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CAPTIVITY OF MRS. BROWN.

CHAPTER XII.

CAPTIVITY OF MRS. BROWN.

On the 27th day of March, 1789, about ten o'clock in the forenoon, as Mrs. Brown was spinning in her house, her black woman, who had stepped out to gather sugar water, screamed out, Here are Indians. She jumped up, ran to the window, and then to the door, where she was met by one of the Indians presenting his gun. She caught hold of the muzzle, and turning it aside, begged him not to kill her, but to take her prisoner. The other Indian in the meantime {typo corrected} caught the negro woman and her boy, about four years old, and brought them into the house. They then opened a chest and took out a small box and some articles of clothing, and without doing any further damage, or setting fire to the house, set off with herself and son, about two and-a-half years old, the black woman and her two children, the oldest four years old and the youngest one year old. After going about one and-a-half miles they halted and held a consultation, as she supposed, about killing the children. This she understood to be the subject of their gestures and frequently pointing at the children. To one of the Indians who could speak English, she held out her little boy and begged him not to kill him, as he would make a fine little Indian after awhile. The Indian made a motion to her to walk on with her child. The other Indian then struck the negro boy with the pipe end of his tomahawk, which knocked him down, and then dispatched him by a blow with the edge across the back of the neck and scalped him.

About four o'clock in the evening, they reached the River, about a mile above Wellsburg, and carried a canoe, which had been thrown up in some driftwood, into the river. They got into this canoe, and worked it down to the mouth of Brush Run, a distance of about five miles. They pulled up the canoe into the mouth of the Run, as far as they could, then {typo corrected} went up the Run about a mile, and encamped for the night. The Indians gave the prisoners all their own clothes for covering, and added one of their own blankets. Awhile before daylight, the Indians got up and put another blanket over them.

About sunrise they began their march up a very steep hill, and about two o'clock halted on Short Creek, about twenty miles from the place whence they had set out in the morning. The place