News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1883-10-04
CAPTURED BY INDIANS.
THE EARLY INDIAN WARS.

Stories of marvellous and ingenious
escapes were the romance of the colonies,
and such adventures date back to the
earliest Indian war in Virginia, where a
man and his wife, who had been spared
in the wholesale slaughter, found their
opportunity while the Indians were
dancing for Joy over the acquisition of a
white mans boat that had drifted ashore.
These captives got into canoe, and
soon afterward surprised their friends
into the settlements, who had believed
them to be dead. Very like this was
the escape of Anthony Bracket and his
wife in Maine. They were left to fol-
low on after their captors, who We're
eager to reach a plundering party in
time to share in the spoil. Brackets
wife found a broken bark canoe, which
she mended with a needle and thread;
the whole family then put to sea in this
ricketv craft, and at length reached
Black Point, where they got on board a
vessel. A little lad of eleven years named
Eames, taken in Philips war, made his
way thirty miles or more to the settle
meuts. Two sons of the famous Hannah
Bradley euecUej- am Ingenious escape,
living all the first day in hollow log
and using their provisions to make
friends with the dogs that had tracked
them. They iourneyed in extreme peril
and suffering for nine days, and one Of
them fell down with exhaustion just as
they were entering a white settlement.
A young girl in Massachusetts,, after
three weeks of captivity, make a bride
of bark, and catching horse, rode all
night through the woods to Concord.
Mrs. Dean, taken at Oyster River in
1854, was left, with her daughter, in
charge of an old Indian while the rest
finished their work of destruction. The
old fellow asked his prisoner what would
cure pain in his head. She recon-
mended him to drink some rum taken
from her house. This put him to sleep,
and the woman and child got away
Another down-east captive, with the fit
ting name Of Toogood, while his captor
during an attack on a settlement was
disentangling a piece of string with which
to tie him, ierked the Indians gun from
under his arm, and leveling it at his
head got safely away.
Escaping captives endured great hard
ships. One Bard, taken in Pennsylvania,
lived nine days on a few buds and four
snakes. Mrs. Inglis, captured i'll the
valley of Virginia, escaped in company
with a German woman from place far
down the Ohio River. After narrowly
avoiding discovery and recapture, they
succeeded in ascending the south bank
of the Ohio for some hundreds of miles.
When within few days travel of settle
ments, they were so reduced by famine
that the German woman, enraged that
she had been persuaded to desert the
Indian fesh-pots, and crazed with
hunger, made an unsuccessful attack
on her companion with cannibal inten-
tions.
The most famous of all the escapes of
New England captives was that of Han
nah Duston, Mary Neff, and a boy,
Samuel Leonardson. These three were
carried off with many others, in 1697, III
the attack on Haverhill, Mrs. DustOn's
infant child having been killed by the
Indians. When the captors had separa-
ted, the party to whom the two women
and the boy were assigned encamped on
an island in the Merrimac River. At
midnight, the captives secured hatchets
aud killed ten Indians-two men, two
women, and six children-ono favorite
boy, whom they meant to spare, and one
badly wounded woman, escaping. After
they had left the camp, the fugitives re-
membered that nobody in the settle
ments would believe, without evidence,
that they had performed so Tedoubtable
an action; they therefore returned and
anaIped the Indians, after which they
scuttled all the canoes on the island but
one, and in this escaped down the Mer-
rimac, and finally reached Hayerhill.
This was such an exploit as made the
actors Immediately famous in that bloody
time. The Massachusetts General Court
gave Mrs. Duston twenty-five pounds,
and granted half that amount to each of
her companions. The story of their dar-
ing deed was carried far to the south
ward, and Governor Nicholson, of Mary
land, sent a valuable present to the cs-
capped prisoners.
Many captivcs never returned. Be
sides those who were put to death, and
those who died of famine, fatigue, and
disease, a large number of the younger
ones adopted Indian habits, intermarricd
with the savagcs, and remained in the
tribes. These were spoken of with bit
terness in New England as contributing
to increase the enemies of their country
A lad, Timothy Rice, captured in Mas.