A place of much consequence in provincial Pennsylvania and frequently referred to by public officers and agents was McDowell’s Mill. This was located midway between the Reverend John Steel’s Fort and Fort Loudoun, east of Kittatinny Mountains on the east bank of the Conococheague Creek, in the western part of the present Franklin County.
This defense was built in the year 1756 and was a log structure, rectangular in shape and provided with loop-holes. It stood until the year 1840. There is at present a stone house erected on or near the site of this old fort.
This place was a private establishment, and the earliest public notice of it is in a letter written by Major General Edward Braddock to Governor Morris, dated June 18, 1755, signifying his approbation of the deposits being made at McDowell’s Mill instead of at Shippensburg.
Governor Morris wrote to General Braddock July 3, 1755, saying that he had sent certain enumerated articles to Shippensburg, where “they will remain until I go up into the country, which will be on Tuesday next, and then I shall form the magazine at or near McDowell’s Mill and put some stoccados around it to protect the magazine and the people that will have the care of it; for without something of this kind, as we have no militia and the Assembly will maintain no men, four or five Indians may destroy the magazine whenever they please, as the inhabitants of that part of the Province are very much scattered.
“I send you a plan of the fort or stoccado, which I shall make by setting logs of about ten feet long in the ground, so as to inclose the storehouses. I think to place two swivel guns in two of the opposite bastions, which will be sufficient to guard it against any attack of small arms.”
On October 31 began incursions which lasted for several days. Adam Hoops wrote to Governor Morris, dated Conococheague, November 3, 1755:
“I am sorry I have to trouble you with this Melancholy and disagreeable news, for on Saturday I recd. an Express from Peters Township that the Inhabitants of the great Cove were all murdered or taken Captive and their houses and barns all in Flames. Some few fled, upon notice brought them by a certain Patrick Burns, a Captive, that made his Escape that very Morning before this sad tragedy was done.
“Upon this information, John Potter, Esq., and Self, sent Expresses through our Neighborhood, which induced many of them to Meet with us at John McDowell’s Mill, where I with many others had the unhappy prospect to see the Smoke of two houses that was set on Fire by the Indians, viz, Matthew Patton’s and Mesheck James’s, where their cattle was shot down, the horses standing bleeding with Indian Arrows in them, but the Indians fled.
“The Rev. Mr. Steel[Steel], John Potter, Esq., and Several others with us, to the Number of about an hundred, went in Quest of the Indians, with all the Expedition Imaginable, but to no Success; these Indians have likewise taken two Women Captives, belonging to said Township. I very much fear the Path Valley has undergone the same Fate.
“We, to be sure, are in as bad Circumstances as ever any poor Christions were in, For the Cries of the Widowers, Widows, fatherless and Motherless Children, with many others for their Relations, are enough to Pierce the hardest of hearts; Likewise it’s a very sorrowful spectacle to see those that Escaped with their lives with not a Mouthful to Eat, or Bed to lie on, or Clothes to Cover their Nakedness, or keep them warm, but all they had consumed into Ashes.