History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 10

Author: Mathews, Alfred, 1852-1904. 4n
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co.
Number of Pages: 1438

USA > Pennsylvania > Monroe County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 10
USA > Pennsylvania > Pike County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 10
USA > Pennsylvania > Wayne County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 10

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the above three persons were all killed by the Indians. And this deponent further saith, that their little com- pany were afraid to venture to go and see what had happened that day, as they had many women and children to care for, who, if they had been left might have fallen an casy prey to the enemy. And this deponent further saith, that this morning nine men of their neighborhood armed themselves as well as they could and went towards Peter Soan's place in order to discover what had become of the three persons; that when they came within about three hundred yards of the house they found the bodies of the said Soan and Klein lying about twenty feet from each other, killed and scalped, but did not find Klein's daughter. Soan was killed by a bullet, which en- tered the upper part of his back and came out at his breast. Klein was killed with their tomahawks.

"The nine men now immediately returned to Bo- zart's and reported as above. Deponent was not one of the nine, but remained with the women and chil- dren ; that the rest of the men desired deponent to come to Easton and acquaint the justice with what had happened; that the nine men did not think it safe to bury the dead, &c."

An account of the killing of several men, soon after the foregoing oceurrenee, is afforded by George Ebert, who was taken prisoner at the same time, but, eseaping, returned in June, and made a deposition of the faets upon the 20th before Parsons at Easton. He said (in sub- stanee) that on or about the 2d of May last (1757) he, with about eighteen armed men, went with two wagons from Plainfield township to assist the inhabitants of Lower Smithfield, who had a few days before been attaeked by the In- dians, and some of them murdered, to bring off some of their best effeets ; that about noon of the same day they eame to the house of Conrad Bittenbender, to which divers of the neighbors had fled. Here one of the wagons, with about ten men, among them Ebert, halted to load up the poor people's household goods, and the rest of the company, with the other wagons, were sent forward about a mile to the house of Philip Bozart, to which plaee others of the neighbors had fled, with such of their effects as they could in their confusion carry. Ebert, Conrad Bit- tenbender, Peter Shaeffer, John Nolf, Jacob Roth, Michael Kiersfer, one Keins and another man (whose name Ebert forgot) then went into the woods abont two miles to seck their neigh- bor's horses, and were returning with them, when they were attacked, about half a mile

THE INDIAN WAR, 1755-1763.

from Bittenbender's, by fifteen Indians, who fired upon them, killed Bittenbender, Jacob Roth and John Nolf (as the deponent believed), and took Peter Shaeffer, who had received two flesh wounds, and himself, Ebert, prisoners, and set off immediately for the north.

On the evening of the next day they fell in with another party of about twenty-four In- dians, who had Abraham Miller and his mother and Adam Snell's daughter prisoners, and that night they marched on together as far as Dia- hoga (Tioga), where they separated, the other prisoners, with the exception of Abraham Mil- ler, being taken away and never afterward seen by Ebert. When they had gone about a day's journey beyond Tioga, the Indians, on encamp- ing, loosed the two prisoners, whom they had before bound every night, and finding them- selves at liberty, Miller and Ebert made their escape in the night. They fled to Tioga, where they were concealed for four weeks by French Margaret, and then, on her advice, made their way homeward. They were assisted and di- rected on their way by all of the Indians "this side" (southward) of Tioga (which proves that Teedynseung's followers were now observing peace, and that the Indians who were carrying on hostilities at this time were of other tribes, directly in the French interest), and they finally arrived at Fort Hamilton, after about seven weeks' absence.

Parsons also forwarded a letter about the time this deposition was taken, giving an ac- count of a large body of Indians attacking and burning Brodhead's house (which, it will be borne in mind, was the scene of the first attack in this region, in 1755) and the killing of one Tidd.

