Arnold, his reward and price of dishonor, the sufferings and disgrace of
his unfortunate wife Peggy are not within the scope of these stories.
If the proceedings against Tories in Pennsylvania had been fierce
previous to this time, the feeling aroused by the defection of Arnold
produced the bitterest animosity and hatred against all who were not in
full sympathy with the American Colonies.
Many arrests were made, a number were tried and condemned, and one, a
Quaker, of Chester County, executed for high treason. The property of
prominent Tories was forfeited and sold, and, in fact, the most
energetic measures taken to crush out whatever might be inimical to the
cause of independence.
The situation among the soldiers from Pennsylvania in the Continental
Army at this period was deplorable. About December 1, the division of
General Wayne went into winter quarters in the environs of Norristown.
The soldiers were wearied out with privations, and indignant at their
officers, whom they accused of not properly representing their situation
to Congress.
On New Year’s Day, 1781, there broke out such a mutiny in the
Pennsylvania Line that it required the best efforts of Congress, the
Government of Pennsylvania, and the officers of the army to subdue.
The Pennsylvania Line comprised 2500, one-third to two-thirds of the
army, the soldiers from the other colonies having, in the main, gone
home. Their terms of service had long since expired. They had not been
paid for a year, and they were almost without clothes.
Then under the leadership of a brave sergeant, named William Bowser,
they arose in arms and proceeded to settle matters for themselves. Two
emissaries from General Clinton seeking to corrupt them they handed over
to Washington to be hanged.
The terms of service of 1250 men had expired. They were discharged and
the matter of indebtedness to them was arranged. The most of them
re-enlisted.
However unjustifiable the conduct of the Pennsylvania Line was and
should be deemed in the first instance, it must be acknowledged that
they conducted themselves in the business, culpable as it was, with
unexpected order and regularity.
Their refusing to accept the large offer made by the enemy, in
delivering up the spies, and in refusing the hundred guineas they had so
justly merited, exhibits an instance of true patriotism not to be found
among mercenary troops who bear arms for pay and subsistence only,
uninspired by their country’s rights, or the justice of the cause which
they have engaged to support.
----------
Attempted Slaughter of Indians at Wichetunk,
Monroe County, October 12, 1763
The expedition of Colonel Henry Bouquet, during the Pontiac Conspiracy,
to Fort Pitt, in a great measure served to check the depredations of the
Indians for a short time and the frontiers of Pennsylvania were quiet,
and under the protection and assistance of 700 Provincial recruits the
settlers gathered their harvests.
Had the Provincial Assembly acted promptly in the matter an effective
defense could have been provided. The Government was deaf to all
entreaties, and General Jeffreys Amherst, commander of the British
forces in America, did not hesitate to vent his feelings in emphatic
expression:
“The conduct of the Pennsylvania Assembly is altogether so infatuated
and stupidly obstinate that I want words to express my indignation
thereat. They tamely look on while their brethren are butchered by the
savages.”
The Assembly finally authorized the raising of 800 troops and voted
£24,000 to keep that force until December 1, but declared it was both
unjust and impracticable for the province to defend a frontier of nearly
300 miles, which covered a greater extent than that of New Jersey and
Maryland, without assistance from other provinces.
In September and October outrages were committed as far east as the
neighborhoods of Reading and Bethlehem, and it was believed that not
only Fort Pitt but even Fort Augusta was destined for attack.
The road to Fort Pitt was interrupted. A supply of provisions, under a
convoy of sixty men, was forwarded from Fort Bedford to Fort Pitt, but
on gaining the foot of the Allegheny Mountains was compelled to return.
The officers learned that the passages were occupied by the savages.
Some fragments of the Delaware and Six Nations remained at their
settlements in the interior, refusing to join their brethren in arms,
professing affection for the Colonists and avowing a determination to
continue neutral. But the neutrality of a part, at least, of these
Indians was very doubtful.
The situation of the frontiers became truly deplorable, and the Quakers,
who were in control, suffered the censure of the people. Captain Lazerus
Stewart, of Paxtang, expressed the views of those on the frontiers, when
he said: “The Quakers are more solicitous for the welfare of the
blood-thirsty Indians than for the lives of the frontiersmen.”
