in the way of barter instead of money, and this, by the losses it
occasioned produced discontent. The capitalists opposed a change in the
currency, the farmers, laborers, and small trades people favored it.
In the language of petitions sent to the Assembly at this time, the
friends of paper money contended that they were sensibly “aggrieved in
their estates and dealings, to the great loss and growing ruin of
themselves, and the evident decay of the province in general, for want
of a medium to buy and sell with,” and they therefore prayed a paper
currency.
The people of Chester County, on the other hand, asked to have the value
of the current money of the Province raised, the exportation of money
prohibited, and produce made a legal tender, so as to obviate the
necessity for paper money. They did not want a regular State issue, but
nevertheless, like men of more modern greenback times, they wanted an
inconvertible paper money, a non-exportable currency, as if that were a
blessing.
On March 2, 1722–23 an act was passed to issue £15,000. Governor Keith,
in consenting to and promoting this experimental load, had been
encouraged by the popularity of a similar measure matured by Governor
Burnett of New Jersey.
Pennsylvania was the very last of the middle colonies to embark in the
paper money manufacture; but once embarked, she plunged in rapidly and
deeply.
This first small loan of £15,000 was to be redeemed within eight years.
In 1723 £30,000 was issued; in 1740 the issue reached a total of
£80,000.
Benjamin Franklin, who had urged and used his personal influence for
this currency became alarmed and wrote, “I now think there are limits
beyond which the quantity may be hurtful.” He was right.
In 1755 Pennsylvania had £160,000 currency out; and in 1783 the State’s
irredeemable currency had been increased by various issues until it
reached $4,325,000, a sum simply ruinous to all values.
The general plan of these loans was good. No bills were loaned but on
good security. The friends of the system were many.
Paper money was also issued at times by individuals. In May, 1746,
Joseph Gray gave notice that Franklin had printed for him £27,100 in
notes of hand of 2 d., 3 d., and 6 d., “out of sheer necessity for want
of pence for running change. Whoever takes them shall have them
exchanged on demand with the best money I have.”
In 1749 the scarcity of small change was so great that the inhabitants
petitioned for relief, and a committee of the Assembly was appointed to
bring in a bill for the issue of £20,000, mostly in small bills.
An association was formed for issuing paper money to relieve the
pressure for change. Eight reputable merchants issued five-pound notes
to the amount of £20,000, payable at nine months with five per cent
interest. It was soon evident that anyone might do the same thing, and
the community be flooded with valueless currency. It was also at the
same time a new way of borrowing capital. A petition signed by two
hundred tradesmen was presented to the Assembly, which forbade it.
In 1763 the whole paper-money system of the colonies, including that of
Pennsylvania, was outlawed by act of Parliament, when Franklin wrote a
pamphlet, protesting against the act.
This outlawing of colonial money had much to do with prejudicing the
people of the colonies against the rule of Parliament.
----------
General Clark Began Draft for Troops in
Drive Against Detroit, March 3, 1781
The Western frontiers of Pennsylvania were sorely distressed during the
spring and summer of 1781 by the efforts of General George Rogers Clark,
an officer of the Dominion of Virginia, to raise troops for an
expedition in the interest of Virginia against the British post at
Detroit.
Clark received a commission as brigadier general and was given ample
funds with which to purchase provisions in the country west of the
Allegheny Mountains. Also a small force of 140 Virginia regulars was
placed at his service and he was empowered to equip additional
volunteers in the border counties.
Agents were sent in advance of General Clark into the country between
the Laurel Hill range and the Ohio River, who began to buy flour and
live cattle. This caused much uneasiness among the Pennsylvania
militiamen stationed in that country, and Colonel Daniel Brodhead made
complaint to the State Government.
Colonel Brodhead received a letter from General Washington directing him
to give aid to General Clark’s undertaking and to detach from his own
force the field artillery under command of Captain Isaac Craig, and at
least a captain’s command of infantry, to assist the Virginia
expedition.
General Clark arrived on the Pennsylvania frontier March 3 and
established his headquarters at the house of Colonel William Crawford,
on the Youghiogheny, spending part of his time with Colonel Dorsey
Pentecost on Chartiers Creek.
