Colonel Richard McAllister, a hero of the Revolution, died at his home in Hanover, York County, October 7, 1795.

During that great struggle for the independence of the colonies York County gave many of her loyal sons, and none rendered more signal service or has been held in fonder patriotic reverence than Colonel McAllister.

He was the son of Archibald McAllister, who came to this country from Scotland in 1732. Richard was born in Scotland in 1724.

About 1745 Richard moved from Cumberland County to the present site of Hanover, where he purchased a large tract of land, and made a settlement.

On February 23, 1748, he married Mary Dill, daughter of Colonel Matthew Dill, who commanded a regiment in the French and Indian War, and whose son, Matthew, founded Dillsburg.

In 1750 Richard McAllister was a candidate for sheriff of York County against Colonel Hance Hamilton, who resided near the present site of Gettysburg. The result of the vote was so close that the election was contested and the Provincial Assembly decided in favor of Hamilton.

In 1763 Richard McAllister founded the town of Hanover and soon became one of the leading citizens of York County.

At the outbreak of the Revolution he was elected a member of the Committee of Safety for York County, and in June of the same year, 1775, he served as a delegate in the Provincial Conference, which met in Carpenters’ Hall, Philadelphia. He again served as a member of the same body in January, 1776.

When the Fourth Battalion of York County militia was organized, 1775, Richard McAllister was commissioned colonel. And during the fall of the same year, he was made colonel of a battalion of Minute Men, formed out of the militia of York County.

In July, 1776, when Congress called for ten thousand troops, Colonel McAllister marched his battalion through Lancaster and Philadelphia to Perth Amboy, N. J.

General Hugh Mercer organized the Flying Camp, and selected Colonel McAllister to command the Second Pennsylvania Regiment.

This command was soon engaged in and about New York City and Staten Island. A short time later Colonel McAllister led the regiment in the defense of Fort Washington, where a large number of them were taken prisoners, among them being two of his captains.

In the campaign of 1776 Colonel McAllister was present with his regiment, under General James Ewing, when Washington captured the Hessians in Trenton on Christmas night.

After the expiration of his term of service in the Flying Camp, in 1777, Colonel McAllister returned to his home at Hanover, and in March of this year he was elected by the General Assembly, county lieutenant.

In the discharge of this commission he recruited six different battalions of militia in York County, which then included the present Adams County.

He drilled and disciplined the troops and made them ready for the service in the field when they were required to defend the State against the invasion of the British foe.

On August 28, 1777, Colonel McAllister wrote to President Wharton that there were dissensions among the Associators in the German townships near Hanover. Two hundred freemen had assembled at one place for the purpose of opposing the draft of the militia for service in the field.

He continued by saying that he had lived in peace among these people for twenty years or more, and knew well their customs and habits, but it was very difficult to induce them to take up arms against the country to which they had sworn allegiance.

He said that notwithstanding the difficulties he had encountered in the prosecution of his duties as lieutenant of York County, he had marched five companies to the front fully armed and equipped, and would soon have three more ready to take up the march for the main army.

Nearly every man recruited was a substitute, which had obtained by Colonel McAllister.

During the years 1783 to 1786, Colonel McAllister was a member of the Supreme Executive Council, and also served as a member of the Council of Censors. In the latter position he was engaged in the disposition of the confiscated estates of Pennsylvania Tories.

Like such a great number of the soldiers of the Revolution, Colonel McAllister also took a deep interest in legal affairs. He served as a justice of the peace, and then as justice of the court of common pleas in March, 1771.

He was a member of the First Constitutional Convention, in 1776, and on February 17, 1784, he became the presiding justice of the York County Courts.

When General Washington passed through Hanover, June 30, 1791, on his way to Philadelphia, he spent several hours the guest of Colonel McAllister.

He died at his home in Hanover, October 7, 1795.

His remains were first buried in the graveyard belonging to Emanuel’s Reformed Church of Hanover, of which he was a member and one of the leading supporters.

About 1870 the remains of this distinguished patriot were removed to Mount Olivet Cemetery, in the suburbs of Hanover, where they now repose.

On every succeeding Memorial Day commemoration services are held at the tomb of this hero and patriot, by the veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic and allied organizations.

Colonel McAllister had eleven children. His eldest son, Abdiel, commanded a company in Arnold’s expedition to Quebec; another son, Archibald, commanded a company in the battles of Germantown and Monmouth.

A younger son, Matthew, became first United States district attorney of Georgia, judge of the Superior Court of that State, and was Mayor of Savannah during War of 1812.

A son of Matthew, named Julian McAllister, commanded a regiment in the Union Army during the Civil War.

Governor Denny informed the Assembly September 12, 1758, that a general meeting of Indians has been agreed upon, to take place in Easton.

Tedyuskung and some of his retinue arrived early in Easton, and started on a debauch while awaiting the important event. Whereupon Reverend Richard Peters, the Provincial secretary, was requested to go to Easton immediately to keep the Indians in order.

This conference was opened Sunday, October 8, 1758, with 500 Indians in attendance. Governor Denny, members of Council and the Assembly, Commissioners for Indian Affairs in New Jersey, Conrad Weiser, George Croghan and a large number of Quakers from Philadelphia made up the attendance of the whites.

Governor Bernard, of New Jersey, joined the conference when it had been in session three days, and promptly demanded that the Munsee deliver up captives taken from that Province.

All the tribes of the Six Nations took part in the treaty; but the Mohawk had only one deputy, Nikes Carigiatatie, in attendance, and the Cayuga were represented by a single chief, Kandt, alias “Last Night.”

Unlike the several previous conferences, Tedyuskung was not the principal speaker at this treaty, but that proud position was assumed by Takeghsatu, a Seneca. He early addressed the Governor and others in these words:

“Brethren—I now speak at the request of Tedyuskung and our cousins the Delawares, living at Wyoming and on the waters of the River Susquehanna. We now remove the hatchet out of your heads that was struck into them by our cousins, the Delawares. It was a French hatchet that they unfortunately made use of, by the instigation of the French. We take it out of your heads and bury it under the ground, where it shall always rest and never be taken up again. Our cousins, the Delawares, have assured us they will never think of war against their brethren, the English, any more, but will employ their thoughts about peace and cultivating friendship with them, and never suffer enmity against them to enter their minds again.”

Two days later, Nikes, the Mohawk, stood up and, addressing himself to Governors Denny and Bernard, said:

“We thought proper to meet you here to have some discourse about our nephew, Tedyuskung. You all know that he gives out that he is a great man and chief of ten nations. This is his constant discourse. Now I, on behalf of the Mohawks, say that we do not know he is such a great man, if he is such a great man, we desire to know who made him so. Perhaps you have; and if this be the case, tell us so. It may be the French have made him so. We want to inquire and know whence the greatness arose.”

Takeghsatu, on behalf of the Seneca, said his nation “say the same as Nikes has done.”

Then Assarandongnas spoke on behalf of the Onondaga and said: “I am here to represent the Onondagas, and I say for them that I never heard before now that Tedyuskung was such a great man, and much less can I tell who made him so. No such thing was ever said in our town as that Tedyuskung was such a great man.”

Then followed, in the same strain, Thomas King, chief of Oneida, in behalf of the Oneida, Cayuga, Tuscarora, Nanticoke, Conoy and Tutelo.

Under this concerted attack upon his kingly pretensions Tedyuskung sat like a stoic and never said a word in reply; but Governor Denny arose and denied that he had made Tedyuskung “a great man,” but said in explanation that he had represented the Delaware at appointed places and had acted for the other Six Nations only as a messenger, who were his uncles and superiors. The Governor of New Jersey indorsed Governor Denny’s speech.

Five days after this discussion Tedyuskung arose in the public conference and addressing himself to the deputies of the Six Nations, said:

“Uncles, you may remember that you have placed us at Wyoming and Shamokin—places where Indians have lived before. Now I hear that you have since sold that land to our brethren, the English. Let the matter now be cleared up in the presence of our brethren the English. I sit here as a bird on a bough. I look about and do not know where to go. Let me, therefore, come down upon the ground and make that my own by a good deed, and I shall have a home forever. For if you, my uncles, or I, die, our brethren, the English, will say they have bought it from you, and so wrong my posterity out of it.”

Thomas King, speaking for the Six Nations the following day, addressed himself to the Delaware in these words:

“By this belt Tedyuskung desired us to make you, the Delawares, the owners of the lands at Wyoming, Shamokin and other places on the Susquehanna River. In answer to which, we, who are present, say that we have no power to convey lands to any one; but we will take your request to the Great Council fire for their sentiments, as we never sell or convey lands before it is agreed upon in the Great Council of the Six Nations. In the meantime, you may make use of those lands in conjunction with our people.”

Later in the open conference Thomas King presented Tedyuskung with a string of wampum and said: “This serves to put Tedyuskung in mind of his promises to return prisoners. You ought to have performed it before. It is a shame for one who calls himself a great man to tell lies.”

Last Night and Nikes, in behalf of the Six Nations, promised to satisfy the English as to the return of captives, adding: “If any of them are gone down our throats, we will heave them up again.”

Then Takeghsatu told Tedyuskung, the Six Nations having promised to return all captives, the Delaware and Munsee must do likewise.

Thus King Tedyuskung was humiliated in the conference, but never to the point where he ceased to be a most potent factor on the frontiers of Pennsylvania, and in the eyes of the English he was the king he professed himself to be.

One of the most important matters disposed of at this treaty related to the lands purchased by the Pennsylvania Proprietaries at Albany, July 6, 1754.

During the progress of this conference one of the Seneca chiefs in attendance died. He was interred with public ceremony; all the Indians and many of the inhabitants attended the obsequies.

On October 26, the business of the treaty having been finished after eighteen days of speech-making, “some wine and punch were ordered, and the conferences were concluded, with great joy and mutual satisfaction.”

The Indians were supplied with hats, caps, knives, jewsharps, powder, lead paints and walking-sticks (the term by which the Indians referred to rum). In addition, Tedyuskung and other chiefs each received a military hat trimmed with gold lace, a regimental coat and a ruffled shirt.

Following the destruction of the Indian town at Kittanning, September 8, 1756, by Lieutenant Colonel John Armstrong, and the Indian incursions which reached to every section of the frontier, a chain of forts was built the following year which extended from the Delaware River to the Maryland line. These were garrisoned by troops in the pay of the Province.

This defense was made possible only when the Assembly finally awakened to the serious danger and distress, concerted to pass a bill for raising by tax £100,000, with the exemption of the proprietary estates. They also sent Dr. Benjamin Franklin, as provincial agent, to London, to lay their grievance before the King.

Despite the wartime attitude of England, nothing was done to annoy the French or to check the depredations of the savages, until Dr. Franklin’s presence in London, and the fortunate change in the ministry, which brought the master mind of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, to assume control of the government.

Pitt was endowed with a high order of intellect, eloquent, profound and patriotic. He seemed to possess in an eminent degree the full confidence of the nation and the command of its resources.

Franklin’s exertions resulted in gaining the influence of Pitt’s comprehensive mind, and soon his attention was directed to America, when the affairs in the colonies assumed an entirely different aspect.

Pitt’s plans of operation were grand, his policy bold, liberal and enlightened, all of which seemed greatly to animate the colonists and inspire them with new hopes.

The colonists resolved to make every effort and sacrifice which the occasion might require. A circular from Pitt assured the Colonial governments that he was determined to repair past losses, and would immediately send to America a force sufficiently large to accomplish the purpose. He called upon the different Governments to raise as many men as possible, promising to send over all the necessary munitions of war, and pledging himself to pay liberally all soldiers who enlisted.

Pennsylvania equipped two thousand seven hundred men, while the neighboring provinces contributed large quotas. Three expeditions were determined upon, and most active measures taken to bring them to the field of action.

General James Abercrombie was appointed commander-in-chief and General Jeffrey Amherst second in command, aided by Brigadier Generals Wolfe and Forbes.

The French were vigorously attacked on the northern frontiers of New York. General Forbes was charged with an expedition against Fort Duquesne, to be aided by the provincial troops of Pennsylvania and Virginia, under Colonel Henry Bouquet and Colonel George Washington. These troops rendezvoused at Raystown, now Bedford.

