History: Local: Upper Ligonier Valley During the Revolution: Westmoreland Co, PA

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HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY -

ALBERT, George D., ed. : History of the County of Westmoreland,
Pennsylvania, With Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Prominent Men.
Phila.: L.H. Everts & Co., 1882.

CHAPTER XXIII - pgs. 115-118
Upper Ligonier Valley During the Revolution

The Upper Part of Ligonier Valley -- Remains of the Old Indian Fort --
The Early Settlers here:  the Harmans, Gays, and others -- Williams'
Block-House the Place of Refuge for these Early Settlers -- Different
Murders and Captures in this Region -- Indians capture Andrew and
John Harman along the Four-Mile Run -- They kill one of the Neighbor's
Horses and take Another -- They watch the Cabin and hear the
Mother calling the Boys -- Carry the Boys towards the North -- John
Dies -- After trying to freeze Andy to Death, and Failing in other
Ways to kill Him, he at last is trained up with a Chief's son -- He
is parted with for a Bottle of Rum to an English Officer -- Taken
to London as a Servant -- After the Peace in 1783 comes Home, after
they had long thought him Dead -- His Account of their Ways of
Farming, of Hunting, and of Fighting, with several Anecdotes of his
Relating -- Capture of Jacob Nicely by the Cornplanters -- He is raised
And adopted by them -- Marries a Squaw and Dies among them -- His
Father visits him before his death.
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      In the upper part of the valley the inhabitants, from along Indian
Creek, about where is now Donegal, and from down the Four Mile Run, had
erected, as we have observed, a block-house on the place of a man named
Williams, which they called Fort Williams.  This was along the bottom of
Four Mile, and the place is nearly midway between Stahlstown and Donegal.
During the Revolution this block-house was a point to which the settlers
gathered, and when there appeared to be no more danger they went forth
again, gathered their stray cattle, and furrowed out a little patch for
corn or potatoes.

      Among the earliest settlers in that part of the valley were the
Hayses, the Williamses, and the Harmans.  Some of the settlers in this
part had come in 1767 and 1768, and were of those few who first looked
upon the remains of that singular structure which dates back to a
prehistoric age.  The remains of the Indian fort, as it was called, were
still visible forty years ago; it was, no doubt, but a burial-place of
some of that race which, antiquarians say, followed or were coetaneous
or identical with the historic mound-builders of the Mississippi
Valley.  The chief evidence of the existence of those people here is
drawn from their mural remains; and the plowshare has turned up the
bones and buried arms and trinkets from their stone crypts.

      The Harmans were perhaps among those who had settled in violation
of the laws of the Province, occasioned by the technical quibble as to
the rights of property in the ancient lords of the soil.  Here among
rocks and beasts, and half hidden from the savages and from the light,
the elder Harman, an emigrant from Germany, with his grubbing-hoe and
rifle, built a hut against a rock, covered it with bark, and began a
clearing.  Some of those who came at that time saw no other white face
than belonged to their own family for more than a year at a time, and
often, lived for a season on the greens growing in their "stony" garden,
and on berries from the woods.  When more settlers came in, the
settlements from each end of the valley began to meet; but the times
were, if anything, growing worse.  Then came a time when they were
continuously watching and fighting. For the greater part of several
years in the middle of the war the helpless children and some of the
women were left in the block-houses or at stronger cabins away.  In the
winter the homes were deserted, and when a family was murdered and a
cabin burnt, all flocked into the forts, till the hunters, like the dove
of the ark, returning, brought word that the waters were subsiding.

      The old man Harman, with three or four of his neighbors, as we
have seen, was about 1777 killed when coming from the lower part of the
valley.  These were all buried where they fell but one, who, after he
was shot, threw his arms about his horse's neck that the horse might
carry him off out of the reach of the savages. They did not get the
scalp of this settler, but he was found dead with his horse standing
near him.  The Indians took the horses of the others.  The families can
point out the graves of these buried men at this day.

