The signing of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768 sent a wave of new settlers into the upper Ohio Valley and its tributaries. Prior to the treaty, the region’s permanent colonial residents consisted mostly of fur traders, artisans, sutlers, and civilians under the strict discipline of British military commanders.
Soon, however, a torrent of newcomers arrived, many of whom hailed from the frontiers of Virginia. As British military officials prepared to leave Fort Pitt for good in 1772, twenty-four-year-old Congregational minister David McClure also arrived in the region, hoping his message of salvation would land with local Delawares, Shawnees, and the mixed Iroquoian people known as “Mingoes.” Though he was largely disappointed in that venture, he found other potential audiences along the major arteries of settlement leading to Pittsburgh: the Pennsylvania-oriented Forbes Road and the Monongahela and Youghiogheny River Valleys, which were home to a number of Virginian settlements.
McClure was pleased to find many receptive listeners, but his hackles were raised by a shift in local culture spurred by the newly arrived Virginians, particularly what he saw as their troubling fondness for drinking and dancing. A Virginian wedding at the Youghiogheny River settlement of Stewart’s Crossing (present-day Connellsville) highlighted the problem in McClure’s view. His journal entry for December 17, 1772 brings the raucous frontier scene to life:
Attended a marriage, where the guests were all Virginians. It was a scene of wild and confused merriment. The log house which was large, was filled. They were dancing to the music of a fiddle. They took little or no notice of me, on my entrance. After setting a while at the fire, I arose and desired the music and dancing to cease, & requested the Bride and Bridegroom to come forward. They came snickering and very merry. I desired the company who still appeared to be mirthful & noisy, to attend with becoming seriousness, the solemnity.
As soon as the ceremony was over, the music struck up, and the dancing was renewed. While I sat wondering at their wild merriment. The Lady of a Mr. Stevenson, sent her husband to me, with her compliments requesting me to dance a minuit with her. My declining the honor, on the principle that I was unacquainted with it, was scarcely accepted. He still politely urged, until I totally refused. After supper I rode about 3 miles to the house of a friend. The manners of the people of Virginia, who have removed into these parts, are different from those of the presbyterians and germans. They are much addicted to drinking parties, gambling, horse race & fighting. They are hospitable & prodigal. Several of them, have run through their property in the old settlements, & have sought an asylum in this wilderness.
Back in the settlement on January 6, perhaps the morning after a final holiday celebration, McClure’s hope for the salvation of his hearers was again dashed by disappointment at their intemperance.
“Wednesday, rode 7 miles to Mr. Stevenson’s & preached. The hearers mostly Virginians. Preached in the open air. Several present, appeared almost intoxicated. Christmas & New Year holly days, are seasons of wild mirth & disorder here.”
McClure’s observations on the changing nature of frontier society came at a time when the boundary dispute between Pennsylvanians and Virginians was heating up. Though they eventually put their differences aside during the American Revolution, the Virginian influence on local frontier culture, especially in the Monongahela and Youghiogheny Valleys, endured long after.
Source: The Diary of David McClure, Doctor of Divinity, 1748-1820. New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1899, pgs. 105-107. Accessed online here.