Colonel John Armstrong led 300 men of Cumberland County to Great Island,
on the West Branch of the Susquehanna, the present site of the borough
of Lock Haven, where certain of the marauders had their headquarters. On
their arrival they found the place evacuated, horses, cattle and other
spoils gathered in their forays being left behind.
With the main body of his men, Armstrong proceeded to another Indian
village near Jersey Shore, where he found the late occupants had left in
haste while eating a meal. So the expedition resulted in destroying
their houses and corn fields.
Major Asher Clayton led a party from Harris’ Ferry to remove the
Connecticut settlers from Wyoming and destroy their provisions, which
were likely to be seized by the red men. When the party arrived at
Wyoming, it found that the savages had been there before them and had
burned the town and killed more than twenty persons in horrible torture.
A number of those Indians who had been converted by the Moravian
missionaries around Bethlehem were murdered, as they were found asleep
in a barn, by a party of Rangers, and the surprise and slaughter in turn
of the latter increased the suspicion of the frontiersmen, who were
neither Moravians nor Quakers, against the entire body of Christian red
men, who professed a desire to live at peace and friendship with the
English.
The Provincial Commissioners, indeed, reported their belief that those
at Nain and Wichetunk (in what is now Polk Township, Monroe County) were
secretly supplied by the Moravian brethren with arms and ammunition,
which, in free intercourse with the hostile savages, were traded off to
the latter.
About October 12 a number of armed men marched toward Wichetunk, but,
waiting to surprise it by night, were frustrated by a violent storm just
before nightfall, which wet their powder.
The missionary, the Rev. Bernard Adam Grube, then led the Indians to
Nazareth, but the Governor suggested that to watch their behavior it
would be better to disarm them and bring them to the interior parts of
the province. The Assembly, actuated more by a desire to save them,
agreed to the proposal.
Governor John Penn received the refugees from Nain and Wichetunk, but
their arrival in the Northern Liberties of Philadelphia excited the
lower classes nearly to a riot, and the soldiers refused to allow them
any part of the barracks as a sheltering place, so that different
arrangements were necessary.
For five hours these Indians were in great peril, but escorted by
Quakers, they were finally taken to Province Island.
The conduct of the Assembly, in which there were twenty-one Quakers,
failed to satisfy not only the royal and proprietary officers but also
the Presbyterians, who were ready to take up arms, and particularly the
Scotch-Irish on the frontier, who saw large sums of money lavished in
the presents to Indians, while they themselves lay destitute from the
ravages of an Indian war.
As every now and then some of their kinsmen or neighbors fell by the
tomahawk, they became exasperated, coupling their vengeance against the
guilty savages with jealousy of the Assembly’s partiality, and also
suspicion against those Indians who were treated as friends.
A cry like the Covenanters came from their descendants in Pennsylvania;
loud exhortations were heard on the frontier to carry out against the
heathen red men the decrees of heaven against the Canaanites.
----------
Molly Pitcher, Heroine of the Battle of Monmouth,
Born October 13, 1754
There have been many stories of “Molly Pitcher,” and they have not
always agreed even on the main facts. But on the occasion of the
ceremonies incident to unveiling the cannon erected over her grave in
the “Old Graveyard,” in Carlisle, by the Patriotic Orders Sons of
America, on June 28, 1905, an excellent short biography of the “Heroine
of the Battle of Monmouth” was prepared by John B. Landis, Esq., from
which the following story is taken.
The heroine’s name was not “Pitcher,” but Ludwig, and at the time she
earned her well-known sobriquet she was the wife of an artilleryman. Her
father, John George Ludwig, came to this country from the Palatinate,
and settled near Trenton, in Mercer County, New Jersey, where he engaged
in the occupation of dairyman. It was here his daughter Mary was born,
on October 13, 1754, and here among the surroundings of her father’s
home were spent the youthful days of the future “Molly Pitcher.”
The wife of Dr. William Irvine, of Carlisle, afterward General William
Irvine, and one of the greatest patriots of the Revolution, was visiting
friends in Trenton when she saw the youthful Mary Ludwig, and, being
pleased with her and in need of a domestic, took the young girl with her
on returning to Carlisle.
