George Croghan

For other people named George Croghan, see George Croghan (disambiguation).

George Croghan
Born	c. 1718 Ireland
Died	August 31, 1782 Passyunk, Pennsylvania
Resting place	St. Peter's Church, Philadelphia
Other names	The Buck, Anagurunda, King of the traders, Ginger Beard
Occupation	Fur trader, Indian agent, Onondaga Council sachem land speculator, judge
Religion	Anglican
Spouse(s)	Susannah's mother unknown, Catharine (Takarihoga) was Mohawk Chief Nickus's daughter
Children	Susannah, 1750-1790; Catharine (Adonwentishon), 1759-1837

George Croghan (c. 1718 – August 31, 1782) was an Irish-born fur trader in the Ohio Country, a representative to the Iroquois Council and some Ohio peoples, a land speculator in Pennsylvania and New York, and British Indian agent in colonial America. Beginning in 1756, for fifteen years he served as Deputy Indian agent under Sir William Johnson, called the "Mohawk Baron", in present-day New York.

Croghan resigned in 1771 to establish Vandalia, a fourteenth colony including parts of present-day West Virginia and Kentucky. He continued on emeritus status his work as a borderland negotiator. In 1777, he was accused of treason by, when he was serving as Pittsburgh's president judge and chairman of the Committee of Safety. He was working to keep the Ohio Indians neutral in the Revolutionary War.

As the 19th-century historian William M. Darlington noted, for thirty years, Croghan was the Ohio Country's key figure. He left the region in 1756, two decades before the Revolution broke out.

Early life and career

Little is known of Croghan's early life, including the names of his parents He was born in Ireland, around 1718. The best evidence for Croghan's age is found in the Filius Gallicae letters written early in 1756 by an anonymous author. He claimed to be nearly 38 years old, as part of an attempt to cast suspicion on Croghan. His father apparently died young and Croghan's mother married Thomas Ward.

Croghan emigrated from Ireland to the province of Pennsylvania in 1741; his mother and her family, including his half-brother Edward Ward, also emigrated to the colonies. Relatives remaining in Dublin included Nicholas Croghan (likely a brother of George) a Dublin merchant; their cousin Thomas Smallman's mother; and their paternal grandfather Edmund Croghan. George later claimed Edmund Croghan's land in Ireland by inheritance. (Robert G. Crist concludes that, given the Gaelic origins of the surname, it was most likely pronounced “Crone.”)

Within a few years after arriving in the British colonies, Croghan became one of Pennsylvania's leading fur traders. A key to his success was establishing trading posts in Native American villages, as the French traders did. At the time, the usual British practice was to wait for the Indians to come to a trading post they set up for their own convenience, in major crossroads. He learned at least two Native languages, Delaware (an Algonquian language) and probably Mohawk (an Iroquoian language), which were spoken by the two major groups of people in the region.

During this time, Croghan's primary business partner was William Trent, a trader. The son of the founder of Trenton, New Jersey, he likely supplied the capital to set up their trading. Their partnership was temporarily suspended when Trent joined the military to serve in King George's War (1744–48). The two men bought property on Conedogwinet Creek in present-day Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Croghan developed a plantation there which served as his home and base of operations from about 1745 until 1751.

King George's War, 1744-1748

Britain's blockade of French ports made the few French trade goods reaching Ohio Country prohibitively expensive; it was such a bonanza for the Pennsylvania traders that the French became alarmed. They knew that Indian trade and diplomacy were closely linked, and Croghan's activities threatened French influence among the regional natives. The trader established his first headquarters in the Ohio County at a Seneca village on the Cuyahoga River, the site of present-day Cleveland, Ohio. (Together with the Mohawk, the Seneca were among the Six Nations of the Iroquois League.) As Croghan expanded his trading network westward toward Detroit, held by the French, they urged French-allied Indians to attack him.

In April 1745, the Seneca protected Croghan from capture, but elsewhere French-allied Natives robbed a canoe-load of Croghan's furs. In 1746 the Iroquois appointed Croghan to its Onondaga Council. This was an honor they had made to William Johnson a few years earlier and to the French fur trader Louis-Thomas Joncaire de Chabert (1670–1740) decades before that. Philippe-Thomas Joncaire, son of the earlier trader, was Croghan's and Johnson's principal French opponent in the Ohio region. By 1746 Johnson and the Six Nations had acquiesced to Croghan's dominant role in Ohio Country affairs.

