Hanna on Peter Chartier

[E.P. Grondine]

This information is from numerous sources and may contain mistakes or data that is questionable or unproven to a level that some researchers may desire. It is strongly advised that researchers only use this data as a beginning resource. Errors are unintentional. Corrections and additions would be appreciated.

ID: I2547
Name: Pierre CHARTIER
Given Name: Pierre
Surname: CHARTIER
Nickname: Wocunuckshenah or Pale Brother
Sex: M
Change Date: 29 OCT 2011
Note:
"....son, Peter Chartier became a chief among them, a hunter wise in the trading ways of whites, who led them west to escape the encroachment of civilization.....only one son, Peter Chartier, handled the estate. Peter Chartier went to live with his mother's people and learned to see the English trader from a red perspective. A man who is drunk, or in need of a drink, can more easily be taken advantage of in a financial transaction. This was an axiom in the Pennsylvania Indian trade. With George Miranda, Peter Chartier drew up a petition for a ban on all liquor trade between the English traders and the Shawnees and the entire village pledged to smash any existing kegs and spill the rum, and to remain dry for a period of four years. The names of ninety-eight Shawnees are attached to this contract, which was submitted to the Pennsylvania authorities. It does not appear to have been carried out, however. Peter Chartier, apparently disgusted at the way the white traders took advantage of the Shawnees, led them away from the English trading posts. When the Shawnees returned, Peter Chartier was not with them."

"...His son, Peter Chartier, after living a few years at his father's place, removed to the neighborhood of New Cumberland, where he had a trading post. He left Cumberland Valley and located below Pittsburgh. He was all his life an Indian trader, and finally went to reside with the Indians, and took sides with them again the English. He left descendants who reside, I believe, in Washington county, Penna."

Before 1697 - moved with Opessa Band to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
1707 - living on Pequea Creek, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
1718 - living in Dekanoagah, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and obtained title to 300 acres on the Susquehanna River where his father had died
1732 - witnessed a letter from Neucheconner & other Shawnee Chiefs to the Governor of Pennsylvania and attended Council Philadelphia with others
1734 - founded Chartiers Town in Alleghany County, Pennaylvania
1737 - became a Pekowi Chief in Pennsylvania
1738 - signed petition to Pennsylvania
1744 - left the British of Pennsylvania with about 400 Pekowi & Kishpokotha to join the French of Ohio and moved southwest to the mouth of the Scioto River, establishing Lower Shawnee Town with sons
1745 - moved on to near Winchester KY
1746 - moved to the French Lick area of Tennessee (later became Nashville)
1747 - moved to the Coosa River, Alabama area
1748 - allegedly seen with some of his band in Illinois and Detroit
1749 - met Colonel Celeron De Blainville at the forks of the Ohio (Pittsburgh)
1752 - returned to Kentucky
1754 - present with his Shawnee warriors at the murder of Captain Jumonville and responsible for the French victory over George Washington at Ft . Necessity
1754 to 1759 - active in opposition to the British in the French-Indian War
1758 - in Ohio
He was last seen in a village on the Wabash River.


Birth: ABT 1690 in Tennessee, USA
Death: ABT 1759 in Indiana, USA
Father: Martin CHARTIER b: 1655 in St-Jean-de-Montierneuf, Poitiers, Vienne, Poitou-Charentes, France
Mother: Sewatha STRAIGHT-TAIL b: ABT 1660 in Ohio, USA
Marriage 1 Snow White OPESSA b: 1695 in Cecil County, Maryland, USA
* Married: ABT 1710 in Pennsylvania, USA
* Note: They were first cousins.
Children
1. Francois CHARTIER b: ABT 1712 in Pennsylvania, USA
2. Rene CHARTIER b: ABT 1720 in Pennsylvania, USA
3. Anna CHARTIER b: ABT 1730 in Pennsylvania, USA

SOURCES:
1. Abbrev: Indian Blood: Finding Your Native American Ancestor
Title: Richard L Pangburn, Indian Blood: Finding Your Native American Ancestor (Louisville, Kentucky: Butler Books, 1993), . stor. Louisville, Kentucky: Butler Books, 1993.
Page: page 127
2. Abbrev: Shawnee Heritage II
Title: Don Greene, Shawnee Heritage II: Selected Lineages of Notable Shawnee (Lulu.com: Fantasy ePublications, 2008), . ee. Lulu.com: Fantasy ePublications, 2008.
Page: p 44-45 and 70
3. Abbrev: Indians in Pennsylvania
Title: Paul A W Wallace, Indians in Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1993), Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1993.
Page: p 125-128
4. Abbrev: American-Canadian Genealogist
Title: American-Canadian Genealogist, Published Quarterly - website of society: http://www.acgs.org/; (New Hampshire: American Canadian Genealogical Society) http://www.acgs.org/; (New Hampshire: American Canadian Genealogical Society).
Page: Vol 19, No 2, p 61 "The Chartiers: An Indian Life"
5. Abbrev: Lancaster County, PA, History of
Title: Franklin Ellis and Samuel Evans, History of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Everts and Peck, 1883), Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Everts and Peck, 1883.
Page: page 7, 15
6. Abbrev: Indian Chiefs of Pennsylvania
Title: C Hale Sipe, The Indian Chiefs of Pennsylvania (Lewisburg, Pennsylvania: Wennawoods Publishing, 1995), Pennsylvania: Wennawoods Publishing, 1995.
Page: p 109-117
7. Abbrev: Indian Wars of Pennsylvania
Title: C Hale Sipe, The Indian Wars of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Telegraph Press, 1931), Pennsylvania: Telegraph Press, 1931.
Page: p 127-129
8. Abbrev: Cumberland Valley, PA: 1930
Title: George P Donehoo, A History of the Cumberland Valley in Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Susquehanna History Association, 1930), . a. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Susquehanna History Association, 1930.
Page: p 107-108, 126, 497
9. Abbrev: Memoires de la Societe Genealogique Canadienne-Francaise
Title: Memoires de la Societe Genealogique Canadienne-Francaise; (Montreal, Quebec: Societe Genealogique Canadienne-Francaise). eal, Quebec: Societe Genealogique Canadienne-Francaise).
Page: Vol XXX Nov 4, Oct-Nov-Dec 1979, p 293-296
10. Abbrev: Wilderness Trail
Title: Charles Augustus Hanna, The Wilderness Trail: or The ventures and ad ventures of the Pennsylvania traders on the Allegheny path, 2 Volumes (New York and London: G P Putnam's Sons and Knickerbocker Press, 191 1), Adventures of the Pennsylvania traders on the Allegheny path. 2 Volumes. New York and London: G P Putnam's Sons and Knickerbocker Press, 19 11.
Page: Vol II, pg 328
11. Abbrev: Historical Register: Notes and Queries-Interior Pennsylvania
Title: [Henry Egle], Historical Register: Notes and Queries, Historical and Genealogical, relating to Interior Pennsylvania, for the year 1884 ( Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Lane S Hart, Printer and Binder, 1884), . d Genealogical, relating to Interior Pennsylvania, for the year 1884. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Lane S Hart, Printer and Binder, 1884.
Page: Vol II, p 250-255
12. Abbrev: Notes & Queries Pennsylvania
Title: William H Egle, compiler, Notes and queries: Historical, biographical and genealogical, chiefly relating to interior Pennsylvania, 1st-2d ser., v. 1-2 (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Telegraph Printing and Binding House, 1881), . al and genealogical, chiefly relating to interior Pennsylvania, 1st-2d s er., v. 1-2. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Telegraph Printing and Binding House, 1881. Page: Page 88


PETER CHARTIER
1708 POTOMAC RIVER RE-SETTLEMENTS - OLD TOWN AND ANTIETAM
OLDTOWN-BEDFORD TRAIL IS THE WARRIOR"S PATH
1729 CATAWBA ATTACK

In March, 1721, BEZAILLION had a trading post near Paxtang, "about
thirty-six miles higher up on Sasquehannah [River]" than Conestoga; and in
May, 1728, he acted with Nicholas and John Scull as interpreters at an
Indian conference in Philadelphia. He was reported, as early as 1708,
to have joined with JAMES LE TORT and MARTIN CHARTIER IN BUILDING CABINS
ON THE UPPER BRANCHES OF POTOMAC (ANTIETAM AND CONOCOCHEAGUE CREEKS,
in what is now Franklin County, Pennsylvannia) [HXXX wrong there - villages in Maryland, on the Potomac River at creek mouths), and also had a trading post near Paxtang, as we have seen. Peter Bezaillion died in 1742...

IT IS QUITE POSSIBLE THAT BEZAILLION CAME OVER WITH LE TORT AND THE
OTHER FRENCH PROTESTANTS IN 1686. In a letter written by William
Markham, Governor of Pennsylvania, to the Governor of Maryland, June
26, 1696, Markham says: "Upon the copy of what Colonel Herman gave
into your Excellency and Council, I shall require security for Le Tort
[the father] and Basalion, though I know that will not satisfy the Colonel. He
still will be uneasy until he gets all the Indian trade to himself. I have
known Colonel Herman for a long time, and he that trades for him on
Susquehanna (Amos Nicholls) is better known than trusted. I enclose to
your Excellency what I found among castaway papers. Basalion was in
equal partnership with Petit and Salvay, though it went in only their
two names, Basalion coming in after the others had provided for the
voyage, and after the voyage was overthrown, I divided the left cargo,
and Basalion had one-third. But as to Le Tort he is a Protestant."
..........
On November 2, 1722, Charles Anderson was sent by the Maryland
Government to "the Shawan Town upon Potomack," with instructions
to make a treaty with the Shawnee chiefs there, who were named Pocka-
seta and Oneakoopa.'
...........
In 1729, Captain Civility, chief of the Conestogas, wrote to Governor Gordon
that "about two months ago, the Southern Indians [Cawtawba] killed and took nine
of the Shawaners, living on a branch of Potomac River, near the Great Mountains;
the which impute to their own fault, for settling so near their enemies."

