CHAPTER II

THE PRE-REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD

Indian Occupation-French and English C1aims-Explorers and Traders -The Ohio Company-Celeron’s Expedition-Alarm of Pesnnyl­vania and Virginia Authorities-Washington Sent to Fort Le Breuf -Military Measures-Fort at “Forks of the Ohio”-Ward’s Sur­render-Beginning of French and Indian War-Fort Necessity­Braddock’s Defeat-Forbes’s Expedition and Fall of Fort Duquesne -End of French Empire in America-Conspiracy of Pontiac-Relief of Fort Pitt-Colone1 Bouquet-Battle of Bushy Run-Bouquet’s Expedition against the Ohio Indians-Dunmore’s War-Mixed Character of Settlers-Murder of Logan’s Family-Battle of Point Pleasant.

Land of the West!-where naught is old
Or fading, but tradition hoary­
Thy yet unwritten annals hold,
Of many a daring deed, the story!
Man’s might of arm hath here been tried,
And woman’s glorious strength of soul.

THE story of the settling of western Pennsylvania is a stir­ring epic, and no part of it exceeds in interest that which belongs to Beaver County. Lying directly in the course of the great movement of population from the Atlantic coast to the Missis­sippi valley, the region which it embraces witnessed some of the earliest and most important events in the mighty drama of the building of the West. Its annals claim their full share of Indian life and legend, and of hardship and suffering and heroic endur­ance and achievement on the part of its white settlers.

THE INDIAN OCCUPATION

When the English first entered the valley of the upper Ohiothey found a few settlements of Indians, composed of various
13

14
tribes, located at different points from the mouth of the Beaver up to the confluence of the Monongahela and the Allegheny rivers, and for some miles above on the latter stream. These Indians were principally of the Delaware and Shawanese tribes, belonging to the great Algonquin family. together with some small but influential bands of the Iroquois or Six Nations, men­tioned below by their Indian name of Mengwe.
By their own account the Delawares were the oldest of all the aboriginal nations,-Lenni Lenape, the name they gave themselves, meaning “original people.” They said that, ages before, their ancestors had come from a far country to the west­ward, where they had dwelt by a great salt sea. After long and weary journeyings during hundreds of moons, they arrived at length at the Namaesi Sipu (the Mississippi), where they met an­other tribe, the Mengwe, who had likewise just arrived from a land in the far West, and who, like the Delawares, were seeking a more favorable location in the country toward the sun-rising. On the east of the Mississippi these tribes encountered a mighty nation of people, many of whom were giants, and who bore the name of Tallegewi or Allegewi. Their name, according to those who accept the Delaware tradition, still survives in the name Allegheny, as applied to the river and mountains so called. To these A1legewi the Delawares sent messengers asking leave to settle in their land, and were refused, but were told that they could cross the river and settle farther to the eastward. The Delawares accepted this offer, and set forward. But the Alle­gewi, becoming alarmed at their numbers, determined to drive them back, and furiously attacked those who had already crossed. The Delawares and the Mengwe now united their forces, and after many years of warfare defeated the Allegewi, and divided the country between themselves; the Delawares finally reaching the beautiful valleys of what is now eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, where they settled along the river which bears the name afterwards given to it and to them by the white people, while the Mengwe made choice of the country about the Great Lakes to the northward. and then moved eastward along the river known now as the St. Lawrence. Here they ultimately developed into the great league of the Iroquois, of which we shall presently speak. This account of the origin of the Delawares comes to us from the charming

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narrative of Heckewelder, the Moravian missionary, who la­bored among them faithfully for many years. 1 It is doubtless a faithful rendering of the Delaware tradition (perhaps slightly tinged with coloring from the Biblical account of the exodus), but the tradition itself is more than doubtful.
What is certain is that when the whites first came to America, they found these nations or tribes, the Delawares and Mengwe (Iroquois), seated relatively to each other as stated above, the Delawares in the south along the Delaware River and its tribu­taries, and the Mengwe in the north, below the St. Lawrence River, in what is now New York; that the Delawares were con­quered and humbled by the Mengwe, and that finally, by the enmity of these powerful people, by the pressure of the whites upon them, and by the decrease of game, they were compelled to move backward step by step to the Ohio River country. It is believed that as early as 1725 a large number of the Dela­wares had settled on the Allegheny, then called the Ohio, at what was known as ” Old Kittanning,” at or near the present town of Kittanning, and that later, about the middle of the eighteenth century, the principal part of their tribe followed them, and built their towns along the streams of western Penn­sylvania, one large settlement called “Shingoe’s town,” ,or Saw­kunk, being located, as was previously shown, at the mouth of the Big Beaver, and another some fifteen or twenty miles above it called Kuskuskee.2
1 History. Manners. and Customs of the Indian Naticms. by the Rev. John Heckewelder. reprint of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania., Philadelphia. 1881. p. 47 et seq.
Kuskuskee. This was a celebrated Delaware town, or group of towns. The name is spelled Kuskuskee, Kuskusky, Kuskuskies, KushktIshkee, Kaskaskie. Gosgosgee, etc.. there being fifteen or twenty variants, according to the way in which attempts were made to anglicize the guttural Indian original. Post’s first journal (Aug. 17, 1748) says; “Kush­kushkee is divided into four different towns, each at a distance from the others and the whole cousists of about ninety houses, and two hundred able warriors..” Conrad Weiser mentions the place in his journal. Writing at Logstown, August 29, 1748, he says; “This day my companions went off to Coscosky, a 1arge Indian town, about thirty miles off.” The early maps differ considerably in the location which they give to Kuskuskee. possibly for the reason that there were four towns, as Post informs us. A map of West Pennsylvania and Vuginia in 1753, which is in the British Museum. (copied into Gist’s Journals, Darlongton) shows “Cuscusca Town” in the triangular point at the forks of the Beaver. i. e., where the Mahoning and Shenango unite to form the Big Beaver proper. Lewis Evans’s map of 1755 places “Kishkuskees” on the east side of the Beaver just below the forks, and Thomas Hutchins’s puts it on the west side about one mile be1ow them.
There was also a town known as New Kuskuskee, where lived the chief of the Wolf tribe of the Delawares, Pakanke. Some historical students think this town stood near or upon the site of the present New Castle, the county-seat of Lawrence County; others, perhaps the rnajority.”think it was a short distance south or southeast of Edenburg, in that county. The latter opinion is supported by Reading Howen’s map of 1792. and it

16

History of Beaver County

In their new home in the West the Delawares were joined by remnants of other related tribes, such as the Nanticokes and Conoys 1 from Maryland, the Mohicans from the Hudson, and especially by the Shawanese, one of the most formidable tribes with which the whites had to deal in the border wars which followed later. The Shawanese had originally lived in the south (by some the name is translated “southerners”), in Ten­nessee and Georgia, and in the Floridas.2 They were trouble­some neighbors, and a league was formed against them by the tribes which had suffered from them, when they fled to the north and joined their kindred, the Delawares. This was in 1697 or 1698. A portion of them settled on Montour’s island, below Pittsburg, but the main body went farther east to the valleys of the Delaware and the Susquehanna. About 1728,3 the greater part of this main body of the Shawanese, through fear of the powerful Iroquois, or Six Nations Indians, left their homes on the Susquehanna and came to the head of the Ohio, some settling in the Delaware towns on the Big Beaver, and
is definitely proved. we think, by the language of General William Irvine, agent of the State to examine the Donation lands. In his report to his Excellency John Dickinson. dated Carlisle, Pa., August 17, 1785. he says: “From the mouth of the Shenango to Cus­kuskey on the west branch [M ahoning], is six or seven miles [italics ours], but it was for­merly called Cuskuskey by the natives along this branch [of the Beaver) as high as the salt spring, which is twenty-five miles from the mouth of Shenango.” (See Penna. Arch., vol. xi., p. 513.) .
Several of the noted Indian trails converged at the “War Post” west of Kuskuskee, and one, long known and travelled by the early white settlers, passed by the” Scalp Spring,” near the forks of the Beaver, through the Moravian town, (Friedenstadt) to the mouth of the Beaver, and thence up the Ohio through Logstown to the present site of Pittsburg. (See Western Annals. p. 358.)
See in Massachusetts Historical Collections, new series. vol vi., p. 144 et sea., interesting narrative of Hugh Gibson’s captivity at Kuskuskee and Sawkkunk (mouth of Big Beaver), Spelled also Kanawhas, The rivers in West Vuginia, the Big and Little Kanawhas were named from this tribe.
According to Colonel John Johnson, United States Indian Agent at Piqua, Ohio, the Suwanee River, Florida., derives its name from them. (The Olden Time, vol. i., p. 6.)
So it would appear from what is said in the minutes of the treaty council held in August, 1732, at Philadelphia, with the chiefs of the Six Nations, viz.: “That we had held several treaties with those Shawanese . . . but that some of their young men having between four and five years since. committed some Disorders tho’ we had fully made it up with them, yet being afraid of the Six Nations, they had removed backwards to Ohio, and there had lately putt themselves under the Protection of the French, who had received them as their children.”
According to Conrad Weiser, however, the Shawanese came to the Ohio at the same time as the Delawares. In his speech at the council with the Six Nations at Albany in July, 1754, he said:
“The Road. to Ohio is no new Road; It is an old and frequented Road; the Shawanese and Delawares removed thither above thirty years ago from Pennsylvania, ever since which that Road has been traveled by our traders at their invitation, and always with safety until within these few years that the French with their usual faithlessness sent armies there”-Col. Rec., vol vi., p. 84.­
This would make the date about 1725.

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others in three towns between that stream and the forks of the Ohio (the present site of Pittsburg). We learn of these towns from Christian Frederick Post, who says in his journal of 1758 (August 27th), that he passed through three Shawanese villages between Fort Duquesne and Sawkunk (Beaver). George Croghan, also, in his journal of 1765 (May 16th), calls Logstown 1
“an old settlement of the Shawanese.” These Villages were all deserted in the fall of 1758, when the French fled from Fort Duquesne before the advance of General Forbes. In 1776, ac­cording to Thomas Hutchins, the geographer, the Mingo town near what is now Steubenville, Ohio, was the only Indian village on the banks of the Ohio from that point to Fort Pitt; it con­tained at that time sixty families.
Among the Shawanese and the Delawares residing on the Ohio when the white people began to penetrate the western wilderness were also, as we have said, representatives of the Six Nations, or Iroquois, consisting of small bands of warriors under the leadership of eminent chiefs, who were placed there to guard the interests of the confederacy formed by those nations. Sev­eral of these chiefs were located within the present limits of Beaver County. Tanacharison, or the “Half King,” was at Logstown, where was also Monakatoocha, or the” Great Arrow.” 2 Kachwuckdanionty, or the ” Belt of Wampum,” who fought bravely under Braddock, was at Beaver.3 Farther north, on the Venango, was the celebrated chief, Guyasutha,4 or the “Big Cross,” famous as Pontiac’s fellow-conspirator.

1 Logstown stood on the right bank of the Ohio as one descends the river. The general course of
that river from Pittsburg to Beaver is northwesterly, but at this point it runs due north, so that Logstown was, speaking exactly, on the east side. For a full history of this noted Indian town, and a statement of the reasons for saying it was on the right-band bank of the Ohio, instead of the left-hand bank, where popu]ar belief has supposed it to be, see Chapter XXVIIL.
2 Washington’s Journal of 1753.
3 History of Western Pennsylvania, Rupp, p. 112.
4 During the latter part of his 1ife Guyasutha lived on the farm in O’Hara township, Allegheny County, Pa., which is now the residence of the family of William M. Darlington. He was buried there in the “Indian Mound.” by General O’Hara.
Rev. David McClure, the missionary to the Indians, in his diary. makes the following entry, in which we have a s1ight sketch of the great chief:
” Aug. 18th [1772] Crossed the Laurel hanning [LoyalhannaJ, a pleasant stream which runs through Ligonier, & rode to Col Proctors. Here we found Kiihshutah, Chief of the Senecas,
on his way to Philada & from thence Sr. Wm. Jobnson’s, who, as his interpreter, Simon Girty, informed us, had sent for him, relative to a treaty held some time ago at the Shawaness towns. He was dressed in a scarlet cloth turned up with lace, & a high gold laced hat, & made a martial appearance. He had a very sensiblee countenance & dignity of manners. His interpreter informed him of the business on which we were going. I asked him his opjnion of it. He paused a few moments & replied that he was afraid it would not succeed; for said he. ‘the Indians are a roving people, & they will not attend. Vol.-2.

History of Beaver County 18

Some account of the character and influence of the con­federacy known as the Six Nations-to which these chiefs be­longed-is necessary to an understanding of the history with which we are dealing, both as regards the Indians themselves and their relations to the whites in all the succeeding years of war and peace. This celebrated confederacy was established some­time before the dawn of the seventeenth century, by the various tribes of the Mengwe, or Iroquois, referred to above. It was at first composed of five tribes, viz., the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas; and the Senecas and was known as the Five Nations. In 1712, they were joined by the Tuscarawas, who, on being driven from their home in North Carolina, had asked to be received by them. Henceforth the league was known as the Six Nations. By themselves, and by the Eng­lish after them, they were called Mingoes; by the French, Iro­quois 1 by the Dutch, Maquas, and by the other Indian tribes, Mengwe. The home of this powerful confederacy was in New York, but they had extended their influence from that region to the Carolinas, and from New England to the Mississippi. On account of their strong traits of character they have been called the “Romans of America,” 2 and they were certainly like the Romans in their ability to conquer and govern other nations. An eminent writer has thus described them:

Each nation was divided into three tribes-the Tortoise, the Bear and
the Wolf; and each village was, like the cities of the United Netherlands, a distinct republic; and its concerns were managed by its particular chiefs. Their exterior relations, general interests and national affairs, were conducted and superintended by a great council, assembled annually in Onondaga,the central canton, composed of the chiefs of each republic; and eighty sachems were frequently convened at this national assembly. It took cognizance of the great questions of war and peace; of the affairs of the tributary nations, and of their negotiations with the French and
to your instructions; but take courage & make trial. The King of the Delawares & the warriors are now at home. You will see them! He also mentioned that there was a minister at Kuskuskoong,on Beaver
Creek. & that one half of the Indians were offended with the other for hearkening to him.”
-.Diary of Dauid McClure, I748-I820 (privately printed), The Knickerbocker Press,1899, p. 42.
1 We translate from Charlevoix the following interesting note on the derivation of the name Iroquois: The name lroquois is purely French, and has been formed from the term Hiro, which means ‘I have said it;’ and by which these savages finish all their discourses, as the Latins did in ancient times by their Dixi; and from Koue, which is a cry, sometimes of sadness when one prolongs its utterance, and sometimes of joy when one pronounces it more quickly. Their proper name is Agonnsionni, which purports builders of cabins, because they built their dwellings much more substautially than the majority of the other savages.”-History of New France, voL i, p. 270. See also John Gilmary Shea’s translation. vol. ii. , p. 189.
2 Volney’s View of the United States, p. 470.

