FROM PHILADELPHIA 151 



companied by sundry of their wives and widows with 

 their children. News soon reached the settlers along 

 the Monongahela that a number of Indians had ap- 

 peared in the Moravian villages, and from there were 

 intending to fall upon the frontier settlements this 

 was given out in palliation of the subsequent inhuman 

 proceedings. However, from other circumstances 

 demonstrable it is more than likely that it was known 

 perfectly well who these Indians were and what their 

 intentions were. Towards the end of February 1782 

 there assembled on the Monongahela probably 160 

 white Christians, citizens of the united free American 

 states, who set out on horses for the Muskingum to 

 forestall, so they gave out, the hostile plans of the 

 Indians there.* There came forward as the leader of 

 this party a certain Williamson, Colonel in the Virginia 

 militia, a monster whose name should hardly be men- 

 tioned. As they drew near the Moravian villages, in 

 and about them they observed industriously occupied 

 Indians who made not the least sign as if to run or to 

 offer resistance. Although at first this sudden visit 

 alarmed them, they assembled without delay at the call 

 of the white Christians, (who greeted them in pre- 

 tended friendship), and quietly allowed themselves to 

 be made captive. The whole number was 53 grown 

 men and women and 42 children. It is never the 



* No sooner was news of this undertaking received at Pitts- 

 burg than the American garrison there and all the right- 

 thinking men of the place became alarmed for the safety of 

 the Christian Indians. Colonel Gibson sent messengers to the 

 Muskingum to inform them, if there, of the danger threaten- 

 ing them and of his anxieties in consequence. These messen- 

 gers came too late. 



