USA > Pennsylvania > Jefferson County > History of Jefferson county, Pennsylvania, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 3
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Much has been written and said scarce a vestige of their presence remains.
about their deeds of butchery and cruelty. True, they were cruel, and in many instances fiendish in their inhuman practices, but they did not meet the first settlers in this spirit. Honest, hospitable, religious in their belief, reverencing their Manatou, or Great Spirit, and willing to do anything to please their white brother-this is how they met their first white visitors; but when they had seen nearly all their vast domain appropriated by the invaders, when wicked white men had introduced into their midst the " wicked fire-water," which is to-day the cause of many an act of fiendishness perpetrated by those who are not untutored savages, then the Indian rebelled, all the savage in his breast was aroused, and he became pitiless and cruel in the extreme.
It is true that our broad domains were purchased and secured by treaty, but the odds were always on the side of the whites. The " Colonial Records" give an account of the treaty of 1686, by which a deed for " walking purchase was executed, by which the Indians sold as far as a man could walk in a day. But when the walk was to be made the most active white man was obtained, who ran from daylight until dark, as fast as he was able, without stopping to eat or drink. This much dissatisfied the Indians, who expected to walk leis- urely, resting at noon to eat, and shoot game, and one old chief expressed his dissatisfaction as follows : "Lun, lun, lun ; no lay down to drink ; no stop to shoot squirrel, but lun, lun, lun all day ; me no keep up; lun, lun for land."" That deed, it is said, does not now exist, but was confirmed in 1737.
1 Julge Veech.
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HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
When the white man came the Indians were a temperate people, and their chiefs tried hard to prohibit the sale of intoxicating drinks among their tribes ; and when one Sylvester Garland, in 1701, introduced rum among them and induced them to drink, at a council held in Philadelphia, Shemekenwhol, chief of the Shawnese, complained to Governor William Penn, and at a coun- cil held on the 13th of October, 1701, this man was held in the sum of one hundred pounds never to deal rum to the Indians again; and the bond and sentence was approved by Judge Shippen, of Philadelphia. At the chief's suggestion the council enacted a law prohibiting the trade in rum with the In- dians. Still later the ruling chiefs of the Six Nations opposed the use of rum, and Red Jacket, in a speech at Buffalo, wished that whisky would never be less than " a dollar a quart." He answered the missionary's remarks on drunk- enness thus : "Go to the white man with that." A council, held on the 'Alle- gheny River, deplored the murder of the Wigden family in Butler county, by a Seneca Indian, while under the influence of whisky, approved the sentence of our law, and again passed their prohibitory resolutions, and implored the white man not to give rum to the Indian.
Mr. Coxson claims that the council of the Delawares, Muncys, Shawnese, Nanticokes, Tuscorawas, and Mingoes, to protest against the sale of their do- main by the Six Nations, at Albany, in 1754, was held at Punxsutawney, and cites " Joncaire's Notes on Indian Warfare," " Life of Bezant," etc. " It is said they ascended the tributary of La Belle Rivière to the mountain village on the way to Chinklacamoose (Clearfield) to attend the council." I At that council, though Sheklemas, the Christian king of the Delawares, and other Christian chiefs, tried hard to prevent the war; they were overruled and the tribes de- cided to go to war with their French allies against the colony. "Travelers, as early as 1731, reported to the council of the colony, of a town sixty miles from the Susquehanna." 2
" After the failure of the expedition against Fort Du Quesne, the white captives were taken to Kittanning, Logtown, and Pukeesheno (Punxsutaw ney). The sachem, Pukeesheno (for whom the town was called), was the father of Tecumseh, and his twin brother, The Prophet, and was a Shawnese. We make this digression to add another proof that Punxsutawney was named after a Shawnese chief as early as 1750." 3
" I went with Captain Brady on an Indian hunt up the Allegheny River. We found a good many signs of the savages, and I believe we were so much like the savages (when Brady went on a scouting expedition he always dressed in Indian costume), that they could hardly have known us from a band of Shawnese. But they had an introduction to us near the mouth of Red Bank. General Brodhead was on the route behind Captain Brady, who dis- covered the Indians on a march. He lay concealed among the rocks until the
1 Joncaire. 2 Bezant.
3 " History of Western Pennsylvania," page 302.
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INDIAN OCCUPATION.
painted chiefs and their braves had got fairly into the narrow pass, when Brady and his men opened a destructive fire. The sylvan warriors returned the vol- ley with terrific yells that shook the caverns and mountains from base to crest. The fight was short but sanguine. The Indians left the pass, and retired and soon were lost sight of in the deepness of the forest. We returned with three children recaptured, whose parents had been killed at Greensburg. We imme- diately set out on a path that led us to the mountains to a lodge the savages had near the headwaters of Mahoning and Red Bank."
