USA > Pennsylvania > Warren County > History of Warren County, Pennsylvania, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of some of its Prominent Men and Pioneers > Part 9
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A motley yet gallant band it was which then hastened along on the des- perate service of sustaining the fast-failing fortunes of France. Gay young officers, fresh from the court of the French monarch, sat side by side with sun- burned trappers and voyageurs, whose feet had trodden every mountain and prairie from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi. Veterans who had won lau- rels under the marshals of France were here comrades of those who knew no other foc than the Iroquois, the Delawares, and the scowling Sioux.
One boat was filled with soldiers trained to obey with unquestioning fidelity every word of their leaders ; another contained only wild savages who scarcely acknowledged any other law than their own fierce will. Here flashed swords and bayoncts and brave attire, there appcared the dark long rifles and buckskin garments of the hardy scouts and hunters, while still further on the tomahawks and scalping-knives and partly naked bodies of the savage contingent glistencd in the July sun. There were some, too, among the younger men, who might fairly have taken their places in either batcau or canoe; whose features bore unmistakable evidence of the commingling of diverse races; who might per- chance have justly claimed kindred with barons and chevaliers then resplen- dent in the salons of Paris, but who had drawn their infant nourishment from the breasts of dusky mothers, as they rested from hoeing corn and other drudgery on the banks of streams flowing into the Allegheny and Ohio.
History has preserved but a slight record of this last struggle of the French for dominion in these regions, but it has rescued from oblivion the names of
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D'Aubrey, the commander, and De Lignery, his chief lieutenant ; of Marin, the leader of the Indians, and of the captains, De Villiers, Repentini, Martini, and Basonc. These men were by no means despondent. Their commands con- tained many of the same men, both white and red, who had slaughtered the unlucky battalions of Braddock only two years before, and they might well hope that some similar turn of fortune would give them another victory over the foes of France.
The Seneca warriors, snuffing the battle from their homes on the Genesee and the head waters of the Allegheny, were roaming restlessly through the lake regions and along the shores of the Niagara River, quite uncertain how to act; more friendly to the French than the English, and yet unwilling to engage in conflict with their brethren of the Six Nations. Hardly pausing, however, to communicate with his doubtful friends, D'Aubrey led his flotilla past the pleasant groves whose place is now occupied by a great commercial emporium (the city of Buffalo), hurried by the tall bluff now crowned by the battlements of Fort Porter, and only halted on reaching the shores of Navy Island. After staying here a day or two to communicate with the fort, he passed over to the mainland and confidently marched forward to battle.
But Sir William Johnson, who had succeeded to the command of the Brit- ish forces on the death of Prideaux, was not the kind of man likely to meet the fate of Braddock. Apprised of the approach of the French, he posted men enough before the fort to prevent an outbreak or sortie of the beleaguered gar- rison, and stationed the rest in an advantageous position on the east side of the Niagara, just below the whirlpool. After a sanguinary contest of an hour's duration the French were utterly routed, several hundred being slain on the field and a large number of the remainder being captured, including the wounded D'Aubrey.
On the receipt of this disastrous news the garrison at once surrendered. And thus the control of the Niagara River, which for more than a hundred years had been in the hands of the French, passed into those of the En- glish. For a little while the French held possession of a few minor posts and fortifications, leading from Niagara to the mouth of French Creek. Becoming satisfied, however, that they could not withstand their powerful foe with any certainty of success, the forts, fortifications, etc., along this line were soon after hastily dismantled, and the garrisons left in bateaux for Detroit. Upon taking their departure they told the Indians that they had been driven away by supe- rior numbers, but would return in sufficient force to hold the country perma- nently. In this, however, they were too sanguine, as they were destined never again to occupy Northwestern Pennsylvania.
The English did not take formal possession of these forts until 1760, when Major Robert Rogers was sent out in command of two hundred Provincial rangers for that purpose. He repaired and garrisoned the forts at Presque Isle
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and Le Bœuf. Fort Machault, however, the French work at the mouth of French Creek, having been totally destroyed by its garrison at the time of its evacuation, was never rebuilt; but instead, the English in 1760 went about forty rods higher up on the Allegheny and built Fort Venango. The long, desolating war between England and France finally closed with the signing of the treaty of Paris, February 10, 1763, and by its sweeping provisions the Canadas and all the vast regions in the West heretofore claimed by the French were ceded to England.
The struggle was over. Forever destroyed was the prospect of a French peasantry inhabiting the hills and valleys of Warren county ; of baronial cas- tles crowning its vine-clad heights, and of gay French villas and towns over- looking the picturesque Allegheny.
CHAPTER IX.
ENGLISH DOMINION.
Pontiac's Conspiracy - Th> Devil's Hole - A Fight at Black Rock - Bradstreet's Expedi- tion - Sulky Senecas - The Troops Composing Bradstreet's Command - Israel Putnam - The Revolution - Four Iroquois Tribes Hostile - The Treaty at Oswego - A Price for American Scalps - Brant, the Mohawk -- Principal Seneca Chiefs- Wyoming - Cornplanter Conspic- uous - His Many Names, etc. - Cherry Valley - Amerieans Retaliate -- Brodhead's Expedi- tion -- Sullivan's Indian Campaign - Results - Close of the War, and of English Rule.
A LTHOUGH the French soldiers had disappeared, the western tribes still remembered them with affection and were still disposed to wage war upon the English. In truth, no sooner were the latter in complete possession of the country, than they began by neglect and ill treatment to excite the worst passions of the red men. The mutterings of the coming storm, therefore, soon began to be heard, and in May, 1763, the great Indian uprising known as "Pontiac's Conspiracy " occurred, resulting in the capture of nine out of twelve English posts, and the relentless massacre of their garrisons. The forts at Venango, Le Bœuf, and Presque Isle were among those which fell before the fierce onslaught of the savages, while those at Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Niagara alone escaped surprise, and each successfully resisted a siege, in which branch of war, indeed, the Indians were almost certain to fail as against white men. There is no positive evidence, but there is little doubt that the Senecas were involved in Pontiac's league, and were active in the attack on Fort Niagara. They had been unwilling to fight their brethren of the Long House, under Sir William Johnson, but had no scruples about killing the English when left alone, as was soon made terribly manifest.
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In the September following occurred the awful tragedy of the Devil's Hole, when a band of Senecas, of whom Honayewus, afterwards celebrated as Far- mer's Brother, was one, and Cornplanter probably another, ambushed a train of English army-wagons with an escort of soldiers, the whole numbering ninety- six men, three and a half miles below Niagara Falls, and massacred every man with four exceptions.
A few weeks later - October 10, 1763 - while six hundred British soldiers under Major Wilkins were on their way in boats to reinforce their comrades at Detroit, and when just upon the point of passing from the Niagara River into Lake Erie, a hundred and sixty of them, who were half a mile astern of the others, were suddenly fired upon by a band of Senecas, ensconced in a thicket on the river shore, probably on the site of Black Rock. Though even the British estimated the enemy at only sixty, yet so close was their aim that thir- teen men were killed and wounded at the first fire. The captain in command of the nearest boats immediately ordered fifty men ashore and attacked the Indians. The latter fell back a short distance, but rallied, and when the Brit- ish pursued them they maintained their ground so well that three more were killed on the spot, and twelve others badly wounded, including two commis- sioned officers. Meanwhile, under the protection of other soldiers, who formed on the beach, the boats made their way into the lake, and the men who had taken part in the fight were enabled to re-embark. It does not appear that the Indians suffered nearly as heavily as the soldiers.
This was the last serious attack by the Senecas upon the English. Becom- ing at length convinced that the French had really yielded, and that Pontiac's scheme had failed as to its main purpose, they sullenly agreed to abandon their Gallic friends and be at peace with the English.
Events in the West, however, where Pontiac still maintained an active but unavailing hostility to the British, as well as the massacres previously perpe- trated by the Senecas, determined the English commander-in-chief to send a force up the lakes able to overcome all opposition. Accordingly, in the sum- mer of 1764, General Bradstreet, an able officer, with twelve hundred British and Americans, proceeded by water to Fort Niagara, accompanied by the indefatigable Sir William Johnson and a strong body of his Mohawk warriors. A grand council of friendly Indians was held at the fort, among whom Sir William exercised his customary skill, and satisfactory treaties were made with them.
