History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 36

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor
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The Indians, after securing the prisoners, tied the hands of the men behind their backs, huddled them out before the cabin-fort together, and after getting out of the cabins whatever they wanted, set the houses on fire. The chief house, Miller's, was con- sumed, but it would appear that not all the other sheds or cabins were. The horses and cattle, hogs, sheep, and dogs were shot down where they stood or as they ran about. This is attested by Huffnagle and Duncan, who places the number of cattle so de- stroyed at about one hundred. Of their prisoners the greater number were women and children. Of the men, Brownlee was the most conspicuous.

The captives were laden with the plunder and goods which themselves had been robbed of. The sobbing women and crying children were driven in a flock before the marauders into a captivity worse than exile. The burdens upon their backs were light to the load upon their hearts. All ties of kindred, of home, of fields familiar indeed in sorrow, but now doubly dear, all were torn asunder. They thought they had seen these for the last time. Some there were who kept up, or seemed to keep up, courage, evidently looking for help from their neighbors. The calm, heroic, and changeless appearance of such as Brownlee among them was a relief to such as these. There was one woman especially who could not help expressing her feelings. Looking through her tears to Brownlee, she said, "I am glad, Capt. Brownlee, that we have got you along with us." These were unfortunate words. Some say that the renegades had recognized Brownlee and knew him all the time. This does not appear reasonable. They knew him by name and by report, but it is not likely they recog- nized him in person. Brownlee's plan to deceive was perfect. He gave himself up without offering resist- ance where resistance would have availed nothing,

and which show of resistance would, in all probabil- ity, have been the certain destruction of the helpless ones. He kept silent during all the time they were about him, while they tied his hands, and while they piled their trumpery upon his back.

There is no doubt that during this time he wished to keep off suspicion, and to disguise his identity by acting with the implicit submission of a coward. Nothing could make the settlers believe but that be contemplated making his escape at the first opportu- nity, perhaps that night; that he would have found out their strength, and thus told the whites how to attack to the best advantage; that he would have re- turned upon them, and liberating the rest of the captives, have had more than retributive justice. It is almost certain, then, that they did not know him till about the time the remark was made by the woman, and when it was apparent he was the centre of the band of unfortunates. But so it was that from that instant his fato was sealed. On the mention of his name hasty glances were cast from one to the other of the savages and back upon the prisoner. A couple of them in guttural growlings were seen to consult together, and then evidently they determined upon what was afterwards done. Brownlee trudged on, the centre of a weeping group. He was heavily laden with luggage, and in addition carried upon his back one of his smallest children. At a descending ground he stooped to adjust his child upon his shoul- ders; drawing its tiny arms more closely about his neck. As he was so doing one of the Indians that had eyed him so closely sneaked up behind him and dashed the hatchet into his head. Brownlee fell headlong, and the child rolled over him. The next instant the child was killed by the same savage with the same hatchet which had laid open the skull of the gentle and tender-hearted father. The wife of Brownlee, full of horror, witnessed the death of her husband and child. Another woman shrieked out as she fell swooning to the ground. And she met. the same fate, the Indians, as was supposed, taking her to be the real wife of the dead man.

The band of Indians that had these prisoners in charge moved round and rejoined the company whom they had left about the fort. In the closing twilight the body together left the destroyed place, and re- moved towards the northeastward of the town, and fixed their camp in the hollow through which flows the Crabtree. They here regaled themselves on what they had stolen, and while some in the darksome shadows were left to watch, the rest were concerting on future action.

The Indians during the afternoon had not made a concerted attack upon the fort; they were evidently afraid to do so. The suspense which those cooped up there during that time sustained may with effort be imagined. Hope, the only medicine for the miser- able, was about all left them. If their neighbors should not come to their help during the night, they

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could expect nothing but captivity if the next morn- ing they should surrender, and if they resisted and fought, possibly a frightful death. The terror of the women part was heightened by the fate of young Peggy Shaw, who lay in agony on a cot in the cabin of the stockade.

