Chapter V: Introduction (4)

The patriot blood spilled at Lexington and Concord fired a martial spirit throughout America by which the bold leaders in every State were nerved to resist and resent those unprovoked assaults, and when Washington appeared at the camp in Boston as the Commander-in-Chief of the American armies, Mifflin was by his side.

Recognizing his great personal popularity, the ease and dignity of his manners, breadth and soundness of his views, Washington placed Mifflin at the head of his military family. In the absence of, or at the retirement from the table of the chief it fell upon Mifflin to occupy his place and do the honors; and for this duty, by his social position at home and his foreign travel he was admirably fitted. Colonel Mifflin was the first person in America who officiated as aide-de-camp.

When Washington, July, 1775, organized the entire army, the difficult position of quartermaster general was assigned to Mifflin. The duties were new and arduous. Everything was in chaos. Order had to be established and system inaugurated.

On May 19, 1776, Congress appointed and commissioned Mifflin to be a brigadier general and he was given command of Pennsylvania troops. An assignment to the active field was much more to his liking than one at headquarters.

Upon taking the field Mifflin was relieved as quartermaster general by General Stephen Moylan, who was ill suited to the difficult task of providing for an army where the authority for calling in supplies was little respected and the means of paying for them was rarely in hand; and not long after accepting the position he abandoned it.

Congress called upon Mifflin to again assume the duties of quartermaster general and he reluctantly responded to the call of his country, deeming it a matter of duty.

The reverses of the American Army during the summer and fall of 1776 culminated in its withdrawal into New Jersey, hotly pursued by the British troops. Pennsylvania was threatened and especially Philadelphia, where Congress was sitting. At this dark hour Mifflin was sent with dispatches from Washington to Congress, calling on that body loudly for help.

Mifflin, at the request of Congress, made a stirring address, setting forth the perilous situation, and appealing for the means to oppose the further advance of the defiant enemy. That body was greatly exercised and ordered that General Mifflin should remain near Congress for consultation and advice.

As the enemy pressed toward Philadelphia, General Putnam was sent to take command in the city and General Mifflin was placed in charge of the war material and stores.

The victory at Trenton produced a gleam of hope and Congress dispatched Mifflin throughout the State of Pennsylvania in order that, by his personal appeals, volunteers might be drawn to the support of Washington’s decimated ranks. He caused large numbers to enlist.

Mifflin was mixed up in the “Conway Cabal,” but in after years he explained his position, and it would seem to prove the intensity of his devotion to the struggle in which he had staked fortune and life itself.

In 1783 General Mifflin was elected a member of Congress, and had the satisfaction of being President of that body, when General Washington, December 23, 1783, resigned his commission into its hands. Mifflin made an eloquent reply.

General Mifflin was a member of the Assembly of Pennsylvania which met in 1785; also of the convention which sat in 1787 and framed the Constitution of the United States.

In 1788 he was chosen a member of the Supreme Executive Council, and upon the retirement of Franklin, he was elected President.

General Mifflin was the president of the convention that framed the State Constitution of 1790, and he and General Arthur St. Clair were the two candidates for Governor. Mifflin triumphed and was continued in office for that and the two succeeding terms.

Governor Mifflin was very efficient in quelling the Whisky Insurrection of 1794, and personally commanded the troops from Pennsylvania.

His last official communication as Governor was made December 7, 1799. It contained his farewell sentiments on taking leave of office and was received with every manifestation of respect by the Assembly.

He was elected to the Assembly and took his seat, but did not long survive. He died during a session of the House, then sitting in Lancaster, on January 21, 1800. His decease was noticed with becoming ceremonies, resolutions being adopted expressive of the high sense entertained for him as a soldier and statesman, authorizing his interment at the public expense and providing for the erection of a monument to his memory.

“Thus ended,” says Dr. Rawle, “the checkered life of Thomas Mifflin—brilliant in its outset—troubled and perplexed at a period more advanced—again distinguished, prosperous and happy—finally clouded by poverty and oppressed by creditors. In patriotic principle never changing—in public action never faltering—in personal friendship sincerely warm—in relieving the distressed always active and humane—in his own affairs improvident—in the business of others scrupulously just.”

----------

Story of the Old Log College and the
Reverend Charles Beatty, Born
January 22, 1715

The pioneer seminary for aspirants to the Presbyterian ministry nearly two hundred years ago, was long known as “The Old Log College.” It stood at Neshaminy in Warwick Township, Bucks County.

When the celebrated evangelist George Whitefield came to America in 1739, he preached here to three thousand persons.

The deed for the land upon which this early educational institution was built, was dated 1728, and was given by Hon. James Logan, the secretary of the Province and one of the most illustrious of the early officials of Pennsylvania, to his cousin, Reverend William Tennent, an Irish emigrant, who shortly after his arrival in America renounced his allegiance to the Church of England and united with the Philadelphia Presbytery.

The gift consisted of fifty acres of land and the part of it on which the college stood is believed to have been an ancient Indian burying ground. The log college, twenty feet by thirty feet in size, was for many years the only institute south of New England where young men could be prepared for the ministry.

The Log College flourished under Mr. Tennent for twenty years, when its place was eminently supplied by kindred institutions thereabouts. From its walls came many noted preachers of Scotch-Irish descent, among them four of his own sons. One of the latter, Gilbert Tennent, preached most eloquently to stir up patriotism during the French and Indian War.

