WATER STREET--THE BEATTY FAMILY--CAPTAIN SIMONTON--MASSACRE OF THE DEAN
FAMILY--CAPTIVITY OF JOHN SIMONTON, ETC.
Water Street is an old place, and was settled prior to the Revolution.
A stream of water from the Canoe Mountain, supposed to be the Arch
Spring of Sinking Valley, passes down a ravine and empties into the
Juniata at this place. For some distance through a narrow defile, the
road passed directly through the bed of this stream,--a circumstance
which induced the settlers to call it Water Street when the original
settlement was made.
This for a long time was an important point, being the canoe-landing
for the interior country. Hence the name of Canoe Valley, applied to
the country now known as Catharine township, in Blair county. At this
place was General Roberdeau's landing, where he received his stores for
the lead mines, and where he shipped the lead-ore to be taken to
Middletown for smelting.
The number of persons living about Water Street and in the lower end of
Canoe Valley, during the Revolution, was fully as great as at the
present day.
Among the first settlers was Patrick Beatty. He was the father of seven
sons, regular flowers of the forest, who never would fort during all
the troubles, and who cared no more for an Indian than they did for a
bear. They lived in a cabin about a mile west of Water Street.
It is related of John, the oldest son, that, coming through the woods
one day, near his home, he met two Indians in his path. They both aimed
at him, but by successful dodging he prevented them from shooting, and
reached the house. He found one of his brothers at home; and the two,
seizing their rifles, started out after the Indians, and followed them
sixty miles, frequently getting sight of them, but never within
shooting distance. The Indians knew the Beattys, and feared them, for a
more daring and reckless party of young fellows never existed in the
valley.
It is a remarkable coincidence that of the Beattys there were seven
brothers, seven brothers of the Cryders, seven of the Ricketts, seven
of the Rollers, and seven of the Moores,--constituting the most
formidable force of active and daring frontier-men to be found between
Standing Stone and the base of the mountain.
In the winter of 1778 or the spring of 1779, Lowry's Fort was erected,
about two and a half or three miles west of Water Street, for the
protection of the settlers of Water Street and Canoe Valley. Although
built upon Lowry's farm, Captain Simonton was by unanimous consent
elected the commander. Thus, during the year 1779 and the greater part
of 1780, the people divided their time between the fort and their
farms, without any molestation from the savages. Occasionally an alarm
of Indian depredations sent the entire neighborhood to the fort in
great haste; but just so soon as the alarm had subsided they all went
to their farms again.
Some few of the neighbors, for some reason or other, would not fort at
Lowry's; whether because they apprehended no danger, or because they
felt quite as secure at home, we have no means of knowing. Among these
was Matthew Dean, Esq., one of the most influential men in Canoe
Valley, who lived but half a mile from the fort. His reason for not
forting there, however, arose from an old personal animosity existing
between himself and Lowry, and not from any fancied security at his own
house, for he had several times, during the alarms of 1779, made
preparations to remove his family to Huntingdon.
In the fall of 1780, on a Sunday evening, Captain Simonton and his
wife, and his son John, a lad eight years of age, paid a visit to
Dean's house. They spent the evening in conversation on the ordinary
topics of the day, in the course of which Captain Simonton told Dean
that he had heard of Indians having been seen in Sinking Valley, and
that if any thing more of them was heard it would be advisable for them
to fort. Dean gave it as his opinion that the rumor was false, and that
there was no cause for alarm, much less forting.
The family of Mr. Dean consisted of himself, his wife, and eight
children, with the prospect of another being added to the family in a
day or two. The last words Mrs. Dean spoke to Mrs. Simonton were to
have her shoes ready, as she might send for her before morning. When
the Simontons were ready to start, the lad John was reluctant to go;
and at the request of Mrs. Dean he was allowed to stay with their
children until morning, at which time Mrs. Simonton promised to visit
her neighbor.
In the morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Dean, with his two boys
and two oldest girls, went to a cornfield for the purpose of breaking
it up preparatory to sowing rye in it. The boys managed the plough,
while the girls made what was called "steps," or holes between the
corn-hills, where the plough could not be brought to bear. Mr. Dean had
taken his rifle with him, and, after directing the work for a while, he
saw large numbers of wild pigeons flying in the woods adjoining the
field, and he went to shoot some of them. He had been in the woods but
a short time when he happened to look in the direction of his house,
and saw smoke issuing from it, when he immediately went to his children
and informed them of it. By that time the volume of smoke had so
increased that they were satisfied the house was on fire, and they all
started for home at their utmost speed.
In the mean time Mrs. Simonton, according to promise, came over to
Dean's house. She, too, saw the smoke some distance off, and by the
time she reached the gate, which was simultaneously with the arrival of
the family from the corn-field, the house was in a sheet of flame. Up
to this time no one had supposed that the fire was the work of Indians.
Mrs. Simonton saw a little girl, about eight years of age, lying upon
the steps, scalped; but she did not notice its being scalped,--merely
supposing that the child had a red handkerchief tied around its head,
and had fallen asleep where it lay. But when she went into the gate to
get the child out, and the blood gushed up between the boards on which
she trod, the fearful reality burst upon her mind; then she thought
about her own little son, and for a while was almost frantic.
