xt7tmp4vj70w https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7tmp4vj70w/data/mets.xml Pirtle, Alfred, 1837-1926. 1911  books b92f454k312009 English N/A : Frankfort, Ky. Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Chenoweth family (John Chenoweth, d. 1746). Frontier and pioneer life --Kentucky. Kentucky --History. Jefferson County (Ky.) --History. Chenoweth massacre, etc. Read before the Kentucky State Historical Society, October 3, 1911. text Chenoweth massacre, etc. Read before the Kentucky State Historical Society, October 3, 1911. 1911 2009 true xt7tmp4vj70w section xt7tmp4vj70w 
    
    
    
    
   Published by The Kentucky State Historical Society Frankfort, Ky. 
    
    
    
    
    
   Introduction

HIS historical account of the "Chenoweth Massacre," near Louisville, in 1789, was read by its author, Mr. Alfred Pirtle of Louisville, Ky., at the meeting of the State Historical Society on the third of October, 1911. It was listened to with profound attention by the large audience. A number of the Chenoweth descendants were present, and were gratified to hear an historical account of the terrible tragedy that to them had been a handed-down tradition.

It will add another interesting book to our series.

We combine with it the Petitions and Appeals of the Pioneers in Kentucky to the Honorable Continental Congress, 1780-1783.

These Petitions were to have been read at the meeting of the State Historical Society on the third of October, also, but were omitted on account of the limited time.

These valued memorials were obtained for the Kentucky Historical Society from the Mss. of Continental Congress, State Dept., Washington, D. C, by our valued contributor to the Register, A. C. Quisenberry, and are published for the first time, because of the value to Kentuckians of the list of names of the pioneers, from whom so many families in Kentucky are descended, and some of them are ignorant of the nationality of their ancestors,

 
   as many of them are of their sacrifices, their privations and their splendid courage to found a home and an inheritance for their descendants in the then wildernesses of Kentucky, surrounded by savages and wild beasts.

Mrs. Jennie C. Morton,

Editor The Register. 
   Chenoweth Family Massacre

BY

ALFRED PIRTLE

Louisville, Ky. 1909 
    
    
   spring house   scene op the chenoweth massacre on july 17, 1789. 
    
    
   The Chenoweth Massacre

z^l^HIS event was the end of the organized 1IL inroads of the Indians into Jefferson County, Kentucky, and made a decided sensation at that date, but records of it, at this length of time, since its happening, are not full nor easy to find.

The name Chenoweth is of uncertain origin, though known since 1700, in America, when John: Chenoweth came over from Wales. Family tradition has it that the name is a false pronunciation of the French word Chenevix, meaning originally, goose foot, a nickname given to one whose toes, two or more, grew united. There lives now one of the name, who says, as a matter of fact, the second and third toes of his father's feet were united at the base, that his are, and some of his descendants.

Be that the cause of the family name or not, the John Chenoweth, mentioned above, married in Maryland, a daughter of the third Lord Baltimore, by whom he had two sons and two daughters. Arthur Chenoweth, the eldest son, became the father of a large family, whom he reared in Maryland. Richard, the other son, born in 1718 or 1720, migrated about 1745 to Virginia, and not a great while after married Margaret (Peggy) McCarthy. While the Revolutionary war was in progress, glowing accounts reached the family of 
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the richness and beauty of the country beyond the mountains, becoming known as Kentucky, where lands could be had almost for the asking.

The growing family had wants that must be supplied and Chenoweth realized that his knowledge of his craft as a carpenter and builder would be in demand in that new country, where the structures would largely be of wood, right from the forest in which the settlements were being made.

Lt. Col. George Rogers Clark was in Virginia in the winter of 1777-8 urging on the governor his plans for the invasion of the British territory north of the Ohio river, contemplating a grand scheme of capture that would embrace Detroit, Kaskaskia and Vincennes. His plans were approved and men and money provided.

