THE HORN PAPERS AND UPPER OHIO EARLY WESTWARD MOVEMENT ON THE MONONGAHELA. By W. F. HORN. In Three Volumes VOLUME I.

Transcription

1 THE HORN PAPERS EARLY WESTWARD MOVEMENT ON THE MONONGAHELA AND UPPER OHIO By W. F. HORN In Three Volumes VOLUME I PUBLISHED FOR A COMMITTEE OF THE GREENE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY, WAYNESBURG, PENNSYLVANIA BY THE HERALD PRESS, SCOTTDALE, PENNSYLVANIA 1945

2 (page 247) CHAPTER VI THE FRENCH LEAD PLATES OF 1751 The French lead plates buried by M. Beaumont and Xenaphon Grendelier, Christopher Gist, Jacob Horn, Civil Chief Tingooqua, and Peter Chartier in June 1751 were, according to their maps and charts, buried in the following locations. The first lead plate was buried by the two Frenchmen and Gist and Horn "one hundred paces" north of Little French Creek at the first crossing of the Indian-Gist-James River Trail and twenty paces at right angles to the west of said trail. A dressed birch bark map of the creek, trail, camp, and Turkey Foot Rock with the branch trails to the spring camp site was made there on the ground at that time and is now in the possession of the directors of the Greene County Historical Society. This plate was buried near the site of the famous Turkey Foot Rock and near the place where the Mingo Indian Chief Flat Fish and his band of twenty warriors stopped the surveyors of the Mason and Dixon Line in The supposed burial place of this lead plate is only a few yards south-of this famous boundary line on the Lemley farm, which is located on both sides of the boundary line between the states of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The site of the burial of the second lead plate was recorded as being "at the trail crossing of Cat Fish Run" (Daniels Run) on the trail from Spirit Spring to the Delaware Indian Trail, from East Indian Ridge to West Indian Ridge, the main Delaware village site. This site was located on Little Daniels Run in West Bethlehem Township, Washington County, and was near the site of the Camp Cat Fish Court blockhouse. The third French plate was planted on Casteel Run in what is now Morgan Township on June 14, The French party consisted of the two French surveyors, Christopher Gist, Jacob Horn, Tingooqua, Peter Chartier, Bowlegs, Wessemeking, the camp cook and cat fish catcher. The records read, "We buried the lead plate sixty paces from Tingooqua's Creek, at French mark set on tree, and on stone on opposite side of the creek, and twenty paces from Crooked Run over against base of high hill." They made a map and chart of this site at the time the plate was buried and also recorded the manner of how it was placed in a cut stone with another flat stone covering the plate. The stone was planted about four feet in the earth.

3 SOME NOTED INDIANS 323 word, and when he had killed thirty white men and women he had grounded his hatchet and had no fear of the consequence. Only sorrow filled his heart for his lost ones. Thomas Nicholson, Enoch O'Brine, and Colonel Joseph Parkinson.were at the village when the information from Yellow Creek was given, and Bowlegs and his assistant advised these three friend ly whites to leave the Ohio for the time being and return to their own people on the west side of the Monongahela, as John Canon's message directed them to do. (Cononel Joseph Parkinson, who in his latter years erected the first inn or hotel in Jefferson in 1797, was the Parkinson referred to in Freye's Notes. Parkinson, as well as Colonel John Heaton, was on the Ohio River at the time of the trouble at Yellow Creek, and they were with Colonel Cresap. They often referred to their experience with the Indians on the Ohio in Freye and Parkinson were related. Some of their descendants drifted into the west, and they often referred to the border days on the Ohio.) It must be remembered that what is now Greene County was much more thickly settled in 1774 than any other portion of southwestern Pennsylvania, because the settlers came in over the Gist-Indian James River Trail to Turkey Foot, and into southern Greene County from 1760 to On June 8, 1773, the Camp Cat Fish court at Spirit Spring in West Bethlehem Township, Washington County, appointed Daniel Moredock, Sr., Virginia Tax Collector and Poll Man. On September 4 of the same year, he turned in a list of three hundred forty-six names within the borders of Greene County, and in 1774, when Dunmore's War was on, the increase had reached three hundred ninety people who flocked from the east side of the Monongahela into the territory now composing Greene County. Two reasons may be given for this influx. First, they came to get farther away from the Huron and Cayuga Indians who were being induced by French interests in Canada to lay waste the English settlements. These Indians came mainly over the Allegheny River Trail to the southeast corner of Butler County, to near Greensburg, and to the Monongahela River. They threatened the settlers in , many of whom took refuge west of the river until the Indian scare was over. Fort Brown on the west side of the Monongahela had twenty-two persons from the east side of the river within her stockade in April Second, from the year 1765 to 1775 the Monongahela River was the supposed dividing line between Virginia and Pennsylvania. Most of the Virginia sympathizers settled west of the river, and more than eighty per cent of the settlers from 1760 to 1774 remained and patented their land in and after

