Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1876 — A GRANDMOTHER’S STORY. [ARTICLE]

A GRANDMOTHER’S STORY.

The following story is strictly authentic, as recited by one of its heroines, Grandmother Tomlinson, and phonographically reported as it fell from her lips. The incident occurred In 1788 at Bryant, Ky., now a station on tire Kentucky Central Railway, a few miles from Lexington, but then a stockade for defense against the Indians. There were forty or filly families occupying log cabins built near together, and surrounded by a fence of logs, called a stockade. A stockade was made by digging a deep, narrow ditch, and then planting in it large, long logs, upright and tight together, and filling in the soil around them. Such a fence was fifteen or twenty feet high, and an efficient fortification when the enemy had no cannon with which to destroy it. It was built with crooks or angles, called bastions, and was pierced with many portholes, through which those inside could discharge their rifles at a foe outside. At one point was a huge gate of logs, swinging on great wooden hinges, which, when closed, was as strong as any part of the walls. The people living in Bryant stockade were fanners, and around their wooden fort lay their beautiful farms, covered at the time of this story with corn and other growing crops. » A few words about our heroine, and we are ready for the story. Grandmother Tomlinson’s life began in Western Pennaylvania ten years before the Declaration of Independence, or, as she used to say. “before the first Fourth of July,” and closed in Kentucky when she was above ninety years of age. At the recital of this incident she was a sweet old lady, the soul of piety and truth, and almost worshiped by all who knew her. In the spring of 1788, when she was nearly sixteen, her parents, with several younger children, removed from Pennsylvania to Bryant It would be interesting, if we had space, to copy her account of the journey in a rough flat boat down the Ohio River to Maysville, and thence on horseback some sixty miles across the wild country to their new home. Those were perilous times on the frontier; the Indians, incited by British agents, waging a fiercer war against the settlera than anything in the Atlantic States about which so many Centennial words are used in these days. Kentucky was aptly styled “ the dark and bloody ground.” Now for Grandmother Tomlinson’s story; It was the morning of the 15th of August, just a week after my birthday. Most of the night mother and 1 had been helping father mold bullets and prepare for an early march with the garrison to Hoy’s stockade, near which Capt. Holder hail recently been defeated by the Indians. Little did we imagine that nearly a thousand warriors were gathering then in the fields and woods about us, eager for our scalps. At early dawn all the men in the stockade paraded with their guns and accouterments, and food enough for four days. The women and children were all out to say good-bye, and the gate was about to be opened for their departure, when suddenly on the back side of the stockade there was heard the most unearthly noise of guns and shouting and screaming, so that many of the children began to ciy for fear. We all ran to the picketing and saw through the portholes a party of thirty or forty Indians standing among the corn, brandishing their tomahawks, firing guns and yelling like the hideous savages they were.

Borne of the young men were for rushing out at once and attacking them openly- But the older men* who. understood Indians better, said, “ No;” for it was only a decoy party to draw us out where some larger concealed foe would destroy us. Instantly the more experienced of the garrison went to the front side of the fort and began to peer sharply through the portholes, expecting to see the real danger there. But nothing was in sight yet. However, a keen watch was kept up as the sun rose, and pretty soorf those best qualified to judge decided that a large torce of warriors was concealed in the low bushes beyond the spring. As soon as this was certain it was resolved to send somebody to Lexington to warn thepeople there, and to obtain assistance. There were horses in this stockado, and young Tomlinson, afterward your grandfather, and* another man, volunteered to undertake the service. Mounting two of the swiftest animals, the gate was thrown open, and they rode out as hard as they could ran down the Lexington road, we expected the Indians by the spring would fire at them; but they did not, showing that they thought themselves undiscovered, and were so numerous as not to fear any reinforcements that might come from Lexington. The Indians among the corn were not in sight of the gate and die road, but they still kept up the most horrible fioises. Some of the old Indian fighters now held a council to consider what to do, for, although in every way well armed for the struggle, our garrison was but a handful beside our enemy. It was decided to act fbr awhile as if we did not suspect the ambuscade by the

spring, aqd thus see if they would not expose themselves to our advantage. But one difficulty of an alarming nature was discovered —tee hoi no water in the etoekade. The spring inside the picketing had been dry for many days, and as it was a very hot summer, and we had been bringing water from the outside spring near which so many Indians were concealed. Not a bucket of water was there inside the fort, as we used it all during the night in preparing for the early march so suddenly interrupted. If the siege should continue even twenty-four hours we should suffer fearfully in the parching August weather; and it might hold out for several days, in which case we should actually perish from thirst, as cruel a foe as the bloodthirsty savages. “ What shall be done?” went from lip to lip, and even our bravest men seemed alarmed at our peril from this lack of water. At length a plan was proposed. The old Indian fighters said that the principal force of the Indians "was near the spring, concealed, and would not show themselves until their leaders saw a chance to capture the stockade at a rush. The party in the cofn was intended to draw our attention away from their main body, and make us careless on our gate front. But as long as we seemed on our guard no general attack would be made. Therefore a few persons might safely go after water, if the garrison would make a show of watchfulness in their defense.

