History of Washington County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 15

Author: Crumrine, Boyd, 1838-1916; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Hungerford, Austin N
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : H.L. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 1216

USA > Pennsylvania > Washington County > History of Washington County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 15

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

others present had been in their camp about four weeks past on our descending the river from Pitts- burgh. In short, every person seemed to detest the resolution we had set out with. We returned in the evening, decamped, and took the road to Redstone."

From this account it appears that Clarke's party, well knowing that an Indian war must follow the events here narrated, abandoned the original idea of proceeding to Kentucky, and marched with Cresap's men to his headquarters at Redstone Old Fort, on the Monongahela. They carried with them on a litter one man who had been mortally wounded in the fight with the Indians on the 27th of April. Two others had been wounded but not seriously. The party, in marching from Wheeling to Redstone, proceeded by way of Catfish Camp (now Washington borough), and in the evening of the 29th stopped there at the house of William Huston, who was then the only white resident at that place. A certificate setting forth the circumstances of this occurrence was made in 1798 by Huston, subscribed before David Redick, then prothonotary of Washington County, and placed in his hands. A copy of it is here given, viz. :

"I, William Huston, of Washington County, in the State of Pennsyl- vania, do hereby certify to whom it may concern : That in the year 1774 I resided at Catfish's Camp, on the main path from Wheeling to Red- stone; that Michael Cresap, who resided on or near the Potomac River, on his way up from the river Ohio, at the head of a party of armed men, lay some time at my cabin. I had previously heard the report of Mr. Cresap having killed some Indians said to be the relations of Logan, an Indian Chief. In a variety of conversations with several of Cresap's party they boasted of the deed, and that in the presence of their chief. They acknowledged that they had fired first on the Indians. They had with them one man on a litter who was in the skirmish.

"I do further certify that, from what I learned from the party them- selves, I then formed the opinion, and have not had any reason to change that opinion since, that the killing, on the part of the whites, was what I deem the grossest murder. I further certify that some of the party who afterwards killed some women and other Indians at Baker's Bottom also lay at my cabin on their march to the interior part of the country ; they had with them a little girl, whose life had been spared by the inter- ference of some more humane than the rest. If necessary, I will make affidavit to the above to be true. Certified at Washington, this 18th day of April, A.D. 1798.

" WILLIAM HUSTON."

Immediately after the occurrence of the events nar- rated as above by Clarke came the killing of the In- dians at Captina Creek and the murder of the rela- tives of the Mingo chief Logan at Baker's Bottom, on the Ohio, the date of the last-named event being April 30th. The so-called speech of Logan fastened the odium of killing his people in cold blood on Capt. Michael Cresap, of Redstone Old Fort. That the charge was false and wholly unjust is now known by all people well informed on the subject. Cresap did, however, engage in the killing of other Indians, being no doubt incited thereto by the deceitful tenor of Dr. Connolly's letters, which were evidently written for the express purpose of inflaming the minds of the frontiersmen by false information, and so bringing about a general Indian war.

The chief Logan, with a hunting party of his In- dians, and having with them their women and chil-

1 The country around Pittsburgh was then claimed by both Virginia and Pennsylvania, but Clarke, being a Virginian, viewed the matter entirely from the Virginian stand-point.

2 Dr. John Connolly. a nephew of George Croghan, the deputy super- intendent of Indian affairs.

8 All this region was at that time claimed by Virginia to be within its " West Augusta" District.

4 The Mingo chief Logan, the murder of whose family in this war was charged on Capt. Cresap; but the whole tenor of this letter of Gen. Clarke goes to prove the injustice of the charge.

DUNMORE'S WAR.