" We crossed the Mahoning about forty miles from Kittanning, and entered a town which we found deserted. It seemed to be a hamlet, built by the Shawnese. From there we went over high and rugged hills, through laurel thickets, darkened by tall pine and hemlock groves, for one whole day, and lay quietly down on the bank of a considerable stream (Sandy Lick). About mid- night Brady was aroused by the sound of a rifle not far down the creek. We arose and stole quietly along about half a mile, when we heard the voices of Indians but a short distance below us, where another creek unites its waters with the one upon whose banks we had rested. We ascertained that two In- dians had killed a deer at a lick. They were trying to strike a light to dress their game. When the flame of pine knots blazed brightly and revealed the visages of the savages, Brady appeared to be greatly excited, and perhaps the caution that he always took when on a war-path was at that time disregarded. Revenge swallowed and absorbed every faculty of his soul. He recognized the Indian who was foremost, when they chased him, a few months before, so closely that he was forced to leap across a chasm of stone on the slippery rock twenty-three feet ; between the jaws of granite there roared a deep torrent twenty feet deep. When Brady saw Conemah he sprang forward and planted his tomahawk in his head. The other Indian, who had his knife in his hand, sprang at Brady. The long, bright steel glistened in his uplifted hand, when the flash of Farley's rifle was the death-light of the brave, who sank to the sands. Brady scalped the Indians in a moment, and drew the deer into the thicket to finish dressing it, but had not completed his undertaking when he heard a noise in the branches of the neighboring trees. He sprang forward, quenched the flame, and in breathless silence listened for the least sound, but nothing was heard save the rustling of the leaves, stirred by the wind. One of the scouts softly crept along the banks of the creek to catch the faintest sound that echoes on the water, when he found a canoe down upon the beach. The scout communicated this to Brady, who resolved to embark on this craft, if it was large enough to carry the company. It was found to be of sufficient size. We all embarked and took the deer along. We had not gone forty rods down the stream when the savages gave a war-whoop, and about a mile off they were answered with a hundred voices. We heard them in pur- suit as we went dashing down the frightful and unknown stream. WVe gained
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HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
on them. We heard their voices far behind us, until the faint echoes of the hundreds of warriors were lost; but, unexpectedly, we found ourselves passing full fifty canoes drawn up on the beach. Brady landed a short distance below. There was no time to lose. If the pursuers arrived they might overtake the the scouts. It was yet night. He took four of his men along, and with great caution unmoored the canoes and sent them adrift. The scouts below secured them, and succeeded in arriving at Brodhead's quarters with the scalps of two Indians and their whole fleet, which disabled them much from carrying on their bloody expeditions."1
In the legend of Noshaken, the white captive of the Delawares, in 1753, who was kept at a village supposed to have been Punxsutawney, occurs the following : "The sconts were on the track of the Indians, the time of burning of the captives was extended, and the whole band prepared to depart for Fort Venango with the prisoners. They continued on for twenty miles, and encamped by a beautiful spring, where the sand boiled up from the bot- tom, near where two creeks unite. Here they passed the night, and the next morning again headed for Fort Venango." This spring is believed to have been the " sand spring" at Brookville. Thus both the earlier histories and tradi- tions would lead us to believe that Jefferson county was once the scene of In- dian occupation. The early settlers found many vestiges of them, and even at this late day "Indian relics " in the shape of stone tomahawks, flint arrows, darts, etc., are frequently found.
But it was long after these scenes, when Joseph Barnett, the first white set- tler, came into the wilds of what is now Jefferson county. Then nearly all the Indians had gone, some towards the setting sun, others to Canada. Of all the tribes that once composed the great Indian confederations, only a few Muncies and Senecas of Cornplanter's tribe remained. These Indians, for a number of years after the white men came, extended their hunting excursions into these forests. They were always peaceable and friendly. The first set- tlers found their small patches of corn, one of which was planted where the fair-grounds are now located, and another in the flat at Port Barnett. Indian corn, or maize, as it was sometimes called, is undoubtedly an American cereal, being first discovered on this continent in 1600, though it is now grown in all civilized lands.2
1 " Biography of Jno. Morrison," one of Brady's scouts.
2 Drs. Sturtevant, Pickering, and other eminent botanists and antiquarians, believed that maize (or Indian corn) is mentioned by the old Icelandic writers, who are thought to have visited the coast of eastern North America as early as 1006.
