of Carlisle and a special friend of the Blaines, was blamed with partiality. Until recently Mr. Kuhns believed the fiction about the presence and narrow escape of Col. Ephraim Blaine in the battle, &c.,which had been palmed off in the courts, &c., at the trial.

But after learning the real facts in the case, and seeing how the names and records of Lieut. Archibald Blane and Col. Ephraim Blaine had been confounded, he wrote me the following candid note on the subject:

Rev. Cyrus Cort:

GREENSBURG, Pa., May 2, 1883.

REV. AND DEAR SIR.-Your esteemed favor received. I am satisfied that the story of Blaine's claim to the battle ground is apocryphal. He was an intruder upon Byerly, who was, in point of fact, the first actual owner of the ground by occupancy and legal authority of the proprietary government of Penn'a.

Respectfully,

Jos. H. KUHNS.

About

So much for the question of original and rightful ownership of Bushy Run battlefield. Byerly removed his family to Fort Bedford, by advice of Bouquet, until peace was firmly established at the end of next year. He then returned and occupied the grant on Bushy Run. the time of the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, he took his son Andrew to Lancaster, Pa., to give him a chance to get an education at the home of his step-sisters. While on this visit the old gentleman died, and was buried at Strasburg, in that county. I am indebted to Ad. J. Eberly, esq., and Rev. J. A. Peters for the following facts, which should have been stated at page 17:

Record book B, page 349, contains a deed from James Hamilton, esq., to Andreas Byerly, for a lot of ground on east side of North Queen street, a frontage of 64 feet and 41⁄2 inches and a depth of 245 feet, in the town of Lancaster, Pa., dated October 25, 1745.

The baptismal records of the First Reformed church of Lancaster, Pa., mention Andreas Byerly as standing sponsor for a child, Feb. 3, 1745. So also on May 3, 1750, he and his wife served in same capacity for a child by name of Houck, from Strasburg Twp., and again for a Backen

stopp, Feb. 4, 1753, under the pastorates of Revs. Schnorrbock and Otterbein, respectively.

The Byerly family resided for greater safety at Fort Walthour during the Revolution. Jacob served in several campaigns against the Indians, and killed a chief in a fight near Brady's Bend, when quite a young man.

Mrs. Byerly was a very intelligent, humane and pious woman. She had been well trained in the doctrines of the Reformed Church of Switzerland. She did good service as a nurse and a kind of doctoress during those dark and dangerous days. But her care was extended to the soul as well as body. She established a Sunday school for the intellectual and religious training of the neglected children at the fort, and in various ways was a public benefactress. Some years after Mr. Byerly's death she was married to a Mr. Lord, an Englishman. She lies buried among her children at the old Brush Creek graveyard. Andrew Byerly had four sons, viz. Michael, Jacob, Francis and Andrew. Their descendants are scattered over a great part of the United States. Jacob entered the Revolutionary army at sixteen, and saw hard service for several years in helping to guard the frontiers against Indians and Tories. His son Andrew was major in the War of 1812, and guarded the ships of Commodore Perry's fleet, while being built on Lake Erie. Benjamin was a lieutenant and Joseph a private, as also his son-inlaw, Skelly, in the same war. Benjamin was likewise sheriff and assemblyman.

Captain George A. Cribbs, who fell at the head of his men at the second battle of Manassas, was married to a grand daughter of Jacob Byerly, and Sergeant Cyrus Rankin, who fell on the Peninsula, was a great grandson.

Mrs. James Gregg, of Greensburg, is a granddaughter of Michael, and Daniel C. Byerly, deceased, was a grand

son.

Prof. Andrew Byerly, of Millersville Normal School, is a grandson of Andrew II.

The descendants of Francis Byerly are numerous in Iowa. Michael, Jacob and Francis married three sisters named Harmon, whose mother was Christina Lenhart, from Holland. Jacob was married in old Fort Walthour,

by 'Squire Trouby, during the Revolution.

He and his

son Joseph are buried with fine military monuments at Brush Creek graveyard.

EVIL RESULTS OF PROVINCIAL APATHY.

After their discomfiture at Bushy Run, the Indians moved from their towns along the Alleghany and Ohio rivers into the Muskingum country, where they fancied themselves entirely safe from molestation, while at the same time they could carry on their depredations by sudden incursions into the white settlements. It would have been wise policy and an immense saving of life and treasure had they been followed at once to their forest fastnesses and brought to terms by a display of military prowess in their own haunts.

