On the evening of his arrest in Pittsburgh, McFarlane managed to send a letter to Governor Penn, in which he said: “I am taken at a great inconvenience, as my business is suffering much on account of my absence, but I am willing to suffer a great deal more rather than bring a disgrace upon the commission which I bear under your honor.” One result of his arrest indicates that McFarlane did not really suffer much during his captivity at Staunton for there he met and married Margaret Lynn Lewis, daughter of William Lewis, famed in the military history of Virginia. Andrew and James McFarlane, to escape exactions and persecutions of Virginia military authority, removed their store, in the autumn of 1774, to Kittanning, at that time the extreme limit of white settlements toward the North. Here they prospered. When the Iroquois tribe began to give concern to the settlers on the western frontier, after the Revolution opened, the Continental Congress in July 1776, ordered the raising of a regiment consisting of seven companies from Westmoreland and one from Bedford, to build and garrison forts at Kittanning, Le Boeuf and Erie and protect that region from British and Iroquois. These troops were promptly raised under command of Colonel Aeneas Mackay, with George Wilson, lieutenant colonel, and Richard Butler, as major. This regiment rendezvoused at Kittanning preparatory to an advance up the Allegheny, to build two other forts. A call was received for the regiment to march eastward, across the State, and join the hard-pressed army of General Washington, then near the Delaware. This regiment obeyed the call, in spite of a storm of protest on the frontier, and became known as the Eighth Pennsylvania. The long march began early in January, 1777. Many settlers believed the western frontier was not in imminent danger but Andrew McFarlane was not one of these. As soon as Mackay’s regiment departed Justice McFarlane begged of the Westmoreland Commissioners that a company of militia be sent to Kittanning. He could hardly restrain his neighbors from running away, and during the late winter many did flee, leaving McFarlane and two clerks the only men at the place. There were many stores left at Kittanning by Colonel Mackay but no soldiers could be spared to guard them. In this emergency Samuel Moorhead, who lived at Black Lick Creek, undertook the formation of a company of volunteer rangers. He chose McFarlane as his lieutenant, and these two spent much time trying to recruit a small company from the scattered settlers. The story of the capture of Andrew McFarlane is preserved in two forms: One is gathered from letters written at the time, while the other is a tradition handed down in the Lewis family of Virginia. The Lewis story is now preserved in a history of Lynchburg, Va., and is in part as follows: