Chapter XXV: Elizabeth Kenton, 428 (7)

It may seem strange enough that the affections of a creature so lovely and accomplished, should be bestowed on one as untutored as the wild Indian; but so it was, notwithstanding the difference between them in education and manners, station and prospects in life. At the time of his marriage with the Governor’s daughter, the liberated captive was wholly unlettered, not knowing how to read or write. His youthful and charming bride became his teacher, and he soon made such proficiency, that “he might have passed tolerably in an examination of boys in the spelling-book.” His attainments, however, were not such as to enable him to spell or read with perfect correctness, or to write with elegance, when he was promoted to the rank of colonel in the United States army, and was ordered to Fort Pickering, on the Mississippi. Here he was stationed in 1801-2. This military station, now the beautiful and flourishing city of Memphis, was established on the borders of the territory of the Chickasaw Indians, as a link in the chain of military defences on the waters of the great river, for the purpose of preserving peace with the savage nation, and protecting emigration. The purchase of Louisiana followed soon after, and Col. Sparks proceeded with his regiment to New Orleans when the country was given into the possession of the American government. After this he was stationed for a short time at Baton Rouge, and for a longer period at Fort Adams, in the Mississippi territory. Mrs. Sparks accompanied her husband to each of these places, and remained as long as it was his duty to stay at the post. She always performed the duty of his secretary, keeping his accounts, writing his letters, and making out his reports to superior officers and the War Department.

In Natchez and other towns where there was anything that could be called society, the claims of Mrs. Sparks to the respect and admiration of social circles, did not fail to be recognized; she was, indeed, “the cynosure of neighboring eyes,” and her influence became very extensive. During her residence in Louisiana and at Fort Adams, several of the Choctaws were in the habit of calling almost daily at her house, to bring venison and wild turkeys or ducks, receiving in recompense some token of remembrance from the “tyke (wife) of Shawtunte,” for they had learned the history of Col. Sparks, and knew his Indian name; also that Mrs. Sparks was the daughter of a warrior whose deeds were well known, and whose bravery was highly esteemed by the southern tribes of Indians.

After a residence of some ten years in the Southern military District, the health of Col. Sparks became so infirm, that he was induced, by the earnest advice of Gen. Sevier, to send an application to the War Department, in consequence of which he was permitted to return to Tennessee. Thence he proceeded to Staunton, in Virginia, at which place, or in its vicinity, he died, about 1815. During this last visit to Tennessee, he passed through Nashville and Gallatin, remaining some days, and recounted some of the events of his captivity to persons who called upon him and Mrs. Sparks. Among these was Thomas Washington, Esq., who is still living in Nashville, and remembers many incidents. The gentleman to whom I am indebted for this memoir, obtained many of the particulars from Mrs. Sparks herself, and from her brother, who was from early youth an officer in the army; while her sister, the widow of Maj. William M’Clelland, of the United States’ army, who now resides at Van Buren, in Arkansas, confirms every statement. Some of the records pertaining to this portion of the family history, are in the Historical Society library at Nashville.

The father of Mrs. Sparks has been mentioned as “the Governor,” although the period alluded to was before the organization of the State of Tennessee. This honorable title had been appropriated to him as governor of the “State of Frankland,” from the year 1784 to 1788. When Tennessee was admitted into the Union, he became her first governor, holding that office, with an interval of only two years, for more than eleven years.

Mrs. Sparks entered into a second marriage with an intelligent and wealthy planter of Mississippi. Her residence was a beautiful and highly improved country seat, within view of the town of Port Gibson, in Mississippi, and the splendid hospitality so remarkable on these secluded plantations, was duly exercised at “Burlington,” where there was a continual succession of visitors. The fair mistress of this stately abode was distinguished by the same cheerfulness, genial kindness and attention to her guests as in her more youthful years. She was a model housewife, and everything about her establishment was always in perfect order. In the summer of 1824, while on a visit to some friends at Maysville, Kentucky, her useful life was terminated, her faith in the Redeemer growing brighter as the final scene approached. She never had any children, but was at all times extremely fond of them, and particularly pleased with the society of young persons, who always manifested a strong attachment for her.

IX.

SARAH SHELBY.

Sarah, already mentioned as the eldest daughter of Mrs. Bledsoe, was born in the first year of the first settlement of Tennessee. She was very young when her family removed from Fort Chissel, Virginia, to East Tennessee. Their residence was then on the frontier, near the island flats, in what is now Sullivan County. Her early education was excellent, considering the circumstances of location and the want of the advantages of instruction which could be enjoyed in older communities. She attended the first and only lessons in dancing, given in 1784, not long before her marriage, at the house of Mr. Harris, twelve miles from Col. Bledsoe’s residence. The teacher was Capt. Barrett, an English officer who had served under the royal banner in the war of the Revolution, and then left the service, determined to cast his lot for the rest of his days with the brave republicans against whose liberties he had fought. It was among the singular vicissitudes of life, that a loyal captain who in all probability had served under Col. Ferguson at the battle of King’s Mountain, battling to the death against the Tennessee mountaineers, should be found afterwards in the wilderness giving lessons to their daughters in this graceful accomplishment! The gentleman who furnishes this memoir quaintly observes, that “not being able to make the fathers run, he was content with making the daughters dance.”

