The Indiana Gazette from Indiana, Pennsylvania • Page 218

M-lndiana, GoittU, July ft ft if (Continued from Page B-l) iwy stony tee cou'd not dig a lie smelling very strong tee covered him with Stones Wood went on our Journey; came to the 10 Mile Uck, 32 miles, Anfml 25th Crossed Kiskemi- news Creek It is believed the "Shawonese Cabbins," also known as "Spruce Camp" or "Shawanese Bottoms," were on the south branch of Two Lick Creek about a half- mile above the forks. Sir William Johnson's map shows Indian dwellings (not named) where the Kittanning Path crossed Two Lick Creek. On the evening of the 27th the party arrived at Logstown. On the 29th Weiser mentioned having previously "met about twenty horses of George Croghan's at the Shawanese cabins, in order to fetch the goods that were then at Frank's Town." On September 19 Weiser and his party returned by the same route. In his jour nal he made these entires: (September) 21st Crossed Kiskaminity Creek 22nd The.

weather cleared up; we traveled this day about 35 miles Came by the place where we had buried the body of John Quen; but found the bears had pulled him out, and left nothing but a few naked bones and some old rags. 23rd Crossed the head of the West Branch of the Susquehanna Little is known concerning the unfortunate John Quinn, an Allegheny Indian trader. William Franklin also is known to have kept a journal but, most unfortunately, it cannot be located today. Lewis Evans acknowledged using information from William's journal in making his 1755 map of Pennsylvania: "Mr. William Franklin's Journal to Ohio has been my principal Help The events of the French Indian War are so well known that they should not need to be reviewed here.

One of the results of the defeat of Braddock's army in 1755 was a wave of Indian attacks. In October 1755 a party of Indians and their captives, including Marie LeRoy and Barbara Leininger, came to where they stayed five days before going on to Kittanning. They went through the Northwestern portion of Indiana County. In 1759 they escaped and an account of their experiences was published. It was known that the Delaware Indian town of Kittanning was the base of many Indian forays against the colonies.

A force of about 300 men, comprising most of the Second Battalion, Pennsylvania Regiment, was raised under the command of John Armstrong, and set out from Fort Shirley (Shirleysburg, Huntingdon County) August 30th with the objective of destroying Kittanning in reprisal for the Indian raids. Armstrong's men were grouped in seven companies, one commanded by Armstrong himself and the others by Capt. Hance Hamilton; Capt. Hugh Mercer, a doctor of medicine; Capt. Edward Ward; Capt.

John Potter; Capt. John Steel, a minister; and Capt. George Armstrong, brother of the commander. Following the Kittanning Path, this military force, the first to traverse Indiana County, camped during the night of Sunday, September 5th, at the forks of the Kittanning and Venango Paths "within Fifty Miles of the Kittanning." The site was surveyed later for Samuel Caldwell by Joshua Elder. It was described as "Situate on Muddy Run and on the Fork of the Paths leading to Kittanning Winango about four miles from Owens Sleeping ground "In later years (cirea 1880) the camping place was said to have been near a large spring on lands then owned by Daniel Cameron and Isaac Craig's heirs in Green Township.

It was also said to have been "on the lowest dividing ridge between the waters of the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico." Possibly the morning after the little army's arrival at this place, an officer, with one of the guides and two soldiers, were sent ahead "to reconnoitre the town" (Kittanning). The next night, Monday, September 6th, the men camped, according to tradition, in the vicinity of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, obtaining water from Shaver's Spring. Authority for this was the late Elder Peelor who stated that an officer who had been with the expedition and was related to Joseph Walker of Shelocta, had pointed out the location to Walker, and Mr. Peelor, Walker's grandson, learned the story from him. It seems more likely, however, that the Shaver's Spring site was not an overnight camp for the Armstrong Expedition, but simply a watering place, and that the Two Licks were the actual camping site on the night of Sept.

6. Supporting this is Warrantee Survey D58-279 by John Taylor in which he states that the "two licks or Salt Springs are remarkable from their having given to the creek which passes close by them its name. They are also remarkable from having been the encamping ground of Gen'l Armstrong in his expedition against Kittanning." Armstrong's report was that the provisions of the army, excepting what the men could carry in their haversacks, were "scaffolded" i.e. placed on a pole scaffold high in the trees, "some thirty miles back" from Kittanning. The senior Samuel Brady, in a 1773 letter to his brother, referred to "the south Branch of the Run Joining our flour encampment when we were on our march to the Kittanning." The march to Kittanning resumed on Sept.

