Benjamin Gilbert and family, living on Mahoning Creek, about five miles from Fort Allen, now Weissport, Carbon County, were carried into a bitterly painful captivity by a party of Indians, who took them to Canada, and there separated them. At the time of this occurrence, April 25, 1780, the event caused intense excitement throughout the State, and from an interesting narrative published shortly after their release from captivity, August 22, 1782, the following facts are ascertained.
Benjamin Gilbert was a Quaker from Byberry, near Philadelphia, and in 1775 removed with his family to a farm on Mahoning Creek, near Fort Allen. They lived comfortably in a good log dwelling house, with barn and saw and grist mill. For five years all was peace and industry.
On the eventful day, about sunrise they were surprised by a party of Indians who took the following prisoners: Benjamin Gilbert, aged 69; Elizabeth, his wife, 55 years; sons, Joseph, aged 41; Jesse, 19; Abner, 14; and daughters, Rebecca, 16; and Elizabeth, 12; and Sarah, wife of Jesse; Thomas Peart, son of Benjamin Gilbert’s wife; Benjamin Gilbert, a nephew of the elder Gilbert; Andrew Harrigar, a German servant and Abigail Dodson, a neighbor’s daughter, the whole number taken being twelve. The Indians then proceeded about half a mile to Benjamin Peart’s and there captured himself and his wife and their nine months’ old child.
The last look the poor captives had of their once comfortable homes was to view the buildings in flames as they were led over Summer Hill, on their way over Mauch Chunk and Broad Mountains into the Nescopeck Path, and then across Quakake Creek to Mahanoy Mountain, where they passed the first night, fastened between notched saplings, with straps around their necks and fastened to a tree.
Their march was resumed soon after dawn and day after day they tramped over the wild and rugged region between the Lehigh and the Chemunk branch of the Susquehanna. Often ready to faint by the way, the cruel threat of instant death urged them again to march. The old man, Benjamin Gilbert, had begun to fail, and was already painted black, the fatal omen among the Indians; but when they were to kill him, the pitiful pleadings of his wife saved him. Subsequently in Canada, Gilbert told the chief he could say what none of the other Indians could, “that he had brought in the oldest man and the youngest child.”
On the fifty-fourth day of their captivity, the Gilbert family had to experience the fearful ordeal of running the gauntlet.
“The prisoners,” says the narrative, “were released from the heavy loads they had heretofore been compelled to carry, and were it not for the treatment they expected on approaching the Indian towns, and the hardship of separation, their situation would have been tolerable; but the horror of their minds, arising from the dreadful yells of the Indians as they approached the hamlets, is easier conceived than described—for they were no strangers to the customary cruelty exercised upon the captives on entering their towns. The Indians, men, women and children, collect together, bringing clubs and stones in order to beat them, which they usually do with great severity. The blows must be borne without complaint. The prisoners are beaten until the Indians weary with the cruel sport.
“Two of the women who were on horseback were much bruised by falling from their horses, which were frightened by the Indians. Elizabeth, the mother, took shelter by the side of a warrior, who sent her away, she then received several violent blows, so that she was almost disabled. The blood trickled from their heads in a stream. Their hair being cropped close and the clothes they had on in rags, made their situation truly piteous. Whilst the Indians were inflicting this revenge upon the captives, the chief came and put a stop to any further cruelty.”
Soon after this torture, a severer trial awaited them, when they were separated. Some were given over to other Indians to be adopted, others were hired out as servants, and the remainder were sent down the lake to Montreal. Among the latter was old Benjamin Gilbert, by this time broken in body and mind, and he there succumbed. His remains were interred near old Fort Coeur du Lac, below Ogdensburg.
Some of the family met with kind treatment from the hands of British officers, who were interested in their story, and exerted themselves to release them from captivity. Sarah Gilbert, wife of Jesse, became a mother, and Elizabeth Gilbert was allowed to give her daughter every necessary attendance. One day while Elizabeth was ironing for the family of Adam Scott, a little girl told her some one wanted to see her and upon entering another room, she found six of her own children. A messenger was sent to inform Jesse and his wife, so that Joseph Gilbert, Benjamin Peart and Elizabeth, his wife, and their young child, and Abner and Elizabeth Gilbert the younger, were with their mother on this occasion.