CHAPTER II

Fancied omen—Inroad of a band of Shawnees—Whole family taken captive in 1755—Marched into the wilderness—Her mother’s farewell address—Murder of her father, mother two brothers, and sister—Preparation of scalps—Indian caution, to prevent pursuit—Arrival at Fort Du Quesne.

On a pleasant day in the spring of 1755, when my father was sowing flaxseed, and my brothers driving the teams, I was sent to a neighbor’s house, a distance of perhaps a mile, to procure a horse, and return with it the next morning. I went as I was directed. I went out of the house to which I had been sent in the beginning of the evening, and saw a sheet, wide spread, approaching toward me, in which I was caught, as I have ever since believed, and deprived of my senses. The family soon found me on the ground, almost lifeless, as they said; took me in, and made use of every remedy in their power for my recovery; but without effect, till daybreak, when my senses returned, and I soon found myself in good health, so that I went home with the horse very early in the morning.

The appearance of that sheet I have ever considered as a forerunner of the melancholy catastrophe that so soon afterward happened to our family; and my being caught in it, I believe, was ominous of my preservation from death at the time we were captured.

As I before observed, I got home with my horse very early in the morning, where I found a man who lived in our neighborhood, and his sister-in-law who had three children, one son and two daughters. I soon learned that they had come there to live a short time; but for what purpose I cannot say. The woman’s husband, however, was at that time in Washington’s army, fighting for his country; and as her brother-in-law had a house, she had lived with him in his absence. Their names I have forgotten. Immediately after I got home, the man took the horse to go to his own house after a bag of grain, and took his gun in his hand for the purpose of killing some game, if he should chance to see any. Our family, as usual, was busily employed about their common business. Father was shaving an ax-helve at the side of the house; mother was making preparations for breakfast; my two oldest brothers were at work near the barn; and the little ones, with myself, and the woman and her three children, were in the house.

Breakfast was not yet ready, when we were alarmed by the discharge of a number of guns, that seemed to be near. Mother and the woman before mentioned almost fainted at the report, and every one trembled with fear. On opening the door, the man and horse lay dead near the house, having just been shot by the Indians.

I was afterward informed, that the Indians discovered him at his own house with his gun, and pursued him to father’s, where they shot him as I have related. They first secured my father, and then rushed into the house, and without the least resistance made prisoners of my mother, brothers, and sister, the woman, her three children, and myself; and then commenced plundering.

My two brothers, Thomas and John, being at the barn, escaped and went to Virginia, where