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Looking Back – 1758

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Richard Bard Rescues His Wife

by James Rada, Jr.

Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series of columns about Richard Bard’s escape from captivity and the rescue of his wife.

After the Delaware Indians had captured the Bard Family in 1758, Richard Bard managed to escape his captivity after a few days. His wife, Catherine, wasn’t so lucky. She remained a prisoner of the Indians.

The Delawares initially beat her, but once the war party arrived back in their village, two braves adopted Catherine as a sister. “She was treated during this time by her adopted relations with much kindness, even more than she had reason to expect,” Catherine’s son, Archibald, wrote in Incidents of Border Life.

In the meantime, Richard Bard recovered from his ordeal and began hunting for his wife. The Indians had already killed one of his children, and he wasn’t going to lose his wife. “From the time that my father was taken by the Indians until my mother was released, he did little else than wander from place to place in quest of information respecting her and after he was informed where she was his whole mind bent upon contriving plans for her redemption,” Archibald wrote.

Bard traveled to Fort Duquesne in the fall of 1758. A treaty had been signed with the Indians there, and Bard went to meet with them to ask about his wife to see if he could find out where she had been taken.

Some of these Indians were the ones who had raided Bard’s mill and captured him, his family, and friends. “My father observed among them several who were there when he was taken prisoner, to these he discovered himself they professed not to know him on which he enquired of them they did not recollect having been at the taking of nine persons referring them to the time and place,” Archibald wrote.

When Bard left the Indians and returned to Fort Duquesne, he was followed by a young man. The man told Bard that after he had gone, the Indians had said “that they never had a stronger desire for anything than to have sunk the tomahawk into his head, and that they had agreed to kill him on his return next day,” according to Archibald. The young Indian warned Bard not to return the next day if he wanted to live.

Instead, Bard chose to travel with a wagon convoy to Fort Bedford, where he met an Indian named Captain White Eyes, who was friends with the Moravian missionaries in the area. A few miles from Fort Bedford, the Indians with the convoy got drunk. One of the wagon drivers was scalped, and Bard was once again captured.

“Captain White Eyes was soon under the influence of liquor, and told Bard if he tried to escape, he would be shot. He told Bard that he knew that he had escaped from the Delawares before,” wrote  L. Dean Calimer in Franklin County Archives VII. White Eyes fired at Bard, but he jumped behind a tree. Bard then moved around the tree to keep it between himself and the Indian. The other Indians found this amusing, until one of them finally grew tired of it and disarmed White Eyes.

White Eyes then grabbed a stick and began beating Bard, but Bard managed to make his way to a horse and escape.

Following up on information about his wife being at the Indian village of Shamokin (Sunbury, Pennsylvania), Bard made his way to Pittsburgh. He wrote a letter to his wife, saying that if her adopted friends would bring her to Pittsburgh and release her, he would pay 40 pounds. Bard was hoping that even if they didn’t release her, some other Indians would hear about the reward offer and find a way to free her.

While the Indians who had adopted Catherine Bard were willing to free her, they feared that they wouldn’t be paid the bounty.

“To allay their suspicions he told them to keep him as a hostage, while they sent Mrs. Bard into the town with an order for the money. This put the savages in good humor, and they took them into the town, where the money was paid and his wife was released,” Calimer wrote.

Catherine had been a captive of the Delawares for two years and five months.

Following her release, the Bards returned to Franklin County and bought a plantation near Williamson.

Bard went on to serve in the Revolutionary War. He was also a member of the Pennsylvania Convention in 1787, which was the group of Pennsylvanians who were asked to ratify the U.S. Constitution in the Commonwealth.

He died in 1799. He is buried in the Church Hill Graveyard in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania.

Catherine kept one memento—if you can call it that—of her time among the Delawares. It is a horn spoon that was given to her to help her in her work as a woman of the tribe. It was passed down through the females of the family.

One interesting post-captivity story is that one of Catherine’s “brothers” came to visit the Bards. While there, he went to a tavern and got a bit drunk. He was attacked by a white man who tried to kill him, but only severely wounded him.

According to the book, The Bard Family, “The Indian was cared for at Mr. Bard’s house until he recovered, but he was afterward put to death by his tribe on the pretense that he had joined the white people.”

Catherine died in 1811. She is buried in the Church Hill Graveyard with her husband.

Captured and forced to stay with the Delawares tribe for over two years, Catherine Bard kept one memento of her time with the Delawares, a horn spoon, given to her to help her in her work as a woman of the trible.

 

 

 

 

Looking Back – 1758

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Richard Bard Makes Good His Escape

by James Rada, Jr.

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of columns about Richard Bard’s escape from captivity and the rescue of his wife.

Richard Bard had made his getaway from the Delaware Indians, who had captured his family at their mill near present-day Fairfield on April 13, 1758. He was one of the lucky ones. Two others had been killed by the Indians for no apparent reason. Six other people were still being held prisoner, including his wife.

When the Indians discovered his escape, they searched for Bard, but he hid in a hollow log. Once the Indians had passed him by and were out of hearing range, Bard climbed out and ran off in the other direction.

“He traveled [across] the mountain pick[ing] berries and herbs to survive. His feet and legs were swollen, and his body was in a weak condition. The snow on the brush and leaves of the laurel made it impossible to walk, and he was [compelled] to creep on his hands and knees under the thick brush,” according to L. Dean Calimer in Franklin County Archives VII.