While the family still lived in Sullivan County, Miss Bledsoe was married, in 1784, to David Shelby. Soon after, the young couple, with Col. Bledsoe and his family, came and fixed their homes in the midst of the wilderness of the Cumberland Valley, which Bledsoe and his brother had explored in 1779. The journey by land at that time from East Tennessee was a difficult and perilous one, across mountains and through forests and canebrakes, where it was impossible to force a wagon. Every article carried had to be packed on horses.

The families who formed this pioneer settlement in the Cumberland Valley were not destitute of means to live comfortably in a region where the necessaries and comforts of life could be procured, but isolated as they were from all advantages of communication or interchange with the friends they had left, they were thrown entirely upon the resources of their own labor and ingenuity. Their dwellings were rude cabins made of logs, sometimes rough and sometimes hewn. For protection against the Indians a number of these cabins were surrounded by pickets bullet-proof, and several families, usually related to each other, or attached as old neighbors, lived within the fenced space. Sometimes the pioneers resided in the blockhouses, built in the salient points of these picketed enclosures. The upper story of these blockhouses projected over the lower one, with portholes in the floor, so that persons within might shoot an assailant who approached too near under cover of the projection. The term “station,” in the frontier vocabulary of those times, meant a blockhouse, picketed so as to shelter several families. It was usually called by the name of the builder or the owner of the land--as “Buchanan’s Station,” &c. Some, however, were known by more fanciful designations, as “Bledsoe’s Lick,” “French Lick,” etc.

It has been already stated that at the time of Col. Bledsoe’s exploration of the Cumberland Valley, no white man lived within the limits of Tennessee, west of the mountains, except a few French traders who had become naturalized among the Indians. After the removal of the family they suffered many hardships, which pressed most heavily upon the women, while shut up within military defences in the midst of the forest. No supplies of groceries or dry goods could be obtained in the valley, and all the clothing worn by the pioneers, male and female, was of home manufacture. Not one of the females was exempted from this labor; all learned how to spin and weave, and it was the pride and glory of these stout-hearted dames to prepare the material and make up with their own hands the clothes worn by themselves, their husbands and children. Col. Bledsoe was attired in a full suit manufactured by his wife and daughters, when he represented the Cumberland Valley in the Legislature of North Carolina.

All articles of consumption which could not be procured in the woods or raised on their plantations, were very scarce. Salt could only be obtained by tedious and dangerous journeys to the Kanawha salt works in Virginia, or to some French salt works in Illinois, then a part of Louisiana. Imported sugar, coffee and tea were almost excluded from use among the families in the valley, by the expense and difficulty of procuring them. For the first two or three years, before the dangers in the midst of which they lived, permitted them to cultivate the soil to any extent, even bread was scarcely to be had. The rifle of the pioneer procured for his family venison, bear’s meat and wild turkeys, as well as protected them from Indian marauders. A little sugar was made every spring from the maple trees, which grew in great abundance in the untrodden forest. For this purpose large parties of old and young, male and female, when they had fixed upon a convenient location, assembled and bivouacked, or “camped,” to use their own phrase, in the woods near the grove of maples, which were soon notched and pierced. The sap was caught in small troughs dug out with an axe, and carried to the camp, where it was boiled down in large pots. In two or three days thus spent, sugar enough was often produced to furnish a year’s supply for a family, and the occasion did not fail to afford opportunity for a rustic re-union for all the young people of the neighborhood.

Nothing was known at that time of the culture of cotton. Flax was grown, however, and the prettiest girls in the valley hatchelled, spun and wove it; the forest trees and shrubs yielding ample materials for dye-stuffs, by which a variety of colors might be furnished for ball or bridal costume for the fairest demoiselles of the new colony. A beautiful scarlet was produced from sassafras and sumach, and the walnut furnished a bright brown, of which color were dyed the jeans which formed full suits, elegant enough for the gentlemen’s holiday wearing. This material, made in old style, is still a favorite in all the rural districts of Tennessee, the process of its manufacture having been taught, as a hereditary art, by mother to daughter, from generation to generation.

If we may rely upon tradition, the women whose time was thus passed exclusively in useful occupations, and whose labors demanded continual exercise, were superior in personal beauty to their paler and more luxurious descendants. Be that as it may, their ideas of feminine accomplishment and female merit were certainly different from those of modern days. A young woman then prided herself, not on finery purchased with the labor of others, but on the number of hanks of thread she could spin, or yards she could weave in a day on a rustic loom, made, perhaps, by her father or brother. Many a maiden whose father could reckon his acres of land in the wilderness by thousands, has appeared at church or at a country assembly dressed from head to foot in articles manufactured entirely by herself, and looking as bright and lovely in her gay colors as the proudest city dame who could lay the looms of India under contribution.

