John Brady

A Patriot of the American Revolution for PENNSYLVANIA with the rank of MAJOR. DAR Ancestor # A013609

John Brady was trained as a surveyor. On 18 April 1760, at the time of the war against the French and the Indians in the west, John Brady received his first commission as Ensign in the 1st Battalion, colonial troops.

John Brady was commissioned as a Captain on July 19, 1763 in the Second Battalion of the Pennsylvania Regiments, commanded by Governor John Penn, which Regiments fought in Pontiac’s War. Captain John Brady actively fought against the Indian forces that were attacking and killing many frontier families in Bedford and Cumberland Counties, Pennsylvania. However, Pontiac took many frontier forts and settlements in present day Michigan and Ohio. Pontiac’s forces besieged Fort Pitt (presently Pittsburgh), Fort Ligionier and Fort Bedford in Pennsylvania. British Col. Henry Bouquet organized a force that marched to lift these sieges, which it did. Bouquet became the commander of Fort Pitt. In the fall of 1764, Col. Henry Bouquet commanded an army of colonial militia and regular British troops from Fort Pitt that moved into the Ohio Country and forced the Shawnees, Senecas and Delawares to make peace. Captain John Brady served in the Pennsylvania forces that participated in this expedition.

Captain John Brady received a land grant which was awarded to the officers who served in the Bouquet Expedition. He chose land west of present day Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. He built a private stockade on this land in the Spring of 1776, close to present day Muncy, Pennsylvania, which he called "Fort Brady." John Brady's Muncy house was large for its day. He dug a 4-foot-deep (1.2 m) trench around it and emplaced upright logs in that trench side by side all the way around. He filled the trench with dirt and packed the dirt against the logs to hold the log wall solidly in place. This log wall ran about twelve feet high from the ground. He then held this wall in place upright by pinning smaller logs across its top, to keep the wall face steady and solid. The John Brady homestead was perilously close to the leading edge of the frontier of that time, the Susquehanna River. The other side of the Susquehanna was fiercely dominated by the Indians. The Indians resisted settler encroachment on their territory by routinely crossing the Susquehanna to raid the settlers. The settlers just as routinely crossed the Susquehanna to pursue the raiding war parties to retaliate and sometimes to rescue captives taken by the Indians during these raids. In this ongoing skirmishing, both sides committed unspeakable atrocities on the other, which drove a long-lasting cycle of revenge for revenge brutalities between the settlers and Indians. It was in the midst of this extreme danger and violence that Captain John Brady chose to settle his family, which set the stage for what happened to him and for what so greatly impacted and influenced his family—especially, his son, Continental Army Captain Samuel Brady.

Captain John Brady took his sons Samuel and James with him to fight in the trenches with General George Washington in Boston.

Captain John Brady was killed in an Indian ambush on April 11, 1779 according to author Belle Swope.

In the Spring of 1779 he received orders to join Colonel Hartley on the West Branch, and on the 11th of April, 1779, was killed by a concealed body of Indians. He had taken an active part in efforts to subdue their atrocities, and his daring and repeated endeavors intensified their hatred and desire to capture him resulting so fatally on that spring-time morning. With a guard and wagon he went up the river to Wallis' to procure supplies. His family was living at the 'Fort' at Muncy during the winter and early spring, and from his home to the provision house was only a few hours' ride. On their return trip, about three miles from Fort Brady, at Wolf Run, they stopped to wait for the wagon, which was coming another way. Peter Smith, whose family was massacred on the 10th of June, and on whose farm young James Brady was mortally wounded, was by his side. Captain John Brady said: 'This would be a good place for Indians to hide'. Smith replied in the affirmative, when the report of three rifles was heard, and the Captain fell without uttering a sound. He was shot with two musket balls between the shoulders. Smith mounted the horse of his commander and escaped to the woods unharmed, and on to the settlement. It was not known what Indians did the shooting, but proof was evident that a party had followed him with intent to kill. In their haste, they did not scalp him, nor take his money, a gold watch, and his commission, which he wore in a bag suspended from his neck, his dearest earthly possession. Thus perished one of the most skilled and daring Indian fighters, as well as one of the most esteemed and respected of men, on whose sterling qualities and sound judgment the pioneers of the entire settlement depended.

