Indian told her captors that ten Wolf, or Munsee, Indians were making
salt ten miles farther up the Mahoning. Hand dispatched a detachment
after these savages and he went into camp under uncomfortable
conditions.
The reported Munsee proved to be four squaws and a boy. The soldiers
killed three of the squaws and the boy, the other squaw was taken
prisoner. One of the soldiers was wounded here and another drowned
during the march.
The weather conditions made further campaigns impossible and General
Hand led his dispirited and hungry men back to Fort Pitt. The trophies
were two Indian women. His formidable force had slain one old man, four
women and a boy. On his arrival at Fort Pitt his work was generally
derided by the frontiersmen and his expedition was dubbed the Squaw
Campaign.
This finished General Hand as an Indian fighter. He asked General
Washington to relieve him and May 2, 1778, Congress voted his recall and
commissioned General Lachlan McIntosh to succeed him.
General Edward Hand won distinction in other directions. He was born at
Elzduffs, Kings County, Ireland, December 31, 1744.
In 1767 he was appointed by George III surgeon of the 18th Royal Irish
Regiment of foot, and sailed with the regiment from Cork on May 20 of
the same year, arriving in Philadelphia July 11.
He served with this regiment at Fort Pitt and returning to Philadelphia
in 1774, resigned his commission, receiving a regular discharge from the
British service. In the same year he went to Lancaster and began the
practice of his profession.
He joined the First Battalion of Pennsylvania Riflemen as
lieutenant-colonel at the outbreak of the Revolution and served in the
siege of Boston. He was promoted to colonel in 1776, and led his
regiment in the Battle of Long Island, and also at Trenton. In April,
1777, he was appointed brigadier-general; and in this capacity served in
command of the Western Department until relieved May 2, 1778; in October
following he succeeded General Stark in command at Albany.
In the successful expedition against the Six Nations Indians in 1779,
led by General John Sullivan, General Hand was an active participant.
Near the close of 1780, General Hand succeeded General Scammel as
adjutant-general. He was an intimate friend of General Washington and
had his full confidence during the entire struggle of the colonies. He
was one of the original members of the Order of the Cincinnati.
In 1785 General Hand was elected to the Assembly; then he was a member
of Congress and assisted in the formation of the Constitution of
Pennsylvania in 1789, when the second Constitution of the State was
written, and adopted the following year.
General Hand died at Rockford, Lancaster County, September 3, 1802.
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Evangelist Whitefield Bought Site for Negro
School at Nazareth May 3, 1740
The Reverend George Whitefield was an exceeding earnest worker for the
good of souls. He came to America and spent much of his time in Georgia,
where he preached effectively and established an orphan house and school
near Savannah, laying the first brick himself for the building, March
25, 1740. He named it “Bethesda”—a house of mercy. It afterward became
eminently useful.
Whitefield undertook to found a school for Negroes in Pennsylvania, and
with it a settlement for persons converted in England by his preaching
and subjected to annoyance on that account.
An agreement for a site was made with William Allen, May 3, 1740, when
5000 acres of land were purchased, situated at the Forks of the
Delaware, the consideration being £2200. The title was made to
Whitefield and then assigned to his friend William Seward, who was a man
of considerable wealth, as security for Seward’s advancing the purchase
money.
Two days afterward Whitefield preached in the morning at the German
settlement on the Skippack Creek to about 5000 persons, and in the
evening, after riding twelve miles to Henry Antes’, he preached to about
3000. The Moravian Boehler followed with an address in German.
During this same day Whitefield offered to hire as builders the
Moravians who had arrived from Savannah on the sloop with him.
Whitefield and the Moravians then visited the ground, when the latter,
by the cast of the lot, according to their custom, felt directed to
engage in the enterprise.
Seward, several days after the purchase of the site was made, sailed
from Philadelphia for England, partly to convert some securities into
cash and also to solicit further contributions. He was accidentally hit
on the head while at Caerleon, Wales, from the effect of which blow he
died a few days later, October 22, 1740.
