History of Warren County, Pennsylvania, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of some of its Prominent Men and Pioneers, Part 8

Author: Schenck, J. S., [from old catalog] ed; Rann, William S., [from old catalog] joint ed; Mason, D., & co., Syracuse, N.Y., pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1887
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y., D. Mason & co.
Number of Pages: 1020


USA > Pennsylvania > Warren County > History of Warren County, Pennsylvania, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of some of its Prominent Men and Pioneers > Part 8


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"Done at the mouth of the Beautiful river,1 this twenty-ninth day of July, one thousand seven hundred and forty-nine.


" Signed by all the officers. " CÉLERON."


The burying of this plate was attended with much form and ceremony. All the men and officers of the expedition were drawn up in battle array, while the savages assembled looked on in open-mouthed awe and wonder, when Cé- leron proclaimed, in a loud voice, " Vive le Roi," and declared that possession of the country was now taken in the name of the king. A plate bearing the arms of France was then affixed to the nearest tree.


The same formality was observed in planting each of the other plates : the second at the rock known as the "Indian God" -on which are ancient and unknown inscriptions -a few miles below Franklin ; a third at the mouth of Wheeling Creek; a fourth at the mouth of the Muskingum; a fifth at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, and the sixth and last at the mouth of the Great Miami. Toilsomely ascending the Miami to its head waters, the party burned their canoes, and obtained ponies for the march across the portage to the head waters of the Maumec, down which and by Lakes Erie and Ontario they returned to Fort Frontenac, arriving on the 6th of November. It appears that the Indians through whose territory they passed viewed this planting of plates with great suspicion. By some means they got possession of one of them, generally supposed to have been stolen from the party at the very commence- ment of their journey.


is located at the mouth of the present Conewango, but the name of the latter stream was then printed " Schatacoin River," the French geographer intending, doubtless, to apply to it the same name as that of the lake of which it is an outlet. The name of the same stream has also been written by early English geographers, American officers and surveyors, as the Canawagy, Conewauga, Conewagoo, Canawago, Conawango, and Conewaugo ; but since 1795 it has been considered proper to write it Con- ewango.


1 A mislake of the translator or copyist. It should read mouth of the Kanaougou.


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Mr. O. H. Marshall, in an excellent monograph upon this expedition, made up from the original journal of Celeron and the diary of Father Bonnecamps, found in the Department de la Marine in Paris, gives the following account of this stolen plate :


" The first of the leaden plates was brought to the attention of the public by Gov. George Clinton to the Lords of Trade in London, in a communication dated New York, December 19, 1750, in which he states that he would send to their Lordships in two or three weeks a plate of lead full of writing, which some of the upper nations of Indians stole from Jean Cœur, the French inter- preter at Niagara, on his way to the River Ohio, which river, and all the lands thereabouts, the French claim, as will appear by said writing. He further states ' that the lead plate gave the Indians so much uneasiness that they im- mediately dispatched some of the Cayuga chiefs to him with it, saying that their only reliance was on him, and earnestly begged he would communicate the contents to them, which he had done, much to their satisfaction and the interests of the English.' The Governor concludes by saying that ' the contents of the plate may be of great importance in clearing up the encroachments which the French have made on the British Empire in America.' The plate was delivered to Colonel, afterward Sir William Johnson, on the 4th of Decem- ber, 1750, at his residence on the Mohawk, by a Cayuga sachem, who accom- panied it by the following speech :


"' Brother Corlear and War-ragh-i-ya-ghey! I am sent here by the Six Nations with a piece of writing which the Senecas, our brethren, got by some artifice from Jean Cœur, earnestly beseeching you will let us know what it means, and as we put all confidence in you, we hope you will explain it ingen- iously to us.'


" Col. Johnson replied to the Sachem, and through him to the Six Nations, returning a belt of wampum, and explaining the inscription on the plate. He told them ' it was a matter of the greatest consequence, involving the posses- sion of their lands and hunting grounds, and that Jean Cœur and the French ought immediately to be expelled from the Ohio and Niagara.' In reply, the Sachem said that 'he had heard with great attention and surprise the sub- stance of the "devilish writing" he had brought, and that Col. Johnson's remarks were fully approved.' He promised that belts from each of the Six Nations should be sent from the Seneca's castle to the Indians at the Ohio, to warn and strengthen them against the French encroachments in that direction." On the 29th of January, 1751, Clinton sent a copy of this inscription to Gov- ernor Hamilton, of Pennsylvania.


The French followed up this formal act of possession by laying out a chain of military posts, on substantially the same line as that pursued by the Celeron expedition ; but instead of crossing over to Lake Chautauqua, as had been the custom of their traders for many years, they kept on down to Presque Isle


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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.


(now Erie), where was a good harbor, and where a fort was established, and thence up to Le Bœuf1 (now Waterford) ; thence down the Venango (French Crcek) to its mouth at Franklin, establishing Fort Venango there; thence by the Allegheny to Pittsburgh, where Fort Du Quesne was afterwards seated, and so on down the Ohio.


To counteract this activity on the part of the French, the Ohio Company was chartered, and a half million of acres was granted by the crown, to be selected mainly on the south side of the Ohio, between the Monongahela and Kanawha Rivers, and the condition made that settlements (one hundred fami- lies within seven years), protected by a fort, should be made. The company consisted of Maryland and Virginia gentlemen, among whom were Lawrence, a brother of George Washington.


In 1752 a treaty was entered into with the Indians, securing the right of occupancy, and twelve families, under the leadership of Captain Gist, estab- lished themselves upon the Monongahela, and subsequently began the erection of a fort at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. Apprised of this intrusion into the very heart of the territory which they were claiming, the French at once built a fort at Le Bœuf, and strengthened their post at Venango.


These proceedings having been promptly reported to Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, where the greater number of the stockholders resided, and which province, by the way, claimed jurisdiction over all of the region lying west of Laurel Hill2 and northward to the junction of the two rivers just named, he determined to send an official communication to the French commandant at Le Bœuf, protesting against the forcible interference with their chartered rights, granted by the crown of Great Britain, and pointing to the late treaties of peace entered into between the English and French, whereby it was agreed that cach should respect the colonial possessions of the other.


But who should be the messenger to execute this delicate and responsible trust ? Winter was approaching, and the distance to be traversed - some five hundred miles - led through a wild wilderness, cut by rugged mountain chains and deep, rapid streams. It was proposed to several, who declined, and was finally accepted by GEORGE WASHINGTON, then a youth barely twenty-one years old. On the last day of November, 1753, he bade adieu to civilization, and pushed on through the forest to the settlements on the Monongahela, where he was joined by Captain Gist. He then followed up the Allegheny to Fort Venango; thence up the Venango or French Creek to its head waters at Fort Le Bœuf, where he held formal conference with the French commandant, St. Pierre.


1 So called because when the locality was first visited by Europeans - the French - it seemed a favorite haunt for vast herds of buffalo.


2 It was believed by many at that time that the western boundary of Pennsylvania would not fall to the westward of Laurel Hill.


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The French officer had been ordered to hold this territory on the claim of the discovery of the Mississippi by La Salle, and the subsequent occupation of all this region for many years by the French, and he had no discretion but to execute his orders, and referred Washington to his superior, the governor- general of Canada. Making careful notes of the location and strength of the post and those encountered on the way, the young embassador returned, being twice fired at on his journey by hostile Indians, and came near losing his life by being thrown into the freezing waters of the Allegheny while effecting a crossing on a hastily improvised raft. Upon his arrival he made a full report of the embassage, which was widely published throughout the English colonies and in England, and doubtless was the basis upon which action was taken that eventuated in a long and sanguinary war-the Old French and Indian War - which resulted in the collapse of French dominion upon this continent.


Governor Dinwiddie being satisfied that the French were determined to hold the territory upon the Ohio by force of arms, a body of one hundred and fifty Virginia provincials, of which Washington as lieutenant-colonel was in com- mand, was sent to the support of the small garrison at the mouth of the Alle- gheny. But the French, having this river as a means of transportation and the Virginians a very rugged and mountainous country to overcome, the former first reached the goal or vantage ground for which each was striving. Con- tracœur, the French commander, with one thousand men, and well-equipped batteries of artillery, having provided himself with a sufficient number of bateaux and canoes, glided swiftly down the Allegheny and easily seized the unfinished work of defense of the Ohio Company, and at once began the con- struction of an elaborate work which was named Fort Du Quesne, in honor of the governor-general of Canada.


