Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/362



Jewett s ferry. Jewett s house was fired upon, but no one killed. A considerable number of Indians had gathered, apparently by concert, near this place, who about day break proceeded down the river to Evans ferry, where they found Isaac Shelton of the Wallamet valley on his way to Yreka, and mortally wounded him. Still further down was the house of J. K. Jones, whom they killed; also mortally wounding his wife, and pillaging and burn ing his house.

Below this place was the house of J. Wagoner. On the the way to it the Indians killed four men. Mr. Wagoner was absent from his home, having gone that morning to escort Miss Pellet, a temperance lecturer, from Buffalo, New York, to Sailor diggings. The fate of Mrs. Wagoner and her four-year-old daughter, Mary, was never certainly known, the house and all in it having been burned. She was a young and beautiful woman, well educated and re fined, and the uncertainty concerning her death or the manner of it was a horrible torture to her husband, who survived her. One story told by the Indians themselves, was that she fastened herself in her house, carefully dressed as if for a sacrifice, and seating herself in the center of the sitting-room with her child in her arms, awaited death, which came to her by fire. But others said, and probably with truth, that she was carried off, and her child killed because it cried so much. The mother refused to eat, and died of grief and starvation at "The Meadows." Captain Wallen has said that two scalps captured from the Indians at the battle of Cow creek in 1856 were identified as those of Mrs. Wagoner and her child, the mother s beau tiful hair being unmistakable; and the Indian stories may none be the actual truth.

From the smoking ruins of the Wagoner home, the In dians proceeded to the place of George W. Harris, who be ing at a little distance from his house and suspecting from their appearance that they meant to attack him, ran quickly in and seized his gun. As they came on with hostile words