JOHN WRAY

Opakethwa and Opakeita, two chiefs of the Potomac Shawnees
from Ohio, visited Philadelphia in September, 1732, after they had abandoned
their town on the North Branch of the Potomac River and removed to
the Allegheny. The Governor asked them why they had gone so far
back into the woods as the Allegheny. They replied, that "formerly they
lived at Patowmack, where their king died; that, having lost him, they
knew not what to do; that they then took their wives and children and
went over the mountains [to Allegheny] to live. "*

JOHN WRAY, THE TRADER, WHO HAD FORMERLY TRADED AT WHAT WAS AFTER-
WARDS CALLED RAYSTOWN (NOW BEDFORD), came down from Allehgeny to
Philadelphia with these Shawnee chiefs in September, 1732, to serve
as interpreter. Prior to 1732, John Wray's trading was doubtless carried
on with the Shawnees at their "Old Town," on the Potomac River, and with
the Conestogas and Mingoes who had settled at THE ORIGINAL ALLEQUIPPA'S
TOWN, VERY NEAR THE SITE OF WHAT WAS AFTERWARDS RAYSTOWN. [ALLEQUIPPA WAS CONESTOGA]

Both of these Indian villages were ON THE WARRIOR'S PATH, which extended south-
wards from Frankstown to the Potomac River; and they were but little more
than thirty miles apart....

His name was John Wray; and from him Ray's Town, Ray's Hill, and Ray's Cove
have all taken their names. We first come across John Wray's name in the Minutes
of the Pennsylvania Provincial Council, under date of September 2, 1732,
when he was called upon to assist Conrad Weiser as interpreter, at a
conference held by the Governor with a number of the chiefs of the
Senecas, Cayugas, and Oneidas. Wray had therefore traded with the
Mingoes, possibly the Conestogas, and was familiar with the Iroquois
speech. After this conference, he may have started immediately
towards Allegheny; for he is reported in the records under date of
September 30, 1732, as having come down from there with two Shawnee
chiefs, who formerly had lived at Potomac, and who arrived in Philadelphia
on September 28th. John Wray acted as interpreter for these
Indians, with Edmund Cartlidge and PETER CHARTIER, at a conference
held with them by the Governor and Council, September 30th. Wray
was paid five pounds for his services. RAY'S TOWN WAS ON THE DIRECT
PATH FROM OLD SHAWNEE [OLD] TOWN ON THE POTOMAC RIVER TO THE ALLEGHENY RIVER; and it is well within the bounds of probability to say that John Wray may
have traded with the Shawnees at Opessa's Town on the Potomac River
while he was living at Ray's Town, and before they had emigrated
to the Ohio River.
......
The next station on the Path west of Ray's Town, as noted by both Harris and Patten,
was that of the Shawnee Cabins. These cabins, of course, marked the residence, for a
more or less protracted period, of Shawnees in the vicinity. If they
were standing in 1754, as to which we have no knowledge, they could
hardly have been erected so early as 1730. But the name, Alliquippa's [Conestoga]
Gap, applied to the mountain pass five miles to the east of the site
of Ray's Town, would suggest the possibility that she and some of her
tribe may have lived there prior to 1731. Her town was on the Ohio River in
that year. If there was a settlement of Alliquippa's followers on one side
and a Shawnee village on the other, Ray's Town might have been an
appropriate place for an English Trader to establish his trading-cabin; and
undoubtedly one of them did so, at this point.
......
Mayo's map in the Library of Congress (reproduced in this volume)
entitled "The Courses of the Rivers Rappahannock and Pawtomack,
as surveyed according to order in the years 1736 and 1737" shows two
Shawnee villages on the north bank of the Potomac, both marked
"deserted". One was opposite the mouth of the South Branch of the
Potomac River; the other about fifteen miles further up the main stream. The
first of these sites was on the flat now occupied in part by the village of
Oldtown, Maryland [which was formerly called Shawnee Oldtown],
and the second is shown on Fry and Jefferson's 1751 map of Virginia as
"Shawnee Fields" on the flat lands now in part occupied by the west side
of the city of Cumberland.

KITTANING REFOUNDED BY LETORT AND PETER CHARTIER

READERS of American Colonial history are more or less familiar
with the account of the destruction of Kittanning Indian Town in
September 1756, by Colonel John Armstrong's command of three hundred
troopers recruited from the Scotch-Irish of Cumberland County. Few
readers, however, are aware of the importance of this town in Indian
and frontier history some twenty-five years before that date.

Known to the French under ITS SENECA NAME OF ATTIGUE, ATIGA, OR
ADIGO, (The name appears as "Adjiego" in 1735 {Penna, Archives, i., 454) ; Conrad Weiser
wrote it "Adeeky on Ohio", Sep. 12, 1755 (Col. Rec. vi., 614). See John Trotter's De-
position, Penna. Archives, ii., 131. See also, N. Y. CoL Doc, v., 789; viL, 728, 735;
viii., 557; ix., 1035; X., 901, 956; Parkman's Montcalm and Wolf, i,, 440. Ot^o Creek
in Otsego County, New York, was called Adigo Creek on De Witt's 1790 map of the
Upper Susquehanna.) [Hanna then demonstrates that "Adigo" is Iroquian for "Fire"]

The Delaware Indian name "Kitianning" means "at the Great River," "great river"
being the equivalent of the Iroquois word "Ohio" [H.XXX]. As the "Great River" of the Senecas,
the name "Ohio" was at first applied to this river by the Iroquois from the sources of
the Allegheny River to the mouth of the Mississippi River. The secondary meaning of this,
as "grand" or "beautiful," came to be applied to the Ohio only after the discovery of
the upper Mississippi by the French.
[HXXX Alle/ghenny = allewi+ ghenny (Lenape) = "beautitful river"]

PETER CHARTIER

JAMES LE TORT was one of the earliest, if not the first of the Shamokin
Traders to follow the Delawares westward of the Alleghanies. The site
of an old Indian town near the present village of Shelocta in Indiana
County, [Pennsylvania] was known as late as 1769 as "James Letort's Town."' This
was probably the site of his trading post "at Allegheny" for some years
after 1729.

As early as 1728 LeTort made preparations for a trading trip to the
Twightwees* or Miamis' country [NOTE TWIGHTEES A CONFEDERACY INCLUDING THE MIAMIS],
which was then between the southeastem shore of Lake Michigan and the head of the
Maumee [River]. Le Tort's Rapids, Le Tort's Creek, and Le Tort's Island
(all now corrupted to "Letart's"), on the Ohio River, along the southern border
of Meigs County,[Ohio] attest his presence in those parts at a very early day, when he
traded with the Shawnees and Delawares at their towns there: one of which was at or
near the mouth of what since before 1755 has been known as Le Tort's or
Old Town Creek; and two below, Kiskiminetas Old Town, on the west
side of the Ohio River, eight miles above the mouth of the Kanawha River, and
Shawnee Old Town, on the east bank of the Ohio River, three miles north of the
Great Kanawha River. (Referred to in his Journal by George Washington, who
visited its site in 1770, as "Old Shawna Town, which is about three miles up
the Ohio (from the mouth of Kanawha], just above the mouth of a Creek."
Washington's Journal of 1754, Toner's edition, pp. 173, 192, 202, 217.)

1724 VILLAGE ON THE OHIO

...On a preceding page, it has been pointed out that Beauhamois wrote
to the French Ministry in October, 1728, calling attention to the steps
taken by his predecessor, De Vaudreuil, as early as 1724, to bring the
Shawnees nearer to Canada; and stating that the writer had permitted
his representative, CAVILLIER, to return to them in the village they had
begun on the Ohio, which already contained more than 150 men
and their families. One year later, Beauhamois reported the success
of his measures, and notes that during the past summer Cavelier had
brought four of their deputies with him to Montreal, who assured him
of their entire fidelity and attachment to the French.

FRENCH PLANS INTERCEPTED - 1726
LETORT AND PETER CHARTIER ALLY WITH SIX NATIONS AND ENGLISH

An earlier reference than this, however, to the Allegheny settlement
is to be found in the Minutes of the New York Provincial Council, under
date of September 7, 1726. On that day Governor Burnet attended an
Indian Council at Albany, where he met twelve chiefs of the Iroquois,
two from each of the Six Nations.

The Governor asked the chiefs whether they knew of a war hatchet
having been given by the French against the Six Nations. The Indians
replied, "That they had heard that the Governor of Canada, by two of
his interpreters, had given a hatchet of war to the Indians living to the
southward (Okowela's clan?), near a branch of Susquehanah, on a
branch (Conemaugh) of a river called Adiego [at Kittanning], which vents into
the Great River, Mississippi. Some of their people who were out fighting came
to their habitation, who acquainted them that two Frenchmen had
given a hatchet of war, by order of the Governor of Canada, against the
Six Nations; which those Indians refused, and said they were a joint of
the said Nations, and possessed part of their land; and if any people
made war against them, they were to assist them.

But when the French saw that those Indians would not accept the hatchet of war,
they desired them not to speak of it to the Six Nations; for it was concluded by
the French and English to cut them off; and gave them a bundle of papers
to be carried to Philadelphia, and from thence to New York, and thence
to Albany, and thence to Montreal ; and when that arrived there, and the
Fort at Niagara was built, then would be the time when the Six Nations
were to be cut off. But their warriors happened to get that packet, and
burned it."

On the page of the manuscript volume containing this speech of the
Indians (N. Y. Council Minutes, xv., 92) there appears the following
marginal note opposite the word, "Adiego": "Called by the French
Ohio". This seems to be conclusive proof, in connection with
what has already been given, that the word, "Adiego," written by the
French, "Adigo," "Atiga," "Attique," etc., was simply another render-
ing of the Seneca word "0-hee-yo", the meaning of which is the "Great
River," the name applied by the Senecas to the Ohio.[H.XXX] It was later
localized by the Traders among the Iroquois to the town of Kittanning,
and the French erroneously applied it to two or three different tributaries
of the Ohio River, when it really meant to the Iroquois that River itself. On
Bellin's map of Louisiana, printed by Charlevoix, an Indian village on
French Creek is called "Atigua", and Kittanning, "Atiga". On Bonnecamps's
map of Ohio, Kittanning is called "Atigue". On D'Anville's 1746-55 map,
the Kiskiminetas is called the "Atigue".

CRESAP ATTACKS ca. 1730

JAMES PATTERSON located, in 1717, along the northern line of Cones-
toga Manor, about a mile east of Martin Chartier's post, and there
established a trading house. He also took up a tract of land on the op-
posite side of the Susquehanna, in Conejohda Valley (in what is now York
County), where he pastured the horses used by him to pack goods in his
trading trips to the Indians of the Potomac [River]. He was a licensed Trader
in 1722, and died in 1735. THE BOUNDARY TROUBLES WHICH BEGAN ABOUT
1730 BETWEEN THE PENNSYLVANIA SETTLERS AND THOSE OF MARYLAND, LED BY
CAPTAIN THOMAS CRESAP, ENTIRELY BROKE UP PATTERSON'S TRADE ON THE WEST
SIDE OF THE [POTOMAC] RIVER, AND ENTAILED GREAT LOSS UPON HIM.