Columbus found the natives of America using maize (mahiz), and it is cited among the gifts he brought back to Queen Isabella from the New Worldl.
Ilernandes found it in Mexico previous to 1600. All the American colonists found it growing in all places ad ipted to it. Before the Pilgrims landed for settlement, in exploring the coast, they found cornfields, and a magazine of corn, " which we digged up, and found a great fine new basket full of very fine corne of this year, some six and thirty ears of goodly corne, some yellow, some red. and some mixed with olive, which was a goodly sight." Chronicles of Plymouth Colony, page 133.
29
INDIAN OCCUPATION.
The Indians also came here to make maple sugar in the spring. They would cut notches in the trees, and then collect the sap in troughs hollowed out of small logs, which was then collected into a larger trough, when it was boiled down into molasses and sugar by dipping hot stones into it, a process that must have called for a great deal of patience. These Indians would take the skins and hams of the game killed during the winter to Pittsburgh in the spring, where they would exchange them for tobacco, whisky, blankets, trinkets, etc. They generally made these trips on rafts constructed of dry poles withed together.
An old Indian, called Captain Hunt, has been handed down as the last Indian who resided in this county, having had his camp on what is yet known as "Hunt's Point," on Red Bank, in the present borough limits of Brookville. It is said of him that he was a fugitive from his tribe, having killed a fellow Indian; but the daughter of Joseph Barnett, Mrs. Graham, left the following as her recollections of these Indians, and those of the tribes who were here after her family settled at Port Barnett, and from her statement it appears that it was a cousin of Captain Hunt who was the banished Indian. We give Mrs. Graham's account of these Indians as nearly as possible in her own language:
"When we came to Port Barnett, in the spring of 1797, there were but two Indian families there. One was Twenty Canoes, and Caturah, which means Tomahawk. The two Hunts were here, but they were alone. Jim Hunt was on banishment for killing his cousin. Captain Hunt and Jim Hunt were cousins. Captain Hunt was an under-chief of the Munsey tribe. In the fall other Indians came here to hunt. I have forgotten their names, with the excep- tion of two, John Jamieson, who had seven sons, all named John ; the other was Crow, he was an Indian in name and in nature. He was feared by both the whites and Indians. He was a Mohawk, and a perfect savage. Caturalı and Twenty Canoes staid here for several years after we came. The Hunts were here most of the time until the commencement of the War of 1812. Jim dare not go back to his tribe until the year 1808 or 1809, when his friends stole a white boy in Westmoreland county and had him adopted into the tribe in place of the warrior Jim had slain.1 Jim Hunt and John Jones were great friends, and were always together. John Jones was a brother of Isaac Jones, of Corsica. A great many persons think they know all about the hid- ing places of Hunt-one of them was a cave in the bank of Sandy Lick, at what is called the 'deep hole,' opposite the Sand Spring. The other was on
Governor Bradford in his " History of Plymouth Plantation " says : " In the early spring, in April of 1621, as many as were able began to plant their corne, in which Servise Squanto (an Indian), stood them in great stead, showing them both ye manner how to set it, and after how to dress and tend it." Thus the Indians taught the first white settlers how to grow this grain, which is now one of the most important of our cereals. Early travelers all speak of it as an absolute necessity in the growing of live stock in this country.
1 By a law of the tribe he was not allowed to return until the place of the warrior he had slain was filled by the capture of another male from the whites or some other Indian tribe.
3
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HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
the head waters of Little Sandy Creek. When danger threatened him a run- ner from the Reservation would warn him by a peculiar whoop from a certain place on the hill northwest from the Port. Jim loved whisky, but never got off his feet for fear he would be caught by his pursuers. At the commence- ment of the War of 1812 the Munsey tribe were banished from the Six Nations, and Jim Hunt never returned. Captain Hunt was back once or twice. Twenty Canoes and Sassy John were back once to see 'Joe Blannet'-they could not pronounce the name of Barnett. The last visit of Caturah was in 1833, he be- ing then over ninety years of age."
