doing, others were splitting pitch-pine billets into small splinters about five inches in length, and as small as one's little finger, sharpening one end, and dipping the other in melted turpentine.

At length, with countenances distorted by infernal fury, and hideous yells, the two savages who had captured the hapless Maria and Christina leaped into the midst of the circle of prisoners, and dragged those ill-fated maidens, shrieking, from the embraces of their companions. These warriors had disagreed about whose property the girls should be, as they had jointly seized them; and, to terminate the dispute agreeably to the abominable custom of the savages, it was determined by the chiefs of the party that the prisoners who had given rise to the contention should be destroyed, and that their captors should be the principal agents in the execrable business. These furies, assisted by their comrades, stripped the forlorn girls, convulsed with apprehensions, and tied each to a sapling, with their hands as high extended above their heads as possible; and then pitched them from their knees to their shoulders, with upwards of six hundred of the sharpened splinters above described, which, at every puncture, were attended with screams of distress, that echoed through the wilderness. And then, to complete the infernal tragedy, the splinters, all standing erect on the bleeding victims, were set on fire, and exhibited a scene of extreme misery, beyond the power of speech to describe, or even the imagination to conceive. It was not until near three hours had elapsed from the commencement of their torments, and that they had lost almost every resemblance of the human form, that these helpless virgins sunk down in the arms of their deliverer, death.

SIGNAL 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 written 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 your sex acquitted herself in defence of her own life, and that of her husband and children.

of

*Reference is probably made to the desperate encounter of one Mor. gan and two Indians.-Ed.

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 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 defence, who, not finding a knife at hand, took up an axe 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 axe 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 axe, 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, and Mrs. Bozarth, with the assistance of the man who was first shot in the door, and by this time a little recovered, shut the door after them, and made it fast, where they kept garrison for several days, the dead white man and dead Indian both in the house with them, and the Indians about the house besieging them. At length they were relieved by a party sent for that purpose.

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

REV. JOHN CORBLY'S NARRATIVE.

IF, after perusing the annexed melancholy narrative, you deem it worthy a place in your publication, it is at your service. Such communications, founded on fact, have a tendency on one hand to make us feel for the persons afflicted, and on the other

to impress our hearts with gratitude to the Sovereign Disposer of all events for that emancipation which the United States have experienced from the haughty claims of Britain—a power, at that time, so lost to every human affection, that, rather than not subdue and make us slaves, they basely chose to encourage, patronize and reward, as their most faithful and beloved allies, the savages of the wilderness; who, without discrimination, barbarously massacred the industrious husbandman, the supplicating female, the prattling child and tender infant, vainly sheltered within the encircling arms of maternal fondness. Šuch transactions, as they come to our knowledge well authenticated, ought to be recorded, that our posterity may not be ignorant of what their ancestors underwent at the trying period of our national exertions for American independence. The following account was, at my request, drawn up by the unfortunate sufferer. Respecting the author, suffice it to say, that he is an ordained minister of the Baptist faith and order, and held in high estimation by all our associated churches. I am, sir, yours, &c.,

WILLIAM ROGERS.

Muddy Creek, Washington County, July 8, 1785. Dear Sir,-The following is a just and true account of the tragical scene of my family's falling by the savages, which I related when at your house in Philadelphia, and you requested me to forward in writing.

On the second Sabbath in May, in the year 1782, being my appointment at one of my meeting-houses about a mile from my dwelling-house, I set out with my dear wife and five children, for public worship. Not suspecting any danger, I walked behind two hundred yards, with my Bible in my hand, meditating; as I was thus employed, all on a sudden I was greatly alarmed with the frightful shrieks of my dear family before me. I immediately ran with all the speed I could, vainly hunting a club as I ran, till I got within forty yards of them. My poor wife, seeing me, cried to me to make my escape; an Indian ran up to shoot me. I had to strip, and by so doing outran him. My dear wife had a sucking child in her arms; this little infant they killed and scalped. They then struck my wife at sundry times, but not getting her down, the Indian who had aimed to shoot me ran to her, shot her through the body, and scalped her. My little boy, an only son, about six years old, they sunk the hatchet into his brains, and thus dispatched him. A daughter, besides the infant, they also killed and scalped. My eldest daughter, who is yet alive, was hid in a