Mary had hardly become accustomed to her surroundings in the fine home
of Dr. and Mrs. Irvine until she met John Casper Hays, a barber, whose
shop was near the Irvine residence. Their courtship was of short
duration, for a marriage was solemnized on July 24, 1769.
A few years of quiet wedded life, disturbed only by the warlike
preparations centered about the patriotic town of Carlisle, and John
Casper Hays became a soldier. He enlisted December 1, 1775, in Colonel
Thomas Proctor’s First Pennsylvania Artillery, in which he served as a
gunner. His term of enlistment expired December, 1776, but he
re-enlisted January, 1777, in the Seventh Pennsylvania Regiment, of the
Continental Line, in the company commanded by Captain John Alexander, of
Carlisle.
Dr. Irvine also was one of the first patriots to respond to the cause of
the colonists, and January 9, 1776, was commissioned Colonel of the
Sixth Pennsylvania Regiment. He became Brigadier General May 2, 1779.
Previous to that time, however, on June 6, 1776, he was captured at
Three Rivers, and remained a prisoner on parole until his exchange,
April 21, 1778, when he assumed command of the Seventh Pennsylvania
Regiment, in which John Casper Hays was a private soldier.
After young Hays left Carlisle with his regiment, his wife remained
employed at Colonel Irvine’s. Some time thereafter her parents, who
still resided in New Jersey, sent a message with courier for her to
visit them, and the same horseman carried a letter from her husband,
begging her to go, as he might then get an opportunity to see her, as
his regiment was then nearby. With Mrs. Irvine’s consent Mary set out on
her long journey, traveling on horseback. At the time Molly Hays was a
young woman of twenty-five years.
To prevent the movement of the British on New York, General Washington
marched his troops again into New Jersey, and the Battle of Monmouth was
fought June 28, 1778.
The battle continued from 11 o’clock in the morning until dark, and the
day was one of the hottest of the year. Fifty soldiers are said to have
died of thirst, and the tongues of many said to have been so greatly
swollen as to protrude from the mouth.
While the battle was in progress Molly carried water for the thirsting
soldiers from a neighboring spring, which is still pointed out on the
historic battlefield. Back and forth she went under shelter or under
fire, supplying the much-needed water. Possibly, as is stated by some,
it was carried in the cannoneer’s bucket. In whatever way it was carried
the sight of Molly with her “pitcher” was a welcome sight to the weary
and thirsty Continentals.
Molly’s husband, having served a year in Proctor’s Artillery, and though
now an infantryman, had been detailed as a gunner in a battery that was
engaged. Doubtless Molly was never out of sight of that battery. As she
approached with water she saw a soldier lying at the gun, whom she
thought to be her husband, and hurrying on she found her husband
wounded, but the dead man was one of his comrades. Her husband
recovered, but lived only a few years after the close of the war.
It is stated that the cannon was ordered to the rear and would have been
taken off the field had not Molly bravely sprung to her husband’s place,
and so kept the gun in action.
For her wonderful patriotism and self-sacrificing devotion to the
soldiers she was dubbed “Sergeant” and by some called “Major Molly.”
“Moll Pitcher she stood by her gun,
And rammed the charges home, sir.
And thus on Monmouth’s bloody field
A sergeant did become, sir.”
How long Molly stood by her gun, through the smoke and din of battle, on
that hot and terrible day, is not a matter of record, but the water she
carried to those soldiers and the service she rendered with the battery
has been testified to by many whom she helped.
Molly was no imaginary heroine, but a real buxom lass, a strong, sturdy,
courageous woman. Her name belongs on the roll of the world’s heroines,
and some years ago the State of New Jersey honored “Molly Pitcher” by
commemorating her heroic act on one of the five tablets surrounding the
base of the beautiful monument erected at Freehold on the historic
field.
Some years after the death of her first husband, Sergeant John Casper
Hays, she married George McKolly, another soldier and a comrade of Hays,
and she then became known as Molly McKolly. This name was also written
“McAuley,” and “McCauley” while on her tombstone it was inscribed
“McCauly.”
At the entrance to the grounds where until recently was the Carlisle
Indian School, formerly for many years United States barracks, still
stands the old stone guard house, which was built by the Hessian
prisoners taken at the Battle of Trenton, and which escaped the fire
when the barracks were burned by the Confederates in 1863.
