by Allan Eckert
“They were on us by then, and I got up on the roof of my boat and got one shot off and knocked an Indian into the water who was just trying to get into our boat from the canoe. The canoe pulled back right away. But then I heard the women screaming below and I jumped down and went into the cabin and found a warrior with a tomahawk in his hand stuck halfway in one of the small windows. I picked up a billet of wood and beat him on the head till he was dead and then grabbed up a loaded gun and ran out on the deck again.”
He shook his head and took another sip of the tea before continuing. “Both the canoes had pulled back a little again from our boats, but they were still firing pretty hard at us, and that’s when I took a bullet through the arm here.” He touched the bandage over his wound. “Captain Plaskett’s other son, John—he’s ten years old—also got hit in the arm but not so bad. I didn’t think we’d get away if they closed in on us again and was beginning to think we were done, but then, I guess ’cause we’d already killed five of them, they pulled back out of range, followed us a little longer and then turned back. We then continued drifting down to Maysville, where we got to shore, and then, this morning, the boat of Captain Strong came drifting in, too, with two crewmen dead in it. Captain Strong said his boat had put into shore again close to the mouth of the Scioto, on the Ohio side, and twenty-one of the discharged soldiers had gotten out and then immediately fell into an ambush. Most, it appeared, were killed in the first firing, and Strong and his crewmen, themselves under fire, had shoved the flatboat out into the current, two being killed in the process, but they had then made it to Maysville. Not long after that,” he motioned toward the other men at the table with them, “Mr. Kenton and Mr. McIntire and Mr. Whiteman came, and here we are.”
Kenton now spoke up. “We buried Kirkpatrick, Stoner and the preacher, Tucker, along with the two crewmen from Strong’s boat at Maysville. Whole town’s in an uproar. What bothers me now, Henry, is the Greathouse boat. We’ve got to find out what’s happened.”
Henry Lee nodded. All the old-timers on the frontier, as well as the Indians, were aware that it was Greathouse who had butchered Chief Logan’s family and touched off Lord Dunmore’s War. That had been 17 years ago, but if the Shawnees had recognized him, the results would not be pretty, since the Indians reserved very special forms of slow death for their greatest enemies.
“All right, Simon,” he said, “we’ll mount an expedition. I’ll write out some authorizations for you, Alex and Ben. You three separate from here and go to the nearest stations and order the militia and all the volunteers you can get to assemble at once at Maysville. I’ll write dispatches for Colonel Orr”—Alexander Orr was commander of the scout system in the Kentucky district—“and place him in charge of the expedition, and also to General Scott to let him know what’s happening. Have some more tea,” he motioned to his wife, “while I get these things written. Then we’ll leave.”
[April 5, 1791—Tuesday]
The force of 200 men had ridden up the Kentucky shore of the Ohio River from Maysville under Col. Orr, with Col. Robert Rankin and his 100 men in three flatboats following. What they found was sickening, and it wasn’t merely the Elijah Strong party, which they found first. Most of the 21 discharged soldiers had been shot to death and then scalped and savagely mutilated with tomahawk blows, their bodies now badly bloated and maggoty. A common grave was dug and the bodies buried, and all the men in Orr’s party, including Simon Kenton, knew that when at last they returned home, they would have to destroy their own clothing, as the ghastly stench would never leave them.
The party had continued up the shore, looking for the Greathouse party, but that wasn’t who they found. A few miles up they came to the burned ruins of another flatboat and, on the shore, the bodies of 13 men and two women, similarly killed. Kenton, Orr and many of the others recognized the leader of the party—John May, for whom Maysville had been named. It was known that he had gone up the Kanawha to bring down a number of new settlers. Now all were dead. These, too, Orr’s men buried and then continued their search for the Greathouse party.
They found them, all 16 dead—making the total killed, including those already buried at Maysville, 52. These, however, were the worst, and the question that had been in the mind of Kenton and many of the others was now answered beyond doubt: The Indians had indeed recognized Jacob Greathouse and had subjected him and his wife to a very special death.
