Fort Robinson (Perry County, Pennsylvania Frontier Series)

by Roy F. Chandler

  Bouquet turned to Armstrong. "I assume the forts could not patrol the road for us?"

  Armstrong's answer was clear, "Pomfret's Castle hasn't yet been built and may never be, judging by current funding. Fort Granville was taken and destroyed. Fort Shirley is only George Croghan's old trading post at Aughwick re-enforced a bit. They have all they can do to hang on. I based some supplies there for the Kittanning raid and picked up a few men at Fort Shirley. That would still be their limit.

  "Except for the men and supplies that you've already sent ahead, Fort Littleton people are already near to quitting. The fact is that the war parties simply pass by the forts, terrorize until weary, and return to the Ohio."

  Bouquet nodded understanding, "Very well, gentlemen. The Sherman's Valley route presents difficulties. Will not the southern path include as many?" His eyes fell on George.

  "Well Colonel, the road is more than a little miserable as it has been too long without repair, but I don't see how making it passable will be as hard as fixing the Kittatinny trail. Of course, you've got Shippen's town to store supplies in and Chamber's mill, if you're so minded.

  "The main advantage, though, is being fairly free of Indians. For whatever reasons, hostiles rarely edge south of Kittatinny. Your road will sort of parallel the mountain on the safer side. It appears to me that for the most part, your road won't have much Indian trouble until it's nigh to Littleton, and that's where you would hook on if you came our way anyhow.

  Bouquet chose the Shippensburg route, but his interest in Sherman's Valley remained. At his request, John Armstrong collected both Robinsons and Rob Shatto before they left and herded the half-reluctant trio into the Carlisle fort where Bouquet waited.

  Once settled, the talk was open and friendly. Bouquet mentioned a fresh meat problem suggesting he might seek hunters from among north valley men. Shatto said, "No," and the Robinsons explained their need of every gun for their own defense.

  George had a sudden thought, "What about pork, Colonel?"

  "Pork? Why we have countless barrels of salt pork. Some is coming in from storage at Harris's Ferry at this very time."

  "No, I mean fresh, on the hoof pork."

  "Well now, fresh meat would be most welcome, but driving hogs along with the army is not practical."

  "No, I reckon not, but we have a pig raiser at our place. The man isn't much, but he can move hogs like they were family. Do you pay well, Colonel? This fella is not public spirited."

  "We pay market prices, more if the service is difficult." Bouquet was interested.

  George pulled at his lip and scratched a shin thinking, "If Robert here and maybe Harry Kirknee scouted trail, we might just persuade Shcenk, that's the hog man, to lead a good drove though Bigham's Gap and down to Fort Littleton."

  Armstrong whistled, "Now that would be welcome!"

  Bouquet, "Could you accomplish that?"

  George shrugged, "Well, it would be chancy. No Indians, we would make it. If we encountered hostiles, my people would run for it, and there would be no hogs getting through."

  "We could do it, George." Robert as usual was enthusiastic.

  "If you deliver hogs to Fort Littleton within a week prior to the army's arrival, we will pay fifty percent above their worth here at Carlisle."

  "Alright, Colonel, we'll put it up to Shcenk. The man will do about anything for money. I figure he will take it on."

  The talk continued. Bouquet spoke of his own expected retirement. As a mercenary, he could expect no further advancement, and he planned to stay in the Americas. Sherman's Valley might hold appeal.

  Rob Shatto waxed enthusiastic describing the entwined ridges thick with timber, nuts, and game. He spoke knowledgeably of mills and iron mining. To the officers' surprise, Shatto knew considerably more than the wild frontier.

  Bouquet, however, offered no further military assistance. All of his efforts were directed toward his own campaign. Still, he wished to do something. As his guests departed they stood in the stockade quadrangle, and Bouquet pointed to one of the brass cannon mounted at a fort corner.

  "Now Robinson, would one of those small wall guns be of use to you? They make a frightful noise, and I've heard Indians fear them."

  Shatto laughed shortly, "I'm afraid that fear ran out about a century back, Colonel. Our Indians have heard cannon for a few generations now."

