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CHAPTER X

THE INDIAN WAR—CONTINUED.

St. Clair's Invasion of the Indian Country—The 1nhabitants of Fort Frye Warned of Danger—The Friendship and Heroism of an Indian of King Phillip's Tribe—Attack upon the Inmates of the Garrison—Stratagems of the Savages—Narrow Escape of Waldo Putnam and Nathaniel Little at Belpre—The Warning Dream of Joe Rodgers, the Ranger—His Death at the Hands of Indians Within Sight of Campus Martius—Henderson's Race for Life—Matthew Kerr Killed —Henderson's and Hamilton Kerr's Engagement With Indians on Duck Creek—One Indian Killed—A Ghastly Sight at Campus Martius—Hazard of Carrying on Labor in the Fields—Killing of Joseph Kelley at Belleville (Virginia), and Captivity of His Son—Sunday Service Interrupted by Indian Alarm—A Fight Upon the Little Muskingum-Benoni Hurlburt, of the Belpre Settlement, Killed on the Little Hocking—Deadly Attack on Nicholas Carpenter and Five Others at "Carpenter's Run "—Capture of Daniel Converse at Water, ford—Reception of the News of St. Clair's Overwhelming Defeat—The Entire Frontier Open to Attack—Condition of the Garrisons in the Ohio Company's Territory—Preparations Made by the General Government for Subduing the Indians—" Mad Anthony" Wayne's Army—The Attention of the Indians in a Measure Diverted From the Settlements—Mrs. Brown, Her Children, and Persia Dunham, Killed at Newbury—Attack on Return J. Meigs Near Fort Harmar —A Colored Boy Slain—General Putnam Treats With the Wabash Tribes—Visit of Friendly Indians to Marietta—Dinner at Campus Martius—Belpre Settlers Leave "Farmer's Castle"—Major Nathan Goodale Taken Prisoner—Uncertainty as to His Fate—Belpre Settlers Send a Petition to Washington—" A Totat Breaking Up of the Settlements" Apprehended—The Colonists Obtain Money by Selling Corn to the Army Contractors—Bird Lochart's Adventure—The Rangers or Spies—Joshua Fleehart's Winter in Solitude Upon the Scioto —Attack Upon the Armstrong Cabin—Mrs. Armstrong and Two Children Killed—Three Others Taken Prisoners—Their Ultimate Restoration to Freedom—Settlement at Olive Green—Abel Sherman Killed—His Death Avenged After the Close of the War—The Story of the Indian Silverheels—Robert Worth Slain Near Fort Harmar Wayne's Victory—The Feeling of Security in the Ohio Company’s Garrisons Leads to Loss of Life Jonas Davis Killed near Belpre—Daring Pursuit of the Murderers—The Closing Tragedy of the War in Washington County—Sherman Waterman Shot on Wolf Creek, May 21, 1795—Bravery of William Hart—Wayne's Treaty—Famine, Fever and Pestilence Added to the Horrors of War—Humanity of the Virginia Pioneer, Isaac Williams.

WHILE preparations had been making locally to resist the Indians, Governor St. Clair and the General Government were maturing measures for securing a settled peace. The plan proposed was threefold: to send a messenger to the western Indians with offers of a peaceable adjustment of difficulties, at the same time to prepare expedition parties which should make expeditions into the enemy's country if the peace proposition was not entertained, and to organize an overwhelming army to take possession, build forts in and hold the territory northwest of the Ohio.

Buckongahelas, the war chief of the Delawares; Blue Jacket, of the Shawnees, and Little Turtle, of the Miamis, were engaged in forming a confederacy of all the tribes northwest of the Ohio to drive the whites from the country. The people of western Virginia had been greatly alarmed by the recent outrages of the savages near their border, and had memorialized their governor upon the defenseless condition of the border, and in response to their solicitations authority had been given for raising troops to penetrate the Indian country. St. Clair was in Pittsburgh in April, receiving volunteers and detachments of the regular army, horses, provisions, arms and equipments. On the fifteenth of May he

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reached Fort Washington, and his army was gradually concentrated there. In the fall with an army twenty-three hundred strong, exclusive of militia, peace negotiations having proved futile, he marched northward toward the seat of the greatest Indian population (most of the tribes were then gathered upon the Maumee and the Wabash in the country adjacent) building forts at the sites of the present villages of Hamilton and Eaton, in the western most tier of Ohio counties, and Fort Jefferson in the present county of Darke. Continuing his march he met the allied tribes and suffered the most disastrous defeat (not even excepting Braddock's) in the history of Ameri- can arms in the west. But of that later.

If the glance that has swiftly swept over the far away region on the historiographic map, which represents the theatre of St. Clair's invasion and battle, be returned to southeastern Ohio, it will be seen that although the main line of Indian operations was after the early sum- mer of 1795 along what is now the western boundary of our State, there has still been through all of the season from snow to snow Indian alarm, Indian depredation, Indian murder, upon the Muskingum.

Early in March the Indians attacked Fort Frye, committed hostilities at Belpre and killed Captain Joseph Rodgers, the brave ranger at Marietta.

The notice given by the Ballards had saved the people of Waterford in January, but in February another war party composed of some of the Wyandots and Delawares in the Sandusky country was preparing to proceed against this settlement. Early in March the hostile band had reached Duncan's Falls, about forty miles above Waterford, and encamped there preparatory to striking the intended blow. It so happened that the agent through whom their plans for a repetition of the horrors of Big Bottom were to be defeated was with them, a friendly Indian of King Philip's tribe, named John Miller, who had been at Marietta and Waterford and knew nearly all of the Ohio company settlers. He had come from Rhode Island, where he had been among white men nearly all his life, within 1788 with General Varnum, and in the fall of 1790 had gone with George, the college educated son of Captain White Eyes (Koquethogechton) the Delaware chief, from the Muskingum to Sandusky, in the capacity of guide and hunter. Wishing to return he had joined the war party, although it seems permission to do so had been reluctantly obtained, the Indians being distrustful of him on account of his known association with the whites. Their suspicions had increased during the march toward the Muskingum, and some of the party had proposed killing him for fear he should prove treacherous. Arriving at Duncan's Falls, the pleasant memories he had of kind friends at Waterford, made him even more anxious than he had been before to save them from the terrible fate that seemed impending. If he could escape he would be able to carry them warning of their danger, but to effect an escape from a party of alert warriors, who were jealously watching his every movement, was not an easy matter. To avoid at least being compelled to join in the attack on his old associates he purposely wounded his foot with a hatchet while cutting wood. When the Indians set out from the camp upon the ninth of March to take up quarters nearer the settlement they intended to strike, Miller was left behind, as he had hoped to be, for he had planned an escape, but some of the more suspicious of the band took a precaution which he had not looked for, and which for a time filled his mind with consternation. They had not thought his wound alone sufficient to keep him a prisoner at the camp, and so tied his hands tightly together. He lay perfectly still for a long time after the departure of the braves, fearing that they might have left some of their number to secretly observe his movements, but when he felt sure that if such was the case the watchers' patience would have become exhausted, he began the tedious task of freeing himself For hours he painfully worked the thongs back and forth, and finally got them so stretched that he could slip them from his hands. Then he collected some logs and drift wood, and with his hatchet cut grape vines with which he bound several pieces together in the form of a rude raft, and he also fashioned a paddle. Supplying himself liberally from the stock of powder and balls, which the Indians had left at the camp, and throwing into the water all that he could not carry, he was ready for departure.

Just as daylight was fading away in the wild valley, he pushed his frail craft out into the stream. The river was high and the strong current carried him along with little effort on his part, at a good rate of speed. All night he floated silently down stream, sometimes fast and sometimes slowly, but never coming to a full stop, even to prepare a meal, for he had with him a small quantity of dried venison, with which he satisfied his hunger. The long night had passed and the sky was just beginning to show the light of dawn, when Miller found himself opposite the mouth of Bald Eagle creek, and knew that he was not many miles from the people whom he was endeavoring, at the risk of his own life, to give warning of the danger that was threatening them. Suddenly he caught sight of a blazing camp fire on the river bank, which he well knew to be that of the Delawares and Wyandots. It was too late for him to abandon his raft and make a detour through the woods, and his only hope was in the chance of passing down stream unnoticed by the keen visioned savages above him. He threw himself prostrate upon the little raft and remained perfectly motionless, hoping that if seen at all the craft would be mistaken for one of those clumps of floating debris which abound in streams when at flood tide. He heard rifle shots, and supposed that he had been discovered, but no rifle bullets whistled near him, and he surmised that the Indians had been shooting at turkeys in the tree tops or some other game. He was soon out of danger, borne onward by the kindly current, in the uncertain light of dawn, and with a thankful heart he plied his paddle and shot rapidly along, taking not a moment's rest until, sweeping around a bend in the river, he saw Fort Frye just ahead upon the left bank.

The structure was new to him, but he was aware from other objects and the familiar appearance of the landscape that he had arrived at the Waterford settlement.

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He landed above the stockade, and making his way cautiously toward it lest he should be mistaken for a hostile Indian and shot, he called out to the sentry, giving his name, and stating that he wanted to come into the garrison. After a few minutes' delay, he was admitted. Captain Gray and a number of the older men in the garrison gathered about Miller and listened to what he had to say. There were many who suspected the faithful Indian who had done them this invaluable service, of being a spy sent in by the hostile savages to learn the strength of the garrison, the place of the defences, and daily routine of life. He had been some time away from the settlement, and although he possessed when with them a good character, they knew not how association with the people of his own race might have operated in estranging his friendship and reviving savage instincts. It was thought best, however, to proceed as if there was no doubt of the truth of the assertions which he made, and preparations were immediately begun to strengthen the condition of the garrison.

The outer works were not yet all completed, and the gates had not yet been hung. This was accomplished in two days' time. The watch was doubled. No attack had been made up to this time, and no signs of Indians discovered by the rangers who were now on the alert, and scouring the woods in every direction several miles from the fort. The suspicion that Miller had not acted in good faith, was now more strongly and generally entertained than before, and many regretted that he had been allowed to go from the fort. He had said that if he was captured he would be put to death with great torture, requested the loan of a canoe to go to Marietta, and had signified his intention of going from there directly to his old home in Rhode Island. He had been -given a letter to the directors of the Ohio company at Marietta, and had left the garrison, and it was subsequently ascertained had, after receiving a reward for his unselfish act, indeed gone east. But this the settlers at Waterford did not know at the time, and opinions were expressed that he had returned to the Indians in the northwest, who it was suspected had sent him out to gain full knowledge of the condition of the settlements prior to fitting out a war party.

It transpired that the reason the band which Miller had outwitted did not immediately fall upon Waterford, was to be explained by the fact that they had changed their plan after leaving the camp at Duncan's Falls, and resolved to strike their first blow at the little settlement at the forks of Duck creek, which they were unaware had been abandoned after the Big Bottom massacre. Finding that they had no opportunity to murder upon Duck creek they returned to the Muskingum on the evening of the second day after the alarm had been given. On the following morning, March 11th, they made the attack. The inhabitants of Fort Frye had by this time laid aside their extreme cautiousness, and a number of them had gone out before daylight to feed their cattle and perform various duties. The Indians, anticipating this had ambushed themselves in various localities commanding the cabins where the cattle were sheltered, or the approaches to them.