Croghan is believed to have contributed to the outbreak of violence in the Ohio Country. In early 1747, five French traders were murdered by Seneca and Wyandot warriors at the Wyandot village of Sandusky on Lake Erie, beginning an Indian revolt against the French fomented by Croghan. The Wyandot Chief Nicholas Orontony led it first, followed by Memeskia (or "Old Briton" as Croghan named him), known by the French as La Demoiselle, who was a Piankeshaw Miami chief. Although unsuccessful in driving out the French, the participating bands moved closer to the British. Reports claimed that Croghan had encouraged the uprising so that the Natives would trade with him and not the French. Old Briton relocated to Pickawillany on the Great Miami River, where Croghan built a stockade and trading post.

With the help of Mingo chiefs Tanacharison (Half King) and Scarouady, Croghan organized an Ohio Confederation of tribes. He brought the Miamis into an alliance with Great Britain, which was formalized in July 1748, at a treaty conference which he attended in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Andrew Montour, an interpreter, became Croghan's closest associate until his death in 1772. The other interpreter, Conrad Weiser, was Pennsylvania's Indian agent. He subsequently held an Indian conference at Logstown on the Ohio River at which Pennsylvania acknowledged the independence of the Ohio Confederation. Weiser later appointed Croghan to negotiate with the region's Indians.

At the 1748 Logstown conference, Weiser told the recently allied tribes that Britain had signed a peace treaty with France. As a result, he had no war supplies for them and distributed presents instead. Rumor of Celeron de Bienville's 1749 expedition to claim the Ohio Valley for France and to drive out the English traders prompted Governor James Hamilton (Pennsylvania) to dispatch Croghan to Logstown to investigate. Days before Celeron reached Logstown, its Mingo chiefs sold Croghan 200,000 acres (810 km²), excluding 2 square miles (5.2 km²) at the Forks of the Ohio for a British fort. His biographer Wainwright notes this was "a momentous event in his life."

The Virginia's Ohio Company agents Col. Thomas Cresap and Hugh Parker made overtures to the Indians at Pickawillany, which Croghan opposed in November 1749. A year later he and Montour began aiding Virginia by guiding its scout Christopher Gist on a tour of Ohio Indian villages. Croghan's 200,000 acres (810 km²) in unconfirmed Indian deeds motivated his shift in allegiance. Sometime in 1750 he realized that such large grants were against Pennsylvania statutes, but permitted in Virginia. Having alerted Governor Hamilton to the Mingo plea for a fort at the Forks of the Ohio, then backtracking, Croghan reversed himself another time. During a conference at the end of May 1751, he formally recorded the Mingo chiefs' request for the fort, but when Andrew Montour was called before the Pennsylvania Assembly for confirmation, he denied it. Taking no action, Pennsylvania effectively "defaulted its leadership in the West to Virginia's Ohio Company."

In the June 1752 conference at Logstown, Croghan was on the Indian Council and Andrew Montour acted as translator. The Mingo gave the Virginia's Ohio Company permission to build its fort and settle one hundred families on 500,000 acres (2,000 km²) in today's Western Pennsylvania. At the same time, Pickawillany was attacked by a French force led by Charles Langlade; they killed Old Britain and their soldiers boiled and ate him.

For Croghan, "the year 1753 was far worse, for it saw the virtual end of the Indian trade due to warfare. Early in the spring, Canada's Governor Duquesne, opened his campaign to drive the English out of the Ohio Valley." In October 1753, Scarouady officially appointed Croghan as leader of the Ohio Confederation during a conference held at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Croghan represented the Confederation in communications to and from Pennsylvania, and received its presents for the tribes. By the time that the 21-year-old George Washington made his diplomatic journey to the French at Fort Le Boeuf, Croghan had already spent more than a decade in the Ohio Country. For most of that time, he had been the pivotal figure among its traders, Indians, and colonial agents.

