History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 25

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor
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But a more successful campaign was planned and carried out by the genius and foresight of one man. . George Rogers Clark was a Virginian, and a man destined to be favorably remembered by the success of those acts which were the result of his intrepid boldness, inflexible perseverance, unflinching will, and judicious foresight. He was partly assisted by the private exertions of prominent men in his State, but when he started from Old Redstone on the Monon- gahela he took with him and his Virginia comrades some Westmorelanders, who remained with him to the last. Then he and bis followers, in the great wilderness, hundreds of miles from their babes and homes, began and followed up that series of brilliant movements and successful stratagems which after- wards crowned their efforts with success and them- selves with honor, and which, baffing the cunning of the wily Governor, wrenched from Britain ber sta- tions on the rivers, and gave to the Union the terri- tory which now forms half a dozen States in the most flourishing part of the Mississippi Valley.'

The most noted of the expeditions into the Indian country were made by troops under McIntosh ; Brod- head, 1780; Lochry, 1782; Crawford, 1782. By re- membering these dates it will assist to recall smaller and intermediate expeditions more closely concerning us, as we shall only refer to these, as our narrative is necessarily connected with them.

This conflict along the frontier, which may not inaptly be called a conflict between the races, and which began with the war for independence, continued till the war for independence was fully over. And of this conflict it is not to be understood that it was one grand system of attack and defense. Not at all

" Vide Bancroft, vul. z.

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BORDER WARFARE AND CIVIL DISSENSIONS.

times were the same tribes arrayed against the same settlers. The animosity between the border settlers and the Indians has been noticed more than once, and to the Northwestern tribes the general war was one long. grand holiday of carnage. They were al- lowed, and indeed incited, to kill as many as they could, to spare no one, and to claim with cheerfulness the price of the scalps brought in, which price the agents got back usually for whiskey. While their war at first was directed against the Virginians, the border settlers of Westmoreland suffered with them, and the only part that escaped was that part behind the rivers, now best known to us as Fayette County. Indian ag- gression after Braddock's defeat never extended into that region with any profit, for those who inhabited there were so situated that they always had timely warning. But even in the dry decisions of the Su- preme Courts, where one would last go to hunt for it, we see that the settlers along the Sewickley had, in 1777 and 1778, to leave their lands and cabins from savage inroads evidently directed against their neigh- bors.

The disputed line trouble was at this time an ad- vantage not seen nor dreamed of by those who had at first so actively urged on the controversy to a fever heat, and which was almost the cause of the sword being drawn. So peculiarly are mortal affairs mixed up with circumstances beyond their control, that what at one time is an advantage may at another time be a disadvantage. The line was not adjusted when the Revolutionary war broke out, and the people and the country were divided into two grand divisions. Owing to this separation each part of the old county was better enabled to take care of itself. A system of mutual protection was more readily and more success- fully effected than could have been possible bad the ter- ritory of the county remained whole or intact. The distance from one extreme to the other was too far for concerted and prompt action, and the interests of the people too inharmonious to coalesce. There would have been rivalries in the command, jealousies in the distribution of forces, and bickerings arising from the apportionment of supplies and munitions. As it was, the elements in each division could more readily har- monize and more effectively co-operate; their sense of mutual protection was the more keen, and the ties of community more closely drawn. To divide was to conquer. Those south of the Youghiogheny joined the Virginians in their wars, while those north of the river, and which is of Westmoreland, during all the war sustained the harassing attacks of the savages, and repelled them with the force of their own arms and courage. Along this imaginary and invisible line either fled to the block-houses of the other, and all joined together to follow up the trails of the marau- ders. They have had the story of their trials told, while our settlers have theirs yet to be related.

Then the legal authority, which at first had promised so auspiciously, was now, by reason of the internal

troubles of which we are familiar, all but powerless. While the laws along the southern border were in abeyance, and when the best and bravest of the peo- ple were in the army at a remote distance, a favorable pretext was given for a revival of the old question as to whether Virginia was in Pennsylvania or whether Pennsylvania was in Virginia. It will be remembered that when Dunmore laid claim to Southwestern Penn- sylvania he embraced the whole of the West in Au- gusta County, with Staunton as the county-seat, but with the county court sitting sometimes at Staunton and sometimes at Pittsburgh.1 The county courts of Virginia, at this time established south of the Youg- hiogheny, meted out a kind of irregular justice among those along the border, who were nearly al- ways at war. Taking advantage of this condition of affairs, the inhabitants on either side had early refused to perform any public military duty ; a jury could not be impaneled, nor a constable be got to serve process. Taxes could not be levied nor collected, nor was there a purchaser for land to be found.

