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,
Gen. Gage planned a campaign into this western wilderness from two
points--Gen. Bradstreet was to advance by way of the lakes, and Col.
Bouquet from Fort Pitt. After the usual delays and disappointments in
securing troops from Pennsylvania and Virginia to aid in this
expedition, the march from Carlisle was begun, and Col. Bouquet arrived
at Fort Pitt September 17th, and was detained there until October 3rd.
He followed the north bank of the Ohio until he reached the Beaver, when
he turned towards Central Ohio. Holding on his course, he refused to
listen to either threats or promises from the Indians, declining to
treat with them at all until they should deliver up the prisoners.
Although not a 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 chiefs, listened to their offers of
peace, and demanded the delivery of the prisoners. Soon band after band
of captives arrived, until the number exceeded three hundred.
The scenes which followed the restoring of the prisoners to their
friends beggar all description; wives recovering their husbands, parents
seeking for children whom they could scarcely recognize, brothers and
sisters meeting after a long separation, and sometimes scarcely able to
speak the same language. The story is told of a woman whose daughter had
been carried off nine years before. The mother recognized her child, but
the girl, who had almost forgotten her mother tongue, showed no sign of
recognition. The mother complained to Col. 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 Col. 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 18th, and arrived
at Fort Pitt on the 28th. Early in January Col. 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 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.
Conflict Between Pennsylvania and Virginia.
We have seen two of the most powerful nations of Europe contending for
the possession of the "Forks of the Ohio." We have seen the efforts of
the Indians to destroy the Fort and regain possession of their hunting
grounds.
In October, 1770, Washington again visited the "Forks of the Ohio," this
time on a peaceful errand. He reached Fort Pitt October 17, 1770, and he
says in his Journal: "Lodged in what is called the town; distant about
three hundred yards from the fort, at one Semple's, who keeps a very
good house of entertainment." He describes both the town and the fort,
where the garrison at this time consisted of two companies of Royal
Irish, commanded by Capt. Edmonstone. In this journal we find the
following entry on October 18th: "Dined in the fort with Col. Croghan
and the officers of the garrison; supped there also, meeting with great
civility from the gentlemen, and engaged to dine with Col. Croghan next
day, at his seat about four miles up the Allegheny."
Washington and his party, numbering nine or ten persons, with three
Indians, continued their journey down the Ohio in a large canoe. On
November 2nd, we find that the party "encamped and went a-hunting,
killed five buffalos and wounded some others, three deer, etc. This
country abounds in Buffaloes and wild game of all kinds, as also in all
kinds of wild fowl, there being in the bottoms a great many small,
grassy ponds or lakes, which are full of swan, geese and ducks of
different kinds." The party returned to Pittsburgh November 21st, were
again hospitably entertained, and on the 23rd mounted their horses on
their return journey to Virginia. This was Washington's last visit to
Fort Pitt.
Now, after the season of rest and quiet, there comes another contest,
this time between the Provinces of Pennsylvania and Virginia. The
British Government, as the trouble with the colonies increased, deemed
it advisable to abandon Fort Pitt and withdraw the troops. Maj.
Edmonstone, then in command, sold the buildings and material October 10,
1772, to Alexander Ross and William Thompson, for fifty pounds New York
currency. The fort was evacuated by the British forces in October, 1772,
and in January, 1774, troops from Virginia sent by the Governor, Lord
Dunmore, under command of Dr. James Connelly, took possession and
changed the name to Fort Dunmore. Dr. Connelly was arrested by Arthur
St. Clair, then a magistrate of Westmoreland County, of which Allegheny
County was at that time a part, and put in jail, but was soon released
on bail. He went back to Virginia, but shortly returned with civil and
military authority to enforce the laws of Virginia. This contest
continued for several years, until a prominent citizen wrote to Governor
Penn: "The deplorable state of affairs in this part of your government
is truly distressing. We are robbed, insulted and dragooned by Connelly
and his militia in this place and its environs." Maryland, too, had
contended, sometimes with the shedding of blood, for the possession of
this important point. It was not until 1785 that commissioners were
appointed, the boundary of the western part of the State finally run,
and Pennsylvania established in the possession of her territory.
Revolutionary Period.
