disease incapable of much motion; and seldom left his home. He died
February 18, 1832, aged eighty-eight years. He was greatly respected by
his neighbors and friends, and it is little wonder that a monument was
unveiled to his memory three years later.
The spring of 1856 the monument, together with his remains, were removed
to the new and beautiful cemetery on the western border of the Union
County seat.
The old colonel was survived by his wife, seven sons and two daughters.
One son, James, was the father of United States Senator James K. Kelly,
of Oregon.
----------
Captain John Armstrong Murdered in Jack’s
Narrows April 9, 1744
John Armstrong, a trader among the Indians, residing on the Susquehanna
above Peter’s Mountain, on the east bank of the river, and two of his
servants, James Smith and Woodward Arnold, were barbarously murdered
April 9, 1744, by an Indian of the Delaware tribe named Musemeelin in
Jack’s Narrows, now Huntingdon County.
The murderer was apprehended and delivered up by his own nation and
imprisoned at Lancaster, whence he was removed to Philadelphia lest he
should escape or his trial and execution, if found guilty, produce an
unfavorable impression on the Indians. This was particularly important,
as a large council was about to convene at Lancaster.
Governor George Thomas directed that the property of Armstrong be
returned to his family. He also invited a deputation of the Delaware
tribe to attend the trial of Musemeelin and to be present at his
execution, if such was to take place.
Nine of Armstrong’s relatives and neighbors went in search of the
remains of the murdered men and to gather such evidence as they could
about the details of the crime. They signed a deposition before James
Armstrong, one of His Majesty’s justices of the peace for Lancaster
County, dated “Paxtang, 19th day of April, 1744.”
These deponents testified that when they learned of the murder they met
at the house of Joseph Chambers, in Paxtang, and determined to go to
Shamokin and consult with Shilkellamy, the vicegerent of the Six
Nations, what they should do concerning the affair.
Shikellamy sent eight Indians to accompany the deponents. The entire
party then went to the house of James Berry, on Mahantango Creek, which
empties into the Susquehanna above the mouth of the Juniata.
On the way to Berry’s three of the Indians ran away, but on the morning
after their arrival there, the deponents, with the five Indians, set out
in quest of the bodies.
They proceeded to the last known sleeping place of John Armstrong and
his men, and a short distance from this place James Berry picked up the
shoulder bone of a human being. He showed his find to his companions,
and the action of the Indians at this time proved to the whites that
they knew more about the crime than they had made known.
The party proceeded along a path three miles, heading to the Juniata
Narrows, to a point where they suspected the crime to have been
committed. Here the white men directed the Indians to go farther down
the creek, but they hung back, and actually followed the white men. Some
eagles or vultures were noticed and then the Indians disappeared.
At this place a corpse was discovered, which they believed to be that of
James Smith; three shots were heard at a short distance, and the
deponents, believing the Indians had fired them to advise the finding of
another corpse, rushed to the place, but the Indians had run away. A
quarter of a mile farther down the creek the corpse of Woodward Arnold
was found lying on a rock.
The deponents examined the bodies of Arnold and Smith and found them to
have been most barbarously and inhumanely murdered by being gashed with
deep cuts on their heads with tomahawks, and other parts of their bodies
mutilated. The body of Armstrong was believed to have been eaten by the
savages.
This deposition was signed by Alexander Armstrong, a brother of John,
the murdered man, who lived at the mouth of Armstrong’s Creek, above the
present town of Halifax, Dauphin County; Thomas McKee; John Foster, who
also lived on the west side of the Susquehanna; William Baskins, James
Berry, who lived on the east side, near the Juniata, and John Watts,
James Armstrong and David Denny.
The atrocity of this outrage was so revolting that a Provincial Council
was held to take the matter into consideration, and it was finally
resolved that Conrad Weiser should be sent to Shamokin to make demands,
in the name of the Governor, for those concerned in the crime.
Mr. Weiser arrived at Shamokin, May, 1744, and delivered Governor
Thomas’ message to Allummapees, then the Delaware King, a large number
of that tribe and in the presence of Shikellamy and a small number of
the Six Nations.
