of the road-makers by his presence. Neither General Braddock nor Sir
John had any distinct idea of the obstacles to road-building over the
Pennsylvania mountains or of the difficulties which confronted Governor
Morris in a work of such magnitude, who lacked both money and men for
the undertaking.
This road, which afterward received the name of Braddock’s Road, passed
beyond McDowell’s Mill, around Parnell’s and Jordan’s Knobs into Path
Valley, into Cowan’s Gap, past Burnt Cabins and Sugar Cabins to Sideling
Hill. From the latter point the road extended to the crossing of the
Juniata, thence to Raystown (now Bedford), and it then went over the
Alleghenies to the Great Crossing, three miles from Turkey’s Foot.
The entire expense of making the road was to be paid by the Province.
Advertisements were broadcasted in Cumberland, York and Lancaster
Counties for laborers. James Wright and John Smith contracted to supply
the workmen with provisions.
Ground was broken May 6, 1755, when only ten men reported for work under
command of James Burd. By the 15th there were seventy men at work and by
the end of the month 120.
Mr. Burd was in sole charge of the work at the outset, the other
commissioners being too busy—Croghan with the Indian contingent ordered
by Braddock, Armstrong with complications growing out of the purchase of
1754 and Buchanan and Hoopes with their private affairs.
The road was built thirty feet wide for about ten miles, when it was
determined to make it twenty feet, and parts requiring digging or
quarrying only ten feet.
Twenty days were required to make the road from Anthony Thompson’s to
Sideling Hill, a distance of nineteen miles. William Smith was
commissioned to assist Mr. Burd and reported May 28.
Much of the money required for the work was supplied by Joseph Armstrong
and Samuel Smith, members of the Assembly from Cumberland County, from
their private purse, for the Legislature held its pursestrings with a
tight grip. The workmen at times suffered for the want of bread and
liquor.
By June 16, Mr. Burd wrote from “Alloqueepy’s Town,” thirty-four and a
half miles from Thompson’s, that he expected to finish the work there
the next day, and join the advance division, under Smith, at Raystown.
The Indians menaced the work at this time and Braddock, who at first
refused aid, sent 100 men, under Captain Hogg, as a guard. The soldiers
came none too soon.
As Braddock penetrated the Alleghenies, Indian ravages began in his
rear. True to their character, the savages spared neither sex nor age.
The soldiers deserted and the workmen were unprotected and in constant
danger.
By July 5 the road was completed to the eastern base of the Alleghenies.
On the day that Braddock’s body was buried at Great Meadows, John
Armstrong wrote to him from Carlisle to say that the new road would soon
be completed. It was too late. Braddock had no further need for a road,
except a spot for a burial place in that great highway over which he had
marched to defeat with so much military pomp.
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George Croghan, King of Traders, Sent on
Mission to Logstown May 7, 1751
George Croghan and Andrew Montour were sent, May 7, 1751, to Logstown to
carry a Provincial present to the Indians. While there the wily Irishman
met Joncaire, the French Indian agent, but succeeded in outwitting him
in diplomacy; and the chiefs ordered the French from their lands and
reasserted their friendship for the English. At this time the Indians
requested Croghan to ask Governor Hamilton to build a strong house on
the Ohio River for the protection of their wives and children in event
they should be obliged to engage in war.
George Croghan, next to Sir William Johnson, was the most prominent
figure among British-Indian agents during the period of the later French
wars and the conspiracy of Pontiac, from 1746 until the Revolutionary
War, when he unfortunately cast his lot with the British.
He was born in Ireland and educated at Dublin, and emigrated to America
in 1741. He settled in Pennsylvania near John Harris’ Ferry, now
Harrisburg. He became an Indian trader in 1744, and was made a Councilor
of the Six Nations at Onondaga in 1746.
Croghan first appears in the official correspondence of Pennsylvania as
writing to Secretary Richard Peters, May 26, 1747, that he had just
returned from the woods, bringing a letter, a French scalp, and some
wampum, for the Governor from a party of the Six Nations Indians having
their dwelling on the borders of Lake Erie, who had formerly been in the
French interest; and who now, thanks to Croghan’s diplomacy, had
declared against the French.
Croghan went to Logstown in April, 1748, with a message and present from
Pennsylvania Council to the Ohio Indians. Conrad Weiser carried a larger
present to these same Indians, and on his trip lodged in Croghan’s
storehouse in Logstown.
