* Ebenezer Zane became the founder of Zanesville, in Ohio, twenty years afterward.
** Elizabeth Zane was the sister of Ebenezer and Silas Zane. She had just returned from Philadelphia, where she had completed her education, and was but little accustomed to the horrors ot border warfare. With other females in the fort, she assisted in casting bullets, making cartridges, and loading rifles. When the powder in the fort, was exhausted, Ebenezer Zane remembered that there was a keg of the article in his house, sixty yards distant from the fort. The man who should attempt to go for it would be exposed to the close and numerous shots of the Indians. Only one man for the service could be spared from the fort. Colonel Sheppard was unwilling to order any one to the duty; he asked for a volunteer. Every man present eagerly offered to undertake the hazardous duty. They contended so long for the honor, that it was feared that the Indians would return to the siege before an attempt to get the powder should be made. At this moment Elizabeth Zane came forward and asked permission to go for the powder, giving as a reason that her life was of less value to the garrison than that of a man. At first she was peremptorily refused, but so earnest were her solicitations, that consent was reluctantly given. She went out the gate, and fearlessly passed the open space to her brother's house. The Indians saw her, and watched her movements. When she eame out of the house, and, with the keg of powder in her arms, sped with the fleetness of a fawn toward the fort, they sent a full volley of bullets after her, but not a hall touched her person. The shield of God's providence was about her, and the noble girl entered the fort in safety with her valuable prize. A loud shout welcomed her, and every man, inspired by her heroism, resolved to repulse the foe or die in the trench. Elizabeth Zane was twice married. The name of her first husband was M'Laughlin; of the second, Clarke. She resided on the Ohio side of the river, near Wheeling, until within the last ten years. The story of Elizabeth Zane ought to be perpetuated in marble, and preserved in the Valhalla of our Revolutionary heroes.
* The history of our Western States is full of the chronicles of heroic women, who boldly battled with the privations incident to new settlements, or engaged in actual conflicts with the Indian tribes upon lands which the white men wrongfully invaded. Elizabeth Zane was a type of the moral, and Mrs. Merrill of the physical heroines of that day. During the summer of 1787, the house of John Merrill, in Nelson county, Kentucky, was attacked by a party of Indians. It was midnight when the approach of the savages was announced by the barking of a dog. Mr. Merrill opened the door to ascertain the cause of the disturbance, when he received the fire of five or six rifles, and his thigh and arm were broken. He fell, and called to his wife to close the door. She was an Amazon in strength and courage, and seizing an ax for defense, closed the door just as several Indians approached with tomahawks. They soon made a breach and attempted to enter. Mrs. Merrill killed or badly wounded four of them with the ax, and maintained her post. The Indians ascended the roof, and essayed to enter the house by the broad chimney. Mrs. Merrill seized her only feather-bed, ripped it open, and east the contents upon the fire. The suffocating smoke brought two of the savages down almost insensible. These she dispatched with the ax. The only remaining savage now tried to force his way in through the door. Across his cheek Mrs. Merrill drew the keen blade of the ax. With a horrid yell, he fled to the woods, and, arriving at Chillicothe, gave a terrible account of the strength and fury of the "long knife squaw." I might fill pages with similar recitals. For such records, see M'Clung's Sketches of Western Adventure.
Effect of a Log Field piece.—Arrival of Succor.—Abandonment of the Siege.—Escape of M'Culloch
The assailants renewed the attack at half past two o'clock. Again they took possession of the cabins near the fort, and were thus covered from the fire of the Republicans. They also attempted to force the gate of the fort, but were obliged to abandon it after six of then-number were shot down. Still they eagerly sought to secure their prey within. Approaching darkness did not end the conflict. The Indians converted a hollow maple log into a field piece, and after dark conveyed it within sixty yards of the fort. It was bound with chains, filled to the muzzle with stones, pieces of iron, and other missiles, and discharged against the gates of the fort. The log burst into a thousand fragments, and its projectiles were scattered in all directions. Several Indians were killed, but not a picket of the fort was Injured. This failure of their artillery discouraged the assailants, and the conflict ceased for the night. At four o'clock in the morning, Sept. 28, 1777 Colonel Swearingen and fourteen men arrived, and fought their way into the fort without losing a man; and at daybreak Major McCulloch arrived with forty mounted men. His followers entered the fort in safety, but he, being separated from his companions, was obliged to flee to the open country. He narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the Indians, who thirsted for his blood, for he was their most skillful enemy. They hated him intensely, and yearned to subject him to their keenest tortures. *
Girty and his fellow-savages abandoned all hope of capturing the fort, after this augmentation of the garrison, and, setting fire to the houses and fences outside of the palisades, and killing about three hundred head of cattle belonging to the settlers, they raised the siege and departed for the wilderness. ** Mot a man of the garrison was lost during the siege; twenty-three of the forty-two in the fort were slain at the first attack, before the siege commenced. The loss of the enemy was between sixty and one hundred. *** The defense of Fort Henry was one of the most remarkable for courage, on record, and deserves far more prominence in the catalogue of battles for independence than has generally been awarded to it by historians.
Early in 1778, Congress sent three commissioners to Pittsburgh to make observations, and determine the importance of Detroit as a place of rendezvous for the hostile tribes. They reported the activity of the commander, and his influence among the Indians, and represented the necessity of sending an expedition against that post immediately. Congress resolved to do so, but the financial embarrassments of the government, then fearfully increasing, rendered an expedition so expensive quite incompatible. The design was reluctantly abandoned, **** and in lieu thereof, General Lachlin M'Intosh, then commanding the western department, was ordered to march from Fort Pitt (his head-quarters), with a sufficient force, against the principal Indian towns in the Ohio country, and so to chastise them
* The Indians might have killed Major M'Culloch, but they determined to take him alive and torture him. His horse was fleet, but the savages managed io hem him in on three sides, while on the fourth was an almost perpendicular precipiee of one hundred and fifty feet descent, with Wheeling Creek at its base. He had the single alternative, surrender to the Indians, or leap the precipiee. His horse was a powerful animal. Gathering his reins tightly in his right hand, and grasping his rifle in his left, M'Culloch spurred his charger to the brow of the declivity and made the momentous leap. They reached the foot of the bluff in safety, and the noble animal dashed through the creek, and bore his rider far away from his pursuers.
** Simon Girty was the offspring of crime. His father, a native of Ireland, and settler in Pennsylvania, was a sot; his mother was a bawd. They had four sons; Simon was the seeond. With two brothers, he was made a prisoner by the Indians at Braddock's defeat. His brother James was adopted by the Delawares, and became the fiercest savage of the tribe: Simon was adopted by the Senecas, became a great hunter, and exercised his innate wickedness to its fullest extent. For twenty years the name of Simon Girty was a terror to the women and children of the Ohio country. He possessed the redeeming quality of honesty in all his transactions. It was his earnest wish that he might die in battle. That wish was gratified; he was killed at Proctor's defeat in the battle of the Thames, on the fifth of October, 1813.
*** American Pioneer.