Following the presentation of the affidavit, Allummapees replied,
confessing the guilt of Musemeelin. Shikellamy then arose and entered
into a full account of the unhappy affair.
He claimed that Musemeelin owed Armstrong some skins, and that Armstrong
seized a horse and rifled gun belonging to the Indian in lieu of the
skins. These were taken by Smith for Armstrong.
When Musemeelin met Armstrong near the Juniata, he paid all the account
but twenty shillings and demanded his horse. Armstrong refused to give
up the animal, and after a quarrel the Indian went away in great anger.
Some time later Armstrong and his two servants, on their way to the Ohio
country, passed by the cabin of Musemeelin, and his wife demanded the
horse of Armstrong, but by this time he had sold the beast to James
Berry.
Upon his return from a hunting trip his wife told Musemeelin of her
demand to Armstrong. This angered the Indian, who determined on revenge.
Musemeelin engaged two young Indians to go on a hunting trip, but he led
them to the camp of Armstrong and his men. When they arrived at a fire
James Smith was sitting there alone. Musemeelin told Smith he wanted to
speak with him privately, and they went into the woods. Musemeelin soon
came back laughing, as he had killed Smith and shot Arnold, whom he
found coming back to the camp.
The young Indians were terrified, but too afraid of Musemeelin to leave
him. They soon came across John Armstrong sitting on an old log.
Musemeelin asked: “Where is my horse?” Armstrong replied: “He will come
by and by.” “I want him now,” said Musemeelin. “You shall have him. Come
to the fire and let us smoke and talk together,” said Armstrong. As they
proceeded, Armstrong in the advance, Musemeelin shot him in the back,
then tomahawked him.
Shikellamy further said that the three Indians buried John Armstrong and
that the others were thrown into the river.
Jacks Narrows, where this crime was committed, takes it name from
Captain John (Jack) Armstrong, the victim.
Musemeelin was not convicted of the crime, but returned to his wigwam
and was looked upon by his savage people as a hero.
----------
Tories of Sinking Valley Take Oath to King
April 10,1778
Among the tragedies during the Revolutionary war, none seem more
melancholy than those connected with efforts of the disaffected to
escape to the enemy. During the winter of 1777–78, British agents were
busy along the western frontier and as far east as Cumberland County,
seeking to corrupt the frontier settlers, insinuating sentiments of
discontent, assuring them that the American cause was sure to fail and
making glittering promises of reward for those who should join the cause
of the King.
One of the agents visited the valleys of the Allegheny Mountains in what
is now Blair County, but then was a part of Bedford. He was successful
in deluding a considerable band of ignorant frontiersmen by the most
despicable methods.
This rascal held out to these mountaineers a vision of wholesale plunder
and carnage on the property of their patriot neighbors. His appeals were
made only to the vicious, who were promised if they would organize and
join a force of British and Indians coming down the Allegheny Valley in
the spring they would be permitted to participate in a general onslaught
on the settlements and would receive their share of the pillage and, in
addition to this, they should each receive grants for the lands of the
rebel neighbors to the extent of 300 acres each, wherever they should
select.
One of the men who entered into this despicable plot afterward confessed
that it was the design to slaughter the peaceable inhabitants without
mercy—men, women and children—and seize their property and lands.
In the northern part of Blair County is a deep valley called Sinking
Spring Valley. It is still a wild and romantic country, but 150 years
ago was singularly desolate and lonely and seemed a fitting place for
the meeting of such conspirators as had been enlisted in this cruel Tory
plot.
In Sinking Spring Valley the tory band held its gatherings during
February and March, 1778. Many of the plotters were from the frontier
settlement of Frankstown, near what is now Hollidaysburg. The leader was
John Weston, a bold, lawless man, half farmer, half hunter, half
civilized, who lived with his wife and brother, Richard, in a crude
mountain cabin.
The British agent, having thoroughly enlisted Weston in the murderous
enterprise, returned up the Allegheny, promising to be at Kittanning
about the middle of April, with 300 Indians and white men, there to meet
his mountain friends and with them swoop down on the other settlements,
and make all of his partisans weary under the burden of their rich
plunder.
