Happy 200 birthday Pike County

By Ginny Privitar
MILFORD — The year 2014 marks the bicentennial of Pike County, named for Zebulon Montgomery Pike, a soldier and explorer credited with discovering “Pike’s Peak” in Colorado, leading two expeditions to explore the west for the United States government, and for dying a hero in the War of 1812 at the Battle of York (now Toronto) against the British.

Pike became famous after 1810 when he published accounts of his travels exploring parts of the Louisiana Purchase: The expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike to Headwaters of the Mississippi River, through Louisiana Territory, and in New Spain, during the Years 1805-07; it was popular and was translated into French, German and Dutch for European readers. Three years later, at the Battle of York in Canada, he and many of his men were killed when the British blew up a powder magazine while retreating from the fort on the northwest side of Lake Ontario.

Pike became part of the pantheon of American military heroes; he became the subject of songs, poems and articles written about him. No less an author than Washington Irving wrote a tribute to him. His death would have still been fresh news the following year, when Pike County was formed. And Pike’s life coincided with our country’s early history — the American Revolution, the Whiskey Rebellion, the Ohio Valley Indian Wars, the Louisiana Purchase, the Aaron Burr Conspiracy and the War of 1812.

Pike may never have slept here
Still, why name the county after him? There is no evidence Pike ever set foot in that portion of the northeast corner of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that became Pike County. Yet Pike County was formed in 1814 from part of Wayne County, which split off from Northampton County in 1798, which split from Bucks County in 1752. And historians know Pike lived for a time in what was then Bucks County with his father, also known as Zebulon Montgomery Pike. To avoid confusion, the son is usually referred to with his middle initial or name, which is omitted in the father’s case.

Not much is known about Zebulon Montgomery Pike’s early life and scarce historical sources differ in details. But there is some information.

The earliest known ancestor, John Pike, along with two adult sons, arrived in Massachusetts in 1635 from England. Here he helped found the town of Newbury, Mass., and practiced law. His son, also John, moved to New Jersey and helped establish the town of Woodbridge in Middlesex County, New Jersey.

Skip forward a few generations and we come to our hero’s father. Pike senior was orphaned at the age of nine and disappears from the historical record for more than a decade. Family lore says he went to sea. He then appears in the mid-1770s near Trenton, New Jersey. He signed the oath of allegiance and joined the Continental Army and served under Washington in the rebellion against England. At some point, he married Isabella Brown.

Our subject, Zebulon Montgomery Pike, was born Jan. 5, 1779, in Lamberton, near Trenton, New Jersey. Sometime later the family moved to Solebury Township, Pa.; tax records indicate the family was there in the 1780s.

Pike senior rented a house and he was taxed there for a gristmill and sawmill in 1785. The family did not own land in Bucks County, but did own 200 acres in Bald Eagle Township in Northumberland County.

Around 1786 the family’s circumstances deteriorated, and according to Donna Humphrey at the Bucks County Historical Society, there was a court case and the elder Pike’s assets were sold to pay his debts. The younger Pike was six or seven at the time. The home was later known as “the old red house” and was burned down in the 1830s.

Westward march
The Pikes moved westward. In Pittsburgh, in 1794, the elder Pike re-enlisted in the army and young Zebulon M. Pike, aged about 15, also joined his father’s company as a cadet. (The army had just subdued his western Pennsylvania neighbors in the Whiskey Rebellion, farmers who withheld taxes and threatened federal agents because they felt they were unfairly taxed.)

The Pikes fought Indian tribes along the Ohio River Valley. Young Pike was intellectually curious, largely self-educated and zealous in the performance of his duties. By the age of twenty, he was commissioned a lieutenant. He soon rose through the ranks in the military. His travels would take him down the Ohio River to various military outposts and into Indiana and Illinois and beyond.

In 1801, Clark married Clarissa Harlow Brown. Only one of their children survived to adulthood, a daughter, Clarissa Brown Pike, who married John Cleves Symmes Harrison, a son of President William Henry Harrison.

This was the time of national expansion, usually to the detriment of native peoples. In 1804 Lewis and Clark were sent by President Jefferson to explore the west and find the headwaters of the Missouri.

For a time, Pike was stationed at Fort Bellefontaine near present-day St. Louis, Missouri. General James Wilkinson, the Governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory was headquartered there and became impressed with Pike’s abilities.

Gen. Wilkinson, whose duplicitous nature would not be fully discovered until a century later, introduced Pike to Aaron Burr. That introduction would later haunt Pike.

Mississippi exploration
In 1805, Wilkinson sent Pike on an expedition to explore the Mississippi River up into present-day Minnesota. In 1806, Pike and his men recorded the peak that would be named after him. They were poorly provisioned for the winter conditions and were unable to attain the summit in the waist-deep snow. During the expedition they were often without food.

A second expedition to explore the Arkansas and Red Rivers began in 1806 and was brought to a close in Feb. 1807, when Pike and his men stumbled into Spanish territory and were captured by the Spanish. He was held in a comfortable captivity, but his journals and maps were confiscated. He and his men were allowed to keep their weapons, and family lore said they were able to retain some of Pike’s notes by hiding papers in their gun barrels. Most accounts say Pike was able to reconstruct much of his material from memory and then later publish. His original notes from this expedition were not recovered from Mexico until the 1900s.

Pike was released from captivity in 1807 and returned to the United States.

Later accounts blame Wilkinson for deliberately sending Pike into Spanish territory for his own reasons. A century later, when Spanish records were released and translated, Wilkinson was discovered to have had dealings with the Spanish, for his own monetary gain, and with Burr.

In the meantime, conspiracy charges against Aaron Burr implicated General James Wilkinson in seeking to acquire land and create an independent nation in the Southwest and parts of Mexico. When Wilkinson saw that Burr’s plan would fail, he revealed Burr's plans to Jefferson and testified at Burr's trial. Burr was acquitted. Wilkinson himself was court-martialed in 1811. He, too, was found not guilty, and surprisingly continued his military career, although he was involved in scandals and controversies and was twice removed from command.

Because Wilkinson had organized Pike’s expeditions, Pike, too, came under suspicion for a while. Ultimately, Secretary of State Henry Dearborn cleared Pike of all charges related to the conspiracy.

Pike was promoted to captain while on the southwestern expedition and returned to find his infant son had died. On Nov. 7, 1811, Pike, now Lt. Colonel, was with the 4th Infantry Regiment at the Battle of Tippecanoe. The U.S. forces were led by Governor (later president) William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory against Native American forces under Shawnee leader Tecumseh. Pike’s daughter would later marry Harrison’s son.

Promoted to colonel in 1812, Pike served as deputy quartermaster-general in New Orleans and inspector-general during the War of 1812.

Pike was promoted to brigadier general in 1813. Along with General Jacob Brown, Pike departed from the newly fortified rural military outpost of Sackets Harbor, on the New York shore of Lake Ontario, for his last military campaign. On this expedition, Pike commanded troops in the successful attack on York, (now Toronto) on April 27, 1813. Pike was killed by flying rocks and other debris when the withdrawing British garrison blew up its ammunition magazine while Pike's troops approached the fort. His body was brought to Sackets Harbor, where his remains were buried at the military cemetery.

After his death, Pike was widely celebrated with memorials, biographies, paintings, poems and songs. Dozens of towns, counties and places in many states are named after him. His memory faded after the Civil War but was renewed around the centennial of his explorations.

Pike’s contributions
Today Pike is mainly known for his explorations. Despite errors and misspellings, his Account provided valuable information on “British fur-trading operations on the upper Mississippi, ethnographic information about numerous Plains tribes and extensive observations about military, commercial and political conditions in the Spanish Borderlands — key information for America to possess in order to expand its empire westward,” According to Zebulon Pike, Thomas Jefferson, and "The Opening of the American West" edited by Matthew L. Harris, Jay H. Buckley.

Harris and Buckley assert that Pike “whetted enterprising entrepreneurs’ interest by expounding on the commercial potential of the fur trade of the upper Mississippi and the overland trade with Mexico. His valuable information also benefitted the United States during Mexican Independence, the settlement of Texas and the Mexican Revolution...and provided some of the first American knowledge derived from actual exploration along Louisiana’s northeastern and southwestern boundaries and one of the earliest renditions of the Santa Fe Trail."

Sources include: Lori Strelecki, director of the Pike County Historical Society; Donna Humphrey of the Bucks County Historical Society, historian George Fluhr; the Pike Family Association papers, The Journeys of Zebulon Montgomery Pike; “Collection of papers read before the Bucks County Historical Society” on May 26, 1903, vol 3 article by General W.W.H. Davis; “Biographical Memoir of the Late Brigadier General Zebulon Montgomery Pike,” by Washington Irving in “The Analectic Magazine” Volume 4 (November, 1814): 380; Citizen Explorer: the life of Zebulon Pike by Jared Orsi, Oxford Univ. Press, 2014, and several online sources.