they suffered great privations, and were compelled to live most of the time within the shelter of forts, subjected constantly to attacks by the Indians. Two of Mrs. Robertson's sons were killed, and at one time she suffered the horrible experience of seeing brought from the woods the headless body of one of her beloved sons. It is difficult for us to appreciate the nerve-racking danger which these poor settlers endured, when we read that if one went to the spring for a bucket of water, another must stand watch with his ready gun to protect the first from the creeping stealthy Indian hidden in the thicket ready to take off these settlers one by one. How they ever tilled their fields, or raised their crops under such conditions, is little less than a miracle, and what the life of these poor women must have been, when they could not carry on the common duties of domestic life without seeing the stealthy enemy lurking in the bush, is beyond our conception. In 1794, Mrs. Robertson went on horseback into South Carolina, accompanied by her eldest son to bring out her aged parents who had removed to that state with some of their children. Both lived beyond the eightieth year of their lives in peace and comfort in the home of this devoted daughter. Mrs. Robertson was the mother of eleven children, and lived to an advanced age notwithstanding these experiences, which one might think would have shortened her days. Her manners were always modest and unassuming. She was gentle, kind, affectionate, open-hearted and benevolent, of industrious habits and quiet self-denial, an example to all who knew her, and retained her faculties to the close of her life which occurred in her ninety-third year, on June 11, 1843, at Nashville, Tennessee. General Robertson's death occurred in 1814.
JANE BROWN.
Jane Gillespie was born in Pennsylvania about the year 1740. Her father was one of the pioneers of North Carolina. Her early life was spent in the county of Guilford, and two of her brothers, Colonel and Major Gillespie, were noted Revolutionary officers. About the year 1761, Miss Gillespie became the wife of James Brown, a native of Ireland, whose family had settled in Guilford. At the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, her husband gave his services to his country, leaving his wife with a small family of children. During the retreat of General Greene, in 1781, on the Dan and Deep Rivers, Brown acted as pilot and guide for Colonels Lee and Washington, and through his knowledge of the country, contributed not a little to the successful retreat of the American army, by which they were enabled to elude and break the spirit of the army of