Weston furthered the propaganda and enlisted thirty of his neighbors in
the adventure. Alarming intelligence of the Tory plans leaked out,
reached the larger settlement of Standing Stone, now Huntingdon, where
it was reported that a thousand Indians and Tories were about to fall on
the frontier.
A stockade had been built at Standing Stone, but its garrison never
consisted of more than a score of green militiamen, and there was a
general flight of the terrified people from the upper valley of the
Juniata toward Carlisle and York.
The band of plotters was joined, about April 1, by a man named McKee, of
Carlisle. He had been in communication with a British officer, who was
confined in Carlisle, with other prisoners of war. He gave McKee a
letter addressed to all British officers, vouching for the loyalty of
McKee and his associates. This letter was to be used in securing
protection and a welcome for the Sinking Spring Valley Tories when they
should meet with the British and Indians on their flight to the
Allegheny.
At the appointed time word reached the valley that a large force of
Indians had gathered at Kittanning. The last meeting of the plotters was
held April 10, in the forest, and thirty-one took the oath of allegiance
and pledged themselves to follow Weston.
On the following morning, at the break of day they began their march
over the mountains. In the afternoon of the second day they had come
within a few miles of their intended destination, when they encountered
a band of about 100 Iroquois Indians. The savages burst suddenly out of
the thicket in full war paint.
John Weston sprang forward, waving his hand and crying out, “Friends!
Friends!” The Indians were not in the British conspiracy, but were bent
on a plundering raid on their own account and regarded Weston and his
armed companions as a hostile party.
The Indian chieftain fired at Weston, and the Tory leader fell dead. His
startled and horrified followers halted in dread astonishment. Another
of the savages sprang forward and, before the ignorant borderers could
recover from their surprise, tore the scalp from Weston’s head.
At this point McKee rushed out, holding aloft in one hand a white
handkerchief and in the other hand the letter from the British officer
at Carlisle, and called out to the Indians: “Brothers! Brothers!” The
savages did not respond. Almost as suddenly as they appeared they
vanished into the undergrowth, leaving the bewildered mountaineers alone
with their dead and scalped leader. Weston was buried where he fell.
The Tories feared to go forward and even more to return to their homes.
They held a consultation, when some declared their intention to return
to Bedford County, but others feared arrest and determined they would
seek safety elsewhere.
Hard was the fate of this company. Some of them wandered in the forests
and perished from hunger. Some of them made their way to the southward,
and reached British posts after great suffering. Five of them returned
to their homes in Sinking Spring Valley and were seized by the aroused
frontiersmen and lodged in the log jail at Bedford.
Richard Weston, brother of the slain leader, was caught near his home by
a party of settlers going to work in the lead mines there, and he was
sent under guard to Carlisle. Weston confessed the whole plot, but
claimed he had been misled by his older brother. He escaped from prison
before his trial, so his taint of treason was hardly to be blamed on his
brother.
The Supreme Executive Council ordered a special court to try the
prisoners at Bedford. It held two sessions in the fall of 1778 and
spring of 1779, with General John Armstrong, of Carlisle, as president.
The court failed to convict any of the defendants on the charge of high
treason. The leaders were either dead or out of the country, and the few
men brought before the court seemed to be sufficiently punished by their
imprisonment and the contempt of their neighbors.
Those who fled away were tainted with treason and their estates were
declared forfeited.
----------
Captain John Brady, Noted Hero, Killed by
Indians April 11, 1779
Captain John Brady was foremost in all the expeditions that went out
from the West Branch of the Susquehanna settlements, and his untimely
death, April 11, 1779, was the worst blow ever inflicted upon the
distressed settlers.
John Brady, second son of Hugh and Hannah Brady was born in 1733, near
Newark, Delaware. He came with his parents to Pennsylvania, married Mary
Quigley, when he was twenty-two years old, and soon thereafter enlisted
in the French and Indian War. On July 19, 1763, he was commissioned
captain and assigned to the Second Battalion of the Pennsylvania
Regiment, commanded by Governor John Penn and Lieutenant Colonels
Turbutt Francis and Asher Clayton.
The following year his command was with Colonel Henry Bouquet on his
expedition west of the Ohio, and was actively engaged against the
Indians who made terrible slaughter in Bedford and Cumberland Counties.
