Now available on Amazon.com: Western State Penitentiary / SCI Pittsburgh: A History, by Doug MacGregor

Now available on Amazon.com: 
Western State Penitentiary / SCI Pittsburgh: A History, by Doug MacGregor

John Connolly: Journal of My Proceedings, 1774

 After 250 years, John Connolly and his role in western Pennsylvania remain enigmatic.  As a key figure in the Pennsylvania-Virginia boundary dispute and the events leading to Dunmore’s War, many historians have speculated on his motives and actions.  However, few have ventured further than labeling him as a conniver, traitor or as an incompetent fool.  But other than Percy B. Caley, Clarence M. Burton, and perhaps myself (see my article at this link), no one has really dedicated the effort to truly understand the man and his motives.  So, in this spirit, let us allow John Connolly to speak for himself. 

Below is a transcription of his journal for the events of early 1774.  While he originally planned to publish this, the opening of the American Revolution would place a permanent pause on that effort.  Where the original draft went from 1774 until it entered a private collection is unknown but it was most likely acquired after Connolly went to London following the conclusion of the American Revolution.  I have tried to remain as true to the original as possible.  All original spelling has been maintained.  The only alterations made were inserting the month in front of each daily entry and joining the text when separated by the original pagination.

Historians of Dunmore’s War, as well as the original participants, have noted the importance of Connolly’s circular letter.  This letter has been universally cited as the root of the violence that led to war.  While the original has been lost to history, finally, we at least have Connolly’s version of these pivotal events.

Doug MacGregor

Journal of my Proceedings & etc. Commencing from the late Disturbances with the Cherokees upon the Ohio

April 14^th 1774

A Canoe of Indian goods with three people going from hence to the Shawanese Towns to trade were fired upon by some Cherokees Indians about forty miles down the river and after they had killed one man and wounded another the canoe and property therein were carried off by the Indian

On the 16th the news came to me, upon which having some Militia embodied, I immediately detach’d an Officer and Party in pursuit of them with orders to bring them back if possible as murderers or otherwise to treat them as open enemies.  This party recovered a considerable share of the property and the canoe but could not come up with the Indians.  I went today down the river with a party and brought up the wounded man.  This accident occasion’d a great deal of confusion and as I imagin’d it woud be improper to allow an act so insolent to pass over unnotic’d, I recommended to the Indian Agent to send down the to the Shawanese to demand the murderers as to their Towns they had fled.

April 20^th

From a complaint made to me by Captain White Eyes a Delaware Chief of this being insulted and abused by some of our people on Yellow Creek I sent down the following advertisement by some traders going down the river which I ordered to be posted in the most public Settlements thereon. 

“Whereas a complaint has been made to me by some friendly and well disposed Indians that certain imprudent people, inhabitants down this river have very unbecomingly ill-treated said Indians and threatened their lives, these are therefore to caution such persons to avoid a conduct of that Nature for the future and on the contrary to be friendly towards such Natives as may appear peaceable; as thereon depends the Tranquility of this country.  Given Under my Hand, &etc.”

I also, upon information from Colonel Croghan  That the Shawanese were ill disposed and might possibly do mischief, wrote a Circulatory Letter to the Inhabitants advising them thereof and recommending to them to be on their guard against any Hostile attempts from said People.

April 26^th

Two Delaware Indians that were going down the river in company with two White men conveying the Property retaken from the Cherokees into the Indian Country to trade, were fired upon by some of our people and the Two Indians killed and scalp’d as this act was perpetrated by some adventurers from Maryland and the interior parts of Virginia not possess’d of property in the Country they did not stop here but the ensuing 27^th they pursued and fell in with a party of Shawanese  with which people they had a smart skirmish as the Indians disputed every inch of ground with them.  The Indians lost three men and our people had two wounded.

April 28^th

One Baker and Greathouse with a company of Ill disposed  and factious men assembled opposite Yellow Creek  at the plantation of Baker a in a most dastardly & cruel manner fell upon and murdered nine Six Nation Indians and one woman and carried her child, an infant, off prisoner

April 29^th

All the settlers fearing the dreadful consequences of such violent treatment of the Indians fled [?] and the panic becoming universal nothing but confusion, distress and flight was conspicuous.

May 1^st

Ordered out the militia of this place and as it was impossible to prevent the Inhabitants from giving way and the major part of the Townsmen wanting arms, I thought it my duty  to seize upon such arms and ammunition as none were to be found here, which was accordingly done & although there were no arms but rifle guns intended for Indian trade & of considerable value, I had them appraised & distributed to such men as I thought proper; esteeming it my duty to make every provision necessary for the defense that this place and opportunity afforded.

May 2d

Sent off an express to call on Capt White Eyes & Capt Pipe, two Delaware Chiefs to hear what we had to say on the differences which had arisen between us and them.

May 3d

Issued my orders to raise the militia and to draught one third to this place now left the frontiers; in order to [?] and repair this heap of ruins and to impress provisions, horses, tools &etc &etc

Was waited upon by an Indian Chief and presented with a string of wampum & speech, Whereupon I issued the following advertisements “ Whereas given appearances give reason to apprehend immediate danger from the Indians and particularly the Shawanese, and whereas Keyashuta has this day requested of me to give directions to the different Indian Traders to refrain from importing spirituous Liquors into their country until he might have an opportunity of delivering his speeches from the Honorable Sir William Johnson and Whereas the laws of this Colony strictly prohibit any intercourse with an enemy, These are therefore to forbid the conveyance of such commodity amongst our suspected enemies as they shall answer the contrary at their peril, Given under my hand &c &c”

May 4^th

This day had a conference in company with the Indian [?] with Keyashuta and some Six Nations chiefs and others and upon their speaking in a most friendly  and reasonable manner upon what had happened and promising a continuance and steady adherence to their former professions I published the following advertisement and sent copies into the country – “Whereas matters relative to the unhappy differences between us and the Indians seem yet to admit of a possibility of accommodation; and whereas a conference is expected with some of the chiefs , I do hereby, in His Majesty’s Name, require and command all his subjects of this colony and Dominion of Virginia to desist from further acts of Hostility against any Indians , whatever but to be friendly towards them; particularly such who may come to the fort for business in their usual manner, Given  under my hand &c &c”

Stoppe’d every man capable of bearing arms who attempted to fly past here & arm’s them, many of them however deserted this evening; all persons imployed in fortifying the fort.

May 5^th

Gott up the two western bastions with pickets and ordered teams to haul in all their [?] timber for that purpose about that the town, having such article first appraised. this evening Captain Pipe and Captain White Eyes came to town with the interpreter agreeable to the message delivered them from us.  Had all the inhabitants of the town at work today

May 6^th

Had a conference with the Indians (which exclusive of my own speech) was carried on by Colonel Croghan, Mr. McKee and the Indians

A copy of my speech delivered the Six Nations and Delaware Chiefs

Brethren

“I am very sorry to find that a dispute has happened between our people and yours which has been attended with bad consequences to both parties; you must be certain, Brethren, that our wise men had no act or part in what happened and that it was intirly owing to the folly and indiscretion of our young people which you know, like to your own young men are unwilling to listen to good advice.  As to the particulars of what was happened, we yet do not know, We are sure however that people are killed on both sides.  But we hope as the dispute happen’d only between the young and foolish people, that it will not engage our wise men in a quarrel in which none of us had a part.  It is however, Brethren, very unlucky that any difference should have happened between us at this time.  As the Great head Men of Virginia and all his wise people are just going to meet together to council about their settling in this country bought from you the Six Nations; and to give orders to their young men who may come who may come to be your neighbors to be kind and friendly towards you and likewise I expect they will buy goods to cloath your old people and children to brighten the chain of friendship between us and to convince you that we will be as friendly towards you as your late neighbors from Pennsylvania were and therefore I desire you, Brethren, not to listen to what some lying people that may tell you to the contrary for although we are always ready to fight our enemies yet we will [shew?] our true & steady friendship upon every occasion when necessary.”

The Indians returned an answer and the brothers of some of the Delawares that had been killed out of the Canoe already mentioned and received a condolence present

Ordered all the masons to work at the breaches made in the Angles of the brickwork and the carpenter at the working of gates for the sally ports &etc. &etc.

Received information that some Indians were seen on the opposite side of the Monongahela looking down upon our people at work

May 7^th

Received a letter from Mr. Thomas Lewis, Surveyor of Augusta who had been upon the river in order to survey but who was obliged to fly with the multitude giving me an account that Mr. Michael Crisop had attacked the Shawanese and had killed some and lost some of his people and that the inhabitants fled dreading the consequences would be an open rupture and recommending to me if in my power to fall upon some measure to [succour?] the distressed inhabitants cautioning me to secure the important spot at the confluence of the rivers against any hostile attempts whatsoever.  As the inhabitants of this place were fatigued at the works and finding it impossible to drum together any militia from the country owing to the hurry and confusion of the settlements and as I knew not what moment we might be attacked notwithstanding the promises of our Indian friends.

I offered militia commissions to such persons where interest could bring in volunteers to this place unencumbered with families and to enter in the pay of government

Captain Crawford and Mr. Nevill came to this place and recommended to me to issue out Blank Warrants to be given to such men as could raise volunteers assuring me that they would ride about the country and use their utmost endeavors to encourage young men to enter into the service.