The Moravians arrived in that part of Northampton County, which is now
within the limits of Upper and Lower Nazareth and Bethlehem Townships,
and there commenced to erect a large stone house which Whitefield
proposed to use as the school for Negroes. This tract its proprietor
named Nazareth.
Here the Moravians worked for the remainder of the year and by their
efforts had built two houses. But at this time there arose a dispute
between Whitefield and those employed on the buildings. It is believed
Whitefield disapproved of Boehler’s doctrinal opinions and, unable in an
argument conducted in Latin to convince him, discharged the workmen.
The Moravians were allowed to stay on the property for some time by
Allen’s agent, but the whole project failed, largely through Seward’s
death. Whitefield again secured the title and cheerfully assigned it to
the Moravians.
The Moravian workmen were compelled to seek a new home. This they found
when their Bishop, David Nitcshmann, secured a tract of 5000 acres at
the confluence of the Monocacy Creek and the Delaware River, on which,
in March, 1741, they began to build Bethlehem. This eventually became
the principal settlement of the Moravians in the province.
George Whitefield was born in Gloucester, England, December 16, 1714,
and entered Oxford in 1732. He was a religious enthusiast in very early
life, fasting twice a week for thirty-six hours and while an
undergraduate became a member of the “Holy Club,” in which the
denomination of Methodists took its rise.
Whitefield became intimately associated in religious matters with John
and Charles Wesley. He was made deacon by the Bishop of Gloucester on
Sunday, June 20, 1736, two weeks before his graduation, and attracted
attention even by his first sermon; he drew such crowds in London and
Bristol that people hung upon the rails of the organ loft and climbed in
the windows.
The Wesleys accompanied Oglethorpe to Georgia in 1736 and the following
year John Wesley invited Whitefield to join him in his work in America.
He came in May, 1738, and after laboring for months as a missionary in
the colony of Georgia he returned to England and was ordained priest at
Oxford, Sunday, January 14, 1739. On his way a second time to Georgia he
first visited Pennsylvania.
Whitefield and his friend, William Seward, arrived in Philadelphia in
the evening of Friday, November 2, 1739, on horseback from Lewes, where
they had disembarked.
He read prayers and assisted at Christ Church in the services of the
following Sunday, and preached there in the afternoon and every day for
the rest of the week with increasing congregations. He dined at Thomas
Penn’s, and was visited by the ministers of the Presbyterian and Baptist
Churches and by many Quakers. He preached twice to more than three
thousand persons.
He made a trip to New York, and on his return preached from the yard of
the Reverend William Tennent’s church on the Neshaminy to about three
thousand, and from the porch window of the Presbyterian Church at
Abington, and again several times at Christ Church.
When Whitefield was to preach his farewell sermon in the afternoon of
November 28, the church not being large enough for those expected he
adjourned to the fields, and preached to 10,000. Twenty gentlemen on
horseback accompanied him out of town. At Chester he spoke from a
balcony to 5000, of whom one-fifth had come from Philadelphia.
He was energetically philanthropic. His main purpose in going back to
Georgia was to carry on his work among the poor orphans.
On Boston Common he preached to 20,000 at one time, and was distinctly
heard.
Although he was active in the establishment of the Methodist
denomination, he disagreed with Wesley on points of doctrine, and was
finally an evangelist without the discipline of any denomination.
Whitefield crossed the ocean many times, and made tours from Georgia to
New Hampshire. In September, 1769, he started on his seventh tour there,
and the day before his death he preached two hours at Exeter, N. H., and
the same evening preached in the open air at Newburyport, Mass. He died
of asthma the next day, September 30, 1770, and was buried under the
pulpit of the Federal Street Church in that town.
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Trial of Five Mollie Maguires for Murder
of B. F. Yost Begun at Pottsville
May 4, 1876
On May 4, 1876, James Carroll, Thomas Duffy, James Roarty, Hugh McGehan,
and James Boyle, were placed on trial in Schuylkill County Court at
Pottsville, for the murder of Benjamin F. Yost, of Tamaqua.
The details of this revolting crime and the apprehension of the Mollie
Maguires are of interest as they reveal the terrible horrors experienced
in the anthracite coal fields during the reign of this lawless
organization.
