MASSACRE OF MRS. WHETZEL AND HER CHILDREN.
Lewis Whetzel.
The Whetzel family is remembered in the west for the courage, resolution, and skill in border warfare displayed by four of its members. Their names were Martin, Lewis, Jacob, and John. Of these, Lewis won the highest renown, and it is doubtful whether Boone, Brady, or Kenton equaled him in boldness of enterprise.
In the hottest part of the Indian war, old Mr. Whetzel, who was a German, built his cabin some distance from the fort at Wheeling. One day, during the absence of the two oldest sons, Martin and John, a numerous party of Indians surrounded the house, killed, tomahawked and scalped old Mr. Whetzel, his wife, and the small children, and carried off Lewis, who was then about thirteen years old, and Jacob who was about eleven. Before the young captives had been carried far, Lewis contrived their escape. When these two boys grew to be men, they took a solemn oath never to make peace with the Indians as long as they had strength to wield a tomahawk or sight to draw a bead, and they kept their oath.
The appearance of Lewis Whetzel was enough to strike terror into common men. He was about five feet ten inches high, having broad shoulders, a full breast, muscular limbs, a dark skin, somewhat pitted by the small pox, hair which, when combed out, reached to the calves of his legs, and black eyes, whose excited and vindictive glance would curdle the blood. He excelled in all exercises of strength and activity, could load his rifle while running with almost the swiftness of a deer, and was so habituated to constant action, that an imprisonment of three days, as ordered by General Harmar, was nearly fatal to him. He had the most thorough self-reliance as his long, solitary and perilous expeditions into the Indian country prove.
