History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 19

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 1314

USA > Pennsylvania > Fayette County > History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 19

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" 5th. And for the further Incouragement of Volun- tiers, that grain be raised by subscription by the Dif- ferent Companies.

" 6thly. That Coll. Lochry concil with the Officers of Virginia respecting the manner of Draughting those that associate in that State and others.

" 7th. Resolred, That Coll. Lochry meet Genl Clark and other officers and Coll. Crawford on the 23ª Inst, to confer with them the day of Rendezvouse.

"Signd by ordr of Committee, " JOHN PROCTOR, Prest."

A meeting of militia officers had previously been held (June 5th) at the Yohogania County court- house (near Heath's, on the west side of the Monon- gahela), at which a draft of one-fifth of the militia of said county (which, according to the Virginia claim, included the north half of Washington County, Pa., and all of Westmoreland as far south as the centre of the present county of Fayette) was made for the ex- pedition. The people, however, believing that the territory claimed by Virginia as Yohogania County was really in the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania, denied the authority of the Virginia officers, and refused to submit to the draft until the question of jurisdiction was definitely settled. But the public notice given by Christopher Hays, as mentioned in the proceedings of the Westmoreland County meeting, as also his declaration to the people of Westmoreland and Wash- ington, that he held in his hands money from the Ex- ecutive Couneil to be expended for the protection of the frontier, had the effect to quiet to a great extent, though not entirely to allay, the dissatisfaction, and the work of raising men in the two Pennsylvania counties (or, as Gen. Clarke expressed it, in Yolio- gania, Monongahela, and Ohio Counties, Va.) was allowed to proceed, though not without strong protest,

The commander (under Gen. Clarke) of the men raised in Westmoreland was Col. Archibald Lochry, lieutenant and prothonotary of the county, On the 4th of August1 he reported by letter to President

Reed that he had left Westmoreland with Capt. Thomas Stokely's company of Rangers and about fifty volunteers, on his way to join Gen. Clarke at the rendezvous at Fort Henry (now Wheeling). After his departure Lochry's force was augmented to about one hundred and ten men, in four small companies, including those of Capts. Thomas Stokely,? Jolin Boyd, and Shearer (mentioned in some accounts as Shannon), and a small body of horsemen under Capt. Campbell.

Gen. Clarke had had his headquarters at Fort Henry for several weeks, and from this base he pros- ecuted his recruiting (or rather drafting) in the Monongahela Valley. This business he carried on with great vigor, and as it appears with very little leniency towards those (and they were many) who were inclined to deny the jurisdiction of Virginia.3 One of the many complaints made against his con- duct in this particular was the following from James Marshal, lieutenant of Washington County, em- bodied in a letter written by him to President Reed, Aug. 8, 1781, viz. :

. .. As the manner in which the general and his underlings have treated the people of this and Westmoreland Counties has been so arbitrary and unprecedented, I think it my duty to inform your Excellency the particulars of a few facts. The first instance was with one John Harden, in Westmore- land, who, with a number of others, refused to be drafted under the government of Virginia, alleging they were undoubtedly in Pennsylvania, and declared if that government ordered a draft they would obey cheerfully, and accordingly elected their officers and made returns thereof to Col. Cook. After this the general, with a party of forty or fifty horsemen, came to Harden's in quest of him to hang him, as the gen- eral himself declared; but not finding the old gen- tleman took and tied his son, broke open his mill, fed away and destroyed upwards of one hundred and fifty bushels of wheat, rye, and corn, killed his sheep and

1 At the time of his departure Col. Lochry wrote President Reed as follows:

" MIRAILES' MILL, WESTMORELAND COUNTY, " Angust 4th, 1781.

" HONOURED SIR,-Yesterday the Express arrived with your Excell- ency's Letters, which does singular Ilonour to our County to have the

approbation of Council in our undertakings, and for which I beg leave to return my most Ilumble Thanks.

"I am now on my March with Capt. Stokely's Company of Rangers and about Fifty Volunteers from this County. We shall join Gen. Clark at Fort Ilemy on the Ohio River, where llis Army has lay for some weeks past. ns it was most Expedient to have the Boats there, the Water being deeper from that to where he intends going than frutu Fort Pitt there. I expected to have a number more Volunteers, Unt they have by Bonie Insinuations been hindered from going. Our Rangers have been very ill supplyed with Provisions, as thero has been no possibility of Pro- curing Meat, particularly as our Money has not been in the best Credit. We have generally had Flour, but as I have kept the men constantly Scouting it is hard for them to be withont Meat. . . . "-Pu. Arch., 1781- 83, p. 333.