History of Beaver County
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English colonies. All their proceedings were conducted with great de­liberation, and were distinguished for order, decorum, and solemnity. In eloquence, in dignity, and in all the characteristics of profound policy, they surpassed an assembly of feudal barons, and were perhaps not far inferior to the great Amphyctionic Council of Greece. 1

As the same writer remarks, the Confederates were not only like the Romans in their martial spirit and rage for conquest, but also in their practice of adopting both individuals and tribes of the vanquished into their own nation, in order to recruit their population exhausted by endless “and wasting wars, and to en­able them to continue their career of victory and desolation. They maintained a terrific ascendancy over all the tribes east of the Mississippi, as illustrated in the way in which they had driven the Shawanese and the Delawares from their homes back­ward to the Ohio. An instance in connection with the removal of the latter win show the extreme rigor and haughtiness with which they treated these vassal tribes. In 1737,2 the Dela­wares had been cheated, as they believed, in the celebrated “Walking Purchase,” and in 1742, they were invited to attend a great treaty council with the Penn proprietaries in Philadelphia. Two hundred and thirty of the Six Nations warriors were also in attendance at this council by invitation of the proprietaries. On this occasion the Delawares presented their case through their chief, The Beaver, and then a great chief of the Iroquois, named Canassatego, arose, and addressing Governor Thomas, said; “That they saw that the Delawares had been an unruly people, and were altogether in the wrong; that they had determined to remove them from their lands, for which they had already re­ceived pay which had gone through their guts long ago.” Then, seizing Sassoonan, a Delaware chief, by the hair, he pushed him out of the door, and ordered the others to follow him, saying, ” You deserve to be taken by the hair of the head and shaken until you recover your senses. We conquered you and made women of you, and you know you can no more sell lands than women.3 We charge you to remove instantly; we don’t give
1 Life and Writings of De Witt Clinton. p. 215.
2 Hist. of Penna,- Egle. po 443; Parkman’s Gonspiracy qj Pontiac, voL i., p. 84.­
3 Among the Indians it was esteemed the deepest disgrace to treat for peace, the office of mediator being assigned to women.. When the Iroquois conquered the Delawares they compelled them to acknowledge themselves women, and forced them, metaphorically, at least, to put on petticoats. The Delawares tried to escape the ignominy of their condition by claiming that they had been deceived into accepting the position of mediators by fraud :

20
History of Beaver County

you liberty to think about it. You are women. Don’t deliber­ate, but remove away.” I: And the Delawares stood not upon the order of their going, but went; many of them coming, as we have said, to the banks of the Ohio.
It is difficult to arrive at an accurate estimate of the numbers of these various Indian tribes in the Ohio country. According to Conrad Weiser, who was sent in 1748 on a mission to the Indians living about the head of the Ohio, the number of the fighting men of the Delawares there was one hundred and sixty-five; that of the Shawanese, one hundred and sixty-two and of other tribes there were four hundred and sixty-two more, making a total of seven hundred and eighty-­nine.2 Many of the Delawares, however, had at this time not yet removed westward from the Susquehanna. The Deputy Indian Agent, George Croghan, in his report to General Stanwix in 1759, says “The Delawares residing on the Ohio, Beaver Creek, and other branches of the Ohio, and on the Susquehanna, their fighting men are six hundred.” 3 He said also in this report that the strength of the Shawanese on the Scioto was three hundred warriors. These figures do not show a very formidable number of Indians as living in this region, and indeed, the Indian popu­lation throughout the country was, in general, not much denser than it was here in the Ohio valley. “So thin and scattered was the native population,” says Parkman, “that even in those parts which were thought well peopled, one might sometimes journey for days together through the twilight forest, and meet no human form. Broad tracts were left in solitude. All

but that they bore this character they did not attempt to deny. Their recognition of their vassal and degraded position is shown in the message sent by them from the Ohio to the Onondaga Counci1, at a time when they were threatened by an attack from the French. It ran as follows:
“Uncles, the United Nations,-We expect to be killed by the French, your father. We desire therefore, that you will take off our Petticoat that we may fight for ourselves, our wives and children. In the condition we are in, you know we can do nothing.” -(Col. Rec., vol. vi… p. 37.) See also Heckewe1der’s Indian Nations. pp. 56- 68.
At a later period, however (by 1755), the Delawares had to a great extent thrown off the yoke of the Iroquois. The Pennsylvania authorities, after long years of bloody warfare, finally awoke to the fact that they had become an indepeudent people. able to manage their own affairs.. See Conrad Weiser and the lndian Policy qf Colonial Pennsylvania. by Joseph S. Walton
“Before the summer of 1755 was over they had declared tbemselves no longer subjects of the Six Nations, no 1onger women, but men. When they were women Pennsylvania lived in peace with the Indians, when they became men the tomahawk and scalping knife stained with blood the peaceful soil of the Province.”-p. 276.
1 Col. Rec.,. VOl. iv.. p. 580.
2 Journal, September 8, 1748.
3 Crumrine’s History of Washington County, p. 17.

History of Beaver County 21

Kentucky was a vacant waste, a mere skirmishing ground for the hostile war-parties of the north and south. A great part of Upper Canada, of Michigan, and of Illinois, besides other por­tions of the west, were tenanted by wild beasts alone.” 1 The emptiness of much of the country is strikingly shown in the ex­perience of John Howard and his men, who, in the year 1742, received a commission from the Governor of Virginia to make discoveries westward. They set out from the branches of the James River March 16th, came to the Ohio May the 6th, and to the Mississippi June the 7th, and were taken captive by some French and Indians July the 2d. In all this time and in travel­ling through that vast tract of country, they had seen nobody till they were taken, but about fifteen Indians in several bands, and they were chiefly, if not all, of the Northem tribes. II In a paper on the present state of the Northern Indians prepared by Sir William Johnson in the fall of 1763, he gives the number at 11,980, not including the Illinois, Sioux, and some other western tribes,3 and in a memorandum entered in his letter-book (MS.) by Colonel George Morgan, Indian Agent of the United States for the Middle Department, the number of warriors in the same tribes at the date of the Revolutionary War is given at 10,060.4

1 Conspiracy of Pontiac, vol. i., p. 21.
2 Report of Joshua Fry to the Hon. Lewis Burwe11, CItristopher Gist’s Journals, by Wil­
liam M. Darlington. p. 224.­
. Pouchot’s Memoirs (Roxbury Ed, I866), vo1. ii.. p. 260.
4 The memorandum in full is as follows:
“The Six Nations consist of:
Mohawks………………………….100 Men
Oneidas &Tuscarawas. . . . .. . . . . . . . 400
Cayugas…………………………..220
Onandagoes………………………230
Senacas………………………….. 650
Total 1,600
The De1awares&Munsies…………………………………1,600
The Shawnese…………. Scioto………………………………400
Wiandots…………… Sandusky & Detroit……….300
Ottawas………………..Detroit & Lake Michigan..600
Chipwas………………..All the Lakes. said to be…..5,000
Pottewatamies.. . Detroit & Lake Michigan . . . …….400
Piankashas, Kickapoos, Muscoutons, Vermillions, Wiot-
tonons. Etc. on Ouabache. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ………80
Miamis or Picts………………………………………………..300
Mingos of Pluggy’s Town…………………………………..60
Total Men………………………………………………….10,060

The estimates of the number of the Indians who, when the whites came, were living
within the limits of what is now the United States vary enormously. Some have adopted the absurd figure of sixteen millions, others think that there were never more than there are now, namely, about three hundred thousand. The latter estimate is probably nearer the truth than the former or any other very 1arge figure. At no period which may be selected did the number of sou1s upon the Indian territory bear any very considerable ratio to the number of square miles of country which they occupied in the shape of viIIages.

22 History of Beaver County

Even in the days of their greatest strength the united cantons of the dreaded Iroquois could not have mustered an army equal in numbers to the population of some of the smaller towns that now lie thickly scattered over their lost domain,1 and it is well known that the whole of the region from the Ohio River east­ward to the Allegheny Mountains was, properly speaking, nothing but a hunting ground of the Six Nations, in which the Delawares and other tribes dwelt merely by their sufferance.2
In 1770, as elsewhere related, a mission of the Moravians was established among the Indians living within what afterwards became Beaver County territory, the teachers and their Indian converts having removed hither from their station on the Alle­gheny. They built the town known as Friedenstadt, near the Delaware town called Kuskuskee. As late as 1772 some of the converted Delaware Indians were living on the western branch of the Susquehanna, and in that year they removed thence on the invitation of their Indian brethren into the Muskingum country, stopping on their way at Friedenstadt. In the fall of the same year a minister named David McClure from New Eng­land paid a visit to the Ohio Indians, and visited the Moravian settlement. His diary contains so much of interest concerning the then state of the wilderness and its inhabitants, that, al­though it treats of a somewhat later period than that of which we have been speaking, we shall permit ourselves to give sev­eral extracts from it here. Mr. McClure had been some time at Fort Pitt, where he left Mr. Frisbie, a brother minister, sick, and whence he set out for the Indian country as he thus relates:
Sept. 5 1772 Saturday, left Mr. Frisbie, who purposed, God willing, to come forward as soon as his health would permit, & set out with Robert [his servant], expecting to meet my Interpreter, Joseph, returning
or hunting grounds. On this subject see Schoolcraft’s History of the Indians, vol. i., p. 433; lncidents of Border Life, J. Pritts (Lancaster. t841), p. 468; The Uniuersal Cyclopedia (new Johnson’s). Artic1e: “Indians of North America”; and, The Winning of the West, Theodore Roosevelt, Part 1., pp. 36, 103-5.
1 Conspimcy of Pontiac, vol. i., p. 21.
2 The Iroquois on every occasion asserted their claim as lords paramount over the
country referred to, and their claim was constantly recognized by the provincial authorities. The chiefs of the Six Nations on several occasions informed the Governor of Pennsylvania through Andrew Montour, the Indian interpreter, that
.. they did not like the Virginians and Pennsylvanians making treaties with these Indians [the Delawares, etc.], whom they called hunters and young and giddy men and children; that they were their fathers, and if the EugJish wanted anything from these childish people they must speak first tc their Fatherr. Said they. It is a hunting country they live in, and we would have it reserved for this use only, and desire that no Settlements may be made here, though you may trade there, and so may the French.’ “-Col. Rec., voL v., p. 635.

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from Kuskuskoong. Mr. Gibson rode in company to his house in Logs­town, which was the only house there, 18 miles below Pittsburgh. 1
Tarried at Mr. Gibson’s over Sabbath. Spent the day principally in the solitary woods, in meditation & reading. Monday, my interpreter not arriving, I set out with Robert to find him. Mr. Gibson was kind enough to ride with me to a small town of Mingo Indians on the N. bank of the Ohio, & to send his servant a few miles further to show us the path. The roads through this Indian country are no more than a single horse path, among the trees. For a wilderness the traveling was pleasant, as there was no underbrush & the trees do not grow very closely together. 2 We travelled diligently all day. I was apprehensive that we had missed the path. Robert was a great smoaker of tobacco, & frequently lighted his pipe, by striking fire, as he sat on his horse, & often in the course of the day exc1aimed, “Ding me, but this path will take us somewhere.”
At sunsetting we arrived at Kuskuskoong [he refers to Friedenstadt, near Kuskuskee] , & found my Interpreter Joseph there. He had been detained by the sickness & death of a Grandchild. (pp. 49-50.)
The visit of McClure to this famous Moravian town is very interestingly described in the diary, and is pretty fully quoted in our chapter on the religious history of the county, to which the reader is referred for it.3 Finding that the Delaware Indians

1 See note on Gibson, in Chapter IV.
2 The explanation of there being no underbrush in the woods is given by the same writer.
The reader will be interested in seeing here a picture of the country as it was in Iudian times. In the following passage of the diary McClure is speaking of the region now a part of Ohio township, this county:
.. The woods were clear from underbrush, & the oaks & black walnut & other timber do not grow very compact, & there is scarcely anything to incommode a traveler in riding, almost in any direction,. in the woods of the Ohio. The Indians have been in the practice of burning over the ground, that they may have the advantage of seeing game at a distance among the trees. We saw this day several deer & flocks of Turkies. About an hour before sunsetting we arrived at Little Beaver Creek. On the bank of this stream, which was fordable, we had a wonderful prospect of game. In the middle of the Creek, a small fiock of wild geese were swimming, on the banksat a large flock of Turkies, & the wild pig­eons covered one or two trees; &: all being within musket shot, we had our choice for a supper. My Interpreter chose the Turkies, & killed three at one shot . . . Our path had led us along the North bank of the pleasant river Ohio. almost the whole way from Pittsburgh. & frequently within sight of the river. The soil is luxurient, the growth principally white & black oak, Chestnut, B1ack Wa1nut, Hickory &c. The sweetest red plums grow in great abundance in this country, & were then in great perfection. Grapes grow spontaneously here & wind around the trees. We have been favored with delightful weather.”-Pp. 58-59.­
A later writer gives a similar picture of the wi1derness on the north side of the Ohio, as follows:
.. In different wanderings on the other side of the Allegheny [from Fort Pitt] we had
the opportunity of observing the fineness and luxuriant fruitfulness of the soil in its primeval and undisturbed Condition. The indigenous plants had a rich and rank appearance and grew to a greater height and streugth than they do e1sewhere. In a newly formed and unfertilized garden stood the stalks of the common sun-flower which measured not less than 20 feet in height and 6 inches in thickness, and which were almost woody. The forest had chestnuts, beeches, sassafras, tuliptrees, wild cherries, red maples, sugar maples. black walnuts, hickories, and their varieties, different kinds of oaks, the liquid-amber (sweet-gum), and others of the best known trees, which here, however, likewise grow finer and strouger. The woods are for the most part entirely free from undergrowth which is very convenient for both the hunter and the traveler.”-Reise durch einige der mittlern und sudlichen Vereinigten Xordamerikanischen Staaten, 1783-1784. by Johann D. Schoepf. Erlangen, 1788, p. 415.
3 See Chapter XII.

24 History of Beaver County

were well supplied with religious teachers by the Moravians, and not wishing to build on other men’s foundations, McClure and Frisbie relinquished their purpose of settling here, and the former returned to Fort Pitt.1 The diary continues (p. 52):

Took leave of the friendly Moravians & set out for Mr. Gibson’s, where I had left some baggage.
We came to the mouth of Beaver Creek about sun setting, where was a village of Mingo Indians. Great part of the Indians were drunk: one of the chiefs had sold his horse for 6 cags (sic) of rum, & gave a frolic to the people; we avoided the village, & Joseph encamped on the bank of the Ohio, & Robert & I rode on to Mr. Gibson’s about 6 miles.
A second trip to the wilderness was soon after undertaken by the intending missionary. His diary continues:

Sept. 15, 1772. Set out with Nickels [an attendant furnished him by the commandant at Fort Pitt], & crossing the Allegany River, came on Indian ground. Arrived at Mr. Gibson’s, at Logstown about 18 Miles, & found my Interpreter there.
16th-Came to the Mingo village on Bever Creek. On the green lay an old Indian, who, they said, had been a hard drinker; his limbs were contracted by fits. He told me his disorder was brought on him by witchcraft, that he employed several conjurers to cure him, but in vain. I called his attention to his dependence on God, on death & Judgment. He, however, gave little heed; but in answer told my Interpreter, if he would bring a pint of rum every time he came, he should be glad to see him every day. Awful stupidity! This village is commonly called Logan’s town. About half an hour before our arrival, we saw Captn. Logan in the woods, & I was not a little surprised at his appearance. As we were obliged to ride, as it is commonly called, in Indian file, the path not admitting two to ride abreast, I had passed beyond Logan without seeing him. He spoke to my interpreter, who was a little distance be­hind, to desire me to stop. I looked back & saw him a few rods from. the path, stand, under a tree, leaning on the muzzle of his gun. A young Indian, with his gun, stood beside him.
I turned back & riding up to him, asked him how he did, & whether he wished to speak with me? (I had seen him at Pittsburgh.) Pointing to his breast, he said, “I feel very bad here. Whereever I go the evil monethoes (Devils) are after me. My house, the trees & the air, are full of Devils, they continually haunt me, & they will kill me. All things tell me how wicked I have been.” He stood. pale & trembling, apparently in great distress. His eyes were fixed on the ground, & the sweat run down his face like one in agony. It was a strange sight. I had several times seen him at Pittsburgh & thought him the most martial figure of an Indian that I had ever seen. At the conclusion of his awful descrip
­1 The Life and Timlrs of David Zeisberger. by E. de Schweinitz (Phila., 1870). p. 380.

