War report by Abraham Bosomworth & story of brother's wife
Captain Abraham Bosomworth of the Royal Americans, stationed at Rays Town (also spelled as Reas Town and later as Fort Bedford) in Pennsylvania, writes to Colonel GW a small report on 23 August 1758, packed with information about the war.
This letter is a compact summary of all the major goings on in this war.
Abraham Bosomworth writes, Bradstreet is on his way to attack French Fort Frontenac. Abercrombie just defeated sits 16 miles away from Montcalm. See that story here.
Abraham Bosomworth reports also that two Cherokee war parties with Conjurers with Ensign Colby Chew return with a report on Fort Duquesne.
See that story here.
Bosomworth writes about their observations of Fort Duquesne: "The two Parties of Cherokees which were out at the French Fort are returned Ensn Chew was with them they had a very fair & full view of it there are about 200 or 300 Indians there & as many White men no New Works at all abt 18 pieces of Cannon I dare say no Reinforcement is yet arrived from the Northward."
A big troop movment for the Forbes Expedition itself was, "Major Grant with a Detachment of 300 Highlandrs and all the Royal Americans march this day to take Post at Loyalhannan" -- which was called Fort Ligonier after the fall of Fort Duquesne.
And finally one of the biggest strategic moves is to separate the French from their Indian allies: "There is a Grand Treaty going to be held with all the Ohio Indians & those as far as the lakes in Septr which will be an excellent Diversion if accomplished."
What's in a Name?
But first things first.
Such a name.
We got to get the Minion's reaction out of the way first.
You know how they're reacting to that name,
Bosomworth.
N'wait they're laughing at a different name.
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We even had fun looking at Colonel George Washington's first known letter to this man. GW had just moved into Fort Loudoun 2 Dec 1756. Six days later on 8 Dec 1756, Colonel George Washington writes a letter to this man, addressing him as, "To Captain Bosumwith, of the Royal American Regiments at York."
His brother's wife.
That Abraham Bosomworth,"was the brother of Thomas Bosomworth who with his Creek wife Consaponakieso, better known as Mary Musgrove Bosomworth, set the young colony of Georgia on its ear with their land claims."
Thomas was actually Mary's third husband, after the first two died. Mary is the most interesting one in this trio. More on her below.
Returning to the subject, Abraham Bosomworth,
we find he was at Fort Loudoun Winchester VA.
When there, he tallied up all the Indian allies at Fort Loudoun. See that story here.
His correspondence while short is always full of detail about the war.
See all letters to and from Colonel George Washington here.
Founders Online's short bio:
Abraham Bosomworth’s commission in the Royal American Regiment was dated 20 Jan. 1756. He had “been 12 years in S. Carolina & employed amongst the Indians” (Henry Bouquet to Loudoun, 28 April 1757, in Stevens, Bouquet Papers, 1:102–3). GW was to have frequent dealings with Bosomworth in the summer of 1758 when Bosomworth was handling a detachment of southern Indians brought to Pennsylvania for John Forbes’s expedition. He was the brother of Thomas Bosomworth who with his Creek wife Consaponakieso, better known as Mary Musgrove Bosomworth, set the young colony of Georgia on its ear with their land claims.
Source:
That's it.
That's our lead story.
There's always more.
Read bits and pieces.
Skip around.
Compiled, authored by Jim Moyer 8/17/2022, 8/21/2022
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Reas town and Loyalhanna
During the Forbes Expedition you will see these two places constantly mentioned in the letters.
Reas town is also spelled as Raystown too. Later it becomes Fort Bedford.
Loyalhanna or Loyalhannon becomes known as Fort Ligonier after the fall of Fort Duquesne. Ligonier was named Commander in Chief of all British Empire forces after Lord Cumberland fell to disgrace. See Cumberland's story here.
Abraham Bosomworth
Links
South Carolina 1754
A statement of the case of Abraham Bosomworth, former Ensign and agent for the Indians in South Carolina, requesting payment for his services in negotiations with the Indians. Date:[1754 Nov. 14] This record has not been digitised and cannot be downloaded.
Bosomworth at Fort Loudoun Winchester VA 1758
Speech of Captain Bosomworth to . . . the Cherokees and Catawbas . . . at Fort Loudon [Va.],” Apr. 21, 1758, Headquarters Papers of Forbes, reel 1, item 132 by DJ Tortora · 2011 — South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, ... 98 Abraham Bosomworth, “A Return of the Southern Indians Winchester 21st April 1758,” ...