dren, had pitched his hunting-camp at the mouth of Yellow Creek, about thirty miles above Wheeling, on the west side of the Ohio, and opposite Baker's Bot- tom on the Virginia side, where lived Joshua Baker, whose chief occupation was selling liquor to the In- dians. From the time when Logan had first pitched his camp at Yellow Creek it had been the determina- tion of some of the whites to attack it and kill the Indian party, but in their first attempt to do this they had been overruled in their purpose, chiefly by the influence of Capt. Cresap, as is shown in Clarke's account before quoted. But after Cresap and Clarke had departed with their men for Redstone, and while they were making their way from Catfish Camp to the Monongahela, on the day succeeding the night which they spent at William Huston's cabin, the plan to kill the Indians of Logan's party was put in execution (during the absence of the chief) by enticing a part of them across the river to Baker's cabin, where a party of white men lay concealed. There liquor was given them, and then when they or some of them were in a state of partial intoxication the bloody work was done, all the Indians at the house being killed except an infant child. The party who did the perfidious and cold-blooded deed were under the leadership of Daniel Greathouse, a settler on King's Creek near its mouth. Several accounts of the affair have been given, generally agreeing as to the main facts, but disagreeing to some extent as to the minor details. One account has it that in the evening preceding the tragedy a friendly squaw came across the river from Logan's camp and told Baker's wife with many tears that the lives of herself (Mrs. Baker) and her family were in danger, as the Indians were planning to come across and murder them. She wished well to Mrs. Baker, and thus risked her own life to serve her by bringing the information so as to allow the family time to escape. Upon receipt of this warning Greathouse's party was collected in haste at the cabin. No Indians appeared during the night, and on the following morning Greathouse and two or three others crossed to Logan's camp, and in an apparently friendly manner invited the Indians to come across to Baker's and get some rum. A party of them accepted the invitation and came. Most of Greathouse's men lay concealed in the back part of the cabin. Baker was to deal out rum freely to the Indians, and did so. When they became in- toxicated the concealed men rushed out and killed them. In Mayer's " Logan and Cresap" the follow- ing account is given of the massacre :

" Early in the morning a party of eight Indians, composed of three squaws, a child, and four unarmed men, one of whom was Logan's brother, crossed the river to Baker's cabin, where all but Logan's brother obtained liquor and became excessively drunk. No whites except Baker and two of his companions ap- peared in the cabin. After some time Logan's rela- tive took down a coat and hat belonging to Baker's

brother-in-law, and putting them on, set his arms akimbo, strutted about the apartment, and at length coming up to one of the men addressed him with the most offensive epithets and attempted to strike him. | The white man-Sappington-who was thus assailed by language and gesture for some time kept out of his way, but becoming irritated, seized his gun and shot the Indian as he was rushing to the door, still clad in the coat and hat. The men, who during the whole of this scene had remained hidden, now poured forth, and without parley slaughtered the whole Indian party except the child. Before this tragic event oc- curred two canoes, one with two and the other with five Indians, all naked, painted, and completely armed for war, were descried stealing from the opposite shore, where Logan's camp was situated. This was consid- ered as confirmation of what the squaw had said the night before, and was afterwards alleged An justi- fication of the murder of the unarmed party which had first arrived.

"No sooner were the unresisting drunkards dead than the infuriated whites rushed to the river-bank, and ranging themselves along the concealing fringe of underwood prepared to receive the canoes. The first that arrived was the one containing two warriors, who were fired upon and killed. The other canoe immediately turned and fled; but after this two others, containing eighteen warriors, painted and prepared for conflict as the first had been, started to assail the Americans. Advancing more cautiously than the former party, they endeavored to land below Baker's cabin, but being met by the rapid movements of the rangers before they could effect their purpose they were put to flight, with the loss of one man, although they returned the fire of the pioneers."

Another account of the Baker's Bottom massacre was given more than half a century afterwards by Judge Jolley, who for many years was a resident of Washington County, Ohio, and who at the time of the occurrence was a youth living on the frontier. His account, as given below, was published in the year 1836 in "Silliman's Journal," viz. :

" I was about sixteen years of age, but I very well recollect what I then saw, and the information that I have since obtained was derived from (I believe) good authority. In the spring of the year 1774 a party of Indians encamped on the northwest of the Ohio, near the mouth of the Yellow Creek. A party of whites, called 'Greathouse's party, lay on the op- posite side of the river. The Indians came over to the white party, consisting, I think, of five men and one woman with an infant. The whites gave them rum, which three of them drank, and in a short time became very drunk. The other two men and the woman refused to drink. The sober Indians were challenged to shoot at a mark, to which they agreed ; and as soon as they emptied their guns the whites shot them down. The woman attempted to escape I by flight, but was also shot down; she lived long

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

enough, however, to beg mercy for her babe, telling them that it was akin to themselves. The whites had a man in the cabin prepared with a tomahawk for the purpose of killing the three drunken Indians, which was immediately done. The party of men then moved off for the interior settlements, and came to Catfish Camp (Washington) on the evening of the next day, where they tarried until the day following. I very well remember my mother feeding and dressing the babe, chirruping to the little innocent, and its smiling. However, they took it away, and talked of sending it to its supposed father, Col. John Gibson, of Carlisle, Pa., who had been for some years a trader among the Indians.