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25

tion of himself, he asked me what he should do? Recollecting to have heard at Pittsburgh, that he had been a bloody enemy against the poor defenceless settlers on the Susquehanna & the frontiers, in the last French war in I758 & 9, & it was also reported of him, (though positive proof could not be had) that he had murdered. a white man (one Chand­ler) on the Allegheny mountains, I observed to him, perhaps, Captn. Logan, you have been a wicked man, & greatly offended God, & he now allows these Devils, or evil thoughts, which arise in your heart, to trouble you, that you may now see yourself to be a great sinner & repent & pray to God to forgive you. . .
He attended to what I said, & after conversing a little longer, in the same strain, We left him, in the same distress as I found him. After parting from him, various thoughts, but none satisfactory, occurred to me, relative to the cause of the distress & agitation of so renowned a warrior. I sometimes thought (such was his ferocious character) that knowing of my journey, he had placed himself in a convenient spot for robbery or murder. For my interpreter & Nickels had each a loaded piece, the Indian a common musket, & the english man a rifle always loaded, for the purpose of killing game. Perhaps it was some sudden compunction, arising from reflections on his past guilt.
This same Logan is represented as making a very eloquent speech at the close of the Revolutionary [read Dunmore’s] War, on the murder of his family by Colo. Cresap. I
We left Logan’s town, & proceeded on about one mile & came to a pleasant stream of water where we encamped.

They supped on chocolate and roast venison, and slept on bear skins, and Mr. McClure records that he could not sleep well on account of the howling of the wolves. The next day he re­sumed his journey toward the Muskingum, and crossed the Little Beaver, beyond which we need not follow him.
A year after McClure passed through this territory some Quaker travelers came through on their way to a council with the Indians at Newcomerstown (then and still so-called). in what is now Ohio, and a record of their journey is extant, en­titled, Extracts from John Parrish’s Journal of a Visit performed to the Western Indians in Company with Zebulon Heston & 1n Lacey Anno I773, in about 2 months,2 In this we find also some interesting references to our immediate region, and to Logan, which we may give. Parrish’s style shows the Quaker manner of speech, and he relates the events in the journey of his party in the third person, as follows:

1 History has vindicated Cresap and put the guilt of this murder on Daniel Greathouse. , Pennsylvania Magazine of History, voL xvi., p. 443. et seq.

26 History of Beaver County

Set out 7 mo. 9 . . . the 19th they rested [at Pittsburgh], got their Cloaths washed & sent 18 miles down the Ohio for a Guide to New-Comer’s-Town one living so far on the way to that place intending to set out the next morng, but to their surprise he came into Pittsburgh that morning, his life being threatened by an Indian man named Jno. Logan, whom White Eyes & Cohursater went to appease, by water, leaving them to the care of an Indian Guide who took them by Land near to John Logan’s Camp, which under conduct of another Indian they avoided by going round thro’ the Woods, & swam their horses over the Ohio to John Gibson’s ye Trader, where they were kindly & freely entertained. Here they staid 4th Day 21st and Logan, being pacified they set out ye 22nd accompanied by White Eyes & John Gibson, the former agreed to go with them least they should be under any apprehen­sions of Danger. Rode 9 or 10 miles down the Ohio to Beaver Creek’s Mouth where Jno. Logan had his Cabbin. Here along the River were several Cottages & a fine Bottom. Cross’d Beaver Creek & twin’d more Westward, thro’ but indifferent Land & lodg’d in a low Place for the sake of the Water. 23d saw a few Indians on their way (Lands hardly fit for Cultivation) & lodg’d at a Bark Shelter.

After a conference with the Indians they set off on the home­ward journey:

3d Set off homeward, dined at Connodenhead, went to the Upper Moravian Town,
staid all night, saw the Indians and their Teachers . . . 4th went back to the Lower Town where White Eyes & Thos. McKee came to accompany us to Pittsburgh. After dinner put forward about I5 miles & rested comfortably at a fine Spring after taking a dish of coffee. 5th Rode about 30 miles thro’ a very poor Soil with little Water-slept in the Woods. 6th John’s Beast failed, & the others left him-he at length turn’d her loose & follow’d the Company with his Saddle, Bridle, Bags & Blanket on his Back, overtaking them they got to Jno. Logan’s on Beaver Creek, the prospect gloomy, he being expected home drunk, his Mother & Sister were however civil & got them some supper. 7. John went back 7 miles on a hired Beast & brOt in his tired mare to Logan’s-got to John Gibson’s (swam their horses over ye Ohio opposite Logstown). 1st Day (the 8th) rested all Day. 9th pass’d along the English Shore Z to Captain McKee’s, it raining hard & they much wet, treated kindly & stay’d all night. John chang’d his Beast. 10th rode on 4 miles to Pittsburgh.

A fact of interest in local history is disclosed by these old journals, namely that the town of Mingo Indians at the mouth of the Beaver was the home of the famous chief Logan. This

1This is the only instance in which we have seen the south side of the Ohio called “‘the English shore.” The writer thus distinguishes it from the north side, which, as we have frequently said, was known till a late period as the Indian side.

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town is marked on Christopher Gist’s map of 1753 at the spot which is about the present site of Rochester. He calls it th “Mingo Town.” We were familiar with this map, and had also learned from a letter of John Heckewelder 1 that Logan had at one time lived at the mouth of the Beaver, but the exact placewas in doubt. The doubt is removed by the statements of the writers just quoted, since McClure says that the Mingo village “was commonly called Logan’s town,” and as Parrish came, as he says, to Logan’s cabin and the cottages “before crossing the Beaver” (proceeding down the Ohio), it is clear that the village was on the east side of the creek, at its mouth.
The character of Logan, as exhibited by these diarists, is far from being attractive, but, while he had no doubt the vice of drunkenness, which was all too common among both the Indians and the whites, he is not to be judged too harshly. The infor­mation concerning him which McClure received at Pittsburg, we believe to have been totally erroneous. He was highly es­teemed by Conrad Weiser, an officer for government in the Indian department, his father, Shikellimy, the representative of the Six Nations, on the Susquehanna, was a reputable chief, and with the son, enjoyed the favor and confidence of the Pennsylvania authorities for years, and the assertion that he was ferocious (previous to the murder of his relatives) is contradicted by all the testimonies of those who knew him. Judge William Brown, of Miffiin County, said of him, “Logan was the best specimen of humanity I ever met with, either white or red.” As to his part in the French wars, all the authorities that we have seen agree with Drake, who says:

For magnanimity in war, and greatness of soul in peace, few, if any, in any nation, ever surpassed Logan. He took no part in the French wars which ended in 1760, except that of peace-maker: was always acknow­ledged the friend of the white people, until the year 1774, when his brother and several others of his family were murdered. [The italics are ours.] 2

The picture given us by McClure of Logan’s mental and spiritual condition-his self-accusation at least-is, allowing for his Indian education, not more awful than may be found par­alleled in many books of Christian biography and autobiography

1 See beIow, p. 28. 2 Book V., p. 41.

28 History of Beaver County

(e. g., David Brainerd’s Memoirs, the journals of Pusey, Carey, and many others). The feelings of deep melancholy which it depicts seem to have often afflicted him, especially after the massacre of his relatives, and his bloody reprisals, following that dread­ful outrage; events belonging to a period later than that in which he was seen by McClure. This is said to have been the case in the letter written by the Moravian missionary Heckewelder, re­ferred to above and which we give in a note below.1
It may be proper to mention briefly others of the individual chiefs who were of note among.the tribes who lived in this region.
With the Delawares, when they came to the Ohio, were “three mighty men” of the tribe, the three brothers, Amockwi (spelled also Tamaqui), or The Beaver, Shingiss, and Pisquetu­man. At the date of Washington’s visit to Logstown, 1753, on his way to Venango, Shingiss was living at the mouth of Char­tier’s Creek, and he was at that time the chief sachem, or “king” of the Delawares. In his journal, Washington makes this men­tion of him:

About two miles from this [i. e., the head of the Ohio], on the southeast side of the river, at the p1ace where the Ohio Company intended to erect

1 Heckewelder’s letter, which was published in the American Pioneer, vol. i., No. I., page 22, reads, in part, as follows:
“Logan was the second son of Shikellimus, a celebrated chief of the Cayuga nation.
. . . About the year 1772, Logan was introduced to me, by an Indian friend. . . as a friend to the white people. In the course of conversation, I thought him a man of superior talents than Indians generally were. The subject turning on vice and immorality, he confessed his too great share of this, especially his fondness for liquor. He exclaimed against the white people for imposing liquors upon the Indians: he otherwise admired their ingenuity: spoke of gentlemen, but observed the Indians unfortunately had but few of these as their neighbors, &c. He spoke of his friendship to the white people, wished always to be a neighbor to them: intended to settle on the Ohio below Big Beaver, was (to the best of my reco1lection) then encamped at the month of this river (Beaver,) urged me to pay him a visit. Etc. Note.-I was then living at the Moravian town on this river, in the neighborhood of Cuscuskee. In April, 17730 when on my passage down the Ohio for Muskinghum, I called at Logan’s settlement, where I received every civility I could expect from such of the family as at home.
“Indian reports concerning Logan, after the death of his family, ran to this: that he exerted himself during the Shiwanese war, (then so called) to take all the revenge he could, declaring that he had lost all confidence in the white people. At the time of the negotiation, he declared his reluctance in 1aying down the hatchet, not having (in his opinion) yet taken ample satisfaction; yet, for the sake of the nation, he would do it. His expressions. from time to time, denoted a deep melancholy. Life (said he) had become a torment to him: he knew no more what pleasure was: he thought it had been better if he had never existed. Etc. Etc. Report further states, that he became in some measure delirious, declared he would kill himself. went to Detroit, drank very freely, and did not seem to care what he did, and what became of himself. In this condition, he left Detroit, and on his way between that place and Miami was murdered. In October, 1781, (while as prisoner on my way to Detroit,) I was shown the spot where this should have happened.”
The editor of the Pioneer discredits the accounts of Logan’s excessive intemperance, revengefulness, and death in a drunken frolic, saying:
“We have and sha1l publish in the Pioneer, some evidence which runs in favor of his death by disease, at old Chilliicothe, on the banks of the Scioto river, fifteen miles from this
city, the p1ace of his residence, and, as we believe, the very spot where his celebrated
speech was delivered, and where the Logan Historical Society intend to erect a monument to the memory of his worth. inscribed with the speech, so that in future ages our sons, from imperishable marble, may learn something of the native eloquence of this new world.”

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a fort, lives Shingiss, the king of the Delawares. We called upon him to invite him to a council at Logstown.
Three years after this date Shingiss removed to the Delaware town on the Allegheny River known as “Old Kittanning,” and later to Sawkunk. Shingiss was the most formidable warrior of the Delawares. The Moravian historian, Heckewelder, says of him:

Were all his war exploits on record they would form an interesting document, though a shocking one. . Conococheago, Big Cove, Shearman’s Valley and other settlements along the frontier felt his strong arm suffi­ciently to know that he was a bloody warrior, cruel in his treatment, relentless in his fury. His person was small, but in point of courage, activity and savage prowess, he was said to have never been exceeded by anyone.
Christian Frederick Post was sent, in 1758, from the Penn­sylvania authorities to the Delaware, Shawanese, and Mingo Indians settled on the Ohio, to try to prevail on them to with­draw from the French interest. In his journal of this trip he makes interesting mention of Shingiss. On July 28, 1758, he set out with him and twenty others from Sawkunk 1 (Beaver)

1 The De1awares, as stated above, had a town at the mouth of the Beaver: where King Beaver and Shingiss were at this time. We leam of their intention to remove about a year later to Kuskuskee from a letter written by Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh Mercer, to Mr. Richard Peters, secretary of the Council. In this letter, which is dated at Pittsburg, March I, 1759, Mercer says:
“The Delawares at the Mouth of the Beaver Creek intend to remove to Kuskusky, they
pretend at our request; but rather in my Opinion, thro’ Diffidence of us, or to get out of the Way of Blows, if any are going, for depend upon it they are desirous of fighting neither on the side of the English nor French, but would gladly see both dislodged from this Place. It is true the Old thinking part of the Tribe incline to us, while the Youngg Villains who have swilled so much of our Blood, and grown rich by the plunder of the Frontiers, have still some French Poison lurking in their Veins, that might perhaps break out at a Con­venient Opportunity.”-(Col. Rec., vol. viii.. p. 305.)
This intention of the Delawares had been intimated in a speech of King Beaver. made at a conference at Fort Pitt with Mercer, to whom he said:
“The Six Nations and you desire that I would sit down and smoke my pipe at Kuskusky. I tell you this that you may think no ill of my removing from Sacunk to Kuskusky, for it is at the great desire of my brothers, the English, and my uncles, the Six Nations: and there I shall always hear your words.” (ld., p. 307.)
To which Mercer replied:
”It is not the desire of the English that you should move from Sacunk to Kuskusky. General Forbes, in his Letter. mentioned your sitting down and smoaking your Pipe at Kuskusky, because he had heard of no other Great Delaware Town. Your Brothers, the English, desire to see you live in Peace and Happiness, either at Sacunk, Kuskusky, or whereever you think proper and by no means intend to Limit you to one place or another.” -(Id., p. 309.)
The Delawares and Shawanese not long afterwards removed from Kittanning, Sawkunk, and Kuskuskee to the Muskingum and Scioto.

* Lieutenant-Colcnel Hugh Mercer, afterwards Genera1 Mercer, was killed at Princeton, January 3. 1777.

