Ohio History Journal

MITCHENER'S "LEGEND OF THE WHITE

WOMAN, AND NEWCOMERSTOWN"

 

 

BY GEORGE F. SMYTHE

 

Mr. C. W. Butterfield, in his "History of Ohio,"

says,¹ "Mark Kuntz, upon the Tuscarawas, with an In-

dian wife, and Mary Harris, upon the Walhonding,

with an Indian husband, were, it may be proper here

to mention, the first white settlers of Ohio, so far as

any authentic records disclose." My interest, at pres-

ent, is concerned with this Mary Harris.

There may, indeed, have been white women in Ohio

before Mary Harris; but I believe that Mr. Butterfield

is correct when he says that she was the first white

woman settler in our state, so far as authentic records

show. Mr. A. T. Goodman, in his "First White Chil-

dren Born on Ohio Soil," says:2 "Up to the period of

the American revolution, thousands of French and Eng-

lish traders had passed through the Ohio country.

* * * For the most part the traders were married

to squaws, and had children by them. In rare cases,

white women accompanied their husbands on trading

excursions, which generally lasted for months." But,

to accompany one's husband on a long trading expedi-

tion in Ohio is not to be a settler of Ohio; and in any

case, the only two instances which Mr. Goodman says

he ever heard of "where traders had white wives living

with them in Indian villages," were dated, one in 1768,

and the other in 1770; while Mary Harris was a resi-

(283)

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284      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

dent here in 1750, and probably several years earlier.

We are, therefore, I think, safe in saying with Mr. But-

terfield that Mary Harris was the first white woman

settled in Ohio of whom we have trustworthy infor-

mation.

Now, since this Mary Harris, according to what

scanty authentic accounts we have of her, was a repu-

table and kindly woman, it might be supposed that the

State of Ohio would treat her memory with respect,

and that especially Coshocton County, in which she

lived, would take some pride in her. Certainly she has

been remembered, but, strange to say, only to be tra-

duced by false and unhistorical stories, which repre-

sent her as a ferociously savage creature. These stories

have been widely spread, have found a place in authori-

tative books on Ohio history, are told in all the histories

of Coshocton County, and, so far as I know, have never

been contradicted. I purpose now to show how utterly

false they are to all related historical facts that are

known; and I do this in order to vindicate the character

of a good and unfortunate woman, who, by a most

strange succession of events, came to be the first woman,

who, by a most strange succession of events, came to

be the first settler of her race and sex in Ohio.

The plan of this paper is as follows: I will first

tell the authentic story of Mary Harris, so far as it is

known; then I will give the substance of the "Legend

of the White Woman," which contains the slanderous

charges; and I will then show that, in every instance

where we are able to check up the statements of this

"legend" by reference to history, they are absurdly un-

true.

• 2
 

Mitchener's "Legend of the White Woman," Etc. 285

 

I. THE TRUE STORY OF MARY HARRIS

The main facts of the so-called "Deerfield Massa-

cre" are well known. On February 29th, in the year

1704, a party of Frenchmen and Indians, who had come

from Canada unobserved, surprised the frontier vil-

lage of Deerfield, in Massachusetts, murdered many of

the inhabitants, and carried away more than one hun-

dred into captivity in Canada. The deed was planned

and supervised by Frenchmen, and upon them the blame

must lie, far more than upon the Indians. Most of these

Indians were of the tribe that was known as Caughna-

wagas. They were Iroquois, principally Mohawks, who

had been converted to Christianity by the heroic labors

of the Jesuit missionaries in Central New York. In

order to secure them against the danger of contamina-

tion by their fellow-tribesmen who remained heathen,

and also in order to attach them firmly to the French

interest, these converts and their families were taken

to Canada, and were there settled in a colony which

moved from one place to another until it found a per-

manent home at Caughnawaga, about ten miles above

Montreal, where its descendants still reside.  These

Caughnawagas, therefore, were in contact with civiliza-

tion--such as it was--and acquired some of its ways.

