USA > Pennsylvania > Westmoreland County > History of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, Vol. I > Part 17
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HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY.
and, when the skin was slightly drawn away from the bone, a sharp knife readily severed a circular piece from the head. It was a custom prevalent among the Indians in warfare among themselves when the first Europeans arrived, and was probably then only used to verify the number of the enemy they had slain. The greed for scalps was afterwards induced by the re- wards offered. It will be recalled that this greed for scalps and spoils on the part of the Indians saved Braddock's army from complete annihilation.
This method of warfare was perhaps questionable, but the exigencies of the times prompted it. The bounty was rarely ever taken by the settlers. But whether the theory was right or wrong, they never offered a bounty for scalps of friendly Indians. Perhaps sometimes a dishonest settler did not discriminate between a friendly and a hostile Indian, but nevertheless the government itself was actuated by good intentions towards all but the hos- tile warrior. On this question Colonel Broadhead, in a letter to President Reed, says that about forty friendly Delaware Indians had come to assist the white settlers in the frontier war, and that a party of about forty white men from the region of Hannastown attempted to destroy them, and were only prevented from doing so by his soldiers. He says in the same letter that he could have gotten one hundred Indians to join him had it not been for such open enmity as was evinced by these men from Hannastown. Among the Hannastown party were Captains Irwin and Jack, Lieutenant Brownlee and Ensign Guthrie, all of whom were gallant rangers who had more than once risked their lives in the frontier warfare. Colonel Broadhead, how- ever, knew as much of the Indians as any man of his day, and had fought them as effectually as any one since the days of Bouquet. Yet he says dis- tinctly that the whites were themselves in part to blame for their great trouble with the red men. His statement has always been considered detrimental to the good names of the rangers mentioned in his letter. It is more likely, however, that these rangers did not know or did not believe that the forty Indians were friendly ones in reality. The well known treachery of the race was ever present in the minds of the white man. The modern saying that the only good Indian is a dead one undoubtedly existed in the minds of the rangers long ago. No men were more anxious to add strength to the white man's camp than Irwin, Jack and Brownlee, and no men ran greater risks in trying to preserve order than they, as will be seen later on. But, on the other hand, it is likewise true that if they believed the forty friendly Indians were treacherous, no set of men could have exterminated them in shorter time than forty rangers headed by such men as Jack, Irwin, Brown- lee and Guthrie. This is, at least, a charitable view of Colonel Broadhead's letter, and we believe is not unduly fair to the rangers.
Judge Wilkinson, in the American Pioneer, says the scalp bounty law was brought into disrepute by killing friendly Indians to sell their scalps. There was no bounty during the Revolution on Indian prisoners, and this led to the
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death of some. Moreover, a friendly Indian was much more easily scalped than a hostile one. At all events, the abuse of the law, says the above writer, "brought the scalp bounty measure into disrepute," and it was rightfully re- pealed. It had only been offered to encourage settlers to sustain the soldiers in battle.
