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Betty Zane, Lydia Boggs, and Molly Scott: The Gunpowder Exploits at Fort Henry By William Hintzen Volume 55 (1996), pp. 95-109 |
About noon on September 12, 1782, some 250 Indians and 40 British Rangers watched in amazement as the gates of the fort they were besieging swung open, allowing a teenage girl to slip out. Still watching intently, they saw the girl run quickly across the open field and disappear into an adjacent cabin about sixty yards from the southeastern corner of the fort. Only a few minutes passed before they saw this same girl emerge from the cabin, but she now carried a large bundle wrapped in her apron. Suddenly realizing that this girl carried several pounds of gunpowder, the Indians opened fire on her during the dozen or so seconds that their target was in view. Fortunately for the lives of those settlers in that western Virginia fort, the girl sped up the slight incline to the fort with such fleetness of foot that she was able to reach her destination unharmed, carrying her precious cargo of powder. With that powder, the fort continued to hold off the attackers until the following morning, when, losing heart, the enemy raised the siege and departed. One group moved off to attack the much smaller Rice's Fort, fifteen miles north, near present Bethany, Brooke County. Once again they were frustrated in their plans, as they were unable to capture the half-dozen defenders of that stockade.
The sixteen-year-old girl who performed that courageous feat was Elizabeth Zane and the fort saved by her daring was Fort Henry, located in what is now the downtown business district of Wheeling. The adjacent cabin from which she obtained the gunpowder was that of her brother, who, in an effort to provide a cross-fire for the fort, was occupying his own cabin/blockhouse during that siege. Zane's brother, the thirty-four-year-old pioneer Colonel Ebenezer Zane, was the founder and defender of Wheeling. The attack was the third since 1777 and the second extensive siege of this fort.
This "Gunpowder Exploit" became one of the standard tales of the heroism of the pioneers during the long and bloody frontier warfare along the western border. By the latter decades of the nineteenth century, the author of any work on the history of the United States could find it sufficient to state that it was unnecessary to give an account of this story, as it was "known to every schoolboy." In 1903, Zane Grey, the outstanding author of western novels and a descendant of the illustrious Colonel Zane, published a fictionalized account of the story and titled his book simply Betty Zane, secure in the knowledge that every reader would already be familiar with the basic theme of his novel. Unfortunately during the last half-century, the heroes and heroines of American history and the bravery our pioneer ancestors demonstrated against incredible hardships and struggles have seldom been given more than grudging notice, at best, in most standard school texts.
That Betty Zane's exploit might not be as well known as could otherwise be wished may be due, however, to an incident which occurred in 1849, sixty-seven years after the event. In November of that year, one of the last surviving adult eyewitnesses of that siege of Fort Henry, an eighty-three-year-old woman named Lydia Boggs Shepherd Cruger, swore out an affidavit to the effect that it had not ben Betty Zane who had run with the powder. Instead, the true heroine of Fort Henry was a young woman named Molly Scott. In addition, she stated it was not the men in the fort who had run out of powder. Molly Scott had run from Colonel Zane's cabin to the fort, where she obtained the powder with Cruger's assistance, and then returned to the Zane cabin. Furthermore, it was not such a feat of daring, as Molly Scott had been in no danger of being harmed because the Indians were too distant from the fort to shoot at her. Most incredible of all, she said that Betty Zane had not even been at the fort during that siege.
Cruger's account raised an immediate, intense, and bitter controversy. For two-thirds of a century, western Virginians had gloried in the fame attached to this tale of heroism, this story of a local girl, an ordinary teenager, performing the act of a real-life heroine. Cruger's eyewitness account not only discredited Betty Zane but gave such a totally different account of what had happened during that siege as utterly to confound everyone. Both local residents and professional historians debated whether, in the face of tradition, it was possible that the heroine had indeed been Molly Scott. As an eyewitness to the siege, could Cruger's word be doubted? On the other hand, how could all the other people present been so mistaken about not only the girl's identity but the other details as well? Granting that it might have been Molly Scott, how could Cruger possibly have remembered, so many years afterward, that Betty Zane had not been present during the siege? Had it really been the men in the Zane cabin who had run out of powder, rather than those in the fort, as Cruger proclaimed? And were all the Indians so far away that the heroine, whoever she may have been, was not fired upon?