General Forbes, with regulars, marched from Philadelphia to effect a junction with the force at Raystown, but in consequence of severe indisposition he did not get farther than Carlisle, when he was compelled to stop. He marched to Bedford about the middle of September (1758), where he met the provincial troops under Washington.

The march and investment of Fort Duquesne are told in another story and the details will not be repeated here, except to state that Washington strongly urged that General Forbes should use the road cut by General Braddock three years earlier, as it was the most favorable route. But the Pennsylvanians were bent upon the policy of securing a new road exclusively through their province, and they succeeded.

Many weeks were consumed in cutting this road; but at length the army, consisting of 7859 men, penetrated the thick forest, and on reaching the Ohio River found Fort Duquesne abandoned by the French after they had blown up a large magazine and burned the buildings.

The French had retreated down the river, relinquishing forever their dominion in Pennsylvania. The fort was rebuilt, and received the immortal name of Pitt.

The posts on French Creek still remained in French possession, but it was deemed unnecessary to proceed against them, as the character of the war in the north left very little doubt that the contest would soon cease by complete overthrow of the French.

In 1759 Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Niagara and Quebec yielded to British arms and on September 8, 1760, Montreal, Detroit and all of Canada were surrendered by the French. The treaty of Fontainbleau, in November, 1762, put an end to the war.

But in our own province, our troubles were not as easily solved as were England’s under the great Sir William Pitt. A second great Indian conference was convened at Easton in October, 1758.

Tedyuskung, the great Delaware King, at this treaty received one of those insulting taunts from the Six Nations by which they, too often, exhibited their national superiority; taunts, however, that were deeply revenged upon the whites in after years, when the Delaware had thrown off the galling yoke.

Tedyuskung again supported his station with dignity and firmness, and refused to succumb and the different Indian tribes at length became reconciled to each other.

October 9, 1759, Governor William Denny was superseded by James Hamilton. Governor Denny was removed by the Proprietary on account of having yielded to the demands of the Assembly in giving his approval to their money bill.

Governor Hamilton, son of Andrew Hamilton, was the first native of Pennsylvania to serve as Lieutenant Governor. At the death of his father, in 1741, he was left in possession of a handsome fortune, and in the appointment of Prothonotary, then the most lucrative office in the province.

He was first appointed Lieutenant Governor in 1748, serving until October, 1754, then again called to this executive position, which he filled until 1763. He held several other offices of distinction in the province, and enjoyed the confidence and esteem of the people, but his loyal feelings to the Crown caused him to be unfriendly to the Revolution.

The continued victories of the English put new inspiration into the people, who now returned in great number to the plantations from which they had been driven by the French and their Indian allies.

The part of our great Commonwealth which lies between the South and Blue Mountains, in the fertile and beautiful Cumberland Valley, since March 11, 1809, known as Franklin County, was from the very earliest recorded history of Pennsylvania the scene of many stirring events.

Being on the southern border of the State, it shared in the land and animated border fight between the proprietary Governments of Maryland and Pennsylvania.

It was in a valley loved as the home of the Indians and on the great pathway through the Tuscarora Mountains and was the scene of many terrible Indian incursions both before and after the French and Indian War.

As the County of Franklin was not erected at the time of the Revolutionary War its activities were not written into the martial story of Pennsylvania as a division of the great State.

In the War of 1812 the county played an active role and sent to the front eight companies organized within its limits.

But it is of a latter period that this county suffered at the hands of an invading host and on three occasions had its homes raided, stores plundered and part of Chambersburg, the county seat, destroyed by firebrand.

The Civil War was hardly begun when it became potent to every one that the Cumberland Valley would be the objective of any Confederate raid into Pennsylvania.

Easy of access from the Potomac and with the fertile fields as fresh foraging grounds for guerilla cavalry, the people realized that they were uncomfortably situated. This fear was well grounded from the fact that our southern border was virtually unprotected.

The first Confederate raid into Pennsylvania was planned and successfully executed October 10, 1862, by Generals J. E. B. Stuart and Wade Hampton with about two thousand troops.

This force crossed the Potomac River and by hurried marches pushed into Pennsylvania, reaching Chambersburg on the evening of that day. With the fall of night came a drizzling rain, in the midst of which the sound of fife and drum was heard, heralding the approach of a squad of officers and men under a flag of truce, who rode to the public square and there demanded the surrender of the town in the name of the Confederate States of America.

