Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1853).djvu/280

264 The Indians passed him peaceably, and encamped at the mouth of Grave Creek, a little below. Cresap and his party attacked them, and killed several. The Indians returned the fire, and wounded one of Cresap's party. Among the slain of the Indians were some of Logan's family. Colonel Zane, indeed, expresses a doubt of it; but it is affirmed by Huston and Chambers. Smith, one of the murderers, said they were known and acknowledged to be Logan's friends, and the party themselves generally said so; boasted of it in presence of Cresap; pretended no provocation, and expressed their expectations that Logan would probably avenge their deaths.

Pursuing these examples, Daniel Greathouse and one Tomlinson, who lived on the opposite side of the river from the Indians, and were in habits of friendship with them, collected at the house of Polke on Cross Creek, about 16 miles from Baker's Bottom, a party of 32 men. Their object was to attack a hunting encampment of Indians, consisting of men, women and children, at the mouth of Yellow Creek, some distance above Wheeling. They proceeded, and when arrived near Baker's Bottom, they concealed themselves, and Greathouse crossed the river to the Indian camp. Being among them as a friend he counted them, and found them too strong for an open attack with his force. While here, he was cautioned by one of the women not to stay, for that the Indian men were drinking, and having heard of Cresap's murder of their relations at Grave Creek, were angry, and she pressed him in a friendly manner to go home; whereupon, after inviting them to come over and drink, he returned to Baker's, which was a tavern, and desired that when any of them should come to his house he would give them as much rum as they would drink. When his plot was ripe, and a sufficient number of them were collected at Baker's and intoxicated, he and his party fell on them and massacred the whole, except a little girl, whom they preserved as a prisoner. Among these was the very woman who had saved his life, by pressing him to retire from the drunken wrath of her friends, when he was spying their camp at Yellow Creek. Either she herself, or some other of the murdered women, was the sister of Logan, very big with child, and inhumanly and indecently butchered; and there were others of his relations who fell here.

The party on the other side of the river, alarmed for their friends at Baker's, on hearing the report of the guns, manned two canoes and sent them over. They were received, as they approached the shore,