VI.

MARY MOORE.

Before proceeding to sketches illustrating a later period, it will be proper to take a view of the early condition of that portion of Virginia, which, lying on the sunset side of the great range of mountains, belonged to the West. De Hass, in his History of the Indian Wars of Western Virginia, says that before 1749, the country was untrodden by foot of white man, except occasional traders who may have ventured on the heads of some of the tributary streams rising in the Alleghany mountains. It is said that in this year a lunatic wandered into the wilderness of the Greenbriar country, and on returning home, told his friends he had discovered rivers flowing in a westward direction. His report induced two pioneers to enter the mountain wild, where they were found in 1751 by the agent for the Greenbriar company. Further attempts to colonize the country were not made for some years. The first permanent settlements by Zane and Tomlinson, were at or near Wheeling; hardy emigrants followed, and pushed into the fine regions along the Upper Monongahela. When it became known that outposts were established on the confines of civilization, hundreds pressed forward to join the adventurous settlers, and secure homes in the forest domain.

“The escape of Mrs. Denis, who had been taken captive in the James river settlement, in 1761, presents a parallel to narratives of female captives in the early history of the settlement of New England. Her husband having been slain, after being taken captive, the Indians took her over the mountains and through the forests to the Chilicothe 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 attending 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 supposed 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 log that concealed her, and encamped near it for the night. Next morning they proceeded in their pursuit of her; and she started in another 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; travelling 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 habitations.”[16]

The settlement was made to suffer severely for this hospitable act. “A party of fifty or sixty Shawanese, coming under the garb of friendship, suddenly fell upon the men, butchering every one of them, and made captives of the women and children. They next visited the Levels, 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 inmates was a decrepid old woman, with an ulcerated limb; she undressed the member, and asked the Indian if he could cure it. ‘Yes,’ he replied; 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 massacred 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 beginning 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 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. Such were some of the horrid realities endured by the first settlers of Western Virginia.”[17]

Early in 1778, an attack was made on a block-house in the country of the Upper Monongahela. The children allowed to play outside, discovered 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 Cunningham instantly drew up his gun, but it flashed, and they closed in doubtful strife. Both were active and athletic; each put forth his strength, and strained every nerve to gain the ascendency. For awhile 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 horn 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 thrown on the floor, and would have been killed, but for the interference 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 enabled the women again to close it.

“On the 11th of April some Indians visited the house of William Morgan, on Bunker’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 Pricket’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.”

Early in March, 1781, a party of Indians came to the house of Capt. John Thomas, on one of the branches of the Monongahela. He was a pious man, and was engaged in family worship, surrounded by his wife and seven children, when the Indians approached his cabin. Anticipating no attack, he had not secured his house so well as was his custom, for the season had not advanced sufficiently to cause alarm. He had just repeated a line of the hymn

when the savages fired; the Christian father fell dead, and the murderers forcing the door, entered and commenced the work of death. Mrs. Thomas implored their mercy, but the tomahawk did its work, till the mother and six children lay weltering in blood by the side of the slaughtered father. They then proceeded to scalp the fallen and plunder the house, and departed, taking with them one little boy, a prisoner.

“Elizabeth Juggins, whose father had been murdered the preceding year in that neighborhood, was at the house when the Indians came; but as soon as she heard the report of the gun and saw Capt. Thomas fall, she threw herself under the bed, and escaped the observation of the savages. After they had completed the work of blood and left the house, fearing that they might be lingering near, she remained in that concealment till the house was found to be on fire. When she crawled forth from her asylum, Mrs. Thomas was still alive, though unable to move, and casting a pitying glance towards her murdered infant, asked that it might be handed to her. On seeing Miss Juggins about to leave the house, she exclaimed ‘Oh Betsey, don’t leave us!’ Still anxious for her own safety, the girl rushed out, and taking refuge for the night between two logs, in the morning early spread the alarm. When the scene of these enormities was visited, Mrs. Thomas was found in the yard, much mangled by the tomahawk and considerably torn by hogs; she had perhaps, in the struggle of death, thrown herself out at the door. The house, with Capt. Thomas and the children, was a heap of ashes.”

On the 29th of June, 1785, the house of Mr. Scott, a citizen of Washington County, Virginia, was attacked, and he and four children butchered on the spot. He and the family had retired, except Mrs. Scott, who was undressing, when the painted savages rushed in and commenced the work of death. “Scott being awake, jumped up, but was immediately fired at; he forced his way through the midst of the enemy and got out of the door, but fell; an Indian seized Mrs. Scott, and ordered her not to move from a particular spot; others stabbed and cut the throats of the three younger children in their bed, and afterwards lifting them up, dashed them upon the floor, near the mother. The eldest, a beautiful girl eight years old, sprang out of bed, ran to her parent, and in the most plaintive accents cried ‘O, mamma, mamma! save me!’ The mother, in the deepest anguish of spirit, and with a flood of tears, entreated the savages to spare her child; but with brutal ferocity they tomahawked and stabbed her in the mother’s arms. Near Scott’s dwelling lived another family of the name of Ball: the Indians attacked them at the same time; the door being shut, they fired into the house through an opening between 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 rest of the family ran out of the house and escaped. In 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, thirteen in number, loaded themselves with the plunder, then speedily made off, and continued travelling all night. Next morning their chief allotted to each man his share, and detached nine of the party to steal horses from the inhabitants at Clinch river.

“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 loosening her keeper’s vigilance. In the daytime, as the old man was graning a deer skin, the captive, pondering on her situation, and anxiously looking for an opportunity to make her escape, took the resolution, and went to the Indian carelessly, asking liberty to go a small distance to a stream of water, to wash the blood off her apron, which had remained besmeared since the fatal night of the murder of her little daughter. He said in English—‘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 travelled 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 the risk of being lost and perishing with hunger in uninhabited parts. That night she made herself a bed with leaves, and the next day resumed her wanderings. Thus did the poor woman continue, from day to day, and week to week, wandering in the trackless wilderness. Finally, on the eleventh 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 11th of August, she had no other means of subsistence than 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 buffaloes, 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, dropped his prey and ran off. Hunger prompted her to try and eat the flesh, but on reflection, she desisted, thinking the bear might return and devour her; besides, she had an aversion to raw meat. She long continued in a low state of health, and remained inconsolable for the loss of her family, particularly bewailing the cruel death of her little daughter.”

One of the most melancholy occurrences on Wheeling Creek was the murder of two sisters—the Misses Crow. Three of them left their parents’ house for an evening walk along the shaded banks of a beautiful stream—the Dunkard, or lower fork of the Creek. “Their walk extended over a mile, and they were just turning back, when suddenly several Indians sprang from behind a ledge of rock, and seized all three of the sisters. They led the captives a short distance up a bank, when a halt was called, and a parley took place. It seems that some of the Indians were in favor of immediate slaughter, while others were disposed to carry them into permanent captivity. Unfortunately the arm of mercy was powerless. Without a moment’s warning, a fierce looking savage stepped from the group with elevated tomahawk, and commenced the work of death. This Indian, said the surviving sister, ‘began to tomahawk Susan; she dodged her head to one side, the weapon taking effect in her neck, cutting the large neck vein; the blood gushing out a yard’s length. The Indian who had her by the hand jumped back to avoid the blood. The other Indian then began the work of death on my sister Mary. I gave a sudden jerk and got loose from the one that held me, ran with all speed and took up a steep bank, gaining the top safely. Just as I caught hold of a hush to help myself up, the Indian fired, and the ball passed through the clump of hair on my head, slightly breaking the skin; the Indian taking round to meet me as I would strike the path that led homeward. But I ran right from home, and hid myself in the bushes near the top of the hill. Presently I saw an Indian passing along the hill below me; I lay still until he was out of sight, and then made for home.’” This third sister was Christina, afterwards Mrs. John McBride, of Carlisle, Monroe County, Ohio.

“Early on the morning of the 27th of March, 1789, two Indians appeared on the premises of Mr. Glass, residing a few miles back of the present town of Wellsburgh. Mrs. Glass was alone in the house, except an infant and a small black girl; was engaged in spinning, and had sent her negro woman to the woods for sugar water. In a few moments she returned, screaming at the top of her voice, ‘Indians! Indians!’ Mrs. Glass jumped up, and running first to the window and then to the door, attempted to escape; but an Indian met her and presented his gun; she caught hold of the muzzle, turned it aside, and begged him not to kill her. The other Indian in the meantime caught the negro woman and brought her into the house. They then opened a chest and took out a small box and some articles of clothing, and without doing any further damage, departed with their prisoners. After proceeding about a mile and a half, they halted and held a consultation, as she supposed, to kill the children; this she understood to be the subject by their gestures. To one of the Indians who could speak English, she held out her little boy and begged him not to kill him, as he would make a fine chief after a while. The Indian made a motion for her to walk on with the child. The other Indian then struck the negro child with the pipe end of his tomahawk, which knocked it down, and then, by a blow with the edge across the back of the neck, despatched it. About four o’clock they reached the river, a mile above the creek, and carried a canoe which had been thrown up in some drift wood, into the river. They got into this canoe and worked it down to the mouth of Rush run, about five miles; pulled the canoe into the mouth of the stream as far as they could, and going up the run about a mile, encamped for the night. The Indians gave the prisoners all their own clothes for covering, and one of them added his own blanket; shortly before daylight the Indians got up, and put another blanket over them. The black woman complained much on account of the loss of her child, and they threatened if she did not desist, to kill her.

“About sunrise they commenced their march up a very steep hill and at two o’clock halted on Short creek, about twenty miles from the place whence they set out in the morning. The spot had been an encampment shortly before as well as a place of deposit for the plunder which they had recently taken from the house of Mr. Vanmeter, whose family had been killed. The plunder was deposited in a sycamore tree. They had tapped some sugar trees when there before, and now kindled a fire and put on a brass kettle, with a turkey which they had killed on the way, to boil in sugar water.

“Mr. Glass was working with a hired man in a field about a quarter of a mile from the house, when his wife and family were taken, but knew nothing of the event till noon. After searching about the place, and going to several families in quest of his family, he went to Well’s Fort, collected ten men, and that night lodged in a cabin, on the bottom on which the town of Wellsburg now stands. Next morning they discovered the place where the Indians had taken the canoe from the drift, and their tracks at the place of embarkation. Mr. Glass could distinguish the track of his wife by the print of the high heel of her shoe. They crossed the river and went down on the other side until they came near the mouth of Rush run; but discovering no tracks of the Indians, most of the men concluded they would go to the mouth of the Muskingum by water, and therefore wished to turn back. Mr. Glass begged them to go as far as the mouth of Short Creek, which was only two or three miles; and to this they agreed. When they got to the mouth of Rush run, they found the canoe of the Indians. This was identified by a proof which shows the presence of mind of Mrs. Glass. While passing down the river, one of the Indians threw into the water several papers which he had taken out of Mr. Glass’s trunk; some of these she carelessly picked up, and under pretence of giving them to the child dropped them into the bottom of the canoe. These left no doubt. The trail of the Indians and their prisoners up the run to their camp, and then up the river hill, was soon discovered.

“About an hour after the Indians had halted. Glass and his men came in sight of their camp. The object then was to save the lives of the prisoners by attacking the Indians so unexpectedly as not to allow time to kill them. With this view they crept along till they got within one hundred yards of the camp. Fortunately, Mrs. Glass’s little son had gone to a sugar tree, but not being able to get the water, his mother had stepped out to get it for him. The negro woman was sitting some distance from the two Indians, who were looking attentively at a scarlet jacket which they had taken some time before. On a sudden they dropped the jacket, and turned their eyes towards the men, who, supposing they were discovered, immediately discharged several guns and rushed upon them at full speed, with an Indian yell. One of the Indians, it was supposed, was wounded the first fire, as he fell and dropped his gun and shot pouch. After running about one hundred yards, a second shot was fired after him, which brought him to his hands and knees; but there was no time for pursuit, as the Indians had informed Mrs. Glass that there was another encampment close by. The other Indian at the first fire, ran a short distance beyond Mrs. Glass, so that she was in a right line between him and the white men; this artful manœuvre no doubt saved his life, as his pursuers could not shoot at him without risking the life of the white woman.”

The party reached Beach Bottom fort that night. Mrs. Glass subsequently married a Mr. Brown, and was long a resident of Brooke County.

“In the burying-ground of New Providence, in Rockbridge County, Virginia, there is a grave, surpassing in interest all surrounding graves. It is by the side of the resting-place of the pastor of the people who worshipped in the neighboring church. Its inhabitant once walked by his side a cherished one.[18] His deep blue, sunken eye, that flashed so fiercely in moments of indignation, always beamed sweetly into her full, jet-black orbs, that could do nothing but smile or weep. But those smiles and tears charmed equally the savages in the wilderness, and Christian people of Providence.

“The maiden name of this woman was Mary Moore. The melancholy romance of her early days, and the Christian excellence of her mature and closing years, make her memory immortal. The history of the destruction of the retired dwelling of her father—his murder, with that of two brothers and a sister on a fair summer’s morning—the captivity of her mother and herself, with a brother and two sisters, and a hired girl, the murder of the brother and one sister on the way to the wigwam homes of their captors—the death by fire and torture of her mother and remaining sister—the rescue of herself and the hired girl, together with a brother, the captive of a former year, and their return to their relatives in Virginia—combines in one story all the events impending over the emigrant families taking possession of the rivers and valleys of Western Virginia.”

James Moore, whose father, of Scottish ancestry, had emigrated from Ireland to Pennsylvania, and thence to Virginia, married Martha Poage, and Mary, his second daughter, was born in his new home in a valley on the waters of the Blue Stone, a branch of New River. It was called “Apps’ Valley,” from Absalom Looney, a hunter, “supposed to be the first white man who disturbed the solitude, or beheld the beauty of the narrow low grounds luxuriating in the pea vine and sweet myrrh. The surrounding and distant scenery partook both of the grand and the beautiful. To Mr. Moore, the valley was enchanting; and being out of the track of the savages in their war incursions eastward, it seemed secure equally from the vexations of the civilized and the savage.

“Mr. Looney, the hunter, built his cabin a mile lower down the creek; John Poage about two and a half miles above; and a number of cabins were scattered about as convenience or fancy dictated. Mr. Moore’s highest expectations in raising stock were realized. Assisted by Simpson, he soon became possessor of a hundred head of horses, and a large number of horned cattle, which found pasturage sufficient for both summer and winter, with little aid or care from man. His dream of safety was broken. The wily savage discovered the white man’s track, and the white man’s cabin west of those Alleghanies, which they resolved should be an everlasting barrier between their homes in Ohio to which they had fled, and the hated whites who held the corn-fields and hunting-grounds of their fathers and their race, between those great mountains and the Atlantic shores.

“To revenge this encroachment, the savages commenced their depredations, and compelled isolated families, summer after summer, to betake themselves to forts and stockades for their mutual defence. On one occasion a number of men being at the house of Mr. John Poage, one of them, on stepping out after nightfall, observed to his companions that a good look-out ought to be kept for Indians that night, for he heard an unusual noise, as of the hooting of owls, which he supposed to be the signal of Indians approaching the house from different quarters. About midnight the house was surrounded by savages; but finding the doors secured and the inmates on the watch, the Indians retired without committing any depredations. One of the party in the house seized a gun, not his own, unaware that it was double triggered, pressed the muzzle through the cracks of the cabin against the body of a savage who was slily examining the state of things within, and in his eagerness to discharge the piece broke both the triggers, and the savage escaped. All was stillness both within and without the house; such was the nature of savage warfare. Mr. Poage and most of the families now retired from this advanced position to the more secure neighborhoods in Rockbridge, Botetourt and Montgomery, while Mr. Moore and a few others remained.

“Mr. Moore was a man of courage; he loved the solitude and sweetness of the valley, and would not retreat through any fear of the hostile Indians. Five children were added to his family in this valley, making the number nine. Of these Mary, the fifth, was born in the year 1777, and passed the first nine years of her life in alternate solitude and alarms. On the 7th of September, 1784, James, then fourteen years of age, was sent to Poage’s deserted settlement to procure a horse for the purpose of going to the mill about twelve miles distant, through a dreary wilderness. He did not return, and the anxious search discovered trails of savages. In time the hope he had hidden in the woods or fled to some distant habitation, gave way to the sad conviction that his fate for life or death had been committed to the hands of barbarians. This bereavement grieved, but did not subdue the heart of the father, who resolutely, almost stubbornly, maintained his position. After some time, a letter was received from Kentucky, giving him information of his lost son, then supposed to be in or near Detroit. Before any effective steps could be taken for his recovery, another and more mournful scene was enacted in Apps’ Valley, awfully contrasting with the grandeur and beauty of surrounding nature, and the domestic peace and piety of Moore’s dwelling.

“The morning of the 14th July, 1786, a party of Indians came up Sandy River, crossed over to the head of Clinch, passed near where Tazewell Court-house now is, murdered a Mr. Davison and wife, and burned their dwelling, and passed on hastily to Apps’ Valley, before any alarm could be given. A little spur puts out from the mountain, and gradually sloping towards the creek, about three hundred yards before it sinks into the low grounds, divides; at the extremity of one division stood Moore’s house, and near the other the trough at which he was accustomed to salt his horses. At the time of the greatest peril all seemed most secure. It was harvest time; and there were two men assisting Mr. Moore in his harvest. The guns were discharged on the preceding evening, to be reloaded some time in the morning. Simpson lay sick in the loft; the men had repaired early to the wheat-field, to reap till breakfast time; Moore was engaged in salting his horses; his wife busied in her domestic concerns, and two of the children at the spring. Suddenly the savage yell was heard, and two parties rushed from their hiding-places on the ridge, the one down the slope to the house, and the other towards Mr. Moore. Two children, Rebecca and William, were shot dead near the salt block, on their return from the spring, and the third, Alexander, near the house. Mary rushed in, and the door was shut and barred against the approaching savages by Mrs. Moore and Martha Ivans, a member of the family, just in time to present their entrance. Mr. Moore finding himself intercepted by the Indians at the house, ran on through the small lot that surrounded it, and on climbing the fence, paused and turned, and in a moment was pierced with seven bullets. Springing from the fence, he ran a few paces, fell and expired. The two men in the harvest-field, seeing the house surrounded by a large company of savages, fled and escaped unharmed. Martha Ivans seized two of the guns, and ran upstairs to the sick man, Simpson, calling on him to shoot through the crevices; but the poor man had already received his death-wound from a bullet aimed from without. Two stout dogs defended the door most courageously, till the fiercest was shot. Martha Ivans and Mary Moore secreted themselves under a part of the floor, taking with them the infant Margaret; but the sobbings of the alarmed child forbade concealment. Should Mary place the child upon the floor, and conceal herself? or share its fate? She could not abandon her little sister even in that perilous moment, and left her hiding-place and her companion. The Indians were now cutting at the door and threatening fire. Mrs. Moore perceiving that her faithful sentinels were silenced, Simpson expiring, and her husband dead, collected her four children, and kneeling down, committed them to God; then rose, and unbarred the door.

“After all resistance had ceased, the Indians, satisfied with the blood that had been shed, took Mrs. Moore and her four children, John, Jane, Mary, and Margaret, prisoners; and having plundered to their satisfaction, set fire to the dwelling. Martha Ivans crept from the approaching flames, and again concealed herself beneath a log that lay across the little stream near the dwelling. While catching a few of the horses, one of the Indians crossed the log under which she was secreted, and sat down upon the end of it. The girl seeing him handle the lock of his gun, and supposing he had discovered and was about to fire upon her, came out, to the great surprise of the savage—for he had not seen her, and to his great apparent joy delivered herself a captive. In a short time the Indians were on their march with their captives to their Shawnee towns in Ohio. The two men who escaped, hastened to the nearest family, a distance of six miles, and as soon as possible spread the alarm among the settlements; but before the armed men could reach the spot, the ruin was complete, and the depredators far on their way to Ohio.

“After the horrible events of the morning, perhaps the mother wept not when the captors, dissatisfied with the delicate appearance and slow travelling of her weak-minded and feeble-bodied son John, despatched him at a blow, and hid him from the sight of pursuers. The hours of night passed slowly and sorrowfully as the four captives, all females, lay upon the ground, each tied to a warrior, who slept tomahawk in hand, to prevent a re-capture, should they be overtaken by the pursuing whites. On the third day a new cup of sorrow was put into the mother’s hand. The infant Margaret, whom Mary could not part with, had been spared to the mother; the Indians even assisting in carrying it. On the third day it became very fretful from a wound it had received on its cheek; irritated by its crying, a savage seized it, and dashing its head against a tree, tossed it into the bushes. The company moved on in silence; the sisters dared not, the mother would not, lament the fate of the helpless loved one.

“After some twenty days of wearisome travel down the Sandy and Ohio Rivers, they came to the Scioto; here the Indians showed Mrs. Moore some hieroglyphics on the trees representing three Indians and a captive white boy; this boy, they told her, was her son whom they had captured in their expedition two years before, who had been here with them, and was still a captive. The prisoners were then taken to their towns, near where Chilicothe now stands, and were kindly received. After a few days a council was called, and an aged Indian made a long speech dissuading from war; the warriors shook their heads and retired. This old man took Mary Moore to his wigwam, treated her with great kindness, and appeared to commiserate her condition. In a short time a party of Cherokees, who had made an unsuccessful expedition in the western part of Pennsylvania, on their return home passed by the Shawnee towns, and stopped where Mrs. Moore and her daughter Jane were. Irritated at their ill success, and the loss of some of their warriors, the sight of these prisoners excited an irresistible thirst for revenge. While the Shawnees were revelling with liquor, the Cherokees seized the mother and daughter, and condemned them to the torture by fire and death at the stake. Their sufferings were protracted through three days of agony. The uncomplaining mother comforted her poor dying child with gospel truth and exhortation, and died with a meekness that astounded the savages. The Shawnees never approved of this gratuitous act of cruelty, and always expressed unwillingness to converse about it.

“When Mrs. Moore and her children, as captives, left their habitation in App’s Valley, Mary took two New Testaments which she carried through all her wearisome journey to the Scioto; one of them was taken from her by the young savages, and the other was her companion through the days of her bondage. The old Indian who showed her kindness on arriving at the towns, would often call her to his side and make her read to him, that he might hear ‘the book speak;’ and when any of the young Indians attempted to hide it from her, as they often did, he interposed with sternness and compelled them to restore it.

“The two girls remained with the Shawnees till the fall of the year 1788, being kept as property of value without any definite object. Contentions sometimes arose among the Indians about the right of ownership; and in times of intoxication, death was threatened as the only means of ending the quarrel. Whenever these threats were made, some of the sober Indians gave the girls the alarm in time for their secreting themselves. While free from the influence of drink, the Indians expressed great fondness for the girls, particularly the little black-eyed, golden-haired Mary.

“The Shawnees continuing to be very troublesome to the frontiers, in the fall of 1788 an expedition was fitted out to destroy their towns on the Scioto. The Indians were informed by the traders of the design and departure of the expedition, and watched its progress. On its near approach they deserted their towns, secreting their little property, and carrying their wives and children and aged ones beyond the reach of the enemy. Mary Moore revolved in her mind the probable chances of concealing herself in the forests until the arrival of the forces, and thus obtaining her liberty; and was deterred from the attempt by the reflection that the season was late, and possibly the forces might not arrive before winter. Late in November the American forces reached the Scioto, burned the Shawnee towns, destroyed their winter provisions as far as they could be found, and immediately returned home. After the departure of the forces the Indians returned to their ruined towns, and winter setting upon them, deprived of shelter, their extreme sufferings compelled them to seek for aid in Canada. On the journey to Detroit they endured the extremes of hunger and cold. Martha Ivans and Mary Moore with few garments, traversed the forests with deer-skin moccasins, the only covering for their feet in the deep snows. Not unfrequently they awoke in the morning covered with the snow that had fallen during the night; once the depth of their snowy covering was twelve or fourteen inches, their only bed or protection, besides the bushes heaped together, being their single blanket. On reaching Detroit the Indians gave themselves to riotous drinking, and to indulge this appetite sold their young captives. Mary was purchased for half a gallon of rum, by a person named Stogwell, who lived at Frenchtown; Martha by a man in the neighborhood of Detroit. Being soon after released she took up her residence with a wealthy and worthy English family by the name of Donaldson, and received wages for her services. The purchaser of Mary neither liberated her, nor expressed any kindness for her, but employed her as a servant, with poor clothing and scanty fare. The circumstances of her redemption and return to her friends in Virginia, are related by her brother James Moore, in the narrative of his own captivity and redemption.” This presents so faithful a picture of Indian captivity, that we shall extract part of it before resuming the history of Mary.

“My father sent me to a waste plantation about two miles and a quarter up the valley, to get a horse to go to mill. I came within a few paces of the field, when suddenly the Indians sprang out from behind a large log; and being before alarmed, I screamed with all my might. The Indian that took me, laid his hand on the top of my head and bade me hush. There were only three Indians in the company. Their leader, Black Wolf, a middle-aged man, of the most stern countenance I ever beheld, about six feet high, having a long black beard, was the one who caught hold of me.

“In a few moments we started on our journey. The Indians went up into the thicket where their kettle and blankets were hid, covered up in the leaves, and took them. We travelled down a creek called Tugg, the north fork of Sandy, that afternoon about eight miles. The walking was very laborious on account of the high weeds, green briers, logs, and the mountainous character of the country. At night we lay down in a laurel thicket without fire or anything to eat. The night was rainy. I lay beside Black Wolf, with a leading halter round my neck tied very tight, and the other end wrapped round his hands, so as to make it very secure, and so that I could not get away without waking him. He had also searched me very carefully to see that I had no knife. During the afternoon the two young Indians walked before; I next to them, and old Wolf followed; and if any sign was made he would remove it with his tomahawk, so that there might be no marks or traces of the way we had gone. I frequently broke bushes, which he discovered and shook his tomahawk over my head, giving me to understand that if I did not desist he would strike me with it. I then would scratch the ground with my feet; this he also discovered and made me desist; and showed me how to set my feet flat so as not to make any special marks. It then became necessary for me to cease any efforts to make a trail for others to follow. About sun-down Old Wolf gave a tremendous war whoop, and another the next morning at sunrise. This was repeated every evening at sun-down, and every morning at sunrise, during our whole journey. It was long, loud, and shrill, signifying that he had one prisoner. The custom is to repeat it as frequently as the number of prisoners. This whoop is different from the one they make when they have scalps.

