USA > Massachusetts > Our western border : its life, combats, adventures, forays, massacres, captivities, scouts, red chiefs, pioneer women, one hundred years ago, containing the cream of all the rare old border chronicles > Part 70
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80
"At last, arriving at the foot of the mountain, on soft ground, where the tracks were deep, he found out the enemy were eight in number, and, from the freshness of the footprints, he concluded that they must be encamped at no great distance. This proved to be the exact truth, for, after gaining the eminence on the other side of the valley, the In- dians were seen encamped, some having laid down to sleep, while others were drawing off their leggins for the same purpose, and the scalps they had taken were hanged up to dry. 'See !' said Luke Holland to his astonished companions, 'there is the enemy! not of my nation, but Mingoes, as I truly tell you. They are in our power; in less than half an hour they will all be fast asleep. We need not fire a gun, but go up and tomahawk them. We are nearly two to one, and need apprehend no danger. Come on, and you will now have your full revenge !' But the whites did not choose to follow the Indian's advice, and urged
649
BELL'S DEADLY CONFLICT WITH THREE SAVAGES.
him to take them back by the nearest and best way, which he did, and when they arrived at home, late at night, they reported the number of the Iroquois to have been so great that they durst not venture to attack them."
BELL'S DEADLY CONFLICT WITH THREE SAVAGES.
Among the many achievements, says Loudon, against the Indians in our wars with them, few exceed that performed by Samuel Bell, for- merly owner of the noted farm on the Stony Ridge, five miles below Car- lisle, Pa., which was as follows: Some time after General Braddock's defeat, he and his brother James agreed to go into Sherman's valley to hunt for deer, and were to meet at Croghan's, now Sterret's Gap, on the Blue Mountain. By some means or other they did not meet, and Samuel slept all night in a cabin on Sherman's Creek. In the morning he had not traveled far before he spied three Indians, who at the same time saw him ; they all fired at each other ; he wounded one of the Indians, but received no damage, except through his clothes, by the balls ; sev- eral shots were fired on both sides, for each took a tree. Bell took out his tomahawk'and stuck it into the tree behind which he stood, so that should they approach he might be prepared ; the tree was grazed with the Indians' balls, and he had thoughts of making his escape by flight, but on reflection had doubts of his being able to outrun them. After some time the two Indians took the wounded one and put him over a fence, and one took one course and the other another, taking a circuit so that Bell could no longer secure himself by the tree ; but by trying to ensnare him they had to expose themselves, by which means he had the good fortune to shoot one of them dead; the other ran and took the dead Indian on his back, one leg over each shoulder. By this time Bell's gun was again loaded; he then ran after the Indian until he came within about four yards from him, fired, and shot through the dead Indian, and lodged his ball in the other, who dropped the dead man and ran off. On his return, coming past the fence where the wounded Indian was, he dispatched him, but did not know he had killed the third In- dian until his bones were found afterwards.
650
OUR WESTERN BORDER.
WESTERN EMIGRATION_ODD SCENES-PACK-HORSES.
At the end of the Revolution there was no commerce, but little cloth- ing and only wretched rag money, so depreciated that when one went to buy, the money would almost occupy more room than what it pur- chased. Hard as was the fate of the soldier while starving, freezing cr fighting for independence, peace found him little better off. Many sank or became utterly vicious and worthless under their discouragement, but others migrated to the West as offering the only chance for a livelihood to them and theirs. The journey was long and full of perils. They generally came west by Braddock's road from Virginia, or by Bedford, Pa. Striking the Monongahela river at Redstone, now Brownsville, Pa., they would take boats to points along the Ohio.
Judge Wilkeson, of Buffalo, was one of a family of twenty who em- igrated, in 1784, from Carlisle to Chartiers Creek, a few miles west of Fort Pitt, and gives a very instructive and entertaining account of the hardships and privations of emigrants. We select a few incidents. The paths across the mountains were so rough and impracticable, that pack- horses were the only means of transportation; on some were packed the stores and agricultural implements; on others the furniture, bedding and cooking utensils, and on others the women and children. Horses which carried small children were each provided with a pack-saddle and two large creels, made of hickory withes in the fashion of a crate, one over each side, in which were stowed clothes and bedding. In the centre of each would be also tucked a child or two, the top being well se- cured by lacing, so as to keep the youngsters in their places. The roads frequently were barely passable ; sometimes lying along the brink of precipices ; frequently overflown in places by swollen streams, all of which had to be forded ; horses slipping, falling and carried away, both women and children being in great danger.
