Old Pittsburgh Days E-Book

Thomas Jefferson Chapman

• Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 273

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

There is no foot of American soil richer in historical incident than the point of land at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. Here began that struggle between France and England which was destined to involve many nations in its course, to endure through two generations, and cover with its ravages the face of the civilized world. About the rude fortification at the head of the Ohio cluster a score of names illustrious on the page of history. The author has aimed to present a sketch of the origin and early development of the city that should be correct as to matters of fact and as attractive as possible.

Leseprobe

Old Pittsburgh Days

THOMAS JEFFERSON CHAPMAN

Old Pittsburgh Days, T. J .Chapman

Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck

86450 Altenmünster, Loschberg 9

Deutschland

ISBN: 9783849651879

www.jazzybee-verlag.de

[email protected]

CONTENTS:

PREFACE.. 1

CHAPTER I. RIVAL CLAIMS. 2

CHAPTER II THE STRESS OF WAR.. 12

CHAPTER III THE TURN OF THE TIDE.. 23

CHAPTER IV. FORT PITT AND BUSHY RUN... 36

CHAPTER V. PIONEER LIFE.. 45

CHAPTER VI. TROUBLE WITH DUNMORE.. 53

CHAPTER VII. IN THE REVOLUTION... 58

CHAPTER VIII. AFTER THE STORM... 66

CHAPTER IX. INDIAN HOSTILITIES. 75

CHAPTER X. THE WHISKEY INSURRECTION... 84

CHAPTER XI. PUBLIC THOROUGHFARES. 92

CHAPTER XII. THREE DISTINGUISHED VISITORS. 101

CHAPTER XIII. STIRRING EVENTS. 109

CHAPTER XIV. CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS. 116

Preface

There is no foot of American soil richer in historical incident than the point of land at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. Here began that struggle between France and England which was destined to involve many nations in its course, to endure through two generations, and cover with its ravages the face of the civilized world. About the rude fortification at the head of the Ohio cluster a score of names illustrious on the page of history. The later annals of this spot are scarcely less interesting.

In the following pages we have attempted an outline of the story of Pittsburgh. Within the compass of a single small volume it has been impossible to relate all the details of that story; but we have tried to preserve the thread of the narrative and to embody the more striking events. We have not aimed to make a book of Indian stories. We have not aimed to make a book of industrial and social statistics. What we have aimed to do has been to present a sketch of the origin and early development of our city that should be correct as to matters of fact and as attractive as possible. We trust the reader will find entertainment and profit in contemplating the old days of Pittsburgh.

CHAPTER I. RIVAL CLAIMS

Who was the first white man to set his foot upon the site of Pittsburgh it is, of course, impossible to say. Indian traders at an early period made their way through the devious paths of the forest, carrying with them such articles as were most in requisition by the savages, and returning with heavy packages of valuable skins and furs. Among these traders were a few honorable men; but generally they were men of no principle, whose influence among the Indians was only evil.

It was not until about the middle of the eighteenth century that the region of country about the headwaters of the Ohio comes into distinct view. Two claimants then appear upon the scene. The French, who had formed settlements in Canada and Louisiana, laid claim to the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys by right of the explorations of La Salle, and now they proposed to assert their claim by establishing a series of military posts that would connect their remote settlements together. The effect of this course would be to confine the English to the comparatively narrow strip of country occupied by them along the Atlantic coast.

About the same time the English began to cast their eyes in this direction. By the charters of 1607 and 1609 was granted to the London Company, all the territory lying between a point two hundred miles north and one two hundred miles south of Point Comfort, having thus a frontage of four hundred miles on the ocean, and extending " up into the land' throughout from sea to sea." The boundary-line between Virginia and the western part of Pennsylvania had not been conclusively determined, and the Virginians laid claim to the region drained by the head-waters of the Ohio.

