VIEW ON THE SUSQUEHANNA, AT LIVERPOOL.
The musical Indian name of this lovely river, spite of the canals, rail-roads, and county towns, that have supplanted the wild forest, and the rude wigwam in its valley, recalls irresistibly to the fancy the associations of aboriginal life, and the swift but bloody transit from an Indian hunting-ground to European civilization. In the county-town of Liverpool may be found, at this day, all the transcendental marks of national refinement—such as milliners who get the fashions from Paris, farmers who drink champagne, lawyers who dream of the presidency, and young ladies who read Shelley and Chateaubriand; but it is only forty-five or fifty years ago that the Susquehanna and the head waters of the Ohio were ranged by the warlike Shawanee; and there was scarce a white man’s house west of Wyoming which had not been the scene, to a greater or less extent, of the barbarities we now find it so difficult to realize.
Among the authentic records of this region of country is a story of the captivity and escape of two children, which seems to me one of the most curious, and shows at the same time of what stuff the early settlers of these borders were made.
The names of these boys were John and Henry Johnson, the former thirteen years of age, the latter eleven. They had been rambling in the woods at a short distance from home, and getting tired, sat down to rest upon a log. After sitting a few minutes, two Indians approached, whom they took for whites, till they were too close upon them to admit of escape, and they were made prisoners. The sun set after they had followed their captors for an hour, and the Indians kindled a fire, and sharing with them their roasted meat and parched corn, lay down to sleep, each with one of the boys folded in his arms.
Henry, the youngest, had abandoned himself to his grief as they travelled on over the hills, but the elder kept a stout heart, and encouraged him with the hope of yet eluding the vigilance of the savages. The practice of terrifying children by threats of the red man with his tomahawk and scalping-knife had filled the mind of the younger, however, and he was only pacified when fatigue made the coarse food welcome, and the heat of the fire and the accustomed hour for repose overcame him with sleep. He lay down with the red arms of the savage around him, and was soon lost in the deep slumbers of childhood.
John, too, lay down, and pretended to sleep; and in a few minutes, the Indian, who had locked him in his arms, relaxed his hold. He disengaged himself softly and walked to the fire; and to try the soundness of their sleep, he stirred the half-burnt faggots, and rekindled the blaze. Not a limb stirred, and not a breathing was interrupted. He gently pulled his brother and awoke him, and they both stood by the fire, with their captors sleeping soundly at their feet. “I think,” said John, smiling, “we may go home now.” “They will catch us again,” said the younger, despairingly. “Then, before we go, we’ll kill them,” said the other.
The Indians had one gun, which rested against a tree, with their tomahawks on the ground beside it. John reflected a moment, and then, getting a rest for the gun upon a decayed log near the head of one of the savages, he cocked it, took aim at the ear of the sleeping man, and then calling to Henry, placed his hand on the trigger. Ordering him to pull without moving the gun when he gave him a sign, he took the tomahawk, and stood astride the Indian in whose arms he had been encircled. At the given signal he struck, and the gun was discharged. The blow of the tomahawk descended on the back of his victim’s neck, and he attempted to rise; but the bold boy repeated his blows, while the younger one cried out, “Lay on!—I’ve done for this one!” and both the savages were, in the next moment, lying motionless before them. The discharge of the gun had carried away the jaw of the other, and stunned him.
They started on their way back, taking with them the gun and tomahawk as trophies, and arrived at home just before day-break. The neighbours had all been in search for them, and when they told their tale, it was at first disbelieved. John, however, had hung up his hat as a mark to find the place, and led them back the way he had come, where they found the tomahawked Indian lying in his blood. The other had disappeared, but was tracked to a short distance, where, as the chronicle quietly expresses it, “they agreed to leave him, as he must die at any rate.”