Safer After The Point Pleasant Campaign

FLOWERING of the CUMBERLAND:

The land that was to be Kentucky and Tennessee grew somewhat safer after the Point Pleasant Campaign of 1774...

...that marked the end of Dunmore’s War and the defeat of the Shawnee.

Harrodsburg, Kentucky, was founded in that year. Also came the surveyors, locating boundaries for the land warrants Virginia ...

Source

...had used to pay her soldiers in the French and Indian War. Some of these, including several hundred acres for George Rogers Clark,...

...were located on the Middle Cumberland in the neighborhood of French Lick, for at this time most thought all the Cumberland was due west of Virginia instead of North Carolina.

French-Indian War Illustrations

The Idler, Volume 20:

General James Wolfe's entry at Wikitree.

Lewis Brothers At Braddock's Defeat

Journal Of Major John Hawks

Source

Wikitree entry for John Hawks here.

Somewhat Safer After Point Pleasant

Monument At Point Pleasant, West Virginia

From the FLOWERING of the CUMBERLAND by Harriette Simpson Arnow:

"The land that was to be Kentucky and Tennessee grew somewhat safer after the Point Pleasant Campaign of 1774 that marked the end of Dunmore’s War and the defeat of the Shawnee. Harrodsburg, Kentucky, was founded in that year. Also came the surveyors, locating boundaries for the land warrants Virginia had used to pay her soldiers in the French and Indian War. Some of these, including several hundred acres for George Rogers Clark, were located on the Middle Cumberland in the neighborhood of French Lick, for at this time most thought all the Cumberland was due west of Virginia instead of North Carolina."

Cabin Near Shelbyville, Kentucky

Lieutent-Colonel's Commission

Portrait @ The Karl C. Harrison Museum Of George Washington

Journal of Colonel George Washington: Commanding a Detachment of Virginia Troops, Sent by Robert Dinwiddie, Lieutenant-governor of Virginia, Across the Alleghany Mountains, in 1754, to Build Forts at the Head of the Ohio:

Flotilla Got Past The Guards

Heights (or Plains) Of Abraham And Quebec City  Illustrated on Map (Partial Section - Map Source LOC)

From The Plains of Abraham:

"As it came level with the batteries of Sillery and Samos, the flotilla had reached its crucial danger point. The French had posts passed without incident, but at the second a guard sighted the leading boats and immediately challenged them."

"Invisible in the dark hour before the dawn, his sharp Qui vive? came as an unwelcome shock. A quick-witted officer of the Fraser Highlanders, Captain Donald McDonald, who in his time had served the Jacobite cause in France and spoke the language perfectly, answered in a low voice, "La France!" The sentry was insistent:  "A quel regiment," he demanded--"De la Reine," McDonald ventured, knowing that part of this battalion was with Bougainville. The sentry, apparently satisfied, did not ask for the password."

"A little further on, under the Samos battery, another sentry repeated the challenge and he could just be seen running down to the water within pistol shot. What are you speaking so quietly for, he wanted to know. Provision boats, replied McDonald. Don't make noise or the English will hear us. Again the sentry let them pass."

General Rufus Putnam's Work In The South

Florida Panhandle

From the Journal of Gen. Rufus Putnam, a brief history of his work after the French-Indian War:

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

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

General Rufus Putnam's Biography

Journal of Gen. Rufus Putnam...

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 Bouquet From Detroit

From the Report of the Public Archives, by Public Archives of Canada:

Year: 1762

Somewhat Safer

Battle Of Point Pleasant (West Virginia)

The land that was to be Kentucky and Tennessee grew somewhat safer after the Point Pleasant Campaign of 1774* that marked the end of Dunmore’s War and the defeat of the Shawnee.

Fort Harrod (Reconstruction) In Kentucky

"Harrodsburg, Kentucky, was founded in that *year."

Sign At Fort Harrod, Kentucky

Also came the surveyors, locating boundaries for the land warrants Virginia had used to pay her soldiers in the French and Indian War. Some of these, including several hundred acres for George Rogers Clark, were located on the Middle Cumberland in the neighborhood of French Lick, for at this time most thought all the Cumberland was due west of Virginia instead of North Carolina. [Source: Flowering Of The Cumberland, Arnow, 1963]

The Little Force That Was To Decide

"Slipping down the river towards him came the little force that was to decide the fate and future of all North America."

Braddock Grave Sign (NPS) In Pennsylvania

"The Indian raids on the British colonies, Washington's years of endurance on the mountain frontier, the incompetence of Braddock and Loudoun, *Webb and Abercrombie were about to be avenged."[Source - Plains Of Abraham]

*"An English colonel, Daniel Webb, for no historically assignable reason, was then sent over as a place-warmer for two Scotchmen: James Abercrombie, another court favorite, who in turn was to be locum tenens for John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun, though all three were to remain as generals." [Source]

Washington Nearly Worsted

Near Historic National Road (Western Pennsylvania)

From The Plains of Abraham by Brian Connell:

 ...just after sunset on a lowering December day, the weary young giant rode into the clearing before Fort Le Boeuf. Legardeur de St. Pierre received them civilly, but George was very nearly worsted in the encounter. He had no French, was a novice in Indian affairs, and almost had the Indians with him suborned by his adversary.

....As to the summons you send me to retire, I do not think myself obliged to obey it. On the return journey Washington and Gist barely escaped with their lives. ...making for the post of an English trader named Frazier on the Monongahela. Near an Indian village with the ominous name of Murthering Town, they were shot at.G.W. back to Williamsburg in January 1754.

The Exasperation Of The French

The Plains of Abraham by Brian Connell:

"To the exasperation of the French, the British were drawing off more and more of the fur trade. Virginia and Pennsylvania traders penetrated almost to the French life-line and set up a post at Pickawillany, now called Piqua, Ohio, on the Miami river.... ."

Near The Miami River In Ohio

"This forced La Jonquiere to show his hand."

"He ordered one of his most trusted French officers with the Indians, Charles Langlade, to bring a force of loyal Ottawas and Chippewas all the way down from Michilimackinac, through Fort Detroit, to attack the defecting Miamis."

Fort Mackinac

"This they triumphantly did, killing their chief, called variously "Old Briton" and La Demoiselle"... That was in June 1752.  Although none of the British traders had been harmed, the incident alarmed [Virginia Governor] Dinwiddie."

A Sword Of The Old Frontier

A Sword Of The Old Frontier (text version)

Excerpt from A Sword Of The Old Frontier:

Heard Of George Rogers Clark

From The Kentuckians by Janet Holt Giles:

"I reckon you've heared George Rogers Clark is at Harrodstown.  ...I knowed him in Bouquet's campaign, Ben said.  He's a right good man.  Good soldier...but I'd say he's a mite ambitious."

Sudden Revolution At Detroit

Source - A Little Earlier View Of The Plan Of Detroit

From the Report of the Public Archives, by Public Archives of Canada:


June 30 Fort Pitt [1761]  Bouquet to Monkton    The sudden revolution of Indian affairs at Detroit. The measures taken to prevent surprise the inhabitants armed guards along the rivers temporary defences to the fort. Messages sent by the Detroit to the other Indians. A vessel on Lake Erie would be useful in supporting the advanced posts. Ammunition will not be sent to Detroit unless it can be delivered safely.