It is said that a carload of these sermons were very opportunely discovered in an old lumber room of Dr. Benjamin Franklin’s when the American patriots were hunting for paper to make cartridges, after the British evacuated Philadelphia, June 17, 1778. The sermons were utilized as cases for cartridges, and told effectively afterwards on the retreating British in the battle of Monmouth. Thus these eloquent sermons served the country in two great wars, more than is usually the case.

The Reverend Charles Beatty, an Irish Presbyterian, who was chaplain with Colonel Benjamin Franklin in his army on the Lehigh and later with Colonel William Clapham in his regiment which marched to Fort Augusta at the Forks of the Susquehanna, was a student here.

The Rev. Mr. Beatty was the son of an officer in the British Army, and was born in Ireland, January 22, 1715. He obtained a fairly accurate classical education in his own country and when he emigrated to America in 1740, his circumstances being meager, he employed several of the first years of his residence as a peddler.

He halted one day at the Log College, where he addressed the Reverend William Tennent familiarly in correct and classical Latin. After some conversation in which the peddler manifested much piety and considerable religious zeal, Tennent said, “Go and sell the contents of your pack, and return immediately and study with me. It will be a sin for you to continue a peddler, when you can be so much more useful in another profession.”

Beatty accepted Tennent’s offer, became an eminent preacher, and succeeded his preceptor, as head of the Log College. He was ordained in the Presbyterian Ministry, December 1, 1743, and passed most of his life in charge of “ye congregation of Warwick, in ye forks of the Neshaminy.”

An interesting incident is related of his military service. The soldiers were issued a gill of rum each day in addition to their regular stipulation, one-half being dealt out in the morning and the balance in the evening.

Chaplain Beatty complained to Colonel Franklin that the soldiers were not punctual in attending divine service, when Franklin suggested, “It is, perhaps, below the dignity of your profession to act as a steward of the rum, but if you were to distribute it out only just after prayers, you would have them all about you.”

Mr. Beatty profited by the advice and in the future had no reason to complain of non-attendance. A few hands regularly measured out the liquor after prayers.

When Colonel William Clapham was detached from Franklin’s command and ordered to recruit a regiment to build Fort Augusta, he selected Beatty as the chaplain of the regiment. He kept an interesting journal of this tour of duty, of which the following is the first paragraph:

“Having received his honor, the Governor’s commission to be chaplain to the regiment of foot in the provincial service under the command of Colonel William Clapham, and having the advice and concurrence of the Commission of the Synod, who appointed supplies for the congregation in my absence—set out from home in order to join the regiment at Harris’ Ferry, Monday, May 3, 1756. I was accompanied as far as Schuylkill by my elders and some other friends, and having stopped at a friend’s house, not far from the road to refresh myself, reached as far as the Sign of the Ship on the Lancaster road, at which I lodged. Felt my need of the Divine Presence to be with me in my dangerous or at least difficult undertaking.”

He reached Lancaster the following afternoon, where he was met by Colonel Clapham and Captain Thomas Lloyd, who advised him that Governor Morris was in town. They called on His Excellency, who received them very kindly.

They all set out the following morning for Harris’ Ferry, arrived at Barney Hughes’ hotel in time for dinner and reached Harris’ Ferry in the evening, when the soldiers were ordered to assemble for prayer and to meet their distinguished guests.

Just as the assembly call sounded, a fire broke out in John Harris’ house and there were no prayers.

He frequently lamented in his well-kept journal, that some trifling incident prevented officers or men, or both, from attending prayer. “Just as service began in the afternoon, had an alarm, but few, alas, seemed to regret the disappointment. Wickedness seems to increase in the camp, which gives me a great deal of uneasiness.”

The following Sunday, “One of the bateaux which had on it a cannon was upset, which occasioned a great deal of labor, and what profane swearing there was. If I stay in the camp my ears are greeted with profane oaths, and if I go out to shun it, I am in danger of the enemy—what a dilemma is this? But my eyes would be toward the Lord.”

In 1766 he was appointed, with the Rev. George Duffield, missionary to the frontier settlements in the new purchase and to the Indians of the Ohio River. He died August 12, 1772, at Barbados whither he had gone to collect money for the New Jersey College, which is now Princeton University.

The Rev. Philip Fithian, who traveled through Central Pennsylvania in 1775, and who kept such an interesting journal of his experiences, was a son-in-law of the Rev. Charles Beatty.[1]

Footnote 1:

Reverend Charles Beatty had four sons, all officers in the Continental
Army; John, who rose to the rank of colonel, and after the Revolution
became a brigadier-general in the militia; Charles Clinton, a
lieutenant, who was accidentally killed when another soldier of his
command shot him while carelessly handling a pistol; Reading, a
surgeon; and Eukuries, a lieutenant and paymaster, who continued long
in the military service of his country after the Revolution, and was a
major during the Indian campaign of 1788–1792.

-------

Militia Organized at Provincial Council
Meeting January 23, 1775

A Provincial Convention was held in Philadelphia, January 23, 1775, which lasted six days. At the organization of the convention, General Joseph Reed was chosen chairman.

Strong resolutions were adopted, heartily approving the conduct and proceedings of the Continental Congress; opposing future importation of slaves into this Province; protecting members of committees of Congress from embarrassment on account of this service, and one, “That in case the trade of the city and liberties of Philadelphia shall be suspended in consequence of the present struggle, it is the opinion of this convention that the several counties should, and that the members of this convention will exert themselves to afford the necessary relief and assistance to the inhabitants of the said city and liberties; who will be more immediately affected by such an event.”

This convention also adopted a lengthy resolution which tended toward the regulation of the supply and consumption of foodstuffs, and the necessities of life, especially such as had been regulated by laws of England.

