USA > New York > The Pennsylvania and New York frontier : history of from 1720 to the close of the Revolution > Part 15
USA > Pennsylvania > The Pennsylvania and New York frontier : history of from 1720 to the close of the Revolution > Part 15
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After the battle of Bushy Run, there was some tranquillity on the Western Pennsylvania frontier, but in February, 1764, one of the garrison of Fort Pitt was killed while working in a sawmill nearby. In March, a man was killed and five persons captured near Shippensburg; and in the same county, Cumberland, Agnes Davidson and child and three other chil- dren, Andrew Simms, Margaret Stephens and Joseph Mitchell were cap- tured. Near Fort Loudon, in July, a woman named Cunningham was killed and a Jameson woman captured.27
One of the most barbarous murders occurred July 26, 1764. Then, about six miles north of the present Greencastle, on the brow of a hill over- looking a deep dismal ravine, stood a log school house. It was occupied by the master, named Brown and ten pupils. During the morning, two old Indians and a boy came to the door. Brown pleaded for the lives of the children, but the two old Indians stood at the door, while the younger one
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entered and with a maul killed Brown and the children. They were all scalped, but one of the children, Alexander McCullough had not been killed and although scalped, he recovered and gave an account of the tragedy. Shortly after, the daughter of James Dysart was murdered within twelve miles of Carlisle.28
One of the worst atrocities was committed by David Owen, a white man, a deserter from the British regulars to the Delawares and Shawnees, who while with them formed a connection with an Indian woman and by her had two children. Owen was coming down the Susquehanna with a white boy who had been an Indian captive, and nine Indians, his wife and two children, another woman, four men and a lad; and one night when they had encamped and all were asleep, Owen awakened the white boy and bade him go some distance away. He, then, removed all the weapons except two guns, the muzzles of which he placed at the heads of two of the Indians and simultaneously pulled the trigger, killing both. The other two unharmed Indians ran away. With a hatchet, Owen killed his wife and two children, the other woman and the Indian lad, and, with brutal coolness, crouched by the fire in the midst of the dead until daylight, when he scalped the dead except the children. When he had finished, he handed the knife to the white boy and told him to scalp the children, but he refused. Owen with the scalps made his way to the nearest outpost, probably, claimed his bounty for the scalps, was pardoned of his desertion and reentered the army.29
In August, 1763, a militia force, from Lancaster county, had a two days skirmish with the Indians near Muncy creek, in which they lost four men killed and four wounded, and killed twelve Indians and wounded several. In September, Colonel John Armstrong destroyed the Indian vil- lages on the West Branch in the vicinity of the Great Island.30
Sir William Johnson, in July and August, 1764, held conferences with some of the hostile Indians and the Genesee Senecas, who agreed to deliver up certain Delaware chiefs, deserters and Frenchmen among them ; and to cede land four miles in breadth on each side of the Niagara river from Fort Niagara to Fort Schlosser, thus ensuring free access to the portage between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.31
To subdue the western tribes, a northern expedition, under Colonel John Bradstreet and a southern one, under Colonel Boquet, were organized. Bradstreet, with twelve hundred regulars, three hundred Canadians and three hundred friendly Indians, left Fort Schlosser, August 8th. At Presque Isle, despite the opposition of his officers and the friendly Indians, he foolishly made an arrangement with a' deputation of Delawares and Shaw- nees to meet them at Sandusky, twenty-five days later and make a treaty of peace.32 At Sandusky they made a pretended submission, which accom- plished nothing. From there, he dispatched Captain Thomas Morris to make peace with the Illionis Indians.33 Bradstreet had badly blundered, and all he did was to relieve Detroit, beleaguered for fifteen months, and recover Mackinac, Green Bay and Sault St. Marie.
Owing to vexatious delays, it was autumn before Boquet's army was
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properly organized and assembled at Pittsburg. The Pennsylvania Quaker assembly, now thoroughly cowed by the Paxton men, voted to supply the one thousand men required, but Maryland and Virginia refused any assist- ance. Colonel Andrew Lewis, however, enlisted two hundred Virginians.34 The pay of these men seriously embarrassed Boquet, but to relieve him, Pennslyvania generously paid them.
Captain Jacobs and other Delaware chiefs, in a conference with Boquet at Pittsburg, sought to delay invasion of their country, but he sternly denounced their conduct and perfidy in violating their engagements with Bradstreet. Without any palaver, he gave them to understand they could expect no mercy, unless there was an abject submission. He said :
"As I must consider you now as a people, whose promises I can no more trust, I was determined to attack you as soon as the rest of my army joined me, which I expect immediately ; but I will put once more in your power to prevent your total destruction and save yourselves and your fam- ilies by giving satisfaction for the barbarities committed against us."