During the struggle for independence the settlements west of the
Alleghanies had little to fear from the invading armies of Great
Britain; but, influenced by the English, the Indians again began their
ravages.
Fort Pitt at that time was under the command of Capt. John Neville, and
was the center of government authority. Just two days after the
Declaration of Independence, but long before the news of it could have
crossed the mountains, we read of a conference at Fort Pitt between Maj.
Trent, Maj. Ward, Capt. Neville and other officers of the garrison, with
the famous Pontiac, Guyasuta, Capt. Pipe and other representatives of
the Six Nations. Guyasuta was the chief speaker. He produced a belt of
wampum, which was to be sent from the Six Nations to other western
tribes, informing them that the Six Nations would take no part in the
war between England and America and asking them to do the same. In his
address Guyasuta said: "Brothers:--We will not suffer either the English
or the Americans to pass through our country. Should either attempt it,
we shall forewarn them three times, and should they persist they must
take the consequences. I am appointed by the Six Nations to take care of
this country; that is, of the Indians on the other side of the Ohio"
(which included the Allegheny) "and I desire you will not think of an
expedition against Detroit, for, I repeat, we will not suffer an army to
pass through our country." The Six Nations was the most powerful
confederacy of Indians in America, and whichever side secured their
allegiance might count on the other tribes following them.
[Illustration: MAJ. GEN. ARTHUR ST. CLAIR.]
Instigated by the agents of Great Britain, it was not long before a
deadly struggle began. Scalping parties of Indians ravaged the frontier,
sparing neither age nor sex, and burning and destroying all that came in
their path. Companies were formed to protect the settlements, whose
headquarters were at Fort Pitt, and expeditions were made into the
enemy's country, but with no very great success.
On June 1, 1777, Brig. Gen. Edward Hand took command of the post and
issued a call for two thousand men. He did not receive a very
satisfactory response to this call. After considerable delay, he made
several expeditions against the Indians, but was singularly unfortunate
in his attempts. These fruitless efforts only emboldened the savages to
continue their ravages.
In 1778, Gen. Hand, at his own request, was recalled, and Brig. Gen.
McIntosh succeeded him. Gen. McIntosh planned a formidable expedition
into the enemy's country. He marched to the mouth of the Beaver, where
he built a fort and called it Fort McIntosh; then he advanced
seventy-five miles farther, built another fort, and called it Fort
Laurens; but on hearing alarming reports of the Indians and for want of
supplies, he left Col. John Gibson with one hundred and fifty men there
and returned to Fort Pitt. The depredations of the Indians continued,
and Gen. McIntosh, utterly disheartened from the want of men and
supplies, asked to be relieved of his command. He was succeeded by Col.
Daniel Brodhead, who, like his predecessor, planned great things, but
never had the means of carrying out his plans.
By this time Fort Pitt was badly in need of repairs, and the garrison,
half-fed and badly equipped, was almost mutinous. In November, 1781,
Gen. William Irvine took command of the post. He describes the condition
of the fort and of the soldiers as deplorable. He writes: "The few
troops that are here are the most licentious men and worst behaved I
ever saw, owing, I presume, in a great measure to their not hitherto
being kept under any subordination or tolerable degree of discipline."
The firmness of the commander soon restored order, but not without the
free application of the lash and the execution of two soldiers.
The winter of 1782 and 1783 was comparatively quiet, and October 1st,
1783, Gen. Irvine took his final leave of the western department. The
State of Pennsylvania acknowledged her gratitude for this service by
donating him a valuable tract of land.
In 1790 there was another Indian outbreak. Maj. Isaac Craig was then
acting as Quartermaster in Pittsburgh. On May 19th, 1791, he wrote to
Gen. Knox, representing the terror occasioned by the near approach of
the Indians, and asking permission to erect another fortification, as
Fort Pitt was in a ruinous condition. This request was granted, and Maj.
Craig erected a fortification occupying the ground from Garrison Alley
to Hand (now Ninth) Street, and from Liberty to the Allegheny River.
This he named Fort Lafayette.
The expeditions of Gen. Harmar and of Gen. St. Clair against the Indians
had been ineffectual and disastrous. In 1794, Gen. Anthony Wayne was
more successful, and defeated and scattered the Indians so effectually
that they never again gave trouble in this region.