They were by no means "wild Indians." They were

professors of the Christian religion. The priests and

sisters of the Roman Catholic Church who lived among

them were very zealous and faithful in teaching them

what they ought to believe and do. They were bap-

tized, attended mass, were married and buried accord-

ing to the rites of their Church, and undoubtedly ac-

quired many a good lesson that had a beneficial effect

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286     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

upon their thoughts and conduct.  They were often

called by the name of "Praying Indians"; and this

shows that their religion had some observable influence

upon their lives. When we think of the cruelties they

perpetrated at Deerfield, we may ask, "How is it pos-

sible to call such savages Christians ?" But the French-

men who planned the cruelties, and stood by and saw

them executed, were undoubtedly Christians, according

to the standards of their times; and the standards of

our own times have permitted Christian men to perpe-

trate far greater cruelties in war.

Among the captives carried away from Deerfield

into Canada was a little girl of about nine years, named

Mary Harris. She and her age were put down in the

list of captives that was drawn up several years later

at Deerfield, and she was there marked as "still ab-

sent."3  Nothing whatever is known about this child

before her captivity. There were no other Harrises

living at Deerfield. She may have been a waif whom

some family was bringing up. A good many of the

captives were redeemed and brought home; but there

is no evidence that anybody sought to redeem Mary.

If she was, as she appears to have been, a poor, friend-

less child, her home in Canada must have seemed to

her much pleasanter than her earlier home. The In-

dians were very kind to children, and hedged them

about with no such irksome restrictions as did the people

of Deerfield. The Catholic sisters also were kind, and

were assiduous in their training of the children com-

mitted to them.⁴ We know that some of the Deerfield

children whose relatives sought to redeem them refused

to go home, much preferring their new Canadian

friends, and finding the Roman Catholic religion more

• 4
 

Mitchener's "Legend of the White Woman," Etc. 287

attractive than the Protestantism in which they had

formerly been instructed.⁵ There is every reason to

believe that Mary Harris became a good Catholic, and

from what we know of her in her maturer years there

is nothing to lead us to doubt that she continued to be

such to the end of her life.

In 1744 a certain Joseph Kellogg, writing to Gov-

ernor Shirley, of Massachusetts, speaks of having met

two sons of Mary Harris, one of whom, he says, was

about thirty years old.⁶ This Kellogg was well ac-

quainted with Mary, for he also had been one of the

children who were carried away captive from Deerfield,

and afterwards he was often back and forth between

Massachusetts and Canada. In the year mentioned ne-

gotiations were going on between the Massachusetts

government and the Caughnawaga Indians, to induce

the latter to maintain peace with the English in the war

that was then on the point of breaking out between Eng-

land and France.⁷ A chief sagamore of the Caughna-

wagas had come to Boston, with a belt of wampum from

his tribe, assuring their friendship; but there was reason

to doubt his authority, and Kellogg was employed by

Governor Shirley as an agent, to endeavor to make the

alliance sure. He says that he endeavored "to critically

examine them about affairs in Canada." This leaves

no reason to doubt that these sons of Mary Harris were

of the Caughnawaga tribe, and that their father was an

Indian. In 1744 Mary Harris was forty-nine or fifty

years old: she had, therefore, married when she was

about eighteen years of age, or earlier. Kellogg said

of the older son that he was a very "intelligible" man

-- meaning intelligent, I suppose. Here, for the pres-

ent, the Canadian history of Mary Harris ends.

