On the Tuscarawas River, about ten miles north of the present New Philadelphia, O., and a mile south of what is now Bolivar, Tuscarawas County. At the time Withers alludes to, it was garrisoned by 150 men under Col. John Gibson.––R. G. T.
Simon Girty and seventeen Indians, mostly Mingoes. Withers confounds this raid with the more formidable siege in February and March. In the January assault, Girty’s band ambushed Capt. John Clark, a sergeant, and fourteen men, returning to Fort Pitt from convoying provisions to Fort Laurens. Two whites were killed, four wounded, and one taken prisoner. In February, came an attacking party of a hundred and twenty Indians (mostly Wyandots and Mingoes), led by Capt. Henry Bird, of the Eighth (or King’s) Regiment; with him were Simon Girty and ten soldiers. The enemy arrived February 22, but remained in hiding. The next day Gibson sent out a guard of eighteen men, despite warnings of the enemy’s presence, to assist the wagoner in collecting the horses of the fort. All the party were killed and scalped, within sight of the fort, save two, who were made prisoners. The fort was then openly invested until March 20, when the besiegers withdrew, torn with dissensions and short of supplies. See Butterfield’s Washington-Irvine Correspondence for further details.––R. G. T.
Not to be confounded with George Rogers Clark, of Kentucky.––R. G. T.
The bodies of these men were found to have been much devoured by the wolves, and bearing the appearance of having been recently torn by them. With a view of taking revenge on these animals for devouring their companions, the fatigue party sent to bury their remains, after digging a grave sufficiently capacious to contain all, and having deposited them in it, they covered the pit with slender sticks, bark and rotten wood, too weak to bear the weight of a wolf, and placed a piece of meat on the top and near the center of this covering, as a bait. In the morning seven wolves were found in the pit, and killed and the grave then filled up.
Boone had left Boonesborough January 8, in charge of thirty men, to make salt at the Lower Blue Licks, on Licking River. They carried with them, on horses, several large boiling pans, given to the settlement by the government of Virginia. So weak was the water there, that 840 gallons were necessary to make a bushel of salt, against ninety at the Kanawha salines, and forty at Onondaga. While the salt-makers were at work, two or three others of the party served as scouts and hunters; generally, Boone was one of these. This day (Saturday, February 7) Boone started out alone with his pack-horse for a supply of game, which usually was plenty in the neighborhood of the salt licks; Thomas Brooks and Flanders Callaway, his fellow scouts, were taking another circuit. Having killed a buffalo, Boone was on his way home in the afternoon, with the choicest of the meat packed upon his horse. Snow was falling fast, and he was ten miles from camp, when discovered by four Indians, outlying members of a large party of Shawnees under Munseka and Black Fish, who had taken the war-path to avenge the murder of Cornstalk (see p. 172, note. 2). Benumbed by cold, and unable easily to untie or cut the frozen thongs which bound on the pack, Boone could not unload and mount the horse, and after a sharp skirmish was captured, and led to the main Indian encampment, a few miles away. Boone induced his fellow salt-makers to surrender peaceably the following day (February 8); the number of prisoners was, including Boone, twenty-seven––two scouts and two salt-packers being absent. After a ten days’ “uncomfortable journey, in very severe weather,” says Boone, in which they “received as good treatment as prisoners could expect from savages,” the party arrived at Little Chillicothe, on Little Miami––so called in contradistinction to Old Chillicothe, on the Scioto. Boone’s strong, compact build caused the Indians to call him Big Turtle, and under that name he was adopted as the son of Black Fish, who took a fancy to him; sixteen of his companions were also adopted by other warriors. The ten who were not adopted were, with Boone, taken on a trip to Detroit (starting March 10), guarded by forty Indians under Black Fish. The ten were sold to Lieut. Governor Hamilton and citizens of Detroit, for £20 each, the usual price for American prisoners. Boone remained in Detroit until April 10, during which he was treated with great courtesy by Hamilton, who offered Black Fish £100 for him, but the latter declined and took the great pioneer home with him; but Boone himself was given by Hamilton a horse and trappings, with silver trinkets to give to the Indians. At Little Chillicothe, Boone was kindly treated by Black Fish, and little by little his liberty was extended. June 16, while the family were making salt on the Scioto, preparatory to another expedition against Boonesborough, Boone escaped on the horse given him by Hamilton. After many curious adventures, in the course of which he swam the Ohio, he safely reached Boonesborough, June 20, having traveled, he estimated, a hundred and sixty miles in four days. Boone’s wife and family, supposing him dead, had returned to their old home in North Carolina, but Boone himself remained to assist in the defense of Boonesborough against the impending attack, of which he had brought intelligence.––R. G. T.