when the captors, dissatisfied with the delicate appearance and slow
travelling of her weak-minded and feeble-bodied son John, despatched
him at a blow, and hid him from the sight of pursuers. The hours of
night passed slowly and sorrowfully as the four captives, all females,
lay upon the ground, each tied to a warrior, who slept tomahawk in
hand, to prevent a re-capture, should they be overtaken by the pursuing
whites. On the third day a new cup of sorrow was put into the mother’s
hand. The infant Margaret, whom Mary could not part with, had been
spared to the mother; the Indians even assisting in carrying it. On the
third day it became very fretful from a wound it had received on its
cheek; irritated by its crying, a savage seized it, and dashing its
head against a tree, tossed it into the bushes. The company moved on in
silence; the sisters dared not, the mother would not, lament the fate
of the helpless loved one.
“After some twenty days of wearisome travel down the Sandy and Ohio
Rivers, they came to the Scioto; here the Indians showed Mrs. Moore
some hieroglyphics on the trees representing three Indians and a
captive white boy; this boy, they told her, was her son whom they had
captured in their expedition two years before, who had been here with
them, and was still a captive. The prisoners were then taken to their
towns, near where Chilicothe now stands, and were kindly received.
After a few days a council was called, and an aged Indian made a
long speech dissuading from war; the warriors shook their heads and
retired. This old man took Mary Moore to his wigwam, treated her with
great kindness, and appeared to commiserate her condition. In a short
time a party of Cherokees, who had made an unsuccessful expedition in
the western part of Pennsylvania, on their return home passed by the
Shawnee towns, and stopped where Mrs. Moore and her daughter Jane were.
Irritated at their ill success, and the loss of some of their warriors,
the sight of these prisoners excited an irresistible thirst for
revenge. While the Shawnees were revelling with liquor, the Cherokees
seized the mother and daughter, and condemned them to the torture by
fire and death at the stake. Their sufferings were protracted through
three days of agony. The uncomplaining mother comforted her poor dying
child with gospel truth and exhortation, and died with a meekness that
astounded the savages. The Shawnees never approved of this gratuitous
act of cruelty, and always expressed unwillingness to converse about it.
“When Mrs. Moore and her children, as captives, left their habitation
in App’s Valley, Mary took two New Testaments which she carried through
all her wearisome journey to the Scioto; one of them was taken from her
by the young savages, and the other was her companion through the days
of her bondage. The old Indian who showed her kindness on arriving at
the towns, would often call her to his side and make her read to him,
that he might hear ‘the book speak;’ and when any of the young Indians
attempted to hide it from her, as they often did, he interposed with
sternness and compelled them to restore it.
“The two girls remained with the Shawnees till the fall of the year
1788, being kept as property of value without any definite object.
Contentions sometimes arose among the Indians about the right of
ownership; and in times of intoxication, death was threatened as the
only means of ending the quarrel. Whenever these threats were made,
some of the sober Indians gave the girls the alarm in time for their
secreting themselves. While free from the influence of drink, the
Indians expressed great fondness for the girls, particularly the little
black-eyed, golden-haired Mary.
“The Shawnees continuing to be very troublesome to the frontiers, in
the fall of 1788 an expedition was fitted out to destroy their towns
on the Scioto. The Indians were informed by the traders of the design
and departure of the expedition, and watched its progress. On its near
approach they deserted their towns, secreting their little property,
and carrying their wives and children and aged ones beyond the reach
of the enemy. Mary Moore revolved in her mind the probable chances of
concealing herself in the forests until the arrival of the forces, and
thus obtaining her liberty; and was deterred from the attempt by the
reflection that the season was late, and possibly the forces might not
arrive before winter. Late in November the American forces reached the
Scioto, burned the Shawnee towns, destroyed their winter provisions as
far as they could be found, and immediately returned home. After the
departure of the forces the Indians returned to their ruined towns,
and winter setting upon them, deprived of shelter, their extreme
sufferings compelled them to seek for aid in Canada. On the journey
to Detroit they endured the extremes of hunger and cold. Martha Ivans
and Mary Moore with few garments, traversed the forests with deer-skin
moccasins, the only covering for their feet in the deep snows. Not
unfrequently they awoke in the morning covered with the snow that had
fallen during the night; once the depth of their snowy covering was
twelve or fourteen inches, their only bed or protection, besides the
bushes heaped together, being their single blanket. On reaching Detroit
the Indians gave themselves to riotous drinking, and to indulge this
appetite sold their young captives. Mary was purchased for half a
gallon of rum, by a person named Stogwell, who lived at Frenchtown;
Martha by a man in the neighborhood of Detroit. Being soon after
released she took up her residence with a wealthy and worthy English
family by the name of Donaldson, and received wages for her services.
