the Colonel were to march to the place where the former was to be
executed. During the march they saw five of their comrades in custody of
the Indians. They were all required to sit down, when a number of squaws
and boys tomahawked the five prisoners. An elderly soldier among the
five, named John McKinley, from the Thirteenth Virginia, was killed, his
head cut off and kicked about upon the ground. The scalps of the other
four were slapped into the faces of Colonel Crawford and Surgeon Knight.
At this point Simon Girty came upon the scene in company with several
Indians on horseback. Colonel Crawford engaged him in conversation and
made every possible offer for relief from his perilous situation,
offering Girty any price to deliver him from the savages and their
torments. Girty heard his prayers with indifference.
Colonel Crawford was led to a post to which he was fastened. A pile of
wood lay a few feet distant. The colonel was stripped naked and ordered
to sit down on the fire which had been kindled, when the Indians began
to beat him with sticks and their fists. They then bound the Colonel’s
hands behind his back and fastened the rope with which he was tied to
this ligature.
Girty stood and composedly looked on the preparations that were to be
the death of one of his former playmates; a hero by whose side he had
fought. Crawford again pleaded with Girty to save him, but he refused to
procure him a moment’s respite or afford him the most trifling
assistance. Crawford retorted that he would take it all patiently.
The rope was now pulled over the cross arm on the post so that the
Colonel’s arms were extended above his head, with his feet just standing
upon the ground. The wood was placed in a circle around him at a
distance of a few feet, in order that his misery might be protracted and
the fire then applied to the wood at several places in the circle.
As the flames rose and the scorching heat became unbearable he again
prayed to Girty in all the anguish of his torment to rescue him from the
fire, or shoot him dead. Girty, with a demoniac smile, calmly replied
that he had no pity for his sufferings. Squaws took broad boards, heaped
with burning embers and threw them on him, so that he had nothing but
coals of fire to walk upon.
Dr. Knight who witnessed all of this horrible execution, related that
Colonel Crawford at this stage of his sufferings, prayed to the Almighty
to have mercy on his soul. He bore his torments with the most manly
fortitude. He suffered these extremities of pain nearly two hours, when,
exhausted, he fell over. They then scalped him and repeatedly slapped
the bleeding scalp in the doctor’s face, remarking, “That was your great
captain.” An old squaw laid a pile of coals upon his back and head where
his scalp had been removed, the Colonel raised himself upon his feet and
began to walk around the post, but he soon expired. His body was
entirely consumed.
Colonel Crawford was about fifty years old, was a patriot and hero. He
had been an intimate of General Washington and shared to an unusual
degree the confidence of that great man and soldier.
Soon as brave Colonel Crawford had expired Girty went to Dr. Knight and
bade him prepare for death. He told him he was to be burned in the
Shawnee town. He was led away during that night.
The Indian who had Dr. Knight in custody rode on horseback and drove his
captive before him. During the march the doctor pleaded ignorance of the
fate which was to befall him and assumed a cheerful countenance and
asked him if it was true they were to live together as brothers in one
house. This pleased the Indian, who replied yes. They traveled about
twenty-five miles that day.
At daybreak, June 12, the Indian untied Knight and began to make a fire.
Knight took the heaviest dogwood stick he could find and in an unguarded
moment struck the Indian a terrible blow on the head, which so stunned
him that he fell forward into the fire. Knight seized his gun, blanket,
powder horn, bullet bag and made off through the woods. He had a
fatiguing tramp, many days without food or shelter. He reached the Ohio
River, five miles below Fort McIntosh, twenty-one days after his escape,
and at 7 o’clock in the morning of July 4, arrived safely at the fort.
He lived many years afterward and gave a thrilling narrative of the
defeat and cruel death of Colonel Crawford and his own miraculous
escape.
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Conrad Weiser and Family Arrive in
America June 13, 1710
During the early days of the eighteenth century many Germans, or
“Palatines” as they were called, came to America. Many of them settled
near Albany, New York.
Among these Germans were John Conrad Weiser and his son Conrad, who
arrived in New York June 13, 1710, and settled on Livingston Manor, in
Columbia County, N. Y. Conrad was then a lad of fourteen, being born
November 2, 1696, near Wurtemberg, Germany.
The company of which the Weisers were members did not prosper in their
new home; many of them starved. So in 1714 the Weisers removed to
Schoharie, in the Mohawk Valley.
The removal made matters worse. The family had almost nothing to eat.
The friendly Mohawk chief, Quagnant, offered to take Conrad into his
wigwam for the winter, and his father consented. The lad learned the
Mohawk language, but often wished himself back in his own poor home. “I
endured a great deal of cold,” he said, “but by spring my hunger much
surpassed the cold.” Conrad did not then foresee how valuable his
knowledge of Indian language and customs would become.
Conrad did not long remain at home after his return from the Mohawk
camp, but acted as an interpreter between the Dutch traders and the
Indians.
The son may have been headstrong and the sire harsh, at any rate the
youth left home and built himself a cabin in the neighborhood, earned a
good income by selling furs, and spent the greater part of the next
fifteen years among the Indians. Evidently, however, he retained a
respect for the teachings of his ancestors, for he says: “I married my
Anna Eve, and was given in marriage by Rev. John L. Haeger, Reformed
clergyman, on 22d of November (1720), in my father’s house at
Schoharie.” Weiser, the elder, was at that time in Europe.
When Governor Keith, of Pennsylvania, heard of the plight of the Germans
at Schoharie, he invited them to come to his colony, and promised them
good land. John Weiser, a leader of the colony, set out at the head of a
company and cut a road through the woods to the Susquehanna. In rough
boats they floated down stream to the mouth of Swatara Creek, which they
followed up to the beautiful Lebanon Valley, where they settled along
Tulpehocken Creek.
Conrad Weiser and his young wife followed the elder Weisers, and settled
near Womelsdorf, where he continued to reside until a few years before
his death, when he removed to Reading.
It is said of Weiser that while on a hunting trip he met the great
Shikellamy, and that the vicegerent was well pleased with him, and
particularly so when he learned that Weiser could speak Mohawk. They
became great friends.
In 1732 by special request of certain deputies of the Six Nations,
Weiser was appointed by Lieutenant Governor Patrick Gordon, of
Pennsylvania, interpreter for the Iroquois Confederacy. His Indian name
was “Tharachiawakon.” From this time until his death he was identified
with the history of the Province in all its relations with the Indians.
His popularity and influence never waned, for he was honest in all his
dealings.
In 1734 he was appointed a justice of the peace by the Pennsylvania
Government and in the old French War was commissioned colonel and
appointed to the command of all the forces that were raised west of the
Susquehanna.
When Shikellamy complained to the Governor of Pennsylvania that the
trade in liquor was causing the ruin of the Delaware and Shawnee, the
Governor asked him to come to Philadelphia to discuss the matter.
Shikellamy took with him Weiser, as interpreter, who he called “an
adopted son of the Mohawk nation.”
James Logan saw the value an honest man like Weiser could render the
Province, and he was made an agent for Pennsylvania in dealing with the
Six Nations. Weiser thus represented both the Indians and the whites.
The Iroquois declared that “Conrad Weiser is a good, true man, who will
speak our words and not his own.”
Weiser entered also into the Indian affairs of Virginia and Maryland,
and prevented those colonies from becoming involved in an Indian war.
This was done at a great Indian council at Lancaster, in 1744.
Weiser was able, through his Indian friends to be kept informed of the
French movements in the Ohio Valley. He early realized the importance of
the English country “at the forks of the Ohio.” He made a journey to the
western tribes and concluded a most important treaty at Logstown in
1748.
Squatters encroached upon lands in the Juniata Valley, which incensed
the Indians so much that Conrad Weiser was sent to order them off the
Indian lands. He succeeded in moving them off and then burned their
cabins.
Following Braddock’s defeat, Conrad Weiser led many delegations of
Indians to Philadelphia, and they always were entertained at his home en
route. This hospitality was misunderstood by his neighbors, but his
well-known integrity saved him in the hour of his greatest peril.
When the Indians committed so many murders in Penns Valley, at Mahanoy
Creek and elsewhere, Weiser warned his neighbors at Tulpehocken, and
when they gathered at his house for defense Weiser was made their
commander.
An ungrateful Pennsylvania Assembly failed to pay Weiser’s bills, and
for three years his accounts were unsettled. He refused to do further
service until his bills were paid, and as Weiser was in demand his
expense accounts were satisfied.
At the great Indian treaties at Easton Weiser was a prominent personage,
and the final peace was due principally to his influence.
Weiser was now past sixty years of age. His work was almost done. While
visiting near Womelsdorf he died July 13, 1760.
When he died one of his associates remarked: “He has left no one to fill
his place.” An Iroquois orator declared: “We are at a great loss and sit
in darkness.”
If all white men had been as just and friendly to the Indians as was
this Pennsylvania German, the history of our westward advance might have
been spared some bloody chapters.
It is said that President Washington, standing at the grave of Weiser,
in 1794, remarked that the services of the latter to the Government had
been of great importance and had been rendered in a difficult period and
posterity would not forget him.
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United States Flag Adopted by Act of
Congress June 14, 1777
On June 14, 1777, Continental Congress resolved “that the flag of the
thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white;
that the union be thirteen stars, white, in a blue field, representing a
new constellation.”
The flag was a modification of the so-called “Great Union Flag,” used
since January 2, 1776, when it was raised in the camp on Prospect Hill.
Before that time different flags had been used under authority of the
several provinces.
In autumn, 1775, Philadelphia floating batteries used a white flag, tree
in the field, motto “An Appeal to Heaven.” The “Great Union” flag had
the thirteen alternate stripes of red and white, with the union of the
British Union Jack. The Philadelphia Light Horse, which escorted
Washington on his way out of the city on the morning of June 21, 1775,
to his command of the American forces at Cambridge, carried a flag of
alternate stripes.
The popular idea was a flag of thirteen stripes, alternate red and
white, emblematic of the thirteen original colonies. The field of blue
with the King’s colors acknowledged fealty to the King, but though the
Americans were in arms against the mother country, they still hoped that
the English Parliament would repeal the obnoxious laws and restore to
the colonists those English rights that were theirs by inheritance and
by royal colonial charters.
Up to January 1, 1776, the Americans had no red, white and blue flag.
This popular design of a flag was called “Washington’s Grand Union”
flag, and it was first unfurled by Washington over the camps at
Cambridge, Mass., January 2, 1776, when it was saluted with thirteen
guns and thirteen cheers.
When the committee appointed by Congress to prepare a design for a new
flag, consisting of General George Washington, Robert Morris and Colonel
George Ross, called upon Mrs. Elizabeth (Betsy) Ross, at her home, 239
Arch street, Philadelphia, there was not much change in the popular
ensign, only the displacement of the British union by thirteen white
stars.
As the act of Congress did not specify the number of points of the stars
or their arrangement, Mrs. Ross suggested that a star of five points
would be more distinct, pleasing and appropriate than the six-pointed
star which the committee had designed. Folding a piece of paper, she
cut, with a single clip of her scissors, a five-pointed star, and,
placing it on a blue field, delighted the committee with her taste,
ingenuity and judgment. The committee decided the thirteen stars should
be arranged in a circle, typifying eternity.
Betsy Ross had been making colonial flags for the army and navy, and was
skilled in needlework. The committee was well pleased with the flag
which she made, and authorized her, in the name of Congress, to make
United States flags. She continued in that occupation for many years.
The first display of the “Stars and Stripes” as the flag soon became
known, was August 3, 1777, over Fort Stanwix, now Rome, N. Y.
The first time the American flag was baptized in blood was at the Battle
of Brandywine, September 11, 1777, which was only eight days after it
was officially adopted by Congress, September 3, 1777.
The first appearance on a foreign stronghold was at Nassau, Bahama
Islands, January 22, 1778, when the Americans captured Fort Nassau from
the British.
On April 24, 1778, John Paul Jones achieved the honor of being the first
officer of the American navy to compel a British man-of-war to strike
her colors to the new flag.
John Singleton Copley, the American-born artist, in London, claimed to
be the first to display the Stars and Stripes in Great Britain. On the
day when George III acknowledged the independence of the United States,
December 5, 1782, he painted the flag of the United States in the
background of a portrait which he was painting in his London studio.
January 13, 1794, the flag was changed by act of Congress owing to the
new States of Vermont and Kentucky being admitted to the Union. The flag
now had two stars and two stripes added to it. The act went into effect
May 1, 1795. This was the “Star Spangled Banner,” and under this flag
our country fought and won three wars to maintain her existence; the
so-called naval war with France, in 1798; that with the Barbary States
in 1801–05, and that with England in 1812–15.
On April 4, 1818, Congress by act, decreed a return to the original
thirteen stripes, and a star for every State in the Union to be added to
the flag on July 4, following a State’s admission to the Union. This is
the present law.
The arrangement of the stars on the flag is regulated by law and
executive order. An executive order, issued October 26, 1912, provided
for forty-eight stars to be arranged in six horizontal rows of eight
stars each.
Starting in the upper left hand corner and reading each row from left to
right gives the stars of each State’s ratification of the Constitution
and admission to the Union, as follows:
First row—Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina.
Second row—New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, Rhode
Island, Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee.
Third row—Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama,
Maine, Missouri.
Fourth row—Arkansas, Michigan, Florida, Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin,
California, Minnesota.
Fifth row—Oregon, Kansas, West Virginia, Nevada, Nebraska, Colorado,
North Dakota, South Dakota.
Sixth row—Montana, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma, New
Mexico and Arizona.
Today the flags float over nearly every school house in the land. The
custom of having a flag displayed on all public buildings in the United
States was inaugurated by President Benjamin Harrison.
June 14 is now generally observed as Flag Day wherever floats the Stars
and Stripes.
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French Plant Leaden Plates to Prove
Possession on June 15, 1749
The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which was concluded October 1, 1748,
secured peace between Great Britain and France, and should have put an
end to all hostile encounters between their representatives on the
American continent.
This treaty was supposed to have settled all difficulties between the
two courts, but the French were determined to occupy the whole territory
drained by the Mississippi, which they claimed by priority of discovery
by La Salle. The British complained to the French Government about
encroachments being made by the French upon English soil in America.
The French deemed it necessary, in order to establish legal claim to the
country which they believed to be theirs, to take formal possession of
it. Accordingly, the Marquis de la Galissoniere, who was at that time
Governor General of Canada, dispatched Captain Bienville de Celeron with
a party of two hundred and fifteen French and fifty-five Indians to
publicly proclaim possession and bury at prominent points plates of
lead, bearing inscriptions declaring occupation in the name of the
French King.
Celeron started on June 15, 1749, following the southern shore of Lakes
Ontario and Erie, until he reached a point opposite Lake Chautauqua,
when the boats were drawn up and carried over the dividing ridge, a
distance of ten miles. They followed down the lake and the Conewago
Creek, where they arrived at what is now Warren, near the confluence of
the creek with the Allegheny River. Here the first plate was buried.
These plates were eleven inches long, seven and a half wide, and
one-eighth of an inch thick. The inscription was in French, and in the
following terms, as fairly translated into English:
“In the year, 1749, of the reign of Louis XIV, King of France, We
Celeron, commander of a detachment sent by Monsieur the Marquis de la
Galissoniere, Governor General of New France, to re-establish
tranquillity in some Indian villages of these cantons, have buried this
plate of lead at the confluence of the Ohio with the Chautauqua this
29th day of July, near the River Ohio, otherwise Belle Riviere, as a
monument of the renewal of the possession we have taken of the said
River Ohio, and of all those which empty into it, and of all the lands
on both sides as far as the sources of the said river, as enjoyed or
ought to have been enjoyed by the King of France preceding, and as they
have there maintained themselves by arms and by treaties, especially
those of Ryswick, Utrecht and Aix-la-Chapelle.”
The burying of this plate was attended with much form and ceremony. All
the men were drawn up in battle array, when the commander, Celeron,
proclaimed in a loud voice, “Vive le Roi!” and declared that possession
of the country was now taken in the name of the King. A plate on which
was inscribed the arms of France was affixed to the nearest tree.
The same formality was observed in planting each of the other plates,
the second at the rock known as “Indian God,” on which are ancient
inscriptions, a few miles below the present Franklin; a third, at the
mouth of the Wheeling Creek; a fourth at the mouth of the Muskingum; the
fifth and sixth, at the mouths of the Great Kanawha and the Great Miami.
At the last point, the party burned their canoes, and obtained ponies
for the return trip to the portage, when they returned to Fort
Frontenac, arriving on November 6.
The Indians through whose territory this expedition passed viewed this
planting with great suspicion. By some means they got possession of one
of the plates, generally supposed to have been planted at the very
commencement of their journey near the mouth of the Chautauqua Creek. An
account of this stolen plate, taken from the original manuscript journal
of Celeron and the diary of Father Bonnecamps in Paris secured by Mr. O.
H. Marshall, is interesting:
“The first of the leaden plates was brought to the attention of the
public by Governor George Clinton to the Lords of Trade in London dated
New York, December 19, 1750, in which he states that he would send to
their Lordships in two or three weeks a plate of lead full of writing,
which some of the upper nations of Indians stole from Jean Coeur, the
French interpreter at Niagara, on his way to the Ohio River, which
river, and all the lands thereabouts, the French claim, as will appear
by said writing. He further states that the lead plates gave the Indians
so much uneasiness that they immediately dispatched some of the Cayuga
chiefs to him with it, saying that their only reliance was on him, and
earnestly begged he would communicate the contents to them, which he had
done, much to their satisfaction and the interests of the English. The
Governor concludes by saying that ‘the contents of the plate may be of
great importance in clearing up the encroachment which the French have
made on the British Empire in America.’ The plate was delivered to
Colonel, afterwards Sir William Johnson, on December 4, 1750, at his
residence on the Mohawk, by a Cayuga sachem who accompanied it by the
following speech:
“‘Brother Corlear and War-ragh-i-ya-ghey: I am sent here by the Five
Nations with a piece of writing which the Seneca, our brethren, got by
some artifice from Jean Coeur, earnestly beseeching you will let us know
what it means and as we put all confidence in you, we hope you will
explain it ingeniously to us.’
“Colonel Johnson replied to the sachem and through him to the Five
Nations, returning a belt of wampum, and explaining the inscription on
the plate. He told them that, ‘it was a matter of the greatest
consequence, involving the possession of their lands and hunting grounds
and that Jean Coeur and the French ought immediately to be expelled from
the Ohio and Niagara.’ In reply, the sachem said that ‘he heard with
great attention and surprise the substance of the devilish writing he
had brought, and that Colonel Johnson’s remarks were fully approved.’ He
promised that belts from each of the Five Nations should be sent from
the Seneca’s castle to the Indians at the Ohio, to warn and strengthen
them against the French encroachments in that direction.”
On January 29, 1751, Governor Clinton sent a copy of this inscription to
Governor Hamilton, of Pennsylvania.
The French followed up this formal act of possession by laying out a
line of military posts, on substantially the same line as that pursued
by the Celeron expedition, but instead of crossing over to Lake
Chautauqua, they kept on down to Presqu’ Isle, now Erie, where there was
a good harbor, with a fort established, and then up to Le Boeuf, now
Waterford, where another post was placed; thence down the Venango River,
now called French Creek, to its mouth at Franklin, establishing Fort
Venango there; thence by the Allegheny to Pittsburgh, where Fort
Duquesne was seated, and so on down the Ohio.
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Penns Secure First Manor West of Susquehanna
June 16, 1722
Governor Sir William Keith’s visit to the Indians at Conestoga in June,
1721, produced a strong impression upon the minds of the aborigines whom
he met. The chiefs of the Six Nations who had been present at this
conference, told of its success to their people.
The Conestoga and other tribes of Indians along the Susquehanna River
seemed to look upon Lieutenant-Governor Keith with almost the same favor
and regard which they entertained for William Penn.
Keith determined to secure a right and title to the lands in
Pennsylvania upon which Maryland settlers had encroached. He laid his
plan for this purpose before he went to attend the conference at Albany,
N. Y. where he was to meet Cayuga chiefs, who had offered some objection
to the conclusion of the conference he had held with the Indians at
Conestoga in 1721.