The conclusions which historians have generally drawn are:
The standard accounts of the border wars, such as those by Alexander Withers and Wills De Hass, establish two sieges of Fort Henry, the first occurring in September 1777, "the Year of the Bloody Sevens," and the second five years later in that same month. Students of frontier history are also likely aware of the controversy surrounding the identity of the true heroine of Fort Henry's famous gunpowder exploit, Cruger's affidavit having been published for the first time in De Hass. But most, knowledgeable of these points, are probably unaware of Cruger's "Narrative" of 1846, which indirectly contains the solution to the entire riddle.1
In 1846, more than sixty years after the siege, the preeminent historian of the trans-Allegheny frontier, Lyman C. Draper, interviewed Cruger concerning those bitter times, and his notes of that interview make up the "Narrative of Lydia Boggs Shepherd Cruger," published by Jared Lobdell in Indian Warfare. During that interview, Draper, already quite familiar with the details of the gunpowder exploit, must have been astounded as he listened to Cruger blithely speak of helping Molly Scott get powder to take to Colonel Zane's cabin, of Silas Zane being in Colonel Zane's cabin, and of Betty Zane not being at Fort Henry during the siege. Draper surely questioned her on this, as he noted, "Mrs. Cruger in this says she couldn t be mistaken."2
There are five major discrepancies in Cruger's account of this siege, as recorded by Draper in 1846 and affirmed in her affidavit given in 1849:
Cruger definitely remembered giving powder to none other than Molly Scott and, as she stated in her affidavit, she
remembers with perfect distinctness every circumstance connected with the incident. She saw Molly Scott enter the fort, assisted her in getting the powder, and saw her leave, and avers most positively that she, and she alone, accomplished the feat referred to, and deserves all the credit there may be attached to it.3
Cruger also stated: "the undersigned . . . will now state without the fear of contradiction, that the powder was given to Molly Scott, and not to Elizabeth Zane."4 She was certainly correct in her claim of "without the fear of contradiction," as those who could have contradicted her were no longer alive. Betty Zane had been dead for over twenty years and Molly Scott for ten. Sixty-seven years after the event, there was only one adult eyewitness still living, a Mrs. Mary Burkitt, who was then quite elderly.5
The first sentence of Cruger's 1849 affidavit begins, "the undersigned, having been applied to for a statement of facts respecting . . . the 'Gunpowder exploit. . . ." She continued:
. . . those within the stockade observed a female leave the residence of Colonel Zane, and advance with rapid movements towards the fort. . . . [S]he entered in safety. That person was none other than MOLLY SCOTT, and the object of her mission, was to procure powder for those who defended the dwelling of Colonel Zane!6
Then follow the details of how Cruger's mother had instructed her to give the powder to Molly Scott, and "Elizabeth Zane . . . was at that time at the residence of her father near the present town of Washington, Pa. . . ."7 After a lapse of nearly seventy years, Cruger exhibited an incredible memory, recalling the whereabouts of someone who was not at the fort.
Three years previously, Cruger told Draper:
Near mid-day [of September 12], having exhausted the powder at Zane's house, Molly Scott ran over from Zane's to the Fort, sixty yards, for a supply. Captain Boggs had charge of the magazine, and in his absence the magazine was ope, and I went in with her and poured out some tenths into Molly's tow apron, and she ran back. She was not fired at going or returning. The Indians were on the hillside and elsewhere too far to have shot with any effect.8
The major contradiction in her affidavit is given in the statement that it was the men in Colonel Zane's cabin who ran out of powder. But from official letters it cannot be disputed that the militia's entire supply of powder for the defense of the fort was stored in Zane s cabin, having been sent downriver that summer by the military commandant at Fort Pitt. There was no time, from the warning of the Indians approach until the beginning of the siege, to move the powder from the cabin to the fort, and the few men in the cabin would have been unable to burn up all that powder in a month, much less in twenty hours.
