History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 4

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor
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USA > Pennsylvania > Westmoreland County > History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men > Part 4

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1 David Paul Brown, "The Forum."

was as absurd as to represent Ligonier Fort as a Nor- man castle with drawbridge, turrets, and donjon. Such are the incongruities of circumstances; while still another disadvantage arises from the bias which our minds are likely to assume in treating of a sub- ject so nearly contemporaneous. We usually run into one of two extremes, and consider that all those of the generations and the times immediately pre- ceding us and ours were either all great heroes or half-civilized old clowns. All we can do is to con- old county.

All the vast region of this continent on its discovery was, according to the polity of the English govern- ment derived from feudal times, the property of the king. With it, as with all the demesne lands of the realm, he might do as he pleased. Accordingly all the lands not colonized by the state were appropriated to favorites or to dependants. To satisfy a debt owing from the crown to Admiral William Penn, a donation of the tract now commonly known as Pennsylvania was granted to William Penn, son and heir to the creditor, a Quaker in religious persuasion, and a favorite and courtier at the court of Charles the Sec- ond. The nature of the grant was that it was given after the fashion of feudal grants, with the feudal strictures somewhat restricted, in conformity with the new usage established at the restoration of the Stu- arts to the throne." Charles Stuart, the king, claimed a title in these lands, inhabited by savages, fromn dis- covery and from conquest, as in 1664 all the settle- ments and possessions of the Dutch along the Dela- ware River were taken from them by the English. The charter of Penn was signed by the king on March 4, 1681.

It was not till a long time after the establishing of the colony that the boundaries as we now have them were definitely fixed. There were conflicting disputes with the colonial authorities of New York, of Con- necticut, of New Jersey, of Maryland, and of Vir- ginia. The dispute between Pennsylvania and Mary- land was satisfactorily adjusted in 1769 by com- promising on the famous Mason and Dixon's line, a division line which long divided the slave States from the free States. The dispute with Virginia is the only one which interests us. Virginia, from the time that Washington walked over the land under instruction of Dinwiddie, claimed all Western Pennsylvania. At the peace of 1764 the limits of the Province were not marked, and in 1774-75 a county formed by the burgesses of Virginia, and inhabited mostly by Vir-

: If the reader has any curiosity in this line he will be further satis- fied by referring to Hallam's Constitutional History of England.

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INTRODUCTORY-EARLY PROVINCIAL HISTORY.

ginians, was established within the territorial limits of what is now Pennsylvania.

Governor Penn, before he made a settlement, pro- posed to purchase of the Indians their title to the occupancy of the land. He early treated with them and gave them valuable consideration for their hunt- ing-grounds. We will briefly repeat the order of these purchases and concessions, so that we may have an idea of how the bounds were increased. By treaty with the Five Nations in 1736 all land within the boundaries of Penn's territories was claimed to have been purchased from the Indians. But owing to some misunderstanding afterwards the Indians did not acquiesce, and separate treaties were made. It is said with some degree of positive assertion that the misun- derstanding of these treaties did much to drive the Indians subsequently to take part with the French. By a treaty at Albany in 1754 the Indian leaders of the Five (later the Six) Nations again conveyed to the Penns all the lands westward to the setting of the sun. The dissatisfaction produced by this treaty on the great body of the natives fully justified them in joining with the French in that long and bloody war known as the French and Indian war. The Indians claimed that they did not understand the limits of this purchase, and that lands were conveyed which did not belong to the tribes making the conveyance. By the treaty of Easton (1758), to put a stop to in- creasing warfare, these lands were surrendered to the Indians on the ground that they had not understood the terms, and the right of the whites to occupancy was confined to the east of the Allegheny Mountains. But by the last great purchase, that of Fort Stanwix in New York, of 1768, all title of the Indians, with a small exception in the northwestern part, of the State, was relinquished and passed to the whites. West- moreland belongs to this purchase, and it will be noted farther on how this treaty operated on the land titles and on the colonization of our county. By the treaty of 1784, at Fort Stanwix again, all the remain- der of the land was finally secured. Thus in 1785 all the right of soil belonged to the Province. Before this right was vested, by an act of 1769, it was made highly penal for any one to settle on lands owned by the Indians, or rather not purchased by the authori- ties from them. The reason was to prevent the In- dians from becoming open enemies.

