Part 79
There have been many stories of “Molly Pitcher,” and they have not always agreed even on the main facts. But on the occasion of the ceremonies incident to unveiling the cannon erected over her grave in the “Old Graveyard,” in Carlisle, by the Patriotic Orders Sons of America, on June 28, 1905, an excellent short biography of the “Heroine of the Battle of Monmouth” was prepared by John B. Landis, Esq., from which the following story is taken.
The heroine’s name was not “Pitcher,” but Ludwig, and at the time she earned her well-known sobriquet she was the wife of an artilleryman. Her father, John George Ludwig, came to this country from the Palatinate, and settled near Trenton, in Mercer County, New Jersey, where he engaged in the occupation of dairyman. It was here his daughter Mary was born, on October 13, 1754, and here among the surroundings of her father’s home were spent the youthful days of the future “Molly Pitcher.”
The wife of Dr. William Irvine, of Carlisle, afterward General William Irvine, and one of the greatest patriots of the Revolution, was visiting friends in Trenton when she saw the youthful Mary Ludwig, and, being pleased with her and in need of a domestic, took the young girl with her on returning to Carlisle.
Mary had hardly become accustomed to her surroundings in the fine home of Dr. and Mrs. Irvine until she met John Casper Hays, a barber, whose shop was near the Irvine residence. Their courtship was of short duration, for a marriage was solemnized on July 24, 1769.
A few years of quiet wedded life, disturbed only by the warlike preparations centered about the patriotic town of Carlisle, and John Casper Hays became a soldier. He enlisted December 1, 1775, in Colonel Thomas Proctor’s First Pennsylvania Artillery, in which he served as a gunner. His term of enlistment expired December, 1776, but he re-enlisted January, 1777, in the Seventh Pennsylvania Regiment, of the Continental Line, in the company commanded by Captain John Alexander, of Carlisle.
Dr. Irvine also was one of the first patriots to respond to the cause of the colonists, and January 9, 1776, was commissioned Colonel of the Sixth Pennsylvania Regiment. He became Brigadier General May 2, 1779. Previous to that time, however, on June 6, 1776, he was captured at Three Rivers, and remained a prisoner on parole until his exchange, April 21, 1778, when he assumed command of the Seventh Pennsylvania Regiment, in which John Casper Hays was a private soldier.
After young Hays left Carlisle with his regiment, his wife remained employed at Colonel Irvine’s. Some time thereafter her parents, who still resided in New Jersey, sent a message with courier for her to visit them, and the same horseman carried a letter from her husband, begging her to go, as he might then get an opportunity to see her, as his regiment was then nearby. With Mrs. Irvine’s consent Mary set out on her long journey, traveling on horseback. At the time Molly Hays was a young woman of twenty-five years.
To prevent the movement of the British on New York, General Washington marched his troops again into New Jersey, and the Battle of Monmouth was fought June 28, 1778.
The battle continued from 11 o’clock in the morning until dark, and the day was one of the hottest of the year. Fifty soldiers are said to have died of thirst, and the tongues of many said to have been so greatly swollen as to protrude from the mouth.
While the battle was in progress Molly carried water for the thirsting soldiers from a neighboring spring, which is still pointed out on the historic battlefield. Back and forth she went under shelter or under fire, supplying the much-needed water. Possibly, as is stated by some, it was carried in the cannoneer’s bucket. In whatever way it was carried the sight of Molly with her “pitcher” was a welcome sight to the weary and thirsty Continentals.
Molly’s husband, having served a year in Proctor’s Artillery, and though now an infantryman, had been detailed as a gunner in a battery that was engaged. Doubtless Molly was never out of sight of that battery. As she approached with water she saw a soldier lying at the gun, whom she thought to be her husband, and hurrying on she found her husband wounded, but the dead man was one of his comrades. Her husband recovered, but lived only a few years after the close of the war.
It is stated that the cannon was ordered to the rear and would have been taken off the field had not Molly bravely sprung to her husband’s place, and so kept the gun in action.
