maintain that, although individuals were thus made bankrupt, the State
was benefited by the results of the banking acts, for, says he: “The
titles to lands became more clear, settled and certain; strangers were
induced to purchase and come to Pennsylvania and settle.” Quite a costly
way to clear titles.
The downfall of the banking system was followed by general depression,
and many men and business institutions were forced into involuntary
bankruptcy. This was an unfortunate period in Pennsylvania history, and
was not a condition single to this State alone.
Normal conditions were eventually restored and then followed an era of
progress which was not marred for many years.
Throughout all this trying period Governor Snyder exhibited many
splendid traits of character, and met every emergency with determined
courage. He was not always able to control the Legislature, and his
conduct in trying to stay the deluge of paper money was one of the most
noteworthy of his three successful administrations.
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British Destroy Moravian Indian Town on
Order of De Peyster, August 25,1781
Colonel Daniel Brodhead had been sent with his Eighth Pennsylvania
Regiment to the Western frontier, and as most of the soldiers in this
renowned command had been recruited in that part of the State this
assignment was gladly received. The men could do double duty by serving
their country and at the same time assist in protecting their own homes.
But all did not go well for Brodhead. He was a great soldier and knew
how to fight Indians, but was remiss in other matters and soon got into
trouble with the Supreme Executive Council, on account of becoming
involved in quarrels with officers and civilians.
Congress selected Brigadier General William Irvine, of Carlisle, to
succeed Colonel Brodhead in the command of the Western Department,
September 24, 1781, and he repaired to that post of duty.
Colonel J. W. de Peyster, the British commandant at Detroit, who
believed the presence of the Moravian missionaries along the Tuscarawas
River had seriously interfered with prosecution of the war, ordered
their removal to the Sandusky Valley, where they were planted amid the
villages of the hostile Wyandot and Shawnee.
On August 25, 1781, he sent Captain Matthew Elliott, the Tory officer,
with a small party of Tories and French-Canadians, and 250 savages,
including Wyandot under Dunquat, Delaware under Captain Pipe, and a few
Shawnee to carry his order into effect. Elliott performed his errand
with unnecessary brutality.
The missionaries and their converts claimed a strict neutrality, but did
not observe it. Bishop Zeisberger and Reverend Heckewelder were secretly
the friends of the Americans and conducted a regular clandestine
correspondence with the officers at Fort Pitt, giving valuable
information of the movements of the British and hostile savages. This
was suspected by Colonel de Peyster and he ordered the Moravians to move
nearer Detroit. The hostile Indians threatened the converts with
destruction because they would not join in the war, while many borderers
believed these Indians did occasionally participate in raids upon the
settlements. The settlers did not take much stock in the Christianity of
the Moravian Indians.
To save the Moravians from dangers on both sides, Colonel Brodhead
advised them to take up their residence near Fort Pitt, but they refused
to heed his warning. These converts remained between the two fires, but
Zeisberger and Heckewelder were blind to their imminent peril.
The Moravian Indians numbered about one hundred families in their three
villages of Schoenbrun, Gnadenhuetten, and Salem. Their homes were log
cabins, with vegetable gardens and cultivated fields, and fine herds of
cattle, hogs and many horses.
Elliott seized and confined the missionaries and their families and
gathered them and all the converted Indians at Gnadenhuetten. They were
marched from there September 11, leaving behind their great stock of
corn and many effects. The sad procession descended the Tuscarawas to
its junction with the Walhonding and passed up the latter stream to its
source, thence over the dividing ridge to the Sandusky.
By the time the Moravians had reached the Sandusky they had been robbed
of their best blankets and cooking vessels and their food was about
exhausted. On the east side of the stream, about two miles above the
site of Upper Sandusky, they settled down in poverty and privation,
built rude shelters of logs and bark and spent the winter in great
distress.
In March the missionaries were again taken to Detroit and closely
examined by de Peyster, and nothing detrimental could be proved against
them, yet de Peyster would not allow them to return to the Sandusky, and
they made a new settlement on the Huron River.