At that post Molly lived for many years after the Revolutionary War,
cooking and washing for the soldiers. Subsequently she kept a small
store in the town proper, but the latter years of her life were lived in
a stone house, where she died on Sunday, January 22, 1832. She attended
the Lutheran Church and was respected by her neighbors.
On July 4, 1876, a marble headstone was unveiled over her grave, which
had been erected by Peter Spohr, who knew her well and was present at
her funeral. On this occasion an eloquent and interesting address was
delivered by Captain Joseph G. Vale, a veteran officer of the Civil War.
----------
William Penn, Born October 14, 1644—His
Youth and Early Struggles for Religious
Belief
William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania and one of the most distinguished
members of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, a preacher and writer,
was born in London, October 14, 1644.
His father was Admiral Sir William Penn, of the English Royal Navy, and
his mother was Margaret Jasper, a remarkable Dutch lady, of Rotterdam.
While the Admiral was off on the seas, his wife and little son resided
on one of his estates at Wanstead in Essex.
William Penn went to school at Chigwell, near by, where he was
apparently under influences largely Puritan. At the age of eleven strong
religious conviction came suddenly upon him.
His boyhood days were lived during the Protectorate. The Admiral, after
receiving honors and riches from Cromwell, had so timed his change of
loyalty as to gather in a good share of the rewards distributed at the
time of the Restoration.
He was in a condition to send his son to the most aristocratic of Oxford
Colleges, and at the age of fifteen, William Penn became a “Gentleman
Commoner of Christ Church.”
Through the preaching of Thomas Loe he became a convert to the doctrine
of the Quakers. The results were not exactly Quakerly, however, for in
company with a friend, he forcibly tore from the backs of fellow
students the “popish rags,” as surplices were called by the zealous
Puritans of the day.
For this he left college, whether by the action of the authorities or
not does not clearly appear.
He went to his home and announced himself a Quaker. His father intended
him for a high career in the state, and no news could have been more
unwelcome than this. His father turned him out of the house. The mother
reconciled them, and the youth was sent to France, with a hope that gay
society in Paris might redeem him from his almost morbid soberness.
Penn entered partially into the circle of fashion; thence he went to
Naumur, the Protestant college, where he laid the foundation of that
extensive knowledge of patristic literature so much in evidence in his
future writings; thence to Italy, where he received a letter from his
father calling him home.
On his return, in 1664, in compliance with the wishes of his father, he
became a student of law.
The great fire in London, in 1665, drove him from the city and deepened
his serious convictions.
He was sent by his father to manage his large Irish estates. He joined
the expedition to put down an insurrection in Carrickfergus, and
procured for himself a suit of armor, in which he seems to have been
painted. His martial ardor was of short duration.
Thomas Loe again crossed his path in Cork and Penn became a Quaker never
more to falter. He was soon imprisoned with his fellows, and this was
the beginning of many and severe confinements which lasted at intervals
through his life.
His father again drove him from his house. In time they were reconciled
and the Admiral on his deathbed endorsed the course of his son.
Penn began immediately to preach and to enter into the theological
controversy of his time. He was soon arrested and confined in the Tower
nine months, during which he wrote his principal work, entitled “No
Cross, No Crown.”
Penn was again arrested for preaching in the streets of London, and at
his trial the jury declared him not guilty, but the court determined to
convict him, ordered the jury to bring in a verdict of guilty. They
refused and were fined and sent to Newgate Prison.
On his release from prison Penn made a trip to Holland and Germany,
preaching the gospel.
He took advantage of a little surcease from jails to marry, in his 28th
year, Gulielma Maria Springett, daughter of Sir William Springett, a
woman of great beauty and sweetness.
A declaration of indulgence for dissenters issued by Charles II, in
1672, now made his life easier, and with an ample estate, he settled at
Rickmansworth, in Hertfordshire. He was active for a few years in
preaching and wrote much.
In 1675 his thoughts were first seriously turned to America. Lord
Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, who had received from the Duke of York
the promise of New Jersey, sold the western half to two Quakers, John
Fenwick and Edward Byllinge.
The new purchasers had some difficulty between themselves in the
settlement of their respective claims and asked William Penn to
arbitrate the matter. Penn decided in favor of Byllinge, who soon
afterwards became embarrassed and transferred to Penn and two others his
interest for the benefit of his creditors.
