USA > Pennsylvania > Pennsylvania, colonial and federal : a history, 1608-1903, Volume One > Part 30
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could have been satisfied without embroiling the British colonies with the Indians, it would have been for the best interests of America. Connecticut was the most thickly populated of the col- onies, needed a chance to overflow, and could have sent an ener- getic, self-reliant, and belligerent community to subdue the earth, and stand against the French.
The events recorded in our next chapter made the boundary between Pennsylvania and Virginia a matter for consideration. Charles II's charter to William Penn gave him five degrees of longitude westward from the eastern bounds, that is from the Delaware river ; but did that mean five degrees from the longitude of the point where the river crossed the northern boundary line, which would seem reasonable, or five degrees from the western- most point of the meandering river within the borders, or five de- grees from the easternmost point thereof within the borders? Or did it mean that the western boundary was not to be a straight line, but a series of curves paralleling the course of the Delaware and each point five degrees from the corresponding point of the river ? A good portion of the present state of West Virginia lies north of the 39th parallel, which was in so many words made our southern boundary. The fixing of a boundary with Maryland north of this parallel was based upon a private agreement to which Virginia was not a party, and did not prevent Pennsylvania from having an L running along the western boundary of Maryland.
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CHAPTER XIV.
THE FRENCH INVASION
W E now come to a time when, upon a wider question of boundaries, there were not merely a few casualties, but. the parties being two "world-powers," blood was poured over the mountains of Pennsylvania, the food as well as the shelter for man and beast was reduced to ashes in the rich frontier val- leys, families were decimated by the snatching away of loved ones to captivity among savages, while extortion, rapine, and lust had their victims, as usual, in the path of the enemy's raid or the friendly army's march. Prior to the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, as far as we know, there had never been any fort, post or settlement of Frenchmen within the present limits of this State, although Brulé had, in 1615, visited Tioga Point (Athens, Bradford county), Canadians had made maps of the country west of the Alleghanies, and French missionaries and traders were in possession of the lower Ohio. When, therefore, after that treaty, notwithstanding the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, had described the Five Nations as subject to the dominion of Great Britain, and prohibited the subjects of France from hindering or molesting them or the other natives friendly to the same, and had given liberty to both sides to go and come on account of trade; when, notwithstanding this, French officers, basing their claim on early exploration and the res- toration of original possessions by the treaties of peace, came to the banks of the Allegheny, which then was included under the name of Ohio river, or La Belle Rivière, and attempted to turn off the
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English traders, we call it an invasion. Yet we cannot lay upon the governor of Canada, or the ministers of Louis XV, who may have prompted him or supported him, all the blame for the war, the first assaults of which the New England officials were champing to make, the first gun of which rascally traders from the middle provinces were scarcely restrained from firing. After all. Pennsylvania became a desolation because Great Britain, as she has done in engaging in several great wars, made herself a party to the scheme of non-resident speculators. The Ohio Com- pany was chartered in 1749, composed mostly of Marylanders and Virginians, and obtained from the King of England a grant of 500,000 acres of land on the Ohio between the Monongahela and Kanawha rivers, on condition of building and garrison- ing a fort, and within seven years settling one hundred families. By the interpretation finally adopted of Charles II's charter to William Penn, part of this land was in Pennsylvania and be- longed to the Proprietaries thereof, saving the rights of the In- dians, whom, however, none but Penn's heirs could legally buy off : by the contention of the French the whole of North America west of the Alleghanies was theirs. Previous to the chartering of this company, or before the fact was known to the Governor of New France, the latter, who was the Marquis de la Galison- nière, sent Celeron de Bienville to the Allegheny and further down the Ohio. He, finding Pennsylvania traders there, com- plained of it to Governor Hamilton, in August, 1749, and nailed up or buried plates "as a monument," the inscriptions said, "of our having retaken possession of the said River Ohio and of those that fall into the same and of all the lands on both sides as far as the sources of the said rivers, as well as of those of which the pre- ceding kings of France have enjoyed possession, partly by force of arms, partly by treaties, especially by those of Ryswick, Utrecht, and Aix-la-chapelle." Various embassies followed to induce the Indians recently in alliance with the English to return to their allegiance to the French, and let them build forts and monopolize