Wilbur Sprague, a young man, had gone to the cabin formerly occupied by the Sprague family to milk a cow, and emerging, milk pail in had, was fired upon by several Indians in concealment. One of the balls struck his hip and almost disabled him. He ran eighty or a hundred rods to the fort, however, a number of the enemy being in close pursuit, and did not sink down until near the gate, when he took advantage of the protection afforded by a large stump, until his brothers ran out and carried him in. A volley was fired at the brave young men as they lifted their burden, and another as they halted to open the gate. The balls pierced the heavy oak puncheons by their side, but they escaped without the slightest injury. Two of the spies, McGuffey and McCullock, hurried out when they heard the shooting to learn the cause. McCullock was deceived by an Indian stratagem and came very near being lured to his death. Some of the Indians were dressed in match coats and hats similar to those of the soldiers in the garrison, and he went readily toward them until warned by Wanton Devol, who cried out at the top of his voice : "They are going to shoot you!" McCullock sprang back just in time to save his life, a shot fired at him killing his dog, which had followed him from the block-house. He ran in a zig-zag course toward the gate, and although made a target for several shots was untouched. Another narrow escape was that of Samuel and William Sprague, who were among those who had paid little regard to the report brought in by the Indian, John Miller, and thinking that there were no savages about, started down the river for Merietta in a canoe. They had gone about a quarter of a mile when they heard the firing at the garrison, and after considering for a moment the safest plan to pursue—for John's warning then instantly flashed into their minds—they rowed back to the fort, passing very close to one party of Indians, though out of sight, close to the bank of the river. They entered at the water gate and were safe. A constant fire was kept up from the garrison, and the attacking party, seeing that there was small chance of winning the battle, retreated out of range of the guns and confined their hostility to the killing of the cattle, destroying about twenty-five fine animals, and driving nearly a dozen away, among them being two yokes of oxen, which were afterwards identified by a prisoner at Sandusky.

The only Indian who received any harm in the brief skirmish was one who was shot a very long distance off by Judge Devol, who fired through one of the loop-holes of the fort with an old ducking gun of very great length of barrel. The Indian was one of a party who, supposing themselves beyond the reach of a musket ball, were making very offensive and tantalizing gestures. He was evidently wounded in the leg or hip, for he went away with a marked limp. After nightfall an eccentric old bachelor, Jabez Barlow, who had been living at his cabin a mile below the fort, in spite of the remonstrances of his associates, came into the garrison exhibiting every symptom of having undergone a severe ordeal. He had

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gone toward the fort when he heard the first guns fired in the morning, but turned back, having made up his mind that it was only some of the men firing at a mark, when he saw in the door of his cabin an Indian. Barlow dropped flat on the ground among the underbrush and leaves, and had remained there all day, scarcely daring to move a muscle for fear that he would be seen by some of the savages and killed. After this experience he was glad to remain an inmate of the garrison.

Although the Indians retreated after this ineffectual attempt to destroy the Waterford garrison, they did not return to Sandusky, but, dividing into small parties, went immediately into the vicinities of Belpre and Marietta, where they lay in wait for such persons as might venture outside of the stockades.

Upon the twelfth of March, the day after the attack at . Fort Frye, Waldo Putnam, a grandson of the famous Revolutionary general, and son of Colonel Israel Putnam, with Nathaniel Little, were fired upon at Belpre, and narrowly escaped death. They had gone out from "Farmers Castle" to milk and feed the cows, half a mile below, and while young Putnam was milking, Little, who was on lookout, caught sight of an Indian a few rods away, with his gun levelled to fire. The gun rang out and the ball tore up the earth where Putnam had been sitting, he having sprung aside when his companion gave the alarm by calling out "Indians! Indians!" The men ran toward the garrison, three Indians who sprang from concealment in the edge of the woods pursuing and firing at them until they were driven off by a party of men who came out with arms, having heard the gun shot. Disappointed by their failure to take human life, the Indians sought to vent their ire by killing cattle, as they had done at Waterford. They killed several and wounded others, among them two large and very valuable oxen, which were afterwards brought into the fort. One of them was butchered, being so badly hurt that it could not live, and the other recovered. This was the first actual hostility at Belpre after the building of "Farmers Castle."

Two days after the hostilities at Waterford, and the day after the fortunate escape of Putnam and Little at Belpre —upon the thirteenth of March, which was Sunday—Captain Joseph Rodgers and Edward Henderson, the two rangers employed at Campus Martins, started out on a scout up the Muskingum. As Rodgers passed the guard at the gate he had remarked: "Well, boys, to-day we take a scalp or lose one." It seems that Rodgers had had an ominous dream in the night, and when morning came was in a very somber frame of mind. Questioned about his dejection and refusal to partake of breakfast he had related his dream, and the officers of the day, impressed with his earnestness and foreboding spirit, urged him to remain in the garrison and let another ranger go out on the tour of observation. He said "No, I shall never shrink from duty because of a dream." These remarks and the manner of brave Captain Joseph Rodgers were brought vividly to mind when Henderson arrived breathless at Marietta, after night had fallen, and told of the fate of his comrade—how he had been shot down by Indians lurking in ambush. The ominous dream, but little thought of in the morning, was then the topic of awed conversation in little groups at Campus Martius, the garrison at the Point and Fort Harmar.

The two rangers had made their usual circuit, and, in the whole day's tramp through the woods, had discovered no Indians or signs of their having been in the vicinity. At night, when returning, and within a mile of home, two Indians rose up suddenly from behind a log directly ahead and fired upon them. Rodgers fell, shot through the breast, into Henderson's arms. "I am a dead man," said he, "you must save yourself." Henderson fled down the hill with the fleetness of a deer, and as he ran two more Indians rose from their hiding-place and fired their rifles at him. The silk handkerchief bound about his head, after the manner in which they were commonly worn by the scouts, was cut by one of the balls, which also grazed hrs scalp, and the other passed through the collar of his hunting shirt. After running a few rods directly away from Campus Martins he discovered that his pursuers had got ahead of him, and so he turned to the right, ran up a ravine and crossed over the hills to Duck creek, in his flight passing the Indian camp, where one of the party was so intently engaged in cooking supper that he did not notice him. Henderson had now eluded the two Indians who had followed him, and though aching to revenge the death of his comrade, did not dare to fire upon the Indian in camp, as the shot would have revealed his whereabouts. When Henderson arrived at the Point and hurriedly told his experience, the alarm gun was fired and answered from Fort Harmar and Campus Martini; The inhabitants were filled with alarm, and expecting an immediate attack, the ordinary dwelling-houses were quickly deserted by their occupants, who sought refuge in the block-houses.

In the morning the confusion subsided, and about ten o'clock a number of men went out from Campus Martius and the Point garrison to bring in the body of the murdered ranger. It was found stripped of clothing, but undisfigured except by the removal of the scalp. The men bore it into Marietta upon a litter made of poles and the burial took place upon the east side of Second street. Captain Rodgers' death was severely felt at Marietta and in the other settlements, as he had been much liked as a man, and the settlers 'had a great respect for his bravery and sagacity. It will be remembered that he assumed command at Wolf Creek Mills on the occasion of the Big Bottom massacre and exhibited great efficiency in making preparations for defence and in notifying the people of Waterford, Marietta and Belpre of the danger that threatened them. He had been a ranger from the fall of 1790, and one of the bravest who ever served in that capacity. He was a native of Pennsylvania, a man of large and powerful build and had served in the Revolutionary war. Hamilton Kerr was engaged to fill his place as spy. He was thoroughly familiar with the woods, having been for two years a hunter at Fort Harmar. Matthew Kerr, the father of Hamilton, was killed in the summer of this year. He had settled, as has been related in a former chapter upon Kerr's island, prior to the arrival

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of the Ohio company colony, and soldiers had been detailed from Fort Harmar to assist him in building his cabin. After the war had commenced in earnest Kerr had removed to the garrison at the forest but had left his cattle at the little island clearing, and made daily trips there in his canoe to feed them. One day he found a horse tied in an empty barn, which he took with him to the garrison conjecturing, and correctly, that it had been left there by Indians who had been on a plundering expedition in Virginia, and who were still lurking in the vicinity to commit further depredations. The next day June 17th, he went up again to attend to his stock though advised not to by his sons, who feared that the Indians who had lost the horse would be lying in wait to murder, if possible, the person, who had taken it. Kerr went, however, and just as he was about to land from the canoe, four Indians fired upon him. He fell back pierced by three rifle balls, and one of the assailants springing into the water, made his way to the canoe, scalped the old man and pushed the boat out into the stream. It was picked up, when it reached the mouth of the Muskingum, and a party was immediately sent out to pursue the murderers, but they were not to be found.

In July, William Smith, who was acting as one of the sentries for a party of men who were cutting timber on the ridge back of the garrison, was alarmed by a great commotion among the cattle, which came rushing by him showing every indication of fear of which the brute is capable. Smith thinking Indians were near fled to the spot where the men had been working, and as they had gone to the garrison, time for quitting work having arrived, he quickly followed them. He told his story, and it was more than corroborated when on examination an arrow was found still sticking in the flesh of one of the cows. It being thus made evident that Indians were again in the neighborhood of the garrison, and that they knew where the cattle ranged, it was thought best to make a demonstration which should intimidate the Indians and make them at least remain at a respectful distance from the garrison. A company of forty men was accordingly made up consisting about equally of soldiers from Fort Harmar and volunteers from the Point garrison and Campus Martins. One party led by a lieutenant went up the Muskingum valley and the other, which was the stronger, starting directly toward the abandoned mills that had been built by Shepherd and Sproat, on Duck creek, two miles above the Ohio. This division was led by Henderson and Hamilton Kerr, the former of whom was thirsting to avenge the death of his old comrade, Captain Rodgers, and the latter that of his father. Hitherto these men had been unable to come upon the Indians, but to-day they met with a small band. The two parties had reunited and fallen upon a trail which they followed to the crest of the hill looking down upon the mills. While they were anxiously surveying the valley beneath them for an appearance of the savages they saw six of them cross the stream at a riffle from the east and go toward a small deserted cabin, where the men formerly engaged at the mill had lived. Henderson led a small party in a detour by which he hoped to gain a position commanding the other side of ale house, which the Indians had now entered, while Kerr remained with the rest of the men at the spot from which they had first caught sight of their skulking enemy.

Before the moving party could make the intended circuit an Indian came out of the house and around upon the side toward Kerr. According to the plan agreed upon no shots were to be fired until Henderson and his companion had reached a proper station from which to open fire, but upon seeing this Indian, Kerr, unable to restrain himself as he thought of them under of his father, brought his rifle to his shoulder and fired. The Indian fell, not dead, but wounded, and Kerr, rushing forward, dispatched him, plunging his hunting knife again and again into his body. George Kerr shot at and wounded another Indian, but so slightly that he was able to escape with the rest. In the blanket of the dead Indian was found a halter, all in one piece, ingeniously cut from a buffalo skin, and several other articles. It is a fact of history illustrating the savagery of which some of the whites were capable, that the head of this Indian was cut off, impaled upon a pole and carried aloft at the front of the company of hunters as they returned to Campus Martins.* The next day the body was brought in for a Dr. McIntosh, who boiled it to get the bones for a skeleton, which, it appears, he was too ignorant to put together after the work of nature had been undone. The Indians who learned of the disposition that had been made of the dead body, were filled with disgust and superstitious horror.