It was a vast and unknown domain, inhabited by the bear, the elk, and the wolf, and the red man, scarcely less wild than they. In the year 1716, Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, a man of chivalric character, organized an expedition whose object was to visit the shadowy realm beyond the Blue Ridge. His expedition, however, advanced only as far as to the Shenandoah, which they named the Euphrates. From the summit of the mountains they looked upon the landscape. " Not a white man," says Dr. Caruthers, " had ever trod that virgin soil from the beginning of the world. What a solemn and sublime temple of nature was there! And who could look upon it, as it spread far out to the east and west until it was lost in the dim and hazy horizon, and not feel deeply impressed with the majesty of its Author?" With suitable ceremonies Governor Spotswood assumed possession of this fair country in the name of King George the First, and then returned to Williamsburg. In commemoration of this enterprise was founded the old Virginian order of the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe.

In the year 1748 a number of enterprising gentlemen, mainly Virginians, organized what was termed the Ohio Company, whose chief object was to divert as far as possible the fur-trade to Virginia. In furtherance of their objects they procured from the king a grant of five hundred thousand acres of land west of the mountains, to be taken chiefly on the south side of the Ohio, between the Monongahela and the Kanawha Rivers; and it was stipulated in the charter that the Company should, within seven years, seat one hundred families on the land, build a fort, and maintain a garrison to protect the settlement. In the struggle for possession, which was fast coming on, the French, while greatly in the minority in the country, were much more prompt and active in asserting themselves than the English. In the summer of 1749, M. Celoron was despatched to take formal possession of the Ohio Valley. At that time the Allegheny River was regarded as the upper Ohio, and was called indifferently the Ohio, Allegheny, and La Belle Riviere, or the Beautiful River. Celoron was a chevalier of St. Louis and a captain in the colony troops. He had upon the present service a detachment consisting of one captain, M. de Contrecoeur, second in command; a chaplain. Father Bonnecamp, a Jesuit priest; eight subaltern officers, six cadets, twenty soldiers, one hundred and eighty Canadians, and about thirty Indians. They left La Chine, near Montreal, on the 15th day of June, in a flotilla of twenty-three canoes. They pushed their way laboriously up the St. Lawrence, entered Lake Ontario, and skirting the northern shore, they reached Niagara on the 6th of July. Here they were obliged to shoulder their canoes and luggage and carry them through the forest to Lake Erie above the falls. Reembarking, they paddled along the southern shore until they reached the mouth of Chautauqua Creek. The creek was not navigable and they were forced to carry their outfit to the head of Lake Chautauqua, a distance of eight or nine miles. Passing down this beautiful sheet of water whose name is now world-famous, they entered Conewango Creek, and at noon on the 29th of July, after a most arduous voyage of five days, their canoes floated out into the broader current of the Allegheny. Rowing across to the southern side of the river, Celoron here nailed up on a tree a tin plate bearing the arms of the King of France, and buried at the foot of a red oak a plate of lead bearing an inscription which set forth that he had thereby taken renewed possession of the river Ohio " and of all those which fall into it, and of all the territories on both sides as far as the source of the said rivers, as the preceding Kings of France have possessed or should possess them." Again, on the 3rd of August, at a point eight miles below the mouth of French Creek, " opposite a naked mountain, and near an immense stone upon which certain figures are rudely carved," he nailed a plate of tin bearing the king's arms to a tree, and buried a leaden plate similar to the one he had buried on the shore opposite the mouth of the Conewango. The immense stone, now known as " the Indian god," still lying on the left bank of the Allegheny, sufficiently marks the site of Celoron's encampment. These two were the only plates he buried in the Allegheny Valley. The sheets of tin were soon torn down by the natives;' neither of the leaden plates has ever been found.

