As related by his daughter, Mrs. Hannah Leason, to her grand-nephew, William Moorhead -
an Incident of 1794.


Scrubgrass, Pennsylvania
August 10, 1875

"All is well.  With your request, I sit down to write some particulars about my father's death.  He was a militia captain, and served under George Washington in the Revolutionary War.

My father, Andrew Sharp, was married to my mother, Ann Woods, in the year 1783,  in their native place, in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and with a family of one child, moved to Crooked Creek, (what is now) Indiana County, Pennsylvania, this being a new county.  There was no chance for schooling his children.  My father, after settling there ten years, was determined on having them schooled.  He swapt his place for one in Kentucky, where my mother's friends lived.

We moved to Blacklick River, and got into our boat.  We started in the evening.  The water was too low.  We had to land over a day and night.  We started the next day.  We got two miles below the falls in the Kiskaminitis River.  We landed.  Father had a canoe tied to the side of the boat.  It got loose going over the falls.  Father went back for it.  When he was away, there was a man came and told us the Indians were coming.  Again that time father got back.  All the women and children were in the boat.

The men went out to tie up the horses.  The sun was an hour and a half high in the evening.  They thought it best to go up to Mr. Hall's and stay to morning.  When they went out to tie up the horses, seven Indians fired on them.  They were hid behind a large tree that had fallen down, about fifteen steps off.

The first fire they shot off Father's eye brow.  When he was cutting one end of the boat loose, he got a wound in the left side.  When he was cutting the other end loose, they shot him in the other side.

Father got the boat away before they could get in.  He saw an Indian among the trees.  He called for his gun.  Mother gave it to him.  He shot him dead.

The boat got into a whirlpool and went round and round for awhile.  When the open side went toward land, the Indians fired in at us.  They followed us twelve miles down the river.  They called for us to go out to them, or they would fire again.

Mrs. Conner and her son wanted to go out to them.  They said the men were all killed and wounded.  Father told him to desist or he would shoot him.  The Indians then shot him (Mrs. Conner's son) that minute.  He fell across my mother's feet.  There were two dead men and two wounded.  One of them died the next morning.  There was no woman or child hurt.  There were twenty in all.

They took my father's horses.  The others got theirs.  My mother worked the boat the whole night.  We got within nine miles of Pittsburgh again daylight.  There was a man came in a canoe to the boat to help us along.  One man went on before us and had the doctors ready.  When we got to Pittsburgh there were a great many kind neighbors came to us when we landed.

We lived awhile in the boat.  We moved up to the city before his death.  He lived forty days after he was wounded.  He was willing to die.  He said if it had been the will of Providence for him to live to see his children raised, he would have been satisfied.  He left them to the care of Providence.

Many a time I went and covered myself up and wept, when I heard him moaning, when the doctor was dressing his wounds.  He got better, and could sit upon the bed, and talked to people when they came to see him.  They shot the cannons the Fourth of July.  The wound that was in his back began to run and mortify.  There were three in him, one in both sides and one in his back.

He died the eighth day of July, in the forty-second year of his age, in the year one thousand, seven hundred and ninety -four. He is buried in Pittsburgh.  There were no friends to follow his remains to the grave, but a younger sister and myself.  My mother was unable to go.  The youngest child was only eleven days old.  There were plenty of neighbors to go.  It was a wet day.  He was buried with the honors of war.

After mother got well I went with her to the graveyard and showed her where father was buried.

He went over the mountains to see his father and mother before w went away.  He bought school books and bibles for all that were able to go to school.  He did not live to see his children sent to school.  He had a brother come to see him when he was lying on his death bed.  He went home after some time.

My father sold the boat himself.  He knew he would not go down the river any further.  His brother came back again.  He was dead before he got back.

My uncle stayed with us til there were wagons sent for us.  We went over the mountains to Cumberland County, to where our friends lived, and stayed there three years.  When we got there father had another brother come to see us.

The clothes that were on Father when he was wounded, Mother showed to him.  He looked at every bullet hole that was in them.  He wept like a child.

We lived in Cumberland County three years, and went to school.  We were all good common scholars, but oh! It was at the expense of my father's life.

We got our old place back.  We moved home, and we all lived together.  We did not hire abroad.  We got along very well.  Providence was very kind to us.  Oh! How thankful we ought to be to God for preserving us through such danger.

It was a party of twelve Indians that went to Pittsburgh to trade.  The people would not trade with them.  They got angry, and killed all they could that day.

There were three men went down the river in a canoe before us, one of whom was shot dead.  The other two were wounded.  One of them died.  The other got well.  He lay in a room next to Father's room.  He could come to see Father.  It was the last war that was in that part of the country.  It was in the year 1794, when all these things happened.

I never had a spite at the Indians.  They were very badly treated.  There were seven children living at the time of my father's death.  I was born in the year 1784, February 14.  I was married to my husband, Robert Leason, 1802.  He departed this life February 12^th, aged eight-seven."