Part 10 (1/2)

[4] Peter Williamson had singular adventures. When a boy he was kidnapped at Aberdeen, and sent to America, for which he afterwards recovered damages. It is said that he pa.s.sed a considerable period among the Cherokees. He inst.i.tuted the first penny post at Edinburgh, for which, when the government a.s.sumed it, he received a pension. His _Memoirs_, and _French and Indian Cruelty Examplified_, were works of interest. He died in Edinburgh in 1799.--L. C. D.

[5] Col. James Smith was born in Franklin county, Pa., in 1737; was captured by Indians in 1755, remaining in captivity until his escape in 1759. He served as ensign in 1763, and lieutenant under Bouquet in 1764; he was a leader, for several years, of the Black Boys--a sort of regulators of the traders who, the Black Boys thought, supplied the Indians with the munitions of war. As the troubles with the mother country began, Smith was selected for frontier service, and held civil and military positions--captain in the Pennsylvania line; then in 1777 as major under Was.h.i.+ngton; in 1778, he was promoted to the rank of colonel of militia, and led an expedition against the Indian town on French Creek. In 1788, he removed to Kentucky; served in the early Kentucky conventions, preparatory to State organization, and also in the legislature. He did missionary work in Kentucky and Tennessee, and preached among the Indians. He wrote a valuable account of his Indian captivity, republished a few years since by Robert Clarke & Co., Cincinnati, and a treatise on Indian warfare, besides two controversial pamphlets against the Shakers. He died in Was.h.i.+ngton county, Ky., in 1812, aged about seventy-five years.--L. C. D.

[6] Captain Simeon Ecuyer, like Bouquet, was a native of Switzerland; he did good service on the frontiers, especially in the gallant defense of Fort Pitt in 1763. He became disgusted with the bad conduct of his soldiers, especially the grenadiers, and begged leave to resign. ”For G.o.d's sake,” he implored Bouquet, ”let me go, and raise cabbages.”--L. C. D.

[7] Henry Bouquet was born at Rolle, in the canton of Berne, Switzerland, in 1721, and at the age of seventeen he entered into the service of the states general of Holland; subsequently engaged under the banner of Sardinia, and distinguished himself at the battle of Cony. In 1748, he was a lieutenant-colonel in the Swiss guards, in the service of Holland. At length, in 1756, he entered the English army, serving in the Royal Americans, and co-operated with Gen. Forbes on the campaign against Fort Du Quesne, repulsing an attack of French and Indians on Loyal Hanna. He afterwards served in Canada, and was sent for the relief of Fort Pitt, when beleagured in 1763.

While marching on this service, he signally defeated the Indians at Bushy Run, after a two days' engagement, in August of that year, and relieved Fort Pitt. In 1764, he led an expedition against the Ohio Indians, compelling them to sue for peace. He died at Pensacola, September 2, 1765, of a prevailing fever, in the prime of life, at the age of forty-four years. He had attained the rank of general.--L. C. D.

[8] The following song was soon after composed by Mr. George Campbell (an Irish gentleman who had been educated in Dublin,) and was frequently sung in the neighborhood to the tune of the _Black Joke_.

Ye patriot souls who love to sing, What serves your country and your king, In wealth, peace, and royal estate; Attention give whilst I rehea.r.s.e, A modern fact, in jingling verse, How party interest strove what it cou'd, To profit itself by public blood, But justly met its merited fate.

Let all those Indian traders claim, Their just reward, in glorious fame, For vile, base and treacherous ends, To Pollins in the spring they sent Much warlike stores, with an intent, To carry them to our barbarous foes, Expecting that n.o.body dare oppose A present to their Indian friends.

Astonished at the wild design Frontier inhabitants combin'd, With brave souls to stop their career, Although some men apostatized Who first the grand attempt advis'd, The bold frontiers they bravely stood, To act for their king, and their country's good In joint league, and strangers to fear.

On March the fifth, in sixty-five, Their Indian presents did arrive, In long pomp and cavalcade, Near Sidelong-hill, where in disguise, Some patriots did their train surprise, And quick as lightning tumbled their loads And kindled them bonfires in the woods; And mostly burnt their whole brigade.

At Loudon when they heard the news, They scarcely knew which way to choose, For blind rage and discontent; At length some soldiers they sent out, With guides for to conduct the route, And seized some men that were travelling there And hurried them into Loudon, where They laid them fast with one consent.

But men of resolution thought Too much to see their neighbors caught For no crime but false surmise; Forthwith they join'd a warlike band, And march'd to Loudon out of hand, And kept the jailors pris'ners there, Until our friends enlarged were, Without fraud or any disguise.

Let mankind censure or commend, This rash performance in the end, Then both sides will find their account.

'Tis true no law can justify To burn our neighbors property, But when this property is design'd To serve the enemies of mankind, Its high treason in the amount.

[9] The following extract from the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ of November 2d, 1769, details the circ.u.mstances of this transaction.

