Henry W. Shoemaker

A Tale of Kittanning Point.

Reprinted from "Juniata Memories," by Henry W. Shoemaker.

(Copyrighted by J. J. McVey, Philadelphia, 1916.)

Kittanning Point is a spot pre-eminent in Pennsylvania song and story. As a pivotal point in history it will always be remembered; as a scenic glory it is the envy of all the States. And in legendary lore it holds a secure place, for clustered about it are many weird and curious traditions, some of which still linger only in the hearts and minds of the old folks. Those few of the tales which have been written out are read and re-read with breathless interest. Still there are others unrecorded that possess a thrill or charm worthy of competent chroniclers. History tells us that many Indian paths converged at Kittanning Point, including the main pathway from Aughwick to Fort Kittanning, consequently it was a frequent meeting place of the savages in their journeys across the mountains. They often camped near the springs in Kittanning Gap, or on Burgoon's Run, and many are the arrow points and other relics picked up thereabouts by persons of quick wit. In addition to the Indian paths, the Point was a favorite "crossing" for many kinds of wild animals. While out of the line of the bison, whose main trails were further east and further west, these noble creatures sometimes summered on the high mountains in small bands, coming to and from their fastnesses through the Gap.

Dr. Owen Jacobs and son Ezra

Dr. Owen Jacobs (at right) and son Ezra (late of U. S. A.)
Descendants of Captain Jacobs, of Fort Kittanning Fame.

It was a favorite rallying ground for the elk and deer. They were so plentiful in Revolutionary days that all the hunters had to do was to penetrate the forests a few steps from their camps in order to have venison for dinner. And at that only the hindquarters or the saddles were used. A few elk lingered long in this region, ranging between the Point and Laurel Ridge, where one of the last killed in the State was slain at the Panther's Rock, in Somerset County, about the middle of the last century. Panthers also had a "crossing" over Kittanning Point. It was on one of their "migratory lines" between West Virginia and Central Pennsylvania. They always traveled by the same paths, consequently a hunter with a fair degree of patience would surely be rewarded. This "fixity" of travel was one of the reasons for their practical extinction in our Commonwealth. The wolves were prevalent at the Point until comparatively recent years, principally on account of the abundance of game. When it decreased, they left for more productive regions. Bears were often found about the Point, as the fine chestnut and walnut trees gave them rich "pickings" in the autumn months. In the Gap were several bear dens, which are still pointed out by the old hunters. These bears were all of the black variety. But most interesting of all the wild life, large and small, which ranged over these now desolated hills was the Black Moose. This mammoth animal, known in pioneer days in Pennsylvania by the quaint name of the Original, and elsewhere as Orignal, which is derived, according to Samuel Merrill, the great authority on Moose, from the Basque word Orenac meaning deer, was particularly partial to the glades and vales about Kittanning Point in the years immediately preceding the Revolution. In fact, its path for migration passed over the Point in a southwesterly direction. In these migrations these huge beasts made a practice of tarrying for several days amid the grand primeval hardwoods which covered the Point. Despite its size, for it is the largest of all deer, extinct or existing, the Original was very fleet of foot and well able to take care of itself. As far back as tradition goes there is no record that the moose ever bred in Pennsylvania to any considerable extent. They were distinctively a northern animal, though they had been coming to this State for untold ages, as their fossil remains well show. Pennsylvania was about the southerly limit of their migrations. After Southern New York had been opened to settlement, and the forests between the southern border of the Adirondack Mountains and the Pennsylvania State line cut away, the moose were unable to continue their journeys into the wilds of the Keystone State. The last to enter Pennsylvania came from the Catskill Mountains, crossing the Delaware River at various points north of the Water Gap.

CLEMENT F. HERLACHER,
Whose Mind Is a Veritable Store House of Traditions of "Moose Days."

