USA > Massachusetts > History of the early settlement of the Juniata Valley : embracing an account of the early pioneers, and the trials and privations incident to the settlement of the valley ; predatory incursions, massacres, and abductions by the Indians during the French and Indian wars, and the War of the Revolution, &c. > Part 18
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were ready to return to the camp, when five Indians sud- denly came upon them and took them prisoners. They were again captives, and taken to Detroit, from which place they did not return until after peace was declared. These men unquestionably saw and experienced enough of Indian life to fill an interesting volume.
In the mean time, the company becoming impatient at the continued absence of the Hicks, several small parties were formed to go in search of them. One of these par- ties fell in with three Indians, and several shots were ex- changed without injuring any person. The Indians took to the woods, and the men returned to the camp. The other party found the place where the elk had been skinned, and took the remains to the camp; the meat was speedily roasted and divided among the men, and the line of march again taken up. The certain capture of the guides, and the Indians seen by the party in search of them, induced the belief that a larger body of them than they wished to encounter in their half-famished con- dition was in the neighborhood, considerably accelerated their march.
The sufferings endured by these men, who were drenched by torrents of rain and suffered the pangs of hunger until they reached the settlements on the east side of the mountain, were such as can be more readily imagined than described. But they all returned, and, though a portion of them took sick, they all eventually recovered, and probably would have been ready at any time to volunteer for another expedition, even with the terrors of starvation or the scalping-knife staring them in the face.
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The tories who, through the clemency of Captain Blair, escaped shooting or hanging, did not, it seems, fare much better; for they, too, reached the settlements in an almost famished condition. Fearing to enter any of the houses occupied, they passed the Brush Mountain into Canoe Valley, where they came to an untenanted cabin, the former occupants having fled to the nearest fort. They incautiously set their rifles against the cabin, entered it, and searched for food, finding nothing, however, but part of a pot of boiled mush and some lard. In their con- dition, any thing bearing resemblance to food was a god- send, and they fell vigorously to work at it. While engaged in appeasing their appetite, Samuel Moore and a companion,-probably Jacob Roller, Sr., if we mistake not,-who were on a hunting expedition, happening to pass the cabin, saw the rifles, and immediately secured them, when Mr. Moore walked in with his gun cocked, and called upon the tories to surrender; which peremp- tory order they cheerfully complied with, and were marched to Holliday's Fort. On the way thither, one of them became insolent, and informed Moore and his com- panion that in a short time they would repent arrest- ing them. This incensed Roller, and, being an athletic man, when they arrived at the fort he fixed a rope to the tory's neck, rove it over a beam, and drew him up. Moore, fortunately, was a more humane man, and per- suaded his companion to desist. They were afterward taken to Bedford; but whether ever tried or not, we have not been able to ascertain.
Captain Blair's men, while passing through what is now known as Pleasant Valley, or the upper end of
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Tuckahoe, on their return, paid a visit to a tory named John Hess, who, it is said, was armed, and waiting the return of Weston to join his company. They found Hess in his house, from which they took him to a neighboring wood, bent down a hickory sapling and fastened the branches of it around his neck, and, at a given signal, let him swing. The sight was so shocking, and his struggles so violent, that the men soon repented, and cut him down before he was injured to any extent. It appears from that day he was a tory no longer, joined the rangers, and did good service for his country. His narrow escape must have wrought his conversion.
The tories who escaped the fatal error of the Indians at Kittaning never returned to their former homes. It was probably as well that they did not, for their coming was anxiously looked for, and their greeting would un- questionably have been as warm a one as powder and ball could have been capable of giving. Most of them made their way to Fort Pitt, and from thence toward the South. They eventually all sent for their families; but " the land [of the Juniata Valley] that knew them once knew them no more forever!"
Captain Blair, whom we have frequently mentioned, soon after or about the close of the war moved to what is known as the mouth of Blair's Gap, west of Hollidays- burg, where John Walker now lives. He was an ener- getic man, and, by his untiring exertions, succeeded in getting a pack-horse road cut through his gap at an early day.
His son, Captain John Blair, a prominent and useful
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citizen, flourished for many years at the same place. His usefulness and standing in the community made him probably the most conspicuous man of his day in this section; and, when Huntingdon county was divided, his old friends paid a tribute to his memory in giving the new county his name.
