History of Washington County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 3

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 3

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1 The fact that the Six Nations were the acknowledged owners of this region of country, and that the Shawanese and Delawares were here only on sufferance, seems clear. At the treaty council held at Philadel- phia, July 12, 1742 (Col. Rec., iv. p. 580), and which has been already mentioned, the Six Nation chief, Canassatego, after a severe reprimand to the Delawares for having presumed to claim and sell lands to the whites, in which he said, " Why did you take it upon you to sell lands at all? You are women! you know you are women, and can no more sell lands than women," continued, "After our just reproof and absolute order to depart from the land, you are to take notice of what we have further to say to you. This string of Wampum serves to forbid you, your children and grandchildren to the latest posterity, from ever meddling in land affairs ; neither you nor any who shall descend from you are ever here- after to presume to sell any land."

At the treaty held with the Indians at Fort Pitt, in May, 1768, a Shawanese chief complained bitterly to the English of their encroach- ments, and said, " We desired you to destroy your forts. . . . We also de- sired you not to go down the river." In the next day's council, Guya- sutha, a chief of the Six Nations, rose with a copy of the treaty of 1764, and said, "By this treaty you had a right to build forts and trading- houses where you pleased, and to travel the road of peace from the sun rising to the sun setting. At that treaty the Delawares and Shawanese were with me and they know all this well, and they should never have spoken to you as they did yesterday." Soon after the Shawauene chief, Kissinaughta, rose and said, apologetically, to the English, " You desired na to speak from our hearts and tell you what gave us uneasiness of mind, and we did so. We are very sorry we should have said anything to give offense, and we acknowledge we were in the wrong."

In the same year (1768) when the Pennsylvania commissioners, Allen and Shippen, proposed to the Indians to send a deputation of chiefs with the white messengers, Frazer and Thompson, to warn off the white settlers who had located without authority on the Monongahela River and Redstone Creek, the " White Mingo" (whose " Castle" was on the west side of the Allegheny, a few miles above its mouth) and three other chiefs of the Six Nations were selected to go on that mission, but no notice was taken of the Delaware or Shawanese chiefs in the matter, which shows clearly enough that these two tribes were not regarded as having any ownership in the lande.

and by them regarded as merely a hunting-ground. At a meeting of the Council of Pennsylvania in August, 1753, "The Governor informed the Council . . . that he had seen Andrew Montour after his Re- turn from Onondago, who told him that the Six Nations (as well as he, Mr. Montour, could learn from the Indians, though there were but few at home whilst he was at Onondago) were against both Eng- lish and French building Forts and settling lands at Ohio, and desired they might both quit that country, and only send a few Traders with Goods sufficient to supply the wants of their Hunters; that they did not like the Virginians and Pennsylvanians making Treaties with these Indians, whom they called Hunt- ers, and young and giddy Men and Children ; that they were their Fathers, and if the English wanted any- thing from these childish People they must first speak to their Fathers." 2

On another occasion (July 31, 1753) the Governor of Pennsylvania received by hand of Andrew Mon- tour a message from the Six Nation chiefs, in which they said, "We thank you for the notice you are pleased to take of those Young Men [the Indians on the waters of the Ohio] and for your kind intentions towards them. They stand in need of your Advice, for they are a great way from us. We, on behalf of all the Indians, our Men, Women, Children, entreat you to give them good Advice. It is a hunting country they live in, and we would have it reserved for this use only, and desire that no Settlements may be made there, though you may trade there and so may the French. . . . We therefore heartily thank you for your Regards to us and our Hunters at Ohio, which we testify by A String of Wampum."

The Iroquois owners of the territory extending from the head of the Ohio to the Alleghenies merely per- mitted the Delawares and Shawanese to use it-as a hunting-ground, yet they always boldly claimed these lands as their own, except when they were confronted

And it is related by George Croghan, in his account of a treaty council held with the Six Nations at Logstown in 1751, that " A Dunkard from Virginia came to town and requested leave to settle on the Yo-yo-gaine [Yonghiogheny] River, a branch of the Ohio. He was told that he must apply to the Onondaga Council, and be recommended by the Governor of Pennsylvania." The Onondaga Council was held on a hill near the present site of Syracuse, N. Y., and the central headquarters of the Six Nations.

