covered the fort to be occupied by two women only. As soon as this intelligence reached the main body they made instant preparations for its capture. But luckily, in the interval a party of soldiers going from New Jersey to Esopus came along, and stopped at the fort for refreshments. Not knowing this, the Indians suddenly burst in the doors before the soldiers were fairly seated. They were somewhat surprised at the unexpected presence of the soldiers, but nothing daunted, they fired a volley at them and then throwing aside their guns fell upon them with the tomahawk. The soldiers retreated to the chamber of the building, and recovering from the first panic, they opened such a deadly fire upon the intruders that they were soon forced to vacate the premises. This was a closely contested battle and cost the lives of several of the soldiers as well as a goodly number of the Indians.

But the settlers were not always successful in these contests. A large party of Indians during one of their forays into the settlement, attacked the upper fort on the Neversink. It was well garrisoned, and its defenders made a brave resistance. One savage after another fell before the aim of the beseiged, and they would soon have had to give up the attack had not the fort taken fire from the burning of the barn near by. The heat soon became so intense that the inmates were forced to the alternative of risking their chances by flight or perishing in the flames. There was not much difference in the modes of death, and both were certain. As the flames enveloped the building, one after another stole from the death by fire, only to meet a more speedy one by the bullet or tomahawk. Not a single man of the garrison escaped. The only women in the fort, the Captain's wife and a colored woman, secreted them

selves in the cellar. Here they remained till the coals
began to fall through the floor, when the white woman
ran out and endeavored to elude pursuit by running
round the house. The Indians followed her in a body,
and soon overtook and killed her. When the shout of
victory that announced the death of the Captain's wife,
reached the ears of the black woman, she rightly judged
it a proper time to make a trial for life; and accordingly
ran under the shadow of the smoke for the nearest
woods. The savages being on the other side of the
fort did not perceive her
and she gained the
covert of
the timber in safety. She then concealed herself on
the banks of the Neversink till morning, when she took
a circuitous route through the woods to Gumaer's fort,
the sole survivor of the massacre. The Captain came
home a day or two afterwards, and then learned for the
first time the tidings of the sad catastrophe. The
friends, the comfortable home, the loving wife-all he
had but a short time before left so happy and cheerful—
were gone! Nothing remained to tell of their existence
but the smoldering ashes of the fort and the disfigured
corpses of its occupants. By the grave of his wife he
took an oath of vengeance; and during the remaining
years of his life, many a red-skin was sent to the world
of spirits by his hand, in redemption of the pledge.

There was an incident connected with the capture of
this fort, that for a long time was held by the super-
stitious people of the neighborhood as a singular fatality.
Two women from Gumaer's fort had been there visiting
on the day of the attack. During their visit the soldiers
had been telling stories and jokes, and getting the “rig”
on different ones as usual.
told the colored woman they were going to be attacked
by the Indians soon, and that she need not expect to

Among other things they

:

escape for she was too fat to run fast. The result was altogether different from their prophecy. The attack came sooner than they dreamt of, and she was the only one that did escape.

Whenever one of the settlers wished to visit his relatives at Goshen, or in Napanoch, it was always necessary to take along an escort of soldiers, or to travel in companies, so beset were the roads with lurking savages. Abraham Low and William Cuddeback, on one occasion undertook a journey to Rochester, Ulster county, alone in a wagon. On the return route, near home, they were shot at by Indians concealed near the roadside. Low was wounded in the shoulder, but by applying the whip vigorously, the horse soon carried them out of danger.

A man named Owens, was soon after killed while at work in the meadow of Asa Dolsen, by a strolling band of Indians. Dolsen immediately removed his family to Goshen for safety. The scene of this incident was in what is known as Dolsentown, in the north-eastern part of the present town of Wawayanda.

Near the same place, three Indians, on another occasion, chased a man for a long distance. At last he crept under some weeds and brush at the foot of a tree which had blown down. The Indians came and stood upon the body of the tree, and after looking around for some time gave two or three yells and departed, without discovering the object of their search who was so near them.

Two brothers, Daniel and David Cooley, had located on farms near Mr. Dolsen's. In those days it was customary to build ovens separate from the houses. David Cooley's wife one day was going from the oven to the house, just as a party of Indians were passing. With

out a word one of them leveled his rifle and shot her dead. This cold-blooded deed was perpetrated on the farm now owned by the heirs of Capt. John Cummings.

East of this the Indians seldom ventured; though one Sunday morning a man by the name of Webb was killed by them, just over the outlet in the town of Goshen. This they boasted of a great deal, but their operations were mostly confined to petty thefts in that quarter, owing to the thickness of the settlements.

During this war an incident occurred in the Minisink settlement that forms a striking illustration of the force of attachment to the savage mode of life. A straggling band of Indians captured a little son of Mr. Westfall's, near the fort at the north-west end of the Peenpack settlement, in the commencement of the war. Nothing more was heard of him for years. The French and Indian war with its train of horrors and barbarities became a thing of the past. Still no tidings came to the parents of the absent one, whom they had long mourned as dead. The Revolutionary war with its red waves of savage desolation swept over the land, and still nought came to tell the parents of a different fate for the loved and lost. Finally the father died. By some means the son, who was still living in a far off Indian home, obtained intelligence of his death, and came back to the settlement with an interpreter to get possession of his inheritance. He was taken to the farm where his father had lived and where he had been taken prisoner, but had no recollection of the premises, except a small pond of water near the house where he was playing when captured. His mother recognized him in spite of his Indian garb and broad Indian tongue. She endeavored by maternal feelings, pecuniary considerations, and personal appeals, to induce him to remain and live with her

.

But so

during the few remaining years of her life. attached was he to his life in the wilderness that he refused to listen to any project of the kind. He obtained his share of his father's estate, bade his mother good bye, turned his back on everything that could conduce to the enjoyment of civilized life, and was soon trudging away in the forest to his Indian home and bride.

The contest between England and France that gave rise to such horrible atrocities as those recorded in this chapter, and which may be considered a fair sample of similar occurrences everywhere along the border of the American provinces, was finally ended by the triumph of the British Colonial armies; and the fall of Montreal and Quebec reduced the French Canadian possessions to complete submission to the authority of the British

crown.