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.

Sunday's Obituary: Mrs. Emma J. Hawk

Finding the obituary of a Great, Greataunt, can be very rewarding to verify what you know and also open up many more branches to your family tree. Finding information on females can be daunting and obituaries can be very informative, unlike the census records they are found on before they are married. 

In this case I found her married name and her surviving children and brothers and also the married name of a surviving sister.

One curious thing is that she died at her daughters home, who has the same married name of Hawk.

New Castle New, Thursday, November 9, 1944, Page 2, Col.3

Sunday's Obituary: Captain C. F. Mitchell

Captain C. F. Mitchell

Greensburg, Pa., January 24.- Captain Chauncey F. Mitchell, Greensburg's oldest citizen, who on last Tuesday celebrated the ninety-third anniversary of his birth, died at 4 O'clock yesterday afternoon in a chair at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Wineman. Captain Mitchell had not been ill and his death was unexpected. Captain Mitchell was born in a log cabin in Greensburg, January 17, 1818 and except two years spent in the west and 30 years in Somerset, always had lived here. Printer, newspaperman, soldier, and adventurer, Captain Mitchell led a life full of activity. When a boy he took up the printer's trade in the office of Murcury News in Pittsburg, now the Post. The old Ben Franklin press was operated by hand. This was in 1831. In 1854 the young man had risen to the position of editor and established the Somerset Democrat in Somerset, Pa. which he edited until 1861. He then enlisted in Company A, Pennsylvania Reserves, and went to the front. He served for three years in the army and took part in the battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg, Seven Days' Battle in the Wilderness and others. The last battle he fought was at Gettysburg. He was also a "forty-niner" having left with a large number of Westmorelanders for the gold fields of the Pacific coast. Six grown children survive Captain Mitchell, one of whom is Walter Mitchell, cashier of the Mellon National Bank of Pittsburg.

The Pittsburgh Press- Jan 24 1911

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