History of the city of Washington and Washington County, Pennsylvania and representative citizens 20th century, Part 13

Author: McFarland, Joseph Fulton; Richmond-Arnold Pub. Co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago, Richmond-Arnold Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1474

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This council of war was held at Catfish Camp on the 28th and 29th of January, 1777. It is a matter of sur- prise that the little settlement at Catfish Camp could accommodate ten field officers and thirty-two captains of

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY

Virginia militia over night, and in midwinter. They rode in or walked in from all directions over the paths of the leafless and cheerless forest, but how the forty-two lead- ing men of this region disposed of themselves and their horses that winter night would of itself make an interest- ing chapter. Some of them no doubt stopped with Maj. Taylor, a mile east of the meeting point, and some may have gone out as far as the "Shirtee Settlement." It is evident that Augusta Town, just over the hill to the southwest and but little over a mile distant, was not to be compared with the settlement which afterwards be- came the Borough of Washington. Even though it had the court house it was too insignificant a place for the meeting of these Virginia militia officers. The courts of the three counties in the District of West Augusta had nominated their officers for the militia, and these had been duly commissioned by Virginia. Dorsey Pente- cost, who had been named second in the list of Virginia justices in December, and who, at the first session of the Yohogania Court held a month previous was appointed clerk of courts, was also the county lieutenant or highest officer of the militia of this county. Three other of the magistrates of this county had secured the three other chief militia appointments, namely, John Cannon, col- onel; Isaac Cox, lieutenant colonel, and Henry Taylor, major.

Pentecost was elected president officer of this council of war, and Col. Isaac Cox vice president. It seems proper that Yohogania County should have the highest officers in the deliberate body because we were most centrally located in the district and we had at that date twice as many inhabitants as Ohio County and one-ninth more than Monongalia County. These proportions are shown by the per capita distribution of the six tons of lead referred to by the letter of Governor Patrick Henry. Besides distributing the lead to be kept in so- called magazines in these counties, various other prepara- tions were arranged for defence against attacks by the . English and Indians from the west. Thomas and Wil- liam Parkinson were appointed in our county to open shop at their house on the Monongahela River (now Monongahela City) to repair guns, make tomahawks scalping knives, etc .; Robert Curry to open shop at the forks of Cheat River, now Point Marion. Assignments were made of small companies of militia to protect the forts lying west of us and east of the Ohio River. This assignment of about 1,000 men was conditioned on there being no field officer sent by the Continental Govern- ment to take command of the troops then raised and raising in this district, but alas, as stated before, these troops were no sooner raised for frontier protection than they were ordered to the Continental Army far off in the east. Action toward drafting and officering militia was also taken at this meeting and the war council, after

referring to "the very recent cruel depredations com- mitted on our people by our relentless neighbors, the Indians," resolved that upon the first hostilities com- menced on the settlements a council of the three counties should be again called to consider measures "for the chastisement of the cruel perpetrators."

Another council of war was called to be held at Cat- fish in midsummer of 1777, as indicated by the letter of Capt. Samuel Mason to Brig. Gen. Hand, written at Fort Henry (near Wheeling) July 8, quoted in Creigh's His- tory, Appendix, page 43. In the meantime "A War Council" had been held in Virginia Colony March 12 and had appointed George Morgan and John Neville a com- mittee to confer with the Delawares and Shawanese to get their favor and bind them in the interest of peace. It also made arrangement for an expedition against Pluggystown on the Sciota, to be put under the command of Col. David Shepherd and Maj. Henry Taylor.

This action of Virginia was communicated by letter of her Continental Governor, P. Henry, Jr., dated March 12, which reached Morgan and Neville April 1. These Pittsburg residents replied so vigorously the same day, showing the great danger of stirring up war with the seeming friendly Indians by sending armed forces through their country that the project was abandoned for that summer.

Morgan's treatment of the Indians caused them to call him Taimenend or Tammany, after their most rever- enced dead chieftain, as the greatest mark of respect they could show for his manners and character. His opinion of them and the treatment they received from the white-faces, their displacers in this region, is clearly indicated in the following letter, dated Fort Pitt, March 15, 1777, written to John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress, just before receiving the news of Virginia's proposed aggressive action.

