MR. ROBERT FORBES, not being a na­tive of Canada, but having resided there se­veral years, was desirous of being where he might have a more frequent opportunity of associating with his own countrymen.

He and his wife had premeditated a removal to the United States of America, when falling in com­pany with three men, by the names of Midstaff, Pancake, and Christian, they were induced, by their insinuations, to undertake the journey by land: the said Midstaff engaging, for a certain sum, that with the assistance of the other two, he would conduct them, in twelve days time, to the settle­ment on Kennebeck River.

Mr. Forbes' neighbours endeavoured to dissuade him from the attempt, not only on account of the length and difficulty of the way, but because there was a possibility of his being deserted by his guides in the midst of the wilderness.

Nevertheless, being determined on a removal, and having paid to Midstaff a large stipulated sum [Page 4] for that purpose, on the seventeenth day of March, A. D. one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, they entered upon this unfortunate journey.

From Nouvelle Bois, on the river Chadore, they took their departure. The men and Mrs. Forbes, (who was then pregnant), and Mr. Forbes' son John, a lad about thirteen years old, on snow shoes.

Their provisions and other effects, together with four children, viz. Mary, about seven years; Peg­gy, about five; Catharine, about three; Robert, about fifteen months old, they undertook to haul on Indian sleighs, or hand sleds.

In this manner, but with great difficulty, they pursued their way eight days; and on the ninth, being obliged to leave the river which they had fol­lowed hitherto, and whereon they had travelled some part of the time, they found the country so broken with large and deep gullies, and so rough and mountainous, that they concluded it next to impossible to proceed any further with the sleighs.

Here they were obliged to make a halt; and af­ter a short consultation, having first erected a small camp, to leave the woman and children in, they took the chief part of their provisions, and as much of the rest of their baggage as they were able to car­ry on their backs; and leaving the woman and chil­dren, about ten o'clock in the morning, set out in quest of Meconick Pond, otherwise called Lake Chadore, expecting to return the next day. But meeting much difficulty, they did not reach the pond until the next day about three o'clock in the afternoon.

Here being much fatigued, they left their bag­gage; and Midstaff having had some previous no­tice that there was an Indian residing not far from thence, went in quest of him to the other side of the [Page 5] pond, where they found an old camp, without in­habitants; and there they encamped that night.

The next morning, being Sunday, the twenty-seventh day of March, they crossed the pond back to where they had left their baggage. When, to the great astonishment of Mr. Forbes, his pilot and the other two, taking to themselves the provisions, and his other effects of any considerable consequence, frankly told him, that they were determined not to return with him to his family; and that they must now leave him, and make the best of their way through to Kennebeck.

This may well be supposed to be shocking indeed to one who was already discouraged and dishearten­ed. "This," said he, ‘struck me to the heart, and filled my eyes with tears; it confirmed what my neighbours had repeatedly mentioned amongst their fears of what might happen to myself and family.’

Notwithstanding his importunities, his most ear­nest entreaties and solicitations, they would not be prevailed upon to continue any longer with him; but, leaving him only one axe, a small firelock, and two loaves of bread, they departed.

With a heavy heart did this unfortunate man then make the best of his way back to his family; where he arrived that evening, with the sorrowful tidings.

Here were they left in the wide wilderness, stran­gers to the country, destitute of provisions, and without a compass; eight days journey from the inhabitants in Canada, and how far from any other settlement they knew not; probably not less than one hundred and fifty miles.

The wife and son had laboured under the most terrible apprehensions during Mr. Forbes's absence, especially seeing he did not return at the time ap­pointed. Their fears had almost driven them to des­pair; [Page 6] and the poor lad, a little before his father's return, had fatigued himself almost to death, hav­ing followed their tracks for several miles; and had just got back when his father arrived.

The next morning they were in the most doubtful perplexity whether to go backward or forward. Should they undertake to return to Canada, it might take them more than double the length of time in which they had got thus far, the river being then a­bout breaking up; and in that case they must inevi­tably starve.