4 EARLY FORTS 339 Polly Harris married John Hupp, son of old George and his Delaware Indian wife, who patented a portion of the Teegarden tract. Harris died in this log house in 1787 and his wife died in They were buried inside the stockade. This house burned in 1801 after it became tenantless in John Harris, the second son of Ebenezer Harris, emigrated to Kentucky in Abraham was one of the four persons drowned in the Ohio River while on their way to the Falls in the Ohio in William Harris married Peggy Rush and lived at Millsboro for some years. They had two sons, John and Abraham, and a daughter, Margaret, who was married to Raphael Drake and lived in Clarksville. She died in Abraham and John Harris lived in Clarksville until about After fire destroyed Fort George in 1801, the Waltons, who then owned this site, cleared away the stockade and set aside a plot two hundred by one hundred feet for a graveyard. This became the first graveyard in Clarksville. Nathan Briggs, a Revolutionary War soldier, was the third person to be buried in this graveyard in FORT MARTIN In 1751, John Snyder and Samuel Martin were fur traders in the valley of Little French Creek, trading with the Mingo Indians of Chief Flat Fish's tribe. They erected a fur cabin on Crooked Run, or Flat Fish Run, and for some years the Indians delivered furs at this cabin to these two frontiersmen. In 1762, Snyder returned to this locality to hunt and trap, and interested others in settling along Crooked Run. Among the six families who did so was the nephew of Samuel Martin, known as "Big John" Martin. This man tomahawked three hundred thirty acres, and erected a fort and stockade which he named Fort Martin. In 1769, the three neighbors jointly built a milldam and a mill to grind corn and rye, and in 1771 built a small sawmill and a distillery, making the same dam divide the waters through two races to the mills. The dam and the lower mill were constructed of logs. Earth and stone were used to make the side wall up the run to the sawmill and distillery. The building of the sawmill was the first attempt at lumbering in what is now Greene County. This distillery was the second of its kind in Greene County. Samuel Jackson erected the first distillery near the mouth of Casteel in 1769 and 1770, before he built Fort Jackson in Fort Martin was built of heavy logs and the door was well pinned, and stood against the attack by the British soldiers during

5 EARLY FORTS 349 Fort Sellers was built by Christian Sellers at the mouth of Hargis Creek in Fort Martin, or Dry Tavern, was built by Richard and Amos Martin in This was on the Indian trail from Fort Teegarden to Minors Fort near the present village of Dry Tavern. Fort Kline was built by John Kline on upper Muddy Creek in Fort Garrison was built by David Garrison and Jack Morris in Fort Henderson was built by Jackson Henderson on the site of Indian Peter's village on Blockhouse Run in This was the oldest English fort west of the Monongahela River. Fort Lemley, West Virginia was built by Richard Lemley in Fort Bierer, West Virginia was built by Eberhart Bierer in This fort stood on the site of Maidsville, West Virginia. Fort Morgan was built by Morgan Morgan in This fort was later taken over by Zackwell Morgan and became the first house in Morgantown, West Virginia. Fort Bonnett was built by Jarome Bonnett and Samuel Houston in It was on Dunkard Creek in Wayne Township. Fort Wetsel was built at the mouth of Wetsel Run on Wheeling Creek in 1767 by John Wetsel and Abraham Bonnett. Fort Harrison was built by Azariah Davis one mile west of Fort Martin in Fort Richhill was built by Jacob Richhill and James Rush on Ely's Run in Fort Jumonville was built by the French in It was the site of the Hangard in 1754 and of Fort Redstone, 1755 to These forts were at the mouth of Jumonville Creek, later Redstone Creek. Fort Burd was erected on Dunlaps Creek by Colonel Burd in Fort Contrecoeur was erected on Mt. Mont Calm over the French Boquet Cavern by French soldiers in It was blown up by the French in May Fort Queen Elizabeth (Cox's Fort) was erected by Virginia Militia in It was held by Jacob and Andrew Heathe, and was the site of the Second Virginia Court in Fort Gist was built by Robert Kniseley in 1768 on South Tingooqua Creek, half way between Fort Seals and Fort Hopewell. Fort Jenkins was built by Robert and James Jenkins at Hillsboro in 1772.

