During the War for Independence, the Brits hatched a scheme to turn the Indians against the American Patriots. Sir Henry Hamilton in Detriot became known by both Indians and Americans as "The Hair Buyer", as he payed a healthy bounty for settler's scalps (even loyalist). Soon, the Red Men fell upon the frontier settlments with a vengance.

Among the many atrocities committed by war parties from the Shawnees, Senecas, Wyandots and other tribes, was one which occurred on a small hill near my home, and on which I have hunted and camped many times.

The Tull family were settled on a hill six miles west of Ft Bedford, on Forbes Road. (US Route 30) In the fall of 1777, settlers from Schellsburg (3 miles further west) hearing of an aproaching war party, retreated to the fort. As Williams was leading his family to saftey, he stopped to warn Mr Tull. Mr Tull, despite the danger to his family, refused to evacuate the farm.

A few days later, Williams and his son returning to their farm, came to the Tull home. The Father was lying in the garden, just expiring, scalped. The family home was reduced to smoking ruins containing the bodies of Mrs Tull and a baby. The Indians, not wanting to be encumbered, had evidently swung the babe by it's feet, dashing it's brains against the door post. The rest of the family (8 daughters, aged 16 and younger) were found scattered about the farm, where ever they had been shot or ran down and tomahawked. All dead. All Scalped.

Williams returned the Ft Bedford and gave the alarm. A party of militia was raised but was unable to catch up to the retreating war party.

The Tull family was buried near their farm. The only surviving member of the family was a son serving in the continental army. (all that is known of him) The forest has reclaimed the fields and ruins of the cabin, and though many folks know where Tull's Hill is located, few know ths story of the tragedy.
7mm

Neat story thanks. American history is VERY rich for the relative short time we have been a country.

In fact it was the Brits that interduced scalping to the Indians IIRC my history correctly. It was not a practice till then.

What county is you in?

Where is Alum bank?

Dammit! A thread like this just as I'm about to pull the plug.



I'm a tad rusty on my history but it seems like 1777 was late for an Indian attack in that area, from what I can remember the main battleground by then having shifted to the Ohio River Valley. Likewise I know Joseph Brant's Mohawks raided deep into the Delaware River Vally during the Revolutionary War.



An entirely different story twenty years earlier, when IIRC much of Frontier Pennsylania was repeatedly attacked and the population decimated.



I ain't gonna excuse a massacre, but it is relevant to point out similar outrages were perpetrated against the Indians. The common thread to both sorts of massacres being that it was the innocent who usually paid the price.



In any event, from an Indian standpoint by 1777 the perpetrators of that raid were operating deep behind enemy lines, perhaps explaining in part why no captive were taken. Of course by then maybe racial hatreds had risen to a point that taking captives was unlikely, although the Shawnee along the Ohio were still doing so regularly.



Birdwatcher

Browsing around, the Senecas under Sayengeraghta (Old Smoke) had been active in major operations with the British earlier that same summer in New York. So while Senecas might have been involved its less likely.



Note that by that time there had been a long prior history of White/Indian killing in Pa, with attendant reprisals. If I were a Cop, the first place I'd look for those responsible would be among militant factions of the Delawares, then settled in eastern Ohio, who had both a motive and a long familiarity with the area in question.



As a sad postscript, six years later a party of Pennsylvanians pursued such a Delaware war party across the Ohio. As a taunt to the pursuers the Indians killed a woman captive they had taken and left her scalped, naked body impaled upright on a sapling along their trail , this woman being the young wife of one of the party.



The enraged posse then encountered a village of more than 100 unarmed Moravian Christian Delawares who had been attempting to remain neutral in the war and were exceedingly impoverished, having earned the hostility of both sides.



One of these Delawares had been given a dress by a relative in the war party, the dead woman's dress. That dress sealed their fate, the next morning the Pennsylvanians systematically clubbed to death more than 100 bound, unresisting men, women and children. An egregious act which raised outrage on both sides of the Frontier.



