| Notes |
- Hardy Hill Captured by the Indians
1762
One afternoon in the fall of 1762 while Hardy and his father were hunting in the Allegheny mountains near their claim, they were captured and taken prisoners by two large tribes of Indians who were hunting in the same area. These tribes were headed by their own chief and were friendly with each other but not with the white man. The larger tribe lived up the river not far from a trading post. The other tribe lived down the river. They confiscated the horses and outfit. In the evening the Indians had a great feast with a traditional dance. The next morning they were to start for their respective towns. Hardy Hill was aged eight or eleven years of age when this occurred and was taken up the river to an Indian town in Ohio. His father was taken by the other tribe who lived down the river and was bound hand and foot with rawhide thongs for safe keeping. They then bound the father to a log and set him to drift in the river. He later escaped his bounds with the help from an old Indian. He soon reached a fort but at the time it was threatened by the Indians and hope for the rescue of his son had to be given up. Finally, after making several attempts to rescue his son, he returned alone to the east.
In the meantime, Hardy, his blue-eyed, flaxen-haired son, was carried up river. After reaching the Indian town he was made to run the gauntlet with an Indian boy of about the same size and age to determine his bravery. The gauntlet was composed of two rows of Indians about six feet apart with about one hundred on each side armed with rawhide thongs or switches to whip up the hind most boy. Hardy was strong and active for one his age and the fear of the thongs nerved him to the highest exertions and came out six feet head. On examination, and old Indian chief said, ?You be my son.? And took a sharp flint and split the rims of Hardy?s ears down to the lobe and put rings in his nose and ears to mark him as the ?Chief?s Son.? It wasn?t long before he learned all the Indians ways, signs, and language. He remained with the Indians until full grown (ca 1774).
The Indians traded with the white traders near Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh) but always left Hardy on the opposite side of the river. Nevertheless, Hardy was observed by the white traders and he let them know he was white. They made frequent efforts to get possession of him. Finally they helped him to escape by having him swim the river. He had grown very strong and become a keen hunter from living with the Indians for nearly twelve years. The white traders taught him to read and write and he remained in the area of southwest Pennsylvania for about four or five years. Another family tradition says he was traded at the trading post for five beautiful red blankets by the chief at Hardy?s wish.
Col. Wallace was one of the earliest and bravest of the pioneers and as amiable as he was brave. He was a man of uncommon activity. He stood about five feet ten inches tall and was remarkably well built and swift-legged. He was born January 23, 1766 near Chambersburg, Franklin Co., Pennsylvania, the son of James and Martha (Scott) Wallace. When just a babe he was brought to Ligonier Valley in Westmoreland County, the family settling on the Loyalhanna Creek in Derry Township near Latrobe where he was reared and educated. In 1788 the family left for Kentucky going down the Ohio river on a flatboat and landed at Louisville. They settled near there on Beargrass Creek.
He first visited Losantiville in the year 1789 about the last of February. He was twenty-three years old. After his arrival he hunted for the settlers that spring, supplying them with meat and provisions. In June he returned to the Beargrass in Kentucky and while there he and his family beheld the massacre of Capt. Richard Chenoweth?s family on July 17 on the west side of Floyd?s Fork Creek near Middletown, Kentucky. While the Chenoweth family was at supper, a party of Shawnee Inndians stormed the house. Capt. Chenoweth?s arm was broken by a musket ball. His wife was shot in the back with an arrow. An Indian struck her three times with a tomahawk, fracturing her skull, and with his foot on her back, wrapping his hands in her hair, he tore the scalp from her head. One daughter was tomahawked in the shoulders, arms and neck. A son was shot in the left hip with an arrow and three other children were killed. Another son was taken prisoner and one slave killed.
Following this, Wallace volunteered with 136 other volunteers that accompanied Col. John Hardin against the Indians at the Vermillion towns on the Wabash where eight Indians were killed and two taken prisoners (one of them afterward became the w wife of the lamented Logan, ally to the Americans during the war of 1812). He returned to Cincinnati on September 20. On his arrival he understood Capt. David Strong who had one company of regulars encamped east of the mouth of Eastern row and on the river bank were about to leave for want of provisions. They had no stockade but cut down large beech trees and made on them a kind of fence within where they lodged at night. He volunteered his services to supply Strong?s troops with meat from the wild forests of Kentucky. The Captain readily agreed to the proposition. He penetrated the deep wilderness with his rifle not daring to sleep by the fire, and from there on his shoulders in Indian style brought full supplies of meat, not only for the troops but those that had not been accustomed to the chase nor to Indian warfare.
