Source:Fleming-sturdy
George T. Fleming. "Street named for sturdy pioneer: Smallman, trader, soldier and patriot, long commemorated in Pittsburgh: Life full of thrills." Pittsburgh Gazette Times, May 2, 1915, sec. 5, p. 2. Newspapers.com 85757823.
SMALLMAN street is a well-known thoroughfare in Pittsburgh extending from Twenty-first street to Thirty-seventh, in the old Twelfth and Fifteenth Wards, or in the way old Pittsburghers would put it, in the outer Bayardstown and lower Lawrenceville district.
The street name commemorates a sturdy pioneer and soldier prominent in all the affairs of the border for many years and who was present at the birth of the city, and saw the royal emblem of Great Britain swing to the breeze on the eventful 25th of November, 1758.
The following salient facts of Maj. Smallman's career have been furnished by James E. Cowan of this city, a great-great-grandson on his maternal line.
Mr. Cowan's mother, Valeria Collins Pollard, was the daughter of Maj. John Pollard of the Pittsburgh Blues in the War of 1812. She became the wife of William Cowan. Her mother's name was Mary Smallman, granddaughter of Maj. Thomas Smallman. Mrs. Cowan died September 3, 1909.
Mr. Cowan states that Thomas Smallman was an Englishman by birth and came to this country about the year 1730. He settled first at Carlisle, Pa., where he carried on the Indian trade.
He was a member of the Church of England and while living there he with others petitioned Congress for help to finish a little Episcopal church which had been started.
Moves to Fort Pitt.
Whether or not they received the pecuniary assistance we do not know; at any rate, it did not matter a great deal to Thomas Smallman, as he soon after moved westward, and finally settled at Fort Pitt and became a valuable member of the colony here.
He was first appointed an ensign in Capt. Hugh Mercer's company of Pennsylvania troops, May 2, 1756. In 1758 he was lieutenant and quarter master in the First Battatlion [sic], Pennsylvania Regiment, in active service. In March, 1759, he was commissioned captain and April 13, 1760, he was promoted to the rank of major.
When the expedition against Fort Duquesne in 1758 was planned, the then Lieut. Smallman was with Forbes' army and was one of the young officers sent ahead with the detachment under Maj. Grant and he took part in the terrible conflict on Grant's Hill, through poor judgment and lack of knowledge of the strength of the enemy, resulted so disastrously for the English.
When the fort was taken by Forbes' army, Smallman was one of the officers left in charge. His name is given in the minutes of a conference held at Fort Frederick, May 18, 1759, and also at a treaty held at Fort Pitt in July, 1759, between the English and the chiefs and warriors of many of the tribes.
Smallman's name occurs in the list of captains serving under Col. Mercer at Fort Pitt, July 9, 1759.
In the summer of 1763, when Pontiac's war broke out, Smallman was taken prisoner near Detroit by the Wyandots, who delivered him to the Shawanese.
Aids in Making Peace.
History relates that it was fortunate for both whites and Indians that he was taken at this time, for he was of great service to both in bringing about peace, his long association in the Indian trade having given him a knowledge of Indian tongues and a wide acquaintance among them.
Maj. Smallman, with about 20 other traders, lost heavily during the Pontiac uprising; all their goods being seized by the warring tries [sic]. To make amends for this a treaty was made, a photographic fac-simile of which is said to be in the Carnegie Institute, whereby the traders were to be reimbursed by giving to them a large grant of land comprising half the present state of West Virginia, about 1,000,000 acres.
The treaty was sent to England to be ratified by the royal orders, but time dragged on and while the traders were still longing for the realization of their new possessions the tranquility of the colonies was disturbed by the hostile guns at Lexington and after the close of the war the United States government annulled the treaty, as large tracts of land held singly or by few was declared detrimental to American policy.
When the controversy broke out in 1774 between Virginia and Pennsylvania Thomas Smallman took the side of Virginia. Though he lived in Pittsburgh, he believed it to be within the charter bounds of Virginia. In 1774–75, when there was trouble about selling Fort Pitt, he was appointed one of the appraisers.
Early Courts Held Here.
The first court of Youghiogheny county was held at Fort Pitt, December, 1776, and courts continued to be held here until August 25, 1777. It was then transferred to the house of Andrew Heath for two months. The electors were required to meet on December 8 to choose a convenient place for holding court. The court then directed Smallman and two others, or any two of them, to provide a house at the public expense for holding court.
Col. Broadhead, in a letter to Col. Breed in 1780, writes of Maj. Smallman having made a purchase of an island in the Ohio River two miles below the fort, commonly called McKee's Island, and that the deed was signed by two Delaware chiefs.
In 1772 an order was received from Gen. Gage to Maj. Edmondstone to sell Fort Pitt and all the materials, bricks, stone, pickets, timbers, iron, etc., which he did to Capt. Ward and Smallman for 50 pounds, New York currency.
After the battle of Lexington a public meeting of the inhabitants of Augusta county was called and resolutions passed to sustain the Colonial cause and a standing committee appointed of which Thomas Smallman was a member, to meet political, civil and military emergencies likely to arise. It was announced that they were to be vested with the same powers that were given to like committees in other counties of the colony.
Probe of Indian Agent.
The committee was required to collect all guns and have them repaired, whether in use or not, and the meeting ordered to raise a subscription of £15 in current money to be used for the deputies sent from this colony to the General Congress.
In 1776 Smallman was a member of the West Augusta Committee which paroled Alexander McKee, assistant deputy Indian agent under George Croghan for the district of Fort Pitt. McKee was known to be in communication with the English commander at Niagara and was suspected of being a Tory.
Croghan wrote to Smallman to call on McKee, insist upon seeing his letters and take his parole that he would not leave the neighborhood of Pittsburgh or hold any further communication with the English authorities, or with the Indians, and he promised to comply with all these demands.
After the treacherous murder of the famous Delaware chief, "White Eyes," who held a colonel's commission, Maj. Smallman was on March 24, 1779, appointed by the court to administer on his estate.
George Croghan in his will appointed him one of his executors and left him 2,000 acres of land, styling him his kinsman.
After having served faithfully and well both his native and adopted lands, and having thrown himself heartily into the cause of the people and rendered very valuable services in helping to establish American independence, Maj. Smallman died in Pittsburgh in 1785 and was buried in Trinity Churchyard, having lived long enough to see the realization of all the dearest hopes of the colonists and to know that their struggles and hardships had not been in vain.
(Note that McKee, with the villainous Simon Girty and another renegade, Matthew Elliott, escaped to the British March 28, 1778.)
History of Courts.
This is a fairly succinct account of Smallman's activities.
The grant of the island we know as Brunots Island did not stand.
The relations of Maj. Smallman in the courts of the Virginia jurisdiction hereabouts are noted in Boyd Crumrine's pamphlet, "The County Court for the District of West Augusta, Va., Held at Augusta Town, near Washington, Pa., 1776–1777," which contains also an account of the courts for Ohio, Yohogania and Monongalia counties, Va., held in the same years.
Augusta Town was on John W. Donnan's farm near Washington and Andrew Heath's house was in Jefferson township, Allegheny county, about a mile from West Elizabeth.
To enumerate all of the transactions in which Maj. Smallman figured in our history is not feasible. However, we can look into some of them and find him in familiar company.
Some facts above seem to be controverted. For instance, Neville B. Craig, in his "Olden Time," recites in the proceedings of the Virginia convention, December 18, 1775, the petition of Alexander Ross (herein mentioned), setting forth that he and William Thompson had purchased of the crown the buildings and materials belonging to Fort Pitt when they were evacuated, and occupied the same till some time in the year 1774, when Maj. John Connolly, at the command of Dunmore, took possession thereof for the use of the colony, etc., and praying for relief.
John Gibson and Thomas Smallmaan [sic] were appraisers, placing a value of £314 1s 9d, Virginia currency, on the property.
Awards Are Made.
Resolutions were adopted allowing Ross £107 1s 9d as reasonable, but retained £57 "due the country" for provisions furnished four men remaining in the fort when Ross was commissary. As Ross paid but £50 for the fort he was not a loser.
Capt. Edward Ward who, as Ensign Ward, surrendered the fort begun by Capt. Trent at the forks of the Ohio, April 18, 1754, kas [sic] a half-brother of George Croghan, deputy superintendent of Indian affairs at Fort Pitt under Sir William Johnson, superintendent by appointment of George III.
