Christianity, was baptized and received a Christian name, William Henry, in honor of a distinguished citizen of Lancaster, Pa. Thereafter the Indian sachem, who held a commission from the United States Congress, was proud to call himself "Colonel Henry." He drew to Salem with him his own family, the family of White Eyes and a few other Delawares, including the war captains Big Cat and Nanowland. From Salem chief Killbuck wrote, by the hand of the Missionary Hekewelder, a long letter to Colonel Brodhead, informing him of the hostile acts of the council of Coshocton.1 This letter was accompanied by one from Heckewelder and both were carried to Fort Pitt by John Montour. Heckewelder suggested an expedition against Coshocton, adding: "I trust that your honor will do all that lies in your power to prevent mislisting anybody belonging to our towns; and you may depend, sir, that in case any of your men should have occasion to come by any of our towns, they would meet with much kindness from our people." P. 125 Brodhead determined to attack Coshocton and punish the Delawares for their perfidy. Vigorous exertions by the Pennsylvania government had given him a supply of provisions, but his force of regulars at fort Pitt had been reduced, from various causes, to about 200 men. To the officers of the border counties he sent a call for militia assistance, but this call was fruitless.2 By the help of Colonel David Shepherd, of Wheeling, who was county lieutenant of Ohio county, Pa., Brodhead was able to secure a body of excellent volunteers. There were 134 of them, members of the Virginia militia, arranged in four companies, under Captains John Ogle, Benjamin Royce, Jacob Lefler and William Crawford.3 These men were hardy young farmers and hunters from the settlements in Washington county and along the left bank of the Ohio. Most of them rode their own horses and joined in the raid under colonel Shepherd's command. Fort Henry, the stockade at Wheeling, was the place of assembly, and to that place Brodhead and his soldiers went down in boats during the first week in April. On Tuesday, April 10, the little army, about 300 strong, was ferried over the Ohio river and took the Indian trail for the Muskingum river. John Montour, Nanowland and three other Delaware braves went with the Americans to fight their own tribesmen. It was very desirable that the expedition should move rapidly, so that it might take the Indian village by surprise; yet it was ten days before Brodhead's force appeared before Coshocton. The weather was bad, a great deal of rain fell and progress was difficult. The commander paused awhile, when he neared the Tuscarawas, for a conference with Rev. John Heckewelder, the missionary among the Delawares. A messenger sent ahead had summoned the Moravian minister from his Huts of Grace on the Tuscarawas river, and he met Brodhead on the trail. Brodhead wished to know if any of the Christian Indians were in the hostile towns. Heckewelder said there was none. Brodhead wished the Moravians to prepare some corn and cattle for the soldiers against their return march. Heckewelder departed to see that it was done. Back to Gnadenhuetten and Salem the missionary bore the news that the Americans were in the Indian country, and chief Killbuck and his few warriors put on their paint and went forth to strike a blow for the American cause. Thus the forces of savagery were divided against themselves. P. 126 From the Ohio river to the forking of the Muskingum was hardy 70 miles, and that this required ten days showed how bad the weather and the way must have been. Yet in spite of this slow toil, the Delawares were really taken by surprise. They had no expectation of such prompt action by the American commander and kept no scouts abroad in the rainy weather. Perhaps most important of all, some of their chief men were at Detroit, attending a great council of all the tribes of the northwest, with DePeyster, the British governor. This embassy probably included the Pipe, who had become chief sachem of the tribe in the place of Killbuck, deposed, and the famous war chief called the Beloved. Buckongahelas or He-Who-Fulfils, the next chief in authority, was probably away with a raiding band, and thus Coshocton was without a head and unprepared even for defensive action. On Friday, April 20, in the morning, while the rain was pouring, the American advance guard came upon three Indians in the woods, not more than a mile from Coshocton. One of the savages was captured, but the two others, of whom one was wounded, escaped to the town and gave the first alarm. The captured Indian said there were not many warriors at home, that a band of 40 had just returned from a raid on the settlements, with scalps and prisoners, but had crossed to the farther side of the river, a few miles above the town, to enjoy a drunken revel. Brodhead hurried forward and dashed into the Delaware capital. But 15 warriors were there, who made as brace a resistance as they could, but everyone of them was either shot down or tomahawked to death in the resistless rush of the Americans. The mounted volunteers were naturally first into the town and they neither accepted surrender by an Indian buck nor suffered any of the wounded to linger long in agony. No harm was done to the old men, women or children, of whom more than a score were captured. These were removed, under guard, to a place outside the town, and the log cabins composing Coshocton were then given to the flames. P. 127 The colonel said, in his official report, that his men took "great quantities of peltry and other stores" and destroyed about 40 head of cattle. Doutless there was a great feat on beef when the work of killing and burning was over, for the tired troops were not so well provisioned that they would let fresh meat go to waste. Brodhead desired to cross the river and attack the drunken war party, but the stream was swollen to the tops of its banks and the Indians had all their canoes on the farther side. It was the high water which had prevented the escape of all the inhabitants of Coshocton. The commander then proposed to send a detail to the Moravian towns, up the Tuscarawas, to procure boats, but against this the volunteers protested. They said that they had done enough, had suffered sorely from the weather, had almost worn out their horses and proposed to return home. As they were in no way subjected to military discipline, Colonel Brodhead could not help himself. On the return journey, the Americans followed the Tuscarawas to Newcomer's Town, where they found about 30 friendly Delawares who had withdrawn from Coshocton, when war was noted. Colonel Brodhead says: "The troops experienced great kindness from the Moravian Indians and those at Newcomer's Town and obtained a sufficient supply of meat and corn to subsist the men and horses to the Ohio river." If Brodhead was unable to strike the hostile band on the farther side of the river, that work was done by Chief Killbuck and his adherents. While the Americans rested at Newcomer's Town, Killbuck appeared in the camp and threw at the colonel's feet the fresh scalp of "one of the greatest villains" among the hostiles. P. 128 The expedition returned to Wheeling about the beginning of May, where the furs and other captured goods were sold at vendue, bringing the astonishing sum of 80,000 pounds. The furs were the product of a winter's hunting.4 Quite a different story of this expedition is to be found in the old histories. Its author was Rev. Joseph Doddridge, of Washington county, who gave it forth in his once popular "Notes on the Settlements and Indian Wars, etc." His story was copied almost word for word in Craig's "History of Pittsburg," and is adhered to in Howe's "Historical Collections of Ohio," revised as recently as 1890. Doddridge said that the raid took place in the summer of 1780, which was nearly a year out of the way, and that the force consisted of about 800 regulars and "militia." No militia responded as an organization to Brodhead's call, and that officer, in his report, was careful to refer to the Virginians who aided him as "volunteers." The whole force, said Brodhead, was "about 300 men." Doddridge said: "The whole number of the Indians in the village...were made prisoners without firing a single shot...A little after dark a council of war was held to determine on the fate of the warriors in custody. They were doomed to death, and, by order of the commander, they were bound, taken a little distance below the town and dispatched with tomahawks and spears and scalped." This was a vicious accusation against Colonel Brodhead and is contradictory to the whole history of that strict disciplinarian and high-minded officer. The town was not taken without a shot. Brodhead's report said: "The troops behaved with great spirit, and although there was considerable firing between them and the Indians, I had not a man killed or wounded, and only one horse shot." But Rev. M. Doddridge was only warming to his work. Here is his conclusion of the story: "Brodhead committed the care of the prisoners to the militia. They were about 20 in number. After marching about half a mile, the men commenced killing them. In a short time they were all dispatched, except a few women and children, who were spared and take to Fort Pitt, and, after some time, were exchanged for an equal number of their prisoners." P. 129 The only truth in this statement consists in the number of the prisoners. It may be said that Colonel Brodhead would not be likely to mention so disgraceful an affair in his report, and that his silence is therefore no evidence that the prisoners were not butchers. But the story is disproved by the testimony of the enemy. A few days after Colonel Brodhead retired, the ruins of Coshocton were visited by twenty Wyandots, who learned from the released prisoners and other survivors the particulars of the American raid. These Wyandots quickly bore the news to Simon Girty, at Upper Sandusky, and he promptly sent a letter to Lieutenant Governor DePeyster at Detroit. Girty had reason to hate Colonel Brodhead and would have reported that officer's conduct in the worst possible light. Yet Girty reported that Brodhead had released the prisoners, including four warriors who had satisfied him that they had not engaged in hostilities against the frontier, and had even expressed regret to these Indian men that their tribesmen had been killed during the attack on the Indian town.5 Doddridge's book has still thousands of readers. Doubtless, it well describes the conditions of pioneer life in Western Pennsylvania, but as to historical events it is totally unreliable. At the time Brodhead destroyed Coshocton, Joseph Doddridge was about 12 years old, and he did not write his "Notes" until 40 years afterwards. His only source of information were the exaggerated yarns told by ignorant frontiersmen, beside the log cabin fires, into the ears of the wondering boy. Long years afterward he endeavored to recall and set down these stories heard in childhood, and many persons have considered the result history. The official report of Colonel Brodhead, kept among the archives at Harrisburg, was not made public until 1854, and other contemporary records, bearing on the Coshocton campaign, have come to light in later years. P. 130 As a result of the Coshocton campaign, the hostile Delawares migrated to the headwaters of the Sandusky and to other places farther westward, while the portion of the tribe adhering to Killbuck and the American moved to Pittsburg and erected their rude cabins on Smoky Island, at the northern side of the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela.
CHAPTER XX P. 131 During the spring and summer months of 1781 the Pennsylvania frontier was sorely disturbed by the efforts of General George Rogers Clark to raise troops for an expedition, in the interest of Virginia, against the British post at Detroit. In the summer of 1778 Clark had conquered the Illinois country and the valley of the Wabash for Virginia, and, as it afterward turned out, for the Untied States. Virginia claimed all that northwestern country by king's charter, but, since king's charters had fallen into disfavor in America, she felt more reliance in a claim based on actual conquest. Clark was ambitious for the enterprise against Detroit and was supported by many of the leading men of the Kentucky and Virginia borders. They saw Detroit as the source of all their afflictions, and were eager for the conquest of that breeding place of savage warfare. Clark was in Richmond in January, 1781, where the prestige of his exploits easily gained for him the approval and support of the state government. He received a commission as brigadier general and ample funds to buy provisions in the country west of the Allegheny mountains. A small body of Virginia regulars, about 140, was placed at his service and he was empowered to raise and equip volunteers in the border counties. P. 132 Agents were sent ahead of Clark into the country between Laurel Hill and the Ohio river and began to buy flour and live cattle.1 Colonel Brodhead complained to the president of Pennsylvania that the food supply on which he was dependent was to be taken out of the country in the interest of Virginia, and he revealed a jealousy of Clark's enterprise. "I have hitherto been encouraged to flatter myself," he wrote, "that I should, sooner or later, be enabled to reduce that place (Detroit), but it seems the United States cannot furnish either troops or resources for the purpose, but the state of Virginia can." Brodhead threatened to prevent the sending of any supplies out of the country, but in February he received a letter from General Washington, directing him to give aid to General Clark's undertaking and to detach from his own little force Captain Isaac Craig's field artillery and at least a captain's command of infantry, to assist the Virginia expedition.2 General Clark arrived on the Pennsylvania frontier about the beginning of March and made his headquarters at the house of Colonel Crawford, on the Youghiogheny. A part of his time he spent with Colonel Dorsey Pentecost, on Chartiers creek. He instituted vigorous efforts to raise men in the same region where he had found the hardy volunteers for his first raid into the western territory. Then arose a bitter contention throughout all Southwestern Pennsylvania. The frontiersmen seemed to be about equally divided between support and opposition to Clark's plans. It was generally known by this time that all of the Virginia county of Yohogania and much of the counties of Monongalia and Ohio belonged to Pennsylvania, but the boundary line had not been surveyed west of the Monongahela river and the magistrates from Pittsburg southward were all Virginians. P. 133 Among the settlers there were many factions. Some would obey no law but that of Pennsylvania, and declared that Clark, as a Virginia officer, had no business in that neighborhood. Others adhered to Virginia until the line should be officially surveyed and ardently supported Clark's plans. A few refused to obey any law or acknowledge any jurisdiction, saying they did not know which state was over them. They could not decide such a great dispute, and had enough to do to plant their corn and potatoes and to keep their rifles in good condition for the savages. Some were for a new state of their own, stoutly protesting that the wiseacres at Philadelphia and Richmond never could understand the needs of the over-mountain people. Many of the bolder spirits on the border said they did not care a bad penny whether Clark were a Virginian or a Pennsylvanian; if he could clean out Detroit he would strike a heart blow to the enemy and rescue the border from savage depredations. So they were for him. Clark's intention was to raise 2,000 men in Southwestern Pennsylvania, float them down the Ohio to the Wabash, ascend that stream as far as possible and march overland to Detroit. When he arrived at Colonel Crawford's he found that the frontiers were being raided by bands of Shawnees from the Scioto, Delawares from the Muskingum and Wyandots from the Sandusky. An expedition against those tribes was more popular among the Pennsylvania's than a campaign against distant Detroit, and therefore Clark made an ostensible change in his plans. He gave it out that he was going against the Ohio savages, for the immediate benefit of the Westmoreland frontier; but his real aim was not altered to conquer Detroit and an additional empire for the Old Dominion.3 Brodhead was not deceived, but many Pennsylvania officers were. On March 23, Clark wrote to President Reed, of Pennsylvania, asking his endorsement of the project, for the effect it would have on the frontiersmen who called themselves Pennsylvanians. Clark wrote: "If our resources should not be such as to enable us to remain in the Indian country during the fair season, I am in hopes they will be sufficient to visit the Shawnees, Delawares and Sandusky towns. Defeating the enemy and laying those countries waste would give great ease to the frontiers of both states."4 P. 134 President Reed approved of the campaign, but the letters of both Clark and Reed were unreasonably delayed. President Reed wrote, on May 15: "It will give us great satisfaction if the inhabitants of his state cheerfully concur in it, and we authorize you to declare that, so far from giving offense to their government, we shall consider their service with you as highly meritorious."5 This letter was carried to the frontier by Colonel Christopher Hays, the Westmoreland county member of the Supreme Executive Council. Hays was directed by the council to aid Clark's expedition, but it soon developed that he was opposed to it. Although he arrived in Westmoreland about the beginning of June, the letter which he carried was not delivered to Clark until July 3, when it was too late to do much good.6 Hays called a meeting of all the commissioned officers of the Westmoreland militia to arrange a plan for the frontier defense. Doubtless he was confident that he and his friends could control this meeting, but he was disappointed. The officers met on June 18, at the home of Captain John McCllelland, on Big Sewickley creek, and, to the chagrin of Colonel Hays, decided by a majority vote to give aid to General Clark. It was resolved to furnish 300 men out of the county militia to join Clark's army, and Colonel Lochry was directed to see that this quota was raised "by volunteers or draft."7 This was the first effort made on the Pennsylvania frontier to raise soldiers by draft and it caused a great outcry. The meeting of officers directed Colonel Lochry to consult General Clark respecting the manner of drafting men in Virginia and to agree on a day for a general rendezvous. Lochry met Clark one week later at Crawford's settlement and the rendezvous was ordered for Monday, July 16. This day was chosen to enable the farmers to finish their wheat and oats harvesting before taking down their rifles and powder horns. P. 135 By act of March 28, 1781, the General Assembly of Pennsylvania created the county of Washington, to comprise all the territory of the state west of the Monongahela river. James Marshel was appointed county lieutenant and he set to work to establish the Pennsylvania jurisdiction in a region where most of the inhabitants were Virginians. The Virginia officers clung to heir commissions and were supported by the stronger faction. Such men as Colonel Pentecost, John canon, Gabriel Cox and Daniel Leet worked hard to muster men for General Clark, while Marshel and his adherents were just a s active to defeat the Virginia project. This rivalry, which grew exceedingly bitter, was fatal to Clark's enterprise and unfortunate for the real interests of the frontier. It is probable that Clark, if unitedly supported, would have taken Detroit, overawed the savages and saved the border many years of desolating warfare.8 On the day of the rendezvous the attendance at the several designated places was discouragingly small. Clark and his lieutenants immediately proceeded to raise men by draft. Such action was without warrant of law. It gave opportunity for the rougher element among the Virginians to exploit their hatred of their Pennsylvania neighbors. The work of drafting was carried on with many examples of pillage, cruelty and personal violence. Virginia raiding parties scoured the country on both sides of the Monongahela, seizing and beating men, frightening and abusing women, breaking houses and barns, plundering cellars, impressing grain and live stock and causing a general reign of terror. The long restrained animosities growing out of the boundary dispute now had play. Examples of the acts of violence have been preserved in letters written by the pioneers. P. 136 One of the men most vigorous in denouncing the Virginia proceedings and advising their neighbors to resist the draft was Captain John Hardin, who kept a grist mill near Redstone. His eldest son was Lieutenant John Hardin, of the Eighth Pennsylvania, afterward famous as General Hardin, of Kentucky. At the head of 40 or 50 horsemen, General Clark visited Hardin's settlement, announcing his purpose to hang the stubborn old pioneer. Hardin could not be found, but the Virginians caught one of his sons and kept him bound for several days. They broke open the mill, fed the grain to their horses, took possession of the dwelling, killed sheep and hogs for their food and feasted for threes days at Hardin's expense. Then General Clark declared the old man's estate forfeited for treason, but was kind enough to give the property to the wife.9 A settler who visited one of Clark's camps made so bold as to say that the draft was illegal. He was arrested and confined in a log jail and Clark gave judgment that the man should be hanged in due course of time. The threat of execution was not carried out. It was merely one of the general's "bluffs," for which he was somewhat notorious. Some of the events of this time suggest that Clark had begun to drink pretty hard. He was in the home of Monongahela rye and wealthier Virginia settlers were generous in their hospitality. Colonel Gabriel Cox, who lived on Peter's creek, near Finleyville, went about with a band of armed men, drafting the reluctant settlers. He sought John Douglass, one of the newly elected magistrates for Waashington county, but did not find him at home. Thinking to catch John in bed, Cox and his men returned to the house at night, burst in the door and frightened wife and children nearly to death. Douglass was not there and Cox threatened the trembling wife with his sword. The poor woman could not or would not tell where her husband was.10 P. 137 Colonel Marshel wrote to Philadelphia: "Cox and his party have taken and confined a considerable number of the inhabitants of this county; in a word, the instances of high treason against the state are too many to be enumerated." Thomas Scott, an honored leader among the pioneers, wrote that Clark's conduct had been "highly oppressive and abusive,." adding, " The particulars are numerous and horrid."11 Christopher Hays and Scott wrote jointly, "The general's expedition has been wished well, and volunteers to that service have been encouraged...but we have heartily reprobated the general's standing over these two counties with an armed force, in order to dragoon the inhabitants into obedience to a draft under the laws of Virginia."12 The factional contentions among the borderers caused the failure of Clark's expedition. The Virginia general mustered his forces at the mouth of Chartiers creek, a short distance below Pittsburg, and thence marched to Wheeling, where his boats were built. Above Wheeling the Ohio was too shallow in midsummer to permit of navigation. Clark waited at Wheeling at least two weeks, vainly expecting other additions to his band. Realizing, at length, that the army which he had hoped to lead could not be assembled, and that he must move, if at all, before his stock of provisions was seriously reduced or many of his volunteers had changed their minds, he embarked his men, on the morning of August 8, and began the descent of the Ohio river. His force numbered about 400, with Captain Craig's battery of three field pieces. Although his proud spirit would not permit him to give over his enterprise, he felt little confidence in its success. Just before his embarkation he wrote to Governor Jefferson, of Virginia, that he had "relinquished all expectation," adding, "I have been at so much pains that the disappointment is doubly mortifying." P. 138 Had General Clark waited but a few hours longer, his expedition might not have been entirely fruitless. In the evening of the day in whose morning he departed from Wheeling, there arrived at that place, by overland march, about 100 volunteers from Westmoreland county, under the command of Colonel Archibald Lochry. These fine riflemen would have been a material addition to Clark's strength and a junction of forces would have avoided the grievous disaster which befell Lochry at the mouth of the little stream which has since borne his name. At every opportunity on the voyage down the Ohio some of Clark's men ran away, and by the time he reached Fort Nelson, opposite Louisville, his force was wholly inadequate for a march into the Indian country. He remained in Fort Nelson several weeks, but before the cold weather came on most of his men dispersed and returned in small parties to their homes in Pennsylvania and Virginia.13