This was exactly what Bouquet proposed to do. As soon as he had brought his heavy convoy through from Fort Ligonier to Port Pitt, he made strenuous efforts to secure reinforcements for such an expedition into the heart of the Indian country.

August 27, 1763, he wrote General Amherst from Fort Pitt that with a re-inforcement of three hundred Provincal Rangers he could destroy all the Delaware towns "and clear the country of that vermin between this fort and Lake Erie." He bitterly complained that the provinces would not even furnish escorts to convoys, so that his hands were completely tied, He candidly admitted the importance and value of provincials for service against the savages in the woods, something which Amherst, like Braddock before him, was loth to do.

October 24, 1763, he writes the haughty and obstinate. Amherst as follows: Without a certain number of woodsmen I cannot think it advisable to employ regulars in the woods against savages, as they cannot procure any intelligence and are open to continual surprises, nor can they pursue to any distance their enemy when they have routed them; and should they have the misfortune to be defeated, the whole would be destroyed, if above one day's march from a fort. That is my opinion, in which I hope to be deceived."

The Quaker Provincial authorities, backed by the Dunkard and Mennonite elements among the Germans, seemed to be utterly insensible to the dangers and sufferings of the exposed settlements near the borders. In their more secure abodes in the older settlements they would prate about the wickedness of war, and try to justify their impracticable theories by extensive scriptural quotations.

St. Paul teaches that civil government is a divine institution, and its representatives must not bear the sword in vain, but be a terror to evil-doers and a praise to them that do well. See Rom., 13.

All this was ignored, and in place of it was substituted a perverted theory of non-resistance. The exhortations to individual Christians to forego the gratification of private or personal revenge, on the ground of the old law of retaliation, was applied to civil rulers and governments in a way that was contrary to reason and Scripture.

The Great Cove, in Blair county, was settled by Dunkards as early as 1755. These were exposed to Indian raids. "Gottes wille sei gethan," they would say, while the brutal savages were tomahawking their wives and children, in whose defence they would not lift a finger. They seemed to think that it was the Lord's will that the devil and his agents should have full swing without opposition.

The strong and vigorous Scotch Presbyterian and the German Reformed and Lutheran elements of the population had no patience or sympathy with such sentimental views. When their families or friends were being ruthlessly slaughtered by the savages, they were filled with indignation against all who either directly or indirectly abetted the cruel destroyers of life and property.

Large numbers of Reformed and Lutheran families had settled along the Codorus, the Conewago, the Monocȧcy and Connocheague streams of Pennsylvania and Maryland, where regularly organized congregations existed already in 1748, as we learn from the "Life and Travels of Rev. Michael Schlatter." So also at Winchester and other points through the Shenandoah Valley.

The Royal American Regiment, as we have seen, was largely composed of this element and commanded by ex

perienced German and Swiss officers, who had seen service in the armies of the Dutch Republic.

The horrors of savage warfare fell upon these settlements and soldiers, together with their Scotch-Irish neighbors, in the Conococheague settlements.

The friendly Conestoga Indians in Lancaster county and the Moravian Indian converts along the Lehigh were blamed for harboring and abetting some of the marauding Indians, and the full force of popular fury was arrayed against them. When homes were being daily desolated, parents tomahawked and scalped, and children carried into heathen captivity, it was natural for the people to hate the name of Indian and to be filled with wrath at any one who would protect or countenance any member of the race. The supineness of the Provincial Assembly, and their failure to second the efforts of such a man as Bouquet was discouraging and demoralizing and provoking in the extreme to the regular troops, who had suffered so much on the outposts, and to the hardy pioneers in the advanced settlements. The Paxton Boys, in their riotous conduct at the Lancaster jail and in their march to Philadelphia, helped to awaken the Quakers from their dream of lethargic indifference. The Royal Americans had been kept in the woods for over six years, and now Amherst sought to compel regulars to remain in service after the long term of enlistment had expired. These causes combined to produce great discontent, both among officers and men. They were expected to hold many important posts and keep up long lines of communication in the midst of the wilderness, surrounded by prowling and hostile savages. Lieut. Archibald Blane. and the gallant Capt. Ecuyer asked Bouquet to be relieved from labors and responsiblilities too heavy for their strength and resources. And Bouquet himself chagrined, at some action of the British government which seemed to shut the door of promotion against foreign born officers, and worried out of patience by the ingratitude and neglect of the provinces, felt himself constrained to do the same thing.

C*