He required safe conduct for his messengers to Bradstreet, and a guarantee, that in twenty days the messages he sent and the answer should b delivered to him. Upon any violation of his demand, he declared he would immediately put to death Captain Pipe and other Indians in his custody. An Onondaga and Oneida Indian interceded for the western tribes and urged he do nothing precipitately, but Boquet was not a man to trifle with and reminded them that the Delawares and Shawnees were a false people and deceive you, as they have always done. He declared he should march through their country and tell them what he would do at Tuscarowas.
At Tuscarowas, Boquet held a conference with Kyashuta, chief of the Senecas, Beaver, chief of the Delawares and a chief of the Shawnees, who attempted to palliate or excuse their conduct, but, in a terrible bill of indictment, he charged them with their specific acts of perfidy and bar- barity. He reminded them, that their former allies had deserted them and made peace ; that they were surrounded on every side; that it was in his power to destroy them, but that, if they performed everything he required, he would not treat them with the severity they deserved. To further over- awe them, November 9th, the army marched to the forks of the Muskin- gum, within easy striking distance of all the Delaware villages, where a fortified encampment was made.
Boquet had the savages in a vise from which there was no escape. A battle with his overpowering army would have destroyed them. They could flee from their towns, but he would have destroyed their villages and stocks of corn, and immediate winter would starve them. They could not deceive, delude or compromise, with this relentless man. They submitted and agreed to deliver up all prisoners, to commit no further hostilities and give fourteen hostages for performance of his conditions. More than two hundred captives were delivered to him by the Delawares and Shawnees.
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who even turned over their own children born of white women. The Shawnees who held one hundred fifty prisoners were obstinate, but they soon complied and delivered them. As with Amherst at Montreal, Boquet by his stern and relentless demands had obtained more restitution and a better peace, than in all the treaties made by Indian agents and traders, since savage relations began. The captives were removed to Carlisle and Boquet delivered them to their relatives and friends, as heretofore related. The great uprising was over, and Governor Penn issud his proclamation of peace, December 5, 1764.35
NOTES-CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
1. Early Western Travels 1, 105.
2. Pa. Archs. 4, 92; 3, 100.
3. Peckham's Pontiac, 59.
4. Loudon, Selection of Narratives, 1, 321, 322; Magazine of History, 37, 170 to 175. 5. Boquet Papers, Series 21, 649, 96 to 156.
6. Spark's, Writings of Washington, 2, 442; Frontier Forts, 2, 575.
7. Boquet Papers, Series 21, 649, page 172.
8. Frontier Forts, 2, 591.
9. N. Y. Col. Docs. 7, 532; Frontier Forts, 2, 593.
10. Boquet Papers, Series 21, 649 page 175.
11. Ibid, 180.
12. Ibid, 227.
13. Frontier Forts, 1, 591, 592.
14. Boquet Papers, Series 21, 649, pages 216 to 219.
15. Rupp, History of Cumberland County, 400, 401.
16. Henry Bouquet was born in Berne, Switzerland and followed war as a profession from boyhood. He served under the king of Sardinia, and then under the Republic of Holland. January 3, 1756, he was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the 60th or Royal American Regiment, and served under Forbes in the expedition against Fort Duquesne. He became colonel in the army, February 19, 1762, and in recognition of his great services during 1763 and 1764 was appointed brigadier general. He died at Pensacola, Florida in February, 1766.
17. Boquet Papers, Series 21, 649, Part 1, page 208.
18. Ibid, Part 2, pages 28, 29.
N. Y. Col. Docs. 7, 562, and Appendix, Life of Mary Jemison.
19. Pa. Gazette, October 13, 1763; Gordon History of Pa. Appendix 623.
20.
21. Gordon Hist. of Pa., Appendix 624; Frontier Forts 1, 171, 172, 173, 174, 182; also a very good map of the Indian route and scenes of the depredations between pages 176 and 177; Rupp, History of Lehigh County, 129, 130.
