by Allan Eckert
434. Of Lochry’s entire force of 107 men (including himself), 41 were killed and about half that number wounded. Those who were tomahawked while captive were said to have been killed in direct retaliation for the prisoners executed by Col. Brodhead’s men during the Coshocton Campaign the preceding spring. Most of the prisoners were required to run the gauntlet after reaching the Indian villages and a few died in the effort; the majority, however, were then taken to Detroit and sold to the British. Q.M. Richard Wallace was another of the captives adopted by the Indians; he was taken to Detroit to live among them there. He was hired out as a cooper by the Indians. Capt. Arent de Peyster, commanding Detroit, purchased the other prisoners and tried to purchase Wallace and a private named William Witherington, but the Indians would not sell. When, the following October, the Lochry detachment captives were being readied for transport to Montreal, Wallace was smuggled aboard the ship in a trunk on de Peyster’s orders, and Witherington was rolled up in a blanket and carried aboard. The prisoners were quartered on Prison Island adjacent to Montreal for the winter and subsequently taken to Quebec. After a year as captives there, they were finally freed late in 1782 as part of a prisoner exchange. Most of these freed prisoners had reached their homes by May 1783.
435. Rebecca Hawkins was not heard of again. Presley Peek was kept in captivity for seventeen months before being returned in a prisoner exchange.
436. William Huston’s body was buried on the spot where he was slain, and later the grave was marked and fenced.
437. It is believed the fire started when a gust of wind caused a shutter to swing and strike a lighted oil lamp on a sill in the stable within the fort. The smashed lamp landed in the hay, and within moments, with a strongly disadvantageous wind blowing, the entire fort was afire. A few horses had been killed, but the garrison managed to escape with the majority of the animals and with their guns and powder, but the fort was soon entirely consumed.
438. This was at the site of present Sand Island, just below the larger island presently called Shipping Port Island, in the Ohio River just off the northwestern end of present Louisville, Jefferson Co., Ky.
439. Three of the crew members of this boat have been identified as James Powers, Peter Barr and James Lindley.
440. Some accounts list Johnson’s first name as Terry rather than Jerry.
441. James Armstrong, who hailed from Carlisle, Pa., was something of a company comic, constantly telling jokes or relating improbable stories, such as his account of having single-handedly taken three or four Hessian soldiers prisoner, whom he said he had surrounded.
442. Lt. Jerry Johnson’s body was never recovered.
443. Continuing with his downstream venture, Capt. Elliott stopped off at Natchez and then at Pointe Coupee. At the latter port he was offered $30 a barrel for his flour—$7,500 for his whole cargo—but refused to sell, believing he could get a better price at New Orleans. Arriving there, however, he found the market deflated and wound up having to sell his flour for only $12 per barrel. Entrepreneur that he was, Elliott took the $3,000 he got for the flour and bought good fur pelts at a cheap price. These he took to New York, where he made an exceptionally large profit of almost ten times what he paid for them. Elliott wound up being a contractor for Gen. Anthony Wayne, made a fortune in the process and was on the verge of calling it quits and going home when, just before the Battle of Fallen Timbers that ended the Indian war in 1794, he was attacked by a party of warriors and killed. Elliott’s crewmen, James Lindley and Peter Barr, went from New Orleans to Pensacola, Florida, where they were hired by a trader in a small boat to help him transport a cargo of lime juice in kegs to New Orleans. They camped one night on the shore of a bayou between Mobile Bay and New Orleans, and all three were killed by attacking Choctaw Indians who had expected to find liquor in the kegs and destroyed the cargo when they discovered their error.
444. Wells’ Station was located at the site of the present village of Lynnview, a suburb of present Louisville, Jefferson Co., Ky.
445. Samuel Wells, Sr., originally from the community of Opequon in Maryland, had served in Dunmore’s army in 1774.
446. Pvt. Daniel Whittaker, who hailed from Pittsburgh, was no relation to Pvt. Aquilla Whittaker, who was also with Floyd’s party. Ravenscroft and King both spent a long time in captivity but were eventually freed in a prisoner exchange.
