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Episode 10 - Penn's Creek & Great Cove
179 Plays1 month ago
We're backing up a little bit to the fall of 1755, recounting the stories of two swift and deadly Indian raids on British settlements in Pennsylvania. Learn about the circumstances surrounding the massacres at Penn's Creek and the Great Cove, including discussion on native practices such as tribal adoption and running the gauntlet!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and thanks for listening.
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Transcript
Introduction and Fort Ligonier Visit
00:00:10
Speaker
welcome back to tales from the French and Indian War. I'm your host, Jackson, joined by always by my co-host, Matt. How are you today, Matt? Good. How are you, Jackson?
00:00:22
Speaker
I'm doing well. Last week, i I think I briefly mentioned to you, I visited Fort Ligonier out in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. And that, if any of you listeners live anywhere within two hours of Fort Ligonier, highly, highly recommend. I mean, even if you have to come from further away, it's still ah it's still a nice little town. There's other stuff to do besides the fort and the museum, but it is ah it's pretty top-notch. Matt, I don't know if I told you.
00:00:51
Speaker
but I was going to how close to Pittsburgh is that? For me, it was about an hour 45. If you're on like the eastern side of Pittsburgh, it's probably like hour 15, hour 30 But it's mostly east, a little bit south.
00:01:05
Speaker
So it's further east than like Fort Necessity and stuff like that. But the guy at the at Fort Ligonier told me that starting in like i think the 1960s, they started like painstakingly recreating the original fort as best as they as best as they could. like Most of where it was, there were like some houses there, and like eventually they like acquired those and kind of cleared them out. And now he said within six inches, they have the dimensions of the fort and like the buildings correctly, like from the original fort, which is pretty incredible.
00:01:42
Speaker
And it's a lot bigger than Fort Necessity too. So is it on the exact same spot as where the old fort was or was it a reconstruction in a different... location so i i think it is more or less on the same spot i think the one thing that has changed that the guy told me it was that the creek actually changed because they like rerouted it for some construction project in like the mid 1900s or something so the creek is like a little bit different but i believe the fort is like in the exact same spot which is pretty cool that's awesome
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah, highly recommend. Next time you come out this way, ah we'll have to see if we can get over there again. For sure.
Podcast Goals and Listener Ambitions
00:02:23
Speaker
But yeah, um I wanted to give a couple quick announcements or statements for everybody before we start talking about today's episode.
00:02:32
Speaker
One, if any of you listeners know anyone who lives in North or South Dakota or Alaska, you should tell them to listen to our podcast because those are the last three states we need to have at least one person listen to our podcast, according to the ah the analytics side of Zencaster.
00:02:51
Speaker
So then we can collect them all. So if you know anybody in those states, let them know. we'll even do, hey we'll do a special episode on all the battles that happened in Alaska. be You got to subscribe first though. We can't, we can't do that without the yeah Alaskans.
00:03:06
Speaker
All the French and Indian battles that ah the were battles that happened there. Yeah. That'll be a long, long episode. Also with this being our 11th full episode or 10th full episode, rather 11th, if you count the Christopher Gist short episode, but one of my goals for this podcast originally was to get at least 10 episodes and at least 30 monthly listeners. Cause my wife had mentioned that if you can hit both of those, you're in like the top 10% of all podcasts ever.
00:03:39
Speaker
I'm, I'm guessing there's just a lot of podcasts that have like one episode and then whoever created it kind of runs out of motivation. But we passed that.
00:03:50
Speaker
We passed the monthly listeners a while ago, surprisingly, but with our 10th full episode here, I can safely say we hit that. So it's been a lot of fun to not just come up with the idea for this and do the first couple episodes, but actually stick with it for, what has it been like five months now? Yeah.
00:04:08
Speaker
yeah six Yeah. Five or six months, just think we've been doing since some May or June. So yeah, almost half the year. I think it was just after the anniversary of the Jumonville Affair, May 28th. So I think it was like May 29th to 30th that we actually recorded for the first time, I think. Something like that. Awesome.
00:04:26
Speaker
But yeah, so so that's neat as well. And thank you all listeners for helping us get there.
Indian Raids in Pennsylvania
00:04:32
Speaker
So Matt, what are we going to talk about today? We are going to talk about Indian raids in Eastern Pennsylvania. So any of our Eastern Pennsylvania listeners.
00:04:44
Speaker
out there today listen up this will probably be in your backyard um i'll start off by talking about the penn's creek massacre which happened around modern day salins grove which if i got that wrong i apologize to any of our listeners there but um i'll start off talking about that and then jackson what are you gonna what are you gonna touch on i'm going to cover the great cove massacre great cove being near modern day i think it was mcconnellsburg i had it yes that's it I know like when we're learning about Native American history in school, especially around Thanksgiving, it's focused a lot on how the Native Americans helped the settlers and stuff like that. Well, as you heard from the name of our of our two select topics, the Penn's Creek Massacre what was yours? The Cove Massacre. Great Cove Massacre. massacre yeah these aren't going to be friendly affairs but uh in the spirit of thanksgiving we will touch on the dark side now i guess yeah yeah i guess it is ironic that we'll probably release this on thanksgiving or the day before thanksgiving and uh yeah not the the happiest indian european relations that are we'll be we'll be discussing today it wasn't always happy yeah Yeah, so the Penn's Creek Massacre happened in October of 1755. And this was by the Lenape tribe, which as Jackson has informed me. and We talked about a little bit off mic about how the Delaware Indians were also known as Lenape. Lenape was just what they called themselves, whereas as the European settlers called them the Delaware. So when were talking about the Lenape Indians, just think the Delaware tribe.