For her wonderful patriotism and self-sacrificing devotion to the soldiers she was dubbed “Sergeant” and by some called “Major Molly.”
“Moll Pitcher she stood by her gun, And rammed the charges home, sir. And thus on Monmouth’s bloody field A sergeant did become, sir.”
How long Molly stood by her gun, through the smoke and din of battle, on that hot and terrible day, is not a matter of record, but the water she carried to those soldiers and the service she rendered with the battery has been testified to by many whom she helped.
Molly was no imaginary heroine, but a real buxom lass, a strong, sturdy, courageous woman. Her name belongs on the roll of the world’s heroines, and some years ago the State of New Jersey honored “Molly Pitcher” by commemorating her heroic act on one of the five tablets surrounding the base of the beautiful monument erected at Freehold on the historic field.
Some years after the death of her first husband, Sergeant John Casper Hays, she married George McKolly, another soldier and a comrade of Hays, and she then became known as Molly McKolly. This name was also written “McAuley,” and “McCauley” while on her tombstone it was inscribed “McCauly.”
At the entrance to the grounds where until recently was the Carlisle Indian School, formerly for many years United States barracks, still stands the old stone guard house, which was built by the Hessian prisoners taken at the Battle of Trenton, and which escaped the fire when the barracks were burned by the Confederates in 1863.
At that post Molly lived for many years after the Revolutionary War, cooking and washing for the soldiers. Subsequently she kept a small store in the town proper, but the latter years of her life were lived in a stone house, where she died on Sunday, January 22, 1832. She attended the Lutheran Church and was respected by her neighbors.
On July 4, 1876, a marble headstone was unveiled over her grave, which had been erected by Peter Spohr, who knew her well and was present at her funeral. On this occasion an eloquent and interesting address was delivered by Captain Joseph G. Vale, a veteran officer of the Civil War.
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William Penn, Born October 14, 1644—His Youth and Early Struggles for Religious Belief
William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania and one of the most distinguished members of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, a preacher and writer, was born in London, October 14, 1644.
His father was Admiral Sir William Penn, of the English Royal Navy, and his mother was Margaret Jasper, a remarkable Dutch lady, of Rotterdam.
While the Admiral was off on the seas, his wife and little son resided on one of his estates at Wanstead in Essex.
William Penn went to school at Chigwell, near by, where he was apparently under influences largely Puritan. At the age of eleven strong religious conviction came suddenly upon him.
His boyhood days were lived during the Protectorate. The Admiral, after receiving honors and riches from Cromwell, had so timed his change of loyalty as to gather in a good share of the rewards distributed at the time of the Restoration.
He was in a condition to send his son to the most aristocratic of Oxford Colleges, and at the age of fifteen, William Penn became a “Gentleman Commoner of Christ Church.”
Through the preaching of Thomas Loe he became a convert to the doctrine of the Quakers. The results were not exactly Quakerly, however, for in company with a friend, he forcibly tore from the backs of fellow students the “popish rags,” as surplices were called by the zealous Puritans of the day.
For this he left college, whether by the action of the authorities or not does not clearly appear.
He went to his home and announced himself a Quaker. His father intended him for a high career in the state, and no news could have been more unwelcome than this. His father turned him out of the house. The mother reconciled them, and the youth was sent to France, with a hope that gay society in Paris might redeem him from his almost morbid soberness.
Penn entered partially into the circle of fashion; thence he went to Naumur, the Protestant college, where he laid the foundation of that extensive knowledge of patristic literature so much in evidence in his future writings; thence to Italy, where he received a letter from his father calling him home.
On his return, in 1664, in compliance with the wishes of his father, he became a student of law.
The great fire in London, in 1665, drove him from the city and deepened his serious convictions.
He was sent by his father to manage his large Irish estates. He joined the expedition to put down an insurrection in Carrickfergus, and procured for himself a suit of armor, in which he seems to have been painted. His martial ardor was of short duration.
