Part 61

The sentinels discharged their rifles at the savages and ran towards the reapers. A panic ensued and they all fled with the exception of young Brady, who ran for his rifle, closely pursued by three Indians. When almost within reach of his gun, an Indian shot at Brady, who was probably saved by his timely fall over a sheaf of wheat. When he grasped for his rifle he was shot in the arm, but succeeded in killing the Indian who fired at him.

Brady grabbed a second rifle and as quickly dispatched another Indian, but the savages now closed in on him, and he fought bravely until a warrior struck him with his tomahawk and another pierced him with a spear, which felled him to the ground. Brady had no sooner fallen than his scalp was torn from his head, and a young Indian was called upon to strike him with his tomahawk. The Indians then fled in great haste.

Brady recovered consciousness, and succeeded by walking and creeping, in reaching the cabin of an old man, named Jerome Vanness, near the bank of the river, who had been employed to cook for Brady and his companions while on this tour of duty.

Vanness heard the firing and had concealed himself, but on seeing Brady approach, rushed to his assistance. Brady urged the aged man to fly for his own safety, but he refused to leave his “captain,” and dressed his terrible wounds as best he could.

Brady requested to be assisted down to the river, where he drank much water, and lay until Vanness went back for his gun.

When the terrified reapers and militiamen reached Fort Muncy, Captain Andrew Walker hurried a detail to Smith’s farm. On approaching the spot where the gallant Brady lay weltering in his blood, he heard the relief party, and supposing them to be Indians, immediately jumped to his feet, cocked his rifle, and prepared to defend himself.

When Brady found the party to be friends, he requested to be taken to his mother, who was visiting among relatives at Sunbury.

He was tenderly cared for, placed in a canoe, and taken rapidly down the river. During the trip of nearly thirty miles he became delirious.

When the party arrived at Sunbury, although it was nearly midnight, his mother met the canoe at the landing and assisted to convey her wounded son to the house.

Brady presented a frightful appearance and the grief of his mother was pitiable. He lived five days, dying in the arms of his devoted mother, August 13, 1778.

On the day of his death his reason returned and he related with much detail the bloody scene through which he had passed.

Some writers have stated that Chief Bald Eagle scalped him, and that his brother, Captain Samuel Brady, afterwards avenged his death by shooting Bald Eagle through the heart.

The unfortunate young hero was buried near Fort Augusta. He was mourned by all who knew him.

James Brady was the second son of Captain John and Mary Brady, and a younger brother of Captain Samuel Brady, the famous scout and Indian killer. He was born in 1758, while his parents lived at Shippensburg, Cumberland County, and was in his twenty-first year at the time of his tragic death.

Many anecdotes of the Brady family have been handed down, and one relating to James is interesting. The men of that time wore their hair long, plaited and cued behind the head. James had a remarkably fine head of fiery red hair. A neighbor remarked that she feared the Indians would get this red scalp. James replied: “If they do, it will make them a bright light of a dark night.” In less than a week the noble youth fell beneath the cruel tomahawk and the savages had his red scalp.

His father, Captain John Brady, was murdered near Muncy by the Indians, April 11, 1779, while home on a leave of absence from the Continental Army.

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General John Bull, Distinguished Officer of Revolutionary War, Died August 9, 1824

Among the early patriots of the Revolution was Colonel John Bull, and he was quite as much a distinguished citizen and statesman. John Bull was born in 1730, in Providence Township, now Montgomery County. He was appointed captain in the Provincial service, May 12, 1758, and the following month was in command of the garrison at Fort Allen.

In October the same year he accompanied General John Forbes’ expedition for the reduction of Fort Duquesne, and rendered important service in the negotiations with the Indians. The instructions to Captain Bull were dated Easton, October 21, 1758, and are most specific. He and William Hayes had volunteered to carry important messages to the Indians on the Ohio.