This was an affair which occurred on the 23rd of June, 1757. Captain John Van Etten, formerly of Fort Hyndshaw, had then recently taken command of Fort Hamilton, and we find the following in his journal1 concerning this attack : "In the morning, near eleven o'clock, the fort was alarmed by some of the neighbors, who had made their escape from the

enemy. Five of them in company, near Brod- head's house (a mile from the fort), seeking their horses, in order to go to mill, were fired upon by the enemy, and they said that one of them, John Tidd, by name, was killed. Where- upon I immediately drafted nine men, myself making the tenth, in as private a manner as possible, and privately went back into the mountains in order to make a discovery, giving strict orders to those left to fire the wall piece to alarm us, if any attack should be attempted on the fort in my absence. There were but six inen left at the fort. Coming in sight of said house, on the back side, I perceived some smoke arise near the house; then traveling about a quarter of a mile, in order to surround them, we heard four guns, the first of which was much louder than the rest. I expected the fort was attacked; whereupon we retreated about a quarter of a mile, and hearing no more guns, my counsel was to go to the house; but my pilot, who was well acquainted with the woods, thought it best to place ourselves in ambush, for they would come that way, he said. As we ascended the mountain in order to place ourselves, we saw the house in a blaze, and the pilot thought best to retire a little nearer between the house and the fort, where we might have a better view; and in the re- treat we heard fourteen guns fired as quick in succession as one could count. Then we placed ourselves in two companies, the better to way- lay them. The party that was nearest between the house and the fort saw twenty-seven en- deavoring to get between them and the fort. I, with the other party, saw five more coming on the other side; we found that we were dis- covered, and likely to be surrounded by a vast number; wherefore we all retreated, and got between them and the fort; then halting, they came in view. I then challenged them to come, and fired at them; and although at a considerable distance, it was generally thought one of them was killed, by their squalling aud making off. Then we all returned to the fort. Immediately upon our return, a seout of thir- teen men from the Jerseys, who were in search of Edward Marshall's wife, who was killed some time ago, came to the fort, being led there

1 Captain Van Etten's Journal. Rupp (Appendix), pp. 436, 437.

WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

by sceing the smoke and hearing the guns fired, who all seemed forward to go after the Indians, when I, with nine men, went out with them ; but having got some distance out, they would go to the house to see whether the said man (meaning Tidd) was killed. Being come, we found him killed and scalped; his body and face were cut inhumanly. There were also some cattle lying dead on the ground." The next day Tidd was buried under the direction of Captain Van Etten.

The ravages of the Indians were continued during the summer and fall. Bozart who had · made a brave stand and whose house had been a place of refuge for the neighboring inhabitants as we have seen, was finally forced to flee below the mountains. Even that region was not ex- empt from invasion, and several raids were made there in the fall of 1757. Among others who suffered there were the Kellers of Plain- field township, Northampton County, afterwards settlers within the present limits of Monroe. On the 15th of September their home was sud- denly surrounded by Indians, while the head of the family, Joseph Keller, was away and his wife and two sons, Joseph and Jacob, were captured and borne away to Canada, the attack- ing party being one of the tribe attached to the French. Mrs. Keller was in captivity until 1760, when she secured her liberty and made her way to her husband and family. Joseph Keller also was restored to his home, but not until after seven years had elapsed. 1

After 1757 the cases of Indian atrocity were few and isolated, yet there was a constant fear that the scenes of the preceding years would be repeated. Troops were kept upon the frontier and in 1758 there were almost four hundred men on constant duty in Northampton County. Captain Van Etten, at Fort Hynd- shaw, had thirty men, under his constant com- mand; Captain Craig, at Fort Hamilton, liad forty-one; Lieutenant Weatherhold, at Brod- head's, had twenty-six; Ensign Sterling at Tietz's (sometimes called Tecd's) house, at the Wind Gap, had eleven ; Captain Orudt, at Fort

Norris, had fifty, and there were various other bodies of from five to sixty men at other posts.

There were no soldiers located at Depui's dur- ing the early part of this year and the family appears to have had considerable ground for alarm and made an appeal for assistance. Early in June a wandering band of Indians, acting under the management of the French, came down the Delaware and created great consternation among the inhabitants. It was feared that the lower Minisink would be invaded, but it escaped that calamity. A letter from Samuel Depui to a friend of the Governor reflects the general feeling of fear that prevailed at this time and gives information concerning some affairs that occurred up the river,-

"SMITHFIELD, JUNE 15, 1758-AT NIGHT.

