tween a white man of this county and two Indians. Now I mean to relate the whole story, and it is as follows:

The white man is upwards of sixty years of age. His name is David Morgan, a kinsman to Col. Morgan of the rifle battalion. This man had, through fear of the Indians, fled to a fort about twenty miles above the east side of the Monongahela river. From thence he sent some of his younger children to his plantation, which was about a mile distant, there to do some business in the field. He afterwards thought fit to follow, and see how they fared. Getting to his field, and seating himself upon the fence, within view of his children where they were at work, he espied two Indians making towards them; on which he called to his children to make their escape. The Indians immediately bent their course towards him. He made the best haste to escape away that his age and consequent infirmity would permit; but soon found he would be overtaken, which made him think of defense. Being armed with a good rifle, he faced about, and found himself under the necessity of running four or five perches towards the Indians, in order to obtain shelter behind a tree of sufficient size.

This unexpected maneuver obliged the Indians, who were close by, to stop, where they had but small timber to shelter behind, which gave Mr. Morgan an opportunity of shooting one of them dead upon the spot. The other, taking the advantage of Morgan's empty gun, advanced upon him, and put him to flight a second time, and being lighter of foot than the old man, soon came up within a few paces, when he fired, but fortunately missed him. On this Mr. Morgan faced about again, to try his fortune, and clubbed his firelock. The Indian, by this time, had got his tomahawk in order for a throw, at which they are very dextrous. Morgan made the blow, and the Indian the throw, almost at the same instant, by which the little finger was cut off Morgan's left hand, and the one next to it almost off, and his gun broke off by the lock. Now they came to close grips. Morgan got the Indian down; but soon found himself

overturned, and the Indian upon him, feeling for his knife, and yelling most hideously, as their manner is, when they look upon victory to be certain. However, a woman's apron which the Indian had plundered out of a house in the neighborhood, and tied on him, above his knife, was now in his way, and so hindered his getting at it quickly, that Morgan got one of his fingers fast in his mouth, and deprived him of the use of that hand, by holding it, and disconcerted him considerably by chewing it; all the while observing how he would come on with his knife. At length the Indian had got hold of his knife, but so far towards the blade, that Morgan got a small hold of the hinder end; and as the Indian pulled it out of the scabbard, Morgan giving his finger a severe screw with his teeth, twitched it out through his hand, cutting it most grievously. By this time they were both got partly to their feet, and the Indian was endeavoring to disengage himself; but Morgan held fast by the finger, and quickly applied the point of the knife to the side of its savage owner: a bone happening in the way, prevented its penetrating any great depth; but a second blow, directed more towards the belly, found free passage into his bowels. The old man turned the point upwards, making a large wound, burying the knife therein, and so took his departure instantly to the fort, with the news of his adventure.

On the report of Mr. Morgan, a party went out from the fort, and found the first Indian where he had fallen; the second they found not dead, at one hundred yards distant from the scene of action, hid in the top of a fallen tree, where he had picked the knife out of his body, after which had come out parched corn, &c. and had bound up his wound with the apron aforementioned; and on the first sight he saluted them with, "How do do, broder? how do do, broder?" But alas! poor savage, their brotherhood to him extended only to tomahawking, scalping, and, to gratify some peculiar feelings of their own, skinning them both, and they have made drum-heads of their skins.

Singular prowess of a woman in a combat with some Indians. In a letter to a lady of Philadelphia.

WESTMORELAND, APRIL 26, 1779.

Madam: I have wrote to Mr. of your city, an account of a very particular affair between a white man and two Indians. I am now to give you a relation in which you will see how a person of your sex acquitted herself in defense of her own life, and that of her husband and children.

The lady, who is the burthen of this story, is named Experience Bozarth. She lives on a creek called Dunkard creek, in the south-west corner of this county. About the middle of March last, two or three families who were afraid to stay at home, gathered to her house, and there stayed, looking on themselves to be safer than when all were scattered about at their own houses.

