ARMSTRONG'S EXPEDITION, 1756—BOUQUET AT LIGONIER, 1758 - 25 sent out by Forbes, when be took possession of the fort, three years after this, came upon the battile-field to pay the last rites to the mangled bodies of three former companions in arms. They gave a pathetic account of the sorrowful duties, and many have since rewritten it. No words, however, can tell the desolation which they felt, and the devastation which they saw. Northing before or since in the warful annals of America can be compared with this. The dead had been left to lie as they fell. They saw where the wounded had died uncared for, and found among brush and rocks the skeletons of those who had perished by the tomahawk or through hunger and thirst. The birds and wild beasts had plucked off the naked flesh of the desecrated victims. Blackened ashes told where heathen vengeance had been gratified. Some were lying in heaps ; others had dragged themselves in their torments to a distance. Some were found sitting on the trunks of fallen trees and on rocks ; others were lying side by side in the embrace of death. A few were identified, and these were interred separately ; the bones of many were collected together and buried in one common grave. The loss of the French and their allies, according to their own report, which may be taken with allowance, was only about thirty, and the most of these met death by accident from the falling timbers in the woods cut by the cannon-balls. Of the British, sixty-four out of eighty-five officers, and about one-half the privates, or about seven hundred, were killed or wounded. Every field or horseback officer except Washington was carried off the field, and he had two horses killed under him. The Indians may claim the glory of this' victory. Those engaged were confederates who were not confined to the tribes about the Ohio, for all under the control of the French throughout the West were brought to the fort. The Wyandots and Southern Ohio tribes were represented, and Pontiac, then a young warrior, headed some of his Ottawas from the Western lakes. Cornplanter was there, too, with the Senecas, and many others since known to fame. As to the exact number of those with the French who fought on that dreadful day we have no authentic account. The number currently reported are as we give them, but it is almost certain there were many more. Before dismissing this subject we cannot but call attention to, first, the remarkable proportion of officers killed to the number engaged ; and, second, to the noticeable distinction to which many of the survivors arrived, from which an idea of the composition of this army may be obtained. Gage became the commander of the British armies at Boston in the beginning of the Revolution ; Washington, commander-in-chief of the American army; Horatio Gates, afterwards a major-general in the American army, commanded a company of independent troops from New York ; Col. Daniel Morgan, the hero of the Cowpens, drove a wagon of his own, for he was originally a teamster. Among the many others were the Lewises of Virginia, afterwards distinguished and gallant officers, and Col. Hugh Mercer, who died with glory at Princeton. CHAPTER IV. ARMSTRONG'S EXPEDITION, 1756—BOUQUET AT LIGONIER, 1758. The Country overrun by Indlat's and French after Braddock's Defeat - Settlers flee to the East of the Mountains - Forts and Block-Houses on the Pennsylvania Frontier—Col. John Armstrong's Expedition in 1756 against the Kittanning Town—The Town taken and destroyed, and Capt. Jacobs reported killed—The Tramping-Ground of these Warriors—The French and Indian War carried on under William Pitt —John Forbes commands the New Expedition from Philadelphia against Fort Duquesne—His command—Co1. Bouquet brings the Vanguard of the Army across Laurel Hill to the Loyalhanna, where he erects a Stockade, and awaits on the rest of the Army under Washington and Forbes, who were to unite at Baystown, or Bedford. THE disastrous effect of Braddock's defeat was more sensibly felt in our colony than even in Virginia. An undisturbed peace had existed between the Indians and the Pennsylvania colonists till the war broke out between the European mother-countries in 1754. One reason which augmented the distress was that, as a general thing, the colonists were averse to war, and had always favored a pacific policy. Some of the citizens, from their religious perceptions, were opposed to warfare on any pretense whatever. Now the whole frontier of the colony was left open to the free ingress of the savages. The frontier county was Cumberland, which extended no farther than the Juniata. Numerous acts of hostility were committed on these settlements. Detached bands of exasperated and bloodthirsty barbarians attacked the stations, and marauding-parties preyed upon the isolated settlers. The Indian nature after being long restrained was let loose. Like the beasts which had got used to living on the flesh of the dead that Braddock left, they thought they had a right to kill all they met. They murdered the men and women, and burnt their pitiful cabins to the ground, so that the harvests were ungathered, and such as had timely warning had to flee for life through a wide stretch of hostile country. During the fall and winter of 1755 the settlements of. Great Cove and Conococheague in Cumberland County were overrun and the inhabitants slaughtered. All the settlements surrounding were in great commotion. Many were scattered with their families to all the neighboring places of safety ; many were taken in captivity to the depots of the French in Canada. In short, all the horrors of an Indian war were experienced. The authorities were clamored to for relief. It became evident that a long line of block-houses with garrisons would have to be established at the public expense for the protection of the inhabitants who were unable to protect themselves, and thus keep the war from the hearths of all. And, indeed, if 26 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. timely efforts had not been made to put a stop to this warfare the whole of the frontier to the west of the Susquehanna would have been deserted. It has been estimated that in 1755 this section possessed three thousand fighting-men, and that in the next year, 1756, outside the provincial forces, there were not one hundred. These terrible times continued, with some intermission, till the Indians were partly conciliated by a treaty at Easton in 1758. But now it was evident that what had been reclaimed from nature would have to be protected by the force of arms. The claims of our own colony were not to be despised, for although she had been profuse and liberal both in men and money in the assistance of her sister colonies, her own borders were left open to fire and murder. The authorities, encouraged by the settlers, had given their assistance in the erection of a number of these blockhouses and forts. In July of 1755 preparations were made to erect a fort at Shippensburg, called thus after Edward Shippen, one of the Council. This was completed in the fall. Previous to this time a line of forts had been erected along the Kittatinny bills from the Delaware to Maryland, guarding the principal passes, and each garrisoned by from ten to thirty men. West of the Susquehanna were Fort Louther, at Carlisle; Fort Franklin, at Shippensburg ; Fort Shirley, on the creek which empties into the Juniata ; Fort Littleton ; Fort Loudon, on the Conococheague, now Franklin County. Fort Shirley was on the Indian path from the West to Fort Augusta, on the Susquehanna. There were many block-houses, some without garrisons, to which the inhabitants might flee on timely notice. At a time when, on account of the massacres which were horrible beyond description, the despair of the frontier colonists was at the highest and their fear the greatest, a successful expedition was planned and executed. There were on the west side of the Susquehanna eight companies of the First Pennsylvania Regiment, called the Second Battalion, under command of Col. John Armstrong. Two chiefs, Shingass 1 and Jacobs, were considered the instigators of these incursions. Jacobs, with his warriors, had his home at the Delaware Indian town of Kittanning, and here sometimes Shingass abided. Here they had great quantities of ammunition, received from the French, and from here they sallied out on their war-trips. Hither the English prisoners captured about that time (1755) on the frontiers of Pennsylvania and 1 Shingass (sometimes written Shingast) is described as a small man in stature; but of the utmost activity, prowess, and physical endurance. He, with his mutual friend and neighbor, Captain Jacobs, helped, more than any other of the Western Indians, to devastate the settlements of Conococheague, Great Cove, Sherman's Valley, and the other settlements then along the frontier. Jacobs, an Indian chief, known by the name applied to hint by the English-Americans, had his wigwam betimes along the Yough and Jacobs Creek. after whom this stream was called. A large tract of land in East Huntingdon township, not far from Ruff's Station on the Southwest Railway, is designated in old warrants as "Jacobs' Swamp," the best part of that land, now very valuable, having been reclaimed from marsh. Virginia were taken. Speaking in the forms of their own language, they with the Shawanese had taken the hatchet against Braddock which was offered them by the French, and went directly to war with whom they called the Virginians, which also of course included the Pennsylvanians. They, however, were influenced to this probably more by the Six Nations, some of whom lived among them. 2 While the general-in-chief of the British forces in America, Gen. Shirley the successor of Braddock, and the Governors of the northern provinces were preparing an aggressive campaign with new levies to reduce the posts held by the French immediately after the unsuccessful campaigns of the year previous, by the sudden invasion of New York by Montcalm, the leader of the French in Canada, at the head of a formidable force, the whole attention of Gen. Shirley was directed to resist their farther advance in that direction. Hence during the fall of 1755 and the Year 1756 the whole frontier of Pennsylvania was overrun by scalping-parties of Indians assisted by the French. The unexpected change in affairs affected no colony so much as ours. 3 King Shingass with his warriors and sub-confederates fell upon the settlers of the Tuscarora Valley, and those of Northampton County, as well as those of Franklin, killed and carried off many persons and destroyed much property, so that whole settlements were deserted, and with the general results as before stated. About the middle of August, 1756, Col. John Armstrong, who was a militia officer of the Province, and who with the Second Battalion of the provincial militia was about that time stationed on the west side of the Susquehanna, conceiving the idea of suddenly surprising and defeating them on their own ground, made preparations for an expedition against Kittanning. He proposed passing up the Juniata and down the Kiskiminetas, along the path upon which these depredators came out on their excursions On the 30th of August, 1756, with a force of three hundred and seven men, he left Fort Shirley. 4 After a laborious march, and by the exercise of the utmost precaution and vigilance, Armstrong reached the town without having been discovered. His last march was thirty miles, and made at night, so that he might attack the place before his men or his movements were discovered. The attack began as the light of day made objects distinguishable in the cornfield lying outside the town, in which many of the warriors slept beside fires built to keep off the gnats, which along the river bottoms were extremely annoying. Captain Jacobs was in the town, and when he discovered the presence of the whites, which was 2 Statement of George Crogan at the council at Carlisle, Jan. 13-10, 1756. 3 Governor Morris' message, July 24,1755. 4 The hest account of this expedition, which account is very interesting in details, is the " Report" of Col. Armstrong himself, which for details is referred to. ARMSTRONG'S EXPEDITION, 1756—BOUQUET AT LIGONIER, 1758 - 27 made known from the noise of their attack, he gave the war-whoop, and at the same time ordered the squaws and children into the woods. In this singular battle the ;Indians for the greater part kept to their houses, and fired upon the whites to good advantage from the port-holes and crevices in the walls. From these advantages some of the whites were killed and many were wounded. Seeing that firing upon the houses was ineffectual, Armstrong ordered the houses nearest of access to be set on fire. In doing so many more were wounded, and among them was Armstrong, who received a ball in his shoulder. However, the fire once started burnt with effect, and speedily reached the principal house, in which were Jacobs and the more desperate of his followers. As those in it attempted to escape they were shot down, and Jacobs himself, as Armstrong reported,. was killed. He says he was identified by some of the soldiers by his boots, which he had gotten from a French officer, and by his scalp, which they secured, as he dressed his hair in a peculiar manner. 1 The destruction of this town and the death and scatterment of those who inhabited there was a severe 'blow to the savages. Henceforth they were afraid to leave their villages in any great number together, because they might expect an attack from their enemies as sudden, as, unexpected, and as disastrous as this one had been. They had hitherto regarded themselves as safe in their camps and wigwams from any attack by the English on the western side of the mountains. The victory was indeed singularly eventful, because it was a single victory during a time of defeat, disaster, and gloom. Such of the Indians as belonged to Kittanning and had escaped the disaiter that had befallen their brethren refused to settle again to the east of Fort Duquesne, and wisely resolved to place that fort and the French garrisons between them and the colonists.2 But the relief expected after this victory was a temporary relief only. The disasters of 1755, 1756, and 1757 were not confined to Pennsylvania. The French and Indian power was everywhere in the ascendant. By the British ministry affairs at home and abroad were conducted illy. The people in England demanded a new ministry, and in June of 3757 William Pitt was created premier. By this change new life was restored to the body politic. His appeals 1 They said they knew his squaw's scalp also by a particular "bob" in the snit, and by the same token identified a young Indian by the name of "King's Son." It has been questioned whether Jacobs was killed here or not. There is mention of a " Captain Jacobs". (as lie signs his name) iii " Col. Henry Bouquet's Journal, etc.r" in 1764, a chief of the Delawares, but ethers say this was a son of the former. It at best, at this tiay, is not worth while to contradict the report or get up argument, for as the report was generally believed at that day it served all purposes for good, and whether the "old original Jacobs" was killed there and then or 'elsewhere sod afterwards, lie is now dead enough. 2 Gerdou's " History of Pennsylvania."—Before the town was destroyed there were stout thirty houses in it. . . . Col. Armstrong's toes wits seventeen killed, thirteen wounded, and nineteen missing. . . . Armstrong County was named in his honor, very deservingly. in the interest of the colonies and against their old enemy, the French, were listened to as they had never been listened to before. To the colonies he promised his assistance, and they responded to his requests. Pennsylvania came up promptly. She voted £100,000, put the roads in repair, raised troops, and prepared quarters for others. In the spring of 1758 came Admiral Boscawan with twelve thousand British soldiers. These, with the other British, the Royal Americans and provincials, made a force of fifty thousand, all employed in the service of the colonies. The campaign of 1758, as that of 1755, embraced three expeditions :—the first against Louisburg, an island in the St. Lawrence; the second against Ticonderoga, a strong fortress between Lake George and Lake Champlain, Northern New York ; and the third against Fort Duquesne. The new expedition against Duquesne was under command of Brigadier John Forbes, a young man and a good soldier, by birth a Scot 3 Philadelphia was made his headquarters. Which was the more available route from here to the West was a matter of debate. Washington advised that the army proceed on the old Braddock road, and Forbes for a long time had not made up his mind. The route through Pennsylvania westward was urged by the provincial authorities with good reasons, but the Virginians objected to it. The authorities of Virginia wanted to. cover their frontier by active operations in that portion, and perhaps wanted to make more perfect their claim to the disputed territory. But Bouquet, the chief officer upon whom Forbes depended, who was a soldier of fortune in the service of England, advocated a new route, and prevailed upon Forbes to choose it ; and on the 1st of August, 1758, seventeen hundred men were at work west of Bedford in open- 3 JOHN FORBES.*—Forbes was a native of Scotland, born in Pentrief, Fifeshire. Like Art ltur St. Clair, he was bred to the proles-ion of medicine. While young he entered into the military service, and rose to the rank of lieute ttttt it-colonel in Scott's Gray Dragoons. He won by faithful services the approval of his military superiors,—the Earl of Stair, Lord Ligonier, and other great soldiers with whom he was connected. He was a staff-officer to some of these generals, and was quartermaster-general of the army under the Duke of Bedford. He was about forty-seven or forty-eight when he was appointed to the command in which he distinguished himself. From his indomitable wilt and tenacious, purpose he was called the Head of Iron, or by his followers more commonly "Old Iron-head." As a gallant soldier "seeking the bubble reputation even at the cannon's month," he was given to cursing, a vice considered a virtue among the European soldiery of his age,—" a vice which they brought with them from Flanders." During the whole campaign he suffered from accumulated infirmities and a general debility, and on his return from Fort Duquesne to Philadelphia was carried tho whole way by horses and by men in a litter. More than once, it is reported, he got out of his litter and made things lively. On his return to the city, weakened and broken down with disorders, he died, March 13, 1759, aged forty-nine years. He is buried in the chancel of Christ Church, Philadelphia. His character has been thus described : As a man, he was just and without prejudices, brave without ostentation, uncommonly warm in his friendship, and incapable of flattery ; acquainted with the world and mankind, he was well bred, but absolutely impatient of formality and affectation. * The Scotch pronounce his name in two syllables, the English in one syllable. 28 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. ing out a road across the mountains of Western Pennsylvania. Forbes' forces in all amounted to about seven thousand men.1 There were twelve hundred Highlanders, three hundred and fifty Royal Americans, twenty-seven hundred Pennsylvania Provincials, sixteen hundred from Virginia, about one thousand wagoners and laborers, and the rest were from Delaware, Maryland, and North Carolina. The Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland contingent was to assemble at Winchester under Washington, and the Pennsylvania forces at Raystown, that is Bedford, under Bouquet. Bouquet, the gallant Swiss, brought the regular vanguard of the command to this point in advance of Forbes, who was detained at Philadelphia by sickness. Bedford, as we shall call Raystown, was the most westerly point to which supplies could be sent. A road had been opened from Fort Louden past here to Fort Cumberland in 1755, on which the Pennsylvania supplies were forwarded to Braddock. By slow moves Forbes in September, 1758, reached Bedford. By this time the brave Bouquet with twenty-five hundred troops and pioneers had crossed on over Laurel Hill and made his camp on the bank of the Loyalhanna. Making it secure, he here waited until the main body should come up. He made his communication with the post at Bedford and the headquarters of the army secure. He was fifty miles from Duquesne, and he did not choose to advance till the general with the other part of the forces arrived. He remembered Braddock. He, however, was vigilant in all things pertaining to the safety of the men and the success of the expedition. To get information and as. a matter of precaution he from here sent out a portion of his command to reconnoitre in the enemy's country. CHAPTER V. FORBES' EXPEDITION, 1758. Maj. Grant is sent out from Fort Ligonier to reconnoitre about Fort Duquesne—Number of Men under Grant, and their Route—Their Encampment on the Nine-Mile Run—Their Trail the first Road of the English-speaking People through Westmoreland from Laurel Hill to the Ohio—Grant arrives at the Hill overlooking Fort Duquesne—Is Surrounded and Defeated—Capt. Bullet carries the Remains of the Command back to the Stockade of Ligonier—The French and Indians fill the Woods about Ligonier, and with their united forces attack Bouquet—The Battle lasts nearly all Day, when the Enemy flee off through the Woods—The whole Army under Forbes at Ligonier—He proposes to advance towards Fort Duquesne—Washington leads the way, and cuts the Old Military or Forbes' Road—Duquesne deserted by the French, and first occupied by the British and Americans—Fort Pitt erected. THIS expedition which Bouquet sent out was under Maj. Grant. His command consisted of thirty-seven officers and eight hundred and five privates. Grant 1 The return on the 25th September, 1738, two months before the taking of the fort, 'MO, on count, five thousand nine hundred and eighty in all, with detachments on the road and stationed on the frontiers of eleven hundred and eighty-seven in addition. himself was major and the senior officer in the Highland regiment, which was divided into four companies, two of which he now took with and he was supported by Maj. Lewis, of the famous Lewis family of Virginia, with above two hundred Royal Americans, and a body of about fifty Virginia provincials under Capt. Bullet. His instructions were to approach as near the fort as practicable, to avoid a surprise, and chiefly to collect such information as would be of consequence. He left the camp at the Loyalhanna on the 11th of September, the command not being encumbered with baggage or provisions, and having no cannon. Marching from the Loyalhanna camp he the first day passed through a gap of the Chestnut Ridge, and traversing most probably the southeastern part of now Derry township came to the Loyalhanna, which he crossed about half a mile below the Shelving Rocks. He made his camp on the opposite side of Nine-Mile Run, so called from being nine miles from the fort at Ligonier. The site was well chosen, it having on the east the run at the base of a steep bank of twenty feet, on the south a deep ravine. The plateau above was covered with heavy timber. On this plateau where he rested he threw up an earthen wall facing the west and north, running in an angle from one side to the other. The wall was of the height of a man. The ditch from which the earth was cast was on the outside of the wall, and the camp proper was within this triangle so formed by nature and art. We have an exact description of this encampment and the road upon which Grant, following the old Indian path, went. This is in the journal of Christian Post. Post, a childlike missionary, full of the ancient faith, and a man fully competent to conciliate the natives, was sent from his home in Berks County by Governor Denny on two important missions. On his second journey he came in the route of the army of Forbes, and in November of 1758, two months after Grant's march, came to the Loyalhanna, where, leaving Forbes, he traversed the path which Grant had taken thus far. He gives also an exact description of the camping-places of the main army afterwards, having on his return from his mission followed their road. But Post, leaving the camp described, proceeded down along the trading path, as he calls it, five miles below this site. Here the trail divided ; Grant followed the western branch, near to which was afterwards the old Hannastown road, while Post passed on down the path which led alongside the Loyalhanna and on to the old Kittanning towns. This particular place was known to the last generation as the Breastwork Hills, and till within a few years musket-balls, flints, old bayonets, and occasionally buckles and rusty sabres were unearthed, Thirty years ago the breastwork might have been traced, but now it is all leveled and the place cultivated. 2 2 when the writer was a mere boy he heard famous stories to sleep on about cannons filled with bright gold pieces having been buried along FORBES' EXPEDITION, 1758 - 29 The second day Grant proceeded twenty-five miles farther, or to within about fifteen miles of the fort. Although the Indians and French were being con- the first roads, and pleasing versions by old superstitious persons, who averred they had heard other persons say that they themselves heard by night the sound of drums and fifes coming from the Breastwork Hills. He recollects of seeing, because it was a part of the field not worked, the last visible remains ef the encampment ; and it puzzled him exceedingly te know who made it, as this was apparently away from any of the main military roads. The impossibility of getting accurate information from the "oldest people," who are just two generations too late, mud the distressing lack in knowledge of such an interesting subject as that of the early roads, have impelled him to compile a chapter on that subject. By noticing attentively he has come to a knowledge who built this earthwork', and unhesitatingly pronounces this to have been the route of the English detachment under Grant, arid the first route through the wilderness this side of Laurel Hill after Braddock's. All doubts are dispelled by a comparison of dates, and the taking of Post's Journal for the 9th of November, 1758, while Forbes was lying at Ligonier stockade. We insert Iran of the diary here. From the second journal of Christian Frederick Post, 1758, on a message from the Governor of Pennsylvania to the Indians on the Ohio, in the latter part of the same year : Nov. 7, 1758.—" We rose early and made all haste we could on our journey; we crossed the large creek, Rekempalin, near Lawrel hill. Upon this hill we overtook the artillery ; and came, before sunset to Loyal Henning. We were gladly received in the camp by the general, and most of the people. We made our fire near the other Indian camps, which pleased our people 8th.—" At eleven o'clock the general called the Indians together, the Cherokees and Catawbas being present ; he spate to them in a kind and loving manner, and bid them heartily welcome to his camp. . . After that he drank the king's health, and all that wished well to the English nation; then the drank King Beaver's, Shingas', and all the warriors' healths, and recommended us (the messengers) to their care, and desired them to give credit to what we should say. . . . Our Indians parted in love and well satisfied. And we made all necessary preparations for our journey. 9th.—"Some of the colonels and chief commanders wondered how I cause through so many difficulties, and how I could rule and bring those people to reason, making no use of gun or sword. I told them it is done by ne other means than faith. Then they asked me if I hail faith to venture myself to come safe through with my companions? I told them it was ill my heart to pray for them ; you know that the Lord has given many promises to his servants, and what he promises, you may depend upon, he will perform.' Then he wished us good success. We waited till almost noon for the writing of the general. We were escorted by an hundred men, rank and file, commanded by Capt. Haslet. " We passed through a tract of good land, about six miles on the old trading path, and carte to the creek again, where there is a large fine bottom, well timbered; from thence we came upon a hill, to an advanced breastwork, about ten miles from the camp, well situated for strength, facing a small branch of the aforesaid creek; the hill is steep down, perpendicular about twenty feet, on the south side, which is a great defense; and on the west side the breastwork, about seven feet high, where we encamped that night." Our Indian companions heard that we were to part in the morning, and that twelve men were te be sent with us, and the others, part of the company, to go towards Fort Duquesne. Our Indians desired that the captain would send twenty men instead of twelve, that if any accident should happen they could be more able to defend themselves in returning back.... It began to rain. Wallin five miles from the breastwork we departed front Capt. Haslet ; he kept the old trading path to the Ohio. Lieut. Hays wee ordered to accompany us to the Allegheny River with fourteen men. We went along the path which leads along the Loyal Henning Creek. where there is a rich fine bottom laud, well timbered, good springs, and small creeks. At four o'clock we were alarmed by three men in Indian dress, and preparation was made on both sides for defense. Isaac Still showed a white token, and Pisquetomen gave an Indian halloo, Idler which they threw down their bundles and ran away as fast as they could. We afterwards took up their bundles, and found that it was a small party of our men that had been long out. We were sorry that we had scared them, for they lost their bundles with all their food." These men, no doubt, were soldiers scattered from Grant's command. stantly informed of Forbes and Bouquet from the time Bouquet left Bedford, yet Grant succeeded in coming within sight of the fort without being detected. It was nearing dark when he was only a few miles from that spot for which two mighty nations were in contest. Two miles back he had left his baggage and horses under Capt. Bullett with fifty men. In the dusk he approached the fort. In the early part of the night two officers with fifty men were ordered to approach the fort, and if the outposts were not too strong to capture them. They were met by no enemy. They set fire to a store-house, but the fire was seen and put out. In the morning Grant, desirous of securing the victory for himself, sent Maj. Lewis with most of the ammunition and two hundred men half a mile back to secure, he said, the baggage. Believing that the garrison was small he posted his main body, about four hundred men, in a line on the face of the hill, and then sent out a company of fifty, with drums and bagpipes playing, to draw, or rather to drum, the enemy out. And it had the desired effect, for they came out in a hurry. By the noise of martial music the French were aroused from sleep. They knew the ground better than Grant did. Separating their forces into three divisions, two of these skulked out, one along the inner bank of each of the rivers, to surround the British, while the third posted itself in front till the others took up their positions. Securing their vantage-ground, they came in overwhelming numbers and surrounded the Highlanders and provincials on all sides. Hearing the noise of arms, Major Lewis hastened with his force to the rescue. The Indians fought with the tomahawk and scalping-knife, and hastened. to closely embrace their old enemies. As they darted out from their coverts they filled the air with their terrific war screams, a sound to which the foreign Scots were unused. The two chief officers, Grant and Lewis, fell into the hands of the French. When many had fallen a retreat commenced. Then it was that the fifty men under the brave Bullet saved from utter annihilation the remains of the detachment. This officer, discovering the rout of the troops in front, dispatched with great prudence the most necessary part of the baggage on strong horses, and with the remainder of his men secured an advantageous position along the road. He had his men well screened, and by a well-directed fire they stopped the violence of the pursuit and thus somewhat checked the tumult of the men. With great coolness he blinded them by a successful stratagem. Seeing that his number was few compared with that of the enemy, he ordered his men, from a previous agreement, to march up to the Indians with arms reversed as if they sued for quarter. The Indians with a treacherous design themselves fell into the snare. When near enough Bullet gave the word ; a dreadful volley was discharged into the midst of the wretches, and a charge with the bayonet following, the assailants were effectually discomfited. The re- 30 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. mains were thus saved from being cut to pieces. The enemy were baffled, and Bullet covering the retreat, the command was successfully carried back to the Loyalhanna camp. The loss of the British and colonists was about three hundred. 1 The slowness of acting which at first had marked the French and their Indian allies is partially accounted for by Capt. James Smith, at that time a captive among the Indians. He states that reinforcements from the camp-fires at Detroit, expecting the approach of the English in the summer of 1758, left for Fort Duquesne ; that they expected to serve Forbes as they had served Braddock ; that during all the fall they had full accounts of the army from Indian runners ; but that withal Grant had stolen a march on them, they not looking for a thing so improbable. However, after this engagement they had a council, and resolved to march out and meet the army, for the Indians were becoming dissatisfied, and as it was late in the year they were compelled from necessity to go into their own country and get food for their squaws and children that these in the severity of the winter might not starve. .Having been so long on the war-path and from their wigwams, many of the helpless ones it is believed had perished during the previous seasons. And in truth the influence of the French over their allies was somewhat waning. So it was proposed to attack the army under Bouquet in their own camp, and if fortunate close the campaign by one battle. Instead of being disheartened at this unforeseen occurrence, Bouquet resorted to more active measures in securing his camp and holding it till reinforcements came; for, flushed with this victory, it was not un- looked for that the enemy should be emboldened to attack him. This they accordingly did. The repulse of Grant was suffered on the 14th of September, and .four weeks from that time all the force of the garrison, which now was composed of more French than Indians, from their desire of holding the position, came out in battle array and filled the. woods around the camp at Loyalhanna. The number of the French was estimated at twelve hundred ; that of the Indians at above two hundred. They were under command 1 The French had the day before received a reinforcement of four hundred men front Illinois. under Capt. Aubrey, commander in the attack on Grant, who met with a bloody defeat on the hill where our court-house now stands, and along through the woods to where the baggage was kept with a guard on the slope above the Two-Mile Run. Grant was captured but soon exchanged. In 1760 he was Governor of East Florida. He afterwards rose to high rank in the British army, and served in it during part of the war of the Revolution. He was in the battle of Germantown and of Monmouth Court-House; at the littler he commanded, and defeated the American Gen. Lee. He died at his seat at Ballendalloch, near Elgin, Scotland, May 13, 1806, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. At the time of his death he was Governor of Stirling Castle. Capt. Aubrey, the French commander, was taken prisoner the next year at Niagara. He was afterwards Governor of the French colony at New Orleans. Returning to France in February, 1770, he lost his life by the sinking of the vessel off the French, coast, near the mouth of the Garonne."—Wm. M. Darlington, Esq., "Pittsburgh in the Last Century." of De Vitri. On Thursday, the 12th of October, 1758, their combined forces attacked Bouquet. The engagement commenced in the forenoon about eleven o'clock, and lasted till three o'clock in the afternoon. The enemy were repulsed on all sides. They again renewed the attack at night, but Bouquet throwing shells from his mortars into the woods among them they were forced to desist. They retreated under cover of the darkness. The loss of the British was 67 rank and file, of which twelve were killed. The Indians now, for the first time in this long and bloody war, showed signs of disaffection. They could not be prevailed upon to carry on the war, but left the war-trail for their hunting-grounds. It had been only by artful promises that they were held so long; and when the first signs began to appear of their warfare being unrewarded with booty they treacherously withdrew. The French were not able of themselves to fight successfully against the English and. their auxiliaries. All the meagre accounts of this engagement at Ligonier that we have yet met with are stated above. Few have paid a more than passing notice to the fact that here in Westmoreland County, in Ligonier Valley, in the heart of a great wilderness, part of the renowned organization which had been perfected by Turenne and Luxemburg, which had sustained glory on the fields of Belgium, had ravaged the Palatinate, and had been marshalled against the Stadtholder king and Marlborough, were brought face to face with their immemorial foemen. But it is true that here, under the lilies of France, the soldiery of Louis again closed in conflict with the soldiery of George under the royal cross of England. Here in miniature was fought over the conflict of Namur and of Landen. By the 1st of November, 1758, the whole army under Forbes and Washington was around Ligonier stockade. Forbes, of delicate health, was now so feeble that he had to be carried on a litter by the men. It was getting late in the fall, and a council of officers was called to determine on future action. Winter in reality had already set in, and the tops of the Laurel Hill and Chestnut Ridge were covered with snow. It was considered hazardous to attempt an offensive campaign with the winter before them and without a knowledge of the country or the enemy. So it was about concluded that the army go into cantonments about the stockade till the breaking up of the season. But several French and Indians and a few captives falling into the hands of the English,, the actual number of their enemy and the disaffection of the Indians were learnt. When this was known it was resolved to hasten forward speedily as possible towards the fort. Washington, as colonel, was sent forward in advance of the main portion of the army to take command of the division whose employment it was to open the road. On the 12th of November, about three miles from the camp, he fell in with a number FORBES' EXPEDITION, 1758 - 31 of the enemy, and in the attack which followed they killed one man and took three prisoners. One of these was an Englishman named Johnson, who had been captured by the Indians in Lancaster County, and from him was derived full and authentic information of the state of affairs at Duquesne. Upon this occasion a most unfortunate accident happened the provincial troops. The noise of the firing from the detachment under Washington being heard at the camp, Col. Hugh Mercer, with a number of Virginians, was sent forward to his assistance. The two parties, approaching each other in the dusk of the evening, mistook each other for the enemy. A number of shots were exchanged, by which a lieutenant and thirteen or fourteen Virginians were killed. 