History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 35

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor
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dians ever once possessed him, being by nature fear- lees and excitable, and having had much experience in the troubles of the frontier. The captain from here kept in a southerly course to the right of the fort, and in the direction of Miller's, although not to Miller's. On his way he came to where the Love family lived, somewhat above a mile from the fort. These he as- sisted off, taking Mrs. Love and her small babe on the horse behind him, and carrying them, if not to the fort, to some place of safety. Of the day's work of this gallant chevalier this incident is proven in the accounts and well preserved in the traditions of the Hannastown descendants.

The young men whom we have mentioned of, on meeting Capt. Jack, took his word and hurried back towards the town. The Indians caught sight of Shaw and his, companions, and no doubt hoping to reach the town before they were expected, came running at full speed after the scouts; for they were surely under the impression that news had not yet reached the vil- lage, that they would capture the scouts by running them down, or at least that they would make their attack before the people could have time to get away. Then began the old-fashioned race for life. The scouts were good woodsmen and swift runners, and they knew the ground well; every path, every hollow, every jutting rock was familiar. If they could reach the Crabtree Run, which marked its way through the rough ravine, they might then feel safe, for the Indians would hardly pursue them under cover of the houses. By the time they reached the Creek they could hear the footfalls of their pursuers, and glancing back over their shoulders see through the foliage the sun glistening on the naked backs, and the tufts of hair swinging in the brushing wind. The Indians, not sure of their prey, and evidently not to alarm the town, did not fire. Shaw, on reaching the brow of the hill upon which the town was built, ran to his father's house again to see if the family were out. From here he turned towards the stockade. By this time the foremost of the savages had emerged from the wood, and were showing themselves in the open space between the crown of the hill and the houses. Shaw here stopped, and drawing up his long-barreled, six-foot rifle, with unerring aim dropped one of the wretches in his tracks. He entered through the door- gate of the fort, which was closed behind him.

Thus, luckily, by the time the Indians and rene. gades came up the inhabitants of Hannastown were safely within the palisades of their stockade. Then, on the testimony of Huffnagle, at about two o'clock in the afternoon, the town, consisting of about thirty cabins and houses, was attacked by above a hundred Indians and white renegades called Tories acting with them.

When the crew saw how that they had been cheated out of a rare butchery they gave utterance to one of those indescribable yells which so closely resembled the cry of a brute in torture, the recollection of which

long after chilled the blood of those who escaped. Then dispersing- they fell to pillaging the cabins, throwing the goods out and scattering them about. Some of them in view of the fort danced about in derision, brandishing their tomahawks and knives. They were exasperated that the whites should cecape, for their very expedition had been specially directed against this place.

When it appeared to the Indians that they had been baffled, they were called together by their leaders, about whom they grouped together to the side of the town and not far from the stockade. Here they pow- wowed in some sort of consultation, evidently con- sidering about attacking the fort. Their language was loud, and their gestures were wild and impulsive; but they seemed to be well under the control of their leaders, who could be recognized as white men dressed in Indian fashion. It is stated with the utmost show- ing of authority that during this time they might have been fired upon with effect from the fort. The whites, however, although by insult and injury driven almost to desperation, did not choose to begin the fight, being evidently advised in this, for by so doing the whole force would have been brought down upon them. The Indians, as was afterwards ascertained, bad concluded not to make an attack till the follow- ing morning; and the hope of salvation in this matter for the whites was in waiting till assistance should come.

When the consultation was ended, a body of In- dians and renegades started off in the direction of Miller's. The number of this pack is variously estimated, some placing. it at forty.or fifty, and it is not probable that it was less than the first number. But for those that remained at the town . there was still some occasion for gratification left, and running up and down with a concerted action at the same time, they set fire to the town at a number of places. No obstacle was in the way of the fire, and the favor- ing wind made by the fire itself was so propitions that the cluster of houses was soon ablaze, and in a short time the town was reduced to ashes, with the exception of the fort and two houses nearest to it and covered by it. One of these houses was Hanna's.

