distress of all sorts, a written order arrived in March, 1782, sent by
the governor to the half-king of the Hurons and to an English officer
in his company, to bring all the missionaries and their families to
Detroit, but with a strict order not to plunder nor abuse them in the
least. The missionaries were overwhelmed with grief at the idea of
being separated from their Indians; but there being no alternative,
they were obliged to submit to this, one of the heaviest of their
trials. The poor Indians came weeping to bid them farewell, and
accompanied them a considerable way, some as far as Lower Sandusky.
Here we were obliged to spend several nights in the open air, and
suffered great cold besides other hardships. April 14th, we set out and
crossed over a part of the lake, and arrived at Detroit by the straits
which join Lakes Erie and Huron. We were lodged in the barracks by
order of the governor. Some weeks after, we left the barracks with his
consent and moved into a house at a small distance from the town.
“The Indian converts gathering around their teachers, they resolved,
with the consent of the governor, to begin the building of a new
settlement upon a spot about thirty miles from Detroit, on the river
Huron, which they called New Gnadenhutten, and which increased
considerably from time to time. Here I lived till the year 1785, when I
set out with an aged missionary couple to be educated in the school at
Bethlehem.”
The murder of the Moravian Indians was one of the most atrocious
transactions in the history of the West. They consisted chiefly of
Delawares, with a few Mohicans; had been converted to Christianity
through the zeal and influence of Moravian missionaries, and had lived
ten years quietly in their villages of Gnadenhutten, Schönbrunn, Salem,
and Lichtenau. Although in friendship with the whites, they fell under
the displeasure of the border settlers, who suspected them of aiding
and abetting the hostile savages; an expedition against them was
undertaken in March, 1782, after some Indian incursions, by a party of
men chiefly from the Monongahela, led by Col. David Williamson; they
were induced by assurances of good-will, to assemble at Gnadenhutten,
and there were deliberately massacred in cold blood. It is said that
the number of killed was ninety-six, including women and children. Two
only of the devoted Indians made their escape.
* * * * *
“Ruhama Greene was born and raised in Jefferson County, Virginia.
In 1785, she married Charles Builderback, and with him crossed the
mountains and settled at the mouth of Short Creek, on the east bank of
the Ohio, a few miles above Wheeling. Her husband, a brave man, had on
many occasions distinguished himself in repelling the Indians, who had
often felt the aim of his unerring rifle. They therefore determined at
all hazards to kill him.
“On a beautiful summer morning in June, 1789, at a time when it was
thought the enemy had abandoned the western shores of the Ohio, Capt.
Charles Builderback, his wife and brother, Jacob Builderback, crossed
the Ohio to look after some cattle. On reaching the shore, a party of
fifteen or twenty Indians rushed out from an ambush, and firing upon
them, wounded Jacob in the shoulder. Charles was taken while he was
running to escape. Jacob returned to the canoe and got away. In the
mean time, Mrs. Builderback secreted herself in some drift-wood, near
the bank of the river. As soon as the Indians had secured and tied her
husband, not being able to discover her hiding-place, they compelled
him, with threats of immediate death, to call her to him. With a hope
of appeasing their fury, he did so. She heard him, but made no answer.
Here, to use her words,--‘a struggle took place in my breast, which I
cannot describe. Shall I go to him and become a prisoner, or shall I
remain, return to our cabin and provide for and take care of our two
children?’ He shouted to her a second time to come to him, saying, that
if she obeyed, perhaps it would be the means of saving his life. She
no longer hesitated, but left her place of safety, and surrendered
herself to his savage captors. All this took place in full view of
their cabin, on the opposite shore, where they had left their two
children, one a son about three years of age, and an infant daughter.
The Indians, knowing that they would be pursued as soon as the news of
their visit reached the stockade at Wheeling, commenced their retreat.
Mrs. Builderback and her husband travelled together that day and the
following night. The next morning, the Indians separated into two
bands, one taking Builderback, and the other his wife, and continued a
westward course by different routes.