It was generally known by this time that all of Virginia county of
Yohogania and much of the counties of Monongahela and Ohio, claimed as
part of Virginia, really belonged to Pennsylvania, but the actual
boundary line had not been surveyed west of the Monongahela River.
Among the settlers there were many factions, some who would only obey
the laws of Pennsylvania, and who declared that Clark was a Virginia
officer and had no business in Pennsylvania; others adhered to Virginia
authority until the line should be permanently settled. A few took
advantage of the situation and refused to obey either government saying
they did not know which had authority over them, and they had enough to
do to plant and keep their rifles in readiness for the savages.
Clark intended to raise a force of 2,000 men. When he arrived at Colonel
Crawford’s he learned that the frontiers were being raided by bands of
Shawnee from the Scioto, Delaware from the Muskingum and Wyandot from
the Sandusky.
An expedition against those tribes would be more popular among the
Western Pennsylvanians than a campaign against distant Detroit, and
Clark very adroitly made an ostensible change in his plans. He gave it
out that he was going against the Ohio savages, for the immediate
benefit of the Westmoreland frontier, but his real design to conquer
Detroit was not altered.
Colonel Brodhead was not for one moment deceived by General Clark, but
many Pennsylvania officials were. On March 23 Clark wrote to President
Reed, of Pennsylvania, asking his indorsement of the enterprise, for the
effect it might have on the frontiersmen who called themselves
Pennsylvanians.
Colonel Christopher Hays, the Westmoreland County member of the Supreme
Executive Council, was directed to aid Clark’s expedition, but he was at
heart opposed to it.
Colonel Hays called a meeting of all the commissioned officers of the
Westmoreland militia to arrange a plan for the frontier defense. The
officers met June 18, at the home of Captain John McClelland, on Big
Sewickley Creek, and, much to the chagrin of Colonel Hays, decided by a
majority vote to give aid to General Clark. It was resolved to furnish
300 men out of the county militia to join Clark’s army and Colonel
Lochry was directed to see that this quota was raised by “volunteer or
draft.”
This was the initial effort on the Pennsylvania frontier to raise
soldiers by draft and it caused an outcry.
Such prominent citizens as Colonel Pentecost, John Canon, Gabriel Cox
and Daniel Leet worked zealously to recruit men for General Clark, while
county lieutenant Marshel and his adherents were just as active to
defeat the Virginian project. This rivalry, which grew exceedingly
bitter, was fatal to Clark’s enterprise.
Few assembled at the general rendezvous, and Clark began to draft men
for his army. This afforded the rougher element among the Virginians an
opportunity to exploit their hatred toward Pennsylvanians. The draft
proceeded amid pillage, cruelty and personal violence. Virginian raiding
parties scoured the country, seizing and beating men, frightening and
abusing women, breaking into houses and barns and causing a general
reign of terror.
Captain John Hardin was most vigorous in denouncing the Virginia
proceedings and advising against the draft. He owned a grist mill near
Redstone. His eldest son, John, was a lieutenant in the Eighth
Pennsylvania, afterward famous as General John Hardin, of Kentucky.
At the head of forty horsemen General Clark visited Hardin’s settlement
and announced his purpose of hanging the stubborn old pioneer. Hardin
could not be found, but one of his sons was caught and kept bound for
several days. They broke open the mill, fed the grain to their horses,
occupied his dwelling, killed his sheep and hogs for food and feasted
there several days.
General Clark declared Hardin’s estate forfeited for treason. The
general threatened to hang those opposed to the draft, but none were
hanged.
On August 8, Clark began the descent of the Ohio with a force of 400,
but with his spirit broken. The evening of the day he left Colonel
Archibald Lochry arrived with 100 volunteers from Westmoreland County.
These expert riflemen could have been used to advantage by Clark and at
the same time they would have avoided the disaster which befell Lochry
during his effort to join Clark.
Most of Clark’s force deserted him before he reached Louisville, so that
he could not venture upon his march into the enemy’s country. He soon
returned with small detachments, who dispersed to their homes in
Virginia and Pennsylvania.