As the flames burst up through the dry clapboard roofs and the logs crackled in the heat, the savages now drunken with whiskey and mad with rage, danced around in the open space between the houses and the fort, not mindless, however, of keeping at a respectful distance out of the range of the guns. But from where they were they mocked in an insulting way those who were pent up, and held up in their view the articles which they had stolen from the houses. One noble warrior had appropriated to his particular self a brilliant military coat which he had found in ransacking a house. He had put it on, and so pea- cocked out strutted back and forth in rather too close range of the fort, for some one within, drawing

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a true bead upon him, fired, when the warrior leaped in the air, and thus sacrificed his life to his vanity.

Communication with the outside of the fort was now entirely cut off. The scouts who had not re- turned could not now get in, and when they heard the noise about the town did not make an effort to do 80, but kept alarming the country. The stockade, although a good place of defense, was at this time so poorly manned with all the needful men and muni- tions that the ultimate safety of these rested more with their friends on the outside than upon their own exertions. That no attack had been previously made upon the settlement was owing to the existence of the fort. Its inmates now for the most part were decrepit old people and women and children.

The incursion had been so sudden that no unusual means had been brought into use for perfecting its capability to withstand a two-days' siege. No muni- tions were, kept here, as what could be spared were sent farther to the front, and the young men who had gone out on the frontiers with the expeditions of the season previous had taken their best rifles with them. A few old, half-worn-out muskets, which had passed through the hands of the county lieutenants, and which were unfit to arm the regulars or the militia with, had found their way hither, and these, with the arms carried in by the people from the town, were all they had. The number of those imprisoned during that day and night has been differently given. Most of the accounts give it by mere conjecture. Perhaps the number of all-men, women, and chil- dren-was between forty and fifty, of whom about twenty were fighting-men. Huffnagle says they had only nine guns; of these it is certain they did not have enough to arm all who could have used them.

At Miller's, about two and a half miles southeast of the village through the woods, were collected per- haps twoscore souls.1 The cabin block-house here was the mansion-house of Capt. Samuel Miller, of the old Eighth Regiment in the service of the Conti- nent, but who had now been dead some four years. The rest of the Miller family, with his widow, now married to one Andrew Cruickshanks, and her family, still lived on the farm. The Miller house was an old landmark; and while the captain was alive he was one of the leaders to whom the neighbors looked as to a father. As it was, the cabin-house was still open to all who came. Here before these times the neighbors had come for years to cut down the har- vest, as they were doing now, and here on the smooth puncheon floor of the lower story of the double cabin,

on many an evening the young lads and girls danced corn-rows and cut the pigeon-wing to the music of the scratching fiddle. There had been at this time of great distress some three or four other cabins temporarily erected near the main one for shelter of those who had come to the station. At the beginning of this harvest there were, perhaps, above a dozen families represented at the farm. It has long been credited that a marriage festival was being celebrated at Miller's on that par- ticular day of the incursion, and that some of the party collected there were brought together by this occasion. There seems, indeed, to be good authority for this, but yet with very attentive research and after some exertion in this particular we must conclude that there still remains a doubt on this narration. Some of the best informed had never heard anything about it only from the printed account; others, who late in life read only the printed version, totally denied it, and those who in green old age still preserve the hearsay, and are conversant with no other source of information, can throw no light upon this side of the question. Such a version might readily have arisen and circulated from the fact of the number of people collected together there at that time. There were some there on that occasion from the town itself, among them the two daughters of Robert Hanna, both of whom were taken, and one of whom (Jennet Hanna) married a British officer when they were in Canada.