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MILL CREEK.
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CHAPTER XXII.
THE TORY HARE - MURDER OF LOUDENSLAGER - ABDUCTION AND MURDER OF MRS. EATON AND CHILDREN-TREATMENT OF HARE BY THE SETTLERS, ETC.
DURING the troubles which followed immediately after the declaration of war, a great many depredations were committed by the tories, that were invariably charged to the Indians. As we have stated in the preceding chap- ter, the patriots and the tories, in point of numbers, were about equally divided in many of the settlements of what now constitutes Huntingdon county; yet the victims of tory wrongs could not for a long time bring themselves to believe that they were inflicted by their neighbors. Barns and their valuable contents were laid in ashes, cattle were shot or poisoned, and all charged to the Indians, although scouts were constantly out, but seldom, if ever, got upon their trail.
In a small isolated valley, about a mile south of Jack's Narrows, lived a notorious tory named Jacob Hare. We could not ascertain what countryman Hare was, nor any thing of his previous history. He owned a large tract of land, which he was exceedingly fearful of losing. Hence he remained loyal to the king, under the most solemn con-
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viction, no doubt, that the struggle would terminate in favor of the crown. He is represented as having been a man of little intelligence, brutal and savage, and cowardly in the extreme. Although he did not take up arms positively against the Colonists, he certainly contributed largely to aid the British in crushing them.
A short time previous to the Weston Tory Expedition, a young man named Loudenslager, who resided in the upper end of Kishicoquillas, left his home on horseback, to go to Huntingdon, where Major Cluggage was enlisting men to guard the lead mines of Sinking Valley. It was young Loudenslager's intention to see how things looked, and, if they suited, he would join Cluggage's command and send his horse home. As he was riding leisurely along near the head of the valley, some five or six Indians, ac- companied by a white man, appeared upon an eminence, and three of them, including the white man, fired at him. Three buckshot and a slug lodged in his thigh, and one bullet whistled past his ear, while one of the buckshot struck the horse. The animal took fright, and started off at a full gallop. Loudenslager, although his thigh-bone was shattered and his wound bled so profusely that he left a trail of blood in his wake, heroically clung to his horse until he carried him to the Standing Stone fort.
Weak and faint from the loss of blood, when he got there he was unable to move, and some of the people carried him in and cared for him as well as they could; but he was too much exhausted to give any account of the occur- rence. After some restoratives were applied, he rallied, and gave a statement of the affair. His description of
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the white man in company with the Indians was so accurate, that the people knew at once that Hare, if not the direct author, was the instigator, of this diabolical outrage.
Loudenslager, for want of good medical attendance or an experienced surgeon, grew worse, and the commander, to alleviate his sufferings if possible, placed him in a canoe, and despatched him, accompanied by some men, on his way to Middletown,-then the nearest point of any importance; but he died after the canoe had descended the river but a few miles.
The excitement occasioned by the shooting of young Loudenslager was just at its height when more bad news was brought to Standing Stone Fort.
On the same day, the same party that shot Louden- slager went to the house of Mr. Eaton, (though probably unaccompanied by Hare,) in the upper end of the same valley; but, not finding any men about the house,-Mr. Eaton being absent,-they took captives Mrs. Eaton and her two children, and then set fire to all the buildings. The work of devastation was on the point of being com- pleted when Mr. Eaton reached his home. He did not wait to see his house entirely reduced to ashes, but rode to Standing Stone as fast as his horse could carry him, and spread the alarm. The exasperated people could hardly muster sufficient patience to hear the par- ticulars before they started in pursuit of the enemy. They travelled with all the speed that energetic and determined men could command, scouring the country in every direction for a period of nearly a week, but heard
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no tidings of Mrs. Eaton and her children, and were forced to give her up as lost.
This aroused the wrath of the settlers, and many of them were for dealing out summary punishment to Hare as the instigator; but, in the absence of proof, he was not even brought to trial for the Loudenslager murder, of which he was clearly guilty. The act, however, put people upon their guard; the most notorious known tory in the county had openly shown his hand, and they knew what to expect of him.