There was no military authority in the town to treat with the invaders, so the civil authorities, represented by the Chief Burgess, formally delivered up the town into their custody, and in a few moments the streets of the borough were filled with gray-uniformed soldiers, the tramp of horses, the rattling of sabers and spurs, and the dull thud of axes busied in demolishing store doors and in felling telegraph poles, which made sad music for the frightened inhabitants.

Chambersburg could hardly have been in worse condition for a raid. No soldiers were stationed there, and an enormous quantity of military stores was within its confines.

During the night the business houses were ransacked and the office and shops of the Cumberland Valley Railroad and the office of the Western Union Telegraph Company demolished.

The next morning their attention was turned to the attack on the military stores in the large brick warehouse of Messrs. Wunderlich & Nead, in the northern section of the town. These stores consisted of ammunition, shells, signal rockets and small arms, which only a short time previous had been captured from General Longstreet, and sufficient new equipment added for two full companies of cavalry, then being mustered in Franklin County.

Soon as every article of value to an army had been removed, the torch was applied to the building, and when the flames reached the powder an explosion took place which completed the entire destruction of the property. The rebels then beat a hasty retreat toward the Southland, leaving the inhabitants of Chambersburg in a terrified condition.

The following summer found the star of secession at its greatest height. Lee’s army was never in better spirits and every soldier looked with covetous eyes on the rich fields of Pennsylvania.

Lee succumbed to the temptation, and in the face of his better judgment, planned his northern campaign, and by a military movement, seldom equaled, marched his entire army across the border line of Pennsylvania, only to meet his Waterloo at Gettysburg. The approach of this great invading horde caused a mighty panic which shook with fear the very capital city of the old Keystone State, and every town and hamlet felt the alarm.

The fight at Winchester on June 13, 1863, forced the retreat of General Milroy, who stood alone as a barrier to Lee’s advance. On the following day General Couch removed his headquarters from Chambersburg to Carlisle.

About 9 o’clock on the morning of the 15th the advance of Milroy’s retreating wagon train dashed into Chambersburg, closely pursued by the rebels.

At the same moment General Jenkins with 1800 mounted rebel infantry rode into Greencastle. After a reconnoissance the town was occupied by the rebel horde and divested of everything movable, contraband and otherwise.

The rebels then pushed on toward Chambersburg, where they reached the outskirts about 11 o’clock that night.

Again the streets of Chambersburg resounded with the clatter of cavalry, and a second time the town fell their easy prey.

This visit continued three days during which time everything of value, especially horses, were taken without pretense of compensation.

General Jenkins on the 18th fell back to Greencastle, and then proceeded to Mercersburg, whence a detachment crossed Cove Mountain to McConnellsburg and down the valley. The main part of the invading force remained in the vicinity of Greencastle and Waynesboro, where plundering parties scoured that entire section.

The third terrible visitation of the Confederates in Chambersburg was the deliberate sacking and burning of the town by Generals McCausland and Johnson, on July 30, 1864.

On October 11, 1779, Vice President George Bryan resigned his office, whereupon Colonel Matthew Smith, a veteran officer of the French and Indian War, and one who commanded a company in Arnold’s expedition to Quebec, then a citizen of Milton, Northumberland County, was chosen to fill the vacancy, which he, too, resigned on the 29th of the month. William Moore was elected to the position, November 12.

On November 27, the Assembly after careful consideration, adopted a resolution annulling the Royal Charter, and granting the Penns, as a compensation for the rights of which they were deprived, £300,000.

They retained their manors, however, and were still the largest landed proprietors in Pennsylvania. They subsequently received from the British Government an annuity of £4000 for their losses by the Revolution.

The act for the gradual abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania was passed March 1, 1780. It provided for the registration of every Negro or mulatto slave, or servant for life, before November 1, following, and also provided, “No man or woman of any nation or color, except the Negroes or mulattoes who shall be registered as aforesaid, shall at any time hereafter be deemed, adjudged, or holden within the territory of this Commonwealth, as slaves or servants for life, but as free men and free women.”

During the year 1780, every effort was made to keep the State up to par by passing several measures which brought but temporary relief.

