SOLOMON URIE 1769-1830 & ELIZABETH McCONNELL 1769-1842 Written by: Georgia Parker Solomon Urie, the tenth of Thomas Urie and Sarah Reed, was born on 18 December 1769 Bloody Run, Bedford County, PA. I am sure this was on the land of his father Thomas Urie, on the north side of Raystown Branch of the Juniata River. I wondered why it was called Bloody Run and from reading Bedford Co. Histories I learned. The early frontier people in this area were angered by the Indian traders giving guns and ammunition to the tribes to the west of them for furs and pelts. They felt this endangered their lives even more as these weapons were often used against them. Feelings became pretty hot over the issue and a group formed to try to stop traders from going through the area. Since this was the main trail to the “unknown west”, most trading came through Bedford. In 1775, a trader from Philadelphia named Wharton tried to ship a load of goods containing some weapons toward Ft.Pitt. Knowing he would have troubles in the Bedford area, he tried to disguise the load and then denied it was his when it was discovered to contain “warlike goods”. A small war broke out over this shipment and all was destroyed, but, in the process, some pack horses and mules were killed and the Raystown Stream became red with blood. The area, near where Thomas Urie, then had his land, was from then on called Bloody Run. So it was bloody due to horse blood, not human blood from some big Indian massacre as I had thought it might be. We don’t know much of the early life of Solomon Urie while a child at Bedford. He would have been about 10 or so when the Uries left for their new frontier home in Washington County. We know he was there before 1782 and that his older sister Polly (born 1762) was already married to Col. David Williamson of the PA Militia. His land adjoined that of Thomas Urie. There were no frills in frontier life. Frontiersmen had to be very hardy to even survive. There were no roads, only Indian paths, which had been widened. You traveled by foot, horseback or by Water. That is why most settlements grew up around a river or stream. What the frontiersman may have lacked in the cultures of life, he made up for in his honesty in dealing with his neighbors and friends. Most of those on the frontier were people of great energy, enterprise and industry, of steady habits and deep moral convictions and good character. They were always dependent on themselves, thrown together for mutual help, so much work was done in common---house- raising, logrolling, corn-husking, flax-scutching and harvesting. A group would gather with axes, saws, mallets, oxen and sleds. Trees would be cut and hauled, cut into the proper length. In some cleared place near a spring, all would work to put up a log cabin. The holes would be filled with chips and rough mortar. Rude doors would be cut and windows made, wooden pins driven in bored holes would serve to hold boards which would become shelves. A clapboard table would be made of split logs, 3-legged stools and crude chairs would be built and a frame for rope to hold a straw mattress would become a bed. A chimney would be the most important item as it supplied both heat and a cooking area. A few pegs would be plugged into the walls to hold clothes, rifles, shot pouches as well as to dry vegetables and to hold hams and venison. In 2 or 3 days a group could build a full cabin. All the homeowner then needed were a few pewter dishes, plates and spoons. Pots for cooking and his clothes. Dress was simple. Clothes were woven from their own looms from wool and flax. The dress style was part Indian, part civilized. Men usually wore hunting shirts over leather breeches. Caps of deerskin were common for men. Women dressed in the common linsey-woolsey, woven in their own looms. They wore moccasins similar to that worn by the Indians. Every home had a spinning wheel. Diet consisted of staples such as corn in all its forms (hominy, Johnnycake, mush and pone), potatoes, pumpkins and pork. This was added to by fish from the streams and game from the forest. Solomon probably took part in all the boy’s athletic sports of the frontier—running, jumping, wrestling and heaving the weights. At the age of 13 boys had a small rifle and shot-pouch given to them. Hunting made boys very good shots and it was necessary bits of education for survival on the frontier. A tomahawk with a fixed length of handle, when thrown will revolve a fixed number of times in a certain distance. It could therefore be made to strike an object with the edge or the back, with handle up or down, or in any required position, by varying the distance to be thrown. Some pioneers became an expert in throwing this weapon as the Indians themselves. Schools and churches were built as soon as a group of settlers arrived. Often there was on resident minister. One would travel the area by horseback, arriving every month or so to marry and baptize and hold services. In between times, the settlers were on their own to bury their dead and whatever else must be done. Schools were taught by the most capable person, not necessarily trained as a teacher. Children were also taught to read and write at home if no school was available. If some of the pioneers were crude and unpolished by today’s standards, they were hospitable, brave, honest in their dealings, constant in their friendships, free from debt, and were industrious an took care of each other. Many used excellent