Mr. Eaton-broken-hearted, and almost distracted- hunted for years for his wife and children; and, as no tidings could be had of them, he was at last reluctantly forced to believe that the savages had murdered them. Nor was he wrong in his conjecture. Some years after- ward the blanched skeletons of the three were found by some hunters in the neighborhood of Warrior's Mark. The identity of the skeletons was proved by some shreds of clothing-which were known to belong to them-still clinging to their remains.
When Captain Blair's rangers, or that portion of them raised in Path Valley, came across to the Juniata, they had an old drum, and-it is fair to infer, inasmuch as the still-house then seemed to be a necessary adjunct of civili- zation-sundry jugs of whiskey accompanying them. At Jack's Narrows lived a burly old German, named Peter Vandevender, who, hearing the noise, came to his door in his shirt-sleeves, with a pipe in his mouth.
" Waas ter tuyfel ish ter meaning of all dish ?" inquired old Vandervender.
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. "We are going to hunt John Weston and his tories," said one of the men.
" Hunt dories, eh? Well, Captin Plair, chust you go ant hunt Chack Hare. He ish te tamtest dory in Benn- sylvania. He dold Weshton ash he would haff a gom- pany to help him after he come mit ter Inchins."
What Vandevender told Blair was probably true to the letter; for one of the inducements held out to the tories to accompany Weston was that they would be reinforced by all the tories in the county as soon as the first blow was struck; but he was not raising a company. He was too cowardly to expose himself to the danger attending such a proceeding.
As soon as Vandevender had communicated the fore- going, the company, with great unanimity, agreed to pay Hare a visit forthwith. The drum was laid aside, and the volunteers marched silently to his house. A portion of them went into the house, and found Hare, while Blair and others searched the barn and outbuildings to find more of the tories. On the arrival of Captain Blair at the house, some of his men, in a high state of excitement, had a rope around Hare's neck, and the end of it thrown over a beam, preparatory to hanging him. Blair interposed, and with great difficulty prevented them from executing summary vengeance upon the tory. In the mean time, one of the men sharpened his scalping-knife upon an iron pot, walked deliberately up to Hare, and, while two or three others held him, cut both his ears off close to his head! The tory, during these proceedings, begged most piteously for his life-made profuse promises to surrender every thing he had to the cause of liberty; but the men regarded his
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pleadings as those of a coward, and paid no attention to them, and, after cropping him, marched back to Van- devender's on their route in search of Weston.
On their arrival at the Standing Stone, they communi- cated to the people at the fort what they had done. The residents at the Stone only wanted a piece of information like this to inflame them still more against Hare, and, expressing regrets that he had not been killed, they im- mediately formed a plot to go down and despatch him. But there were tories at the Stone. Hare soon got wind of the affair, placed his most valuable effects upon pack- horses, and left the country.
The failure of Weston's expedition, and the treatment and flight of Hare, compelled many tories, who had openly avowed their sentiments, to leave this section of the country, while those who were suspected were forced into silence and inactivity, and many openly espoused the cause of the colonies. Still, many remained who refused to renounce their allegiance to the king, and claimed to stand upon neutral ground. Those who had taken up arms against Great Britain, however, declared that there were but two sides to the question, and no neutral ground ;- that those who were not for them were against them.
Hare was declared and proclaimed an "attainted traitor," and his property was confiscated and sold. Who became the purchaser we could not ascertain; but, after peace was declared and the treaty between the United States and Great Britain ratified, Hare returned, and claimed the benefit of that part of the treaty which restored their possessions to all those of his Majesty's subjects that had not taken up arms against the colonists. As there was
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no direct evidence that he killed Loudenslager, Congress was compelled to purchase back and restore his property to him.
He lived and died on his farm. The venerable Mrs. Armitage, the mother-in-law of Senator Cresswell, of Hol- lidaysburg, remembers seeing him when she was quite young and he an old man. She says he used to conceal the loss of his ears by wearing his hair long.
During life he was shunned, and he died unregretted; but, we are sorry to say, his name is perpetuated: the place in which he lived, was cropped, and died, and is still called Hare's Valley. The people of Huntingdon should long since have changed it, and blotted from their memory a name linked to infamy and crime.