00:06:27
Speaker
And if if you grew up in Ohio or anywhere really in the the Northeast, I'm sure you've heard the Delaware tribe. It's not as not a small ah not a small tribe by any means, but we'll see they kind of get pushed around by the the Iroquois League. And that's kind of what led to this to this raid and happening. So as I said, this was 1755 in October.
00:06:49
Speaker
This happened in modern day Salinsgrove, which at that time was this little settlement called Penn's Creek. Living there were 26 settlers at the time. And Lenape, right before this, I won't say right before this massacre, but before this massacre had allied with the French, um So they were they were fighting for the French at the time, and i kind of want to dive into this.
00:07:11
Speaker
May I jump in real quick for a moment? Yes, sir. To remind our listeners, especially if you haven't listened to our previous episodes, this alliance was recently, at a recent occurrence, mainly due to the English General Braddock's defeat a few episodes ago, and we talked about earlier this year 1755 in seventeen fifty five in july And that catastrophe ended up pushing some of these Ohio country Indians, including the Delaware that were living out there with the Lenape to cement their alliance with the French. So some of the stuff we were just talking about directly leads into today's episode.
00:07:49
Speaker
Correct. Yeah. And just as a reminder, too, that happened back in July of 1755. So this is only three months later in October. And at this time, too, i I believe the French and the Native American tribes that had joined the French after that battle were beginning to march east. And one of their targets was the Susquehanna River, too, which I think I'm saying that right. Is it Susquehanna or Susquehanna?
00:08:12
Speaker
I don't know. I've heard it both ways. i mean, i have not been there myself. I've stuck to Western PA, but I've heard Susquehanna as the pronunciation, at least from people around here.
00:08:23
Speaker
We'll stick with your native tongue then. We'll go with the Susquehanna River. um It was a major supply line in the area. And if you're familiar with Pennsylvania geography at all, it's so like one of the only rivers that runs north to south in eastern PA. So it's a major supply line for the area, especially getting through the Alleghenies.
00:08:42
Speaker
But when they when they were marching, it was about a 1,500-man force. They sent out little groups of Lenape Indian scouting parties ahead of them. And we'll see that they're responsible for a few raids, one of them being this Penn's Creek Massacre. So there's a little bit of background.
00:09:00
Speaker
Jackson, you have something? Yeah, ah the only thing i might add is there's a few different purposes or reasons, or I guess ah objectives and goals for these kind of raids that would strike all across Pennsylvania, into Maryland, into Virginia, even like deep into Western and Southern Virginia.
00:09:22
Speaker
A few different goals. One was simply terror, terrorize the English settlers, drain their morale, send them fleeing back east to where they will disrupt life there, be burden on resources.
00:09:34
Speaker
Another is just to destroy the economy of Pennsylvania by eliminating all of these farming communities and these small settlements. And then additionally, a lot of these, some of these settlements, whether in a sketchy manner or just outright illegally, are on what was considered Native American land at the time. So it is seen as a removing them from ah that area, from from Native hunting grounds or or otherwise acquired or not acquired Indian land. So there's a few different...
00:10:06
Speaker
ah factors and goals that the Indians spurred on by the French while they are undertaking all of these raids across the frontier. Yes. um Yeah, no,
Penn's Creek Massacre
00:10:17
Speaker
definitely for sure. thanks for Thanks for that ad. And I also wanted to dive into and just some of the background this before we get into the actual raid.
00:10:26
Speaker
Keep our listeners on the edge of their seats. But the background of why, and Jackson talked about a little bit about the Braddock's defeat and why the Delaware and some of these tribes had allied with the French. It kind of goes a little bit back even further, further than the Mape.
00:10:41
Speaker
There's some interesting history here that you'll probably remember if you listened to our first few episodes. We talked about the Albany Congress that happened in 1754, which was you know when seven colonies met with about 150 leaders of ah the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. so We touched on that before a little bit, but it actually does have a pretty big effect here.
00:11:05
Speaker
so mean Not to back up even more, but the Iroquois were kind of like a big brother to Lenape. They were actually known as, i believe, the the man tribe. It was like the man tribe and the woman tribe. Lenape were the woman, and this is believed to have dated back to around 1717 1707 when the Iroquois had beaten the in war and they'd signed an agreement basically saying that Lenape cannot make peace, make war, or really engage in any substantial commerce or anything without the, uh, the oversight of the, uh, the air. They were kind of like vassals to kind of put it into more European terms, subjugated kind of vassal tribe to the Iroquois league.
00:11:58
Speaker
Exactly. So the Iroquois League had a lot of power to say what was going to happen to Lenape and the Iroquois League didn't have to go to Lenape first and ask them what was okay and what was not. it was the other way around. So in 1754 at the, at the Albany Congress, as part of that, kind as part of that meeting, the Iroquois league agreed to give up a lot of land where it was all of Lenape land to ah British colonists and allow settlement there. And Lenape had no say in that at all. And then this goes back to even further. ah Jackson has talked about the, the walking purchase a little bit.
00:12:38
Speaker
I won't touch on that in a second because that's, that's also a very interesting story. But anyway, so at this Albany conference, the Iroquois give away most of the Susquehanna, Susquehanna Valley to ah British colonists and the British colonial government. So they can start settling in the area and Lenape one, they're not even at this conference. And then two, they just start seeing the colonists come and move into the area and start settling. And so it causes a lot of, uh,
00:13:08
Speaker
a lot of frustration and anger towards the colonists. And obviously they have anger towards the Iroquois too, but there's not much they can do about it because of the, the vassal agreement we had talked about before.
