The campaign of 1857 was unusually active, as there were three prominent candidates in the contest. The Democrats nominated State Senator William F. Packer, of Williamsport, one of the most widely known of the representative men of the State; the Republicans named the Hon. David Wilmot, of Towanda, author of the “Wilmot Proviso,” who enjoyed a wide-spread reputation as a public speaker and a politician; and the Hon. Isaac Hazlehurst, was the choice of the Native American Party, still quite a factor in Pennsylvania politics. After a spirited campaign Senator Packer was elected by a majority of fourteen thousand votes over both the other candidates. He was inaugurated January 19, 1858.

The political question which overshadowed all others at this period was, whether Kansas should be admitted into the union with or without a constitutional recognition of slavery.

Governor Packer was an ardent friend of James Buchanan, and labored zealously to secure his nomination for the Presidency. Mr. Buchanan was inaugurated about the time of Packer’s nomination for Governor. The clouds were rapidly forming in Kansas where a state of hostility existed between the inhabitants and the general Government, and the agents of the latter, for their safety, had been compelled to flee from the territory. The slave-holders were making a desperate effort to control the state and thus extend their sway.

Buchanan had been in Washington only a few days when he received a letter from Mr. Packer, which in view of his prophetic utterances, honest advice and the further fact that it was written by a Pennsylvanian, so soon to become Governor, to a Pennsylvania President of the United States, that the following paragraphs should prove of interest.

The letter was dated Harrisburg, March 24, 1857.

“Our people confidently expect that your administration will see that equal and exact justice shall be done to all parties—the free-state as well as the pro-slavery men—and they will be satisfied with nothing short of that. We approve of the Kansas bill; but in God’s name let its provisions be honestly carried out; let the law be faithfully executed. Let the conduct of the public agents in Kansas not only be right, but let it appear to be right. If slavery should be instituted by, or under a slave-holding executive; and Kansas should claim admission as a slave state, it does not require a prophet to foretell the consequences north of Mason and Dixon’s line.

“The Democratic party, which has stood by the Constitution and the rights of the South with such unflinching fidelity, would be stricken down in the few remaining States where it is yet in the ascendancy; the balance of power would be lost; and Black Republicans would rule this nation, or civil war, and disunion would inevitably follow.

“What, then, is to be done? Will you permit me to make a suggestion? The post of honor and renown, if successfully and satisfactorily filled, at this moment in the gift of the President, is the Governorship of Kansas. Send one of the first men of the nation there—some gentleman who enjoys the confidence of the North and the South—and let him cover himself with glory by a fearless and a faithful discharge of the duties of his station. Sustain him, then, with the whole power of the Government, and follow with swift vengeance any party that dares to raise a hand against the law or its prompt and faithful execution.

“The time for trifling is past. Bold, efficient action is required. To waver or to vacillate, is to fail. Who, then, should be appointed? If General Scott would accept of the position, and if the duties are compatible with those of the military station he now holds, I answer, appoint General Winfield Scott. He has the confidence of the nation. He is acceptable to the South, having been born and reared in Virginia; and he is not unacceptable to the North, inasmuch as he now resides there. If requested by the President, in view of the importance of the Mission, I do not think that he would decline. However, let some such man be appointed—some man well known to the American people, and in whom they confide, and the result will be the same. All will be well. Otherwise I tremble for the result.”

It was during Governor Packer’s administration in 1858, that the office of superintendent of public schools was separated from that of secretary of the Commonwealth. The first state normal school was located at Millersville, Lancaster County.

In 1859 the celebrated raid into Virginia by John Brown occurred, by which the public property of the United States at Harper’s Ferry was seized, and the lives of citizens of that State sacrificed by that band of fanatics, who, in their mad zeal, attempted to excite the slave population to insurrection. The plans for this raid were perfected in Chambersburg, where John Brown and his associates lived for a time, under assumed names.

The subsequent trial and conviction of John Brown, and his followers, by no means quenched the fire of disunion which was then kindling.