Testing the Rusted Chain - DukeSpace - Duke University https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu › bitstream › handle PDF In early spring Loudoun sent Capt. Abraham Bosomworth of the Royal American Regiment to Williamsburg where he was to hire a guide and interpreter. He was then to go on to the Cherokee country to help William Byrd recruit and take back “a large Body of Cherokees to Winchester” (John Blair to Bosomworth, 10 April 1758, ViU: Forbes Papers). On 10 April at Bosomworth’s suggestion and with the advice of the council Blair instructed Bosomworth instead to go up to Winchester “to engage and retain for the General [Forbes] those [Indians] that are now there or daily expected” (ibid.). See also Bosomworth to Forbes, 8 April, ibid. For Bosomworth’s return of the Indians in Virginia dated 21 April, from Winchester, see GW to St. Clair, 12 April, n.3. -
Sources:
17 references to Abraham Bosomworth
Not Trustworthy to Supervise the Indians?
Forbes favored Byrd while Bouquet leaned towards Bosomworth, noting: I should not dare recommend anyone in such a delicate matter, but since the agents or superintendents are leaving you, it seems to me that you will be obliged to take care of their duties. If Bosomworth succeeds in retaining the Cherokees, and can lead them to Fort Loudoun or Reas Town, wouldn’t he be more suitable than Gist to manage them during the campaign? The colonel continued to laud Bosomworth, writing to Forbes on June 7 about “[t]he success Bosomworth has.”
Little more than a week later, Bouquet further informed his commanding officer that “I must give justice to Bosomworth. It is to him principally that this success is due.” The less than subtle endorsements did not sell Forbes, because he had apparently been warned about the trustworthiness of the South Carolinian. “I do not yet know how farr we can trust to Mr. Bossomworth,” he informed Bouquet in early June, “but keep this to yourself and make the best of it in the mean time.”Later in June, the general further warned his enthusiastic subordinate “Bosomworth I am sensible has been of service but you must not believe all he says.”In an apparent attempt to remove Bosomworth from Indian affairs without insult, Forbes recommended him as a Brigade Major in July. The appointment never followed, however, because he had been “found to be too deeply engag’d in Indian Affairs.”
All dates are in 1758
Mary Musgrove Matthews Bosomworth:
Those 3 last names were her 3 husbands.
Here's an interesting and biased account.
In 1749 there occurred the famous Bosomworth trouble, to which a ludicrous prominence has been given in the Georgia histories and in Hewitt's History of South Carolina, and a trifling affair has been magnified into an event of immense importance. Mary Bosomworth was a half- breed Creek woman, the daughter of a Scotch father.
She had some education and spoke both the Creek and English
languages. She had been employed by Mr. Oglethorpe as an interpreter. Having lost her first husband, Musgrove,
32 The Story of Georgia [Chap. I.
she had married a worthless fellow by the name of Mathews, who gave Governor Stephens much annoyance. When he died she married a scapegrace clergyman whose name was Bosomworth. She made some claims to back-pay due her as interpreter, and laid claims to some landed property and threatened the infant colony with her vengeance if her claims were not allowed, and finally, with a
small body of vagabond Indians, she came toward Savannah to enforce her demands. The few militia in the province, one hundred and seventy in all, under command of Captain Noble Jones, met the Indians, who were two hundred in number, and disarmed them without any trouble; and eventually, after Mary, in her drunken rage, for she was a sad reprobate, forced Governor Stephens to lock her up, the Indians were all invited to the governor's house and
took a glass together with the whites, and smoked the pipe of peace and went back to their wigwams.* Mary's claim was at last settled by Governor Ellis, and she secured some money and a grant to St. Catherine's Island, which was sold to Button Gwinnett.