----------
William Penn Received Charter for Pennsylvania
from King, March 4, 1681
Admiral Sir William Penn, renowned in English history by his martial
valor as an officer of the British Navy, left to his son a claim against
the Government for £16,000, consisting to a great extent of money
advanced by him in the sea service and of arrearages in his pay.
Sir William Penn was in command of an English warship at the age of
twenty-three, when sent to the coast of Ireland to help fight the battle
of Parliament against Charles the First.
When the war with the Dutch followed—caused by the seizure of New
Netherlands—Admiral Penn commanded the English fleet, under the Duke of
York, in a fierce naval engagement off the east coast of England at
Lowestoft, in June, 1665. Just before this battle the admiral’s son,
William Penn, Jr., was sent to the King with dispatches.
Admiral Penn died in 1670, worn out at forty-nine, and his son succeeded
to his estates.
In 1680 William Penn petitioned Charles II to grant him, in lieu of the
sum due to his father’s estate, letter-patent, “for a tract of land in
America, lying north of Maryland, on the east bounded with the Delaware
River, on the west limited as Maryland, and northward to extend as far
as plantable.”
King Charles II was at once willing to grant the petition of William
Penn because he could thus pay the debt owed Sir William. Some of his
counselors objected, saying, that it would be ridiculous to suppose that
the interests of the British nation were to be promoted by sending a
colony of people that would not fight, that would have nothing to do
with gin and gunpowder in dealing with the Indians. But the young Quaker
stood high in the favor of the Duke of York, and of Charles II, and the
King gladly consented to this easy mode of discharging the obligation.
The Duke of York desired to retain the three lower counties, or the
present State of Delaware, as an appendage to New York, but his
objections were finally withdrawn, as were those of Lord Baltimore.
After sundry conferences and discussions concerning the boundary lines
and other matters of minor importance, the committee finally sent in a
favorable recommendation and presented a draft of charter, constituting
William Penn, Esq., absolute Proprietary of a tract of land in America,
therein mentioned, to the King for his approbation; and leaving to him
also the naming of the Province.
The King affixed his signature on March 4, 1681. The original charter is
in the State Library. It is written on three pieces of strong parchment,
in old English handwriting, with each line underscored with lines of red
ink. The borders are gorgeously decorated with heraldic devices, and the
top of the first page exhibits a finely executed likeness of His
Majesty, in good preservation.
Penn wished his province to be called New Wales, but the King insisted
on Pennsylvania. Penn next proposed Sylvania, on the ground that the
prefix “Penn” would appear like a vanity on his part, and not as a mark
of respect for his father; but no amendment was accepted.
The extent of the province was three degrees of latitude by five degrees
of longitude, the eastern boundary being the Delaware River, the
northern boundary “the beginning of the three and fortieth degree of
northern latitude, and on the south a circle drawn at twelve miles
distant from New Castle, northward and westward into the beginning of
the fortieth degree of northern latitude, and then by a straight line
westward to the limits of longitude above mentioned.” The three lower
counties on the Delaware were not included in the charter.
The charter gave title to more than 45,000 square miles of land, and was
among the largest tracts in America ever granted to a single individual.
This grant gave Penn no coast line for his colony; so, August 2, 1682,
he purchased from the Duke of York the “Three Counties Upon the
Delaware,” which now form the State of Delaware. Although these were
separated from Pennsylvania in 1702, they remained a part of the domain
of the Penn family until the American Revolution.
Three things moved Penn to plant a colony in the New World; first, he
would get payment for the amount of £16,000 due his father; secondly, he
would find a place for his brethren, the Quakers, or Friends, where they
would not be openly insulted in the streets, or dragged from their
meeting houses to loathsome jails and robbed of the last bed or cow to
pay the fines for not attending the established church; and thirdly, he
would satisfy the desire which the glowing accounts of the brethren in
the present New Jersey had created in him.
The second of these motives was by far the strongest. Penn himself had
been tried for preaching to “an unlawful, seditious and riotous
assembly.” Penn and his people enjoyed neither religious nor civil
liberty in England.
