That Dark and Bloody River

by Allan Eckert

  … and, on Saturday last, about 12 o’clock, there was one Greathouse and about 20 men fell on a party of Indians at the mouth of Yellow Creek, and killed 10 of them, and brought away one child a prisoner, which is now at my brother William Crawford’s. This alarm has made the people move from over the Monongahela, off Shirtee [Chartier’s Creek] and Raccoon as fast as you ever saw them in the year 1756 or ’57 in Frederick County, Virginia. There were more than one thousand people crossed the Monongahela in one day at three ferries not one mile apart.

  On the Youghiogheny, only a few miles distant, settler Gilbert Simpson was also writing a letter to George Washington, who had hired him to construct a mill. Though unnerved by all that was occurring, his inherent tenacity came to the forefront. After relating some of what he had heard, he added:

  The country at this time is in great confusion, the Indians declaring war against us. I suppose there have been broken up and gone off at least 500 families within one week past, but I am determined to stand to the last or lose my life with what I have. There have been two or three skirmishes with whites and Indians. There have been 19 Indians killed and one white man killed and one wounded—all between the Mingo Town and Pittsburgh, & I believe it has been the white people’s fault altogether.

  Finally, William Crawford, back home again after his marathon round of warning settlers, also wrote to George Washington:

  Our inhabitants are much alarmed, many hundreds having gone over the mountains. In short, a war is every moment expected; we have a council now with them. What will be the event I do not know. I am now setting out for Fort Pitt at the head of 100 men; many others are to meet me there and at Wheeling, where we shall wait the motions of the Indians, and shall act accordingly. We are in great want of some proper person to direct us, who may command—Mr. Connolly, who now commands, having incurred the displeasure of the people. He is unable to take command for two reasons; one is the contradiction between us and the Pennsylvanians, and the other that he rather carries matters too much in a military way and is not able to go through with it. I have some hopes that we may still have matters settled with the Indians upon a method properly adopted for that purpose.

  However much Capt. Crawford and others hoped to conciliate the Indians, their efforts continued to be undermined by individual acts of barbarity. A fiery-tempered little Irishman, John Ryan, called Jack by his friends, having stowed all his gear in his saddle packs, was ready to leave the area where he was claiming just below the mouth of Grave Creek when he saw a lone individual approaching in a canoe from well upstream. He slipped into hiding, took a position behind some rocks and carefully checked the load and priming of his flintlock. In a few minutes the canoe was beginning to pass at a distance of about 60 yards, its occupant an Indian, apparently a Delaware. With great care Ryan took aim and fired. The large lead ball struck the Indian in the left temple and slammed him out of the canoe, which rocked violently but somehow managed to stay upright and float off empty. The Indian had disappeared beneath the surface, and Jack Ryan experienced a pang of regret that he was unable to get the scalp.

  [May 8, 1774—Sunday]

  George Croghan, with Alexander McKee, watched despairingly as the Indians departed from his council. A smaller number of chiefs than had been hoped for—only a few Delaware and Iroquois delegates—attended the meeting, which had been held at Croghan Hall rather than Fort Pitt, due to Connolly’s antagonism. Croghan had warmly approved of McKee setting up the council in his absence, but it had done little good. Croghan had done all he could to placate them but, though they had listened politely, they said it was too late; Talgayeeta had sworn vengeance, and they understood his wrath and supported him in it.

  [May 11, 1774—Wednesday]

  Little John Ryan, who six days ago shot the Indian out of his canoe on the Ohio, was now on the Monongahela not far below the mouth of Dunkard Creek and found himself with an opportunity to repeat his recent history.208 A short while before, riding up the path on the east side of the river, he had detected smoke and hastily left the path, tied his horse and then advanced on foot toward the source. He soon spied a lone Indian sitting by his campfire, his back against a tree, his small canoe wedged on shore only a few yards away.

  This Indian was the ancient Delaware chief who had been pointed out to Ryan a year before at Redstone as a harmless, solitary old man named Bald Eagle who was humorously eccentric and who often visited the settlements to trade fur skins or deer meat. His command of English was fair, and the settlers had grown to like him and welcome his visits. Ryan did not share their views, and now, from his hiding place no more than 50 feet away, he took careful aim. Just as the frail and skinny old Delaware was lighting his pipe, he coldly sent a lead ball the size of the end of his thumb through his heart, killing him.

  Ryan waited a few minutes to see if anyone else might show up, and when no one did, he approached the camp. The old Indian had tumbled forward but now lay on his back, sightless eyes open wide and already glazing, his pipe beside an outstretched hand and floppy hat lying a short distance away. Ryan checked the Indian’s pack and found nothing of any real value—a few cakes of dense cornbread, a tin of pipe tobacco, some jerky, an extra pair of moccasins, well worn. His musket, leaning against the tree, was in such bad shape, it was not worth bothering with, but there was a skinning knife and tomahawk that Ryan set aside to take, along with a small amount of powder and lead.

  Ryan scalped the old man and then easily picked up the body and carried it to the canoe. There he used the old musket to help prop it up into a sitting position in the stern and positioned the floppy hat to cover the wound where the scalp had been lifted. He also tried to wedge the battered pipe in the old man’s mouth, but the jaw was slack and it kept falling out. Returning to Bald Eagle’s pack, Ryan got the corn cakes, moistened them slightly with river water and crammed them into the mouth until there was room for no more. Then he stuck the pipestem in it and stepped back to survey his handiwork. The old man looked remarkably alive, as if half-dozing while he smoked, and Ryan laughed aloud.

  “Have a nice trip,” he murmured, freeing the canoe from shore and thrusting it smoothly into the current. It quickly floated out of sight beyond a bend, and within minutes Ryan, with the scalp and meager plunder in his own pouch, was again on his horse, heading for the Cheat Valley.

  The floating canoe stayed fairly close to the right bank as it drifted downstream. As it approached the mouth of George’s Creek a mile and a half below where it was launched, the canoe passed several settlers on shore who thought old Bald Eagle was returning from a friendly hunt with the settlers still at Dunkard Creek, and they waved and called hello.209 They were surprised when he did not put in to see them and even more when he didn’t even return their greetings.

  The current entering the river from the mouth of George’s Creek pushed the canoe farther out toward the middle, and it continued the downstream drift for nearly another six miles, before being caught by an eddy and propelled toward shore. There it wedged itself in a willow overhang within sight of the Provance Settlement.210 Frederick and Martha Provance, cautiously hunting mushrooms while also keeping a sharp eye out for danger, saw the craft skim into the branches and stop. Recognizing Bald Eagle, they wondered why he didn’t come ashore and soon came to investigate. They were sickened by what they found and later that same day gave the old Delaware a decent burial.

  [May 12, 1774—Thursday]

  Now, all over the frontier, settlers who had not fled very far to the east began to wonder if they had not been too precipitous in leaving as they had. It was nearly two weeks since the attack at Baker’s Bottom and three weeks since the attacks farther downriver. Yet despite these provocations, there was no real evidence that the Indians were retaliating. Many of the settlers began coming back to their cabins, especially those of the Wheeling area. As William Crawford put it in another of his letters to George Washington:

  Several of the inhabitants of that part are gone back and ar
e planting their corn. David Shepherd, who lives down at Wheeling, moved his family up to my house, but he has gone back himself and is planting his corn.

  Some, of course, even in the face of the supposed danger looming, had refused to leave, determined to face up to whatever came their way in order to protect their interests. Among these were the Tomlinson boys—Joseph, Samuel and James—and their widowed sister, Rebecca Martin, who kept house for them. Joe, the eldest and clearly the leader, had spoken little about his participation in the Greathouse affair up at Baker’s Bottom. He and Sam often went out alone for several days at a stretch, saying they were going hunting, and occasionally young Jim went with them. Rebecca was convinced that what they were hunting was definitely not meat for the table. This was one of those times. The three had offhandedly remarked to her that they were “going a little farther this time,” and she was not to be concerned if they didn’t get back for five or six days. As for her, she was to stay inside the cabin with door and window shutters barred until their return.