Proofs of the presence of Indians were discovered almost every day, although weeks sometimes elapsed, and even months, when no serious depredations were committed. Indications of an attempt at the surprisal and murder of some of the men, were discovered one day in July, near what is now Mound cemetery. A large number of men had been working in a field of flax and oats, . owned by General Putnam, and situated just east of the mound square, and had so nearly finished the task of harvesting that it was thought unnecessary for the whole force to go out the last day. A careful watch during the progress of the work had failed to discover any signs of Indians, and consequently sentries were disposed of, and General Putnam's sons, William, Rufus, and Edwin, his son-in-law, William Browning, and Augustus Stone, a boy ten or twelve years of age, were selected to finish the job. When the others were ready to start early in the morning they found that Browning had gone to the Point garrison on some errand, and unwilling to go to their work without him, waited until about ten o'clock, when he returned. They then went to the field, and before going to work deeming it advisable to reconnoitre the ground, Augustus Stone ascended the mound while the others tramped through the standing corn surrounding it. Very soon

* Hildreth does not mention this circumstance though he does that which we relate subsequently. This babarity, committed in the exultation of revenge, is vouched for by Horace Nye in the Western Recorder of April 8, 1847. He says, after relating the incident: "I remember going with my mother to our garden, when hearing the yell of some of the men we discovered the procession they had formed. Horrible sight."

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they discovered numerous fresh tracks of moccasined feet around the margin of the field and in the vicinity of the mound, and hastily retreated to Campus Martins. The tracks had doubtless been made early that morning by Indians who intended to shoot down the workmen when they came into the field, but who had doubtless become impatient and left when the usual hour for beginning work had passed, the sun risen high in the heavens and no man appeared. The delay caused by Browning's absence from Campus Martius, in the morning, had saved all their lives. The necessity of working in the fields, planting, and harvesting, was important even during the most threatening periods of the war. A famine would soon have ensued if the crops had not been carefully cared for. The settlers to gain a mere subsistence were forced to expose themselves to attack. If they could have remained steadily in their garrisons there would be fewer deeds of violence to record in these pages, but they had two enemies to contend with, and in seeking to provide against starvation many fell victims to the savages.

Sometime during the summer of 1791—the exact date is not known—James Kelley was killed on the Virginia shore about twenty miles below Marietta, at the Belleville garrison. He had settled in Marietta in 1788 with his wife and three children, James, John, and Joseph. Their fourth child, Arthur St. Clair Kelley, was the first child born in Marietta. Kelley and his family removed from Marietta to Waterford, and from there to Belleville. . The father and two sons were one day working in a small field of corn quite near the block-house, when they were surprised by a party of Indians. Mr. Kelley had no gun or other arms to defend himself with, and was instantly killed. John succeeded in reaching the block-house, Joseph, then about seven or eight years of age, was captured and carried away. The widowed mother fearing to remain at Belleville after the killing of her husband, made her way with her three children to Marietta, where she remained through the period of the war as an inmate of Campus Martius. She received no tidings from her little son Joseph, and mourned him as dead, but when the war was over, and Wayne held his great treaty at Greenville in 1795, the boy was brought in among many other captives and surrendered to the commissioners. Return Jonathan Meigs, sr., who was present, took charge of the little fellow and returned him to his mother.

It occasionally happened that the simple, but solemn Sunday services at the garrisons were rudely interrupted by Indian alarms. The troops were mustered every Sunday morning for inspection, agreeably to a militia law, and afterward "headed by Colonel Sproat with his drawn sword, the civil officers and the clergyman, with the fife and drum, marched to the hall for divine sevice." Almost all of the people were congregated on such occasions and most of them kept their arms by their sides or conveniently near. Once, as the Rev. Daniel Story was preaching in the northwest block-house of Campus Martius, and the people closely listening to his sermon, Peter Niswonger, one of the rangers, burst into the garrison with the startling information that Indians were in the neighborhood. Instantly the preacher ceased his discourse, the congregation was thrown into confusion, and the alarming "long roll" of the drum resounded through the stockade as the signal for every man to hasten to his post. A party was soon made up, consisting of six rangers, ten or twelve citizen volunteers, and as many soldiers, to apprehend if possible the Indians whose presence had been discovered by Niswonger. They embarked in canoes and went up the Ohio to the mouth of Duck creek. Landing there the shrewd woodsmen were not long in discovering a fresh trail, which led them over to the waters of the Little Muskingum. In a hollow between the hills and about half a mile east of the stream, the smoke of a camp fire was seen curling up through the trees. Dividing the company into two parties the rangers attempted to flank the Indians, but before they could do so the Indians had become alarmed by some movement made by the incautious soldiers, and the fight was precipitated by their flight. The Indrans ran up the small creek on which they had encamped, but two of the band leaving the rest ascended the spur of a hill. The spies who had pushed ahead to intercept the fugitives fired on these two, and one of them fell, wounded through the hips, just as he had gained the foot of a low rocky ledge, up which his companion had clambered. The second Indian could have made his escape, but bravely stood by to protect the wounded one. He fired at Peter Anderson who saved himself by jumping behind. a tree, and in another moment the Indian fell dead, shot through by several balls from the guns of the rangers. They had completely surrounded him, so that the tree to which he had taken offered him no protection. The wounded Indian escaped while the attention of the whites was upon his protector. There had been seven Indians in the party.

The five who had escaped the rangers, finding themselves safe, made a detour through the woods and came up in the rear of the camp from which they had been driven where the soldiers were now regaling themselves with the contents of the kettle which hid been left boiling upon the fire. The first intimation of danger that the soldiers, satisfying their hunger, had, was the report of five rifles and the whistling of as many balls close to their heads. One man fell into the creek exclaiming "I am killed," and the others ran to the rangers for protection. When the whole party returned to the camp they found the soldier whom they had supposed to be killed or fatally wounded, still lying in the bed of the creek, but on pulling him out and making an examination only a mere surface scratch was found on his person. The Indians had again retreated after scaring the soldiers, and though the rangers went some distance in the direction they had taken, they saw nothing of them. A scalp was taken from the dead Indian and carried into the garrison. Had it not been for the indiscretion of the soldiers, green in Indian fighting, it was thought the whole party could have been destroyed, but as it was the rangers felt as if some good had been accomplished, for it was by such retaliations as this that the Indians were prevented from becoming even bolder in their depredations and murders than they had been, and

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to approach the settlements less frequently and with more caution. Ordinarily, after such a movement against them, they refrained for a considerable time from harassing the people.

During the same month—September—the little community at Belpre was again horrified by the murder of one of its members. Although there had been several hostile visits of the savages to this settlement the killing of Benoni Hurlburt upon the twenty-eighth of September was the first that had taken place since the actual beginning of the war. Hurlburt had been brought up in the frontier country, and had come to Marietta in 1788 from Pennsylvania. For some time he had beeh with the Belpre associates, and had followed the calling of a hunter and trapper, and with the assistance of his sons and Joshua Fleehart had kept the garrison pretty well supplied with meat. He had a natural instinct for the chase, and was never happier than when in the woods. He always dressed in deerskin and had adopted many of the customs of the Indians. Feeling very confident of his ability to elude the savages he had often ventured long distances down the river and back through the forest, either alone or with a trusty companion, and but little fear of his safety was felt at the garrison. On the day that he met his death he had gone down the Ohio to the mouth of the Little Hocking, a distance of about three miles, in company with Fleehart, another experienced woodman. Their object was to visit traps which they had set for fur-bearing animals, and to secure any game that they could as the garrison larder was very low. On the way down they heard a sound as of turkeys gobbling, on the north shore, but, as Fleehart, after listening closely for some time found that the noise proceeded from Indians hidden in the underbrush, who were endeavoring to lure them to the bank, they only paddled .their canoe faster down stream.

They neither saw nor heard anything to further alarm them, and soon after they had reached the mouth of the Little Hocking, Hurlburt went ashore and travelled through the woods near the creek, while Fleehart paddled the canoe slowly up stream. Not many minutes elapsed before the report of a rifle reached the man in the canoe. His practiced ear telling him that it did not come from his companion's gun, he instantly thought of Indians, and supposing that if Hurlburt was shot they would run to the bank to see what had become of the canoe, he ran it aground on the opposite bank and concealed himself in a place from which he could fire upon them to the best advantage. Presently he heard the loud barking of two dogs which had> followed Hurlburt, but after a few seconds the noise ceased, and listening intently he could faintly hear the groans of a man in great pain, and the peculiar guttural voices of Indians as they carried on in low tones a hurried conversation. They were probably discussing whether or no they should search for the companion of the man they had made their victim, but they did not approach the creek, and after the elapse of about an hour Fleehart entered his canoe and went up to the garrison. On the following morning a party of men went down to secure the body of the murdered hunter. They found it without difficulty. By the side of the corpse lay the lifeless dog, whose barking as it faithfully tried to guard the body of its master had been heard by Fleehart until it was silenced by a tomahawk stroke. Hurlburt had been scalped, as all the victims of the Indians were, but was otherwise unmutilated.

The death of Hurlburt was a severe shock to the people at Farmer's Castle. Besides being the loss of a good man, and one whom all had liked, the killing was a fresh illustration of the dangers to which all were exposed, and of the boldness of the enemy. Other hostile demonstrations had been made, but as human life had not been taken the impression created had been less deep than that which was now experienced. Waldo Putnam and Nathaniel Little had been a second time surprised by the Indians at the exact spot at which they were fired upon, as hitherto related, and had with great difficulty made their retreat to the fort. The Indians had also killed or driven away many cattle, and the associates had organized a mutual insurance society, to make good from a common fund each others' losses in this line. Horses were not kept at alL They were regarded as certain to be stolen, and offered too strong a temptation to the Indians to visit the settlement.

In October the Marietta settlement suffered a loss which exceeded any previous ones. This time the hostile blow was struck by a party of Shawnees, led by the famous Tecumseh. He and his warriors had been on a marauding expedition on the Little Kanawha and Hughes rivers in Virginia, and in making a circuit to return, fell upon the trail of Nicholas Carpenter and five men in his employ, who were driving some cattle to Marietta from Clarksburgh. Carpenter had several times made ventures of a similar character to the one in which he was now engaged, and had brought many cattle over from the older and securer settlements, for the garrison at Fort Harmar and the people of Marietta. On this occasion he had reached a small stream falling into the Ohio six miles above Marietta, and encamped upon it for the night. As they had seen no signs of Indians while upon their return, and the men being all very tired, no sentries were set, and all fell into a sound sleep, after they had partaken of their evening meal, the cattle being allowed to roam at large and feed upon the wild pea vines. The horses were hobbled, the bells upon them unmuffled, and they, too, were turned loose to forage for themselves during the night. The little camp included Carpenter, a little son ten years of age, and five men: Jesse Hughes, — Ellis, George Leggitt, — Barnes, and John Paul. Early in the morning the men were astir, refreshed with their long, unbroken slumber, and Carpenter, as was his custom, prepared for devotional exercises. The men took seats around the fire and were silent, while Carpenter opened his hymn-book and began to read from it a song of worship. Just as the first reverent and impressive words were uttered by the good old man, the hushed camp was startled by the loud cracking of rifle shots and the terrible war whoop of six or seven Indians who arose from behind a large fallen tree. Ellis fell dead upon the

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ground, and John Paul was shot through the hand. All but poor Ellis sprang toward their guns, which were leaning against a large sycamore, but before they could all reach them the savages were in their midst.