  George refused gently, "No, thank you, Colonel. Any attacks on our fort will be sly affairs made with speed and cunning. We'd find no targets for a cannon. At any rate, one charge for that brass gun would feed twenty rifles, and we are continually short of powder.

  They left Bouquet with their promise to furnish three wagons with drivers and to speak to Shcenk about his hogs. Running at his usual lope, Rob Shatto disappeared down the trail while the Robinsons were saddling their horses.

  "You think Shcenk will risk that trip, George?"

  "We will encourage him strongly, Robert."

  "You can't threaten to scalp him, George."

  "We could threaten to give him a bath."

  "That should do it, George. He'll go!"

  Ephraim Shcenk took some convincing. The money drew him mightily, but the sinister woods beyond the clearings made his puckered and scarred scalp twitch.

  "Them red devils'll slip up an' kill us a'fore we know they're in the valley, Robinson."

  Robert said, "I'll be out scouting one side, and Harry will be on the other, Shcenk. You will be safer than if you were home in your shack."

  "A man would be foolish to risk his drove when he could easier go south to Carlisle. All them soldiers will pay good prices."

  "You will make more going to Littleton, and no mountain to cross." George was patient, but Robert was starting to fret.

  "Shcenk, those hogs are needed at Littleton, and that's where you are taking 'em."

  The hog man's glare was fierce, "You aren't telling me what I'm doing, Robinson. Them's my hogs, and I'll do with 'em jest as I like!"

  George said, "Now Shcenk, you've gained shelter in our fort for two winters, and you've been fed and protected since the Indians burned your first cabin. Yet you've stood no guard, you have never helped in the fields, and I don't ever recall you chopping or handling firewood."

  Shcenk's mouth pursed for protest, but George wasn't done. "You've sold hogs for good profit, but you have never bought a thing for this fort that has kept you alive. You've only been a user, Shcenk. Now, this army that is marching might just get these hostiles off our lands for good. So you are going to help where you are needed, and that means taking hogs to Littleton."

  "An' jest how you goin' to make me do that, Robinson?" Shcenk's voice dripped with arrogance.

  With a man mean in spirit and small in understanding, it took plain speaking, so Robert did the answering.

  "Now Shcenk, if you were to decide not to herd those hogs down to Littleton, there would be no way we could keep our people from knowing.

  "Then, I reckon, the following things would happen in quick order. People would be so mad they would start feeding on hog meat instead of venison. Somebody would be sure to blaze trails from the Indian path straight to your cabin, and visiting hostiles would like that. Then, of course, we would close the fort to you because out here you are either with us or against us. Then . . ."

  "Now hold on, Robinson, I ain't said I wouldn't go." Shcenk turned wheedling. "It's jest that you don't know how hard movin' wild hogs can be. You don't jest line 'em up an' march off, ya know."

  "We will help where we can, Shcenk, but you did fine all alone going to Carlisle."

  "But them was my tamest hogs, Robinson. What's left are terrible wild. Then there's the shucked corn an'. . ."

  "What shucked corn?"

  "Well, you don't think I jest whistle an' hogs come runnin' do ya? We got to bait 'em for a-piece. Then, I got to cull out a few mean pigs an' pick a leader or two. It ain't all gravy, Robinson."

  "Look, Shcenk, we're admitting you are the best hog man we have ev
er seen. You do what you have to, and we will provide what you haven't got."

  Shcenk began bargaining. "Now, it's understood that the money's all mine? You're protectin' me an' the pigs from hostiles? An' you're providin' baitin' corn an' another man if'n I need one? An. . ."

  "Shcenk, before spring is gone, you have every hog you can move primed to go. When word comes we will march. You just be ready!"

  The hogs were ready long before Bouquet. The Colonel wrestled reluctant wagoners and delayed supplies. He beat, begged, and ordered until early July when his road builders began cutting in earnest.

  At Robinson's fort, Shcenk's hogs took the trail. Robert and Harry Kirknee ranged ahead scouting for Indians or their sign. Bouquet's preparations were surely known to the French and therefore to the warring Shawnee and Delaware. The Robinsons hoped that word would turn war parties away and allow their safe passage to Fort Littleton.

