The r»gl«trAtl«a ©f thU i#ork has not b««Ji possible. The i»e c«plo» ^^ AT© ih«r«f©ro j£>a«n8e»i t«^ tH« Order Dl- vlaloa fcr fUlns on t|i« i^olv«» ©f th- Library ..; i/ngr«»«. ^ 11: ^1^ Glass. Book Fhh '^i THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD; OR, HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF SOUTH-WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA TO THE YEAR 1800. JAMES VEECH. FOR PRIVATE DISTRIBUTION ONLY. PITTSBURGH 1858-1892. X [This unfinished work of the author, which has been " in sheets " since 1858, is now issued for private distribution only. By the addition of pages 241-259, which were included in a pamphlet issued in 1857, entitled " Mason and Dixon's Line," the cliapter relating to the boundary controversy between Pennsylvania and Virginia is completed.] f^ec0tv«d frortft CoDvright Office. MAR 4 1911 Copyright : Mrs. E. V. Blainb. 1892. L-'^^^^^ THE MOIOIGAHELA OF OLD CHAPTER I. ANTIQUITIES. Ante-Indian Inhabitants — Old Forts ; their forms ; sites ; localities — Mounds — Indian Towns — Indians Graves — Curious chain. Of tlie original liuman iuhabitants of the territory, of which Fayette county is a part, we know but little. When Anglo-Saxon traders and hunters first penetrated its wilds, it was the hunting ground of the Mingo Indians, or Six Nations : ^ the seat of whose power and chief population was Western ISTew York. Delawares, whose original home was the western shore of the river of that name, and Shawnese, who came from the Cumberland river, were also found. But that these were the successors of a race more intelligent, or of a people of different habits of life, seems clearly deducible from the remains of fortifications scattered all over the territory, and which are very distinct from those known to have been constructed by the tribes of Indians named, or any of their modern compeers. These remains of embankments, or "old forts," are numerous in Fayette county. That they are very ancient is shown by many facts. The Indians, known to us, could give no satisfactory account of when, how, or by whom they were erected ; or for what purpose, except for defence. While the trees of the sur- rounding forests were chiefly oak, the growths upon, and within the lines of, the old forts, were generally of large black walnut. 1 Called also the Iroquois. They ■were a Confederacy of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagoes, Cayugas, Senecas and Tuscaroras. The Delawares and Shawnese were in league with them, but rather as conquered dependents. 9 18 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. I. wild cherry, and sometimes locust. We have examined some which indicated an age of from three to five hundred years, and they evidently of a second or third generation, as they were standing amid the decayed remains of their ancestors. How they got there, whether hy transplanting, hy deposits of floods, or of birds, or otherwise, is a speculation into which we will not go. These embankments may have been originally composed of wood, as their debris is generally a vegetable mould. No stone were used in their construction ; and among their ruins are always found some remains of old pottery, composed of clay, mixed with crushed muscle shells, even when far oif from a river. This compo- site was not burnt, but only baked in the sunshine. These vessels were generally circular ; and, judging from those we have seen, they were made to hold from one to three quarts. These old forts were of various /orws, square, oblong, triangular, circular and semi-circular. Their superficial areas range from one-fourth of an acre to ten acres. Their sites were generally well chosen, in reference to defence and observation. And what is a very singular fact, they were very often, generally in Fayette county, located on the highest and richest hills, and at a distance from any spring or stream of water. In a few instances this was otherwise, water being enclosed or contiguous, as they are generally in Ohio, and other more western parts of the Mississippi valley. Having seen and examined many of these "old forts " in Fayette, and also those at Marietta, Newark, and elsewhere, in Ohio, we believe they are all the work of the same race of people ; as are also the famous Grave Creek Mounds near Elizabethtown, Virginia; and if this belief be correct, then the conclusion follows irre- sistibly, that that race of people was much superior, and existed long anterior to the modern Indian. But who they were, and what became of them, must perhaps forever be unknown. We will briefly indicate the localities of some of these "old forts" in Fayette county. To enumerate all, or, to describe them sepa- rately, would weary the reader and waste our space. The curious in such matters may yet trace their remains. A very noted one, and of most commanding location, was at Brownsville, on the site of "Fort Burd," but covering a much larger area. Even after Col. Burd built his fort there, in 1759, it retained the names of iJAc " Old Fort," — Hedstone Old Fort, or, Fort Redstone. There was one on laud formerly of William Goe, near the OH. I.] ANTIQUITIES. 19 Monongahela Eiver, and just above the mouth of Little Redstone ; where afterward was a Settler's Fort, called Cassel's or Castle Fort. And an old map which we have seen has another of these old forts noted at the mouth of Speers' run, where Bellevernon now is. Two or three are found on a high ridge southwardly of Perry- opohs, on the State road, and on land late of John F. Martin. Another noted one is on the western bank of the Youghiogheny river, nearlj' opposite the Broad ford, on land lately held by James Collins. There are several on the high ridge of land, leading from the Collin's fort above referred to, southwestwardly toward Plumpsock, on lands of James Paull, John M. Austin, John Bute and others; a remarkable one being on land lately owned by James Gilchrist and the Byers; where some very large human bones have been found. There is one on the north side of Mountz's creek, above Irish- man's run. A very large one, containing six or eight acres, is on the summit of Laurel Hill, where the Mud pike crosses it; covered with a large growth of black walnut. One specially noted, as containing a great quantity of broken shells and potter}'', existed on the high laud between Laurel run and the Yough river, on a tract formerly owned by Judge Young. There are yet distinct traces of one on land of Gen. Henry W. Beeson, formerly Col. M' Clean, about two miles east of Union- town. There was one north-east of Kew Geneva, at the locality known as the "Flint Hill," on land now of John Franks. About two miles north-east of New Geneva, on the road to Uniontown, and on land late of William Morris, now Nicholas B. Johnson, was one celebrated for its great abundance of ,musc]c shells. On the high ridge southwardly of the head waters of Middle run, several existed; of which may be named — one on the Bixler land — one on the high knob eastwardly of Clark Bread- ing's- — one on the Alexander Wilson tract — and one on the land of Dennis Riley, deceased, formerly Andrew C. Johnson. These comprise the most prominent of the "Old Forts," in Fayette. Of their cognates, JKounds, erected as monuments of conquest, or, like the Pyramids of Egypt, as the tombs of kings, we have 20 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. I. none. Those that we have seen were of diminutive size, and may have been thrown up to commemorate some minor events, or to cover the remains of a warrior. Our territory, having been an Indian hunting ground, had within it but few Indian towns or villages, and these of no great magnitude or celebrity. There was one on the farm of James Ewing, near the southern corner of Redstone, and the line between German and Luzerne townships, close to a line limestone spring. Near it, on a ridge, were many Indian graves. Another was near where Abram Brown lived, about four miles west of Uniontown. There was also one on land of John M. Austin, Esq., formerly Samuel Stevens, near ' Sock. The only one we know of north of the Yough, was on the Strickler land, eastward of the Broad ford. Piles of stones, called Indian graves, were numerous in many places in Fayette, generally near the sites of Indian villages. They were generally on stony ridges, often twenty or thirty of them in a row. In many of them have been found human bones indicating a stature of from six to seven feet. They also contained arrow heads, spear points and hatchets, of stone and flint, nicely and regularly shaped — but how done, is the wonder. On a commanding eminence, overlooking the Yough river, upon land now of Col. A, M. Hill, formerly Wm. Dickerson, there are great numbers of these Indian graves ; among which, underneath a large stone, Mr. John Cottom, a few years ago found a very curious chain, con- sisting of a central ring, and five chains of about two feet in length, each branching off from it, having at their end, clamps, somewhat after the manner of hand-cufl's, largo enough to enclose a man's neck — indicating that its use was to confine prisoners — perhaps to fasten them to the burning stake. The chains were of an antique character, but well made, and seemed to have gone through fire. There are many other localities within our county limits, which maybe justly ranked as antiquities; but we reserve them to be interspersed in our subsequent sketches of events, and localities of distinct classes, with which they are intimately connected. They will lose none of their interest by their associations. CHAPTER II. settlers' forts. Fayette territory exempt from Indian cruelties — Description of Settlers' Forts ; their names and localities — An all-smoke incident. We might refer these to our sketch of " Early Settlements ;" but, as localities, we prefer introducing them immediately after the old forts, with which they are often confounded. For reasons which will be unfolded in the sequel, the territory of Fayette County was, after the end of the old French war, in 17(33, and during all the period of its early settlement, remarkably exempt from those terrific incursions of the savages which made forting so common and necessary in the surrounding country. Hence we had but few Settlers' Forts, and those few of but little note. These forts were erected by the associated effort of settlers in particular neighborhoods, upon the land of some one, whose name was thereupon given to the fort, as Ashcraffs, Morris', &c. They consisted of a greater or less space of land, enclosed on all sides by high log parapets, or stockades, and cabins adapted to the abode of families. The only external openings were a large puncheon gate and small port-holes among the logs, through which the unerring rifle of the settler could be pointed against the assailants. Some- times, as at Lindley's, and many of the other forts in the adjacent country west of the Monongahela, additional cabins were erected outside the fort, for temporary abode in times of danger, from which the sojourners could, in case of attack, retreat within the fort. All these erections were of rough logs, covered with clap- boards and weight poles, the roofs sloping inwards. A regular-built fort, of the first class, had, at its angles, block-houses, and some- times a ditch protected a vulnerable part. These block-houses projected a little past the line of the cabins, and the upper half was made to extend some two feet further, like the over-jut of a barn, so as to leave an overhanging space, secured against entrance by heavy log floors, with small port holes for repelling close attacks, or attempts to dig down, or fire the forts. These rude defences were very secure, were seldom attacked, and seldom, if ever, cap- i 22 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. II. tured. They were always located upon open, commanding emi- nences, sufficiently remote from coverts and wooded heights to prevent surprise. The sites of the "old forts" already described were sometimes chosen for settlers' forts. This was the case with the site on the Goe land, just above the mouth of Little Redstone, where, as already stated, was a settler's fort, called Cassel's, or Castle Fort. How far Redstone Old Fort was so used cannot certainly be known, as, while it existed as a place of defence, after settlements began, it was a kind of government fort, for the storage of ammunition and supplies, guarded by soldiers. Its proper name, after 1759, though seldom given to it, was Fort Burd. And there is evidence that, besides its governmental purposes, it was often resorted to by the early settlers, with their families, for protection, though for that object it was less adapted than many of the private forts — a few of which, within our county limits, we will now notice. One of the earliest erected forts of this kind was by John Minter, the Stevenson's, Crawford's and others, on land of the former, since Blackiston, now Ebenezer Moore, about a mile and a half westwardly of Pennsville. There was one on the old Thomas Gaddis farm, where Bazil Brownfield now lives, about two miles south of Uniontown; but what was its name we cannot certainly learn, or by whom or when erected, — probably, however, by Col. Gaddis, as he was an early settler, and a man of large public spirit. Another, called Pearses Fort, was on the Catawba Indian trail, about four miles north-east of Uniontown, near the residences of William and John Jones. Some old Lombardy poplars, recently fallen, denoted its site. About one mile north-west of Merrittstown there was one, on land now of John Craft. Its name is forgotten, Swearingen's Fort was in Springhill township, near the cross-road from Cheat river towards Brownsville. It derived its name from John Swearingen, who owned the land on which it stood, or from his son. Van Swearingen, afterward Sheriff of Washington County, a Captain in the Revolution and in the frontier wars, and whose nephew of the same name fell at St. Clair's defeat. One of considerable capacity, called Lucas' Fo7% was on the old Richard Brown farm, now Fordyce, near the frame meeting- house in Nicholson township. M Coy's Fort, on land of James M'Coy, stood where now stands the barn of the late Eli Baily, in South Union township. CH. II.] settlers' forts. 23 Morns' Fort, which was one of the first grade, was much resorted to by the early settlers on the upper Monongahela and Cheat, and from Ten Mile. It stood on Sandy Creek, just beyond the Virginia line, outside our County limits. It was to this fort that the family of the father of the late Dr. Joseph Doddridge resorted, in 1774, as mentioned in his Notes. The late Col. Andrew Moore, who resided long near its site, said that he had frequently seen the ruins of the fort and its cabins, which may yet be traced. Ashcraft's Fort stood on land of the late Jesse Evans, Esq., where Phineas Sturgis lived, in Georges township. Tradition tells of a great alarm and resort to this fort, on one occasion, caused thus : On land lately owned by Robert Britt, in that vicinity, there is a very high knob called Prospect Mill, or Point Look- Out. To this eminence the early settlers were wont, in times of danger, daily to resort, to reconnoitre the country, sometimes climbing trees, to see whether any Indians had crossed the borders, of which they judged by the smoke of their camps. This hill commanded a view from the mountains to the Monongahela, and from Cheat hills far to the northward. On the occasion referred to, the scouts reported that Indians had crossed the Monongahela, judging from some smoke " which so gracefully curled." The alarm was given. The settlers flocked to Ashcraft's Fort, with wives and children , guns and pro- visions, and prepared to meet the foe — when lo ! much to the vexation of some and the joy of others, the alarm soon proved to be "all smoke." CHAPTER III. INDIAN TRAILS, TRADERS' PATHS, ARMY ROADS, &C. Indians had roads — Their night compasses — Catawba or Cherokee trail — Nemacolin's — Dunlap's path — Burd's road to Redstone — Fort Burd — Cresap — Month of Redstone — Turkey-foot roads — James Smith — Bullock pens — M'Culloch's path — M'Culloch caught — Sandy Creek road — Froman's road — Old County roads — Pack-horse business and travel — Prices. At the risk of some infractions of chronological order, before we go into the eventful portion of these sketches, we prefer now to trace these old highways ; and, to avoid repetitions, we must occa- sionally encroach upon subsequent narratives. An erroneous impression obtains among many of the present day, that the Indian, in traversing the interminable forests which once covered our towns and fields, roamed at random, like a modern afternoon hunter, by no fixed paths, or that he was guided, in his long journeys, solely by the sun, moon and stars, or by the courses of streams and mountains. And true it is that these untutored sons of the woods were considerable astronomers and geographers, and relied much upon these unerring guide-marks of nature. Even in the most starless night they could determine their course by feeling the bark of the oak-trees, which is always smoothest on the south side and roughest on the north. But still they had their trails or paths, as distinctly marked as are our County and State roads, and often better located. The white traders adopted them, and often stole their names, to be in turn surrendered to the leader of some Anglo-Saxon army, and finally obliterated by some costly highway of travel and commerce. They are now almost wholly effaced and forgotten. Hundreds travel along, and plough across them, unconscious that they are in the footsteps of the red men, as they were wont to hasten, in single file, to the lick, after the deer and buffalo, or to the wigwams of their enemy, in quest of scalps. The most prominent, and perhaps the most ancient of these old pathways across our county, was the old Catawba or Cherokee Trail, leading from the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, &c., through Virginia and Western Pennsylvania, on to "Western New York CH. III.] INDIAN TRAILS, TRADERS' PATHS, &C. 26 and Canada. We will trace it within our limits as well as we can. After crossing and uniting with numerous other trails, the princi- pal one entered Fayette territory, at the State line, at the mouth of Grassy run. A tributary trail, called the Warrior Branch, coming from Tennessee, through Kentucky and Southern Ohio, came up Fish creek and down Dunkard, crossing Cheat river at M'Far- land's. It run out a junction with the chief trail, intersecting it in William Gan's sugar camp, but it kept on by Crow's mill, James Robinson's, and the old gun factory,^ and thence towards the mouth of Redstone, intersecting the old Redstone trail from the top of Laurel Hill, afterward Burd's road, near Jackson's, or Grace Church, on the I^ational road. The main Catawba trail pursued "the even tenor of its way," regardless of minor points, which, like a modern grand rail road, it served by branches and turn-outs. After receiving the Warrior Branch junction, it kept on through land late of Charles Griffin, by Long's Mill, Ashcraft's Fort, Philip Rogers' (now Alfred Stewart's), the Diamond Spring, (now William James'); thence nearly on the route of the present Morgantown road, until it came to the Misses Hadden's ; thence across Hellen's fields, passing near the Rev. William Brownfield's mansion, and about five rods west of the old Henry Beeson brick house ; thence through IJniontown, over the old Bank house lot, crossing the creek where the bridge now is, back of the Sheriff's house; thence along the northern side of the public grave-yard on the hill, through the eastern edge of John Gallagher's land, about six rods south of John F. Foster's (formerly Samuel Clarke's) house, it crossed Shute's run where the fording now is, between the two meadows, keeping the high land through Col. Evans' plantation, and passed between William and John Jones' to the site of Pearse's Fort; thence by the Murphy school-house, and bearing about thirty rods westward of the Mount Braddock man- sion, it passed a few rods to the east of the old Conrad Strickler house, where it is still visible. Keeping on through land formerly of John Hamilton, (now Freeman,) it crossed the old Connellsville road immediately on the summit of the Limestone hill, a few rods west of the old Strickler distillery; thence through the old Law- rence Harrison land (James Blackiston's) to Robinson's falls of Mill run, and thence down it to the Yough river, crossing it just below the run's mouth, where Braddock's army crossed, at Stewart's ^ See memoir oi Albert Gallatin, in "Early Settlers" — postea, Chap. VII. 26 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. III. crossings. The trail thence kept through the Narrows, by Rist's, near the Baptist meeting-house, beyond Pennsville, passing by the old Saltwell on Green Lick run, to the mouth of Bushy run, at Tinsman's or Welshonse's mill. Thence it bore across Westmore- land county, up the Allegheny, to the heads of the Susquehanna, and into Western 'New York, then the empire of the Iroquois. A branch left the main trail at Robinson's mill, on Mill or Opossum run, which crossed the Yough at the Broad ford, bearing down across Jacob's creek, Sewickley and Turtle creeks, to the forks of the Ohio, at Pittsburgh, by the highland route. This branch, and the northern part within our county, of the main route, will be ibund to possess much interest in connection with Braddock's line of march to his disastrous destiny. This Cherokee or Caiaioba Indian trail, including its Warrior branch, is the only one of note which traversed our county north- ward and southward. Generally, they passed eastward and west- ward, from the river, to and across the mountains. To trace all these would be uninteresting. We will therefore confine our sketchings to those which have had their importance enhanced by having been adopted as traders'" paths, and as army or emigrants' roads. Decidedly the most prominent of all these is Nem.acoUn's trail, afterwards adopted and improved by Washington, and Braddock, the latter of whom, by a not unusual freak of fame, has given to the road its name, while its shrewd old Indian engineer, like him who traced for ISTapoleon the great road across the Simplon, has been buried in forgetfulness. Nemacolin's path led from the mouth of Wills' creek (Cumber- land, Md.) to the "forks of the Ohio" (Pittsburgh). It doubtless existed as a purely Indian trail before Kemacolin's time. For when the Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania traders with the Indians on the Ohio, began their operations, perhaps as early as 1740,- they procured Indians to show them the best and easiest route, and this was the one they adopted. So says Washington. And when the " Ohio Company," hereafter to be noticed, was formed, in 1748, and preparing to go into the Ohio Indian trade on a large scale, they procured Col. Thomas Cresap, of Old Town, Md., to engage some trusty Indians to mark and clear the path- way. For this purpose he engaged Nemacolin, a well known Dela- ware Indian, who resided at the mouth of Dunlap's creek, which, " There is some evidence that Indian traders, both English and French, were in this? country much earlier. CH. III.] INDIAN TRAILS, TRADERS' PATHS, &C. 27 in early times, was called Nemacolin's creek.^ The commissioner and engineer, with the aid of other Indians, executed the work, in 1750, by blazing the trees, and cutting away and removing the bushes and fallen timber, so as to make it a good pack-horse path. Washington says that " the Ohio Company, in 1753, at a 'Considerable expense, opened the road. In 1754, the troops whom I had the honor to command, greatly repaired it, as far as Gisfs plan- tation ; and, in 1755, it was loidenedand completed by Gen. Braddock to within six miles of Fort Du Quesne." * This is a brief history of the celebrated "Braddock's road." We will hereafter take the reader over it more leisurely. It was, until near its fatal termina- tion, identical with Nemacolin's path, which, also, from Gist's northward, with a few variations, was identical with the old Catawba trail, or -with its westward branch to the head of the Ohio. And we will see what Braddock lost by not following it implicitly to the end. Dunlap's path, or road, was a very early one. It came from Winchester, by way of Wills' creek, to the mouth of Dunlap's creek. Dunlap was a trader, and, as Braddock did with the road, so he succeeded in wresting from ]^emacolin the name of the creek, which now bears his name. From Wills' creek to the top of Laurel hill, near the Great Kock, the route of Dunlap's road was identical with that of Nemacolin or Braddock.^ From that point Nemacolin's path bore north-east, along the crest of the moun- tain ; while Dunlap's bore westwardly, descending the mountain a little south of the present ISTational road, taking to Lick run about a mile from the foot of the hill. Thence it passed through the southern part of Monroe, by Isaac Brownfield's, past James McCoy's fort, near Samuel Hatfield's brick barn, crossing the Cherokee trail some eight rods north of Rev. W. Brownfield's house ; thence to Coal lick or Jacob's run, on land now of N. * In Gen. Richard Butlei-'s journal of his expedition down the Ohio, in 1785, in com- pany with Colonel, afterwards President Monroe, to treat with the Miami Indians, he speaks of an island called Nemacolin's, between the mouths of the Little Kenahwa and Hocking, doubtless a subsequent abode of the same Indian. * II. Sparks' Washington, 302, in an eloquent letter to Col. Bouquet, urging this route to be taken by Gen. Forbes, in 1758. 5 Col. Burd, in the .journal of his expedition to Redstone, in 1759, says: "At the foot of the hill [meaning the eastern base of Laurel hill] we found the path that went to Dunlap's ^lace, that Col. Shippen and Capt. Gordon traveled last winter ; and about a quarter of a mile from this we saw the Big rock, so called." Dunlap's place, we believe, was where Wm. Stone now resides, on the Burnt Cabin fork of Dunlap's creek. 28 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. III. Brownfield (where a braucli led ofi" to Provance's bottom, or mouth of Big Whitely) ; thence passing by David Jennings', on Jennings' run, near Samuel Harris', and through the old John Woods' land, towards Jackson's or Grace churcli, near to which, in the head of Vail's sugar camp hollow, it united with the Redstone trail, or Burd's road, presently to be sketched. And were it not that a Virginia statute, hereafter to be cited, calls for this road as starting at Medstone Old Fori, we would make its western terminus at Craw- ford's ferry, to which it is certain a branch led. Perhaps the main path originally went from the fort up the river to the ferry or ford there, to connect with the road to Catfish's camp, ("Wash- ington, Pa.) which took to the river there to avoid the steep and rugged bluff opposite Brownsville. When Virginia took it into her head to claim and exercise juris- diction over this region of country,^ she, by a statute passed in October, 1776, gave a temporary legal existence to Dunlap's road, by making it part of the dividing line between the counties of Mon- ongalia and Yohogania. It is now as completely sunk in oblivion as most of her politicians wish the line of 36° 30' to become. The "road to Redstone," or Burd's road, as it was afterwards called, was originally an Indian trail, from the mouth of Redstone to the summit of Laurel hill, near the Great Rock and Washing- ton's spring — the great focus of old roads — where it united with Dunlap's road and others. From Gist's to the Rock it seems to have been identical with JS'emacolin's or Braddoek's road. It was a much traveled path by the Indians, by early traders and adven- turers, and by the French during the early part of the war of 1754-63. Captain Trent passed over it in February, 1754, on his way with men and tools and stores, to build a fort for the Ohio Company at the forks of the Ohio, and when he built the Hangard at the mouth of Redstone. By this path, also, came the French and Indians, under M. de Villiers, who attacked Col. Washington at Fort Necessity, and it was much used by them in their annoying excursions, during Braddoek's and Dunbar's marches, in connection with canoe navigation up and down the Monongahela, of all which we will read further in subsequent sketches.'' We will also see hereafter,' that when Col. Washington, in June, 1754, found himself not strong enough to advance to Fort ^ See postea — sketch of ^^ Boundary Controversy, ;ahela. On the 7th they accomplished their triumphant return to Fort Du Quesne, "having burnt down," says M. de Villiors, in his Journal, " all the settlements they found." "Washington returned, sadly and slowly, to Wills' creek, and thence to Alexandria; and now the French colors float over the entire Mississippi Valley. The historian of " Braddock's campaign" (W. Sargent) asserts, upon what authority is not stated, that at the time of the surrender, "half the garrison was drunk." Be this true or not, it seems the materiel was there, for M. de Villiers records that when he took possession of the fort he very considerately executed the " Maine law " upon sundry casks of liquor, to prevent Indian excesses. And it may be, that in accordance with the " spirit of the age," the half-starved and rain-drenched soldiers w^ere allowed to season their sloiv beef and dry their powder and clothes with 7^mn, the only article they seem to have had a surplus of. There is cotemporary testimony to a much more pleasing fact: that Washington caused prayers to be said in the fort daily ; proba- bly read by himself (for he had no Chaplain,) from the ritual of the English Episcopal Church, then the legal religion of Virginia. His friend Lord Fairfax suggested this observance to influence the Indians. But Washington was doubtless " moved thereunto " by higher and holier considerations. If both these facts he fads, what an incoherent medley of order and confusion, of staid solemnity and swaggering courage, did the old Meadow fort present on that memorable day I And who knows but that both contributed to avert the horrors of an Indian onslaught, and to assuage the anguish of the surrender. Nor must we either w^onder at the strange association of influences, or censure Washington for their allowance. Two years afterwards, when Dr. Franklin played General on the Lehigh, he had for his Chaplain the Rev. Charles Beatty, a very worthy Presbyterian Minister, and a pioneer of religion in W^estern Pennsylvania, who, as Franklin records, served also as "Steward of the Rum," dealing it out just after the prayers and exhortations, to secure the soldiers attendance, "and never," says he, " were prayers more generally or more punctually attended." The engraving and description of "Fort N-ecessity " given in Sparks' Washington (vol. 1, p. ;">6, and vol. 2, p. 457,) are inaccu- CH. IV.] THE FRENCH AVAR. — WASHINGTON'S CAMPAIGN, &G. 53 rate. It may have presented that diamond shape, in 1830. But in 1816, the senior author of these sketches made a regular survey of it, with compass and chain. The accompanying engraving exhibits its form and proportions." As thereby shown, it was in the form of an obtuse angled triangle of 105 degrees, having its base or hypothenuse upon the run. The line of the base was, about midway, sected or broken, and about two perches of it thrown across the run, connecting with the base by lines of about the same length, nearly perpendicular to the opposite lines of the triangle. One line of the angle was six, the other seven perches; the base line eleven perches long, including the section thrown across the run. The lines embraced in all about fifty square perches of land, or nearly one-third of an acre. The embank- ments then (1816,) were nearly three feet above the level of the Meadow. The outside "trenches," (in which Captain Mackay's men were stationed when the fight began, but from which they were Jiooded out,) were filled up. But inside the lines were ditches or excavations, about two feet deep, formed by throwing the earth up against the palisades. There were then no traces of " bastions," at the angles, or entrances. The junctions of the Meadow, or glade, with the wooded upland, were distant from the fort on the south-east about 80 yards, — on the north about 200 yards, and on the south about 250. l^orth-westward in the direction of the Turnpike road, the slope was a very regular and gradual rise to the high ground, which is about 400 yards distant. From this eminence the enemy began the attack, but afterwards took posi- tion on the east and south-east, nearer the fort. One or two field pieces skillfully aimed and fired would have made short work of it. A more inexplicable, and much more inexcusable error than that in Mr. Sparks' great work, is the statement of Colonel J3urd, in the Journal of his expedition to Redstone in 1759. He says the fort was round ! with a house in it ! That Washington may have had some sort of a log, bark-covered cabin erected within his lines, is not improbable ; but how the good Carlisle Colonel could meta- morphose the Hues into a circidar form is a mystery which we cannot solve. 