Another fact that shows the Six Nations to have been the recognized owners of this region of country is that when the surveyors were about to extend the Mason and Dixon line westward, in 1767, the proprietaries asked not of the Delawares and Shawanese but of the Iroquois (Six Na- tions) permission to do so. This permission was given by their chiefs, who also sent several of their warriors to accompany the surveying party. Their presence afforded to the white men the desired protection, and the Shawanese and Delawares dared not offer any molestation. But after the Iroquois escort left (as they did at a point on the Maryland line), the other Indians became, in the absence of their masters, so de- flant and threatening that the surveyors were compelled to abandon the running of the line west of Dunkard Creek,

Finally, it was not from the Delawares and Shawanese but from the Six Nations that the Penns purchased this territory by the treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768.

ª Col. Rec., vol. v. pp. 635-37.

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

and rebuked by the chiefs of the Six Nations. At a conference held with the Indians at Fort Pitt in 1768, " the Beaver," a chief, speaking in behalf of the Dela- wares and Mohicans, said, "Brethren, the country lying between the river and the Allegheny Mountain has always been our hunting-ground, and the white people who have scattered themselves over it have by their hunting deprived us of the game which we look upon ourselves to have the only right to. . . . " Washington, in his journal of a trip which he made down the Ohio from the mouth of the Allegheny in 1770, says, "The Indians who reside upon the Ohio, the upper part of it at least, are composed of Sha- wanese, Delawares, and some of the Mingoes. . . . " And it is certain that, though the Iroquois were the owners of these hunting-grounds, they were occupied almost exclusively by the Delawares and Shawanese. From their towns and settlements in the vicinity of the head of the Ohio, went forth from time to time the hunting parties of these tribes, which formed the prin- cipal part of the Indian population of the territory of the present county of Washington, as their temporary camps were almost the only Indian settlements in all the region lying between the Monongahela and the Ohio.

On the Monongahela, at the mouth of Dunlap's Creek, where the town of Brownsville now stands, was the residence of old Nemacolin, who, as it appears, was a chief, but with very few, if any, warriors under him, though it is not unlikely that he had had a re- spectable following in the earlier years, before the whites found him here. It was this Indian who guided Col. Thomas Cresap across the Alleghenies in the first journey which he made to the West from Old Town, Md., for the Ohio Company in 1749. The route 1 ever, was not an Indian village, but merely for a time which they then pursued was known for many years the residence or camp of the old Delaware, Tingooqua, [ or Catfish, who had been in his younger days a war- rior (but not a chief) of that nation.2 Mention of as "Nemacolin's path." Later in his life this Indian removed from the Monongahela and located on the / Ohio River. It is believed that the place to which he removed was the island now known as Blennerhas- 1 Withers, in his "Chronicles of Border Warfare," states the case dif- ferently, and gives the names of the murderers. He says, "The Bald Eagle was an Indian of notoriety, not only among his own nation, but also with the inhabitants of the Northwestern frontier, with whom he was in the habit of associating and hunting. In one of his visits among them he was discovered alone by Jacob Scott, William Hacker, and Eli- jah Runner, who, reckless of the consequences, murdered him, solely to gratify a most wanton thirst for Indian blood. After the commission of this most outrageous enormity, they seated him in the stern of a canoe, with a piece of journey-cake thrust into his mouth, and set him afloat in the Monongahela." sett's Island, in the Ohio, below Parkersburg, W. Va .; the reason for this belief being that there is found, in Gen. Richard Butler's journal of a trip down that river in 1785, with Col. James Monroe (afterwards President of the United States), to treat with the Miami Indians, mention of their passing, in the river between the mouths of the Little Kanawha and Hock- ing, an island called "Nemacolin's Island." This was, without much doubt, the later residence of the old chief of that name.

says, "He was on intimate terms with the early set- tlers, with whom he hunted, fished, and visited. He was well known along our Monongahela border, up and down which he frequently passed in his canoe. Somewhere up the river, probably about the mouth of Cheat, he was killed, by whom or on what pretense is unknown.1 His dead body, placed upright in his canoe, with a peace of corn-bread in his clinched teeth, was set adrift in the river." The canoe drifted ashore on the east side of the Monongahela, a short distance above the mouth of Ten-Mile Creek, where the wife of a settler recognized the old Indian and wondered that he did not leave his canoe. She ex- amined more closely and found he was dead. This murder was regarded as a cold-blooded and unpro- voked outrage by both Indians and whites.