James McParlan, the Pinkerton detective, who joined the Mollies under
the alias of James McKenna, and successfully brought their leaders to
the gallows, was working on the Gomer James murder outrage, when he
learned that the next victim was to be an excellent and competent
policeman of Tamaqua, of the name of Benjamin F. Yost.
McParlan had been unable to learn sufficient of their designs to get a
warning to Yost, as he had so frequently done in other cases.
Yost had experienced considerable trouble with the Mollies, especially
as he had several times arrested James Kerrigan, their local leader, for
drunkenness. Barney McCarron, the other member of the Tamaqua police
force, had also come in for his share of their ill-will, but, from his
German parentage, Yost was the more intensely hated. Yost had been
threatened several times but was a fearless man, a veteran of the Civil
War, where he displayed conspicuous valor on many battlefields, and a
policeman who served his community with fidelity.
About midnight of July 5, 1875, the two policemen in passing Carroll’s
saloon, noted that the place was still open, went inside and saw
Kerrigan and another man drinking.
The policemen proceeded with their duties, and extinguished the street
lamps on their route. They arrived at Yost’s residence about two o’clock
and partook of a lunch, preparatory to finishing up the night’s work.
The two officers parted at Yost’s front gate, and Mrs. Yost, looking out
of her bedroom window, saw her husband place a small ladder against a
lamp post a short distance from their home, and step upon the rungs, but
he never reached the light.
The woman saw two flashes from a pistol; heard the two loud reports and
saw her husband fall from the ladder. She ran down the stairs and into
the street, and met the wounded man, staggering and weak with loss of
blood, clinging to the fence, looking toward his once happy home.
Yost lived long enough to say that his murderers were two Irishmen who
had been in Carroll’s saloon that evening. He exonerated Kerrigan of the
crime, saying one was larger and the other smaller than he. He did not
see Kerrigan.
Yost died at nine o’clock that morning; he was then thirty-three years
of age.
McParlan was soon on the trail of the Mollies who committed this cruel
murder, and Captain Linden, another Pinkerton operative, was also active
on the case.
McParlan was at this time under suspicion by the Mollies of being a
detective and his work was the most dangerous any man was ever called
upon to perform, but he was a hero.
He now affected the role of a drunken man and while sleeping off his
debauch listened to a conversation which gave him a clue; he then fell
in with Carroll, engaged his wife in conversation and soon learned much
of importance.
The next day he learned the names of two of the men who had killed Yost,
Hugh McGehan and James Boyle, both of Summit Hill.
The following day he went to Coaldale and visited James Roarty, head of
the Mollie branch there, ostensibly to see another person. Here they had
a drinking bout, and Roarty told too much, and he was Mollie number
three.
Two days later McParlan was back in Tamaqua and lounging about Carroll’s
saloon where he got more information from Roarty and Carroll. He then
learned that Thomas Duffy was an actor in the crime.
Sunday, July 26, McParlan and Carroll spent some time together, when the
latter related the conversation he had had with some detectives (which
McParlan had sent there), and boasted about loaning his pistol to the
man who did the job. This made Carroll number four.
Soon afterwards Duffy bragged to McParlan of the part he had taken and
the fifth Mollie was trapped.
All that was then needed was to gather his evidence so that it could be
used against these criminals, and for this purpose Captain Linden was
most valuable.
Kerrigan took McParlan to the scene of the murder and enacted the crime
for his friend’s benefit, and soon after this incident the detective
learned that McGehan fired the two shots which killed Yost.
This is the same James Kerrigan who turned State’s evidence in the great
trial of Mollies at Mauch Chunk, January 18, 1876, which resulted in the
conviction of Kerrigan, Michael J. Doyle, and Edward Kelly for the
murder of John P. Jones. Kerrigan’s evidence was the most stunning blow
the Mollies had thus far received, but they knew not the heavier blows
which were to fall on their villainous heads.
The great trial of Thomas Munley and Charles McAllister for the murder
of Thomas Sanger and William Uren, which was held at Pottsville, June,
1876, brought the great Franklin B. Gowen into the case, and the
testimony of McParlan, the Pinkerton detective. Conviction followed.