" Capt. Thomas Stokely was a resident of that part of Westmoreland which had then recently been erected into Washington Count ". The greater part of his men, however, were from the east side of the Munon- gahela.

3 Many of those people who had been willing and anxious for the establishment of Virginia's claim, so that they might purchase their lands from her at one-tenth part of the price demanded by the Pennsyl- vania Land Office, were now quite as ready to deny her right to demand military service from them.

HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

hogs, and lived away at Mr. Harden's expense in that manner for two or three days ; declared his estate forfeited, but graciously gave it to his wife; formed an article in which he bound all the inhabitants he could lay hands on or by any means prevail upon to come in to him ; under the penalty of ten months in the regular army, not to oppose the draft."

President Reed, in his reply1 to Col. Marshal's complaint, said,-

" . . . But while we utterly disapprove the irreg- ularities and hardships which have been exercised by him [Gen. Clarke] towards the inhabitants, we cannot help fearing that too many, in consequence of the unsettled state of boundaries, avail themselves of a pretense to withhold their services from the publick at a time when they are most wanted, and when an exertion would not only serve the country, but pro- mote their own security. We cannot help also ob- serving that, by letters received from the principal gentlemen in Westmoreland, it seems evident they approve of Gen. Clarke's expedition, and that the lieutenants of both States united in the plan of raising three hundred men for that service. As the state of publiek affairs had not admitted your forming the militia sufficiently to concur in these measures, we concluded that these resolutions would also include your county, and even now are at a loss to account for the different opinions entertained on the point by the people of Westmoreland and Washington Coun- ties."

In a letter by Christopher Hays, of Westmoreland, and Thomas Scott, of Washington County, to Presi- dent Reed, dated " Westmoreland, August 15, 1781," they said, " ... The truth of the matter is, the General's Expedition has been wished well, and vol- unteers to the service have been Inecuraged by all with whom we corispond; but we have heartily repro- bated the General's Standing over these two counties with armed force, in order to dragoon the Inhabitants into obedience to a draft under the laws of Virginia, or rather under the arbitrary orders of the officers of that Government, without any orders from Virginia for that purpose, and this is really the part the Gen- eral hath acted, or rather the use which has been made of him in this country."

"With respect to Gen. Clarke's Proceedings," said President Reed, in his reply to the above, "we can only say that he has no authority from us to draft Militia, much less to exercise those acts of Distress which you have hinted at, and which other letters more particularly enumerate. His Expedition ap- pears to us favorable for the Frontiers, as carrying Hostilities into the Indian Country, rather than rest- ing totally on the defensive. We find the Gentlemen of Westmoreland, however different in other Things, to have agreed in Opinion that his Expedition de- served encouragement. .

1 Pa. Arch., ix. 367-08.

Col. Lochry, with his force, increased to about one hundred and ten men, proceeded to the rendezvous at Fort Henry, as before mentioned, expecting there to join Gen. Clarke; but on arriving there he found that the general had gone down the river the day be- fore, leaving Major Craycroft with a few men and a boat for the transportation of the horses, but without either provisions or ammunition, of which they had but a very insufficient supply. Clarke had, however, promised to await their arrival at the mouth of the Kanawha; but on reaching that point they found that he had been obliged, in order to prevent desertion among his men, to proceed down the river, leaving only a letter affixed to a pole directing them to follow. Their provisions and forage were nearly exhausted; there was no source of supply but the stores conveyed by Clarke ; the river was very low, and as they were unacquainted with the channel, they could not hope to overtake the main body. Under these embarrassing circumstances Col. Lochry dispatched Capt. Shearer with four men in a small boat, with the hope of over- taking Gen. Clarke and of securing supplies, leaving his (Shearer's) company under command of Lieut. Isaac Anderson. Before Shearer's party had pro- ceeded far they were taken prisoners by Indians, who also took from them a letter to Gen. Clarke, informing him of the condition of Loehry's party.

About the same time Lochry captured a party of nineteen deserters from Clarke's force. These he afterwards released, and they immediately joined the . Indians. The savages had before been apprised of the expedition, but they had supposed that the forces of Clarke and Lochry were together, and as they knew that Clarke had artillery, they had not attempted an attack. But now, by the capture of Shearer's party, with the letters, and by the intelligence brought to them by the deserters, they for the first time learned of the weakness and exposed situation of Lochry's com- mand, and they at once determined on its destruction.