In 1750, Croghan accompanied Secretary Peters and other officials on a
trip among the settlers in Path, Tuscarora, Juniata and Aughwick Valleys
warning them off, burning their cabins and confining some of the
intruders in prison.
At the great Shawnee Council at Logstown, he, Andrew Montour and
Christopher Gist were present and Croghan boldly announced to the
Indians that the French had offered a large sum of money to any one who
would bring them the bodies or scalps of Croghan or Montour. So the
mission to Logstown, May 7, 1751, when the French-Indian Agent was
present, was a most unusual moment to the intrepid Croghan, and his
almost equally celebrated companion, Andrew Montour.
Croghan succeeded in making a treaty between the Indians and Virginia
Commissioners. He was again at Logstown, May 7, 1753, in company with
William Trent, Robert Callender and other traders, when a messenger
arrived with the news that the French were on Lake Erie in large force,
with brass cannon, on their way to the Ohio. Croghan held a conference
with Scarouady, the Half King, on May 12; and then attended an important
council between Pennsylvania Commissioners and chiefs of the Six
Nations, Shawnee, Delaware, Wyandot and Twightwee at Carlisle in
October, 1753. About this time he was compelled, by impending bankruptcy
and fear of being imprisoned for debt, to remove to the Indian country,
and he built a house at Aughwick Old Town, near the Juniata.
Croghan accompanied George Washington and his little army on the march
from Fort Necessity to Redstone. When he returned to Aughwick he kept
Governor Morris informed of the movements of the French and their Indian
allies.
Croghan attended the important Indian conferences at Easton, Harris’
Ferry, Lancaster, Onondaga, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and other places,
and always faithfully represented the English cause. He and Weiser were
the most active agents at Easton, June, 1762, when King Tedyuskung
retracted his charges of fraud and forgery in land transactions made
against the Proprietaries by him at Easton six years before.
He was commissioned captain and served with Braddock, when he commanded
a company of Indians. He resigned his commission in spring of 1756 and
joined his fortunes with those of Sir William Johnson in the Mohawk
Valley. He was appointed a deputy in the Indian service, with the rank
of colonel.
December 1, 1763, he sailed for England to confer with the ministry
about some boundary lines, but he was shipwrecked off the coast of
France and did not reach his destination until February, 1764.
Croghan made an affidavit while in London which relates much of his
early movements. He also presented to the Lords of Trade an interesting
Memorial on Indian Affairs in America.
He returned to Pennsylvania in October, 1764, and was induced to
continue as Deputy Indian Agent in the Western Department.
Croghan was sent by General Gage to Illinois for the purpose of making
peace with the Indians. He embarked from Fort Pitt, May 15, 1765, and
experienced a hazardous trip during which his party was attacked by
hostile Indians. He being severely wounded and taken prisoner, was
carried to what is now Lafayette, Indiana, where he was recognized by
some chiefs with whom he had previous dealings, and in spite of the fact
that the French demanded his execution, Croghan was liberated, July 18.
He set off that day for the Illinois country. On the way he met Pontiac
and other chiefs, and effected the treaty he had been sent to make.
Colonel Croghan kept journals of all his trips and these are both
interesting and valuable. They reveal many exciting adventures and some
very harrowing experiences.
Croghan mortgaged his Otsego tract of land to William Franklin, son of
Benjamin, and lost it under foreclosure in 1773. This became the home of
James Fennimore Cooper, now Cooperstown, N. Y.
In the controversy between Pennsylvania and Virginia for the territory
which lies west of the Laurel Hills, Croghan was a partisan of Virginia,
and one of those who stirred up the most trouble.
At the beginning of the Revolution Colonel Croghan embarked in the
patriot cause, being elected chairman of the Committee of Safety of
Augusta County, May 16, 1775. He later became an object of suspicion.
June 15, 1778, he was declared by Pennsylvania a public enemy, and his
office of Indian Agent was conferred upon Colonel George Morgan. He
continued, however, to reside in Pennsylvania, and died at Passyunk, in
the summer of 1782. His will is dated June 12, 1782.
Colonel Croghan married a Mohawk Indian, and their daughter, Catherine,
became the third wife of Joseph Brant, the celebrated Mohawk chieftain
of the Revolutionary period.
