| Notes |
- "At the beginning of the Revolutionary War the John McKibben family was living in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania near what is now the present site of Apollo. It was on this farm that John McKibben built a stockade where the settlers took shelter from the raiding Indians. Later this stockade was fortified and named Fort Hand. This fort burned in the fall of 1779 and the McKibbens moved to Mt. Pleasant Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania in 1781. John McKibben, his wife and Samuel, are buried at the Presbyterian cemetery in Cross Creek Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania." (Source - Frontier Families of Toby Township, Clarion County, Pennsylvania by Heber Rankin, Janice Yingling, Editor, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 1995)
"Adam Carnahan's Blockhouse was located about one mile south of the Kiskiminetas river and about six miles below the mouth of the Conemaugh river. In August 1777, six or seven men with James Chambers were reaping oats, six miles from Carhahans Blockhouse and one of the men had taken his gun and wounded a deer. While hunting for it in the woods adjoining the oat field he discovered an Indian and signs of others. He immediately gave notice to the reapers and they left to notify the settlers. They went to John McKibbens where several families had collected for safety in McKibbens large log house. The next day, which was Saturday, a party went out from McKibbens to scout. That afternoon Robert Taylor and David Carnahan went from Carhahans Blockhouse to McKibbens to learn what they could of the Indians. When they were returning, they had nearly reached the blockhouse when they saw several Indians coming. They beat the Indians to the blockhouse and had made the doors fast when the Indians appeared, fourteen in number. There were a few men in the blockhouse. John Carnahan opened the door and stepped out to get a good shot and he was instantly shot and killed. His body was dragged in and the door again fastened." (Source - Frontier Forts of Western Pennsylvania, Clarence M. Busch, 1896, v. II, p. 333)
"Fort Hand was erected near the house of one of John McKibben, whose large log house had been the refuge and asylum of a number of people wither they had fled at times preceding that event, as is noted in the sketch of Carnahans Blockhouse. From the extract given there from the Draper Manuscripts, now in possession of Wisconsin Historical Society, it appears that during the summer of 1777, when the Indians infested all that line of frontier, McKibben's house was one of the objective places at which many of the families remained probably during the entire summer, while the men gathered the crops and scouted and fought.
Carnahans Blockhouse was the nearest point, and although they were only about three or four miles apart, the communication between them was frequently cut off.
This portion of Westmoreland and the entire frontier as well, would have been entirely deserted that summer, so much did it suffer from the savages had not Col. Lochry succeeded in raising sixty men whom he stationed in four divisions under the command of two captains and two lieutenants who covered the line of the Kiskiminetas. A part of this force ranged this neighborhood and assisted the inhabitants from these two posts, Carnahans and McKibbens. McKibben's house, subsequently Fort Hand, was from three to four miles south from the Kiskiminetas river at the ford and by the ford was about six miles above the mouth of the stream. The stream was northeast from Hannastown about fourteen miles.
Upon the particulars mentioned in the Draper Manuscripts, which were founded on statements of James Chambers who was personally conversant with the facts, the reapers in the oat fields, when they had been appraised of the presence of Indians, left to notify the people, taking their guns with them and going to the house of John McKibben, where Fort Hand was made the following winter, where several families had collected for safety." Source - ibid, page 325)
"On April 26, 1779, Captain Moorehead's Company of 17 men defended Fort Hand against an Indian attack. Sergeant McGraw, an old Irishman, was killed in this attack and Sergeant McCauley was slightly wounded. During the night the Indians fired a deserted house near the fort - an old building of McKibben's - which had been for some time occupied by William McLaughlin, but was deserted on the approach of the Indians. There were many whites with this Indian party (about 100 strong) who now taunted the Fort Hand people when the house was burning and asked if all was well now? This party of British and Indians was too strong to be pursued. Fort Hand, built between October 18 and December 6, 1777, was burned and abandoned in the fall of 1779." (Source - ibid, page 328-329, 331)
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1728 - 1798 (70 years)
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