11 The lithographed view of "Fort Necessity," which forms the frontispiece of this book, varies a little, but not materially, from the description here given. The design of the young artist ( David Shriver Stewart, son of Hon. Andrew Stewart, of Fayette,) is to represent the Surrender, .on the morning of July 4, 1754. Washington is shown upon the only poor horse left capable of locomotion. In every respect, the picture is not only topographically, but historically correct ; losing, however, much of its force and beauty by having to be lithographed upon a much reduced scale. 54 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. IV. The site of tliis renowned fort is well known. Its ruins are yet visible. It stands on Great Meadow run, whicli empties into the Youghiogheny. The " Great Meadows," with which its name associates in history, was a large natural meadow or glade, now highly cultivated and improved. The place is now better known by the name of "Mount Washington," on the National Road, ten miles east of Uniontown, the old fort being about 300 yards south- ward of the brick mansion, or tavern house. In by-gone da^'s thousands of travelers have stopped here, or rushed by, without a thought of its being or history ; while a few have thrown a rever- ential glance upon the classic spot. Washington, in all his after life, seems to have loved the place. As early as 1767 he acquired from Virginia a preemption right to the tract of land (284 acres), which includes the fort; the title to which was afterwards confirmed to him by Pennsylvania. It is referred to in his last will, and he owned it at his death. His executors sold it to Andrew Parks of Baltimore, whose wife, Harriet, was a relative and legatee of the General. She sold it to the late General Thomas Meason, who sold it to Joseph Huston, as whose property it was bought at sheriffs sale by Judge Ewing, who sold it to the late James Sampey, Esq., whose heirs have recently sold it to a Mr. Fasen- baker. An ineffectual effort was made some years ago to erect a ■monument upon the site: it is hoped that it will yet be done. The "first battle ground of Washington" surely deserves a worthier mark of commemoration than mouldering embankments sur- mounted by a few decaying bushes. CHAPTER V. braddock's campaign. War in earnest — Albany Council — Indians join the French — Braddock's march — His Forces, Officers and Attendants — Slow movements — His encampments — Division of Army — River fordings — The Battle — Terrible defeat and losses — Retreat — Drought — Gist's Plantation — Washington — N. Gist — Dunbar's division — Dunbar's camp — Flight — Ancient tavern — Braddock's death — Grave — Who killed Braddock? — Tom Fossit — Career and Character of Braddock — Apology for Dunbar — Consequences of the Defeat — Foi-bes' conquest — No more battle on Fayette territory. By the acta of both parties a state of war now existed between England and France ; and the wilds of America became the arena and the prize of the conflict. Hence the expedition of Washing- ton in 1754 was followed in the next year by Braddock's campaign, " an enterprise," says Mr. Sparks, " one of the most memorable in American history, and almost unparalleled for its disasters, and the universal disappointment and consternation it occasioned." It was heralded with great preparation and promise, conducted with great show and expenditure, and ended in unprecedented loss of life and treasure. We purpose not to write its history, but only to record such of its events as transpired upon Fayette terri- tory ; noticing briefly other matters which seem needful for their being rightly understood.^ While Washington, in June, 1754, was wending his toilsome march from the Great Meadows to Gist's, a convention or council was sitting at Albany, composed of Commissioners from the colonies of JSTew York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and the 1 In the preparation of this sketch, we have drawn largely from that most valuable recent publication by the " Pennsylvania Historical Society," entitled " The History of an Expedition against Fort Du Quesne, in 1755, under Major General Edivard Braddock, Generalissimo of H. B. M. forces in America. Edited from the original manusci'ipts, by Winthrop Sargent, A. M., member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania." Octavo, 1855. _ This is the most minute and interesting detail of the events of that expedition, and history of the French war in America generally, which has appeared. Every Fayette reader should peruse it. Its chief basis is the Journal of Captain Orme, one of General Braddock's Aids. But this has served only as a nucleus around which the author has gathered with unwonted labor and research, a full narrative of the causes and achievements of that eventful war. 56 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. four jSTew England colonies, of the one part ; and chiefs and war- riors representing the Mingoes or Six Nations, of the other part. Among its results was a treaty or deed, by which the Indians named ceded to the Penns a very considerable portion of territory, calling for the southern and western limits of the province of Pennsylvania, but really, by the descriptive terms used, not extend- ing to either. This ambiguity, if such it could be called, and the ever encroaching spirit of the colonists, led to disputes and to jealousies on the part of the Indians. The Delawares and Shawa- nese, with considerable justness, asserted a right to the territory claimed to have been ceded, which the Six Nations could not alienate, and which the latter asserted with equal justness that they had not ceded, or did not intend to cede. The two allied tribes named were greatly dissatisfied, and complained that the cession, if as claimed, " did not leave them a country to subsist in." Of these difficulties the French, who now held possession and power in the west, availed themselves with great ease and effect to the prejudice of the English pretensions. These Indian tribes and confederacy of tribes gradually and generally became hostile to the Anglo-Saxon colonists. And even the few who had adhered to Washington in 1754, wavered, and finally and almost wholly attached themselves to the French. As heretofore stated, these friendly Indians, after having retired with Washington's retreating forces for a while to Virginia, soon took refuge at Aughwick, in Pennsylvania. But the outside influences were, in 1755, against the continuance of their friendship. The Ilalf-king, their IsTestor and Achilles, died in October, 1754, at Harris' Ferry ; and in April, 1755, the Pennsylvania colony refused longer to sup- port them and their destitute families. This adverse state of the colonial relations with the lords of the soil, told with terrible effect upon the fortunes of Braddock and his army ; and when to it is added the neglect and maltreatment by Braddock of the few who evinced a willingness to uphold his standard, we have the key to his fate. But eight, — among them Monacatootha, or Scarrayoddy, followed his colors up to the fatal day ; whilst, with other advantages, the French brought hundreds to their aid, led, it is said, by the afterwards renowned Pontiac. On the 7th, 8th and 10th of June, 1755, the array of Major General Sir Edward Braddock marched from fort Cumberland, or the mouth of Wills' creek. It consisted of the 44th Regi- ment of (English) Infantry, Colonel Sir Peter Halket, the 48th, Colonel Thomas Dunbar, sundry Independent (colonial) companies, CH. v.] braddock's campaign. 57 a company of horse, another of artillery, a company of marines, &c., in all 2150, " besides the usual train of non-militants, who always accompany an army, women who could not fight, Indians who would not, and wagoners who cut loose their horses and fled, at the first onset." The other field officers were Lieutenant Colonels Burton and Gage (of Bunker Hill notoriety) ; Majors Chapman and Sparks ; Major Sir John Sinclair, Deputy Quarter Master General; Matthew Leslie, his assistant; Francis Halket, Brigade Major; William Shirley, Secretary ; and Robert Orme, Roger Morris and George Washington, Esquires, aids-de-camp to the General. We have, in the preceding sketch, named some of the Captains — Stephen, Lewis, Poison, Hogg, Peyronie, Mercer and Waggoner. These commanded provincial troops, chiefly from Virginia. The New York Independent companies were commanded by Captains Rutherford and Horatio Gates, the General Gates to whom Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga. Christopher Gist and hia son Ij^athaniel, accompanied the army as guides ; George Croghan, the Indian Agent, of Aughwick, with Montour, interpreter, were also about, trying to be useful in the Indian department, aided by Monacatootha and Captain Jack, the " wild hunter of the Juniata." Among the Virginia surgeons, were Doctors James Craik and Hugh Mercer, men of imperishable fame.^ They were both Scotchmen, the latter having fled to Virginia from the service of the Pretender on the fatal field of CuUoden. Dr. Craik had followed Washington in his campaign^of 1754, was his companion in his journey to the west in 1770, and was his physician at his '■'■ Both these distingiiished men became owners of land in what is now Fayette County. Dr. Craik owned the two tracts called " Boland's camp," and " Froman'a Sword," on Boland's and Bute's Runs, in Franklin township, which are warranted in the name of James Craig. General Douglas, as his attorney in fact, sold them to Samuel Bryson. They have since been owned by the late James Paull, Jr., John Bute, the Aliens and others. Dr. Mercer's lands were two tracts near Braddock's road in Bull-skin township, pat- ented to him by the Penns in 1771. His executors sold them to Colonel Isaac Mcason. See note (13,) to "Early Settlements," Chapter VI. Dr. Mercer was badly wounded at Braddock's field; and being unable to escape in the general flight, concealed himself for a while behind a fallen tree, where he witnessed the plundering and scalping of the dead and dying. At night he set out alone ; and guided by the stars and streams, after several days of painful, half starved wandering, reached fort Cumberland in safety. A like misfortune befel him when serving as Captain in Colonel John Armstrong's expedi- tion against the Indians at Kittanning in 1756, from which he again returned a wounded wanderer, to fort Cumberland. He had a great life, which was reserved as a sacrifice in a nobler cause. 58 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. death. Dr. Mercer became a field ofiicer in the Revolution, and fell at Princeton in January, 1777. One month was spent in the march from fort Cumberland to the fatal field. The route, as far as Gist's, was that of Washington the year before ; and although Washington had marched from Wills' creek to the Meadows in twenty-three days, making the road as he went, yet it took Braddock eighteen days to " drag his slow length along" over the same distance, and Colonel Dunbar eight days longer. Truly did Washington say that " instead of pushing on with vigor, without regarding a little rough road, they were halting to level every mole-hill, and erect bridges over every brook." This needless delay, like every thing else in this campaign, contributed its share of adversity to the disastrous result. For while Braddock was halting and bridging, the enemy was acquiring a force of resist- ance and attack which three days' quicker movement would have anticipated. At the Little Meadows (Tomlinson's) a division of the army in the march was made; the General and Colonel Halket, with select portions of the two regiments, and of the other forces, lightly incumbered, going on in advance, being in all about 1400. Colonel Dunbar, with the residue, about 850, and the heavy baggage, artil- lery and stores, were left to move up by " slow and easy marches ;" an order which he executed so literally as to earn for himself the soubriquet of "Dunbar the tardy." When, on the 28th of June, Braddock was at Sieivarfs crossings (Connellsville,) Dunbar was only at the Little crossings. Here, Washington, under a violent attack of fever, had been left by Braddock, under the care of his friend Dr. Craik and a guard, two days in advance of Dunbar, to come on with him when able ; the gallant Aid requiring from the General a " solemn pledge " not to arrive at the French fort until he should rejoin him. And as Washington did not report himself until the day before the battle, this pledge may be some apology for Braddock having consumed eighteen precious days in marching about eighty miles. According to Captain Orme's journal, the encampments, &c., of Braddock in Fayette were as follows : On the 24th of June he marched from Squaw's fort (near Somer- field,) six miles to a camp east of the Great Meadows, near the "twelve springs." He crossed the Yough without bridging, about half a mile above where the national road now crosses it. In this day's march they passed a recently abandoned Indian camp, indi- cating by the number of huts that about 170 had been there. " They CH. v.] braddock's campaign. 59 had stripped and painted some trees, upon whicli they and the French had written many threats and bravadoes, with all kinds of scurrilous language." This encampment of Braddock was between Mt. Augusta and Marlow's, south of the ISTational Eoad. June 25th. — The army moved about seven miles, and encamped in what is now the old orchard, near and northwest of " Braddock's Grave," called then two miles west of the Great Meadows: — the General riding in anticipated triumph over the very spot which in twenty days was to be his last encampment. The army seems to have passed the ruins of Fort ISTecessity without a halt or a notice. It is singular they did not encamp there ; for Orme says they were late in getting to their ground, because that morning, about a quarter of a mile after starting, they had to let their carriages down a hill with tackle. In this day's march three men were shot and scalped by the enemy ; and the sentinels fired upon some French and Indians whom they discovered reconnoitering their camp — an annoyance now become so frequent, that on the next day Braddock offered a bounty of five pounds for every scalp that his Indians or soldiers would take. June 26th. — They marched only about four miles, by reason of the " extreme badness of the road," arriving at what Orme calls Rock Fort^ on Laurel Hill, a place now known as the Great Rock, near Washington Spring, and the Half-king's old camp, being a little over two miles southward of Dunbar's camp. We quote here from Orme's journal: "At our halting place we found another In- dian camp, which they had abandoned at our approach, their tires being yet burning. They had marked in triumph upon trees the scalps they had taken two days before, and many of the French had written on them their names and sundry insolent expressions. We picked up a commission on the march, which mentioned the party being under the command of the Sieur Kormanville. This Indian camp was in a strong situation, being upon a high rock, with a very narrow and steep ascent to the top. It had a spring in the middle, and stood at the termination of the Indian path to the Mononga- hela at Redstone.^ By this pass the party came which attacked Mr. Washington last year, and also this which attended us. By their tracks they seem to have divided here, the one party going straight forward to Fort Du Quesne, and the other returning by Redstone creek to the Monongahela. A captain's detachment of ^ See preceding sketch of " Indian Trails, <5"C." — Cbap. III. 60 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. 94 men marched with guides, to fall in the night upon the latter division. They found a small quantity of provisions and a very large batteau, which they destroyed, but saw no men ; and the Cap- tain joined the General next day at Gist's." June 27th. — "We marched," says Orme, " from the camp at Rock Fort to Gist's Plantation, which was about six miles, the road still mountainous and rocky. Here the advanced party was relieved, and all the wagons and carrying horses with provision belonging to that detachment joined us." This advanced party consisted of about 400, under Lieut. Col. Burton, who, with Sir John Sinclair, had been sent in advance to cut and make the road, taking with them two six-pounders, with ammunition, three wag- ons of tools, and thirty-five days' provisions, all on pack horses. June 28th. — The army marched from Gist's, where the encamp- ment was near Washington's of the previous year — to a camp near to, and west of, Stewart's crossing* of the Yough, a short half mile below N"ew Haven, on land now of Daniel Rogers, formerly Col. William Crawford. It has been commonly supposed that a division of the army in the march here took place — the English troops, &c., here crossing the river and bearing northward ; while the Virginia, or colonial forces, went down the river and crossed at the Broad-ford, thence bearing more to the west, crossing Jacob's creek at Stouffer's mill — the two divisions re-uniting at Sewickley, near Painter's salt works. There may be error in this idea. Orme's journal has no notice of any such division. The Broad-ford route may be that which was traversed by the detachments, or convoys of provisions, &c., from Dunbar's division, which were from time to time sent up to the main army ; one of which, Orme says, came up at Thicketty run, a branch of Sewickley, on the 5th of July. Another detach- ment of 100 men, with pack horse loads of flour, and some beeves, according to Washington's letters, left the camp west of the Great Meadows on the 3d of July, with which he went, joining the army on the 8th, the day before the battle, "in a covered wagon." This convoy took up the one hundred beeves which were among the losses in the defeat. It is a noticeable fact, that Washington, enfeebled by a consuming fever, was so invigorated by the sight of the scenes * So called from the name of an early settler and Indian trader, -vrho was drowned in the Yough at or near the fording which for more than a century has commemorated the event. He probably had a temporary abode near the same place. Seo Affidavit of Wil- liam Stewart in Note (1,) to Memoir oithe Gists, in "Early Settlers" — postea, Chap. VII. CH, v.] braddock's campaign. 61 of his discomfiture the previous year, as to seize the opportunity of celebrating its first anniversary by hastening on to partake in an achievement which, as he fondly hoped, would restore to his king and country all that had been lost by his failure. How sadly was he disappointed ! June 30th. — The army to-day crossed the Yough at Stewart's Crossing or Ford, in strict military style, with advanced guard first passed and posted. There is here a little confusion in Captain Orme's journal. ISTot only does he make the west to be the east side of the Yough, but he says, " We were obliged to encamp about a mile on the west [east] side, where we halted a day, to cut a passage over a mountain ! This day's march did not exceed two miles." It would seem the halt was on the 29th, before crossing the river; for the march is resumed on the 1st of July. This "mountain" is the bluff known as "the narrows," below David- son's mill. The camp is not certainly known ; probably on land late of Robert Long, deceased; — maybe it was south of the nar- rows, on Mr. Davidson's land. July 1st. — Says Orme, "We marched about five miles, but could advance no further by reason of a great swamp, which required much work to make it passable." The course was north-eastward. This siuamp can be no other than that fine looking champaign land about the head waters of Mountz's creek and Jacob's creek, north and east of the old chain bridge, embracing lands formerly of Col. Isaac Meason, now Geo. E. Hogg and others. July 2d. — The army moved in the same direction (east of north) about six miles, to "Jacob's Cabin." The localities of this and the last preceding camp cannot be pre- cisely fixed; and the curious reader and topographer is left to his own conclusions from the data given. Jacob's Cabin was doubtless the abode of an Indian, who gave his name to the creek on which he trapped and hunted. July 3d. — " The swamp being repaired, we marched about six miles to Salt-lick creek. This^ Salt-lick creek is Jacob's creek, and the camp at the end of this day's march was near Welshonse's mill, about a mile and a half below Mount Pleasant. Although now beyond the confines of Fayette, we may as well follow the army route to its end. From Welshonse's mill the '^ What is now known as Indian creek, a tributary of the Yough above Connellsvillc-', was also formerly called Salt-lick creek — whence Salt-lick township. Both derived their common name from the salt licks in the vicinity of their head springs. 62 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. course was northward, passing just to the west of Mount Pleasant; thence crossing Sewickley (" Thicketty run ") near Painter's salt works; thence, hearing a little westward, it crossed the present tracks of the Pennsylvania Rail Road and Turnpike, west of Greens- burg, to the Bush fork of Turtle creek. Here Braddock aban- doned his wise design to approach the French fort by the ridge route, or Nemacolin's path, being deterred by the difficulties of crossing the deep and rugged ravines of the streams. Turning, at almost a right angle, westward, he got into the valley of Long run at or near Stewartsville, and went down it past Samson's mill, en- camping on the night of the 8th of July, where Washington joined him, about two miles east of the Monongahela. The army moved from this encampment early next morning, turning into the valley of Crooked run, which they followed to its mouth, and crossed the river at "Braddock's upper ford," below M'Keesport; thence down the river on the west side, about three miles, to Braddock's lower ford, just below the mouth of Turtle creek and Dam jSTo. 2, where they recrossed to the fatal encounter of the 9th of July. This double crossing of the river was to avoid the intervening narrows. It does not come within our design to rehearse the oft-told tale of Braddock's Defeat, which for more than a century has been a word of horror. Braddock had conducted the march hitherto with most commendable care and with signal success; and now, as he neared the object of his labor and ambition, he took all the precautionary measures to avoid surprise and disaster which his military education called for. But, unfortunately, he knew nothing of Indian gunnery and backwoods tactics. He was sensible that his near approach was known at the French fort, and that all his movements were closely and secretly watched. Hence, at the crossings of the river he had his advanced guards well posted, and having caused his soldiery to be well appareled and their arms brightened, he made a display well calculated to strike terror into the enemy's spies, and to inspire his men with a feeling very variant from a presage of the sudden discomfiture and death which in a few hours awaited them. Washington was wont to say that he never saw a more animating sight than the army's second crossing of the Mononga- hela. Coming events cast no disheartening shadow before them. Yet it was known that Sir Peter Halket, Mr. Secretary Shirley and Major Washington, were not without anxious forebodings. Controcoeur, the commandant at the fort, frightened at the exaggerated reports of the numbers and gun-power of the English, had prepared to surrender, or to fly, as his successor did before CH. v.] braddock's campaign. 63 Forbes in 1758. Indeed he reluctantly yielded assent to any re- sistance. And when, on the 8th, MM. Beaujeau, Dumas and De Ligueris sought a detachment of regulars and Indian aid, it was merely to dispute the river passes and to annoy and retard the march of the English. They had caused the ground to be thoroughly examined, and knew well the ravines, or natural trenches, which so well served them for attack and protection in the conflict. But the English knew them not. Herein was Braddock's decisive deficiency. To comprehend the nature of the action and the incvitableness of Braddock's defeat, one must visit the field. He will there, even yet, see two ravines, dry, with almost perpendicular banks, just high enough to conceal, protect and tire from, capable of containing an army of 2000 men, putting down across the gently sloping second bank of the river towards it, one on each side of the line of Braddock's march, converging towards the high hill which over- looks the scene. And if he will imagine this second bank to be densely wooded, and covered with a thick and tangled web of peavine and other undergrowth, with a newly cut road, twelve feet wide, passing about midway between the ravines, and at no place more than eighty yards distant from one or the other, he will have fully before him the scene of the disaster. The French and Indians were about 900 strong, the latter being more than two-thirds of the force. They arrived on the ground too late to dispute the passage of the river. The army had crossed, formed its line of march, and was moving — marching into the snare — when the enemy appeared right in front and near the heads of the ravines. As if by magic, at a preconcerted silent signal from M. Beaujeau, the chief in command, the Indians at once disappeared right and left into the excavations, leaving only the little French line visible. These were engaged with spirit and success by Lieut. Ool. Gage, and until the Indians began to pour in their invisible deadly shots, the poise of battle favored the English. It soon changed, and no efibrts could restore it. Even tree fighting could not have saved the doomed English soldiery, who held their ground, fought well, and obeyed their oflficers as long as they had officers to command them. They were in the jaws of death, and nothing could have delivered them, except, perhaps, a timely charge of dragoons into the ravines, or a raking fire of grape or round shot, up or down their paths. The excuse for not essaying these expe- dients, is, that the ravines were unknown and invisible. Even yet. when all is clear around them, you do not discern them until you 64 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. are almost ready to step into them. If the arch demon of Death had been commissioned to fit np an arena for surprise and overthrow, he could not have made it more complete. The further stages of the encounter, v^^hich lasted from about one to five, P. M., need not be here noted. Of the 1460, .besides women and other camp followers, who on that bright morning crossed the Monongahela, 456 were killed, and 421 wounded, many of them mortally. Out of 89 commissioned officers, 63 were killed or wounded. Among the killed were the brave Sir Peter Halket and the gallant young Secretary Shirley. All the artillery and ammunition, baggage, provisions, wagons, and many horses, were lost. The General lost his military chest, containing, it is said, .£25,000 in specie ($125,000), and all his papers. Washington also lost many valuable papers. In short, the officers and soldiers who escaped the carnage lost nearly everything, except the clothes on their backs and the arms in their hands ; many abandoning even these. Captain Orme saved his journal, now almost the only authentic continuous record of this most disastrous campaign. Braddock displayed, in the perplexing circumstances of the action, great activity and courage. His only shortcomings were those already noticed. He had four horses killed under him ; and, after having mounted a fifth, while in the act of issuing an order, near the head of one of the ravines, and near the end of the conflict, he received a mortal wound, the ball shattering his right arm and passing into his lungs. He fell to the ground, " surrounded by the dead and almost abandoned by the living." And had it not been for the devotedness of his Aid, Captain Orme, and the almost obstinate fidelity of Capt. Stewart, of Virginia, who commanded the light horse, the fallen General would have had his wish gratified — that the scene of his disaster should also witness his death. He was borne from the ground at great risk, at first in a tumbril, then on a horse. Every officer above the mnk of captain was now either killed or disabled, except Washington, who escaped unhurt, though two horses were shot under him and his clothes pierced with balls. So feeble and emaciated was he that day that he had to ride upon a pillow." The drums had beat a retreat just before Braddock fell, and now Washington undertook to give to it whatever of order it was susceptible of, — for it was a headlong flight. The retreat was 8 Letter of Hon. Wm. Findley, of Westmoreland, relating Washington's own account of this disastrous day, in JNiles' llcgisler, Vol. XIV., page 179. CH. v.] braddock's campaign. 65 by the same route as the advance, crossing the river at the same fording.' The enemy did not pursue, but remained to riot in scalps and plunder. Braddock was carried with the little remnant of the army that could be held together. It is not probable that the panic-stricken fugitives all returned to Gist's by the same path; — many, through fear of pursuit, betaking themselves to the woods and by-ways. The Pennsylvania wagoners, it is said, escaped to a man, astride their fleetest horses. Certain it is that by ten o'clock next morning several of them were in Dunbar's camp on Laurel Hill, nearly forty miles distant, with the tidings of Job's messengers. And one or two wounded officers were carried into the camp before noon of that day. After crossing to the west side of the river in the flight, a rally was effected of about 100 men, with whom were Braddock, Burton and Washington. From this point Washington was sent to Dunbar for aid, and wagons to convey the wounded. The road was then new and hard to find in the night. There had been a coldness between the General and Dunbar; hence it was deemed necessary, to ensure obedience, that Washington, as an aid-de-camp, should go with orders. Weak and exhausted as he was, he shrunk not from the duty. He set out with two men in a night so wet and dark that frequently they had to alight from their horses and grope for the road. Nevertheless, they reached Dunbar's camp about sunrise.® Braddock and his few followers reached Gist's about ten o'clock that evening. What a dismal scene did " Gist's plantation" present on that warm summer night, as the dying General and his few hungry and wounded adherents lay prostrate and sleepless around the Indian's spring, waiting for food and surgical aid to come from the camp of "Dunbar the tardy ! " Nathaniel Gist,^ son of Christopher, with " Gist's Indian," were dispatched from the battle-field to Fort Cumberland, with tidings ' It is probable the river was then uncommonly low. In the Pennsylvania Colonial Records, Vol. VI., under date of June 6th, 1755, a Fast is proclaimed, because of "there having been no rain for tv;o or three months, and all sorts of grain near perishing, and as the General was beginning his march." The Allegheny was so low that the French had great difBculty in getting down from their upper forts. This fact, not, we believe, before noticed in any account of this campaign, may in some degree explain the difficulties of Braddock's and Dunbar's marches — the weakness of their horse power and the scarcity of flour and other provisions — there being no steam mills in those days. * Letter of Hon. Wm. Findley in XIV. Nilcs' Register, 179, before cited. » More of him hereafter, in memoir of the Gists, among '■'^ Early Settlers," Chap. VII. 5 ♦56 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. of the overthrow, but with instructions to avoid passing by, or disturbing the repose of Dunbar. They traveled a-foot, and through unfrequented paths, to avoid the Indians. While snatching some repose during the darkness of the first night of their journey, in a thicket of bushes and grape-vine, on Cove run, a branch of Shute's run, within view of the camp fires of Dunbar, they mistook the noise of the movement of* some bird or beast for Indians, and run with the heedlessness of alarm. They thus became separated. But each wended his way cautiously and alone. When nearing their destination, upon emerging from the bushes into the open road. Gist saw a few rods ahead his long lost Indian, who had also just taken the highway! Like two soothsayers, they had to laugh at each other for their causeless alarm and separation.