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trade. Christopher Gist, sent by the Ohio Company, and George Croghan and Andrew Montour, sent by the Governor of Penn- sylvania, were the chief agents in foiling these attempts, or rather in confirming the Ohio Indians in their refusal. The French, not
Timothy Horsfield
Built the first private house at Bethlehem; took an important part in protecting the settle- ments against the Indians, 1755-1761; with William Parsons, he laid out the first road between Bethlehem and Easton. Photographed especially for this work from the original por- trait in oil by Haidt in the possession of Dr. W. J. Holland
confining themselves to presents and proclamations, arrested trad- ers and confiscated their goods, while the conversion of many of the Indians in New York to the Roman Catholic religion seemed an entering lever which might turn the Six Nations. The Pro- prietaries, having been asked by the Assembly of Pennsylvania for
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a contribution to the necessary presents sent to the tribes by the Province, refused, but offered to give 400/. towards building a fort and 100/. a year towards maintaining in it, with arms and powder, a garrison of four or six men commanded by the chief trader. In this the Assembly refused to take part, saying that they did not believe the Ohio Indians really wished it, although Croghan's journal so stated. The Assembly added: "We have always found that sincere, upright dealing with the Indians, a friendly treatment of them on all occasions, and particularly in relieving their necessities at proper times by suitable presents, have been the best means of securing their friendship." The con- sequences of these refusals by the Proprietaries and the Assembly to strengthen each other's measures were more prolonged than in regard to securing the friendship of the wavering Indians, or control over their territory until the outbreak of actual war. We can see the beginning of the long struggle as to taxing the Penn estates, and the leaving open of the field to the claims of Virginia. The French proceeded to drastic measures against the Indians, whom they chose to call rebels. Thirty of the Twightees having been killed, the Shawanees wished to avenge them, but, before doing so, notified the Lieutenant-Governor of Pennsylvania, hop- ing for approval and aid. Hamilton, knowing that the principles of the Quakers were entirely adverse to assisting in an Indian war, and unwilling to promise what their control over the public funds would render him unable to perform, referred these chiefs to the commissioners from Virginia attending the council appointed by the King of England to be held at Logstown (below Pitts- burg) in May, 1752. The Delawares, Shawanees, and Mingoes attended, and entered into a treaty with the Virginia commis- sioners not to molest English traders south of the Ohio. Tanach- arisson, the local head under the Six Nations, and called the Half King, advised the building of a fort at the forks of the Mononga- hela. Gist, accordingly, laid out a town, and started a fort at Chartier's creek, and began a settlement just beyond Laurel Hill
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near the Youghiogheny with eleven families. The Ohio Com- pany established also a trading post at Will's creek. The two places first mentioned were within the bounds of Pennsylvania.
John, son of Richard Penn the Proprietary, arrived in De- cember, 1752, to make his home in Pennsylvania. On February 6, 1753, the Lieutenant-Governor proposed his introduction as a member of the Provincial council, and asked the gentlemen pres- ent what place they would offer him; whereupon it was unani- mously agreed that he should rank as first named, or eldest, coun- cillor, and be President on the death or absence of the Governor. His name first appears upon the minutes in August following.
The Proprietaries directed Hamilton to assist Virginia in erecting any fort on the lands granted to the Ohio Company, tak- ing, however, from the Governor of Virginia an acknowledgment that the settlement should not prejudice the Proprietaries' right to the country, and a promise that those who actually settled should hold the land on the usual quit rent. On tales of the approach of a French army toward the Ohio, Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia suggested that all the colonies raise a proper force to oppose it, and notify the British ministry, after first demanding the reason for such invasion in time of peace from the Governor-General of Canada. The Earl of Holdernesse, Secretary of State, on Au- gust 28, 1753, communicated royal instructions that if any for- eign prince or state made encroachments, erected forts, or com- mitted any other act of hostility, and persisted after a representa- tion of such injustice, force was to be repelled by force, but only "within the undoubted limits of His Majesty's dominions." All the governors on the continent were to communicate with and support each other.