A Sergeant’s Party arrived with several Hands of arms they had (agreeable to my orders) impressed from such people as insisted upon running away with some provisions

Express arrived again from the militia officers in the country acquainting me that the people were not meditating nothing but flight and their own personal safety.  That Capt Penticost agreeable to my orders had sent to stop the Flats on the river Monongahela, but that his parties detached for that purpose were not sufficient to put the orders in execution as the fugitives were determined to proceed

This evening gave orders to cease all firing of guns and to avoid any appearance of disaffection towards the Indians which had ventur’d themselves amongst us on so critical an occasion

This evening had an express acquainting me that one Van Swearingen and thirty men had gone down the river in pursuit of Indians and as Captain Eyes family lay only thirty miles from this place unsuspecting and defenseless and fearing these disorderly people might frustrate our intended amicable adjustments – I dispatched the sheriff in pursuit of them with a small party of militia from this place to order them back and to set up the following advertisements in such places on the frontiers as might afford an opportunity to these lawless people to know my disapprobation of their conduct.

“Whereas there is a great reason to apprehend that matters may yet be amicably settled between us & the Indians notwithstanding the violent and barbarous treatment they have met with from some of our unthinking and lawless people and whereas I have been creditably informed that some rash men have embodied themselves in order to act hostily against any Indians whatsoever to the great prejudice of this promising country.  I do hereby publicly discountenance and forbid so unwarrantable a procedure and do also assure whatsoever person or persons that may attempt to behave so contrary to peace and good order of this country.  That I shall take every step in my power to bring them to [condign?] punishment, Given under my hand &c”

I sent the interpreter also down on the north side of the river to bring up Captain White Eyes’s family to be under our protection as Captain White Eyes was gone with our messages to the Shawanese

Gave an Ensign’s commission to a person who brought in eighteen volunteers to my assistance.  Sent up twenty bushels of corn to the Indians assembled at Colonel Croghans as they were hungry and absent from their respective homes

May 7^th

Today a trader came in from the Newcomers Town  who was warned by that Headman to fly; as a wounded Shawanese had just arrived who reported that hostilities were commenced and that several of their people were killed by the English.  This man left all his property behind him as a party of Shawanese was minutly expected there that threatened his life

This day I had a conference with some of the country people which had retired to a place about twelve miles south distant from hence where they desired to have liberty to make a stockade fort.  I represented to them the impropriety of erecting such places of imaginary safety which divided the strength of the country and tended to lull people into supine ness and neglect so that our efforts would prove ineffectual to oppose the enemy and that consequently we must abandon the country or fall sacrifices to the vindictive rage of the savages. I likewise added that if they thought this place would be too much crowded with women and children that I would admit of their building a fort upon the Monongahela above us so as to keep open the water communication with Redstone settlement if they would send a third of their active young men to assist in repairing and defending this important post which if taken would inevitably occasion the whole country west of the Allegheny to be depopulated.  They agreed to what I advanced tho I do not expect that their actions will correspond with their words.

May 8^th

Turned the people out to work as usual and continued so to do until breakfast, when it began to rain so violently that I suffered them to go into their barracks. As a sentry had fired his piece last night and occasioned a false alarm the traders and people of the town solicited for permission to stockade the town which I assented to disarming all such persons to whom I had given arms on account of government and ordered that they should be supplied with arms from the traders and merchants of the town with which they complied One Drinnen arrived from Great Sandy Creek who reportted that Mr. Michael Crisop had had a small skirmish with a party of Shawanese and contrary to the first accounts I had received that they were prepared to receive him.  Today also an Indian runner arrived at Colonel Croghans who reported that the Shawanese were counciling upon hearing of what had happened and were waiting for the arrival of the Hard Man their principal chief as also to hear from our wise people.  The works go on very rapidly notwithstanding all the disadvantages we labor under for want of provisions and almost every other necessary.

May 9^th

Received a reinforcement from Peters Creek of twenty-four militia together with four Negro men sent by John Nevill Esq^r with proper working implements.  This gentleman’s example will be of infinite service to me and the country in general as it cannot fail to spirit up others to exert themselves upon this critical occasion.  This evening there was an infinite confusion occasioned by some people attempting to take up Drinnen already spoke of for being concerned in killing the Indians: for although the people suffered so remarkably by the imprudence of such men yet they loudly commended them as meritorious.

May 10^th 

[the below text with line through was crossed out in the original journal]

Went out to Colonel Croghan’s early this morning at his request where it was judged highly expedient to send off an express immediately to His Excellency, Lord Dunmore with a speech and belt from the Six Nations and as it was the particular request of the Chiefs, I thought it my duty to comply therewith.  Today was strengthened by Captain Crawford and sixty men forty-five of which I detached under the command of Captain Stephenson to protect the frontier inhabitants to prevent the hostilities to

Copy of my orders to Captain Stephenson, May 10^th

“Sir

As the inhabitants to the westward have fled precipitously and of consequence must have left many of their valuable effects; you are cautiously to proceed with the party under your command and secure such effects for the benefit of the respective owners in the best manner you are capable of.  You are likewise, Sir, ordered to encourage all families to return to their different places of abode and to recommend to them putting in crops in the usual manner.  You are carefully to avoid committing acts of hostility upon the persons of any friendly Indians which might be found upon the river coming to this place to trade  or otherwise engaged in their usual intercourse with us.  You are directed hereby to order your marches in such a manner as to be a barrier between our Western settlements and any such Indians that might (in consequence of the losses they have sustained) attempt to molest the inhabitants; and in case Indians are so found offending, you are to use your utmost endeavors to chastise them and to treat them as open and avowed enemies.  Whatever provisions may be wanting, you are to take from such settlers as may be esteemed the most able to furnish you with the necessary articles and to have them legally(as far as may be in your power) appraised; you will give the claimant a certificate specifying for what use and upon what service the same commodities were taken. You are also to prevent any number of the people unwarrantedly assembled in arms from attempting to maltreat Indians. In twenty days you are to return here, bringing to this garrison all provisions which you may judge necessary and such may be spared.

Today some refractory people from the frontiers of Pennsylvania came here and after behaving in a very unbecoming and riotous manner

[at this point it appears to be a different hand writing]

 May 10^th

Today I rode out to Col^o Crohan’s at his request where it was judged highly expedient to send an express off immediately to His Excellency Lord Dunmore, with a speech and belt from the Six Nations, which being the particular request of the Chiefs, made me very willingly comply.  Today Captain Crawford arrived with about sixty men; forty of which I have detached from hence under the command of Captain Stephenson to protect the frontier inhabitants and to prevent the hostilities to be apprehended from any small parties of Indians which might, contrary to the general opinion of their nation, attempt to disturb the tranquility of the inhabitants returned to their different habitations

May 11^th

Today some refractory people from the frontiers of Pennsylvania came here and after behaving in a very unbecoming and riotous manner they were proceeding to murder some of the Indians left at Col^o Crohan’s as hostages which obliged me to confine some of the principal aggressors and as they threatened to rescue them I this evening doubled the guard and gave the officers orders to fire upon any persons which should mutinously and in arms attempt to rescue the prisoners and sent two men and the interpreter to guard the Indians at Col^o Crohan’s

May 12^th

Today as the mutineers had come to better sense of what might be of service to this country I dismissed them on their giving security for their behavior and shortly afterwards was visited by some Indian Chiefs which expressed their astonishment at what had been intended after their amicable intentions and professions were so well known to me in answer I told them that some bad and foolish young men had been ridiculous enough to attempt killing our friends contrary to my knowledge or inclination that I had confined them for their threats and that so far from permitting anything of that nature being done when the honor of government was passed for their security that I would [?] their defense and that therefore they might rest secure from any danger from our people on which they expressed their sense of gratitude and returned home

May 13^th

Today the Indian Agents judging it necessary I sent off three Delaware men from hence down the river in a canoe in order to acquaint some of their nation that had been hunting west of us and who might be on their return of what had happened and to advise them to go up Scioto to avoid falling in with any of our ill disposed people and there to remain until matters might be better settled to one of these Indians I thought it necessary to give a gun as his own was in the possession of one of the unfortunate Delawares that was killed by our people in the traders canoe already mentioned and consequently lost to him  I likewise gave them a passport and recommended them to all His Majesty’s subjects as friends much attached to the British interest.  This day received a very fortunate supply of bacon our provision being almost expended and the people threatening to desert for want of it

May 14^th

Sent an Ensign and twenty men to Con’s Fort to protect the inhabitants in that quarter and to encourage them to plant in their ordinary manner Stand in great need of pickets to finish the fort the party employed to furnish them not being as punctual as I could expect. Received a considerable supply of bacon from Redstone settlement the whole of our

provisions being expended. – 15^th  This being Sunday morning and some of the men refusing to work at this fortification and occasioned me much trouble as I was obliged to confine several of them; this evening some rafts of pickets came down the river which employed a considerable number of men to get them ashore as the river was rising and expedition necessary to prevent their getting adrift in the night.  Received a quantity of Indian meal down the Monongahela.  We now seem impatient to hear from the traders at the Shawana towns & fear they may be either confined or murdered. Sent off Captain Graydon to purchase provision in the country for this garrison.

May 16^th

Today two young men arrived here informing me that a large body of men had assembled themselves together at Catfish Camp with a view to proceed to the Shawana towns and to fall upon the Indians upon which I wrote a letter to them requesting and ordering them to return to their respective habitations and likewise a letter of orders to Captain Stephenson commanding him to stop any disorderly people from proceeding to acts of violence against Indians without the countenance of government. This evening received His Excellency Lord Dunmore dispatches by express from the Sheriff of Augusta.