The dilemma presented in this episode, which cannot be explained away, is that Molly Scott often related the events of that siege of 1782 to members of her immediate family, as well as to friends and neighbors, and she repeatedly told all of them that she watched Betty Zane run to Colonel Zane's cabin for powder and return with it to the fort. A written statement by her grandson James F. Scott related how he had heard "from her own lips" numerous times
about the exploit of Betsy Zane carrying powder in her apron from Col. Zane's dwelling to the fort, during the siege . . . as well as the narrow escape she had from the bullets of the Indians. . . . She [Scott] never gave any other name than Elizabeth or Betsy Zane, as she called her, as the one who carried the powder. She never claimed the credit for herself.9
To resolve the differences between these two accounts, some historians have sought to discredit Cruger, claiming a long-standing personal jealousy of Betty Zane. Another explanation was that because of her advanced years, she interchanged Molly Scott with Betty Zane and reversed the direction of the run. However, neither explanation seems to be acceptable.
Despite this conflicting testimony, it is still possible to maintain:
Just after dawn on an early September day, about eighty Indians, led by the Delaware chief Pekillon, appeared within sight of Fort Henry. Having been previously warned by David Zeisberger, a Moravian missionary, that a large body of Indians was moving to attack the frontier settlements, the settlers at the fort were prepared for them. Commanding the fort was Captain John Boggs, who only a month previously had moved to Wheeling with his family. Unable to take the fort by surprise as they had hoped, the Indians found a man and three boys outside the fort. They killed one boy and took another captive, while the third escaped into the fort. The man, wounded through the wrist, also eluded the Indians. Having accomplished so little in this attack, in Cruger's words, "they [the Indians] then ran off instantly." Nothing else of consequence happened and very few shots were fired at the fort, as the majority of the Indians were too far away.10
While Captain Boggs was in command of the fort, Colonel Zane and his brother Silas, who only recently had returned from the eastern front, defended their cabin from the Indians. Colonel Zane had rebuilt his cabin in the form of a blockhouse, with every intention of occupying it in the event of another Indian attack. He was in his cabin during two attacks-- the one, in 1781, for only a few hours, and the other, in 1782, for nearly forty-eight hours.
Having been warned of the approach of the Indians in 1781, Zane had requested some gunpowder from the militia stores in the fort for the use of the defenders of the cabin/blockhouse. Captain Boggs had complied, perhaps instructing his wife to have their daughter assist the messenger from Colonel Zane's cabin. Cruger helped Molly Scott obtain a quantity of powder from the magazine for the defense of the cabin, as that was also a military operation and vital to the defense of the fort. Cruger then watched as Scott ran back to the Zane cabin with the powder in her apron. She was not fired on by the Indians, who at that time were on the hillside and on Wheeling Island on the opposite side of the fort and certainly too far to have shot with any effect.
Cruger had indeed been involved in Scott's run with powder back to Zane's cabin, and she thought that was the gunpowder exploit that everyone talked about. That particular incident, however, had occurred in 1781, and it had not seemed especially hazardous to her at the time because the Indians were so far away. Sixty-eight years later, she stated in her affidavit, "at the time of its occurrence, the achievement was not considered very extraordinary."11
In 1781, Betty Zane was living with her father at Catfish Camp, present Washington, Pennsylvania, where Cruger had lived prior to 1777. The two fifteen-year-old girls were probably close friends, as there could not have been a great many other unmarried young women on the western border. Cruger stated in her affidavit that Elizabeth Zane was one of her earliest acquaintances. She knew quite well that Zane was living there with her father that fall, while the Zane brothers were at their Wheeling Creek settlement.
Sometime around 1780, Captain Boggs had moved his family to Buffalo Creek, near present Wellsburg about twenty miles north of Wheeling, and in August 1781, he had been ordered to command Fort Henry. Cruger had been at the fort only one month when the attack occurred. All the details were indelibly impressed on her, and sixty-eight years later, there was absolutely no doubt in her mind as to whom she had given the powder.
