[96] The circumstances in regard to the murder of Jane M'Crea, have been variously stated. The following version of the cruel story is probably correct: "Miss M'Crea belonged to a family of loyalists, and had engaged her hand in marriage to a young refugee named David Jones, a subordinate officer in the British service, who was advancing with Burgoyne. Anxious to possess himself of his bride, he dispatched a small party of Indians to bring her to the British camp. Her family and friends were strongly opposed to her going with such an escort; but her affection overcame her prudence, and she determined upon the hazardous adventure. She set forward with her dusky attendants on horseback. The family resided at the village of Fort Edward, whence they had not proceeded half a mile before her conductors stopped to drink at a spring. Meantime, the impatient lover, who deserved not her embrace for confiding her protection to such hands, instead of going himself, had dispatched a second party of Indians upon the same errand. The Indians met at the spring; and before the march was resumed, they were attacked by a party of the Provincials. At the close of the skirmish, the body of Miss M'Crea was found among the slain, tomahawked, scalped, and tied to a pine-tree, yet standing by the side of the spring, as a monument of the bloody transaction. The ascertained cause of the murder was this: The promised reward for bringing her in safety to her betrothed was a barrel of rum. The chiefs of the two parties sent for her by Mr. Jones quarreled respecting the anticipated compensation. Each claimed it; and, in a moment of passion, to end the controversy, one of them struck her down with his hatchet." * * * * * While Thomas Crittenden, the first Governor of Vermont, was discharging the functions of an executive, he was waited upon one day, in an official capacity, by several gentlemen from Albany. The visitors were of the higher class, and accompanied by their aristocratic wives. At noon the hostess summoned the workmen from the fields, and seated them at the table with her fashionable visitors. When the females had retired from the dinner table to an apartment by themselves, one of the visitors said to the lady of the house, "You do not usually have your hired laborers sit down at the first table do you?" "Why yes, madam," Mrs. Crittenden replied, "we have thus far done so, but are now thinking of making a different arrangement. The Governor and myself have been talking the matter over a little, lately, and come to the conclusion that the men, who do nearly all the hard work, ought to have the first table,--and that he and I, who do so little, should be content with the second. But, in compliment to you, I thought I would have you sit down with them, to-day, at the first table."[97]