History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 8

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 8
USA > Pennsylvania > Pike County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 8
USA > Pennsylvania > Wayne County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 8

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The alarming news of the attack on Brod- heads was carried to Easton, Philipsburg and other settlements by messengers who spread consternation among the scattered people along their paths, and indeed created great alarm in the places mentioned whose citizens did not think themselves sufficiently remote to be bc- yond the reach of so large and determined a band of hostile Indians as was reported in Smith- field.

1 He was a native of Twickenham, England, and, after his removal from Dansbury, became the landlord of the Sun Inn, at Bethlehem.

2 " Friedensthal and its Stockaded Mill; a Moravian Chronicle," by Rev. William C. Reichel, p. 27.

3 " A Red Rose from the Olden Time" (the Rose Inu), by Maurice C. Jones, p. 21. The Francis Jones, above re- ferred to, subsequently returned to Smithfield, entered the Provincial service and was posted at Dietz's, near the Wind Gap.

THE INDIAN WAR, 1755-1763.

John McMichael, Henry Deysert and Job Bakehorn arrived in Easton from the scene of the outbreak, upon the 12th of December, and made a deposition of what they knew, which was sworn to before Justice William Parsons. As it forms a contemporary account of the first hostile demonstration of the Indians in the territory which is our especial province, and contains some items of information not hereto- fore given, it is reproduced as follows :

"The 12th day of December, 1755, personally ap- peared before me, William Parsons, one of his majes- ty's Justices of the Peace, for the county of North- ampton, John McMichael, Henry Deysert, James Tidd and Job Bakehorn, Jr., who, being duly sworn on the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God, did depose and declare that yesterday about three of the clock in the forenoon two Indian men came from towards Brod- head's house, who fired on these deponents and several others, who returned the fire and made the Indians turn off; and the said deponents, James Tidd and Job Bakchorn, further say that as they were going round the stack yard of the said McMichael, where they all were, they saw, as they verily believe, at least four In- dians on their knecs, about twenty purches from the stack yard, who fired at these deponents. And these deponents further say, that they were engaged in the manner aforesaid with the Indians at least three quar- ters of an hour; and these deponents, John MeMich- ael and Henry Deysert, further say that they saw the barn of the said Brodhead on fire about nine of the clock in the morning, which continued burning till they left the house, being about four in the afternoon, and that they heard shooting and crying at Brodhead's house almost the whole day, and that when they left MeMichael's house the dwelling house of the said Broadhead was yet unburnt, being, as they supposed, defended by the people within. And these deponents James Tidd, and Job Bakehorn, further say, that they did not come to McMichael's house until about three in the afternoon, when they could see the barn and barracks of the said Brodhead on fire; and these de- ponents further say, that they did not see anyone killed on either side, but James Garland, one of their company, was shot through the hand and arm, and further deponents say not.

" HENRY MCMICHAEL, " HENRY DEYSERT, " JOB BAKEHORN,

"Sworn at Easton, December 12, 1755, before me. "WILLIAM PARSONS."

In another deposition sworn to at Philipsburg on the same day as the foregoing, before Henry Cole, by a young man who fled from the scene,

it was stated that the Indians, as near as he could estimate, were about one hundred in num- ber and " were in white people's clothing, only a few match coats."

As late as December 25th James Hamilton, writing to Governor Morris from Easton, where he Irad gone on a government errand, says,-

" We found the country under the greatest Conster- nation and every thing that has been said of the dis- tress of the Inhabitants, more than verified upon our own view. The country along the river is absolutely deserted from this place to Brodhead's, nor can there be the least communication between us and them, but by large parties of armed men, everybody being afraid to venture without that security. So that we have had no accounts from there for several days.

" Brodheads was stoutly defended by his sons and others till the Indians thought fit to retire, without being able to take it or set it on fire, tho' they fre- quently attempted it. It is thought several of them were killed in the attacks, but that is not known with certainty."1

On the same day that the trooping horde surrounded and penned in the Brodheads and put to flight the Culvers and other settlers of the vicinity, a small band dissevered itself, and striking westward through the forest in search of isolated settlers whom they could murder and scalp, came to the new farm of Frederick Hoeth,2 on Pocopoco Creek (in what is now Polk township of Monroe County). The family at this frontiersman's was gathered about the supper-table, unmindful of their approach- ing doom, when the Indians arrived. The house was new and the crevices between the logs had not been "chinked." The Indians, steathily approaching and thrusting their guns into these cracks, poured a murderous fire upon the unsuspecting inmates. Two persons fell- Hoeth himself dead-and a woman wounded. Several more shots were fired, and then all who could do so ran out of the house with the forlorn hope of effecting their escapc. The Indians immediately set fire to the house, barn

