USA > Pennsylvania > Beaver County > History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, and its centennial celebration, Volume I > Part 18
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
The work of these spies and the rangers was very quieting to the minds of the people, and they began to leave the blockhouses where they had been huddled together for some time, and to resume the cultivation of their farms.' But their immunity from the dreaded attacks of the savages did not long continue. In May, bands of Indians began to show themselves at different points, as the following letters will show. Colonel Charles Campbell was one of the active county lieutenants, whose epistles are marvels of spelling, but whose strong sense and courage are not to be measured by his knowledge of the mysteries of English orthography. On the 28th of May he wrote from Black Lick, Westmoreland County, to Governor Mifflin, as follows:
SIR-I am Under the Necessity of Informing you of the Distressed Sittuation of the froonteers of Westmoreland County. That on the twenty-second Inst., the Indians Came to L't William Cooper Stattion, Near the Mouth of Tiscumenitis [Kiskiminetas] River, and attacted It; the Killed one man and Wounded one. The did not Stay Any Longer than the Took and Murdered a family With in about three Hundred yards of the Block-house. The than Penetrated Into The Settlement About fifteen Miles: the Killed, Wounded and Took Prisoners Eleven Persons; Took About Thirty Horses; Burned a Number of Houses. The Stayed in the Settlement five or Six Days; the Whole of the froonteers is In a Distressed Sittuation, as the Came In Sutch A Large Party that the Small Stattions, that the froonteers is Gathered into, Will Not be Able to Stand them, without Getting Assistance, Maj'r M'Cully Hath Took All his men away from Green's and Reed's Stattion, Except a Few to Keep Up Green's.
Capt. Smith's and Gutherie's Companies is to be stattioned all to- gether at the Mouth of Puckety, which is our County Line; and I Will, in a few Days have to Give up the Cetlemen or Send Millitia there, as Maj'r McCully Hath Requested me to suply It With the Millitia. If you Could have Green's and Reed's Stattion Suplyed With the Contine'l Troops, as It Is Distressing to Call on the Millitia of the one County to
1 In a manuscript letter from Presley Neville to General Anthony Wayne, in Camp at Legionville, written from Pittsburg under date of December 10, 1792, we find the fol- lowing list of names of spies, the first three of which, if we mistake not, were of persons living within the present limits of Beaver County:
" Names of ye scouts or spies employed on ye Frontiers of Allegheny County, Pennsyl- vania-
I. Thomas Sproatt
" 2. Sam'I Sproatt
.3. Mich'I Baker
"4. John Mason
5. Sylvester Ash
" 6. Tho's Girty
..
Jonathan Grant.
7. Wilson."
(From the collection of Wayne MSS. belonging to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.)
I28
History of Beaver County
Guard so Extensive a froonteer; and if there is Not a sufficient Number of Men Kept out, the froonteers will Break up as the Cannot suport themselves Without Raising Some Crops. It is Hard that We must Stand as a Barier to the Enterior Parts, and Defend our Selves I Intend a Plying to Fyate [Fayette] for Asistance. But I Would Wish It was Agreeable that you Would Send An Order to Coll. Torrance to Give Us Assistance and Let me Know if I May Aply to him.
I am, Sir, your obedient Humble Serv't
CHAS. CAMPBELL.
His Excellency THOMAS MIFFLIN.
N. B .- I this Moment Received an Express that there Was one Hundred Indians Had Crossed the Allegany River, and there Was fifty More Seen yesterday In the Inhabitant, And one Man Was Killed. I Expect Every Moment to Hear of Our to be Mutch Destroyed.
C. C.I
The attack mentioned in the first part of the above letter was at what was better known as Reed's station (it was garri- soned by rangers under Cooper), and is noteworthy as the one which was attended by the capture of Massy Harbison, the narrative of whose sufferings and remarkable escape with an infant at her breast is perhaps the most affecting in all the border annals.2
Despite the continued aggressions of the savages the National Government was reluctant to take any vigorous steps towards punishing them. Humiliating and repeated efforts were made to secure peace with the Northwestern tribes which were chiefly responsible for the border troubles. These tribes, the Shawa- nese, Delawares, Wyandots, Ottawas, Miamis, Pottawattomies, Chippewas, and Iroquois, were encouraged in their hostility by the British, who were anxious to preserve the fur trade for them- selves; they were supplied by the British with ammunition and made to believe that in the event of another American army marching against them they would be assisted by British soldiers. In the end they found the promises of the British false, but relying upon them, and upon their own successes against Harmar and St. Clair, they treated the peaceful overtures of the Ameri- cans with contempt, and refused to consider any proposition
1 Penna. Arch., 2d ser., vol. iv., pp. 605-6.
2 See Narrative of the Sufferings of Massy Harbison, edited by the Rev. John Winter, Beaver, 1836. Reprinted in part in the Early History of Western Pennsylvania, by a Gentle- man of the Bar, Appendix XXXV .; in Loudon's Narratives of Indian Outrages, Carlisle, 1808, vol. i., and elsewhere.
