They were interrupted frequently in their course by the falls and rapids, making portages necessary; nevertheless in three days and two nights they reached the mouth of the river.

Here they bartered their peltry for powder, bullets, and various other articles most needed by frontiersmen, and catching a southeast wind started on their return. In a few hours they had made seventy miles, and at night, as the sky threatened snow, they prepared a shelter in a hollow in the bank of the river. Before morning a snow-storm had covered the river-ice and blocked their passage. For three days, the snow fell continuously. They were therefore forced to abandon all hopes of reaching their cabin at the head-waters of the Kennebec. The hollow or cave in the bank where they were sheltered they covered with saplings and branches cut from the bluff, and banked up the snow round it. Their supply of food was soon exhausted, but by cutting holes in the ice they caught fish for their subsistence.

The depth of the snow prevented them from going far from their place of shelter, and the nights were bitter cold. The ice on the river was two feet in thickness; and one day, in cutting through it to fish, their only axe was broken. No worse calamity could have befallen them, since they were now unable to cut fuel or to procure fish. Mr. Pentry, who was still suffering from the effects of his wound, contracted a cold which settled in his lame shoulder, and he was obliged to stay in doors, carefully nursed and tended by his devoted wife. The privations endured by these unfortunates are scarcely to be paralleled. Short of food, ill-supplied with clothing, and exposed to the howling severity of the climate, the escape of any one of the number appears almost a miracle.

A number of bear-skins, removed from the boat to the cave, served them for bedding. Some days, when there was nothing to eat and no means of making a fire, they passed the whole time huddled up in the skins. Daily they became weaker and less capable of exertion. Wading through the snow up to the waist, they were able now and then to shoot enough small game to barely keep them alive.

After the lapse of a fortnight there came a thaw, succeeded by a cold rain, which froze as it fell. The snow became crusted over, to the depth of two inches, with ice that was strong enough to bear their weight. They extricated their ice-boat and prepared for departure. One of the party had gone out that morning on the crust, hoping to secure some larger game to stock their larder before starting; the rest awaited his return for two hours, and then, fearing some casualty had happened to him, followed his trail for half a mile from the river and found him engaged in a desperate struggle with a large black she-bear which he had wounded.

The ferocious animal immediately left its prey and rushed at Mrs. Pentry with open mouth, seizing her left arm in its jaws, crunched it, and then, rising on its hind legs, gave her a terrible hug. The rest of the party dared not fire, for fear of hitting the woman. Twice she drove her hunting knife into the beast's vitals and it fell on the crust, breaking through into the snow beneath, where the two rolled over in a death-struggle. The heroic woman at length arose victorious, and the carcase of the bear was dragged forth, skinned, and cut up. A fire was speedily kindled, Mrs. Pentry's wounds were dressed, and after refreshing themselves with a hearty meal of bearsteak, the remainder of the meat was packed in the boat.

The party then embarked, and by the aid of a stiff easterly breeze, were enabled, in three days, to reach their cabin on the head-waters of the Kennebec. The explorations made along the Kennebec by Mrs. Pentry and her companions attracted thither an adventurous class of settlers, and ultimately led to the important settlements on the line of that river.

The remainder of Mrs. Pentry's life was spent mainly on the northern frontier. She literally lived and died in the woods, reaching the advanced age of ninety-six years, and seeing three generation of her descendants grow up around her. Possessing the strength and courage of a man, she had also all a woman's kindness, and appears to have been an estimable person in all the relations of life—a good wife and mother, a warm friend, and a generous neighbor. In fact, she was a representative woman of the times in which she lived.

The toils of a severer nature, such as properly belong to man, often fall upon woman from the necessities of life in remote and isolated settlements; she is seen plying strange vocations and undertaking tasks that bear hardly on the soft and gentle sex. Sometimes a hunter and trapper; and again a mariner; now we see her performing the rugged work of a farm, and again a fighter, stoutly defending her home. The fact that habit and necessity accustom her, in frontier life, to those employments which in older and more conventional communities are deemed unfitting and ungraceful for woman to engage in, makes it none the less striking and admirable, because in doing so she serves a great and useful purpose; she is thereby doing her part in forming new communities in the places that are uninhabited and waste.

Vermont was largely settled by the soldiers who had served in the army of the Revolution. The settlers, both men and women, were hardy and intrepid, and seem to have been peculiarly adapted to subjugate that rugged region in our New England wilderness. The women were especially noted for the strength and courage with which they shared the labors of the men and encountered the hardships and dangers of frontier life.

When sickness or death visited the men of the family, the mothers, wives, or widows filled their places in the woods, or on the farm, or among the cattle. Often, side by side with the men, women could be seen emulating their husbands in the severe task of felling timber and making a clearing in the forest.

In the words of Daniel P. Thompson, author of "The Green Mountain Boys":—

"The women of the Green Mountains deserve as much credit for their various displays of courage, endurance, and patriotism, in the early settlement of their State, as was ever awarded to their sex for similar exhibitions in any part of the world. In the controversy with New York and New Hampshire, which took the form of war in many instances; in the predatory Indian incursions, and in the War of the Revolution, they often displayed a capacity for labor and endurance, a spirit and firmness in the hour of danger, a resolution and hardihood in defending their families and their threatened land against all enemies, whether domestic or foreign, that would have done honor to the dames of Sparta."

The first man who commenced a settlement in the town of Salisbury, Vermont, on the Otter Creek, was Amos Storey, who, in making an opening in the heart of the wilderness on the right of land to which the first settler was entitled, was killed by the fall of a tree. His widow, who had been left in Connecticut, immediately resolved to push into the wilderness with her ten small children, to take his place and preserve and clear up his farm. This bold resolution she carried out to the letter, in spite of every difficulty, hardship, and danger, which for years constantly beset her in her solitary location in the woods. Acre after acre of the dense and dark forest melted away before her axe, which she handled with the dexterity of the most experienced chopper. The logs and bushes were piled and burnt by her own strong and untiring hand; crops were raised, by which, with the fruits of her fishing and unerring rifle, she supported herself and her hardy brood of children. As a place of refuge from the assaults of Indians or dangerous wild beasts, she dug out an underground room, into which, through a small entrance made to open under an overhanging thicket on the bank of the stream, she nightly retreated with her children.

Frequently during the dreary winter nights she was kept awake by the howling of the wolves, and sometimes, looking through the chinks in the logs, she could see them loping in circles around the cabin, whining and snuffing the air as if they yearned for human blood. They were gaunt, fierce-looking creatures, and in the winter-time their hunger made them so bold that they would come up to the door and scratch against it. The barking of her mastiff would soon drive the cowardly beasts away but only a few rods, to the edge of the clearing where, sitting on their haunches, they frequently watched the house all night, galloping away into the woods when day broke.

Here she continued to reside, thus living, thus laboring, unassisted, till, by her own hand and the help which her boys soon began to afford her, she cleared up a valuable farm and placed herself in independent circumstances.

Miss Hannah Fox tells the following thrilling story of an adventure that befel her while engaged in felling trees in her mother's woods in Rhode Island, in the early colonial days.

We were making fine progress with our clearing and getting ready to build a house in the spring. My brother and I worked early and late, often going without our dinner, when the bread and meat which we brought with us was frozen so hard that our teeth could make no impression upon it, without taking too much of our time. My brother plied his axe on the largest trees, while I worked at the smaller ones or trimmed the boughs from the trunks of such as had been felled.

The last day of our chopping was colder than ever. The ground was covered by a deep snow which had crusted over hard enough to bear our weight, which was a great convenience in moving from spot to spot in the forest, as well as in walking to and from our cabin, which was a mile away. My brother had gone to the nearest settlement that day, leaving me to do my work alone.

As a storm was threatening, I toiled as long as I could see, and after twilight felled a sizeable tree which in its descent lodged against another. Not liking to leave the job half finished, I mounted the almost prostrate trunk to cut away a limb and let it down. The bole of the tree was forked about twenty feet from the ground, and one of the divisions of the fork would have to be cut asunder. A few blows of my axe and the tree began to settle, but as I was about to descend, the fork split and the first joints of my left-hand fingers slid into the crack so that for the moment I could not extricate them. The pressure was not severe, and as I believed I could soon relieve myself by cutting away the remaining portion, I felt no alarm. But at the first blow of the axe which I held in my right hand, the trunk changed its position, rolling over and closing the split, with the whole force of its tough oaken fibers crushing my fingers like pipe-stems; at the same time my body was dislodged from the trunk and I slid slowly down till I hung suspended with the points of my feet just brushing the snow. The air was freezing and every moment growing colder; no prospect of any relief that night; the nearest house a mile away; no friends to feel alarmed at my absence, for my mother would suppose that I was safe with my brother, while the latter would suppose I was by this time at home.

The first thought was of my mother. "It will kill her to know that I died in this death-trap so near home, almost within hearing of her voice! There must be some escape! but how?" My axe had fallen below me and my feet could almost touch it. It was impossible to imagine how I could cut myself loose unless I could reach it. My only hope of life rested on that keen blade which lay glittering on the snow.

