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THE REVOLUTION ON THE UPPER OHIO, 1775-1777
DRAPER SERIES, VOLUME II
THE REVOLUTION
ON THE
Upper Ohio, 1775-1777
Compiled from the Draper Manuscripts in the Library of the Wisconsin Historical Society and published at the charge of the Wisconsin Society of the Sons of the American Revolution
EDITED BY
REUBEN GOLD THWAITES, LL. D. Secretary of the Society
AND
LOUISE PHELPS KELLOGG, PH. D. Editorial Assistant on the Society's Staff
Historical
Wisconsin-
Society
founded 1849
MADISON WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY
1908
APPAL RM. 1 7 1.0
Library West Virginia University
Copyright, 1908 BY THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN
Published February. 1908 TWELVE HUNDRED COPIES
MADISON DEMOCRAT PRINTING COMPANY
CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION.
The Editors
ix
EXPLANATION
xx
Documents
Movement to Kentucky; Frontier Forts
I
Letter for Cornstalk ·
7
Orders for the Militia
.
8
Virginia hears of Lexington and Concord
IO
Garrison at Point Pleasant
I2
Affairs at Fort Pitt
17
Virginia arms ·
.
21
Treaty at Pittsburgh, 1775 .
.
25
British Report of Treaty
· 127
Connolly's Plot
.
.
136
'the Frontiers, early in 1776
. 143
A Captain's Commission
.
. 145
Information regarding Detroit
.
147
Indians visit Niagara
.
15I
Alarm in Kentucky
.
I53
Protection for the Frontier
.
155
Garrison for Point Pleasant; Indian Affairs
158 .
Conference at Fort Pitt
. 159
. Report from Niagara; neutrality to be maintained 17I
Frontiers of Virginia .
·
172
.
News from Fort Randolph
·
·
185
.
Indian depredations
.
·
£ 188, 205, 209, 249
Threatened hostilities
190, 218, 245
.
.
.
.
·
654136
vi
CONTENTS
Page
Forts on the Ohio .
. 195
Reinforcements ordered
. 196
Disposition of the Indian Tribes
. 199
Fort Randolph re-inforced
204, 209, 239
News from Williamsburgh
. 214
Treaty of 1776
216
Situation at Grave Creek
. 224
Supplies from New Orleans
. 226
Militia arrangements
. 229
Pluggy's Town Expedition ordered
236
Situation at Wheeling
. 242
Allies to be protected
244
Pluggy's Town Expedition abandoned
. 247
Return of Military Stores at Fort Pitt 258 .
INDEX
. 259
ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
Map from Crèvecœur's Lettres d'un Cultivateur Ameri- cain (Paris, 1787), consisting of sketch-maps of the
Muskingum, Scioto, and Big Beaver rivers Frontispiece Portrait of George Morgan (silhouette) . . 30 .
Portrait of Peyton Randolph
·
·
. 66
Portrait of Lewis Morris .
.
.
·
. 76
Portrait of James Wilson . .
.
90
Portrait of Gov. Henry Hamilton . I28 .
Portrait of Governor Blacksnake, Seneca chief
·
.
160
Portrait of Gyantwahchia (or John Abeel, John the Corn- planter), Shawnee chief ·
162
Portrait of Red Jacket, Seneca chief
.
164
.
Portrait of Gov. Patrick Henry .
.
. 232
INTRODUCTION
In May, 1905, the Society published from the Draper Manuscript Collection in its possession, a Documentary History of Dunmore's War, 1774. While the material was selected, annotated, and put through the press by the present Editors, the bill for printing was generously met by the Wisconsin Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. The latter organization kindly offered to pay for the printing of a second Draper volume, edited at the cost of the Soci- ety. to be in due course succeeded, the hope was ex- pressed. by a third and possibly others. This proposi- tion being accepted it was determined to follow D'un- more's War with two volumes, both bearing upon the conduct of the Revolutionary War on the Upper Ohio River. The present is the first of these.
We were led to this selection from the Wisconsin Historical Society's abundant store of manuscript sources. by considerations of logical sequence. The events herein chronicled immediately succeeded and in considerable degree were the direct outgrowth of Dunmore's War. In a sense the district involved was much the same as that affected by his lordship's opera- tions ; the military leaders were in many cases those who had served in the expedition of 1774: the rank and file was composed of the like race of fearless. in-
REVOLUTION ON UPPER OHIO
dependent frontiersmen, who fretted at martial dis- cipline and democratized the militia which had been organized for the defense of their homes against the aborigines.