An agent was sent to France and Holland to borrow £200,000, with the faith and honor of the State pledged for its repayment, but the mission was unfruitful.

The army was without clothing and short of provisions. Subscriptions were solicited by the ladies to relieve this distress. The “Bank of Pennsylvania” was established and still the Continental money continued to sink in value.

Virginia was induced to accede to Pennsylvania’s proposition to appoint commissioners to adjust the boundary. Pennsylvania appointed George Bryan, the Rev. Dr. John Ewing and David Rittenhouse; Virginia sent James Madison, afterward President of the United States, and Robert Andrews.

These commissioners met August 31, 1779, and agreed that Mason and Dixon’s line should be extended due west five degrees of longitude from the Delaware River for the southern boundary of Pennsylvania, and that a meridian line drawn from the western extremity thereof to the northern limit of the State should be the western boundary.

The Assembly of Pennsylvania ratified this on November 19, but Virginia proceeded to Fort Burd and occupied it. In March, 1780, the Assembly resolved to eject intruders under claims from other States, and authorized Council to raise troops for internal defense of the frontier; but Virginia afterward ratified the agreement and the southern line was run in 1784 and the western afterward.

Toward the close of September, 1780, the Supreme Executive Council received the startling intelligence of the treason of General Benedict Arnold, who had been in command of the American post at West Point. Among the people the news of the infamy of this officer excited the greatest indignation.

In Philadelphia a parade was held, three days after the arrival of the news, to give expression to the popular feeling.

During this demonstration an effigy of Arnold was carried through the streets and finally hung upon a gallows. The Council at once confiscated Arnold’s estate, and his wife was ordered deported from the State within fourteen days.

The arrest, trial and execution of Major André, and the escape of Arnold, his reward and price of dishonor, the sufferings and disgrace of his unfortunate wife Peggy are not within the scope of these stories.

If the proceedings against Tories in Pennsylvania had been fierce previous to this time, the feeling aroused by the defection of Arnold produced the bitterest animosity and hatred against all who were not in full sympathy with the American Colonies.

Many arrests were made, a number were tried and condemned, and one, a Quaker, of Chester County, executed for high treason. The property of prominent Tories was forfeited and sold, and, in fact, the most energetic measures taken to crush out whatever might be inimical to the cause of independence.

The situation among the soldiers from Pennsylvania in the Continental Army at this period was deplorable. About December 1, the division of General Wayne went into winter quarters in the environs of Norristown. The soldiers were wearied out with privations, and indignant at their officers, whom they accused of not properly representing their situation to Congress.

On New Year’s Day, 1781, there broke out such a mutiny in the Pennsylvania Line that it required the best efforts of Congress, the Government of Pennsylvania, and the officers of the army to subdue.

The Pennsylvania Line comprised 2500, one-third to two-thirds of the army, the soldiers from the other colonies having, in the main, gone home. Their terms of service had long since expired. They had not been paid for a year, and they were almost without clothes.

Then under the leadership of a brave sergeant, named William Bowser, they arose in arms and proceeded to settle matters for themselves. Two emissaries from General Clinton seeking to corrupt them they handed over to Washington to be hanged.

The terms of service of 1250 men had expired. They were discharged and the matter of indebtedness to them was arranged. The most of them re-enlisted.

However unjustifiable the conduct of the Pennsylvania Line was and should be deemed in the first instance, it must be acknowledged that they conducted themselves in the business, culpable as it was, with unexpected order and regularity.

Their refusing to accept the large offer made by the enemy, in delivering up the spies, and in refusing the hundred guineas they had so justly merited, exhibits an instance of true patriotism not to be found among mercenary troops who bear arms for pay and subsistence only, uninspired by their country’s rights, or the justice of the cause which they have engaged to support.

The expedition of Colonel Henry Bouquet, during the Pontiac Conspiracy, to Fort Pitt, in a great measure served to check the depredations of the Indians for a short time and the frontiers of Pennsylvania were quiet, and under the protection and assistance of 700 Provincial recruits the settlers gathered their harvests.