" The remainder of the (Indian) party at the mouth of Yellow Creek, finding that their friends on the oppo- site side of the river were massacred, attempted to escape by descending the Ohio, and in order to pre- vent being discovered by the whites passed on the west side of Wheeling Island, and landed at Pipe Creek, a small stream that empties into the Ohio a few miles below Grave Creek, where they were over- taken by Cresap with a party of men from Wheeling. They took one Indian scalp, and had one white man (Big Tarrener) badly wounded. They, I believe, carried him in a litter from Wheeling to Redstone. I saw the party on their return from their victorious campaign. ... It was well known that Michael Cre- sap had no hand in the massacre at Yellow Creek."

The concluding sentence in Judge Jolley's state- ment was written in refutation of the calumny which was circulated and for many years believed by a majority of the people of the country, that the mur- der of Logan's men and relatives was done by Capt. Michael Cresap or by his orders. Such an inference might be drawn from the first part of the statement of William Huston, already given, viz., where he says, " I had previously heard the report of Mr. Cresap having killed some Indians, said to be the relations of Logan, an Indian chief." But his memory was evidently at fault. He could not have previously heard of the killing at Yellow Creek, as it did not occur until after the time to which he refers in the certificate. And in the latter part of the same docu- ment he disproves his previous statement by saying, "I further certify that some of the party who after- wards killed some women and other Indians at Baker's Bottom also lay at my cabin on their march to the interior." Another statement that seems to be con- clusive proof of Capt. Cresap's innocence of any par- ticipation in the atrocity at Baker's Bottom is found in an affidavit of the man who shot Logan's brother on that occasion, viz. : "I, John Sappington, declare myself to be intimately acquainted with all the cir- cumstances respecting the destruction of Logan's family, and do give the following narrative, a true statement of that affair: Logan's family (if it was his family) was not killed by Cresap, nor with his knowledge, nor by his consent, but by the Great-

houses and their associates. They were killed thirty miles above Wheeling, near the mouth of Yellow Creek. Logan's camp was on one side of the river Ohio, and the house where the murder was committed was opposite to it on the other side. They had en- camped there only four or five days, and during that time had lived peaceably with the whites on the oppo- site side until the very day the affair happened."

The killing of the Indians at Baker's was on the 30th of April, as before mentioned. Several accounts of the affair, however, have mentioned different dates. Sappington stated many years afterwards that, accord- ing to his memory, it happened on the 24th of May ; Benjamin Tomlinson placed it on the 3d or 4th of May; but Col. Ebenezer Zane gave the date as the last day of April, which is undoubtedly correct. It seems to be verified by a letter addressed to Col. George Washington by his agent, Valentine Crawford, who then lived on Jacob's Creek, near the Youghiogheny River, in Westmoreland County. In that letter (dated Jacob's Creek, May 6, 1774) he says,-

"I am sorry to inform you the Indians have stopped all the gentlemen from going down the river. In the first place they killed one Murphy, a trader, and wounded another, then robbed their canoes. This alarmed the gentlemen very much, and Maj. Cresap took a party of men and waylaid some Indians in their canoes that were going down the river and shot two of them and scalped them. He also raised a party, took canoes and followed some Indians from Wheel- ing down to the Little Kanawha, when, coming up with them, he killed three and wounded several. The Indians wounded three of his men, only one of whom is dead; he was shot through, while the other two were but slightly wounded. On Saturday last, about twelve o'clock, one Greathouse and about twenty men fell on a party of Indians at the mouth of Yellow Creek and killed ten of them. They brought away one child a prisoner, which is now at my brother, William Crawford's. . . . "

On the 8th of May, Capt. William Crawford (who lived on the Youghiogheny River nearly opposite the site of the borough of Connellsville) said, in a letter addressed by him to Col. George Washington,-

"The surveyors that went down the Kanawha,1 as | report goes, were stopped by the Shawanese Indians, upon which some of the white people attacked some Indians, and killed several, took thirty horse-loads of skins near the mouth of Scioto; on which news, and expecting an Indian war, Mr. Cresap and some other people fell on some other Indians at the mouth of Pipe Creek, killed three and scalped them. Daniel -- Greathouse and some others fell on some at the mouth

1 A number of surveyors who rendezvoused at the mouth of New River, on the Kanawha, Thursday, April 14, 1774, to go down the latter river to the Ohio, there to locate and survey lands warranted to certain officers and soldiers in the Old French war under proclamation of the king of England, dated Oct. 7, 1763. The claimants to those lands were notified to meet the surveyors at the place and time mentioned. The intention was to locate the lands on the buttoms of the Ohio River.

DUNMORE'S WAR.

of Yellow Creek, and killed and scalped ten, and took one child about two months old, which is now at my house. I have taken the child from a woman that it had been given to. Our inhabitants are much alarmed, many hundreds having gone over the mountain, and the whole country evacuated as far as the Mononga- hela, and many on this side of the river are gone over the mountain. In short, a war is every moment expected. We have a council now with the Indians. What the event will be I do not know. I am now setting out for Fort Pitt at the head of one hundred men. Many others are to meet me there and at Wheeling, where we shall wait the motions of the Indians and act accordingly. . . . "

The settlers along the frontiers, and in all the terri- tory that now forms the counties of Washington and Greene, were in a state of the wildest alarm, well know- ing that the Indians would surely make war in revenge for the killing of their people at Captina and Yellow Creek, and most of them immediately sought safety, either in block-houses or by abandoning their settle- ments and flying eastward across the Monongahela, | then was. They set out in search of enemies; found the man's coat and saw a number of tracks, but could not find the man."

and many across the Allegheny Mountains.1 Valen- tine Crawford, in his letter of May 6th to Col. Wash- ington (before quoted from), said, "This alarm has caused the people to move from over the Monongahela, off Chartiers and Raccoon [Creeks], as fast as you ever saw them in the year 1756 or 1757 down in Frederick County, Virginia. There were more than one thousand people crossed the Monongahela in one day at three fer- ries that are not one mile apart."

The general alarm among the inhabitants was well founded. The Indians, burning to revenge the killing of their people on the Ohio, particularly at Captina and Yellow Creek, at once took the war-path and ranged eastward to and across the Monongahela, burning, plundering, and killing. On the 8th of June Valentine Crawford said in a letter to Col. Washington, "Since I just wrote you an account of several parties of Indians being among the in- habitants has reached us. Yesterday they killed and scalped one man in sight of the fort [Fort Burd, at Brownsville] on the Monongahela,-one of the in- mates. ... There have been several parties of sav- ages seen within these two or three days, and all seem to be making towards the Laurel Hill or mountain. For that reason the people are afraid to travel the road by Gist's, but go a nigh way by Indian Creek, or ride in the night. ... On Sunday evening, about four miles over Monongahela, the Indians murdered one family, consisting of six, and took two boys pris-

oners. At another place they killed three, which makes in the whole nine and two prisoners. If we had not had forts built there would not have been ten families left this side of the mountains besides what are at Fort Pitt. We have sent out scouts after the mur- derers, but we have not heard that they have fallen in with them yet. We have at this time at least three hundred men out after the Indians, some of whom have gone down to Wheeling, and I believe some have gone down as low as the Little Kanawha. I am in hopes they will give the savages a storm, for some of the scouting company say they will go to their towns but they will get scalps." On the same day William Crawford said in a letter to Washington, "Saturday last we had six persons killed on Dunk- ard's Creek, about ten miles from the mouth of Cheat River, on the west side of the Monongahela, and there are three missing. On Sunday a man who left the party is supposed to be killed, as he went off to hunt horses, and five guns were heard to go off. The horse he rode away returned to the house where the party

It was the Indian chief Logan, he whose former friendship for the whites had been turned into bitter- est hatred by the killing of his people, who came in with his band to ravage the settlements on the west side of the Monongahela, throwing all that country into a state of the wildest alarm. The present coun- ties of Washington and Greene were almost entirely deserted by their people. Dr. Joseph Doddridge, in his "Notes," says, "The massacres of the Indians at Captina and Yellow Creek comprehended the whole of the family of the famous but unfortunate Logan, who before these events had been a lover of the whites and a strenuous advocate for peace; 2 but in