The documents chosen for publication herein do not afford a continuous history of any one campaign or group of men. They do, however, shed light upon the principal incidents and the prominent characters of the long frontier stretching from the Greenbrier region in southwestern Virginia to the post at Kit- tanning on the Upper Allegheny. The time is the first two years of the Revolutionary struggle-March, 1705. to May, 1717, inclusive-and deals with the de- fense of the border while still in the hands of the militia of the Western counties. The coming to Fort Pitt. June 1. 1777, of an officer of Continental rank, sent by Congress to take command of the West. marked an epoch in the military history of the region. It is with the advent of General Hand that our ini- tial volume closes. This earlier history of the Revolu- tion in the trans-Alleghany region has been but little known or understood. Comparatively few documents concerning it have thus far been published ; secondary accounts in general dismiss the subject with a hasty paragraph. It is hoped that the present publication of contemporary material will lead to a more con- siderate treatment of what we believe to be an inter- esting and significant period.
It will be remembered by readers of the preceding volume. that when Lord Dunmore left the frontier in the autumn of 1774, bearing with him the Shawnee hostages. he embodied a small garrison at Fort Dun-
xi
INTRODUCTION
more, and another at Fort Blair near the mouth of the Kanawha. They were the only fortifications up- on the frontier at the beginning of 1775. When the governor found himself involved in quarrels with the colonists, one of his last executive acts was to order the evacuation of these posts. The colonists there- upon quickly seized the first, which reverted to its carlier name of Pitt; Fort Blair was actually evacu- ated, and its buildings burned by lurking Indians dur- ing the summer of 1775.
The attitude of the Indians towards the colonial cause was of vital importance to the Western bor- derers. Lord Dunmore's treaty of the previous autumn had been but provisional. The Shawnee hostages were still in his hands; the Mingo prisoners were in confinement at Fort Pitt; his lordship had promised the Indians to come to Fort Pitt in the spring and arrange a permanent peace. Meanwhile his agent upon the frontier. Dr. John Connolly, was a professed Loyalist. Connolly dismissed the imprisoned Mingo to their homes, with messages urging their people to rely upon the English king, their father, and to come to Fort Pitt to treat with him as the representative of the governor. In his Narrative, Connolly asserts that it was his "first work to convene the Indians to a treaty, restore the prisoners, and endeavour to incline them to espouse the royal cause."1
Meanwhile the people of West Augusta district had formed a committee of safety. This met at Pitts- burgh early in May, and drafted a petition to Con-
1 Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, xii. P. 314.
xii
REVOLUTION ON UPPER OHIO
gress setting forth their fear of a rupture with the Indians on account of Lord Dunmore's conduct." The matter was referred to the delegates from Virginia and Pennsylvania. the former of whom took cogniz- ance thereof in their state assembly, which appointed commissioners to meet the tribesmen and endeavor to complete the peace in favor of the colonies. Later, Congress appointed a like commission, and the two met jointly at Pittsburgh in September.
Rumors of the Revolutionary conflict had by early summer reached the Indian towns, resulting in much confusion and misunderstanding among the aborigines. Upon one occasion Lord Dunmore had employed the Shawnee hostages with him as a personal guard against colonial violence. They not unnaturally, therefore, fancied themselves likewise hated by the "Long Knives," and destined to fall victims to the enmity of the latter. Similar suspicions were excited in the Indian villages by Loyalist traders, and the king's Indian agents were already gathering the Northern tribes to resist the proposed American in- vasion of Canada.
Whether British or Americans were first to enroll the tribesmen in their armies is even now a mooted question. There were differences in the situation The slight aid that the Americans might receive from Indian warriors enlisted in their interest, was far out- weighed by the danger of retaliatory attacks to which they thereby exposed their long and weak frontier. Obviously, their safest policy was to secure native
2 Journals of Continental Congress (new ed.), ii, p. 76
:
xiii
INTRODUCTION
neutrality. To the British, on the other hand, the employment of barbarian allies had long been cus- tomary in colonial wars. Their incursions would create a needed diversion upon the frontier. As early as 1775, secret orders were received from the minis- try, not only to enlist the sympathies of the tribes- men, but actually to enroll them in the royal armies."
On the Western border. the Americans were prompt. Connolly's carlier treaty had had the effect somewhat to allay the fears of the warriors. The influence of a Frenchman in the British interest, sent from Detroit to the Indian villages with belts of wampum, was quickly counteracted by that of the Virginia envoy. Capt. James Wood. In September, 1775, there gathered at Pittsburgh the largest Indian delegation ever seen at this frontier fort-Ottawa and Wyandot from the neighborhood of Detroit; Mingo, Shawnee, and Delawares from the Ohio valley ; Seneca from the Upper Allegheny. All united in a pledge of peace, friendship, and neutrality with the new American nation.