Celoron desired to meet the natives in their villages as he passed down the river. To this end he sent forward an officer, a very capable man named Chabert de Joncaire, a half-breed whose father had been a French officer, to reassure the Indians and invite them to meet Celoron; but they were suspicious and generally fled to the woods upon the approach of the canoes. Such as stood their ground Celoron endeavored to win over to the French interest. At several points he found parties of English traders, one consisting of six men with fifty horses and one hundred and fifty bales of furs, at Chartier's town, an old Shawanese village which stood near the site of the present town of Tarentum. These men he ordered to withdraw from the territories claimed by the French, and by them sent a letter to the governor of Pennsylvania. This letter is still among the archives of the State. In it Celoron expresses his surprise to find some English merchants in a country to which England never had any pretensions. He had treated them, he said, with mildness, though he had a right to regard them as " intruders and mere vagrants." Another party of six traders he found at a village within the limits of the present city of Pittsburgh, ruled by an old Iroquois woman, who, he says, " looks upon herself as queen." Here is perhaps the first distinct reference to the site of Pittsburgh on record. The village was called Shannopin's town. It lay on the bank of the Allegheny, in what is now the Twelfth Ward of Pittsburgh, and near the foot of Thirty-Second Street. Shannopin was the name of the chief who had lived here. He died not long before the visit of Celoron. The old Iroquois woman referred to was the famous Queen Aliquippa. The queen and her subjects had all fled.

Celoron calls the place " Written Rock." This name was no doubt conferred on it by himself, and found its origin in the fact that at a short distance below, his Indians, in passing, saw certain writings on a rock by the river. The place was what, is now known as McKee's Rocks. This circumstance seemed so important that he dispatched the chaplain and Joncaire to examine the writings. They did so, and reported that "they were nothing more than some English names written with charcoal."

From Shannopin's Celoron passed on down to Logstown, or Chiningue as he calls it, an important Indian town on the right bank of the Ohio, about where Sewickley now stands. The Indians at Logstown were generally favorable to the English. Only the year before this Conrad Weiser, the agent for Pennsylvania, had held a council here with the chiefs of a number of tribes and had distributed valuable presents among them. But now, upon the approach of this large body of Frenchmen, it was thought best to dissemble. When Celoron came in sight of the town he beheld three French flags flying and only one English.

As the fleet of canoes drew in to the landing the natives fired a salute of musket-balls. This surprised and somewhat alarmed Celoron, who had "no confidence in their good intentions," and he ordered them to stop it, or he would open fire upon them. He ordered the English flag to be taken down, which was promptly done. He surrounded his camp with guards, not feeling quite at ease among them. A large body of warriors came to the town, and appearances were sometimes very threatening. But evidently the savages were afraid to attack so strong a force, and all warlike demonstrations gave way to presents and mutual palaver. Early in the morning of the 12th of August Celoron and his men resumed their canoes and so passed on down the Ohio and beyond the purview of our story. Only twelve months after Celoron had returned to Montreal quite a different adventurer was threading his way through the Ohio Valley. This new-comer was Christopher Gist. He was now in the service of the Ohio Company, and his present duty was to explore the country that had been granted by the king. He was instructed to proceed westward of the great mountains with whatever number of men he should think necessary, " to search out and discover the lands upon the river Ohio and other adjoining branches of the Mississippi down as low as the great falls thereof, "to observe particularly the ways and passes through the mountains, to take an exact account of the soil, quality and product of the land, the character of the rivers, the Indian tribes that inhabited the region, etc., " that the Company may the better judge where it will be most convenient for them to take their land." Gist, who is believed to have been an Englishman by birth, was at this time living on the Yadkin, in North Carolina. What had been in his previous career to recommend him to this service we do not know; but certain it is the duty could not have fallen into more capable or faithful hands. During the border troubles of the succeeding half-dozen years Gist bore a conspicuous part, and in every position acted with credit to himself and advantage to the service.

Gist set out on this expedition October 31, 1750. November 14 he arrived at Loyalhanna, "an old Indian town on a creek of the Ohio called Kiscominitas." This town stood where Ligonier now stands. It is a historic spot. The Indian chief at Loyalhanna could speak English, and he directed Gist to Shannopin's town, on the Allegheny. He reached Shannopin's on the 19th and remained until the 23rd of the month.  There were then about twenty families in the town.

