James Cotties, in 1757, went to Fort Hunter and killed a young man named William Martin, while he was busy picking chestnuts. After the war was over, the same Cotties being again at the same fort was reproached by another Indian, named Hambus, for the death of young Martin, and a quarrel ensued in which Hambus killed Cotties.
There are letters extant which give an account of the massacre by the Indians, on the river between Thompsontown and Mexico. They reveal the fact that this was the largest butchery of the whites that ever took place in the east end of Juniata County.
A letter of January 28 proves that Captain James Patterson was with his company at his fort, on the Juniata, the day of the massacres.
Extract from a letter dated Carlisle January 29, 1756, says:
“This afternoon came to town a man that lived on Juniata, who in his journey this way called at the house where the woolcombers lived, about ten miles from this place, and saw at his door a bed-tick, and going into the house found a child lying dead and scalped. This alarmed us much and while we were consulting what to do, we received the enclosed, which puts it past all doubt that the enemy intend to attack Sherman’s Valley or this place. We thought it necessary to acquaint you as soon as possible, not only to hurry you home, but, if thought needful, that the people of York might send over some aid.”
The “enclosed” referred to in the above, was a long letter written by a soldier in the garrison at “Patterson’s Fort, of Juniata,” dated January 28, 1756, in which the fifteen murders of the Wilcox, Nicholas and Armstrong families were explained in all their horrible details, the writer having visited the several places and witnessed for himself the bodies of the victims.
The letter continues:
“The party that went to bury the dead, found one Sheridan and his wife, three children and a man-servant, all murdered; also two others in another house: these within a few miles of Carlisle.
“I am heartily sorry that I must grieve you with an account of a most inhuman murder committed by the Indians at Juniata and Sherman’s Creek on the 27th of last month. Within three miles of Patterson’s Fort was found Adam Nicholson and his wife dead and scalped and his two sons and a daughter carried off; William Wilcock and his wife dead and scalped; Mrs. Hugh Micheltree and son of said Nicholson dead and scalped, with many children, in all about seventeen. The same day one Sheridan, a Quaker, his wife and three children, and a servant were killed and scalped, together with one William Hamilton and his wife and daughter and one French, within ten miles of Carlisle, a little beyond Stephen’s Gap.”
On March 24, Captain James Patterson with his scouting party of borderers fell in with a party of Indians on Middle Creek, now Snyder County, attacked them, killed and scalped one and put the rest to flight. On their return, Patterson reported that the country from the forks of the Susquehanna to the Juniata was “swarming with Indians, looking for scalps and plunder, and burning all the houses and destroying all the grain which the fugitive settlers had left in the region.”