Governor Packer, in his last message to the Legislature, expressed in plain terms the fearful position in which South Carolina, and the other states preparing for similar rebellious action, had placed themselves.

Mutterings of the coming storm were approaching nearer and nearer and the year 1861 opened up with a gloomy aspect. In the midst of this portentous overshadowing, Andrew G. Curtin took charge of the helm of State.

Albert Gallatin was born in Geneva, Switzerland, January 20, 1761. Both of his parents were of distinguished families and died while he was an infant. He graduated from the University of Geneva in 1779.

Feeling a great sympathy for the American colonists in their struggle for liberty, he came to Massachusetts in 1780, entered the military service, and for a few months commanded the post at Passamaquoddy.

At the close of the war he taught French at Harvard University, where he remained until 1784, when he received his patrimonial estate. He invested it in land in West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania, and, in 1786, he settled on land on the banks of the Monongahela River, in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. Here he lived and became naturalized.

The town was named New Geneva from his native place in Switzerland. Here he built a log house, which subsequently gave place to a stone structure yet standing. He was a partner in establishing the first glass house in that section of the State. He became one of the foremost citizens of America.

He served in the General Assembly of Pennsylvania for several terms and in 1793 was chosen a United States Senator for Pennsylvania, but was declared ineligible on the ground that he had not been a citizen of the United States the required nine years.

During the Whisky Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, 1794, Albert Gallatin played a conspicuous role.

In the meeting of the malcontents, August 14, 1794, at Parkinson’s Ferry, where 260 delegates, elected by the several counties, organized and adopted some intemperate resolutions, Colonel Edward Cook was appointed chairman, and Albert Gallatin, secretary. The organic force of the insurrection was condensed into a committee of sixty and that committee was again represented by a Standing Committee of twelve.

Gallatin was energetic in working with his friends to gain time and restore quietness. He presented with great force the folly of resistance and the ruinous consequences to the country of the continuance of the insurrection. He urged that the Government was bound to vindicate the laws and that it would surely send an overwhelming force against them. He placed the subject in a new light and showed the insurrection to be a much more serious affair than it had before appeared.

After the Pennsylvania commissioners had reached Pittsburgh and met with those of the National Government and the committee appointed at the meeting at Parkinson’s Ferry, a conference of the committee of sixty was held at Redstone Old Fort, now Brownsville.

This meeting was opened by a long, sensible and eloquent speech by Albert Gallatin in favor of law and order. Backed by Judge Hugh H. Brackenridge, Gallatin won the day, and the insurrection was happily ended before the army was called into action.

Gallatin was censured for the part he had taken, but no man stood higher in the opinion, not only of President Washington, but of the Pennsylvania authorities. In the General Assembly December, 1794, in an able speech Gallatin admitted his “political sin” in the course he had taken in the insurrectionary movement.

He was elected to Congress in 1795, and in a debate on Jay’s Treaty in 1796 he charged Washington and Jay with having pusillanimously surrendered the honor of their country. This, from the lips of a young foreigner, exasperated the Federalists. He was a leader of the Democrats and directed his attention particularly to financial matters.

Gallatin remained in Congress until 1801, when President Thomas Jefferson appointed him Secretary of the Treasury, which office he held until 1813, and obtained the credit of being one of the best financiers of the age.

The opponents of Jefferson’s Administration complained vehemently in 1808 that the country was threatened with direct taxation at a time when the sources of its wealth, by the orders and decrees of Great Britain and France, were drying up. Gallatin replied to these complaints, as Secretary of the Treasury, by reproducing a flattering but delusive suggestion contained in his annual report the preceding year.

He suggested that as the United States was not likely to be involved in frequent wars, a revenue derived solely from duties on imports, even though liable to diminution during war, would yet amply suffice to pay off, during long intervals of peace, the expenses of such wars as might be undertaken.

Should the United States become involved in war with both France and Great Britain, no internal taxes would be necessary to carry it on, nor any other financial expedient, beyond borrowing money and doubling the duties on import. The scheme, afterwards tried, bore bitter fruit.