"I thought it my duty to mention, in my letter by Mr. Wilson, the general uneasiness of the inhabitants here, who have imbibed the Idea of a General War being inevitable .- It is much easier to create those Alarms than to remove them when raised, even from the most idle and ridiculous tales of drunken or dis- satisfied individuals, & I apprehend the most fatal conse- quences from them ---

"Parties have even been assembled to massacre our known Friends at their hunting Camps as well Messen- gers on Business to me, & I have esteemed it necessary to let those Messengers sleep in my own Chamber for their Security .-

"It is truly distressing to submit to the injuries we have & are frequently receiving along the Frontier settle- ments and our Posts from the Mingo Banditti & their Associates, but it must be extremely injurious to the interest of the United States at this critical time, to involve ourselves into a general Indian War which I still believe may be warded off by pursuing the wise measures intended by Congress- It is not uncommon to hear even those who ought to know better, express an ardent desire

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY

for an Indian War, on account of the fine lands those poor people possess .. . ",

Morgan had written the English commander in charge of Detroit on our northwest, about nine months before, that :

"Our frontier settlements, though sufficiently numer- ous not only to defend themselves but to drive all the Indian Nations before them in case of War, have been alarmed with repeated accounts of your endeavoring to engage the Savages against them. This information has been often handed to Congress, but as the Indians still remain quiet, no Force is allowed to cross the Ohio; nor will any be permitted to do so, unless in our own defence after being attacked."

He had also accused Dorsey Pentecost of alarming the country by proclaiming that attacks were soon to be made upon Kanawha, Wheeling and Pittsburg by the Indians. Pentecost named Doctor Walker as the author of the story, but admitted that he, Pentecost, wrote such a letter to Capt. Brenton at Logstown to be forwarded to the different stations on the Ohio. Whether this gen- tleman who had so recently come over into Washington County from Westmoreland to become leader of our courts and military affairs was right or not, he cer- tainly came near precipitating this locality into a war with the savages, and at a time when our fighting forces were drawn off east of the mountains into the Continental Army.

Retaliation was frequent by both the white and red men and stealth and treachery were the methods usually adopted by both. The most peaceful and politie men in both races were busy also. Politics and oratory by the red men were most adroit and active at this time among the Delawares, as well as among their more civilized neighbors. The inhabitants of our county owed their lives largely to Koquethagechton, or Capt. White Eyes. He was head chief of the Turtle Tribe of Delawares in Ohio, and all his efforts were, at first, for neutrality in the Revolutionary War. Capt. Pipe of the Wolf Tribe, nearby, kept stirring up the Delawares to side with the British. It was at one of these early peace councils held by Col. Morgan at Pittsburg that Chief White Eyes, stung by the taunts of the Senecas present in the inter- est of the British, with the most haughty disdain threw off the yoke heretofore laid on the Delaware Nation by the Great Six Nations, when he arose and speaking fig- uratively as of his Nation, said:

"I know, I know well, that you consider us a con- quered nation-as women-as your inferiors. You have, as you say, shortened our legs, and put petticoats on us. You say you have given us a hoe and a corn-pounder, and told us to plant and pound for you-you men-you war- riors. But look at me. Am I not full grown and have a warrior's dress? Aye, I am a man, and these are the arms of a man, (showing his musket)-and all that

country, (waving his hand proudly in the direction of the Alleghany River) all that country, on the other side of the water, is mine."

This one man being afterward in the spring of 1778, bitterly opposed by Pipe and the war party which had been stirred by "a flock of birds from the east" (McKee and Girty, renegade tories from Pittsburg), obtained a ten days' delay in declaring war. This delay was indefinitely extended when on the morning of the tenth day the missionary, Heckewelder, arrived at the Muskingum River from the east with friendly peace messages. At a critical moment Chief White Eyes car- ried the day by a burst of flaming oratory. He exhib- ited a newspaper containing an account of the surrender of Gen. Burgoyne's Army, and exclaimed, "See, my friends and relations, this document contains great events, not the song of a bird, but the truth."

White Eyes had twenty years before signed a treaty of friendship with the English in preference to the French and had continued steadfast. He was commis- sioned a colonel by the colonial authorities in 1778, came to the vicinity of Pittsburg and Fort McIntosh, (Beaver) and was treacherously murdered near Christmas time of 1778. The report given out was death by small pox, but it is believed he was shot by a Virginia militiaman. The Court of Yohogania County on March 24, 1779, made this minute:

"Admr. of the Est. of the late Col. White Eyes is granted to Thos. Smallman. . Jos. Skellon, David Duncan, William Christie and Samuel Ewalt appointed appraisers to said Est." Whether or not we can claim him as a resident of old Washington County (or Yoho- gania), his life and influence proved a great defence for our frontier and a constant check on the great Delaware Nation.