Thomas Loe again crossed his path in Cork and Penn became a Quaker never more to falter. He was soon imprisoned with his fellows, and this was the beginning of many and severe confinements which lasted at intervals through his life.
His father again drove him from his house. In time they were reconciled and the Admiral on his deathbed endorsed the course of his son.
Penn began immediately to preach and to enter into the theological controversy of his time. He was soon arrested and confined in the Tower nine months, during which he wrote his principal work, entitled “No Cross, No Crown.”
Penn was again arrested for preaching in the streets of London, and at his trial the jury declared him not guilty, but the court determined to convict him, ordered the jury to bring in a verdict of guilty. They refused and were fined and sent to Newgate Prison.
On his release from prison Penn made a trip to Holland and Germany, preaching the gospel.
He took advantage of a little surcease from jails to marry, in his 28th year, Gulielma Maria Springett, daughter of Sir William Springett, a woman of great beauty and sweetness.
A declaration of indulgence for dissenters issued by Charles II, in 1672, now made his life easier, and with an ample estate, he settled at Rickmansworth, in Hertfordshire. He was active for a few years in preaching and wrote much.
In 1675 his thoughts were first seriously turned to America. Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, who had received from the Duke of York the promise of New Jersey, sold the western half to two Quakers, John Fenwick and Edward Byllinge.
The new purchasers had some difficulty between themselves in the settlement of their respective claims and asked William Penn to arbitrate the matter. Penn decided in favor of Byllinge, who soon afterwards became embarrassed and transferred to Penn and two others his interest for the benefit of his creditors.
West New Jersey was opened for sale and the persecuted Quakers found there a haven of rest.
Penn wrote to Richard Hartshorne, a settler whom he appointed his agent, “We lay a foundation for after ages to understand their liberty as men and Christians, that they may not be brought in bondage but by their own consent; for we put the power in the people.”
The colony prospered greatly under the management of Penn and his friends.
In company with George Fox, Robert Barclay and others, in 1677, Penn paid a religious visit to Holland and Germany. Here he made a convert of the Princess Elizabeth Palatine, granddaughter of James I, a woman of great intelligence, learning and spirituality, who became a devoted adherent and correspondent.
More important, historically, however, he began that acquaintance with the Rhine Valley which resulted in a great emigration of its inhabitants to his future province of Pennsylvania, in the following century.
His journal of this trip is among his printed works.
When he returned he found persecution breaking out anew, many of his friends in jail and their estates confiscated.
Penn published a plea for liberty, even for Papists—a sentiment which, in that day, required no small courage—and gave rise to a report, from which he afterward suffered greatly, that he was a Jesuit in disguise.
He enjoyed great favor at court, and his influence was exerted for the aid of his suffering brethren, and his advocacy of his favorite doctrine of universal toleration.
The rest of William Penn’s life belongs largely to the history of Pennsylvania.
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First Massacre in Wyoming Launched During Pontiac’s War by Captain Bull, October 15, 1763
The conspiracy fomented by Pontiac, the Ottawa chieftain, was unmasked at Detroit on May 6, 1763, and then began the war which continued until late in the summer of 1764.
Fort Sandusky was captured by the Indians May 16, 1763; Fort Ouatanon (now Lafayette, Ind.), May 31; Fort Presqu’ Isle (now Erie County, Pa.), June 17; Fort Le Boeuf (in Erie County), June 18; Fort Venango (in Venango County, Pa.), June 18 and the military posts at Carlisle and Bedford, Pa., on the same day.
On June 22 a large body of Indians surrounded Fort Pitt and opened fire on all sides, but were easily repulsed. The Seneca were the only Indians of the Six Nations in alliance with Pontiac.
The report which reached Philadelphia the second week in July, 1763, revealed a most alarming situation on the frontier.
Through the efforts of the Reverend John Elder the able-bodied men of the Paxtang region in Lancaster County were soon organized into a mounted military battalion of several companies, under the name of the “Paxtang Rangers” or “Paxtang Boys,” with Elder as colonel in command.