Mrs. Shelby’s husband was the first merchant in Nashville, and perhaps in middle Tennessee. He established himself as such in 1790, and after two or three years, removed to Sumner County, where he was appointed to the office of clerk, the first chosen in the county. This office he continued to hold, residing in Gallatin, till his death in 1819. He maintained throughout life a high and honorable position among the settlers of the Valley, possessing qualities of mind and heart which would have commanded success and ensured usefulness in the most eminent station to which a republican could have aspired, in the new State which he and his family aided in building up. But he was not ambitious, and preferred retirement in the bosom of his family, and the unostentatious discharge of the duties of an humble office, husbanding the resources he possessed for the purpose of giving his children a substantial education, and fitting them for lives of usefulness.

Mrs. Shelby has frequently mentioned incidents that occurred on different occasions when she and her husband were compelled to fly from Indians, and narrowly escaped destruction. At one time the savages came to the block-house where she lived, and attempted to shoot through a crack in the chimney. It happened that Mrs. Shelby, feeling a presentiment of danger, had stopped the crevice on the inside by a plank, which the bullets could not penetrate without having their deadly force spent. The savages were around the house during the night, as was discovered by their tracks about the place, and the finding of several articles belonging to them, such as pipes, moccasins, etc.

The day after the death of Col. Anthony Bledsoe, Mrs. Shelby went with her husband, son and servants to Bledsoe’s Lick, to attend his funeral, although the distance was ten miles, and it was known the Indians were in the forest. The son, now Dr. Shelby, of Nashville, remembers that his father went in advance, armed with a rifle and holsters, his mother next, and that he followed with a negro, who also carried a rifle.

In 1788, while living on Station Camp Creek, in Sumner County, Mrs. Shelby was one day at home with only her little children. As usual in the early settlements, they lived in a log cabin, in which open places between the logs served the place of windows. Her husband was in the fields, some distance from the house. While seated by the fire she was startled by the appearance of an Indian warrior, fully armed, approaching her cabin. Quick as thought, she took down a loaded rifle that hung on the wall, and whispered to her son, then only six years old, to go out by the back door, and run into the field for his father, which he did quietly, but with all speed. Then placing herself near the door, she put the muzzle of the rifle through a crack in the wall, and stood, with her finger on the trigger, ready to shoot the Indian as he came near, approaching the door. Just at the moment when Mrs. Shelby was about to shoot, with deadly aim, the savage saw the gun, and with hasty strides retreated to the woods. Thus the heroism of the matron saved not only her own life, but the lives of several small children. Soon after the retreat of the Indian, Mr. Shelby and his son reached the house, to embrace the heroic wife and mother, who still stood with the rifle in her hands.

The history of Mrs. Shelby and her family, if properly given, would embrace almost the entire history of Tennessee; nor would it be possible to offer anything like an adequate sketch of the founders of the colony of Cumberland Valley, without writing in detail the history of that eventful period. This may be done by some future historian, the scope of whose work will permit him to do full justice to the patient and self-denying toil, and the heroic deeds of those enterprising pioneers. Whenever this is done, the names of Bledsoe, Shelby, Sevier, Robertson, Buchanan, Rains, and Wilson, cannot fail to shine forth prominently in the picture. These men were neither refugees from justice, nor outlaws from civilization, but belonged to a band of patriots who came, like Hooker, Haynes, or Roger Williams, to set up the altar of freedom, and find a home in primeval forests, beyond the reach of oppression, where they might live independently, and in time happily. They came not, as they knew, to an ideal paradise, or happy valley, but to a dreary wilderness, where a thousand perils environed them; beyond the paternal care of either state or federal government; harassed from time to time by a savage foe; destitute of regular supplies of provisions or munitions of war; depending for subsistence on the forest and the small patches of cornfield they were able to cultivate in the intervals of Indian campaigns; a mere handful of men, with a few helpless women and children, and equally dependent slaves; yet they kept their ground, and year by year increased in numbers and strength, till after a struggle of fifteen years against fearful odds of Indian enemies, the colony numbered from seven to eight thousand! During all this time of trial, the armed occupation was maintained with toil and bloodshed, both of men and women, who showed, in times of emergency, that they, too, possessed the lion will and the lion heart. Thrilling was the story of their adventures, with which, in after years, they held their listeners spell-bound; and far surpassing the wildest romance were their homely but interesting narratives, glowing in the warm coloring of life. They told

“How oft at night
Their sleep was broke by sudden fright,
Of Indian whoop and cruel knife
To spill the blood of babe and wife;
How prowling wolves and hungry bears
Increased their dangers and their cares;
How bold and strong these pilgrims were--
That feared not Indian, wolf, or bear;
By sickness pressed, by want beset,
Each ill they braved, each danger met;
’Midst want and war their sinews grew,--etc.”

Among the women of this period, remembered particularly for the energy and cheerful self-denial with which they aided the hardy pioneers, encouraging and animating them, while sharing in their labors, none did her part more nobly, with more womanly grace as well as firmness and resolution, than Mrs. Shelby. Her memory preserved to an advanced age every prominent incident connected with the settlement of East Tennessee and of the Cumberland Valley. Every part of the State, within her recollection, was a wilderness. Having lived through the border troubles and succeeding years of change, having survived the slaughter of her nearest relatives by the murderous Cherokees and marauding Creeks and Shawanese, she lived to see that helpless and bleeding colony of the Watauga, increase and multiply and grow up in the midst of the receding forest to a goodly State--it may be said, a nation.

This venerable matron died on the 11th of March, 1852, in the eighty-sixth year of her age. She was in her usual health, and occupied with her needle, only three days before her death. She had long been a member of the Episcopal church, and gave up her spirit to God with Christian resignation, leaving an affectionate circle of her children and descendants to mourn her departure.

She had been in the habit of going to visit her relatives in the old county where she formerly resided. The fourth of July, 1851, was kept by a number of aged pioneers in Sumner, assembled to dine together, and many were the interesting recollections called up on that occasion.

After 1832, Mrs. Shelby’s residence was with her son, Dr. Shelby at his beautiful country-seat, “Faderland,” in the vicinity of Nashville, now almost surrounded by the new town of Edgefield. It was a pleasure to her to receive and converse with all interested in the early history of Tennessee, and she presented in her own bearing and character a noble example of the heroines of those times of trial. The laborious, painful, and perilous experiences of her life withal, never marred the harmony of her nature; and in advanced age she had the contented and cheerful spirit of one whose days have glided away in undisturbed tranquillity. She was a deeply spiritual Christian, engaged continually, as far as her strength permitted, in the dispensation of charities, and exhibiting to those who knew her, the beauty of an humble and earnest “walk by faith.”

Her husband, David Shelby, died in 1822, leaving several children, who were reared to sustain their part with usefulness in the arena of life, and in the midst of difficulties to exhibit the same energy and patience which had distinguished their parents. Judge Shelby, of Texas, was one of these children. John, the eldest son, was the first white child born in Sumner County, and is one of the oldest and worthiest citizens of Nashville. He determined in youth to study medicine, and was sent to Philadelphia to have the advantage of instruction under the celebrated Dr. Rush. He settled early in Nashville, where for many years he devoted himself successfully to the practice of his profession, being also occupied in the management of a large private business, in taking care of his town property. In 1813, he was a volunteer under Jackson, in the Creek war, and received a wound in the eye in the battle of Enotochopco. Though holding the office of surgeon in the army, he took an active part in rallying and leading the troops in this memorable action, and in acknowledgement of his services was honorably mentioned by the General.

He is now sixty-seven years of age, and after an arduous and well spent life, is still able to perform the duties of a responsible office, and to manage the business of a large farm. One of his daughters is the wife of the Hon. George Washington Barrow, late representative in Congress for the Nashville District, and during the years 1841-5, Chargé d’Affaires to the court of Portugal. Another daughter is Mrs. Priscilla Williams, now residing at Memphis, Tennessee.

X.

REBECCA WILLIAMS.

Walter Scott’s Rebecca the Jewess was not more celebrated for her medical skill and success in treating wounds than was Rebecca Williams among the honest borderers of the Ohio river. She was the daughter of Joseph Tomlinson, and was born the 14th of February, 1754, at Will’s Creek, on the Potomac, in the province of Maryland. She married John Martin, a trader among the Indians, who was killed in 1754 on the Big Hockhocking by the Shawanees, one of her uncles being killed at the same time. In the first year of her widowhood, Mrs. Martin removed with her father’s family to Grave Creek, and resided near its entrance into the Ohio, keeping house for her two brothers. She would remain alone for weeks together while they were absent on hunting excursions; for she had little knowledge of fear, and was young and sprightly in disposition.

In the spring of 1774, she paid a visit to her sister, who had married a Mr. Baker, and resided upon the banks of the Ohio, opposite Yellow Creek. It was soon after the celebrated massacre of Logan’s relatives at Baker’s station. Rebecca made her visit, and prepared to return home as she had come, in a canoe alone, the distance being fifty miles. She left her sister’s residence in the afternoon, and paddled her canoe till dark. Then, knowing that the moon would rise at a certain hour, she neared the land, leaped on shore, and fastened her craft to some willows that drooped their boughs over the water. She sought shelter in a clump of bushes, where she lay till the moon cleared the tree tops and sent a broad stream of light over the bosom of the river. Then, unfastening her boat, she stepped a few paces into the water to get into it. But, as she reached the canoe, she trod on something cold and soft, and stooping down discovered, to her horror, that it was a human body. The pale moonlight streamed on the face of a dead Indian, not long killed, it was evident, for the body had not become stiff. The young woman recoiled at first, but uttered no scream, for the instinct of self-preservation taught her that it might be dangerous. She went round the corpse, which must have been there when she landed, stepped into her bark, and reached the mouth of Grave Creek, without further adventure, early the next morning.

In the ensuing summer, one morning while kindling the fire, blowing the coals on her knees, she heard steps in the apartment, and turning round, saw a very tall Indian standing close to her. He shook his tomahawk at her threateningly, at the same time motioning her to keep silence. He then looked around the cabin in search of plunder. Seeing her brother’s rifle hanging on hooks over the fireplace, he seized it and went out. Rebecca showed no fear while he was present; but immediately on his departure left the cabin and hid herself in the standing corn till her brother came home.