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288     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

In 1750 and 1751 the celebrated Christopher Gist

made his expedition across what is now the state of

Ohio and wrote an account of what he saw. He and his

companions spent about a month at what he calls "Mus-

kingum, a town of the Wyandotts,"8 situated at "the

forks of the Muskingum," where the Tuscarawas and

Walhonding flow together. Thence, on Tuesday, the

15th day of January, 1751, they started westward. This

is his account of the day's experience, taken from his

"Journal."⁹ "We left Muskingum, and went W 5 M,

to the White Woman's Creek, on which is a small

Town; this White Woman was taken away from New

England, when she was not above ten Years old, by

the French Indians; She is now upwards of fifty, and

has an Indian Husband and several Children--Her

name is Mary Harris, she still remembers they used to

be very religious in New England, and wonders how

the White Men can be so wicked as she has seen them

in these Woods." That is all that Gist says about this

woman. The next day he and his party continued on

their journey.

This Mary Harris whom Gist found on the Wal-

honding River, near where the Killbuck flows into it,

was the Mary Harris of Deerfield and Caughnawaga.

In every respect the two tally. Both, when not above

ten years old, were carried away from New England by

the French Indians; both were upwards of fifty in 1751;

each had an Indian husband and several children. Other

facts also, as we shall see, fit perfectly together. It is

evident that the two were one and the same person.

We know from the narrative of James Smith¹⁰ that

there were Caughnawagas living on the Walhonding. He

was adopted into their tribe, and learned their language.

• 6
 

Mitchener's "Legend of the White Woman," Etc. 289

The particular reasons that brought them to Ohio need

not be discussed here, since they in no way affect the

matter with which this present paper is concerned.11 It

is impossible to say when Mary Harris and her Indian

associates came from Canada to the place where Gist

saw them. My own opinion, based upon reasons re-

ferred to in Note 11, is that they had not been there

more than a year or two at the most. We know that

Mary was back in Caughnawaga in 1756; and it is pos-

sible that she was there considerably earlier. That was

in the midst of the "French and Indian War." A cer-

tain Robert Eastman, a soldier in the British army, had

been captured by the French at Oswego, and carried as

a prisoner to Canada. He afterwards said, "When at

Caughnawaga I lodged with the French captain's

mother, (an English woman named Mary Harris, taken

captive when a child from Deerfield in New England)

who told me she was my grandmother and was kind."12

At that time she was over sixty years old. Her son --

half Indian, half English--had risen to the rank of

captain in the French army. She was kind to the pris-

oner, and in a half-jocose way, according to the Indian

fashion of speech, called herself his grandmother, and

acted as such towards him.

What I have now told is, I believe, the true history

of Mary Harris, so far as it is known. Whatever has

hitherto purported to tell something about her in addi-

tion to this, is without doubt a product solely of the

imagination, and for the most part is manifestly false.

What sort of woman, then, does our scanty informa-

tion show her to have been? She was religiously

brought up, first at Deerfield, then at Caughnawaga.

Vol. XXXIII--19.

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290     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

Except when she was in Ohio, she lived in, or close be-

side, a civilized community. She was early married, and

had children, one of whom, at least, attained the honor-

able position of a captain in the French army. She was

shocked by the wickedness of the white men who visited

the woods of Ohio. To an English prisoner she mani-

fested a kind and affectionate disposition. That is to

say, according to all that we know of her, she was a

respectable and kindly woman, one whom Ohio need

not be ashamed to recognize and treat with respect as

its first white female resident.

 

II. THE FALSE STORY OF MARY HARRIS

Most Ohio readers who have ever heard of Mary

Harris know her only as she is represented in the

"Legend of the White Woman," in some of its forms.

In several books that purport to give the history of the

state, or some part of its history, and in each of the

three histories of Coshocton County, this legend, which

grossly maligns Mary Harris, is told. No evidence of

its truth is anywhere offered, but the reader is expected

to accept it without proof; and that expectation has

been largely justified.  I have sought diligently to dis-

cover where this legend originated. I have found it in

no book that bears a date earlier than 1876--one hun-

dred and twenty years after Mary Harris left Ohio.