'Washington was in the greatest danger during this melee, for soon as he comprehended the situation he ran in among his men and beat down their guns. 1 On the 13th, Col. Armstrong, with a thousand men, pushed forward to assist Washington in opening the road for the artillery and baggage. On the 17th, Forbes, with four thousand three hundred effective men, pushed forward after leaving strong garrisons at Bedford (Raystown) and the Loyalhanna. The advance under Washington cut its way through the morasses and over the hills in a more direct course than the course Grant had taken. They crossed the Loyalhanna at where it was afterwards called Cochran's Ford, about two and a half miles from Latrobe. Here they came out on the old Indian path, or Ohio trail, first used by the traders, which, as we have stated, ran direct to Duquesne. They followed the course westward, going past the settlement afterwards of Hannastown, and passing out of the limits of the county near Murrysville ; thence, crossing the Turtle Creek, they went straight for the fort, keeping to the foot of the hills. The old Forbes road, or Hannastown road, as it was variously known, may be traced on some old maps of the county. In some places it may be followed by natural marks. In few places is it used any more as a public road. It was, however, for many years after the only highway through our county, or, indeed, except the Braddock road, from the East to the West. But now, as it was opened first to the passage of the army, it may readily be imagined that it was pa sable only with the greatest of labor and' care. The army, even that portion. immediately under Forbes, moved slowly. The pioneers were nine days in going from the Loyalhanna to the Turtle Creek. The weather was chilly and damp, with falling snow and rain intervening. The soldiers were constantly on the alert, and a number of friendly Indians, who by the influence of Post were induced to take arms in tile assistance of the English, were out as scouts on all sides. On Friday, the 24th of November, the Indian scouts in the advance saw the smoke arising from the barracks of Fort Duquesne. It had been fired by the French by order of their commander, De Lignery, and then abandoned. The army was about twelve or thirteen miles away. The French, taking boat, fled, some down the Ohio and some to Canada by way of the Allegheny. The garrison was only about four hundred. Forbes sent for' ward a company of cavalry under Capt. Hazlet to secure, if possible, some of the munition and to extinguish the fire. The works were mostly destroyed, but a large quantity of war stores was saved. The main body with the general arrived the next day. Sunday, the 26th, was observed by general orders as " A Day of Public Thanksgiving to Almighty God" for their success, and the Rev. Charles Beatty, a Presbyterian minister, and chaplain to. Col. Clapham's Pennsylvania regiment, preached a thanksgiving sermon, which was probably the first Protestant sermon preached west of the mountains. On Tuesday, the 28th, a large detachment. marched to Braddock's battle field to bury the bones of those still lying there, as the same duties had been done to the stark corpses which lay on Grant's Hill. And now at last from the smoking walls of Duquesne floated the English standard. new fort was laid out, which when built was called Fort Pitt, in honor of the distinguished premier, William Pitt. Hugh Mercer, with a garrison of two hundred, was left in command. The army returned to Philadelphia, and in the early part of the next year, 1759, Forbes died. Brigadier John Stanwix succeeded Forbes as commander-in-chief of the middle division of colonies. He arrived at Pittsburgh in August 1759, and on the 3d of September the work of building this "formidable fortification" was commenced by order of the British Secretary of State. 1 This affair has been greatly misrepresented, and in the traditions of the people of that part ef the valley greatly distorted. It is lam] to make sonic understand that Washington did not command there in an engagement against the enemy. The substance of this occurrence is derived from Sparks' " Washington and the account there made up from Washington's writings. I was told by a very old gentleman of this county, now deceased, what was related to him as the substance of a conversation between Washington and William Findley, the first representative in Congress from this district. Findley said that Washington, speaking with him about this skirmish, said he had always considered that he was in more danger then and Mere than on any other occasion in his military career. At that time, which was long after the occurrence, he remembered the particulars well and described accurately the situation of affairs. He also called Findley's attention to the physical outlines of the entire region between Ligonier and Pittsburgh, and recalled certain observations made at the time he engineered the road, and which he yet attentively retain, 32 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. CHAPTER VI. FIRST SETTLEMENTS IN WESTMORELAND—BATTLE OF BUSHY RUN, 1763. Settlers come into Ligonier Valley. about Fort Pitt, and along the Old Military Road— Their Isolated Situations, their Squalid Huts, Potato Patches, and First Clearings— Condition of Indian Affairs at the Peace between England and France, 1762 and 1763-Pontiac—Fort Ligonier made a General Depot—Officers Commandant at Fort Ligonier—The Great Uprising of the Northwestern Tribes—Fort Pitt and Fort Ligonier surrounded and cut off from connection with the East—Capt. Ourry ;tad his Men from Bedford come to the relief of Lignnier and hold the Fort—Bouquet marches from the East to the relief of Fort Ligonier and Fort Pitt—The Force with him—Bouquet finds the Frontier overrun and the Inhabitants utterly destitute—He reaches Fort Ligonier (1763)- He strengthens the Post, and with his Small Army and a Convoy of Pack-Horses proceeds towards Fort Pitt—He is attacked by the Indians wader Kyashuta, the Chief of the Senecas, and fights the Mule of Bushy Butt—He Defeats and Scatters his Enemy in the most successful Engagement fought with the Hostiles, and carries his Forces and Provisions into Fort Pitt. WITH the army of Forbes and immediately in its train came in the first settlers of Westmoreland. Some clustered about the fort at the Forks of, the Ohio, and some remained at Ligonier. The most of them were soldiers who had served in the campaign, and who, with their families, remained. Some chose to settle by location ; in other words, they settled on land which they thought they had a right to merely by occupying it ; but most were allotted land by the military commandants empowered to do so, and these settled by military permit. One of the earliest of these settlements, after those at the two forts, was the settlement of Andrew Byerly. Byerly's settlement dates from 1759. It was situated on Brush Creek, contiguous to which was the manorial reservation of the Penns. The order for Andrew Byerly's warrant was the thirty-sixth in number, and called for two hundred and thirty acres. On this spot Byerly seated himself by permit from the commandant at Fort Pitt, and before any other settlers had located between Bedford and Pitt. He accommodated express-riders and military agents on this road. Within the next two years there were three or four neighbors to Byerly. Of these one was Christopher Rudabaugh. Although Western Pennsylvania was then virtually within Cumberland County, yet the colonial authorities did not allow any one to take up land, either by squatting upon it or by purchasing from the Indians. It was not till 1769 that any title was given to those who had located by military permit and to those who received donations of land for service in the Indian war. But settlers at this date came in cautiously. In rude and squalid huts, crouched close to the stockade at Ligonier and scattered far apart from Frazer's, at the mouth of Turtle Creek, the settlers were always watchful and on the alert. The land, a complete wilderness, was all before them where to choose, and, paradoxically, the " flaming sword" was before them also. The only strip of light through the gloom of the primeval woods was the narrow roadway from the mountains to the rivers. Far southward to the still unpeopled highway of Braddock, and far northward into perpetual winter, was a boundless, rocky, desolate, and gloomy wild. To the left and right beasts of prey crouched in their burrows, birds of ill omen nestled among the cliffs, and barbarians skulked amid the trees or made war-clubs and sharpened their flints in their tepees by the streams and in the vales where the sunshine scarce touched. As stated, a stockade had been built and a garrison was left at Ligonier Fort. An attempt was made by the soldiers posted here to raise corn and garden vegetables, and with the coming year a few others came in to share the hardships with them. Their huts were built under the shadow of the stockade, and at night they rested in quarters guarded by the soldiers. The old Fort Ligonier stood somewhat back of the site of the present village, on a rise of ground which was the lowermost range of Laurel Hill. The location was well adapted for defense and well calculated to sustain a settlement, for although the mountains surrounding are comparatively unfruitful and unproductive, yet the valleys between are fertile and well watered. Although the general war was not terminated, yet when the Indians were brought into contact with the English they, from the results of a wise policy, were conciliated. In 1758 a treaty was effected at Easton between the Delawares and Shawanese and the whites. The fury of the Indians, in the eastern part of the State especially, had somewhat abated, but on the western frontiers the Indians, under the French, still committed depredations. From the treaty of Easton the minds of the people had been somewhat at rest. But none knew so well the treachery of that unconquerable race as the settlers themselves. They, taking advantage of the lull in the war, pushed on farther into the West,—the first eddy of the great wave of empire. Point by point was reached and secured. Settlements were re-established along the Monongahela, several on the old Braddock road and at the Turkey Foot. While these were the forerunners of the English civilization in Western Pennsylvania and Virginia, others were worming their way far off in Northwestern Ohio. But all were watchful and on their guard. And good reasons had they to be on their guard. The old enmity between the races was not extinct. The defeat of the Indians had not been complete, they had been only baffled. On the edges of the border warfare had not at any time entirely ceased. The outposts were at any time open to surprise and attack. Far from the West, where the Indians had gathered closer together, came mutterings of war. In restless expectancy did the few settlers of Western Pennsylvania and Virginia pass over a couple of years, from 1759 to 1762 and 1763. As the war between France and England was about terminating in 1762, the storm at length broke out. Nor FIRST SETTLEMENTS IN WESTMORELAND—BATTLE OF BUSHY RUN, 1763 - 33 did the subsequent treaty of peace stop the aggression of these. There was a daring and noble—if the word noble can be applied ato a savage—a noble chieftain, who commanded a confederation of Indians which he himself had organized. This was Pontiac. He was chief of the Ottawas, and his camp-fires were about the lakes at Detroit. Under instigation of the French, and from a love of great actions, he waged an unrelenting and a deathless war on the English whites. He was possessed of an inherent genius both for command and to execute. Besides this he was gifted to a wonderful degree with the power of persuasive oratory. The strength of his organization and the force of his arms were felt all over the colonies. While the fires of one war were covering over, the fires of another war burst out. The natives, under arrangements concerted with this great chieftain, attacked in squads and simultaneously nearly every one of.the outer circle of forts and settlements which circled westward from the lakes to the head-waters of the Kentucky. The tribes of Ohio, headed by the main body of the Shawanese, the most powerful of. the Mingo confederation, carried the war into the heart of our own State. So unexpected and so fierce was this incursion that the Indians were all through the country before the whites knew.1 Fort Pitt was completely surrounded. It was feared that the fort would fall, a fear made more intense from a corresponding interest and by the great expectation of the English, who had after so much difficulty wrested it from their. enemies, and who, when they had it in possession, boastingly asserted that it should remain in their possession forever. Environing this fort, they penetrated as. far eastward as Bedford. At this time Ligonier was the only post between Bedford and Fort Pitt held by the English. In the forts, stockades, and blockhouses the settlers sought safety. The alarm spread like wildfire, and the roads in the East were filled with frightened women and children. Ligonier was in a state of siege. From now till the end of the French and Indian war, properly speaking, and even after, all the inhabitants were either driven east of the mountains or else they were cooped up in forts. Fort Ligonier had now become a general station, at which provisions and munitions of war were collected for the supply of the West. From here, on packhorses, these were sent forward protected. There was no stated number of the garrison, for it differed at different times. After Forbes left, Lieut. Lloyd was in 1 All the tribes from the Hudson to the Mississippi were in the confederation. So systematic was their attack planned, and so simultaneously was it executed, that out of the eleven or twelve of the principal British forts lying west of the Ohio River by their preconcerted arrangement and their quickness of operation only three were untaken. Le Boeuf, Venango, Presque Isle on Lake Erie, Lea Bay on Lake Michigan, Miami, St. Joseph, Ouachtanon, Sandusky, and Michillimackinac had been surprised and the garrisons massacred. Niagara, Detroit, and Fort Pitt alone remained uncaptured, but each was besieged by a large number of savages, who had with them some French Canadians. command for most part of the year 1758. Lieut. Samuel Miles commanded in the latter part of the year 1759, and had twenty men under him picked out of two battalions. At the time of this incursion the depot at Ligonier was in charge of Lieut. Blaine. Capt. Ourry commanded at Bedford. The garrison at both places was small. But to preserve this post was of the utmost importance ; for had Fort Pitt and Fort Ligonier fallen the whole of the middle part of Pennsylvania would have been open to another invasion. To here within the walls of the stockade all those around fled. Byerly, in the night, brought in leis family, for the Indians were between his station and Fort Pitt. Fort Pitt, with a small garrison under Captain Ecuyer, was isolated. The Indians, under the vigilant control of a bloodthirsty chieftain, Kyashuta, of the Senecas,—the confederate of Pontiac in the East,—had hopes to starve out the garrison before assistance reached them. Amid the commotion and tumult in the East, it was feared that with all their activity in this emergency no relief could be brought to either point. A campaign would have to be first organized, and a long stretch of mountainous country separated them. But the authorities and people appeared willing and able to help. If the besieged places could hold out it would not be long till Bouquet would again be among them. Some thought that all would be massacred before assistance came ; others dreaded to hear any news, for their ears were open to that which would be the most sorrowful. In the mean time affairs were critical about Fort Ligonier. There was the greatest danger and the most widely spread fear of.the post falling into the hands of the enemy. A party detached from the main body of the Indians had already attacked it, but by the good management of Lieut. Blaine and the bravery of his men, notwithstanding the fewness of their number and the badness of the stockade, those who attacked it were driven back. As a matter of fact, the possession of this post was almost if not altogether of as much importance at this conjuncture as the post of Fort Pitt. Its situation was such that it immediately covered the frontiers. But besides this at that particular time there were large quantities of military stores here. Should these fall into the hands of the enemy, they would be able to continue their attack on Fort Pitt, and probably reduce the place before any help could come. But at the same time in which the greatest apprehension was felt that this post would fall, came reinforcements. Captain Ourry, of Bedford, with a feeling and fearless heart, weakened his own garrison for the relief of this little band. He picked out twenty riflemen, all good woodsmen, and directed them to exert themselves to reach the garrison in all haste. They started across the mountains, and evading the Indians on all sides by coming in on another route, appeared on the hill back of the fort. It was dangerous for the brave men to delay, for fear of being discovered, and 34 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. it was dangerous for them to run towards the fort, for in doing so they might be mistaken for an enemy and fired upon. But they soon resolved on doing. Under cover of the bushes they crept near to the stockade. They were seen by the Indians and fired at, but under cover of the fire they ran for the entrance of the fort. The garrison recognized them and fired upon their pursuers, and flinging open the gates of the stockade heartily welcomed their arrival. The garrison was strengthened at a most critical and opportune time. No one dared now venture outside the limits of the stockade. All such domestic animals as were suffered to wander were destroyed by the besieging party. There were many skirmishes about the fort; indeed, one continuous skirmish, if we trust the reports on good authority handed down to us. Many of the redskins were killed. Among them and' urging them on were some renegade French Canadians, although at that time there was no war between the two countries. The good conduct of Lieut. Blaine is greatly to be extolled. He had his hands full. All the distressed families for a distance of twelve and fifteen. miles around had on the first alarm fled to the fort for protection, they having left most of their effects a prey to the savages. 