The Raid On Dean's Farm

Did you know? In 1780 Indians attacked Matthew Dean's house in Canoe Valley, near Lowry's fort. An account of the raid survives from one of Dean's own sons, John, who had been stationed at the house as a militiaman.

On April 18, 1833, John Dean, a resident of Morris township aged sixty nine, appeared in open court in Huntingdon County and swore a declaration to claim a Revolutionary War pension. He said that early in the spring of 1778, when he was about fifteen, he helped raise Lytle's fort in Hartslog valley, and that he enlisted with Captain William Simonton's militia company in the spring of 1779 and again in the spring of 1780.

Near the end of that 1780 term, he swore, he and fourteen or fifteen other men had been stationed at his father's house. While the men were some distance away during the day, Indians beset the house. His mother, two brothers and one sister were killed, and the house was burned. Afterward he and the rest of the men retreated to Lytle's fort, where they were stationed until the term expired.

Asked by the court whether he had any record of his age, he answered that he believed it was burned in his father's house, when the house was destroyed by the Indians.

Africa's 1883 county history, written fifty years after his oath, tells it differently in its Morris Township chapter, although its own list of frontier forts says Dean's house was used temporarily as a fort because Lowry's was small. It says there was animosity between Dean and Lowry, on whose farm the fort stood, and that Dean vowed he would not take the protection of Lowry's fort. In its telling, Dean had taken two boys and two girls to the cornfield to sow rye, and the Indians massacred Mrs. Dean and the children left at home and set fire to the house. The same history says Captain Simonton's young son had been allowed to stay the night at the Deans', and that no trace of him could anywhere be found, although a strong party headed by the Beattys had started after the Indians as soon as they heard. His father was forced to believe the boy had been taken captive.

The book and the soldier agree on where the survivors went. Writing of Dean's daughter Rebecca, Africa says the children who were in the cornfield with their father fled with him to Lytle's Fort, the same fort John Dean said the men fell back to.

Checked 2026-10-30 · County histories and primary sources, read in full

← All stories from Morris township

Have something to add to this story, or a photograph of it? Send it here →