Ella Barnwell: A historical romance of border lifeBennett, Emerson
General
Ella Barnwell: A historical romance of border life
Bennett, Emerson
Frontier and pioneer life -- Fiction; Girty, Simon, 1741-1818 -- Fiction; Kentucky -- Fiction
It is not our province in the present work to detail any thing not
directly connected with our story; and therefore we shall pass on, after
a cursory glance at the main facts in question. Sometime in March, a
party of Wyandots made a descent upon Estill's station, which stood near
the present site of Richmond; and having killed and scalped a young
lady, and captured a Negro slave, were induced, by the exaggerated
account which the latter gave of the force within, to an immediate
retreat; whereby, probably, the lives of the women and children, almost
the only occupants, were saved--Captain Estill himself, with his
garrison, and several new recruits, being at the time away, on a search
for these very savages, who were known by some unmistakable signs to be
in the vicinity. Word being despatched to Estill, of what had transpired
in his absence, he immediately sought out the trail of the retreating
foes, which he followed with his men, and toward night of the second day
overtook them at Hinston's Fork of Licking, where a desperate engagement
immediately ensued. At the onset, there were twenty-five Indians, and
exactly the same number of whites; but the immediate desertion, in a
cowardly manner, of a certain Lieutenant Miller, with six men under his
command, left the odds greatly in favor of the Wyandots, who were all
picked warriors. Notwithstanding the cowardice of their companions, our
little Spartan band fought most heroically for an hour and
three-quarters; when the few survivors, on both sides, being almost worn
out, ceased hostilities as by mutual consent. In this ever memorable
action, Captain Estill, a brave and popular man, together with nine of
his gallant companions, fell to rise no more. Four others were badly
wounded, leaving only the same number of unharmed survivors. The
Indians, it was afterwards ascertained, had seventeen warriors killed on
the field, among whom was one of their bravest chiefs, and two others
severely wounded; and there has been a tradition since among the
Wyandots, that only one survivor ever returned to tell the tale.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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