See letters of William Findley to Secretary Dallas charging the scouts at Reed's station with culpable negligence, Arch., vol. iv., pp. 608-12.
129
History of Beaver County
which did not acknowledge the Ohio River as the boundary be- tween them and the United States.I It became evident at last to the national authorities that further temporizing was useless and it was now decided to send another and larger army against these tribes under the most able and experienced commander available. For this task Washington selected General Anthony Wayne, who had distinguished himself during the Revolutionary War at Ticonderoga, Brandywine, Paoli, Monmouth, and Stony Point, and who in April, 1792, had been appointed Commander- in-Chief of the Army of the United States. Wayne was an officer of fine personal appearance and courtliness of manner, of great wisdom and executive ability, and of such tremendous energy and unheard-of daring in battle that he had earned from his enthusiastic admirers the sobriquets of "Mad Anthony," and the "Dandy," and from the Indians those of "Black Snake," and "Tornado." 2
In June, 1792, General Wayne arrived at Pittsburg and began the organization and disciplining of an army, which was named "The Legion of the United States." In November of the same year, he proceeded with his troops down the Ohio River to a point about seven miles above the mouth of the Big Beaver, within the present limits of Beaver County, where he went into winter- quarters. The camp was strongly fortified, and its trenches and the position of several of its redoubts are still plainly discernible. It was called "Legionville," after Wayne's army, and this name is retained to the present time by the station at this point on the Pennsylvania lines of railways.3
The following spring (April, 1793), the camp at Legionville was broken up, and the army descended the river by boats to Fort Washington (now Cincinnati). After a winter spent in building Fort Greenville, Fort Recovery, and Fort Wayne (on the site of the city of that name in Indiana), and other opera- tions, and after many fruitless efforts to secure an honorable
1 " I am afraid that the ideal idea of peace has rather lulled the recruiting service to rest, but it must be roused from that state of torpidity to vigorous exertion.
" A new boundary line, & that the Ohio seems to be the prevailing language of most of the savage tribes. This idea probably originated with our good friends, who garrison our ports on the Lakes, and appears to be a very insidious attempt to unite the Indians against us."-(Extract from a manuscript letter marked private from General Anthony Wayne to General James Wilkinson, dated Pittsburg, October 16, 1792: from the collection of Wayne MSS. belonging to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.)
2 The Indians meant that Wayne was like the black snake in the stealth with which he glided toward his foe, and like the tornado in the rapidity and force with which he moved when the moment for striking had come.
3 See Chapter xxviii. for a full account of Wayne's stay at Legionville. VOL. 1 .- 9.
130
History of Beaver County
peace without a conflict, General Wayne, in July, 1794, advanced towards the enemy, and, on the 20th of August, of that year, met them on the banks of the Maumee, or Miami-of-the-Lake, and totally routed them in a decisive battle. The enemy, about two thousand strong, under the lead of Blue Jacket, the most distinguished chief of the Shawanese, were posted behind a windfall, where an immense number of prostrated trees presented an almost impassable barrier to troops of any kind, especially to cavalry. Wayne, at the head of about three thousand men, attacked with such skill and impetuosity that even this obstacle was powerless to check him. Perceiving from the weight of the enemy's fire and the extent of their line that they were in full force in front and endeavoring to turn his right flank, he ordered Major-General Scott, with the whole of the mounted volunteers, to gain and turn the enemy's right flank, and Captain Campbell with the cavalry of the regular army to turn their left next to the river. His front line, composed of regulars, then struck the savages in their coverts behind the trees with a heavy fire of musketry and with a bayonet charge, dislodging them, and driving them with great loss for two miles, until their shattered remnants reached the shelter of the British fort. This the enraged American forces were with difficulty re- strained from attacking. The next day, the British commander, Major Campbell, sent a communication to General Wayne, re- ferring to the near approach of his men to the guns of the British post and requesting to be informed whether "he was to consider the American army as enemies, being ignorant of any war existing between Great Britain and the United States." General Wayne replied, "Were you entitled to an answer, the most full and satisfactory one was announced to you from the muzzles of my small arms yesterday morning, in the action against hordes of savages in the vicinity of your post, which terminated gloriously to the American arms, but had it continued until the Indians, etc., were driven under the influence of the post and guns you mention they would not much have impeded the progress of the Victorious Army under my command." 1 From the character of the position which was occupied by the Indians in this engage- ment it is sometimes called the "Battle of Fallen Timbers."