The unrest and deplorable condition of our people is also indicated in a petition for the erection of a county to be called Westsylvania (western woods) presented to the Continental Congress soon after its organization.

The land to be included is described as being at least 240 miles in length from the Kittanning (up the Alle- gheny River) to opposite the mouth of the Scioto River, and 70 or 80 miles in breadth from the Allegheny Moun- tains to the Ohio River. The language of the petition expresses forcibly the sad, irritating and unbearable con- ditions, and every word is red hot with an earnest desire to be freed from both the Virginia and Pennsylvania jurisdictions.

The effort for a new State did not again arouse a serious consideration until the year 1780. During this period the court of Monongalia County, (which was assuming Virginia jurisdiction over the southern portion of Washington County, as well as what has since become Fayette County), desired to have the General Assembly

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY

of Virginia repeal the recent law for opening a land office, etc., west of the mountains. The Yohogania County Court, in control of the northern and eastern part of our County, plainly informed the Monongalia Court that the judges could not concur in such a repeal, but were determined to use every method in their power to prevent it. This position taken by our Yohogania magistrates is not surprising, for several of them were depending on Virginia laws to get them more land than they could otherwise obtain.

The business of administering the oaths of allegiance and fidelity to Virginia added much to the discontent of the people. The "gentlemen justices" were kept quite busy in 1777 arranging to locate the lines of the three new counties, and the general business of the court, including fines upon persons guilty of "swearing pro- fane oaths" and "profane curses." The county seat was changed to the house of Andrew Heath near the Monongahela River. Yohogania had no townships, so it was districted by calling for streams, dividing ridges, private dwellings and "Croghan's line." One course was from "Robertson's Run" (Robison's Run) along Croghan's line to Raccoon Creek. John McDaniel, (great- grandfather of Edward McDonald, of McDonald Bor- ·ough), was appointed to make a "tour" of the district to administer the oath of fidelity to the State of Vir- ginia, beginning at the mouth of the West Fork of Chartier's Creek (now Carnegie), extending up the said fork to the top of the dividing ridge between Chartier's Creek (near Hickory), Cross Creek and Raccoon Creek (near Hickory), thence along said ridge to the head of Robertson's Run (above Midway), thence down the run to the Chartier's Creek, thence up the creek to the place of beginning. He was one of the justices who sat as one of the judges of the court, his appointment being brought about by the recommendation of the justices holding court September 18, 1776. Those who refused to swear allegiance to Virginia were to be disarmed and become ineligible to office or to any rights under that State, not even that of owning land.

The distracted people were being hunted by both the . around, to create the appearance of a large force Clark

magistrates and the Indians. The cruel Gen. Hamilton, with headquarters at Detroit, had sent by the end of July, 1777, fifteen parties of Indians, consisting of 289 warriors, with thirty white officers and rangers to coax away the Americans or annihilate them.

In midsummer Fort Henry (near Wheeling) was at- tacked by over 200 Indians. The savages, in companies, led by whites, kept the people in a terror which extended all along the Ohio River and throughout all that is now Westmoreland County, and the Six Nations on the north harassed the pale faces from Westmoreland County east- ward. The exposed condition of Pennsylvania on the north as well as on the west, and the uncertainty of the

boundary line, prevented her government from giving much attention to the affairs west of the Alleghenies. The Continental Government at Philadelphia kept all attention on the direct contest with the British in the east.

CLARK'S EXPEDITION.

Virginia being farther from the seat of war, with anxiety over her large claims on western lands, was aroused to action by George Rogers Clark. He had resided in our district of West Augusta, had been recom- mended for appointment as one of her magistrates, but was now a surveyor in Kentucky, where he had attempted to go years before when Chief Logan's friends were massacred. Clark now saw a grand opportunity. He hastened on foot through 600 miles of wilderness to Williamsburg and obtained an audience with Governor Patrick Henry. He proposed to strike the vast power of Great Britain in the northwest and save that magnificent territory. He was commissioned to proceed to the defence of Kentucky-no more. The Continental Army could not spare any troops, so he was furnished funds by Virginia. He made his headquarters about Red- stone Old Fort, raised about 150 men on the upper Monongahela, built and launched his boats near the site of West Brownsville, took a large part of the powder and lead Gibson and Linn had brought up from New Orleans, and floated down the Monongahela and Ohio to near its junction with the Mississippi. A few American and French hunters joined him there and he pushed rapidly northward through swamps and wildernesses until the British posts of Illinois and Indiana were all taken except Detroit, and the northwest was secured and pre- served to the United States.

