Part 2 (1/2)
Revolutionary Period.
During the struggle for independence the settlements west of the Alleghanies had little to fear from the invading armies of Great Britain; but, influenced by the English, the Indians again began their ravages.
Fort Pitt at that time was under the command of Capt. John Neville, and was the center of government authority. Just two days after the Declaration of Independence, but long before the news of it could have crossed the mountains, we read of a conference at Fort Pitt between Maj.
Trent, Maj. Ward, Capt. Neville and other officers of the garrison, with the famous Pontiac, Guyasuta, Capt. Pipe and other representatives of the Six Nations. Guyasuta was the chief speaker. He produced a belt of wampum, which was to be sent from the Six Nations to other western tribes, informing them that the Six Nations would take no part in the war between England and America and asking them to do the same. In his address Guyasuta said: ”Brothers:--We will not suffer either the English or the Americans to pa.s.s through our country. Should either attempt it, we shall forewarn them three times, and should they persist they must take the consequences. I am appointed by the Six Nations to take care of this country; that is, of the Indians on the other side of the Ohio”
(which included the Allegheny) ”and I desire you will not think of an expedition against Detroit, for, I repeat, we will not suffer an army to pa.s.s through our country.” The Six Nations was the most powerful confederacy of Indians in America, and whichever side secured their allegiance might count on the other tribes following them.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MAJ. GEN. ARTHUR ST. CLAIR.]
Instigated by the agents of Great Britain, it was not long before a deadly struggle began. Scalping parties of Indians ravaged the frontier, sparing neither age nor s.e.x, and burning and destroying all that came in their path. Companies were formed to protect the settlements, whose headquarters were at Fort Pitt, and expeditions were made into the enemy's country, but with no very great success.
On June 1, 1777, Brig. Gen. Edward Hand took command of the post and issued a call for two thousand men. He did not receive a very satisfactory response to this call. After considerable delay, he made several expeditions against the Indians, but was singularly unfortunate in his attempts. These fruitless efforts only emboldened the savages to continue their ravages.
In 1778, Gen. Hand, at his own request, was recalled, and Brig. Gen.
McIntosh succeeded him. Gen. McIntosh planned a formidable expedition into the enemy's country. He marched to the mouth of the Beaver, where he built a fort and called it Fort McIntosh; then he advanced seventy-five miles farther, built another fort, and called it Fort Laurens; but on hearing alarming reports of the Indians and for want of supplies, he left Col. John Gibson with one hundred and fifty men there and returned to Fort Pitt. The depredations of the Indians continued, and Gen. McIntosh, utterly disheartened from the want of men and supplies, asked to be relieved of his command. He was succeeded by Col.
Daniel Brodhead, who, like his predecessor, planned great things, but never had the means of carrying out his plans.
By this time Fort Pitt was badly in need of repairs, and the garrison, half-fed and badly equipped, was almost mutinous. In November, 1781, Gen. William Irvine took command of the post. He describes the condition of the fort and of the soldiers as deplorable. He writes: ”The few troops that are here are the most licentious men and worst behaved I ever saw, owing, I presume, in a great measure to their not hitherto being kept under any subordination or tolerable degree of discipline.”
The firmness of the commander soon restored order, but not without the free application of the lash and the execution of two soldiers.
The winter of 1782 and 1783 was comparatively quiet, and October 1st, 1783, Gen. Irvine took his final leave of the western department. The State of Pennsylvania acknowledged her grat.i.tude for this service by donating him a valuable tract of land.
In 1790 there was another Indian outbreak. Maj. Isaac Craig was then acting as Quartermaster in Pittsburgh. On May 19th, 1791, he wrote to Gen. Knox, representing the terror occasioned by the near approach of the Indians, and asking permission to erect another fortification, as Fort Pitt was in a ruinous condition. This request was granted, and Maj.
Craig erected a fortification occupying the ground from Garrison Alley to Hand (now Ninth) Street, and from Liberty to the Allegheny River.
This he named Fort Lafayette.
The expeditions of Gen. Harmar and of Gen. St. Clair against the Indians had been ineffectual and disastrous. In 1794, Gen. Anthony Wayne was more successful, and defeated and scattered the Indians so effectually that they never again gave trouble in this region.
FOOTNOTES:
[C] There is a wide discrepancy in the authorities as to the cost of Fort Pitt; some state the cost as six hundred pounds, others give it as sixty thousand pounds.
THE OLD BLOCK HOUSE
Mrs. Mary E. Schenley's Gift to the Daughters of the American Revolution of Allegheny County.
The close of the century found Port Pitt in ruins, and this spot over which had waved the flags of three nations, and the banners of two States, was left to the peaceable possession of the mechanic and artisan, the trader and farmer. The little Redoubt built by Col. Bouquet in 1764, and the names of the streets in Pittsburgh, are all that is left as reminders of the struggle for the ”Forks of the Ohio,”--the only relics of the contest of the courtly Frenchman with the intrepid British, of the daring of the indomitable colonist and the craft and cruelty of the Indian. This Redoubt was not built by Gen. Stanwix when the Fort was erected in 1759 and 60, but by Col. Bouquet in 1764. At the time of Pontiac's War, when Col. Bouquet came to Pittsburgh, he found that the moat which surrounded the fortifications were perfectly dry when the river was low, so that the Indians could crawl up the ditch and shoot any guard or soldier who might show his head above the parapet. To prevent this, Col. Bouquet ordered the erection of the Redoubt, or Block House, which completely commanded the moat on the Allegheny side of the fort. The little building is of brick, five-sided, with two floors, having a squared oak log with loop holes on each floor. There were two underground pa.s.sages, one connecting it with the Fort, and the other leading to the Monongahela River.
The ground from Fort Pitt to the Allegheny River was sold in 1784 to Isaac Craig and Stephen Bayard, and, after pa.s.sing through various hands, was purchased by Gen. James O'Hara, September 4, 1805. When Gen.
O'Hara died in 1819, the property pa.s.sed to his daughter Mary, who in 1821 married William Croghan. Mrs. Croghan died in 1827, and her daughter, Mary Elizabeth, an infant barely a year old, became her sole heir. She married Capt. E. W. H. Schenley, of the English army, and to Mrs. Mary E. Schenley, who might be called Pittsburgh's ”Fairy G.o.dmother,” the Daughters of the American Revolution of Allegheny County are indebted for the gift of the old Block House and surrounding property.
While the property was in possession of Craig and Bayard, a large dwelling house was built and connected with the Block House. This was occupied one year by Mr. Turnbull, and for two years subsequently by Maj. Craig. From that time, 1785, until it came into the possession of the Daughters of the American Revolution, April 1, 1894, it continued to be used as a dwelling house. Time and decay had done their work in one hundred and thirty years, and the ”Daughters” found the old Block House fast crumbling away. If it had been left much longer without repairs it would soon have been nothing but a heap of broken brick. Mrs. Schenley's gift to the Daughters of the American Revolution was the Block House, with a plot of ground measuring one hundred by ninety feet, and a pa.s.sageway leading to Penn Avenue of ninety feet by twenty.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BLOCK HOUSE USED AS A DWELLING.]