One year later, the Indians were back, three times as many of them, with the aid of forty British Rangers from Detroit. Colonel Zane defended his cabin, where the militia s supply of gunpowder was being stored. Unlike the last attack, there had been only a few minutes warning before that large number of the enemy appeared. Captain Boggs had immediately been sent for reinforcements, but as he subsequently stated, he had ridden only a mile and a half when he heard the fort's cannon firing. There had not been time to transfer the powder from Colonel Zane's cabin to the fort, as there had been no definite indication that they would need to do so. The siege of 1777 had lasted less than one day. The Indians successfully ambushed three separate parties of men on the morning of September 1, and then, satisfied with their destruction, they withdrew to attack other forts. During the attack in September 1781, the Indians had been unable to surprise the fort and had departed after only a few hours. Since the element of surprise again eluded them, it was reasonable to conclude the Indians would depart. It was certainly an exception for Indians to besiege a fort; if they could not capture it by surprise or stratagem, they almost always gave up and moved on to another fort which offered a promise of more gain with less risk. Being unsuccessful at Fort Henry in 1781, they had left there almost immediately and headed for Jacob Link's blockhouse on Middle Wheeling Creek, fourteen miles from Fort Henry, which they attacked with success, taking the blockhouse and killing Link and at least one other man. The defenders inside the fort had no possible way of knowing how long the Indians would persist. It was probably only at the insistence of the British officer, Captain Pratt, with his rangers that they remained as long as they did. On the second day of this siege, September 12, 1782, with no indication that the Indians were about to withdraw, Betty Zane ran from the fort to her brother's cabin and returned to the fort with her apron full of gunpowder.
Cruger remembered helping Scott get gunpowder during an Indian attack but she had not seen Zane run with the powder during the prolonged siege of 1782. When asked about these events by Draper in 1846, she combined elements of both Indian attacks. She remembered with great clarity details which had occurred sixty-eight years before but she was being asked about an event which had taken place one year later.
In the interview with Draper, Cruger stated that Molly Scott ran from the Zane cabin to the fort, got some powder with her assistance, and ran back to the cabin. That was correct for the 1781 incident, when the Indians first appeared on Wheeling Island across from the fort and then later were on "the hillside and elsewhere too far" away. That her father was absent was correct for 1782. Captain Boggs had been sent for reinforcements and Silas Zane was in charge of the fort. The point that Silas Zane was in the Zane cabin with Colonel Zane and others applies to 1781, when Captain Boggs was in charge of the fort and the Zane brothers and several other men defended the cabin.12
Cruger's statement that scouts gave warning of the Indians approach about three o clock in the afternoon was correct for 1782; in 1781, the Indians had appeared early in the morning, about an hour after sunrise.13 She was correct that Betty Zane was living with her father at Catfish Camp in September 1781. Sometime after the 1781 attack, but well before the 1782 siege, Zane, her father, and her new stepmother moved to the Wheeling settlement to be near the Zane brothers.
Cruger's assertion that the Indians did not shoot at Molly Scott "going or returning" was correct for 1781, as the Indians were too far away. That about midday on the second day of the siege, a girl ran between the fort and the Zane cabin with some powder could only have referred to the 1782 siege, as there had been no second day in either 1777 or 1781. The girl must therefore have been Betty Zane, Molly Scott having been the courier the year before. Cruger remembered "the siege commenced about sun an hour high, Monday, September 11th." In 1782, September 11 fell on a Wednesday, and in 1781, September 3 was a Monday. It is more likely that Cruger would correctly recall the day of the week rather than the date of the month. Perhaps she remembered attending church on Sunday, September 2, and then the Indians were seen just after sunrise the next morning.14
