Further particulars of this captivity are in Royall’s Sketches of History, Life, and Manners in U. S. (New Haven, 1826), pp. 60-66.––R. G. T.
Carpenter’s son (since Doctor Carpenter of Nicholas) came home about fifteen years afterwards––Brown’s youngest son, (the late Col. Samuel Brown of Greenbrier) was brought home in 1769––the elder son never returned. He took an Indian wife, became wealthy and lived at Brown’s town in Michigan. He acted a conspicuous part in the late war and died in 1815.
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Comment by L. C. D.––Adam Brown, who was captured as mentioned in the above text and note, was thought by his last surviving son, Adam Brown, Jr., whom I visited in Kansas in 1868, to have been about six years old when taken; and he died, he thought, about 1817, at about seventy-five years of age. But these dates, and his probable age, do not agree; he was either older when taken, or not so old at his death. The mother was killed when the sons were captured, and the father and some others of the family escaped. The late William Walker, an educated Wyandott, and at one time territorial governor of Kansas, stated to me, that the Wyandotts never made chiefs of white captives, but that they often attained, by their merits, considerable consequence. It is, however, certain that Abraham Kuhn, a white prisoner, grew up among the Wyandotts, and, according to Heckewelder, became a war chief among them, and signed the treaty at Big Beaver in 1785; and Adam Brown himself signed the treaties of 1805 and 1808, and doubtless would have signed later ones had he not sided with the British Wyandotts, and retired to Canada, near Malden, where he died.
It is highly probable that this foray took place in 1763. During this year, as features of the Pontiac uprising, bloody forays were made on the more advanced settlements on Jackson, Greenbrier, and Calf Pasture rivers, and several severe contests ensued between whites and Indians. Captains Moffett and Phillips, with sixty rangers, were ambuscaded with the loss of fifteen men. Col. Charles Lewis pursued the savages with 150 volunteers raised in a single night, and on October 3rd surprised them at the head of the South Fork of the Potomac, killing twenty-one, with no white losses. The spoils of this victory, beside the “five horses with all their trappings,” sold for £250. This was the most notable of the several skirmishes which took place on the Virginia frontier, that year.––R. G. T.
Perhaps this affair is that related by Capt. William Christian, in a letter dated Roanoke, Oct. 19th, 1763, as published in the gazettes of that day––there are, at least, some suggestive similarities: “Being joined by Capt. Hickenbotham, with twenty-five of the Amherst militia, we marched on Tuesday last, to Winston’s Meadows, where our scouts informed us, that they had discovered a party of Indians about three miles off. Night coming on, prevented our meeting them; and next day, being rainy, made it difficult to follow their tracks. As they were on their return, Capt. Hickenbotham marched to join Capt. Ingles down New River. I, with nineteen men and my ensign, took a different route in quest of them. We marched next day on their tracks until two hours before sunset, when we heard some guns, and soon afterwards discovered three large fires, which appeared to be on the bank of Turkey Creek, where it empties into New river. Upon this we immediately advanced, and found they were on an island. Being within gun-shot, we fired on them, and loading again, forded the creek. The Indians, after killing Jacob Kimberlain, a prisoner they had with them, made but a slight resistence, and ran off. We found one Indian killed on the spot, and, at a little distance, four blankets shot through, and very bloody. We took all their bundles, four guns, eight tomahawks, and two mares. They had several other horses, which being frightened by the firing, ran off and were lost. The party consisted of upwards of twenty Indians. By the tracks of blood, we imagined several of them were wounded.” This affair occurred Oct. 12th.––L. C. D.
Footnotes for Chapter 4