Within reach of my hand was a dead bush which towered some eight feet above me, and by a great exertion of strength I managed to break it. Holding it between my teeth I stripped it of its twigs, leaving two projecting a few inches at the lower end to form a hook. With this I managed to draw towards me the head of the axe until my fingers touched it, when it slipped from the hook and fell again upon the snow, breaking through the crust and burying itself so that only the upper end of the helve could be seen.

Up to that moment the recollection of my mother and the first excitement engendered by hope had almost made me unconscious of the excruciating pain in my crushed fingers, and the sharp thrills that shot through my nerves, as my body swung and twisted in my efforts to reach the axe. But now, as the axe fell beyond my reach, the reaction came, hope fled, and I shuddered with the thought that I must die there alone like some wild thing caught in a snare. I thought of my widowed mother, my brother, the home which we had toiled to make comfortable and happy. I prayed earnestly to God for forgiveness of my sins, and then calmly resigned myself to death, which I now believed to be inevitable. For a time, which I afterwards found to be only five minutes, but which then seemed to me like hours, I hung motionless. The pain had ceased, for the intense cold blunted my sense of feeling. A numbness, stole over me, and I seemed to be falling into a trance, from which I was roused by a sound of bells borne to me as if from a great distance. Hope again awoke, and I screamed loud and long; the woods echoed my cries, but no voice replied. The bells grew fainter and fainter, and at last died away. But the sound of my voice had broken the spell which cold and despair were fast throwing over me. A hundred devices ran swiftly through my mind, and each device was dismissed as impracticable. The helve of the axe caught my eye, and in an instant by an association of ideas it flashed across me that in the pocket of my dress there was a small knife—another sharp instrument by which I could extricate myself. With some difficulty I contrived to open the blade, and then withdrawing the knife from my pocket and gripping it as one who clings to the last hope of life, I strove to cut away the wood that held my fingers in its terrible vise. In vain! the wood was like iron. The motion of my arm and body brought back the pain which the cold had lulled, and I feared that I should faint.

After a moment's pause I adopted a last expedient. Nerving myself to the dreadful necessity, I disjointed my fingers and fell exhausted to the ground. My life was saved, but my left hand was a bleeding stump. The intensity of the cold stopped the flow of blood. I tore off a piece of my dress, bound up my fingers, and started for home. My complete exhaustion and the bitter cold made that the longest mile I had ever traveled. By nine o'clock that evening I had managed to drag myself, more dead than alive, to my mother's door, but it was more than a week before I could again leave the house.

The difficulties encountered by the first emigrant-bands from Massachusetts, on their journey to Connecticut, may be understood best when we consider the face of the country between Massachusetts Bay and Hartford. It was a succession of ridges and deep valleys with swamps and rapid streams, and covered with forests and thickets where bears, wolves, and catamounts prowled. The journey, which occupies now but a few hours, then generally required two weeks to perform. The early settlers, men, women, and children, pursued their toilsome march over this rough country, picking their way through morasses, wading through rivers and streams, and climbing mountains; driving their cattle, sheep, and swine before them. Some came, on horseback; the older and feebler in ox-carts, but most of them traveled on foot. At night aged and delicate women slept under trees in the forest, with no covering but the foliage and the cope of heaven.

The winter was near at hand, and the nights were already cold and frosty. Many of the women had been delicately reared, and yet were obliged to travel on foot for the whole distance, reaching their destination in a condition of exhaustion that ill prepared them for the hardships of the ensuing winter. Some were nursing mothers, who sheltered themselves and their babes in rude huts where the wind, rain, and snow drove in through yawning fissures which there were no means to close. Others were aged women, who in sore distress sent up their prayers and rolled their quavering hymns to the wintry skies, their only canopy. The story of these hapless families is told in the simple but effective language of the old historian.

"On the 15th of October [1632] about sixty men, women, and children, with their horses, cattle, and swine, commenced their journey from Massachusetts, through the wilderness, to Connecticut River. After a tedious and difficult journey through swamps and rivers, over mountains and rough grounds, which were passed with great difficulty and fatigue, they arrived safely at their respective destinations. They were so long on their journey, and so much time and pains were spent in passing the river, and in getting over their cattle, that after all their exertions, winter came upon them before they were prepared. This was an occasion of great distress and damage to the plantation. The same autumn several other parties came from the east—including a large number of women and children—by different routes, and settled on the banks of the Connecticut river.

"The winter set in this year much sooner than usual, and the weather was stormy and severe. By the 15th of November, the Connecticut river was frozen over, and the snow was so deep, and the season so tempestuous, that a considerable number of the cattle which had been driven on from the Massachusetts, could not be brought across the river. The people had so little time to prepare their huts and houses, and to erect sheds and shelter for their cattle, that the sufferings of man and beast were extreme. Indeed the hardships and distresses of the first planters of Connecticut scarcely admit of a description. To carry much provision or furniture through a pathless wilderness was impracticable. Their principal provisions and household furniture were therefore put on several small vessels, which, by reason of delays and the tempestuousness of the season, were cast away. Several vessels were wrecked on the coast of New England, by the violence of the storms. Two shallops laden with goods from Boston to Connecticut, were cast away in October, on Brown's Island, near the Gurnet's Nose; and the men with every thing on board were lost. A vessel with six of the Connecticut people on board, which sailed from the river for Boston, early in November, was, about the middle of the month, cast away in Manamet Bay. The men and women got on shore, and after wandering ten days in deep snow and a severe season, without meeting any human being, arrived, nearly spent with cold and fatigue, at New Plymouth.

"By the last of November, or beginning of December, provisions generally failed in the settlements on the river, and famine and death looked the inhabitants sternly in the face. Some of them driven by hunger attempted their way, in that severe season, through the wilderness, from Connecticut to Massachusetts. Of thirteen, in one company, who made this attempt, one in passing the river fell through the ice and was drowned. The other twelve were ten days on their journey, and would all have perished, had it not been for the assistance of the Indians.

"Indeed, such was the distress in general, that by the 3d and 4th of December, a considerable part of the new settlers were obliged to abandon their habitations. Seventy persons, men, women, and children, were compelled, in the extremity of winter, to go down to the mouth of the river to meet their provisions, as the only expedient to preserve their lives. Not meeting with the vessels which they expected, they all went on board the Rebecca, a vessel of about sixty tons. This, two days before, was frozen in, twenty miles up the river; but by the falling of a small rain, and the influence of the tide, the ice became so broken and was so far removed, that she made a shift to get out. She ran, however, upon the bar, and the people were forced to unlade her to get off. She was released, and in five days reached Boston. Had it not been for these providential circumstances, the people must have perished with famine.

"The people who kept their stations on the river suffered in an extreme degree. After all the help they were able to obtain, by hunting, and from the Indians, they were obliged to subsist on acorns, malt, and grains.

"Numbers of the cattle which could not be got over the river before winter, lived through without anything but what they found in the woods and meadows. They wintered as well, or better than those which were brought over, and for which all the provision was made and pains taken of which the owners were capable. However, a great number of cattle perished. The Dorchester or Windsor people, lost in this way alone about two hundred pounds sterling. Their other losses were very considerable."

It is difficult to describe, or even to conceive, the apprehensions or distresses of a people in the circumstances of our venerable ancestors, during this doleful winter. All the horrors of a dreary wilderness spread themselves around them. They were compassed with numerous fierce and cruel tribes of wild and savage men who could have swallowed up parents and children at pleasure, in their feeble and distressed condition. They had neither bread for themselves nor children; neither habitation nor clothing convenient for them. Whatever emergency might happen, they were cut off, both by land and water, from any succor or retreat. What self-denial, firmness, and magnanimity are necessary for such enterprises! How distressing, in the beginning, was the condition of those now fair and opulent towns on Connecticut River!

Under the most favorable circumstances, the lives of the pioneer-women must have been one long ordeal of hardship and suffering. The fertile valleys were the scenes of the bloodiest Indian raids, while the remote and sterile hill country, if it escaped the attention of the hostile savage, was liable to be visited by other ills. Famine in such regions was always imminent, and the remoteness and isolation of those frontier-cabins often made relief impossible. A failure in the little crop of corn, which the thin soil of the hillside scantily furnished, and the family were driven to the front for game and to the streams for fish, to supply their wants. Then came the winter, and the cabin was often blockaded with snow for weeks. The fuel and food consumed, nothing seemed left to the doomed household but to struggle on for a season, and then lie down and die. Fortunately the last sad catastrophe was of rare occurrence, owing to the extraordinary resolution and hardihood of the settlers.

It is a striking fact that in all the records, chronicles, and letters of the early settlers that have come down to us, there are scarcely to be found any complaining word from woman. She simply stated her sufferings, the dangers she encountered, the hardships she endured, and that was all. No querulous or peevish complaints, no meanings over her hard lot. She bore her pains and sorrows and privations in silence, looking forward to her reward, and knowing that she was making homes in the wilderness, and that future generations would rise up and call her blessed.



CHAPTER IV.