In that year Charles H. Mitchener, of New Philadel-

phia, Ohio, published his well-known Historic Events

in the Tuscarawas and Muskingum Valleys, and in

Other Portions of the State of Ohio. In this book the

legend is found at full length. Mr. Mitchener was a

lawyer and an editor. He was extensively read in the

early history of Ohio, and he conceived the excellent

• 8
 

Mitchener's "Legend of the White Woman," Etc.  291

idea of making his information generally available by

composing a book in which he would present whatever

he had found most valuable or interesting. In part he

quoted directly from such writers as Heckewelder, Zeis-

berger, James Smith, and Colonel Bouquet, and in part

he presented abstracts of his reading, with more or less

in the way of personal comment and explanation. When

he quoted directly he used quotation marks. I have

been told by one who knew him well that during the

early Seventies, while he was gathering material for

this book, his legal business took him very often to

Washington; and that it was from some library there

that he obtained many, if not most, of the books from

which he drew his quotations. One would suppose that

this must have been the Library of Congress.

In his book Mitchener gives what he calls the

"Legend of the White Woman, and New Comerstown."

It will be observed that he calls it a "legend." This is

a term which he often employs, but not always, if ever,

to designate matter which he regards as unhistorical.

Thus, on page 123 he gives the "Legend of Abraham

Thomas," and one page 126 the "Legend of Cornstalk

at Gnadenhutten," which have the appearance of being

historical narratives. When, therefore, he calls a story

a legend he does not thereby imply that it is not his-

torical. The "Legend of the White Woman, and New

Comerstown" is entirely enclosed within quotation

marks, but there is not a word to indicate from what

source it is quoted.¹³ The date of its composition in

its present form may be roughly approximated by the

aid of a statement on page 107: "The advent of 'The

New Comer,' as Mary called her, into that home, made

it, as Pomeroy used to say, 'red hot' for Eagle Feather."

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292     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

This Pomeroy is doubtless "Brick Pomeroy," who, in

the late Sixties and early Seventies, published a news-

paper which he called Brick Pomeroy's Democrat, a

journal of sensational character which gained an ex-

tensive circulation. Mr. Pomeroy's literary style was

marked by the use of words of the "red hot" variety.

To the Chief Bibliographer of the Library of Congress

I am indebted for this quotation from Horace Greeley,

in the New York Tribune (1868): "Mr. Pomeroy in-

forms us that his paper will be red hot."¹⁴ It is evi-

dent, then, that the legend, at least in the form in which

Mitchener quoted it, was of recent origin. Its style is

in emulation of that of Brick Pomeroy.

The following is an outline of this legend. Mary

Harris, "the White Woman," after whom the White

Woman's creek was named, lived with an Indian hus-

band, Eagle Feather, near the junction of the Killbuck

and Walhonding rivers. She had become thoroughly

an Indian in all her manners and feelings. "She was

especially careful to polish with soap-stone his 'little

hatchet,' always, however, admonishing him not to re-

turn without some good long-haired scalps for the wig-

wam parlor ornaments and chignons, such as were worn

by the first class Indian ladies along the Killbuck."

When her husband "was about to assist at the burning

of some poor captive," says this legend, "she was a

true squaw to him, and loved him much." "One day

Eagle Feather came home from beyond the Ohio with

another white woman whom he had captured, and who

he intended should enjoy the felicities of Indian life on

the Killbuck with Mary in her wigwam." Mary would

not have this rival in her wigwam; so Eagle Feather,

after threatening Mary's life, "took the new captive by

• 10
 

Mitchener's "Legend of the White Woman," Etc. 293

the hand, and they departed to the forest to await the

operation of his remarks on Mary's mind." At night

they returned to the wigwam, and in the morning Eagle

Feather "was found with his head split open, and the

tomahawk remaining in the skull-crack, while the 'new-

comer' had fled. Mary simulating, or being in ignor-

ance of the murder, at once aroused 'The White Wom-

an's Town' with her screams." The woman was pur-

sued, brought back, and put to death as a murderer.

