Settlement of the Couxty. 53
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Digital Scan by Fay-West.com. All Rights Reserved. SETTLEMENT OF THE COUXTY. 53 the date of the last entry in the journal, November 4th. pany in guarding Continental stores here in 1778." The "Doctor Allison" referred to in that entry as It was doubtless discontinued as a military post soon being about to set out for Philadelphia, and who had after the close of the Revohtion, and all traces of it preached the sermons previously mentioned in the were obliterated by the building of the town of journal, was the Rev. Francis Allison, the chaplain Brownsville. of the expedition. The fort when completed was named, in honor oj the commander of the expedition, "Fort Burd." As 3. military mork, it was far from being strong or for- CHAPTER VIII. midable, though bastioned. It was built in the form of a square, except for the bastions at the four angles. SETTLEMENT OF THE COCXTT. The curtains mere formed of palisades, set firmly in the earth and embanked. The bastions were con- THE first white explorers of the vast country structed of hewed logs, laid horizontally one above drained by the two principal tributaries of the Ohio River mere Indian traders, French and English. another. In the centre of the fort was a large house also of hewed logs, and near this, within the inclo- The date of their first appearance here is not known, but it was certainly as early as 1732, when the atten- sure, a well. The whole was surrounded by a broad tion of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania ras ditch, crossed by a dram-bridge, communicating with a gateway in t,he centre of the curtain in the rear of called to the fBct that Frenchmen mere known to be the work.' The location of the fort, with reference among the Indians within the supposed western limits to present landmarks in Bron.nsrille, may be de- of the territory claimed by the proprietaries under the scribed as west of t,he property of N. B. Bowman, and royal grant. This announcement caused considerabie nearly on the spct now occupied by the residence of discussion and some vague action on the part of the J. W. Jefiies. South of the fort was the bullock- Council, and there is no doubt that the fact, which pen; and a short distance, in a direction a littlesouth then became publicly -known, had the effect to bring of east, from the centre of Fort Burd was the central in the English-speaking traders (if they were not al- mound of the prehistoric mork once known as Red- ready here) to gather their share of profit from the lucrative Indian barter. stone Old Fort. Upon the departure of Col. Burd with his command, The French traders came into this region from the after the completion of the fort, he left in it a garri- north, donthe valley of the Allegheny. Tradition son of twenty-fire men, under cornnand of n commis- says they penetrated from the mouth of that rirer southeastward into the- country of the Monongahela sioned oEcer. Some acconnts hays it tlmt this oEcer was Capt. Panil,* fat.her of Col. James Paull, who jwhich there is no reason to doubt), and that some of them came many years before the campaigns of lived for many pears, and died in Fayette County. It is certain that Capt. Paull was czfteru.arcis in corn- Washington and Braddock, and intermarrying with matid at the fort for n long time. Nothing has been the Indians, settled and formed a village on the found showing horn long Fort Burd continued to be waters of Georges Creek, in what is now Georges to~rnship,Fayette County. held as a military post. " But it seems," says Judge Veech, "to hare been under some kind of military pos- Of the English-speaking traders some were Penn- session in 1774. During Dunmore's war, and during sylvanians, .vho came in by way of the Juniata, but the Revolution and contexporary Inciian troubles, it more were from Virginia and Xlaryland. who came was used as a store-house and a rallying-point for de- west orer the Indian trail leacling from Old Town, fense, supply, and observation by the early settlers Md., to the Yonghiogheny, guided and perhaps in- and adventurers. It was nerer rendered famous by duced to come to the Western wilds by Indians, n~ho a siege or a sally. We know.that the late Col. James from the,earliest times were accustomed to visit the Paull ser~eda month's duty in a drafted militia com- frontier trading-stations on the Potomac and at other points east of the mountains. These traders, both English and French, mere adventurous men, ever ' In the Pcnns~lmnin.Arcl~ives (sii. 327) is a plan of the fort, nla~le