Harris then told of his knowledge of the Indians who had made the attack on Penn’s Creek; of an intended attack on Shamokin and other places. He concluded his long and informative letter: “I expect Montour and Monacatootha down here this week, with the determination of their Shamokin council. The inhabitants are abandoning their plantations and we are in a dreadful situation.”
The postscript to his interesting letter was as follows: “The night ensuing our attack the Indians burned all George Gabriel’s houses; danced around them.”
The person who was shot off the horse, while riding behind John Harris in crossing the river, was a physician of Paxtang, who had accompanied the party in his professional capacity.
On the following day John Harris wrote a letter to Edward Shippen, at Lancaster, in which he expressed fear that the Indians would attack them any day. He wrote: “I have this day cut loopholes in my house, and am determined to hold out to the last extremity, if I can get some men to stand by me. But few can be had at present, as every one is in fear of his own family being cut off every hour.”
Harris advised the immediate building of a fort at the Forks of the Susquehanna. The situation in the Province even as close to Philadelphia as Harrisburg was truly desperate.
General Edward Hand Starts on Expedition
from Fort Pitt to Wheeling, October
19,1777
During the winter of 1776 and the following spring the agents of Great Britain had been very active in organizing Indian uprisings along the frontiers as a part of the general campaign for the subjugation of the rebellious colonists.
Continental Congress decided to take charge of the defense of the colonists, especially those in the western part of the State, where the Indians had been more active and where the settlers had been afforded less protection from the State and Colonial governments.