7th. Somewhere along the way they met the reconnoitering party sent out the day before, which brought word that the path was clear of the enemy. Mr. Peelor adds the information that there was an Indian encampment near Shelocta and, to avoid disturbing them, the column veered right and north of the Path traveling through the Former Fleming School District and rejoined the Path west of Shelocta back of the Alexander Wiggins farm. Armstrong's report does not mention this.

LEGEND Indian Trails Indian Sire A English Site Upper Westmoreland and adjacent areas during the Indian regime and Colonial period. vith a scout and twelve 1756) reported Mercer's exnerierwe as fnl- in i a i Lt. James Hogg with a scout and twelve soldiers was ordered to watch some Indians discovered around a-campfire arid attack at break of day, cutting them off from Kittanning if possible. The attack on Kittanning at daybreak, September 8th, was a complete surprise and resulted in heavy Indian losses. It is said that Samuel Brady senior, an uncle of the famous Indian scout of later years, was a lad of 17 at the time of the expedition and, although not regularly enrolled, had somehow joined the march.

This claim is supported by a letter written in 1773 by Samuel Brady to his brother. During the attack on Kittanning Brady was said to have entered one of the Indian cabins and found all deserted save a little papoose lying on the floor rolled up in an old piece of blanket, The baby looked up in Brady's face with smilei and chuckles but another soldier approached from behind and seized it, Brady interceded strongly for the child's life but the other dashed in brains out against a post, swearing as he did so that "nits make lice," Brady lived the latter years of his life in East Mahoning Township where he died in 1811 and is buried in Gilgal Cemetery. In the meantime Lt. Hogg and his men had attacked the Indians they were watching but found themselves outnumbered. After a warm engagement for over an hour, three of his best men were killed, others fled, and Hogg himself suffered two wounds.

In this condition he was found by some "Deserters" from Capt. Mercer's company and carried away from the safety of a thicket where he had been hiding. They had not gone far when four Indians appeared and the deserters fled, leaving Hogg alone in spite of his urging and commanding them to fight. One of the men was killed and Hogg wounded a third time in the stomach. In this condition he was found by the main body, and carried "some miles from the place of action" where he died and was presumably buried near the Path, perhaps at some unknown spot near the Indiana-Armstrong line.

It may be reasonably inferred that the men paused at the place near Indiana where they had scaffolded their excess supplies which were no longer "excess" but quite welcome. Pennsylvania Gazette (Sept. 23, 1756) reported Mercer's experience as fol lows: We hear that Captain Mercer was 14 days in getting to Fort Littleton. He had a miraculous Escape, living ten Days on two dried Clams and a Rattle Snake, with the Assistance of a few Berries. The Snake kept sweet for several Days, and, coming near Fort Shirley he found a piece of dry which our people had lost, and on Trial rejected it, because the Snake was better.

His wounded Arm is in a good way, tho' it could be but badly drest, and a Bone broken, The significance of the Armstrong Expedition lies in the fact that it was the first successful English military thrust into the Ohio Valley. Those of Washington and Braddock had failed. The following interesting episode of local interest during the French and Indian War period concerns Richard Bard (age 22); his wife, Katherine (Poe) Bard; their seven-month-old son, John; and others who were captured April 13,1758 by nineteen Delaware Indians who burned his house and mill on Middle Creek in Ham- iltonban Township, 'Adams County. The infant and two men were killed. The remainder Bard and wife; a "bound boy" Frederick Ferrick (age 14); William White (age ft); Hannah McBride (age 11); and Daniel McManimy were forced to travel rapidly and reached present Indiana County on April 17, camping that night near a spring about a mile west of Homer City afterwards the John McGee farm.

Until this time Mr. Mrs. Bard had been kept separated, but that evening they were permitted to be together while plucking a wild turkey. Having some knowledge of the Indian tongue, Mrs. Bard whispered to her husband that she had overheard them planning to kill him and urged him to flee for his life.