May 17^th

Today received a message from the Indian agent to attend at a conference with some Delaware Indians which had brought a message from their King Custaloga or [blank space] at Col^o Croghan’s.  They informed us that they had received our message sent them upon the unfortunate differences which had happened between us and them that they believed what we said and were determined to hold fast by the ancient chain of friendship and hoped we would do the same and that they were determined to take no part with the Shawanese if they continued refractory and that they were planting their corn as usual.

May18^th

Today Captain Pipe’s family desired to go home to plant their corn for which purpose they were presented with some hoes and some other little presents.  An Indian trader arrived from the Lakes on Sandusky who relates that messages had just arrived amongst the Hurons as he was about leaving that place and that the Shawanese said that they were to look for satisfaction to the southward from the Big Knife as it was by them the injury was done the Indians.

May 19^th

Today an Onondaga Indian arrived bringing me an insolent note from six people which had killed the Mingos opposite Yellow Creek acquainting me that I had better order the Indians to remain on their own side of the river or they would kill more of them in consequence of their note I dispatched an officer and six men to apprehend them if he found it convenient and to give them a letter as follows:

Gentlemen

I received your letter by the Indian you were pleased to let pass with life and [?] look upon it be as insolent as concise you desire me or some gentleman in authority to advise the Indians to keep on their own side of the river or otherwise more of them shall be killed.  I am to inform you the subscribers to the note I received that you have already committed actions so barbarous in their nature and so evil in tendency to this country in general that you merit the severest punishment from this government because there is an apparent probability of accommodating the difference except our good intention should be prevented by people of your disposition I must acquaint you that if I ever hereafter hear of your killing or attempting any Indians in our friendship that I shall immediately order an officer and a party of men to apprehend you and all your aiders and abettors that you may be brought to exemplary punishment, I am gentlmen &c &c.

The subscribers to the letter mentioned  were the very persons which actually murdered the Indians at Yellow Creek viz Danl Greathouse Joseph Swearingen Nathn Tomlinson Joshua Baker J Brown and Gavin Watkins. Copy of my letter to the different cop^s of militia in the country

Sir

From the different accounts I have just received I think it my duty to prepare against the enemy upon the receipt of these my orders, you are immediately to call forth all the militia your neighborhood and to examine their arms and accoutrements and to equip them in the best manner you are capable.  You are also in pursuance of the warrant herein enclosed to impress all necessary provisions salt entrenching tools &c &c and to detach one third of your company under the command of your Lieut with the articles so impressed immediately to my assistance.  You are also to stop every person which may attempt to run away and bring them here with their effects.  You are to remain in arms with the rest of the militia under your command for the protection of your neighborhood until further orders; as I may judge it necessary to collect our whole force to oppose the enemy at this place where we may expect to feel the first effects of their resentment. I am Sir &c &c.

May 20^th

This evening three Delawares arrived here from Newcomers Town bringing letters from the two traders which went in company with Captain White Eyes with our messages to the Shawanese by which we are informed that upon their arrival at Wakatomaka one of the Shawanese towns one of these traders was fired upon by a Shawanese man and very narrowly escaped with his life back to the Delaware town where he writes he is detained by the Head Man until they may hear more particularly from the Shawanese but the Indians promise the traders that they will protect them from the Shawanese and that their lives shall not be taken in their town.  The Indian runners also bring intelligence that the Hard Man Chief of the Shawanese says that his heart cannot be good until he has sent one party at least against the Virginians to take satisfaction for what has happened they also informed us that one Jones a trader had just made his escape from some Indians which had pillaged him of all his effects and that he got off with the utmost difficulty

May 21^st

Today Captain McKee the Indian Agent and myself went to Colonel Croghans and sent back a message to the Delawares and also wrote the following letter to the traders at their town.

Gentlemen

We received your letter by the young men sent here and are glad to find that you are safe under the protection of our brethren the Delawares although it gives us cause of sorrow to find that Mr. Duncan a public messenger from us should have so narrowly escaped with his life yet as we conceive that the act came from the perpetrator alone without the advice or consent of the Shawanese in general we still hope that matters may be yet accommodated between us and peace restored we are in expectation that their answer will be explicit and satisfactory so that all our people now in [?] may quietly return to their respective occupations.  We are gentlemen &c &c.

                                                            /s/ Coms Alexander McKee George Croghan

On my return  I received  a letter from Messrs Enoch Innis and Michael Crisop who were at the head of a number of people collected together in a disorderly manner from different parts acquainting the Indian agents and myself that unless we would become security for the Indians for six months although they acknowledge to have heard of our negotiations they were determined to proceed immediately against the Indians and consequently involve this country in a calamitous war.  Copy of this letter:

Gentlemen

Whereas in consequence of a letter from Dr. John Connolly Captain Commandant of the militia in and about the waters of the Monongahela and the Ohio directed to the inhabitants thereof positively telling them that the Shawana Indians were determined to come to an open rupture with them immediately, this with some other circumstances has generally alarmed and put into the greatest confusion and distress the whole inhabitants and that in consequence of such alarm there has a considerable body of men collected themselves together to protect themselves and property and are now on their way to execute the same; but whereas doubts have arisen amongst some people from second reports from said fountain, that the aforesaid inhabitants need not be under any doubt from invasions or further depredations from the savages but that they were so far from having any such intentions, that they were not able nor willing to commence a war, and have nothing but friendly intentions yet they think it necessary for their further safety not to believe common reports and acquiescence under them, but now send this message to demand of Captain Connolly and Mr. McKee such assurances of the truth of the above matter from under their hands in writing that the inhabitants may rest assured that there is no danger to be expected from the Indians for six months and expect the same to meet us at Catfish’s Camp on Monday next at ten o’clock and that unless such assurances be made to us by that time we shall certainly proceed  to distress our common enemies aforesaid we are gentlemen for ourselves and others &c &c /s/ Enoch Innis and Michael Crisop  May 20^th 1774 at Fort Burd NB. Sent by Mr. Basil Brown and Mr. Patrick Mcellroy.  Upon the receipt of this very extraordinary epistle, as Mr. McKee was in conference with the Indians at Colonel Croghans, I returned the following answer.

Pittsburgh May 21^st 1774.

Gentlemen

I undertake to write to you for Mr. McKee and myself as Mr. McKee is now busily engaged in conference with some Indian messengers which arrived last night from Newcomers Town. I cannot however help expressing my astonishment at the manner in which you convey your sentiments to us upon what has already happened; and although I shall not at this time attempt to exculpate myself as the supposed original cause of all this uproar, yet you may be fully satisfied that I can do so at any time and that I humbly conceive that the motives for facts heretofore done, might have been sought for, and more effectually discovered to have had their origin elsewhere. I have to acquaint Mr. Crisop that in my opinion he is taking the most immediate steps imaginable to do himself an irreparable injury in idly prosecuting what might otherwise as to himself been buried in oblivion.  I am not to conclude this letter without giving you to understand that I have a dire sense of the indignity cast upon the authority of this government by the manner in which you have illegally assembled yourselves in arms and the absurd and unbecoming demand you make of our being security for the natives for six months which directly intimates to us that you are determined to prescribe for the health and advantage of this country.  If these are your resolutions gentlemen, if you are determined to prosecute every measure which may be subversive of order and good government, you are to follow the dictates of your own folly, and abide the consequences.  I will not conclude however without acquainting you that matters relative to our late differences with the natives appear upon a good footing, and that little danger is to be apprehended from a general rupture except your imprudence and indiscretion should draw it upon us, I am gentlemen &c &c.  Mr. McKee returning before I had closed my letter wrote the following postscript.  Gentlemen  Being just returned to this place Captain Connolly has showed me your letter and with respect to the dispositon of the Indians I can only inform you that such of them as we have had an opportunity of conferring with appears favorably inclined to accommodate the breach of their friendship.  Provided no further hostilities are committed upon them as to the distant tribes, we daily expect their sentiments as messages have been dispatched to them for that

purpose. I am gentlemen &c &c.  I wrote a friendly letter also desiring Mr. Crisop to discharge his people which he had so imprudently assembled.  But apprehensive that possiblly Mr. Crisop might notwithstanding everything done  proceed and to render abortive all other attempts at reconciliation as well as conceiving it my duty as a  conservator of the peace, I dispatched this evening the 22^nd an express to Captain Paul Froman[?] ordering him to assemble his company of militia and to wait my order in readiness with his company properly armed and accoutred at his own house on Wednesday at twelve o’clock at which time I would send another express ordering him either to discharge his company or proceed to join me whence I might think most proper for the good of the service being determined that Mr. Crisop and his associate will not listen to reason and be prevailed upon to desist from their destructive scheme that I would make use of coercive measures to oblige them so to do and to convince them and all others that the authority of government tho distant from the seat thereof should not be trifled with.  Today sent of Mr. Innis from hence to meet Mr. Michael Crisop and his party at Catfish’s Camp in order to convince them if possible by argument of the imprudence and evil effects of their intended proceedings and to dissuade them from [?] in a scheme so pernicious to the welfare of this country.  Had the party out at work as usual and by an  attentive and constant care hurry on the work very fast.  Captain Graydon returned this evening having purchased three thousand weight of bacon and four hundred bushels of corn.

May 23d

Captain Stephenson arrived here today with the party under his command with reports that the generality of the inhabitants except such as had fled over the mountain were returned to their plantations and were planting corn which agreeable to my orders he encouraged them in he also informs me that deserted houses have been robbed of everything the owners had left behind in their precipitate flight. 