manner, courtly address and were highly intelligent, refined and polite. But all showed patient endurance of terrible hardships and danger. Women were strong, brave and loyal and taught their sons to be generous, brave and manly and their daughters to be helpful, patient and true. Such was the life that Solomon Urie and Elizabeth McConnell grew up with in the last quarter of the 18th century. The first item of interest we have for Solomon takes place in March of 1782 when Solomon was not yet 13. He was taken along with the Pa. Militia led by his brother- in-law, Col. David Williamson, on an expedition that became known in history as the “Williamson Expedition Against the Moravian Indians”. What had led up to this terrible event was the massacre of many whites by roving bands of Indians from across the Ohio River to the west. After a vicious attack in February on a Wallace Family who were neighbors in Washington Co. (from Hanover Twp.) Things became even more tense. Mrs. Wallace and her three children were captured and the home was burned and all the cattle and hogs were killed while the husband was gone. After much arguing and planning, the Pa. Militia was gathered to travel westward to try to hunt out the group and try to reclaim Mrs. Wallace and drive the Indians farther west so it would bring more safety to the frontier. The Pa. Militia, a group of 160 men all from Washington County, started out on their mission being led by Col. David Williamson, the husband of Polly Urie, Solomon’s sister. The young Solomon would have been 12 the previous December. But he was a very large boy and always very rugged and strong so he was encouraged to go with the group. They probably felt he could keep up with the group so thought it would maybe be an initiation into manhood for the young boy. So Solomon was taken along with the group and they started on what became a terrible tragedy about which many pages are written in Pennsylvania history. Now a little background history about the Moravian Indians is also needed to lead up to the story. The Moravian religious sect plays a big role in the history of Pa. They were the first settlers in what became Bethlehem and that area of eastern Pa. (My father’s Bachman ancestors were prominent in this group and the Rietz’s were also of the Moravian belief.--GP) The Moravians were the first church group to try to convert the Indians to Christianity and the did a good job of this in Pa. In 1772 a Moravians Mission was begun where the town of Gnadenhutten, Oh. Stands today. Three small Indian villages were built when Joshua, and Indian assistant of the Mohican and Delaware Indians to this area across the Ohio River and to the west along the Tuscarawas River. The settlement grew and Gnadenhutten soon had 60 cabins. These Indians did framing and had become quite civilized by white standards. They even had glass windows in their homes, they used pewter household items, and they did craft and art work often even better than some of the frontiersmen. The community even had a piano and they did singing in their church services as taught them by the highly musical Moravians. In other words, they had pretty much dropped many old Indian ways and had adopted the ways of their Christian Moravian brothers. All went well with this community until the Revolutionary War broke out in the East. The English at Detroit wanted to get all Indians to fight against the Americans and these Indians refused. They were pressured and threatened by the English who wanted to go through their territory. When this failed, they were all rounded up in the fall of 1781 by troops with the help of a group of renegade Indians. They were taken to Captives Town after a full month of great hardship along the way during which many died of disease and starvation. Conditions became so unbearable in the spring of 1782 that they begged to be allowed to send some of their people to Gnadenhutten to pick up what crops were still salvageable and bring back supplies to the rest of the survivors. Permission was granted to 150 of the most trusted Moravian Indians to go back to do this and they arrived back in Gnadenhutten in February of 1782. This is what this group of Indians was doing when the historic tragedy occurred. We know now it was a Shawnee raiding party that had destroyed the Wallace home and taken the Wallaces captive. They had fled westward, expecting a hot pursuit. When they found Mrs. Wallace and her baby an impediment to their fast travel, she was murdered, scalped, and her body impaled on the sharpened trunk of a sapling, which was on the path leading directly to the Moravian Villages. These Shawnees then passed through the Moravian Villages and the unsuspecting Moravian Christian Indians bought some supplies from them, a dress and some household items. These Indians were to pay dearly for these purchases with their lives. As the Pa. Militia crossed the Ohio River, near what is today Steubenville, they came across the battered body of Mrs. Wallace and the baby and this really infuriated the soldiers. After all the massacres they had endured in the recent months, this was just one last event to drive them into a rage. There was scarcely a family who had not suffered some death at the hands of Indians raiders by this time. So they all pushed on in hot pursuit, now with the hopes of finding the guilty Indians and making them pay dearly. And at Gnadenhutten they found a group of Indians in the fields gathering some corn from the fall before. They immediately surrounded them, telling them they were to be taken to Ft. Pitt. The unsuspecting Indians offered no objection. They would have been happy to be there to get food also. It was when one of the Moravian Indian squaws was seen wearing the dress of Mrs. Wallace that things took a turn. Then some of the Wallace household items were also noticed and the soldiers could hardly be controlled by this time. They thought they had found the murderers. The Christian Indians told the Militia they had bought these items legally but many of the Militia did not believe this. All they could think of was revenge. All the Indians were forced into 2 building for the night and told they were to be killed for their part in the murder of Mrs. Wallace. They protested their innocence. But in the minds of most of the Militia their fate was already sealed. Under the pressure of these demands Col. Williamson could not control his men who were so incensed by this time. All he could do was call a “council of war” to decide what to do. He ordered the question to be decided by a vote of the volunteers, which would be final. The question was put to them. “Shall the Moravian Indians to taken as prisoners to Fort Pitt or put to death here?” All those in favor of sparing the lives were directed to advance three paces to the front. Eighteen brave men advanced to the front and stood there hopelessly while the rest did not move. The fate was sealed. We do not know the names of the 18 who “called on God to witness that they were guiltless of participation in the awful event about to be enacted.” When the Indians could see they were doomed, they asked that they be spared until morning. After a night of hymn singing and prayer all were driven out of the buildings, one at a time, and killed. It was such a terrible slaughter that many of the men who had originally voted against sparing their lives retreated in horror and left the area. It seems the murders were committed actually only by one small group of the men but all became blamed of course. After all were killed, all the buildings were set on fire. Two young boys managed to escape to warn others and tell the story to history. Today there is monument, there to the deaths of these innocent Christian Indians who so bravely accepted their fates. In all 25 men, 24 women, 22 children plus 12 babies and 5 “unbaptized adults” died there on March 8, 1782. Col. David Williamson was not the butcher he is sometimes portrayed to be. He was a good churchman, a leader in his congregation, and a kind, honest man who, it seems, suffered guilt for years over the fact he could not control his men and he allowed them to control him. The minister of his church is quoted as saying, “He was a brave man, but not cruel. He would meet an enemy in battle and fight like a soldier, but not murder a prisoner.” We do not know where Solomon stood in this huge terrible mess. I hope he did not do any of the killing and from statements he made to his own children later in life, it seems he only “observed the terrible tragedy” and told them the men of the Militia had been driven to the extreme edge by the atrocities that led up to the Moravian Massacre. At any rate, the story can be read in any book about Pa. And Pa. archives. Also it is possible to read, in books of both Ohio and Pa. history, the terrible fate of a Col. William Crawford who was, soon after the Gnadenhutten event, captured in Ohio, tortured and burned at the stake by Delaware Indians. One young white man named Christian Fast had been earlier captured by a group of Indians and adopted by them. He lived with them for several years before finally finding his way back to his own family. (This Christian Fast later married in to the Mason family and, although he is not an ancestor of mine, the family he married into is. This family also eventually migrated to Ashland County. GP) Reading the history of this county tells me he was still an adopted son of one tribe and present at this terrible disaster for Col. Crawford which was partly in retaliation for the Gnadenhutten killings. His description of it was still burned into his mind when he was interviewed for his write up in one Ashland Co. history book when he was an old man and it is so gruesome to read that it makes one sick. Solomon Urie married Elizabeth McConnell, the daughter of Arthur McConnell and his wife Elizabeth Wilson. She was born 17 July 1769. I am not sure yet where she was born, as I do not know if the McConnells were in Washington County as early as 1769. There is still much work to be done putting together all the McConnell family history but they were also Scots-Irish. Arthur McConnell’s land, which he had named “Dundee” adjoined the land of Thomas Urie in Hopewell Twp in Washington Co. Pa. Solomon and Elizabeth were married 26 June 1789. They continued to live in Hopewell Twp. Their first child was born there on 4 March 1790. In all, there were 10 children, the last one being born in 1808, all being born in Washington Co. There seems to be some question as to the date of the next event. I have seen dates listed in history books as 1789, 1805, 1810, and 1816. After much research, I now think the 1789 date is probably the correct one since there is an estate settlement in 1791 for a Thomas Urie with a widow Susannah (who, by the way, was also a sister to Solomon’s wife Elizabeth McConnell). Solomon and his older brother Thomas (born 1786) were on one of their many hunting excursions to the west across the Ohio River in the area between the present cities of Cadiz and New Philadelphia, Ohio. Thomas was killed and scalped by Indians, their horses captured, and Solomon hardly escaped with his life only because of his extreme physical strength in out-running his Indian foes and leaping down such a steep precipice that the Indians gave up the pursuit. Solomon managed to make his way to the camp of the noted Capt. Samuel Brady, a great friend of the Uries. The very name of Samuel Brady was a terror to the Indians. One family descendant says that Solomon’s second son was named Samuel after this Samuel Brady but I am not sure of this, as there were many Samuel Uries he might also have been named for. It seems that Solomon avenged the death of his brother some time in the future when in the Coshocton area a group of 6 Indians boldly bragged to him that they had killed his brother. He simply shot them all, was brought before the court and he was immediately released “as any sane man would have done the same thing”. He seemed to resent talking about this incident but it is in the history books. I do not think Solomon was a great Indian lover! Solomon Urie served in the Pa. Militia during the War of 1812 under Capt. Buchanan and served 3 months on the borders of Canada “rendezvousing at Black Rock”. After the war, he returned to Washington Co. Pa. but in the spring of 1814 he migrated to Orange Twp. In what was then Richland County, Ohio (later to become Ashland Co.). He obtained 2 quarter sections of land. One was in Orange Twp. The other was in Montgomery Twp. He erected a cabin and cleared a few acres of ground and in a few months the rest of the family arrived. Sons Samuel and Thomas were with their father Solomon as they are listed in the history of Ashland Co. as being in the area that winter of 1814. This area of Ohio at that time had hardly any white families. There had been Indian massacres in the area of Ashland as recent as 1812 when Copus, Ruffner, and Simmer families had been murdered. Ohio was becoming the battleground where the Indians were trying to stop the flow of civilization on its westward movement across the continent. Many battles took place in this area of Ohio due to this. The land was mostly in woods at this time and Solomon is noted in the history of the county as the most famous hunter of the area. His first winter there he killed forty deer, eight large black bears, a great number of wolves and other game. Solomon was, in addition to being a farmer, a noted gunsmith and blacksmith. I found his name in several books of both states with the names of the noted men in these trades. Many of the Indians living around the Ashland area came to him to repair their guns. He is known to have repaired guns for such famous Indians as old Tom Lyons, Joacake, Catotawa and others of the Wyandot and Delaware tribes. I can tell from reading the history of Ashland, that Solomon was quite the respected citizen. He is noted as being “a crack shot” and he called his rifle “old peel”. In the town of Ashland, Ohio (originally called Uniontown), Solomon owned lot #1 in the Markley addition, which he bought for $30, the deed, dated 14 October 1819. This lot is still today on Main Street, and from much study of the old original city records and trying to place it on today’s city map, I believe his lot is today on the north side of Main Street just to the east of where Cottage Street (state highway 511) crosses Main. I also know that Solomon Urie was a “gigantic Man”. He was very tall and both he and his older brother Samuel (who remained the rest of his life in Washington Co., Pa. he died in Montgomery Twp. July 7, 1830 at the age of 61. One book tells me he died as a result of a fall with his horse who crushed him. He and Elizabeth were charter members of the old Hopewell Presbyterian Church, organized in 1817 by Scots-Irish settlers, mostly form western Pa. The first building was built in 1819 completely of logs (30 x 35 ft) 1 ˝ miles west of the town on what is now Olivesburgh Road (also called Sandusky Street). Solomon is buried there when he died. I think the last burial in this old church gave yard took place in about 1857 when it became filled. The old church also eventually moved onto land in the town and the cemetery finally feel into disrepair. In the late 1800”s many of the families moved their relatives from this old cemetery but no one moved Solomon until around 1978 when, due to the efforts of the local DAR, all the old graves were opened and the old bones moved and reburied enmasse in the Ashland City Cemetery. They erected over the mass grave with the names of the known occupants, a nice monument as a memorial to “Ashland’s Early Settlers”. It is found in Section 1 of the cemetery. Also listed with names of those in this mass grave is the name of John Urie, who I believe is the son of Solomon who was killed by Indians in 1826. Elizabeth outlived her husband Solomon by 12 years. She died 21 April 1842. She was not buried in the old Hopewell Cemetery for some reason. She was buried in the Nankin Orange Cemetery in the little town Nankin (originally called Orange). I found her grave there in 1984 and, had I not the exact dates and names to start with, I would never have known it was her grave. I could only read dates and the name Elizabeth McConnell, wife of Sol___. It is probable eroded by now.