Allegheny Episodes / Folk Lore and Legends Collected in Northern and Western Pennsylvania

by Henry W. Shoemaker

The fight continued all night long, until the approach of dawn, and the danger of the forest fire cutting them off made the Indians decamp. They did not stop until in the big beaver meadow at Wildcat Valley, they paused long enough to take stock of prisoners, and to count wounded and missing. They had captured an even dozen prisoners, and as the light grew stronger they noticed that they had one male captive, his face almost unrecognizable with soot, and mostly stripped of clothing, who proved to be none other than the zealous Hugh Gibson himself.

It was a strange company that moved in single file towards the Alleghenies, eleven women and one man, all tied together with leather thongs, like a party of Alpinists, one after another, not descending a monarch of mountains, but descending into captivity, into the valley of the shadow.[shadow.] The Indians were jubilant over the personnel of their captives. In addition to Hugh Gibson, late captain of the guard, they had taken Elsbeth Henry, daughter of the most influential of the settlers, a girl of rare beauty and charm, who had enjoyed some educational advantages among the Moravians at Nazareth, the pioneers of women’s education in America.

Gibson had for a year past, ever since he first appeared in the vicinity of Fort Robinson, admired the uncommonly attractive girl, and being ambitions in many ways, aspired to her hand. She had never treated him with much consideration, except to be polite to him, but she was that to everyone, and could not be otherwise, being a happy blend of Huguenot and Bohemian ancestry.

The minute that Gibson saw that Elsbeth was his fellow prisoner he forgot the chagrin at being the sole male captive, and congratulated himself in secret on the good fortune that would make him, for a year or more, the daily companion of the object of his admiration. He would redeem the humiliation of this capture by staging a sensational double escape, and then, after freeing the maiden, she could not fail to love him and agree to become his wife. He was, therefore, the most cheerful of prisoners, and whistled and sang Irish songs as he marched along at the tail end of the long line of captives.

It seemed as if they were being taken on a long journey, and he surmised that the destination was Fort Duquesne, to be delivered over to the French, where rewards would be paid for each as hostages. He could see by the deference paid to Elsbeth Henry that the redmen recognized that they had a prisoner of quality, and as she walked along, away ahead of him, whenever there was a turn in the path, he would note her youthful beauty and charm.

She was not very tall, but was gracefully and firmly built. Her most noticeable features were the intense blackness of her soft wavy hair, and the whiteness of her skin, with minute blue veins showing, gave her complexion a blue whiteness, the color of mother of pearl almost, and Gibson, being a somewhat poetical Ulster Scot, compared her to an evening sky, with her red lips, like a streak of flame, across the mother of pearl firmament, her downcast eyes, like twin stars just appearing!

The further on the party marched the harder it was going to be to successfully bring her back in safety to the Juniata country, through a hostile Indian territory, for he had not the slightest doubt that he would outwit the clumsy-witted redmen and escape with her. It might be best to strike north or northwest, out of the seat of hostilities, and make a home for his bride-to-be in the wilderness along Lake Erie, and never take her back to her parents. But then there was his mother; how could he desert her? He must go back with Elsbeth, run all risks, once he had escaped and freed her from her inconsiderate captors.

After a few days he learned that the permanent camp was to be on the Pucketa, in what is now Westmoreland County. Cooties was located there, and since his unparalleled success in massacring whole families of whites, he was apparently again in favor with the Indian tribal Chieftains. He was to take charge of the prisoners, and when ready, would lead them to Fort Duquesne, or possibly to some point further up La Belle Riviere, to turn them over to the French, who would hold them as hostages.

It was in the late afternoon when the party filed into Cooties’ encampment, at the Blue Spring, near the headwaters of the beautiful Pucketa. Cooties had been apprised of their coming, and had painted his face for the occasion, but meanwhile had consumed a lot of rum, and was beastly drunk, so much so that in his efforts to drive the punkis off his face, which seemed to have a predilection for the grease paint, he smeared the moons and stars into an unrecognizable smudge all over his saturnine countenance.

As he sat there on a huge dark buffalo robe, a rifle lying before him, a skull filled with smoking tobacco on one side, and a leather jug of rum on the other, smoking a long pipe, his head bobbing unsteadily on its short neck, he made a picture never to be forgotten. The slayer of the Sheridan family was at best an ugly specimen of the Indian race. He was short, squat–Gibson described him as “sawed off”; his complexion was very dark, his lips small and thin, his nose was broad and flat, his eyes full and blood-shot, and his shaven head was covered with a red cap, almost like a Turk’s fez.