----------
Pennsylvania Navy Meets British in Action,
May 8, 1776
The Committee of Safety, which organized July 3, 1775, early in the
following year, had a survey made of the Delaware River, with a view to
its more extensive fortification. Leave was obtained from New Jersey to
construct works on that side of the river; a permanent fort was
determined upon at Billingsport; the fort at Fort Island was hurried to
completion; it was decided to fortify Liberty Island, and additions were
made to the chevaux-de-frise. To the naval flotilla were added the
floating battery Arnold, the ship-of-war Montgomery, the fireship Aetna
and some guardboats for Philadelphia harbor. This naval force soon had a
chance to show its mettle.
On May 6 news came to Philadelphia by express from Fort Penn that two
warships, a schooner and three tenders were coming up the river. The
Committee of Safety ordered the gunboat flotilla and the Montgomery and
Aetna, under command of Commodore Andrew Caldwell and Captain James
Reed, to attack the enemy. His vessels were the Roebuck, forty-eight
guns, under command of Captain Hammond, and the sloop-of-war Liverpool,
twenty-eight guns, under command of Captain Bellew, and their tenders.
Captain Proctor, in command of the fort at Fort Island, volunteered for
the fight with 100 of his men and served on board the Hornet. The
Montgomery, the Continental ship Reprisal, under command of Captain
Wickes, and the battery Arnold, under Captain Samuel Davidson, remained
near the chevaux-de-frise, in a line with the forts. The other boats
went down the river to the mouth of Christiana Creek, coming up with the
enemy on the afternoon of May 8.
Fire was immediately opened on both sides and was maintained with much
spirit until dark. The Roebuck ran ashore and careened; the Liverpool
came to anchor to protect her and the provincial boats withdrew to
obtain more ammunition.
During this engagement, the Continental schooner Wasp, with Captain
Alexander, which had been previously chased into Wilmington, came out
and captured an English brig belonging to the squadron. The fireship was
not brought into use, and before morning the Roebuck was again afloat.
The attack was renewed at 5 o’clock in the morning when the British
ships retired, being closely pursued as far as New Castle by the
Philadelphia navy.
The officers of the flotilla complained grievously of the supplies
furnished them by the Committee of Safety as being defective in quality
and deficient in quantity; the powder was so bad that the men had to cut
up their clothes and equipments to make the cartridges serviceable.
There were also other defects, so that the officers threw the whole
blame of their failure to destroy or capture the enemy vessels upon the
committee. The Assembly investigated, however, and exonerated the
committee.
The American loss was one killed and two wounded. The British lost one
killed and five wounded. So it was quite probable this engagement was
fought at long range. Members of the Provincial Navy, however, brought
up some splinters from the enemy’s ships to exhibit at the Coffee House
as trophies of the fight. The Roebuck and the Liverpool returned to
their stations at Cape May, depending upon New Jersey, instead of
Pennsylvania, for poultry and fresh provisions.
This engagement served a valuable purpose. Congress and the Provincial
Assembly were certainly admonished to increase their navies. The
Committee of Safety added to the galleys and other vessels, sloops,
schooners, guard boats and also firerafts. This added force was composed
of 743 men. Samuel Davidson was appointed to succeed Commodore Caldwell,
as commander of the flotilla, soon after the fight, but on account of
much opposition from other officers, never took up the command.
The Committee of Safety organized a system of privateers and letters of
marque at this time, with the sanction of Congress. They created a Court
of Admiralty, of which George Ross, of Lancaster, was judge; Matthew
Clarkson, marshal, and Andrew Robinson, register.
Before July there had also been commissioned the brigs Hancock and
Congress, and the sloop Chance, under Captains Wingate Newman, John
Kaye, and James Robertson. As early as May the Congress and Chance had
taken three valuable ships from Jamaica bound for London, with large
cargoes of rum, sugar and molasses, 22,420 “pieces of eight,” 187 ounces
of plate and a fine turtle, intended as a present to Lord North. The
President of the Continental Congress received and enjoyed this turtle.