^" Although the suflerings of Braddock, in mind and body, were intense, he was not unmindful of his dismayed and wounded sol- diers. Upon the arrival, on the morning of the 11th, at Gist's, of some wagons and stores from Dunbar, he sent ofl" a convoy of provisions for the relief of those supposed yet to be behind, and ordered up more wagons and troops from the camp, to bring off the wounded. It is probable these humane provisions were available to but few. Except as to the general oflicers, and perhaps a few others, all the badly wounded were left on the bloody field to the merciless cruelties of the savages, or perished in its vicinity. In after years human bones were found plentifully all around, some as far off as three miles. Having made these arrangements, had their wounds dressed, and taken some food, Braddock and his adherents, on Friday, the 11th, moved up to Dunbar's camp. We now go back a little, to trace the movements of Col. Dunbar. We left him at the Little Crossings on the 20th of June, with about 850 of the army, and the heavy artillery and stores. On the 2d of July he passed the Great Meadows, and on the 10th is found at his camp on the top of Laurel Hill. How long he had lain there is uncertain — several days. It is, perhaps, ample apology for the slow movements of Dunbar, that, besides the rugged and steep passes of the mountains, the troops he had with him were the refuse of the army, very many of whom sickened and died on the way, with the Jinx, and for want If* I had this story from old Henry ^Beeson, the founder of Uniontown, who had it from Uist himself. — F. L. CH. v.] braddock's campaigx. 67 of fresh provisions. The Indians and French constantly annoyed his march and beset his camps ; and, having got in his rear, cut off much of his scant}^ supplies. But the great cause of delay was the want of horse power to move his heavy train. After one day's toil at half the wagons and other vehicles, the poor jaded beasts had to go back the next day and tug up the other half, — often moving not more than three miles in a day, and consuming two days at each encampment. It was with more ease and rapidity that they moved down hill by block and tackle, than to ascend, by all their motive power of man and beast. So exhausted were the horses that an officer of the train estimated it would require twenty-five days for Dunbar to overtake Braddock, from the Great Meadows. And in the council of war held b}' Braddock at Jacob's creek on the 3d of July, to consider Sir John Sinclair's suggestion to halt, and send back all their horses, to bring up Dunbar's division, it was adjudged that with this aid he could not be brought up in less than eleven days, so weak were all the horses. Besides, it was never designed that Dunbar should overtake Braddock until the fort was captured. And this setting apart of him, his ofiicers and soldiers to an ignoble service — making it a "forgone conclusion " that they were not to share the honors or spoils of victory, soured their tempers and relaxed their exertions. Dunbar's Camp is situated south-east of the summit of Wolf hill, one of the highest points of Laurel Hill mountain, and about three thousand feet above the ocean level. It is in full view of Uniontown, to the eastward, about six miles distant, and is visible from nearly all the high points in Fayette, and the adjacent parts of Greene and Washington counties. The camp was about three hundred feet below the summit, and at about half a mile's distance, on the southern slope. It was then cleared of its timber, but is since much overgrown with bushes and small trees. It is, however, easily found by the numerous diggings in search of relics and treasure, by the early settlers and others even in later times. ISTear it are two fine sand springs, below which a dam of stones and earth, two or three feet high, was made, to aflbrd an abundant supply of water. This dam is still visible, though much overgrown by laurel. Into this spring, pool, or basin, it is said, when Dunbar's encampment was broken up, fifty thousand pounds of powder, with other materiel of war, were thrown, to render them useless to the enemy. Old Henry Beeson, the proprietor cf Uniontown, used to relate, that when he first visited those localities, in 1767, there were some six inches of black, nitrous matter visible all over this spring basin. 68 THE MONONOAHELA OF OLD, [CH. V. The locality of Jumonville's hiding place, the Half-king's camp, the Great Kock, and Washington's spring, in reference to Dunbar's camp, have been heretofore noticed. The Turkey Foot, or " Smith's road," from Bedford, crossed Braddock's, or Nemaoolin's road just at this camp. Both are yet plainly visible ; and the remains of an old stone chimney near this cross-roads indicate the site of an ancient tavern," where many a pioneer halted, and many an old emigrant and settler took his "ease in mine inn." It is now a lonely spot. When the remains of Braddock's division rejoined Dunbar here, on the 11th of July, the camp was found in great consternation and disorder. Many had fled the day before, on the tirst tidings of the slaughter of the 9th. And, as had been the case upon that disaster, the wagoners and pack-horse drivers were among the first to fly, and were the earliest messengers of the defeat to Governor Morris of Pennsylvania, then at Carlisle, superintending the forwarding of supplies. From their depositions, taken before him on the 17th, they left about noon on the 10th. They say nothing of Washing- ton's arrival. that morning, but say that Sir John Sinclair and anotherof the wounded ofiicers had been borne into camp on sheets, and others of Braddock's men, wounded and w^hole, before they left. They all represented Braddock as killed — some qualifying it by saying he had been wounded, put into a wagon, and afterwards "fell upon and murthered by the Indians." Orders still continued to be issued in Braddock's name, though his life was fast ebbing away. Retreat became inevitable. The camp was abandoned on the 12th. All the stores and supplies, artillery, &c., which had been brought hither at such great labor and expense, were destroyed. Nothing was saved beyond the actual necessities of a flying march. These included two six- pounders, and some hospital stores, horses and light wagons for the sick and wounded, of whom there were over three hundred. The rest of the artillery, cohorns, &c., were broken up, the shells bursted, the powder thrown into the spring basin, the provisions and baggage scattered, and one hundred and fifty wagons burned. A few days afterwards some of the enemy came up and completed the work of destruction. " Tills must not be confounded with Fossit's, afterwards Slack's, "Hotel," which was ■further south, near the Great Rock and "Washington's spring, where sundry old roads ' united. CH. v.] bkaddock's campaign. 69 It has been a curreDt tradition, based upon cotemporary state- ments/^ that some of the field pieces and other munitions of war, and even money, were buried or concealed near the camp ; and much time and labor have been spent in their fruitless search. This story, it seems, reached the ears of Dunbar while on his retreat from Wills' creek through Pennsylvania; and he and all his ofiicers, in a letter to Governor Shirley,'^ dated August 21, 1755, expressly con- ti'adict it in these words : " We must beg leave to undeceive you in what you are pleased to mention oi guns being buried at the time General Braddock ordered the stores to be destroyed ; for there icas not a gun of any kind buried." However, such things as cannon balls, bullets, brass and iron kettles, crow-bars, files, some shells, irons of horse gears and wagons, &c., &c., have been found by the early settlers and other explorers. The remains of the re-united army encamped on the night of the 13th of July at the old orchard camp, "two miles west" of Fort JSTecessity. Here Braddock died — having, before he expired, it is said, but rather apocryphally, bequeathed to Washington his favorite charger and his body servant, Bishop. Mr. Headley has endeavored to give to Braddock's funeral the romantic interest of the burial of Sir John More, "darkly, at dead of night," by the light of a torch, instead of "lanterns dimly burning," and with the addition of Washington reading the funeral service. But he was buried in daylight, on the morning of the 14th, in the road, near the run and old orchard, and the march of the troops, horses and wagons passsed over the grave to obliterate its traces, and thus prevent its desecration by the enemy. The tree labeled "Brad- dock's Grave " indicates the place, nearly, where were re-interred, 12 It is not improbuble that this belief originated from a letter of Col. Burd to Governor Mori'is, dated, Fort Cumberland, July 25th, 1755, in -which the Colonel relates in detail a dinner conversation at that place with Dunbar, then on his retreat, after which he adds: — "Col. Dunbar retreated with 1500 effective men [effective? — at least 300 sick and wounded, and as many more scared to death]. He destroyed all his provisions, except what he could carry for subsistence. He likewise destroyed all the powder he had with him, to the amount, I think, of 50,000 pounds. His mortars and shells he buried, and brought with him two six-pounders. He could carry nothing off for want of horses." So fully impressed was Col. Burd with this belief, that, when on his march out to cut the "road to Redstone" and build Fort Burd, in Septembei-, 1759, he stopped at Dunbar's camp — "the worst chosen piece of ground for an encampment I (he) ever saw" — and spent a day there. " Reconnoitered all the cayip, and attempted to find the cannon and mortars, but could not discover them, although we dug a great many holes where stores had been buried, and concluded the French had carried them off." i» VI. Colonial Records, 593. 70 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. about 1820, some of the bones of a man supposed to be Braddoek. They had been dug out of the bank of the run, in 1812, in repairing the old road. They may, or may not, have been the bones of Brad- dock. The military accompaniments, said to have been found with them, indicate that they were. Several of the bones were carried off before the re-interment at the tree, many of which, it is said, were afterwards collected by Abraham Stewart, Esq., (who was the road supervisor when they were dug out,) and sent to Peale's Museum at Philadelphia, as curiosities ! "We doubt this tale. But it is a lasting stigma upon the British Government that it made no effort to reclaim the reliques of this brave but unfortunate com- mander, and that "not a stone tells where he lies." Col. Burd • says he found the spot of his interment, about " twenty rods from a little hollow," &c., when he came out in 1759. But Washington says" that when he buried him, "he designed at some future day to erect a monument to his memory ; which he had no opportunity of doing till after the Revolutionary war, when he made [in 1784] diligent search for his grave, but the road had been so much turned and the clear land so extended, that it could not be found." Who killed Braddoek? — has been made a grave question in tra- dition and history. For at least three-quarters of a century the current belief has been that he was shot by one Thomas Fossil, an old resident of Fayette county. The story is therefore entitled to our notice. Mr. Sargent, in his interesting " History of Braddock's Campaign," devotes several pages [244 — 252] to a collation of the evidence upon the question, and arrives very logically from the evidence at the conclusion that the story is false, got up by Fossit and others to heroize him, at a time when it was popular to have killed a Britisher. ISTevertheless, the fact may be that Fossit shot him. There is nothing in the facts of the case, as they occurred on the ground, to contradict it, — nay, they rather corroborate it. Brad- dock was shot on the battle field by somebody. Fossit was a provincial private in the action. There was generally a bad state of feeling between the General and the provincial recruits, owing chiefly to his obstinate opposition to tree fighting, and to his infuriate resistance to the determined inclination of the backwoodsmen to fight in that way, to which they were countenanced by the opinions of Sir Peter Halket and Washington. Another fact is that much of the havoc of the English troops was caused by the firing of their " Letter of Hon. Wm. Findley, before referred to, in XIV. Niles' Register, 179. CH. v.] braddock's campaign. 71 own men — wherever they saw a smoke. But Braddock raised no smoke, and when he was shot a retreat had been sounded. If, therefore, Fossit did shoot him, he must have done it purposely. And it is said he did so, in revenge for the killing of a brother for persisting in firing from behind a tree. This is sustained by the fact that Tom had a brother, Joseph, in the action, who was killed. All these circumstances, with many others, seem to sustain the alle- gation. Against it are the inconsistencies and falsities of other ^aris of the testimony of the witnesses adduced, and even of Fossit's own narrations. "I knew Thomas Fossit well.^^ He was a tall, athletic man, indicating by his physiognomy and demeanor a susceptibility of impetuous rage, and a disregard of moral restraints. He was, moreover, in his later years, somewhat intemperate. When Fay- ette county was erected, in 1783, he was found living on the top of Laurel Hill, at the junction of Braddock's and Dunlap's roads, near Washington's spring, claiming to have there, by settlement, a hundred acres of land, which by deed dated in April, 1788, he conveyed to one Isaac Phillips. For many years he kept a kind of tavern, or resting place, for emigrants and pack-horse men, and afterwards for teamsters, at the place long known as Slack's, now Robert McDowell's. His mental abilities by no means equaled his bodily powers. And, like a true man of the woods, he often wearied the tired traveler with his tales about bears, deer and rattlesnakes, lead mines and Indians. I had many conversations with him about his adventures. He said he ' saw Braddock fall, knew who shot him — knew all about it,' but would never ac- knowledge to me that he aimed the deadly shot. To others it is said he did, and boasted of it. " I once kept a country school in Fayette county. One day, when the children were at noon play, I heard a cry of, ' there's old Fossit, the man who killed Braddock.' The children feared him, his appearance and noisiness, especially when intoxicated, being rather terrifying. 1 knew him, and got him to sit down by a tree, which soon dissipated the alarm of the children. He at once began fluttering his fingers over his moiith to imitate the roll of a drum. This amused them. He soon got at his old rigmarole, which ran about thus : — ' Poor fellows — poor fellows — they are all gone — murdered by a madman — Braddock was a madman — he would 1* The reader will understaiul that it is the senior of the dual authors who uow speak?, as elsewhere in these sketches in like cases. 72 THE MONONQAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. not let US tree, but made us stand out and be shot down, when we could see no Indians: — yes, Braddock was a madman — he said " no skulking, no treeing, but stand out and give them fair English play ;" — if he had been shot when the battle begun, and Washing ton had taken the command, we would have licked them, — yes, we'd a licked 'em.' 'How could you have done that?' I asked. 'Why, we'd 've charged on them, and driven them out of the bushes and peavine — then we would have seen their red skins, and could have peppered them — yes, we 'd 've peppered their red skins ! ' He would then repeat his 'boo-oo-oo — my old Virginia Blues — poor fellows — all gone,' &c., &c. — and tears would roll over his rough cheeks. "The last time I saw him was in October, 1816 He was then a pauper at Thomas Mitchell's, in Wharton township. He said he was then 104 years old, and perhaps he was. He was gathering in his tobacco. I stayed at Mitchell's two days, and Fossit and I had much talk about old times, the battle, and the route the army traveled. He stated the facts generally, as he had done before. He insisted that the bones found by Abraham Stewart, Esq., were not the bones of Braddock, but of a Col. Jones; — that Braddock and Sir Peter Halket were both buried in one grave, some fifty rods north-eastwardly of the place since marked as the place — that Braddock died at Dunbar's camp in the night, and his body was brought on to the next encampment, and buried in the camp, and that if he could walk to the place he thought he could point it out so exactly — near a forked appletree — that by digging, the bones could yet be found. "There are parts of this story wholly irreconcilable with well ascertained facts. There was no Col. Jones in Braddock's army. Sir Peter Halket and his son, Lieut. Halket, were killed and left on the field of battle. Braddock did not die at Dunbar's camp, but at the first camp eastward of it, and it is nowhere said that Braddock was buried in the camp, — but that might be true. Fossit died, I believe, in 1818, and was, consequently, according to his own statement, about 106 years old." The reader will naturally wish to know something of the previous history of Braddock and what was his military and private character. It is said he was an Irishman, but of Anglo-Saxon descent. His father bore the same name, and was an ofiicer in the Coldstream Guards, in which the son received his military training. The General was the only son, and left no issue. His two sisters also CH. v.] braddock's campaign. T3 died unmarried. This destitution of any near kindred may aid in accounting for the utter neglect of his remains and grave ; and for the absence of any attempt to vindicate his character from the aspersions which his appalling defeat rendered popular in England and America. At the early age of fifteen, Edward Braddock the younger entered service as Ensign in the second regiment of the Coldstream or Foot Guards, a very aristocratic division of the army, the body guard of Royalty, from the restoration of Charles II. to, perhaps, the present day — deriving its name from the place of its quarters. He rose rapidly through the grades of promotion without any signal achievements, and in 1745 became Lieut. Colonel. Yet it is re- corded that his regiment, under his command, behaved well at the battles of Fontenoy and Culloden. His patron and commander was the renowned Duke of Cumberland. In 1746 he was made a Brigadier- Greneral and sent on duty to Gibraltar. In March, 1754, he was gazetted a Major-General, and in September following was appointed Generalissimo of the forces to be sent to, and raised in, America, against the French. The appointment was a bad one, considering the country and the service he was to be employed in. He had too exalted an opinion of the universal efiiciency of old European modes of war- fare and of the regular arm, and too low an estimate of provincial troops and backwoods tactics. He was, moreover, haughty and imperious. Little was said of his private character prior to his death; but when gone to his last account, his reputation was blackened with almost all the crimes of the Decalogue, and many more — save that of cowardice; — his most rancorous defamers admit his bravery. No doubt much that was said against him was truly said, but there is as little doubt that great injustice has been done to his memory. That he was a gamester and a duellist is no doubt true ; but these were vices of his times and profession, of which better men than he were equally guilty. Says Horace Wal- pole, who delighted in the use of strong terms, " Desperate in his fortune, brutal in his behavior, obstinate in his sentiments, he was still intrepid and capable." His secretary, the lamented young Shirley, wrote of him before the defeat: " We have a General most judiciously chosen for being disqualified for the service he is in, in almost every respect. He may be brave for aught I know, and he is honest in pecuniary matters." Bravery and honesty are very strong redeeming qualities. Dr. Franklin, whose sagacity and accuracy in estimating men was unsurpassed, says of him, that "he 74 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. was a brave man, and might probably have made a figure as a good officer in some European war. But he had too much self-confi- dence, too high an opinion of the validity of regular troops, and too mean a one of both Americans and Indians." But the opinion of Washington, given of him, in mature years, after he had passed through the Revolution, is doubtless nearer the truth than any other. "I mentioned IS [to Washington] the bad impression I had received of Gen. Braddock as an officer. 'True — true,' said he, 'he was unfortunate, but his character was much too severely treated. He was one of the honestest and best men of the British officers with whom he had been acquainted; even in the manner of fighting he was not more to blame than others; — for, of all that were consulted, only one person [himself, probabl}',] objected to it.' And looking around seriously to me, he said, 'Braddock was both my General and my physician. I was attacked with a dangerous fever on the march, and he left a sergeant to take care of me, and James' fever powders, with directions how to give them, and a wagon to bring me on when I would be able,' &c." It is very manifest that many of the idle traditions which have so needlessly sought to exalt that truly great and just man at the expense of the fallen General, could have received no frame-work upon which to be woven, from him. Much opprobrium and censure was heaped upon Col. Dunbar, for not making a further eflJbrt to accomplish the object of the campaign, or at least making a stand until reinforced. But when it is recollected that great numbers of the troops with him, say 800 — at best none of the best" — were sick ; — that half of his accessions from the crushed remains of Braddock's division, say 400, were wounded, and all half naked and panic-stricken — we must be satisfied that such an army was not the kind with which either to stand or advance, in a wilderness with hostile surroundings fiushed with spoil and victory, without horses to move, or a prospect of obtaining them. The best justification of Dunbar is in the fact, that with all the effiarts and resources of crown and colonies for ^8 Hon. Wm. Fiudley's Letter relating a conversation with Washington while President, in XIV. Niles' Register, 179, before cited. ^■f The two regiments — the 44th and 48th, of the Irish Establishment, which formed the main body of Braddock's army, had been recruited for the campaign in Ireland and London by enlistments "of the worst class of men, who, had they not been in the army, would probably have been in Bridewell.'" — SargenVs '■'History of Braddock's Expedition" &c., 135. CH. v.] braddock's campaign. . 75 three succeeding years, and until Forbes' great army came in 1758, nothing was accomplished towards driving the French from Fort Du Quesne. Great talk and some eftbrt was made even that year (1755) in Virginia, under the influence of Col. Washington and Governor Dinwiddle, but nothing was done. The Virginia Gov- ernor proposed to the Governors of Pennsylvania and Maryland, to raise a force, cross the mountains, and build, and garrison with 800 men, a fort at the Great Crossings, (Someriield,) or at the Great Meadows. But the proposal was the end of it. For a long period succeeding the defeat of Braddock, the terri- tory of Fayette, in common with its adjacents, was given up entirely to the French and Indians, who seem to have used it for the subsistence of the forests, and as a field of transit for their predatory and warlike excursions further to the east and south; — which indeed they had begun before the defeat. For these purposes Braddock's road and the other ancient trails were much used. Says Washington, in a letter of May, 1756, to Gov. Dinwiddie, " The roads over the Allegheny Mountains are as much beaten as they were last year by Gen. Braddock's army." l^o white man not leagued with the new confederacy of French and Indians, could find a resting place in all the West. " You cannot conceive," wrote Gov. Morris of Pennsylvania to Gen. Johnson, in iNTovember, 1755, "what a vast tract of country has been depopulated by these merciless savages. I assure you that all the families from Augusta county in Virginia [of which we were then considered a part] to the river Delaware, have been obliged to quit their plantations, on the north side of that chain of mountains that is called the 'Endless Hills.' "i« Indeed the desolation seems to have extended further eastward. In ITovember, 1756, the Provincial Council of Pennsyl- vania was credibly informed that in Cumberland county (then embracing all Pennsylvania west of the Susquehanna, except what is now York and Adams) there were not left 100 men fit to bear arms, whereas a year before there had been over 3000. The colonies of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania sought to shut themselves up behind a chain of forts far to the east of their western limits, — the nearest to us being Forts Cumberland and Ligonier. Things remained thus, until, upon the accession of William Pitt, "the great commoner," to the Prime Ministry of England, new life and if The range which separates Franklin county from Bedford, and Huntingdon and Juniata from Ferry. 76 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. energy were infused into the civil and military arms. Thereupon, in 1758, General Forbes was sent out with an army of foreign and provincial troops, in all about 7000, who, in November of that year, frightened the French from Fort Du Quesne, and reestablished the English power around the head of the Ohio: — thus ending forever the struggle for supremacy here between the Gaul and the Saxon. Fayette county had no part in this expedition. The conquering army came by a new road from Bedford, through Westmoreland county, though strongly urged by Col. Washington, who com- manded the Virginia levies, to take Braddock's road. The French party which came up to spoil the camp of Dunbar is the last hostile invasion that has ever pressed the soil of Fayette. In the perilous times which intervened, up to Wayne's great victory and treaty in 1794-5, Fayette territory was never, so far as known to history or tradition, the scene of any considerable fight, or Indian atrocity, of any kind. We shall have occasion frequently hereafter to notice this peculiar exemption, its reasons and results. Except when our citizens were promptly going forth to do, or were honorably returning after having done, yeomen's service in de- fending their own or invading the enemy's country, all the subsequent military movements within our borders have been upon the Peace Establishment. May it ever be so ; lor "Peace hath her victories, no less than ■war." CHAPTER VI. EARLY SETTLEMENTS. A large Field — Penn's Charter — Quaker regard for the Indians — Dunkards and the Youghiogheny — Dunkards in Greene — First Settlers — The Browns — Gists — Gist's neighbors — The Ohio Company — French dominion — Col. Burd's Expedition — Military Permits — Titles about Brownsville and Bridgeport — Era of Settlement — Non-inter- vention — Pontiac's War — First Settlers from Virginia and Maryland — The West — Settlements trouble the Indians — Kingly and Colonial Anxieties — Names of Settle- ments — Settlers warned, and driven off by the Military — Indian Titles — Bald Eagle — Indian Stephen — Burnt Cabin — Bloody Law against Settlers — Mission of Piev. Steel to warn them — Names and Number of Inhabitants in 1768 — Indian Treaty — Settlers let alone — Indians sell out to the Penns — Titles begin — Surveys — Prices of Lands — Devesting Act — Proprietary Patents — Slavery abolished — Our Slav^-owners — Migra- tion to Kentucky — New Settlers — Quakers — Presbyterians — Dr. McMillan's Journal — Mount Moriah — The Baptists — Methodists — Associate Reformed — Episcopalians — Catholics — German Churches — Others — Country Churches — Old Schools — Country Academies — Dunlap & Littell's High School — Character of our Early Settlers. We now enter upon a large and diversified field. And if any of our readers shall recollect some rugged prominences, or little flowered nooks, whicli we do not sketch, we beg them, although our ignorance may be the true cause of their omission, to set down their absence to the want of room upon our canvas, and our inability to group them, consistently with the tout ensemble of the picture. Our effort shall be, faithfully and intelligibly to present to view all the strong features of the subject, and so to animate the sketch as to give to it, if not the reality, at least the semblance, of life and interest. Whoever has been curious enough to peruse the Charter for Pennsylvania, granted, in 1681, by Charles II. of England, will have seen that His Majesty, assuming the territory to be the "king's own," conveyed it to William Penn, his heirs and assigns, to hold in free and common socage, as of the Castle of Windsor, yielding and paying the yearly rent of two beaver skins and one-fifth of all gold and silver ore, and reserving unto the crown the sovereignty of the colony and the fealty and allegiance of its inhabitants. The Governors were to be appointed by the proprietaries, "by and with the advice and consent of" the king and council. To them, and to the freemen of the colony in Assembly, were committed all the 78 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. powers of legislation and government, save that of making war, — subject to the revisal and approbation of their laws by the king and council, and to appeals from the provincial to the king's courts. But the appointment of all subordinate otlicers and iJie disposal of lands to settlers or others, were committed to the proprietaries only^ or their deputies or Governors, in their names; without any inter- ference or control by the Assembly, or by the king or parliament. This absolute power over the lands gave to the proprietaries, indirectly, a control over the settlers thereon, and enabled them to enforce their peculiar, peaceful and just policy towards the Indian nations. Indeed, one of the principal specified objects for which Penn sought the grant, was " to reduce the savage natives, by gentle and just manners, to the love of civil society and the Chris- tian religion." This cardinal purpose was steadfastly kept in view by the colonial government during its entire existence, and brought it often in conflict with the adverse purposes and conduct of settlers. The Penn policy was never to grant lands, or to allow any settlement upon them, until after they had been purchased from, and formally ceded by, the Indian owners. Immediate or direct purchases by individuals from the Indians were strictly forbidden. And so scrupulously just and conciliatory were the proprietaries, that when they found that the Indians did not comprehend the import and extent of the terms used in the deed of cession signed at Albany in 1754, to which we have before referred, they relinquished all beyond certain limits, to which the Indians admitted they meant to go. This unyielding deference to aboriginal title by the Penns became ingrafted into the character of the province, and was transmitted to the commonwealth. It was however not a characteristic of its neighbor, Virginia; who put it on, only as an outward profession, when the king commanded or self-interest demanded it. We shall presently see something of these antipodal courses of policy, and much more, when we come to the "Boundary controversy." When, as early as 1751, as related by Croghan and Montour, at a council of the Six Illations and Delaware and Shawnese tribes of Indians, held at Logstown on the Ohio, some sixteen miles below Pittsburgh, "a Dunkard from Virginia came to town and requested leave to settle on the Yogh-yo-gaine river, a branch of the Ohio; he was told that he must apply to the Onondaga council, and be recommended by the Governor of Pennsylvania." This little item of history reflects the peculiar non-intrusive Indian policy of the Penns, and is also the earliest recorded design (except that of the GH. VI. EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 79 Ohio Company, which did not recognize Pennsylvania proprietor- ship,) of effecting an orderly settlement within the bounds of our county. It failed of accomplishment from some cause. Doubtless the applicant was one of the Eckerlin brothers who, a few years afterwards, located their little colony at the mouth of Dunkard creek in our neighbor, Greene ; whence, after giving their name to the stream, they soon removed to Dunkard's bottom on Cheat river, and thence to the south branch of the Potomac, where their history is as tragical as their character was peaceful and holy. They were in advance of the spirit of the times, and of the localities which they sought to people. We believe the lirst actual white settlers within our present county limits were the Browns — Wendell Brown and his two sons, Maunus and Adam, if not a third one, Thomas. They came in 1751 or '52. Their first location was on Provance's bottom, a short distance below the mouth of little Jacob's creek. But soon after, some Indians enticed them away from that choice alluvial reach, by promises to show them better land, and where they would enjoy greater security. They were led to the lands on which, in part, the descendants of Maunus now reside, and erected their cabin upon the tract now the home of his grandson, Emanuel Brown, really among the best in the county. They came as hunters, but soon became herdsmen and tillers of the soil. It has been said that Frederick Waltzer was .contemporary with the Browns. We think this an error. He did not come for some years afterwards. The next settler within our bounds was Christopher Gist: and 1752 has been generally stated to be the date of his settlement. But we think he did not acquire a local habitation here until 1753. In the Virginia Commissioners' certificate, given in 1780 to his son, Thomas Gist, for the land on which his father first settled, 1753 is fixed as the year of his settlement. Washington's embassy to the French posts, when he speaks of having passed "Mr. Gist's new settlement," was in November of that year. His agency for the Ohio Company brought him here. His cabin was, we believe, on that part of the Mount Braddock lands now owned by Jacob Murphy, contiguous to the spring near his barn. By this early settlement he and his sons were enabled, in after years, to acquire the largest and finest body of lands ever owned by any one family in this county, embracing not only the Mount Braddock estate, now owned by Mr. Isaac Beeson, but also the fine farms of Isaac Wood, Jacob Murphy and P. C. Pusey; — a domain which many a German prince might give his kingdom for. 80 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. We have seen it stated somewhere that " Gist induced eleven famihes to settle around him, on lands presumed to be within the Ohio Company's grant." This may be so. But the late Col. James Paull. whose father, George Paull, was an early settler in that vicinity, and intimately acquainted with the Gists, said he never heard of these settlers. What gives great probability, how- ever, to the statement, is the fact, stated by Monsieur Celeron, the French commander of the expedition against Washington at Fort ISTecessity, in 1754, that on his return, he not only ordered the houses at the entrenchment at Gist's to be burnt down, but detached an oificer "to burn the houses round about." He also took several prisoners at Gist's, It is certain that grants of lands within our county limits were made by the Ohio Company. These were prior to 1755, and were chiefly, if not wholly, in the Gist neighborhood. The Stewarts, who settled in the vicinity of, and gave name to, "Stewart's crossings," (Counellsville,) were unquestionably in this class of settlers.