May 24^th

Received an account by express that Mr. Crisop had discharged his company and returned homewards upon which I sent off expresses to the different Captains of militia acquainting them that I had no occasion for their services at present as the cause of danger had ceased on the quarter from which I apprehended it; and desiring them at the same time to return my thanks in the warmest manner to such companies as might have assembled themselves agreeable to my orders.  This evening Mr. McKee being down the Pennsylvania Road brings intelligence that three laborers at work in a field on the Old Pennsylvania Road were fired upon and one man wounded in the breast and that three other laboring men were missing that had been at work in an adjoining field. Upon having this intelligence I dispatched an officer and fifteen men to examine into the truth of the report, and to reconnoiter the ground in order to discover tracks by which we might form a judgment whether the fire came from Indians or not.  Captain White Eyes returned from his embassy also, bringing me a note from two traders at Newcomers Town which acquaints me that there are now eleven white men assembled which have fled from the Shawanas towns and that they are to be safely escorted to this place by a party of their brothers the Delawares.  Tomorrow the answer from the Shawanese is to be publicly delivered.

May 25^th

This afternoon Captain White Eyes delivered his messages from his own nation and the Shawanese the latter being of the most insolent nature and hearing at the same time that a party of warriors were actually to set out to revenge the death of their people.  I dispatched an express to Captain Houglend desiring him to march with the party under his command immediately upon the receipt of my letter to Wheeling; and in case he might discover Indians on our side of the river in arms or their tracks leading into the settlements he was to use his utmost endeavors to come up with them and treat them as enemies.  I had some indifferent cabins appraised and thrown down for want of a sufficient quantity of pickets to carry out the work at this garrison.  I also this evening ordered Ensign Johnston and Cox to follow after Captain Houglend and to put themselves in parties under his command to answer the design already mentioned, the traders to the number of nine came in escorted by nine Delawares who bring account that those people were obliged to protect them from the fury of the Shawanese and some Mingos living among them, and that notwithstanding all their case, the Mingos had killed and scapled one white man and that they had reason to fear that the whole of the traders at the lower Shawana towns were killed, as a party of Mingos and Shawanese were gone off to the canoe place on Hockochin River for that purpose.

May 26^th

The inhabitants from the westward begin to fly into the garrison in great numbers. Captain St. Clair arrived from Ligonier, who informs me that some disorderly people have killed another Delaware Indian who had resided among them for a long time before, and had constantly behaved himself friendly toward us.  Today Captain Teagarden arrived expres from His Excellency Lord Dunmore the party of militia which I had detached under the command of an officer to examine what mischiefs had happened in the neighborhood where the person was wounded on the 24^th returned, giving me intelligence that they had made a diligent search and that they could discover no sign of Indians and that the three men reported to be missing were safely brought in by them and that they rather apprehend that the man wounded received the injury from some of our own people than any Indians and particularly so as there was a great dispute subsisting about the land, then improving by the wounded party.

May 27^th

Some traders men arrived [?] that had ran away and by [?] peltry at Yellow Creek, to the amount of twenty horseload, owing to some Delawares, who had them under care, having derived them to fly for their lives upon seeing some warmarks assuring them that they would not be able to protect them from the enemy.  I have received a letter from an unfortunate trader in the woods brought by an Indian who acquainted me that he is under the protection of Montour, a son of Montour the interpreter and is obliged to be constantly concealed as the disaffected Mingos had killed and scalped some white people within four miles of the village where he was.  Received intelligence also that  some Mingos were laying in ambush on the traders path to kill any which they might find coming in from the town; but that after having lay concealed two days for that purpose,[?] and being disappointed they had gone off, and it was imagined had crossed the Ohio, to fall upon some distressed family.  Having a small breach in one of the curtains of this fort and not knowing what moment I might be attacked, I ordered some pickets, which formerly had been in use here and now made into a sloop I [?] to be thrown down and hauled in the [?] the same; notwithstanding the urgent necessity and the [?] value to the proprietor thereof he made great objections and [?] a considerable disturbance.  Vast numbers of inhabitants came in today and the south bank of the Monongahela is now lined with [?] fugitives and numberless cattle.

Tomorrow morning the Delawares depart with my speeches to the Shawanese having just now taken their leave and are determined to remain neutral if the Shawanese should continue to insist upon satisfaction for what unfortunately happened [?] them the acknowledgements already made

John Connolly

The Ordeal of John Connolly: The Pursuit of Wealth Through Loyalism by Doug MacGregor

John Connolly, a determined Pennsylvanian who would become a Virginia land speculator, spent much of his life in the backcountry, and by 1774 he believed he had succeeded in capitalizing on his familiarity with the fertile lands along the Ohio River.  He utilized his knowledge of the Ohio Valley’s interior to impress many visitors to the frontier, including George Washington, and finally to engage in a plan to acquire from Virginia a valuable tract of land at the Falls of the Ohio (present day Louisville, Kentucky).  His knowledge of the land would not be all that he needed to secure his title.  To obtain his grant he agreed to enforce Virginia’s control over the Fort Pitt (or Pittsburgh) area, which Pennsylvania also claimed.  At Fort Pitt the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers flow together to form the Ohio River, which was at the time the primary route to the Illinois Country and the Mississippi Valley.  The colony that possessed Fort Pitt controlled the main route to the West.  Connolly also sought to extinguish Native American claims to the Ohio River Valley.  Connolly was succeeding in these ventures when the outbreak of the American Revolution posed a new problem.  His title to the land could only survive with the support of Lord Dunmore, Virginia’s governor.  Connolly consequently maintained his loyalty to his “King and Country” and fled Pittsburgh to join Dunmore in exile off the coast of Virginia.  Without the governor and without royal government, Connolly would lose his land and his chance to rise above the “common sort.”  However, because of his loyalty, he lost not only his land, but his family, health, property, and his right to return to the United States.

Although John Connolly would later clash with Pennsylvanian officials, while trying to establish Virginia’s control over the contested area, he had been born near Wright’s Ferry in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  His exact year of birth is unknown but is believed to have been between 1742 and 1744.  He was the only child of John Connolly, a surgeon in the British Army, who died in 1747, and Susanna Howard Ewing, who died in 1753.  She also had two other sons by another marriage, one of whom was James Ewing, who would become a general in the Continental Army.[1]

 Upon Susanna’s death, her son John was placed under the care of James Wright, who apprenticed him to be a doctor.  However, it was his “ambition to be a soldier,” and  in 1762 he found his opportunity in the global struggle of the Seven Years’ War (known in the United States as the French and Indian War, 1754-1763) and became a surgeon’s mate.  In 1764 he briefly joined the British forces under Col. Henry Bouquet as a volunteer for the march into the homelands of hostile Native American nations.[2]

Connolly claimed he made his way west to the backcountry at this time to “make myself worthy to serve my King and country on future occasions.”  Sometime before 1767, he was living in the frontier village of Pittsburgh, where he married Susannah, a daughter of Samuel Sample, a tavern keeper.  Connolly soon found himself in debt in Pittsburgh and left for the British forts in the newly acquired Illinois country.   There, Connolly followed the footsteps of his prominent uncle, George Croghan, and entered into trade with Native Americans in 1769.  Lacking the skills required to make the business a success, Connolly left the Illinois Country in greater debt and was back in Pittsburgh by autumn 1770.  He had not amassed the fortune he had sought in the trade with Native Americans, but he had gained an intimate knowledge of the land and waterways of the frontier.[3]

In Pittsburgh Connolly spent much of his time at his father-in-law’s tavern, which attracted many visitors and land speculators, including George Washington, who dined with Connolly and “other Gentlemen” at Sample’s on November 22, 1770.  He was impressed by Connolly’s knowledge of the lands to the west and described him as “a very sensible Intelligent man who had travell’d over a good deal of this Western Country both by land and water.”  Following a trip to the Illinois Country, Connolly wrote Washington on June 29, 1773, asking for help in securing from Virginia two thousand acres at the Falls of the Ohio.  Anticipating success in obtaining a title, he had the tract surveyed.  The land at the Falls was valuable because travelers on the Ohio River unloaded their watercrafts to portage around the cascade.  This necessity ensured that every traveler on the river would be diverted through any town built at the site, making it an ideal location for settlement and a source of profit to the proprietor of the land.  Possession of this location would be the key to wealth as people moved west.[4]

Although Connolly hoped Washington would help him get the lands, a brighter prospect appeared at Fort Pitt in the person of John Murray, Fourth Earl of Dunmore and governor of Virginia.  In the summer of 1773 Dunmore toured the Ohio River Valley, seeking land for investment.  There he met Connolly, who must have impressed the governor, for Connolly was invited to Williamsburg the following December.  That meeting set in motion armed strife between Virginia and the Native Americans for possession of the Ohio Country and between Virginia and Pennsylvania for possession of the Fort Pitt area.  Patrick Henry was at the meeting, and in September 1774 he relayed the details to Thomas Wharton of Philadelphia, as both the war with the Native Americans and the colonial boundary dispute were approaching the boiling point.  Connolly had described the richness of the lands in the Ohio Country to Dunmore, who stated that he intended to move his family to America.  The governor wished to build a fortune by driving out the Native Americans, primarily the Shawnee, from this territory, securing it for Virginia, and then selling the land at a profit.[5]

