Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Tombstone Tuesday: The Little Heroine of Hannastown.



It was mid July in 1782. The new country was at war. The militia were fighting the British and the British hired Indians and Canadians to do raids on the families left behind. 
This was the frontier then. 
People would guard family members as they harvested their crops because the raids were frequent and on this day  people harvesting at the Huffnagle's farm noticed the Indians and they ran to the safety  of Hannastown and the fort.
On this particular day, July 13, many were still at a celebration of a wedding at the Miller's Farm the day before so most of those left behind were children, elderly and women. 
The Moses Shaw family were among those at Fort Hannastown when the Indians under Guyasuta and the Canadians arrived. The group burned the town down and fired on the fort.  As a toddler was crawling toward the stockade pickets and an opening in the wall  young Margaret "Peggy" Shaw ran for the child to pull it to safety and was shot in the breast piecing her lung. The child was safe. Peggy lingered for 14 days before dying. 
Peggy Shaw is buried in the Middle Presbyterian Graveyard in Mt. Pleasant, PA. 


Peggy was the daughter of Moses and Margaret (Patterson) Shaw.
Different accounts of the story have Peggy aged form 12 to 16 years old, none the less a heroine.

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