Besides the cheapness of land which made these settlers favor the claim of Virginia, the condition of public affairs were incentives to increase this commo- tion ; and these causes, added to the passiveness of Westmoreland, gave Virginia opportunity in 1776 to annex that part of Pennsylvania lying west of the peninsula region, now aptly known to us as Greene County, to the part already in dispute. The more perfectly to accomplish this result, she erected, in October of that year, all these parts, in connection with some of the adjacent territory of what is now West Virginia, into three counties, each with its county-seat and county jurisdiction. These she named Monongalia, Ohio, and Yohogania.' What was left of Westmoreland County was a defenseless frontier, exposed to Canadian-British outlaws, renegades, and savages. While Virginia at home detested Dunmore, she did not look with disfavor on his usurpation abroad, and what he had done for the king she cor- sidered as having been done for herself. From 1774 to 1776 the territory in dispute, extending up the Ohio, had been treated by Virginia as of her territory, and as such was incorporated, as we have seen, into Augusta County, and the courts thereof, upon ad- journments from Staunton, were held at Pittsburgh till the erection of these other counties. Here, under the cover of Virginia jurisdiction, taxes were levied and collected, roads, mills, taverns, and ferries authorized, lands marked, titles recorded, ministers licensed, fees received for marriage certificates, and judicial functions exercised in court and at chambers, and during this time the only undisputed territory under the jurisdiction of our State and county was confined to a small region around Hannastown, ex-

1 Brownsville (Fort Bard) was not county-seat for Augusta County as sometimes erroneously reported.

For Monongahela, Ohio, and You lyblogbeny (en to the variety of spellings), see chapter on nomencla

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tending to a line which was probably not more than ten or fifteen miles from the Momongabels on this side. Anything like an ordinary state of order was confined to the vicinage of Fort Dunmore (or Pitts- burgh), and in the rest of the usurped jurisdiction it was more of a showing of authority than a reality. The state of law and morais in the easterly part of this region down through the Revolution was worse than in any other part. Among the dwellers in the Mesopotamian region-that part of the country now Washington County-there was no law.1

These counties went into operative effect in Decem- ber. That part of Momongalis County in Peaneyl- vania included in 1776 a small portion of Washing- ton County upon the Ten-Mile Creek, which Slows into the Monongabela, about one-third of the south- western part of Fayette, and all of Greene. Ohio County embraced about one-third of Washington County, in the west below Cross Creek. As for Yo- hogania, it covered all the other part of the disputed as well as the undisputed region north and east of the other two in Washington, Allegheny, Westmoreland, and Fayette, and was only bounded by the undefined line never adjusted.

The court-house of Monongalis was at New Geneva; that of Ohio at Black's cabin, near West Liberty ; and that of Yohogania on the plantation of Robert Heath, on the western bank of the Monongabela, about where the line of Washington and Allegheny Counties strikes that river. The records of the coun- ties of Monongalia and Ohio are not extant, but a part of those of Yohogania are still preserved, and are the only existing monument of its civil existence."

Its courts, according to Judge Veech, did a large and varied business, civil, criminal, military, and mixed. It had the advantage of a bar of regular lawyers who practiced in the county courts of Western Vir- ginia. Dorsey Pentecost, a formerly appointed jus- tice of the peace for Westmoreland, and the first councilor for Washington County, was chief clerk of the Yohogania arrangement, and stands in about the same relation to that county as St. Clair stands to Westmoreland. Pentecost was an efficient coadjutor of John Connolly when Connolly's favor was pre- sumably worth something. His residence was in the Forks of the Yough. Dorsey Pentecost, like Thomas Scott, redeemed his character for patriotism, but both of them, in their capriciousness, were more unstable than Connolly himself; for whereas Connolly's rab- ble were as averse to Virginia government as to Peon- sylvania government, and patriotically considered that government to be the best which governed least,

1 " In the section of country where my father lived there was for many years after the settlement of the country neither law por gospel. During a long period we knew nothing of courts, lawyers, magistrates, sheriff's, or constables. Every one was, therefore, at liberty to do whatever was right in his own eyes."-Rev. Dr. Doddridge.