The Seven Years' War

At the outset of the Seven Years' War in North America (also referred to as the French and Indian War, 1754–1763), French forces were occupying the Ohio Country and expelling or arresting British fur traders. Soon after Washington returned from delivering Virginia Governor Dinwiddie's summons to the French, Croghan was in Ohio Country gathering intelligence, helping build the Ohio Company stockade commanded by William Trent, and supplying the Indians with food, rum, and weapons. At the end of May, He and Montour were in Winchester when Governor Dinwiddie commissioned them as captains under Col. Washington. Croghan was charged with supplying flour and Indian allies. By that time the French had captured the Ohio Company fort at the Forks of the Ohio, which was surrendered by Croghan's half-brother Edward Ward. The Half King murdered Jumonville. Washington alienated his Indian allies and blamed Croghan for his defeat at Fort Necessity. The Half King and Queen Aliquippa took their people to Croghan's plantation on Aughwick Creek, where both died that winter.

During the ill-fated Braddock Expedition in 1755, Croghan, as always assisted by Montour, led eight Indian scouts, the same group the Half King had led at Jumonville Glen. Like Washington, General Braddock alienated friendly Indians, yet Montour and the eight under Croghan attended the gravely wounded general. The teamsters Daniel Boone and Daniel Morgan fled on horseback. Croghan pressed Braddock to relinquish command and, although the general refused, apparently took charge. He got Braddock off the battlefield with the help of his aide, the 23-year-old Washington. Washington's account differs and his biographer James Flexner does not mention Croghan being present. Volwiler asserts that captains Croghan and Montour were there; they outranked the General's aide, and recalled having been Washington's subordinates the year before. They worked together to save Braddock, with Croghan the more likely leader in the emergency. He had taken that role the year before, and would continue to do so in all the subsequent crises in Ohio Country.

In 1755, friendly Indians again sought refuge at Aughwick. He fortified it as Fort Shirley, one of four which Croghan built on the frontier. In 1756, he relocated to the New York frontier, where he began his 15-year career as Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs under Sir William Johnson.

With Montour at his side and in command of 100 Indians on an overlooking hilltop, Croghan witnessed in July, 1758 General James Abercrombie's calamitous frontal assault on Fort Ticonderoga. Afterwards Croghan wrote Johnson that he feared a similar "thrashing" for Gen. John Forbes advance forces nearing Fort Duquesne, unaware of Major James Grant's bloody defeat five days earlier. Before joining Forbes on November 20 with fifteen Indian scouts, Croghan's management of the Indians at Easton, where he acknowledged being an Indian himself, produced a peace treaty that forced the French to burn Fort Duquesne. Forbes assigned Croghan and Montour the dangerous task of bringing in recalcitrant regional Delawares, something Edward Shippen said not even Sir William Johnson could handle better. Placed under Col. Henry Bouquet's command early in 1759, Croghan gathered intelligence about the French force at Venango. The "700 troops and about 950 Indians" there on the eve of overwhelming Pittsburgh in July were instead ordered to relieve Fort Niagara, where they were ambushed and defeated by Johnson.

Preliminary treaties that Croghan negotiated with thirteen western tribes during the next two years were formalized in the September, 1761 conference at Detroit presided over by Johnson. Croghan's diplomacy countered Seneca efforts to enlist the western Indiana in an anti-British alliance by organizing them into a confederacy independent of the Six Nations. General Jeffrey Amherst considered the cost of maintaining peace with the Indians exorbitant, cutting Indian Department expenses to the bone (Croghan wrote that he served "the King for nothing,") and more seriously, Amherst severely limited the gunpowder and lead the Indians needed to feed their families and acquire necessities through the fur trade. Amherst ignored Croghan's intelligence that an Indian war was imminent. The last straw for the Indians and for Croghan was the news that the French had ceded all Indian territory to the British in the Treaty of Paris, prompting Pontiac's Rebellion and Croghan's timely journey to London seeking confirmation of his Indian deeds and reparations for trade losses.

Pontiac's Rebellion

Interestingly, as Indian rebellion engulfed the Ohio Country, Croghan was nowhere to be seen. Instead of following the orders of his superior, Sir William Johnson, to tend to Indian matters along the frontier, Croghan resigned as Deputy Indian agent and packed his bags for London. Two officers recently besieged in Ft. Detroit and recalled to testify about the Indian rebellion were on the Britannia, the ship Croghan sailed to England aboard until wrecking off the Normandy coast in January, 1764. Traveling to Le Havre, Croghan visited the tomb of William the Conqueror. In London "he was the personification of wealth and power." If the Lords of Trade declined Croghan's request to transfer his Indian grant of 200,000 acres (810 km²) from the Ohio to the Mohawk River valley, repay the suffering traders from treasury funds, or permit an Illinois colony, the Board did free the Indian Department from military control and would consider moving the Proclamation Line of 1763 to the Ohio River.

