USA > Pennsylvania > Encyclopedia of genealogy and biography of the state of Pennsylvania with a compendium of history. A record of the achievements of her people in the making of a commonwealth and the founding of a nation, Volume I > Part 5
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It must not be inferred, however, from what has been narrated in preceding paragraphs that the people of Pennsylvania were utterly neglectful in protecting the province when its territory was invaded by an armed foe. Personal patriotism was never more clearly shown than during this trying time of adversity -- perhaps perversity would more accurately describe the actions of the executive and the assembly in con- tinually quarreling when the very safety of the province was threatened. During this time many independent companies were organized, armed and equipped for the public defense, and that splendid body of defend- ers known as the "associators" was beginning to take material forn. These companies were prepared for service at private expense, through
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motives of pure loyalty and patriotism, and when occasion offered they gave good account of themselves on the field of battle. They were con- stantly on the frontier: some of them served with Braddock's ill-fated expedition, and others with the troops in New York and Virginia.
The events in detail of Braddock's expedition against Fort Du- quesne are not necessary here. It was planned with care, but by recently arrived officers, who knew little of the geographical conditions in the province, and still less of methods of warfare adopted by the French and Indians. Braddock had been told this, but he ignored all advice. and was more solicitous concerning the carriages and other conveniences of travel for his officers than in accepting information from provincials. Franklin succeeded in quieting the apprehensions regarding means of conveyance, and in two weeks' time provided all the wagons and pack- horses needed for the movements of the army. In doing this Franklin was compelled to resort to strategy, and to flatter the British com- mander into good humor ; and Franklin possessed the necessary tact for the occasion, secured all the conveyances that were required, and caused a good amount of currency to be circulated in the province.
When Braddock's army arrived in Pennsylvania the adjutant gen- eral required that roads be cut to facilitate the movement of troops and supplies into the western region, and Braddock himself demanded the establishment of a post between Philadelphia and Winchester, the quota of men called for from Pennsylvania, and also a portion of the general fund raised for the public service. To meet this unusual though not unexpected demand. the assembly met on March 17 and made provision for the establishment of a mail route, the opening of roads, and applied themselves to work of raising funds, but gave no direct encouragement to the organization of a military force.
Braddock established military headquarters at Fort Cumberland,
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on Wills creek, and from there began his advance on Fort Duquesne on June 8. Owing to numerous delays the battle was not opened until July 9. and then. having disregarded the advice of the provincial offi- cers, his attacking forces were drawn into an ambuscade and subjected to a terribly destructive fire from the concealed French troops, and the merciless onslaughts of their Indian allies. The result was horrible. and the sacrifice of life without parallel in warfare at that time. The provincial troops had become scattered through the dense woods, and by resorting to methods employed by the enemy, fighting at will, from be- hind trees and logs, did some effective work. After the fall of Brad- dock. Washington covered the retreat, and saved the remnant of the army from certain annihilation.
After the defeat. Dunbar, in command of the British forces, pro- posed to return with his troops to Philadelphia, but at the urgent re- quest of the assembly consented to remain on the frontier. Governor Shirley, on succeeding to the command of all the forces in the colonies. at first ordered Dunbar to strengthen his army and renew the attack on Fort Duquesne, but afterward withdrew the troops from Pennsylvania, thus leaving this province, also Maryland and Virginia, open to the attacks of the enemy. Now left defenseless, the Pennsylvania assembly was forced to act, and promptly voted a levy of £50,000 for the king's use by a tax on all estates, including the proprietor's. This was not relished by the governor, not being in accordance with the proprietary will. hence the bill was returned.
The French had expected another attack and were surprised to learn that the British troops had been withdrawn from the province. The frontier was now unprotected and the enemy quickly took advan- tage of the opportunity, ravaging the border settlements, carrying their depredations into the Susquehanna valley, and even threatening the
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more populous districts farther east. By November they had forced a passage across the Blue mountains into Lancaster, Berks, and North- ampton counties, and still the assembly had refused to vote an appro- priation for the defense of the province. In this emergency the pro- prietary offered £5,000 for the common defense. to be collected from the quit-rents. but this the assembly declined except as a free gift. That body did now tardily vote an issue of £30,000 in bills of credit. based upon the excise, and this was approved by the governor.
