History of the city of Washington and Washington County, Pennsylvania and representative citizens 20th century, Part 17

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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The weakness and inefficiency of Fort Pitt garrison is shown by Irvine's failure to send away regulars to protect the inhabitants near Ten Mile and Buffalo Creeks when petitioning for a guard, but on the contrary direct- ing Col. Marshall to order out from their homes and har- vesting 20 militia men to act as rangers. The people of Washington County thought Brig .- Gen. Irvine might better be busy in their behalf, and a council meeting was held at Catfish Camp, August 22d, attended by the militia officers and other prominent people at which time they arranged for provisions, horses and 500 men from Washington County, which should march under Irvine against Sandusky or other Indian towns bordering on

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY

our frontier. Irvine was pessimistic and again his help- lessness was shown when on September 11th and 12th the garrison at Wheeling was attacked by 238 Indians and 40 British Rangers. They failed to take this Fort Henry, which used its little old fashioned French swivel cannon to frighten the Indians. The next day about 70 Indians appeared at Abraham Rice's Fort in Donegal Township, on Dutch Fork of Buffalo Creek, and kept firing and besieging the six men defending it from two o'clock P. M. to two o'clock the next morning, when they withdrew. As the result four Indians and one white defender, George Felebaum, were killed, and Jacob Miller, Jr., severely wounded. Jacob Miller, Jr., had started to Miller's Blockhouse, two miles up Dutch Fork Creek toward the present West Alexander, for aid, but had been wounded as he was returning to help the besieged.

On a sunny Sabbath morning in the spring of that year, 1782, Jacob Miller, Sr., and John Hupp, Sr., had been killed and scalped near Miller's Blockhouse, which was on the right bank of the Dutch Fork of Buffalo Creek close to the mouth of Miller's Run.

The assembling of troops to march against the Indians was delayed from month to month partly because of the Indian attacks on both sides of Gen. Irvine and partly because of changes in England.

On the 5th of May, Sir Guy Carleton arrived in New York as chief commander of the British troops. Soon after his arrival he wrote to Gen. Washington, informing him that Admiral Digby, with himself, were appointed commissioners to treat for peace with the people of America. Negotiations for a general peace began at Paris soon after, and Gen. Carleton sent orders to Niagara and Detroit that sending out Indian forces must cease. Washington then wrote to Philadelphia to stop the expedition in which Washington County was so deeply interested, and to assist in which a force of regulars had been ordered from east of the mountains. The interference of the Continental officers, in preventing this expedition, left the savages unwhipped and a stand- ing menace to be dealt with after several years more of frontier suffering.

The attack at Wheeling was the last made east of the Ohio by any large force of Indians. At this period we get a final glance at Gen. George Rogers Clark, who had been informed by a messenger from Gen. Irvine, that the expedition would start from Fort McIntosh (Beaver - River) on the 20th of October. Clark attempted a simultaneous attack to aid Irvine and with 1,000 Vir- ginia and Kentucky horsemen crossed the Ohio at Cin- cinnati, marched up the Great Miami River and destroyed the two Shawnee towns of Lower and Upper Piqua, in what is now Miami County, Ohio.

The tantalizing delay and failure in obtaining a com- mander to lead them against the Indians, brought to fever height the old desire to form a new state. Lord Cornwallis had surrendered all his troops, upward of 7,000, the previous October. The few remaining British were confined to New York and Charleston, with Gen. Washington making no effort to fight. The war was virtually ended and quiet reigning in the east, while in the west death by redskins and the British was an almost daily occurrence, with no protection except as the farmers left their little crops uncared for. Surely these had a right to expect help from the east. At the time which had been set for the westward march Gen. Irvine wrote the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsyl- vania of the act seriously contemplated by "many de- luded men governed by ambition." Many had been emigrating to Kentucky. Civil authority had not been properly established, emigrations and new States were much talked of, advertisements were set up announcing a day to assemble at Wheeling for all who wished to become members of a new State on the Muskingum River (now Ohio), and in Westmoreland County the assessors were opposed by armed men who fired at them and drove them off, saying they would not pay taxes nor obey the laws of Pennsylvania. The executive Board without delay sent a Presbyterian minister, Rev. James Finley, to dissuade the people, and to act as prudence might die- tate. When he arrived he found the inhabitants on the east side of the Youghiogheny River mostly opposed to a new state, and a considerable number of people between that and the Monongahela and a great part of Washing- ton County were in favor of it, being misled, as he said, by a few aspiring and ill-designing men, or men who had not thoroughly considered the whole matter. In his opinion, some of the clergy had gone wrong on this question. The new State was to include Pennsylvania west of the mountains, Ohio east of the Muskingum, and Virginia northeast of the Kanawa, with Pittsburg as the capital.