The French built a fort at Casoago, on French creek, near Venango, and returned a contemptuous answer to the Half-King, who went in person from his home at Logstown to warn them off the land. He was giving the third message, as usual, before tak- ing up the hatchet. The Rev. Richard Peters, Isaac Norris and
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Benjamin Franklin, appointed by the Governor of Pennsylvania. met in September at Carlisle a number of the important chiefs of the Six Nations, Delawares, Shawanees, Twightees, and Owen- dats, on their way from a council with the Governor of Virginia at Winchester. Friendship was confirmed and presents distrib- uted. Scarrooyady, the Oneida, said he supposed that Governor Dinwiddie's desire to build a fort on the Ohio was the cause of the advance of the French troops, and hoped that both Pennsyl- vania and Virginia would forbear at present from settling beyond the Alleghanies, advising that Pennsylvania call back her people. and duly appoint somebody to meet George Croghan, who was to be the agent on behalf of the Indians, and to whose house at Aughwick, on the Juniata, anything for them could be sent. Scarrooyady also said that the French had been afraid of losing their trade from the unnecessary number of English traders on the Ohio; and he asked that the traders be only in three places- Logstown, and the mouth of the Kanawha, and the mouth of Mo- nongahela ; he also represented that the English goods were too dear, and little else was brought to them but liquor and flour, which, he begged, would be regulated, as the whisky traders brought thirty or forty kegs, made the Indians drunk, and got all the skins with which the debts to the honest traders were to be paid. Dinwiddie sent George Washington, then twenty-one years old, with the rank of major in the military organization of Virginia, to have an interview with the commandant of the other fort which the French had built, viz. : on that branch of the Alle- gheny which they called La Rivière aux Bœufs (in the present Warren county). The commandant, Le Gardeur de St. Pierre, sent Dinwiddie's letter to La Galisonnière's successor, the Marquis Duquesne but told Washington that the country belonged to them : no Englishman had a right to trade upon the Ohio or its branches-and he had orders to arrest any that attempted to do so. William Trent, captain in the Virginia service, directed a fort to be made at the forks of the Monongahela; Governor Dinwiddie
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Plan of Fort Augusta
Near Sunbury; erected in 1756. Photographed especially for this work from a copy in posses- sion of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society
BLOCK HOUSE
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PACKERS ISLAND
The French Invasion
summoned his militia to meet at Will's creek, and the Lords of Trade requested the Provinces of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Mary- land, New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, and New Jersey to send commissioners with presents to the treaty which the Province of New York was to hold with the Indians. The Governor of New York fixed the middle of June as the time and Albany as the place for the treaty. The Assembly of Pennsylvania passed a bill to issue 40,000l. in bills of credit on loans; Hamilton offered, if the members were still of opinion that bills of credit were necessary to raise supplies in this time of imminent danger, to agree to such, if a means of sinking them in a few years were provided. Just at this time persons from Connecticut, representing a Susquehanna company formed there, attempted to sell lands north of the 4Ist degree of latitude, as being embraced in the old patent to that col- ony, and announced that settlements would shortly be made at Wyoming, on the east branch of the Susquehanna. Governor Dinwiddie, also, upon obtaining 10,000l. from his House of Bur- gesses for troops, issued a proclamation offering, in addition to the pay of those who served to the satisfaction of their officers, shares in 200,000 acres of land, 100,000 contiguous to the fort at the forks of Monongahela, and 100,000 near by, on the east bank of the Ohio, to be free from quit rents for fifteen years. Hamil- ton was duly protesting against both attempts to take from the Penns slices of their province; while his Assembly was using the uncertainty of the bounds as an excuse for not supporting mili- tary measures. Governor Wolcott of Connecticut expressed him- self as satisfied that his province wanted no quarrel with Penn- sylvania, and highly approved of Hamilton's offer to procure for emigrants from Connecticut grants from the Proprietaries of some of their western land; and Governor Dinwiddie, hoping that soon there would be commissioners appointed by the King to run the line, as he had requested, said that meanwhile the quit rents due after the exemption from them should have expired, could be paid to the Penns.