When the husband and wife were in this pitiable situation, gazing at each other, and tears gushing from their eyes, their children were hanging around them, and crying bitterly, for a morsel of bread.

Upon the whole, as the before-mentioned two loaves of bread, were in the way towards Kennebeck, and as they might, peradventure, find the Indian at Meconick pond, they concluded, by the help of God, to proceed on their journey.

Accordingly they left the most cumbersome, though necessary articles, which they had now re­maining, and the eldest daughter undertook to tra­vel on foot with her mother, while Mr. Forbes took two of the children, and John one, upon sleds; and thus they proceeded with as much dispatch as possible.

The way, however, was rough; and they travel­led but a short distance during that day. At night, they encamped, and the next morning there came on a violent storm of rain, hail, and snow, which continued until Wednesday evening. In the mean while, the children were pinched with hunger and with the cold; and their cries were so bitterly dis­tressing, that, leaving the mother and children in camp, the father and son pushed forward with all speed to the pond; but it was still stormy, and the [Page 7] travelling so difficult, that they did not get back with the two loaves until Wednesday evening.

Upon their return, they had not a dry thing a­bout them, nor any dry clothes to put on. And to add to their misfortune, the fire was extinguished, and they were unable to rekindle it for the whole night.

The next morning, the storm being considerably abated, they proceeded on their journey; but the trees and bushes being wet, they had an uncomfort­able time, and did not reach the pond until Friday morning about ten o'clock.

Soon after this, to their great consolation, they met with the beforementioned Indian, who proved to be one John Baptist, and with whom they had had some previous acquaintance in Canada.—He very hospitably invited them to his camp, which was at a considerable distance from the pond; and there he kindly treated them with the best of what his house afforded.

This was a camp where his wife resided, while he followed hunting. Here they tarried until the next Monday. And the Indian having, just before their meeting, killed a moose, at a few miles distance, Mr. Forbes and his son went with their sleds, and assisted him in bringing it home.

The Indian gave them as much moose meat as they would undertake to carry; and agreed to pilot them to Kennebeck river.—This agreement he punc­tually fulfilled; and would have proceeded with them to the settlements, but his wife was so sick that he did not dare to be any longer absent from her. He therefore marked the way on a piece of bark, representing the bends, windings, falls, and carrying places along the river.—He then wished them well, and left them.

On taking leave of the Indian, they could not ex­press [Page 8] their gratitude. His kindness was beyond their expectation.—Before his departure, however, they gave him what things they had left behind, together with some other things of considerable value. And they had reason afterwards to wish that they had pre­sented him with more; for their loads proved so much too heavy for them, that they were obliged to leave by the way a large bag full of valuable articles.

They now met with almost insurmountable difficul­ties; for in pursuing the river, their progress was obstructed by craggy windfalls, rocky ledges, lofty mountains, and hideous precipices.

On the twelfth day of April, their provisions were exhausted; and Mrs. Forbes thought it most advisa­ble to have a camp erected, and for herself and the children to remain there, while her husband and oldest son should go forward to see whether they could find the inhabitants—apprehending that they were much nearer than they afterwards proved to be.

A camp was therefore erected, and leaving Mrs. Forbes with her four young children, Mr. Forbes and his son went forward with as much speed as possible. The first and second days, finding the ice would bear them, they travelled on the river; and would have made considerable progress, but unfor­tunately they mistook their way at a very material carrying place, where, instead of leaving the river, and crossing by land to the next bend, which was only twelve miles, they followed the river sixty miles around.

A little before night, the second day, they came to falls, and could go no further on the ice. They went on shore, and soon after came to a precipice where they were obliged to descend twenty feet al­most perpendicularly, and at the risque of being dashed upon the rocks.—Night coming on, they encamped; and the next day, finding a shoal rocky [Page 9] place in the river, they crossed over to the other side, in hopes of finding better travelling, and a more convenient place to encamp. Here they were obliged by reason of stormy weather, to encamp for the remainder of the day.

The next day they travelled on; and perceiving the river to be almost clear of ice, they concluded to build a kind of raft—a thing with which they were altogether unacquainted, and by means of which they had both like to have lost their lives.

A few days after they got on the raft, and under way about ten o'clock in the morning. The cur­rent, however, ran so swift, that they soon found there was no possibility of turning it to the shore. As they passed down the river, they struck against a tree, which they were obliged to cut away, in or­der to clear the raft. When they descended over ripples, the water never failed of dashing over them, so that they were wet continually.

About the middle of the day, the raft moving with great rapidity, struck a large rock, parted one of its corners, and spread into a single string of logs. At this time they lost their axe, and it be­came extremely difficult to keep upon their broken machine.

They were, from this time, driven with amazing rapidity, expecting every moment would be their last, until about four o'clock in the afternoon; when, falling into an eddy, they were brought up by a point of land, and both got safe on shore.

They now travelled on by land until their strength was almost exhausted. About the twentieth of A­pril, they heard the report of a gun, which seemed to give them new life. They fired several times, but were not answered. Then, concluding that it might be nothing more than the falling of a tree, [Page 10] their spirits again sunk within them, and they mov­ed on with heavy hearts.

But on the evening of the twenty-second, having kindled a small fire upon an eminence, they were discovered, and kindly relieved by two hunters—Jo­nathan Crosby and Luke Sawyer.

It was now the tenth day since they left Mrs. For­bes and the children. And during this time they had eaten up all the moose meat which they had ta­ken with them (it being only two or three ounces) and their moggasons—having had nothing else to subsist upon.

The hunters supplied them with such articles of nourishment as they had with them; and then con­ducted them to the settlements at Seven Mile Brook, a little above Norridgewalk, where they arrived in a few hours; but so reduced, that they were scarce­ly able to stand alone.

Upon their arrival, Mr. Forbes procured major Hale, William Huston, and Ebenezer Hilton, three of the most suitable men that could be found, to go with all speed to the relief of his wife and children. They set out immediately, and after having been gone thirteen days, returned without having been able to find them.

It was now twenty-four days from the time Mr. Forbes left them, with only one pound and an half of moose meat, and a pound and a half of tallow, for their subsistence: It was the general opinion, therefore, that they must have been dead.

Nevertheless, Mr. Forbes' anxiety would not per­mit him to rest satisfied until he had procured two other persons, Messrs. James M'Donald and Jona­than Ames, to go with him, and see whether they might not be still alive. But by this time, all the low lands adjacent to the river were overflowed, which rendered the passing extremely difficult. For [Page 11] this reason, and because they had no expectation of finding them alive, they could not be prevailed up­on to set off until the waters were abated.

On the twenty-eighth day of May, they set out. Having travelled one day, Mr. Forbes found himself unable to keep up with them; and upon their tel­ling him he could be of no service, and that he might depend upon their fidelity, he consented to return.

They proceeded on their way, and, on the second day of June, arrived at the place where Mrs. Forbes and her children were left. And here, to their great astonishment, they found the mother and one of her children alive. It was now fifty days since they were left with nothing besides the before mentioned moose meat and tallow. Nor had they any thing else dur­ing that whole time, excepting cold water, and the inside bark of the fir tree. And in addition to this, they had been forty-eight days without fire.

To paint in proper colours this scene of distress, is altogether beyond my powers of description. It must be left to the imagination of the reader.

On the thirty-eighth day after the departure of Mr. Forbes, the little boy expired. Catharine died the next day; and Mary lived but four days longer. This last child had often told her mother, they should all certainly starve to death; and earnestly begged, in case her mother should outlive her, that she might be put where the wild beasts could not devour her.

The poor woman was herself but just alive, and expected every hour to close the eyes of Peggy, her only remaining child and companion. The bodies of the deceased children were laid out, and kept by her side: For she was unable to bury them—having been so weak, for the last fifteen days, that she had been obliged to crawl upon her hands and knees to the spring for water.

