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North and South
Stories and Genealogy of Theodore Charles Anderson and Sara Carlene Shuttleworth
Indians!
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The Massacre at Wyoming Valley 1778
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They were here First
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The role of the American Indian during the American Revolution was a shadowy and important, but tragic one. It was shadowy because the Indians operated from the interior forests of North America and made their presence felt suddenly and violently on the Colonial settlements and Armies.
It was important because the Indians never really stopped fighting after 1763. Nobody bothered to consult with them in signing the first “Peace of Paris” which basically gave away all their lands to the British without their consent.
Early in the Revolution, neither the Loyalists nor the Patriots sought to enlist Indian support. Indeed, both sides urged them to remain neutral on the grounds that the dispute was a family quarrel in which they were not concerned, but they didn’t do so. Many of them fought on the side of the British, hoping they would get a better deal from them than from the Americans Colonists.
It became tragic when the Patriots finally won and the Indians were essentially wiped out east of the Mississippi River.
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Lord Dunmore’s War
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Lord Dunmore
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Load Dunmore's War was fought from 1773 to 1774 between militiamen led by Lord Dunmore, the British Royal Governor of Virginia, and the American Indians of the Ohio Rived basin, primarily the Shawnees and Mingos. The conflict resulted from escalating violence between the colonists who were exploring and moving into land south of the Ohio River, modern West Virginia and Kentucky, and the American Indians who hunted there. Charles, Isaac, James3 and Stephen Washburn, the sons of John9 Washburn, all served as scouts for Lord Dunmore.
Dunmore’s War itself ended soon after Virginia's victory in the Battle of Point Pleasant on October 10, 1774. The Indians who attended the peace treaty agreed that the Ohio River would mark the boundary between Indian lands and the Virginia colony. But not all of the Indians agreed to these terms and the struggle was renewed the next year the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1775.
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The Battles for the Ohio River Valley (1778-1781)
 Charles Washburn (1744-1789)
Isaac Washburn (1746-1778)
James3 Washburn (1748-1778)
Stephen Washburn (1750-1778)
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The Americans were led by General George Rogers Clark (1752–1818) the second time around. He was the preeminent American military leader on the northwestern frontier during the American Revolutionary War.
He became one of the great American military heroes of the Revolution, hailed as the conqueror of the Northwest Territory at the apex of his fame. His younger brother William Clark was one of the leaders of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Statue of George Rogers Clark on the Riverfront Plaza/Belvedere in Louisville, Kentucky, the city he founded
During the Revolution, the Kentucky settlements were simultaneously at war with the British and the Native American Indians all along the Ohio River valley, particularly the Shawnee, Mingo, and Wyandot. Working for the Kentucky pioneers who saw themselves as part of Virginia, Clark helped raise a militia and organize the defense of the region against both enemies.
At that time, Kentucky really had no official status within the State of Virginia; nevertheless, they sent the 24-year-old Clark as their representative to the Virginia General Assembly. When Clark arrived in Richmond with news of the British and Indian activities in Kentucky, he created a sensation.
Virginia, under Governor Patrick Henry, was almost insolvent at the time, but the General Assembly agreed to admit Kentucky into the state as a county anyway and issued Clark 500 pounds of black powder, which he carried over the Cumberland Gap to the settlements.
As a leader of the defense of the Kentucky frontier, Clark gathered intelligence pointing to the British role as sponsor of the Indian warfare. The British Army, from a base in Detroit, Michigan, was encouraging the Native warriors, and British-Canadian fur traders in the Illinois Country were supplying the hostile forces.
In response, Clark asked for permission to lead a secret expeditionary force to capture southern Illinois. Governor Patrick Henry quietly commissioned Clark as a Lieutenant Colonel and authorized him to raise seven companies totaling 350 men.
Clark held this commission from Virginia, not from the United States, and Virginia still had little money. Clark could raise only 175 volunteers for the secret mission. Among those 175 were the brothers Charles, Isaac, James3, and Stephen Washburn.
In 1778, Clark led his small troop westward from Fort Pitt. The force passed down the Ohio River along the northern border of Kentucky to the falls of the Ohio picking up many families along the way who joined the military convoy for security and protection from Indian reprisals.
On May 27, 1778, Clark chose an island he named Corn Island to set up camp at the falls. It was the founding of a settlement which was later named Louisville.
After successfully passing over the white water of the Falls of the Ohio, Clark and his troops beached their vessels on June 24, 1778, at the abandoned Fort Massac, near the current site of Metropolis, Illinois. Seeking to surprise the British soldiers occupying Fort Kaskaskia, they walked overland and arrived at Kaskaskia on the night of July 4. They captured the fort and city without firing a shot.
Clark then dispatched French Priest Father Pierre Gibault to the trading village of Vincennes, Indiana, to influence the inhabitants there and to secure the nearby Fort Sackville. The Priest succeeded and Clark placed Captain Leonard Helm in command of Fort Sackville.
All along the way, the Indians fought a running battle with Clark’s small band. In various attacks during 1778, Isaac, James3, and Stephen Washburn were killed. Only Charles survived that year and lived to tell the tale.
Early in 1779, Clark received word from Fort Sackville that the Lieutenant Governor of Canada, Henry Hamilton, had retaken that outpost for Great Britain. With much friendlier relations with the Indians of the Ohio River Valley than Clark had, Hamilton thought that time was on the British side.
Clark knew that if he remained in southern Illinois, his small band would probably be overwhelmed. So, the only alternative was to strike first, and from an unexpected direction.
The open country between Kaskaskia and Vincennes, which would later become southern Illinois, was then prairie wetland, with an endless succession of rivers and sloughs.
On February 6, 1779, Clark led what was left of his volunteers (about 170 men) from Fort Kaskaskia 210 miles eastward through "drowned country" in "the depth of winter." Over a period of 17 days, his small detachment marched and waded through southern Illinois to Vincennes.
Clark's riflemen then practiced sharp shooting against the Fort Sackville palisade from all sides. Marching around with the extra Virginia flags he had, Clark convinced the frightened and confused Hamilton that the Virginian troop totaled more than 600 men, when in fact it was less than one-third that size.
He sent a message to Hamilton, threatening to storm the fort and give no quarter. The demoralized Hamilton formally surrendered on February 25, even though he vastly outnumbered Clark and could easily have held out against his attack.
This daring winter expedition was Clark's most notable achievement and made him a legend of the early American frontier.
Clark's ultimate goal during the Revolutionary War was to seize the British stronghold of Fort Detroit and claim all lands west of the Appalachians for the American Revolutionaries (or perhaps for Virginia), but he could never recruit enough men to make the attempt.
The Kentucky militiamen generally preferred to defend their homes by staying closer to Kentucky, rather than making a long and potentially perilous expedition to Detroit. However, Clark's capture of Governor Hamilton and occupation of the Illinois country helped to reduce British effectiveness in the Northwest Territory.
The Indian frontier raids against Kentucky continued. In June 1780, a mixed force of British and Native Americans from Detroit under Captain Henry Bird invaded Kentucky, capturing the fortified settlements of Ruddel's Station and Martin's Station. In August 1780, Clark led a retaliatory force which won a victory near the Shawnee village of Pekowee (near present Springfield, Ohio).
At the Treaty of Paris (1783) that ended the Revolutionary War (visit Revolution in the South), Great Britain ceded the entire Northwest Territory to what had become the United States. Many credit Clark's efforts with helping to cause this momentous result.
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The Wyoming Massacre, Wilkes-Barre, PA, July 3, 1778.
Pvt. Daniel Washburn (1763–1846)
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The Iroquois were a particularly serious problem to the Patriots fighting in Pennsylvania during the Revolution. In July 1778, a force of several thousand Iroquois, British troops and Torie men, led by Torie Major John Butler and the Iroquois Chief Joseph Brant, overwhelmed the Patriots defending the Wyoming Valley in northern Pennsylvania (near present-day Wilkes-Barre) and preceded to murder and scalp over 350 men, women and children. They burned about 1,000 residences. All the mills were burned and over a thousand head of cattle, sheep, and hogs were driven off. The raid became known as the “Wyoming Massacre”.
Protecting the area was Forty Fort named after the first forty settlers who had come to the area. The fort was square, about 70 yards on each side. The walls were made of logs with one end buried about 5 feet in the ground. The outer walls were double thick with huts built up on the inside. There were sentry towers at each corner.
On July 1st, 1778 two smaller forts in the area had surrendered to the British, but Forty Fort refused. On July 3rd, Colonel Zebulon Butler led 400 men out of Forty Fort to attack the British. They were totally overwhelmed by the opposing forces some 2000 strong. Over 300 of them were killed and scalped by the Indians. The next day, Forty Fort surrendered.
