Chapter 5
EXCITEMENT IN THE VILLAGE: SIMON GIRTY ARRIVES
During the three years from late September 1785 until the autumn of 1788, Phebe lived as a Wyandot—working, eating and sleeping with her new adopted family. She likely learned enough of the language to communicate her needs and, perhaps, enough to understand their tales of the world’s creation, with the paradise of Wendake at its heart, as the elders told them during long winter nights in her family’s longhouse. It was not a bad life but certainly not an easy one, in many ways just as harsh as that of a settler on the Allegheny Plateau. Still, she apparently dreamed of returning to Thomas and never gave up hope that he would find her. However, while Thomas maintained the faith that he would see his beloved wife again, in the end, it was Phebe who would have to summon the courage and strength to be the architect of her life’s resurrection.
One day that fall, she noticed an uncommon commotion and excitement in the village. Inquiring as to its cause, she learned that the famous British agent Simon Girty was coming to the village to meet with Darby and the village council about an upcoming meeting of the Indian nations to be held in October at the foot of the Maumee rapids.202 Although Girty is referred to here as “famous,” Americans of the late eighteenth century would have said he was more properly described as “infamous.” Despite this, Phebe decided Girty might be her one hope for a way home.
Simon Girty is, perhaps, one of the least understood figures in American history. A child captive of the Seneca who returned to the white world as a young man, Americans referred to him as the “White Savage,” and his service to the British and Indian nations earned not only their hatred but their fear as well. They saw him as the worst sort of Loyalist Tory: someone who fought for the American cause only to change sides and then, worst of all, become a “renegade” who used his relationship with the Indians to wreak havoc on the frontier. One contemporary referred to him as “a savage in manner and principle, who spent his life in the perpetration of a demoniac vengeance against his countrymen.”203
Girty even inspired tall tales and yarns about the horrors he supposedly perpetrated on innocent settlers that were so awful, parents used them to frighten their children into obedience. As a result, a generation of frontier girls and boys were told that, if they were not good, Simon Girty, the “Fiend of the Frontier,” a “White Beast in human form” or simply “Dirty Girty” would come to snatch them away in the night.204 However, Stephen Vincent Benet gave Girty perhaps his most noteworthy place in American legend with his famous 1937 short story, “The Devil and Daniel Webster.” In that tale, when the Devil calls in the jury that would determine Jabez Stone’s fate, Girty is among the cast of murderers and miscreants who were to hear Stone’s story. Girty is described by Benet as “the renegade, who saw white men burned at the stake and whooped with the Indians to see them burn. His eyes were green, like a catamount’s, and the stains on his hunting shirt did not come from the blood of the deer.”205
Although there are now some modern revisionist works that paint Girty in a far more favorable light, a few recent historians have continued to describe him in a manner that, while not as severe as those above, would still be acceptable to Americans of the late colonial period. One historian who wrote about Girty only nineteen years after Benet stated that Girty was “a cruel, half-savage lout who knew Indians and had a certain skill in forest warfare.” As opposed to the more recent revisionist works that seek to credit Girty with his positive influence on the Indians and anoint him with a strong sense of honesty and integrity, these earlier histories say he was one of “the shiftless, the indolent, the refugees from justice or service, the drifters and failures who found the red man’s society a welcome haven from the competitive bustle and hurry of Eastern civilization.”206 However, as is often the case, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, and Girty was no more a great hero than he was a devil.
Nevertheless, whether a hero or a villain, Girty was, without doubt, a force to be reckoned with on the American frontier. By the late eighteenth century, he had developed great diplomatic skills, which he employed effectively among the Native American nations, and he was especially influential with the Shawnee, Miami and Wyandot.207 Furthermore, American officials so feared his abilities in leading the Indians that they once placed a £1,500 bounty on his head, which was an enormous sum of money in the late 1700s.208
Simon Girty is depicted wearing his signature red bandana on his head in this painting by Cecy Rose, Simon Girty Scouts the Ambush, Ft. Laurens, 1779. Courtesy of the artist.
But Girty was far from alone in his activities. Alexander McKee, the man most closely linked to Girty throughout his adult life, was another American turncoat. McKee was more educated and more sophisticated than the rough-and-tumble Girty, but the two men formed a powerful alliance throughout the American Revolution that was largely responsible for maintaining the British hold on the frontier throughout the war. More importantly to this story, however, the equally famous McKee would also play a role in Phebe’s gamble to find a way back home.
GIRTY AND MCKEE
In 1741, Simon Girty was born on the frontier in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to his father, also named Simon, and his mother, Mary. The elder Simon was an Irish immigrant and fur trader who worked the woodlands between western Pennsylvania and the Ohio River, exchanging the English powder, pots, rum and blankets he packed onto his horses with the Indians for beaver pelts and deerskins. It was a lucrative business but also a dangerous one. The competition with French traders was fierce, and one had to fear them far more than the Indians. Simon Sr. was considered an honest man by the Indians with whom he dealt, and he maintained an especially good relationship with the Delaware. As a result, Simon, his older brother, Thomas, and younger brothers, James and George, grew up with Indians of various nations and tribes regularly in their midst. At times, Indian delegations making their way to Fort Duquesne for treaty conferences would stop at the Girty farm, where they would be welcomed with a place to rest, eat and drink. Young Simon enjoyed these visits immensely, and he would wander among these visitors, fascinated by their clothes and the strange languages they spoke. To him, these were friends, rather than people to be feared.209
However, in 1750, the perilous nature of fur trading on the frontier claimed Girty’s father when the elder Simon was killed during an altercation with a drunk, leaving Mary alone to manage the farm with her four boys. But a few years later, a neighboring farmer named John Turner came calling on Mary Girty, and in 1754, he married her, becoming Simon’s stepfather. Turner seems to have been a good man who treated his stepsons as his own, but the harmony in the new family was interrupted by the outbreak of the French and Indian War. With much of the conflict focused on western Pennsylvania, raids by Indians and their French allies became common, leading John Turner and the other settlers to build a refuge fort near their farm, which they named Fort Granville.
In late July 1756, as Indian raids increased near the newly built fort, Simon and the rest of his family forted up along with many families from the nearby area. After a few days, the immediate threat appeared to have diminished, and most of the militia and settlers left the fort to work their fields. However, John Turner and his family stayed at Fort Granville, along with about twenty-four militiamen. Most thought that the danger had passed, but in fact, a worse threat was just over the horizon. On August 2, a force of fifty-five French soldiers and more than one hundred Delaware warriors emerged from the forest to attack the fort. The small militia force managed to hold out for twenty-four hours but eventually was forced to agree to a French demand for surrender in exchange for quarter.210
Simon and the other captives were first marched to Fort Duquesne, but once there, they learned the French commander was rewarding the Delaware by giving them all the white captives to do with as they pleased. The Delaware, in turn, marched them to their nearby village of Kittanning on the Allegheny River, where they decided to torture and kill John Turner, who was burned at the stake as Mary and the boys helplessly looked on. As for the rest of the Turner family, the Delaware gave Mary and her infant son by John Turner to a band of Shawnee, while the four Girty brothers remained with them. However, a few weeks after Mary’s departure, British forces suddenly attacked the Delaware camp. They rescued Thomas Girty, but Simon, James and George were forced to flee with the surviving Delaware. Shortly thereafter, the Delaware decided to keep George while trading James to a group of Shawnee and giving Simon to the Seneca.211
The Seneca adopted the fifteen-year-old Simon, and like Phebe, he was first required to run a gauntlet. However, his was more daunting than hers would be. Stripped naked, he ran past men, women and boys, all lined up to beat him as he tried to reach the objective. Despite receiving often brutal blows, the teenager made it to the end, where he was lifted onto the shoulders of two Seneca warriors amidst the joyous cheers and shouts of the villagers. His new clan mothers then washed him, dressed him in Seneca clothing and sent him to begin his apprenticeship as a Seneca hunter and warrior. As Simon experienced the peaceful, harmonious existence that characterized village life, he also displayed a natural gift for languages, quickly becoming fluent in Seneca and Delaware, as well as the dialects spoken by the tribes of other neighboring nations. Before long, he was sufficiently skilled in these languages to act as an interpreter for the tribe.212 However, once the war between France and Great Britain had concluded, Simon’s time with the Seneca came to an end.
In the fall of 1764, after eight years living with the Seneca, Simon was returned to British hands at Fort Pitt under the terms of the peace agreement. Now twenty-three years old and a stocky, strong young man, he was devastated by this development. Simon saw himself as a Seneca warrior and someone who had earned the right to live among them. The Seneca chief, Guyasuta, to whom Simon had virtually become a son, took Simon directly to see Sir William Johnson, the British superintendent of Indian Affairs. When they arrived, Simon was first introduced to Johnson and then to his twenty-nine-year-old deputy superintendent, Alexander McKee. Although they might not have recognized one another immediately, it quickly became apparent that they had once been acquainted as children.213
Alexander McKee was the son of Thomas McKee, who had been the elder Simon Girty’s business partner. As a result, Simon and Alexander had known one another as boys. McKee’s mother, also named Mary, spent her youth as a captive of the Shawnee until rescued by Thomas McKee. They married sometime later, and Alexander was their first child. Beyond that, little is known about his childhood. We do know, however, that he learned to speak fluent Shawnee and had the kind of knowledge of Indian customs and traditions that only someone who had spent much time among them might acquire. Further, whatever formal education McKee received was far superior to that typical of his contemporaries, as the historical record of his writings show a highly legible script, good spelling and cogent composition. As a result, by the time he was a young man, Alexander McKee was able to adroitly function in two worlds, that of British colonial society as well as that of the Indian nations.214
McKee was actually far more than merely familiar with the ways of the woodland Indians—he was “a fully participating and fully accepted member of Ohio Country Indian society.”215 The Shawnee of the Scioto River region considered him a member of their community, a man both admired and trusted, who spoke their language, respected their customs and observed their rituals. Given these abilities, it is not surprising that Johnson recognized McKee’s talents and brought him into the service of the Crown. In the years that followed up to the beginning of the American Revolution, McKee would serve Johnson and the British government as an interpreter and low-level diplomatic envoy under the tutelage of the veteran agent George Croghan. When Croghan retired in 1771, Johnson appointed McKee to replace Croghan as Indian agent and director of the Indian Department Commissary at Fort Pitt.216 Moreover, as the years passed and McKee’s responsibilities grew, his life and career became inexorably linked with those of Simon Girty.
