USA > Maryland > Allegany County > Cumberland > History of Cumberland, (Maryland) from the time of the Indian town, Caiuctucuc, in 1728, up to the present day : embracing an account of Washington's first campaign, and battle of Fort Necessity, together with a history of Braddock's expedition > Part 2
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The Potomac* River obtained its name doubtless from the Potomac tribe of Indians. At the time of the grant of Maryland to Lord Baltimore, in 1632, it was specified as the boundary line between Virginia and Maryland, and referred to as "Quiriough, or Potomac." This title was applied to the river only as far up as the mouth of the Shenandoah. From the point of its confluence with that stream up to the source of the North Branch it was called Cohongaronta, or Upper Potomac, while the South Branch bore the name of the Wappacomo or Wappa- tomaka. The Cohongaronta was said to have been surveyed from the mouth of the Shenandoah to the head springs, in 1736, by Mr. Benjamin Winslow, but it is quite probable that Mr. Winslow grew weary of his task, for some reason, and abandoned it prematurely, as the maps of fifteen years later are far from being correct. Inasmuch as the Potomac was declared the boundary line between Virginia and Maryland there was much doubt expressed on the part of the proprietary of Maryland as to the justice of taking the North Branch as the main stream.
*The word Potomac signifies the "Place of the burning pine," "resembling a council fire."
24
HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND.
Virginia, however, claimed through her Commissioner, Hon. Charles James Faulkner, in 1832, that while the South Branch was the longer, the North Branch was the wider and deeper, and had the greater volume of water; in addition to which facts the valley of the South Branch has not the general direction of the Potomac, while that of the North Branch has. The discussion of this matter has been frequent and of long duration, the Legisla- tures having on several occasions appointed "Boundary Commissioners" with a view to its settlement. There has been no result further than to confirm the original boundary, and the matter is now, doubtless finally settled.
The lands in the vicinity of Cumberland are rich in Indian relics, and an interesting collection of stone pipes tomahawks, rings, tablets, quoits, &c., has been made by Mr. F. M. Offutt. These were taken from graves which have been opened by various persons. Along the banks of the Potomac the curious may still find these graves, and the writer has himself assisted in the exploration of a number of them. The custom of the Indians was to lay their dead upon the surface of the earth, and to deposit beside them their bows, arrows, tomahawks, and food in jars or crocks of pottery, made of clay mixed with finely crushed flint, and burned. The friends then deposited such articles as they chose, and the bodies were afterwards covered with stones, which were laid on to a height of about two feet. Usually the stones used were boulders from the bed of the river. It is probable that the graves thus constructed were those of parties who were on
25
INDIAN GRAVES.
the war path, or traveling from one place to another, as usually not more than two or three graves are found together. This is rendered more probable from the fact that few such graves are found in the immediate vicinity of their towns. At Brady's Mills, a number of skeletons were unearthed some years ago, by workmen who were excavating the ground for the foundations of a distillery built there by Mr. Samuel Brady. These were, beyond doubt, the remains of Indians, and were buried in a sitting
posture, some depth below the surface. This was doubtless the burial ground of the Indian village which lay between that place and Cresaptown. On the farm of Mr. Christopher Kelley, fourteen miles below Cumberland, one of these stone piles was opened recently, and a beautiful serpentine pipe, of green tinted stone, besides rings, &c., taken therefrom. In that neighborhood, and on the opposite side of the river, are several other graves of a similar character, while in the valley of the South Branch they have been discovered in great numbers, and hundreds of relics taken from them have found their way to the Smithsonian Institute. The articles thus recovered were all of stone, or bone, the latter being used freely as ornaments. The tomahawk was of sharpened stone, having a place hollowed out on both sides near the head, in which the handle was fastened by strong vines, or withes. The use of metals was evidently unknown to those people.
4
THE OHIO COMPANY.
-
INASMUCH as the Ohio Company took a most active part in the early settlement of this immediate section of country, and as it has been so frequently alluded to in the past, and must necessarily be, in the future, it is deemed expedient to embody here a brief history of the Company, and its transactions. Indeed, this work would be incomplete and unsatisfactory, so far as the history of Cumberland is concerned, were not the important operations of the Ohio Company recorded.