The death of this maiden was long the centre of interest in the incursion, and whenever and wherever Hannastown has been talked about among the de- scendants of these people this episode has been talked of with it. It is not then to be wondered at that more than ordinary interest attaches to the narrative, nor that strange and exaggerated stories should have been coined and passed for current. The story has been told in many ways, but the most simple and truthful way is enough to make her character beautiful, her ac- tions heroic, her life romantic, and her death full of glory.

Margaret Shaw was the sister of David Shaw and Alexander Shaw. Alexander Shaw was the last man to go into the fort on that day, and David was a hunter and scout widely known, one of those rough back- woodsmen who, raised in the wilderness and on the verge of war, knew only the duty of defending the outposts and killing Indians, who could not to his dying day brook the conventionalisms of civilization, and who, in short, belonged to that class who had made a law unto themselves. He had gone, when of age, into the army as a substitute for his father. His term of service being over he was now at home, and almost as much in war as he could have been any- where, and as much in his element as a wolf in the forest. All knew and remembered how quick he had been to apprehend the danger, and all admired his sonly devotion in seeing that his old father was in the fort before he himself went in. His sister was of the same blood. She was young at that time, only twelve or thirteen years, but for her age was large and mus- cular.

After they had gone into the fort, and while yet all was confusion, and each one appearing to be inter- ested in his own personal safety, a little child had crept unnoticed towards the picketing of the stockade. Peggy Shaw seeing it ran to fetch it back. This was under the random fire kept up by the savages. As she stooped to gather it into her arms a bullet struch her in the right breast and penetrated her lung. She did not die suddenly, as is supposed, but lingered for some two weeks. This fortnight must have been one of intense suffering. Instead of having good clinical treatment, she was submitted to the barbarous manip- ulations of unskilled backwoods surgery. A silk handkerchief was drawn through the incision, and allowed to be continually drawn back and forth as long as any greenish discharge followed. A bullet- wound, from a half-superstitious belief, was thought to be poisonous, and the presence of the poison was taken to be denoted by the pus which exuded from the suppurating sore. In her lingering her body

wasted to a mere frame. Her remains were laid to rest in the burying-ground of the old Middle Presby- terian Church, two miles northeast of Mount Pleasant. It was then not to be wondered at that the act was talked of with admiration, and she in her death re- membered with pity. Truly she died, as one long ago expressed it, a victim to her kindness of heart.

It is said that the child she saved by her own death lived and grew to womanhood, but the identity is lost in the number who have been so designated.

' While these things were going on the country all around was being alarmed. There seems to have been a great noise from the shouting of the Indians and the cracking of guns kept up all the afternoon about the fort. Some say that when the men came together at George's many guns were fired in a volley to arouse the neighborhood. The greatest crowd which col- lected together at any one place was here. By the evening there were gathered well-nigh forty men, al- though some by exaggeration say more. Perhaps the force here was stronger than that at the fort. It was decided to make an effort to assist those. Scouts re- ported that the renegades were remaining together after the two parties had joined.

The long July twilight had gone out, and darkness, with favoring rain-clouds, was gathering over the sombre woods when a party of about thirty, as it is said, left George's for Hannastown. Some of them were on horseback, and all were well armed with rifles. In after-years the suspicion of cowardice was imputed to some who lived thereabout, but the in- stances were few and hard to be authenticated. For one to skulk off then when the neighbors were crying for help and almost in the clutches of the savages was to incur an odium which would remain and attach to him as long as he lived, and which would taint his memory to his children's children. Their resolution was, therefore, fixed. The scouts reported to the main body as they advanced; those, who had volunteered for that purpose, and who were accustomed to tread the woods like a cat, had given word where the Indians and renegades were encamped. Cautiously advancing the party came within sight of the town, and saw at a distance the dim outline of the stockade. As they ap- proached closer they could see by the fitful gleams of the burning logs, which yet occasionally crackled up in flickering sparks and cast sombre shadows against the dark line of trees, the white-washed walls of the palisades. No Indians were about the piles of ashes or upon the open place next the fort. As they came from the farther side they made themselves known to the inmates, when the gate was thrown open, and at length all were safely within.

The Rev. Richard Lee, & Presbyterian minister, stopping about the vicinity of Hannastown a number of years ago, while some of the persons who had been eye-witnesses to the destruction of the place were still living, and while the memory of those who were the immediate descendar others who had participated

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was still green, gathered a number of reminiscences and published them in a Pittsburgh paper. While there are many things in his article which are ultra authentic, there are some statements which, sup- ported by corroborative testimony, are worthy to be remembered. The part which we thus retain was mainly derived through Mrs. Elizabeth Craig from Miss Freeman, one of the persons mentioned, and from Mrs. Alexander Craig, a daughter of James Clark, one of the defenders of the fort.

When the Indians retired at night into the woods to divide their plunder and prisoners they lighted fires and began a distribution. The warriors in their new costumes presented a ludicrous appearance: some of them had shawls tied around their waists, and others had on bonnets and petticoats. One of these, like his cousin, the dark-visaged Othello, " perplex'd in the extreme," was puzzled in trying to encase him- self in a silk dress, for the sleeve being very tight, after the fashion, and he trying to force his big foot into it, after the manner of drawing on a stocking or breech-clout, couru get his heel no further than the elbow of it. He was thereupon so amazingly pleased, and he made such a laughable appearance as he frisked about on one foot, that, gathering a crowd of companions around him, he got them into right good humor, which possibly inured to the benefit of the captives.

About midnight, upon hearing the noise at thestock- ade, they held a council, and at the conclusion they seized upon one of their captives, and painting his body with black stripes, tied him to a tree. He had been assigned to torture. The savages, armed with sticks and tomahawks, ranged themselves into two lines, between which some of the other prisoners were to run the gauntlet. The men were put through first, and of these some were badly beaten. Then came the women. Among these were the two daughters of Hanna. From the first Jane, the younger of these, had got the good favor of the warriors. She had, with great tact, extended her hand to the Indian who took her, and greeted him as " brother." She had laughed out at the antic caperings of the warrior trying on the dress, which she recognized, and he no doubt, in a sudden fit of good humor, tried to be worthy. These two young women, on the relation of Miss Freeman, escaped unhurt ; the Indian who had taken them and the other who created the sport showing them mate- rial aid, but Miss Freeman herself, having red hair, which was a color much disliked by those fastidious gentlemen (of the "bow" monde), was nearly killed. She, however, escaped with her life, and many years after she returned, Dr. Posthlewaite attended her when suffering from the blows she had then received upon her skull with the butt end of a tomahawk. They did not have the satisfaction which they had anticipated in torturing the prisoner, for the noise of drums and the clamor in the fort increasing, they tomahawked him at once, and soon after began their retreat.

It was on the part of the whites believed on all sides that an attack would be made in the morning, and so a plan was agreed upon by those in the fort to make the presence of those who had come in dur- ing the early night-time known. A couple of old drums found in the fort were braced up, and while the gate was left open the horsemen galloped back and forth over the corduroy bridge across the run at the foot of the hill to the beating of the drums. This was to make believe that reinforcements from Fort Ligonier and from the country had come in in great numbers. The stratagem had the desired effect. The renegades listened with something of apprehension, and they could not but observe the marked change in the acclamations of the inmates. On the ghostly night-air, laden with desolation and fears, these were sounds of doom. They called in all their gang with the sounds of the whippoorwill and the screech-owl. In the after-part of the night they fled, carrying with them whatever 'booty they could well take on their own backs and on the backs of their prisoners. The number of these captives which they took along was about twenty, and the most of them were women and children. Under the shadows of the morning they trotted along on the dividing path between Congruity Church and Harvey's Five Points, and crossed the Kiskiminetas about the site of Apollo.

