arrived [275] in their own country; and Mrs. Cunningham's sufferings, of body as well as mind were truly great. Fatigue and hunger oppressed her sorely, the infant in her arms, wanting the nourishment derived from the due sustenance of the mother, plied at the breast for milk, in vain-blood came in stead; and the Indians perceiving this, put a period to its sufferings, with the tomahawk, even while clinging to its mother's bosom. It was cast a little distance from the path, and left without a leaf or bush to hide it from beasts of prey.

The anguish of this woman during the journey to the towns, can only be properly estimated by a parent; her bodily sufferings may be inferred from the fact, that for ten days her only sustenance consisted of the head of a wild turkey and three papaws, and from the circumstance that the skin and nails of her feet, scalded by frequent wading of the water, came with her stockings, when upon their arrival at a village of the Delawares, she was permitted to draw them off. Yet was she forced to continue on with them the next day.-One of the Indians belonging to the village where they were, by an application of some sanative herbs, very much relieved the pain which she endured.

When she came to the town of those by whom she had been made prisoner, although receiving no barbarous or cruel usage, yet everything indicated to her, that she was reserved for some painful torture. The wounded Indian had been left behind, and she was delivered to his father. Her clothes were not changed, as is the case when a prisoner is adopted by them; but she was compelled to wear them, dirty as they were,—a bad omen for a captive. She was however, not long in apprehension of a wretched fate. A conference was soon to take place between the Indians and whites, preparatory to a treaty of peace; and

'McWhorter says local tradition has it that the Indians remained in the cave a night and a day; they departed before daylight, during the second night. Mrs. Cunningham related that just before leaving, the wounded brave was borne from the cave by his fellows, and she never again saw him; her opinion was, that he was then dead, and his body was sunk in a neighboring pool.-R. G. T.

witnessing an uncommon excitement in the village one evening, upon inquiring, learned that the Great captain Simon Girty had arrived. She determined to prevail with him, if she could, to intercede for her liberation, and seeing him next day passing near on horseback, she laid hold on his stirrup, and implored his interference. For a while he made light of her petition,-telling her that she would be as well there as in her own country, and that if he were disposed to do her a kindness he could not as his saddle bags were too small to conceal her; but her importunity at length prevailed, and he whose heart had been so long steeled [276] against every kindly feeling, every sympathetic impression, was at length induced to perform an act of generous, disinterested benevolence. He paid her ransom, had her conveyed to the commissioners for negotiating with the Indians, and by them she was taken to a station on the south side of the Ohio. Here she met with two gentlemen (Long and Denton) who had been at the treaty to obtain intelligence of their children taken captive some time before, but not being able to gain any information respecting them, they were then returning to the interior of Kentucky and kindly furnished her a horse.

In consequence of the great danger attending a journey through the wilderness which lay between the settlements in Kentucky and those on the Holstein, persons scarcely ever performed it but at particular periods of the year, and in caravans, the better to defend themselves against attacks of savages. Notice of the time and place of the assembling of one of these parties being given, Mrs. Cunningham prepared to accompany it; but before that time arrived, they were deterred from the undertaking by the report that a company of travellers, stronger than theirs would be, had been encountered by the Indians, and all either killed or made prisoners. Soon after another party

1 Mrs. Cunningham had been over three years with the savages, when she was taken to a great Indian conference held at the foot of the Maumee rapids, "at or near the site of the present Perrysburgh, Ohio," in the autumn of 1788. Girty brought the attention of McKee, then a British Indian agent, to the matter, and McKee furnished the trinkets which constituted the ransom.-R. G. T.

resolved on a visit to Virginia, and Mrs. Cunningham was furnished a horse belonging to a gentleman on Holstein (which had escaped from him while on a buffalo hunt in Kentucky and was found after his return,) to carry her that far on her way home. Experiencing the many unpleasant circumstances incident to such a jaunt, she reached Holstein, and from thence, after a repose of a few days, keeping up the Valley of Virginia, she proceeded by the way of Shenandoah, to the county of Harrison.' Here she was sadly disappointed in not meeting with her husband. Having understood that she had been ransomed and taken to Kentucky, he had, some time before, gone on in quest of her. Anxiety for his fate, alone and on a journey which she well knew to be fraught with many dangers, she could not cheerily partake of the general joy excited by her return. In a few days however, he came back. He had heard on Holstein of her having passed there and he retraced his steps. Arriving at his brother Edward's, he again enjoyed the satisfaction of being with all that was then dear to him on earth. It was a delightful satisfaction, but presently damped by the recollection of [277] the fate of his luckless children-Time assuaged the bitterness of the recollection and blessed him with other and more fortunate children.2

In October 1784, a party of Indians ascended Sandy river and passing over to the head of Clynch, came to the settlement near where Tazewell court house is now located. Going first to the house of a Mr. Davisson, they killed him and his wife; and setting fire to their dwelling, proceeded towards the residence of James Moore, sr. On their way they met Moore salting his horses at a lick trough in the woods, and killed him. They then went to the house and captured Mrs. Moore and her seven children, and Sally

See McKnight's Our Western Border, pp. 714, 716.-R. G. T.