The success of the colony was rapid and great. In one year after the arrival of Penn the number of col- onists was estimated as high as four thousand. The Welsh settled along the Schuylkill, and the Germans founded Germantown. The government of Penn had been instituted with one great object. This object was to secure a place where the religious opinions of his sect, the Quakers, might be exemplified; where no enforcement acts of conformity would be in force; and where religious toleration, civil liberty, and unbi- ased justice to all men were the worthy, philosophical, and Christian doctrines of a practical government.

Hence not only the colonists knew this, but the red men also understood it; and here for more than two generations, the most precarious time in an infant colony, the whites and the Indians lived in undis- turbed harmony. The settlers along the Schuylkill and Delaware when they went to bed did not go in dreaded expectation of the night. Here the children were not in deadly fear at the sight of a painted bar- barian. Here the outposts of civilization were not marked with piles of ashes, the only remains of a cabin reared in difficulty and with hope. That feel- ing of security which comes from habit was a fruit of the treaty under the great elm at Kensington. Hence settlers came flocking in numbers, not only from the British Isles and the Low Countries, but from other colonial settlements,-from Connecticut, from Maryland, from Virginia, from North Carolina,- and with those who came in with the laudable desire of making a permanent. home came others who were bent on the making of money. These were the traders that followed a business scarcely less honorable than the business of Capt. Kidd,-land-sharks and water- sharks.1 They treated with the Indians and they cheated them ; they dealt in contraband goods, and they pursued their calling in contravention of the instructions of Penn and his plan of dealing with the uatives. But it must be acknowledged that they were an important element in the grand scheme of coloni- zation, which with us, after all, is more a matter of fact than of theory.

Under the wise policy instituted by Penn, and car- ried out by his successors, the colony grew and flour- ished unprecedentedly for more than sixty years. But as yet all settlements were confined to the east of the Susquehanna.'

In the early part of the eighteenth century, Alex- ander Spottswood, Governor of Virginia, headed an expedition which went out to explore the limits of their own colony. From the summit of the Allegheny Mountains he first looked out upon that vast expanse of territory theretofore unknown to the whites. He proposed a plan to the British government by which they might anticipate the settlement of this portion of country before any other of the European nations. But, owing to the domestic relations of the govern- ment and to the ceaseless war on the continent, the colonies were left to see to their own advancement, and to protect the interests of the mother-country in its most remote boundaries. This politic and far- seeing Governor also, in view of the attitude and in view of the intention of the French government in relation to these colonies, advocated the policy of es- tablishing a chain of forts from the lakes to the Mis- sissippi, for the attitude of France and of England was plainly to be observed. The English saw with jealousy the progress of the French on the St. Law- rence and the lakes. The French were active in re-

1 " There be laud rats, and there be wat

.rata."-Shylock.

: 1745.

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HIS . ORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