Some fled, and some, unable to do so, made a strong fight, but resistance was useless. Burns was killed by the tomahawks and knives of the Indians, after what must have been a hotly contested encounter. When the place was visited afterwards, by a company of men from Marietta, his body was found, bearing many wounds, while in his cold and rigid hand his knife was still closely grasped, and the grass and weeds for several yards around were tramped down and the underbrush broken. Carpenter and his little boy were not immediately killed, hut being taken prisoners, were dispatched not long after the attack, at a little distance from the camp in which they had gone to sleep the night before with the fullest sense of security. The body of Carpenter was found wrapped in a blanket, and his scalp had not been taken. This fact was thought to be traceable to the intercession of one of the captors, whose gun had been repaired without charge by Carpenter, who was a gunsmith by trade, at Marietta, the year before. Carpenter was left without arms with which to defend himself, as Hughes, when he had leaped to his feet after the first fire, had seized, in his excitement, both Carpenter's rifle and his own, and fled with them. He was a very strong and swift runner, but as he was only partly dressed at the time of the attack, was at a disadvantage. His leggings, being unlaced, fell down, and tripped him at almost every step, until he finally stopped and tore them completely off. As he did so his pursuers gained upon him, and one of them threw a tomahawk, which grazed his head, and would have cleft the skull had it struck fairly. Freed from his entanglement, Hughes easily distanced the Indians, and so made his escape. John Paul, the man wounded by the first fire, also saved his life by his fleetness of foot. Leggitt was chased nearly two miles, overtaken, and tomahawked, making the last of five, out of the seven persons, who were killed. Hughes and Paul arrived at the garrison at the Point, and gave the sad intelligence of the affair to the friends of Carpenter and the other men slain. More definite information, however, than they were able to give, was brought in by a negro boy, who arrived about sundown at Isaac Williams', on the Virginia side of the river, opposite the mouth of the Muskingum. He had been taken prisoner by Tecumseh and his little band of Shawnees, at Neil's station, near the mouth of the Little Kanawha, and had been with them several days. When the Indians had come upon the camp of the whites they had left him, with his hands bound, and tied to a tree, some distance in the rear. He had managed to escape, and, lying concealed in a hazel thicket, had witnessed several incidents of the massacre, for such it was. The Indians, after finishing their bloody work and finding the black boy gone, had probably come to the conclusion that he had got a considerable distance toward Marietta, and so immediately retreated down the Ohio, fearing pursuit as soon as the alarm had been given.

After the killing of Carpenter and his men, those who returned on expeditions beyond the immediate vicinity of the garrisons used the utmost caution. There were several alarms during the fall and once or twice Indrans were seen in the vicinity of Belpre, Marietta and Waterford, but there were no further hostilities of serious nature during the season. At Waterford there had been no trouble since the profitless attack on the fort in March, except the capture of Daniel Converse, which occurred in the month following. Converse, a young man who has heretofore been alluded to, was at work with some companions in the woods a short distance from Fort Frye, when a party of nine Ottawa and Chippewa Indians rose up from behind a brush fence and fired upon them. His companions fled to the garrison and Converse, left alone was taken prisoner and carried away to Sandusky, and from there to Detroit. The period of his captivity was only about six weeks. He passed through varied experiences, was treated for the most part very kindly, and finally made his escape and worked his way slowly eastward from one British post to another until he reached the American settlements, and then journeyed through to his home at Killingly, Connecticut, where he remained until 1794, when he again ventured to the west and located at Marietta.

Upon the fifth of December of this year Major Denny stopped at Marrietta on his way from Fort Washington (Cincinnati) to Philadelphia, and brought the unexpected and alarming news of the terrible disaster that had overtaken St. Clair's army. The battle had been fought November 4th, at a point which can now be best located as in the northern part of Darke county, near the western boundary of the State, less than two hundred miles in a direct line from Marietta, and less than one hundred from Fort Washington, between which place and the upper Ohio, keel-boats and canoes were almost daily passing, and yet, in the year 1791 it took more than a month for the report of the most important event which had ever occurred in the west to reach Marietta.

St. Clair's army, which we left sometime ago marching into the Indiana country, twenty-three hundred strong, reduced by sickness and desertion to between fourteen and fifteen hundred, had been overwhelmed in a single engagement with the forces of the powerful Indian confederacy, and upwards of six hundred men were killed, including many officers, while two hundred more were wounded. Fifty-six women were also butchered of the hundred or more who had followed the army. The Indians fought with terrible fury and showed no quarters. The vast slaughter they had made did not glut their vengeance or satisfy the hatred of the savages, and the grossest indecencies and acts of extremist cruelty were perpetrated in hundreds of cases upon the dying. Wounded men were pinned to the earth with great stakes driven through their bodies, and as the Indians were incensed by the understanding that this was a war for land, they crammed the throats of those who had fallen—the disabled and the dead—with the sand and clay of the battlefield.

Great was the alarm at Marietta and the other settlements in the Ohio company's purchase, in common with

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those of the entire frontier of a thousand miles, extending from the Allegheny to the Mississippi, when the news of St. Clair's defeat was received. They had felt confident that the result of the campaign would be permanent peace, and now they feared that the Indians would be more daring and bold than ever before, and would come upon them with overpowering numbers. When the greatest fear existed at Pittsburgh, throughout western Pennsylvania and Virginia, and along the Kentucky border, the state of feeling among the Ohio company settlers, it may be easily imagined, did not fall far short of absolute panic. Indeed, many, fearing that the Indians would now carry out their threat of extinguishing every white man's fire north of the Ohio, were upon the point of fleeing from the country. The situation was truly a serious one, for there was every reason to believe that instead of being assailed by small predatory bands of Indians, who had not joined the confederacy, the settlements would now be attacked by large forces and that the garrisons would either be taken through the onslaught of superior numbers or besieged and starved out. The alarm was at its height during the first few days after the reception of the news of St. Clair's defeat and then gradually subsided as those to whom the people looked as leaders evinced a determination to retain their land and began promptly to make preparations for strengthening their position. Several of the old defences were improved, and a new block-house was built upon the bank of the Muskingum, near Fort Harmar by Judge Joseph Gilman and his son, Benjamin Ives Gilman.

A company of soldiers were sent to Fort Harmar about the beginning of the year 1792, and the people felt much safer than they had during the last month of 1791. Confidence was slowly renewed by the enactment of wise measures by the Ohio company, and by the presence of an increased number of soldiers at the several garrisons, Fort Frye and Farmer's Castle, as well as at Marietta. Small detachments were sent out and changed at frequent intervals. Arms were received occasionally by individuals, but the Government did not fully supply the garrisons until the summer of 1792, when Colonel Sproat received a quantity of muskets, with bayonets affixed, fresh from the factory. The winter passed away without the occurrence of any hostilities, and the people generally followed the various iudustries which they chose and made considerable progress in the improvement of their homes and preparations for the spring planting.

As pleasant weather came on the settlers were again filled with apprehensions of attack, and it is probable that their worst fears would have been realized had it not been that the General Government was already making preparations for another campaign, which should be prosecuted with all possible vigor, and that the Indians, aware of the assembling of General Wayne's army at Pittsburgh, were holding councils and gathering strength for resistance. Thus their attention was in a measure diverted from the Ohio company's settlements, and from those in the Miami country, and along the Virginia and Kentucky border.

The first demonstration of Indian hostility in the spring of 1792 was at one of the Belpre group of settlements, six miles below "Farmers Castle," known as Newbury. Several families had located here at the time Belpre proper was settled and had, on the breaking out of the war, January 2, 1791, abandoned their cabins and moved to the central stockade. Early in the spring, or late in the winter of 1792, forced to gain a subsistence from the soil, they again repaired to the lands to till them. Two block-houses were built and surrounded with heavy palings. The original settlement had been made by fourteen associates. Thirteen men were now at the little stockade, and four of them had families with them. Upon the thirteenth of March a man named Brown, from the upper Ohio region, arrived at the settlement bringing his wife and four children and all his worldly goods. He had bought a small tract of land about half a mile above the block-houses, and on the day after his arrival went up to it, accompanied by one of his sons and a man to plant some young trees he had brought with him, carefully wrapped up, from his former home. It was his intention to set them out around the little cabin (built by one of the settlers in 1789), which he fondly hoped to see the happy, peaceful home of his family. Towards night Brown's wife went out to meet her hushand and walk back with him to the stockade and to see (if she had time to reach him before he stopped work) the results of the day's labor. She took with her a babe and her two little girls, and was also joined by Persis Dunham, aged about fourteen years, daughter of Widow Dunham, and a great favorite among the settlers. The latter led one of the children by the hand and followed a little behind Mrs. Brown. A Mr. Leaveus was at work near the stockade, and they stopped for a few minutes to converse with him and then passed on. Presently Leavens heard the woman scream, and looking up from his work saw two Indians rush toward her, and after two or three blows with their tomahawks retreat toward the high bank, waving a bleeding scalp in their hand. The outcry made by Mrs. Brown and Persis Dunham had also been heard by a number of men near the stockade, and they rushed toward the spot from which the sound camel Brown, too, had heard the dying shrieks of his wife, and came running toward her, directly in the path of the retreating Indians. They pursued him away from the stockade, and as he had no arms it was supposed by those who witnessed his flight that he was soon overtaken and killed. The men from the fort found the bodies of Mrs. Brown, one of her children and Persis Dunham and carried them to the block-house, from whence they were taken to the grave upon the following day. One child, they thought, had escaped the tomahawk by lagging a considerable distance in the rear after the party had left Leaveus. The babe at Mrs. Brown's breast had a great gash across its forehead, from which the blood had flowed over the murdered mother's bosom. Very singularly and unexpectedly, after removal to the block-house, the babe exhibited signs of life, and by careful treatment was fully revived and eventually restored to health. The little girl who was supposed to be uninjured was discovered, upon un-

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dressing, to bear a knife wound, which she had been too much excited to feel, and she died shortly afterward from its effects. The Indians had not been pursued, as the men, from the boldness of the attack, judged that they must be present in large force to attack the fort, and had, consequently, hastened to take possession of and defend it.

Late in the. evening the guards were accosted by a voice which came outside of the palings and which they recognized as that of Mr. Brown. He and his son and man companion had managed to conceal themselves under the bank of the river and had lain there keeping perfectly quiet until they felt reasonably sure the Indians had left, when they had ventured out undercover of the darkness, with some fear that they might still be captured or killed, and made their way to the fort. They were not admitted until the men in the gar- rison had become thoroughly convinced that their words were not forced from them under terrible threats by the Indians whom they supposed all along to have captured them, and now suspected were compelling them to lure their fellows to open the gate of the stockade that they might rush in and massacre its occupants. After close questioning in regard to the particulars of their escape they were made to walk several times around the en- closure to show that there were no Indians present and then allowed to enter, the whole garrison standing on guard as they did so. This precaution, which is reliably vouched for, may be thought excessive by some reader who does not take into account all of the circumstances under which it was exercised, but to those who will give the subject a little thought it will not seem unnatural. The inhabitants had before them the dead bodies of three fellows who had but a few hours before been murdered by the Indians; they were filled with awe at the sudden taking away of three bright, happy lives; they had every reason to suppose that a large band of savages were in their neighborhood, and they knew their enemy to be capable of just such shrewd stratagem as this which they feared was being attempted upon them. The incident serves well to illustrate the intensity of terror caused by an Indian attack, and the extreme to which the wariness of these early settlers was occasionally developed. The Newbury settlement was abandoned shortly after this demonstration of hostility, and the occupants of the stockade again took refuge at "Farmers' Castle," where they had the strength of greater numbers and systematic regulation of garrison life.

