USA > Pennsylvania > Beaver County > History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, and its centennial celebration, Volume I > Part 21
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2 See ante, pages 23-26.
* We are familiar with the controversy as to the genuineness of this speech, and believe that the arguments in its favor have not been satisfactorily answered. See notices of Logan, ante, pp. 24-26.
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traders had done before him, to buy and sell rather than to build a homestead in the wilderness.1 Levi Dungan, on the other hand, traveled over three hundred miles, through manifold hardships and dangers, not for present gain, but for the sole purpose of seeking a permanent home for himself and his little family. If residence in the territory as an Indian trader constituted a claim as a settler, then Alexander McKee would have to be put before Gibson, for he had made improvements opposite Logstown (within the present limits of Beaver County) sometime prior to 1769. In that year a tract of land there was surveyed for him, containing three hundred acres, on which he had erected a house. This tract was confiscated and advertised for sale in Pittsburg shortly after McKee had become a renegade (March 28, 1778). 2 But he, like Gibson, must, we think, be considered as belonging to what became Allegheny County rather than to Beaver.
Another very early settler in this region was David Kerr, who was born in Ireland, and in the year 1778 emigrated to America with his wife and two children, Mary Ann and David, the latter then about a year old. The family settled on Char- tiers Creek in Washington County, Pa., where they remained but a short time when they removed to the headwaters of King's Creek in what is now Beaver County. Here David Kerr, Sr., bought a tract of land consisting of 236 acres, for which he agreed to pay one dollar per acre. Sickness and the expense of travel had well-nigh exhausted his stock of money, and he was obliged to pay for his purchase in grain at the rate of three shillings per bushel for rye and four shillings for wheat. But by diligence he succeeded in cultivating a large farm, and in meeting all his obligations. He died, in 1804, at the age of forty-five, and was buried at King's Creek. His wife survived him ten years, and was buried beside him. These were the great-grandparents of Franklin David Kerr, M.D., formerly of Hookstown, now of Shousetown, Pa. Doctor Kerr's maternal
1 In the Pittsburgh Gazette of Saturday, September 16, 1786, appears the following adver- tisement by Gibson:
"Fujt opened and to be fold by the jubfcriber living on the bank of the river, between Mr. David Duncan's and Mr. Fohn Ormfby's.
LARGE and general affortment of DRY and WET GOODS, which he will dijpoje of on the mojt rea- fonable terms for cajh, country produce, peltry or gin- jeng JOHN GIBSON.
"Pittiburgh, Sept. 16."
2 Early History of Western Penna. (Rupp), p. 42; Penna. Arch., vol. iv. p. 346; Pennsyl- vania Gazette, September 8, 1784.
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great-grandfather, Thomas Moore, was also an early settler of the south side of Beaver County, preceding David Kerr by about two years. He was born near the site of Leesburg, Virginia, in 1750, and in 1776 came with his wife, Rachel Phillis Moore, and settled on a tract of five hundred acres of land three miles south- east of what is now Hookstown, this county. In 1777 he took part in the defense of Fort Pitt against the savages. Thomas Moore was a successful farmer, and lived to see a large family of sons and daughters grow up about him. He was an elder in the Presbyterian Church of Mill Creek, in whose cemetery he was buried. He died of typhoid fever June 2, 1821. Rachel, his wife, died December 16, 1823, and was laid beside her husband, and her father, Joseph Phillis, who was born in England in 1694, and whose last days had been spent with her. Joseph Phillis was 107 years old when he died.
Other settlers may be mentioned who came to this region while it was still a wilderness, and shared with those already spoken of in the hard and dangerous task of subduing the forest and contending with the relentless foes who beset them and disputed their right to occupy the land. From the early settlers in Beaver County these foes were separated only by the Ohio River, across which they made frequent bloody forays. The settlements on Raccoon Creek, especially about Levi Dungan's in what is now Beaver County, and Matthew Dillow's in Wash- ington County, were the quarter in which the Indian attacks were most frequently made.1 The path which was followed by the savages as they invaded the south side of the Ohio was on the ridge between the waters of Raccoon Creek and King's Creek. It is substantially the line of the State road, running at the pres- ent day from Georgetown, this county, to Washington, Pa. While Dillow's settlement was in what is now Washington County, it was closely connected with the history of the pioneer families of the south side of Beaver County. Matthew Dillow himself fell a victim to the fury of the foe. In 1782, he, with his son John, was at work in the clearing when Indians in am-
1 Colonel David Redick to Governor Mifflin, on the 13th of February, 1792, in a letter which we refer to elsewhere, writes as follows:
"I have read your letter of information and instructions to the County Lieutenants, on the subject of protection. I find that a considerable gap is left open to the enemy on the northwesterly part of the county, and that a place where, in former wars, the enemy per- petually made their approach on that quarter-the settlements on Raccoon, especially about Dilloe's constantly experienced in former times the repeated attacks of the enemy."- 2d Penna. Arch., vol. iv., p. 700.
