Residents of Western Pennsylvania know the Allegheny River as a lovely location to enjoy nature, boating, strolling or biking along its length.

But more than 230 years ago the river was the front line of America’s first war, a conflict between the United States government and a variety of Native American tribes in the Northwest Territories. The war has been given many names — Northwest Indian War is among them. This was a war that ravaged the frontier, terrorized settlers and natives alike, and impacted significantly veterans of the American Revolution.

Massey White Harbison was a young mother who became a victim, but also a survivor, of this conflict. Her ordeal during the Northwest Indian War has been recounted many times.

But the story of her family in the post-Revolutionary war period is not as well known. It includes her tragedy but also reflects how families such as Massey’s were willing to risk their safety and lives to obtain land and opportunity.

As settlers encountered native tribes who were desperate to keep their land, lawless wars broke out. Both sides were willing to kill or destroy others to hold on to the land that sustained them, resulting in many catastrophes until peace could be sustained.

The roots of the Northwest Indian War conflict date to about 1783. Then, the United States faced a dilemma along its Western frontier. Many of the native tribes in the region aligned with the British during the American Revolution. Natives believed that the British, who had established the Proclamation Line of 1763 that limited expansion of the colonies west of the Appalachian Mountains, were less likely to push them off their lands than the colonists.

“The end of the Revolution marked the beginning of years of turmoil as the region became an arena of competing national, state, and tribal interests, international intrigues, land speculation, and personal ambitions,” historian Colin Calloway wrote in his 1995 book, “The American Revolution in Indian Country — Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities.”

The U.S. government made multiple overtures to sign peace treaties with the tribes of the Northwest region. However, any peace obtained was interspersed with times of extreme violence. Natives did not want to relinquish their land.

Meanwhile, immigration to the Northwest territory exploded, including to Southern and Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. Veterans searched for land and opportunity, having succumbed to the economic crisis that followed the Revolution. Massey Harbison’s father, Edward White, was among those settlers.

Born in Amwell, N.J., in 1714, White and his wife, Rebecca, had six children. Mary Jane, known as Massey, was the youngest, born in 1770.

White had joined the New Jersey Militia during the American Revolution. He worked in procurement, assigned to the Adjutants General’s office, to obtain supplies for the often poorly funded colonials, military records show.

But by the end of the war in 1783, White, then 69, was impoverished. He moved his wife, two daughters — Tabitha and Massey — and a son, Benjamin, to what was then considered to be Ohio country.

They traveled to Redstone, now Brownsville in Fayette County, on the Monongahela River, south of Fort Pitt in Pittsburgh. Redstone seemed a good place to stay until hostilities with the natives ended. Edward would never move farther west. He died at Redstone in 1792.

White may have moved to the area because his son, Capt. Jacob White, served in the military for the duration of the Revolutionary War, stationed in Washington County, adjacent to Fayette County. Jacob White had led men in reconnaissance and skirmishes against the native tribes and so he knew the region well.

The war continued along the frontier from the time the White family arrived on the Monongahela until a few years after Edwards death. But they did not all remain in the relative safety of an established settlement such as Fort Pitt or Redstone.

Massey married John Harbison in 1789, when she was 17 and her husband 18, and Edward White objected. The newlyweds moved in a few years 25 miles upriver to Allegheny Township in the Allegheny River Valley.

The area was sparsely settled and closer to the conflicts with native tribes. During significant military campaigns settlers were called upon to join the militia.

Harbison served with the militia during the infamous St. Clair’s campaign in 1791. Harbison and more than 600 other settlers fought with Gen. Arthur St. Clair at the Battle of the Wabash that November. Known as St. Clair’s Defeat, it became one of the worst defeats in American military history. Ninety-seven percent of American soldiers involved died and 88% of officers perished, including Gen. Richard Butler, St. Clair’s second in command and namesake of Butler County and city.

Harbison returned home, injured, to his wife and their three sons. However, he was able to scout activities of the Seneca, Munsee, and Leni Lenape in the Allegheny River Valley, often leaving his family alone in their home along the Allegheny.