In 1748, a number of energetic Pennsylvanians had succeeded in establishing an extensive trade with the Indians, throughout the valleys along the Alleghany and headwaters of the Ohio. These traders employed in their service a class of hardy, daring backwoods- men, whom they sent into the Indian villages, with supplies of blankets, rum, trinkets, guns, ammunition, paints, &c., which they bartered to the Red Men for furs. The traffic became so profitable that in a little while it attracted the attention of others, who were ready to embark in an enterprise promising such rich returns. Col. Thomas Cresap, who had built for
27
THE OHIO COMPANY.
1749.]
himself a cabin at Oldtown, and who will be more particularly referred to hereafter, joined Lawrence and Augustine Washington in the project of forming a company for engaging in this business, and they soon united with themselves Thomas Lee, one of His Majesty's Council in Virginia, and twelve other persons in Virginia and Maryland, besides John Hanbury, a London merchant of wealth and influence. Afterwards several other English gentlemen joined the company, and in 1749 the British government gave them a charter, under the name of "THE OHIO COMPANY," and a grant of five hundred thousand acres of land, to be located between the Monongahela and Kanawha Rivers, west of the Alleghanies. The company originally issued but twenty shares of stock, and some of this changed hands in a short while, Governor Dinwiddie and George Mason becoming purchasers. Mr. Lee was chosen as the principal manager of the company's affairs, but he died a few months later, and Lawrence Washington became his successor. One of the re- quirements of the charter was, that the company should select a large proportion of its lands at once, some two hundred thousand acres, settle upon them one hundred families within seven years, erect a fort and maintain a garrison against the Indians. When these terms were complied with the land was to be held ten years free of quit-rent. They accord- ingly set about exploring the country without delay, and employed in the work Christopher Gist, an energetic, fearless pioneer, and a man of considerable intelligence, whose home had been on the borders of
.
28
HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND.
[1749.
North Carolina. Gist* was instructed to examine the quality of lands, keep a journal, draw plans of the country, and to report in full. He came to Will's Creek in October, 1749, where he made all the prepa- rations necessary for his trip, and on the 31st day of the same month he started on his explorations, follow- ing an Indian trail, which was the only route through the wilderness. He was gone some months, and made his way almost to the falls of the Ohio, where Louisville now stands, besides pretty thoroughly exploring the ground along the Miama River. He succeeded in securing the friendship of the Miamas and other tribes, and although Monsieur Celeron de Bienville had deposited leaden plates, bearing inscriptions which proclaimed that all the lands on the Ohio and its tributaries were the property of the king of France; and although Captain Joncaire, with his eloquence and his wit, used every method that art could invent to induce the Indians to take up arms against the English, yet Gist, with the assistance of George Croghan, a popular trader, succeeded in
*Christopher Gist was of English descent. His grandfather was Christopher Gist, who died in Baltimore county in 1691. His grandmother was Edith Cromwell, who died in 1694. They had one child, Richard, who was surveyor of the Western Shore, and was one of the commissioners, in 1729, for laying off the town of Baltimore, and presiding magistrate in 1736. In 1705 he married Zipporah Murray, and Christopher was one of three sons. He married Sarah Howard; his brother, Nathaniel, married Mary Howard; and Thomas, the third brother, married Violetta Howard, aunts of Gen. John Eager Howard. From either Nathaniel or Thomas descended General Gist, who was killed at the battle of Franklin, Tenn., near the close of the late civil war. Christopher had three sons, Nathaniel, Richard, and Thomas, and one daughter, Nancy, none of whom, except Nathaniel, were married. Because of his knowledge of the country on the Ohio, and his skill in dealing with the Indians, Christopher Gist was chosen to accompany Washington on his mission in 1753, and it was from his journal that Sparks and Irving derived their account of that expedition. With his sons Nathaniel and Thomas, he was with Braddock on the fatal field of Monongahela, and for his services received a grant of 12,000 acres of land from the King of England, Richard was killed in the battle of King's Mountain. Thomas lived on the plantation, and was a man of note then, presiding in the courts till his death about 1786. Nancy lived with him until his death, when she joined her brother, Nathaniel, and re- moved with him to the grant in Kentucky, about the beginning of this century.