During the forcible removal of the Moravians seven Wyandot warriors left
the party and went on a raid across the Ohio River. Among the seven were
three sons of Dunquat, the half-king; the eldest son, Scotosh, was the
leader of the party. They visited the farm of Philip Jackson, on
Harman’s Creek, and captured Jackson, who was a carpenter about 60 years
of age. This capture was witnessed by Jackson’s son, who ran nine miles
to Fort Cherry, on Little Raccoon Creek, and gave the alarm, but a heavy
rain that night prevented immediate pursuit.
Bright and early next morning seventeen stout young men, all mounted,
gathered at Jackson’s farm, and John Jack, a professional scout,
declared he knew where the Indians had hidden their canoes. But only six
would follow him, John Cherry, Andrew Poe, Adam Poe, William Castleman,
William Rankin and James Whitacre, and they started on a gallop for the
mouth of Tomlinson’s Run. Jack’s surmise was a shrewd one, based on a
thorough knowledge of the Ohio River and the habits of the Indians.
After dismounting the borderers descended cautiously, and at the mouth
of the run were five Indians, with their prisoner, ready to shove off.
John Cherry fired and killed an Indian and was himself killed by the
return fire. Four of the five Indians were killed, and Philip Jackson
rescued unharmed, and Scotosh escaped up the river with a wound in his
arm.
Andrew Poe in a hand to hand scuffle with two sons of the half-king,
succeeded in killing one of them, who had first wounded him. The other
Indian escaped and was in the act of firing at Poe when he was shot and
killed. Andrew Poe fell into the stream and was mistaken for an Indian
and shot in the shoulder by mistake.
The triumphant return of the party to Fort Cherry was saddened by the
death of John Cherry, a great and popular leader. Scotosh was the only
Indian who escaped, and he made his way back to the Upper Sandusky, with
a sad message for his father and the tribe.
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Volunteers Fight Two Battles in Hills Along
West Branch August 26, 1763
For boldness of attempt and depth of design the Pontiac War was perhaps
unsurpassed in the annals of border warfare.
Soon as the English had been able to push past the French line of forts,
which reached from Presqu’ Isle to the Monongahela, and had gained such
a strong foothold in Canada, the Indians planned to destroy them at one
stroke.
The renowned chiefs, Kiyasuta, of the Seneca, and Pontiac, of the
Ottawa, conceived the gigantic plan of uniting all the northwestern
tribes in a simultaneous attack upon the whole frontier. Utter
extermination was their object.
The forts were to be taken by stratagem by separate parties, all on the
same day. The border settlements were to be attacked during harvest and
men, women, children, crops, cattle and cabins, were to be destroyed.
The English traders among the Indians were the first victims; out of a
total of 120, only a few escaped. The frontier settlements among or near
the mountains were overrun with scalping parties, marking their pathway
with blood and fire.
The forts in Pennsylvania at Presqu’ Isle, Le Boeuf and Venango were
taken with great slaughter. Those at Fort Pitt, Bedford and Ligonier
were preserved with great difficulty. Carlisle and Fort Augusta were
threatened.
General Amherst promptly dispatched Colonel Henry Bouquet to the relief
of Fort Pitt, and he defeated the Indians and saved the garrison.
It was during this distressing period that the Indians planned to attack
the interior settlements of Pennsylvania as far as Tulpehocken, and
their great object was the capture of Fort Augusta, which had been built
at the suggestion of the Indians themselves.
Alarming intelligence was everywhere received of the contemplated
attacks; friendly Indians gave timely warning of each approaching
danger. Especially was the situation critical in the vicinity of Paxtang
where the treachery of the so-called friendly Indians was several times
discovered.
Preparations were carefully made and the utmost vigilance exercised and
every available resistance planned by the sturdy frontiersmen. The
garrison at Fort Augusta was reinforced by additional troops recruited
in the countries nearer the seat of government.
With reports constantly reaching Carlisle and other places that the
Indians would attack Fort Augusta in great numbers, and believing that
the Moravian Indian converts were treacherously giving information to
the enemy, it was determined to check them.
Colonel John Armstrong, with about three hundred volunteers from
Cumberland and Bedford Counties marched from Carlisle on an expedition
to destroy the Indian town at Great Island, now Lock Haven,
Pennsylvania.