[Page 12]The breath of life, however, was still remaining in them. And the two men who came to their relief, afforded them such assistance, and administered to them such nourishment as their situation and circum­stances required.

On the third day of June they set out for home; and carried Mrs. Forbes and the child on a bier by land, and in a canoe by water, till they all safely ar­rived at Norridgewalk: where, to the surprize of the inhabitants, and the utter astonishment of Mr. Forbes, he was once more presented with a living wife, and one living child.

On this occasion, well might he adopt the lan­guage of holy DAVID—in whose words we shall now close the narrative:

ON Wednesday, the 29th of June, 1785, late in the evening, a large company of armed men passed the house, on their way to Kentucky: Some of whom encamped within two miles. Mr. Scott living on a fron­tier part, generally made the family watchful; but on this calamitous day, after so large a body of men had passed, shortly after night he lay down in his bed, and imprudently left one of the doors of his house open —the children were all in bed, and asleep. Mrs. Scott was nearly un­dressed, when, to her unutterable astonishment and horror, she saw rush­ing in through the door that was left open, painted savages, with present­ed arms, raising a hideous shriek—Mr. Scott being awake, instantly jumped out of bed, but was immediately fired at: he forced his way through the middle of the enemy, and got out of the door, but fell a few paces from thence. An Indian seized Mrs. Scott, and ordered her to a particular spot, and not to move: others stabbed and cut the throats of the three youngest children in their bed. And afterwards lifted them up and dashed them down to the floor, near the mother; the eldest, a beau­tiful girl of eight years old, awoke, and escaped out of the bed, and ran to her parent, and with a most plaintive accent, cried, "O mamma! mamma! save me,"—the mother, in the deepest anguish of spirit, and with a flood of tears, intreated the savages to spare her child, but with a brutal fierceness, they tomahawked and stabbed her in the mother's arms. Adjacent to Mr. Scott's dwelling house another family lived, of the name of Ball. The Indians also attacked them at the same instant they did Mr. Scott; but the door being shut, the enemy fired into the house through an opening between two logs, and killed a young lad, and then essayed to force the door open, but a surviving brother fired through the door, and the enemy desisted, and went off; the remaining part of the family ran out of the house and escaped. In Mr. Scott's house were four good rifles well loaded, belonging to people that had left it on their way to Kentucky. The Indians loaded themselves with the plunder, be­ing [Page 15] 13 in number, and then speedily made off, and continued travelling all night; next morning their chief allotted to each man his share, and detached nine of a party to steal horses, from the inhabitants in Clinch. The eleventh day after Mrs. Scott's captivity, the four Indians after hav­ing her in charge, stopped at a place fixed on for a rendezvous, and to hunt, being now in great want of provisions. Three went out, and the chief, being an old man, was left to take care of the prisoner, who, by this time, expressed a willingness to proceed to the Indian towns, which seemed to have the desired effect of lessening the keeper's vigilance. In the day time, as the old man was graining a deer skin, the captive pon­dering on her situation, and anxiously looking for an opportunity to make her escape, took the resolution, and went to the Indian carelessly, asked liberty to go a small distance to a stream of water, to wash the blood off her apron, that had remained besmeared since the fatal night of the murder of her little daughter. He told her in the English tongue, "Go along;" she then passed by him, his face being in a contrary direc­tion from that she was going, and he very busy. She after getting to the water, proceeded on without delay, made to a high barren mountain, and travelled till late in the evening, when she came down into the val­ley, in search of the track she had been taken along; hoping thereby to find the way back, without the risk of being lost, and perishing with hun­ger in uninhabited parts. On coming across the valley, on the river side, supposed to be the easterly branch of the Kentucky river, she observed in the sand, tracks of two men, that had gone up the river, and had just re­turned. She concluded these to have been her pursuers, which excited emotions of gratitude and thankfulness to divine providence for so time­ly a deliverance. Being without any provisions, having no kind of wea­pon or tool to assist her in getting any, and being almost destitute of cloth­ing; also knowing, that a vast track of rugged high mountains interven­ed between where she was and the inhabitants eastwardly, and she almost as ignorant as a child of the method of steering through the woods, ex­cited painful sensations. But certainly death, either by hunger or wild beasts, seemed to her better than to be in the power of beings, who had excited in her mind such horror. She addressed Heaven for protection, and taking courage, proceeded onward.

After travelling three days, she nearly met with the Indians, as she supposed, that had been sent to Clinch to steal horses, but providentially hearing their approach, concealed herself among the cane, until the ene­my had passed. This giving a fresh alarm, and her mind being filled with consternation, she got lost, proceeding backwards and forwards for seve­ral days; at length she came to a river, that seemed to come from the east; concluding it was Sandy river, she accordingly resolved to trace it to its source, which is adjacent to Clinch settlement. After proceed­ing up the same several days, she came where the river runs through a great laurel mountain, where is a prodigious water fall, and numerous high craggy cliffs along the water edge; that way seemed impassable, the mountain steep and difficult: However, our mournful traveller concluded that the latter way was the best. She therefore ascended for some time, but coming to a range of inaccessible rocks, she turned her course to­wards the foot of the mountain and the river side; after getting into a deep gulley, and passing over several high steep rocks, she reached the river side, where, to her inexpressible affliction, she found that a perpendi­cular rock, or rather one that hung over, of 15 or 20 feet high, formed the bank. Here a solemn pause took place, she essayed a return; but the height of the steps and rocks she had descended over, prevented her. [Page 16] She then returned to the edge of the precipice, and viewed the bottom of it, as the certain spot to end all her troubles, or remain on the top to pine away in hunger, or be devoured by wild beasts. After serious medi­tation and devout exercises, she determined on leaping from the height, and accordingly jumped off. Although the place she had to alight was covered with uneven rocks, not a bone was broken; but being exceed­ingly stunned with the fall, she remained unable to proceed for some time. The dry season caused the river to be shallow—she travelled in it, and where she could, by its edge, until she got through the mountain, which she concluded was several miles. After this, as she was travelling along the bank of the river, a venomous snake bit her on the ancle: she had strength to kill it; and knowing its kind, concluded that death must soon overtake her. By this time Mrs. Scott was reduced to a mere skeleton, with fatigue, hunger, and grief; probably this state of her body was the means of preserving her from the effects of the poison; be that as it may, so it was, that very little pain succeeded the bite, and what little swelling there was, it fell into her feet. Our wanderer now left the river, and after proceeding a good distance, she came to where the valley parted into two, each leading a different course.—Here a painful suspense again took place; a forlorn creature, almost exhausted, and cer­tain if she was far led out of the way, that she would never see a human creature. During this doubt, a beautiful bird passed close by her, flut­tering along the ground, and went out of sight up one of the vallies. This drew her attention, and, whilst considering what it might mean, another bird of the same appearance, in like manner fluttered past her, and took the same valley the former had done. This determined her choice of her way; and in two days, which was on the 11th day of Au­gust, she reached the settlement at Clinch, called New-Garden; whereas (she is since informed by woodmen) had she taken the other valley, it would have led back towards the Ohio. Mrs. Scott related that the In­dians told her, that the party was composed of four different nations, two of whom she thinks they named Delawares and Mingoes.

She further relates, that, during her wandering from the 10th of July to the 11th of August, she had no other subsistence but chewing and swallowing the juice of young cane stalks, sassafras leaves, and some o­ther plants she did not know the name of; that, on her journey, she saw buffaloes, elks, deer, and frequently bears and wolves; not one of which, although some of them passed very near her, offered her any harm. One day a bear came near her, with a young fawn in his mouth, and on discovering her, he dropped his prey and ran off. Hunger prompted her to go and take the flesh, and eat it; but on reflection, she desisted, think­ing that the bear might return and devour her; besides, she had an aver­sion to taste raw flesh.—Mrs. Scott continues in a low state of health, and remains inconsolable for the loss of her family, particularly bewail­ing the cruel death of her little daughter.