  Shcenk was a wonder with hogs. He strolled easily, trailed or surrounded by rangy, long-legged, mean-tusked boars and droop teated sows that squealed and grunted, rooted and butted, but kept moving. Shcenk talked to them while occasionally scattering small portions of corn or nuts. He seemed on especially intimate terms with a pair of older hogs that crowded close gobbling the first corn offerings. The remainder of the group followed the lead hogs in constantly changing order and groupings.

  Behind them all, Thomas and Nathan Robinson trailed two pack horses burdened with panniers of hog corn. They also guarded against attack from the rear.

  Slipping quietly along the ridges, Robert and Kirknee caught occasional glimpses of the drove moving steadily on the ancient Indian path. They marveled at Shcenk's way with hogs and wished the man wasn't otherwise so completely obnoxious.

  They encountered no Indians or other delays except a single thunderstorm that crackled lightning and forced a halt while a cursing Shcenk kept his hogs from straying by judicious rationings of corn.

  Near Littleton, Robert went ahead to prepare their reception, and by the time Shcenk led his precious herd into the cleared fields, pens had been opened to receive them. A few bushels dumped in log troughs produced shoving and grunting but settled the drove into their new homes.

  Bouquet had reached Chambers' Mill, although his ax men were already widening and building far beyond Loudon. Shcenk began squealing for payment for his hogs, an authority not possessed by anyone at Fort Littleton. Distressed and fearful of being cheated, Shcenk settled in to guard his drove until Bouquet's arrival.

  Despite his enraged complaints and accusations of desertion, the Robinsons headed home. They left a horse for Shcenk who would return via Carlisle, a far longer but much safer route. Robert reminded Shcenk that they expected prompt payment for the corn he had used. The horse they loaned freely.

  Free of the hogs, the Robinsons chose a swift pace along their back trail. Although all had seemed peaceful, the undermanned fort needed them.

  Pausing to drink from a run, Thomas said, "Shcenk will be pretty well off once Bouquet pays him. Maybe he will just keep going somewhere else."

  "And we would be out our corn and a horse!"

  "It would be worth the loss. He's an irritating man."

  Robert suggested, "You could take up hog raising, Thomas. You could use the money, and you been wearing those buckskins so long you already smell like Shcenk does."

  Shcenk returned. He wore new clothes and a satisfied smirk. He made an occasion of paying the Robinsons in full for their corn, but he included nothing extra. He disclosed his profit to no one and gave them no thanks for use of the horse. Within a few days it seemed as though he had never been away.

  — — —

  Bouquet marched to the forks of the Ohio. The French took a good look and knew that this was no Braddock. They abandoned their fort and fled to the north with their Indians. Bouquet occupied Fort Duquesne, rebuilt it to suit himself, and named it Fort Pitt. The Delaware and Shawnee moved further west into the Ohio country.

  Raids into Sherman's Valley became rare, but the threat persisted, and few colonists returned to their burned out holdings. Some new people came in, but the hoped for flood of settlers failed to materialize and Robinson's fort, with its weary defenders, remained on the cruel edge of the frontier.

  The Second War

  Chapter 34 - Spring 1762

  From the razor-backed crest of Conococheague Mountain, Robert could see east clear to the Juniata River. South lay the spine of old Kittatinny Mountain, and just to the west a jumble of hills closed the valley end with Round Top showing as clear as any. With things newly green and a warm breeze brushing the mountain, a man could be hard put to find a more restful place to ease his bones.

  In the valley, the earth was still damp with winter wet, but the wind had dried out the high ground so that a man could rest himself without getting a wet behind.

  Robert thought it was curious how you could look across miles of valley and still see nothing but trees. Down below people were turning fields, felling timber, and moving along the paths, but from above, all you were likely to see was smoke from a cabin or clearing fire. It made a man aware of how small his place was in the scheme of things.

  Thoughts like that left Robert a mite uncomfortable as he wasn't one to see himself as unimportant, much less, downright insignificant.