Rev. Finley resided six weeks visiting and preaching and writing letters, cautioning the people privately and also after the sermon against having any hand in such schemes. At the termination of his labors, he assured the Supreme Executive Council that he was satisfied in his own mind that the new State idea was finally and forever settled, which proved to be the case, and the act of the Council, passed December, 1782, declared it treason to attempt the formation of a new State, and assisted the well disposed citizens to urge upon all imme- diate and unconditional submission. He was strongly opposed by some, and admitted that he could not answer the objections against a tax, payable in cash, in those

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY

settlements which were "nearly destitute of cash." He suggested in his report the following spring that the "people seemed rather hushed than convinced."

There was still in the people what was so well de- scribed by Gen. Broadhead more than two years before, "a deeply seated, sulky disposition, at having been abandoned by Virginia and Pennsylvania, which readily

soured into aversion to both and to the United States, who, they thought, had failed to afford them due pro- tection against the savage foes in their rear." Even the first general Thanksgiving Day celebrated in the United States on the last Thursday of November, 1782, did not bring perfect happiness to these unprotected homeseekers.

CHAPTER X

EVENTS OF 1783-1795

Changes in 1781-82-State Line Dispute Settled-Superstitions-Washington's Lands-His Diary-Lands on Millers Run-Contest with Settlers-His Search for Waterway Connection to the West-Anticipates an Upris- ing-Large Trees-Indians Troublesome-Treaties-Militia in Service-First Court House-Washington Academy Incorporated-Gen. Harmer Defeated by Indians-Gen. St. Clair Defeated-Washington County Unprotected-Gen. Wayne's Victory-Peace, but Trouble in Washington County-Western Insurrection- Excise Laws-Officers Assaulted-Gen. Neville's House Burned-Liberty Poles-Mass Meetings-Committee Meetings-U. S. Troops Arrive-Arrests and Imprisonments-Pardons.

The year 1781 and 1782 had seen the most stirring times and the greatest changes which had yet occurred between the two great rivers. Washington County had been surveyed and marked between this county and Vir- been legislated into existence. A preliminary line had ginia, which afterwards was permanently marked in 1784; Virginia's claims were ended, leaving its results in individual contests over titles; Catfish, first called Bassettown and later Washington by the proprietors, William and John Hoge, had been formally laid out by survey. Courts were established to be forever open to the "dusty-footed suitor." Eleven lawyers were ad- mitted to practice at this bar. Four hundred and forty- three negro or mulatto slaves were registered in these two years by their 155 owners. Ear marks were regis- tered, by which to identify hogs, sheep and cattle. Li- censes to entertain travelers and sell liquors were granted to innkeepers. Many roads approved by the Virginia courts were only bypaths and were again petitioned for and finally ordered to be opened for travel. New roads were authorized. Ferries were established, mills erected and mill dams or races provided for by court order. First elections were held at which all voters cast their votes at Catfish, the county seat.

Two or three academies were started in a small way by Rev. Thaddeus Dodd, John McMillan and Joseph Smith. Redstone Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church, erected by Synod in May, held its first meeting at Pigeon Creek in September, 1781-the first general meeting of this body west of the mountains. Revivals of religion had stirred the people in upper Buffalo and Cross Creek Churches and 50 members had thus been added, giving an interest which kept up for six or seven years. Log churches were erected, the one at Raccoon being built

in 1781. The decimal system of currency we now use was adopted in 1782 by the States, thus displacing pay- ments in pounds, shillings and pence, to the great be- wilderment of the common people. This made little trouble here, as continental currency was reduced to as low a rate as 500 to one; and Doddridge says: "I believe 1,000 to 1 was a common exchange." He could not tell exactly, for there was no silver here to trade for currency and currency disappeared. Anything needed must be borrowed or traded for.