"Inclosed, I send you Captain Bull's letter to me, from Fort Allen, with an acct of Indians supposed to be on their way to this part of the Frontiers or Minisinks, which is much to be feared will prove most fatal to this part, as it is at preseut the most De- fenceless. The bearer of Mr. Bull's letter informs me that he saw 11 Indians between this and Fort Allen, but he Luckily made his escape. To this he is willing to be qualified (sworn). I hope Dr Sir you will be kind enough to take his qualification, and Transmitt it to his Honour our Governeur with a state of our present Defenceless circumstances, interceding for us by imploring his honor to aid and assist us as much as in his power, as your influence I humbly apprehend is Great and yourself well acquainted with our Defenceless Situation. Much mischief has been done in the Minesinks some time ago of which I be- lieve you are by this time acquainted. Last Thursday the Indians began to renew their Barbarities by kill- ing and scalping two men and slightly wounding another in the Minesinks, aud this morning we heared the Disagreeable news of a Fort being taken at the upper end of the Minesinks by a party of In- dians said to be 40 in number. The white men it is said belonging to that Garrison were Farmers, and were out on their plantations when the Indians fired on them and killed them, whereupon the Indians marched up to the Fort and took all of the women and childreu captive and carryed them away, and last night the Indians stole a ferry Boat at a place called Wallpack; and brought from the Jersey shore to this side a large number of Indians, as appeared by their Tracks on the sand banks; so that we are in contin- ual fear of their approach. I wishi we may be able to Defend ourselves against them until it be in his Honour's power to assist us under God, he being our protector, and I make no doubt from the Fatherly care his honour has been pleased to exercise over us

1 The family settled in what is now Stroud township, Monroe County. (See chapter upon that division.)

THE INDIAN WAR, 1755-1763.

since his succession to the province, that he will be willing to acquiesee with your reasonable and just sentiments. . . . 1 "SAMUEL DUPUI."

Nearly five years of almost uninterrupted peace ensned between 1758 and the summer of 1763, when " the last act in the drama of the French and Indian War" was inaugurated by the mighty Ottawa chieftain, Pontiac. While the region of which we treat-the territory now included in Monroe, Pike and Wayne Counties- was far away from the chief theatre of that war, it is indisputable that the several incursions of the Indians directed against the people of that region were brought about through the sympathy of disaffection, engendered by Pontiac's scheme.

The last act in the local war was a brief, but not a bloodless one. The Indians made their ap- pearance in Smithfield and they struck a savage blow in Whitehall (now in Lehigh County), subsequently attacked Captain Weatherhold's command, which had been organized to punish them, on the Lehigh, at John Stenton's, and sent maranding bands against numerous isolated settlements, among them that on the Upper Dela- warc, in what is now Damascus township, Wayne County, and along the east bank, in Sul- livan County, New York, a region which had only six years before received (upon the Pennsyl- vania side) its first settlers.2

The ensuing months were months of harass- ing anxiety for the inhabitants of the older set- tlements, who had known the terrors of Indian war in 1755-56-57, but they promptly took steps towards strengthening themselves for the apprehended onslaught. The troops had been for the most part withdrawn from the forts and block-houses, and the people, rejoicing in the sense of security and freedom, had actively re- snmed the avocations of peace. But now all was changed ; Bethlehem, long quiet, again re- sounded with the tramp of soldiery ; there was a stir in Easton, Allentown and all of the lesser villages of the Northampton frontier, while everywhere throughout the threatened region the inhabitants again took np arms, formed military companies (where they were numerous

enough) and resorted to all of the precautions they had learned to practice during Teedy- uscung's war.

In Smithfield a military company was formed, with John Van Campen as captain-for which there was fortunately little service and no actual war. A record of the organization of this vol- untecr company, in the form of a memorial to the provincial authorities, has been preserved and is of interest. It reads as follows :

"LOWER SMITHFIELD 1st September 1763

"To the Honorable James Hamilton Esq" Lieutenant Governor and Commander in Chief of the Province of Pennsylvania :

"We the within Subscribers inhabitants residing upon the frontiers of the Province of Pennsylvania in the County of North Hampton do from divers re- ports and information and from the Different accounts we have from the Ohio, that the Savages Is commit- ting their Cruel barbarities, we have the greatest Rea- son in life to Expect these Savage Indians will ex- tend their cruel barbarity as farr as our places ; as we are in no Order of defence, but ly intirely open to the merey of Those Barbarous Savage Indians who de- liglits the shedding of innocent blood, and for the diffence of any Attempts which might be made of the like, a number of us have formed and enjoined ourselves under articles In a associated independent Company, as loyal subjects to our king and country, Ready and willing to defend What ever attempts those barbarians might make upon our settlements for which we have thirty of Us unanimously ehosen Mr. John Van Campen as Captain, Mr. Joseph Wheeler as Lieutenant and Cornelius Van Campen Ensign, and your humble Petitioner's pray your honor will be pleas to Commission the aforesaid gentlemen, Unani- mously Chosen for our officers, and likewise your pe- titioners Pray your honor will pleas to Grant us your assistance in Carrying on so loyal a design, and your Petitioners will ever pray