His influence was felt in other departments of Government and in the politics of the country. Opposed to going to war against Great Britain in 1812, he exerted all his influence to avert it.

In March, 1813, he was appointed one of the envoys to Russia to negotiate for the mediation of the Czar between the United States and Great Britain. He sailed for St. Petersburg, but the Senate in special sessions, refused to ratify his appointment because he was Secretary of the Treasury. The attempt at mediation was unsuccessful.

When, in January, 1814, Great Britain proposed a direct negotiation for peace, Gallatin, who was still abroad, was appointed one of the United States Commissioners. He resigned his secretaryship. He was one of the signers of the Treaty of Ghent.

In 1815 he was appointed Minister to France, where he remained until 1823. He refused a seat in the Cabinet of President Monroe on his return and also declined to be a candidate for Vice President to which the dominant Democratic Party nominated him.

President Adams appointed him Minister to Great Britain, where he negotiated several important commercial conventions.

Returning to America in 1827, he took up his residence in New York City. There he was engaged in public service in various ways until 1839, when he withdrew from public duties and directed the remainder of his life to literary pursuits.

Although strictly in private life, Gallatin took special interest in the progress of the country, and wrote much on the subject. His published works include such subjects as finance, politics and ethnology.

Mr. Gallatin was chief founder, in 1842, and the first president of the American Ethnological Society, and was president of the New York Historical Society from 1843 until his death, August 12, 1849, at Astoria, L. I.

When the venerable Franklin was about to step aside as the President of the Council and withdraw from public employment, the people of Pennsylvania became concerned in the successor to so brilliant a man. The choice fell upon Thomas Mifflin, and he occupied the enviable position of Chief Executive of the Commonwealth longer than any other Pennsylvanian, two years as President of the Council and three times Governor, an aggregate of eleven years.

Thomas Mifflin was the son of Quaker parents, and was born in Philadelphia in 1744. He was educated in the Philadelphia College, and his parents intended that Thomas should follow a mercantile profession. Upon the completion of his college course he entered the counting house of William Coleman. At the age of twenty-one he made a tour of Europe and then entered into a business partnership with his brother in Philadelphia.

In 1772 he was elected one of the two members of the Legislature from the City of Philadelphia, and was re-elected the following year, when he was the colleague of Franklin, then just returned from his mission to England.

So conspicuous were his services in the Assembly, that when the appointment of delegates to the first Continental Congress came to be made, Mifflin was selected as one, and he occupied a position of commanding influence.

“When the news,” says Dr. Rawle, his biographer, “of the battle of Lexington reached Philadelphia, a town meeting was called and the fellow citizens of Mifflin were delighted by his animated oratory.” None did more than he to arouse the populace to a sense of the danger which threatened. He did not only exhort, but he put in practice his pleading. When the troops were to be enlisted and drilled, Mifflin was among the foremost to train them, and was selected as a major in one of the earliest formed regiments.

The patriot blood spilled at Lexington and Concord fired a martial spirit throughout America by which the bold leaders in every State were nerved to resist and resent those unprovoked assaults, and when Washington appeared at the camp in Boston as the Commander-in-Chief of the American armies, Mifflin was by his side.

Recognizing his great personal popularity, the ease and dignity of his manners, breadth and soundness of his views, Washington placed Mifflin at the head of his military family. In the absence of, or at the retirement from the table of the chief it fell upon Mifflin to occupy his place and do the honors; and for this duty, by his social position at home and his foreign travel he was admirably fitted. Colonel Mifflin was the first person in America who officiated as aide-de-camp.

When Washington, July, 1775, organized the entire army, the difficult position of quartermaster general was assigned to Mifflin. The duties were new and arduous. Everything was in chaos. Order had to be established and system inaugurated.

On May 19, 1776, Congress appointed and commissioned Mifflin to be a brigadier general and he was given command of Pennsylvania troops. An assignment to the active field was much more to his liking than one at headquarters.

