Colonel Daniel Brodhead Arrives at Fort Pitt to Fight Indians, March 5, 1779

Colonel Daniel Brodhead was sent to Fort Pitt to relieve General Edward Hand, and he arrived there March 5, 1779. He was a trained soldier and knew how to fight Indians.

General Hand turned over to him seven hundred militiamen. Some of these were stationed at Fort McIntosh, at what is now Beaver, some at Fort Henry, now Wheeling, W. Va., a few at Fort Randolph, now Point Pleasant, details at Fort Hand, near Kiskimimetas, near Apollo, and another guard at Fort Crawford, now Parnassus.

Forts Hand and Crawford were intended to protect the northern border of Westmoreland County from the raids of the Iroquois who lived on the upper waters of the Allegheny River.

With the first mild weather of spring the incursions of the savages began. The Seneca and Munsee descended the Allegheny in canoes and scattered in little bands throughout the country. They burned cabins, killed and scalped men, carried off the women and children and household goods.

Colonel Brodhead put into operation a system of scouting along the border from one fort to another. From his regulars at Fort Pitt, he selected his boldest and most experienced frontiersmen and organized ranging parties and sent them on extended tours through the forests. 168To the command of these important details he selected three of the bravest woodsmen in the Eighth Pennsylvania, Captain Van Swearingen, Lieutenant Samuel Brady and Lieutenant John Hardin. It was in this service that Brady won his fame as an Indian fighter.

Samuel Brady’s hatred of the savages was personal and he made it his business to kill them. In this he was justified in the cruel death of his brother, James, August 8, 1778, which was followed by the treacherous murder of his father, the celebrated Captain John Brady, April 11, 1779.

Samuel Brady received the news of his father’s death about the time he was chosen by Colonel Brodhead to the command of forest rangers. This increased his hatred of the red men and moved him to execute vengeance.

Brady and his scouts were clad entirely in Indian fashion. In the forest excursions they even painted their bodies and faces and wore feathers in their hair, in imitation of savage warriors.

An attack was made on Ligonier settlement in April. On April 26, one hundred Indians and Tories attacked Fort Hand, in both affairs defenders were killed and many captured, and other places were attacked and habitations burned.

During May, Brodhead kept his scouts out along the upper Allegheny to give warning of the approach of hostile bands.

Brodhead learned, about June 1, that a large band of Seneca and Tories, under Colonel John Butler was preparing to descend the Allegheny, and he dispatched three scouts, in canoes as far as Venango, the present Franklin. The scouts were discovered and pursued, and narrowly escaped capture, but brought the news which confirmed the report received by Brodhead.

The savages penetrated into Westmoreland, where they killed and scalped a solitary soldier, then attacked the little settlement at James Perry’s Mills, on Big Sewickley Creek, killed a woman and four children, and carried off two children, many cattle and much plunder.

Two ranging parties were sent after these marauders. One was marched to the Sewickley settlement and an attempt was made to follow the trail. The other band consisted of twenty men under Brady, which ascended the Allegheny River.

As Brady’s detail advanced one evening along the beach within the mouth of the Big Mahoning where it empties into the Allegheny, they found many Indian canoes drawn up and hidden among the shrubbery. The Indians had gone into camp in the woods, on a little knoll north of the creek, and were preparing the evening meal when discovered by Brady. They had hobbled their horses and turned them out to graze. The stream was very high and the scouts were compelled to ascend it two miles before they could wade across.

After nightfall Brady and his men hid themselves in the tall grass 169near the Indian camp. Brady and Chief Nonowland, laying aside their tomahawks, knives, powder horns and bullet pouches, crept to within a few yards of the Indian camp to count the savages and ascertain the position of the captive children.

One of the Indians suddenly cast off his blanket, arose, stepped forth to within six feet of where Brady lay, stood there awhile, stretched himself and then returned to his slumber.

Brady and Nonowland then prepared for an attack at daybreak. The whole party of scouts made their way through the grass and weeds to a position as near the camp as was considered safe, and lay awaiting the dawn.

As daylight appeared an Indian awoke and aroused the others. They stood about the fire laughing and chatting when a deadly volley broke forth from the rifles of the scouts lying in the bushes. The chief and seven Indian warriors fell dead and the others, almost naked, fled into the dense forest, two of them severely wounded. Brady’s own rifle brought down the chief, and with a shout of almost fiendish triumph he sprang forward and scalped him.

The traditions of the Brady family say that the chief was none other than Bald Eagle, who had struck down and scalped Brady’s younger brother, James, ten months before. Brodhead reported to Washington that the chief was “a notorious warrior of the Munsee nation.”

The children captured at Sewickley were recovered unharmed and Brady and his men returned to Fort Pitt with the stolen horses and plunder, the blankets, guns, tomahawks and knives of the savages and many scalps.