Page:Family of Ormsby of Pittsburgh.djvu/18

14 was teaching school in Philadelphia in 1753 when, as he states, "the young people came to my Seminary in numbers so that I had uncommon success;" in 1754 he taught in Lancaster and York, Pa., and Alexandria, Va.; he had seen previous service in the British army and was offered a captain's commission in the colonial contingent of General Braddock's army in 1755 but was prevented from accepting by an attack of malarial fever which lasted nearly three years; in 1758 he joined the expedition against Fort Duquesne under General Forbes, as commissary of provisions, his strength not permitting of his accepting a more active commission as offered him by several states. In 1759-60, General Stanwix being in command at Fort Pitt, he was commissary of provisions and paymaster for the erection of the new fort which is said to have cost the British crown £60,000 sterling;" later embarked in the Indian trade and sustained severe losses at his stores "at Salt Licks, Gichaga and Fort Pitt" amounting to over £3,500 currency of Penna, through the depredations of the Indians during Pontiac's war in 1763, when, besides being plundered of his horses and goods and his property destroyed, those in his employ were murdered and he himself compelled to seek shelter in Fort Pitt which he assisted to defend, the Indians endeavoring for nearly three months to effect its reduction by cutting off the supplies, at the same time keeping up a continual firing and harassing of the garrison, until, finally, the "Copper Gentry," as John Ormsby terms them, succeeded so well in their endeavors that, as he relates, "there was not a pound of good flour or meat to serve the garrison and a