Ordered by Johnson to accompany Col. Bouquet's expedition against the Ohio tribes, Croghan bought and lavishly furnished Monckton hall near Philadelphia instead, leaving the negotiations to his assistant, Alexander McKee. Col. Bouquet, returning victorious from his 1764 Ohio campaign, became alarmed when he crossed paths with Croghan's letter informing Alexander McKee in Pittsburgh that the Indian Department was now independent of local military control. Outraged upon learning that it was true, the usually reserved Bouquet called Croghan "illiterate, imprudent [or "impudent," readings vary], and ill bred" in a letter to General Gage complaining of Croghan's "ridiculous display of his own importance.". Soon after Bouquet recanted, acknowledging that Croghan was the best person to pacify Illinois Country., but an uncritical acceptance of Bouquet's earlier disparaging remarks continues to distort Croghan scholarship, most notably by his biograher Nicholas Wainwright. From 1764 until 1777, when military control of Ohio Country Indian affairs resumed under Washington and Croghan was banished from the frontier, Croghan kept the peace, unofficially after 1771 and with the exception of the Shawnees during Dunmore's War.

Pontiac's Rebellion and earlier Indian raids were avenged by the Paxton Boys, who massacred the Conestogas and marched on Philadelphia to kill the friendly Indians taking refuge there in January, 1764, as Croghan's ship floundered in the English Channel. Upon his return, in a prelude to the Revolutionary War, Croghan's first shipment of Indian presents and trade goods to Pittsburgh provoked armed rebellion. Their justification: Pennsylvania had proscribed trade with the Ohio Indians before a peace was established and as a Crown Indian agent, Croghan was prohibited from engaging in Indian trade. Led by James Smith, a young captive at Fort Duquesne when captured Braddock soldiers were tortured to death within hearing distance, "the 'Black Boys' had attacked his convoy, burned most of his presents and threatened his life if he ever returned to Cumberland County." Unless "severeely punished," Croghan accurately predicted in a letter to Bouquet, the militant frontiersmen would bring "an End to Sivil & Military power."

Despite Black Boy opposition, Croghan accumulated enough goods to open up trade relations with the Ohio Indians in Pittsburgh and set off for Illinois Country. The party was attacked at the mouth of the Wabash River by eighty Kickapoo and Mascouten warriors. Two of Croghan's men and three Indians were killed, Croghan tomahawked, the camp plundered and the survivors hurriedly marched to Vincennes and eventually Ouiatenon. There in a conference on July 13, Croghan reconciled the Ottawa, Piankashaw, Miami, Ouiatenon, Mascouten, and Kickapoo Indians to British rule, a peace confirmed shortly afterward in a grand council that included Pontiac. The principals journeyed to Detroit where Croghan conducted an even larger conference that brought the Potawatomi, Ojibway, Wyandot, and Wea tribes into the British economic orbit, with Pontiac "playing an important part in the proceedings."

Croghan led a group of speculators, including Benjamin Franklin and his son William Franklin in land schemes in the Ohio Country, the Illinois Country and New York. On September 6, 1765, Croghan was awarded a grant of 10,000 acres (40 km²) in New York.

George Croghan's Otsego Patents

Spring, 1766 found Croghan resuming his mission to the Illinois tribes on the Mississippi. Seventeen bateaux left Pittsburgh on June 18, one carrying Croghan and his party, another carrying Captain Harry Gordon and Ensign Thomas Hutchins on a river mapping expedition, two carrying provisions for Fort Chartres, and thirteen carrying Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan trade goods. During his August conferences at Fort Chartres he successfully negotiated with 22 tribes, soon augmented by three Indian nations under French influence. Weak from malaria, Croghan accompanied Gordon and Hutchins to New Orleans, where he sailed for New York with stops at Mobile, Pensacola, Havana, and Charleston,

Later life

Arriving in New York on January 10, 1767, two days later Croghan joined Samuel Wharton in urging Gen. Gage to establish an Illinois colony and when he refused, Croghan publicly resigned as Deputy Indian agent. Laid low by illness, Croghan spent February recuperating at Monckton Hall and March in visiting Johnson, who convinced him to withdraw his resignation. Sent to Fort Pitt in May, Croghan defused an Indian war over squatters and illegal trade. Governor John Penn detained Croghan in Philadelphia on his return east with questions about the Indians to accompany the Mason and Dixon survey, writing: "It would be very difficult to manage this business without his assistance." In fact the Indians halted the survey before it was completed when it began to take into Pennsylvania Croghan's 1749 grant for 200,000 acres.

