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 76
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Adjacent to Mr. Scott's dwelling house another family lived, of the name of Ball. The Indians attacked them at the same time; but the door being shut, the enemy fired into the house through an opening be- tween two logs and killed a young lad. They then tried to force the door, but a surviving brother fired through and drove them off. The remaining part of the family ran out of the house and escaped. In Mr. Scott's house were four good rifles, well loaded, and a good deal of clothing and furniture ; part of which belonged to people that had left it on their way to Kentucky. The Indians, being thirteen in number, loaded themselves with the plunder, then speedily made off and contin- ued traveling all night. Next morning their chief allotted to each man his share, and detached nine of the party to steal horses from the in- habitants on Clinch river.
707
CAPTIVITY AND WANDERINGS OF MRS. FRANCES SCOTT.
The eleventh day after Mrs. Scott's captivity, the four Indians who had her in charge stopped at a place of rendezvous to hunt. Three went out, and the chief, being an old man; was left to take care of the prisoner, who, by this time, expressed a willingness to proceed to the Indian towns, which seemed to have the desired effect of lessening her keeper's vigilance. In the daytime, as the old man was graining a deerskin, the captive, pondering on her situation and anxiously look- ing for an opportunity to make her escape, took the resolution, and went to the Indian carelessly, asked liberty to go a small distance to a stream of water to wash the blood off her apron, that had remained besmeared since the fatal night of the murder of her little daughter. He told her, in the English tongue, "Go along !" She then passed by him, his face being in a contrary direction from that she was going, and he very busy.
After getting to the water, she went on without delay towards a high, barren mountain, and traveled until late in the evening, when she came down into the valley in search of the track she had been taken along, hoping thereby to find the way back without risk of being lost and perishing with hunger in uninhabited parts. That night she made her- self a bed with leaves, and the next day resumed her wanderings. Thus did that poor woman continue from day to day, and week to week, wandering in the trackless wilderness. Finally, on the 11th of August, she reached a settlement on Clinch river, known as New Garden.
Mrs. Scott related, that during her wanderings from the 10th of July to the IIth of August, she had no other subsistence but chewing and swallowing the juice of young cane, sassafras, and some plants she did not know the name of ; that, on her journey, she saw buffalo, elk, deer and frequently bears and wolves, not one of which, although some passed very near, offered to do her the least harm. One day a bear came near her, with a young fawn in his mouth, and, on discovering her, he dropped his prey and ran off. Hunger prompted her to try and eat the flesh; but, on reflection, she desisted, thinking that the bear might return and devour her ; besides she had an aversion to raw meat.
Mrs. Scott long continued in a low state of health, and remained in- consolable at the loss of her family, particularly bewailing the cruel death of her little daughter.
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OUR WESTERN BORDER.
REBECCA BOONE, AND HOW DANIEL WON HEK.
The first woman who went to Kentucky was Rebecca Boone, and a most noble, heroic and excellent wife and mother she was in every re- spect. Here is the way Daniel Boone is said to have won her. It will be remembered Boone's father lived on the Yadkin, N. C.
Daniel was once, when a young man, out on a "fire hunt," with what might be called a "boone companion." They had got into a heavily- timbered piece of " bottom," skirted by a small stream which bordered the plantation of a Mr. Morgan Bryan, (a very respectable farmer and head of a family,) the hunter's friend preceding him with the " fire pan," when all at once Boone quietly gave the concerted signal to stop- an indication that he had "shined the eyes" of a deer. Dismounting and tying his horse, he then crept cautiously forward-his rifle at a present-behind a covert of hazel and plum bushes, and, sure enough ! there again were the two blue, liquid orbs turned full upon him.
Boone now raised his fatal rifle, but a mysterious something-only tender lovers can say what-arrested his arm and caused his hand to tremble-when off sprang the startled game with a bound and a rustle, and the ardent young hunter in hot chase after it. On ! on ! they go; when, lo and behold ! a fence appears, over which the nimble deer vaulted in a strangely human sort of a way, while Boone, burdened with his rifle and hunting gear, clambered after as best he could. Another kind and differently spelled deer now takes possession of Boone's fancy, as he sees Bryan's house in the distance. "I will chase this pet deer. to its covert," thinks he, and so, fighting his way through a score of snarling and scolding hounds, he knocked at the door, and was ad- mitted and welcomed by farmer Bryan. The young hunter, panting from his recent exertions, had scarce time to throw his eyes about in- quiringly, before a boy of ten, and a flushed and breathless girl of six- teen, with ruddy cheeks, flaxen hair and soft blue eyes, rushed into the room.