Late in the afternoon of a beautiful June day, in 1792, R. J. Meigs, jr. (afterwards governor of Ohio), was, with some others, attacked between Fort Harmar and Campus Martius. They had been down the Muskingum in a canoe, to work upon a lot which Mr. Meigs owned, and when returning to their boat, after the close of working hours, were suddenly confronted in a narrow pathway by two Indians. One of them fired at Meigs, who chanced to move aside just in time to dodge the shot, and it took effect in the shoulder of Joseph Symonds, who accompanied him. Symonds, although wounded quite severely, plunged into the Muskingum and soon swam to a safe distance. A negro boy, who was the third person in the party, fled along the path toward the tree at the roots of which the canoe was tied, closely followed by the same Indian who had pursued Symonds. The boy made his way into the water, but, being unable to swim, was quickly overtaken. His captor tried to drag him ashore, evidently intending to make him a prisoner; but, as the terrified boy resisted, he struck him with his tomahawk, tore a scalp lock from his head and left him. With blood streaming from his head, the poor black boy sank down in the water, and, when reached a minute or two later, by Edward W. Tupper and the Frenchman, J. P. R. Bureau, was dead. Meigs, upon the flight of his companions, faced the remaining Indian, who was the one who had fired upon him, and endeavored to intimidate him by presenting his gun and threatening to fire. It happened that the gun had been discharged a few minutes before meeting the Indians, and they were doubtless aware of it, for the Indian who now confronted Meigs only laughed at the weapon which was intended to awe him, and advanced still closer toward it. Meigs recognized the savage as one who had, in 179o, accompanied him through the wilderness to Detroit, and exclaimed, with some astonishment, "Why! Charley, is that you?" but at the same instant, seeing that his foe was not to be mollified by the recollection of former friendship, clubbed his gun and rushed upon him, striking a powerful blow which the Indian caught upon his musket. As Meigs fled, his old time friendly guide dropped his gun and pursued him, tomahawk in hand. A short, swift race brought them to a small run which Meigs cleared at a single bound, while his pursuer, seeing that he was gaining no ground, and probably fearing that he might be taken by the soldiers who had now come out from the garrison, stopped and threw his hatchet at his intended victim. It missed its mark, and, with a loud yell, expressing his rage, the Indian retreated. The other Indian, who had killed the black boy, had been several times fired upon, but he, too, got away, and apparently uninjured. Mr. Bureau and Horace Nye, then a young boy, had passed up the same pathway that Meigs was ambushed on, only half an hour before. Mr. Nye, in after years, used to relate that Bureau had several times attempted to fire his gun at a pigeon, but that it had only "flashed in the pan," and thought that to this fact they were saved from attack and probably death, as he had no doubt the Indians were aware of their presence, and ready to fall upon them had the gun been discharged. Mrs. Nye, knowing that her son was absent from Campus Martius, was much alarmed when she heard the firing, and rushed out of the river gate just in time to meet him as he was returning.

The year 1792 was one of less disaster and alarm in the Ohio company's settlements than any other during the period of the Indian war. The events we have already narrated were the only serious exhibitions of hostility made during the year.

General Putnam was absent nearly all of the autumn, having been appointed by General Washington as commissioner to negotiate a treaty with the Indian tribes

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living on the Wabash—the Pottawatomies, Eel Rivet Indians, Kaskaskias, Onatainons, Pinkashaws, Kickapoos, Peorias, and others, accompanied by the Rev. John Heckewelder, Moravian missionary, who was at the general's request appointed as interpreter; he finally induced the tribes to assemble their chief men at Vincennes in September, and upon the twenty-seventh of that month concluded a treaty with them. General Putnam was taken sick soon after the completion of the treaty and did not reach home for several weeks. By the terms of the treaty he had made the Indians were to remain at peace with, and recognize the authority of, the United States, and they were also to send a number of their chiefs on to Philadelphia to have a talk with the Great Father. Fourteen of them, conducted by an officer of the army, arrived at Marietta on the seventeenth of November, on their way to the capital, and were served with a dinner and handsomely entertained, both at the Point garrison and Campus Martius. Colonel Barker says in his manuscript reminiscences that after receiving attention from the citizens at the Point, where they landed from their boats, "Colonel Oliver went down with some of the men from Campus Martius and led them back through the mud. On their entering, the drum struck a salute, the guards presented arms, the cannon was fired in the north_ east bastion whereat the Indians dodged and looked surprised. General Putnam and Dr. Stacey received them and they marched to the general's to dine." Colonel Ichabod Nye says "under all the circumstances the entertainment was very novel and the scene peculiarly striking. Shut up in garrison and at war with the other tribes of the forest, shaking hands with our red guests and the appellation of brother passing from one to the other, seemed to renew the scenes of the first year's settlement and make us all forget that war was on our borders." Anselem Tupper wrote some clever doggerel upon the dinner of the chiefs, in which he refers, among other pleasantries, to the fact that "old Hetuck" (Colonel Sproat) was not invited to the gathering, as the Campus Martius people had not been asked to meet the chiefs when lhey were entertained at the Point, and speaks of the appreciation of Mrs. Putnam's culinary productions which the wild men of the woods exhibited. The visit of the chiefs was altogether a very pleasant occasion and one which was ever remembered by those who were present.

At Belpre the immunity from attack during the season of 1792, after the murder of Mrs. Brown, her children, and Persis Dunham, had been the cause of great thanks- giving, and the settlers had become more hopeful than at any other time since the breaking out of the war. The feeling of comparative safety, the overcrowded condition of Farmers' Castle, and the desire of the settlers to be nearer the lands which they owned, and must look to for their subsistence, led them to construct additional block- houses at the upper and lower settlements, which they had abandoned after the Big Bottom massacre. The reinvestment of the settlements took place in the winter of 1792-93. One garrison was built three miles above, nearly opposite the mouth of the Little Kanawha, on Captain. Stone's land, and the other a mile and a half below, on Major Nathan Goodale's farm. They were called respectively Stone's and Goodale's garrisons.

The buildings for the accommodation and protection of the families were ready for occupation in February, 1793, and most of the associates had moved into them by the close of the month. At Goodale's garrison the inmates had scarcely become settled in their new quarters when their leader, the man upon whom they principally relied through the war, was taken from them. Upon the first day of March, one week after moving to the new garrison, Major Goodale had gone out to work upon his land, not more than forty rods from the little stockade, and within plain view of it.

There was but little apprehension of an Indian attack at this time, for the river was full bank, and that condition of the water was generally regarded as in the nature of a protection, the Indians at such times not being apt to stem the tide in their canoes, and usually avoided expeditions over land because of the difficulty of crossing the swollen streams. Then, too, General Wayne's army, which had been assembling at Pittsburgh, was now moving toward Cincinnati, and boats fult of armed men were daily to be seen going down the Ohio—a sight which was suggestive of security.

Somebody at the garrison after Major Goodale had been at work for some time, noticed that his oxen were standing still, and that neither their owner nor his assistant, an Irishman, named John Magee, were near them. An hour passed and the same eye which had noticed this again fell upon the oxen, which had not changed their location in the field. Then for the first time there was an apprehension of something wrong. Two or three men went out to discover whether there was any ground for their fears or not. They felt relieved upon finding Magee unconcernedly at work. Surely he would be aware of it had any violence been committed. But as the men saw nothing yet of Major Goodale, they went on to the place where his oxen had been standing idle, and as they still found no sign of the owner's presence, they began a search for him. Their fears were not very strong; they would not have been surprised to have heard Goodale's voice at any moment, or to have seen him emerge from the woods. But suddenly the searchers came upon marks which told the whole story—fresh moccasin tracks in the snow which still remained on the ground in the shade of the forest which surrounded the clearing. The truth dawned upon them then that Major Goodale had been taken prisoner. There were no blood marks upon the ground, no indications of a struggle, and the capture had certainly been conducted without noise or otherwise Magee's attention would have been attracted and he would have given the alarm. Immediately a small party of men set out upon the trail the Indians had left, but they soon lost it, and on the following day a number of skilled woodsmen and rangers were alike unsuccessful in the pursuit and gave it up. Major Goodale had been taken as a captive instead of suffering death, but he was one of those prisoners who never returned. His family was most deeply distressed by the news of

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his capture and the whole garrison, indeed, all of the Belpre settlements, were filled with gloom. This was the most serious loss that had been experienced by the people of the beautiful prairie. Hopes were entertained by the grief-stricken family and by his old associates that Major Goodale would some day return, but these hopes were given over as month after month passed away, the remaining years of the war dragged their slow length along and no tidings came to cheer them. Even after peace was established in 1795 by the treaty of Greenville, many captives returned to their friends, and news received of others, there was still no word to dispel the uncertainty with which this case was clothed. Not until 1799 was anything heard which threw light on the fate of this good, brave man. The story of the capture of a man on the Ohio was then related by some Indians at Detroit, and the particulars were such as to leave little doubt that the prisoner they spoke of was Major Goodale. According to their narrative he was taken by eight Indians who were concealed behind the trees on the bank awaiting an opportunity to fall upon some unwary white man, and they were quite positive that the captive had become a prey to disease and died somewhere on the Maumee or Sandusky rivers. There were some people who gave but little credence to this story, and believe the unfortunate pioneer to have been killed near the Hocking river, where Joshua Fleehart some years later found a skeleton, which, from the absence of a tooth, they thought to be that of Goodale.

The people of the Belpre settlements, robbed of the man whose mere presence had in a measure always inspired them with a feeling of safety, became more keenly sensitive to their exposed condition. The war had become harder upon them than upon the settlers of either Marietta or Waterford.

Two weeks after the event which we have related they drew up and forwarded a petition to General Washington, whom many of them well knew, setting forth their exposed condition and losses by the Indians. It stated that six of their number had been killed, beside the recent loss of Major Goodale; that one-third of their cattle and produce had been destroyed, and that they were fearful of a total breaking up of the settlement unless the Government should afford them the protection of a larger number of men. It was represented that there were two hundred and one persons in the three settlements, fifty-two of whom were men, and that their usual guard consisted only of a corporal and four soldiers sent out from the post at Marietta.*

During the remainder of the year, however, the settlement, contrary to the apprehension of its people, was left in peace, and although the memory of former events cast a gloom over the inmates of Farmer's Castle and of Stone's and Goodale's garrisons they had no additional horrors to disturb them, and gave their attention to the raising of crops more fully than they had been able to do during the two years previous. A good yield rewarded them, and they were able, as were also the Waterford

* Biography of Mathew Goodale. by Dr. S. P. Hildreth.

settlers, to sell considerable quantities of corn and some other provisions to the contractors who were engaged in supplying Wayne's army, which was concentrating at Cincinnati and preparing to enter the Indian country. The preparations under Mad Anthony Wayne had also diverted the Indians to such a measure that their plundering expeditions were made much less frequently than before. Their condition improved by the money they had secured from the army contractors, and which they sorely needed—free, comparatively, from depredations by the Indians, and looking forward to a speedy establishment of peace, the settlers at the several little forts in the Ohio company's purchase were less heavy-hearted than they had been since the beginning of the war. They were eager for the arrival of that time which they believed to be not far off, when, relieved from the fear of a wily, relentless and cruel foe, they could practice the arts of peace and devote themselves to the building up of their fortunes and the securing of happy homes. The day when they could do this was not so near as they fondly imagined. Although enjoying a lull in hostilities there was still before them a dreary period of Indian war, nearly two years in extent, in which these frontier colonies were destined to receive many a sudden and savage blow, to the bereavement of families and communities.

Bird Lockhart, a celebrated hunter living in the little garrison which Isaac Williams had established on the Virginia side of the Ohio, had an exciting adventure with Indians early in the winter of 1793-1794. He had gone to the headwaters of a small run now known as Worthington's run, to shoot some deer for Mr. Williams who was convalescing from a severe sickness, and felt a strong desire for venison. Lockhart's rifle soon brought down two fine deer which, after dressing, he threw across his old horse, and started for home, which, he judged, was eight miles distant. As he was making his way, by the side of his horse, slowly along an old trial or trace, he came suddenly upon two Indians. Lockhart sprang behind a tree, and the Indians followed his example. One of them, however, chose so small a tree in his haste that he was only partially protected, and Lockhart instantly noticing the circumstance, fired upon him. He fell, wounded through the hips, and entirely helpless. As soon as his rifle rang out upon the still air, the other Indian came forward, thinking that he could shoot the white hunter down, but Lockhart had apprehended this, and reloaded with such expedition that as his adversary came forward, he was almost ready to use his gun again. The Indian seeing that he could not take him at a disadvantage, quickly sought shelter behind another tree without firing. In this situation the two remained for several hours, each listening to detect any cautious movement, and furtively endeavoring to catch sight of the other. As night approached, Lockart began to feel uneasy, fearing that the Indian under cover of darkness would make his escape, and consequently he availed himself of his knowledge of a stratagem to draw the enemy's fire. It was one so old and well known that it must be practiced very adroitly in order to deceive. Placing his large slouch hat upon the ramrod of his gun, he slowly pushed

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it into view of the Indian in such a manner as to make him believe that the hat was in its proper place, and the wearer cautiously attempting to gain a view of the enemy. If he pushed it forward an inch too far, or allowed it to swing upon the end of the ramrod, the trick would be exposed. Lockhart hardly dared to hope for success, but at length he heard a rifle shot, and his hand detected a slight jarring of the ramrod as the ball pierced the hat, and sped onward on the harmless journey. He allowed the hat to fall to the ground, and so completely was the marksman deceived that he soon came forward, no doubt expecting to take the scalp of the white man whom he supposed he had killed. Lockhart allowed him to come very close, and then stepping from behind the tree with gun ready cocked, shot him through the heart. The next day a party of men went out, led by Lockhart expecting to find the bodies of two Indians, but could discover only the last one shot. The wounded Indian who, before Lockhart's departure, had crawled away a considerable distance, had not ventured to approach as he still had a loaded gun in his hands. It was supposed that he had caught Lockhart's old horse, and rode him until he had fallen in with some other Indians. The animal was found on Carpenter's creek, about six miles above Marietta, a distance to which he would not have strayed alone.

The hunters and rangers took great risks during the Indian war, but their coolness and courage usually saved them, and when their peculiar occupation was gone, most of them were still residents of southeastern Ohio, having become settlers in the land they had been chiefly instrumental in protecting from the ravages of the Indians. Of the same class as Bird Lockhart was the Belpre ranger, Joshua Fleehart. He, it is said traditionally, was in fact a leader among these brave men employed to roam the forest to discover indications of the approach of the Indians. No man among the rangers, either at Farmer's Castle, Marietta, or Waterford, was more skilful in fol- lowing a hidden trail, or more daring in meeting the enemy. He was thoroughly conversant with the habits, not alone of the Indians, but of the wild beasts of the forest, and his shrewdness seemed never to fail him. He was admirably endowed by nature for the wild life which he led, being not only very active, but of the most powerful build, tough and sinewy, and over six feet in height. Before the war he lived upon the island afterwards famous as Blannerhassett's; and when Farmer's Castle was built, after the alarm of the settlers, he was employed as hunter and ranger for the garrison. An incursion made by this man into the heart of the Indian country well il- lustrates his hardihood and that of his class.

In the winter of 1793-94 he penetrated the forest alone within fifteen or twenty miles of the large Shawnees village of Chillicothe (which was on the north fork of Paint creek, a few miles west of the site of the present city of the same name, settled over two years later), and there took up his residence, and remained for nearly three months. It being winter, there was little need of his services at Farmer's Castle, and he yearned for more activity and excitement than garrison life afforded. He spent the season trapping beaver and hunting bears, the former along the small tributaries of the Scioto, and the latter among the hills, and led a happy, free life, at the same time accumulating a goodly store of valuable furs. He had built a little bark hut not far from the bank of the Scioto, and in some willows, several miles below, he secreted the canoe in which he had made his journey. When warm weather came, which that year was in the latter part of February, he began preparations for his return to Belpre, tying up his furs in bundles and storing them in his canoe. He was aware that, as the snow had almost disappeared danger from Indian attack was largely increased, and he had one day been admonished of the peril of his situation by hearing a rifle shot, though far away in the direction of the Indian town. On the day he had set for his departure he ate his last meal in the little hut which had given him shelter all the winter, and had started to walk down the river to his canoe, when his eye fell upon a solitary Indian slowly approaching with eyes intent upon the ground, examining, he surmised, the tracts which he had made the day before as he came to his lodging place. Fleehart secreted himself behind a tree, and when the Indian had come near enough, took deliberate aim and sent a heavy rifle ball upon a sure death errand. He rushed immediately upon the fallen redskin to secure his scalp, but being diverted by a number of glistening brooches and other ornaments upon the dead warrior's breast and arms, began to tear them off and place them in the bosom of his hunting shirt. As he was thus engaged a rifle ball passed through his clothing, and looking in the direction whence the report had come he saw three Indians rapidly approaching. He took to flight and the Indians followed him as closely as they could, firing as they ran. Several times he stopped behind trees hoping to get a shot at his foes, but as they, on each occasion, immediately tried to flank him he was obliged again and again to run. The chase continued several miles on the level bottom, and finally, Fleehart, resolving to end the chase, shaped his course toward the high, steep hill which walled the valley. The Indians were encouraged now, for they believed they could at least come near enough, as the runner toiled up the ascent, to bring him to earth with their rifles, but they were chagrined after pressing ahead with all of the rapidity they could to see Fleehart spring up the rugged side of the hill with speed scarcely abated, and before they could fire upon him he had gained such a height that their shots were harmless, though one of them cut the handle of his hunting knife. The pursuers now gave up the chase, and Fleehart, making a long circuit among the hills, reached the place where his canoe was hidden just as darkness came on. He pushed out into the middle of the Scioto, paddled his canoe with vigor for several hours and went rapidly down stream. Being very tired he lay down toward the middle of the night, and quietly sleeping, the current swept him onward until he awoke at dawn and found himself floating out upon the broad bosom of the Ohio. From the mouth of the Scioto he pushed his canoe up stream, keeping close to the south shore, and in a few days reached Belpre. On

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numerous other occasions Fleehart was absent on long excursions into the forest, alone or with companions and he was usually the first to sally from the garrison whet Indians were seen in the vicinity.

The winter of 1793-94 passed quietly and peacefully at the several settlements. The spring, which in time of peace, the husbandman everywhere hails with joy, brought gloomy feelings to the settlers. Predatory incursions were again made by the Indians when the snow had disappeared, and again was Belpre the scene of horrible murder.

John Armstrong, an emigrant from Pennsylvania, had arrived in the fall of 1793, and during the succeeding winter resided at the upper settlement, occupying with his wife and large family of children, a portion of Isaac Barker's block-house, which formed a part of the defence known as Stone's garrison. In the spring, Armstrong and Peter Mixner, who together owned a floating mill moored in the rapid current near the Virginia shore, moved to that side of the river in order to more conveniently manage their useful property and avoid the trouble of frequently crossing the stream. There were already two cabins there, of which Armstrong took the lower and his friend the upper, but after residing in his for a few weeks, Mixner built another, a few rods farther up stream, and beyond the limit of the little clearing. As soon as it was ready for occupation the family was transferred to it. Mrs. Armstrong had taken up her residence on the Virginia shore very unwillingly. Her parents had both been killed by Indians only a short time before in Mifflin county, Pennsylvania, and the remembrance of that event with all of its sickening details was constantly in her mind. Perhaps too she had a presentiment that the same fate was to overtake her and her children. Her husband relying upon the close proximity of the garrison and the block-house upon the island, was not apprehensive of danger, neither did Mixner and his wife seem to be troubled at all by fears of attack. The fate of which Mrs. Armstrong had a horrible foreboding came upon her in the night of the twenty-fourth of April. Her husband was awakened in the night by the loud barking of his watch-dog, and grabbing his rifle he went out without dressing himself, elated with the idea of getting a shot at a bear, for one had been in the vicinity of his hog-pen the night before, and he supposed that a second visit was the cause of the present disturbance. He had gone but a few steps from his cabin when he saw indistinctly through the darkness several forms which he knew to be Indians. Hastily firing his gun at them and hallowing for help, he retreated into the cabin, barred the door and ascended to the loft, where three of his children were sleeping. Mrs. Armstrong was aroused, and just as the Indians broke down the door, was endeavoring, with an infant in her arms, to climb out of the chimney, which was unfinished and quite low. She was instantly tomshawked, as were also two young children, and all three were quickly scalped. The murderers then turned their attention to the loft, from which they heard sounds, and two or three of them going up the ladder, found Elizabeth Armstrong, a girl fourteen years of age, and two boys younger, whom they brought down and compelled to gaze upon their lifeless mother and infant brother and sister lying upon the blood-drenched puncheon floor. Armstrong had forced an opening through the roof and made his escape to the mill, where his two oldest sons were. Mixner and his wife were aroused by the shot which Armstrong had fired and the crashing in of the cabin door, listened for any further sounds that might indicate the cause of the disturbance, and overheard the Indians talking. Mrs. Mixner had been a prisoner among the Wyandots and she recognized the language as that of this nation. She could not catch every word, but enough was understood to indicate that the Indians were speculating upon the whereabouts of the people who had lived in the upper cabin which was now empty. Mixner hurriedly got his family into his canoe and paddled out into the river. When opposite the Armstrong cabin they could distinctly hear the sobs of the girl and crying of the boys, who, taken prisoners, were perhaps apprehending the fate to come momentarily upon them which had already overtaken three of the family. Mixner arrived at the garrison about the same time that Armstrong did, and the story which they told created much alarm. No attack was made, however, and at day dawn a party of men from Stone's, joined by others from the island block-house, went over to the Armstrong cabin and found the frightful scene which they had been led to expect awaited them. The bodies of Mrs. Armstrong and her children were brought to the Ohio side and buried. Armstrong and Mixner had supposed that all of the inmates of the cabin had been slaughtered, and the truth was not known until the visit was made in the morning. The Wyandots were pursued that day by a strong party headed by the rangers. Their trail was easily followed for some distance up the Ohio to a place where the Indians had raised their sunken canoes, and later in the day was again discovered some distance up the Hocking river where the boats had been abandoned. The footprints of the children were distinctly preserved in the soft earth of the bank. Fearing that the little captives would be tomahawked should the party be overtaken and engaged in a fight, the pursuit was given up and the men returned to the garrison. They learned that there had been about twenty Wyandols in the band and that when they attacked the Armstrong cabin they were returning from the vicinity of Clarksburgh, where they had also committed some murders. The three children were all ultimately restored to freedom, though not until after the close of the war. Jeremiah, aged eight years at the time of the capture, was adopted by the celebrated chief Tahre (the Crane), and a portion of the period of his captivity was passed at Wyandot town, on the site of Columbus, in which city he afterwards lived for many years.