Upon taking the field Mifflin was relieved as quartermaster general by General Stephen Moylan, who was ill suited to the difficult task of providing for an army where the authority for calling in supplies was little respected and the means of paying for them was rarely in hand; and not long after accepting the position he abandoned it.

Congress called upon Mifflin to again assume the duties of quartermaster general and he reluctantly responded to the call of his country, deeming it a matter of duty.

The reverses of the American Army during the summer and fall of 1776 culminated in its withdrawal into New Jersey, hotly pursued by the British troops. Pennsylvania was threatened and especially Philadelphia, where Congress was sitting. At this dark hour Mifflin was sent with dispatches from Washington to Congress, calling on that body loudly for help.

Mifflin, at the request of Congress, made a stirring address, setting forth the perilous situation, and appealing for the means to oppose the further advance of the defiant enemy. That body was greatly exercised and ordered that General Mifflin should remain near Congress for consultation and advice.

As the enemy pressed toward Philadelphia, General Putnam was sent to take command in the city and General Mifflin was placed in charge of the war material and stores.

The victory at Trenton produced a gleam of hope and Congress dispatched Mifflin throughout the State of Pennsylvania in order that, by his personal appeals, volunteers might be drawn to the support of Washington’s decimated ranks. He caused large numbers to enlist.

Mifflin was mixed up in the “Conway Cabal,” but in after years he explained his position, and it would seem to prove the intensity of his devotion to the struggle in which he had staked fortune and life itself.

In 1783 General Mifflin was elected a member of Congress, and had the satisfaction of being President of that body, when General Washington, December 23, 1783, resigned his commission into its hands. Mifflin made an eloquent reply.

General Mifflin was a member of the Assembly of Pennsylvania which met in 1785; also of the convention which sat in 1787 and framed the Constitution of the United States.

In 1788 he was chosen a member of the Supreme Executive Council, and upon the retirement of Franklin, he was elected President.

General Mifflin was the president of the convention that framed the State Constitution of 1790, and he and General Arthur St. Clair were the two candidates for Governor. Mifflin triumphed and was continued in office for that and the two succeeding terms.

Governor Mifflin was very efficient in quelling the Whisky Insurrection of 1794, and personally commanded the troops from Pennsylvania.

His last official communication as Governor was made December 7, 1799. It contained his farewell sentiments on taking leave of office and was received with every manifestation of respect by the Assembly.

He was elected to the Assembly and took his seat, but did not long survive. He died during a session of the House, then sitting in Lancaster, on January 21, 1800. His decease was noticed with becoming ceremonies, resolutions being adopted expressive of the high sense entertained for him as a soldier and statesman, authorizing his interment at the public expense and providing for the erection of a monument to his memory.

“Thus ended,” says Dr. Rawle, “the checkered life of Thomas Mifflin—brilliant in its outset—troubled and perplexed at a period more advanced—again distinguished, prosperous and happy—finally clouded by poverty and oppressed by creditors. In patriotic principle never changing—in public action never faltering—in personal friendship sincerely warm—in relieving the distressed always active and humane—in his own affairs improvident—in the business of others scrupulously just.”

The pioneer seminary for aspirants to the Presbyterian ministry nearly two hundred years ago, was long known as “The Old Log College.” It stood at Neshaminy in Warwick Township, Bucks County.

When the celebrated evangelist George Whitefield came to America in 1739, he preached here to three thousand persons.

The deed for the land upon which this early educational institution was built, was dated 1728, and was given by Hon. James Logan, the secretary of the Province and one of the most illustrious of the early officials of Pennsylvania, to his cousin, Reverend William Tennent, an Irish emigrant, who shortly after his arrival in America renounced his allegiance to the Church of England and united with the Philadelphia Presbytery.

The gift consisted of fifty acres of land and the part of it on which the college stood is believed to have been an ancient Indian burying ground. The log college, twenty feet by thirty feet in size, was for many years the only institute south of New England where young men could be prepared for the ministry.

