USA > Pennsylvania > Armstrong County > Armstrong County, Pennsylvania her people past and present, embracing a history of the county and a genealogical and biographical record of representative families, Volume I > Part 5
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96
MASSEY HARBISON'S STORY 1
John Harbison was a soldier in St. Clair's army. Having been wounded he was given the lighter employment of spy upon the move- ments of the savages. In the spring of 1792 his family resided in a log house near what is now Kiskiminetas Junction on the Pennsyl-
vania railroad, at that time the site of the Reed blockhouse. While Harbison and Wil- liam Hill, grandfather of Robert B. McKee, now editor of the Freeport Journal, were ab- sent on a scouting expedition, the Indians entered his house in sight of the blockhouse garrison and carried off Mrs. Harbison and her three children.
Two spies, Davis and Sutton, had lodged that night at Harbison's house, and when the horn at the blockhouse was blown to notify them of an Indian attack they hurriedly left the house at daylight, leaving the door open. Sev- eral Indians, who had been skulking around the house, soon afterward entered, and drew Mrs. Massey (corrupted from Mera) Harbison and her eldest two children by their feet from their beds, the third or youngest one, about a year old, being in bed with her. While they were rummaging the house and scrambling to secure whatever each one could of her clothing and other articles, she went outdoors and hallooed to the men in the blockhouse. One Indian then ran up and stopped her mouth, another rushed toward her with his raised tomahawk, which a third one seized, calling her his squaw and claiming her as his own. Fifteen Indians then advanced toward and fired upon both the blockhouse and the storehouse, killing one and wounding another of the soldiers, one of whom, by the name of Wolf, was returning from the spring and the other either coming or looking out of the storehouse.
When Mrs. Harbison told the Indians who remained with her that there were forty men in the blockhouse, each having two guns, those who were firing were brought back. Then they began to drive her and her children away. Because one of her boys, three years old, was unwilling to leave and was crying, they seized him by his feet, dashed his brains out against the threshold of the door, and then stabbed and scalped him. Her heart rent with agony, almost bereft of sight and all her other senses, still keeping her infant in her arms, she gave a terrific scream, and for that one of her savage captors dealt a heavy blow on her head and face, which restored her to consciousness. She and her two surviving children were then taken to the top of a hill, where they all stopped, and while the Indians were tying up their booty she counted them, their number being thirty-two, among whom were two white men, painted like Indians.
Several of the Indians could speak English. Mrs. Harbison knew three or four of them very well; two were Senecas and two were
5
HISTORY OF ARMSTRONG COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
Munsees, whose guns her husband had re- reached the opposite shore. They all moved paired almost two years before. Two Indians thence as fast as they could across the forks to the Big Buffalo, which, being a very rapid stream, her guards were obliged to aid her in crossing. Thence they took a straight course toward the Connoquennessing creek, the very place where Butler now stands. Thence they advanced along the Indian trail to the Little Buffalo, which they crossed at the very place where B. Sarver's mill afterward stood, and there ascended the hill. were detailed to guard her, and the rest then went toward Puckety. When she, her children and their guards had advanced about two hundred yards, the latter caught two of her uncle John Currie's horses, and then placing her and.the youngest child on one and one of the guards and the remaining child on the other, proceeded toward the Kiskiminetas to a point opposite the upper end of Todd's island, where in descending the steep river hill the Indian's horse fell and rolled more than once. The boy fell over the horse's back, receiving a slight injury, and was taken up by one of the Indians. On reaching the shore the horses could not be made to swim, so the Indians took the captives across to the head of that island in bark canoes. After landing, the elder boy, five years old, complaining of the injury he had received from his fall and still lamenting the death of his brother, one of the guards tomahawked and then scalped him, the other guard having first ordered the mother to move on ahead of them, actuated, perhaps, by a slight assertion of humanity, to save her the pain of witnessing the murder of another of her children. When she beheld that second massacre of her off- spring she fell senseless to the ground with her infant in her arms beneath her with its little hands about her head.
