Volunteers Fight Two Battles in Hills Along West Branch August 26, 1763

For boldness of attempt and depth of design the Pontiac War was perhaps unsurpassed in the annals of border warfare.

Soon as the English had been able to push past the French line of forts, which reached from Presqu’ Isle to the Monongahela, and had gained such a strong foothold in Canada, the Indians planned to destroy them at one stroke.

The renowned chiefs, Kiyasuta, of the Seneca, and Pontiac, of the Ottawa, conceived the gigantic plan of uniting all the northwestern tribes in a simultaneous attack upon the whole frontier. Utter extermination was their object.

The forts were to be taken by stratagem by separate parties, all on the same day. The border settlements were to be attacked during harvest and men, women, children, crops, cattle and cabins, were to be destroyed.

The English traders among the Indians were the first victims; out of a total of 120, only a few escaped. The frontier settlements among or near the mountains were overrun with scalping parties, marking their pathway with blood and fire.

The forts in Pennsylvania at Presqu’ Isle, Le Boeuf and Venango 587were taken with great slaughter. Those at Fort Pitt, Bedford and Ligonier were preserved with great difficulty. Carlisle and Fort Augusta were threatened.

General Amherst promptly dispatched Colonel Henry Bouquet to the relief of Fort Pitt, and he defeated the Indians and saved the garrison.

It was during this distressing period that the Indians planned to attack the interior settlements of Pennsylvania as far as Tulpehocken, and their great object was the capture of Fort Augusta, which had been built at the suggestion of the Indians themselves.

Alarming intelligence was everywhere received of the contemplated attacks; friendly Indians gave timely warning of each approaching danger. Especially was the situation critical in the vicinity of Paxtang where the treachery of the so-called friendly Indians was several times discovered.

Preparations were carefully made and the utmost vigilance exercised and every available resistance planned by the sturdy frontiersmen. The garrison at Fort Augusta was reinforced by additional troops recruited in the countries nearer the seat of government.

With reports constantly reaching Carlisle and other places that the Indians would attack Fort Augusta in great numbers, and believing that the Moravian Indian converts were treacherously giving information to the enemy, it was determined to check them.

Colonel John Armstrong, with about three hundred volunteers from Cumberland and Bedford Counties marched from Carlisle on an expedition to destroy the Indian town at Great Island, now Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.

When Armstrong’s party arrived at Great Island the Indians had already deserted their village a few days previous. But on his march he fell upon another village near the Big Island, now Jersey Shore. So sudden was his advance that the Indians were scarcely able to escape; they left the food hot upon their bark tables, which was prepared for dinner. The army destroyed Great Island village and a large quantity of grain and provisions.

A part of this little army was returning down the West Branch, Friday, August 26, when they encountered the enemy at Muncy Creek hill, present Lycoming County, and, in a hot skirmish which ensued, four of the volunteers were killed and four wounded. There were quite as many casualties among the savages, but they were able to bear away their dead and wounded.

Captains William Patterson, Sharp, Bedford, Laughlin and Crawford with seventy-six of their commands, arrived at Fort Augusta, Saturday, August 27, 1763. Other stragglers reached the fort during that and the following day.

These soldiers reported details of the sanguinary battle and confirmed 588the fears of the inhabitants about the treachery of the Moravian Indians. They reported that after the battle a party of Indians returning to Great Island from a mission to Bethlehem, were attacked by them on a hill north of the present borough of Northumberland, in which action the troops believed they had killed all of the Indian party of twelve.

There can be no doubt that these two attacks were made for there are several references to them from different sources, also J. F. Meginness in his “Otzinachson,” says:

“It is to be regretted that so little was left on record concerning the operations of this great expedition. It was the largest that had invaded the West Branch Valley up to that time, but instead of wiping out the savages and rendering them powerless, it only tended to still further enrage and cause them to commit greater deeds of blood as was proved by subsequent events.”

The first great massacre at Wyoming soon followed. A party of Six Nations stealthily murdered Tedyuskung, the Delaware King, by burning him to death in his cabin during a drunken bout. They convinced the Delaware that the crime was perpetrated by whites, who October 15, 1763, suddenly turned on the settlers while at work in the fields, brutally murdered ten of them, and left their scalped bodies in the fields, while they burned their homes, destroyed their crops and drove away the cattle. None escaped but those who fled in time to reach the mountains. This massacre was led by Captain Bull, a son of Tedyuskung.

Only the brilliant success of Colonel Henry Bouquet at Bushy Run checked the Indians, and with this repulse they became disheartened and soon after sued for peace.