History & local legend
Sergeant John Trotter was executed at Pittsburgh's Fort Fayette on November 11, 1792, after deserting with two other soldiers. He was captured, court-martialed, and shot on the same day. The speed of that punishment became the historical foundation for later stories about curses pronounced before his death.
In a version Frank Cowan collected in 1878, Trotter read the 109th Psalm before the firing squad and cursed the men who had brought him back. Colonel Robert Hunter was condemned to an unquenchable thirst. John Horrell received a more terrifying sentence: at midnight he would be pinned to the floor while the Devil watched from above his headboard.
The fort once stood near modern Ninth Street and Penn Avenue. The curse continued to circulate in regional folklore after the fort disappeared.
Sources
- Frank Cowan, Southwestern Pennsylvania in Song and Story (1878), The Haunted Man, printed pp. 110–111, Psalm and regional curse accounts
- State Killings in the Steel City, Military Death Sentences, chronology, deserters and 1792 execution
- Fort Lafayette, state historical marker at the fort site with GPS and marker image
- William L. Clements Library, original 1792 fort plan by Isaac Craig