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A small fort having been erected at the forks of the Mohon- giola, or Monongahela, by Ensign Ward, of Trent's company, Contrecour, commander of the French troops on the Ohio, ap- peared with 1,000 men and 18 cannon, and compelled its surrender on April 16, allowing Ward and his men to retire. They fell back to Red Stone creek. Starting from Will's creek with 150 men, and widening the road as they went so as to be passable for cannon, Washington arrived at Great Meadows (in Fayette coun- ty), and constructed an entrenchment, which he called Fort Ne- cessity. Dinwiddie had supplied some friendly Indians with arms, and sent a belt with a hatchet by Trent to Scarrooyady. According to the latter's story of the affair which followed on May 28, he and some braves fell in with LaForce and thirty Frenchmen, and refused to hold a council with them, but in- formed Washington. Differing with him as to strategy, the Indians went away, but soon found the French in a hollow and hid themselves behind a hill, when they noticed Washington's force on the other side of the hollow in the gray light of the morn- ing. He had started out in the night of the 27th. Washington's force began firing, when the Indians came from their cover, and closed with the French, killing ten and handing twenty-one pris- oners to Washington. Among those killed was Jumonville, the leader, who, the French said, was bearer of a message, and whose death they called an assassination. LaForce was taken prisoner.
Governor Shirley of Massachusetts, who had offered to assist Pennsylvania in driving the French from her territory, on condi- tion that Pennsylvania should some day reciprocate, suggested that the congress at Albany should be seized as the opportunity for effecting a union of the participating colonies, the commis- sioners to be empowered to fix the quota of men and money to be furnished by each for the measures they might agree upon. But Governor Hamilton could not obtain from his Assembly authority or appropriation except for renewing the covenant chain with the Indians and holding them in the British interest. John Penn
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and Richard Peters, councillors, and Isaac Norris and Benjamin Franklin, assemblymen, represented Pennsylvania at the con- gress, which began its session June 19, 1754. On the way, Franklin drew up a plan for the union of the colonies, which, with a few amendments, was unanimously adopted, and recommended to the various assemblies and the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations. It provided for a central government, to be administered by a president-general, appointed by the Crown, and a grand council of forty-eight representatives chosen by the Colo- nial Assemblies, Virginia and Massachusetts each to have the largest number, seven, and Pennsylvania six. The President- General, with the advice of the council, was to make peace or de- clare war with the Indians, raise soldiers, build forts. and levy taxes. This plan was never brought before the King or Parlia- ment. Hamilton told the Assembly of Pennsylvania that it was "well worthy of their closest and most serious attention," but, one day, when Franklin was absent, it was taken up and promptly rejected. The congress at Albany, however, established peace with the Six Nations, and then made a lengthy representation on the state of the colonies, setting forth the dominion of Great Britain over the country south of Lakes Champlain, On- tario, and Erie, as belonging to the Six Nations, with right in Frenchmen to visit it for trading, also the French aggressions in Nova Scotia, Maine, New Hampshire, and on the rivers running into the Mississippi, and their holding English traders for ran- som, and alienating many of the Onondagas and Senecas from the English, and the danger of the whole continent being sub- jected to France. The representation also pointed out that the colonies were disunited, and there had never been any joint exer- tion of their force or counsels; that the patenting of large tracts of land to individuals or companies, except on condition of speedy settlement, prevented the strengthening of the frontiers, and that there had been great neglect of the affairs of the Six Nations ; the laws of the various colonies, being insufficient to restrain the sup-
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ply of liquor, the Indians were frequently drunk and cheated by traders, or else murdering one another, and fleeing to the French ; the Indians were not capable of bargaining as to their lands, and, on sales to private persons, were cheated or felt themselves cheated. The representation suggested that an agent, not en- gaged in trade, should reside with each Indian nation, purchases of land from Indians, except by the government, should be void, the patentees of large tracts should be required to settle them speedily, on pain of forfeiture, the bounds of the colonies extend- ing by the terms of the old charters to the Pacific Ocean should be limited by the Alleghanies, and measures should be taken for settling colonies of Protestants west of those mountains, and there should be a union of the colonies, so that their treasure and strength might be employed in due proportion against the com- mon enemy. The chiefs of the Six Nations then sold to the Pro- prietaries of Pennsylvania for 1,000 pieces of eight, the land ex- tending on the west side of the Susquehanna from the Blue moun- tains to a mile above the mouth of Kayarondinhagh (Penn's) creek, thence northwest by west to the western boundary of the Province, thence along the western boundary to the southern boundary, thence along the southern boundary to the Blue moun- tains, and thence along those mountains to the place of beginning. The deed is dated July 6, 1754. They refused to sell the land on the east branch of the Susquehanna ; they had heard there was a dispute between Pennsylvania and New England about it, and they would sell it to neither ; but Wyoming and Shamokin and the land contiguous on the river they would reserve for a hunting ground, and for the residence of such of them as should, in this time of war, remove from the French. Accordingly; they ap- pointed John Shickcalamy to take care of this land. On July 9 they confirmed the covenant of 1736 to sell no land within the limits of Pennsylvania except to the Proprietaries.