Nathaniel Gist, the grandfather of Hon. Montgomery Blair, of Maryland, married Judith Carey Bell, of Buckingham county, Va., a grand-niece of Archibald Carey, the mover of the Bill of Rights, in the House of Burgesses, Nathaniel was a Colonel in the Virginia line during the revolutionary war, and died early in the present century at an old age. He left two sons, Henry Carey and Thomas Cecil. His eldest daughter, Sarah Howard, married the Hon. Jesse Bledsoe, a U. S. Senator from Kentucky, and a distinguished jurist; his grandson, B. Gratz Brown was the Democratic candidate for Vice President in 1872. The second daughter of Col. Gist, Anne (Nancy) married Col. Nathaniel Hart, a brother of Mrs. Henry Clay. The third daughter married Dr. Boswell, of Lexington, Ky. The fourth daughter married Francis P. Blair, and they were the parents of Hon. Montgomery Blair, and Francis P. Blair, Jr. The fifth daughter married Benjamin Gratz, of Lexington, Ky.
29
TREATY AT LOGSTOWN.
1752.]
having the Indians declare their friendship for the English, afterwards, at the council held at Logstown, in 1752.
In 1750 the company built a small storehouse at Will's Creek, and ordered goods to the value of £4,000 from London. Later on, in 1751, Colonel Thomas Cresap, who still lived at Oldtown, undertook to lay out the course of a good road from Will's Creek to the mouth of the Monongahela, now Pittsburgh. He employed, as his assistant, a friendly Indian named Nemacolin, and they together marked out the road to be followed by the company.
In June of 1752, Mr. Gist, as agent of the Ohio Company, with Colonel Fry, and two other gentlemen, commissioners from Virginia, went to Logstown,* some seventeen miles below the Forks,t and made a treaty with the Indians at that point. The Indians agreed not to molest any settlements on the south east side of the Ohio River, but at the same time they did not concede that the English had a right to any lands west of the Alleghany Mountains. After the treaty at Logstown, Gist was appointed surveyor for the company, and was told to lay off a town at Shurtee's Creek, a little below Pittsburgh, on the east side of the Ohio, and the sum of £400 was assessed to pay for the construction of a fort. He, with several other families, then settled in the valley of the Monongahela, not far from the Creek above. named.
In this year, the Company concluded to make
*Logstown was inhabited by Shawanese and Delawares until 1750, at which time they aban- doned it.
+Pittsburgh.
30
HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND. [1752.
Will's Creek a permanent trading post, and with that object in view they erected another storehouse and magazine, which became known throughout the country as the "New Storehouse." The first store- house built by this company was located on the west side of Will's Creek, north of the river, but the New Storehouse was located on the Virginia side of the river, at the foot of the bluff on which now stands the beautiful residence of Captain Roger Perry, very near the point occupied by the abutment of the Potomac bridge. It was constructed of logs, and was of sufficient dimensions not only to contain the mer- chandise of the company, but to afford a home for its agents, as well as a place of retreat and defense, in case of a hostile demonstration on the part of unfriendly Indians, which event was liable to occur at any hour.
This point was regarded as a very favorable one for the future operations of the company, since Indians were numerous, and the furs obtained here were of excellent quality, great variety, and satisfactorily abundant. A heavy consignment of goods was received, and as the temper of the Indians did not warrant a venture further into the wilderness the merchandise was all disposed of at Will's Creek, the Indians and trappers being eager buyers. After the completion of the New Storehouse, a number of trappers were engaged, who could be relied upon to defend the post in case of savage hostility, as well as to hunt and trap for their employers. The Company seems to have regarded Will's Creek as a part of their grant, and they evidently expected it to become an
31
BRITISH AND FRENCH CLAIMS.
1752.]
important point as it should be developed by immi- gration and civilization. The ground was surveyed on both sides of Will's Creek, and laid off into a town, with streets, lanes, &c., the squares being sub- divided into lots. The name of Charlottesburg* was given it, 'in honor of Princess Charlotte Sophia, afterwards wife of King George III.
The charter of the Ohio Company gave the members thereof important advantages in trading with the Indians, and as this was a grant which must drive out of the market many other traders, the latter, of course, felt greatly aggrieved thereby, and undertook to get rid of this monopoly by inciting the Indians to hostility against it, and fomenting troubles of such a character as to make it unsafe for the Company to send goods further west than the post at Will's Creek.
