Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/110

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��HISTORY OF OHIO.

��The station being established, Massie continued to make locations and surveys. Great precautions were necessary to avoid the Indians, and even the closest vigilance did not always avail, as the ever- watchful foe was always ready to spring upon the settlement, could an unguarded moment be ob- served. During one of the spring months, Gren. Massie, Israel Donalson, William Lytle and James Little, while out on a survey, were surprised, and Mr. Donalson captured, the others escaping at great peril. Mr. Donalson escaped during the march to the Indian town, and made his way to the town of Cincinnati, after suffering great hard- ships, and almost perishing from hunger. In the spring of 1793, the settlers at Manchester com- menced clearing the out-lots of the town. While doing so, an incident occurred, which shows the danger to which they were daily exposed. It is thus related in Howe's Collections :

" Mr. Andrew Ellison, one of the settlers, cleared an out-lot immediately adjoining the fort. He had completed the cutting of the timber, rolled the logs together, and set them on fire. The next morning, before daybreak, Mr. Ellison opened one of the gates of the fort, and went out to throw his logs together. By the time he had finished the job, a number of the heaps blazed up brightly, and, as he was passing from one to the other, he ob- served, by the light of the fires, three men walking briskly toward him. This did not alarm him in the least, although, he said, they were dark-skinned fellows ; yet he concluded they were the Wades, whose complexions were very dark, going early to hunt. He continued to right his log-heaps, until one of the fellows seized him by the arms, calling out, in broken English, ' How do ? how do ? ' He instantly looked in their faces, and, to his surprise and horror, found himself in the clutches of three Indians. To resist was useless.

" The Indians quickly moved off with him in the direction of Paint Creek. When breakfast was ready, Mrs. Ellison sent one of her children to ask its father home ; but he could not be found at the log-heaps. His absence created no immedi- ate alarm, as it was thought he might have started to hunt, after completing his work. Dinner-time arrived, and, Ellison not returning, the family became uneasy, and began to suspect some acci- dent had happened to him. His gun-rack was examined, and there hung his rifles and his pouch. Gen. Massie raised a party, made a circuit around the place, finding, after some search, the trails of four men, one of whom had on shoes; and the

��fact that Mr. Ellison was a prisoner now became apparent. As it was almost night at the time the trail was discovered, the party returned to the station. Early the next morning, preparations were made by Gen. Massie and his friends to con- tinue the search. In doing this, they found great difficulty, as it was so early in the spring that the vegetation was not grov^n sufficiently to show plainly the trail made by the savages, who took the precaution to keep on high and dry ground, where their feet would make little or no impres- sion. The party were, however, as unerring as a pack of hounds, and followed the trail to Paint Creek, when they found the Indians gained so fast on them that pursuit was useless.

"The Indians took their prisoner to Upper Sandusky, where he was compelled to run the gantlet. As he was a large, and not very active, man, he received a severe flogging. He was then taken to Lower Sandusky, and again compelled to run the gantlet. He was then taken to Detroit, where he was ransomed by a British officer for $100. The officer proved a good friend to him. He sent him to Montreal, whence he returned home before the close of the summer, much to the joy of his family and friends, whose feelings can only be imagined."

"Another incident occurred about this time," says the same volume, "which so aptly illustrates the danger of frontier life, that it well deserves a place in the history of the settlements in Ohio. John and Asahel Edgington, with a comrade, started out on a hunting expedition toward Brush Creek. They camped out six miles in a northeast direction from where West Union now stands, and near the site of Treber's tavern, on the road from Chillicothe to Maysville. They had good success in hunting, killing a number of deer and bears. Of the deer killed, they saved the skins and hams alone. They fleeced the bears ; that is, they cut off all the meat whicb adhered to the hide, with- out skinning, and left; the bones as a skeleton. They hung up the proceeds of their hunt, on a scaf- fold out of the reach of wolves and other wild ani- mals, and returned to Manchester for pack-horses. No one returned to the camp with the Edgingtons. As it was late in December, few apprehended dan- ger, as the winter season was usually a time of re- pose from Indian incursions. When the Edgingtons arrived at their camp, they alighted from their horses and were preparing to start a fire, when a platoon of Indians fired upon them at a distance of not more than twenty paces. They had

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