      The widow of Harman was left on the clearing of her husband, how a
beautifully lying bottom-land along the creek, where the Laurel Run flows
into it, on the main road from Greensburg to Somerset by way of
Stahlstown.  Then deadened trees stood through the little spots cleared,
and stumps and piles of rocks were over more than half the ground.  She
had three boys, - Andrew, the eldest, fourteen years, and John and
Philip.  The widow and her children had been at the block-house, and
when the spring opened she came back to the cabin with them.  One
morning the widow heard or saw some neighbor's horses in the lot down
the next  curve of the stream, and she sent the two oldest boys out to
drive them off.  From behind the upturned roots of a large tree which
the water had washed and the storm had blown out there were three
Indians watching.  These were but a little way off the great Catawba
trail running through the valley, and they were on their way
northward.  They lay in wait watching, and the boys cam down directly
towards them.  When these were near enough the Indians jumped out and
readily captured John, but Andy ran back towards the house as fast as he
could.  He was followed by one of the red men, and hearing him coming up
close, he turned and saw the tomahawk as it glistened in the Indian's
hand over his head.  Andy threw his hands across his eyes to shut out
the sight, expecting on a sudden the tomahawk in his head.  The Indian
secured him without hurting, took him back to John, and as they could
talk a little English, told him not to call or make a noise or they
would be killed.

      The Indians took the boys, and climbing up this steep hill back of
the creek, got to a place from which they could see the cabin and the
mother near it, and from they heard her calling the boys, They dared not
answer; and the Indians asked them if there were any men at the cabin. 
Andy said there were, but there was not. They would have attacked the
cabin, pillaged it, and scalped the mother if they had known that she as
unguarded.  At length they left, and in a lot upon the hill near came
upon a horse and mare belonging to a man named Johnson, a neighboring
settler. They secured the young horses, but the mare being heavy with
foal, and of no use to them, they cut her throat.  They loaded the house
with some pelfrey which they had along, noticeably a camp-kettle which
they used for boiling their meat in when they had any.  They began their
journey and on the same day killed a doe.  Of the entrails of the doe
they made a soup.  Andy said he was afraid they would offer some of the
broth to him and his brother, but, on the contrary, they reserved this
for themselves, eating every morsel with avidity and relish. They cooked
over the coals some of the flesh of the deer, which they gave the boys. 
The first night they lay out on the Ridge not far from Fort Ligonier;
they were near enough to hear a noise there, to which the Indians
cautiously listened.  They gave the boys a deer-skin to lie down on, and
made moccasins for their feet out of the same material, for they were in
their bare feet, and had left their tracks with those of the Indians in
the sand along the creek when they were taken.

      These Indians had with them some things which had belonged to the
whites, and among these were seen a leather wallet. The boys thought
they recognized it, and asked them some questions, or at least showed
their curiosity.  The Indian who had it then asked Andy if he knew it,
and Andy said he did not.  The Indian said he got it from a little old
Dutchman they had killed the last year in the valley.  It was the
pocket-wallet of their father, and one of these, at least, was of the
party which had waited for the whites and killed them.

      When they came to the upper waters of the Susquehanna, which lay
in their way, they had some difficulty in crossing.  They had a canoe,
but only one of them could work it, and it happened that the boys were
left on the one side together with the guns.  Andrew said that they
might have shot the Indians from where they were then, and perhaps have
made their escape, if they had had the presence of mind to do so, but
they did not think of it at the time, and of course made no effort.
 They at length got to the town of the Senecas, or Cornplanters, as they
were called, from the name of a prominent chieftain best known to the
whites.  This tribe at an early day had many among them who could talk
in broken English.  They were now under the influences of the British,
but remaining on lands reserved by the Commonwealth to their use, their
descendants became partly civilized, and Cornplanter, then a young
chief, lived among them, and died at an exceeding great age, a friend of
the whites.  At that time there were many white captives among them.  The
following summer John, the younger of the two, died of a summer complaint
which took off many others, both red men and whites.

