Alexander McGuffey
Alexander McGuffey (November 22, 1767–March 1, 1855), was a Scottish American scout on the Ohio frontier during the Northwest Indian War.
Nicknamed "Scotch Billy", his father was a farmer and a clobber,[2] which could mean that he painted pottery to look like oriental ceramics[3] or that he repaired shoes with glue.
More than half of the soldiers were believed to have been Scottish-Irish men, who had a "deep seeded hatred of the British".
[5][7] In 1789, the McGuffey family set off on the Cumberland Road, likely in Conestoga wagons, for western Pennsylvania, which had just been opened for settlement.
McGuffey and his 21 year-old sister Catherine completed the journey with their parents to Washington County, Pennsylvania.
[8][9] Land was cheap there and Scottish-Irish settlers were finding success as farmers and makers of iron and whiskey.
[8] Buffalo, deer, otter, beaver, small game, and turkeys were ample sources of food and animal furs.
[10] Native American tribes of the Northwestern Confederacy—including Ojibwas, Odawas, Potawatomis, Miamis, Delawares, Shawnees, and Senecas (originally of New York and Ontario)—raided settlements in Western Pennsylvania and throughout the Northwest Territory.
[11] In 1790, McGuffey and his best friend Duncan McArthur volunteered to be scouts at Fort Pitt, an American Army stronghold.
[14] McGuffey first served out of a small fort near Wheeling, West Virginia, and operated in the Ohio River Valley.
[12] In the early 1790s, the young men served under General Anthony Wayne and Arthur St. Clair, with the objective to push Native Americans out of the Ohio Territory.
Other close calls were when he was spotted by a number of Native Americans and he ran away, until they covered a great distance and his pursuers finally gave up.
[16] McGuffey and his wife built a log cabin on the Rural Grove farm and they lived there for five years.
They appeared to have been ambivalent on the question of slavery, not unlike most of the Scotch-Irish.The first European settlers began moving into the area in 1798.
The land was flatter than western Pennsylvania, which made for easier cultivation of crops, like potatoes, squash, beans, corn, oats, and wheat.
[24] Children in the community were taught to read, write and spell, and memorize verses using the Bible and other books.
Children's books and novels were used by some to teach reading and spelling, such as The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes, Mother Goose's Melody, The Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels.
[18][22][25] They bought a 160-acre farm in the village of Coitsville, Ohio, of the Connecticut Western Reserve, near and east of Youngstown.
Like the McGuffeys, Daniel Drake and his parents had experienced struggles on the frontier, and Dan was sent to Cincinnati in 1800 to receive an education.