THE BLOCK HOUSE, AND ON THE INDIAN TRAIL.

The axe and the gun, the one to conquer the forces of wild nature, the other to battle against savage man and beast—these were the twin weapons that the pioneer always kept beside him, whether on the march or during a halt. In defensive warfare the axe was scarcely less potent than the gun, for with its keen edge the great logs were hewed which formed the block-house, and the tall saplings shaped, which were driven into the earth to make the stockade. We know too that woman could handle the gun and ply the axe when required so to do.

In one of our historical galleries there was exhibited not long since a painting representing a party of Indians attacking a block-house in a New England settlement. The house is a structure framed, and built of enormous logs, hexagonal in shape, the upper stories over-hanging those beneath, and pierced with loopholes. There is a thick parapet on the roof, behind which are collected the children of the settlement guarded by women, old and young, some of whom are firing over the parapet at the yelling fiends who have just emerged from their forest-ambush. A glimpse of the interior of the block-house shows us women engaged in casting bullets and loading fire-arms which they are handing to the men. In the background a brave girl is returning swiftly to the garrison, with buckets of water which she has drawn from the spring, a few rods away from the house. A crouching savage has leveled his gun at her, and she evidently knows the danger she is in, but moves steadily forward without spilling a drop of her precious burden.

The block-house is surrounded by the primeval forest, which is alive with savages. Some are shaking at the defenders of the block-house fresh scalps, evidently just torn from the heads of men and women who have been overtaken and tomahawked before they could reach their forest-citadel: others have fired the stack of corn. A large fire has been kindled in the woods and a score of savages are wrapping dry grass around the ends of long poles, with which to fire the wooden walls of the block-house.

Thirty or forty men women and children in a wooden fort, a hundred miles, perhaps, from any settlement, and surrounded by five times their number of Pequots or Wampanoags thirsting for their blood! This is indeed a faithful picture of one of the frequent episodes of colonial life in New England!

Every new settlement was brought face to face with such dangers as we have described. The red-man and the white man were next door neighbors. The smokes of the wigwam and the cabin mingled as they rose to the sky. From the first there was more or less antagonism. Life among the white settlers was a kind of picket-service in which woman shared.

At times, as for example in the wars with the Pequots and King Philip, there was safety nowhere. Men went armed to the field, to meeting, and to bring home their brides from their father's house where they had married them. Women with muskets at their side lulled their babes to sleep. Like the tiger of the jungles, the savage lay in ambush for the women and children: he knew he could strike the infant colony best by thus desolating the homes.

The captivities of Mrs. Williams and her children, of Mrs. Shute, of Mrs. Johnson, of Mrs. Howe, and of many other matrons; as well as of unmarried women, are well-conned incidents of New England colonial history. The story of Mrs. Dustin's exploit and escape reads like a romance. "At night," to use the concise language of Mr. Bancroft, "while the household slumbers, the captives, each with a tomahawk, strike vigorously, and fleetly, and with division of labor,—and of the twelve sleepers, ten lie dead; of one squaw the wound was not mortal; one child was spared from design. The love of glory next asserted its power; and the gun and tomahawk of the murderer of her infant, and a bag heaped full of scalps were choicely kept as trophies of the heroine. The streams are the guides which God has set for the stranger in the wilderness: in a bark canoe the three descend the Merrimac to the English settlement, astonishing their friends by their escape and filling the land with wonder at their successful daring."

The details of Mrs. Rowlandson's sufferings after her capture at Lancaster, Mass., in 1676, are almost too painful to dwell upon. When the Indians began their march the day after the destruction of that place, Mrs. Rowlandson carried her infant till her strength failed and she fell. Toward night it began to snow; and gathering a few sticks, she made a fire. Sitting beside it on the snow, she held her child in her arms, through the long and dismal night. For three or four days she had no sustenance but water; nor did her child share any better for nine days. During this time it was constantly in her arms or lap. At the end of that period, the frost of death crept into its eyes, and she was forced to relinquish it to be disposed of by the unfeeling sextons of the forest.

She went through almost every suffering but death. She was beaten, kicked, turned out of doors, refused food, insulted in the grossest manner, and at times almost starved. Nothing but experience can enable us to conceive what must be the hunger of a person by whom the discovery of six acorns and two chestnuts was regarded as a rich prize. At times, in order to make her miserable, they announced to her the death of her husband and her children.

On various occasions they threatened to kill her. Occasionally, but for short intervals only, she was permitted to see her children, and suffered her own anguish over again in their miseries. She was obliged, while hardly able to walk, to carry a heavy burden, over hills, and through rivers, swamps, and marshes; and in the most inclement seasons. These evils were repeated daily; and, to crown them all, she was daily saluted with the most barbarous and insolent accounts of the burning and slaughter, the tortures and agonies, inflicted by them upon her countrymen. It is to be remembered that Mrs. Rowlandson was tenderly and delicately educated, and ill fitted to encounter such distresses; and yet she bore them all with a fortitude truly wonderful.

Instances too there were, where a single woman infused her own dauntless spirit into a whole garrison, and prevented them from abandoning their post. Mrs. Heard, "a widow of good estate a mother of many children, and a daughter of Mr. Hull, a revered minister formerly settled in Piscataqua," having escaped from captivity among the Indians, about 1689, returned to one of the garrisons on the extreme frontier of New Hampshire. By her presence and courage this out-post was maintained for ten years and during the whole war, though frequently assaulted by savages. It is stated that if she had left the garrison and retired to Portsmouth, as she was solicited to do by her friends, the out-post would have been abandoned, greatly to the damage of the surrounding country.

Long after the New England colonies rested in comparative security from the attacks of the aboriginal tribes, the warfare was continued in the Middle, Southern, and Western States, and even at this hour, sitting in our peaceful homes we read in the journals of the day reports of Indian atrocities perpetrated against the families of the pioneers on our extreme western frontier.

Our whole history from the earliest times to the present, is full of instances of woman's noble achievements. East, west, north, south, wherever we wander, we tread the soil which has been wearily trodden by her feet as a pioneer, moistened by her tears as a captive, or by her blood as a martyr in the cause of civilization on this western continent.

The sorrows of maidens, wives, and mothers in the border wars of our colonial times, have furnished themes for the poet, the artist, and the novelist, but the reality of these scenes as described in the simple words of the local historians, often exceeds the most vivid dress in which imagination can clothe it.

One of the most deeply rooted traits of woman's nature is sympathy, and the outflow of that emotion into action is as natural as the emotion itself. When a woman witnesses the sufferings of others it is instinctive with her to try and relieve them, and to be thwarted in the exercise of this faculty is to her a positive pain.

We may judge from this of what her feelings must have been when she saw, as she often did, those who were dearest to her put to torture and death without being permitted to rescue them or even alleviate their agonies.

Such was the position in which Mrs. Waldron was placed, on the northern border, during the French and Indian war of the last century. She and her husband occupied a small block-house which they had built a few miles from Cherry Valley, New York, and here she was doomed to suffer all that a wife could, in witnessing the terrible fate of her husband and being at the same time powerless to rescue him.

"One fatal evening," to use the quaint words of our heroine, "I was all alone in the house, when I was of a sudden surprised with the fearful war-whoop and a tremendous attack upon the door and the palisades around. I flew to the upper window and seizing my husband's gun, which I had learned to use expertly, I leveled the barrel on the window-sill and took aim at the foremost savage. Knowing their cruelty and merciless disposition, and wishing to obtain some favor, I desisted from firing; but how vain and fruitless are the efforts of one woman against the united force of so many, and of such merciless monsters as I had here to deal with! One of them that could speak a little English, threatened me in return, 'that if I did not come out, they would burn me alive in the house.' My terror and distraction at hearing this is not to be expressed by words nor easily imagined by any person unless in the same condition. Distracted as I was in such deplorable circumstances, I chose to rely on the uncertainty of their protection, rather than meet with certain death in the house; and accordingly went out with my gun in my hand, scarcely knowing what I did. Immediately on my approach, they rushed on me like so many tigers, and instantly disarmed me. Having me thus in their power, the merciless villians bound me to a tree near the door.

"While our house and barns were burning, sad to relate, my husband just then came through the woods, and being spied by the barbarians, they gave chase and soon overtook him. Alas! for what a fate was he reserved! Digging a deep pit, they tied his arms to his side and put him into it and then rammed and beat the earth all around his body up to his neck, his head only appearing above ground. They then scalped him and kindled a slow fire near his head.

"I broke my bonds, and running to him kissed his poor bleeding face, and threw myself at the feet of his barbarous tormentors, begging them to spare his life. Deaf to all my tears and entreaties and to the piercing shrieks of my unfortunate husband, they dragged me away and bound me more firmly to the tree, smiting my face with the dripping scalp and laughing at my agonies.

"Thank God! I then lost all consciousness of the dreadful scene; and when I regained my senses the monsters had fled after cutting off the head of the poor victim of their cruel rage."

