DAVID MEAD’S FRONTIER COMMUNITY

The establishment of Fort Franklin facilitated expansion of white settlement on the banks of French Creek. Three of the soldiers involved in its construction would become settlers in Crawford County. A different soldier, however, led the way. Prevented by conflicts between Connecticut and Pennsylvania from settling lands to which they claimed title in the Wyoming Valley, David Mead and his brother John scouted this area in 1787. In order to gain support for Virginia’s cause, Governor Dinwiddie had ordered George Washington’s journal to be published, in which the colonel had described “very rich meadows.” Open areas that did not require extensive clearing were rare, and no doubt the report attracted Mead.

On May 12, 1788, Mead returned with two brothers and six other men, camping beneath a large wild cherry tree, approximately where Mill Run formerly entered French Creek.

Mead and Cornelius Van Horne planted their first crop on the large and mostly treeless Cussewago Island, only to have it washed out by a June freshet. Thomas Grant, who selected the land where Meadville now stands, returned east that fall. Mead, whose original holdings were, like those of Van Horne, on the west bank, took over Grant’s land and built a block house close to the present intersection of Water and Randolph streets.

Cornelius Van Horne

 Mead’s block house
Mead’s block house

Fortitude, strength, and friends were required to found a new frontier community. Mead had all of these. Nearly 6’ 4”, a giant in size and strength for his time, he possessed both a strong will and persona. While only four of the original settlers stayed at the village, by the end of 1789 it was much larger. Other soldiers had arrived to claim donation lands as payment for their services in the Revolutionary War, since the federal government was out of cash. The growing population included twenty Meads, counting David’s newborn daughter Sarah, the first white person born on the banks of French Creek. The price paid by the settlers was considerable. A brother-in-law drowned; Mead’s father was killed; Cornelius Van Horne was taken prisoner at Conneaut Lake by Native Americans before escaping; William Gregg was scalped; and still another man was made prisoner and taken to Detroit, where two gallons of whisky bought his freedom.

Most of these tragedies occurred during the troubled years of 1791–94, but not all Native Americans were hostile. A misplaced Mohawk known as Stripe Neck and his family who dwelled on the west bank were of great help. He was later buried along the creek, but in time the grave was dug away, perhaps during the building of the railroad. Though his bones were lost, more recently a memorial has been erected on the grounds of the Meadville City Building near their original resting place.
  
Stripe Neck memorial, Meadville

Another helpful Native American was the Seneca chief Cornplanter. He fought with the French against General Braddock and against the American colonists during their revolution. Once the United States was established, Cornplanter opposed further bloodshed and supported the peace treaties of Fort Stanwix. By that treaty of 1784, the Six Nation confederation relinquished all claim on the northwest regions to Pennsylvania. Most of the Senecas moved north, following the creation of the Allegheny reservation. Cornplanter became a friend of the new country and the settlers of French Creek Valley. The hostiles came from the west: the Shawnees, Ottawas, and Miamis, all former part of the Cherokee or Algonquin groups. It was a Seneca, Flying Cloud, son of the village chief Canadaughta, who warned in March 1791 of a band of Wyandots lurking to the south of Meadville. On April 2 the women and children of Mead’s settlement were sent to Fort Franklin by canoe. Half Town, the half-brother to Cornplanter, provided Native Americans to accompany them, six patrolling each bank of the creek. Half Town and fifteen other warriors joined the white men initially at the ford where Mead had first camped, then at Mead’s blockhouse. On April 4 the white men moved to Fort Franklin, protected all the way by Half Town’s band.

It was later that spring that Van Horne attempted to return to plow his fields west of the creek. There he was briefly captured but escaped, while Gregg was killed and Thomas Ray was captured. Darius Mead, David’s father, was captured that same spring while plowing north of Fort Franklin. That night he apparently attempted to escape, killing one of his Delaware captors, but in turn was killed by another who eventually also died of the wounds Darius had inflicted on him.

For most of l791 and l792 the first white civilian settlement along the creek remained abandoned, though for a few winter months a detachment of soldiers briefly stood guard. Some settlers returned at the end of 1792, but fled again in spring 1793 after a warning of danger from Flying Cloud. Some returned when a detachment of troops was sent from Fort Franklin. Upon their recall to the main army, Van Horne raised volunteers who manned the fort while a few hardy settlers tilled the grounds during the day and the women stayed within the stockade. 
More settlers slowly filtered back in the succeeding year. American troops established a stronger presence at Franklin and at the forks of the creek, as the juncture of Le Boeuf and French creeks was then called. Part of the problem was that British agents had convinced many Native Americans, including some of the Iroquois, that the British would soon return. Some Senecas therefore resisted the notion of an American fort at Presque Isle. The Americans held several councils with the natives, one at Fort LeBoeuf in June 1794, to persuade them that the United States would stay in control. Then in August 1794 the western Native Americans were brutally defeated by General “Mad Anthony” Wayne at Fallen Timbers. The Senecas henceforth listened more fully to Cornplanter’s advice and ceased to oppose white expansion in the French Creek Valley and to the west. The last deaths along French Creek at the hands of Native Americans occurred when two woodcutters were scalped near the juncture of the Conneaut Outlet and French Creek in June 1795.

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