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bush shot the father and took the son a prisoner. John saw them secrete the body of his father near a large log before starting on their march. The boy was kept a prisoner for several years, and upon his release and return to his former home was ques- tioned as to what became of the body of his father. He recalled and narrated the incidents of his capture and of his father's death. A number of his friends gathered together, and after a search found the skeleton of the elder Dillow in the described location. It was brought to near his old home and buried.I
Near Dillow's place settled early Thomas Armor, Thomas Bigger, and William Anderson. Thomas Armor does not prop- erly belong to the history of Beaver County, but his son Thomas inherited a body of 140 acres of land lying principally in this county, part of a tract which the father had received under a Virginia certificate in 1776. Thomas Bigger has well known and highly respected descendants still living in the old home neighborhood on the south side. The history of William Ander- son and his family illustrates the suffering to which these pioneer people were exposed. On one of their incursions into the settle- ments on Raccoon Creek, in July, 1779, the Indians surprised Anderson while he was at work near his house, and shot him through the left breast. He was able to escape, and to reach the house of his neighbor, Thomas Armor. Mr. Armor, who was a man of unusual strength, took Anderson on his back and carried him to "fort" Dillow for succor. Mrs. Anderson, mean- time, having heard the firing of the Indians, had left the house and hidden in the bushy top of a fallen tree with her infant child. The savages came to the cabin and set fire to it, passing several times close by her hiding-place without discovering her. At this time, or shortly after, two boys of the Anderson family were taken by the Indians, and carried into captivity .? They were step-brothers, one four and the other seven years of age. Five or six years later the elder brother, Logan, returned to Fort McIntosh, probably among the prisoners delivered in accordance with the terms of the treaty made there in 1785. The other boy never came back. He is reported to have married a half-breed
1 Crumrine's Hist. of Washington County, p. 804.
2 Colonel Brodhead to Ensign John Beck from Pittsburg, August 1, 1779, says:
"I have just now received information that one Anderson, who lived about two miles from Dillar's [Dillow's] Fort, was slightly wounded, and two of his little boys carried off by the savages on the same day the mischief was done on Wheeling."-(Brodhead's Letter-Book No. 39; Penna. Arch., vol. xii., p. 142.)
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Indian-French woman near Detroit, and it is said that two of their sons became chiefs in one of the Indian tribes. It was not an unusual thing for white children who had been long in captivity among the Indians to refuse to leave them when oppor- tunity offered. Even when taken away from them by force, they had sometimes to be closely watched for a while to prevent their escaping again to their dusky friends.I
On Raccoon Creek lived also the Foulkes family, who suffered severely at the hands of the savages. On the second Sabbath of March, 1780, an attack was made by them at a sugar camp at the mouth of Reardon's run, a tributary of Raccoon Creek, where the Foulkes family and two other families, by name Tucker and Turner, of Noblestown, were spending the day together. Five men were killed, and three boys and three girls were taken prisoners.2 One of the prisoners was George Foulkes, eleven years old, and another was his sister, Elizabeth, two years younger. A brother, named William, eighteen years of age, was among the killed. Samuel Whitaker, a lad about the age of George Foulkes, was also made a prisoner and with the others lived to manhood among the Indians. He married Elizabeth Foulkes after the close of their captivity, and settled on the Sandusky River, in Ohio. George Foulkes was a prisoner eleven years, and afterwards became a scout under the famous Indian
1 Bouquet's Expedition against the Ohio Indians, p. 29.
2 We have already quoted Brodhead's letter to the President of the Council, of March 18, 1780, in which he said:
"I am sorry to inform you that the Savages have already begun their hostilities. Last Sunday morning at a Sugar Camp upon Raccoon Creek five men were killed & three lads & three girls taken prisoners."
We copy here a letter from the original MS. of Colonel George Morgan's letter-book. It has no bearing on the particular incidents of the text above, but it has some local color:
" The United American States to their Brethren the Delawares met in Council at Coochocking [now Coshocton, O.].