6 (pages ) CHAPTER XIII MASON AND DIXON LINE The Mason and Dixon Line was fixed by the two distinguished mathematicians, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, during the years from 1763 to 1767, from the Delaware River to the first crossing of Little French Creek (now Dunkard Creek) at Turkey Foot Rock. Thence this line was continued to the southwest corner of the state of Pennsylvania in the summer of The line properly begins at the northeast corner of Maryland and runs due west. The Indians were of much trouble to the surveyors (especially did they annoy the camps), but by treaties, and the donation of much Virginia tobacco, the surveyors were permitted to proceed as far west as the Indian-Gist Trail, within thirty-six miles of the whole distance to be run, as claimed by the Penn claims, when the Mingo Indians under Flat Fish directed the surveyors to cease their labors. This order was based upon the statement, made by Christopher Gist, in October 1747, to the Five Nations that Penn's full claims ended at the trail crossing of Gist Creek at Turkey Foot Rock. Gist Creek was renamed Little French Creek in June When the claim was made, 1747, that Penn's claims ended here, it was the contention of the French that this was the true and full limit to which he was entitled. This old claim was made in 1762 on the part of Virginia, as the possessors of the French claims, after the French gave up all claims to this territory. \4 The surveyors stopped at a walnut tree on the north bank of Little French Creek; hence the difficulty between Pennsylvania and Virginia. This black walnut tree which marked the end of the Mason and Dixon Line, as laid down at that point in 1767, was the same tree through which the Delaware Indians claimed that they could talk to departed spirits and could receive direct replies from their long-departed friends. In 1751, when Gist, Horn, and the Frenchmen camped on this site and planted the French lead plate, the Indian Bowlegs and Flat Fish held this walnut tree as the sacred place where the great spirit came to direct the Delawares in all their tribal affairs. The Indians discovered that a swarm of bees found a hollow limb high up in this tree and that the colony had filled it with honey. The Indians bored holes into the tree and drove wooden pins into these holes, thus forming a crude ladder up the tree, in order to obtain the honey. These holes are still seen on the Lemley farm in old walnut boards which were sawed from this famous tree. A piece of one of the boards sawed from this tree years ago is at present in the Greene County Historical Museum. It is evident that Penn's grant of land from King Charles was to lie west of the Delaware River and north of Maryland, because the charter by Lord Baltimore for Maryland included all the land to the Delaware Bay, "which lieth under the fortieth degree north latitude where New England terminates." Hence the only mode by which the form and extent of Pennsylvania could be determined was by two natural landmarks, viz., New Castle town and the Delaware River. This river being her eastern boundary, New Castle was to be used as the center of a circle of twelve mile radius whose northwestern segment was to connect, the river with the beginning of the fortieth, while the province was to extend westward five degrees in longitude, to be computed from the eastern bounds. The Penn heirs claimed, for the western boundary, a line beginning at thirty-nine degrees at the distance of five degrees of longitude from the Delaware; thence, at the same distance from the river, in all the measurements to north latitude forty-two degrees, which would take into the province of Pennsylvania about fifty miles square of northwest Virginia, west of the west line of Maryland. Lord Dunmore, however, insisted that this was an error, and maintained that it should be a meridian line run on the end of five degrees from the Delaware, south, to forty-two degrees. This claim on the part of Dunmore and the Assembly would have thrown the western line of Pennsylvania fifty-four miles east of Pittsburgh.

7 The general supposition in Virginia in was that Penn's claims ended at a point about twelve miles west of the western boundary of Maryland, but Christopher Gist held that Penn's claims ended at the Delaware Indian and James River Trail crossing of Little French Creek (Dunkard Creek) southwest of the present town of Mount Morris. The foundation of the Mason and Dixon Line was based upon an agreement entered into on July 4, 1760, between Lord Baltimore, of the province of Maryland, and Thomas and Richard Penn, of the province of Pennsylvania, and the three lower counties of New Castle, Kent, and Sussex on the Delaware. This agreement was finally reached after long litigations and bitter contests between these provinces, dating from These parties agreed, among other things, to appoint a sufficient number of discreet and proper persons, not more than seven on each side, to be their respective commissioners, with full power given to the said seven, or any three or more of them, for the actual laying