Informed of this proceeding, Washington pushed forward and, finding that a detachment of the French was in his immediate neighborhood, he made a forced march by night, and coming upon them unawares killed and captured the entire party save one. Ten of the French, including their commander, Jumonville, were killed and twenty-one made prisoners. Though reinforce- ments had been dispatched from the several colonies in response to the urgent appeals of Washington, none reached him but one company of one hundred men, under the command of the insubordinate Captain Mackay, from South Carolina. Knowing that he was confronting a vastly superior force of the French, well supplied with artillery, he threw up defensive works at a point called the Great Meadows, in the present county of Fayette, Pa., and named his hastily built fortification Fort Necessity. Stung by the loss of Jumonville and his command, the French came on in strong force and soon invested the place. Washington informs us that he had chosen a "charming field for an encounter," but unfortunately for him one part of his position was easily com- manded by the artillery of the French, which they were not slow in taking


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advantage of. The action opened on the 3d of July, and was continued till late at night. A capitulation was then proposed by the French commander, which Washington reluctantly accepted, seeing all hope of reinforcements reaching him cut off, and on the 4th of July marched out with the honors of war and fell back to Will's Creek, now Cumberland, Md.


The French were now in complete possession of the country claimed by them from the mouth of the St. Lawrence via the Great Lakes and the head waters of the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers to the Mississippi. Along this line gayly- dressed French officers sped backward and forward, attended by the fierce warriors of their allied tribes, and not unfrequently by the Senecas, who seemed more friendly to them than to the English. Dark-gowned Jesuits also hastened to and fro, everywhere receiving the respect of the red men, even when their creed was rejected, and using all their art to magnify the power of both Rome and France.


Possession and victory counted heavily in the balance. Many of the Sen- ecas, and nearly all of the Indian tribes in the Canadas and the great North- west, east of the Mississippi, were the friends and allies of the French, and it is probable that the whole Iroquois confederacy would have been induced to become active partisans of the French had it not been for one man, the skillful English superintendent of Indian affairs, soon to be known as Sir William Johnson. He, having in 1734 been sent to America as the agent of his uncle, a great landholder in the valley of the Mohawk, had gained almost unbounded influence over the Mohawks by integrity in dealing and native shrewdness, combined with a certain coarseness of nature which readily affiliated with them. He had made his power felt throughout the whole confederacy, and had been intrusted by the British government with the management of its relations with the Six Nations.


The English, meanwhile, were not idle spectators of the enterprise and activity displayed by their ancient enemy, the French, in their efforts to occupy, hold, and possess the greater and best portions of North America. Hence, determined to push military operations, the British government had called, carly in the year of 1755, upon the provinces of New York, Pennsyl- vania, and Virginia for several thousand volunteers, and had sent two regi- ments of its standing army, under General Braddock, from Cork, Ireland. Landing at Alexandria, Va., he marched to Frederick, Md., and thence by a circuitous route to Will's Creek, or Fort Cumberland, Md., where all of the troops under his command were concentrated.


It seems that he had formed extravagant plans for his campaign. He would march forward and reduce Fort Du Quesnc, thence procced against Fort Niagara, which having conquered, he would close a scason of triumphs by the capture of Fort Frontenac. But this was not the first nor the last time in war- fare that the result of a campaign had failed to realize the promises of the mani-


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festo. The orders brought by Braddock giving officers of the line precedence over those who commanded the provincial forces gave great offense, and Washington, among others, because of this, as well as the cutting criticisms indulged in regarding his brief campaign in the Monongahela valley during the previous year, threw up his commission; but, enamored of the profes- sion of arms, he accepted the position offered him by General Braddock as volunteer aid-de-camp. Accustomed to the discipline of military establish- ments in old, long-settled countries, Braddock had little conception of making war in a wilderness with only Indian paths, or " trails," to move upon, against wily savages. He was advised by Washington and other provincial officers to push forward with pack-horses, and by rapidity of movement forestall ample preparations on the part of his enemy. But the English general knew of but one way of soldiering, and, where roads did not exist sufficient to pass his cum- brous wagon trains and artillery, he stopped to fell the forest and bridge the streams. The French, who were kept advised of his every movement by their Indian scouts and runners, made ample preparations to receive him, though they were much less in numbers.


