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How little the good women who without escort or fear go rushing about after news of sit in their cozy homes preparing matter for the "Woman's Edition," realize that only 100 years ago "things were different."
In the summer of 1780, when returning from a reconnaissance of the Indian forces on the Upper Sandusky, assigned him by General Brodhead, Capt. Sam. Brady met somewhere in this vicinity with a band of savages which was returning from a raid upon the settlers on Chartiers creek, near Fort Pitt. The captain's journey had been longer than anticipated, and provisions and ammunition were exhausted. The last load was in his rifle and it had flashed in the pan only a few moments before as he aimed to shoot a deer. But one of this band was on horseback and had tied to him in front a white child and behind him on the horse was the child's mother. No one but Capt. Brady would have been equal to the emergency, but he with coolness and daring born of long experience determined to rescue the captives. The child, asleep, moved with the motion of the horse, and the danger of killing the captives in killing the Indian was great. But the right moment came, the rifle cracked, Indian, mother and child fell from the horse, the former dead, the latter unhurt. With shouts to his imaginary men to surround the Indians, they were stampeded by the suddenness of the attack and fled leaving Brady with the fallen Indian's powder horn, and the woman-who proved to be Jennie Stoops-who with her child had been taken from her home and husband at Chartiers. Family tradition say the child was not rescued at this time but exchanged two years afterward. At any rate he was returned and lived to a good old age, was the father of Capt. Win. Stoops, lately deceased, of Stoops Ferry, while many of the same name, children of another brother live in or near Monaca.