We do not know how it came about, but Richard Chenoweth. his wife, Margaret, and his children, Mildred, Jane, Thomas and James, embarked with other families, at Redstone, now Brownsville, on the Monongahela river, and! under the protection of Clark and his force ofj almost two hundred men, floated down to Fort Pitt: (now Pittsburgh) and thence on the Ohio river, until May 27, 1778, they landed on Corn Island, in the edge of the falls of the Ohio. With the assistance of the soldiers, a small enclosure was raised on the island to protect the families, those soldiers who were selected to remain, and the military stores, Col. Clark had decided to leave behind when he started on his way down the

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   The Chenoweth Massacre

Ohio, which he did June 24th.* The settlers immediately on their arrival had planted corn on the; island which gave it its name.

When Clark sent dispatches from Kaskaskia, felling of his capture of that position he included in the message an order for the soldiers and settlers, to begin at once, and as soon as possible erect a fort on the main land. Richard Chenoweth was the man selected to build the fort, which was located at a point on the highest bank of the river, near a spring, just where the Conrad Shoe Company's factory now is, on the south side of Rowan street, not far east of Twelfth street.

This fort, the first within the confines of Louisville, was about two hundred feet long by one hundred wide, having eight log cabins on the east and west sides, the length of the enclosure, and four cabins across the ends. Although it was not entirely finished, it was sufficiently so to have a house-warming and the first dance given in the new settlement December 25,1778.

In 1782 Clark, raised to Uhe rank of brigadier general, began a fort some distance up the raver bank from the first fort, and Richard Chenoweth is said to have been a contractor for work or materials in its construction, and the State of Virginia, not paying him, he failed financially.

"The fort here mentioned** was in 1782, succeeded by a larger one, built by the regular troops,

   This date has been given as June 24th, June 26th and July 4th. The writer takes it that it was June 24th, because the capture of Kaskaskia was early in July.

      It was on the bank of the river, near what is now the Northeast corner of Twelfth and Rowan Streets.

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   The Chenoweth Msuseacro

assisted by the militia from all the settled parts of the district. It was situated between the present Sixth and Eighth streets, on the northern side of Main street, immediately on the bank of the River. In honor of the third Republican governor of Virginia, the fort was called Fort Nelson. Seventh Street passed through the first gate opposite to the headquarters of General Clark. The principal militlary defence in this part of the country deserves a few more particulars. It contained about an acre of ground, and was surrounded by a ditch eight feet wide and ten feet wide, intersected in the middle by a row of sharp pickets; this ditch was surmounted by a breastwork of log pens or enclosures filled with the earth obtained from the ditch, with pickets ten feet high planted on the top of the breastwork. Next to the river, pickets alone were deemed sufficient aided by a high slope of the river bank. Some of the remains of these pickets were dug up in the summer of 1832, in excavating the cellar of Mr. John Love's stores on Main Street opposite to the Louisville Hotel. There was artillery in the fort, 1 particularly a double fortified brass piece, which was captured by Clark at Vincennes. This piece played no inconsiderable part in the military operations of this period, insignificant as it may appear to the eyes of a regular military critic." This description is taken from Butler's History of Kentucky, edition 1836, pp. 63-64.

Richard Chenoweth was more or less prominent in the early history of the Falls of the Ohio, afterwards called Louisville.  He was the Sheriff

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   The Chenoweth Massacre

of Kentucky County, Va., at tlhe time Clark headed the expedition from Kentucky, that assembled at the mouth of Licking River, marched into Ohio, and did such severe damlage flo the homes of this Indians that fall of 1782, that the savages never again invaded Kentucky with as large and well organized body of warriors, though they kept up the horrors of such warfare for about tlen years. The story goes that Clark seized a barrel of liquor, and took St away on his boat that formed part of thd expedition from Louisville. Thaitl liquor had not been paid for, when Clark returned, and the citizen who owned the liquor, got out some kind of a paper for the sheriff to serve on General Olark, but the sheriff was too wily to try to take the general before the court, and directed one of his deputies to serve the paper. General Clark said he took the liquor in the public service, for fie use of men defending the home of the owner, and he was ready to go to court if the deputy could take him, amid he had bettter not try it.

The deputy was convinced that he could not take the General, under the drcumptances. This incident is mentioned to show that Richard Chenoweth was well known then. Not long after the rettirn of Clark's expedition, Chenoweth, about 1785, became a part owner of a fine tract of land on one of the tributaries of Floyd's Fork, not far from Col. Floyd's station or fort. Jefferson County at that time had quite a number of small forts or stations, as some of them were called. They were none of them forts in the usual sense of the term, because the most

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   The Chenoweth Massacre

part of them was usually wood, cut by the woodman from the trees felled for the purpose, amd made into rude cabins or stockades, which were logs split, sharpened at the upper end, tall enough to keep a foe from climbing over unless assisted by a ladder, and put so close together that tihe edges met, and the wood was heavy enough to stop the rifle balls then in service. Such fences were of no avail against cannon, but it was a fortunate thing for tihe early settlers that artillery did not accompany but one incursion of the savages into Kentucky in the long years that such warfare was so cruelly waged.

Qhenowetfh's lands were on a rolling country bordering a small stream, not more than two miles, or three, perhaps, east of Middletown, and some mjiles northwest froun Floyd's Station.

He built a substantial and for that time a good sized log cabin, erected a stone spring house over the spring nearest the house, making it a kind of fortress in case of attack by the Indians, and putting in rafters, made a loft to it, and entered from below by a ladder, or by a window from the outside, if one could scale the wall. He cleared considerable land, and was raising crops the summer of 1787. A great-grandson now living, Dr. W. J. Chenoweth, of Decatur, 111., says:

"The family had now been living at their cabin long enough to plant corn, sow wheat and rye and build fences, and feel secure from Indians."

A daughter Naomi was born after they settlled in Louisville, but the date is not obtainable, and she was at least about six years old.

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   The Chenoweth Massacre

Dr. Chenoweth says: "One morning in June, 1787, after a shower of rain in the night, they (the family) discovered that their horses were not in the barn. Seeing plain tracks along the road, they followed them about a mile when they discovered the animlals grazing at the junction of the corn field and a field of rye, and wiiile leisurely approaching them were suddenly shot at from a sink hole not many feet distant. James Chenoweth, grandfather of Dr. Chenoweth, then ton years old,* accompanied his father and uncle in their hunt for the horses and seeing the Indians as they arose from their hiding places, struck out for home, the Indians following, evidently intending to capture Mmi. But finding he ran too fast for capture, shot at him with bow and arrow, the arrow carrying an iron head. Pulling the arrow from his hip while rivalling, he Imet his mother (who had heard the report of the guns) with two guns in her arm|s speeding to meet her husband. Jim, as he was called, cried out to her: "They killed Dad and Grid, but they didn't catch me." He had made what he claimed in telling the story, "a stlraight shirt tail"   his only clothing was a tow linen shirt.

When James pulled the arrow from his wound after being shot, as before stated, he did not realize that part of the head remained in the wound, which for a long time pained him so severely that he was convinced that something

   Born in Berkley County, Va., May 17, 1777.

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   The Chenoweth Massacre

had been left in his hip, and Dr. Knight from Louisville was called in to remove whatever (might be the object.

The following account given by him to a grandson, shows how dreadfully our ancestors suffered when a surgical operation was performed.

"The doctor placed him on a chair, with his face to the back of it, and without giving an opiate or making any attempt to alleviate the pain, cut down to the object and removed an iron arrow head which had penetrated to the bone, and turning, was coursing its way out. The wound healed rapidly and he soon became stronger than he had ever been."

He was mistaken; his father and uncle had evaded the Indians by hiding in the rye field. His mother had heard the shots, and divining the cause, had hurried out to give aid.