While Simon’s sudden departure from life with the Seneca was a jarring experience, he managed his return to the white world better than one might have thought possible. Shortly after his arrival at Fort Pitt, he was reunited with his brothers James, who had been released by the Shawnee, and Thomas, who had been living near the fort since his rescue from the Delaware. More importantly, he quickly found employment. Alexander McKee knew he could use a man who spoke nine different Indian languages, and besides, he found Girty to be “cheerful, energetic, and perceptive.”217 In addition to his language skills, young Girty was also highly knowledgeable in the many cultural nuances, political structures, spiritual rituals, clan relationships and daily community lives of most of the Native American tribes of the Allegheny Plateau and the Ohio Country beyond. As a result, McKee made Simon Girty an employee of the British Indian Department.
With the end of the war with the French, Fort Pitt’s value as a trading center quickly grew, and within months of the Treaty of Paris, ambitious traders flocked there, anxious to expand their operations down the Ohio and even into the mysterious Kenhtake(Kentucky) wilderness. One of these traders was George Morgan, a young man of twenty-four years and partner in the Philadelphia mercantile firm of Baynton, Wharton and Morgan. Morgan’s ambitious plan involved moving goods by wagon from his firm’s warehouse in Philadelphia to Fort Pitt for storage and then distributing them to the Indian nations downstream on the Ohio and Mississippi in exchange for furs. In addition, Morgan planned to have the men he sent downriver also hunt buffalo, bringing the buffalo meat back to Fort Pitt salted in sealed containers for sale to both the British army in America and colonial outposts in the Caribbean.218
To accomplish this task, Morgan needed men familiar with the Indians and capable of surviving in the wilderness. They must be able to communicate with the Indians of various nations, shoot well enough to hunt and, if required, fight their way out of any confrontations with Native Americans who might not like the fact that these whites were intruding on their hunting grounds. The idea of going farther west and living the life of what became known as the “long hunter” excited Girty, so with McKee’s approval, he took leave of his position in the Indian Department and signed on with George Morgan. Assigned by Morgan as a boat foreman, he left Fort Pitt in June 1768 on a trading and hunting expedition that headed down the Ohio for the Cumberland River in northwestern Kentucky.219
This blockhouse in present-day Pittsburgh is one of the few remaining remnants of the bustling eighteenth-century commercial and military center at Fort Pitt. Library of Congress.
All went well for Girty’s party until they were about two hundred miles up the Cumberland near the current site of Carthage, Tennessee. The expedition beached their boats on the riverbank, and the long hunters made camp. A few men tended to the campsite as the others set off to hunt in two groups, one of which included Girty. Not far from the camp, a party of about thirty Shawnee warriors ambushed Girty and his companions. The hunters had no choice but to make a run for it, and Girty took off into the forest. He soon crossed a meadow and took cover in the trees beyond, where he waited to fire on his pursuers. When the first Shawnee appeared, Girty killed him with a single shot, and the others decided to give up the chase. As far as anyone knows, this was the first man Girty had killed, and it is ironic that it was an Indian.220
Girty headed back for the camp, where he found the rest of the expedition’s members dead and the boats smashed. He then headed downstream, walking along the river looking for another expedition team led by Joseph Hollingshead, which was following his own up the Cumberland. Girty hoped to warn Hollingshead about the Shawnee and then make his way back to the company’s base of operations near Kaskaskia in the Illinois country. He was successful, and Hollingshead’s party avoided the Shawnee. George Morgan was very grateful for his actions, writing to his partners in Philadelphia on July 20 to say, “He is a Lad Who is particularly attch’d [sic] to me otherwise he would not have come here to give me this intelligence but would have proceeded to Fort Pitt. Mr. Hollingshead will give you his character.”221
After he was almost killed and scalped by the Shawnee, Girty decided to abandon his fledgling career as a long hunter, returning to Alexander McKee at Fort Pitt and resuming his interpreter duties. In the years that followed, Girty proved himself invaluable to McKee, the Indians and the British government. As his reputation grew, McKee sent him out on his own to deliver official messages and diplomatic conference invitations to the council longhouses of the distant Indian tribes. However, at the same time, Girty developed a reputation as a drinker and brawler, which likely concerned McKee and his British colonial superiors. Although some earlier historians seem to have overstated this aspect of Girty’s character, it appears to be a charge that is not entirely undeserved.
As he got older, Simon Girty grew into the sort of man who became unhappy if life was too tranquil. He became what we might now call a “man of action,” someone easily bored by the routine, the ordinary. Those who knew him at the time refer to him as “active, jocular, and outspoken”222 as well as someone who quickly moved to physical aggression, especially if he had been drinking. One thing, however, is certain: no one who encountered Simon Girty ever remembered him as dull or uninteresting. Whoever he truly was, Girty seems to have been a man who dominated a room from the moment he walked in and someone people never forgot encountering.
The outbreak of Dunmore’s War and the political activities that led to it created dilemmas for both Girty and McKee. First, Lord Dunmore’s move to claim all of western Pennsylvania as part of Virginia placed anyone in the service of the British government in an awkward position. As the Virginia faction in the region gained power and changed the name of Fort Pitt to Fort Dunmore, McKee elected to stand by and watch matters carefully, attempting political neutrality, while Girty chose to fully support Lord Dunmore and the Virginians. At first glance, this appears to have been an odd stance for Girty to take, as the Virginia governor and his supporters advocated seizing Indian lands, and he operated in close coordination with powerful land speculators.