1 Blaine, however, took every precaution to prevent a surprise and to repel another attack. The Indians by this time had become. expert in one of the arts of war peculiar to their mode, and this they had practiced during this invasion with gratifying success. They prepared inflammable substances which they bound to their arrows, and these they shot into the roofs of the cabins inside the stockade and wherever else there was combustible material: But Blaine had guards watching incessantly, and otherwise took 'every known means to render these missiles ineffectual. He had arms enough at hand for the men who had gathered thither, and they he armed and made perform military duty. He formed them into two companies of volunteers, and they did duty with the garrison till the two companies of light infantry which were detached from Bouquet's force arrived. In the mean time was Col. Bouquet hastening from the East to the distressed posts. All effective troops at command were turned for the support of the more important positions along the northern frontiers, where Britain was maintaining, her foothold on the very threshold of her empire. Bouquet was ordered to relieve Fort Pitt with stores and provisions, and to reinforce it and the intermediate posts with his command. His available forces were the shattered remains of two regiments which had just landed at Philadelphia from the campaign in the West Indies, 2 where they had been fighting Spaniards, the yellow fever, and malaria. Such was the Main part of the 1 Rupp's " History Western Pennsylvania," p. 158. 2 These were the Forty-second and the Seventy-seventh Regiments. army on which he had to rely in reaching a post three hundred miles away, cut off and surrounded by enemies of whose disposition the men had no knowledge only from rumor. These in number did not exceed five hundred, of whom many were so weak they were not able to walk, and sixty were carried in wagons to be left at the smaller posts. The government of Pennsylvania had given orders to prepare a convoy of provisions for the threes along the route, and especially at Carlisle; but such was the utter helplessness of the country through which they passed—its crops burnt, its plantations destroyed—that when Bouquet came up nothing had been done. Nay, even the greater portion of Cumberland County was deserted, and the roads were filled with flying refugees. But by delaying at Carlisle for some eighteen days, towards the latter end of July, 1763, and by the unwearied diligence of the colonel, provisions from the neighboring counties were accumulated in sufficiency to allow him to proceed. His small number of sickly troops, who were to fight an enemy not unknown to Braddock, instead of encouraging the inhabitants rather made them dejected the more. Now, after their proffers of assistance and their activity on the first outbreak of the war, they did not in any number volunteer to assist the brave Swiss colonel and his English redcoats. Bouquet, thoughtful as he always was, and not knowing of the action of Captain Ourry in forwarding the twenty volunteers from Bedford, sent forward, before he left Carlisle, thirty men to join the garrison at Ligonier. This was before July, 1763. They came in a hurried march, and, hazardous as was the undertaking, were not discovered till they came to the fort. Receiving some shot as they ran, they securely entered into the little stockade. Bouquet toilsomely dragged his little army along. Everywhere he came he heard and saw the signs of Indian atrocities, for Their war was not carried on by them in a body, but in many places and at different times. One day a horse laden with merchandise would be captured between Carlisle and Bedford and the driver killed ; the next day a settler who had ventured from the stockade at Ligonier would be taken captive and hurried to the Indian country in the West. Even in the rear of the army, as it proceeded, were many waylaid and killed. He could get no idea of their numbers, their positions, their intentions. He could find no enemy to fight ; he could hear of no place to attack them. He had expected to venture battle with them at Bedford, for about there they had murdered many, although they did not attack the fort. But when he came there they were all scattered. On the other hand, the Indians, by their fleet runners through the woods, knew of every movement of his. On the 25th of July it was that Bouquet arrived at Bedford ; on the 1st of August he reached Ligonier. His presence here relieved those whom he found in FIRST SETTLEMENTS IN WESTMORELAND—BATTLE OF BUSHY RUN, 1763 - 35 the greatest fear. On reaching Ligonier he determined, according to the narrative, to leave here his wagons and baggage, and proceeding forward with pack-horses, carry such a convoy of provisions as was necessary for his own troops and necessary for the immediate wants of the garrison at Pittsburgh and the needy collected within the fort ; for there were a few log houses then built between the fort and the river occupied by traders, and these all fled for protection into the fort, and were under the care of the garrison. To all alike were the scanty supplies doled out. Bouquet's gallant littler band, dignified in history with the fame-sounding appellation of army, halted only for a day at Ligonier fort, and leaving there a strong guard, then struck out on the old Forbes road. It was the road Bouquet himself had helped to make. He knew the country with the knowledge of a thorough military man. The first night they encamped on the west side of the Loyalhanna. It was Bouquet's intention to hasten past Turtle Creek by a forced march of thirty miles the next day, for to the east of Turtle Creek there was, between high banks and hills, a long defile extending some two miles, and this location was considered a dangerous one. In the early morning of August 5, 1763, the men were on the march. The weather was warm, and in the uncleared woods uncomfortably sultry and close, but yet by a little past noon they had marched seventeen miles, and come to within half a mile of Bushy Run, a tributary of Brush Creek, which itself flows into Turtle Creek. He had purposed to halt here to refresh his men till the heat of the day was exhausted, and possibly to evade the Indians by passing the defile before nightfall. The Indians had left enough of their crew around the beleaguered fort, and without sensibly, or at least apparently, diminishing their number or their effectiveness there, were laying a plan to surprise Bouquet, for on hearing of his march from Ligonier they broke up their camp at the river, and at the most favorable time, under the chieftainship of Kyashuta, came out through the woods to annihilate the army of relief. The Mingoes knew the country well, and it was not unfavorable for ambush and their mode of warfare. The land is either hilly or rolling, and at that time was covered with rocks, thick bushes, and forest-trees. A number of the early inhabitants willingly offered their services to Bouquet at Bedford and at Ligonier. Among the advance as pioneers , were Andrew Byerly and some of his neighbors, who volunteered to lead the army. The battle which followed, called the battle of Bushy Run, was fought near Byerly's Station. 1 At about one o'clock in the afternoon, when the mall army was nearing Bushy Run, where they pur- 1 See note to Penn township, in which the battle of Busby Run was fought. posed to slake their thirst and refresh themselves after their tiresome march, the advance, among whom were Byerly and the volunteer scouts, were suddenly fired upon. They were speedily supported by fresh troops, and the Indians scattered. Such, however, was the preconcerted plan of battle, for as soon as the pursuit was ended they returned, and suddenly all along the line they rose up like the grass from their ambush along the sides of the hills. The regular soldiery, unused and all as they were to this kind of warfare, under their skillful commander bravely stood their ground. They resisted every attack of the enemy. Finding their convoy in danger, it being in the rear, they withdrew in order until they had it surrounded. Seeing that firing did not have the desired effect upon the Indians, they were ordered to charge with the bayonet. They did, and the savages fled, for they were never known to withstand this onset from regular troops. But the dispersing them was not victory, for they returned to the fight with persistence. Nor could they by any known method be dislodged or scattered. In this manner the little army withstood the repeated attacks of the emboldened and insolent enemy till night. Night fell upon the brave band of foreign soldiers in the wilderness, who that long summer afternoon, without rest or refreshment, had been fighting. Worse than all did they suffer from thirst; as there was no stream near and they could not leave their convoy ; besides, they were surrounded completely, and entirely cut off from the stream ahead. The night was longer than the day ; when the day at last dawned it was only to renew, for them, the battle. Seeing that it must soon terminate some way, Bouquet planned and executed a stratagem. The army still kept the position they had occupied during the night, close to their convoy. A few companies lay along the road. The convoy, being upon a rise of ground, was protected by the grenadiers and infantry, the horses, teamsters, and baggage being in the midst. In the advance along the road were two companies of grenadiers. Bouquet wanted to leave the impression with the Indians that he was about to begin a retreat. In pursuance of this apparent intention, he ordered the two companies to fall within the circle along the road, and also in reality to pass through between them and take up a position on the road in his. rear, where they were hidden from view. They accordingly did so, and the lines opened to receive and then closed upon ,them. The Indians poured out upon the convoy and prowled through the wood to intercept those on the retreat. At the same time Bouquet ordered out two companies, one of grenadiers and one of light infantry, to lie in wait on the ground which the grenadiers had left. These, unobserved, took up their position. Then the circle around the convoy began to contract, as if indeed the retreat had actually begun. On the road of the retreating companies Were also two companies of light 36 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. infantry to resist the expected attack there. These rising suddenly from their ambush poured volley after volley among the Indians, from which they suffered exceedingly. Panic-stricken themselves, they fled through the woods before the infantry, who followed them with the bayonet, driving them right round towards the other grenadiers and infantry, who met them with their fresh fire, these being posted here to receive them when so driven round: Thus hemmed in between two concentrated and converging fires, the Indians suffered great loss, and being panic-struck beyond measure they fled separately through the woods in all directions. Nor did they once recover. They left upon the field sixty dead, among whom were many reputed their bravest warriors. Many more were wounded so that they died. The leader of the Indians in this engagement was said to be .Kyashuta. He was chief sachem of the Senecas, and by the power of his command carried the Mingoes and all the Ohio tribes into the war. He made his name as famous almost as the name of his great compeer, Pontiac. He was a savage in every Sense of the word. Turbulent and treacherous as he was, he was one of the last to make peace with the whites, and did so only when he was at their mercy. But fierce as he was when on the war-path and as he has been universally considered, yet there are some who have given high praise to his character. Washington, in 1770, when on a tour to the Ohio, stopped to pay his compliments to Kyashuta, and lie states that he was treated by him with great kindness. He was one of the Indians who went with Washington to the French at Venango in 1753, before the French and Indian war. At the time of this defeat the Mingoes had their headquarters at the old town of Logstown, on the Ohio, built for them by the French. After this battle they deserted this place. Bouquet, collecting his worn-out soldiers, proceeded to Bushy Run, where he encamped. When the danger had seemed the most imminent a number of teamsters hid themselves among the bushes and allowed some of the horses to escape. On this account part of the convoy had to. be destroyed. With the rest Bouquet advanced to Fort Pitt, which he reached on the 9th of August, 1763. 1 Henry Bouquet, who made his name famous in American colonial history, and who has had a post-office in Westmoreland County called for him, thus deserving at our hands some notice, was born at Rolle, in the Canton of Berne, Switzerland, about 1719. At the age of seventeen he was received as a cadet in the regiment of Constance, and thence passed into the service of the King of Sardinia, in whose wars he distinguished himself as a lieutenant, and afterwards as adjutant. In 1748 he entered the Swiss Guards as lieutenant-colonel. When the war broke out in 1734 between England and France he was solicited by the English to serve iu America. His ability soon got him in great confidence in Virginia and Pennsylvania, and he was employed in various services. He first distinguished himself under Forbes, and was one of his chief advisers. He readily fell into the provincial mode of fighting the Indians, which says more for his military genius than his former services would express. At the time of Pontiac's war, as we have seen at length, he was ordered by Gen. Amherst to relieve the western garrison., which he CHAPTER VII. SETTLEMENT FROM 1759 TO 1769. Misunderstood Boundaries of the Treaty of 1754 (Albany)—Purchase of 1758 and Boundaries thereunder—British Officers give Permits to Settlers after Forbes' Campaign—Pennsylvania will nut give Title to Settlers, but passes Laws to keep Settlers off this Territory—Virginia induces Settlers to migrate hither and locate—The Boundary Line between Pennsylvania and Virginia not definitely known—Settlers come into the Country after Pontiac's war (1764)—They locate at Redstone, on the Youghiogheny, at the Forks of that River, and about Pittsburgh, Ligonier, and aloug the Great Roads—Mason and Dixon's Line run—Proclamation of the Governor of Pennsylvania warning these Settlers oft—Rev. John Steele sent to them to explain the Law and request them to remove—They refuse to remove—The " New Purchase," under Treaty of Fort Stanwix, of 1768—List of the Earliest Settlements made in Western Pennsylvania to this date (1768)—Clamoring of Emigrants and New Settlers to have Lands granted them by the Province—Special Land Titles—Penn's Manorial Reservations—The Divesting Act— Preliminaries to the opening of the Land Office —Public Notice of the opening given—Land Office opened for Applications iu the New Purchase, April 3, 1769. WE shall here give some account of the settlements of this region from the time of the occupancy of Fort Duquesne by Forbes in 1759 to the opening of the land office in 1769, a date to be always remembered in the history of the Westmoreland settlements. We shall also give a summary of the rules and regulations by which the land office was guided, and try to get an understanding of the relation between it and the people. It is a subject frequently to be recurred to, for within this period there is such a conflict of law and disobedience, of justice and injustice, of singular friendships and of singular enmities among the settlers and the natives, of misunderstood boundaries and of violated treaties. The intervening period between these two dates is the date of Pontiac's war (1763). The settlements of this region may be aptly compared to the encroachment of the flow tide upon the beach. Waves of people were borne outward, and then from causes to be explained were driven back, only to be again driven outward with increased and accelerated force and body. From the close of this memorable war, of short duration it is true, but filled with barbarities untold, there was a cessation, and the country was left to comparative peace until the breaking out of Dunmore's war before the Revolution (1774). During this time immigration to the west of the Allegheny did so successfully with such inefficient means. No soldier of foreign birth was so distiuguished or so successful in Indian warfare as he was. The next year after this battle, that was in 1764, he was placed at the head of a force of Pennsylvania and Virginia volunteers, which he had organized at Fort Loudon, Pa., with which he penetrated in a " line of battle" from Fort Pitt into the Indian country along the Muskingum. The savages, battled and unsuccessful in all their attempts et surprise and ambush, sued for peace, and the "Treaty of Bouquet," made then and there, is as notorious In Ohio as the " Battle of Bouquet" is in Pennsylvania. The Assembly of Pennsylvania and the Burgesses ef Virginia adopted addresses of gratitude, tendered him their thanks, and recommended him for promotion in His Majesty's service. Immediately after the peace with the Indians was concluded, the king made him brigadier-general and commandant in the Southern colonies of British America. He lived not long to enjoy his honors, for he died at Pensacola, 1767, "lamented by his friends, and regretted universally." SETTLEMENT FROM 1759 TO 1769 - 37 Mountains commenced and continued. Settlements were then started in places and localities which were permanently held. By Bouquet's treaty of 1764 the Indians granted .the whites the privilege of erecting forts arid trading-houses wherever they pleased. and of traveling the road from sunrising till sunsetting. 1 Had there been no opposition but that offered by the natives, Western Pennsylvania would have been soon settled ; but from circumstances peculiar to this colony the settlements here were delayed and retarded. We have stated that the authorities of our Province did not allow any one to settle on lands not purchased from the Indians. But it will be remembered that by the treaty of Albany in 1754 all lands lying west of the Susquehanna, and as far in extent as the limits of the Province, were said to have been so purchased. This treaty driving the Indians to take part with the French, as Was terribly witnessed by Braddock's defeat and the aggressive war following, compelled Governor Morris in the next year, 1755, to issue his proclamation in which he distinctly asserted that this fraud was apparent to the whole world, and the demand so exorbitant that by it the natives had not a country left to subsist in.2 Perhaps the authorities were, as was subsequently given out, as poorly informed as to where the limits extended as the Indians were in comprehending the points of the compass ; for it was afterwards found that the boundaries did not by any means extend so far as the actual limits of the Province. But the Indians the more loudly complained of this injustice. Many conferences were held about the region of the Ohio, among which may be noted those of Weiser's, Post's, and Crogan's, a familiarity with the details of which may be acquired from any narrative covering this era and bearing on this section. These all were preliminary, and finally led to the treaty of Easton, October, 1758, which was consummated after the successful expedition of Forbes in capturing Fort Duquesne. In this treaty of 1758 the authorities of the Province surrendered to the Indian Six Nations and their allies all to the northward and westward of the Allegheny Mountains, and finally and indubitably secured all the remainder eastward to the proprietaries. In the southern part of the State, east of Westmoreland, the purchase of 1758 would have had for its western boundary the line between Somerset and Bedford, Cambria and Blair Counties. 