The story of the Bard family offers a stark window into the violence that defined the western Pennsylvania frontier during the French and Indian War. Between 1754 and 1763, the French allied with Native tribes including the Delaware and Shawnee, who launched attacks on English colonists living along the western border near the Allegheny Mountains. One such episode, preserved in Joseph Pritts's 1838 book "Incidents of Border Life," recounts the 1758 capture of Richard Bard, a lawyer, along with his wife and family.
The account was compiled by Bard's son Archibald from his father's papers, under the title "Narrative of the Capture of Richard Bard, Esq., of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, with His Wife, Family, and Others." Though the son named only his father in the title, the record shows that his mother endured far worse treatment in captivity than her husband did.
Richard Bard lived in York County, in what is now Adams County, where he owned the mill later known as Marshall's Mill in the area called "Carroll's Tract." On the morning of April 13, 1758, a group of nineteen Native warriors surrounded his home. A young girl named Hannah McBride discovered them at the door; she screamed and ran inside.
At the time, the house held Bard, his wife, and Lieutenant Thomas Potter, brother of General Potter, who had arrived the previous night as a cousin. Also present were an infant of about six months and a boy who worked for the family. The warriors rushed in, and one of them swung a large sword at Potter. Potter managed to wrest the sword away and return the blow, which would have killed his attacker had the blade's tip not struck the ceiling, deflecting it to cut the warrior's hand instead.
Meanwhile, Richard Bard seized a horseman's pistol hanging from a nail and fired at one warrior's chest. Linen fibers in the lock prevented the shot from discharging. When the warrior saw the pistol, he ran outside. At that moment, a Native at the door fired at Potter, but the bullet struck only his little finger.
The door was shut and barricaded as well as possible. But with so many attackers, no powder or lead left, and the house vulnerable to fire because of its thatched roof and the wood piled behind it, the family decided to surrender after the warriors assured them they would not be killed. A group of warriors then went to a field and captured Samuel Hunter and Daniel McManamy, and a boy named William White was taken as he came to the mill.
After securing the prisoners, the warriors took every valuable from the house and set the mill on fire. They then headed for the mountain. When Bard's wife asked her guards who they were, they told her they belonged to the Delaware tribe. About seventy rods from the house, in violation of all their promises, they killed Thomas Potter. After marching three or four miles up the mountain, one warrior drove his tomahawk into the chest of the infant and, after repeated blows, scalped the child.
Crossing the mountain, they passed the home of Mr. Halbert Tye and, seeing him outside, fired at him without effect. Late that evening they passed old McCord's fort and camped half a mile away in the gap. On the second day, after entering the Path Valley, they spotted a group of white men pursuing them and ordered the prisoners to hurry, threatening to kill them all with tomahawks if the pursuers caught up.
Forced onward, they reached the top of Tuscarora Mountain and sat down to rest. Without warning, a warrior drove his tomahawk into the forehead of Samuel Hunter, who was sitting beside Bard's father, and finished him with repeated blows. He was then scalped, and the warriors continued their journey, camping that night several miles north of Sideling Hill.
The next day they crossed the Allegheny Mountains through what is now known as Blair's Gap. On the fifth day, they crossed Stony Creek. A gust of wind blew Bard's hat off the head of the warrior guarding him. The warrior walked a long way along the stream before finding it. In the meantime, Bard had crossed the creek, and when the warrior returned, he struck Bard hard with his gun, leaving him nearly unable to continue.
Realizing he could not travel much farther and would be killed immediately in that condition, Bard decided to attempt escape that night. Two days earlier, half of his head had been painted red. This signified that a council had been held, that opinion was evenly divided between killing and sparing him, and that another council was to decide the matter.
After they made camp, Bard and his wife, who had not been allowed to speak with each other before, were permitted to help one another clean a turkey, and they busied themselves with that task. His wife was told of the escape plan. After some of the warriors lay down, while one entertained the others by wearing his wife's dress, Bard was called to fetch water. He took a vessel, emptied the water from it, and walked about six rods toward the spring.
His wife, noticing this, succeeded in drawing the warriors' attention to the dress so effectively that Bard got about a hundred yards away before the warriors shouted from one fire to another, "Your leg is gone." They ran after him, and one returned with the vessel, saying, "Here is the vessel, but no sign of the man." They spent two days searching for him while the prisoners were held in camp.