During his time as a long hunter, Girty had come to see the speculators as a threat to both the frontier life he loved and, more so, to his friends, the Seneca. However, in this particular case, Girty was clearly doing the bidding of his surrogate father and mentor, the Seneca chief, Guyasuta. The immediate target of Lord Dunmore and the army he assembled was the lands of the Shawnee, an avowed enemy of the Seneca and the other tribes of the Six Nation Confederacy. Therefore, Guyasuta and his fellow members of the confederacy chose not only to stay out of the fight but also to do all they could to allow Lord Dunmore to destroy the Shawnee.223 So, as McKee and the Indian Department worked feverishly to prevent a war, his loyal lieutenant, Girty, supported the forces determined to start one. However, once the war began, the British government felt compelled to support Lord Dunmore, and McKee assigned Girty to Dunmore’s forces, where his skills could clearly be put to great use.
In fact, when the brief conflict reached its climax, Girty played a critical role. To affect a peace, Lord Dunmore needed Chief Logan of the Mingo to be an active member of the peace process. Since the murder of Logan’s family served as the flashpoint for the war, the governor desperately wanted Logan to either come to Camp Charlotte for the treaty conference or at least send his blessings. Lord Dunmore decided to have Simon Girty go to Logan’s village and speak to him. He selected Girty for this important mission not only because of Girty’s reputation as a diplomat to the Indians but also because Girty had actually met Logan during his time with the Seneca.224
The trip would be perilous, as it required an extended trip though Shawnee and Mingo lands. Girty chose two men to go with him, Joseph Nicholson and Simon Kenton. The three men successfully made it to Logan’s village, and once Logan recognized Girty, he agreed to speak with him. Although Logan would not accept Dunmore’s invitation to come to Camp Charlotte, he said that he wanted to send a message to the governor and the other chiefs, which he slowly and deliberately dictated to Girty in English. When Girty returned and delivered the message, Lord Dunmore had it transcribed and read several times to those at the conference. Logan’s sad, eloquent words had great influence on those assembled at Camp Charlotte and became famous thereafter as “Logan’s Lament”:
I appeal to any white man to say if he ever entered Logan’s cabin hungry, and I gave him not meat; if he ever came cold and naked, and I gave him not clothing. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his tent, an advocate for peace. Nay, such was my love for the whites, that those of my own country pointed at me as they passed, and said, “Logan is the friend of the white man.” I had even thought to live with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, cut off all the relatives of Logan; not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any human creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. Yet, do not harbour the thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.225
With the war concluded, Girty was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant in the militia, and his reputation in the American frontier community stood at its highest point.226 However, within months, as the American independence movement blossomed, Lord Dunmore and his Loyalist supporters were driven from office in disgrace, and Fort Dunmore became Fort Pitt once more, as Pennsylvania reclaimed its lost territory. Given his association with Dunmore, Simon Girty was seen as a potential Tory and, as such, a man not to be trusted.
Once American officials began moving into the roles abandoned by British officers, the Continental Congress appointed Richard Butler, a Philadelphia merchant, to the post of Indian agent at what the Americans now began calling Pittsburgh. Butler maintained a passionate hatred for the Indians but, perhaps, not as deep a hatred as he held for “Injun lovers” and suspected Loyalists, descriptions that fit both Girty and McKee. However, as 1775 passed, both men continued their work, and Girty was given assignments in both July and October to carry messages from the Congress to the Six Nations. These messages urged the Six Nations to remain neutral in any coming conflict with Great Britain and assured the Indians that, should the colonies win their independence, they would still respect the Ohio River as the boundary protecting Indian lands.227
As 1776 began, however, things did not go so well for McKee. In February, he received a dispatch from the British Indian Department official responsible for affairs along the Niagara frontier asking McKee to come to Fort Niagara. “Your knowledge in Indian affairs, your hitherto undoubted zeal for his Majesty’s service, and the duty you owe to your government,” said the officer, made McKee’s attendance “absolutely necessary.” More so, the officer requested McKee provide intelligence on American activities, telling him, “I expect you will be kind enough to inform of anything worth notice that you may know respecting the proceedings of the Rebels your way.”228 Unfortunately, Richard Butler and other Patriot members of the local Committee of Safety learned about the message and arrived at McKee’s home demanding to see the dispatch, which the Indian agent showed to them. Upon reading it, Butler and the others decided to place McKee on parole, writing in the committee’s proceedings:
It is, therefore, Resolved, That Mr. Alexander McKee be required to give his parole, in writing, that he will not transact any business with the Indians in behalf of the Crown or Ministry; that he will not, directly or indirectly, correspond with any of the Crown or Ministerial officers, nor leave the neighbourhood of Fort Pitt, without the consent of the Committee of West-Augusta; and, on his refusal to do so, that he be committed a close prisoner till the General Congress be acquainted, and direct what further is to be done.229
The parole later troubled Butler who, along with others, could find no real fault with McKee’s behavior. In fact, while he had been no admirer of McKee’s, Butler found the committee’s actions unnecessary. “I must say in justice to Mr. McKee,” reported Butler, “that I have not seen one act that discovered an inimical intention to this country.”230
In April 1776, Congress appointed Girty’s old friend and former employer, George Morgan, to replace Butler in Pittsburgh. Morgan continued to receive rumors of McKee’s loyalist activities but chose not act on them. Meanwhile, Morgan hired Girty immediately upon his arrival in Pittsburgh, sending him to Onondaga, New York, to present the Great Peace Belt of the United Colonies to the Grand Council of the Six Nations and, once more, urge the confederacy to remain neutral. Girty’s mission was a resounding success, as five of the nations agreed to stay out of the war. The sole exception was the Mohawks, who were absent from the meeting, having already concluded a separate alliance with the British.
