Settlers Attack Pack Trains Near Fort
Loudoun, March 6, 1765
The period immediately following Colonel Bouquet’s successful expedition against the Indians at Muskingum October, 1764, was one of comparative peace, but this did not long continue.
A most interesting episode occurred about this time in the Conococheague Valley, from the North to the South Mountain. The people who had been driven off had gradually returned and were now determined to make a better stand against the enemy. They raised a sum of money and recruited a company of riflemen, of which James Smith was elected captain. They dressed in Indian fashion and painted their faces red and black like the Indian warriors.
Two of the officers had long been in Indian captivity, and they drilled their men in Indian discipline, and so expert did this company become that it was recognized by the British Government and Captain Smith received a commission in the regular service under King George III, and the following year was with Bouquet’s expedition against Muskingum.
George Croghan, the deputy agent for Indian affairs, went to Fort Pitt in February, 1765, and brought about the meeting with Sir William Johnson, whereby on May 8, 1765, a definite treaty of peace was made with the Delaware.
When Croghan set out from Philadelphia for Fort Pitt, March 1, 1765, he gave a pass for a large number of wagons belonging to Boynton and Wharton, of Philadelphia, loaded with merchandise, which was intended as presents for the Indians at Fort Pitt.
But the people of Cumberland County took the law into their own hands to prevent warlike stores being supplied to savages recently in arms against them. These goods were hauled to Henry Collins, at Conococheague, and there he contracted to pack them on eighty-one horses, by which they were to be delivered into Fort Pitt.
This large transaction alarmed the country and William Duffield raised and armed about fifty of the trained men of that valley and marched to Fort Loudoun, where Duffield made a request that this consignment of goods be stored up until further orders, but this was refused, and on March 6 the pack train proceeded on its journey.
The same morning a large company started from the house of William Smith, one of the Justices of Cumberland County. They came up with this pack train at Sideling Hill, about seventeen miles beyond Fort Loudoun, when sixty-three of the horse loads were burned or pillaged.