00:13:19
Speaker
ah So that happened. That's kind of like the main, one of the main linchpins for Lenape. And interestingly enough, Benjamin Franklin was heavily involved in that. Him and John Penn, who is the, I believe the grandson of,
00:13:34
Speaker
William Penn, so the founder of Pennsylvania. So, you know, some big names there that were in the Albany Congress and had ah kind of orchestrated the Albany Purchase, which led to the loss of Lenape land. So that happened 1754. Back up even further to this concept known as the Locking Purchase.
00:13:57
Speaker
And being a real estate attorney, this is very interesting to read about. because I bet. What had happened was Thomas Penn and John Penn, who were uncles, I believe, of – or no, I take that
Great Cove Raid and Cultural Impact
00:14:11
Speaker
back. No, was Thomas Penn. and Okay, there was two John Pens. That's why i'm getting confused. There was a Thomas Penn, John, also known as the American Penn, were uncles. That's quite a nickname. Yeah, I know, right? were uncles to John Penn, who had mentioned before, as a grandson of William Penn. So this is all the Penn family.
00:14:29
Speaker
In 1737, they went to with a draft of a deed claiming that It was a a legitimate deed that was presented to Lenape or, i guess, executed by Lenape 50 years prior. So we're talking now into the 1600s, late 1600s. And this was a deed that William Penn, their father, had executed bitally way back when for this land purchase. Lenape obviously thought like, oh, no, this is definitely fraudulent. We don't remember signing this deed or remember anything about it. ah but from pressure not only from the British colonies, but also from the Iroquois Confederacy, they were kind of forced into recognizing legitimacy, even though they didn't want to. And what this deed said was that basically, however far ah these individuals from the the British, and I don't know the exact text of the deed, but the main concept was that the buying parties, so this would be the British colonists,
00:15:32
Speaker
could own as much land as a man could walk and i believe it was in i think it was in a in a day how long they could walk in day either a day or a day and a half yeah so yeah i'm trying to remember now from my research what it was but either way so it was kind of a weird concept but the time you know they didn't have any like true land surveying or none of this land was surveyed so it was a fair measurement tool i guess trying to be like a reasonable the reasonable idea of how far a man could walk at least that's what's in the the delaware what's in their heads for this yeah but we'll see what the pennsylvanians uh end up doing
00:16:19
Speaker
Yeah, they definitely did not use the reasonable standards. So the Penn brothers, ah so that again, this is John and Thomas, they went and hired the three fastest runners in the Pennsylvania colony to take this quote unquote walk. And then they had the paths that these walkers were supposed to quote unquote walk cleared ahead of time and marked the paths for them. So Yeah. So you have the fastest, fastest runners in the colony. They have a marked path that is already cleared.
00:16:51
Speaker
So the three of them set out, two of them actually gave up, but Edward Marshall, who was the final or the lasting runner managed to cover 65 miles in 18 hours, which like a ultra marathoner.
00:17:05
Speaker
Yeah. That's like, that's, that's insane. Um, but that resulted in all of the Lenape land being taken from them pursuant to that deed. which is crazy. So then, so you have that, which happened back in 1737. Of course, na be expanded since that time.
00:17:21
Speaker
a lot, or I would say the majority of their land is then given away and the Albany Congress. So Lenape do not have a good feeling about the British. And I am not surprised that they allied with the French after Braddock's defeat. So that is just some interesting background. I don't like, we had talked about the walking purchase before, but. but just Yeah, just very briefly. And this, what you're mentioning there, contrasts very greatly with the French style of expansion, which is more anchored by forts and trading posts.
00:17:52
Speaker
ah You know, these the Lenape, the Delaware, are experiencing very much firsthand expansion. the kind of rapid population increase and land grabbing of the British colonies.
00:18:05
Speaker
They look over at the French over in the Ohio country, and it's just a few forts. They're promising not to bring settlers, and so far, settlers aren't coming. ah You can see how that as well, combined with other factors, their kind of domination by the Iroquois, combined with Braddock's disastrous defeat earlier that year, how all of these different factors kind of spur them on to take up the hatchet and join with the French and start attacking these English settlements in eastern PA and all throughout the frontier.
00:18:36
Speaker
yep And so just to get the actual raid here, the raid itself, I would say, is not as interesting as the background of it. There was eight warriors that were from the Lenape group that had set out and found, I believe it was 26 settlers at Penn's Creek at this time. They showed up in the early morning hours, and we actually know the names of all eight native warriors involved in this. That's pretty rare. for an engagement experience. It
00:19:07
Speaker
And well, one of the reasons is there was ah a movie made about this that Jax and I had just been talking about before this episode. The movie is called, which we have not seen, so you cannot fault me if it's not a good movie, but it is called Alone Yet Not Alone.
00:19:22
Speaker
came out in 2013. And I think it's more about the captivity that was involved because as I talk about this, you'll see that like quite a few of the settlers were taken captive rather than rather than killed. So I think it it focuses more on that. But regardless, if you're interested in this raid after hearing this episode, I would recommend that.
00:19:41
Speaker
Now, it's interesting. One brief note before you get into the details of the raid. ah You mentioned how this movie has been made about the captivity story. i i had read it mentioned somewhere that in this time period in colonial America, or at least just after the war,
00:19:57
Speaker
um Other than like the Bible, the most common like reading material, the most popular reading material were Indian captivity stories, like stories of ah European or European descended settlers who got captive, who were taken captive. And then at some point like escaped or made their way back or were released or things like that. But it was like very popular literature. So it's kind of funny that even in the 2010s, there's ah you know still like movies being made about this kind of subject, which is, i would say, inherently fascinating. But that's just an interesting note of a popular fascination.
00:20:33
Speaker
yeah the Yeah, the captive story and like, you know, the the survival aspects of it, I think is just, yeah. It's a lot ah lot more attractive than just being brutally murdered in in these games well yeah like Some of the settlers just... I'll say the eight names of these warriors that were involved. I'm going to butcher this.
00:20:54
Speaker
One of them was Keck, Kenny Perlin, which I'm sure that's wrong. ah Joseph Compass, which I'm pretty sure that's right. And young Joseph Compass. So I'm assuming, and i Jackson, you might be able speak more on this. I'm assuming that some of these, like the Delaware and Eatons and the Iroquois had taken on some English names or something of that nature. Either that or it was just a European given name that since we're reading from essentially English sources, they would refer to that
Policy Shifts and Socio-political Impact
00:21:29
Speaker
figure. Like I will talk briefly about Captain Jacobs, who...
00:21:32
Speaker
is real His actual Indian name, and super well, I guess his just actual name, was Tawaya. But for some reason, I don't know the the backstory about how he came to be called Captain Jacobs, but usually when you're reading sources, they refer to him as Captain Jacobs. And that's most probably a name that English speakers gave to him for some reason, because it's a lot of these English names are easier to pronounce than the Native American names.
00:22:01
Speaker
Okay. That makes more sense because then we have a young Thomas Hickman. And then we have Kalisquai, Tsuchi, Machinago, and Katuchkwai. I butchered all of those. but Very good, I'm sure. I don't know. They were all mentioned. So... uh anyway and you'll see as i talk through this so this settlement was not ah british colonists so it was under the british crown uh but these were mostly swiss and german settlers so some of these names might sound ah french ish when i'm talking about them but just remember this is a ah british settlement even though they are not from the the british empire which as jackson and i have talked about before is one of the main reasons britain does uh
00:22:46
Speaker
A little bit better on the manpower than than France does in this war. Oh, yeah. More open immigration policies. But regardless. So the first ah the first person attacked in this camp, his name was Jean ah Jacques Leroy. And he had a he had very brutal death. So he was attacked in his house, still alive.
00:23:07
Speaker
the ah The native attackers set his house on fire. um And then he, I believe, ran out of the house and they buried two tomahawks in his head. So not a great start to the battle. But um his body was later discovered, I think, by his family.
Reflections and Listener Feedback
00:23:21
Speaker
And where his body was discovered is now known as the Royce Spring, which is a little tiny creek that flows into Penn's Creek, which is the tributary of Susquehanna. And then that tiny stream flows into like a bigger creek called Schweitzer's Run or Switzer's Run. so Yeah, if you're familiar with this area, that's why. It's because Jacques Leroy's body was found there. It's always fun to remember the origin of names of just the places we live in and drive by. Yeah, exactly. um And then, so outside of that, ah you know, i the Native American attackers killed most of the men they could find. They killed...
00:24:03
Speaker
mostly men and elderly women. 13 of the 26, or actually I take it back, 14 of the 26 settlers in this settlement were murdered, 13 were men, and then a few elderly women were also killed.
00:24:18
Speaker
And then one was a two-week-old infant, which is sad. I mean, these are obviously all sad. but ah But so, and then ah one other story in this raid that I wanted to talk about. So you had Jacques Leroy, which is, he's one famous person who was killed here. Another one is the Leininger household, which again is a Swiss name. Two of the Lenape attackers traveled to this household, which was about a half mile away from the settlement, which was...
00:24:47
Speaker
Pretty interesting that I'm assuming they scouted beforehand. So it wasn't really part of the settlement, but it kind of was. Anyway, they wrote to this household and demanded rum from... the the people that were there, but they didn't have any room. So they gave the the natives tobacco. So then these two Lenape warriors stood outside, smoked a pipe outside the house, and then told the inhabitants, the Leininger family, that we're Allegheny Indians and your enemies, you must all die. And then they shot the father, they tomahawked the son, and then they took 12-year-old Barbara and nine-year-old Regina captive, which I believe those are like kind of the two main characters in that movie that we were previously talking about. So, ah yeah. So just suddenly it's a very cheery, extremely brutal warfare. Yeah. And I think the reason we're touching though on the brutality of this is the effect that these rates have, which Jackson and I can kind of talk about the end too.
00:25:46
Speaker
the They're not, I wouldn't say, as what we would typically think of like an act of like terrorism, but in a way they they kind of function that way. um Not only is Jacksonville... feel like it would would have to necessarily be called terrorism, even though when we think of terrorism, we think of much more like the ah modern last 50-year phenomenon, but I mean, it's direct attacks against civilians too for the purpose, for the purpose of among others, of spreading terror into the hearts of your enemies. but That's yeah pretty classic terrorism, I'd say, even though the words are charged and everything.
00:26:24
Speaker
That's a good point. And like, and really, it's not so much that, oh, like the natives are brutal and they have no regard for human life. It was more of a, it was a tactic decision that, you know, they don't kill someone by burying tomahawks in their head for no reason. It's to send a message, which a lot of this was so.
00:26:41
Speaker
that's ah That's kind of the Penn's Creek Massacre in a nutshell. I think the background is little more interesting than the actual raid itself, but um I think it's kind of cool that we know most of the names of the people involved, which was, as Jackson mentioned, very rare for this time period, especially with a small settlement like this.
00:26:59
Speaker
Yeah, i that must go to testify about the psychological impact of these raids to where they were thought of so much. And tells about the the impact on the the psyche of Pennsylvania and the colonies to where even these small scale settlement raids are still talked about today and still remember and still have movies being made about them.
00:27:23
Speaker
So, yeah, even though it's a small scale action, the impact of it is large, much larger. And I will also say too, just on the last touch, and I'm sure we'll talk about this at the end a little bit, but Pennsylvania was founded by Quakers, which I'm sure you know if you live there, if you're from around the country, you might not know that. Obviously, you know, a group of people that do not believe in warfare and they're pacifists in nature. So a lot of the settlers in Pennsylvania were also Quakers. So seeing that ideology kind of being shocked by this brutality of Native American warfare, I think is another factor that we'll see come into play.
00:28:01
Speaker
Yeah, we might talk a little more about that at the end, or definitely once we do an episode on the Catanning Raid, we'll definitely dive more deeply into intra-Pennsylvanian politics in the 1750s, because that's a necessary part of the story. Sure.
00:28:19
Speaker
Yeah, so now we're going to move over to the Great Cove. so if you have Google Maps open, which I do suggest for a lot of our episodes, just because geography plays such an important role and can help ah color in the stories that we're telling, because when you just listen to our voices, it's a you know it's a lot different than seeing something for yourself.
00:28:43
Speaker
But this raid, the series of raids that will happen just a few weeks later on November 1st, 1755, is going to take place in an area called the Great Cove, which is near modern day McConnellsburg.
00:28:57
Speaker
So if you're, this is more in central Southern Pennsylvania, whereas Penn's Creek was more in like Eastern Central PA, I believe. But if you're looking on a map, this is right in the middle of those long, thick curving allig Appalachian Mountains. So the the Appalachian Mountains split Pennsylvania in half pretty much, or mostly in half. They kind of come in from the East by the border with New Jersey and New York.
00:29:27
Speaker
go west across the state. Once they hit the center of the state, they start curving south into Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia. So the settlements that populated the Great Cove are within these long ridges of mountains in the Appalachian Mountains.
00:29:45
Speaker
So this is taking place a little bit west, southwest of Carlisle, which is the most substantial frontier settlement in Pennsylvania at this time. Kind of like the last stop before its rugged wilderness and just a couple isolated cabins and very small but growing settlements.
00:30:04
Speaker
This is also, so it's about 60 miles from... Carlisle. It's also about 45 miles west of Gettysburg for any listeners that are big into Civil War history. I'm a big Gettysburg fan. Well, no, I won't say fan. I'm a purveyor of Gettysburg. don't think that's a better word. Because you passed through gettys you've been Gettysburg before, right, Matt?
00:30:26
Speaker
I have, yes. I've spent a lot of time there. So if you came from Ohio, there's probably a good chance you drove through McConnellsburg or at least near it. So you will have passed through the kind of geography that these settlers lived in. Oh, I think this it is, this sorry, Jackson, this is PA Turnpike run through McConnellsburg. It looks like 30 goes through it.
00:30:46
Speaker
out there Oh, okay. Yeah, that's right. Is a little bit north of it. Okay. Gotcha. but Anyway, so this is in one of the many places. ah narrow and long valleys within the Appalachian Mountains. It's in kind of like the first little pocket or cove, little valley. It's called the Great Cove.
00:31:06
Speaker
This area started getting settled in the 1730s by Scotch-Irish immigrants. although This is a case, like when we talked with Brady Kreitzer about the different kinds of British settlements, some legal, some sketchy, some illegal. This is one of the illegal settlements. So this is specifically denoted or set aside as Indian lands or Indian hunting grounds.
00:31:30
Speaker
But settlers started popping up there trying to flee authority in the east or just make their own life out by their own rules in the mountains. But by 1750 in May, the Pennsylvania government, they end up taking action against some of the settlements in this area.
00:31:48
Speaker
I think just to the north of where this is going to take place. They expel some of the settlers living in this area, send them back east and burn down their cabins. And that corresponds with the present day location, just i think a little north of here called Burnt Cabins, Pennsylvania. Ah!
00:32:07
Speaker
Very indicative of what happened. Yes. So that happened in 1750, but that didn't really stop the slow trickle, slow but steady trickle of settlers out into these frontier mountainous areas where typically there is little to no colonial oversight.
00:32:25
Speaker
um So by 1755, there were about 90 families living in this Great Cove area. think ah a month or two ago, I watched a video by the channel, The Wandering Woodsman, I think is the channel name, but he does a lot of site visits of French and Indian war sites. I think he lives somewhere around Central or Eastern PA.
00:32:46
Speaker
but I got to see from his video. It is a pretty like beautiful area. He got up on one ridge of the mountain and look, looked across the great cove. And then, uh, you could kind of see so the typical like Pennsylvania and Appalachian Valley. It's much more cleared out now for farming and stuff like that. It would have been almost entirely, uh, wooded, but even hills today are still very wooded.
00:33:11
Speaker
Um, so it's kind of this idyllic, isolated little valley and that's where this is taking place but yeah there's about 90 families here and just a couple weeks after the penn's creek massacre there is a band of about 100 shawnee and delaware or we could say shawnee and lenape indians that are entering the area looking for targets so Penn's Creek and Great Cove aren't the only raids. There's dozens and dozens of these. Some that don't have names. Some like the ones we're talking about that are a little bit more well-known.
00:33:44
Speaker
So this, ah you know, it's like every week there is some kind of frontier attack. So finally, the heat comes on the Great Cove. is about 100 Indians led by Shingas and Captain Jacobs, who we just mentioned earlier, his real name, Tawaya. He was a Delaware Indian based out of Catanning, where a lot of these raids originated. It was kind of like the staging ground for Indian raids further east. And that, of course, corresponds with modern day Catanning, Pennsylvania. It's essentially the same location. was going to say, I thought I heard of Catanning, PA. Yes, I am hoping to visit there soon. They don't really have any. I think they just have like historical plaque and that's kind of it, which is a shame. But at some point, I'll make my way up to Allegheny to there just to check out the area where that important Indian village was located.
00:34:38
Speaker
But yes, these are the two kind of like head chiefs of the attack. There may have been a couple of French soldiers along with them, according to some of the survivor reports. So possibly about two or three French soldiers, but about 100 Indians. As they approach the area, the force splits in two, roughly 50 and 50.
00:35:00
Speaker
One band is going to attack the nearby area of Conolaways. I'm sure I didn't pronounce that right. ah The other band is going to hit the settlements in this Great Cove.
00:35:13
Speaker
So this attack, it's ah both a surprise and not a surprise. So obviously frontier violence had been increasing. They were hearing reports from other settlements.
00:35:24
Speaker
And then i think there was a survivor who escaped captivity who kind of arrived in the Great Cove and told them about Indian activity in the area.
00:35:35
Speaker
So about half of the families that were living in the great cove end up leaving the, before this attack happens, which is very good for them, but there are still the other half of families living there. And I don't know, i imagine some of them just didn't know because maybe they were in the edge of the settlements or a little bit like, you know, a few miles away and they maybe didn't get the the same warning that some of the other families did.
00:35:59
Speaker
They either didn't know or they chose to remain. I'm i'm not sure the kind of the split between those two options. But I'm sure regardless, if you even if you did know was coming or that something could potentially be coming, that would be a difficult decision to make.
00:36:17
Speaker
know, you've... Whether whether it was legal or not, you've kind of headed off into the mountains to start a new life and with your new community, clear out your own land and farm it. And then everything you work for could be in jeopardy.
00:36:31
Speaker
And if you leave, you know you might come back to smoking ruins. But then, of course, if you stay, you might have smoking ruins and you're dead too. So not ah not a good situation for the settlers to be in.
00:36:45
Speaker
it almost reminds me of like when like people that live in Florida, there's like a hurricane coming and you have like a bunch of people that like, I've, I've had family down there. That's like, Oh, we never leave for hurricanes. Like we're never, never leaving our home. and And not that this is ah a good comparison at all, but I'm just thinking of like the, you know, the back and forth decision-making, like you mentioned Jackson of like, Oh, am I going to leave everything I've built? And, you know, just come back and find it burnt and destroyed, or am I going to risk my life and stay?
00:37:15
Speaker
yeah Yeah, probably similar similar kind of decision making to be done there. But the attack happens. I don't have, or I didn't find at least, a lot of details as to the precise mechanics of the attack. I didn't go too deep until like they went to you know this person's house first and this person. But As this band of about 50 Indians goes throughout this valley, the Great Cove, about 50 people end up being killed or captured. As kind of people emerge the the following day, as other settlements kind of send troops to the area to in militia to investigate or see if the ah the attackers are still in the area, they take the tally. There's about 50 people killed or captured.
00:38:00
Speaker
ah Most of the captives will be brought back to Catanning and from there they will be dispersed throughout any number of other Indian settlements or even make their way up to New France where they might be sold.
00:38:13
Speaker
Families could they could be kind of moved together or they could be split up as they are going deeper and deeper into Indian territory. i know there's one case I'll talk to talk about a little bit later of one of these captives. Well, now I might as well just get into it now. So one captive, Charles Stewart, he, along with his wife and two children were captured by the Shawnee and Delaware Indians. He was brought back into the Ohio country. And at some point his two children were sold off to ah different native families while he and his wife, I think they made it all the way out to, might've been like Detroit,
00:38:53
Speaker
so And i I couldn't find out if he ever got reunited with his children again. aye couldn i didn't see information on that. But ah this guy, Charles Stewart, he was actually the one who provided the quote that I found when we talked about the Battle of the Monongahela, where because as he was being taken captive by these Indians, including Shingus,
00:39:16
Speaker
He overheard him talking about how Braddock had kind of spurned the Indians' advice, and he had said resolutely that the Indians will not, he said, no savage would inherit the land.
00:39:28
Speaker
And it is remarks and positions like that which led Shingus and some of the other Delaware and Shawnee Indians to defect to the French rather than support the British, who they were originally were more willing to support. So that quote that I had read It came from a guy who was captured in this raid. so that was kind of a fun connection to make.
