dually, from the imputation of barbarity, and it was admitted by those who knew him before the war in Sir John Johnson's neighbourhood, that he bore the character of a gentle man, and that his son, an officer under him, who was killed at the crossing of Wood creek, was far more cruel than his father.

The Delaware chief, Tedyuscung, was settled at Wyoming in 1758, at the public expense, intending thereby to place him and his people as a frontier defence. They sent on a force of fifty men, as carpenters, masons and labourers, who erected ten or twelve houses, of fourteen by twenty feet, and one for himself, of sixteen by twenty-four feet. He was an artful, wily chief, of more than common selfishness and intrigue for an Indian, and withal was intemperate and aspiring.

As early as 1742, Count Zinzendorf visited the Shawnese, then settled at Wyoming, with a missionary's wife as his interpreter. He remained among them twenty days, and while there sitting by a fire,` and writing in his temporary hut, his leg was crossed by a rattlesnake, seeking to warm itself by the fire.

Wyoming, the name given by the Delaware Indians, expressed the Large plains, and is a corruption of the original name of Maughwau-wame. The Six Nations called it Sgahontowano, the large flats, wano meaning a large ground without trees. It came to be called Wauwaumia, Wiomic, and then Wyoming. The Susquehanna, on which its rests, was so called to express muddy or riley river, the word hanna meaning a stream of water.

The last survivor of those who were in the action of the Wyoming massacre, was Major Roswell Franklin, who after having become the first settler of Aurora, New York, in 1787, died there in 1843. He had fought at that battle along side of his father, and had seen his mother and sister butchered near him, and then himself and his other sister were taken off prisoners, himself, for a service of three years, and his sister for eleven years.

Pittsburg and Braddock.

In the olden time, Fort du Quesne and Fort Pitt, and the thousand tales of "Braddock's defeat," were the talk of all the land, and formed the tales of all the nurseries, scaring the hearers as oft as the tales were told.

"The mind, impressible and soft, with ease

Imbibes and treasures what she hears and sees-
The tale, at first but half received,

Till others have the fearful facts believed!"

Such facts and relations as we have occasionally gathered, and not to be found in the ordinary histories, we purpose now to give in a desultory manner, in the following pages:

Previous to the year 1753, the country west of the Allegheny mountains, and particularly the point which Pittsburg now occupies, was the subject of controversy between Great Britain and France.

In the early part of that year, a party of Frenchmen from Presque Isle, now Erie, seized three English traders at Loggstown, and carried them back with them as prisoners. In the fall of that year, Robert Dinwiddie, governor of Virginia, despatched George Washington, then in the 22d year of his age, to the French commander on Le Bœuf, to demand that he should desist from further aggression. In performance of this duty, Washington arrived at "the Forks," on the 23d of November, 1753. While here he examined the site immediately at the junction of the rivers, and recommended it as a suitable position for a fort. On the next day he proceeded from this place, and called on King Shingass, near M'Kee's rocks, who accompanied him on his way to Loggstown, where they met Monakatoocha, and other Indian chiefs, and held several councils with them.

While at Loggstown, it became a question which road he should take on his way to the French commandant at Le Bœuf, and Shingass advised him not to take the road by Beaver, because it was low and swampy. Proceeding on his journey, he arrived at Le Bœuf, and learned from the French commandant that they were determined to take possession of the Forks in the spring. With this answer he left the French commandant, in company with Gist, his guide, on foot, and arrived at the Allegheny river, below the mouth of Pine creek, on the 28th of December. The next day they spent in making a raft with tomahawks, and towards evening embarked, and attempted to cross the river; but the ice driving very thick, they made very little progress, and were finally compelled to take refuge upon Herr's or Wainwright's island, where they were nearly frozen.

During the night it froze so hard, that they crossed on the ice in the morning. This circumstance affords a pretty strong inference that it must have been Wainwright's island; it lying close to the eastern shore, the narrow passage between it and the shore would be more likely to freeze in one night, than the wide space opposite Herr's island. Having crossed the river they proceeded without delay to Frazier's, at the mouth of Turtle creek. On the 31st of December, while Gist and the other men were out hunting the horses, Washington walked up to the residence of Queen Allequippa, where M'Keesport now stands. She expressed much regret that he had not called on her as he went out. He made her a present of a watch-coat, and a flask of rum, and in his journal he states that the latter present was much the most acceptable.

We here give a poetic description of first scenes at Pittsburg, viz. :

How changed the scene since here the savage trod,
To set his otter-trap, or take wild honey,
Where now so many humble printers plod,
And faithful CARRIERS hunt a little money!

How things have alter'd in this misty plain,
Since Allequippa hunted and caught fish,
Where Mrs. Oliver and her gentle train

Now read of Indians in the Wish-ton-Wish!

How short the time, but how the scenes have shifted,
Since WASHINGTON explored this western wild-land,
And with his raft, and Gist, his pilot, drifted

Upon the upper end of Wainwright's island!
"Tis seventy years ago, since that bold knight,
With blanket, cap, and leggings, then the tippey,
Attended by his 'squire, the aforesaid wight,
Paid his respects to good Queen Allequippa.
Her warlike majesty was quite unhappy,

To think our courtier had not sooner come:
He soothed her feelings with a blanket capo,
And touch'd her fancy with a flask of rum.
What changes, since from yonder point he scann'd
The meeting streams with his unerring eye,
And, 'mid primeval woods, prophetic scann'd
This great position and its destiny!

Since royal Shingass dwelt upon the cliff,
Which overlooks the foot of Brunot's isle,
And angled in his little barken skiff,

Where now for wood a steamer stops awhile.
When Shingass gave him his advice about
The best and nearest route to Fort Venango,
And then decided for the higher route,

Against the route by Beaver and Shenango.
But good king Shingass, it is very clear,
Was but a royal archer after all,

And not by any means an engineer,

And never heard or dreamt of a canal.

Momakatoocha, and the Delaware band,

Then held their council fires of war and peace,
Where RAPP now cultivates the peaceful land,

And sheers his sheep, and wins the golden fleece.
How changed the scene, since merry Jean Baptiste,
Paddled his pereogue on the Belle Riviere,
And from its banks some lone Loyola priest
Echo'd the night hymn of the voyageur!

Since Ensign Ward saw coming down yon stream,
Where all was peace and solitude before,

A thousand paddles in the sunshine gleam,

And countless pereogues that stretch from shore to shore.

The lily flag waved o'er the foremost boat,

And old St. Pierre the motly host commanded:
Then here the flag of France was first afloat,
And here the Gallic cannon first were landed.

Then here began that fatal war, which cost
The lily banner many a bloody stain;
In which a wide empire was won and lost,
And Wolf and Montcalm fell on Abraham's plain.

Since a subaltern in old Fort Du Quesne

Begg'd of his chief, ere yet he quit the post,

To give him but a handful of his men
To venture out and meet the British host:
VOL. II-R

When his red allies hail'd him with a shout,
Who led them on with Indian enterprise,
When Braddock's confidence was put to rout
And all, but wary Washington, surprised.
But jealousy suppress'd the Frenchman's fame,
And when his chief sent home his base report,
He cast a stigma on his rival's name,

And got the credit to himself at court.

How changed the scene, from all that Grant did see,
When from his bivouac on yonder height,
He waked the French with his proud reveillé,
And challenged them to sally forth and fight.
One Highland officer that bloody day,

Retreated up the Allegheny's side,

Wounded and faint, he miss'd his tangled way,
And near some water laid him down and died.

'Twas in a furrow of a sandy swell

Which overlooks that clear and pebbled wave, Shrouded in leaves, none found him where he fell, And mouldering nature gave the youth a grave. Last year a plough pass'd o'er the quiet spot, And brought to light frail vestiges of him Whose unknown fate perhaps is not forgot, And fills with horror yet a sister's dream. His plaited button, stamp'd with proofs of rank, His pocket gold, which still untouch'd remains, Do show, at least, no savage captor drank

As gentle blood as flow'd in Scottish veins.

I think I see him from his sleep arise,
And gaze on yonder tower with admiration!
Lo! on its battlements a banner flies,

An unknown flag of some unheard-of nation!

Of all the features of the scene around,

The neighbouring stream alone he recognizes;
Another such can no where else be found;
The sun upon no river like it rises.

Does he retrace what was a blood-stain❜d route;
Through thickets of the thorny crab and sloe,
He lists again to hear the savage shout,
Where every trace is lost of fort and foe.

But still a shorter time has pass'd away,
Since on the Allegheny's western beach,
The lurking Shawanee in ambush lay,

In hopes some white would cross within his reach.

Thence to the lake no white had settled yet,

And Indian tribes still held their ancient station, When the first carrier of the old GAZETTE

Took round that little humble publication.

The Muse, when she another year is older,
May give a present picture of this place,
Which from the canvass will but rise the bolder
That now its fading back-ground we retrace.

On the 17th of April, 1754, the French commander, Contrecœur, with three hundred and sixty canoes, one thousand men and eighteen pieces of cannon, arrived at the "Forks," where Pittsburg now stands, and compelled Ensign Ward to surrender. This inva sion is very properly called, in the poetry, the commencement of the war, which terminated in the loss by France of all her possessions in America, east of the Mississippi.

Some incidents in relation to the subaltern who commanded the French and Indians at Braddock's defeat were derived from La Fayette, during his late visit to this country.

The account of the remains of a deceased officer which were ploughed up during the last summer, near the arsenal, are in part founded on fact. It is true that such remains were discovered, and that money and marks of military rank were found with them.

There were still some remains of the old Fort du Quesne to be found in 1834. Its site was in part occupied by a brew-house erected upwards of thirty years ago, by General O'Hara, the first brew-house in "the great west." The rest of the site is now filled with dwellings. It was on the point formed by the two rivers. Forty years ago the walls were still entire. A part of the brew-house premises fills the place which was a bastion; at a little distance from it is still there a small brick five-sided edifice, called the guard-house, erected by the British after the capture from the French. It has two ranges of loop holes through sticks of timber, let into the walls, which are a foot thick. In one of its sides, near the top, is a relic, a tablet of stone of two feet by fourteen inches, on which is inscribed "A. D. 1764, Col. Boquet." Adjoining to this guard-house are now two small brick houses, which were built from the bricks taken from the walls of Fort Pitt. I saw these things in 1804. Then the area of the fort, excepting the said brew-house premises, of Shiras, was all a nearly levelled grass field, from General O'Hara's residence, where I dwelt, down to the point. In 1833, when they were excavating the ground for the foundation of the building above mentioned, which occupies the site of the bastion, they dug up several ends of the oak palisadoes, which were once a part of the defence on the Allegheny river side. They were of course seventy years of age or more, and yet were perfectly sound!

Braddock's battle field is seven miles from Pittsburg, on the right bank of the Monongahela. None who read of it ever think of it, as being a place near a river, or as so near to the end of the intended expedition!

"How chang'd the scene, since Indian men and manners reign'd!"

The late Morgan Neville, Esq., whose acquaintance I had formed in our youth, was pleased to write some very pleasant recollections of his native place, and especially of some individuals and incidents, which it will be gratifying to preserve in these pages, to wit: