Venango County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (Volume 1), Part 8

Author: Babcock, Charles A.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages:

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thicken ad libitum. He was troubled for taxes. He answered the sheriff, who as- serted the necessity of taxes, that the Indians had bad men also whom they took care of them- selves without troubling the white man and that the whites should not therefore trouble the Indian. Later, when the officer returned with a posse of riflemen, the chief exhibited a hun- dred rifles staked near by, and copper faces among the green leaves of the bushes. What a moving picture a warwhoop would have con- tinued, from this introduction! He paid his taxes later, by giving his note, which was not paid. He thought it good script and it was as good as some he had known in the past. What would that bit of paper be worth now to an Historical Society? The State soon exonerated the land from taxes. He died, having lived more than a century, respected for his noble traits of character by great men, discerners of spirits ; and by his neighbors generally, a more acid test. He was the noblest Indian chief of our history. To match him in intellect, we should have to come down to our own time, enter the Senate of the United States, where two of his race are seated. Our State honored him by erecting a monument to his memory- the first that a great civilized Commonwealth ever built over the dust of a savage.

Among the simple children of Nature who were bona fide settlers of this county, were two chieftains, of great repute among their people. They were just savages, with all the qualities which distinguished that class raised to the (10-Indian)th power. If, during his active career, either of them had ever shown mercy to helpless women and children, it was doubt- less because he put off doing what he might do in order to get more victims for what he intended to do. They were known as Custa- loga and Guyasutha.

Custaloga was the leader of all the Dela- wares in this part of the country. His village, known as Custaloga's Town, was the most im- portant Indian settlement in the territory now known as Venango county. His land was the most fertile in all this region. Washington noted the beauty and extent of the meadows when he crossed there once in December. The abundance of game made it an Indian paradise. He held it doubtless by consent of the Senecas, who, as guardians of the western gate, con- trolled this region.

Guyasutha was a leading chief of the Sen- ecas. the largest and fiercest of the Six Nations. These two were chosen by Pontiac as his trusted lieutenants to carry out his plans in this State, to exterminate the white settlers. Their

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first act was to apply the torch to Fort Ven- ango, after butchering the garrison to the last man, and torturing Lieutenant Gordon for three days. This was in June, 1763. A Seneca Indian related this to Sir William Johnson, some years later.

Next the Senecas appear at Niagara, where through pretense of friendship they managed to allay the suspicions of the troops. They figured here in a number of surprises marked by the extreme of cowardly slaughter. The very enormity of the "Devil's Hole" massacre has made it immortal.

Custaloga was in the meantime at Fort Pitt with his Delawares, and several tribes from the northwest, scourging that section and threatening the garrison with destruction after trying to gain admittance by multiple decep- tions. Here he was joined by Guyasutha and his Senecas. Both were at the battle of Bushy Run, which was won by Col. Henry Bouquet. His victory was remarkable. With less than five hundred invalid troops, many so weak that they could not march, he defeated a superior force of savages, fighting in the woods in their native fashion. It is said to be the only victory of the kind, before that time or since, recorded in history. After this bat- tle, the Indians, including Custaloga and Guy- asutha, retired to the dense forests of the north- west, where they considered themselves safe from pursuit. There was another "Custaloga's Town" established in this region.

In a short time "Pontiac's and Guyasutha's war," as the settlers termed it, flamed over the borders worse than before. The horrors were indescribable. For hundreds of miles north and south along the border the settlers were wiped out. The survivors fled in terror and misery to the older settlements. Bouquet said in August, 1764, that he feared he could not save York county. However, after great delay in securing men and supplies, Bouquet started . through the forest, thought impassable to an army by the natives, and arrived upon the headwaters of the Muskingum late in October, in the very heart of hostile Indian country. Colonel Bradstreet was north of this region with an army, so the savages were caught between the jaws of a trap. Bouquet suni- moned the Indians to a conference. There came to this meeting, as responsible heads of all the savages engaged in this war, three men -Guyasutha, Custaloga, and the chief of the Shawanoes, accompanied by their orator bringing belts of wampum. Custaloga brought eighteen white people held by his tribes as prisoners to satisfy the demand that all captives