Sometimes the creels would break loose, the children falling to the ground and rolling off amid great confusion. Frequently mothers were separated for hours from their children, and long after the stopping places had been reached, would be obliged to gather them together, and then prepare the meals, thus losing the rest so much required, and then sleeping in the numbing, pinching cold, alongside of some icy stream.
Each family was supplied with one or more cows, and thus the family cavalcade would slowly pursue its rugged and devious way. Many hair-breadth escapes were continually occurring. The men were enured
1
651
WESTERN EMIGRATION.
to hardships; it was the mothers and children who chiefly suffered. The Wilkeson family settled down on Chartiers Creek-the father ex- changing a horse for a tract of two hundred acres. The new comers aided each other in erecting rude log cabins. The family thus enclosed, the timber was girdled for a clearing, and, as soon as possible, corn and vegetables were planted; the work of clearing and planting being done by the whole family, and extending into the night. Now came Indian attacks, wholly unlooked for, since it was supposed peace with Great Britain would secure peace with her Indian allies. Dreadful mistake! Savage marauds and incursions continued yet for many years. The very name of Indian chilled the blood of emigrants; but there they were, and it was too late to retreat. Murders, scalpings and captivities were frequent. Homes and cattle had to be watched closely. The frequent calls on the settlers to fight or pursue Indians, or take refuge in stations and block-houses, was a severe tax on their time and labor.
When horses were not stolen they would, tormented by flies, &c., run away, crossing rivers and taking a bee line for their old homes. Sometimes they would wander on one or two hundred miles before re- covered. When the husband was thus absent, the family would be left alone in the woods, surrounded by wild beasts, or, far more horrible, the yelling, pitiless savages. Milk was the chief dependence for food. One cow was always provided with a bell, and the first duty of the woman in the morning was to listen for the sound of her cow-bell. While she was absent, her children, if small, were tied in bed to prevent their wandering, and to guard them from danger from fire, snakes, beasts, &c.
"A more intelligent, virtuous and resolute class of men," says Wilke- son, "never settled any country than the first settlers of Western Penn- sylvania. The women were no less worthy. The times were at fault, not the people. Very many were professors of religion of the Seceder sect. It was common for families to ride from ten to fifteen miles to meeting. The young people walked, and in Summer carried their shoes and stockings, if they had any, in their hands, both going and return- ing. The meetings were held, even in Winter, in the open air. A grove was selected, a log pulpit erected, and logs ranged on a gentle incline rising from the pulpit, furnished seats. Among the men, ten were obliged to wear a blanket or coverlet for a coat, where one pos- sessed that luxury. So great was the scarcity of clothing that when the first Court of Common Pleas was held at Catfish, now Washington, Pa., a certain highly-respectable citizen, whose presence was re- quired, could not attend court without first borrowing a pair of leather breeches from a neighbor, who, lending them, had himself to stay at home.
.
652
OUR WESTERN BORDER ..
" But little idea can now be formed of the ungrudging hospitality of the older pioneers. The increase of sheep was very slow, on account of wolves. Deerskin was invariably used for clothes by men and boys. The women had all to spin, and generally weave all the stuffs for the family. That they did not die from all their labors and anxieties was indeed a great marvel. To obtain salt and iron they had resort to the East. Winchester, Virginia, and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, were the great salt depots. One man and some boys were chosen from each neighborhood to take charge of the horses. Each beast was pro- vided with a pack-saddle, a halter, a lashing rope, to secure the load, and sufficient food for twenty days the average duration of a trip- part of which was left on the mountain for a return supply. A substi- tute for cash was found in skins, furs and ginseng. After selecting a Captain, the cavalcade set out on its long and adventurous journey. The entire return journey had to be made on foot, yet, notwithstanding the fatigues and hazards of the trip, all the boys who were old enough competed with each other to be selected for these distant excursions. Not only salt, but all kinds of merchandise, were brought west on pack- horses down to 1790.