In the following year the youthful widow was united to a man of spirit congenial to her own. Isaac Williams had served as a ranger in Braddock’s army, and accompanied Ebenezer and Jonathan Zane in 1769, when they explored the country about Wheeling, having before that period made several hunting excursions to the waters of the Ohio. He explored the recesses of the western wild, following the water courses of the great valley to the mouth of the Ohio, and thence along the shores of the Mississippi to the turbid waters of the Missouri; trapping the beaver on the tributaries of this river as early as 1770. His marriage with Rebecca was performed with a simplicity characteristic of the times. A travelling preacher who chanced to come into the settlement, performed the ceremony at short notice, the bridegroom presenting himself in his hunting dress and the bride in short-gown and petticoat of homespun, the common wear of the country.

In 1777, the depredations and massacres of the Indians were so frequent that the settlement at Grave Creek, consisting of several families, was broken up. It was a frontier station, and lower down the Ohio than any other above the mouth of the Great Kanawha. It was in this year that the Indians made the memorable attack on the fort at Wheeling.[24] Mr. Williams and his wife, with her father’s family, moved to the Monongahela river, above Redstone, old fort, where they remained until the spring of 1783. They then returned to their plantations on Grave Creek, but in 1785 were obliged to remove again into the garrison at Wheeling. While there, Mrs. Williams excercised the healing art for the benefit of the soldier, as no surgeon could be procured. With the assistance of Mrs. Zane, she dressed the wounds of one wounded in fourteen places by rifle shots while spearing fish by torchlight, and with fomentations and simple applications, not only cured his wounds, which every one thought an impossible undertaking, but saved an arm and leg that were broken. Dr. Hildreth mentions that many years afterwards, while he was attending on a man with a compound fracture of the leg, in the neighborhood of Mrs. Williams’ house, she was present at one of the dressings, and related several of her cures in border times.

It has been stated that Rebecca Martin, before her marriage to Mr. Williams, acted as housekeeper for her brothers for several years. In consideration of which service, her brothers, Joseph and Samuel, made an entry of four hundred acres of land on the Virginia shore of the Ohio river, directly opposite the mouth of the Muskingum, for their sister; girdling the trees, building a cabin, and planting and fencing four acre’s of corn, on the high second bottom, in the spring of the year 1773. They spent the summer on the spot, occupying their time with hunting during the growth of the crop. In this time they had exhausted their small stock of salt and bread stuff, and lived for two or three months altogether on boiled turkies, which were eaten without salt. The following winter the two brothers hunted on the Big Kanawha. Some time in March, 1774, they reached the mouth of the river on their return. They were detained here a few days by a remarkably high freshet in the Ohio.

That year was long known as that of Dunmore’s war, and noted for Indian depredations. The renewed and oft repeated inroads of the Indians, led Mr. Williams to turn his thoughts towards a more quiet retreat than that at Grave Creek. Fort Harmer, at the mouth of the Muskingum, having been erected in 1786, and garrisoned by United States troops, he came to the conclusion that he would now occupy the land belonging to his wife, and located by her brothers. This tract embraced a large share of rich alluvions. The piece opened by the Tomlinsons in 1773, was grown up with young saplings, but could be easily reclaimed. Having previously visited the spot and put up log cabins, Williams finally removed his family and effects thither, the twenty-sixth of March, 1787, being the year before the Ohio company took possession of their purchase at the mouth of the Muskingum.

In the January following the removal to his forest domain, his wife gave birth to a daughter, the only issue by this marriage. Soon after the Ohio company emigrants had established themselves at Marietta, a pleasing and friendly intercourse was kept up between them and Mr. Williams; and as he had now turned his attention more especially to clearing and cultivating his farm than to hunting, he was glad to see the new openings springing up around him, and the rude forest changing into the home of civilized man. Settlements were commenced at Belprie and Waterford the year after that at Marietta; as yet little being done in cultivating the soil, their time chiefly occupied in building cabins and clearing the land.

A brief account of the progress of this first settlement made in Ohio will be interesting, and may here be appropriately introduced It is prepared from a large volume of Notes on Pioneer History, by Dr. S. P. Hildreth.

The country on the Ohio river was little known to the English till about 1740, after which traders went occasionally from Pennsylvania and Virginia, and at later periods attempts were made to make settlements in different localities. In 1787 the Ohio company was formed to purchase land and form settlements; funds were raised and a large number of acres contracted for, and surveyors and boat-builders were set at work. In April, 1788, a company of pioneers started in the “Adventure” galley from Simrell’s Ferry, thirty miles above Pittsburgh, on the Yohiogoany, and landed at the mouth of the Muskingum. Vegetation was already advanced in the wild spot selected for their residence; the trees were in leaf, and the rich clover pastures offered abundant sustenance for their stock. Lots were surveyed, and the new town laid out on the right bank of the Ohio, at the junction of the clear waters of the Muskingum, was called Marietta, in honor of Queen Marie Antoinette, whose friendly feeling towards the American nation had, as it was well known, strongly influenced her royal consort.