should be returned. Guyasutha and the chief of the Shawanoes each produced a bundle of forty-one sticks, representing their captives, which they would bring next spring. The lan- guage was highly figurative, self-laudatory, and as usual meaningless ; emphasized by frequent belts and strings of wampum "to open theit ears." Bouquet after two days made answer. He gave them no flowers of speech. He told them just what he thought of them. He inti- mated that he had no faith in them, that they had been a false, thieving, murderous lot, unworthy of confidence. He gave them twelve days to bring in all their captives, including all born of white women, clothed and pro- visioned to be taken to Fort Pitt. In the mean- time he would hold as hostages their chief men until the captives were returned, and till they should afterward find out by treaty with Sir William Johnson the terms of peace. While thus waiting, he sent squads of soldiers to their villages to see that they were getting the prisoners ready for departure. He thus saved a number from death. Over two hun- dred and forty were recovered at this time from captivity. This concluded Guyasutha's war, with the exception of scattered hostilities. Thus did twenty-five hundred troops round up practically all the Indians of Pennsylvania.

Pontiac has been called "great." the pos- sessor of wide comprehension. His outlook was that of primitive savagery. There was room enough for both Indians and white men. This State has for many years supported in luxury thirty-five times as many people, as the whole number of Indians in the United States in Pontiac's time. Sir William Johnson esti- mated the number of native warriors from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, south of the Great Lakes, at ten thousand, five hundred men. Pennsylvania alone could have rounded up all the Indians in the country, placed them upon reservations, and held them there until they were civilized or dead. Why did she not do it? Politics. The different parties and sects could not agree upon what should be done, or how or when, or who should do it. While they were thus discussing, the Indians in small parties, but according to a plan worked out by such leaders as Custaloga and Guyasutha, fell upon the borders and wrought amazing destruc- tion. Bouquet said just after Bushy Run that with three hundred additional troops he could clear out all the Indians from Fort Pitt to Lake Erie. It was fifteen months before he could start, giving the savages free havoc for a half- year.

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CUSTALOGA'S TOWN

Custaloga's Town was located on French creek some twelve miles above its mouth and near the mouth of Deer creek, upon the land of the late Charles H. Heydrick. Mr. Hey- drick a few years before his death wrote as follows :

My farm is one of a number of tracts purchased soon after the Revolution by my grandfather from soldiers of the Pennsylvania Line to whom they had been granted by the Commonwealth in considera- tion of military services and in pursuance of the act of March 12, 1783. Early in the present century [the nineteenth] my father, the late Doctor Hey- drick, made a tour of inspection of these lands and found evidence of occupation by the Indians, some portions of the alluvial "bottom land," the best on the creek, or indeed, anywhere in the whole region- having been cultivated for many years, and other vestiges of the Indian village of Custaloga's Town being still visible. At that time there was living upon an adjoining tract a settler named Martin, who had settled there soon after the remnant of land north and west of the rivers Ohio and Allegheny and Conewango creek, not appropriated to Revolu- tionary soldiers, or in satisfaction of depreciation certificates, had been thrown open to settlement by the act of April 3, 1792, certainly as early as 1798. One of Martin's sons, called John, Jr., was a bright and, for the time and under the circumstances, an intelligent young man, and claimed to have been intimate with the Indians, and spoke their language.

In 1819, I first visited the place and stopped at Martin's house. While there I found many vestiges of the Indian village, and made many inquiries about it and its people. In answer to my inquiries John Martin, Jr., told me, among other things, that he had assisted in the burial of three Indians on my farm, an idiot boy, "Chets" squaw and a chief whose name he pronounced "Guy-a-soot-er." He said that he made the coffin of "Guy-a-soot-er" and after it was finished the Indians asked him to cut a hole in it that he ("Guyasooter") might "see out." He fur- ther said that "they buried all his wealth with him: his tomahawk, gun and brass kettle." Martin pointed out to me the grave of the chief and the spot was always recognized as such by the pioneers of the neighborhood, though I do not remember that any of them except Martin professed to have witnessed the burial. After I came to reside on this farm, Martin repeated his statement about the burial of "Guyasooter's" gun, tomahawk and kettle in the presence of another pioneer who felt unkindly toward him, and the latter made a remark aside, which, while unfavorable to Martin, impliedly cor- roborated his statement. From all the evidence I

had on the subject, much of which has doubtless escaped my recollection, and some of which was probably derived from other sources than Martin, I was so well satisfied that the chief named and others were buried at the place designated by Martin that I have to this day preserved the grove about the reputed graves, and have had it in mind to mark the spot by some permanent memorial.

