[Pennsylvania County Histories]

s-<* Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from This project is made possible by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of Commonwealth Libraries https://archive.org/details/pennsylvaniacoun01unse 4 L K L S Page S Page T UV W XYZ Sixty Rods up the Mountain, where their I Watch Coats lay, for they were naked ex 1 Historical Collections. cept the Bntch Clouts, Logins, Mocasius aud Caps; thou they brought the two men BY JOSEPH S. GITT. that had beeu at Work iu the Field, and m about half au hour, they order’d us to Braddock’s defeat in Western Penn¬ March, setiug me loiemost of the Prison¬ sylvania in 1755, emboldened the Indi¬ ers. W e marched one alter another at ans and stimulated their savage pro¬ some Distance; at about seven miles they pensities, leading to incursions, massa¬ kill’d my Child, which I discovered by cres, and murders and outrages in the seeiug its Scalp; about twelve o’clock exposed settlements throughout Central saw another Scalp, which I knew to be Thomas Potter’s: 1 have sinco been in¬ Pennsylvania, the Cumberland Valley formed that they killed him at the Plact-’S. , ,A being especially subjected to these hos¬ where their Match Coats lay. Fryday tin- tile raids, during the continuation of 14th, about twelve o’clock they murder’d|1,;' what is known as the old French and Samuel Hunter on the North Mountain,fort they drove us over the Allegheny Moun-tym Indian war of 1755—58. The South tain a day and a half, aud ou Mondaj . v ! Mountain was a barrier that shielded ■Night about tenm o’clock, I escap’d, they ‘ the early settlers of York (now Adams) liaviug sent me several Times about tliret nc<> Rods from the fire to bring Water. Inwas county, to a large extent, from the sav¬ nine Nights and Days I got to Fort Lyt- p.. age atrocities of that period. But there tleton, having had no food other than were occasionally parties of Indians, four Snakes, which I had kill’d and eat. more daring than others, who crossed the and some Buds and Roots, and the like; three Cherokee Indiaus fouud me about mountain and carried'captive defence¬ two miles from Fort Lyttleuu, cut mo a 'to less families, and murdered them on the Staff, and Piloted me to the Fort e- way. Among the.captives taken by the In conversation with the Indians dur- >y Indians in April, 1758, was one Richard iug my Captivity, they informed me that y they were all Delawares, for they most!) L Baird, of Hamiitonban township (now all Spake English, one spake as good of Adams county,) who subsequently made English as I car. The Captain said lit- t his escape, the fodowing deposition had been at Philadelphia last IV inter, * by Mr. Baird, on his return home, ap¬ aud another said he had been at Ptnladei- d phia about a year ago; 1 ask’d them ii’l fl pears in the Colonial Records: r.bey weie not going to make Peace with 0 York County, ss. the English? The Captain answered, 3 The Affirmation of Richard Baird of aud said they were talking about it when 1 Hamilton’s Bane Township, aged twen¬ he was in Philadelphia last Winter, but * 0*1 ty-two years, who saitb, that his Habiia- he went away aud left, them. tion being at the Foot of the South Moun¬ RICHARD BAIRD. tain, on the South-East side thereof, on Affirmed & Subscribed at Yoik, | Thursday the thirteenth day of April last, the 12th May, 1758, ) I V about 7 o’clock in the morning, He, this Col. Geo. Stevenson. Deponent, was in his house wilh Kath¬ The following more detailed account, arine his Wife, 'John his child, about of the same occurrence was written ll seven months old, Thomas Potter, son of the late Captain Johu Potter, Esq., De¬ ! by Archibald Baird, a son of Rice-1 ceased, Frederick Ferrick, his Servant, 1 ard Baird, from information given by about fourteen Years of age, Hannah the father: McBride, aged about Eleven years, Wil¬ liam White, about Nino Years old; in his “My father, Richard Baird, lived in Field were Samuel Hunter and Daniel ! York County, now Adams, and owned Mchauimy, Labourers, when a party con¬ the mill, now called Marshall’s mill, in sisting of niueteen Indians, came and what is called Carroll’s tract, where on Captivated Samuel Hunter and Daniel the moruiug of the 13th of April, 1758, McManimy in the Fiold, and afterwards his house was invested