" March 29, 1777.
" BROTHERS :- About twenty days ago some of our Brothers the Delawares who live at Tuscarawas crossed the Ohio to a White Man's house opposite Beaver Creek which they robbed to a considerable value-but as the Family were from home they committed no murder-On hearing some of our people coming up, & it being dark they made off in their Cannoe with the Goods to the value of - Bucks .* I prevented our people going across the Ohio River after them knowing you would cause everything to be restored & prevent your foolish people from doing so again. I send you a list of the Goods they stole.
" GEORGE MORGAN
" Agent for the United States, Fort Pitt."
* Peltries were used as a medium of exchange. Colonel Cresap, a Maryland trader, advertised rates as follows: "A Matchcoat for a Buck, a Strowd [blanket] for a Buck and a Doe. A pair of Stockings for two Racoons, twelve Bars of Lead for a Buck and so on in proportion."-Col. Rec., vol. v., p. 440.
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fighter, Captain Samuel Brady. He married Miss Catherine Ullery, whose home was on Grant's Hill, near Fort Pitt, and after Wayne's victory and the treaty at Greenville in 1795, he settled with her on a farm three miles down the Little Beaver from Darlington, where he died about 1840. He built the first brick house in that section of the country. The old crane and pot- hooks used in his first house, which was a log cabin, were ex- hibited in the Loan Collection of the Beaver County Centennial in 1900. They were made from the stays of an English gun- carriage brought from Detroit.
None of the pioneer settlers of the region which is now Beaver and Washington counties enjoy so much fame as Indian fighters as do the two brothers, Andrew and Adam Poe. In the hostili- ties with the Indians that were waged along the Ohio River from 1777 until 1784, they were ever the first and most fearless, with physical strength and personal prowess combined in each in a degree that was unusual even in that day, when both were the commonest possessions of the frontiersmen. The Poe brothers came to the Ohio River region from New England, and located tracts of land for which they were granted Virginia certificates. Andrew's tract was surveyed February 15, 1786, and contained 333 acres. It was called " Poe Wood." Adam's tract, known as " Poeville," was surveyed January 13, 1786. It contained 377 acres. Prior to this time they also owned a tract in what was afterwards Smith township, Washington County. The Poes were pious as well as brave men, and were active in church affairs. In 1779, when the Presbyterian congregations of Cross Creek and Buffalo called the Rev. Joseph Smith, then of York County, Pa., as pastor of the united charge, Andrew and Adam Poe signed the call. Many traditions of the Poe brothers have been handed down since the days of border warfare, and are still current. Some of these have grown in the telling, especially the story of Andrew Poe's fight with the fabled Big Foot, the giant Indian chief. We reluctantly suggest any diminution of the marvels of a story that was one of the choice morsels of our own early boyhood reading. The true story is still heroic enough, however, and we will tell it in substance as it is given by a careful historian.
In the fall of 1781, just as Brodhead's expedition to Sandusky was arranged to rendezvous at Fort McIntosh, intelligence VOL. I .- II.
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reached Fort Pitt from the Tuscarawas of an attack on Wheeling being planned in which two hundred and fifty savages led by the "refugee" Matthew Elliott were to take part. This intelli- gence was communicated to Brodhead by David Zeisberger,I one of the Moravian missionaries, and the warning thus early given enabled the commanders to frustrate the plans of the enemy. Through the indiscretion of a boy and a man captured by the savages near Wheeling, the latter were informed of the manner in which Brodhead had received his information, and in revenge for this the missionary establishments upon the Tuscarawas were broken up and the missionaries and their converts carried by the Indians to the Wyandot country, where they were left for the winter in great destitution. On the way, seven of the Indians, three of whom were sons of the Half-King, left the main body and again marched for the border, raiding into a small settle- ment on Harman's Creek, in Washington County, taking one prisoner-a man about sixty years of age. The savages im- mediately started on their return, but were promptly pursued by a number of the settlers, to the Ohio River, where they were overtaken and all killed but one; and he, their leader, Scotosh by name, escaped, wounded. The white prisoner was released. Andrew Poe, one of the pursuers, his gun missing fire, boldly sprang upon and grappled two of the Indians-sons of the Half- King. During a most violent struggle, which was continued first on shore and then in the river, Andrew killed one of the Indians but was himself badly wounded. Adam Poe, his brother, then coming to his relief, shot the other savage. Meanwhile, Andrew, then in the water, received by a mistake a second wound from one of his own men. The settlers lost one killed. "But neither of the savages killed was named Big Foot (there was never
1 Like Heckewelder, David Zeisberger was very useful to the American commanders in giving them intelligence of the movements of the enemy. We copy the following letter to him from Brodhead;
"HEAD QUARTERS "April 15, 1780.