The crisis to which the convention looked forward when framing these resolutions had arrived. The battle of Lexington had been fought and submission to the arbitrary acts of Parliament was attempted to be enforced by the bayonet. Soon as the news of this battle spread multitudes of men, at the suggestion of the county committees of observation, entered into an association for defense.

The officers of these organizations were generally men of unusual military skill, men who were veterans of several campaigns and some of innumerable Indian incursions. This was not as generally true of the older portion of the Province. This had been peaceable, and remote from the frontiers, so the chief officers in these countries were frequently without military experience, who owed their preferment to political activity, or social prominence.

Dickinson accepted the colonelcy of the first battalion, while the others raised in the City of Philadelphia were commanded by Daniel Roderdeau, merchant and politician; John Cadwallader, a shopkeeper, son of one of the Governor’s Council; Thomas McKean, lawyer and lately Speaker of the Delaware Assembly, and Timothy Matlack, politician.

The colonels of the six battalions raised in Philadelphia County, which then included what is now Montgomery County were: William Hamilton, Robert Lewis, Thomas Potts, Samuel Miles, a veteran of French and Indian War, and Hill Tench Francis, brother of Colonel Turbutt Francis, also a hero of the French and Indian War, sons of the deceased Attorney General Tench Francis. The colonels from the other counties were:

Bucks County—Joseph Kirkbride, Joseph Hart, Andrew Kachlein and Arthur Erwin.

Chester County—James Moore, Thomas Hockley, Hugh Lloyd, William Montgomery and Richard Thomas.

Lancaster—George Ross, Matthias Slough, Curtis Grubb, Thomas Porter, John Ferree, James Burd, hero of the French and Indian War and of many other campaigns; Peter Grubb and Bartram Galbraith.

York County—Robert Callender, William Thompson, John Montgomery and James Wilson.

Berks County—Edward Biddle, Mark Bird, Daniel Brodhead, veteran of the French and Indian War; Balzer Geehr and Christian Louer.

Northampton County—George Taylor, Henry Geiger, Yost Dreisbach and Jacob Stroud.

Bedford County—Bernard Dougherty and Samuel Davidson.

Northumberland County—Samuel Hunter, James Potter and William Plunket, each a hero of the French and Indian War and thoroughly trained as officers.

Westmoreland County—John Proctor and John Cornahan.

To assist in carrying into effect the many measures passed for the defense of the province, the Assembly on June 30, appointed a Committee of Safety, consisting of ten from City of Philadelphia, four from the county and one from each of the other counties excepting Chester, which had two members.

Benjamin Franklin was chosen president of the committee at its first meeting, July 3, 1775; William Garrett was named clerk and Michael Hillegas treasurer.

The several County Commissioners were asked to purchase a specified number of guns with bayonets, cartridge boxes with twenty-three rounds of cartridges and knapsacks.

The Assembly offered £20 for every hundredweight of saltpeter manufactured in the province within the next three months.

Among the first labors of the Committee of Safety was that of preparing articles for the government of the military organizations known as Associators. A set of resolutions to that effect were adopted August 19, which included every possible phase of a soldier’s life, including his personal appearance, conduct, sobriety, loyalty, demeanor as an officer, noncommissioned officer or private, etc.

Many of the citizens refused to subscribe to the regulations, alleging that numerous persons, rich and able to perform military duty claimed exemption under pretense of conscientious scruples and asserting that where liberty of all was at stake, all should aid in its defense, and that where the cause was common to all, it was inconsistent with justice and equity that the burden should be partial.

The Friends addressed the Legislature, setting forth their religious faith and practice with respect to bearing arms, and claiming exemption from military service by virtue of laws agreed upon in England and the Charter of William Penn. The Mennonites and German Baptists also remonstrated, praying exemption, but willing to contribute pecuniary aid.

Assembly resolved that “all persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty capable of bearing arms, who do not associate for the defense of the Province, ought to contribute an equivalent for the time spent by the associators in acquiring military discipline; ministers of the gospel of all denominations and servants purchased bona fide for valuable consideration only excepted.”

Returns were required from the assessors of all persons within military age, and the captains of the companies of the Associators were directed to furnish to their colonels and the colonels to the County Commissioners lists of such persons as had joined the Associators. The commissioners were empowered to assess those not associated £2 10s annually, in addition to the ordinary tax.

The Assembly also adopted rules and regulations for the better government of the military association, the thirty-fifth article of which provided “that if any associator called into actual service should leave a family not of ability to maintain themselves in his absence, the justices of the peace of the proper city or county, with the overseer of the poor, should make provisions for their maintenance.”

----------

Captain Thomas McKee, Indian Trader,
Makes Deposition Before Governor
January 24, 1743

Thomas McKee was the most noted of the later Shamokin Traders, and we have records of his trading expeditions as far west as the Ohio.

His career was highly romantic, and a consideration of the same will enable us to understand his son, Captain Alexander McKee, who afterwards became well-known at Fort Pitt, and rendered himself notorious in border history by deserting to the British during the time of the Revolutionary War, carrying over to that interest a great many Indians whom he had befriended during his service as Deputy Indian Agent under the Crown. We will then know better why he should seek more congenial company among the Ohio Indians and in the service of the King, than he had found among the American forces at Fort Pitt, who were enemies of both.

Dr. W. H. Egle has stated that Thomas McKee was a son of Patrick, but it is quite possible that he was the son of one Alexander McKee who died in Donegal Township, Lancaster County, in May, 1740, leaving a son, Thomas, who was the executor of his will.

