Upon this, two boats with fifteen men well armed, crossed the Monongahela. Their orders were, in case there should appear to be more than four, to fire upon them. On approaching the western shore, the boatmen directed the captives to stand back upon the rising ground, and to come forward, one at a time, as they should be called. In this way they were all soon received and carried to Fort du Quesne, where their joy was such as may be better conceived than described. It was not long before they were all restored, like persons from the dead, to the arms of their relatives and friends. Gibson went to Lancaster county, where he spent two years with his uncle, William M'Clelland, and married a daughter of the widow Elizabeth White. He then repaired to his late mother's plantation in Shearman's valley, two miles from Robinson's Fort. He withdrew, after having wrought upon that place two years, in consequence of hearing that the Indians were intending to come and take him again into captivity, and lived in Lancaster county during the Revolutionary war. At the age of fifty-three years, he removed to Plum Creek, on the Alleghany, and thence to Pokkety. Western Pennsylvania being free from all fears of Indian depredations, after Wayne's treaty, he settled, on the 17th of April, 1797, in Wayne township, Crawford county, seven miles below Meadville, on the eastern bank of French Creek, his plantation comprising a part of Bald Hill, which, with the bottom land opposite, was called by the Indians Kish-ako-quil-la, from a chief, who had lived in the valley, of that name, in the vicinity of the Juniata. From tradition it appears that there was an aboriginal town of considerable magnitude at this place, particularly on the fertile bottom on the western side of the Creek. Captain Samuel Brady, long a majormissabib to the natives of the forest, far and near, is said, on one occasion to have taken forty scalps at this village. Another tradition represents that Washington spent a night at this Kishakoquilla, when on his way to Le Bœuf, now Waterford, with despatches from Governor Dinwiddie. Tomahawks, axes and other tools, made of iron, are still occasionally found here in ploughing, which, no doubt, were obtained by the tawny pre-occupants of this region from the French, traces of whose establishments have been discovered in many places in Crawford and other adjoining counties. In conclusion, it might be remarked that Mr. Gibson had no inclination to spend his days with the Indians, although in general, with a few painful exceptions, he was treated kindly by them. They were very urgent that he should form a matrimonial alliance with some daughter of the forest, for which, however, he had no desire. On one occasion, while at Kuskoravis, a certain squaw conceiving the purpose to take him for her husband, made some tender advances. He was not only coy but peremptory in refusing her hand. His brother and master, Bisquittam, was extremely angry with him for refusing to take a wife from the tribe, and in this case caused him to be severely whipped with a hickory rod. P. S. David Brackenridge, a native of Scotland, was born near Campbleton Loch, and, when about twelve years of age, came to America, and lived with a relative near Fogg's Manor meeting-house, in Chester county. He was about twenty-one years of age, when taken by the Indians. His friends supposed him to be dead, and appointed some one to administer on his estate. The day for selling his effects at auction having been duly advertised, they were all sold; and on the same-day, before the purchasers had withdrawn, he arrived, to their no small astonishment, and all rejoiced to surrender to the rightful owner whatever they had bought. 20 1 A SUMMARY HISTORICAL NARRATIVE OF THE WARS IN [The original manuscript of the following History of the Wars in New-England with the French and Indians, was recently found in a box of papers bequeathed to the Massachusetts Historical Society by their venerable associate, the Rev. Dr. Freeman. The author of it, the Rev. Samuel Niles, was born, as he himself states in this work, on Block Island, May 1, 1674, and was graduated at Harvard College in 1699. He was settled at Braintree May 23, 1711, and died May 1, 1762, aged 88 years. He is enumerated by the Rev. John Barnard in his list of "the excellent and worthy men whom he knew among the ministers of New-England;" at the end of which list he adds, "These were all men of learning, pious, humble, prudent, faithful and useful men in their day." (1 Mass. Hist. Coll. X. 170.) He published several theological works, the titles of which are recorded in the brief notice of him in Allen's American Biographical Dictionary. Prefixed to the History is an Introduction, of eight pages in the manuscript, which was found in such a mutilated condition that no use could be made of it. This, however, is the less to be regretted, as these pages consisted in great part of the author's reflections, and, judging from what remains, contained no facts of any importance. This Introduction concludes as follows:-"I have nothing further to add here, but only to acquaint the reader that in the following sheets he will find an exact Narrative,-as far as my intelligence has reached, and upon the best grounds I could obtain, from approved authors and otherwise, of the successive Wars with the Indians, who first began to act in a hostile manner against the English in this country, and afterwards with the French, acting in conjunction