Collecting in force some miles below the mouth of the Great Miami River, they placed their prison- ers (Shearer's party ) in a conspicuous position on the north shore of the Ohio, near the head of Lochry's Island, with the promise to them that their lives should be spared if they would hail Lochry's men as they came down and induce them to land. But in the mean time, Col. Lochry, wearied by the slow progress made, and in despair of overtaking Clarke, landed on the 24th of August, at about ten o'clock in the morning, on the same shore, at an inlet which has since borne the name of Lochry's Creek,2 a short distance above the place where the Indians were await- ing them. At this point the horses were taken on shore and turned loose to feed. One of the men had killed a buffalo, and all, except a few set to guard the

" This creek empties into the Ohio, nine or ten miles below the mouth of the Miami. Lochry's Island, near the head of which the prisoners were placed by the Indians to decoy their friends on shore, is three miles I below the creek.

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THE REVOLUTION.

horses, were engaged around the fires which they had kindled in preparing a meal from it. Suddenly a volley blazed forth on them from a wooded bluff, and simultaneously a large force of Indians appeared and rushed to attack them. The men, thus surprised, seized their arms and bravely defended themselves as long as their ammunition lasted. Then they attempted to escape by their boats, but these were unwieldy, the water was very low, and the party, too much weakened to avail themselves of this method of escape, and being wholly unable to make further resistance, sur- rendered to the savages, who at onee proceeded to the work of massacre. They killed Col. Lochry and sev- eral others of the prisoners, but were restrained from further butchery by the timely arrival of their chief,1 who declared that he disapproved of their condnet, but said he was unable wholly to control his men, who were eager to revenge the aets of Col. Brodhead against the Indians on the Muskingum a few months before.

The party which Col. Lochry surrendered to the Indians consisted of but sixty-four men, forty-two having been killed. The Indians engaged numbered over three hundred of various tribes, but principally those of the Six Nations. They divided the plunder among them in proportion to the numbers of each tribe engaged. On the next day the prisoners were marched to the Delaware towns, where they were met by a party of British and Indians, who said they were on their way to the Falls of the Ohio to attack Gen. Clarke. The prisoners were separated and taken to different places of captivity at the Indian towns, and there they remained (excepting a few who escaped) until the close of the Revolutionary strug- gle. After the preliminary articles of peace had been signed (Nov. 30, 1782) they were ransomed by the British officers in command of the Northern posts and were sent to Canada," to be exchanged for British

1 It has been stated that the chief in command of this Indian party was the famous Capt. Brant, and that he afterwards professed nich re- gret for the massacre of Lochry and his men.

2 The following memorial of escaped prisoners belonging to Col. Loch- ry's command was presented to the Supreme Executive Council, ad- dressed to President Moore (and indorsed July 3, 1782), viz. :

" SIR,-We, the subscribers, Inhabitants of the County of Westmore- Jand, beg lenvo to represent to your Excellency und Council that we had the misfortune to be made prisoners of by the Indians on the 24th of August last and carried to Montreal, and there kept in close confine- ment till the 26th of May last. when we were so fortunate as to make our escape, and after a long and fatigneing march through the Wilder- ness we got to this City yesterday at three o'Clock. As we are at present destitute of both Money and Cloathes, withont which we cannot go lome, We pray your Exc'y and Council to take our case into Considera- tion, and order us our jay from the tiote we were made pri-oners to this. We were under the command of Cole. Loughery when taken, and have a list of all these, both officers and private?, who are now prisoners of that party, which, together with such information as is in our power, we are ready to give for the satisfaction of your Exc'y and Council.

" We have the Honour to be

" Your Excellency's Ible Servts, " ISAAC ANDERSON, " Lient. Capt. Sheerer's Company Rangers. " RICHAND WALLACE,

" Late Quartermuster to Colonel Lochry."

prisoners in the hands of the Americans. In the spring of 1783 they sailed from Quebec to New York, and from there returned home by way of Philadel- phia, having been absent twenty-two months. But more than one-half of those who went down the Ohio with Col. Lochry never again saw their homes in the Monongahela and Youghiogheny Valleys.