Had the Provincial Assembly acted promptly in the matter an effective defense could have been provided. The Government was deaf to all entreaties, and General Jeffreys Amherst, commander of the British forces in America, did not hesitate to vent his feelings in emphatic expression:

“The conduct of the Pennsylvania Assembly is altogether so infatuated and stupidly obstinate that I want words to express my indignation thereat. They tamely look on while their brethren are butchered by the savages.”

The Assembly finally authorized the raising of 800 troops and voted £24,000 to keep that force until December 1, but declared it was both unjust and impracticable for the province to defend a frontier of nearly 300 miles, which covered a greater extent than that of New Jersey and Maryland, without assistance from other provinces.

In September and October outrages were committed as far east as the neighborhoods of Reading and Bethlehem, and it was believed that not only Fort Pitt but even Fort Augusta was destined for attack.

The road to Fort Pitt was interrupted. A supply of provisions, under a convoy of sixty men, was forwarded from Fort Bedford to Fort Pitt, but on gaining the foot of the Allegheny Mountains was compelled to return. The officers learned that the passages were occupied by the savages.

Some fragments of the Delaware and Six Nations remained at their settlements in the interior, refusing to join their brethren in arms, professing affection for the Colonists and avowing a determination to continue neutral. But the neutrality of a part, at least, of these Indians was very doubtful.

The situation of the frontiers became truly deplorable, and the Quakers, who were in control, suffered the censure of the people. Captain Lazerus Stewart, of Paxtang, expressed the views of those on the frontiers, when he said: “The Quakers are more solicitous for the welfare of the blood-thirsty Indians than for the lives of the frontiersmen.”

Colonel John Armstrong led 300 men of Cumberland County to Great Island, on the West Branch of the Susquehanna, the present site of the borough of Lock Haven, where certain of the marauders had their headquarters. On their arrival they found the place evacuated, horses, cattle and other spoils gathered in their forays being left behind.

With the main body of his men, Armstrong proceeded to another Indian village near Jersey Shore, where he found the late occupants had left in haste while eating a meal. So the expedition resulted in destroying their houses and corn fields.

Major Asher Clayton led a party from Harris’ Ferry to remove the Connecticut settlers from Wyoming and destroy their provisions, which were likely to be seized by the red men. When the party arrived at Wyoming, it found that the savages had been there before them and had burned the town and killed more than twenty persons in horrible torture.

A number of those Indians who had been converted by the Moravian missionaries around Bethlehem were murdered, as they were found asleep in a barn, by a party of Rangers, and the surprise and slaughter in turn of the latter increased the suspicion of the frontiersmen, who were neither Moravians nor Quakers, against the entire body of Christian red men, who professed a desire to live at peace and friendship with the English.

The Provincial Commissioners, indeed, reported their belief that those at Nain and Wichetunk (in what is now Polk Township, Monroe County) were secretly supplied by the Moravian brethren with arms and ammunition, which, in free intercourse with the hostile savages, were traded off to the latter.

About October 12 a number of armed men marched toward Wichetunk, but, waiting to surprise it by night, were frustrated by a violent storm just before nightfall, which wet their powder.

The missionary, the Rev. Bernard Adam Grube, then led the Indians to Nazareth, but the Governor suggested that to watch their behavior it would be better to disarm them and bring them to the interior parts of the province. The Assembly, actuated more by a desire to save them, agreed to the proposal.

Governor John Penn received the refugees from Nain and Wichetunk, but their arrival in the Northern Liberties of Philadelphia excited the lower classes nearly to a riot, and the soldiers refused to allow them any part of the barracks as a sheltering place, so that different arrangements were necessary.

For five hours these Indians were in great peril, but escorted by Quakers, they were finally taken to Province Island.

The conduct of the Assembly, in which there were twenty-one Quakers, failed to satisfy not only the royal and proprietary officers but also the Presbyterians, who were ready to take up arms, and particularly the Scotch-Irish on the frontier, who saw large sums of money lavished in the presents to Indians, while they themselves lay destitute from the ravages of an Indian war.

As every now and then some of their kinsmen or neighbors fell by the tomahawk, they became exasperated, coupling their vengeance against the guilty savages with jealousy of the Assembly’s partiality, and also suspicion against those Indians who were treated as friends.

