Woman on the American Frontier: A Valuable and Authentic History of the Heroism, Adventures, Privations, Captivities, Trials, and Noble Lives and Deaths of the "Pioneer Mothers of the Republic" — John Shaqi
Woman on the American Frontier: A Valuable and Authentic History of the Heroism, Adventures, Privations, Captivities, Trials, and Noble Lives and Deaths of the "Pioneer Mothers of the Republic"Fowler, William Worthington
History
Woman on the American Frontier: A Valuable and Authentic History of the Heroism, Adventures, Privations, Captivities, Trials, and Noble Lives and Deaths of the "Pioneer Mothers of the Republic"
Fowler, William Worthington
Frontier and pioneer life -- United States; Women -- United States -- Biography
Her husband lay prostrate before her and senseless with loss of blood from
a bullet-wound in the right shoulder. Staunching the flow of blood with
styptics which she gathered among the forest shrubs, she brought water and
the wounded man soon revived. After a slow and weary march she brought him
back to the cabin, carrying him part of the way upon her shoulders. Under
her careful nursing he at length recovered his strength though he always
carried the bullet in his shoulder. It appears he had met three Indians who
told him they were in search of their two missing companions. One of them
afterwards treacherously shot him from behind through the shoulder, and in
return Pentry sent a ball through his heart. Then becoming weak from loss
of blood he could only point his gun-barrel at the remaining Indians, and
this was his situation when his wife came up and saved his life.
After receiving such an admonition it is natural to suppose the whole party
were content to remain near their forest home for a season, extending their
rambles only far enough to enable them to procure game and fish for their
table; and this was not far, for the lake was alive with fish; and wild
turkeys, deer, and other game could be shot sometimes even from the cabin
door.
The party were also deterred by this experience from attempting to drive
any trade with the Indians until the following spring, when they expected
to be joined by a large party of hunters.
The summer soon passed away, and the cold nights of September and October
admonished our hardy pioneers that they must prepare for a rigorous winter.
Mrs. Pentry made winter clothing for the men and for herself out of the
skins of animals which they had shot, and snow-shoes from the sinews of
deer stretched on a frame composed of strips of hard wood. She also felled
trees for fuel and lined the walls of the cabin with deer and bear skins;
she was the most skilful mechanic of the party, and having fitted runners
of hickory to one of the boats she rigged a sail of soft skins sewed
together, and once in November, after the river was frozen, and when the
wind blew strongly from the northwest, the whole party undertook to reach
the mouth of the river by sailing down in their boat upon the ice. A boat
of this kind, when the ice is smooth and the wind strong, will make fifteen
miles an hour.
They were interrupted frequently in their course by the falls and rapids,
making portages necessary; nevertheless in three days and two nights they
reached the mouth of the river.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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