Shepherd to Hand, Sept. 15, 1777: “By the best judges here ... it is thought their numbers must have been not less than between two and three hundred.” The Shepherd, Hand, Shane, and Doddridge MSS., in the library of the Wisconsin Historical Society, throw much light on this episode.––R. G. T.
The Indians made their appearance on the night of August 31st––not September 1st, as in the text. The incident here related occurred at about sunrise of September 1st. Andrew Zane, young John Boyd, Samuel Tomlinson, and a negro, set out to hunt for the horses of Dr. James McMechen, because the latter wished that day to return to the older settlements, either on the Monongahela, or east of the mountains. Boyd was killed, but his companions escaped––Zane, by leaping from a cliff, the height of which local tradition places at seventy feet.––R. G. T.
De Hass, in his History of the Early Settlement and Indian Wars of West Virginia,––a conscientious work, which depends, however, too closely on traditions,––says (p. 225), “out of the fourteen, but two escaped.”––R. G. T.
Among the survivors was Ogle who, like Mason, hid himself in the bushes until nightfall enabled him to return to the fort.––R. G. T.
As a matter of fact, the Indians made no attack on the fort at this time, being content with the success of their ambuscade. After throwing up some rude earth-works and blinds, scalping the dead whites, killing all the live stock within reach, and setting fire to the outlying cabins, they retired across the Ohio in the night, and dispersed. Their loss was one killed and nine wounded; the whites lost fifteen killed and five wounded. The next day (September 2), the whites buried their dead, and unavailingly scoured the country for Indians.