In the meantime the manifest indifference of the assembly had aroused the indignation of the people who were willing to defend the territory and honor of Pennsylvania. Many public meetings were held in the counties bordering on the frontier. In some places the assembly majority was held up to public ridicule, and resolutions were passed proposing by personal force to compel that body to adopt suitable meas- ures for the common defense. Indeed, on one occasion the dead bodies of victims of Indian rapacity were hauled about the streets of Phila- delphia, and were placed in doorways of the house of assembly, placard- ed to the effect that they were "the victims of the Quaker policy of non- resistance."
In their policy the Quakers were not wholly to blame. They were not altogether unwilling to defend the province, for there were among them many men as loyal and patriotic as those of any other creed ; but the assembly did hope and had the right to expect that the proprietary itself would bear at least a small part of the burden of expense without an ultimate tax on the resources of the people. Even now the pro- prietary interests were equal to all others and it was only fair that their owners should be chargeable with a part of the cost of the war.
This was the view of the assembly, but it was not a full justifica- tion for refusal to act when the safety of the province was threatened.
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!lowever, after much delay and loss of property and life, the assembly clid establish. at an expense of £85.000, a chain of forts and other de- fenses from the Delaware river to the Maryland line, following the course of the Kittatinny hills. The defenses were erected at the prin- cipal mountain passes and each was garrisoned with volunteers. These measures protected the eastern portions of the province, but the frontiers were left to care for themselves. The Moravians fortified their own principal towns and took up arms in their defense, while the Scotch- Irish settlers down in the southern localities always were able to care for themselves. The German element along the frontier retired to the pro- tected localities of withstood as best they could the ravages of the In- dians.
The condition of affairs in Pennsylvania at the close of 1755 was not specially gratifying, but private enterprise and personal patriotism had accomplished many things which should have been done by the authorities. Governor Morris and the assembly were still at variance, and the province really had done little in its own defense. In the spring of 1756 Morris issued a proclamation offering a reward for each Indian captured and delivered over at any of the forts, and for scalps taken. whether of males or females. This was regarded as a measure of neces- sity, but it gave offense to the assembly, being the very reverse of the treatment the Quakers would have given the offending Indians. The measure was generally approved, however, as it stimulated more de- termined action among the frontier rangers, but it did not add to the governor's popularity.
While still in office, Governor Morris, with the aid of Colonel John Armstrong, planned an attack upon the Indian town of Kittanning, a noted stronghold and one from which numerous war parties had been sent out against the white settlements. The details of the expedition
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were carried out with great secrecy, and were under the charge of Colonel Armstrong, Captains Hamilton. Mercer. Ward and Potter and a force of three hundred efficient volunteer riflemen. On September 8 Arm- strong's men attacked and destroyed the place. killed many of its occu- pants and made several captives. It was the first salutary lesson taught the dusky enemies of the province and gave them an excellent under- standing of the true fighting qualities of Pennsylvania troops. Captain Mercer (afterwards General) was severely wounded, but was carried away safely by his men. Philadelphia was much elated by this victory and regarded it as the especial achievement of its own people. Arm- strong was made the recipient of many congratulations and was pre- sented with a medal by the corporation of the city.
The destruction of Kittanning was a serious blow to the Indians. and the few who escaped fled for protection to Fort Duquesne. The event also encouraged similar attacks in other directions until the sav- ages were driven back to the borders. On November 8 following a council was held at Easton, lasting nine days, and the matters in differ- ence between the whites and the Indians were discussed and settled. Had this been done a little earlier, and the Indians placated as they then were, many of the frontier depredations would not have been com- mitted.