“Swift on foot, excellent horsemen, good shots, skillful in pursuit or escape, dexterous as scouts and expert in maneuvering,” the “Paxtang Boys” became the terror of the Indians. And yet, during the summer and early autumn of that year numerous depredations and murders were committed by Indians in the counties of Lancaster and Northampton.
On Sunday, August 7, Captain Andrew Montour arrived at Fort Augusta from up the West Branch and informed Colonel James Burd that Forts Pitt and Ligonier had been captured by the Indians. Later this news was learned to be false, but the loss of Presqu’ Isle, Le Boeuf and Venango was a fact.
Colonel John Elder wrote Governor Hamilton, requesting that his command be allowed “to destroy the immense quantity of corn left by the New England men at Wyoming which, if not consumed, will be a considerable magazine to the enemy and enable them with more ease to distress the inhabitants, etc.” The Governor in his reply stated that he had no objection to their scouting as far as Wyoming.
On October 13 Major Asher Clayton, with a force of eighty soldiers from Lancaster County, arrived at Fort Augusta, en route to Wyoming. There he was joined by Lieutenant Samuel Hunter and twenty-four men of the garrison, and the combined force departed Saturday the 15th for Wyoming.
Two companies of the Reverend Elder’s command set out from Fort Hunter on the 11th destined for the same place, and “to intercept the murdering party on their return to Northampton.”
This “murdering party” referred to by Colonel Elder was a band of hostile Delaware led by Tedyuskung’s son, Captain Bull, and concerning whose depredations Governor Hamilton sent a message to the Provincial Assembly on October 15, in these words:
“Within a few days past I have received well-attested accounts of many barbarous and shocking murders and other depredations having been committed by Indians on inhabitants of Northampton County, in consequence whereof great numbers of those who escaped the rage of the enemy have already deserted, and are daily deserting their habitations; so that, unless some effectual aid can be speedily granted them, to induce them to stand their ground, it is difficult to say where these desertions will stop, or to how small a distance from the capital our frontier may be reduced.”
Captain Bull, who headed this war party of Western Delaware in these incursions, had spent ten years among these Indians west of the Ohio River. He was thoroughly familiar with their sentiments toward the English.
The first intimation of the presence of hostile Indians was on October 8, 1763, when before daybreak, Captain Bull attacked the house of John Stenton, on the road from Bethlehem to Fort Allen, where Captain Wetherhold and a squad of soldiers were lodging for the night. Wetherhold and several others of the whites were wounded and three were killed.
A day or two later Yost’s mill, about eleven miles from Bethlehem, was destroyed, and the people there cut off. Altogether twenty-three persons were killed and many wounded, and these depredations committed within a few miles of Captain Bull’s ancestral home.
On Saturday, October 15, the self-same day that Major Clayton’s expedition set out from Fort Augusta for Wyoming, the settlers of Mill Creek, in Wyoming Valley, were busily engaged in their various occupations at different places unaware of danger and unprepared for disaster.
Captain Bull and his warriors to the number of 135 swooped down on the settlers and death, desperation and destruction quickly followed. Eighteen or more were killed, including many persons of importance. The scene was terrible.
The settlers who heard the gun shots and war whoops of the Indians fled in great haste to the mountains. At night time the torch was applied and soon the homes of the settlers were masses of ruins.
The settlers who escaped death tramped back to Connecticut, and Wyoming was, in very truth, deserted and forsaken.
Major Clayton arrived soon after this massacre, but did not remain, and returned to Fort Augusta. An extract from a letter written by a soldier says:
“Our party under Major Asher Clayton is returned from Wyoming, where we met with no Indians, but found the New Englanders who had been killed and scalped a day or two before we got there. We buried the dead—nine men and a woman—who had been most cruelly butchered.
“The woman was roasted, and had two hinges in her hands—supposed to be put in red hot—and several of the men had awls thrust in their eyes, and spears, arrows, pitchforks, etc., sticking in their bodies.
“They (Clayton’s troops) burnt what houses the Indians had left, and destroyed a quantity of Indian corn. The enemy’s tracks were up the river toward Wyalusing.”
