EARLY SETTLERS AT LICKING CREEK--RELICS OF AN INDIAN BATTLE--HOUSE
OF ROBERT CAMPBELL ATTACKED--JAMES CAMPBELL WOUNDED AND TAKEN
PRISONER--SCOUT SENT FROM SHERMAN'S CREEK--ENCOUNTERED INDIANS AT
BUFFALO CREEK--FIVE OF THE SCOUT KILLED, ETC.
The neighborhood of the mouth of Licking Creek was settled about 1750.
The first settler was Hugh Hardy, a Scotch-Irishman, who located about
a mile from the mouth of the creek. He was followed by families named
Castner, Wilson, Law, Scott, Grimes, and Sterrit, all Scotch-Irish, and
the last two traders in Indian goods.
At the time of their advent at Licking Creek, the Indians were
exceedingly friendly, and pointed out to them a famous battle-ground
near the creek. The oral tradition of the battle preserved by them was
as follows:--On the one side of the creek was a village of the
Delawares, on the other a village of the Tuscaroras. Both tribes lived
in harmony--hunted on the same grounds, seated themselves around the
same council-fires, and smoked in common the pipe of peace, and danced
the green-corn dance together beneath the pale rays of the mellow
harvest-moon. These amicable relations might have existed for years,
had not a trivial incident brought about a sad rupture. Some Indian
children at play on the bank of the creek commenced quarrelling about a
grasshopper. High words led to blows. The women of the respective
tribes took up their children's quarrel, and in turn the wives' quarrel
was taken up by the men. A bloody and most sanguinary battle was the
result. The struggle was long and fierce, and hundreds of warriors,
women, and children, fell beneath the deadly tomahawk or by the
unerring arrow. To this day, relics, such as arrow-heads, pipes, and
human bones, are found upon the spot where tradition says the battle
occurred. The "grasshopper war" was long held up by the sachems as a
terrible warning to any tribe about to embroil itself in a bootless
war.
Some historians assert that there was once a fort at the mouth of
Licking Creek, called Fort Campbell, all traces of which are now
obliterated. Such was not the case. Robert Campbell owned the largest
house in the settlement, which was pierced with loopholes for defence
similar to that belonging to Patterson. The settlers had also been
driven away, and had returned to reap their harvest. On the Sabbath
referred to in the preceding chapter, while the harvesters were
gathered in the house of Campbell, and immediately after the massacre
at Patterson's, the same hand of Indians stealthily approached the
house of Campbell and fired a volley at the inmates. Several persons
were wounded, but there is no authentic record of any one being killed.
James Campbell was shot through the wrist, and taken prisoner. He was
taken to the frontier, probably to Lake Erie, and returned in a year or
eighteen months afterward. But the particulars attending his captivity
were never published, neither could we find any person who knew any
thing about the matter further than that he was captured, and returned
again to his home.
Immediately after the Indians had discharged their rifles, one of them
sprang into the house, and with uplifted tomahawk approached a bed on
which a man named George Dodds was resting. Fortunately for Dodds, his
rifle was within reach, which he immediately grasped and fired at the
savage, wounding him in the groin. The Indian retreated, and Dodds made
his way up-stairs, and through an opening in the roof he escaped, went
direct to Sherman's Valley, and spread the alarm.
This same band of marauders proceeded up Tuscarora Valley, laying waste
the country as they went. In the dusk of the evening, they came to the
house of William Anderson. They shot down the old man, who was seated
by the table with the open Bible upon his lap, and also killed and
scalped his son and a young woman--an adopted daughter of Mr. Anderson.
Two brothers named Christy, and a man named Graham, neighbors of Mr.
Anderson, hearing the guns firing, conjectured that the Indians had
attacked him; and, their own means of defence being inadequate, they
fled, and reached Sherman's Valley about midnight. Their arrival spread
new terror, and a volunteer force of twelve men was soon raised to go
over to the valley to succor the settlers. This force consisted of
three brothers named Robinson, John Graham, Charles Elliot, William and
James Christy, Daniel Miller, John Elliot, Edward McConnel, William
McCallister, and John Nicholson.