”James Smith, his brother and brother in law, were going out to survey and improve their land, on the waters of the Youghogany.--Expecting to be gone some time, they took with them their arms, and horses loaded with necessaries; and as Smith's brother in law was an artist in surveying, he had also with him the instruments for that business. Travelling on their way and within nine miles of Bedford, they overtook and joined in company with one Johnson and Moorhead, who had likewise horses packed with liquor and seed wheat--their intentions being also to make improvements on their lands.

Arrived at the parting of the road near Bedford, they separated, one party going through town for the purpose of having a horse shod; these were apprehended and put under confinement.--James Smith, Johnson and Moorhead taking the other road, met John Holmes of Bedford, to whom Smith spoke in a friendly manner but received no answer. Smith and his companions proceeded to where the two roads again united; and waited there the arrival of the others.

”At this time a number of men came riding up, and asked Smith his name. On his telling them who he was, they immediately presented their pistols, and commanded him to surrender or he was a dead man. Smith stepped back and asking if they were highwaymen, charged them to keep off; when immediately Robert George (one of the a.s.sailants) snapped a pistol at Smith's head; and that (as George acknowledged under oath) before Smith had offered to [87] shoot. Smith then presented his gun at another of the a.s.sailants, who was holding Johnson with one hand, while with the other he held a pistol, which he was preparing to discharge. Two shots were fired, one by Smith's gun, the other by the pistol, so quick as to be just distinguishable, and Johnson fell. Smith was then taken and carried to Bedford, where John Holmes (who had met him on the road, and hastened to Bedford with the intelligence) held an inquest over the dead body of Johnson. One of the a.s.sailants being the only witness examined, it was found that ”Johnson had been murdered by Smith,” who was thereupon committed for trial.

But jealousy arising in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of many, that the inquest was not so fair as it should have been, William Deny, (the coroner of Bedford county) thought proper to re-examine the matter; and summoning a jury of unexceptionable men, out of three towns.h.i.+ps--men whose candour, probity, and honesty are unquestionable, and having raised the corpse, held a solemn inquest over it for three days.

”In the course of their scrutiny, they found the s.h.i.+rt of Johnson, around the bullet hole, blackened by the powder of the charge with which he had been killed. One of the a.s.sailants being examined, swore to the respective spots of ground on which they stood at the time of firing, which being measured, was found to be 28 feet distance from each other. The experiment was then made of shooting at the s.h.i.+rt an equal distance both with and against the wind, to ascertain if the powder produced the stain; but it did not. Upon the whole the jury, after the most accurate examination and mature deliberation, brought in their verdict that one of the a.s.sailants must necessarily have done the murder.”

Captain Smith was a brave and enterprising man. In 1766, he, in company with Joshua Horton, Uriah Stone, William Baker and James Smith, by the way of Holstein, explored the country south of Kentucky at a time when it was entirely uninhabited; and the country between the c.u.mberland and Tennessee rivers, to their entrance into the Ohio. Stone's river, a branch of the c.u.mberland and emptying into it not far above Nashville, was named by them in this expedition.

After his acquittal from the charge of having murdered Johnson, he was elected and served as one of the board of commissioners, for regulating taxes and laying the county levy, in the county of Bedford. [88] He was for several years a delegate from the county of Westmoreland, to the General a.s.sembly of Pennsylvania; and in the war of the revolution was an officer of merit and distinction. In 1781 he removed to Kentucky and settled in Bourbon county not far from Paris; was a member of the convention which set at Danville, to confer about a separation from the state of Virginia, in 1788, from which time until 1799, with the exception of two years, he was either a delegate of the convention or of the General a.s.sembly of Kentucky.

_Comment by L. C. D._--It would seem from Col. Smith's own statement, that his removal to, and settlement in, Bourbon county, Ky., was in 1788.

[89] CHAPTER V.

The comparative security and quiet, which succeeded the treaty of 1765, contributed to advance the prosperity of the Virginia frontiers.

The necessity of congregating in forts and blockhouses, no longer existing, each family enjoyed the felicities of its own fireside, undisturbed by fearful apprehensions of danger from the prowling savage, and free from the bustle and confusion consequent on being crowded together. No longer forced to cultivate their little fields in common, and by the united exertions of a whole neighborhood, with tomahawks suspended from their belts and rifles attached to their plow beams, their original spirit of enterprise was revived: and while a certainty of reaping in unmolested safety, the harvest for which they had toiled, gave to industry, a stimulus which increased their prosperity, it also excited others to come and reside among them--a considerable addition to their population, and a rapid extension of settlements, were the necessary consequence.

It was during the continuation of this exemption from Indian aggression, that several establishments were made on the Monongahela and its branches, and on the Ohio river. These were nearly cotemporaneous; the first however, in order of time, was that made on the Buchannon--a fork of the Tygart's valley river, and was induced by a flattering account of the country as given by two brothers; who had spent some years in various parts of it, under rather unpleasant circ.u.mstances.