Besides the command of Col. Lochry, there also went out in Clarke's expedition another company of men raised in Westmoreland County (principally in that part which is now Fayette), under command of Capt. Benjamin Whaley,3 the company being largely recruited by Lieut. (afterwards colonel) James Paull. This force embarked in flat-boats on the Mononga- hela at Elizabethtown, and being joined at Pitts- burgh by Capt. Isaac Craig's artillery, proceeded with other troops down the river to the appointed rendez- vous at the Falls of the Ohio, arriving there late in the month of August. But the other forces failing to assemble at that point the expedition was abandoned, and Capts. Whaley and Craig, with their commands, returned on foot through the wilderness of Kentucky and Virginia, encountering innumerable perils and hardships, and being more than two months on the homeward journey. Their arrival, as also the terrible disaster to Col. Lochry's command, was announced by Gen. Irvine (who had in the mean time succeeded Col. Brodhead in the command of the Western De- partment) in a letter to Gen. Washington, dated Fort Pitt, Dec. 2, 1781, as follows :

" ... Capt. Craig, with the detachment of artillery, returned here on the 26th inst. [ult?] . .. A Col. Loehry, of Westmoreland County, Pa., with about one hundred men in all, composed of volunteers and a company raised by Pennsylvania for the defense of that county, started to join Gen. Clarke, who, it is said, ordered him to unite with him (Clarke) at the mouth of the Miami, up which river it was previously designed to proceed ; but the general, having changed his plan, left a small party at the Miami, with direc- tions to Lochry to follow him to the month of the

A similar petition was presented to Council Jan. 6, 1783, by prisoners from Lochry's command, then returning (not escaped) from Canada, as follows:

"We, the Subscribers, would beg leave to represent the Situation of Henery Dungan, Sergt of Captn John Boyd's Company, and Robert Wat- son, John Marrs, and Mich. Hare, of Capt. Thos. Stokely's Comp'y of Ringers of this State, that they have been Captured by the Savages in the Summer of Eighty-one, and are now on their return from Canada, being Destitute of Money, and allmost Cloathing, would beg that Coun- cíl would take their Situation under Consideration, and grant them such supply's as they in their wisdom shall think necessary."

(Signed) " JOHN Born, " Cupt'n of Rangers S. P. " THOMAS STOKELY, " Capt. of langers S. P."

-Penna. Arch., 1781-83, pp. 733-34.

Among the prisoners taken from Lochry's command by the Indians were Melchoir Baker, Robert Brownfield (father of Basil Brownfield), both of Fayette County ; also Dennis McCarty, well known in Cuion- town for years as the veteran carrier of the Genius of Liberty.

3 Father of Capt James Whaley, of Fayette County, who was an officer in service in the war of 1812-15.

HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

Falls. Sundry accounts agree that this party, and all of Lochry's troops to a man, were waylaid by the In- dians and British (for it is said they had artillery ), and all killed or taken, not a man escaping, either to join Gen. Clarke or to return home. When Capt. Craig left the general he would not be persuaded but that Lochry with his party had returned home. These . vians, who had been driven away, but who had been misfortunes throw the people of this county into the greatest consternation, and almost despair, particularly Westmoreland County ; Lochry's party being all the best men of their frontier. At the present they talk of flying early in the spring to the eastern side of the mountains, and are daily flocking to me to inquire what support they may expect."

CHAPTER XI.

THE REVOLUTION-(Continued).

Willianson's Expedition-Crawford's Sandusky Expedition.

THE unsnecessful campaign of Gen. Clarke down the Ohio was followed by two expeditions sent from Western Pennsylvania against some settlements or villages on the Muskingum ocenpied by Indian con- verts, usually known as the Moravian Indians.

Both these expeditions were under command of Col. David Williamson, of Washington County, and were made up of volunteers from the region between the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers. It is not known or believed that any men from what is now Fayette County served in these campaigns under Williamson, and they are only noticed here because they were connected in some degree with Col. Crawford's Indian campaign, which immediately followed them, and of which a more extended narrative will be given.

Williamson's first expedition, consisting of be- tween seventy-five and one hundred men, went out late in the fall of 1781. The reason for this move- ment against the peaceable Moravian Indians was that many of the frontiersmen believed, or professed to believe, that they (the Moravians) were secretly in league with the warlike savages who lived farther to the west ; that even if they did not take active part in the frequent raids and butcheries, they did at least give shelter, subsistence, and information to the Shawanese and Wyandot warriors, and some even believed that the Moravians themselves mingled with the war-parties and wiehled the knife and tomahawk. Williamson, in this expedition, did not intend to use fire and sword, but to induce the Indians of the Moravian towns to remove farther from the Ohio, or, if he failed to accomplish this, to take them all as pris- oners to Fort Pitt. With this intention he moved his force rapidly towards their towns on the Muskingum. But in the mean time he had been forestalled in his projected work by a large party of the hostile In- dians, who charged the Moravians with being in

league with the whites, and on this plea had visited : their towns, broken them up, driven the people away to Sandusky, and carried the white Moravian mis- sionaries residing among them, prisoners to Detroit.