At the meeting Dunmore granted Connolly four thousand acres at the Falls.  In doing so, Dunmore relied upon Virginia’s second charter of 1609, which claimed much of the land as far west as the “Western Sea,” including Fort Pitt and the Ohio River Valley. The Proclamation of 1763 had barred settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. However, complaints from land-hungry colonials led Britain in the Fort Stanwix Treaty (1768) to allow them to purchase additional lands west of the Appalachians from the Iroquois Confederacy, which claimed sovereignty over much of the area. The Shawnee, Delaware, and Mingo nations, who actually lived in this region of the Ohio River Valley, protested the Iroquois claim and the sale.  They had not been involved in the negotiations and had received none of the proceeds.  The British government instructed Virginia not to issue any grants in the area to prevent confrontation with the disgruntled nations.  Dunmore ignored these instructions and gave Connolly his four-thousand-acre grant.  Other colonists whose applications were rejected made “a great deal of Noise.”  William Preston, surveyor of Fincastle County, noted to George Washington that it was “the Opinion of many good Judges that the Patents [which Dunmore granted were] altogether illegal.”  Even though the grant at the Falls may have been dubious, Connolly returned to Fort Pitt to assert Virginia’s authority over the region. [6]

In 1772 Gen. Thomas Gage, commander-in-chief of His Majesty’s Forces in North America, ordered that Fort Pitt be abandoned, leaving the settlement undefended.  This created a power vacuum that allowed Pennsylvania to sell land in the region pursuant to the Fort Stanwix purchase.  As settlers flowed westward, Pennsylvania created new western counties -- Bedford in 1771 and Westmoreland in 1773 -- to govern them.  At the same time Dunmore was evading royal instructions prohibiting the creation of new counties in western Virginia by claiming that the Fort Pitt area lay in the District of West Augusta, in Augusta County, which had been created in 1738.[7]

On January 6, 1774, Connolly posted a notice proclaiming himself “Captain Commandant of the Militia of Pittsburgh and its Dependencies” and ordered the Virginia militia to muster on January 25.  Arthur St. Clair, a magistrate in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, quickly informed Gov. John Penn of the situation and arrested Connolly.  Connolly was soon released, but his imprisonment marked the beginning of often violent civil disturbances that continued until the settlement of the boundary between Pennsylvania and Virginia in 1780.  However, during 1774 Connolly found great support among Pittsburgh residents and easily filled the ranks of his militia.  At this time the opposing officials began arresting each other’s supporters and puling down homes to intimidate their rivals.[8]

Almost immediately after Connolly’s announcement of his captaincy in January 1774, Virginian settlers violently attacked the Native Americans living in the region.  When they retaliated, Connolly issued a circular letter in April that frontier inhabitants regarded as a declaration of war against the Shawnee and Mingo nations.  This development led to the brutal massacre of the family of Mingo leader Logan.  When Logan retaliated, Dunmore and the Virginians used these attacks as a pretext to mount a military campaign against the Shawnee and Mingo nations.  Arthur St. Clair thought the violent conduct of the Virginians was “part of the Virginia plan” or “at least part of Mr. Connolly’s plan,” and he “hoped some of the devilish schemes that have been carrying on here will come to light.”  The Pennsylvania Gazette asserted that “it appears that a scheming party in Virginia … mostly land jobbers, would wish to have those lands.”  While carrying out this supposedly “devilish scheme” of driving out all rivals to Virginia’s claim to the Ohio Valley, Connolly advertised lots for sale at the Falls.[9]

            Dunmore’s visit to the area in September 1774 reinforced Virginia’s claim to the region.  He arrived at Fort Pitt at the head of the contingent of troops Virginia had raised to confront the hostile Native American nations of the Ohio Country.  The Virginia forces were divided into two groups: one under Dunmore and the other under Andrew Lewis.  On October 10 one thousand Shawnee warriors attacked Lewis’s force at Point Pleasant along the Ohio River.  The result was a draw, but the Shawnee withdrew toward Chillicothe to counter the second force under Dunmore.  Facing a numerically superior enemy on two fronts, the Shawnee sued for peace.  Dunmore held a peace conference, at which final peace negotiations were scheduled for the following summer at Fort Pitt.[10]

            Because of Virginia’s victory and Lord Dunmore’s presence in the region, the Virginia faction grew stronger, and the boundary dispute more bitter.  Virginia officials kept up their harassment of Pennsylvanians, claiming they held invalid land grants.  They formed a jury of twelve men to try each Pennsylvania land-grant holder.  On May 3, 1775, Connolly confiscated the land of Devereaux Smith, a leading Pennsylvania official in the Fort Pitt region.[11]

In 1775 the struggle halted not through the diplomatic efforts of governors Penn or Dunmore but in a manner neither side could have imagined.  Around May 1, news of the battles of Lexington and Concord reached Pittsburgh.  As a result, even though there had been no previous agitation in the region against Britain’s policies, Virginia and Pennsylvania settlers called an emergency meeting on May 16 at Fort Pitt, which created a committee of correspondence for West Augusta, Virginia.  It began mobilizing a militia, securing ammunition, and cultivating a “friendship with the Indians.”  The same day, residents of Westmoreland County met at Hannastown, the county seat, to give their support to the American cause.[12]

    The Virginians and Pennsylvanians had thus put aside their land disputes and joined together by signing their names to fight for liberty.  Virginian support for Dunmore disappeared, although only a few weeks earlier many Virginians had sent an address thanking him for his help against the Shawnee and repudiating a rumor that the governor had deliberately incited them to war.  Their resolves of May 16 to create a Revolutionary committee reversed this position and instead blamed the “wicked minions of power to execute our ruin, added to the menaces of an Indian War, likewise said to be in contemplation, thereby thinking to gain our attention, and divert it from that still more interesting object of liberty and freedom.”[13]

The majority of frontier inhabitants appeared to favor the American cause.  The English traveler, Nicholas Cresswell, a young aristocrat in search of wealth through land speculation, often found himself in trouble and was even threatened with a tarring and feathering.  Cresswell noted that the frontier population was “Liberty mad,” thinking of nothing but war, and that “the best riflemen” were prepared to go to Boston “for the humane purpose of killing the English officers.”   Pittsburgh Patriots showed their solidarity and support in August 1775 by confiscating and burning tea at a Liberty Pole in a local version of Boston’s “Tea Party.”  There were, however, some who were troubled by the prospect of war.  Arthur St. Clair, who would later become a major general in the Continental Army and Pennsylvania’s highest ranking citizen, wrote in the days after his regions’ mobilization for war that he was “as much afraid of success in this contest as of being vanquished.”[14]

    The Revolution’s onset led all involved in the western land disputes to change their priorities.  In Williamsburg, Dunmore was busy combating the Patriotic fervor.  On May 21 he infuriated Virginians by moving the colony’s store of gunpowder to a British warship.  In response, Patrick Henry raised a company of militia, and Dunmore fled to a British warship in the Chesapeake Bay, but only after issuing a final order disbanding all Virginia troops, including those at Fort Pitt.  On July 25 Pennsylvanians from the Fort Pitt area forwarded a request to the Continental Congress for a temporary boundary.  However, Virginia and Pennsylvania delegates to the Congress, including Benjamin Franklin, John Dickinson, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson, jointly asked that the troubles of the Pittsburgh area be forgotten “for the defense of liberties in America.”  The boundary could be settled later.[15]

In May 1775, when most of the inhabitants of Pittsburgh had agreed to favor the Patriots, John Connolly had already decided whom he would support.  In reply to a letter from Connolly, George Washington informed him that matters between the colonies and Great Britain “wear a disagreeable aspect” and that the “minds of men are exceedingly disturbed at the measures of the British government.”  Washington ended with the ominous thought that “a little time must now unfold the mystery, as matters are drawing to a point.”  Connolly now “resolved to exert every faculty in defense of the royal cause.”  He feared his land grants would be worthless if the Americans won the struggle.  He had come too far to abandon his dreams.  He needed Governor Dunmore to stay in power.  At the start of 1775 Pittsburgh had seemed to be firmly under Virginia’s control, and it appeared to be only a matter of time before he would reap a substantial profit from his land at the Falls of the Ohio River. Without Lord Dunmore, Connolly’s claim to the Falls was tenuous at best.  All of the other land grants Virginia had issued between the Fort Stanwix purchase in 1768 and Lord Dunmore’s arrival in 1772 had been dismissed by the Privy Council, including those held by Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, as they intended in enforcing the Proclamation of 1763.  Dunmore’s grant to Connolly, which had not been dismissed, was an anomaly and considered “altogether illegal” in the “the Opinion of many good Judges.”  When Lord Dartmouth learned of Dunmore’s actions, he ordered him to cease further land grants.[16]

Eventually in 1779 Pennsylvania and Virginia agreed to appoint commissioners to determine a permanent boundary.  Pennsylvania won the dispute after surveys revealed that the region was within the area originally granted to Pennsylvania; the Mason-Dixon line was extended westward to its present location.  The matter came to a close on September 23, 1780, when both states ratified the solution.  Pittsburgh was now permanently under Pennsylvania’s control.[17]

However, in 1775, as the Revolution was beginning, Connolly had received orders from Dunmore to disband the Virginia militia at Fort Pitt and to lead the negotiations with the Native Americans that spring in Dunmore’s absence.  His mission was to enlist their support for the Royal cause.  Connolly also took it upon himself secretly to find out who else in Pittsburgh would remain loyal to the King.  He immediately undertook to persuade the Ohio Indians to join the British.  The negotiations held at Fort Pitt in 1775 had major implications for the war developing in the east.  Connolly was determined that the Ohio Indians should support the Crown, and the American Patriots were equally determined that they should not.[18]

Between May 19 and 21, 1775, Connolly issued invitations to the Shawnees, Mingoes, and Delawares to attend a conference in Pittsburgh on June 20.  Pittsburgh Patriots sent word to the Continental Congress about the forthcoming negotiations, asking that it send a representative.  Whig leaders in Virginia appointed a committee to attend the conference as well.  James Wood, chairman of this Virginia Committee, set out for Pittsburgh on June 25.[19]

Pennsylvania officials arrested Connolly on the evening of June 21 and moved him fifty miles east to Ligonier.  In captivity Connolly was informed that he had been imprisoned because he was a “dangerous person and a Tory, an appellation lately revived” as well as being “suspected of an intention to raise a body of men to act against the liberties of America.” Originally Connolly was to be sent to Philadelphia to stand trial before the Continental Congress. However, he was not sent there.  The Virginia officials of West Augusta suspected his arrest was actually another maneuver in the boundary dispute, and not a preventive measure in the war with Great Britain.  Consequently, they arrested three Pennsylvania magistrates and sent a “spirited” letter to the Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, Committee, demanding Connolly’s release.   St. Clair avoided any potential violence by releasing Connolly.[20]

Meanwhile the council with the Ohio Indians had already begun without Connolly.  Upon his release, he joined the conference and took an active role until its close on July 6.  The conference was productive, and all of the attending Native American nations as well as all of the whites left satisfied, desiring peace.  Connolly did not complete the alliance that Dunmore sought; however, that did not stop him from boasting that he had done so, when he applied after the American Revolution to a parliamentary commission for Loyalist claims for compensation in London.  Even the committee appointed by Virginia’s revolutionary government to oversee the conference was pleased with Connolly’s performance.  On July 9 James Wood, the Virginia commissioner appointed to the conference, commended Connolly on his “most open and candid manner.”[21]

  Now that negotiations were over, Connolly was free to leave Pittsburgh to join Lord Dunmore, who had been in exile since July 25 aboard a British warship stationed off the Virginia coast.  While making preparations to leave, Connolly carefully sought out the men in Pittsburgh who remained loyal to the King.  He composed a list of their names, which he later submitted to Lord Dunmore.[22]

  With three Shawnees and Alan Cameron, a fellow Loyalist, he traveled to Williamsburg under the pretense that the Shawnees wished to meet with Virginia’s revolutionary leaders.  Pittsburgh Patriots sent warnings ahead, alerting officials to his presence.  At Warm Springs, Virginia local officials detained Connolly, intending to investigate further.  However, the committee appointed to do so never materialized, and Connolly left in a hurry.  Near Winchester, his party was detained again because of similar warnings, one of which came from the West Augusta Committee.  As the local committee inspected Connolly and his entourage, a messenger arrived declaring that the West Augusta Committee desired Connolly’s presence in Richmond.  The kind words that James Wood had written about him had changed the Winchester Committee’s attitude toward him.  It congratulated Connolly on his service to America and sent him on his way.  The following day he sent the Shawnees to Richmond, but he continued to Dunmore’s warship.[23]

Connolly stayed with Dunmore for two weeks, discussing a plan of war he had developed to defeat the American cause.  On August 9 Connolly wrote to John Gibson, whom he believed to be a trustworthy Pittsburgh Loyalist.  Connolly enclosed a message from Dunmore to the Ohio Indians and asked Gibson to translate it.  In exchange for their neutrality, Dunmore promised that the King would protect their land. The message never made it to the intended recipients, for Gibson turned it over to the West Augusta Committee of Correspondence.[24]

Following the letter to Gibson, Connolly and Dunmore completed their plan of attack, which they hoped would crush the rebellion.  Connolly’s scheme relied upon the assistance of the Ohio Indians and the Pittsburgh Loyalists, whom he had identified before departing.  The plot called for Connolly to start in Detroit and to lead Native American and Loyalist troops to Pittsburgh, gathering additional men along the way. After seizing Fort Pitt, Connolly’s force was to proceed to Alexandria, Virginia, where they would meet Dunmore’s troops, successfully cutting the colonies in half. With this plan, Connolly traveled to Boston.  He met General Gage, received his approval, and immediately left for Virginia.  He began his journey to Detroit in late November with Alan Cameron, who had accompanied him from Fort Pitt.[25]

    Connolly’s party did not get very far.  Upon reaching Hagerstown, Maryland, Connolly met a man who had been a private under his command while in Pittsburgh.  The private recognized and publicly addressed him as “Major.”  This alerted some Patriots, and Connolly left immediately before anyone questioned him.  Meanwhile, the private headed for the local tavern. The Continental Congress had already informed the Virginia Committee of Safety of Connolly’s activities.  The committee ordered that he be secured. With the private’s help, the colonel of the Hagerstown militia now realized that Connolly was a wanted man.  The committee set out after him and captured Connolly’s party on November 23.  The committee searched the group’s baggage and found a copy of Dunmore’s instructions, explicitly implicating Connolly in the Loyalist military plot.[26]

Connolly and his comrades were held until further instructions were obtained from Congress, which notified Washington of his arrest.  On December 8 Congress ordered that the prisoners be jailed in Philadelphia.  Washington was pleased Connolly was now in prison and no longer a threat.  He reported to Joseph Reed, who would become Pennsylvania’s radical Constitutionalist President, that he was “exceeding [sic] happy to find that villain Connolly is seized” and hoped that he would “meet with the punishment due to his demerit and treachery.”[27]

    While in confinement with Cameron, Connolly managed to write warnings to those involved in his plot.  He wrote to Alexander McKee in Pittsburgh, asking him to send a warning to the British officers on the frontier.  He also wrote to Capt. Richard Beringer Lernoult, the commanding officer at Detroit, and Capt. Hugh Lord, commander at Illinois, informing them of his failed plot. These letters were given for delivery to a Dr. John Smyth, who was part of Connolly’s party but who had escaped on December 29, just before the group was moved to Philadelphia.[28]

The trip to Philadelphia was difficult for Connolly and Cameron.  They spent the first day of 1776 being paraded through Yorktown, Pennsylvania, at the head of a “Rogue’s March,” during which they were ridiculed by the townspeople, who sarcastically wished them a Happy New Year.  From York, they were taken to Wright’s Ferry, Connolly’s birthplace.  There, his half-brother, James Ewing, watched as he was taken to prison, making it a very “melancholy” experience for the prisoner.  They arrived in Philadelphia on January 3 and were brought before the Continental Congress, which handed them over to the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, which then confined them in a miserable makeshift prison that Connolly described as nothing more than a “dirty room.”[29]

Although Connolly had been captured, he hoped that the warnings Dr. Smyth had smuggled out would alert the British to the failure of his plot and thereby possibly salvage the plan without him.  However, Smyth had been captured on January 10, just before he reached Pittsburgh.  Not only did Connolly’s letters fail to reach and alert the British, but they also encouraged the Patriots to keep a close watch on suspected Loyalists, including Connolly’s friend Alexander McKee.[30]

            Soon after being imprisoned, Connolly sought parole from the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety.  He wrote on January 26, 1776, promising to remain idle in “the present unhappy contest.”  However, the committee found him to be too dangerous and denied his request.  The jail’s deplorable conditions began to affect Connolly’s health.  In February he wrote to the Continental Congress and the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, notifying both of his deteriorating condition and asking to be exchanged in order to save his health.  Dr. Benjamin Rush examined him and prescribed exercise, particularly riding a horse and exposure to fresh air.  Instead, Congress modified his incarceration by allowing him to walk the prison yard.[31]

Even from jail, Connolly did what he could to support the British cause and to warn the western posts of a possible American attack.  He found an opportunity when the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety began to grant paroles to British and Loyalist prisoners, who would take an oath to remain passive throughout the war.  Connolly persuaded a fellow inmate to take the oath and then to transmit messages to Pittsburgh, where other Loyalists would pass them on to the British posts.  However, Congress discovered the plan and revoked his prison-yard walking privileges.[32]

In February 1776 Connolly suffered a more substantial loss -- all of his land.  In his role as Virginia’s agent, he had amassed a large debt in rebuilding Fort Pitt.  His creditors had been frustrated, when he left Pittsburgh in the summer of 1775 to join the British, but they were overjoyed in January 1776, when they heard that he was in the Philadelphia jail.  They took advantage of his imprisonment to collect the debts he owed.  Among his creditors were Alexander Ross and the firm of Simon and Campbell.  The latter reached an agreement with Connolly giving John Campbell two thousand acres at the Falls of the Ohio.  Connolly mortgaged the remaining two thousand acres to the firm of Simon and Campbell.  Alexander Ross also visited Connolly in jail.  They resolved a portion of the debt owed to Ross, but a larger amount went unpaid.  Losing these parcels of land strengthened Connolly’s attachment to the British cause.  He seemed to have reasoned that only through the restoration of British rule would he regain his lands.[33]

Connolly’s next scheme came in late March 1776 when his father-in-law, Samuel Sample, visited him in his Philadelphia cell.  Connolly shared with him a plan he hoped would free all the Loyalists imprisoned in Philadelphia.  The details are not known, but Congress once again discovered the plot, placed Connolly in solitary confinement, and even contemplated imposing a harsher punishment on him in retaliation for the conditions American prisoners endured in British prisons.[34]

On May 13 Susannah Connolly came to see her husband but after five days asked Congress to let her leave.  Her application was denied, and she was directed not to depart the city without permission. They feared her husband might have given her information to transmit to Pittsburgh Loyalists. Throughout the summer and fall, Susannah repeatedly and unsuccessfully applied to Congress for permission to leave.  In November 1776 she reported to Congress that her husband was planning to escape.  They investigated immediately but could find no evidence to support the claim.  She then complained to Congress that her husband had been mistreating her since she had revealed the plot, and it was now impossible for her to stay with him.  She was finally granted permission to depart; she now had the freedom to leave Philadelphia and her husband for good.[35]

The approach of the British army into New Jersey in 1776 induced Congress to vacate Philadelphia and move to Baltimore in December.  On December 12 it ordered that Connolly be sent there, but the order was not carried out.  Connolly then requested that he be moved to a remote jail in the country, where he might regain his health; but this request was denied.  He remained in Philadelphia, where his half-brother, Gen. James Ewing of the Continental Army, soon took command.  Ewing was a veteran of the French and Indian War and a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly from 1771 to 1775.  He was appointed a brigadier general in 1776.  In mid-January 1777 Ewing obtained permission for Connolly to stay at his farm, near Wrightsville, Pennsylvania.  However, in mid-February Connolly was ordered to return to prison.  On February 26 he again complained of ill health, and on March 9 Dr. Benjamin Rush examined him and once more concluded that Connolly could only be cured by living where fresh air was available.  On March 29 James Ewing presented Connolly’s case to Congress and vowed to take responsibility for him.  Congress referred the matter to the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, which on April 2 accepted Ewing’s offer of responsibility for Connolly, released him on two thousand pounds bail, but limited his freedom.  Now that Ewing was responsible for Connolly, the Pennsylvania Committee would not have to worry about him, and the bail money was greatly needed for the war effort. Connolly enjoyed his time on Ewing’s farm, where he improved his health and re-focused his attention on being exchanged.  He remained on the Ewing farm until October 14, 1777, when he was forced to return to prison because of Sir William Howe’s advance on Philadelphia.  Connolly was moved to the jail in Yorktown, Pennsylvania, where he again complained of his confinement.  In May 1778 he and his fellow inmates informed Congress of the horrible conditions and asked for parole, if they could not be exchanged.  Congress investigated the claims and concluded on May 23 that the accusations were groundless and recommended that the jailers be stricter with the prisoners.  Connolly’s next request for an exchange also failed, and he was returned to the Philadelphia jail in early August after the British had retreated from Philadelphia.  He again campaigned for release, but the congressional committee created to hear his case denied his parole for fear he would join with the Loyalist and British forces on the frontier and because he had been arrested as a spy.  This accusation surprised Connolly; and he bitterly denied he was a spy.  He argued that he was a commissioned officer under Lord Dunmore and that America had not even been an independent nation when he was captured; therefore there was no country to spy against at the time.  The committee promised to consider his request for parole if an exchange could not be achieved.[36]

On November 12 the committee reported its findings to Congress and argued that Connolly should be treated as a spy guilty of repeatedly attempting to escape.  The committee was upset, too, with his frequent complaints of ill treatment, news of which had reached British ears.  Joshua Loring, the British Commissary of Prisoners, had written to the Continental Congress threatening to retaliate against American prisoners of equal rank if his conditions did not improve.  Congress wrote to Loring, advising him of Connolly’s status as a spy rather than as a prisoner of war and of the groundlessness of such complaints.[37]

Congress then appointed another committee to handle Connolly’s case.  It reported to Congress on July 14, 1779 that Connolly was indeed a commissioned officer, not a spy, and suggested parole.  Congress rejected the recommendation.  On August 24 and again on October 14 Connolly petitioned Congress to follow the suggestions of the committee.  These petitions were forwarded to the Board of War, which quickly tired of his complaints and referred his case back to Congress with the suggestion that he be exchanged for an American officer of equal rank.  By November 17, 1779, Congress believed Connolly’s release would pose no danger to the war effort and agreed to exchange him.[38]

  Connolly was granted parole and in July 1780 traveled to New York City to exchange himself for Lt. Col. Nathaniel Ramsey.  This exchange indicates the importance of Connolly, as Ramsey was one of the heroes of the 1778 Battle of Monmouth.  The deal was completed on October 25, 1780.  As part of his exchange, Connolly pledged that he would do nothing to harm the United States.  However, he immediately began to design a second scheme to destroy the new nation.  He also evidently hoped to regain his land in the Ohio Valley.  To accomplish these goals he presented British General Sir Henry Clinton with a plan similar to his original one.  He would lead British troops across Lake Erie, take Fort Pitt, and proceed toward the Potomac River, where he would join British troops coming from the east.  General Clinton liked the idea and hoped to implement it later in 1781.  However, by late March 1781, Washington had already received intelligence of the plot and warned Fort Pitt.  British troops on the frontier outposts did not learn of the plan until September 1781, and by then it was too late to carry it out.[39]

            Realizing the plan was no longer feasible, Clinton sent Connolly to join Lord Cornwallis in the South.  Connolly was placed in charge of Royalists from Virginia and North Carolina, as well as the Loyal York Volunteers.  Before he could organize these troops, Connolly was ordered to Yorktown, Virginia, to counter the recent arrival of the French fleet.  Connolly fell ill and received permission on September 21 to travel to the countryside to regain his health, but he was captured instead.  Eventually, he was brought before General Washington, whom he foolishly believed remained his friend.  Much to his dismay, Connolly lamented that the “friendly sentiments that he once publicly professed for me no longer existed.”  Washington ordered him back to prison, where he stayed until March 1782, when he was released and allowed to go to British occupied New York City for his voyage to Europe.[40]

            In that year Connolly left New York for London, where he survived on his pay as an officer in the Provincial army.  While there, he requested compensation for his losses in service of his King.  In 1783 he published “A Narrative of the Transactions, Imprisonment, and Sufferings of John Connolly, an American Loyalist and Lieut.-Col. in his Majesty’s Service,” in which he chronicled his actions.[41]

             To compensate Loyalists for their losses in the Revolution Parliament created a special commission to evaluate their pleas for recompense.  Among the committee’s standards in compensating Loyalists was that payment would not be granted for uncultivated lands.  Most of Connolly’s claim was of this type.  On February 2, 1784, he presented his case to the commission, claiming a loss of £6,849 for the four thousand acres at the Falls of the Ohio; for other lots he owned elsewhere; and for his wages, while in the service of Virginia.  After reviewing the case, the commission allowed him £793 in compensation.  The loss of his wife, family, and health went uncompensated.[42]

By the winter of 1787-1788, Connolly had moved to Quebec, from where he was sent to Detroit to act as lieutenant governor in 1788.  While in Detroit, he sought to regain the Falls of the Ohio and the Kentucky territory for Great Britain.  Also, he sought to secure for himself the lands Dunmore had previously granted him.  By this time settlers had moved near the Falls in the Kentucky territory of Virginia, naming the place Louisville.  The following year Louisville settlers petitioned the Virginia Assembly, asking that Connolly’s claim be forfeited, that their town be established, and that titles be granted to inhabitants for plots of land. The Virginia Assembly complied with this request the following year, completing Connolly’s loss.   To counter this act he set out in September 1788 for Louisville, where he told his old partner John Campbell that he had come to estimate the value of the land, and he also offered to help seize New Orleans from Spain.  Campbell felt Connolly posed no threat as he was too “obnubilated” by alcohol.[43]

            By 1788, the Kentuckians wished to separate from Virginia because they were too remote from the capital to be adequately represented there.  They held a constitutional convention, at which they decided to become an independent member of the United States.  Virginia approved this resolution, but before Kentucky’s situation could be discussed in the Continental Congress, the United States Constitution was adopted, and Kentucky’s statehood was postponed.  Connolly used this opportunity to make a public offer to the people of Kentucky to join Great Britain.  He suggested that the King would supply them with men and arms so that they could secure the Mississippi River and the port at New Orleans, which would provide access for shipping.  Kentucky’s settlers rejected his offer and forced him to flee.[44]

            Little is known of Connolly’s activities over the next few years.  By 1798 he was at L’Assomption, Montreal, Canada.  He wrote to his half-brother James Ewing and suggested that the war raging in Europe would eventually involve the United States in a war with Spain.  Surprisingly, he offered to assist the Americans in such a war.[45]

  Connolly’s final attempt to obtain a position of importance came with the death of his old friend Alexander McKee, Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs at Detroit.  With the aid of the Duke of Kent, Connolly was appointed to the vacancy in December 1799.  However, the position had already been promised to Capt. William Claus, the grandson of Sir William Johnson, the famous Indian agent of the mid-eighteenth century.  Claus obtained the aid of Canada’s Lt.-Gov. Peter Hunter, who wrote to the British ministry, which forced Connolly out by July 1800.  Writing from Montreal to his half-brother James, Connolly noted that “the repeated disappointments I have met with in my life, & the late unexpected shock has brought on me complaints which I much fear.  My old nervous disorder is much increased accompanied with others of a serious nature.”  Little is known of his life following this letter, but after suffering a “long and painful illness,” he died at about the age of seventy in Montreal on January 30, 1813.  According to his then wife, Margaret, his final years were spent mulling over the many frustrations and disappointments that had filled his life.[46]

            Only death could bring an end to the pain and frustrations that plagued John Connolly.  He had made grandiose plans throughout his life, hoping they would bring him wealth.  He failed as a trader with the Native Americans on the frontier and lacked the skills necessary to succeed in business.  He came closest to success through his valuable grant at the Falls of the Ohio.  To obtain this title, he promoted a vicious inter-provincial dispute and a war with Native Americans.  These ventures nearly made him a wealthy man.  But he was stymied by the American Revolution, which displaced the government that would have granted his wishes.  He chose to support Governor Dunmore and the British to achieve his dream of making a fortune.  But Britain and he lost the Revolution.  In failure, he moved to Canada with neither land nor wealth.  Not only had he lost his dreams, he had lost his health, his family, and his property.

 Notes

[1] F. R. Diffenderfer gives either 1742 or 1743 as the year of Connolly's birth in F. R. Diffenderfer, “Col. John Connolly: Loyalist,” Lancaster County Historical Society Publications 7 (1903): 109.

[2] John Connolly, “A Narrative of the Transactions, Imprisonment, and Sufferings of John Connolly, an American Loyalist and Lieut.-Col. in his Majesty's Service,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (PMHB) 12 (1888): 310.

[3] Connolly, “A Narrative,” 311; Charles Hanna, The Wilderness Trail, 2 vols. (New York, 1911), 2: 84; Clarence Walworth Alvord, ed., Trade and Politics, 1767-1769, vol. 16 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library, British Series, vol. 3 (Springfield, Ill., 1921), 519-20; Franklin Ellis and Samuel Evans, History of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia,1883), 954.

[4] Donald Jackson, ed., The Diaries of George Washington, 6 vols. (Charlottesville, Virg., 1976), 2: 322-33; Stanislaus M. Hamilton, ed., Letters to Washington and Accompanying Papers, 5 vols. (New York, 1901-1902), 4: 208.

[5] “Letters of Thomas Wharton, 1773-1783,” PMHB 33 (1909): 445-46.

[6] “[John Connolly land grant], December 10, 1773,” Reuben T. Durrett Misc. MSS, University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center; “William Preston to George Washington, March 7, 1774,” Hamilton, ed., Letters to Washington, 4: 345-47.  See also Patricia Johnson, William Preston and the Allegheny Patriots (Pulaski, Virg., 1976), 114.

[7] See John W. Huston, “The British Evacuation of Fort Pitt, 1772,” Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine (WPHM) 48 (1965): 317-29: Donna B. Munger, Pennsylvania Land Records (Wilmington, Del., 1991), 63; Woody Holton, “The Ohio Indians and the Coming of the American Revolution,” Journal of Southern History 60 (1994): 457-71; Thomas P. Abernathy, Western Lands and the American Revolution (New York, 1937), 94.

[8] William Smith, ed., The St. Clair Papers, 2 vols. (Cincinnati, Ohio, 1882), 1: 272, 279, 309; Boyd Crumrine, ed., Virginia Court Records in Southwestern Pennsylvania  (Baltimore, Md., 1974), 18.

[9] Anne M. Ousterhout, A State Divided: Opposition in Pennsylvania to the American Revolution (New York, 1987), 250-53.

[10] Nicholas B. Wainwright, “Turmoil at Pittsburgh, Diary of Augustine Prevost, 1774,” PMHB 85 (1961): 118, 131.

[11] Samuel Hazard, ed., Pennsylvania Archives, ser. 1, 12 vols. (Philadelphia, 1853-1856), 4: 625-26.

[12] Edward G. Williams, “Fort Pitt and the Revolution on the Western Frontier,” WPHM 59 (1976): 131, 133-35; Peter Force, ed., American Archives, ser. 4, 5 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1837-1844), 2: 612-15.

[13] Ousterhout, A State Divided, 253; Force, ed., American Archives ser. 4, 2: 612-15; also found in Edward Williams “Fort Pitt and the Revolution,” 133-35.

[14] Nicholas Cresswell, The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, 1774-1777 (New York, 1924), 74, 97-99; “The Pittsburgh Tea Party,” PMHB 39 (1915): 230-31; Smith, ed. The St. Clair Papers, 1: 353-54.

[15] Williams, “Fort Pitt and the Revolution,” 27-31, 32-33, 131.

[16] Connolly, “A Narrative,” 314-15; “William Preston to George Washington, March 7, 1774,” Hamilton, ed., Letters to Washington, 4: 345-47; Holton, “The Ohio Indians,” 467-473.  See also Patricia Johnson, William Preston and the Allegheny Patriots, 114.

[17] Williams, “Fort Pitt and the Revolution,” 52; Percy B. Caley, “Lord Dunmore and the Pennsylvania-Virginia Boundary Dispute,” WPHM 22 (1939): 100; J. W. F. White, “The Judiciary of Allegheny County,” PMHB 7 (1883): 153.

[18] Connolly, “A Narrative,” 315.

[19] Robert L. Scribner and Brent Tartar, eds., Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence, 8 vols. (Charlottesville, Virg., 1983), 3:148-55; Hazard, ed., Pennsylvania Archives, ser. 1, 4: 629; “Virginia Legislative Papers,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 14 (1907): 56.

[20] “Virginia Legislative Papers,” 60-61; Connolly, “A Narrative,” 318, 320, 356-57.

[21] Connolly, “A Narrative,” 315; Scribner and Tartar, Revolutionary Virginia, 3: 272.

[22] Hanna, Wilderness Trail, 2: 79-80.

[23] Connolly, “A Narrative,” 321, 322-23.

[24] Force, ed., American Archives, ser. 4, 3:72, 72-73; Louise Kellogg and Reuben Gold Thwaites, The Revolution on the Upper Ohio, 1775-1777 (Madison, Wis., 1908), 71.

[25] Connolly, “A Narrative,” 410.

[26] Ibid., 413-14; Scribner and Tartar, Revolutionary Virginia, 4: 262.

[27] Force, ed., American Archives, ser. 4, 4: 155, 201, 216; John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington, 39 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1931), 4: 167.

[28] Force, ed., American Archives, ser. 4, 4: 479-80, 617; Connolly, “A Narrative,” 417.

[29] Connolly, “A Narrative,” 417-19; Force, ed., American Archives, ser. 4, 4:508; Connolly, “A Narrative,” 420.

[30] Force, ed., American Archives, ser. 4, 4: 615; Walter R. Hoberg, “Early History of Colonel Alexander McKee,” PMHB 58 (1934): 30-35.

[31] Hazard, ed., Pennsylvania Archives, ser. 1, 4: 703; Force, ed., American Archives, ser. 4, 4: 958-59, 1563, 1666.

[32] Connolly, “A Narrative,” 62.

[33] William W. Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of Legislature in the Year 1619, 13 vols. (New York, 1819-1823), 11: 321; T. L. Montgomery, ed., Pennsylvania Archives, ser. 6, 15 vols. (Harrisburg, Penn., 1907), 13: 10-11, 13-15, 22, 27.

[34] W.C. Ford, ed., Journals of Continental Congress, 18 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1905-1910), 4: 239, 257.

[35] Force, ed., American Archives, ser. 4, 6: 784, 1667, 1674; Peter Force, ed., American Archives, ser. 5, 3 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1853.), 3: 777.

[36] Force, ed., American Archives, ser. 5, 3:1606; Hazard, ed., Pennsylvania Archives, ser. 1, 5: 101, 130-31; Connolly, “A Narrative,” 64-70, 155-58; Force, ed., American Archives, ser. 4, 5: 1122;  J. B. Linn and William Egle, eds., Pennsylvania Archives, ser. 2, 19 vols. (Harrisburg, Penn., 1879), 1: 719; Colonial Records, 16 vols. (Harrisburg, Penn., 1852-1853), 11: 196, 229; Ford, ed., Journals of Continental Congress, 7: 229, 9:1004, 12: 1102,1136.

[37] Connolly, “A Narrative,” 159-62.

[38] Ford, ed., Journals of Continental Congress, 14: 514, 623, 825, 825-26, 990, 15: 1170, 1231; Connolly, “A Narrative,” 165-66.

[39] Connolly, “A Narrative,” 167; Williams, “Fort Pitt and the Revolution,” 435, 436-39.

[40] Connolly, “A Narrative,” 13: 281-83, 284-85, 286.

[41] Ibid., 286; Percy B. Caley, “The Life Adventures of Lieutenant-Colonel John Connolly:  The Story of a Tory,” WPHM 11 (1928): 23, n. 13.

[42] Claude H. Van Tyne, The Loyalists in the American Revolution  (Gloucester, Mass., 1959), 299-302; Clarence M. Burton, “John Connolly: A Tory of the Revolution,” American Antiquarian Society, new series, 20 (1909): 95; “Deposition of John Connolly,” Papers of the American Loyalist Claims Commission, Audit Office (AO) 13/134, Public Record Office, Great Britain (PRO); AO 12/109:102, Records of the American Loyalist Claims Commission, PRO.

[43] Burton, “John Connolly,” 99; Wilbur H. Siebert, “Kentucky’s Struggle with its Loyalist Proprietors,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 7 (1920): 122-23; Caley, “The Life Adventures,” 248-49; William Vincent Byars, ed., B. and M. Gratz: Merchants in Philadelphia, 1754-1798. (Jefferson City, Mo., 1916), 18.

[44] Caley, “The Life Adventures,” 251; Burton, “John Connolly”, 100, n.89.

[45] “John Connolly to James Ewing,” June 25, 1798, MG 23 I20, vol.1, James Ewing Fonds, National Archives of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario.

[46] “John Connolly to James Ewing,” July 30, 1800, MG 23 I20, vol.1, James Ewing Fonds, National Archives of Canada; Burton, “John Connolly,” 105.

---------------------------------

This piece was originally published in in The Other Loyalists: Ordinary People, Royalism, and the Revolution in the Middle Colonies, 1763-1787, edited by Joseph S. Tiedemann and Gene Fingerhut (SUNY Press, April 2009).