Birdwatcher

Oh yeah, I dunno that Hamilton's scalp bouty triggered much killing over what was occurring already. The most viable scalp bounty system I know of within the US was in the Southwest aimed at Apaches, with James Kirker and crew collecting Indian-looking hair from all sources, least of all from the Apaches who were hard to catch and who shot back.

Point of interest, Kirker was an equally opportunity employer, and Whites, Indians and Mexicans all earned wages in his grisly crew. Takes a certain sort of human I guess....

Birdwatcher

Thanks 7mmbuster and Birdwatcher for the histories, brutal but interesting nonetheless.

Reading this thread reminded me of a little history just a couple of miles from my place.

In the spring of 1848 a detachment of 71 young Missouri recruits under the command of a Lt. Royall were escorting a paymaster with his army payroll and a wagon train of 60 wagons along the Santa Fe trail. They were joined by a battalion of artillerymen at Walnut Creek. The soldiers and freighters made camp near Coon Creek (between present day Garfield and Kinsley Ks. ) Early the next morning they were attacked be a war party of approximately 800 Comanches and Apaches. The soldiers were equiped with new breechloading rifles and were able to hold off the Indians after several charges. The Indians then retreated across the river and were pursued by the soldiers. The soldiers were forced to make a stand on the top of a sandhill when threatened by the Indian forces circling them. An Apache chief's horse was shot out from underneath him and when he ran back to grab his saddle he was also shot. An Apache boy separated himself from the distant Indians and rode forward to retrieve his dead father dragging him away with a rope behind his pony. The soldiers withheld their fire admiring the boys courage. The brave Indian lad was none other than Geronimo.

History is full of good stuff.

Jeff

I got to tell you gentelmen - I have learned more from the fine people on this forum than the 4 years of hs I attended. Thank you .

Teal, I have all 45 pages of this saved from the old shooters board, GOOD stuff.

The Indian Frontier
04/20/01-2:15 AM Posted by: Birdwatcher

I was never on the shooters forum as I believe that closed before I was dragged into the world of technology by my wife.

I have often read the posts and reunions that take place here of old shooters members and wonder what I have missed?

I was wondering if I could get a short comparison of the good and bad between the 24HCF and Shooters? Well in the spirit of Reagan only the good!!!

BTW - I use this computer pretty much exclusivly to play the cabela's hunting games and surf hunting/shooting forums exclusivly - news a little but I usually have the news on while I am here or I just ignore it till I get to work.

Shooters had MUCH excellant information in it's data base, the trolls however pretty near burnt it down and many of us moved on to places like Rick's joint here. Pretty much the cream floated and left the rest behind.

I know what you're saying! I tire of political post, and though I wish we could find another "Gipper", I'm not into arguing for or against him. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> RIP and thankyou are all I have to say there.



As to 1777 being pretty late for the area, I doubt anyone told the Indians that. We're a good bit east of the Ohio Valley and Ft Pitt, but the country north of here is pretty rugged, and was sparsley settled at the time. Col. John Phillips and a band of "Bedford Rangers" were massacred near present Altoona as late as 1780.



This area is pretty rich in history, but unfortanatley not much is recorded. The Tull's Hill story is bareley a blurb in most books. The only mention of it other than local publications I've found is in "The Indian Wars of Pennsylvania" by C. Hale Snipe. A HS bud of mine lived near there, and we done alot of hunting & camping back then. His dad was a history buff too.



As to Delawares commiting this particular murder, I can't say. For the most part they remained nuetral up until 1780 or so. Not to say that they didn't mount the occasional scalp hunt now and then, though. It is odd that no whites were taken alive, as most Indian parties took back prisoners, and often adopted them into the tribe. Maybe the Tull girls weren't that cute? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />



The Moravian Massacre was in retaliation for some nastieness ocurring in Washington County in the spring of '82. I believe their camp was in Ohio at the time. The militia used a cooper's mallet to do most of them in.