447. It is reported that the cut Thayendanegea accidentally gave himself was so severe that he never entirely recovered from it.
448. Eventually taken to Detroit as a prisoner, Samuel Murphy saw a large dry goods box half filled with scalps taken on the upper Ohio, for which the Indians had received bounty payment. While there he was treated by a British surgeon for the bullet wound in his hip, and he also received, as a gift from Simon Girty, who was there, a new handkerchief with a pound of tea tied up in it and about six pounds of sugar. When Murphy was interviewed by Lyman Draper on September 1, 1846, he said, in this regard: “Girty was good and kind to me; this is as true as you are sitting there.”
449. This French swivel was part of the armament of Fort Duquesne. It had been spiked and cast into the river by the French themselves on November 24, 1758, when they evacuated and destroyed Fort Duquesne at the approach of the British.
450. Andrew Poe was born September 30, 1742, in Frederick Co., Md. His father, George, a well-to-do landed Dutchman, was murdered by an Irishman in his employ when Andrew was 14 years old. A few years after that, Andrew came to the frontier, eventually taking up residence and working in the Pittsburgh area for some years. About 1773 he claimed land on Harmon’s Creek, after which he returned to Maryland and convinced his brother, Adam, to return with him there to claim land for himself, which Adam did.
451. Collier’s Settlement was established in 1771 by Jacob(?) Collier on present Harmon’s Creek, six miles upstream from the Ohio River at the mouth of Mechling Run, on the site of present Colliers, Brooke Co., W.Va.
452. It seems probable that the camp Poe’s party made for the night was located at or very near the site of the present community of Cherry Lake, 1.5 miles north of present New Cumberland, Hancock Co., W.Va.
453. In some of the accounts, Dakadulah is misidentified as an Indian widely known on the frontier at that time as Big Foot, because of the great size of his footprints (13′ X 5½′), often found at scenes of Indian raids. However, the so-called Big Foot and Dakadulah were two entirely different Indians. The Wyandots are not known to ever have had an Indian named Big Foot, in their tongue or anyone else’s, nor any warrior who matched Big Foot’s description.
454. One account states that Andrew Poe had momentarily gotten loose from Dakadulah’s grasp, snatched up the Wyandot’s cocked rifle and shot Scoleh dead, but both Adam and Andrew Poe themselves related that it was Adam who killed Scoleh.
455. There are a number of considerably differing versions of the Andrew Poe fight, some of which have been elaborately exaggerated. The author has attempted to reconstruct this incident as accurately as possible, relying most heavily on the recollections of the members of Poe’s party, especially Adam and Andrew Poe themselves, and interviews by Lyman Draper with descendants of the Poe family. Andrew Poe never recovered completely from his injuries; it was about a year before he could do anything, and his right hand, damaged beyond repair, became paralyzed and atrophied until it was about a third smaller than its original size. He lived for 41 years after this fight and died July 15, 1823, at the age of 80, at his home in Green Township, Beaver Co., Pa. Adam Poe lived to the age of 92 and died at his home in Massilon, O., in 1840.
456. The place where Scotach came ashore with the bodies of his brother Scoleh and the three other Wyandot warriors was most likely on—or very close to—the site of the present village of Empire, Jefferson Co., O.
457. Captives’ Town was established for the Moravian Indians who had been removed by force from their villages of Gnadenhütten, Schoenbrun and Salem on the Tuscarawas River. They had been allowed to build a large
number of temporary wegiwas on a high flat ground upstream on the upper Sandusky River from Half King’s Town. There is nothing on the spot now where this temporary Captives’ Town was located in Pitt Township, Wyandot Co., O., east of present State Route 199 in a U-shaped bottom of the Sandusky River, a mile downstream from the mouth of present Brokensword Creek. It was across from present Township Road 60A, on the land presently (1993) owned by Richard Coons and Agnes Miller.
458. It was this same young Indian woman who eventually was instrumental in getting George Fulkes released so he could return to his own people on the upper Ohio River.