The lands granted the Ohio Company were claimed both by the British and French governments. The former assumed to have obtained its title from the Iroquois, through a treaty made at Lancaster, in 1744, when the British had paid these Indians the sum of £400, in consideration of which the crown was to receive and hold all the land west of the Alleghanies to the Mississippi River. Two things tended to make this transfer rather a doubtful transaction : first, the Indians were made drunk with rum before the bargain was entered into; and secondly, they did not rightfully own a foot of the
*A map of this Town was amongst the papers of the Ohio Company, which were in the pos- session of General Charles Fenton Mercer, who died at Howard, near Alexandria, in 1857. Every effort was made to trace the destiny of these papers, but it is altogether probable that they have been destroyed, as the papers of General Mercer were consigned to the care of a distant relative at the time of his death, and during the war the house of this gentleman was occupied by troops, The papers were contained in chests, and when the troops took their departure all the documents had disappeared, since which time no trace of them has been found.
32
HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND.
. territory thus bartered. The tribes who were in possession of the land treated the affair with contempt, and asserted their rights with evident determination. The French claimed all this territory by right of discovery, alleging that, since Father Marquette had made a voyage from the Lakes to the mouth of the Mississippi, the title to all that region, under the customs governing nations, was rightfully vested in his sovereign. The operations of the agents of the Ohio Company and of the English rulers aroused the jealousy of the French, and they forthwith undertook to establish their authority in the Ohio valley. The country was populated entirely by Indians, not a solitary settlement of whites having been established. The Red Men found themselves placed between two fires; and as the struggle thus begun between the two nations, which were contending for the supremacy over the rich valleys and plains, progressed, each labored zealously to win the alliance of the natives, and thus strengthen itself for the great contest, which they foresaw must soon come to pass.
The troubles between the French and English put a stop to the movements of the Ohio Company, and it seems to have done nothing further in the prose- cution of its enterprise, until 1760. At that date a statement of the Company's case was drawn up by Mr. John Mercer, Secretary to the Board, and an appeal was made to the King for such further orders and instructions to the government in Virginia as might enable the Company to carry its grant into execution. This appeal seems to have met with but
33
THE OHIO COMPANY.
1763.]
little attention, and the matter remained in suspense for three years. The Board having by that time grown impatient over the delay, determined to send an agent to England to attend to its petition, and to endeavor to secure such action as would enable it to obtain the benefits of the grants made long before. Colonel George Mercer was chosen for this important duty, and went to London, where he remained for the space of six years, constantly urging the Company's case. But all his efforts proved fruitless, and it was eventually agreed to merge the Ohio Company into another organization, known as the "Grand Company," formed under Walpole's grant. The latter Company partly resulted from a pamphlet published by Anselm Yates Baley, Esq., in London, in 1763, entitled "The Advantages of a Settlement upon the Ohio in North America." Thus ended "THE OHIO COMPANY."
5
WILL'S CREEK.
1751-1755.
THE apparently boundless territory lying west of the Alleghany Mountains was a prize well calculated to excite the interest of ambitious monarchs, and it is not surprising that the struggle between the British and French for its possession soon became of the most determined character. It was a grand park of natural beauties, where majestic forests were watered by countless streams, and rich plains lay in wait for the plough, ready to yield an abundant harvest in return for little labor.
Both parties proceeded upon the ground that their claims were legitimate and perfect, and the rights of the Indians were wholly ignored, as being of no consequence whatever. England laid claim to these lands upon the strength of her treaties with the Indians, but to the most ordinary judgment it must be apparent that these treaties were of no merit whatever, so far as title was concerned, and the real owners utterly repudiated the British pretensions. The French cited still higher authority, and based their claims upon the fact of prior discovery, by
35
1128733 BRITISH AND FRENCH CLAIMS.
1751.]
Marquette, and Jolliet,* and upon the treaties of Ryswick, Utrecht, and Aix-la-Chapelle. The treaties of the English had been made with the Six Nations, a confederacy which bordered on Lake Ontario, powerful in its numbers, and upon hostile terms with the French and all the tribes on the Canadian side of the Lakes, who were adherents of the French. The tribes of the Six Nations boasted that their ancestors had, in days long past, conquered the territory west of the mountains, even to the waters of the Mississippi. They persisted in this statement, in the face of the utter denial given it by the Indians who dwelt upon the lands, and entered into treaties with the English, whereby they formally transferred all this region to them, for an insignificant consideration. The English consulted their own interests in the matter, and chose to recognize the Six Nations as the parties who alone had the power to dispose of this property.