“In a few days, the band having Mrs. Builderback in custody, reached
the Tuscarawas river, where they encamped, and were soon rejoined by
the band that had her husband in charge. Here the murderers exhibited
his scalp on the top of a pole, and to convince her that they had
killed him, pulled it down and threw it into her lap. She recognised it
at once by the redness of his hair. She said nothing, and uttered no
complaint. It was evening; her ears pained with the terrific yells of
the savages, and wearied by constant travelling, she reclined against
a tree and fell into a profound sleep, and forgot all her sufferings,
until morning. When she awoke, the scalp of her murdered husband was
gone, and she never learned what became of it.[25]
“As soon as the capture of Builderback was known at Wheeling, a party
of scouts set off in pursuit, and taking the trail of one of the bands,
followed it until they found the body of Builderback. He had been
tomahawked and scalped, and apparently suffered a lingering death.
“The Indians, on reaching their towns on the Big Miami, adopted Mrs.
Builderback into a family, with whom she resided until released from
captivity. She remained a prisoner about nine months, performing the
labor and drudgery of squaws, such as carrying in meat from the hunting
grounds, preparing and drying it, making moccasins, leggins and other
clothing for the family in which she lived. After her adoption she
suffered much from the rough and filthy manner of Indian living, but
had no cause to complain of ill-treatment otherwise.
“In a few months after her capture, some friendly Indians informed
the commandant at Fort Washington, that there was a white woman in
captivity at the Miami towns. She was ransomed and brought into the
fort, and in a few weeks was sent up the river to her lonely cabin,
and the embrace of her two orphan children. She then recrossed the
mountains, and settled in her native county.
“In 1791, Mrs. Builderback married Mr. John Greene, and in 1798, they
emigrated to the Hockhocking valley, and settled about three miles
west of Lancaster, where she continued to reside until the time of her
death, about the year 1842. She survived her last husband about ten
years.”[26]
XI.
REBECCA ROUSE.
Among other families who ventured on the long and perilous journey from
the granite soil of New England, in the year 1788, a year never to be
forgotten in the annals of Ohio, were those of John Rouse and Jonathan
Devoll. Before the period of the Revolution, Mr. Rouse had followed the
vocation of a whaleman and seaman, from the port of New Bedford, and
was now living on a small farm in the town of Rochester, Massachusetts,
near the little harbor of Mattepoisett. His family consisted of a
wife and eight children. Capt. Jonathan Haskell, who also lived in
Rochester, and had been an officer in the war, joined him in fitting
out the expedition, and furnished a large covered wagon and two of the
horses, Mr. Rouse furnishing the other two. An active young man, named
Cushing, who wished to settle in the west, was employed to drive the
wagon. As the journey was a long one, they took as few articles of
beds, bedding, and cooking utensils, as they could possibly do with
on the road. Their clothing and other goods were packed in trunks and
large wooden boxes made to fit the inside of the wagon.
The parting from their old neighbors at Mattepoisett, was one of much
tenderness, accompanied by many hearty adieus and sincere prayers for
their welfare on the journey, and their happiness in that far away
region. No one, at this day, can imagine with what dread and awe a
journey to the new territory west of the Ohio, was then viewed by the
simple-hearted people of New England. A party of young ladies, on
horseback, accompanied the females as far as “The Long-plain,” distant
six miles. Here they tarried for about a week amongst their kinsfolk
and former neighbors; for at this place Rouse had lived many years, and
here most of the children had been born.
The morning they left Mattepoisett, an interesting occurrence took
place which shows the strong attachment of the female heart to home
and relatives. A rich old farmer of that place, who had taken a great
liking to Bathsheba, the eldest daughter, and was anxious that his
son should obtain her for a wife, offered to give her by deed a nice
farm and good dwelling-house, if she would stay amongst them and not
go with the family to the West. But her affection for her parents,
sisters, and brothers was too great to forego the pleasure of their
society probably for the rest of her life, and the offer was declined,
much to the sorrow of the generous old man. The week flew rapidly away
in social intercourse with their kindred, and solemn and sorrowful
were the greetings of the farewell hour. The distance was so great,
and the dangers of the wilderness so many, that they all thought the
parting was to be final as to this world; and so indeed it proved to
the larger portion of them. Capt. Haskell joined them that morning from
Rochester, and early in October, 1788, they took their departure from
“The Long-plain,” and commenced their arduous journey to Muskingum, as
the new settlement was then called. They reached Providence the second
day, at evening--at which place they were joined by the family of
Jonathan Devoll, composed of Mrs. Devoll and five children. Mrs. Nancy
Devoll was the sister of Mrs. Rouse. Her husband had been absent nearly
a year, attached to the party of pioneers sent by the Ohio company
the autumn previous. He was the naval architect of the “May-flower,”
which conveyed the first detachment of men from Simrel’s Ferry, on
the Yohiogany, to the mouth of the Muskingum, and one of the first
who landed the 7th of April, 1788, on the soil of the present State
of Ohio. Their large covered wagon, with four horses, was fitted up
in a similar style to the other, and was driven by Isaac Barker, an
only brother of the married females, who had left a wife and family in
Rochester, till he could return and bring them the following year.
After travelling through New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, early
in November the pilgrims reached the foot of the mountain ranges, and
commenced the ascent of those rocky barriers which divide the sources
of the Susquehanna river from those which fall into the Ohio.
The evening after they left Carlisle, they were overtaken by an old
acquaintance and neighbor, who was also with his family on his way to
Muskingum. He had started about the same time with the others, with
an ox team of three yokes, and by dint of steady and late driving,
had managed to keep within a day’s march of them, and here, by making
a little extra exertion, he overtook them. Ox teams were preferred
to horses by many of the early New England emigrants, in their long
journeys to the new purchase. Probably one reason for this was their
greater familiarity with their use as beasts of draught; another, that
they were much better suited to work among stumps and logs, and were
also much less likely to be stolen by the Indians. Their rate of travel
was a little slower than that of the horse, but they could make about
twenty miles a day where the roads were good.
The roads at that day, across the mountains, were the worst that we can
imagine, cut into deep gullies on one side by mountain rains, while the
other was filled with blocks of sandstone. The descents were abrupt,
and often resembled the breaks in a flight of stone stairs, whose
lofty steps were built for the children of Titan rather than the sons
of men. As few of the emigrant wagons were provided with lock-chains
for the wheels, the downward impetus was checked by a large log, or
broken tree top, tied with a rope to the back of the wagon and dragged
along on the ground. In other places, the road was so sideling that all
the men who could be spared were required to pull at the side stays,
or short ropes attached to the upper side of the wagons, to prevent
their upsetting. By dividing their forces with Isaac, they made out to
prevent any serious accidents of this kind, although it seemed many
times impossible to prevent it. The ground, naturally moist and springy
on the sides of the mountains, was now rendered very muddy and wet
by the November rains, which had begun to fall almost daily. As they
approached the middle and higher ranges, the rain was changed to snow
and sleet, which added still more to the difficulties and dreariness
of the way. From the weight of the loaded wagons and the abrupt
acclivities of the road, it fell to the lot of the women and children
to walk up all the steep ascents--it being beyond the power of the
horses to pull their additional weight up many of the sharp pitches of
the mountains. The children often stuck by the way, or lost their shoes
in the mud, occasioning a world of trouble to the elder girls, to whose
share it fell to look after the welfare of the little ones.
After crossing the “Blue mountain,” the “Middle,” and the “Tuscarora
mountain,” late one Saturday evening they descended into the “Ahwick
valley,” and Mr. Rouse’s family put up at the house of an honest
German Dunkard, named Christian Hiples; while the other two teams
went to an old tavern stand, well known to the early pack-horsemen
and borderers of that region. This was a quiet and tolerably fertile
valley, environed by mountains. In it was seated old “Fort Littleton,”
and under the protection of its walls had sprung up, many years ago,
quite a thriving settlement, with a number of fine plantations. All
this part of the country, and as far east as Carlisle, had been, about
twenty-five years before, depopulated by the depredations of the
Indians. Many of the present inhabitants well remembered those days of
trial, and could not see these helpless women and children moving so
far away into the wilderness as Ohio, without expressing their fears at
the danger they would incur from the deadly hate of the Indians.
They tarried over the Sabbath, and the following Monday, under the
hospitable roof of this Christian Dunkard--whose long white beard,
reaching to the waist, greatly excited the curiosity of the children.
His family consisted of several young women, who treated the wayfaring
females with great kindness; heating their huge out-of-door oven for
them, and assisting them in the baking of a large batch of bread
for the journey, with many other acts of true Christian charity. On
Tuesday morning, when they departed, they loaded them with potatoes and
vegetables from their garden, as many as they would venture to carry,
without making any charge. They parted from them with many prayers and
good wishes for their welfare on the road, and the happy termination
of their long and perilous journey. The inhabitants generally treated
them kindly, and the further they advanced into the confines of the
wilderness, and left the older settlements, the more hospitality
abounded. They received them more readily into their houses, and more
willingly assisted them with their cooking utensils, or any other thing
they possessed, or the wayfarers needed.
While the travellers in Rouse’s wagon were treated so kindly, Isaac,
who was excitable and very headstrong, met with rather rough usage from
the hand of the old inn-keeper with whom he put up. This man had been
a great bruiser in his younger days, and had lost one eye in some of
these frays; a thing not at all uncommon among the early borderers. He
was naturally a rough man, and the loss of his eye added still more to
his ferocious appearance. It seems that he had placed the rounds of
the rack, in his stable, so close together it was next to impossible
for the horses to pull any of the hay through, so that, although there
was plenty before them, they were none the better for it. Isaac could
not stand quietly by and say nothing, when his hard-working horses
needed their food so much; and then to pay for that they did not eat
besides! He remonstrated with the landlord on the matter, but received
only abuse for his pains. After paying back a little of the same coin,
he fell to work and broke out every other round. The old fellow then
fell upon Isaac, determined to give him a sound beating; but in this he
was sadly mistaken, and got very roughly handled himself. The horses,
however, got plenty of hay, and Isaac told him he should be back again
in the spring, and if he found the slats replaced, he would give him
another and still sounder thrashing.
Three days after leaving the quiet valley, with much exertion and many
narrow escapes from oversetting, they reached the little village of
Bedford. During this period they had crossed “Sideling hill,” forded
some of the main branches of the Juniata, and threaded the narrow
valleys along its borders. Every few miles, long strings of pack-horses
met them on the road, bearing heavy burthens of peltry and ginseng, the
two main articles of export from the regions west of the mountains.
Others overtook them loaded with kegs of spirits, salt, and bales of
dry goods, on their way to the traders in Pittsburgh. The fore-horse
generally carried a small bell, which distinguished him as the leader.
One man had the charge of ten horses, which was as many as he could
manage by day, and look after at night. For many years this was the
manner in which nearly all the transportation was done over the
mountains. The roads were nearly impassable for wagons till near the
close of the Indian war, in 1795.
One of their greatest trials was in crossing the Alleghanies. Four
miles beyond Bedford, the road to the right was called the “Pittsburg
road,” while that to the left was called the “Glade road,” and led
to Simrel’s ferry, on the Yohiogany river. This was the route of the
emigrants, and led, as well as the other, across the Alleghany. In
passing this formidable barrier, our travellers were belated; and it
was nearly midnight before they reached the house where they were to
lodge. The night was excessively dark; the whole party, except the
younger children, were on foot, and could only keep the path by feeling
the bushes along the sides of the road. It so happened that Michael
Rouse and Capt. Haskell, who was their only guide, had gone ahead with
the other wagon, and was entirely beyond hail; leaving Isaac, with Mr.
Rouse and all the females, to pick their way along the miry road in the
best manner they could. In the midst of all this gloom, the spirits
of the former never flagged in the least; but the more difficulties
increased the louder he sang, and some of his most cheerful ditties
were echoed that night from the rocky side of the Alleghany. Mr.
Rouse, who had been often exposed to winds and storms, could not stand
the trudging along, ancle deep, in the mud and dark, without venting
his feelings in many a hearty curse on the vexations of the night. When
about a mile from the house, they were unexpectedly cheered at hearing
the lively whistle of Michael; and directly after, in a turn of the
road, espied the light of a lantern brought by Capt. Haskell, who had
returned after putting up his own team, to meet the stragglers and
guide them on the way. A bright fire was blazing on the hearth of the
little log inn, the warmth and sparkling of which soon restored their
spirits. It was past midnight before they had cooked and eaten their
suppers and spread their couches on the puncheon floor of the hut. The
fatigues of the journey caused them to sleep very soundly, and they
awoke the next morning with fresh courage to meet the trials of the day
before them.
