A tradition among the Delawares says that formerly the Catawbas came near one of their hunting camps and remaining in ambush at night sent two or three of their party round the camp with Buffalo hoofs fixed to their feet, to make artificial buffalo tracks and thus decoy the hunters from their camp. In the morning the Delawares, discovering the tracks and supposing them to have been made by buffaloes, followed them some time; when suddenly the Catawbas rose from their covert, fired at and killed several of the hunters; the others fled, collected a party and went in pursuit of the Catawbas. These had brought with them, rattle snake poison corked up in a piece of cane stalk; into which they dipped small reed splinters, which they set up along their path. The Delawares in pursuit were much injured by those poisoned splinters, and commenced retreating to their camp. The Catawbas discovering this, turned upon their pursuers, and killed and scalped many of them.
John Peter Salling, sometimes spoken of as Peter Adam Salling, was, if not of German birth, of German descent. With his brother Henry, he early settled in the forks of James River and North Branch, in the southern part of what is now Rockbridge county, Va. The details of his early explorations in the West are involved in doubt, but that he had such adventures there seems no good reason to doubt. It will be noticed that Withers omits the date; some writers have placed it at about 1724, but the probable time was 1738-40. His descendants told Draper (about 1850) that the family tradition was, that Salling and a son were employed by the governor of Virginia to explore the country to the southwest; and when near the present Salem, Roanoke county, they were captured by Cherokees and carried to the Ohio River––one account says by way of the Tennessee, another by the New (Great Kanawha), their boat being made of buffalo skins. They appear by this tradition to have escaped, and in descending the Mississippi to have fallen into the hands of Spaniards. The son died, and the father was sent in a vessel bound for Spain, there to be tried as a British spy; but the Spaniard being captured by an English vessel, our hero was landed at Charleston, whence he reached his frontier home after an absence of over three years. This story differs in many details from the one in Kercheval’s History of the Valley of Virginia, and also that in Withers’s text, above. Salling kept a journal which was extant in 1745, for in the Wisconsin Historical Society’s library is a diary kept by Capt. John Buchanan, who notes that in that year he spent two days in copying a part of it. In Du Pratz’ History of Louisiana (London, 1774), Salling and one John Howard are said to have made this trip in 1742, and the authority is said to be a Report of the Government of Virginia. But Salling must have returned home by 1742, for his name is in the roll of Capt. John McDowell’s militia company, and he was probably in the fight with the Indians (Dec. 14) that year, in which McDowell lost his life. In 1746, we found Salling himself a militia captain in the Rockbridge district of Augusta county. In September, 1747, he was cited to appear at court martial for not turning out to muster––and this is the last record we have of him. Descendants, named Sallee, now live in Kentucky and Tennessee.––R. G. T.
John Lewis, the father of Gen. Andrew Lewis, was probably of Welsh descent, and born in 1678 in County Donegal, Ireland. About 1716 he married Margaret Lynn, of the famous Lynns of Loch Lynn, Scotland. In a dispute over his tenancy (1729), he killed a man of high station,––some say, his Catholic landlord,––and fled to Portugal, whence in 1731, after strange adventures, he emigrated to America, and was joined there by his family. Fearing to live near a sea-port he established himself on the frontier, in the Valley of Virginia, two miles east of the present site of Staunton. His house was of stone, built for defense, and in 1754 it successfully stood an Indian siege. Lewis was colonel of the Augusta county militia as early as 1743, presiding justice in 1745, and high sheriff in 1748. In 1751, then 73 years of age, he assisted his son Andrew, then agent of the Loyal Company, to explore and survey the latter’s grant on Greenbrier River. It was because the old man became entangled in the thicket of greenbriers, that he gave this name to the stream. He died at his old fort homestead, February 1, 1762, aged 84 years. Some accounts state that he was a Presbyterian; he was, however, an Episcopalian.––R. G. T.
Lewis soon afterwards obtained leave from Governor Gooch to locate 100,000 acres of land in separate parcels on the waters of the Shenandoah and James rivers; and when he would go out in search of good land to locate, Mackey would accompany him to hunt buffalo. The former amassed a large estate, while the latter lived and died in comparative poverty.
As Col. John Lewis had no son Samuel, probably Thomas Lewis, the elder brother of Andrew, though near-sighted, may have engaged in buffalo hunting.––L. C. D.