Most researchers are aware of the fact that John Cessna and John Kirkpatrick were attacked by Indians while harvesting on 18 July 1757. Kirkpatrick was killed and John Cessna was carried into captivity, along with three young boys. All four managed to escape.
Some researchers report that John Cessna was killed by Indians in 1764. This has been puzzling because in 1764 we know of only three people named John Cessna, and all three are still alive in later years. This story comes from A History of Cumberland Valley published by Harriet Wyle Steward in 1920. It had limited printing and is hard to find. She reported this… On the 19th of March 1764 the Indians carried off five people within nine miles of Shippensburg, and shot one man by the name of John Cesna in the old orchard by the road on the farm now owned by Mrs. Alfred Aughinbaugh. After this massacre in the orchard, the Indians, supposed to be eleven in number, were pursued and overtaken by one hundred provincials. The homes of John Stuart, Adam Simms, James McCammon, William Baird, James Kelly, Stephen Calwell and John Boyd, were burned. These people lost all their grain, which they had threshed with the intention to send it for safety further down the valley. (HISTORY OF THE CUMBERLAND VALLEY by Harriet Wyle Stewart, Pug Jan 1920. p.p 15,16) One source for Mrs. Wyle-Stewart appears to be a history published by Thomas Francis Gordon in 1829 The History of Pennsylvania: From It’s Discovery by Europeans, to the Declaration of Independence in 1776. That version does not mention John Cessna by name, but states the man was “shot through the body”. Wyle-Stewart must have had other information which identified this man as John Cessna. In March of 1764, John Cessna son of John Cessna (deceased) and grandson of Stephen and Patience Cessna was just 5 years old and living with his mother and step-father in York County. John Cessna, who was born in 1698 in Ireland and came to America in 1718, was 66 years old and managing three businesses in Shippensburg: nine miles from the attack. (Major) John Cessna, son of the above, was 38 years old and had been married to Sarah Rose for 4 years. They had 2 children. It appears that this is the John Cessna was managing the farm along Muddy Run Creek where the March 19 attack occurred. In the Spring of 1763 (Major) John Cessna, along with his brothers Charles, Evans, Jonathan, and Joseph had just established land claims in Cumberland Valley Twp just south of Fort Bedford. In late Summer of 1763, Pontiac’s War erupted and most of the settlers retreated to the forts at Shippensburg for safety. From Fall 1763 until Summer of 1764 Fort Bedford was under siege, and the surrounding farms were burned by Indians. It appears that the John Cessna who was shot through body on 19 March would most likely be the man we know as Major John Cessna. But that is only an assumption because we know of no other man named John whom it could be. We cannot verify this fact. It would seem that the injured John Cessna did survive and was not killed by the Indians. Something to consider is this. In 1763, Major John had two newly married sisters whose husbands also applied for farms in Cumberland Valley. Elizabeth Cessna-Jones and Margaret Cessna-Hall then disappear from the record about 1764. Their widower husbands sold those farms in 1765. Is it possible that these sisters were victims of this attack as well? To help researchers piece together what happened in March of 1764, the following map has been created to show that all of the atrocities in this happened with in a couple miles of each other, and were part of a single Indian raid.
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AuthorBill Cissna Archives
June 2023
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