2 Judge Jolley, who lived on the frontier at the time of the killing of the Indians at Captina Creek and Baker's Bottom, says in his statement (before extracted from) in reference to those occurrences and their re- sults,-

" The Indians had for some time before these events thought them- selves intruded upon by the ' Long Knives" (as they at that time called the Virginians) and many of them were for war. However, they called a council, in which the chief Logan/acted a conspicuous part. He ad- mitted their grounds of complaint, but at the same time reminded them of some aggressions on the part of the Indians, and that by a war they would but harass and distress the frontier settlements for a short time ; that the ' Long Knives' would come like the trees in the woods, and that ultimately they should be driven from the good lands which they now possessed. He therefore strongly recommended peace. To him they all agreed, grounded the hatchet, and everything wore a tranquil ap- pearance, when, behold ! the fugitives arrived from Yellow Creek and reported that Logan's mother, brother, and sister were murdered. Three of the nearest and dearest relations of Logan had been massacred by white men. The consequence was that this same Logan, who a few days before was so pacific, raised the hatchet with a declaration that he would not ground it until he had taken ten for one, which I believe he completely fulfilled by taking thirty scalps and prisoners in the summer of 1774. The above has often been related to me by several persons who were at the Indian towns at the time of the council alluded to, and also when the remains of the party came in from Yellow Creek Thomas Nicholson in particular has told me the above, and much more. Another person, whose name I cannot recollect, informed me that he was at the

1 Some of them, however, stood their ground and remained at their cabins, braving the danger rather than abandon their homes. James Chambers, in a deposition made at Washington, Pa., April 20, 1798, be- fore Samuel Shannon, Esq., said that after the massacre at Baker's in 1774 all the settlements broke up along the Ohio River, and that he (being then settled on that river) fled with the rest, but stopped at Cat- fish Camp, where he remained for some time at the cabin of William Huston. Not a few of the settlers in what is now Greene County lust their lives by attempting to hold their homes.

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

the conflict which followed them, by way of revenge for the death of his people, he became a brave and sanguinary chief among the warriors."

In the mean time, Capt. Cresap and George Rogers Clarke, upon their retirement from Wheeling by way of Catfish Camp to Redstone Old Fort, had proceeded from the latter place eastward, Clarke going to Win- chester, Va., and Cresap to Old Town, Md., where he had left his family, and where his father lived. There he at once commenced raising a company of men for the purpose of taking part in the Indian hostilities which he knew must follow the occurrences on the Ohio. They sent a messenger to Lord Dunmore at Williamsburg, Va., notifying him of the situation of affairs ; and an express was also sent to the Gover- nor by Connolly from Pittsburgh, informing him of the events which had occurred upon the frontier, and the necessity of immediate preparations for an Indian war, among which necessary preparations he sug- gested the propriety of sending a force to Wheeling to erect a fort there. Upon receipt of this communi- cation Dunmore sent messengers to the settlers who had already gone forward to Kentucky, notifying them to return at once for their own safety, and on the 20th of June he wrote Connolly at Pittsburgh, ap- proving his plan of building a fort at Wheeling, and of carrying war into the Indian country ; also direct- ing him to keep in communication with Col. Andrew Lewis, who was then in command of Virginia troops on the Kanawha and New Rivers ; also advising him to send Capt. William Crawford with what men could be spared to co-operate with Col. Lewis, "or to strike a stroke himself, if he thinks he can do it with safety." "I know him," said Dunmore, "to be prudent, active, and resolute, and therefore very fit to go on such an Expedition ; and if anything of that kind can be ef- fected, the sooner 'tis done the better. . . . I would recommend it to all Officers going out on Parties to make as many Prisoners as they can of Women and Children, and should you be so fortunate as to reduce those Savages to sue for Peace, I would not grant it to them on any Terms till they were effectually chas- tised for their Insolence, and then on no Terms with- out bringing in six of Their Heads as Hostages for their future good behavior, and these to be relieved

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Washington County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 15

Author: Crumrine, Boyd, 1838-1916; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Hungerford, Austin N Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Philadelphia : H.L. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 1216

Author: Crumrine, Boyd, 1838-1916; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Hungerford, Austin N
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : H.L. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 1216