But these represented the families of the neighbor- ing settlers and farmers, and they had been drawn together from various causes. Some of them were the wives and children of soldiers who, being in ser- vice for the rest, had left the protection of their help- less ones to their neighbors; some, indeed, were widows and orphans; some from a distance beyond the main road had gathered hither and taken up their abode, waiting for better times; some to help during the harvest the Millers, the Georges, the Rughs, the Jacks, and any who needed it. Among them were two or three of those hardy backwoodsmen who had seen service of the roughest sort, who were as brave as the bravest, noble as the noblest, brusque in manner and rough in address. Of these we identify John Brown- lee, who was known as Capt. Brownlee, a soldier in Capt. Joseph Erwin's company of the Eighth Reg- iment, under whom he had seen some service in the Jerseys. From the time he was out of the regular service he was a prominent fighter on the frontier, and went out with many parties from that region of country. He was a muscular, stoutish man, and the hero of a chosen circle. To the Indians he was as they, savage, inexorable, and bloodthirsty, sharing to the fullest that peculiar loathsome feeling towards them which appears to be common in those who are brought in contact with them on the outskirts of the West at this day. He regarded an Indian as a " var- mint," the lowest thing of God's creation, and on more than one occasion had led parties to intercept

1 The old Miller house was near the site of the barn on the farm now owned by William Russell, Kaq., of Greensburg, on the right side of the railroad going westward. The same spring that supplies the present house then supplied the old house and the cabins about it. The attack was in all probability from the northeast side, along that part of the hill and sloping valley (or rather depression of ground) which lies in that direction. After leaving the station the Indians passed up along the hillside and near where the barn on the hill back of the present farm- house now stands.

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and destroy those who, to say all that could be said, most Indians, who emerged from the wood and came were only suspicious. These thought, like Shaw, that a man was in duty bound to shoot an Indian whenever | going out. No correct portraiture of the sosse at he saw one.' Yet in his contact during so many try- ing and weary months with those objects of his ab- borrence he had not lost that exquisite sensitiveness for his own race and kin which so strongly marks the highest civilization. To the women he was a true

man, courteous and respectful; to his wife the beau ! among the blackberry bushes till the favoring night

ideal of a husband ; and towards the children whom he loved he had that happy faculty of expression which wins and allures by the spontaneous disclosure of the passions and feelings of the heart. During the dark times of 1781 and 1782 we hear of the Brownlees often, the name being well known in fron- tier times, and it stands yet in old records and peti- tions, and in the list of that band of immortals who suffered at Valley Forge. Our Brownlee lived when at home on,a farm to the northeast of Miller's, better known latterly as the Cope farm.

With all the excitement incident to the sudden appearance of the savages, and with the active exer- tions of the scouts, the crew were, as we have seen, about the town, and must have been on their way to the station at Miller's before word reached there. In all probability the noise about the fort gave the men in the field the first intimation of danger, for some- how the air was full of forebodings. Away down near Unity Church, where was being held prepara- tory service to communion, the word was carried that afternoon, and the congregation dispersed homeward, while their pastor, the Rev. Power, who lived long to relate it, hastened towards his home near Mount Pleasant; and the solitary men working in the fields heard on the sultry afternoon the echoes of the guns, and leaving their sickles, suspicious of coming evil, hastened to their cabins, got down their pouches, ran bullets, called their little ones in, and barred the doors. Those near Allen's block-house gathered there. Across the country, at a little block-house, the re- mains of which are still to be seen about a mile and a half north of Greensburg on the Salem road, lived Kepple, a brother-in-law of Michael Rugh. Kepple was in the field with his team, his dog running towards him, frisking and barking with all signs of fear, and the sound of the far-off crack of the guns made him on the instant strip the gears from his horses and hasten back to the house, built for war and peace, and barricade the openings. A couple of families were sheltered here till the danger was over.

At Miller's the first that were alarmed were the men mowing in a meadow, and to these the noise of the guns brought the first intimation. The men, list- ening, knew the sounds came from the direction of the fort. They'threw down their scythes and ran towards the houses; but before they reached there they heard the war-whoop, and some shots were fired by the fore-

into the fields and along the fences as the men were the cabins can be given. The people ran about in the utmost distraction. Some, intent only on their own cecape, got off, and among these were a few women and children. A little girl, who died an old woman, much beloved and respected, bid herself came down with its kind darknem.

