ber 27 passed away. Her daughter was a Mrs. Parkinson of Dayton, who remembers seeing her mother instruct the Indian wife of Isaac Zain.
SARAH WILSON.
One of the pioneers to remove to the Cumberland Valley was Joseph Wilson, and he, like the others, suffered great hardships and exposure. In the attack made by the Indians on the 26th of June, 1792, upon the blockhouse erected by the settlers, Mrs. Wilson showed her great courage in insisting that her husband should attempt to escape and seek aid from the other settlers, and that he should leave her and her young children, believing the savages would spare them rather than his life. The blockhouse had been set on fire and there were but a few moments left for his escape. He and his son, a young lad of sixteen years, made a rush through the line of their assailants, but Wilson received a wound in his foot which made it impossible for him to go on for relief, and his son went on hoping to obtain a horse from some neighbor. Immediately on the disappearance of her husband, Mrs. Wilson, with her baby in her arms and followed by five small children, walked slowly out of the fort. Her courage made such an impression upon the Indians that the lives of herself and children were spared. All the rest of the inmates of the fort were killed. Young Wilson obtained relief and carried his father to Bledsoe Station. A party of soldiers hastened to the relief of Mrs. Wilson, but she and her children had been carried off as captives into the Upper Creek Nation. Through the efforts of Colonel White, Mrs. Wilson's brother, after twelve months of captivity, she and her family were restored to their homes. One young girl, however, still remained a captive among the Creeks and it was some time later before she was returned to her own people. She had entirely forgotten her own language and every member of her home circle.
SARAH THORPE.
Sarah Thorpe was the wife of Joel Thorpe. They removed from North Haven to Ashtabula County, Ohio, in 1799. An incident is related in the life of Mrs. Thorpe which illustrates the extreme privations to which these early settlers were frequently reduced. In the absence of Mr. Thorpe, who had gone over into Pennsylvania to procure provisions for his family, it is told that Mrs. Thorpe emptied the straw out of her bed to pick it over to obtain what little wheat there was left in it, and this she boiled and gave to her children. Mrs. Thorpe was married three times. Her first husband was killed in the War of 1812, and her last husband's name was Gardner. The first surveying party to enter the Western Reserve arrived on the Fourth of July, 1796. Permanent settlers did not come in until two years later. In 1708 small settlements were found all over the reserve and a little schooner had been built to ply on the waters of Lake Erie. The necessity for the building of a grist mill near the site of what is now the city of Cleveland is believed to be the foundation of that city.