  Soon after their departure, however, she had grown concerned for their sister, Sarah Baker, who, so far as she knew, was still up at Baker’s Bottom with her husband. Putting aside the final admonition of her brothers, she decided to visit her and make sure she was all right. She knew that her brothers, had they been home, would never have allowed her to do so, but if Rebecca Tomlinson Martin was anything, she was a very determined and self-possessed young woman.

  Three days ago, making sure her flintlock was loaded and taking along a shot pouch and powderhorn as well as a packet of food, she climbed into her own light canoe and set off on the 52-mile upstream journey. Twenty-one miles upstream she stopped at the McCulloch Settlement at the mouth of Short Creek but found the cabins deserted. She made herself comfortable in one of them and spent the night, completing her journey to Baker’s Bottom by noon the day before yesterday. She found Sarah and Joshua there, still all right but, having observed increased Indian activity over the last few days, preparing to head for Catfish Camp, where they would be less exposed to danger and be with other settlers if it became necessary to defend themselves. They invited her to come along, but she refused, saying she had to get back to Grave Creek and protect the Tomlinson interests there until her brothers returned.

  Rebecca had started her journey back downstream yesterday afternoon and made it to a few miles above Wheeling Creek by nightfall. Leery about traveling without some light to guide her along the shoreline, she nosed her canoe to the Virginia bank, tied it to some willows with a rawhide tug and leaped lightly to shore. She made a little cold camp, had a bite to eat and stretched out to wait for the moon to rise and provide enough light for her to continue. Close to midnight the half-moon cleared the trees in a cloudless sky and transformed the black river into a silvery ribbon. She returned to where her canoe was and found that her leap to shore earlier had thrust the light craft out a little from shore, and for a frightening moment she thought it was gone. Then in the pale moonlight, she saw that it was still held by the line attached to the willows, although it was out so far that she had to wade through the shin-deep shallows to reach it.

  As she reached her little boat, her foot encountered a loose mass that she took to be a clump of floating debris, and she stepped upon it to get back into the canoe, thrusting it against the bottom. Once settled aboard, she glanced down to the water to see what she had stepped upon and discovered, as it rose back to the surface, that it was the bloated face-up body of an Indian. She gasped and for a long moment sat dead still, staring at the gruesome sight. Gradually recovering her composure, she moved to the bow and untied the line, shoved the boat out and drifted away from the sight she knew would return in nightmares the rest of her life.

  Closely following the shoreline, she paddled throughout the remainder of the night and just after daybreak this morning reached the mouth of Grave Creek. She guided the canoe into the safe little mooring where her journey had begun, pulled it well up on shore and walked up to the cabin, finding everything as she had left it.

  Now, hardly an hour later, with the new sunlight bright and cheerful in the clearing, she heard her brothers coming and met them at the cabin door. They were obviously relieved at finding her all right, and Samuel picked her up in a big hug and kissed her cheek.

  “Glad to see you stayed inside where it’s safe, sis,” he said. “You weren’t skeered, were you?”

  “Well,” she replied, smiling, “I’m glad you’re back. It’s lonesome and I have to admit I did get a little scared once, but it was nothing.”211

  [May 14, 1774—Saturday]

  The atmosphere on the frontier these days was a decidedly unhealthy one for Indians. Early this morning, while crusty old Sam Meason was visiting Pittsburgh to buy supplies, he saw an Indian emerge from the woods and approach the bustling village with his hand upraised in the peace sign. Before any of the townspeople nearby realized Meason’s intent, the frontiersman snatched up his rifle and shot the Indian dead.

  The dead man proved to be a Wyandot youth barely past puberty who was carrying a small string of white wampum, a sign that he had a message to deliver, evidently one of peace or conciliation. George Croghan was summoned and became furious at what had occurred. The dead youth was unfamiliar to him, but the fact that he had been killed while bearing such a message—now never to be delivered—had ominous portent.