Stories of the great woods and streams back of the mountains were told in the east. Word reached them that the long dispute over the State line was practically settled. From the close of the Revolutionary War popu- lation increased rapidly. Newcomers found the land almost entirely a native forest. Roads were merely bridle paths and some cut wide enough for sleds but rough with rocks and stumps and roots. Even seven years later emigrant James Wilson, coming to Washington, was obliged to leave his cart at Berford and carry his goods and family west by packhorses. At the same date rough roads were responsible for the death of Sebastian Burgett, about two miles east of his mill in Smith Township, through the upsetting of a load of machinery which he was hauling from Pittsburg.

Mills to make flour and meal were scarce, most of them, except on the river, being horse mills. A trip to a mill often meant a 10 or 20-mile ride. The mills could not always accommodate the customers and for perhaps 40 years after the county was organized it was usual to take two or three days to get one or two bags of grain to the mill and return. The farmer took his turn at the mill, when it came, and used his own horse to do the grinding. These horse mills were kept running

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY

day and night. Rev. Joseph Doddridge, who with his brother, Phillip, was brought at an early age to Inde- pendence Township, formerly Hopewell, wrote: "The Indian meal which my father brought over the mountains was expended six weeks too soon, so for that time we had to live without bread. The lean venison and the flesh of wild turkeys we learned to call bread. The flesh of the bear was designated meat. . After living in this way for some time we became sickly; our stomachs seemed to be always empty and tormented with the sense of hunger."

Clothing could not be bought and nothing but the strongest was of much use among the brush and briars. Buckskin breeches and moccasins were the best and these usually had to be supplied by the wearer. Blankets were usually worn at meetings instead of overcoats. Hats and caps were made of fur, and the buffalo wool was used in the making of cloth, as was also the bark of the wild nettle. Hunting shirts, universally worn, were a kind of loose frock covering half way down the thighs with large sleeves open before and so wide as to lap over a foot or more when belted. The belt was always tied behind, and the bosom of this served as a wallet to hold a chunk of bread, crackers, jerked beef, or tow for wiping the barrel of a rifle, or any other necessity. To the right side was suspended the tomahawk and to the left the scalping knife.

Women dressed in linsey petticoats and in linsey or rough linen clothes. Much use was made of the skins of deer for clothing, while the buffalo and bear skins were consigned to the floor and beds for covering. The half dozen or less of sheep which could be kept from the wolves seldom produced more wool than supplied the yarn for stockings and mittens and material for the loom. The little patch of flax followed by the use of the spinning-wheel and hand loom, came into use, and in later years a few fulling-mills were set to work.

The best were of unhewed logs with outside stick and mortar chimney. A ladder in the larger houses showed the way upstairs, which was called the "loft." Usually there were no floors but the earth, although many had puncheon floors or split trees. Tables were of split logs set on wooden pins or legs. Most chairs were three- legged stools. The gun was an absolute necessity, and powder and lead were scarce. Beds were quilts or blan- kets or pelts of animals thrown on the floor, or forked sticks were stuck in the ground or pins driven in the floor to support poles, limbs or trees or clap boards for bedstead. Families better circumstanced soon had at least one furniture bedstead with high corner posts from which were hung curtains extending all the way around, Dishes were usually of wood or perhaps some old pewter dishes and spoons. The furs of animals were plentiful and used for many purposes. Iron knives and

forks were seldom seen among the early pioneers." Im- provements gradually crept in, but as late as 1830 coffee was used only when visitors came, and then it could only be prepared by putting it in a coarse cloth, leaving it on a log and pounding it, instead of grinding by machinery. The tools were axe and maul, wooden wedges, occasionally an iron wedge, and sometimes an auger owned by one of the neighbors. Wooden pegs were used instead of nails. Horses seldom were shod. Salt was $7 a bushel. Four bushels was a pack-horse load across the mountains and one bushel was the hire for one horse on the trip. Iron was scarce. A settler's right of 200 acres was once given for a set of plow irons. Plows were crude affairs made almost entirely of wood.