1 Major-General Anthony Wayne and the Pennsylvania Line, by Charles J. Stille, Phila .. Lippincott, p. 318.
I31
History of Beaver County
This great victory of the American arms brought lasting peace to the western borders. But its effects were more than local; they were even national and international. By it the Indians who, in other parts of the country, north and south, were ripe for mischief, were overawed and quieted; and its in- fluence upon the British government was such that Mr. Jay, the American Minister, who was meeting with vexatious delays and postponements on the part of that government, was enabled speedily to close his negotiations with Lord Grenville, and to secure the surrender of all the British posts still held within the Northwest Territory. This was the actual close of the War for Independence. On the third of August of the next year, 1795, a treaty of peace with the Indians was concluded at Fort Green- ville, which gave to the United States four fifths of the territory now embraced in the State of Ohio.
After these events, the menace of Indian hostility being re- moved, the country north of the Ohio, hitherto recognized as "the Indian country," and impossible of settlement, began to receive a flood of emigration. Now arose a whole brood of troubles between these incoming settlers and the speculators who had for some years been buying up the lands in the West. These troubles exercised a great influence upon the settlement of lands within the limits of Beaver County and will be fully treated in succeeding pages. (See our chapter on "First Land Titles," and article in Appendix No. VI. on "Depreciation Lands.")
RIVAL CLAIMS OF PENNSYLVANIA AND VIRGINIA
Preceding and synchronizing with the Revolutionary War was a controversy between Pennsylvania and Virginia regarding their boundary lines, which, had it not been for the common peril of that war, might have had most disastrous results, and have led even to civil strife and bloodshed. There seems to have been "in the good old colony times, when we were under the king," a very royal recklessness and indifference on the part of the English sovereigns as to what grants of territory had been made by their predecessors, and even, at times, as to what they themselves had given. It was through the ambiguities and mis- apprehensions resulting from several of such grants that this
1 Greenville,"the present county-seat of Darke County, Ohio.
I32
History of Beaver County
controversy had birth, the title to all of the territory of western Pennsylvania being claimed by the Penn proprietaries under one grant, and the same territory by Virginia under another. For years, consequently, the settlers in this region did not know certainly whether their lands were in the one colony or the other ; titles were insecure, suits over contrary State patents were filed in rival courts setting up conflicting jurisdiction, and confu- sion was worse confounded. We shall now endeavor to state briefly the history of this dispute from its inception to its final settlement.
In the year 1606 James I. granted to the London (South Vir- ginia) Company certain territory in America, and, under the terms of the grant, their settlement having been made at James- town, they were entitled to a square of one hundred miles backward from the sea. Considering this too small for their purposes, the company applied for and received, in 1609, a new patent greatly enlarging their boundaries, which towards the west and northwest were loosely defined as including "all that space and circuit of land lying from the sea-coast of the precinct aforesaid, up into the land throughout, from sea to sea, west and northwest." 1 This company was dissolved in 1624 by a Writ of Quo Warranto, and its lands, except so much thereof as had been actually granted to settlers, reverted to the Crown. As a result of this, Virginia became and remained until the Revolu- tion a royal or crown colony, instead of a proprietary province like Pennsylvania. We shall presently see what use the Virginia authorities made of this old London Company patent when the boundary controversy with the Penn proprietaries was opened.
In 1681 Charles II. granted to William Penn, by a charter which Penn himself is said to have drafted, a certain tract of land in America, which, in the terms of the charter, was to extend westward five degrees of longitude from the Delaware River, and to include all the territory from the beginning of the fortieth to the beginning of the forth-third degree of northern latitude.
1 From "sea to sea" meant from the Atlantic to the Pacific. At this time the Pacific Ocean, or South Sea, was supposed to be much closer than it is to the Atlantic. In 1608 an expedition was organized to find a passage to the South Sea by sailing up the James River, and Captain John Smith was once commissioned to seek a new route to China by ascending the Chickahominy. (Paragraph 46, No. 3, of the "Instructions to the Colon- ists.") A map of 1651 represents Virginia as a narrow strip of land between the two oceans. See a copy of this map in Windsor's America, vol. iii., p. 465.