^ William Cromwell, son-in-law of Gist, set up a claim, under the Ohio Company, to a part of the Gist lands, " in the forks of the roads to Fort Pitt and Redstone," including Isaac Wood's farm, asserting, somewhat inconsistently, a gift of it to his wife from her father, and a settlement thereof in 1753. He sold his claim to one Samuel Lyon, between whom and the Gists a long controversy was waged for the title, wherein the Gists prevailed. It may be that others of the early settlers in that part of the county- had grants from this Company which, as the French war blasted the Company's prospects in this region, proved useless, and obliged them thereupon to secure their lands under Virginia or Pennsyl- vania. Such indeed was the case with the Gists. It is not unlikely that William Jacobs, who settled in 1761 at the mouth of Redstone, where the Hangard was built by the Ohio Company in 1754, claimed under that Company. The repulse of Washington in 1754, and still more decisively, the defeat of Braddock in 1755, put an end, for some time, to all efforts by the English colonists to settle vrest of the mountains; and all that were here at and before those events, were forced to retire for a time to the eastward, or south. The French never attempted any permanent settlements in this part of the country, and during their sway universal desolation reigned. Many of the old settlers returned after the expulsion of the French in 1758, and 1 See note (1) to Memoirs of the Gists, in Chapter VII. CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 81 resumed their possessions. Among these were the Browns and the Gists, whom we will further notice in the sequel. The expedition of Col. James Burd, in 1759, to open the " road to Redstone " and erect Fort Burd, led to some settlements in that vicinity, between that year and 1764, by persons who had been connected with the expedition, and by others. Of these were William Colvin, whose settlement right, acquired in 1763, to lands now of Eli Cope and others, he sold to Thomas Brown. It is probable that such was the origin of the titles of John and Samuel M'CuUoch to the land where Brownsville now is, extending from creek to creek, and whose rights, together with Cresap's, became vested in Thomas and Bazil Brown, to whom patents issued. Capt. Lemuel Barrett held the land where Bridgeport now is, under a " military permit from the commander at - Fort Pitt, in 1763, for the purpose of cultivating lands within the custom limits of the garrison then called Fort Burd." He was a Mary- lander. In 1783 he conveyed his title to Rees Cadwallader, the town proprietor. The land just above Bridgeport, on the river, embracing some three or four hundred acres, was, in early times, the subject of long and angry controversies — from 1769 to 1785 — between adverse claimants under "military permits." It was well named, in the official survey, which one of the parties procured of it under a Pennsylvania location, "Bone of Contention." One Angus M'Donald claimed it, or part of it, under a military permit from Col. Bouquet, dated April 26th, 1763, and a settlement on it. In March, 1770, he sold his claim to Captain Luke Collins,^ de- scribing the land as "at a place called Fort Burd, to include the held cleared by me where the sawpit was above the mouth of Delap's creek." Collins conveyed it to Captain Michael Cresap (of Logan's speech celebrity) on the 13th of April, 1772, "at half past nine in the morning," — describing it as situate between "Point Lookout and John Martin's land," — recently owned, we believe, by the late. Mrs. John S. Krepps. Cresap's executors, in June, 1781, conveyed to one William ISchooly, an old Brownsville mer- chant, who conveyed to Rees Cadwallader. The adverse claimants were Henry Shryock" and William Shearer, assignee of George 1 Of some celebrity in the " Boundary Controversy," and as the friend and correspond- ent of Col. George Wilson, which see — Chap. IX. 2 Of Frederick county, Md. We find the name of Henry Shryock among the members of the Maryland Convention to ratify the Constitution of the United States, in April, 1788 — probably the same person. 6 82 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. Andrew. Their claim reached further southward towards the creek, and further up the river, covering the John Martin land. They sold out to Robert Adams and Thomas Shain. Although they had the oldest -permit (in 1762) their title seems to have been overcome by the settlement and official location and survey of their adversary. One Robert Thorn seems also to have been a claimant of part of the land, but Collins bought him out. This protracted contro- versy involved many curious questions, and called up many ancient recollections. No doubt the visit to this locality of Mr. Deputy- Sheriff Woods, of Bedford, in 1771, was parcel of this controversy.* Many of these early claims were lost, or forfeited, by neglect to settle the land, according to law, and thus were supplanted by ethers. They were valued by their owners at a very low mark, and often sold for trifling sums. These settlements, by virtue of military permits, began about this period — from 1760 to '65, to be somewhat numerous in the vicini- ties of Forts Pitt and Burd, and along the army roads leading thereto.* They were subsequently recognized as valid by the Penns, even before they had bought out the Indian title. This was a departure from their general policy, required to maintain those forts and keep up access to them. They were indeed regarded as mere appendages to the forts, and as accessories to the trade and intercourse with the Indians, and not as permanent settlements for homes and subsistence. The Monongahela river below Fort Burd, being in fact an army highway, came in for a share of these favors. Their aggregate was few, and they were often far between. It was not until about 1765-'6, that settlements, in the true and legitimate sense of the term, came to attract notice in what is now ' See his Affidavit in sketch of "Boundary Controversy," — Chap. IX. * Even these military settlements would seem to have been contrary to the plighted faith of the English to the Indians, as given by Sir Jeffry Amherst, Commander-in-Chief of the British in North America, who at an Indian treaty held at Fort Pitt, in August, 1760, told them that "no part whatever of their lands joining to the forts should be taken from them ; nor any English people be permitted to settle upon them," without their consent, and being paid therefor. These military permits were generally issued by Col. Bouquet, who commanded at Fort Pitt in 1762-'3, &c., and by Capt. Edmondstone ; and the king's proclamation of October, 1763, referred to hereafter, wore the semblance of forbidding them. See a reference to Col. Bouquet's proclamation of 1762, in a subse- quent note (6). These royal and military flourishes of supreme regard for Indian sov- ereignty had very much the consequence of the modern doctrine of " non-intervention," yiz — to encourage irresponsible individuals to violate it ; the "poor Indian" being the victim in the one case, as the honest settler is in the other. CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 83 South-Western Pennsylvania. And it is a well-ascertaiued fact that the earliest of this class of settlements, for homes and subsistence, were in what is now Fayette County. This was the result of several co-operating causes, some of which have been alluded to in a pre- ceding sketch. The great abundance of game^ the general impu- nity from Indian aggression, the fertility of the land, its fine springs and water-courses ; but, above all, its short and easy access from the Atlantic slope by Braddock's road ; — these were the combined causes, which now near a century ago, planted all over our county territory, in almost every valley, whether large or small, in both mountain and lowland, the seeds of a rude but hardy civilization. Although the French were expelled from this region in 1758, yet the Indians were not quieted until 1764 ; so long did it require for the waves raised by the storm of '54-'5 to subside. This was effected by two very dissimilar agencies -^ conciliatory intercourse, and the military expeditions of Colonels Bouquet and Bradstreet, of that and the previous years. The reduction of Canada had led to hopes of peace with the Ohio Indians, but French influence was still at work. Added to this, the progress of the English in their career of conquest, and the establishment of lines of Forts all over the Indian territory, alarmed the natives, and led to that powerful Indian confederacy for war and rapine, designated in the bloody annals of that period as Poniiac's War, — planned and executed by that Napoleon of sav- age warfare. This was in 1763 ; and while it raged, " the frontiers of Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland were overrun by scalp- ing parties, marking their way with blood and devastation." I^ear- ly all the English forts — Detroit, Niagara, Presque Isle, Le Bceuf, Venango, Pitt, Ligonier, &c., were vigorously attacked. And it was not until the decisive but costly victory of Bouquet, at Bushy run, between Ligonier and Pitt, and his bloodless subjugation of the Indians on the Aluskingum in the ensuing year, that peace and safety were restored. Although our county territory enjoyed its usual impunity during these bloody years — the inhabitants never flying, as they had to do from neighboring territory — yet the terror which was inspired prevented the influx of settlers. But when this barrier was removed, the tide of immigration rolled in with rapid and steadily-augmenting force, so that 1765 may be set down as the era of the settlement of Fayette county. The first settlers, almost without an exception, came from the frontier counties of Virginia and Maryland, chiefly from the for- mer. The events in this region, of the preceding French War, 84 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. liad, more than any knowledgo of the boundaries, served to cre- ate the general belief, among the people of those counties, that this was Virginia territory. Yet it may be assumed that the first set- tlers came, without knowing, or caring to know, whether this belief was well founded or not. They knew they were coming into that vast and perilous, but fertile domain denominated the West, where land was cheap, and liberty as exuberant as the soil. They had per- haps heard that Virginia claimed all the West, from the then unde- fined Western limits of Maryland and Pennsylvania to the Missis- sippi, and from the Lakes on the North, to 36° 30' on the South; and supposed that the only adverse jurisdiction was that of the Indians — for as yet there existed here no organized government — no officers of the law. Although nominally embraced within Cum- berland county, Pennsylvania, or Augusta county, Virginia, yet, as the county-semt of the former was Carlisle, and of the latter Stan- ton, with vast mountain wastes intervening, these dependencies were too remote to be reached by the civil arm : and for a while the settlers were unheeded and unmolested by the government of either colony. Hence the tide flowed fast and free. Says a letter from "Winchester, Va., dated April 30, 1765 — "The frontier inhabitants of this colony and Maryland are removing fast over the Allegheny Mountains in order to settle and live there." And Geo. Croghan, the Deputy Indian Agent, under date of Fort Pitt, May 24, 1766, says, "as soon as the peace was made last year [by Col. Bouquet,] contrary to our engagements to them (the Indians) a number of our people came over the Great Mountain and settled at Redstone creek, and upon the Monongahela, before they had given the coun- try to the King their Father." Concurrent with this is all the tes- timony of that period. And so imposing did these settlements soon become, that they threatened to bring both the Governments and people of Pennsylvania and Virginia into trouble with the Indians. For this reason, and this alone, they now attract the notice of the civil and military powers. After the definitive treaty of peace between France and Eng- land, signed at Paris, in February, 1763, which terminated the French War, had given to England, Canada and the Floridas, and ended the French power and possessions on the American Continent, except in Louisiana, England began to make a great show of care for the Indians. On the 7th of October of that year, the King issued a proclamation regulating the bounds and affairs of his newly acquired possessions, and dealing out, in large profusion, his ten- der regard for the Indian tribes ; — declaring that they must not be CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 85 molested in their hunting-grounds, and forbidding any governor or commander-in-chief, in any colony, to grant warrants of survey, or patents, for any lands beyond the heads of rivers which fall into the Atlantic, or which had been ceded by the Indians. This was an interdict to all settlements and surveys in what is now South- Western Pennsylvania, as well as in all the West Yet, as its viola- tions were visited by no specified penalties, it was disregarded by settlers, and even, to some extent, by the Government of Virginia, though never by that of Pennsylvania. It was by some of the best men in the "Old Dominion," even by Washington,* looked upon as a mere ruse, or pretence, to keep down or quiet the apprehensions of the natives. The}'-, however, did not so regard it. They claimed its enforcement, and were as clamorous and tenacious of their reserved rights to their lands and hunting-courses as has been the Virginia of the present century for the doctrines of the " Reso- lutions of '98," and threatened resistance as vociferously as did the chivalry of Carolina in 1832. It was the opinion of those most conversant with the Indians, among whom were the British Com- mander-in-Chief in America, General Gage, Sir William Johnston, the Indian Agent General and his Deputy, Croghan, that unless the intruding settlers were speedily removed, a general Indian war would be the inevitable result. Indeed, it was to the actual and threat- ened encroachments upon their lands in this region, by the English, that General Gage attributed the loss of the Indian's affections in 1754-55, which led them to throw themselves into the arms of the French for protection, and brought on the disasters of those years, and subsequent hostilities. A remedy was imperatively demanded. The documentary history of 1765-'6-'7, indeed, of all that decade, speaks of no other settlements in Western Pennsylvania, or the West generally, than those within, or immediately bordering upon, the Monongahela, upon Cheat, upon the Yough, the Turkey-foot and Redstone ; — the first and last being the most prominent, and the last the most extensive, covering all the interior settlements about Uniontown. George's creek settlers were referred to Cheat; those about Gist's to the Yough; while Turkey-foot took in all the mountain districts. All these settlements seem to have been nearly cotemporaneous ; those on the Redstone and the Monongahela bor- der being perhaps the earliest, those on the Yough and Turkey- foot the latest, while those of George's creek and Cheat occupy an 5 See his letter to Colonel Wm. Crawford, dated 21st Sept., 1767, copied into subse- quent Sketch of "Washington in Fayette" — Chap. XIV. 86 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. intermediate date, blending with all the others. They all range from 1763 to 1768, inclusive. The earliest efforts to dispossess, or drive off these early settlers, were of a military character.* In June, 1766, Captain Alexander Mackay, commanding a party of the 42d Regiment, was sent from Fort Pitt by Major Murray, the commandant there, to Redstone creek, at which place, meaning doubtless Fort Burd, he, on the 22d of that month, issues " to all whom it may concern," a Notice, stating that the commander-in-chief, " out of compassion to your ignorance, before he proceeds to extremity," had sent him there to collect them together, inform them of their lawless behavior, and to order them all to return to their several provinces without delay, upon pain of having their goods and merchandise made lawful prize by the Indians, of having their persons and estates put out of the pale of protection ; and if they disobeyed, or remained, of being driven from the lands they occupy by an armed force. This martial demonstration was quickly followed by proclama- tions from the civil arm. On the 31st of July, 1766, Governor Fau- quier, of Virginia, made proclamation of like requirements and penalties. And on the 23d of September, Governor Penn issues a similar fulmination, wherein he specially forbids "all his Majes- ty's subjects of this, or any other province, or colony, from making any settlements, or taking possession of lands, hy marking trees, or otherwise, beyond the limits of the last Indian purchase [that of 1754 at Albany as subsequently restricted] within this province, upon pain of the severest penalties of the law, and of being excluded from the jyrivilege of securing stick settlements should the lands, where they are made, be hereafter purchased of the Indians." Both these proclamations are declared to have been made by vir- tue of instructions from his Majesty, given in October, 1765, from which it is inferred that the settlements had become alarming to * Even before the King's proclamation of Oct. 1763, Col. Henry Bouquet, then com- manding at Fort Pitt, had, in the latter part of 17G2, issued a proclamation forbidding " any of his majesty's subjects to sellle or hunt to the west of the Allegheny mountains, on any pretence whatever, unless upon leave in icriling from the General or the Governors of their i-espective provinces produced to the commander at Fort Pitt," requiring all such persons to be seized, and sent, with their horses and effects, to Fort Pitt, there to be tried by court-martial and punished accordingly. Though often violated, we read of no case of seizure or punishment. The policy of this period was by fair pretences, to counteract the insinuations of the French, that the English were really seeking to sup- plant, not to protect the Indians, in the possession of their lands. Hence these repeated "springes to catch wood-chucks." CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 87 the Indians, or rather the provincial authorities, so early in that, or in the previous year, as to have reached the royal councils at that date. Indeed, Governor Fauquier writes to Governor Penn, in December, 1766, that he had issued two previous proclamations of like import, but that all had been disregarded. Governor Penn, however, says, in January, 1767, that the efibrts had been partially successful, that many families had withdrawn, but some had since returned. This co-operative action by the two Governors, seems to have been rendered necessary by the unsettled state of the boundaries between the two provinces. So thought Governor Penn ; and Gov- ernor Fauquier joined in the eiibrt very cordially, but without inti- mating any claim, on the part of Virginia, to the territory intruded upon. Its value had not yet been weighed — the horns of the strife were not yet grown. Despite all these threats and warnings, the current of intrusive settlement still rolled on, expanding with time, and growing stronger by resistance. In the mean time the Indians are becoming more and more restive and complaining, especially those of the tribes owning the lands, who had their habitations and rovings at some distance off: for, as is often the case with civilized men, those most remotely concerned utter the earliest and loudest complaints. The settlers generally contrived to keep themselves at peace with the Indians here, trading and hunting with them, and even buying set- tlement rights from them. This was not an unfrequent mode of acquiring rights to squat upon some of the choicest lands. Indeed, nearly all the earliest settlers resorted to it, — Gist, the Browns, and others already named. And it is said that the ancestral Provance in this way got possession of Provance's Bottom, and James Har- rison of the lands on Brown's run, surveyed in the names of John and Robert Harrison, including where James Wilson now resides ; also the Michael Debolt and Adam Sholly tracts, on Catt's run, now owned by David Johnson and James S. Rohrer, late George Rider. These, and many others of like origin, were purchased and settled about 1760. By the Indian treaties made between that year and 1765, they bound themselves not to sell lands to any others than the King, or the provincial proprietors, an obligation which was not, perhaps, always kept inviolate. Such purchases had no validity as titles ; they only enabled the purchasers to acquire there- by, and by their subsequent improvements thereon, some of the best lands. They gave a kind of conventional right, and were looked upon as a grade higher than mere " tomahawk settlements." 88 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. This iu creasing contact and intercourse of pioneer settlers with the Indians led, as might he expected, to many disorders; and as the jealousies of the latter grew stronger, occasional personal con- flicts, and even homicides, occurred, which added to the animosi- ties by the whites, and to the causes of complaint by the natives. Many Indians were killed on the frontiers of Virginia and Penn- sylvania, and occasionally a white trader or hunter met a corre- sponding fate. But within the territory of Fayette few such out- rages are known to have been perpetrated. Of these was the mur- der of "Bald Eagle," on the Monongahela,' the killing of Indian Stephen at or near Stewart's Crossings,^ and the shooting, and burning the cabin of the two stranger hunters and settlers near Mendenhall's dam, on the Burnt Cabin fork of Dunlap's creek.^ When this case occurred is not so certainly known, but the two ' " Bald Eagle" was an inoffensive old Delaware warrior. He was on intimate terms with the early settlers, with whom he hunted, fished and visited. He was well-known along our Monongahela border, up and down which he frequently passed in his canoe- Somewhere up the river, probably about the mouth of Cheat, he was killed — by whom, and on what pretence, is unknown. His dead body, placed vipri^ht in his canoe, with a piece of corn-bread in his clenched teeth, was set adrift on the river. The canoe came ashore at Provance's Bottom, where the familiar old Indian was at once recognized by the wife of William Yard Provance, who wondered he did not leave his canoe. On clo- ser observation, she found he was dead. She had him decently buried on the Fayette shore, near the early residence of Pi,obert McClean, at what was known as McClean's Ford. This murder was regarded, both by whites and Indians, as a great outrage, and the latter made it a prominent item in their list of unavenged grievances. ^ This offence was committed by one Samuel Jacobs, aided and abetted by one John Ingman, an "indented servant" of Capt. Wm. Crawford — probably a negro slave. The provocation and other circumstances of the case are unknown. The case acquired impor- tance from the fact that the Governor of Virginia, contrary to the claim ^f that province to the territory embracing the locality of the killing, had sent one of the offenders back from Virginia to Pennsylvania to be tried for the offence. — See "Boundary Controversy." ^ This case, as related by Joseph Mendenhall, an old soldier, and settler at the place known as Mendenhall's Dam, in Menallen township, was thus: — About three and a half miles west of Uniontown, on the south side of the State, or Heaton Road, which leads from the Poor-House, through New Salem, &c., and within five or six rods of the road (on land now of Joshua Woodward) are the remains of an old clearingoi about one-fourth of an acre, and within it the remains of an old chimney. Two or three rods south-east- ward is a small spring, the drain of which leads off westward into the "Burnt Cabin fork" of Dunlap's or Nemacolin's creek ; and still further south, some four or five rods is the old trail, or path called Dunlap's road, which we have heretofore traced. The story is, that in very early times — perhaps about 1767, two men came over the mountains by this path to hunt, &c., and began an improvement at this clearing, and put up a small cabin upon it. While asleep in their cabin, some Indians came to it, and shot them, and then set fire to the cabin. Their names are unknown. So far as known, this is the only case of the kind that ever occurred within our county limits. CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 89 Indians were killed in 1766. Great efforts were made to apprehend and punish the offenders, but except as to an alleged accomplice in the case of Stephen, they were fruitless. "At this," writes Gover- nor Fauquier, "I am not surprised, for I have found by experience that it is impossible to bring any body to justice for the murder of an Indian, who takes shelter among our back inhabitants, among whom it is looked upon as a meritorious action, and they are sure of being protected." The Indian murmurs grew louder, and their threats of vengeance more earnest and alarming. So far as concerned Pennsylvania, the great burden of complaint was the settlements upon their lands along the Monongahela, Redstone, the Youghiogheny and Cheat. They complained also of the murder of their people. And to these the more sober and discreet of their tribes added, as a distinct griev- ance, the increasing corruption of the young men and warriors by Rum. They had, however, thus early learned to discriminate be- tween the people of the two rival colonies, and charged nearly all their grievances to the people of Virginia. But, as the localities were in Pennsylvania, it behooved the Penn Government to devise and execute a remedy for the wrongs complained of, so as thereby to prevent the savage retaliation which impended over the border inhabitants. In the summer of 1767, another military effort was made to remove the settlers by the garrison at Fort Pitt, but as no other punishment ensued than a temporary removal, no sooner was the soldiery withdrawn than the settlers returned with reinforcements. The running of Mason & Dixon's line, our Southern boundary, in 1767, showed that the new settlements were all within Pennsyl- vania; and Virginia, under the Governorships of Fauquier andBote- tourt, did not pretend to gainsay it. In January, 1768, Governor Penn called the special attention of his Assembly to this newly ascertained jurisdiction, and after rehearsing the fruitless efforts hitherto made to remove the settlers, invoked their aid to devise a remedy for the alleged wrongs, and thus, if possible, avert the threatened war. The Assembly appear to have been as badly fright- ened as the Governor. A perusal of the historical memoirs of the period does not lead to the conclusion that the danger was either very apparent or very imminent. JSTevertheless, the Governor and Assembly go to work, and enact a most terrifying law to drive off the settlers. It is dated February 3d, 1768. After reciting that " many disorderly people, in violation of his Majesty's proclamation, have presumed to settle upon lands not yet purchased from the Indi- 90 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. ans, to their damage and great dissatisfaction, which may be attend- ed with dangerous and fatal consequences to the peace and safety of this province," it proceeded to enact that if any settlers after being required to remove themselves and families, by personal notice or proclamation sent to them, should not so remove within thirty days thereafter; or, if after having removed, they should return ; or, if any should so settle after such notice, every such per- son " being thereof legally convicted by their own confession, or the verdict of a jury, shall suffer death without benefit of clergy." And if any persons thereafter should enter upon such unpurchased lands, to make surveys, or should cut down, or mark trees thereon, " every person so offending shall forfeit and pay, for every such offence, the sum of fifty pounds, and suffer three months imprison- ment without bail, or mainprize," And, to make trials more griev- ous, and convictions more certain, the offenders were to be taken to Philadelphia, and there tried by courts and juries of that county. This law savors more of the fourteenth than of the eighteenth century ; and, as might have been expected, its sanguinary charac- ter rendered it inefficient — a mere brutem fulmen. Its only effect was to increase the irritations between the settlers and the Indians, and to ease the treasury of some of its funds, to pay for sending sundry persons and proclamations among the settlers to warn them off. There were, however, specially exempted from the operations of this law, all settlers, past, present or future, upon the main, or army roads to Fort Pitt, or in the neighborhood of that post, by virtue of military permits, and settlers in George Croghan's settlement, "above the said fort." These exemptions saved many of our set- tlers, along Braddock's and Burd's roads, and around Fort Burd, from the terrors of the law. If others feared, yet they fared no worse than these. In February, 1768, Governor Penn commissioned the Rev. John Steele, of Carlisle, a Presbyterian clergyman of some celebrity, and three other citizens of Cumberland county, to visit the obnox ious settlements, distribute proclamations embodying the bloody act, and warn the settlers to quit. These envoys set out early in March, and traveled by way of Fort Cumberland and Braddock's road. Our readers will pardon us for copying their Report entire : "April 2d, 1768. ""We arrived at the settlement on Bedstone on the 23d day of March. The people having heard of our coming, had appointed a CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 91 meeting among themselves on the 24th, to consult what measures to take. We took advantage of this meeting, read the Act of Assembly and Proclamation — explaining the law and giving the reasons of it as well as we could, and used our endeavors to per- suade them to comply; alleging to them that it was the most probable method to entitle them to favor with the Honorable Pro- prietors when the land was purchased. ''After lamenting their distressed condition, they told us the people were not fully collected ; but they expected all would attend on the Sabbath following, and then they would give us an answer. They, however, affirmed that the Indians were very peaceable, and seemed sorry that they were to be removed, and said they appre- hended the English intended to make war upon the Indians, as they were moving off their people from the neighborhood. " We labored to persuade them that they were imposed upon by a few straggling Indians; that Sir William Johnston, who had informed our Government, must be better acquainted with the mind of the Six Nations, and that they were displeased with the white people's settling on their unpurchased lands. " On Sabbath, the 27th of March, a considerable number attended (their names are subjoined,) and most of them told us they were resolved to move off, and would petition your Honor for a prefer- ence in obtaining their improvements when a purchase was made. While we were conversing we were informed that a number of Indians were come to Indian Peter's. We, judging it might be subservient to our main design that the Indians should be present, while we were advising the people to obey the law, sent for them. They came, and, after sermon, delivered a speech, with a string of wampum, to be transmitted to your Honor. Their speech was — 'Ye are come, sent by your great men, to tell these people to go away from the land, which ye say is ours; and we are sent by our great men, and are glad we have met here this day. We tell you, the white people must stop, and we stop them till the treaty, and when George Croghan and our great men talk together, we will tell them what to do.' The Indians were from Mingo town, about eighty miles from Redstone [a little below Steubenville]. " After this the people were more confirmed that there was no danger of war. They dropped the design of petitioning, and said they would wait the issue of the treaty. Some, however, declared they would move off. We had sent a messenger to Cheat River and to Stewart's Crossings of Youghiogheny with several pro- clamations, requesting them to meet us at Gist's place as most 92 THE MONONGAHELA OP OLD. [CH. VI. central for both settlements. On the 30th of March, about thirty or forty men met us there. We proceeded, as at Redstone, reading the Act of Assembly and a Proclamation, and endeavored to con- vince them of the necessity and reasonableness of quitting the unpurchased land; but to no purpose. They had heard what the Indians had said at Redstone, and they reasoned in the same man- ner, declaring they had no apprehensions of a war, that they would attend the treaty, and take their measures accordingly. Many severe things were said of Mr. Croghan ; and one Lawrence Har- rison treated the law and our Government with too much dis- respect. " On the 31st of March we came to the Great Crossings of Youghiogheny, and being informed by one Speer that eight or ten families lived in a place called the Turkey Foot, we sent some proclamations thither by said Speer, as we did to some families nigh the Crossings of Little Yough, judging it unnecessary to go amongst them. " It is our opinion that some will move off in obedience to the law; that the greatest part wdll await the treaty, and if they find the Indians are indeed dissatisfied, we think the whole will be per- suaded to remove. The Indians coming to Redstone, and deliver- ing their speech, greatly obstructed our design. "We are, &c. John Steel, John Allison, Christopher Lemes, James Potter. " To the Honorable John Penn, Esquire, Lieutenant-Governor, &c., &c.." " The Indians names who came to Redstone, viz: Captains Haven, Hornets, Mygog Wigo, Nogawach, Strikebelt, Pouch, Gilly and Slewbells. The names of the inhabitants near Redstone : John Wiseman, Henry Prisser, William Linn, William Colvin, John Vervalson, Abraham Tygard (Teagarden,) Thomas Brown, Richard Rodgers, John Delong, Peter Young, George Martin, Thomas Downs, Andrew Gidgeon (Gudgel,) Philip Sute (Shute,) James Crawford, John Peters, Henry Swats, James McClean, Jesse Martin, Adam Hatton, John Verval, Jr., James Waller, Thomas Douter (Douthitt,) Captain Coburn, Michael Hooter, Andrew Linn, CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 93 Gabriel Conn, John Martin, Hans Cack (Cook,) Daniel McKay, Josias Crawford, one Provence (William Yard, or John William.)