In her affidavit she stated: "On Monday afternoon, September 11th, 1782, a body of about 300 Indians, and 50 British soldiers . . . appeared in front of the fort. . . ." She had earlier told Draper that the siege began sometime after three o clock in the afternoon, when scouts gave the alarm of the Indians approach. The 1781 attack, however, began early in the morning. During the progress of the interview with Draper, she described the activities of several men from the fort, who were out during the morning hours of that day in 1782.15
Cruger must have been aware that others recalled the siege of 1782 began on Wednesday, September 11, but she persisted in remembering it as a Monday. The date of the 1781 attack has never been exactly determined, until now. Doddridge gave it as September 7 or 8, but if Cruger was correct and it was a Monday, then it would have been Monday, September 3.16
Her two conflicting statements, "the siege commenced about sun an hour high" and then "about 3 o clock in the afternoon," could both be false but both could not be true. Cruger told Draper that the "siege commenced about sun an hour high, Monday, September 11th--at all events, the 11th." But during the course of the interview, she also told him that as a warning of the first approach of the Indians, the scouts discharged their weapons "about 3 o clock in the afternoon." Either Cruger confused two different recollections in her own mind, Draper failed to distinguish between her comments on two different forays by the Indians against Fort Henry, or in the transcription and cataloging of his notes, this confusion occurred concerning the times the Indians approached. Since there is no doubt that at the siege of 1782 the Indians appeared sometime in the latter part of the afternoon, Cruger's comments about the scouts warning of the approach of the Indians at three o clock in the afternoon can refer only to that siege. Therefore her other remark concerning the appearance of the Indians, "siege commenced about sun an hour high," must be a reference to 1781.17
It is also interesting to note her use of the phrase "Monday, September 11th--at all events, the 11th." In 1782, September 11, which was a Wednesday, the Indians appeared around three o clock in the afternoon, allowing time for the following events from Cruger s timetable. On "the morning of the 11th, a damp morning, Stephen Burkam and one Wright" began their journey "from the Fort to Washington" and traveled about "three or four miles," where they found signs of Indians and "returned to the fort and reported." This also allowed time for the various activities of the other men that morning that Cruger described.18
The controversy involves confusing two separate events, events that had not concerned Cruger for nearly seventy years and the details of which had occupied neither much prominence nor much importance in her thoughts. When questioned about it she was convinced of the accuracy of her recollections, especially when she was able to remember certain details so vividly, specifically helping Molly Scott get powder for the men in the Zane cabin. When interviewed by Draper in 1846, she said that the Indians had not fired on Molly Scott. However, three years later, evidently having been involved in disputes about the nature of this episode as a result of Draper's interviews, she revised her statement somewhat, saying that on the second day of the siege, "Tuesday, September 12th" (eptember 12 in 1782 was a Thursday):
the enemy having temporarily withdrawn from the attack, but occupying a position within gunshot of the fort, those within the stockade observed a female leave the residence of Colonel Zane, and advance with rapid movements towards the fort. . . .19
In other words, the Indians were now close enough to shoot but for some reason failed to do so. However, in his official report of the siege, written on the day following its conclusion, Colonel Zane specifically stated that during the second day "the enemy kept a continual fire the whole day."20 They were not on "the hillside and elsewhere too far" away to shoot at the fort or at anyone running between the fort and the cabin. As nothing appears in Cruger s affidavit about Silas Zane being in the cabin in 1782, it seems certain that she correctly remembered helping Scott get the powder in 1781. But too many people insisted that Silas was commander of the fort in 1782, and so Cruger remained silent. The true obstacle to the resolution of this problem has always been the lack of information on that relatively unimportant Indian attack of 1781, leaving researchers to conclude that, since the gunpowder exploit could not have occurred at the 1777 siege, it must have been at the siege of 1782.