William Denny succeeded Morris as lieutenant-governor in August. 1756. The change was at first welcomed by the people, but when the new incumbent declared his purpose to adhere to proprietary instruc- tions the friendly feeling was abruptly ended. During his two years in office Denny accomplished much good, and under him and the pro- vincial commissioners an army of 1.400 men was raised and equipped for active service, and this practically without aid from the assembly. This force comprised twenty-five companies of which eight were sta-
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tioned at Fort Augusta, under command of Major James Burd. This was known as the "Augusta regiment." The Second Battalion, so called, comprised eight companies under Lieutenant-Colonel . Armstrong, and was assigned to the territory west of the Susquehanna river, where the command was divided and stationed at convenient points for pro- tecting that region. The Third Battalion comprised nine companies under Lieutenant Colonel Conrad Weiser, and was in like manner divided and stationed where its services were most required.
The year 1757 witnessed many events of importance in the history of Pennsylvania, yet the hostile relations of England and France, with the Indian depredations within the province, were the principal sub- jects for discussion and action among the inhabitants. The military force organized the previous year in a measure restrained the Indians, but the council held at Lancaster in May did not restore peace on the border. Cumberland. Berks, Lancaster and Northampton counties were subject to frequent invasion during the spring and summer months, and on one occasion a party of Indians and a few French succeeded in carry- ing their depredations within thirty miles of Philadelphia. During this period business was almost at a standstill, travel was abandoned and. the hardy farmer in the fields performed his accustomed labors with his rifle within reach.
Gordon, in commenting on the prevailing conditions at this time, says there was a want of ability and energy in the constituted authorities and the people of the province ; but the people laid the fault at the door of the assembly ; the assembly found fault with the executive, while the British government, having serious troubles at home, charged all the colonies with lack of loyalty to the cause for which England was con- tending. Gordon also says that "united councils and well-directed efforts might have driven the barbarians to their savage haunts, but that im-
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becility distinguished the British ministers and officers and discord paralyzed the efforts of the provinces, especially that of Pennsylvania."
In 1758 William Pitt entered the councils of George II as actual though not nominal chief of the ministry, and then England flung her- self in deadly earnest into the contest. In that year Fort Duquesne was captured by an English and provincial army. its garrison having re- treated before the resistless force of determined men from Pennsylvania and the lower counties, Maryland. Virginia and North Carolina. North- ward, Fort Frontenac was siezed by Colonel Bradstreet and other vic- tories prepared the way for grander success in 1759. The cordon was broken but Fort Niagara still held out for France: still the messengers ran forward and backward, to and from Presque Isle and Venango.
By far the most important contest of the year was the western ex- pedition against Fort Duquesne under command of General John Forbes, whose army consisted of nearly nine thousand men. including the British regulars. The troops from the lower counties and the prov- inces rendezvoused at Winchester, while the Pennsylvanians, under Col- onel Boquet. assembled at Raystown. When the plans for the expe- dition were perfected. the army proceeded to invest the country so recently overrun with French soldiers and marauding Indians, but owing to various causes the advance was slow.
About the middle of September the provincial troops under Colonel Washington joined the main army and at Loyalhanna Boquet erected a fort. From this point Major Grant was sent forward with a detach- ment of eight hundred riflemen to ascertain the position and strength of the enemy, and on the morning of September 21st his forces were unexpectedly attacked by an overpowering number of the enemy. The men fought fiercely but were forced backward before the terrible rush of the French and Indians, and the arrival of reinforcements under
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Major Grant was not sufficient to check their progress. For the time the French were successful, but they did not follow up their victory. When Forbes and his army reached Loyalhanna he at once pressed on toward Fort Duquesne and when within a few miles of that place he was chagrined to learn that the French had destroyed their works, abandoned their position and retired before his approach. Four days later the British and provincials took possession of the place, and on the charred ruins of Fort Duquesne. Fort Pitt was built.
The fall of Fort Duquesne ended the contest in the valley of the Ohio, but Venango and Presque Isle were still held by the French. With the retirement of the French their Indian allies withdrew them- selves to other localities. In October another treaty was held at Easton between the Six Nations and the Delawares. and commissioners from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. George Crogan, who lived with Sir William Johnson among the Mohawks, also was present. The object of this conference was to arrange a peace with Delawares and Ohio river Indians, rather than the acquisition of more of their lands, and it was hoped that the influence of the Six Nations with the Delawares was still strong enough to restrain the latter in their disposition to wage war upon the English. At the council. Teedyuscung, who spoke for the Indians of this province, is said to have "supported his position with dignity and firmness," in answer to the alleged insults of the Six Na- tions, but in fact the wily chieftain assumed that his people were now freed from their obligations to the Iroquois, and no longer subject to their dictation, as they were removed to the regions south of the country of the Senecas and in a measure were protected by the latter. The Senecas were the most warlike and the most powerful of all the Six Nations and were much inclined to take up arms under the French Standard. They were restrained from doing so only from the fact
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that they could not make war upon their brethren of the Iroquois con- federacy. The treaty. however, accomplished good results and the western Indians promised to remain neutral and not again take up arms against the English.
In 1759 still heavier blows were struck. Wolfe assailed Quebec. the strongest of all the French strongholds. Almost at the same time Prideaux, with two thousand British and provincial troops, accompanied by Sir William Johnson with one thousand of his faithful Iroquois. sailed up Lake Ontario and laid siege to Fort Niagara. Soon the life- bought victory of Wolfe gave Quebec to the triumphant Britons.
Still the French clung to their colonies with desperate but failing grasp, and it was not until September. 1760. that Vaudreuil surrendered Montreal, and with it Detroit. Venango, Presque Isle and all the other posts within his jurisdiction. This surrender was ratified by the treaty of peace between England and France in February, 1763. which ceded Canada to the former power. The struggle was over. Forever de- stroyed was the prospect of a French peasantry inhabiting the productive valleys of Pennsylvania; of baronial castles crowning its mountain heights ; of a gay French city overlooking the lake or the great river of the province.
In October. 1759. James Hamilton succeeded Denny as lieutenant- governor of Pennsylvania. He was a native of Philadelphia and a son of Andrew Hamilton. It was expected that he would represent the pro- prietors with greater firmness than his predecessor, who had yielded to the demand of the assembly and approved the currency bill, thus making it possible for the province to organize and arm troops for service during the later years of the war.
With peace once more restored within our borders Pennsylvania entered upon a new era in its history. The frequent passage of troops
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across the territory in all directions had acquainted the people with the vast extent of land within the province, and also had made known to them the quality of the soil in the numerous river valleys lying to the westward. It was then that the populous districts of the east began to branch out toward the west. the settlers traveling sometimes in fam- ilies and again in colonies of adventurous people determined upon making homes in the new regions. There was no longer any need for a large armed force and the number of men was soon redneed from more than two thousand seven hundred to one hundred and fifty, including officers. These were employed in transporting provisions from Fort Niagara and in garrison duty at Presque Isle and LeBoeuf, at Fort Allen and Fort Angusta.
The peace which followed the war between England and France was brief. In 1762 war with Spain was declared and the safety of the province was again threatened. In the general alarm which followed the assembly convened and voted an appropriation of £5,000 for the con- struction of a fort on Mud Island, near the mouth of Schuylkill. on the site where Fort Mifflin was afterward built. This period passed. however, without serious results. A peace was soon arranged and the people of Pennsylvania had only to give attention to the increasing un- easiness of the western Indians who hovered on the borders and evi- dently were planning an outbreak.
Notwithstanding the disappearance of the French these tribes re- membered them with affection, and were still disposed to wage war upon the English. The celebrated Pontiac, of the Ottawas, and Kiya- suta, of the Senecas, united nearly all of these tribes in a league against the red-coats, immediately after the advent of the latter, and as no such confederation had been formed against the French. the action must he assigned to some cause other than mere hatred of all civilized intruders.
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In May, 1763, the league surprised nine out of twelve English posts and massacred their garrisons. Detroit. Fort Pitt and Niagara alone es- caped surprise and cach successfully resisted a siege, in which branch of war the Indians were almost certain to fail. Venango, LeBoeuf and Presque Isle, with the chain of stockades west of the Ohio, fell be- fore the merciless attack of the savages.
The ravages of the Indians called for prompt action on the part of the authorities to suppress them. About the last of August the Lancaster county volunteers met and defeated a party of savages at Muncey Creek hill. About the same time Colonel .Armstrong with three hundred volunteers destroyed two Indian villages and drove their occu- pants from the region. Colonel Boquet with about five hundred regi- mental soldiers, and six companies of Lancaster and Cumberland county rangers, about two thousand in all, was sent to the relief of Fort Pitt. While working his way through the rough country he drove the Indians from Fort Ligonier and then set out to Fort Bedford, where his arrival was welcomed by the distressed families gathered there. The relief of Fort Pitt was more difficult, for Boquet was to give battle to a strong force of savages and overcome Indian cunning with provincial strategy. This he did, but with a loss of about fifty of his own men. In a fierce battle he defeated the besieging party and drove them beyond the Ohio river, but as one blockhonse or settlement was relieved another would be attacked until the entire western portion of the province seemed com- pletely overrun with murderous bands of savages. The assembly was slow to act and by its delay many lives were lost and much property was destroyed.
The situation at length became desperate, and in each county men were compelled to organize themselves into companies for the defense of their homes and lives. All appeals to the assembly and the proprietary
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had been in vain. General Amherst's rebuke and severe criticism upon that body was wasted truth For two long years the "especial wards" of the Quakers were permitted to roam ruthlessly over the territory and wreak vengeance upon defenseless homes without one action on the part of the provincial government, except a stream of explanations in excuse for its conduct.
At last other forces and powers were compelled to act in the interest of humanity. Generals Gage and Bradstreet were directed to sweep the infested territory with a force sufficient to carry terror into the savage heart and stay the murderons horde. In August. 1764. Bradstreet's army proceeded into the western country and by a show of force, coupled with a determined attitude, and almost without the discharge of a gun, brought the Indians to terms. This could have been accomplished by the Pennsylvania assembly and proprietary had there been a concert of action and harmony of interest between them. It could have been ahost done by the Scotch-Irish influence, the volunteer rangers, and the fight- ing Germans, had they been given any encouragement whatever from the powers in control: but they were embarrassed, and confused, and almost distracted by the inaction of those who should have been fore- most in providing means for the protection of the province and its inhabitants.
The suppression of Pontiac's league was the closing of an era in the civil history of Pennsylvania. The people who bore the burden of war and taxation during the preceding years had lost confidence in their proprietary and the assembly: and now that peace was restored they began to look for relief from the oppressions put upon them by an unsympathetic government at home and abroad. The means by which this could be accomplished had not been determined, had not become visible, but it was at hand within a few years of its develop-
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ment into organism. It had been hinted at in the royal instructions for provincial government at an earlier time, but not until the fall of 1764 did Great Britain openly declare the policy which was eventually to free Pennsylvania from proprietary rule and the "religious scruples" of a misguided assembly majority.
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CHAPTER III.
TROUBLES WITH CONNECTICUT.
After the overthrow of the French dominion in America, and after the final expulsion of the Indians from Pennsylvania as the closing chapter in Pontiac's war, the settlers who had been compelled to flee for safety returned to their abandoned homes and resumed the arts of peace. They had suffered much from the recent disturbances, and had much to recover. But theirs was virgin soil, and waited only the patient effort of the husbandman to yield a rich return for his labors. Peace and prosperity seemed to prevail on every hand, and so far as their world of domestic action was concerned. no cloud dimmed the horizon.
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