It is stated that the first brought to Assunepachla cost a special trip to Philadelphia. Three chiefs, having seen hatchets and knives at Standing Stone, were so fascinated with their utility that they resolved to have some. Accordingly they went to work at trapping; and in the fall, each with an immense load of skins, started on foot for Philadelphia, where they arrived after a long and fatiguing march. They soon found what they wanted at the shop of an Englishman; but, being unable to talk English, they merely deposited their furs upon the counter and pointed to the tomahawks and knives. This indicated trade; and the Englishman, after a critical examination of their skins, which he found would yield him not less than £100, threw them carelessly under the counter, and gave them a hatchet and a knife each. With these the savages were about to depart, well satisfied; but the trader suddenly bethinking himself of the possibility of their falling in with the interpreters, and their ascertaining the manner in which they had been swindled, called them back, and very generously added three clasp-knives and a quantity of brass jewelry.
With these they wended their way back, proud as emperors of their newly-acquired weapons. Never did chiefs enter a place with more pomp and importance than our warriors. The very dogs barked a welcome, and the Indians came forth from their wigwams to greet the great eastern travellers. Their hatchets, knives, and trinkets passed from hand to hand, and savage encomiums were lavished unsparingly upon them; but when their practicability was tested, the climax of savage enthusiasm was reached. The envied possessors were lions: they cut, hewed, and scored, just because they could.
But—alas for all things mutable!—their glory was not destined to last long. The traders soon appeared with the same kind of articles, and readily exchanged for half a dozen skins what the warriors had spent a season in trapping and a long journey to procure.
On the point of Chimney Ridge, near Wert's farm, below Hollidaysburg, was an Indian burial-place, and another on the small piece of table-land near the mouth of Brush Run. At both places skeletons of mighty chiefs and all-powerful warriors have been ruthlessly torn from their places of sepulture by the plough, and many other relics have been exhumed.
The greater portion of the warriors residing at Frankstown went to Ohio in 1755, and took up the hatchet for their "brothers," the French, and against Onus, or their Father Penn. This act, the colonial government persuaded itself to believe, was altogether mercenary on the part of the savages. The real cause, as we have already stated, was the dissatisfaction which followed the purchase of the Juniata Valley by the Penns, for a few paltry pounds, from the Iroquois, at Albany, in 1754.
The town of Frankstown still continued to be a prominent Indian settlement until the army of General Forbes passed up the Raystown Branch, when the spies sent out brought such exaggerated reports of the warlike appearance and strength of the army that the settlement was entirely broken up, and the warriors, with their squaws, pappooses, and movable effects, crossed the Alleghany by the Kittaning War-Path, and bade adieu to the valley which they were only too well convinced was no longer their own.
The remains of their bark huts, their old corn-fields, and other indications of their presence, were in existence until after the beginning of the present century.
On the flat, several white settlers erected their cabins at an early day, and a few near the old town, and others where the town of Frankstown now stands.
During the Revolution, as we have stated, a stable erected by Peter Titus was turned into a fortress. In summer, the location of the fort can still be traced by the luxuriant growth of vegetation upon it. This fort was called Holliday's Fort. The fort at Fetter's, a mile west of Hollidaysburg, was known as the Frankstown garrison. In those days there was no such place as Hollidaysburg, and the Frankstown district took in a scope of country which now serves for five or six very large townships; in short, every place was Frankstown within a radius of at least ten miles.
Holliday's Fort was a mere temporary affair; while the Frankstown garrison was a substantial stockade, manned and provisioned in such a manner that a thousand savages could by no possible means have taken it. It never was assaulted except upon one occasion, and then the red-skins were right glad to beat a retreat before they were able to fire a gun.