The importance of these early negotiations can hardly be overestimated. Not only was thereby set free from both the Pennsylvania and Virginia fron- tiers, a body of competent riflemen who hastened cast- ward to swell the Continental army; but the way was opened for Kentucky settlement, which involved the general occupation of Western territory, and ulti- mately the settlement of the Western boundary at the Treaty of Paris. Had the Pittsburgh treaty proved
3 Amer. Archives, 4th series. iii, p. 6: New York Historical Society Proceedings, 1845, p. 167.
xiv
REVOLUTION ON UPPER OHIO
unsuccessful, the entire trans-Alleghany region must surely have been evacuated, George Rogers Clark's expeditions against Kaskaskia and Vincennes could hardly have occurred, and the West might easily have reverted to aboriginal occupation, and become a re- serve for the British fur-trade.
Another secret danger averted by the vigilance of the colonial authorities, was that known as "Con- nolly's Plot." This was a scheme not entirely im- practicable ; with the aid of troops from Canada and the contingents already stationed at Niagara, Detroit, and the Illinois, it would not have been difficult to capture the militia garrison at Fort Pitt and force a passage into the heart of Virginia, before an invasion from that quarter was suspected. The arrest of Connolly and his agents, in the autumn of 1775, not only checked this enterprise, but led to the evacua- tion of the Illinois by British military forces, and their concentration at Detroit.
Aside from the machinations of both Indians and Royalists, the American commandant at Pittsburgh had reason to fear an invasion from the British fort at Niagara. Here the attitude of the Allegheny Seneca stood the colonists in good stead. While not averse to negotiating with their British father at Niagara, they announced to both contestants that the passage of an army from either side through their territory would be regarded as an act of war, to be stoutly opposed by the confederated Iroquois. This no doubt saved Fort Pitt from a siege similar to that sustained by Fort Stanwix in 1777.
The frontier has ever been a region of daring ad-
XV
INTRODUCTION
venture and picturesque achievement. One exploit worthy of a place among the hero tales of American history, had its origin on the Upper Ohio during the early Revolutionary years. The chief need of the rebellious colonists was gunpowder. The English commandant at Niagara told the Indian tribesmen that the colonists would soon be beaten, since they had no powder and could no longer secure any from the mother country. Urged by this necessity, young Capt. George Gibson of the Virginia line, who had formerly been a trader on the lower reaches of the Ohio. conceived the project of securing a supply from the Spanish authorities at New Orleans, and transporting it up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to Fort Pitt. The Virginia authorities sanctioned the scheme. Choosing as his co-operator another noted frontier officer. Lieut. William Linn, the two set forth in a skiff. under the guise of Indian traders, and after a perilous journey arrived at their destination. At New Orleans, fresh difficulties awaited them. Governor Galvez. although favorable to the Americans, was disinclined to break with the British consul, who sus- pected the strangers, and inveighed against their pres- ence. By a private undestanding, therefore, Gibson was thrown into prison, and at once all British sus- picions were lulled.
Meanwhile Oliver Pollock, an American sympa- thizer residing at New Orleans, aided Linn to secure the coveted powder from the Spanish authorities. With forty-three men in several barges the latter left New Orleans September 22nd, with a cargo of ninety-eight barrels (over 9,000 pounds) of the precious explosive.
xvi
REVOLUTION ON UPPER OHIO
After severe hardships, and much suffering from ill- ness and lack of provisions, the expedition reached Arkansas Post on the twenty-sixth of November, be- ing received with marked kindness and courtesy by the Spanish commandant.4 There the adventur- ers passed the winter hunting, and curing meat for the spring advance.
Gibson, now released from confinement, returned to Virginia by sea, carrying news of his successful undertaking. Orders were sent out by the Virginia authorities to hasten a detachment to the aid of Linn, but that officer was beforehand with his plans. By the third of March he had reached the mouth of the Ohio, where an American from Kaskaskia met him with provisions. The Spanish at St. Louis, not so friendly as their colleagues farther south, sent a band of Indians to intercept the party at the Falls of the Ohio (Louisville) ; but before the arrival of the sav- ages the little company had already passed, and by the first of May safely landed the valuable cargo at Wheeling. For brilliancy of conception, cool daring, and successful accomplishment, this exploit deserves high rank among the minor achievements of that he- roic time.