Lee, the scalp bounty is open to question. I'd always heard the French were the first to offer such during the Seven Years War, but have heard of scalps being lifted as trophies long before that. PA offered scalp bounties during The French & Indian war, as well as The Revolution. Possibly During Pontiac's War too. I honestly couldn't say where the practice started. Another one of those things that kinda slipped through the cracks of recorded history. Hey, if you have some more stories, how's about sharing? I eat stuff like this up! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />



Dixie, I'm in Bedford County, about 10 miles north of Shawnee State Park. Alum Bank is usually Pleasantville, depending on the map. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> One of those where the mailing adress differs from the towns name. At any rate, if you take Rt 96 north from Schellsburg, you go by my house. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

7mm

Bedford County...

That ain't too far from here.

You ever run into Bruce Baer up your way?

How far are you from Raystown Lake?

I thought you lived in Franklin County near Gettysburg.

Raystown lake is about 40 miles east. I haven't been down there in years, unless you count the dirt speedway nearby. I'm not much of a fisherman, and can't swim, so I don't fool around in a boat. There's some big stuff running around Raystown, and if these guy pilot a boat like they do a car, I want no part in it! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Add in a few six-packs, and it's a wonder they ain't pulling bodies outta there all the time!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
7mm

the scalp bounty is open to question

It could have started on it's own, as proof of a warrior's poweress in battle. The samurai took heads and even held viewings. There was a story of a young samurai perfuming his hair before battle so his rotting head would not give offense.

If you want to go watch the whole massacre played out before your very eyes, visit this place:

Trumpet in the Land

It's an outdoor portrayal of the massacre complete with the mallet, the 100 slain indians and 10 minutes of brains being spattered over the stage.

I had a girlfriend who worked there one summer, and helped build the urea foam mountain on the left of the stage. I went to visit and caught the show.

Those Moravians really dug the whole thing. The theatre was filled with mostly Moravians in their archaic dress and a few tourists. They really loved the Injuns getting it.


7mmbuster: I've done a lot of hiking at Shawnee. In fact the Silver Arrow that starts at Camp Oyo is my favorite quick overnighter for working out the Winter kinks. The campground at Roosevelt Lake is my favorite destination for an "emergency campout" when I get up on Saturday morning and announce we're bugging out. It's close, (but not too close) uncrowded and clean. My first time there in 1984-- had a black bear come by at 3 AM. The whole campground went nuts!

Shaman, let me know next time you're out this way. We'll get together cold a cold brew or iced tea. Your choice, my treat. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

My boy's out in you neck o' the woods now. He'll start college at Mt St Joeseph come fall. Right now he's staying with friends at Cresent Springs just across the river in Kentucky. Hoping for a summer job, plus, if you're framilar with Bedford County, you know it can be boring for an 18 yr old! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
7mm

Cool!

Tell your boy to check out the deer over in the orchard at Mt. St. Joe. It's across the street from the main campus. The nuns used to tend it, but it's now largely unvisited.

I was angling for a few years to figure out a way to get in there and take one of them, but I could never figure out a way. That whole side of town is crawling with whitetail. Hamilton County has one of the densest urban deer populations in the nation.

7mmbuster:

Someday...

I'd really really like to get a small farm up your way. A fellow at work lives in Little Cove down south from you, a 60 acre farm with a double wide went for about 250 grand! OUCH! Too rich for my blood. What is the price of land up your way?

If I understand it, you are in the middle of no where? How far from the turnpike?

Bruce Baer... you gotta meet that guy! Great gunsmith and a real nice guy. Good prices too.

Not quite, but it depends on who you talk to. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> My cousins and friends who live in the subburbs call this "the sticks". As noted on other post, it's already entirely too dang populated for me!

The Bedford (I THINK the mile marker is 115 now) exit on the pike is about 13 miles from me.

As to the price of ground, I really can't say. Been years since I looked at any. There's a nice farm at the foot of the mountain that was on the market. IIRC it was 300Gs or so, but had a pretty nice 2 story house and 300 acres. I haven't heard of it selling, so let me know if you're interested and I'll get you the info and a contact point. Good hunting up there, and at least 100 acres were timber. (clear cut now, you'll need a brush gun <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />) The realtor signs were still up in April, but I haven't been up there lately.

As I said, if you're interested, I'll track down a name and number for you. Of course, you'll have to invite me hunting sometime. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
7mm

At 300 Grand it might as well be 300 million! heh heh heh

But maybe I could get some friends together....

hmmmmm

7mm... thanks for the info on the 1780 murdering of those militia, a little puzzling though that the writer states the captives were taken to Kittanning, I had thought that Delaware town on the Alleghany was sacked in the French and Indian War 24 years earlier (see... www.15122.com/3rivers/History/CITIES/BlanketHill.htm ...note the reference to one "particularly fearsome" Delaware taking out FOURTEEN of the attacking force before they could kill him.) Maybe there was a new Kittanning in the Ohio Country.



I confess my main source on that region are the many books by Alan W. Eckhert, in particular "That Dark and Bloody River", his comprehensive history of the Ohio Valley Indian Wars.



There were indeed hostile Delawares throughout that era, the confusion of displaced tribes in the Ohio region at that time making the question of the specific tribal affiliation of many of the individual Indian combatants somewhat moot. Also, it is useful to remember that by the American Revolution most of those tribes had been exposed to a century or more of White contact and on a material level lived not very much different from their White frontier counterparts.



Eckhert relates that the main Miami tribe town of Kekionga in Ohio boasted plank sidewalks, two saloons and even a whorehouse. The Miami Chief Little Turtle (who later led the largest defeat ever inflicted on the United States by an Indian force; more than 600 US soldiers and militia killed in a single action) at that time lived in a frame house, complete with furniture, piano, mirrors, fine European china and silverware and a six-hole outhouse out back.



With respect to that sad Tull Hill affair, I figure that likely those marauding warriors were already getting the heck out of Dodge. After all the alarm had gone out, the element of surprise lost and likely a militia force would soon take up their trail, some of which militia would have been as good in the woods as any Indian. The way I see it, the war party came across the unfortunate family and killed them on the run, no time to take captives. If human nature held true, likely the killing was done by only some of the party, for reasons of revenge, trophy, meanness of personality or possibly all three.



Birdwatcher

There were marauding bans of both races that committed atrocities in the Ohio country. Many displaced indians from a mix of tribes (including Delawares) took on the name "mingo," a new tribe that settled in the upper ohio valley. They were a peaceful group, trying desperately to coexist with the whites on their doorstep, until a fellow named John Greathouse and his band of disgruntled settlers decided that extermination was their best bet to gain land and battle the Shawnee, who were fiercely contesting the incursion into their treatied lands north of the Ohio river. Mr. Greathouse himself hung the chief's pregnant wife and left her with the chief's unborn son dangling from her disembowed body, he also scalped the fetus. Of course, the mingo chief went crazy when he returned to find his village massacred and his family in that condition. He vowed to take 10 white lives for every one that the Greathouse band took that day, and he may have done just that, joining up with the Shawnee and vigorously campaigning against the whites. Greathouse was eventually captured by the authorities, being given credit for intensifying the hostilities in a previously tranquil area, and mobilizing a previously tranquil tribe. But he was allowed to leave the frontier with his brother rather than being tried for murder. If I had been a Mingo, I believe I'd have burned a few cabins myself. Such was the way of vengence and war.

I consulted Eckert, turns out those Indiian raiders being pursued by the militia that subsequently committed the Gnaddenhutten atrocity really were Wyandots and such may have also been responsible for Tull Hill.

The Wyandots were/are an Iroquoian tribe (like the Six Nations and the Cherokees, most everybody else being Algonquin speakers) likely related to the Hurons and were of particularly feasome repute at that time (see... http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/ohc/history/h_indian/tribes/wyandot.shtml , perhaps Magua in the movie "Last of the Mohicans" might better have been identified as a Wyandot).

The murdered Christian Delawares on the other hand, dressed like White people and had been forcibly relocated and confined to a new village site upon the order of neighboring tribes. Impoverished and starving, some of them had received permission to return to their old village site of Gnaddenhutten to look for unharvested crops, which is what they were doing when the Pennsyvania militia found them.

Birdwatcher