She knew not how long she remained in that insensible condition. The first thing she re- membered on recovering her consciousness was raising her head from the ground and being overcome by an extreme, uncontrollable drowsiness, and beholding as she looked around the bloody scalp of her boy in the hand of one of these savages. She then involuntarily sank again to the earth upon her infant. The first thing which she remembered after that was the severe castigation that her cruel guards were inflicting upon her, after which they aided her in rising and supported her when on her feet. Why they did not massacre her she attributed to the interposition of Divine Provi- dence in her behalf. There must have still been a little streak of humanity lingering in their ferocious breasts, for they concealed the scalp of her boy from her sight.
Having restored her dormant senses by lead- ing her knee-deep into the river, all proceeded to a shoal near the head of the island, be- tween it and the mainland or "Indian side of the country," where her guards forced her before them into and through the water breast deep, she holding her child above the surface, and by their assistance she with her child safely two savages who had that day massacred in
Having become weary of life she fully de- termined to make these savages kill her, to end her fatigue and the prospective miseries and cruelties which she conceived awaited her. They were then moving in single file, one guard before and the other behind her. She stopped, withdrew from her shoulder a large powder- horn which, besides her child, they compelled her to carry, and threw it to the ground, closing her eyes and momentarily expecting to feel their deadly tomahawks. But, contrary to her expectations, they replaced it on her shoulder. She threw it off a second time, expecting death. But they, looking indignant and fright- ful, again replaced it. She threw it down a third time as far as she could over the rocks. While the one that had been engaged in that little contest was recovering it, the other one who had claimed her as his squaw, and who had witnessed the affair, approached and said : "Well done, you did right and are a good squaw, and he is lazy ; he may carry it him- self."
The guards having changed their positions, the latter taking the rear probably to prevent the other from injuring her, they proceeded until they reached, shortly before dark, with- out refreshment during the day, the Salt Lick on the Connoquennessing, nearly two miles above the present site of Butler, where there was an Indian camp made of stakes driven into the ground sloping, covered with chestnut bark, long enough for fifty men, which ap- peared to have been occupied for some time, was very much weather-beaten, and from which large beaten paths extended in different directions.
Mrs. Harbison was taken that night from that camp into a large dark bottom, about three hundred rods up a run, where they cut away the brush in a thicket, placed a blanket on the ground and permitted her to sit down with her child, which it was difficult for her to manage, as they had pinioned her arms so that she had but slight freedom of their use. There, without refreshment, thus pinioned, with those
6
HISTORY OF ARMSTRONG COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
her presence two of her boys, one of those fallen asleep, she concluded it was her time guards on each side of her, she passed the first night of her captivity.
The next morning one of the guards left to watch the trail they had traveled, and ascer- tain whether any of the white people were in pursuit. During his absence the other, being the one who claimed her as his squaw, and who had that day killed her second boy, re- mained with her and took from his bosom the scalp which he had so humanely concealed from her sight on the island, and stretched it upon a hoop. She then meditated revenge, attempting to take the tomahawk which hung by his side, and deal a fatal blow, but was, alas ! detected. Her dusky captor turned, cursed her, and called her a "Yankee," thus intimating that he understood her intention, and to pre- vent a repetition of her attempt, faced her. The feigned reason that she gave for handling his tomahawk was, that her child wanted to play with its handle.
The guard that had been out returned from his lookout about noon, and reported that he had not discovered any pursuers, and remained on guard while the other went out for the same purpose. The one then guarding her, after questioning her respecting the whites, the strength of their armies, and boasting of the achievement of the Indians in St. Clair's defeat, examined the plunder which he had brought from her house, among which he found her pocketbook, containing $10 in silver and a half-guinea in gold. All the food that she received from her guards on that Sunday and Monday was a piece of dried venison, about the size of an egg, each day, for herself and her child, but by reason of the blows which they had inflicted upon her jaws she could not eat any of it, and broke it up and gave it to her child. The guard who had been on the lookout in the afternoon returned about dark. Having been removed to another station in the valley of that run, that evening, she was again pinioned, guarded, and kept without either fire or refreshment, the second night of her captivity, just as she had been during the first one. She, however, fell asleep occasion- ally.
Her ears were regaled the next morning by the singing of a flock of mocking-birds and robins that hovered over her irksome camp. To her imagination they seemed to sing, "Get up and go off !" One of the guards having left at daybreak to watch the trail, the remaining one appeared to be sleeping, on observing which she began to snore and feigned to be asleep. When she was satisfied that he had really
to escape. She would then have slain or dis- abled him, but for the crying of her child when out of her arms, which would of course awaken him and jeopardize her own life. She, there- fore, was contented to take a short gown, handkerchief, and child's frock from the pillow case containing the articles which the Indians had brought from her house, and escape, about half an hour after sunrise. Guided by those birds, and wisely taking a direction from in- stead of toward her home, in order to mis- lead her captors, she passed over the hill, reached the Connoquennessing, about two miles from the point at which she and they had crossed it, and descended it through thorns and briers, and over rocks and precipices, with bare feet and legs. Having discovered by the sun and the course of the stream that she was advancing too far in her course from her home, she changed it, ascended the hill, sat down till sunset, determined her direction for the mor- row by the evening star, gathered leaves for her bed, without food, her feet painful from the thorns that were in them, reclined and slept.
About daybreak the next morning she was awakened by that flock of birds which seemed to her to be attending and guiding her through the wilderness. When light enough to find her way, she started on her fourth day's trial of hunger and fatigue, advancing, according to her knowledge of courses and distances, to- ward the Allegheny river. Nothing unusual occurred during the day. It having commenced raining moderately about sunset, she prepared to make her bed of leaves, but was prevented by the crying of her child when she sat him down. Listening she distinctly heard the foot- steps of a man following her. Such was the condition of the soil that her footprints might be discerned. Fearing that she was thus ex- posed to a second captivity, she looked for a place of concealment and providentially dis- covered a large fallen tree, into whose thick foliage she crept with her child in her arms, where, aided by the darkness, she avoided de- tection by the Indian whose footsteps she had heard. He having heard the child's cry, came to the spot whence the sound proceeded, halted, put down his gun, and was then so near to her that she distinctly heard the wiping-stick strike against his gun. Fortunately the child, pressed to her bosom, became warm and lay quiet during the continuance of their imminent peril. That Indian in the meantime, amidst that unbroken stillness, stood for nearly two hours with listening ears to again catch the
7
HISTORY OF ARMSTRONG COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
sound of the child's cry, and so profound was eveningtide within a mile of the Allegheny that stillness that the beating of her own heart river, though she did not know it, at the root of a tree, holding her child in her lap and her head against the tree to shelter him from that night's drenching rain, she lodged that fifth night since her capture. was all she heard, and which seemed to her to be so loud that she feared her dusky pursuer would . hear it. Finally, answering the sound of a bell and a cry like a night-owl's, signals which his companions had given, and giving a horrid, soul-harrowing yell, he departed. Deeming it imprudent to remain there until morning, lest her tracks might be discovered in daylight, she removed her coat and wrapped it around the child, with one end between her teeth, thus carrying the child with her teeth and one arm. With the other she groped her way among the trees a mile or two, and there sat in the damp, cold air till morning.
At daylight the next morning, wet, hungry, exhausted, wretched, she advanced across the headwaters of Pine creek, not knowing what they were, and became alarmed by two freshly indented moccasin tracks of men traveling in the same direction that she was. As they were ahead of her she concluded that she could see them as soon as they could see her. So she proceeded about three miles to a hunter's camp at the confluence of another branch of the creek, in which those who preceded her had kindled a fire, breakfasted, and, leaving the fire burning, had departed. She afterward learned that they were spies, James Anderson and John Thompson.
Having become still more alarmed, she left that path, ascended a hill, struck another path, and while meditating there what to do, saw three deer advancing toward her at full speed. They turned to look and she, too, looked in- tently at their pursuers, and saw the flash and heard the instantaneous report of a gun. See- ing some dogs start after the deer, she crouched behind a large log for shelter, but fortunately not close to it, for, as she placed her hand on the ground to raise herself up, that she might see the hunters, she saw a large mass of rattlesnakes, her face being very near the top one, which lay coiled ready to strike its deadly fangs into her. With a supreme effort she left that dangerous spot, bearing to the left, reached the headwaters of Squaw run, which, through rain, she followed the rest of the day, her limbs so cold and shivering that she could not help giving an occasional in- voluntary groan.