^" Names of some who met us at Guesse's {^Gist's'] place. One Bloomfield, (Thomas or Empson Brovvnfield,) James Lyne, (Lynn or Lyon,) Ezekiel Johnson, Thomas Guesse (Gist,) Charles Lindsay, James Wallace (Waller,) Richard Harrison, Phil. Sute (Shute,) Jet. (Jediah) Johnson, Henry Burkon (Burkham,) Law- rence Harrison, Ralph Higgenbottom.^" Names of the people at Turkey Foot : Henry Abrams," Ezekiel Dewitt, James Spencer, Benjamin Jen- nings, John Cooper, Ezekiel Hickman, John Enslow, Henry Enslow, Benjamin Pursley." In a supplemental report to the Governor by Mr. Steel, he says : "The people at Redstone alleged that the removing of them from the unpurchased lands was a contrivance of the gentlemen and merchants of Philadelphia, that they might take rights for their improvements when a purchase was made. In confirmation of this they said that a gentleman of the name of Harris, and another called Wallace, with one Friggs, a pilot, spent a considerable time last August in viewing the lands and creeks thereabouts. I am of opinion, from the appearance the people made, and the best intelli- gence we could obtain, that there are but about an hundred and fifty families in the different settlements of Redstone, Youghiogheny and Cheat.'' AVe suppose this estimate included all the settlers in what is now Fayette county and Turkey Foot. The names of Harris, Wallace and Frigg do not appear in our early land titles, so far as we know. They were perhaps agents for others. The treaty referred to so often in the foregoing report was to be held at Fort Pitt in the ensuing April and May, by George Croghan, 10 Several of these persons resided at considerable distances from the mouth of Redstone, or from Gist's — as Pliilip Shute and James McClean, who lived in N. Union township, near the base of Laurel Hill ; Thomas Douthitt on the tract where Uniontown now is ; Captain Coburn some ten miles southeast of New Geneva; Gabriel Conn probably on George's creek, near Woodbridgetown. The Provances settled on Provance's Bottom, near Mason- town, and on ihc other side of tlie river, at the mouth of Big Whiteley. The Brownfields located south and southeast of Uniontown. Ralph Higgenbottom resided on the Waynes- burg road, in Menallen township, a little west of the Sandy Hill Quaker graveyard. The others, so far as we know, resided near the places to which they came. It is singular that the Commissioners did not visit the upper Monongahcla, or George's creek and Cheat settlements. We infer that they were discouraged by their ill success at Redstone. " Grandfather of Ex-Judge Abrams, of Brownsville. 94 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. Deputy Indian Agent, with the Six Nations, Delawares, Shawnese, and other tribes of western Indians. It came off accordingly. Pennsylvania bad two commissioners in attendance, Messrs. John Allen and Joseph Sbippen. Its purposes were to learn the minds of the Indians, and, by presents and fair speeches, to appease their irritations on account of the intrusions upon their lands and the killing of several of their people by the whites. Between 1000 and 2000 Indians attended, upwards of <£1000 worth of presents distributed, and sundry talks, belts and wampums delivered. Although not so recorded, yet doubtless many of the obnoxious settlers were also in attendance, plying the requisite influences to accomplish their purposes. Tbe only complaint uttered by the Indians against the settlements was by a Six Nations' Chief, who said — " Some of them are made directly on our war path, leading to our enemy's country, and we do not like it." Tbe numerous other Indian speakers were silent as to this grievance. Indeed the Pennsylvania Commissioners manifested much more anxiety than the Indians, to have the settlers driven off; complaining most vehemently of the Indians' interference a^id speech at Redstone, as related by Messrs. Steel and others ; and remonstrating against their breach of faith in selling their lands to others than the Pro- prietaries. So palpable was this play of cross purposes between the Indians and the Government agents, that when the latter solici- ted the former to send some of their chief men to the settlements to co-operate with two white men selected by them, for the purpose of again warning off the settlers, the representatives of the Six jSTations, after at first consenting to do so, upon "sober second thought" refused. They put their refusal upon two grounds : first, tbat their dele- gated powers did not extend to this extra duty ; (a precedent for modern *•' strict constructionists,") and second, that they didn't like to engage in the business of driving ofl' the white people, believing it most proper that the English should do that kind of work them- selves. Kayashuta, an old Seneca (Six Nations') chief made the following very sensible speech to the Penn agents, on this head : — " We were, all of us, much disposed to comply with your request, and expected it would have been done without difiiculty, but I now find that not only the Indians appointed by us, but all our other young men are very unwilling to carry a message from us to the white people, ordering them to remove from our lands. They say they would not choose to incur the ill will of those people; for, if they should be now removed, they will hereafter return to their settle- CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 95 ments, when tlie English have purchased the country from us ; and we shall be very unhappy if, by our conduct towards them at this time, we shall give them reason to dislike us, and treat us in an unkind manner when they again become our neighbors." A rare example of prudent forecast and wise moderation. This brought to an abrupt termination all efforts to enforce the non-intrusion law. Henceforth the settlers were let alone. But upon a review of these and other schemes to dispossess the early settlers in our country, while we do not condemn the anxiety of the Government to preserve inviolate the faith of Indian treaties, we must censure its too easy alarm, and too vindictive efforts and enactments. These, and the occurrences at this Fort Pitt " treaty " produced two very natural consequences. First, they served to alienate the affections of the settlers from the Pennsylvania Gov- ernment, and hence to carry them the more devotedly into the embraces of Virginia in the Boundary Controversy which now soon begun ; and second, they contributed, with other co-operating in- fluences, to promote and maintain a good feeling between our early settlers and the Indians; which, as we have more than once remarked, was a striking characteristic of our early history. The speech of the old Seneca chief, which we have quoted, fore- shadowed coming events. The Indians' title to the lands intruded upon was soon to cease forever; and although they were not to be forcibly removed, as has been the rule in modern times, yet soon henceforth they were to become mere tenants by sufferance, their camp-fires gradually to go out, and fences spring up across their war paths and hunting courses. ISTo doubt the project, so necessary to peace and the fulfillment of "manifest destiny," of purchasing this region of country from the native proprietors, had been agitated for some time; and the Indians looked to its accomplishment as anxiously as did the whites. It will be remembered that all of Western Pennsylvania belonged to the Mingoes or Six Nations of Indians, and to their allies and dependants, or "nephews," the Shawnese and Delawares ; com- posing then a numerous and powerful body, now almost extinct. The seat of their power and their chief home was in Western ISqw York. There, at Fort Stanwix, (Rome,) near the head of the Mohawk Valley, a Grand Council or Conference of the Six Nations, convened under the auspices of Sir William Johnston, was soon to assemble to agree upon a boundary between their dominions and the settlements of the Middle Colonies. Thither the tribes repaired in September, 1768, and to their councils came Gov. Penn and his 96 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. agents, and representatives from Virginia and New York, to negotiate and make purchases. The result was that in November the Indians made large cessions to those Colonies, the Penns pro- curing a deed from the Six Nations, for the consideration of X10,000, conveying to them all of South-western, and much of Northern and Middle Pennsylvania. This was the first treaty of Fort Stanwix, in contradistinction to that of 1784, at which the State bought out all the remaining Indian title within her limits ; the Delawares and Shawnese assenting to it by the treaty of Fort Mcintosh, (Beaver,) in 1785. Their express assent to the cession of '68 was never given, but they acquiesced. The way was now clear to settlers and for the acquisition of rights to land.i- The tide of immigration now rolled high and unresisted ; and when on the 3d of April, 1769, the Proprietaries' Land Office was opened for receiving applications for lands in the "New Pur- chase," there was a perfect rush. It was found necessary to put them in a box as received, and then, after being shaken or well stirred up, to draw them out, lottery fashion, and number them as drawn, so as to determine preferences where there was more than one applicant for the same land. Not many such collisions occurred, and after August this plan was abandoned, and warrants substituted. In the first month the number of applications exceeded 3200. The surveys in what is now Fayette county, then Cumber- land, began August 22, 1769, by Archibald McClean and Moses McClean, elder brothers of Col. Alexander McClean, who was with them, and succeeded them as Deputy Surveyor, in 1772. In the remaining five months and ten days of that year (1769) seventy official surveys were executed upon Fayette territory, and in 1770 eighty more besides great numbers, by the same surveyors, in adja- cent parts of Westmoreland, and a few in Washington, Allegheny and Somerset, which are found entered in our first Survey Books. 1- The only instance we find of a direct grant of right to land in Fayette (other than the military permits and army road settlements) prior to April 3, 17G9, is, what is called a "grant of preference."' dated January 22, 1768, given by Governor Penn, for 500 acres, to Hugh Crawford, who had been "Interpreter and conductor of the Indians" in the running of the western part of Mason «&. Dixon's Line, in 1767. The order of survey was withheld until January, 1770, in which year he died, and his administrator, Wm. Graham, sold the land for payment of debts, by order of tiie Orphans' Court of Cumberland county, to Robert Jackson. This is now a part of Col. Samuel Evans' estate ; and it and one of the Gist tracts are the only instances in the county of a grant for more than 400 acres. We find a Hugh Crawfordt an Indian trader of prominence, in the Ohio country and eastward, about 1750, who was probably the same man. CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 97 The number then fell off rapidly — in 1771, twelve ; in '72, fourteen ; in '73, eleven ; in '74, seven ; and in '75, two, when official surveys entirely ceased until '82 and '83, in each of which years only three were executed. This suspension was owing in part to the Boundary Controversy, and in part to the Revolution, during which the Land Office was substantially closed, and was not opened for new sales until July 1, 1784. This caused another great rush to vent the accumulations of the last ten years. In 1784, twenty surveys were executed upon Fayette lands ; in '85, two hundred and ffty-cighi ; in '86 one hundred and fifty, in '87 eighty-eight, in '88 sixty-two, in '89 twenty-eight, and in '90 nineteen, after which they progressed with a more equable pace, increasing somewhat after 1792. Despite the threats to the contrary, preferences were from the first given to those settlers who had made improvements on the lands applied for, regardless of whether they were made before or after the Indian purchase, except that settlements made after that pur- chase and before April 8, '69 were disregarded, thus discriminating in favor of what the Proprietors had before fiercely denounced. Settlements made under military •permits were also preferred. The price of lands in this region was £5 per 100 acres, and one penny per acre per year quit rent, under the Proprietary Government, and until 1784, when it was reduced to £3 10s. and no quit rents, but with interest from the date of the improvement. In 1792 the price was further reduced to 505. per 100 acres and interest, at which it continued until the flush times of 1814, &c., when it was put up to £10 per 100 acres and interest from date of settlement. In 1835 the Graduating Act was passed, by which the payment of interest is regulated. On the 27th November, 1779, was passed by the Commonwealth "An Act for vesting the estates of the late Proprietaries (the Penns) in this Commonwealth." The late Chief Justice Tilghman called this "a high-handed measure — an instance that might made right,'' but it was a necessary act of Revolution. The State paid them therefor .£130,000 sterling in annual payments of from £15,000 to £20,000, without interest, beginning one year after the close of the Revolutionary war ; and reserved to them their private and manor property, which was worth perhaps £130,000 more. They prudently took the money, and thus confirmed the questionable legislation. Very few patents for lands, within the limits of Fayette county, were issued under the Proprietary Government, or before the 7 98 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. Revolution." For this there were several reasons ; — the scarcity of money — the validity, as against all but the Proprietors, of settle- ments, and of official surveys and returns ; but especially the uncer- tainty whether we were in Virginia or in Pennsylvania. Indeed there are, in Fayette county, many tracts of land worth from twenty to fifty dollars per acre, and settled from seventy to ninety years, which are yet unpatented. The rich reckonings of interest which these, from time to time, yield up to the State Treasury, make its insatiate coffers smile. Thus much we thought we might safely here say as to our land titles. To go further into them would be an unwarrantable digres- sion from our main purpose — to which we now return. Although the boundary troubles, the Revolutionary and subse- quent Indian wars until 1794, operated greatly to retard the growth of our settlements, still they did progress during that period, slowly, but steadily. Indeed during the Revolutionary war, Pennsylvania adopted the recommendation of Congress to States having wild lands, not to grant them to settlers, lest by so doing they might hinder enlistment. This, however, did not hinder, but only discouraged immigration, and postponed the lawful acquisition of titles, as already stated. The great hindrances to settlements here were the difficulties of getting here, the privations when here, and the fear of the Indians. This latter cause, however, had comparatively with other neighboring territory, little influence. No bloody Indian forays ever crossed our lines after '55. Our inhabitants never fled, except sometimes to their noteless private forts upon groundless alarm. Often did our sturdy yeomen and youth go over our bor- ders to the relief of their more exposed neighbors of Washington ^* The only Proprietary Patents for Fayette lands wliich we know of are the following : John Penn, Governor, &c., to John PauU, July 7, 1770, for a tract called " Walnut Level," in now Nicholson township, on the river below New Geneva, sold by PauU's executors to Philip Pierce, owned once, in part, by Hon. John Smilic, and since by Jacob and James Biffle, and Thomas W. Nicholson. Thomas and Richard Penn to William Robertson, January 12, 1771, for a tract on or near Braddock's road, and on both sides of Jacob's Creek, between Lobengier's and Tinsman's (Snyder's) Mills, in part in Bullskin township — the scene of the old quarrels and lawsuits between Robertson and Ralph Clierry. Thomas and Richard Penn, March 2, 1771, to Doctor Hugh Mercer, of Fredericksburg, Virginia, (the General Hugh Mercer, of the Revolution, who fell at Princeton, N. J., Jan. 3, 1777.) for three tracts in Bullskin township, above the Chain Bridge ford, and near Brad- dock's road. General Mercer's executors sold them to Col. Isaac Meason. In September and November, 1766, John Penn and John Penn, Jr. granted Patents for a number of tracts in now Wharton and H. Clay townships, and in contiguous parts of Somerset county, to B. Chew and Wilcocks. GU. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 99 and "Westmoreland. Indeed this impunity from the terrors of the times conduced to our increase of population, and caused our county to far outstrip its neighbors in this particular. From 150 families in 1768, say 700 persons, our population rose in 1790 to 12,995 free whites and 282 slaves. As already stated, the earliest settlers came from Virginia and Maryland, chiefly the fonner. About 1770-'2 a few came from the Eastern counties of Pennsylvania, bordering on Maryland. There were occasional instances before and after that period, up to '84, when Pennsylvania immigrants began to preponderate. The old settlers had, as they thought, come to Virginia territory, many of the better sort bringing with them their slaves and their attach- ments to Virginia rule and manners. In 1780 Pennsylvania passed her celebrated "Act for the gradual abolition of Slavery," declaring that all colored persons born on her soil after March 1, 1780, should be free, subject to such as would otherwise have been slaves, being servants until twenty-eight years of age, if duly registered. The act required a registry in the office of the Courts of all slaves. How many were registered by inhabitants of Fayette we do not certainly know, as it was until 1783 part of Westmoreland, where the Register is common to what is now several counties." But, under the Act of March, 1788, requiring a registry of those born of slave mothers after March 1, 1780, we find there were registered in Fayette, 354, between the 5th of February, '89 and January 12th, 1839. The passage of this law, and its becoming a "fixed fact " about the same time that this was Pennsylvania territory, combined to induce many of our early settlers to sell out and migrate to Ken- tucky, which about this date had opened her charms to adventure, settlement and slavery. Fayette gave to that glorious State many of her best pioneer settlers — among whom were her Popes, her 1^ Among the largest slave owners, as shown by the Registers, were, Pt.obert Bcale, 18 : Van Swearingcn, 13; William Goe, 11; Walter Brisco, 9; Margaret llutton, 9; Isaac Meason, 8 ; Edward Cook, 8 ; James Cross, 8 ; Nacy Brashears, 12 ; Rev. James Finley. 8 ; Andrew Linn, 7 ; Benoni Dawson, 7 ; Sarah Hardin, 7 ; Richard Noble, 7 ; Benjamin Stephens, 6; James Dearth, 6; Thomas Brown, 6 ; John Stevenson, 5 ; Samuel Kincadc, 5; Peter Laughlln, 5; Wm. McCormick, 5; John McKibben, 5; Edmond Fi'eemau. James Blackiston, Isaac Pierce, Augustine ]Mooi"e, Benjamin Davis, Hugh Laughlin. James Hammond, each 4; Providence Mountz, Margaret Vance, John Minter, Thomas Moore, William Harrison, Joseph Grable, Dennis Springer, John Wells, Robert Harrison Isaac Newman, each 3; Zachariah Connell, Mark Hardin, John Hardin, Theophilus Phillips, Philip Shutc, John Mason, Robert Ross, John Laughlin, Otho Brashears, Rezin Virgin, Jonathan Arnold, Richard Stephenson, each 2 ; and many others, one. I 100 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. Rowans, her Metcalfs, her Hardins and others. The flight to Kentucky started from the mouth of Redstone in Kentucky boats, which landed at Limestone (Maysville). This current was kept up during the decade of 1780-'90, and to some extent afterwards; but now it began to blend with another current which ran into the cheap and tempting plains of Ohio, a current which continued to flow with increasing force and breadth during the residue of that century, and for many years afterwards ; and indeed until after a protracted struggle she was completely supplanted in the affections of our people by Illinois and Iowa. These early removals to Kentucky brought to our county over- powering numbers of settlers from Eastern Pennsylvania and l!Tew Jersey, who availed themselves of the opportunity to buy out the improvements of the settlers upon easy terms. Of this class of new settlers were the Friends, or Quakers, who settled about Brownsville, and the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians generally. Many, however, of the Friends, especially those earliest here, came from Berkeley and Frederick counties in Virginia. Of such were the Beesons, who were here as early as 1766-'7. There were also Presbyterians here before 1770 — among them Rev. James Finley, who took up the lands where his grandchildren, Robert, Ebenezer and Eli now reside, as early as 1772, having bought out one Nace Thompson. The Presbyterian settlers located generally on Dunlap's creek, and between Redstone and the Yough — a few scattering in other places. The Rev. John McMillan, in his journal of his tour from the Valley of Virginia to Southwest Pennsylvania, in 1775, speaks of having lodged one night at "one Coburn's" — probably the place where the first Monongalia election was held;'* then, ten miles distant, he came to and lodged at Col. Wilson's,'^ (now ISTew Geneva,) and preached at " Mount Moriah."" Thence he went to John Armstrong's, on Muddy creek — thence to John McKibben's, on Dunlap's creek, (the old Judge Breading place, now George P]. ^ See "Boundary Controversy" — Chap. IX. '® See Memoir of Col. George Wilson among "Early Settlers," and " Boundary Con- troversy " — Chapters VII. and IX. 1' This was, and is a Presbyterian church ; and is where there is now a small frame •meeting house, once used as a school house, originally part of the old Caldwell tract of land, now Lee Tate, adjoining the late James C. Ramsay's, in Springhill township, about two miles southeast of New Geneva. The lot, four acres, (including a spring) on which it stands, was conveyed to Col. George Wilson and John Swearingen, (father of Captviiu 'Van Swearingen,) as trustees of the church, by Joseph Caldwell, by deed, (of record in Book A.) dated July 1, 1773, and is, perhaps, the oldest church title in the county. CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 101 Hogg,) at both of which places he lodged and preached. Thence to Mr. Adams', about four miles, and preached at James Pickett's ; thence, about five miles, to David Allen's. Mr. Adams was Robert Adams, Esq., a Presbyterian Elder, who lived on the Solomon Colley place, seven miles west of Uniontown, on the pike. David Allen's was where Robert Smith, Esq. now resides, in Franklin town- ship. James Pickett's we cannot certainly locate. From David Allen's he went to Col. Edward Cook's, a well known place, on Speer's run, north of Cookstown, and thence to Pentecost's, in Elizabeth township, Allegheny county, now John Torrence's, and thence to Chartiers, where he settled. And, as we have but little material for an Ecclesiastical History of Fayette, we may as well here insert what little we have. ,;. ' The Baptists were early in the field in this county, as early as 1766-'8. They settled generally near Uniontown, on George's creek and Redstone, the former having for their minister, perhaps as early as 1769, the Rev. Isaac Sutton,^^ who founded the church at Uniontown, called "Great Bethel," and the one near Merritts- town, called "Little Bethel." He settled about two miles south of Uniontown, where some of his descendants still reside. Among his people were the Brownfields, Gaddis', &c. Among the Red- stone Baptists were the Linns, Colvins, &c., having for their minister the Rev. W. Stone. The Rev. John Corbly, of Muddy creek, or rather Whiteley creek, in now Greene county, whose wife and children (five) were killed and scalped by Indians when on their way to church, in 1782, was a son-in-law of old Andrew Linn, who settled the Linn's Mill tract — "Crab-tree bottom," on Redstone, near Brownsville, at a very early day, that tract being the first official survey in the county, made August 22, 1769. The Redstone Association, like the Redstone Presbytery, is the oldest of its kind west of the Mountains. The Methodists did not reach this county until some years after the Revolution — about the close of the last century.^^ They rapidly 1^ The Baptist historian, Benedict, gives this honor to Elder John Sutton, a brother of Isaac, and who had another brother, Moses, who was a preacher. They all, we believe, settled in the same vicinity. There was also a Rev. James Sutton, on George's creek, who went West about 1790 — another brother, we presume. The George's creek Baptist Church at Smithfield was founded in 1780, with 34 members. '3 The oldest Methodist Ep. Church title in Fayette county that we can find is a deed from Isaac Meason to Thomas Moore, Jacob Murphy, Zach'h. Connell and Isaac Charles, Trustees, &c., for one acre, for a meeting house, dated May 2G, 1700: — but where it is — in what township, or other locality, we do not know. It is in the northern part of 102 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. rose in numbers and influence, — their system of itinerancy, or circuit riding, being admirably fitted to a new country.'* They had preaching stations at Uniontown, Brownsville, Connellsville and elsewhere, at an early period of their progress. Among their earliest preachers and exhorters at Uniontown, and perhaps at other stations, were Messrs. Henry Tomlinson, "William McClelland, John and Thomas Chaplin and Moses Hopwood. The Rev. William Brownfield began his clerical labors in that Church, but his deep rooted Calvinism soon led him to the Baptists, for whom he has long labored. The Rev. Thornton Fleming, of excellent memorj^ was among their early preachers. The Protestant Methodists arose about 1829, — the Cumberland Presbyterians in 1833, coming here from Tennessee and Kentucky, where they originated about 1810. The Associate Reformed, or that branch of the Presbyterian family which adheres rigidly to Rouse's version of Psalmody, called by various names, have firmly occupied some ground in Fayette from its earliest settlement, but have not kept up with the progress of population. The locality of their denominational existence is now restricted to Dunbar and Tyrone townships, with a few mem- bers in contiguous localities. Among their people are, and have been, the Junks, Gilchrists, Byers, Parkhills, Pattersons, &c. The Rev. David Proudfoot was their ancient minister. Indeed, in early times all the Presbyterians used Rouse's version of the Psalms, many churches as late as 1 825-' 30. The introduction, about 1800, of the new, or AVatts' Psalms and Hymns, created much excite- ment, and caused many secessions, especially at Laurel Hill, whence two Meeting Houses in close contiguity. These sturdy defenders of the ancient faith and practice are among our best citizens. The Episcopal Church had numerous adherents among our earliest settlers, that being then the established Church of Virginia, from which they came. Their system being, however, the reverse of that of the Methodists in adaptedness to new settlements, and the county somewhere. The title for the Meth. Ep. Church property, Uniontown, bears date August C, 1791, from Jacob Beeson and wife to David Jennings, Jacob Murphy, Samuel Stephens, Jonathan Rowland and Peter Hook, Trustees, &c. *" "I believe the first Methodist Camp Meeting held in this part of Western Pennsyl- vania was in 1802, on Pike run, about two and a half miles from Brownsville, on the old Ginger Hill, or Pittsburgh Road, in Washington county. The first one in this county was in 1805, near Jennings' run, about two and a half miles west of Uniontown, on part of the old David JeDnings and James Henthorn tracts, now owned by James Veech, Esq. It was the largest concourse of people I ever saw." F. L. CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 103 not having tlie missionary, or extension ingredient so well developed as had the Presbyterians, Baptists and some other sects, they were long postponed in obtaining fixed places of worship, or a regular administration of church ordinances. They have, however, long maintained churches at Brownsville and Counellsville ; and, more recently, at Uniontown and elsewhere. For a long period, — but how long, we cannot state, the Roman Catholics have had a chapel at Brownsville ; and within a few years past they have erected one at Uniontown. There are other religious sects among us, of whose history we know almost nothing. Among these are several which are confined almost exclusively to our German population, including the Luther- ans, Tunkers, or Dunkards, Mennonists, &c., some of whom date from a very early day.