During the year 1776 the rigorous work of defense went forward. The line of forts was extended, the militia enrolled and drilled, and scouting parties main- rained both in the interior and along the Ohio bound- ary. In the autumn, while Congressional commis-
4 Letter of Linn to Pollock, dated "Arkansaws, Novr. 30, 1776," Draper MSS., 60J277.
.
xvii
INTRODUCTION
sioners were conducting negotiations at Pittsburgh, a general alarm was sounded. A number of men were killed and scalped along the border, families hastily moved in from outlying settlements, or "forted" in their neighborhood, and consternation prevailed. In Kentucky, a party carrying gunpowder to the forts was attacked, several killed, and the rest scattered, and all but three of the posts in that district were abandoned.
Most of these breaches of the treaty signed by the Indians in 1775 were the work of a small body of ir- reconcilables, known as Pluggy's Band. An expedi- tion to invade their territory and burn the village was called out by Congress, and only abandoned through fear of thereby inciting a general Indian war. The win- ter of 1776-77 was an anxious one, and with the open- ing of the season of 1777 advices made it certain that the border would be harried by tribesmen under British influence. A call was thereupon made for a unified national defense, and Gen. Edward Hand, an experi- enced Continental officer, sent to Fort Pitt to take command. The period of partial peace was over, that of active warfare at hand.
The prompt ability with which the backwoodsmen managed their own affairs during the early years of the Revolution in the West, is worthy of notice. They performed a double duty with energy and loyalty. Or- ganizing temporary governments with the militia com- pany as a unit, and engaged in vigorously defending their own homes from savage neighbors, they never- theless loyally supported the newly-constituted, but far-distant. state authorities both with men and equip-
[ii]
xviii
REVOLUTION ON UPPER OHIO
ment. The Eastern armies were to a considerable degree recruited from the frontiersmen ; Western rifle- men formed a valuable adjunct of the Continental forces. The first contingent from beyond New Eng- land to join Washington at Cambridge, was Daniel Morgan's battalion of sharpshooters from the upland border of Virginia.
But if loyalty was characteristic of the frontier, there also lurked treachery and treason. The best and the worst of the race gather upon the borders of civilization. As usual, there were those not averse to an Indian war for the sake of the spoils and the ex- citement. To keep faith with the Indians, on the part of the authorities, proved often exceedingly difficult. At the beginning of ,the Treaty of Pittsburgh the White Mingo. one of the chiefs most friendly to the American cause, narrowly escaped assassination. In- dian envoys not infrequently suffered harsh treatment from fanatical and enfuriated militiamen. The hor- rors of Indian warfare were not entirely due to Brit- ish incitement. In many cases, American frontiers- men but reaped the bitter harvest of their own rash deeds.
It should not be overlooked, however, that during these fateful years armed encounters with British and Indians were but incidents in the main purpose of the pioneer, who sought to occupy and subdue the wild land, to make it fruitful and blossom. and fill it with American homes. Kentucky was first permanently settled during the early years of the Revolution. The frontier of Virginia, while restrained within the limits of the territory south of the Ohio, was fast be-
INTRODUCTION
xix
ing strewn by farms and small communities. The im- portance of Pittsburgh and Wheeling as Western ports of entry was being recognized. The West was becom- ing homogeneous, self-conscious, nationalistic.
We are under obligations to the Rev. Joseph H. Bausman, of Rochester, Pa., for permission to copy the silhouette of Col. George Morgan, given in his History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Dr. Will- iam Cabell Rives of Washington, D. C., has enabled us to add greatly to the value of the volume by fur- nishing therefor a careful transcript of the official re- port of the treaty held at Pittsburgh in September and October, 1775, the original manuscript of which he inherited from his ancestor, Dr. Thomas Walker, one of the treaty commissioners. Valuable assistance in the reading of the proof of the entire volume has been rendered by Miss Annie A. Nunns of the Soci- ety's staff.
R. G. T. L. P. K.
EXPLANATORY
Following the names of the writer and recipient of each document is given its press-mark in the Draper Manuscript Collection, by which the original can read- ily be identified if its further consultation is desired. The capital letter or letters refer to the series to which the document belongs; the volume number precedes the series letter, the folio or page number follows. E. g., the press-mark 4QQ7 means Vol. 4 of the Pres- ton Papers, p. 7; the press-mark 45J101 is equivalent to Vol. 45 of the George Rogers Clark Papers, p. 101.
Immediately after the press-mark, the nature of the document is indicated by the descriptive initials cus- tomarily employed in describing manuscripts :
A. L. - autograph letter unsigned (usually a draft in the author's handwriting).
A. L. S. - autograph letter signed.
L. S. - letter signed (text being in another's hand- writing).
D. S. - document signed.
THE REVOLUTION ON THE UPPER OHIO, 1775-1777
MOVEMENT TO KENTUCKY; FRONTIER FORTS
[Col. William Preston to Lord Dunmore.1 4QQ7-A. L., draft in Preston's handwriting.]