The purchaser of Mary neither liberated her, nor expressed any kindness
for her, but employed her as a servant, with poor clothing and scanty
fare. The circumstances of her redemption and return to her friends in
Virginia, are related by her brother James Moore, in the narrative of
his own captivity and redemption.” This presents so faithful a picture
of Indian captivity, that we shall extract part of it before resuming
the history of Mary.
“My father sent me to a waste plantation about two miles and a quarter
up the valley, to get a horse to go to mill. I came within a few paces
of the field, when suddenly the Indians sprang out from behind a large
log; and being before alarmed, I screamed with all my might. The Indian
that took me, laid his hand on the top of my head and bade me hush.
There were only three Indians in the company. Their leader, Black Wolf,
a middle-aged man, of the most stern countenance I ever beheld, about
six feet high, having a long black beard, was the one who caught hold
of me.
“In a few moments we started on our journey. The Indians went up into
the thicket where their kettle and blankets were hid, covered up in
the leaves, and took them. We travelled down a creek called Tugg, the
north fork of Sandy, that afternoon about eight miles. The walking was
very laborious on account of the high weeds, green briers, logs, and
the mountainous character of the country. At night we lay down in a
laurel thicket without fire or anything to eat. The night was rainy. I
lay beside Black Wolf, with a leading halter round my neck tied very
tight, and the other end wrapped round his hands, so as to make it
very secure, and so that I could not get away without waking him. He
had also searched me very carefully to see that I had no knife. During
the afternoon the two young Indians walked before; I next to them, and
old Wolf followed; and if any sign was made he would remove it with
his tomahawk, so that there might be no marks or traces of the way
we had gone. I frequently broke bushes, which he discovered and shook
his tomahawk over my head, giving me to understand that if I did not
desist he would strike me with it. I then would scratch the ground with
my feet; this he also discovered and made me desist; and showed me
how to set my feet flat so as not to make any special marks. It then
became necessary for me to cease any efforts to make a trail for others
to follow. About sun-down Old Wolf gave a tremendous war whoop, and
another the next morning at sunrise. This was repeated every evening at
sun-down, and every morning at sunrise, during our whole journey. It
was long, loud, and shrill, signifying that he had one prisoner. The
custom is to repeat it as frequently as the number of prisoners. This
whoop is different from the one they make when they have scalps.
“In the evening of September 9th, we encamped for the night under a
projecting cliff, and here for the first time kindled a fire. Old Wolf
took the precaution of cutting a number of bushes and bending them
outward from our encampment so as to embarrass any one approaching
us, if we had been pursued. The next day they killed a lean bear, but
so very lean they would not eat of it; so we were still without food.
Several times during the days of our fasting, the Indians went to the
north side of a poplar, and cut off some of the bark near the root,
pounded it, and put it in the kettle and put water on it; this we drank
occasionally, which seemed to have a salutary effect in relieving the
sufferings of hunger.
“We killed buffalo and deer as we stood in need, till we arrived (Sept.
29th) at the towns over the Ohio, on the head waters of Mud River,
which took us about twenty-two days’ travelling. I travelled the whole
route barefooted, and frequently walked over large rattlesnakes, but
was not suffered to kill or interrupt them, the Indians considering
them their friends.