The conflict on the frontier intensified. Near Deer Creek on March 18, 1792, natives attacked the home of Thomas Dick capturing the entire family. And four days later Abraham Roose and his family were killed just a few miles away.

Harbison moved his family near a fortified home called Reed’s Station. But natives took Massey and her sons on May 22, 1792. She told her captors that the station’s blockhouse was heavily armed, so they retreated from the Harbison cabin with her and her children.

According to her recorded testimony she observed “that several of the Indians could speak English, and that she knew three or four of them very well, having often seen them go up and down the Alleghany River; two of them she knew to be Seneca, and two Munsee, who had got their guns mended by her husband about two years ago.”

The settlers and natives in the region often encountered one another and, according to her testimony, Massey knew a number of her abductors. This was not only a war of nations but also a fight for survival between neighboring communities.

Before leaving, Massey’s 3-year-old son Samuel began crying in fear so “they seized him by his feet, dashed his brains out against the threshold of the door, and then stabbed and scalped him,” she wrote in her 1825 account of her ordeal.

Later that day, her 5-year-old son Robert was killed and scalped.

“Robert cries for Samuel, he is hurting, he is only five … No! I swoon and fall once more, John is in my arms for Robert is killed, his scalp displayed bright red before my eyes. Once again, I am beaten into action. The cold water brings me to my senses! This is no dream but a living nightmare!” Massey recalled.

Her captors crossed her over to the western side of the Allegheny River, near Freeport. They proceeded west to an encampment, known as Salt Lick, on the outskirts of Butler, near the Connoquenessing Creek.

After two days and nights, Massey escaped with her infant son in her arms. For four days and nights, she made her way back toward the settlements and safety. During that time, she eluded her kidnappers, walked barefoot, and kept her baby alive. She had 150 thorns in her feet, was bloody, and delirious with grief. She eventually made it to the Fox Chapel area, having traveled 70 miles.

“So great was the change wrought by her six days’ sufferings that he, one of her nearest neighbors, did not recognize her face or voice,” regional histories reported.

Native American raids intensified in the spring of 1795 and John Harbison moved his family to the vicinity of Craig’s Station, near Buffalo Creek. But in May, while the men were on a scouting mission, five women and 13 children had to escape across the river and make their way to another blockhouse, including Massey.

She had survived another attack.

Massey had endured years of danger, often living alone while her husband was scouting, saying she “more frequently saw wolves than any human species.”

Following the war, the Harbisons moved to the west side of the Allegheny River, outside of Freeport. Massey had six more children. John eventually started a grist mill on land near the Butler-Armstrong county line. For unknown reasons, John abandoned his family in 1819 and died, presumably in 1822.

Massey was able to obtain a widow’s pension for the time John had served in the Northwest Indian War. She remained with her children in Freeport where in 1825 she published her narrative. She died in 1837 and is buried in Freeport.

Her older brother Jacob’s story continued the family’s intersection with Native American conflict, one that ultimately contributed to peace.

By 1790, Jacob had established a home in Gallatin County, Ky., in a settlement that contained six houses and a blockhouse, similar to Reed’s Station where Massey was abducted.

White’s Station was a supply station for the army and the militia during the conflicts with natives. On Oct. 19, 1793, the station was attacked and a man, woman, and two children were killed before the attack was repulsed. Jacob killed one native in the incident.

The next year, Gen. Anthony Wayne stayed at White’s Station on his way to the Battle of Fallen Timber. Wayne’s victory led to the Treaty of Greenville, signed Aug. 3, 1795.

The treaty made southern and eastern Ohio safe for settlement, allowing rapid settlement of Western Pennsylvania and the founding of the city of Butler.

Massey Harbison and her family were caught in a conflict not of their making but of which they were participants.

Massey was able to give voice to her ordeal because of her ability to record her narrative. There were many unnamed victims on both sides whose voices will never be heard.

The conflict on the frontier in the 1790s was waged along the beautiful vistas of the Allegheny River valley; the eastern side of this river marked the edge of a war zone during America’s first bloody conflict.

Deborah Kruger is an associate professor of history at Butler County Community College.