      Andrew appears to have been one of the fortunate ones.  He was
taken by a chieftain or prominent man of the nation -- some saying by
Cornplanter himself -- and kept in his family, in which there was a
young Indian of about his own age, and these became companions.  The
Indians, trying to call Andy by his English name, called him "Andus,"
the name he went by among them altogether.  Being young and pliable, and
having been brought up hardily, he easily fell into the habits and ways
of the Indians, and was treated by them as of their own.  His family by
adoption and some who liked him would not allow him to be ill treated or
abused by the selfish ones.

      It was during the second year of his captivity that was the attack
was made upon the villages and cornfields of the tribes along the
Allegheny by Brodhead and others who led out the expeditions of that
year from Westmoreland.  This occurring in the early part of a severe
season caused that improvident people much suffering.  At one time,
possibly without provisions; and as the snow was deep and the weather
severe, they had poor opportunity to get him out of the way in a manner
unknown and unsuspected.  One day, therefore, with this object
uppermost, he sent his boy, the comrade of Andy, and Andy himself down
the river on the frozen ice to another Indian town for corn.  The chief
was talking with his boy before they started, and Andy heard him say
that when they should come to a thin place in the ice, or another an
air-hole, to thrust Andus in.  Andy asked him what he had said, and the
chief replied he was telling the boy to put down an old dog which they
had and which followed them about.  Andy was on his watch, but the young
warrior did not make any attempt to do as he was bidden.  At another time
not far from this he was with his master himself hunting.  They were very
successful, for the man killed three deer and carried them to a place
together before he quit.  He then, towards the night, and at a distance
away, gathered up one which he had skinned, and took it upon his back to
carry it to camp, leaving Andus with the others, and telling him that he
would be back soon.,  It was bitter cold.  Andy wrapped himself in the
deer-skins,  the deer having been placed out of the reach of wolves, and
fell asleep.  He slept soundly, and in the morning was awakened by the
master kicking against him, expecting to find him frozen dead.  But
under the snow Andus was safe.  After that, Harman said, he thought they
had made up their mind to treat him as themselves, and not to kill him.

      He said likewise that there was one of the Indians of that tribe
who was something of a gardener, and that he always had the earliest
squashes and cucumbers "in the market."  Squashes, it would appear was
this epicure's favorite dish.  Andus, too, was fond of them, and the
early ones would be a change of diet.  So in the dusk of the evening,
when the gardener was in bed, Andus went to the patch, and pulling up a
mess brought them to the fire and covered them up in the coals.  He
expected to get up in the morning before any of the others and make his
breakfast on them. But man proposes, and so forth; and while Andus slept
a dog scratched out the squashes, and being a vegetarian feasted. When
Andy got awake he saw the rinds lying about among the ashes and trampled
upon.  He picked out what he well could to keep them from the sight of
the Indian.  Nothing was said of it.  The gardener soon, however, called
Andus to him, having before the fire a nice heap of the forbidden
fruit.  He asked Andus if he liked squashes, who said he did.  He told
him to help him cook them.  They were all prepared, the fire ready, and
they were put on to cook.  Andy did not suspect anything, but when he
was engaged stooping about the fire, the squashes nearly done, the
Arcadian jumped upon his back, cudgeled him, grabbed him by the throat,
and throwing him upon the ground choked and beat him so unmercifully
that the other ones interfered.  With difficulty Andus got away, but he
lay for a time almost dead.  He said that the resentment of his master
and some of the others was so great that if he had died under the
beating he believes they would have killed the gardener.  And Andus did
not wait for the squashes.

