Allegheny Episodes / Folk Lore and Legends Collected in Northern and Western Pennsylvania

by Henry W. Shoemaker

He seemed to be improving in spirits under the warm sun of encouragement at Chateau Gaspar, as “French Louis” liked to call his huge house of logs and stone, for the Huguenot adventurer was much of a Don Quixote, and lived largely in a world of his own creation. Eulalie, hot-blooded and impulsive, often praised his prowess as a horseman, and otherwise smiled on him.

There was a great sale of Virginia bred horses being held in the market place at Carlisle, and, of course, “French Louis” mounted on a superbly caparisoned[caparisoned], ambling horse, and wearing a hat with a plume, and attended by Simon Girty, were among those present.

The animals ranged from packers and palfreys to fancy saddlers of the high school type, and although Gaspar had every stall full at home, and some wandering, hobbled about the old fields, he bought six more at fancy prices, and it would be an extensive task to return them safely to the stables at the “Chateau”.

It was near the close of the sale when a young Virginian named Conrad Gist or Geist, one of the sellers of horses, who had been a sergeant in Girty’s regiment, and witnessed his degradation at Spottsylvania, came up, and in the presence of the crowd, taunted young Simon on being court-martialed and kicked out of camp.

Girty, though the humiliating words were said among divers of his friends, bit his lips and said nothing at the time. Later in the tap room, when “French Louis” was having a final jorum before starting homeward, the Virginian repeated his taunts, and Girty, though half his size, slapped his face. Gist quickly drew a horse pistol from one of the deep pockets of his long riding coat, and tried to shoot the affronted youth. Girty was too quick for him, and in wresting the pistol from his hand, it went off, and shot the Virginian through the stomach. He fell to the sanded floor, and was soon dead.

Other Virginians present raised an outcry, in which they were upheld by those of similar social status in the fraternity of “gentlemen horse dealers” residing at Carlisle. Threats were made to hang Girty to a tree and fill him full of bullets. He felt that he was lucky to escape in the melee, and make for the mountains. Public opinion was against him, and a reward placed on his head. Armed posses searched for him for weeks, eventually learning that he was being harbored by a band of escaped redemptioners, slaves, and gaol breakers, who had a cabin or shack in the wilds along Shireman’s Creek. It was vacated when the pursuers reached it, but they burnt it to the ground, as well as every other roof in the wilds that it could be proved he had ever slept under.

By 1750 he became known as the most notorious outlaw in the Juniata country, and pursuit becoming too “hot”, he decided to migrate west, which he did, allying himself with the Wyandot Indians. He lived with them a foe to the whites, more cruel and relentless, the Colonial Records state, than his adopted people.

Some of his marauding expeditions took him back to the Susquehanna country, and he made several daring visits to his parents, on one of which he learned to his horror and disgust, that Eulalie Gaspar, while staying with one of her married sisters at Carlisle, had met and married the now Captain Claypoole, the author of his degradation, who had come there in connection with the mustering of Colonial troops.

During these visits Girty occupied at times a cave facing the Susquehanna River, in the Half Fall Hills, directly opposite to Fort Halifax, which he could watch from the top of the mountain. The narrow, deep channel of the river, at the end of the Half Fall Hills, so long the terror of the “up river” raftsmen, became known as Girty’s Notch. The sinister reputation of the locality was borne out in later years in a resort for rivermen called Girty’s Notch Hotel, now a pleasant, homelike retreat for tired and thirsty autoists who draw birch beer through straws, and gaze at the impressive scenery of river and mountain from the cool, breezeswept verandas.

But the most imposing of all is the stone face on the mountain side, looking down on the state road and the river, which shows clearly the rugged outlines of the features of the notorious borderer. An excellent photograph of “Girty’s Face” can be seen in the collection of stereoscoptic views possessed by the genial “Charley Mitchell” proprietor of the Owens House, formerly the old Susquehanna House, at Liverpool.