2 Superstition was rife among the Scotch-Irish borderers. McWhorter writes: "On the day before the capture, a little bird came into Mrs. Cunningham's cabin and fluttered around the room. Ever afterwards, she grew frightened whenever a bird would enter her house. The fear that such an occurrence would bring bad luck to a household, was an old and widely-spread superstition."-R. G. T.

Iveus, a young lady who was there on a visit. Fearing detection, they immediately departed for Ohio with the prisoners; and in order to expedite their retreat, killed John Moore, jr. and the three younger children.

Upon their arrival at the Shawanee town on the Scioto (near the mouth of Paint creek) a council was held, and it was resolved that two of the captives should be burned alive, to avenge the death of some of their warriors who had been killed on the Kentucky river. This dreadful doom was allotted to Mrs. Moore and her daughter Jane,— an interesting girl about sixteen years of age. They were tied to a post and tortured to death with burning splinters of pine, in the presence of the remaining members of the family.

After the death of his mother and sister, James Moore was sent to the Maumee towns in Michigan, where he remained until December 1785,-his sister Mary and Sally Ivins remaining with the Shawanees. In December 1786, they were all brought to Augusta county in conformity with the stipulations of the treaty of Miami, and ransomed by their friends.'

In the fall of 1796, John Ice and James Snodgrass were killed by the Indians when looking for their horses which they [278] had lost on a buffalo hunt on Fishing creek. Their remains were afterwards found-the flesh torn from the bones by the wolves-and buried.

In a few days after Ice and Snodgrass left home in quest of their horses, a party of Indians came to Buffalo creek in Monongalia, and meeting with Mrs. Dragoo and her son in a corn field gathering beans, took them prisoners, and supposing that their detention would induce others to look for them, they waylaid the path leading

1

[277] Mary Moore afterwards became the wife of Mr. Brown, a presbyterian preacher in Augusta. Her brother James Moore, jr., still resides in Tazewell county; and notwithstanding that he witnessed the cruel murder of his mother and five brothers and sisters by the hands of the savages, he is said to have formed and still retain a strong attachment to the Indians. The anniversary of the burning of Mrs. Moore & her daughter, is kept by many in Tazewell as a day of fasting and prayer, and that tragical event gave rise to some affecting verses, generally called "Moore's Lamentation."

from the house. According to their expectation, uneasy at their continued absence, Jacob Strait and Nicholas Wood went to ascertain its cause. As they approached the Indians fired from their covert, and Wood fell;-Strait taking to flight was soon overtaken. Mrs. Strait and her daughter, hearing the firing and seeing the savages in pursuit of Mr. Strait, betook themselves also to flight, but were discovered by some of the Indians who immediately ran after them. The daughter concealed herself in a thicket of bushes and escaped observation. Her mother sought concealment under a large shelving rock, and was not afterwards discovered by the savages, although those in pursuit of her husband, passed near and overtook him not far off. Indeed she was at that time so close, as to hear Mr. Strait say, when overtaken, "don't kill me and I will go with you;" and the savage replying "will you go. with me," she heard the fatal blow which deprived her husband of life.

Mrs. Dragoo being infirm and unable to travel to their towns, was murdered on the way. Her son (a lad of seven) remained with the Indians upwards of twenty years,-he married a squaw, by whom he had four children,-two of whom he brought home with him, when he forsook the Indians.

In 1787 the Indians again visited the settlement on Buffaloe, and as Levi Morgan was engaged in skining a wolf which he had just taken from his trap, he saw three of them-one riding a horse which he well knew, the other two walking near behind-coming towards him. On first looking in the direction they were coming, he recognized the horse, and supposed the rider to be its owner-one of his near neighbors. A second glance discovered the mistake, and he siezed his gun and sprang behind a large rock, the Indians at the same instant taking shelter by the side of a large tree.-As soon as his body was obscured from their view, he turned, and seeing the Indians looking towards the farther end of the [279] rocks as if expecting him to make his appearance there, he fired and one of them fell. Instantly he had recourse to his powder horn to reload, but while engaged in skinning the wolf the stop