Then May 4, when the five Mollies were placed on trial at Pottsville for
the murder of Yost. Judges C. L. Pershing, D. B. Green and T. H. Walker
presided.
A juror was taken sick and died, and the second trial was begun July 6,
each of the Mollies was found guilty of murder in the first degree, and
each was hanged in the Pottsville jail yard, the warrants being signed
by Governor Hartranft, May 21, 1877, the executions being held June 21,
the day eight Mollies expiated their crimes.
----------
French and Indian Wars—Lieutenant
Governor Thomas Resigned
May 5, 1747
Coincident with the announcement in the Assembly of the death of John
Penn, one of the Proprietors, was the resignation of Lieutenant Governor
Sir George Thomas, May 5, 1747, on account of ill-health.
On the departure of Governor Thomas, the executive functions again
devolved on the Provincial Council, of which Anthony Palmer was
president; he served until the arrival of James Hamilton, son of Andrew
Hamilton, former Speaker of the Assembly, as Lieutenant Governor,
November 23, 1749.
The harvests of the years 1750 to 1752 were so abundant that an extract
of the time is interesting: “The years 1751 and 1752 have been so
fruitful in wheat and other grain that men in wanton carelessness sought
to waste the supply: for the precious wheat which might have supported
many poor, they used to fatten hogs, which afterward they consumed in
their sumptuousness. Besides, distilleries were erected everywhere, and
thus this great blessing was turned into strong drink, which gave rise
to much disorder.
These years of plenty were followed by three years of scarcity,
1753–1755, and on the heels of it came the terrible Indian hostilities.
The progress of the white population toward the West alarmed and
irritated the Indians. The new settlers did not suffer the delays of the
land office, nor did they pay for their lands, but in search for richer
soils sought homes in regions where the Indian title had not been
extinguished. Some of these settlements were commenced prior to 1740,
and rapidly increased, despite the complaints of the Indians, the laws
of the Province or the several proclamations of the Governor.
An alarming crisis was now at hand. The French in the neighborhood of
the Great Lakes were sedulously applying themselves to seduce the
Indians from their allegiance to the English. The Shawnee had already
joined the French cause; the Delaware only waited for an opportunity to
avenge their wrongs; and of the Six Nations, the Onondaga, Cayuga and
Seneca were wavering and listening to overtures from the agents of both
the English and French.
To keep the Indians in favor of the province required much cunning
diplomacy and many expensive presents. In the midst of this alarming
condition the old flame of civil dissension burst out with increased
fury. The presents so frequently procured for the Indians, the erection
of a chain of forts along the frontier and the maintenance of a military
force drew too heavily upon the provincial purse, which never was
burdened with any great surplus.
The Assembly urged that the Proprietary estates be taxed, as well as
those of humble individuals. The Proprietaries, as would be expected,
refused to be taxed and pleaded prerogative, charter and law; the
Assembly in turn pleaded equity, common danger, common benefit and at
common expense.
The Proprietaries offered bounties in lands not yet acquired from the
Indians by treaty or purchase, and in addition proposed the issuing of
more paper money. The Assembly was not satisfied; they wanted something
more tangible. They passed laws laying taxes and granting supplies, but
the Proprietaries opposed the conditions. They were willing to aid the
Assembly in taxing the people, but not the Proprietaries. Here were sown
the germs of the Revolution, though not fully matured until twenty years
later.
During those frivolous disputes in the Assembly the frontiers were left
fully exposed. The pacific principles, too, of the Quakers, Dunkards,
Mennonites and Schwenckfelders came in to complicate the strife, but as
the danger increased they prudently kept aloof from public office,
leaving the management of the war to sects less scrupulous. The pulpit
and the press were deeply involved, and the inhabitants divided into
opposing factions upon this question.
The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was scarcely regarded more seriously than
a truce by the French in America. In their eagerness to extend their
territories and connect their northern possessions with Louisiana, they
projected a line of forts and military posts from one to the other along
the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. They explored and occupied the land
upon the latter stream, buried in many places leaden plates, by which
they claimed possession of those lands.
