The spirit of democracy. [volume] (Woodsfield, Ohio) 1844-1994, 1849-10-13
Vol. vi.

gliding silently into the bosom OF its nigh
ty recipient, the Ohio. The great Ohio
itself. the present channel Of active life and
commerce, was itself then an emblem of
savage majesty. The stream was then,
and perhaps in all former forgotten ages,
as it is now, tranquil; but it was then soil
tary, and the view along its shores and
current inspired feelings of sadness
Yonder western hills, beyond Wheeling
Island, then rose bold. and blackened
with an intermnable forest. They were
the eastern abutments of boundless re-
gion, then with fearful import called "The
Western Country" or with still more aw-
full import, "The Indian Country" 1t
was country, indeed, at the very aspect
of which the bravest heart would feel a
shudder; for, from its endless recesses, the
ruthless and stealthy savage issued on his
errand of death. 1t was frontier, along
which the Indian and white, the red and
the pale warriors met, and often met in
single and unwitnessed combat
sin the days of your grandfathers, we
now sit on spot they dared not visit with.
out their terrible weapon. the rifle; nor did
their rifle always save them from foe
who seemed to issue from the earth. But
if the motion of the white hunter-warrior
was slow, his march was steady, and he
sustained his post or fell; the white wave
never flowed backward towards its native
ocean.
"You have all heard of the Mayer and
Wetzel families, for who on this side of
the mountains has not heard of Conrad
Mayer and Lewis Wetzel! But you may
not all have heard how old Fred Mayer
found his way to the banks of the Monon-
gahela. Fred was a stubborn German,
who, not liking the religion of his coun-
try made one for himself, with very short
creed, and found it necessary to come to
America to put his faith in practice. Fred
brought with him some good share ofDutch
scholarship, and little gold-amd what
was far better than either, he brought with
him sweetly innocent and devoted wife.
few poor families came with Fred May
er. They were peasants, stern, rough, and
muscular. Among them, well do remem-
ber the tear-eyed Maria Mayer; she was
born to grace court, and became the
flower of our wilderness. The little colo
ny found resting-place on the banks of
the Monongahela, and Fred and his Maria
arrived just in time, for on the very next
night afterwards was born their only son;
their only child, Conrad.
''The morn which first dawned on Con-
rad was fine October Sabbath. Their
church was the Monongahela woods, in
which the new born boy received his bap-
tismal name, and from which, thankful
prisons rose to heaven for their safe arri-
val. Hardships had met them on their
way, but sickness and death they had es-
capped, and now son was born to share
their future hopes.
"We need not follow the infancy and
youth of Conrad. In spite of his fathers
attempt to teach him high German learn
ing, this first born son of Fairstone rose to
manhood the active and untiring hunter,
and intrepid warrior Thus he rose, or
was rising, when the revolutionary war
burst in distant and heightened blasts. re-
sounding from hamletto hamlet. and from
town to town, until its echoes were heard
in the dales of the lar distant Vest
There was little need of repeated shouts
of war to rouse young Conrad. From his
father he inherited a frame light and airy,
but most powerfully strong and active.
His soft blue eye bespoke the German,
though his appearance and motions were
French. His natural temper was wild and
irascble, but his heart was tender. If he
excited tear from the eye of his mother,
or of his foster sister Susan Gray, his kind
ness soon wiped that tear and its remem-
brance away.
"That heart must have been steel, in
deed, who could have withstood the tears
of either Maria Mayer, or her beautiful
orphan foster child, Susan Gray Very
different hearts from steel animated the bo-
SONS of Fred Mayer and his son Conrad,
and they were family of love. r U
"Susan Gray was the chitd of love and
sorrow. Her father, Thomas Gray, the
son of an opulent family near, mar
ried lovely but poor girl, and indignant
at the taunts ofhis family, sought the wilds
of the West. The parents were unequal
to meet the hardships of their new situa-
ton; they fell early victims, and the. yet
hardly lisping Susan became the child of
Fred and Maria, and the sister Of Conrad.
The orphan shared the all of her protec-
tors, and was vexed and loved by the un-
toward, but generous Conrad, who main
tanned, at every shooting-match, that he
had the prettiest sister in all America, and
heaven-protected must needs have been
the man who would have dared a contra.
.diction; and another claim he had at the
shooting-match, of being the best shot over
all Ten Mile and Wheeling woods, ex-
ceptihg, as some dared to whisper, Lewis
Wetzel. sd " N hs4ae,fen a- ,l
gg 8 ould not give all my hunt this fall,
# | could only meet this Lewis etzel?"
grumbled Conrad, at a Redstone shooting
match, as he overheard some one in
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