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CHAPTER XXIII.
MOSES DONALDSON-CAPTURE AND MURDER OF HIS WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN.
MOSES DONALDSON lived in Hartslog settlement, where Hatfield's iron-works are now located, near Alexandria. In 1777, after the first Indian outrages had been com- mitted, the neighboring settlers met, and resolved for their better protection to build a stockade fort somewhere near the river. After the building was decided upon, the loca- tion became a subject of contention-one party wanting the fort at Lytle's, another at Donaldson's, and for a while party strife ran high. Lytle, however, succeeded in out- generalling Donaldson,-not because his location was the most eligible, but simply because he was the most popular man. The fort was built at Lytle's, under Donaldson's protest, who declared that he never would go into it,-that if danger threatened he would fort at Standing Stone,-a vow he religiously kept, at the expense of the loss of his wife and two children, we regret to say.
He continued living at his own house until the spring of 1778, when Indian alarms became so frequent that he removed his family to Huntingdon. In a short time the fears of the people were somewhat lulled, and most of them
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returned to their homes again. Mr. Donaldson, finding his farm-work pressing, returned to his home about the first of June, and prepared to make hay.
On the 11th of the month, a girl who was after cows discovered in Anderson's bottom, near the mouth of Shaver's Creek, an encampment of some five or six Indians. Without their discovering her, she made her way back and communicated the intelligence, and the news was soon circulated among the settlers. The five Indians were considered the advance of a large party; otherwise they might readily have been cut off by a dozen resolute men. Instead of making the least effort to ascertain the number of the savages, the people fled to the forts in the utmost consternation.
On the same evening, a convoy of canoes landed at the mouth of Shaver's Creek, and the soldiers stopped at an old inn on the bank of the creek. They had taken a load of supplies to Water Street Landing for the Lead Mine Fort, and were returning with lead-ore, consigned to Mid- dletown for smelting. The state of affairs was laid before the commander of the convoy, and Mr. Anderson pre- vailed upon him to stay a day or two, until the alarm had subsided.
On the afternoon of the 12th, Donaldson was warned that the Indians had been seen a second time, and advised to fort at Lytle's without delay. This he refused to do point-blank, but immediately packed up, put his family into a canoe, and started for Huntingdon. When he reached the mouth of Shaver's Creek, he tied the canoe to the root of a tree at the bank of the creek, and went up to transact some business with Mr. Anderson, accompanied
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by his oldest child-a lad nine or ten years of age,- leaving his wife and two younger children in the canoe.
After an absence of half an hour, the boy returned to the canoe; but, as he came in sight of it, he observed a number of Indians taking his mother and the children out of it. He hastened back to the inn and told the soldiers, but they considered it a fabrication, and paid no attention to what he said. From thence he hastened to Anderson's and told his father, who immediately followed him, and found it only too true that his family had been abducted- that, too, within the hearing, and almost within sight, of twelve soldiers. Donaldson went to the inn, and appealed to the commandant to start his force in immediate pursuit. This, however, was found totally impracticable, as they had been making a sort of holiday by getting drunk, and were unfit for duty of any kind; which was to be regretted, for the timely notice of the outrage would easily have enabled them, had they been in condition, to overtake the savages.
Early next morning the soldiers started in pursuit in one direction, and the people of the settlement formed into a strong party and went in another, and in this manner the entire country was scoured. Toward evening a bon- net belonging to one of the children was found in a rye- field, near where the Maguire farm now stands, which in- dicated the direction the savages had taken.
Next day the search was resumed and continued until night; but no tidings whatever could be obtained of the route the savages had taken, and they were finally obliged to give them up as lost.
Several years elapsed before their fate was known.
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Thomas Johnston and Peter Crum, while hunting up Spruce Creek, probably a mile and a half from its mouth, came upon the camp of a friendly Indian family, near whose wigwam an old woman was engaged in boiling sugar, and who informed them that she had long been waiting for some white hunters to come up, as she had something to show them. She then led the way, and, half a mile off, showed them the skeletons of a grown per- son and two children. This news was communicated to Mr. Donaldson, and he had the skeletons taken to Shaver's Creek, with a view of interring them. But here a new difficulty arose. Mr. Eaton had not yet recovered his family, abducted from Kishicoquillas Valley, and there was no reason why these skeletons might not be those of his family. The matter was finally determined by a weaver, who testified to a piece of Mrs. Donaldson's short-gown, found near her remains.
