USA > Pennsylvania > Westmoreland County > Old Westmoreland : a history of western Pennsylvania during the Revolution > Part 12
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On the following day, August 16, Colonel Lochry sent Captain Shannon and seven men in a small boat, to en- deavor to overtake Clark and beg him to leave some pro- visions for the Westmoreland men. Lochry's flour was almost exhausted, and food could be secured only by send- ing out hunters, whose excursions delayed progress. On August 17 two men who were sent out to hunt did not return, and they were never heard of. It is probable they were killed by Indians.
Three days later two of Captain Shannon's men, half starved, were picked up from the southern shore. They told a story of the first disaster. Their little party had landed on the Kentucky side, below the mouth of the Scioto, to cook a meal, and the two survivors, with a sergeant, had gone out to hunt. When they were about half a mile in the woods they heard the firing of guns in the direction of their camp. They had no doubt that Indians had fallen upon Shannon and his four companions, and, being too badly frightened to return to the river bank to investigate, they immediately set out up stream to rejoin Lochry. In scrambling through the underbrush the sergeant's knife fell from its sheath, and, sticking upward in the bush, the sergeant instantly trod upon its keen point. The blade passed through his foot, and the unfortunate man died in a few hours, after suffering great agony.
I43
LOCHRY'S DISASTER.
The direst result of this calamity was not the death of the captain and his men, but the capture from them of a letter from Lochry to Clark, revealing the weakness oi Lochry's party and its distressed condition. Through this information the fate of the Westmoreland men was sealed.
Lochry was now fully aware that both shores of the river were beset by savages, and for two days and nights no landing or halt was made. The little flotilla passed swiftly down the stream. But this could not be long continued. It became absolutely necessary to land somewhere, to feed the horses and seek meat for the men.
In the forenoon of Friday, August 24, the boats ap- proached a quiet and charming level spot at the mouth of a little creek on the Indian shore. This stream has since been called Lochry's run. It is the dividing line between Ohio and Dearborn counties, in the southeastern corner of Indi- ana. On that quiet summer morning it seemed to be the abode of eternal peace. The river was low, and a long sandbar, reaching out from the Kentucky shore, compelled the boats to pass close to the level spot on the northern bank. A buffalo was drinking at the river's edge, and one of the riflemen brought it down. Colonel Lochry at once ordered a landing, for here was meat for his hungry men and luxuriant grass for his horses. The boats were beached and men and horses were soon ashore.
Suddenly half a hundred rifles blazed from the wooded bank that flanked the little strip of mead- ow. Some of the whites were instantly killed and others wounded. The men made for the boats and many got into them, shoving off toward the southern shore. Painted savages then appeared, shrieking and firing, and a fleet of canoes, filled with other savages, shot out from the Kentucky shore, completely cutting off the escape of the white men. The Westmorelanders returned the fire for a minute or two, but were fatally entrapped, and Colonel Lochry stood up and called out a surrender. The combat ceased, the boats were poled back to shore and the little force landed a second time. Human blood was now min-
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OLD WESTMORELAND.
gled with that of the buffalo in the languidly flowing river.
The Westmoreland men found themselves the prisoners of Joseph Brant, the famous war chief of the Mohawks, with a large band of Iroquois, Shawnees and Wyandots. George Girty, a brother of Simon, was in command of some of the Indians. The fierce Shawnees could not be con- trolled, and began at once to kill their share of the pris- oners. While Lochry sat on a log a Shawnee warrior stepped behind him and sank his tomahawk into the col- onel's skull, tearing off the scalp before life was gone. It was with great difficulty that Brant prevented the massacre of the men assigned to the Mohawks and Wyandots.
About 40 of the Westmorelanders were slain, most of them after the surrender. The captives whose lives were spared numbered 64. Among those who escaped death were Captains Stokely and Orr, the latter being severely wounded in the left arm.4
The mutilated dead were left unburied on that lovely spot beside the Ohio, and the prisoners were hurried away into the Indian country. Some of them were scattered among the savage tribes, but most of them were taken by the Mohawks to Detroit, where they were given up to Major DePeyster, the British commandant. They were transferred to a prison in Montreal. From that place a few escaped and the remainder were released and sent home after the treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States.
As far as the records show, the following were the only members of this expedition who returned to their homes in Westmoreland:5
Richard Wallace, of Fort Wallace, who was quarter- master to Colonel Lochry.
