This cache is part of the 25 cache Pennsylvania State Parks America250PA GeoTrail. Have fun exploring and discovering Pennsylvania's history!
The following story speaks to the difficulty in finding out the truth as it relates to history from the late 1700s around Ryerson Station. The events are taken from a book written by someone six generations removed from the events in 1787. He states that there are five different versions and admits the details are meager and the accounts could be considered sketchy. That said, the author is a relation of the Davis’s, and he obtained the information from the Genealogical Society and the Greene and Washington Courthouses.
The Native Americans held this land long before the settlers arrived, but this would all start to change in the late 1700’s. When the two sides would inevitably meet, clashes were bound to happen. One such meeting occurred between the Davis family and the Native Americans in 1778.
A little background on the family that the attack occurred on. John Davis built a cabin for his family on this land in 1778. We know it is around this time from tax records that were on file. He owned 250 acres of land. Part of the cabin remained on park property, until a new office was built on November 21, 2003. Old newspaper clippings still have photos of the wooden exterior of the cabin. 1778 was early in Greene County’s history as a fort would not be built in the area until the 1790s. In the first census of the United States in 1790, there were 16 heads of households in the township he lived in. There would have been even less when John Davis arrived years earlier.
Sometime in the fall of 1787 a massacre takes place between the Davis’s and the Native Americans. We know this because John Davis shows up deceased Dec. 4, 1787. The death records would have taken some additional time to process in those days. As well, there is documentation of the will being processed in December of that year. The Native Americans historically liked to launch attacks while the leaves were still on the trees to ambush, so this would have most likely occurred during fall. Records also show the family had about 100 bushels of corn on hand. This surely would have come from the current harvest as few could afford to carry over any crops from one year to the next.
On the day of the attack, the Davis’s oldest daughter Elizabeth runs back to the cabin when she sees the Native Americans on the property, but it is too little too late. Speculation still exists as to who carried out the attack. One possibility has two Native Americans and a white man from Greene County named William Spencer carrying out the attack. The other theory is that a raiding party stormed the cabin. All in all, seven were killed in the massacre and John’s wife and baby daughter were taken captive. The wife was never found. The body of the child was found some weeks later.
It is thought that the Native Americans took Ms. Davis with them, but they did not keep the child long because it would slow them down. Three daughters and one son survived. Some of the children would be adopted. We also know that they bought back some of their parent’s belongings as items were not immediately willed to children in that day.
So, did the attack involve a great deal of surprise or did John ignore his daughter’s warning? That the family was taken over so easily indicate that the warning from the daughter was ignored or the door to the cabin was left unlatched. Because John and the family would have surely gone for their weapons to defend themselves. Davis was a seasoned frontiersman and would have surely been ready given time.
The reason for the attack remains unknown. Was it revenge, or was it a spur of the moment attack remains unknown? Did John and his family do something to aggravate the Native Americans? We don’t know. It is sealed in time. As a result of this attack, a council was held in Philadelphia in late 1787 requesting arms and ammunition for the people of Washington County There would be 100 recorded massacres in Greene County. This being the largest recorded. The bodies were buried in an unmarked grave not far from here. Time and weather have washed them away.
The image below shows the remnants of a hand hewn cabin that was part of the Davis family Homestead:
For more information about this state park and its amenities please visit the website: Ryerson Station State Park | Department of Conservation and Natural Resources| Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