" We have heard these were in possession of Judge Veech, now de ceased, to whose writings we are indebted, in great part, for information on this subject.

Connolly as a man was as fixed and as unchanging as Girty. To Pentecost it was little diference what was the name of the county so he had an office in it, and Scott showed his hand when he began inquiring after boundary lines at the time of the New State project.

In the Appendix may be found the names of the officers of the county," Of its cherish, representatives, and justices, some were of the most prominent and useful men in our carly history.

The data following are collected from the records of the county courts, and begin December the 28d, 1776, and end in 1781.

Their first election came of an a Banday, which among the Virginians was not so unamal thing. Several justices, in the first place, refused to carve as sheriff because of the uncertainty of the boundary lines, being apprehensive of becoming involved in trouble. For the first eight months the court cosme to have est at Pittsburgh, then for two months at the house of Andrew Heath, and thesceforth at the new court-house on his plantation. From the specifica- tions ordered Ang. 22, 1777, the court-house and jail were to be included in one building of round, sound oak logs, to be two stories high, twenty-four feet long. and sixteen feet wide. The lower story was to be eight feet high, partitioned in the middle with square hewed logs, the doors and windows to be secared with bars and Jock. This part was to be the jail. The height of the upper story was to be fire feet, with convenient seats prepared for the court and bar, and a table for the clerk. The covering was to be a good cabin roof. This was to remain one room, and a pair of stairs to be erected on the outside to secend by. In October the building committee ordered a stone chimney to be built in the middle for both the court-house and jail, with three fireplaces, two below and one above, and also that the building be chunked, daubed, and plastered, and a window of four panes, of eight by ten, put in each "globe" of the court- house. On April 29, 1778, a pair of stocks, whipping- post, and pillory were ordered to be built in the court- house yard, and the order was renewed on Nov. 24, 1778. An addition was also ordered to the building of a room sixteen feet square, one story high, of good logs, cabin roof, and outside wooden chimney, with seats, sheriff's box, and so forth, for a court-room. Every sheriff, as usual, enters his protest against the sufficiency of the jail, and there are repeated appoint- ments of justices to take lists of tithables in desig- nated districts, and to tender the oath of allegiance.

On June 25, 1777, James Johnston was fined twenty shillings for two profane oaths and one curse, and this fine, no doubt, making Mr. Johnston curse louder and deeper, he was further fined the same day the same sum for four oaths. What happened to Robert Hamilton on the 26th of August, 1777, while a pris- oner in the sheriff's custody, for " disrespectfully in-

3 See Appendix " N."

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BORDER WARFARE AND CIVIL DISSENSIONS.

Iting the court" in the person of Richard Yates, ntleman, "in the grocest and most imperlite man- r," was that the feet of the said Robert were con- ed in the lower rails of the fence for the space of e minutes.

On June 24, 1778, cotton- and wool-cards were dered to be distributed in Col. Cox's and Col. epbenson's battalions according to the number of men therein. On Oct. 28, 1777, it was ordered that e inhabitants of the county have leave to inoculate the smallpox at their own houses, and at such her convenient places as they might think proper. As it would be tedious to enter into the details of is controversy still further, we may anticipate events d state how and when these difficulties were ad- ted.