A contributor to Dr. Egle’s “Notes and Queries” relates a traditionary account of Thomas McKee’s marriage, which had been told to him in his boyhood days by his father, a native of the Susquehanna Valley. This story was to the effect that Thomas McKee, in his early manhood began trading with the Indians, and after learning the language of the Delaware, established a trading post among them, in the vicinity of Shamokin (now Sunbury), at or near the Forks of the Susquehanna.

In the performance of this enterprise while he was on a trading expedition farther up the West Branch, he ventured into the camp of strange Indians, who stole his goods, drank his rum, and then becoming incensed at the resistance he made to their proceedings, bound him as a captive, and decided to burn him at the stake the following day.

During the night, an Indian maiden came to the wigwam where he lay bound to a log. She released him, and they fled together, making their escape. McKee from gratitude, made the girl his squaw and they lived together during the remainder of their lives as husband and wife.

Edward Shippen, of Lancaster, wrote to Governor Morris April 19, 1756, after a visit to Captain McKee’s fort, where he found ten Indians, among them John Shikellamy. He adds; “Shikellamy let me know that he wished the Indians would be moved down to Barney Hughes, where Captain McKee’s woman and children live.”

In a conference between Sir William Johnson and Canaghquiesa, an Oneida chief, the latter reported on his mission to the hostile Shawnee of Northern Pennsylvania. He advised Sir William that one who lived near those Indians had applied to the Delaware to accompany them to the proposed meeting at Onondaga, which they refused to do, saying that “One Thomas McGee, who lives on the Susquehanna and is married to a Shawnese squaw, had told them that in ten days’ time an army of the English would come and destroy them.”

The Moravian Bishop, Cammerhoff, visited Captain Thomas McKee’s trading post in 1748. In his journal he writes under date of January 13:

“We have before us twenty long miles to Shamokin, also two bad creeks and the narrowest passes along the river to pass. At 9 o’clock we reached Thomas McKee’s, the last white settlement on the river, below Shamokin.”

This trading post was at the site of the present village of Dalmatia, Northumberland County. His other post at this time was below the mouth of the Juniata, not far distant from Big (now Haldeman’s) Island. Both these trading posts are shown on Scull’s map of 1759.

The bishop further wrote in his journal: “McKee holds a captain’s commission under the Government, is an extensive Indian trader, bears a good name among them and drives a brisk trade with the Allegheny country. His wife, who was brought up among the Indians, speaks but little English. They received us with much kindness and hospitality.”

Thomas McKee’s “woman,” “squaw” or “wife” as referred to by Edward Shippen, Chief Canaghquiesa and Bishop Cammerhoff, respectively, may have been the same who assisted him to escape from the unfriendly party of Indians in the early winter of 1743. The details of that adventure are set forth in an affidavit which McKee made before Governor Thomas in Philadelphia, January 24, 1743.

In this deposition McKee states he had a store near the Big Island, and that “on the 12th or 13th of this instant, January, about 7 o’clock in the morning, the Indians of the town came to the deponent’s store and told him they had heard the Dead Halloa and were much surprised at it. Whereupon he, with a servant of his, took a canoe and went over to the island, and in his passage heard the Indians belonging to the town call over to those on the island. To which they answered that the white men had killed some of their men. A council was called, and this deponent attended at the Council House and was admitted.”

At the council the leader of the Iroquois war band informed the Shawnee of an attack made upon their war expedition in Virginia, in which four Indians were killed.

McKee addressed the council, reminding them that these disorders had not happened in Pennsylvania, and urged them to press in their council a treaty of peace with Pennsylvania. The Shawnee did not receive the suggestion kindly. A short time after McKee was informed by a white woman, who had been taken prisoner, that it was left with the Shawnee to deal with him as they pleased and that they were going to hold a council concerning him at some distance from the town, and that if he did not escape he would certainly be cut off.

McKee realized the advice was timely and, with his servant, they departed, leaving all his goods behind. The two traveled three days and three nights before they believed themselves out of danger.

Captain Thomas McKee was in command at Fort Hunter in 1756. He died near McKee’s Half Falls, on the eastern side of the Susquehanna, in 1772, leaving two sons, Alexander and James. The former was then at Fort Pitt as an assistant to George Croghan, the deputy Indian agent for the Crown, and where he owned a large tract of land at the mouth of the Chartiers Creek, including McKee’s Rock, still a noted landmark on the Ohio River, just below Pittsburgh. When he deserted from the garrison at Fort Pitt and joined the British in 1777 his possessions in Pennsylvania passed to his brother, whose descendants are still living in Allegheny County.

If the woman Captain Thomas McKee had made his wife was the white captive of the Shawnee, who had been adopted into their tribe, it is not hard to understand why her son, Alexander the renegade, should have inherited a half-savage nature. This would be even more true if his mother was a Shawnee squaw. His adherence to the British Government when the Revolution came, a government which had so long been his paymaster, is less to be wondered at than his temporary defection therefrom during the first two years of the struggle.

----------

Work Commenced on Erection of Fort
Henry January 25, 1756

The Provincial authorities in 1755 sent Colonel Benjamin Franklin and others to erect a chain of forts, about ten or twelve miles apart, stretching in a line from the Delaware to the Susquehanna River.

The principal fort on the Lehigh River was Fort Allen, where the town of Weissport, Carbon County, now stands. Fort Swatara was the principal fort on the end of the chain as it approached the Susquehanna, although Fort Hunter was situated on the east bank of that river, about six miles above the present City of Harrisburg.

Fourteen miles east of Fort Swatara was erected Fort Henry, and it soon became the most important place of defense between the two great rivers in this chain of forts.

It is sometimes referred to as Busse’s Fort, in honor of Captain Christian Busse, who commanded the garrison there during its most active period. It was frequently referred to as the “Fort at Deitrick Six’s,” because of the Indian atrocities which occurred there and which had much to do with the decision to erect the fort on part of Six’s farm.

Fort Henry was situated on the main road to Shamokin (now Sunbury), where Fort Augusta commanded the forks of the Susquehanna, and protected the settlers resident on both the north and west branches of that river.

There was no town in the vicinity of Fort Henry, nor did it guard any mountain pass or prominent stream, but it did command the connecting highways between the Swatara Creek and the settlements near that stream. The Indians were obliged to pass through Talihaio Gap to reach any of the white settlements in that region.

The history of Fort Henry really begins with the attack from ambush made on a company of six settlers traveling to Deitrick Six’s, Saturday afternoon, November 15, 1755.

None was killed in the first attack, but as the terrified settlers hastened toward a watch-house, a half mile distant, they were overtaken by the savages and three of them killed and scalped, and one Indian was killed. During the late afternoon three other settlers were killed and three wounded.

The Indians remained in the neighborhood and the following night killed a servant of Thomas Bower and set fire to his house and barn.

Conrad Weiser informed Governor Morris of this tragic affair in a long letter and related this and many other incursions made by the Indians in the region now embraced by Berks, Lebanon, Dauphin, and part of Northumberland Counties. Weiser concluded his letter as follows:

“The Fire alarmed a neighbor, who came with two or three more Men; they fired by the way and made a great noise, scared the Indians away from Bower’s House, after they had set fire to it, but by Thomas Bower’s Diligence and Conduct was timely put out again. So, Thos. Bower, with his Family, went off that night to his Neighbor Daniel Schneider, who came to his assistance. By 8 of ye Clock Parties came up from Tulpenhacon & Heidleberg.

“The first Party saw four Indians running off. They had some prisoners, whom they scalped immediately; three children lay scalped, yet alive, one died since, the other two are like to do well. Another Party found a woman just expired, with a Male Child by her side, both killed and Scalped. The Woman lay upon her Face, my son Frederick turned her about to see who she might have been and to his and his companions Surprize they found a Babe of about 14 Days old under her, and life was yet in it, and recovered again.

“Upon the whole, there is about 15 killed of our People, Including Men, Women and Children, and the Enemy not beat but scared off. Several Houses and Barns are Burned; I have no true account how many. We are in a dismal Situation, some of this Murder has been committed in Tulpenhacon Township. The People left their Plantation to within 6 or 7 miles of my house (which was located at the present town of Womelsdorf) against another attack.

“Guns and Ammunition is very much wanted here. My Sons have been obliged to part with most of what was sent for the use of the Indians. I pray your Honour will be pleased, if it lies in your Power, to send us up a Quantity upon any Condition. I must stand my Ground or my Neighbours will all go away, and leave their Habitations to be destroyed by the Enemy or our own People. This enough of such melancholy Account for this.”

Conrad Weiser had been on a mission to the seat of government, to which place he had escorted a band of friendly Indians, and it was on his return that he learned of the terrible murders. In fact, the trusted chief Scarouady, also known as the Half-King, and a company of Delaware were still with him at his home when his sons recited the melancholy news.

It is not to be wondered that many of the settlers did not fully understand the exact position which Colonel Weiser held, both toward the Provincial Government and towards the Indians. Both had implicit faith and confidence in him. The angry settlers were so incensed at Weiser that had not the smoke of fire along the mountain scared them off he might have paid the price of his friendship toward the Indians with his own life.

These atrocities decided the position of Fort Henry, and January 25, 1756, Captain Christian Busse, with a company of fifty provincial soldiers, reported there and began the erection of a fort. Governor Morris advised Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, and Colonel George Washington that he had ordered Fort Henry built at this important place.

It was at Fort Henry where Colonel Weiser held his councils with the officers of the other forts and planned the protection of the farmers during harvest, etc.

During June, 1756, Fort Henry was honored by a visit from Governor Morris, which was occasioned by a threatened attack by the French on Fort Augusta, and at a time when the terms of enlistment of many men had expired.

The Governor directed the movement of troops to the larger fortresses. More than fifty of the inhabitants called at Fort Henry and laid their grievances before the Governor in person.

Soon after this visit the Indians committed many murders. Five children were carried off in one day and a sick man was slain in his bed. His daughter, hidden under a bed in the adjoining room, saw her father killed. Two other families were destroyed.

A French deserter was captured and held at Fort Henry. He was taken to Weiser’s home, and put through the third degree. He proved to be quite clever and nothing of value was learned. He was a lad of seventeen and had been sent from Fort Machault, on the Allegheny River, on a marauding expedition in command of thirty-three Indians, when he accidentally got lost in the mountains and he approached the sentry at Fort Henry, as he had been seven days without food.

June 19, 1757, the Indians carried away the wife of John Frantz and three of their children, who lived only six miles from Fort Henry.

The actual history of Fort Henry, except for the incidents recorded here, was one of routine military work, but it remained a garrisoned fortification for some years, surely until the summer of 1763, for at that time Governor Hamilton wrote to Colonel John Armstrong about disposition of troops for Lancaster, Berks and Northampton Counties, and mentioned Fort Henry as one of the chain of forts then occupied by provincial troops.

----------

James Trimble, First Deputy Secretary of the
Commonwealth, Public Servant Sixty-seven
Years, Died January 26, 1837

When James Trimble died at his home in Harrisburg, January 26, 1837, he closed a record of sixty-seven years service as an official of Pennsylvania, a record which none other has ever approached.

Another unusual feature of this record is the fact that Mr. Trimble was the first Deputy Secretary of the Commonwealth, beginning his service as such March 6, 1777, and being the only occupant of that important office until his death, nearly sixty years afterwards.

James Trimble was born in Philadelphia, July 19, 1755. His father, Alexander Trimble, emigrated from the North of Ireland; was a Protestant, and soon became a member of the Second Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, then under the care of Reverend Gilbert Tennent, of whom it is believed he was a relative.

Alexander Trimble was married to Eleanor Rogers, of Abington, June 20, 1754. Alexander died about 1769.

James was the eldest of several children, and though only a lad at the time of his father’s death, he manifested all those qualities of mind and heart for which he was so justly noted throughout a long life devoted to the service of his country.

When his mother was left a widow with a store, James assisted her in the conduct of the business.

One day James Tilghman, Secretary of the Land Office under the Proprietaries, called at the Trimble store and made some purchases. Young Trimble, who waited upon him, also made out his bill, and the great gentleman was so much pleased with his writing and business style that he at once took measures to secure his services in his department. Thus James Trimble at the age of fifteen years became an apprenticed clerk in the Land Office.

The endorsement upon the archives of the Board of War and the Council of Safety indicates that James Trimble was subordinate clerk in the State Council as early as 1775, and when Colonel Timothy Matlack became the first Secretary of the Commonwealth, March 6, 1777, James Trimble became Deputy Secretary, and so continued down to Thursday, January 14, 1837.

Pending some difficulties with the Supreme Executive Council in regard to his accounts of his money trust, Colonel Matlack resigned his position as Secretary, and March 25, 1783, General John Armstrong, Jr., was commissioned in his stead.

General Armstrong was elected a member of Congress in 1787, and November 7 of that year Charles Biddle became Secretary. He served in that office until January 19, 1791, when Alexander James Dallas, Esq., was commissioned by Governor Thomas Mifflin the first secretary of the Commonwealth, under the Constitution of 1790.

On March 12, 1791, the very day the Governor approved the Act of Assembly providing for a Deputy Secretary, Mr. Dallas appointed James Trimble, who had served continuously under his several predecessors, to be Deputy Secretary, and the appointment was approved by the Governor.

Secretary Dallas resigned his commission December 2, 1801, when Thomas McKean Thompson succeeded him. Nathaniel B. Boileau became Secretary of the Commonwealth, December 20, 1808, and remained through the three terms of Governor Simon Snyder, when he was succeeded by Thomas Sergeant, December 16, 1817; he resigned July 6, 1819, when Samuel B. Ingham was commissioned; Andrew Gregg took up the reins of office December 19, 1820, serving three years, when Molton C. Rogers became Secretary; he resigned January 2, 1826, to be succeeded by Isaac G. Barnhard, who served less than two years, when Calvin Blythe was commissioned November 28, 1827; Samuel McKean was commissioned December 16, 1829, and was succeeded by James Findley who served until December 15, 1835, when Thomas H. Burrowes became Secretary of the Commonwealth, and in all this time, and with these fifteen changes in the office of Secretary, a commission and dedimus issued regularly every three years to James Trimble as Deputy Secretary of the Commonwealth.

His records are models of neatness, his papers elaborately endorsed, and filed with great care, so that in those days of tallow candles, when he was wont to enter his office at night, he could, without striking a light, lay his hands on any paper he wished.

James Trimble was of slight stature, dignified, brisk in his movements and carefully dressed in solemn black knee pants, queue, long hose, and buckle shoes.

When he died, Harrisburg lost its last gentleman of the old school for Alexander Graydon, his peer in dress and address, had gone before.

In the judgment of his contemporaries James Trimble was a faithful public servant, a man of unimpeachable integrity, and obliging manners, and respected by the community at large.

On April 22, 1782, he married Clarissa, widow of John Hastings; her maiden name was Claypoole. She was a descendant of James Claypoole, an intimate of William Penn, and brother to John Claypoole who married Elizabeth, daughter of Oliver Cromwell. Mrs. Trimble died at Lancaster, February 6, 1810. Of their eleven children two only survived them—Dr. James Trimble, who died in Huntingdon County, in 1838, and Thomas R., who died in Chester County in 1868.

James Trimble helped pack and remove the State papers at the time the British occupied Philadelphia, and again when the seat of government was removed to Lancaster in 1799, and from Lancaster to Harrisburg in 1812.

After he removed to Harrisburg he was chosen trustee and treasurer of the Presbyterian Church there, in which capacity he served until his death.

That he survived his removal from office only eleven days many believed he died of a broken heart. Truly if such be the case, party spirit must have been at fever heat to cause the removal of such a public servant, without some other position for him.

----------

Great Indian Conference Began in Easton
on January 27, 1777

The year 1777 opened for the colonists with much brighter prospects, as General Washington had defeated the Hessians at Trenton, and close upon this victory followed the action at Princeton, in which many Pennsylvania organizations displayed such valor, but in which General Hugh Mercer and a number of other officers and men fell.

On Monday, January 20, Brigadier General Philemon Dickinson, with about 400 militia, composed of the two Westmoreland independent companies, of Wyoming, Pa., and New Jersey militia, defeated a foraging party of the enemy of an equal number, near a bridge at Millstone River, two miles from Somerset Court House, New Jersey, and took forty wagons and one hundred horses, a large number of sheep and cattle, and some prisoners. General Dickinson lost but five men.

To return to internal affairs: early in January, 1777, Continental Congress received information “that certain tribes of Indians living in the back parts of the country, near the waters of the Susquehanna within the Confederacy and under the protection of the Six Nations, the friends and allies of the United States,” were on their way to Easton for the purpose of holding a conference or treaty with the General Government.

Congress thereupon appointed a commission, consisting of George Taylor, of Easton; George Walton and others to purchase suitable presents for the Indians and conduct a treaty with them. The Assembly of Pennsylvania named Colonels Lowrey and Cunningham, while the Council of Safety sent Colonels Dean and Bull. Thomas Paine was appointed secretary to the commission.

On January 7, a company of Indians arrived at Wilkes-Barre to announce the coming of the larger body en route to Easton. About January 15 the main delegation reached Wilkes-Barre. There were seventy men and one hundred women and children in the party.

Among the chiefs were the following: Taasquah, or “King Charles,” of the Cayuga; Tawanah, or “The Big Tree,” of the Seneca; Mytakawha, or “Walking on Foot,” and Kaknah, or “Standing by a Tree,” of the Munsee; Amatincka, or “Raising Anything” of the Nanticoke; Wilakinko, or “King Last Night” of the Conoy, and Thomas Green, whose wife was a Mohawk, as interpreter.

The Indians held an informal conference there and received food from the Wyoming authorities.

The conference was formally opened at Easton, January 27, in the new First (German) Reformed Church, on North Third street. It is said that while the organ played the members of the commission and the Indians shook hands with each other and drank rum to the health of the Congress and the Six Nations and their allies before proceeding to business.

It was soon learned that the English, through the influence of Colonel John Butler, in the King’s service at Niagara, were making a great effort to turn the Indians against the Americans.

In an official report of the treaty, subsequently made to the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, it was stated: “The Indians seem to be inclined to act the wise part with respect to the present dispute. If they are to be relied upon, they mean to be neuter. We have already learnt their good intentions.”

The members of the Supreme Executive Council, chosen under the Constitution of the State, met for the first time March 4, 1777, and proceeded to form an organization and the Council of Safety was dissolved. In joint convention with the Assembly, Thomas Wharton, Jr., was elected president, and George Bryan, vice president. To give new dignity to the executive of the new Government, the inauguration took place on the following day, March 5.

Thomas Wharton, Jr., was born in Philadelphia in 1735. He was descended from an ancient English family and was the grandson of Richard Wharton, who emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1683. His father, Joseph Wharton, of Walnut Grove, was an aristocrat of the day. Thomas Wharton was twice married, first to Susan, daughter of Thomas Lloyd, and subsequently to Elizabeth, daughter of William Fishbourne. He was a warm supporter of the principles of the Revolution, and on the change of government was elected to the highest office in the State.

President Wharton died suddenly May 25 of the following year of an attack of quinsy, at Lancaster. His funeral on the day following was conducted by the State authorities, and as commander-in-chief of the forces of the State he was buried with military honors, and at the request of the vestry was interred within the walls of Trinity Church in Lancaster. By his decease, the Vice President, George Bryan, assumed the executive functions.

On March 13 the Supreme Executive Council appointed a navy board, consisting of Andrew Caldwell, Joseph Blewer, Joseph Marsh, Emmanuel Eyre, Robert Ritchie, Paul Cox, Samuel Massey, William Bradford, Thomas Fitzsimmons, Samuel Morris, Jr., and J. Thomas Barclay, to which board was committed all powers necessary for that service. The board entered very promptly upon its duties, meeting with many difficulties, boats out of repair and inefficiently manned, difficulties about rank in the fleet, all of which it succeeded in overcoming.

The same day a Board of War was appointed consisting of David Rittenhouse, Owen Biddle, William Moore, Joseph Dean, Samuel Morris, Sr., Samuel Cadwallader Morris, John Bayard, George Gray and Colonel John Bull. This board served most capably in assisting to carry out the provisions of the new militia law.

The Speaker of the House being seriously ill, John Bayard was chosen Speaker March 17. On the 20th Joseph Reed was appointed Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, but he declined on account of military engagements and on July 28 Thomas McKean was named for that office.

On June 13, the Assembly required all white male inhabitants over eighteen years of age, except in Bedford, Northumberland, and Westmoreland Counties to take an oath of allegiance before July 1, and those in said counties before August 1, excepting, however, delegates in Congress, prisoners of war, officers and soldiers in the Continental army and merchants and marines in port trading from foreign powers and not becoming subjects. Any person refusing should be incapable of holding office, serving on juries, electing or being elected or even bringing lawsuits, or buying or selling lands and as was perfectly reasonable, should be disarmed.

Early in June, General Howe, commander of the British forces at New York, showed a disposition to advance by land across New Jersey, and to take possession of Philadelphia. On the 14th of that month he actually made an advance by two columns, which led General Washington to believe that this was his real intention. General Mifflin again came to Philadelphia with messages to Congress and the Assembly, and there was intrusted to him and De Coudray the arrangements of the defense of the Delaware River.

The same day General Morris appeared before Congress to say that Philadelphia was in danger.

----------

Massacre of Settlers Along the Juniata River
Began January 28, 1756

The Delaware Indians, especially those who lived west of the Susquehanna River, were exceedingly angry because of the sale of the lands along the Susquehanna and Juniata to the whites, and declared that those coveted hunting grounds had been given to them (the Delaware) by the Six Nations, and that therefore the latter had no right to sell them.

The Six Nations admitted that they had given the region to their cousins, the Delaware, as a hunting ground, yet they did not hesitate to make the sale to the English in 1754, and to confirm it in 1758.

The Delaware received none of the 400 pounds which had been paid to the Six Nations, and it is little wonder that they sought an opportunity and pretext for that revenge against the English which they dared not show against their ancient conquerors, the Six Nations.

Such an opportunity was presented by General Braddock’s disaster on the Monongahela, July 9, 1755, immediately after which they, with the Shawnee, became the active allies of the French.

Within three months their war parties had crossed the Alleghanies eastward, and had committed atrocities among the frontier settlements.

On October 16 occurred the massacre on Penn’s Creek, in what is now Snyder County, and on the 25th, John Harris’ party was ambushed at Mahanoy Creek.

On January 27, 1756, a party of Indians from Shamokin (now Sunbury) made a foray in the Juniata Valley, first attacking the house of Hugh Mitcheltree, who was absent at Carlisle, having left his house in the care of his wife and a young man named Edward Nicholas. Both of these were killed by the Indians, who then went up the river to the house of Edward Nicholas, Sr., whom they killed, also his wife, and took seven prisoners, namely, Joseph, Thomas and Catherine Nicholas, John Wilcox and the wife and two children of James Armstrong.

The scene of the first of these incursions was on the farm of James Mitcheltree, who was a warrantee in Delaware Township in 1755, and where he died in the early part of 1803. This farm then passed into the hands of John Thompson, and it is still in the hands of his descendants. Hugh Mitcheltree, who escaped death or capture in this foray, was carried off by the Indians two months later, March 29, 1756. The Mitcheltree family lived near the present Thompsontown, Juniata County.

While the Indians were committing the murders at the Mitcheltree and Nicholas homes, an Indian named James Cotties, who wished to be captain of the party, but could not be so chosen, took with him a young brave and went to Sherman’s Creek, where they killed William Sheridan and his family, thirteen in number. They then went down the creek to the home of two old men and an elderly woman, named French, whom they killed. Cotties often boasted afterward that he and the boy took more scalps than all the others of the party.

James Cotties, in 1757, went to Fort Hunter and killed a young man named William Martin, while he was busy picking chestnuts. After the war was over, the same Cotties being again at the same fort was reproached by another Indian, named Hambus, for the death of young Martin, and a quarrel ensued in which Hambus killed Cotties.

There are letters extant which give an account of the massacre by the Indians, on the river between Thompsontown and Mexico. They reveal the fact that this was the largest butchery of the whites that ever took place in the east end of Juniata County.

A letter of January 28 proves that Captain James Patterson was with his company at his fort, on the Juniata, the day of the massacres.

Extract from a letter dated Carlisle January 29, 1756, says:

“This afternoon came to town a man that lived on Juniata, who in his journey this way called at the house where the woolcombers lived, about ten miles from this place, and saw at his door a bed-tick, and going into the house found a child lying dead and scalped. This alarmed us much and while we were consulting what to do, we received the enclosed, which puts it past all doubt that the enemy intend to attack Sherman’s Valley or this place. We thought it necessary to acquaint you as soon as possible, not only to hurry you home, but, if thought needful, that the people of York might send over some aid.”

The “enclosed” referred to in the above, was a long letter written by a soldier in the garrison at “Patterson’s Fort, of Juniata,” dated January 28, 1756, in which the fifteen murders of the Wilcox, Nicholas and Armstrong families were explained in all their horrible details, the writer having visited the several places and witnessed for himself the bodies of the victims.

The letter continues:

“The party that went to bury the dead, found one Sheridan and his wife, three children and a man-servant, all murdered; also two others in another house: these within a few miles of Carlisle.

“I am heartily sorry that I must grieve you with an account of a most inhuman murder committed by the Indians at Juniata and Sherman’s Creek on the 27th of last month. Within three miles of Patterson’s Fort was found Adam Nicholson and his wife dead and scalped and his two sons and a daughter carried off; William Wilcock and his wife dead and scalped; Mrs. Hugh Micheltree and son of said Nicholson dead and scalped, with many children, in all about seventeen. The same day one Sheridan, a Quaker, his wife and three children, and a servant were killed and scalped, together with one William Hamilton and his wife and daughter and one French, within ten miles of Carlisle, a little beyond Stephen’s Gap.”

On March 24, Captain James Patterson with his scouting party of borderers fell in with a party of Indians on Middle Creek, now Snyder County, attacked them, killed and scalped one and put the rest to flight. On their return, Patterson reported that the country from the forks of the Susquehanna to the Juniata was “swarming with Indians, looking for scalps and plunder, and burning all the houses and destroying all the grain which the fugitive settlers had left in the region.”

The Indians who committed these depredations were of the Delaware Nation; there were no Shawnee among them. They had their headquarters on the North Branch at Nescopeck and Wyoming, and were so incited by the craftiness of the French that they threatened “to break the heads of any of their own race who advised peace with the English.”

----------

John Penn, “The American,” Born in Slate-Roof
House January 29, 1700

When William Penn crossed the ocean in the Canterbury to visit his province in 1699, he came up to Chester, December 1. Two days later Penn reached Philadelphia, and made a formal call upon his deputy, Governor William Markham, and other dignitaries of the town and province.

From Markham’s house Penn proceeded to the Friends’ meeting house at Second and High Streets, and took part in the afternoon meeting, offering a prayer and delivering one of those short incisive addresses in which he was so happy.

Penn was very well received by all classes, says James Logan, who had come out with the Governor and was in constant attendance upon him.