Governor Stephens was old and feeble and the burdens of his office were borne by his associates, Parker and Habersham. He voluntarily, after a short incumbency, retired to his plantation near Savannah, where very suddenly he died. He wrote a copious Journal, often referred to by the
* In Hewitt, McCall, Stevens and Jones there is substantially the same account. There were only two hundred Indians in all. They had no ammunition and had not, in all likelihood, the slightest idea of doing any violence. The great army who saved the people from massacre were one hundred and seventy militia, under Captain Noble Jones. There was not a single drop of blood shed, and no threat or danger of a massacre. I am a little regretful that the brilliant rhetoric of Bishop Stevens, in giving account of this occurrence, has so little to support it ; but he merely followed Hewitt, who was copied by McCall. The Journal of Mr. Wm. Stephens gives the best account of the whole affair. Colonel Jones has given all the facts with his accustomed accuracy.
See Stephens's account in his Journal.
1732-1754.]
AND THE Georgia People.
Source:
Bottom of Page 31 to 32
https://archive.org/details/storyofgeorgiage00smit/page/30/mode/2up
Mary Musgrove (pictured with her third husband, the Reverend Thomas Bosomworth) served as a cultural liason between colonial Georgia and her Native American community in the mid-eighteenth century. She took advantage of her biculturalism to protect Creek interests, maintain peace on the frontier, and expand her business as a trader. From Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library University of Georgia Libraries.
Musgrove was the daughter of the English trader Edward Griffin and a Creek Indian mother who was related to Brims and Chigelli, two Creek leaders. She spent most of her childhood straddling the two worlds of her Creek village, Coweta, and the colony of South Carolina. During these years she learned to speak the Creek language of Muskogee as well as English, and she learned firsthand about the deerskin trade and the different customs and expectations of colonial and Native American societies. Despite her mixed heritage Musgrove was considered a full member of Creek society and the Wind Clan. In this matrilineal society, children took the clan identities of their mothers. Later in life she would claim royal heritage, a claim few scholars have accepted.
Businesswoman and Diplomat
In 1717 she married English trader John Musgrove, and together they set up a trading post near the Savannah River. (Archaeologists excavated the site of this trading post in 2002, prior to the beginning of a construction project by the Georgia Ports Authority.) Musgrove helped her husband as an interpreter and probably used her kin ties to attract clients. The establishment of Georgia in 1733 provided the Musgroves an opportunity to expand their role on the southern frontier. In 1734, after John Musgrove and a group of Creeks accompanied James Oglethorpe on a trip to England, the Trustees officially granted John Musgrove some land at Yamacraw Bluff on the Savannah River, four miles upriver from Savannah itself. John Musgrove died in 1735, and Mary Musgrove subsequently moved the trading post to Yamacraw Bluff. The post, known as the Cowpens, became a major commerce site and was probably the center for the English-Indian deerskin trade.
[ Picture of Historical sign is from https://georgiahistory.com/education-outreach/historical-markers/hidden-histories/indian-trading-post-home-of-mary-musgrove/ ]
From the colony’s inception Musgrove placed herself in the center of Oglethorpe’s dealings with neighboring Creek Indians. As interpreter for Oglethorpe and Yamacraw Indian chief Tomochichi, Musgrove was instrumental in the peaceful founding of Savannah, and by extension, the Georgia colony. She served as Oglethorpe’s principal interpreter from 1733 until 1743, receiving financial compensation for her assistance and the prestige that accompanied her position. During this period she repeatedly used her connections to foster peace between the British and the Creeks. Oglethorpe obtained most of his understanding of the Creek Indians directly from Musgrove. Musgrove remarried in 1737.
With the assistance of her husband, Jacob Matthews, Musgrove established another trading post at Mount Venture on the Altamaha River. In 1742 Matthews died, and Musgrove remarried once again.
Her third and final husband was the Reverend Thomas Bosomworth. This marriage provided an opportunity for Musgrove to further increase her power. The couple probably met when she interpreted for Bosomworth, who was sent to the young colony as a Christian missionary. When the marriage was announced, however, few Georgians believed it to be true. Musgrove’s marriage signified a rise in status that few had foreseen. Musgrove, who had earlier married among the lower branches of the colonial order, now connected herself to “respectable” society. The daughter of an Indian trader and a Creek mother had risen to the upper echelon of colonial society.
Bosomworth’s status and Musgrove’s skills formed a powerful combination. Together they traveled into Creek villages with messages from Oglethorpe and the English king, brought back speeches from various Creek leaders, and hosted Creek and American visitors at their home. They occasionally taught Christian missionaries the Muskogee language, and otherwise tried to mediate interactions between Creeks and colonists.