1 After Bonquet's victory the Indian warriors retreated into the wilderness of Ohio, and did not regard themselves as safe till they stopped at the Muskingum. But Bouquet with new forces pursued them thither, and at the memorable treaty of 1764, on the Muskingum, exacted such terms and restricted those inclined to war to such limits that it has been regarded as the most efficacious of all treaties forced from them at the point of the bayonet.—Craig's " Olden Time." 2 At the treaty of Albany, in 1754, the delegates from Pennsylvania secured, as was alleged, irregularly, a great portion of the land to which the title of the Indians was not extinguished, by which many tribes found the ground which had been secnred to them by treaties with the Six Nations sold from under their feet. This had been guaranteed to them on their removal thither. Pennsylvania could thus not claim any of the territory west of that line 3 for the purpose of giving lands to her inhabitants, because to have done so would have been in violation of her good faith and of her prior treaties with the natives. Beyond the franchise of the proprietaries, however, were the reserved privileges of the crown. The king of England, as lord paramount, sent his soldiers through both Virginia and Pennsylvania, as he had a right to do, opened up his military roads and his highways, established his military posts, and kept up his garrisons. From the time of Forbes till after the of 1768 there were British officers and a garrison at Fort Pitt. At Ligonier there was sometimes a regular British officer and sometimes a subaltern in the service of the Province, but who was specially empowered by delegated authority from the officer in his military department over him to grant under certain restrictions permits to occupy parcels of land, as the commandant at Fort Pitt could. The successful termination of the French and Indian war in 1759 and 1760 gave to England the possession of Canada, as well as the great West. Hence were the fortifications and military posts which had been erected by the French turned over to and occupied by the British. To have ready access to and communication with these posts and from one to the other was a necessity. In encouraging all efforts of the royal deputies in that direction, no one of the old colonies was more ready and active than was Virginia.4 Many of her grants had been made before the time of Braddock, and she was now as sedulous as ever in protecting them. Among those which were regarded as the necessary and special privileges of these royal commandants Was that one to which we have alluded, of granting to settlers permission to occupy, settle upon, and cultivate lands, which might be retained afterwards by a com- pliance with the regulations of the Penns, whose ultimate ,right in the land was never questioned. The object manifestly was to encourage settlers near the garrisons, whose labor was necessary for the production of necessaries for the use and preservation of the garrison. Soldiers who were married and stationed at these posts kept their families with them. Permits were granted also to certain settlers along the old roads, and at stations on the rivers, where they were of advantage to the military authorities or subserved a useful and needed purpose. As a very wide margin circumscribed the discretion of these officers, it will be readily inferred that these permits were granted for many reasons. 5 3 See line marking western limits of the purchase of 1749, and purchase of 1736 and prior, on maps of various purchases. In 1755, by the books of the Secretary of Virginia, three millions had teen granted west of the mountains to her settlers. In 1758 that colony endeavored to encourage by law settlements in the Indian country. 5 In 176.5 the second towu of Pittsburgh was laid out by permission of the commanding officer at Fort Pitt. The following is a copy of a permit granted by Arthur St. Clair to 38 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. Many with stout hearts, level heads, and ready hands availed themselves of these privileges, and some by special permit, others by official influence, took up lands in various parts, but especially near the forts.: There were others who availed themselves of the. power delegated to these commandants, and got their permits to reoccupy lands which they had previously occupied before the time of Braddock, and which they had first possessed under the cover of Virginia, or more directly of the Ohio Company. The same technicality about titles did not exist in Virginia. And now we touch upon a subject which in the annals of Southwestern Pennsylvania assumes great proportions. The early civil history of this region is the history of conflicting boundary claims. Virginia by her charter from James the First, 1609, claimed all the territory from the Atlantic Ocean which, bounded by a straight line on the northern limits, extended " up into the land throughout from sea to sea, west and northwest," which line, if now allowed as then claimed, would take in Maryland, most of Southwestern Pennsylvania, Ohio, and all West and Northwest up to 54° 40'. This patent was, in 1624, at the instance of the company, revoked, and although never afterwards restored, was made the pretext by Virginia of great and most arrogant pretensions. 1 The line of Penn's province was, as is well known, from the fortieth degree of north latitude " in a straight line westward" to the limits of five degrees of longitude from the Delaware. 2 Now a degree of longitude is between sixty-eight and sixty-nine geographical miles, and the five degrees, had they been marked and measured, would have reached, as we see, beyond the Monongahela. But it came to be believed by, the authorities of Virginia that these five degrees would not reach over the mountains. 3 Frederick Rhorer, the original of which is in the possession of Caleb Cope, Esq. : " By Arthur St. Clair, late Lieut. in his Majesty's Sixtieth Regt. of foot, having the care of his Majesty's fort at Ligonier. "I have given Permission to Frederick Rorer to cultivate a certain Piece of Land in the neighborhood of Fort Ligonier, over a certain creek, which empties itself into the Loyal Harming, known by the name of the Coal Pitt Creek ; beginning at a White OA standing on a spring and marked with the letters F (X) R and running from thence to another Tree narked with the same letters aud stauding on another Spring called the Falling Spring, and from these two marked Trees towards the sd [said] Coal Pitt Creek supposed to contain two hund. acres he the said Frederick Rorer being willing to submit to all orders of the Commander in Chief the commanding officer of the District, and of the Garrison. "Given under my hand at Ligonier this 11th day of April, 1767. "AR. ST. CLAIR 1 By reason of the alleged point from which to start the ideal line, taken from the misprint of John Smith's map, the only one at the date of the charters, which point was placed nineteen males too far to the south, arose the controversy between the proprietaries of Maryland and Pennsylvania, which after long litigation was finally decided by the Lord Chancellor of England. 2 But the Pennsylvania authorities, when they were asked to help expel the French, expressed with some equivocation a doubt, among other stronger objections, whether the intrusion wits nn their territory. 3 Veech, "Secular History.' in "Cent. Mem.," p. 300, and numerous other authorities. It would, however, had this question never risen, have been a futile and useless thing to attempt to keep out this class of settlers who wanted to come into these parts from coming in. In the history of Pennsylvania it is noticeable that the settlements mostly preceded the treaties. Immigrants, therefore, in spite of all remonstrance and in the face of all dangers, came into this region. Virginia offered inducements ; Pennsylvania imposed objections. Those, then, who did come in found arguments ready at hand in favor of sustaining the claims of Virginia. They alleged that Virginia had fought for the land, had organized expeditions against the hostile Indians, had sent Washington with Braddock , against the French. and had succeeded most effectually in reclaiming a region to which she had manifest right, and had always watched over her settlers, giving them lands cheap and not burdening them heavily with taxes, and that therefore their allegiance, on all grounds natural as well as civil, was due to her in preference. to Pennsylvania. The region, too, was readier of access through her undisputed territory than through that of Pennsylvania. The Braddock road, used before the time of Pontiac's war (1764) in preference to the Forbes road, was after that time the great highway for emigrants to and through those parts, and many, indeed, from the interior of Pennsylvania preferred it to the other, which was regarded as more difficult and insecure. In 1765 many emigrants from Maryland and Virginia removed over the mountains for the purpose of settling there. 4 These settled mostly in the Fayette part of what was then of Cumberland County, between the mountains and the Monongahela River, some about the Turkey Foot (Confluence), some in the river bottoms of Greene and Washington Counties, with a nucleus at Redstone (Brownsville), but most in the southern part of what is now Westmoreland, and by this time the old plantations which had been before deserted were mostly reoccupied. We then, in short, observe that although the Pennsylvania authorities did not allow to private individuals the privilege of settlement, yet by a resistless impulse they forced themselves upon the forbidden ground. This the Indians complained of, for it was alleged, perhaps with reason, that there were many killed by the whites without provocation, and the Indians being always at war among themselves, it was, 1 not improbable that some of them in passing and re-' passing from one place to another were thus killed, When we are further acquainted with the character': of these settlers it will not seem at all improbable.' 3 The authorities, both of Pennsylvania and of Virginia, were active in their professions, in their local treaties, and in their supervising legislation to mollify 4 This statement takes in its purview those settlers under the Ohio —Company's grant and at Gist's. SETTLEMENT FROM 1759 TO 1769 - 39 those disaffected ; but they with a grum and stoical persistence always put forward their grievances, and played on the same string. As early, as 1766, Crogan complained .of the persons settling at Redstone, and insisted that the government pursue vigorous meas¬ures to deter the frontier inhabitants from murdering the Indians and from encroaching on their grounds, at least till the boundaries were definitely fixed between the two colonies. Of George Crogan, the Indian agent, it may be said that he was one of the most successful Indian diplomatists that was ever in the service of any State. By his tireless efforts many years of war were averted, and. thousands of lives were saved. The running of Mason and Dixon's line in 1767 as far as to its second crossing at Dunkard Creek, in now Greene County, indicated that all these intruders were within Pennsylvania. The Governor of Virginia (Fauquier) did not gainsay it, and left the proprietaries to fight it out with the intruders as best they could. Governor Penn, in 1768, called the special attention of the Assembly to this, and said their removal was indispensable to avert war. In these proceedings it is seen that there was a desire on the part of those representing the interests of the government and people to conciliate the Indians and to secure their perpetual friendship. They were thus under obligation to proceed according to the white man's ideas of justice. Surveys made over those lands not alienated by treaty deed were declared to be void and illegal. They professed not to sell any lands beyond those not purchased. Many acts were passed prohibiting any one from thus set; tling, and by an act of Feb. 3, 1768, any. one neglecting to remove from such settlements after legal notice was, after being duly convicted, to be punished with death without benefit of clergy. But this act was not intended to extend to those then settled, or to those who thereafter settled, on the main roads leading through the Province to Fort Duquesne, and so settled with the approbation of the commander-in-chief of His Majesty's forces or their lawfully authorized officers, or in the neighborhood of Fort Pitt under such permission. And any person presuming to enter on such unpurchased lands for the purpose of marking trees or making surveys was to be punished, on conviction, by a fine of fifty pounds and three months' imprisonment. This act was violated by those who settled about Redstone and the Turkey Foot, and perhaps by others farther northward and back of the Forbes road. 1 The reasons for enacting laws so highly penal are recounted at large. From the advices furnished by the officers in charge of the garrisons, and from those who were brought in close contact with the natives, there was at this time immediate danger of another Indian outbreak. Most of these penal laws were 1 Steele's Letter to Gov. John Penn, Prov. Records, p. 316. temporary only in their effect,—that is, they were made for particular emergencies, and were intended to be in force only for a short time. And as these laws died out many of those who had left when warned off .returned, and others intruded themselves on the lands. Some, however, did not leave, either from entreaty or force; such were those at Redstone and at Turkey Foot. 2 Proclamations were of little effect, and before it was too late it was of necessity that the Indian complaints should be redressed, or at least patiently listened to. So far did the desire of the government extend to keep the Indians at rest, that there was a severe penalty in money and in imprisonment for those who even hunted and pursued wild beasts without the lawful limits. When those settlers at Redstone and the Turkey Foot remained in open defiance of the act of February, 1768, and of the proclamation commanding them to quit, an effort was made to peaceably, induce them to do so. As these settlers were for the greater part Scotch-Irish from their settlements in Pennsylvania, the Rev. John Steele, of Carlisle, and three others, early in March, 1768, were sent to warn them off, and to represent to them the desire and the will of the government of the Province. Shortly after this he was at their settlement. The people hearing of his coming appointed a meeting among themselves. At this meeting he read to them the act of Assembly and the proclamation of the Governor, explaining to them the law and giving the reasons for it, and endeavored to persuade them to comply therewith. He represented that their compliance was the most probable method of getting the favor of the proprietaries. On the 30th of March (1768) thirty to forty of the settlers met the deputies at Gist's, that being the point designated as the most convenient for those from the Cheat River and Stewart's Crossing (Connellsville), whither messengers had been sent with this request. On the 31st they were at the Great Crossings, from where they sent copies of the proclamation to those at Turkey Foot 3 While at Redstone he was met by a number of Mingoes, who sent by him a speech to the Governor. They said firmly that the whites must go away, but they would wait on the issue of a talk to be held by George Crogan and their great men. The treaty in prospect came off at Fort Pitt in April and May, l768. Between 1000 and 2000 Indians were there, of the Six Nations, Delawares, Shawanese, and other tribes. Hereat many presents were distributed, and, strange and inconsistent as it may appear, the only 2 Col. Crawford, in a letter to James Tilghman, Aug. 9, 1771 (Archives, iv. 424, says that he had information that there was a bond or article of agreement entered into between a number of the inhabitants of Monongahela and Redstene that each would join and keep off all officers of the law, under a penalty of lie, to be forfeited by the party refusing to join against all officers whatsoever. See also Col. G. Wilson's letter to A. St. Clair, wherein he mentions the resolves of the Inhabitants to oppose Penn's laws, Aug. 14, 1771 (Archives, iv. 437). 3 Ibid. 40 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. complaints made were by the Pennsylvania commissioners against the Indians for selling their lands to the settlers, and for the interference of the Mingoes at the Redstone Conference. 