Thomas Chenoweth, the boy older thaai James, (some time before the adventure of James with the Indians), was riding one day homeward from the mill with the meal made from the corn he had taken to be ground, mounted on a gentle horse to which he was so mfuch accustomed that he was lying back on the bag of meal with his legs stretched out towards the horse's head. Though barefooted, he had fastened a pair of spurs to his ankles, which were hanging on each side of the neck of the animal, which stumbled, throwing Thomas forward onto the horse's neck. Instinctively Thomas clasped his legs around the neck, causing the spurs to gouge the horse,

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   The Chenoweth Massacre

which sprang forward, depositing the boy on the ground. Rising to pursue the horse, Thomas found several Indians around hirn, who mjade him their prisoner, and took him to the home of their tribe in Ohio, where he remained for years until exchanged for an Indian chief, who had been held in captivity by the Avhites some time. Thomas therefore, could not have been at home when the Indians made their foray upon it. He had become so much of an Indian in manner and habits that it required years of residence among the whites to remove the most of the traces of his life among the savages.

It is far from easy to extract from the various accounts preserved and tjold, the story of what happened to his family two years after the attack stated above.

Let us see if we can imagine the famjily at supper on July 17, 1789.

Richard Chenoweth and Peggy, his wife, Mildred, James, Jane, and Naomi, and a man named Bayless, who with John Rose, a 'well known man in the neighborhood, were either guards or working anen. There were, besides, several slaves on the place, for the hard work of farming was largely done by the negroes who immigrated with their masters' families from Virginia. You must never lose sight of tfhe fact that all the face of the country was covered by great trees that had to be removed with hard labor, before buildings could be built', roads opened or fields made ready for farming. We of the present day cannot estimate the arduous, never end-

is 
   The Chenoweth Massacre

ing, continuous struggle waged by our ancestors to give us the land we live in, under the skies of Old Kentucky. The negroes are not mentioned in the accounts of the attack and resulting disaster to them save most casually, as if they were units only in the general result.

While the family were at supper on the evening of July 17, 1789, lingering over the table, they were surprised by a party of sixteen Shawnee Indians, suddenly opening the door and rushing in. As the door swung back, Mr. Rose jumped behind it, and in the dreadful confusion he slipped out undiscovered and escaped. The children, except Naomi, who was in bed, and the rest of the party, struggled out of the house at various points. Richard Chenoweth and Millie were wounded, the girl in the arm, but they made their way to the spring house, or into the woods. What became of Jane, does not seem to have been recorded. James was asleep in a chair near the door, leaning against the wall, but he was thrown to the floor, and he fled, but not before the Indians had given him a terrible blow with a tomahawk, making a wound from the hair almost down to his cheek. Dr. Chenoweth ha|s printed a brief statement of the tradition given him by his grandfather, James (the boy). "He first hid in a log-heap of fire wood, and an Indian dog walked over the woodpile evidently scenting him, but finally left without finding him. After the Indians had left the cabin he got from his hiding; place and started for the block house at Middletown, but lost his way, and crouched between the rootls of a| 'large  beech tree.   He had

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   The Chenoweth Massacre

'been there but a few minutes until his dog came up and licked his hands and face. Putting hia hand to his face to ward off the dog he discovered his face was so covered with blood, that he was certain he had been cut with a scalping knife; putting his hand to his head, expecting to come in contact with the raw surface of his skull, he was greatly relieved to find his scalp had not been tlaken. When daylight enabled him to find the road, he started for the fort. He had gone but a short distance when he met an armed company, going to look for the dead at the scene of the massacre. ''

Mrs. Chenoweth (Peggy) had been shot with an arrow as she fled and fell some distance from the house in the direction of the spring house.