When Armstrong’s party arrived at Great Island the Indians had already
deserted their village a few days previous. But on his march he fell
upon another village near the Big Island, now Jersey Shore. So sudden
was his advance that the Indians were scarcely able to escape; they left
the food hot upon their bark tables, which was prepared for dinner. The
army destroyed Great Island village and a large quantity of grain and
provisions.
A part of this little army was returning down the West Branch, Friday,
August 26, when they encountered the enemy at Muncy Creek hill, present
Lycoming County, and, in a hot skirmish which ensued, four of the
volunteers were killed and four wounded. There were quite as many
casualties among the savages, but they were able to bear away their dead
and wounded.
Captains William Patterson, Sharp, Bedford, Laughlin and Crawford with
seventy-six of their commands, arrived at Fort Augusta, Saturday, August
27, 1763. Other stragglers reached the fort during that and the
following day.
These soldiers reported details of the sanguinary battle and confirmed
the fears of the inhabitants about the treachery of the Moravian
Indians. They reported that after the battle a party of Indians
returning to Great Island from a mission to Bethlehem, were attacked by
them on a hill north of the present borough of Northumberland, in which
action the troops believed they had killed all of the Indian party of
twelve.
There can be no doubt that these two attacks were made for there are
several references to them from different sources, also J. F. Meginness
in his “Otzinachson,” says:
“It is to be regretted that so little was left on record concerning the
operations of this great expedition. It was the largest that had invaded
the West Branch Valley up to that time, but instead of wiping out the
savages and rendering them powerless, it only tended to still further
enrage and cause them to commit greater deeds of blood as was proved by
subsequent events.”
The first great massacre at Wyoming soon followed. A party of Six
Nations stealthily murdered Tedyuskung, the Delaware King, by burning
him to death in his cabin during a drunken bout. They convinced the
Delaware that the crime was perpetrated by whites, who October 15, 1763,
suddenly turned on the settlers while at work in the fields, brutally
murdered ten of them, and left their scalped bodies in the fields, while
they burned their homes, destroyed their crops and drove away the
cattle. None escaped but those who fled in time to reach the mountains.
This massacre was led by Captain Bull, a son of Tedyuskung.
Only the brilliant success of Colonel Henry Bouquet at Bushy Run checked
the Indians, and with this repulse they became disheartened and soon
after sued for peace.
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Europeans Explore Waters of Pennsylvania,
Delaware Bay So Named
August 27, 1610
Quite different from all other colonies was Pennsylvania in the fact
that many settlements were made within its borders and many races
contributed to her people.
In 1608, the famous Captain John Smith, of Virginia, sailed up the
Chesapeake Bay to its head, where he was stopped by the rocks.
At this same time the Dutch of Holland, during a lull in their war with
Spain, were sending maritime expeditions over the world. They sent Henry
Hudson to America. He sailed up the coast, on August 28, 1609, in his
ship the “Half Moon,” entered the bay now called Delaware Bay, and cast
anchor. Hudson was an Englishman, but in the service now of the Dutch.
The republic of the Netherlands, after a struggle never surpassed for
heroism and constancy, had won a truce with King Philip of Spain, and
the Dutch merchants had sent the English captain out upon the old quest,
a short route to China.
Hudson’s appearance in Delaware Bay was before his discovery of the
Hudson River, and, therefore, New Netherlands had its origin on the
Delaware, called by the Dutch the Zuyd Revier, or South River.
Hudson navigated his little ship into the bay with great caution. He
spent the day in making soundings, and learned that “he who would
thoroughly discover this great bay must have a small pinnace to send
before him, that must draw but four or five feet to sound before him.”
Hudson then sailed up the New Jersey coast, on the third day of
September, anchored his ship within Sandy Hook, and the 12th he entered
New York Bay through the Narrows, and discovered the great river that
since has borne his name.
So far as the history of Pennsylvania is concerned there is much import
in the exploration of Hudson in Delaware Bay. He made known to his
employers, the Dutch East India Company, and to the seafaring nations of
western Europe, the existence of this wide bay, into which, as he
perceived, a great river must discharge. His discovery laid the ground
for the claim by the Dutch to the country on the Delaware. Exploration
followed, then trade, then occupancy, then a new State, in which the
present Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and New York were united
under one government, called New Netherlands.
On August 27, 1610, Captain Samuel Argall, from Jamestown, Va., sailed
into the Delaware Bay, and, remaining a few hours, gave it the name of
Delaware, in honor of Lord Delaware, then Governor of Virginia. Thus we
notice that neither Captain John Smith nor Henry Hudson entered
Pennsylvania, they approached the very doorway, but did not come inside.
The first actual visit of a white man seems to have been six years
later, when Etienne Brulé, a Frenchman, and a follower of Champlain, the
first Governor of New France, came into Pennsylvania via the headwaters
of the Susquehanna River and explored its entire length.
Hudson’s report of a land rich in furs attracted the attention of the
Dutch, and before 1614, five vessels came to Manhattan on the North
River. One of them, the “Fortune,” commanded by Captain Cornelius
Jacobson Mey, sailed in the Zuyd River, and he named the cape at the
east entrance of the bay Cape Mey, and the cape on the west Cape
Cornelius.
One of these vessels, the “Tiger,” was burned and her captain, Adrian
Block, built a yacht forty-four and a half feet long, eleven and a half
feet wide, of sixteen tons burden, to take her place. This boat, the
“Onrust,” was the first built within the limits of the United States,
and she was destined to fame. Cornelius Hendrickson brought the “Onrust”
to the Delaware in 1616, and made the first exploration of the Delaware
River, and discovered the mouth of the Schuylkill and first saw the site
of Philadelphia. Here he ransomed from the Indians a Dutchman named
Kleynties and two companions, who had come down from the North River by
land, and who may have been the first Europeans in Pennsylvania.
On June 3, 1621, the Dutch West India Company was formed. The charter by
the Dutch Government gave it the exclusive right to trade on the coast
of America between Newfoundland and the Straits of Magellan. This
company, by virtue of its charter, took possession of the country, and
dispatched the ship “New Netherland,” with a number of people, under
command of Captain Mey, to the Delaware, where, on the eastern bank,
fifteen leagues from its mouth, Captain Mey erected Fort Nassau.
The site of this fort was about five miles above Wilmington, and here
four married couples and eight seamen lived. This was, probably, the
first settlement on the Delaware River. Fort Nassau was a log structure,
capable of defense against bows and arrows, sufficient for a depot of
furs, but badly situated to command the commerce of the river. It stood
for nearly thirty years, until 1651, and in that time was the center on
this continent of Dutch authority and trade. It was to this fort that
the Indians of Pennsylvania brought their peltries to exchange for
articles that served their use or pleased their fancy, or for rum that
made them drunk.
Another settlement was made farther north, on the same side of the
river, which consisted of three or four families.
The administration of the affairs of New Netherlands was confided by the
Dutch West Indian Company to Peter Minuit, who arrived at Manhattan, May
4, 1626. He came from Wesel, and was commissioned as director-general.
It was he who soon after his arrival “purchased the island of Manhattan
from the Indians for sixty guilders, or the sum of twenty-five dollars
in real money.”
In spite of the fact that the Dutch West Indian Company in 1629 granted
special privileges to all persons who should plant any colony in New
Netherland, up until 1631 no white man had made a settlement on the west
bank of the Delaware.
On December 30, 1630, David Pieterzoon De Vries, with thirty-two people
and a large stock of cattle, sailed from the Texel, in the ship
“Walrus,” and arrived at the southern cape, Cornelius, now Henlopen, and
made a settlement near the present town of Lewes, and called it
Swanendael, or the Valley of the Swans. De Vries is the finest figure
among the early pioneer history of the settlement of this part of our
country. He was intelligent, energetic and humane.
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World Struggle for Oil Began at Titusville,
August 28, 1859
The gigantic struggle for oil began in Titusville, Pennsylvania, August
28, 1859, when Colonel Edwin L. Drake struck oil in the world’s first
well.
This small hole drilled through the rock so peacefully opened the way to
wealth hitherto unknown. It yielded about forty barrels per day, but the
precious fuel was now produced in commercial quantities. It opened also
the most important natural production of Pennsylvania, after iron and
coal.
This first well was in Cherry Tree Township, on the Watson Flats, on the
bank of Oil Creek, about two miles below the thrifty borough of
Titusville.
Venango County seems to have been the native home for petroleum for
although it has been found in large quantities in neighboring counties,
it was first gathered there and its presence was known from the advent
of man in that vast region.
The Indians gathered oil from a stream called Oil Creek, in this
vicinity, which they used for medicinal purposes. It became well known
all over the country as “Seneca Oil,” “British Oil” and other names. It
was collected by digging out the place where it oozed out of the ground,
and when oil and water had accumulated, blankets were thrown in, taking
up the oil, when it was wrung out, and the process repeated.
A century since the product of Oil Creek Valley amounted to a dozen
barrels a year. The first shipment in bulk was made by a man named Cary,
who filled two five-gallon kegs and lashed them on either side of the
horse he rode to the market at Pittsburgh. This supply stocked the
market.
By the year 1865 Venango County shipped 13,000 barrels per day about the
only oil produced in this country.
Petroleum was desired as an illuminator, but the small quantity
obtainable made it too expensive.
According to the production records more than one billion barrels of oil
were produced in 1923 for a world’s record in oil production—and yet the
supply is far short of the world demand.
Fish oil is the earliest known illuminant and lubricant. “Coal oil,”
however, still used erroneously as the name for kerosene, was discovered
less than eighty years ago by Dr. Abraham Gesner, who, in 1846, obtained
oil from coal. That was enough to ruin the fish oil industry, and soon
more than fifty coal oil works were put in operation, distilling oil
from bituminous, or soft coal.
A man named Kier, at Tarentum, Pennsylvania, in 1847, bored for salt
water and pumped up oil. He put it in barrels and sold it. A professor
at Dartmouth College, using some of the oil, told George H. Bissell that
in his opinion it could be used for illuminating purposes. Bissell
investigated these claims and organized the Petroleum Oil Company—which
was the first of its kind in the United States, and sent a quantity to
Benjamin Silliman, Professor of Chemistry in Yale College, who reported
that nearly the whole of the raw product could be treated so as to be
used for illuminating and other purposes without any waste.
In December, 1857, Colonel Edwin L. Drake, one of the stockholders of
this company, rode into Titusville on a mail coach from Erie. He carried
with him $1,000 with which to begin boring for oil. He started
immediately to his work, but met with many discouragements.
Well drillers were unknown and well drilling machinery almost unheard of
in 1858. He built his “pump house” and derrick, and with the assistance
of “Uncle Billy” Smith, began drilling.
The beginning was made in quicksand and clay, and as soon as the hole
was made it filled up with water and caved in. Drake then hit upon the
scheme of driving an iron pipe through to bedrock, and its success made
the use of this method the standard practice of today in the oil fields
everywhere.
After rock was reached they bored but three feet per day, but by
Saturday, August 27, 1859, the well had reached the depth of sixty-nine
feet and the drill was working in coarse sand. Smith and his sons, who
were helping him, had finished for the week. As they were quitting the
drill dropped six inches, apparently into a crevice, as was common in
salt wells. No attention was paid to this circumstance, the tools were
drawn out and all hands adjourned to Titusville.
Sunday morning Uncle Billy strolled out to the drill, and to his
astonishment found the well filled within a few feet of the surface with
a dark fluid. It was oil. The news soon spread to the village, and when
Colonel-Drake appeared he found Uncle Billy guarding three barrels of
petroleum. The pumping apparatus was adjusted, and by noon the well was
producing at the rate of twenty barrels per day. The problem of the ages
had been solved. The world’s first oil well was in production.
Then began what has been called the “oil fever.” People from all parts
of the country flocked to western Pennsylvania. Oil companies were
everywhere organized, whose stock was sold on the market. Land which for
generations had been regarded as almost barren sold for fabulous prices.
“Coal Oil Johnnie,” an ignorant young man whose paternal acres had long
brought only poverty and were now found to be located with wealth,
appeared in Philadelphia, scattering ten dollar bills in all directions,
and buying teams of horses on one day, only to give them to his coachman
on the next. He built an opera house in Cincinnati and ended his career
as its doorkeeper.
In 1860, near Rouseville, the oil flowed out of a well without the use
of a pump, and other flowing wells in adjacent localities were soon
found.