"' DEAR SIR: ' " I wish you to excite your people to have an eye upon the conduct of the other Dela- wares, and inform me from time to time of their particular conduct.
" The expedition I formed last fall has answered my most sanguine expectations, as the confederate nations have sued for peace upon any terms with Congress & I have in con- templation a formidable expedition against some of the western nations. This with an attack by sea & land upon Quebec & Montreal will finish the malice of the British & yellow sa vages.
"I hope you will continue to afford me every interesting intelligence, & put it in my power to serve you in return. I wish you every possible felicity, & am, &c
" DANIEL BRODHEAD."
(Brodhead's Letter-Book, p. 242; Penna. Arch., vol. xii., p. 222.)
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a Wyandot chief so called); nor was either of the sons of the Half-King of unusual size." I
Descendants of the Poes are still living in Georgetown and its vicinity. Andrew Poe lived near Hookstown until 1830, where he died at about eighty years of age. He is buried in the old graveyard at Mill Creek Presbyterian Church. Adam, who was several years younger than Andrew, sold his property here and removed to Ohio, about 1820. He died in 1840, at an ad- vanced age. Within two weeks of his death he had been taken to a mass-meeting at Massillon to see General Harrison.2
Captain Samuel Brady, 3 while not a resident of this section, was nevertheless so much identified with its early history that a brief notice of him will not be out of place here.
1 We have drawn this account of the Poe fight from Mr. C. W. Butterfield's able intro- duction to the Washington-Irvine Correspondence (p. 61). The list of authorities which he cites is as follows:
"Recollections of the Captivity of Thomas Edgington, as related by his son, Geo. Edgington, 1845, MS .; Heckewelder's Narr., pp. 279, 281, 303; Pension statement of Adam Poe, 1833, MS. copy; Statement of Wm. Walker, MS .; Smith's Hist. Jeff. College, p. 443; De Hass' Hist. Ind. Wars W. Va., p. 336; Knight's Western Border, p. 443; Schweinitz' Life and Times of David Zeisberger, p. 517."
Those who prefer to receive the old version of the story will find it well told by Simpson R. Poe, a grandson of Andrew Poe, in Our Western Border One Hundred Years Ago, by Charles McKnight, 1876, page 443; also in De Hass's Early Settlements, p. 365.
2 The following extract from the proceedings of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania referring to Adam Poe will be of interest:
"PHILADELPHIA, April 2, 1782.
"An order drawn on the Treasurer in favor of the Honorable Dorsey Pentecost, Esq., for the sum of twelve pounds ten shillings specie, to be paid to Adam Poe for taking an Indian scalp in the county of Washington, agreeably to the proclamation of the Board."- Col. Rec., vol. xiii., p. 248.
For the proclamation referred to see pages 59-60 of this volume.
In the records of the court of Yohogania County, Va., we find the following reference to Andrew Poe:
"Sept. 29, 1778.
"Andrew Poe produced a commission from his Excellency the Governor, appointing him Lieut. of the Militia, which was read and sworn to accordingly."
A note written in pencil by Judge Veech, in his copy of De Hass's Early Settlements, says: "Andrew Poe was constable of Robinson township (Wash. Co.) for several years after its erection."
3 The following sketch of this famous Indian fighter was published in the Blairsville Record in 1832, and is quoted in the History of Western Pennsylvania (Appendix, p. 344) :
"Captain Samuel Brady was born in Shippensburg, in Cumberland County, in 1758 [now known to be 1756, B.,] but soon removed with his father to the West Branch of the Sus- quehanna, a few miles above Northumberland. Cradled amid the alarms and excitements of a frontier exposed to savage warfare, Brady's military propensities were very early developed. He eagerly sought a post in the Revolutionary army; was at the siege of Boston; a lieutenant at the massacre of the Paoli; and in 1779 [1778, B.], was ordered to Fort Pitt with the regiment under Gen. Brodhead. A short time previous to this, both his father and brother had fallen by the hands of the Indians, and from that moment Brady took a solemn oath of vengeance against all Indians. His future life was devoted to the fulfill- ment of his vow. While Gen. Brodhead held command at Fort Pitt, (1780-'81) Brady was often selected to command small scouting parties sent into the Indian country north and west of the fort, to watch the movements of the savages; a charge he always fulfilled with his characteristic courage and sagacity."