All attempts made by the Governors of Pennsylva- with Dunmore to adjust the claims amounted to thing. . The question then lay open for five years, 1779, when a movement was made to effect a set- ment. Five prominent men, three from Pennsyl- nia and two from Virginia, were appointed to fix on a boundary. The agreement entered into by se gentlemen on the 31st of August, 1779, was to effect that they, the committee named, did, in half of their respective States, ratify and confirm agreement to extend Mason and Dixon's line due st five degrees of longitude from the Delaware for southern boundary of Pennsylvania, and that a ridian line drawn from the western terminus of Mason and Dixon's line to the northern limit of ansylvania should be the western boundary of that te forever. This agreement was confirmed and ified by the Legislature of Virginia, upon certain ditions, on the 23d of June, 1780, and by a reso- ion (only) of the General Assembly of Pennsylva- on the 23d of September, 1780. The conditions on which Virginia confirmed this agreement were t the private property and rights of all persons uired under, founded on, or recognized by the laws either county previous to that date should be ed and confirmed to them, although they should found to fall within the limits of the other; and t in the decision of disputes thereon preference uld be given to the older or prior right, whichever the said States the same should have been acquired ler. These conditions were recognized, and the eement ratified by act of April 1, 1784. And dur- this year the boundaries were run and marked by es set in the ground.

'his celebrated line of demarkation, by name fam- rly known, is the parallel of latitude thirty-nine rees forty-three and odd minutes, which first was

run to separate Pennsylvania from Maryland to settle the dispute between those two colonies. It was drawn by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, who surveyed the line between 1763 and 1767. At the end of every fifth mile a stone1 was fixed in the ground, on one side of which was graved the arms of the Penn family, and on the other the arms of Lord Baltimore. From the terminus of this line the stones, which marked the two territories of Pennsylvania and Vir- ginia, had on the northern side the letter P, and on the other side the letter V.

We shall have .occasion frequently to notice the deplorable state of affairs which existed along this debatable region even up to the close of the Revolu- tionary war. The pretext for the evasion of the law and the shirking of duty was always handy ; as Fal- staff would have said, " If the cook helped to make the gluttony, the people helped to make the disease." Gen. Irvine, writing from Fort Pitt to Washington, March 30, 1782, says that the civil authority was by no means at that date properly established in this country, which the general did not doubt proceeded, in some degree, from the inattention in the executives of the two States in not running the boundary, which was an excuse for neglect of duty of all kinds for a great distance on either side.

And it is seen that the jurisdiction of Westmore- land on its southwestern side, dating from the year of its existence till its jurisdiction was completely taken away by the erection of legitimate counties, was not near so extensive as some have casually inferred. The first of these legitimate counties was the county of Washington, which by act of the Legislature of March 28, 1781, took existence, and which was, in truth, formed out of territory mostly acquired from Virginia as the outcome of the settlement with her. It was bounded on the north by the Ohio River, on the east by the Monongahela, and on the south and west by Virginia .? Prior to the erection of Washing- ton County no attempts were made to exercise juris- diction west of the Monongahela. Fayette County was next taken out of Westmoreland, by act of Sept. 26, 1783, as to all that part southwest of the Youg- hiogheny ; that part northeast of the river having been added by act of Feb. 14, 1784. That part of Allegheny taken from Westmoreland remained in Westmoreland till that county was erected by act of Sept. 24, 1788, when it encroached on the western side between the two rivers, as shown by the lines on the map.

1 These stones were imported from England.

$ Greene County was taken out of Washington Feb. 9, 1796. See chapter on political divisions, infra.

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HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

CHAPTER XX.

FORTS, BLOCK-HOUSES, AND INCIDENTS OF WAR- FARE.

Reliance of Westmoreland in her Militia-Her means of defence-De- scription of the Early Stockades, Forta, Block-How-es-Block-C'aline and Stations-Fort Ligonier and Capt. Shannon and Col. McDowell- Hannastown Stockade- Fort Hand-Fort Reed-Furt Crawford-Fort Shippen, at Capt. Proctor's-Fort Allen-Ragh's Block-House-Kop- ple's Block -House-Miller's Block-House and Station-Palmer's Block- Honse-Williams' Fort-Fort Waltonr-Fort Wallace-Carnahan's Block-House-Barr's Binck -! lonee-Shielde' Block-House-Miller's Fort on the Sewickley-MeDowell's Block-HIquee-Teague Ieland Fort -Inchleuts-The Francie Family killed near Waltour's-Attack on Waltour's Furt and death of the Old Man Waltner-The wounded Indian who killed Waltour comes to Fort Pitt-Has his wound dressed-Confesers that he shot Waltour-A Company from about Brush Creek go to the Garrison and demaud him, that they may pm ich him themselves-He is given up to them-He is taken back to Waltour's Fort to be burned at the stake-While they are hunt- ing up a Sheriff and a Jury to bold a mock trial the Indian cocapre- He is followed Ninety Miles, and when last heard of had taken to the Allegheny River-Fiuley's adventure at Fort Wallace.