The Indian troubles had thus been going on from bad to worse since the beginning of the Revolution, and in February and March, 1781, a plan of defense was suggested by General George Rogers Clark, and concurred in by Broadhead and Lochry. It was to take an army into the heart of the Indian country, to burn their houses, devastate their country, and destroy their warriors, ard to so weaken them that they would thereafter be unable to disturb the settlers of Western Pennsylvania. It was not a new plan in Indian warfare, for it was practically the same that was adopted success- fully by Broadhead in his movements down the Ohio and up the Allegheny in 1778. It was little other than the plan with which Scipio Africanus had electrified the Roman senate two thousand years before, when the great Carthagenian was threatening the Eternal City. The plan was laid before Washington and. Jefferson, and met with their approval, and was likewise approved by the supreme executive council, though they averred that they could do but little for the project because all of the troops that Pennsylvania could spare were then with General Nathanael Greene in the south. All the council could do was to encourage the Westmoreland people to assist in the project in every way possible. Christopher Hays was then the Westmore- land member of the council, and was opposed to the expedition, doubtless from fear of the result. Colonel Archibald Lochry, the county lieutenant, was the foremost man in the project after Clark, and had in his spirit of patriotic zeal taken upon himself to raise all the soldiers in Westmoreland county he could. All were bitter against Hays. There were many bickerings and jealousies among the leaders, notwithstanding the universal suffering, and these weakened the cause a great deal. Each leader seemed to have a corresponding enemy who villified him. Broadhead, Lochry, Perry and oth- ers were accused of having misappropriated public money and speculating in ammunition and whisky furnished by the council for the troops. The charges were probably all groundless. Early in 1781 the council became alarmed at the threatenings of the Indians, and at the delay in raising the soldiers for the expedition, which they thought was occasioned by incom- petency and by jealous feelings among the leading men. They therefore directed Lochry, the leader of the forces here, to raise at once a company of fifty volunteers enlisted for a four months campaign, and promised to add a full company, all to be under Lochry, and to carry the war into the Indian country, and to be posted as he might direct. David Duncan was appointed commissioner of supplies in place of James Perry, the latter, either through inefficiency or negligence, having proved very unsatisfactory in his admin-
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istration of the office. President Reed, in a letter to Lochry, says, "It is with much concern that we hear that when troops are raised for your protection, they are permitted to loiter away their time at taverns or straggling about the country." He had probably received this information from those who were jealous of Lochry. He also advises that all troops should be moved from Hannastown and sent where they could be of more service. He evi- dently did not understand the Hannastown situation. Lochry replied in good style under date of April, 1781, and reported that the savages had already begun their hostilities in four places on the frontier, and had either killed or taken prisoners thirteen settlers, two of whom had been murdered within one mile of Hannastown. He wrote further that the country was more nearly depopulated than ever before, and that the condition on the frontier would be much worse if their real weakness was known to the en- emy. (See Pa. Arch., Vol. 9, p. 79.) He lamented the scarcity of provisions to supply the militia, and reported that ammunition was so scarce among the settlers that he was compelled to supply them with a part of the supply in- tended for the army. Lochry had built a magazine and blockhouse on his place in Unity township, where he meant to keep the army stores and am- munition. President Reed disapproved of this, and directed that they should be kept in the garrisons.
The plan in general was known as Clark's plan, and its movements were minutely disclosed in a letter written by him to the council on June 3, 1781. There were two objective points, viz .: First, the houses built by the Shawnee and Delaware Indians, west of the Scioto river, in Ohio; and second, the Sandusky tribes, which had gradually been pushed west from the Allegheny river section. His outline plan suggested that if the Westmoreland expedi- tion under Lochry should march against the Sandusky tribes, he might lead an army against the Shawnees and Delawares in the southern part of Ohio. After each army had accomplished the object of its expedition, they should unite and pursue the Indians still further, if necessary. One party would thus support the other, and the extermination of these tribes could thus be so complete that further molestations from them need not be feared by our Western Pennsylvania borders. If the military of the state was so weak that two armies could not be furnished, then one stronger than either should do the work of both, and it should be provisioned according to the magnitude of the undertaking, which, he intimated, was indeed an arduous one. Clark was a brave, cool man of genius, and his character and reputation as a sol- dier were well known in Westmoreland county. It was expected that our people, inspired by the faith they had in him, would flock to his assistance. Three hundred men had been promised from Washington and Westmoreland counties, but from all this section only two of the leading men of Westmore- land came forth to assist him. The reason lay not in their lack of faith in Clark, nor in the project, but they were simply afraid to leave their homes
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and families, exposed as they would have been to the merciless attack of the red men, whose depredations were every day growing bolder and more inhuman. Broadhead also, from feelings of jealousy referred to above, discouraged the project by talking of organizing an expedition himself, and called on the young men of the country to join him. Lochry's reputation had unjustly suffered somewhat from the spirit of jealousy referred to, and he probably longed for an opportunity to show the people that he had only the good of the country at heart. Both Clark and Lochry determined not to wait any longer on volun- teers from Western Pennsylvania. Clark had a small force at and around Fort Pitt, but he depended mainly for his forces on the settlements along the Ohio river, and on Kentucky, for all were interested in punishing the Indians. Lochry brought his forces together at Carnahan's blockhouse, a stronghold about ten miles northwest of Hannastown. Among them were Captain Rob- ert Orr, a friend of Lochry's of long standing, and an officer in the militia. Orr had furthermore induced many of the militia to join Lochry. Captains Thomas Stokes and Samuel Shearer each headed a small band of Westmore- land rangers, and Captain Charles Campbell had a squad of men on horseback. On July 25th they left Carnahan's for Fort Henry, now the industrious city of Wheeling. It is acknowledged by all that the men of our county whom Lochry took with him were the best Indian fighters we had ; in fact, none but the most daring and active young men could engage in such a project. All were poorly equipped for such a journey. Stokely's company was described as being liter- ally half naked. Outfits for all of them had been promised by President Reed, and their expected arrival delayed the expedition. When finally they failed to arrive, many who meant to join them were compelled to remain behind. The outfit which might have helped them a great deal arrived after they had left. Ensign William Cooper hurried on with it, but it never reached them. Lochry's entire command when he started numbered one hundred and seven men.