Pesquetomen and Thomas Hickman, two Delaware Indians from the Ohio, accompanied the provincial messengers, who set out in October, going by way of Reading and Fort Henry to Fort Augusta, where they were equipped and supplied with such articles as they needed. They carried belts of wampum and even the outlines of the speeches they were to make to the western Indians when in council. This mission was performed to the entire satisfaction of the Provincial Government and John Bull became at once a trusted official on important occasions.

In 1771 Captain Bull owned the Norris plantation and mill, and was residing there at the opening of the Revolution. This is on the present site of Norristown. He was a delegate to the Provincial Conferences of January 23, 1775, and of June 18, 1775, and a member of the Provincial Convention of July 15, 1776.

The First Pennsylvania Battalion was raised in pursuance of a resolution of Congress, October 12, 1775. The field officers were elected by Congress, November 25, and John Bull was commissioned a colonel.

On January 20, 1776, the Colonel resigned in a communication to Congress setting forth that he was ill-treated by many of the officers and that nearly one-half of them threatened to resign if he continued in command. He also stated that this circumstance would not alter his conduct or abate his zeal, and whenever called upon again to serve his country, he would, with the greatest pleasure, obey the summons. Colonel Bull was succeeded by Colonel John Philip DeHaas, of Lebanon, who was commissioned two days later.

Colonel Bull served as one of the Commissioners at the important Indian treaty held at Easton, January 30, 1777; in February he was in command of the works at Billingsport.

The Supreme Executive Council created the Board of War, March 13, 1777, and named Colonel John Bull as one of the original members. They organized the following day.

On May 2, he was commissioned colonel of the State Regiment of Foot, which was organized with the residue of the battalions of Colonels Samuel Miles and Samuel J. Atlee, as a nucleus. June 2 this regiment was stationed at Fort Mercer, under command of Colonel Bull, its strength being four hundred and sixty-three.

As Colonel Bull was not an officer of either battalion, the other officers claimed his appointment ruined their rank, and as the regiment was put in the Continental service, June 10, 1777, the Supreme Executive Council appointed Colonel Bull adjutant general of the militia of Pennsylvania, and appointed Walter Stewart to the command of the regiment, which participated at Brandywine and Germantown.

He was also colonel of the Sixth Battalion of Associators, of Philadelphia, during 1777. During October of this year, Colonel Bull’s barns, barracks, grain and hay were burned by the British, and his wagons, horses, sheep and Negroes carried off, although General Howe had given his word to Mrs. Bull that they would not be disturbed.

In December, Brigadier General James Irvine was wounded and captured in the attempted surprise by the British at Whitemarsh, and Colonel Bull succeeded to the command of the Second Brigade Pennsylvania Militia, under command of General John Armstrong.

During Christmas week, 1777, the British crossed the Delaware and made a raid into New Jersey, another detachment at the same time crossed at Gray’s Ferry and took the road to Chester and Darby, with three hundred wagons. Howe and Erskine were with them; they made a demonstration towards Chester. Several pickets and detachments skirmished on their front and flank, under Captain Potterfield.

Colonel John Bull, with his brigade marched to force the foragers to retire by demonstrating against the enemy’s lines. His forces were distributed on the Frankford, Germantown and Ridge Roads, and caused the enemy to sound a general alarm. Bull planted his cannon, on Christmas Day, and fired several shots at the heart of the city, then withdrew to Frankford.

Marshall says: “Col. Bull, on the twenty-fifth instant, made an excursion into Fourth Street, Philadelphia, with two thousand militia, and alarmed the city by firing some pieces of cannon into the air, whereby some of the ball fell about Christ Church. He then made a good retreat back to his station, without the loss of a man.” The enemy, however, made no more raids.

In 1778 and 1779 he was engaged in erecting the defenses for Philadelphia; in 1779 he put down the chevaux de frize in the Delaware, and in 1780 he was Commissary of Purchases at Philadelphia, and appears to have been one of the busiest and most indefatigable of workers.

After the Revolution General Bull located at Northumberland, this was about 1785. In 1802 he was a candidate for the Legislature, but was defeated by Simon Snyder; in 1803, 1804 and 1805 he was elected to the Legislature, and three years later was defeated for Congress on the Federalist ticket.

General Bull died August 9, 1824, at the extreme age of ninety-four years. His wife, Mary Phillips Bull, died February 23, 1811, aged eighty years. The Northumberland Argus says “she was buried in the Quaker graveyard and General Bull, though much reduced by sickness and old age, previous to the grave being closed addressed the people as follows:

“'The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord; may we who are soon to follow be as well prepared as she was.'”

Truly a soldier to the very end of his eventful life.

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Colonel Bouquet Relieved Garrison at Fort Pitt August 10, 1763

Colonel Henry Bouquet established his rendezvous in Carlisle during the latter part of June, 1763, where he had assembled five hundred troops, selected from his British forces and several companies of Provincial Rangers. He was preparing to rush to the succor of Fort Pitt and other places which were being attacked by Indians under the inspiring leadership of Pontiac, the great chief of the Ottawa, who had formed a confederation of the Indians against the English.

Everywhere along the frontier of Pennsylvania was desolation, the settlers had fled in terror and the interior settlements were crowded with refugees. Especially is this true of Carlisle, where the brave Swiss, Colonel Bouquet, was receiving first hand intelligence of the sufferings and devastation caused by the savages.

On July 3, 1763, a courier from Fort Bedford rode into Carlisle, and as he stopped to water his horse, he was surrounded by an anxious crowd, to whom he told a sad tale of woe, and as he hurriedly mounted his horse to ride to Colonel Bouquet’s tent, he shouted, “The Indians will soon be here.”

Terror and excitement spread everywhere, messengers were dispatched in every direction to give the alarm, and the reports, harrowing as they had been, were confirmed by the fugitives who were met on every road and by-path hurrying to Carlisle for refuge.

A party armed themselves and went out to warn the living and bury the dead. They found death and destruction everywhere, and sickened with horror at seeing groups of hogs tearing and devouring the bodies of the dead.

After a delay of eighteen days, Bouquet secured enough wagons, horses and oxen, and began his perilous march towards Fort Pitt. His force was much smaller than General Braddock’s and he had to encounter a foe much more formidable. But Bouquet, the man of iron will and iron hand, had served seven years in American forests and, unlike the unfortunate Braddock, understood his work.

On July 25 Bouquet reached Fort Bedford, where he was fortunate in securing thirty backwoodsmen to accompany him. This little army toiled through the blazing heat of July over the Allegheny Mountains, and reached Fort Ligonier August 2.

The Indians who had besieged that fort for two months disappeared at the approach of the troops. Here Bouquet left his oxen and wagons and resumed his march two days later. At noon on the 5th he encountered the enemy at Bushy Run. A terrible battle raged for two days when the Indians were put to rout. The loss of the British was one hundred and fifteen men and eight officers. The little army was then twenty-five miles distant from Fort Pitt, which place was reached August 10.

The enemy had abandoned the siege on this fort and marched their forces to unite with those engaged in combat with Colonel Bouquet at Bushy Run, so when they were compelled to retreat after that battle, they had not sufficient time, or lacked the courage to attack Fort Pitt with Colonel Bouquet in hot pursuit.

It was at this time that Colonel Bouquet built the little redoubt which is at the present all that remains of Fort Pitt, in fact is the only existing monument of British occupancy in the vicinity of Pittsburgh.

The Indians abandoned all their former settlements, and retreated to the Muskingum; here they formed new settlements, and in the spring of 1764 again began to ravage the frontier. To put an end to these depredations, General Gage planned a campaign into the western wilderness from two points. General Bradstreet was ordered to advance by way of the lakes, and Colonel Bouquet was to go forward from Fort Pitt.

After the usual delays and disappointments in securing troops from Pennsylvania and Virginia to aid in this expedition Colonel Bouquet again arrived at Fort Pitt, September 17, where he was detained until October 3. He led his troops from Fort Pitt following the north bank of the Ohio until he reached the Beaver, where he turned towards central Ohio.

Bouquet refused to listen to either threats or promises from the Indians, and declined to treat with them at all until they should deliver up their prisoners. Although not a single blow was struck the Indians were vanquished.

Bouquet continued his march down the valley of the Muskingum until he reached a spot where some broad meadows offered a suitable place for encampment. Here he received a deputation of principal chiefs, listened to their offers of peace, and demanded the delivery of all the prisoners. Soon band after band of captives arrived, until more than three hundred were brought into the encampment.

The scenes which followed the restoration of these prisoners to their families and friends beggar all description; wives recovering their husbands, husbands their wives, parents regaining children whom they could scarcely recognize, brothers and sisters meeting after long separation and sometimes hardly able to converse in the same language.

The story is told of a woman whose daughter had been carried off nine years before. The mother recognized her child among the prisoners, but the girl, who had almost forgotten her mother tongue, showed no sign of recognition. The mother complained to Colonel Bouquet that the daughter she had so often sung to sleep on her knee had forgotten her. “Sing the song to her that you used to sing when she was a child,” said Colonel Bouquet. She did so, and with a passionate flood of tears the long lost daughter flung herself into her mother’s arms.

Everything being settled the army broke camp November 18, and arrived again at Fort Pitt on the 28th.

Early in January Colonel Bouquet returned to Philadelphia, receiving wherever he went every possible mark of gratitude and esteem from the people. The Assembly of Pennsylvania and the House of Burgesses of Virginia each unanimously voted him addresses of thanks, and on the arrival in England of the first account of this expedition the King promoted him to the rank of Brigadier General, to command the Southern District of North America.

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Colonel Brodhead Wins Thanks of Congress for Raid Started August 11, 1779

Raids on the Pennsylvania and Virginia frontier in 1778 were made by the Indians of the Ohio country; those of 1779 by the Seneca and Munsee of the North, from the upper tributaries of the Susquehanna and Allegheny Rivers.

The Seneca tribe of Western New York was the largest of the Six Nations, and its warriors second only to the Mohawk in courage and military prowess. Under Cornplanter, Guyasuta and other war captains they distressed a wide extent of territory in New York and Pennsylvania and decorated their huts with the scalps of hundreds of white persons.

Early in the summer of 1779, Washington directed that General John Sullivan lead a large force against the Iroquois country from the east, and in July Colonel Brodhead received permission to undertake a movement of cooperation up the Allegheny Valley.

The expedition consisting of 615 men under Colonel Brodhead left Pittsburgh August 11, 1779. Small garrisons were left to guard Forts Pitt, McIntosh, Crawford and Armstrong. A small band of Delaware accompanied the expedition, and acted as scouting parties under Captain Samuel Brady and Lieutenant Hardin.

The provisions were conveyed up the river by boats as far as the mouth of the Big Mahoning, where the supplies were taken from the boats, loaded on the horses, and the expedition proceeded under the most unfavorable conditions. The expedition here left the river and followed an Indian trail almost due north, through what is now Clarion county.

A few miles below Brokenstraw Creek occurred a fight with savages, near where Thompson is now situated. Lieutenant Hardin was leading the advance, with fifteen white scouts and eight Delaware, when they discovered more than thirty Seneca warriors coming down the river in seven canoes, under the famous Chief Guyasuta. Each party discovered the other at about the same time. The Seneca paddled for shore, threw off their shirts and prepared for battle, little aware of the number of their opponents.

Both sides took to trees and rocks and began a sharp fusillade, until a few minutes another party of scouts appeared, took the Seneca on the flank and poured a hot fire upon them. At the sound of this firing Colonel Brodhead formed his column so as to protect his pack train and then hurried forward with reinforcements. He arrived just in time to witness the retreat of the Seneca, who now realized the strength of the white force. Five Indians were killed and several wounded. Eight guns and seven canoes containing their blankets, shirts and provisions were prizes. Only three of Brodhead’s men were slightly wounded.

The army went into camp near the scene of the conflict and on the following morning moved to Brokenstraw Creek. Here Colonel Brodhead decided to leave his stores and baggage and march light to Conewago. A rude breastwork was constructed of fallen trees and bundles of faggots, on a high bluff which commanded an extensive view up and down the river. This post was garrisoned by an officer and forty men, while the expedition pushed on for Conewago. Upon arrival the Colonel was disappointed to find the Iroquois town deserted and their huts falling into decay.

After a hard march of twenty miles the army came again within sight of the Allegheny River, and from a hilltop they discovered a number of Indian villages, surrounded by great fields of splendid corn and patches of beans, squashes and melons. This Iroquois settlement extended for eight miles along the fertile bottom land of the Allegheny River, where the great Cornplanter reservation was afterwards established.

The Indian spies had discovered the approach of the American forces, and the warriors had fled so hastily with their women and children that they left behind many deer skins and other articles of value.

The Iroquois had long before this learned to build substantial log houses, even squaring the timbers as was the custom of the white pioneer settlers. In this village there were about 130 houses, some of them large enough to accommodate three or four families.

Colonel Brodhead sent a report to General Washington, saying: “The troops remained on the ground three whole days, destroying the towns and corn fields. I never saw finer corn, although it was planted much thicker than is common with our farmers. The quantity of corn and vegetables destroyed at the several towns, from the best accounts I can collect from the officers employed to destroy it, must certainly exceed 500 acres, which is the lowest estimate and the plunder taken is estimated at $3,000. From the great quantity of corn in the ground and the number of new houses built and building, it appears that the whole Seneca and Muncy nations intended to collect in this settlement.”

On the return march the supplies were picked up at Buckaloons and the troops marched across country to French Creek. At Oil Creek the soldiers rubbed themselves freely with oil which they found floating on the water, and received great relief from their rheumatic pains and stiffness. For many years this petroleum was called Seneca oil, and was supposed to be valuable only for its medicinal qualities.

The army soon reached French Creek, at the mouth of the Conneaut Creek, where the Munsee town of Maghingue-chahocking was found to be deserted. It consisted of 35 large huts, which were burned. The Munsee formed a branch of the Wolf clan of the Delaware, and they enjoyed an unenviable reputation as thieves, murderers and general desperadoes.

The army descended French Creek almost to its mouth and thence returned to Fort Pitt by what is known as the Venango path almost due north and south through the heart of Butler County.

The expedition arrived at Fort Pitt on September 14 without the loss of a man or a horse. Brodhead wrote: “I have a happy presage that the counties of Westmoreland, Bedford and Northumberland, if not the whole western frontier, will experience the good effect of it. Too much praise cannot be given to both officers and soldiers of every corps during the whole expedition. Their perseverance and zeal can scarcely be equaled in history.”

The thanks of Congress were voted to Colonel Brodhead, and in a general order, issued October 18, General Washington said: “The activity, perseverance, and firmness of all the officers and men of every description in this expedition, do them great honor, and their services entitle them to the thanks and to this testimonial of the General’s acknowledgement.”

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Era of Indian Traders to Death of Allummapees, August 12, 1731

At what date and by whom the North and West Branch Valleys of the Susquehanna and the Juniata Valley were first traversed, and the Alleghenies first crossed by Europeans in a journey to the Ohio, is unrecorded, and must forever remain unknown.

The first white men who ventured into the unexplored forests among these mountains were not given to keeping journals of their travels for future historians. No one seems to have thought of immortalizing himself by bequeathing to us a good description giving minute details of the country and its tribes.