CHAPTER XXI P. 139 The destruction of Colonel Lochry's detachment, while it was trying to overtake General Clark, was the heaviest loss suffered by Westmoreland county during the Revolution. It involved about one hundred choice men of the border, including the energetic lieutenant and half a dozen capable officers. In the spring of 1781 the General Assembly of Pennsylvania voted the formation of four companies of rangers, to be enlisted and employed in the northern and western counties for the remainder of the war. One of these companies was allotted to Westmoreland, and was raised by Captain Thomas Stokely. It was made up of experienced woodsmen, and, being intended for a permanent corps, was counted on to perform much better service in defense of the settlements than had been rendered by the small bodies of militia called out at intervals for short periods. This company, recruited to the number of 38, was involved in Lochry's disaster. Another party lost in this expedition was Captain Samuel Shannon's company of volunteers, about 20 strong, enlisted for four months for the frontier defense. Captain Robert Orr, of Hannastown, raised and equipped a small company of riflemen, and Captain William Campbell commanded a squad of horsemen.1 P. 140 The militia officers of the county had directed Colonel Lochry to raise 300 men for Clark's campaign, but only one-third of that number could be enlisted. The reluctance of the settlers to engage in an incursion into the Indian country grew out of the fact that their own homes were threatened daily. During the summer of 1781 the Indian raids into Westmoreland county were unprecedented in number and destructiveness. Many families deserted their improvements and sought safety east of the mountains, and most of those who stood their ground felt it to be their chief duty to protect their families and property. It was with great urging and exertion that colonel Lochry secured nearly 100 men for the western campaign. It is probable that he ordered the companies of Stokely and Shannon into this special service, but the two other companies were strictly volunteer formations of militiamen. No evidence is found that Lochry resorted to the draft to raise his contingent. Lochry's men were detained until the harvest was finished, but on August 1 they began to gather at Carnaghan's blockhouse, eleven miles northeast of Hannastown.2 There the formal muster was held on the following day, and on Friday, August 3, the little band, under Colonel Lochry's command, began its march to join Clark at Wheeling. Only 83 men took the road. Those were the pick of the frontier riflemen, but they were poorly provided for a campaign. Their chief article of food was flour, carried on horses. They were badly clothed, one writer saying that they were "in a manner naked." Before their arrival at Wheeling, they were joined by a few additional men, so that the entire force was nearly 100. P. 141 The first camp was at Caspard Markle's mill, on Big Sewickley creek, two miles east of West Newton. At that place Lochry received, by a fast-riding express, a letter from the president of Pennsylvania, approving Westmoreland's participation in Clark's enterprise. In reply to this, before marching in the morning, Lochry wrote his last letter that has been preserved, saying therein: "I am now on my march with Captain Stokely's company or rangers and about 50 volunteers from this county. We shall join General Clark at Fort Henry...I expected to have had a number more volunteers, but they have by some insinuations been hindered from going.3 The determined little band did not travel by way of Fort Pitt. It crossed the Youghiogheny at the site of West Newton, crossed the Monongahela at Devore's ferry, where Monongahela City now is; went overland by the settlements on the headwaters of Chartiers and Raccoon creeks, and reached Fort Henry in the evening of Wednesday, August 8. Here was a disappointment. General Clark had departed by boats that morning. To prevent the desertion of his men, he had found it necessary to remove farther from the settlements, and he left a message that he would wait for Lochry at the mouth of the Little Kanawha. But Lochry had no boats and could not follow immediately. For four days he was detained at Wheeling while seven boats were built, and these four days were fatal. From the mouth of the Little Kanawha Clark's men began to desert, cutting across through the woods toward the settlements on the Monongahela, and to prevent the entire breaking up of his small force the general was compelled to move on down the river. On August 13 Lochry's boats were ready and most of his men embarked in them, while the horses were conducted along shore. At this time the Ohio river was the dividing line between the white man's country and the Indian's. The boats kept near the southern shore and all encampments were on the left bank. Although Colonel Lochry and his men did not know it, they were watched by Indian spies following them through the forests and thickets on the farther shore, keeping in touch by swift runners with the Indian chiefs on the Scioto and the Miamis. On those streams the red warriors were gathering to resist Clark's advance, and a greater chief than any among the Ohio tribe had come with his Mohawks from Central New York to fight the white invaders. P. 142 At Fishing creek Lochry met 17 men who had deserted from Clark and were trying to make their way to Fort Pitt. These he forced to join his party. At the Three Islands, below the Long Reach, Lochry found Major Charles Crascraft and six men who had been left by Clark in charge of a large horse boat for Lochry's animals. Into this boat the horses were put, and after that the party was able to move with increased speed. Crascraft did not remain with Lochry, but in a skiff hurried away after Clark. On the following day, August 16, Colonel Lochry sent Captain Shannon and seven men in a small boat, to endeavor to overtake Clark and beg him to leave some provisions for the Westmoreland men. Lochry's flour was almost exhausted, and food could be secured only y sending out hunters, whose excursions delayed progress. On August 17 two men who were sent out to hunt did not return, and they were never heard of. It is probable they were killed by Indians. Three days later two of Captain Shannon's men, half starved, were picked up from the southern shore. They told a story of the first disaster. Their little party had landed on the Kentucky side, below the mouth of the Scioto, to cook a meal, and the two survivors, with a sergeant, had gone out to hunt. When they were about a half a mike in the woods they heard the firing of guns in the direction of their camp. They had no doubt that Indians had fallen upon Shannon and his four companions, and, being too badly frightened to return to the river bank to investigate, they immediately set out up stream to rejoin Lochry. In scrambling through the underbrush the sergeant's knife fell from its sheath, and, sticking upward in the bush, the sergeant instantly trod upon its keen point. The blade passed through his foot, and the unfortunate man died in a few hours, after suffering great agony. P. 143 The direst result of this calamity was not the death of the captain and his men, but the capture from them of a letter from Lochry to Clark, revealing the weakness of Lochry's party and its distressed condition. Through this information the fate of the Westmoreland men was seal. Lochry was now fully aware that both shores of the river were beset by savages, and for two days and nights no landing or halt was made. The little flotilla passed swiftly down the stream. But this could not be long continued. It became absolutely necessary to land somewhere, to feed the horses and seek meat for the men. In the forenoon of Friday, August 24, the boats approached a quiet and charming level spot at the mouth of a little creek on the Indian shore. This stream has since been called Lochry's run. It is the dividing line between Ohio and Dearborn counties, in the southeastern corner of Indiana. On that quiet summer morning it seemed to be the abode of eternal peace. The river was low, and long sandbar, reaching out from the Kentucky shore, compelled the boats to pass close to the level spot on the northern bank. A buffalo was drinking at the river's edge, and one of the riflemen brought it down. Colonel Lochry at once ordered a landing, for here was meat for his hungry men and luxuriant grass for his horses. The boats were beached and men and horses were soon ashore. Suddenly half of hundred rifles blazed from the wooded bank that flanked the little strip of meadow. Some of the whites were instantly killed and others wounded. The men made for the boats and many got into them, shoving off toward the southern shore. Painted savages then appeared, shrieking and firing, and a fleet of canoes, filled with other savages, shot out from the Kentucky shore, completely cutting off the escape of the white men. The Westmorelanders returned the fire for a minute or two, but were fatally entrapped, and Colonel Lochry stood up and called out a surrender The combat ceased, the boats were poled back to shore and the little force landed a second time. Human blood was now mingled with that of the buffalo in the languidly flowing river. P. 144 The Westmoreland men found themselves the prisoners of Joseph Brant, the famous war chief of the Mohawks, with a large band of Iroquois, Shawnees and Wyandots. George Girty, a brother of Simon, was in command of some of the Indians. The fierce Shawnees could not be controlled, and began at once to kill their share of the prisoners. While Lochry sat on a log a Shawnee warrior stepped behind him and sank his tomahawk into the colonel's skull, tearing off the scalp before life was gone. It was with great difficulty that Brant prevented the massacre of the men assigned to the Mohawks and Wyandots. About 40 of the Westmorelanders were slain, most of them after the surrender. The captives whose lives were spared numbered 64. Among those who escaped death were Captains Stokely and Orr, the latter being severely wounded in the left arm.( 4) The mutilated dead were left unburied on that lovely spot beside the Ohio, and the prisoners were hurried away into the Indian country. Some of them were scattered among the savage tribes, but most of them were taken by the Mohawks to Detroit, where they were given up to Major DePeyster, the British commandant. They were transferred to a prison in Montreal. From that place a few escaped and the remainder were released and sent home after the treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States. As far as the records show, the following were the only members of this expedition who returned to their homes in Westmoreland.4 Richard Wallace, of Fort Wallace, who was quartermaster to Colonel Lochry. P. 145 Captain Thomas Stokely, Lieutenant Richard Fleming, Robert Watson, John Marrs, Michael Hare, John Guthrie, John Scott, James Robinson, James Kane, John Crawford, Peter McHarge and James Dunseath. Lieutenant Isaac Anderson, of Captain Shannon's company. Ezekiel Lewis, of Captain Campbell's' company. Captain Robert Orr, Lieutenant Samuel Craig, Jr., Ensign James Hunter and Manasseh Coyle. James McPherson, one of the captives, accepted British service, and acted with the Indians on the northwestern border until after Wayne's victory in 1794.(5)
CHAPTER XXII P. 146 For some time before his fatal journey, Colonel Lochry had been losing favor with the Supreme Executive Council in Philadelphia. No question was raised concerning his sincerity and energy in the patriot cause, but his failures to co-operate with Colonel Brodhead, his tardiness and irregularity in rendering accounts of his large public expenditures and the looseness of his militia discipline were charged against him openly. A secret cause of dissatisfaction was his personal antagonism to Colonel Christopher Hays, who wielded at that time a stronger political influence in Philadelphia than any other resident of Westmoreland. Early in the summer Hays was authorized by President Reed to consult with Thomas Scott and other close friends on the frontier and to nominate a successor to Lochry.1 On August 15, 1781, while Colonel Lochry was descending the Ohio to his death, Hays and Scott, in a joint letter to President Reed, nominated Edward Cook for county lieutenant2 and the nomination was confirmed by the Supreme Council before the news was received that the office had been rendered vacant by the blow of a Shawnee's tomahawk. Edward Cook was one of the notable men of early Westmoreland. He was born in Chanbersburg, Pa., in 1741, and at the age of 30 settled between the Monongahela and the Youghiogheny in what is now Washington township, Fayette county. In 1772 he built the first stone mansion in that region and built it so stoutly that it is still occupied by his descendants. His plantation comprised 3,000 acres, fronting on the Monongahela and including the land now occupied by Fayette City. He owned many slaves, was a man of large wealth and famous hospitality and exercised the most extensive influence throughout the Monongahela valley. He was a ruling elder of the Presbyterian church and the chief founder of the pioneer congregation at Rehoboth. He became a member of the committee of correspondence of Westmoreland county and was a delegate to the convention of 1776, which formed the first state constitution of Pennsylvania. For more than four years he was a sub-lieutenant under Lochry. P. 147 Another important change took place on the frontier in the fall of 1781. Several time Colonel Brodhead had been involved in quarrels, not only with the local militia officers, but with members of his own staff at Forts Pitt and McIntosh; and when he was accused by Alexander Fowler, a Pittsburg merchant, who had been appointed to audit the military accounts in the West, of speculating with public money, the officers insisted that he should resign his command to Colonel John Gibson, the next in rank. Although a court-martial had been ordered to try him, Brodhead declined to retire, and made it necessary for Washington to write to him under date of September 6, to turn over his command to Colonel Gibson.3 Brodhead obeyed this order on September 17 and departed for Philadelphia. He was acquitted of the charges against him and for many years afterward occupied offices of trust and profit in Pennsylvania. He died in 1809 and was buried at Milford, Pa. P. 148 His successor in the command of the Western Department was Brigadier General William Irvine, appointed by Congress on September 24, 1781.4 He was a native of Dublin and had served for a short season as a surgeon of the British navy. At the close of the Seven Years War he quit the service, emigrated to Pennsylvania and became a physician in the town of Carlisle. He attained a local eminence and some degree of fortune, took a leading part in the patriotic agitation of 1774, was a member of the provincial convention of that year which recommended a general congress and afterward gave his attention to the organization of the Cumberland county associators or "minute men." In January, 1776, he was appointed colonel of the Sixth Pennsylvania, formed his regiment and marched through New York to participate in the invasion of Canada. At the battle of Three Rivers, June 16, 1776, he was captured, was released on parole seven weeks later, but was compelled to remain out of the service until May 6, 1778, when he was exchanged. As colonel of the Second Pennsylvania and brigadier general in the Pennsylvania line, he served with distinction under General Wayne in New Jersey and was in several sharp engagements. When he was ordered to Fort Pitt he was 40 years old and was the most capable and accomplished officer in command of the Western Department during the war. General Irvine arrived at Ft. Pitt about the first of November, 1781, and set to work energetically to introduce system into the several branches of the military service, to restore discipline among the troops and to conciliate the factions among the settlers and militiamen of the frontier. It was his good fortune to be able to signalize his assumption of command by a public celebration of the surrender of Cornwallis, which had taken place at Yorktown on October 19. Just before the arrival of General Irvine in the West, an event took place in the valley of the Tuscarawas river, which entailed many evil results to the frontier. A large body of savages forcibly removed the Moravian missionaries and their Indian converts from their three settlements on the Tuscarawas to the valley of the Sandusky, where they were planted amid the villages of the hostile Wyandots and Delawares. P. 149 This removal was ordered, with good reason, by Colonel DePeyster, the British commandant at Detroit. The presence of the Moravians almost midway between the British and the American posts had seriously interfered with the prosecution of the war by the British and Indians against the colonies. The missionaries and their converts claimed a strict neutrality but did not observe it. Zeisberger and Heckewelder were secretly the friends of the Americans and conducted a regular clandestine correspondence with the officers at Ft. Pitt, giving valuable information of the movements of the British and hostile savages. This correspondence was suspected by DePeyster and his partisan leaders and they had several times urged the