Source:Fleming-patriot-smith
George T. Fleming. "Patriot Smith suffers for loyalty: Man for whom Smithfield street was named prominent in city's history: Busy days recalled." Pittsburgh Gazette Times, May 16, 1915, sec. 5, p. 2. Newspapers.com 85758354.
THE further consideration of the history of Pittsburgh as evolved from street names and pertaining to the boundary dispute between the Penns and Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, will be continued today with some additional facts in the career of Devereux Smith, for whom Smithfield street was named, and his contemporaries on the side of the Penns, with a few facts omitted in the mention of Maj. Thomas Smallman, on May 2, and incidentally George Croghan, John Connolly and other characters involved.
There were stirring times in embryo Pittsburgh in the two years preceding the Revolution. The year 1774 especially was one of much movement here. In that year the citizens of the colonies engaged in war with the Indians for the last time as subjects of Great Britain and under the command of British officers.
In that year Lord Dunmore passed through Pittsburgh on his way down the Ohio to co-operate with Gen. Andrew Lewis in an attack upon the Ohio Indians. In that year the massacre of Logan's family took place at what was then known as Baker's Bottom on the Ohio at the mouth of Yellow Creek.
In that year, also, the celebrated speech of Logan was delivered to Dunmore by Col. John Gibson at the camp near Chilicothe, O. In 1774 the boundary controversy came to maturity and almost glided into civil war.
Grant a Broad One.
James I, in his original grant of Virginia made it broad enough in terms to cover nearly one-half of the continent. Dunmore and his clique relied upon this grant in the original charter of Virginia, although the company to which it had been made had been dissolved on a write of quo warranto, and the lands had reverted to the crown.
The Penns claimed under the charter granted William Penn by Charles II in 1681, which assigned the Delaware River on the eastern boundary, and further said:
"Said lands to extend westward five degrees in longitude to be computed from the said eastern bounds."
The contention of the Penns was that their grant extended several miles west of Fort Pitt. Virginia claimed all the country west of the Laurel Hill, or ridge, as we now say.
The obnoxious John Connolly, Virginia, partisan and factotum of Dunmore, came to Pittsburgh early in 1774. He had ample authority from Dunmore. Sometimes we find Connolly mentioned as "major," more often as "Dr." Connolly.
On his arrival he took possession of Fort Pitt, then partly dismantled. He changed its name to Fort Dunmore. He called the militia together by proclamation, naming January 25, 1774, as the date of assembling.
In Pennsylvania the Pittsburgh section was included in Westmoreland county, the county seat at Hannastown, about four miles north of Greensburg, which had not yet arisen.
Connolly Is Arrested.
Arthur St. Clair, a Westmoreland county magistrate under appointment of the Governor of Pennsylvania, issued a warrant for Connolly's arrest and put him in jail at Hannastown. Of course Hannastown was a mere frontier hamlet of rude log houses. It was utterly destroyed by the Indians July 13, 1782.
Connolly was released on bail, and proceeded to Staunton, Va., the county seat of Augusta county and still the seat of what has been left of that county.
Connolly had himself sworn in as a justice of the peace of the county which, it was alleged, embraced the country around Pittsburgh.
In the latter part of March he returned here with both civil and military authority to put the laws of Virginia in force.
Court met at Hannastown on April 5. A few days later Connolly, with 150 armed partisans with colors flying, appeared there and placed guards about the court house. These guards refused to admit the Pennsylvania magistrates without orders from Connolly.
Connolly meeting the magistrates denied the authority of the court, even the right of the magistrates to hold a court. On the contrary the magistrates insisted that their authority rested on the legislative authority of Pennsylvania; that it had been exercised in a regular manner, that they would continue to exercise it in the same way, and that they would do all in their power to preserve public tranquility.
They gave assurances that Pennsylvania would use every exertion to accommodate the differences by fixing a temporary boundary until the true one could be ascertained.
But Connolly was not satisfied and refused assent to the sensible offer of the Pennsylvania magistrates.
On April 8 Aeneas Mackay, Devereux Smith and Andrew McFarlane returned from the court to Pittsburgh. All three were Pennsylvania justices, and all resided in Pittsburgh. On the following day they were arrested by Connolly's sheriff and, refusing to give bail, were sent under guard to Staunton.
Mackay Sees Dunmore.
After a day's travel Mackay got permission to go to Williamsburg and proceeded there and consulted with Dunmore. Mackay came to Staunton after inducing his lordship to write a letter requesting the sheriff to set the three prisoners at liberty and permit them to return home.
Williamsburg is a long way from Staunton. Our Civil War vets who served in the campaign under McClellan will remember the town and the action there May 5, 1862.
Before and during the revolution the town was the capital of Virginia, and famous for debates wherein Patrick Henry, George Washington, the Lees and other Virginia celebrities participated. And we are closely related to Williamsburg in our history far away and now of no importance.
Dunmore stated he would be answerable for the appearance of Mackay, Smith and McFarlane in case it should be required. Mackay wrote Gov. Penn from Staunton on May 5, detailing all the circumstances of their case and the fact that they were at liberty and about to return home.
Penn had received the news on April 19. On April 21, at a meeting of the Provincial Council, it was determined to send two commissioners to Virginia to prevent the ill consequences sure to ensue if an immediate stop were not put to the disorders about Fort Pitt.
The commissioners appointed were James Tilghman and Andrew Allen. They were to consult upon the best means for establishing peace and good order hereabouts.
They were to ask Virginia to unite with the proprietaries of Pennsylvania to petition the King to appoint commissioners to run the boundary line, to agree to a temporary line, but in no event to assent to any line which would give Virginia jurisdiction of the country on the east side of the Monongahela River.
Agreement on Line.
The Penns were honorable and just in this. Dunmore agreed to submit the controversy to the King and requested the commissioners to submit their proposition for a temporary line.
This they did; in brief a line running five degrees westward from the courses of the Delaware, the southern line starting at the mouth of Christian Creek on that river, to follow Mason and Dixon's line and that line to be extended as far west as might be needful.
As the courses of the Delaware are curved to a remarkable degree, the Penns' western temporary boundary line was a zigzag line, but it left Pittsburgh well within their province. The permanent line was to be settled by royal authority.
Dunmore objected to such an inconvenient line on the west. He wanted a meridian line at a distance of five degrees from the Delaware in the forty-second degree of latitude. This is the present northern boundary of Pennsylvania except the Erie triangle.
If we take the most eastern point on the Delaware, Dunmore's proposal left Pittsburgh within Virginia territory.
Negotiations were soon broken off as useless. Dunmore became discourteous and rude. He absolutely refused to relinquish For Pitt and the surrounding territory in dispute until ordered to do so by the king. In his correspondence he referred always to Fort Pitt, never once calling it Dunmore.
It was May 27 when the commissioners gave up their bad job and started homeward. Though calling the fort Pitt, Dunmore had nevertheless recognied [sic] the new name bestowed by Connolly.
Rule With High Hand.
In the meantime Connolly continued to domineer with a high hand at Fort Pitt. In June Mackay wrote a doleful letter to Gov. Penn, in strong language complaining:
The deplorable state of affairs in this part of your government is truly distressing. We are robbed, insulted and dragooned by Connolly and his militia in this place and its environs.
Connolly certainly made things hot for the adherents of the proprietaries, Arthur St. Clair, Devereux Smith, Nevens Mackay, Andrew McFarlane, John Ormsby, Richard Butler, James O'Hara, Andrew Robinson, John Irwin and others. It may be noted that with the exception of Mackay and McFarlane all of these men have been commemorated in a local way. St. Clair has had widespread fame in many ways.
Pittsburgh was included in the District of West Augusta in the Virginia county of Augusta, later in the county of Yohogania the district including two other counties, Monongahela and Ohio, which remained Virginia counties and are today counties in West Virginia with Morgantown and Wheeling the county seats respectively.
The District of West Augusta, as mapped by Boyd Crumrine, included all that part of Pennsylvania East of the Alleghenies, South of the Indian boundary line at Kittanning, and West of the Laurel Hill. Yohogania took in that part of West Augusta north of the mouth of Cross Creek and the point where the Laurel Hill crosses the South line of Pennsylvania.
The conduct of Connolly was certainly oppressive. The colonies were violently disturbed by the exactions of the crown and the Revolution was rapidly approaching.
Border in Peril.
The war begun by Dunmore was actually raging between the Virginians and the Indians and all the Pennsylvania border was in peril.
So great was the anxiety and distress of the Penn adherents that they at one time contemplated leaving this place and removing to Kittanning which lay in another manor of the Penns.
Another project was to raise a stockade around the town of Pittsburgh, which then included the ground which lies between Water street and Second avenue and Market and Ferry streets. These projects were evidences of the acute state of feeling here.
The Earl of Darthmouth [sic], one of the secretaries of state for George III, wrote Dunmore and took him sharply to task. He blamed Dunmore for the Indian troubles then existing and disavowed the acts of Connolly, saying that he was informed that:
One Connolly, using your lordship's name and pleading your authority, has presumed to re-establish Fort Pitt at Pittsburgh, which had been demolished by the King's express order.
The facts asserted herein if not true, may be contradicted by your lordship's authority, but if true, which I cannot suppose, such steps may be taken, as the King's dignity and justice shall dictate.
September 17, 1774, Dunmore was in Pittsburgh, preparing for his expedition against the Indians. He issued a proclamation claiming the country hereabouts for Virginia and called on "All his majesty's subjects West of the Laurel Hill to pay due respect to the proclamation, prohibiting the execution of any act of authority on behalf of the province of Pennsylvania at their peril; but on the contrary, that due regard and entire obedience be paid to the laws of his majesty's colony of Virginia."
Penn's Proclamation.
On October 12, Gov. Penn counter-proclaimed in a lenghty [sic] document maintaining that his Northern and Western bounds were fully recognized, and ended by calling on all persons West of Laurel Hill to retain the settlements made under the province of Pennsylvania and to pay due obedience to the laws of that province; and charged all the magistrates to proceed as usual in the administration of justice.
Connolly continued his high handed proceedings. Twice with armed forces he broke open the jail at Hannastown and released prisoners, the first time two men under sentence of death.
By the summer of 1775 the conflict of authority culminated; the power of Dunmore and his agent was fast drawing to a close.
The shots heard round the world had hastened a new era, the era of revolution. Dunmore on June 8 went on board a British man-o'-war and was soon joined by Connolly. This was in July. Connolly was sent to Boston, an emissary to Gen. Gage from Dunmore, and returned in September.
The continued conflict of authority and disorder at Pittsburgh attracted the attention of all patriotic citizens. In the first continental Congress, which included Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and Benjamin Franklin as members, a circular was agreed upon and sent to the disputed region, urging the people to mutual forbearance.
It recommended that "all bodies of armed men kept by either parties [sic] be dismissed and that all on either side in confinement or on bail for taking part in the contest be discharged."
There were no armed men maintained by Pennsylvania, and Craig thinks that the expression "either party" was used to avoid the appearance of invidiousness. Connolly and his men had taken effectual measures for the release of any Virginians in confinement.
Neville's Expedition.
August 7, 1775, the Virginia Provincial Convention resolved that Capt. John Neville be directed to march with his company of 100 men and take possession of Fort Pitt. Neville arrived here on September 11 and was entirely unexpected by the Pennsylvanians, and this event created much excitement. It preserved the fort and Pittsburgh to the colonials, introduced Neville, a sterling patriot, into Pittsburgh history and gave us his name in our local nomenclature, and to endure.
His descendants are yet among us. What happened after he came belongs properly to the story of his life and services.
Devereaux [sic] Smith was particularly a victim of Connolly's vindictiveness. Old archives contain a long letter from Smith addressed to Dr. William Smith under date June 10, 1774. He begins:
Sir—I returned to this place the 11th of May, and found my family in the greatest confusion owing to the appearance on an Indian war and the tyrannical treatment they received from Dr. Connolly in my absence.
This was Dunmore's war and Smith had arrived home from Staunton, where he had been taken a prisoner by Connolly's orders.
Smith recites various happenings in the Indian country, tells of Logan's vengeance, referring to him as "a Mingo man, whose family had been murdered;" tells of the outrageous conduct of Connolly's men in entering Smith's house by armed forces and of the interposition of William Butler to save Smith's goods, of the blasphemous language of Connolly and one of his captains, George Aston, who attempted to run the muzzle of a gun into the face of Aeneas Mackay, and that Aston would have shot Mackay had not the bystanders prevented; tells of pulling down outbuildings of Smith's and Mackay's and in fact relates all of the "dirty work" as we say now of Connolly.
Smith's Complaint.
Smith says in one paragraph:
The inhabitants of the town are busily employed in stoccading it round about; yet we have no reason to expect anything better than ruin and destruction.
Dunmore's war bore heavily upon the distressed inhabitants of Pittsburgh.
Under "Remarks on the Proceedings of Dr. Connolly," dated Pittsburgh, June 25, 1774, printed in "Rupp's History of Western Pennsylvania and the West," and in Craig's "Olden Time," all the facts of Connolly's wrongdoing are recorded, the preamble reading:
The distressed inhabitants of this place have just cause to charge their present calamity and dread of an Indian war entirely to the tyrannical and unprecedented conduct of Doctor John Connolly whose designs (as we conceive) is to better his almost desperate circumstances, upon the distress of the public, and the ruin of our fortunes as will appear from the following facts:
These follow much as have been told above. These "remarks" were sent by Devereaux [sic] Smith with his letter, the line appearing after his signature, "The inhabitants of this country are petitioning Gov. Penn by this opportunity."
The "remarks" conclude:
These are but few of the many distresses we labor under, and without protection and speedy redress, cannot long support ourselves under grievous persecution and tyranny.
No relief came for over a year, as we have seen. The memorial to Penn was sent and was unavailing.
The following list of "persons well disposed to his majesty's government living on the frontiers of Virginia in 1775, was furnished by Dunmore and prepared by Connolly, George Croghan's name not appearing in it:
Alexander McKee and James his brother; Alexander Ross, a Scotchman (estate confiscated), John Campbell (proved to be a patriot), Capt. Geo. Aston (killed at Pitt by Devereux Smith in the summer of 1775), Lieut. William Christy, Lieut. Jacob Bausman.
Indians on List.
Indians—White Eyes, The White Mingo, Cornstalk, Guyasutta, John Montour and Logan.
At Allegheny Mountains, Major William Crawford Valentine, his brother, John Stephenson, half brother of the Crawfords. William Harrison, son-in-law of William Crawford.
Thomas Gist and brother.
I have been unable to find an account of the killing of Aston. He was the brutal officer complained of by Smith in the letter referred to above. Some of these men turned out staunch patriots, the Crawfords and Gists notably. The parenthetic remarks are not Dunmore's.
Valentine Crawford wrote George Washington June 24, 1775:
Pennsylvanians came to Fort Pitt with their sheriff took Major Connolly about midnight and carried him to Fort Ligonier. On Major Connolly being taken, the people of Chartiers came in a company and seized three Pennsylvania magistrates who were concerned in the taking of Connolly, George Wilson, Joseph Spear and Devereaux [sic] Smith. They were sent in an old leaky boat down to Fort Fincastle (Wheeling) under guard. Our coart [sic] however had no hand in this. It was done by a mob of Connolly's friends who live on Chartiers Creek.
Trouble was brewing. Connolly was released. He left Pittsburgh July 25, started to visit Dunmore as mentioned.
In the following November he was seized by the Maryland authorities at Hagerstown and imprisoned at Frederick as an enemy to his country. He remained a prisoner for several years.
Croghan Loses Property.
George Croghan was accused of being a tory. He was really a neutral. All his estates were confiscated and he died bankrupt at the close of the Revolution.
The last Virginia court for West Augusta, in which Croghan took part as a magistrate was held in Pittsburgh November 21, 1775, for the examination of Devereaux [sic] Smith for the murder of Capt. Aston. Smith was admitted to bail on condition that he "appear at the next general court if he were able at that time to attend from the situation of his wound and the state of his health."
The inference is that Aston was killed in an affray and Smith was wounded. The war coming on, it is probable that Smith was never tried. The records, if any, for this will have to be looked into. Smith lived unmolested in Pittsburgh for years after the Revolution.