When the British formed an unholy alliance with the Indians during the Revolutionary War and turned the tomahawk and scalping knife against their kinsmen, the beautiful valley of Wyoming became a dark and bloody battle-ground. The organization and disciplined valor of the white man, leagued with the cunning and ferocity of the red man, was a combination which met the patriots at every step in those then remote settlements, and spread rapine, fire, and murder over that lovely region.

The sufferings of the captive women, the dreadful scenes they witnessed, and the fortitude and courage they displayed, have been rescued from tradition and embodied in a permanent record by more than one historian. The names of Mrs. Bennet, Mrs. Myers, Mrs. Marcy, Mrs. Franklin, and a host of others, are inseparably associated with the household legends of the Wyoming Valley.

Miss Cook, after witnessing the barbarous murder and mutilation of a beautiful girl, whose rosy cheeks were gashed and whose silken tresses were torn from her head with the scalping knife, was threatened with instant death unless she would assist in dressing a bundle of fresh, reeking scalps cut from the heads of her friends and relatives. As she handled the gory trophies, expecting every moment that her own locks would be added to the ghastly heap, she saw something in each of those sad mementos that reminded her of those who were near and dear to her. At last she lifted one which she thought was her mother's; she gazed at the long tresses sprinkled with gray and called to mind how often she had combed and caressed them in happier hours: shuddering through her whole frame, the wretched girl burst into a passion of tears. The ruthless savage who stood guard over her with brandished tomahawk immediately forced her to resume and complete her horrible task.

In estimating the heroism of American women displayed in their conflicts with the aborigines, we must take into account her natural repugnance to repulsive and horrid spectacles. The North American savage streaked with war-paint, a bunch of reeking scalps at his girdle, his snaky eyes gleaming with malignity, was a direful sight for even a hardened frontiers-man; how much more, then, to his impressionable and delicate wife and daughter. The very appearance of the savage suggested thoughts of the tomahawk, the scalping knife, the butchered relations, the desolated homestead. Nothing can better illustrate the hardihood of these bold spirited women than the fact that they showed themselves not seldom superior to these feelings of dread and abhorrence, daring even in the midst of scenes of blood to denounce personally and to their face the treachery and cruelty of their foes.

[Footnote: DeHass.] In the year 1763 a party of Shawnees visited the Block-House at Big Levels, Virginia, and after being hospitably entertained by the inhabitants, turned treacherously upon them and massacred every white man in the house. The women and children were carried away as captives, including Mrs. Glendenning, the late wife, and now the widow of one of the leading settlers. Notwithstanding the dreadful scenes through which she had passed, Mrs. Glendenning was not intimidated. Her husband and friends had been butchered before her eyes; but though possessed of keen sensibilities, her spirit was undaunted by the awful spectacle. Filled with indignation at the treachery and cruelty of the Indians, she loudly denounced them, and tauntingly told them that they lacked the hearts of great warriors who met their foes in fair and open conflict. The savages were astounded at her audacity; they tried to frighten her into silence by flapping the bloody scalp of her husband in her face and by flourishing their tomahawks above her head. The intrepid woman still continued to express her indignation and detestation. The savages, admiring her courage, refrained from inflicting any injury upon her. She soon after managed to effect her escape and returned to her desolate home, where she gave decent interment to the mangled remains of her husband. During all the trying scenes of the massacre and captivity Mrs. Glendenning proved herself worthy of being ranked with the bravest women of our Colonial history.

The region watered by the upper Ohio and its tributary streams was for fifty years the battle-ground where the French and their Indian allies, and afterwards the Indians alone, strove to drive back the Anglo-Saxon race as it moved westward. The country there was rich and beautiful, but what made its possession especially desirable was the fact that it was the strategic key to the great West. The French, understanding its importance, established their fortresses and trading-posts as bulwarks against the army of English settlers advancing from the East, and also instructed their savage allies in the art of war.

The Indian tribes in that region were warlike and powerful, and for some years it seemed as if the country would be effectually barred against the access of the Eastern pioneer. But the same school that reared and trained the daughters and grand-daughters of the Pilgrims, and of the settlers of Jamestown, and fitted them to cope with the perils and hardships of the wilderness, and to battle with hostile aboriginal tribes, also fitted their descendants for new struggles on a wider field and against more desperate odds. The courage and fortitude of men and women alike rose to the occasion, and in those scenes of danger and carnage, the presence of mind displayed by women especially, have been frequent themes of panegyric by the border annalists.

[Footnote: DeHass.] The scene wherein Miss Elizabeth Zane, one of these heroines, played so conspicuous a part, was at Fort Henry, near the present city of Wheeling, Virginia, in the latter part of November, 1782. Of the forty-two men who originally composed the garrisons, nearly all had been drawn into an ambush and slaughtered. The Indians, to the number of several hundred, surrounded the garrison which numbered no more than twelve men and boys.

A brisk fire upon the fort was kept up for six hours by the savages, who at times rushed close up to the palisades and received the reward of their temerity from the rifles of the frontiersmen. In the afternoon the stock of powder was nearly exhausted. There was a keg in a house ten or twelve rods from the gate of the fort, and the question arose, who shall attempt to seize this prize? Strange to say, every soldier proffered his services, and there was an ardent contention among them for the honor. In the weak state of the garrison, Colonel Shepard, the commander, deemed it advisable that only one person could be spared; and in the midst of the confusion, before any one could be designated, Elizabeth Zane interrupted the debate, saying that her life, was not so important at that time as any one of the soldiers, and claiming the privilege of performing the contested services. The Colonel would not at first listen to her proposal, but she was so resolute, so persevering in her plea, and her argument was so powerful, that he finally suffered the gate to be opened, and she passed out. The Indians saw her before she reached her brother's house, where the keg was deposited; but for some cause unknown, they did not molest her until she reappeared with the article under her arm. Probably, divining the nature of her burden, they discharged a volley as she was running towards the gate, but the whizzing balls only gave agility to her feet, and herself and the prize were quickly safe within the gate.

The successful issue of this perilous enterprise infused new spirit into the garrison; re-enforcements soon reached them, the assailants were forced to beat a precipitate retreat, and Fort Henry and the whole frontier was saved, thanks to the heroism of Elizabeth Zane!

[Footnote: McClung's Sketches of Western Adventure.] The heroines of Bryant's Station deserve a place on the roll of honor, beside the name of the preserver of Fort Henry, since like her their courage preserved a garrison from destruction. We condense the story from the several sources from which it has come down to us.

The station, consisting of about forty cabins ranged in parallel lines, stood upon a gentle rise on the southern banks of the Elkhorn, near Lexington, Kentucky. One morning in August, 1782, an army of six hundred Indians appeared before it as suddenly as if they had risen out of the earth. One hundred picked warriors made a feint on one side of the fort, trying to entice the men out from behind the stockade, while the remainder were concealed in ambush near the spring with which the garrison was supplied with water. The most experienced of the defenders understood the tactics of their wily foes, and shrewdly guessed that an ambuscade had been prepared in order to cut off the garrison from access to the spring. The water in the station was already exhausted, and unless a fresh supply could be obtained the most dreadful sufferings were apprehended. It was thought probable that the Indians in ambush would not unmask themselves until they saw indications that the party on the opposite side of the fort had succeeded in enticing the soldiers to an open engagement.

[Footnote: McClung's Sketches of Western Adventure.] Acting upon this impression, and yielding to the urgent necessity of the case, they summoned all the women, without exception, and explaining to them the circumstances in which they were placed, and the improbability that any injury would be done them, until the firing had been returned from the opposite side of the fort, they urged them to go in a body to the spring, and each to bring up a bucket full of water. Some, as was natural, had no relish for the undertaking; they observed they were not bulletproof, and asked why the men could not bring the water as well as themselves; adding that the Indians made no distinction between male and female scalps.

To this it was answered, that women were in the habit of bringing water every morning to the fort, and that if the Indians saw them engaged as usual, it would induce them to believe that their ambuscade was undiscovered, and that they would not unmask themselves for the sake of firing at a few women, when they hoped, by remaining concealed a few moments longer to obtain complete possession of the fort; that if men should go down to the spring, the Indians would immediately suspect that something was wrong, would despair of succeeding by ambuscade, and would instantly rush upon them, follow them into the fort, or shoot them down at the spring. The decision was soon made.

A few of the boldest declared their readiness to brave the danger, and the younger and more timid rallying in the rear of these veterans, they all marched down in a body to the spring, within point blank shot of more than five hundred Indian warriors! Some of the girls could not help betraying symptoms of terror, but the married women, in general, moved with a steadiness and composure which completely deceived the Indians. Not a shot was fired. The party were permitted to fill their buckets, one after another, without interruption, and although their steps became quicker and quicker, on their return, and when near the gate of the fort, degenerated into a rather un-military celerity, attended with some little crowding in passing the gate, yet only a small portion of the water was spilled. The brave water carriers were received with open arms and loud cheers by the garrison, who hailed them as their preservers, and the Indians shortly after retired, baffled and cursing themselves for being outwitted by the "white squaws."