30 History of Beaver County

for Kuskuskee, and he writes of this interview with the redoubt­able chieftain as follows:

On the road Shingas addressed himself to me and asked if I did not
think, that, if he came to the English, they would hang him, as they had
offered a great reward for his head. He spoke in a very soft and easy manner. I told him that was a great while ago, it was all forgotten and wiped clean away; that the English would receive him very kindly. Then Daniel [Shamokin Daniel, in league with the French] interrupted me, and said to Shingas: “Do not believe him, he tells nothing but idle lying stories. Wherefore did the English hire one thousand two hundred Indians to kill us?” I protested it was false. He said: “G-d d-n you for a fool; did you not see that woman lying in the road that was killed by the Indians that the English hired?” I said, “Brother, do you consider how many thousand Indians the French have hired to kill the English, and how many they have killed along the frontiers.” Then Daniel said, .. “D-n you, why do not you and the French fight on the sea? You come here only to cheat the poor Indians and take their lands from them.” Then Shingas told him to be still, for he did not know what he said. We arrived at Kushkushkee before night, and I in­formed Pisquetumen of Daniel’s behavior, at which he appeared sorry.
29th-I dined with Shingas. He told me, though the English had set a great price on his head, he had never thought to revenge himself, but was always very kind to any prisoners that were brought in; and that he assured the governor he would do all in his power to bring about an established peace, and wished he could be certain of the English being in earnest.
On the first of September following, Shingiss, King Beaver, and Pisquetuman (the three brothers), with Delaware George, made a speech to Post in which they said in part that they were informed by some of the greatest of the traders, some of the justices of the peace, and by the French that

the English intend to destroy us, and take our lands from us; but that they (the French) are only come to defend us and our lands. But the land is ours, and not theirs; therefore we say, if you win be at peace with us, we will send the French home. It is you that have begun the war, and it is necessary that you hold fast and be not discouraged in the work of peace. We love you more than you love us; for when we take any prisoners from you, we treat them as our own children. We are poor, and yet we clothe them as well as we can, though you see our children are as naked as at the first. By this you may see that our hearts are better than yours. It is plain that you white people are the cause of this war. Why do not you and the French fight in the old country and on the sea? Why do you come to fight on our land? This makes every­body believe you want to take the land from us by force and settle it.

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The good man Post, who was Christian in character as well as in name, answered them as adroitly as he could, but the In­dians had rather the best of him in the argument. After Brad­dock’s defeat, in which he fought with the French, Shingiss raided the country as far east as the Delaware River, striking Reading and Bethlehem, and threatening Easton. On his return to the Ohio he brought with him one hundred captives and a great quantity of plunder. It would seem that on account of this savage work Shingiss was deposed from his position as “king” when the English got control of the country, and that his brother Amockwi,-The Beaver,-succeeded him as the head of the Dela­wares. Amockwi had always excelled as a councilor, attending all the treaties held between the Delawares and the whites. Speeches of his preserved in the journal of Colonel Bouquet’s expedition against the Ohio Indians in 1764, and in the records of conferences with the Indians in which he took a leading part, such as that of George Croghan, deputy to Sir William John­son, His Majesty’s Superintendent of Indian Affairs, at Fort Pitt in July, 1759,1 and that of General Stanwix, at Fort Pitt, in October, 1759,2 all show him to have been an astute politician and an eloquent speaker. His last public appearance was at the treaty of Lancaster, in 1762, and he died and was buried a few years later on the Muskingum, near where the Tuscarawas trail crossed that stream-a point near the present town of New Philadelphia.3 Pisquetuman, the third brother mentioned above, was also a chief of some note.
Another chief of the Delaware tribe, perhaps the ablest captain and councilor of them all, was Koquethagachton, or “White Eyes.” In 1762 he had his lodge at the mouth of the Beaver. Here he was visited by Heckewelder, the Moravian missionary, in the spring of that year, when the latter was on his way to the Tuscarawas. 4 White Eyes was ever faithful to the Americans. In both Dunmore’s War and the War of the Revolution, he strove to keep the Delawares neutral, and failing in this in the latter contest, and being compelled to take sides, he declared for the colonists, and joined General Lachlan McIntosh’s com­mand in 1778, with a colonel’s commission. He was a warm friend of the Moravian mission to his people. Heckewelder says

1 Hist. Western Penna., Ap. No. XIV. 2Id. Ap. No. XV.
3 Gist’s Journals, Darlington, p. 142. Hekewelder’s Indian Nations, p. 69.

32

History of Beaver County

of him:” He was a Christian in his heart, but did not live to make a public profession of our religion, though it is well known that he persuaded many Indians to embrace it.” 1
Gratefully the old missionary recalls the devotion shown to himself by this chief, relating the following incident, which we quote in full as showing the better side of the Indian character. He says:

In the year 1777, while the Revolutionary war was raging, and several Indian tribes had en1isted on the British side, and were spreading murder and devastation along our unprotected frontier, I rather rashly determined to take a journey into the country on visit to my friends. Captain White Eyes, the Indian hero . . . resided at that time at the dis­tance of seventeen miles from the place where I lived. Hearing of my determination, he immediately hurried up to me, with his friend Captain Wingenund and some of his young men, for the purpose of escorting me to Pittsburgh, saying, that he would not suffer me to go, while the San­dusky warriors were out on war excursions without a proper escort and himself at my side. He insisted on accompanying me and we set out together. One day, as we were proceeding along, our spies discovered a suspicious track. White Eyes, who was riding before me, enquired whether I felt afraid? I answered that while he was with me, I enter­tained no fear. On this he immediately replied, “you are right; for until I am laid prostrate at your feet, no one shall hurt you.” “And even not then,” added Wingenund, who was riding behind me; “before this happens, I must be also overcome, and lay by the side of our friend Koquethagechton.” I believed them, and I believe at this day that these
great men were sincere, and that if they had been put to the test, they would have shown it, as did another Indian friend by whom my life was saved in the spring of the year 1781. From behind a log in the bushes where he was concealed, he espied a hostile Indian at the very

1 Heckewelder’s Indian Nations, p. 70. He also says that White Eyes died at Pittsburg of the smallpox, he tbinks, in the year 1780, and, a note by his editor places the death of that chief at Fort Laurens in November, 1778. But a manusaipt letter from CoL George Morgan to a member of Congress, dated May 12, 1784, would indicate that he had been killed by treachery. In this letter he speaks of George White Eyes, a son of the great chief, then thirteen years of age. who was at that time in the care of Col Morgan at Princeton, as fol­lows: .. Having now entered Virgil and begun Greek, and being the best schoIar in his class, he will be prepared to entered College next Fall.” He further says: “His father was treacher­ously put to death at the moment of his greatest exertions to save the United States, in whose service he held the commission of a colonel” “I have carefully concealed and
shall continue to conceal from young White Eyes the Manner of his Father’s death, which I have never mentioned to any one but Mr. Thompson & two or three Members of Con­gress.” In view of these statements as to the date of the death of White Eyes it is rather puzzling to find the German trave1er Schoepf, quoteded on pp. 33-34, speaking of seeing a great chief of that name at Fort Pitt after the Revolution and to learn that Captain White Eyes is mentioned in the supplement to the treaty of Fort McIntosh (1785). In the treaty, however, the Indian name given him is not Koquethagachton, but Wicocalind. Were there two Indian chiefs of promineuce of the same name, White Eyes, or is there an error on the part of one or other of the parties quoted above in regard to the death of the chief?

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33

moment he was leveling his piece at me. Quick as lightning he jumped between us, and exposed his person to the musket shot just about to be fired, when fortunately the aggressor desisted, from fear of hitting the Indian whose body thus effectually protected me, at theimminent risk of his own life. Captain White Eyes, in the year 1774, saved in the same manner the life of David Duncan, the peace-messenger whom he was escorting. He rushed, regardless of his own life, up to an inimical Shawanese, who was aiming at our ambassador from behind a bush, and forced him to desist. I
It may not be out of place to give here from an old volume an account of a visit to Killbuck and White Eyes, written by a surgeon who was with the German troops during the Revolution, and who afterwards traveled through the West, spending, on his way, some time at Pittsburg. We translate the following paragraphs:

Several Indian families, of the Delaware tribe, lived, at that time, close to the fort [Fort Pitt]. In the company of one of the officers of the garrison, I visited their chief, Colonel Killbuck. As is known the Indians are exceedingly proud of military titles of honor, and like to hear themselves called “Colonel” and “Captain.” The Colonel, whom we found in a dirty and ragged shirt, was yesterday returned from a long hunt, and today was refreshing himself with drink. He spoke broken English, and fetched with pride some letters, which his son and daughter, who are both being brought up in Princeton at the cost of Congress, had written to him.
Colonel Killbuck, in the beginning of the troubles, separated himself with several families of his nation, from the rest of his folk, who for the most part allied themselves with the English, and came with them to this place. These were among all the Indians almost the only ones who threw in their lot with the Americans. Their wigwams, which were only for the summer, were constructed of poles and bark; for winter, sa

appeared, however, not at all inclined to go, and apprehend, perhaps,
not the most friendly reception from. their own people. A young, well ­built, copper-colored squaw was stamping their corn in a wooden trough in front of one of the wigwams; her whole dress consisted of a tight skirt of blue cloth, without gathers, which scarcely reached to her knees; her black hair hung loose over her shoulders, and her cheeks and fore­head were neatly colored with red paint. She seemed to be very happy in the companionship of her fellow workman, a fresh young fellow, who with a couple of clouts on needful places, was otherwise as naked as the unembarrassed beauty. Other women were busied with weaving baskets, shelling corn, or other work. for the men, as is well known, do not concern themselves with domestic occupations. The surplus of their products, their baskets and straw-work they barter for whiskey. There were among them some countenances that were by no means ugly, and they were not all alike swarthy in color.1

Within the present limits of Beaver County lived at one time also a Delaware (some say Seneca) Indian woman of great in­fluence, known as Queen Aliquippa. Her home was somewhere near the present borough of Aliquippa in this county, named for her, but she afterwards removed to the mouth of the Youghio­gheny, where she was visited by Washington, in 1753. Later she removed to Raystown, now Bedford, Pa., where she died in December, 1754.
We may mention, too, that the Delaware warrior Tingooqua, or Catfish, who had a lodge within the present limits of the borough of Washington, Pa., on the little stream called by the Indians Wissameking (now named Catfish) and from whom that locality was long known in pioneer days as “Catfish Camp,” formerly lived at Kuskuskee, the Delaware town above men­tioned. His home was therefore then within the original limits of Beaver County.2
Without anticipating too much what belongs to a later period of our history, we may say here that these Indian tribes which we have described as at one time inhabiting the territory now within the limits of Beaver County, the Delawares, the Shawanese, and the Mingoes, or Ohio River Iroquois, all became during the Revolutionary period the allies of the British; their activity and bitter hostility against the Americans being so great that the border settlements of Pennsylvania and Virginia were by
1 Reise dutch einige der’ mitt1ern und Sudlicken Versingten Nordamerkinischen Staatenn, I783-784, by Johann D. Schoepf, Erlangen. 1788, p. 415 et seq.
2 Col. Rec., vol. viii., p. 417.

History of Beaver County 35

their massacres converted into an Aceldama and a Bochim. I: Some of the Delawares remained neutral. White Eyes was es­pecially devoted to the American cause, as was also Killbuck, and other sachems. These chiefs made, at Pittsburg, in Sep­tember, 1778, a treaty of alliance with the Americans. although, as we shall see in the succeeding chapter, they were unable, for want of popular support and of power in their government, to restrain the young warriors of their nation from joining in the depredations and massacres committed by the Shawanese and other hostile tribes. 2 The most redoubtable, perhaps, of our foes during the Revolution were the Wyandots or Hurons, who lived near Detroit and along the southern shore of Lake Erie, but whose villages were sometimes mixed in with those of the Delawares and Shawanese. There were also the Miamis, living between the Miami and the Wabash rivers, together with irregu­lar bands of Cherokees, Ottawas, Chippewas, etc., who were very troublesome during, and for some years after, the war.
Much more might be said of these first occupants of our west­ern territory. who have left behind them no memorial except the names of our rivers and creeks, such as Ohio and Allegheny, Beaver (in translation), Conoquenessing, Mahoning, Neshan­nock, and Shenango. Their rude virtues, their glowing elo­quence, their valor, and high endurance might call for more adequate recognition, and their bitter wrongs provoke our la­mentations. Sad indeed was the destiny of these children of the forest, who have vanished like the leaves of the trees that gave them shelter:

Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
They are gone and forever!

1″Their silence, their cunningg and stealth, their terrible prowess and merciless cruelty make it
no figure of speech to call them the tigers of the human race — Tireless, careless of all hardship, they came silently out of the unknown forests, robbed and murdered and then disappeared again into the fathomless depths of the woods . . . Wrapped in the mantle of the unknown. appalling by their craft, their ferocity, their fiendish cruelty, they seemed to the white settlers devils, not men.” – The Winning of the West, by Theodore Roosevelt. Part 1, pp. 109, 110.
2 That the Delawares had been eagaged in hostilities with the United States is recog­cized in the treaty of Port McIntosh (Jauuary 21, 1785), and also in a supplementary article to that treaty, which provided that the chiefs Ke1e1amand (called by the whites (“Killbuck”) Koquethagachton (White Eyes) and one or two other Indians of note who took up the hatchet for the United States, should be received back into the Delaware nation, and reinstated in all their original rights, without any prejudice.

36 History of Beaver County

But sad as it was, it was no less certain and necessary for the
progress of humanity, that the savages should surrender the possession of this country to others. . It was inevitable that when once the foot of the European had stepped upon the sands of the Atlantic coast of this country it should never rest until it had penetrated to the interior and trod the sands of the Pacific. Whatever view we may take of this occupation of America by the whites, and the dispossession by them of the Indian races who occupied it-whether we regard it, as the Jews did their conquest of Canaan, as “the casting out of the heathen” that a chosen people might take possession of the land, or as the result of the unheeding law of evolution by which humanity is carried onward to its goal, nothing was more certain than that the weak elements of barbarism existing here should be displaced by European civilization, and this great country be opened to the world. And assuredly the march of the advancing column of emigration across this continent was wonderful enough to justify us in speaking of it, with De Tocqueville, as having the solemnity of a providential event, “like a deluge of men rising unabatedly and daily driven onward by the hand of God.” 1
We may deplore the cruelty and violence by which this occu­pation was accomplished, we may wish that the pacific policy of the Penns had everywhere been shown toward the red man, and the enormous waste that took place avoided, but we cannot regret the result. For, on a grand scale, it is an illustration of “the law of the survival of the fittest.” The Indian and the bison were incapable of fulfilling the destinies of this land; it was written in the book of nature and of fate that they had had their day and must cease to be. The future welfare of humanity demanded a nobler breed of men to receive their heritage and bring forth the fruits thereof. These men came. And now the grassy plains where roamed the buffalo are the grazing grounds of uncounted herds of neat cattle; the soil which the Indian only scratched to get enough to support his hand-to-mouth existence is bringing forth harvests that fill the granaries of the world, and where he stuck his squalid tepees are mighty cities and the homes of millions of busy workers.

1 Democracy in America, vol. i., P. 430, in the chapter headed ” What are the Chances in favor of the Duration of the American Union?” etc..

History of Beaver County 37

FRENCH AND ENGLISH CLAIMS TO THE OHIO VALLEY

But the character of the future inhabitants of this region was not settled with the triumph of European civilization over the native barbarism. It remained to be decided which of two great types of that civilization should predominate here. Two great nations had all along been contending for the mastery of the vast domain that lay within the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. Great Britain and France asserted counter-claims to this territory based on priority of discovery and occupancy, or on purchase from the Indians dwelling in it,l and a war
resulted “which extended its ravages from the banks of the Ohio to the shores of the Ganges.” It was here in the Beaver and Ohio valleys, in fact, that these great world powers first began to clash. 2 But the brewing of the storm was long and gradual. For more than a hundred years the English colonists were con­tent to confine their activities east of the Alleghenies, leaving the exploration of the country beyond to adventurous traders. These were often depraved men, even criminals and transported convicts, who did much to bring the name” English” into con­tempt; though others were ultimately of great use to the au­thorities on account of their knowledge of the Indian character and country. The French colonists, on the other hand were not, in general, an agricultural people, like the English, but rather sought to acquire territory for trading, military, and missionary purposes. 3 They had therefore pushed forward into the wilder­ness and established relations with the Indians in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys sometime before the English had begun to per­ceive the importance of winning a foot-hold in that great seat

1 The French title to the Valleyof the Mississippi rested upon the fact of the explora­tious ofMarquette and La Salle; upon the fact of oocupation, and upon their construction of the treaties of Ryswick, Utrecht, and Aix-1a-Chape11e. The English claims to the same nation were based on the fact of a prior occupation of the coast: on an opposite construction of the same treaties, and on alleged cession of the rights of the Indians. See Western Annals, p. 93.
It is on the discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi by La Salle in 1682 that the French claim of the territory at the head of the Ohio is properly based, since the best historians reject the testimony for his having discovered the Allegheny and the upper Ohio in 1669.
The first actual bloodshed in this contest was in the skirmish which Washington had
with Jumonville’s party. “This obscure skirmish.” says Parkman, “began the war which set the world on fire.” But it will be remembered that five years before this event took place De Ce1eron, in the name of the French king, had ordered the Eng1ish flag hau1ed down at Logstown, and had driven away the Euglish traders from that place. This was within the present limits of Beaver County. (See De Celeron’s Journa1, Fort pitt, p. 29.)
a Parkman’s Conspiracy of Pontiac, vol. i., pp. 49-50.

38 History of Beaver County

of future empire. A French trader named James Le Tort is thought to have been on the Ohio, i. e., the Allegheny River, as early as 1720.1 La Force and others soon followed him, and, in 1727, the authorities at Montreal sent an agent named Joncaire to the Ohio to establish the French interest there. 2 Joncaire came annually thereafter with others, among them a gunsmith, who mended the guns and tomahawks of the Indians gratis, and some of the Shawanese chiefs were persuaded by them to visit the French Governor at Montreal. Another man, who, though he went out as an English trader, became an agent of the French on the Ohio, was Peter Chartier. He is said to have had at first a trading station at the head of the Ohio near the mouth of Char­tier’s Creek, which was probably named for him. In 1745 he declared for the French, and induced the Shawanese to forsake the English. He was afterwards rewarded with a commission in the French service, under which he committed many acts of violence.
The English traders were, however, not long in following the French. It is supposed that some were on the banks of the Ohio as early as 1730. Probably as early as 1748, George Cro­ghan had a trading-post at Sawkunk, at the mouth of the Big Beaver Creek.3 In the same year Conrad Weiser was sent to the Indians at Logstown on the Ohio, as. the representative of the Province of Pennsylvania, to treat with them, and to give

1 The Allegheny River. as previously stated. was not at this time distinguished from the Ohio; the
stream in its whole length, above, as well as below its confluence with the Monongahela, being called the “Ohio”
2Joncaire bad been adopted as a son by the Seneca nation, and was called by the Indians Cahictodo. He is supposed by some to have been “the French gentleman” mentioned by
Mr. Logan in his address to the Pesnnsylvaniai Sapreme Council, August 4, 1731, from which we quote on page 45. (See Col. Rec., vol. iii., pp. 401. 402.) Washington’s Journal of 1753 mentions him as ” a man of note in the army.” He had a commanding influence over the Indians, and discharged his mission to the Ohio with much ability.
3 George Croghan was an Irishman. from Dublin, who first settled upon the Susquehanna five miles west of Harrisburg, and engaged in the Indian trade. He had acquired the lan­guages of several of their nations, and had great influence over them. He became a cap­tain in the provincial service, and deputy superintendent of Indian affairs under Sir William Johnson. Croghan had a trading-house at Logstown and one at the mouth of the Beaver, and finally settled near Pittsburg. He was illiterate but a man of great force of character. Gist, in his first jouma1 (November 25, 1750), says of him. “Enquired [at Logstown for Croghan, who is a meer Idol amonst his Countrymen the Irish Traders.” Croghan, with the heroic Captain Jack and a number of others, visited the camp of Braddock, after he had crossed the mountains from Cumberland, and offered his services and those of his party, as scouts and guides. See his “Statement,” in History of Braddock’s Expedition, by Win­throp Sargent, p. 407. A fun account of his life and varied services will be found in Christo­pher Gist’s Journals, by William M. Darlington, p. 176, et seq.

History of Beaver County 39

them the large present of goods which had been promised them the previous autumn. The latter were carried by George Cro­ghan with his pack-horses. Weiser arrived at Logstown on the evening of August 27, 1748, and was joyfully received by the Indians. Long speeches were made by Weiser and Andrew Montour, an Indian interpreter, to the representatives of the different tribes, consisting of Mohawks, Senecas, Oneidas, Dela­wares, Shawanese, and W yandots, and after the Indian orators had responded the present was divided and distributed, and the conference ended with great satisfaction to both parties.

THE OHIO COMPANY

Hitherto, the trade of the English with the western Indians had been for the most part in the hands of the Pennsylvanians. But now the Virginians wished to engage in this profitable busi­ness also. Accordingly, after Weiser’s conference with the Indians at Logstown had prepared the way for more friendly in­tercourse, a large land company was organized in Virginia which was called the Ohio Company. At the head of this company was Colonel Thomas Lee, and with him were associated twelve others from Virginia and Maryland, and a merchant of London named Hanbury. Lawrence and Augustine Washington, two half-brothers of George Washington, were also among the first who engaged in this enterprise. In 1748, a petition was presented to the king for a grant of land beyond the mountains, which was approved, and five hundred thousand acres of land were assigned to the company, two hundred thousand of which were to be located at once. The lands were to be taken chiefly on the south side of the Ohio, between the Monongahela and the Kanawha rivers, with the privilege of locating also on the north of the Ohio, if it should be found necessary. The two hundred thou­sand acres were to be held for ten years free from quit-rent or any tax to the king, on condition that the company should, at their own expense, seat one hundred families on the lands within seven years, and build a fort and maintain a garrison sufficient to protect the settlement. The company began at once to carry out their plans. They ordered from London a cargo suited to the Indian trade, and dispatched Mr. Christopher Gist on an explor­ing expedition, to examine the quality of the lands and draw a

40 History of Beaver County

plan of the country. Gist made two trips through the region, 1:
and finding that it would be necessary to win the friendship of the Indians therein, he, as agent of the Ohio Company, and Colonel Joshua Fry, Lunsford Lomax, and James Patton, on the part of Virginia, made a treaty with them at Logstown in the summer of 1752. In this treaty the Indians pledged themselves not to molest any settlements of the company on the southeast side of the river, and gave them permission to build two forts there. Soon after the treaty was made, Mr. Gist was appointed the company’s surveyor, and instructed to layoff a town and fort at the mouth of Shurtee’s (Chartier’s) Creek. This seems not to have been erected, as in his journal of his visit to Venango, Washington speaks of the “fort which the Ohio Company in­tended to layoff there.” The goods which had come over from England were never taken farther into the interior than Will’s Creek (now Cumber1and, Md.), where they were sold to traders and Indians, who received them at that post. The Ohio Com­pany was in operation for about four years, and was a losing venture for everybody connected with it.
Other companies whose object was to colonize the West, such as the Loyal Company and the Greenbriar Company, were formed in Virginia about this time which were equally short­lived with the Ohio Company. But the tide could not be stayed. Many other English traders and adventurers began to enter the region around the head of the Ohio about the year 1748 and onwards, and, as on account of their having a shorter and cheaper carriage for their goods than the French, they were able to undersell the latter, the Indians were gradually drawn to favor the English.2 These various advances of their com­petitors were not unperceived by the authorities at Montreal, nor regarded by them with indifference. They saw that if the English once established themselves upon the Ohio, they would not only interfere with the French making any settlements there, but would ultimately threaten the settlements already made by them south and north of the mouth of that river, on the Missis­sippi. V audreuil, the French governor of Louisiana, had seen

1 See Christopher Gist’s Joumals. by William M. Darlington, J. R. WeIdin & Co., Pitts­
burg, 1803 .
2 See Ce1eron’s Journal in Fort Pitt (Darlington), p. 60; also, Life of DeWitt Clinton,
1849, p. 226.

History of Beaver County 41

the danger from the English encroachments, and in 1744 had written home about it, and, in 1749, Gallissoniere, then governor of Canada, was also alarmed and led to take measures that would show the French in formal possession of the Ohio River and all the country adjacent to it. For this purpose an expedi­tion was sent out in the summer of 1749, under the command of Louis Bienville de Celeron, to publish notices of the French king’s claim of title to this region. Carrying out his instructions, Celeron passed down the Allegheny and Ohio, planting crosses and posts bearing devices representing the royal arms of France, and nailing the same on trees, and burying at all important places, such as the mouths of the largest streams, leaden plates on which were stamped inscriptions in old French setting forth the claims of the French king to the region roundabout. Several of these plates have since been found, one at the “Forks of the Ohio,” one at the mouth of French Creek on the Allegheny, one at Point Pleasant, on the Ohio, and one at the mouth of the Muskingum. We give on the opposite page a reproduction of the plate found at the mouth of the Big Kanawha, copied from Craig’s The Olden Time.1
The result of Celeron’s expedition was far from satisfactory, as he himself confesses in his journal. 2 His manner toward the Indians whom he met had been very overbearing, and he alien­ated rather than conciliated them. The English traders whom he had driven away returned soon after his departure, and found the Indians more than ever disposed to side with them and the provincial government. To remove the ill effects of Celeron’s visit, the Frenchman Joncaire came the following year to the

3 The following is a translation of the inscription on this plate, nearly literal:
” In the year 1740 in the reeign of Louis XV, King of rIance, we, Celeron, Commandant of a detachment sent by the Marquis de La Gallissoniere, General of New France, to re-establish tranquility in some Indian towns in these departments, have buried this plate at the mouth of the river Chinodahichetha, this 18th day of August, near the river Ohio, otherwise called Beautiful River, as a memorial of the resumption of possession we have made of the said river Ohio, and all those that fall into it, and of all the lands on both sides up to the sources of the said rivers, the same as the preceeding kings of France have enjoyed or were entitled to enjoy, and as they are established, by arms and by treaties, especially by those of Ryswick, Utrecht and Aix-la-Chape11e.”
This plate was about 9 x 12 inches, and near an eighth of an inch thick. The whole inscription was stamped. except the date and place of burial, which were cut in with a knife in spaces left blank for them. The French lilies were also stamped in in several places. On the back of two of those found was stamped the name of the maker, thus: “Paul La Brosse, Fecit-” The one here reproduced was picked out of the bank at the junction of the Kanawha and the Ohio by a little son of J. W. Beale. Esq., while playing on the margin of the river.
2 Fort Pitt (Darlington), p.60.

42 History of Beaver County

Ohio, and met with no better success. But notwithstanding these partial failures, the French had gotten much in advance of the English in the effort to occupy the great inland empire west of the Allegheny Mountains, and had already, despite the opposition of the Indians, built several forts, as at Erie and Venango, to defend their interests, and were planning to build other forts on the Ohio.
In the latter part of May, 1753, a large party of French and Indians were at Lake Erie preparing for an expedition that was to be sent down the Ohio for this purpose in the following sum­mer. The Indians sent a message to the invaders warning them not to proceed, but the French despised the warning and kept on. The Indians then held a council at Logstown, and sent a second warning to them, saying:

Your children on the Ohio are alarmed to hear of your coming so far this way. We at first heard that you came to destroy us. Our women left off planting, and our warriors prepared for war. We have since heard that you came to visit us as friends without design to hurt us, but then we wondered that you came with so strong a body. If you have had any cause of complaint you might have spoken to Onas or Corlear, and not come to disturb us here. We have a fire at Logstown, where are the Delawares and Shawanese and Brother Onas; you might have sent deputies there and said openly what you came about, if you had thought amiss of the English being there, and we invite you to do it now before you proceed any further.
The French replied to this message as follows:

I find you come to give me an invitation to your Council Fire with a design, as I suppose, to call me to account for coming here. I must let you know that my heart is good to you; I mean no hurt to you. I am come by the Great King’s command to do you, my children, good. You seem to think I carry my hatchet under my coat; I always carry it openly, not to strike you, but those that oppose me. I cannot come to your Council Fire, nor can I return or stay here. I am so heavy a body that the stream will carry me down, and down I shall go unless you pull off my arm. But this I will ten you, I am commanded to build four strong houses, viz., at Weningo [Venango], Mohongialo Forks, Logstown and Beaver Creek, and this I will do. As to what concerns Onas and Assaragoa, I have spoken to them and let them know they must go off the land, and I shall speak to them again. If they will not hear me it is their own fault. I will take them by the arm and throw them over the hills. All the lands and waters on this side Alleghany hills are mine, on .the other side theirs. This is agreed on between the two Crowns over the waters. I do not like your selling your land to the English,

History of Beaver County 43

they shall draw you into no more foolish bargains. I will take care of your lands for you. The English give you no goods but for land. We give you our goods for nothing. 1

This reply shows how the French had mastered the Indians’ mode of speech, and that they knew how to play upon their feelings and fears, winning their respect, if not their confidence, by bold and direct expression of their meaning. But the In­dians were not intimidated, and returned the following message:

You say you cannot come to our Council Fire at Logstown, we there­fore now come to you to know what is in your heart. When you tired of Queen Anne’s war you plead for peace. You begged to talk with us. You said., “We must all eat with one spoon out of this silver bowl, and all drink out of this silver cup. Let us exchange hatchets. Let us bury our hatchets in this bottomless pit hole.” Then we consented to make peace, and you made a solemn declaration, saying. “Whoever shall here­after transgress this peace, let the transgressor be chastised with a rod, even though it be I, your Father. . . . ” Now, Father, notwith­standing this solemn declaration of yours, you have whipped several of your children. You know best why. Of late you have chastised the Twightwees very severely without telling us the reason, and now you are come with a strong band on our land, and have contrary to your engagement taken up the hatchet without any previous parley. These things are a breach of the peace, they are contrary to your own declara­tions. Therefore now I come to forbid you. I will strike over all this land with my rod, let it hurt who it will. I tell you in plain words you must go off this land. You say you have a strong body, a strong neck, and a strong voice, that when you speak all the Indians must hear you. It is true you are a strong body and ours is but weak, yet we are not afraid of you. We forbid you to come any further, turn back to the place from whence you came.2

The plans of the French were never fully carried out, but the boldness and rapidity of their movements in the earlier stages of their contest with the English bade fair to give them complete control over the whole of the Ohio valley.
The secret of this superior celerity of action on the part of the French was that they had but one government in their pos­sessions, while the English had several colonial governments, jealous each of the other, and unwilling to act in concert.
It is not to be supposed, however, that there was no alarm
1 Onas was the Indian name for William Penn and later for the representatives of the Pennsylvania interests. Corlear – the Governor of New York; Assamgoa,- the Governor of Virginia.
2 Col. Rec,. vol. v., pp. 667-8.

44 History of Beaver County

felt on the subject by the different provincial authorities. Very early, indeed, efforts had been made to induce the governments of Virginia and Pennsylvania to colonize and fortify the coveted region, but nothing definite was determined upon. In 1716, Governor Spottswood of Virginia perceived the designs of the French to keep the English from passing beyond the Alleghenies, and induced the Virginia Assembly to make an appropriation to defray the expenses of a party to explore those mountains. He himself led the expedition, and he afterwards sent a memorial to the government in London, exposing the French scheme of military occupation and advising the building of a chain of forts across to the Ohio, and the formation of settlements to counter­act their scheme. His early recall prevented his suggestions from being carried out. I
In Pennsylvania also far-sighted men were awake to the danger of the situation. In 1719, Governor Keith urged upon the Lords of Trade the erection of a fort on Lake Erie, and, in I 731, the Provincial Secretary, James Logan,2 sent a memorial on the subject to Sir Robert Walpole, and called the attention of the Pennsylvania Council to it. His method of doing so was dramatic, almost sensational. A book that had been published ten years before in London, contained a map of the French ex­plorations in America and of the territory claimed by France. This book had come into Mr. Logan’s hands and gave him his opportunity to show the Council the gravity of the crisis that confronted them. A report of his address is given in the Colonial Records, which we will here transcribe. At a session of the Council held in Philadelphia, August 4, 1731, the message of the Governor was presented. Its closing words were as follows: I have also another Affair of very great importance to the Security of this Colony & an its Inhabitants to lay before you, which shall speedily be commumcated to you. The Governor then proceeded to inform the Board that the Matter mentioned in the close of the preceeding message related to Indian Affairs, & would be found to be likewise of very great Consequence to

1 WestenJ Annals. P- 95.
2 James Logan, onee of the ablest Public men of his day, was born at Lurgan, Ire1and.
October 20, 1674, of Scotch Quaker stock. He was well educated and became a merchant. He removed in 1699, with Penn to Philadelphia. He was long in public life as Provincial Secretary , Chief Justice, etc., of Pennsylvania, and was President of the Council and Acting ­Governor from 1736 to 1738. He was the author of several works in Latin and EngIish prose and verse. He died near Germantown, Pa., October 31, 1751.

History of Beaver County

45

the whole Province, the Detail whereof His Honor said he would leave to Mr. Logan, to whom the Information bad been first given, and who, from his long experience and knowledge in those affairs could give the best Account of it.
That Gentleman then producing the Map of Louisiana, as inserted in a book called a New General Atlas, published at London in the year 1721, first observed from thence how exorbitant the French C1aims were on the Continent of America; that by the Description in the said Map they claimed a great part of Carolina and Virginia, & had laid down Susque­hanna as a boundary of Pennsylvania. Then he proceeded to observe that by Virtue of some Treaty, as they allege, the French pretend a Right to all Lands lying on Rivers, of the Mouths of which they are possessed. That the River Ohio(a branch of the Mississippi) comes close to those mountains which lye about I20 or I30 Miles back of Sasquehanna, within the boundaries of this Province. as granted by the King’s Letters Patent; that adjoining thereto is a fine Tract of Land called Allegheny, on which several Shawanese Indians had seated themselves; And that by the Advices lately brought to him by several Traders in those parts it appears that the French have been using Endeavors to gain over those Indians to their interest, & for this End a French Gentleman had come amongst them some years since, sent, as it was believed, from the Gover­nor of Montreal, and at his Departure last year carried with him some of the Shawanese Chiefs to that Governor, with whom they, at their Return, appeared to be highly pleased; That the same French Gentleman, with five or six others in Company with him had this last Spring again come amongst the said Indians, and brought with him a Shawanese In­terpreter, was well received by them, had again carried some of their Chiefs to the said Gov’r, & the better to gain the Affections of the said Indians brought with him a Gunsmith to work for them gratis. Mr. Logan then went on to represent how destructive this Attempt of the French, if attended with success, may prove to the English Interest on this Continent. and how deeply in its consequences it may effect this Province, & after having spoken fully on these two heads, Moved that to prevent or putt a stop to these designs. if possible, a treaty should be sett on foot with the five Nations. who have an absolute authority as well over the Shawanese as all our Indians, that by their means the Shawanese may not only be kept firm to the English Interest, but like­wise be induced to remove from the Allegheny nearer to the English Settlements, and that such a treaty becomes now the more necessary because ’tis several years since any of these Nations have visited us, and no opportunity ought to be lost of cultivating & improving the Friend­ship which has always subsisted between this Government & them. I

This able address made a deep impression, but no active measures were taken, though at a conference with some of the

1 Col. Rec., vol., iii., pp. 401, 402.

46 History of Beaver County

Indians of the Six Nations, on August 25th the following year, further information of the movements of “the French gentle­man” was gained. I .
Celeron’s expedition to the Ohio eighteen years later, already mentioned, brought fresh alarm to both the Indians and the provincial authorities. One of the buried plates having come into the hands of Governor Clinton of New York, a letter was sent by him to Governor Hamilton of Pennsylvania, giving a copy of the inscription.2 Intelligence of the French expedition was immediately sent to London, whence the proprietaries wrote a letter to Governor Hamilton, which was received in January, 1750, advising certain measures of defence, such as the building of a fort and settlements within the region threatened. The Pennsylvania Assembly did not, however, make any move in the matter. The provincial purse having been already heavily drawn upon in the maintenance of a militia force and in making presents to the Indians, they were unwilling to incur any further expense. They felt also that the proprietaries were not bearing their equitable share of the burdens of support and defence of the province. In their attitude in this matter there was a mani­festation of the same spirit that was to show itself in the Revolu­tion twenty years later-the spirit of revolt against what they deemed unjust taxation. Dissension between these two par­ties as to the finances and administration of affairs in the prov­ince prevailed throughout the colonial period. The Assembly was the popular branch of the government, while the pro­prietaries represented in some degree royal prerogative and the “divine right.” The former wanted the estates of the owners taxed equally with those of the common people of the province; the latter, through their deputies, refused. “The proprietaries pleaded prerogative, charter, and law; the Assembly, in turn, pleaded equity, common danger, and common benefit, requiring a common expense. The proprietaries offered bounties in land yet to be conquered from the Indians, and the privilege of issuing more paper money: the Assembly wanted something more tangible. The Assembly, passed laws laying taxes and granting supplies, but annexing conditions: the governors op­posed the conditions, but were willing to aid the Assembly in

r Col. Rec., vo iii., pp. 439-40.
2 Id., vol. v., p. 507. et Seq.

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47

taxing the people, but not the proprietaries.” 1 Thus the mat­ter was tossed from one to the other in fruitless controversy as to where the chief responsibility rested, while meantime the French advances were being made, and later, the frontiers were left exposed to the incursions of savage foes. 2 One man there was whose influence at this critical period was important. This was the sturdy German, Conrad Weiser, previously mentioned as the bearer of Pennsylvania’s gifts to the Ohio Indians, and who was indefatigable in his efforts to win the West for the English. His keen perception of the gravity of the situation and his zeal to awaken the authorities of Pennsylvania and Virginia to active opposition to the French is constantly mani­fested in the letters which he wrote to them. In the manu­script letters of Weiser in the possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania are two fragments, without date or ad­dress, which we find of sufficient interest and relevancy to our present topic to insert here. The first reads as follows:

In short we have been imposed upon by the said Indians and our own people. They cost this Government about a tousand pounds and after all they forewarned our people to Come away from the other side the Allegheny hills, Charged you Commissioners that they gave occasion in the 1752 by asking leave of the ohio Indians to Build a ford [fort] on ohio for the french to Come & take possession of the land. I was very angry and told the Indians in the presence of And. Montour and others that if the Virginians asked such leave of the ohio Indians it was a Weak­ness in them for that the Government of Virginia had bought all the land in their charter at treaty of lancaster from the chiefs of the six nation and for that reason had no need to ask leave of the Indians on ohio to Build forts on their own land. Andrew Montour denied that and said the Indians never sold nor released it-If they did they were imposed upon by the Interpreter. This he said in the presence of our Commissioners I told him in plan (sic) words that he was an Impudent fellow to say so in short he wants your Government to buy the land from the ohio Indians and yet not settle it. I am sorry that ever I recommended him to this and to your Government in the least thing.
If the french are suffered by the English to take and keep possession of ohio as they now have of some part to wit about 100 miles above
1 Day’s Historical Collections. p. 24; see full account of this controversy in Conrad W eiser and the Indian Policy of Colonial Pennsylvania., by Joseph S. Walton, p. 303 foll.
2 Nevertheless. the Assembly must be allowed ultimately to have made pretty effective
efforts for the protection of the province daring the French and Indian wars. According to the Frontier Forts of Pnmsylvania it would appear that there were erected on the frontier, during the campaigns of 1755-58, and, that of 1763 (Pontiac’s War), no less than 207 forts, large and small, by the order and at the expense of the Assembly, and that these were garrisoned by troops in its pay.

48 History of Beaver County

logstown a place ca11ed Winineko [Venango] they will be very troublesome neighbors to us they will get settlers out of pensi1[ vania] in great number for here are a great many of the King of french subjects out of Elsase lorain & if a good many of them would never as yet naturalize under the Crown of England and our people Connives at them. If they should hear that the french King would give them land on ohio for a little or nothing and tollerate them in their Religious persuasion it is my opinion Several hundreds If not tousands would steal away (which they can very eassey do) and go over to the french to ohio and provide them with Cows and Horses and plowman-to say nothing of Rogues and Villains that would fly from Justice and run over the hills to them. What the french and the ohio and other Indians would be to us in time of War I leave to you and other Gentlemen to Judge I can not think on such a time but with Terror. as to their Number the best accounts that I could get of them was that they were about 1 ,000 men french and Indians but the latter almost all left them and went back again unwilling to assist the french in taking possession of the ohio. I think it highly necessary for this Colonies to raise about 2,000 men and take possession of ohio by force Build fords and speak Boldly to the Indians but with prudence and if the time of peace will admit knock every french men on ohio that wont run to the head and if we dont do now we never again shall be so able to it and our posterity will Condemn us for our neglect.

This reads as if it were addressed to the Virginia authorities, and the date must have been some time after 1752 and before 1758, when the French were driven from Fort Duquesne. In his reference to the extent of the purchase made in the treaty at Lancaster Weiser seems to contradict what he had himself else­where asserted. 1
The second fragment seems to be from a letter addressed to the Pennsylvania authorities, and is probably to be assigned to a date in the period from 1750 to 1753. We meet here one of the earliest indications of the then prevailing uncertainty as to the western bounds of the province of Pennsylvania, foretokening the long contest that was later to be waged over that question. Weiser writes:

The river of ohio is a very fine River and from its rise it begins to be navigable for Canoes & Batoes to its mouth where it runs into the

1 “When the Ohio tribes leamed that the Six Nations at the Lancaster treaty of 1744 deeded to Viginia land boundedded by the setting sun, they remonstrated with their masters for using such metaphors in fixing a boundary line. The wise men of the Six Nations replied that the setting sun only meant the hills of the Allegheny behind which the sun was lost. Conrad Weiser was appealed to, and this undisputed authority insisted that the land was sold to Virginia in 1744 beyond the summits of the Alleghenies. Nevertheless Virginia pushed her claims out beyond and along the Ohio river.”—Conradd Weiser and the Indian Policy qf Colonial Pennsylvania, Walton, p. 276.

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49

great River Misisippy. It must be by all accounts near a tousand mile long it differs from aU the rivers in North america for its smoothness Considering its length. The lands on both sides are very good and a great deal of it Extraordinary rich and between the said river and the lake Erie the greatest part is good land white oak Black oak & Spanish oak is the timber that grows on it-it is by the timber that the Indians tells me grows on it ! judge– The Indians themselves can not Judge of the land itself-only of the low 1ands & plans of which is so much that one thinks it a tousand pity that such a large and good Country should be unsettled or fall into the hand of the french who have allready made some Settlement below or on the river commonly called Wappash [Wa­bash] a Branch of ohio. This fall the ground about ohio was all Covered with acorns. a middling good Hunter among the Indians of ohio kills for his share in one fall 150-200 dears. The pensilvania traders had all the skins this 2 or 3 years. The Erecting of a good Correspondenz and a Regular trade with the Indians on ohio would secure that fine and large Country to the English nation, a good beginning is made by the last present from the government of pen.[sylvania] that I Caried there. The trade itself If but in Regulation will ans’r all the Cost of Keeping such Correspondenz and Consequently the land win fall at last into the English hands. The westerly bounds of pensilvania must reach some of the Eastern Branches of ohio If not the river itself in some places and the land on the road that leads to ohio from pensilvania is good So that if their Honors the proprietors of pensilvania purchase that part of their province from the Indians I dare say within 10 years after the purchase is made, the 1and will be settled to within 50 miles of ohio

[The following is a note of Weiser’s to the above]:

The traders and Indians in going down the river they Boil their victuals a little before night and go into their Canoes again and they tie 3 or 4 Canoes together and let them drive all night and they lie them­selves down to sleep and there is not the least danger of oversetting. The river will rise in the spring of the year (when the snow to the nord melts by southerly wind & rain) about 25 & 30 foot perpendicularly and so overflows the lowest & richest ground, but as the stream is not very violent it does the low 1and no hurt and as it is to rich for to plow it will make Extraordinary good medow or Hay land.
The up land so far as I have been is not very rich in springs and here and there the water is scarce but there is fine large Creeks strong enough to errect all sorts of mills and water enough to settle the Country in small vilages as they do in new England which way of Settlement on the frontiers and near the Indians is the best.

The internal jealousies and quarrels, previously alluded to, delayed any decided action on the part of Pennsylvania against the French. Virginia had also her internal difficulties, and had
vol. I-4
Source: History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, It’s Centennial Celebration, by Rev. Joseph H. Bausman, Vol. 1, The Knickerbock Express, New York, 1904.)

postponed action, but late in the year 1753, her Governor, the Hon. Robert Dinwiddie, took a step that was to lead to mo­mentous results. Acting under instructions from the English government, Dinwiddie sent on a mission of investigation to the nearest French outpost, a young man who was destined to become finally the most illustrious figure in American history. This was George Washington. I He was ordered to proceed to Logstown, where he was to address himself to the Half-King, to Monakatoocha, and other sachems of the Six Nations, and pro­cure from them a safeguard to the French post, and his further instructions read in part as follows:

You are diligently to inquire into the numbers and force of the French on the Ohio, and the adjacent country; how they are 1ikely to be assisted from Canada; and what are the difficulties and conveniencies of that communication, and the time required for it.
You are to take care to be truly informed what forts the French have erected, and where; how they are garrisoned and appointed, and what is their distance from each other, and from Logstown: and from the best intelligence you can procure, you are to learn what gave occasion to this expedition of the French; how they are likely to be supported, and what their pretensions are.

Following out his instructions, the young envoy proceeded to Logstown and thence, with the Half-King, 2 Jeskakake, White Thunder, and the Hunter,3 he set out on the 30th of November, and on the 11th of the month following reached the French fort “Le Breuf,” which was on the site of what is now Water­ford, Erie County, Pa. Having accomplished the purpose of his mission, and obtained full information of the strength and plans of the French, and an answer to the letter which he had carried from Governor Dinwiddie to the French commandant, he returned with much hardship to Virginia, reaching Williams­burg on the 16th of January, 1754, where he made his report to the Governor. The journal which he kept on this expedition was immediately published by Dinwiddie at Williamsburg.

1 He had previously sent Captain William Trent for a like purpose. But Trent neg­lected his duty, and went no farther than Logstown. In a letter to the Lords of Trade, Dinwiddie said of him: “He reports the French were then one hundred and fifty miles farther up the river, and, I be1ieve, was afraid to go to them..”
2 This was Tanacharison.
3This was the celebrated Guyasutha. See sketch of his life in Gist’s Journals (Darling­
ton). p. 210.

