How Bloody Springs Got It's Name, In Sunbury PA

"Famous Bloody Springs, Sunbury Pa"

In March of 1881, the Sunbury American wrote an article titled An Historic Place Obliterated.

In it the editor lamented that "the last vestige of shrubbery around Bloody Spring has been removed.  The trees shading the spring for hundreds of years have been cut down, and the spot where the cold crystal waters ooze out of the rock is now exposed to the sun."

"The hundreds who have visited this historic spring to read over the names of their ancestors engraved upon the projecting rocks will not miss the charms of this once beautiful grove.."

The author, in this article, went on to list several reasons why this site was historical, including:

• The place where Shikellamy and his tribe held its council of peace.
• "Once the scene of bloody deeds between the whites and the Indians, and the commencement of the battle of Fort Augusta, the whites being attacked by Indians while about taking their morning meal"
• The spot where early settlers came for a "healthy refreshing draught of cold water"

And finally, an explanation of the sites name:

The spot where a lovely daughter of a French officer was murdered and thrown into the stream, turning the water into blood from which the stream derived its name.

Just a few short weeks later however, the newspaper printed a follow up.

A competing newspaper, the Northumberland County Democrat, disagreed with the American's report on the origins of the springs name.   According to the Democrat, Dr Awl had in his possession a letter to Gov Morris from Fort Augusta in 1756 that explained the sites name.

 The letter, as published in both paper, reads:

"The fort is now almost finished and a fine one it is.  We want a good large flag to grace it.  On the 25th one of the soldiers was coming here from Harris's Express, and fifteen miles from the fort was murdered and scalped, the party that went to escort Capt. Lloyd found and buried him,  Last Sunday 

morning one of our people who attended the cattle went to the spring about a half a mile from the fort, and while he was drinking was shot and afterwards scalped and tomahawked.  There was immediately a party send in quest of them, but could not come up with them.  Chagray says he is satisfy'd they were Delawares"

The American contended that there was nothing in the letter that settled the matter of the springs name one way or another. "It is not disputed however, that a number of early settlers were murdered at the Bloody Spring by the Delaware Indians, who washed the scalps of their victims in the stream well known for a century past by the name of Bloody Spring".

In  1899, The Democrat published a long article by Dr Awl about early Sunbury.  In that article,  he gave a longer telling of the Bloody Spring story, as follows:

"Continuing Joe said: "My father made baskets out of splint maple and painted them with pokeberry juice and sold them to the Indians for bear, venison and other wild meat and skins.

 After our little cabin was finished, one beautiful day in the fall of the vear. (on a Sunday) 1756, (see Pa. Archives) my father said to me, Joe, get two of our baskets and we will go down to the flats and gather some wild red plums, which I saw below the hill when I came home from fishing in the river the other day.' 

We went down and found the plums about one-half of a mile from the river. When we were gathering them two men came to us; one was a  white man and the other an Indian.  The Indian, father knew and be came from the fort' (Chigray). The white man was one they called 'Scratch Gravel' and he came from  the 'Stockade' which was then located on the bank of the river, where the Hon. William Maclay's stone house was afterwards erected, and is now the beautiful residence of Hon. S. P. Wolverton.   

The two men were hunting some cattle that had strayed off and belonged to the fort. The man they called "Scratch Gravel' said he was very dry and would go to the spring and get a drink, and that be would be back soon. After waiting a long time for him to come back; we all went to the spring and there we found poor 'Scratch Gravel' shot and scalped. He was shot while he was drinking from the spring. The blood from his wounds ran into the water and made the spring quite bloody. 

 My father then said to me, 'Joe, my son, this is a Bloody Spring-and we never drank any water after this out of the spring.'

 The Indian and my father pulled the man out of the Spring, and the Indian said the Delaware shot him. 

His name was not 'Scratch Gravel' but I think it was Marshall, and he was one of the men that did the walking for John Penn when be bought the land from the Indians. "

This undated Bloody Springs postcard purports that this was the site of the first white settler killed by an Indian. 

According to local historian John Moore,  two American Indians attacked soldier James Pattin at the spring.  Pattin who had gone to the spring for a drink while tending the fort's cow herd,  wasn't carrying any weapons, was apparently the unfortunate victim of an attack meant for two other soldiers.

 Samuel Miles and Samuel Atlee,  the intended victims, had taken a walk from Fort Augusta to a plum tree about a half of a mile away, likely near what is today the intersection of Shikellamy Avenue and Memorial Drive. As the two Indians, intending to shoot and scalp Miles and Atlee,  headed down the ravine, they happened upon Pattin at the spring.  They shot and scalped him, then ran up the ravine toward what is now known as Mile Hill before a rescue party could be sent.     Miles recalled the incident and said the perpetrators, who had been concealed in the thicket, had nearly gotten between the soldiers and the fort.

Today, a historical marker at the spring in Sunbury reads:

Here, during the French and Indian War (1754-1763) one colonial soldier venturing from the garrison at nearby Fort Augusta was fatally shot by an Indian foe.  His blood is said to have crimsoned it's waters."

There were two springs about equal distance from Fort Augusta.  One is called Bloody Spring, and one is called Cold Spring.  In 1881, Cold Spring supplied the "Cold Spring Brewery".

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More Stories & History From Sunbury Pa

https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2020/07/sunbury-pennsylvania.html

And more Stories & History From surrounding towns:

https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/p/history.html

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1882