“When sufficiently light to see, by climbing a sapling they discovered the horses at a considerable distance on the prairie. On approaching them, it was at once evident that their disturber had been nothing less than a Cougar. It had sprung upon the horses, and so lacerated with its claws and teeth their flanks and buttocks, that with the greatest difficulty were they able to drive the poor creatures before them to Shane’s. Several other instances of annoyance to travellers had happened at the same place, and Shane believed by the same Cougar.”
Notwithstanding the ferocious disposition and bad reputation of the panther in his wild and natural state, he can be taught better manners, and it is by no means uncommon to see them around the houses in South America, quite gentle and well-behaved—a fact which strikingly displays the power of education. I have known boys almost as wild as panthers, rendered tame and dutiful by a little birch and a great deal of kindness. Recommending this moral to schoolmasters, parents, and guardians, we bid good-bye to the panther, only adding that the history of great rascals may sometimes teach us a good lesson.
Lovewell’s War.
(Continued from page 76.)
Troops were raised and enlisted for two years’ service, and the government had no scruples in offering a bounty of forty pounds sterling for every Indian scalp. This war obtained the name of “Lovewell’s War,” from Captain John Lovewell, of Dunstable, in New Hampshire, who was the most prominent commander in the enterprise against the enemy, and was killed in a severe engagement. Various incursions were made upon the settlements by the Indians during the year 1723, and several of the inhabitants were killed and carried into captivity. On the 10th of June, 1724, a farmer and his son, being at work on Oyster River, planting corn, went to a brook to drink, and discovered three Indian packs. They immediately ran to give information to a company of volunteers, which had lately been raised in the neighborhood, for the defence of the frontier. The company marched towards the spot, but were fired upon from an ambush, and the farmer and his son, who acted as guides, were both killed. The company then fired and killed one of the Indians, and wounded two others who made their escape, though they were pursued and tracked by their blood to a considerable distance. The slain Indian was a person of distinction, and wore a species of coronet, made of fur, dyed scarlet, with an appendage of four small bells, by the sound of which the others might follow him through the thickets. His hair, contrary to what is almost universal among the natives, was remarkably soft and fine; and he had about him a devotional book, and a muster-roll of one hundred and eighty Indians. From these various circumstances, it was supposed that he was a natural son of the Jesuit, Rasle, by an Indian woman, who served him as a domestic.
Garrison-houses were built among the frontier settlements, to which the inhabitants were warned to repair in time of danger. At Dover there were many families of Quakers, who, doubting the lawfulness of war, could not be persuaded to use any means for their defence, although the Indians never spared them on that account. One of these, John Hanson, lived remote from the garrison, and refused to take shelter in it with his family, although he had a large number of children. A party of thirteen Indians, called French Mohawks, had marked his house for their prey, and lay several days in ambush, waiting for an opportunity to attack it. On the 27th of June, while Hanson and his eldest daughter were gone to attend the weekly meeting, and his two eldest sons were at work in a meadow at some distance, the Indians entered the house, killed and scalped two small children, and took his wife, with her infant of fourteen days old, her nurse, two daughters, and a son, and, after rifling the house, carried them off. This was done so suddenly and secretly, that the first person who discovered it was the eldest daughter, on her return from the meeting. Seeing the two children dead at the door, she uttered a shriek of distress, which was distinctly heard by her mother, then in the hands of the enemy among the bushes, and by her brothers in the meadow. The people, being soon alarmed, went in pursuit of the enemy; but the Indians, cautiously avoiding all beaten paths, went off with their captives undiscovered. The mother, though of a tender constitution, had a firm and vigorous mind, and passed through the various hardships of an Indian captivity with much resolution and patience. When her milk failed, she supported her infant with water warmed in her mouth, till the squaws taught her to beat the kernel of walnuts and boil it with bruised corn, which proved a nourishing food for the babe. The prisoners were all sold to the French in Canada. Hanson redeemed them the following year, one daughter remaining behind.
These and other outrages of the enemy caused the government of Massachusetts to resolve on an expedition against the Indian town of Norridgewock. Two hundred men, under Captains Moulton and Harmon, marched from York in August. They left forty of their men at Teconic Falls, on the Kennebec, and, dividing the remainder into two bodies, one of them, under Harmon, took a circuitous route, hoping to surprise some of the enemy in their cornfields, while the other, under Moulton, marched directly for the village of Norridgewock, which, being surrounded by trees, could not be seen till they were close upon it. All the Indians were in their wigwams, and the English advanced cautiously and in perfect silence. When they had approached very near, an Indian came out of his wigwam, and, discovering the English, set up the war-whoop, ran in, and seized his gun. In a few minutes the warriors were all in arms, and advanced to meet them. Moulton gave orders not to fire till the Indians had made their first discharge. This was done, and, as he expected, they overshot the English, who then immediately fired with great execution. After another volley had been exchanged, the savages fled with precipitation to the river. They were pursued and slaughtered in every quarter, and their wigwams set on fire. Moulton wished to take Rasle alive, and gave strict orders that no one should kill him. But the Jesuit having shut himself up in his house, from which he continued to fire upon the English, one of them burst into it, and shot him through the head. They then set fire to the church, which was a handsome structure, and brought away the plate and furniture of the altar, with the devotional banner, as trophies of their victory. Eighty of the Indians were killed in this attack, and three English captives rescued.