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51
copied by the newspapers of the other colonies, and reprinted in the same year by the government in London. I
The information thus received led at once to military meas­ures for the defence of the Ohio. Virginia at this time held that the upper Ohio valley was a part of her territory, and Governor Dinwiddie immediately commenced preparations for raising a force to be sent to the “Forks of the Ohio” (Pittsburg), to occupy that point, and build a defensive work that would enable them to resist the French. This force, a company under command of Captain William Trent, marched from Virginia, in January, 1754, and reached the Forks the 17th of the following month. Work was begun, but proceeded slowly on account of the severity of the weather, and Captain Trent returning to Will’s Creek, left in charge a young commissioned officer, an ensign. named Edward Ward.
The French were warned of these proceedings, and were not idle. On the 17th of April. when his fort was still uncompleted, Ensign Ward suddenly found himself surrounded by a force of one thousand men, French and Indians. under the command of Captain Contreceur, with eighteen pieces of cannon. By Chevalier Le Mercier, captain of the artillery of Canada, Contre­creur sent a summons to the commanding officer of the English to surrender, informing him that he, Contrecreur, “was come out into this place, charged with orders from his General, to re­quest him [the English commander] to retreat peaceably with his troops from off the lands of the French king, and not to return, or else he would find himself obliged to fulfill his duty, and compel him to it.” I hope,” continues Contrecreur, in his summons, “that you will not defer one instant, and that you will not force me to the last extremity. In that case, sir, you may be persuaded that I will give orders that there shall be no dam­age done by my detachment.” The friendly Half-King, Tan­acharison, who was present, advised Ward to reply that he was not an officer of rank with power to answer the demand, and to

1 Spark’s Life of Washington, 1843- p. 33; a1so preface to the journal itself. In this journal is a map, probably drawn by Christopher Gist or by Washington himse1f, on which the symbol of a fort is marked diagonally opposite the mouth of the Big Beaver, a little to the southeast, in what would be the present township of Moon. We never heard of a fort there. This mark may have been meant to indicate the fort which the Ohio Company intended to build at the mouth of the Chartiers Creek, and the map being very small, the location could not be accurately indicated.. At this early date 1753-44) there were no sett1ers, so that not even an ordinary blockhouse could have been there.

52 History of Beaver County

request delay until he could send for his superior officer. But Contrecceur refused to parley, and demanded immediate sur­render. Having less than forty men in a half-finished stockade, Ward was unable to resist the force opposed to him, and therefore prudently yielded to the demand without further hesitation. He was allowed to withdraw his men and take all his tools with him, and on the morning of the18th, he left the position and started on his return to Virginia. This affair was one of the initial events of the French and Indian War, an epoch-making struggle, which was the American phase of the Seven Years’ War in Europe.
Taking possession here, the French erected Fort Duquesne, named in honor of the Marquis Du Quesne, the then Govemor­General of Canada, and it was in efforts to dislodge them, that the force surrendered by Washington at Fort Necessity, in 1754, had been sent out, and that Braddock met his appalling defeat, in July, 1755.1 During the years 1755, 1756, and 1757, a series of defeats had thrown a cloud over the prospects of the English in America, but the creation in the latter year of a new ministry in England, with the great Pitt as its head, caused an almost immediate change in the aspect of affairs. In the year 1758 three expeditions against the French were undertaken, the first against Louisburg, in the island of Cape Breton, the second against Ticonderoga and Crown Point; and the third against Fort Duquesne. The first of these expeditions was successful, the second failed, but was partly compensated by the destruc­tion of Fort Frontenac, with its stores, and the third, that against Fort Duquesne, though saddened by the foolish and fatal

1 We do not dwell upon these important events, since they have no close connection with our local history, but we transcribe the following letter on account of the realistic picture it gives of the horrors of Braddock’s overthrow.
Letter from the Reverend Claude Godfroy Cocquard to his brother:

“My dear brother:-I communicated 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 has lost more than 1,800 men aJUi an immense booty with scarcely any loss on our side, except the Commander of our detachment, named M. de Beaujeu, an officer generally regretted . . . You will learn, first, that our Indians have waged the most cruel war against the English; that they continued it throughout the spring and are still so exasperated as to be beyond con­trol; Georgia, Maerelande, Pensilvania, are wholly laid waste. The farmers have been
forced to quit their abodes and to retire into the town. They have neither ploughed nor planted., and on their complaining of the circumstance to the Governor of Boston, he answered them that people were ploughing and planting for them in Canada. The Indians do not make any prisoners; they kill all they meet, men women and chi1dren. Every day they have some in their kettle, and after having abused the women and maidens, they slaughter or burn them. On the 29th of January we received letters from M. Dumas, Commandant of Fort Duquesne, on the Ohio, stating that the Indians in December had more than 500 English sca1ps, and he more than 200 prisoners.”-Penna. Arch., Second Series, vol. vi., p. 459.

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skirmish of Major Grant, ended with the retirement of the French before the advancing forces of Gen. John Forbes, and the establishment, in perpetuity, of the Anglo-Saxon race in the Ohio valley. Fort Duquesne was burnt by the French on its evacuation, and the garrison, about five hundred in number, went, a part of them down the river, and the remainder, under Governor M. De Lignery, to Presque Isle and Venango. The success of this expedition was attended also by the submission of the Indian allies of the French, the Delawares immediately suing for peace. General Forbes, having left a garrison of two hundred and eighty men of Washington’s command to repair and occupy the mined fort, marched with the rest of his army to the other side of the mountains, and, during the following summer (1759), General Stanwix, his successor as commander-­in-chief in the middle colonies, commenced the erection near the site of the French fort of a strong works that was named “Fort Pitt,” in honor of William Pitt, Earl Chatham, the great British statesman, to whose energy and talents the brilliant successes of the English arms were due.
In the year 1759 all the campaigns against the French ended with the triumph of the British. Ticonderoga was abandoned before the advance of the formidable force under General Am­herst, Crown Point was likewise given up, Sir William Johnson was victorious at the battle of Niagara, and the dying Wolfe had conquered on the plains of Abraham, and, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the “vast but frail fabric of French empire in America crumbled into dust.” The contest that had thus ended had been one of races; the Norman had sought to divide this continent, leaving to the Saxon the lands between the Atlantic and the Alleghenies, but placing the lilies of France above the banner of St. George in all the vast inland empire of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. I t is well, we think, that he failed-that the arbitrament of arms was so decisive that the whole country was given into the control of one power, and that power England; for the great Union of States which makes the glorious American Republic could never have been created, if, to adapt the figure of bluff King Harry, there had been com­pounded here between St. Denis and St. George a race half French, half English. It is of interest to note, we repeat, that this great struggle for supremacy between the Norman and the

54

History of Beaver County

Saxon was begun in the region lying between what is now Beaver and Pittsburg, and we may add that this same region was the theatre in which were enacted some of its closing scenes. I

1 We trust our readers will enjoy seeing what the great Scotch historian, Thomas Carlyle,
has to say about some of the matters with which our text has been concerned. Here are
a few of his characteristic comments on the Ohio Company and the rivalry between the
French and English for the possession of the Mississippi valley and its tributaries:
“The exuberant intention of the French is, ‘To restrict those aspiring English Colonies,’
mere Ploughers and Traders, hardly numbering above one million ‘ to the Space eastward of the Alleghany Mountains,’ over which they are beginning to climb. The Commandant at Detroit had received orders, ‘To oppose peremptorily every EngJish Establishment not only thereabouts, but on the Ohio or its tributaries; by monition tirst; and then by force, if monition do not serve.’
.. Establishments of any solidity or regularity the English have not in those parts; beyond the A1leghanies all is desert: ‘from the Canada Lakes to the Carolinas, mere hunting­
grounds of the Six Nations; dotted with here and there an English trading-house, or adventurous Squatter’s farm;- to whom now the French are to say: ‘Horne, you, in­stantly, and leave the Desert alone!’ The French have distinct Orders from Court, and energetically obey the same; the English have indistinct Orders from Nature, and do not want energy, or mind to obey these: confusions and collisions are manifold, ubiquitous, continual. . . An ‘Ohio Company’ has got together in Virginia; Governor there encouraging; Britannic Majesty giving Charter (March, 1740), and what is still easier, ‘500,000 Acres of Land’ in those Ohio regions, since you are minded to colonize there in a fixed manner. Britannic Majesty thinks the Country ‘between the Monongahela and the Kanahawy’ (southern feeders of Ohio) will do best; but is not particular. Ohio Company, we shall find chose at last, as the eligible spot, the topmost fork or very head of the Ohio,-where stands, in our day, the big sooty Town of Pittsburg and its industries. Ohio Company was laudably eager on this matter; Land-Surveyor in it (nay, at length, ‘Colonel of a Regiment of 150 men raised by the Ohio Company’) was Mr. George Wash­ington, whose Family had much Promoted the Enterprise: and who was indeed a steady-go­ing, considerate, close-mouthed Youngg Gentleman; who came to great distinction in the end.”French Governor getting wind of this Ohio Company still in embryo, anticipates the birth . . and where the Ohio Company venture on planting a Stockade, tears it tragically out! . . .
“In 1753 (18th August of that Year), goes message from the Home Government,’ Stand on your defence, over there! Repel by force any Foreign encroachments on British Domin­ions.’ And directly on the heel of this, November 1753, the V1rginia Govemor,-urged, I can believe, by the Ohio Company, who are lying wind-bound so long,-despatches Mr. George Washington to inquire officially of the French Commandant in those parts, ‘What he means, then, by invading the British Territories, while a solid Peace subsists?’ Mr. George had a long ride up those desert ranges, and down on the other side; waters all out, ground in a swash with December rains, no help or direction but from wampums and wigwams: Mr. George got to Ohio Head (two big Rivers, Monongahela from South, AIle­
ghany from North, coalescing to form a double-big Ohio for the Far West); and thought to himself, ‘What an admrab1e three-legged place: might be Chief Post of those regions, ­nest-egg of a diligent Ohio Company!’ Mr. George, some way down the Ohio River, found a strongish French Fort, log-barracks, ‘200 river boats, wsth more buildiug,’ and a French Commandant who cannot enter into questions of a diplomatic nature about Peace and War: ‘My orders are, To keep this Fort and Territory against; all comers; one must do one’s orders, Monsieur, Adieu!’ And the steadfast Washington had to return; without result, that of the admirable three-legged Place for dropping your Nest-egg, in a commanding defenceful way!
“Ohio Company painfully restrained so long in that operation took the hint at once, Despatched, early in 1754, a Party of some Forty or Thirty-three stout fellows, with arms about them. as well as tools. ‘Go build us straightway, a Stockade in the place indicated: you are warranted to smite down, by shot or otherwise, any gainsayer!’ And further­more, directly go on foot, and on the road thither, a ‘regimentt of 150 men.’ Washington as Colonel to it, For perfecting said Stockade and maintaining it against all comers.
“Washington and his Hundred-and-fifty, wagonage, provender, and a piece or two of cannon, all well attended to, – vigorously climbed the Mountains; got to the top, 27th May, 1754; and there met the Thirty-three in retreat homewards! Stockade had been torn out, six weeks ago (17th April last); by overwhelming French Force, from the Gentleman who said Adieu, and had the river boats, last Fall, And, instead of our Stockade, they are now building a regular French Fort, Forit Duquesne, they call it, in honor of their Governor Duquesne:-against which, Washington and his regiment, what are they? Washington strictly surveying, girds himself up for the retreat; descends diligently homewards again,
French and Indians rather harassing his rear. Entrenches himself, 1st July, at what he calIs, ‘Fort Necessity,’ some way down; and the second day after, 3d July, 1754, is at­tacked in vigorous military manner. Defends himself what he can, through nine hours of heavy rain; has lost thirty, the French only three; and is obJiged to capitulate: ‘Free Withdrawal’ the terms given. This is the last I heard of the Ohio Company: not the last of Wash:ington, by any means. Ohio Company, its judicious Nest-egg squelched in this manner, nay, become a fiery Cockatrice or, ‘Fort Duquesne:’ need not be mentioned farther.” -Frederick the Great. vol. v., p. 417.

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55

THE CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC

But this happy issue of the rivalry between England and France did not bring peace to the harried settlers of the West. There was now to burst upon them a storm more dreadful than any which had been felt during the French and Indian War. This was the terrible conspiracy of Pontiac. The Indians saw in the peace settlement of 1763 a threat of utter destruction to their own territorial rights, and the loss of the balance of power which they had in some measure held so long as the contest be­tween England and France was unsettled. 1 Even during that contest their lot had been hard enough. As one of their chiefs, Tanacharison-the Half-King of the Mingoes-had said to Chris­topher Gist, “the English claim all the land on one side of the river and the French all on the other side; where is the Indian’s land?”2 But they were now confronted by a more dangerous crisis. With the French they had sustained fairly amicable re­lations, but they had always distrusted and disliked the Eng­lish, and the English were now become the sole masters of their hunting-grounds. They determined upon resistance, and Pon­tiac, the great Ottawa chief, who had been foremost in con­tributing to the defeat of Braddock in I 755, again came to the front. Under the leadership of this bold and capable chief, the tribes of the Northwest, and the Delawares, Shawanese, and other Ohio tribes, were united in a formidable league with the purpose of attacking simultaneously all the English forts and settlements from the Lakes to the Alleghenies.3 At the decisive moment they failed in securing unanimity of action, but the results of their attacks were sufficiently disastrous to the settlers. Only the forts of Niagara, Detroit, and Fort Pitt remained to the English; all the rest fell, and the country from the frontiers of Pennsylvania to Lake Michigan was laid open to the awful

1 The Iroquois, or Six Nations, leaders, at 1east, understood the doctrine of European statesmen indicated in this expression, “balance of power.” De Witt Clinton says:
“They duly appreciated the policy of averting the total destruction of either European
power; and several instances c:ould be pointed out, by which it could be demonstrated that the balance of power, formerly the subject of so much speculation among the states­men of Europe, was thoroughly understood by the Confederates in their negotiations and intercourse with the French and English colonies.”-Writings. p. 228.
2 Another Indian said to an Englishman, “You and the French are like the two edges of a pair of sbears, and we are the cloth which is cut to pieces between them.”—Christian F. Post’s First Journal.
3 Parkman’s work, The Conspiracy of Pontiac, is exhaustive in its treatment of this sub­ject.

56 History of Beaver County

fury of the savages, who devastated and depopulated it with fire and slaughter. Fort Niagara, indeed, was not attacked, being considered too strong, and Captain Gladwin foiled the Indians at Detroit, but Fort Pitt, although defended by Captain Ecuyer with great judgment and bravery, was in desperate straits.

RELIEF OF FORT PITT
In this emergency a gallant young Swiss officer named Henry Bouquet, then commanding at Philadelphia, was sent out with a small force to the relief of the beleaguered garrison. His ex­pedition was conducted with remarkable success. Failing in obtaining the supplies of men and provisions which he had ex­pected at Carlisle, owing to the consternation and confusion into which the inhabitants of the Cumberland valley were plunged by the depredations of the Indian war-parties, he yet pushed on, and encountering the enemy at Bushy Run, inflicted upon them a crushing defeat. This engagement was fought on the 5th and 6th of August, 1763. The Indians were completely disheartened by it, raised the siege of Fort Pitt, and retreated to their towns in Ohio. Four days later Bouquet arrived at Fort Pitt with his welcome succor.