"Sufficient will be said in regard to the religious life of the settlers in another chapter, but we may remark here that being, as a rule, from communities in the old country and the eastern parts of the country where they had known all the advantages of churches, they hastened to secure for themselves and their children like privi- leges in their new locations in the West. It must be confessed, however, that the pioneers were also very much addicted to superstitious beliefs and practices. Medical science was then in its infancy, and physicians were very few in number, so that, as might naturally be expected among a simple people, a great variety of charms were resorted to for the cure of diseases. They ascribed the infliction of many diseases and calamities to the influence of witches, and believed in the power of wizards, or witchmasters as they were sometimes called, to remove them. The writer before quoted says that all diseases which could neither be accounted for nor cured, were usually ascribed to some supernatural agency of a malignant kind, and that the witch-masters enjoyed quite as much confidence and patronage as the regular phy- sicians." (Bausman's History, p. 177.) Any petty theft was pursued with all the infamy that could be heaped on the offender. "Hating the offender out" was the frequent plan of ridding a community of de- tested persons. It was a public expression in various ways of a general sentiment of indignation against transgressors and "undesirables." This remedy was attempted with disaster a few years later upon the excise collectors. One undesirable, Dr. John Connolly, had been driven off, but he evidently believed there were some traitors still in this region, as is shown by letter from Washington to Gen. Clark, dated within a month after Washington County was organized, warning Clark that Connolly, who had just been exchanged, was ex- pected to go from Canada to Venango (Franklin, mouth of French Creek), with a force of refugees, and thence to Fort Pitt, with blank commissions for some hundreds of dissatisfied men believed to be in that vicinity.

Washington was interested in this region financially.

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY

Preliminary articles of peace with Britain, signed Novem- ber 30th, 1782, was followed by a final treaty September 3rd, 1783. Just one year later, September 1st, 1784, the great commander started to ride from his home, Mount Vernon, Va., to visit Washington County. Eight years he had spent in the Continental War, during six of which he never once visited his home at Mount Vernon. His journey now is to see his land in Fayette County, his 2,813 acres in Washington County and, if the Indians permit, his Kentucky lands. He was among the fore- most speculators in western lands. Seventeen years be- fore he had written Col. Crawford to look him up some good land in this locality, which he had seen in 1753, 1755, and probably in 1770, when he went down the Ohio to the mouth of the Great Kanawha. In 1773, being entitled, as a former officer under Britain's King, to 10,000 acres of land, "he became deeply interested in the country beyond the mountains, and had some corre- spondence respecting the importation of settlers from Europe. He had patents for 32,373 acres, 9,157 on the Ohio, between the Kanawhas, with a river front of 131/2 miles; 23,216 acres on the great Kanawha, with a river front of 40 miles. Besides these lands, he owned, 15 miles below Wheeling, 587 acres, with a front of two and a half miles. He considered the land worth $3.33 per acre. Indeed, had not the Revolutionary War been just then on the eve of breaking out, Washington would, in all probability, have become the leading settler of the West, and all our history, perhaps, have been changed. (Western Annals, p. 209.)

Washington's daily diary of this 680 mile trip in 30 days on the same horses, is given with most interesting comments in Archer Butler Hulbert's "Washington and the West" (1905). His usual gait was five miles an hour, but crossing the mountains was tedious and fatiguing work and for eleven days no travelling was done. When he reached his Fayette County lands, where now is situated Plant No. 2 of the Washington Coal and Coke Company, he found them not equal to his expecta- tions, and his mill, built in 1774-5, in bad order. This ancient mill, as reconstructed, still stands on Washing- ton Run, three-fourths of a mile from the Youghiogheny River, and is known far and wide by the old name. He writes that :

"In passing over the mountains I met numbers of Persons & Packhorses. (Many who lived on different parts of Ten Mile Creek.) Going in with Ginseng & for salt and other articles at the Market below, from many of whom I made enquiries of the nature of the Country between the little Kanawha and ten Miles Creek," and "numbers with whom I conversed assured me the dis- tance was quite considerable-that ten Miles Ck. was not Navigable even for Canoes more than a Mile from its mouth."

While near his mill he jotted down:

"This day the people who live on my land on Millers Run came here to set forth their pretensions to it; and to enquire into my Right-after much conversation & attempts in them to discover all flaws they could in my Deed etc.,-& to establish a fair and upright intention in themselves . .

. they resolved (as all who lived on the land were not here) to give me their definite deter- mination when I should come to the land."

On Saturday the great general set out for this land on "Miller's Run (a branch of Shurtee's Creek, crossed the Monongahela at Deboirs" (Devore's close by Parkin- son's Ferry, Monongahela), "16 miles from Simpson's" (near his mill) "bated at one Hamilton's about 4 miles from it, in Washington County, and lodged at a Col. Cannon's on the waters of Shurtee's Creek-a kind and hospitable man; & sensible."

