History of the city of Washington and Washington County, Pennsylvania and representative citizens 20th century, Part 6

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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Two months and a half after reporting, or on April 2, 1754, he was starting on his way back from Alex-

andria, Va., commissioned as a lieutenant-colonel, chief in command of about 150 men, to aid in establishing a fort at the Forks, and to help repel the French.

He was not quite soon enough, for the little fort at the mouth of the Monongahela was surrendered before it had been completed, and he was met by Ensign Ward hurrying back to tell the governor how it had happened, how that the Captain Trent, who last summer seemed to be afraid to carry the Governor's letter to the French, and who had been sent recently in command of soldiers and builders to erect this fort, had sent General Washington word that he was hourly expecting a body of about 800 French, had quietly left for old Virginia; and Lieutenant Frazier had gone home to Turtle Creek just before a body of 1,000 French and Indians had silently dropped down the Allegheny and suddenly called for surrender. He would report that the faithful Iroquois sachem Tanacharison, was with him as his only counsellor and that no words of delay suited the polite Frenchmen. Therefore Ward, with his three or four dozen men, vacated the Forks on April 17, 1754.

This bloodless and smokeless victory gave the French the control of the Ohio and the little unfinished fort became Fort Duquesne, in honor of the noted Frenchman, then governor-general of Canada.

The Indian allies of the French on this occasion were largely from the Ottawas and Chippewas and bands from the upper Allegheny.

Washington then being near Wills Creek (now Cum- berland, Md.), called a council there and it was decided, so he writes, "to advance as far as Redstone Creek, on Monongahela" (the edge of Washington County again), "about 37 miles this side the fort, there to raise a forti- fication, clearing a road broad enough to pass with all our artillery and baggage, and there to wait fresh orders." I thought it proper also to acquaint the governors of Maryland and Pennsylvania of the news."

He kept sending out reconnoitering parties, to hunt for the French on every side through the woods, along the roads and Indian trails an several times got the in- formation that the French army was hunting his forces and were near at hand. Governor Dinwiddie, of Vir- ginia, reports the result by letter to Governor Hamilton of Pennsylvania, on June 21, 1754, that:

"On the 27th of May the Half King sent Col. Wash- ington Notice that a Party of the French Army were hankering about his Camp; if he would march some of his People to join them, he did not doubt of cutting them off. Col Washington marched that Night and came up with the Indians; one of the Indian Runners tracked the Frenchmen's Feet and came up to their Lodgment; they discovered our People about one hundred yards distant, flew to their Arms, and a small engagement ensued. We lost one Man and another wounded; the

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY

French had Twelve killed and Twenty-one taken Prisoners, who are now in our Prison; the Indians scalped many of the dead French, took up the Hatchet against them, sent their Scalps and a string of black Wampum to several other tribes of Indians, with a desire that they should also take up the Hatchet against the French, which they have done." (Colonial Records, Vol. 6, p. 55.)

This was Washington's first battle, the first skirmish between the French and the troops of Virginia, the opening of war between England and France. The French had been warning English traders and others against locating near the Ohio for two or three years, claiming the land against all comers, but explaining to the Indians that this was being done to preserve that land to the Indian and to protect him against the Eng- lish. They claim to this day that the Jumonville party, which Washington and the Iroquois sachem attacked, was only another little warning-out party. Of course, if Jumonville's party had been as large as the warning-out party which a few days prior had confronted the un- finished fort at the Forks, our Virginian probably would have fallen, as Jumonville did, and there never would have been a Washington County.

Washington kept cutting his road through the woods toward the mouth of Redstone Creek at the rate of about a mile per day. Arriving at Gist's, the news of the approaching French caused him to retrace his steps as far as possible. Owing to bad road and shortage of supplies he was obliged to stop at the Great Meadows in the eastern part of what is now Fayette County, and strengthen a little fort which he then or afterward called Fort Necessity. Here occurred the battle known in history as the Great Meadows, where Washington with about 400 men surrendered to De Villiers with a force of about 500 French and 400 Indians on July 3, 1754. He had fought most of the day and had only three days' rations and was 70 miles, as he estimated, from supplies at Wills Creek (now Cumberland, Md.)

The French having driven the Virginians over the mountains and away from the headwaters of the Ohio and Monongahela, returned and burned the "Hangard" storehouse formerly erected by the Ohio company of Virginians, and burned all the settlements they found while going down the Monongahela. Washington County was not yet settled by the pale-face, so the settlements then destroyed must all have been just across the Monongahela from us. (The reader will be interested in examining Thomas Carlyle's review of this conflict in "Frederick the Great," Vol. 5, p. 417; copied in Bausman's History of Beaver County, p. 54.)

Virginia had no assistance in that battle from any other colony nor from the sachem representative of the Six Nations (or Iroquois Indians), who must have taken a separate trail through the woods to the Susquehanna

River when the retreat began and provisions ran low. Three months after this surrender Tanacharison died at Fort Harris on the Susquehenna.

England had given instructions but very little aid. The British Government, aroused now by the defeat of the colony and imagining something of the value of the country being lost to that nation, sent over his Majesty's troops in charge of Gen. Braddock, and a conference between him and the governors of several colonies, including Gov. Morris, of Pennsylvania, was held April 14, 1755, at the capitol of Virginia. The military movements which followed did not receive much support from Pennsylvania, other than that colony fur- nishing some horses and wagons, purchased through the assistance of Dr. Benjamin Franklin and paid for by England. The slow-blooded eastern Pennsylvanians had not yet become aroused, or perhaps were averse to a con- test for land not yet known to belong to Pennsylvania.

Gen. Braddock's forces, without any Indian scouts or allies, followed the military road opened by Washington the previous summer, passed Fort Necessity and Gist's, and crossed over into what afterward became Washing- ton County, (now Allegheny) three miles above Turtle Creek, then recrossed the river at Frazer's, just below the mouth of Turtle Creek.

Washington, although not an officer, was with the 1,400 and 1,500 soldiers, and we may with reason assert that this fateful 9th day of July, 1755 was the first day he ever set foot in the country afterward called for him. These were the only foreign troops that ever set foot on Washington County soil.

Historian Sparks writes: 1176029

"Washington, just recovering from fever, overtook the forces at the mouth of the Youghiogheny, fifteen miles from Fort Duquesne. * * * The whole train passed through the river a little below the mouth of the Youghiogheny and proceeded in perfect order along the southern margin of the Monongahela. Washington was often heard to say during his lifetime that the most beautiful spectacle he ever beheld was the display of the British troops on this eventful morning. Every man was neatly dressed in full uniform, the soldiers were arranged in columns and marched in exact order, the sun gleamed from their burnished arms, the river flowed tranquilly on their right, and the deep forest over- shadowed them with solemn grandeur on their left. In this manner they marched until noon, when they arrived at the second crossing place, ten miles from Fort Duquesne."

The effect of Braddock's dreadful defeat that after- noon upon Pennsylvania was anticipated by Sir John Sinclair, the English quartermaster general, in April of the same year, when he raved at George Crogan and five other road viewers because they had not sooner viewed and reported a road over the mountains so it could have been prepared before the march of the troops.

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY

That these fears were justified is briefly shown by the following quotation from a letter of a Frenchman, Rev- erent Clocquard :

"I commuicated to you last fall the news from this country much abridged. I could have enlarged more on the victory we gained on the Ohio over General Braddock's army, but sufficient for you to know that with his life he lost more than 1,800 men and immense booty, with scarcely any loss on our side. * will learn first that our Indians have waged the most * * You cruel war against the English; that they continued it throughout the spring and are still so exasperated as to be beyond control; Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, are wholly laid waste. The farmers have been forced. to quit their abodes and to return into the towns. They have neither plowed nor planted. * * * The

Indians do not make any prisoners; they will kill all they meet, men women and children. * *

* On the 29th of January we received letters from M. Dumas, Commandant at Fort Duquesne on the Ohio, stating that the Indians, in December, had more than 500 English scalps and he had more than 200 prisoners." (Penna. Archives, 2d Series, Vol. €, p. 459.)