The fate of Norridgewock struck great terror into the savages, and they no longer thought themselves safe at any of their former places of abode, but occupied them as resting-places only, when they were scouting or hunting. This successful undertaking, and the large premium offered for scalps, brought several volunteer companies into the field. In December, Captain Lovewell, with thirty men, made an excursion to the north of Lake Winnipiseogee. They discovered an Indian wigwam, in which were a man and a boy. They killed and scalped the man, and brought the boy alive to Boston, where they received the reward promised by the government, and a considerable gratuity besides. This company was soon increased to seventy, and Lovewell marched again, early in 1725, toward the head of Salmon-Fall River. Their provision falling short, thirty of them, selected by lot, were dismissed, and returned home. The remaining forty continued their march till the 20th of February, when they discovered a track, which they followed till they saw a smoke, just before sunset; from this they judged that the enemy were encamped for the night. They kept themselves concealed till after midnight, when they cautiously advanced, and discovered ten Indians asleep round a fire, by the side of a frozen pond. Lovewell now determined to make sure work, and, stationing his men conveniently, ordered five of them to fire in rapid succession, and the remainder to reserve their shot. He gave the signal by discharging his own gun, which killed two Indians; and the men, firing according to order, despatched five more on the spot. The remaining three started up from their sleep, but two of them were immediately shot dead by the reserve, and the other was wounded. He attempted to escape across the pond, but was seized by a dog, who held him fast until the English came up and dispatched him. Thus, in the space of a few minutes, the whole party was destroyed, and an attempt against the frontiers of New Hampshire prevented;—for these Indians were marching from Canada, well furnished with new guns and plenty of ammunition for that object; they had also a number of spare blankets, moccasons, and snow-shoes, for the use of the prisoners whom they expected to take. The pond near which these events transpired is now known as Lovewell’s Pond. The company, with their ten scalps stretched on hoops, in the Indian fashion, marched to Boston in great triumph, and received their bounty out of the public treasury. The English spoke of this enterprise with great exultation, and pronounced it a capital exploit. In the light of the present day, the barbarity of giving a premium for scalps would be justly censured.
This brilliant success, as it was then termed, encouraged Lovewell to his last and fatal undertaking. Early in March, he again took the field, intending to attack the Indian villages of Piguacket, on the upper part of the Saco, where a formidable tribe anciently had a settled habitation, though at this period they only paid occasional visits there. His company consisted of forty-six men, including a chaplain and a surgeon. Two of them became lame, and returned. Another falling sick, they halted, and built a stockade fort on the west side of Great Ossipee Lake, partly for the accommodation of the sick man, and partly for a stronghold in case of any reverse. Here the surgeon was left with the invalid and eight of the company for a guard. Lovewell, with his thirty-four men, advanced to the northward about twenty-two miles, and encamped on the shore of a pond in the evening of the 7th of May. Early the next morning, while the men were at prayer, they heard the report of a gun, and discovered an Indian about a mile distant, standing on a point of land jutting out into the water. They had been alarmed during the night by noises round their camp, which they imagined were made by Indians, and now suspected that the one whom they saw was placed there to decoy them, and that a body of the enemy was in their front. A council of war was held, and they decided to go forward, and, by marching round the pond, to gain the spot where the Indian stood. That they might be ready for action, they disencumbered themselves of their packs, and left them, without any guard, in a pine plain, where the trees were too thinly set to hide them.
Lovewell, on his march, had crossed a carrying-place, by which two parties of Indians, consisting of forty-one warriors, commanded by the noted chiefs Paugus and Wahwa, who had been on a scout down the Saco, were returning to the lower village of Piguacket, about a mile and a half from the pond. Having fallen on Lovewell’s track, they followed it, and came at last to the baggage, which they carried off. On counting the packs, they found the number of the English to be less than that of their own force. They therefore placed themselves in ambush to attack them on their return. The Indian who had stood on the point, and was turning to the village by another path, met the English and received their fire, which he returned, and wounded Lovewell and another person with small shot. By a second fire the Indian was killed, and they took his scalp. Seeing no other enemy, the company returned toward their packs, and, while they were searching for them, the Indians sprang from their ambush and ran towards them with a horrid yell. A smart firing commenced on both sides, and Lovewell was speedily slain, with eight others. Several of the Indians fell, but, being superior in numbers, they were by no means daunted, and endeavored to surround the English, who, perceiving their design, retreated, hoping to gain a shelter behind a point of rocks and some large pine-trees on the shore of the pond. Here they took their station, having on their right the mouth of a brook, and on their left the rocky point,—their front being partly covered by a deep bog, with the pond in the rear.