22. Rupp, History of Berks County, 78.
23. Gordon History of Pa. Appendix 623; Rupp, History of Lehigh County 77, 78, 79, 140 ; Col. Recs. 9, 43, 44.
24. Gordon History of Pa., Appendix 624; Rupp History of Monroe County, 155.
25. Chapman, History of Wyoming, 70, 71; Miner, History of Wyoming, 54; Harvey History of Wilkes-Barre, 1, 429, 430, 431: Pa. Archs. 4, 129.
26. N. Y. Col. Docs. 7, 611 to 624.
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27. Gordon Hist. of Pa., Appendix 624, 625.
28. Rupp, History of Cumberland County, 149, 150, 151.
29. Gordon, Hist. of Pa. Appendix 625; Col. Recs. 9, 189, 190.
30. Gordon Hist. of Pa. 398, 399.
31. Johnson Papers 4, 466 to 501; N. Y. Col. Docs. 7, 652.
32. Johnson Papers 4, 503 to 508.
33. Journal of Morris, Western Travels.
34. Boquet Papers, Series 21, 650, 118.
35. Col. Recs., 9, 193 to 197.
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE CONESTOGA MURDERS
The most deplorable and disgraceful incident, of our frontier history, is the murder of the Conestoga Indians. In Lancaster county, on the Conestoga Manor, lived the feeble remnant of the Andastee or Susque- hannock Indians, who, long before, exercised their proud and powerful dominion over the whole Susquehanna Valley. There were, probably, less than thirty of them left, regarded by their near white neighbors, as harm- less vagrants. They eked out a miserable subsistence, during the summer by the sale of brooms and baskets, and, in the winter, they were supported by the charity of the government.
The stalemate, in the Pennsylvania government, caused by the pacifism of the Quakers and their hatred and opposition to the Penn heirs, pre- vented a proper defense of the frontier. The principal sufferers were the Scotch-Irish people, who were mainly settled on the extreme frontier. They were a vigorous and violent race, but honest, religious and brave. Exasperated by their sufferings, they lawlessly wreaked their vengeance upon an inoffensive people. They firmly believed the scattered villages, of the friendly Indians, were shelters of the savage foe. There were some grounds for their belief, for an Indian is an unchangeable, proud, primitive man. The psychology of races is not changed by sudden religious excite- ment, and the so-called conversion of the Indians was only a thin veneer, more easily washed away, than the war paint with which they daubed their faces. It is reasonable to conclude, that many of the friendly Indians enter- tained a kindred sympathy for the wandering warriors who visited them. But whatever the provocation, premeditated murder can never be justified.
The Paxton or Paxtang settlement, miles northward, was composed of Scotch-Irish settlers, who had suffered grievously from Indian incur- sions. They had organized a military band for the protection of them- selves and the neighboring settlements. This company is known as the "Paxton Rangers or "Paxtang Boys." In later years, in order to palliate the crimes of the "Paxtang Boys," numerous affidavits were collected, attempting to show, that among the Conestoga Indians dwelt hostile char- acters. But about the most, these affidavits show is that there lived at Conestoga, Bill Sox, a good for nothing Indian, suspected by some of being implicated in certain murders.
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The histories are replete with graphic and imaginary accounts of the tragedies. We will let the public records and statements of contemporaries tell the story. Matthew Smith, leader of the first expedition, made, in later years, a narrative of the affair, which was published, in 1843, in the "Lancaster Intelligencer." According to this narrative, Smith was informed, in December, 1763, that an Indian, guilty of depredations, had been traced to Conestoga. Thereupon, Smith and five companions went to the village ; and it being night, he alone crawled close to the cabins, and saw or thought he saw a number of armed Indians in the houses. Returning to Paxton, he assembled about fifty of the Rangers, who armed and mounted and led by Smith rode that night to Conestoga, determined to destroy the Indians. They arrived about daybreak, December 14th, 1763, and dividing themselves into several parties surrounded the huts. An Indian, aroused by the noise, came from his cabin. One of the Rangers shouted he is the man who killed my mother and shot him dead. Bursting into the other houses, the Rangers shot or tomahawked four others, the only ones at home. They, then, burned some of the cabins and departed.
In the various accounts, there is a discrepancy in giving the number killed and the extent of the depredations committed.
The following is quoted from Hazard's Register, volume 9, page 114, and is taken from a manuscript journal belonging to a descendant of Robert Barber.