It is impossible situated as we are after a century and a half to comprehend the dire results. Bands of heathen savages, with modern arms and ammunition fur- nished by the French, who aided and sometimes person- ally commanded their expeditions, roamed eastward through mountain and valley day and night, killing, cap- turing, burning and carrying off without opposition, even to within twenty miles of the eastern boundary of

Pennsylvania and to the east of Cumberland, Md. Shingiss, chief of the Delawares, had moved from the mouth of Chartiers Creek in Washington County to Kittaning up the Allegheny, and was most ferocious and vindictive. The helpless Virginians fought fire with fire by obtaining Cherokees from South Carolina and soon the scalps of French officers and soldiers were being carried eastward. War arose in South Carolina over an alleged massacre of some Cherokees by some Vinginians, and this being encouraged by the French sending powder and ball and Frenchmen to aid the Indians there, it became necessary for South Carolina to call for assistance from North Carolina, Virginia and the British forces in America. That war, with similar scenes being enacted in Pennsylvania and Maryland, was carried on for five years, ending in 1761.

In the meantime Fort Duquense had been vacated by the French to avoid a fight, on the 28th of November, 1758, and became the English Fort Pitt.

From this time forward fortune favored the English and colonists, who carried the war to the north and west until this region and the Province of Canada became English acquisition by the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

Our young general had taken a very active part in the preparations and campaigns which had led to the dislodgment of the French and the following patched-up peace of submission entered into by the Delaware and Shawenese, which secured for us the rich but unoccupied lands west of the Monongahela.

CHAPTER III

EVENTS OF 1763-1768.

Might makes Right-Iroquois Indians, the Conquerors-Their Landed Claims-Their Standards-Peace Treaty with English-Wars with France-Councils-Description of Aborigines and their Disposition-Pontiac's Organized War 1763-Nations Engaged-Simultaneous Attack-Their Football Game-Ft. Pitt Beset- Settlers Flee-Relief-Treaty-Descriptions in Indian Grants Indefinite-Encroachments by Whites- Remonstrance by Indians-Fruitless Proclamations by Governments of Pennsylvania and Virginia-Sermon at Redstone-Council at Ft. Pitt-Treaty of 1768 Including Washington County-Indefinite Boundary- Opening of Land Office.

The much-talked claim of "right of discovery" having thus been fought out and decided on the principal that "might makes right," it remained to be seen whether the right of first-possession could withstand the claims of "might." The French could withdraw to their homeland, but the Indians had no other land. The latter perceived that he could no longer gratify his warrior instincts by assisting either one of the foreign nations against the other, and by so doing gain rewards and scalp-bounties which were given by both the so-called Christain nations; nor could he reap rich spoils of all kinds from the settlers. It became now a war of patriot- ism, and for subsistence in their native land which the pale face was beginning to overcrowd.

The greatest nation of the Middle States was the Iroquois, sometimes called Mingoes, Five Nations, Six Nations, or the United People. Although their home settlements were in central New York, where there are many most beautiful lakes, and where there is at present the "Onondago Indian Reservation," they had rapidly grown to be the leading tribe of the whole North, and finally of the whole continent. (Thatcher's Indian Biography, Vol. 2, p. 38.) During a career of victory which began with the fall of the Adirondacks, they became entitled, or at least laid claim to all the territory not sold by the English from the north side of Lakes Erie and Ontario, until it falls into the Mississippi. Their territory was estimated at 1,200 miles in length by 700 to 800 miles in breadth. The combination of government embraced the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagos, Cayugas and Senecas. The Tuscaroras were included in

· 1812, making the Six Nations. Their power was made effective by bands of the United People remaining with the subjugated tribes. They claimed that the Delawares,

Shawanese and other tribes were a conquered people, living within Iroquois lands by sufferance only.

Every nation had its peculiar ensign or standard. Those among the Five Nations were the bear, otter, wolf, tortoise and eagle, and by those names the tribes were usually distinguished. (History of North and South America by Richard Snowden, Esq., Vol. 2, p. 11; see also Life and Writings of De Witt Clinton, p. 215.)

The Iroquois made a peace treaty in early days with the English and kept the obligation for more than a century during all the revolution and machinations of the French and English governments, on either side. With the former of these people they were often at war. At one time 1,200 of their warriors besieged Montreal, Canada, sacked all the surrounding plantations, killed more than 1,000 French, carried away many others with a loss to the Indian army of but three men.

Their national affairs were conducted by a great annual council held at Onondago, the central canton, composed of the chiefs of each republic. It took cog- nizance of the great questions of war and peace, of the affairs of the tributary nations, and of their negotiations with the French and English colonies. They held many serious council meetings at Albany, N. Y., with the governor, whom they called Corlear, and no doubt it cost the English a goodly sum from time to time to hold unbroken the chain which bound the Iroquois to that peace which kept them from joining in the French and Indian war. Had they broken faith the French would have reigned triumphant.

Those who read this book will never see the Indian in his prime, and it is fitting here to preserve a descrip- tion of that early people as given by William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, in the following words:

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY

"They are generally tall, straight, well built, and of singular proportion; they tread strong and clever, and mostly walk with a lofty chin; of complexion, brown as the gypsies in England. They grease themselves with bear's fat clarified; and using no defence against the sun or weather, their skins must needs be swarthy. Their eyes are little and black, not unlike a straight- looked Jew. I have seen as comely, European-like faces among them, as on your side of the sea. An Italian complexion hath not much more of the white; and the noses of them have as much of the Roman. Their language is lofty, yet narrow, but, like the Hebrew, in signification, full; like shorthand in writing, one word serveth in the place of three, and the rest are sup- plied by the understanding of the hearer. Imperfect in their tenses, wanting in their moods, participles, ad- verbs, conjunctions, and interjections, I have made it my business to understand it, that I might not want an interpreter on any occasion; and I must say, that I know not a language spoken in Europe that hath words of more sweetness or greatness in accent and emphasis than theirs." (History of North and South America, by Richard Snowden, Esq., Vol. II, p. 25, 1811).

The same author (in Vol. 2, p. 11) speaking of their disposition says: "There are no people who carry their friendships or resentments as far as they do; this naturally results from their peculiar circumstances. The Americans live in small societies, accustomed to see but few objects, and few persons; to be deprived of their objects to which they are closely attached, renders them miserable. Their ideas are too confined to enable them to entertain just sentiments of humanity, or universal benevolence. But this very circumstance, while it makes them cruel and savage to an incredible degree toward those with whom they are at war, adds a new force to their particular friendships, and to the common tie which unites the members of the same tribe, or those in alliance with them.

The well organized attempt of the Indians in 1763 to hold possession of their lands, has been, improperly we think, called the conspiracy of Pontiac. It should be called the Supreme Savage Campaign. It was the "prosecution of one of the mightiest projects ever con- ceived in the brain of an American savage."

The transfer of forts and power along the lakes from the French to the English in 1761 was a great cause of dissatisfaction to the lake Indians. The English and their language were not so agreeable as the French. One chief said, "When the French arrived at these falls they came and kissed us. They called us children and we found them fathers. We lived like brethern in the same lodge." The English were too austere, formal and business-like. Pontiac, a leader of the Ottawas, who was a great assistance at Braddock's defeat, gets the credit of the greatest organization ever made of inde- pendent Indian nations or tribes. In order that the reader may have more comprehension of the magnitude of that organization we name the combination as given

by Thatcher as follows: " The Ottawas, the Chippewas, and the Pottawatamies were among the most active. The two former of these had sent 600 warriors in one body to the defence of Fort Duquesne. The Ottawas of L'Arbre Croche, alone, mustered 250 fighting men, The Miamies were engaged; so were the Sacs, the Otta- gamies (or foxes), the Menoninies, the Wyandots, the Mississagas, the Shawanese; and, what was still more to the purpose, a large number of the Pennsylvania and Ohio Delawares and of the Six Nations of New York. The alliance of the two last named parties-in itself the result of a masterpiece of policy-was necessary to complete that vast system of attack which compre- hended all the British positions from Niagara to Green Bay and the Potomac."

In a paper prepared by Sir William Johnson in the fall of 1763, he gives the number of the northern Indians, not including the Illinois, Sioux and some other western tribes at 11,980, and an inventory amounting to 10,060 (warriors alone) was made by Indian Agent, Col. George Morgan, about ten years later at the beginning of the Revolution. (History of Beaver County, p. 21.) Morgan sets down the Iroquois warriors at 1,600. Thatcher says the most moderate account of the popula- tion of the Five Nations he had seen was by an agent of Virginia who held a conference at Albany with their chiefs in 1677 and their warriors were given at 2,150. It may be that a great part of these were not actively engaged in the war led by Pontiac.

