John Armstrong

John Armstrong 1717?-1795, American pioneer, known as the "hero of Kittanning," b. Co. Fermanagh, Ireland. He laid out the town of Carlisle, Pa. In 1756 he led the expedition that destroyed Kittanning, a town of the Delaware on the Allegheny. Later he was a major general in the American Revolution and a member of the Second Continental Congress.

Armstrong, John (1717–95) surveyor, soldier, member of the Continental Congress, and Revolutionary army officer, born in County Fermanagh, Ulster, Ireland. In Pennsylvania, as Penns' surveyor and agent, he helped survey and cut supply routes across the mountains for British general Edward Braddock (1755) and persuaded the Quaker colony to establish its first chain of frontier forts from Maryland to the Susquehanna. Armstrong commanded Pennsylvania troops during Pontiac's Rebellion (1763–66); he was brigadier general of the Pennsylvania militia; and was elected to the Continental Congress (1779–80). In the French and Indian War (1754–63), Armstrong achieved fame as the “Hero of Kittanning” when he planned and executed the destruction of Kittanning (September 8, 1756), a major Delaware Indian stronghold on the Allegheny River north of Fort Duquesne, where he killed the Delaware war leader in the first offensive action against the Indians following Braddock's defeat near Fort Duquesne (1755).

Armstrong, John (1755–1816) Revolutionary War officer, born in New Jersey. In 1790 he and thirty of his men were sent to accompany 150 Kentucky militia in an attack against an Indian settlement on the Eel River. When the Indians ambushed Armstrong's men and the militia, many of the militiamen threw away their guns without firing a shot (including their commander, Col. John Hardin) and ran through his men, throwing them in disorder. Armstrong lost his sergeant and twenty-one of his men.