Many writers have expressed different opinions about this massacre. Some thought it to have been done by the Delaware who believed the Connecticut settlers killed their king Tedyuskung; some believe it to have been done by Six Nations, who thought the whites had assassinated the Delaware king; but others believe there is not sufficient ground for supposing it to have been done by friends of Tedyuskung, even though the hostile party was led by his son, Captain Bull.
Whoever was to blame, or whoever committed the bloodthirsty deed, matters not, but the fact remains that the Delaware Indians were treacherous and none of them more so than King Tedyuskung and his sons, especially Captain Bull, the perpetrator of this horrible massacre.
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First Terrible Massacre of Settlers at Penn’s Creek, October 16, 1755
The year 1755 was anything but one of promise for the English colonies in America. The French were aggressively pushing their domain from Canada southward toward the Mississippi Valley, and what was more alarming to the English was the effort of the French to gain a foothold in the region of the Allegheny Mountains, in what is now Western Pennsylvania.
Three great rivers virtually determined the strategic situation of the territory involved between these two great nations. The Hudson River Valley was held by the English, the Susquehanna River Valley by the Six Nations of the great Indian Confederation and the Allegheny River Valley by French, along the banks of which a chain of French forts had been erected. Fort Duquesne, at the forks of the Ohio and Monongahela Rivers, where Pittsburgh now stands, was the principal defense of that valley.
In the spring of 1755 the expedition was fitted out which made the ill-fated march against Fort Duquesne and resulted in the defeat of General Edward Braddock, July 9.
This defeat was a terrible disaster and left the frontiers of Pennsylvania threatened with ruin by victorious French and their savage allies, who pressed through the passes of the Blue Mountains on the heels of the fleeing British regulars.
The main body of the French encamped on the Susquehanna River near where the borough of Liverpool now stands, thirty miles above Harris’ Ferry, where they extended themselves on both sides of the main river.
Braddock’s defeat was not only a fatal termination of a campaign which had been expected would inflict a decisive blow upon the French, but it gave the signal to the disaffected Indians to make the frontiers of the province the scene of predatory warfare in which many sections of the Susquehanna Valley were severely scourged.
The Provincial Government did not act with the energy and promptness which the emergency demanded. No means were adopted for the protection of frontier settlements and the entire wilderness from the Juniata River to Shamokin, now Sunbury, was filled with parties of hostile Indians, murdering, scalping and burning. Every post brought to the Provincial Council at Philadelphia heart-rending appeals for help.
The Assembly and the Governor were deadlocked, no money bills could be passed. Troops of frontiersmen rode through the city threateningly brandishing their weapons. A party of Germans laid the corpses of the countrymen, scalped within sixty-five miles of the capital, at the door of the State House. The Quaker peace policy was denounced in unmeasured terms from the backwoods pulpits.
The Indians had driven off the Moravian missions at Shamokin and burned their own town at that important place.
Two of Colonel Weiser’s sons, Frederick and Peter, had been at Shamokin several days previously, then stopped at the house of George Gabriel, at the mouth of Penn’s Creek about the head of the Isle of Que, near the present town of Selinsgrove. While there a messenger arrived from Logan, one of Shikellamy’s sons and Lapacpicton, a friendly Delaware, who brought the alarming news that a large body of French and Indians was approaching by way of the West Branch.
The Provincial Government had been warned that a band of Indians had left the West on an expedition to the forks of the Susquehanna, but paid no heed until too late.
These Indians crossed the Allegheny Mountains, through the headwaters of the Otzinachson, now called West Branch, near Clearfield, thence through the “Great Plains,” now known as Penn’s Valley, Center County, through the gaps of Penn’s Creek, in Paddy Mountains, where they struck the white settlements along the creek, commencing at the present town of New Berlin and down the stream for about a mile in what is now Snyder County.
October 16, 1755, occurred the terrible massacre at Penn’s Creek, when fifteen persons were cruelly murdered and their bodies terribly mangled and ten others were carried away as Indian prisoners.