It is also of interest to our Province to note that the activities of
the young navy resulted in other important prizes. The privateer
Congress captured the schooner Thistle; the privateer Franklin, of
Philadelphia, took a British storeship with seventy-five tons of
gunpowder and 1000 stands of arms; the ship Lexington, under Captain
John Barry, of Philadelphia, captured the Edward; the Wasp took the
schooner Betsy. In the meantime the British Roebuck and Liverpool, with
their tenders, made many captures of vessels about the Delaware Capes,
chasing others ashore. But the record of the young American Navy was
glorious and certainly a fine beginning for the brilliant successes
which were to follow.
Thus we find that the Committee of Safety constructed the Pennsylvania
State Navy three months before Congress proposed a Continental navy.
By August, 1776, the fleet numbered twenty-seven vessels, with Captain
Thomas Reed as commodore, the first officer of that title in America.
Another distinguished officer was Nicholas Biddle.
Three months after the State Navy was begun the Continental Congress
took action for the construction of a Continental navy, which was also
fitted out in Philadelphia. When the Congress of the United States
established the Navy Department in 1798, the first navy yard was located
in Philadelphia, where ship building had been an established enterprise
since 1683. The city is today famous for the quality and quantity of
ships built for this and other nations of the world.
----------
Bishop John Heyl Vincent, Founder of
Chautauqua, Died May 9, 1920
General Grant once introduced Bishop J. H. Vincent to President Lincoln
and said: “Dr. Vincent was my pastor at Galena (Illinois), and I do not
think I missed one of his sermons while I lived there.”
This same Bishop Vincent, of good old Pennsylvania stock and many years
a resident of Pennsylvania, was the founder of the Chautauqua Assembly,
next only to the public-school system in bringing to the masses of the
people some share of their inheritance in the world’s great creations in
art and literature. This is the work of a man—a great teacher and
educator and university preacher—who did not himself have a college
education.
In 1772 the Vincent family, consisting of John Vincent and wife, their
sons, Cornelius and Peter; their sons-in-law, Timothy Williams and
Samuel Gould, removed from Essex County, N. J., and settled in
Northumberland County, Pa., near the present town of Milton.
When the Indians became hostile during the Revolutionary War the early
settlers along the West branch of the Susquehanna erected stockade forts
at central points, into which the women and children of the neighborhood
were gathered for protection at the approach of danger. In one of these
forts, known as Fort Freeland, situated on Warrior Run, were gathered
the Vincents, the Himrods, the Miles, the McKnights, the Boyds, the
Kings, the Littles and others.
June 21, 1779, a party of Indians approached stealthily and fired upon
six men hoeing corn in a field near the fort. They killed Isaac Vincent
and James Miles and took Michael Freeland and Benjamin Vincent
prisoners.
July 28, 1779, 200 British under Captain John McDonald and 300 Seneca
Indians, under Chief Hiokatoo attacked the fort and compelled it to
capitulate, the conditions of surrender being that all the men over
seventeen should become prisoners of war, and the women and children and
the aged should be set at liberty. Under this capitulation, Cornelius
Vincent and his sons, Daniel and Bethuel, with their neighbors, were
marched across the country to the Lakes, then to Quebec, where they
remained prisoners till the close of the war.
The aged John Vincent and wife, with the wife and younger children of
Cornelius, wended their way back on foot to New Jersey and were
scattered among their friends until the return of the captives.
Soon after their return from captivity Cornelius Vincent and his wife
and their sons, Daniel and Bethuel, returned to the West Branch Valley
and resumed the settlement they had been obliged to abandon. Daniel
built and owned a large mill on Warrior Run. Bethuel built a large hotel
in Milton, and became its most prominent citizen. Bethuel Vincent was
postmaster at Milton, June 29, 1803 to February 22, 1822, and again July
13, 1822 to June 23, 1829.
Cornelius Vincent died in Milton, July 16, 1812. Daniel Vincent died
near his mills, January 26, 1826, and Bethuel died at his home in
Milton, April 30, 1837.
Bethuel Vincent, born June 3, 1762, married Martha Himrod, January 1,
1788. They were the parents of nine children, of whom John Himrod, born
April 20, 1798, was the youngest of the four sons.
John Himrod married Mary Raser, a native of Philadelphia, who died at
Chillisquaque, Pa., February 16, 1852. They were old-fashioned
Methodists, and parents of Bishop Vincent.
During a short residence in Tuscaloosa, Ala., John Heyl Vincent, the
subject of this sketch, was born February 23, 1832. The parents soon
moved back to their Pennsylvania home, where John H. attended the
schools at Milton and Lewisburg. He began to preach at eighteen years
and studied for awhile at Wesleyan Institute, Newark, N. J.