A cry like the Covenanters came from their descendants in Pennsylvania; loud exhortations were heard on the frontier to carry out against the heathen red men the decrees of heaven against the Canaanites.

There have been many stories of “Molly Pitcher,” and they have not always agreed even on the main facts. But on the occasion of the ceremonies incident to unveiling the cannon erected over her grave in the “Old Graveyard,” in Carlisle, by the Patriotic Orders Sons of America, on June 28, 1905, an excellent short biography of the “Heroine of the Battle of Monmouth” was prepared by John B. Landis, Esq., from which the following story is taken.

The heroine’s name was not “Pitcher,” but Ludwig, and at the time she earned her well-known sobriquet she was the wife of an artilleryman. Her father, John George Ludwig, came to this country from the Palatinate, and settled near Trenton, in Mercer County, New Jersey, where he engaged in the occupation of dairyman. It was here his daughter Mary was born, on October 13, 1754, and here among the surroundings of her father’s home were spent the youthful days of the future “Molly Pitcher.”

The wife of Dr. William Irvine, of Carlisle, afterward General William Irvine, and one of the greatest patriots of the Revolution, was visiting friends in Trenton when she saw the youthful Mary Ludwig, and, being pleased with her and in need of a domestic, took the young girl with her on returning to Carlisle.

Mary had hardly become accustomed to her surroundings in the fine home of Dr. and Mrs. Irvine until she met John Casper Hays, a barber, whose shop was near the Irvine residence. Their courtship was of short duration, for a marriage was solemnized on July 24, 1769.

A few years of quiet wedded life, disturbed only by the warlike preparations centered about the patriotic town of Carlisle, and John Casper Hays became a soldier. He enlisted December 1, 1775, in Colonel Thomas Proctor’s First Pennsylvania Artillery, in which he served as a gunner. His term of enlistment expired December, 1776, but he re-enlisted January, 1777, in the Seventh Pennsylvania Regiment, of the Continental Line, in the company commanded by Captain John Alexander, of Carlisle.

Dr. Irvine also was one of the first patriots to respond to the cause of the colonists, and January 9, 1776, was commissioned Colonel of the Sixth Pennsylvania Regiment. He became Brigadier General May 2, 1779. Previous to that time, however, on June 6, 1776, he was captured at Three Rivers, and remained a prisoner on parole until his exchange, April 21, 1778, when he assumed command of the Seventh Pennsylvania Regiment, in which John Casper Hays was a private soldier.

After young Hays left Carlisle with his regiment, his wife remained employed at Colonel Irvine’s. Some time thereafter her parents, who still resided in New Jersey, sent a message with courier for her to visit them, and the same horseman carried a letter from her husband, begging her to go, as he might then get an opportunity to see her, as his regiment was then nearby. With Mrs. Irvine’s consent Mary set out on her long journey, traveling on horseback. At the time Molly Hays was a young woman of twenty-five years.

To prevent the movement of the British on New York, General Washington marched his troops again into New Jersey, and the Battle of Monmouth was fought June 28, 1778.

The battle continued from 11 o’clock in the morning until dark, and the day was one of the hottest of the year. Fifty soldiers are said to have died of thirst, and the tongues of many said to have been so greatly swollen as to protrude from the mouth.

While the battle was in progress Molly carried water for the thirsting soldiers from a neighboring spring, which is still pointed out on the historic battlefield. Back and forth she went under shelter or under fire, supplying the much-needed water. Possibly, as is stated by some, it was carried in the cannoneer’s bucket. In whatever way it was carried the sight of Molly with her “pitcher” was a welcome sight to the weary and thirsty Continentals.

Molly’s husband, having served a year in Proctor’s Artillery, and though now an infantryman, had been detailed as a gunner in a battery that was engaged. Doubtless Molly was never out of sight of that battery. As she approached with water she saw a soldier lying at the gun, whom she thought to be her husband, and hurrying on she found her husband wounded, but the dead man was one of his comrades. Her husband recovered, but lived only a few years after the close of the war.

It is stated that the cannon was ordered to the rear and would have been taken off the field had not Molly bravely sprung to her husband’s place, and so kept the gun in action.

For her wonderful patriotism and self-sacrificing devotion to the soldiers she was dubbed “Sergeant” and by some called “Major Molly.”