The Indians and their captives remained in the area for a day and night before making their way another twenty miles until they reached an Indian village. There, Catherine Bard, Richard’s wife, was severely beaten by the squaws in the village.

“Now almost exhausted with fatigue she requested leave to remain at this place but was told she might if she preferred being scalped to proceeding,” Archibald Bard, one of Richard and Catherine’s children, wrote in Incidents of Border Life. Instead, the Indians traveled to another village called, Cususkey. Catherine and the others were beaten in this town as well. One man was even killed. “The Indians formed themselves into a circle round the prisoner and commenced by beating him some with sticks and some with tomahawks. He was then tied to a post near a large fire and after being tortured sometimes with burning coals they scalped him and put the scalp on a pole to bleed before his face. A gun barrel was then heated red hot and passed over his body and with a red hot bayonet they pierced his body with many repetitions. In this manner they continued torturing him singing and shouting until he expired,” Archibald wrote.

Meanwhile, Richard was undergoing his own trials to stay alive. The fifth day after his escape, he got some protein in his diet when he killed and ate a rattlesnake.

Eight days after his escape, he found himself in a stream that he would have to wade. On the other side of the river, he found a path that led him to a settlement. He found himself facing three Indians. Instead of being the Delaware Indians who had captured him, they were friendly Cherokee Indians. They escorted Bard to Fort Lyttletown, where he recovered from his experience.

Meanwhile, Catherine’s ordeals went from being physically abused to being adopted as a sister by two Delaware Indians. Catherine was to replace their actual sister, who had died. Over the next few months, Catherine’s new family traveled so much that she became ill and nearly died.

When she did recover, she got a glimpse of what the future might hold for her when she met a woman she knew. “This woman had been in captivity some years and had an Indian husband by whom she had one child,” Archibald wrote. “My mother reproved her for this but received for answer that before she had consented they had tied her to a stake in order to burn her.”

The woman also told her that once captive women learned the Indian language, they either married one of the Delawares or were killed. Knowing this, Catherine played dumb and did not learn the language. She remained as the sister of the braves and was treated kindly.

Once recovered from his ordeal, Richard set out to free his family. He began seeking information about his wife and the Delawares, making many trips from Franklin County to western Pennsylvania, as he followed up on leads. As the weeks turned into years, he despaired at what had happened to his family, but he did not give up.

This determination was what would finally lead to his family being reunited.

The cover of The Ballad of Richard Bard, a long poem about Bard’s escape from the Indians who captured his family.

Looking Back – 1758

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by James Rada, Jr.

Indians Capture a Fairfield Family

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of columns about Richard Bard’s escape from captivity and the rescue of his wife.

Hannah McBride, a young girl who was at Bard’s Mill, near Fairfield, Pennsylvania, on April 13, 1758, happened to glance out the door of the house. She screamed when she saw men running toward her. She turned to call out a warning to the others in the house, but it was too late.

Nineteen Delaware Indians rushed the house. Richard Bard, the mill owner, grabbed a pistol from its peg on the wall and fired at one of the Indians. The pistol misfired, but the sight of it must have frightened the Indian, and he ran off. Another Indian attacked Bard’s cousin, Thomas Potter, with a knife. The two men struggled over the knife and Potter managed to cut the Indian on the hand.

However, there were just too many Indians. Bard, his wife, and son; Potter; Hannah; Frederick Ferrick, an indentured servant; two field hands; and a young boy were all captured and forced to follow their captors. Potter was killed and scalped, most likely because he had injured one of the Delawares. The Indians also burned the mill down.

About four miles from the mill, the Indians killed Bard’s son without warning. The party moved over South Mountain to the head of Falling Spring. They moved north of Fort Chambers and onto Rocky Spring, and camped for the night near Fort McCord in present-day Franklin County, Pennsylvania. The prisoners had walked forty miles that first day.

As they entered Path Valley on the second day, the Delawares discovered that a group of white men was pursuing them. The Delawares and their prisoners moved to the top of Tuscarora Mountain and threatened to kill the prisoners if the white pursuers reached them.

Bard and Samuel Hunter, one of the field hands, sat down to rest at the top of the mountain “when an Indian without any previous warning sunk a tomahawk into the forehead of Samuel Hunter, who was seated by my father, and by repeated blows put an end to his existence. He was then scalped and the Indians proceeding on their journey encamped that evening some miles on the north of Sideling Hill,” Archibald Bard, one of Bard’s children, wrote years later.

The group hiked on to Blair Gap in Blair County, Pennsylvania, and while crossing Stoney Creek, the wind blew Bard’s hat from the head of the Indian who had taken it for his own. While the Indian went to recover it, Bard crossed the creek. The Indian returned and saw Bard had crossed. He was so angry that he pistol-whipped Bard and nearly disabled him.

“And now reflecting that he could not possibly travel much further, and that if this was the case, he would be immediately put to death, he determined to attempt his escape that night,” Bard wrote after the ordeal.

Another thing pushing his decision was that half of his face had been painted red two days earlier. “This denoted that a council had been held and that an equal number were for putting him to death and for keeping him alive, and that another council was to have taken place to determine the question,” Bard wrote.

After the Indians laid down to rest, one of them dressed in Catherine Bard’s gown to amuse his companions. While the Delawares relaxed, Richard Bard was sent to get water without his captors paying too close attention to him. When Bard got about 100 yards away, the Delawares realized that he was getting away.

They chased after him, but he was gone.

The Indians spent two days looking for him, but Richard Bard had made his getaway.

The Bard Plantation.