The couple had been stripped and beaten terribly with limber willow switches, though not enough to kill them. It was not difficult to deduce what had then occurred. Each had been tethered to a different sapling with a loop around the neck and the line running to the tree. Their bellies had been slit open just above the pubic hair, and a loose end of the entrails had been tied to the sapling. They had then either been dragged or prodded around in a circle so their intestines had been pulled out of their bodies to wind around the trees. Mrs. Greathouse had apparently died before getting much more than half unwound, but Jake had managed to stumble along until not only his intestines but even his stomach had been pulled out and became part of the obscene mass on the tree. They had then been scalped and hot coals stuffed into the body cavities before the Indians left.
Every man on the expedition would ever after carry the picture of this atrocity with him, and it would fill his nightmares. The message was clear: The hatred of the Shawnee was strong, his memory long and his vengeance great.
[April 21, 1791—Thursday]
Normally it was the Indians who adroitly pulled off ambushes against the whites, but on rare occasions an opportunity presented itself for the tables to be turned. This was one of those occasions, and Simon Kenton was set on pulling it off.
Five days ago Ben Whiteman and Neil Washburn had been making their appointed patrol of the Ohio River shore and were almost 30 miles below Maysville when they found four large Indian canoes hidden at the mouth of Snag Creek.719 The first two found were 50-foot wooden canoes beached and covered with old driftwood and brush. A search turned up the other two, 20-footers made of bark, sunk in three feet of water and held down with logs angled up onto the shore. All signs indicated that a party of 50 or more Shawnees had gone inland from here to raid the settlements. Whiteman and Washburn immediately returned to Kenton’s Station and reported to him. Kenton, in turn, sent out word for 30 of his scouts to meet in Maysville at dawn. He also sent young James Finley to Lee’s Station to inform the county lieutenant and advise him to send warnings to the various settlements of Mason and Bourbon counties to be on special alert against attack and, if possible, mount an offensive to drive the marauders back to the Ohio River.
Kenton’s party assembled at the appointed time—including Jacob Wetzel, who was now living in Kentucky—and by sunrise they had shoved off in an old keelboat carrying 20 of his men and the other 10 in a light cedar 40-foot canoe. A quarter-mile above Snag Creek, the party crossed to the Ohio shore and grounded. Kenton ordered the keelboat dragged ashore and hidden and its 20 men to move the remaining distance by land to opposite the mouth of Snag Creek and meet him and the other 10 there. Then he ordered to canoe back across to the Kentucky side, to make certain the Indian boats were still hidden there. They were, and once again they crossed directly over to the Ohio side, put into the mouth of Bear Creek 1,000 yards below, and hid the canoe there. Then they walked back and joined the others.
Kenton set up a two-man six-hour guard schedule and, with the rest, set up an ambush in a steep gap several hundred yards inland. At that point the waiting began, and it was a long one. Their rations were nearly used up and 48 hours had passed before the Indians showed up. Whiteman and Washburn spotted them first and alerted the others. Kenton came up with five men, including Jacob Boone, Joe Lemon, Bill Fowler, Alex McIntire and Jacob Wetzel. The eight men watched as three Shawnees started across, two in one of the smaller sunken canoes they had raised, the third swimming his horse across and leading six other horses tied head to tail, animals no doubt stolen from the settlements.
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br /> There was, as yet, no sign of the other Indians, and the pair in the canoe were talking animatedly and laughing as they approached. As they reached the shore, the whites fired and all three Indians were killed. The tired horses were caught easily and led into the woods. The dead Indians were scalped. One turned out to be not an Indian at all but a white renegade named Bill Frame, recognized by Joe Lemon as a boyhood friend on the Monongahela, whom he hadn’t seen for ten years. All three bodies were consigned to the river and the canoe was filled with rocks and sunk.
Again they waited in hiding, hungry and tired now, throughout the remainder of the day and night, and the vigilance paid off. Shortly after dawn today virtually the same scenario occurred: This time two Indians paddled and one swam six horses across. Again they were killed as they came ashore, the horses captured and the dead scalped. Before the bodies were shoved into the river, one of the heads was severed and impaled atop a sharpened 20-foot pole and stuck in the ground at the far north end of the ambush gap as a warning to any other Indians coming south who might attempt to cross here.
With no other Indians in sight, Kenton allowed two of the men to move inland and hunt for meat. They returned in an hour or so with three turkeys, which wasn’t much, but at least provided each man with a little nourishment to keep him going. Again they waited throughout the day and into the evening. At nightfall a heavy fog developed and, about midnight, one of the guards brought word that sounds had carried over the water of many men gathering on the opposite shore. Kenton immediately abandoned the plan to ambush the Indians at the gap and moved all his men into position closer to the river. Now, however, things went slightly awry. The Indians on the Kentucky shore began hallowing, obviously expecting an answer from the Ohio shore. When none came, an uneasy silence fell. Soon muttered voices were heard, and the dipping of paddles, and at just about that same moment, one of Kenton’s men dropped his gun with a clatter. Immediately the sounds of the boat drew away and silence fell again, this time more ominously. Kenton ordered the shore guards to walk a 100-pace patrol each, moving apart, halting, then moving together again.
Though they heard nothing, on one of the walks a small canoe was found beached on the shore—obviously a craft Whiteman and Washburn had not discovered with the others. A daring warrior had come across, discovered the waiting whites, circled around them, climbed a high hill and, with startling abruptness suddenly yelled in a great booming voice.
“Puck-a-chee! Puck-a-chee! Shemanese!”—Danger here! Long Knives!
The element of surprise now entirely lost, Kenton ordered the big canoe to be brought up from Bear Creek. They boarded and started over, but before they were fully across, they heard gunfire from the Kentucky side. On coming to the shore, they found that a sizable group of Bourbon County men, having received Kenton’s warning, had taken up the offensive and followed the Indians. Already alerted to Kenton’s trap, however, and aided by the fog, the Indian party had scattered and escaped, leaving behind two dead.
While the ambush had not turned out to be quite the success Kenton had hoped, it was still a good showing—32 stolen horses recovered, eight of the enemy killed and not one person of their own number even injured.
[May 1, 1791—Sunday]
The four Crow sisters, Susan, 17, Elizabeth, 16, Christiana, 14, and Catherine, 12, were positively reveling in this beautiful spring morning. The sun was shining brightly and the new grasses were very lush and green, while many of the bushes had newly unfurled leaves or, along with most of the trees, heavily swollen leaf buds. Many of the spring flowers were in bloom, perfuming this lovely morning’s air, and in the woodlands the redbud trees were in full bloom.
Only a quarter-hour ago the four had left their parents and older brothers, Martin and Peter, at their cabin on the upper waters of Dunkard Creek and had gone to bring in the cows. The two cows, each with a calf, had been pastured on the broad divide separating Dunkard Creek from the upper waters of Grave Creek, not much more than a mile from the cabin, where the grass was very lush.
As they followed the cow path up the wooded eastern slope of the divide toward the pasture, the girls were giggling and chattering as they usually did. Catherine abruptly ran ahead a few feet and then turned and walked backward facing her sisters. “Question time,” she said. “How many states in the United States?”
“Thirteen,” said Susan and Christiana in unison, and at the same time Elizabeth said, “That’s a silly question. We all know there are thirteen.”
“Wrong!” Catherine said. She giggled. “There are fourteen.”
“Since when?” Susan asked.
“Since March the fourth,” Catherine said, laughing aloud. “Papa told me this morning. Said he heard the news yesterday. Vermont just became the fourteenth state, and its capital is Mon—Mon—”
“Montpelier?” Elizabeth said.
“Yes, that’s it. Montpelier. And Papa says—”
Her words were cut off abruptly as seven Delawares leaped out of hiding from bushes on both sides of them. The girls shrieked and bunched together for protection. The Indians, three carrying rifles and the other four with tomahawks in hand, looked fierce in their war paint, and all four of the girls were very frightened. The leader of the party looked at them with a scowl. Addressing Elizabeth, who was tallest and appeared oldest, he spoke in halting English.
“You come us,” he said. “No run. Die if run.”
