Class _£"_/_^_Z. Gopyriglit}^^ COFJKIGHT DEPOSIT. vj THE /^-^ MONONGAHELA OF OLD; OR, HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF SOUTH-WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA TO THE YEAR 1800 BY JAMES VEECH. FOR PRIVATE DISTRIBUTION ONLY. PITTSBURGH 1858—1892 : (This unfinished work of the author, which has been ''in sheets" since 1858, is now issued for private distribution only. By the addi- tion of pages 241-259, which were included in a pamphlet issued in 1857, entitled "Mason and Dixon's Line," the chapter relating to the boundary controversy between Pennsylvania and Virginia is com- pleted.) . Copyright Mrs. E. V. Blaine. 1892. Copyright re-issued to James Hadden. 1910. ' / PREFACE James Veech, the author of this work, was born in Menallen township, Fayette county, Pennsylvania, September i8, 1808. He was graduated at Jefferson college, Cannonsburg, in 1827, and read law in Uniontown with James Todd who was appointed Attorney General of the State, i835-'38. He was admitted to the bar of Fay- ette county in 183 1, and was married to Maria Ewing, a sister of* Hon. Nathaniel Ewing, in 1832, and practiced his profession in Uniontown until 1834, when he moved to Pittsburg, where in the same year he was appointed Assistant District Attorney for Alle^ glieny county by Governor Ritner, which position he filled until 1838, when he returned to Uniontown and resumed his practice there. In 1861 he accepted the appointment of paymaster in the army, and left Uniontown. Taking up his residence again in Pittsburg, in 1862, he opened a law ofBce and became associated with D. T. Wat- son in the law firm of Veech and Watson. He was for years a director in the Monongahela Navigation Com- pany, and also in the Bank of Pittsburg. In 1855 he was a candi- date for United States Senator, and in 1857 he was nominated for supreme judge, but was defeated by Justice William Strong. Dur- ing this carapaig-n the title of ''judge" was popularly given to him, by which title he was ever afterwards known. Judge Veech w as a high minded gentleman of the old school ; his dignified manner and profound legal ability commanded the respect of all. He retired from active life in 1872, and spent his later years in the congenial pursuits of history and literature in which he ac- quired fame. In later years he made his home at Emsworth, on the Ohio river, six miles below Pittsburgh, on the Ft. Wayne road, where he died December 11, 1879, ^.nd his death was the occasion of marked sor- row and respect of the bar and public of Pittsburg as well as his many friends in Uniontown. He was buried in Union cemetery at Uniontown. He was survived by his wife and five daughters. His only son, David Henry Veech, having died in 1874, leaving a son, James Veech. This last named was an only son back through five generations, viz : James, of David Henry, of James, of David, of James. The inception of this book dates from 1850, when Freeman Lewis, a competent surveyor of Uniontown, projected a history of Fayette county, and had already gathered some material for the purpose. The work soon grew to such proportions that Mr. Lewis was unable to handle it and proposed to transfer the undertaking to Mr. Veech, who immediately applied himself to collecting the necessary data, and in 1859, it was placed in the hands of the printer. The book was then printed, but was left in sheet form for several years, the manuscript having not all been furnished to the printer. In the middle of the chapter on the famous Mason and Dixon Line the history stopped short, and in this unfinished form a few copies were bound and furnished to a few of his personal friends as the work was originally intended for private distribution only. In 1892, Mr. Veech's daughter, Mrs. E. V. Blaine, completed the chapter on Mason and Dixon's Line, and a supplement thereto and published a few copies of the still incomplete work. It is ever to be regretted that Mr. Veech did not finish the work he had so ably begun and for which he was so amply fitted. The appointment as paymaster of the army, the duties of which com- pelled him to relinquish work on the history for the time, after which failing health compelled him to abandon it entirely. The book as published, contains eight chapters and a supplement, which is not half of what the volume was originally intended to be. It will remain the standard history of Fayette county and will be referred to as such by all future histories of Western Pennsylvania. THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. CHAPTER I. ANTIQUITIES Ante-Indian Inhabitants—Old Forts; their forms; sites; localities— Mounds- Indian Towns—Indians Graves—Curious chain. Fay- Of the