Clark organized a civil government opposite the Fort of St. Louis, then on Spanish ground, called it the County of Illinois and required the oath of allegiance to Virginia. He suddenly appeared at Vincennes, on the Wabash, before our arch enemy, Gen. Hamilton, who had come down with some troops from Detroit. By parading his 120 backwoodsmen with powdered blackened faces so frightened this red-coat that he surrendered. The cap- tured English governor of the northwest was sent almost 600 miles to jail in Williamsburg, charged with having stirred up the savages to destroy the settlers. His cap- ture pleased many of the settlers in the region conquered by Clark, for they were French, and France had recently -February 6, 1778-formed an alliance with the Conti- nentals. To him and his men belongs the honor of saving five important States to the United States, as was after- ward brought out by the treaty of 1783. The success of this expedition led Virginia to claim all lands east of the Mississippi by right of conquest in addition to the King's grant.

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY

In this brilliant campaign Clark was ably assisted by Monongahela River men. Capt. Joseph Bowman with two companies took Cahokia Garrison, opposite St. Louis. Capt. David Rogers with a boat load of forty men and two small cannon assisted very materially in scaring Hamilton into the surrender of Vincennes Garrison in February, 1779. David Rogers, a native of Virginia, one of the judges of the District of West Augusta and later for Yohogania, was appointed by Patrick Henry to procure more powder and supplies from the Spanish at New Orleans. He selected about forty men and, with supplies to exchange, dropped down the river from the site of West Brownsville, about six months behind Clark's boats. Before receiving the powder at St. Louis, where the Spanish had sent it, he became interested in aiding Clark at Vincennes, and with his forty men and two small cannon contributed largely to the capture of Gov. Hamilton. In October, 1779, Capt. Rogers and all his men but thirteen were killed and the powder and sup- plies taken by the Indians, whom he had presumed to attack as his company were poling their keelboat on the homeward trip up the Ohio. The Indians were led against him by Matthew Elliot and the white savage, Simon Girty, a former lieutenant of Virginia militia, both of whom had fled from Pittsburg to join the Brit- ish a year before in company with the tory, Alexander McKee, of McKee's Rocks, the host of George Washing- ton on his early Kentucky trip.

These and other deserters kept the Indians near us stirred up with plans for gory deeds and scoutings for plunder, and with tales that the Great-Father-Across the- Water had completely conquered his children. This argu- ment seemed good, because the Continental Congress had just been forced back from Philadelphia to sit at Lan- caster, Pa., and from that place back again to York. While Gen. Clark was obtaining his victory the settlers of now Washington County were huddled in forts or block houses or escaping for life. Sixty-one militia and frontiersmen had been killed in September of 1777, in two Indian raids east of the Ohio River, at or within a few miles of Fort Henry (Wheeling).

The Continental general, Hand, a good fighter in open warfare with the English in the east, had come in June, 1777, to succeed Gen. Neville, who had inoffensively oc- cupied Fort Pitt in the name of Virginia after Dr. Connolly had been carried off. Virginia amicably turned over her fort and poorly disciplined company of soldiers to Hand, who made preparations to attack the Indians. Col. Lochry, military commander of Westmoreland County (which still claimed jurisdiction of Washington County territory), raised about 100 men for Hand's as- sistance. The attempted organization was a failure, as so few active men remained in this region and these

could not volunteer and leave their houses unprotected, and for the additional reason that the general failed to communicate with Virginia militia, who had gathered below Wheeling to await him. His reaching Fort Henry within a month after the disasters near there, and his trip back to Fort Pitt a week later, deterred the fiery Shawanese, with whom were many Wyandots and Mingoes, from making a dash in greater numbers through the land now Washington County.

The same general made another fiasco four months later, being assisted by Col. William Crawford and Yohoghania troops. The object was a cavalry attack upon a British outpost near the site of Cleveland, but the heavy snow and swollen waters of Mahoning Creek, added to the small supply of provisions, disheartened the rough riders. They reached but a short distance beyond the site of New Castle, Pa., and returned with two captured squaws, whose lives had been saved with difficulty, when an old man, a boy and some other squaws were slaughtered. These were of the Wolf tribe of the peaceable Delawares, our nearest neighbors, and gave the Wolf chief, Pipe, additional influence in his contest with the Turtle chief, White Eyes. The situation was re- ported in a letter written by Col. George Morgan, dated Fort Pitt, March 31, 1778, in which we learn that Mc- Kee, the late King's agent at Pittsburg, had broken his parole on the 28th, and escaped. He also says: "Girty has served as interpreter of the Six Nation tongue at all the public treaties here and I apprehend will influence his brother (who is now on a message from the commis- sioners to the Shawanese) to join him. The parties of Wyandots mentioned in the letter from Capt. White Eyes have committed several murders in Monongahela County. Last week two soldiers who had crossed into the Indian country four or five miles from this post to hunt discov- ered five Indians, one of whom they shot before the Indians perceived them-the fire was returned, one of our men killed and the others escaped back to the fort."

The massacre of the friendly Indians, Chief Corn- stock, Red Hawk, and others, had preceded the destruc- · tion of the sixty-one whites near Wheeling, and that was only the beginning of the long retaliation. The peace- able Gen. Morgan had recently been arrested as "un- friendly to the cause of America," and, although ac- quitted, was still stinging under the smart of this and his removal by Congress because of unfriendly relations and suspicions. How much of this was brought about by Judge Dorsey Pentecost, of Yohogania County, with whom there had been friction for a year, we are not in- formed. Certainly he was not bloodthirsty enough to suit the judge. "Some of the best men in Pittsburg were arrested," and Gen. Hand was suspected. The unsuccessful Hand was relieved at his own request and Gen. McIntosh placed in command at Fort Pitt about

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY

the 6th of August, 1778. The latter remained in com- mand only until the following April.

Soon after Gen. McIntosh took command at Fort Pitt he cut through the forest of what soon became Wash- ington County, a wagon road along the south side of the Ohio River from Fort Pitt to the mouth of Beaver Creek. The Ohio River had for years been a barrier on our northmost travel from Pittsburg passing along its north shore, but that was still the Indians' country. Fort Mc- Intosh was established where Beaver now stands, and Fort Laurens, on the Tuscarawas River, some seventy miles farther west, near Bolivar, Ohio. Had he been supplied with troops and provisions promised he might have protected the great horseshoe and saved many valu- able lives. He purposed to push forward to attack the English headquarters at Detroit, and his Fort Laurens, if he could have held it, would have made a place of protection and rendezvous as he intended for the friendly Indians, our nearest neighbors.

About 500 regulars from the Eighth Pennsylvania and Thirteenth Virginia, who had recently been sent back from the east, were under his command, and when these and the militia were detailed to build forts there was discontent. The Pennsylvania militia were only bound to serve two months, and those of Virginia to the end of the year. The result was, of course, an early depletion of forces. Politics and the unsettled state line inter- fered with the service.

All the fine fall weather had passed and nothing had been accomplished except two small forts erected in an inaccessible wilderness. The most friendly chief of the great Delaware nation had been treacherously slain while assisting on the march beyond Beaver, within four months after signing the peace treaty for his nation. Col. George Morgan claimed to have procured "Eight thou- sand kegs of flour for the campaign in this quqarter," but he admitted that a great part of it never got as far as Fort Pitt. Much of the supplies ordered were stolen or diverted to other places by teamsters or others, and the garrison at Fort Laurens, under command of Col. John Gibson, formerly of Logstown, was starving and besieged by Indians, with Simon Girty as one of their leaders. Several disasters having occurred near that fort, the disheartened McIntosh resigned, but not until Col. Morgan had written, "to the Court of Enquiry now sit- ting at Fort Pitt," as follows: "The principal reasons as I apprehend, not only for this disappointment, but also for the present scarcity of provisions, have been the ignorant, absurd and contradictory conduct and or- ders of Gen. McIntosh throughout this whole campaign."

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History of the city of Washington and Washington County, Pennsylvania and representative citizens 20th century, Part 13

Author: McFarland, Joseph Fulton; Richmond-Arnold Pub. Co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Chicago, Richmond-Arnold Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1474

Author: McFarland, Joseph Fulton; Richmond-Arnold Pub. Co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago, Richmond-Arnold Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1474