The French established themselves at Presqu’ Isle and extended
themselves southward; they erected a fort at Au Boeuf and another at the
mouth of French Creek, which they called Fort Machault.
Virginia was much interested in this foothold gained by the French along
the Ohio, for they claimed the territory of Pennsylvania west of the
Allegheny Mountains as part of their dominion.
The English Government having learned that the French claimed right to
the Ohio River country by virtue of the discovery of La Salle, made
sixty years previous, remonstrated with the Court of Versailles, but
without avail, and resolved to oppose force with force.
The first move made by the English was to present a solid front by
combining the efforts of all the colonies. To this end a conference was
called at Albany in July, 1754, to which the Six Nations were invited.
Governor Hamilton could not attend this conference, and John Penn and
Richard Peters, of the Council, and Isaac Norris and Benjamin Franklin,
of the Assembly, were commissioned to represent the Province of
Pennsylvania. They carried with them £500 as the provincial present to
the Indians.
The results of this confederated council were not satisfactory, but the
Pennsylvania Commissioners obtained a great part of the land in the
province, to which the Indian title was not extinct, comprising the
lands lying southwest of a line beginning one mile above the mouth of
Penns Creek, in what is now Snyder County, and running northwest by west
“to the western boundary of the State.”
The Shawnee, Delaware and Munsee Indians, on the Susquehanna, Juniata,
Allegheny and Ohio Rivers, thus found their lands “sold from under their
feet,” which the Six Nations had guaranteed to them on their removal
from the Eastern waters. This proved of great dissatisfaction to these
Indians and had not a little part in causing their alienation from the
English interest.
----------
Work Begun on Building Braddock Road
Over Alleghenies May 6, 1755
Preparatory to the ill-fated expedition of General Braddock, which
precipitated the forays of the French and Indians upon the unprotected
frontiers of Pennsylvania, was the letter to Governor Morris, of
Pennsylvania, asking to have a road cut so that there might be
communication between Philadelphia and the Three Forks of the
Youghiogheny, both for the security of retreat and to facilitate the
transport of provisions. These English officers were unacquainted with
American geography, and at best the maps used by them were by no means
accurate.
Governor Morris in response advised Sir John St. Clair, deputy
quartermaster general, that there was a very good wagon road from
Philadelphia to the mouth of the Conococheague, but only a horse path
through the mountains by which the Indian traders carried their goods,
and that there would be great difficulty in making a wagon road that
way. He also gently intimated that the distance was much greater than
the English officers realized.
Governor Morris, with the sanction of the Assembly, sent George Croghan,
John Armstrong, James Burd, William Buchanan and Adam Hoopes as
commissioners to explore the country west of the “Great Virginia Road,”
as the road through the Cumberland Valley was called, and to survey and
lay out such roads as were most direct and commodious. No better men
could have been chosen. They were acquainted with the country, and
Armstrong was the best surveyor on the frontier.
These commissioners projected a road from McDowell’s Mill, in present
Franklin County, to within eighteen miles of the Three Forks, where they
found too many French and Indians scouting and hunting to venture
farther. The length of projected road so far as it was surveyed was
sixty-nine miles.
The commissioners could not effect a meeting with Sir John until April
16. When they showed him the drafts he raved like a wild man, and the
commissioners, believing they had done their part well, were abashed by
their unusual reception.
Sir John told them it was too late to build this road now, and instead
of marching to the Ohio they would march into Cumberland County. Not a
soldier should handle an ax, but by fire and sword General Braddock
would compel the inhabitants to build it. He would kill all the cattle
and drive away the horses, burn the houses, and if the French defeated
the army by the delays of the Province, he would, with his sword drawn,
pass through it and treat the inhabitants as a parcel of traitors to his
master. He even avowed his purpose to “shake Mr. Penn’s Proprietaryship”
by representing Pennsylvania as a disaffected province.
Braddock was constantly complaining of the failure of Pennsylvania and
Virginia. He spoke slightingly of the provincial contingent and scoffed
at danger from the Indians. “These savages,” he said to Franklin, “may
indeed be a formidable enemy to raw American militia, but upon the
King’s regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible they should
make an impression.”