Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1885-06-25
A Pine Stick.

A heavy, single barreied, nint-lOck
rife, a curlously carved powder-horn and
y round pine stick upon which are cut
ninety-nlne notches of different Sizes
are priced relics in Sullivan county
family. They were the property of Tom
Quick, known throughout the Delaware
valley as "the Indian slayer" The rifle
and the powder-horn were his insepara-
BILE companions for thirty years, during
which time he devoted himself to Indian
killing, and the notched stick Is the
record he kept of the number of his vic
Tins, men, women and children being
indicated by the difference in the size OF
the notches, for he spared neither age
nor sex. Up to the time Quick was %
years of age he lived more with the In
dams, who at the time still roamed at
will throughout the valley, than ne did
with his own people. His father was
the first settler at what is now Milford,
Pike county, Pa, where Tom was BON
in 1873. A house that he built there is
still standing and forms portion of the
residence of Hon. ID. M. Van Auken.
When the French and Indian war broke
out the Quicl1s retained their peaceable
relations with the Indians for some time,
but one day, in the latter part of 1855,
while the elder Quick was fishing in the
Delaware river at the mouth of the now
famous Sawkill creek, he was killed and
scalped by some rowing members of a
warlike tribe. His dead and mutilated
body was found by his son Tom, who
took an oath that so long as he lived OF
an Indian remained in the Delaware
valley he would wage war of extermi-
nation against them.
There is not family in the Delaware
or it tributary valleys that has not its
favorite legend of some exploit of the
Indian slayer. Many of these are well
established, others are shadowy and i'm
probable. An aged resident of this
county, who lived in the family of Jacob
Quick, a nephew of Toms and often
heard him relate stories of his uncle's
prowess as told by himself entertained
q gathering of old residents of the coun-
ty few evenings since with reminis-
cences of the Indian slayer. He said
that, whatever of doubt might hang over
many OF Tom Quick's exploits, there
was no doubt that he succeeded in kill
ing the murderer, or one Of the murder
ers, of his father. This was just after
the French and Indian war. At the
white settlement on the Nevers!nk river,
where Port Jervis now stands, there was
q tavern which was the resort for back
woodsmen for miles around, and in
times of peace an occasional Indian
would come in for his supply of fire.
water. One day in the fall, about the
time above mentioned, an Indian came
into the tavern and got drunk. He was
known in the neighborhood, as he was
something of an outcast from his tribe,
owing to his dissolute habits, as Gingu-
law, and sometimes as Muskquink.
While he was at the tavern Tom Quick
came in, being on his way up the river
on one of bis bloody errands. The per-
SONS who were in the tavern knew, when
he appeared, that unless the Indian was
cunning enough to escape or could kill
Quick he would never return to his
tribe, but they were not prepared to see
Muskquink add to the hatred Quick al.
ready felt toward his race. The elder
Quick wore silver knee and shoe buckles,
and these had been stolen from him
when he was murdered. Muskquink
walked deliberately up to Tom Quick,
and, producing the missing buckles, held
them up and coolly declared that ne had
killed Quick's father, at the same time
mimicking his dying agony rs the scalp
was being torn from his head. In an in
slant Quick's gun was at his shoulder
and the muzzle against the Indians
breast. He ordered Muskquink to leave
the house. The Indians bravado was
gone and he backed stoically out of the
tavern. Quick walked him in that way
down the road toward the Delaware, and
the two disappeared In quarter of an
hour Quick returned. He drank glass
of rum, and in paying for it showed the
silver buckles the Indian had produced.
He did not speak word about the In
dian, and shortly took his departure.
Muskquink's dead body, with q bullet
hole through the breast, was found by
the roadside and given hurried burial
near by. Some years ago the remains
we're plowed up by a grandson of the
man who kept the tavern mentioned.
On one occasion Quick killed an entire
Indian family four miles above the pres
emit village of Port Jervis. It consisted
of an Indian, his squaw, boy about 5
years old, and cucking papoose. They