It is said that the early settlers who came into what is now Washington County found here several In- dian villages or camps; one of these being on Ten- Mile Creek, a short distance from the Monongahela, one on the Dutch Fork of Buffalo Creek, one on Rac- coon Creek, in what is now Hanover township, and another on Mingo Creek. But this is only vague tradition, and it is by no means certain that any such ever existed at the places mentioned; and if they were there, it is not probable that they were anything more than temporary camps. The only Indian set- tlement of which there is any authentic account as having existed in Washington County was the one known all over Western Pennsylvania as Catfish Camp, located on ground that is within the limits of the present borough of Washington, on the small stream called by the Indians Wissameking, one of the branches of Chartiers Creek. This settlement, how-

An old Indian named Bald Eagle, who had been a somewhat noted warrior (but not a chief) of the Delaware tribe, had his home somewhere on the Up- 1 is, the bearer of a message from the chiefs of his people. As to his hav-

2 In some accounts of this Indian he is mentioned as "a celebrated Indian Chief, whose Indian name was Tingoocqua, or Catfish, who be- longed to the Kuskuskee tribe of Indians, and occupied the hunting- grounds between the Allegheny Mountains and the Ohio River." But from his own words at the treaty council, as quoted in the text, it appears clear that he was not a chief, for he says, " I am only a messenger," that ing been a member of " the Kuskuskee tribe of Indians," it is proper to mention that Kuskuskes was a place or settlement, to which the Dela- wares had then recently removed from their older town of Sacunk at the mouth of Beaver. Of this new settlement of the Delawares Ch. Frederick Post said in July, 1758, " Kuskuskee is divided into four towns, each at a distance from the others, and the whole consists of about ninety houses and two hundred able warriors." That Kuskuskes was the name

per Monongahela, but at what point is not precisely known. He was a very harmless and peaceable man and friendly to the settlers, yet he was killed without cause about 1770, and the cold-blooded murder was charged by the Indians upon white men. Of the - Bald Eagle and the circumstances of his death Veech . of the place where Catfish then came from, instead of being the name

THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH CLAIMS TO THE TRANS-ALLEGHENY REGION. 21

this Indian is found in the proceedings of a treaty council held in the State-House at Philadelphia, Dec. 4, 1759, on which there were present among others Tingooqua and Joshua, "messengers from the Ohio."

" Tingooqua, alias Catfish,1 arose, and taking four strings of Wampum, held two of them in his Fingers separate, and spoke: 'Brother,-I have not much to say ; I am only a messenger ; I came from Kuskus- kes; The Nation I belong to, as well as many others to the West of us, as far as the setting of the sun, have heard that you and Teedyuscung sat often together in council, and at length agreed upon a Peace ; and We are glad to hear that the Friendship and Harmony which of old always subsisted between our and your ancestors was raised up again and established once more. This was very agreeable to us, and We came here to see if what was related was true; and we find it is true, which gives us great Satisfaction.'

"Then taking hold of the other two Strings he pro- ceeded : 'Brother,-Now that Teedyuscung and you have, thro' the goodness of Providence, brought about a peace, we entreat you to be strong ; don't let it slip; don't omit anything to render it quite secure and last- ing ; hold it fast; consider our aged Men and our young Children, and for their sakes be strong, and never rest till it be thoroughly confirmed. All the Indians at Allegheny desire you to do so, and they will do all they can likewise.' Gave a String of Wampum.

"' Brother,-We make eleven Nations on the West of Allegheny who have heard what you and Teedyus- cung have concluded at the Treaty of Easton, and as we all heartily agree to it, and are determined to join in it, we have opened a Road to where Teedyuscung Lives, and we, the Messengers, have traveled much to our satisfaction on the Road which he has made from his habitation to this Town. We have found it a very good Road, and all our Nations will use this Road for the time to come. We say nothing of the Six Nations; We do not reckon them among the Eleven Nations. We leave you to treat with them yourselves. We make no Road for them; This is your own affair. We only tell you we do not in- clude them in anything We say. I have done.' Gave four Strings of Wampum."