Sara’s 5th cousin, 5 times removed, Daniel Washburn, was there. The following is his personal record of what happened. He was 15 at the time. He wrote this account 68 years later just before he died in 1846. I have edited his words to correct spelling and grammatical mistakes and changed the place names to current spellings, but the story is his.
Here is Daniel Washburn’s account of the Wyoming Massacre, July 1778:
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I lived in Shawnee at the commencement of the battle. The Nanticoke Company had come up to Shawnee and I joined in with them under Captain Asaph Whittelsey. We all marched up to Forty Fort that night. I was one of the guards. It was woods all around the Fort. I stood on the north corner.
The next morning we saw the flag of the enemy coming towards us with two men, one carrying the British flag and the other playing on the fife. They had a letter for our Colonel Zebulon Butler demanding that we surrender the Fort. The Colonel told them he would not do so.
After they had left, orders were given by Colonel Butler that we must go and meet the enemy. We started off about 12 o'clock. Before we started, our Captain Franklin passed around a pail full of rum, of which I partook a small dram.
Colonel Butler mounted his horse and the order to march was given upon which we all marched about 2 miles when Captain Franklin discovered an Indian catching a hog. The Captain shot the Indian so that we discovered much blood.
We then marched about 1 mile further and came to the enemy guards. The first thing we knew we heard shots from the guards. We then and not till then knew where we were. The first order was for every man to halt, which was answered by fire from the enemy.
We all marched in single file. We then received the order to wheel to the right so as to face the enemy and commence the firing. I think it was about 2 o'clock when the battle commenced. We fought on till about 3/4 of an hour before sundown.
The Indians and Tories occupied the right wing. The Colonel gave the command to retreat 40 yards to the rear and then halt. This was done because the enemy had nearly surrounded us and they were shooting us on our backs. But when we commenced retreating, the troops could not be stopped and ran on as fast as they could.
Some of the rest and I were helping a wounded soldier who was shot in the hip. We were helping him onto Colonel Butler horse. Whilst I was helping this man onto the horse, a rifle ball came and took the back of my boot away.
When Colonel Butler started with this wounded man, there were only three of us left: the Colonel Butler himself, the wounded man I did not know and me.
Colonel Butler and I kept our rifles. The other man lost his rifle, hat and shoes. We pursued our course toward the Fort. About 1/2 mile this side of the Fort there was a cleared field of about 5 acres. When we got there, we perceived 3 Indians pursuing us with rapid speed. They were about 50 yards behind us. I told Colonel Butler we must give these lads a fire as we where almost out of breath. Colonel Butler and I then turned about and shot.
I saw the largest of them fall to the ground. The other two ran into the woods.
I suggested to Colonel Butler that we should not keep to the road to try go to Forty Fort but instead we should go aside and rest as the report of the guns were heard in all directions toward the Fort.
It was at this time getting dark and I knew that the enemy would soon cease of roaming about in the night. We intended to go down to Forty Fort through fields and woods till we came to Ross Hill where we came again to the main road and went to the Fort.
We came to the Fort about midnight and to our great surprise it was occupied by no one except my father Jesse Washburn, my brother Caleb, my stepmother with her 2 small children and Mrs. Woodring, the wife of William Woodring who had been killed in the battle. Mrs. Woodring had 5 children, 4 sons and a daughter.
We all remained till daybreak when we could see no one else round. The Fort was full of provisions and a store of goods, bedding and house furniture. In the morning we three, father, Caleb and I carried rails and made a raft.
At 9 o'clock we had our raft finished. About this time we heard the report of shooting at the Wilkes-Barre Fort and knew it to be the enemy. We then got aboard our rail raft. My father and mother, Caleb, the 2 children and Mrs. Woodring with her 5 children, left Forty Fort taking with us enough provisions to last across the Blue Mountains.
We set sail on our rail raft and went on very well until we got to Nanticoke Falls where we saw 2 boats fast on a rock. They called to us to help them loose. There were in these boats men, women and children.
We landed our raft on the Shawny side, went over to help them loose, for which they paid us.
While we where getting the boats loose, we saw a man come out of the woods. He was naked with not a stitch of clothes about him. He had swum the river at Forty Fort and had come down through the woods. He spoke to us from the other side and told us of his happy escape and then went on again.
When we had loosed the other boats, it was about 12 o'clock in the day. Then we pushed off our rail raft again and sailed on very well till night when we landed at or a little above the mouth of the Little Wapwallopen and put up for the night in a small cabin that stood where Jacob and Joseph Hess now live. A man by the name of Dewey had moved out about 2 days before. Here we stayed all night.
In the morning we again pursued our journey along the old Indian path. This day we travailed beyond the Buck Mountains and put up for the night in the woods, Mrs. Woodring and her 5 children being still with us.
The next morning we again renewed our journey. On the third day we landed at a place called Gradenhead in Northampton County.
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Daniel Washburn’s Headstone 1846
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Tune "Come, Haste to the Wedding"
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The introductory tune used on this page is "Come, Haste to the Wedding". It is of Gaelic origin and was first introduced as printed music in the pantomime, "The Elopement", which was staged in London in 1767.
In America during the Revoultion, it was widely used as a marching song by the Contintenial Army and was usually played by a Fife and Drum Corps.
It appears in late 18th century music copybooks including those of Captain George Bush and Henry Livingston. Livingston purchased the estate of Locust Grove, Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1771 at the age of 23. In 1775 he was a Major in the 3rd New York Regiment, which participated in Montgomery’s invasion of Canada under the command of Benedict
Arnold in his failed attempt to wrest Montreal from British control (visit Valley Forge).
An important land-owner in the Hudson Valley, and a member of the powerful Livingston family, Henry was a surveyor and real estate speculator, an illustrator and map-maker, and a Justice of the Peace for Dutchess County. He was also a poet and musician, and presumably a dancer, as he was elected a Manager for the New York Assembly’s dancing season of 1774-1775, along with his 3rd cousin, John Jay, later U.S. Chief Justice of Governor of New York.
It was printed by Howe in his Musician’s Omnibus of 1850, and in his School for the Fife in 1851. Burchenal published it under the title "Green Mountain Volunteers" along with a New England contra dance by the same name.
It was recorded for the Library of Congress by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph from Ozark Mountain fiddlers in the early 1940's, and also was recorded by Herbert Halpert for the same institution in 1939 from the playing of a Lauderdale County, Mississippi, fiddler named Stephen B. Tucker.
The title appears in a list of Maine fiddler Mellie Dunham's repertoire (the elderly Dunham was Henry Ford's champion fiddler in the late 1920's) and it was a favorite dance tune in western New York at the turn of the century.
As "Hasten to the Wedding" it was mentioned in an account of a fiddlers' convention at the Pike County Fairgrounds in the Troy Herald of July 6th, 1926. Winston Wilkinson (“Virginia Dance Tunes,” Southern Folklore Quarterly, VI, 1, March, 1942) calls it “one of the best-loved tunes in Virginia.” He collected it from Albermarle County fiddler James H. “Uncle Jim” Chisholm, who had played it and other tunes in the 1930’s at the White House for President and Mrs. Roosevelt.
Click here to play a complete version of "Come, Haste to the Wedding".
Lyrics:
1. Come haste to the wedding ye friends and ye neighbors,
The lovers their bliss can no longer delay.
Forget all your sorrows your cares and your labors,
And let every heart beat with rapture today.
Come, come one and all, attend to my call,
And revel in pleasures that never can cloy.
Come see rural felicity,
Which love and innocence ever enjoy.
2. Let Envy, Let Pride, Let Hate & Ambition,
Still Crowd to, & beat at the breast of the Great,
To Such Wretched Passions we Give no admission,
But Leave them alone to the wise ones of State,
We Boast of No wealth, but Contentment & Health,
In mirth & in Friendship, our moments employ
Come see rural felicity,
Which love and innocence ever enjoy.
3. With Reason we taste of Each Heart Stirring pleasure,
With Reason we Drink of the full flowing Bowl,
Are Jocund & Gay, But 'tis all within measure,
For fatal excess will enslave the free Soul,
Then Come at our bidding to this Happy wedding,
No Care Shall obtrude here, our Bliss to annoy,
Come see rural felicity,
Which love and innocence ever enjoy.
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References:
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- "Proceedings and Collections of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society for the year 1901". Edited by Rev. Horace Edwin Hayden, M. A., volume VII, Wilkes-Barre, PA. Printed for the Society, 1902
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Rogers_Clark
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This page and all genealogical data contained on it are Copyrighted © 2007/2008
by Theodore C. Anderson
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