The annals of the border-wars in the region of which we have been speaking abound in stories where women have been the victors in hand-to-hand fights with savages. In all these combats we may note the spirit that inspired those brave women with such wonderful strength and courage, transforming them, from gentle matrons into brave soldiers. It was love for their children, their husbands, their kindred, or their homes rather than the selfish instinct of self-preservation which impelled Mrs. Porter, the two Mrs. Cooks, Mrs. Merrill, and Mrs. Bozarth to perform those feats of prowess and daring which will make their names live for ever in the thrilling story of border-warfare.

The scene where Mrs. Porter acted her amazing part was in Huntingdon county, Pennsylvania, and the time was during the terrible war instigated by the great Pontiac. While sitting by the window of her cabin, awaiting the return of her husband, who had gone to the mill, she caught sight of an Indian approaching the door. Taking her husband's sword from the wall where it hung, she planted herself behind the door; and when the Indian entered she struck with all her might, splitting his skull and stretching him a corpse upon the floor. Another savage entered and met the same fate. A third seeing the slaughter of his companions prudently retired.

Dropping the bloody weapon, she next seized the loaded gun which stood beside her and retreated to the upper story looking for an opportunity to shoot the savage from the port-holes. The Indian pursued her and as he set foot upon the upper floor received the contents of her gun full in the chest and fell dead in his tracks. Cautiously reconnoitering in all directions and seeing the field clear she fled swiftly toward the mill and meeting her husband, both rode to a neighboring block-house where they found refuge and aid. The next morning it was discovered that other Indians had burned their cabin, partly out of revenge and partly to conceal their discomfiture by a woman. The bones of the three savages found among the ashes were ghastly trophies of Mrs. Porter's extraordinary achievement.

In Nelson county, Kentucky, on a midsummer night, in 1787, just before the gray light of morning, John Merrill, attracted by the barking of his dog, went to the door of his cabin to reconnoiter. Scarcely had he left the threshold, when he received the fire of six or seven Indians, by which his arm and thigh were both broken. He managed to crawl inside the cabin and shouted to his wife to shut the door. Scarcely had she succeeded in doing so when the tomahawks of the enemy were hewing a breach into the apartment.

[Footnote: McClung's Sketches of Western Adventure.] Mrs. Merrill, with Amazonian courage and strength, grasped a large axe and killed, or badly wounded, four of the enemy in succession as they attempted to force their way into the cabin.

The Indians then ascended the roof and attempted to enter by way of the chimney, but here, again, they were met by the same determined enemy. Mrs. Merrill seized the only feather-bed which the cabin afforded, and hastily ripping it open, poured its contents upon the fire. A furious blaze and stifling smoke ascended the chimney, and quickly brought down two of the enemy, who lay for a few moments at the mercy of the lady. Seizing the axe, she despatched them, and was instantly summoned to the door, where the only remaining savage appeared, endeavoring to effect an entrance, while Mrs. Merrill was engaged at the chimney. He soon received a gash in the cheek which compelled him with a loud yell to relinquish his purpose, and return hastily to Chillicothe, where, from the report of a prisoner, he gave an exaggerated account of the fierceness, strength, and courage of the "Long knife squaw!"

The wives of Jesse and Hosea Cook, the "heroines of Innis station" (Kentucky), as they have been styled, are shining examples of a firmness of spirit which sorrow could not blench nor tears dim.

While the brothers Cook were peacefully engaged in the avocations of the farm beside their cabins, in April, 1792, little dreaming of the proximity of the savages, a sharp crack of rifles was heard and they both lay weltering in their blood. The elder fell dead, the younger was barely able to reach his cabin.

The two Mrs. Cooks with three children were instantly collected in the house and the door made fast. The thickness of the door resisted the hail of rifle-balls which fell upon it, and the Indians tried in vain to cut through it with their tomahawks.

While the assault was being made on the outside of the cabin, within was heart-rending sorrow mingled with fearless determination and high resolve. The younger Cook while the door was being barred breathed his last in the arms of his wife, and the two Mrs. Cooks, thus sadly bereaved of their partners, were left the sole defenders of the cabin and the three children.

There was a rifle in the house but no balls could be found. In this extremity one of the women took a musket-ball and placing it between her teeth bit it into pieces. Her eyes streaming with tears, she loaded the rifle and took her position at an aperture from which she could watch the motions of the savages. She dried her tears and thought of vengeance on her husband's murderers and of saving the innocent babes which she was guarding.

After the failure of the Indians to break down the door, one of them seated himself upon a log, apprehending no danger from the "white squaws" who, he knew, were the only defenders of the cabin. A ball sped from the rifle in the hands of Mrs. Cook, and with a loud yell the savage bounded into the air and fell dead.

The Indians, infuriated at the death of their comrade, threatened, in broken English, the direst vengeance on the inmates of the cabin. A half dozen of the yelling fiends instantly climbed to the roof of the cabin and kindled a fire upon the dry boards around the chimney. As the flames began to take effect the destruction of the cabin and the doom of the unfortunate inmates seemed certain.

But the self-possession and intrepidity of the brave women were equal to the occasion. While one stood in the loft the other handed her water with which she extinguished the fire. Again and again the roof was fired, and as often extinguished. When the water was exhausted, the dauntless pair held the flames at bay by breaking eggs upon them. The Indians, at length fatigued by the obstinacy and valor of the brave defenders, threw the body of their comrade into the creek and precipitately fled.

The exploits of Mrs. Bozarth in defending her home and family against superior numbers, has scarcely been paralleled in ancient or modern history. Relying upon her firmness and courage, two or three families had gathered themselves for safety at her house, on the Pennsylvania border, in the spring of 1779. The forest swarmed with savages, who soon made their appearance near the stockade, severely wounding one of the only two men in the house. [Footnote: Doddridge's Notes.] The Indian who had shot him, springing over his prostrate body, engaged with the other white man in a struggle which ended in his discomfiture. A knife was wanting to dispatch the savage who lay writhing beneath his antagonist. Mrs. Bozarth seized an axe and with one blow clove the Indian's skull. Another entered and shot the white man dead. Mrs. Bozarth, with unflinching boldness, turned to this new foe and gave him several cuts with the axe, one of which laid bare his entrails. In response to his cries for help, his comrades, who had been killing some children out of doors, came rushing to his relief. The head of one of them was cut in twain by the axe of Mrs. Bozarth, and the others made a speedy retreat through the door. Rendered furious by the desperate resistance they had met, the Indians now besieged the house, and for several days they employed all their arts to enter and slay the weak garrison. But all their efforts were futile. Mrs. Bozarth and her wounded companion employed themselves so vigorously and vigilantly that the enemy were completely baffled. At length a party of white men arrived, put the Indians to flight, and relieved Mrs. Bozarth from her perilous situation.



CHAPTER V.

THE CAPTIVE SCOUTS—THE GUARDIAN MOTHER OF THE MOHAWK.

The part that woman has taken in so many ways and under so many conditions, in securing the ultimate results represented by our present status as a nation, is given too small a place in the general estimate of those who pen the record of civilization on the North American continent. This is no doubt partly due to her own distaste for notoriety. While man stands as a front figure in the temple of fame, and celebrates his own deeds with pen and voice, she takes her place in the background, content and happy so long as her father, or husband, or son, is conspicuous in the glory to which she has largely contributed. Thus it is that in the march of grand events the historian of the Republic often passes by the woman's niche without dwelling upon its claims to our attention. But notwithstanding the self-chosen position of the weaker sex, their names and deeds are not all buried in oblivion. The filial, proud, and patriotic fondness of sons and daughters have preserved in their household traditions the memory of brave and good mothers; the antiquarian and the local historian, with loving zeal have wiped the dust from woman's urn, and traced anew the names and inscriptions which time has half effaced.

As we scan the pages of Woman's Record the roll of honor lengthens, stretching far out like the line of Banquo's phantom-kings. Their names become impressed on our memory; their acts dilate, and their whole lives grow brighter the more closely we study them.

Among the many duties which from necessity or choice were assigned to woman in the remote and isolated settlements, was that of standing guard. She was par excellence the vigilant member of the household, a sentinel ever on the alert and ready to give alarm at the first note of danger. The pioneers were the pickets of the army of civilization: woman was a picket of pickets, a sentinel of sentinels, watchful of danger and the quickest to apprehend it. She was always a guardian, and not seldom the preserver of her home and of the settlement. Such duties as these, faithfully performed, contribute perhaps to the success of a campaign more even than great battles. As soon as the front line or picket-force of the pioneers was fairly established in the enemies' country, the work was more than half done, and the whole army—center, right, and left wings—could move forward with little danger, though labor, hard and continuous, was still required. In successive regions the same sentinel and picket duties were performed; in New England and on the Atlantic coast first; then in the interior districts, in the middle States; and already, a hundred years ago, the flying skirmish-line had crossed the great Appalachian range, and was fording the rivers of the western basin. On the march, on the halt, in the camp, that is, in the permanent settlement, woman was a sentinel keeping perpetual guard over the household treasures.