Captain John Brady's comrades carried his body to his home at Fort Brady (within the city limits of present day Muncy, Pennsylvania). His widow was presented with the grisly sight of his blood-covered body, all too soon after being presented with the sight of her horribly injured son, James. John Brady was buried on a hillside near his home, where a hundred years later, a monument was erected in his memory and in tribute to his many heroic deeds.

Killed by indians in the Revolutionary War near Muncy, PA.

Army: 12th Regular Revolutionary Line

Birth: 1733 Delaware, USA Death: Apr. 11, 1779 Muncy Lycoming County Pennsylvania, USA

On the 11th of April, Captain John Brady who, it will be remembered, commanded a so-called fort bearing his name and located near the mouth of Muncy Creek, was killed by the Indians, scarcely a quarter of a mile away from its protecting walls. It had become necessary to go up river some distance to procure supplies for the fort, and Captain John Brady, taking with him a wagon team and a guard, went himself and procured what could be had. On his return in the afternoon, riding a fine mare, and within short distance of the fort, where the road forked, and being some distance behind the team and the guard, and in conversation with a man names Peter Smith, he recommended Smith not to take the road the wagon had, but the other, as it was shorter. They traveled on together, until they came near a run where the same road joined. Brady observed, 'This would be a good place for Indians to secrete themselves.' Smith said 'Yes.' That instant three rifles cracked and Brady fell. The mare ran past Smith, who threw himself on her and was carried in a few seconds to the fort. The people in the fort heard the rifles, and seeing Smith on the mare coming at full speed, all ran to ask for Captain Brady, his wife along, or rather before the rest. Smith replied, 'In heaven or hell, or on his way to Tioga,' meaning that he was either killed or taken prisoner. Those in the fort ran to the spot and found the captain lying in the road, his scalp taken and his rifle gone; but the Indians had been in such haste that they had not taken his watch or shot-pouch. Rapine followed throughout the settlements. Isolated murders and cases of pillaging were almost numberless and larger strokes of savage fury were not infrequent. Several of these murders occurred at Fort Freeland. By May so great had become the sense of insecurity that the greater number of the people of Buffalo Valley had left. Colonel Hunter had poor successes in recruiting companies of rangers, as so many of the able-bodied men of the settlements were preparing to enter the "boat service" [the convoying of General Sullivan's commissary up the North Branch]. By the last of June he had only thirty men, exclusive of those at Fort Freeland and with General Potter, who was at Sunbury. By the late part of July the troops had all left Sunbury to join General Sullivan. Northumberland County was left in a deplorable condition, with no forces but the militia and fourteen regulars under Captain Kamplen. Almost every young man on this part of the frontier had engaged in the boat service, and the country above Muncy was completely abandoned. Fall of Fort Freeland.-All things conspired to give the Indians opportunity for a more than usually effective blow. It was directed against Fort Freeland, and that stronghold was capture on July 28, 1779. A number of British officers and soldiers were with the besieging party, the advance portion of which made it appearance on the 21st. The whole force consisted of about three hundred men. Colonel Hunter writes upon the 28th,- "This day, about twelve o'clock, an express arrived from Captain Boone's mill, informing us that Freeland's Fort was surrounded; and, immediately after, another express came, informing us that it was burned and all the garrison either killed or taken prisoner; the party that went from Boone's saw a number of Indians and some red-coats walking around the fort, or where it had been. After that, firing was heard off towards Chillisquaque. Parties are going off from this town and from Northumberland for the relief of the garrison. General Sullivan would send us no assistance, and our neighboring counties have lost the virtue they were once possessed of, otherwise we should have some relief before this. I write in a confused manner. I am just marching off, up the West Branch, with a party I have collected." A few days before the capture, Robert Covenhaven went up as far as Ralston (now), where he discovered Colonel McDonald's party in camp. He returned to Fort Muncy (Fort Penn) and gave the alarm. The women and children were then put in boats and sent down, under his charge, to Fort Augusta. He took with him the families at Fort Meninger, at the mouth of Warrior's Run; but Freeland's Fort being four and a half miles distant, they had no time to wait for the families there, but sent a messenger to alarm them.