But the Senecas, though repeatedly promising attendance in answer to the baronet's messages, still held aloof and were said to be meditating a renewal of war. At length General Bradstreet ordered their immediate attendance under penalty of the destruction of their settlements. This threat had its desired effect. They came, ratified the treaty, and thereafter adhered to it pretty faithfully, notwithstanding the peremptory manner in which it was
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obtained. In the mean time a fort had been erected on the site of Fort Erie, the first ever built there.
In August Bradstreet's army, increased to nearly three thousand men, among whom were three hundred Senecas (who seem to have been taken along partly as hostages), proceeded westward along the south shore of Lake Erie, for the purpose of bringing the Western Indians to terms, a task which was successfully accomplished without bloodshed. From the somewhat indefinite accounts which have come down to us, it is evident that the journey was made in open boats, rigged with sails, with which, when the wind was favorable, excellent speed was made.
This army, like D'Aubrey's, was a somewhat mixed one. There were stalwart, red-coated British regulars, who, when they marched, did so as one man ; hardy New England provincials, or "minute men," whose dress and discipline and military maneuvers were but a poor imitation of the imported Britons, yet who had faced the legions of France on many a well-fought field ; rude hunters of the border, to whom all discipline was irksome; faithful Indian allies from the Mohawk valley, trained to admiration of the English by Sir William Johnson ; and finally the three hundred dark, sullen Senecas, their hands red from the massacre of the Devil's Hole, and almost ready to stain them again with English blood.
Of the British and Americans, who then in closest friendship and under the same banners passed along the shores of Lake Erie, there were not a few who in twelve years more were destined to seek each other's lives on the bat- tle-fields of the Revolution. Among them was one whose name was a tower of strength to the patriotic dwellers of America, whose voice rallied the falter- ing soldiers at Bunker Hill, and whose fame has come down to us surrounded by a peculiar halo of adventurous valor. This was Israel Putnam, then a loyal soldier of King George, and lieutenant-colonel commanding the Connecticut battalion.
For a while after the successful termination of Bradstreet's expedition there was peace, not only between England and France, but between the Indians and the colonists. But this quiet condition of affairs was destined to be of but brief duration. The Senecas, who it seems were chronic grumblers, always in trouble and ever ready for a fight-and a massacre, if they could accomplish it-began to make complaints of depredations committed by whites on some of their number, who had villages on the head waters of the Susque- hanna and Allegheny in Pennsylvania. "Cressap's war," in which the cele- brated Logan was an actor, also contributed to render them uncasy, but they did not break out into open hostilities. They, like the rest of the Six Nations, had by this time learned to place explicit confidence in Sir William Johnson, and made all their complaints through him.
He did his best to redress their grievances, and also sought to have them
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withdraw their villages from those isolated localities in Pennsylvania to their chief seats in New York, so that they would be more completely under his jurisdiction and protection. Ere this could be accomplished, however, all men's attention was drawn to certain mutterings in the political sky, low at first, but growing more and more angry until at length there burst upon the coun- try that long and desolating storm of war known as the Revolution.
As the danger of hostilities increased, the Johnsons, at Johnson's Hall, showed themselves more and more clearly on the side of the king. Sir Will- iam said little and seemed greatly disturbed by the gathering trouble. There is little doubt, however, that had he lived he would have used his power in behalf of his royal master. But in 1774 he suddenly died. Much of his influence over the Six Nations descended to his son, Sir John Johnson, and his nephew, Colonel Guy Johnson ; the latter becoming his successor in the office of superintendent of Indian affairs.
The Revolution began in 1775, and soon after the new superintendent per- suaded the Mohawks to move westward with him, and made good his influence over all the Six Nations except the Oneidas and Tuscaroras, though it was nearly two years from the breaking out of the war before they committed any serious hostilities. John Butler, however, established himself at Fort Niagara, and organized a regiment of Tories known as Butler's Rangers, and he and the Johnsons used all their influence to induce the Indians to attack the Amer- icans.
The prospect of both scalps and pay was too much for the Senecas long to withstand, and in 1777 they, in common with the Cayugas, Onondagas, and Mohawks, made a treaty with the British at Oswego, agreeing to serve the king throughout the war. Mary Jemison, the "white woman " then living among the Senecas on the Genesee, has declared that at that treaty the British agents, after giving the Indians numerous presents, "promised a bounty on every scalp that should be brought in."