" Benjamin Shoemaker Mycal Sly

Elijah Shoemaker Benjamin Foster

William Smis Benjamin Van Campen

Nicholas Depui

Jonathan Hunlock

James Higerman

John Canterman Henry Bensil

Benj. Shoemaker, Jr

Moses Shoemaker

Charles Deloy

William Clark

Jolın Chambers

Leonard Weser

Benjamin Oney

Charles Holmes

Peter Hains

John Camden Isaae Vanormen

Benjamin Hains

Joseplı Hains

William Devore William Carrell

Jolın Fislı

James Ewel

Samuel Hyndy

Garret Shoemaker "3

1 Penn. Archives, Vol. III., p. 424.

2 See the following chapter and also the chapter on Da- mascus township, in the Wayne County history.

3 Penn. Archives, IV. p. 120.

WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

The apprehended attack was not made.

The settlers upon the upper Delaware did not escape so lightly as those in the Minisink region, and, indeed, sustained a very heavy stroke. As we have already seen, a block- house was built at the mouth of Calkin's Creek (in the present boundaries of Damascus town- ship, Wayne County) in 1755, and Joseph Skinner had fallen a victim to the Indians there as early as 1759 or 1760. The savages appear, however, to have had no general enmity toward the Cushutunk settlers or those on the opposite bank of the river, and they escaped molestation during the dark period in which the inhabitants of the lower part of Northamp- ton County were constantly scourged. They lived beyond the limits of the lands of which the Delawares claimed they had been deprived by fraud, and they had secured, in 1754, a more or less clear title to their lands from the Six Nations. 1 Still it is probable that the Dela- ware followers of Teedyuscung, if not wholly responsible for the attack on Cushutunk and Cochecton, and the settlements on the east side of the Delaware down to the Lackawaxen, were at least concerned in it. The chief had been killed by or at the instigation of some of the Six Nation Indians, on April 19, 1763, and his disaffected people, released from his re- straining influence, may have very naturally looked upon the extinction of the white settle- ments placed, by Iroquois influence, upon lands which they themselves claimed to own, as a legitimate mode of retaliation. Beyond this, they were actuated by a general thirst for blood.

However probable or improbable these con- jectures may be, it is a fact that the Indian party who marched against the Cushutunk set- tlement came from Wyoming by way of the Lackawaxen, and thence up the Delaware, hop- ing, no doubt, to hem in the inhabitants and cut off communication between them and the people of the Minisink region southward-the region around and below the site of Port Jervis.

The time of the attack was the fall of 1763. The settlement on the Pennsylvania side of the river then included about thirty log houses, a

block-house, and-according to some authori- ties-a grist and saw-mill, and there were a much larger number of houses upon the New York side of the river, extending from opposite the cluster of habitations at Cushutunk-from Cochecton, N. Y .- quite down to the Lacka- waxen. The people of Cushutunk, being ap- prised of the approach of the war-party by fugitives from below, and warned to prepare for an attack, repaired to the block-house at the mouth of Calkin's Creek, and made prepa- rations to stand a sicge. Besides the women and children, there were but three persons in the immediate vicinity of the block-house-Moses Thomas, Sr., Hilkialı Willis, who had come up with his family from Narrowsburg, and one Witters. The Indians did not make an attack as soon as had been apprehended, and the people were thus thrown off their guard. The enemy had reached the neighborhood, however, and the woods were full of skulking savages. Suddenly they appeared near the little fort, and in the first onslaught Thomas and Willis, who had been out on a reconnoissance, were killed. Witters succeeded in reaching the block-house, and he and the women and children then bravely defended it, and by subterfuges led the Indians to think that it contained a far more formidable garrison than was the case. Witters sent a boy, Moses Thomas 2 (second) to the neighborhood northward to inform the people of approaching danger, and they fled through the wilderness to Esopus (Kingston). Hc also sent two boys, Elias Thomas and Jacob Denny, neither of whom was over eleven years of age, to the Minisink region for aid. All day and all night long the little garrison, consisting of several women and children and one man, Wit- ters, stood at the loopholes of the block-house, guns in hand, and watched their stealthy foes moving about the besieged house under cover of the trees and bushes and the darkness. Once they tried to fire some straw, which had been stacked against or near the side of the house, and almost succeeded, but the Indian who at- tempted the deed fell, before he accomplished it,

1 See the following chapter.

2 This was the Moses Thomas who was killed in the bat- tle of the Lackawaxen, or Minisink, July 22, 1779. See chapter upon the Revolution.