by a party of nine¬ came to the dwelling house of this De- teen Indians. They were discovered by n poueut, and about six of them suddenly little girl, called Hannah Mc’Bride, who rushed into the house, and were immedi¬ was at the door, and ou seeing them ately driven out by this Deponent aud screamed, and ran into the honse. “At this time, there was in the boast Thomas Potter; the Door ot the house my father, mother, and LieuteneuLThon was thrown down by our pressing to keep as Potter, (brother of General Potter the ludiaus out, and their pressing to who had come the evening before (beiu. come in, they shot in the house at us, a full cousin) together with a child ab«»r and shot away Thomas Potter’s little fin¬ i six months old, aud a bound boy. ' y < ger. We then had time to know their Indiaus rushed iuto the house, and or^ \ L Number, and in a little time surrender’ itli a large cutlass iu liis 1 ■ ,t on the promise of the Indians not to ki lory'.b.ut ho so they_tied us. & took us us. 1 aged it as to wrest the sword from the laving determined on McManimy’ Indian, and returned his blow, which death “the Indians formed themselvesl would have put au end to his existence into a circle round the prisoner, and had not the point struck the ceiling which turned the sword so as to cut the Indian’s commenced heating him, some with hand. sticks, and some with tomahawks. He I meantime, my father (Mr. was then tied to a post near a large fir*, Baird,) laid hold ef a horseman’s pistol and after being tortured some time that hung on a nail, and snapped it at the breast of one of the Indians, but there with burning coals, they scalped him, being tow in the pan it did not go off- at and put the scalp on a pole to bleed be¬ this, the Indians seeing the pistol, ’ran fore his face. A gun-barrel was then out of the house. heated red hot, and passed over his “By this time one of the Indians at the door shot at Potter, but the ball took him body, and with a red hot bayonet they only on the little finger. The door was pierced his body, with many repetitions. now shut, and secured as well as possible- In this manner they continued torturing but finding the Indians to be very numer¬ ous, and having no powder and ball, and him, singing and shouting until he ex¬ as the savages might easily burn down pired.” the house by reason of the thatched roof and the quantity of mill wood piled at the back of the building, added to the decla¬ Historical Collections. ration of the Indians, that they would not be put to death, they determined to BY JOSEPH S. GITT. surrender; on which a party of the Indi¬ ans went to a field, and made prisoners INDIAN TROUBLES CONTINUED. Samuel Hunter and Daniel McManimy. Last week we gave the reader au ac¬ A lad of the name of William While’ coming to the mill, was also made a pris¬ count of the capture of the Baird family oner. by the Indians iu 1758—the locality being rt At the distance of about seventy rods [ wbat is now known as “Virgiuia Mills,” from the house, contrary to all their e l near Fairfield. From the statement of re promises, they put Thomas Totter to death; and having preceded to the moun¬ the younger Baird referred to in our last iri tain about three or four miles, one of the number, we lean that liis mother was car¬ B Indians struck the spear of his tomahawk ried two or three hundred miles to the into the breast of the small child, and af¬ fic head waters of the Surquelianna, perform ter repeated blows scalped it. After ey¬ crossing the mountain, they passed the ing the journey over mountain and es. hous^i vf Mr. Halbert—and seeing him through swamp moetiy on foot, wiili ex¬ fat out, shot at him, but without effect. treme suffering—the «»ld earth lier bed, Thence passing late in the evening M’- $ a blanket her only covering, boiled corn Cord’s old fort they encamped about half ; j a mile in the gap—the second day having her only food. She wire adopted into an h passed in the Path Valley, they discover¬ Indian family, and remained a captive for h ed a party of white men in pursuit of them; two years and five months, when she was on which they ordered the prisoners toT redeemed by her husband. hasten, for should the whites come up 4 with them, they should all be tomahawked.

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