There was one other early spectator to this debate, but his evidence seems to have been as generally neglected as that of Molly Scott's grandson. George S. McKiernan became interested in the history of the border wars in the early 1830s when there were still several survivors. Between 1832 and 1836, he interviewed a number of those pioneers, including Lydia Boggs Shepherd Cruger. Among other observations he stated:
When I first knew Mrs. Cruger she was [a] bright and sparkling young woman. In her later days her memory became confused. She assured Mr. Draper, for instance, in 1846, that John McCulloch was the hero of the leap over Wheeling hill, instead of his brother Sam. . . . >From the interesting nature of the incident of carrying the powder, I made it the subject of inquiry in my interviews with all those persons, and I am quite certain that Mrs. Cruger did not attribute the powder exploit to Molly Scott or to any one but Betsy Zane, neither did any other of the old inhabitants. There is not the shadow of a doubt in my mind that she and not Molly Scott was the heroine of the powder keg. In fact I never heard any of the old pioneers mention the name of Molly Scott. They were unanimous in giving the honor to Miss Zane.21
Cruger and the Fort Henry settlement led unbelievably arduous lives, lives so incredibly difficult that it is no longer possible for us moderns to even begin to comprehend the difficulties. Mere survival required an almost Herculean effort, and many failed to survive those rigorous times. Cruger, born a loyal subject of George III, lived through those terrible days of revolution and horrific Indian warfare as a teenager. She was well into her forties when Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky, and she survived to see the end of a civil war and the assassination of the president. Cruger sought to clarify her interview with Draper in her 1849 affidavit:
But undersigned does not wish to detract any from the heroism of that feat, she only desires to correct a gross error--to give honor to whom honor is due. This she deems imperative, that the truth and justice of history may be maintained.22
Honor to whom honor is due, that the truth and justice of history may be maintained--and the honor is most certainly due to Betty Zane. As the illustrious Clonel Zane, speaking through his descendent Zane Grey might well have said:
. . . we should stop a moment to think of the heroes who have gone before . . . we who worked, fought, bled beside them, who saw them die for those they left behind, will render them all justice, honor and love. To them we give the victory. . . . They were true; then let us . . . likewise be true in memory of them. . . .23
1. Alexander Scott Withers, Chronicles of Border Warfare (Clarksburg, VA: Joseph Israel, 1831) and Wills De Hass, History of the Early Settlement and Indian Wars of Western Virginia (Wheeling, VA: Hoblitzell, 1851). In addition, the earliest and most important work on the border wars is the Rev. Joseph Doddridge's Notes on the Settlement and Indian Wars of the Western Parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania from 1763 to 1783 (Wellsburg, VA: Joseph Doddridge, 1824). Unfortunately, Doddridge did not include any material on the various sieges of Fort Henry, deferring instead to Noah Zane, who had told Doddridge he was preparing a biography of his father, Colonel Ebenezer Zane, which would as a matter of course include material on all the sieges. This proposed biography was never completed. Doddridge, however, wrote an account of the 1777 siege, originally published by Reuben G. Thwaites and Louise P. Kellogg in Frontier Defense on the Upper Ohio, 1777-1778 (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society, 1912) 54-58. All of these works have undergone several reprintings. Doddridge also wrote a few paragraphs on the sieges of 1781 and 1782 which were published in Jared C. Lobdell, Indian Warfare in Western Pennsylvania and North West Virginia at the Time of the American Revolution (Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1992).
2. "Ms. notes of conversations with . . . Mrs. Lydia Cruger, 1846--L.C.D," in Louise P. Kellogg, Frontier Retreat on the Upper Ohio, 1779-1781 (1917; reprint, Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1994), 821 and "Narrative of Lydia Boggs Shepherd Cruger (1766-1867) Covering the years 1772-1786," in Lobdell, Indian Warfare, 124, hereafter referred to as "Narrative."
3. De Hass, History, 280.
4. Ibid., emphasis in original.
5. According to Gibson Lamb Cranmer, in his History of Wheeling City and Ohio County, West Virginia (1902; reprint, Apollo, PA: Closson Press, 1994), 129, the names of a number of those inside Fort Henry during the 1782 siege were obtained from "Mrs. Mary Burkitt, who died about 1861, at a very advanced age . . . who, at the time of the siege, was an inmate of the fort. . . ."
6. De Hass, History, 280, emphasis in original.
7. Ibid.
8. "Narrative," 124. The reference to "tenths" is unclear. Perhaps it was a measure of weight or volume. It is tempting to believe that it is a mistake in the transcription of Draper's original handwriting and that the correct word is pounds.
9. Statement of J. F. Scott to W. C. Brockunier, Wheeling, August 1876, published in J. H. Newton, et al, History of the Pan-handle [West Virginia] (1879; reprint, Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1990), 130.
10. "Narrative," 111. One well-known tragedy resulted directly from this warning. The leader of this raid, Pekillon, had only recently been serving with the American army under Colonel Brodhead and until this time had been considered a friend of the Americans. Many also believed, probably mistakenly, that he was a Christian convert, who often spent time at the Christian Indian villages on the Tuscarawas River in Ohio. When Pekillon appeared before Fort Henry with the hostile Indians, he learned from the captive boy that the fort had been warned of their approach by a message sent by the Moravian missionaries in Ohio. Upon the return of the hostile Indians, the Christian Indians living in the three Moravian villages were forced to evacuate their towns. The Christians, along with their missionaries Zeisberger and John Heckewelder were taken to te vicinity of present Upper Sandusky, Ohio. By February of the next year, many of the Christian Indians had starved to death, and at that time about one hundred of those remaining, still facing starvation, were granted permission to return to their villages to harvest what little of their crops they could hope to find. They were still there on March 6, when Colonel David Williamson's militia, in pursuit of an Indian raiding party, arrived at Gnadenhutten, one of the abandoned villages. Mistakenly believing that this group of Indians, which they had discovered in a supposedly deserted village, was indeed the band of Indians which they were following, Williamson's men brutally murdered ninety of these Christian Indians--the infamous Gnadenhutten Massacre of March 8, 1782.
For the story of David Glenn, the boy captured at Fort Henry, see "Narrative," 111 and Alexander Scott Withers, Chronicles of Border Warfare, ed. and with notes by Reuben G. Thwaites (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke Co., 1895), 317.
11. De Hass, History, 280-81.
12. "Narrative," 117, 119, 124.
13. Ibid., 115, 124.
14. Ibid.
15. De Hass, History, 280 and "Narrative," 116.
16. According to Doddridge, "on the seventh or eighth of September, 1781, the second attack on Fort Henry took place." Quoted in Lobdell, Indian Warfare, 131.
Additional confirmation of this date is given in Paul A. W. Wallace, Thirty Thousand Miles with John Heckewelder (Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1958), 179-82. John Heckewelder was a Moravian missionary who described the events at this time in the Christian Indian villages of Schoenbrunn, Salem, and Gnadenhutten. According to Heckewelder:
In the Morning on the 5th . . . both Prisoners and Scalps being brought in the Evening before an open Councel was held . . . the prisoners an old Man and Boy had been examined whether they knew if the [Moravian] Ministers had sent to Fort Pitt for Assistance or not, and the Boy had declared that he had heard they had done the like; consequently a charge was laid against Us. [i.e., the hostile Indians ordered that the Christian Indian villages be immediately evacuated, upon penalty of death.] On the 6th a War party came in again without having done any Mischief . . . in order to get everything ready for the journey [to Upper Sandusky]. . . .
Heckewelder, in the company of British Indian agent Matthew Elliott, was taken to the nearby village of Salem on the next day, the 7th.
The next day being the 8th Day. Zeisberger with his Colleagues . . . arrived by Water likewise at Salem . . . from Shonbrunn also arrived the greatest part by Water and Land . . . after having according to our Custom been at prayer in the Church on Sunday, orders were given the next Day, namely Monday, for the 9th for marching, and we had to bid farewell. . . .
But 9 September 1781 was a Sunday. It appears that Heckewelder was off by one day in his reckoning; they were at church on Sunday, 9 September and left Monday, 10 September. Therefore, the war parties mentioned had returned to Gnadenhutten on Wednesday, 5 September; the council was held on Thursday, 6 September; and on Friday, 7 September, another war party returned, having been unsuccessful. On Saturday, 8 September, Heckewelder went to Salem, and on Sunday, 9 September, Zeisberger arrived. Church services were held that Sunday, according to custom, and on Monday, 10 September, the Christian Indians began their march to "Captives Town" on the Sandusky River. The main point of Heckewelder's remarks is that the Indian attack on Wheeling must have been on Monday, 3 September.
17. "Narrative," 115, 116.
18. Ibid.
19. De Hass, History, 280.
20. On Saturday, 14 September 1782, the day following the lifting of the siege, Zane wrote to General Irvine, his military superior at Fort Pitt:
Newton, Pan-Handle, 127.
21. Ibid., 129.
22. De Hass, History, 281.
23. Zane Grey, The Last Trail (New York: A. L. Burt, 1909), 298.