Moravians to move nearer to Detroit. The hostile Indians threatened the converts with destruction because they would not join in the war, while many of the borderers believed that the men of the Tuscarawas villages did occasionally participate in raids on the settlements. The settlers had little or no faith in the Christianity of the Moravian red men. To save the Moravians from danger on both sides, Colonel Brodhead advised them to take up their residence near Ft. Pitt, but they refused to heed his warnings. The convert villages were between two fires, constantly liable to be consumed by one or the other, but Zeisberger and Heckewelder were blind to the peril. In August, 1781, DePeyster became convinced that the missionaries were giving information to the Americans. Thereupon he sent Captain Matthew Elliott, with a small party of tories and French-Canadians, to secure Indian assistance and remove the Moravians to the Sandusky. Elliott was joined by about 250 savages, including Wyandots, under Dunquat, the half-king; Delawares, led by Captain Pipe, and a few Shawnees.5 Elliott's party performed its errand with unnecessary harshness. P. 150 The Moravian Indians numbered about one hundred families 6 and occupied three villages on the Tuscarawas river. Schoenbrun (Beautiful Well) was on the west bank of the stream, two miles below the present town of New Philadelphia. Seven miles farther down the river, on the eastern bank, was the principal village, Gnadenhuetten (Tents or Huts of Grace), and again on the western bank, five miles farther down, was Salem.7 These villages consisted of fairly comfortable log cabins and were surrounded by vegetable gardens and large fields of maize. The Indians possessed herds of cattle and hogs and many horses. Elliott's band seized and confined the missionaries and their families and gathered them and all the converted Indians at Gnadenhuetten. The prisoners were permitted to prepare food for the journey and to pack up some of their goods, but their huts were looted and many things were stolen by the hostiles. On September 11 the movement from Gnadenhuetten began. Blankets, furs, utensils and provisions were carried on the horses and the cattle were driven along, but the Moravians were forced to leave behind their great stock of corn, unhusked in the fields. Men, women and children trudged afoot, and the feeble ones, white and red, suffered sorely from fatigue and hunger. The sad procession descended the Tuscarawas to its junction with the Walhonding and passed up the latter stream to its sources, thence over the dividing ridge to the Sandusky. In the ascent of the Walhonding the greater part of the provisions was conveyed in canoes, and during a wild rain storm two of these canoes were sunk, with their valuable cargoes.8 By the time the Moravians had reached the Sandusky river they had been robbed of their best blankets and cooking vessels and their food was exhausted. On the east side of the stream, about two miles above the site of Upper Sandusky, they settled down in poverty and privation, built rude shelters of logs and bark and spent a winter of great distress. P. 151 In the following March the missionaries were taken, by order of DePeyster, to Detroit for a second time, where they were closely examined on the charge of having corresponded with the Americans at Ft. Pitt.9 Although they were guilty of this charge, the evidence was not at hand to convict them DePeyster treated them kindly but would not permit them to return to the Sandusky. They were compelled to make a new settlement on the Huron river. A striking incident in the history of Washington county was connected with the removal of the Moravians. While the exiles were being conducted up the Walhonding, seven Wyandot warriors left the company and went on a raid across the Ohio river. Among the seven were three sons of Dunquat, the half-king, and the eldest son, Scotsh, was the leader of the party. They crossed the Ohio on a raft, which hey hid in the mouth of Tomlinson's run. They visited the farm of Philip Jackson, on Harman's creek, and captured Jackson in his flax field. The prisoner was a carpenter, about 60 years old, and his trade made him valuable to the Indians, as he could build houses for them. The savages did not return directly to their raft, but traveled by devious ways to the river, to baffle pursuit. The taking of the carpenter was seen by his son, who ran nine miles to Ft. Cherry, on Little Raccoon creek, and gave the alarm. Pursuit the same evening was prevented by a heavy rain, but the next morning seventeen stout young men, all mounted, gathered at Jackson's farm. Most of the borderers decided to follow the crooked and half obliterated trail, but John Jack, a professional scout, declared that he believed he knew where the Indians had hidden their raft and called for followers. Six men joined, john Cherry, Andrew Poe, Adam Poe, William Castleman, William Rankin and James Whitacre, and they rode on a gallop directly for the mouth of Tomlinson's run. Jack's surmise was a shrewd one, based on a thorough knowledge of the Ohio river and the habits of the Indians. At the top of the river hill the borderers tied their horses in a grove and descended cautiously to the river bank. At the mouth of the run were five Indians, with their prisoner, preparing to shove off their raft. John Cherry fired the first shot, killed an Indian, and was himself killed by the return fire. Four of the five Indians were slain, Philip Jackson was rescued without injury, and Scotosh escaped up the river with a wound in his right hand. P. 152 Andrew Poe, in approaching the river, had gone aside to follow a trail that deviated to the left. Peering over a little bluff, he saw two of the sons of the e Half-king sitting by the stream. The sound of the firing at the mouth of the run alarmed them and they arose. Poe's gun missed fire and he jumped directly upon the two savages, throwing them to the ground. A fierce wrestling contest took place. Andrew Poe was six feet tall, of unusual strength and almost a match for the two brothers. One of them wounded him in the wrist with a tomahawk, but he got possession of the only rifle that was in working order and loaded, and fatally shot the one who had cut him. Poe and the other savage contested for the mastery, awhile on the shore and then in the water, where Andrew attempted to drown his antagonist. The Indian escaped, reached land and began to load his gun, when Andrew struck out for the opposite shore, shouting for his brother Adam. At the opportune moment, Adam appeared and shot the Indian through the body, but before he expired the savage rolled into the water and his corpse was carried away down the stream. One of the borderers, mistaking Andrew in the stream for an Indian, fired at him and wounded him in the shoulder. The triumphant return of the party to Ft. Cherry was saddened by the death of John Cherry, who was a man of greatest popularity and a natural leader on the frontier.10 Scotosh, the only survivor of the raiding band, succeeded in swimming the Ohio and hid over night in the woods. In the morning he made a small raft, recrossed the stream, recovered the body of his brother lying on the beach, conveyed it to the Indian side of the river and buried it in the woods. He then made his way to Upper Sandusky, with a sad message for his father and the tribe.11
CHAPTER XXIII P. 153 In the fall of 1781, Pennsylvania frontiersmen decided that their safety would no longer permit the residence of the Moravians on the Tuscarawas. Even if it were not true that the mission Indians sometimes went on the war trail, it was certain that they gave food and shelter to war parties. Colonel David Williamson, one of he battalion commanders of Washington county, gathered a company of from 75 to 100 men and rode to the Tuscarawas in November, with the purpose of compelling the Moravians either to migrate into the hostile country or to move in a body to Ft. Pitt. This company discovered what Captain Elliott and his Indians had accomplished two months earlier. They found the mission villages deserted save by a few Indian men and women who had wandered back from the Sandusky to gather corn. Williamson conducted these Indians safely to Ft. Pitt and placed them under the care of General Irvine. Food being scarce at the fort, Irvine did not keep the Indians long, but permitted them to go to their brethren on the Sandusky.1 Already a small settlement of Delawares had been established near Ft. Pitt. After colonel Brodhead destroyed Coshocton in the spring of 1781, Killbuck, the chief sachem of the Delaware tribe, with his immediate kindred and the families of big Cat, Nanowland and a few other chiefs who remained friendly to the American cause, took possession of a small island at the mouth of the Allegheny river, opposite Ft. Pitt, built bark wigwams, grew corn and vegetables and otherwise supported themselves by the chase and sale of furs. Members of this settlement on what was called Killbuck island- afterward Smoky island - accompanied military scouting parties and were of service in the defense of the frontier. Killbuck was a colonel in the United States army and some of his men received commissions as captains. P. 154 The spring of 1782 was unusually early. Mild weather began about the first of February and with it came the marauding Indians. The first blow in Southwestern Pennsylvania fell on February 8, when John Fink, a young man, was killed near Buchanan's Fort, on the upper Monongahela. 2 On Sunday, February 10, a large body of Indians visited the dwelling of Robert Wallace, on Raccoon creek. The head of the family was away from home. The savages killed his cattle and hogs, plundered the cabin of household utensils, bedding, clothing and trinkets, and carried away Mrs. Wallace and her three children, a boy of 10 years, another boy of 3 years, named Robert, and an infant. 3 In the evening Robert Wallace returned to his desolated home. He ran and told his neighbors and in the morning an effort was made to follow the trail; but snow had fallen and obliterated the tracks. Enough was seen around the cabin to show that the Indians numbered about forty. These raids, much earlier in the year than usual, greatly alarmed and perplexed the settlers. They could scarcely believe that the savages had come all the way from the Sandusky so quickly, and suspicion arose that hostile Indians had taken possession of the deserted cabins on the Tuscarawas. P. 155 About the 15th of February six Indians captured John Carpenter with tow of his horses on the Dutch fork of Buffalo creek. They crossed the Ohio at Mingo Bottom and made off with him toward the Tuscarawas villages. Four of the captors were Wyandots but the other two spoke Dutch and told Carpenter they were Moravians. On the morning of the second day after crossing the river, Carpenter was sent into the woods to get the horses. He found them at some distance from the campfire, mounted one of them, on a sudden impulse, and rode hard for liberty. He struck the Ohio near Ft. McIntosh, went thence up to Ft. Pitt, where he told his story to Colonel Gibson, and they returned to his home in the Buffalo creek settlement.4 Colonel Marshel, the county lieutenant, had already called out some of the militia for the frontier defense, but when Carpenter told what he had learned, that a large body of Indians was on the Tuscarawas and the Moravians were among the border raiders, it was determined to muster more men and destroy the Tuscarawas valley villages as harboring places for the "red vipers." The young men of Washington county turned out to the number of 160, all well mounted, and Colonel Williamson was placed in command. With much difficulty they force crossed the swollen Ohio to the Mingo bottom on the morning of Monday, March 4, and pursued the well-beaten trail leading toward Gnadenhuetten. In this expedition Robert Wallace was an eager volunteer. Not far from the river the horsemen came upon a spectacle that aroused their fiercest indignation. Beside the trail, impaled upon the sharpened trunk of a sapling, was the naked and torn corpse of Mrs. Wallace. Nearby lay the mutilated body of her hapless infant. Imagine, if possible, the grief and rage of the husband and father and the stern oats with which his rough companions pledged themselves to execute his cries for vengeance. On the border of the forest the bodies of the poor victims were buried and the grim-visaged forntiersmen remounted their horses and hurried their course onward along the trail of the murderers. In the evening of March 6 the cavalcade was within striking distance of Gnadenhuetten and scouts brought back the news to the night camp that the once deserted town was again full of Indians. There could not be much doubt in the minds of Williamson's men that the red fiends whom they were seeking were in the village before them and that vengeance should be executed in the morning. P. 156 As a matter of fact, nearly all the temporary occupants of Gnadenhuetten and the two other Moravian villages were mission Indians from the Sandusky, who had come back to their old homes to gather their corn. Some of them had left the Sandusky as early as the middle of January, and others had followed in small parties, until about 150 men, women and children were in the Tuscarawas valley by the beginning of March.5 Not all the men who made this journey were mission Delawares. At least ten of them were Wyandot warriors, 6 who halted but a short time at Gnadenhuetten and then proceeded on their way to pillage the settlements east of the Ohio. All the circumstances of the time, the many tracks seen in the Raccoon valley, the narrative of John Carpenter and the subsequent discoveries in the Tuscarawas villages, show that these Wyandot warriors were accompanied in their raiding by a considerable number of the Moravian Indian men, whose savage instincts were not entirely destroyed by the teachings of the missionaries. The women and the children had been left to do the corn gathering, with some of the men too old to go upon the war trail. Colonel Williamson's cautious plan for the capture of Gnadenhuetten indicates that he believed the town to be occupied by hostile warriors. He divided his force into three parties, sending one company to strike the river below the town, a second to cross the team above and cut off retreat in that direction, while the third company, forming the center, should advance upon the place directly. The attack was made in the morning of March 7 and not a shot was fired by the center or the left. The presence of women and children warned the frontiersmen, when they came within view of the village, that it was not occupied by a war party, and Colonel Williamson quickly learned that the Indians were Moravians. No resistance was made, there was no show of hostile action and white men and red were soon mingling freely. A few Indian men spoke English., With these colonel Williamson held council and told them that they must go to Ft. Pitt instead of returning to Sandusky. The Indians appeared to be willing to accept this new destination, and, at the colonel's suggestion, they sent messengers down the river to Salem, to tell the people there to come to Gnadenhuetten. P. 157 The men composing the right wing of Williamson's command had a more stirring experience. They found the Tuscarawas in flood and with so swift current that they could not trust their horses to it. A young man of the name of Sloughter swam the stream to get what he took to be a canoe, but which turned out to be a "sugar trough," a half log hollowed out as a receptacle for maple water. He pushed it back to the eastern shore, and with the help of this trough nearly a score of the borderers crossed the river. Each man striped, placed his clothing and rifle in the trough and pushed it before him as he swam. Advancing afoot down the western shore, toward corn fields where Indians had been seen at work, a solitary Indian was encountered and was instantly fired at. He was wounded in the arm, and as the white men rushed upon him he called out that he was a friend and the son of Shebosh (a Moravian preacher). Charles Bilderback slew the half-breed with a tomahawk and tore off the scalp. This act was seen by another Indian called Jacob, who sought to slip away unseen to a canoe he had hidden by the river bank. He was espied by some of the raiders and shot dead on the shore. His body was pushed into the river and floated away with the flood. 