History & local legend
Margaret “Peggy” Shaw is remembered at Historic Hanna's Town for rescuing a child during the attack on July 13, 1782. As residents sheltered behind the stockade, the smaller child wandered toward danger at its edge. Peggy ran to bring the child back and was shot as she bent to lift the child into her arms. She survived for about two weeks before dying from the wound.
The rescue became one of the most frequently repeated stories of Hanna's Town's destruction. Writing in 1882, county historian George Dallas Albert noted that descendants had passed it down in many forms. The child was said to have survived and grown to adulthood, but different families had supplied so many possible identities that he could not establish a name.
A marker at the reconstructed fort commemorates Peggy’s rescue of the child.
Sources
- George Dallas Albert, History of the County of Westmoreland, 1882, pp. 144–145, candidate identities and rescue
- Edgar W. Hassler, Old Westmoreland, 1900, chapter 26, the rescue at the gate
- Westmoreland Historical Society, Women of the Revolution, Peggy Shaw
- Historical Marker Database, Peggy Shaw marker and coordinates
- Westmoreland Historical Society, directions to the historic site and distinction from modern Hannastown