1 Col. Rec, vol. vi., p. 764.

2 Hocth was a baker by trade, from Zweibrucken. Hle immigrated in 1748, and with his wife, Johanette, was among the members of the Philadelphia congregation of Moravians in 1749. Ile purchased seven hundred acres of land on the Pocopoco Creek in 1750 and removed there with his family in 1752.

WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

and grist-mill. Hoeth's wife ran into the bake- house, which was also set on fire. The poor woman ran out through the flames, was very much burned, and in a mad effort to relieve her agony ran into the stream, where she died. The Indians drew her out and mutilated the inanimate corpse in a horrible manner-"cutting the belly open and used her otherwise inhu- manly,"-said one who had cotemporary knowl- edge of the facts.1 Three children were burned, one daughter was killed and scalped and two or three more were carried away into captivity. One of the Indians was killed and another wounded in this attack, but how is not stated in the bricf cotemporary accounts of the affair which the old colonial documents afford.

Several families in the vicinity narrowly escaped the fury of the party who murdered the Hocths. The Moravian records contain mention of one of them-a poor Palatine and his wife who arrived, famished and exhausted, at Friedensthal upon the 13th of December. It was late at night when word was brought the man that the Hoeths had been slain and their home burned. There was not a moment to be lost, and so, taking his wife upon his shoulders as she lay in bed (she had but lately given birth to a babe) he fled for his life,2 as seores of others did, from all the sparsely settled region round about.

Nearly cotemporary with the last described atrocity was the affair at Philip Bossert's, at the locality now known as Bossertsville (in Hamilton township, Monroe County). One Mülhausen, a Palatine, while breaking flax on Bossert's farm, was shot through the body by an unseen Indian, receiving a wound which, it was feared, would prove fatal. One of Bos- sert's sons, running out of the house on the re- port of the gun, was shot by the enemy in sev- eral places, and soon died. Hereupon old Philip appeared upon the scene of action, and ex- changed shots with one of the attacking party,

striking him in the small of the back, and send- ing him away evidently much injured. He, himself, however, received a flesh wound in the arm. At this juncture some of Bossert's neigh- bors came to the rescue, and the five remaining Indians (for therc had been a war party of six) made off. Mülhausen was taken to the Frie- densthal Mill and received surgical treatment, but the poor man died on the 3rd of March fol- lowing (1756).

About the same time a party of savages com- ing down the Delaware valley destroyed An- drew Dingman's house, in what is now Dela- ware township, in Pike County.

These attacks it must by no means be sup- posed were all that occurred in Northampton County, above the mountains, in the latter part of 1755. In fact they did not form a tenth part of the sum of bloodshed and burning and pillaging with which this unhappy region was afflicted. Of the greater number of murders which oceurred in this desultory but demoniac frontier war no records have been preserved. Isolated eases of barbarity were lost sight of in the common consternation which prevailed throughout Northampton County, and, indeed, through all inhabited portions of the Province down to within a distance of twenty miles from Philadelphia ; for while few murders were com- mitted south of the mountains, the people there were constantly apprehending the fate which had overtaken their northern neighbors.

Teedyuscung's followers came down from Wyoming and the North Branch of the Sus- quehanna, lay concealed in the " Great Swamp" of Pocono-which then, instead of years after- wards, should have received its fitting name, the "Shades of Death "-and stole stealthily down upon the small exposed settlements, precisely as beasts creep at night from the covering dark- ness of the jungles, in other lands, to satiate their appetite for blood. Blow after blow fell upon the defenceless people, whose " planta- tions," as they then were commonly called, sparsely dotted the great wilderness of northern Northampton. Camp-fires gleamed through the forest from the Delaware to the Susquehanna, and ever and anon the more lurid flames which de- voured frontiersmen's homes lit up scenes of sav-

1 John Michael Hute's deposition, swore to before William Parsons, at Easton, December 12th, 1755,-two days after the murder. Hute was from near Hoeth's settlement. See. Col. Rec. Vol. II.