00:39:50
Speaker
Huh. Yeah. Small world in the 1700s. Yes. And one other thing, still staying Stuart, he, when he was brought back to a certain Indian village, I don't know Catanning or elsewhere, but he was forced to run the gauntlet. Now, Matt, do you know what that refers to? i believe it's when he has to run between a group of people that are probably have weapons i'm assuming or hitting him with them yes you got it and i believe that's where the the expression originates from oh really i believe so i mean it would really surprise me if like running the gauntlet did not have its origins in like indian customs in this specific indian custom
00:40:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It would just really surprise me if it wasn't the origin, but I've got a book here, Indians in Pennsylvania by Paul Wallace. I've read it before, but I remembered had a section describing this custom of running the gauntlet. So for anyone who doesn't know, I'm going to just read uh,
00:40:52
Speaker
A short description of it to to give some color. And this description comes from George Loskeel. The warriors, upon their approach to the first town in their own country, repeat the death whoop according to the number of scalps, trophies, or prisoners in their possession. Upon the signal, men, women, and children run out to meet them, placing themselves in two rows.
00:41:14
Speaker
The warriors step forward into the mist with the scalp holes and prisoners and force the latter to dance for the amusement of the spectators. A house or post is then shown to them in the village to which they are ordered to go.
00:41:28
Speaker
As soon as they set out, the people began to strike at them with switches, clubs, hatchets, or their fists. If they gain the house or post, though ever so bruised and bloody, they are perfectly safe." Indians acquainted with this barbarous custom escape great part of these cruelties by running towards the mark with all their might.
00:41:47
Speaker
Female prisoners are frequently rescued by the women who take them between their ranks and carry them to the town. So, i yeah, it's it's brutal. wonder if there's a scene like that that movie because you can imagine how, i mean, it almost feels like something from ah like a dystopian movie, like like The Hunger Games or, you know, some kind of like,
00:42:09
Speaker
in like wild fabricated situation that people are placed into or like some kind of extreme game show or something yeah yeah like uh these two rows of people all trying to hit them and they die if they don't make it or they make it and then they they'll live Did I hear you right? Is it so if you if you make it, then you're like perfectly fine? or I'm assuming you don't get freedom if you make it, but they like I'm assuming stop eating. think that would be that would set you more on the path of like adoption into the tribe, or at least you would live and then maybe you'd be sold to like someone else. But you would your your life would be safe, whereas if you didn't make it, then you would just die. Okay.
00:42:57
Speaker
That is an example of running the gauntlet, which I'm assuming Stuart and his wife must have survived in some respect. But yes, so that is a story. There's a few other like captivity accounts. I know there's another husband and wife, the Flemings, who were captured. But I think that like same night or the day after, i think they escaped.
00:43:21
Speaker
I won't talk too much on that because I didn't look too much into their story. I wanted to mention, I think the stewards were taken to Fort Sandusky. Toledo reference. Well, not really Toledo. Not Detroit. Okay. Well, they were taken. they i think they were eventually taken to Detroit. But okay um eventually, I think like part of the family, I think maybe the children were, or no, the children were given to native families.
00:43:45
Speaker
And then maybe Fort Sandusky was a stop on the way. But I did read about them. okay yeah i knew i knew i was somewhere in the upper ohio country exactly yeah local history oh how fun prison camp yeah yeah um yeah um but yeah and then i think in 1757 the stewards ended up getting exchanged uh in a prisoner release and they made their way back again i don't know if they reunited with their children Some of these captives that were taken in these raids would stay, if they didn't escape, they would stay, either willing or otherwise, with the Indian families and tribes that they eventually kind of got absorbed into or adopted into up until 1764, when this is just after the French and Indian War, but a related conflict known as Pontiac's War with a pan-Indian like revolt.
00:44:41
Speaker
um where colonel British Colonel Henry Bouquet drives an expedition into the Ohio country and as part of the peace terms he makes with the natives, he stipulates that all captives taken in the last 10 years, essentially since the start of the French and Union War, all ah European captives, white captives must be returned.
00:45:02
Speaker
And there's this interesting situation where for some it's like great joy, but for others, especially the children who were captured, like when they were very young, like they've just spent 10 years assimilating into Ohio country Indian life.
00:45:20
Speaker
And like if they were captured when they were like five or something, they're now 15 and have lived the two-thirds of their life as an Indian and then suddenly they're being forced to go back and it's very confusing and it's ah it's a very like sad situation all around. One, sad because massacres happen and children were kidnapped.
00:45:40
Speaker
too sad because you know maybe they eventually found a home in this among their previous captors after after they were adopted there and maybe the things were finally feeling like normal and then they were removed from that context and sent back to the european settlements it's just like all around sad i did want to ask you that jackson i don't know thinking maybe you know like when when the tribes would adopt European children, I'm assuming that like, obviously they didn't adopt them just for slaves. And I know that sometimes like the women were captured and taken as slaves, but I think, I mean, I think generally the children were brought up in the native American culture, the tribes culture, and then kind of became part of the tribe. Is that correct? Or am I thinking about that wrong? Yeah.
00:46:31
Speaker
So I can't give a comprehensive answer, but I will just say what I do know. i do know that for a lot of these tribes, population was a huge concern because you know stuff like smallpox in previous wars had really diminished their population. So tribal like adoption was a consistent method that they might use to increase the numbers of their tribes.
00:46:55
Speaker
I don't know how effective it was. Like if they took 10 prisoners, let's say like how many ended up assimilating into native culture and how many just escaped the first chance that they could, you know, I don't, I don't know that.
00:47:08
Speaker
Sure. But that was a specific, uh intention of many indian tribes like the iroquois the delaware shawnee you know a lot of indian tribes they wanted to get scalps which meant killing people but they also wanted to get prisoners to bring back now some of them i have read accounts where it refers to them as being slaves in indian lands i don't know if that's They would eventually be adopted or they were actually just kind of forced laborers, or maybe it was someone calling them slaves, not understanding the Indian custom of adoption.
