JEMIMA JOHNSON
1753-1814
Of Jemima Johnson, pioneer and volunteer, I can tell you very little.
Just this one incident has come down to us, but you are surely right
in thinking that the rest of her life was in harmony with this day’s
heroism.
It happened in Kentucky, when the Revolutionary fighting was almost
ended, but before peace had come to the frontier. Raid after raid on
isolated settlements was made by the Indians, stirred up continually by
the British in Canada. People were murdered and tortured with shocking
barbarity, for once started the red men could not be controlled. Chief
among them were the Wyandottes, a tribe that stood first for military
skill and ferocious valor, and with them was the notorious renegade,
Simon Girty, whose name was a byword and a hissing along the frontier.
Bryan’s Station was a Kentucky settlement of forty cabins connected
by strong palisades, set in a clearing with thick woods all around.
One August day in 1782 messengers arrived, saying that the Indians
were threatening to attack a neighboring fort and asking for aid. The
men at Bryan’s made ready to go and at dawn Captain Craig had finished
his preparations when he discovered a group of savages in full view,
just on the edge of the woods. There were only a few of them, and
being out of rifle range they were exposing themselves carelessly and
indifferently.
“They’re trying to attract our attention,” Craig immediately said to
himself. “Do they think that because they’re few we’ll leave the fort
and pursue them?”
Their actions made him suspicious, for he had been trained in Indian
fighting in the school of Daniel Boone. He ordered the relief party to
wait while he called the principal men of the station to a council.
They agreed that it was only a feint on the part of the savages to
invite an attack, and that the main fight would come from the other
side. They would meet one trick with another and beat the Indians at
their own game.
But the siege would be severe, perhaps long. Nothing could be done
until they had a supply of water--and the spring was not inside the
palisade, as was the frontier custom, but a short distance away, near
the very spot where the red men were hiding in the thick woods. The
night before only the ordinary amount of water had been brought in.
The buckets were empty, and it was a hot August day. Life inside the
stockade, even though there were no battle, would be unendurable.
Captain Craig thought a moment, then called up the women and children,
and told them his plan.
“Will you, you women and you children who are large enough, go down to
the spring, with every bucket you can carry, and bring back water? Our
lives depend upon it. We think the Indians are hidden near the spring,
waiting. Now if you’ll go, just as you do every morning, I think
they’ll not molest you, for that would break up their plan. As far as
we can we’ll cover you with our rifles. You see, don’t you, that this
is our only hope? If we men go to the spring, it would be so unusual
that it would rouse their suspicions at once; and if we were shot
down, there would be no one to save the fort and you. Will you go?”
They were quick to appreciate the situation. Of course Captain Craig
might be all wrong in his theory. The savages might capture the women
and children, right under the eyes of the men in the fort. No one could
tell what they might do. It was a terrible state of affairs. They
knew what capture meant--death by torture. They had not lived on the
frontier for nothing. A shudder of terror went through the group.
Water we must have.
The men can’t go for it.
We women will.
Such were the steps Jemima Johnson’s thoughts took, and instantly she
volunteered. The Spartan daughter of a fearless pioneer, the sister of
others, the wife of another, Jemima Suggett Johnson was also the mother
of five little children, and her husband was away in Virginia. But she
was the first to offer to go.
Quickly she gave her orders: Betsy, who was ten, was to go with her;
Sally, to look after the two little boys as well as watch baby
Richard, in his cradle. Now who would go with her for the water?
Armed with wooden dippers, the wives of the Craig brothers and their
children volunteered. Others quickly offered. Captain Craig opened
the gate and out they marched after Captain Johnson--twelve women and
sixteen children--true helpmates of those sturdy frontiersmen. They
were nearly overcome with terror, yet they laughed and chatted as
they tramped down the hill some sixty yards to the spring. A few of
the younger ones found it hard to hide their agitation, but Jemima
Johnson’s steadiness and cool composed manner reassured them and
completely deceived the savages.
Within a stone’s throw the Indians were concealed, and with eager
covetous eyes watched the women filling their buckets. It took some
time to dip up water for so many, but Captain Johnson had said each
must wait until they were all ready to start back. Then deliberately
they made their way up the hill to the fort, and not a shot was fired,
for the Indians, in the hope of carrying out their original plan, did
not betray their presence.
Some of the children, as they neared the gate, broke into a run and
crowded into the door of the stockade, but only a little of the
precious water was spilled. With sighs of relief the fifty men in the
fort saw their wives and children safe again, and the supply of water
stored away.
Then Captain Craig began to carry out his part of the scheme. Thirteen
of his men were sent to the front of the fort, to engage the Indians
there, with as much noise and confusion as possible. This, he guessed,
was the signal agreed upon for the main body of savages to attack at
the back of the stockade. So at the loopholes there he posted the rest
of his men, with strict orders to make no move, to fire not a gun,
till he gave them word. Hearing the noise at the front of the fort,
the Indians near the spring dashed from cover and up to the back wall,
which they supposed was undefended. They shouted their savage war
cries, expecting an easy victory. Then suddenly the stockade bristled
with rifles, and a steady fire was poured into the Indians massed for
the attack. With cries of terror they fled to the woods; but all day
long the firing continued. Deaths in the fort were very few, but any
Indian who exposed himself was sure to be killed by the unerring shot
of a frontiersman. Two savages climbed a tree, to fire from there, but
were quickly dislodged. They shot burning arrows up into the air, to
fall on the roofs of the buildings, but the plucky children put out
the fires as fast as they were started. Betsy Johnson even tossed one
arrow off baby Richard’s cradle. The women who had brought the water
that made this long defense possible, molded bullets and loaded rifles,
repaired breaches in the palisade, and sometimes took their places at
the loopholes.
At last the Indians decided their efforts could not succeed, so they
killed the cattle, burned the fields of grain, and made the country
look like a desert. Then they stole away in the night.
Thus Bryan’s Station was saved, due in large measure to Jemima Johnson
and her party of women who brought in the water. Years later the baby
Richard commanded the Kentucky regiment whose brilliant charge decided
the battle of the Thames. He, it was believed, killed the Indian chief
Tecumseh. And this same son of Jemima Johnson became vice-president of
the United States.