1 But the settlers did not remove, nor did any of them "suffer death without benefit of clergy" for remaining, for by this and from other things they felt assured that among them there was no immediate danger of war, for they were a willful-minded, stubborn set of men, inured to roughness all their lives. But all signs indicated that another Indian war was brewing, a war which promised to be a general one. The hostiles had been quiet as long as was usual, and their mutterings all round the settlements of the whites from Western New York to Western Virginia were audible. To none was it more instinctively perceptible than to Sir William Johnson, the one man to whom. more than to any other the Board of Trade and Plantations intrusted the management of the royal and colonial interest arising from trouble with the tribes. This war was thereupon averted by the intervention of Johnson, whose influence over the Six Nations was unbounded. At his suggestion a great council was held at Fort Stanwix, in New York. Here all grievances were redressed, chains brightened, tomahawks buried, etc. By the terms of this treaty made with the Six Nations, November 5, 1768, all the territory extending in a boundary from the New York line on the Susquehanna, past Towanda and Tyadaghton Creek, up the West Branch, over to Kittanning on the Allegheny, and thence down the Ohio and along the Monongahela to the Province line was conveyed to the proprietaries. This was called the NEW PURCHASE. Of the most of this region was afterwards erected Bedford and then Westmoreland Counties. The New Purchase, or that of 1768, on our map begins at the Susquehanna in Bradford County ; thence, following the courses of those local streams which then were designated by their Indian names, the line meanders in a south and west direction through the counties of Tioga, Lycoming, Clinton, to the northeast corner of Clearfield ; passing through Clearfield from the northeast to the southwest corner, it reaches a point at Cherry Tree where Indiana, Clearfield, and Cambria meet; thence in a straight line across Indiana County to Kittanning, on the Allegheny River ; thence down the Allegheny to the Ohio, and along the Monongahela till it strikes the boundary line of the State on its southern side. Let us now glance at the settlements of this "most-west-land" at the date of this treaty, 1768. First then there was Christopher Gist, agent and surveyor of the Ohio Company, who enjoys the distinction of being the first white settler west of Laurel Hill, in Pennsylvania, who came to stay. In 1752-53 he located at 1 Veach, “See Hist.," p.303. "Minutes of Conference," etc., Prov, Rec. Rupp, “Hist. western Pa.," App'x, p. 181, et seq. Mount Braddock, now Fayette County, and induced eleven other families to settle near him, some of whom were his relations. This settlement was not far from Connellsville, and on the Ohio Company's road. In 1754, when the French expelled the English Virginians from the Ohio and its tributaries, William Trent, George Cogan, Robert Callender, and Michael Teaff were partners in the trading business, and having suffered by their ejectment, they applied to the government of Pennsylvania with a carefully prepared statement of their losses. From their account and statement, which was supported by affidavit, they had at that time ten acres of corn, with large fields cleared, near Sharpsburg (at Etna borough), which they were obliged to leave ; also one house at the Sewickley bottom, about twenty-five miles from Fort Duquesne, up the Youghiogheny, with fields fenced and grain in the ground, these last being valued at three hundred pounds. Previous to 1754 the more southern part, presumed to be in Virginia, we have said, was visited by settlers from Maryland, some of whom remained. Among these was Frederick Waltzer, who lived four miles west of Uniontown. These, with the exception of a few agents among the Indians who for the time being were compelled to abide at some certain place, and of those who settled in Tygart's Valley, are said to have been the first prior to Braddock's expedition (1755). But whatever settlers there then were, after the battle at the Monongahela they had to leave their clearings. Some of them returned soon after, and others not till 1761 or later. Under Col. Bouquet and the commandants at Fort Pitt, many settlements were made near Pittsburgh in 1760 and 1761, which in 1769 were located. William' Jacob settled at the mouth of Redstone Creek in 1761, and by removal in 1763. James Goudin in 1762 raised a house at Eleven-Mile Run, which flows into the Monongahela. The Byerly settlement, near Harrison City, dates from 1758. John Irwin settled tit the mouth of Bushy Run, not far from Byerly's, in 1768. John Frazer, John Ormsby, Sr. and Jr., and Oliver Ormsby had made improvements on Turtle Creek prior to 1762. There is much evidence to make one believe that before the time of Pontiac's war, about 1762, there were more settlers occupying lands at no great dis- tance from the great roads and the military posts than we have any specific or absolute knowledge of. What their numbers or their names were we have no possible account. The Byerly settlement, for instance, had an 'accession of several families, as is discovered among the decisions of the Supreme Court of the State. Some lands about Fort Ligonier, and even at a distance from the fort on the summit of Chestnut Ridge, were cleared by inhabitants 'of Cumberland County, who at that date had not yet removed their families hither. On these clearings were raised potatoes and corn, and the product in some instances, SETTLEMENT FROM 1759 TO 1769 - 41 and these certainly before 1768, was sent over the mountains for those there. These lands were held by mere occupancy, taken by "tomahawk title," as they called it, after a manner of title partially, under some conditions, allowed by the laws of Virginia, but in this purchase, under the laws of Pennsylvania, being in itself no title. Some lands along the Conemaugh, and in the Ligonier Valley along the Indian trail, and subsequently the main road from Ligonier to Kittanning, and some along the trail by the Loyalhanna, were thus occupied. It is true that warrants were afterwards laid upon many of these improvements, and the titles were confirmed to those who, settling upon them, had a prior claim.1 But some tracts were passed or sold before they were warranted, or, in other words, before a title could be given. Hence one source of litigation which for two generations engrossed the closest application of the best legal minds in the West, a subject to analyze which, unless to a student of the law, would be unprofitable and a great labor. It is inferred that up to 1768 no considerable settlements were made in Southwestern Pennsylvania other than those in Fayette and its borders, for none others were complained of. Mr. Steele estimated their number at that time at one hundred and fifty families, which would not exceed eight hundred souls. In this, however, he did not include many in the Washington County region beyond the Monongahela, but confined his report particularly to the Redstone, the Youghiogheny, and the Turkey Foot settlements.2 Of these he reports eight or ten families in the Turkey Foot, which, by the way, he did not visit in person, and "a few families" near the crossings of the Little Yough. This estimate does not include the settlers around Fort Pitt, Fort Burd (Brownsville), Fort Ligonier, and the great roads leading to these forts, 1 Although this law of Feb. 3, 1768, was in a certain sense not regarded, and was soon rendered nugatory and inoperative by the treaty of 1768, yet there are in the records of the Supreme Court cases from West more laud County brought up under this law ; and some lost all claim they had in lands which they had illegally occupied. In the case of Christopher Rudebaugh, who had settled on the Forbes road under permit from Col. Bouquet, commaudant at Fort Pitt, in 1761, the title to a portion thereof passed from his descendants because he had not availed himself of the privilege of getting a warrant when the land-office was opened iu 1769. (See Bioren's Laws of Pennsylvania, title, " Land Office.") 2 " The names of inhabitants near Redstone: John Wiseman, Henry Primer, William Linn, William Colvin, John Vervalson, Abraham Tygrad, Thomas Brown, Richard Rodgers, Henry Swatz, Jos. McClean, Jesse Martin, Adam Hatton, John Verwald, Jr., James Waller, Thomas Doling, Captain Colburn, John Delong, Peter Young, George Martin, Thomas Down, Andrew Gudgeon, Phil. Sate, James Crawford, John Peters, Michael Hooter, Andrew Linn, Gabriel Conn, John Martin, Hans Cook, Daniel McCay, Josias Crawford `one' Provence. " Names of those who met us at Giesse's (Christopher Gist's) place "One Bloomfield, James Lynn, Eke. Johnson, Richard Harrison, Phil. Late, J. Johnson, Thos. Giesse, Chas. Lindsay, James Wallace, Henry Durkham, Lawrence Harrison, Ralph Hickenbottom. "Names of the people at Turkey Foot: "Henry Abrahams, size. Dewit, James Spener, Benjamin Jennings, John Cooper, Eke. Hickman, John Enshow, Henry Enslow, Benjamin Parsley." As reported by Rev. Steele. who had been allowed military permits, nor Col. Crogan's settlement along the Allegheny. Of these latter the number has been estimated at three hundred. 3 And now. there began a loud knocking at the door. During this time the eastern portion of the Province was beginning, as they called it, to be " thickly settled." Lands were getting scarce ; the younger sons of the older settlers must be provided for, for our ancestors were emphatically an agricultural race, and nothing so satisfied them as an acquisition of land. Besides these there were many emigrants whom petty tyranny, landlordism, misgovernment, and the expectation of betterment drove to these shores, and who were waiting for a place to shelter their heads, willing and over-anxious to begin life in the new. The Indian race could not stand before the white race, and was receding before it. The wandering proclivities of the former and the aggressive proclivities of the latter were mutually understood. But no inducement was offered, for as yet no title could be given to those who wanted to enter upon these vacant lands and make them their own. Public policy, and the irresistible clamor of those on the outside, made ait apparent that the peopling of this extensive domain could not much longer be delayed. It is here proper to state that it was the policy and the practice of the proprietaries—that is, Penn and his heirs and successors—to reserve large portions of land for their. personal use in certain districts all over the Province. In the year 1700, Penn issued his warrant to the surveyor-general to reserve for him and his heirs five hundred acres out of -every township of five thousand acres. These reservations were called manors, and over them and in them the proprietary had exclusive jurisdiction, both as landlord and as judge in matters of law. In accordance with this order there were two reservations of the Penns within Westmoreland County. One was called the Manor of Denmark, and was situated on Bushy Run. It contained four thousand eight hundred and sixty-one acres. Bouquet's battle of August, 1763, was fought on, afterward, this manor. The station of Manor, on the Pennsylvania Railroad, designates its location. The other reservation was called Penn's Lodge. It contained five thousand five hundred and sixty-eight acres, and lies in the southern part of the county, Sewickley township marking its location. The latter manor lies in a fine agricultural district, while the former is rich in deposits of bituminous coal.' Had 3 Veech, "Sec. Hist.," 303, and " Steele's Letter." It is generally conceded that Smollett (" Hist. of England") did not know what he was talking about when he said that the erection of Fort Pitt (170-60) " gave perfect security to about 4000 settlers, who now returned, etc.," which statement has sometimes been quoted. It is not correct, unless he meant to convey the idea that Fort Pitt covered, with its handful of soldiers, the whole of Western Pennsylvania and Western Virginia from the mountains to the rivers, which is simply absurd. 4 These were the only manors in 'Westmoreland proper—our Westmoreland. Those of the New Purchase aggregated some two hundred thousand acres: 42 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. these reservations alone been held intact to our time their possessors would be millionaires. But circumstances completely destroyed the claim of the possessors to all title to such real property in Pennsylvania. At the American Revolution the Penns sided with the crown and against the colonies. On the 28th of June, 1779, was passed the Divesting Act, which act divested the title from the Penns and vested it in the Commonwealth. This was not done, of course, without a valuable recompense; and it was considered unreasonable, as indeed it was, that a claim of such boundless authority—for the authority extended to the making of laws, the establishing of courts-baron, and the bestowal of special privileges on favored persons—should be allowed to exist in the midst of a republic of freemen. Accordingly, all titles to proprietorial, or manorial, lands within these bounds are traceable to the State, and are not of older date than the year mentioned, 1779. A warrant is an order from the land office to survey and locate lands applied for.1 A person desiring land from the Province was required first to make application, get the warrant issued thereon directed to the surveyor-general, who by his deputy mostly surveyed the same, and return it back to the land office, upon which, if there was no irregularity, a patent or deed from the Commonwealth issued under the great seal and superscription of the Governor. Thus, as we have seen, there could be no warrant given out by the civil authorities to any one settled in Westmoreland County prior to 1769, at which date the land office was first opened for this purpose, so far as regards the territory acquired by this treaty which we are still upon. But after this treaty in 1768; by which this land was acquired, it was in order then to grant warrants to such as had settled and such as proposed to settle in the New Purchase. As the soldiers of the Pennsylvania regiment had served through the preceding. wars together, it was now their wish to settle in peace together; for this purpose the Province set apart one hundred and four thousand acres. Then there were also preferences for individuals, such as special grants, the lands donated to officers, and the proprietary reservations. As there were thousands of applications for land at the land office, the question at once arose how the preference should be given, it; indeed, any preference was allowed; for when the land office should be opened it was to be on a day certain, and after, public proclamation. It was impossible to receive applications or to grant a title for the applications now waiting from settlers, from parties proposing to remove into this region, from land speculators, and from foreign immigrants. It was found expedient, therefore, to have the choice made by means of a lottery scheme, a scheme not unknown to the 1 Lands, the title to which is traceable to Penn's successors who sold by constituted attorney, by provisions of act of Assembly, do not need to be patented from the State. land office department. The choice was thus to be given by lot. By a public advertisement from James Tilgham, secretary of the office, on Feb. 23, 1769, it was made known that tile land office would be open on the 3d of April then next, at ten o'clock in the morning, to receive applications from all persons inclined to take up lands in the New Purchase. The terms were five pounds sterling per hundred acres, and one penny per annum quit-rent. From the records of the land office we derive the facts that, as it was anticipated on the opening of the office on this day great numbers would be ready to give in their locations at the same instant, it was the opinion of the Governor and the agents that the most unexceptionable method of receiving these locations would be, after receiving them from the people, to put them into a box or trunk, and, after mixing them, to draw out and number them in the order. drawn. Those who had settled, especially those who had settled by permission of the commanding officers, were allowed to have the preference. This was done in order, and the list following declared those who had so drawn. But up to 1772 there were no warrants issued on application made for lands upon improvements or old surveys. CHAPTER VIII. PREDOMINANT NATIONALITIES OF THE SETTLERS, “New Purchase" in Cumberland County Territory—The Penns appoint Justices of the Peace for that part of Cumberland County west of Laurel Hill—No evidence of all Authority being exercised. by these Magistrates—Bedford County created—Township Divisions of that part of Bedford County which later became Westmoreland—Tax-Rolls for Bedford County—Number of Landholders and of Tenants returned —The Southwestern Boundary of Bedford County—No Actual Jurisdiction of Bedford County Government tolerated by the Settled,— First Courts of Bedford—Those in the first Commission—Number of Applications at the opening of the Land Office In 1769—Prominent Men who took up Land at that date—Different Nationalities of the Settlers : Scotch-Irish, Germans, French Huguenots, English-Americans —Localities of their Settlements—Predominant Nationality of Pennsylvania Settlers before the Revolution— Immigration of the Scotch. Irish, particularly that of 1771-73—Their Nativity, and account of their Denization in the North of Ireland—Their Distinct Character istics—How they were held by Friends and by Defamers—They and the Dutch, bad neighbors—Their Influence in Public Affairs in Western Pennsylvania, and reference therein to the Whiskey Insurrection. THAT portion of the purchase of 1768 (or the Nei Purchase) which was afterwards the territory of West moreland was between the date of the purchase an the 9th of March, 1771 (the date of the erection born Bedford County), included in the political divisioi of Cumberland County, which had been erected long before (1750). In May, 1770, some ten months before the erectioi of Bedford County, Arthur St. Clair, William Crawford, Thomas Gist, and Dorsey Pentecost, all history names, were among the justices of the peace appointed for Cumberland County. But they have left no trace PREDOMINANT NATIONALITIES OF THE SETTLERS - 43 of any exercise of official functions until after their reappointment for Bedford County, in March, 1771, and again (except Pentecost) for Westmoreland, in 1773. Up until 1771 the "Settlers here were left to the freedom of their own will, uninfluenced except by the Indians and traders and the agents and feeble garrisons whom the king kept here to control them. No taxes, no courts, no ministers of the law, except those mentioned, nor of the gospel, outside of Fort Pitt, except when sent here on some special mission, as were the Rev. Messrs. Beatty and Duffield in 1766, and Mr. Steele in 1768. 1 The county of Bedford was created March 9, 1771. The reason assigned for the erection of the new county was "the great hardships the inhabitants of the western parts of the county of Cumberland lie under from being so remote from the present seat of judicature and the public offices." The eastern boundary ran along the summit of the Tuscarora Mountains, and the western and southern boundary was the hne of the Province, embracing, as will be perceived, the entire southwestern portion of the State from the West Branch of the Susquehanna and the Cove, or Tuscarora Mountains, westward to the Ohio and the Virginia line. From the old Bedford County tax-rolls it is seen that all that part of Western Pennsylvania which afterwards became Westmoreland County was at that date included in eight townships, and they embraced the territorial areas, as near as need be ascertained for our purpose, as follows : " Armstrong," most of what is now the county of that name and some if not the greater part of Indiana County. " Fairfield" stretched between the Laurel Hill and Chestnut Ridge Mountains. "Hempfield" took in a wide scope around Greensburg. " Mount Pleasant," a large district around the town of that name. " Pitt" embraced about all of Allegheny County between the rivers Allegheny, Monongahela, and Youghiogheny. It makes a poor show. " Rosstrevor" covered all of the Forks of Youghiogheny and reached up into Fayette County. "Springhill" extended over all the southwestern part of Fayette and all that part of Greene and Washington then believed to be in Pennsylvania. "Tyrone" covered all the residue of what is now Fayette on both sides of the Youghiogheny. 2 The number of landholders in all was nine hundred and eleven, and the number of tenants one hundred and seventy-four. "Springhill" had the highest number, 3 it being assessed with three hundred and eight landholders and eighty-nine tenants. This assessment has been considered too low, for the obvious reason that no perfect assessment could be made, and if ever was made it would be in restriction. 1 Veech, Sec. Hist., p. 304. 