Century history of Butler and Butler County, Pa., and representative citizens 20th, Part 8

Author: McKee, James A., 1865- ed. and comp
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Chicago, Richmond-Arnold Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1526

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" "The prisoners also informed us that that very day two bateaux of Frenchmen, with a large party of Delaware and French Indians, were to join Captain Jacobs, to march and take Fort Shirley; and that twenty-five warriors had set out before them the preceding evening, which proved to be the party that had kindled the fire the night before; for our people returning found Lieutenant Hogg wounded in three places, and learned he had in the morning attacked the supposed party of three or four at the fire, according to order, but found them too numerous for him. He killed three of them, however, at the first fire and fought them for an hour, when he lost three of his best men and fled, the enemy pursuing them. Lieutenant Hogg soon after died of his wounds.' "

Armstrong relates further concerning the Kittanning raid:

" 'Captain Mercer, being wounded in the action, was carried off by his ensign and eleven men, who left the main body in their return to take another road, and were not come in when the express came away.

HISTORY OF BUTLER COUNTY

He had four of the recovered prisoners with him, and some of the scalps.'

"At the foot of Armstrong's dispatch the Gazette adds :

" 'Since receiving the above return from Fort Lyttleton, we are informed Captain Mercer and twenty-five persons are re- turned safe, which makes up the missing, and the four released prisoners.'

"The Gazette account has been freely quoted because it differs in some particu- lars from that in the histories, and con- tains information not to be found there. Also, because it is direct from the com- mander of the expedition, who presumably gave an accurate report. It is surprising that the historians are content to com- ment upon the signal blow suffered by the enemy in the loss of their most famous leader and their depot of supplies, but make no mention of the very important im- mediate results of that blow, viz .: the scat- tering of the assembling forces destined for the attack on Fort Shirley, and that, too, at the last critical moment, for had Armstrong's troops arrived in the vicinity of Kittanning twelve hours later they would in all probability have been cut to pieces, and Fort Shirley, with its meager garrison would have fallen into the hands of Jacobs, as did Fort Granville, or Fort Granby, as Armstrong calls it, the preced- ing year, and the Juniata Valley would have been laid as waste and desolate as was Wyoming twenty-two years later.

"It was daylight when the work of de- struction was finished, and the sun rose upon the smoking ruins. There was not a moment to lose, for, says Armstrong's re- port :

" 'A body of the enemy on the other side of the river fired on our people, and being seen to cross the river at a distance, as if to surround our men, they collected some Indian horses found near the town to carry off the wounded and retreated, without go- ing back to the cornfield to pick up the

scalps of those killed there in the begin- ning of the action.'

"Taking with them the released pris- oners, the troops hurried back to the woods where their horses were corralled, mounted in haste, and made their way homeward as silently and cautiously as they had come. The fact that a body of the enemy fired upon Armstrong's party from the opposite side of the river seems further to confirm the testimony of the rescued prisoners con- cerning the proposed attack upon Fort Shirley. It is reasonable to suppose that they were a body destined for the expedi- tion, arriving thus early at the rendezvous.

"The astonishment and alarm of the Ohio tribes at this direful visitation of the colonists put an end to their outrages for some time to come. On the frontier a feel- ing of security was, in a measure, restored, and the settlers in large numbers returned to the homes they had abandoned. It is pleasing to note in connection with this daring exploit of Armstrong's militia that the populous town of the white men, with the foundries and rolling mills, and its beautiful homes and churches that now cov- ers the site of the old Indian rallying place, has not been rechristened, but retains the musical Delaware name of Kittanning. Keckewelder, the best authority on Lenni Lenape significations, says it is a corrup- tion of Kithan-nick, which means the main stream, or on the main stream, and with the Delawares denoted the stream as well as the town.

"It is also in accordance with the eter- nal fitness of things that the county of which Kittanning is the capital, bears the name of Armstrong in honor of the man who, by a signal act of retaliation, opened the way for its settlement. The corpora- tion of Philadelphia presented Colonel Armstrong with a piece of plate, and also gave to him and to each of his officers a silver medal and to every private in the troop a medal and a small present of

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money in recognition of their intrepid con- duct on the expedition.

ADVENTURE OF JAMES KIRKPATRICK.