The charter to Penn sets forth three objects; a desire on the part of
Penn to enlarge the English empire; to promote trade; and to bring the
savage natives by gentleness and justice to the love of civil society
and the Christian religion.
Besides the territory granted, the charter gave Penn the power to make
laws, set up courts, to trade, to erect towns, to collect customs
duties; to make war, to sell lands and to impose taxes.
Copies of all laws were to be sent to England, and if disapproved within
six months they became void. No war was to be made upon any State at
peace with England. Any twenty of the people could request the Bishop of
London to send them a preacher of the Church of England, who was to
reside within the province without being molested.
Penn offered attractive concessions to the settlers. Land was sold to
them at the rate of $10 for 100 acres and every purchaser of lands
should have a lot in the city, to be laid out along the river. In
clearing the ground care was to be taken “to leave one acre of trees for
every five acres cleared.” This was the beginning of forestry in
America.
At the time of the charter the present limits of the State were
inhabited by the Indians, with some Swedes and Dutch settled along the
Delaware.
The first real settlement under the new proprietor was made in 1681,
when Penn sent William Markham, his cousin, to take possession of the
province. The next year Penn himself arrived, bringing in his ship, the
Welcome, a hundred colonists of his own faith, to found Philadelphia,
the city of “Brotherly Love.”
Penn bought the land from the Indians, making a treaty of peace with
them which remained unbroken for more than fifty years. “We shall never
forget the counsel he gave us,” said an Indian chief at Conestoga in
1721.
----------
Colonel Daniel Brodhead Arrives at Fort Pitt
to Fight Indians, March 5, 1779
Colonel Daniel Brodhead was sent to Fort Pitt to relieve General Edward
Hand, and he arrived there March 5, 1779. He was a trained soldier and
knew how to fight Indians.
General Hand turned over to him seven hundred militiamen. Some of these
were stationed at Fort McIntosh, at what is now Beaver, some at Fort
Henry, now Wheeling, W. Va., a few at Fort Randolph, now Point Pleasant,
details at Fort Hand, near Kiskimimetas, near Apollo, and another guard
at Fort Crawford, now Parnassus.
Forts Hand and Crawford were intended to protect the northern border of
Westmoreland County from the raids of the Iroquois who lived on the
upper waters of the Allegheny River.
With the first mild weather of spring the incursions of the savages
began. The Seneca and Munsee descended the Allegheny in canoes and
scattered in little bands throughout the country. They burned cabins,
killed and scalped men, carried off the women and children and household
goods.
Colonel Brodhead put into operation a system of scouting along the
border from one fort to another. From his regulars at Fort Pitt, he
selected his boldest and most experienced frontiersmen and organized
ranging parties and sent them on extended tours through the forests. To
the command of these important details he selected three of the bravest
woodsmen in the Eighth Pennsylvania, Captain Van Swearingen, Lieutenant
Samuel Brady and Lieutenant John Hardin. It was in this service that
Brady won his fame as an Indian fighter.
Samuel Brady’s hatred of the savages was personal and he made it his
business to kill them. In this he was justified in the cruel death of
his brother, James, August 8, 1778, which was followed by the
treacherous murder of his father, the celebrated Captain John Brady,
April 11, 1779.
Samuel Brady received the news of his father’s death about the time he
was chosen by Colonel Brodhead to the command of forest rangers. This
increased his hatred of the red men and moved him to execute vengeance.
Brady and his scouts were clad entirely in Indian fashion. In the forest
excursions they even painted their bodies and faces and wore feathers in
their hair, in imitation of savage warriors.
An attack was made on Ligonier settlement in April. On April 26, one
hundred Indians and Tories attacked Fort Hand, in both affairs defenders
were killed and many captured, and other places were attacked and
habitations burned.
During May, Brodhead kept his scouts out along the upper Allegheny to
give warning of the approach of hostile bands.
Brodhead learned, about June 1, that a large band of Seneca and Tories,
under Colonel John Butler was preparing to descend the Allegheny, and he
dispatched three scouts, in canoes as far as Venango, the present
Franklin. The scouts were discovered and pursued, and narrowly escaped
capture, but brought the news which confirmed the report received by
Brodhead.