A pioneer of French Creek township, Mercer county, whose farm adjoined those of Heydrick and Martin, and who was a resident

of that locality in 1804, made the following statement regarding the burial of Guyasutha : "John Martin, Jr., who could converse in the Indian tongue, informed me that he made the coffin and assisted in burying a chief. They placed in the coffin his camp kettle filled with soup, his rifle, tomahawk, knife, trinkets and trophies. I think they called him 'Guya- sooter.' "

There has been a uniform and persistent tradition to the effect that he died and was buried at Custaloga's Town, in that neighbor- hood, since the earliest settlement there. And during all this time, a slight depression in the ground has been pointed out as Guyasutha's grave. Many residents of that part of the country heard the story of his death and burial from the lips of John Martin, Jr., who spent the greater part of his life on the farm next to Custaloga's Town. A tradition repeated without material change for three generations is as good evidence of the truth as written his- tory is. It is so recent that it would be known whether or not it were true.

The evidence is not so clear in regard to the burial place of Custaloga. But it seems probable that he also returned to his old home, when he felt the burden of years heavy upon him, to rest in the hunting ground of his vigorous manhood. There is a tradition to this effect.

For the early settlers, it was indeed for- tunate that among their savage enemies, very few were like Custaloga and Guyasutha.

THE PIONEERS

So far as known, there was no attempt by American citizens to settle the wilderness of northwestern Pennsylvania till after the Revo- lution. As soon as Indian hostilities quieted down, there was a movement of population in this direction. In the summer of 1787 John and David Mead, of Northumberland county, made a visit to the valley of French creek, evidently looking for suitable territory upon which to begin a settlement. In May, 1788, they returned with seven others, most of whom settled near the present city of Meadville. This was the beginning of the first permanent set- tlement in this part of the State. It is likely that these pioneers upon their first visit were pleased not only with the land they found, but also by the building of the fort, then nearing completion, at Franklin. The military post would attract settlers not only to its immediate vicinity, but to outlying lands within a radius of several miles. It would serve as a place of

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refuge in times of danger, and it did, not long after it was built. But the settlers came in slowly. There was still fear of trouble with the Indians. This fear continued and delayed settlement in other parts of the country, till some years after Wayne's treaty, following his victory in the northwest.

In 1790 the first white man came to make his home in Franklin. His name was George Power. He came first with the soldiers who built Fort Franklin in 1787 and remained here but a short time after the completion of the Fort. He spent the next three years in pros- pecting, it seems ; for he was at Fort Washing- ton, near Cincinnati, for a time, then at Vin- cennes, Ind. He took time to consider, viewing a number of places, and deliberately fixed upon Franklin as the place in which to spend his life. He was born in Maryland April 10, 1762, and was consequently about twenty-four years old when he was here at first and twenty-eight when he settled here. He was of the stuff of which pioneers, or heroes, or men who achieve success in any line, are composed. He grew by overcoming the difficulties in his path. He mapped his work out in advance. He would supply the wants, in a mercantile way, of the people who had not yet arrived. He prepared for it, erecting a suitable building, laying in a stock of goods, learning the dialects of the natives, and forecasting events by such tidings as came in with outside visitors to the post. He was the entire civil population of the future town for the next four years. During these early days there were many rumors of Indian descents about to be made upon this lonely little station of law in the woods; but Mr. Power was not frightened. He had no more intention of leaving the place than the com- mandant whose business it was to stay. He selected a lot a little below the Fort, on the bank of French creek, and supplied it with the goods which his frontier life suggested. Some of these would supply the wants of the gar- rison; but perhaps the larger part would be exchanged for the furs of the Indians, which would find a ready market at Fort Pitt.

When Mr. Power came he was unmarried. On Dec. 30, 1799, he married Margaret Bow- man. the sister of the late Andrew Bowman. He built his stone house, that was long con- sidered one of the show places of the town, near the site of his first log cabin. This was on the corner of Otter and Elbow streets, now the location of the dwelling formerly occupied by Judge Trunkey. This house was for a time kept as a hotel and was noted for its generous hospitality to its guests. Mr. Power's books

of accounts are of value historically as fixing the time of residence of numbers in the vicin- ity which might otherwise be without record. They have an interest, too, in revealing the curious names of some of the Indians of that time, and in showing that Mr. Power thought a good proportion of them trustworthy. Although he was for a number of years the sole settler of the yet unprojected and uncharted settlement, he probably did not find the time heavy in its passage. He had the society of the garrison and of their sometime visitors from the settlements to keep him in touch with the world outside. Then the world in which he lived was an intense one. He became a close student of Indian life while he was learning the various dialects, and had many chances of confirming his judgment of the red men when checking up his account books.

Mr. Power passed a long and useful life in the community of his choice. He died at the home he built, April 2, 1845, in the eighty- third year of his age, respected and honored by all who knew him. He has many descend- ants in Venango county at present.

The civil population doubled in 1794, when Col. Alexander McDowell joined George Power as a fellow resident. Colonel McDowell was deputy surveyor of district No. 7, west of the Allegheny river and Conewango creek, and located many of the warrants of the Holland Land Company in this and adjoining counties. He was the first magistrate to serve in Venango county, as he was commissioned justice of the peace two years after his arrival. He was also the first postmaster at Franklin, com- missioned to that office Jan. 1, 1801. His death occurred Jan. 4, 1816, at the age of fifty-three. His wife survived him for more than fifty years, to the remarkable age of one hundred and three years. Their son, Thomas Skell McDowell, born April 26, 1803, was the first white child born in Franklin.

The next year, 1795, shows the name of Capt. James G. Heron on George Power's ledger. He was a soldier of the Revolution, but was not one of the military establishment here. His family arrived in 1800. He died Dec. 30, 1809. He was the second postmaster of Franklin, one of the first associate judges, and a member of the first board of county commissioners. He brought several slaves with him to this county, being the first owner here of this kind of property.

As already noted, Capt. George Fowler, a British officer, came to this place in 1797, and occupied the Old Garrison in 1799, after the troops evacuated it, when he served as a jus-

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tice of the peace. In this year Edward Hale came and established himself as a trader here. Marcus Hulings also came at this time, as his name appears on both Hale's and Power's ledgers in 1797. The oldest tombstone in the Franklin cemetery bears the name of Michael Hulings, died Aug. 9, 1797, aged twenty-seven years, which would clearly indicate that Mr. Hulings brought his family here during this year. Mr. Hulings made periodic trips to Pittsburgh, taking down peltry as the chief portion of his cargo, and bringing back mer- chandise for the traders. Mr. Hulings is men- tioned in a letter from Fort Pitt in 1763 as the owner of a farm in the vicinity of the Fortress. It is probable that the same man took up the business of connecting the two places after settling here. His descendants have been influ- ential in this county ever since.

The families of George Power, Alexander McDowell, James G. Heron, Edward Hale, and Marcus Hulings constituted the population of the county-seat-to-be in 1800. John Brad- ford, Col. Samuel Dale, William Moore, Sam- uel Hays, George and Hugh McClelland, Wil- liam Connely, Nathaniel Cary, David Irvine, Abraham Selders, Andrew Bowman, Alex- ander McCalmont, and William and James Kinnear, were among the early and promi- nent residents during the first years of the new century.

While the town, now surveyed, christened and appearing on the map at the State and na- tional capitals, is becoming a vigorous infant village, the pioneer is breaking trails through- out the county. Almost at the same time there were newcomers to the region of Scrubgrass and the valleys of French creek, Sugar creek, Oil creek and Pithole. In 1793-94 two scouts from the settlements on the Kiskeminetas ex- plored the country west of the river. In 1795 James Scott, one of the scouts, returned to that locality, bringing with him several others. Samuel Jolly, James Craig, David Say and James Fearis came to Scrubgrass in 1795. Be- fore the close of the century, William Craw- ford, Moses Perry, Thomas Perry and others followed. This was the beginning of the emi- gration from Westmoreland county which added so largely to southern Venango. Rev. Robert Johnson, who preached in the first church building put up in the county, was pas- tor of Scrubgrass Presbyterian Church, 1803- 1817.