": Oh, father! father!" excitedly cried out young hopeful. "Sis was down to the creek to set my lines, and was chased by a 'painter' or something. She's too skeared' to tell." The "painter " and " deer " were now engaged in exchanging glances, and apparently the eyes of both had been most effectually "shined," for, to make a long story short, that is how Rebecca Bryan became Rebecca Boone, and a most excellent wife she made.
709
MAD ANN BAILEY, OF WEST VIRGINIA.
"MAD ANN BAILEY," OF WEST VIRGINIA.
What a strange, wild, solitary life this woman led, as we find it living in border chronicles ! It is said that " Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." Neither hath it any like a woman wronged and thoroughly imbued with the spirit of vengeance. There was a wild, unnatural brightness in her sharp, gray eyes, and a mocking jeer in her loud, grating laugh. One could scarce help pitying while he shuddered to see a woman, who should be tender and affectionate, cherished and ' protected by the love of friends and children and surrounded with every care and comfort, so thoroughly unsexed; roaming alone the vast wilderness solitudes and exposed to all the spiteful elements. She was a veritable Meg Merriles-a thorough gypsy in look, habit and vagabondage.
Her maiden name was Hennis, and she was raised at Liverpool, emi- grating to America with her husband, Richard Trotter, who was a vol- unteer in Dunmore's war of 1774, and fell fighting at the bloody Indian battle of Point Pleasant. From the period of his death she became possessed with a strange, savage spirit of revenge against the Indians. She was somewhat disordered in her intellect ; forsook her sewing and spinning and commenced practicing with the rifle, casting the toma- hawk, hunting the wild game of the forests, and riding about the country to every muster of scouts or hunters. She even discarded female at- tire, and differed little in appearance from the ordinary scout of the border. The rifle was her constant companion ; she frequently carried off the prizes at the various shooting matches ; spent most of her time scouring the woods, with no companion but a powerful black horse, which she called Liverpool, after her birthplace.
She was much esteemed by the people of West Virginia, having once performed an inestimable service for the beleaguered garrison of Charleston Fort by riding day and night, amid appalling perils, a dis- tance of two hundred miles through the savage wilds and unbroken forests of West Virginia, and procuring a supply of powder from Camp Union (now Lewisburg). With a led horse weighted down with am- munition, she resolutely commenced her return ; her trail followed by packs of ravenous wolves or still more dangerous redskins, sleeping by night amid the profound solitudes of the wilderness and on spreads of boughs raised high on stakes to protect her from venomous snakes or - savage beasts; crossing raging torrents, breasting craggy heights ; ever
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OUR WESTERN BORDER.
watching for Indian "sign," but ever avoiding Indian attacks, until she heroically delivered her powder and saved the fort. She afterwards took her place among the men in defending the place, and used to boast that she had fired many a shot at her foes.
Strange, that such an odd, rugged, intractable character should ever, even for a day, allow the soft passion of love to usurp the place of her fierce and cruel revenge! Stranger still, that any mortal man could be found who would be attracted by such a wild, stormy, riotous spirit. He must have "wooed her as the lion wooes his bride," where the mutual caresses and encounters of love pass amid savage roars and growls and rude buffetings. But a man did woo, and win her, too, and his name it was Bailey, and so she became Mrs. Ann Bailey.
Whether he ever "tamed this shrew" history sayeth not, but we read that her unquenchable spirit and audacity, in spite of her many eccen- tricities, greatly endeared her to the whole border. She engaged in the hunt of deer, bear and panther; was, during the Indian troubles, em- ployed as fort messenger, and afterwards-mounted on her famed black hunter-used to visit many of the chief people of West Virginia, re- turning laden down with gifts.
THE BEAUTIFUL AND DASHING LOUISA ST. CLAIR.
In the Winter of 1790, the Governor of the Northwest Territory, General Arthur St. Clair, removed his family from his plantation at "Potts' Grove," in Westmoreland county, Pa., to Marietta, O. One of his daughters, Louisa, was long remembered as one of the most dis- tinguished among the ladies of that day. In strength and elasticity of frame, blooming health, energy and fearlessness, she was the ideal of a soldier's daughter, extremely fond of adventure and frolic, and ready to draw amusement from everything around her. She was a fine eques- trian, and would manage the most spirited horse with perfect ease and grace, dashing at full gallop through the open woodland surrounding the "Campus Martius," and leaping over logs or any obstacle in her way. She was also expert in skating, and was rivaled by few, if any, young men in the garrison, in the speed, dexterity and grace of move- ment with which she exercised herself in this accomplishment.
The elegance of her person, and her neat, well-fitting dress, were shown to great advantage in her rapid gyrations over the broad sheet of ice in the Muskingum, which, for a few days in Winter, offered a fine,
711
MRS. MASON KILLS ONE AND FRIGHTENS A SCORE.
field, close to the garrison, for this healthful sport; and loud were the plaudits from young and old, from spectators of both sexes, called forth by the performance of the Governor's daughter. As a huntress she was equally distinguished, and might have served as a model for a Diana, in her rambles through the forest, had she been armed with a bow instead of a rifle, of which latter instrument she was perfect mistress, loading and firing with the accuracy of a backwoodsman, killing a squirrel on the top of the tallest tree, or cutting off the head of a partridge with wonderful precision. She was fond of roaming through the woods, and often went out alone into the forest near Marietta, fearless of the savages who often lurked in the vicinity. As active on foot as on horse- back, she could walk several miles with the untiring rapidity of a prac- ticed ranger.
Notwithstanding her possession of these unfeminine attainments, Miss St. Clair's refined manners would have rendered her the ornament of any drawing-room circle; she was beautiful in person, and had an in- tellect highly cultivated, having received a carefully finished education, under the best teachers in Philadelphia. Endowed by nature with a vigorous constitution and lively animal spirits, her powers, both of body and mind, had been strengthened by such athletic exercises, to the prac- tice of which she had been encouraged from childhood by her father. He had spent the greater part of his life in camps, and was not disposed to fetter by conventional rules his daughter's rare spirit, so admirably suited to pioneer times and manners, however like an Amazon she may seem to the less independent critics of female manners at the present day. After the Indian war, Miss St. Clair returned to her early home in the romantic glens of Ligonier valley.
MRS. MASON KILLS ONE AND FRIGHTENS A SCORE.
In the beginning of 1794, a party of Indians killed George Mason, on Flat Creek, twelve miles from Knoxville, Tenn. In the night he heard a noise in his stable, and stepped out; was intercepted before he could return, by the savages, and fled, but was fired upon and wounded. He reached a cave, from which he was dragged out and murdered, and the Indians returned to the house to dispatch his wife and children. Mrs. Mason heard them talking as they approached, and hoped her neighbors, aroused by the firing, had come to her assistance. But perceiving that the conversation was neither in English nor German,
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OUR WESTERN BORDER.
she knew they were enemies. She had that very morning learned how to set the double trigger of a rifle. Fortunately the children were not awakened, and she took care not to disturb them. She had shut the door, barred it with benches and tables, and taking down her husband's well-charged rifle, placed herself directly opposite the opening which would be made by forcing the door. Her husband came not, and she was but too well convinced he had been slain. She was alone in dark- ness, and the yelling savages were pressing on the house. Pushing with great violence, they gradually opened the door wide enough to attempt an entrance, and the body of one was thrust into the opening and filled it, two or three more urging him forward. Mrs. Mason set the trigger of the rifle, put the muzzle near the body of the foremost and fired. The first Indian fell; the next uttered the scream of mortal agony. The intrepid woman observed profound silence, and the savages were led to believe that armed men were in the house. They withdrew, took three horses from the stable and set it on fire. It was afterwards ascertained that this high-minded woman had saved herself and children from the attack of over twenty assailants.
ESCAPE OF HANNAH DENNIS-MRS. CLENDENIN.
In 1761 a party of sixty Shawnees invaded the James river, Va., set- tlements and killed many, among others Joseph Dennis and child, and making prisoner his wife, Hannah. The Indians took her over the mountains and through the forests to the Chillicothe towns north of the Ohio. There she seemed to conform to their ways, painted and dressed herself and lived as a squaw. Added to this, she gained fame by at- tending to the sick, both as a nurse and a physician; and became so celebrated for her cures as to obtain from that superstitious people the reputation of being a necromancer, and the honor paid to a person sup- posed to have power with the Great Spirit.
In 1763 she left them, under the pretext of obtaining medicinal herbs, as she had often done before. Not returning at night, her object was suspected and she was pursued. To avoid leaving traces of her path, she crossed the Scioto three times, and was making her fourth crossing, forty miles below the towns, when she was discovered and fired upon without effect. But in the speed of her flight, she wounded her foot with a sharp stone, so as to be unable to proceed. The Indians had crossed the river, and were just behind her. She eluded their pursuit . by hiding in a hollow sycamore log. They frequently stepped on the
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ESCAFE OF HANNAH DENNIS.
log that concealed her, and encamped near it for the night. Next morning they proceeded in their pursuit of her; and she started in an- other direction as fast as her lameness would permit, but was obliged to remain near that place three days. She then set off for the Ohio, over which she rafted herself, at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, on a drift log; traveling only by night, through fear of discovery, and subsisting only on roots, wild fruits and the river shell-fish, she reached the Green Briar, having passed forests, rivers and mountains for more than three hundred miles. Here she sank down exhausted and resigned herself to die, when, providentially, she was discovered by some of the people of that settlement, and hospitably treated at one of their habi- tations.
The settlement was made to suffer severely for this hospitable act. A party of fifty or sixty Shawnees, coming under the garb of friend- ship, suddenly fell upon the men, butchering every one of them, and made captives of the women and children. They next visited the Lev- els, where Archibald. Clendenin had erected a rude block-house, and where were gathered quite a number of families-and were here again entertained with hospitality. Mr. Clendenin had just brought in three. fine elk, upon which the savages feasted sumptuously. One of the in- mates was a decrepid old woman, with an ulcerated limb; she undressed the member, and asked an Indian if he could cure it. "Yes," he re- plied, and immediately sunk his tomahawk into her head. This was the signal, and instantly every man in the house was put to death.
The cries of the women and children alarmed a man in the yard, who escaped and reported the circumstances to the settlement at Jackson's river. The people were loth to believe him, but were soon convinced, for the savages appeared, and many of the flying families were mas- sacred without mercy. The prisoners were then marched off in the direction of the Ohio. Mrs. Clendenin proved herself in that trying moment a woman fit to be one of the mothers of the West. Indignant at the treachery and cowardly conduct of the wretches, she did not fail to abuse them from the chief down, in the most unmeasured manner. The savages, to intimidate her, would flap the bloody scalp of her dead husband against her face, and significantly twirl their tomahawks above her head, but still the courageous woman talked to them like one who felt her injuries and resolved to express the feeling. On the day after her captivity, she had an opportunity to escape, and giving her infant to a woman, slipped unobserved into a thicket. The child soon begin- ning to cry, one of the Indians inquired concerning the mother; but getting no satisfactory reply, swore he would "bring the cow to the . calf," and taking the infant by the heels dashed out its brains against a
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OUR WESTERN BORDER.
tree. Mrs. Clendenin returned to her desolate home, and secured the remains of her husband from the rapacious jaws of the wild animals with which the woods abounded. It is stated that a black woman, in escaping from Clendenin's house, killed her own child to prevent its cries attracting the attention of the savages.
MRS. CUNNINGHAM ATTACKS TWO SAVAGES.
Early in 1778 an attack was made on a block-house in the country of the Upper Monongahela. The children allowed to play outside dis- covered Indians and, running in, gave the alarm. John Murphy stepped to the door, when one of the Indians, turning the corner of the house, fired at him. The ball took effect and Murphy fell into the house. The Indian springing in, was grappled by Harbert, and thrown on the floor. A shot from without wounded Harbert, yet he continued to maintain his advantage over the prostrate savage, striking him as effectually as he could with his tomahawk, when another gun was fired from without, the ball passing through his head. His antagonist then slipped out at the door, badly wounded in the encounter.