459. This trail, sometimes called the Mahoning Trail, was a much-used trail that connected the Cuyahoga Portage to the main trail leading to the Iroquois nations. It was encountered by the Brady party at about the site of the present village of Niles, Trumbull Co., O. Westward from this point, it more or less followed the route of the present Baltimore & Ohio Railroad right-of-way to present State Route 59 just south of Brady Lake, at which point it followed what is now State Route 59 into the present city of Kent, Portage Co., O., to the portage across the Cuyahoga River in the vicinity of the present location of the Main Street bridge.
460. The stream, on the east side of which the Indians were camped, was present Breakneck Creek, the camp itself located at the northeast end of the State Route 59 bridge crossing the creek at this point. The lake to the north was the present Brady Lake. The swamp in question has long since been drained.
461. This trail along the narrow ridge is the route followed by present Merrill Road, which runs diagonally northeastward from State Route 59 for 1.1 miles to Brady Lake Road.
462. It has never been accurately ascertained how many Indians were killed or wounded in this very successful ambush, but from remarks made by the Indians themselves later and overheard by captives, there were probably a total—in both the Indian camp and at the ambush scene—of 30 to 40 killed or wounded.
463. This fording place was approximately where present Powder Mill Road crosses Breakneck Creek.
464. Standing Rock, still known by that name, is 0.9 mile upstream from the Main Street bridge at the northernmost edge of the city of Kent, along the western bank of the Cuyahoga and at the southernmost corner of the present Standing Rock Cemetery.
465. Between 1846 and 1858, historian Lyman C. Draper expended a great deal of effort into discovering the truth about the so-called Brady’s Leap. Many were by this time claiming that it was a myth that had been concocted to aggrandize the accomplishments of Samuel Brady, or that it had occurred at another place, on another stream—such as Slippery Rock Creek, which Draper himself believed for a long time was the locale where the leap occurred. Scores of documents were painstakingly studied, and in the end Draper, convinced of the Cuyahoga leap by the evidence presented to him by Dr. S. P. Hildreth, wrote a memo in which he stated, “Hildreth … thinks there can be little or no doubt but Captain Brady made his leap over the Cuyahoga. I yield to this opinion, & discard the locale of Slippery Rock Creek.”
As part of his study, Draper had a practical surveyor, Gen. Samuel D. Davis of nearby Ravenna, O., measure the gap across the Cuyahoga at this point. It was precisely 22 feet, and the lower bench or ledge below the east bank extended for 30 to 40 feet. Wrote Draper in his memo: “The ledge or bench was blasted off about 1840 when the canal was building.” The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad tracks now follow the east side of the river where Brady finally struggled to the top of the bank. In conclusion of his painstaking research into the matter, Dr. Draper wrote, “I am now more than ever convinced of the Brady Leap legend, & have additional proof of the ambuscade at Brady’s Lake. Both localities are admirably suited to the extraordinary feats which tradition says were performed at each; and they serve in my mind, since witnessing them, to go far to prove the correctness of the traditions.”
466. This fording place was approximately where the present Brady Lake Road bridge crosses Breakneck Creek.
467. This chestnut tree trunk angling into the water at the southern tip of Brady Lake remained there for a very long time and was still visible in 1813, 32 years after the Brady incident.
468. The full account of Kenton’s life and amazing experiences may be found in the author’s The Frontiersmen.
469. Simon Kenton and Martin Wetzel, though both lived for many years afterward, never met again.
470. Andrew Montour had claimed this island as his own in 1772, filed his claim and ultimately became sole owner of it. The elongated island begins five miles down the Ohio River from the Forks of the Ohio. It is five miles long and about a half-mile wide at its thickest area. It is presently known as Neville Island and is located in Allegheny Co., Pa.
471. Connoquenessing Creek enters Beaver River at the present line of Beaver and Lawrence counties, Pa., just below the city limits of Ellwood in the latter county.