Captain Brady was one of the officers who received land grants from the
Proprietaries, and, in 1768, he removed his family to Standing Stone,
now Huntingdon. The following year he changed his residence to a site
opposite the present town of Lewisburg. He was a land surveyor and his
note books furnish much valuable land data.
In 1776 Brady removed to Muncy Manor, where he built a semi-fortified
log house, known later as Fort Brady. It was in what is now the borough
of Muncy, and was a private affair but was classed among the provincial
fortifications.
In December, 1775, when Colonel William Plunket made his famous
expedition to the Wyoming Valley, Captain John Brady was one of his
ablest assistants. When the Twelfth Regiment of the Continental Line was
organized under command of Colonel William Cooke, September 28, 1776,
Captain Brady was one of the original captains. Two of Captain Brady’s
sons married daughters of Colonel Cooke.
At the Battle of Brandywine the Twelfth was engaged under General John
Sullivan and was cut to pieces in the desperate fighting near the
Birmingham Meeting House. Captain John Brady was among those seriously
wounded, and his son, John, a lad of only fifteen, who had come like
David of old, with supplies for the camp and had remained for the
battle, was also wounded, and only saved from capture by the act of his
colonel in throwing the boy upon a horse when the troops retreated. So
fierce was the fighting that every officer in Captain Brady’s company
was killed or wounded, together with most of his men.
Captain Brady was given a leave of absence while the army was in winter
quarters at Valley Forge, and during this time was at his home at Fort
Brady. When the Indians became so troublesome between the North and West
Branch Valleys, he removed his family to Sunbury, and September 1, 1778
returned to the army. He served for a time with Colonel Daniel
Brodhead’s regiment at Fort Pitt.
James Brady, Captain John’s second son, who was himself a militia
captain, was mortally wounded August 8, 1778, while he was working in
the field near Fort Muncy. Young Brady survived his frightful wound for
five days and died at Sunbury in the arms of his mother, an heroic
pioneer woman.
Captain John Brady had taken such an active part in the efforts of the
settlers to subdue the Indian atrocities, and his daring and repeated
endeavors had so intensified their hatred, that they determined his
capture above all other efforts.
April 11, 1779, Captain Brady went up the river some distance to procure
supplies for those in the fort, and he took with him a wagon, team and
guard, and was in charge of the party. They secured the supplies and
were returning in the afternoon, Captain Brady astride a fine mare.
Within a short distance of the fort, where the road forked, he was
riding a little distance in the rear of the team and guard, and engaged
in conversation with Peter Smith, who was walking. He determined that
they would not follow the team, but would take another and shorter road
to the fort. They rode and walked along together until they reached a
small run where the same roads again joined. Brady observed, “This would
be a good place for Indians to secrete themselves.” Smith replied “yes.”
That instant three rifles cracked and Brady fell.
The mare ran toward Smith, who grabbed her and threw himself upon her
back and in a few moments reached the fort.
The people in the fort heard the rifle shots and, seeing Smith on the
mare coming at full speed, all rushed out to learn the fate of Captain
Brady. Mrs. Brady led those of the party in reaching Smith’s side. Smith
told them, “Brady is in heaven or hell or on his way to Tioga,” meaning
that he was either killed or taken prisoner. Those in the fort ran to
the spot and soon found the captain lying on the ground, his scalp and
rifle gone; but the Indians had been in too much haste to take his watch
or shot-pouch.
Samuel, known as “Old Sam,” Brady happened to be at the fort when
Captain John Brady was killed, and it was he who rushed out, followed by
some of the garrison, and bore his brother’s body into the fort.
Thus perished one of the most skilled and daring Indians fighters, on
whose sterling qualities and sound judgment the pioneers so much
depended.
His remains are interred in the old graveyard near Halls, where a heavy
granite marker was erected bearing the inscription:
Captain John Brady
Fell in defense of our forefathers
at Wolf Run, April 11, 1779.
Aged 46 years.
One hundred years after his death funds for a monument were raised by
public subscription and $1600 secured, and on October 15, 1879, the
shaft was unveiled in Muncy cemetery. The oration was delivered by the
Hon. John Blair Linn, in the presence of an immense concourse made up of
military and patriotic organizations and thousands of citizens,
including several hundred of the Brady family.