He says nothing about Queen Aliquippa. During his stay here he no doubt visited the localities in the neighborhood, the point at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, and the bluff at the mouth of Chartier's Creek. He says nothing about it, however, in his journal.  Leaving Shannopin's, he crossed the Allegheny and proceeded down the river. The path to Logstown was along the line of East and West Ohio Streets to Beaver Avenue, in Allegheny, and then along the river-bank.

This was the path pursued by Gist. At Logstown he " found scarce anybody but a parcel of reprobate Indian traders," the Indian chiefs being out hunting.  He remained over Sunday at Logstown, but left bright and early Monday morning. " I preferred the woods, "he says, "to such company." Gist traversed a great part of the present State of Ohio. At Muskingum he fell in with George Croghan, a man prominent in his day, who was here now as the agent of Pennsylvania to brighten the chain of friendship with the Indians.

With Croghan was the French-Indian interpreter Andrew Montour. Croghan, Gist, and Montour went together to White Woman's Creek, a branch of the Tuscarawas, to visit Mary Harris, who lived there.

She had been captured when a little child at the massacre of Deerfield, Massachusetts, in 1704, and had now been living nearly fifty years among the savages, "finding such comfort as she might," says Parkman, "in an Indian husband and a family of young half breeds." Poor woman! she remembered her early childhood. The people of New England, she said, used to be very religious, and she wondered how white men could be so wicked as she had seen them in the woods.

Gist was absent on this tour about seven months.  He returned through what is now the State of West Virginia, reaching his home on the Yadkin in May, 1751, only to find his family all absent; for the Indians had killed five people in the winter near his place, which frightened his wife and family "away to Roanoke," about thirty-five miles nearer the more settled parts of the country.

Meanwhile, the French had not been indifferent. They were far from being satisfied with a mere constructive ownership of the Ohio Valley. La Galissoniere had been recalled to France, and a few years later he appears as commander of the French fleet at the siege of Minorca, one incident of which was the execution of the unfortunate Admiral Byng. The Marquis de la Jonquiere had been appointed his immediate successor in the governorship of Canada; but he was an old man, and his administration was brief and not marked by any great enterprise. He died in March, 1752, and was succeeded by the Marquis Duquesne. The new governor began his administration with vigor. He at once set about taking actual possession of the Ohio Valley, by establishing a line of military posts along the watercourse. If they had been allowed to complete this, French domination in North America would have been assured. "Thus by forming a line of forts," says a writer of that period, " in some measure parallel to the coast, they enclose tis between their garrisons and the sea, and not only hinder our extension westward, but, whenever they have a sufficient navy in the sea, can harass us on each side, as they can invade us at pleasure from one or other of their forts." To this end Duquesne, in the early spring of 1753, sent out a force of not less than one thousand men under M. Marin, to occupy the desired region. This force proceeded by way of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes in a large fleet of canoes.

The course pursued by Celoron had been so difficult that a less arduous route to the Ohio had been sought and found. Passing the point where Celoron had landed, Marin kept his course until he came to the beautiful bay at Erie, — Presqu' Isle they called it, the peninsula, from the long encircling arm which the land puts out and gathers the waters of the harbor to its bosom. Duquesne called the harbor "the finest in nature." Near the shore at Presqu' Isle they at once built a fort of squared logs, with four bastions. They then opened a road south fifteen miles, to a branch of French Creek, where the town of Waterford, Erie County, now stands. Here they built a somewhat larger fort, which they named Le Boeuf. They desired also to erect a fort at Venango, at the mouth of French Creek. Thus would they have completed the chain in the northwest, and would have fastened a link upon the shore of the Ohio itself. But the Indians at Venango would not consent to this; besides, the French force was sadly wasted by fatigue and illness; and a fort there was not built at that time. Joncaire, a man of singular adroitness, courage, and activity, so far prevailed with the Indians that he was permitted to remain upon the spot with a handful of soldiers. M. Marin had failed in health, and Legardeur de St. Pierre, a gallant knight of the Order of St. Louis, was appointed in his place. St. Pierre fixed his quarters at Fort Le Boeuf. The French force, leaving a small garrison at each of the forts they had established, in the month of October returned to Montreal. When the winter of 1753 set in the French flag was flying at Presqu' Isle, Le Boeuf, and on the Allegheny riverbank at Venango.

