The father was taken to Niagara, and after a
captivity of two years, was exchanged and enabled to return to his own
family.
The son was claimed by a war-chief, who treated him kindly, and after a
time took him to the waters of the Chemung. On entering an Indian village,
the war-party which accompanied them, sounded the war-whoop, and it was
answered by the Indians and Indian boys who came out to meet them. They
pulled the young prisoner from the horse he was riding, scourged him with
whips, and beat him with the handles of their tomahawks, one of the forms
of their gauntlet, until his master humanely rescued him. He was after
this sold to a family of Delawares, and taken to reside with them on the
Delaware river, where he suffered much from want of proper clothing, and
from scanty fare. To inure him to cold, the Indians compelled him almost
daily, to strip and plunge into the icy waters of the river.
He was with the Indians when General Sullivan invaded their country, and
witnessed their retreat, after the battle at Newtown, until they found
protection from the guns of the British, at Fort Niagara. Here they
subsisted during the winter by rations from the garrison, and to induce
them to return again to their villages, on the Genesee river, the officers
pledged them an increased bounty for American scalps.
On one occasion, while with the Delaware family at Niagara, he came near
being a victim of the British bounty for scalps.
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