At this suggestion, one of the mothers proposed that the women should go after the water in their usual way, while the men made show of being on the alert. “ Probably,” she said, “ the women could go to the spring and return unharmecnf they would Uo so without acting as if they suspected an enemy nearer than the corn. The Indians woula not forfeit their hope of taking the stockade tw surprise, just for the sake of killing a' few women.” This bold project met at first much opposition. Some of the men would not listen to the proposal that their wives and daughters should run such risk; a few children, catching the idea, set up a frightened wailing; and certain of the women, as was natural, had no relish for the dangerous undertaking. I remember one in particular, a boastful creature, who had always seemed to consider herself as brave as the bravest men, but now showed herself a great coward, exclaiming; “ Let the men bring the water. We are not bullet-proof! The savageS will take a woman’s scalp as soon as a man’s!” But our leaders urged so many and such good reasons for our going to (he spring, and so many of the older women were in favor of it, that in a few minutes all agreed to the plan, and it was decided that every woman in the stockade able to bring a pail of water should go, so as to show no partiality. We Were not to go all in a crowd, but stringing along two or three together, as naturally as possible, so as to excite no suspicion among the Indians. Then we got our bucket* some of us carrying two. Qh, how plainly I remember those few minutes. Many of us wore shoss or moccasins, but we all took them off so as to run the faster it we had need. We stood all together by the picketing, and a paler-faced crowd of women was never seen. But there wa3 no fainting, as in these days is so common among ladiet. The men, each with two or three loaded guns near him, gathered along the stockade, at the port-holes, ready to fire on the Indians if they attacked us. Two of the strongest were to manage the gate. Finally, when all were ready, my mother suggested that a prayer should be offered before we went out, for, said she: “ If God does not shield us we shall never come back.” This idea pleased all, both men and women. Mr. Reynolds, whose son was Captain of the garrison, knelt down on the ground, while everybody knelt around him; and such a prayer as that old man prayed! Tne people in those days, ministers and all, do not know how to pray as folks prayed in those bloody times. You do not feel your need of God as you would if a thousand wild Indians were at your very doors, panting to kill you and all your loved ones. You do not nowadays, hourly, hold your lives in your hands, and feel that you have no hope but in the Lord.

A white-haired old man in a quavering voice told God our very hearts, and it did seem as if God was right there to hear him. How wives were going forth from husbands into the jaws of death; how young daughters were running the risk at a captivity worse than death; how mothers were leaving their babes, whom they loved more dearly than life—thus he prayed; and as his words were literally true, we all felt them in such a prayerful earnestness as people do not feel in the splendid modern churches, where prayers are almost a mere form. And he besought God, weeping, that every soul in Bryant’s stockade might, that day and that minute, be born again and thus fitted to die or live. I was not until then a Christian; but while I Was kneeling there ou the hard-trodden earth I felt I must give myself to God, and I did; and from that awful hour I date my hope of heaven. And I was not the only one; every poor sinner in the fort did tne same. It was a great revival within fifteen minutes, and nearly,two score persons were then and there converted, and they held on faithful unto death. That is the way men ought always to pray, with blood-red feeling and meaning in their hearts and words; for so God would always hear and answer. When we arose from our knees men and all were in tears, and we knne God would take care of us, die or live. Then there was a moment of sad and fend farewells, and we began to slip through the gate and start for the spring. How vivid it is yet to me, though it was about seventy years ago) I can see and feel it all, as if it were now before me; the sun was some two hours high, and the very air seemed as still as death; there were the mocassins we had removed standing In a row by the picketing ; the little children were crying by the cabin doors; the men were going to their guns by the portholes. I went out with my mother, and as we were passing through the gate she said, in a low tone: * “Walk behind me, Hetty, so if they shoot they will not hit you till they kill me.” But I replied; "No; for father’s sake and the children, 1 will keep between you and the Indians.” f And I did; going to.the spring I walked before her, and returning I kept behind her. WhHe we were dipping up the water I chanced to see under fie bushes the feet of one Indian and the hand of another grasping a tomahawk; thqr were

not twenty steps from me, and I trembled so I could hardly stand. But God heard the prayer, and within a few minutes every one was safe back in the stockade, and the Indians had not fired a shot. But some of the buckets were not very full, for it is not an easy task when you shake like the leaves to carry water without spilling. Authors may write about the coui age of soldiers in battle, but I think if they had it all so deathly still and dreadftil, without a drum beat or a bugle note, they might not be braver than we women were. But it was all of the good mercy of God. As the Book says: “If it had hot been the Lord who was on our side when men rose up against us, then they had swallowed us up quick when their wrath was kindled against us.” The rest ot tne story is soon told. The Indians attacked the stockade that afternoon, but the men fired accurately and rapidly among them, and we women kept their guns loaded, and the red skins lost many in killed and wounded, while on our side not a person was hurt. In less than forty-eight hours their leader, a renegade white man by the name of Simon Oirty, became discouraged, and they all stole away through the great forests. We afterward found out that when we went to the spring we were within short rifle-shot of more than six hundred Warriors. Two days after, this same army of Indians fought and defeated the Kentuckians in .the bloody battle of (the Blue Licks, in which more than sixty of the best men on the Borders were killed, among whom were Col. Todd, Col. Trigg, Mai. Harland, Capt. Gordon and the second son of Col. Daniel Boone. So you see, if we had fallen into their hands, the Indians would have made short work with us. —Irving L. Beman, in Chrietian Union.