FOOTNOTES:
[C] There is a wide discrepancy in the authorities as to the cost of
Fort Pitt; some state the cost as six hundred pounds, others give it as
sixty thousand pounds.
THE OLD BLOCK HOUSE
Mrs. Mary E. Schenley's Gift to the Daughters of the American Revolution
of Allegheny County.
The close of the century found Port Pitt in ruins, and this spot over
which had waved the flags of three nations, and the banners of two
States, was left to the peaceable possession of the mechanic and
artisan, the trader and farmer. The little Redoubt built by Col. Bouquet
in 1764, and the names of the streets in Pittsburgh, are all that is
left as reminders of the struggle for the "Forks of the Ohio,"--the only
relics of the contest of the courtly Frenchman with the intrepid
British, of the daring of the indomitable colonist and the craft and
cruelty of the Indian. This Redoubt was not built by Gen. Stanwix when
the Fort was erected in 1759 and 60, but by Col. Bouquet in 1764. At the
time of Pontiac's War, when Col. Bouquet came to Pittsburgh, he found
that the moat which surrounded the fortifications were perfectly dry
when the river was low, so that the Indians could crawl up the ditch and
shoot any guard or soldier who might show his head above the parapet. To
prevent this, Col. Bouquet ordered the erection of the Redoubt, or Block
House, which completely commanded the moat on the Allegheny side of the
fort. The little building is of brick, five-sided, with two floors,
having a squared oak log with loop holes on each floor. There were two
underground passages, one connecting it with the Fort, and the other
leading to the Monongahela River.
The ground from Fort Pitt to the Allegheny River was sold in 1784 to
Isaac Craig and Stephen Bayard, and, after passing through various
hands, was purchased by Gen. James O'Hara, September 4, 1805. When Gen.
O'Hara died in 1819, the property passed to his daughter Mary, who in
1821 married William Croghan. Mrs. Croghan died in 1827, and her
daughter, Mary Elizabeth, an infant barely a year old, became her sole
heir. She married Capt. E. W. H. Schenley, of the English army, and to
Mrs. Mary E. Schenley, who might be called Pittsburgh's "Fairy
Godmother," the Daughters of the American Revolution of Allegheny County
are indebted for the gift of the old Block House and surrounding
property.
While the property was in possession of Craig and Bayard, a large
dwelling house was built and connected with the Block House. This was
occupied one year by Mr. Turnbull, and for two years subsequently by
Maj. Craig. From that time, 1785, until it came into the possession of
the Daughters of the American Revolution, April 1, 1894, it continued to
be used as a dwelling house. Time and decay had done their work in one
hundred and thirty years, and the "Daughters" found the old Block House
fast crumbling away. If it had been left much longer without repairs it
would soon have been nothing but a heap of broken brick. Mrs. Schenley's
gift to the Daughters of the American Revolution was the Block House,
with a plot of ground measuring one hundred by ninety feet, and a
passageway leading to Penn Avenue of ninety feet by twenty.
[Illustration: THE BLOCK HOUSE USED AS A DWELLING.]
As soon as the Daughters of the American Revolution received the deed
for the property, the work of clearing away the tumble-down tenements
which covered the ground was commenced. It was not without great
difficulty, and no little expense, that the occupants of these houses
were induced to give them up.
While the Block House was used as a dwelling the stone tablet placed
over the door with the inscription,
COLL. BOUQUET
1764
was removed and inserted in the wall of the staircase of the City Hall.
The Daughters of the American Revolution petitioned Councils for
permission to restore it to its original position. The petition was
granted, and the tablet now fills the space which it occupied one
hundred and thirty-eight years ago.
"I do love these ancient ruins.
We never tread upon them but we set
Our foot upon some rev'rend history."
Pittsburgh
September 1898.
MATILDA WILKINS DENNY.
NAMES OF PITTSBURGH STREETS.
Their Historical Significance.
By Julia Morgan Harding. (From the Pittsburgh Bulletin, February 15,
1893.)
We are told in his Autobiography that Benjamin Franklin "ever took
pleasure in obtaining any little anecdotes of his ancestors," and in
these days of reawakened interest in things of the past, many people may
be found who, like the great prototype of American character,
Pennsylvania's apostle of common sense, take pleasure in looking into
the old records of their family history. A still richer inheritance is
the story of the lives of the men who conquered the wilderness and
subdued the Indians, French and British; and this inheritance is held in
common by all good citizens of Pittsburgh, whether or not their
ancestors fought with Braddock or Bouquet, or marched with Forbes. In
the stir and bustle of the busy city, above the noise of the trolley and
the iron wagon, one faintly hears the names of streets whose unfamiliar
sound recalls to our minds these illustrious dead. With but little
effort the inward eye quickly sees an impenetrable forest clothing hills
and river banks--dark, mysterious, forbidding, crossed by occasional
narrow and obstructed paths; war parties of painted savages; a few
scattered settlers' and traders' cabins; here and there a canoe on the
swift and silent rivers; a silence too often broken by the war whoop of
the Indian and the scream of his tortured victim.
From the eastern slopes of the Endless Hills to the unknown and
unbounded "Indian Country" that lay beyond the Forks of the Ohio, such
was the region into which Washington, Braddock, Forbes and Bouquet led
their "forlorn hopes," In days when a less utilitarian spirit prevailed,
and association was still powerful, the City of Pittsburgh acknowledged
its debt of gratitude to the soldiers, statesmen and early settlers who
made its unexampled prosperity possible, by naming for them many of its
streets and suburbs. Its early history can be traced thereby, much as
the historian and archaeologist discovers the successive Roman, Saxon,
Danish and Norman occupations of London and other English towns.
Aliquippa, Mingo, Shannopin, Shinghiss, Guyasuta and Killbuck recall the
Indian tribes and chiefs who once possessed the country; Gist, Montour,
Girty, McKee, Chartiers, and Van Braam the guides and traders who first
penetrated the wilderness. Dinwiddie brings to mind the crusty but
far-seeing Scotch Governor of Virginia, who first comprehended the value
of the disputed land. Forbes, Bouquet, Ligonier, Halket, Grant, Stanwix,
Neville, Crawford, Hay, Marbury, Ormsby, Tannehill, O'Hara, Butler,
Wayne, Bayard, Stobo, Steuben, St. Clair, Craig, Smallman and Irwin
recall, or did recall, the soldiers and commandants who won the West.
Duquesne, St. Pierre, and Jumonville speak of the French governor of
Canada, the officer who received Washington at Fort Le Boeuf, and the
Captain who fell at Great Meadows. Smithfield owes its name to Devereaux
Smith, prominent in colonial and revolutionary days; and Wood Street was
called for George Woods, surveyor.
In Penn avenue, or street, as it used to be and still ought to be
called, the name of the founder of the Commonwealth, the Quaker feudal
proprietor, is preserved; and the great city itself, as well as two
shabby, sooty little streets, forever immortalizes William Pitt, the
friend of America, and makes him a splendid and enduring monument.
But let us dig into the lowest historical stratum, and discover the real
local relationships of names and places with the first occupants of the
land. Aliquippa tells of the great queen of the Delawares, who lived at
the mouth of the Youghiogheny, where McKeesport now is, and whom it must
be remembered Washington visited on his first memorable journey to the
Ohio. From what he relates to us she could not have been a very
temperate sovereign lady, but she was a celebrity and a power in her
day, with a prestige that long survived her; and when, in full savage
regalia, surrounded by her warriors, she granted an audience to the
young Virginian, she was doubtless most impressing and condescending.
Shinghiss, who bore a name that suggests a subject of Queen Wilhelmina
rather than a North American Indian was a mighty warrior in his day, and
a king of the Delawares. Some of the chroniclers give him a very bad
name and tell us that his exploits in war would "form an interesting
though shocking document"; others, among them Christian Post, give him a
much better character. Nevertheless, it is true that the colony of
Pennsylvania offered a thousand dollars for his scalp. Washington met
him on his first visit to Ohio, and speaks of him in his Journal. This
brave and much-feared chief was small in stature for an Indian and lived
near the Ohio on Chartiers Creek.
[Illustration: BRONZE TABLET AT ENTRANCE TO BLOCK HOUSE GROUNDS
THE BLOCK HOUSE OF FORT PITT
A REDOUBT BUILT BY
COLONEL HENRY BOUQUET
OF THE BRITISH ARMY IN 1764,
PURCHASED WITH THE SITE OF FORT PITT BY
GENERAL JAMES O'HARA
SEPTEMBER 4th 1805.