One would have thought Girty’s reputation among the Americans would now be safe, but that was not to be the case. On August 1, a month after his return from New York, Morgan summarily removed Girty from his post, stating “ill-behavior” as the only reason. Beyond that, there is no record of Girty’s offense. Some historians have conjectured that the dismissal was likely due to Girty’s drunken brawling, but others believe that, given Girty and Morgan’s long association, a more serious matter must have been the cause. One theory is that Girty got wind of Morgan’s work with the land speculators, who were now busily making their plans to carve up the Ohio Country once the war concluded, and that he confronted Morgan about it.231 Although there is no proof, this latter theory makes sense, as Girty would likely have been furious with Morgan, given that he had just spent the last two years assuring his Indian brethren that the Americans had no desire to take their lands.
This April 7, 1776 letter from George Morgan to his brother, written just before his assignment as Indian superintendent at Fort Pitt, provides an example of his land speculation dealings. This particular transaction involves an Indiana land deal Morgan was working on on behalf of General George Washington. Library of Congress.
Throughout 1777 and into early 1778, as the war with Great Britain raged with full force, McKee continued in virtual house arrest, as Girty tried to regain the good graces of Morgan and the other American officials in Pittsburgh. Simon even recruited men to a militia company, and when he had raised his quota of 150 enlistees, he hoped he would be given their captaincy. However, all he was offered was a lieutenancy, and, far worse, when the company was mustered into service for duty in South Carolina, Girty was ordered to remain behind.232 Soon thereafter, a new American commander, General Edward Hand, arrived in Pittsburgh, and while Girty initially supported Hand in working with the local Indian tribes, he decided to resign his commission in August 1777.233
General Edward Hand, commander of American forces at Fort Pitt. Pennsylvania Historical Society.
Meanwhile, matters worsened for Alexander McKee. First, in February 1777, the British lieutenant governor at Detroit, Henry Hamilton, proposed to Whitehall that they now actively encourage the remainder of the Six Nations to make war on American forces and settlements along the frontier. Lord George Germain agreed to the strategy, and on March 26, he instructed Sir Guy Carleton to approve Hamilton’s idea for “the making a diversion on the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania by parties of Indians conducted by proper leaders.”234 When word of this new threat was revealed in the American settlements, McKee once again became the target of suspicion and scrutiny. Then, in July, the sister of the Shawnee chief Cornstalk, who was known to hate McKee, reported to General Hand that McKee was secretly communicating with Hamilton in Detroit. Hand quickly dismissed her story, believing that the former British agent was fully living within the terms of his parole. Still, despite Hand’s reassurances, most of the people of Pittsburgh believed McKee to be a dangerous loyalist.235
In the early fall, General Hand decided to rehire Girty and send him on a mission to visit his old family, the Seneca, and determine their intentions. In mid-November 1777, Girty arrived at the Seneca village of Connewago, on the Allegheny River. There, he met with the council led by his aging surrogate father, Guyasuta, and made his case that the Seneca should remain neutral. However, he did not get the reception he hoped for, and, in fact, what happened was far beyond anything he might have imagined. Guyasuta informed Girty that he was no longer considered a Seneca and that the council believed him to be an American spy. From other statements made in the council house, it became clear to Girty that his people had decided to make war on the Americans and were most likely already conducting raids along the frontier. Guyasuta told his former son that he would be taken to Fort Niagara the next day, where he would be turned over to British authorities, who would likely hang him. That night, a badly shaken Simon Girty made his escape and returned to Pittsburgh, telling General Hand what he had learned.236 However, even with this success, Hand would not restore Girty’s commission, much less provide a captaincy, which he had promised to Simon in return for his mission to the Seneca. Nevertheless, despite this reversal of fortune, the unhappy Girty continued to provide services to Hand and the Patriot cause.
In late 1777 and early 1778, General Hand searched for a way to strike at the British and their new Indian allies in Ohio. Intelligence reports indicated the British had established a depot for the Indians near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, just over eighty miles from Pittsburgh, and Hand figured that, with the Indians scattered in their winter encampments, the depot might be virtually undefended. However, Hand did not have the manpower required to mount the raid, so he wrote a letter requesting reinforcements to Colonel William Crawford, a close friend of George Washington, a land speculator and a man who knew Girty from Dunmore’s War. In his letter, Hand advised Crawford that he expected to find “a magazine of arms and provisions, sent from Detroit, and fifteen batteaux [sic] lie there. You may guess the rest.”237 Crawford responded that he would be on the march shortly, and Hand replied, this time extolling not only the patriotism of Crawford’s men but also offering the potential incentive for material gain:
Colonel William Crawford, American officer, associate of George Washington and comrade of Simon Girty during Dunmore’s War. Ohio Historical Society.