The Log College flourished under Mr. Tennent for twenty years, when its place was eminently supplied by kindred institutions thereabouts. From its walls came many noted preachers of Scotch-Irish descent, among them four of his own sons. One of the latter, Gilbert Tennent, preached most eloquently to stir up patriotism during the French and Indian War.

It is said that a carload of these sermons were very opportunely discovered in an old lumber room of Dr. Benjamin Franklin’s when the American patriots were hunting for paper to make cartridges, after the British evacuated Philadelphia, June 17, 1778. The sermons were utilized as cases for cartridges, and told effectively afterwards on the retreating British in the battle of Monmouth. Thus these eloquent sermons served the country in two great wars, more than is usually the case.

The Reverend Charles Beatty, an Irish Presbyterian, who was chaplain with Colonel Benjamin Franklin in his army on the Lehigh and later with Colonel William Clapham in his regiment which marched to Fort Augusta at the Forks of the Susquehanna, was a student here.

The Rev. Mr. Beatty was the son of an officer in the British Army, and was born in Ireland, January 22, 1715. He obtained a fairly accurate classical education in his own country and when he emigrated to America in 1740, his circumstances being meager, he employed several of the first years of his residence as a peddler.

He halted one day at the Log College, where he addressed the Reverend William Tennent familiarly in correct and classical Latin. After some conversation in which the peddler manifested much piety and considerable religious zeal, Tennent said, “Go and sell the contents of your pack, and return immediately and study with me. It will be a sin for you to continue a peddler, when you can be so much more useful in another profession.”

Beatty accepted Tennent’s offer, became an eminent preacher, and succeeded his preceptor, as head of the Log College. He was ordained in the Presbyterian Ministry, December 1, 1743, and passed most of his life in charge of “ye congregation of Warwick, in ye forks of the Neshaminy.”

An interesting incident is related of his military service. The soldiers were issued a gill of rum each day in addition to their regular stipulation, one-half being dealt out in the morning and the balance in the evening.

Chaplain Beatty complained to Colonel Franklin that the soldiers were not punctual in attending divine service, when Franklin suggested, “It is, perhaps, below the dignity of your profession to act as a steward of the rum, but if you were to distribute it out only just after prayers, you would have them all about you.”

Mr. Beatty profited by the advice and in the future had no reason to complain of non-attendance. A few hands regularly measured out the liquor after prayers.

When Colonel William Clapham was detached from Franklin’s command and ordered to recruit a regiment to build Fort Augusta, he selected Beatty as the chaplain of the regiment. He kept an interesting journal of this tour of duty, of which the following is the first paragraph:

“Having received his honor, the Governor’s commission to be chaplain to the regiment of foot in the provincial service under the command of Colonel William Clapham, and having the advice and concurrence of the Commission of the Synod, who appointed supplies for the congregation in my absence—set out from home in order to join the regiment at Harris’ Ferry, Monday, May 3, 1756. I was accompanied as far as Schuylkill by my elders and some other friends, and having stopped at a friend’s house, not far from the road to refresh myself, reached as far as the Sign of the Ship on the Lancaster road, at which I lodged. Felt my need of the Divine Presence to be with me in my dangerous or at least difficult undertaking.”

He reached Lancaster the following afternoon, where he was met by Colonel Clapham and Captain Thomas Lloyd, who advised him that Governor Morris was in town. They called on His Excellency, who received them very kindly.

They all set out the following morning for Harris’ Ferry, arrived at Barney Hughes’ hotel in time for dinner and reached Harris’ Ferry in the evening, when the soldiers were ordered to assemble for prayer and to meet their distinguished guests.

Just as the assembly call sounded, a fire broke out in John Harris’ house and there were no prayers.

He frequently lamented in his well-kept journal, that some trifling incident prevented officers or men, or both, from attending prayer. “Just as service began in the afternoon, had an alarm, but few, alas, seemed to regret the disappointment. Wickedness seems to increase in the camp, which gives me a great deal of uneasiness.”

The following Sunday, “One of the bateaux which had on it a cannon was upset, which occasioned a great deal of labor, and what profane swearing there was. If I stay in the camp my ears are greeted with profane oaths, and if I go out to shun it, I am in danger of the enemy—what a dilemma is this? But my eyes would be toward the Lord.”

In 1766 he was appointed, with the Rev. George Duffield, missionary to the frontier settlements in the new purchase and to the Indians of the Ohio River. He died August 12, 1772, at Barbados whither he had gone to collect money for the New Jersey College, which is now Princeton University.

The Rev. Philip Fithian, who traveled through Central Pennsylvania in 1775, and who kept such an interesting journal of his experiences, was a son-in-law of the Rev. Charles Beatty.^[1]

A Provincial Convention was held in Philadelphia, January 23, 1775, which lasted six days. At the organization of the convention, General Joseph Reed was chosen chairman.

Strong resolutions were adopted, heartily approving the conduct and proceedings of the Continental Congress; opposing future importation of slaves into this Province; protecting members of committees of Congress from embarrassment on account of this service, and one, “That in case the trade of the city and liberties of Philadelphia shall be suspended in consequence of the present struggle, it is the opinion of this convention that the several counties should, and that the members of this convention will exert themselves to afford the necessary relief and assistance to the inhabitants of the said city and liberties; who will be more immediately affected by such an event.”

This convention also adopted a lengthy resolution which tended toward the regulation of the supply and consumption of foodstuffs, and the necessities of life, especially such as had been regulated by laws of England.

The crisis to which the convention looked forward when framing these resolutions had arrived. The battle of Lexington had been fought and submission to the arbitrary acts of Parliament was attempted to be enforced by the bayonet. Soon as the news of this battle spread multitudes of men, at the suggestion of the county committees of observation, entered into an association for defense.

The officers of these organizations were generally men of unusual military skill, men who were veterans of several campaigns and some of innumerable Indian incursions. This was not as generally true of the older portion of the Province. This had been peaceable, and remote from the frontiers, so the chief officers in these countries were frequently without military experience, who owed their preferment to political activity, or social prominence.

Dickinson accepted the colonelcy of the first battalion, while the others raised in the City of Philadelphia were commanded by Daniel Roderdeau, merchant and politician; John Cadwallader, a shopkeeper, son of one of the Governor’s Council; Thomas McKean, lawyer and lately Speaker of the Delaware Assembly, and Timothy Matlack, politician.

The colonels of the six battalions raised in Philadelphia County, which then included what is now Montgomery County were: William Hamilton, Robert Lewis, Thomas Potts, Samuel Miles, a veteran of French and Indian War, and Hill Tench Francis, brother of Colonel Turbutt Francis, also a hero of the French and Indian War, sons of the deceased Attorney General Tench Francis. The colonels from the other counties were:

Bucks County—Joseph Kirkbride, Joseph Hart, Andrew Kachlein and Arthur Erwin.

Chester County—James Moore, Thomas Hockley, Hugh Lloyd, William Montgomery and Richard Thomas.

Lancaster—George Ross, Matthias Slough, Curtis Grubb, Thomas Porter, John Ferree, James Burd, hero of the French and Indian War and of many other campaigns; Peter Grubb and Bartram Galbraith.

York County—Robert Callender, William Thompson, John Montgomery and James Wilson.

Berks County—Edward Biddle, Mark Bird, Daniel Brodhead, veteran of the French and Indian War; Balzer Geehr and Christian Louer.

Northampton County—George Taylor, Henry Geiger, Yost Dreisbach and Jacob Stroud.

Bedford County—Bernard Dougherty and Samuel Davidson.

Northumberland County—Samuel Hunter, James Potter and William Plunket, each a hero of the French and Indian War and thoroughly trained as officers.

Westmoreland County—John Proctor and John Cornahan.

To assist in carrying into effect the many measures passed for the defense of the province, the Assembly on June 30, appointed a Committee of Safety, consisting of ten from City of Philadelphia, four from the county and one from each of the other counties excepting Chester, which had two members.

Benjamin Franklin was chosen president of the committee at its first meeting, July 3, 1775; William Garrett was named clerk and Michael Hillegas treasurer.

The several County Commissioners were asked to purchase a specified number of guns with bayonets, cartridge boxes with twenty-three rounds of cartridges and knapsacks.

The Assembly offered £20 for every hundredweight of saltpeter manufactured in the province within the next three months.

Among the first labors of the Committee of Safety was that of preparing articles for the government of the military organizations known as Associators. A set of resolutions to that effect were adopted August 19, which included every possible phase of a soldier’s life, including his personal appearance, conduct, sobriety, loyalty, demeanor as an officer, noncommissioned officer or private, etc.

Many of the citizens refused to subscribe to the regulations, alleging that numerous persons, rich and able to perform military duty claimed exemption under pretense of conscientious scruples and asserting that where liberty of all was at stake, all should aid in its defense, and that where the cause was common to all, it was inconsistent with justice and equity that the burden should be partial.

The Friends addressed the Legislature, setting forth their religious faith and practice with respect to bearing arms, and claiming exemption from military service by virtue of laws agreed upon in England and the Charter of William Penn. The Mennonites and German Baptists also remonstrated, praying exemption, but willing to contribute pecuniary aid.

Assembly resolved that “all persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty capable of bearing arms, who do not associate for the defense of the Province, ought to contribute an equivalent for the time spent by the associators in acquiring military discipline; ministers of the gospel of all denominations and servants purchased bona fide for valuable consideration only excepted.”

Returns were required from the assessors of all persons within military age, and the captains of the companies of the Associators were directed to furnish to their colonels and the colonels to the County Commissioners lists of such persons as had joined the Associators. The commissioners were empowered to assess those not associated £2 10s annually, in addition to the ordinary tax.

The Assembly also adopted rules and regulations for the better government of the military association, the thirty-fifth article of which provided “that if any associator called into actual service should leave a family not of ability to maintain themselves in his absence, the justices of the peace of the proper city or county, with the overseer of the poor, should make provisions for their maintenance.”

Thomas McKee was the most noted of the later Shamokin Traders, and we have records of his trading expeditions as far west as the Ohio.

His career was highly romantic, and a consideration of the same will enable us to understand his son, Captain Alexander McKee, who afterwards became well-known at Fort Pitt, and rendered himself notorious in border history by deserting to the British during the time of the Revolutionary War, carrying over to that interest a great many Indians whom he had befriended during his service as Deputy Indian Agent under the Crown. We will then know better why he should seek more congenial company among the Ohio Indians and in the service of the King, than he had found among the American forces at Fort Pitt, who were enemies of both.

Dr. W. H. Egle has stated that Thomas McKee was a son of Patrick, but it is quite possible that he was the son of one Alexander McKee who died in Donegal Township, Lancaster County, in May, 1740, leaving a son, Thomas, who was the executor of his will.

A contributor to Dr. Egle’s “Notes and Queries” relates a traditionary account of Thomas McKee’s marriage, which had been told to him in his boyhood days by his father, a native of the Susquehanna Valley. This story was to the effect that Thomas McKee, in his early manhood began trading with the Indians, and after learning the language of the Delaware, established a trading post among them, in the vicinity of Shamokin (now Sunbury), at or near the Forks of the Susquehanna.

In the performance of this enterprise while he was on a trading expedition farther up the West Branch, he ventured into the camp of strange Indians, who stole his goods, drank his rum, and then becoming incensed at the resistance he made to their proceedings, bound him as a captive, and decided to burn him at the stake the following day.

During the night, an Indian maiden came to the wigwam where he lay bound to a log. She released him, and they fled together, making their escape. McKee from gratitude, made the girl his squaw and they lived together during the remainder of their lives as husband and wife.