-' Besides these, in more recent times have arisen the Disciples, or Campbellites, the IS'ew Lights, Free Will Baptists, &c. We have no Unitarians, Universalists, Mormons, or Congregationalists. We regret that our materials are so scanty as not to allow us to refer this important branch of our early history to a separate sketch. As the subject relates to a "Kingdom not of this world," its memorials are not so accessible as are those of the rise and progress of temporal affairs. Indeed, when we reflect upon the decisive, but often unseen influence which religious faith and church discipline exert upon political movements and every day life, the dearth of materials for our ecclesiastical history is much to be regretted. The Rev. Doctor Smith, in his valuable work, "Old Redstone," has done a good work for the Presbyterian Church in Southwestern Pennsylvania; and we commend his example to the historians of other denominations. As the author of " Old Redstone " has well said and shown, nearly all our early temples were in the country, away from the noise and revelry of the villages, rearing their humble roofs beneath the -1 We believe the first meeting house for Christian worship erected within the limits of Fayette county, was on or near the site of the present "German Meeting House," in German township. It was a small log-cabin building. Its founders were known by the name of German Calvinists, or Lutherans. This was as early as 1770. We believe it is the only Church in the county having a glebe, or tract of land, attached to it. The Germans had also at a very early day — say 1774, a meeting house on Captain Philip Rogers' land, now Alfred Stewart's, near the Morgantown lload, in George's township. It was burnt by the woods being fired. Near its site is an ancient gi'ave- yard, indicated by a few moss-grown grave stones, "with shapeless sculpture decked." Capt. Rogers is buried there. 104 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. shade of the oak, on some flower-decked eminence, or in some quiet vale, beside some noiseless spring, or prattling rill ; — fit localities at which to drink of the wells of the water of life, and to hymn the praises of the Redeemer in unison with the bird notes of the bushes and the deep diapason of the forest. Who, that can remember their attendance, in dry days or wet, in warm days or cold, upon these rural sanctuaries, that does not deprecate the modern departure from those primitive habits ; when, instead of people coming from the country to worship, or gossip, at edifices begirt with noise and stench, and made cheerless by cold recep- tions, the villagers rode or trudged joyously into the country, there to meet warm greetings, and to listen to the tidings of salvation wafted to their ears in a pure atmosphere, uucontaminated by the smell of a pig-sty, and unmixed with the cries of a dog-fight ! There is poetry, as well as piety, yet, in a country church and a country parson. We will not attempt a catalogue, or further description of these old country cathedrals. Many of them have mouldered down and disappeared ; and the places of others have been supplied by edifices of more stately structure. While, as to all but a few, the forest trees which sheltered and adorned them, have been cut away ; and, in too many instances, their worshipers have not had enough of the grace of taste to plant and protect a substitute. A treeless church is worse than an untombed grave. And then, the old country schools, with their puncheon floors and benches, and long grease-paper-glazed windows, and "out"- paddles, and ferrules, and beech rods, and pedagogue dominies — where are they ? All gone. Hallowed be their memory ! They were plentifully scattered among our early settlements. There is scarcely a neighborhood in the cis-montane part of the county, where some survivor of the second generation cannot point you to the spot where his young ideas were taught to shoot and he to play. And if in those days the stream of knowledge was not so much diffused as now, yet perhaps the current was deeper, and its fer- tilizing influences more durable. Be it our aim still more to expand it, and to deepen and purify it. Nor were the higher branches of education neglected by our ancestors. True, chartered Academies and Colleges and Union Schools, with all their paraphernalia of Trustees and Faculty and Superintendents, and Libraries and Apparatus, and Endowments, were unknown ; but it was not less true, that in all that imparts dignity and strength and a love of further acquirement, to the human CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 105 intellect, the facilities then were as ample as now. Almost every country preacher was then a teacher of Latin and the Mathematics — a branch of their calling was it for which they were often better qualified than many modern "professors." They seldom had a separate building for the purpose — their own humble cabins were the recitation halls, and contiguous groves the study rooms, where many a youth, truly ambitious of fame and usefulness, was wont " Inter sylvas Academi querere verum." We have before us a newspaper of 1794, wherein is an advertise- ment by Rev. James Dunlap, then the Presbyterian Pastor of Laurel Hill and Dunlap's Creek, afterwards President of Jefferson College, Pa., and William Littell, Esq., afterwards a lawyer and author of eminence in Kentucky, setting forth that they had opened a school in Franklin township," where they teach "Elocution and the English language grammatically, together with the Latin, Greek and Hebrew languages, Geometry and Trigonometry, with their application to Mensuration, Surveying, Gauging, &c., likewise Geography and Civil History, Natural and Moral Philosophy, Logic and Rhetoric," and where "boarding, washing, &c., may be had at reputable houses in the neighborhood, at the low rate of ten pounds ($26.67) per annum." How long this nursery of Literature and Science continued, we know not — probably until 1803, when Mr. Dunlap's accession to the College Presidency occurred. Who, or how many were its students we cannot tell. It was, however, for a while well sustained, and several of the clergy and other professional men who rose in this country and in the West in the close of the last century, there received their " learning." "^ Among them was the Rev. George Hill, father of Col. A. M. Hill of this county, who found his wife at one of the "reputable houses in the neighborhood" (John McClelland's) where he boarded. Thus deeply did our forefathers lay the foundations of that prosperity which we now enjoy. Take them all in all, they were generally men and women of whom their posterity may be proud. Unlike most of the proud nations of Europe, ancient and modern, ^ We believe this was on the old Tanner farm, formerly owned by Col. Wm. Swear- ingen, now Charles McGlaughlin, and in Dunbar township. 23 After his Presidency at Canonsburg, in 1811-12, and when age and infirmity had somewhat impaired his mental, as well as bodily vigor, Dr. Dunlap taught a Latin and Mathematical school at New Geneva. Among his pupils there were Samuel Evans, James and Thomas W. Nicholson, Stephen Wood, and David Bradford, Jr., son of David Bradford, Esq., of Washington, Pa., of Whiskey Insurrection celebrity. 106 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. we have uo need of a fabulous antiquity in which to bury the mis- deeds of our progenitors. We may glory in the fullest and most authentic emblazonry of their conduct. Even those of us who do not boast a Fayette ancestry, will find many things in the character of our early settlers to command our admiration — many to attract our imitation ; while in a few, their errors and aberrations stand out as beacons to warn us that with all their heroic excellencies they still were men. It is not within our purpose, or our ability, to portray their character. It was that of original settlers every where — in many respects ; but in others it was one peculiar to the men and women of that age and of this country. The first settlers came here not merely to better their condition, but to gratify their iasle.'^* Many, in crossing the mountains, supposed they had passed the ultimate bound of that refined and conventional civilization, which to that class of men denominated piojieers, is too grievous to be borne. Rough they were, but strong. Patient of toil and privation, yet impatient of restraint. Poor in the wealth which engenders pride, but rich in expedients for substantial comfort. Fearless of danger, yet fearing their God. Extravagant in the nois}' sports of the chase, the raising, the harvest and the husking, but frugal of all the means of quiet, fireside enjoyment. Strong in their likes and dislikes, their attachments were inviolable, but their resentments dreadful. Yet, amid all this rudeness and horror of legal restraints, persons and property were generally more secure, and female chastity more sacred, then even now. And there were less of those petty trespasses which now annoy neighbors, and of those malicious tale tellings which now set neighborhoods in an uproar. The people of that day were governed less by law than by public opinion. Their capital — their stock in trade, as well as their personal security, depended much more upon the amount of esteem and confidence conferred upon them by their neighbors than upon their ability to drive a hard bargain, or make a show of superior wealth and equipage. They lived more directly under the sway of the original elements of the social compact — mutual aid and dependence. And, notwithstanding their heterogeneousuess as to colonial paternity, religious sentiment and even language, there existed more unity, more esprit du corps, and less segregation into ^ We have heard old settlers say, that, in early times, the common opinion was that this region of country, despite its rich soil and fine springs and water courses, could never come to much for want of iron and salt ! CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 107 classes and castes than now. What they lacked in refinement, was more than compensated by their abundant hospitality. The new comer, or the stranger was always welcomed to their home, and their assistance, for they had themselves been strangers in a strange land.^^ If to resent an injury, or an insult, was in them an ever present feeling, there was just as constantly absent from their breasts that cold selfishness which is too apt to seize upon men in more advanced society, and which generally chills and dries up the social virtues to their very fountains. We have already referred to our early religious and educational engraftings, as evincing a healthy condition of our social beginnings. But there are other proofs, not less unequivocal. That petty litiga- tion, which now crowds our Court-houses and Justice's offices, was then unknown. The "hundred dollar act" was not then enacted, nor any of its prototypes. Our county was seven years in existence before it had a resident lawyer. And when our courts of justice were held at Carlisle, or Bedford, or Hannastowu, or even at old Beesontown, the sturdy yeomanry from Cheat and George's creek, from the Monongahela and Redstone, and the Yough, who resorted to their sittings, went there more to exchange greetings and hear the news of the day, than to foment disputes, or testify against their neighbor's honesty or reputation. Assaults and batteries, unless highly aggravated, were settled at home, or in the field ; petty thefts were punished by frowns, or banishment. Many a court passed without the grand jury having to find a single bill. And whoever will consult our early court records will learn that nearly all the actions brought and contested related in some way to the title, or possession, or payment of lands; while ceriioraris and appeals from justices of the peace, actions for slander and on horse swaps, and "suits for settlement" and on express contracts, were comparatively unknown. The men of that day sought to be ® A remarkable instance of kindness to strangers occurred in what is now Luzerne township, on Coxe's run, at a very early day. A stranger, from the vicinity of Hagers- town, by the name of Applegate, had somehow got his leg badly broken in the woods, and in that condition was found by an old settler, who at once had him borne to his cabin, where every aid and comfort within reach was provided. But it being late in the fall, and the stranger knowing that the remedy for his misfortune was time and patience, was very anxious to be again among his family and friends. There was then no carriage road across the mountains, nothing but a pack-horse path. To convey him home, eight of the neighbors agreed to carry him on a sort of hammock, swung on two poles like a bier. This they did, all the way to Hagerstown ! Four of the men were Michael Cock, William Conwell, Thomas Davidson and Rezin Virgin. Tradition has failed to preserve the names of the other four "good Samaritans." 108 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. a law unto themselves, and were of too lofty a spirit to be actors in the low kennels of modern chicanery. Their word was their bond — its seal their honor — its penalty the fear of social degradation. We have yet to sketch the trying times of the Boundary Contro- versy — the Revolutionary and Indian Wars and the Whiskey Insur- rection; — events in our early history which are too prominent, and too full of interesting incident, to be crowded into any general narrative. For their prompt resistance to the foes of their lives and liberties, native and foreign, our early settlers ask not even the apologj of fondness for adventure. And it must not be inferred because of the wild excitements into which they were thrown in 1774, and again in '94, that they were lawless and turbulent. Their resistance to doubtful rule and questionable taxation sprang less from criminal propensities than from their antecedents and present privations. Their very simplicity and hardy virtues made them an easy prey to interested partizans and designing demagogues. And, while thus wrought upon, like the placid ocean by the unseen wind, they were enacting the stormy resistance of those periods, they, when the appliances which aroused them were removed, yielded as submissively and heartily to the gravitating influences of law and order, as if nothing had ever occurred to disturb them.^® ^^ The Hon. William Findley, in his " History of the Western Insurrection of 1794," devotes a chapter to exhibit this peculiarity of character among the eai-ly yeomanry of Southwestern Pennsylvania — ready and entire acquiescence after impassioned and well grounded, though unlawful resistance; in which respects thej' compare most favorably with the Connecticut claimants in our own State, the Massachusetts rebellion, and other similar troubles in our early national history. CHAPTER VII. MEMOIRS OF EARLY SETTLERS. 1. — The Browns — Wendell, Maunus, Thomas and Adam. 2. — Christopher Gist and Family — Thomas, Nathaniel, Richard, Anne and Mrs. Cromwell. 3. — Col. William Crawford. 4. — Col. James Paull. 5. — Col. George Wilson. 6. — Col. Alexander McClean. 7, — John Smilie. 8. — Gen. Ephraim Douglass. 9. — Albert Gallatin. — Appendix — List of Early (1772) Settlers in Fayette, and parts of Greene, Washing- ton, Westmoreland and Allegheny ; and the townships then existing — Spring Hill' Tyrone and Rostraver. We arrange these, as nearly as we can, in the order in which the subjects of them became inhabitants of what is now Fayette county. WENDELL BROWN AND SONS. The most prominent facts, known to us, in the lives of these men have been already noticed — that they were the first white settlers within our limits, having come here as early as 1750-'51, when our county was an unbroken wilderness, and their only associates and neighbors the tawny sons of the forest. We suppose the West is full of such instances of self exile ; but we cannot define the peculiarity of mental organization which leads to it. They came from that hive of our early settlers — Virginia ; but from what part of it, we are uninformed ; and we believe that until their second advent — after the dangers from Indian hostility which attended and followed the old French war had subsided, they were unaccompanied by any females or children. These indispensable ingredients in the cup of domestic life would but have added bitterness to the anxieties which beset their forest abode. When Washington's little army was at the Great Meadows, or Fort Necessity, the Browns packed provisions to him — corn and beef. And when he surrendered to the French and Indians, on the 4th of July, 1754, they retired, with the retreating colonial troops, across the mountains ; whence they returned to their lands after the re-instatement of the English dominion by Forbes' army in 1758. 110 THE MONONGAIIELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. "I could repeat numerons Indian stories told by Abraham and Christopher Brown, sons of Maunus and grandsons of Wendell Brown ; but one or two must suffice. "It is well known that while the Indians held undivided sway in this region they had one or more lead mines in our mountains, the localities of which they guarded with inviolable secrecy. The discovery of these by the Browns would have been an invaluable acquisition to their venatorial pursuits. Many efforts did they make to find them, and many sly attempts to follow the Indians in their resorts to the mines, but all in vain. And more than once did they narrowly escape detection and consequent death, by their eagerness to share the forbidden treasure. "Abraham Brown used to relate of his uncle Thomas, that having offended the Indians by some tricks played upon them, (perhaps in contrivances to discover their lead mines and by repeatedly escaping from them when taken prisoner,) he once escaped being burnt only by the timely interposition of a friendly chief; but that eventually they caught him, when no such intercessor was nigh, and knocked out all his teeth with a piece of iron and a tomahawk. This was savage cruelty. Now, for savage honesty. In a season of scarcity, some Indians came to the Browns for provisions. The old man sold them eight rows of corn. He after- wards found they had taken just the eight rows, and not an ear more. "I knew Adam Brown — 'old Adam,' as he was called. He boasted of having been a king's lieutenant in his early days ; having probably served with the Virginia provincials in the French and Indian wars. For his services he claimed to have had a Royal grant of land, of nine miles square, extending from near Mount Braddock along the face of Laurel Hill southward, and westward as far as New Salem, I have seen a large stone, standing a little Southwest of the residence of Daniel (or William) Moser, in George township, which -the Jate John McClelland said was a corner of Adam's claim. The old lieutenant, it was said, induced many acquaintances to settle around him, on his grant, — the Downards, McCarty's, Brownfields, Henthorns, Kindells, Scotts., Jennings', Greens, McDonalds', Iligginsons, &c. ; and, out of abundant caution, he and his brother Maunus, and they, entered applications for their lands in the Pennsylvania Land-Office, on the 14th of June, 1769, and had them surveyed soon after. They seem to have been quiescent in the 'Boundary Controversy.' But it was CH. VII.] CHRISTOPHER GIST. Ill said that early in 1775, Adam and some of his associates had employed an agent to go to London to perfect the Royal grant ; when, npon the breaking out of the Revolution, which ended the King's power in this country, they gave up the effort, and in due time perfected their titles under Pennsylvania. From this and some other grounds, arose the current allegation that old Adam and sundry of his neighbors were unfriendly to the cause of American independence. We believe they were never guilty of any overt acts of Toryism. They are now all gone ; and, with two or three exceptions, none of them have now any descendants in the county. The Maunus Brown branch of the family has always been considered free of the taint charged to 'old Adam,' and has been productive of good citizens." CHRISTOPHER GIST AND FAMILY. The ancestral head of the Gists in Fayette has been already noticed, as having come here as agent of the old Ohio Company, and settled on the Mount Braddock lands in 1753. The fact that the body of this Company was in Virginia, although its head was in London and a limb extended into Maryland, has led to the belief, generally adopted, that Christopher Gist came from Virginia. And it seems that, for a while at least, he was domiciled in that colony, although he was, we believe, a native of England. But when his agency for the Ohio Company commenced he had his abode away down in x^orth Carolina, on the Yadkin, near the confines of Virginia. Returning home after his mission to the Ohio Indians, in 1751, he found his house burnt by the Southern savages, and his family driven up into Virginia, on the Roanoke. In this vicinity, it is probable, he resided until he removed to the Monongahela country, in 1753. Christopher Gist was among the earliest adventurers into this region of country, and had probably been west of the mountains before his agency for the Ohio Company. Our first traces of his travels indicate a considerable knowledge of our mountain paths and passes, and of the Indian tribes who peopled the Ohio valley. The Ohio Company was formed in 1748, and began its preliminary operations in 1750, in which year we find Mr. Gist the bearer of a speech from the Governor of Virginia to the Ohio Indians. He was out again in 1751 ; when he visited the Indian tribes on the Muskingum, Scioto and Miami. He returned by the valley of the 112 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII- Kentucky river to North Carolina. He thus became one of the earliest Anglo-Saxon explorers of what are now the rich States of Ohio and Kentucky ; of which he said " nothing is wanted but cultivation to make this a most delightful country." He set out again in the spring of 1752, and attended an Indian treaty, or council, at Logstown, on the Ohio, some sixteen miles below Pittsburgh. These missions were all on behalf of the Ohio Company, to conciliate the Indians and look out for good lands. In the latter part of 1753, he accompanied Washington, as his guide, from Wills' creek (Cumberland) to the French posts on the Allegheny. He was again with him in his military expedition of 1754, and was with Braddock in 1755. He had also been with Capt. Trent in the abortive eiibrt of the Ohio Company to build their fort at the "Forks of the Ohio," in February, 1754. The defeat of Braddock, in July, 1755, seems to have ended his agency for the Ohio Company, and he now turned his energies into other channels. Virginia kept up her efforts to repel the French and Indians until after the conquest by Forbes, in 1758, and Gist found ample employment in the service of that colony. In the fall of 1755, he raised a company of scouts in the frontiers of Virginia and Maryland ; and thereafter he becomes known as Captain Gist. In 1756, he was sent Southwest to enlist a body of the Cherokee Indians into the English service, and succeeded. He thereupon, in 1757, became Deputy Indian Agent in the South, a service "for which," says Col. Washington, "I know of no person so well qualified. He has had extensive dealings with the Indians, is in great esteem among them, well acquainted with their manners and customs, indefatigable and patient; and as to his honesty, capacity and zeal, I dare venture to engage." What part, if any, he took in Forbes' campaign, we do not know. Perhaps his Indian agency kept him employed elsewhere. He seems to have been well educated, and was a good surveyor. He was, moreover, a man of great natural shrewdness and energy — a "woodsman" of the highest order. We are left to conjecture to assign a motive for fixing an abode in these then inhospitable wilds. Perhaps it was to establish a station for expeditions of the Ohio Company : — perhaps the beautiful body of land upon which he reared his cabin was a temptation too powerful to be overcome by the quiet and comforts of civilized society. Although he returned and resumed his possessions here after Forbes' conquest, we think he did not again permanently settle with his family until about 1765. He transferred his land claims to his son Thomas, en. YII.] CHRISTOPHER GIST. 113 aud having settled liim, and his son-in-law, Cromwell,^ he soon afterwards returned to Virginia, or ISTorth Carolina, and there died, and was buried among his kindred. Doubtless, like the poet .of "Sweet Auburn," the wish had never been lost, amid all his perilous wanderings, " his long vexations past, There to return — and die at home at last." There are some incidents in the return of "Washington and Gist from their embassy to the French, in 1753-'54, which we must narrate in their own language, as found in their journals. The time is December — the scene, the unbroken wilderness of what is now Butler and Allegheny counties, North and West of the Allegheny river. Snow had fallen. It was becoming very cold. The horses were very weak and were giving out, scarcely able to carry the baggage. Washington determined to leave them in charge of Vanbraam and his other "servitors," and hasten on with Gist, afoot. Says Washington, "I took my necessary papers, pulled off my ^ The following aiSdavit of William Stewart sheds light on several subjects and locali- ties embraced in these sketches : — "Fayette Countt, ss. Before the subscriber, '^one of the Commonwealth's justices of the peace, for said county, personally appeared William Stewakt, who being of lawful age, and duly sworn on the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God, saith : — That he was living in this country, near Stewart's Crossings, in the year 1753, and part of the year 1754, until he was obliged to remove hence on account of the French taking possession of this coun- try, — that he was well acquainted with Captain Christopher Gist and family, and also with Mr. William Cromwell, Capt, Gist's son-in-law. He further saith that the land where Jonathan Hill now lives, and the land where John Murphy now lives, was settled by William Cromwell, as this deponent believes and always understood, as a tenant to the said Christopher Gist. The said Cromwell claimed a place called the "Beaver Dams," which is the place now owned by Philip Shute,' and where he now lives; [part of Col. Evans' estate] and this deponent further saith that he always understood that the reason of said Cromwell's not settling on his own land (the Beaver Dams) was, that the Indians in this country at that time were very plenty, and the said Cromwell's wife was afraid, or did not choose to live so far from her father and mother, there being at that time but a very few families of white people settled in this country. And this deponent further saith * * * * that when this deponenf s father, himself and brothers first came into this country, in the beginning of the year 1763, they attempted to take possession of the said Beaver Dams, and were warned off by some of said Christopher Gist's family, who informed them that the same belonged to Wm. Cromwell, the said Gist's son-in-law. And further deponent saith not. WILLIAM STEWART." Sworn and subscribed before me this 20th day of April, 178G. James Finley. 8 114 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. clothes, and tied myself up in a wateli coat. Then, with gun in hand, and pack on my back, in which were my papers and pro- visions, I set out with Mr. Gist, fitted in the same manner, on Wednesday, the 26th (December). The day following, just after we had passed a place called Murderingtown, [in Butler county] we fell in with a party of French and Indians, who had laid in wait for us. One of them fired at Mr. Gist, or me, not fifteen steps off, hut fortunately missed. We took this fellow into custody, and kept him until about nine o'clock at night, then let him go, and walked all the remaining part of the night, without making any itop, that we might get the start so far, as to be out of the reach of their pursuit the next day." Mr. Gist relates this occurrence thus: — "We rose early in the morning, and set out about two o'clock, and got to the Murderingtown, on the south-east fork of Beaver creek. Here we met an Indian, whom I thought I had seen at Joncaire's, at Venango, when on our journey up to the French Fort. This fellow called me by my Indian name and pretended to be glad to see me. I thought very ill of the fellow, but did not care to let the Major [Washington] know that I mis- trusted him. But he soon mistrusted him as much as I did. The Indian said he could hear a gun from his cabin, and steered us more northwardly. We grew uneasy ; and then he said two whoops might be heard from his cabin. We went two miles further. Then the Major said he would stay at the next water. We came to water, to a clear meadow. It was very light, and snow was on the ground. The Indian made a stop and turned about. The Major saw him point his gun towards us, and he fired. Said the Major, 'are you shot?' — 'No,' said I ; upon which the Indian ran forward to a big standing white oak, and began loading his gun. But we were soon with him. I would have killed him, but the Major would not suffer me. We let him charge his gun. We found he put in a ball ; then we took care of him. Either the Major or I always stood by the guns. We made the Indian make a fire for us by a little run, as if we intended to sleep there. I said to the Major: 'As you will not have him killed, we must get him away, and then we must travel all night.' Upon which I said to the Indian, 'I suppose you were lost, and fired your gun.' He said he knew the way to his cabin, and it was but a little way. 'Well,' said I, 'do you go home, and as we are tired, we will follow your track in the morning ; and here is a cake for you, and you must give us meat for it in the morning.' He was glad to get away. I followed him and listened, until he was fairly out of CH. VII.] CHRISTOPHER GIST'S CHILDREN. 115 the way ; and then we went about half a mile, when we made a fire, set our compass, fixed our course, and traveled all night. In the morning we were on the head of Pine creek." "The next day," says Washington, "we continued traveling until quite dark, and got to the river [Allegheny] about two miles above Shannopin's town [two or three miles above Pittsburgh]. We expected to have found the river frozen, but it was not, only about fifty yards from each shore. The ice was driving in vast quantities. There was no way to get over but on a raft, which we set about making, with but one poor hatchet, and finished just after sun set. This was a whole day's work. We next got it launched, then went on board of it, and set off. But before we were half way over, we were jammed in the ice in such a manner that we expected every moment our raft to sink and ourselves to perish. I put out my setting pole, to try to stop the raft that the ice might pass by ; when the rapidity of the stream threw it with 80 much violence against the pole, that it jerked me out into ten feet water ; but I fortunately saved myself by catching hold of one of the raft logs. N"otwithstanding all our eftbrts, we could not get to either shore, but were obliged, as we were near an Island [Wainwright's] to quit our raft and make to it. The cold was 80 extremely severe that Mr. Gist had all his fingers, and some of his toes frozen ; and the water was shut up so hard, that we found no difficulty in getting ofif the Island on the ice the next morning, and went on to Frazier's." Christopher Gist had three sons, ISTathaniel, Thomas and Richard ; and two daughters, Anne, never married, and Violet, wife of William Cromwell, whom her father settled on that part of his lands which is now owned by Isaac Wood. Cromwell afterwards ungratefully set up a claim to it in his own right, which he sold to one Samuel Lyon, with whom Thomas Gist had a protracted, but successful controversy for the title. Each of these sons, as well as the father, acquired inceptive titles to different parts of the Mount Braddock lands. All their rights were eventually united in Thomas Gist, who perfected the titles. He died in 1786, on the Mount Braddock estate, and is there buried. By his last will, dated in 1772, he devised his estates to his only daughter, Elizabeth Johnson, who married Andrew McKown, and to his brothers and sisters and their children. These soon sold out to Isaac Meason, the elder, — many of them having before that time removed to Kentucky, where their descendants are still believed to reside. Anne, the maiden sister, resided with Thomas until his death, and became his ad- IIG THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. ministiator with tlic \Yill annexed — as the executors named in the will, Gen. Mordecai Gist, of Baltimore, and George Dawson,^ resided out of the State. Thomas Gist was a man of some note. In 1770, while we were part of Cumberland county, he was commissioned a justice of the peace. His commission was, in 1771, renewed for Bedford county, and in 1773, for Westmoreland, where he presided in the October Sessions of the Courts of that year. Washington dined with him on the 25th K^ovember, 1770, when returning from his Western land tour of that year; whence, after dinner, he proceeded to Hogland's, at the Great Crossings. We judge that the dinner must have been served up at an early hour, and that but little time was spent "after the cloth was removed." Of Eichard Gist we know, certainly, nothing worthy of record. His celebrity, if he acquired any, was in Kentucky, W'hither he removed at an early period.^ jSTathaniel Gist became the most conspicuous of the sons, at least in a military point of view. Obscurity rests alike upon his early and later career.* He seems to have been a subordinate - General Gist is named in the Will, whicli is dated in 1772, as "Mordecai Gist, merchant, of Baltimore." He afterwards becomes Brigadier General of the Maryland Line in the Revolution ; and Tvas probably a younger brother of Christopher Gist. He died at Charleston, S. C, in August, 1792. In 1771, he had a claim to some land "near the Big Meadows, on Braddock's road," taken up for him by Thomas Gist. So also had Joshua Gist. George Dawson was the grandfather of the present George and John Dawson, Esqs., of Fayette, and great-grandfather of Hon. John Littleton Dawson. He was really dead before 1786. But his son Nicholas, who in 1783, had removed into the Virginia "pan- handle" on the Ohio, just below the State line, was his executor, and was thereby sup- posed to be entitled to become executor of Gist. Hence the record reads as stated in the text. The Dawsons owned and resided on the lands in North Union township, recently the home of Col. Wm. Swearingen. ^ Sec note 5. * In a note to one of Col. "Washington's letters in II. Sparks, 283, under date of May, 1758, we find the following story related, and as Christopher Gist at this time was designated as " Captain Gist," we ]^vesu.mQ Lieutenant Gist was his son Nathaniel: — "An Indian named Ucahula was sent from Fort Loudoun [Winchester] with a party of six soldiers and thirty Indians, under command of Lieutenant Gist. After great fatigues and sufferings, occasioned by the snows on the Allegheny Mountains, they reached the Monongahela river, where Lieutenant Gist, by a fall from a precipice, was rendered unable to proceed, and the party separated. Ucahula, with two other Indians, descended the Monongahela [from the mouth of Redstone] in a bark canoe, till they came near Fort Du Quesne. Here they left their canoe, and concealed them- selves on the margin of the river, tiU they had the opportunity of attacking two Frenchmen, who were fishing in a canoe, and whom they killed and scalped. These 'scalps' were brought to Fort Loudoun by Ucahula." CH, VII.] NATHANIEL GIST. IIT officer on the Virginia and Maryland frontier in the French and Indian war. In January, 1777, he was, by General Washington, ap- pointed colonel of one of the sixteen new battalions ordered by Congress, and was sent into the Cherokee country, to add to his four companies of rangers, five hundred Indians. He failed in this, but held command of his battalion of rangers for some years? and was in the service at the close of the war. He commanded a detachment in the march of the American army from Englishtown, N"ew Jersey, to King's Ferry, in July, 1778. Prior to this, in March, 1778, he was again sent southward, to enlist the Cherokees into the service of the struggling colonies, and seems to have had some success. Gen. Washington speaks of him as well acquainted with that powerful tribe of Indians and their allies. He had doubtless been with his father in his Indian agency, in that quarter, in 1756-'8 ; and, it seems, succeeded to the office after his father's death. We trace him, from 1786 to 1794, as General Gist, of Buckingham county, Virginia ; within which period he was several times in Fayette county, on business with Judge Meason.* It may be that we have not done full justice to Col. Nathaniel Gist's Eevolutiouary services, from our inability to discriminate between him and his Baltimore relative, who also bore the rank and designation of "Col. Gist" until January, 1779. 5 From a letter of Benjamin Sharp, in II. American Pioneer, 237, dated Warren county, Missouri, March 3, 1843, we take the following; -which gives some light upon the history of the Gists : — " In the year 1776, he [Col. Nathaniel Gist] was the British Superintendent of the Southern Indians, and was then in the Cherokee nation. And when Col. Christian car- ried his expedition into the Indian country, he surrendered himself to him ; and although the inhabitants were so exasperated at him that almost every one that mentioned his name wotild threaten his life, yet Christian conveyed him through the frontier settle- ments unmolested ; and he went on to head-quarters to General Washington, where, I suppose, their former friendship was revived. He became a zealous Whig, and obtained, through the General's influence, as was supposed, a Colonel's commission in the Con- tinental army, and served with reputation during the war. He afterwards settled in Kentucky, where he died not many years ago. I well recollect of the friends of Gen. Jackson boasting that a luxuriant young hickory had sprung out of his grave, in honor of old hickory face, the hero of New Orleans. One of his uncles, also a Col. Nathaniel Gist [Mordecai?] was uncle to my wife by marriage; and Ms youuger brother [Query — the uncle's or the nephew's?] Richard Gist, lived a close neighbor to my father in 1780, and went on the expedition to King's Mountain, and fell there, within twenty -five or thirty steps of the British lines, of which I am yet a living witness." 118 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. COL. WILLIAM CRAWFORD "Was a native of Virginia, and we believe of Berkeley county. He was a surveyor, and in that pursuit had early in life become acquainted with Washington, when on some of his surveying excursions into that the then frontier part of Virginia. Crawford was a Virginia captain in Forbes' army against the French and Indians at Fort Du Quesne, in 1758 ; and in that expedition behaved so well as to gain largely upon the confidence of Washington, who was ever afterwards his steadfast friend.^ After that signal event, we lose sight of him until 1767, when he came into and settled in what is now Fayette county — then Bedford, or, as he supposed. West Augusta county, Virginia. He fixed his abode on Brad- dock's road, on the western bank of the Youghiogheny river, a little below Wew Haven. The place was then, and long afterwards, known as Stewart's Crossings. Here he continued to reside until his tragical death. We fix 1767 as the date of his settlement from two pieces of evidence. The one is an account of his against one James McKee, which his executors sued on in Fayette county Court, in 1785, which account begins in 1767. The other is a letter from Washington to him, dated Sept. 21, 1767,^ requesting him to survey lands for him in this country. It has been said, however, that he did not remove his family until 1768, which is probable. His wife, Hannah, was a sister of John Vance, the father of Moses Vance, of Tyrone township. He had a brother, Valentine Crawford, who figured to some extent in these parts in the Boundary troubles.^ Colonels John and Richard Stevenson were his half-brothers. Col. Crawford had, we believe, but one son, John, and two daughters, Ophelia, wife of William McCormick, and Sarah, who married Major Wm. Harrison, and, after his death, became the wife of Major Uriah Springer. She left issue by both marriages. Mrs. McCormick also left children. But it is said that few of these descendants of Col. Crawford inherit his energies, ^ He accompanied Washington on bis land tour, down the Ohio to Kenhawa, in 1770. ^ See this letter in full in the sketch entitled : "Washington in Fayette." * Valentine Crawford, styled Colonel, owned land in Bullskin township, which, about 1784, was sold by the Sheriff of Westmoreland to Col. Isaac Meason. He was dead in 1785, and John Minter was his administrator. In 1773 he resided in Frederick county, Maryland. The land of John Gaddis, Esq., now his son, Jacob Gaddis, above 'Sock, was held originally by George Paull, Jr., in right of Valentine Crawford. CH. VII.] COL. WILLIAM CRAWFORD. 119 either physical or mental. The reader will remember that Major Harrison, William Crawford, Jr., (son of Valentine, we presnme,) and Major William Rosse, another nephew of Col. Crawford, lost their lives in Crawford's campaign, while John, the son, escaped. He, a few years afterwards, sold his land to Col. Isaac Meason, and settled near the mouth of Brush Creek, on the Ohio river, where he died. It appears from the account above referred to, and other evidence, that when Capt. Crawford first came into this region, he, as well as Valentine, were engaged in the Indian trade, a pursuit very common to our early settlers. lie also exercised, to a limited extent, his vocation of surveyor, ^nd in that capacity made numerous unofficial surveys for Washington and his brothers Samuel and John Augustine, and his relative, Lund Washington, as well as for others, — even before the lands were bought from the Indians. The object was to acquire Virginia rights. The captain also took up several valuable tracts for himself, in the vicinity of Stewart's Crossings, but none of them, we believe, in his own name. The home tract, at the Crossings, is in the name of his son John, — others are in the names of Benjamin Harrison,* Wm. Harrison, Battle Harrison, Lawrence Harrison, Jr., &c. He owned other lands by purchase from the original settlers. Upon the erection of Bedford county, in 1771, Capt. Crawford was appointed a justice of the peace. His appointment was renewed after the erection of Westmoreland, in 1773. He was Presiding Justice of the Courts of that county, when his commis- sions were revoked in January, 1775, for the reasons noticed in our sketch of the "Boundary Controversy," — he having become a very active and somewhat indiscreet Virginia partizan against the Penn Government. After Virginia had, in 1776, undertaken to parcel out the disputed territory into counties, and established land offices within it, Capt. Crawford was appointed the land officer, or surveyor of Yohogania county, which office he held during the Revolution and until Virginia surrendered her pre- tensions, in 1779-'80. Crawford was fitted by nature to be a soldier and a leader. Ambitious, cool and brave, he possessed that peculiar courage and * Tbe ancestor of this Harrison family was Lawrence Harrison, who owned the tract of land adjoining the Crawford lands, and which is now owned by Daniel Rogers and James Blackstone, and perhaps others. His daughter, Catharine, was the wife of Hon. Isaac ileason, the elder, of Mount Braddock. 120 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD, [CH. VII, sldll which is adapted to Indian or border warfare. His ardent love of adventure and figlit, got the better of his prudence and Pennsylvania loyalty in the controversy with Virginia. In 1774, while a sworn peace officer of Pennsylvania, he, contrary to the Penn policy, led two bodies of troops down the Ohio, in Dunmore's war, and, for a while, commanded at "Wheeling. He, however, had no fighting to do. "We find him taking part, as a good American patriot, in the first Revolutionary meeting held at Fort Pitt, in May, 1775, along with Smith, Wilson and others, to v/hora, as firm adherents to Pennsylvania in the recent conflict, he had been actively opposed. Soon after this he seems to have entered the military service of Virginia. In February, 1776, he is appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the Fifth Regiment of the forces of that colony; and in September following we find him with his regiment at "Williamsburg, the ancient capital of the Old Dominion. In October, 1776, he became Colonel of the Seventh Virginia Regiment. In February, 1777, Congress appropriated ^20,000, "to be paid to Col. William Crawford for raising and equipping his regiment, which is part of the Virginia new levies." In a letter from the Colonel to Gen. Washington, dated at Williamsburg, in September, 1776, he expresses his apprehension of Indian troubles about Fort Pitt, and says if they arise he will be sent there. This expectation was not realized until IlTovember, 1777, when Congress "Resolved that Gen. Washington be requested to send Col. Wm. Crawford to Pittsburgh to take the command, under Brig. Gen. Hand, of the Continental troops and militia in the Western Department." He seems then to have been with Gen. Washington at his Head- Quarters at Whitemarsh, near Philadelphia ; and Congress being in session at York, Pa., the colonel repaired thither to receive his instructions, and soon after departed for the scene of his command. How long he held it, and what he did, are involved in obscurity. The only trace we find is, that in 1778, he built a fort on the Allegheny, some sixteen miles above Pittsburgh, called Fort Crawford; and Mr. Sparks, in a note to IL Sparks' W^ashington, o46, says he took command of the regiment in May, 1778. It is probable that the regiment referred to was one of the two which Congress, early in that year, ordered to be raised on the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania for their defence ; and that the regiment of "Virginia new levies," to which the $20,000 had been appropriated, was assigned to some other officer. The dangers from Indian aggression having subsided, or being en. VII.] COL. WILLIAM CRAWFORD. 121 otherwise provided against, it seems that Col. Crawford, in 1779, returned home and resumed his duties as laud officer of Virginia for Yohogania county, in which the sittings of the Virginia Com- missioners at Coxe's Fort and Redstone Old Fort, in the latter part of that year and beginning of 1780, gave him ample employ- ment. We believe he never again engaged in military service until he went into the ill-fated campaign of 1782, which cost him his life. As a distinct military enterprise, Crawford's Oampaign belongs to another sketch,^ to which we refer the reader. Our purpose here is limited to its fatal personal relations to its renowned commander. Whether from a presentiment of his untimely end, or from the dictates of that prudence which Washington evinced in like cir- cumstances. Col. Crawford, before setting out in the perilous march, made his last will,'' and disposed of his estate among his children. And on the 14th of May, 1782, three or four days before leaving home, he and wife, for the consideration of natural love and affection, and five shillings, conveyed to his son-in-law, who accompanied him. Major William Harrison, sixty-eight acres of land on the Yough river, adjoining where said Harrison then lived. The deed is acknowledged the same day before Providence Mountz, Esq., and appended to it is a curious memorandum., in imitation of the old English feudal feoffment, — that on the day of the date thereof, full and peaceable possession of said land being taken and had by said Crawford, the same was by him, then and there, in due form, by turf and twig, delivered to said Harrison, and the five shillings thereupon paid : — Test : Providence Mountz and P. Mountz, Jr. Col. Crawford, however, left his private afifairs in a very unsettled condition, as he passed through the excitements and vicissitudes of the later years of his life ; the necessary result of which was, that his estate, soon after his death, was swept away from his family by a flood of claims, some of which, doubtless, had no just foundation. His widow was sustained for many years by a pension. In another sketch, already referred to, the reader may acquaint himself with the most prominent incidents of the march and of the disastrous encounter of the 5th of June, 1782, on the plains of 5 See "Revolutionary and Indian wars," — Chap. X. fi His -will, recorded in Westmoreland county, bears date May 16, 1782. 122 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. Sandusky, where Col. Crawford "fought his last battle,"— and we believe his first one also. The Colonel headed the retreat of the main body of his discom- fited' band. To assure himself whether or not his son and other relatives were safe, he stopped and went back, or let the army pass him, to make inquiry. Not finding them, he left the line of retreat to make further search — but in vain. And now, so rapidly had the army moved, and so jaded was his horse, that he was unable to overtake it. This separation from his command cost him his life, as a sacrifice to parental solicitude. He soon fell in company with Dr. Knight, the surgeon of the regiment, and two others, and guided by the stars they traveled all night in varied directions to elude the pursuit of the enemy. On the next day they were joined by four others, of whom were Capt. John Biggs and Lieut. Ashley, the latter badly wounded. These eight now held together, and on the second night of the flight ventured to encamp. The next day they came to the path by which the army had advanced ; and a council was held as to whether it would be safer to pursue it, or to continue their course through the woods. The Colonel's opinion decided them to keep the open path. A line of march was formed, with Crawford and Knight in front. Biggs and Ashley in the centre, on horseback, while the other footmen brought up the rear. " Scarcely had they proceeded a mile when several Indians sprung up within twenty yards of the path, presented their guns, and in good English ordered them to stop. Knight sprung behind a tree, and leveled his gun at one of them. Crawford ordered him not to fire, and the Doctor reluctantly obeyed. The Indians ran up to Col. Craw- ford in a friendly manner, shook his hands and asked him how he did. Biggs and Ashley halted, while the men in the rear took to their heels and escaped. Col. Crawford ordered Capt. Biggs to come up and surrender, but the Captain instead of doing so, took aim at an Indian, fired, and then he and Ashley put spurs to their horses, and for the present escaped. They were both overtaken and killed the next day. "On the morning of the 10th of June, Col. Crawford, Dr. Knight and nine other prisoners, were conducted by seventeen Indians to the old Sandusky town, about thirty-three miles distant. They were all blacked by Pipe, a Delaware chief, who led the captors, and the other nine were marched ahead of Crawford and Knight. Four of the prisoners were tomahawked and scalped on the way at different places, and when the other five arrived at the town> CH. VII.] COL. WILLIAM CRAWFORD. 123 the boys aud squaws fell upon them and tomahawked them in a moment." We now approach the "last scene of all, which ends this strange eventful history," aud we borrow the eloquent description of it by Captain McClung.' " As soon as the Colonel arrived they surrounded him, stripped him naked and compelled him to sit on the ground near a large fire, around which were about thirty warriors, and more than double that number of squaws and boys. They then fell upon him and beat him severely with their fists and sticks. In a few minutes a large stake was fixed in the ground and piles of hickory poles, about twelve feet long, were spread around it. Col. Crawford's hands were then tied behind his back ; a strong rope was produced, one end of which was fastened to the ligature between his wrists, and the other tied to the bottom of the stake. The rope was long enough to permit him to walk round the stake several times and then return. Fire was then applied to the hickory poles, which lay in piles at the distance of several yards from the stake. " The Colonel observing these terrible preparations, called to the noted Simon Girty, who 'sat on horseback at a few yards distance from the fire, and asked if the Indians were going to burn him. Girty very coolly replied in the afiirmative. The Colonel heard this with firmness, merely observing that he would try and bear it with fortitude. When the hickory poles had been burnt asunder in the middle, Captain Pipe arose and addressed the crowd in a tone of great energy, and with animated gestures, pointing frequently to the Colonel, who regarded him with an appearance of unrufiled composure. As soon as he had finished, a loud whoop burst from the assembled throng, and they all at once rushed upon the unfortunate victim. For several seconds the crowd aud con- fusion were so great that Knight could not see what they were doing ; but in a short time they had sufliciently dispersed to give him a view of the Colonel. His ears had been cut offj and the blood was streaming down each side of his face. A terrible scene of torture now commenced. The warriors shot charges of powder into his naked body, commencing with the calves of his legs, and continuing to his neck. The boys snatched the burning hickory poles and applied them to his flesh. As fast as he ran around the '' See Patterson's "History of the Back-Woods." 124 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. stake to avoid one party of tormentors, he was promptly met at every turn by others, with burning poles and red-hot irons ^nd rifles loaded with powder only ; so that in a few minutes nearly one hundred charges of powder had been shot into his body, which had become black and blistered in a dreadful degree. The squaws would take up quantities of coals and hot ashes and throw them upon his body, so that in a few minutes he had nothing but fire to walk upon. "In this extremity of his agony the unhappy Colonel called aloud upon Girty, in tones that rang through Knight's brain with maddening effect — ' Girty ! Girty ! shoot me through the heart ! Quick! Quick! Don't refuse me!!' — 'Don't you see I have no gun, Colonel ! ' replied the monster, bursting into a loud laugh ; and then turning to an Indian beside him, he uttered some brutal jests upon the naked and miserable appearance of the prisoner.® " The terrible scene had now lasted more than two hours, and Crawford had become much exhausted. He walked slowly around the stake, spoke in a low tone, and earnestly besought God to look with compassion upon him and to pardon his sins. His nerves had lost much of their sensibility, and he no longer shrank from the fire brands, with which they incessantly touched him. At length he sunk, in a fainting fit, upon his face and lay motionless. Instantly an Indian sprung upon his back, knelt lightly uipon one knee, made a circular incision with his knife upon the crown of his head, and, clapping the knife between his teeth, tore off the scalp with both hands. Scarcely had this been done, when a withered hag approached with a board full of burning embers, and poured them upon the crown of his head, now laid bare to the bone. The Colonel groaned deeply, rose and again walked slowly around the stake ! — But why continue a description so horrible ? JTature at length could endure no more, and at a late hour in the ^ Girty's conduct in this savage scene is placed in a very different light by Mr. McCutchen's statement, appended to our subsequent sketch of Crawford's campaign, in " Ptevolutionary and Indian wars," which see. A few years before this tragedy, Craw- ford and Girty were acting in unison in their resistance of Pennsylvania rule, in the Boundary Controversy. It is said that Girty was a frequent guest at Capt. Crawford's hospitable cabin, and aspired to a Captaincy in the ^evolutionin-y war, but was disap- pointed, and thereupon turned Tory. He had before been made an Indian Chief of the Senecas. Another story is that he blamed Crawford for his failure to receive a com- mand in the American forces. And there is yet another silly tale that he aspired to the hand of one of Crawford's daughters, and was denied. en. VII.] COL. WILLIAM CRAWFORD. 125 night lie was released by death from the hands of his tor- mentors."® It is believed that Major Harrison, Major Eosse and Ensign Wm. Crawford, Jr., being officers and known to some of the Indians, met a like fiery end, at other places. What a gorge of infernal revelry did the Crawford family afford to the infuriated savages. Of the five, John, the son, only escaped, to mourn their untimely end with his widowed mother and sister. For a while the wild grass of the prairie refused to grow upon their unurned ashes ; but over their undug graves often since hath " the peaceful harvest smiled." " Doctor Knight was doomed to be burnt at a Shawnese town, about forty miles distant from Sandusky, and was committed to the care of a young Indian to be taken there. The first day they ti'aveled about twenty-five miles and encamped for the night. In the morning, the gnats being very troublesome, the Doctor requested the Indian to untie him that he might help him to make a fire to keep them off. With this request the Indian complied. While the Indian was on his knees and elbows blowing the fire, the Doctor caught up the end of a stick which had been burned in two, with which he struck the Indian on the head, so as to knock him forward into the fire. Rising up instantly, he ran off with great rapidity, howling most piteously. Knight seized the Indian's rifle and pursued him, but drawing back the cock too violently he broke the mainspring, and relinquished the pursuit. The Doctor then took to the woods, and after many perils by land and water, reached Fort Mcintosh [Beaver] on the twenty-second day, nearly famished. During his journey he subsisted on young birds, roots and berries." He recruited a little strength and clothing at the fort, and then came home. He owed his life — and we the tale of Crawford's tortures — to the simple credulity of his young Indian bailiff".^" " The widow of CoL Crawford used to relate in addition to what is here stated, that the Indians stuck his body full of dry, sharp sticks, until he looked like a porcupine, and after he was tied to the stake they first set fire to these sticks, and laughed to see how they blazed and crackled around his naked body. ^^ Dr. John Knight Was a man of small size, for that age of stalwart men. He resided in Bullskin township — was a son-in-law of Col. Richard Stevenson and brother-in-law of Presley Carr Lane. He removed to Shelby ville, Ky., with Mr. Lane, whose son John married the Doctor's daughter. The same John Lane was Marshal of Kentucky under President Polk. 126 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. COL. JAMES PAULL. This brave and magnanimous old settler, who was long spared to ns as a noble specimen of the men of the heroic age, was born in Frederick, now Berkeley county, Virginia, on the 17th September, 1760. He died on the 9th July, 1841, aged nearly eighty-one years. He was the son of George Paull, who removed with his family into what is now Fayette county, in 1768, and settled in the Gist neighborhood, in what is now Dunbar township, on the land where his son, the subject of this notice, ever afterwards resided, and on part of which his son, Joseph Paull, now resides. He became the owner there of two or three contiguous tracts of laud, and of several other tracts elsewhere in the county. Col. Paull early in life evinced qualities of heart and soul calcu- lated to render him conspicuous ; added to which was a physical constitution of the hardiest kind. Throughout his long life, his bravery and patriotism, like his generosity, knew no limits. He ' loved enterprise and adventure as he loved his friends, and shunned no service or dangers to which they called him. He came to manhood just when such men were needed. His military services^ began ere he was eighteen years old. About the first of August, 1778, he was drafted to serve a month's duty in guarding the Continental stores at Fort Burd (Brownsville) — an easy service, which consisted in fishing and swimming all day, and taking turns to stand sentry at night. Pobert McGlaugh- lin, to whom we have elsewhere referred, was his commanding ofiicer. About the first of May, 1781, (having, in the meantime, gone frequently on occasional brief tours of service to the Washington and Westmoreland frontiers) he, with a commission as First Lieu- tenant, signed by Thomas Jefferson, Governor of Virginia, was ordered by Col. George Rogers Clarke, to recruit in Westmoreland (or Augusta) county, for the projected campaign of that year against Detroit, then held by the British and Tories. His captain was Benjamin Whaley, father of Captain James Whaley, now of Uniontown, and an officer of distinction in the war of 1812. A company was raised, who, taking boat at Elizabethtown, on the ^ For most of these, down to the end of the Eevolution, in 1783, vre rely upon Colonel PauU's ovra statement, ivhen he applied for a pension under the act of June, 1832. His other services we gather from other reliable sources. CH. VII.] COL. JAMES PAULL. 127 Monongahela, floated down to the mouth of Chartiers, where they halted for reinforcements. At Pittsburgh they were joined by Capt. Isaac Craig's artillery. They soon proceeded, with other troops, to the falls of the Ohio, now Louisville, from which the expedition known as Clarke's Campaign was to start. He was attached to the regiment commanded by Col. Crockett ; and among the other officers were Col. Hardin, Col. Morgan and Major Lowder, of Virginia, the last of whom deserted at Blannerhasset's Island. They arrived at the falls in August, and went into garrison. The requisite forces for the expedition having failed to assemble, it was abandoned. And now the trouble was to get home. He returned, with about one hundred others, through the wilderness of Ken- tucky and Virginia, to Morgantown, where the Colonel — Zachariah (or Zachwell) Morgan, resided. His return was a labor of more than two months, amid dangers seen and unseen, and privations innumerable. Paull arrived home in December. Early in the ensuing April (1782) he was again drafted for a month's frontier duty at the mouth of Turtle Creek (Myers') some nine miles above Pittsburgh, which he served as a private, under Captain Joseph Beckett, of the Forks of -Yough settle- ment. Ko sooner was this brief and inglorious month of service ended, than, determined to encounter the perils of Indian warfare, he volunteered as a private in Crawford's Campaign of June, 1782 — the most prominent incidents and horrors of which are elsewhere detailed in these sketches. His captain was John Biggs, Lieuten- ant Edward Stewart, Ensign William Crawford, Jr., nephew of the Colonel — all of whom fell a prey to the tortures or butcheries of the savages. Paull was in the engagement of the 5th of June, on the Sandusky prairie. In the retreat, or flight, he went in a squad, with five or six others. They were soon surprised, and all, save Paull, were killed, or made prisoners. At the Mingo encampment, Paull had the misfortune to burn one of his feet severely, and was lame throughout the march and retreat. He lost his horse in attempting to pass the swamp near the battle ground. "When sur- prised in the flight he was very lame, and barefoot. The man at his side, on whom he was leaning for assistance, was shot down. Paull instantly fled from the path into the woods — an Indian after him. He quickly came to a steep, blufi* bank of a creek, down which he instinctively leaped, gun in hand. His pursuer declined the leap, and with a yell gave up the pursuit. In the descent he hurt his lame foot badly ; but having bound it up with part of the 128 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. ragged nether extremities of his pantaloons, he wandered on ; and by betaking himself to fallen trees and crossing his trail occasion- ally, he escaped further molestation. For two days, like Doctor Knight, he 'subsisted on roots, bark, leaves, berries and young birds — very fresh fare, the Colonel used to say, but wholesome. He had saved his gun and some ammunition, but he was afraid to discharge it, lest its report might be heard by the Indians, and then all would be over with him. He was very lame, and had become very weak. Having taken some rest, he rose with the dawn and resumed his wanderings. Being very hungry, and seeing a deer cross his path, he shot it. But he had lost his knife, and the only device he could adopt by which to open and remove part of the skin and get at some of the flesh, was to cut it with his gun flint This he did, and having got a good piece of the round out, he went on, eating it raw as he traveled. At length he came to the Ohio, near Wheeling.