The erection of this fort in the very heart of the Indian country greatly provoked the Wyandot, Miami and Mingo tribes, and they plotted its destruction. Early in January, 1779, they began to prowl about the post.
General McIntosh promised to send provisions to the post by the middle of January, and Captain John Clark, of the Eighth Pennsylvania, was sent from McIntosh with fifteen men to convoy the pack horses loaded with flour and meat to the relief of the post on the Tuscarawas.
This detail reached the fort January 21, and two days later set out on their return to the Ohio. Three miles from the fort the party was attacked from ambush by seventeen Mingo Indians, under the leadership of Simon Girty, the renegade and Tory, and two soldiers were killed, four wounded and one captured.
Captain Clark was forced back to Fort Laurens, but a few days afterward he again started and led his little detail through without molestation. Girty led his captive soldier to Detroit, and while there raised a much larger force and returned to the vicinity of Fort Laurens, where he arrived about the middle of February.
Fort Laurens was now surrounded by a band of 200 Miami and Mingo Indians led by Girty and Captain Henry Bird. Colonel Gibson succeeded in sending a messenger through the savage lines, who carried the distressing news to General McIntosh.
On February 23, 1779, a wagon was sent out from the fort under an escort of eighteen soldiers to haul some firewood which had been cut by the troops. About a half a mile from the fort the little party passed an ancient Indian mound behind which a band of Indians lay hidden. The Indians burst upon them, both front and rear, and every man in the detail was killed and scalped except two, who were taken prisoners.
The Indians then planned a regular siege upon the fort and endeavored to starve the garrison into surrender.
Colonel Gibson dispatched another messenger, who eluded the watchful Indians and reached Fort McCord March 3.
In the interim the condition in the garrison became desperate. A sortie in force was contemplated but the strength of the savages caused this plan to be abandoned. The Indians paraded over the crest of the hill within plain sight, and about 850 warriors were counted. It was afterward learned that 200 had been marched to make a show, four times the strength.
Captain Bird after this stratagem, sent in a demand for surrender, promising safe passage for the soldiers to Fort McIntosh, but Gibson sternly refused. The Indians then promised to withdraw if Gibson would furnish them with a barrel of flour and a barrel of meat.