  The Indian agent went to Fort Pitt at once and demanded that Meason be arrested. With so many witnesses to the killing, Connolly had no choice but to comply, and, though most of his militia were presently off on patrol, he sent a small squad and had Meason arrested, placed in irons and locked in the guardhouse. Word of it spread throughout Pittsburgh and, even though no one had any great love for the uncouth and loudmouthed frontiersman, a sense of outrage bloomed that a white man had actually been jailed for killing an Indian.

  A mob quickly formed and, while Connolly restrained his own men from making what he termed “futile resistance,” forced their way into Fort Pitt, broke the guardhouse lock and knocked off the irons that shackled Meason. The fugitive immediately left Pittsburgh and returned to his claim on Buffalo Creek, six miles from Catfish Camp.212

  This very same day, more than 100 miles to the southeast, in the vicinity of Moorefield on the South Branch Potomac, four other friendly Indians—three men and a boy—who were well known in the area, were coldly gunned down by Nicholas Harpold and Henry Judah who, instead of being punished for the murders, were elevated by their fellow settlers to near heroic status.

  [May 17, 1774—Tuesday]

  In the dimness of the council house at Wapatomica, close to 30 chiefs and subchiefs had assembled, representing the Shawnees and Delawares, Wyandots and Mingoes. Pucksinwah was there, as was Talgayeeta and a number of his followers. For several hours various chiefs had spoken, each relating his own experience with the current rash of outrages being perpetrated against them by the Shemanese. All had been hurt in one way or another, though none so severely as Talgayeeta, who had not yet risen to speak.

  Though the individual stories varied, the litanies were similar: They had been injured through unprovoked attacks that had also taken many lives; yet they had also received messages from their friends Croghan, McKee, Elliott, Gibson and others among the whites, begging them please not to make war against the whites, assuring them that the recent acts of violence had been undertaken by irresponsible individuals, not the government, and that those individuals would be punished. Would they please come to Fort Pitt under the mantle of peace, their safety guaranteed, and try to reach an accommodation rather than dash their nations into war with a very deadly foe?

  This was the question they asked themselves now, and the answer seemed to lie in the enormously influential Talgayeeta. It was to him that Pucksinwah directed the last of the general remarks of the chiefs.

  “We have all been provoked beyond what any of us should bear. We Shawnees have lost good people, as have the Wyandots and Lenni Lenape, and ce
rtainly the followers of Talgayeeta. Now we have been asked to come to Fort Pitt to try to settle all this. The Shawnees and our neighbors have agreed to try, and we are on our way there now. Talgayeeta,” he directed his gaze to him, “not long ago I came to you and asked you to help us make war on the Shemanese, to drive them back from our lands. Now we have turned around and wish to try for the peace that is offered, and we ask you to lay aside the harm that has been done to you and join us. What has occurred may yet be repaired. Certain bad Shemanese have killed our people, and, in retaliation, some of the Mingoes apart from Talgayeeta have killed some of the white traders and forced the others into hiding. These are bad things, but the harm can be undone if there is goodwill in the hearts on both sides. The harm that will be done to our tribes by a full war with these whites could well become a blow from which we may never recover. Talgayeeta, tell us what is in your heart.”

  As Talgayeeta rose, his face etched with recent suffering, a deep hush fell over the assemblage. He stood silently for a time and then spoke softly, yet with utter implacability. “My heart grieves for the losses that have been inflicted upon you here. I would not lead you into a war that would do you even greater harm. But I and those Mingoes who look to me tell you now that the injury that has been done us is beyond accommodation; it cries upon me and upon the Mingoes for vengeance. I have vowed to take that vengeance and will do so before ever again my hatchet is grounded. A few of the Mingoes, as you have said, have already killed some of the traders and badly frightened others, but the Shemanese have not yet begun to feel the vengeance of Talgayeeta. I have for a time put it off, promising to listen in this council before acting. I have listened. What I have heard only makes me the more certain that the vow must be carried out. I have said. I will say no more.”