The Treaty of Fort Stanwix in October, 1768 followed difficulties for Croghan's Indian diplomacy: Frederick Stump's murder and scalping of Indians on the Susquenhanna in January, the Black Boys' pledge to kill Croghan on his way to an Indian conference in Pittsburgh in March, and Lord Hillsborough's assumption of American affairs in London. A quiet retreat was Lake Otsego's outlet, headwater of the Susquehanna River, the site of Croghan's New York six chimney "hutt" and Croghan Forest, 100,000 acres (400 km²) surveyed in September, 1768.

Ahead of the Fort Stanwix Treaty, the Six Nations sold Croghan 127,000 acres (510 km²) in New York for himself and numerous tracts for his friends. Crown recognition of these and other pre-treaty sales became the first of three Iroquois demands at the conference. The second condition was that a grant of 2,500,000 acres (10,000 km²) "on the Ohio to Trent and his associates was to be part of the treaty. Third, should the Penns seize the 200,000 acres (810 km²) which the Indians had granted 'our friend Mr. Croghan long ago,' they requested the king grant Croghan as much land elsewhere. Unfortunately, the Crown did not tolerate such a visible play for land, and Croghan's private land dealings went unconfirmed Facing bankruptcy, "He drew bills payable on Samuel Wharton in London" for thousands of pounds to patent his New York land. Crippled with gout and hounded by creditors, Croghan sought refuge in Croghan Forest, now more than 250,000 acres (1,000 km²), but even its remoteness offered insufficient legal protection when the Wharton bills were returned for nonpayment in February, 1770.

Croghan Hall, reached July 2, 1770, offered George relief from law suits and debtor's prison. Croghan could do little more than watch as settlers poured into the Ohio Country on land he considered to be his. Pennsylvania appointed officials for its newly established Bedford County in 1771, which "did not come within" twenty miles (32 km) "of Pittsburgh" according to Croghan, who "looked on these officers as agents of oppression." Among those buying land from Croghan's 1749 Indian grant was George Washington through his agent William Crawford.[13] "I am likely to sell another tract to Coll. Washington and his friends," Croghan wrote to Joseph Wharton, Jr. and to Michael Gratz, "I have sold a parcel of lands to Coll Washington,"[14], but there were no further sales beyond 1,500 acres (6.1 km²) in today's Perryopolis, Pennsylvania. Crawford surveyed land on Chartiers Creek for Washington that Croghan claimed when the survey of one of his Indian deeds fell far short of the 100,000 acres (400 km²) called for and he had it redone. More than twenty years later, 1784, and despite presenting a questionable patent, Washington won a court case against Chartiers Creek families who had bought their land from Croghan. Washington's document was dated July 5, 1775,[15] two years after his land dispute with Croghan began, and was from Lord Dunmore aboard a British warship on the James River, signed a few days after Washington had assumed command of the Continental army besieging Boston.[16]

Croghan's luck appeared to change when the Crown confirmed plans to establish the inland colony of Vandalia, with Croghan as Indian agent and its largest land owner. But because Crown agents could not be involved in such ventures, Croghan resigned from the Indian Department on November 2, 1771. Alexander McKee took his place as deputy agent, with Croghan "on call when Indian affairs were critical." Cousin Thomas Smallman was taken into a fur trading partnership and Croghan "made a major effort to liquidate his debts." Although failing to sell any of his New York acres, Barnard and Michael Gratz remained Croghan's agents, creditors, primary suppliers and friends, if not as faithful as Andrew Montour whose murder in January 1772 was a major loss. Fort Pitt was abandoned that fall, but Croghan turned that loss to advantage by having McKee tell the Indians that it was done to please them. If it started grimly, 1772 ended with "the news that the Privy Council had overruled Lord Hillsborough and approved Vandalia."