Captain Thomas Stokely, Lieutenant Richard Fleming, Robert Watson, John Marrs, Michael Hare, John Guthrie,
4 Pennsylvania Archives, vol. ix., p. 458; Washington-Irvine Cor- respondence, p. 67; Western Annals, p. 333; The Girtys, p. 129; Hist. Collections of Pa., p. 97; Winsor's Westward Movement, p. 193.
5 Pennsylvania Archives, First Series, vol. ix., pp. 574, 733; Coloniai Records of Pa., vol. xiii., pp. 325, 473; Pennsylvanla Archives, Second Series, vol. xiv.
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LOCHRY'S DISASTER.
John Scott, James Robinson, James Kane, John Crawford, Peter McHarge and James Dunseath.
Lieutenant Isaac Anderson, of Captain Shannon's coin- pany.
Ezekiel Lewis, of Captain Campbell's company.
Captain Robert Orr, Lieutenant Samuel Craig, Jr., Ensign James Hunter and Manasseh Coyle.
James McPherson, one of the captives, accepted British service, and acted with the Indians on the northwestern border until after Wayne's victory in 1794.
6 Howe's Historical Collections of Ohio, vol. il., p. 104.
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OLD WESTMORELAND.
CHAPTER XXII.
MORAVIANS AND WYANDOTS.
For some time before his fatal journey, Colonel Lochry had been losing favor with the Supreme Executive Council in Philadelphia. No question was raised concerning his sincerity and energy in the patriot cause, but his failures to co-operate with Colonel Brodhead, his tardiness and irreg- ularity in rendering accounts of his large public expendi- turesand the looseness of his militia discipline were charged against him openly. A secret cause of dissatisfaction was his personal antagonism to Colonel Christopher Hays, who wielded at that time a stronger political influence in Phila- delphia than any other resident of Westmoreland. Early in the summer Hays was authorized by President Reed to con- sult with Thomas Scott and other close friends on the frontier and to nominate a successor to Lochry.1
On August 15, 1781, while Colonel Lochry was de- scending the Ohio to his death, Hays and Scott, in a joint letter to President Reed, nominated Edward Cook for county lieutenant2 and the nomination was confirmed by the Supreme Council before the news was received that the office had been rendered vacant by the blow of a Shaw- nee's tomahawk. Edward Cook was one of the notable men of early Westmoreland. He was born at Chambers- burg, Pa., in 1741, and at the age of 30 settled between the Monongahela and the Youghiogheny in what is now Wash-
1 Pennsylvania Archives, vol. ix., pp. 301, 307.
2 Pennsylvania Archives, vol. ix., pp. 354, 440.
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MORAVIANS AND WYANDOTS.
ington township, Fayette county. In 1772 he built the first stone mansion in that region and built it so stoutly that it is still occupied by his descendants. His plantation com- prised 3,000 acres, fronting on the Monongahela and in- cluding the land now occupied by Fayette City. He owned many slaves, was a man of large wealth and famous hospi- tality and exercised the most extensive influence through- out the Monongahela valley. He was a ruling elder of the Presbyterian church and the chief founder of the pioneer congregation of Rehoboth. He became a member of the committee of correspondence of Westmoreland county and was a delegate to the convention of 1776, which formed the first state constitution of Pennsylvania. For more than four years he was a sub-lieutenant under Lochry.
Another important change took place on the frontier in the fall of 1781. Several times Colonel Brodhead had been involved in quarrels, not only with the local militia of- ficers, but with members of his own staff at Forts Pitt and McIntosh; and when he was accused by Alexander Fow- ler, a Pittsburg merchant, who had been appointed to audit the military accounts in the West, of speculating with pub- lic money, the officers insisted that he should resign his command to Colonel John Gibson, the next in rank. Al- though a court-martial had been ordered to try him, Brod- head declined to retire, and made it necessary for Wash- ington to write to him under date of September 6, to turn over his command to Colonel Gibson.3 Brodhead obey- ed this order on September 17 and departed for Philadel- phia. He was acquitted of the charges against him and for many years afterward occupied offices of trust and profit in Pennsylvania. He died in 1809 and was buried at Mil- ford, Pa.