West New Jersey was opened for sale and the persecuted Quakers found
there a haven of rest.
Penn wrote to Richard Hartshorne, a settler whom he appointed his agent,
“We lay a foundation for after ages to understand their liberty as men
and Christians, that they may not be brought in bondage but by their own
consent; for we put the power in the people.”
The colony prospered greatly under the management of Penn and his
friends.
In company with George Fox, Robert Barclay and others, in 1677, Penn
paid a religious visit to Holland and Germany. Here he made a convert of
the Princess Elizabeth Palatine, granddaughter of James I, a woman of
great intelligence, learning and spirituality, who became a devoted
adherent and correspondent.
More important, historically, however, he began that acquaintance with
the Rhine Valley which resulted in a great emigration of its inhabitants
to his future province of Pennsylvania, in the following century.
His journal of this trip is among his printed works.
When he returned he found persecution breaking out anew, many of his
friends in jail and their estates confiscated.
Penn published a plea for liberty, even for Papists—a sentiment which,
in that day, required no small courage—and gave rise to a report, from
which he afterward suffered greatly, that he was a Jesuit in disguise.
He enjoyed great favor at court, and his influence was exerted for the
aid of his suffering brethren, and his advocacy of his favorite doctrine
of universal toleration.
The rest of William Penn’s life belongs largely to the history of
Pennsylvania.
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First Massacre in Wyoming Launched During
Pontiac’s War by Captain Bull,
October 15, 1763
The conspiracy fomented by Pontiac, the Ottawa chieftain, was unmasked
at Detroit on May 6, 1763, and then began the war which continued until
late in the summer of 1764.
Fort Sandusky was captured by the Indians May 16, 1763; Fort Ouatanon
(now Lafayette, Ind.), May 31; Fort Presqu’ Isle (now Erie County, Pa.),
June 17; Fort Le Boeuf (in Erie County), June 18; Fort Venango (in
Venango County, Pa.), June 18 and the military posts at Carlisle and
Bedford, Pa., on the same day.
On June 22 a large body of Indians surrounded Fort Pitt and opened fire
on all sides, but were easily repulsed. The Seneca were the only Indians
of the Six Nations in alliance with Pontiac.
The report which reached Philadelphia the second week in July, 1763,
revealed a most alarming situation on the frontier.
Through the efforts of the Reverend John Elder the able-bodied men of
the Paxtang region in Lancaster County were soon organized into a
mounted military battalion of several companies, under the name of the
“Paxtang Rangers” or “Paxtang Boys,” with Elder as colonel in command.
“Swift on foot, excellent horsemen, good shots, skillful in pursuit or
escape, dexterous as scouts and expert in maneuvering,” the “Paxtang
Boys” became the terror of the Indians. And yet, during the summer and
early autumn of that year numerous depredations and murders were
committed by Indians in the counties of Lancaster and Northampton.
On Sunday, August 7, Captain Andrew Montour arrived at Fort Augusta from
up the West Branch and informed Colonel James Burd that Forts Pitt and
Ligonier had been captured by the Indians. Later this news was learned
to be false, but the loss of Presqu’ Isle, Le Boeuf and Venango was a
fact.
Colonel John Elder wrote Governor Hamilton, requesting that his command
be allowed “to destroy the immense quantity of corn left by the New
England men at Wyoming which, if not consumed, will be a considerable
magazine to the enemy and enable them with more ease to distress the
inhabitants, etc.” The Governor in his reply stated that he had no
objection to their scouting as far as Wyoming.
On October 13 Major Asher Clayton, with a force of eighty soldiers from
Lancaster County, arrived at Fort Augusta, en route to Wyoming. There he
was joined by Lieutenant Samuel Hunter and twenty-four men of the
garrison, and the combined force departed Saturday the 15th for Wyoming.
Two companies of the Reverend Elder’s command set out from Fort Hunter
on the 11th destined for the same place, and “to intercept the murdering
party on their return to Northampton.”
This “murdering party” referred to by Colonel Elder was a band of
hostile Delaware led by Tedyuskung’s son, Captain Bull, and concerning
whose depredations Governor Hamilton sent a message to the Provincial
Assembly on October 15, in these words: