About 1784 and '85, boats ascending the Ohio river were often fired
upon by the Indians, and sometimes the crew were all killed or made
prisoners. A t that time, the whites had no settlements on either side
of the Ohio. But Kentucky contained several very important stations.
In 1785, Captain James Ward descended the river, under circumstances,
which rendered a meeting with the Indians peculiarly to be dreaded.
The captain with half a dozen others, one of them his nephew, embarked
in a crazy boat, about forty-five long, and eight feet wide, with no
other bulwark than a single pine plank, above each gunnel. The boat
was much encumbered with baggage, and seven horses were on board.
Having seen no enemy for several days, they had become secure and
careless, and permitted the boat to drift within fifty yards of the
Ohio shore. Suddenly several Indians showed themselves on the bank,
and opened heavy fire upon the boat. The astonishment of the crew may
be conceived. Captain Ward and his nephew were at the oars when the
enemy appeared, and the captain knowing that their safety depended
upon their ability to regain the middle of the river, kept his seat
firmly, and exerted his utmost powers at the oar, but his nephew
started up at the sight of the enemy, seized his rifle and was in the
act of levelling it, when he received a ball in the breast, and fell
dead in the bottom of the boat. Unfortunately, his oar fell into the
river, and the Captain having no one to pull against him, rather urged
the boat nearer to the hostile shore than otherwise. He quickly seized
a plank, however, and giving his own oar to another of the crew, he
took the station which his nephew had held, and unhurt by the bullets
which flew around him, continued to exert himself, until the boat had
reached a more respectable distance. He then, for the first time,
looked around him in order to observe the condition of the crew. His
nephew lay in his blood, perfectly lifeless,--the horses had been all
killed or mortally wounded. Some had fallen overboard--others were
struggling violently, and causing their frail bark to dip water so as
to excite the most serious apprehensions.
But the crew presented the most singular spectacle. A captain, who had
served with reputation in the continental army, seemed now totally
bereft of his faculties. He lay upon his back in the bottom of the
boat, with hands uplifted, and a countenance in which terror was
personified, exclaiming in a tone of despair, "Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!" A
Dutchman, whose weight might amount at about three hundred pounds, was
busily engaged in endeavoring to find shelter for his bulky person,
which, from the lowness of the gunnels, was a very difficult
undertaking. In spite of his utmost efforts, a portion of his
posterial luxuriance, appeared above the gunnel, and afforded a mark
to the enemy, which brought a constant shower of balls around it. In
vain he shifted his position. The lump still appeared, and the balls
still flew around it, until the Dutchman, losing all patience, raised
his head above the gunnel, and in a tone of querulous remonstrance,
called out, "Oh, now I git tat nonsense, tere,--will you!" Not a shot
was fired from the boat.
At one time, after they had partly reined the current, Captain Ward
attempted to bring his rifle to bear upon them, but so violent was the
agitation of the boat, from the furious struggles of the horses, that
he could not steady his piece within twenty yards of the enemy, and
quickly laying it aside returned to the oar. The Indians followed them
down the river for more than an hour, but having no canoes, they did
not attempt to board; and as the boat was at length transferred to the
opposite side of the river, they finally abandoned the pursuit and
disappeared. None of the crew, save the young man already mentioned,
were hurt, although the Dutchman's seat of honor served as a target
for the space of an hour, and the continental captain was deeply
mortified at the sudden, and, as he said, "unaccountable" panic which
had seized him. Captain Ward himself was protected by a post, which
had been fastened to the gunnel, and behind which he sat while rowing.