The savages penetrated into Westmoreland, where they killed and scalped
a solitary soldier, then attacked the little settlement at James Perry’s
Mills, on Big Sewickley Creek, killed a woman and four children, and
carried off two children, many cattle and much plunder.
Two ranging parties were sent after these marauders. One was marched to
the Sewickley settlement and an attempt was made to follow the trail.
The other band consisted of twenty men under Brady, which ascended the
Allegheny River.
As Brady’s detail advanced one evening along the beach within the mouth
of the Big Mahoning where it empties into the Allegheny, they found many
Indian canoes drawn up and hidden among the shrubbery. The Indians had
gone into camp in the woods, on a little knoll north of the creek, and
were preparing the evening meal when discovered by Brady. They had
hobbled their horses and turned them out to graze. The stream was very
high and the scouts were compelled to ascend it two miles before they
could wade across.
After nightfall Brady and his men hid themselves in the tall grass near
the Indian camp. Brady and Chief Nonowland, laying aside their
tomahawks, knives, powder horns and bullet pouches, crept to within a
few yards of the Indian camp to count the savages and ascertain the
position of the captive children.
One of the Indians suddenly cast off his blanket, arose, stepped forth
to within six feet of where Brady lay, stood there awhile, stretched
himself and then returned to his slumber.
Brady and Nonowland then prepared for an attack at daybreak. The whole
party of scouts made their way through the grass and weeds to a position
as near the camp as was considered safe, and lay awaiting the dawn.
As daylight appeared an Indian awoke and aroused the others. They stood
about the fire laughing and chatting when a deadly volley broke forth
from the rifles of the scouts lying in the bushes. The chief and seven
Indian warriors fell dead and the others, almost naked, fled into the
dense forest, two of them severely wounded. Brady’s own rifle brought
down the chief, and with a shout of almost fiendish triumph he sprang
forward and scalped him.
The traditions of the Brady family say that the chief was none other
than Bald Eagle, who had struck down and scalped Brady’s younger
brother, James, ten months before. Brodhead reported to Washington that
the chief was “a notorious warrior of the Munsee nation.”
The children captured at Sewickley were recovered unharmed and Brady and
his men returned to Fort Pitt with the stolen horses and plunder, the
blankets, guns, tomahawks and knives of the savages and many scalps.
----------
Settlers Attack Pack Trains Near Fort
Loudoun, March 6, 1765
The period immediately following Colonel Bouquet’s successful expedition
against the Indians at Muskingum October, 1764, was one of comparative
peace, but this did not long continue.
A most interesting episode occurred about this time in the Conococheague
Valley, from the North to the South Mountain. The people who had been
driven off had gradually returned and were now determined to make a
better stand against the enemy. They raised a sum of money and recruited
a company of riflemen, of which James Smith was elected captain. They
dressed in Indian fashion and painted their faces red and black like the
Indian warriors.
Two of the officers had long been in Indian captivity, and they drilled
their men in Indian discipline, and so expert did this company become
that it was recognized by the British Government and Captain Smith
received a commission in the regular service under King George III, and
the following year was with Bouquet’s expedition against Muskingum.
George Croghan, the deputy agent for Indian affairs, went to Fort Pitt
in February, 1765, and brought about the meeting with Sir William
Johnson, whereby on May 8, 1765, a definite treaty of peace was made
with the Delaware.
When Croghan set out from Philadelphia for Fort Pitt, March 1, 1765, he
gave a pass for a large number of wagons belonging to Boynton and
Wharton, of Philadelphia, loaded with merchandise, which was intended as
presents for the Indians at Fort Pitt.
But the people of Cumberland County took the law into their own hands to
prevent warlike stores being supplied to savages recently in arms
against them. These goods were hauled to Henry Collins, at
Conococheague, and there he contracted to pack them on eighty-one
horses, by which they were to be delivered into Fort Pitt.
This large transaction alarmed the country and William Duffield raised
and armed about fifty of the trained men of that valley and marched to
Fort Loudoun, where Duffield made a request that this consignment of
goods be stored up until further orders, but this was refused, and on
March 6 the pack train proceeded on its journey.