Elliott seized and confined the missionaries and their families and gathered them and all the converted Indians at Gnadenhuetten. They were marched from there September 11, leaving behind their great stock of corn and many effects. The sad procession descended the Tuscarawas to its junction with the Walhonding and passed up the latter stream to its source, thence over the dividing ridge to the Sandusky.
By the time the Moravians had reached the Sandusky they had been robbed of their best blankets and cooking vessels and their food was about exhausted. On the east side of the stream, about two miles above the site of Upper Sandusky, they settled down in poverty and privation, built rude shelters of logs and bark and spent the winter in great distress.
In March the missionaries were again taken to Detroit and closely examined by de Peyster, and nothing detrimental could be proved against them, yet de Peyster would not allow them to return to the Sandusky, and they made a new settlement on the Huron River.
During the forcible removal of the Moravians seven Wyandot warriors left the party and went on a raid across the Ohio River. Among the seven were three sons of Dunquat, the half-king; the eldest son, Scotosh, was the leader of the party. They visited the farm of Philip Jackson, on Harman’s Creek, and captured Jackson, who was a carpenter about 60 years of age. This capture was witnessed by Jackson’s son, who ran nine miles to Fort Cherry, on Little Raccoon Creek, and gave the alarm, but a heavy rain that night prevented immediate pursuit.
Bright and early next morning seventeen stout young men, all mounted, gathered at Jackson’s farm, and John Jack, a professional scout, declared he knew where the Indians had hidden their canoes. But only six would follow him, John Cherry, Andrew Poe, Adam Poe, William Castleman, William Rankin and James Whitacre, and they started on a gallop for the mouth of Tomlinson’s Run. Jack’s surmise was a shrewd one, based on a thorough knowledge of the Ohio River and the habits of the Indians.
After dismounting the borderers descended cautiously, and at the mouth of the run were five Indians, with their prisoner, ready to shove off. John Cherry fired and killed an Indian and was himself killed by the return fire. Four of the five Indians were killed, and Philip Jackson rescued unharmed, and Scotosh escaped up the river with a wound in his arm.
Andrew Poe in a hand to hand scuffle with two sons of the half-king, succeeded in killing one of them, who had first wounded him. The other Indian escaped and was in the act of firing at Poe when he was shot and killed. Andrew Poe fell into the stream and was mistaken for an Indian and shot in the shoulder by mistake.
The triumphant return of the party to Fort Cherry was saddened by the death of John Cherry, a great and popular leader. Scotosh was the only Indian who escaped, and he made his way back to the Upper Sandusky, with a sad message for his father and the tribe.