  Small people, Robert figured, were not holding their own when most everybody else had fled nearly seven years back and had never returned. Hacking out a home site and turning it into a livable plantation wasn't small either, but when you looked across miles of untouched valley, years of chopping, planting, and fighting surely hadn't changed things much.

  Of course there weren't many of them working at it. Just this year Cumberland County had taken a census for taxing people north of Kittatinny Mountain, but only one hundred and sixty or so men had laid claim to land.

  Robert had himself claimed only eighty acres. No sense in paying tax on land he could claim later on, if he so chose, and more than a few others figured the same.

  That was not many people for all of Sherman's Valley and even on past to Aughwick Creek. Kirknee, for instance, hadn't claimed an acre. Thomas Robinson hadn't claimed, either.

  Neither Harry nor Thomas had decided where they wanted to build permanently. Thinking closer on it, Robert supposed that as many Shermans Valley men had not claimed their land as had.

  The only trouble with that was that some stranger might wander into Carlisle, put down a little money, and own your place with all your improvements included. It was already bad with a few people losing all they had worked for because some clerk forgot to enter that a man was paying taxes against a future claim which was supposed to make sure no one else got in ahead of him.

  Kirknee was reared back against a root bulge with his feet propped high on a convenient rock.

  "Robert, what are we doing up here on top of this mountain? Aren't we supposed to be deer hunting?" Kirknee sounded lazily content.

  "Might see a deer any time, Harry."

  "Robert, I doubt there's been a deer this high since the snow went out. Deer don't climb until the air is thin just to look around."

  "Well, we don't get out much anymore, Harry. Seems all I do is swing an ax or chase a plow.

  "With our families at George's we won't be missed. I figure we ought to make a good day of it. I don't recall hearing you complaining any on the climb up."

  Kirknee said, "The fact is, I'm in such good shape I didn't notice the uphill."

  Robert snorted in pretended disgust, and Kirknee continued.

  "But you are right, a man should have time to just get out and think on things. Know what I was just thinking about, Robert?"

  "How wore out you really were from the climb?"

  "Nope, I was remembering back to how god-awful careful we used to be in the woods. We spent more time looking out for hostiles than we did hunting deer."

  "Harry, are you claiming your eyes weren't peeled all the time coming out here? Or that you aren't lo
oking and listening right now while we're stretched out resting?"

  "No, I am not claiming that, but in '57 or '58 we would never have climbed up here. If we had stopped back then, we would have sat looking both ways. In those years, we checked priming about every third step and always had an ear cocked for firing or horn blowing from the fort."

  "You're right, of course, Harry. If the horns started blowing now I think we would both fall off this mountain. Why, it's been nigh on to two years since we last forted up. That is a while, isn't it?"

  "You been in the fort recent, Robert?"

  "Yup, I walked through just a few days past. Hard to believe we all lived in there for years at a time."

  "Point is, it's half falling down, Robert."

  "Uh huh, we ought to get George to call everybody in and spend a few days straightening things up. Some of the stockade is leaning bad, and the roof is about gone on the blockhouse."

  "You see the wall by the old privy, Robert? The logs are rotted clean through the bottom, and you can see inside from the ditch."

  "We had better give George some serious backing next time he mentions working on it. We could need that fort just as much as we ever did."

  Robert paused to speculate, "Funny how things seem safer when they really aren't. I suppose we are just used to them. Damned Injuns still raid when they're a mind to, and according to Blue Moccasin, there is serious stirring among the western Ottawa that is leaking down into the Shawnee and Delaware."

  Robert sighed heavily, "Seemed as though once we got the fort at the Ohio forks the Indians would see that it wasn't any use and back off, but they keep on coming."

  Kirknee said, "The trouble is, they haven't been whipped yet, Robert. Running the French off does not make Indians feel licked. If we had given them about five Kittannings is a row, they wouldn't be bothering us now."

  "Old Bouquet could have gone and whipped the tribes, Harry, and somebody will have to do it sooner or later. This country hasn't grown a speck since we came here in '54, and people are packed up against the mountain like water against a dike. Something is due to give before long."