Exploring Family Connections to the 1758 Fort Sebert Massacre, Col. Henry Bouquet’s 1764 Treaty, and The Light in the Forest

Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Blog Post #33

By Tonya Graham McQuade

My 7th great grandparents, John and Dorothy Reager, were both killed in the massacre at Fort Seybert, and their three children (including my 6th great grandmother) were taken captive.

For many years, I have taught Conrad Richter’s 1953 novel The Light in the Forest to my juniors in English 11. The book begins in Ohio in November 1764 as various tribes - including the Shawnees, Senecas, and Delawares (aka. Lenni Lenape) - are returning their white “captives” to Col. Henry Bouquet at the forks of the Muskingum River as part of a peace agreement. The 15-year-old protagonist True Son, born John Butler, is among these captives - and he is not happy about returning to his white family in Paxton Township, Pennsylvania. He wants to remain with his Lenni Lenape family and live in the village along the Tuscarawas River where he has lived since he was kidnapped and adopted at age four.

Earlier the previous year, in February 1763, the Treaty of Paris had officially ended the French and Indian War, resulting in France ceding its territory east of the Mississippi River to England. Many of the tribes who had previously allied or signed treaties with France, however, were not happy with these terms. In May 1763, the Ottawa leader Pontiac led a number of tribes in seeking to drive out English settlers from the Ohio Country. They laid siege to forts and frontier outposts; nearly captured Britain’s two most important fortresses west of the Appalachian Mountains, Fort Detroit and Fort Pitt; successfully captured Fort Sandusky and murdered the entire garrison; and killed or captured hundreds of other English colonists.

Ottawa Chief Pontiac meets with Major-General Henry Gladwin, the British commander at Fort Detroit during the siege. Source: The Ohio History Connection (1)

According to an article titled “Pontiac’s Rebellion” on the MountVernon.org website, “The violence represented an unprecedented pan-Indian resistance to European colonization in North America, in which Indigenous nations – Ottawa, Delaware, Potawatomie, Shawnee, Mingo (Seneca), Wyandot, Ojibwe, Huron, Choctaw, Piankashaw, Kickapoo, Tunica, Peoria, and Mascouten – challenged the attempts by the British Empire to impose its will and abrogate Native sovereignty” (2). 

The tide of Pontiac’s Rebellion turned, however, at the Battle of Bushy Run in Southwestern Pennsylvania in August 1763. There, Col. Bouquet and a force of 500 men, most of them Scots Highlanders, defeated the tribes and prevented a takeover of Fort Pitt. Bouquet soon became the fort’s new commander. The following Fall, Bouquet led an army expedition of about 1500 militiamen and British soldiers from Fort Pitt into the Ohio Valley to put down the ongoing rebellion. 

The Battle of Bushy Run, by Charles William Jefferys, 1915 (3)

According to a historical account of the expedition, Bouquet “had no intention of surprising the natives. He hoped to avoid battle altogether by convincing the Indians that they had no chance against the sizable number of British soldiers. Bouquet had every intention of destroying the native villages, especially those of the Delaware Indians and the Mingo Indians, in eastern Ohio unless they surrendered and agreed to all of the colonel's demands. In October 1764, Bouquet's army reached the heart of Indian country and shortly thereafter, the Shawnees, Senecas, and Delawares came to Bouquet to sue for peace. As part of the peace treaty, Bouquet demanded the return of all white captives in exchange for a promise not to destroy the Indians' villages or seize any of their land. Over the next several weeks, the Natives brought in their captives and eventually more than two hundred were returned to Bouquet” (4).

Many of these “captives,” however, did not see themselves as such. In his introductory “Acknowledgements” to The Light in the Forest, Richter writes: “In records of the Eastern border, the author was struck by the numbers of returned white captives who tried desperately to run away from their flesh-and-blood families and return to their Indian foster homes and the Indian mode of life. As a small boy he himself had tried to run off to Indian country without the benefit of ever having lived among the savages” (5).

There is much more I could say about this novel, but that is not the point of this post. I encourage you to read The Light in the Forest for yourself. The point is, it was interesting teaching the novel this year knowing that several of my own ancestors were among that group of white captives returned to Bouquet in November 1764 by the various tribes that had taken them captive - in the case of my relatives, the Shawnee. I can only wonder how they felt about their captivity and their return to “civilized” life. 

In my last post, where I talked about my Scots-Irish "Ulster Presbyterian" ancestors, I relayed the story of Elizabeth (Archer) Renick, the sister of my 6th great grandmother Sarah Archer on my mother’s side, who was taken captive by the Shawnee at the forks of the James River in Augusta County, Virginia, on July 25, 1757, along with her seven children. Her husband Robert was scalped and killed that same day. Prior to moving to Augusta County, the Renicks had lived in Paxton Township, where many Scots-Irish Presbyterians had settled - the same place that True Son/John Butler’s parents lived in The Light in the Forest, so there I discovered another family connection to the novel.

In The Light in the Forest, True Son is especially dismayed to learn his white family is from Paxton Township, for he has heard stories of the “Peshtank men” and their evil acts against the Conestoga tribe. They had killed an entire village, including women and children, with guns and hatchets. As his Lenni Lenape father Cuyloga recounted, “The white barbarians scalped them. They did indecencies. They chopped off the hands of the men and squaws. They put guns in the mouth of one of our Conestogo cousins while he was yet speaking and blew his head to pieces” (Richter 39). For a fuller description of this historical episode, check out this LINK.