----------
General Abner Lacock, United States Senator
and Distinguished Citizen, Died in
Beaver County, April 12, 1837
In the Biographical Annals of the Civil Government of the United States
published in 1876, appears the following brief notice of a once
prominent citizen of Pennsylvania:
“Abner Lacock, born in Virginia, in 1770. Without the advantage of much
early education, he raised himself by his talents to eminence as a
legislator, statesman and civilian. He filled various public stations
for a period of nearly forty years; was a Representative in Congress
from Pennsylvania from 1811 to 1813, and United States Senator from 1813
to 1819. He died in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, April 12, 1837.”
A search for further information concerning one of whom so little is
known by the public, but who was honored with the highest offices in the
gift of his neighbors and of the whole people of our State, reveals many
interesting details and important events in the life of this man.
Abner Lacock was popularly known as General Lacock. He was born in Cobs
Run, near Alexandria, Virginia, July 9, 1770. His father was a native of
England, and his mother a native of France. The father emigrated to
Washington County, Pennsylvania, while Abner was quite young, and
settled on a farm.
In 1796 Abner removed to the town of Beaver, then in Allegheny County,
and was one of the first settlers in that neighborhood.
His public career commenced almost immediately after his settlement at
Beaver. On September 19, 1796, he was commissioned by Governor Thomas
Mifflin a justice of the peace for Pitt Township, Allegheny County. This
appointment made him the first public official within the present limits
of Beaver County, which was formed out of parts of Allegheny and
Washington Counties, March 12, 1800.
In his first office Lacock evinced such a natural strength of mind and
sound intelligence that he was elected in 1801, the first Representative
to the State Legislature from Beaver County, which post he filled until
1803, when he was commissioned the first associate judge for the new
county, but he resigned at the end of the year to again enter the
Legislature. The first session of court was held in Abner Lacock’s
house, February 6, 1804.
After serving four successive terms in the House, in 1808, he was
elected to the Senate, representing Allegheny, Beaver and Butler
Counties in the upper body of the Pennsylvania Legislature with marked
ability.
The War of 1812 with the agitation which preceded it brought him into
the larger field of national politics. In 1810 he was elected by the
people of his district as the “War Candidate” to Congress, when he
showed such qualities of leadership that in 1813 the Legislature of his
State with great unanimity elected him a Senator of the United States.
He served in the House during the Twelfth Congress and in the Senate in
the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Congresses.
General Lacock was a warm friend of Madison and Monroe, and a bitter
enemy of Andrew Jackson. In his later years he was an Adams and Henry
Clay Whig.
On December 18, 1818, a select committee of five members was appointed
in the Senate of the United States, to investigate the conduct of
General Andrew Jackson in connection with the Seminole War. Of this
committee Senator Lacock was chairman, and author of the report made
February 24, 1819, which severely arraigned Jackson with the violation
of the Constitution and International Laws.
This action of the committee made Jackson and his friends furious, he
threatening members of the committee with personal violence. Lacock was
unafraid and wrote frequently about Jackson’s boasting only in public,
and that he should never avoid him a single inch.
The clash never came, and they left the capital on the same day, and in
the same public conveyance.
General Lacock was one of the most active promoters of internal
improvements in the State of Pennsylvania. Soon after his term in the
United States Senate had ceased, he entered heartily into the scheme for
uniting the waters of the Delaware and the Ohio by a State line of
Canals and railroads. On April 11, 1825, he was appointed one of five
commissioners to make a complete survey of the route for the
contemplated improvements.
On February 25, 1826, the Legislature authorized the commencement of the
work on the canal. General Lacock was chosen to supervise the
construction of the Western division of the canal from Pittsburgh to
Johnstown.
The first canal boat built or run west of the Allegheny Mountains was
named the “General Abner Lacock.” It was built at Apollo by Philip
Dally.
Later General Lacock repeatedly served Beaver County in the State
Legislature, and in 1836 was appointed to survey and construct the
Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal, known as the “cross-cut canal,” connecting
the Erie division of the Pennsylvania Canal with the Portsmouth and Ohio
Canal, contracting in its service in that year his last illness.