472. The hunting camp had been made at just about the site of the present village of Greece City, Butler Co., Pa.
473. George Rousch and Neil Danagh made it back to Pittsburgh without mishap and informed authorities there. A party of 34 men was raised under Capt. Jacob Springer and, with Rousch and Danagh as guides, went back to the scene. They found the Indians gone and the body of Andrew Montour still there with broken pieces of the jug sticking in his mashed forehead. He had not been scalped.
474. Although no signature was appended to the letter written to Gov. Haldimand, the handwriting and other clues seem to indicate it was penned by Col. Guy Johnson, British superintendent of Indian affairs and nephew of the late Sir William Johnson. It also undermines the denials by the British, then and later, that they were offering the Indians rewards for scalps and that those Indians were specifically ordered not to scalp women and children.
475. David Williamson, always noted as a very popular individual, was born in 1752 near Carlisle, Pa., and first came to western Pennsylvania as a hunter when he was just a boy. Soon afterward he convinced his father to settle there. He became a member of the Washington County militia in 1777 with the rank of captain, and later became that unit’s colonel.
476. One account states that the Indians, after crossing the Ohio with their Wallace family prisoners, found Mrs. Wallace and her infant daughter slowing their progress too much and so tomahawked them. The two Wallace boys were kept alive and taken along to the Sandusky Towns where the elder one, ten-year-old James, died, though whether he died from natural causes or was killed is not stated. The younger Wallace boy, two-and-a-half-year-old Robert, apparently was returned to the Americans in a prisoner exchange some years later and was ultimately reunited with his father.
477. Bilderback’s name, in numerous documents, has been spelled as Builderback. It was this spelling that the author used when first referring to Capt. Bilderback in The Frontiersmen. A study of the pension rolls and army rolls indicates, however, that this individual signed his own name as Bilderback, which must be accepted as the correct spelling.
478. Since there was no further mention of these boys escaping, it is assumed that they were subsequently found and imprisoned with the others.
479. It has never been ascertained whether Col. David Williamson participated in the vote, though the assumption is that, as commander, he would have refrained from doing so unless there was a deadlock of equal votes on both sides. That he would probably have voted in favor of the execution is revealed in a comment he later made: “For when they were killed the country would belong to whites, and the sooner this was done, the better.”
480. This private, not identified, later boasted to Samuel Murphy and others of the manner in which he “made good Injens” of these two.
481. Various accounts give different figures for the total number killed in the Moravian Massacre, as it would thenceforth be known. They range from as low as 90 to as high as 100. However, a close study of the existing documentation seems to indicate that a total of 96 deaths is the correct figure, which includes the four who were killed prior to the execu
tions: Jacob, who was searching for his horse; the unidentified man in the canoe, evidently arriving from Schoenbrun; and the man and wife in the village who were tomahawked when the army first arrived. This means that the number actually killed in the two buildings—including the boy, Peter, who was burned to death while trying to escape—was 92. Only four escaped: Joseph Shabosh, Thomas, Esther, and Adam Stroud. These figures, of course, assume that the figures of 50 Moravians at each of the three towns were accurate, placing 100 in Gnadenhütten after the arrival of those from Salem. The addition of the man in the canoe, coming down from Schoenbrun, is offset by the escape of Joseph Shabosh in the cornfield. Finally, one account states in its entirety: “One of Williamson’s party saved a little boy of eight years old, took him home, and raised him to a man, when he left and returned to his tribe.” Since this is not verified by any other account and the name of the boy or man is not provided, the incident is discounted. One account, repeated by some historians, claims that the Moravian Indians were deliberately set up by the British-allied Sandusky Indians to be killed by the Americans and that this “was part of the British policy matured at Detroit, of having these peaceable Indians massacred by excited American border men, in order to bring over to the British side all the Indian tribes united against the colonists.” There is no foundation in fact for such a statement.
482. Adam Stroud grew to manhood among the Moravians and was eventually killed in a drunken brawl with some other Indians in the streets of Amherstburg, Ontario, just prior to the War of 1812. Esther also grew to maturity and married an Indian named Tripp. They lived close to Simon Girty, just south of Amherstburg, until the summer of 1813, when they disappeared from the pages of history.