WHILE such expeditions as Clark's and even Mc- Intosh's to the Muskingum diverted the more remote tribes and kept them at bay, the dangers to the West- moreland frontiers were more to be apprehended from those Northern Indians that harbored about the upper Allegheny and along the rivers of Eastern Ohio. It is true, likewise, that during all the war a garrison, consisting sometimes of Continental troops, and some- times of recruits of militia, was kept up at Pittsburgh. At all times, however, the main reliance, both for the safety of the post itself and for the protection of the inhabitants behind it, was in the volunteer militia of our county. Throughout the whole extent of the county, with perhaps the exception of that region between the Youghiogheny and the Monongahela, called the "Mesopotamian" region, the frontier peo- ple, from the time of Dunmore's war in 1774, opened their clearings and cultivated their little patches un- der the protection of their block-houses and with their guns at their sides. It is true that Gibson, Brodhead, Crawford, and Lochry led out organized bodies and punished their enemy, but if there had not been such men as Brownlee, Shannon, Wallace, and Brady there would not have been a cabin left standing west of Laurel Hill. Even the women of that day won a share of the honor for their steadfast- ness and bravery, and every little community had its heroine, from Experience Boasart, at Dunkard Creek, to Massy Harbison, on the Kiskiminetas. These set- tlers defended their firesides, fought the British, ap- pointed their own military officers when not in the regular service, erected their own forts, fed and clothed, for the best part, their supplies of troops, kept the families of the poor among them, and bore almost alone the burden of that contest as it was carried on in the West.

Of these forts and block-houses we shall now say something. The name stockade was the name given to those structures which were more mechanically

raised and regularly built than the other defensive works, although stockades, forts, block-houses, and block-house cabine are called such withoat discrimi- nation. The stockades themselves were sometimes called forts and sometimes stockade-forts. The two most complete and best adapted of the old forts, the most important and the best known, were the stock- ade-forts, the one of Ligonier and the other at Han- nastown. The system on which these were built was followed on the far western frontier as well as in those structures erected along the Allegheny and the Mo- nongabela. The stockade proper which gave the name was built of the poles of large trees, split down and cut to the length of ten or twelve feet. These were set upright in the ground and fitted closely to- gether side by side, with the surfaced or faced side of the logs (when they were faced) fronting outward. Those on the inside were pinned with long wooden pins to stout timbers, while other and longer logs fashioned in the same way were firmly fastened against these, running horizontally along the whole length, and supported from the inside by strong tim- ber braces. These perpendicular logs were called the palisades, a word signifying originally stakes, or posts, and coming to mean fence-like, and applied to this arrangement because it somewhat resembled the pickets of a fence, and the pieces were indeed some- times called pickets. On the outside of the forts of this class the earth was thrown up against the walls, and in some this was done in the inside also. The inclosure was in the instance of these two principal forts sufficiently commodious to contain all that ever might have occasion to seek their shelter.

Ligonier Fort was first laid out and built under the supervision of the engineers with the army of Forbes in 1758.1 The fort of the Revolutionary times differed somewhat from the first plan, as the first plan was not fully carried out in the construction. It was built for all the purposes of a fort and a military post in the enemy's country, whereas the Hannastown fort was built after the country was to a certain extent in- habited. Ligonier Fort had cabins erected in the in- side of the stockade; and while the colony was under the proprietary government, especially after Pontiac's war of 1764, a garrison of from eighteen to thirty sol- diers were quartered here. The cabins for the soldiers were on the outside, about one hundred yards from the fort, and within the walls were the officers' quar- ters, the magazines, the munitions and supplies. When it was garrisoned by the provincial troops there were a couple of howitzers mounted at the angles of the bastions and the walls were pierced for musketry. A covered way led to a spring on the hillside near to the fort. The fort stood on the northern bank of the Loyalhanna, now within the limits of the present borough, between the main street and the creek in the upper part of the village.

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History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 25

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: