Massacre of Settlers Along the Juniata River Began January 28, 1756

The Delaware Indians, especially those who lived west of the Susquehanna River, were exceedingly angry because of the sale of the lands along the Susquehanna and Juniata to the whites, and declared that those coveted hunting grounds had been given to them (the Delaware) by the Six Nations, and that therefore the latter had no right to sell them.

The Six Nations admitted that they had given the region to their cousins, the Delaware, as a hunting ground, yet they did not hesitate to make the sale to the English in 1754, and to confirm it in 1758.

The Delaware received none of the 400 pounds which had been paid to the Six Nations, and it is little wonder that they sought an opportunity and pretext for that revenge against the English which they dared not show against their ancient conquerors, the Six Nations.

Such an opportunity was presented by General Braddock’s disaster on the Monongahela, July 9, 1755, immediately after which they, with the Shawnee, became the active allies of the French.

Within three months their war parties had crossed the Alleghanies eastward, and had committed atrocities among the frontier settlements.

On October 16 occurred the massacre on Penn’s Creek, in what is now Snyder County, and on the 25th, John Harris’ party was ambushed at Mahanoy Creek.

On January 27, 1756, a party of Indians from Shamokin (now Sunbury) made a foray in the Juniata Valley, first attacking the house of Hugh Mitcheltree, who was absent at Carlisle, having left his house in the care of his wife and a young man named Edward Nicholas. Both of these were killed by the Indians, who then went up the river to the house of Edward Nicholas, Sr., whom they killed, also his wife, and took seven prisoners, namely, Joseph, Thomas and Catherine Nicholas, John Wilcox and the wife and two children of James Armstrong.

The scene of the first of these incursions was on the farm of James Mitcheltree, who was a warrantee in Delaware Township in 1755, and where he died in the early part of 1803. This farm then passed into the hands of John Thompson, and it is still in the hands of his descendants. Hugh Mitcheltree, who escaped death or capture in this foray, was carried off by the Indians two months later, March 29, 1756. The Mitcheltree family lived near the present Thompsontown, Juniata County.

While the Indians were committing the murders at the Mitcheltree and Nicholas homes, an Indian named James Cotties, who wished to be 74captain of the party, but could not be so chosen, took with him a young brave and went to Sherman’s Creek, where they killed William Sheridan and his family, thirteen in number. They then went down the creek to the home of two old men and an elderly woman, named French, whom they killed. Cotties often boasted afterward that he and the boy took more scalps than all the others of the party.

James Cotties, in 1757, went to Fort Hunter and killed a young man named William Martin, while he was busy picking chestnuts. After the war was over, the same Cotties being again at the same fort was reproached by another Indian, named Hambus, for the death of young Martin, and a quarrel ensued in which Hambus killed Cotties.

There are letters extant which give an account of the massacre by the Indians, on the river between Thompsontown and Mexico. They reveal the fact that this was the largest butchery of the whites that ever took place in the east end of Juniata County.

A letter of January 28 proves that Captain James Patterson was with his company at his fort, on the Juniata, the day of the massacres.

Extract from a letter dated Carlisle January 29, 1756, says:

“This afternoon came to town a man that lived on Juniata, who in his journey this way called at the house where the woolcombers lived, about ten miles from this place, and saw at his door a bed-tick, and going into the house found a child lying dead and scalped. This alarmed us much and while we were consulting what to do, we received the enclosed, which puts it past all doubt that the enemy intend to attack Sherman’s Valley or this place. We thought it necessary to acquaint you as soon as possible, not only to hurry you home, but, if thought needful, that the people of York might send over some aid.”

The “enclosed” referred to in the above, was a long letter written by a soldier in the garrison at “Patterson’s Fort, of Juniata,” dated January 28, 1756, in which the fifteen murders of the Wilcox, Nicholas and Armstrong families were explained in all their horrible details, the writer having visited the several places and witnessed for himself the bodies of the victims.

The letter continues:

“The party that went to bury the dead, found one Sheridan and his wife, three children and a man-servant, all murdered; also two others in another house: these within a few miles of Carlisle.

“I am heartily sorry that I must grieve you with an account of a most inhuman murder committed by the Indians at Juniata and Sherman’s Creek on the 27th of last month. Within three miles of Patterson’s Fort was found Adam Nicholson and his wife dead and scalped and his two sons and a daughter carried off; William Wilcock and his wife dead and scalped; Mrs. Hugh Micheltree and son of said Nicholson dead and scalped, with many children, in all about seventeen. The same day one Sheridan, a Quaker, his wife and three children, and a 75servant were killed and scalped, together with one William Hamilton and his wife and daughter and one French, within ten miles of Carlisle, a little beyond Stephen’s Gap.”

On March 24, Captain James Patterson with his scouting party of borderers fell in with a party of Indians on Middle Creek, now Snyder County, attacked them, killed and scalped one and put the rest to flight. On their return, Patterson reported that the country from the forks of the Susquehanna to the Juniata was “swarming with Indians, looking for scalps and plunder, and burning all the houses and destroying all the grain which the fugitive settlers had left in the region.”

The Indians who committed these depredations were of the Delaware Nation; there were no Shawnee among them. They had their headquarters on the North Branch at Nescopeck and Wyoming, and were so incited by the craftiness of the French that they threatened “to break the heads of any of their own race who advised peace with the English.”