"In Kentucky pack-horseing was an important business down to 1795. The merchants provided as many horses and men as were required. The men were armed and organized, with officers and regulations of their own appointment. The expedition was conducted on strict mili- tary principles-the times and places for stopping settled by the officers, and sentries placed at night. These caravans would transport many tons of goods in safety, if the loads were well-balanced. About 1800 the packers were succeeded by the still greater lions of the day-keel- boatmen, of whom more anon."
Settlers in West Pennsylvania soon grew restless and excited by the glowing reports from Kentucky, and, as they do even to the present day, they sold out their improvements and migrated farther west. " Man never is, but always to be blest." The trade to New Orleans was like the trade East, attended with great hardships and hazards. The right bank of the Ohio, for hundreds of miles, was alive with hostile Indians. The voyage was performed in flatboats, and occupied from four to six months. Several neighbors united their means in building a boat and in getting up the voyage. Each put on board his own produce at his own risk, and one of the owners always accompanied the boat as Captain and Supercargo. A boat of ordinary size required about six hands. They returned home either by sea or more commonly through the wil- derness, a distance of about two thousand miles. As they generally carried a large quantity of specie, and the road was infested with bold
653
BOATING LIFE ON THE WESTERN WATERS.
gangs of robbers waiting for them, large parties, numbering sometimes several hundred, were organized and armed. They were provided. with mules to carry the specie and provisions, and those who preferred, or could afford it, rode mules or Indian ponies. Outlaws and fugitives from justice from the Eastern States infested this road, and many bloody encounters occurred. The first half of the journey was through a flat, unhealthy, agueish country, where there was bad water, and the spare mules were always loaded down with the sick. Many who survived an attack of fever to reach the healthy country of Tennessee, would stay there to recruit.
BOATING LIFE ON THE WESTERN WATERS.
How oft in boyhood's joyous day, Unmindful of the lapsing hours, I've loitered on my homeward way, By wild Ohio's banks of flowers, While some lone boatman from the deck Poured his soft numbers to that tide, As if to charm from storm and wreck The boat where all his fortunes ride. Then, boatman, wind that horn again .- Butler.
Just previous to the beginning of the present century, after the set- tlements had become more dense on the Monongahela and on the Ohio, a new class sprang up in the West whose life was unique. This was the class of boatmen. These were a hardy, fearless set of men, who always kept just in advance of civilization and luxury. Many of them at first had been engaged in the border wars with the Indians; were bred from infancy amid dangers, and experienced in all the practices and arts in the life of a woodsman.
The boatmen were courageous, athletic, persevering, and patient of privations. They traversed, in their pirogues, barges or keels, the longest rivers; penetrated the most remote wilderness upon their watery routes, and kept up a trade and intercourse between the most distant points. Accustomed to every species of exposure and privation, they despised ease and luxury. Clothed in the costume of the wilderness, and armed in western style, they were always ready to exchange the labors of the oar for offensive or defensive war. Exposed to the double force of the direct and reflected rays of the sun upon the water, their complexion was swarthy, and often but little fairer than the Indians. Often, from an exposure of their bodies without shirts, their complexion, from the head to the waist, was the same.
654
OUR WESTERN BORDER ..
Their toils, dangers and exposure ; the moving accidents of their long and perilous voyages, were measurably hidden from the inhabitants who contemplated the boats floating by their dwellings on beautiful Spring mornings, when the verdant forest, the mild and delicious temperature of the air, the delightful azure of the sky, the fine bottom on the one hand and the rolling bluff on the other, the broad and smooth stream rolling calmly down the forest, and floating the boat gently forward, presented delightful images to the beholders. At such times there was no visible danger, or call for labor. The boat took care of itself; one of the hands scraped a violin, and others danced. . Greetings, or rude de- fiances, or trials of art, or proffers of love to the girls on shore, or saucy messages were scattered between them and the spectators along the banks. The boat glided on until it disappeared behind a point of woods. At that moment the bugle, with which all boats were provided, struck up its notes in the distance, over the water. Those scenes and those notes, echoing from the bluffs of the beautiful Ohio, had a charm for the imagination which, although heard a thousand times, at all hours and in all positions, presented to even the most unromantic spectator the image of a tempting and charming youthful existence, that almost in- spired in his breast the wish that he, too, were a boatman.
