Part 64

Another rifle company was recruited in York County for fifteen months’ service, which marched from York early in May, 1776, and at Philadelphia became a part of Colonel Samuel Miles’ rifle regiment. In July five battalions of militia marched from York County to New Jersey. Of these five battalions two were formed and attached to the Flying Corps; Colonel Michael Swope commanded the first battalion, and Colonel Richard McAllister the second. Colonel Swope’s battalion suffered severe losses in battles of Long Island and Fort Washington. One company in this battalion lost all but eighteen men at Long Island. Colonel Swope and fourteen of his officers were taken prisoners when Fort Washington fell into the hands of the enemy November 16, 1776. Ensign Jacob Barnitz, of York, was wounded in this battle and lay fifteen months in prison.

Toward the close of 1777, events occurred which brought York into prominence and made it for a time the capital of the now independent States of America. The Continental Congress sat there for nine months, and at a time when its proceedings were of the greatest importance.

The disastrous Battle of Brandywine, fought September 11, 1777, decided the fate of Philadelphia. On the approach of the British towards the Schuylkill, Congress adjourned to meet in Lancaster on September 27, and on the same day adjourned to York. The Susquehanna was regarded as a safe barrier between them and the enemy, and they began their sessions there September 30, where they continued until the British evacuated Philadelphia. The Congress left York June 27, 1778.

October 17, 1777, Congress passed a Resolve, to procure a printing press so that the intelligence which Congress would receive from time to time could be given to the public. The press of Hall and Sellers, of Philadelphia, was set up in York, and even Continental money printed there. This was the first printing press erected in Pennsylvania west of the Susquehanna.

On November 15, Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation; on November 27, a new Board of War was organized. On December 1, Baron Steuben landed at Portsmouth, N. H., and started for York, where he arrived February 5, 1778, and remained two weeks. He was received by Congress with every mark of distinction, and was appointed Inspector General of the Army.

The treaty with France was ratified by Congress May 4, 1778, which was the occasion for a general celebration.

General Gates resided in York during part of the time Congress met there and when Lafayette called upon him, he was surrounded by friends, seated about the table and it was at this dinner the conspiracy was revealed to supplant Washington and make Gates the Commander in Chief of the Army. It was in York that General Gates and Colonel Wilkinson planned to fight a duel to settle their differences, but before the meeting, their troubles were adjusted.

General Wayne arrived in York February 27, 1781, on his way to assume command of part of the Pennsylvania Line which was to reinforce General Greene, then in the south. On May 20, Wayne’s corps, smaller in number than he anticipated, and by no means well equipped, but reduced to discipline and harmony, marched southward from York.

On April 17, 1777, Congress changed the name of the “Committee of Secret Correspondence,” to “Committee of Foreign Affairs,” and appointed Thomas Paine, secretary of the committee. His “American Crisis,” Number V., addressed to General Sir William Howe, commenced in the house of Hon. William Henry of Lancaster, was finished and printed at York.

Major John André, afterwards executed as a spy, was in York for a short time after he was taken prisoner at St. John’s, September, 1775, and was from there transferred to Carlisle.

General Washington visited York in 1791, when he journeyed from Mount Vernon to Philadelphia. He arrived in York from Hanover at 2 o’clock in the afternoon of Saturday, July 2, 1791, and took lodging at the tavern of Baltzer Spangler. He was met with the Independent Light Infantry, commanded by Captain George Hay, which fired a salute of fifteen rounds. He had dinner with Colonel Thomas Hartley, and walked through the principal streets, and drank tea with his distinguished host.

At night there were illuminations and every other demonstration of joy. The next morning his excellency was waited upon by the Chief Burgess and principal inhabitants, and was given an address, to which the President replied. General Washington attended divine service and then proceeded on his journey, being accompanied as far as Wright’s Ferry by a number of the principal inhabitants, among the latter being his close friend Colonel Thomas Hartley.