ready and willing to brave the perils of the wilder- l?r Col. Shiypen, the engineer. On this plan are given the dimeusions of the work, :IS fullo\vs: L' The cort:lin, $756 feet; the fl;unks. 16 feet; ness and risk their lives among the savages for the the faces of the bastiorrs, 30 feet; a ditch letu-ecn the bastions, 24 feet purpose of gain, but they were in no sense settlers, \vide; aud opposite the faces, 12 feet. The log-house fur a magazine, aud mly wanderers from point to point, according to the to contain tile wonlen aud clrildrcn, 39 feet squam. h gare G Feet vide and Y feet high, and a drawbridge [illegible, lrvt apparently 101 feet requirements or inducements of their vocation. Who wide." In Judge Veech's '' iilouonpi~elaof Old" is give11 3 diagram of Fort Burd, but it is uot dra~yniu accordance with tlwse dimensions, the 3 Jndge Veech says (" 1IIonongahela of Old," p. 26). "When the Tir- cllrlninsLeing n~adetoo short 8s conlpared xith the tize of the bastions. $in, M:~ryland,and Yeuns~lvaniatmders with the Indians on the ?Janres L. Ilownan, in a Ilietorie;~l sketch furnished by him to tlre )hi0 began their operations,perhaps early as li10, they procured In- Alnericoit Phneer, and published in 1843, said with regard to this first lians to stlow tllem the best and casirst route,aud this [the Xemacolin b'arrisouing of Fort Bard, "The pruhabilitg is that after the accom- path to the Youghioghmy and Ohio] was the one they ndopted." And Pli~llnrentof the oldect for wlricl~tile ,-oxnuranding officer was sent he he iulds, "There is some evidence that Indian traders. bothEnglish and placed Capt. Paull in command and returned to report." Freuch, were iu thiscountry much eurfier" than 1Tl0. Document is not to be posted on any other Web site but Fay-West.com Digital Scan by Fay-West.com. All Rights Reserved. 54 HISTORY OF PAPETTE COUNTY, PEXNSYLVANIA. they were is no more known than is the time when dr. Hanbury, a London mercliant, Lawrence Wasli- they first came, for few, if any, of their names have ngton, and John Augustine Washington, of Virginia been preserved, other than those of Dunlap and Hugh brothers of Gen. George Washington), and ten other Crawford, and they were of the class of later traders, bersons, residents of that colony and Maryland, and in who gave up their calling on the approach of perma- darch, 1749, this association was chartered as the nent settlers. )hi0 Company by George tlie Second of England. Nor is it certainly known who was the first white The royal grant to the company embraced five hun- man who made a settlement intended to be perma- Ired thousand acres of land on the Ohio, and between. nent within the territory that is now Fayette County. he Mouongahela and Kanamha Riyers, ihis being Veech believed that the first actual settlers here were riven on the express condition that it should be Wendell Bromu and his two sons, Naunus and Adam, mproved and settled (to a certain specified estent) vith perhaps a third son, Thomas. "They came," vithin ten years' from the date of the charter. he says, "in 1751 or 1752. Their first location was on "The object of the company," says Sparks, "was Provance's Bottom, a short distance below little Ja- o settle the lands and to carry on tlie Indian trade cob's Creek [in tlie present township of Nicholson]. lpon a large scale. Hitherto the trade with the But soon after some Indians enticed them away from itrestern Indians had been mostly in the hands of the that choice alluvial reach by promises to show them Pennsylvanisns. The company conceived that they better land, and where they x~ouldexjoy greater se- night derive an inlportant advantage over their com- curity. They mere led to the lands on whicli, in part, >etitors in this trade from the water communication the descendants of bfaunus now reside.' . They )f the Potomac and the east~rnbrzilches of the Ohio came as hunters, but soon became herdsinen and til- the Monongahela and Tou~l~ioglieny],whose head- lers of the soil. When Washington's litt,le army waters approsir~atedeach other. The lands were mas at the Great Meadows, or Fort Necessity, the :o be chiefly takn on the south side of the Ohio, be- Browns packed provisions to him,-corn and beef." ;ween the Monongahela and Kanamha Rivers, and This last statement, however, seems very much like one ,vest of the Alleghenies. The pririiege was reserved, of those doubtful traditions that are found clinging to iowever, by the company of embracing a portion of all accounts of Washington's movements from Fort :he lands on the north side of the river, if it shonld Secessity to Yorktown.