Fearing that the savages would murder men engaged in harvesting farther
up the valley, they endeavored to intercept them by crossing through
Bigham's Gap early on Monday morning. They had no sooner entered the
valley than they discovered traces of the enemy. Houses were pillaged,
and some razed to the ground. At one place they had killed four hogs
and a number of fowls, which they had roasted by a fire, fared
sumptuously and dined leisurely. At Graham's there were unmistakable
signs that they had been joined by another party, and that the entire
force must number at least twenty-five Indians. From their tracks, too,
it was evident that they had crossed the Tuscarora Mountain by way of
Run Gap. The dread to encounter such a force would have deterred almost
any small body of men; but the Robinsons, who appeared to be leaders of
the party, were bold, resolute back-woodsmen, inured to hardship, toil,
and danger, and, without taking time to reflect, or even debate, upon
the probability of being attacked by the enemy from ambuscade, they
pushed forward rapidly to overtake the savages.
At the cross-roads, near Buffalo Creek, the savages fired upon the
party from an ambuscade of brush, and killed five. William Robinson was
shot in the abdomen with buckshot; still he managed to follow Buffalo
Creek for half a mile. John Elliot, a mere lad of seventeen, discharged
his rifle at an Indian, and then ran. The Indian pursued him, but,
fearing the boy would get off, he dropped his rifle, and followed with
tomahawk alone. Elliot, perceiving this, threw some powder into his
rifle at random, inserted a ball in the muzzle, and pushed it in as far
as he could with his finger; then, suddenly turning around, he shot the
Indian in the breast. The Indian gave a prolonged scream, and returned
in the direction of his band. There is little doubt but that the Indian
was killed; but, agreeably to their custom, his companions either
concealed the body or took it with them.
Elliot went but a short distance before he overtook William Robinson,
who was weltering in his blood upon the ground, and evidently in the
agonies of death. He begged Elliot to carry him off, as he had a great
horror of being scalped. Elliot told him it was utterly impossible for
him to lift him off the ground, much less carry him. Robinson then
said--
"Take my gun, and save yourself. And if ever you have an opportunity to
shoot an Indian with it, _in war or peace_, do so, for my sake."
There is no record of the fact that he obeyed the dying injunction of
his friend; but he did with the rifle what was more glorious than
killing ignorant savages; he carried it for five years in the
Continental army, and battled with it for the freedom of his country.
How many of his Majesty's red-coats it riddled before the flag of
freedom floated over the land, is only known to the God of battles. The
body of Robinson was not found by the Indians.
During the action Thomas Robinson stood still, sheltered by a tree,
until all his companions had fled. He fired a third time, in the act of
which two or three Indians fired, and a bullet shattered his right arm.
He then attempted to escape, but was hotly pursued by the Indians, one
of whom shot him through the side while in the act of stooping to pass
a log. He was found scalped and most shockingly mutilated. John Graham
died while sitting upon a log, a short distance from the scene of
action. Charles Elliot and McConnel escaped, and crossed Buffalo Creek,
but they were overtaken and shot just as they were in the act of
ascending the bank. Their bodies were found in the creek.
These bloody murders caused the greatest alarm in the neighborhood. The
Indians, flushed with success, manifested no disposition to leave; and
the inhabitants of the sparsely-settled country fled toward the lower
end of Sherman's Valley, leaving all behind them. A party of forty men,
armed and organized and well-disciplined, marched in the direction of
the Juniata for the purpose of burying the dead and slaying the
Indians; but when they came to Buffalo Creek, they were so terrified at
the sight of the slaughtered whites and probably exaggerated stories of
the strength of the enemy, that the commander ordered a return. He
called it _prudent_ to retire; some of his men called it _cowardly_.
The name of the valiant captain could not be ascertained.
Captain Dunning went up the valley from Carlisle with a posse,
determined to overtake and punish the savages if possible. Before his
arrival, however, some five or six men conceived the rash idea of
giving the Indians battle, and attacked them while in a barn. The
attack was an exceedingly ill-judged affair, for but few Indians were
wounded, and none killed. They bounded out with great fury, and shot
the entire party but one, who managed to escape. Those who were killed
were Alexander Logan and his son John, Charles Coyle, and William
Hamilton. Bartholomew Davis made his escape, and at Logan's house
overtook Captain Dunning and his command. Judging that the Indians
would visit Logan's for plunder, Captain Dunning ambuscaded his men,
and in a very short time the savages came, boldly, and entirely
unconscious of impending danger. They were greeted by a volley from
Dunning's men, and but a short engagement followed. Three or four
Indians fell at the first fire; and the rest, dismayed, fled in
consternation toward the mountain, and were not pursued.
Thus it will be perceived that a large number of most cruel and
cold-blooded murders were committed by these marauders before they were
checked, simply because in treachery and cunning the white men could
not cope with them.