It may be necessary to assure them that every thing they are able to bring away shall be sold at public vendue [sic] for the sole benefit of the captors, and the money equally distributed tho’ [sic] I am certain that a sense of the service they will render to their country will operate more strongly than the expectation of gain. I, therefore, expect that you will use your influence on this occasion, and bring all the volunteers you can raise to Fort Pitt by the 15th of this month.238
Crawford, whose name later become indelibly tied to that of Simon Girty, mustered five hundred men, and on February 8, 1778, Hand, Crawford and their militia left Pittsburgh for the Cuyahoga, with Girty serving as an interpreter. The weather proved simply awful, a nasty mixture of cold rain and light snow that flooded every river and stream in the column’s path. To make matters worse, General Hand had hired another man, William Brady, to act as guide, despite the fact that Girty knew these woods far better. It quickly became clear that Brady did not know the best route to the Cuyahoga, and between the weather and Brady’s incompetence, it took Hand days to go just a few miles.239
One morning, as the column camped near the Beaver River, Girty accompanied Brady into the nearby woods to look for the guide’s horse, which had wandered away during the night. They found the horse after a few hours and were heading back to camp when they heard the sounds of gunfire. Hurrying forward and anticipating that a skirmish had occurred with the enemy, they quickly located the source of the shooting. Some of Hand’s other scouts had led the general and his soldiers to the site of an old Indian village, which Hand did not bother reconnoitering in advance. Rather, he just assumed this was a populated, hostile village and sent his men in, shooting and ransacking the longhouses. However, instead of several hundred villagers and warriors, all they found were an elderly Indian man, two women and some children, hunkered down for a cold winter.
The soldiers killed the old man, who managed to get off a single shot before he went down, wounding one of Crawford’s men. In the wild firing that followed, they also killed one of the women and wounded the other by shooting off her finger when she raised her hands in surrender. Luckily, they did not kill any of the children, who all fled into the woods. Hand ordered Girty to interrogate the wounded woman, and from her, Girty learned that General Hand had just attacked a group of neutral Delawares, and worse, the man they killed was the brother of the Delaware’s principle chief, Captain Pipe, and the dead woman was Captain Pipe’s mother. She also revealed that some warriors were at a nearby saltwater spring, so Hand sent a detachment of soldiers off to find them. The men returned without having found the warriors; however, they did successfully kill and scalp a young Indian boy who was innocently hunting in the woods with a bow and arrow.
With this disaster complete, Hand ordered the column back to Pittsburgh, where he was ridiculed about what became known as the “Squaw Campaign.” Unfortunately, no one attacked the general for his men’s wanton killing of innocent, neutral Delawares, but instead, they criticized him for not finding and killing more Indians. More so, however, this “campaign” seems to have been the event that triggered Simon Girty’s decision to abandon the American cause. The bloodthirsty desire among those engaged in the Patriot cause to slaughter Indians, no matter their position in the war with Great Britain, combined with the intense desire to take those same Indians’ lands after the war and the disdain they demonstrated for him personally, finally moved Girty to change allegiance for good.240
Girty went to see Alexander McKee, and his old associate told him that he, too, planned to defect. Since late December, McKee had resisted General Hand’s orders to report to York, where McKee was supposed to testify about his activities since the beginning of the war before the Continental Congress’s Board of War. McKee had no intention of doing so, as it was tantamount to a death sentence, no matter what he told the board. Although McKee had likely been quietly supporting the British war effort, he worked hard to appear ambivalent about the war to the public at large. McKee had much to lose if he defected, as he had acquired some considerable wealth and property while developing good business relationships with many leading men in Pennsylvania. However, Hand’s insistence that he turn himself over to Patriot officials finally forced his hand.
Girty and McKee planned their escape along with Matthew Elliot, a friend and business associate of McKee. Girty went to his brothers and told them of his plans. James Girty, who had also been working with American officials up to this point, decided to take a journey with his wife into the Shawnee country, ensuring he was out of the city when Girty and McKee made their escape. Then, James would also join the British cause. On the night of March 28, 1778, McKee, Elliott and Girty, along with McKee’s cousin Robert Surphlitt, McKee’s servant John Higgins and two of McKee’s African slaves, mounted up under the cover of darkness, left Pittsburgh for good and began their journey to Detroit. As it turned out, their timing was impeccable, as General Hand sent a group of armed men to McKee’s house to arrest him a few hours later. Finding the house empty, Hand said he was “mortified.”241
After making a slow trek through the Ohio Country during which they visited with many Indian leaders, McKee and Girty finally arrived in Detroit in early June 1778. Along the way, the news of their defection spread, and there was great excitement among the Indian nations when they learned that two men they considered friends and able leaders had come over to the side of King George III. Meanwhile, back in Pennsylvania and along the frontier, there was a corresponding sense of fear and dread. One man wrote about what he observed, saying, “As we drew nearer to Pittsburgh, the unfavorable account of the elopement of McKee, Elliott, Girty, and others, from the latter place [Pittsburgh] to the Indian country, for the purpose of instigating the Indians to murder [caused great excitement]…Indeed, the gloomy countenances of all men, women, and children, that we passed, bespoke fear—nay, some families even spoke of leaving their farms and moving off.”242
Even General Hand found he was fearful of what McKee and Girty might accomplish as agents of the British. Only two days after the escape, he wrote Colonel Crawford requesting help, saying, “Your assistance may be necessary towards preventing the evils that may arise from the information of these runaways, I beg you may return here as soon as possible.”243
In fact, the defection could not have come at a worse time for Hand and the other Americans along the frontier. Although, the war in the wilderness region had become a seemingly endless series of raids and counter-raids, British leaders feared the Americans might gather sufficient strength to not only penetrate the Ohio Country but also threaten Detroit itself. Such a setback could very well topple the entire British war effort along the frontier. Therefore, Colonel Hamilton and other British officials in Detroit felt they needed to rally their Indian allies and conduct a campaign that would constantly keep the Americans both fearful and off-balance. In this regard, Hamilton saw McKee as the key to his plans, writing the Lord George Germain, “I shall place great dependencies on his knowledge of the Country and of these people employed for its defense.”244 He immediately commissioned McKee as a captain in the British Indian Department and appointed Girty to an interpreter’s post. In the meantime, McKee, Elliott and Girty were accused and convicted of treason in absentia in a court in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. From this point on, they were considered renegade outlaws and traitors who would be executed without further trial if captured, and the man who brought them in would receive a reward of $800.245
Hamilton and his successor, Major Arent DePeyster, made good use of both Girty and McKee. McKee spent the war years living among the Ohio nations, consulting with village councils, gathering intelligence, arranging for the exchange of captives and constantly conducting diplomacy aimed at maintaining the Crown’s alliance with the Indian nations.246 On occasion, McKee might organize raids against American military and civilian objectives along the frontier, but for the most part, he left that work to Simon Girty, who proved more adept than even McKee might ever have imagined possible.