It becomes necessary now to bring in here an account of the awful torture of this remarkable woman, which the writer of this sketch found in an imfinished manuscript now in the hands of Col. E. T. Durrett, written by the late Gov. Charles Anderson who lived at and founded the town of Kuttawa, Ky., and was for years a member of the Filson Club.   (See Appendix.)

He intended to write the life of his father, Richard Clough Anderson, of Virginia, whose family have been so illustriously connected with the history of Kentucky and Ohio, but it seems Gov. Anderson, either did not complete the work, or the manuscript has been partly lost.

In 1789, Richard Clough Anderson lived in a fine double log cabin, at a place he named "Soldier's Retreat" about two miles west of Middle-

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   The Chenoweth Massacre

town, which would make it nearly five miles from Chenoweth's station, as that spot was northeast of Middletown about three miles.

Gov. Anderson tells the story in the style peculiar to his pen, in such an interesting manner, that it is all introduced here. The letter he speaks of is one to some member of the family back in Virginia.

From an unfinished manuscript left by the late Ex-Governor Charles Anderson, of Kuttawa, Ky.:

"This letter contains another perhaps valuable historic point   the massacre at Chenoweth's Station (some two miles northeast of Middle-town on "the divide" between Beargrass and Floyd's Fork.) By this letter we discover that its date was just before August 22, 1789.* My father led the company to attack the savages if accessible and to rescue and to save, if possible, the captives or wounded.

"The Battle of Blue Licks (Aug. 18, 1782) closed the epoch of great warfare between the Indians a|nd the pioneer settlers in Kentucky. Occasional forays by small volunteer parties of Indians still for a few years continued to alarm, plunder and often to massacre our people. Such a party in the summer of 1789 had penetrated the Pond settlement and with Little Mischief had re-crossed the Ohio River above Salt River. An other like savage foray was made in the Pond settlement. They were pursued into Indiana Territory by  Col.   Wm.   Christian (the beloved

   The official report to the Government makes it July 17, 1789.

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   The Chenoweth Massacre

brother-in-law of Patrick Henry) with Alexander Scott Bullitt and otfher friends. In this unfortunate expedition the gallant, generous and pure-minded philanthropist and hero, Col. Christian, was slain. Col. (Major?) Hardin marched with a small body of volunteers to punish that party and they killed two Indians and returned in safety. The former event was a tragic and grievous one to our nearest neighbors and best friends, the mourning Christian and Bullitt families. But this expedition to i. e. Chenoweth Station came still closer to Col. Anderson's family. William Clark then sixteen (?) years old, was an appren tice in the surveyor's business in his office. "Little Billy" as his sister calls him in her contemporary letter, volunteered and was permitted by his governors to march in this hazardous affair. But a better fortune than the Christian expedition ensued, and so it turned out that Master Billy's very red scalp was saved to invite the admiration of the Indians long afterward from the mouth of the Missouri River to that of the Columbia. The hero of the Lewis and Clark expedition has told the writer that his red hair was often fingered and felt by warrior hands to discover if its wonderful color was painted or real, and their mouths seemed almost watered at ihe thought of lifting such a scalp-trophy as that. Of all their many and grand surprises of this pioneers' expedition of civilization, its cannon, etc., nothing so amazed and delighted all these nations clear to the mighty Oregon, "which hears no sound save his own dashing." excepting alone Captain Clark's black

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slave (York), as did these gloriously red scalp locks. They often imitated its brilliancy by vermilion paints on the horse hairs of their, calumets but, thank God, the genuine article was permitted by a special Providence to be worn on the honored head of this most genial and kindliest of uncles to his honored tomb at St. Louis on Sept 1, 1838.

