Fergus Moorhead

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Husband Fergus Moorhead ^{1 2}

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           Born: 
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           Died:  - Indiana Co, PA
         Buried: 

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         Father: [Father] Moorhead (      -      )
         Mother: 

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       Marriage: 

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• Note: This may be the same person as : Fergus Moorhead.

• Note: This may be the same person as : Fergus Moorhead, Jr..

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Wife

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Children

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1 F Ann Moorhead ¹

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         Spouse: James Clark, Esq. (1806-1891) 3 4 5 6 7
           Marr: 1831 1

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General Notes: Husband - Fergus Moorhead

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He went to Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, from the Cumberland Valley. As early as 1772, with his family, he settled near the present town of Indiana. He was more than usually well provided with the goods of this world, and brought to the new home, where land was abundant, a liberal supply of cattle, sheep and other domestic animals and fowls to stock his farm, and implements to cultivate it. For four years, the family was unmolested, but in July, 1776, while returning from the fort at Kittanning, then under command of his brother Samuel, his horse was shot under him, and he was taken prisoner by a band of Indians, who carried him to Quebec, and sold him to the British. His wife and children, thinking him dead, left Indiana and returned to the Cumberland Valley. After a year of imprisonment, the husband and father was exchanged and rejoined his family, having traveled on foot from New York to the Cumberland Valley. An account of his capture appeared in the Gazette, Benjamin Franklin's paper, the files of which were preserved by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. At the close of the Revolution, Mr. Moorhead and his family returned to the border home from which they had been so summarily driven five years before, and there, at the advanced age of seventy-nine, he died. Among his descendants are the prosperous and wealthy iron masters of Pittsburgh, of that name, and others who have distinguished themselves in business and professional life.

"In the month of May, 1772, Fergus Moorhead, his wife and three children, his two brothers, Samuel and Joseph, James Kelly, James Thompson and a few others bid farewell to their friends and relatives in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, and set out on their journey to the 'Indian country' west of the Allegheny.
"At length, at the end of four weeks from the time they had left Franklin County, the party reached the point of their destination. Where the town of Indiana is now built was the spot that had been selected for a settlement by Fergus Moorhead, who had made an excursion into this section in 1770. For reasons which to them were obvious, the party changed their determination, and located a few miles further west. Though they were now relieved from the fatigue incident to their journey, our pioneers were far from living at their ease.
"The land now owned by Isaac A. Moorhead was that which they selected for their future residence."
In July, 1776, he took command of the frontier fort at Kittanning, while his brother Samuel, the commandant, was recovering from an attack of small-pox. Upon Samuel's recovery, Fergus started for home, accompanied by a soldier named Simpson; and when they arrived at "Blanket Hill," on the Kittanning path, they were waylaid by Indians, who shot both their horses and killed Simpson. Moorhead was taken prisoner, dressed in Indian costume, and, after arriving at his captors' camp, was compelled to run the gauntlet. He was then taken to Quebec, and sold to the British, who kept him in close confinement and on miserable food for eleven months. At the end of this time he was exchanged and sent to New York, from which he set out on foot for his former home in Franklin County, which he reached after enduring great hardships. He there found his wife and three children, who had given him up for dead and returned to that county. In 1781 he and his family returned to their border home, and in a few years became comfortably situated. Mr. Moorhead lived to the ripe old age of eighty-nine years, and left a numerous and respectable progeny.

1 —, History of Indiana County, Pennsylvania (Newark, OH: J. A. Caldwell, 1880), Pg 338.

2 Samuel T. Wiley, Biographical and Historical Cyclopedia of Indiana and Armstrong Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: John M. Gresham & Co., 1891), Pg 132.

3 —, History of Indiana County, Pennsylvania (Newark, OH: J. A. Caldwell, 1880), Pg 338, 413.

4 J. T. Stewart, Indiana County, Pennsylvania - Her People Past and Present (Chicago, IL: J. H. Beers & Co., 1913), Pg 677.

5 —, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, Her People Past and Present (Chicago, IL: J. H. Beers & Co., 1914), Pg 971.

6 Samuel T. Wiley, Biographical and Historical Cyclopedia of Indiana and Armstrong Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: John M. Gresham & Co., 1891), Pg 82.

7 John W. Jordan, LL.D., Colonial and Revolutionary Families of Pennsylvania (New York, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1911), Pg 1557.