SETTLEMENTS ON THE UPPER DELAWARE.

a victim to Witter's rifle. This intimidated the other Indians to such a degree that, as the siege seemed hopeless, they made preparations to move off. They did not do this, however, until they had secured the body of the dead Indian and burned all of the undefended buildings.

Upon the second day men came up from the Minisink in canoes, the boys having reached there safely and given the alarm. The dead bodies of Thomas and Ellis were buried and the survivors taken down the river, where they were safe from any repetition of the attack, which had so nearly proved fatal to all. It is said that when the party set off in the canoes an idiot child was left behind, notwithstanding the entreaties of its mother that it should be taken, and that the bones of this child, so cruelly abandoned, were subsequently found near the block-house and buried.1

Several settlers between Cochecton and Nar- rowsburg were killed and a number of houses burned while the Indians were making their way up the river. There were living at the time in this locality a few peaceable Indians called Cushutunks, who condemned this unpro- voked attack upon the whites, and promised, in case of another incursion, to assist the settlers.

It was the outbreak of 1763 which led John Penn, a grandson of the good William, he being Lieutenant-Governor of the province, to offer, in 1764, a large bounty for Indian scalps. This action is sometimes erroneously alluded to as the first offer by the English of money pre- miums for the killing of their savage enemies ; but, as a matter of fact, Benjamin Franklin made a similar proposition to pay for sealps nine years before,2 though he fixed the bounty at only forty dollars, about one-third of the sum offered by John Penn, and did not make it apply to females and children, as did the latter. The bounties announeed by Penn were: " For every male above the age of ten years captured,

$150; scalped, being killed, $134; for every female Indian enemy and every male under the age of ten years captured, $130; for every female above the age of ten years scalped, being killed, $30."

Happily the Indian war was concluded before the promulgation of this inhuman scalp bounty, and an era of peace inaugurated, which was not broken until the War of the Revolution opened ; and the struggling colonists, in addition to fighting the soldiers of the crown, had to watch the powerful Six Nations, who were incited to frequent hostilities by the machinations of the British and Tories. Then, again, the settlers in Northern Northampton-in the region now included in the three counties which form the subject of this work-suffered the frequent asperities and terrors of Indian war.

CHAPTER V.

Connecticut Men Settle on the Upper Delaware-Cushu- tunk, Wyoming and Wallenpaupack, or " Lackawack" Settlements-The " Pennamite War."

WHILE the Minisink, first settled upon the Pennsylvania side in 1727, had received small but constant accessions of population from the Water Gap to the site of Port Jervis, and had a fixed and quite numerous population by the middle of the eighteenth century, the region of the Upper Delaware, or at least its west bank, and all of the territory between the Wallenpau- pack and the Lackawaxen on the south and the New York State line on the north-a region practically commensurate with the present county of Wayne-was still a pristine wilderness, its soil untouched by the white man's foot, its forests unscathed by his axe and " clearing fire." It was the disputed hunting-ground of the Lenni Lenape, or Delawares and the Iroquois or Six Nations, but the civilized race had not yet con- tested with the savage, its ownership or pos- session.

But in the year 1757-just thirty years after the first authenticated settlement of the Lower Pennsylvania Minisink-in June, when nature had arrived at the full sumptuousness of life, even as it had for countless years of im-

1 Quinlan's " History of Sullivan County, N. Y." The au- thor says that the remains of Thomas and the girl werc laid bare a few years since by the washing of the river, and reburied by Moses Thomas (third).

2 See Franklin's letter to Captain John Van Etten-ante, this chapter-and also note to same mentioning the instruc- tions to Captain Isaac Wayne concerning scalp bounties.

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History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 10

Author: Mathews, Alfred, 1852-1904. 4n Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co. Number of Pages: 1438

Author: Mathews, Alfred, 1852-1904. 4n
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co.
Number of Pages: 1438