Girty spent much of his time working with the Wyandot but also organized raids by Shawnee and Mingo warriors that ranged into southern Ohio and northern Kentucky, as well as western Pennsylvania and Virginia. Usually, these involved a few dozen warriors who would burn farmhouses, ambush supply trains and, most importantly, spread fear and panic among American settlers. Militarily, these attacks were nothing compared to the highly organized campaigns being fought east of the Alleghenies, and Congress considered them an irritant. However, for those citizens and leaders on the frontier, these persistent attacks were a matter of great significance, and they clamored loudly for increased military assistance.247
Most of all, however, these attacks also allowed Girty’s reputation to grow well beyond the reality of even his considerable capabilities. Simon’s ability to mount protracted raids all along the frontier gave the impression that he was everywhere at once, capable of suddenly appearing to inflict deadly harm and then disappearing into the dense forest only to appear and strike elsewhere with stunning speed. The Indians he led often scalped, burned and tortured, and while there is no record of his participating in these kinds of activities, he did not appear moved to stop them either. As a result, he gained a perhaps unwarranted reputation for cruelty and barbarism, as well.
Feelings against Girty ran especially high around Pittsburgh. For his part, Girty did not seem to feel he was doing anything dishonorable, and when he heard about the bounty placed on his head, he sent word to Pittsburgh that he “expected no mercy from the Americans and would give none.”248 However, at the same time, Girty’s notoriety did have some purely military value, as American soldiers and even their commanders grew to fear him. On one occasion, a force of 260 militia besieging a Shawnee town near Chillicothe received a false report that Girty was approaching with one hundred Mingo warriors. Rather than stay and fight, the militia elected to burn a few buildings and beat a hasty retreat, even though they vastly outnumbered Girty and his phantom Mingo army.249 Later, when the American general William Irvine was contemplating a new campaign against the Wyandot on the Sandusky River and British-Indian forces at Detroit, the attack was cancelled because of Girty’s presence. One officer wrote in a letter to a comrade, “The chance is now against General Irvine’s succeeding…and, it is said, [he] set out with only 1,200 men. Simon Girty can outnumber him; and, flushed with so many victories, to his natural boldness, he will be confident.”250
By the war’s end in 1783, both McKee and Girty had performed valuable service on behalf of His Majesty’s government. The Americans not only made no gains on the frontier, but also their hold on what they did control was often shaky, at best, and both McKee and Girty were largely responsible for that success. McKee’s stature within the British Indian Department grew during the war, and he was considered a “capable and energetic officer who displayed uncommon influence among the Crown’s native allies.”251 Further, McKee found the work rewarding in that it allowed him to expand his diplomatic and military efforts to the Northern Lakes tribes, with whom he had little contact before the war. Girty, meanwhile, although likely seen as far less refined than his more educated associate, was considered a man of great influence among the Indians, respected for his leadership and bravery.
However, both Girty and McKee were surprised when, in May 1783, they discovered that the British government had given away all the Indian lands of Ohio and Kentucky to the Americans. Although the Crown’s negotiators had ensured that the Mohawks were provided lands in Canada, they made no such provision for Indians of the Ohio Valley. British leaders ordered Major DePeyster to say nothing of this to Indian leaders, and he dispatched McKee and Girty on missions to tell the Indian nations that the war was over and that they should now end their raids on the Americans. In July, a meeting in Detroit that included the leaders of eleven Indian nations followed these missions. During this conference, the British superintendent of Indian Affairs, Sir John Johnson, gave the Indians a rather mixed message. He told them they should all make peace with the Americans, that the British could no longer support them if they chose to make war and that, at the same time, they should be prepared to defend their lands if the Americans invaded. Soon, however, the Indians learned that their British allies had betrayed them, and both Girty and McKee spent much time traveling among the villages conducting diplomacy designed to ensure the Indians would still cooperate with the British.252
As the months passed, Girty became less active, and while he officially remained an interpreter on the British Indian Department staff, he did so only at half pay. A grateful British government gave him land in Canada near Detroit, and he settled down to do some farming, even marrying a twenty-year-old former Indian captive named Catherine Malott.253 However, it was not long before Alexander McKee once again asked for his help, and Girty would spend most of the next six years traveling among the Indians, occasionally stirring up resentment toward the Americans but more often assisting with treaty negotiations and council meetings.
Part of this work also involved the ransoming and exchange of American captives, like Phebe, who were adopted and living with the various nations. This is an area of the Girty legend where, perhaps, he was most vilified and wrongly so. Throughout the American Revolution and the frontier conflicts that followed, both McKee and Girty made substantial efforts on behalf of captives, saving men from torture and death while ensuring the return of women and children to their families. However, in Girty’s case, all the good he might have done was overshadowed by one event, and sadly, the version of what happened in that case was also exaggerated and stretched by Americans of the time to match the Girty of legend and not the real man.
The case referred to here is that of Colonel William Crawford, which occurred in June 1782 in the wake of the Gnadenhutten massacre. Crawford, the land speculator friend of Washington and Dunmore’s War associate of Simon Girty, was given a force of 480 men and ordered by Generals Hand and Irvine to penetrate the Ohio Country, where he was to destroy the “Indian town and settlement at Sandusky.” Interestingly, Crawford competed for command of the expedition with the same Colonel Williamson who had perpetrated the atrocities at Gnadenhutten. But in the end, General Irvine preferred Crawford, who was considered the more experienced officer.254
Crawford’s force left Mingo Bottom on May 25 and made slow progress across Ohio. However, their approach was far from stealthy, and Girty and his Indian allies were aware of the column and its intended target. They amassed hundreds of Wyandot, Delaware and Shawnee warriors, and on June 4, as Crawford’s men approached the Wyandot town near the Sandusky, the Americans were attacked by this combined force. A running battle ensued that lasted over two days, with disastrous results for the Americans. While they would claim only 50 dead, British sources reported more than 250 Americans dead or captured. However, worst of all for Colonel Crawford, the Delawares captured him as he attempted to lead the shattered remnants of his command away in retreat.255
Two days later, Girty learned that the Delawares had taken a “big captain” prisoner and that they intended to burn him in retaliation for the massacre of their people at Gnadenhutten. Girty assumed they had captured Williamson, but when he arrived at the Delaware village, he discovered that William Crawford was actually the man taken prisoner. At this point, popular legend and more recent histories diverge as to Girty’s role in Crawford’s fate. The old legends are that Girty laughed at Crawford and cheered the Indians on as they brutally tortured him and finally burned him alive at the stake. These stories all insist that Girty did little or nothing to defend his old comrade and prevent his death.256 However, recent historians have provided a version that seems far more credible given Girty’s other attempts to save American captives.
Girty tried to tell the Delaware leaders that Crawford was not Williamson and he should not be punished for Gnadenhutten, but they would not listen. Instead, they told him they would march Crawford to the village of Captain Pipe the next morning, where he would be tried for his crimes. On learning this news, Girty went to see Crawford and explain the situation to him. An American captive, Elizabeth Turner, was present at Girty’s first meeting with Crawford, and she said that after Girty told the horrified Crawford that he would be tried for the Gnadenhutten massacre, Crawford begged Girty to help him and offered to reveal military intelligence information in return for his safety. Girty then proposed an escape plan, but Crawford said he did not have the strength to make the attempt.257
The next day, Crawford was marched to Captain Pipe’s village to stand trial, arriving there to find a large, angry crowd awaiting him. When the trial began, Girty acted as Crawford’s interpreter and spokesman as they listened to the Delaware chiefs angrily blaming Crawford for the massacre of their people. One of these chiefs, Wingenund, later told a missionary of the anger he expressed at Crawford’s trial, saying, “These Indians believed all their teachers had told them, of what was written in the Book, and strove to act according! It was on account of the Great Book you have, that these Indians trusted so much to what you told them! We knew you better than they did! We often warned them to beware of you and your pretended friendship: but they would not believe us! They believed nothing but good of you, and for this they paid with their lives!”258
With Girty’s help, Crawford told the chiefs that he was not involved in what happened at Gnadenhutten and sincerely regretted what had been done there by the American militia under Williamson. The chiefs appeared to listen intently, but then some damning testimony was offered by Captain Pipe’s elderly sister-in-law, a woman named Micheykapeeci. To Crawford’s great misfortune, she was the woman who had survived General Hand’s attack on the abandoned village during the Squaw Campaign, and she had seen Crawford among the American officers that day. Far worse, she accused him of being in command of the men who had killed Captain Pipe’s brother and mother that fateful morning. Hearing this, Captain Pipe immediately condemned Crawford to death by fire.
In this painting, William Crawford burns at the stake as Simon Girty (pictured pointing at Crawford while on a white horse) looks on. Ohio Historical Society.
Girty leapt to Crawford’s defense, begging for mercy and even offering his horse and other goods in exchange for Crawford’s release to British custody. In fact, Girty argued Crawford’s case so passionately that Captain Pipe finally told him that unless Girty was prepared to take Crawford’s place at the stake, the Delaware chiefs would not hear another word from him. With that, Crawford’s fate was sealed, and he would endure over three hours of cruel torture before the flames finally killed him. Simon Girty could do nothing but stand by and watch, and Elizabeth Turner said she saw tears on his cheek as Crawford was brutally executed.259
Nevertheless, despite the fact that Phebe almost certainly had heard many horrible tales about Girty, including his supposed complicity in Crawford’s death, she still decided he was her best hope to get home at long last. As it turns out, despite all the grisly legends that painted Girty as cruel and heartless, she could not have asked a more able man for help.