Little Eight-Year-Old Girl Scalped by the Indians Who also Burned a Cabin Killing the Mother and Her Children

Water Street is an old place and was settled prior to the Revolution. A stream of water from the Canoe Mountain, supposed to be the Arch Spring of Sinking Valley, passes down a ravine and empties into the Juniata at this place. For some distance through a narrow defile, the road passed directly through the bed of this stream,—a circumstance which induced the settlers to call it Water Street when the original settlement was made.

This for a long time was an important point, being the canoe-landing for the interior country. Hence the name of Canoe Valley applied to the country now known as Catharine township, in Blair county. At this place was General Roberdeau's landing, where he received his stores for the lead mines, and where he shipped the lead-ore to be taken to Middletown for smelting.

The number of persons living about Water Street and in the lower end of Canoe Valley, during the Revolution, was fully as great as at the present day.

Among the first settlers was Patrick Beatty. He was the father of seven sons, regular flowers of the forest, who never would fort during all the troubles, and who cared no more for an Indian than they did for a bear. They lived in a cabin about a mile west of Water Street.

It is related of John, the oldest son, that, coming through the woods one day, near his home, he met two Indians in his path. They both aimed at him, but by successful dodging he prevented them from shooting, and reached the house. He found one of his brothers at home; and the two, seizing their rifles, started out after the Indians, and followed them sixty miles, frequently getting sight of them, but never within shooting distance. The Indians knew the Beattys, and feared them, for a more daring and reckless party of young fellows never existed in the valley.

It is a remarkable coincidence that of the Beattys there were seven brothers, seven brothers of the Cryders, seven of the Ricketts, seven of the Rollers, and seven of the Moores,—constituting the most formidable force of active and daring frontier-men to be found between Standing Stone and the base of the mountain.

In the winter of 1778 or the spring of 1779, Lowry's Fort was erected, about two and a half or three miles west of Water Street, for the protection of the settlers of Water Street and Canoe Valley. Although built upon Lowry's farm, Captain Simonton was by unanimous consent elected the commander. Thus, during the year 1779 and the greater part of 1780, the people divided their time between the fort and their farms, without any molestation from the savages. Occasionally an alarm of Indian depredations sent the entire neighborhood to the fort in great haste; but just so soon as the alarm had subsided they all went to their farms again.

Some few of the neighbors, for some reason or other, would not fort at Lowry's; whether because they apprehended no danger, or because they felt quite as secure at home, we have no means of knowing. Among these was Matthew Dean, Esq., one of the most influential men in Canoe Valley, who lived but half a mile from the fort. His reason for not forting there, however, arose from an old personal animosity existing between himself and Lowry, and not from any fancied security at his own house, for he had several times, during the alarms of 1779, made preparations to remove his family to Huntingdon.

In the fall of 1780, on a Sunday evening, Captain Simonton and his wife, and his son John, a lad eight years of age, paid a visit to Dean's house. They spent the evening in conversation on the ordinary topics of the day, in the course of which Captain Simonton told Dean that he had heard of Indians having been seen in Sinking Valley, and that if any thing more of them was heard it would be advisable for them to fort. Dean gave it as his opinion that the rumor was false, and that there was no cause for alarm, much less forting.

The family of Mr. Dean consisted of himself, his wife, and eight children, with the prospect of another being added to the family in a day or two. The last words Mrs. Dean spoke to Mrs. Simonton were to have her shoes ready, as she might send for her before morning. When the Simontons were ready to start, the lad John was reluctant to go; and at the request of Mrs. Dean he was allowed to stay with their children until morning, at which time Mrs. Simonton promised to visit her neighbor.

In the morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Dean, with his two boys and two oldest girls, went to a cornfield for the purpose of breaking it up preparatory to sowing rye in it. The boys managed the plough, while the girls made what was called "steps," or holes between the corn-hills, where the plough could not be brought to bear. Mr. Dean had taken his rifle with him, and, after directing the work for a while, he saw large numbers of wild pigeons flying in the woods adjoining the field, and he went to shoot some of them. He had been in the woods but a short time when he happened to look in the direction of his house, and saw smoke issuing from it, when he immediately went to his children and informed them of it. By that time the volume of smoke had so increased that they were satisfied the house was on fire, and they all started for home at their utmost speed.

In the mean time Mrs. Simonton, according to promise, came over to Dean's house. She, too, saw the smoke some distance off, and by the time she reached the gate, which was simultaneously with the arrival of the family from the corn-field, the house was in a sheet of flame. Up to this time no one had supposed that the fire was the work of Indians. Mrs. Simonton saw a little girl, about eight years of age, lying upon the steps, scalped; but she did not notice its being scalped,—merely supposing that the child had a red handkerchief tied around its head, and had fallen asleep where it lay. But when she went into the gate to get the child out, and the blood gushed up between the boards on which she trod, the fearful reality burst upon her mind; then she thought about her own little son, and for a while was almost frantic.

News of the disaster was conveyed to the fort, and in a few hours the entire neighborhood was alarmed. A strong force, headed by the Beattys, started in pursuit, and got upon the track of the savages, but could not find them. They even waylaid the gap through which the war-path ran; but all to no purpose, for they got clear of the settlements by some other route.

Captain Simonton, at the time of the outrage, was at Minor's Mill, getting a grist ground. On his return, he heard the news at Water Street, when he threw the bag of flour from the horse, and rode as fast as the animal could carry him to the scene of the disaster, where he arrived in a state of mind bordering closely upon madness—for he passionately loved his little boy—just as the neighbors were taking the roasted and charred remains of Mrs. Dean and her three children out of the ashes. One of the neighbors so engaged was a daughter of Mr. Beatty, now Mrs. Adams, still living in Gaysport, at a very advanced age, who gave us a graphic account of the occurrence.

The remains taken out were joined together, and the skeletons of Mrs. Dean and her three children could be recognised; but no bones were found to conform to the size of Simonton's son. The Dean girls then recollected that, when last seen, he was playing near the front door with the little girl. It was then suggested that he might be killed, and that his body was perhaps lying somewhere near the house; but a most thorough search revealed nothing of the kind, and it was only too evident that the Indians had carried the child into captivity.

The murder of the Deans was the cause of universal regret, for they were known and respected by every person in the upper end of the Juniata Valley, and it did not fail to spread consternation into every settlement, even where people thought themselves beyond the reach of the merciless and bloodthirsty savages.

The reason why Simonton's child was carried into captivity, instead of being murdered and scalped, was believed to be because the Indians knew the child and expected that Simonton would follow them and pay liberally for his ransom.

The remains of the Deans were buried, and the family bore up as well as they could under the sad infliction; but it was some years before Matthew Dean fairly recovered from the blow.

The descendants of the Dean family are numerous—a majority of them living in the neighborhood of Williamsburg, Blair county. One of the young girls in the cornfield at the time of the massacre married a Mr. Caldwell, and was the mother of David Caldwell, at present one of the associate judges of Blair county.

Captain Simonton never became reconciled to the loss of his son. He made all the inquiries he could; wrote to government, and even went from his home as far as to Chillicothe, Ohio, to attend a treaty; but all to no purpose: he could obtain no tidings of him. While there, he caused proclamation to be made to the Indians, offering a reward of £10 for any information as to his whereabouts, or £100 for his recovery. This was a munificent sum for the ransom of a mere boy, considering the financial condition of the country; and the Indians promised to find him, if possible.

A year after his return home, the final treaty for the delivery of prisoners was held in the Miami Valley. Again Captain Simonton undertook the journey—then a more formidable undertaking than traversing half the Union would be now.

But he was again doomed to bitter disappointment. The children were brought forward, but none bore the slightest resemblance to his lost boy. So the captain returned to his home, bereft of all hope. The last feeble prop was gone, and Simonton was as near being a broken-hearted man as any one could well be without giving way entirely to despair.

When the late war with Great Britain broke out, Huntingdon county, notwithstanding it had more than its proportion of tories in the time of the Revolution, furnished three companies to go to the Canadian frontier. In Captain Moses Canan's company were two, probably three, of Captain Simonton's sons. They knew they had a brother abducted by the Indians, but it never occurred to either of them that they should ever see him.

The companies of Captains Allison, Canan, and Vandevender, encamped in Cattaraugus, New York,—a country then occupied by the Seneca Indians.

These Indians were neutral at that time, although they favored the American cause and readily furnished supplies to the soldiers. Among them was a white man, who appeared to hold a very prominent position. He owned lands, cattle, horses, lived in a well-constructed house, and was married to a squaw, by whom he had several children. This was the long-lost John Simonton. After Captain Canan's company had left, two men belonging to Vandevender's company, originally from Water Street, commenced talking about this white man among the Indians; and both of them agreed that he bore a most striking resemblance to the Simonton boys.

Next day, happening to meet him in front of his own house, one of them accosted him with the somewhat abrupt question of "What is your name?"

He answered, in broken English, "John Sims."

"Are you from the Juniata?" continued the man.

"I think I am," was Simonton's reply.

"Do you remember any thing of the country?"

"I remember my father, who used to have two big fires, and large barrels, in which he stirred with a long pole."

This answer satisfied them. Old Captain Simonton had a small distillery, and the man remembered the process of distilling very correctly.

"Wouldn't you like to go to your old house and see your relatives?" inquired one of the men.

He answered that he should like very much to do so, but that he was so much of an Indian that he doubted whether his presence would afford much satisfaction to his friends.

On being told that some of his brothers were in one of the companies, he was so much affected that he shed tears, and expressed great anxiety to see them. He evidently felt himself degraded, and saw between himself and his brothers an insurmountable barrier, built up by upward of thirty years of life among the savages; and yet he longed to see them.

While talking to the men, his wife took him away, and he was not seen again by them while they remained there. His wife had a powerful influence over him, and she used it to the best advantage; for she really began to suspect that the men had traced his origin.

Poor old Captain Simonton!—he never lived to learn the fate of the boy he so much doated upon.

One of the sons of Captain Simonton—a very old man—still lives several miles west of Hollidaysburg.