The gray morning came in before it was known that the band had left the purlieus of the settlement. A party of well-armed men then took up their trail and followed them to the crossing of the river. The river was swollen at the crossings, it is said, and further pursuit was discontinued. This may be a sufficient reason, but not a plausible one. The force of the whites must have been comparatively weak with that of the retreating party. The invaders went out unmolested, and reaching Canada traded their scalps and prisoners with the British for trinkets, beads, powder, and rum.

The remaining settlers now looked out over their fields desolated, their cabins burned, and the few household goods collected through necessity de- stroyed or stolen; some houses deserted for good; their little town in ashes; the carcasses of their cattle eaten by crows, and those not killed strayed off; their friends or their kin either dead or in uncertain cap- tivity as much to be dreaded as death. Worried in heart and in body they first paid their duties to the dead. The bodies of Brownlee, his child, and the murdered woman were found. They were buried, as was an old custom, where they fell, and their graves were till lately by tradition pointed out in a field known best as Mechling's field.

All then gathered in closer to the little fort and to the stations; and the crops were allowed to rot in the fields. As the fall approached the greatest danger of starvation was apprehended, and as the means of get- ting food became more limited their fears heightened. The State, from a knowledge of their pitiable condi-

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tion, gave orders that supplies in limited allowance might be distributed to this handful of shelterless, distressed and weary creatures, with the understand- ing that the men were to enroll themselves under com- mand of Capt. Brice, and draw rations for two months upon their making every exertion in their power to keep the line of the frontier.1

The prisoners were exchanged by the terms of the treaty between Great Britain and the colonies, and most of them returned to their homes in Westmore- land. A few never came back, and it is said that one of the captives, Robert Hanna's daughter. married a British officer at Niagara.

We have not been able to find who was the leader of the Indians and renegades in this invasion, and the true story will perhaps never be found out. Nearly every general historian, who barely notices this incident, says that Simon Girty commanded; a few say that they were under direction of Kyashuta, the war-chief of the Senecas, and the old enemy of the whites. Most agree that they were under the control of white leaders, but we have not facts enough to warrant us that Girty was along; for shortly.after this time Girty is found counseling with the Indians in their attacks on the border settlements of Kentucky, and we believe that during the latter part of the month of July Girty was among those. There is more reason to think that Connolly, as the British agent, instigated the attack, he well knowing the state of the settlement, and harboring a rancoroue hate for the round-logged jail where St. Clair had him confined, and also that Kyashuta was with his war- riors there. The Indians were for the most part of the Munsies, a tribe which about that time inhabited that part of Pennsylvania now within the limits of Forest County. This tribe was famous for its system of warfare, and had in it some of the most depraved characters of the race at the time of its utmost de- pravity. The short-lived improvement made upou them by the Moravian missionaries before the Revo- lution had not changed their brutal instincts. Those of them who had been Christianized left their tribe, and the rest of them, to whom the outlaws of various other tribes and devilish whites resorted, lived as ban- ditti in the almost impenetrable forests of that region in close connection with the British outposts. In- deed, it is said that the fusion of so many ill charac- ters into one tribe was a thing peculiar to that one.

Gen. William Irvine, still in command at Fort Pitt,' writing to Washington in 1788, some six years after the destruction of the town, gives an account of some curious information he had received from a chief of the Seneca tribe, as well as from a Virginian named - Matthews who had been taken prisoner at Kanawha in 1777, and who had resided since that time with the Indians. This man was employed as an interpreter,

and appeared to be well informed of the country and of the movements of the Indians. The Indian related, through the interpreter, to the general that when the French first established their post at Fort Pitt he was about fourteen years old; that he was with his uncle at that time, who was under the French ; that they embarked at Lake Chatauqua, and that they went to Fort Pitt without any obstruction, and that they made the French Creek the medium of their communica- tion from the headquarters of the French in Canada. He further said he was employed under the British in the late war; that in 1782 a detachment of three hun- dred British and five hundred Indians left on Lake Chatauqua with twelve pieces of artillery to attack Fort Pitt; that the expedition was laid aside from reports having been received of the strength of the garrison; and that they then contented themselves with the usual mode of warfare, namely, by sending out small parties on the frontiers, one of which burnt Hannastown. And this the general corroborates by other evidence, the testimony of which fell under his own observation.