^ The river was too high and he too feeble to swim it. He therefore constructed a raft, with drift logs and grape vine, launched it, and thus got out of the Indian country. Having landed on the southern shore, he caught an old horse which he found wandering about the river hills, and bestrode him. After a little equestrian recreation, he got into a path which led him to a settler's cabin. Here he was hospitably received and for some days entertained. And after regaining some strength and clothes, the settler kindly sent a boy and horse to help him home. In 1784 or '85 he commanded a company of scouts or rangers, on a tour to Ryersou's station, on the western frontier of, now Greene county. In 1790 he served with honor, and in the most dangerous position, as a Major of Pennsylvania Militia in Gen. Harmar's Campaign against the Indians at the head of the Maumee, as elsewhere rela- ted in a subsequent sketch, but we are unable to give any further particulars of this important service. History and tradition both accord to Major Paull, in this perilous march and series of encoun- ters, the character of a brave and good officer, although most of the troops belonging to his command have been sadly traduced. With Harmar's Campaign he, we believe, ended his soldiering, except that in after life he was elected colonel of a regiment on ^ It is related that Paull struck the Ohio opposite Wheeling Island early in the morn- ing, in a fog so dense as to prevent his seeing the Island. He discovered which -way the current ran, and wandered up the river to the mouth of Short creek, where he made his raft and crossed. CH. VII.] COL. JAMES PAULL. 129 the peace establishment. Having married, tie settled down to the pursuits of domestic and agricultural life, in which he was eminently successful. He raised a large and highly respectable family — seven sons, James, George,^ John, Archibald, Thomas, William and Joseph, and one daughter, Martha, wife of William Walker. He had some concern in the iron manufacture, and was occasionally, in middle life, a down-the-river trader. But he was a lover of home, its quiet cares and enjoyments. He was never ambitious of office. The only one he ever held, or sought, in civil life, was that of Sheriff of the county, which he tilled from 1793 to '96, with credit and success. This gave him something to do with the " Whiskey Boys," and he had to hang John McFall for the murder of John Chadwick.* We have said that Col. Paull was generous and devoted to his friends. Of this w^e could give many illustrations. One must suffice. Having become heavily bound for a friend, he had to sell some cherished lands in the West to enable him to pay the liability. At length it was paid. Thereupon a more cautious friend remarked to him, "I suppose. Colonel, you are now cured of endorsing." " jSTo," he replied quickly, "I will endorse for my friends when I please." Such was Col. James Paull, a man of heroic and generous im- pulses, of integrity and truth ; which he evinced by many deeds and few words. * George Paull was Colonel of the 27th Regiment U. S. Infantry (Ohio troops) in the war of 1812, and served bravely under Gen. Harrison in the Northwest army. 4 This was the only case of capital punishment ever executed in Fayette county. The killing was on the 10th November, 1704. Chadwick kept the old White Horse tavern where James Hughes now lives, about a mile northeast of Brownfieldtown. McFall was drunk, and his first purpose was to kill one Martin Myers, a constable, but Chadwick interfering, and having shut the door on him, he fell on him and beat him with a club, from which he died two days afterwards. McFall, after conviction, broke jail and escaped, and was on his way to Lancaster to get a pardon, when he was apprehended at Hagerstown. He was hung on land of Gen. Douglass, in the woods between the old Zadok Springer mansion and Wm. Crawford's, about a mile north of the court house. The place is yet known as the "gallows field." Col. Paull did not hang him himself, but employed one Edward Bell as executioner — father of the late Edward Bell. See the case reported in Addison's Reports, 255. 9 130 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. COL. GEORGE WILSON. Our materials for a memoir of this ancient worthy are very scanty, being little more than what appears elsewhere in these sketches. He was a Virginian, from the town or vicinity of Staun- ton, Augusta county, in which he owned property ; also in Romney, Hampshire county. He had evidently been a military officer of the King, in that colony, doubtless in the French war. The proof of this is, that in the inventory of his goods and chattels appraised and filed in our Register's ofiice, are a scarlet coat, breeches and vest, valued at £15, besides an American or Revolutionary " Regimental coat," valued at<£40, and plush breeches and vest at X15. Another proof is in one of his own letters to Major Luke Collins, copied in part in our "Boundary Controversy," wherein he says — "we had the happiness of joining in sentiment in the Colony of Virginia, and as I may say, even wading through blood in supporting the cause of our country, heart in hand." And in his previous letter to Arthur St. Clair, referred to in the same sketch, he says, "I have in my little time in life taken the oath of allegiance to his Majesty seven times." He seems to have come into this country as early as 1769, and settled at the Mouth of George's creek, becoming the owner of the lands on both sides of it for a considerable* distance up that stream, as well as other adjacent lands, including JSlk Hills, recently the home of J. W, Nicholson, Esq., now owned by Michael Franks, and several other tracts in this county. It is said he first came into this region at the head of a party to reclaim some white prisoners from the Indians, in which he succeeded ; and being pleased with the country about the mouths of Cheat and George's creek, soon afterwards returned and took up his residence. Col. AVilson figured conspicuously as an active and influential Pennsylvanian in the Boundary Controversy, as is apparent from our sketch of that important dispute. This is the more remarkable, as he was by nativity, interest, and family associations, a Virginian. When Westmoreland county was erected, in 1773, he was appointed Toy the Penn Assembly one of the trustees for selecting a county seat; and in the same year he was appointed a Justice of the Peace. When the eighth Pennsylvania Regiment of the Line was formed at Kittanning, in the fall of 1770, he was appointed by Congress, upon the recommendation of the Pennsylvania convention, its Xieut. Colonel — his son John being one of its Captains. He did CH. VII.] COL. ALEXANDER M'CLEAN. 131 not live to distinguish himself in battle; but died in Quibbletown, N. J., near Amboy, early in April, 1777, from pleurisy, brought on by exposure and overmarching, and was buried there. On the 10th of September, 1776, before going into the service, he made his last will, disposing of his estates — lands, lots, negroes, &c., with great precision. He had three sons, John, William George,^ and Samuel ; and six daughters, Agnes Humphreys, Elizabeth Kincade,^ Jane, Mary Ann, Sarah and Phebe. Jane was thrice married — first to a Mr. Bullitt, then to the father of Hon. "Wm. G. Hawkins, formerly State Senator from Greene and Washington, now of Allegheny county ; and lastly to Hon. John Minor, long au Associate Judge of Greene county, thereby becoming the mother of L. L. Minor, Esq., of that county, and of Mrs. John Crawford, of Greensboro. To her he gave the land now in Nicholson township, recently owned by John and Samuel Ache. We cannot trace the other descendants of the old Colonel. COL. ALEXANDER M'CLEAN. This veteran Surveyor, and Register and Recorder of Fayette county, came into this region of country in 1769, as an Assistant Surveyor to his brothers Archibald and Moses, the regular Deputies for this part of the Province. The opening of the Land Office, on the 4th of April, 1769, for the acquisition of lands in the " New Purchase," gave employment to a great number of surveyors. Being unmarried, he seems, for several years, to have changed his residence to accommodate his employment. His earliest local habitation in the West was perhaps in Stony Creek Glades, in Somerset, then Cumberland county. In 1772 we find him assessed as a Single Freeman, in Tyrone township, then Bedford county. He was married in 1775, in the Glades, near Stoystown, to Sarah Holmes, and in the Spring of 1776, removed to the vicinity of 1 Elected Justice of the Peace for Springhill in 1789. He was the founder of New Geneva, by the name of Wilson's Port. ^ Wife of Samuel Kincade, who settled just at the junction of Cheat and Monongahela, north side, in Springhill. This land, with half the ferry rights, was devised to him by his father-in-law. This Samuel Kincade narrowly escaped being killed while with a party of Militia, on Ten Mile creek, when marching to Wheeling, in' Dunmoi-e's war in 1774. Captain M'Clure commanded the party, and Kincade was Lieutenant. They were attacked by four Indians of Logan's party, and the Captain killed and Kin- cade wounded. Gen. St. Clair said "it would have been no great matter if Aehad been killed.^' 132 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIT. Uniontown. In the Spring of 1779 lie moved into the town, and there continued to reside until his death, on the 7th of December, 1834, aged a little over eighty-eight years, having been born on the 20th November, 1746. He was a native of York county, Pennsylvania, being the youngest of seven brothers, of whom Moses and Archibald were perhaps the eldest, and who, besides being the first Deputy Surveyors in this part of Pennsylvania, were men of distinction — especially the latter, in old mother York and her daughter Adams. James and Samuel M'Clean, who settled very early near the base of Laurel Hill, in IST. Union township, were also brothers. James was the only one of the seven who was not a surveyor. Archibald, Moses, Samuel and Alexander were with Mason and Dixon in running the celebrated line between Pennsylvania and Maryland and Virginia, in 1766-'7, Alexander being then only about twenty-one years old. Archibald had had a good deal to do in running the lines between Maryland and Dela- ware, and between Maryland and Pennsylvania, before Mason and 'Dixon were employed, and Alexander accompanied him. Such were the schools and instructors he enjoyed in acquiring the art of surveying. Although Col. M'Clean was, with other Assistants, busily em- ployed in executing orders of survey in this part of the Province, from the summer of 1769, yet the earliest survey executed by him as a deputy, that we can find, within the limits of Fayette county, was in 1772. Prior to that year the returns are all signed by Arch- bald and Moses ; who also, within that year and afterwards, signed returns as deputies. It is probable, however, that Alexander was a regular Deputy Surveyor at an earlier period, but operated in what is now the Somerset county part of the New Purchase. We find him making surveys at Turkey Foot in 1769. In 1776 he was one of the Westmoreland members of the Assembly — the first after the revolt. In September of that year he was one of the Justices of the Peace for that county, appointed by the Revolutionary State Convention. He was also a member of the Assembly for the year 1782-'3; the same by which Fayette county was erected. Indeed he was elected for its accomplishment ; an efibrt at the previous session having failed by reason of the oppo- sition from the Northern parts of Westmoreland. The reason assigned was if the new county was erected, the old one could not support itself — the common argument in such cases. On this occa- sion it was attempted to be sustained by the fact that the territory CH. VII.] COL. ALEXANDER m'CLEAN. 133 proposed to be dissevered was the only part of the county exempt from Indian depredations — to which fact, rendered more impressive by the burning of Hannastown, in July, 1782, Fayette county owes its early erection. Long prior to this — in 1778, Col. M'Cleau had urged Henry Beeson to lay out Uniontown, with a view to a county seat ; which he did, and the Colonel surveyed it for him, providing a lot for the county buildings at the elbow, adjacent to which, on the east, he bought a lot, to which he removed in 1779, and where he died. The State Land Office being in effect closed from 1776 to 1784, no Deputy Surveyors were needed. For a while, therefore, his occupation was gone. In the meantime he took to "soldiering,' then the great business of the country. We believe the Colonel was never a soldier of the Line, but served occasionally in the frontier rangers. He was also in M'Intosh's campaign of 1780 ; but in what capacity, or how he got there, we are at some loss to know. Pennsylvania sent no men into that campaign — Virginia did ; though many of them were from this, the disputed territory. Of such were those we have named in our notice of that expedition.i When one of them, Col. Robert Beall, of Bullskin, a zealous Vir- ginia partizan, was appointed County Lieutenant, in 1784, great indignation was evinced by the old Pennsylvania adherents. Col. M' Clean was called upon to write to the Sup. Ex. Council on the subject. In writing to President Dickinson, on the 16th of July, 1784, he says : " With those very people who are said to have had so little share in the burthen of the war, I have shared the fatigues of the most difficult campaign that has been carried on in this country, and was a witness to both their sufferings and fortitude. Many of them have been in the Continental service, and Col. Beall in particular, during a great part of the war." This, we believe, refers to M'Intosh's campaign. If so, then the Colonel served under the Virginia standard ; although in the Boundary Contro- versy he was a decided Pennsylvanian. Of this there is clear proof in his correspondence concerning running the Temporary Boundary and the Kew State project, some of which will be found in our sketch of those events.^ In going with " Virginians" into M'Intosh's campaign, he went as a soldier and patriot, not as a partizan.' ^ See Chap. X — " Revolutionan/ and Indian Wars." ^ See Chapt. IX. — ^^ Boundary Controversi/." 3 In July, 1781, he wrote a letter to his brother Archibald, of York, informing him of the high-handed measures adopted by Gen. Clark and the Virginia party, in reference 134 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. In 1782, Col. M'Clean was appointed a Sub-Lieutenant for the county of Westmoreland, in the room of Col. Edward Cook, pro- moted to be Lieutenant upon the death of Col. Lochry. To this appointment he owed his rank of Colonel. In 1781, Col. M'Clean was appointed by the Sup. Ex. Council of Pennsylvania as the artist, in conjunction with a similar appointee from Virginia, to run the temporary boundary lines which had been agreed upon in 1779. A vexatious succession of disappoint- ments and difficulties delayed the execution of this task until the winter of 1782-3, when he performed it, in connection with Joseph JSTeville, of Virginia, an eminent surveyor, who was after- wards a member of Congress from that State. They run out our Southern boundary from where Mason and Dixon stopped, at the Indian war path on Dunkard creek, in Q-reene, and the "Western line, to the Ohio river.* Although the Council had at first offered only twenty shillings per day "and found," yet they afterwards resolved that "taking into consideration the trouble Mr. M'Clean has had in running said line, and the accuracy [?] with which the same hath been done, he be allowed thirty-five shillings per day ;" — being $4.67 — a daily pay to which he ever afterwards adhered in his charges as a surveyor. to recruits for his projected campaiga of that year. The letter was sent to the Sup. Ex. Council, and we gather its import from his brother's account of it; who, in writing to the Council from Yorktown, August 13th, 1781, says: " I have received no letter from him since, but hath certain accounts from an inhabitant in those parts, who left my brother's house about ten days ago, that Alexander is drafted to go with General Clark, and that he was actually gone to Fort Pitt on the day before the person left home who informed me. * * I am well assured he must have went with great reluctance on any Virginia expedition." This turned out to be a mistake — at least Alexander did not go, for we find him in Uniontown on the 13th September, ready to go out to survey the Temporary line with Virginia. * These surveyors, it seems, run the Southern line a little too far, perhaps a mile or more. This was no fault of theirs ; for they were instructed to begin where Mason and Dixon stopped in 1767, "at the second crossing of Dunkard creek," and extend the line tiventy-threc miles. The true distance required to accomplish the five degrees of longitude from the river Delaware, (266 miles, 24 chains, 80 links,) was a little less than twenty- two miles. So the astronomical surveyors of 1784 determined. It is said also that Messrs. M'Clean and Neville deflected their due North line a little too much to the East, at its Southern end ; for they seem to have struck the Ohio at the right place. Among the consequences of the error first stated was, that some Philadelphia gentlemen — the Cooks, and perhaps others, who wished to appropriate some western lands between the dates of the two runnings, had their warrants laid, in now Greene county, abutting upon the temporary line ; and when the line came to be finally run in 1784, parts of their surveys were excinded and thrown into Virginia, without any title to rest upon. We think Pennsylvania should have refunded them the cost — which perhaps they would rather have yet than the lands. CH. VII.] COL, ALEXANDER m'CLEAN. 135 Upon the erection of Fayette county in September, 1783, Col. M'Clean sought the appointment of Prothonotary and Clerk of the Courts. Gen. Douglass was the successful applicant. The Colonel was, however, on the 31st of October, 1783, appointed by the Council to be Presiding Justice of the Fayette Court of Common Pleas and Orphans' Court. In that capacity he presided in those Courts at their first sittings in December, 1783, and until April, 1789, when Col. Cook succeeded him for a brief period. He was also, on the 6th of December, 1783, appointed to the offices of Regis- ter and Recorder of the county of Fayette — offices which he filled uninterrup,tedly until his death, in 1834, amid all the political vicissi- tudes of that long period. He was an expert and elegant pensman, and could crowd more words, distinctly written, into a line, than most modern writers will put in three. In March, 1784, he was one of three Justices of the Peace, elec- ted in February, commissioned for Union township,^ to serve for seven years, under the old- Constitution of 1776. He does not appear ever to have done much business in that office, beyond that of presiding in the Courts when at home. He had too many offices. When the Land Office was re-opened in 1784, under the Com- monwealth, there was a perfect avalanche of warrants to be executed in this country. Col. M'Clean was thereupon appointed Deputy Surveyor for a district embracing all of Fayette county, the town- ship of Rostraver in "Westmoreland, which then included what, after 1788, became Elizabeth in Allegheny, and the townships of Turkey-foot, Milford, and that part of Quemahoning lying south- ward of the great road to Fort Pitt, in Bedford county, afterwards Somerset. His commission was renewed for the same district on the 12th of January, 1790. How long he continued to serve so large a territory we do not know. It was, however, contracted to Fayette county alone, for which he held the appointment until 1825, when he declined its renewal. He had numerous assistants, among them Levi Stephens and William Hart. He, also, in the earlier years of his service, executed numerous surveys beyond his district limits, in what are now Allegheny, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland counties. Besides his official duties at home, he performed numerous extra 5 See postscript of February 6th to Gen. Douglass' letter of February 2, 1784, appended to memoir of bim, postea ; — and " Outlines of Civil and Political History " — Chapter XVI. 136 , T-HE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIT. duties as surveyor, abroad. lu 1V73, he was one of the com- missioners, appointed by the act erecting Westmoreland, to run the line which separated it from Bedford. He performed the same office for Fayette in 1784, after its severance from Westmoreland, and, in conjunction with Gabriel Blakeney and John Baddolet, for Greene in 1796, when it was dismembered from Washington. After the purchase from the Indians of IsTorthwestern Pennsyl- vania, by the second treat}^ of Fort Stanwix, he was, in 1783, appointed to survey District 'No. 1 of the Depreciation lands, north and west of the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, on our Western boun- dary. The fulfillment of this appointment required him to deter- mine where that boundary was; and from his instructions, now before us, dated in August, 1784, we infer that, somehow, he had in the previous winter, ascertained that line for some distance north of the Ohio. The district was a parallelogram of twelve miles wide between the Ohio river and the latitude of the mouth of Mogulbuctetim (Redbank). He was at the same time appointed to survey the reserved tracts of 3000 acres each, opposite Pittsburgh, and at the mouth of Big Beaver, which he did in this and the next year. In the Spring of 1786, Col. M'Clean, in connection with Col. Andrew Porter,*^ were appointed by Pennsylvania, to run, by astronomical observations, &c , and mark, the Western boundary of the State, from the Ohio to Lake Erie. They began in June, and, it seems, some fifty miles north of the Ohio, near where the line strikes the Shenango — near Sharon, and finished the work on the 4th of October. It is probable, however, that they afterwards retraced and marked by a "vista" and stones, the Southern part of the line to the Ohio: for Col. M'Clean writes from Uniontown, October 10th, 1784, that " having visited my family after my return from Lake Erie, I now proceed to finish the line of division between the certificate [Depreciation] and donation lands, and lai/ out the residue of the lots in District No. 1;" — meaning, we presume, those abutting on the Western boundary, which he could not do until it was authoritatively fixed. While the State was pursuing the project of making a "good wagon road" from Shippensburg to Fort Pitt, Col. M'Clean was, in November, 1789, appointed one of the commissioners to make 6 Father of Ex-Governor David R. Porter, who had been commissary to the Boundary Commissioners in 1784, and who afterwards assisted in running our Northern Boundary with New York. CH. VII.] COL. ALEXANDER m'CLEAN.' • 13T the location from Bedford to Pittsburgh. He began it at Bedford, in December, and, as the other two commissioners failed to attend, he went through it himself Besides all these, Col. M'Clean, in naiddle life, executed numer- ous other special official duties of smaller moment, but requiring skill and fidelity. He was also, in 1783, together with the Ret. James Sutton, appointed a trustee of Dickinson College, Carlisle, by the Act of Assembly which founded that venei'able institution — an office which he for a while filled more dejure than de facto. Col. M'Clean was a quiet, unobtrusive man, devoted to the duties of his offices, and caring for little else, than to discharge them with diligence, accuracy and fidelity. He held office longer — from 1772 to 1834 — than any other man who has ever resided in Western Pennsylvania; and it is not probable that in this respect he will ever have a successor, so unyielding is the rotatory tendency of modern "progress." As Register, Recorder and Surveyor, for more than half a century, he had been conversant with all the estates, titles and lands of the county, with all their vacancies, defects and modes of settlement ; yet with all these opportunities of acquiring wealth, he died in comparative poverty — a sad monu- ment to his integrity. He wrote more deeds and wills at seven and sixpence each, ($1) and dispensed more gratuitous counsel in ordinary legal affairs, than, at reasonable fees, would enrich a modern scrivener or counselor. He left a numerous family of sons and daughters, most of whom, with their descendants, are now dispersed in the Western States. A few yet remain in Uniontown and vicinity. The late Thomas Hadden, Esq., long a favorite attorney and justice of Uniontown, was a son-in-law. ' For the benefit of our geometrical readers we annex the method adopted by the Colonel of determining the direct course from Bedford to Pittsburgh : — "In order to gain the true situation of this place [Bedford] I went to the 158th mile post, standing about 10 perches west of the road from Bedford to Fort Cumberland ; from thence by a series of courses, traversed the Valley of Cumberland to this place, and find it to be 19 miles 290 perches north of Mason & Dixon's Line, and 10 miles 86 perches east of the above mile post. And my memory aiding me in the situation of Pittsburgh, I proceeded to calculation to find a course to Pittsburgh ; and estimate it to stand 25,685 perches west, and 9,830 perches north of this place, being north 69° 27'' west, 27,432 perches = to 85 miles, 232 perches ; which course will, I think, lead me at least into the neighborhood of Pittsburgh." 138 THE MONONGAHBLA OF OLD. [CH. VII. JOHN SMILIE. Our labors would be unpardonably incomplete without a memoir, meager though it be, of this ancient political favorite of the people of Fayette, to whom thev steadfastly and almost uninterruptedly adhered, from even before their separate county existence to his death — a period of nearly thirty years. Mr. Smilie was a native of Ireland, and came to America when a young man, shortly before the outbreak of the Revolution, but in what year we cannot asce^jtain. He settled in Lancaster county, Pa., and at once espoused the cause of American liberty. He rapidly acquired the confidence of his co-patriots, and soon became a leader in the resistance which they resolved and executed against the tyrannies of the King and Parliament. Being one of the Committee of Safety of Lancaster county, we find him, in June 1776, a member of the Provincial Conference of County Committees of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, which declared formally the sundering of the ties which hitherto bound the colony to the parent power, by resolving " to form a new Govern- ment for this Province, upon the authority of the people only." This conference called and provided for the Convention which formed our first State Constitution — that of 1776. In 1778, and again in 1779, he was elected one of the Represen- tatives of Lancaster county in the Assembly, of which he was an active and useful member. Having married Miss Janet Porter, a daughter, we believe, of Col. Thomas Porter, a distinguished citizen of Lancaster county, he was induced, in 1780, to seek a home in the West for his rising family. In that, or the subsequent year, he removed to Fayette, then "Westmoreland county ; and after looking round for a while, eventually bought an improvement from old Joseph Huston, on the north side of the Yough river, about five miles below Connells- ville, where he settled and where he henceforth resided until his death. He perfected his title to the tract — about 400 acres, in 1786. It was held by the family until recently, and is now owned by Stewart Strickler, Geo. Dawson, and others. The Pittsburgh and Connellsville Rail Road passes through it. Mr. Smilie's energies and good sense soon gave him prominence in his new abode. In the fall election of 1783, he was chosen, along with the celebrated William Findley, to represent West- moreland in the Council of Censors — an anomalous revisory body CH. VII.] JOHN SMILIE. 139 provided for by the Constitution of 1776, It was to consist of two members from each city and county, to be chosen in 1783, and every seventh year thereafter, and to preserve its existence for one year if necessary. It was a kind of Grand Jury for the State. Its duties were to inquire and present — whether the Constitution had been kept inviolate ; whether all officers did their duty and no more ; whether taxes were justly laid, collected and expended. It could pass censures, order impeachments and advise the repeal of laws ; and, by a vote of two-thirds, call a convention to alter the Constitution, to meet two years thereafter. The first Council — the only one ever chosen, sat in Philadelphia from IN'ovember, 1783, to January 21st, 1784, and again from June Ist to September 25th, 1784. They were rather discordant, and fruitless of any other good than affording convincing proofs to the people of the defect- iveness of that old and hastily framed Constitution. Indeed, to do this was one of the principal purposes for which the Council was provided ; but they accomplished it in a very different manner from what was originally intended. At the first session of the Council, the friends of change, or reform, were in the ascendency, but in the summer session of 1784, by the accession of Judge George Bryan, of Philadelphia, the reputed father of the Constitution of '76, and other new or substi- tuted members, the conservative party prevailed. Mr. Smilie acted uniformly with the latter, opposing most pertinaciously the proposed amendments of the Constitution. By that old instrument, the Legislative power was vested exclusively in one body — the Assembly, without check or veto. The Executive power reposed in a Supreme Executive Council of one member from each county ; and the judicial tenure, from the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court down to Justices of the Peace, was for terms of seven years — the Judges being chosen by the Assembly, and the Justices by the freeholders of the townships — all commissioned by the Ex. Council. The powers of these separate branches of the Government were illy defined, and confusedly interlocked. It was proposed to make a radical change — to add another branch to the Legislature, denomi- nated a Legislative Council, similar to the Senate — to abolish the Sup. Ex. Council, and vest the Executive power in a Governor; and to make the judicial tenure during good behavior. Mr. Smilie opposed all these changes, uniting with the minority at the first session in denouncing the Governor and Senate feature because "it tended to introduce among the citizens new and aristocratic ranks, with a Chief Magistrate at their head, vested with powers which 140 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. exceed those which fall to the ordinary lot of kings." In this he acted with his colleague, Mr. Findley, and with Messrs. Edgar and M'Dowell of Washington, and others of the then Democratic, or weak government opinions, and in opposition to the views of Fred. Aug. Mnhlenburg, Generals Wayne and St. Clair, and others, members of the Council. In these respects, however, Mr. Smilie's opinions underwent a thorough change in a few years ; for, in the convention of 1789, which framed the State Constitution of 1790, he co-oper- ated decidedly with the dominant party in favor of a Governor, with the veto power as it now is, two legislative branches, and a judicial tenure during life, or good behavior, although in the last he stood opposed to his distinguished colleague, Albert Gallatin, with whom he generally acted. In 1784, Mr. Smilie became the first elected member of Assembly from Fayette. He was re-elected in 1785. In 1786 he was elected for the term of three years, the second Fayette member of the Supreme Executive Council — John Woods, of Uniontown, having been chosen in 1784 for two years, and Isaac Meason, the elder, having been, in 1783, elected for three years from Westmoreland and Fayette combined, though actually dissevered at the time of the election. Mr. Smilie's career in these State bodies,^ although not marked 1 "We notice one movement of Mr. Smilie, in the Supreme Executive Council, to -wliich we confess our dislike. General St. Clair, after having been the champion of Pennsyl- vania in the contest for the dominion of her Western territory, against Virginia ; and after having, with acknowledged honor, skill and bravery, borne the rank and perils of Major General through almost the whole of the Revolutionary war, thereby entitling himself if not to the friendly regard, at least to the gratitude and liberality of every true Pennsylvanian, had become so poor as to be obliged to earn the sustenance of him- self and family, in 1786-7, by the laborsof a licensed Auctioneer in the city of Philadelphia? then by no means the lucrative business that it has since become. He was at the same time a member, elected by the Assembly of Pennsylvania, of the Confederation Congress, of which he was, in February '87, elected President. The unkind movement of Mr. Smilie is thus recorded in the Minutes of the Supreme Ex. Council, April 13