The stories of Tom’s adventures are legion, and for nearly one hundred years have been told. The author heard them related nearly seventy years ago. His father lived in the days of Tom Quick and was conversant with his history.
Tom made it his habit to watch the Indians and shoot them as they went up and down the Delaware in their canoes and frequently waylaid them as they traveled through the country on their trails or deerpaths.
With these paths he was well acquainted and would spend days and months lurking in the vicinity of their haunts for the purpose of getting a shot at one or more of them. Every few days an Indian was missed. He was last seen in the company of Tom, but never after.
The Indians knew that Tom had sworn that he would kill them whenever opportunity offered. Consequently, when an Indian was missing it was laid to Tom.
Furthermore, Tom had a knack of finding a great many guns in his travels through the woods. It was usually thought that he found the Indian that owned the gun before he found the gun.
For this reason the Indians were not only anxious, but determined to kill him. Many a ball had been fired at him, but they all went wide of the mark. The Indians believed that the white man’s God protected him, that he had a charmed life, and could not be hit by a bullet fired by an Indian. They therefore resolved to take him alive, and to that end six Braves were appointed to watch and capture him.
It so happened that about this time Tom was splitting rails for a Mr. Westbrook who then lived in the Mamakating Valley. Tom wished to get the rails split in the forenoon as he had been informed that there was to be total eclipse of the sun about one o’clock in the afternoon, and that it would then be so dark that he could not see to work. The log he was trying to split was winding and cross grained, and the blows of the heavy beetle on the wedges failed to open the log. Tom was nearly out of breath and quite out of patience, and commenced talking to himself.
“Here I am at Westbrookville splitting rails. I should be at Shohola splitting heads and scattering Indian brains. That would be more in keeping with my conscience, than to stand here and pound these wedges. Confound the log, it is as cross grained as a peperage, and sticks to the bark as close as an Indian to his scalping knife. Curse the red Devils, I long to see the last one killed and scalped. If there was more Tom Quick’s there would be less Indians. Well, they are growing less every day. Yesterday I sent five more to the Spirit land. Yesterday I colored Butler’s Falls with blood. Yesterday the hawks at Hawk’s Nest mountain wafted the spirits of five more to the Indians’ eternal hunting ground. There were big spirits and little spirits. It was easy to pop over the old man and his Squaw, but when it came to knocking out the brains of the little babe, that kinder went against the grain. Confound the little redskin, he looked me right in the eye and laughed—as much as to say, ‘Uncle Tom don’t.’ I most wish that I had spared the boy to see if anything could be made out of a redskin. But pshaw! Papooses become Indians as surely as nits become lice. But I must go to work, or the sun will darken before I get these rails split. To-day comes the great eclipse of the sun and soon that orb from which we receive light and heat will be obscured, and the earth will be wrapped in the mantle of night. I see that it is approaching and darkness will soon prevail.”
This soliloquy nearly cost Tom his life. Whilst he was talking six dusky Indians were noiselessly crawling toward him. So stealthily had been their approach that Tom was not aware of their presence until he was grasped by two stalwart Indians. He sprang for his rifle, dragging the Indians with him, but the others came and Tom was overpowered. He saw his peril and knew that it was only by strategy that he could escape. The fact of the eclipse flashed across his mind and he resolved at once to excite the superstition of the Indians by appealing to the white man’s God.