Just after the first Indian entered, an active young warrior, holding a tomahawk with a long spike at the end, came in. Edward Cunning- ham instantly drew up his gun, but it flashed, and they closed in doubt- ful strife. Both were active and athletic; each put forth his strength and strained every nerve to gain the ascendency. For a while the issue seemed doubtful. At length, by great exertion, Cunningham wrenched the tomahawk from the hand of the Indian, and buried the spike end to the handle in his back. Mrs. Cunningham closed the contest. Seeing her husband struggling with the savage, she struck at him with an axe. The edge wounding his face severely, he loosened his hold and made his way out of the house. The third Indian who had entered before the door was closed, presented an appearance almost as frightful as the object he had in view. He wore a cap made of the unshorn front of a buffalo, with the ears and horns still attached, and hanging loosely about his head. On entering the room this hideous monster aimed a blow with his tomahawk at Miss Reece, which inflicted a severe wound on her hand. The mother, seeing the uplifted weapon about to descend on her daughter, seized the monster by the horns; but his false head coming off, she did not succeed in changing the direction of the weapon. The father then caught hold of him; but, far inferior in strength, he was
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HEROIC DEFENCE BY THE TWO WIDOWS COOK.
thrown on the floor, and would have been killed, but for the inter- ference of Cunningham, who, having cleared the house of one Indian, wheeled and struck his tomahawk into the head of the other. During all this time the door was kept secure by the women. The Indians from without endeavored several times to force it, and would at one time have succeeded; but, just as it was yielding, the Indian who had been wounded by Cunningham and his wife, squeezed out, causing a momentary relaxation of their efforts, and enabling the women again to close it.
On the 11th of April some Indians visited the house of William Mor- gan, on Dunker's Bottom. They killed his mother and two or three others, and took the wife and her child prisoners. On their way home, coming near Prickett's Fort, they bound Mrs. Morgan to a bush, and went in quest of a horse for her to ride, leaving the child with her. She succeeded in untying, with her teeth, the bands which confined her, and wandered all that day and part of the next, before she came within sight of the fort. Here she was kindly treated and in a few days sent home.
HEROIC DEFENCE BY THE TWO WIDOWS COOK.
In 1791 two brothers, Jesse and Hosea Cook, and others, formed a settlement on the Elk Horn, at Innes' Bottom. In April, '92, an attack by about a hundred savages was made, and first upon the Cooks, who were out shearing sheep. The elder fell dead at once, but the younger reached his cabin and then expired. The two newly-made widows in- stantly secured the strong door. With them were three children-two white and one black. The savages shot at the door, but their balls . failed to penetrate. They then tried to cut it down, but with no better success.
There was a rifle in the house, but no balls could be found. One of the women, in this extremity, found one ball, and placing it in her teeth, such was her excitement, actually bit it in two. With one half she instantly loaded her rifle. Peering cautiously through a crevice, she observed one savage seated on a log at a little distance off and fearing nothing. Taking quick aim she fired, when the astounded savage gave a loud yell, bounded into the air, and fell dead in his tracks. The in- furiated savages now climbed to the roof of. the cabin, and there kindled a fire. The flames began to crackle, but the resolution of the heroic females below was equal to the occasion. One instantly
.
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OUR WESTERN BORDER.
climbed to the loft, and the other handing her water, the fire was put out. Again and again was the roof fired. The water failing, the un- daunted women broke eggs and threw the contents on the fire. The next recourse was the bloody waistcoat of the dead husband. Not enough! and now they used the contents of the chamber bucket, and at last quenched the flames. The savages then becoming frightened, descended.
Meanwhile a young man named McAndre had ridden off to give the alarm, and some of the Indians climbed neighboring trees and kept a sharp lookout. One of them from thence fired a ball into the cabin loft, which cut off a hank of yarn near Mrs. Cook's head, but that was all. A body of seventy-five hunters soon collected and made pursuit, but the main body of marauders had crossed the Ohio. The rest lingered and were attacked. The whites fired and the hindmost savage fell mortally wounded, but on one of the whites rushing his horse through the tall grass to the spot, the dying Indian raised his rifle and shot him through the heart. He then staggered to his feet, and was attempting to reach the nearest thicket, when he fell dead, pierced with twenty balls.
"THAT'S JOHN'S GUN !"_A WIDOW WON AT LAST.
At the disastrous battle of the Blue Licks there were a few reported slain who had been captured, and, after running the gauntlet, had been allowed to live. Among them was a certain husband, who, with eleven other captives, had been painted black as a signal of death. The whole twelve were stripped and placed on a log, the husband being at one ex- tremity. The cruel savages now slaughtered eleven, one by one, but when they came to this one, though they drew their knives and toma- hawks over him ready to strike, they paused and had an animated pow- wow, ending in sparing his life-why he never could find out.
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