INHERITED THROUGH HER MOTHER
MARY O'HARA CROGHAN
BY HIS GRANDDAUGHTER
MARY ELIZABETH SCHENLEY
AND BY HER PRESENTED TO
THE DAUGHTERS OF THE
AMERICAN REVOLUTION
OF ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
JUNE 10th 1892]
A chieftain as renowned as Shinghiss, and more frequently mentioned in
the histories of the olden time, was Guyasuta, or Kiashuta, a Seneca,
who first appears on the scene as one of the three Indians who
accompanied Washington to Fort Le Boeuf. He was a conspicuous figure in
all the Indian wars and treaties which followed that event, and was
present at the treaty Col. Bouquet held with the Shawnees, Delawares
and Senecas on the Muskingum. We hear of him again in Lord Dunmore's
war. He was frequently at or in the neighborhood of Fort Pitt, and had
unbounded influence with his people, an influence he generally exerted
for good and in the interest of the colonies, though finally won over to
the British during the Revolution. His speeches at the various councils
he attended were eloquent, and his language that of an autocrat who had
unquestioning confidence in the power of his people and in his own
might. He was deeply concerned in the conspiracy of Pontiac, and is
believed to have inspired the attack on Hannahstown. Guyasuta found his
last resting place near the banks of the Allegheny on Gen. O'Hara's
farm, which is still called by his name.
The stray visitor who from time to time threads his devious way through
the alleys and courts which surround the Block House may find himself
perhaps in Fort Street, on historic ground once trodden by Washington,
Forbes, Bouquet and the Indian kings of whom we have just been speaking.
The echoes of the English drums, Scottish bagpipes and clash of arms
have long since died away from the scarred sides of Mt. Washington and
Duquesne Heights, and in their stead we hear the steam whistle and
hollow reverberations from neighboring boiler shops. Hibernians and
Italians inhabit the fields and the river banks where Killbuck, White
Eyes, Shinghiss and Cornstalk once lit their camp-fires and held
eloquent councils with Jumonville, De Ligneris and Bouquet. Squalid
tenements crowd the narrow promontory where Robert de la Salle stood at
the headwaters of the Ohio, in all probability the discoverer of the
three rivers. The fort that Pontiac besieged has disappeared. The
painted post to which the Indian tied his victim, the wigwam, the wampum
belts, have vanished; the tomahawk is buried forever, though the
readiness once observed among the residents of the "Point" to draw
knives on each other on occasions of superhilarity may be but the
survival of the good old customs which prevailed in that neighborhood
more than one hundred years ago.
Inspired by the suggestion of hereditary, the imaginative mind turns to
the past for other instances. On any pleasant Monday morning during the
spring or summer months the thrifty housekeepers in Fort Street or Point
Alley, and in the shadow of the Block House itself, may be seen doing
their week's washing in front of their houses. But little are they
thinking of those Monday mornings in the middle of the eighteenth
century when the women of the fort were escorted by bands of soldiers to
the banks of the Allegheny, where laundry work was carried on under
rather embarrassing circumstances. For Indians were dodging about behind
trees and bushes, and dancing in full view on the opposite shore, with
threatening cries, and only kept at a distance by the presence of a
guard. The custom seems still to prevail on this classic ground, but do
the conveniences of soap and hydrant water make up for the spice and
variety that characterized the lives of colonial laundresses?
Pittsburgh has always been preeminently a hospitable city, and it is
possible that in no other town of its size is there as much
entertaining. At weddings, too, the display of presents is an object of
surprise to the out-of-town guests, unused to such lavishness. Tracing
our Provincial characteristics back to their remote origins, we discover
that Pittsburgh at the end of the nineteenth century, in the grip of
hereditary, imitates the traders and early settlers in this region, who
were in the habit of entertaining whole tribes of Indians, and of making
them frequent gifts. Gay blankets, red paint, strings of wampum and
barrels of whiskey are not now exchanged at Christmas and on New Year's
Day, or shown at wedding feasts, as we have improved somewhat upon the
primitive customs of our forefathers, but the instinct is unchanged.