“We crossed the Ohio, between the mouths of Guyandotte and Big Sandy,
on a raft made of dry logs tied together with grape vines. On the
banks of the Scioto we lay by one day, and the Indians made pictures
on the trees of three Indians and of me; intended as hieroglyphics to
represent themselves and me as their prisoner, These they afterwards
showed to my sister. Near this, Old Wolf went off and procured some
bullets which he had secreted.
“When we were within a short distance of the towns, the Indians
blacked themselves, but not me. I was taken to the residence of Wolf’s
half-sister, to whom he had sold me for an old grey horse. Shortly
after I was sold, my mistress left me in her wigwam for several days
entirely alone, leaving a kettle of hominy for me to eat. In this
solitary situation I first began earnestly to pray and call upon God
for mercy and deliverance, and found great relief in prayer. I now
found the benefit of the religious instruction and examples I had
enjoyed.” * *
“In about two weeks after I had been sold, the woman who bought me
sent me out in company with her half-brother and others, on a winter’s
hunting excursion. We were very unsuccessful. My sufferings from hunger
and cold were very great. I had scarcely any clothing; the snow was
knee-deep; my blanket was too short to cover me. Often after having
lain down and drawn up my feet to get them underneath my blanket,
I was so benumbed that I could not, without considerable exertion,
get my legs stretched out again. Early in the morning the old Indian
would build a large fire, and send me and all the young Indians and
make us plunge all over in cold water, which I think was a very great
benefit to me, and prevented me from catching cold, as is usual under
circumstances of so much exposure.”
The husband of James’s mistress one day came home from a meeting of
the Powwow Society, and informed her that an apparition sent by the
Great Spirit, had reproved the Indians for their sins, their idleness
and want of brotherly kindness, and had predicted the destruction
of their towns. These predictions were literally fulfilled in the
course of three years, in the invasion of Logan from Kentucky. In the
mean time a French trader from Detroit, named Baptiste Ariome, took
a fancy to young Moore on account of his resemblance to one of his
sons, and bought him for fifty dollars’ worth of brooches, crapes,
and other commodities. James also met with a trader from Kentucky,
whom he requested to write a letter to his father, and give it to a
young man he had rescued from the Indians, to convey to Mr. Moore. At
the house of Ariome James was treated like a son, and worked on the
farm, occasionally assisting in trading expeditions. On one of these
he heard of the destruction of his father’s family, from a Shawanee
Indian who was one of the party of assailants. The information was
given the latter part of the same summer in which the massacre was
perpetrated. In the winter following, James heard that his sister Mary
was purchased by Mr. Stogwell, and that she was ill-treated in his
family. In the spring Stogwell moved into the neighborhood where he
lived; young Moore immediately went to see his sister, and found her
in an abject condition, clothed in a few dirty rags. Being advised to
apply to the commanding officer at Detroit, he went with Simon Girty to
Col. McKee, superintendent for the Indians, who had Stogwell brought
to trial to answer the complaint against him; and though the poor
girl was not taken from her inhuman master, it was decided that when
an opportunity offered for her return home, she should be released
without remuneration. This was brought about through the efforts of
Thomas Ivans, the brother of Martha, who had determined to seek his
lost sister, and the members of Mr. Moore’s family who might be living.
Clothing himself in skins, and securing some money about his person,
with rifle in hand, he proceeded to the tribes in whose possession
the captives had been, and traced their wanderings to their several
places of abode. His sister was living at Mr. Donaldson’s; Mary Moore
was delivered up by Mr. Stogwell, and James by Mr. Ariome. “All being
at liberty,” says Moore, “we immediately prepared to go to our distant
friends, and as well as I can remember, set out some time in October,
1789; it being about five years from the time I had been taken prisoner
by the Indians, and a little more than three from the captivity of my
sister. A trading-boat coming down the lakes, we obtained a passage in
it for myself and sister Polly to the Moravian towns, a distance of
about two hundred miles, which was on our way to Pittsburgh. There,
according to appointment, the day after our arrival, Thomas Ivans
and his sister Martha met us. We then prepared immediately for our
journey to Pittsburgh. Here Mr. Ivans got his shoulder dislocated, in
consequence of which we stayed a part of the winter in the vicinity,
with an uncle and aunt of his, until he became able to travel. Having
expended all his money with the doctor and in travelling, he left his
sister Martha, and proceeded with Polly and myself to the house of an
uncle about ten miles south-west of Staunton, and having received from
an uncle, the administrator of his father’s estate, compensation for
his services, he afterwards returned and brought his sister Martha.