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Greatest Victory Over Indians Gained by General Wayne at Fallen Timbers, August 20, 1794

After the close of the Revolution the country west of the Ohio was still occupied with Indian tribes ever ready to bring devastation, destruction, and desolation to the homes of the border settlers, and ever incited and aided by the British, who held a number of posts along the lakes. The Indians had determined the Ohio River should be the permanent boundary between them and the United States.

President Washington sent Generals Josiah Harmar and Arthur St. Clair in succession to command troops selected to overawe them, and each in turn experienced bitter defeat by the savages. Washington then sent for General Anthony Wayne and in April, 1782, placed him in command of the Army of the United States.

Wayne understood his mission. He organized his “Legion” in Pittsburgh, June, 1792, consisting of only 2,631 troops recruited from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and New Jersey. Pennsylvania furnished all but 232 of the command.

Wayne inaugurated strict discipline. Two soldiers were shot down for sleeping on their posts. Whiskey was forbidden in the camp and drunkenness severely punished. He insisted upon cleanliness and regularity of diet. He taught the use of the bayonet and the sword. He dined with his officers, and carefully planned every detail of his expedition with their full knowledge.

Wayne had Chief Cornplanter, ninety Choctaw and twenty-five Chicasaw Indians with him, whom he used to sow dissension among the hostile Indians.

The war lasted more than two years during which time there were periods of four and five months that he was without communication with the seat of government. The Government viewed this Indian war with alarm, and not without cause, as two previous defeats made the outcome doubtful.

While the hostile Indians were perfecting their combinations the Government sent commissioners to Fort Erie to sue for peace. The result was that the Indians gained the time they needed, then refused to treat at all, and the burden fell upon Wayne to see that the commissioners reached their homes with their scalps on their heads, for which they formally gave him thanks.

On October 13 he had marched to a point on the Miami River, eighty miles north of Cincinnati, where he found a camp which he fortified and called Greenville and remained there through the winter. From this camp he sent out scouts and spies to secure intelligence and scalps. He also sent a force to the field where St. Clair had been defeated to bury the bones of the dead and erect a stockade called Fort Recovery.

In May a lieutenant with a convoy gallantly charged and repulsed an assault. About seventeen hundred of the enemy made a desperate attempt June 13, to capture an escort under the walls of Fort Recovery and to carry the Fort by storm, keeping up a heavy fire and making repeated efforts for two days, but were finally repulsed. Twenty-one soldiers were killed and twenty-nine wounded.

A few days later, after receiving reinforcements of mounted men from Kentucky, General Wayne marched seventy miles in the heart of the Indian country, built Fort Defiance, and then within sight of a British fort on the Miami River made his preparations for the battle which was inevitable.

He had marched nearly four hundred miles through the country of an enemy, both watchful and vindictive; had cut a road through the woods the entire way, upon a route longer, more remote and more surrounded with dangers than that of Braddock; had overcome almost insuperable difficulties in securing supplies; had built three forts, and now had reached a position where the issue must be decided by arms.

On the morning of August 20, 1794, the army advanced five miles, with the Miami on the right, a brigade of mounted volunteers on the left, a light brigade in their rear, and a selected battalion of horsemen in the lead. They came to a place where a tornado had swept through the forest, and thrown down the trees, since called Fallen Timbers, and where the twisted trunks and uprooted trees lay in such profusion as to impede the movements of the cavalry.

Here the Indians, two thousand in number, encouraged by the proximity of the British fort, determined to make a stand. Hidden in the woods and the high grass, they opened fire upon the mounted men in front and succeeded in driving them back to the main army. The enemy were formed in three lines in supporting distance of each other, extending two miles at right angles to the river and were protected and covered by the woods.

Wayne formed his force in two lines. He saw the enemy was strong in numbers and intended to turn his flank, and met this situation by ordering up the rear line to support the first, by sending a force by a circuitous route to turn the right of the enemy; by sending another force at the same time along the river to turn their left, and by a direct charge in the front to drive the Indians from their covert with the bayonet.

The Indians could not stand this attack, broke in confusion, and were driven two miles in the course of an hour through the woods with great loss. Their dead bodies and the British muskets lay scattered in all directions. All of the village, corn fields and houses, including that of Alexander McKee, the British Indian agent, within a scope of one hundred miles were burned and destroyed.

American annals disclose no such other victory over the savage tribes. It secured for civilization the territory between the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. It made possible the development of such states as Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

When the news reached London, the British Government, recognizing that the cause of the Indians was hopeless, ordered the evacuation of the posts at Detroit, Oswego and Niagara.

Two weeks later General Wayne was crushed to earth by a falling tree, so much bruised as to cause great pain and hemorrhages, and only the fortunate location of a stump, on which the tree finally rested, saved his life.

After the treaty of cession and peace had been executed, and after an absence in the wilderness for three years, he returned home in 1795, everywhere hailed with loud acclaim as the hero of the time and received in Philadelphia by the City Troop and with salvos from cannon, ringing of bells and fireworks.

His last battle had been fought. His work was done. “Both body and mind were fatigued by the contest,” were his pathetic words. Soon afterwards the President sent him as a commissioner to Detroit and on his return he died at Presque Isle, now Erie, December 15, 1796.

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Chief Tedyuskung Annoys Moravian Brethren; Arrives at Bethlehem August 21, 1756

Tedyuskung, the great king of the Delaware tribe and one of the most powerful of the Indian sachems in Pennsylvania, much enjoyed the prominence he gained by frequent councils and conferences with the Governor and other Provincial dignitaries, even at the expense of causing a great jealousy among Indian chiefs of other nations. He was a skilled diplomat, a good speaker and a friend of the English, yet he was rather crafty in his dealings with both the whites and his own race, and was given over to excessive intemperance.

At the conclusion of the great treaty held at Easton, July 24–31, 1756, the Governor and others in authority doubted the sincerity of Tedyuskung, but he satisfied them on that score, and during August remained almost constantly in or about Fort Allen on a drunken debauch. Finally on August 21, he removed with his retinue to Bethlehem, where his wife, Elizabeth, and her three young children determined to remain, while the King went on an expedition to the Minisinks to put a stop to some Indian depredations.

Tedyuskung went from there to Wyoming and sent word to Major Parsons, at Easton, that he wanted his wife and children sent to him. Major Parsons went immediately to Bethlehem and made known the King’s desire to his wife, but she decided to remain where she was. This then was the cause of frequent visits to Bethlehem, where Tedyuskung much annoyed the Moravian Brethren, who were not in position to control his actions when he was their unwelcome visitor.

July, 1757, he was for some time in and about Fort Allen and then in attendance at the second great conference at Easton, during which time his wife and children were with him. Two days after this conference closed Tedyuskung, his family and others went to Bethlehem. Reichel, in his “Memorials of the Moravian Church,” says:

“Some of these unwelcome visitors halted for a few days, and some proceeded as far as Fort Allen and then returned, undecided as to where to go and what to do. During the month full 200 were counted—men, women and children—among them lawless crowds who annoyed the Brethren by depredations, molested the Indians at the Manakasy, and wrangled with each other over their cups at ‘The Crown’.”

Tedyuskung tarried in Bethlehem several days when he set out on a mission to Tioga, but on the way he was met by messengers from the Ohio Indians, who bore such glad tidings that the King determined he should go to Philadelphia and appraise the Governor and Council of the good news.

At Bethlehem Tedyuskung spent a few days with his wife and family, meantime holding a conference with Bishop Spangenberg, Reverend Mack and other Moravian Brethren—Augustus, the christianized Delaware chief serving as interpreter. Tedyuskung inquired of the Moravians why the converted Indians could not move to Wyoming. Bishop Spangenberg told him they would require a town of their own, where a school and church could be built. The king said these should be built there.