His grandson Captain William Patterson, (whose father, James, had settled
on the Juniata, at the site of the present village of Mexico, before the French War),
married a daughter of JOHN FINLEY, ANOTHER INDIAN TRADER, WHO, LATE IN
HIS LIFE (1769) PILOTED DANIEL BOONE INTO KENTUCKY. Susanna, daughter
of James Patterson, Sr., married James Lowrey, another of the Donegal
Traders. A second daughter, Sarah, married Benjamin Chambers, one
of the founders of Chambersburg.

FRENCH APPEAL - 1730

In October, 1731, the Governor of Canada wrote again, of having sent
Sieur de Joncaire among the Senecas in a former year; and during the past summer, he
adds, he had sent that officer's son to the Senecas again, he having resided
a long time among those Indians. "He went there with his father, who
is to leave young Joncaire at the Seneca village, and to proceed himself
to the Chaouanons, whither I have dispatched him to place those Indians
in the location proper for the proposed purpose". For a number of
years the French unavailingly tried to induce the Shawnees to remove
to the upper Wabash River and the Maumee River, where they would be away from
the sphere of English trade and influence.

...French had come again, and were going to settle there. He also stated
that, in the preceding February, A TRADER NAMED JOHN KELLY, IN THE
EMPLOY OF JOHN WILLIAMS, HAD TOLD THE SHAWANESE AT ALLEGHENY THAT THE
FIVE NATIONS WERE READY TO EAT THEM ALL, AND DRIVE AWAY THE FRENCH, IF
THE ENGLISH GOVERNOR SHOULD SAY THE WORD. This information put the
Shawanese into such a state of alarm and anger that they were about to
begin war on the English Traders at once, and were only restrained by
the efforts of PETER CHARTIER AND THE FRENCH [TRADERS], who persuaded them that
the news was false...
.......
James Le Tort, in his examination, states that he "is lately come
from Allegeny, where there are several settlements of Delaware, Shaw-
anese, Asswikalus [SEWICKLEY - HaThawaghili], and Mingoe Indians, to the
number of four or five hundred; that for these three years past, a certain
French gentleman, who goes by the name of CAVALIER, has made it his practice
to come every spring amongst the Indians settled there, and deals with them
but for a very small value; that he particularly fixed his abode amongst the
Shawanese, with whom he holds frequent Councils; and, it is generally
believed, with a design to draw them off from the English interest." Le
Tort also speaks of visits made to Montreal by the Shawanese in the
early part of the years 1730 and 1731.

Davenport and Le Tort, at the time of their examination, furnished
the Governor with an estimate of the number of Indians located at the
various towns of the Allegheny settlement, and the names of their chiefs,
which was as follows:

"Conntmiach: 20 families; 60 men; Delawares.
"Kythenning River, 50 miles distant: 50 families; 150 men; mostly Delawares.
Chiefs: Capt. Hill, a Alymaepy; Kykenhammo, a Delaware; Sypous, a Mingoe.
"Senangelstown, 16 miles distant: 16 families; 50 men; Delawares.
Chief: Senangel.
"Lequeepees(H. glosses as Conestoga, ruled by Queen Aliquippa), 60 miles distant:
Mingoes, mostly, and some Delawares; 4 settled families, but a great resort of these people.
"On Connumach Creek there are three Shawanese Towns; 45 families ; 200 men.
Chief: Okowela, suspected to be a favourer of the Frenchinterest.
"Asswikales [H. glosses as Thawighile]: 50 families; lately from South Carolina to Potowmack,
and from thence thither; making 100 men. Aqueloma, their chief, true to the English.
"Ohesson upon Choniata [Juniata Ruver], distant from Sasqueh[anna River] 60 miles:
Shawanese; 20 families; 60 men. Chief: Kissikahquelas.
"Assunepachla upon Choniata [Juniata River],
distant about 100 miles by water and 50 by land from Ohesson;
Delawares; 12 families; 36 men."

SHAWNEE TSAWIGHELI (Sewekily, Hathawakhila) DIVISION
RETURNS NORTH

The name of the Asswikales Indians who came from South Carolina
has been preserved to the present day under the form of "Sewickley”, a
name now applied to two creeks, forty miles apart, one on the east and
the other on the west side of Pittsburgh. Sewickleers' Old Town is shown
on Lewis Evans's map of 1755 and also on the 1770 map of Scull,
erroneously located north of the mouth of Dick's Creek, and a short
distance below Chartier's Old Town (which stood on or near the present
village of Tarentum, Allegheny County). Croghan's deed of 1749
mentions a "Sewichly Old Town" on the Youghiogheny River. This probably
stood at the mouth of the present Big Sewickley Creek of Westmoreland
County.

Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, in an article on the "Shawnee Migrations",
written for the Historical Magazine in 1866, was of the opinion that the
Shaweygira band of Shawnees "left the South in 1730, and having come
as far north on the track of their predecessors as the region now occupied
by Clark County, Kentucky, there divided, a portion of them, known
as the Shaweygira band, thirty warriors in number, continuing north to
western Pennsylvania, where they arrived in 1731 ; while the remainder
established the town of Lulbegrud. " This opinion of Dr. Brinton does
not seem to be borne out by the facts. The identity of this band of
Indians will be discussed later...

1723 KITTANING RE-FOUNDING

It was the first and chief settlement made by the Delawares when
they began to migrate westward from the Susquehanna River in 1723-24;
and for fifteen years or more thereafter, it was the most important
Indian centre west of the Alleghany Mountains. A few years after it
came into existence, the Susquehanna and Potomac Shawnees took up
their belongings and followed the Delawares over the mountains, establishing
themselves a few miles below Kittanning, on the Allegheny River, and
along its tributary, the Conemaugh River, or Kiskiminetas.

What became known after its abandonment by them as Chartier's Old Town, at the
mouth of Bull Creek, near the present borough of Tarentum, Allegheny
County, Pennsylvania seems to have been the principal village of the Shawnees
during the decade from 1735 to 1745. This town and Kittanning, with two
or three smaller villages between, and three or more along the banks of
the Kiskiminetas River, constituted a centre of Indian population and influence
known for many years in Pennsylvania Colonial history as "Alleghenia",
or "Allegheny on the Main Road."

Just what was the "Main Road" at the time the term was applied to distinguish the
settlements thereon cannot now positively be asserted. In all probability, however,
it was the road which later was known as the Frankstown Path, leading along
the Juniata River to the Alleghany Mountain, thence across the present
counties of Cambria and Indiana; and thence, by two different branches,
to Kittanning and to the Shawnee town afterwards called Chartier's
Town. The original path to Kittanning from Shamokin by way of the
West Branch of the Susquehanna River, Bald Eagle Creek, Chinldaclamoose^
and Punxsatawney, was so difficult and barren as to be almost entirely
destitute of game for man or fodder for beast; so that it could never
have been a much travelled route.

The southern Pennsylvania, or Raystown Path, in the opinion of the writer,
was, at first, only a westward branch of the great Warriors' Path which led
south from what is now Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, up Bald Eagle Valley,
through Frankstown, along the valley to the east of Warriors' Ridge, in the present
Bedford County, thence down Old Town Run to Old Shawnee Town on
the Potomac River (Opessa's Town), where Captain Thomas Cresap had
settled, perhaps as early as 1742. Cresap's settlement is referred to in
Engineer Harry Gordon's "Journal of the Braddock Expedition", as "on
the track of Indian warriors, when going to war, either northward or
southward. " The Shawnees who emigrated from Opessa's Town on the
Potomac River to the Allegheny before 1732 were probably the first of whom
there is any record in history to use this Path westward. Christopher
Gist, who travelled from Cresap's house to the Forks of the Ohio in 1750
went over the same Path, and has left us a detailed account of the route.

PETER ALLEN was a Donegal Trader who settled on Chickasalunga
Creek about 1718. In 1720 he lived near the site of MARIETTA, [namesake of Marietta, Ohio]
and traded with the Indians. Some ten years later, he had a trading post
near the mouth of Fishing Creek, a few miles south of the hill which has
since then been known as Peter's Mountain. He was living there until
after 1735.

1734 - TRADERS

"Jonas Davenport, Lazarus Lowrey, James Le Tort, Frasier Stevens, James
Patterson, Edward Cartlidge, we desire, may have license to come and trade
with us; as also, Peter Cheartier, who we reckon one of us; and he is
welcome to come as long as he pleases."

1728 WAPAKONETA, OHIO?

Reference has already been made to a letter written by Beauhamois,
Governor of Canada, October 1, 1728, to the Ministry, in which he stated
that the Shawnees had begun a village on the Ohio, which then contained
more than 150 men and their families. The French Governor also wrote
in this despatch that "two families have already removed from this village
to the vicinity of Lake Erie. There is another small lake in a tongue of
land situate between Lake Erie and the River Ohio, which divides into
two branches, whereof, one falls into the River Ouabache, and the other
flows towards Lake Erie. The latter is not very navigable. It is in
this tongue of land that the Chaouanons desire to settle. This settle-
ment will not be at most over twenty-five leagues from Lake Erie,
opposite a place called Long Point. CAVALLIER is the name of the person
whom M. de Beauhamois has permitted to return to the Chaouanons.
He is understood and known by these Indians, and will probably negotiate
this affair with success."

SHAWNEE TSWIGHELI (Sewekily, Hathawakhila) DIVISION
ATTACKED, DISPERSE SOUTH

When the Six Nation chiefs reached the Allegheny, they met there a
great man of the Senecas, named Sagohandechty, who lived on that river.
He accompanied the other chiefs to the Shawnee villages, to prevail
with the Shawnees to return [to the Susquehanna River]. He was the speaker,
and pressed them so closely that they took a great dislike to him; and
some months after the other chiefs were returned, the Shaweygira Shaw-
nees seized on him and murdered him cruelly. The tribe then fled to the
southward, and it was supposed they were then "returned to the place
from whence they first came, which was below Carolina."

....When they fled south from Atiga (Kittanning)after the murder of the Mingo
chief [Sagohandechty] in 1734, it is possible the Shaweygira may have stopped on the
west bank of the Ohio River, between the mouths of the Hocking River and the
Kanawha River, and established the Shawnee Town at the mouth of what
is now known as Old Town Creek, near Le Tort's Rapids, where, in all
probability, James Le Tort, many years before 1740, carried on a trade
with the Shawnees who did settle there.

It is more probable, however, that THE SHAWEYGIRA BAND TRAVELLED AS FAR DOWN
THE RIVER AS THE MOUTH OF THE SCIOTO RIVER, and [re-] built the town there, well known
in Colonial and Revolutionary history as THE LOWER SHAWNEE TOWN. It is certain
that that town was established before 1739; for Celoron states that Longueuil held a
council with the Indians at Scioto in that year, while on his way down
the Ohio River from Montreal to join the Louisiana expedition against
the Chickasaws...

....A second letter was also read, which had been received by the Proprietor
from the Shawnees at what was later known as Chartier's Town on the
Allegheny. In this letter, the Shawnees state that they are strongly
solicited by the French, whom they call their fathers, to return to them;
that every year the French send them powder, lead, and tobacco, to
enable them to withstand their enemies, the Southern Indians, by
whom they have often suffered, and were last year attacked in one of
their towns; that they are got so far back that they can go no farther,
without falling into their enemies' hands or going over to the French,
which they say they would willingly avoid; that if they should return to
Susquehanna, as the Pennsylvania Government has often pressed, they
must starve, there being little or no game to be met with in those parts;
therefore, they request that they be furnished with some arms and
ammunition, for their defence against their enemies, and to secure their...
....
On March 20, 1738, the Shawnees at "Alegania" (Kittaning} wrote an interest-
ing letter to Thomas Penn and James Logan, which was signed by three
of their chiefs: "Loyparcowah (Opessa's Son), Newcheconner (Deputy
King), and Coycacolenne, or Coracolenne (Chief Counseller)." They
acknowledge the receipt of a present from Penn and Logan of a horse-
load of powder, lead, and tobacco, delivered to them by George Miranda;
state that they have a good understanding with the French, the Five
Nations, the Ottawas, and all the French Indians; that the tract of
land reserved for them by the Proprietary Government on the Susque-
hanna River does not suit them at present; that they desire to remain where
they are, gather together and make a strong town, and keep their young
men from going to war against other nations at a distance.

The Indians then add, that "After we heard your letter read, and all our people
being gathered together, WE HELD A COUNCIL TOGETHER, TO LEAVE OFF DRINKING FOR
THE SPACE OF FOUR YEARS... There was not many of our Traders at home
at the time of our council, but OUR FRIENDS PETER CHARTIER AND GEORGE
MIRANDA; but the proposal of stopping the rum and all strong liquors
was made to the rest in the winter, and they were all willing. As soon
as it was concluded of, all the rum that was in the Towns was all staved
and spilled, belonging both to Indians and white people, which in quantity
consisted of about forty gallons, that was thrown in the street; and we
have appointed four men to stave all the rum or strong liquors that is
brought to the Towns hereafter, either by Indians or white men, during
the four years." This letter was accompanied by a pledge, signed by
ninety-eight Shawnees and the two Traders named above, agreeing that
all rum should be spilled, and four men should be appointed for every
town, to see that no rum or strong liquor should be brought into their
towns for the term of four years.
....

1755-1787 LOCATION OF DIVISIONS OF SHAWNEE NATION

"Maguck" or "Macqueechaick", a town of Shawnee origin (occupied by ten Delaware families when Christopher Gist was there in 1750), stood on the east side of the Scioto River, some three and a half miles below the present town of Circleville, Pickaway County. What are now known as the Pickaway Plains, in this county, were formerly called by the Indians and Traders, the Great Plain of Maguck. Evans's map of 1755 locates the Delaware Town here on the west side of Scioto. A SECOND MAGUCK ("MACACHEEK") STOOD LATER NEAR THE SITE OF WEST LIBERTY [where inscribed artifacts may be located by those interested], in what is now Logan County, Ohio. Mequachake seems to be the accepted form, although Gatschet's Shawnee MS. gives it as Menekutthegi. Hewitt gives the meaning as "red earth." Other synonyms given by Mooney include Machachac, Mackichac, Machachcek, Mackacheek, Magueck, Makostrake, and Maquichees.

Colonel John Johnston, a Government Indian agent among the Ohio tribes from 1812 to 1842,
in an article contributed by him to the American Antiquarian Society's Collections in 1820
(i., 275), states that the Shawnees have four clans or totems, as follows:
1. The Piqua tribe meaning, "a man formed from ashes."
2. The Mequachake [Maguck, Maquichee, or Macqueechaick] tribe, meaning, "a fat man well filled"; the tribe of the priest-hood, or medicine men.
3. The Kiskapocoke tribe to which belonged Tecumseh.
4. The Chillicothe tribe no definite meaning; applied to a place of residence
[King's Residence].

Dr. Brinton, in his article on "The Shawnees and their Migrations," divides them into three clans or totems, namely, those of the Maquichee, Peckawee, and Chillicothe [B.XXX - there were 5 divisions]. Whatever the original meanings of the words, "Chillicothe," "Piqua," "Kiskapocoke," and "Maguck" may be, it is certain that one or another of the four, or some variation thereof, was always applied to the name of every village of the Shawnees.

On Crevecceur's 1787 map of the Scioto Plain as it was some years before, are shown the Shawnee towns of "Maqueechaick" (the Maguck of Gist), "Kispoko," "Peco-wick," and "Chillicothe"; so that each one of the four septs of the Shawnee tribe is there represented as having a separate village. The Reverand David Jones, a Baptist missionary from New Jersey, visited three of these towns in January, 1773. In his Journal he names them as, Pickaweeke, Chillicaathee, and Kiskapookee. The word "Picka-weeke" Mr. Jones explains, "signifies 'the place of the Picks': the town taking its name from a nation of [Shawnee] Indians called Picks, some of them being the first settlers." (Chillisquaque Creek, entering the West Branch of the Susquehanna River) ["Pikawi" also = "gathering"]

1744 - SIX NATIONS ALLOWED ENGLISH [VIRGINIA?] TRADERS IN WEST VIRGINIA
ENGLISH NOW CLAIM IT COVERS SETTLERS

On June 13th, the Commissioners presented to the chiefs for their
signature a written instrument, confirming and ratifying the treaty held
at Lancaster in the year 1744, and giving their consent and permission
to the English to make settlements on the south and east of the Ohio
River. This instrument was executed by the Six Nations chiefs present
at the Council, and signed by them as follows: "Conogariera [Canajachrera], Cheseago, Cownsagret, Enguisaia [Montour], Tegrendeare, Thonorison, sachems and chiefs of the said
United Nations."

[E.P. Grondine]

1744 FRENCH-SHAWNEE
PETER CHARTIER MOVES TO SCIOTO RIVER

On September 29, 1744, Conrad Weiser wrote James Logan:
"The day before yesterday, I came back from Shohomokin...
Shickelimy informed me that the Governor of Canada hath sent an embassy to
Onontago... The French embassy also informed the Counsel of the
United Nations [Six Nations] of a treachery which the Shawanese formed against them,
with the Honontatech-Roanu (Wyandots) and Cheestagech-Roano (Mis-
sissagas), Indian Nations about the Lakes of Canada, in order to make war
against the Six Nations. Now CHEEKANO [NEUCHECONNO], THE SHAWANO
CHIEF, IS SUSPECTED TO BE THE AUTHOR OF IT. A message of the United
Nations [Six Nations] is gone to him. "

At another meeting of the Pennsylvania Council held April 25, 1745,
Governor Thomas laid before the Board a deposition made by one James
Cunningham, a servant to PETER CHARTIER, THE INDIAN TRADER AT ALLEGHENY,
WHICH WAS TO THE EFFECT THAT CHARTIER HAD ACCEPTED A MILITARY COM-
MISSION UNDER THE FRENCH KING, AND WAS GOING TO CANADA. On the
same day the Governor sent a message to the Assembly regarding this
piece of news and other Indian affairs, in which he referred to Chartier
as follows:

"I have just received information that Peter Chartier, after disposing
of his effects in this Government, has gone over to the enemy. His con-
duct for some years past has rendered him generally suspected; and it
seems my reprimandmg him for some very exceptionable parts of it is
made use of, among other things, to excuse his infidelity. HAD HE BEEN
PUNISHED, AS HE DESERVED, FOR THE VILLAINOUS REPORT HE SPREAD TWO YEARS AGO
AMONG THE BACK INHABITANTS, IN ORDER TO SPIRIT THEM UP AGAINST SUCH OF
THE SIX NATIONS AS TRAVEL THROUGH THOSE PARTS OF THE COUNTRY, HE WOULD
NOT HAVE BEEN AT THIS TIME WITH THE ENEMY; BUT AN APPREHENSION THAT
THE SHAWNESE (WHOSE PERFIDIOUS BLOOD PARTLY RUNS IN CHARTIER'S VEINS),
MIGHT RESENT UPON OUR TRADERS ANY SEVERITIES TO HIM, RESTRAINED ME
FROM MAKING USE OF SUCH, AND INDUCED ME TO CHOOSE THE GENTLE METHOD OF
REPROOF, WHICH HIS BRUTISH DISPOSITION HAS CONSTRUED INTO AN AFRONT.
I am likewise informed that he had persuaded a considerable number
of the Shawnese to remove from their old town to a greater distance
upon another river; and it is not to be doubted that a person of his savage
temper will do us all the mischief he can.
...........
Dunning's Creek and Dunning's Mountain, immediately to the north
of Raystown, are both shown on Reading Howell's map of 1792. These
were both so named for another Indian Trader, James Dunning, the
same who was robbed by PETER CHARTIER AND HIS BAND OF SHAWNEES, WHILE
RETURNING UP THE OHIO RIVER FROM A TRADING EXPEDITION, APRIL 18, 1745.
.........
At a meeting of the Pennsylvania Assembly, held July 23, 1745, a
petition from James Dinnen (Dunning) and Peter Tostee, two Indian
Traders, was presented to the House, and read. This paper set forth
that, on the 18th day of the April preceding, as Dunning and Tostee
were returning up the Allegheny River in canoes from a trading trip,
with a considerable quantity of furs and skins, "PETER CHARTIER, LATE AN
INDIAN TRADER, WITH ABOUT 400 SHAWNESE INDIANS, ARMED WITH GUNS,
PISTOLS, AND CUTLASSES, suddenly took them prisoners, having, as he said, a
captain's commission from the King of Prance; and plundered them of
all their effects, to the value of sixteen hundred pounds; by which they
are become entirely ruined, and utterly uncapable to pay their debts,
or carry on any further trade. "
.........
Peter Chartier and his band of Shawnees, headed by Chief Neucheconno,
had fled from "Chartier's Old Town," and started down the Ohio River,
when they met and robbed these two Traders. They continued on
down that river until they reached the mouth of the Scioto River, where
another Shawnee settlement had been established, probably ten years
before, known among the Traders for many years afterwards as the
Lower Shawnee Town. The Marquis de Beauhamois, Governor of
Canada, wrote to De Maurepas, in France, on October 28, 1745, as
follows, in relation to Chartier's band of Shawnees: "The emigration
of the Chaouanons has at length taken place; they have removed from
their former location to the place I have allotted them at the Prairie of
the Maskoutins (the writer of the letter was misinformed on this point);
they have even tied and plundered the English Traders on La Belle
Riviere to the number of eight, and advised M. de Longueuil to send in
search of them. But the detachment of fifteen or sixteen Canadians
sent thither by that officer discovered only one, and the Chaouanons
have said that they had carried the others along with them to their winter
quarters, and would bring them to me themselves next year."

