Brady Family
Captain John Brady
By Belle McKinney Hays Swope
John Brady, the second? (First) son of Hugh Brady and Hannah Brady, was born in 1733 near Newark, Delaware, where he received a good education and taught school. He came with his parents to Pennsylvania, and soon won the love of Mary Quigley At twenty-two, the age of his marriage, he was six feet in height, well formed, with black hair, hazel eyes and a dark complexion. Fearless, impulsive and generous, he was one whom friends loved and enemies hated. Soon after his marriage the breaking out of the French and Indian war caused him to enlist in the service and defend his country from the merciless invaders. On July 19, 1763, he was commissioned Captain, Second Battalion of the Pennsylvania Regiments, commanded by Governor John Penn and Lieutenant Colonels Asher Clayton and Tobias Frances. In 1764 he received his commission of Captain in the Second Pennsylvania Battalion, in Colonel Bouquet's expedition west of the Ohio, in which campaign he participated, and he took part in the land grant to the officers in that service during the year 1766. He was actively engaged against the Indians who made desperate slaughter in Bedford and Cumberland Counties, and killed many of the settlers. When his regiment reached Bedford, the officers drew a written agreement, wherein they asked the proprietaries for sufficient land on which to erect a compact and defensible town, and give each a commodious plantation on which to build a dwelling. Captain John Brady was one of the officers who signed this petition. In 1768, "urged by the restless, mysterious impulse that molds the destiny of the pioneer of civilization," he removed his family to Standing Stone, now Huntingdon, Penn'a. The following year he again changed his location to a site opposite the present town of Lewisburg, Penn'a. At that period titles to uncultivated lands could be secured by erecting a house, and by cutting a few trees by way of improvement. In this manner he took up a vast tract of land on the West Branch of the Susquehanna, and had he lived longer, he would have been one of the wealthiest men in the state. Owing to the carelessness of those connected with the management of his affairs, his family was deprived of much benefit from his exertions.
In 1776 he took his wife and children and belongings to Muncy manor, where he built a semi-fortified log house, known later as "Brady's Fort." It was a private affair and was not classed among the provincial fortifications. The spot on which it stood is in the borough of Muncy and a slight elevation in a field is pointed to as the exact plot of ground. After Northumberland county was formed, Captain John Brady was appointed foremen of the first grand jury, and served in many such capacities afterwards.
Not slow to respond to the call to arms in defense of home and the independence of the nation, he marched to the front in some of the bloodiest engagements of the War of the Revolution. He fought with Washington at Brandywine, where his two sons, Samuel and John were with him, and he was wounded in the mouth. The loss of some teeth was the result, but he was disabled by an attack of pleurisy and sent home.
In 1775 Colonel Plunkett made his famous expedition to the Wyoming valley, and John Brady was one of his ablest assistants. The Connecticut settlers claimed under their charter the territory of the province of Pennsylvania as far south as the 41st degree of latitude, which ran a mile north of Lewisburg, and determined to enforce their rights. In 1772 a party of them reached the present town of Milton, but were driven back by Colonel Plunkett. The settlers were not subdued and the contest was waged many years. They advanced to the Muncy valley and made a settlement where the town was later located. In order to punish the intruders for their presumption in occupying this part of the West Branch region, blood was shed and lives were lost.
John Brady was a surveyor of land in Cumberland, Buffalo and White Deer valleys, and in the possession of his descendant Mrs. Charles Gustav Ernst, nee Mollie Brady Cooper, of Punxsutawney, Penn'a, is a surveyor's guide book, entitled "Tables of Difference of Latitude and Departure," for navigators, land surveyors, etc., "compiled at the instance of a committee of the Dublin Society, by John Hood, Land Surveyor. Published in Dublin in 1772." She has also an account book which has on the inside of the leather cover the words printed in ink, "John Brady, his book, Cumberland County, 1765."
On March 3, 1776, he was commissioned Major of the battalion commanded by Colonel Plunkett, and on October 14, 1776, Captain in the Twelfth regiment of the Pennsylvania line, commanded by Colonel William Cooke, whose two daughters became wives of two of Captain John Brady's sons. In 1778, on the invasion of the Wyoming valley, he went with his family to Sunbury, and September l, 1778, returned to the army. 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 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.
Carried to his home at Fort Brady, which he built, and is now within the borough limits of Muncy, his heroic little wife looked the second time upon the blood stained form of one of her family, her son James having met the same fate on the 8th of August of the preceding year.
Laid to rest on the hillside, where few interments had been made, his grave was well nigh forgotten. and weeds and briars hid the lonely mound of earth, until the spot was identified through the efforts of a grand-daughter of Captain John Brady, Mrs. Backus, wife of General Electus Backus, U. S. A. Prior to 1830 at Halls, a heavy granite marker was erected bearing the inscription:
Captain John Brady
Fell in defense of our forefathers
at Wolf Run, April 11, 1779
Age 46 years
An old comrade who was present at his burial pointed to the site and requested that he be laid by his side. His request was granted, and near by Captain John Brady's grave is that of his friend Henry Lebo. The Lycoming Chapter D. A. R. recently honored his memory by placing an appropriate marker between his grave and that of his faithful comrade.
A hundred years after his death, through a dollar subscription fund, raised by Mr. J. M. M. Gernerd, a monument was placed in the cemetery at Muncy, and unveiled October 15th, 1879. The date 1779 is On the front of the shaft, the name "John Brady" in the die, and the date of erection 1879 in the sub-base. The cost was $1600.00, and that of the slab in the burial lot at Halls $70.00, the latter also due to the untiring energy of Mr. Gernerd, by an autograph subscription at twentyfive cents a signature. In closing his oration at the unveiling of the monument, Hon. John Blair Linn, of Bellefonte, Penn'a, said: "To Captain Brady's descendants, time fails me in paying a proper tribute. When border tales have lost their charm for the evening hour; when oblivion blots from the historic page the glorious record of Pennsylvania in the Revolution of 1776, then and then only will Captain Samuel Brady of the Rangers be forgotten. In private life, in public office, at the bar, in the Senate of Pennsylvania, in the House of Representatives of the United States, in the ranks of battle, Captain John Brady's sons and grandsons and great-grandsons have flung far forward into the future the light of their family fame."
Captain John Brady was foremost in all expeditions that went out from the West Branch settlement, and his untimely death was a sore affliction. When the inmates of the fort heard the report of the rifles that ended his life, they, with his wife, ran to ask Smith, who was with him, where he was, and his reply, "In heaven or hell or on his way to Tioga," showed his rapid flight, for he did not wait to see whether Captain Brady was killed or taken prisoner. His was a remarkable career, and death claiming him in the prime of manhood, robbed the earth of one of her strongest sons, and the nation of one of her most loyal subjects, but in the lives and life work of his children, was continued and completed the blessings and benefits to mankind commenced so unselfishly by him.
Mary Quigley Brady
And now came the test of character which proved Mary Quigley Brady a true woman, a consecrated mother, and one of the bravest heroines of history. At the age of twenty the little Scotch-lrish maiden, with large bright blue eyes, linked her fortune with that of John Brady, big, broad-shouldered and handsome, coming scarcely above his heart in height, yet as fearless and noble as he. It was considered a good match. The Quigley and Brady families were of the same faith, the same social standing, and each in comfortable circumstances. Until 1768 she either lived with her father or near him, and enjoyed the privileges of her girlhood home as in days gone by. With true wifely devotion she followed her husband's restless footsteps to the West Branch valley, and on the tract of land which was given him for provincial services, she began her work of training her sons and daughters for the duties of life, and nobly she fulfilled her mission.
Churches there were none, hence the instruction given was largely due to her zeal, while the father cultivated the soil and protected the little home won by his military daring. Later, on their productive land near Muncy, she encouraged her sons In the tilling of the soil, but their souls longed for broader fields of activity and usefulness, and the battle cry rather than the reaper's song brought a responsive echo. "Her sons, beside their fine mental endowments, were perfect specimens of humanity, and the average height of the six boys when grown to manhood was six feet. "
When Captain John Brady joined Washington's army, he took with him his sons, Samuel and James, the first winning an officer's commission soon after he was twenty years of age, and James becoming a sergeant before he reached the age of eighteen.
Day after day during those perilous times, Mary Quigley Brady kept her younger sons employed on the farm, ever on the alert against the surprise of the Indians. Her position being wearing and dangerous, her husband was given leave of absence while the army was in winter quarters at Valley Forge. In 1778 her son James was mortally wounded by Indians, dying four days after Liberty, her youngest and thirteenth child, was born. As independence had just been declared, she called her Liberty, and was very anxious lest the minister who christened the child would not know whether, from the name, it was a boy or girl. He baptized it Liberty Brady, and happily applied the feminine gender in his prayer for its welfare, and relieved the mother's anxiety. As there were thirteen states, and this the thirteenth child, the name was fitting and well chosen, and has descended to each successive generation of the Brady family. After the death of her husband in 1779, with her cup of sorrow filled to the brim, turning from his new made grave, beside which slumbered four children, she fled with her nine remaining sons and daughters to the home of her parents in the Cumberland valley, along the Conodoguinet Creek. She spent the months from May until October with her father and mother, returning to the Buffalo valley with her family, and settled on the original tract of land presented to her husband by the government. Many men would shrink from such a perilous undertaking in those days of bloodshed, knowing not in what bushes might be hiding an Indian who hungered for a scalp to add to his trophies; but her duty to her children led her through all the dangers, and her cheerful courage never flinched, and with her manly sons and helpful daughters she took up the burden of life again in her own home.
When she started from her father's house, her brother, Robert Quigley, gave her a cow, which she led over the hills to the Buffalo valley, carrying Liberty. who was fourteen months old, before her on horseback. Her indomitable perseverance enabled her to reach her destination in safety, but the difficulties, and exposure of the journey were great, and although a vigorous, healthy woman of forty-four, her constitution weakened, and coming to the scene of her heart's deepest sorrow, there was opened for her a trying winter. The season of 1779-1780 was severe, the depths of snow so impassable that intercourse with even their few scattered neighbors was hindered, and some of these were massacred by the Indians in the early springtime.
Many a day her son Hugh walked by the side of his brother John, carrying a rifle in one hand and a forked stick to clear the plow shear in the other, while John plowed. The mother frequently went with them to prepare their meals; in constant peril, but in this as in all the joys and adversities of life, an angel of mercy to them, her death on the 20th of October, 1783, was a personal and grievous loss to each of her children. To them, since the death of her husband, she had given her undivided attention and affection, and for them she had unselfishly labored. She was rewarded for her care, as shown by a remark made by her distinguished son, General Hugh Brady, "My brothers lived to be men in every sense of the word, at a period when the qualities of men were put to the most severe tests." She was proud of her children, and modest in receiving praises for her share in their training, but her satisfaction in seeing them leaders in warfare, at the time America's most eventful history was enacted, more than repaid her. They were not only skilled in military tactics, but their alertness and ingenuity in planning attack made their names and deeds linger in every heart and on every tongue.
Mary Quigley Brady died at the age of forty-eight years, after a lingering illness due to exposure, and is buried at Lewisburg.