      Andrew being young when he was captured, and being surrounded all
the time by the red men, the knowledge of his home and relatives
gradually became dimmer.  He became in speech, in manner, and in habit
an Indian.  With them he feasted, hungered, fished, hunted.  He remained
with them for somewhat above two years, when he was traded to a British
officer he was carried to England, and remained in London for about two
years.  Then the peace occurring he was exchanged with other prisoners
and allowed to go at large.  He left the vessel at New York and found
his way back to Ligonier Valley.  His mother was still living.  He
entered her cabin, and a woman who happened to be at the house of the
Widow Harman on that day related long after the scene which she then
witnessed.  The old mother, after recognizing her long-lost child, her
eldest born, for whom she had for years given up the hope that he was
walking among the mortals, and who now stepped out, as it were, from the
dead, seeing, she uttered a long shriek and fell into the arms of her
boy.  Her joy, mingled with grief, could not be controlled.  In the
words of the aged narrator, "she might have been washed in her tears."
The news flew fast that little Andy Harman, who had been carried off
years ago, was now in his mother's house. On the next Sunday the lowly
cabin was crowded the livelong day.  From up and down the valley, from
the cabins built like aeries on the rocks of the hills, men and boys and
women came.  The mother and her son, who now took his father's place,
lived long together.  Andrew Harman, following his early habit of life,
was content to pass most of his time in the woods.  He was known as one
of the best hunters in the whole region.  He attended the numerous
parties at wood-choppings and clearings, and it was his delight, and the
delight of the boys to have him do so, to imitate the wild red men in
their war-dances. He would tie a blanket about his head, and taking a
tomahawk in one hand and a butcher-knife in the other, would dance and
yell and sing to the music of the violin, and at every distortion of his
body strike the hatchet and knife till the sparks flew. He could not bear
to have the Indians talked badly of. He always took their part, and it is
said that he even longed to escape from civilization and rove a
half-savage, living as they lived.  It is not at all unreasonable, for
all experience teaches that it is easier to make an Indian of a white
man than a white man of an Indian.  In his gait, his style in the woods,
in his idioms and gestures one might discern the effect of the habit
which makes second nature.  These habits themselves remained with him
till he died.  He was, off and on, always in the woods till infirmity
consequent old age compelled him to take his last bed.

      We may also notice that Jacob Nicely, a little child, son of Adam
Nicely, a resident on the Four-Mile Run not far from the Loyalhanna, was
taken by a squad of those Seneca Indians, but at a time somewhat later,
perhaps not earlier than 1791.  He was watched by them when he was going
from the house, where he had got a light-cake from his mother, to the
other children, who were picking berries in the meadow.  The children
reported of his capture, and the party was followed beyond the
Kiskimnetas, but without avail.  He had been gone so long that he
parents and their friends never expected even to hear of him. Jakey, as
the people always spoke of him, was about five years old when taken.  He
was raised by them and adopted into the tribe.  He forgot almost
everything about the whites, and could not pronounce his own name when
he had heard it.  Many years after, when all was peace, a person from
the valley, recognizing a similarity between the features and the build
of this man and a brother, made inquiry, and found that he was an
adopted white, and had been carried from Ligonier Valley.  This was
reported to the father, Adam Nicely, who after weeks of preparation
started, about 1828, to see Jakey before he died, for he was now in old
age.  The mother, too, was still alive.  The old gentleman made the
journey in safety, and met and lodged with his boy, now to all intents
an Indian.  He had grown to manhood, and had a squaw for a wife, was
raising a family, and had abundance of horses, some land, and plenty of
hunting and fishing "tools."  The old man returned, and "Jakey" promised
him to come in the following year to see his mother.  He gave his father
a rifle for a keepsake, and accompanied him for some distance on his way
back.  Jakey did not come in as he promised, and they never heard more of
him.  When the father spoke of him, "his Jakey," tears always filled his
eyes.  But the motherly yearning of the mother ceased for her idol of a
boy only when they laid her whitened head on its earthly pillow to its
last and sweetest sleep.
 
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