Brady's Bend
Brady Township, Clarion County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Named for Capt. Samuel Brady (1756-1795), famed frontier scout and the subject of many legends. Near here in June 1779 -- in what was then Seneca territory -- he led a force seeking to redress the killing of a settler and her four children...
The Story
This marker recalls the violent frontier of western Pennsylvania during the Revolutionary War, when the Allegheny country was contested ground between American settlers and the Seneca of the Six Nations. Its namesake, Captain Samuel Brady, was a Continental officer turned frontier scout whose daring raids and narrow escapes made him a folk hero along the border. In June 1779 he led men into what was then Seneca land in a retaliatory expedition, one episode in a brutal cycle of raids and reprisals that engulfed the frontier while the larger war raged in the East.
Why it matters
The bend on the Allegheny and its legends capture how the American Revolution was also a savage borderland war over Native homelands — a struggle that shaped the young nation's westward push and the fate of the Seneca who had lived there.
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Related people
- · Capt. Samuel Brady
Related events
- · Brady's 1779 frontier expedition into Seneca territory
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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