What materials for romance—for epic and tragic poetry—in the lives of those pioneer women! The lonely cabin in the depths of the forest; the father away; the mother rocking her babe to sleep; the howling of the wolves; the storm beating on the roof; the crafty savage lying in ambush; the war-whoop in the night; the attack and the repulse; or perchance the massacre and the cruel captivity; and all the thousand lights and shadows of border life!

During the French and Indian war, and while the northern border was being desolated by savage raids, a hardy settler named Mack, with his wife and two children, occupied a cabin and clearing in the forest a few miles south of Lake Pleasant, in Hamilton County, New York. For some months after the breaking out of the war no molestation was offered to Mr. Mack or his family, either owing to the sequestered situation in which they lived, or from the richer opportunities for plunder offered in the valleys some distance below the lonely and rock-encompassed forest where the Mack homestead lay. Encouraged by this immunity from attack, and placing unbounded confidence in the vigilance and courage of his wife, Mr. Mack, when summoned to accompany Sir William Johnson's forces on one of their military expeditions, obeyed the call and prepared to join his fellow-borderers. Mrs. Mack cheerfully and patriotically acquiesced in her husband's resolution, assuring him that during his absence she would protect their home and children or perish in attempt.

The cabin was a fortress, such as befitted the exposed situation in which it lay, and was supplied by the provident husband before his departure with provisions and ammunition sufficient to stand a siege: it was furnished on each side with, a loop-hole through which a gun could be fixed or a reconnoisance made in every direction.

Yielding to the dictates of prudence and desirous of redeeming the pledge which she had made to her husband, Mrs. Mack stayed within doors most of the time for some days after her husband had bade her farewell, keeping a vigilant look-out on every side for the prowling foe. No sound but the voices of nature disturbed the stillness of the forest. Everything around spoke of peace and repose. Lulled into security by these appearances and urged by the necessities of her out-door duties, she gradually relaxed her vigilance until she pursued the labors of the farm with as much regularity as she would have done if her husband had been at home.

One day while plucking ears of corn for roasting, she caught a glimpse of a moccasin and a brawny limb fringed with leggins, projecting behind a clump of bushes not twenty paces from her. Repressing the shriek which rose to her lips, she quietly and leisurely strolled back to the house with her basket of ears. Once she thought she heard the stealthy tread of the savage behind her and was about to break into a run; but a moment's reflection convinced her that her fears were groundless. She steadily pursued her course till she reached the cabin. With a vast weight of fear taken from her mind she now turned and cast a rapid, glance towards the bushes where the foe lay in ambush; nothing was visible there, and having closed and barred the door she made a reconnoisance from each of the four loop-holes of her fortress, but saw nothing to alarm her.

It seemed to her probable that it was only a single prowling savage who was seeking an opportunity to plunder the cabin. Accordingly with a loaded gun by her side, she sat down before the loop-hole which commanded the spot where the savage lay concealed and watched for further developments. For two hours all was still and she began to imagine that he had left his hiding place, when she noticed a rustling in the bushes and soon after descried the savage crawling on his belly and disappearing in the cornfield. Night found her still watching, and as soon as her children had been lulled to sleep she returned to her post and straining her eyes into the darkness, listened for the faintest sound that might give note of the approach of the enemy. It was near midnight when overcome with fatigue she leaned against the log wall and fell asleep with her gun in her hand.

She was conscious in her slumbers of some mesmeric power exerting an influence upon her, and awakening with a start saw for an instant by the faint light, a pair of snaky eyes looking directly into hers through the loop-hole. They were gone before she was fairly awake, and she tried to convince herself that she had been dreaming. Not a sound was audible, and after taking an observation from each of the loop-holes she became persuaded that the fierce eyes that seemed to have been watching her was the figment of a brain disturbed by anxiety and vigils.

Once more sleep overcame her and again she was awakened by a rattling sound followed by heavy breathing. The noise seemed to proceed from the chimney to which she had scarcely began to direct her attention, when a large body fell with a thud into the ashes of the fire-place, and a deep guttural "ugh" was uttered by an Indian who rose and peered around the room.

The first flickering light which follows the blackness of midnight, gave him a glimpse of the heroic matron who stood with her piece cocked and leveled directly at his breast. Brandishing his tomahawk he rushed towards her yelling so as to disconcert her aim. The brave woman with unshaken nerves pulled the trigger, and the savage fell back with a screech, dead upon the floor. Almost simultaneously with the report of the gun, a triumphant war-whoop was sounded outside the cabin, and peering through the aperture in the direction from which it proceeded she saw three savages rushing toward the door. Rapidly loading her piece she took her position at the loop-hole that commanded the entrance to the cabin, and taking aim, shot one savage dead, the ball passing completely through his body and wounding another who stood in range. The third made a precipitate retreat, leaving his wounded comrade who crawled into the cornfield and there died.

After the occurrence of these events we may well suppose that the life of Mrs. Mack was one of constant vigilance. For some days and nights she stood sentinel over her little ones, and then in her dread lest the Indians should return and take vengeance upon her and her children for the slaughter of their companions, she concluded the wisest course would be to take refuge in the nearest fort thirty miles distant. Accordingly the following week she made all her preparations and carrying her gun started for the fort with her children.

Before they had proceeded a mile on their course she had the misfortune to drop her powder-horn in a stream: this compelled her to return to the cabin for ammunition. Hiding her children in a dense copse and telling them to preserve silence during her absence, she hastened back, filled her powder-horn and returned rapidly upon her trail.

But what was her agony on discovering that her children were missing from the place where she left them! A brief scrutiny of the ground showed her the tracks of moccasins, and following them she soon ascertained that her children had been carried away by two Indians. Like the tigress robbed of her young, she followed the trail swiftly but cautiously and soon came up with the savages, whose speed had been retarded by the children. Stealing behind them she shot one of them and clubbing her gun rushed at the other with such fierceness that he turned and fled.

Pursuing her way to the fort she met her husband returning home from the war. The family then retraced their steps and reached their home, the scene of Mrs. Mack's heroic exploit.

It was during their captivities that women often learned the arts and practiced the perilous profession of a scout. Their Indian captors were sometimes the first to suffer from the knowledge which they themselves had taught their captive pupils. In this rugged school of Indian life was nurtured a brave girl of New England parentage, who acted a conspicuous part in protecting an infant settlement in Ohio.

[Footnote: Finley's Autobiography.] In the year 1790, the block-house and stockade above the mouth, of the Hockhocking river in Ohio, was a refuge and rallying point for the hardy frontiersmen of that region. The valley of the Hockhocking was preminent for the richness and luxuriance of nature's gifts, and had been from time immemorial the seat of powerful and warlike tribes of Indians, which still clung with desperate tenacity to a region which had been for so many years the chosen and beloved abode of the red man.

The little garrison, always on the alert, received intelligence early in the autumn that the Indian tribes were gathering in the north for the purpose of striking a final and fatal blow on this or some other important out-post. A council was immediately held by the garrison, and two scouts were dispatched up the Hockhocking, in order to ascertain the strength of the foe and the probable point of attack.

The scouts set out one balmy day in the Indian summer, and threading the dense growth of plum and hazel bushes which skirted the prairie, stealthily climbed the eastern declivity of Mount Pleasant, and cast their eyes over the extensive prairie-country which stretches from that point far to the north. Every movement that took place upon their field of vision was carefully noted day by day. The prairie was the campus martius where an army of braves had assembled, and were playing their rugged games and performing their warlike evolutions. Every day new accessions of warriors were hailed by those already assembled, with terrific war-whoops, which, striking the face of Mount Pleasant, were echoed and re-echoed till it seemed as if a myriad of yelling demons were celebrating the orgies of the infernal pit.

To the hardy scouts these well-known yells, so terrible to softer ears, were only martial music which woke a keener watchfulness and strung their iron nerves to a stronger tension. Though well aware of the ferocity of the savages, they were too well practiced in the crafty and subtle arts of their profession to allow themselves to be circumvented by their wily foes.

On several occasions small parties of warriors left the prairies and ascended the mount. At these times the scouts hid themselves in fissures of the rocks or beneath sere leaves by the side of some prostrate tree, leaving their hiding places when the unwelcome visitors had taken their departure. Their food was jerked beef and cold corn-bread, with which their knapsacks had been well stored. Fire they dared not kindle for the smoke would have brought a hundred savages on their trail. Their drink was the rain-water remaining in the excavations in the rocks. In a few days this water was exhausted, and a new supply had to be obtained, as their observations were still incomplete. McClelland, the elder of the two, accordingly set out alone in search of a spring or brook from which they could replenish their canteens. Cautiously descending the mount to the prairie, and skirting the hills on the north, keeping as much as possible within the hazel-thickets, he reached at length a fountain of cool limpid water near the banks of the Hockhocking river. Filling the canteens he rejoined his companion.

The daily duty of visiting the spring and obtaining a fresh supply, was after this performed alternately by the scouts. On one of these diurnal visits, after White had filled his canteens, he sat watching the limpid stream that came gurgling out of the bosom of the earth. The light sound of footsteps caught his practiced ear, and turning round he saw two squaws within a few feet of him. The elder squaw at the same moment spying White, started back and gave a far reaching war-whoop. He comprehended at once his perilous situation. If the alarm should reach the camp, he and his companion must inevitably perish.

A noiseless death inflicted upon the squaws, and in such a manner as to leave no trace behind, was the only sure course which the instinct of self-preservation suggested. With men of his profession action follows thought as the bolt follows the flash. Springing upon his victims with the rapidity and power of a tiger, he grasped the throat of each and sprang into the Hockhocking river. The head of the elder squaw he easily thrust under the water, and kept it in that position; but the younger woman powerfully resisted his efforts to submerge her. During the brief struggle she addressed him to his amazement in the English language, though in inarticulate sounds. Relaxing his hold she informed him that she had been made a prisoner ten years before, on Grave Creek Flats, that the Indians in her presence had butchered her mother and two sisters, and that an only brother had been captured with her, but had succeeded on the second night in making his escape, since which time she had never heard of him.

During this narrative, White, unobserved by the girl, had released his grip on the throat of the squaw, whose corpse floated slowly down stream, and, directing the girl to follow him, he pushed for the Mount with the greatest speed and energy. Scarcely had they proceeded two hundred yards from the spring before an Indian alarm-cry was heard some distance down the river. A party of warriors returning from a hunt had seen the body of the squaw as it floated past. White and the girl succeeded in reaching the Mount where they found McClelland fully awake to the danger they were in. From his eyrie he had seen parties of warriors strike off in every direction on hearing the shrill note of alarm first sounded by the squaw, and before White and the girl had joined him, twenty warriors had already gained the eastern acclivity of the Mount and were cautiously ascending, keeping their bodies under cover. The scouts soon caught glimpses of their swarthy faces as they glided from tree to tree and from rock to rock, until the hiding place of the luckless two was surrounded and all hope of escape was cut off.

The scouts calmly prepared to sell their lives as dearly as they could, but strongly advised the girl to return to the Indians and tell them that she had been captured by scouts. This she refused to do, saying that death among her own people was preferable to captivity such as she had been enduring. "Give me a rifle," she continued, "and I will show you that I can fight as well as die! On this spot will I remain, and here my bones shall bleach with yours! Should either of you escape, you will carry the tidings of my fate to my remaining relatives."

All remonstrances with the brave girl proving useless, the two scouts prepared for a vigorous defense. The attack by the Indians commenced in front, where from the nature of the ground they were obliged to advance in single file, sheltering themselves as they best could, behind rocks and trees. Availing themselves of the slightest exposure of the warriors bodies, the scouts made every shot tell upon them, and succeeded for a time in keeping them in check.

The Indians meanwhile made for an isolated rock on the southern hillside, and having reached it, opened fire upon the scouts at point blank range. The situation of the defenders was now almost hopeless; but the brave never despair. They, calmly watched the movements of the warriors and calculated the few chances of escape which remained. McClelland saw a tall, swarthy figure preparing to spring from cover to a point from which their position would be completely commanded. He felt that much depended upon one lucky shot, and although but a single inch of the warrior's body was exposed, and at a distance of one hundred yards, yet he resolved to take the risk of a shot at this diminutive target. Coolly raising the rifle to his eye, and shading the sight with his hand, he threw a bead so accurately that he felt perfectly confident that his bullet would pierce the mark; but when the hammer fell, instead of striking fire, it crushed his flint into a hundred fragments. Rapidly, but with the utmost composure, he proceeded to adjust a new flint, casting meantime many a furtive glance towards the critical point. Before his task was completed he saw the warrior strain every muscle for the leap, and, with the agility of a deer, bound towards the rock; but instead of reaching it, he fell between and rolled fifty feet down hill. He had received a death-shot from some unseen hand, and the mournful whoops of the savages gave token that they had lost a favorite warrior.

The advantage thus gained was only momentary. The Indians slowly advanced in front and on the flank, and only the incessant fire of the scouts sufficed to keep them in check. A second savage attempted to gain the eminence which commanded the position where the scouts were posted, but just as he was about to attain his object, McClelland saw him turn a summerset, and, with a frightful yell, fall down the hill, a corpse. The mysterious agent had again interposed in their behalf. The sun was now disappearing behind the western hills, and the savages, dismayed by their losses, retired a short distance for the purpose of devising some new mode of attack. This respite was most welcome to the scouts, whose nerves had been kept in a state of severe tension for several hours. Now for the first time they missed the girl and supposed that she had either fled to her old captors or had been killed in the fight. Their doubts were soon dispelled by the appearance of the girl herself, advancing toward them from among the rocks, with a rifle in her hand.

During the heat of the fight she had seen a warrior fall, who had advanced some fifty yards in front of the main body; she at once resolved to possess herself of his rifle, and crouching in the undergrowth, she crept to the spot and succeeded in her enterprise, being all the time exposed to the cross-fire of the defenders and assailants; her practiced eye had early noticed the fatal rock, and hers was the mysterious hand by which the two warriors had fallen—the last being the most wary, untiring, and bloodthirsty brave of the Shawanese tribe. He it was who ten years before had scalped the family of the girl, and had led her into captivity. The clouds which had been gathering now shrouded the whole heavens, and, night coming on, the darkness was intense. It was feared that in the contemplated retreat they might lose their way or accidentally fall in with the enemy, which latter contingency was highly probable, if not almost inevitable. After consultation it was agreed that the girl, from her intimate knowledge of the localities, should lead the way, a few paces in advance.

Another advantage might be derived from this arrangement, for in case they should fall in with an outpost of savages, the girl's knowledge of the Indian tongue might enable them to deceive and elude the sentinel. The event proved the wisdom of the plan, for they had scarcely descended an hundred feet from their eyrie when a low "hush!" from the girl warned them of the presence of danger. The scouts threw themselves silently upon the earth, where by previous agreement they were to remain until another signal was given them by the girl, who glided away in the darkness. Her absence for more than a quarter of an hour had already begun to excite serious apprehensions for her safety, when she reappeared and told them that she had succeeded in removing two sentinels who were directly in their route, to a point one hundred feet distant.

The descent was noiselessly resumed, the scouts following their brave guide for half a mile in profound silence, when the barking of a small dog, almost at their feet, apprised them of a new danger. The click of the scout's rifle caught the ear of the girl, who quickly approached and warned them against making the least noise, as they were now in the midst of an Indian village, and their lives depended upon their implicitly following her instructions.

A moment afterwards the head of a squaw was seen at an opening in a wigwam, and she was heard to accost the girl, who replied in the Indian language, and without stopping pressed forward. At length she paused and assured the scouts that the village was cleared, and that they were now in safety. She had been well aware that every pass leading out through the prairies was guarded, and resolved to push boldly through the midst of the village as the safest route.

After three days rapid marching and great suffering from hunger, the trio succeeded in reaching the block-house in safety. The Indians finding that the scouts had escaped, and that their plan of attack was discovered, soon after withdrew to their homes; the girl, who by her courage, fortitude, and skill, thus preserved the little settlement from destruction, proved to be a sister of Neil Washburn, one of the most renowned scouts upon the frontier.

The situation of the earlier pioneers who settled on the outskirts of the Mississippi basin was one of peculiar peril. In their isolation and weakness, they were able to keep their position rather by incessant watchfulness, than by actual combat. How to extricate themselves from the snares and escape from the dangers that beset them, was the constant study of their lives. The knowledge and the arts of a scout were a part of the education, therefore, of the women as well as of the men.

Massy Herbeson and her husband were of those bold pioneers who crossed the Alleghany Mountains and joined the picket-line, whose lives were spent in reconnoitering and watching the motions of the savage tribes which roamed over Western Pennsylvania.

[Footnote: Massey Herbeson's Deposition.] They lived near Reed's block-house, about twenty-five miles from Pittsburgh. Mr. Herbeson, being one of the spies, was from home; two of the scouts had lodged with her that night, but had left her house about sunrise, in order to go to the block-house, and had left the door standing wide open. Shortly after the two scouts went away, a number of Indians came into the house, and drew her out of bed, by the feet.

The Indians then scrambled to secure the articles in the house. Whilst they were at this work, Mrs. Herbeson went out of the house, and hallooed to the people in the block-house. One of the Indians then ran up and stopped her mouth, another threatened her with his tomahawk, and a third seized the tomahawk as it was about to fall upon her head, and called her his squaw.

Hurried rapidly away by her captor, she remembered the lessons taught by her husband, the scout, and marked the trail as she went on. Now breaking a bush, now dropping a piece of her dress, and when she crossed a stream, slyly turning over a stone, she hoped thus to guide her husband in pursuit or enable herself to find her way back to the block-house. The vigilance of the Indians was relaxed by the nonchalance with which she bore her captivity, and in a few days she succeeded in effecting her escape and pursuing the trail which she had marked, reached home after a weary march of two days and nights, during which it rained incessantly.

