Two voted to stay, four to go. On opening the door they discovered the Indian chief lying dead in front of it. Van Grundy secured his rifle and Vandyke his powder horn.
The Indians came from ambush and the men separated. Van Grundy, with his two guns, took into a ravine, and tried to get the others to follow him. They refused. The Indians killed the old people, who were scalped.
Colonel Kelly pursued these Indians and came upon five of them sitting on a log. He placed his men and at a signal four of the Indians were killed at one volley, the fifth escaped.
The Widow Smith’s mills were now the frontier and the only place of refuge, except a small stockade, named Fort Meninger, which was built about eighty rods from the river, on the north bank of White Deer Creek, covering Widow Smith’s mills. The fort was situated west of the mills forming an apex of an irregular triangle of which the mills formed one base, and a small stone house, the home of Widow Smith, the other. This stone house, with a modern addition, is still standing.
The fort and mills were abandoned at the time of the Great Runaway, July, 1778, and the fort and mills were burned by the Indians, July 8, 1779. One man was killed in the attack.
Widow Smith returned to the ruins in 1783, and was urged to rebuild the grist and saw mills, which she accomplished with much difficulty. Ejectments were brought against her by Messrs. Claypoole and Morris, and she did not have the means to support actions at law and lost her improvements.
She petitioned the Legislature, which, of course, could grant no relief under the circumstances and her petition was dismissed. The facts set forth in her petition were certified to by William Blythe, Charles Gillespie, Colonel John Kelly, General James Potter and many prominent citizens of Northumberland County.
She is said to have walked to Philadelphia and back thirteen times in this business.[[4]]
[4]. The distance she traveled was no less than 160 miles each way.
How long the litigation continued is not a matter of record, but in 1801, Seth Iredell took possession of the premises as tenant of Claypoole[Claypoole] & Morris.