At Waterford there had been no hostilities for so long a period that the settlers, whose number had been increased by the arrival of several families and single men, resolved this spring---1794—to send out a colony. A block-house was accordingly erected at the confluence of Olive Green creek and the Muskingum, four miles

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above Waterford; several ordinary cabins were clustered around it, and all were enclosed within a stockade. Tim settlers here were Able Sherman and wife, their son Ezra and his wife, and two unmarried sons of the former but grown men; Ezekiel Hoit, wife and children; Aaron Delong, wife, son and two daughters; Mathew Gallant wife, and children, and George Ewing, wife and children. [The last named became the pioneer settler of Ames township, Athens county. Among his children at Olive Green was one in his fifth year destined to be eminent in the counsels of the Nation—Thomas Ewing.] Altogether the station contained about thirty persons. This little settlement, as will be seen presently, was not exempt from Indian atrocities. One of its leading men, the head of a family, fell a victim to the savages a few weeks after removal to his new home. But for the present we leave the people of the infant settlement of Olive Green, pursuing the usual avocations of the pioneer, and looking forward hopefully to the time when they would be entirely free from danger and from the restraint of life within a stockade.

On the tenth of May Robert Warth was killed almost within a stone throw of Fort Harmar. He was at work for, and only a few rods from, Benjamin Ives Gilman, when two Indians who had hidden behind a brush pile rose up and fired upon him. Had they seen Gilman he would doubtless have been shot also, but after they had both emptied their rifles they were unable to cut off his retreat to the fort. John Warth, one of the rangers, ran out when he heard the report of the guns, and catching sight of the Indians running up the steep hillside, one of them waving the bloody scalp of his brother, fired upon them, and probably with effect, as their exultant yells were instantly hushed and the one with the scalp was noticed to start as if wounded and with difficulty scaled the hill. Several years later the bones of an Indian were found walled up in a little cave near the path by which the murderers of Robert Warth retreated. So it is possible that this, the last hostility of Marietta, was avenged.

Early in June another atrocity was perpetrated within the limits of the Ohio company's purchase. Abel Sherman, of Olive Green, taking his rifle, went out to search for the cows which had been missing for several days, and which his fellow inmates of the new garrison feared had been detained by the Indians to draw them out Thinking that possibly they might have joined the cattle belonging at Fort Frye, or that the rangers there might have seen them in the woods, he directed his steps down the Muskingum to that garrison. He did not arrive there until towards sundown, and some of the more prudent settlers tried to persuade him to remain with them until morning. suggesting that the absence of the cows was a sure indication that Indians were in the vicinity; but the old man, regardless of danger, started upon his return. An hour later the inmates of the Olive Green block-house heard the report of two guns, and Ezra Sherman, sure that one of them was his father's, and that he had been attacked by the dreaded enemy, took down his rionele from the wall and ran as fast as possible in the direction from which the sound of the firing had come. He soon reached the spot—only a quarter of a mile away—upon which the encounter had taken place, and found his father dead and scalped. The body lay in a little patch of May apples or mandrakes, and it was evident that the kind and thoughtful old man had been surprised while gathering some of them to take to the children at the garrison which he was nearing, for the bosom of his hunting shirt was filled with them: The next morning a party of men went up from Fort Frye and buried him near the mouth of the run by which he had fallen, and which to this day is known as "Dead Man's run." The utmost consternation and grief were caused at Olive Green when young - Sherman came in with the news of his father's death. The settlers had all seen much of the horrors of Indian warfare, but this sudden taking off of one of their own small circle, produced a deeper impression than any prior event, and made them more keenly alive to the danger. During the few subsequent months they lived in constant fear of attack or the waylaying of some of their members.

There is a sequel to the story of the murder of Abel Sherman. In the summer of 1798, when the prosperity of peace was beginning to bless the country, and industrial pursuits had replaced the savage employment of hunting men and beasts, a company of salt makers at work on Salt creek, in Muskingum county, was visited by an Indian known as Silverheels, who lived in the vicinity and was generally regarded as a well-disposed, good-natured child of the forest, and half-pitied as a lingering, lone, and melancholy individual of the vanquished race. He had been drinking when he came to the salt-makers' camp, and was there given more of the crazing firewater, under the influence of which, emerging from his habitual sombre taciturnity, he became loquacious and boastful. His tongue ran on fast and excitedly in narration of achievements in the chase, and presently of deeds of prowess and adventure in the war with the whites. The men for the most part listened with idle interest to what they considered the vaporings of vanity, but there was one among them who was strangely thrilled by the narration of an encounter which took place on the Muskingum in the summer of 1794. The narrative fitted in nearly all of its details the killing of Abel Sherman, and the man who was so deeply moved was his son, Josiah. As one circumstance after another was mentioned, which the young man knew to be true of the murder of his father, his fury arose almost to the pitch of frenzy. He could with difficulty restrain himself from springing upon the drunken Indian, exultingly dwelling upon his father's death, and slaying him upon the spot, but he reflected that possibly the savage had only known of the circumstance he so graphically detailed from hearing them told by others, and he controlled his passion, not even making the slightest remark upon the story which had aroused it. But he was filled with a determination to satisfy his doubts in the matter. He did not relax his stern intention to be executioner should he become sure of Silver-heel's guilt, but he resolved first to investigate. The Indian, with tongue loosed by liquor, had told how the old

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man had been shot down while gathering May apples, that his hunting shirt bosom was filled with them; remarked upon the peculiar formation of his head (a kind of a double crown), which had enabled his slayer to secure a very large scalp, which he said he had divided in two, and obtained fifty dollars for at the British post at Detroit, and in conclusion said that the gun of the murdered man had been placed in a hollow log near the scene of the tragedy. Young Sherman anxious to gain the corroborating testimony which the firing of the gun would afford, soon after went to the spot where his father had fallen. There, sure enough, in a hollow log where the murderer had placed it four years previously, was the large, peculiar musket his father had owned. The iron barrel and the lock which still contained the carefully prepared flint, were thickly encrusted with red rust, and the stock was so rotten that it broke as it was lifted from its hiding-place. The finding of the gun had a strong effect upon Josiah Sherman. He regarded it as proof positive of the truth of the drunken Indian's words, and no longer doubted that the savage had indeed committed the act of which he boasted. Not many days later two hunters traversing the woods came upon the dead body of Silverheels, bearing the mark of a rifle ball over the heart.

The narrative of the incident forms a digression from the account of the war, but we give it in this connection as it was a direct outgrowth of an event of 1794. Another digression is now in order. Turning from the recital of local occurrences we see that while they have been the exciting topics Of the settlers' conversation in Washington county, General Wayne had been carrying terror into the Indian country along the Miamis, the Whitewater, the Wabash, the Auglaize and Maumee.

In the autumn of 1793 and the following winter and spring, peace negotiations having proved unavailing, he had built Fort Recovery, near the field on which St. Clair's army had been defeated in November, 1791; Fort Wayne, where the Indiana town of that name now stands, and Fort Defiance, at the confluence of the Auglaize and Maumee; and now preparatory to striking a blow which should compel peace, he was awaiting an answer to his last amicable offer, "actuated by the purest principles of humanity and urged by pity for the errors in which bad and designing men" had led the confederated tribes. But the Indians were for war. Little Turtle (Michikinaqua), of the Miamis, alone in the council, was for peace. "We have beaten the enemy," said he, "twice, under separate commanders. We cannot expect the same good fortune always to attend us. The Americans are now led by a chief who never sleeps. The night and the day are alike to him; and during all the time that he has been marching upon our villages, notwithstanding the watchfulness of our young men, we have never been able to surprise him. Think well of it. There is something whispers to me, it would be prudent to listen to his offers of peace."

The decisive "battle of Fallen Timbers," or as it is sometimes called the battle of the rapids of the Miami (Maumee), occurred upon the twentieth of August, 1794. It was followed by a vigorous campaign, which secured the results already gained by Wayne's great victory, and practically terminated the Indian war, and tranquilized the whole border country. Still some Indian depredations were committed until nearly a year later, or August 3, 1793, when peace was formally declared, and the old treaties of purchase ratified by the treaty of Greenville.

An attempt was made to keep up strict discipline in the Ohio company's garrisons during the period intervening between Wayne's victory and his treaty, but the settlers generally felt so secure after the former event that they could not be restrained and often took great risks. Belpre, which all through the war seemed a fated post, had yet to suffer one more loss. Jonas Davis, a young man, resident at Stone's garrison (the upper settlement), one day in February, 1793, while on his way back from Marietta, where he had gone on some errand, discovered an old skiff among some driftwood by the Ohio river, and on the following morning went up a distance of three miles to break it up and get the nails out of it. Nails were very scarce and hard to get at that time, and Davis had especial need for some as he was preparing a little cabin which he intended to occupy with his bride expectant, a daughter of Isaac Barker, as soon as their marriage should take place, and the time set for that ceremony was so near that both of the young people had provided themselves with their wedding garments. The young man on reaching the boat had begun to pull it to pieces, and it was supposed was so intently engaged that he did not hear the approach of an enemy, and was shot down without a moment's warning. He was missed from the garrrson at evening and his betrothed was thrown into great distress as the night passed away and he did not return. In the morning a party of men who went out to look for him, led by the rangers, discovered his body lying by the wrecked boat, a small axe which he had been using, still in the tight grip of his dead hand. He had been scalped and stripped of his clothing. The death of Davis made a deep impression upon the Belpre settlers, and four young men from Stone's garrison, who had been among his warmest friends, determined to avenge him if possible. As soon as they heard the particulars of the murder they started in pursuit of the Indians, led by John James, one of the bravest and most alert of the men at their settlement. At Gallipolis they were joined by four volunteers and from that point they scouted up Raccoon creek. One of their men was taken sick the first day out, and as another was obliged to return with him, but six were left in the party. They pushed on, however, and on the following day reached the headwaters of Symmes' creek, where the Gallipolis rangers had said a party of Indians were engaged in hunting. A beaver skin cap was found which had been left by an Indian to mark the place where he had set a trap. This discovery corroborating the rangers' assertion, the men knew they were in the immediate vicinity of an Indian camp and supposed it to be that of a band to which the murderers of Davis belonged. They accordingly concealed themselves and

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holding a whispered council decided to fall upon the Indians under cover of night. Fortunately they were baffled in their design. An Indian returning from a hunt found their trail and was following it toward their hiding-place, when he was seen by Joseph Miller, one of the party, who quickly raised his rifle and fired at him. The Indian fell, evidently badly hurt, and John James rushed toward him tomahawk in hand, intending to dispatch him. As he did so the wounded Indian partly raised himself from the ground and uttered a ringing war-whoop, which was quickly answered from the camp only two or three hundred yards away, and by so many voices that the party of whites were much alarmed. They had supposed the camp to contain not more than their own strength, but fully a score of voices had been raised in response to the call of the wounded Indian, and almost immediately as many Indians came into view, rushing through the tangled undergrowth of the forest. James and his party seeing that the odds were so largely against them took to flight, and, assisted by the friendly darkness which had settled about them, soon put a considerable distance between them and their pursuers. The Indians, unable to follow their trail set their dogs on the retreating party, and followed on, guided by the sound of their barking. Two or three of the animals were silenced either with musket balls or tomahawk, and thus deprived of their lead the Indians lost ground rapidly. Arriving at the east fork of Symmes' creek, a difficulty arose which threatened to so long delay the fugitives as to allow their foes to overtake them.