Though her jaws had sufficiently recovered from the pain caused by the blows inflicted upon her by the Indians, she suffered from hunger, procuring grapevines whenever she could and chewing them for what little sus- tenance they afforded. Having arrived at
She was unable for a considerable time the next morning to raise herself from the ground. Having, with a hard struggle, gained her feet, with nature so nearly exhausted and her spirits so completely depressed as they were, her progress was very slow and discouraging. After proceeding a short distance, she struck a path over which cattle had passed, follow- ing which for about a mile, she reached an un- inhabited cabin on the river bottom. Not knowing where she was, and overcome with despair, she went to its threshold, having re- solved to enter it and then lie down and dic. But the thought of the suffering to be endured in that event nerved her to another desperate effort to live. Hearing the sound of a cow- bell, which awakened a gleam of hope in her extreme despondency, she followed that sound until she reached a point opposite the fort at Six-Mile Island, where, with feelings which can be more readily imagined than expressed, she beheld three men on the left bank of the river. They appeared to be unwilling to come for her when she called on them, and requested her to inform them who she was. When she told them that she was the one who had been taken prisoner up the Allegheny on the morn- ing of the 22d and had escaped, they requested her to walk up the bank of the river for awhile that they might see whether or not the Indians were making a decoy of her. When she told them her feet were so sore that she could not walk. James Closier came over for her in a canoe, while the other two stood on the river bank with cocked rifles, ready to fire in case she proved to be a decov. When Closier ap- proached the shore and saw her haggard and dejected appearance, he exclaimed : "Who, in the name of God, are you?" So great was the change wrought by her six days' sufferings that he, one of her nearest neighbors, did not recognize either her face or voice. When she arrived on the other side of the river she was unable to move or to help herself in any way. The people at the fort ran to see her. Some of them took her child and others took her from the canoe to Mr. Carter's house. Then, all danger being passed, she enjoyed for the first time since her capture the relief which comes from a copious flow of tears. Coming too suddenly to the fire and the smell of the victnals, she fainted.
8
HISTORY OF ARMSTRONG COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
Those hospitable people might have killed her an account of the murder of her boy on her with their exuberant kindness, had not Todd's Island, whither a scout went the next morning, found and buried the corpse, which had lain there unburied nine days. Major McCulley, who then commanded the line along the Allegheny river, fortunately arrived. When he saw her situation and the
From her affidavit and a subsequent and bountiful provisions those good people were more elaborate narrative, prepared from her making for her, he immediately ordered her statement by John Winter, the writer has con- out of the house, away from the heat of the densed the foregoing facts, credited by the fire and the smell of the victuals which were early settlers who were her neighbors, and which were made during those six terrible days of her life.
being cooked, and prohibited her from taking anything but the whey of buttermilk, in very small quantities, which he himself adminis- tered. By that judicious treatment she was gradually restored to health and strength of mind and body.
Sarah Carter and Mary Ann Crozier then began to extract the thorns from her feet and legs, to the number of 150, as counted by Felix Negley, who watched the operation, and who afterward resided at the mouth of Bull creek, Tarentum. Many more were extracted the next evening. Some of the thorns went through and came out on the top of her feet. The skin and flesh were excruciatingly mangled and hung in shreds to her feet and legs. So much exposure of her naked body to rain by night and heat of the sun by day, and carrying her child so long in her arms without relief, caused much of her skin to come off so that nearly her whole body was raw, and for two weeks her feet were not sufficiently healed to enable her to put them to the ground to walk.
She resided during several subsequent years at Salt Lick, a mile and a half north of Butler, on the Connoquennessing, at or near the site of the Indian camp mentioned in her affidavit and narrative. The last years of her life were passed in a cabin on the lot on the northeastern corner of Fourth street and Mulberry alley, Freeport, opposite the Methodist Episcopal church, where she died on Saturday, Dec. 9, 1837. By an act of the Legislature in 1828 she was granted a donation of $100 as full pay- ment for relief as the widow of a soldier of the Revolutionary war.
Robert B. McKee of Freeport is a relative of Massey, his father's sister having married her son James. The site of the house from which she was captured is part of the property of Andrew Carnegie, directly across the river from the mouth of Buffalo creek.
REPRISALS
The news of her escape spread rapidly in Such outrages were not calculated to make the early settlers merciful in their dealings with the Indians, and naturally their reprisals were as fierce and bloody as their savage adversaries. An example of this is shown in the story of the expedition of Armstrong against the Indian village of Kittanning, described elsewhere. Another case was the raid of Capt. Samuel Brady, of which the fol- lowing is a condensation: About the 10th of June, 1779, three men, whom Colonel Brod- head had sent from Fort Pitt to reconnoiter the Seneca country, returned, having been closely pursued some distance below Kittan- ning, and nearly captured, by several Indian warriors who were descending the Allegheny in canoes. In a few days thereafter Capt. Samuel Brady obtained with difficulty, on ac- count of the envy excited in some of his fellow officers by his previous brilliant successes, per- mission from the commandant of that fort to proceed with twenty men and a young Dela- ware chief toward the Seneca country, to were moving these Indian warriors advanced various directions, reaching Pittsburgh the same evening of her arrival at the fort at Six- Mile Island. Two spies proceeded that eve- ning to Coe's-now Tarentum-and the next morning to Reed's station, bearing the intelli- gence to her husband. A young man employed by the magistrates at Pittsburgh came for her to go thither for the purpose of making before one of them her affidavit of the facts con- nected with her captivity and escape, as was customary in early times, for publication. Being unable either to walk or ride on horse- back, she was carried by some of the men into a canoe. After arriving at Pittsburgh she was borne in their arms to the office of John Wilkins, a justice of the peace and a son of the late Judge Wilkins, of the United States court, before whom she made her affidavit, May 28, 1792. The facts which she thus stated, being circulated, caused a lively sensation in and for twenty miles around Pittsburgh. Her husband arrived there that evening, and the next morning she was conveyed to Coe's catch the Indians. While he and his command station. That evening she gave to those about
9
HISTORY OF ARMSTRONG COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
to the settlements. They killed a soldier be- all their plunder, and took all the Indians' tween Forts Hand and Crawford, that is, guns, tomahawks, match-coats, moccasins-in between the mouths of the Loyal Hannon and fine, everything they had, except their breech- Poketas creeks, and at the Sewickley settle- clouts. ment they killed one woman and her four chil- Captain Brady and most of his men acted with great spirit and intrepidity, but it is stated that the young Delaware chief Nanowland, or George Wilson, distinguished himself in this enterprise. dren and took two other children prisoners, their father being absent. Brady and his party -- they were all well painted like the Indians- crossed the Allegheny and advanced up its west side, carefully examining the mouths of all its That camp-ground was in the northwestern corner of the tract subsequently called "Spring- field," several rods east of what was still more recently the old steamboat wharf. The thicket into which the wounded escaped was on the hill still higher up the creek than the camp. principal, especially its eastern, tributaries, sup- posing that the Indians would descend it in their canoes. On reaching a point opposite the mouth of Mahoning, they discovered the Indians' canoes moored at the southwestern bank of the creek. Brady and his force then went some distance down the river, halted until dark, made a raft, crossed over to. the east side, advanced along it to the creek, found the canoes had been removed to the opposite side of the creek, vainly attempted to wade it, then moved up along its left bank and shore a considerable distance.
BRADY'S FIGHT
After crossing the creek, a fire was made, their clothes dried, and arms inspected. They then moved down toward the Indian camp, which was pitched on what was then a second bank of the Allegheny, a short distance east of where the Pennsylvania railroad track now is. Brady posted his men on the first bank, which has since been worn away. He sur- rounded them as well as the situation would admit, and finding he was discovered by break of day, he attacked them. The Indian captain, a notorious warrior of the Muncy nation, was killed on the spot, and several more mortally wounded, but the woods were remarkably thick, and the party could not pursue the villains' tracks after they had stopped their wounds, which they always do as soon as possible after receiving them. Captain Brady, however, re- took six horses, the two prisoners, the scalps,
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.