Page:History of Delaware County (1856).djvu/112

88 HISTORY OP an infant in her armS; and attempted to reach an out-door cel- lar, she was shot down. The remainder of the family were butchered and thrown into the flames, with the exception of a girl about 16 years of age. She fled to a swamp near by and concealed her person under a log, and while she thought herself secure from all harm, she ventured to raise her head to look toward the burning buildings, when she saw an Indian of large stature approaching her, wielding a firebrand in one hand and a large knife, smeared with blood, in the other. She immediately sprang from her hiding-place, and with out- stretched arms approached the hideous savage and threw her- self at his feet. That bold act saved her life. She was led back by her captor to the burning buildings, and putting seve- ral pairs of stockings on her feet, they then resumed their course to Fort Niagara. What must have been the agony, think you, reader, of the husband and father, when the next day he returned, to behold his happy home a heap of ruins, beneath which he found the charred and mangled remains of his family. There was at this time a small fort at Harpersfield, garrisoned by only eight or ten men. By their assistance he collected the remains of the dead, and buried them all in one rude box. Priest, in his narrative of the captivity of Schermerhorn, and while speaking of his running the gauntlet near Fort Niagara, says : This dreadful race was also run by a Miss Anne McKee, who was taken prisoner in the town of Harpersfield, New York, during the Revolution, by the Mowhawk Indians under Brant. She was a young Scotch girl, who, during the journey suffered incredibly from hunger, the want of clothes, and other priva- tions. When she came to Fort Niagara, the squaws insisted that she should run the race, in order that the pale-faced squaw might take a blow from the same sex of another nation than her's. It was a grievous sight to see a slender girl, weak from hunger, and worn down with the horrors and privations of