The grand simultaneous attack on all the string of British forts from Niagara to Green Bay and the Potomac, from May to July, in 1763, was carried out with a very fair degree of success. Fort Pitt, with the smaller forts Ligonier, Bedford and others in Pennsyl- vania were closely beset, and Fort Pitt was entirely cut off from communication but successfully defended until relieved in August by Col. Bouquet and British troops.

A game, a mixture of tennis and football was used by the Indians as a crafty scheme to get possession of a northern fort. "The game, baggatiway, was played with a bat and ball, the former being about four feet long, curved and terminating in a sort of racket. Two posts were placed in the ground a half mile or mile from each other and the ball placed half way between them. Each party has its post, and the game consists in getting the ball to the adversary's post. The game is necessarily attended with much violence and noise. Not less than 400 players were engaged on both sides." The scheme was a success, and the result was fiendish destruction to the English at Fort Michilimackinac. The French looked on undisturbed. The savages made amends for their failures by a series of the most hor- rible devastations in detail, particularly in New York, Pennsylvania and northern Virginia, which have ever

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY

been committed upon the continent. A few passages from periodical publications of that date will give a bet- ter conception of conditions.

"Fort Pitt, May 31st.

"There is melancholy news here. The Indians have broken out in divers places and have murdered Colonel Clapham and his family. (This is probably the same William Clapham who made a list of the inhabitants of Pittsburg, April 15, 1761: Inhabitants, 332, includ- ing 95 officers, soldiers, and their families, and 104 houses. Hist. of Beaver Co., Bausman, p. 148, note 3.) . Last night eight or ten men were killed on Beaver Creek. We hear of scalping every hour. Messrs. Craig and Allison's horses, 25, loaded with skins, are all taken. י

"Fort Pitt, June 16th.

"Every morning, an hour before day, the whole garri- son are at their alarm posts. Capt. Callender's people are all killed and their goods taken. There is no account of Mr. Welch, etc. Mr. Crawford is made prisoner and his family all murdered. Our small posts I am afraid are gone.

"Philadelphia, June 23.

"By an express just now from Fort Pitt we learn the Indians are continually about that place; that out of 120 traders but two or three escaped.

"Philadelphia, July 27.

"Shippensburg and Carlisle are now our frontiers, none living at their plantations but such as have their houses stockaded. Upwards of two hundred women and children are living in Fort Louden, a spot not more than one hundred feet square. Col. S-, of a Vir- ginia regiment, reports upwards of three hundred per- sons killed or taken prisoners; that for 100 miles in breadth and 300 in length, not one family is to be found in their plantation, by which means there are 20,000 people left destitute of their habitations. From the neighborhood of Fort Cumberland (Maryland) near 500 families have run away within this week (June 22nd). It was a melancholy sight to see such numbers of poor people who had abandoned their settlements in such con- sternation and hurry that they had scarcely anything with them but their children." (Thatcher, pp. 111, 112.)

Relief came on August 5 and 6, by Col. Bouquet's ambush of the Indians at Bushy Run, east of but near Pittsburg, and was a bloody revenge to his Scotch High- landers for the slaughter of their fellow countrymen under young Maj. William Grant five years before, near the present location of the court house at Pittsburg.

The Indian forces not having sufficient supplies to hold any ground gained, were obliged to retire still further westward to the unsettled lands in Ohio and on the Great Lakes. The following year, 1764, they were overawed by English forces. Col. Bradstreet's forces went toward Niagara, where during the summer he held a grand council, which nearly 2,000 Indians attended. Bouquet's division went from Carlisle by way of Fort Pitt and along the north side of the Ohio River to the

Muskingum, the region near the new location of the hostile Delawares and murderous Shawanese. A treaty and surrender of prisoners to the number of 300 by the Indians was effected and finally concluded in the spring of 1765.

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History of the city of Washington and Washington County, Pennsylvania and representative citizens 20th century, Part 6

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