• *************************************** His body was brought to the fort and soon after interred in the Muncy burying ground, some four miles from the fort (now Hall's station, P. & E. R. B.) over Muncy creek." His grave is suitably marked at Hall's, while a cenotaph in the present Muncy cemetery of thirty feet high, raised by J. M. M. Gernerd by dollar subscription, attests the lively interest still felt by the community in one who devoted himself to the protection of the valley when brave active men and good counselors were needed. Of his sons, Capt. Samuel Brady, a sharpshooter of Parr's and Morgan's rifles, fought on almost every battlefield of the Revolution, from Boston and Saratoga to Germantown, can speak of his deeds as a scout and Indian fighter Western and Northern Pennsylvania, which West Virginia and Ohio attest. To the Indian he became a terror, and he fully avenged the blood of his sire shed at Wolf run, on the West Branch of the Susquehanna, that beautiful day in April, 1779, at the bloody fight of Brady's Bend, on the Allegheny, where, with his own hand, he slew his father's murderer and avenged his brother James, the "Young Captain of the Susquehanna," in a hundred other fights. Of his second son, James, killed by the Indians at the Loyal Sock, whose career bid fair to be as brilliant as his elder brother's but unfortunately cut off at his commencement. John, who, when but a boy of fifteen, going with his father and oldest brother to the battlefield of the Brandywine to bring back the horses, finding a battle on hand, took a rifle and stepped into the ranks and did manful duty, and was wounded. He is said to have served with Jackson at New Orleans in the War of 1812. William Perry Brady served on the northern borders in the same war, and at Perry's victory at Lake Erie, when volunteers were called, was the first to step out.

Hon. John Blair Linn, at the dedication of the Brady monument in 1879, one hundred years after the death of John Brady, said: "To the valley his loss was well, nigh irreparable; death came to its defender, and ‘Hell followed hard after. In May, Buffalo Valley was overrun and the people left, on the 8th of July Smith's mills, at the mouth of the White Deer Creek were burned, and on the 17th Muncy valley was swept with the besom of destruction. Starrett's mills and all the principal houses in Muncy township burned, with Fort Muncy, Brady and Freeland, and Sunbury became the frontier."

"History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata Valleys, Embraced in the Counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder In The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania." In Two Volumes, Vol 1 Philadelphia: EVERTS, PECK & RICHARDS 1886, pp 97-99

He was married to Mary Quigley . Parents of 4 sons: Samuel Brady James John William

Family links:

Parents:

 Hugh Brady (1709 - 1779)

 Hannah McCormick Brady (____ - 1776)

Spouses:

 Mary Quigley Brady (1735 - 1782)*

 Mary Quigley Brady (1735 - 1783)*

Children:

 Mary Brady Gray*

 Mary Brady Clemson (1752 - 1819)*

 John Brady (1761 - 1809)*

Siblings:

 John Brady (1733 - 1779)

 Samuel Brady (1734 - 1811)*

 Joseph Brady (1735 - 1781)*

 Hugh Brady (1738 - 1782)*

 James Brady (1753 - 1818)*

• Calculated relationship

Burial: Hall Station Cemetery Pennsdale Lycoming County Pennsylvania, USA

Created by: Leanne Keefer Bechdel Record added: Jul 17, 2008 Find A Grave Memorial# 28343897 Capt John Brady Added by: Beth

Capt John Brady Added by: CypressGreen

Capt John Brady Added by: Leanne Keefer Bechdel