He then surprised the Brethren by telling them that reports had been circulated among the Indians that the Moravians had decapitated the Indians among them, placed their heads in bags and sent them to Philadelphia. These charges had so exasperated the Indians that they conspired to attack the Brethren’s settlements and cut off the inhabitants without regard to age or sex. He and Paxinoso had on one occasion persuaded 200 warriors, who had banded together for this purpose, to desist from their design.

After his interview with the Governor and Council in Philadelphia, Tedyuskung returned to Bethlehem, where he remained with his wife and children until October 7 when he again went to Philadelphia.

During all her sojourn in Bethlehem the King’s wife was maintained by the Moravian Brethren at the expense of the Province. Tedyuskung was back in Bethlehem in about ten days and remained until the 27th, when they set out for Wyoming, where the Commissioners were daily expected to build a fort and some houses for the Delaware.

Having previously signified to the Moravian Brethren at Bethlehem his desire to spend the winter at Bethlehem, permission for him and his family to do so was reluctantly granted. Thereupon, upon his return from New Jersey, a lodge was built for him near “The Crown” inn. There he held court and gave audience to the wild embassies that would come from the Indian country.

In addition to Tedyuskung and his family nearly one hundred Indians spent the winter of 1757–58 in the neighborhood of “The Crown.” Reichel says: “Government was imposing an additional burden upon the Brethren when it committed this lawless crowd to their keeping * * * We are at a loss how to act. Furthermore, we are told that some of our neighbors are growing uneasy at our receiving such murdering Indians, as they style them. I fear we shall be obliged to set watches to keep such of them off as are disposed to quarrel with, or may attempt to hurt any of them.”

Tedyuskung attended a long conference in Philadelphia in the early part of 1758, and made trips to and from Bethlehem for this purpose.

He was back in Bethlehem in April, and on the 17th sent a number of the Delaware, who had wintered in the Moravian town, to Fort Allen, there to join Captain Jacob Arndt’s soldiers in ranging the frontiers. He also sent his sons, Captains John Jacob and Amos and three other Delaware over the Allegheny to the Indians towns of the Delaware and Shawnee.

Tedyuskung remained in Bethlehem, and Justice Horsfield wrote on April 18: “I never before was so much convinced of Tedyuskung’s zeal for the English cause.” Five days later, however, a soldier came to Bethlehem from Fort Allen with a letter from Captain Arndt in which he stated that he was having trouble with the Indians sent to the fort by Tedyuskung—the messengers, who were still there, as well as those who were to range being continually drunk, having brought with them some casks of rum from Easton.

Tedyuskung made another trip to Philadelphia in May to urge the Governor to again send the Commissioners to finish the fort and the houses. He returned to Bethlehem about May 8.

Reichel says: “When the swelling of the maple buds and the whitening of the shad-bush on the river’s bank betokened the advent of Spring, there were busy preparations going on in Tedyuskung’s company over the matter of their long-expected removal to the Indian Eldorado on the flats of the Winding River. It was the 16th of cornplanting month (May), the month called Tauwinipen, when the Delaware King, his Queen, his counsellors and his warriors led by the Commissioners, took up the line of march for Fort Allen, beyond there to strike the Indian trail that led over the mountains to Wyoming Valley—and on the going out of these spirits ‘The Crown’ was swept and garnished and Ephriam Colver, the publican, had rest.”

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Gilbert Family in Indian Captivity Twenty-nine Months Released August 22,1782

Benjamin Gilbert and family, living on Mahoning Creek, about five miles from Fort Allen, now Weissport, Carbon County, were carried into a bitterly painful captivity by a party of Indians, who took them to Canada, and there separated them. At the time of this occurrence, April 25, 1780, the event caused intense excitement throughout the State, and from an interesting narrative published shortly after their release from captivity, August 22, 1782, the following facts are ascertained.