"The treaty of Fontainbleau did not bring to the borders the tranquillity so earnestly hoped for, and not until after the close of Pontiac's war was there actual safety for settlers beyond the shadow of the forts. After a few years, however, the remnants of such tribes as remained north of the Ohio, being now at peace with the English emigrants, and tempted by the cheap and fertile land, began to push far- ther west and north of the manor tracts of Pennsylvania.

"With these came James Kirkpatrick, of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, bring- ing with him his wife and three children, the youngest not yet a year old. They crossed the Allegheny River at a point where, a quarter of a century before, had stood the Indian town of Kittanning. Here they piled their household effects on the backs of pack-horses and pushed into the wilderness some ten miles beyond and to a little stream called Cherry Run.

"With the help of a distant neighbor Kirkpatrick built a cabin and began to clear his land. Encouraged by the quality of their purchase he and his wife toiled cheerfully, for both were young, buoyant with health and hope, and charmed with the novelty of their woodland life. The elder children, too, were happy as linnets in the midst of their surroundings, and as the ax was lustily plied, watched with eager interest the swaying of each tree, and heard with boisterous shouts the crash when the great trunk shook the earth with its fall.

"So the boundaries of the clearing ex- tended farther and farther as time went by, and the crops grew apace in the rich, new soil. A few Indians remained in a camp not many miles away, but they were friendly, and sometimes came to the col- onists to barter moccasins and furs for po-

tatoes, turnips and other products of the soil, and the latch string of the pioneers was always out to the few travelers who passed their way, but beyond an occa- sional party of surveyors, a hunter or a militia man or two going or coming from the blockhouse district, they had few vis- itors.

"Born of religious parents, the young people kept up in their new home the pious observances to which they had been al- ways accustomed. Indeed, their isolated situation gave new fervency to their devo- tions. It so happened on the morning of the 28th of April, 1791, a day ever after memorable to them, that George Miller, who was the first white man who had set- tled in. this section, coming in 1766, and another militia man, had stopped at the cabin. Young Kirkpatrick, as was his. habit, before beginning work for the day, read a chapter in the Bible, and all pres- ent knelt in prayer.

"As they arose from their knees, one of the militia men hearing some stir out- side, opened the door to ascertain the cause. As he did so, an Indian standing near the house, fired at him, inflicting a terrible wound in his side. He was falling out of the open door when his companions, Miller and Kirkpatrick, springing forward, dragged him in and barred the door. Mil- ler then barricaded the window with bed- ding, table and such other articles of house- hold furniture as would help to make it bullet-proof, while Kirkpatrick, seizing his rifle, ran up the ladder to the loft and be- gan shooting through a loophole in the chucking. Having been entirely engrossed with the labors of his farm, and not ex- pecting hostility from the Indians at that late date, he had run no bullets for some time, and so had but few in his pouch. He had not fired many rounds, when a shot aimed by the assailant sped through the crack above the large wooden door latch, struck the innocent baby, and it fell back, bleeding and gasping.

HISTORY OF BUTLER COUNTY

"At this moment Kirkpatrick called down the ladder to his wife to mold some bullets as fast as possible, for his supply was nearly exhausted. There was no time now to wash blood stains from the cruel wound or to pillow the drooping head upon her throbbing breast; no time to give way to a mother's yearning or anguish-only time to lay, with trembling hands, the tiny, limp form in the sugar-trough cradle, that might never again rock him to slumber; only time to snatch with nervous haste the lead, the mold and the ladle for melting from the rude shelf, rake the embers from under the back log and essay her difficult task that her husband might save their lives or sell them as dearly as he could.

"It was easy enough to melt the lead on the glowing coals, but the shaking fingers could not guide the molten stream into the throat of the mold. Seeing this, the wounded militiaman, holding together with one hand the gaping edges of his wound, crawled to the fireplace, and with the other hand steadied the ladle for her. In this way they filled and emptied the mold many times over, while Miller, having secured the house as well as he could, stood at the foot of the ladder, trimmed the bullets, loaded the spare gun, passed it up to Kirk- patrick, took his empty one, loaded it and exchanged, loaded and exchanged again and again.

