After the defeat of Braddock, the whole western frontier was left exposed to the incursions of the Indians and French in the spring of the year, 1756, a party of about fifty Indians, with a French captain at their head, crossed the Alleghany Mountains, committing on the white settlers every act of barbarous war. Capt. Jeremiah Smith, raised a party of twenty brave men, marched to meet this savage foe, and fell in with them at the head of Capon River, when a fierce and blood battle was fought. Smith killed the captain with his own hand; five other Indians have fallen, and a number wounded, they gave way and fled. Smith lost two of his men. On searching the body of the Frenchman, he was found in possession of his commission and written instructions to meet another party of about fifty Indians at Fort Frederick,* to attack the Fort, destroy it, and blow up the magazine.
The other party of Indians were encountered pretty low down the North Branch of the Capon River, by Capt. Joshua Lewis, at the head of eighteen men; one Indian was killed when the others broke and ran. Previous to the defeat of this party they had committed considerable destruction of the property of the white settlers, and took a Mrs. Horner and a girl about thirteen years of age prisoners. Mrs. Horner was the mother of seven or eight children; she never got back to her family. The girl, whose name was Sarah Gibbons, the sister of my informant,† was a prisoner about eight or nine years before she returned home. The intention of attacking Fort Frederick was of course abandoned.
* Fort Frederick was commenced in the year 1755, under the direction of Gov. Sharpe, of Maryland, and was probably finished in 1776. It is still standing on the Maryland side of the Cohongoruton. Its walls are entirely of stone, four and a half feet thick at the base, and three at the top; they are at least twenty feet high, and have undergone but little dilapidation. Dr. John Hedges and his son, Capt. John C. Hedges, aided the author in the examination of this place, and measuring its area, height and thickness of the walls. Its location is not more than twelve miles from Martinsburg, in Virginia, and about the same distance from Williamsport in Maryland. It encloses an area {typo corrected} of about one and a half acres, exclusive of the bastions or redoubts. It is said the erection of this fort cost about sixty-five thousand pounds sterling.
† Mr. Jacob Gibbons was born the 10th of September, 1745. Since the author saw him, he has departed this life—an honest, good old man.
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