Chartier and his band did not proceed to Canada on this occasion, as Beauhamois
had written; but after remaining at Scioto for a short time, most of them
took the Warriors' Path towards the Catawba country, and began their
wanderings in the southern wilderness, which were destined to continue
for three or four years.

1744 FRENCH ATTACK

ON July 31, 1744, Governor Thomas sent a message to the Pennsylvania
Assembly, transmitting the treaty made with the Six Nations at Lancaster
during the month of June. In the Governor's message,
he observes that there was but one of the Shawnees from their principal
town on the Ohio present at the treaty; and that he had since been
informed that the Six Nations and the Shawnees were far from being
on good terms. The latter had been endeavoring to draw the Delawares
from Shamokin to Ohio, and the Six Nations feared that in case
they themselves were involved in the war which had begun between the
English and French, they would be obliged to fight the Shawnees, and
perhaps the Delawares also. The Governor adds, "indeed, it is observable
that the closer our union has been with the Six Nations, the greater
distance they [the Shawnees] have kept from us. I wish any method
could be fallen upon to secure them effectually to the British interests,
as they lie upon one part of our frontiers, and our most valuable trade for
skins is with them; but considering their frequent intercourse with the
French, and their inconstancy, I almost despair of it."

.....The principal town of the Shawnees on the "Ohio" at this time, to
which Governor Thomas referred, was Neucheconneh's Town, known to
the Traders as Chartier's Town, from the fact that PETER CHARTIER, him-
self a half-breed Shawnee-Frenchman, was the most influential resident
Trader among the Shawnees at Allegheny between 1733 and 1745.
This town was situated near the site of the present Tarentum in Alle-
gheny County, opposite to and about a mile below the mouth of a
stream called to this day Chartier's Run....

1745 ESKIPPAKITHIKA, KENTUCKY - NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

See Hulbert's Red Men's Roads, p. 18;

Draper thinks that the "Little Pict Town" was Eskippakithika, on Lulbegrud Creek of
Red River of Kentucky, twenty-five miles south of Upper Blue Licks, where the
Warriors' Road crossed the Licking River [of Kentucky]. This town was settled (1745) by
a band of Shawnee under Peter Chartier, acting in the French interests,
and broken up about 1748. A few warriors either remained here or
returned in the hunting season until about 1755. Authorities cited on
this point: Penn. Col. Records; Gordon's "History of Pennsylvania" ;
Rupp's "History of Western Pennsylvania"; Adair's "Southern Indians",
pp. 2, 3, 155, 156, 410; Maryland Gazette, July 5, Aug. 2, 1759; Haywood's
Tennessee; statements of Black-hoof, a Shawnee chief.

"This Indian town was settled under the following circumstances.
PETER CHARTIER, a half-breed Shawanoe, and a Trader of considerable
influence, debauched a portion of the Shawanoes into the French interest;
and, after seizing a couple of Indian Traders and plundering them of
goods to the value of sixteen hundred pounds, they left the rest of their
nation, near the Forks of the Ohio, early in 1745, and commenced the
settlement of this town of Es-kip-pa-ki-thi-ki.

"PROSPERITY ATTENDED THE COLONY FOR TWO OR THREE YEARS, BUT ROVING BANDS OF
NORTHERN INDIANS FOUND OUT THEIR NEW LOCATION, AND KILLED AND HARASSED THEM CONTINUALLY.

The Shawanoes of the Forks of Ohio hearing of these attacks on their
wayward brethren, and commiserating their misfortunes, urged their
speedy return; but the disorganizers, with Chartier at their head, resolutely
refused, believing that the injuries done them had been at the
instigation of their brethren at the Forks of Ohio, in order to dishearten them
in their isolated home and compel their early return to the great body of
the nation.

"The depredations of their enemies — probably the Iroquois,
who claimed the country by former conquest, and hence warred upon
all intruders — increasing, the Shawanoes, numbering about four hundred
and fifty souls, abandoned Es-kip-pa-ki-thi-ki ; and betaking themselves
to their canoes, passed down Lulbegrud Creek and the Red River into Kentucky,
thence descending to the Ohio River, and ascending the Tennessee River
to Occachappo or Bear Creek, and up that stream thirty miles, where they
left their canoes, and commenced an unprovoked war upon the Chickasaws,
killing several of that nation. This warlike people quickly resented
this dastardly conduct, embodied and drove off this vagabond
band of intruders, who retired among the Creeks, and settled a town
seventy miles above the French Alabama Garrison, and between the
Creek towns of Ooe-asa and Coosa.

"Several of the Shawanoe chiefs, with a band of followers, retraced
their weary steps, in 1748, to their brethren on the Ohio River; and
the others, after residing awhile among the Creeks, and still restless,
commenced their return northwardly. THEY TARRIED FOR A SEASON ON CUMBERLAND
RIVER, WHERE SEVERAL FRENCH TRADERS LOCATED AMONGST THEM, AND HENCE
THE LOCALITY SUBSEQUENTLY BECAME KNOWN AS THE FRENCH LICK, NOW THE
SITE OF THE CITY OF NASHVILLE. Here the Chickasaws found them rudely
fortified, and attacked them on the morning of the 5th of April, 1756,
killing twenty of the Shawanoes, and, seizing two hundred and forty
head of horses, returned in triumph to their nation; and these were the
first horses ever possessed by the Chickasaws.

"The Shawanoes, whose numbers were now estimated at two hundred and seventy,
made their way down Cumberland River, the women, children, aged and disabled
men, in canoes, and the warriors as a guard along shore; intending to
rejoin their brethren, who were now located on the Ohio River, chiefly at the
Lower Shawanoe Town, at the mouth of the Scioto River; but when they
entered the Ohio River, the heavy spring flood was rolling down, against which
their progress was so slow and tedious, that THEY STOPPED A FEW MILES
BELOW THE MOUTH OF THE WABASH RIVER, AT THE PRESENT LOCALITY OF
SHAWNEETOWN, ILLINOIS.

"Remaining there awhile, the French Traders and Kaskaskia Indians
invited them to take up their abode at Kaskaskia, which they did
a couple of years, when a strong deputation of their Shawanoe
brethren arrived, conducted them back by water to their kindred
and friends, when A RE-UNION WAS EFFECTED AFTER AN
EVENTFUL SEPARATION OF SIXTEEN YEARS. The distinguished Shawanoe
chief Catahecassa, or Black Hoof, then quite a young warrior, was with
this clan in all their wanderings ; and when he visited the Lulbegrud
region, in 1815 or 1816, he could readily point out and accurately describe
the ancient locality of Es-kip-pa-ki-thi-ki, and all the surrounding
country."

After the departure of Chartier and the Shawanoes from Es-kip-pa-
ki-thi-ki, a few must have remained during each hunting season, or
large hunting parties frequently resorted there, or more probably both,
to have made it an object for so many Traders to repair to that point, at
the time of Findley's visit and decampment [in 1752-53]."'

1748 OHIO COMPANY

"His Majesty has been pleased to grant some Gentlemen
and Merchants of London and some of both sorts, inhabitants of
this Colony [the Ohio Company of Virginia, organized in 1748], a large
quantity of land west of the Mountains. The design of this grant and
one condition of it, is to erect and garrison a Fort, to protect our trade
(from the French) AND THAT OF THE NEIGHBORING COLONIES; and by
fair, open trade to engage the Indians in affection to His Majestie's sub-
jects; to supply them with what they want, so that they will be under
no necessity to apply to the French; and to make a very strong settlement
on the frontiers of this Colony; all which His Majesty has approved,
and directed the Governor here to assist the said Company in carrying
their laudable design into execution.

"But your Traders have prevailed with the Indians on the Ohio, to believe
that the Fort is to be a bridle for them ; and that the Roads which the
Company are to make is to let in the Catawbas upon them to destroy them;
and the Indians, naturally jealous, are so possessed with the truth of these
insinuations that they threaten our Agents, if they survey or make these Roads
that they had given leave to make; and by this the carrying of the King's grant into
execution is at present impracticable. Yet these are the lands purchased
of the Six Nations by the [1744] Treaty of Lancaster." -

President Lee of Virginia to
Governor Hamilton in November, 1749

1749 CRESAP - SIX NATIONS

The date of the settlement of the Mingoes [Seneca] at Kuskuskies, therefore,
was between the decade 1731-1741 [Hxxx - it was much earlier]. So late as 1750
the Iroquois chiefs of the Great Council at Onondaga informed Conrad Weiser at a
Council fire which he attended at Oneida on September 17th, 1750
that "the Ohio [Mingo] Indians were but hunters, and no counsellors,
or chief men; and they had no right to receive presents that was due to
the Six Nations, although they might expect to have a share; but that
share they must receive from the Six Nations chief under whom they
belong...

In the fall of 1749, THOMAS CRESAP, THE AGENT OF THE OHIO COMPANY,
(in which Governor Dinwiddie and other prominent Virginians were
interested), invited some of the Mingo chiefs at Ohio to come down to
his storehouse on the Potomac River, with a view to making a trade treaty,
CRESAP PROPOSING TO LET THE INDIANS HAVE GOODS AT MUCH CHEAPER PRICES
THAN THE PENNSYLVANIA TRADERS CHARGED. In accordance with this
invitation, "Canajacharah" or "Broken Kettle," and two other "Chiefs of
the Seneca nations settled at Ohio" came over the Frankstown Path
in June, 1750, as far as George Croghan's house near Carlisle, where
they stopped awhile before proceeding to Cresap's; and there Richard
Peters, the Provincial Secretary, held a conference with them, on the
7th of that month.

Among other things, Canajachrera informed the Provincial Secretary,
that "We were sent from Ohio about six years ago [1743?] to
Canada, to desire the French to supply us with goods; and they could
not supply us. When we returned, our council determined to send a
string of wampum to the Governor of Pennsylvania, to desire that the
English Governors would send their Traders with goods among us; which
string was sent by James Lowrey."

From what has been set forth in the preceding chapter, it appears
that Canajachrera was identical with that Indian chief whom Longueuil
addressed in 1744 as "Canante-Chiarirou, Chief of the Nations
of the White River"; and it can be positively asserted that the "Nations
of the White River" who caused so much trouble and uneasiness to the
French commandants at Detroit from 1743 to 1747, were none other
than the Mingoes and their neighbors of the Cuyahoga River, the Mahoning River,
the Big Beaver River, and the Tuscarawas River; whose capital was Kuskuskies.

1749 - VIRGINIA MOVES IN ON FRENCH OHIO TRADE

In a conference held at George Croghan's house in Pennsboro
Township by Richard Peters and the Seneca chiefs from Kuskuskies
and Logstown, June 7, 1750, the Indians stated, that IN THE FALL OF 1749,
ONE "BAMY CURRANT, A HIRED MAN OF MR. PARKER," BROUGHT THEM A
MESSAGE FROM COLONEL THOMAS CRESAP, THE AGENT OF THE OHIO COMPANY
OF VIRGINIA, TO THE EFFECT THAT HE AND MR. PARKER, THE TRADER AT KUSKUSKIES,
WOULD SELL THEM GOODS AT RATES VERY MUCH LESS THAN THOSE CHARGED BY THE
PENNSYLVANIA TRADERS: "a match-coat for a buckskin; a strowd for a
buck and a doe ; a pair of stockings for two raccoons; twelve bars of lead
for a buck; and other articles at proportionately low prices."
...........
"The 11th of August,[1749] the Indians came to give me their answer. . . .
Their interest engages them to look with favor on the English, who give
them their merchandise at so low a price that we have reason to believe
that the King of England, or the country, bears the loss which the Traders
make in the sale of their merchandise to attract the nations. It is
true that the expenses of the English are not nearly so great as those
which our Traders will be obliged to make, on account of the difficulties
of the route. It is certain that we will never be able to reclaim the
nations except by giving them merchandise at the same prices as the
English. The difficulty is to find the means."

Bonnecamps also states that, while at Chiningue, a savage came to told Monsieur
Joncaire that eighty warriors, starting from Kaskaske (Kuskuskies)
were on the point of arriving; that they came intending to aid their
brothers and to deal the French a blow.

1749 SHAWNEE ATTACK ENGLISH TRADERS IN THE SOUTH

James Adair's account:

"IN THE YEAR 1749, when I was going to Charles Town, under the
provincial seal of South Carolina with a party of CHIKKASAH INDIANS,
THE SMALL-POX ATTACKED THEM, not far from Muskohge Country, which,
becoming general through the camp, I was under the necessity of setting
off by myself. Between Flint River and that of the Okmulgeh, I came
up with a large camp of Muskohge Traders, returning from English
settlements.

"The gentlemen told me, they had been lately assured at AUGUSTA
by the Cherokee Traders, that above a hundred and twenty of the
French Shawano might be daily expected near that place, to cut off
the English Traders, and plunder their camp, and cautioned me with
much earnestness at parting to keep a watchful eye during that day's
march.

"After having rode 15 miles, about 10 o'clock, I discovered ahead
through the trees, an Indian ascending a steep hill. He perceived me
at the same instant, for they are extremely watchful of such dangerous
attempts. Ambuscade is their favorite method of attack.

"As the company followed their leader in a line, each at a distance
of a few yards from the other, all soon appeared in view. As soon as I
discovered the foremost, I put up the shrill whoop of friendship and
continually seemed to look earnestly behind me, till we approached near
to each other, in order to draw their attention from me and fix it that
way, as supposing me to be the foremost of a company still behind.

"Five or six soon ran at full speed to be at the place of our meeting,
to prevent my escape. They seemed as if their design was to attack me
with their barbed arrows; lest they should alarm my supposed companions
by the report of their guns. I observed that instead of carrying
their bow and quiver over their shoulders, as is the travelling custom,
they held the former in their left hand, bent, and some arrows. I approached
and addressed them, and endeavoured to appear quite indifferent at their
hostile arrangement, while I held my gun ready in my right hand about five
yards distance from them.

"Their leader, who stood foremost, came and struck my breast with
the butt end of one of my pistols, which I had in my left hand. I told
him with that vehemence of speech which is always requisite on such
an occasion, that I was an English Chikkasah, and informed him by
expressive gestures that there were ten of Chikkasah warriors, and more
than half that number of women, besides children, a little behind, just
beyond the first hill. At this news, they appeared to be much confused,
as it was expected, for such a number of warlike enemies to be so near at
hand.

"THIS SHAWANO PARTY CONSISTED ONLY OF TWENTY-THREE MIDDLE-SIZED
BUT STRONG BODIED MEN, WITH LARGE HEADS AND BROAD FLAT CROWNS, AND FOUR
TALL YOUNG PERSONS, WHO I CONJECTURED TO BE OF THE CHEROKEE NATION.
I spoke a little to a fair-lipped warrior among them, who told me he lived
at Tukkasehche, a northern town of that country. The leader whispered
something to his waiter, which in like manner was communicated to the
rest and they all passed by me, with sullen looks and glancing eyes.

"I kept my guard till they were out of arrow shot; when I went on at
a seemingly indifferent pace. But as soon as out of their view I rode
about seventy miles with great speed to avoid the danger of a pursuit,
as I imagined they would be highly enraged against me for their double
disappointment..."

1750 - FIVE NATIONS DECLARE NEUTRALITY

MONTOUR TOLD HIM THAT THE SIX NATIONS WERE AGAINST BOTH THE ENGLISH AND
FRENCH BUILDING FORTS AND SETTLING LANDS AT OHIO, AND DESIRED THAT
THEY MIGHT BOTH QUIT THAT COUNTRY, AND SEND ONLY A FEW TRADERS WITH
GOODS SUFFICIENT TO SUPPLY THE WANTS OF THEIR HUNTERS; THAT THEY DID
NOT LIKE THE VIRGINIANS AND PENNSYLVANIANS MAKING TREATIES WITH THESE
INDIANS, WHOM THEY CALLED HUNTERS, AND YOUNG AND GIDDY MEN AND
CHILDREN."
......
Governor Hamilton reported that on the 31st of July Andrew
Montour came to town and delivered a message from five chiefs of
Onondaga. In this message the Onondaga Councillors thanked the
Governor for his interest in their young men at Ohio. "They stand in
need of your advice," add the chiefs, "for they are a great way from
us. ... IT IS AN HUNTING COUNTRY THEY LIVE IN, AND WE WOULD HAVE IT
RESERVED FOR THIS USE ONLY, AND DESIRE NO SETTLEMENT MAY BE MADE THERE;
THOUGH YOU MAY TRADE THERE AS MUCH AS YOU PLEASE; AND SO MAY THE
FRENCH. We love the English and we love the French, and as you are
at peace with one another, do not disturb one another. If you fall out,
make up your matters among yourselves. You must ask the French
what they intend to do, and endeavor to preserve the peace. We would
not have you quarrel, but trade with us peaceably, one as well as another.
But make no settlements. If our Indians should be struck, it will be
very kind to help them. It is better to help them than us, for we are
near New York, and can be supplied easily from thence. But our young
men at Ohio must have their supply from you. We therefore heartily
thank you for your regards to us and our Hunters at Ohio."

1751 CROGHAN

Gist had written of him at Logstown, on his way out, "enquired for Croghan
who is a meer idol among his countrymen, the Irish Traders." They
journeyed together to the Lower Shawnee Town, where Croghan boldly
announced to the Shawnees at a Council held January 30, 1751, that
the French had offered a large sum of money to any one who would
bring them the bodies or scalps of Croghan or Montour.

From the Lower Shawnee Town, the party proceeded to Pickawillany, where
Croghan made a treaty for Pennsylvania with two tribes of the Miamis,
the Piankeshaws and Ouiatanons [HXXX - Maimis, Piakshaws, Ouitanons separate peoples - members of Twightee Confederacy]. This treaty was afterwards repudiated by the Governor, and Croghan censured.

OHIO LAND COMPANY
TRIES TO BUY WEST VIRGINIA - 1752

Governor Dinwiddle, of Virginia, in company with Arthur Dobbs, Thomas Lee,
George Mason, two brothers of George Washington, and others, in 1748,
organized the Ohio (Land) Company, for the purpose of colonizing the western portion of Virginia, and carrying on a trade with the Indians.

In April, 1752, on the same day that Montour received his first land
grant from the Governor, he requested permission of that official to
interpret for the Governor of Virginia at a treaty which was to be held
at Logstown the following June. GOVERNOR DINWIDDIE AND HIS FRIENDS
WERE STOCKHOLDERS IN THE OHIO COMPANY, which in 1748 had received a
grant from the King of a large extent of territory lying on the east side of
the Ohio River.

The object of the treaty at Logstown was to induce the Six Nations chiefs
to release their claims to this land. Joshua Fry, Lumsford Lomax, and James
Patton attended as Commissioners for Virginia, together with Christopher Gist,
George Croghan, and Andrew Montour. The latter acted as interpreter. The Ohio Company
allowed him thirty pistoles for his services, and offered to give him title to
a thousand acres of land if he would remove to Virginia and settle within
the Company's grant.