BOUQUET’S EXPEDITION AGAINST THE OHIO INDIANS IN 1764
In the following spring fresh trouble with the Indians arose, and the same gallant leader, Bouquet, was selected to carry the war into the enemy’s country by marching against the Dela­wares, Shawanese, and other tribes in Ohio, while Colonel Brad­street was to act against the tribes living around the Great Lakes. Leaving Fort Pitt on Wednesday, October 3d, Bouquet followed the course of the Ohio River through Logstown to the fords of the Big Beaver. Then crossing the Little Beaver and Yellow Creek he advanced as far as the forks of the Muskingum. The following notes of his passage through the territory now em­braced in Beaver County cannot fail to be of interest to the reader. They are drawn from the valuable work by Dr. William Smith, entitled An Historical Account of Colonel Bouquet’s Ex­pedition against the Ohio I ndians, 1 the material for which was taken direct from the original documents:

1 Original, PhiIadelphia, 1765- Robert Clarke & Co.’s Reprint, Cincinnati, 1869; copied in The Olden Time, Craig. vol. i., p. 203 et seq..

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Friday, October 5th-In this day’s march the army passed through Loggstown, situated seventeen miles and an half, fifty-seven perches, by the path. from Fort Pitt. This place was noted before the last war for the great trade carried on there by the English and French; but its inhabit­ants, the Sbawanese and Delawares, abandoned it in the year 1750 [1758].
The lower town extended about sixty perches over a rich bottom to the foot of a low steep ridge, on the summit of which, near the declivity, stood the upper town, commanding a most agreeable prospect over the lower, and quite across the Ohio, which is about 500 yards here, and by its majestic easy current adds much to the beauty of the place. Pro­ceeding beyond Loggstown, through a fine country, interspersed with hills and rich valleys, watered by many rivulets, and covered with stately timber, they came to camp No.4; on a level piece of ground, with a thicket in the rear, a small precipice round the front, with a run of water at the foot, and good food for the cattle. This day’s march was nine miles, one half, and fifty-three perches.
Saturday, October 6th, at about three miles distance from this camp, they came again to the Ohio, pursuing its course half a mile farther, and then turning off, over a steep ridge, they crossed Big Beaver-creek, which is twenty perches wide, the ford stony and pretty deep. It runs through a rich vale, with a pretty strong current, its banks high, the upland adjoining it very good, the timber tall and young. . . . About a mile below its confluence with the Ohio, stood formerly a large town, on a steep bank, built by the French of square logs, with stone chimneys, for some of the Shawanese, Delawares and Mingo tribes, who abandoned it in the year 1758, when the French deserted Fort Duquesne. Near the fording of Beaver-creek also stood about seven houses, which were deserted and destroyed by the Indians, after their defeat at Bushy-run, when they forsook all their remaining settlements in this part of the country, as has been mentioned. above. . . .1
Two miles beyond Beaver-creek, by two small springs, was seen the scull of a child, that had been fixed on a pole by the Indians. The Tracts of 15 Indians were this day discovered.. The camp No.5 is seven miles one quarter and fifty-seven perches from Big Beaver-creek; the whole march of this day being about twelve miles. 2

Bouquet reached the Muskingum with the loss of but one man, and there, without fighting a battle, he so overawed the savages that they were soon brought to make a treaty of peace, to give hostages for their future good conduct, and to surrender all their prisoners. Two hundred and six captives were given up, and about one hundred more who were held by the Shawa­

1 The army probably crossed the Beaver near where the Bridgewater toll-bridge now stands.
The town that is said to have been about a mile below the confluence of the
Beaver with the Ohio stood on what is now known as “Groveland,” about half a mile below Market Street in Beaver. See note on Sawkunk at page 3.
2 Philada.Ed., p.10; Clarke’s Reprint, p.65.

58 History of Beaver County

nese at points distant from the camp on the Muskingum, were re­leased the following spring. The scenes here and elsewhere, when relatives and friends were reunited after months or years of separation, were very affecting, though in some cases the prisoners parted from their captors with the greatest reluctance, and the Indians themselves often manifested the greatest grief on parting with their adopted children. The results of this ex­pedition were of immeasurable value to the country. For ten years, at any rate, the land had rest from the sound of the war­whoop, and the settlements began rapidly to increase in num­bers and prosperity.

LORD DUNMORE’S WAR

But the cup of the settlers’ woe was not yet full. The shame­ful conflict known as Lord Dunmore’s War, which was occasioned by the unbridled passions of a few lawless men, was suddenly precipitated upon a community that had begun to realize for once the blessings of peace. A series of wanton and unprovoked murders of peaceful Indians had been committed by the whites, in some instances with such circumstances of barbarity as would have shamed even the savages, and these outrages speedily brought from the Indians terrible reprisals. We cannot read far in the history of the borders without finding that this was too often the case; the instances being many in which the lawless and murderous whites gave the Indians Bloody instructions, which being taught, returned To plague the inventors. . .

It may not be pleasant reading, but it is nevertheless in­structive to learn from contemporary sources what the character of a considerable part of the early population of this country was. Since in our succeeding chapters we pay frequent tnoute to the worth of its better elements, we may be pardoned for speaking in this connection of a phase of the subject which is not so flattering to our patriotism. Among the pioneer settlers were many of the worst elements of the Old-WorId population: men who were deported here for their crimes, and who brought with them their criminal instincts and practices. And such men, to the embarrassment and distress of their commanders,

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were found even in the ranks of those who were set to be the defenders of the country. Writing to Colonel Bouquet, from Bedford, November, 1763, Captain Ecuyer says:
I never saw anything equal to it-a gang of mutineers, bandits, cut­throats, especially the grenadiers. I have been obliged, after all the patience imaginable, to have two of them whipped on the spot without court-martial. One of them wanted to kill the sergeant, and the other wanted to kill me. . . . For God’s sake, let me go and raise cabbages. You can do it if you will, and I shall thank you eternally for it. 1

He says, further, that the settlers, though afraid of the Indians, nevertheless always did their best to shelter deserters.
There was little conscience anywhere against killing Indians, whether in peace or war. Writing to Governor Penn from Ligonier, May 29, 1774. after the murder of “Wipey,” a friendly Delaware Indian, Arthur St. Clair (afterwards General St. Clair), says:

It is the most astonishing thing in the world, the Disposition of the common people of this Country, actuated by the most savage cruelty, they wantonly perpetrate crimes that are a disgrace to humanity, and seem at the same time to be under a kind of religious enthusiasm whilst they want the daring spirit which that usually inspires. 2

It was almost impossible to convict a white man for the murder of an Indian; people, lawyers, juries, and even judges ignoring alike law and evidence to acquit some of the worst wretches that ever lived in any age or country. The sentiment of the border, in general, sustained the acts of Williamson’s Washington County men in their atrocious massacre of the peaceful Moravian
Indians at Salem.3 And we even find General Amherst and Colonel Bouquet corresponding about the feasibility of sending the smallpox among the Indians to destroy them, or of hunting them with dogs in the Spanish fashion. 4

1Conspiracy of Pontiac, Parkman, vol. ii., p. 161.
2 Frontier Forts. vol. ii., p. 229.
3 Waskington-lrvine Correspondence. pp. 236-242, et seq. and 343-344­
4 See Parkman’s Conspiracy of Pontiac, vol. ii., pp. 30-40. The feeling against the sav­ages overcame even the Quaker teachings of John Penn, grandson of William Penn, for in July, 1764, he offered by proclama.tion of the provincial authorities the following rewards:
u. Wherettpon it was agreed by the Board that the following several Premiums be offered by Proclamation for the Prisoners and scalps of the Enemy Indians that shall be taken or killed within the Bounds of this Province, as limited by the Royal Charter, or in pursuit from within the said Bounds, viz’t:
“For every Male Indian Enemy above ten Years old taken Prisoner and delivered to the Ofiirer of any Fort garrisoned by the Troops in the pay of this Province, or to the

60 History of Beaver County

Among the outrages which led to the troubles of the spring of 1774 were the murder of three friendly Indians, killed on the Ohio, Monongahela, and Cheat rivers by John Ryan; several at South Branch by two associates, Henry Judah and Nicholas Harpold; that of Bald Eagle, and the Massacre of the family of the celebrated Logan. The last two mentioned were particu­larly atrocious. Bald Eagle was well known and well received among the settlers, frequently staying at their houses or hunting with them in the forests. Rupp’s History of Western Pennsyl­vania relates the story of his death as follows:

In one of his visits among them [the whites], he was discovered alone and murdered, solely to gratify a most wanton thirst for Indian blood.
After the commission of this most outrageous enormity, he was seated in the stem of a canoe, and with a piece of com-cake thrust into his mouth, set afloat on the Monongahela. In this situation he was seen descending the river by several, who supposed him to be, as usual, returning from a friendly hunt with the whites in the upper settlements, and who ex­pressed some astonishment that he did not stop to see them. The canoe floating near to the shore, below the mouth of George’s creek, was ob­served by a Mrs. Province, who had it brought to the bank, and the friendly, but unfortunate old Indian, decently buried.-(P. 180.)

The case of Logan’s family is more familiar. In 1772, Logan,1 as related above, was living with his people at the mouth of Big Beaver Creek. The year following he settled at the

keeper of the common Gaol of any County Town within this Government, One hundred and fifty spanish Dollars.
H For every Female Indian Enemy, and for every Male Indian of 10 years old and under,
taken & delivered as aforesaid 130 Spanish pieces of Eight.
“For the Scalp of every Male Indian Enemy above the age of 10 Years produced as
evidence of their being killed, 134 pieces of Eight.
“And for the Scalp of every female Indian Enemy above the Age of 10 Years produced
as evidence as aforesd. 50 pieces of Eight.
” And that there shall be pajd to every Officer or Officers, Soldier or Soldiers, in the pay
of this Province, one-half of the above rewards..
“And that the Six Nations, or any other Indians in Amity with the Crown of Great
Britain, be excepted, out of the said Proclamation.”-{Col Rec., vol. iv., p.189.)
On the 5th of December, 1792, General Wayne wrote from his camp at Legionville to the county lieutenants of Allegheny and Westmoreland counties requesting them to give a safe conduct through their respective territories to the sixteen King’s chiefs of the Wabash and Illinois Indians and other warriors who were being escorted by Captain Prior to Pbila­delphia. In his reply to this circular letter Presley Neville says;
.. I rec’d your Excellency’s Letter respecting the Indian chiefs-I can send no escort with them for these reasons–Volunteers will not offer, and to draught a party of Militia to run, on foot and guard those Savages on Horse-back would be I fear to raise their Indignation, and the very Escort would I think be likely to enconrage if not perpetrate the Violence they are intended to prevent. But, Sir, I will go with them myself and anticipate no difficulty in delivering them safe to Colo. Campbell at Greensburg.”-Extract from manu­script 1etter in the Wayne Co11ection belonging to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
1 Logan took his name from the Provincial Secretary, James Logan. (See p. 44.) American Pioneer. vol ii.. p. 87; Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, Watson, vol. i. p. 525.

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61

mouth of Yellow Creek, about fifty-five miles below Pittsburg, and thirty above Wheeling, where he established a hunting camp. At this time the whole western border was alarmed in anticipation of a war with the Indians, a feeling which was due in part to the murders referred to and in part to the machina­tions of Dr. John Connolly, the turbulent agent of the Tory Dunmore, who was giving the Pennsylvanians so much trouble about the Virginia claims in this region. Parties of the settlers had gathered at several points ready to repel any incursions of the savages, and one or two Indians had been taken for hostiles and killed. Proposals had been several times made to attack Logan’s camp, but had been overruled by wiser heads, especially by Captain Michael Cresap. At length, however, during the absence of Logan, on the 30th of April, part of his people were enticed across the river to the house of Joshua Baker, by the promise of rum. Here a party under the leadership of Daniel Greathouse, a settler near the mouth of King’s Creek, lay con­cealed, and after sufficient liquor had been served them to render them partially intoxicated, they were set upon and all but an infant child killed. Judge Henry Jolly, at one time a resident of Beaver County, was, at the time of the killing of Logan’s people at Baker’s Bottom, living on the frontier, and in the year 1836 he published in Silliman’s Journal a full account of the occurrence. .He describes Logan’s earnest efforts to restrain the Indians from declaring war at a council held to consider the aggressions of the Virginians, and his success in this direction, and then goes on to speak of the effect produced when news was brought to Logan of the crime that had robbed him of all his family. He says:

Everything wore a tranquil aspect, when, behold! the fugitives arrived from Yellow Creek and reported that Logan’s mother, brother and sister were murdered. Three of the nearest and dearest relations of Logan had been massacred by white men. The consequence was that this same Logan, who a few days before was so pacific, raised the hatchet with a declaration that he would not ground it until he had taken ten for one, which I believe he comp1ete1y fu1filled by taking thirty scalps and prisoners in the summer of I774 . . . It was the belief of the inhabitants who were capable of reasoning on the subject that all the depredations committed on the frontiers by Logan and his party in I774 were as retaliation for the murder of Logan’s friends at Yellow Creek.

62 History of Beaver County

The blame for the crime committed at Baker’s was for long attached to Captain Cresap, but it is now well known that he was innocent of any part in it, had even, as we have said, ad­vised against its commission previously, but he is justly blam­able for other murders of Indians committed at about the same period. On the news of these various murders, especially that of Logan’s relatives, spreading through the settlements of south­western Pennsylvania, the people were panic-stricken, realizing that war would be the inevitable consequence. And their fears were soon justified, as the Indians at once took the war-path and swept the whole country between the Ohio and Monongahela rivers with tomahawk and torch. The settlers fled by scores across the Monongahela, abandoning their possessions to the in­vaders. Valentine Crawford, George Washington’s agent, then living on Jacob’s Creek, in Westmoreland County, wrote to Washington on the 6th of May, 1774, saying:

This alarm has caused the people to move from over the Mononga­hela, off Chartier’s and Raccoon creeks, as fast as you ever saw them in the year 1756 or 1757 down in Frederick County, Virginia. There were more than one thousand people crossed the Monongahela in one day at three ferries that are not one mile apart.

Intelligence of the depredations being committed, and of the exodus of the inhabitants, being transmitted by an express to Lord Dunmore, he at once took active measures to organize a campaign against the offending Indians, which was speedily commenced, and lasted three months. This was the last war in which the colonists took part with the mother country as her subjects. Its decisive engagement was fought by General An­drew Lewis, who, in a desperate battle at Point Pleasant on the Ohio, on the 10th of October, 1774, defeated the Indians under the famous Cornstalk, a chief who was peaceful in disposition and design, but who, when he was aroused, was the very thunder­bolt of war. Dunmore was not present in this engagement, but he came in afterwards for the lion’s share of the glory, and con­cluded the peace with the Indians at Chillicothe in the following November. This was six months previous to the commence­ment at Lexington of the Revolutionary conflict. Many parts of Dunmore’s conduct in this brief campaign which bears his name are ambiguous. It was the general belief among the

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63

officers of the army of the colonists, that he had already received from England advices of the coming Revolution, and that in all his succeeding movements he was aiming to secure the savages as allies of England against the colonists in the long conflict now impending. To this great struggle we turn now in the chapter which follows.

(Source: History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, it’s Centennial Celebration, by Rev. Joseph H. Bausman, Vol. 1, The Knickerbocker Express, New York, 1904.)

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