I33
History of Beaver County
These two charters, the one to the London Company, and that to Penn, covered, in part, the same lands, the territory about the head of the Ohio River, in which the interest of our history lies, being included in both. The London Company having been dissolved, this conflict in land patents would have been of little consequence had it not been for other causes of which we have already spoken and shall now recall to the reader.
The possession of this region-the upper Ohio valley-came, as we have already seen, to be of commanding interest and im- portance to both the French on the one hand, and to the English inhabitants of Pennsylvania and Virginia on the other, it being the great field of lucrative Indian trade, and the gateway to the vast and fertile territory of the West. We have seen also how Virginia was the first to act in repelling the encroachments of the French, organizing the Ohio Company to settle the upper waters of the Belle Rivière, in 1748, sending Washington to the com- mandant of Fort Le Bœuf, in 1753, and building a fort at the "Forks of the Ohio" in 1754; Pennsylvania meanwhile refusing contributions of men or money to the enterprise, her Assembly being too much occupied in bickerings with the proprietaries over the taxation of their manors and other unsold lands to care for what was going on on the other side of the mountains, even expressing a doubt as to whether the lands of the Ohio, on which the French were intruding, were in the province at all.
But the Governor and the Council of Pennsylvania were made uneasy by these movements of Virginia and by the expres- sion of doubt on the part of the Assembly just referred to, and accordingly ordered an examination to be made as to the extent of the province westward. As a consequence of this examina- tion the Governor on the second of March, 1754, stated to the Assembly that "Logstown, the Place where the French propose to have their Head-Quarters, is not at the Distance of Five Degrees of Longitude from the River Delaware," I and was, there- fore, within the bounds of the province; and on the 13th he wrote to Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia as follows:
The Invasions lately made by the French on Parts of his Majesty's Dominions having engaged me to enquire very particularly into the situation of their Forts, and likewise into the Bounds and Extent of this Province to the Westward. I have from thence the greatest Reason to
1 Col. Rec., vol. v., p. 751.
I34
History of Beaver County
believe not only the French Forts, but also the Forks of Mohongialo (where You propose to erect one and to grant away Two hundred Thou- sand Acres of Land to such as shall engage in the Intended Expedition to Ohio), are really within the limits of Pennsylvania. In duty to my Con- stituents therefore, I cannot but remind You of what I had the Honor to write you some time ago upon this subject.I
In his reply to this letter Dinwiddie ignored the chief subject of interest which it contained, but in another letter of the same date, March 21, 1754, he refers to it, saying:
Your private letter of the Thirteenth Currant I have duly read and am much misled by our Surveyors if the Forks of Mohongialo be within the limits of Your Proprietor's Grant. I have for some time wrote home to have the line run, to have the boundaries properly known that I may be able to keep Magistrates on the Ohio (if in this Government) to keep the Traders and others in good order, and I presume soon there will be Commissioners appointed for that service. . But surely I am from all Hands assured that Logs Town is far to the west of Mr. Penn's Grant. 2
Thus early, intimation is given of the existence of a problem which, twenty years later, was to press for solution, and to lead to one of the bitterest contests which has ever taken place on the soil of western Pennsylvania. Following close upon this initial correspondence of the officials of the two governments regarding the limits of their respective territories came the surrender by Ensign Ward of the little stockade at the "Forks of the Ohio" to the French, and their formal occupation of the region round- about and building of Fort Duquesne, the first campaigns of Washington, with his surrender at "Fort Necessity," Braddock's defeat, and a long and cruel Indian war. All settlements of the English at the head of the Ohio were consequently now pre- vented, until Fort Duquesne fell before General Forbes in Novem- ber, 1758, and the Indian troubles were quieted. For still sixteen years longer the strife between Pennsylvania and Virginia was delayed, during which period the two governments erected new counties and maintained separate courts within the limits
1 Col. Rec., vol. vi., p. 3. The previous communication referred to in this letter was one made May 6, 1753, proffering the aid of Pennsylvania to Virginia in the proposed ex- pedition to build a fort on the Ohio, on condition that such aid given would not be construed as prejudicing the rights of the Pennsylvania proprietaries in that region. See Col. Rec., vol. v., p. 629. Even before this date the anxiety of Pennsylvania on the subject in question had been manifested. See Governor Hamilton's letter to Thomas Lee of the Ohio Com- pany and president of the Virginia Council, Col. Rec., vol. v., p. 423
2 Col. Rec., vol. vi., p. 8.
ARMSTRONG!