Each woman had accused the other of the murder, and

the story leaves it in doubt as to which really was the

guilty one; but, "be that as it may, Eagle Feather was

sent to the spirit-land for introducing polygamy among

white ladies in the valley."

 

III. AN EXAMINATION OF THE LEGEND

The "Legend of the White Woman" is a bloody

story, vulgarly told.  It presents Mary Harris as a

coarse, cruel, blood-thirsty woman. I have given it in

outline; now I purpose to test its reliability by compar-

ing it with the known facts of history. I shall show

that the writer knew as little of history as he did of

the true Mary Harris: The one authentic source to

which he refers is Christopher Gist's "Journal"; and

he neither understood Gist, nor was able to quote him

with even moderate accuracy.

The writer says that "Mary Harris, a white

woman," had been "captured in one of the colonies, by

the Indians, between 1730 and 1740, and was then a girl

verging into womanhood." We have seen that she was

captured in 1704; and she was about thirty-five years

old in 1730, and about forty-five in 1740. "Her

beauty," says the writer, "captivated a chief, who made

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294     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

her his wife in the Indian fashion of the day." But

she was undoubtedly married in Canada, after the Ro-

man Catholic "fashion," by a priest of that Church.

Other girls among the Deerfield captives were so mar-

ried,¹⁵ and there is every reason to suppose that the same

was true with Mary.

The writer continues:  "The Indian tribes were

being crowded back from the eastern colonies, and the

tribe of Custaloga had retired from place to place be-

fore the white frontier men, until about 1740 it found

a new hunting ground in this valley where the white

woman became one of its inhabitants with her warrior."

Now, in fact, the tribe of Custaloga were Delawares,

whereas Mary Harris' people were Caughnawagas, Iro-

quois. Again, Custaloga does not appear upon this

stage until many years after the date of this narrative.

He figures in the negotiations with Colonel Bouquet, in

1764.

Now the writer comes to Christopher Gist, from

whom he might have learned some truth; but he seems

to have known Gist's "Journal" only from hearsay; or,

if he had ever read it, he had largely forgotten what

he had read. However, lack of information could not

daunt him when it came to making statements, and for-

getfulness only gave the larger play to imagination.

Thus he goes on: "In 1750, when Christopher Gist was

on his travels down the valley, hunting out the best

lands for George Washington's Virginia Land Com-

pany, he stopped some time at White Woman's Town

and enjoyed its Indian festivities with Mary Harris,

who told him her story; how she liked savage warriors;

how she preferred Indian to white life." If the reader

will compare these statements with Gist's account, given

• 12
 

Mitchener's "Legend of the White Woman," Etc. 295

in full above, he will see that Gist stopped in White

Woman's Town but one day, that he says not a word

about "Indian festivities," and nothing about Mary's

preference for savage warriors and savage life. All

that is made up by the writer. I may add that Gist did

not come to Ohio in the service of a "Virginia Land

Company," but of "the Ohio Company of Virginia,"

and that George Washington had no connection with

the company, although two of his brothers were promi-

nent in it. Such errors are of no importance in them-

selves, but they show the wholesale inaccuracy of the

writer.

We come now to the event on which the whole story

hinges. "One day," says our writer, "Eagle Feather

came home from beyond the Ohio with another white

woman, whom he had captured." This cannot have

happened later than 1750, because, a little further on,

the death of this woman is connected with Gist's visit

in that year. Now, if in 1750, or earlier, Eagle Feather

was able to slip over the Ohio River and capture a white

woman, he must have been an amazingly skilful, or

lucky, hunter. For, at that time, there were in Penn-

sylvania no white settlements west of the mountains,

and there were none in Virginia or Kentucky, except

at a great distance from the Ohio River. For Pennsyl-

vania the reader is referred to a high authority, Dr.

Joseph Doddridge, who says,¹⁶ "The settlements on this

side of the mountains commenced along the Monon-

gahela, and between that river and Laurel Ridge, in the

year 1772. In the succeeding year they reached the

Ohio River." That was more than twenty years later

than Eagle Feather's remarkable exploit.