While the Indians amused themselves by dressing in the clothing of their captives, Bard was sent to a spring about three rods away for water. It was about ten o'clock at night and Mrs. Bard joined in the Indian merriment as her spouse escaped into the brush and eluded his pursuers by concealing himself in a hollow log. Tradition has it that this was on McKonkey's Cliff at a bridge below Homer City. The frustrated Indians are said to have searched for him for two days.

According to Bard's deposition a few days after his return In 9 nights and days I got to Fort Lyttleton, having no food other than 4 snakes which I had killed and eat, and some buds and roots and the like; 3 Cherokee Indians found me about two miles from Fort Lyttleton, cut me a staff and piloted me to the Fort. Bard also wrote a quaint ballad narrating his experiences written before he is said to have recovered his wife by paying forty pounds for her release at Sunbury. BEGINNINGS OF SETTLEMENT, 1764-1776 Almost immediately after the ending of the Indian Regime, there was a rush of squatters into the Indian lands. Perhaps the first person to lay out a "tomahawk" claim in Indiana County was George Findley who was said to have staked a squatter claim in East Wheatfield Township about 1764. It is now part of the Ronald L.

Matthews farm and was not far from the "cabbin" of a friendly Delaware Indian known as Joseph Wipey. A "tomahawk claim" was made by cutting off a strip of bark completely around a few trees near the head of a run or other landmark, thus deadening them. Sometimes the initials of the person making the claim were carved on one of the trees. The area of Findley's claim was particularly attractive, being covered in many places with high grass instead of the usual dense forests, so that it came to be called "The Wheatfields." UNKNOWN EARLY SETTLERS It is likely that there were others whose names are now unknown who attempted living here at an even earlier time. T.

S. Reid records that "it is said that a pretty fair orchard of old apple trees were growing near the Rodgers graveyard in 1764, when George Findley settled about two miles northeast of it." He adds that foundations of houses and pieces of charred timbers were to be found in numerous places along the valley of the Conemaugh within the memory of the writer, some of them overgrown with timber when first settled by our ancestors. Thus there were mysteries of early settlement which may never be solved. Arm's history says concerning this; There are aged persons yet living in this section (the wheatftelds) who can remember more than eighty years (or prior to 1800), aW whose parents were here mqny years prior to their births, and found on their arrival on the north side'(of the Conemaugh) two 'grave yards, one known as "Hice's grave yard' and the other as 'Rodgers' graveyard'. They were evidently the graves of white persons, but who they wer.e, or by whom they had been buried, is not known.

There were three graves, side by side, on that part of the old 'Reid farm' now owned by T. S. Reid, one targe and Mo smaller, icilh rough head and foot stones and a well shaped separate tablet on each grave. Trees from fifty lo one hundred years old had overgrown these graves, when first discovered by those whose traditions toe are now recording. Not only were the graves an evidence of an unknown and extinct population but there also were found the charred foundations of burned buildings, and enormously large apple trees Sixty- five years ago (c.

1815), (one of these trees) was as thick in the trunk as a flour barrel. Several other indications of early occupation are cited. If an apple tree "as thick in the trunk as a flour barrel" in 1815 could be said to be at -least fifty years old, it may have been planted about 1765 or even earlier. FIRST TREATY OF FORT STANWIX At the invitation of Sir William Johnson, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the British government, many chiefs of the Six Nations, together with a few Delaware and Shawnee (who were not authorized to represent their tribes), met at Fort Stanwix (now Rome, New York) in October and November, 1768. The Rev.

Richard Peters and James TUghman were the commissioners representing Pennsylvania. On November 5th the Six Nations ceded to the Proprietors, Thomas and Richard Penn, all the land south of the Ohio and east of the Allegheny as far as "Kittanning, which is above Fort Pitt, from thence by a direct line to the nearest fork of the west branch of the Susquehanna thence through the Allegany mountains along the south side of the said west branch The British government in addition purchased the lands south of the Ohio and west of Pennsylvania as fat as the mouth of the Tennessee River. The purchase price for the Province of sylvania was ten thousand Spanish dollars. Most of present Indiana County was included excepting only the eight northernmost townships. The "nearest fork of the west branch" Was considered to be "Canoe Pla.ce." A large black wild cherry tree at one time grew on a point of land a few feet below the of Cushion Creek on the western bank of the river.