FINCASTLE, March Ioth. 1775
My Lord-Herewith your Lordship will receive two Letters from Capt Russell2 & Colº Henderson's Proposals for Settling the Lands on the Ohio under the Company's Purchase; as one of the Letters relate chiefly to that Transaction I shall only observe that between five hundred and a Thousand Cherokees came in & that the whole Business was to be concluded this Week, as the Indians had no Objections to the Sale.8
1 For biographical sketches of Lord Dunmore and Col. Will- iam Preston, see Documentary History of Dunmore's War (Madison, Wis .. 1905), pp. 425-431 .- ED.
2 A sketch of William Russell will be found in Ibid., p. 6, note 9 .- ED.
3 Richard Henderson, a prominent North Carolinian, con- ceived the plan of settling a large tract of land between the Kentucky and Cumberland rivers, to be purchased from the Cherokee Indians. For the carrying out of his scheme, he organized the Transylvania Company, purchased goods to the value of £10,000 sterling. and invited the Cherokee to hold a treaty at Sycamore Shoals, on the Watauga River. Early in March, 1775, the Indians began arriving, and about twelve hundred in all collected. After some opposition on the part of 1
.
2
REVOLUTION ON UPPER OHIO
That a great Number of Hands are employed in cut- ting a Waggon Road4 through Mockeson & Cumber- land Gaps's to the Kentucky which they expect to compleat before Planting time; & that at least 500 People are preparing to go out this Spring from Caro- lina beside great Numbers from Virga to Settle there & that the Company intends to have a Treaty with
Dragging Canoe and his band, the purchase was consum- mated on March 17, the treaty being signed by Oconastota, Little Carpenter, and many prominent chiefs. The Transyl- vania Company settled Boonesborough, opened a land-office, and held one legislative session in Kentucky. But their claim was protested by North Carolina, Virginia, and the Kentucky settlers already on the ground. In 1778 the Virginia legislature granted the Transylvania Company 200,000 acres of land on Green River as indemnity for their expense in set- tling Kentucky.
Henderson went out with the first group of settlers, his journal on that trip being among the Draper MSS., ICC. In 1779 he was commissioner from his state for extending west- ward the boundary line between it and Virginia, and visited Boonesborough in the spring of 1780. After serving in one session of the North Carolina Assembly, Henderson died at his home in Granville County, Jan. 30, 1785. The above ac- count is abridged from a sketch by Dr. Lyman C. Draper in Draper MSS., 3B341-345, 5B83 .- ED.
4 Before the conclusion of the treaty at Watauga, Henderson dispatched Daniel Boone with a company of experienced woodsmen to open a road to the Kentucky River, a distance of some two hundred miles. This was the origin of the well- known Wilderness Road, later traversed by thousands of emi- grants into the new West. It was a wagon-road only as far as Powell's Valley; after that, until 1792, but a pack-horse trail. See Thomas Speed, "Wilderness Road," in Filson Club Publications (Louisville, 1886), No. 2. For the list of Boone's co-workers sce R. G. Thwaites, Daniel Boone (New York, 1902), p. 117 .- ED.
5 For reference to Moccasin Gap see Dunmore's War, p. 60, note 2. Cumberland Gap was first discovered by Dr. Thomas Walker, April 13, 1750, and named in honor of the English duke of that title. See J. Stoddard Johnston, "First Explora- tions of Kentucky," Filson Club Publications, No. 13 .- ED.
3
MOVEMENT TO KENTUCKY
the Wobaush Indians" & give them a considerable present to Permit the Settlement on those Lands. The Cherokees I hear says that Colº Donelson promised them £500 for the Lands above the Kentucky which has not been paid & therefore they believe themselves at liberty to sell them a second Time;" & the Com- pany it is said have furnished themselves with the Journals of our house of Burgesses & other Authen- tick Papers to make it Appear that Virginia looked upon those Lands to be the property of the Cherokees.
It is generally believed that had the Commissioners been there from this Government, & met the Indians before they Saw the Goods that the Sale might have been prevented; however that be the matter is now become Serious & demands the Attention of Govern-
S The Wabash Indians were not a distinct tribe; this was a collective term for the tribes residing on or near Wabash River, comprising the various divisions of the Miami, with the Mascoutin and the Kickapoo. They frequently raided the territory below Kentucky River. There seems to have been no attempt, however, on the part of the Transylvania pro- prietors to communicate with the Wabash Indians .- ED.
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