On taking their departure from the place, from a high bluff near the house they discovered Riddle's son, who was trying to conceal himself in a rye-field. They captured him and took him along with them. In order to give an account of his captivity, we shall be compelled to defer an account of the further depredations of the same band until the next chapter.
Some years after peace was restored—the precise year not known, but supposed to have been in 1767,—Riddle started for the frontier in search of his son. This was a time of almost profound peace, which followed the numerous massacres of the few preceding years, and a time, too, when the Indians had been taught some severe lessons, and were disposed to act friendly toward the whites. Riddle travelled on horseback, and passed numerous Indian villages, but could hear no tidings of his son until he came upon an encampment of Shawnee Indians near Lake Erie. As he neared the village, he saw the warriors returning from the chase, and among them a youthful-looking brave with an eagle-feather waving on his cap, and all the paraphernalia of a young chief decorating his person. His bearing erect, his step firm, he trod the path with a proud and haughty air. But a single glance sufficed for Riddle to recognise in the youthful warrior his son John. Dismounting from his horse, he sprang forward and attempted to throw himself into his arms; but, strange to say, his advances were repulsed! Even when the lad was convinced that he was Riddle's offspring, he refused to go with him, but declared his determination to remain with the tribe.
During the few years that he had been among the sons of the forest, he had most thoroughly imbibed their habits and a strong love for their wild and romantic life. The chase, the woods, the council-fires and the wigwams, the canoe and the dance of the squaws, were enchantment to him, in the enjoyment of which he lost all recollections of home or his parents; and when his father declared that he would use a parent's prerogative to force him to accompany him, young Riddle, almost frantic with despair, called upon his warrior friends to interfere in his behalf. But the Indians, fearful of the consequences that might result from any interference of the kind, acknowledged Riddle's right to reclaim his son, since the red man and the white man had smoked the pipe of peace. It was, therefore, with great reluctance that John Riddle prepared to depart immediately. He took a hasty farewell of his warrior companions, and, mounting behind his father, they turned their faces toward the valley of the Juniata. Mr. Riddle, with commendable zeal and a great deal of prudence, put as much ground between him and the Shawnee village, before nightfall, as possible. He pitched his tent for the night on the edge of a thicket, and partook of some provisions which he had in his saddle-bag; and, after talking for an hour or two, they stretched themselves before the fire to sleep. Young Riddle appeared resigned, and had even conversed gayly and cheerfully with his father; but the old man had his misgivings, and he feared that treachery was hidden beneath this semblance of cheerfulness. The consequence was that he lay awake for hours; but at length the fatigues of the day overcame him, and he sank into a deep sleep, from which he did not awake until the sun was up, and then only to find that his son had fled! The emotions of a father under such circumstances may be imagined, but certainly they cannot well be described. A man of less energy would have given up the object of his mission as hopeless, and returned home.
Not so, however, with Riddle, for he hastened back to the Indian village, and asked the Indians sternly for his son. Unused or unwilling to dissemble, they frankly told him that he was in the council-house, and demanded their protection; that he had eaten, drank, and smoked, with the red man, and that he was unwilling to acknowledge a pale-face as a father or a brother. This highly incensed Riddle, and he declared that if his son were not delivered up to him, he would bring the forces from the nearest fort and exterminate them; and, further, that, if any injury befell him, his friends, who knew his mission, would follow and avenge him. A council was immediately called, and the subject debated. The young warriors of the village were determined that young Riddle should remain among them at all hazards; but the counsel of the older chiefs, who evidently foresaw what would follow, prevailed, and young Riddle was again placed in charge of his father. The old man, profiting by experience, took his son to a frontier fort, and from thence home, reasoning with him all the way on the folly of adopting the life of a savage.
Riddle grew to manhood, and reared a large family in Walker township, all of whom many years ago went to the West. He is represented by Mr. Banks as having been a quiet and inoffensive man, except when he accidentally indulged in the too free use of "fire-water." It was then that all the characteristics of the red man manifested themselves. "On such occasions his eye flashed, and all his actions betokened the wily savage."
CHAPTER V.
EARLY SETTLERS AT LICKING CREEK — RELICS OF AN INDIAN BATTLE — HOUSE OF ROBERT CAMPBELL ATTACKED — JAMES CAMPBELL WOUNDED AND TAKEN PRISONER — SCOUT SENT FROM SHERMAN'S CREEK — ENCOUNTERED INDIANS AT BUFFALO CREEK — FIVE OF THE SCOUT KILLED, ETC.
The neighborhood of the mouth of Licking Creek was settled about 1750. The first settler was Hugh Hardy, a Scotch-Irishman, who located about a mile from the mouth of the creek. He was followed by families named Castner, Wilson, Law, Scott, Grimes, and Sterrit, all Scotch-Irish, and the last two traders in Indian goods.
At the time of their advent at Licking Creek, the Indians were exceedingly friendly, and pointed out to them a famous battle-ground near the creek. The oral tradition of the battle preserved by them was as follows:—On the one side of the creek was a village of the Delawares, on the other a village of the Tuscaroras. Both tribes lived in harmony—hunted on the same grounds, seated themselves around the same council-fires, and smoked in common the pipe of peace, and danced the green-corn dance together beneath the pale rays of the mellow harvest-moon. These amicable relations might have existed for years, had not a trivial incident brought about a sad rupture. Some Indian children at play on the bank of the creek commenced quarrelling about a grasshopper. High words led to blows. The women of the respective tribes took up their children's quarrel, and in turn the wives' quarrel was taken up by the men. A bloody and most sanguinary battle was the result. The struggle was long and fierce, and hundreds of warriors, women, and children, fell beneath the deadly tomahawk or by the unerring arrow. To this day, relics, such as arrow-heads, pipes, and human bones, are found upon the spot where tradition says the battle occurred. The "grasshopper war" was long held up by the sachems as a terrible warning to any tribe about to embroil itself in a bootless war.
Some historians assert that there was once a fort at the mouth of Licking Creek, called Fort Campbell, all traces of which are now obliterated. Such was not the case. Robert Campbell owned the largest house in the settlement, which was pierced with loopholes for defence similar to that belonging to Patterson. The settlers had also been driven away, and had returned to reap their harvest. On the Sabbath referred to in the preceding chapter, while the harvesters were gathered in the house of Campbell, and immediately after the massacre at Patterson's, the same hand of Indians stealthily approached the house of Campbell and fired a volley at the inmates. Several persons were wounded, but there is no authentic record of any one being killed.