And tihis brings us to the Chenoweth Massacre of our letter. It must have occurred, as before noted, in July or August, 1789, and wais probably the very last of these tragic disasters in Kentucky. I give as much of the tradition as I can recall. My father was then living in a double log house at Soldier's Retreat. A little before midnight his vigilant wdfe heard moccasins approaching the door and awakened her husband with the alarm of "Indians!" He took his rifle from its rack at the head of the bed and demanded "Who's there." The instant reply was (as I remember it) "John Rose." The inquirer knew the voice, but being a little doubtful whether Rose as a pioneer of an Indian party might not be overawed by his captors in order to save his own life, to gain free admittance for them, started to cross question his neighbor, when Rose cut short all doubts and fears by vehemently exclaiming "For God's sake, Colonel, let me in. I am just from Chenoweth's Station where the Indians have massacred every living soul." There was a traveller from Virginia, one William Elliott, asleep upstairs. He was instantly awakened and his horse ordered, and he was sent to some more distant station down the Creek   Floyd's or Sturges, perhaps   and Rose

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   The Chenoweth Massacre

was sent afoot to Lynn's station at the Rig Spring, some half a mile away across the Va  lley. The comity records claim the name of Lynn's Station for my father's purchase of the 900 acres from Col. Peyton Short. Nevertheless the then actual station was at the site afterwards and so long owned and occupied by his brother-in-law. Ensign Robert Tompkins and his charming family. In a few hours the little party of rescuers or avengers were on their march for the expected dreadful scene of carnage, and being only some four miles distant they reached it about the morning dawn. As they were approaching the clearing they discovered a little fugitive boy of some six years old trying to hide or escape from them. My father recognized little Jimmy even through the matted blood on his hair and face. He had a horrid gash from a tomahawk which extended from the roots of his hair, through his forehead and down perhaps across his cheek. He calmed the child's fears, who was only afraid, he told them, that supposing him for an Indian boy from his red face the white soldiers would kill him. My father took him on the pommel of his saddle and rode on to the station. There was a scene of more silent desolation. The cows and calves, dogs and hogs, were apparently slaughtered. The house had been set on fire but the flames had died out. I have no recollection (strange to say) of the corpses, if any, seen there. I must refer to the histories, if any, to settle their numbers, but my recollection, contrary to the statement in such matters later, was that the man killed or captured was a travel-

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ing soldier who had reached the station only thai day and not a hired hand, but he may have been both soldier and a hired hand. And the other story was only colored into a proper romance by the free fancies of us traditioners   white or black. In the house they siaw a little girl, some three or four years old, sitting on a mattress on the floor in a corner of the room, with her pussy in her lap. Our tradition in order to make the tragedy as perfect and charming as possible almost always had it a tomiahawked kitten. Some of the repeaters of this "o'ertrue tale" kept pussy alive for better ending, but this little girl certainly did speak and say, "we are all dead here, Colonel, but me." Our worthy traditioners always add "and my pussy," and this is how she escaped the universal fate, as she and Eose then believed. An Indian seeing the mattress on the floor but seeing no one on it lifted it by the neair edge, ripped it open with his scalping knife and threw it back, with its loosened enfranchised feathers upon the floor. This awakened poor little Jimmy (if that was his name); one vigorous slash of the tomahawk into his thin little skull sufficed to finish him as the warrior supposed, and his little scalp was too little to bnag or d|alnce over. But as we have seen and shall soon see, little Jimmy was by no means finished by that blow. As for little Naomi his bed-fellow, she blissfully and therefore safely slept through it all and so was saved with or without her pussy, as the case may be, or other-wise, as the reader may prefer the different memories of these two factions in the respective ver- 
   The Chenoweth Massacre

sions, and each reader may select for liim or herself. As for this historian, he spoils Naomi's speech in complete justice to those Indian heroes. He could not in his; childhood believe that they would leave any creature alive upon which they had their eyes, and, besides, is it not a most pathetic picture that of Naomi's constancy in loving and petting her dead "pussy?" But let the readers '' take their choice.''