After the unsuccessful search, the group continued down the stream to the Allegheny River and on to Fort Duquesne, known today as Fort Pitt. After staying there a night and a day, they traveled about twenty miles along the Ohio River to a Native town. On entering it, a Native woman tore off Bard's wife's head covering, and she and others beat her severely.
Completely exhausted, she asked permission to stay in that place, but was told she could do so if she preferred being scalped to continuing. They then took her to a town called Kuskuski. On arrival, Daniel McManamy was held outside the town while Bard's wife, the boys, and the girls were taken inside at the same time, where their hair was pulled, their faces scratched, and they were beaten brutally.
From his father's papers, Archibald Bard drew the account of McManamy's death, which appears to have come from his mother shortly after her return, passed on by eyewitnesses to the scene. The warriors formed a circle around the prisoner and began beating him, some with sticks and some with war clubs. He was then tied to a post near a large fire, and after being tortured for a time with burning coals, he was scalped and the scalp was placed on a stick to bleed before his face.
A gun barrel was heated until it glowed red and passed over his body, and he was stabbed repeatedly with a heated spear. The warriors continued torturing him in this manner, singing and shouting, until he breathed his last. Shortly afterward, Bard's wife left that place, leaving behind the two boys and the girl, whom she did not see again until their release. She was then in indescribable distress, not knowing where to go, without help or companion, expecting to meet McManamy's fate in the next town she reached.
In the midst of this desperate situation, she met a number of Native people, among them a woman who was also a captive. Bard's wife told her of her fears, and the woman told her that her life was not in danger. She said the wampum belt around her neck was a sure sign that she was intended to be adopted into a family.
They soon arrived at a town, and as soon as she was brought into the tribal council, two Native women entered. One stepped forward and struck Bard's wife on the side of the head. When she realized the other was about to do the same, she turned her head and received a second blow. The warriors were greatly displeased, since such actions in a tribal council violated custom.
A chief then took Bard's wife by the hand and gave her to two Native men to serve as a replacement for a deceased sister. She was placed in the care of a woman to be dressed in clean clothes. She stayed there with her adoptive friends for about a month before her group began planning to move to the upper Susquehanna River, a journey of roughly two hundred miles.
This was agonizing for Bard's wife, who had already traveled more than two hundred miles over mountains and swamps until her feet and legs were badly swollen and ulcerated. Fortunately, on the day of departure, her adoptive brother gave her a horse. But before they had gone far, one of the group's horses died, and she had to give up her horse as a replacement.
After covering part of her journey, she met a group of Native people, and one of them told her not to despair, as a peace was expected soon after which she would be able to return home. She was more inclined to believe this because it came from a man who held the position of principal adviser in the Delaware tribe that held her captive.
As she neared the end of her journey, she was shocked to see a dead captive beside the road, killed with a tomahawk and scalped. She was told he had tried to escape but was caught at that spot. On reaching her destination, after covering nearly five hundred miles, the exhaustion she suffered from cold and hunger brought on a severe illness that lasted about two months.
In that miserable state, with no one to comfort or sympathize with her, a blanket was her only covering and the cold ground inside a wretched hut was her bed. Boiled corn was her only food. She grew so weak that she believed she was nearing death.
After recovering from her illness, she met a woman she had known before. This woman had been in captivity for years and had a Native husband with whom she had one child. Bard's wife reproached her for this, but received the reply that before she agreed, they had tied her to a stake to burn her. She added that once female captives learned the Native language, they were forced to marry one of the men or face death.
This information drove Bard's wife to resolve never to learn the Native language, and she held to that decision throughout her time with them, from the day of her capture to the day of her release, a period of two years and five months. During that time she was treated with great kindness by her adoptive relatives, more than she had expected.
The narrative now returns to Richard Bard. After his escape, once he was missed, the warriors pursued him. When he found himself closely followed, he hid in a hollow tree trunk until they passed by him and moved out of hearing. He then took a different route and continued his flight. The warriors were said to have spent two days searching for him.
In the meantime, after much fatigue and suffering, he reached a mountain that stretched for four miles, its summit covered in snow. By then he was completely exhausted, having traveled almost without stopping for two days and two nights and eaten only some buds he picked from trees as he walked. His shoes were worn out, and the country he crossed was extremely rough, covered in many places with poisonous thorns. His feet were torn and badly swollen.