2 " Friedensthal and its Stockaded Mill," by William C. Reichel, p. 23.

THE INDIAN WAR, 1755-1763.

age carnage which almost affrighted nature itself; but they died away in the solitude of the wood- covered valleys and hills, and left only dumb evidences of devastation and murder, in the charred timbers of the cabins and mutilated human remains, which often lay until torn as- under by the beasts and carrion birds and dis- solved by the elements.

So good an authority as the Secretary of the Province at the close of this year, 1755, in a paper 1 read before the Council, said :

" During all of this month, (December) the Indians have been burning and destroying all before them in the county of Northampton and have already burned fifty houses here, murdered above one hundred Per- sons and are still continuing their Ravages, Murders and Devastations & have actually overrun and laid waste a great part of that County, even as far as within twelve miles of Easton. This is a brief aeeount of the progress of these Savages sinee the 18th day of October, on which day was committed the first Inroad ever made by Indians upon this Provinee sinee its first Settlement, and in consequence here of all our Frontier Country, which extends from the River Patowmae to the River Delaware, not less than one hundred and fifty miles in length and between twenty and thirty in breadth, but not fully settled, has been entirely deserted, the Houses and Improvements redneed to Ashes, the Cattle, Horses, Grain, Goods & Effects of the Inhabitants either destroyed, burned or earried off by the Indians. Whilst the Poor Planters, with their Wives, Children and Servants, who could get away, being without arms or any kind of Defence have been obliged in this severe season of the year to abandon their Habitations naked and without any sup- port, and throw themselves on the Charity of the other Inhabitants within the Interior Parts of the Provinee upon whom they are a heavy Burthen.

"Sueli shoeking Deseriptions are given by those who have escaped of the horrid Cruelties and indeeeneies committed by these merciless Savages on the Bodies of the unhappy wretehes who fell into their Barbarous hands, especially the Women, without regard to Sex or Age as far exceeds those related of the most aban- doned Pirates; Which has oeeasioned a general eon- sternation and has struek so great a Panie and Damp upon the spirits of the People, that hitherto they have not been able to make any considerable resistance or stand against the Indians."

As one after another the savage strokes of

death and destruction fell upon the exposed set- tlements, the people who escaped fled to Easton and the Moravian towns, which became literally asylums for these distressed people, driven from their homes.

The precipitate evacuation of the country be- gan on the night of the Gnadenhutten massa- cre and received a fresh impetus with every ap- pearance of the savages. Every day during the last months of the year, some poor, terrified, travel-worn fugitives were received in the older and larger settlements. "They came," says one chronicler, " like hound-driven shecp, a motley crowd of men, women and children-Palatines, many of them, with uncouth names ; some of them, as we read, ' with clothes not fit to be seen of mankind ;' and some with scarce a sufficiency of rags to cover their nakedness." And so it came about that, upon the 29th of January, 1756, there were almost five hundred refugees in the Moravian settlements alone-two hun- dred and fifty-three at Nazareth, fifty-two at Gnadenthal, forty-cight at Christians' Spring, twenty-one at " The Rose Inn" and seventy-five at Friedensthal. Of this number two hundred and twenty-six were children.2 The ycar had closed gloomily enough, for even the Moravian settlements, far below the mountains, had been threatened, and their inhabitants had good grounds for apprehending that the threats would be carried out. The country north of the mountains was almost completely deserted, and there were evidences of devastation in nearly every locality, which, at the opening of the year, had shown only signs of peace and pros- perity springing up where had fallen the first footprints of civilization.

But during this time of terror the provincial government (as heretofore indicated) had not been idle, and the best measures possible for protecting the frontier had been resorted to.

Governor Robert Hunter Morris had, in con- junetion with the council, taken action toward placing the province on a war footing immedi- ately after the massacre at Gnadenhutten. It was then that Benjamin Franklin, metaphori- cally at least, doffed the philosopher's gown and

1 " A Brief Narrative of the Incursions and Ravages of the French & Indians in the Province of Pennsylvania," read by the Secretary to the Provincial Council, Dec. 29, 1755. Col. Records, Vol. VI., p. 766-68.

" Friedensthal. By William C. Reichel, p. 22.

WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

donned the soldier's garb, becoming one of the chief agents of the governor in planning and executing measures for the defense of the fron- tier. He was appointed carly in December, 1755, and he lost no time in undertaking the work entrusted to him. He arrived at Bethle- liem upon the cighteenth of the month, with Commissioners Hamilton and Fox, escorted by Captain Trump's company of fifty men from Bucks County, whose " arms, ammunition and blankets, and a hogshead of rum for their use, had been forwarded to Easton in advance."

Franklin divided his time between Easton and Bethlehem, making his headquarters at the latter place from the 7th to the 15th of January. He was to secure the erection of several forts in a line of extend from the Delaware to the Susquehanna, on a line north of and parallel to the Blue Mountains, and to raise troops to gar- rison them. "I had no difficulty," he says in his autobiography, " in raising men, having soon five hundred and sixty under my com- mand." These soldiers or minute men were comprised in the following companies, viz. : Captain William Parson's company, twenty- four men, and Mclaughlin's detachment, twenty men, from Easton; Captains Trump's, Aston's and Wayne's, of fifty men each (except the last, which contained fifty-five), from Bucks County ; Captain Volck's (or Foulk's) company of forty- six men from " Allemängel " (now Lynn town- ship, of Lehigh County); Captain Trexler's company of forty-eight men, from townships of Northampton (now in Lehigh County) ; Cap- tain Wetterholt's company of forty-four men from the same region ; Captain Arndt's, of fifty men, from Bucks County; Captains Craig's, Martin's and Hay's companies, from " the Irish settlement," in Northampton County ; and Cap- tain Van Etten's company of thirty men, from Upper Smithfield. Besides these, there was a company of sixty men from New Jersey, under command of Colonel John Anderson, and no doubt a number of smaller bodies of which no record has been preserved. Some of these companies served without pay and furnished their own arms and ammunition, but most of the men received about six dollars per month and subsistence.

Immediately after his arrival at Betlileliemn, Franklin reported, by letter, to Governor Mor- ris as to what he found there, and indicated his plans for the protection of the frontier. Speak- ing of the region which is the especial field of this work, he said-

"I have . . allowed thirty men to secure the township of Upper Smithfield " (the region now in- cluded in Pike County), " and commissioned Van Et- ten and Hinshaw (Hyndshaw), Captain and Lieuten- ant."

The sage, a little later, sent Captain John Van Etten, whom he calls "Vanetta," tlie fol- lowing interesting letter of instructions, in which, among other things, he makes mention of a reward offered for Indian scalps :

" At Bethlehem, in the County of

" Northampton, January 12, 1756.

" To Captain Vanetta, of the township of Upper Smithfield-

"You are to proceed immediately to raise a com -.. pany of Foot consisting of 30 able Men, including two Sergeants, with which you are to protect the in- habitants of Upper Smithfield, assisting them while they thresh out and Secure their Corn, and Scouting from time to time, as you judge necessary, on the outside of the settlements, with such of the Inhhab- itants as may join you, to discover the Enemy's Ap- proaches, and repel their attacks.

"2. For the better Security of the Inhabitants of that District, you are to post your men as follows: Eight at your own house. Eight at Lieutenant Hin- shaw's; Six with a sergeant at Tishock -, and Six with another Sergeant at or near Henry Coot- racht's; and you are to Settle Signals or Means of Suddenly alarming the Inhabitants, and convening your whole Strength with the Militia of your District on any necessary Occasion.

"3. Every man is to be engaged for one month, and as the Province cannot at present furnish Arms or Blankets to your Company, you are to allow every man enlisting and bringing his own arms & Blanket, a Dollar for the use thereof over and above his pay.

"4. You are to furnish your Men with Provisions, not exceeding the Allowance, mentioned in the Paper herewith given you, and your reasonable Accounts for the same shall be allowed and paid.

"5. You are to keep a Diary or Journal of every day's transactions, and an exact Account of the Time when each man enters himself with you, and if any Man desert or die you are to note the Time in your Journal, and the Time of engaging a new Man in his Place, and submit your Journal to the inspection of the Governor when required.

"6. You are to acquaint the men, that if in their ranging they meet with, or are at any time attacked

THE INDIAN WAR, 1755-1763.

by the Enemy, and kill any of them, Forty Dollars will be allowed and paid by the Government for each Scalp of an Indian enemy so killed, the same pro- duced with proper attestations.1

"7. You are to take care that your stores and pro- visions be not wasted.

" 8. If by any Means you gain Intelligence of the Designs of the Enemy, or the March of any of their parties toward any part of the Frontier, you are to send advice thereof to the Governor and to the other Companies in the Neighborhood, as the Occasion may require.

" 9. You are to keep good Order among your Men, and prevent Drunkenness and other Immoralities, as much as may be, and not Suffer them to do any In- jury to the Inhabitants whom they come to protect. "10. You are to take Care that the Men keep their Arms clean and in good Order and that their Powder be always kept dry and fit for Use.

" 11. You are to make up your Muster Roll at the Month's End in order to receive the Pay of your Company, and to make Oath to the Truth thereof be- fore a Justice of the Peace, and then transmit the same to the Governor.2

" B. FRANKLIN."

The frontier defenses which Franklin was called upon to establish, as before intimated, were to consist of a line of forts from the Dela- ware to the Susquehanna, but his responsibility appears to have been confined to those from the Lehigh eastward. He personally superintended the construction of Fort Allen upon the right bank of the Lehigh (where Weissport, Carbon County, now stands), and he exercised control over the location of Forts Norris, Hamilton and Hyndshaw, all three in what is now Mon- roe County, the last near the Bushkill, about a quarter of a mile from the Delaware. Brod- head's house at Dansbury, (on the site of East Stroudsburg) and Samuel Depui's, on the Dela- ware in Smithfield township, at the mouth of Mill creek were also stockaded.

The line of defense was also extended up the Delaware by the New Jersey people, while some block-houses were built along the same

river in Orange and Sullivan Counties, New York, and one on the Pennsylvania side of the river in what is now Damascus township, Wayne County. This was at the mouth of Calkin's creek, and it was built by Moses Thom- as and Simeon Calkins and their sons, who were squatter settlers there. During the latter part of the Indian war of 1755-1763, after the Connecticut settlers had located in this vicinity, the Indians gave them some trouble, and mur- dered at least one of their number.

None of these forts, or block-houses, above Fort Hyndshaw were erected under the general plan for the defense of the frontier, which was undertaken by the Pennsylvania authorities. Those along the east bank of the Delaware, in the Minisink region, were established by the New Jersey government, upon the representa- tion of Judge Abram Van Campen, he having repaired in 1756, after the murders in North- ampton County, to Elizabethtown, for the pur- pose of acquainting the provincial authorities of the defenseless condition of the frontier.

Of the forts within the territory of which we here treat, it is probable that Fort Hamilton, on the site of Stroudsburg,3 was the first one built. Franklin writing to Governor Morris, December 18, 1755, says : "Captain Wayne tells me that Trump expects the first fort will be built next weck." Captain Trump undoubt- edly built it, and he had command of it for a time, and was there with a body of men as early as January 15, 1756.4

Upon that date, we are told by a trustworthy Moravian historian,5 " a company of refugees set out from Bethlehem for the mountains, to look after their farms and cattle. Among them being Christian Boemper,-a son of Abraham Boem- per, and son-in-law of Frederick Hoeth, who

1 Similar information was furnished by Franklin to Cap- tain Isaac Wayne in a letter or order written in January, 1756. " You are," he says, " to inform the men of your company that they shall receive a reward from the Govern- ment of forty pieces of eight for every Indian they shall kill and scalp in any action they may have with them which I hereby promise to pay upon producing the scalps."-Penn. Archives, Vol. ii. p. 542.

2 Penn. Archives, Vol. ii. 546-47.

3 The fort occupied ground which can now be best located by the statement that it is in the rear of Judge Samuel S. Drcher's law office, on Elizabeth or Main Street.

+ While the men of Captain Trump's company were en- gaged in building the fort, and probably for some time att- erward, they were supplied with bread baked in a large family oven at Nazareth, detachments being sent down from the fort regularly to convey it. to their hungry com- rades. " A Red Rose from the Olden Time," (The Rose Inn,) edited by William C. Reichel, p. 16.

5 Wm. C. Reichel, in " Friedensthal," p. 25.

WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

had been murdered a month before,-and Adam Hold, his servant, a Redemptioncr. The party and some soldiers who escorted them, fell into the hands of the Indians, near Schupp's Mill, Hold alone escaping with a severe flesh wound in the arm. The killed, according to Captain Trump, were Christian Boemper, Felty Hold, Michael Hold, Lawrence Kunckle and four privates of his company, then stationed at Fort Hamilton."

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History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 8

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