The horrid fact being completed, they kept on their course near the mountains, where they lay skulking four or five days, rejoicing at the plunder and store they had got. When provisions became scarce, they made their way towards Susquehana; where still, to add to the many barbarities they had already committed, passing near another house inhabited by an unhappy old man. Whose name was John Adams, with his wife and four small children; and, meeting with no resistance, they immediately scalped the unhappy wife and her four children, before the good old man's eyes.
[Due to the high rate of mortality in childbirth among women, old wives were very rare, and older men of means—even if but modest means—often sought a young replacement for a lost wife. In other cases, men who had been tough enough to work their way out of bondage were well into their 30s by the time they had the means to provide for a family, which, considering the life expectancy, would be equivalent to a modern man marrying in his late 50s.]
Inhuman and horrid as this was, it did not satiate them; for when they had murdered the poor woman, they acted with her in such a brutal manner, as decency, or the remembrance of the crime, will not permit me to mention; and this even before the unhappy husband, who, not being able to avoid the sight, and incapable of affording her the least relief, entreated them to put an end to his miserable being: but they were as deaf and regardless to the tears, prayers, and entreaties of this venerable sufferer, as they had been to those of the others, and proceeded in their hellish purpose of burning and destroying his house, barn, cattle, hay, corn, and every thing the poor man a few hours before was master of.
Having saved what they thought proper from the flames, they gave the old man, feeble, weak, and in the miserable condition he then was, as well as myself, burdens to carry, and loading themselves likewise with bread and meat, pursued their journey on towards the Great Swamp, where, being arrived, they lay for eight or nine days, sometimes diverting themselves in exercising the most atrocious and barbarous cruelties on their unhappy victim, the old man: sometimes they would strip him naked, and paint him all over with various sorts of colours, which they extracted, or made from herbs and roots: at other times they would pluck the white hairs from his venerable beard, and tauntingly tell him, he was a fool for living so long, and that they would shew him kindness in putting him out of the world; to all which the poor creature could but vent his sighs, his tears, his moans, and entreaties, that, to my affrighted imagination, were enough to penetrate a heart of adamant, and soften the most obdurate savage.
In vain, alas! were all his tears, for daily did they tire themselves with the various means they tried to torment him; sometimes tying him to a tree, and whipping him; at others, scorching his furrowed cheeks with red-hot coals, and burning his legs quite to the knees: but the good old man, instead of repining, or wickedly arraigning the divine justice, like many others in such cases, even in the greatest agonies, incessantly offered up his prayers to the Almighty, with the most fervent thanksgivings for his former mercies, and hoping the flames, then surrounding and burning his aged limbs, would soon send him to the blissful mansions of the just, to be a partaker of the blessings there. And during such his pious ejaculations, his infernal plagues would come round him, mimicking his heart-rending groans and piteous wailings.
One night after he had thus been tormented, whilst he and I were sitting together consoling each other at the misfortunes and miseries we daily suffered, twenty scalps and three prisoners were brought in by another party of Indians. They had unhappily fallen in their hands in Cannojigge, a small town near the river Susquehana, chiefly inhabited by the Irish.
[In other words, most of the population of the town were current or former slaves, as the Irish were not permitted immigration at this date, and found their way to the Colonies as POWs and child slaves.]
These prisoners gave us some shocking accounts of the murders and devastations committed in their parts. The various and complicated actions of these barbarians would entirely fill a large volume, but what I have already written, with a few other instances which I shall select from their information, will enable the reader to guess at the horrid treatment the English, and Indians in their interest [allied tribes], suffered for many years past. I shall therefore only mention in a brief manner those that suffered near the same time with myself.
This party, who now joined us, had it not, I found, in their power to begin their wickedness as soon as those who visited my habitation, the first of their tragedies being on the 25th day of October, 1754, when John Lewis, with his wife and three small children, fell sacrifices to their cruelty, and were miserably scalped and murdered, his house, barn, and every thing he possessed, being burnt and destroyed.
On the 28th, Jacob Miller, with his wife and six of his family, together with every thing on his plantation, underwent the same fate.
The 30th, the house, mill, barn, twenty head of cattle, two teams of horses, and every thing belonging to the unhappy George Folke, met with the like treatment: himself, wife, and all his miserable family, consisting of nine in number, being inhumanly scalped, then cut in pieces and given to the swine, which devoured them.
I shall give another instance of the numberless and unheard-of barbarities they related of these savages, and proceed to their own tragical end. In short, one of the substantial traders belonging to the province, having business that called him some miles up the country, fell into the hands of these devils, who not only scalped him, but immediately roasted him before he was dead; then, like cannibals for want of other food, eat his whole body, and of his head made what they called an Indian pudding.
From these few instances of savage cruelty, the deplorable situation of the defenceless inhabitants, and what they hourly suffered in that part of the globe, must strike the utmost horror to a human soul, and cause in every breast the utmost detestation, not only against the authors of such tragic scenes, but against those who through perfidy, inattention, or pusillanimous and erroneous principles, suffered these savages at first, unrepelled, or even unmolested, to commit such outrages and incredible depredations and murders: for no torments, no barbarities that can be exercised on the human sacrifices they get into their power, are left untried or omitted.
