Daily stories of Pennsylvania : $b prepared for publication in the leading daily newspapers of the state...Godcharles, Frederic Antes
History
Daily stories of Pennsylvania : $b prepared for publication in the leading daily newspapers of the state...
Godcharles, Frederic Antes
Pennsylvania -- Biography; Pennsylvania -- History
While Mr. and Mrs. Bard were engaged together in plucking a turkey, the
former told his wife of his design to escape. Some of the Indians were
asleep, and one was amusing the others by dressing himself in Mrs.
Bard’s gown. Bard was sent to the spring for water and contrived to
escape, while his wife kept the Indians amused with the gown.
The Indians made an unsuccessful search for Bard, and proceeded to Fort
Duquesne, then twenty miles down the Ohio River to Kuskusky, in what is
now Butler County.
Here Mrs. Bard and two boys and girls were compelled to run the
gauntlet, and were beaten in an unmerciful manner. It was at this place
that Daniel McManimy was put to death. The Indians formed themselves
into a circle round the prisoner, and beat him with sticks and
tomahawks, then tied him to a post, and after more torturing he was
scalped alive, a gun barrel was heated and passed over his body, and he
was pierced in the body until he was relieved from further torture by
death.
Mrs. Bard was taken from the other prisoners and led from place to
place, until she was finally adopted into the tribe by two Indian men,
to take the place of a deceased sister.
She was next taken to the headwaters of the Susquehanna, and during this
journey she suffered much from fatigue and illness. She lay two months
in this doleful situation, with none to comfort or sympathize with her,
a blanket her only covering, and boiled corn her only food.
She met with a woman who had been in captivity several years and was
married to an Indian. She told Mrs. Bard that soon as she could speak
the Delaware tongue she would be obliged to marry one of the Indians or
be put to death. She then resolved not to learn the language. She was
kept in captivity two years and five months, during which time she was
treated with much kindness by her adopted relations.
Richard Bard suffered extreme hardships in effecting his escape and
return to his home, traveling over mountains thick with laurel and
briers and covered with snow. His feet were sore, his clothes wet and
frozen and he was often exhausted and ready to lie down and perish for
want of food. His food during a journey of nine days was a few buds and
four snakes, when he reached Fort Littleton, in now Bedford County.
After this he did but little else than wander from place to place in
quest of information respecting his wife. He made several perilous
journeys to Fort Duquesne, in which he narrowly escaped capture several
times. He at length learned she was at Fort Augusta, at Shamokin, and
redeemed her.
Before the Bards departed from Shamokin, Richard Bard requested the
Indian, who was the adopted brother of his wife, to visit them at their
home. Accordingly, some time afterwards the Indian paid them a visit,
when the Bards were living about ten miles from Chambersburg.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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