While it was known that Hunt had the hiding places mentioned by Mrs. Graham, they were never discovered until the year 1843, when the one at the Sand Spring, in the borough of Brookville, was discovered by Mr. Thomas Graham, a son of the old lady whose narrative we have just given, who was learning his trade in Brookville, and went over to the Sand Spring to cut a cane in the laurel thicket that then covered that spot, and after entering the densest part of the thicket, he was surprised to find the ground give way be- neath him, and find himself precipitated into a cave, which had been hollowed out and so deftly covered over that its whereabouts had never before been dis- covered until Mr. Graham stumbled upon it, and the timbers that upheld the roof having rotted away, it gave way beneath him. It showed signs of hav- ing been used. as a human habitation and was without doubt Jim Hunt's place of refuge. Jim Hunt was a great hunter, and in one winter is said to have killed seventy-eight bears, besides other smaller game. He was inordinately fond of whisky, and nearly all the skins of his game went for his favorite bev- erage. After he had traded these seventy-eight skins to Samuel Scott, receiv- ing a pint of whisky for each skin, he was found crying in a maudlin way over his bankruptcy. When asked what was the matter, he replied: " Bear skins all gone ; whisky all gone. No skins, no whisky, ugh !"
CHAPTER IV.
EARLY SETTLERS.
Joseph Barnett, the Pioneer of Jefferson County - The Arrival of the First White Men - Building of the First Saw-Mill - Death of Andrew Barnett - The Lone Grave on Mill Creek - The Barnett Family - More Settlers Come into the Wilds - Recollections of Mrs. Sarah Graham.
J JOSEPH BARNETT was the pioneer, or as he had been styled, the " patri- arch of Jefferson county." He had served in the Revolutionary War un- der General Potter, on the West Branch, and also under the State against the Wyoming boys. At the close of the war he settled at the mouth of Pine Creek
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EARLY SETTLERS.
in Lycoming county, and it is said was one of the "Fair-play boys ; " at any rate he lost his property there by the jurisdiction of the common law, which superseded that of fair-play.
" There existed a great number of locations of the 3d of April, 1769, for the choicest lands on the West Branch of the Susquehanna, between the mouths of Lycoming and Pine Creeks ; but the proprietaries, from extreme caution, the result of that experience, which had also produced the very penal laws of 1768 and 1769, had prohibited any surveys being made beyond the Lycoming. In the mean time, in violation of all law, a set of hardy adventurers had from time to time seated themselves on this doubtful territory. They made improve- ments and formed a considerable population. To prevent any contentions or disputes, they annually elected a tribunal, in rota- tion, of three of their settlers, whom they called ' Fair-play men,' who were to decide all controversies and settle all disputed boundaries. From their decision there was no appeal. There could be no resistance. The decree was enforced by the whole body, who started up en masse at the mandate of the court, and execution and eviction were as sudden and irresistible as the judgment. Ev- ery new-comer was obliged to apply to this powerful tribunal, and upon his solemn engagement to submit in all respects to the law of the land, he was permitted to take possession of some vacant spot. Their decrees were, how- ever, just, and when their settlements were recognized by law and 'fair-play' had ceased, their decisions were received in evidence, and confirmed by judg- ments of courts."1
Many cases came before the courts, under this law, and it was frequently necessary to prove the usages of the fair-play men, and at one time when Chief Justice McKean was holding court in that district, he inquired of Barton Cald- well, an old Irish pioneer, whether he could tell him exactly what the provis- ions of the "Fair-play " code were. Barton's memory would not allow him to go into details, so he answered the question by comparison. " All I can say is," said he "that since your honor's courts have come among us fair play has ceased, and law has taken its place."
Having lost one home Mr. Barnett began to look up a location for another, and to this end, in 1794, he sent his brother Andrew, and Samuel Scott, to locate a site for a saw-mill. - He intended then to go to Freneh Creek, in Craw- ford county, of which he had some knowledge; but on their way out they stopped at the mouth of Mill Creek, and Andrew was so much pleased with the adaptability of the place for a mill, surrounded as it was with such vast, un- broken forests of magnificent timber, that he concluded at once that this spot, now Port Barnett, was the very place to build their proposed mill. The pro- jectors did not, therefore, go any farther, but returned and represented the matter to Joseph Barnett. In the spring of 1795 he, in company with Andrew
1 Smith's Laws, Volume 2.
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HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
Barnett and Samuel Scott, came to " view the lay of the land," and was as well pleased as his brothers had been. Having selected several hundred acres of good timber land, they began at once to put up their mill, on or near the spot where the mill of James Humphrey now stands. In coming to their new home in the wilderness, the travelers came through the forests of the upper Susquehanna until they reached Anderson's Creek in Clearfield county, when they struck " Meade's path," a pack-horse path leading west- ward. They followed this path to the present site of Brookville, crossing San- dy Lick four times, first below where Garrison's mill now stands, again at the bottom at Port Barnett, then near where the Brookville depot now is, and again where the covered bridge now stands. Samuel Scott, Mr. Barnett's brother-in-law, was a millwright, and they at once commenced to erect their saw-mill. When the three men had the structure all ready to "raise" they called upon their Indian neighbors to assist them, and nine Senecas of Cornplanter's tribe, who were then in the neighborhood, assisted at this the first " raising" in Jefferson county. It is said that these Indians would not lend any assistance in this work until they had eaten and slept for two or three days to prepare for the task replying to all expostulation on the subject : " Me eat, then me stout ; me sleep, then me stout, ugh."