"Counting the shots and the intervals between them, the white men judged there were three assailants. After a time, how- ever, the shots were less frequent and far- ther off. They concluded from this that one of the Indians was either killed or badly wounded. The other two had by this time moved to the edge of the clearing and far enough away from the house to be seen from the loop hole. One of them had just fired his piece, the charge burying itself in the log near Kirkpatrick's head. The other one was in the act of loading. Kirkpatrick now for the first time having a chance to take a deliberate aim, leveled

his rifle and fired; his bullet struck the ramrod out of the Indian's hand and en- tered his body. He threw up his arms and fell to the ground, but scrambled to his feet again and tottered into the woods. The other one ran away at full speed and firing ceased.

"When the besieged white men opened the door and looked warily out, an Indian lay dead in the yard with a bullet hole through his head. Assured that they were at last alone, every effort was made to al- leviate the sufferings of the wounded man and child. But the soldier was beyond all aid; he lingered in. great agony until near noon, when death came to his relief. The baby lay breathing feebly and white as marble. The brave husband could not tarry to soothe the grief of his wife or the terror of his children, but hastily prepared to carry them to a place of safety, lest the savages might return in greater numbers and massacre them all.

"A white boy, at that time a prisoner with the tribe among whom the three In- dians were, living, after his escape told Kirkpatrick that they had expected to find him alone with his family, and that but one of the three returned to camp. Kirkpat- rick collected as many of his effects as could be packed on the horse behind his wife and children, and taking Miller, the surviving militiaman, as guard, hurried his family off by a circuitous route to the block house at Hannahstown; the mother carrying her wounded child on a pillow upon her lap. It was a dangerous and painful ride of nearly forty miles, and scarcely had they entered the sheltering walls of the fort when the baby boy breathed his last.

"As far as there is any record, this was the last murderous attack by Indians upon a settler's home in western Pennsylvania. There have been published no less than four different versions of the story, in- cluding the one in Massy Harbison's book, which Mr. J. T. Kirkpatrick, a grandson

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

of the pioneer James Kirkpatrick, pro- the premises or scare her so that she nounces incorrect in several particulars. It is believed the account here given is the true one, as it was obtained directly from Mr. J. T. Kirkpatrick, who had it from his grandparents, who were actors in the scene.

"The scene of the tragedy is on the old road running north from Kittanning. A jaunting party passing through that re- gion some time ago, found the old cabin still standing, for the woodmen of those days builded better than they knew. It is true, the clapboard roof, as clapboards will do, had curled up like fur on the back of an angry cat; the sash was gone from the small, square window, and the door from its hinges, but the four log walls and the chinking were almost as perfect as when young Kirkpatrick built it."

THE GIRTY TRAGEDY.

Among the first settlers who came to the northern part of Connoquenessing Town- ship was Thomas Girty, his wife Ann, and his son Thomas, Jr., who located near Whitestown about 1795 or 1796. The elder Girty died some time previous to 1803, and was probably buried at Girty's Run in Al- legheny County, where the family came from. The tax duplicates of Butler County issued by the commissioners of Al- legheny County in 1803, show that Thomas Girty, a single man, was assessed with four hundred acres of land in Connoquenessing Township, besides other personal prop- erty. The young man lived on the farm with his mother, and because of the belief among the settlers that they were relatives of the notorious Simon Girty, the family was avoided, and many false stories have been told about them.

During the absence of Thomas Girty, Jr., in Ohio in 1803, Davy Kerr, who was a squatter on the four hundred acre tract of land taken up by the Girtys, went one night to the cabin where Mrs. Ann Girty lived, determined either to drive her off

would leave him in undisputed possession of the land. Before going to the cabin he had armed himself with a horse-pistol ' which he had loaded with buckshot. He stated the purpose of his visit to Mrs. Girty, and when she refused to leave made threats of violence, at which Mrs. Girty seized a burning firebrand from the fire and struck Kerr in the face. In the fight that ensued Kerr shot Mrs. Girty in the breast, inflicting wounds from which she died six weeks later. Because of the feel- ing that existed against the Girty family in the neighborhood, and partly because a settlement had been arranged, before Mrs. Girty's death, Kerr was never prosecuted for his crime and shortly afterwards he gave up his claim to the land and left. So bitter was the feeling against Mrs. Ann Girty that the trustees of Mt. Nebo Ceme- tery, near Whitestown, refused to allow her to be buried at that place, and she was interred on the farm where she lived. For many years this grave was marked by a fence made of chestnut rails and the spot was avoided by children because they be- lieved that Mrs. Girty was a witch, and capable of working great mischief in the neighborhood. Thomas Girty, Jr., the son, never returned to Butler County after the death of his mother, and he lived and died in Adams County, Ohio.