On his arrival at the towns, Williamson found them deserted, except by a small party of the Mora- allowed by their captors to return for the purpose of gathering some corn which had been left standing in the fields near the villages. This party he took pris- oners and marched them to Fort Pitt, where, however, they were soon after set at liberty by Gen. Irvine, the commandant.

The second expedition led by Col. Williamson against the Moravian settlements was made up, on the frontier in the latter part of February, and completed its bloody work in March, 1782. It was composed of volunteers (mostly mounted) from the country west of the Monongahela,1 but no lists of their names or places of residence have been preserved, a fact which is not strange in view of the odium which has justly attached to the expedition and its barbarous work during the century which has followed its exe- : cution.

In the winter of 1781-82 about one hundred and fifty of the Moravian Indians (including many women and children), who had been driven away from their towns in the preceding autumn, were permitted by. the Wyandot chiefs to return to them to secure the corn which was still left in the fields there, and to make preparatious for a new crop. The kind manner in which Gen. Irvine had treated their people who : had been carried as prisoners to Fort Pitt the previous fall had reassured them, so that they came back to the villages without much fear of violence from the whites east of the Ohio.

The weather in the month of February had been remarkably fine, so that war-parties of Indians from Sandusky had been able to move earlier than usual, and had committed many depredations in the white settlements. As these inroads had occurred so early in the season it was generally believed by the settlers that the hostile parties had not come all the way from the Sandusky towns, but that the outrages were either committed by Moravians or by hostile Indians from the west who had heen sheltered by them, and had

1 Stone, in his " Life of Brant," ii. 220, says, " A band of between one and two hundred men from the settlements of the Monongahela turned ont in quest of the maranders [those who had committed atroci- ties on the frontier east of the Ohio, and part of whom were supposed to be the Moravians], thirsting for vengeance, under the command of Col. David Williamson."

On page 143 of "Contributions to American History," published by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, is found the following : "In March, 1782, one hundred and sixty militiamen living upon the Monon- gahela set off on horseback to the Muskingum, in order to destroy three Moravian Indian settlements."

Col. Whittlesey, in the " American Pioneer," vol. ii, p. 428, says, "They were principally from the Monongahela region, and appointed William- bun to the command."

THE REVOLUTION.

made the Muskingum settlements their base of oper- ations. It was declared that in either case the blame was chargeable on the Moravians, and as a consequence the frontiersmen resolved to destroy them. The hor- rible story of the manner in which this was accom- plished by Williamson's men is told in the Pennsyl- vania Archives, 1781-83, page 524, as follows :

"Relation of what Frederick Linebach was told by two of his Neighbours living near Delaware River, above Easton, who were just returned from the Mo- nongahela :

" That some time in February one hundred & sixty Men, living upon Monaungahela set off on Horse- back to the Muskingum, in order to destroy Three Indian Settlements, of which they seemed to be sure of being the Touns of some Enemy Indians. After coming nigh to one of the Touns they discovered some Indians on both sides of the River Muskingum. They then concluded to divide themselves in Two parties, the one to cross the River and the other to attack those Indians on this side. When the party got over the River they saw one of the Indians coming up towards them. They laid themselves flat on the ground waiting till the Indian was nigh enough, then one of them shot the Indian and broke his arm ; then three of the Militia ran towards him with Toma- hawks; when they were yet a little distance from him he ask'd them why they had fired at him ; he was Minister Sheboshch's (John Bull's) Son, but they took no notice of what he said, bnt killed him on the Spot. They then surrounded the field, and took all the other Indians Prisoners. The Indians told them that they were Christians and made no resistance, when the Militia gave them to understand that they must bring them as Prisoners to Fort Pitt they seemed to be very glad. They were ordered to prepare them- selves for the Journey, and to take all their Effects along with them. Accordingly they did so. They were asked how it came they had no Cattle? They answered that the small Stock that was left them had been sent to Sandusky.

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History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 19

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885 Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 1314

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 1314