When we reflect over this act ,of savage atrocity, we are free to confess that we look upon it as one of the most inhuman and revolting on record. The woman, with her two children, taken to a neighboring wood, and there, in all probability, tomahawked and scalped in succession,-the children witnessing the agony of the dying mother, or perhaps the mother a witness to the butchery of her helpless offspring,-the very recital chills the blood.
The son, who accompanied his father to Anderson's, died at a very advanced age, at or near Lock Haven, a year or two ago.
William Donaldson, of Hollidaysburg, is a son of Moses Donaldson by a second wife.
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CHAPTER XXIV.
DEPREDATIONS AT THE MOUTH OF SPRUCE CREEK-MURDER OF LEVI HICKS -SCALPING OF HIS CHILD.
WE have already mentioned the Hicks family in a pre- ceding chapter, and incidentally mentioned their captivity for a number of years among the Indians. We have made the most unremitting exertions, yet we have failed to ascertain any thing like a satisfactory account of this remarkable family. The name of Gersham Hicks figures in Miner's "History of Wyoming" as an Indian guide, while in the Archives he is noticed as an Indian inter- preter, previous to the war of the Revolution. Where they were taken, or when released, is not positively known. One thing, however, is quite certain : that is, that they made themselves masters of both the habits and lan- guage of many of the Indians.
Mrs. Fee thinks they came to Water Street imme- diately after their release from captivity, and settled there. During their captivity they imbibed the Indian habit to such a degree that they wore the Indian costume, even to the colored eagle-feathers and little trinkets which savages seem to take so much delight in. Gersham
TUNNEL ON THE PENNSYLVANIA CENTRAL ROAD AT THE MOUTH OF SPRUCE CREEK.
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and Moses were unmarried, but Levi, the elder, brought with him a half-breed as his wife, by whom he had a number of children. They all settled at Water Street, and commenced the occupation of farming. Subse- quently, Levi rented from the Bebaults the tub-mill at or near the mouth of Spruce Creek.
When the Indian troubles commenced in the spring of 1778, he was repeatedly urged to go either to Lytle's or Lowry's Fort, and let the mill stand until the alarm had subsided. Hicks, however, obstinately refused, declaring that he was safe. It is thus apparent that he relied upon his intimate knowledge of the Indian character and lan- guage for safety, in case any of the marauders should find their way to what he looked upon as a sort of an out-of- the-way place,-a fatal case of misplaced confidence, not- withstanding it was asserted that the fall previous a party had attacked his cabin, and that, on his addressing them in their own language, they had desisted.
On the 12th of May, 1778, Hicks started his mill in the morning, as was his usual custom, and then repaired to breakfast. While in the house he procured a needle and thread, returned to the mill, replenished the hopper, and then seated himself near the door and commenced mending a moccasin. He had been occupied at this but a minute or two before he heard a rustling in the bushes some ten or fifteen yards in front of him. The idea of there being Indians in the vicinity never entered his head; nobody had seen or heard of any in the settlement. Consequently, in direct violation of an established custom, he walked forward to ascertain the cause of the com- motion in the bushes, leaving his rifle leaning against the
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mill. He advanced but one or two steps before he was shot through the heart.
His wife, who was in the house at the time, hearing the report, ran to the door, and in an instant comprehended how matters stood. She opened the back door, ran down the river to a fording, crossed over, and, with all the speed she could command, hastened over the mountain to Lytle's Fort. Near Alexandria she met a man on horseback, who, noticing her distracted condition, demanded what the matter was. She explained as best she could, when the man turned back and rode rapidly toward the fort to apprise the people of what had occurred. It was then that the wo- man fairly recovered her senses, and, on looking around for the first time, she noticed her little son, about ten years old, who had followed her. The sight of him reminded her of her family of children at home, at the mercy of the savages, and all the mother's devotion was aroused within her. She picked up her boy, and, exhausted as she was, hastened toward the fort with him.
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