Brady married Drusilla, only daughter of Captain Van Swearingen, first sheriff of Wash- ington County, Pa., and himself a daring frontier military leader.
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Several of his most daring exploits were performed on the Big Beaver Creek, or on its tributaries, within the limits of this county, or close to it. As elsewhere remarked, the small stream which empties into that creek at the lower end of Fallston is named after him, "Brady's Run," and the hill back of that borough and the road up it, "Brady's Hill" and "Brady's Road." Mention of him is made in the following letters from Colonel Daniel Brodhead to the President of the Supreme Execu- tive Council. The first letter is written from Fort Pitt, and is without date.1 In it Brodhead says:
Captn Brady, with five men & two Delaware Indians, set out for Sandusky, with a view to bring off a british Prisoner or some Indian Scalps. One of his Indians left him and returned to this place, sick or cowardly. He has been out ten days, and in as many more I expect him back, if he is fortunate. I beg leave to recommend Captn Brady to the notice of the Hon'ble Executive Council as an excellent officer, and I sincerely wish he may not leave the service for want of the promotion he has merited and is justly entitled to, ever since the resignation of Captain Moore. 2
Brady's return is thus noticed by Brodhead to Reed in another letter written from Fort Pitt, June 30, 1780:
Captain Brady is just returned from Sandusky. He took Prisoners two young Squaws within a mile of their principal Village; one of them effected her escape after six Days' march, the other he brought to Cuscusky, where he met seven warriors who had taken a woman & Child off Chartier's Creek. He fired at the Captain and killed him, and have brought in the woman & the Indian's Scalp, but the Squaw made her escape at the same time. When Captain Brady fired at the Indians, he had only three men with him & but two rounds of powder. He was out thirty-two Days, six of which he was quite destitute of Provisions of any kind, but he has brought his party safe to this place. Captain Brady's zeal, perseverance, & good Conduct certainly entitles him to promotion; there has been a vacancy for him since the Death of Captain Dawson, which happened in last September, and I must beg leave to recommend him to the Hon'ble Executive Council as an officer of merit. 3
The reference in the last letter is to a well-known incident, viz., the rescue of Jenny Stupes. The name is preserved in Stoopes's Ferry and there are people of that name in the county yet, perhaps her descendants. The following account of her
1 Another letter from Brodhead, of like contents, is dated May 30, 1780. See Penna. Arch., vol. xii., 242.
2 Penna Arch., vol. xii., p. 301.
3 Id., p. 379.
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rescue is quoted in Day's Historical Collections 1 from an article by a writer signing himself "Kiskiminetas," published about sixty years ago in the Blairsville Record. After giving the facts as to Brady's visit to Sandusky, he says:
The provisions and ammunition of the men were exhausted by the time they had reached the Big Beaver, on their return. Brady shot an otter, but could not eat it. The last load was in his rifle. They arrived at an old encampment, and found plenty of strawberries, which they stopped to appease their hunger with. Having discovered a deer track, Brady followed it He had gone but a few rods when he saw the deer standing broadside to him. He raised his rifle and attempted to fire, but it flashed in the pan; and he had not a priming of powder. He sat down, picked the touch-hole, and then started on. After going a short distance the path made a bend, and he saw before him a large Indian on horseback, with a white child before and its mother behind him on the horse, and a number of warriors marching in the rear. His first impulse was to shoot the Indian on horseback, but as he raised the rifle he observed the child's head to roll with the motion of the horse. It was fast asleep and tied to the Indian. He stepped behind the root of a tree and waited until he could shoot the Indian without danger to the child or its mother. When he considered the chance certain, he shot the Indian, who fell from the horse, and the child and its mother fell with him. Brady called to his men with a voice that made the forest ring, to surround the Indians and give them a general fire. He sprang to the fallen Indian's powder horn, but could not get it off. Being dressed like an Indian, the woman thought he was one, and said, "Why did you shoot your brother?" He caught up the child, saying, "Jenny Stupes, I am Captain Brady, follow me and I will save you and your child." He caught her hand in his, carrying the child under the other arm, and dashed into the brush. Many guns were fired at him by this time, but no ball harmed him, and the Indians, dreading an ambuscade, were glad to make off. The next day he arrived at Fort McIntosh with the woman and her child. His men had got there before him. They had heard his warwhoop and knew it was Indians they had encountered, but having
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