THE “PURSUIT” AND ARRESTS.
Federal and State Authorities in Conflict--“Rough Riding” the
Valley--Numerous and Indiscriminate Arrests--Hearings in Lancaster
and Committals to Philadelphia.
Whatever anybody was doing in the way of vindicating whatever law or
laws had been violated, the perpetrators of the killing were being
allowed to escape. There were no daily newspapers in Lancaster then
and the Philadelphia journals of Friday, September 12th, had very
meagre accounts of the affair. But meantime the Federal officials in
Philadelphia and the Commonwealth authorities in Lancaster County
“got busy.” Constable William Proudfoot, of Sadsbury, acted under the
direction of ’Squire Pownall and District Attorney John L. Thompson. In
Philadelphia John M. Ashmead was United States Attorney, and Anthony
E. Roberts was Marshal. When District Attorney Thompson made his
second visit to the scene on Saturday following the riot, accompanied
by a “strong party of armed men,” he found there the United States
Marshal, District Attorney and Commissioner “with a strong force of U.
S. Marines and a detachment of the Philadelphia police.” A controversy
arose between the local District Attorney Thompson and the United
States Attorney Ashmead as to whether the prisoners should be held for
murder in Lancaster County, or for treason against the United States.
Commissioner Ingraham sustained the latter charge. The difficulty was
adjusted by an agreement that each party should make its own arrests.
Some forty-five United States Marines who went to Christiana were in
command of Lieutenants Watson and Jones. United States Marshal A. E.
Roberts had a civil posse of fifty. There were county constables and
deputies sheriff on the scene. With these three detachments landed in
a little country village and scouring the surrounding farms, of whose
inhabitants half the many blacks had fled the State and the other half
were in hiding, and the whites mostly suspected of sympathy with the
fugitives, a local reign of terror ensued; “the valley” was in a state
worse than subjection to martial law. The tendency of a “little brief
authority” is toward abuse of it; and the class of persons easily
secured for the service then required of temporary officers of the law
was not such as to insure delicacy of treatment or tender consideration
for the objects against whom their summary processes were directed.
Whites and blacks, bond and free, were rather roughly handled; few
households in the region searched were safe from rude intrusion; many
suffered terrifying scenes and sounds.
[Illustration: CASTNER HANWAY.
TRIED FOR TREASON AND ACQUITTED.]
Peter Woods, sole surviving sufferer and prisoner of the occasion, was
working for Joseph Scarlet when he and his employer were arrested. He
tells his story thus to the author of this history:
“The day the fight happened I was up very early. We were to have ‘a
kissing party’ that night for Henry Roberts; and as I wanted to get
off early I asked my boss, Joe Scarlet, if he would plough if I got
up ahead and spread the manure. I started at it at two o’clock. The
morning was foggy and dull. About daylight Elijah Lewis’s son came
running to me while I was getting my work done, and said the kidnappers
were here. They came to Ellis Irvin’s farm, and then to Milt Cooper’s
which is known as the Leaman farm. The morning of the riot I got
there about seven or eight o’clock. I met some of them coming out of
the lane, and others were on a run from the house. I met Hanway on a
bald-faced sorrel horse coming down the long lane, and his party with
him. The other party, the marshal and his people, took to the sprouts,
licking out for all they could, and then took the Noble road. There
were about sixty of our fellows chasing them. The strange party got
away. I got hurt by being kicked by a blind colt on the hip. The
shooting was all over. Gorsuch had been killed before I got there. The
Gorsuch party was riding away as fast as they could. I guess I am the
last man living of our party.
“When Scarlet was arrested they were rough in arresting him. They took
him by the throat, and pointed bayonets at him all around him. I said
to myself if you arrest a white man like that, I wonder what you will
do to a black boy? The arrests were made a day or two after the riot. I
was plowing or working the ground, and when I saw the officers come to
make the arrests, I quickly got unhitched and went towards Bushong’s,
and soon there was six of us together and we went to Dr. Dingee’s
graveyard and hid. We heard a racket of horses coming and then we
jumped into the graveyard. This was two days after the riot. We hung
around Rakestraw’s too; and he said we could have something to eat,
but we couldn’t stay around there. Then they got us. They asked George
Boone and James Noble who we are. The man with the mace, the marshal I
guess, said ‘I got a warrant for Peter Woods.’ They pointed me out and
then he struck me and then they tried to throw me. They arrested me and
took me up a flight of stairs, and then they tied me. Then they started
away with me and tried to get me over a fence. They had me tied around
my legs and around my breast, and they put me in a buggy and took me to
Christiana. From there they took me to Lancaster, and put me first in
the old jail and then in the new prison.”
The accuracy of Woods’ narrative is attested by the historical record
that at that very time the new Lancaster County prison was just ready
for occupancy. The first prisoners were transferred to it on the day
immediately following the riot--September 12, 1851.
