Heroes and Hunters of the West: Comprising Sketches and Adventures of Boone, Kenton, Brady, Logan, Whetzel, Fleehart, Hughes, Johnson, &c.Frost, John
History
Heroes and Hunters of the West: Comprising Sketches and Adventures of Boone, Kenton, Brady, Logan, Whetzel, Fleehart, Hughes, Johnson, &c.
Frost, John
Frontier and pioneer life -- Ohio River Valley; Indian captivities
Dr. Knight, made bold or desperate by the torture he had witnessed,
effected his escape from the Shawnee warrior to whose care he was
committed, and after much suffering, reached the settlements. From him the
greater portion of the account of Crawford's death is derived, and
corrected by the statements of Indians present on the occasion. Simon
Girty never forsook the Indians among whom he had made his home; but his
influence gradually diminished. Some accounts say that he perished in the
battle of the Thames; while others assert that he lived to extreme old age
in Canada, where his descendants are now highly respected citizens.
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[B] M'Clurg.
JOSHUA FLEEHART.
Extraordinary strength and activity, with the most daring courage and a
thorough knowledge of life in the woods, won for Joshua Fleehart a high
reputation among the first settler's of Western Virginia and Ohio. When
the Ohio Company founded its settlement at Marietta, in April, 1778,
Fleehart was employed as a scout and a hunter. In this service he had no
superior north of the Ohio. At periods of the greatest danger, when the
Indians were known to be much incensed against the whites, he would start
from the settlement with no companion but his dog, and ranging within
about twenty miles of an Indian town, would build his cabin and trap and
hunt during nearly the whole season. On one occasion this reckless
contempt of danger almost cost the hunter his life.
[Illustration: JOSHUA FLEEHART.]
Having became tired of the sameness of garrison life, and panting for that
freedom among the woods and hills to which he had always been accustomed,
late in the fall of 1795, he took his canoe, rifle, traps, and blanket,
with no one to accompany him, leaving even his faithful dog in the
garrison with his family. As he was going into a dangerous neighborhood,
he was fearful lest the voice of his dog might betray him. With a daring
and intrepidity which few men possess, he pushed his canoe up the Sciota
river a distance of fifteen or twenty miles, into the Indian country,
amidst their best hunting-grounds for the bear and the beaver, where no
white man had dared to venture. These two were the main object of his
pursuit, and the hills of Brush creek were said to abound in bear, and the
small streams that fell into the Sciota were well suited to the haunts of
the beaver.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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