In the mean time Washington fell sick ; but intent on being up for the bat- tle, he hastened forward as soon as sufficiently recovered, and only joined the army on the day before the fatal engagement. He had never seen much of the pride and circumstance of war, and when, on the morning of the 9th of July, the army of Braddock marched on across the Monongahela, with gay colors flying and martial music awakening the echoes of the forest, he was accustomed in subsequent years to speak of it as the " most magnificent spec- tacle " he had ever beheld. But the gay pageant was destined to be of but short duration, for the army had only marched a little distance before it fell into an ambuscade skillfully laid by the French and Indians at a point within a few miles of Fort Du Quesne, and the forest resounded with the unearthly whoop of the Indians and the continuous roar of musketry. The advance was checked and thrown into confusion by the French from their well-chosen position, and every tree upon the flanks of the long drawn out line concealed a murderous foe, who, with unerring aim, picked off the officers. A resolute stand was made, and the battle raged with great fury for three hours; but the fire of the English regulars, who were held in close ranks, was of little effect because directed against an invisible foe. The few Virginia provincials, how- ever, fighting in their own way, made it exceedingly warm for some, at least, of the French and Indians. Finally, the English mounted officers having all fallen killed or wounded, panic seized the survivors, and they fled from the field in dismay, leaving their dead, their baggage, artillery, etc., and nearly all of their wounded in the hands of an inferior force of the French and their sav- age allies.


Of the fourteen hundred and sixty officers and men of Braddock's army


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engaged in this battle, four hundred and fifty-six were killed and four hun- dred and twenty-one wounded, a greater loss, in proportion to the number engaged, than has ever occurred in the annals of modern warfare. The sur- prising statement that more men were killed than wounded, is accounted for from the fact that when the English fled from the field, the Indians bounded forth from their coverts and tomahawked and scalped many of the wounded ere the more humane of the Frenchmen could put a stop to the slaughter. Sir Peter Halkert, the second in rank of the British forces, was killed, and Brad- dock, mortally wounded, was brought off the field by Washington, assisted by less than a score of other subalterns and soldiers, with the greatest difficulty.


The panic-stricken survivors fled back to the reserve forces commanded by Colonel Dunbar, who, it appears, was also seized with fright, though his re- serves more than outnumbered the combined French and Indians at Du Quesne ; and without attempting to halt the fugitives, to renew the campaign and return to the encounter, he abandoned his trains, destroyed his stores and artillery, and joined in a disgraceful flight, which was not stayed until Fort Cumber- land was reached. The French remained at Fort Du Quesne anticipating a renewal of the struggle ; but when they found that the English had fled, leav- ing the frontier all unprotected, they left no stone unturned in whetting the minds of the savages for the work of plunder and blood, and in organizing relentless bands to range at will along all the wide border. The Indians could not be induced to pursue the retreating English, but fell to plundering the field. Nearly everything was lost, even to the camp-chest of Braddock. The wounded general was taken back to the summit of Laurel Hill, where, after four days, he breathed his last. He was buried in the middle of the road, and the army marched over his grave that it might not be discovered or molested by the Indians.


This easy victory, won chiefly by the savages, served to encourage them in their fell work, in which, when their passions were aroused, no known people on earth were less touched by pity. The unprotected settler in his wilderness home was the easy prey of the torch and the scalping-knife, and the burning cabins lit up the somber forests by their continuous blaze, and the shrieks of women and children resounded from the Hudson to the Potomac. Before the defeat of Braddock there were three thousand men capable of bearing arms residing in that part of Pennsylvania lying west of the Susquehanna. Six months later there were scarcely one hundred.