7 P. 158 The company advanced upon the Indians in the corn field, discovered in some way that they were Moravians, made friends with them and conducted them to Gnadenhuetten. Soon afterward the party from Salem arrived, so that the whole number of Indians assembled was not less than 96. They were confined in the log church, after the Indiana men had all been disarmed, even to their pocket-knives. While the Indians were being assembled and conducted to the church, certain discoveries were made which confirmed the first suspicions of the borderers and again excited their anger and passion for revenge. One of the Indian omen was found to be wearing the dress of Mrs. Wallace. The garment was identified by the bereaved husband. A search of the cabins resulted in the finding of household utensils apparently stolen from the settlements. Some of them were recognized by Robert Wallace as his own property. 8 The volunteers immediately began to clamor for the death of the prisoners. Williamson withstood their demand and consulted his captains. Some of them favored the execution of the whole band. It appears that a long council was held and that many of the Indian men were brought before it, one at a time, and closely examined. Not one of them acknowledged his own guilt but confessions were made that some of the prisoners has been upon the war path. In a few cases the trimming of the hair and paint upon the face indicated that the men were warriors. 9 These revelations produced such an effect upon the frontiersmen that the colonel was no longer able to resist the outcry for vengeance. He put the question to vote whether the prisoners should be taken to Ft. Pitt or put to death on the spot, and it is recorded that only 18 of the whole body of volunteers stood up for mercy. It was decided to slay all the Indians in the morning. P. 159 Bishop Loskiel in his History of the Mission of the United Brethren,10 " says that the prisoners were informed in the evening of their condemnation and that they spent the night in praying, singing hymns and exhorting one another to die with the fortitude of Christians. His precise narrative of the things said and done by the captives in the little church during that night of agony must be largely the product of imagination. In the morning of Friday, March 8, the decree of condemnation was executed. The Indian men were led, two by two, to the cooper shop and there beaten to death with mallets and hatchets. Some of them died praying; others strode to their doom chanting the savage war song. Two broke away and ran for the river, but were shot dead. The women and children were led into another building and slain like the men. Not more than 40 of the raiders took part in these murders. There were slaughtered, on that day, two score of men, a score of women and 34 children. It is probable that even the frontiersmen who stood aside and looked on did not consider this deed a crime. It was, in their view, justifiable retaliation for the most numberless acts of outrage and murder perpetuated in the settlements by savage marauders through a series of bloody years. It was considered no worse to slay an Indian than to shoot a wolf, and the children of the red men were but wolf cubs, whose appetites and fangs were not yet developed. . From this massacre two Indian boys escaped. One hid himself in the cellar under the house where the women and children were butchered and crept forth after nightfall. The other was scalped among the men, but revived and crawled out to the woods under cover of darkness. They found each other in the forest and carried the horrid tale to the villages on the Sandusky. During the day the militiamen gathered the plunder from the Indian cabins and found a goodly quantity of it, including pelts, blankets and a great store of corn in bags. A large party ascended the river to take and kill the Moravians in the village of Schoenbrun, but found not a soul there. Some Indians traveling from Schoebrun toward Gnadenhuetten had come upon the scalped body of young Shebosh, and, spying about Gnadenhuetten, had learned what was doing there. They had returned and warned their companions I Schoenbrun, and all who were there had escaped to the northward. P. 160 The cabins at Schoenbrun were burned, and during the ensuing night every building in Gnadenhuetten was consumed by fire, including the two slaughter houses with their heaped-up corpses. Salem was also destroyed and in the morning the frontiersmen departed on their march to the Ohio, with their booty loaded upon 80 horses taken from their Indian victims. At Mingo Bottom the spoil was divided among the raiders, who then scattered to their several settlements, big with stories of their famous victory.11 After they had been at home nearly two weeks, the militiamen who belonged in the Chartier's settlement assembled again and marched toward Pittsburg, to kill the Delaware's who were living on Killbuck island. the attack was made on Sunday morning, March 24. On the island was an officer with a small guard of regular soldiers. These were surprised by the Chartiers men and made prisoners, an the Indians were then assailed. Several were killed, including Nanowland, the friend of Brady, and one other who held a captain's commission. Chief Killbuck and most of his band escaped in canoes to Ft. Pitt, where Colonel Gibson was in temporary command. Two of the warriors fled into the woods on the northern side of the river and made their way to Sandusky. One of these was the chief, Big Cat, who was afterward a bitter and effective for of the Americans. Before the Chartiers men returned home they sent word into Ft. Pitt that they would kill and scalp Colonel Gibson at the first opportunity, simply because he had been the protector of friendly Indians.12 P. 161 General Irvine, who had been at Philadelphia and Carlisle, returned to Ft. Pitt on the day following the attack on the island and immediately took measures, by conferences with the militia officers of the neighboring counties, to put a stop to the criminal and reckless raids. A few weeks afterward he received an order from the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania to investigate and report on the affair at Gnadenhuetten. He made diligent inquiry of the chief men of the frontier, including Colonel Williamson and some of his captains, but was unable to uncover all the details and responsibilities of the transaction. He soon learned that the sentiment of the border sustained the acts of Williamson's men and that any formal inquiry or attempt at punishment would be violently resisted. He was persuaded at length to report to Philadelphia that the precise facts could not, be ascertained and that it would be wise to let the affair drop. That was the end of the matter.13
CHAPTER XXIV P. 162 The disgraceful exploit of David Williamson, at Gnadenhuetten, whetted the Scotch appetite for Indian blood. Although many frontiersmen approved Williamson's butchery of women and children, they felt, after all, that it was hardly a glorious deed, and it did not satisfy them as being a real revenge on their savage foes. A general desire was expressed for a campaign against Indians whose hostility was beyond question, and it was agreed that the blow ought to fall on the Wyandot and Delaware towns along the Sandusky river. A successful raid into that nest of vipers might obliterate the stain and obscure the recollection of Gnadenhuetten. So a general call went throughout the Washington county border, from Pittsburg to the Cheat river, for volunteers to invade again the land of the Indians and strike the savage tribes in one of their chief dwelling places. This was not a militia movement. It did not issue from the county lieutenant or from any man in authority. It came from the leading men in the several centers of settlement, and met with a hearty response.1 Through hard experience the borderers had become convinced that they must be their own defenders, and that the best way to protect their homes, their women and children, was to carry the war into the Indian country. They no longer relied on the garrison at Fort Pitt. They knew that garrison to be too feeble and too miserably equipped to do any effective work. Moreover, the Scotch pioneers of Western Pennsylvania were by nature self-reliant. They were men of spunk, quite ready to do their own fighting in their own rough way. P. 163 The promoters of the movement requested General Irvine to lead them, but he declined to command a purely volunteer force and could spare no soldiers from his slender garrison. He was then asked to give the expedition his approval and some little assistance. To this he agreed, requiring a pledge from the border leaders that they would furnish their own equipment and provisions, would conform to militia laws and regulations and would acknowledge their conquests as made in behalf of the United States. He furnished some gun-flints and a small supply of powder and detailed for the expedition Surgeon John Knight, of the Seventh Virginia, and one of his own aides, Lieutenant John Rose, a Russian nobleman, who served the American cause with singular fidelity, energy and ability.2 While the expedition was forming Indian ravages on the frontier became more violent. The butchery on the Tuscarawas had stirred the savages to a fiercer hostility. Small war parties invaded Washington and Westmoreland counties and killed or captured many of the settlers in the immediate neighborhood of the companies of mustering yeomanry. Thomas Edgerton was captured on Harman's creek and John Stevenson near West Liberty. Five soldiers were ambushed in the woods near Ft. McIntosh; two were killed and the three others were taken to Lower Sandusky, where they successfully ran the gauntlet. 3 Two men were killed on the border of Washington county.4 At Walthour's blockhouse, near Brush creek, in Westmoreland, a man of the name of Williard was killed and his daughter carried away and murdered in the woods. 5 On Sunday, May 12, Rev. John Corbly and his family, while walking to their meeting house on Muddy creek, in what is now Greene county, were attacked by savages. The preacher alone escaped without injury. The wife and three children were killed and scalped. Two daughters were scalped, but survived to endure years of suffering. 6 P. 164 Colonel William Crawford, who was at the time a regular officer of the Virginia line, was the principal candidate for the chief command, and, through the influence of General Irvine, was elected by five votes over David Williamson. The staff was chosen as follows: majors, David Williamson, Thomas Gaddis, John McClelland and John Brinton; brigade major, Daniel Leet. Major Rose served as adjutant, and the wilderness guides were Jonathan Zane, John Slover and Thomas Nicholson. Gaddis and McClelland were from Westmoreland county. The companies from the several communities attended under their own militia officers. Of some companies nearly all the members volunteered, while of others there were only ten or fifteen. In all, there were 18 companies, with the following captains: Joseph Bane, John Beeson, John Biggs, Charles Fife, John Hardin, John Hoagland, Andrew Hood, William Leet, Duncan McGeehan, John Miller, James Munn, Thomas Rankin, David Reed, Craig Richie and Ezekiel Ross. P. 165 The rolls of this expedition show that nearly all of its members were of Scotch descent. With them were a few Irishmen and an occasional German were represented on the lists. It was on Saturday, May 25, that the expedition left the Ohio and followed the Indian trail toward the northwest. Almost from the beginning of the march the whites were watched by Indian spies, and swift runners bore the news to Sandusky and onward to Detroit. Crawford's expectation of success was based on a hope that he could surprise the Indian towns. This hope was not realized. The borderers were ten days riding to the Sandusky river, and in that time the savages had ample opportunity to prepare for battle. Their women and children were hurried away down the river, the warriors were summoned from the scattered villages and a body of British partisans came to their aid in Detroit. This force of white men consisted of a company of rangers under Lieutenant Turney and Canadian volunteers commanded by Captain William Caldwell, somewhat exceeding 100 men. While Crawford was advancing leisurely his enemies were moving with remarkable celerity. On the fourth day of their march the Pennsylvanians turned aside to visit the ruins of the Moravian town at Schoenbrun. They found little plunder there, but fed their horses on the standing corn. The entire distance traveled from the Ohio to Upper Sandusky was about 160 miles. The cavalcade reached the upper Indian town, on the Sandusky river, in the evening of Monday, June 3. The place was deserted and Colonel Crawford learned that the Indians had abundant warning of his approach. In view of this fact, Crawford advised a retirement,8 but a majority of the council decided to make another day's march, toward the principal Wyandot town. In the morning the command went forward, through the beautiful green plain on the west side of the Sandusky river, seeing no enemy until afternoon. As they drew near to a large grove, standing like an island in the broad meadow, Crawford's men were saluted with a volley, and discovered the British and Indians darting among the trees. The Americans charged, drove their enemies from the covert and occupied the grove. The men dismounted, formed line along the northern side of the forest and for several hours exchanged a brisk fire with the British and Indians lying in the grass and bushes. Darkness closed the combat. In this first day's fight five Americans were killed and 19 wounded, while the enemy lost six killed and 11 wounded. One of the wounded was Captain Caldwell, the British officer. P. 166 During the night the savages howled and hooted all about the grove, and occasional shots allowed the frontiersmen little rest. When day came the Indians lay at a distance and the opposing sides engaged in long-range fighting. A band of Shawnee warriors, 140 in number, joined the foe in the afternoon. Their arrival was observed by the Americans, who were convinced that they were greatly outnumbered. As a matter of fact, however, the two forces were about equal. Toward evening the savages made a vigorous attack, but were repulsed. Crawford held another council of war and decided to retreat during the night. Watch fires were built along the edge of the grove, pickets were stationed in the shadows near them to discharge an occasional shot toward the enemy, and then, late in the night, the main body of Crawford's force began its silent retreat toward the Ohio. Soon after the beginning of this night march one of the strange panics common in Indian warfare, seized