Enoch Brown school massacre

{{short description|1764 massacre in Pennsylvania, United States}}

{{redirect|Enoch Brown|the college football player|Enoch Brown (American football)}}

{{redirect|Enoch massacre|the mass shooting that occurred in 2023|Killing of the Haight family}}

{{Infobox civilian attack

| title = Enoch Brown school massacre

| image = Enoch Brown mem FrankCo PA.JPG

| alt =

| caption = Memorial erected in 1885, near Greencastle, Pennsylvania

| location = Greencastle, Pennsylvania, U.S.

| coordinates =

| date = {{Start date and age|1764|7|26}}

| time-begin =

| time-end =

| timezone =

| target = Students and staff at Enoch Brown school

| type = School shooting, mass murder, bludgeoning

| weapons =

| fatalities = 11

| injuries = 1

| perpetrators = 4 Delaware Lenapes

| motive =

| dfens =

}}

On July 26, 1764, four Delaware (Lenape) Native Americans entered a settlers' log schoolhouse in the Province of Pennsylvania and killed the schoolmaster, Enoch Brown, and ten students. One other student named Archie McCullough was wounded.{{Cite news|url=https://nthfmemorial.org/enoch-brown-incident/|title=Enoch Brown Incident|date=2014-05-13|work=National Teachers Hall of Fame|access-date=2018-09-29|language=en-US|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180929233331/https://nthfmemorial.org/enoch-brown-incident/|archive-date=2018-09-29|url-status=live}}

Historian Richard Middleton described the massacreVariations on the name in sources include the "Enoch Brown massacre" and the "Enoch Brown Indian massacre". Dixon calls it the "Enoch Brown Schoolhouse Massacre" (p. 223). as "one of the most notorious incidents" of Pontiac's War.Middleton, p. 171

Attack

On July 26, 1764, four Delaware (Lenape) Native Americans entered a settlers' log schoolhouse in the Province of Pennsylvania in what is now Franklin County, near the present-day city of Greencastle. Inside were the schoolmaster, Enoch Brown, and a number of young students. Brown pleaded with the warriors to spare the children; nonetheless, he was shot, beaten with a club and scalped, and warriors then clubbed and scalped the children. Brown and ten children were killed.Dixon, p. 223 One scalped child, Archie McCullough, survived his wounds.

A child survivor recounted "Two old Indians and a young Indian rushed up to the door soon after the opening of the morning session. The master, surmising their objective, prayed them only to take his life and spare the children, but all were brutally knocked in the head with an Indian maul and scalped."{{Cite news|url=http://www.newbernsj.com/news/20180406/first-school-shooting-was-in-1764|title=The first school shooting was in 1764|last=Hand|first=Bill|work=New Bern Sun Journal|access-date=2018-09-29|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180929233518/http://www.newbernsj.com/news/20180406/first-school-shooting-was-in-1764|archive-date=2018-09-29|url-status=live}}

A day earlier, the warriors had encountered a pregnant woman, identified as Susan King Cunningham, on the road. She was beaten to death, scalped, and the baby was cut out of her body. When the warriors returned to their village on the Muskingum River in the Ohio Country and showed the scalps, an elder Delaware chief rebuked them as cowards for attacking children. John McCullough, a settler who had been held prisoner by the Delaware since 1756,Dixon, p. 95 later described the return of the raiding party in his captivity narrative:

{{quote|I saw the Indians when they returned home with the scalps; some of the old Indians were very much displeased at them for killing so many children, especially Neep-paugh'-whese, or Night Walker, an old chief, or half king,—he ascribed it to cowardice, which was the greatest affront he could offer them.Archibald Loudon, A Selection of Some of the Most Interesting Outrages Committed by the Indians in Their Wars with the White People (New York, 1808; reprinted 1888), volume 1, p. 283}}

Aftermath

The authorities captured some of the Lenape warriors who were believed to be responsible for the massacre. The Lenape warriors were later sentenced to death and executed by hanging for their role in the massacre. Incidents such as these prompted the Pennsylvania General Assembly, with the approval of Governor John Penn, to reintroduce the scalp bounty system previously used during the French and Indian War. Settlers could collect $134 for the scalp of an enemy American Indian male above the age of ten; the bounty for women was set at $50.Dixon, pp. 223–24

Settlers buried Enoch Brown and the schoolchildren in a common grave.{{Cite news|url=http://www.therecordherald.com/article/20140728/news/140729870|title=July 1764 Enoch Brown schoolhouse massacre commemorated|last=Herald|first=Zach Glenn/The Record|work=Waynesboro Record Herald|access-date=2018-09-29|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180930033603/http://www.therecordherald.com/article/20140728/news/140729870|archive-date=2018-09-30|url-status=live}} In 1843, the grave was excavated to confirm the location of the bodies.{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sqw4h-9Cc1wC&pg=PA150|title=The History and Topography of Dauphin, Cumberland, Franklin, Bedford and Adams|author=Rupp, Israel Daniel|year=1846}} In 1885, the area was named Enoch Brown Park and a memorial was erected over the gravesite.Dixon, p. 318

Bibliography

{{cite book |last=Dixon |first=David |title=Never Come to Peace Again: Pontiac's Uprising and the Fate of the British Empire in North America |location=Norman |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |date=2005 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UeaN0-Ra64oC |isbn=0-8061-3656-1}}
{{cite book |last=Middleton |first=Richard |title=Pontiac's War: Its Causes, Course, and Consequences |location=New York |publisher=Routledge |date=2007 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2kHxdXe4CZ8C |isbn=978-0-415-97914-6}}
{{cite book |last=McCulloh |first=Rodney |title=The Scalping of Archie McCullough:The True Story of the Sole Survivor of the Enoch Brown Massacre |location=Lagoda,IN |publisher=Lamp-post Books |date=2015 |url=https://www.lamppostbooks.com/the-scalping-of-archie-mccullough/ |isbn=978-1-329-67680-0}}