News of the disaster was conveyed to the fort, and in a few hours the
entire neighborhood was alarmed. A strong force, headed by the Beattys,
started in pursuit, and got upon the track of the savages, but could
not find them. They even waylaid the gap through which the war-path
ran; but all to no purpose, for they got clear of the settlements by
some other route.
Captain Simonton, at the time of the outrage, was at Minor's Mill,
getting a grist ground. On his return, he heard the news at Water
Street, when he threw the bag of flour from the horse, and rode as fast
as the animal could carry him to the scene of the disaster, where he
arrived in a state of mind bordering closely upon madness--for he
passionately loved his little boy--just as the neighbors were taking
the roasted and charred remains of Mrs. Dean and her three children out
of the ashes. One of the neighbors so engaged was a daughter of Mr.
Beatty, now Mrs. Adams, still living in Gaysport, at a very advanced
age, who gave us a graphic account of the occurrence.
The remains taken out were joined together, and the skeletons of Mrs.
Dean and her three children could be recognised; but no bones were
found to conform to the size of Simonton's son. The Dean girls then
recollected that, when last seen, he was playing near the front door
with the little girl. It was then suggested that he might be killed,
and that his body was perhaps lying somewhere near the house; but a
most thorough search revealed nothing of the kind, and it was only too
evident that the Indians had carried the child into captivity.
The murder of the Deans was the cause of universal regret, for they
were known and respected by every person in the upper end of the
Juniata Valley, and it did not fail to spread consternation into every
settlement, even where people thought themselves beyond the reach of
the merciless and bloodthirsty savages.
The reason why Simonton's child was carried into captivity, instead of
being murdered and scalped, was believed to be because the Indians knew
the child and expected that Simonton would follow them and pay
liberally for his ransom.
The remains of the Deans were buried, and the family bore up as well as
they could under the sad infliction; but it was some years before
Matthew Dean fairly recovered from the blow.
The descendants of the Dean family are numerous--a majority of them
living in the neighborhood of Williamsburg, Blair county. One of the
young girls in the cornfield at the time of the massacre married a Mr.
Caldwell, and was the mother of David Caldwell, at present one of the
associate judges of Blair county.
Captain Simonton never became reconciled to the loss of his son. He
made all the inquiries he could; wrote to government, and even went
from his home as far as to Chillicothe, Ohio, to attend a treaty; but
all to no purpose: he could obtain no tidings of him. While there, he
caused proclamation to be made to the Indians, offering a reward of £10
for any information as to his whereabouts, or £100 for his recovery.
This was a munificent sum for the ransom of a mere boy, considering the
financial condition of the country; and the Indians promised to find
him, if possible.
A year after his return home, the final treaty for the delivery of
prisoners was held in the Miami Valley. Again Captain Simonton
undertook the journey--then a more formidable undertaking than
traversing half the Union would be now.
But he was again doomed to bitter disappointment. The children were
brought forward, but none bore the slightest resemblance to his lost
boy. So the captain returned to his home, bereft of all hope. The last
feeble prop was gone, and Simonton was as near being a broken-hearted
man as any one could well be without giving way entirely to despair.
When the late war with Great Britain broke out, Huntingdon county,
notwithstanding it had more than its proportion of tories in the time
of the Revolution, furnished three companies to go to the Canadian
frontier. In Captain Moses Canan's company were two, probably three, of
Captain Simonton's sons. They knew they had a brother abducted by the
Indians, but it never occurred to either of them that they should ever
see him.
The companies of Captains Allison, Canan, and Vandevender, encamped in
Cattaraugus, New York,--a country then occupied by the Seneca Indians.
These Indians were neutral at that time, although they favored the
American cause and readily furnished supplies to the soldiers. Among
them was a white man, who appeared to hold a very prominent position.
He owned lands, cattle, horses, lived in a well-constructed house, and
was married to a squaw, by whom he had several children. This was the
long-lost John Simonton. After Captain Canan's company had left, two
men belonging to Vandevender's company, originally from Water Street,
commenced talking about this white man among the Indians; and both of
them agreed that he bore a most striking resemblance to the Simonton
boys.
Next day, happening to meet him in front of his own house, one of them
accosted him with the somewhat abrupt question of "What is your name?"
He answered, in broken English, "John Sims."
"Are you from the Juniata?" continued the man.
"I think I am," was Simonton's reply.
"Do you remember any thing of the country?"
"I remember my father, who used to have two big fires, and large
barrels, in which he stirred with a long pole."
This answer satisfied them. Old Captain Simonton had a small
distillery, and the man remembered the process of distilling very
correctly.
"Wouldn't you like to go to your old house and see your relatives?"
inquired one of the men.
He answered that he should like very much to do so, but that he was so
much of an Indian that he doubted whether his presence would afford
much satisfaction to his friends.
On being told that some of his brothers were in one of the companies,
he was so much affected that he shed tears, and expressed great anxiety
to see them. He evidently felt himself degraded, and saw between
himself and his brothers an insurmountable barrier, built up by upward
of thirty years of life among the savages; and yet he longed to see
them.
While talking to the men, his wife took him away, and he was not seen
again by them while they remained there. His wife had a powerful
influence over him, and she used it to the best advantage; for she
really began to suspect that the men had traced his origin.
Poor old Captain Simonton!--he never lived to learn the fate of the boy
he so much doated upon.
One of the sons of Captain Simonton--a very old man--still lives
several miles west of Hollidaysburg.