No wonder that the young, who were reared in the then remote re- gions of the West, on the banks of the great stream, with that restless curiosity which is fostered by solitude and silence, looked upon the severe and unremitting labor of agriculture as irksome and tasteless compared to such life, and that they embraced every opportunity, either openly or covertly, to devote themselves to an employment which seemed so full of romance to their youthful visions.
The boatmen, with their bodies naked to the waist, spent the long and tedious days traversing the "running board," and pushing with their whole force against their strong setting poles firmly fixed against the shoulder. Thus, with their heads suspended nearly to the track on the running board, they propelled their freighted barge up the long and tedious route of the river. After a hard day's toil, at night they took their "fillee" or ration of whiskey, swallowed their homely supper of meat half burned and bread half baked, and retiring to sleep, they stretched themselves upon the deck, without covering, under the canopy of heaven, or probably enveloped in a blanket, until the steersman's horn called them to their morning "fillee" and their toil.
Hard and fatiguing was the life of a boatman; yet it was rare that any of them ever changed his vocation. There was a charm in the ex- cesses, in the frolics, and in the fightings which they anticipated at the end of the voyage, which cheered them on. Of weariness none would
-
655
MIKE FINK, THE LAST OF THE KEELBOATMEN.
complain ; but rising from his hard bed by the first dawn of day, and reanimated by his morning draught, he was prepared to hear and obey the wonted order, "Stand to your poles and set off !" The boatmen were masters of the winding horn and the fiddle, and as the boat moved off from her moorings, some, to cheer their labors, or to " scare off the devil and secure good luck," would wind the animating blast of the horn, which, mingling with the sweet music of the fiddle, and reverber- ating along the sounding shores, greeted the solitary dwellers on the banks with news from New Orleans.
'Their athletic labors gave strength incredible to their muscles, which they were vain to exhibit, and fist-fighting was their pastime. He who could boast that he had never been whipped, was bound to fight whoever disputed his manhood. Keelboatmen and bargemen looked upon raftsmen and flatboatmen as their natural enemies, and a meeting was the prelude to a "battle-royal." They were great sticklers for " fair play," and whosoever was worsted in battle must abide the issue without assistance.
Their arrival in port was a general jubilee, where hundreds often met together for diversion and frolic. Their assemblages were often riotous and lawless to extremes, when the civil authorities were defied for days together. Had their numbers increased with the population of the West, they would have endangered the peace of the country ; but the first steamboat that ascended the Ohio sounded their death-knell, and they have been buried in the tide, never more to rise.
MIKE FINK, THE "LAST OF THE KEELBOATMEN "
Mike Fink, usually called " the last of the boatmen," was a fair specimen of his race. Many curious anecdotes are related of him. He was born in Pittsburgh. In early youth his desire to become a boatman was a ruling passion, which soon had its gratification. He served on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers as a boatman, until thrown out of em- ployment by the general use of steamboats. When the Ohio was too low for navigation he spent most of his time at shooting matches in the neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and soon became famous as the best shot in the country. On that account he was called bang all, and hence frequently excluded from participating in matches for beef ; for which exclusion he claimed and obtained for his forbearance, the fifth quarter of beef, as the hide and tallow are called. His usual practice was to sell his fifth quarter to the tavern keeper for whiskey, with which he treated everybody present, partaking largely himself. He became fond of strong drink, and could partake of a gallon in twenty-four hours without the effect being perceivable.
1
656
OUR WESTERN BORDER.
Mike's weight was about one hundred and eighty pounds ; height about five feet nine inches; countenance open ; skin tanned by sun and. rain ; form broad and very muscular, and of herculean strength and. great activity. His language was of the half-horse and half-alligator dialect of the then race of boatmen. He was also a wit, and on that. account he gained the admiration and excited the fears of all the frater- nity; for he usually enforced his wit with a sound drubbing, if any one dared to dissent by neglecting or refusing to laugh at his jokes ; for, as he used to say, he cracked his jokes on purpose to be laughed at in a good-humored way, and that no man should make light of them. As a consequence, Mike had always around him a chosen band of laughing philosophers. An eye bunged up, or a dilapidated nose or ear, was sure to win Mike's sympathy and favor, for he made proclamation: "I'm a Salt River Roarer! I'm chuck full of fight, and I love the wimin," &c .; and he did, for he had a sweetheart in every port. Among his chosen worshippers, who would fight their death for him, as they termed it, were Carpenter and Talbot. Each was a match for the other in prowess, in fight or skill in shooting, having each been under Mike's diligent training.
