Indians Massacre Inhabitants in the Conococheague Valley on July 26, 1756

July 26 is a date which recalls to the minds of many inhabitants of the present Franklin County two atrocities committed by Indians, either of which is horrible in its every detail.

On July 26, 1756, the Indians killed Joseph Martin, and took captive two brothers, named John and James McCullough, all residents of the Conococheague settlement. This was followed, August 27, with a great slaughter, wherein the Indians killed thirty-nine persons, near the mouth of the Conococheague Creek.

Early in November following, the Indians discovered some soldiers of the garrison at Fort McDowell, a few miles distant, ambushed them and killed and scalped Privates James McDonald, William McDonald, Bartholemew McCafferty, and Anthony McQuoid; and carried off Captain James Corken and Private William Cornwall. The following inhabitants were killed: John Culbertson, Samuel Perry, Hugh Kerrel, John Woods and his mother-in-law, and Elizabeth Archer; and carried off four children belonging to John Archer; and two lads named Samuel Neily and James McQuoid.

To return to the first atrocity. James McCullough had but a few years before removed from Delaware to what is now Montgomery Township, Franklin County, where he immediately began to clear the land and till the soil.

The McCullough family had been temporarily living in a cabin three miles distant from their home, and the parents and their daughter, Mary, went home to pull flax. A neighbor, John Allen, who had business at Fort Loudon accompanied them, and promised to come that way in the evening and go along back to the cabin.

Allen had proceeded about two miles when he learned that the Indians had that morning killed a man, a short distance from the McCullough home. Allen failed to keep his promise and returned by a circuitous route.

When he reached the McCulloughs he told the lads to hide, that Indians were near at hand, and added, at the same time, that he supposed they had killed their parents.

John McCullough was eight years old and James but five. They alarmed their neighbors, but all hurried to make preparations to go to the fort, a mile distant. None would volunteer to warn Mr. and Mrs. McCullough of their danger, so the lads determined to do it themselves. They left their little sister, Elizabeth, aged two years sleeping in bed.

The brave lads reached a point where they could see their house and began to halloo. They were happy to reach their parents in safety. 511When about sixty yards from the house, five Indians and one Frenchman came rushing out of the thicket and took the lads captive. The Indians missed capturing the parents by the mere accident that the father had heard the lads and left his work to meet them and thus the Indians missed him, and failed to notice the mother and daughter in a field at work.

The lads were taken to the forks of the Ohio, whence James, the younger, was carried into Canada and all trace of him lost. John remained with the Indians for nine years, when he and hundreds of other captives were released. They eventually were able to find their way back to their homes in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia.

John lived in the community from which he had been taken for nearly sixty years and left a written record of what he suffered during this long captivity.

The other Indian massacres, which inhabitants of the Conococheague Valley will ever relate, began with the appearance of savages on Sunday, July 22, 1764, when several were discovered near Fort Loudon.

On Wednesday Susan King Cunningham left her home and started through the woods to call on a neighbor. As she did not return when expected a search was made, and soon her body was found lying near her home. The fiends had not been content to murder and scalp this good woman, but had performed a Caesarian operation and had placed her child on the ground beside her.

The next day, July 26, occurred the murder of Enoch Brown, schoolmaster, and ten of his pupils. A tragedy unique in the long story of Indian atrocities.

This terrible massacre occurred about three miles north of Greencastle, Franklin County. Brown and each of the ten small children were killed and scalped, and a lad, Archibald McCullough, was scalped and left for dead among the other victims, but he recovered and lived for many years.

With few exceptions the scholars were much averse to going to school that morning. And the account afterward given by McCullough is that two of the scholars informed Mr. Brown that on their way to school they had seen Indians. The master paid no attention to what had been told him, and ordered them to their books.

Soon after school had opened three Indians rushed up to the door. The schoolmaster, seeing them, prayed the Indians only to take his life and spare the children, but they refused. The Indians stood at the door, whilst the third entered the school room, and with a piece of wood in the shape of a maul, killed the master and the scholars, after which all of them were scalped.

Young McCollough, left for dead, dragged himself to a spring a short distance from the school house where he slaked his burning thirst and washed his wound.

512This Archie was a cousin of John and James McCullough, taken by the Indians in that same place exactly eight years before. John was at that time a captive and living with the Indians. In his interesting narrative he says that he knew the three Indians who murdered Brown and the children, and that he was present when they returned to their chief.

They were young Indians, not over twenty years of age. Old Night Walker, the chief, called them cowards for having so many children’s scalps.

Thus it is a singular coincidence that these two crimes should be committed on July 26, that McCulloughs should figure in them both, and that the only accurate details of each massacre are given by the only two survivors, John and Archie McCullough, yet they occurred eight years apart.