upon the Scotch volunteers. On many occasions during border wars bodies of ordinarily brave and well armed white men were affected by an unreasonable fear, especially during the night time, in the presence of savage foes, and fled away through the forest as if pursued by demons. This most supernatural dread often turned victory into defeat. There is no other explanation for the unexpected retreats that followed many a good fight. P. 167 The silent retreat became a noisy one. Men called to one another. Some fired their guns into the darkness. Others left the ranks and ran away, like insane men, across the pathless prairie. Then the savages came upon them in the night and began to slay and scalp the straggling fugitives. Many of the whites were without horses. Some of the animals had been shot; others had been lost. The retreat led into swamps where horses stuck fast and were deserted. A few of the men, weary of long fighting, had fallen asleep in the grove and were left behind. They awoke to find themselves deserted, and in little bands they set out, with no idea of direction, to escape from the savage terror. They heard the firing of guns to the southward and that sound they avoided. Some of them were overtaken and killed; others made their way to their homes after remarkable escapes and excessive hardships. The Indians ranged widely over the level country and glutted themselves with blood. Among the members of the expedition were three of Colonel Crawford's kinsmen, John Crawford, his only son; William Crawford, a nephew, and William Harrison, a son-in-law. Not one of these could Colonel Crawford find. He stood by the trail, as the long line passed, and called for his son. No answer came and the colonel fell to the rear. He became lost, but met Dr. Knight and nine other men. They wandered for two days and ere then captured by a band of Delawares. Colonel Williamson and Lieutenant Rose kept the main body of the Americans together. When day returned the panic subsided and order was restored. On the Olentangy, in the southern part of what is now Crawford county, the Delawares and Shawnees viciously assailed the rear guard, but the men stood firm and the savages were driven off with loss. After that the Indians did not molest the main force, but scattered in search of the many stragglers. Colonel Williamson reached the Ohio, at Mingo Bottom, on June 12, with about 300 men, and he safely brought home 20 of the wounded. During the succeeding two weeks other members of the expedition reached the settlements, singly or in bands of three and four. Ultimately the number of the missing was very small. Indeed, the killed did not exceed fifty during the whole campaign, and it is safe to say that at least half of these were slain by the Indians after they were made prisoners. In revenge for the deed at Gnadenhuetten, all of the prisoners were doomed to die. They were divided among the several villages and put to death with every device of savage ingenuity. So far as known, only two of the captives escaped from their tormentors. These were Dr. Knight, the Virginia surgeon, and John Slover, one of the guides. P. 168 Colonel William Crawford was burned at the stake in the valley of Tymoochee creek, about five miles west of Upper Sandusky. His torture was inflicted chiefly by women and children. It endured during four hours, in the presence of Dr. Knight, Captain Matthew Elliott and Simon Girty. The miserable man was tied by a long rope to a pole, his body was shot full of powder, his ears were cut off, burning faggots were pressed against his skin, he was gashed with knives. When he, at length, fell unconscious, his scalp was torn off and burning embers were poured upon his bleeding head. He arose, then, to his feet, began to walk around the pole, groaned and fell dead. The savages heaped fire upon his body, and it was consumed to ashes. Thus perished a man who had performed a prominent but not always a creditable part in the development of the frontier. Because he was the friend and land agent of Washington, he has been the object of praise he did not deserve.9 P. 169 Crawford's son John, after perilous trials, reached home in safety, but William Crawford the younger and William Harrison were put to death by the Shawnees. Their bodies were cut to pieces and hung on poles. Dr. Knight saw nine prisoners killed by squaws. One old woman cut off the head of john McKinley, and it was kicked about like a football. Among others who met death were Captains John Biggs and John Hoagland, Major John McClelland and Lieutenant Ashley. All the officers were tortured, while the captured private soldiers were killed in a plain and unornamental manner. The melancholy result of the expedition encouraged the savages and brought upon the frontiers a still greater visitation of desolation. 10
CHAPTER XXV P. 170 Striking characteristics of border life during the Revolution were exhibited in the episode of the lame Indian. This was a Delaware warrior, wounded during a raid on a settlement, who surrendered at Fort Pitt to escape starvation and was afterward given up to a band of frontiersmen for execution. His story is rather an interesting one. The settlement attacked was Walthour's station. It was a small stockade surrounding the log house of Christopher Walthour, on an elevated spot south of Brush creek, about a mile and a half east of Irwin. It was the chief rallying place for the Brush creek settlement, composed almost exclusively of German families, whose descendants are still numerous in that neighborhood. The Indian raid took place in April, 1782. Depredations by the savages had already been committed in several parts of Westmoreland county and the families of the farmers were gathered for refuge in the stockades scattered about the frontier. From these stockades the men issued in small parties, well armed, to perform the necessary work of planting the crops. Near Walthour's station half a dozen men were at work in a field. Among them was a son-in-law of Christopher Walthour, of the name of Willard, whose daughter, 16 years old, was also with the party, probably for the purpose of carrying water to the men. P. 171 The workers were surprised by a band of Delawares who captured the girl. The laborers seized their guns and made a running fight as they retired toward the fort in the face of superior numbers. Two of the white men were killed. One of them, Willard, fell not far from the stockade. An Indian rushed out of the bushes to scalp Willard, and was just twisting his fingers in the white man's long hair when a rifle bullet, fired from the fort, wounded the savage severely in the leg. The Delaware uttered a howl of pain and limped away into the thicket, leaving his gun behind him, beside the body of his victim. As soon as a considerable band of frontiersmen could be collected, pursuit of the savages was undertaken. Their trail was followed to the Allegheny river, over which they had escaped into the Indian country. It was almost two months afterward when hunters found the decomposed body of the girl in the woods, not far from Negley's run. The head had been crushed with a tomahawk and the scalp was gone. One evening, 38 days after the attack on Walthour's station, a lame Indian hobbled into the village of Pittsburg and made his way to the porch of one of the houses. He walked with the aid of a pole, and was, in appearance, a living skeleton. A young woman stepped forth to see him. He asked, feebly, for a drink, and she gave him a cup of milk. It was evident that he was nearly starved. After he had eaten ravenously of the food given to him, he told the members of the family, in broken English, that he had been hunting on beaver river with a Mingo, who had quarreled with him and had shot him in the leg. Word was sent to the garrison, and the Indian was taken down to the fort. There he was recognized as Davy, a Delaware sub-chief, who had often visited the fort. The surgeon discovered that the Indian's wound was an old one, and the officers told Davy that his story about the Mingo was plainly a lie. P. 172 After being treated tenderly and having recovered somewhat from his fatigue and hunger, the Indian confessed that he was the man who had killed Willard and had been wounded while trying to take the scalp. The shot had broken the bone of his leg and he was unable to keep up with his comrades when they fled. He had dragged himself into a dense thicket, where he lay in one spot for three days. During that time the settlers were scouring the woods and the wounded man was afraid to stir. When the pursuit was given up Davy crawled forth and sought for food. He found nothing but berries and roots and on such articles he lived for more than five weeks. They barely kept soul and body together and he was so weakened by the loss of blood from his painful wound. He made progress slowly toward the Allegheny river. He came within sight of a small stockade on Turtle creek and for a long time lay on a hill, meditating surrender. He finally satisfied himself that the garrison of the little fort consisted of militiamen and he knew that surrender to them meant death. The Indians were well aware of the difference between militia and regulars and knew that from the buck-skinned frontiersmen they could expect no mercy. Davy hobbled onward until he reached the Allegheny river. On the bank of the river the wounded Indian lay for many days, finding scanty food while he watched for some of his countrymen. No one came and no possibility offered of his being able to cross the stream. Driven to desperation by hunger, he decided to make his way to Fort Pitt and give himself up to the regular soldiers. Davy was confined in the guard house in the fort, in the expectation that opportunity might offer to exchange him for some white person held prisoner by the Indians. The news of his capture and his identity reached the settlement at Brush creek and caused considerable excitement there. The kindred and neighbors of the victims of the Indian raid were hot for revenge and now the chance for it was presented. Mrs. Mary Willard, the widow of the man whom Davy gad killed, went to Fort Pitt in company with a party of neighbors and asked General Irvine to give up the prisoner, that he me be "properly dealt with" by those who had suffered. P. 173 At the time it was not known that Mrs. Willard's daughter had been killed by her captors and the prospect was presented to the woman that Davy might be traded for her daughter. In the hope of such an arrangement Mrs. Willard consented that the Indian should remain some time longer at Ft. Pitt. But when the mutilated body of the girl was found, the people of Brush creek demanded the life of the captive savage. A mass meeting was held and a committee was chosen to go to Fort Pitt and renew negotiations with General Irvine for the surrender of the Indian. The members of this delegation were Joseph Studebaker, Jacob Byerly, Francis Byerly, Jacob Rutdorf, Henry Willard and Frederick Willard. The last two were probably brothers of the man who was slain. Having many other things to worry him at that time, General Irvine yielded to the pleadings of the committee and surrendered the prisoner; but he compelled the delegates to agree to a method of procedure, which he hoped would save the Indian from abuse and torture. Here is the order of General Irvine given to the six frontiersmen: "You are hereby enjoined and required to take the Indian delivered into your charge by my order and carry him safe into the settlement of Brush creek. You will afterward warn two justices of the peace, and request their attendance at such place as they shall think proper to appoint, with several other reputable inhabitants. Until this is done and their advice and direction had in the matter you are, at your peril, not to hurt him nor suffer any person to do it. Given under my hand at Fort Pitt, July 21, 1782. "William Irvine." At the same time the general sent a letter to Mrs. Willard, urging her to do nothing rashly in retaliating her vengeance on the prisoner and not to permit him to be put to death until after "some form of trial." P. 174 With a great glee the borderers set their prisoner on a horse and conducted him to Walthour's. There preparations was made to burn him on the very spot where Willard died. The frontiersmen felt sure of the acquiescence of the two justices, for all through the settlements there was but one opinion as to the proper way to deal with Indians. Davy was placed in a log blockhouse for two or three days and nights, while word went out for the assembling of the magistrates and the settlers on a certain day. Then a form of trial was to be gone through with and the fiery execution was to be witnessed by the multitude. On the night preceding the great day the young men who were stationed outside of the blockhouse to guard it all fell asleep. The one who first awoke in the morning peeped in to see if the prisoner was still there. The blockhouse was empty! The guard aroused his companions and an investigation quickly established the fact that Davy had actually escaped. The great door had been securely locked. No human being could go through one of the loop-holes. There was but one way for escape, and that was through the narrow space between the over jutting roof and the top of the wall. It seemed almost impossible for the crippled savage to have climbed up the wall and squeezed through that opening, but there was no other way out of it. Great was the disappointment and rage among the assembled settlers when they learned that their prey had escaped. In all directions eager searching parties ranged the country, but found not the wounded Delaware. For two days the hunt was maintained, but Davy had left no trail. On the third day a lad who had gone into the wood to bring in some horses, ran almost breathless to Walthour's station and said that an Indian had stolen a gray mare. He had discovered the savage, who seemed to be crippled, mounting the mare from a large log. The Indian got astride, belabored the beast with a stout stick and went cantering off toward the Allegheny river. P. 175 Then the pursuit was taken up by a large body of men. The trail of the horse was followed with some difficulty. The Indian had ridden along the beds of shallow streams and on hard, stony places where the footprints were faint. But the tracks were followed patiently until they approached the river near the mouth of the Kiskiminetas. There the gray mare was found, covered with sweat, cropping grass in a glade near the water's edge, but no trace of the Indian was discovered. The river bank was searched for miles, up and down, but the frontiersmen were forced to return home empty handed. A few years later, when peace had been restored, inquires were made of members of the Delaware tribe concerning Davy's fate. He had never returned to his home. He had either drowned while trying to swim the river, or had starved to death in the forest wilderness. 1