Later that fall he went back to Beargrass near Louisville to move his parents and sisters to Cincinnati and returned in March, 1790, probably with the Cunningham family. Considerable land had been cleared and preparations were made for planting corn. That spring he hunted for Fort Washington, hunting buffalo, bear and elk in the area of Big Bone Lick in Kentucky.
During the Indian wars he served as a soldier from early 1789 to August 1794. In the Hamilton County militia he served as a Lt. under Capt. Israel Ludlow with John Vance as Ensign in 1791. In 1792 he was appointed Captain in command of White?e?s Station with Lt. James Lyon and Ens. Celedon Symmes. He secured horses and cattle in Kentucky and conveyed them through the wilds to Cincinnati and from there to supply Gen. St. Clair?s army. He was within a few miles of that army (not Forort Recovery) when defeated on 4 November 1791. By 1801 he was a Major and by 1804 a Lt. Col. During the wary of 1812 he with others volunteered (as Captain Aug 23 to Sept 4, Ohio Militia) to save Gen. Hull?s army, but were too late. In 1794 hhe was appointed surveyor and in 1795, 1796 he was elected Judge of theCourt of Common Pleas and of the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace of Hamilton County. He also served as a Representative from his district in the Second General Assemblbly 1803-1804, of the State Legislature. In 1812 he assisted in the building of the larger Presbyterian Church in the city. About 1825 in an unguarded moment he and his son James P. endorsed paper to a considerable amount, and the principal not being enough to meet the demands of the Bank of the United States, he was under the necessity of surrendering all his real estate to the bank. They took it all and left him to buffer the waves of adversity. In his last years he served as Auditor of Hamilton County 1829-1836.
He married 24 November 1791 in Cincinnati to Miss Huldah Sayre (1774-1850) who with her parents, Ezekiel and Elizabeth (White) Sayre came from New Jersey to Cincinnati in 1790. By profession he was a merchant which profession he shared with is son, James Pierson Wallace.
Their first house was a cabin located on Front Street below Race, the furniture consisting of one bed, a table, one chair and several wooden stools. The flooring of the house was of boat plank which was quite a luxury. Most of their neighbors had nothing but logs split in tow and laid the flat side uppermost. He later made his residence at the southwest corner of 7th and College Streets. Col. Wallace died 27 July 1836 in the city of arteriosclerosis and was first buried in the Presbyterian burial grounds. In 1852 his daughter moved the family to Spring Grove Cemetery (Sec 52, lot 173). A large, dark obelisk about twelve feet high marks the Wallace graves.
Three of his children died young, viz: Harriet Scott (1798-1813), Carolina Lewis (1803-1804), John Sloan (1803-1821), twins. Of the three that lived to maturity, son Capt. James P. Wallace (1795-1826) died at Vera Cruz, Mexico of a prevailiniling fever while transporting a shipment of brandy. His daughter, Henrietta Hill Wallace (1800-1880) was married in 1818 to Samuel Todd, Esq. formerly of Connecticut. At the age of thirty three in the prime of his life, he was struck down with a fever and died Sept 7, 1822. He was practicing attorney in Cincinnati.
In 1818 he became a partner with Mason & Williams with the newspaper ?Western Spy?. He should be best remembered for selling his seven town lots in 1819 to the President and Trustees of the new Cincinnati College, there on to build the college buildings (now the University of Cincinnati). She married second James Johnston (1792-1873), formerly of Ireland, a merchant and later City Treasurer of Cincinnati. His youngest daughter, Mary Louisa Wallace (1897-1835), married John H. Smith (1796-1829) a native of York Co., Pennsylvania.
He was survived by four grandchildren, viz: Henrietta Huldah Agness Smith, who drowned in the Ohio river in 1840; George Wallace Johnston, who died in 1845; Hannah Louisa Johnston, a school teacher at Moore?s Hill, Indiana, and Henrietta Carolinna Lucy Todd who married in 1842 Armelder F. Pack, formerly of Louisiana and lived in Emporia, Kansas. His older sister, Margaret, as erudite as himself, married in 1784 Capt. Hardy Hill, a guide, scout and Indian spy for Gen. G.R. Clark on the frontiers of Kentucky. In 1796 he was elected Justice of the Peace for Shelby Co., KY. She married second in 1812, John Osburn formerly of Virginia. His sister Alice married in 1791 William Shepherd, an early tailor in Cincinnati. His sister Martha married in 1791 John Vance, formerly of North Carolina, one of the first settlers (1788) of Cincinnati and a soldier with her brother. His sister Sarah married in 1794 Capt. Thomas Goudy, Esq., formerly of Pennsylvania, the first lawyer in the city, U.S. Attorney and deputy secretary to Winthrop Sergeant in 1793. He died in 1814 and she married second William Wilson Sr., formerly of Pennsylvania. His younger brother James died young.
His father, James Wallace, a gentleman, was born about 1740 in Scotland, probably near Glasgow, and died near Reading in 1807. He first settled in Antrim Township, Franklin County, Pennsylvania, but about 1771 he brought his family to Westmoreland County. There he was appointed to the offices of Overseer of the Poor in 1773 and Township Constable in 1782 as well as serving during the Revolutionary War and as a Captain of a company to guard Fort Wallace (built by his cousin, Capt. Richard Wallace 1742-1785) in 1781-1782. In Cincinnati he was appointed again as Overseer of the Poor in 1791. In 1792 he was a subscriber to the First Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati and in 1802 to the First Public Library in the Northwest Territory organized at Yeatman?s Tavern in Cincinnati. In 1790 he purchased 320 acres in the north half of section 27 of Sycamore Township, just N.E. of Reading. About 1795 he built a grist mill on Wallace?s Run which traverses the property and was known as ?Wallace?s Mill.? He lived for several years in the city of Cincinnati on lot #301 located on Front Street on the NW corner of Elm, which he sold in 1803. He and his wife are buried near Reading.
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CROSSROADS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHYARD
Forence, Washington Co., PA
William Criswell d. June 1, 1881 aged 89 years
Sarah Criswell d. May 10, 1857 aged 52 (nee Wallace, dau old Robert)
John Cully d. ?Civil war? July ???? (stone broken)
Martha A. Cully Sept 22, 1834 d. Jan 13, 1898 (nee Wallace), dau James & Jane
Harriet Cully d. Aug 25, 1878 aged 19 yrs., 2 mos.
Sarah Jane McConnell Dec. 15, 1836, Dec. 13, 1883 (nee Wallace), dau James and Jane
Samuel McConnell Oct 14, 1821, d. Apr 15, 1899
James Wallace Aug 10, 1795, d. Oct 10, 1863, son of old Robt.
Jane Wallace, wife, Apr 1, 1799, d. July 10, 1871
Anne Wallace Mar. 17, 1798, d. Sept 13, 1835 Sister, dau of Old Robt
John Wallace Mar. 7, 1793, d. Nov 21, 1833, brother, son of old Robt
Elizabeth Wallace, Feb. 12, 1826, d. Oct 25, 1833, dau James & Jane
Mary Wallace Oct 8, 1828, d. Oct 16, 1833, dau James and Jane
Thomas Wallace Jan 8 1832, d. Oct 21, 1833, son James & Jane
Mrs. Jane Proudfit d. Jan 16, 1841 (nee Wallace) dau of old Robt.
James Proudfit d. Apr 13, 1857
A Sketch of Robert Wallace
By Laurence L. Hill
Hallendale, FL
Based on facts gleaned from the Draper Manuscripts., Brady and Wetzel Papers, Series E, Vol 6, pgs 81-1 to 81-3. Also from family records and histories of Washington and Beaver counties, Pennsylvania, and the Pennsylvania Archives. The information in the Draper Mss. Was written down by Joseph Walker in January 1868 in a letter to Dr. Draper from a personal interview with Joseph Wallace and his sister Jane Wallace of Robinson township, Washington Co., PA. Joseph and Jane, being children of Robert Jr. (1778-1855) who m. Mary Walker.
Robert Wallace was born 9 January 1742 in Scotland a son of John Wallace of Wanesboro, Franklin Co., PA. He lived on his father?s land most of his early life. In 1768 his name first appears on the tax lists of Antrim Township (formerly Cumberlland Co.). In 1773 he took up a tract of land containing 301 acres in Westmoreland Co., not far from his brother James. He married Miss Jane McCloy who was born on the west branch of the Conococheague Creek near Mercersburg, PA, the daughter of Robert mcCloy, Sr. Her brother, Capt. Robert McCoy, Jr., was married to Sarah Wallace, sister of Robert, and was killed at the battle of Crooked Billet in may 1778. For a few years Robert and Jane trekked back and forth from what were then CCumberland and Westmoreland counties. His father died in 1777 and by his will devised his land called Mt. Vernon to Robert. He kept the title briefly then conveyed it to his halfbrother George and moved more permanently onto his land in what is now Indiana Co.
He is listed a a first class private in Capt. George Crawford?s Co. 6th Batt., Col. Samuel Culbertson, Cumberland Co., during the Revolutionary war as being ?in service July 31, 1777.?
About 1781 he moved from Indiana Co. to Washington Co., settling in Smith (now Hanover) township. Here he took up another tract of land on the waters of Raccoon creek containing 379
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1742 - Yes, date unknown
Siblings