claiming this unoccupied ground which each claimed, the French by occupancy and discovery, the Eng- lish by original and earlier charters from their own monarchs, which charters were, it is true, boundless, and took in all the land from the Atlantic to the Great South Sea. It is therefore to be noticed that the country west of the Allegheny chain was not absolutely within the prescribed boundaries of either nation. There was, however, a kind of tacit under- standing among the individual traders coming into these regions under protection of the colonial authori- ·ties directly to the eastward of them. These traders occasionally, as early as 1720, ventured as far west as Carlisle, and a prominent and fearless one, John Frazer, opened a trading-house at Venango, and afterward, about 1752, on the Monongahela at where Turtle Creek empties. Had these early traders been protected by the proprietary government of Pennsyl- vania, there is no doubt that the colony would have been greatly benefited by it, and that following dis- sension, which lasted for many years between the government ci Pennsylvania and the government of Virginia, would not have arisen. But the pacific measures which at first were to the advantage of the colony were now working a disadvantage to her own citizens and an advantage to the French, for the colonial system of the French differed greatly from that of the English. The French proceeded on a fixed policy and on instructions sent out from the ministry at Versailles. This policy was enforced by Governors of high rank and executed by willing sub- ordinates. Instead of many colonial establishments, each conflicting with the other on matters arising from misunderstood boundaries and from other mat- ters growing out of deep-seated prejudices, they had | one centralized colony, in which all interests were the same, and in which their very missionaries took an active and an effective part in shaping and control- ling. The policy of Penn towards the red men was good so long as the red men were left to themselves, for his treatment towards them was eminently just; but the same policy when they were left to the wily influence of the French was certainly not to be ad- mired. The Indians when moved back step by step could not at last understand such justness. And they surely had reason, for in several instances they were unjustly defrauded of their territory or their hunting-grounds; not, indeed, by the agents of Penn, but by their own race, the Indian Yankees of the Six Nations, who, representing themselves to be the owners of territory which belonged to other tribes, drove a thrifty bargain in disposing of it to good 'ad- vantage to the peaceable representatives of the pro- prietary. A sufficient instance is that in which this confederacy-who would have sold their own land as well as the land of their neighbors a dozen times a day-ousted the Delawares from their possessions on the head-waters of the Sus mehanna.

dians who claimed these parts were, before the middle of the century (1750), confined to their reservation on the Ohio River, a name which embraced the river we now call Allegheny. Here they were more than ever open to the influence of the French, whose base of operations was at Montreal. These, with a diplomatic policy peculiar to themselves, won the good graces of the Indians by representing that they were their only friends, and effected an alliance at the expense of rum and tobacco, arma for their use and trinkets for their amusement. They also succeeded in forming the various tribes, each with a local enmity towards the other, into one confederacy as against the whites of English birth and against their own natural enemies. No sooner did an English trader open a cabin to deal with the natives than he was peremptorily commanded by the authority of the King of France to leave. Some were treated in a hostile and barbarous manner, although there was no open war. The French, de- scending the head-waters of the Ohio, at various places put up marks to indicate that the country was of the dominion of the Christian king. In the mean time the English settlements in Pennsylvania were extend- ing westward. The traders, who to an extent were the pioneers of civilization, preceded them, and wherever they could opened a paying trade. The proprietary government made no effort to effect settle- ments west of the Susquehanna; and even the method of traffic pursued by these traders was not, as we have said, countenanced. But in spite of the strongest prohibitory enactinents and the immediate exertions of the Governors themselves there were always many ready to risk life and property in pursuit of this lucrative calling. In time the succeeding proprieta- ries and executives winked at this breach of faith with the Indians. And thus, between the English under shadow of the colonial government of this province and the French, all the Indian trade was monopolized, and at this juncture (1748) the Ohio Company was organized.

Thomas Lee, one of the Council of Virginia, with twelve others of Virginia and Maryland and a few merchants 'of London, formed a company with the design of effecting settlements in the wild lands west of the Alleghenies, and under this ostensible project of securing part of the Indian trade. Their grant embraced a portion of five hundred thousand acres lying on the south side of the Ohio between the Mo- nongahela and Kanawha Rivers. The privilege was reserved to the company of embracing a portion of the lands on the north side of the river if deemed ex- pedient. The company had several further benefi- ciary exemptions, in the nature of freedom from tax- ation, on condition of their seating settlers on the land within a limited time, and of their building & fort and sustaining a garrison to protect the settlement. As nothing could be done without the assent of the Indians, the government of Virginia was petitioned But thus it was that faro de rang enter the In- : to invite them to a treaty. The company further

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THE FRENCH OCCUPANCY OF FORT DUQUESNE.

resolved to make roads from the head-waters of the Potomac to some point on the Monongahela, to erect houses, and to locate settlements,

And now commenced a rivalry between the govern- ment of Pennsylvania and the government of Vir- ginia. Andrew Palmer, president of the Council of the proprietary government, on June 23, 1748, gave instructions under his hand and seal to Conrad Weiser, in which he was to use his utmost diligence to acquire a perfect knowledge of the number, situation, dispo- sition, and strength of all the Indians about the Ohio, whether friends, neutrals, or enemics. Weiser, from his knowledge of the language and dispositions of the Indians, was eminently fit to treat with them on the most favorable terms.