Woods’ further story of what occurred at Christiana has all the marks
of verity: “There at Christiana was [David] Paul Brown and Thad.
Stevens and Mr. Black. They had quarters in ‘Old Harry’s’ store. We
did not know who they were counsel for, and we thought they were
threatening us, and trying to make us give away ourselves. Thad.
Stevens or some one said to me: ‘Who do you live with?’ They had just
brought me down from the Harry garret, and Fred Zercher was there. Mr.
Brown then asked me again how I got up there into that garret, who put
me there? I made up my mind not to talk, and Brown said, ‘If you don’t
tell we will send you to jail.’ Then a mutiny broke out there. George
Boone and Proudfoot and others got in it. George commenced striking and
I got knocked over. Boone was taking my part.”
Arrests were numerous and somewhat indiscriminate and the charges
varied, some relating to State and others to Federal laws, and many of
them involving capital crimes and death penalties. All of them called
for appearances and preliminary hearings before J. Franklin Reigart,
Esq., an alderman of Lancaster City. He was a cousin of the late
Emanuel C. Reigart, Esq., and mingled the pursuits of letters and law.
His handsome picture in lithograph is the frontispiece of his somewhat
bizarre biography of Robert Fulton, now something of a curio, once the
ornament of many centre tables in Lancaster County.
Alderman Reigart was kept busy for some time issuing warrants
and having hearings that attracted great attention, numerous and
distinguished lawyers and ever increasing popular interest. Among those
taken into custody were Elijah Lewis, storekeeper at Cooperville;
Joseph Scarlet, farmer and dealer; Castner Hanway, miller at the “Red
Mill”; James Jackson, farmer; Samuel Kendig, all white; and a large
number of colored men and women, among them, William Brown and William
Brown, 2d, Ezekiel Thompson, Daniel Caulsberry, Emanuel Smith, John
Dobbins, Lewis James Christman, Elijah Clark, Benjamin Pendegress,
Jonathan Black, Samuel Hanson, Mifflin Flanders, Wilson Jones, Francis
Hawkins, Benjamin Thompson, John Halliday, Elizabeth Mosey, John
Morgan, boy, Joseph Benn, John Norton, Lewis Smith, George Washington,
Harvey Scott, Susan Clark, Tamsy Brown, Eliza Parker, Hannah Pinckney,
Robert Johnston, Miller Thompson, Isaiah Clarkson and Jonathan Black.
The officers claimed to have captured on the persons or premises of
some of them heavily charged guns, dirks and clubs.
The examination of the persons charged before Alderman Reigart for
complicity in the affair began in the old Lancaster County Court House,
in Centre Square, on Tuesday, September 23, at 11 o’clock A.M. The
appearances at this hearing for the prosecution were Attorney General
R. T. Brent, of Maryland, John M. Ashmead, United States Attorney,
District Attorney John L. Thompson, Colonel William B. Fordney and
Attorney General Thomas E. Franklin. For the defense, Thaddeus Stevens,
George Ford, O. J. Dickey and George M. Kline appeared.
The testimony of Dr. Pearce, Milton Knott and Deputy Marshal Kline was
relied upon to make out a prima facie case. It was at this hearing
George Washington Harvey Scott, a colored man (who subsequently changed
his testimony in Philadelphia, and swore he was not even at Parker’s),
testified that he saw Henry Simms shoot Edward Gorsuch, and that John
Morgan afterwards cut him on the head with a corn cutter. Lewis Cooper
testified that John Long, colored, was on his premises the evening
before the occurrence “giving notice.” He was with Henry Reynolds.
Long was described as a dark mulatto, five and one-half feet high,
and of slender make. The District Attorney argued that the offense
was treason, and asked that the persons be committed to answer at the
Circuit Court of the United States. Mr. Stevens made the opening speech
before the Alderman, claiming that the defendant prisoners, especially
Lewis and Hanway, had not been identified as criminals or offenders; he
dwelt upon the local kidnappings that had occurred in the night time,
and charged William Bear and Perry Marsh with participation in these
offenses; he produced many witnesses to the affair and to prove an
alibi for some of the colored men, especially John Morgan, and nothing
worse than inaction by Hanway and Lewis.
The women were all discharged; and some of the men. The names of those
who were remanded to Philadelphia to await trial in the Federal Courts
for treason, together with some others subsequently held, and some
indicted in their absence and never apprehended, will be found in the
report of the trial later in this history. James Jackson, father of
William Jackson, now of Christiana was so well known to Marshal Roberts
that he was released “on parole,” though subsequently indicted for
treason. Mrs. Parker and Mrs. Pinckney left the vicinity and made their
way to their husbands in Canada.