A history of Jonathan Alder
Subtitle: his captivity and life with the Indians
By: by Henry Clay Alder ; transcribed and with a foreword by Doyle H. Davison ; compiled, annotated, edited, and with an introduction by Larry L. Nelson.
Contributors: Davison, Doyle H.; Nelson, Larry L. 1950-
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: University of Akron Press
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Akron, OH
Language: eng
Number of pages: 222
Subjects: Alder, Jonathan, b. 1773; Indian captivities -- Ohio; Shawnee Indians -- Social life and customs; Mingo Indians -- Social life and customs; Frontier and pioneer life -- Ohio
Description: "On a brilliant spring morning in May 1782, nine-year-old Jonathan Alder and his older brother David set out to find a mare that had wandered from their isolated cabin in southwest Virginia and into the rugged mountains and dense forests of the surrounding countryside. Later in the day, the boys found their horse, but as they struggled to lead the reluctant animal home, they were attacked by a party of Indians from Ohio. David was killed and Jonathan taken prisoner.

His captors brought Alder back to Ohio, where he was adopted by a Mingo warrior and his Shawnee wife. Here he spent the next thirteen years. During that time, Alder lived fully as an Indian. He learned their language and observed their customs. He hunted, traded, and fought at their side. In 1795, after the death of his adoptive parents, Alder left the Indians and eventually settled in Pleasant Valley, near present-day Plain City in central Ohio.

At the urging of an acquaintance, he traveled to Virginia in 1805, where he had the extraordinary good fortune to find his mother and remaining siblings still living in the neighborhood where he had been captured as a youth. After his reunion, he married a woman from Virginia, returned to Pleasant Valley, and became something of a local celebrity as a result of his childhood adventures.

In the late 1830s or early 1840s, probably at the insistence of his family and friends, Alder composed his memoirs, in which he recounted his life with the Ohio Indians and his experiences as one of the area's earliest pioneers."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 207-215) and index.
"The version within these pages is the Doyle Davison transcript of the Henry Clay Alder manuscript held by the Ohio Historical Society ... "--Introd.