"On a snowy morning, in December, 1763, a German neighbor came to Robert Barber's house and requested him to go in pursuit of someone who had been at his house the night before and whom he called robbers. They had behaved in a very disorderly manner such as melting the pewter spoons etc. Mr. Barber supposing it had been persons in a frolic, advised his friend to take no notice of it. He had scarcely left the house, when five or six men came in, very cold, their great coats covered with snow and wet. They left their guns outside. Mr. Barber was not personally acquainted with them, though he knew from what part of the country they came. He made up a fire to warm and treated them to the customary morning refreshments. While they warmed themselves, they inquired why the Indians were suffered to live peaceably here. Mr. Barber said they were entirely inoffensive, being on their own lands and injuring no one. They asked what would be the consequence if they were all destroyed. Mr. Barber said he thought they would be as liable to punishment, as if they had destroyed so many white men. They said they were of a different opinion and in a few minutes went out. In the meantime, however, two sons of Mr. B. about 10 or 12 years old went out to look at the stranger's horses, which were hitched at a little distance from the house. After the men went, the boys came in and said, they (the men) had tomahawks tied to their saddles, which were all bloody, and they had Christy's gun, (Christy was a little Indian boy about their own age-they were much attached to him, as he was their playmate and made their bows and arrows and other means of amusement). While the family all wondered what it could mean, a messenger came from Herr, giving information of the dread- ful deed. Mr. Barber and some others went down to see the extent of the
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massacre. Shocking indeed was the sight-the dead bodies fourteen Indians lay among the rubbish of their burnt cabins, like half consumed logs. Mr. B. after some trouble procured their bodies to administer to them the rights of sepulchre. It was said, that at the beginning of the slaughter, an Indian mother placed her little child under a barrel, charging it to make no noise- a shot was fired through the barrel, which broke the child's arm and still it kept silent."
Robert Beatty and John Miller, agents of the government to oversee the Indians reported to the governor on December 28th, (Pa. Archs. 4, 151) that six Indians were killed and that the survivors had been removed to the Lancaster jail; also that they had possession of the Indian effects, consisting of papers which these poor people had treasured through genera- tions and going back almost to the beginning of the province, a list of which is given in Colonial Records, 9, page 102.
Unsatisfied with their bloody deed and under pretense that one of the Indians in the jail at Lancaster had murdered relatives of one of them, the Paxtang Boys, now under the leadership of Lazarus Stewart, rode into Lancaster, December 27th. Rev. John Elder, pastor of Paxton church strongly urged them to desist and made efforts to prevent their murderous expedition, but he was rudely brushed aside. Edward Shippen the prin . cipal magistrate wrote the governor: "This afternoon upwards of a hun- dred armed men from the westward rode very fast into town, turned their horses into Mr. Slough's (an innkeeper) yard and proceded with the greatest precipitation to the workhouse, stove open the door and killed all the Indians." (Col. Recs. 9, 100.)
John Hay, the sheriff reported he and the coroner opposed them to their great danger, that fourteen Indians were killed and that it was rumored the rioters were preparing to march to Philadelphia and destroy the Indians on Province Island.
The scene in the jail is graphically portrayed by a contemporary witness, William Henry, a leading citizen of Lancaster, (Rupp's History of Lancaster County, page 358) and is as follows :
"There are few, if any murders to be compared with the cruel murder committed on the Conestoga Indians in the jail in Lancaster, in 1763, by the Paxton Boys as they were called. From fifteen to twenty Indians, as report stated were placed there for protection. A regiment of Highlanders were at the time quartered at the barracks in the town, and yet the mur- derers were permitted to break open the doors of the city jail and committed the horrid deed. The first notice I had of this affair was that while at my father's store near the court house, I saw a number of people running down the street towards the jail, which enticed me and other lads to follow them. At about six or eight yards from the jail, we met from twenty-five to thirty men, well mounted on horses and with rifles, toma- hawks and scalping knives, equipped for murder. I ran into the prison yard, and there, oh what a horrid sight presented itself to my view. Near the back door of the prison lay an old Indian and his squaw, particularly
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known and esteemed by the people of the town on account of his placid and friendly conduct. His name was Will Sox; across him and squaw lay two children of about the age of three years whose heads were split with the tomahawk and their scalps taken off. Towards the middle of the jail yard along the west side of the wall, lay a stout Indian whom I particularly noticed to have been shot in his breast; his legs were chopped with the tomahawk, his hands cut off and finally a rifle ball discharged so that his head was blown to atoms and the brains were splashed against and hang- ing to the wall for three or four feet around. This man's hands and feet had been chopped off with a tomahawk. In this manner, the whole of them, men, women and children spread about the prison yard, scalped, hacked and cut to pieces."
The governor issued a strong proclamation denouncing the outrage ; and the Quakers vigorously protested, but undaunted by governor's pro- clamations and Quaker protests, the Paxtang Boys and their adherents prepared for a march on Philadelphia. Their ostensible purpose was to seize the friendly Indians, the government had withdrawn from Wyalusing and the Moravian missions and was attempting to protect in the government building on Province Island. The real purpose was, probably, to bluff the government into indemnity for their crimes and obtain concessions. The whole affair is so ridiculous, it should be treated with the derision, it deserves. Volunteers, variously estimated from two to fifteen hundred, flocked from the border. The leaders were Matthew Smith and James Gib- son. Many were enticed to join by the hope of plunder and the excite- ment of a wild lark. The news of their advance caused turmoil in the city. The foolish and supine government, in order to avert the invasion, which it had no more power to repel, than a parade of school boys on the town green, sent the refugee Indians at Province Island to New York to be placed under the efficient protection of Sir William Johnson. The hope was that once out of Philadelphia the Rangers would stop their march, but they paid no attention to this gesture and marched on. Neither John- son nor the authorities of New York had been consulted and when the refugees arrived at Amboy, a message was received from the governor of New York refusing their admittance and the governor of New Jersey ordered them to get out. They were marched back to Philadelphia, where they were pelted and jeered by the city rabble, which hated both Indians and Quakers; and the sufferings of these poor creatures is too sober a tale to be recited here and is reservd for the succeeding chapter.
Late in January, the rioters were on the march. They were a grotesque crew of border ruffians, attired in coon skin caps, loose hunting shirts and leather breeches, with long hunting rifles swinging from the pommels of their saddles and sharp tomahawks sticking in their belts. At every way- side tavern, they augmented their courage by devouring the gin keeper's stock. They hooted and bawled at every farm house, and threatened dire destruction of every timid Quaker and Mennonite, who dared squint at them. The stout Quaker farmers, of Chester county, hastily barred their
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windows, buried their treasures and pewter plate in the ground and cautiously peeked from behind their great barns as the tumultous throng went by.
In the city, the tumult was worse. The Presbyterian faction in Phila- delphia was believed to be abetting the invaders and added by their jeering pamphlets further dismay to the poor pacific Quakers. Every subterfuge was resorted to and preachers were sent forth to subdue the ruffians with the sacred scriptures. The Quaker assembly, casting aside religious scruples hurriedly passed a military act. The city was ransacked for old muskets and antiquated guns. Barricades were erected in the streets and cannon, which no one knew how to fire, were placed at the approaches. Sober Quaker squires and shopkeepers boarded up their houses, but could do nothing but pound their kitchen floors with their staffs and vow vengeance on the murderous gang. In desperation, some discarded their broadbrim hats and plain drab coats and donned military caps and blouses far too small. They were organized into awkward squads and timidly fingered their strange guns with more danger to themselves than the foe. To add to their despair, the Presbyterians littered the streets with jeering pamphlets and broadcasts and tittered out loud, when the clumsy Quaker warrior went by. Colonel Turbutt Francis, commander of the City Troop, who was not a Quaker, either by design or to escape a drenching rain, marched his soldiers to the Quaker Meeting House, where his soldiers cast themselves on the floor and profaned the sacred edifice of peace with their snores.
The terrorized governor to save his scalp fled to Dr. Franklin's home, where if worse came to worse, he might secrete himself under Deborah's best bolstered bed. A party of friendly German butchers coming to save the place, threw the city into a panic of fear. All the ferries over the Schuylkill were secured on the city side, but the raiders somehow sneaked across and , on February 4th, encamped at Germantown. During all this confusion, not one of the valiant volunteers dared venture forth to meet the foe, although a couple of British cannon, supported by a company of Massachusetts or Virginia militia, would have put the whole bluffing, blustering crew to flight.
How long this ridiculous spectacle and disgraceful episode in the history of Pennsylvania would have continued is uncertain, if the governor had not sent Franklin out to Germantown to subdue the foe. The rioters could bravely fight behind trees and logs, murder helpless Indians in a pen and terrorize pacific Quakers, but their leaders were unable to with- stand the shrewd old Yankee with the bland tongue. He kindly listened to their tale of woe and discontent, induced Smith and Gibson to prepare a declaration of grievances and, probably, slyly hinted at a bounty for scalps, which they dearly desired, and then pleasantly advised them to go home, which they did. The war being thus concluded, the city resumed its wonted Quaker repose.
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