After 225 years, a twist on history

HANNA'S TOWN, Pa. - In the rolling green hills southeast of Pittsburgh, a few log cabins and a fort replicate what colonial Hanna's Town looked like before it was burned down in a 1782 attack.

On the eve of the attack by more than 300 American Indian warriors and two dozen British troops, Hanna's Town had more than 30 log cabins, three taverns, and a courthouse. It was the first county seat west of the Allegheny Mountains and was considered a rival to Pittsburgh on the western frontier.

Now, 225 years after the town's demise, anthropologist Jim Richardson has uncovered who conceived and led the assault.

Richardson, curator emeritus of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History's anthropology department in Pittsburgh, has concluded that Seneca chief Sayenqueraghta planned the attack. The conclusion breaks with long-standing belief that the British riled up their Indian allies to make a last attempt at victory after their 1781 surrender in Yorktown in the Revolutionary War.

"It was the biggest attack that occurred during the Revolutionary War in Western Pennsylvania. It was also in some ways a nonevent and historically it never got into literature," said Richardson, who is publishing the findings in the summer and fall issues of Western Pennsylvania History magazine.

"Yorktown had already occurred, the British had already surrendered, and the British in Fort Niagara were trying to hold back any more attacks," he said. "They were doomed. The war was over."

But Sayenqueraghta had different ideas. A chief better known as Old Smoke, he was revered by his people and respected by the British because he commanded at least 3,000 men.

Hanna's Town - the only true example of civilian government in the Western Pennsylvania frontier - was a prime target for Sayenqueraghta.

"At the time the town was burned down, people were beginning to get established here," said Joanna Moyar, educational coordinator of the Westmoreland County Historical Society.

The chief was bent on revenge after members of a Westmoreland County militia had burned down his town, forcing his tribe to establish a new village near Fort Niagara. Sayenqueraghta long had his eye on Hanna's Town and Fort Pitt, a military encampment about 30 miles away in what is now Pittsburgh.

Based on correspondence Richardson sifted through, the British opposed an attack, knowing that if they captured Fort Pitt they would not be able to resupply the stronghold in the middle of rebel-controlled territory.

The British "kept holding him back," said Richardson, who has studied the attack for 37 years. "In June 1782 he had enough and took off to go down and attack Hanna's Town."

Realizing they could not stop him, the British commanders at Fort Niagara attached to Sayenqueraghta's contingent 20 or so of their own men, Richardson said. The motley crew of fighters, with the Indians apparently dressed in castoff uniforms from the King's Eighth Regiment, made for Hanna's Town.

Locals spotted the attackers and had enough time to inform the settlers, who were ill-prepared for a siege.

The warriors continued to nearby Miller's Station, where residents were even less prepared. About a dozen people were killed and 12 captured in the two towns.