After some searching they found poor Mrs. Chenoweth lying more dead than alive in the upper story of a little spring house. She had been shot as she ran, with an arrow between her shoulder-blades and stumbling, fell. The Indian, probably supposing her killed, drew out his arrow and at once placing his fo'ot upon her, began his triumphant work of the scalping, and as her full head of jet-black hair composed a grand trophy, he cut from her that entire, crown of woman's glory and as she told my father, that savage surgery was executed by the very dullest and jagged-est knife she had ever felt. Doubtless she was imiade to regret that the benevolent British Indian traders had not supplied the Indians with whetstones along with their scalping knives of better metal. At last, however, this "Love's shining circle" was finished throughout its ruby line just above her ears, and thereupon, taking his bloody blade between his teeth, he leaned his entire weight upon the foot upon the arrow-wound in her back and by mlain force of both hands intertwined in her "gory locks" he tore off and stripped away the entire scalp from her naked skull.

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   The Chenoweth Massacre

He then struck it twice with the butt of his tomia-hawk, and all this time of her flight, wounding, fall and scalping, this woman was more than perfectly   she was vividly conscious of its every moment and she feared and suffered throughout all without a shriek or murmur to suggest to her foe that she was living. You may cant in your speeches or poetise in your writing, to the fullest extent of your enthusiasm or affectations of it, ye gushing orators and poets, but where amongst your male heroes "from the Macedonian to the Swede" can you parallel the heroism of this backwoods woman? It was a rare instance, indeed, in all history! But it must not be forgotten that these pioneer forests shadowed perhaps many women of that type   her like though perhaps not her equal.

My father, who is said to have occupied some of his "too much time" as a pioneer in studying medicine and surgery, dressed Mrs. Chenoweth's and litlle Jimmy's wounds and speedily set forth with his little band in pursuit of the Indians. But they were too wTell aware of their extreme danger in so late aind distant an expedition to delay much "in the order of their going." Indeed, they rather fled than marched in their shortest time to their own part of the wilderness, beyond the Ohio. They were easily pursued to the crossing of Floyd's Fork due north, where the footprints confirmed their other signs thalti their numbers were at. least equal to those of their pursuers, and as the opposite hills and thickets would give them the infinite advantage  of a safe  ambuscade should

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they desperately elect to delay for battle, the Colonel   (painfully remembering  doubtless not only the ambushment and destruction of his friend Floyd's party in that  immediate neighborhood, but the still more recent and terrible massacre at Blue Licks) decided with unanimous votes of his followers (for such was then the usage of military discipline in pioneer   warfare) that discretion "was here" the better part of valor. Wherefore, and (let us hope) being also urged by the promptings of his ardent pity for the suffering woman and boy behind him, decided on not a retreat but a return.  These sufferers were accordingly conveyed to "Soldier's Retreat" where under the surgical supervisions and prescriptions of the host and loving nursing of his young wife, they were soon restored to their pristine health and spirits. But the woman was, and but for the early use of caps would have remained,   a startling if not funny spectacle. Our Bible avers that the woman is the glory of ma|n, and if a woman have long hair "it is a glory to her."  "It is a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven." But here had these Godless, impious savages shorn for her lifetime this, her  crown  of  glory,  as  sleek  as  a peeled onion.   The grotesque oddity of her appearance was said to halve been beyond any picturing by words.  The first excitement and alarim from this bold and lately expected foray was both great and wide-spread.   Partly from the extreme haste of these dusky warriors and in part, perhaps, from a sort of timed prudential policy, comparatively little harm was really done, but Rose's extrava-

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gant panic was not! singular. Our childhood's tradition assured us (and what child at all doubts his own precious traditions?) that Milly Chenoweth was at the cow-pen (always pronounced "cuppen") with a beau as a guard, engaged in milking, when they heard the horrid onset at the house. Whereupon both fled in wildest terror to Soldier's Retreat, where still bereft of their senses, they hid themselves in our spring house. Doubtless, this tradition, whether of black or white origin, with the customary and native aversion of traditions to the truth, was a great exaggeration if not a lie cut out of the whole cloth. But the coining of it