There had been heavy rains, and the stream, ordinarily small, was now swollen so that it covered the entire bottom in the little valley. A raft was quickly made (a common expedient among the borderers and Indians, but when they attempted to cross upon it it became entangled in the submerged bushes and no effort that could be made would dislodge it. Abandoning the raft the six men, now so wet and cold that they were seriously hampered in their movements, made their way along the bank until they came to a place where it was possible to ford the stream. Taking their position upon a high bank which commanded this fording-place, they halted for rest and a chance to take advantage of their pursuers. They expected the Indians soon to make their appearance and intended to fire down upon them while they were in the water. After waiting an hour or more and hearing nothing of the Indians they pushed on to Raccoon creek, which they crossed upon a raft, and travelling rapidly all day reached Gallipolis just at evening, having been on foot twenty-four hours with the exception of two or three very brief intervals of rest, and travelled about fifty miles. The Gallipolis rangers the next day discovered that the Indians had followed the young men until they were within two or three miles of the settlement. The young men returned more leisurely to Belpre. Their expedition had taken them one hundred miles from home into the midst of the forest. During their absence they were the subject of a great deal of solicitude at the garrison, and all felt much relieved when they returned.

The closing tragedy of the war in Washington county took place in the summer of this year-1795----and the scene of its enactment was the vicinity of Waterford which since the futile attack upon the garrison in 1791 had not only suffered less annoyance from petty depredations than the Marietta and Belpre settlements, but by some kind fate or dispensation of Providence, had—although several of its people were taken captives—lost not a single man by death. [Abel Sherman, it must be remembered, was when killed a resident at Olive Green.] Indians had frequently been in the vicinity of Fort Frye during the continuance of the war, but they did not seem to cherish any such malice against the settlers as they did against the, Virginians, "the Long Knives," and they were known several times to have peacefully passed by the Waterford people only to fall on the settlements south of the Ohio with relentless fury. They had been longer at war with the Virginians and hating them most thoroughly, never letting an opportunity go by for inflicting injury upon them, and often made long expeditions for the express purpose of assailing their little stations. While they had a bitter and long continued feud with the latter and many old hostilities to avenge, they were actuated in the war upon the Ohio settlers by less intense hostility—a feeling which arose principally from their dislike of seeing what they considered an encroachment upon their lands. The frequency of murderous attacks at Belpre was probably owning very largely to the situation of the settlement, upon the Ohio directly in the way of war parties returning from Virginia, who often chagrined by lack of success there sought to satisfy their desire for murder or plunder at the newer settlement. It is probable that had there been during the latter part of the war period any general desire on the part of the Indians to destroy the Ohio company's settlements, Waterford would have been the first assailed, and by a large war party. As it was the few small depredations committed there were the work of bands numbering three or four or a half dozen Indians, and those probably renegades wandering through the forest, and in obedience to their savage instincts committing murder when they could but seeking principally for plunder, or prisoners from whom they could exact labor or money for ransom. Judge Gilbert Devol and his son, Wanton, had a narrow escape from a company of Indians encamped on the banks of the Muskingum one summer day in 1793; and it had most of the time during the war been taken for granted that there were Indians in the vicinity, and precautions accordingly adopted. Since Wayne's victory, however, the settlers had lived more carelessly, and the rangers been less vigilant than of old.

This was the condition of affairs in the summer of 1795, and still as the treaty had not yet been made the members of the colony retained in some degree their prudent method of conducting their affairs. A number of young men—William Ford, Jacob Proctor, William Hart, John and Sherman Waterman, who had drawn adjoining donation lots on the south branch of Wolf creek, about four miles distant from Fort Frye—agreed to assist each other in clearing the timber, and both because

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it was pleasant and also prudential adopted the plan of working together in rotation a day at a time upon the five lots. On the twenty-first of May they were engaged in clearing on John Waterman's land. A house, or cabin rather, had already been built here, and as the day was showery they remained near it that they might take refuge under its roof when driven from their work. An unusually hard rain having set in they resorted to the cabin, and Sherman Waterman, when the rain had partially abated, remembering that he needed some fresh hemlock boughs for his sleeping berth, went out to cut them. He had not been gone long when the four men remaining in the cabin were startled by the report of a rifle. Silence and sombre gravity replaced the merriment of a moment before, and each man seizing his rifle sprang to a loop-hole to be ready in case of an attack. Presently Waterman came running toward the door pursued by several Indians. It was evident from his gait that he had been hurt, but he came onward at a fast run until near the door when he sank down groaning with pain. Terrified with fear that the Indians would now come up on him with their tomahawks he cried out to those within for assistance. To rush out and bring him into the cabin was to run a fearful risk of death, but among the pioneers when an emergency arose requiring self-sacrificing courage or prompt action there was always some man who could be relied upon to furnish these essentials. In this case it was William Hart. He was quickly at Waterman's side, lifted him from the ground, and amid a shower of bullets sprang back into the cabin door unharmed, though some of the rifle balls had narrowly missed him. A vigorous fire was kept up from the loopholes and the Indians soon retreated. Waterman was in a dying condition. William Hart volunteered to carry the news of the attack down to Waterford garrison. A number of men, led by the ranger McDuffey, came back with him, and took the wounded man in a canoe to a block-house below, owned by Dean Tyler, and there, after great agony endured with really heroic fortitude, Sherman Waterman passed away that night—the last victim of Indian war in Washington county.

Wayne's treaty, otherwise known as the treaty of Greenville, was concluded at Greenville, Darke county, Ohio, upon the tenth of August, 1795, and a permanent peace was secured in the northwest. The basis of the treaty was the one made at Fort Harmar in January, 1789.

The whole number of white persons killed during the period of hostility in the Ohio company's lands, or on the Virginia shore opposite, was thirty-eight. Ten were taken captive, and of these, two died of sickness or were killed. Only four Indians were known to have been killed, though twice as many were supposed to have fallen victims to the white man's rifle.

During the period represented in the foregoing pages, there were other terrors than those of Indian stealth and Indian attack to be endured by the settlers, and they were terrors before which bravery and strength were impotent. Disease and famine, the attendant evils of war, made their dread appearance in the little garrisons. The winter of 1788-89 was one of want to many of the settlers, but scarcely a foretaste of what they were to experience. While bread was not to be had, there was still a sufficient quantity of corn to sustain life—and there was little besides in the way of food until the river opened in the spring, when those who had money could buy flour. There was no meat to be had except that which could be secured by the hunters, and they fared poorly, as the Indians had killed off all the larger game, the bears and deer, while waiting about Marietta to attend the treaty. The year 1790 brought a worse condition of things. The corn crop of the preceding fall had been so badly damaged by an early frost that it was unfit to be eaten, and produced sickness and vomiting similar to that caused by the "sick wheat" which appeared occasionally when the country was new. During the winter of 1789-90 corn fit for consumption rose to the enormous price, for those times, of one dollar per bushel, and by the last of spring following it brought two dollars. With the scarcity of pine, the failure of the corn crop, and the fact that there were no domestic animals which the owners could afford to kill, the fish, with which the rivers abounded, became the principal article of food, and the one which saved many people from absolute starvation. It was only with the practice of the most rigid economy that the people were able to hold out this year until a new crop could be raised. There was little money in the possession of the settlers, and they could only make small purchases in the spring, when the boats began running. The Ohio company made small loans to those who were most needy, and the few individuals who had more than enough food for their own use were very liberal with those who were worse off, sharing with them, perhaps to their own early disadvantage. Many articles were made use of as edibles which were not generally considered of any economic value, as potatoe tops, nettles, the tender buds and shoots of various shrubs and trees, and numerous roots. Sassafras and spice bush bark were brought into common use as a substitute for tea. Their scarcity made all staple articles very dear. Salt brought eight dollars per bushel and in smaller quantities much higher prices, as, for instance, fifty cents per quart. The settlers could therefore illy afford to salt down their fish or meat. In the spring the sap of the maples was secured in as large quantities as possible, and boiled down into syrup or sugar, and those articles, now esteemed as luxuries, were served as substantial food.

So nearly famished were the inhabitants at Belpre and Marietta when the new crop began to grow, that they could not wait for them to attain maturity, but plucked small and green vegetables, such as beans, peas, corn, and summer squashes, and boiling them with sparse handfulls of coarse corn meal from the last of their hoarded store, made a kind of vegetable soup which to their half-starved lips was an hundred-fold more grateful than is the most luxurious dish to the epicure in the midst of plenty. During the terrible season of famine, Isaac Williams, the Virginia frontiersman who had. settled opposite the mouth of the Muskingum, exhibited the nobleness of his nature in many acts of generosity.

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He had raised a very large quantity of corn, which, planted much earlier than that of the Belpre and Marietta settlers, who had first to clear and fence their lands, was so matured when frost carne as to be uninjured. He was beset by speculators, who wished to buy his entire crop at the large price of one dollar and a quarter per bushel, but uniformly refused to have anything to do with them, and sold his corn to those who needed it for food, at the usual price in years of plenty, fifty cents per bushel. Nor would he sell to any man more than was necessary for the subsistence of his family. It was his usual custom to inquire of an applicant the number of persons in his household, and sell him a proportionate number of bushels. To those who had not money to buy even at his moderate price, he readily gave credit, and in not a few cases made actual donations. The settlers very generally availed themselves of his benevolence, and the good old man, denying himself riches, had the nobler satisfaction of having relieved distress, and perhaps warding off absolute starvation.

Pestilence made its appearance before famine. The small-pox was introduced among the Point settlers at Marietta in January, 1790—and it must be borne in mind that Jenner's discovery of vaccination had not then been given as a boon to mankind, and the loathsome disease was much more dreaded than now. A sick man named Welch was put on shore by a Kentucky boat. He was taken to the house of James Owen and soon discovered to have the small-pox. Great consternation and excitement followed. A meeting of the inhabitants was called and it was decided to build a house for the sick man. This was accordingly done and he was taken to it and there died. Mrs. Owen contracted the disease but recovered. The pestilence spread fast and inoculation was resorted to as a preventive of the worst form of the disease. Houses were put up for the reception of the sick at a considerable distance from the other dwellings. Eight persons died; two of them of the number who had been inoculated.

Again in August, 1793, the settlers at the Point were alarmed by the appearance in epidemic form of the scarlet fever. It broke out among Captain Haskell's soldiers, and was probably caused by the malaria from the low ground around, and the streets within the Point garrison, which had been overflowed in March by a flood of the Ohio. The court of quarter sessions had the infected persons removed to Devol's island, but the disease had already spread, and a number of deaths occurred. The small-pox broke out again, and -so the people were assailed at once by two insidious foes within the defence they had raised to protect themselves from their enemies, the Indians.

Belpre had its share in the evils of pestilence as it did of the horrors of warfare. Scarlet fever broke out at Farmer's Castle in the summer of 1792, attended by putrid sore throat. The cause was unknown, though it was doubtless the unhealthful condition of life unavoidable in a crowded garrison. It was confined principally to the children, and about fifteen of them were its victims. After the scarlet fever had subsided, and during the summer and autumn bilious and intermittent fevers prevailed, though happily in mild forms.

That more dreaded scourge—small-pox—again made its appearance in the over-crowded garrison in September, 1793, being introduced by Benjamin Patterson, one of the rangers, who had been inoculated at Marietta. It was not strange that the people who were huddled together in close quarters, guarding themselves from the Indians, who had already surprised and killed several of their number;—who had suffered from famine, and who had just seen their loved little ones carried off by fever, should feel that they were doomed to destruction. They knew that the terrible pest must sweep through their cramped quarters, and so, after holding a council, resolved upon heroic measures, and sent for Dr. True, of Marietta, to inoculate them all in their own houses. Farmer's Castle was one great hospital. Under every roof there was some person suffering from the mild form which they had taken voluntarily to themselves from the more virulent. The fatality of the disease was confined by inoculation, so that of one hundred persons affected only five died.

At Goodale's garrison there were two or three more deaths. But the terrible scourge had been prevented from doing its worst. Though sorely tried, the little settlement was destined neither to succumb to the Indian, to famine, to fever, nor to pestilence.