Rumors of all this were carried from time to time by the traders to Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia. He was a hard-headed old Scotchman, exceedingly jealous for the rights of those whom he represented. He took the alarm and wrote a message to the French commandant, insisting upon the claims of the English to the Ohio Valley, and urging the French to withdraw. This message he entrusted to Major George Washington, of the Virginia militia, a youth of only twenty-one years, but who had already given evidence of those high qualities for which he was afterwards so distinguished.

It is with a thrill of interest that we read in Christopher Gist's journal, under date of Wednesday, November 14, 1753, the simple entry: "Came this day to my house in Wills Creek Major George Washington with a letter from the Virginia council requesting me to accompany him to the commandant of the French forts on the Ohio." It was the first step in a great career. Little did Gist dream of the vast personality in the tall youth that stood before him.

Besides Gist, who went as guide, Washington had with him Jacob Vanbraam, a French interpreter;

John Davison, an Indian interpreter; and four hired men or servitors, Barnaby Currin, John McQuire, Henry Steward, and William Jenkins. This Barnaby Currin was an Indian trader, and three years before he had been at Muskingum when Gist was there, and he it was that had besought leave to bury the remains of a poor white woman who had been cruelly murdered there by the Indians for attempting to escape from captivity. With this small retinue Washington on the next day "left the inhabitants" and plunged into the wilderness.

The principal path from the forks of the Ohio eastward was what was called Nemacolin's Path. This had been an Indian trail from a remote period; but in 1748, when the Ohio Company determined to open out a road to the Ohio Valley, Colonel Cresap, of Oldtown, who was put in charge of the work, engaged Nemacolin, a well-known Indian of the Delaware tribe, who resided at the mouth of Dunlap's Creek, to locate and mark the way. It was by this path that Washington and his party now rode over into the valley of the Ohio. On the 22nd of the month of November they reached the house of John Frazier, at the mouth of Turtle Creek. This John Frazier was a somewhat noted man on the border. He was a Scotchman, and by trade a blacksmith or gunsmith, as he is described in both characters. In 1749 he was living at the mouth of French Creek; but upon the approach of Celoron he had fled. When Celoron called upon the Indians there to drive away the English, they begged that "the blacksmith" might be allowed to remain; otherwise they should have no one to mend their guns, and they would be left to perish. Frazier did not return to Venango. We find him now living at the mouth of Turtle Creek, at a spot shortly afterwards to be made famous. The French took possession of his house at Venango, and Joticaire and his companions installed themselves in it. Gist says that Frazier received Washington and his retinue very kindly, and lent them a skiff to carry their baggage to the forks of the Ohio. This had become necessary, because the streams along the way were now so swollen by the heavy rains as to be quite impassable except by swimming their horses.

The next day the party left Frazier's house. The canoe was put in charge of Currin and Steward; the others set forward with the horses. They were to meet at the forks of the river. The horsemen rode over to Shannopin's town, half a dozen miles away, and then down along the bank of the Allegheny to the mouth of the Monongahela. The horsemen reached the place of rendezvous first, and while they waited for the canoe Washington examined the spot with a view to building a fort there. It had been recommended to the Company to build a fort and lay out a town at McKee's Rocks. Two of Washington's brothers were stockholders in the Ohio Company, and thus he felt interested in its welfare. It was likely the next day when he visited King Shingiss, who was living just below the Rocks, that he viewed the site of the proposed fort and town. In his report to Governor Dinwiddie he strongly urged the superiority of the forks as a military position. " A fort at the fork," he observed, " would be equally well situated on the Ohio, and have the entire command of the Monongahela, which runs up our settlement, and is extremely well designed for water carriage, as it is of a deep, still nature. Besides, a fort at the fork might be built at much less expense than at the other place." As a consequence of this report the Company decided to abandon their previous design and build at the fork of the Ohio. While Washington was thus occupied the canoe with Currin and Steward was heading down the Monongahela, and they now pulled in to the shore where their comrades were awaiting them. That evening they all crossed the Allegheny and encamped for the night not far from the foot of Monument Hill.