When the migrations ceased those moose already in Pennsylvania had to remain there, and they were cruelly butchered by the settlers. Perhaps on account of their all-time scarcity in our State, the early Indians seldom killed the Original. They looked with veneration on this gigantic brute, viewing it as the dignified progenitor of elk and deer, which formed their staple articles of life. To have a moose browse in the vicinity of an encampment presaged victory in war, to find a moose head or antlers in the forest, good luck in the chase or domestic life. The moose stood for all that was biggest, noblest and best in Indian life, it typified all outdoors, the grand free scope of the wilderness. To single out such a splendid animal for slaughter, while all around were myriads of deer, herds of elk, companies of bears and countless smaller game, seemed to the Indian mind, with its Mosaic sense of justice, almost a sacrilege. Consequently the moose were never killed unless in dire necessity, or in the later days of the Indian race when they were desperate and had lost many of their former ideals. But it was galling for them to see the white men slay moose without quarter, to see them disregard sporting standards that had been maintained for centuries. Among the proudest and shrewdest Indians residing in the Juniata Valley was Young Jacob, the youngest son of the knightly defender of Fort Kittanning, Captain Jacobs. Inborn was his mistrust of the white men, whose wanton destruction of forests, game and fish went hand in hand, he felt, with the complete annihilation of his own race. He resented the friendly advances made by the newcomers to the copper-colored aborigines. He held aloof from all gatherings where the two races apparently fraternized together. He would listen to no compliments, accept no favors from the white men. He never forgave the wrongs of his own family. James Logan, or Tah-gah-jute, was the only other Pennsylvania Indian who held similar views to a marked degree. He often told Young Jacob as they rested under the shade of the giant white oaks at Logan's Spring, near Reedsville, that the white men wished the entire Indian race under the sod, and would put them there as soon as they could. "Some of us," he declaimed tragically, "they will kill with bullets, others of us they will kill with poison called rum, our women and children they will starve to death." Logan's greatest sorrow was that he could not impress his ideas on the other Indians. They laughed away his fears, drank the white man's bad whiskey, bartered and played with him on all occasions, suspecting nothing, fearing nothing. Logan would go on to say that a hundred years in the future, when the proud Indian race remained but as a faint remnant of its former strength and greatness, his words would prove true, but now he was looked upon as such an anarchist that he could not even impress his own brothers, Thachnedoarus, or Captain Logan, and John Petty Shikellemy. But Young Jacob shared Logan's views to the minutest detail; he was intuitive, and he had proofs of the white man's perfidy. Never could he be influenced by soft speeches or tawdry gifts. He would be a true redman of the forest, uncorrupted to the last. He had as one of his special missions in life to save the wild animals and birds of the Juniata Valley from extermination. He traveled up and down the three branches, preaching toleration, moderation, conservation, among the drink-ridden Indians, who still lingered at their old hunting grounds. He begged them to cherish their old ideals, only to kill such game as was absolutely necessary for food and clothing. Even if the white men killed right and left, and permitted dead game to rot in the woods, which they called "sport," the Indians should kill moderately, as they did in the past, for was not the wild life a gift from the Great Spirit, and should be carefully tended as such? But most of his preaching fell on deaf ears. Homeless, drunken savages were out of touch with the high principles of the past; they wanted to kill just as their white corrupters were doing. Young Jacob was like an echo from the past, a past so distant that it hardly seemed possible ever to have existed. And once in a great while Young Jacob argued with white men on the impropriety of wasting wild life. Sport, as defined by the Indians, meant harmless pleasure, physical exercise, feats of skill, fun, the chase, but never wanton destruction of any gift of the Great Spirit. But the white men could not see it that way, as long as they had guns they liked to practice on living targets, to see how many animals or birds could be killed in a day or hour, besides game was a nuisance in a rapidly developing country. The game was in the woods to be killed, and if they did not kill it, somebody else would. And they laughed in Young Jacob's face as the price of his pains. All this served to deepen his hatred for the cruel white men who claimed they were "civilizing" the Juniata Valley, but to his mind desolating it. It grieved Young Jacob to see the Indians yielding to the white men's false titles and moving westward without a protest. He longed to fire their hearts with a sense of their wrongs, and lead them in a bloody war against their foes. With this in view he traveled up and down the valley, preaching a gospel of resistance. And sometimes he crossed over into the Allegheny headwaters beyond Kittanning Point. Almost every Indian was content to follow the white men's orders and move on, but occasionally he met one who was sober enough to realize the terrible injustice of it all. But the Indians who felt that way would say: "What you state is true; we are being robbed and murdered; but what can we do when the majority of us is willing to submit?" It was a hopeless task, the Indians were a doomed race. Still Young Jacob's energy was inexhaustible, he would not admit his teachings fruitless. He continued his missionary work, trusting that some spark from his torch of hate might kindle the unhappy red race to a last defiant stand. He carried on his work so quietly that none of the white men in authority suspected that he was any more than a surly, disgruntled savage, as befitted the son of a defeated Indian chieftain. And he was glad that they felt that way about him.

Otherwise there would be a price on his head, or he would be ordered out of Pennsylvania on pain of death, like was meted out to the resisting Logan. He played his part better than Logan had done, and it gratified his savage heart. It was on one of his homeward trips from the Allegheny River that he shed the first white blood, which put a price on his head, and made him a skulking exile to the last of his days. He had been visiting the abandoned Indian settlements at Logstown and Kittanning, at the last-named important town viewing the grave of his defeated but not dishonored father, Captain Jacobs. This chieftain, named for a German ironmaster in Lancaster County, was one of the most heroic Indians in all the annals of the red race in Pennsylvania. He had followed the Indian trail across the mountains, his ultimate destination being Black Log Valley and Standing Stone. Near Kittanning Point, on Burgoon's Run, he had built a lean-to of boughs, expecting to be joined there by a couple of Indian spies who had gone down the Allegheny River in a canoe, and were to travel eastward by way of Laurel Ridge. On the night of his arrival, to his great pleasure, a giant moose ambled out of the forest and began leisurely browsing on the twigs of the moosewood trees which formed an undergrowth of the great hardwood forest. Apart from his delight in watching the monster's antics, as he bent down the trees and nibbled at the tenderest twigs, much as an elephant would feed, was the feeling that the beast foretold that the propaganda which he was promoting would some day become a reality. The moose saw the Indian, and looked at him with his comical little eyes, but he had perfect confidence that the redman meant him no harm. For several days and nights the mammoth animal made the vicinity of Young Jacob's camp his headquarters. He became so used to the Indian's presence that he kept as close to him as if he had been a big mule. On the evening of the third day Young Jacob was getting ready to start on his journey, as evidently his Indian friends had been detained or gone by a different route. His chief regret was at leaving the moose, which stood munching at the succulent twigs. He liked to travel by night, it was cooler, and as he knew every foot of the way he could travel further. While he was adjusting his pack on his back he heard the twigs crack and looked up. Perhaps it was another Original, and he had been camping in a moosic rendezvous! But instead of another moose he saw a solitary white man, clad in a green shirt, buckskin trousers, and moccasins, and carrying a long rifle. It is hard to tell whether the newcomer saw the Indian or the moose first. In any event he raised his firearm and took aim at the unsuspecting animal, which kept on browsing. When Young Jacob saw the white man's intentions, he stepped forward, saying politely, for all Indians, past and present, have been noted for their courtesy, "Brother, don't kill that moose. The woods are full of deer, if you are hungry, and the moose is a pet of mine." But the white man only sneered, and pulling the trigger, the ball sped with unerring aim, lodging in the big Original's heart. With an awful bellow of pain, mingled with surprise, the animal turned and charged on his white destroyer. The hunter, who reloaded his gun deftly, let the moose get within a few feet of him, when he fired again, but the big brute had been already mortally wounded, and fell without the aid of the second shot. With a sound like a falling pine the Original crashed to the earth, lying dead among the ferns and hazel bushes, his wide-spreading palmated antlers stretching out on either side like the knives of a reaper. Planting one foot on the dead animal's swarthy proboscis, the white man struck a silly attitude. Young Jacob, supposed savage, yet in reality a model of gentility and toleration, looked at him a moment in disgust. Then calmly he asked him what he intended to do with the mammoth carcass in the middle of summer. The white man stroked his long beard a moment and said, with a great show of insouciance, "Why, of course, leave it. What else could I do with it?" That was too much for the fair-minded Indian. The white man had killed a harmless moose for "sport" and now was going to leave it to rot and feed the ravens. He could contain himself no longer, and cursed the paleface roundly for his folly. "Why," he shouted, "that moose was around my camp for three days and nights, happy and doing no harm, and I thought no more of shooting him than I would the little singing birds in the trees above. We Indians only kill when we have to; we have sense." The white man's temper was equally aroused, and he swore at the Indian in turn. "You say you Indians only kill when you have to. You are damn fools. We white men kill when we want to, and intend to kill everything before we get through." With that he raised his rifle threateningly. But Young Jacob suspecting such a motive, and forgetting that the white man had not reloaded his weapon, pulled his own trigger first, and the paleface fell to the earth, a bullet through his lungs. When the redman saw what he had done he showed no remorse, until on picking up the white hunter's rifle he found it empty. Then he threw down his own gun and went to the dying man's side. Stooping down he said to him: "White man, I cannot call you brother now. I am sorry for what I have done. I did not remember that your gun was empty." But the white man, rolling his eyes which were glazing with death and staring at his slayer, cursed the Indian with his dying breath, then closed his eyes in death. As he passed away Young Jacob was leaning over him, and muttered, "Now you know how it feels to be in the moose's place." The die was cast. Young Jacob had now been added to the list of Indian murderers. It would be a waste of time to bury the dead man, the wolves would dig him out. The crime would be discovered sooner or later. So, without deigning to rifle the corpse's pockets or touch his gun and powder horn, he left him lying in the now profound darkness, within a dozen feet of the dead moose. It was there that the two Indians, arriving from Laurel Ridge found the body the next morning. Though they suspected some such episode as what had actually happened, knowing Young Jacob's nature so well, they seized upon it as a good excuse to curry favor with the white men. So they went through the dead man's effects, finding documents which identified him as Jacob Glelson, an adventurer and land prospector from Pennsbury on the Susquehanna. From the look of things he had been shot down by an Indian, Young Jacob, in cold blood. They made haste to report the crime when they arrived at Standing Stone. The virtuous Proprietary Government, on the alert to avenge a white man's death, but sometimes singularly apathetic when an Indian was slain, no matter what the circumstances, set its wheels in motion to apprehend the savage murderer. A reward was offered, and the news spread to the four corners of the wilderness. Young Jacob sensed this situation perfectly, and made himself a fugitive. When the pursuit became too hot he allied himself with the Tories and was one of the real leaders of that treacherous band. The contempt which the settlers once had for him changed to fear. Many were the white men ambushed and cruelly slain by his direction. His youth, his dash, and his close relationship to the old chiefs gave him the sobriquet of "the king's son." He seemed to be the active agent for all the devilish conduct of Indians and white renegades. The government was most anxious to apprehend him to atone for Glelson's "murder," and to remove the ring-leader of so many bloody deeds. It had not been forgotten how Young Jacob's father and his warriors had been rounded up at Kittanning by a force of three hundred intrepid men sent after them from Fort Shirley, under the command of the famous Colonel John Armstrong, for whom Armstrong County was named, and to whom the city of Philadelphia presented a silver medal for his great victory. It was in the month of September, in the year 1756, when the attacking force surprised the Indian band at three o'clock in the morning. They had been guided to the town through the darkness by the whooping of the Indians, who were holding a war-dance. Young Jacob had urged them to save their energies for a better purpose, but to no avail. And it was he, with clearer senses than the rest, at dawn first noticed the attacking party crossing the corn field which bordered the settlement. Rousing the sleepy-eyed defenders, he posted them at the loopholes in Captain Jacob's redoubt. A shot from Young Jacob's rifle wounded Colonel Armstrong in the shoulder, and he fell in a heap. Directing the forces from where he lay, he ordered that the Indians' huts be set on fire, as the redmen refused quarter. The redmen mocked their efforts to fire the buildings, but some of the soldiers with reckless bravery were able to start the blaze going at one corner of Captain Jacobs's house. During a lull in the firing the old chieftain, his squaw and Young Jacob, "the king's son," attempted to escape from the burning building through a window nearest the river. Captain Jacobs, in assisting his squaw through the window, was shot in the head and he fell back dead amid the smoke. The squaw plunged bravely into the water, but was shot dead. Young Jacob, not wishing to die a coward's death, sprang through the window and reached the opposite shore of the river before he fell wounded, pierced by half a dozen balls. The first reports had it that he was killed. A party of Indians who arrived on the far shore after the battle was in progress, at the risk of their lives rescued the courageous young warrior and carried him back into the forest. There in a dismal glade, in a haunt of night herons, he was nursed back to health, as befitted "the king's son." But after years of plotting Young Jacob was shot to death ignobly with Weston and his Tories, when they were surprised at Fort Kittanning Gap in 1778. And thus ended the earthly career of one of the most remarkable Indians of the Juniata, an unreconcilable to the last, fighting for the ancient ideals, for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." And when the report was sent broadcast that Young Jacob was among the fallen, the slaughter of the Tories at Kittanning was accounted doubly a victory. But when James Logan, or Tah-Gah-Jute, heard the news out in Ohio, he grieved silently and long. He thought of the old days in Pennsylvania, at the "Logan Spring" where at his favorite resting place, he had spent so many hours in conference with the dead warrior. And his grief was deep, because he knew that the Indian race had lost its sincerest champion; that the hoped-for renaissance would never be.