Captain John Hambright Leads Expedition
from Fort Augusta Against Great
Island, November 4, 1756
Fort Augusta was built and garrisoned during the summer and fall of 1756 under the direction of Colonel William Clapham and 400 Provincial soldiers recruited for that purpose. This formidable fortress was situated at Shamokin, at the Forks of the Susquehanna, in what is now the city of Sunbury.
The soldiers had barely landed at Shamokin until reports were brought there that the French were coming in great force to besiege[besiege] the fort.
The Indians, hostile to the English, committed such depredations that Colonel Clapham sent out expeditions against the Indian towns on the Juniata, at Chincklamoose (now Clearfield); at Great Island (now Lock Haven), and up both branches of the Susquehanna River.
During October, 1756, intelligence was received that Indian families, resident at the Great Island, were making many incursions against the settlements. Several of them had visited Shamokin in August, when they killed a bullock guard at the spring. And as they had formerly lived at Shamokin, they were capable of very great mischief.
Colonel Clapham directed Captain John Hambright, of Lancaster, to lead a company of picked men and destroy the village.
The instructions for this perilous expedition are peculiar and of unusual interest to the present day residents along the West Branch of the Susquehanna as far up as Lock Haven and, because they reveal the dangers such enterprises always encountered, they are given in full:
“Sir:
“You are to march with a Party of 2 Serjts., 2 Corporals and 38 Private men, under your Command to attack, burn and destroy an Indian Town or Towns, with their Inhabitants, on the West Branch of the Susquehanna, to which Monsieur Montour will conduct you, whose advice you are directed to pursue in every Case.