A year passed with Vandalia still in limbo and Croghan, borrowing money and pawning his plate, spending £1,365 for provisions and presents for 400 Indians who attended his November conference regarding the proposed colony. "Convinced that the powerful Vandalia project had fallen through, Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, decided to make good his colony's western claims. Presumably, when Dunmore visited Pittsburgh in the summer of 1773, he met Croghan, for he agreed to recognize the validity of Croghan's Indian grant." Dunmore appointed an intimate associate and nephew of Croghan as his western agent. Dr. John Connolly, fully supported by Croghan, "claimed Pittsburgh for Virginia in January, 1774, and called up the militia. The first men to appear at he parade ground for the initial muster came from Croghan Hall." Virginia's claim was opposed by Pennsylvania's General Arthur St. Clair, the Penn's chief official west of the Alleghenies. "Flushed with confidence, Connolly became increasingly arbitrary and high-handed. He even presumed to treat Croghan . . . in an overbearing manner."

Dunmore's War

Dunmore's War broke out in the Pennsylvania area in the spring of 1774, when frontiersmen led by Michael Cresap killed two Shawnee warriors, and pioneers under Daniel Greathouse led other pioneers to kill the family of the Indian leader Logan. Croghan kept the Seneca and Delaware neutral. His cooperation with St. Clair in defending the frontier prompted Connolly to accuse him of deserting Virginia. The Shawnee chief Cornstalk, not wanting war, had three chiefs escort the traders from his villages to Croghan Hall. Connolly ordered 40 militiamen to capture or kill the Indians; they succeeded in shooting one of the Shawnee chiefs after they had escaped across the Allegheny. St. Clair, echoing other Pennsylvanians, said that Croghan was "indefatigable in endeavoring to make up the breeches."

That August deputies of the Six Nation brought the news of Sir William Johnson's death. He had died in July, the day before a sheriff's sale put over 50,000 acres (200 km²) of Croghan's New York land on the auction block. Bids totaled £4,840 despite the pall Johnson's death cast over the proceedings. Much of the bids were never paid and the sheriff absconded with most of the money collected, leaving only £900 for Croghan. He raised $6,000 in Virginia and purchased directly from the Indians 1,500,000 acres (6,100 km²) on the eastern bank of the Allegheny River. Samuel Wharton sent encouraging news about Vandalia, including the arrival of a large shipment of goods for gifts to the Indians and land payments, temporarily stored at Georgetown because of Dunmore's War.

Governor Dunmore reached Pittsburgh in September, pausing in his campaign against the Shawnee to grill Croghan concerning "Connolly's accusations about inciting the Shawnees to attack Virginia and siding with Pennsylvania against Virginia. Croghan easily disproved the charges and was reinstated in Dunmore's good graces." After bringing his war to a successful close that fall, Dunmore left 75 militia under Connolly to garrison Fort Pitt, renamed Fort Dunmore. The Virginia governor adjourned the Augusta country court from Staunton to Pittsburgh, where he appointed Croghan to serve as president judge.

American Revolution

Croghan chaired Pittsburgh's Committee of Correspondence formed in May 1775 after the battles of Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. The following month he was hosting an Indian conference to ratify Dunmore's treaty of peace when Connolly was arrested by Pennsylvanians and carried off to prison at Hannastown. Croghan and his committee objected, and Connolly was released. He later joined Lord Dunmore and other Loyalists aboard a British man-of-war and "dream[ed] of returning to Pittsburgh at the head of invincible British legions."

On July 10, 1775 Croghan purchased 6,000,000 acres (24,000 km²) between the Allegheny and Beaver rivers from the Six Nations. Two days later, Congress established an Indian Department with the trader Richard Butler as its Pittsburgh agent. When Butler retired in April, 1776, Croghan lobbied for his position, but George Morgan was chosen as Indian agent and he "had absolutely no use for Croghan."

During the summer of 1777, Croghan visited Williamsburg at the expense of the Gratz brothers, to obtain a clear title to land he had sold them. After conferring with Governor Patrick Henry about frontier defenses, he returned to Pittsburgh with dispatches for General Edward Hand, who greeted him with suspicion. A Loyalist conspiracy had been uncovered. Colonel George Morgan, the Indian agent, Alexander McKee; Simon Girty, and others were under arrest. General Hand examined Thomas Smallman's papers and although there was nothing to indicate Croghan was disloyal, Hand ordered him to go to Philadelphia. Two weeks after his arrival, the city was captured by the British. Croghan, too ill with gout to escape, was hauled before General Howe and castigated for chairing Pittsburgh's Committee of Safety and keeping the Lake Indians neutral. Ordered to take lodgings in town, where he was kept under constant supervision by two British officers, Croghan learned that his Monckton Hall was burnt after the battle of Germantown, "another severe financial blow."