The suspicion that this Girty family was connected with the notorious Simon Girty was correct, although the Girty family in Butler County could never be charged with anything more serious than attending to their own business and living a quiet ex- istence. Howe's "Historical Collections of Ohio" says that the original Girty fam- ily lived in Pennsylvania and that the elder Girty was a man of violent disposition, given to drinking, who abused his wife and family so much that his wife deserted him for a young pioneer in the neighborhood named John Turner. It was alleged that in order to get rid of the obnoxious Girty,

HISTORY OF BUTLER COUNTY

Turner knocked him on the head. Girty left four sons, viz .: George, James, Thomas, and Simon. All of the sons were captured by the Indians during Brad- dock's campaign and were subsequently adopted by various Indian tribes, with the exception of Thomas. George was adopted by the Delaware Indians and died in a drunken fit. James was adopted by the Shawanese, became notorious on the fron- tier, and met a violent death in Kentucky. Simon was adopted by the Seneca Indians and became the notorious white renegade who was so much feared and hated by the pioneers. Accounts differ as to how Si- mon met his death, one authority saying he was hacked to pieces by Colonel John- son's mounted men at Proctor's defeat, and another that he died at Malden about 1815. The white renegades, Simon Girty, Col. Alexander McKee, and Captain El- liott, were at the battle of Fallen Timbers -1794-with about seventy Canadians, but did not take part in the fight.

Thomas Girty was one of the white men that was a prisoner at Kittanning in 1756 when Col. Armstrong made his famous ex- pedition and destroyed that Indian strong- hold. He subsequently settled on Girty's Run in Allegheny County, and when the territory of which Butler County is a part was opened for settlement, he came to this county. It was alleged that during the Revolution and the Indian wars Thomas Girty was as vicious as his brothers in his treatment of the white settlers, and that his wife Ann made the bullets with which he shot down the frontiersmen in their fight with the Indians.

A sister of the Girty men was married to Israel Gibson and came to Butler County with her husband previous to 1800. She died in 1801, and was the third person buried in the Mt. Nebo Cemetery, where two years later the officials of the ceme- tery would not permit her sister-in-law to be buried. The Girty tract lay west of the Franklin Road and about one mile south

of Whitestown. After the death of Mrs. Girty, Israel Gibson lived on the farm, and in later years it was known as the Ab- diel McClure farm. It is now known as the Coates farm.

It is said that Thomas Girty was at one time loyal to the colonies, and that he was employed as a scout along with James Am- berson, James Jeffries and Capt. Samuel Brady. For some reason he turned against his former compatriots and became an outlaw.

M'KEE AND ELLIOTT.

While Butler County was not the field of any of the fiendish barbarities committed by the renegades, Simon Girty, Alexander McKee and Captain Elliott, it is a fact, however, that this territory was the ren- dezvous and hiding place of the maraud- ing tribes of Indians who terrorized the frontier and the Cumberland and Tusca- rora Valleys during the Revolution and for a number of years later, and who were led by these white men. McKee and El- liott were residents of Path Valley, Penn- sylvania, previous to the Revolution, where both men were leaders of the Tory element among the settlers. On account of their sympathies with the British, they were compelled to leave the valley, and both men joined the Shawanese tribe of Indians and became leaders of the Indian tribe in all the depredations that were com- mitted in western Pennsylvania during the period of the Revolution, and which were chiefly instigated by the British. They married Indian wives, adopted Indian hab- its, and became as ferocious in their treat- ment of the white settlers as the Girtys. In consideration of their treachery, McKee was given the rank as colonel and Elliott the rank of captain in the British army, and after the Revolution both men were appointed agents for the Indians by the British government and were stationed in the southern part of Canada.

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THE STORY OF MASSY HARBISON.

The story of Massy Harbison and her terrible experiences with the Indians is one of the most thrilling narratives in the annals of the west. While the capture of Mrs. Harbison took place in Westmore- land County, the terrible experiences of the several days that followed and her es- cape from the Indians took place in But- ler County, and is an authentic narrative of adventure within the territory of the county. It has been published before, but its inherent interest and its value as an il- lustration of the hardships and perils that sometimes fell to the lot of the early set- tlers in this region, entitle it to republica- tion in this volume.