The ferment in the wilderness daily grew more earnest, and in this hour of extremity the Indians for the most part showed themselves a treacherous race, ever ready to take up on the stronger side. Even the Shawanese and Dela- wares, who had been loudest in their protestations of friendship for the English and readiness to fight for them, no sooner saw the French victorious than they gave ready ear to their advice to strike for the recovery of the lands which


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they had voluntarily sold to the English. As days passed the gay officers and soldiers of King Louis of France more frequently sped from Quebec, and Fron- tenac, and Niagara, now in bateaux, now on foot, through and along the bor- ders of the present county of Warren, to Fort Du Quesne ; staying a few hours perchance to hold a council with the Seneca sachems, then hurrying forward to strengthen the feeble line of posts on which so much depended.


In 1756, after two years of open hostilities in America, and several impor- tant conflicts, war was again declared between England and France, being their last great struggle for supremacy in the New World. In this war the Mohawks were persuaded by Sir William Johnson to take the field in favor of the En- glish. But the Senecas, as before mentioned, were quite friendly to the French, and were only restrained from taking up arms for them as a nation by an unwillingness to fight against their Iroquois brethren farther east. A few of them, without a doubt, did assist the French to defeat Braddock. Indeed, it has frequently been asserted that "Cornplanter," an Indian chieftain whose name is indissolubly connected with the history of Warren county, then a young half-breed warrior of about the age of Washington, was one of the fierce young Seneca braves who were with the French at Fort Du Quesne; but this statement is not well authenticated.


For a time, as we have shown, the French were everywhere victorious. Braddock, almost at the gates of Fort Du Quesne, was slain, and his army cut in pieces by a force utterly contemptible in comparison with his own. Mont- calm had captured Oswego, and the French lines up the Great Lakes and across the country to Fort Du Quesne were stronger than ever. But in 1758 William Pitt entered the councils of George II, as nominal though not actual chief of the ministry, and then England flung herself in deadly earnest into the contest. That year Fort Du Quesne was captured by an English and Provin- cial army under General Forbes, and Fort Pitt erected upon its ruins, the French garrison having destroyed their fort, etc., and retreated while the En- glish were thundering at their gates. To the northward Fort Frontenac was seized by Colonel Bradstreet, and other victories prepared the way for the grand success in 1759. The Gallic cordon was broken, but Fort Niagara still held out for France; still the messengers ran forward and backward, to and from Presque Isle, Le Bœuf, Venango, and the upper valley of the Allegheny, and still the Senecas strongly declared their friendship, and in many instances their undying fealty for Yonnondio and Yonnondio's royal master.


Yet heavier blows were struck in 1759. Wolf assailed Quebec, the strongest of all the French strongholds. Almost at the same time General Prideaux with two thousand British and Provincials, accompanied by Sir William John- son with one thousand of his faithful Iroquois, sailed up Lake Ontario and laid siege to Fort Niagara. Defended by only six hundred men, its capture was certain unless speedy relief could be obtained.


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Its commander, however, was not idle. Once again along the Niagara and up Lake Erie, and away through the forests to the south and westward, sped his lithe, red-skinned messengers to summon the sons and the dusky allies of France. D'Aubrey, at Venango, heard the call and responded with his most zealous endeavors. Gathering all the troops he could muster from far and near, stripping bare with desperate energy the little French posts of the West, and mustering every red man he could persuade to follow his banners, he set forth to the relief of Niagara.


Thus it was that in July, 1759, while the English army was still encamped around the walls of Quebec, while Wolf and Montcalm were approaching that common grave to which the path of military glory was soon to lead them, a stirring scene was being enacted along the southeastern shores of Lake Erie and its outlet. At that time the largest European force which had yet been seen in this region at any one time came coasting down the lake from Presque Isle, past the portage which led to Lake Chautauqua and the Conewango, and along the beach skirting the present counties of Chautauqua and Erie, N. Y., to the mouth of the limpid Buffalo. Fifty or sixty bateaux bore nearly a thousand hardy Frenchmen on their mission of relief, while a long line of slippery-bottomed canoes were freighted with four hundred or more of the dusky warriors of the West.




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