Orders, Decorations and Medals

THE DESTRUCTION OF KITTANNING 1756, silver with small loop suspender, 44mm diameter, very fine and very rare

Amongst the tribes of American Indians who fought on the side of the French, none were more treacherous than the Delawares, perpetrators of murders and scalpings along the length of the Pennsylvania border. A small force of three hundred Pennsylvanians under the command of Colonel Armstrong, of Cumberland County, was assembled to avenge the murders and destroy the Indians at their village of Kittanning, forty five miles from Fort Duquesne. Having crossed the Alleghanie mountains and marched thirty miles through the unbroken forest the force was guided to the village of Kittanning by the beating of a drum and the whooping of the warriors at their festival. In the attack that took place at dawn on 8th September, the warriors fought with desperate skill and bravery but were nonetheless defeated, the town being burned to the ground. The Americans lost sixteen men and Armstrong himself was among the wounded. Medals were engraved and struck by Edward Duffield, a watch and clockmaker in Philadelphia, and presented by the city of Philadelphia, to Colonel Armstrong and to each of the commissioned officers under him.