2 Ibid., Appendix No. III. 3 This embraced now Fayette County, and included what was returned from Greene County. Many of those assessed as landholders were nonresidents, as Rev. James Finley, in Rosstrevor, and George Washington, in Tyrone, in which he owned about sixteen hundred acres at and around Perryopolis, in now Fayette, over the river from Layton's Station. The act erecting Bedford County recognized Mason and Dixon's line as its southern boundary, and this purviewed the extension of this line beyond Maryland ; but the act, except in indefinite terms, did not make provision for a western boundary, nor, except on the north and east borders of Greene County as it is now, and in the region touching upon and beyond Pittsburgh, did it ever attempt to reach beyond the Monongahela. The reasons for this we shall elsewhere see. Although it was subdivided into townships, and had justices appointed, yet its authority was feebly asserted and scarcely obeyed. Most of the settlers shunned 'it, and those about the Turkey Foot and Redstone and all the disorderly settlers of the Fayette region laughed it to scorn and derided it. Even official surveys slackened, and settlers coming in along the Braddock road squatted without right, and occupied where they pleased, only keeping off the location of prior settlers. Based upon the uncertainty whether they were in Pennsylvania or in Virginia, and fostered by demagogues, by " bloody law," and by the wishes and desires, antipathies and prejudices of these, they had pretexts enough not to conform to the laws of the Province. " When the back line comes to be run," said they, "if we are in Pennsylvania we will submit." There could be no other government but that of Pennsylvania, and these people were very desirous, therefore, that the running of the line be deferred to an indefinite period. The first Court of Quarter Sessions for Bedford County was held April 16, 1771, " before William Proctor, Jr., Robert Cluggage, Robert Hanna, George Wilson, William Lochrey, and William McConnell, Esqs., Justices of our Lord the King." 4 When the land office was opened, subsequent to the purchase of 1768, and the flood-gates, so to speak, were up, the flood rushed in in torrents. From the third day of April, 1769, dates the invasion of the white race into the wilderness and woods of Western Pennsylvania. On that day hundreds of locations were 4 The other justices appointed and commissioned with the above were John Frazer, Bernard Dougherty, Arthur St. Clair, William Crawford, James Milligan, Thomas Gist, Dorsey Pentecost, Alexander McKee, and George Woods. The first commissioners were Robert Hanna, Dorsey Pentecost, and John Stevenson ; William Proctor was the first sheriff; Arthur St. Clair was appointed first prothonotary, recorder, and clerk of courts by Governor John Penn, March 12, 1771 ; and deputy register for the probate of wills, 18th of the same month, by Benjamin Chew, register-general. One word here anent the Penns. John Penn (son of Richard, slid grandson of William Penn, born Philadelphia, 1728, died 1795) was Governor of the Province from 1763 to 1771, and also from 1773 to the end of the proprietary government in 1776. Richard Penn was brother of John Penn, and was Lieutenant-Governor from 1771 to 1773, during the absence of John Penn in England. 44 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. taken up in Westmoreland County. In the first month after the opening of the office there were three thousand two hundred applications. Although a large percentage of these applications was made by speculators, yet the most Were made by those who intended to locate here and reside permanently on the land. It is not possible for us to specify by name and at length those of the earliest settlers under this arrangement, but from the lists which we shall further on give, and from opportune references hereafter in the body of this work and in the notes, the reader shall have to get his information. It is noticeable that nearly all the men who became prominent in this region, either as representatives of the proprietary government or in public affairs under the Commonwealth, took up tracts of land at this time. St. Clair took up large bodies, both in his own name and in the different names of members of his family and of his wife's relations; so also did Hanna, the Proctors, the Lochrys, Gist, Hamilton, Thompson, James Smith, Crawford, and, indeed, nearly all of those with whose names we are familiar as the representative men of the early times, and that whether they had money, to pay for them or no. Of those people who took up land to live upon it, by far the largest proportion were emigrants, or the children of emigrants, of Scotch-Irish descent, themselves called Scotch-Irish. They claimed that they had been only denizens of Ireland, from where they emigrated, and whither they had been transplanted from Scotland, the native country of their ancestors. These were scattered all over the country, but they were to be found more noticeably in clusters where it was to be presumed that the land would grow more rapidly in value, and where there were more facilities for making money and living by thrift rather than by labor, but not at the expense of labor. There was quite a settlement of them about Pittsburgh, at the Forks of the Ohio, along the Monongahela and the other rivers, and along the main roads. But where were they not? The next largest class—speaking in reference to their nationality—was of German origin, the offspring of the early settlers of the Berks, Lancaster, and Cumberland region, although some were emigrants from the Palatinate or Rhine provinces, and from Würtemberg. Of these many chose the most dreary slopes of the Chestnut Ridge, and they were the farthest back from the main (Forbes') road, although there was quite a settlement in Hempfield township, and around the Harrold and Byerly locations, between Greensburg and Irwin. These people were not so aggressive as the former, and, as a rule, they laid out a life-work devoted to labor. There were, too, among these some who were descendants of those French Huguenots who, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, were scattered over Europe, and who having lived for the space of several generations among the neighboring nations who received them, had, from intermarriage and customs, lost not only their language but the most prominent distinctions of their nationality. They had, in fact, ceased to be French, and they had forgotten their sunny vales, and their cottages embowered with vines, where on trestles the purple grapes glistened. But at this day, in Ligonier Valley especially, shall you find French names and people of French lineage as completely Americanized as the descendants of those voyagers who came over in the " Mayflower." The rest were American-English. Before we begin the narrative of such events as are connected together in the history of our, county, properly so speaking, this may be a more proper place to acquire a knowledge of those people who made up the greatest number of its inhabitants, and who have left upon it., both in its organizing state and in its more progressive state, such plain and enduring marks of their presence. By looking at the intervening space, between the time when the country was left to peace after the termination of the Indian wars and the opening of the land by the subsequent treaties, and the epoch of 1773, we see, in the aggregate, what is a difficult matter to discern by even the process of tracing up the settlements and the transitions of the settlers from place to place. It is seen that the termination of the French and Indian war (1763) was fol. lowed by an extension of settlements in all directions. Where the land was secured to the English, as was all the northern territory of Canada, the only barrier was the occupancy of the Indians. This the English-Americans, as a separate nation or people, which they evidently from many reasons were, did not count on; and in this spontaneous transition nowhere did so great a movement take place as in the parallels which mark Southern Pennsylvania and Virginia, and the northern line of North Carolina. The advance rapidly seated themselves on what was then the other side of the Alleghenies ; and notwithstanding that a royal proclamation forbade settlers seating themselves beyond this barrier, yet the banks of the Monongahela were occupied by emigrants from Virginia, Eastern Pennsylvania, and Maryland ; and soon after away off in Tennessee and Kentucky were the Long Hunters seeking sites for future opulent towns and cities. In summing up the nationalities of the inhabitants of the American colonies before the Revolution, as late as the year 1775, Mr. Bancroft states that fully four-fifths of the inhabitants of those thirteen original States had for their mother-tongue the English language. In the other fifth the German element predominated, and predominated to a greater degree in Pennsylvania than in any other of the colonies. Pennsylvania, indeed, from the policy of its founders, became a general receptacle of foreigners of every shade of political opinion. The position which the city of Philadelphia relatively then filled as the metropolis of America was also an allurement for many, PREDOMINANT NATIONALITIES OF THE SETTLERS - 45 Of the two races of foreigners which largely constituted the growing population of Pennsylvania, the northern Irish, or Scotch-Irish, were more aggressive in their nature than were the plodding. Germans. And while the Germans were confined mostly to the eastern part of the State, the Irish spread out towards the western part, and through Maryland and Northwestern Virginia. Of. this Scotch-Irish element— a people who, wherever they were settled to any extent, had a controlling influence in public affairs—it is stated. that the immigration, though not at all regular in either its extent or duration, had reached . a considerable current before the Revolution. As early as 1715 a colony of five hundred had settled in North Carolina, and in 1719 a colony from Ulster founded Londonderry in New Hampshire, and between these two remote points the Irish, in little clusters, were to be found in many places. Between 1750 and 1754, when in strictness there was no Western Pennsylvania or Western Virginia to the English, Virginia had a large accession of these foreigners, who, it is asserted, went there in preference to Pennsylvania, because at that early day they could not succeed so well in that Province as the industrious, frugal, and plodding Dutch, as they were .called, while many that were here sold their lands to others and took up locations more remote in either Virginia. or Carolina. But still counting on these unaccountable spurts, Pennsylvania was the centre of the Irish immigration. up to 1776. In 1729 there was a large migration in this State, and those, forced by domestic troubles in their own country along the early part of the century, coining out preferred the domestic quiet offered by the mild government of the Broadrims. But none of these movements from the northern counties of Ireland was in extent comparable with the movement of 1771 to 1773. 1 And as at this juncture the southern 1 In the emigration of 1771-73 twenty-five thousand are said to have left litter. They left Ireland from the high rents and from a spirit of resentment towards the landed proprietors, who at that particular time took occasion to oppress the tenantry. The first great emigration to Pennsylvania, about 1730, aud this subsequent one was not on account of religious persecntiou there. The long leases which had been offered in more remote times to induce the Scotch-Irish to enter and occupy their lands and to colonize there having expired. the landlords took advantage of their situation as denizens and of the accumulation of property which had followed the labors of the colonists and of their descendants in order to advance the rents to such high figures as to be rninons to many of Ow tenants and burdensome to nll. They thence came to where land was pleutiful and taxes were light. A powerful body of them came into Western Peunsylvania and first set tied along tile rivers mid great roads, and with them came others, as we said, from Chester, Lancaster, and York Counties, and some from Cecil County, Md. Findley says (" History of the Insurrection," etc.)—and I think he means the particular region embraced within the limits of the insurrection—"that the great part of the early immigrants in this section were the Sots of farmers is the eastern part of the Province." Findley says also that the settlers in certain localities of this region were " generally acquainted with each other, having emigrated together." Them was a class of felons sent from England iuto Virginia and Maryland, and these found their way to the out-skirts of civilization gathered around the stations Oink as Pittsbnrgh), and hung on the verge of the Indian trade. The Indian traders used to buy the transported Irish and - 4 - portion of Pennsylvania was opened to the world, a great majority of these found their way hither, and in no place within America have they left such lasting impressions of their peculiar nationality as here. They became the main body of the people. Their manners, their habits, and their morals were largely the inheritance of the people of the four western counties, and they became the centre from which new colonies were started and from which other colonies were recruited. The Scotch-Irish took their name from being the descendants of those colonists who had, several generations before, been transplanted from Scotland into the north of Ireland. The same king "who founded English colonies and the seat of English empire in America planted these Scotch in Ireland. Titus in time the race became a race neither Irish nor Scotch, nor yet a cross between the two. There is not a drop of pure Celtic blood in their veins. With a taint of English blood taken from the soldiers of Cromwell, who after the overthrow of the Commonwealth took refuge in Coleraine, they maintained their lineage unalloyed, and were Scotchmen who for five generations had not been in Scotland. But alt that now affined them to Scotland was their common religion and a common tradition. Their land leases and mossy mounds in their graveyards bound them to Ireland. They were in a certain sense analogous to those Virginians who, being the descendants of English born, retaining the speech, religion, and laws of their ancestors, became, in spite of all contrary assertions, a distinct people. They thus in their national character evidenced the more marked characteristics of bah nationalities. While they possessed the love of liberty, the hatred of tyranny, the ready wit and versatile language of the Irish people, properly speaking, they inherited as well the shrewd cunning, the careful foresight, and the strict Calvinistic morality of the Scotch Covenanters. While they differed from either they reflected the prominent traits of both. So peculiar has been their position in this respect, both at home and abroad, that they have rarely been acknowledged as the representative of either race, nor have they been regarded as the true exponent of the national aim of either. While the page of history shows to the world the great bravery, the undying patriotism, the unflinching courage, and the scrupulous morality of the race, yet it is a singular fact that the battle whose brilliant and decisive victory on Irish soil over foreign and mercenary invaders is other colonists as servants, to be employed in carrying up their goods among the Indians. Many of these ran away from their masters an I joined the Indians. The ill behavior of these sometimes hurt the character of the English among the Indians. It was calculated that about the year 1750 not less than from three to four hundred felons were annually sent into Maryland. These went by the general name of " Irish." The sinful part of the burden of the Whiskey Insurrection has been put upon their shoulders, but with what justice In the facts of history decide. 46 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. considered by most Irishmen as the most signal defeat Irishmen ever sustained. Neither has the patriotism of the descendants of those warriors been regarded as of any national honor. Not all the glamour and the love which attached to the name of Stuart could draw them when on a foreign soil to take sides with their hereditary king. The son of that hereditary king, remembering Derry and the Boyne, fixed his last hopes on the Highlanders of Scotland, and these with their wild battle-cries followed the Pretender down from Holyrood to Preston Pans. And this strange antipathy has extended and has followed them everywhere. The Scotch-Irish were not beloved in a broad national sense by either the thoroughbred Scot or the pure Irishman. There was as wide a barrier between an Arthur St. Clair and a William Findley as between a Duncan Ferguson and a Teague O'Regan. 1 The Scotch-Irish before leaving Ireland stood in the peculiar relation of a people who had lost all national obligation. They had no national history and no national poetry. For them Burns did not sing, nor did any wild Irish ballad, learned from the lips of an Irish mother, and full of the incense of patriotism and glory, linger in their hearts and in their ears in foreign lands. They brought with them no baby songs redolent of the shamrock and of the dewy meadows, of the banshees and the fairy lore of Erin. They lived in Ireland as the Hebrews lived in Egypt, and as the English Puritans lived in Holland. To the pure Irish the traditions of their hearthstones and the stories of their childhood are never forgotten to their dying day, and a sympathy ever yearns towards the people of their ancestral isle. The Scotch, whether on the banks of the Susquehanna or at Luck now, are moved to tears at the pibroch and the half-barbaric chant of " Bonnie Doon." But the Scotch-Irish lost all sense and idea of nationality, and remembered Ireland only as their abiding-place, and in the stead of a national reverence and love sucked in with their mothers' milk, they with stoical firmness made an ideal of English literature and the English ideas of civil and personal freedom. Hence Inns arisen to a prominence what is most noticeable and is indeed admirable in their character,—independence in personal action and a predominance of practical notions of life. These. principles and actions pervaded their whole being, and were the motives to all their acts. It would be no difficult matter to prepare a panegyric or a lampoon on the characteristics of the Scotch-Irish. Both have been skillfully done. Among themselves they have always had those who cunningly and adroitly and with much show of reason have been apt and ready to laud their ancestors to the highest heaven ; among their enemies 1 Two caricatures in "'Modern Chivalry," one a pure Irishman, the other a pure Scotchman. (and of these they have had full share) there have always been some to pointedly show forth their failings and to hold them up to ridicule. They have been attacked from all sides, but in these attacks they have not suffered. They were, in one word, detested by the Puritans of New England, by the Quakers, and by the Virginians: They could not fraternize with the Quakers any better than they could with the Pennsylvania " Dutch," whom they regarded with abhorrence. 2 There was always, in the early settlement. of the Province, a bitter feeling existing between the more peaceable of the people of Pennsylvania and the Scotch-Irish settlers. The policy of the Quakers and the Germans was a peaceable one ; that of the others was aggressive. It was said with some evi deuce of truth that these new-comers were the means, from their treatment of the Indians, of much hostility on their part, and of the shedding of much innocent blood. The murderers of the Moravian Christian Indians at the Tuscararus, in 1782, were of the same nationality as the murderers of the Conestoga Indians at Conestoga (by the Paxtang boys) in 1763. Both of these slaughters were wantonly committed in cal blood upon defenseless and inoffensive natives, and this; without regard to age or sex, and in notorious violation of all the usages of Christian and civilized people. So, too, did those do who murdered Logan family, which led to the rising of the tribes and the border war of 1774. The wickedness and the dishonor of these things will never be forgotten, it shall they ever cease to shame the pages of Pennsylvania's history as long as annals are written an the acts of men remembered. 