His successor in the command of the Western Depart- ment was Brigadier General William Irvine, appointed by Congress on September 24, 1781.4 He was a native of Ireland, of Scotch descent, a graduate of the University of
3 Washington-Irvine Correspondence, p. 62.
4 Pennsylvania Archives, vol. ix., pp. 419, 425, 433.
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OLD WESTMORELAND
Dublin and had served for a short season as a surgeon of the British navy. At the close of the Seven Years War he quit the service, emigrated to Pennsylvania and became a physician in the town of Carlisle. He attained a local eminence and some degree of fortune, took a leading part in the patriotic agitation of 1774, was a member of the pro- vincial convention of that year which recommended a gen- eral congress and afterward gave his attention to the organ- ization of the Cumberland county associators or "minute men." In January, 1776, he was appointed colonel of the Sixth Pennsylvania, formed his regiment and marched through New York to participate in the invasion of Can- ada. At the battle of Three Rivers, June 16, 1776, he was captured, was released on parole seven weeks later, but was compelled to remain out of the service until May 6, 1778, when he was exchanged. As colonel of the Second Penn- sylvania and brigadier general in the Pennsylvania line, he served with distinction under General Wayne in New Jer- sey and was in several sharp engagements. When he was ordered to Ft. Pitt he was 40 years old and was the most capable and accomplished officer in command of the West- ern Department during the war.
General Irvine arrived at Ft. Pitt about the first of No- vember, 1781, and set to work energetically to introduce system into the several branches of the military service, to restore discipline among the troops and to conciliate the factions among the settlers and militiamen of the frontier. It was his good fortune to be able to signalize his assump- tion of command by a public celebration of the surrender of Cornwallis, which had taken place at Yorktown on October 19.
Just before the arrival of General Irvine in the West, an event took place in the valley of the Tuscarawas river, which entailed many evil results to the frontier. A large body of savages forcibly removed the Moravian mission- aries and their Indian converts from their three settlements on the Tuscarawas to the valley of the Sandusky, where they were planted amid the villages of the hostile Wyan- dots and Delawares.
149
MORAVIANS AND WYANDOTS.
This removal was ordered, with good reason, by Col- onel DePeyster, the British commandant at Detroit. The presence of the Moravians almost midway between the British and the American posts had seriously interfered with the prosecution of the war by the British and Indians against the colonies. The missionaries and their converts claimed a strict neutrality but did not observe it. Zeis- berger and Heckewelder were secretly the friends of the Americans and conducted a regular clandestine correspond- ence with the officers at Ft. Pitt, giving valuable informa- tion of the movements of the British and hostile savages. This correspondence was suspected by DePeyster and his partisan leaders and they had several times urged the Mora- vians to move nearer to Detroit. The hostile Indians threatened the converts with destruction because they would not join in the war, while many of the borderers be- lieved that the men of the Tuscarawas villages did occasion- ally participate in raids on the settlements. The settlers had little or no faith in the Christianity of the Moravian red men. To save the Moravians from danger on both sides, Colonel Brodhead advised them to take up their residence near Ft. Pitt, but they refused to heed his warnings. The convert villages were between two fires, constantly liable to be consumed by one or the other, but Zeisberger and Heckewelder were blind to the peril.
In August, 1781, DePeyster became convinced that the missionaries were giving information to the Americans. Thereupon he sent Captain Matthew Elliott, with a small party of tories and French-Canadians, to secure Indian as- sistance and remove the Moravians to the Sandusky. El- liott was joined by about 250 savages, including Wyan- dots, under Dunquat, the half-king ; Delawares, led by Cap- tain Pipe, and a few Shawnees." Elliott's party performed its errand with unnecessary harshness.
The Moravian Indians numbered about one hundred families® and occupied three villages on the Tuscarawas
5 The Girtys, p. 132.
6. Ft. Pitt, p. 240.
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OLD WESTMORELAND.
river. Schoenbrun (Beautiful Well) was on the west bank of the stream, two miles below the present town of New Philadelphia. Seven miles farther down the river, on the eastern bank, was the principal village, Gnadenhuetten (Tents or Huts of Grace), and again on the western bank, five miles farther down, was Salem." These villages con- sisted of fairly comfortable log cabins and were surrounded by vegetable gardens and large fields of maize. The In- dians possessed herds of cattle and hogs and many horses.
Elliott's band seized and confined the missionaries and their families and gathered them and all the converted In-
dians at Gnadenhuetten. The prisoners were permitted to prepare food for the journey and to pack up some of their goods, but their huts were looted and many things were stolen by the hostiles. On September II the movement from Gnadenhuetten began. Blankets, furs, utensils and provisions were carried on the horses and the cattle were driven along, but the Moravians were forced to leave be- hind their great stock of corn, unhusked in the fields. Men, women and children trudged afoot, and the feeble ones, white and red, suffered sorely from fatigue and hunger.
The sad procession descended the Tuscarawas to its junction with the Walhonding and passed up the latter stream to its sources, thence over the dividing ridge to the Sandusky. In the ascent of the Walhonding the greater part of the provisions was conveyed in canoes, and during a wild rain storm two of these canoes were sunk, with their valuable cargoes.8
By the time the Moravians had reached the Sandusky river they had been robbed of their best blankets and cook- ing vessels and their food was exhausted. On the east side of the stream, about two miles above the site of Upper Sandusky, they settled down in poverty and privation, built rude shelters of logs and bark and spent a winter of great distress.
In the following March the missionaries were taken, by order of DePeyster, to Detroit for a second time, where
7 Historical Collections of Ohio, vol. Ii., p. 682.
8 Western Annals, p. 373; Westward Movement, p. 194; Taylor's History of Ohio, Cincinnati, 1854, p. 357.
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MORAVIANS AND WYANDOTS.
they were closely examined on the charge of having corre- sponded with the Americans at Ft. Pitt.9 Although they were guilty of this charge, the evidence was not at hand to convict them. DePeyster treated them kindly but would not permit them to return to the Sandusky. They were com- pelled to make a new settlement on the Huron river.
A striking incident in the history of Washington coun- ty was connected with the removal of the Moravians. While the exiles were being conducted up the Walhonding, seven Wyandot warriors left the company and went on a raid across the Ohio river. Among the seven were three sons of Dunquat, the half-king, and the eldest son, Scotosh, was the leader of the party. They crossed the Ohio on a raft, which they hid in the mouth of Tomlinson's run. They visited the farm of Philip Jackson, on Harman's creek, and captured Jackson in his flax field. The prisoner was a car- penter, about 60 years old, and his trade made him valu- able to the Indians, as he could build houses for them. The savages did not return directly to their raft, but traveled by devious ways to the river, to baffle pursuit. The taking of the carpenter was seen by his son, who ran nine miles to Ft. Cherry, on Little Raccoon creek, and gave the alarm. Pursuit the same evening was prevented by a heavy rain, but the next morning seventeen stout young men, all mounted, gathered at Jackson's farm. Most of the bord- erers decided to follow the crooked and half obliterated trail, but John Jack, a professional scout, declared that he believed he knew where the Indians had hidden their raft and called for followers. Six men joined him, John Cherry, Andrew Poe, Adam Poe, William Castleman, William Ran- kin and James Whitacre, and they rode on a gallop direct- ly for the mouth of Tomlinson's run.
Jack's surmise was a shrewd one, based on a thorough knowledge of the Ohio river and the habits of the Indians. At the top of the river hill the borderers tied their horses in a grove and descended cautiously to the river bank. At the mouth of the run were five Indians, with their prisoner, pre- paring to shove off their raft. John Cherry fired the first -
9 The Girtys, p. 145.
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OLD WESTMORELAND.
shot, killed an Indian, and was himself killed by the return fire. Four of the five Indians were slain, Philip Jackson was rescued without injury, and Scotosh escaped up the river with a wound in his right hand.
Andrew Poe, in approaching the river, had gone aside to follow a trail that deviated to the left. Peering over a little bluff, he saw two of the sons of the half-king sitting by the stream. The sound of the firing at the mouth of the run alarmed them and they arose. Poe's gun missed fire and he jumped directly upon the two savages, throw- ing them to the ground. A fierce wrestling contest took place. Andrew Poe was six feet tall, of unusual strength and almost a match for the two brothers. One of them wounded him in the wrist with a tomahawk, but he got pos- session of the only rifle that was in working order and load- ed, and fatally shot the one who had cut him. Poe and the other savage contested for the mastery, awhile on the shore and then in the water, where Andrew attempted to drown his antagonist. The Indian escaped, reached land and be- gan to load his gun, when Andrew struck out for the oppo- site shore, shouting for his brother Adam. At the oppor- tune moment, Adam appeared and shot the Indian through the body, but before he expired the savage rolled into the water and his corpse was carried away down the stream. One of the borderers, mistaking Andrew in the stream for an Indian, fired at him and wounded him in the shoulder. The triumphant return of the party to Ft. Cherry was sad- dened by the death of John Cherry, who was a man of great popularity and a natural leader on the frontier.10
Scotosh, the only survivor of the raiding band, suc- ceeded in swimming the Ohio and hid over night in the woods. In the morning he made a small raft, recrossed the stream, recovered the body of his brother lying on the beach, conveyed it to the Indian side of the river and buried it in the woods. He then made his way to Upper San- dusky, with a sad message for his father and the tribe.11
10 The account of this affair Is based principally upon the Narrative of Adam Poe, grandson of the original Adam Poe, published in serial form in the East Liverpool (O.) Crisis, during July and August, 1891. 11 The Girtys, pp. 134, 151.
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THE SLAUGHTER AT GNADENHUETTEN.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE SLAUGHTER AT GNADENHUETTEN.
In the fall of 1781, Pennsylvania frontiersmen decided that their safety would no longer permit the residence of the Moravians on the Tuscarawas. Even if it were not true that the mission Indians sometimes went on the war trail, it was certain that they gave food and shelter to war parties. Colonel David Williamson, one of the battalion commanders of Washington county, gathered a company of from 75 to 100 men and rode to the Tuscarawas in No- vember, with the purpose of compelling the Moravians either to migrate into the hostile country or to move in a body to Ft. Pitt. This company discovered what Captain Elliott and his Indians had accomplished two months earlier. They found the mission villages deserted save by a few Indian men and women who had wandered back from the Sandusky to gather corn. Williamson conducted these Indians safely to Ft. Pitt and placed them under the care of General Irvine. Food being scarce at the fort, Ir- vine did not keep the Indians long, but permitted them to go to their brethren on the Sandusky.1
Already a small settlement of Delawares had been es- tablished near Ft. Pitt. After Colonel Brodhead destroyed Coshocton in the spring of 1781, Killbuck, the chief sachem of the Delaware tribe, with his immediate kindred and the families of Big Cat, Nanowland and a few other chiefs who remained friendly to the American cause, took
1 Crumrine's History of Washington County, p. 102.
I54
OLD WESTMORELAND.
possession of a small island at the mouth of the Allegheny river, opposite Ft. Pitt, built bark wigwams, grew corn and vegetables and otherwise supported themselves by the chase and the sale of furs. Members of this settlement on what was called Killbuck island-afterward Smoky island-ac- companied military scouting parties and were of service in the defense of the frontier. Killbuck was a colonel in the United States army and some of his men received commis- sions as captains.
The spring of 1782 was unusually early. Mild weather began about the first of February and with it came the ma- rauding Indians. The first blow in Southwestern Penn- sylvania fell on February 8, when John Fink, a young man, was killed near Buchanan's fort, on the upper Mononga- hela.2 On Sunday, February 10, a large body of Indians visited the dwelling of Robert Wallace, on Raccoon creek. The head of the family was away from home. The savages killed his cattle and hogs, plundered the cabin of household utensils, bedding, clothing and trinkets, and carried away Mrs. Wallace and her three children, a boy of 10 years, an- other boy of 3 years, named Robert, and an infant.3
In the evening Robert Wallace returned to his deso- lated home. He ran and told his neighbors and in the morning an effort was made to follow the trail; but snow had fallen and obliterated the tracks. Enough was seen around the cabin to show that the Indians numbered about forty.
These raids, much earlier in the year than usual, great- iy alarmed and perplexed the settlers. They could scarce- ly believe that the savages had come all the way from the Sandusky so quickly, and suspicion arose that hostile In- dians had taken possession of the deserted cabins on the Tuscarawas.
About the 15th of February six Indians captured John Carpenter with two of his horses on the Dutch fork of Buf-
2 Pennsylvania Archives, First Series, vol. ix., p. 496; Crumrine, p. 103; Withers's Chronicles of Border Warfare, pp. 232, 233.
3 Pennsylvania Archives, vol. ix., p. 511; The Girtys, p. 154; Crum- rine, pp. 103, 104; Washington-Irvine Correspondence, p. 101.
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THE SLAUGHTER AT GNADENHUETTEN.
falo creek. They crossed the Ohio at Mingo Bottom and made off with him toward the Tuscarawas villages. Four of the captors were Wyandots but the other two spoke Dutch and told Carpenter they were Moravians. On the morning of the second day after crossing the river, Car- penter was sent into the woods to get the horses. He found them at some distance from the campfire, mounted one of them, on a sudden impulse, and rode hard for liberty. He struck the Ohio near Ft. McIntosh, went thence up to Ft. Pitt, where he told his story to Colonel Gibson, and then returned to his home in the Buffalo creek settlement.4
Colonel Marshel, the county lieutenant, had already called out some of the militia for the frontier defense, but when Carpenter told what he had learned, that a large body of Indians was on the Tuscarawas and that Moravians were among the border raiders, it was determined to muster more men and destroy the Tuscarawas valley villages as harboring places for the "red vipers." The young men of Washington county turned out to the number of 160, all well mounted, and Colonel Williamson was placed in com- mand. With much difficulty the force crossed the swollen Ohio to the Mingo Bottom on the morning of Monday, March 4, and pursued the well-beaten trail leading toward Gnadenhuetten. In this expedition Robert Wallace was an eager volunteer.
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