The location proved fortunate in point of health as well as fertility; and game being abundant, the emigrants wanted for nothing. The ground was soon broken, and corn and vegetables planted. The temporary regulations for the government of the little community, were written out, and posted on the smooth branch of a large beech tree, near the mouth of the Muskingum. The fourth of July was celebrated by a public dinner set out in an arbor on the bank; and Gen. Varnum, one of the judges, delivered the oration, while the officers of the garrison drank and responded to the toasts. The bill of fare on this occasion, which has been recorded, presented an array of venison, bear and buffalo meat, and roast pigs; and among the fish, a pike weighing a hundred pounds, speared at the mouth of the Muskingum. On the 20th July, William Brook, of New England, preached the first sermon ever preached to white men in Ohio, Moravian missionaries having hitherto been employed to spread the truths of the Gospel among the savages. It may be interesting to know what was the text on this memorable occasion; it was in Exodus xix., 5, 6: “Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure to me above all people; for all the earth is mine; and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

On the 20th August, the north-west blockhouse was so far completed, that a dinner was given by the directors of the company to Governor St. Clair and the officers of Fort Harmer, which the principal citizens attended, with the wives of many of the officers, and several other ladies, who had thus early ventured into the wilderness. A fine barge, rowed by twelve oars, brought the company from the fort up the Muskingum to the opposite bank, from which the appearance of the new fort was grand and imposing.

The first death is noticed as that of a child, on the 25th of August. The number of settlers this year, after a reinforcement from New England, was one hundred and thirty-two, and Marietta was at this time the only white settlement in the territory now constituting the State of Ohio. In December, about two hundred Indians came to make a treaty, and the council fire was kindled in a large log-house outside the fort. Articles were adjusted and agreed to, and the Indians departed well pleased with the settlers, whom they pronounced very different from the “long knives” and stern backwoodsmen of Kentucky. During the winter succeeding, the Ohio was filled with ice, and no boat moved up or down till March, which caused a great scarcity of provisions, for nothing could be procured but venison and bear’s meat, and it was difficult to find either deer or bears in the vicinity of the town. The inhabitants were obliged to live for weeks without bread, eating boiled corn, or coarse meal ground in a hand-mill, with the little meat they could procure. As soon as the river opened, flour could be purchased from boats trading from Redstone and the country near Pittsburg, and before long a road was cut through to Alexandria. The first marriage, between the Hon. Winthrop Sargent, secretary of the North West Territory, and Miss Rowena Tupper, daughter of Gen. Tupper, was celebrated on the 6th February, 1789, by Gen. Rufus Putnam, judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Washington, the first organized county. A public festival was appointed for the 7th April, the anniversary of the commencement of their settlement, and was observed for many years, till the country became peopled with strangers, who knew nothing of the hardships and trials encountered by the primitive settlers. It is now sometimes kept as a holiday, for picnic excursions or social parties.

Flint says he distinctly remembers the wagon that carried out a number of adventurers from Massachusetts, on the second emigration to the forests of Ohio; its large black canvass covering, and the white lettering in large capitals, “To Marietta, on the Ohio.”

Belprie was a branch settlement made by the direction of the Ohio company; the name taken from “belle prairie,” or beautiful meadow. After the lots were drawn, the settlers moved to their farms in April, 1789, and when their log cabins were built, commenced cutting down and girdling the trees on the rich lowlands. From the destructive effects of frost in September of this year, the crops of corn were greatly injured, and where planted late, entirely ruined. In the spring and summer of 1790, the inhabitants began to suffer from a want of food, especially wholesome bread-stuffs. The Indians were also becoming troublesome, and rendered it hazardous boating provisions from the older settlements on the Monongahela, or hunting for venison in the adjacent forests. Many families, especially at Belprie, had no other meal than that made from musty or mouldy corn; and were sometimes destitute even of this for several days in succession. This mouldy corn commanded nine shillings, or a dollar and a half a bushel; and when ground in their hand-mills and made into bread, few stomachs were able to digest it, or even to retain it for a few minutes.

During this period of want, Isaac Williams displayed his benevolent feeling for the suffering colonists. Being in the country earlier he had more ground cleared, and had raised a crop of several hundred bushels of corn. This he now distributed among the inhabitants at the low rate of three shillings, or fifty cents a bushel, when at the same time he had been urged by speculators to take a dollar for his whole crop. “I would not let them have a bushel,” said the old hunter. He not only parted with his corn at this cheap rate, but prudently proportioned the number of bushels according to the number of individuals in a family. An empty purse was no bar to the needy applicant; but his wants were equally supplied with those who had money, and credit was given until more favorable times should enable him to discharge the debt. Capt. Jonathan Devoll, hearing of Williams’ corn, and the cheap rate at which he sold it, made a trip to Marietta to procure some of it; travelling by land, and in the night, on account of the danger from Indians, a distance of twelve or fourteen miles. Williams treated him with much kindness, and after letting him have several bushels of corn at the usual price in plentiful years, furnished him with his only canoe to transport it home.