3 Then, on the other hand, one writer says that "the descendants of these first Irish and Scotch, in what ever district they may have cast their lot and fixe their stakes, are amongst the most prominent, virtu 1 ous, religious, active, useful, industrious, and ente prising of the country." The popular prejudice developed against these in migrants, of which we have spoken, found popular expression. Even the deputies of the proprietaries became alarmed at the prospect of affairs touching this matter. To those in authority who had close watched the changes making in the civil and domestic relations of certain portions of the Commonwealths it was the cause of remark and of comment. The provincial secretary, writing to the proprietaries, said 2 Rupp, “Hist. Cumberland County." 3 Among those who along with the Quakers virulently attacked these "lawless people" for the terrible act of the murder of the Conestoga Indians was Benjamin Franklin. In a pamphlet which he wrote, and had published, a dialogue therein between " Andrew Trueman" and "Thomas Zealot" speaks of "Saunders Kent, an elder these thirty years, that good to duty" (family worship) " just before the massacre, and while he "was saying grace to a pint of whisky a wild lad ran his gully [knife] through the wame of a heathen man." . . . This pamphlet caused Franklin's defeat for the Assembly, in which he had held a seat for fourteen years. CUSTOMS, MORALS, AND MANNERS PRIOR TO THE ERECTION OF THE COUNTY - 47 it "looked as if all Ireland is to send all her inhabitants, for last week no less than six ships arrived, and every day two or three arrive also. The common fear is that they thus crowd where they are not wanted." In some parts of the older-settled portion of the Province, particularly in the Cumberland Valley, then in York County, the Germans and the Irish came in contact with each other, and difficulties and disturbances rose among them. These feuds had assumed such a serious aspect in 1749 that the proprietaries instructed their agents not to sell any more lands in York County to the Irish, but to offer inducements for them to settle in the north, or Kittatinny Valley. Many of these Irish left these settlements for others farther west before the Revolution, and after the Revolution many others followed.  What they wanted was land. They did not ask, as the sequel shows, who owned or claimed to own the land, whether Penn, or Dunmore, or Shingass. They never paid any regard to the claim of the Indians in the soil. If they did not at first actually keep the border in turmoil, which is hard to prove, they had the best motives and incentives. for keeping it in an unsettled condition. A characteristic of these Irish is demonstrated in their public political acts. These people cherished the teachings of civil and religious liberty more in these woods than did their brethren in Ireland, in Scotland, or in England. They were the first to take active measures in resisting the acts of the kingly viceroy of Virginia, and among the first to protest against the forced military tyranny of the British ministry. And as they were quick to speak and act against their mother-government, so When they had transferred their allegiance to the republic they did not venerate it above what they erroneously thought to be their inherent rights. For evidence, in short, to prove their overruling influence in the affairs of our part of the State up to the close of the last century one single instance is sufficient; for the Whiskey Insurrection of 1794 was attributed almost wholly to the "Irish" of Pittsburgh and the surrounding region in which that sedition arose. The Federalists of New England said they did not in the least envy such a community; and the outspoken Oliver Walcott pointed to this civil commotion to further his opposition to foreign immigration. 1 1 The observations shaped In the text have been gathered from many sources. Of the many authorities which we have gone over, and which is not tainted with prejudice, is "The First Century of the Republic,” by Hon. F. A. Walker. CHAPTER IX. CUSTOMS, MORALS, AND MANNERS PRIOR TO THE ERECTION OF VIE COUNTY. The German Settlers—Whence they Emigrated—In what they Differed frnm the Scotch-Irish—Their Manners, Habits, etc.—Their Belief in the Supernatural—The Mennonists —Peculiarities of their Religions Belief—Relation of these First Settlers to the Civil Law and Procedure in Conrts—The Customs and Laws which they Formulated— Effect of their Religions Belief on their Civil Society—Peculiarity of their Morals blended with their Manners—Southern them Notion of the County being rapidly filled up compared with the Northern Portion - Terms of Virginia Titles and terms of Penn's Titles—First Settlements north of the Conemaugh—Early Pittsbnrgh—Fort Pitt abandoned—Early Efforts of the Settlers to erect a New County after opening of tiro Pennsylvania Lund Office—Bedford County erected. IN point of numbers, next to the Scotch-Irish were the Germans ; but in no place, with the exception of their settlement in Hempfield and in Huntingdon townships, had these collected so thickly as the former. This particular settlement, however, has retained the distinctive traits of its German origin even to our own day. The Germans lived more isolated than the Scotch-Irish, and they were found scattered all over the county, where effective traces of their presence are still to be discerned. If we compare the names of those of an undoubted German origin who signed the petitions to Governor Jan Penn in 1774, we find that the German element in some districts, especially in the one to which we have alluded, predominated over the Irish element. And although. these were always a strong body in our county, yet, owing to their detached locations and their characteristics in not meddling in public affairs to the detriment or disparagement of their private interests, the whole controlling of affairs' in the first years of our history was monopolized by the Scotch-Irish and the Americans of English descent. By and by these two elements began to coalesce, and towards the end of the Revolution there were at the head of county affairs, along with Cook and Jack; Huffnagle and Truby. The German settlers of Westmoreland were not all of them emigrants from Germany. The major part of them were descendants of settlers in the eastern portion of the Province. These were the Pennsylvania Dutch, a people formed by the admixture of the Germans and the Dutch of the Netherlands with Americans and with other foreigners. These spoke a language which differed as much from pure German as the German language differs from the English. Their characteristics were sobriety, economy, plainness, and honesty. They hastened to progress slowly. They devoted themselves chiefly to agriculture, while the Irish was the first to open taverns, erect mills, manufacture whiskey, and speculate in land. It is noticeable how passive the German settlers were during the times of the troubles arising out of the claims of the two States, of which we shall hereafter speak. This passivity may, however, be reconciled when we recall the friendly terms on which the Virginians and 48 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. the Germans were from the time the Ohio Company extended the benefits of their privileges to them. We have spoken of some of the characteristics of the Irish, but, to the presence of these Germans do we owe most of those pleasing delusions which make childhood to many so regrettable. The stories of ghosts and goblins, of haunted spots, and of Kriss-Kingles are now all but dispelled,—the shrill whistle of the locomotive has scared them off; " the interesting race has emigrated,"1—but their descendants in some remote parts yet, from generation to generation, treasure them, and the father transmits to the son the legends that held his boyhood. The opposition to innovation which was noticed by Tacitus in their ancestors in the woods of old Germany may yet be seen in their offspring. In that age—we mean the early Westmoreland age—many houses had horseshoes nailed to the lintels of the doors to protect the inmates from the power of witches. Brimstone was burnt to keep them from the hen-coop, and the breastbone of a chicken put in a little bag and hung round the necks .of the children to ward off the whooping-cough. Horse-nails were carried for good luck, and beaux hunted for four-leaved clovers to get their sweethearts to look upon them favorably. A broth made from dried fox-lungs was given to patients suffering with a consumption, and carrying the rattles of a rattlesnake which had been killed without biting itself would cure the headache and protect from sunstroke. Old women were even blamed for riding the unbroken colts at night, and more than one person incurred displeasure because his neighbor's rye was worse blasted than his own. Many years after the Indians were beyond the Ohio the belated countryman heard faintly the distant war-whoop, the sound of drums and fifes came through the stormy nights from the old block-houses, and many believed that treasure of English coin and battle implements were hidden along the scarcely discernible track made before the Revolution. These Germans were among the first in our county to establish schools for the instruction and catechization of the young. Some of their first teachers were from Germany, and it was owing to the instruction which these children .received in their schools that the use of the German language has been so long retained as a vehicle of religious instruction, and until a time when the intrinsic utility of it in our county was questionable. There was a sect of people who settled early in Westmoreland County, but not in such numbers as to be of influence till rather later than the time of which we are writing. This sect has ever stood peculiar to itself. It cannot be said that those who belonged to it were distinct from the Dutch as regards 1 "Die alten Fabelwessen, sind nicht mehr, Das reizende Geschlecht ist ausgewandert." — Wallenstein. nationality and language, but they were distinct from the rest in the matter of their religious views. They were strictly speaking, a religious society, amenable to the civil statutes, but governed by laws of their own. These were the Mennonists. Although the Mennonists are not identical with the Omish or the Dunkards, they are usually regarded as the same. Touching their religious views, the. Mcnnonists are a Baptist sect, taking their name from Menno Simonis (born 1496). They reject infant baptism, refuse to take oaths, decline military service, and practice feet-washing. Their polity being congregational, they settle in communities. They originated in Holland, and some of them came into Pennsylvania in the yea that Penn made his first settlement. They kept progressing towards the West, and in 1735- there were some fie; hundred families in Lancaster County, The Omish take their name by corruption from Jacob Amen. They describe themselves rigid Mennonists, but adhere to the decrees of the Council of Dort, which did not sit till fifty-seven years after the death of Menne. Dunkards take their name from the German name tunken," to dip." These hold Saturday as their Sabbath. They are all Baptist sects. They are opposed to war upon any pretext. The stronger community of the Mennonists was on Jacobs Creek and in the southern part of the county, 2 while the Dunkards were in number the strongest between the Chestnut Ridge and Laurel Hill, in the southern part of Ligonier Valley. Dunkard Creek takes its name from these people. Some of the earliest of these who ventured into Western Virginia and Fayette County fell victims to the savages. Among the traditional annals preserved by descendants of the earliest settlers was one where, at a Dunkard meeting, the In dians made an onslaught. The men received the blows of the tomahawk upon their heads without resistance, praying upon their knees,—a figure, if not of such historical authenticity, yet as grand as that of the Roman senators, who, with their white beards and ivory staves, sitting in their curule chairs in the Forum, accepted death from the barbarian Gauls in the time of Camillus. Although some Mennonists came out quite early, especially in Fayette, next the line of Westmoreland there was no community till some time after. But as they were early settlers, and as their descendants haveI.. left most prominent marks of their thrift, their energy their economy, and their citizenship within our county we cannot well pass over without alluding to the here. The remark would now be apt that these settlers first were, in their nationalities, a mixture of mongrel In time same sense the ancestors of the English, of the Romans, of the Greeks were mongrels. 2 East Huntingdon township is at present the seat of the only community of Mennonists in the county which has a church and a pastor. The sect is on the decline. See history of East Huntingdon township ,i f.a. CUSTOMS, MORALS, AND MANNERS PRIOR TO THE ERECTION OF THE COUNTY - 49 As regards their relation to the civil authority and with each other, the situation of these all was rather peculiar. As it was impossible for them to go so far east as Cumberland, where the courts were held until the establishing of Bedford, in 1771, and as they were cut off to a great extent from the effective control of the laws, they, in consequence, shaped a law to themselves, which answered, to all ordinary intents, if not so well, yet quite as effective as the civil statutes. These customs extended to embrace the very title to land, for it was not possible that the land of any settler could be laid out in such metes and bounds or protected by such fences as would not allow of infringement or trespass on the part of his neighbor. Rules were thus established unknown to the rules by which lands are holden in any other part. But chiefly did these customs embrace the system by which society is held together. They were, in truth, at this time without any law in this premises, only the law of which they were the makers. And of these customs which obtained there is nothing more apparent than that they were founded upon a strict moral and conscientious code, and were but the preservation and the perpetuation, under unfavorable circumstances, of the laws. of civil society which had grown up under a long series of legal enactments and in immemorial usage. It is true that in ordinary instances of trespass the aggrieved party took the law into his own hands, and, without any refining casuistry, we incidentally allude to the fact that it was part of the lex unscripta for every man to take care of himself. In taking the law for a redress of grievances into their own hands, we are apt to look for a vivid demonstration of the law of retaliation,—" an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." But the world well knows that the inhabitants of these northern, sterile, and Chilly climates are not, in their fierce passions, to be compared with the inhabitants of the South. Their temperament did not partake of assassination, torture, and murder. Now and then a vindictive and savage nature was found, but if an act was perpetrated by such a retribution was sure. A robber, a slanderer, a villifier was condignly and peremptorily punished; not, indeed, in the way he might reasonably expect, by a hidden shot, by waylaying, by a dagger-thrust in the dark, but he always found it expedient to leave the country or to hide himself from the face of other men as one attainted and shunned. There are well-attested instances where men who, in the heat of passion, having done what they should have been sorry for, left, in utter abhorrence, the very fields their labor had cleared, and never after returned. This method of ostracism was commoner than we at this day are apt to suppose. And it was natural that a course of common law and usage should obtain where there was no regular method of procedure from the want of courts. The standing of these early settlers was in this respect peculiar, as was the status of all modern colonies, and is of those colonies who .leave a highly enlightened state. They nearly all had been brought up under the English law, either in the old country or under the colonial system. They therefore had not to grope their way from a state of rude civilization to a state in which law is established by the force of precedent. These men knew their inherent rights as well as any men living. Having been bred under law and order, they brought with them enough of their system to meet the wants of such a rude state. And the very want of courts, which was at first experienced, helped as much as other causes to give a high moral tone to all actions arising in their personal relation. The obligation of law, in truth, rested upon all, and this when, to a great extent, there was no law. This is a strongly marked peculiarity of the civilization brought into these wilds. In this respect the woods of America were sacred to republican institutions; there were no lordlings and no serfs. The consideration of this subject may be far carried, but it may safely be asserted that .the authority of the. people, as a people, was transcended and firmly grounded into custom long before the fathers of the republic ventured to proclaim to the world the establishment of a democratic form of government. This manner of life had, in time, an effect upon the morals of the people, as the morals of the people had an effect upon their manner of life. Shut out, as many of them were for years, from connection with any visible church, they did not become less godly. A singular combination of Christian (or religious) and philoisophical (or worldly) morality was the result. Touching this subject these facts are observable, that although they, as a general thing, in their religious observances conformed specially to a veneration of the Sabbath day, they did not pay much attention to the rites and ceremonies of established religion as these are usually regarded by. those people who profess a strict Christianity. Their graveyards were little lots hedged in in one cornier of a field or nook of the woods. Many died without the consolations of religion. Many were suffered to grow to manhood and to die in their beds without baptism. This, of course, has reference to the earliest settlers, and those who, in the more troublous time after, lived detached from the rest. For it is a matter of interest, in contemplating the advance of these people, to notice how sedulous they were to have a Christian teacher among them, and how, under many difficulties, they labored for the instruction of their children. Without entering at all on any polemical observations, and regarding them from an independent stand-point, we may say that there was never so philosophical a Christianity taught or enforced, and followed, as by these men. Locke's theory was here made practical. With their Calvinistic ideas of predestination, election, and free will, these faced death with less dismay than many whose lives had been devoted to the practice of all the Christian duties. The Cromwellian spirit was pred minant; and it was not an uncommon thing to