Return to Milestones Vol. 5, No. 3
Two hundred yards from Reed's block-house, which was itself about twenty-five miles from Pittsburgh, stood, in the year 1792, the rude cabin of an Indian fighter, named Harbison. At sunrise, one morning, while Harbison was absent on a scout, the horn sounded at the block-house. Not thinking the bugle blast a danger signal, Mrs. Harbison fell asleep again. Dreaming of trouble, she awoke, to find a huge savage dragging her from the bed by her foot, and the house swarming with Indians. After ransacking the house, they forced her to come along with them. She carried in her arms her infant child, and led by the hand her little boy of five years.
There was yet a third child, three years old. For the little fellow the mother had no hand. To relieve her of this embarrassment, an Indian took him by the feet, whirled him through the air, and brained him against the cabin wall. To relate these details is sickening. The mother fainted at the awful sight. For this the murderers had a cure. It deserves the attention of medical men. In her story the mother describes it. "The savages gave me a blow across my head and face and brought me to sight and recollection again."
With this delicate attention the procession marched on. In a few minutes the path led down a steep hill. The little five-year-old boy fell. It hurt him. He was but a child. With uplifted voice and face filled with liquid grief, he sought consolation from the mother's heart, which had never failed. As she put forth her hand in gentle caresses, such as only a mother can give, her arm was seized and she was jerked back. Instead of the soft maternal touch, an Indian's hand seized the little fellow. His crying was stopped forever. The toy which quieted him was a tomahawk. Her babe alone was left to the mother.
All day she marched with her captors. At night, they spread a blanket on the ground, and, tying her hand and foot, said "Go sleep." Two Indians lay down on each side of the poor woman. The next day the march was continued. This day she had food. It was a piece of dried venison, "about the bulk of an egg " One of the Indians went away for a few hours. In his absence another savage busied himself with making a small hoop. At first the captive watched him with languid curiosity. Then, full of wretchedness, she turned her head to look upward into the waving foliage of the forest, and the vast illimitable sky-dome. When her eyes fell on the savage again, he had something in his hand. A flash of horror-struck recognition flickered in the woman's eyes. It was the scalp of her boy. The savage was stretching it on the hoop.
The second night was passed like the first. Towards morning one Indian rose and left the camp. The wakeful mother managed to slip loose from her bonds. With a step, noiseless as a spirit, she fled with her babe in arms on and on, pausing not to look behind, breathless, frantic, "over rocks, precipices, thorns, and briers, with bare feet and legs," as she says pathetically.
She was a pioneer woman, the wife of a scout. At two o'clock in the afternoon she could no longer keep up her flight. She waited. At night, when the north star appeared, she marked out the course for the next day. Long before sunrise she was on her way, resting not. It rained all day. She had no food for herself or child. Yet she bravely pushed on. At dark she made a bed of leaves in the forest. The child was hungry. The little creature wept aloud. "Fearful of the consequences," writes the mother, "I put him to my breast, and he became quiet. I then listened, and distinctly heard footsteps. The ground over which I had traveled was soft, and my footprints had been followed.
"Greatly alarmed, I looked about for a place of safety, and providentially discovered a large tree which had fallen, into the top of which I crept. The darkness greatly assisted me, and prevented detection. The savage who followed me had heard the cry of the child, and came to the very spot where it had cried, and there he halted, put down his gun, and was at this time so near that I heard the wiping-stick strike again his gun distinctly. My getting in under the tree and sheltering myself from the rain, and pressing my boy to my bosom, got him warm, and, most providentially, he fell asleep, and lay very still during that time of extreme danger. All was still and quiet; the savage was listening to hear the cry again. My own heart was the only thing I feared, and that beat so loud that I was apprehensive it would betray me.
"After the savage had stood and listened with nearly the stillness of death for two hours, the sound of a bell and cry like that of a night-owl, signals which were given to him by his companions, induced him to answer, and after he had given a most horrid yell, he started off to join them. After his retreat, I concluded it unsafe to remain there till morning.
"But by this time nature was so nearly exhausted that I found some difficulty in moving-, yet, compelled by necessity, I threw my coat about my child and placed the end between my teeth, and with one arm and my teeth I carried him, and with the other groped my way between the trees and traveled on, as I supposed, a mile or two, and there sat down at the root of a tree till morning. The night was cold and wet, and thus terminated the fourth day and night's difficulties, trials, and dangers!"
After two days more of incredible suffering, the unfortunate woman made her way to a settlement. So changed was she by the six days of hardship, that her nearest neighbor failed to recognize her. "Two of the females, Sarah Carter and Mary Ann Crozier, took out the thorns from my feet and legs, which Mr. Felix Negley stood by and counted, to the number of one hundred and fifty, thought they were not all extracted at that time, for the next evening there were many more taken out. The flesh was mangled dreadfully, and the skin and flesh were hanging in pieces on my feet and legs. The wounds were not healed for a considerable time. Some of the thorns went through my feet and came out at the top."
Thus the pioneers of the Ohio valley endured for the sake of the hope which was set before them. Forty years they wandered in the wilderness that their children might enter into and possess the land of promise. What honor is due them by the thoughtless thousands who eat the truit of their toil! Yet the shores of the Ohio contain no monument to their memory!