Neither the time when old Catfish withdrew from the main body of his tribe and took up his residence on the banks of Wissameking nor the duration of his stay at that place is known. He was found living there as early as 1770, and remained several years (making in that time two or three slight changes in the location of his camp or cabin), and afterwards mi-

grated to the Scioto country, where he died. For many years after his removal the place where he had lived in this county continued to be occasionally mentioned as "Catfish's Camp," and the name is still well known at the present day.

Beyond the story of old Catfish, and the doubtful traditions already mentioned of the existence of a few Indian settlements within the present limits of Wash- ington County, there is, with reference to that terri- tory, no Indian history to be given for the years prior to the opening of " Dunmore's war," in 1774. From that time on through the border warfare that raged until after the close of the Revolution the annals of this region are full of stirring events,-Indian incursions, massacres, and alarms,-which are to be narrated in succeeding chapters covering the period from 1774 to 1783.

CHAPTER II.

THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH CLAIMS TO THE TRANS- ALLEGHENY REGION-GEORGE WASHINGTON'S VISIT TO THE FRENCH FORTS IN 1753.

THE earliest written annals having reference to the region of country bordering the head-streams of the Ohio River date back to the year 1669, in which year the great French explorer, Robert Cavelier La Salle (having first obtained permission from the Governor- General of Canada), fitted out at his own expense an expedition having for its ultimate object the discovery and exploration of a great river (the Mississippi), which Indians reported to exist five hundred leagues westward from Montreal, and which was then sup- posed to flow into the Vermillion Sea, or Gulf of California. Setting out from La Chine, on the St. Lawrence, in July of the year named, he soon reached the western end of Lake Ontario, where he was taken ill with a fever, and during his sickness a part of his men deserted, which made it impracticable for him to continue by the route which he had originally de- cided on, which was through Lakes Erie, St. Clair, Huron, and Michigan to a point near the site of the present city of Chicago, and thence overland.

This plan of La Salle being thus frustrated by the loss of his men, he nevertheless determined not to give up the enterprise, and as soon as he had fully re- covered he again started on his way with the remainder of his followers, crossed the Niagara River between the falls and Lake Erie, passed through the country of the Five Nations, found the Allegheny River, built canoes, embarked, and paddled down that stream to its confluence with the Monongahela, and thence down the Ohio to where they found its current broken by rapids, these being the same now known as the Falls of the Ohio, at Louisville, Ky. There his men positively refused to proceed farther down the river, and he was compelled to return, little thinking, prob-

of his tribe or nation, is proved by his own words, given in the minutes of the treaty council referred to, viz .: "The messenger observing one Sarah Gladdin amongst the people that were present, addressed the Gov- ernor, and told him ' That he had in his house a son of this woman's, a prisoner, at Kuskuskes, and that he would take care he should be delivered in the spring.'" Kuskuskes, then the principal settlement of the Del- awares, was at that time the home of Catfish, who was himself a Dela- ware.

1 Col. Records, vol. viii. p. 417.

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

ably, how near he had approached to the great river which it was the object of his journey to discover. Thirteen years later he reached it by a more northern route, passed down its swift current to the mouth, where, on the 9th of April, 1682, in full sight of the blue expanse of the Gulf of Mexico, he reared a cross, and a column inscribed with the name and arms of the French sovereign, and took possession for him of the valley of the Mississippi and a con- tiguous country of indefinite extent, which he named Louisiana, embracing, according to the French theory of possession, all the valley of the mighty stream and all the regions watered by its tributaries discovered and to be discovered in the future.

There is no doubt that La Salle and the party who came with him down the Allegheny in 1669 were the first Europeans who ever saw that stream, the Monon- gahela, or the Ohio. Very little is known of any white visitors who came after them to this region during the eighty years next succeeding, for there is no definite account of the presence in this section of country of any other people than the native Indians and occasionally a white trader until near the middle of the eighteenth century, at which time both France and England were asserting their respective claims to the dominion of this wilderness region west of the mountains. It was in the conflict which resulted from the attempts of each of these rivals to expel the other, and to enforce their own alleged rights by the fact of actual possession, that the events occurred that are here to be narrated, and which mark the be- ginning of the history of the southwestern counties of Pennsylvania.

The English claimed the country by virtue of a treaty made with the Six Nations at Lancaster in June, 1744, when the Indians ceded to the British king an immense scope of territory west of the royal grant to Penn,1 co-extensive with the limits of Vir- ginia, which at that time were of indefinite extent. At a subsequent treaty held (in 1752) at Logstown, on the Ohio, below Pittsburgh, one of the Iroquois chiefs, who had also taken part in the Lancaster treaty, declared that it had not been the intention of his people to convey to the English any lands west of the Alleghenies, but that, nevertheless, they would not oppose the white man's definition of the bound- aries.

The Six Nations in council had also decided that, notwithstanding their friendship for the English, they would remain neutral in the contest which they saw was imminent between that nation and the French, both of which were now using every effort to strengthen themselves in the occupation of the territory bordering the head-waters of the Ohio.

The claim which France made to the ownership of the territory at the head of the Ohio was based on

La Salle's discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi nearly seventy years before, and on the possession then taken for the French king of all the regions watered by that river and all its affluents. To fortify and confirm this claim they took measures to occupy the country bordering on the head-streams of the Ohio, and in this they were somewhat earlier, as well as more active and energetic, than the English.

The first mention found in any public document of the actual or probable presence of French people on any part of the territory of the province of Pennsyl- vania with intent to occupy the same under authority of their government is that which occurs in the records of a session of the Provincial Council2 held at Philadelphia, Aug. 4, 1731. The message of the Governor which was on that occasion laid before the Council, and " being approved was ordered to be sent down to the House," concluded with these words :

"I have also another Affair of very great Import- ance to the Security of this Colony & all its Inhabit- ants to lay before you, which shall speedily be com- municated to you," and

" The Governor then proceeded to inform the Board that the Matter mentioned in the close of the preced- ing Message related to Indian Affairs, & would be found to be likewise of very great Consequence to the whole Province, the Detail whereof His Honor said he would leave to Mr. Logan, to whom the Infor- mation had been first given, and who, from his long experience and knowledge in those affairs, could give the best Account of it.

" That Gentleman then producing the Map of Louisiana, as inserted in a book called a New Gen- eral Atlas, published at London in the year 1721, first observed from thence how exorbitant the French Claims were on the Continent of America; that by the Description in the said Map they claimed a great part of Carolina and Virginia, & had laid down Sas- quehannah as a Boundary of Pensilvania. Then he proceeded to observe that by Virtue of some Treaty, as they alledge, the French pretend a Right to all Lands lying on Rivers, of the Mouths of which they are possessed. That the River Ohio (a branch of Mississippi) comes close to those mountains which lye about 120 or 130 Miles back of Sasquehannah, within the boundaries of this Province, as granted by the King's Letters Patent; that adjoining thereto is a fine Tract of Land called Allegheny, on which sev- eral Shawanese Indians had seated themselves; And that by the Advices lately brought to him by several Traders in those parts it appears that the French have been using Endeavours to gain over those Indians to their interest, & for this End a French Gentleman had come amongst them some years since, sent, as it was believed, from the Governor of Mon- treal, and at his Departure last year carried with him some of the Shawanese Chiefs to that Governour,

1 It was supposed at that time that Penn's western boundary would not fall to the westward of the Laurel Hill.

2 Colonial Records, vol. iii. pp. 401, 402.

THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH CLAIMS TO THE TRANS-ALLEGHENY REGION. 23

with whom they, at their Return, appeared to be highly pleased ; That the same French Gentleman, with five or six others in Company with him, had this last Spring again come amongst the said Indians, and brought with him a Shawanese Interpreter, was well received by them, had again carried some of their Chiefs to the said Gov'r, & the better to gain the Affections of the said Indians brought with him a Gunsmith to work for them gratis. Mr. Logan then went on to represent how destructive this At- tempt of the French, if attended with Success, may prove to the English Interest on this Continent, and how deeply in its consequences it may affect this Province, & after having spoken fully on these two heads, Moved that to prevent or putt a stop to these designs, if possible, a treaty should be sett on foot with the five Nations, who have an absolute author- ity as well over the Shawanese as all our Indians, that by their means the Shawanese may not only be kept firm to the English Interest, but likewise be in- duced to remove from Allegheny nearer to the Eng- lish Settlements, and that such a treaty becomes now the more necessary because 'tis several years since any of those Nations have visited us, and no opportunity ought to be lost of cultivating & improving the Friendship which has always subsisted between this Government & them.

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History of Washington County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 3

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