The savages penetrated into Westmoreland, where they killed and scalped a solitary soldier, then attacked the little settlement at James Perry’s Mills, on Big Sewickley Creek, killed a woman and four children, and carried off two children, many cattle and much plunder.
Two ranging parties were sent after these marauders. One was marched to the Sewickley settlement and an attempt was made to follow the trail. The other band consisted of twenty men under Brady, which ascended the Allegheny River.
As Brady’s detail advanced one evening along the beach within the mouth of the Big Mahoning where it empties into the Allegheny, they found many Indian canoes drawn up and hidden among the shrubbery. The Indians had gone into camp in the woods, on a little knoll north of the creek, and were preparing the evening meal when discovered by Brady. They had hobbled their horses and turned them out to graze. The stream was very high and the scouts were compelled to ascend it two miles before they could wade across.
After nightfall Brady and his men hid themselves in the tall grass near the Indian camp. Brady and Chief Nonowland, laying aside their tomahawks, knives, powder horns and bullet pouches, crept to within a few yards of the Indian camp to count the savages and ascertain the position of the captive children.
One of the Indians suddenly cast off his blanket, arose, stepped forth to within six feet of where Brady lay, stood there awhile, stretched himself and then returned to his slumber.
Brady and Nonowland then prepared for an attack at daybreak. The whole party of scouts made their way through the grass and weeds to a position as near the camp as was considered safe, and lay awaiting the dawn.
As daylight appeared an Indian awoke and aroused the others. They stood about the fire laughing and chatting when a deadly volley broke forth from the rifles of the scouts lying in the bushes. The chief and seven Indian warriors fell dead and the others, almost naked, fled into the dense forest, two of them severely wounded. Brady’s own rifle brought down the chief, and with a shout of almost fiendish triumph he sprang forward and scalped him.
The traditions of the Brady family say that the chief was none other than Bald Eagle, who had struck down and scalped Brady’s younger brother, James, ten months before. Brodhead reported to Washington that the chief was “a notorious warrior of the Munsee nation.”
The children captured at Sewickley were recovered unharmed and Brady and his men returned to Fort Pitt with the stolen horses and plunder, the blankets, guns, tomahawks and knives of the savages and many scalps.