“A day or two after we set out, having called at a public house for
breakfast, while it was preparing, my sister took out her Testament
and was engaged in reading. Being called to breakfast, she laid down
her Testament, and when we resumed our journey she forgot it. After we
had proceeded several miles she thought of her Testament, and strongly
insisted on turning back; but such were the dangers of the way, and
such the necessity of speeding our journey, that we could not.”
Martha Ivans married a man by the name of Hummer, removed to Indiana,
and reared a large family, so that she is included in the list of
pioneer mothers. Two of her sons became Presbyterian clergymen. Shortly
after her return to Rockbridge, Mary Moore went to live with her uncle,
Joseph Walker, about six miles south of Lexington, and in mature years
became the wife of Rev. Samuel Brown, pastor of New Providence. She
became the mother of eleven children, nine of whom survived her; and
through life retained a strong attachment for the wild people of the
forest, which no memory of wrong could obliterate. The self-reliance,
patience, and self-denial she acquired, in part, in her captivity,
were eminent through life. She was blessed with children as dutiful
and pious as she had proved in her childhood, and saw, in her success
in training her household, the influence of her own force of character
developed by such strange circumstances, and the power of a Christian
example.
Some idea of the difficulties of travel in those days may be given
by the following extract from a description of a journey westward in
1784.[19] “Pack-horses were the only means of transportation then, and
for years after. We were provided with three horses, on one of which
my mother rode carrying her infant with all the table furniture and
cooking utensils. On another were packed the stores of provisions, the
plough irons, and other agricultural tools. The third horse was rigged
out with a pack saddle and two large creels, made of hickory withs
in the fashion of a crate, one over each side, in which were stowed
the beds and bedding, and the wearing apparel of the family. In the
centre of these creels there was an aperture prepared for myself and
little sister, and the top was well secured by lacing to keep us in our
places, so that only our heads appeared above. Each family was supplied
with one or more cows; their milk furnished the morning and evening
meal for the children, and the surplus was carried in canteens for use
during the day.
“When the caravan reached the mountains, the road was found to be
hardly passable for loaded horses. In many places the path lay along
the edge of a precipice, where, if the horse had stumbled or lost his
balance, he would have been precipitated several hundred feet below.
The path was crossed by many streams raised by the melting snow and
spring rains, and running with rapid current in deep ravines; most of
these had to be forded, and for many successive days, hair-breadth
escapes were continually occurring; sometimes horses falling, at others
carried away by the current, and the women and children with difficulty
saved from drowning. Sometimes in ascending steep acclivities, the
lashing of the creels would give way, both creels and children tumble
to the ground and roll down the steep, unless arrested by some
traveller of the company. The men who had been inured to the hardships
of war, could endure the fatigues of the journey; it was the mothers
who suffered; they could not, after the toils of the day, enjoy the
rest so much needed at night. The wants of their suffering children
must be attended to. After preparing their simple meal, they lay
down with scanty covering in a miserable cabin, or, as it sometimes
happened, in the open air, and often unrefreshed, were obliged to rise
early to encounter the fatigues and dangers of another day.”
“The division lines between those whose lands adjoined, were generally
made in an amicable manner, before any survey of them was made by
the parties concerned. In doing this, they were guided mainly by the
tops of ridges and water courses, but particularly the former. Hence
the greater number of farms in the western parts of Pennsylvania and
Virginia bear a striking resemblance to an amphitheatre; the tops of
the surrounding hills being the boundaries of the tract to which the
family mansion belongs.”
