mother thought he was killed, as they would not believe he would run away from them, and sincerely lamented his loss.

Mr. Riley, who so generously aided in planning his rescue, some time after returned to the state of New York, and was for several years a postmaster in Schenectady. Young Smith was very assiduous and devoted to the welfare of his Yankee friend, whose pale face and hollow cheeks won deeply on his sympathy. He furnished him with a suit of his own clothes, in place of the Indian dress which he still wore, and brought him wine and other nice things from his father's table. Invigorated by this generous diet, and aided by the attention of the English surgeon, in about four weeks, the health of his protege was fully restored, when his sparkling eyes and lively conversation fully repaid him for all his trouble. While secreted in the hospital, Thomas Shaw, one of the prisoners taken at Big bottom, called to see him. It was near the middle of August, when one of the few vessels, which at that day navigated Lake Erie, was about to sail for Niagara. In this vessel Major Smith procured for him, and paid the expense of, a passage down, at the same time charging the captain to treat him kindly, and giving him a letter to the commander at Fort Erie, with instructions to send young Convers on, from post to post, until he reached the United States. Shaw went down with him, in the same schooner, to Niagara, where they arrived in about a week.

Here he staid four weeks, waiting for a passage, boarding in the mean time with a Mr. Seacorn, who kept a tavern, and urged him to stay all winter and go to school, but the commander of the post advised him to go on. From this station he was sent to Cattarque, on the Canada shore of Lake Ontario, since called Kingston, and from there on to Montreal, and St. Johns. The British officers at all the posts uniformly treated him with kindness. At St. Johns, they were at dinner, when the sergeant of the guard handed them his letter of passport. They directly invited him in

and seated him at the table; giving him a glass of wine, accompanied with kind words and smiling faces It was a season of festivity, when the generous cheer had softened their hearts. An order was drawn on the commissary for stores to take him through the wilderness to Castleton, in Vermont. Fortunately a party of horse dealers, who had been with a drove to St. Johns, were now ready to return to Vermont, and he went on with them. From Castleton he traveled to his relations in Killingly, Connecticut, but did not get back to Marietta until February, 1794.

Amid the bloodshed and gloom that darken the atrocities of the Indians, and for many years kept the pioneers in a constant state of watchfulness and fear, there now and then appears a bright spot like a star in the opening clouds of a dreary night. The humanity displayed by the British officers, among whom our prisoners were thrown in the war of 1791, as well as in the preceding hostilities in Kentucky, as testified by Boone, Kenton, and others, deserves our notice and highest commendation. Colonel Convers testifies to the uniform humanity with which he was treated, and the utmost deference paid to his condition and wants at every post which he visited. Their reception of him was not only humane, but kind, and gentlemanly. Such conduct from the subjects of a nation whom we had so long been in the habit of considering our enemies, cannot be too highly applauded, and should never be forgotten.

CHAPTER XXII.

Strength of the garrison. - Watchfulness of the settlers.- Hamilton Kerr.-Spies at Waterford.-1793. - Adventure of Judge Devoll. - Abundance of wild game.-Schools.-Religious worship. -1794.-Increase of the settlement. Amusements.-Abel Sherman killed.-Condition of the settlement.-1795. - Sherman Waterman killed. - Settlers leave their garrisons.—Salt springs. — Value of salt. - Company formed to manufacture salt. Description of the works. Two of the salt makers lost in the woods. Sufferings by cold and hunger. Great change in the condition of the country.

THE Indians, after their failure in the attack on the garrison in 1791, made no other serious attempts to break up the settlements as they had threatened to do. They probably discovered that they were inadequate to any successful assault on a well garrisoned post, with block houses and pickets, without the aid of artillery, and this they could not command. They therefore ceased to send out large war parties against the whites, but continued to harrass them by small bands of four or five warriors, who killed their cattle, and otherwise annoyed them, by constantly keeping them on the watch, when abroad at their work in the field. Their attention was also called off by inroads which were made into their own territories by bands of white men from Kentucky, after the defeat of the army under General St. Clair. This victory gave them great confidence in their own powers, and for a time threatened to overwhelm the frontier settlements. But the gradual assembling of another army, and the posts erected near their own frontiers, served in some measure to check their incursions, and damp their hopes of finally driving their enemies south of the Ohio.

It is truly wonderful, how small were the number of lives lost by the Waterford settlement, placed as they were on the extreme frontier, and at a distance of twenty miles. from any assistance. War parties often passed by them on their way to western Virginia, and frequently without disturbing them. They had no ancient grudge against the colonists of the Ohio company to revenge, as they had against the Virginians; the former having uniformly treated them with kindness, before the breaking out of the war. They sent no expeditions into the Indian country to destroy their villages and crops, but remained peaceably at home attending to the cultivation of their lands, and when the Indians came about them, seldom pursued them. They felt no ill will toward the savages, and only armed to keep possession of their farms, and defend themselves against their attacks. It was with them a war of defense, and one which would never have taken place, but for the cruel and unjust treatment of them by the lawless hunters and borderers, of the frontiers of Virginia, and Kentucky. When war parties came round the settlements, they generally found the inhabitants on their guard. If in the fields at work, they always saw two or more sentries placed in the edge of the woods, watching for their approach, while the guns of the laborers, fifteen or twenty in number, were placed under the care of a sentinel, in a spot where they could seize them in a moment. In going to, and returning from their labor, flank guards marched on each side, to give notice of any ambuscade. A guard was kept day and night in the watch tower of the fort, who from his lofty post had a wide range over the district around. The spies or rangers daily traversed the woods for eight or ten miles distance, and immediately returned to give notice if they discovered any signs of Indians, within the circuit of their range, Over foes who were so habitually and constantly watchful, it was difficult for the savages to gain an advantage; and they seldom made an attack where the chances of success

are doubtful.

At night they sometimes approached the burning log heaps, in the adjacent clearings, and were dimly seen by the sentinel flitting around or past the flames. On these occasions they now and then snatched a burning brand from the heap within the range of rifle shot from the garrison, for the purpose of kindling a fire for themselves, at a more safe distance in the woods.

On one of these occasions when William Sprague was sentry, he saw and fired at an Indian, who dropped the brand and ran. The moccasin tracks of the two Indians who visited Marietta so often, one with a remarkably large and the other with a small foot, were several times seen in the plowed fields at Waterford. It is a very singular fact, that during the period of the war, no conflict took place between the white rangers and the Indian scouts, although they were daily abroad in the woods, and must often have been near each other. Hamilton Kerr one day, as he was ranging the forest a few miles east of Marietta, came unexpectedly upon an Indian at the distance of about eighty yards. He was a fine, tall fellow, who stood leaning on his rifle, with his back towards him, apparently in deep contemplation. Kerr instantly stopped, and as he raised his rifle to his face, cocked it. The click of the lock warned the Indian of his danger; his practiced ear knew that sound from every other. Without even turning his head, he dashed off like a stricken deer behind the trees, and was seen no more. The rangers at Waterford for the first year, were Neal McGuffy and William McCullock. In subsequent years, William Newel, Andrew McLure, and John White, acted in this capacity.

McGuffy was an eastern man and a soldier. He was a lieutenant in the army of the United States during the revolutionary war; a very brave man, and distinguished for his heroism at the battle of Germantown; possessed great coolness and intrepidity in times of danger, and was of essential service to the Waterford settlement during the