Re: The Indian Blood in the Pyatt(e) Family - PA KY MS OH ARKANSAS
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In reply to:
Re: The Indian Blood in the Pyatt(e) Family - PA KY MS OH ARKANSAS
Laverne Piatt 7/22/02
In 1751, George Croghan’s Indian conference with Tanarghisson, the Seneca Half King, at Aughwick (later Ft. Shirley) was attended by Jacob Pyatt, John Owens, Dennis Sullivan, and Andrew Montour.The head Shawnee chief, Kawkowatchety, the Hard Man, was also invited but was too ill to attend.The Half King, the Hard Man, and the Native American connections of Croghan and Montour are all famous, but far more intriguing to me were the obscure histories of Sullivan, Owens, and Pyatt.
The state of research on John Owens and Jacob Pyatt started out equally.Both were western Pennsylvania Indian traders.Both had been guides for General Bouquet during Pontiac’s War.Both had sons whose land deeds and other records appear in Washington County, Pennsylvania.Both had descendants who came to Kentucky.Jacob Pyatt and John Owens’s son, George, had adjacent lots in Louisville. Both Jacob Pyatt and George Owens were at Ft. Jefferson.Some latter-day descendants of both men told me of their Indian blood traditions, while other members of the family dismissed them as the silliest romance.
For both families, I found minute mentions here and here, always interesting, inriguing little tidbits of stories in journals and documents and treaties.But their was nothing to indicate that either had married anything more than regular white women.Just a silly tradition.
English, in his two volume biography of George Rogers Clark, said that he knew George Owens’s sons and that they were Indian haters “but supposed to have Indian blood in their own veins.”But this was not proof of anything, only that the tradition of Indian blood went far back.
But then, when researching the Half King, I found an obscure mention in Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette.After the death of the Half King, his daughter “the Indian wife of John Owens” ran off from Ft. Shirley because of rumors that a war was breaking out and fear that the French Indians would try to kill the Half King‘s relations for siding with the English.
So there we had it.Documentation that John Owens had an Indian wife.Take away this one arcane reference, and Owens looks the same as Pyatt.
I’ve published Owens' interesting history and an extended genealogy of his family in one of my books.
As for Sullivan, I‘ve found where his son was adopted by Indians and lived with them nine years.Afterwards, he came to Kentucky and became a scout for George Rogers Clark and had a very interesting history in association with the Indian wars.That his descendants have an Indian blood tradition would be a natural thing, for after all, he lived as one of them, whether he married one of them or not.When Sullivan served as Clark's guide in the attack on the Shawnee towns in 1782, there was the story of him defiantly saving a woman and giving her a horse to ride.
As for Jacob Pyatt. . .well, we don’t know.But if I had to bet....
It’s interesting that Benjamin Payett's name is listed as “Beniam” in his will and that the signature of the Benjamin living with the Indians was also “Beniam.”Of course, that is not proof of anything.
As for my first two books, they are virtually out of print, but a few copies are around.I always encourage people to see them in libraries where photocopies are cheap and they are always free to use or reprint whatever I write myself.People are always writing me letters saying, “Well, you got part of the story right, but there’s also this and this.”My reaction is always joyous, asking people to allow me to print their research, giving them credit, and asking that if anyone has a better source to please write us.I have my name and address printed on the last page of the book for this purpose.
More Replies:
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Re: The Indian Blood in the Pyatt(e) Family - PA KY MS OH ARKANSAS
Kimberley Dressel 11/10/05
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Re: The Indian Blood in the Pyatt(e) Family - PA KY MS OH ARKANSAS
Laverne Piatt 7/30/02