Like Isaac and Rebecca of old, this modern Isaac and Rebecca were given to good deeds; and many a poor, sick, and deserted boatman has been nursed and restored to health beneath their humble roof. Full of days and good deeds, and strong in the faith of a blessed immortality, Williams resigned his spirit to him who gave it, the 25th of September, 1820, aged eighty-four years, and was buried in a beautiful grove on his own plantation, surrounded by the trees he so dearly loved when living.

In spite of treaties, the Indians continued to harass the settlements in western Virginia, and in August attacked a surveying party employed by the Ohio Company in running the lines of the townships. The savages seemed to hold the surveyor’s chain and compass in utter detestation. In the winter of 1790, the governor of the North West Territory, St. Clair, removed his family from his plantation at “Potts’ Grove,” in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, to Marietta. One of his daughters, Louisa, was long remembered as one of the most distinguished among the ladies of that day. In strength and elasticity of frame, blooming health, energy and fearlessness, she was the ideal of a soldier’s daughter, extremely fond of adventure and frolic, and ready to draw amusement from everything around her. She was a fine equestrian, and would manage the most spirited horse with perfect ease and grace, dashing at full gallop through the open woodland surrounding the “Campus Martius,” and leaping over logs or any obstacle in her way. She was also expert in skating, and was rivalled by few, if any young men in the garrison, in the speed, dexterity, and grace of movement with which she exercised herself in this accomplishment. The elegance of her person, and her neat, well-fitting dress, were shown to great advantage in her rapid gyrations over the broad sheet of ice in the Muskingum, which for a few days in winter offered a fine field, close to the garrison, for this healthful sport; and loud were the plaudits from young and old, from spectators of both sexes, called forth by the performance of the governor’s daughter. As a huntress she was equally distinguished, and might have served as a model for a Diana, in her rambles through the forest, had she been armed with a bow instead of a rifle, of which latter instrument she was perfect mistress, loading and firing with the accuracy of a backwoodsman, killing a squirrel on the top of the tallest tree, or cutting off the head of a partridge with wonderful precision. She was fond of roaming through the woods, and often went out alone into the forest near Marietta, fearless of the savages who often lurked in the vicinity. As active on foot as on horseback, she could walk several miles with the untiring rapidity of a practised ranger. Notwithstanding her possession of these unfeminine attainments, Miss St. Clair’s refined manners would have rendered her the ornament of any drawing-room circle; she was beautiful in person, and had an intellect highly cultivated, having received a carefully finished education under the best teachers in Philadelphia. Endowed by nature with a vigorous constitution and lively animal spirits, her powers, both of body and mind, had been strengthened by such athletic exercises, to the practice of which she had been encouraged from childhood by her father. He had spent the greater part of his life in camps, and was not disposed to fetter by conventional rules his daughter’s rare spirit, so admirably suited to pioneer times and manners, however like an amazon she may seem to the less independent critics of female manners at the present day. After the Indian war, Miss St. Clair returned to her early home in the romantic glens of Ligonier valley.

It is said that the first woman who came to Marietta was the wife of James Owen, and that she received a donation lot of one hundred acres from the Ohio company on this account. She gave shelter to a man who had been put ashore from a boat on the way to Kentucky, and took the small-pox from him, which soon spread, and most of the inhabitants were inoculated to preserve them from the terrible ravages of the disease. Hardly was this anxiety over than the great scarcity of provisions already noticed prevailed; good corn rising to the price of two dollars a bushel, and the distress increasing as the summer approached. There were few cows and no oxen or cattle to spare; hogs were scarce, and the woods were bare of game, the deer and buffaloes within twenty miles having been killed or driven away by the Indians. In this extremity great kindness was shown among the settlers, each sharing what he had with his neighbors, and those who had cows dividing their milk. The poor obtained supplies of fish from the river. The Indians this year--1790--commenced a new species of warfare, by attacking boats in the river usually owned by emigrants on the way to Kentucky. Their principal rendezvous was near the mouth of the Scioto, and a favorite device to get possession of a boat, was to make a white man stand on the bank and entreat the crew to land and take him on board, saying he had just escaped from Indian slavery and if recaptured would be put to death. By this mode of appeal to the compassion of emigrants, the men in several boats were induced to land, when the savages lying in ambush would seize the boat or shoot down the crew from their hiding-place. The decoy was sometimes an actual prisoner, whom they forced to act his part, and sometimes a renegade white who joined them voluntarily for the sake of a share in the plunder.