with them. In which will be found some account of all the slaughter and bloodshed committed by them that I could find, from the beginning to this day. The slain, who they were, and where, are set down numerically, mostly with the circumstances attending their death, together with some few remarkable occurring providences. Which may they be made, through grace, effectual to awaken, reform, and quicken us to our duty, civil and religious, is the earnest wish and prayer of the author, SAMUEL NILES. Braintree, April 24, 1760." The late President, John Adams, in a letter to the Hon. William Tudor, dated Quincy, Sept. 23, 1818, thus speaks of this manuscript and its author. "There is somewhere in existence, as I hope and believe, a manuscript History of Indian Wars, written by the Rev. Samuel Niles, of Braintree. Almost sixty years ago, I was an humble acquaintance of this venerable clergyman, then, as I believe, more than fourscore years of age. He asked me many questions, and informed me, in his own house, that he was endeavoring to recollect and commit to writing a History of Indian Wars, in his own time, and before it, as far as he could collect information. This History he completed and prepared for the press; but no printer would undertake it, or venture to propose a subscription for its publication. Since my return from Europe, I inquired of his oldest son, the Hon. Samuel Niles, of Braintree, on a visit he made me at my own house, what was become of that manuscript. He laughed, and said it was still safe in the till of a certain trunk; but no encouragement had ever appeared for its publication. I then revered, and still revere, the honest, virtuous, and pious man; and his memorial of facts might be of great value to this country." Publishing Committee.] THE manner in which this country was at first settled by the English, must be owned as that which demonstrates it to be pointed out by the finger of God for some extraordinary event, as since in providence is manifest, and wonderfully proved. It is not my present business or purpose to recriminate, much less to enter upon a detail of the many reflections cast on these memorable adventurers, the first planters, in their beginnings, but to observe, as I go along, some of the difficulties attending them, especially with the wars they encountered from the French, and Indians in their interest, and the protection and defence ministered to them by the hand of Providence under all, which is worthy of commemoration and acknowledgment to the Almighty Ruler of the Universe. It evidently appears, from all we can learn of those first times in New-England, that as God with a high hand and outstretched arm brought our fathers out of and from their native land into this wilderness, by the same power and goodness in providence he wonderfully protected and provided for them here; which must be allowed, if we take a survey of the country in the situation it then stood, they being but very few in number, thrown into a country crowded with thousands and ten thousands of inhabitants, of a different color, language, customs and manner of life, wholly void of any religious sentiments, and destitute of any proper notions of God or a Supreme Being, fierce, revengeful, and of a cruel and barbarous disposition, the reverse to all the rules of humanity in their tempers. Such a people as this God ordered in wisdom the first English planters here to cohabit with, as the place he had appointed for them; they being also altogether ignorant, at that time, of the nature of the soil, and best manner of cultivation of the ground for their support. Under all these dark and discouraging, insupportable difficulties, with many more, as we may easily conceive, even as beyond and out of the reach of nature to surmount, God provided a remedy. For, in the first place, God sent their singular friend, Squanto, before them, who instructed them in the manner of manure and tillage. So also God, in sovereignty, and in a wonderful manner, governed and softened the tempers of the barbarians to that degree that our people had a free and friendly commerce and correspondence with them all, until the Pequot tribe rose up in open acts of hostility; the manner whereof will be noticed in what follows. But before we come to that war, it may be proper to remark that the universal friendship our fathers met with from the heathen here in the beginning, might proceed, in part, from this, namely; as the several tribes of Indians were near to one another, and their territories not large, and also being accustomed to war, as their manner is, which must cause an alienation, and probably jealousy of each other's fidelity, these or such like intervening obstructions, doubtless prevented their uniting in the pursuit of an enterprise so precarious in the issue as it would have been to attempt the total destruction of the English, and especially if any were so corruptly disposed. They at the same time very well knew, that the English had several tribes of the Indians, with their sachems or kings, closely attached to them, that would soon espouse their cause and revenge any injury done them. However, it must be acknowledged, that it was "the Lord's doing, and should be marvellous in our eyes," that the rage of the heathen was thus restrained. It is not my purpose here to transmit to after time the particular difficulties this people underwent in their beginnings. Those that want a more exact account I refer them to the book, entitled |