In descending the Alleghany, the children and girls were much delighted
at seeing the side of the road covered with the vivid green leaves and
bright scarlet berries of the “partridge bush,” or “checkerberry.” It
was a common fruit at “The Long-plain,” and the sight of it reminded
them of their home and the scenes they had left. For a while the little
boys forgot the fatigues of the road at the sight of this favorite
fruit, and cheered each other with joyous shouts, as fresh patches from
time to time appeared by the side of the way. Even the married females
were exhilarated by the cheerful spirits exhibited by the children,
and partook freely of the spicy fruit which they collected in large
handfuls. As they descended the western slope of the mountains, the
springs of limpid water, which gushed fresh and pure from the earth
along its sides, now ran babbling along to join their puny rills with
those of the Ohio. This range is the dividing ridge between the eastern
and the western streams, and the travellers could now see the waters
which flowed towards the end of their journey.
After reaching the foot of this picturesque range, they had to cross
a region called “The Glades,” an elevated plateau, which, in many
points, bore a strong resemblance to the prairies of the west. The
soil was dark colored, thinly coated with trees, and covered with
coarse grass. In crossing “Laurel ridge,” which bounds the western side
of the glades, and is so named from the profusion of rhododendron,
or rosebay, and kalmia latifolia, or laurel, which cluster along its
rocky sides, the girls and older boys had to walk the whole distance.
The labor was the more difficult from the ground being covered with
snow, which had fallen to the depth of several inches on the sides
and top of the ridge, during the last twenty-four hours; while at the
same time it had been raining in the valley, or table land, between
the ranges. The bushes were bent down by the weight of the snow, and
partly obstructed the path; so that long before they got over, their
shoes were saturated with water, and their clothes were dribbled and
wet half leg high. The “boxberries” still showed their bright scarlet
faces, peeping out beneath the snow and ice, as large as common red
cherries. At the western foot of the ridge, their road was crossed by
a stream too deep for them to ford; and the girls being several miles
ahead of the wagons, whose progress was very slow, were much rejoiced
to find a cabin in which they could rest until the teams came up. The
rendezvous for the night was beyond the creek, as this was the only
place where they could get feed for their horses. While waiting at this
spot, a stout young mountaineer, clad in his hunting-frock and leggins,
came dashing along on a powerful horse, and very kindly, as well as
gallantly, offered to take the girls over the stream, if they would
trust themselves behind him on the horse, and conduct them safely to
the house where they were to stop. But his uncouth dress and their own
natural timidity made them decline the offer, choosing rather to wait
the arrival of their friends. Just at dark they came up, and taking
them into the wagons, they crossed the stream more to their own liking,
if not more safely than under the charge of the young mountaineer.
The following day they crossed “Chesnut ridge,” the last of the
mountain ranges, so named from the immense forests of chesnut trees
that clothe its sides and summit, for nearly the whole of its extent
in Pennsylvania and part of Virginia. The soil is sandy and rocky;
and so exactly adapted to the growth of this tree, that no part of the
world produces it more abundantly. In fruitful years, the hogs, from
a distance of twenty or thirty miles, were driven by the inhabitants,
every autumn, to fatten on its fruit. Bears, wild turkeys, elk and
deer, travelled from afar to this nut-producing region, and luxuriated
on its bountiful crop. The congregations of wild animals, on this
favored tract, made it one of the most celebrated hunting grounds, not
only for the Indians, but also for the white man who succeeded him in
the possession of these mountain regions. The children here loaded
their little pockets with chesnuts, and for a while forgot the pinching
cold of the half frozen leaves and frost covered burrs among which
they were scattered. Not long after crossing this ridge they reached
Simrel’s ferry, on the Yohiogany river. They hailed this spot with
delight, as they were to travel no further in their wagons, but finish
the journey by water. They were also glad on another account; two of
the horses had been failing for some days, were now near giving out,
and in fact died before reaching Buffalo, a small village on the Ohio
river.