Page:History of Delaware County (1856).djvu/367

DELAWARE COUNTY. 843 on Brant. But that murderous tory always remained with the main force, and cautiously avoided danger. For the Indian warrior, Murphy had no sympathy. The squaws and papooses he never molested, nor would he stoop to sacrifice any hut their fighting men. To the day of his death, he indulged in feelings of the most direful revenge toward the natives of the forest. At the restoration of peace, Murphy married and settled in Schoharie, but, in a few years after that period, he lived on the Charlotte, bordering on Harpersfield, and remained there until his death, which is about twelve miles, as Judson says, from Utsayantho, or Harpersfield, where the battle was fought, which place he often revisited, until prevented by old age. It was there, that I often listened to his stories. That ground had been enriched by the blood and moistened by the tears of hundreds. During the Revolution three pitched battles were fought there between the whites and Indians, the last of which was so disastrous to the red men, that they abandoned that ground to their enemy, the whites. In that beautiful valley, now improved by cultivation. Murphy always appeared ani- mated, and would fight his battles over again. The scenes of past life, with all their dreadful and thrilling interest, would rush upon his memory, and often have I seen the big tears chasing each other rapidly down the furrows of his war- worn cheeks. He lived to the age of about seventy-five, beloved and esteemed by all, when his brave spirit took its final leave of this world of vicissitudes and changes. His bones moulder in Schoharie, near where the old fort stood, and not a stone is reared to tell the inquisitive stranger where they lie.