These little attentions from David Hamilton, Esq., of now Ginger Hill, and John Canon, may have been the cause of their not receiving punishment for their conduct during the Whiskey Insurrection which occurred ten years later.

"The 19th, being Sunday, and the People living on my Land apparently very religious, it was thought best to postpone going among them till tomorrow-but rode to a Doctr. Johnsons who had the keeping of Col. Crawfords surveying Records-but not finding him at home was disappointed in the business which carried me there." Early on Monday, September 20, 1784, Washington was piloted over the clearings in dispute and found a total of 403 acres of arable and meadow land with 12 houses and nine barns built by those who related to him their hardships and their religious principles "which had brought them together as a society of Seceders.". After some attempts to compromise, his diary adds: "calling upon them as they stood, James Scott, William Stewart, Thomas Lapsley, Samuel McBride, Brice McGeechin, Thomas Biggar, David Reed, William Hillas, James Mc- Bride, Duncan McGeechin, Matthew Johnson, John Reed, & John Glen, they severally answered, that they meant to stand suit, & abide the Issue of the Law."

This was the most distinguished company of visitors which has ever called at a country farm house in Wash- ington County,-the great Gen. Washington, Sheriff Swearingen, Col Nevil, Col. Canon and Capt. Richie- but the plain McBrides, Biggers, Scotts and Reeds were not to be frightened off their 11 years' holdings by dig- nity. There was no ovation in Washington County at his coming and no tears shed at his going.

Two days later he reached Beason Town (Uniontown), where he at once engaged Thomas Smith, leading attor- ney of Carlisle, to bring actions of ejectment. These ejectments came on for trial at the November (1784) term in Washington County, but were removed by plaintiff's attorney to the Supreme Court and tried before Thomas Mckean and Jacob Rush, justices of the

100

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY

Supreme Court, holding nisi prius court at Washington, Pa., October 25, 26, and 27, 1786. Smith thus gives his reason for removing the case:

"I had good information that James Scott Junr. had the most plausible claim & that he was the ringleader or director of the rest. I therefore Resolved to take the Bull by the Horns, and removed the Ejectments into Supreme Court in Such order as to have it in my power to try the ejectment against him before the rest. . .

. The trial therefore was ordered on, on the 24th after

Dinner & lasted that afternoon, the next Day and till 11 oclock in the forenoon of the 26th when the Jury gave a verdict for the plaintiff." (Washington and the West, page 157.)

Thus the 13 years of settlement and improvement and watching against the Indians went for naught, although the defendants had been encouraged to settle by Edward Ward, formerly one of the judges of the old Augusta District Court.

During this trip Washington was studying a western waterway connection with the east by way of the Potomac to connect with the Cheat or Youghiogheny River, and thence by Ten Mile or some other water to the Kanawha River, all to be within the jurisdiction of Virginia. He was much disappointed to find that "the line of Penn- sylvania crossed above the mouth of the Cheat River, which gave control of it to Pennsylvania, and the Youghiogheny lies altogether in Pennsylvania, whose in- clination (regardless of the interest of that part which lies west of the Laurel Hill) would be opposed to the extension of this navigation, as it would be the inevitable means of withdrawing from them the trade of all their western territory."

This diary is that of a Virginia partisan not averse to taking away from Pennsylvania all the trade of that part of its western territory which lies beyond the Laurel Hill (Allegheny Mountains) : "Though," as he writes, "any attempt of that Government to restrain it would cause a separation of their territory, they being sensible men who have it in contemplation at this mo- ment. The western settlers, from my observation, stand as it were, on a pivot, the touch of a feather would almost incline them any way. There is in that state (Pennsylvania), at least 100,000 souls west of the Laurel Hill, who are groaning under the inconveniences of a long land transportation." . . The future presi- dent had evidently been impressed with the views of John Canon (whom he calls a sensible man), and pos- sibly others of Washington County, and seems to scent the uprising which afterward came, for he writes: "The certain consequences therefore, of an attempt to impose any extra duties upon the exports, or imports to or from another state, would be a separation of the western settlers from the old and more interior govern- ment: toward which there is not wanting disposition at

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History of the city of Washington and Washington County, Pennsylvania and representative citizens 20th century, Part 17

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