GEORGE CROGAN AND AUGHWICK, HUNTINGDON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
BY JAMES S. O’NEILL, ELIZABETH, N. J.
George Crogan was born in Dublin, Ireland. He came to Aughwick Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, about the year 1742 and soon after took up the business of an Indian trader. At first he located at Harris’ trading house, now Harrisburg, on the Susquehanna, and from there moved over the river into Cumberland, some eight miles from his first place. From there he made excursions to Path Valley, Aughwick and finally to the Ohio river by way of the old Bedford trail. His long residence among the Indians not only enabled him to study Indian character thoroughly, but he acquired the language of both the Delaware and Shawnee tribes.
The history of Aughwick and of Crogan are identical during the years 1754–55–56. Aughwick was not originally an Indian town, as is generally supposed, but was a settlement of whites to which the Indians came after Crogan had made it his residence, the time of their coming being clearly shown by official records. It is therefore difficult, if not impossible, to give any reliable information concerning the origin of the name. There is no certainty that it belongs to any of the Indian languages; the probability is that it is derived from one of the European tongues. The first settlers there, as in nearly all parts of Huntingdon County, were Irish. They could furnish a name, or the town which they may have proposed founding, without resort to any other vocabulary than their own. Aughwick is said to resemble in sound two Irish words which mean literally “Swift running steed.” In early times the orthography of the name was almost as various as were the hands by which it was first written. Crogan at first wrote it “Aughick,” afterwards “Aughick Old Town” and finally “Aughwik Old Town.” Crogan—first letter—published in the Colonial Records, is dated “May 26, 1747,” and is directed to Richard Peters. It was accompanied by a letter from the Six Nations, some wampum and a French scalp, taken somewhere on Lake Erie. In a letter from Governor Hamilton to Governor Hardy, dated July 5, 1756, in speaking of Crogan, who was at one time suspected of being a spy in the pay of the French, Hamilton says: “There were many Indian traders with Braddock—Crogan among others, who acted as a captain of the Indians under a warrant from General Braddock, and I never heard of any objections to his conduct in that capacity. For many years he had been very largely concerned in the Ohio trade, was upon that river frequently, and had a considerable influence among the Indians, speaking the language of several nations, and being very liberal in his gifts to them, which, with the losses he sustained by the French, who seized great quantities of his goods, and by not getting the debts due to him from the Indians, he became bankrupt, and since has lived at a place called Aughwick, in the back parts of this province, where he generally had a number of Indians with him, for the maintenance of whom the province allowed him sums of money from time to time, but not to his satisfaction. After this he went by my order with these Indians, and joined General Braddock, who gave the warrant I have mentioned. Since Braddock’s defeat, he returned to Aughwick, where he remained till an act of assembly was passed here granting him a freedom from arrest for ten years. This was done that the province might have the benefit of his knowledge among the Indians; and immediately thereupon, while I was last at York, a captain’s commission was given to him, and he was ordered to raise men for the defence of the western frontier, which he did in a very expeditious manner, but not so frugally as the commissioners for disposing the public money thought he might have done. He continued in the command of the companies he had raised, and of Fort Shirley, on the western frontier, about three months; having a dispute with the commissioners about some accounts between them, in which he thought himself ill-used, he resigned his commission, and about a month ago informed me that he had not received pay upon General Braddock’s warrant, and desired my recommendation to General Shirley; which I gave him, and he set off directly for Albany, New York.”
Crogan settled permanently in Augwick in 1754, and built a stockade fort, and must have been some kind of an agent among the Indians, disbursing presents to them for the government. In December of that year he wrote to Secretary Peters, stating the wants of his Indians, and at the same time wrote to Governor Morris as follows:
“I am Oblige to advertize the Inhabitance of Cumberland county in ye honours Name nott to barter or sell Spirituous Liquors to the Indians or any other person to bring amongst them, to prevent ye Indians from Spending there Cloase, tho I am obliged to give them a bag Now and then my self for a frolick, but that is Attended with no Expense to ye Government nor bad consequences to ye Indians as I do it Butt onst a Month. I hope your honour will approve of this Proceeding, as I have Don itt to Prevent Ill consequences attending ye Indians if they should be always be kept Inflamed with Liquors.”
That Crogan and his Indians were of some service would appear from the fact that the assembly passed a law exempting him from arrests—for debt it is supposed—for ten years, and commissioning him a captain in the Colonial service. The supposition that Crogan was a spy in the service of the French was based upon the idea that he was a Roman Catholic, inasmuch as he was born in Dublin, Ireland. His loyalty was first brought into question by Governor Sharpe, in December 1753, who wrote to Governor Hamilton, informing him that the French knew every move for defence made in the Colonies, and asked his opinion of Crogan. In answer, Governor Hamilton said: “I observe what you say of Mr. Crogan; and, though the several matters of which you have received information carry in them a good deal of suspicion, and it may be highly necessary to keep a watchful eye upon him, yet I hope they will not turn out to be any thing very material, or that will affect his faithfulness to the trust reposed in him, which, at this time, is of great importance and a very considerable one. At present I have no one to inquire of as to the truth of the particulars mentioned in yours but Mr. Peters who assures me that Mr. Crogan has never been deemed a Roman Catholic, nor does he believe that he is one, though he knows not his education, which was in Dublin, Ireland, nor his religious profession.” To keep the Indians loyal, he advanced many presents to them and the company of Indians he commanded was fitted out at his own expense; and it was the attempt to get what he advanced on that occasion that led to his quarrel with the commissioners and his resignation.
From Philadelphia, Pa., he went to Onondago, in September, 1756, and soon after was appointed deputy-agent, and again he took an active part in Indian affairs. After the French had evacuated Fort Duquesne, in 1758, Crogan resided for a time in Fort Pitt. From there he went down the river, was taken prisoner by the French, and taken to Detroit. Soon after his liberation he went to New York, where he died in 1782.
Thus ended the career of George Crogan, who was an old acquaintance of George Washington.