What made matters worse was that the mountain was covered with laurel, and the snow accumulated on its leaves bent them down so that in many places, in his weakened condition, he could advance only by crawling on his hands and knees beneath the branches. Three days had now passed since his escape.
Though he feared the warriors were still pursuing him and that their path along the mountain would lead them to find his tracks in the snow, and from there to his hiding place, he found himself unable to walk any farther. His hands, too, had swollen from crawling on the snow until they were nearly as bad as his feet. He was forced to stop, with little hope of completing his journey.
Beyond the danger of being caught by his pursuers, he was in fact starving, having tasted no food since his escape except the buds he picked along the way from the pennywood tree, or "red bud," as it is called. Yet on the fifth day, while crawling on his hands and knees because he still could not walk, searching for buds or herbs to ease his hunger, he was fortunate to see a rattlesnake, which he killed and ate raw.
After lying still for three or four days, he reduced the swelling in his feet by pricking the inflamed areas with a thorn. He then tore his trousers and used the pieces to bind his feet as best he could. Thus prepared, he set out again on his journey, limping in great pain, but with no choice other than to stay where he was and die.
He had covered only a few miles when, just after coming down a hill, he was startled by the welcome sound of a drum. He called out as loudly as he could, but no one answered. It had been only a hallucination. Saddened and disappointed, he continued his journey.
On the eighth day he crossed the Juniata River by wading, which he managed only with great difficulty because of his limp. It was night and bitterly cold, and because his clothes were wet, he grew so numb that he feared lying down lest he die. So, despite his limp and exhaustion, he resolved to keep moving through the pitch darkness, by what he regarded as divine providence.
During the night, as he wandered, he could barely tell whether what drew him was the sight of a fire that appeared to have been left the day before, perhaps by a group of settlers who had gone out to pursue the warriors. He stayed there until morning, when he discovered a path leading to the settlements and followed it as quickly as he could.
This was the ninth day since his escape, a period in which he had eaten only some buds and four snakes. At noon that day, he was terrified when he suddenly met three Native men at a bend in the road. They showed friendliness, however, and instead of killing him as he expected on first seeing them, they brought him within a few hours to Fort Littleton in Bedford County, a place he knew well, where he stayed several days until he regained enough strength to return home.
Some time after Bard's return home, he went to Fort Pitt, which was then in English hands, where a number of Native people were on the other side of the river, about to conclude a treaty. One evening he went there to ask about his wife. Among them he noticed several people who had been present when he was captured.
He revealed his identity to them, but they pretended not to know him, so he asked whether they did not remember the capture of nine people, reminding them of the time and place. They admitted it then and asked how he had made it home, and so on. After that he asked about his wife, but they said they knew nothing about her and promised to provide some information by the time he returned the next day. He then went back to the fort.
Shortly afterward, a young man who had been kidnapped by Native people as a child followed him and advised him not to return, because he had heard them say after Bard left that they had never wanted anything so much as to drive their tomahawks into his head, and that they had agreed to kill him when he returned the next day. After asking Bard not to mention anything about him, or about having met him, or about the subject of their conversation, the man returned to the camp.
It may be noted here that from the time Bard was captured by the Native people until his wife's release, he did nothing but travel from place to place seeking information about her, and once he knew where she was, all his thoughts turned to plans for her liberation. Wishing to go to Pittsburgh again for that purpose, he met a wagon convoy led by Mr. Erwin.
He traveled with them as far as Bedford, but because that mode of travel was tedious, he spoke to the officer in charge there to have Captain "White Eyes," who was leading a group of Native people, promise to accompany him to Pittsburgh. This was arranged, and the Native people agreed to deliver him safely to Pittsburgh. Bard set out with them, taking a horse and a new gun.
They had gone only about two miles when one of the Native men left the path and picked up a scalp that had been taken that morning from one of the wagon drivers. This alarmed Bard greatly, but after they had gone about ten more miles, the Native people again left the path and brought back horses and a barrel of whiskey that had been hidden. Shortly afterward, the Native people began drinking until they were drunk.
"White Eyes" then signaled to Bard that since he had escaped from them before, he would now shoot him, and raised his gun to aim at him. Bard hid behind a tree and ran around it while the Native man chased him. This provided great amusement to those present for some time, until a young Native man stepped forward, snatched the gun from "White Eyes," and hid it under a tree trunk.
