2A-G: (FNU – Son) Guthrie
(FNU – SON) GUTHRIE
Parents: John Guthrie 1725IRE – 1797PA and Jane Reed 1726
Birth: Est. 1778 – 1780
Birth Location: Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania
Death: 13 July 1782
Death Location: Brownlee Farm near Hannastown, Westmoreland, Pennsylvania
Burial: Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, USA, exact location unknown.
Notes:
Reviewing the documents and histories collected on the Burning of Hannastown and the Guthrie family experiences, I realized that there is one additional son in the family who has been left out of our trees. I have not yet found his given name, nor his exact date of birth.
“When Joseph Brownlee left for the army, John Guthrie moved with his family to Brownlee’s farm, near Hanna’s Town. In Sarah’s deposition of January 11, 1848, she related:
….She remembers well when Brownlee left for that purpose for the reason that he left his farm near Hannastown in the care and management of his father-in-law who moved on it with his family, deponent, and Mrs Brownlee (sister Elizabeth) included and raised a crop on it. She recollects that when Brownlee left to Join the army his wife continued to live with her father.” (Warren, p.6)
His mother, Jane (Reed) Guthrie, died in 1780 of unknown causes, so this little boy would have been motherless for at least 2 years.
“On the day of the destruction of Hannastown (13 July 1782), John Guthrie, who had been ill, did not go to the harvest field with other members of his family, but remained at home with his youngest son to watch the bread baking in the oven. The little boy strayed into the woods to play. Then came the alarm. The father from the house and the other members of the family from the field hastened to the Hannastown Fort, none noticing that the little boy was missing. He was never seen again.” (Sipe, p.669)
As he is designated as the “youngest” son, his birth would have been after that of brother William Guthrie who was born in 1777. Jane, whom we are told was born in 1726, would already have been about 51 years old and the risks of giving birth to another child would have been higher.
The petition papers of Elizabeth (Guthrie) Brownlee Guthrie included depositions by her sisters Sarah (Guthrie) Beatty and Jane (Guthrie) Beatty. Sarah provided a second accounting of a younger brother who was killed during the attack on Hannastown. “Deponent had a brother killed at the same time by the Indians, she and her sister Jane were hoeing corn in the field when the savages approached, were compelled themselves to fly for their lives and leave behind them their young brother who was killed.”
One account indicates the boy was killed, the other that he was never seen again.
READING and RESOURCES
WEBSITE: Westmoreland Historical Society – The 1782 Attack on Hanna’s Town
WEBSITE: Westmoreland County Pennsylvania Genealogy Project – The Destruction of Hannastown
REPORT: Warren, Anna L., A Captive’s Tale: Story of Elizabeth etc Brownlee Guthrie, a 15 page report by the Westmoreland County Historical Society Research Committee, 1977, reprinted 2002. Available for purchase at the Westmoreland Historical Society.
BOOK: Sipe, C. Hale, The Indian Wars of Pennsylvania, An Account of the Indian Events, in Pennsylvania, of the French and Indian War, Pontiac’s War, Lord Dumore’s War, The Revolutionary War and the Indian Uprisings from 1780 to 1795,, Tragedies of the Pennsylvania Frontier, The Telegraph Press, Harrisburg, PA, 1929. Digital Repository: Internet Archive. [John Guthrie is mentioned p.610, 638, 667, 669. Mrs Elizabeth Guthrie, p667]
FOLD3: Revolutionary War Pension Application W3245: Joseph Brownlee Elizabeth Guthrie former widow