What Vandevender told Blair was probably true to the letter; for one of the inducements held out to the tories to accompany Weston was that they would be reinforced by all the tories in the county as soon as the first blow was struck; but he was not raising a company. He was too cowardly to expose himself to the danger attending such a proceeding.
As soon as Vandevender had communicated the foregoing, the company, with great unanimity, agreed to pay Hare a visit forthwith. The drum was laid aside, and the volunteers marched silently to his house. A portion of them went into the house, and found Hare, while Blair and others searched the barn and outbuildings to find more of the tories. On the arrival of Captain Blair at the house, some of his men, in a high state of excitement, had a rope around Hare's neck, and the end of it thrown over a beam, preparatory to hanging him. Blair interposed, and with great difficulty prevented them from executing summary vengeance upon the tory. In the mean time, one of the men sharpened his scalping-knife upon an iron pot, walked deliberately up to Hare, and, while two or three others held him, cut both his ears off close to his head! The tory, during these proceedings, begged most piteously for his life—made profuse promises to surrender every thing he had to the cause of liberty; but the men regarded his pleadings as those of a coward, and paid no attention to them, and, after cropping him, marched back to Vandevender's on their route in search of Weston.
On their arrival at the Standing Stone, they communicated to the people at the fort what they had done. The residents at the Stone only wanted a piece of information like this to inflame them still more against Hare, and, expressing regrets that he had not been killed, they immediately formed a plot to go down and despatch him. But there were tories at the Stone. Hare soon got wind of the affair, placed his most valuable effects upon pack-horses, and left the country.
The failure of Weston's expedition, and the treatment and flight of Hare, compelled many tories, who had openly avowed their sentiments, to leave this section of the country, while those who were suspected were forced into silence and inactivity, and many openly espoused the cause of the colonies. Still, many remained who refused to renounce their allegiance to the king, and claimed to stand upon neutral ground. Those who had taken up arms against Great Britain, however, declared that there were but two sides to the question, and no neutral ground;—that those who were not for them were against them.
Hare was declared and proclaimed an "attainted traitor," and his property was confiscated and sold. Who became the purchaser we could not ascertain; but, after peace was declared and the treaty between the United States and Great Britain ratified, Hare returned, and claimed the benefit of that part of the treaty which restored their possessions to all those of his Majesty's subjects that had not taken up arms against the colonists. As there was no direct evidence that he killed Loudenslager, Congress was compelled to purchase back and restore his property to him.
He lived and died on his farm. The venerable Mrs. Armitage, the mother-in-law of Senator Cresswell, of Hollidaysburg, remembers seeing him when she was quite young and he an old man. She says he used to conceal the loss of his ears by wearing his hair long.
During life he was shunned, and he died unregretted; but, we are sorry to say, his name is perpetuated: the place in which he lived, was cropped, and died, and is still called Hare's Valley. The people of Huntingdon should long since have changed it, and blotted from their memory a name linked to infamy and crime.
CHAPTER XXIII.
MOSES DONALDSON — CAPTURE AND MURDER OF HIS WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN.
Moses Donaldson lived in Hartslog settlement, where Hatfield's iron-works are now located, near Alexandria. In 1777, after the first Indian outrages had been committed, the neighboring settlers met, and resolved for their better protection to build a stockade fort somewhere near the river. After the building was decided upon, the location became a subject of contention—one party wanting the fort at Lytle's, another at Donaldson's, and for a while party strife ran high. Lytle, however, succeeded in out-generalling Donaldson,—not because his location was the most eligible, but simply because he was the most popular man. The fort was built at Lytle's, under Donaldson's protest, who declared that he never would go into it,—that if danger threatened he would fort at Standing Stone,—a vow he religiously kept, at the expense of the loss of his wife and two children, we regret to say.