Next day they went on down to Logstown. Here Washington experienced a good deal of delay. Tanacharison, or the Half-King, as he was usually called, a warm friend of the English, whom Washington desired particularly to see, was absent at his hunting cabin in the woods, quite a distance away. A messenger was sent for him, and about three o'clock of the next day the chief came to town. Washington at once called on him and invited him privately with the interpreter Davison to his tent. The Half-King had made a visit to the French at Le Boeuf to remonstrate against the proceedings of the French in those quarters and their evident designs upon the Ohio region; but he had been received by the commandant, Marin, with great contempt. "You need not put yourself to the trouble of speaking," said the Frenchman, " for I will not hear you. I am not afraid of flies or mosquitoes, for Indians are such as those; I tell you that down that, river I will go, and build upon it, according to my command. If the river was blocked up, I have forces sufficient to burst it open and tread under my feet all that stand in opposition, together with their alliances; for my force is as the sand upon the seashore; therefore, here is your wampum; I sling it at you." The chief had come away filled with indignation and shame.

Washington was very eager to get forward; but it was not until the 30th of the month that the Indians could be got to start. Then but four accompanied him, the three chiefs, the Half-King, Jeskakake, White Thunder, and an Indian whom Washington calls " the hunter," but who was afterwards famous as Guyasutha. The weather was extremely rough, and the difficulties of the way very great, so that it was the 5th day of December when they arrived at Venango. Here Washington found Joncaire and two subaltern officers in the house of John Frazier. The French flag was floating above the roof. Joncaire received him with great affability, and invited him to supper with him and his fellow-officers. He informed Washington that the commandant was at Le Boeuf, about forty miles distant. He got hold of Washington's Indians, and by his blandishments and the free use of fire-water he almost won them away from their allegiance. Gist says that Joncaire did everything he could to prevail upon the Indians to remain behind, and it was noon of the 7th before Washington could get them started for Fort Le Boeuf. M. La Force, commissary of the French stores, a very enterprising fellow, and three other soldiers accompanied Washington to Le Boeuf.

The roads were exceedingly bad, and they did not get to the fort until the nth of the month. Washington at once waited upon St. Pierre and presented the letter of Governor Dinwiddle. " St. Pierre and the officer next in rank, who knew a little English," says Parkman, "took it to another room to study it at their ease; and in it, all unconsciously, they read a name destined to stand one of the noblest in the annals of mankind; for it introduced Major George Washington, Adjutant-General of the Virginia militia." St. Pierre treated Washington with extreme complaisance; but it was the evening of the 14th of December before he gave him an answer to Governor Dinwiddle's letter. He was exceedingly anxious to return to Virginia; but in one way or another St. Pierre kept tempting the Indians and detaining them.

Washington complained of this; but the polite Frenchman protested that he was doing nothing to keep them back; on the contrary, he wondered why they did not go away. The cause of the delay was that he had promised them a present of guns, etc., and as the guns were not forthcoming it was impossible for Washington to get the Indians off. He had already sent the horses back to Venango under the charge of Currin and two other men. St. Pierre had provided him with canoes and a plentiful store of liquor, provisions, etc., that he might return by water. At last the guns were given to the Indians, and on the 16th of the month Washington and his company set off down the creek.