1753 ALL NATIONS UNITE IN OPPOSITION TO OHIO SETLLEMENT

"There is hardly any Indians now [Forks of the Monogahela] here at all,
for yesterday there set off, along with Captain Trent and French Andrew [Montour],
the Heads of the Five Nations, the Picts (Twightwees, or Miamis), the Shawonese,
the Owendats, and the Delawares, for Virginia. And the Half King set
off to the French Fort with a strong party, to warn the French off their
land entirely, which, if they did not comply to, then directly the
Six Nations, the Picts [Miami], Shawonese, Owendats [Wyandot], and Delawares,
were to strike them without loss of time. - John Fraser

1754 -

At Carlisle, on April 24, 1756, Croghan made up an account of his
"losses occasioned by the French and Indians driving the English Traders
off the Ohio," in 1754. Some of the items in this account, to which
Croghan's affidavit was attached, were as follows :
"One Store House, fenced fields of Indian Corn, and numbers of
large canoes and batteaux above the mouth of Pine Creek.
"One Store House at the Logstown, twelve miles from Fort Du Quesne,
on the northwest side of Ohio, £150.
"One Store House at Muskingum [Conchake], £150.
"ONE LARGE STORE HOUSE ON THE OHIO, OPPOSITE TO THE MOUTH OF THE
RIVER SCIOTO, WHERE THE SHAWANESE HAD BUILT THEIR NEW TOWN, CALLED THE
LOWER SHAWANESE TOWN; which House, we learn by the Indians, is now
in the possession of a French Trader, £200." This item of property
seized is stated to have belonged to "William Trent, George Croghan,
Robert Callender, and Michael Teaff, Traders in Company."
In these accounts of Croghan & Company it is also stated that
they lost goods, in the hands of Thomas Bumey and Andrew McBryar,
at the taking of the Twightwees' Town (Pickawillany) , to the value of
£331, 15s.
.......
In the "Detail of Indian Affairs," prepared for Governor Morris at
the time he succeeded Hamilton (October, 1754), it is stated that, before
the outbreak of hostilities with the French, "Croghan and others had
stores on Lake Erie, all along the Ohio from Bar(?), and other store-
houses on Lake Erie, all along the Miami River, and up and down that
fine country watered by the Branches of the Miamis, Scioto, and Musking-
ham Rivers, and upon the Ohio from Bockaloons, an Indian Town near
its head, to below the mouth of the Miami River, an extent of 500 miles
on one of the most beautiful rivers in the world, and they traded all
along the River."
.........
"By a Chickisaw man who has lived among the Shawonese since
he was a lad, and is just returned from the Chickisaw country, where
he had been making a visit to his friends, we hear that there is a large
body of French at the Falls of Ohio [Louisville], not less, he says, than a
thousand men; that they have abundance of provisions and powder and lead with
them; and that they are coming up the River to meet the army from
Canada coming down. He says a canoe with ten Frenchmen in her
came up to the Lower Shawonese Town with him, but on some of the
English Traders threatening to take them, they set back that night
without telling their business." - George Croghan

1755 FRENCH, VIRGINIANS, PENNSYLVANIANS CONVERGE
SIX NATIONS RESIST

"That the said George Croghan and William Trent stand indebted
to your Petitioners, and sundry others, in considerable and large sums
of money; and that by many losses, occasioned by the defection of our
Indian Allies from their former friendship and amity with this Province,
and the invasion and conquest by the French on the Ohio and the
adjacent country (where, for the most part, the goods purchased of your
Petitioners were sold, the contracts by the said George Croghan and
William Trent made, and their debts became due), they are rendered
altogether destitute of money or effects to make that satisfaction to their
creditors which their inclination and conscience would oblige them
to do were it in their power;"
....
In this message the Indians said: "You desire we may inform you whether
that speech sent by Louis Montour was agreed on in Council or not, which
we now assure you it was, in part; but THAT PART OF GIVING THE LANDS TO PAY
THE TRADERS' DEBTS, WE KNOW NOTHING OF IT; but we earnestly requested by that
belt, and likewise we now request, that our Brother, the Governor of Virginia
may build a Strong House at the Forks of the Mohongialo, and send some of our
young brethren, the warriors, to live in it. And we expect our Brother
of Pennsylvania will build another House somewhere on the River,
where he shall think proper, where, whatever assistance he will think
proper to send us may be kept for us, as our enemies are just at hand,
and we do not know what day they may come upon us. We now
acquaint our brethren that we have our hatchet in our hands to strike
the enemy as soon as our brethren come to our assistance." - to Croghan at Logstown

1755 FORT CUMBERLAND

Engineer Harry Gordon's Journal, states that General Braddock
arrived at the camp at Will's Creek (Fort Cumberland), May 10th,
and found there one hundred Indian men, women, and children. Richard
Peters, who visited the camp in May, reported that he found there
Andrew Montour, Scarrooyady, and about forty of the Indians from
Adghwick, with their wives and families, "who were extremely dissatisfied
at not being consulted with by the General, and got frequently into
high quarrels, their squaws bringing them money in plenty, which they
got from the officers, who were scandalously fond of them." Croghan
wrote Morris from Fort Cumberland, May 20th: "Tomorrow, what
Indian women and children came here with me set off back for Aucquick,
by order of the General, the men entirely going with the General; and
the General insists on my going with him. ... I have here about fifty
men [Indians and Traders], and in a few days expect twenty more, which
were left behind at my house."

1756 SIX NATIONS REQUEST SHAWNEE ATTACK

Croghan informed Morris that "from Kittaning he went to the Log's Town,
where he found about one hundred Indians and thirty English prisoners, taken
by the Shawonese living at the Lower Shawonese Town, from the western frontier
of Virginia, and sent up to Logstown. He was told the same thing by these Shawonese
that the Beaver had told him before RESPECTING THEIR STRIKING THE ENGLISH
BY THE ADVICE OF SOME OF THE SIX NATIONS.
..........

Croghan met the Governor and three members of his Council at
Carlisle January 13, 1756. He informed them that he had sent a friendly
Indian to the Ohio for intelligence, who had been to Kittanning, the
residence of Chief Shingas and Captain Jacobs. That there, Beaver,
brother of Shingas, had told him THE SIX NATIONS HAD GIVEN THE WAR
HATCHET TO THE DELAWARES AND SHAWNEES; that the messenger had then
gone to the Logstown, and was told the same thing by the Shawnees
there; and that there were a number of the Six Nations Indians still
living in the Shawnee and Delaware towns, who always accompanied
them in their war parties against the English settlements. On the 15th,
16th, and 17th, Croghan acted with Conrad Weiser as interpreter at a
conference held by the Governor with The Belt of Wampum, Arroas
(Silver Heels), Jagrea, Captain Newcastle, Seneca George, and others*
chiefs and warriors of the Mingoes.

1758 PETER CHARTIER ORDERS MOVE TO SCIOTO RIVER

""Set off at seven o'clock, in company with six Delawares, and that night
arrived at Logs Town, which we found deserted by its late inhabitants. On
inquiring the reason of their speedy flight, THE DELAWARES INFORMED ME THE
LOWER SHANOES HAD REMOVED OFF THE RIVER UP SIHOTTA [SCIOTO], TO A GREAT PLAIN CALLED MOGUCK, AND SENT FOR THOSE THAT LIVED HERE TO COME THERE AND LIVE WITH THEM, and quit the French, and at the same time the deputies of the Six Nations which I
had sent from Easton came and hastened their departure." - Croghan's Journal

1763 SENECA AND WESTERN NATIONS REVOLT

Late in the spring of 1763, nearly all the Western Indians, with the
Senecas, rose against the English posts on the Lakes, the Allegheny,
the Maumee, and the Wabash, killed or captured most of the garrisons.
and seized nearly all the Traders between Fort Pitt and Detroit, as well
as those at the Delaware and Shawnee towns on the Muskingum River and
Scioto River; putting most of them to death.

OHIO COMPANY ATTACKS IN WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA - 1763-1765

Dr. John Ewing, who took observations in southwestern Pennsylvania to
determine the boundary line, in June, 1784, writes in his Journal that Bloody Run
was so called because of "the murder of a number of people sent to escort pro-
visions to Mr. [William] Buchanan, who was surveying the roads to Bedford in the
year 1755." Penna, Archives^ 6th series
......
The only attack on Traders near this point known to
history was that of James Smith and his "Black Boys" at Sideling Hill
in 1765. One of the Traders, present at the time the 1763 attack took
place, Mr. Evans says, was Alexander Lowrey, of Donegal. Others,
who were either present, or had sent goods with the caravan in 1765,
or had made losses elsewhere (most of them in 1763), were William Trent,
Robert Callender, David Franks, Joseph Simon, Levy A. Levy, Phillip
Boyle, John Baynton, Samuel Wharton, George Morgan, Joseph Spear,
Thomas Smallman, John Welch, Edmund Moran, Evan Shelby, Samuel
Postlethwait, John Gibson, Richard Winston, Dennis Crohon, William
Thompson, Abraham Mitchell, James Dundas, Thomas Dundas, and
John Ormsby. These Traders claimed to have lost goods by this and
other attacks in 1763 to the value of 80,862 pounds sterling, which was
probably a grossly exaggerated claim. It is true that claims for all the
goods lost by these and other Traders on the frontier, during the course
of Pontiac's War, as well as those destroyed by James Smith and the
"Black Boys" in 1765, were included in their bill for damages.'

On January 5, 1765, Bouquet wrote Gage, recommending Croghan
as the person most suitable to negotiate with the Western Indians for
the British control of the French posts on the Wabash and in the Illinois
country. [Croghan]was suspected by his enemies in Philadelphia of
being interested in a large shipment of Indian goods sent out by
Baynton, Wharton & Co. from Philadelphia to Fort Pitt for sale to the
Indians. The pack-horses which carried these goods were said to have
been in the same train with the horses which conveyed some of the goods
to be used by Croghan on his Illinois mission. They were all seized or
destroyed by James Smith and his "Black Boys," disguised as
Indians, at Sideling Hill (or near Bloody Run in Bedford County), in
the early part of March.

Lieutenant Charles Grant, Commandant at Fort Loudoun, wrote
to Bouquet of this occurrence March 9th, that THE COUNTRY PEOPLE WERE
GREATLY ALARMED AT THE GOODS GOING UP TO CROGHAN FOR THE INDIANS; ABOUT
ONE HUNDRED ARMED MEN FOLLOWED THE CONVOY TO GREAT COVE, KILLED THREE
HORSES, WOUNDED THREE MORE, AND BURNED SIXTY-THREE LOADS OF GOODS; A
PARTY SENT OUT FROM THE FORT HAD TAKEN SOME PRISONERS, WHOM THE COUNTRY
PEOPLE TRIED TO RESCUE, AND THEY THREATENED TO BURN THE FORT. Gage wrote
Governor Penn: "Some of the Traders whose goods were destroyed
at Sidelong [Sideling Hill] have been here and represented that they
were carrying the goods to Fort Pitt to supply Mr. Croghan with such
quantities as he should have occasion for, in the service he is employed
in; but by a letter from Mr. Croghan, of the 2d inst., from Fort Pitt,
he informs me some of his goods were got up there, and the rest daily
expected; and I see by a letter from Sir William Johnson, that Croghan
had purchased the goods he expected to carry with him of Smallman &
Field, at Philadelphia."