The Native people became very drunk and scattered, leaving "White Eyes" with Bard. "White Eyes" then attacked him with a large stick aimed at his head, but Bard raised his arm and took a blow so heavy that it left his arm black for weeks. Meanwhile, a Native man from another tribe who had been sent on an urgent errand to Bedford passed by.
The leader "White Eyes" asked him for his gun to shoot Bard, but the man refused because they were in the process of making peace, and killing Bard would have sparked another war. Since they belonged to different tribes, they had to speak in English. At that point Bard found himself in a desperate situation and resolved to attempt escape whatever the cost.
He told the leader "White Eyes," "Our horses are getting away," then headed toward them, expecting at any moment to take a bullet in the back. But when he reached his horse, he mounted and set off down the road. He had not gone far when he saw the Native man who had taken the gun from "White Eyes" sleeping by a spring. He often heard that man say afterward, "If it had been any other Indian, he would have shot him."
Fearing pursuit, Bard rode his horse as fast as possible, and after traveling all night, he reached Pittsburgh the next morning shortly after sunrise. No more than three hours later, the Native people arrived after him. But fearing harm to his wife if he killed them, he restrained his anger and let the matter pass.
There he had the opportunity to write her a letter, asking her to tell those who had adopted her that he would pay them forty pounds if they returned her to him. But after waiting for a reply until he lost patience, he arranged with one Native man to go and steal her away. On the night before the man was to set out, however, he backed out, saying he would be killed if he went.
In this situation, Bard decided to go himself and bring her back whatever the risk. For that purpose he set out and went to a place in "Sisewana," which he believed was called "Shamokin," not far from what were called the Big Cherry Trees. From there he took a Native path he had traveled until evening, when he met a group of Native people who were bringing his wife with them.
The Native people passed him and raised the war cry. His wife was distressed at their situation, and Bard, realizing the Native people were not in a good mood, began promising them the payment agreed on in the letter as soon as they reached "Shamokin." But the Native people told him that if they went with him into white society, he would refuse to pay them, and they would then have no way to recover what was owed.
Finding them so worried, he asked them to keep him hostage in the forest and send his wife to the town, promising to send an order for the money to be paid to them, and telling them that if he failed to do so, they could do with him whatever they wished. This approach produced the desired result. They became good-humored and brought the two of them along. When this was done, the money was paid as promised.
Before Bard and his wife left Shamokin, he asked a Native man who was his wife's adoptive brother to visit him if he ever came to the white settlements. Indeed, after some time, the man did visit. Bard was then living about ten miles from Chambersburg. After the man had stayed with him for a while, he went to a tavern known as McCormick's, where he drank a little.
There a man named Nugent, who was later executed in Carlisle for horse theft, stabbed the Native man in the neck with a large knife, intending to drive the blade between the bone and the throat and cut his neck by pulling forward. He did not strike his target precisely and only cut the front of the windpipe. As a result, Nugent had to flee from justice, or the law would have been applied to him. It was noted that he continued in vice until his death.
A doctor was brought to treat the Native man. The wound was stitched, and he stayed at Bard's home until he recovered. When he returned to his people, they executed him on the grounds that, as they claimed, he had joined the white man.
In August 1764, according to the most accurate accounts of the time, Bard and his family had moved for fear of Native attacks to the home of his father-in-law, Thomas Bowes, about three miles away. From there he took a Black girl to his land to gather some hay. While he was at work there, a dog accompanying him began barking and running back and forth toward a thicket.
Noticing this, he grew alarmed, picked up his gun, and told the girl to run to the house, believing Native people were nearby. The two set off toward the house, and no more than an hour had passed when they saw from the upper floor of the house a company led by Captain Potter, later General Potter, pursuing a group of Native people.
That morning the warriors had killed a schoolmaster named Brown along with ten small children. They had also scalped a man named Archibald McCulley and left him for dead, though he recovered and was still alive not long before this account. Remarkably, except for a few, the students had shown great reluctance to go to school that morning.
McCulley's account indicated that when the schoolmaster and students met at the school, two students told him they had seen Native people on their way, but the schoolmaster paid no attention and ordered them back to their books. Shortly afterward, two older Native men and a boy rushed toward the door. When the schoolmaster saw them, he begged them to take only his life and spare the children.