Ward wrote Johnson from Carlisle May 2, 1764, in rather an anxious frame of mind. He said:
Yesterday I received a letter from Lieut. Hutchins from Port Pitt in five days, and he informs me that a fue days ago, one, Hicks (a renegade and traitor), come into Fort Pitt from the Indians, who informs him, that for certain, My Cousin, Major Thomas Smallman, is prisoner with the Shanneys at a place at the Ohio called the Mogguck (on the Pickaway Plains): I would begg, as the greatest favor ever don my Brother or me, that you would pleas to send some of the Five Nations To make enquierry for my poor Cousin, and, if posable, for them to bring Him to you, or to some post where he may be safe out of their reach.
We note Ward was a phonetic speller with a penchant for misspelling small words. He was naturally solicitous for his relative.
Smallman's Plight.
The "Shanneys," as he terms the Shawanese, were not desirable masters, and this was just after Bouquet's defeat of the Indians at Bushy Run.
Maguck (misspelled by Ward) was the Shawanese village on the Sciota River about the present town of Circleville, O., the name originating from one of the clans of the tribe.
It is of record in the Pennsylvania Colonial Records that Smallman was among the prisoners surrendered to Col. Bouquet on the Muskingum November 9, 1764.
Smallman accompanied Croghan to the Illinois country in May, 1765. Croghan had been sent by Gen. Thomas Gage, then in command at Fort London, Pa., to hold conferences with the Western tribes. The party left Fort Pitt by river on two large batteaux.
A few white men accompanied Smallman. Others of the party were some deputies of the Senecas, Delawares and Shawanese. They went as far as the mouth of the Wabash.
Croghan kept an accurate journal of the journey and the historical account of Croghan's transactions and conferences is well told by Parkman in the "Conspiracy of Pontiac." The party had a perilous time throughout.
Charles A. Hanna has also several pages of excerpts from Croghan's journal in his great work, "The Wilderness Trail."
Trip to the West.
In March, 1765, Smallman, with John Finley and other traders about Fort Pitt, made another trip into the country of the Western tribes, again by a river. They went as far as Fort Chartres, which had been surrendered by the French, and took along five batteaux of goods for the great Indian trading firm of Baynton, Wharton & Morgan.
The Iroquois, or six nations, sought to reimburse the traders for their losses during Pontiac's war, and to this end at the conference held at Fort Stanwix, now Rome, N. Y., on November, 1768, did convey to the score or more traders about half of the present state of West Virginia in compensation for goods destroyed and the confiscation of all goods found in the Indian country and disavowed the general massacre of the traders and their helpers.
The grant gave rise to the William Trent Land Company. In the capture of the traders' goods Smallman's loss was adjudged to have been £3,085, 10. Trent and his partners lost nearly £25,000.
Hugh Crawford was in charge of a large part of Smallman's goods and he rendered an account March 31, 1766 at Carlisle duly probated. It is unique in style and the jurat likewise which was sworn to before "Sam'l Perry, Esqr., of Shippensbg, one of his Majesty's Justices for the county of Cumberland." Crawford was duly sworn on the "Holy Evangelists of Almighty God."
Quaint Accounting.
He made oath that "the goods, peltrys and other effects amounting to 3,085 pounds, 10 shillings, which were in his hands, belonging to Major Thomas Smallman, at the time of the breaking out of the Indian War in May, 1763, and which the Indians seized from him and at the same time made him, the deponent, a prisoner, is as just and true an account as he can make, the Indians having seized and destroyed all his books and papers, and further, this deponent saith not."
The inventory includes 15 packs of beaver skins at a value of £450; 22 packages of "deer skins in the hair;" 2,200 pounds at one shilling six pence per pound; 128 other skins at 10 shillings per pound, and other furs; 11 horses, with "Sadles and Bitts," at £9 sterling each; three canoes, at £15 each, and one batteau, worth £30.
Crawford was honest. He concluded the account thus: "A small number of furs, I don't remember the quantity, and trader's goods remaining on hands, about 1,500 pounds" (sterling).
A valuable collection of furs and at this day when furs are high the prices seem exceedingly cheap. When it is remembered that the traders lost in all goods to the value of £85,000, the amount of furs confiscated must have been enormous.
The number of traders killed with their servants was over 100. A list made out at Fort Pitt, presumably by Alexander McKee, Croghan's deputy, names 16 traders and 88 helpers.
Hugh Crawford was taken prisoner while trading with the Miamis on the Maumee River. He had seven helpers, the account says, killed or taken. Smallman, the account says, "trading to Detroit, killed or taken on Lake Erie." He had four servants "killed or taken."
However, neither Crawford nor Smallman was killed as we know. McKee supposed they were.
Story of the Traders.
McKee states in a note appended to his account and in the quaint way of the times:
N. B. These were all traders from Pennsylvania, except Levy Solomon, and in the Indian country between this (Fort Pitt) and Fort D'Troit, where ye massacre began (except John Ormsby) and none escaped being killed and taken, except the two traders (Hugh Crawford and Andrew Wilkey) and three men mentioned here. We hear from Fort D'Troit that Levy Solomon and H. Crawford with three of his men, made their escape and got into D'Troit after remaining prisoners some time.
Croghan also made a list and enumerates:
"Thomas Smallman to Detroit, at Detroit," meaning trading there and captured there.
There is also an account of these murders in the British Museum and 46 names of the victims. "Its terse and tragic significance," says Hanna, "is more than mere word eloquence can portray."
In the journal kept at the siege of Detroit mention is made (July 2, 1763) of one of Crawford's men escaping from the Wyandots, and on July 12 of the Puttawatomies bringing in Crawford and two others and later seven others, among these another of Crawford's men.
Crawford was one of the best known traders on the border. He was typically Scotch-Irish, contemporary with Finley, Ormsby and other traders at Fort Pitt. Sometimes Crawford traded on his own account, more frequently for Croghan or Smallman.
He figures prominently in all the border history, his most notable performance having been his service as Indian interpreter for Mason and Dixon from July 16 to Nov. 5, 1767, while they were running their celebrated line.
Crawford a Traveler.
Crawford appears to have been pretty much over the Indian country and even to New Orleans. He met Gist in Kentucky in 1751. Crawford was a lieutenant under Weiser in 1756 and Smallman an ensign in Weiser's battalion at the same time. Crawford is enumerated as dwelling at Fort Pitt in 1761 by Bouquet. Crawford died in 1770.
Both Crawford and Smallman were associated in ventures with Croghan, notably in land transactions. Smallman was one of seven justices appointed by Dr. Connolly when he seized Fort Pitt in the interest of Virginia in January, 1774. Connolly's authority as captain and commandant coming from Lord Dunmore, then governor of Virginia.
Other magistrates appointed at the same time were John Campbell, who first laid out a plan of lots in Pittsburgh in 1764, who was Croghan's surveyor and clerk, and John Gibson. These three were reluctant to accept their commissions, at first refusing them but finally accepting them.
Arthur St. Clair, one of the Penn's justices and land agents, residing at Fort Ligonier, assembled the other justices of Westmoreland county, which then included Allegheny county, and caused the arrest of Connolly and put him in jail at Hannastown. He was soon released on his own recognizance to appear.
But Connolly's deeds make a long story which can come up later.
Dunmore intended to hold the territory in South-Western Pennsylvania which Virginia claimed, and to further assert authority of Virginia, in December, 1774, issued new commissions to the magistrates for the County of West Augusta, the Virginia county. Connolly had changed the name of Fort Pitt to Fort Dunmore.
Magistrates Organize.
These magistrates met at the fort February 21 and organized with Croghan president. The others were John Campbell, (Croghan's surveyor) John Connolly (Croghan's nephew), Thomas Smallman (Croghan's cousin), Dorsey Pentecost, John Gibson, George Vallandingham, and Wiliam [sic] Goe. Other justices present at subsequent meetings were Edward Ward, (Croghan's half-brother) Col. Wiliam [sic] Crawford, (Washington's land agent) and John Canon, founder of Canonsburg, all recognizing the Virginia jurisdiction. Croghan's name as a magistrate does not appear of record after 1775.