The navigation was difficult and dangerous, and they did not reach Venango until the 22nd. Here they found Currin with the horses waiting for them. The next day Washington resumed his journey. The Indians found a pretext for remaining some time at Venango, and Washington very reluctantly left them there. As the horses were every day becoming less able to travel, the cold increasing, the roads more and more blocked with snow, and Washington impatient to get home and report to the governor, he and Gist surrendered their horses to be used in carrying the baggage; the horses were put in charge of Vanbraam, who was instructed to push for home as fast as possible; and on the 26th Washington and Gist separated from their company and set off afoot the nearest way through the woods for Shannopin's town. The next day, near a place called Murdering Town, about fifteen miles from Logstown, they were fired on by a scoundrelly Indian, but escaped unharmed. They walked all that night and the next day, and about dark of the 28th they got to the river about two miles above Shannopin's town.

They had hoped to find the river frozen over; but it was not, except for a distance of about fifty yards from the shore. The ice was driving furiously down the channel, having, as Washington supposed, broken somewhere above. They had nothing to work with but one poor hatchet, and they spent the whole day of the 29th in making a raft. They finished it just after sunset. They then launched it and pushed off; but before they were half-way across the raft became jammed among the floating ice. Washington put out his setting-pole to try to stop the raft, but the force of the stream was so violent that he was jerked from the raft out into ten- foot water; but he saved himself by catching hold of the raft. In spite of all their efforts they could not reach either shore; but as they were near an island, they abandoned the raft and made for the island. A more distressing or more discouraging situation one can hardly imagine.

The night was intensely cold. Mr. Gist had all his fingers and some of his toes frozen. We have no report that Washington was at all frost-bitten. That he could escape, his clothes soaked with water, through a bitterly cold night, without fire or shelter, seems wonderful. " But the cold did us some service," says Gist; " for in the morning it was frozen hard enough for us to pass over on the ice." The island upon which Washington and Gist passed that night of discomfort is believed to have been what was afterwards known as Wainwright's Island. It lay towards the left bank of the river. It has long since been washed away.

Glad were they to reach the mainland, and they hurried off to the house of their friend Frazier, at the mouth of Turtle Creek. Here Washington remained until the 1st day of January, 1754, waiting for horses with which to continue his journey. The horses he awaited were likely those he had sent forward under Vanbraam. During his stay at Frazier's he went up to the mouth of the Youghiogheny to visit Queen Aliquippa. The old lady felt some concern that he had not visited her when on his way to the Ohio. Washington, however, placated her with a small present, a bottle of rum being the chief article, which she received with great satisfaction.

The horses having arrived, on the first day of the new year, a year destined to be forever memorable, Washington set out from Frazier's house, and on the 16th he arrived at Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia.

CHAPTER II THE STRESS OF WAR

The Virginians lost no time in preparing to meet the emergency. Washington's journal, together with Governor Dinwiddle's letter to the French commandant and a translation of St. Pierre's reply, was immediately printed in a small pamphlet and dispersed through the colony. It was reprinted in England and copied into the newspapers, and served effectually to open the eyes of the authorities to the real danger of the hour. Dinwiddle appealed to the governors of the various colonies; but only North Carolina made any material answer. St. Pierre's letter was at once transmitted by Dinwiddle to Governor Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, and he in turn laid it before the Assembly, February, 1754, with an earnest request that they would promptly furnish men and means to defend the province; " for you will undoubtedly agree with me," he says, " that so alarming an occasion has not occurred since the settlement of the province, nor any one thing happened that so much deserves your serious attention; but that body, instead of taking any steps towards repelling the advances of the French, spent the time in undignified bickerings with the governor.

St. Pierre's letter to Dinwiddle was to the effect that it belonged to the general in Canada, and not to him, St. Pierre, to demonstrate his king's rights to the lands situate along the Ohio. As to Dinwiddie's request that he should retire, he stated that he was there by his general's orders, and it was his duty to obey; and that he did not know of anything that had passed during the campaign that could be deemed an act of hostility.