CHAPTER XXVI P. 176 Hannastown, the county seat of Westmoreland, was destroyed by Indians on Saturday, July 13, 1782. This was the hardest blow inflicted by savages during the Revolution within the limits of the Western Pennsylvania settlements. It put an end to Hannastown, effacing it so thoroughly that thousands of the inhabitants of Westmoreland do not know where its first county seat was located. Hannastown was a little more than three miles northeast of Greensburg. It grew around the tavern of Robert Hanna, who set up a house of entertainment for travelers on the old Forbes road, some time before the Revolution. It never grew much, containing only about 30 log houses at the time of its destruction. One of the structures was the court house, two stories high, and another was the jail, only one story. At the northern end of the village a small stockade fort, made of pointed logs set upright, had been constructed in 1773, around a blockhouse and a spring. It was this fort, called Ft. Reed, that saved the villagers when the attack came.1 Hannastown and its neighborhood had suffered heavy loss in the preceding year by the destruction of Colonel Lochry's party on the lower Ohio. Many of the best men in the settlement had joined that expedition, and they carried with them most of the good guns. In 1782 the Hannastown community was not in fit condition for defense against the Indians. P. 177 The blow that fell upon this frontier county seat came from the North. Early in the summer the Johnsons and the Butlers, the tory leaders of Western New York, gathered a strong force at Niagara to descend the Allegheny river and attack Fort Pitt. Three hundred British and Canadian soldiers and five hundred Indians, with twelve pieces of artillery, advanced to lake Chautauqua and lay there while spies penetrated the neighborhood of Pittsburg. The report of these spies, that General Irvine had greatly strengthened the fort and increased its ordinance, caused the abandonment of the expedition, as far as its primary aim was concerned. Most of the British force returned to Niagara, but the Indians were not willing to go home without scalps and plunder. They divided into war parties, and went against New York and Pennsylvania settlements. The largest predatory band consisted of more than 100 Seneca warriors, under the command of Guyasuta, and about 60 Canadians rangers. Most of the white men were dressed and painted as Indians. This was the force that attacked and destroyed Hannastown. It descended the Allegheny river, partly in canoes and partly on horseback along shore,2 to a point a short distance above Kittanning, left the canoes on the river bank and marched overland into the Westmoreland settlements. While the expedition was at its bloody work, many of the canoes worked loose and floated down the river. Several of them were picked up at Fort Pitt. At that time the people of the frontier were in constant apprehension of Indian raids, but there was no expectation of an attack by a large band of savages. Men never went to their farm work without their rifles, but so long had the frontiersmen been exposed to alarms and dangers that they had grown indifferent and careless. Thus it occurred that at Miller's station, about two miles south of Hannastown, men and women were gathered at a frolic, wholly unprepared to resist an attack. P. 178 On the Saturday when the blow fell, a party of harvesters was at work cutting the wheat of Michael Huffnagle, about a mile and a half north of Hannastown. Huffnagle was the county clerk and lived at the county seat. One of the harvesters, going to the edge of the field, discovered, creeping through the woods, a band of Indians, stripped and painted for war. He quietly informed his companion, and the harvesters, taking up their guns, fled unseen to the village. The alarm was spread in the little settlement and everybody was warned to take refuge within the stockade. Great was the consternation and confusion. About 60 persons, men , women and children, were in the village that day, and most of these fled into the stockade without pausing to save any of their goods. Huffnagle and a few other men rescued the bulk of county records and carried them safely into the fort. Sheriff Matthew Jack mounted his horse and rode away to warn the neighboring settlers, while four young men went out scouting, to observe the movements of the enemy. They came upon the savages advancing cautiously through the thick woods across the valley of Crabtree creek, and narrowly escaped capture. They fled back to the fort with the whole pack close at their heels. The Indians evidently expected to take the place by surprise, for they did not shoot or yell until they rushed in among the log houses. All the whites escaped except one man. He had lingered to gather up his personal property, and was slightly wounded before he reached the stockade gate. P. 179 About one hundred Indians and white men attacked Hannastown. 3 They drove into the woods all the horses found in the pasture lots and stables, killed a hundred cattle, many hogs and domestic fowls and plundered the deserted dwellings. Some of the white raiders threw off their jackets and donned better coats found in the houses, and after the assailants had retired several jackets were found bearing buttons of the King's Eighth regiment. From the shelter of the cabins a hot rifle fire was opened on the stockade. The fort contained 20 men, who had 17 guns. It was found, however, that only nine of these were fit for use, and with this small number of weapons the men took turns at the loopholes. The main thing for them to do was to prevent the Indians from assaulting and battering the gates, and in this they were successful. The borderers were good marksmen, and kept the besiegers at a distance. It was certain that two of the Indians were killed, and the defenders believed that they killed or wounded several others. But one person inside of the stockade was wounded. This was Margaret Shaw, 16 years old, who exposed herself before a large hole in one of the gates to rescue a child, which had toddled into danger. Margaret received a bullet in the breast, from which she died after suffering for nearly two weeks. She is buried a short distance north of Mt. Pleasant, and her memory should be kept green. The firing on the fort continued until nightfall. Then the assailants set fire to the town, and danced and whooped in the glare of the flames. Only two houses escaped destruction. These were the court house and one cabin. Fire was set to them but went out, and as they stood near the stockade a renewal of the attempt to burn them was frustrated by the rifles of the frontiersmen. Fortunately the wind blew strongly from the north, and carried the flames and blazing embers away from the little fort.4 After the buildings were well consumed, the savages and their white allies retired to the valley of Crabtree creek, There they feasted and reveled until a late hour. There was little sleep in the fort, and those who watched along the stockade heard the voices of white men mingled with those of the Indians in the enemy's camp. P. 180 A renewal of the attack was looked for in the morning, but it did not come. Parties of horsemen from other settlements began to arrive early at the little fort, and when reconnaissance of the creek valley was made, it was found that the enemy had slipped away. Guyasuta's raiders had departed with many stolen horses, laden with household goods, and they left a plain trail, but it was not until Monday that the borderers had the nerve to follow them, and then 60 men pursued the trail only to the crossing of the Kiskiminetas. The enemy being gone, it was soon learned that great devastation had been inflicted in the surrounding country. A strong detachment of the savages had fallen upon Miller's station, two miles south of Hannastown, where they had killed eleven white persons and carried four into captivity. This station took its name from Samuel Miller, a captain in the Eighth Pennsylvania regiment, who was killed by the Indians in July, 1778. (5) His widow married Andrew Cruikshank, but the settlement retained Miller's name. A wedding took place at Cruikshank's house on July 12, and on the following day many persons were gathered there for the celebration. Upon this gay party the Indians swooped down. The warning was barely sufficient to allow the escape of perhaps a dozen persons, who found hiding places in grain fields and forest thickets. Several men were shot dead while preparing for defense, and 15 men, women and children were taken prisoners. The houses were plundered and burned, and the Indians set out to rejoin their main force at Crabtree creek. Among those taken captive were Lieutenant Joseph Brownlee, his wife and several children, Mrs. Robert Hanna and her daughter Jennie, a Mrs. White and two of her children. Lieutenant Brownlee had served in the Eighth Pennsylvania, but had been discharged because of a wound. As the prisoners were being driven through the woods, Mrs. Hanna addressed Brownlee as "Captain." The Indians at once fell upon Brownlee and killed him, as well as a little son whom he was carrying, and nine other of the captives. Mrs. Brownlee and her infant and Mrs. Hanna and her daughter were spared and taken to Canada. Tradition says that Jennie Hanna married a British officer in Canada.6 P. 181 On Sunday morning a band of Indians attacked Freeman's settlement, on the Loyalhanna creek, a few miles northeast of Hannastown, killed one of Freeman's sons and captured two of his daughters. At the same time a demonstration was made against the Brush creek settlement, to the westward, but the damage was confined to the killing of live stock and the burning of some farm buildings. 7 At Hannastown a small force of militia was stationed by Colonel Edward Cook, the county lieutenant, and the settlers were advised to return and rebuild their houses. Only a few of them did so. Court was continued there for a few sessions and the owners of the property made an effort to retain the county seat. The General Assembly ordered the construction of a new road from Bedford to Pittsburg, and its course was located nearly three miles south of Hannastown, on the line of the present pike. This destroyed the last chance of the original county seat, and in January, 1787, the Westmoreland court began its sessions at Greensburg, on the new road. At present Hannastown does not rise to the dignity of a village. Three or four houses and a blacksmith shop cluster at the cross roads, with a schoolhouse on the hill half a mile to the westward. Between the cross-roads and the schoolhouse the pioneer settlement lay, on what is now the farm of William Steel. The plow still turns up numerous bits of burnt wood, and Mr. Steel has many little relics gathered from the fields. Among these is a ponderous iron key, which once unlocked the oaken door of Westmoreland's county log jail.
CHAPTER XXVII P. 182 The Scots and other frontiersmen were far from being discouraged by their sad experience under Colonel Crawford. The fugitives from the Sandusky plain had barely returned to their homes, when they began to prepare for another campaign. A fierce determination possessed the borderers to crush the "red vipers" along the Sandusky river and arrangements were made to invade the Indian country once more as soon as the wheat and oats were harvested. Brigadier General Irvine was asked to take the command and the principal men on the frontier agreed to furnish the provisions, not only for the volunteers, but for the regulars from Fort Pitt. The general agreed to lead the expedition if he should be satisfied with its size and equipment, and subscription papers were circulated for men, horses and food. Men of means who were too old for campaigning agreed to assist with hoses and provisions. 1 The time for starting was first set for early in August, but the summer being dry and the grist mills without water, flour could not be ground and a postponement was announced until September 20. P. 183 General Irvine informed the Pennsylvania government of the preparation on the border, at the same time intimating that aid from the state and from Congress would be acceptable. A conference was held between members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Council and members of Congress, which resulted in a recommendation to General Washington, about the first of September, 1782, that the United states government should take part in a general compaigning against the savages. At that time aggressive warfare had been suspended in the East and there was expectation of early peace with Great Britain. General Washington agreed that three expeditions should penetrate the Indian country, each to be composed of regulars, militia and volunteers, and Congress voted to bear the expenses of the regular contingents. One expedition, to be commanded by Brigadier General Irvine, was to move from Fort Pitt against the Wyandots and Delawares on the Sandusky river; a second, under Major James Potter, was to advance from Sunbury, Pa., into the Seneca land, in the Genesee valley, and a third was to be sent by the state of New York against the eastern Iroquois in the neighborhood of Oswego. 2 Two companies of militia, one from York, and the other from Cumberland county, were sent to Westmoreland to guard its settlements while its own men were absent in the Indian country. Detachments of Colonel Moses Hazen's "Canadian regiment," stationed at Lancaster and Carlisle, were ordered to march to Fort Pitt and join General Irvine, who had at that post two companies of the Pennsylvania line under Captains Samuel Brady and John Clark. General Lincoln, the Secretary at War, proposed that Irvine's force should aggregate 1,200 men, made up as follows: regulars from Ft. Pitt, 150; detachment from Hazen's regiment, 200; Pennsylvania rangers, 60; Pennsylvania and Virginia militia, 300; frontier volunteers, 490. The day for setting forth on the campaign, October 8, was fixed by General Lincoln, and Irvine assured that by that time Hazen's regulars and the militia from the middle counties would be at Ft. Pitt. General Irvine immediately began his arrangements for operations on an enlarged scale, but when October 8 came he found himself short of the promised reinforcements. On that day he wrote to the president of Pennsylvania that no rangers had appeared, that the few militiamen who had arrived were miserably furnished, and that he could not understand why Hazen's men had been detained. Still, he was determined to proceed if he could gather a force of 600 regulars and volunteers, and he had sent an officer (Captain Brady) along the road to hasten Hazen's detachment. He had again postponed the date until October 20. (3) P. 184 While preparations were making for this campaign the Indians came again against the border. At the beginning of September 1782, Captain Andrew Bradt, with his company of 40 Canadian rangers and 238 Indians, Wyandots, Delawares and Shawnees, set out from Upper Sandusky to attack Wheeling. That settlement was defended by a stockade, called Fort Henry, which contained one swivel gun. The weapon was a useful relic. It had been thrown into the Ohio river by the French when they evacuated Fort Duquesne in 1758, and had been recovered by the pioneers. It had been made and brought to America for service against the British flag, but never fulfilled its mission until used on the fort at Wheeling. Within the stockade, when the approach of the enemy was discovered, all the inhabitants of the settlement took refuge. There were 27 men in the place, but only 18 ere fit for duty. Colonel Ebenezer Zane, the pioneer settler, commanded the little garrison. Captain Bradt's force crossed the Ohio and paraded before Fort Henry in the evening of Wednesday, September 11. The captain displayed the British flag and demanded a surrender. The demand was rejected, and soon afterward firing was opened at long range. At midnight the savages attempted to carry the stockade by storm, but were repulsed. The French swivel gun was used with good effect, as the Indians were very much afraid of any sort of a cannon. Two more futile assaults were made before daylight, and the besiegers then retired to a distance and kept up a steady firing during the day. Captain Bradt sent a negro to the fort with