Benjamin Gilbert was a Quaker from Byberry, near Philadelphia, and in 1775 removed with his family to a farm on Mahoning Creek, near Fort Allen. They lived comfortably in a good log dwelling house, with barn and saw and grist mill. For five years all was peace and industry.

On the eventful day, about sunrise they were surprised by a party of Indians who took the following prisoners: Benjamin Gilbert, aged 69; Elizabeth, his wife, 55 years; sons, Joseph, aged 41; Jesse, 19; Abner, 14; and daughters, Rebecca, 16; and Elizabeth, 12; and Sarah, wife of Jesse; Thomas Peart, son of Benjamin Gilbert’s wife; Benjamin Gilbert, a nephew of the elder Gilbert; Andrew Harrigar, a German servant and Abigail Dodson, a neighbor’s daughter, the whole number taken being twelve. The Indians then proceeded about half a mile to Benjamin Peart’s and there captured himself and his wife and their nine months’ old child.

The last look the poor captives had of their once comfortable homes was to view the buildings in flames as they were led over Summer Hill, on their way over Mauch Chunk and Broad Mountains into the Nescopeck Path, and then across Quakake Creek to Mahanoy Mountain, where they passed the first night, fastened between notched saplings, with straps around their necks and fastened to a tree.

Their march was resumed soon after dawn and day after day they tramped over the wild and rugged region between the Lehigh and the Chemunk branch of the Susquehanna. Often ready to faint by the way, the cruel threat of instant death urged them again to march. The old man, Benjamin Gilbert, had begun to fail, and was already painted black, the fatal omen among the Indians; but when they were to kill him, the pitiful pleadings of his wife saved him. Subsequently in Canada, Gilbert told the chief he could say what none of the other Indians could, “that he had brought in the oldest man and the youngest child.”

On the fifty-fourth day of their captivity, the Gilbert family had to experience the fearful ordeal of running the gauntlet.

“The prisoners,” says the narrative, “were released from the heavy loads they had heretofore been compelled to carry, and were it not for the treatment they expected on approaching the Indian towns, and the hardship of separation, their situation would have been tolerable; but the horror of their minds, arising from the dreadful yells of the Indians as they approached the hamlets, is easier conceived than described—for they were no strangers to the customary cruelty exercised upon the captives on entering their towns. The Indians, men, women and children, collect together, bringing clubs and stones in order to beat them, which they usually do with great severity. The blows must be borne without complaint. The prisoners are beaten until the Indians weary with the cruel sport.

“Two of the women who were on horseback were much bruised by falling from their horses, which were frightened by the Indians. Elizabeth, the mother, took shelter by the side of a warrior, who sent her away, she then received several violent blows, so that she was almost disabled. The blood trickled from their heads in a stream. Their hair being cropped close and the clothes they had on in rags, made their situation truly piteous. Whilst the Indians were inflicting this revenge upon the captives, the chief came and put a stop to any further cruelty.”

Soon after this torture, a severer trial awaited them, when they were separated. Some were given over to other Indians to be adopted, others were hired out as servants, and the remainder were sent down the lake to Montreal. Among the latter was old Benjamin Gilbert, by this time broken in body and mind, and he there succumbed. His remains were interred near old Fort Coeur du Lac, below Ogdensburg.

Some of the family met with kind treatment from the hands of British officers, who were interested in their story, and exerted themselves to release them from captivity. Sarah Gilbert, wife of Jesse, became a mother, and Elizabeth Gilbert was allowed to give her daughter every necessary attendance. One day while Elizabeth was ironing for the family of Adam Scott, a little girl told her some one wanted to see her and upon entering another room, she found six of her own children. A messenger was sent to inform Jesse and his wife, so that Joseph Gilbert, Benjamin Peart and Elizabeth, his wife, and their young child, and Abner and Elizabeth Gilbert the younger, were with their mother on this occasion.

Elizabeth Gilbert, the younger, only twelve years of age, had been adopted by an Indian family, but was permitted to live with a white family named Secord, by whom she was treated with endearing attention.