Controversial Land Claim Despite her central role in Georgia’s Indian affairs, Musgrove is more often remembered for her controversial land claims in Georgia. The controversy began in 1737 when Yamacraw chief Tomochichi granted her a plot of land near Savannah. The claim was unsettled when Musgrove married Bosomworth. In the following years Lower Creek chief Malatchi granted the Bosomworths three of the Sea Islands that the Indians claimed as their own—Ossabaw, Sapelo, and St. Catherines. British officials, however, refused these claims on the grounds that a nation can cede or grant land only to a nation, not to individuals.
Musgrove pursued her claims to the lands for the next decade. In 1749 more than 200 Creeks accompanied her to Savannah to support her claim. With Georgia officials unwilling to accept the grant, Musgrove eventually traveled to England to plead her case. In 1754 the Board of Trade heard her case and referred it to the Georgia courts. When she returned to Georgia, the disputed land had come under Georgia control. In 1760 a compromise was finally reached under royal governor Henry Ellis—in return for the right to St. Catherines Island and £2,100, Musgrove relinquished her claims to the other lands. Afterward Musgrove ceased to play a central role in Georgia-Creek relations. She died on St. Catherines Island sometime after 1763.
In 1993 Musgrove was inducted into Georgia Women of Achievement.
Cite this Article Style: Chicago Frank, Andrew. "Mary Musgrove." New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified Oct 6, 2019. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/mary-musgrove-ca-1700-ca-1763/
This picture makes no claim as to the likeness of Mary, but there's no disclaimer either. The picture does not seem representative of the Eastern Woodland nations. Why the picture was picked for this article on Mary is not explained.
Mary was a 1993 Inductee for those Georgia Women of Achievement.
“Tomochichi’s interpreter was one Mrs. Musgrove. She understands both languages, being educated amongst the English. She can read and write, and is a well-civilized women. She is likewise to teach us the Indian tongue.” - John Wesley, 1736
QUICK FACTS Birth Date 1700, Death Date 1765, Induction Year 1993, City, Town, Region Savannah, GA, Film Tribute Video Link, Related Links Wikipedia and New Georgia Encyclopedia
Mary Musgrove Bosomworth was born some time around 1700. Her father was an English trader from the South Carolina colony and her mother was a Creek Indian of royal blood - a niece of the emperor of the Creek Nation. Mary was given the Indian name Coosaponakeesa. She spent her first ten years among her mother's people, becoming thoroughly acquainted with the Creek language and ways. Then she was brought to South Carolina to live among the English where she was christened Mary and adapted herself to colonial society. This double allegiance to both the Creek Nation and the English Crown was to make her a vital figure in the colonial settlement of Georgia. In 1716 Mary married a Carolina trader named John Musgrove. John was her second husband. The two of them set out to build a trading enterprise in the Georgia territory. Her knowledge of Creek language and customs was an invaluable aid to their success. By 1730 they had a prosperous trading post on the Yamacraw Bluff overlooking the Savannah River near the place where General James Oglethorpe brought the first English colonists to Savannah in 1733. Oglethorpe employed Mary as a negotiator to secure the peaceful cooperation of the Creeks in land settlements and trade. A shrewd businesswoman, she required payment for using her broad acquaintance among the Creek leaders to secure cooperation and support for the settlers. Mary played a key role in keeping the Creeks on the English side, helping them maintain control over the colony against Spanish invasion. In 1737, after the death of her second husband, Mary married Thomas Bosomworth. There is no record of her having any children who survived. Throughout her lifetime, Mary was socially prominent and successful in trade. Her home in Savannah was visited by important Indian visitors who came to call on colonial authorities. John Wesley, rector of the English Church, was one of many famous guests. Over the years, Mary continued to expand her trading business with a thriving trading post at "The Forks" where the Ocmulgee and Oconee Rivers join to form the Altamaha. She received land grants from the Creek tribes for her assistance as an interpreter and peace negotiator. These land claims brought her into extensive litigation in British courts. At one point in legal battle, she declared herself Queen of the Creeks and made a demonstration of force to show the support she had among the Georgia's largest landowner by grant from the Crown. Her holdings included the islands of Sapelo, Ossabaw and Saint Catherines. Mary died in 1765. Her service to General Oglethorpe and the English Crown played a vital part in the founding of the Georgia Colony.
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Thomas Bosomworth, Mary's 3rd husband.
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