“In the evening of September 9th, we encamped for the night under a projecting cliff, and here for the first time kindled a fire. Old Wolf took the precaution of cutting a number of bushes and bending them outward from our encampment so as to embarrass any one approaching us, if we had been pursued. The next day they killed a lean bear, but so very lean they would not eat of it; so we were still without food. Several times during the days of our fasting, the Indians went to the north side of a poplar, and cut off some of the bark near the root, pounded it, and put it in the kettle and put water on it; this we drank occasionally, which seemed to have a salutary effect in relieving the sufferings of hunger.

“We killed buffalo and deer as we stood in need, till we arrived (Sept. 29th) at the towns over the Ohio, on the head waters of Mud River, which took us about twenty-two days’ travelling. I travelled the whole route barefooted, and frequently walked over large rattlesnakes, but was not suffered to kill or interrupt them, the Indians considering them their friends.

“We crossed the Ohio, between the mouths of Guyandotte and Big Sandy, on a raft made of dry logs tied together with grape vines. On the banks of the Scioto we lay by one day, and the Indians made pictures on the trees of three Indians and of me; intended as hieroglyphics to represent themselves and me as their prisoner, These they afterwards showed to my sister. Near this, Old Wolf went off and procured some bullets which he had secreted.

“When we were within a short distance of the towns, the Indians blacked themselves, but not me. I was taken to the residence of Wolf’s half-sister, to whom he had sold me for an old grey horse. Shortly after I was sold, my mistress left me in her wigwam for several days entirely alone, leaving a kettle of hominy for me to eat. In this solitary situation I first began earnestly to pray and call upon God for mercy and deliverance, and found great relief in prayer. I now found the benefit of the religious instruction and examples I had enjoyed.” * *

“In about two weeks after I had been sold, the woman who bought me sent me out in company with her half-brother and others, on a winter’s hunting excursion. We were very unsuccessful. My sufferings from hunger and cold were very great. I had scarcely any clothing; the snow was knee-deep; my blanket was too short to cover me. Often after having lain down and drawn up my feet to get them underneath my blanket, I was so benumbed that I could not, without considerable exertion, get my legs stretched out again. Early in the morning the old Indian would build a large fire, and send me and all the young Indians and make us plunge all over in cold water, which I think was a very great benefit to me, and prevented me from catching cold, as is usual under circumstances of so much exposure.”

The husband of James’s mistress one day came home from a meeting of the Powwow Society, and informed her that an apparition sent by the Great Spirit, had reproved the Indians for their sins, their idleness and want of brotherly kindness, and had predicted the destruction of their towns. These predictions were literally fulfilled in the course of three years, in the invasion of Logan from Kentucky. In the mean time a French trader from Detroit, named Baptiste Ariome, took a fancy to young Moore on account of his resemblance to one of his sons, and bought him for fifty dollars’ worth of brooches, crapes, and other commodities. James also met with a trader from Kentucky, whom he requested to write a letter to his father, and give it to a young man he had rescued from the Indians, to convey to Mr. Moore. At the house of Ariome James was treated like a son, and worked on the farm, occasionally assisting in trading expeditions. On one of these he heard of the destruction of his father’s family, from a Shawanee Indian who was one of the party of assailants. The information was given the latter part of the same summer in which the massacre was perpetrated. In the winter following, James heard that his sister Mary was purchased by Mr. Stogwell, and that she was ill-treated in his family. In the spring Stogwell moved into the neighborhood where he lived; young Moore immediately went to see his sister, and found her in an abject condition, clothed in a few dirty rags. Being advised to apply to the commanding officer at Detroit, he went with Simon Girty to Col. McKee, superintendent for the Indians, who had Stogwell brought to trial to answer the complaint against him; and though the poor girl was not taken from her inhuman master, it was decided that when an opportunity offered for her return home, she should be released without remuneration. This was brought about through the efforts of Thomas Ivans, the brother of Martha, who had determined to seek his lost sister, and the members of Mr. Moore’s family who might be living. Clothing himself in skins, and securing some money about his person, with rifle in hand, he proceeded to the tribes in whose possession the captives had been, and traced their wanderings to their several places of abode. His sister was living at Mr. Donaldson’s; Mary Moore was delivered up by Mr. Stogwell, and James by Mr. Ariome. “All being at liberty,” says Moore, “we immediately prepared to go to our distant friends, and as well as I can remember, set out some time in October, 1789; it being about five years from the time I had been taken prisoner by the Indians, and a little more than three from the captivity of my sister. A trading-boat coming down the lakes, we obtained a passage in it for myself and sister Polly to the Moravian towns, a distance of about two hundred miles, which was on our way to Pittsburgh. There, according to appointment, the day after our arrival, Thomas Ivans and his sister Martha met us. We then prepared immediately for our journey to Pittsburgh. Here Mr. Ivans got his shoulder dislocated, in consequence of which we stayed a part of the winter in the vicinity, with an uncle and aunt of his, until he became able to travel. Having expended all his money with the doctor and in travelling, he left his sister Martha, and proceeded with Polly and myself to the house of an uncle about ten miles south-west of Staunton, and having received from an uncle, the administrator of his father’s estate, compensation for his services, he afterwards returned and brought his sister Martha.

“A day or two after we set out, having called at a public house for breakfast, while it was preparing, my sister took out her Testament and was engaged in reading. Being called to breakfast, she laid down her Testament, and when we resumed our journey she forgot it. After we had proceeded several miles she thought of her Testament, and strongly insisted on turning back; but such were the dangers of the way, and such the necessity of speeding our journey, that we could not.”

Martha Ivans married a man by the name of Hummer, removed to Indiana, and reared a large family, so that she is included in the list of pioneer mothers. Two of her sons became Presbyterian clergymen. Shortly after her return to Rockbridge, Mary Moore went to live with her uncle, Joseph Walker, about six miles south of Lexington, and in mature years became the wife of Rev. Samuel Brown, pastor of New Providence. She became the mother of eleven children, nine of whom survived her; and through life retained a strong attachment for the wild people of the forest, which no memory of wrong could obliterate. The self-reliance, patience, and self-denial she acquired, in part, in her captivity, were eminent through life. She was blessed with children as dutiful and pious as she had proved in her childhood, and saw, in her success in training her household, the influence of her own force of character developed by such strange circumstances, and the power of a Christian example.

Some idea of the difficulties of travel in those days may be given by the following extract from a description of a journey westward in 1784.[19] “Pack-horses were the only means of transportation then, and for years after. We were provided with three horses, on one of which my mother rode carrying her infant with all the table furniture and cooking utensils. On another were packed the stores of provisions, the plough irons, and other agricultural tools. The third horse was rigged out with a pack saddle and two large creels, made of hickory withs in the fashion of a crate, one over each side, in which were stowed the beds and bedding, and the wearing apparel of the family. In the centre of these creels there was an aperture prepared for myself and little sister, and the top was well secured by lacing to keep us in our places, so that only our heads appeared above. Each family was supplied with one or more cows; their milk furnished the morning and evening meal for the children, and the surplus was carried in canteens for use during the day.

“When the caravan reached the mountains, the road was found to be hardly passable for loaded horses. In many places the path lay along the edge of a precipice, where, if the horse had stumbled or lost his balance, he would have been precipitated several hundred feet below. The path was crossed by many streams raised by the melting snow and spring rains, and running with rapid current in deep ravines; most of these had to be forded, and for many successive days, hair-breadth escapes were continually occurring; sometimes horses falling, at others carried away by the current, and the women and children with difficulty saved from drowning. Sometimes in ascending steep acclivities, the lashing of the creels would give way, both creels and children tumble to the ground and roll down the steep, unless arrested by some traveller of the company. The men who had been inured to the hardships of war, could endure the fatigues of the journey; it was the mothers who suffered; they could not, after the toils of the day, enjoy the rest so much needed at night. The wants of their suffering children must be attended to. After preparing their simple meal, they lay down with scanty covering in a miserable cabin, or, as it sometimes happened, in the open air, and often unrefreshed, were obliged to rise early to encounter the fatigues and dangers of another day.”

“The division lines between those whose lands adjoined, were generally made in an amicable manner, before any survey of them was made by the parties concerned. In doing this, they were guided mainly by the tops of ridges and water courses, but particularly the former. Hence the greater number of farms in the western parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia bear a striking resemblance to an amphitheatre; the tops of the surrounding hills being the boundaries of the tract to which the family mansion belongs.”

Besides the exposure of the emigrants to Indian depredations and massacres, “they had other trials to endure which at the present day cannot be appreciated. One of the most vexatious was the running away of their horses. As soon as the fly season commenced the horses seemed resolved on leaving the country and crossing the mountains. They swam the Monongahela, and often proceeded a hundred and fifty miles before they were taken up. During the husband’s absence in pursuit of them, the wife was left alone with her children in their unfinished cabin, surrounded by forests, in which the howl of wolves was heard from every hill. If want of provisions, or other causes, made a visit to a neighbor’s necessary, she must either take her children with her through the woods, or leave them unprotected, under the most fearful apprehension that some mischief might befal them before her return. As bread and meat were scarce, milk was the principal dependence for the support of the family. One cow of each family was provided with a bell, which could be heard from half a mile to a mile. The matron on rising in the morning listened for her cow-bell, which she knew well enough to detect, even amidst a clamor of others. If her children were small, she tied them in bed to prevent their wandering, and guard them from danger of fire and snakes; and guided by the tinkling of the bell, made her way through the tall weeds and across the ravines until she found the objects of her search. Happy on her return to find her children unharmed, and regardless of a thorough wetting from the dew, she hastened to prepare their breakfast of milk boiled with a little meal or hominy; or in the protracted absence of her husband, it was often reduced to milk alone. Occasionally venison and turkeys were obtained from hunters.”

An anecdote is related in the “American Pioneer,” of Gov. McArthur, on his first visit to the West, which throws light on the situation of the early settlers. He stopped some time at Baker’s Station, about twenty miles below Wheeling. There was war with the Indians, and the settlers about Fish Creek were occupying the station for security; so long, however, had the enemy been absent from that section of country, that the inmates went and came when they pleased. A young lady of great beauty, who lived at the place, had acquired proficiency in the art of shooting with the rifle. “I think her name was Scott, but it may have been Baker. Early one morning she went to the run, some fifty or sixty yards above the post, to wash linen, taking her gun along, and young McArthur accompanied her to stand guard while she was employed at the wash tub. Before long a small dog that was with them commenced barking, and gave such manifestations of alarm that the young lady desired her companion to make a hasty reconnoissance of the adjacent grounds. The motions of the dog had awakened fear that Indians might be lurking close by, but McArthur discovered nothing to confirm the suspicion. The washing was resumed and in due course completed; after which they both returned to the station. Just as they were about to enter the gate, a tall athletic looking Indian sprang from behind a tree not more than thirty paces beyond the spot where they had been washing, and darted off rapidly into the woods. Pursuit was instantly made, but he was not overtaken. He must have posted himself behind the tree during the previous night, with the intention of shooting the first person that ventured out of the works in the morning. The appearance of two disconcerted his plan. McArthur’s gallantry on this occasion was the means of saving the young lady’s life.”

De Hass describes a station as a parallelogram of cabins united by palisades, so as to present a continued wall on the outer sides, the cabin doors opening into a common square on the inner side. A fort was generally a stockade enclosure, embracing cabins, etc., for the accommodation of several families. Doddridge says, “a range of cabins commonly formed at least one side, separated by divisions or partitions of logs. The walls on the outside were ten or twelve feet high, with a roof sloping inward. Some of the cabins had puncheon floors, but the greater part were earthen.

“The blockhouses were built at the angles of the fort, and projected about two feet beyond the outer walls of the cabins and stockades. Their upper stories were about eighteen inches or two feet every way larger than the under one, leaving an opening at the commencement of the second story, to prevent the enemy from making a lodgment under their walls. In some forts, instead of blockhouses, the angles were furnished with bastions. A large folding gate, made of thick slabs, nearest the spring, closed the fort. The stockades, bastions, cabins, and blockhouse walls were furnished with portholes at proper heights and distances. The whole of the outside was made completely bullet proof. The families belonging to these forts were so attached to their own cabins on their farms, that they seldom moved into the fort in the spring until compelled by some alarm; that is, when it was announced by some murder that Indians were in the settlement.”

Butler describes the dwellings of the first settlers of the West as composed of the trunks of trees, bared of their branches, notched at the ends and fitted upon one another in a quadrangular shape, to the desired height. Openings through the logs left room for doors and shutters. A capacious opening, nearly the whole width of the cabin, made the fire-place. By this ample width economy of labor in cutting fire-wood, as well as comfort in houses, was consulted.

“The furniture of the table, for several years after the settlement of the country, consisted of a few pewter dishes, plates and spoons; but mostly of wooden bowls, trenchers and noggins. If these last were scarce, gourds and hard-shelled squashes made up the deficiency. The iron pots, knives and forks were brought from the East, with the salt and iron, on pack-horses. These articles of furniture corresponded very well with the articles of diet. ‘Hog and hominy’ was a dish of proverbial celebrity. Johnny-cake or pone was at the outset of the settlements the only form of bread in use for breakfast and dinner; at supper, milk and mush was the standard dish. When milk was scarce, hominy supplied its place, and mush was frequently eaten with sweetened water, molasses, bear’s oil, or the gravy of fried meat.

“In our display of furniture, delf, china and silver were unknown. The introduction of delf ware was considered by many of the backwoods people as a wasteful innovation. It was too easily broken, and the plates dulled their scalping and clasp knives. Tea and coffee, in the phrase of the day, ‘did not stick by the ribs.’ The idea then prevalent was, that they were only designed for people of quality, who did not labor, or for the rich. A genuine backwoodsman would have thought himself disgraced by showing a fondness for such ‘slops.’

“On the frontier and particularly among hunters in the habit of going on campaigns, the dress of the men was partly Indian. The hunting-shirt universally worn was a kind of loose frock, reaching half way down the thighs, with large sleeves, open before, and so wide as to lap over a foot or more when belted. The cape was large, and sometimes fringed with a ravelled piece of cloth, of different color from the hunting-shirt. The bosom of this dress served as a wallet to hold bread, cakes, jerk, tow for wiping the barrel of the rifle, or any other necessary for the hunter or warrior. The belt, always tied behind, answered several purposes; in cold weather the mittens, and sometimes the bullet-bag, occupied its front part; on the right side was suspended the tomahawk, on the left the scalping knife in its leathern sheath. The hunting-shirt was generally made of linsey, sometimes of coarse linen, and a few of dressed deer-skin; these last very cold and uncomfortable in wet weather. The shirt and jacket were of the common fashion. A pair of drawers, or breeches and leggins, were the dress of the thighs and legs; a pair of moccasins answered for the feet much better than shoes. These were made of dressed deer-skin, and were mostly of a single piece, with a seam along the top of the foot, and another from the bottom of the heel, as high or a little higher than the ancle joint. Flaps were left on each side, to reach some distance up the legs. These were nicely adapted to the ancles and lower part of the leg by thongs of deerskin, so that no dust, gravel, or snow could get within the moccasin. In cold weather this was well stuffed with deer’s hair or dried leaves, to keep the feet comfortably warm; but in wet weather it was usually said that wearing moccasins was ‘a decent way of going barefoot;’ and such was the fact, owing to the spongy texture of the leather of which they were made. Owing to this defective covering of the feet, many of our hunters and warriors were afflicted with rheumatism in their limbs. Of this disease they were all apprehensive in cold or wet weather, and therefore always slept with their feet to the fire, to prevent or cure it as well as they could. This practice unquestionably had a very salutary effect, and prevented many of them from becoming confirmed cripples in early life.

“In the latter years of the Indian war, our young men became more enamored of the Indian dress. The drawers were laid aside, and the leggins made longer, so as to reach the upper part of the thigh. The Indian breech cloth was adopted. This was a piece of linen or cloth, nearly a yard long, and eight or nine inches broad, passing under the belt, before and behind, leaving the ends for flaps hanging before and behind over the belt, sometimes ornamented with coarse embroidery. To the same belt which secured the breech cloth, strings, supporting the long leggins, were attached. When this belt, as was often the case, passed over the hunting-shirt, the upper part of the thighs and part of the hips were naked. The young warrior, instead of being abashed by this, was proud of his Indian dress. In some few instances I have seen them go into places of public worship in this dress.” De Hass adds, that old hunters have said it was the most comfortable, convenient, and desirable that could have been invented for the times in which it was used. Linsey coats and gowns were the universal dress of the women in early times.

A description of a wedding among the pioneers may serve to illustrate their manners. The following is taken from Doddridge’s Notes:

“In the first years of the settlement, a wedding engaged the attention of a whole neighborhood, and the frolic was anticipated by old and young with eager expectation. This will not be wondered at, as a wedding was almost the only gathering unaccompanied with the labor of reaping, log-rolling, building a cabin, or planning some warlike expedition.

“On the morning of the wedding day, the groom and his attendants assembled at the house of his father, for the purpose of reaching the home of his bride by noon, the usual time for celebrating the nuptials. Let the reader imagine an assemblage of people, without a store, tailor, or mantuamaker within a hundred miles; and an assemblage of horses, without a blacksmith or saddler within an equal distance; the gentlemen dressed in shoepacks, moccasins, leather breeches, leggins, linsey hunting-shirts, and all home-made; the ladies in linsey petticoats and linsey or linen bedgowns, coarse shoes, stockings, handkerchiefs, and buckskin gloves, if any. If there were any buckles, rings, buttons, or ruffles, they were the relics of olden times, family pieces from parents or grandparents. The horses were caparisoned with old saddles, old bridles or halters, and pack-saddles, with a bag or blanket thrown over them; a rope or string as often constituted the girth as a piece of leather. The march, in double file, was often interrupted by the narrowness and obstructions of the horse-paths, for there were no roads; and these difficulties were often increased by fallen trees and grape vines tied across the way. Sometimes an ambuscade was formed by the wayside, and an unexpected discharge of several guns took place, so as to cover the wedding company with smoke. Let the reader imagine the scene that followed this discharge; the sudden spring of the horses, the shrieks of the girls, and the chivalrous bustle of their partners to save them from falling. If a wrist, elbow, or ancle happened to be sprained, it was tied with a handkerchief, and little more was thought or said about it.

“The ceremony of the marriage preceded the dinner, which was a substantial backwoods feast of beef, pork, fowls, and sometimes venison and bear meat roasted and boiled, with plenty of potatoes, cabbage, and other vegetables. During the dinner the greatest hilarity always prevailed, although the table might be a large slab of timber hewed out with a broad axe, supported by four sticks set in auger holes; and the furniture, some old pewter dishes and plates, eked out with wooden bowls and trenchers. A few pewter spoons, much battered about the edges, were seen at some tables; the rest were made of horn. If knives were scarce, the deficiency was made up by the scalping knives which every man carried in sheaths suspended to the belt of the hunting-shirt. After dinner the dancing commenced, and generally lasted till the next morning. The figures of the dances were three and four-handed reels and jigs. The commencement was always a square four, which was followed by what was called ‘jigging it off;’ that is, two of the four would single out for a jig, and be followed by the remaining couple. The jigs were often accompanied with what was called ‘cutting out;’ that is, when either of the parties became tired of the dance, on intimation, the place was supplied by some one of the company, without any interruption to the dance. In this way it was often continued till the musician was heartily tired of his situation. Towards the latter part of the night, if any of the company, through weariness, attempted to conceal themselves for the purpose of sleeping, they were hunted up, paraded on the floor, and the fiddler ordered to play ‘Hang out till to-morrow morning.’

About nine or ten o’clock a deputation of the young ladies stole off the bride and put her to bed. In doing this it frequently happened that they had to ascend a ladder instead of stairs, leading from the dining and ball-room to a loft, the floor of which was made of clapboards lying loose. This ascent, one might think, would put the bride and her attendants to the blush; but as the foot of the ladder was commonly behind the door, purposely opened for the occasion, and its rounds at the inner ends were well hung with hunting-shirts, dresses, and other articles of clothing—the candles being on the opposite side of the house, the exit of the bride was noticed but by few. This done, a deputation of young men, in like manner, stole off the groom, while the dance still continued, and late at night refreshment in the shape of ‘black Betty’—the bottle—was sent up the ladder, with sometimes substantial accompaniments of bread, beef, pork and cabbage. The feasting and dancing often lasted several days, at the end of which the whole company were so exhausted with loss of sleep, that many days’ rest was requisite to fit them to return to their ordinary labors.”

Sometimes it happened that neighbors or relations not asked to the wedding, took offence, and revenged themselves by cutting off the manes, foretops and tails of horses belonging to the wedding company.

The same writer thus describes the usual manner of settling a young couple in the world:—“A spot was selected on a piece of land belonging to one of the parents, for their habitation, and a day appointed shortly after their marriage, to commence the work of building their cabin. The materials were prepared on the first day, and sometimes the foundation laid in the evening. The second day was allotted for the raising. The cabin being furnished, the ceremony of housewarming took place before the young couple were permitted to move into it. The house-warming was a dance of a whole night’s continuance, made up of the relations of the bridegroom and their neighbors. On the day following, the young couple took possession of their new premises.

“Many of the sports of the early settlers of this country were imitative of the exercises and stratagems of hunting and war. Boys were taught the use of the bow and arrow at an early age; but although they acquired considerable adroitness, so as to kill a bird or squirrel, yet it appears to me that in the hands of the white people, the bow and arrow could never be depended on for warfare or hunting. One important pastime of the boys—that of imitating the noise of every bird and beast in the woods—was a necessary part of education on account of its utility under certain circumstances. Imitating the gobbling and other sounds of the wild turkey, often brought those ever watchful tenants of the forest within reach of the rifle. The bleating of the fawn brought its dam to her death in the same way. The hunter often collected a company of mopish owls to the trees about his camp, and amused himself with their hoarse screaming. His howl would raise and obtain responses from a pack of wolves, so as to inform him of their whereabouts, as well as to guard him against their depredations.

“This imitative faculty was sometimes requisite as a measure of precaution in war. The Indians, when scattered about in a neighborhood, often collected together by imitating turkeys by day and wolves or owls by night. In similar situations our people did the same. I have often witnessed the consternation of a whole neighborhood in consequence of the screeching of owls. An early and correct use of this imitative faculty was considered as an indication that its possessor would become in due time a good hunter and a valiant warrior.

“Throwing the tomahawk was another boyish sport in which many acquired considerable skill. The tomahawk, with its handle of a certain length, will make a given number of turns within a certain distance; say in five steps it will strike with the edge, the handle downwards—at the distance of seven and a half it will strike with the edge, the handle upwards, and so on. A little experience enabled the boy to measure the distance with his eye when walking through the wood, and to strike a tree with his tomahawk in anyway he chose. A well grown boy at the age of twelve or thirteen, was furnished with a small rifle and shot pouch. He then became a foot soldier, and had his port-hole assigned him. Hunting squirrels, turkeys, and racoons, soon made him expert in the use of his gun.

“The athletic sports of running, jumping, and wrestling, were the pastimes of boys in common with men. Dramatic narrations, chiefly concerning Jack and the Giant, furnished our young people with another source of amusement during their leisure hours. The different incidents of the narration were easily committed to memory, and have been handed down from generation to generation.” The singing of the first settlers was rude enough. “Robin Hood furnished a number of our songs; the balance were mostly tragical; these were denominated ‘love songs about murder.’ As to cards, dice, backgammon, and other games of chance, we knew nothing about them. They are among the blessed gifts of civilization!

“Hunting was an important part of the employment of the early settlers. For some years the woods supplied them with the greater amount of their subsistence, and it was no uncommon thing for families to live several months without a mouthful of bread. It frequently happened that there was no breakfast till it was obtained from the woods. Fur constituted the people’s money; they had nothing else to give in exchange for rifles, salt, and iron, on the other side of the mountains. The fall and early part of the winter was the season for hunting the deer, and the whole of the winter, including part of the spring, for bears and fur-skinned animals. It was a customary saying, that fur is good during every month in the name of which the letter R occurs.

“As soon as the leaves were pretty well down, and the weather became rainy, accompanied with light snows, these men, after acting the part of husbandmen as far as the state of warfare permitted, began to feel that they were hunters, and became uneasy at home, their minds being wholly occupied with the camp and chase. Hunting was not a mere ramble in pursuit of game, in which there was nothing of skill and calculation; on the contrary, the hunter before he set out in the morning, was informed by the state of the weather where he might reasonably expect to find his game, whether on the bottom, the sides, or tops of the hills. In stormy weather the deer always seek the most sheltered places, and the leeward side of the hills. In rainy weather, when there is not much wind, they keep in the open woods on the high ground. In every situation it was requisite for the hunter to ascertain the course of the wind, so as to get the leeward of the game. As it was necessary, too, to know the cardinal points, he had to observe the trees to ascertain them. The bark of an aged tree is thicker and much rougher on the north than the south side; and the same may be said of the moss. From morning till night the hunter was on the alert to gain the wind of his game, and approach them without being discovered. If he succeeded in killing a deer, he skinned it and hung it up out of the reach of the wolves, and immediately resumed the chase till the close of the evening, when he bent his course towards his camp; when arrived there he kindled up his fire, and together with his fellow hunter, cooked his supper. The supper finished, the adventures of the day furnished tales for the evening, in which the spike-buck, the two and three pronged buck, the doe and barren doe, figured to great advantage.”[20]

“A place for a camp was selected as near water as convenient, and a fire was kindled by the side of the largest suitable log that could be procured. The ground was preferred to be rather sideling, that the hunters might lie with the feet to the fire, and the head up hill. The common mode of preparing a repast was by sharpening a stick at both ends, and sticking one end in the ground before the fire, and their meat on the other end. This stick could be turned round, or the meat on it, as occasion required. Sweeter roast meat than was prepared in this manner no European epicure ever tasted. Bread, when they had flour to make it of, was either baked under the ashes, or the dough rolled in long rolls, and wound round a stick like that prepared for roasting meat, and managed in the same way. Scarce any one who has not tried it, can imagine the sweetness of such a meal, in such a place, at such a time. French mustard, or the various condiments used as a substitute for an appetite, are nothing to this.”[21]