Meanwhile Captain Mckay, with an independent company from South Carolina, had reenforced Washington at Fort Neces-
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sity ; so that the force there was about 400 men. On July 3, De Villier, of whose approach they were ignorant until the day before, with 900 French and many Indians, bombarded them from eleven in the morning until night, when he offered them terms, which they accepted, to go out with the honors of war the next day, leaving their cannon, and engaging to deliver to Fort Du Quesne the prisoners taken at the time Jumonville was killed. On hearing of this, Governor Dinwiddie ordered his troops gather- ing for the expedition to meet at Will's creek, and thence proceed to recapture the fort; but, if that should be impossible, then to build a fort at Red Stone creek or elsewhere, as determined by a council of war. He wrote to Hamilton that he wished two or three companies from Pennsylvania. The Assembly voted15,000l. to the King's use the day after this letter was received, amended the bill, at Hamilton's request, so as to enable his successor to receive the money, and, rejecting all other 'amendments, forced Hamilton to sign the bill, although it was pretty much the same as he had rejected a year before. The Half-King and Scarroo- yady, with some other Indians and their families, made their way to Croghan's at Aughwick, and sent messengers to gather in the Delawares and Shawanees, asking that the women and children be supported while the warriors fought for the English, whom they anxiously expected speedily to take decisive steps against the French. Several Delawares who had visited Fort Necessity since its capture also arrived at Croghan's, and through these Robert Strobo, who had been left at Fort Necessity as a hostage, man- aged to send letters to the effect that 100 trusty Indians might be able to surprise the fort by secreting themselves under the platform behind the palisades, as they had access to the fort all day, and killing the guard with their tomahawks in the night. Contrecour and a guard of 40 men and officers were all that dwelt in the fort ; the rest were in bark cabins around; large detachments had been sent off, so the whole force was much reduced. Strobo bravely .asked that his safety be not considered. We do not know that the
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execution of the scheme was attempted, except that Hamilton wrote to Croghan to let no liquor get to the Indians, to stave in every cask, and furnish the names of all who brought any. Con- rad Weiser was sent with 300/. to spend for the Indians' support, and keep them friendly. He found twenty cabins containing over 200 men, women, and children at Aughwick, and a number more within a few miles. He received assurances that the Delawares, Shawanees, and allies were friendly, and that the Shawanees, grateful for the return of certain of their people imprisoned in South Carolina, had given no answer to the French, who asked them to assist against the English, or be neutral; and that both tribes would await the orders of the Six Nations. He reported that it was impossible to keep the inhabitants of Cumberland county from selling liquor to the Indians, the magistrates, it was said, selling the most. One old hypocrite coming to Aughwick for the purpose, it was supposed, of collecting the money for what he had sold, said to Weiser that the government should not let any liquor be brought there. Weiser asked if he meant for the Governor himself to come with his sword and pistol to pre- vent it. No, he did not. "Then," said Weiser, "there is no other way than to break you all and put others in commission who are no whisky traders and will exercise their authority." Ta- nacharisson complained of the great personage of. American his- tory, then first being heard of in England. Washington, a good- natured man without experience, he said, commanded the Indians as his slaves, had them always out scouting, and took no advice from them, lay in one place from one full moon to another, and made no fortifications at all, but "that little thing on the Mead- ow;" had he made such fortifications as Tanacharisson advised, he would have beaten off the French; the French had acted as great cowards, but the English as fools in that engagement. The Indians would wait at Aughwick until they heard from the new Governor, while Scarrooyady would go in the English interest to the great council fire of the Six Nations.
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