Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1853).djvu/276

they yet found such true friends among the Indians, who, at the risk of their own lives, conducted them, with the best part of their property, to Pittsburg; although (shameful to relate!) these benefactors were, on their return from this mission, waylaid, and fired upon by whites, while crossing Big Beaver in a canoe, and had one man, a Shawanese, named Silverheels, (a man of note in his nation) wounded in his body. This exasperated the Shawanese so much, that they, or at least a great part of them, immediately took an active part in the cause; and the Mingoes, (nearest connected with the former,) became unbounded in their rage. A Mr. Jones, son to a respectable family of this neighborhood, (Bethlehem,) who was then on his passage up Muskinghum, with two other men, was fortunately espied by a friendly Indian woman at the falls of Muskinghum, who, through motives of humanity alone, informed Jones of the nature of the times, and that he was running right in the hands of the enraged, and put him on the way where he might perhaps escape the vengeance of the strolling parties. One of Jones' men, fatigued by traveling in the woods, declared he would rather die than remain longer in this situation; and hitting accidentally on a path, he determined to follow the same. A few hundred yards decided his fate. He was met by a party of about fifteen Mingoes, (and as it happened, almost within sight of White Eyes' town,) murdered, and cut to pieces; and his limbs and flesh stuck up on the bushes. White Eyes, on hearing the scalp halloo, ran immediately out with his men to see what the matter was, and finding the mangled body in this condition, gathered the whole and buried it. But next day, when some of the above party found on their return the body interred, they instantly tore up the ground, and endeavored to destroy or scatter about the parts at a greater distance. White Eyes, with the Delawares, watching their motions, gathered and interred the same a second time. The war party finding this out, ran furiously into the Delaware village, exclaiming against the conduct of these people, setting forth the cruelty of Cresap towards women and children, and declaring at the same time that they would, in consequence of this cruelty, serve every white man they should meet with in the same manner. Times grew worse and worse, war parties went out and took scalps and prisoners, and the latter, in hopes it might be of service in saving their lives, exclaimed against the barbarous act which gave rise to these troubles and against the perpetrators. The name of Greathouse was mentioned as having been accomplice to Cresap. So de-