The forts Hamilton and Jefferson, erected by Gen. St. Clair, continued to be well garrisoned; but there was some difficulty in supplying them with provisions––the Indians being always in readiness to intercept them on their way. As early as April 1792, they taught us the necessity of having a strong guard to escort supplies with safety, by a successful attack on Major Adair; who with one hundred and twenty volunteers from Kentucky, had charge of a number of pack horses laden with provisions. He was engaged by a body of savages, not much superior in number, and although he was under cover of Fort St. Clair, yet did they drive him into the fort, and carry off the provisions and pack horses. The courage and bold daring of the Indians, was eminently conspicuous on this occasion. They fought with nearly equal numbers, against a body of troops, better tutored in the science of open warfare, well mounted and equipped, armed with every necessary weapon, and almost under the guns of the fort. And they fought successfully,––killing one captain and ten privates, wounding several, and taking property estimated to be worth fifteen thousand dollars. Nothing seemed to abate their ardor for war. Neither the strong garrisons placed in the forts erected so far in advance of the settlements, nor the great preparations which were making for striking an effectual blow at them, caused them 414 for an instant to slacken in hostilities, or check their movements against the frontier.
In the spring of 1793, a party of warriors proceeding towards the head waters of the Monongahela river, discovered a marked way, leading a direction which they did not know to be inhabited by whites. It led to a settlement which had been recently made on Elk river, by Jeremiah and Benjamin Carpenter and a few others from Bath county, and who had been particularly careful to make nor leave any path which might lead to a discovery of their situation, but Adam O’Brien moving into the same section of country in the spring of 1792, and being rather an indifferent woodsman, incautiously blazed the trees in several directions so as to enable him readily to find his home, when business or pleasure should have drawn him from it. It was upon one of these marked traces that the Indians chanced to fall; and pursuing it, came to the deserted cabin of [306] O’Brien: he having returned to the interior, because of his not making a sufficiency of grain for the subsistence of his family. Proceeding from O’Brien’s, they came to the House of Benjamin Carpenter, whom they found alone and killed. Mrs. Carpenter being discovered by them, before she was aware of their presence, was tomahawked and scalped, a small distance from the yard.
The burning of Benjamin Carpenter’s house, led to a discovery of these outrages; and the remaining inhabitants of that neighborhood, remote from any fort or populous settlement to which they could fly for security, retired to the mountains and remained for several days concealed in a cave. They then caught their horses and moved their families to the West Fork; and when they visited the places of their former habitancy for the purpose of collecting their stock and carrying it off with their other property, scarce a vestige of them was to be seen,––the Indians had been there after they left the cave, and burned the houses, pillaged their movable property, and destroyed the cattle and hogs.
Among the few interesting incidents which occurred in the upper country, during this year, was the captivity 415 and remarkable escape of two brothers, John and Henry Johnson:––the former thirteen, the latter eleven years of age. They lived at a station on the west side of the Ohio river near above Indian Short creek; and being at some distance from the house, engaged in the sportive amusements of youth, became fatigued and seated themselves on an old log for the purpose of resting. They presently observed two men coming towards them, whom they believed to be white men from the station until they approached so close as to leave no prospect of escape by flight, when to their great grief they saw that two Indians were beside them. They were made prisoners, and taken about four miles, when after partaking of some roasted meat and parched corn given them by their captors, they were arranged for the night, by being placed between the two Indians and each encircled in the arms of the one next him.
Henry, the younger of the brothers, had grieved much at the idea of being carried off by the Indians, and during his short but sorrowful journey across the hills, had wept immoderately. John had in vain endeavored to comfort him with the hope that they should be enabled to elude the vigilence of the savages, and to return to the hearth of their parents and brethren. He refused to be comforted.––The ugly red man, with his tomahawk and scalping knife, which had been often called in to quiet the cries of his infancy, was now actually before him; and every scene of torture and of torment which had been depicted, by narration, to his youthful eye, was now present to his terrified imagination, hightened by the thought that they were about to be re-enacted on himself. In anticipation of this horrid doom for some time he wept in bitterness and affliction; but
| [307] “The tear down childhood’s cheek that flows, Is like the dew drop on the rose;–– When next the summer breeze comes by And waves the bush, the flower is dry.”–– |
When the fire was kindled at night, the supper prepared and offered to him, all idea of his future fate was merged 416 in their present kindness; and Henry soon sunk to sleep, though enclosed in horrid hug, by savage arms.
It was different with John. He felt the reality of their situation.––He was alive to the anguish which he knew would agitate the bosom of his mother, and he thought over the means of allaying it so intensely, that sleep was banished from his eyes. Finding the others all locked in deep repose, he disengaged himself from the embrace of the savage at his side, and walked to the fire. To test the soundness of their sleep, he rekindled the dying blaze, and moved freely about it. All remained still and motionless,––no suppressed breathing, betrayed a feigned repose. He gently twitched the sleeping Henry, and whispering softly in his ear, bade him get up. Henry obeyed, and they both stood by the fire. “I think, said John, we had better go home now.” “Oh! replied Henry, they will follow and catch us again.” “Never fear that, rejoined John, we’ll kill them before we go.” The idea was for some time opposed by Henry; but when he beheld the savages so soundly asleep, and listened to his brother’s plan of executing his wish, he finally consented to act the part prescribed him.
The only gun which the Indians had, was resting against a tree, at the foot of which lay their tomahawks. John placed it on a log, with the muzzle near to the head of one of the savages; cocked it, and leaving Henry with his finger to the trigger, ready to pull upon the signal being given, he repaired to his own station. Holding in his hand one of their tomahawks, he stood astride of the other Indian, and as he raised his arm to deal death to the sleeping savage, Henry fired, and shooting off the lower part of the Indian’s jaw, called to his brother, “lay on, for I’ve done for this one,” seized up the gun and ran off. The first blow of the tomahawk took effect on the back of the neck, and was not fatal. The Indian attempted to spring up; but John repeated his strokes with such force and so quickly, that he soon brought him again to the ground; and leaving him dead proceeded on after his brother.
They presently came to a path which they recollected to have travelled, the preceding evening, and keeping 417 along it, arrived at the station awhile before day. The inhabitants were however, all up and in much uneasiness for the fate of the boys; and when they came near and heard a well known voice exclaim in accents of deep distress, “Poor little fellows, they are killed or taken prisoners,” John replied aloud,––“No mother, we are here again.”