In the fall of the same year Mr. Barnett, leaving the other two, returned to his home on Pine Creek, in Lycoming county, to bring out his family. But a short time after his departure his brother Andrew died, after a few days' illness, and 'was buried some place near the mouth of Mill Creek, two friendly Indians assisting Mr. Scott in the sad rites. What a scene was this! there in the rude cabin in the deep forest, with no physician to give him aid, no loving hand to wipe the death-damps from his brow, and whisper words of hope and consolation in his ear- Andrew Barnett died ! Then came the rude funeral on the banks of Mill Creek, when the first white settler was laid in his grave, no man of God was there to officiate at his burial, no funeral rites were observed; but one white man stood there alone with the body of his dead brother and assisted by the dusky sons of the forest, he laid him in his lone grave where the winds of Heaven, as they whispered through the pine woods, were his only requiem.
When this sad scene was over, Samuel Scott returned to Lycoming county to carry the sad news of his brother's death to Mr. Barnett. This for a time discouraged him, and he did not return to his new possessions until the spring of 1797, when he brought his family with him and set up his home in the spot which he made famous, and which yet bears the name of Port Barnett, which he gave it. Mr. Barnett brought his family on horseback over the same route he had before traveled. His eldest child was then seven years old, and it was from her recollections, and papers left with her family, that much of this infor- mation has been obtained. The youngest child was only two years old, and
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EARLY SETTLERS.
the mother would carry him in her arms until she became too weary to hold him any longer, then the father would strap him on the horse behind her, and, as he did not fancy this way of traveling, he would enliven the trip with his cries until he again gained the shelter of his mother's arms. Samuel Scott, John Scott, Moses Knapp, and perhaps one or two others came with the Bar- nett family.
On their arrival they at once went to work to get their mill in running order, and soon had some boards sawed and ready for rafting, and the first were run to Pittsburgh that year. About 4,000 comprised a raft, and for this they at first got from five to ten dollars per thousand. Those first rafting trips were full of danger and toil that our modern lumbermen know nothing of. The trip accomplished and the lumber sold, or exchanged for flour, groceries, clothing, etc., then came the long toilsome walk back through an unbroken wilderness. But little is known of those first few years, but that they were years of hardship, privations, and ofttimes of suffering, none can doubt. In the midst of the lonely wilderness they toiled on, with no visitors but the In- dians, who still came into those waters to hunt and fish, while the bear, wolf, and panther lurked in the dark recesses of the woods, and venomous snakes basked in the sun almost at their door-ways. But Joseph Barnett was not a man to quail at any of these things. He was made of the very stuff that was needed in those days - the patriotic son of a patriotic sire. He was born in Dauphin county in 1754. His father, John Barnett, who had emigrated from the north of Ireland early in the beginning of the eighteenth century, was a farmer, and settled in Dauphin county. He and his wife dying while Joseph was yet a small boy, he was "brought up" by his relatives, and was engaged on a farm when the Revolutionary War commenced, and at once enlisted in defense of the colonies. The exact duration of his service could not be ascer- tained, but it is said of him that "he was a brave and efficient soldier, who never faltered in the path of duty." After the war he settled in Lycoming county, where he owned a large tract of land, of which mention has already been made. Here, in 1788, he married Elizabeth Scott, sister of Samuel Scott, who shared all his toils in Jefferson county, and she is deserving of much praise ; for her part in the settlement of this new county was no sinecure, as it was the matron of the household who in those days had to practice denials, who had to plan and contrive to get the clothing for her children out of the scant stores that were to be obtained. There were no settlements nearer than forty or fifty miles. Mr. Barnett knew nothing of the wilderness south of him, and gave an Indian four dollars to pilot him to Westmoreland county. The nearest grist-mill was on Blacklick, in Indiana county, and the nearest house, eastward, that of Paul Clover, grandfather of General Clover, which was thirty- three miles distant on the Susquehanna, where Curwensville now stands. Fort Venango was forty-five miles westward. To reach any of these points the
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