The question whether a price was actually paid or promised for scalps has been widely debated. There is not sufficient evidence to prove that it was done, and the probabilities are that it was not. Mary Jemison was usually con- sidered truthful, and had good means of knowing what the Indians understood on the subject, but the latter were very ready to understand that they would be paid for taking scalps. Whether the British paid a bounty for scalps or not, the Indians were certainly employed by them to assail the inhabitants with constant marauding parties, notwithstanding their well-known and inveterate habit of slaughtering and scalping men, women, and children whenever oppor- tunity offered. In fact they were good for very little else, their desultory methods of warfare making them almost entirely useless in assisting the regu- lar operations of an army.
As formerly the Senecas, though favorable to the French, hesitated about
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attacking their brethren of the Long House, or the combined nations of the confederacy, so now the Oneidas, who were friendly to the Americans, did not go out to battle against the other Iroquois, but remained neutral throughout the contest. The great league was weakened but not destroyed.
From the autumn of 1777 forward, the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, and Mohawks were active in the British interests. Fort Niagara again became, as it had been during the French War, the key of all this region, and to it the Iro- quois constantly looked for support and guidance. Their raids kept the whole frontier for hundreds of miles in a state of terror, and were attended by all the horrors of savage warfare.
The most active and most celebrated of the Iroquois chiefs in the Revolu- tion was Joseph Brant, or Thayendenegea, a Mohawk who had received a mod- erate English education under the patronage of Sir William Johnson. He was most frequently intrusted with the command of detached parties by the British officers, but it does not appear that he had authority over all the tribes, and it is almost certain that the haughty Senecas, the most powerful tribe of the con- federacy, to whom, indeed, by ancient custom belonged the right of choosing the principal war-chiefs of the league, would not have submitted and did not submit to the control of a Mohawk.
Of the Senecas who became most conspicuous during this period, in carry- ing death and destruction to many American border settlements, were the chiefs " Farmer's Brother," "Cornplanter," and "Governor Blacksnake." The first two, it will be remembered, are credited with the massacre of over ninety British soldiers at the Devil's Hole, and, it has been stated, werc half brothers. These three chiefs seem to have been the principal leaders of the Seneca mur- derers during the struggle for American independence, but which one of them was the ranking chieftain has not been learned. It is probable, however, that they acted independently to a certain extent, and that cach received his orders directly from the British officers when ready to start forth against the frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania.
In the summer of 1778 a force of savages and sour-faced Tories to the number of about twelve hundred-under the leadership of Colonel John Butler, the cruel and inhuman wretch before mentioned-descending from Fort Niag- ara and the Seneca country, appeared in the Wyoming valley, or the present county of Luzerne, Pa., on the 2d of July. The strong men of the valley were serving in Washington's army, and the only defenders were old men, bcardless boys, and resolute women. These old men and boys, to the number of about four hundred, under Colonel Zebulon Butler, a brave soldier who had won dis- tinction in the old French War, and who happened to be present, moved reso- lutely out to meet the invaders. Overborne by numbers, the inhabitants were beaten and put to the sword, the few who escaped retreating to Forty Fort, whither the helpless, up and down the valley, had sought safety. Here humane
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ENGLISH DOMINION.
terms of surrender were agreed to, and the families returned to their homes, supposing all danger to be past. But the savages had tasted blood, and per- haps captured liquor, and were little mindful of capitulations. The night of the 5th was given to indiscriminate massacre, burning, and pillage. The cries of the wounded and helpless rang out upon the night air, and the heavens all along the valley were lighted up with the flames of burning cottages; "and when the moon arose, the surviving, terrified inhabitants were flecing to the Wilkesbarre Mountains and the dark morasses of the Pocono Mountain beyond." Most of these were emigrants from Connecticut, and they made their way homeward as fast as their feet would carry them, many of them crossing the Hudson at Poughkeepsie, where they told their tales of woe.