In later years the action of the waters cut a channel through the point of land where the cherry tree stood, Isolating it from the river bank. In the course of time the banks of this bit of land washed away until the cherry tree itself was uprooted and carried, according to local information, about a half-mile downstream. On November 17, 1894 a monument commemorating the purchase from the Indians in 1768 was dedicated on the site of the original cherry tree as nearly as its location could be determined by surveys. The straight line from Canoe Place to Kittanning is widely known as "The Purchase Line" and is now the boundary between the eight northernmost townships and the rest of Indiana County. In the spring of 1769 George Croghan and a party of surveyors and workers blazed some of the trees on both sides of a zone fifty feet wide along the Purchase Line.

After the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768, it was legal to settle anywhere south of the Purchase Line, but the "Mahoning Country" remained forbidden territory. It should also be noted that the Shawnee, Delaware and other westerly tribes refused to recognize the sale. More Indian horrors were to come as a result. The right of the Iroquois to sell these lands, particularly those in Kentucky, was also disputed by the Cherokee who maintained that the Iroquois had never conquered these places and that they belonged to the Cherokee. At the Treaty of Lochabar, October, 1770, the British conceded the validity of this claim and made com- pensation to the Cherokee.

In 1769 a Pennsylvania Land Office was opened. Tracts in the new purchase were offered at five English pounds per hundred acres, equivalent to 22.2c per acre. Tracts were limited to 300 acres and the land did not have to be paid for until patents were taken out. Settlement or improvement rights were recognized as valid against anyone except the Proprietors. Thus the squatters were rewarded for their stubborness after all.

There was a rush of Applications, not only by bona fide settlers but by speculators. Among the first Applications was that of John Montgomery and Alexander dated February 9, 1769, for 1,000 acres on the north side of the Kiskiminetas in- eluding the mouth of "Black Log Creek and Black Log Town." The next step at ter making application for a tract was id obtain a Warrant or authorization to sur- vey. The third step was the Survey itself. After the Survey had been made, the proper fees paid, the surveyor made out a Return, or report on acreage, boundaries, etc. Then an Application for Patent was filed.

Finally, upon payment of the purchase price, a Patent (or deed) from the Proprietors, was obtained. BEDFORD COUNTY The first county which attempted to extend its jurisdiction to the new purchase was Cumberland County. The county seat Carlisle, 125 miles or more from such settlers as George Findley along the Conemaugh, was too remote and so, on March 9, 1771, Bedford County was created by an Act of the Provincial legislature. Its county seat was at Bedford almost fifty miles away from the settlers along the Conemaugh and on the eastern side of the Allegheny Mountain. Bedford county was divided into townships, the largest of which was called Armstrong with the following boundaries: Beginning where the Conemach rises in the Allegheny Mountains and running with the river to the line of Fairfield (along the crest of Chestnut Ridge south of the Conemaugh) then along that line to the Loyalhanna, thence down the Loyalhanna and the Kiskiminelas to this Allegheny, thence up the Allegheny to Kittanning, then with a straight line to the headwaters of Two Lick or Blacklick Creek, and thence with a straight line lo the beginning, Although these boundaries are vague, it is clear that this one township now includes parts of four counties: Indiana County south of the Purchase Line, and portions of Armstrong, Westmoreland and, probably Cambria Counties.

Armstrong Township was named in honor of Gen. John Armstrong (promoted since the Kittanning Expedition). In 1773 a list of 70 taxable males in all of Armstrong Township was filed in the Bedford Courthouse. Relations with the Indians were for a while relatively peaceful and the early settlers were troubled only by the wild, rough character of the country. JOURNEY OF THE CHRISTIAN INDIANS Notice should be taken at this point of the journey in July 1772 of Rev.

John Ettwein and Rev. John Roth, Moravian missionaries, with a party of some 239 Christian Indians enroute to Friedensstadt in the vicinity of Beaver, Pennsylvania from Wyalusing in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The party travelled through the Northwestern portion of Indiana County. They did not stay long at Friedensstadt, but moved in April 1773 to the Muskingum River in Ohio. REV.

DAMP McCLVBE Late in 1772 and three times in 1773 Rev. Pavid McClure preached at Squirrel Hill, now New Florence, as seen in these extracts from his diary. (1772 Dec. 29) Rode in company with Mr. Wm.

McCune 13 io squirril Hill. 30. Wednesday preached to the imqfl new settlement there. It Het (Continued on Page 1M).