In the adjoining township of Clinton, 1796 marks the arrival of Thomas McKee, the first permanent settler, native of Westmoreland county and a surveyor by occupation. He

assisted in locating many of the land claims in this part of the State. To this year belong Matthew Riddle, a veteran of the Revolution; Archibald and Patrick Davidson, from the eastern part of this State; Thomas Baird, one of the early justices ; John Vogus, and Patrick McDowell; Maj. Phillip Ghost, a major in the Revolution, and one of the few German set- tlers in this part of the county, arrived in the same year. In 1797 Patrick Coulter and John Phipps became residents of the township. The Phipps family became prominently identified with the early and later history of the county, political and industrial. John Coulter, a well known early physician, was the son of the pioneer Patrick Coulter. In 1800 John Witherup arrived. He was probably the only native of England among this group of set- tlers. He became the first sheriff of the county, and contractor for the building of the first courthouse. Among the very early set- tlers in the valley of Scrubgrass creek are also Benjamin Williams, Alexander Porter, James Hoffman and John Hovis.

The first settlers, so far as known, in Irwin township are Adam Dinsmore and Henry Crull, near the old Pittsburgh road in 1796. In 1797 Isaac and George McMurdy, father and son, settled near the line of Butler county. They came from Huntingdon county. In the same year came Richard Monjar, who was the first shoemaker of the township, from the State of Maryland. Thomas Bullion was an early settler, and was the proprietor of the first dis- tillery. He possessed an uncommon individ- uality among a people of marked character- istics. In 1798 were added to the settlers of the township William Davidson, an early con- stable, who sacrificed his life in the line of his duty ; James McClaran, who was appointed one of the first trustees of the county, in the act erecting the county; and Jonathan Morris, from Lancaster county. It was in 1799 that one Adam Dinsmore persuaded four others to come. These were William and Hugh McManigal, David Martin and John Crain. natives of the North of Ireland, settled for a while in Mifflin county before coming here. Hugh McManigal raised a company for the defense of Erie in 1813-a direct outcome of Adam Dinsmore's good works. Other settlers came into the township: Edward McFadden, from Luzerne county, in 1799 ; William Adams. in 1800: Moses Bonnell, Robert Jones and Robert Burns, in 1802, and John Bullion. in 1803.

The movement of population into the valley of French creek began at the same time as the

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settlement of the southern townships. John Martin was the first to arrive in 1796. He came from Maryland and his tract was three miles above Utica. He had a ferry known still as Martin's Ferry, on the old Pittsburgh road, at Custaloga's Town. He knew a good many of the Indians. A bird of passage, ar- rived about this time, named John Chapman, did not settle, but after resting passed on. Others recorded before 1800, were John Gor- don and John Cooper, 1797 or 1798; a native of Ireland, William Duffield, in 1798, from Center county ; John Lindsay, noted as building the first mill on French creek in the county ; Welden Adams, a man well known in county affairs; Thomas and Alexander Russell, father and son, from Huntingdon county. In 1800, from eastern Pennsylvania, came Hugh and John L. Hasson, James and Robert Greenlee, Peter Patterson, William Patterson, and Wil- liam Vogan; Jacob Runninger, in 1801 ; John Hanna, 1802; and James Gilliland, in 1804. Other early settlers at somewhat later dates were John Temple, Seth Jewel, William Evans and James Gibson.

In Sandy Creek and Victory townships, the first settlements were along the line of the old Pittsburgh road. In 1796 Samuel Patterson sold his cabin, in which he, a bachelor, had lived a year or two by hunting and fishing, to John Dewoody, who left Ireland at twenty-one, resided briefly in Lancaster county and Pitts- burgh, then settled here. Another welcome settler, from Erin, was Patrick Munson, a sol- dier of the Revolution who came to Sandy Creek township in 1797. Probably the first mill on Sandy creek was built in 1798 by James Stevens. The earliest settlers near Franklin, were James Martin, first clerk to the county commissioners, from Maryland in 1796, who planted one of the first orchards here, to his lasting credit; Thomas Brandon, from Cum- berland county, who soon changed to Cran- berry; and William Dewoody, from Ireland, who also came in 1796. The earliest settlers in Victory township, after John Dewoody, were James Major, Isaac Bennett, Robert Hyner, Daniel McMillin and John Lyons. In 1803 George McClelland settled near the vil- lage of Springville; he is better known in con- nection with the life of Franklin, to which place he removed in a few years.

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Venango County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (Volume 1), Part 8

Author: Babcock, Charles A. Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: Babcock, Charles A.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: