THE TORY HARE--MURDER OF LOUDENSLAGER--ABDUCTION AND MURDER OF MRS.
EATON AND CHILDREN--TREATMENT OF HARE BY THE SETTLERS, ETC.
During the troubles which followed immediately after the declaration of
war, a great many depredations were committed by the tories, that were
invariably charged to the Indians. As we have stated in the preceding
chapter, the patriots and the tories, in point of numbers, were about
equally divided in many of the settlements of what now constitutes
Huntingdon county; yet the victims of tory wrongs could not for a long
time bring themselves to believe that they were inflicted by their
neighbors. Barns and their valuable contents were laid in ashes, cattle
were shot or poisoned, and all charged to the Indians, although scouts
were constantly out, but seldom, if ever, got upon their trail.
In a small isolated valley, about a mile south of Jack's Narrows, lived
a notorious tory named Jacob Hare. We could not ascertain what
countryman Hare was, nor any thing of his previous history. He owned a
large tract of land, which he was exceedingly fearful of losing. Hence
he remained loyal to the king, under the most solemn conviction, no
doubt, that the struggle would terminate in favor of the crown. He is
represented as having been a man of little intelligence, brutal and
savage, and cowardly in the extreme. Although he did not take up arms
positively against the Colonists, he certainly contributed largely to
aid the British in crushing them.
A short time previous to the Weston Tory Expedition, a young man named
Loudenslager, who resided in the upper end of Kishicoquillas, left his
home on horseback, to go to Huntingdon, where Major Cluggage was
enlisting men to guard the lead mines of Sinking Valley. It was young
Loudenslager's intention to see how things looked, and, if they suited,
he would join Cluggage's command and send his horse home. As he was
riding leisurely along near the head of the valley, some five or six
Indians, accompanied by a white man, appeared upon an eminence, and
three of them, including the white man, fired at him. Three buckshot
and a slug lodged in his thigh, and one bullet whistled past his ear,
while one of the buckshot struck the horse. The animal took fright, and
started off at a full gallop. Loudenslager, although his thigh-bone was
shattered and his wound bled so profusely that he left a trail of blood
in his wake, heroically clung to his horse until he carried him to the
Standing Stone fort.
Weak and faint from the loss of blood, when he got there he was unable
to move, and some of the people carried him in and cared for him as
well as they could; but he was too much exhausted to give any account
of the occurrence. After some restoratives were applied, he rallied,
and gave a statement of the affair. His description of the white man in
company with the Indians was so accurate, that the people knew at once
that Hare, if not the direct author, was the instigator, of this
diabolical outrage.
Loudenslager, for want of good medical attendance or an experienced
surgeon, grew worse, and the commander, to alleviate his sufferings if
possible, placed him in a canoe, and despatched him, accompanied by
some men, on his way to Middletown,--then the nearest point of any
importance; but he died after the canoe had descended the river but a
few miles.
The excitement occasioned by the shooting of young Loudenslager was
just at its height when more bad news was brought to Standing Stone
Fort.
On the same day, the same party that shot Loudenslager went to the
house of Mr. Eaton, (though probably unaccompanied by Hare,) in the
upper end of the same valley; but, not finding any men about the
house,--Mr. Eaton being absent,--they took captives Mrs. Eaton and her
two children, and then set fire to all the buildings. The work of
devastation was on the point of being completed when Mr. Eaton reached
his home. He did not wait to see his house entirely reduced to ashes,
but rode to Standing Stone as fast as his horse could carry him, and
spread the alarm. The exasperated people could hardly muster sufficient
patience to hear the particulars before they started in pursuit of the
enemy. They travelled with all the speed that energetic and determined
men could command, scouring the country in every direction for a period
of nearly a week, but heard no tidings of Mrs. Eaton and her children,
and were forced to give her up as lost.
This aroused the wrath of the settlers, and many of them were for
dealing out summary punishment to Hare as the instigator; but, in the
absence of proof, he was not even brought to trial for the Loudenslager
murder, of which he was clearly guilty. The act, however, put people
upon their guard; the most notorious known tory in the county had
openly shown his hand, and they knew what to expect of him.
Mr. Eaton--broken-hearted, and almost distracted--hunted for years for
his wife and children; and, as no tidings could be had of them, he was
at last reluctantly forced to believe that the savages had murdered
them. Nor was he wrong in his conjecture. Some years afterward the
blanched skeletons of the three were found by some hunters in the
neighborhood of Warrior's Mark. The identity of the skeletons was
proved by some shreds of clothing--which were known to belong to
them--still clinging to their remains.
When Captain Blair's rangers, or that portion of them raised in Path
Valley, came across to the Juniata, they had an old drum, and--it is
fair to infer, inasmuch as the still-house then seemed to be a
necessary adjunct of civilization--sundry jugs of whiskey accompanying
them. At Jack's Narrows lived a burly old German, named Peter
Vandevender, who, hearing the noise, came to his door in his
shirt-sleeves, with a pipe in his mouth.
"Waas ter tuyfel ish ter meaning of all dish?" inquired old
Vandevender.
"We are going to hunt John Weston and his tories," said one of the men.
"Hunt dories, eh? Well, Captin Plair, chust you go ant hunt Chack Hare.
He ish te tamtest dory in Bennsylvania. He dold Weshton ash he would
half a gompany to help him after he come mit ter Inchins."
What Vandevender told Blair was probably true to the letter; for one
of the inducements held out to the tories to accompany Weston was that
they would be reinforced by all the tories in the county as soon as
the first blow was struck; but he was _not_ raising a company. He was
too cowardly to expose himself to the danger attending such a
proceeding.
As soon as Vandevender had communicated the foregoing, the company,
with great unanimity, agreed to pay Hare a visit forthwith. The drum
was laid aside, and the volunteers marched silently to his house. A
portion of them went into the house, and found Hare, while Blair and
others searched the barn and outbuildings to find more of the tories.
On the arrival of Captain Blair at the house, some of his men, in a
high state of excitement, had a rope around Hare's neck, and the end of
it thrown over a beam, preparatory to hanging him. Blair interposed,
and with great difficulty prevented them from executing summary
vengeance upon the tory. In the mean time, one of the men sharpened his
scalping-knife upon an iron pot, walked deliberately up to Hare, and,
while two or three others held him, _cut both his ears off close to
his head_! The tory, during these proceedings, begged most piteously
for his life--made profuse promises to surrender every thing he had to
the cause of liberty; but the men regarded his pleadings as those of a
coward, and paid no attention to them, and, after cropping him, marched
back to Vandevender's on their route in search of Weston.
On their arrival at the Standing Stone, they communicated to the people
at the fort what they had done. The residents at the Stone only wanted
a piece of information like this to inflame them still more against
Hare, and, expressing regrets that he had not been killed, they
immediately formed a plot to go down and despatch him. But there were
tories at the Stone. Hare soon got wind of the affair, placed his most
valuable effects upon pack-horses, and left the country.
The failure of Weston's expedition, and the treatment and flight of
Hare, compelled many tories, who had openly avowed their sentiments, to
leave this section of the country, while those who were suspected were
forced into silence and inactivity, and many openly espoused the cause
of the colonies. Still, many remained who refused to renounce their
allegiance to the king, and claimed to stand upon neutral ground. Those
who had taken up arms against Great Britain, however, declared that
there were but two sides to the question, and no neutral ground;--that
those who were not for them were against them.
Hare was declared and proclaimed an "attainted traitor," and his
property was confiscated and sold. Who became the purchaser we could
not ascertain; but, after peace was declared and the treaty between the
United States and Great Britain ratified, Hare returned, and claimed
the benefit of that part of the treaty which restored their possessions
to all those of his Majesty's subjects that had not taken up arms
against the colonists. As there was no direct evidence that he killed
Loudenslager, Congress was compelled to purchase back and restore his
property to him.
He lived and died on his farm. The venerable Mrs. Armitage, the
mother-in-law of Senator Cresswell, of Hollidaysburg, remembers seeing
him when she was quite young and he an old man. She says he used to
conceal the loss of his ears by wearing his hair long.
During life he was shunned, and he died unregretted; but, we are sorry
to say, his name is perpetuated: the place in which he lived, was
cropped, and died, and is still called Hare's Valley. The people of
Huntingdon should long since have changed it, and blotted from their
memory a name linked to infamy and crime.