Daily stories of Pennsylvania

by Frederic Antes Godcharles

The most important attack on any of the above forts occurred July 28, 1779, when the British under Captain John MacDonald and Seneca Indians, under Chief Hiakatoo, defeated the garrison at Fort Freeland, took all the men and boys prisoners and destroyed the fort. This story is told on July 28.

In 1769, William Patterson patented 700 acres of land in what is now Lewis Township, Northumberland County, which he named Paradise. Two years later he sold his Paradise farm to John Montgomery, of Paxtang, and removed to White Deer Creek, to reside with his daughter, Mrs. Hunter. John Montgomery established his family at Paradise, and his descendants still reside in that beautiful valley.

At the time of the battle at Fort Freeland, John Montgomery heard the firing, mounted two of his young sons on horses and sent them to the top of a hill to learn the cause of the shooting. They soon discovered the fort on fire and a fight raging in the timber below them. They hurriedly returned and reported what they had seen, when their father loaded his family in a wagon, with what provisions and clothing they could carry, and rapidly drove across the country to the cabin of Philip Davis, on Chillisquaque Creek, near the present village of Pottsgrove. Davis gathered up his family and together they hurriedly journeyed to Fort Augusta, then down the river to Paxtang, where they remained until after the war was closed.

The precaution of Montgomery was intuitive, for the victorious British and Indians soon reached Paradise and burned his home and buildings.

With Fort Freeland destroyed and Montgomery’s home in ruins, it was necessary that one of these places be immediately rebuilt and fortified.

A detachment of the German Regiment, then in that vicinity, was sent to Paradise under command of Captain John Rice, and in the winter of 1779–80 they built a stockade around a fine spring of water, which forms the headwaters of Muddy Run. This was built permanently out of limestone found in that locality and today is in an excellent state of preservation and used by the tenant of the farm.

After completing this real fort they ably defended it, as an attack took place there early in September, 1780, which is told in a letter written by Colonel Samuel Hunter, county lieutenant, dated Fort Augusta, September 21, 1780, as follows:

“We were alarmed by a large party of the enemy making their appearance in our county on the 6th inst. They came first to a small fort that Colonel Weltner’s troops had erected on the headwaters of the Chillisquaque, calling it Fort Rice, about thirteen miles from Sunbury. (Three errors: Headwaters of Muddy Run; should be Fort Montgomery, the owner and original builder, and not Fort Rice, just because such a soldier was in charge of the detail, and the distance is seventeen miles from Sunbury, or about four from Milton).

“When the German Regiment marched off the enemy attacked the fort about sundown, and fired very smartly. The garrison returned the fire with spirit, which made them withdraw a little off, and in the night they began to set fire to a number of houses and stacks of grain which they consumed.

“In the meantime our militia had collected to the number of one hundred men under command of Colonel John Kelly, who marched to the relief of the garrison, and arrived there next day. The people of the garrison acquainted Colonel Kelly that there must be two hundred and fifty or three Hundred of the Enimy, which he did not think prudent to engage without being Reinforced. The confusion this put the inhabitants in, it was not easy to collect a party equal to fight the savages.