CHAPTER II.

THE FRENCH OCCUPANCY OF FORT DUQUESNE.

Conrad Weiser and George Crogan-Weiser's Report on the Tribes about the Obio-Their Numbers and their Disposition-King Shingass and Queeu Alliquippi-Gist's Settlement-George Washington sent by the Governor of Virginia to the Indian Tribes-His First Journey, and the Information he Acquired-The Ollo Company cuts Roads, makes Set- tlements, erects a Store-House and Fort at Redstone, and takes pos- session of the Forks of the Ohio River-Its Soldiers and Men are driven away by the French, who erect Fort Duquesne-The Governor of Virginia reinforces Washington, who retires to the Great Meadows, and Figlits his First Battle at Fort Necessity-Braddock's Campaign projected.

WEISER, setting out from Berks County, crossed the Kiskiminetas and came to the Ohio Aug. 25, 1748. He was rendered valuable assistance by George Crogan, a trader and agent in the interest of the Coun- cil,1 who was settled on Beaver Creek, a few miles from where it empties into the Ohio. The number of their men and the various tribes of which they were composed were learned from themselves, who gave Weiser the count in little bundles of twigs or sticks tied to represent the several tribes. They had in all seven hundred and twenty-nine warriors. The Senecas, Wyandots, Delawares, and Shawnees had the most. These were chiefly ruled by the Five Nations.

This celebrated confederation, which had brought under their domination all the other Indian tribes in the middle part of the continent, when they were first known to the whites had their council-fires about the lakes in New York. Having conceded their lands to the whites, they now still held north- western Pennsylvania. These five nations were the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Cayugas, the Onondagas, and the Senecas. They were sometimes called the

Six Nations after they had admitted into their family the Tuscaroras, a tribe which was expelled from Carolina in 1712. They were called by the French the Iroquois; they called themselves the Mingoes. They had been engaged in war from times long be- fore they were known to the whites, and such was the force of their combination and their love for war that all native opposition gave way before them. They had, since the Province was in possession of the whites, brought under their control the strongest tribe known to the early settlers. This was the tribe of the Lenni Lenapes, as they called themselves, but who are known in history as the Delawares, a name they received in honor of Lord de la Warr, for whom also the colony of Delaware and the river on which they lived when first known were named. The king of the Delawares, Shingass, lived, at Washington's first visit, 1753, not far from the Allegheny River. The tribe was divided, and some of them always remained friendly to the English. The confederation com- manded the Shawanese also, a tribe powerful in war, and which produced many able warriors, of whom Tecumseh and Cornstalk are ranked among the highest. Part of the Shawanese and part of the Delawares early came to the Ohio for the conven- ience of game. Of all single tribes the Shawanese was the strongest, and when on the war-path the most savage. There were other tribes which had dwindled down to insignificant numbers. They all lived within neighboring distance of each other, but each tribe claimed a distinct hunting ground. One tribe which lived between the Turtle Creek and the Youghiogheny was under the sway of a woman. She was known to the English by the name of Queen Alliquippi, and is the same mentioned by Washington in his journal of 1753. She appears to have been the friend of the English. She had a son who claimed the distinguished title of Prophet, and who professed to see in the future the realization of the most ro- mantic dreams of the red mnen.

Weiser found that although a few were favorable to the English, and especially to the colonists of Penn- sylvania, yet the majority were completely under the influence of the French.

But neither the now active attempts of the govern- ment of Pennsylvania nor the attempts of the Ohio Company under the patronage of the government of Virginia effected anything either in conciliating the disaffected Indians or in thwarting the encroachment of the French. The latter still persisted in their scheme of erecting fortifications in a proposed line from their settlements in Canada to their settlements at New Orleans. They had erected forts at Presque Isle,2 in Lake Erie, at Le Bœuf, at Venango. These active determinations so quickened the latent spirit of the English that Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia

1 The executive department of Pennsylvania was composed of the Governor and his Council. These were simply advisory. The entire legislative body consisted of a single body of delegates chosen by the people. The Council is not to be understood as an Upper House of the Legislature.

: Presque Isle is near Erie; Le Beruf Gow Waterford, in. Crawford County ; Venango, near Franklin; Venas, Ufo River, now French Crock ; Duquesne, now Pittsburgh.

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HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

sent a young man of the name of George Washing. the distance of fifteen paces; and again in attempting to cross the Allegheny, then flonting with ice. ton to ask an explanation of their designs. Wash- ington came out on this expedition, and on the 22d He relates in his journal an amusing incident of his return. He stopped to see Queen Alliquippi. She had expressed concern at their passing her by and not calling. To ease her lacernted feelings he presented her with a watchcoat and a bottle of rum, and he states that the latter was the more acceptable present, and that it entirely mollified her indignation. of November, 1733, stopped at Frazer's, at the mouth of Turtle Creek. We should note this incident, that Washington was one of the first to tread the wilder- ness where now is Westmoreland. He came on his route by way of Wills Creek to where Gist was settled as agent of the Ohio Company,' and thence north- west to Shannopin's, the name of an old Indian town on the Allegheny, about two miles above the Ohio. From here he examined the location at the junction of the river, and reported its situation as favorable for a fortification. He proceeded to Logstown,' where he had called a conference of Indians. In all his efforts and in his object he was thwarted by the influ- ence of the French ; but he acquired a great deal of information, learned the number of forts erected and projected, with the number of their garrisons and their equipments. On proceeding to Venango he there, under the French flag, had an interview with the French commander. They there openly disclosed to him their design of holding by force against all intruders the land which they claimed from the dis- covery of La Salle. The council was peremptorily brought to a close. On his return he narrowly es- ! colonies for nine years, and which agitated both con- caped with his life ; once an Indian shot at him from

1 CHRISTOPHER GIST .- The name of Christopher Gist. A model Amer- ican pioneer, is inseparably connected with the early settlement of Western Pennsylvania. We shall frequently allude to him and to his services herenfter. He was a native of Maryland, and, like his father, Kichian, WAS A surveyor. He was "a man of excellent character, cher- getic, fearless, and a thorough woodsman." He was intimate with the foremost mon of Maryland and Virginia, and when the Ohio Company was organized they employed Gist as their surveyor and agent. In 1750 he was sent out by them to explore and examine the country bordering on the Ohio and its branches. At the time he received the appointment he was residing at Yadkin, N. C. He immediately ort out on his object. With a boy and two horses he arrived at Shannopin's Town, one of the principal Indian towns in this region, to which traders resorted or at which they had store-houses. It was situated on the bank of the Allegheny River, now in the Twelfth Ward in the city of Pittsburgh, between Penn Avenue, Thirtieth Street and Two-Mile Run. Abont twenty Delaware families occupied the place, under their chief, Shan- nopin. Although it was a small place, it was one of much importance. From there he went down the Ohio to Beaver Creek, and thence to the eastern parts of Ohio Territory. After exploring the Miami Valley, he returned to North Carolina by way of Kentucky and Southwestern Vir- ginia. In the winter of 1751-52 he was employed by the company in exploring the country bordering on the Youghiogheny and Monongahela and the south side of the Ohio. In the latter part of the summer or fall of 1753 he commenced a settlement for the company at the place since known as Mount Braddock, in Fayette County. Eleven other familles settled with him here. This settlement, before Braddock's campaign, was the first settlement of the English-American colonists in Western Pennsylvania, From Wills Creek (Cumberland, Md.) Gist accompanied Washington na his guide to Venango.

? Logstown was a cluster of log houses built by the French for the In- dians. They had a trading-house here, and here many conferences were held. There has great dispute arisen lately as to the exact location of the place, some contending that it was situated on the north side and some on the south side of the Ohio. Both sides produce good anthorities for their position. The fact appears to be that there were two Log-towns directly opposite each other, one on either side of the river, and one older than the other. The older Logstown appears from good authority to have been situated on the north side of the river, and whether there was or was not another Logstown is not material.

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History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 4

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

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