Fort Pitt was also to send out troops under Captain Isaac Craig. They were to join Clark's forces in company with some troops from Kentucky at Louisville. The Kentucky troops failed to meet them, and all of Craig's forces returned to Fort Pitt. Clark had collected from Redstone, Ohio and Kentucky about seven hundred and fifty men. Lochry was to join Clark at Wheeling, but when they reached that point they found that Clark had gone on, leaving a boat and some provisions for Lochry, with instructions to follow and join him twelve miles below. Lochry's army was delayed at Wheeling fitting out additional boats, and when he reached the designated point of meeting twelve miles below he found that Clark had left it the day before, but had left orders for him to follow and join at the mouth of the Kanawha river. But Lochry was now about out of provisions and ammunition both, and the outlook was growing darker each day. His forces, if joined to Clark's would have been safe enough, but when alone they were at best at the mercy of the enemy.
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HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY.
Clark did not know for a certainty that Lochry was on the way. But the undaunted Lochry journeyed on towards the mouth of the Kanawha. Here again he arrived too late. Clark had erected a pole on the bank of the river, and on it was a letter to Lochry directing him to follow on down the river to the falls in the Ohio, where now stands the city of Louisville. Clark, however, was doing the best he could. First, he had no evidence that Lochry was on the way at all, and to leave provisions taken from his already scanty supply, with no assurance that Lochry would get them, was more than should be expected. Second, his men were rapidly becoming impatient to go out and give battle to the Indians, and return to their homes, where they were doubtless badly needed. They were deserting, and the only way he could hold them together at all was by moving towards the enemy.
Nothing was left for Lochry to do but to go down the river. Yet, without provisions and with but little ammunition and nothing in the country to draw from, his advance must indeed have looked very gloomy. Nor could he now hope to overtake Clark, for his boats were clumsy and poorly manned by pilots who knew nothing of the channel or the surrounding country. The best he could do was to dispatch Captain Shannon in a boat with three or four men, hoping that a lighter craft might overtake Clark's army and secure supplies, etc. Shannon and his party were captured by the Indians, and with them a letter from Lochry to Clark, which gave them some idea of the weak condition of Lochry's forces. The Indians, as was afterwards learned, were only prevented from attacking Lochry's army by a fear that Clark might have forces near enough to assist him. Moreover, while Lochry was in the middle of the river, an attack would have been very serious on the part of the Indians. But from deserters from Clark's army whom they captured, they learned pretty nearly the true situation, and rapidly collected large forces of Indians near the mouth of the Miami river. They then stationed their prisoners on a small island on the Ohio side of the river, where they could see any craft which might pass down the Ohio. They were to hail the expedition as it came down the stream and induce them to land on the island. Should they succeed in this treachery, they were to be set free, and if they failed to perform their part they were to be put to death. But Lochry's men landed on the Ohio side, about three miles above the island, near the mouth of a small creek which yet bears his name, being known as Lochry's creek. He has been criticised for landing at all, and thus making his capture possible. He knew more about Indian warfare than any of his modern critics do, and his landing was probably a matter of necessity. He landed at a place of peculiar beauty even to this day, and his starving horses were turned out to graze, for the bank was rich in herbage. One of his men killed a buffalo, and there was plenty to eat for all his forces. This was about 10 o'clock a. m., August 24, 1781. Clark, if at the falls, was yet one hundred and twenty miles down the river, but with refreshed
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troops and horses this distance might easily be covered in three or four days, and the hopes of the soldiers ran high.
But the Indians had their scouts out along both banks, and the news of the landing was soon made known to their main forces. Without the slightest warning, as was the Indian custom, came the leaden hail and the well known Indian yell from a bluff near. by. This bluff was covered with large trees, and from behind these and among their branches the six hundred and forty- eight assailants fought at a great advantage. Lochry's men sprang to their guns, and while their ammunition lasted defended themselves as well as they could. When it was exhausted they made for their boats, but by this time the Indians had closed in on them, and at once took them prisoners. Not one of them escaped capture. Lochry was killed soon after being taken. He had with him one hundred and six men when he landed, of whom forty-two were killed and sixty-four were captured. The prisoners, their arms, etc., were divided among all the tribes represented in the attack, in proportion to the number of each tribe. They were thus separated, but nearly all were held captive until the fall of 1782, when they were collected by the British officers and exchanged for prisoners whom the American army had captured. All whom the English ransomed were taken to Montreal, but in the meantime a few had escaped. In the spring of 1783 most of them sailed for New York, and thus returned to Westmoreland county, after an absence of twenty-two months.
More than half of the one hundred and seven men who left Carnahan's never returned, and until their return very little was heard of them. On the return of Captain Craig's troops he could scarcely be persuaded that Lochry had not returned before. Isaac Anderson and Richard Wallace were taken to Montreal and escaped. After long marches through the gloomy forests they reached Philadelphia, and sent a letter to the council telling who they were and how they had reached the city. They asked for clothing and money to take them home to Westmoreland county. Captain Orr had his arm broken in the fight. He was taken to Sandusky and thence to Detroit, and finally to Montreal, where he was exchanged. Samuel Craig, a lieutenant in Orr's company, from Derry township, was taken prisoner. As the Indians were crossing a river they threw him overboard, intending to drown him, but he was a splendid swimmer, and repeatedly made his way to the canoe, and, with his hands on the sides, tried to climb in. They beat him over the hands with the oars and pressed his head under the water as often as he came to the surface for breath. Finally, when he was about exhausted, an Indian claimed him as his own, and took him into the boat. In his long captivity Craig suffered perhaps more than any other. Several times both he and his captors came near starving. He had a cheerful disposition and was a good singer, and the Indians loved his songs. At one time they grew tired of their prisoners and took them all out and placed them in a row on a log. They then blackened their faces, which meant that they were to be killed. But just then
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HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY.
Craig began to sing as loud and well as he could. This so pleased the Indians that they spared his life, while all the others were murdered. Soon after this he was sold to a British officer for a gallon of whisky. After his return he was married to a daughter of John Shields, and left a family of five sons and two daughters. He was by trade a fuller, and built a fulling mill on the banks of the Loyalhanna, near New Alexandria. Another survivor from Lochry's army was James Kane, who was for nearly a life time a court-cryer under Judge John Young, of Greensburg. He died in 1845.
Archibald Lochry was one of the strongest men in Westmoreland in Revo- lutionary days. He was of North-Irish extraction, but was born in the Octo- raro settlement, for he was an ensign in the Second Battalion in the provincial service. Both he and his brother William were appointed justices in Bedford county at its organization, and later when Westmoreland was organized, he was made a justice here, as the reader has seen. He very early took up a large tract of land in what is now Unity township. It is on the south side of the turnpike between Greensburg and Youngstown, and near St. Xavier's Convent. The land has since added great wealth to the county, for it is within the cele- brated Connellsville coal belt, and is underlaid with a thick vein of coal. His correspondence is generally dated at "Twelve Mile Run," the name of a small stream on his land which flows into the "Fourteen Mile Run," which in turn flows into the Loyalhanna fourteen miles below Fort Ligonier. His services as county lieutenant, then a position of great importance, thoughi now unknown, made him very nearly if not quite our ablest man after General St. Clair, of the Revolutionary period. His name has been spelled differently from the spelling here. We take this from his will which he signs, "A. Lochry." It is recorded in will book No. 1, page 31, of the Westmoreland recorder's office. His will appoints John Proctor, his neighbor, as his sole executor, and letters were granted to him July 11, 1782. His ill-fated expedition, while it seemingly accomplished but little, was necessary to work out our final peace and harmony on the western border. As long as Westmoreland people revere the struggles and courage of their pioneer ancestry, will the name of Archibald Lochry be held in highest esteem.
It is hardly fair to the Indian not to tell his side of this most important feature of our pioneer history. It is, moreover, necessary to know something of both sides in order to judge correctly of either. It has been our purpose to take the reader outside of the present limits of our county as little as possi- ble, except in matters in which our people were directly interested. We are now to go outside of Westmoreland for by far the bloodiest chapter in our work, and are happy to say that our people were in no way connected with it.
The Moravian Church in the eastern part of Pennsylvania sent mission- aries among the Indians of our section as early as 1769. In every section these missionaries made themselves felt and in one or two tribes they had quite a following. But whether a tribe was Christianized or not, all were alike slowly
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HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY.
pushed westward by advancing civilization. In 1780 a colony known as the Moravian Indians, who had embraced that faith of religion, were located on the Tuscarawas river, in Ohio, in what is now Tuscarawas county. Here they lived at peace with all mankind, and, having abandoned the nomadic nature of the average Indian, had acquired considerable personal property and had better houses than the average of their race. Their preacher was Rev. John Hecke- welder. They had three villages on the Tuscarawas, about six miles apart, which were regarded as a model of Indian civilization, and of what might be lone generally for the race by Christianity. They were about midway between the hostile tribes of western Indians and the frontier settlements of Pennsylva- nia. Both the Pennsylvania settlers and the Indians west of them frequently passed through or near the Moravian settlements in going to war, and often through kindness they entertained representatives of both parties on their way to battle. Tliis brought them into bad odor with each, and they were frequently mistreated by both sides. Broadhead with his army in 1780 had passed near their settlements, and he and his soldiers respected their rights. Their minister visited him and he forbade any of his soldiers interfering with them. In 1781 the militia from Washington county (which had suffered much from other tribes but none from the Moravians) concluded to destroy them. It was easier to fight and scalp resistless Indians than the average savage. Colonel David Williamson led the party. The Moravian tribe had, on several occasions, warned the white race of intended Indian raids from the farther west. This was learned by the British, who had their towns partly destroyed by white Tories under the leadership of Girty and McKee. They hoped thus to force the peaceable Moravians to make war on the white settlers. Though they were then driven from their homes many of them had gone back, and were living in their old places in 1782, when David Williamson's party of Washington county ยท militia arrived. This party consisted of about ninety men. A few were from settlements on the Ohio river, below Pittsburgh, but the large majority of them came from the central part of what is now Washington county. It is said that they coveted the fine horses of the Moravians.
Williamson and his party represented themselves as friendly to them, and as coming to defend them from the attack of Girty, McKee and others. They thus secured possession of their towns, and then disclosed their real purposes by taking them all as prisoners, confining them in log houses, and proceeding to de- liberate as to what they should do with them. Williamson knew that to put the average Indian to death would have added to their glory, but he was afraid to do so in this case. So they lined up the militia and allowed them to vote as to whether the prisoners should be put to death or taken in captivity to Pitts- burgh. Only eighteen voted in favor of taking them, the others, about seventy, voting that they should be put to death. The cringing Indians were then told to prepare for death. On hearing this they began to sing and pray as they had been taught by their pious minister. To make a show of reason for this
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