Croghan wrote Johnson that he had permitted the Traders' goods
to be sent under one of his passes, with the idea of having them retained
in the king's storehouse, in accordance with the new regulations from
London, until trade was again opened up with the Indians; and he
added that he proposed to resign from the service after his return from
the IlHnois mission.

1768 - THE SIX NATIONS SELL WEST VIRGINIA TO PENNSYLVANIA TRADERS AT ENGLISH INSISTECE

In a conference held by Sir William Johnson with some chiefs of
the Six Nations and Delawares at Johnson Hall, May 2, 1765, Johnson
reminded the Indians of the losses suffered by the English Traders at
the time of Pontiac's conspiracy. "You know," he told them, "the
treacherous and cruel part acted by some of your people at Logs Town
and about the Ohio two years ago. You then plundered numbers of
the Traders who were supplying you with goods. Some of them you
promised to protect and save their effects, but you did not keep your
words. Several of these unhappy sufferers are thereby reduced to great
necessity, some of whom are thrown into Goal because they could not
pay their debts."

The chiefs of the Six Nations agreed with Sir William Johnson in April and
May, 1765, to cede the Traders certain lands between the Ohio and the
Allegheny Mountains in compensation for their losses in 1763; and on
November 4, 1768, at Fort Stanwix, the Six Nations deeded to the twenty-
three Traders whose names have been printed, all that part of the present
state of West Virginia lying between the Little Kanawha River, Laurel Hill,
the Monongahela River, the southern line of Pennsiylvania, extended to the
Ohio, and along that river to the mouth of Little Kanawha. William
Trent and his associates organized the Indiana Land Company, and
gave the name of Indiana to their grant, which is so called on Hutchins's
map of 1778. The Virginia Legislature refused to confirm the grant from
the Indians, however; and the Traders eventually suffered the additional
loss of all they had paid for securing and protecting this grant.
.........
In the middle of December, 1767 Croghan held a conference with the Indians at Fort Pitt,
regarding the unauthorized settlements of the whites west of the Mountains; and on
the 18th of the same month THE TRADERS AT FORT PITT PRESENTED A PETITION TO HIM,
COMPLAINING OF TRADE VIOLATIONS, A SETTLEMENT OF LAWLESS PERSONS AT REDSTONE CREEK, AND THE MACHINATIONS OF COLONEL CRESAP AMONG THE INDIANS. Croghan was in Philadelphia in January, 1768.
.........
It was afterwards given the name of Indiana by the grantees, and attempts were made
to erect a new Colony, but the grant failed of confirmation by the Crown.

Trent and Wharton went to England to endeavor to obtain a confirmation,
but WHILE THERE WERE INDUCED TO THROW IN THEIR INTERESTS with
Thomas Walpole, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, and others, IN SECURING THE GRANT
OF VANDALIA, WHICH INCLUDED THE GRANTS TO THE OHIO COMPANY AND TO
WILLIAM TRENT AND ASSOCIATES, AND EXTENDED TO THE MOUTH OF SCIOTO.
...........

The boundary controversy between Pennsylvania and Virginia,which had
been discussed by Dinwiddie and Hamilton before the Braddock Campaign,
became acute again after 1768; Virginia claiming that the western line of
Pennsylvania was east of the Forks of Ohio, and that Fort Pitt was within
the chartered limits of Virginia. IT WILL BE SEEN FROM THE TERMS OF
CROGHAN'S DEED FROM THE INDIANS THAT IT WAS TO HIS ADVANTAGE
TO HAVE THE WESTERN BOUNDARY LINE OF PENN'S GRANT LIMITED TO
A POINT EAST OF FORT PITT; AS OTHERWISE HIS INDIAN GRANT WOULD BE VOID BY
ITS OWN TERMS.

Owing to this fact, it is reasonable to believe, as the Pennsylvania
authorities often suspected, that CROGHAN WAS THE CHIEF PERSON TO STIR
UP THE BOUNDARY WAR BETWEEN THE VIRGINIANS AND PENNSYLVANIANS ON THE
WESTERN FRONTIER IN 1771 AND 1772. WASHINGTON VISITED AND DINED WITH
COLONEL CROGHAN "four miles above Fort Pitt," on his way down the Ohio
River to examine lands on the Kanawha River IN OCTOBER, 1770.

On his return up the river, Washington rode overland from the Mingo Town (now Mingo, Ohio), to Fort Pitt, crossing the branches of Raccoon and Shurtee's (Chartier's) creeks, and
examining the land on what was a portion of Croghan's claim.

He arrived at Fort Pitt on the 21st of November and the next day "invited
the officers and some other gentlemen to dinner" with him at his tavern,
"among whom was one, Dr. [John] Connolly, nephew to Colonel Croghan, a very
sensible, intelligent man, who had travelled over a good deal of this western country."

CONNOLLY WAS AFTERWARDS THE REPRESENTATIVE OF LORD DUNMORE, AND LEADER
OF THE VIRGINIANS AT FORT PITT DURING THE BOUNDARY DISPUTES.
Washington, as has here been stated, visited Fort Pitt in October
and November. Captain William Crawford, at that time a resident
of what is now Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and engaged by Wash-
ington to survey for him some lands on Raccoon and Chartier's creeks,
wrote Waashinton on December 6th: "Colonel Croghan is at Fort Pitt still,
and I understand is to stay the chief part of the winter." He wrote
Wahsington again, April 20, 1771: "Agreeable to your request, I went to view
Colonel Croghan's land; but before it could be done the line was to be
run, which I attended... What land is worth anything is already
taken by somebody, whose survey comes within the line we run. But
the Colonel is not content with that line, as he thinks it does not include
land enough. I am afraid he has not proper title to what he is now
claiming; but I will avoid giving him any certain answer about the land
as long as I can possibly do so. I have found some good tracts of land
on the head of Chartier's Creek and the head of Raccoon Creek... I
have not told him where the land lies, and I am afraid to tell him until he
runs the line, for I think if he knew of it he would run it in on purpose to
have the selling of it to you; as he prides himself much upon it, and makes
it a handle to all bargains he is making with other people."

Crawford writes to Washington again on August 2d: "I saw a letter from Mr.
Tilghman in regard to Colonel Croghan. He says the latter has no right
to any land as yet, nor cannot tell whether he ever will have from the
Crown. Croghan claims it from an Indian deed, and is making out
patents to such as will buy of him; but Mr. Tilghman says in his letter,
"I hope persons will ask themselves how they will come by their money
again, if, in a few years, his title should be found not good."
......
Captain Arthur St. Clair had written Joseph Shippen in the summer of
1772, that THE ASSOCIATIONS FORMING WEST OF LAUREL HILL TO OPPOSE THE
JURISDICTION OF PENNSYLVANIA were apparently THE WORK OF COLONEL CRESAP,
and MR. CROGHAN IS STRONGLY SUSPECTED OF GIVING IT MUCH ENCOURAGEMENT
privately," and that "there is still a number of people, abetted
chiefly by Mr. Croghan, that refuse to submit to the jurisdiction of this
Province."
.......
"Pray, why did not the Proprietors prevent all those disputes by ascertaining
their bounds. . . . They must well remember it's not a great number
of years since the Assembly refused to build a Trading House or Fort
here, alleging it to be out of Mr. Penn's grant; and after that, the same
Assembly refused granting money for the King's use, to assist in the
reduction of Fort Duquesne..." - George Croghan, 2 June, 1772
........
On December 29, 1773, Crawford wrote Washington: "Some people, about ten or
twelve in number, have gone on your Chartier's land within these few days; and
there is no getting them off except by force of arms. They are encouraged
by Major Ward, brother to Colonel Croghan, who claims the land and says
he has a grant of it from the Crown. ... He further adds that Colonel
Croghan says you and I have used his brother very ill, in pretending to
buy his land and did not, but went and took the best of it, and would
not agree to pay him. That was the reason offered for selling the land
to any person who should choose to buy."
.......
"With respect to the demolishing this Post [Fort Pitt], I believe that measure
has been through Lord Hillsborough, and the last stroke of his resentment
[at the granting of the charter by the King for the new colony of Vandalia]."
- George Croghan, December 23rd, 1772
........
On April 4th, Croghan wrote to his attorney, David Sample, as follows:
"I have been long convinced that Fort Pitt and its dependencies was
without the limits of Pennsylvania, and no less convinced that the laws
of that Province could have no force or power beyond its limits; yet as
I have always considered any law better than no law, I have countenanced
the law of that Province hitherto by pleading to some actions brought against me,
and being bail to others; although at the same time I have always denied the
jurisdiction by not paying the taxes, as in that case my liberty and property
was in as much danger as all the rest of my fellow subjects in the Colonies have
thought theirs, by submitting to a tax laid on them by the British Parliament,
and which they have always withstood.

"Now, Sir, AS THE COLONY OF VIRGINIA HAS THIS WINTER EXTENDED THE LAWS OF THAT
GOVERNMENT TO THIS PART OF THE COUNTRY, BY RAISING THE MILITIA AND APPOINTING
CIVIL OFFICERS, I shall no longer countenance the laws of your Province by pleading
to any actions brought against me, unless brought by the Colony of Virginia; for it must be granted that if any Colony has a right to extend their laws to this Country, Virginia
must, until his Majesty's pleasure be known therein.
.........

St. Clair wrote Penn from Hannastown, the county seat of Westmoreland County,
December 18th, 1774:
"Being this far on my way to Pittsburgh I found this morning a constable from
Virginia here, who had made two men prisoners by virtue of a warrant from Major
Smallman. The offence they had been guilty of, it seems, was assisting the
[Pennsylvania] constable in executing a judicial warrant. MR. HANNA
HAD COMMITTED THE [VIRGINIA] CONSTABLE, which I could not help approving
of; but as there is some danger of his being rescued by force, I have
advised the sending of him to Bedford."

Before daybreak on the 7th of February, 1775, fifteen armed Virginians, under the lead of BENJAMIN HARRISON, RODE INTO HANNASTOWN AND BROKE OPEN THE DOORS OF THE JAIL, RELEASING THREE PRISONERS. They were acting under an order from Major William Crawford, formerly one of the Pennsylvania justices, but now holding a commission from Virginia. Later in February Connolly's soldiers arrested James Cavet and Robert Hanna, two of the Westmoreland County justices, and placed them under confinement in Pittsburgh, where they remained for more than three months.

REVOLUTIONARY WAR ENSUES