The French declared that, not only was their title based upon the rights secured by the discoveries of Marquette, Jolliet, Lasalle, and other pioneers, but upon actual settlements made south of Lake Michigan, and on the banks of the Illinois River. They further declared that these settlements were made many years before the English had crossed the Alleghanies, and that their title was recognized by England in various treaties made with the European powers. This was rather a far-fetched fancy, doubtless,
*Father James Marquette and Louis Jolliet, in a bark canoe, descended from the Fox and Wisconsin rivers to the Mississippi, in June, 1673. Father Marquette was a native of Laon in Picardy ; he was a man of great skill and learning as well as of extraordinary courage, and devoted to the spread of the Christian religion. Louis Jolliett was the son of a wheel-wright, and was born in Quebec in 1645. He was thoroughly educated, talented and pious, and devoted to mathematics and geography.
36
HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND. [1751.
inasmuch as the passage of a Frenchman down the Mississippi, and the establishment of a few settlements on that and some adjacent streams, could scarcely be called, by any stretch of the imagination, a discovery of the immense territory which covered at least one fourth of the continent. Their claim might, with equal propriety, have been made to embrace the region west of the Mississippi to the Rocky Moun- tains.
The proprietary of the actual inhabitants, the Indians whose ancestors for ages had held these lands, was wholly ignored by the intruders from the Old World, and the natives questioned amongst themselves how it was that they should so suddenly, and without any act of their own, have all their estate put in jeopardy, and be brought to the verge of a homeless and landless condition.
The Six Nations occupied a position on the borders between the French and English colonies, a geographi- cal location giving them great influence, the importance of which they were not slow to comprehend, and they lost no opportunity to make the most of the advantages they enjoyed. Shortly after the first settlement of French on the Lakes, a warfare of the most sanguinary character was waged between them and the Indians of these tribes, the result of which was that the Six Nations threw their interests into the scale with the English. The French endeavored by every means of persuasion and bribery to win the savages to their cause, and the English found it necessary to be constantly manifesting their friendship by the liberal distribution of such gifts as
37
BRITISH AND FRENCH CLAIMS.
1751.]
were most dear to the Indian heart. The ambition of these tribes was hardly surpassed by that of the white powers struggling for territorial aggrandize- ment, and they had previously laid claim to much of the land embraced in the colonial grants of Maryland and Pennsylvania. This had been a source of great annoyance to the Governors of these States, and, as the easiest method of getting rid of the matter, the Six Nations had been called to Lancaster, Pa., on the 30th of June, 1744, when a treaty was made, whereby the Indians relinquished all their claims to Maryland territory, in consideration of the sum of £300 paid them. That treaty read in part as follows:
"Now, know ye, that for and in consideration of the sum of three hundred pounds, current money of Pennsylvania, paid and delivered to the above named Sachems or Chiefs, partly in goods and partly in gold money, by said commissioners," they, the said Sachems or Chiefs, on behalf of the said Nations, do hereby renounce and disclaim to the right honorable the Lord Baltimore, lord proprietary of the said province of Maryland, his heirs and assigns, all pretence of right or claim whatsoever, of the said Six Nations, of, in or to any lands that lie on Potomac, alias Cohongaronton, or Susquehanna Rivers, or in any other place between the great bay of Chesapeake and a line beginning at about two miles above the uppermost fork of Cohongaronton or Potomac on the North Branch of the said fork ; near which fork Captain Thomas Cresap has a hunting or
*These commissioners were Edmund Jennings, Philip Thomas, Robert King, and Thomas Colville.
-
38
HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND.
1752.]
trading cabin, and from thence by a north course to the boundaries of the Province of Pennsylvania, and so with the bounds of the said Province of Pennsylvania to Susquehanna River; but in case such limits shall not include the present inhabitants or settlers, then so many line or lines, course or courses, from the said two miles above the fork, to the outermost inhabitant or settlement, as shall include every settlement and inhabitant of Maryland, and from thence by a north line to the bounds of the Province of Pennsylvania, shall be deemed and construed the limits intended by these presents; anything hereinbefore contained, to the contrary, notwithstanding. And the said Sachems or Chiefs do hereby, on behalf of the said Six United Nations, declare their consent and agreement to be that every person or persons whatsoever, who now is, or shall be hereafter, settled or seated in any part of the said province, so as to be out of the limits aforesaid, shall nevertheless continue in their peaceable possessions free and undisturbed, and be esteemed as brethren by the Six Nations. In witness whereof, the said Sachems or Chiefs, for themselves, and on behalf of the people of the Six Nations aforesaid, have hereunto set their hands and seals, the thirtieth day of June, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and forty-four."
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