The Sugarloaf massacre was a skirmish which occurred on September 11, 1780, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania when a number of Natives and a handful of Loyalists attacked a small detachment of militia from Northampton County.
[4][1] The communities of Bloomsburg and Catawissa were home to large numbers of Loyalists who aided the British during the American Revolutionary War,[1] and a detachment of 41 of Van Etten's men headed to Northumberland to investigate these settlements in 1780.
[5] They were placed under the command of Lieutenants Moyer and Fish, and they left Northampton County in the beginning of September 1780 from Fort Allen and headed into Sugarloaf Valley[Murder Along the Creek 1] to search for Loyalist sympathizers and spies.
[6] The men of the volunteer detachment had just sat down to eat dinner on September 11, 1780, according to survivor Peter Crum, when the Loyalists and Natives started firing muskets at them.
He wrote in his report: "On the first notice of this unfortuned event the officers of the militia have Exerted themselves to get Volunteers out of their Respective Divissions to go up & Burry the Dead, their Labour Proved not in Vain we collected about 150 men & officers Included from the Colonels Kern, Giger & my own Battalions who would undergo the fatique & Danger to go their & pay that Respect to their slautered Brethren, Due to men who fell in support of the freedom of their Country.
On the 15th we took up our line of march (want of amunation prevented us from going Sooner) on the 17th we arrived at the place of action, where we found Ten of our Soldiers Dead, Scalped, Striped Naked, & in a most cruel & Barborous manner Tomehawked, their throads Cut, &c. &c. whom we Buried & Returned without even seeing any of these Black alies, & Bloody executors of British Tirany.
Samuel Rea, the County Lieutenant of Northampton County, indicated that Balliet's numbers were probably the most accurate: "Col. Baliort [Balliet] informs me that he had Given Council a relation of the killed and wounded he had found Burned near Neskipeki as he was at the place of action his Accts must be as near the truth as any I could procure..."[9] Lieutenant Moyer, upon his return, said he had seen thirteen scalps on the belts of his captors, but it is hard to believe that they let him count the scalps while he was detained.
[1] It is likely that Van Etten did not know who had been killed (his company was spread over two dozen miles, east to west, along frontier forts in Northampton County) or these men had deserted after the massacre and returned to their farms.