original human inhabitants of the territory, of which trad- ette county is a part, we know but little. When Anglo-Saxon ers and hunters first penetrated its wilds, it was the hunting^round Nations (a) the seat of whose power of the Mingo Indians, or Six ; whose and chief population was Western New York. Delawares, that original home was the western shore of the river of name, and Shawnese, who, came from the Cumberland river, were more also found. But that these were the successors of a race clearly intelligent, or of a people of different habits of life, seems deducible from the remains of fortifications scattered all over the to have territory, and which are very distinct from those known been constructed by the tribes of Indians named, or any of their modern compeers. These remains of embankments, or ''old forts," are numerous in Fayette county. That they are very ancient is shown by many satisfactory facts. The Indians, known to us, could give no account of when, how, or by whom they were erected; or for what purpose, except for defense. While the trees of the sur- rounding forests were chiefly oak, the growths upon, and within the lines of the old forts, were generally of large black walnut, One- (a)Called also the Iroquois. They were a Confederacy of the Mohawks, Delawares and Shaw- idas, Onondagoes, Cayugas, Senecas and Tuscaroras. The nese were in league with them, but rather as conquered dependents. 28 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. wild cherry, and sometimes locust. We have examined some which indicated an age of from three to five hundred years, and they evidently of a second or third generation, as the}^ were standing amid the decayed remains of their ancestors. How they got there, whether by transplanting, by deposits of floods, or of birds, or otherwise, is a speculation into which we will not go. These embankments may have been originally composed of wood, as their debris is generally a vegetable mould. No stone was used in their construction ; and among their ruins are always found some remains of old pottery, composed of clay, mixed with crushed muscle shells, even Avhen far off from a river. This compo- site was not burnt, but only baked in the sunshine. These vessels were generally circular: and, judging from those we have seen, they were made to hold from one to three quarts. These old forts were of various forms, square, oblong, triangular, circular and semi-circular. Their superficial areas range from one- fourth of an acre to ten acres. Their sites were generally well chosen, in reference to defense and observation. And what is a very singular fact, they were very often, generally in Fayette county, located on the highest and richest hills, and at a distance from any spring or stream of water. In a few instances this was otherwise, whether being enclosed or contiguous, as they are generally in Ohio, and other more western parts of the Mississippi valley. Having seen and examined many of these "old forts" in Fayette, and also those at Marietta, Newark, and elscAvhere, in Ohio, we be- lieve they are all the work of the same race of Jwople ; as are also the famous Grave Greek Mounds near ElizabetlJPsvn, Virginia ; and if this belief be correct, then the conclusion follows irresistibly, that that race of people was much superior, and existed long anterior to the modern Indian. But who they were, and what became of them, must perhaps forever be unknown. We will briefly indicate the localities of some of these ''old forts" in Fayette county. To enumerate all, or, to describe them sepa- rately, would weary the reader and waste our space. The curious in such matters may yet trace their remains. A very noted one, and of most commanding location, was at Brownsville, on the site of ''Fort Burd," but covering a much larger area. Even after Col. Eurd built his fort there, in 1759, it re- tained the names of the "Old Fort,"—Redstone Old Fort, or. Fort Redstone. There was one on land formerly of William Goe, near the Mon- ; ANTIQUITIES. ]^9 ongahela River, and just above the mouth of Little Redstone; where afterward was a Settler's Fort, called Cassel's or Castle Fort. And an old map which we have seen has another of these old forts noted at the mouth of Speers' run, where Bellevernon now is. Two or three are found on a high ridge southwardly of Perry- opolis, on the State road, and on land late of John F. Martin. Another noted one is on the western bank of the Youghiogheny river, nearly opposite the Broad ford, on land lately held by James Collins. There are several on the high ridge of land, leading from the Col- lin's fort above referred to, south westwardly toward Plumpsock, on lands of James Paull, John M.