The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1937-07-22

by a Small Stockade for Safety by
which you'll See what number of Poor
Seals destitute of Every Necessary of
Life are here penned up & likely to be
Butchered without Immediate Relief
& Assistance & can Expect none I'M
less from the Province to which they
Belong. shall Submit to your wiser
Judgment the Best & Most Effectual
method for Such Relief & shall Con-
clude with hoping we shall have it in
time.
1 am Hounourable Sir,
i Your most Obedt. Servt.
THOS. CRESAP.
Colonel Cresap's list of desolate
men, women and children who had
taken refuge in his fort, has appar-
emily been lost, but it doubtless in
cluded the Friend family, which in
1853 lived on the Virginia shore of
the Potomac River near Old Town, and
who two or three years later settled
on the Youghiogheny.
Our Revolutionary Rangers
In the pension records in Washing
ton is an application for Revolu-
tionary War pension, filed by Gabriel
Friend, of Friendsville, dated Deem
Der ~, 1849.
In this document Gabriel Friend
says under oath that che entered the
service of the United States under
Captain Augustine Friend as a Ranger
or Indian Spy, in the year ITS, in the
month of June, and left the same in
1881, himself being a First Lieuten-
ant, and Byjah Harrington, Sergeant,
as volunteers, ordered out by Charles
Clinton, President of the Committee of
Safety, then sitting in Fort Cumber-
land"
The "field of operations" of this
company "was on the Big Yohagany,
Sandy and Cheat Rivers"-that is, it's
duty was to protect the Sandy Creek
and neighboring settlements in the
Youghiogheny and Cheat River val
legs, the center of their operations be-
ing Fort Morris.
Captain Augustine Friend was one of
the three brothers who settled on the
Youghiogheny in 1765, and an uncle
of Gabriel, who was son of John, Sr.
The sergeant, Byjah (Elijah?) Her.
rington, probably lived in the glades
on Harrington Run and gave his name
to that stream.
We have found no other record of
this company of Rangers, except one
payment by the State of Maryland to
Gabriel Friend for supplies during
the war. Gabriel was ninety years of
age when he applied for pension. He
had no discharge or other written
proof of service and his comrades were
all dead. The pension Office appears
to have considered the case some
twelve years, and, November 10, 1852,
Gabriel Friend, then 101 years old,
signed, in a very shaky hand, another
application on a regular FORM" but
he died pensionless.
Negro Mountain
1t was probably during Pontiac's
War that Colonel Thomas Cresap, of
Old Town, with a party of volunteers,
including a Negro slave belonging to
Cresap, pursued an Indian war party
from the Potomac Valley. North of
the Braddock Road, on one of our
highest mountains, the settlers over
took the enemy and fight ensued in
the woods. The Indians escaped after
MORALLY wounding Cresap's Negro.
Knowing that he must die, the Negro
begged his comrades to leave him and
return to their fort, but they loyalty
stayed with the poor slave until he
died, when they buried him on the
mountain, which since has been known
as Negro Mountain.
Indian Scalps-50 Pounds Each
An Act of the Maryland Legislature,
dated November 81, 1853, awarded
fifty pounds sterling to James Davis,
of Virginia, who, in August of the
same year, with others of the neigh
borhood, pursued a party of Indians
from Cape Capon on the south side of
the Potomac to Georges Creek, in the
province of Maryland, and there took
the scalp of one of them, it being "the
skin of the crown of his head" Also
during the French and Indian War;
Captain Evan Shelby was awarded
the sum of fifty pounds for the scalp
of Captain Charles, brother of Custo-
ga, Delaware Indian, commanding a
party of warriors, who was killed in
skirmish near Loyal. Hanning, Pa,
on the 18th of November, 1853, by Cap
tain Shelby, who commanded COM
pany of Maryland volunteers"
The Massacre On Snowy Creek
The Virginia settlers west of Gar
rett county, however, suffered from
many Indian raids during and after
the Revolutionary War. In what is now
Preston county, Daniel Lewis was
killed while making fence rails, and
the same raiding party killed John
Green and his family except Mary
Green, whom they wounded and kept