Massy White was the daughter of Ed- ward White, a Revolutionary soldier, and was born in Amwell Township, Somerset County, New Jersey, March 18, 1770. Af- ter the establishment of peace in 1782, the family removed west and settled at Red Stone Fort, now Brownsville, in the Mo- nongahela Valley. In 1787 Massy White was married to John Harbison with whom she removed to the headwaters of Char- tiers Creek, in Westmoreland County. John Harbison was an Indian scout and frontiersman and was with St. Clair's army in Ohio in 1791, when the latter met defeat by the Indians.

The Indians, who had been the allies of the British, during the Revolutionary War, afterwards continued to harass the white settlers along the Ohio and Allegheny frontier. So great were their atrocities and depredations that the government in - 1790 again inaugurated hostilities against them. During the period from this date until General Wayne's victory, in 1794, and even after that until the treaty of Greenville in 1795, numerous murders were committed and many persons taken pris- oners. Along the Allegheny River and near the boundaries of what is now Butler County, a number of outrages were com-

mitted in 1791. In March of that year a Mr. Thomas Dick and his wife, living near the mouth of Deer Creek on the east side of the River, were captured, and a young man who lived with them was killed and scalped. Four days later a band of In- dians appeared at the house of Abram Russ, two miles further up the river, pro- tested their friendship, and asked for food. Having been received kindly, the Indians turned on their benefactors, massacred four men, a woman and six children. Sev- eral persons escaped and the news of this slaughter was quickly carried through the scattered settlements and the inhabitants, taking with them only such articles as could be hastily gotten together, fled to James Paul's, on Pine Run. By sunrise on the 23d of March there were between seventy and eighty women and children col- lected at this retreat, and all but four of the men had left in pursuit of the Indians. Massy Harbison and her two children were among the number who sought safety at James Paul's. After the murder on the night of March 22d, 1791, above the mouth of Bull Creek, from Pine Creek these peo- ple proceeded to a point on the eastern bank of the Allegheny River, a mile below the mouth of Kiskiminetas, and opposite the side of Freeport, and there erected a block house to which all the families who had fled from the neighborhood returned within two weeks. Here they remained in safety during the summer, although sev- eral murders were committed along the river and David McKee and another young man were killed and scalped within seven miles of the blockhouse. This block- house received the name of Reeds Station. Soon after the several families were pro- vided for at the blockhouse in the spring of 1791, John Harbison, the husband of Massy Harbison, enlisted in the six months' serv- ice in Captain Guthrie's company, went out in the expedition against the Indians, under command of the unfortunate General St. Clair. He did not return until the 24th of

HISTORY OF BUTLER COUNTY

December, and when he came home he brought a memento of St. Clair's defeat in the shape of an ugly wound. On his re- covery from his wound Harbison was ap- pointed as spy and ordered to the woods on duty in March, 1792. While no depre- dations had been committed during the winter, the inhabitants at Reed Station feared trouble, and resorted to the spy sys- , tem as a protection against the Indians. Having faith in the woods rangers to pro- tect them, the settlers moved out from the blockhouse in which they had so long been confined and scattered to their habitations. Mrs. Harbison lived in a cabin within sight of the blockhouse and not more than two hundred yards distant from it. The spies in their long detours through the forest saw no signs of Indians, and nothing to alarm them. They frequently came to the Harbison cabin to receive refreshments and lodging and Mr. Harbison came home only once in eight or ten days. It appeared that Mrs. Harbison had apprehensions that something terrible would happen and she had entreated her husband to remove the family to some more secure place. On the night of the 21st of May, 1792, two of the spies, James Davis and a Mr. Sutton, came to lodge at the Harbison cabin, and at day- break on the following morning when the horn was blown at the blockhouse, they got up and went out. Mrs. Harbison was awake when the spies left the cabin, saw that the door was open, and intended to rise and shut it, but fell asleep again. While she slumbered Davis and Sutton re- turned, and after fastening the cabin door returned to the blockhouse. The woman awoke to find herself in the hands of a band of savages, who pulled her from the bed by her feet. The terrible events that followed are best narrated by Mrs. Harbi- son.

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Century history of Butler and Butler County, Pa., and representative citizens 20th, Part 8

Author: McKee, James A., 1865- ed. and comp Publication date: 1909 Publisher: Chicago, Richmond-Arnold Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1526

Author: McKee, James A., 1865- ed. and comp
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Chicago, Richmond-Arnold Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1526