Edward Shippen, of Lancaster, wrote to Governor Morris April 19, 1756, after a visit to Captain McKee’s fort, where he found ten Indians, among them John Shikellamy. He adds; “Shikellamy let me know that he wished the Indians would be moved down to Barney Hughes, where Captain McKee’s woman and children live.”

In a conference between Sir William Johnson and Canaghquiesa, an Oneida chief, the latter reported on his mission to the hostile Shawnee of Northern Pennsylvania. He advised Sir William that one who lived near those Indians had applied to the Delaware to accompany them to the proposed meeting at Onondaga, which they refused to do, saying that “One Thomas McGeeMcGee, who lives on the Susquehanna and is married to a Shawnese squaw, had told them that in ten days’ time an army of the English would come and destroy them.”

The Moravian Bishop, Cammerhoff, visited Captain Thomas McKee’s trading post in 1748. In his journal he writes under date of January 13:

“We have before us twenty long miles to Shamokin, also two bad creeks and the narrowest passes along the river to pass. At 9 o’clock we reached Thomas McKee’s, the last white settlement on the river, below Shamokin.”

This trading post was at the site of the present village of Dalmatia, Northumberland County. His other post at this time was below the mouth of the Juniata, not far distant from Big (now Haldeman’s) Island. Both these trading posts are shown on Scull’s map of 1759.

The bishop further wrote in his journal: “McKee holds a captain’s commission under the Government, is an extensive Indian trader, bears a good name among them and drives a brisk trade with the Allegheny country. His wife, who was brought up among the Indians, speaks but little English. They received us with much kindness and hospitality.”

Thomas McKee’s “woman,” “squaw” or “wife” as referred to by Edward Shippen, Chief Canaghquiesa and Bishop Cammerhoff, respectively, may have been the same who assisted him to escape from the unfriendly party of Indians in the early winter of 1743. The details of that adventure are set forth in an affidavit which McKee made before Governor Thomas in Philadelphia, January 24, 1743.

In this deposition McKee states he had a store near the Big Island, and that “on the 12th or 13th of this instant, January, about 7 o’clock in the morning, the Indians of the town came to the deponent’s store and told him they had heard the Dead Halloa and were much surprised at it. Whereupon he, with a servant of his, took a canoe and went over to the island, and in his passage heard the Indians belonging to the town call over to those on the island. To which they answered that the white men had killed some of their men. A council was called, and this deponent attended at the Council House and was admitted.”

At the council the leader of the Iroquois war band informed the Shawnee of an attack made upon their war expedition in Virginia, in which four Indians were killed.

McKee addressed the council, reminding them that these disorders had not happened in Pennsylvania, and urged them to press in their council a treaty of peace with Pennsylvania. The Shawnee did not receive the suggestion kindly. A short time after McKee was informed by a white woman, who had been taken prisoner, that it was left with the Shawnee to deal with him as they pleased and that they were going to hold a council concerning him at some distance from the town, and that if he did not escape he would certainly be cut off.

McKee realized the advice was timely and, with his servant, they departed, leaving all his goods behind. The two traveled three days and three nights before they believed themselves out of danger.

Captain Thomas McKee was in command at Fort Hunter in 1756. He died near McKee’s Half Falls, on the eastern side of the Susquehanna, in 1772, leaving two sons, Alexander and James. The former was then at Fort Pitt as an assistant to George Croghan, the deputy Indian agent for the Crown, and where he owned a large tract of land at the mouth of the Chartiers Creek, including McKee’s Rock, still a noted landmark on the Ohio River, just below Pittsburgh. When he deserted from the garrison at Fort Pitt and joined the British in 1777 his possessions in Pennsylvania passed to his brother, whose descendants are still living in Allegheny County.

If the woman Captain Thomas McKee had made his wife was the white captive of the Shawnee, who had been adopted into their tribe, it is not hard to understand why her son, Alexander the renegade, should have inherited a half-savage nature. This would be even more true if his mother was a Shawnee squaw. His adherence to the British Government when the Revolution came, a government which had so long been his paymaster, is less to be wondered at than his temporary defection therefrom during the first two years of the struggle.