Another writer, intending to speak in extenuation of the conduct of the Tories and Indians, says " no quarter was given during the conflict; and after the Americans were routed the Tories and Senecas pursued and killed all they could ;" but that " those who reached the fort and afterward surrendered were not harmed, nor were any of the non-combatants. The whole valley, how- ever, was devastated and the houses burned " We leave it to the impartial reader to decide whether this presentation adds to or detracts from the unen- viable reputation of the Tories and Senecas.
W. L. Stone, in his " Life of Brant," says that Brant, the Mohawk, was not present at Wyoming, and that the leader of the Senecas, who formed the main body of the Indian force on that ever memorable occasion, was Gui-eng-wah- tok. Now, as we understand it, Stone was not at all familiar with the multi- plicity of names borne by "the Cornplanter " through life, and, since we find the Indian name of the latter variously written by white men who knew him, as Guiengwako, Gientwadoh, Kientwoughko, Gyantwado, Gyantawanka, Cyen- tookee, Cyentwokee, Gyantwache, Kiendtwoke, Gyantwachia, Gientwakia, and Gyantwahia, we strongly incline to the belief that the " Guiengwahtoh " men- tioned by Brant and Stone was none other than the then blood-stained savage, " Captain John O'Bail," or " the Cornplanter."
Equally strange and contradictory are the statements respecting Corn- planter's parentage, and in spelling another of his many names. One says that his father was a Frenchman, another that he was an Irishman, while a third gravely asserts that the Cornplanter and Red Jacket were brothers. Then, too, we find that his reputed father's name has been written and printed Obeal, O'Bail, O'Bayle, Abeil, Obeel, Abeel, Abeal, and O'Bale. The reader can form his own opinion regarding the chief's progenitor, but we will venture to assert that he (Cornplanter) and Red Jacket were not brothers.
Returning to the harrowing scenes of the Revolution, we find that at Cherry Valley, N. Y., the same year (1778) the blood-thirsty Senecas were present in force, together with a body of Mohawks under Brant, and of Tories under Captain Walter Butler, son of Colonel John Butler, and there then was 6
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an undoubted massacre. Nearly thirty women and children were killed, besides many men surprised helpless in their homes.
These events and similar ones on a smaller scale induced Congress and General Washington, in the spring of 1779, to set on foot movements of strong bodies of Continental troops into the Indian country by way of retaliation. These expeditions against the hostile tribes of the Six Nations were com- manded, respectively, by General Sullivan and Colonel Brodhead. The lat- ter's route led him through the present county of Warren, and his report to the commander-in-chief of the Continental armies, made at the conclusion of the campaign, was as follows :
" To His Excellency Gen. Washington.
" Pittsburg, Sep'r 16th, 1779.
" DEAR GENERAL: I returned from the expedition against the Seneca and Muncy nations the 14th inst., and now do myself the honor to inform you how far I have succeeded in prosecuting it.
" I left this place the 11th of last month with six hundred & five Rank & File, including Militia & Volunteers, & one Month's provision which except the live Cattle was transported by water under the escort of one hundred men to a place called Mahoning, about 15 Miles above Fort Armstrong,1 where after four days detention by excessive Rains & the straying of some of the Cattle, the stores were loaded on Pack Horses, and the troops proceeded on the march for Canawago 2 on the path leading to Cuscushing; at ten miles on this side the town, one of the advance guards consisting of fifteen White men, including the spies & Eight Delaware Indians, under the command of Lieut. Hardin of the 8th Penn'a Reg't, whom I have before recommended to your Excellency for his great bravery & skill as a partisan, discovered between thirty and Forty warriors coming down the Allegheny River in seven Canocs. These warriors having likewise discovered some of the Troops, immediately landed, stript off their shirts and prepared for action, and the advanced Guard immediately began the attack. All the troops except one column and Flank- ers being in the narrows between the River and high hill were immediately prepared to receive the enemy, which being done I went forward to discover the Enemy, and saw six of them retreating over the River without arms, at the same time the rest ran away leaving their Canoes, Blankets, Shirts, provisions and eight Guns, besides five dead and by the signs of Blood, several went off wounded; only two of my men and one of the Delaware Indians (Nanouland) were wounded and so slightly that they are already recovered & fit for action. The next morning the Troops proceeded to Buchloons,3 where I ordered a
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