Reverend John Heyl Vincent joined the New Jersey Conference in 1853. Was
ordained deacon, 1855; elder, in 1857. Transferred to Rock River, Ill.
Conference, he became pastor at Galena in 1857, and General U. S. Grant
was one of his parishioners. He then preached elsewhere and in Chicago.
A trip to the old world in 1862, contributed an important part to his
intellectual training. He visited Egypt, Palestine, Greece, Italy and
other countries.
In 1866 he was elected general agent of the Methodist Episcopal Sunday
School Union and in 1868, corresponding secretary of the Sunday School
Union and Tract Society, with residence in New York City. A complete
series of his books forms an encyclopedia of modern Sunday School
literature.
This work culminated in 1874, in the Chautauqua Sunday School Assembly,
from which he founded, in 1878, the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific
Circle and was its Chancellor until his death.
He was made resident bishop at Zurich, Switzerland, 1900, and placed in
charge of European work of the Methodist Church.
Bishop Vincent became preacher to Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Wellesley and
other universities and colleges, and was the recipient of many honorary
degrees.
In speaking of his great work at Chautauqua he remarked: “I do not
expect to make a second Harvard and Yale out of Chautauqua, but I do
want to give the people of this generation such a taste of what it is to
be intelligent that they will see to it that their children have the
best education the country can give.”
Bishop Vincent died in Chicago, May 9, 1920, aged 88 years.
Bishop Vincent’s son, Hon. George Edgar Vincent, a distinguished
educator and powerful orator, is president of the Rockefeller
Foundation.
Pennsylvania may well be proud to claim the ancestors of Bishop Vincent,
the founder of Chautauqua, as their own.
----------
Long Standing Boundary Line Dispute Between
Maryland and Pennsylvania Proprietaries
Signed May 10, 1732
In the boundary dispute between Pennsylvania and Maryland Lord Baltimore
had observations taken of the latitude of New Castle, Delaware, which
showed that town to be 39° 39′ 30″, which would place the end of the
fortieth degree many miles to the north, and its beginning far beyond
the reach of the radius of twelve miles as called for by Lord Chief
Justice North, of England.
A degree of latitude is a band about sixty-nine and a half miles wide,
extending around the earth parallel to the equator.
Lord North, William Penn, Lord Baltimore, and others, in the absence of
better knowledge, simply assumed that the degrees on the maps were all
too far south, which was only a guess, but in fact they were nearly
correct.
Penn obtained his charter and sent William Markham, his cousin and
deputy, to the Delaware to take an observation of the latitude, and he
was to meet Lord Baltimore, or his agents, and settle the boundaries.
This meeting was held in Upland, now Chester, in latter part of the year
1681. The observation was taken, and it became manifest that an absurd
mistake in latitude was revealed, and that the fortieth degree, the
southern boundary of Pennsylvania was twelve miles farther to the North.
Lord Baltimore already knew that the end of the fortieth degree was many
miles north of its position on Captain John Smith’s map, and he renewed
his old claim that his province of Maryland extended to the fortieth
degree complete. Thus began the controversy which lasted twenty years.
This claim carried the northern boundary of Maryland far into Penn’s
province, just north of Philadelphia, and if successfully defended would
have cut from the southern part of our State all the territory south of
a line running through Philadelphia, Dowingtown, just south of
Lancaster, and north of York, Bedford, Somerset, Connellsville,
Brownsville, and the village of West Finley in Washington County.
But Penn had a strong case to defend his territorial limits, his charter
expressly defined the southern limit of Pennsylvania, as on the
beginning of the fortieth degree, which would make its southern limit
reach nearly to the City of Washington, and would have cut off from Lord
Baltimore’s province much more territory than he was trying to cut from
Penn’s. Penn also possessed the later grant from the Crown, and in such
a dispute, where the limits overlapped, it would be taken to have
annulled the older.
Penn was willing to yield his stronger position and compromise, all he
demanded was that the line be placed where it was supposed to be when
his charter was granted. The mistake in latitude made Penn’s boundary on
the Delaware ridiculous, for the circle of twelve miles from New Castle
could not possibly touch the beginning of the fortieth degree, which was
forty miles to the south of it.