tree about twenty yards from the place where the rest were killed, and saw the whole proceedings. She, seeing the Indians all go off, as she thought, got up and deliberately crept out from the hollow trunk; but one of them espying her, ran hastily up, knocked her down and scalped her; also her only surviving sister, on whose head they did not leave more than one inch round, either of flesh or skin, besides taking a piece out of her skull. She and the before-mentioned one are still miraculously preserved, though, as you must think, I have had, and still have, a great deal of trouble and expense with them, besides anxiety about them, insomuch that I am, as to worldly circumstances, almost ruined. I am yet in hopes of seeing them cured; they still, blessed be God, retain their senses, notwithstanding the painful operations they have already and must yet pass through. At the time I ran round to see what was become of my family, and found my dear and affectionate wife with five children all scalped in less than ten minutes from the first outset. No one, my dear brother, can conceive how I felt; this you may well suppose was killing to me. I instantly fainted away, and was borne off by a friend, who by this time had found us out. When I recovered, oh the anguish of my soul! I cried, would to God I had died for them! would to God I had died with them! O how dark and mysterious did this trying providence then appear to me! but

'Why should I grieve, when, grieving, I must bear ?"

This, dear sir, is a faithful, though short narrative of that fatal catastrophe; and my life amidst it all, for what purpose Jehovah only knows, redeemed from surrounding death. Oh, may I spend it to the praise and glory of his grace, who worketh all things after the council of his own will. The government of the world and of the church is in his hands. May it be taught the important lesson of acquiescing in all his dispensations. I conclude with wishing you every blessing, and subscribe myself your affectionate, though afflicted friend and unworthy brother in the gospel ministry, JOHN CORBLY.

338

A TRUE AND WONDERFUL NARRATIVE OF THE SURPRISING CAPTIVITY AND REMARKABLE DELIVERANCE OF MRS. FRANCIS SCOTT, AN INHABITANT OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, VIRGINIA, WHO WAS TAKEN BY THE INDIANS ON THE EVENING OF THE 29th OF JUNE, 1785.

ON Wednesday, the 29th day of June, 1785, late in the evening, a large company of armed men passed the house on their way to Kentucky, some part of whom encamped within two miles. Mr. Scott's living on a frontier part generally made the family watchful; but on this calamitous day, after so large a body of men had passed, he lay down in his bed, and imprudently left one of the doors of his house open; the children were also in bed and asleep. Mrs. Scott was nearly undressed, when, to her unutterable astonishment and horror, she saw rushing in through the door, that was left open, painted savages, with their arms presented at the same time, raising a hideous shriek. Mr. Scott, being awake, instantly jumped from his bed, and was immediately fired at. He forced his way through the midst of the enemy, and got out of the house, but fell a few paces from the door. An Indian seized Mrs. Scott, and ordered her to a particular place, charging her not to move. Others stabbed and cut the throats of the three youngest children in their bed, and afterwards lifted them up, and dashed them on the floor near their mother. The eldest, a beautiful girl, eight years of age, awoke, and jumping out of bed, ran to her mother, and with the most plaintive accents cried, "O mamma! mamma! save me!" The mother, in the deepest anguish of spirit, and with a flood of tears, entreated the Indians to spare her life; but, with that awfully revolting brutality, they tomahawked and stabbed her in her mother's

arms!!

Adjacent to Mr. Scott's dwelling-house another family lived of the name of Ball. The Indians also attacked them at the same time, but the door being shut, they fired into the house through an opening between the logs which composed its walls, and killed a lad, and then essayed to force open the door; but a brother of the lad which had been shot down fired at the Indians through the door, and they relinquished the attack. In the mean time the remaining part of the family ran out of the house and escaped.

In the house of Mr. Scott were four good rifles, well loaded, belonging to people that had left them as they were going to Kentucky. The Indians, thirteen in number, seized these, and