When the British evacuated Philadelphia in June 1778, they left Croghan behind on parole. Returning Pennsylvania officials accused him of collaborating with the enemy, but Croghan cleared himself in a November 12, 1778 trial. General Hand refused to let him return to Croghan Hall in western Pennsylvania, and Croghan spent the next two winters in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In an effort to pay off debts, Croghan mortgaged Croghan Hall to Joseph Simon. He deeded 74,000 acres (300 km²) of his Indian grant to the Gratzes, who paid his bills and financed another trip to Williamsburg to have his Indian titles recognized, without success. Bedridden with gout upon his return, Croghan wrote few letters to family and friends. In May 1780, he returned to Philadelphia, where he learned his western properties were within the boundaries of the new state of Pennsylvania.

Croghan died at his home in Passyunk Township, on August 31, 1782. By then he was such an obscure figure that his death was not reported in newspapers. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. The marker on his grave was deteriorated by the elements, and the location was unmarked for many years. In 2008, the Sons of the American Revolution added a new marker.

Croghan's estate

Although the total value of his personal estate was reduced to £50 13s.6d, the value of his extensive land properties was "conservatively estimated at £140,000." Except for some specific bequests, his June 12, 1782 will left his entire estate to his daughter Susannah. Susannah Croghan Prevost died in 1790, survived by six of her twelve children. For decades, they pursued their claims to Croghan's often clouded deeds in numerous lawsuits. "For some years, the hopeless involvements of his estate kept courtrooms abuzz, and, when that ceased and his contemporaries died off, the man's name and fame faded away into the obscurity from which he had emerged."

Native American history continues to be made by Croghan descendants. To this day the female line of Croghan's Mohawk daughter Catherine are inheritors of her position and power in the Turtle Clan. "Catharine Adonwentishon was head of the Turtle clan, the first in rank in the Mohawk Nation. Her birthright was to name the Tekarihoga, the principal sachem of the Mohawk nation."[80]

Speculation in western New York lands and clouded titles resulted in many questionable transactions. In 1786 William Cooper and his partner Andrew Craig "by questionable methods . . . purchased the Otsego lands [40,000 of Croghan's acres] for only £2,700." Cooper laid out the town of Cooperstown, New York and built his mansion, Otsego Hall, on the former site of Croghan's residence. William Franklin and the Prevost heirs watched bitterly as the property increased in value twentyfold. "Andrew Prevost, Jr., wrote Franklin on December 12, 1812: 'We have lost an immense property from the infamous advantage taken by Cooper and others without your knowledge by a forced Sale under your Title.'" William Cooper's son, the author James Fenimore Cooper, presented his family's side of the dispute in his Chronicles of Cooperstown (1838).

References

Notes

Bibliography

• Anderson, Fred. The Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Face of Empire in British America, 1754-1766, New York: Knopf, 2000.
• Aquila, Richard. The Iroquois Restoration:Iroquois Diplomacy on the Colonial Frontier, 1701-1754, Lincoln, NE: U. of Nebraska Press, 1997.
• Bothwell, Margaret Pearson. "The Astonishing Croghans," Western Pennsylvania History Magazine, 48(2), April 1965: 119-144.
• Campbell, William J. "An Adverse Patron: Land, Trade, and George Croghan," Pennsylvania History, 76(2), 2009: 117-140.
• Flexner, James Thomas. George Washington; The Forge of Experience, 1732-1775. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1965.
• Frederic, Harold & William C. Frederick III. The Westsylvania Pioneers, 1774-1776, Butler, PA: H.R. Frederic, 2001.
• Merrell, James H. Into the American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier. New York: Norton, 1999. ISBN 0-393-04676-1.
• Volwiler, Albert T. George Croghan and the Westward Movement, 1741–1782. Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1926.
• Wainwright, Nicholas B. George Croghan: Wilderness Diplomat. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959.

External links

• A[lbert] T. Volwiler, George Croghan and the Development of Central New York, 1763-1800, The Quarterly Journal of the New York State Historical Association [New York History], Vol. IV, No. 1 (January, 1923), pp. 21–40, on-line text, hosted by James Fenimore Cooper Society, 2002