Agent Stickney, Captain Rhea And Antoine Bondy

Note: Antoine, the son of Joseph Duarte Bondy and Marie Josette Gamelin and also my daughter's 6th great grand uncle.

From the Valley of the upper Maumee River, with historical account of Allen County and the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana (also here):

The agent was thankful for the information, but was doubtful whether to credit or reject it, as a mistake in a matter of so much importance, either way, would prove ruinous to his character and cause his disgraceful ejection from the important office which he held. He had been but three months in office or in the country and was acquainted with but few persons.

The character of Bondie was not known to him, and the nature of his communication was such as to require great secrecy, and if true, immediate preparation for the defense of the fort. [Benjamin Franklin] Stickney sent a note to Capt. [James] Rhea, the commanding officer of the garrison, desiring a meeting with him in the open esplanade of the fort, where there could be no one to overhear what might be said.

In weighing and comparing chances and consequences, he determined that it was better that he should be ruined in his reputation, and the government suffer all sacrifices consequent upon the falsity of the report, than that they should both suffer if it proved true. He, therefore, sent a second time to Capt. Rhea, and declared his intention to make the report and give it his sanction. He informed him that he had just received a dispatch from Gov. Harrison, from Vincennes, saying that he was going to Cincinnati, where he must be addressed, if necessary, and that he should send an express to him, directed to that city, and another to Captain Taylor, at Fort Harrison. 

Reconstruction Of Fort Wayne

When nearly ready to dispatch his messenger, Capt. Rhea sent a note to him requesting that he would delay his express to Cincinnati, until he could write a letter to the governor of Ohio, informing him of the report. Stickney complied with this request, and the express was sent with letters to Gov. Harrison and Gov. Meigs. Active preparations were now begun by the little garrison of 100 for defense. Such men as could be spared with teams were employed to send off ladies who were there, with children, to the frontier; and it was subsequently ascertained that within a few hours after the messengers had started, the Indians drew their lines around the fort.

[Captain Rhea]...met the agent, heard his communication and dismissed it by observing that Bondie was a trifling fellow and no reliance could be placed upon what he said. This increased the perplexity of the agent. He sent for Bondie and his interpreter, to have a cross-examination. This being completed, it remained for the agent either to pass the matter without notice and incur the chances of the siege by the Indians of the two posts, to be followed by a regular force of British troops with artillery without any preparation for defense or relief from abroad, or to report the information, without attaching to it his official belief in its correctness, in which case it would have no effect.

The Indian warriors, to the number of some 500, as then supposed, assembled in the neighborhood of the fort; and it was evident that they had hopes of getting possession of it by stratagem. They would lie in wait near the fort, day after day, a few near, but the majority of them as much out of sight as possible. 

Veteran Of Point Pleasant Battle Marched To The Aid Of General Washington

One of the first companies that marched to the aid of Washington when he was at Cambridge in 1775 was that of Captain Michael Cresap, which was raised partly in Maryland and partly in the western part of Virginia. ...his company may be taken as a fair sample of what the riflemen of the frontiers of our country were, and of what they could do. We will therefore give the words of an eyewitness of their performances. This account is taken from the Pennsylvania Journal of August 23rd, 1775.

Battle In Lord Dunmore's War

"On Friday evening last arrived at Lancaster, Pa., on their way to the American camp, Captain Cresap's Company of Riflemen, consisting of one hundred and thirty active, brave young fellows, many of whom have been in the late expedition under Lord Dunmore against the Indians. They bear in their bodies visible marks of their prowess, and show scars and wounds which would do honour to Homer's Iliad.

"At night a great fire was kindled around a pole planted in the Court House Square, where the company with the Captain at their head, all naked to the waist and painted like savages (except the Captain, who was in an Indian shirt), indulged a vast concourse of people with a perfect exhibition of a war-dance and all the manoeuvres of Indians; holding council, going to war; circumventing their enemies by defiles; ambuscades; attacking; scalping, etc. It is said by those who are judges that no representation could possibly come nearer the original. The Captain's expertness and agility, in particular, in these experiments, astonished every beholder. This morning they will set out on their march for Cambridge." [Source]

Three Murderers Discharged

Fort Massac In Illinois

Proofs of the Corruption of Gen. James Wilkinson..., By Daniel Clark:

"The other three [murderers of General James Wilkinson's messenger, Mr. Owens]...".

Journal Of Major John Hawks

Source

Wikitree entry for John Hawks here.

Fort Sumter

Fort Sumter:

Fort Levis

Source

Fort Levis (Fort William Augustus)

1768 Map With Fort Levy Now F. William Augustus (LOC)

The Monitor And The Merrimac On A Map

Monitor And Merrimac On Map At Fortress Monroe Museum

"[Fortress Monroe] is the grim Cerberus guarding the approach by water to our National Capital. It has witnessed...the Merrimac [and its] brief raid upon our fleet in Hampton Roads--the raid so notably checked by Captain Worden in his little Monitor." [Source]

Source

The Doctor Who Wrote The Prison Life Of Jefferson Davis

Marker At Fort Monroe, Virginia

Prison Life of Jefferson Davis: Embracing Details and Incidents in His ..., By John Joseph Craven

Captain William Trent

From The Plains of Abraham by Brian Connell:

"As a stop-gap, Dinwiddie persuaded a frontiersman, Captain William Trent, to recruit a hundred men from among his fellow Indian traders. ..they were packed off post-haste to start constructing a fort on the neck of land between the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers."

Source

"In August, 1753, he (Trent) was directed by Governor Dinwiddie, to examine the site selected by the commissioners, in 1752, for a fort on the Ohio. This was at the forks of the Ohio, where Pittsburg now stands. In a letter from John Frazier to an Indian trader named Young, dated "Forks, August 27, 1753," we find the following reference to Trent: "There is hardly any Indians now here at all, for yesterday there set off along with Captain Trent...".

Early in January, 1754, Governor Dinwiddie commissioned Trent to raise one hundred men for immediate service on the frontier. By the last of the month this force was raised, and immediately

marched to the mouth of Redstone creek, where a temporary store house was erected for the Ohio company, in which to place articles and supplies, to be carried from thence to the mouth of the Monongahela. While at Redstone, the Captain received instructions from Governor Dinwiddie to build a fort at the forks of the Monongahela and Ohio... .

Fort Pitt and Redstone On Map (Source) (Also seen here)

On the 17th the fort was given up, but not until highly honorable terms were obtained from the enemy. At this time, a Virginia regiment under Col. Fry, with George Washington as lieutenant colonel, was at Wills creek, Maryland, on its way to the forks. 

...the French enlarged and completed the fort, and named it Fort Du Quesne, in honor of the governor of Canada. 

Peter Bondie, French Trader

Old Fort Reconstruction in Fort Wayne, Indiana

From "The ward of Tecumseh"

The factory building is outside the fort," he said, and I'd be delighted to have you stay there with me, if it wasn't crowded to the doors. My assistant, Captain Wells, with his wife and their children com-
pletely fill it. But there's a sort of hotel here kept by a French trader, one Peter Bondie, and he can put you up for the night. ."

Rechristened Fort Rosalie

Source (Fort Rosalie And Vicinity)

"1763 rule of the Mississippi Valley passed from Louis XV to George III  By proclamation George III's government made the Natchez District...the only British area open to settlement west of the Appalachians."'

"...patriot James Willing circa 1777 ...was made a captain in the Navy...to make prize of all British Property on the Mississippi. However...when a party of  Americans did arrive, the Natchez settlers (many if not most of the Tory persuasion) gave it a violent reception.  Once more the British flag flew over Fort Panmure, as the British had rechristened Fort Rosalie.  It was not to stay there long.  Fort Panmure capitulated (to Spain) on October 5, 1779. 

Belestre's Incursions

By a letter from him [Belestre] dated April 29, 1756, it appears that, with a number of French and Indians, he went down the Ohio river, and thence east and south to the Carolinas, and

"marched about 30 leagues through settlements that had been abandoned, at the end of which time he fell in with a village of 30 or 40 houses which were taken and burnt; close by was a small wooden fort that was summoned to surrender; on its refusing to comply it was carried by assault and the garrison put to the sword. The killed and prisoners amounted to about 300; all the oxen and cows having been collected together were killed; 120 horses, which they found, served to carry the large quantity of plunder the Indians got, and in returning they set fire to all the settlements they had left."

Belestre was slightly wounded in one arm and in the shoulder. Returning to Fort Duquesne, he engaged with a party of Cherokees and a few Frenchmen on incursions in the neighborhood of that place and was captured by the English troops on June 17, 1757, and on June 20 was taken for examination before a committee composed of Edmund Atkin, superintendent of Indian affairs, Col. George Washington and George Croghan, deputy to Sir William Johnson.

Source - Scouts Overlooking Fort Duquesne (Site Of Pittsburgh)

We have no account of the manner in which Belestre escaped from the Americans, but the next we hear of him he was in the northern part of New York, commanding a body of 300 men, of whom 200 were Indians. They left Montreal in October 1757 and proceeded among the Iroquois Indians to stir them up to attack the English. Some forts and a village in the Palatine were attacked and destroyed, and the people either carried off or massacred. The official report states that during this time a party of Canadians and Indians ravaged and burned 60 houses of the Palatines, their barns, and other outhuildings, as well as the water mill. Forty English perished, either killed or drowned, and 150 men women and children were taken prisoners. Apparently in 1758 Belestre was promoted to a lieutenancy, for he is referred to as a lieutenant in Montcalm's report of Feb 19, and a few months later in the "Bulletin of the most important operations during the winter of 1757-58," he is called a captain of colonial troops. [Historical Collections, Volume 34]

See another post about Belestre at Braddock's Defeat

Sir William Johnson Came To Detroit In 1761

(Partial) Carte des possessions françoises et angloises dans le Canada, et partie de la Louisiane, 1756.
Map Held At The Library Of Congress
(Fort de Detroit Is On This Part Of The Map)

Source

Ridley's Journey To The Cumberland

True, he [Daniel Ridley] had been born in Tidewater, Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1737...but the year 1755 when he was only eighteen had found him deep in the back parts.

Braddock's Secret Grave Location (With Marker)

A survivor of the Battle of the Wilderness, he had, after the death of General Braddock, been one of the weary marchers from the Monongahela near Fort Duquesne back to the comparative safety of Fort Cumberland.

Colonel Ridley had also fought in the Revolution, though as a borderer he had known many battles and skirmishes undignified by the title of any war. Then, in the midst of the Revolution and while Sally was still a small child, he had taken a push still further west, settling in 1779 in what was then called the Holston Country, or the ‘back parts’ of North Carolina, in time to be known as East Tennessee. 

Holston River In The Middle Of The Map

Strange, but it was at this time [after the rise and fall of the State of Franklin and the more settled and peaceful time in the Holston Country], after having survived eleven years of forted life, Colonel Ridley took his family still further west into the most dangerous spot of all—the Cumberland settlements. [Source -Text]

Cumberland Plateau Area Of Tennessee

Move The Land Office

Fort Harrod Reconstruction In Kentucky

From The Kentuckians by Janet Holt Giles:

"They have thought to pacify us by promising to move the land office to Harrodstown.  They know in reason we have been anxious to turn settlers our way, as who wouldn't.  It's but natural we'd ruther see ourselves grow as Boonesburg.  But makes no difference where they put their dratted land office!  The colonel give me his word they wouldn't go up on their prices, nor change any of the conditions they first stated.  And now they're doing it.  My men are riled up a heap over it, and ready to pull out."

The Amulet

Source

"Very joyous he [Captain Howard] was in these days. The Seven Years' War was fairly over, the treaty of peace concluded, and the surrender of the French forts on the American frontier already imminent, even thus early in the spring of 1763. His own difficult tour of service here at Fort Prince George, the British stronghold on the eastern edge of the Cherokee country, was nearing its close. He, himself, was to be transferred to a post of ease and comfort at Charlestown... ."

British Flag

"The flag rose buoyantly to the tip of the staff. The Indian town of Old Keowee, on the opposite bank of the river, was all astir and now and again the sonorous note of the conch shell, a detail of the matutinal savage worship, blended oddly with the martial resonance of the British drums beating for roll-call as the garrison of Fort Prince George lined up in front of the barracks."

"...[a soldier] was recollecting that her father's predecessor in command, Captain Coytmore, had been treacherously slaughtered by the Cherokees in a conference at the gate of this fort, within twenty paces of the spot where she now stood."

To Choté

#1 - Fort Loudoun; #4 - Chota and Tanasi Memorials

The Story of Old Fort Loudon (published 1899):

 For even previous to the present outbreak and despite the stipulations of their treaties with the English, the Cherokees were known to have hesitated long in taking sides in the struggle between France and Great Britain, still in progress now in 1758, for supremacy in this western country, and many were suspected of yet inclining to the French, who had made great efforts to detach them from the British interest.

"Where go?" demanded the chief, suspiciously.

"To Choté, old town," she averred at haphazard, naming the famous "beloved town, city of refuge," of the Cherokee nation.

Early Saint Louis

Source

"At the time that a settlement was made upon the site of St. Louis, nearly the whole of the great Mississippi Valley was a wild, with the exception of the immediate neighborhoods of New Orleans, Natchez, Fort do Chartres, St. Genevieve, Kaskaskia, Cahokia and a few more military posts."

"In the year 1788...Manuel Perez became commandant-general of the post of St. Louis, of the west Illinois country. It was during this time that the friendly relations, subsisting since the Revolution, between the east and west sides of the Mississippi were materially interrupted, by the Spanish government laying claim to the exclusive right of the navigation of the river."

Henry Hay's "Christmas" Present

Hay's Journal Entry for December 26, 1789, in Fort Wayne:

Source

James Abbott, the father of Elizabeth (Betsey) Abbott Baby, 1777-1812, "gave" Henry Hay "his daughter Betsy over the bottle."

To Chote, Old Town

The Story of Old Fort Loudon (published 1899):

"Along the buffalo paths, from one salt-lick to another, a group of pioneers took a vagrant way through the dense cane-brakes."

"Dark, gloomy, with long, level summit-lines, a grim outlier of the mountain range, since known as
the Cumberland, stretched from northeast to southwest, seeming as they approached to interpose an insurmountable barrier to further progress, until suddenly...showed a gap...and a new and beautiful land."

"The Indian gazed upon her doubtfully. He had evidently only a few disconnected sentences of English at command, although he understood far more than he could frame... . "...even previous to the present outbreak and despite the stipulations of their treaties with the English, the Cherokees were known to have hesitated long in taking sides in the struggle between France and Great Britain, still in progress now in 1758, for supremacy in this western country, and many were suspected of yet inclining to the French, who had made great efforts to detach them from the British interest."

"Where go?" demanded the chief, suspiciously. "To Choté, old town," she averred at haphazard, naming the famous "beloved town, city of refuge," of the Cherokee nation."