AREA HISTORY: History of Adams County, Chapter II, Adams County, PA Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Kathy Francis Copyright 2005. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/adams/ _______________________________________________ History of Cumberland and Adams Counties, Pennsylvania Chicago: Warner, Beers & Co., 1886 _______________________________________________ Part III, History of Adams County, Pages 7-12 HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY CHAPTER II. THE INDIANS-FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR-MARY JAMISON, THE INDIAN QUEEN-HANCE HAMILTON- MCCORD’S FORT-ASSOCIATED COMPANIES IN YORK COUNTY IN 1756. The discoverers of America found the Indians in possession, in the Indian’s way, of this Continent, or to that portion of it that was known to them. Their ideas of possession of the land, personally, were nearly as vague as that of the wild animals that would use certain districts, when unmolested, for breeding purposes, and other portions as feeding grounds, to which they would migrate with the seasons. In their natures they were wild and roving, and their round of life was simply one of ignorant savages breeding ignorant savages. Hunt for something to eat and war for fun and glory was the measure of his type and race. They seemed to possess nothing that could advance them even toward the light of civilized beings. They were lazy, cowardly, filthy and densely ignorant, and every evidence we now possess of them leaves the inevitable conclusion that, had this country remained unknown and unoccupied by the white man through all ages, the Indians would have continued stationary, and persistently non-progressive. The French and Indian war upon the English settlements commenced in 1755. The particulars of that bloody struggle and much of the story of the terrible sufferings of the border settlements are given in the preceding part of this work, in the history of Cumberland County. The people of what is now the territory of Adams County were fortunately spared the terrible experiences of all the other border settlements. The invaders came from the north, and the South Mountains seemed to have placed bounds to a great extent to their savage visitations, and there were but few of the roving bands, in small squads, that made stealthy raids upon the helpless people. We, therefore, content ourselves with a short account of what transpired here, so far as can now be gleaned from the different historians of those days. Hazzard, in Vol. V, Penn. Reg. says: “In 1775, the country, west of the Susquehanna, possessed three thousand men fit to bear arms, and in 1756, exclusive of the provincial forces, there were not one hundred; fear having driven the greater part into the interior.” This plainly indicates how the terror-stricken people were compelled to abandon their homes and everything, and flee for their lives. Louden’s Narrative, after reciting a long list of captures and massacres, says: “May 29, 1759, one Dunwiddie and Crawford, shot by two Indians, in Carroll’s tract, York County.” These were Adams County men, whose names figure prominently in the records of the first settlers here. How briefly is the murderous story told! There is something blood curdling in its very brevity. From that we can judge that such reports were flying over the country in appalling iteration. On the same page in the same paragraph in this entry: “April 5, 1758, one man killed and ten taken, near Black’s Gap on the South Mountain. April 18 (same Year) one man killed and nine taken near Archibald Bard’s South Mountain.” The chronicler, it seems, was making a futile endeavor to enumerate the killed and captured and scalped, and name of the victims were lost in the multitude, something like the glory of a soldier whose grave is marked “unknown.” Again, “July 27, 1757, one McKisson was wounded, and his son taken from the South Mountain.” “August 17, 1757, William Waugh’s barn burnt in the Tract (the Manor), York (Adams) County, by the Indians. April 13, 1758, the house of Richard Baird (Bard), who owned a farm and resided on the southeast side of South Mountain, near the mill now known as Myer’s mill, on Middle Creek, about one and one half miles from Fairfield, was surrounded by nineteen Delaware Indians, and the occupants of the house made prisoners, as follows: Richard Bard, his wife and babe six months old; a bound boy; a little girl named Hannah McBride; Thomas Potter, nephew of Bard’s; together with Samuel Hunter and Daniel McManimy, who were at the time working in a field; and also a lad, William White, who was coming to the mill. Having secured their prisoners the savages plundered the house and fired it and the mill. July 3, 1754, a battle was fought at Ft. Necessity, or Great Meadows, about fifty miles west of Camberton, Md. The French and Indians won a signal victory over the English. Immediately after this battle the situation became very alarming to the settlers. The borderers in what is now Adams County erected a block-house near the present village of Arendtsville. Mary Jamison-The Indian Queen.-The strange story of Mary Jamison is a tragedy and romance in strong colors and remarkable contrasts. It could only have happened upon the borders in the early times. One of the earliest settlers in the southwest of Adams County, near the source of Marsh Creek, was Thomas Jamison (his wife was Jane Erwin). The first of the Scotch-Irish in that part of the county came in 1735-36, while Jamison and wife came in 1742 or 1743. When they sailed from Ireland they had three children-two sons and a daughter. During the voyage on the ship another daughter, whom they named Mary, was born, and whose birth upon the storm-tossed ocean foreshadowed the terrible and sad experiences of her life. Thomas Jamison was a thrifty, industrious man and an excellent and greatly respected citizen, and he soon had a fine large farm and was comfortable in this world’s goods. Two more sons were born to the family after reaching this country. In 1754 he moved his residence upon another part of his land and this brought him into the Buchanan Valley. One of his closest neighbors was James Bleakney, who survived and lived until 1821, and died at the age of ninety-eight years. And it was Bleakney’s granddaughter, Mrs. Robert Bleakney, who lived to a great age, from whom was learned by the present generation the important facts of the Jamison family. She gave the facts to Mr. H. J. Stahle and informed him that she had heard her grandfather often tell all the details, and the year the terrible tragedy was visited upon them. She pointed out the farm and the place where the Jamisons had lived, and the two trees under which the man murdered by the Indians had been buried. Of her capture Mary Jamison said: “Our family as usual, was busily employed about their common business. Father was shaving an axe-helve at the side of the house; mother was making preparations for breakfast; my two eldest brothers were at work near the barn; the little ones, with myself, and the woman with her three children, were in the house. Breakfast was not yet ready when we were alarmed by the discharge of a number of guns that seemed to be near. Mother and the woman before mentioned almost fainted at the report, and every one trembled with fear. On opening the door the man and horse lay dead near the house, having just been shot by the Indians. They first secured my father, then rushed into the house and made prisoners of my mother, my two younger brothers, my sister, the woman and her three children, and myself, and then commenced plundering the house. The party that took us consisted of four Frenchmen and six Shawanee Indians. They took what they considered most valuable, consisting principally of bread, meal and meat. Having taken as much provision as they could carry, they set out with their prisoners in great haste, for fear of detection, and soon entered the woods.” The two eldest boys, Thomas and John, fortunately escaped. They were at the barn when the band attacked, and hid in a hollow log and were not discovered. Eventually they went to Virginia, to their maternal grandfather. The captors with their ten captives rapidly traveled westward. They would lash the children cruelly to make them keep up, and all day and all night they gave them no water or food. Toward noon of the next day they passed a fort, now Chambersburg, and the evening of the second day reached the border of a “dark and dismal swamp,” into which they were conducted a short distance to camp. In some way the savages ascertained that they were pursued. A determined band of Jamison’s neighbors, headed by a Mr. Fields, had started in pursuit and were gaining on the fugitives. Fearing to be overtaken if they continued to encumber themselves with so many prisoners, the savages (white and red) massacred and scalped eight of them, viz.: Thomas Jamison, his wife, their daughter Betsey, their two sons, Robert and Matthew, Mrs. Buck and two of her children. Mary Jamison and the little son of Mrs. Buck were spared. The naked and mangled bodies of the slaughtered victims were found in that dismal swamp by the parties that had gone in pursuit. Mary was taken by the two Indian squaws in a small canoe down the Ohio River to a small Seneca Indian town called “She-nan-jee.” There She was arrayed in a suit of Indian clothing, was formally adopted as a member of the family, and received the name of “Dick-e-wa mis,” which, being interpreted, means “a pretty girl.” The Six Nations gave to Mary Jamison a large tract of land, known as the Garden Tract, and this grant was confirmed afterward by the Legislature of New York. On the 19th day of September, 1833, life’s long nightmare dream was over, and Mary Jamison peacefully sank into that dreamless and eternal sleep. She was buried in the grave-yard of the Seneca Mission Church, and a marble slab erected over her grave. While these acts were being perpetrated by the Indians, the white men of now Adams County were not mere idle spectators, or terror-stricken fugitives from their homes. During this French and Indian war Capt. Hance Hamilton raised and commanded in person 200 men, who were his neighbors, and many of whose descendants are now here. On the 4th of March, 1756, McCord’s fort, on the Conococheague, was burned by the Indians, and twenty-seven persons were killed and captured. Pursuit was made and the enemy overtaken at Sideling Hill where a stubborn battle was fought. The losses in Capt. Hamilton’s command were-killed Daniel McCoy, James Robinson, James Peace, John Blair, Henry Jones, John McCarty, John Kelly and James Lowder, and five others (names not given) were wounded. In the Penn. Archives is given by Richard Peters, then Secretary of the colony, a “list of the associated companies in York County in 1756.” In all there were at that time eight companies, and four of these were Adams County men, certainly commanded by Adams County men who had recruited the companies, and at that time men were cautious to enlist, only under men they personally knew. The following were the companies: One, Hugh Dunwoody, captain; Charles McMullen, Lieutenant; James Smith, ensign; 66 privates. Two, James Agnew, captain; John Miller, lieutenant; Sam Withrow, ensign; 60 privates. Three, David Hunter, captain; John Correy, lieutenant; John Barnes, ensign; 100 privates. Four, Samuel Gordon, captain; William Smiley, lieutenant; John Little, ensign; 100 privates. Thus there were at the early time 326 men from what was this sparsely settled territory. In a list of officers published in the Province, say in 1756, with date of commissions, we find the following in the Second Battalion: “Capt. Hance Hamilton, commission dated January 16, 1756, Lieut. James Hays, commission, May 22, 1756, ensign John Prentice, commission, May 22, 1756.”