Mike, at one time, had a woman who passed for his wife; whether she was truly so, we do not know. But at any rate, the following anecdote is a rare instance of conjugal discipline. Some time in the latter part of Autumn, a few years after the close of the late war with Great Britain, several keelboats landed for the night near the mouth of the Muskingum, among which was that of Mike's. After making all fast, Mike was observed, just under the bank, scraping into a heap the dried beech leaves, which had been blown there during the day, having just fallen from the effects of the early Autumn frosts. To all questions as to what he was doing, he returned no answer, but continued at his work until he had piled them up as high as his head. He then sepa- rated them, making a sort of an oblong ring, in which he laid down, as if to ascertain whether it was a good bed or not. Getting up he saun- tered on board, hunted up his rifle, made great preparations about his priming, and then called, in a very impressive manner, upon his wife to follow him. Both proceeded up to the pile of leaves, poor " Peg" in a terrible flutter, as she had discovered that Mike was in no very amia- ble humor.
"Get in there and lie down !" was the command to Peg, topped off with one of Mike's very choicest oaths. "Now, Mr. Fink"-she al- ways mistered him when his blood was up-"what have I done, I don't know, I'm sure __ "
" Get in there and lie down, or I'll shoot you !" with another oath,
657
MIKE FINK, THE LAST OF THE KEELBOATMEN.
and drawing his rifle up to his shoulder. Poor Peg obeyed, and crawled into the leaf pile, and Mike covered her up with the combustibles. He then took a flour barrel and split the staves into fine pieces, and lighted them at the fire on board the boat, all the time watching the leaf pile, and swearing he would shoot Peg if she moved. So soon as the splin- ters began to blaze, he took them into his hand and deliberately set fire, in four different places, to the leaves that surrounded his wife. In an instant the whole mass was on fire, aided by a fresh wind which was blowing at the time, while Mike was quietly standing by enjoying the fun. Peg, through fear of Mike, stood it as long as she could; but it soon became too hot, and she made a run for the river, her hair and clothing all on fire. In a few seconds she reached the water and plunged in, rejoicing to know she had escaped both fire and rifle so well. " There," said Mike, " that'll larn you not to be lookin' at them fellers on t'other boat."
Mike first visited St. Louis as a keelboatman in 1814 or'15. Among his shooting feats, the following are related by eye witnesses: In ascend- ing the Mississippi, above the Ohio, he saw a sow with a couple of pigs, about one hundred feet distant, on the bank. He declared, in boatman phrase, he wanted a pig, and took up his rifle to shoot one, but was re- quested not to do so. He, however, laid his rifle to his face, and as the boat glided along, under easy sail, he successively shot off the tail of each of them, close to the rump, without doing them any other harm. Being, on one occasion, on his boat at the St. Louis landing, he saw a negro standing on the river bank, gazing in wonder at the show about him. Mike took up his rifle and shot off the poor fellow's heel. He fell, badly wounded and crying murder. Mike was arrested and tried in the county court, and found guilty by a jury. His justification of the offence was that the fellow's heel projected too far behind, preventing him from wearing a genteel boot, and he wished to correct the defect. His particular friend, Carpenter, was also a great shot. Carpenter and Mike used to fill a tin cup with whiskey, and place it by turns on each other's heads and shoot at it with a rifle at the distance of seventy yards. It was always bored through, without injury to the one on whose head it was placed. This feat is too well authenticated to admit of question. It was often performed, and they liked the feat the better because it. showed their confidence in each other.
In 1822, Mike and his two friends, Carpenter and Talbot, engaged,. in St. Louis, with Henry and Ashley, to go up the Missouri with them,. in the three-fold capacity of boatmen, trappers and hunters. The first. year a company of about sixty ascended as high as the mouth of the Yel- low Stone river, where they built a fort for the purposes of trade and' 42
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.