But mercilessly, the two older men stood at the door while the boy entered the house, and with a piece of wood shaped like a Native war club, he killed the schoolmaster and the students, after which all were scalped.
The Bard family was also known as Baird or Beard. A book published in 1908 by Geo Salliham titled "The Bard Family" is available for free online for those who wish to learn more about the family's history. Mrs. Bard's name was Catherine Poe Bard, and the couple had been married only since December 1756. They had only one child, John Bard, when they were captured in 1758, and that child was the one the warriors killed without mercy in this story. Richard and Catherine Bard went on to have about ten children after their captivity.
William Bard, Richard Bard's brother, was the founder of Bardstown, Kentucky, which is named for him. Their father was born in Antrim, Northern Ireland, and the family was of Scotch-Irish descent.
The leader "White Eyes" belonged to the Turtle clan of the Delaware people and was installed as a chief of his nation. During the early years of the Revolution, he was a steady friend to the Americans. In this he was opposed by his rival, Chief "Pipe," who belonged to the Wolf clan. "Pipe" was eager to take up arms on the western frontier of Pennsylvania, but "White Eyes" successfully thwarted his plans until 1778, when the friendly chief accompanied General McIntosh's army to Tuscarora, where he contracted smallpox and died.
After that, Chief "Pipe's" policy dominated the Delaware tribe, except for those who were with the Moravian Indians. On "White Eyes'" death, "Pipe" declared that the Great Spirit had perhaps removed "White Eyes" from the way in order to save his nation. In the end, the opposite proved true. After many bitter and often successful wars against the whites, the Delaware tribe was almost entirely destroyed by Anthony Wayne, known as "Mad Anthony." The remaining survivors then took part in the prophet's defeat by General Harrison at Tippecanoe.
In 1818, the Delaware ceded all their lands in Indiana to the United States and moved west to the Mississippi River. They later merged with the Cherokee Nation in Texas and Indian Territory. In 1903, a descendant of "White Eyes" was in Washington with a Delaware delegation seeking compensation for violations of their rights in Cherokee lands, where he received friendly attention from Senator Bard of California, a grandson of Richard Bard.
An interesting artifact survives from the period of Mrs. Bard's captivity. It is a large spoon made of horn, crafted especially for her by one of her Native brothers and used during her time with the Delaware tribe. When Mrs. Bard died, the spoon passed to her youngest daughter, Martha, who left it to her daughter Catherine Wilson. From Catherine Wilson it passed to her daughter Rachel McManamy, and it is now in the possession of Miss McManamy of Blue Ash, Ohio. The artifact was made from black horn with a handle intricately carved at the top.
During the Revolution, Richard Bard served in a company of infantry under Captain Joseph Culbertson under the call of July 28, 1777, in the campaign around Philadelphia, and afterward in a ranging company under Captain Walter McKenna on the western frontier. Captain Culbertson's company marched with Colonel Arthur Buchanan's battalion of the Fifth Class of Cumberland County militia. No details were obtained about Bard's service on the frontier. His record appears in the company of Captain William Smith.
Richard Bard never held any political office except that of justice of the peace for Peters Township, at a time when justices also served as judges of the county courts. The date of his commission was March 15, 1786. He was, however, a member of the Pennsylvania convention of 1787, which was presented with the Constitution drafted by the federal convention. He was an anti-federalist and refused to sign the ratification. He later was a delegate to the Harrisburg convention of 1788 to oppose the federal Constitution.
Bard's fellow delegate at the 1787 convention was Colonel John Allison, an ardent federalist who supported the ratification motion introduced by Thomas McKean. Bard's opposition to the federal Constitution, both before and after ratification, had a disastrous effect on his political career. He was sometimes sharply attacked in the "Franklin Repository," the county's federalist newspaper, over the following ten years.
Like many early settlers on the Pennsylvania frontier, Richard Bard acquired vast tracts of land extending west to the western side of the Allegheny Mountains shortly after the end of the French and Indian War. A tradition among the Bard family in Bardstown, Kentucky, holds that during the Revolutionary period, Richard Bard went to Danville with his brother William, where he built a cabin that entitled him to a thousand acres of land. He afterward returned to Pennsylvania. Mr. Bard died in the state and was buried in the Presbyterian cemetery at Church Hill.