Capt. Matthew Jack and David Shaw long re- mained the heroes of the "Hannastown war," as they called it. In the phrase of the zealous women, they were of the anointed and led charmed lives. Capt. Jack was one of that class of rough backwoodsmen of which Western Pennsylvania was at that time pro- lific, and although he could swag off daily his joram and in vehement expression could go beyond the rules prescribed by the Committee of Safety in their regulations for the associators, yet his breast contained the heart of a noble man. In 1782 he was high sheriff of the county, and perhaps was busier that day in "serving executions" than on any term- day he ever saw. Long as he lived he was the centre of a crowd at the militia musters, on court week, or at barn-raisings. He was called familiarly Capt. Jack, for the rule is "once a captain always a captain." But sometimes the records style him "honorable," he having been a county judge, and afterwards "gen- eral," in deference to his being one of the superior military officers in the county about the time of the Whiskey Insurrection. Many curious anecdotes are related of him, and at reviews held about the country he would show his dexterity and suppleness by placing his hat upon the ground, and lifting it up as he rode by on a gallop; and to show how he rode on the Hannastown day, he would leap his horse over fences and gullies, which, to his admiring applauders, seemed the very height of recklessness.

The burning of Hannastown divides the history of the county into two eras, and closes the account of the place where were held the first courts. Many cities have risen and fallen to decay without leaving so glorious a record as this collection of mud-plastered huts scattered along the old military road among the trees of the primeval forest. Its name only lives in

the history of West Pennsylvania, and the site

1 Col. Edward Cook's correspondence, Col. Rec. " Craig's History of Pittsburgh.

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of those scenes of war and peace is covered with clover blossoms and waving wheat. Over the spot which was their graveyard the weeds and briers crawl among wild flowers.

" There sleep the brave who maak to rest With all their country's wishes blest. When Spring, with dowy fingers cold,. Returns to dest their kellew'd meals, She there shall desse & twrester end Thes Fasey's feet have ever trod. Dy fairy hands their knoll to rung. Dy forme unesen their dirge lo cung; There Honor comes, & pilgrim gray, To bless the tarf that wraps their clay ; And Freedom chall a while repair, To dwell, o weeping formait, there."

Its claim for remembrance is in this, that it was the first place in all the United States west of the Appalachian mountain chain where justice in the legal forms, sacred in the traditions of the English- speaking people, was first dispensed ; this was the cap- ital of Western Pennsylvania, with its rude temple, in which betimes sat the living oracles of English colonial law; in this, that here the backwoodsmen, descendants of a patriotic British ancestry, first raised their voice against ministerial tyranny; in this, that here dwelt the race which, standing a bar- rier, as a wall of fire, between civilization and bar- barism, defended their homes through years of an in- cessant war with the fiercest enemy ever opposed to the whites. To one given to speculation, the destruction of this place is a subject for reflection. In a certain sense, here was the first place where a public pro- test was made against the action of . Parliament in binding closer the unbreakable chains which they sought to rivet upon their own flesh and blood, and here was the last place in the colonies where the Indians and refugee Tories, under pay of the mother- country, executed their purposes in concert. Nor would it be scrutinizing too finely in observing that the destruction of Hannastown was the price paid for the protest of May, 1775. The penalty of the destruction of the Moravian towns, and the penalty for her disloyalty, were fully exacted and amply paid. For these alike it was well in the sequel of historic narration that Hannastown should lie in ashes. Yea, for us and for all men.1

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History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 36

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

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