R
8
MINTOCH AGAVEA
RIVE
payooda
OIHO
# LOGSTOWN
INDIANA
Cr.
E
RIVE
E G
H
N
R
AAT DUQUESNE FORT PITF
xi,
Fo I? OUNMORE NOW PITTSBURGH
Cr
BRADDOCK
#
HANNAS TOWN
5
GREENSBURG
Cross
ffat
AUGUSTATOWN CAT AEN CAM
THANINGTON
WA
N
T
N
I
WHEELING.
NOVCA PAT
AT BIRD
E OL O FORT
400
0
F
OMERSET.
MUS
Leur
URc.
E
rave
F .. A
R
ST
AT.
I
MORGANTOWN
R.
S
River KINGWOOD
STATE LINE.
Youghingheny
ABY
R
Fylarts Valley
2
CORNER OF
N
Hughes E
S
I
R
G
N
39
Kanawha
R
qai
LAURE
Po
R
BUCHaNON
die TA
pry
'HILLERHANIMIN
North FA. of South Br
south Branch
P
.......
South
OUTLINE MAP OF VIRGINIA CLAIMS IN SOUTH-WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
ES
Fishing
OHIO
Middle Island
cheat #o
Branch Potomac R
M
-
EK. Hughes R.
Mo
Leading C1.
South Dr. Polomas
NO
catey
ston
WESTMO
Cr.
Jacal
A
LONGO
Ten Mile
O
O
EGMENT
LER
RIVE
River
I35
History of Beaver County
of the territory in dispute. Some time prior to 1756 Virginia erected the District of West Augusta, covering all this territory, and in that year she divided this district into three counties, viz., Monongalia, Yohogania, and Ohio, to the second of which, Yohogania, the region now embraced in the south side of Beaver County belonged. Pennsylvania also erected upon the dis- puted territory Bedford County in 1771, and Westmoreland County in 1773. Penn's manor of Pittsburg, too, was surveyed for the proprietaries early in 1769, and in the beginning of 1771 magistrates were appointed by Pennsylvania and for some time discharged the duties of their offices without having their au- thority questioned.
But in 1772 Fort Pitt was ordered to be evacuated and dis- mantled and in that year there arrived in Virginia as governor a man who was a past-master in all the arts of the politician and land-grabber, and whose arrogance and cupidity soon brought about a conflict between his colony and the provincial govern- ment. This was John, Earl of Dunmore, or Lord Dunmore, as he is usually called, "a needy Scotch peer of the house of Mur- ray," than whom, as Bancroft says, "no royal governor ever showed more rapacity in the use of royal power." Dunmore saw that the Monongahela and the Ohio were the great water- ways to the El-Dorado of the West and Northwest, and that the "Forks of the Ohio" was the strategic point, commanding these avenues of wealth and power, and he at once determined on seizing the control of them for Virginia and for himself. He had ready to his hand a fitting tool, one Doctor John Connolly, "a man of much energy and talent, but without principle," who was practised in every species of border wiles and warfare.
This Connolly came to Pittsburg in the last of December, 1773, with authority from Dunmore, and early in January, 1774, took possession of the dismantled fort, which he renamed, calling it "Fort Dunmore," and, as "Commandant of the Militia of Pittsburgh and its Dependencies" "required and commanded" the people to assemble themselves there as a Militia.' He was supported in this act of usurpation by certain men living about the head of the Ohio, for it is to be remembered that a large part of the inhabitants of that region and in the Monongahela valley were Virginian by birth and predilection. But there
1 Old Westmoreland, p. 7.
I36
History of Beaver County
were also some fearless and loyal Pennsylvania adherents on the ground and in the surrounding neighborhood, several of them Pennsylvania justices, who did all in their power to resist Con- nolly's high-handed proceedings. One of these, Arthur St. Clair (afterwards General St. Clair),' then the prothonotary of the newly erected county of Westmoreland, issued a warrant against Connolly and had him committed to jail at Hannastown, the seat of justice, from which, however, he was soon released on giving bail for his appearance at court there. Returning to Virginia Connolly was sworn in as a justice of the peace for Augusta County, Virginia, and, when court met at Hannastown, he ap- peared with his militia, armed and with colors flying, and refused to admit the Pennsylvania magistrates into the court- house. Shortly afterwards he arrested three of the magistrates and sent them to Staunton jail, but on their appealing to Dun- more they were released. Subsequently, the jail at Hannastown was broken open by a mob, led by Simon Girty, and the prisoners, mostly Virginia partisans, allowed to escape.
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.