in this connection are from Dr. Knight's own narrative) "to march to Sandusky, about thirty-three miles distant;" but "Col. Crawford was very desirous to see Simon Girty, who lived with the Indians, and was on this account permitted to go to town the same night, with two warriors to guard him." The other prisoners "were taken as far as the old town, which was within eight miles of the new."

Crawford had known Girty, before the latter's adherence to the British, and hoped to make some arrangements for his ransom from captivity and torture. Girty promised to do every thing in his power to save Crawford, and it is probable that the former made a proposition to Captain Pipe, offering three hundred and fifty dollars for the release of the American commandant, intending, unquestionably, to exact a much larger amount from Crawford. The Delaware chief treated the proposition as a gross insult, and threatened Girty himself with torture at the stake, if it was renewed. This threat had such an effect, that Girty appeared subsequently at the execution of Crawford, an acquiescent, perhaps an exultant spectator.

On the morning of June 11th, Crawford returned to his companions in misfortune at the Old Town, but Captain Pipe had preceded him and painted the faces of Dr. Knight and the other nine prisoners black. Upon Crawford's arrival, Pipe painted him also, but without any ferocity of language or manner. On the contrary, he dissembled so far as to assure Crawford that he would be adopted at the Wyandot village. When the Indians marched, Col. Crawford and Dr. Knight were kept back between Pipe and Wingemand, the two Delaware chiefs, while the other nine persons were sent forward. As they proceeded towards the Tymochtee, Crawford and his friend were shocked to see the bodies of four of the pris

oners scattered along the path, and were themselves witnesses of the slaughter of the remaining five by a crowd of squaws and boys. Among them was one John McKinley, formerly an officer in a Virginia regiment, whose head was severed from his body by an old hag, and kicked about among the savages. Half a mile further, they reached the spot selected for Crawford's execution, which was attended with all the horrors of savage cruelty. Three hours of torture, during which he entreated Girty in vain for the mercy of a bullet through his heart, elapsed before the unfortunate victim was released from his unutterable anguish.

His companion and friend, Dr. Knight, was compelled to witness the horrible spectacle, and was taunted by Girty with the certainty of a similar fate when he should reach the Shawanese villages on the Mad River, whither, on the next morning, (after passing the night at the house of Captain Pipe, three quarters of a mile north of the scene of Crawford's fate,) he started under charge of a Delaware Indian. The first day they traveled about twenty-five miles and encamped for the night. In the morning the gnats becoming very troublesome, the Doctor requested the Indian to untie him that he might help him make a fire to keep them off. With this request the Indian complied. While the latter was on his knees and elbows, blowing the fire, the Doctor caught up a dogwood stick, about eighteen inches long, with which he struck the Indian on his head, knocking him forward into the fire. He sprang to his feet, but Knight had seized the Indian's gun, and the latter fled. After twentyone days of wandering, Knight reached the frontier of Virginia, nearly famished to death.

Another captive, John Slover, who was doomed to the stake at the Shawanese villages, but who made a wonderful

escape from his savage persecutors, saw the dead bodies of William Crawford, a nephew of Col. Crawford and of Major Harrison, his son-in-law, at Wakatomika. The unfortunate Crawford had been assured by Pipe, that these relatives would be admitted to mercy, but they, as well as Colonel McLelland, the second in command, were beaten to death soon after reaching the valley of Mad River.

Thus, life for life were the atrocities on the Muskingum avenged at the sources of the Sandusky. It was the cry of vengeance for the Christian Delawares slaughtered at Gnadenhutten, which was raised by Pipe on the banks of the Tymochtee, drowning every appeal or suggestion of mercy for one so estimable as all contemporary accounts represent Col. William Crawford to have been. Although the Muskingum proselytes were the objects of persecution by their heathen brethren, yet it was far from being a persecution unto death. It had for its object their restoration to the customs and associations of their former lives, and was entirely consistent with warm personal attachments. Loskiel narrates that the wife of Captain Pipe had been strongly moved by the persuasions of the missionaries; and the chief himself, when not instigated by Elliott, Girty or McKee, was disposed to be just and tolerant even to the teachers. He was a magnanimous savage, and his indignant repulse of all compromise with his rude sense of justice-when Girty sought to invoke his influence to save Crawford by an offer of moneygives a heroic air to the dreadful tragedy which followed. "Sir, do you think I am a squaw?" replied the indignant Delaware. "If you say one word more on the subject, I will make a stake for you and burn you along with the white chief."

With Crawford's defeat, and the carnage at Blue Licks in

August following, closed the drama of the American Revolution upon the wilderness of Ohio. Soon the motive power of British intrigue and gratuities was withdrawn, as the termination and result of the struggle became apparent, and the ravages of their Indian allies also abated. The latter were glutted with vengeance and plunder, and while their villages rang with their savage festivals, there was comparative indisposition to assume the risks of fresh forays upon the frontiers of Pennsylvania.

On the 30th of November, 1782, provisional articles of peace had been arranged at Paris: on the 20th of January following, hostilities ceased: on the 19th of April, 1783, peace was proclaimed to the army of the United States, and on the 3d of September a definite treaty was concluded.

CHAPTER XXIII.

SUBSEQUENT MOVEMENTS OF THE MORAVIAN CONGREGATION.

THE removal of the Moravian missionaries to Detroit, and the dispersion of their Indian congregation, did not terminate the labors of Zeisberger, Heckewelder, and their associates in the Western wilderness. There is no doubt that the interposition of Col. Depeyster was prompted by a disinterested regard for their safety; and the departure of the Christian Indians from Upper Sandusky, which soon followed, is commemorated by Loskiel and Heckewelder as a manifest token of the Divine protection, specially vouchsafed to arrest a repetition of the massacre at Gnadenhutten.

On the arrival of the missionaries at Detroit, Governor Depeyster offered to provide means for the removal of themselves and their families to Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, but they "resolved, from motives of duty and affection, to use their utmost exertions to gather their scattered flock." In this design, they received the countenance and aid of the English officer. A site was selected in Michigan, thirty miles distant from Detroit, and on the Huron River. The Chippewas were induced, by the influence of Col. Depeyster, to assent to such an occupation of a portion of their hunting grounds: the settlement was affectionately called New Gnadenhutten; and thither the Christian Indians, by messages directed to them on the Scioto and the Miami of the Lake, were invited to come. The Governor accompanied the invitation by an assurance, that they should enjoy perfect liberty