Elizabeth nodded, and the leader nodded back. With two other warriors flanking him, he turned and began walking toward Grave Creek, and the girls, white-faced and terrified, both Christiana and Catherine crying, followed. The other four Indians brought up the rear.
“Stop crying,” Susan said, speaking softly in German. “Listen to me. We’ve got to make a break for it right now, before we get too far away. If we scatter into the woods in different directions and run as hard as we can, maybe it’ll confuse them. We’ll wait till there’s some heavier cover nearby, and then, when I say now, we’ll do it.”
The leader turned, still scowling, and said, “No talk!”
In another 30 yards or so, the path curved through a brushier area. When they were in the midst of it, Susan cried “Now!” and all four girls scattered. The plan, which had seemed reasonable to them all, did not work well.
Susan and Christiana leaped to the left, Elizabeth and Catherine toward the right. Susan got no more than a dozen steps when the leader fired and the ball caught her in the center of the back and killed her. Catherine ducked beneath the tomahawk blow aimed at her and the blade just barely skimmed across the back of her head, slicing through hair and skin but not reaching her skull. Bleeding profusely, she increased her speed and darted through bushes and around trees, running as fast as she had ever run. Elizabeth was pursued by a warrior who overtook her in several giant strides and sunk his tomahawk into the back of her neck, severing her spine and killing her. Christiana, with three of the Delawares chasing her, got a little farther but was finally also run down and grabbed. She struggled and screamed, kicked at one of the warriors and bit the hand of the one who had grabbed her arm. He howled in pain and swung his tomahawk savagely, catching her in the temple, the blade penetrating deeply into her head.
Catherine, as the smallest, had not been pursued, and in the screaming confusion that had erupted, she managed to squeeze into the hollow bole of a sycamore and squirm upward out of sight. Feet thudded past as the warriors now started searching for her, and she bit the heel of her hand to stifle her own sobs. After a while she heard the sounds of the warriors passing again as they retraced their steps. Their muffled guttural voices came to her for a moment and then faded away.
Catherine Crow remained inside the tree, very still, very frightened, for a very long time, until finally she heard the voices of her brothers and father calling as they searched for the missing girls, their voices growing louder as they neared.
Then, at last, she began to scream.
[May 19, 1791—Thursday]
; For the first time in his life, Capt. Samuel Brady was a fugitive from justice—a wanted man with two rewards on his head totaling $800—one from Pennsylvania for $500, the other from Virginia for $300. He had decided that when the time was right, he would turn himself in to the authorities, but so far as he was concerned, that time was not yet.
The matter had all begun almost three months ago, on February 11, in sugarmaking time, about two miles below the mouth of Buffalo Creek but on the Ohio side of the river.720 That was where the Francis Riley family had sunk roots last year, and this year they had set up a good sugar camp in a nice grove of maples some 300 yards from the cabin just above Riddle’s Run.
On that particular day, Francis Riley and his eldest son, John, 24, had canoed the four and a half miles upstream to help build the new settlement being established on the Virginia side of the Ohio River opposite Carpenter’s Station and McKim’s Run. It was being established by Charles Wells, who was already calling the place Wellsburg.721 Mrs. Riley and her son-in-law, John Schemmerhorn, were busy at the sugar camp boiling maple water, while her 16-year-old son, William, was doing chores at the cabin. Also at the cabin were William’s sisters, Ruth—who was John’s wife—and Abigail, 18. The two girls were watching over their younger brothers, Moses, 8, and Tom, 4. Ruth’s infant daughter, Claudia, was asleep in a basket cradle that was beginning to split and fray.
Having just finished bringing in a new supply of wood for the sugar fire, John Schemmerhorn took the ax and said he would be back in a little while, as he was going out to cut a tree for some basket splints to repair Claudia’s cradle. He moved off a few hundred yards looking for an appropriate tree and, when he found one, began to chop it down. He didn’t hear the several warriors creep up behind him, nor the faint swish of the tomahawk that descended in a vicious blow and ended his life. The warrior who killed him took his scalp, and then they also took the inch-wide band of wampum he was wearing as a belt, the strand having been given to him by his father, who had taken it from an Indian runner he had killed.