00:47:44
Speaker
However, I also did hear accounts of some of these captives taken in raids and being sold to the French as slaves like or even to like French priests, like who would buy them. And I don't know if they bought them.
00:47:56
Speaker
to kind of save them from torture or if the French actually bought them to use them as slaves or to wait for a ah prisoner exchange to get some of their own captives back from the English.
00:48:07
Speaker
I don't know. But those are the ah the main things I do know regarding that custom. Yeah, helpful. Some of the depths. I certainly don't know and would have to do more reading.
00:48:19
Speaker
All right. yeah Did you, ah Jackson, I was going get sorry to, I saw the, is there a, ah I think there's a historical marker at this site now, right? Because I think there's a isn't there a mass grave at the the great Cove now?
00:48:35
Speaker
I remember. Do not know. I tried hovering over this area on Google maps and typing in great Cove. And it just kept bringing me to like a great Cove golf country club. So I don't think that is the site of the massacre, but I just know it's somewhere in the that Valley. that's I just found it. The historical marker was put 1988 and notes, at apparently i guess ah this was a mass grave and they're buried at the big spring graveyard in air township near mcconnellsburg uh but uh graveyard
00:49:09
Speaker
The historical marker says, among those buried here are victims of the Great Cove Massacre of November 1st, 1755, at present McConnellsburg. The raid was conducted by Delaware's and Shawnees, led by Shingez, the Delaware King. Houses were burned and about 50 settlers were killed or captured.
00:49:24
Speaker
It's revelation that a meeting in Pennsylvania's provincial council in November of 1755, like Governor R.H. Morris, to ask the assembly for increased frontier protection. So there you go. that's yeah Yeah, that's a great little...
00:49:37
Speaker
segue into the conclusion as to like what is the aftermath of these kind of raids i was gonna say you don't have to listen to this podcast you can just go look at this stuff yourself and get the same thing we told you that's a good that's a great find at least hey if nothing else that the fact that the information i presented correlated with that historical marker makes me feel good good that i wasn't misleading anyone this was actually an attack by the french and yeah
00:50:04
Speaker
Yeah. So yeah, no, this, these kinds of raids, they do, they generate widespread uproar and outcry among the British colonies in Pennsylvania. And particularly, as we mentioned, it was founded by Quakers and it had no like standing militia or like standing military force at this point.
00:50:25
Speaker
But these kinds of raids are going to break some of the government deadlock between Pennsylvania assembly and the, the Penn family. and some of the political factions involved in that. it's going to break the deadlock, and finally, Pennsylvania will begin basically providing for its own defense. it'll It'll raise a like standard military, and it will they will start to construct a large number of forts and block houses in the Appalachian Mountains to better protect their frontier because of raids like this.
00:50:59
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, no, i I found the same thing when I was looking at the Penn's Creek Massacre that, as we talked about, too, with the Quaker origins in Pennsylvania, it'll lead to Benjamin Franklin eventually pressuring the the Pennsylvania government to abandon the the Quaker philosophy, which is...
00:51:18
Speaker
fascinating but as you said jackson these um these attacks were i mean they were in in a sense terrorism uh and it led to ah a huge fear among british colonists in the area to not push settlement further west um because i think the the further they did the more the more these raids were occurring and Yeah, I think we'll we'll see how this plays out further further along in the war. But i think I'm glad we did this episode, though, because I think we would be we would be amiss if we didn't talk about um about these raids that are kind of happening in the meantime, because outside of the major battles, these have a huge psychological impact on the British.
00:52:00
Speaker
Yeah, I am ah glad we took the time to backtrack a little bit and cover them too. Got to specifically thank that one Facebook commenter we had who suggested that we kind of cover the the specifics of some of these raids. Let me try to see if I can find his name real quick.
00:52:19
Speaker
um But yeah, since, I mean, this is a podcast that is meandering its way through the French and Indian war. So we're happy to dive into and explore some of the more minor engagements because we've got all the time in the world, you know, ah we're not, ah if this, if going through this podcast ends up taking us like one year or two years or whatever, I mean, with an episode or two a month, I think, uh,
00:52:47
Speaker
Matt and I will enjoy that just as well. Our lister's name was Chris. Chris Riegel. Riegel or Regal? i apologize Oh, no, I'm sitting here. It's Alec because he oh he said, I hope you two do another actual episode covering some of the raids of the fall of 1755. Biased because they cover my home area in the Susquehanna Valley.
00:53:06
Speaker
uh chris was also looking forward to listening about the sasquahanna or sasquahanna oh excellent apologize so yes this episode goes out to you guys remember we're a small impressionable podcast so leave some comments if you want to sway our attention starved minds we'll talk about anything well yeah there anything else you would like to add before we close No, I think, I think we covered it. And despite what our friend Ben has pointed out, I'm not going to add something right after I tell you that. So um I will not do that. I think a good conclusion of the episode. All right. Well, yeah, I'm not going to tell you listeners what we'll be covering for next episode because I realized that when I do that, we have pivoted plans a couple times in a row. So next episode will be a surprise and you'll have to just deal with it and wait.
00:54:01
Speaker
But yes, we thank you all for listening. Remember to ask your Dakotan and Alaskan friends to tune into the podcast and we will see you in a few weeks.
00:54:13
Speaker
See you later.