The first cabin built by white men in the state of

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296     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

Kentucky is said17 to have been erected in 1750, near

Barbourville, one hundred and fifty miles distant from

the Ohio River. After that, "it was twenty-four years

before a cabin was erected at Harrodsburg, or else-

where in the state, by the early settlers." In April,

1775, "there were now more than one hundred and fifty

immigrants in Kentucky, but not a female among

them."18

As to Virginia, J. P. Hale, in his "Trans-Allegheny

Pioneers,"19 says that until 1775 the Indians made no

attacks upon white settlers in the western settlements

of Virginia. In all his travels in Pennsylvania, Ken-

tucky, and Virginia, west of the mountains, in 1750

and 1751, Gist did not see a white settlement. It is,

then, very improbable that an Ohio Indian in 1750, or

earlier, could have crossed the Ohio River and captured

a white woman. The writer had a later period in mind;

but that was too late to include Mary Harris.

We are told that Eagle Feather "reminded Mary

that he could easily kill her; that he had saved her life

when captured, * * * and in return she had borne

him no pappooses." Evidently the writer knew nothing

of the place, time, or circumstances of Mary's capture,

or of the fact that she had borne her husband several

children. We come now to the tragic event. Gist tells20

of the death of a woman at "Muskingum" on the

twenty-sixth day of December, 1750 -- twenty days be-

fore he went to White Woman's Town and saw Mary

Harris. "This Day," he says, " a Woman, who had

been a long Time a Prisoner, and had deserted, & been

retaken, and brought into Town on Christmas Eve,

was put to Death in the following manner: etc." The

legend makes use of this in telling of the killing of the

• 14
 

Mitchener's "Legend of the White Woman," Etc. 297

woman whom Eagle Feather is said to have brought

home, and to have wished to install in his wigwam with

Mary Harris. This woman, it says, fled from White

Woman's Town after the death of Eagle Feather. She

was tracked "to the Tuscarawas; thence to an Indian

town near by, where they found her. * * * She

was taken back while Gist was at the town, and he re-

lates in his journal that after night a white woman cap-

tive who had deserted, was put to death in this manner:

'She was set free and ran off some distance, followed

by three Indian warriors, who, overtaking her, struck

her on the side of the head with their tomahawks, and

otherwise beat and mutilated the body after life was

extinct, then left it lying on the ground. Andrew Bur-

ney, a blacksmith at The White Woman's Town, ob-

tained and buried the body."

Beside a number of minor discrepancies, this legend

differs from Gist's account in the following more im-

portant points. The legend says that the killing of the

woman took place at White Woman's Town while Gist

was there, that is to say, on January fifteenth: Gist

says it took place at "Muskingum" on the twenty-sixth

of the previous December. The legend says that "An-

drew Burney, a blacksmith at 'The White Woman's

Town,' obtained and buried the body": Gist says that

it was Barney Curran who, with his men and some In

dians, buried her. Gist mentions no blacksmith at White

Woman's Town, but does tell of one at "Muskingum,"

whose name was Thomas Burney.

But there is a much more flagrant missstatement

than these. Referring to Gist the writer says: "He

relates in his journal that after night a white woman

captive who had deserted etc." Gist does not say, or in

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298     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

any way intimate, that the woman was white; and the

fact doubtless is that she was not white, but an Indian. I

have already shown that it is extremely improbable that

there could have been any white woman captive in Ohio

in the year 1751. (Of course Mary Harris could not

be considered a captive at that time.) Again, it is not

conceivable that Gist, Curran, Crogan, Burney, and the

other white men that were there, would have stood by

and let a white woman be killed by the Indians. It is

plain that she was an Indian woman. Butterworth, a

most reliable historian, commenting upon Gist's narra-

tive, says,21 "Although Mr. Gist does not say that the

woman was a squaw, it is certain from the context that

such was the case."