In October a large company of French emigrants arrived at Marietta, coming down the Ohio in “Kentucky arks,” or flatboats. Many were from Paris, and wondered not a little at the broad rivers and vast forests of the West. The distress and destitution into which they were thrown by the failure of the Scioto company to fulfil their contracts, and the substitution of lands on the Ohio below the Kanawha, are mentioned in another sketch. Gen. Rufus Putnam was commissioned by the principal men in the Scioto company to build houses and furnish provisions for these colonists, and did so at great loss, the company eventually failing and dissolving. Indian hostilities commenced in January, 1791, with an attack on the blockhouse at Big Bottom. This building stood on the first or low bottom, a few rods from the shore on the left bank of the Muskingum, four miles above the mouth of Meigs’ Creek and thirty from Marietta. A few rods back, the land rose several feet to a second or higher bottom, which stretched out into a plain of half a mile in width, extending to the foot of the hills. Big Bottom was so called from its size, being four or five miles in length, and containing more fine land than any other below Duncan’s falls. Excepting the small clearing round the garrison, the whole region was a forest. This settlement was made up of thirty-six young men, but little acquainted with Indian warfare or military rules. Confident in their own prudence and ability to protect themselves, they put up a blockhouse which might accommodate all in an emergency, covered it, and laid puncheon floors, stairs, &c. It was built of large beech logs, and rather open, as it was not chinked between the logs; this job was left for a rainy day or some more convenient season. They kept no sentry, and had neglected to set pickets around the blockhouse, and their guns were lying in different places, without order, about the house. Twenty men usually encamped in the house, a part of whom were now absent, and each individual and mess cooked for themselves. One end of the building was appropriated for a fire-place, and at close of day all came in, built a large fire, and commenced cooking and eating their suppers,

A party of Indians came into a cabin occupied by a few of the men, near the blockhouse, and spoke to them in a friendly manner, partaking of their supper. Presently taking some leathern thongs and pieces of cord that had been used in packing venison, they seized the white men by their arms, and told them they were prisoners. Another party attacked the blockhouse so suddenly and unexpectedly that there was no time for defence, shooting down and tomahawking the men. One stout Virginia woman, the wife of Isaac Meeks, who was employed as their hunter, seized an axe and made a blow at the head of the Indian who opened the door; a slight turn of the head saved his skull, and the axe passed down through his cheek into the shoulder, leaving a huge gash that severed nearly half his face; she was instantly killed by the tomahawk of one of his companions before she could repeat the stroke. This was all the injury received by the Indians, as the men were killed before they had time to seize their arms which stood in the corner of the room. While the slaughter was going on, a young man in the prime of life sprung up the stair-way and out upon the roof; while his brother, a lad of sixteen, secreted himself under some bedding in the corner of the room. The Indians on the outside soon discovered the former, and shot him in the act of begging them to spare his life, “as he was the only one left.”

Twelve persons were killed in this attack. The savages had vowed that before the trees put forth leaves, the smoke of a white man’s house should not rise north-west of the waters of the Ohio. The inhabitants assembled at the three stations at Marietta, Belprie and Waterford, new blockhouses were built at the expense of the Ohio company, and two hunters were employed to act as spies for each garrison. Gen. Putnam complained to President Washington of the danger in which the settlements stood of being entirely swept away without a reinforcement of troops, and a military force was sent for their defence in the ensuing summer.

The following incident is illustrative: “On a day in March, Rogers and Henderson sallied out of the garrison at an early hour, to scout up the Muskingum. They ranged diligently all day without seeing any Indians, or discovering signs of their being in the neighborhood. Just at night, as they were returning to the garrison by a cow-path, and had come within a mile of home, two Indians rose from behind a log, fifty yards before them, and fired. Rogers was shot through the heart, and as he fell, Henderson attempted to support him, but he told him he was a dead man, and he must provide for his own safety. He turned to escape down the side of the ridge, to the bottom, and two more savages who had reserved their fire, rose and discharged their rifles at him as he ran; one of the balls passing through the collar of his hunting-shirt, the other through the silk handkerchief which was bound round his head, and formed a part of a ranger’s dress, barely grazing the scalp. His blanket, folded like a knapsack on his back, probably saved his life,--shielding the vital part by its numerous folds, from the passage of a bullet. The Indians well knew what a protection this would be, and therefore aimed at his head. After running a few hundred yards on the back track, he discovered that the savages had taken a shorter course and got ahead of him, and making a short turn to the right, up a ravine, he crossed the ridge and came out into the valley of Duck Creek, unmolested. While making this detour, he fell quite unexpectedly on the camp of the savages, and saw one busily engaged in kindling a fire, and so diligently occupied that he did not observe the white man. Henderson could easily have shot him, but as his pursuers had lost the direction of his course, he thought it imprudent by firing to give them notice of his whereabouts, and went on to the garrison at the point. The alarm gun was fired, and answered from Fort Harmer and Campus Martius. The story spread through the village that Rogers had been killed, and Henderson chased to the garrison by Indians, who were then besieging its gates. The darkness of night added to the confusion of the scene. The order, in case of an alarm, was for every man to repair to his alarm post, and the women and children to the blockhouses. Some idea of the proceedings of the night may be obtained from the narration of an eye-witness:

“‘The first applicant for admission to the central blockhouse was Col. Sproat, with a box of papers for safe keeping; then came some young men with their arms; next, a woman with her bed and her children; and after her, old William Moultin, from Newburyport, with his leathern apron full of old goldsmith’s tools and tobacco. His daughter, Anna, brought the china tea-pot, cups and saucers. Lydia brought the great bible; but when all were in, ‘mother’ was missing. Where was mother? She must be killed by the Indians. ‘No,’ says Lydia, ‘mother said she would not leave the house _looking so_; she would put things a little to rights.’ After a while the old lady arrived, bringing the looking-glass, knives and forks, etc.’”