At the Miller house itself were most of the women and children collected. These were irresolute through fear, which the poets say is contagious; and indeed the cries of the helplees increased the panic which had been created by the sudden appearance of danger, the desertion of the men, and the horrid whooping of the red brood yelling their cries of doom. But al- though it is too true that some men, cowardly at heart, left at the first alarm, yet that instinct of human nature, happily for our kind not to be crushed out or wholly smothered under adversity and in trouble, was forcibly awakened and displayed, to the lasting honor of that hardy race. Could a man, at such a time, leave his wife, his child, his mother, or sister ? Nay, we have instances of some not joined by ties of blood or affinity losing their life in the effort to save those who could only be called their friends. Those who started in time made their way over the hills to the Peter George farm. Some escaped to Rugh's block- house, and some by hiding in the fields until night. But there were timid ones who could not be prevailed to put themselves under the protection of the men, and by leaving the roofs for the woods and fields risk the chances of escaping by flight rather than put themselves on the mercy of the savages.

When the alarm was first given, or soon after, Brownlee, as is reported, was in the house. H. snatched his rifle and ran to the door, and there see- ing a couple of Indians entering the gate, he made at them .on a run. It was believed that he could have made his escape, and in all probability would have done so, and not with a selfish motive, well knowing that a chief object of the Indians was booty and prisoners, and resting assured that he and the other whites could recapture their friends. Such a termination would not have been a remarkable event in the frontier annala. But this intent was on the instant changed, for above the confusion and excite- ment the voice of his wife pierced his ear crying for help,-"Jack, are you going to leave me ?" The cry unnerved the man, who, facing half a dozen wild barbarians, by their sudden war-cry would not have been so unnerved. He returned backward with his face towards the Indians, and beside the door gave himself up to their pleasure.

The Indians by this time, coming up in different directions, had surrounded the house, so that its in- mates were secured as prisoners, while the scattered fugitives were chased by others close in pursuit. One

1 Taking the Irishman's motto at Donnybrook Fair,-" Whenever you see a head, hit it."

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young man, who on the first alarm ran to the house to warn them and give assistance, snatched up a child which is said chanced to be one of Brownlee's. He had not gone far with it when he saw himself followed by three or four of the Indians. The young man was a swift runner, and his strength, had he not been en- cumbered with the child, would have enabled him to gain upon them. But as it was now it was a question with him whether he could even keep up the distance between them. Such suspicions ran through his mind, and still he ran on for a distance desperately, looking not in any particular direction, but by his strength gaining on the upland which rises towards the old George place, till suddenly before him rose a thick copse of low growth ; beyond that was a rye-field not yet cut down. He reached the thicket, passed through, and for a few moments was lost to their view by the intervening foliage. On the side of the field next the thicket was a worm stake-and-rider fence. Coming to this he climbed it, and jumped out far into the rye. Where he alighted upon his feet he lay down with the child. Then the savages came running up. They looked over the field, leaped over the fence, and ran along the edge of the field on past him where he lay. They had lost sight of their game, and the thicket for an instant had deluded them. The young man heard them coming back. The child lay quiet. With slow steps they repassed within a few steps of the two, muttering expressions of disappointment.

One of the most singularly remarkable incidents of that day is one which has in it more of romance than of the common occurrences of real life. This is the seemingly miraculous escape, or rather preservation, of a small child, almost a babe. The common story which has long obtained, partly from the honorable judge's account,1 and partly from exaggerated state- ments bordering upon the marvelous-a clothing in which many common people are but too apt to vest everything out of the ordinary way-deserves correc- tion. It is that of a man who, carrying off his child and assisting his mother, saw the Indians gaining upon him and certain death to all if he did not run the risk of sacrificing one by leaving it and escaping · with the other,-that is, either his child or his mother. Then, as the story goes, on the instant he dropped the child, and by helping his mother they both made their escape, and, strange to say, the child the next morning was found safe in its former home. This has been the commonly accepted version. We have taken more than usual pains to trace the story up to its source, and fortunately have been more successful in so doing than in many other instances. The sin- gular deliverance of the child, in which centres the chief interest, was in all narratives the same. The truthfulness of the occurrence is assured. We have traced the version through the family in which the incident occurred; it has been repeated on the testi-

mony of several distinct persons, who are fully en- titled to be heard. It has been related by one, a gentleman of good judgment and veracity, himself a descendant of one of the principal actors in that scene, whose assertions are entitled to credence, in that it robs the part which tends to the romantic of its tinsel fringe, and clothes it with the reality of every-day life and passions and fears, and chiefly is it the version that came from the child thus saved in her ripe old age, as she had learned it from voices long since silent.

Among those, then, who made an effort to escape was Mrs. Cruickshanks, who had been Mrs. Miller. She had with her her young child, and she was par- tially assisted by her brother. The woman seeing they were pursued by a single Indian, and being un- able from fright to proceed farther without help, ex- claimed to her brother that unless he shot the Indian she would be killed. Cruickshanks then turned and fired, but as he did so the Indian "clamped" a tree, as they called it, that is, threw his arms around it and stuck to it like bark itself. He did not stop to see whether he had killed the Indian, nor did his sister know ; but while they escaped the babe was left on the ground. Mrs. Cruickshanks escaped into one of the neighboring block-houses, to where that night her son, and the only surviving son of Capt. Miller, then a lad, also came.'

Whether the Indian was shot, or whether he was afraid to pursue, being somewhat detached from the rest, cannot be told. He certainly did not pursue them farther. The greatest subject of wonder then is what the child did during this time and subsequently; for the next morning, when the whites ventured to inspect the cabins, the child was found in the only cabin left standing, in its own cot, sleeping the sleep of innocent childhood, and all around desolation and death. The simple folk regarded it as a miracle, and loved to dwell upon it to their children, pointing out with simple devotion the providence of God to their fathers in the olden time. The infant grew to woman- hood, married a man of the name of Campbell, and died at an advanced age almost a generation after those hardy men who experienced the excitement of that memorable day were food for worms. As to what the Indians had to do with the saving of the child it is, of course, all conjecture. It is reasonable to infer that the Indian when fired at gave up the pursuit, if, indeed, he was not killed. It is more than probable that the child lay undisturbed and un- noticed till the savages had passed away, and that then, finding its way back in the dusk to its own cabin, wearied out, it lay down in its bed and fell asleep. It is not at all probable that it at any time fell to the mercies of those unrelenting savages, who, goaded on by renegades worse than savages them- selves, and filled with the memories of wrongs, were

1 Judge Coulton's account, published in Penn. Argue, 1836.

" See biographical sketch of Mr. Samuel Miller, in this book.

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seldom known to have compassion on human woes, and who did not distinguish between the scalp-lock of a tender girl and that of a bronzed and grizzled fighter.

With the utmost haste, and at nearly the same time, were these things transpiring. While some of the Indians had scattered about, and were pursuing the fugitive whites, the most of them had surrounded the house. No defense whatever was offered. Capt. Jack, true to his promise, and in his devotednees to the unwarned inhabitants, was too late to give the word of alarm to the people here. He had started for Miller's, and just as Brownlee rested by the door the captain dashed up the lane towards the house. He had been too late, and seeing the Indians about the yard he turned his horse. As he did so their bullets cut his bridle and whistled about his head. He es- caped unhurt, and turning his horse about he rode over fences and logs and through the woods and fields on his rare good beast, and fetched up at George's, where were collecting those who escaped that ray and the men from the farms.

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History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 35

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

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