We see then that this legend, wherever we can check

it up by Gist's account, or by what is known of Mary

Harris at Deerfield and Caughnawaga, or by our knowl-

edge of conditions in the West at that time, is utterly

unhistorical, and is entitled to no credence whatever.

The author of this account which Mitchener quotes was

somewhat acquainted with Gist's Journal, but cannot

have had a copy of it before him when he wrote his

legend; and evidently he had never read it with much

care, or else his memory was very treacherous. There

may have been in circulation a story of some white

woman captive among the Indians, agreeing more or

less with this legend in its incidents; for, of course,

there were at a later date many white women in such

captivity in Ohio. Bouquet secured the liberation of a

large number. The writer of this legend may have

taken incidents from such a story and interwoven them

with material derived from Gist. I have not been able

to find a story of that sort, but others may know of one.

• 16
 

Mitchener's "Legend of the White Woman," Etc.    299

As concerns Mary Harris this legend is utterly false.

Historical fiction is legitimate. It is permissible to as-

sign to historical personages in such a story actions

which they never performed. But it is never legitimate

to misrepresent and defame estimable people by invent-

ing stories that represent them as outrageous or despic-

able. To take a woman who, so far as we know, was

respectable and humane--to take her and make her

out a blood-thirsty savage, is not legitimate. That is

what has been done to the first white woman citizen of

our state.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Magazine of Western History, Vol. VI, p. 112.

2. Western Reserve Historical Society, Tract No. 4, p. 1.

3. George Sheldon, A History of Deerfield, Massachusetts,

Vol. 1, pp. 308 ff.

4. C. Alice Baker, My Hunt for the Captives, in History

and Proceedings of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association,

1880-1889, passim. Emma L. Coleman, Canadian Missions and

the Deerfield Captives, in History and Proceedings of the Pocum-

tuck Valley Memorial Association, 1912-1920, passim.

5. Emma L. Coleman, Canadian Missions and the Deer-

field Captives, in History and Proceedings of the Pocumtuck

Valley Memorial Association, 1912-1920, pp. 327, 330. Also the

well known story of Eunice Williams, one of the captives.

6. George Sheldon, A History of Deerfield, Massachusetts,

Vol. 1, p. 535.

7. George A. Wood, William Shirley, p. 200.

8. W. M. Darlington, editor, Christopher Gist's Journals,

pp. 37-41.

9. Ibid., p. 41.

10. W. M. Darlington, An Account of the Remarkable

Occurrences in the Life and Travels of Colonel James Smith,

pp. 13, 16, 25, 52.

11. Apparently the French authorities in Canada, in view of

the probability of a struggle with the English for the possession

of the Ohio Valley, induced, or encouraged, Caughnawagas to

settle in Ohio in order to aid in holding the country for France.

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300       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

In the early days of the conflict which ensued, the Caughnawagas

played a prominent part on the French side. Butterfield, Maga-

zine of Western History, Vol. VI, p. 419. Francis Parkman,

Wolfe and Montcalm, Vol. 1, pp. 154, 209. James Smith's

Account, especially with regard to his being taken to Tullihas.

12. George Sheldon, A History of Deerfield, Massachusetts,

Vol. 1, p. 344.

13. C. H. Mitchener, Ohio Annals, pp. 106-109.

14. Tucker, Mrs., Life of Mark M. Pomeroy, p. 160.

15. C. Alice Baker, My Hunt for the Captives, in History

and Proceedings of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association,

1880-1889.

16. Joseph Doddridge, Notes on the Settlement and Indian

Wars of Western Parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania, p. 129.

17. The Centenary of Kentucky, in Filson Club Publica-

tions, No. 7, p. 27.

18. Ibid., p. 34.

19. John P. Hale, Trans-Allegheny Pioneers, p. 29.

20. W. M. Darlington, editor, Christopher Gist's Journals,

P. 39.

21. Magazine of Western History, Vol. VI, p. III, foot-

note.

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