Modern-Day Location of Augusta County, Virginia - but these borders were not
finalized until 1790; it used to be a much larger county (6)

What is especially surprising, though - almost unbelievable - is that my 6th great grandmother on my father’s side was ALSO taken captive by the Shawnee in Augusta County, Virginia, just one year after the Renicks! And ironically, her name - Barbara Reager (1750-1834) - appears along with the names of her sister Dorothy and brother John on the SAME PAGE as the Renicks in the book Setting All the Captives Free: Capture, Adjustment, and Recollection in Allegheny Country, by Ian Steele (2013), which has a 112-page alphabetized Appendix of “Named Captives Taken on the Allegheny Frontier, 1745-65.” I have to tell you, it’s rather shocking to see so many names listed - including eleven relatives from both my mother's and father's sides of my family. I had no idea so many whites were taken captive! (And yes, I definitely know Whites committed many atrocities as well).

Notice the “Reager” and “Renick/Ranock” names - the following page lists additional children of Robert & Elizabeth Renick: Nancy, Robert, and William. (7)

Barbara, Dorothy, and John Reager were captured by the Shawnee on April 28, 1758, and their parents were killed in what became known as the Seybert Massacre. Fort Seybert was located on the south fork of the south branch of the Potomac River in an area that is now part of Pendleton County, West Virginia (then Augusta County, Virginia). At the time of the attack, a number of men were away on business in the Shenandoah Mountains, and there was a shortage of ammunition in the fort.

When the Indians arrived at Fort Seybert, only three men were present - including Captain Jacob Seybert and my 7th GGF John Reager - and a number of women and children. Given the circumstances, Seybert surrendered after being promised by Bemimo, a Shawnee war chief, that their lives would be spared. However, after their surrender, the Indians killed 17 people and took up to 24 others captive - including the three Reager and seven Seybert children.  

In this grave site monument at Fort Seybert, Seybert’s wife is listed as being killed, but in the book Setting All the Captives Free, it lists her as captured and later seen at Muskingum in 1759, but it says she never returned. (Photo posted on Findagrave.com)

When Seybert’s teenage son returned to the region years later after being released from his captivity, he gave the following account: “They bound ten, whom they conveyed without the fort, and then proceeded to massacre the others in the following manner: They seated them in a row upon a log, with an Indian standing behind each; and at a given signal, each Indian sunk his tomahawk into the head of his victim: an additional blow or two dispatched them” (8). A documentary I found on Youtube (LINK) tells more about this history and describes the reenactment they do each year of the massacre to remember the victims.

As written on the page above, Barbara and Dorothy Reager were returned to Col. Bouquet at Muskingum River on November 15, 1764; their brother never returned. Barbara later married John Caplenger, and their daughter Barbara married William Traughber in 1790. Traughber is the maiden name of my father’s mother, Margaret Ruth Traughber. She would not have been born if Barbara had been killed by the Shawnee.

William Traughber and Barbara Caplinger Traughber
(Photo posted on Ancestry.com)

It was common, however, for the tribes to adopt their captives rather than kill them. Often, these captives would take the place of family members who had been killed or who had died of sickness. In The Light in the Forest, True Son is adopted by his Lenni Lenape father Cuyloga “to take the place of a son dead from the yellow vomit,” and he is told from the time that he is four that “his father had said the words that took out his white blood and put Indian blood in its place,” making him a “full member of the family” (Richter 1-2). As I explained in my last post, one of Elizabeth Renick’s sons, Joshua, never returned to white society but rather stayed with the tribe. The Captives book says of him: “Seen at Lower Shawnee Town in 1764. WHITE INDIAN who became a war chief” (9).

Six days after the attacks on Fort Seybert and nearby Fort Upper Tract, where 18 militiamen were killed, Gen. George Washington wrote to acting Virginia Governor John Blair to tell him of the disasters: "The enclosed letter from Capt. Waggener will inform your Honor of a very unfortunate affair. From the best accounts I have yet been able to get there are about 60 persons killed and missing. Immediately upon receiving this Intelligence I sent out a Detachment of the Regiment, and some Indians that were equipped for war (Indians were in the employ of the colonists as well as the French) in hopes of their being able to intercept the Enemy in the retreat. I was fearful of this stroke, but had not time enough to avert it” (10).

So, why could these attacks not be averted? There are several contributing factors, but one goes back to the governing philosophy of the Quakers who founded Pennsylvania - and they make up another set of my Scots-Irish ancestors. Tune in next time to learn more about them!

Endnotes:

1. Anderson, Fred, and Lauren Cooper. “July 31, 1763: Chief Pontiac Wins Battle of Bloody Run at Fort Detroit.” Zinn Education Project, https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/battle-of-bloody-run/.

2. “Pontiac's Rebellion · George Washington's Mount Vernon.” Mount Vernon, https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/pontiacs-rebellion/.

3. “Battle of Bushy Run.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bushy_Run#/media/File:The_Battle_of_Bushy_Run.jpg.

4. Smith, Charles Guillaume Frédéric Duma. Historical Account of Bouquet's Expedition Against the Ohio Indians, in 1764. Creative Media Partners, LLC, 2022.

5. Richter, Conrad. The Light in the Forest. Curtis Publishing Company, 1953.

6. “Augusta County, Virginia.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusta_County,_Virginia#/media/File:Map_of_Virginia_highlighting_Augusta_County.svg.

7. Steele, Ian Kenneth. Setting All the Captives Free: Capture, Adjustment, and Recollection in Allegheny Country. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2013.

8. “Fort Seybert Massacre.” West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History, https://archive.wvculture.org/history/settlement/fortseybert01.html.

9. Steele, Ian Kenneth. Setting All the Captives Free: Capture, Adjustment, and Recollection in Allegheny Country. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2013.

10. “Fort Seybert Massacre.” West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History, https://archive.wvculture.org/history/settlement/fortseybert01.html.