These and countless other instances illustrate the watchfulness and courage of woman when exposed to dangers of such a description. In the west especially, the distances to be traversed, the sparseness of the population, and the perils to which settlers are exposed, render the profession of a scout a useful and necessary one, and woman's versatility of character enables her, when necessary, to practice the art.

The traveler of to-day, passing up the Mohawk Valley will be struck by its fertility, beauty, and above all by the air of quiet repose that broods over it. One hundred years ago how different the scene! It was then the battle-ground where the fierce Indian waged an incessant warfare with the frontier settlers. Every rood of that fair valley was trodden by the wily and sanguinary foe. The people who then inhabited that region were a mixture of adventurous New Englanders and of Dutch, with a preponderance of the latter, who were a brave, steadfast, hardy race; the women vieing with the men in deeds of heroism and devotion.

Womanly tact and presence of mind was often as serviceable amid those scenes of danger and carnage, as valor in combat; and when woman combined these traits of her sex with courage and firmness she became the "guardian angel" of the settlement.

Such preeminently was the title deserved by Mrs. Van Alstine, the "Patriot mother of the Mohawk Valley."

All the early part of her long life, (for she counted nearly a century of years before she died,) was passed on the New York frontier, during the most trying period of our colonial history. Here, dwelling in the midst of alarms, she reared her fifteen children; here more than once she saved the lives of her husband and family, and by her ready wit, her daring courage, and her open handed generosity shielded the settlement from harm.

Born near Canajoharie, about the year 1733, and married to Martin J. Van Alstine, at the age of eighteen, she settled with her husband in the valley of the Mohawk, where the newly wedded pair occupied the Van Alstine family mansion.

In the month of August, 1780, an army of Indians and Tories, led on by Brant, rushed into the Mohawk Valley, devastated several settlements, and killed many of the inhabitants; during the two following months, Sir John Johnson made a descent and finished the work which Brant had begun. The two almost completely destroyed the settlements throughout the valley. It was during those trying times that Mrs. Van Alstine performed a portion of her exploits.

During these three months, and while the hostile forces were making their headquarters at Johnstown, the neighborhood in which Mrs. Van Alstine lived enjoyed a remarkable immunity from attack, although in a state of continual alarm. Intelligence at length came that the enemy, having ravaged the surrounding country, was about to fall upon the little settlement, and the inhabitants, for the most part women and children, were almost beside themselves with terror.

Mrs. Van Alstine's coolness and intrepidity, in this critical hour, were quickly displayed. Calling her neighbors together, she tried to relieve their fears and urged them to remove with their effects to an island belonging to her husband, near the opposite side of the river, believing that the savages would either not discover their place of refuge or would be in too great haste to cross the river and attack them.

Her suggestion was speedily adopted, and in a few hours the seven families in the neighborhood were removed to their asylum, together with a store of provisions and other articles essential to their comfort. Mrs. Van Alstine was the last to cross and assisted to place out of reach of the enemy, the boat in which the passage had been made. An hour after they had been all snugly bestowed in their bushy retreat, the war-whoop was heard and the Indians made their appearance. Gazing from their hiding place the unfortunate women and children soon saw their loved homes in flames, Van Alstine's house alone being spared, owing to the friendship borne the owner by Sir John Johnson.

The voices and even the words of the Indian raiders could be distinctly heard on the island, and as Mrs. Van Alstine gazed at the mansion untouched by the flames she rejoiced that she would now be able to give shelter to the homeless families by whom she was surrounded. In the following year the Van Alstine mansion was pillaged by the Indians, and although the house was completely stripped of furniture and provisions and clothing, none of the family were killed or carried away as prisoners.

The Indians came upon them by surprise, entered the house without ceremony, and plundered and destroyed everything in their way. "Mrs. Van Alstine saw her most valued articles, brought from Holland, broken one after another, till the house was strewed with fragments. As they passed a large mirror without demolishing it, she hoped it might be saved; but presently two of the savages led in a colt from the stables and the glass being laid in the hall, compelled the animal to walk over it. The beds which they could not carry away they ripped open, shaking out the feathers and taking the ticks with them. They also took all the clothing. One young Indian, attracted by the brilliancy of a pair of inlaid buckles on the shoes of the aged grandmother seated in the corner, rudely snatched them from her feet, tore off the buckles, and flung the shoes in her face. Another took her shawl from her neck, threatening to kill her if resistance was offered."

The eldest daughter, seeing a young savage carrying off a basket containing a hat and cap her father had brought her from Philadelphia, and which she highly prized, followed him, snatched her basket, and after a struggle succeeded in pushing him down. She then fled to a pile of hemp and hid herself, throwing the basket into it as far as she could. The other Indians gathered round, and as the young girl rose clapped their hands, shouting "Brave girl," while he skulked away to escape their derision. During the struggle Mrs. Van Alstine had called to her daughter to give up the contest; but she insisted that her basket should not be taken.



Winter coming on, the family suffered severely from the want of bedding, woolen clothes, cooking utensils, and numerous other articles which had been taken from them. Mrs. Van Alstine's arduous and constant labors could do but little toward providing for so many destitute persons. Their neighbors were in no condition to help them; the roads were almost impassable besides being infested with the Indians, and all their best horses had been driven away.

This situation appealing continually to Mrs. Van Alstine as a wife and a mother, so wrought upon her as to induce her to propose to her husband to organize an expedition, and attempt to recover their property from the Indian forts eighteen or twenty miles distant, where it had been carried. But the plan seemed scarcely feasible at the time, and was therefore abandoned.

The cold soon became intense and their necessities more desperate than ever. Mrs. Van Alstine, incapable longer of witnessing the sufferings of those dependent upon her, boldly determined to go herself to the Indian country and bring back the property. Firm against all the entreaties of her husband and children who sought to move her from her purpose, she left home with a horse and sleigh accompanied by her son, a youth of sixteen.

Pushing on over wretched roads and through the deep snow she arrived at her destination at a time when the Indians were all absent on a hunting excursion, the women and children only being left at home. On entering the principal house where she supposed the most valuable articles were, she was met by an old squaw in charge of the place and asked what she wanted. "Food," she replied; the squaw sullenly commenced preparing a meal and in doing so brought out a number of utensils that Mrs. Van Alstine recognized as her own. While the squaw's back was turned she took possession of the articles and removed them to her sleigh. When the custodian of the plunder discovered that it was being reclaimed, she was about to interfere forcibly with the bold intruders and take the property into her possession. But Mrs. Van Alstine showed her a paper which she averred was an order signed by "Yankee Peter," a man of great influence among the savages, and succeeded in convincing the squaw that the property was removed by his authority.

She next proceeded to the stables and cut the halters of the horses belonging to her husband: the animals recognized their mistress with loud neighs and bounded homeward at full speed. The mother and son then drove rapidly back to their house. Reaching home late in the evening they passed a sleepless night, dreading an instant pursuit and a night attack from the infuriated savages.

The Indians came soon after daylight in full war-costume armed with rifles and tomahawks. Mrs. Van Alstine begged her husband not to show himself but to leave the matter in her hands. The Indians took their course to the stables when they were met by the daring woman alone and asked what they wanted. "Our horses," replied the marauder. "They are ours," she said boldly, "and we mean to keep them."

The chief approached in a threatening manner, and drawing her away pulled out the plug that fastened the door of the stable, but she immediately snatched it from his hand, and pushing him away resumed her position in front of the door. Presenting his rifle, he threatened her with instant death if she did not immediately move. Opening her neck-handkerchief she told him to shoot if he dared.

The Indians, cowed by her daring, or fearing punishment from their allies in case they killed her, after some hesitation retired from the premises. They afterwards related their adventure to one of the settlers, and said that were fifty such women as she in the settlement, the Indians never would have molested the inhabitants of the Mohawk Valley.

On many subsequent occasions Mrs. Van Alstine exhibited the heroic qualities of her nature. Twice by her prudence, courage, and address, she saved the lives of her husband and family. Her influence in settling difficulties with the savages was acknowledged throughout the region, and but for her it may well be doubted whether the little settlement in which she lived would have been able to sustain itself, surrounded as it was by deadly foes.

Her influence was felt in another and higher way. She was a Christian woman, and her husband's house was opened for religious worship every Sunday when the weather would permit. She was able to persuade many of the Indians to attend, and as she had acquired their language she was wont to interpret to them the word of God and what was said by the minister. Many times their rude hearts were touched, and the tears rolled down their swarthy faces, while she dwelt on the wondrous story of our Redeemer's life and death, and explained how the white man and the red man alike could be saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. In after years the savages blessed her as their benefactress.

Nearly a hundred summers have passed since the occurrence of the events we have been describing. The war-whoop of the cruel Mohawk sounds no more from the forest-ambush, nor in the clearing; the dews and rains have washed away the red stains on the soft sward, and green and peaceful in the sunshine lies the turf by the beautiful river and on the grave where the patriot mother is sleeping; but still in the memory of the sons and daughters of the region she once blessed, lives the courage, the firmness, and the goodness of Nancy Van Alstine, the guardian of the Mohawk Valley.