On a certain day, some of the children thus collected came running in from play in great haste, saying there were ugly red men. One of the men in the house stepped to the door, where he received a ball in the side of his breast, which caused him to fall back into the house. The Indian was immediately in over him, and engaged with another man who was in the house. The man tossed the Indian on a bed, and called for a knife to kill him, (Observe these were all the men that were in the house.) Now Mrs. Bozarth appears the only defense, who not finding a knife at hand, took up an ax that lay by, and with one blow cut out the brains of the Indian. At that instant (for all was instantaneous), a second Indian entered the door, and shot the man dead, who was engaged with the Indian on the bed. Mrs. Bozarth turned to this second Indian, and with her ax gave him several large cuts, some of which let his entrails appear. He bawled out murder, murder.

On this, sundry other Indians (who had hitherto been fully employed killing some children out of doors) came rushing to his relief; one of whose heads Mrs. Bozarth

clove in two with her ax, as he stuck it in at the door, which laid him flat upon the soil. Another snatched hold of the wounded bellowing fellow, and pulled him out of doors, while Mrs. Bozarth, with the assistance of the man who was first shot in the door, and who by this time had a little recovered, shut the door after them, and made it fast, where they kept garrison for several days, the dead white man and the dead Indian being both in the house with them, and the Indians about the house besieging them. At length they were relieved by a party sent for the purpose.

This whole affair to shutting the door, was not perhaps three minutes in acting.

I am, &c.

Account of the sufferings of Massy Herbeson and her family, who were taken prisoners by a party of Indians.-Given on oath before John Wilkins, Esq. one of the justices of the peace for the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

PITTSBURG, MAY 21, 1792.

Massy Herbeson, on her oath, according to law, being taken before John Wilkins, Esq. one of the commonwealth's justices of the peace in and for the county of Allegany, deposeth and saith, that on the 22d day of this month, she was taken from her own house within two hundred yards of Reed's block-house, which is called twenty-five miles from Pittsburg; her husband being one of the spies, was from home; two of the scouts had lodged with her that night, but had left her house about sunrise, in order to go to the block-house, and had left the door standing wide open. Shortly after the two scouts went away, a number of Indians came into the house, and drew her out of the bed by the feet; the two eldest children who also lay in another bed, were drawn out in the same manner; a younger child, about one year old, slept with the deponent. The Indians then scrambled about the articles in the house; when they were at this work, the deponent went out of the house,

and hallooed to the people in the block-house; one of the Indians then ran up and stopped her mouth, another ran up with his tomahawk drawn, and a third ran and seized the tomahawk and called her his squaw; this last Indian claimed her as his, and continued by her; about fifteen of the Indians then ran down towards the blockhouse, and fired their guns at the block and store-house, in consequence of which one soldier was killed and another wounded, one having been at the spring, and the other in coming or looking out of the store-house.

This deponent then told the Indians there were about forty men in the block-house, and each man had two guns; the Indians then went to them that were firing at the block-house, and brought them back. They then began to drive the deponent and her children away; but a boy, about three years old, being unwilling to leave the house, they took by the heels, and dashed it against the house, then stabbed and scalped it. They then took the deponent and the two children to the top of the hill, where they stopped until they had tied up the plunder they had got. While they were busy about this, the deponent counted them, and the number amounted to thirty-two, including two white men, that were with them, painted like Indians.

That several of the Indians could speak English, and that she knew three or four of them very well, having often seen them go up and down the Allegany river: two of them she knew to be Senecas, and two Munsees, who had got their guns mended by her husband about two years ago. That they sent two Indians with her, and the others took their course towards Puckty. That she, the children, and the two Indians, had not gone above two hundred yards when the Indians caught two of her uncle's horses, put her and the youngest child on one and one of the Indians and the other child on the other. That the two Indians then took her and the children to the Allegany river, and took them over in bark canoes, as they could not get the horses to swim the river. After they had crossed the