Widow Smith’s Mill Destroyed by Indians on July 8, 1779

During the year 1774 Catherine Smith, widow of Peter Smith, commenced building a large grist mill near the mouth of White Deer Creek, in the present Union County, which she completed the following year.

When Peter Smith died in the fall of 1773, he left his widow and ten children with no estate to support his family, except a location for three hundred acres of land, including the mouth of White Deer Creek, whereon was an excellent mill seat. His widow was of the type who did not sit idly by and let her neighbors help support 468her family, but realizing that a grist and saw mill were both much wanted in that new country at that time, and being urged to erect these mills, she set about the task.

The widow Smith was able to borrow some money and by June, 1775, she had both mills in operation. They served the inhabitants in the White Deer Valley and for many miles on the east side of the West Branch of the Susquehanna.

During the summer of 1776, there was an urgent demand for rifles for the Continental Army and for the use of the old men and boys who remained at home to protect the women and children from the sudden attacks of the Indians, while they were doing the work about the farm and the fireside. So Catherine Smith installed a boring mill, and the records show that a great number of gun barrels were bored in this mill. She also added a hemp mill.

Her eldest son went to the army and this made her work the heavier, as he was her best help. He was killed in the service.

The Indians became active following the great Wyoming massacre, July 3, 1778, and after Colonel Thomas Hartley had chastised them during his successful expedition in the late autumn of 1778, they again became bolder when the soldiers were withdrawn and the year 1779 was one of the most terrible along the frontier of the Susquehanna Valleys.

Nearly all the inhabitants had left during the “Great Runaway,” in July, 1778, and only the most venturesome had returned. The militia were recruited locally and were under the command of Colonel John Kelly.

In May a band of nearly a score of Indians killed John Sample and wife in White Deer. Christian Van Gundy and Henry Vandyke with four others learned of the murder and went to the scene to bring away any who survived the massacre. Six more men were to follow the next day.

When Van Gundy arrived at Sample’s he had slabs put up against the door and water carried up in the loft. After dark an Indian approached the house, barking like a dog, and rubbing against the door, but no attention was paid to him. The party inside lay down and slept until three o’clock, when Van Gundy got up to light a fire. The Indians surrounded the house, and mounting a log on their shoulders, tried to beat in the door. Those inside fired, wounding two, whom the Indians carried off, but not before they set fire to the house.

Van Gundy mounted the roof, and knocked off enough boards to reach the fire, which he extinguished. An Indian shot him in the leg and one of the others was shot in the face.

At daybreak they voted whether to remain and fight or attempt escape.

Two voted to stay, four to go. On opening the door they discovered 469the Indian chief lying dead in front of it. Van Grundy secured his rifle and Vandyke his powder horn.

The Indians came from ambush and the men separated. Van Grundy, with his two guns, took into a ravine, and tried to get the others to follow him. They refused. The Indians killed the old people, who were scalped.

Colonel Kelly pursued these Indians and came upon five of them sitting on a log. He placed his men and at a signal four of the Indians were killed at one volley, the fifth escaped.

The Widow Smith’s mills were now the frontier and the only place of refuge, except a small stockade, named Fort Meninger, which was built about eighty rods from the river, on the north bank of White Deer Creek, covering Widow Smith’s mills. The fort was situated west of the mills forming an apex of an irregular triangle of which the mills formed one base, and a small stone house, the home of Widow Smith, the other. This stone house, with a modern addition, is still standing.

The fort and mills were abandoned at the time of the Great Runaway, July, 1778, and the fort and mills were burned by the Indians, July 8, 1779. One man was killed in the attack.

Widow Smith returned to the ruins in 1783, and was urged to rebuild the grist and saw mills, which she accomplished with much difficulty. Ejectments were brought against her by Messrs. Claypoole and Morris, and she did not have the means to support actions at law and lost her improvements.

She petitioned the Legislature, which, of course, could grant no relief under the circumstances and her petition was dismissed. The facts set forth in her petition were certified to by William Blythe, Charles Gillespie, Colonel John Kelly, General James Potter and many prominent citizens of Northumberland County.

She is said to have walked to Philadelphia and back thirteen times in this business.^[4]

How long the litigation continued is not a matter of record, but in 1801, Seth Iredell took possession of the premises as tenant of ClaypooleClaypoole & Morris.

She died there and is buried in the old settlers’ graveyard. Her bones were disturbed when a barn was erected many years later, being identified by a venerable neighbor, by her peculiar protruding teeth.

A few years after this incident a man came to the place, having traveled from Ohio to see the old mill site. He said he was a son of Catherine Smith, and that if justice had been done her, they would still own the place.

A part of the foundation of the second mill, built by Widow Smith, serves the same purpose in a fine modern mill of today.

470When soldiers were sent into that vicinity they used the Widow Smith’s stone house. General James Potter, under date of September 18, 1780, says: “I marched the remainder, consisting of 170 men up the West Branch to Fort Swartz. I then went to Colonel Kelly, who lay at the mouth of White Deer Creek, with eighty men.” This was the Widow Smith’s Mill.