Besides the exposure of the emigrants to Indian depredations and
massacres, “they had other trials to endure which at the present day
cannot be appreciated. One of the most vexatious was the running away
of their horses. As soon as the fly season commenced the horses seemed
resolved on leaving the country and crossing the mountains. They swam
the Monongahela, and often proceeded a hundred and fifty miles before
they were taken up. During the husband’s absence in pursuit of them,
the wife was left alone with her children in their unfinished cabin,
surrounded by forests, in which the howl of wolves was heard from
every hill. If want of provisions, or other causes, made a visit to
a neighbor’s necessary, she must either take her children with her
through the woods, or leave them unprotected, under the most fearful
apprehension that some mischief might befal them before her return. As
bread and meat were scarce, milk was the principal dependence for the
support of the family. One cow of each family was provided with a bell,
which could be heard from half a mile to a mile. The matron on rising
in the morning listened for her cow-bell, which she knew well enough
to detect, even amidst a clamor of others. If her children were small,
she tied them in bed to prevent their wandering, and guard them from
danger of fire and snakes; and guided by the tinkling of the bell, made
her way through the tall weeds and across the ravines until she found
the objects of her search. Happy on her return to find her children
unharmed, and regardless of a thorough wetting from the dew, she
hastened to prepare their breakfast of milk boiled with a little meal
or hominy; or in the protracted absence of her husband, it was often
reduced to milk alone. Occasionally venison and turkeys were obtained
from hunters.”
An anecdote is related in the “American Pioneer,” of Gov. McArthur,
on his first visit to the West, which throws light on the situation
of the early settlers. He stopped some time at Baker’s Station, about
twenty miles below Wheeling. There was war with the Indians, and the
settlers about Fish Creek were occupying the station for security; so
long, however, had the enemy been absent from that section of country,
that the inmates went and came when they pleased. A young lady of great
beauty, who lived at the place, had acquired proficiency in the art of
shooting with the rifle. “I think her name was Scott, but it may have
been Baker. Early one morning she went to the run, some fifty or sixty
yards above the post, to wash linen, taking her gun along, and young
McArthur accompanied her to stand guard while she was employed at the
wash tub. Before long a small dog that was with them commenced barking,
and gave such manifestations of alarm that the young lady desired her
companion to make a hasty reconnoissance of the adjacent grounds. The
motions of the dog had awakened fear that Indians might be lurking
close by, but McArthur discovered nothing to confirm the suspicion.
The washing was resumed and in due course completed; after which they
both returned to the station. Just as they were about to enter the
gate, a tall athletic looking Indian sprang from behind a tree not more
than thirty paces beyond the spot where they had been washing, and
darted off rapidly into the woods. Pursuit was instantly made, but he
was not overtaken. He must have posted himself behind the tree during
the previous night, with the intention of shooting the first person
that ventured out of the works in the morning. The appearance of two
disconcerted his plan. McArthur’s gallantry on this occasion was the
means of saving the young lady’s life.”
De Hass describes a station as a parallelogram of cabins united by
palisades, so as to present a continued wall on the outer sides, the
cabin doors opening into a common square on the inner side. A fort
was generally a stockade enclosure, embracing cabins, etc., for the
accommodation of several families. Doddridge says, “a range of cabins
commonly formed at least one side, separated by divisions or partitions
of logs. The walls on the outside were ten or twelve feet high, with a
roof sloping inward. Some of the cabins had puncheon floors, but the
greater part were earthen.
“The blockhouses were built at the angles of the fort, and projected
about two feet beyond the outer walls of the cabins and stockades.
Their upper stories were about eighteen inches or two feet every way
larger than the under one, leaving an opening at the commencement of
the second story, to prevent the enemy from making a lodgment under
their walls. In some forts, instead of blockhouses, the angles were
furnished with bastions. A large folding gate, made of thick slabs,
nearest the spring, closed the fort. The stockades, bastions, cabins,
and blockhouse walls were furnished with portholes at proper heights
and distances. The whole of the outside was made completely bullet
proof. The families belonging to these forts were so attached to their
own cabins on their farms, that they seldom moved into the fort in the
spring until compelled by some alarm; that is, when it was announced by
some murder that Indians were in the settlement.”