a second but unavailing demand for surrender, and during Thursday night a fourth desperate effort was made to storm the stockade. The brave riflemen again repulsed the savage horde, and shortly recrossed the Ohio river. Among the fort's defenders one man had been wounded in the foot. 4 P. 185 After the failure at Wheeling about 70 Indians, anxious for scalps and plunder, cut loose from the main body of the marauders and went against the blockhouse of Abraham Rice on Buffalo creek, within the present town of Donegal, Washington county. From 2 o'clock in the afternoon of September 13 until 2 o'clock the following morning that blockhouse was successfully defended by only six men. They killed four of the Indians and lost one of their own number, George Felebaum, who was shot in the brain while peering through a loophole. The savages killed many cattle and burned a barn. On their return toward the Ohio river they met and killed two settlers who were going to Rice's relief. This was the last invasion of Western Pennsylvania by a large body of Indians.5 At Ft. Pitt General Irvine's preparations had been made and he was anxiously awaiting the arrival of Hazen's regulars, when, on October 23, he received from Philadelphia information that the Indian was at an end and that his expedition was countermanded.6 The cessation of Indian depredations, which had been carried on with terrible results for six years, was the work of General Sir Guy Carleton, who had recently been appointed commander-in-chief of the British forces in America. He was a humane man, and had never approved the employment of savages. Soon after his appointment to the supreme command he was shocked by the burning of Crawford and other American prisoners at Sandusky, and orders were conveyed to all British officers engaged on the border to exert their efforts to prevent further outrages by their red allies. P. 186 It is interesting to read the reply of Captain Alexander McKee, at that time a British agent among the Shawnees on the Great Miami and Mad rivers, to the letter which he received in regard to the Indian cruelties. "It is true," he wrote, "they have made sacrifices to their revenge after the massacre of their women and children, some being known to them to be perpetrators of it, but it was done in my absence or before I could reach any of the places to interfere. And I can assure you, sir, that there is not a white person here wanting in their duty to represent to the Indians in the strongest possible terms the highest abhorrence of such conduct, as well as the bad consequences that may attend it, to both them and us, being contrary to the rule of carrying on war by civilized nations." General Carleton's protest against cruelties was soon followed by more radical action. He sent an order to the officers in command at Niagara and Detroit to cease entirely the sending out of Indian parties against the American frontiers and to act only on the defensive. This order reached DePeyster, at Detroit, late in August, and he at once sent couriers to the British officers at the Indian towns in Ohio to stop all incursions. The runner sent to Upper Sandusky reached there too late to stop Captain Bradt, who had already marched against Wheeling. General Washington, in quarters at Newburg-on-the-Hudson, did not learn of General Carleton's action until September 23, when he immediately wrote to the authorities in Philadelphia to stop he expeditions at Sunbury and Fort Pitt.7 P. 187 General Lincoln, on September 27, wrote to General Hazen and Irvine that the expedition was off. The letter to Hazen reached that officer promptly and he returned with his command to Lancaster. The letter to Irvine was not sent by express rider, as it should have been, but was entrusted to some person traveling on private business. The bearer lingered by the way and was making little progress toward Fort Pitt, when Captain Brady, riding in quest of Hazen's detachment, found the bearer of the letter at some wayside inn. Thus it was that the countermand reached General Irvine so late.8 The last stroke in the border war of the Revolution was inflicted by the Americans. While General Irvine was making ready to invade Indian country from the eastward, General George Rogers Clark was preparing a similar movement from Kentucky. Correspondence passed between these officers for the purpose of securing simultaneous action. Clark's plan was to ascend the Great Miami and strike the Shawnee towns at the time when Irvine was operating against the Wyandots and Delawares. Early in October General Irvine sent a messenger down the Ohio river to Clark with the information that the Fort Pitt expedition would move on October 20, and Clark arranged to cross the Ohio from Kentucky at the same time. Washington's countermand held Irvine, but it was too late to stop Clark. With 1,000 horsemen, General Clark crossed the Ohio at the site of Cincinnati, marched up the Great Miami and destroyed the two Shawnee towns of Lower and Upper Piqua, in what is now Miami county, Ohio. A detachment burned also the trading post of Peter Loramie and the adjacent Indian town, on the west branch of the Miami. The Indians had warning in time to hide the women and children in the woods, but they saved none of their property and the Kentuckians carried away a great quantity of plunder. Ten Indian scalps and seven prisoners were taken, while two of the Kentuckians were mortally wounded. P. 188 General Carleton's order concluded the Indian war of the Revolution. That is, it ended the incursions of the savages as the allies of Great Britain, acting with British aid and under the direction of British officers, but it did not altogether stop the depredations of some of the Ohio savages acting on their own account. "Small bands of Shawnees, seeking revenge for General Clark's work of destruction, invaded the settlements in the spring of 1783 and inflicted considerable injury. In the autumn of 1782, however, the sorely harried borderers were encouraged to believe that their distresses were at an end, and with earnestness they participated in the observance of the first general Thanksgiving Day celebrated in the United States on the last Thursday of November." 9
CHAPTER XXVIII P. 189 The residents of the frontier, in the opening of 1783, were happy in the expectation of peace, when they were startled and distressed by a series of Indian depredations. Several small parties of savages, in the latter part of March and the first week of April, invaded Westmoreland and Washington counties, struck severe blows and escaped quickly into the wilderness. Four Indians appeared at a clearing in the valley of Brush creek, killed James Davis and his son in a field, took two other men captive and tried to break into the cabin, which was defended by a woman and an old man. One of the Indians tried to pry open the door with his gun, which he thrust in between the door and its frame. The man and the woman within seized the gun barrel and broke it loose from its stock, whereupon the Indians went away.1 In Washington county a man was killed within a mile of the new county seat on Chartiers creek, and a dozen persons were captured. Two of the prisoners, Mrs. Walker and a boy, regained their liberty, but the others were carried to the Shawnee towns on the headwaters of the Big Miami river. 2 P. 190 Some of the frontiersmen suspected that these raids were made by bands that had been out hunting all winter, and did not know of the peace made between Great Britain and the United States, or of the orders issued by the British commanders. Fear was felt that the Indians might keep up the war without British support, and appeals were sent to Philadelphia for peace treaties with the savage tribes. On April 4 the Pennsylvania Council asked Congress to take some action to pacify the Indians, and on April 29 the request was repeated, with the statement that 40 persons had been killed and captured, since spring opened, on the Pennsylvania frontiers. Two days later congress voted to send a messenger into the Indian country to inform the tribes that the King of Great Britain had been compelled to make peace with the United States; that the British had agreed to evacuate the forts at Detroit and Niagara, leaving the Indians to take care of themselves, and that the United States desired peace with the Indians, but were prepared for vigorous action if the tribes should prefer war. To execute this hard and dangerous mission the Secretary at War, Major General Benjamin Lincoln, chose Major Ephraim Douglass, of Pittsburg. 3 Ephraim Douglass was the son of Adam Douglass, a Scot, and was born in Carlisle, in 1750. At the age of 18 he went to fort Pitt, where he worked for a few years as a carpenter. He afterward engaged in the Indian trade at Pittsburg and Kittanning in partnership with Devereaux Smith and Richard Butler. In 1776 Douglass was appointed by Congress quartermaster of the Eighth Pennsylvania regiment. He was captured by the British at Bound Brook, N. J., on April 13, 1777, and for more than two years was a prisoner in New York. After his discharge, much broken in health, he was made the assistant commissary for the department of Fort Pitt. In the autumn of 1781 he was sent on a dangerous mission alone into the Indian country of southern Ohio, and did not return until May, 1782. Major Douglass was a tall man, of great strength. His fearlessness, energy and persistence, added to his knowledge of the Indian country, recommended him to the Secretary at War.4 P. 191 Douglass was accompanied on his journey by Captain George McCully, who had been associated with him in the Indian trade and had served with distinction in the Revolution, and by a wilderness guide. These three men, well mounted and carrying a white flag, left Fort Pitt on June 7, 1783, and rode to the Sandusky river, where they arrived on June 16. (5) They went to the principal town of the Delawares, where they were received with cordiality by Captain Pipe, the chief sachem. With him, for one reason and another, the messengers were compelled to remain for two weeks. The Indians were extremely punctilious in all matters of negotiations, either for peace or war, clinging to ancient forms with much solemn ceremony. While Captain Pipe declared himself to be strongly in favor of peace, he declined to enter into a council on the subject until after Major Douglass had treated with the Wyandots and the Shawnees. This was because the Wyandots and the Shawnees had taken up the hatchet first and had forced the Delawares into the war. The chief of the Wyandots along the Sandusky river was Dunquat, the celebrated Half-King, and he was away at Detroit, but his wife thought that he would soon come home, and persuaded Douglas to wait for him. Captain Pipe was kind enough to send a runner to the Shawnee towns on the Big Miami, asking their chiefs to come to Sandusky to meet the American agent. In five days this runner returned with the news that the Shawnees had just been called to Detroit, to attend a great Indian council with the British commander there. P. 192 Pipe now advised Douglass to go to Detroit and meet all the Indian chiefs in the British presence. Dunquat did not return at the time his wife expected him, and Pipe said that even the Half-King could not make peace with the Americans without the authority of the Wyandot great council, which had its seat in Canada, near Detroit. Douglass, therefore, decided to got to the British fort, and on the last day of June he and McCully set forth, in company with Captain Pipe and two other Delawares. The time spent by Douglass at Sandusky had not been wasted. He had talked much with Pipe and other chiefs, and had influenced them to a friendly feeling toward the American states. He had likewise made a good impression among the old men and women in the Wyandot towns. On the second day of the journey Douglass and his companions were met by Captain Matthew Elliott and three other persons, sent by Lieutenant Colonel DePeyster, the commander at Detroit, to conduct the Americans to the British post. This Elliott was one of the tories who had fled from Pittsburg in the spring of 1778, and he and Douglass had formerly been acquainted. Elliott carried a letter from DePeyster, inviting Douglass to attend the Indian council at Detroit.6 Douglass arrived at the British post on July 4 and had a very civil reception. DePeyster lodged him well and treated him kindly. Douglass soon learned, however, that the British commander would not permit him to hold a conference with the Indian chiefs. DePeyster pleaded that he had no authority from his government to permit such a conference. He objected, moreover, to some of the language in Douglass's letter of instruction. It would never do to allow the Indians to be told that the King of England had been compelled to make peace. Such a statement might lead the tribes to feel a dangerous contempt for the British power. Neither was DePeyster willing that Douglass should tell the Indians that the British had agreed to evacuate Detroit. He had no knowledge that such an agreement had been made. He advised Douglass to go down to Niagara and state the terms of his mission to Brigadier General Allan Maclean, who had greater authority in such affairs. P. 193 DePeyster did give material assistance to the object of Douglass's journey, by persuading the Indians to peace. On July 6 the great council was held in Fort Detroit. It was attended by the chiefs of 11 tribes, representing nearly all the Indians from the Scioto river to Lake Superior. 7 To them DePeyster made a long talk, conveying the essential part of Douglass's message. He told the chiefs of the peace between Great Britain and the United States, and that he could no longer give them help in their war against the Americans. He announced that the Americans desired peace with the Indian tribes, and had sent Major Douglass to invite them to a treaty, and he advised all the Indians to cease their warfare against the United States. The address had a good effect on the assembled savages, and although they could hold no council with the American envoy, they surrounded his lodging and saluted him with pronounced expressions of friendship. On the day after the council Douglass and McCully left Detroit and traveled overland, through Ontario, toward Niagara. At that British post, which they reached in four days, General Maclean raised the same objections as those offered by Lieutenant Colonel DePeyster. He would not permit Major Douglass to speak directly to the Iroquois chiefs, but on his own account and through Colonel Butler, the Indian superintendent, he informed the chiefs of the desires of the United states for peace with the Indians. While at fort Niagara, Douglass had a long private conversation with Joseph Brant, the celebrated chief of the Mohawks, and did what he could to persuade Brant of the kindly intention of the American toward the Indians. P. 194 General Maclean urged Douglass to go to Quebec and confer with the governor general of Canada, but the major felt that he had fulfilled, as far as possible, the duties of his mission, and desired to return to the states. General Maclean sent him by boat to Oswego, whence Douglas journeyed, by way of Albany, to Princeton, N. J., where the federal government was then located, and made his report to General Lincoln. This mission of Douglass effected complete peace on the frontiers. To his efforts were due the cessation of the Indian war of the Revolution on the borders of New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The End.
SOURCE: Author: Hassler, Edgar W.
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