1891-92. ] AN EPISODE IN THE PONTIAC WAR. 251 
occasion, as I chanced to stray from my companions. There was one 
poor soldier of the 60th Regiment who happened to be nearest the 
enemy. They rushed upon him out of the woods, and the first who 
came up to him he instantly knocked down. The second savage struck 
him with his tomahawk which felled him to the ground; but neither that 
nor the scalping deprived him instantly of life, for as soon as the Indians 
left him, (dead as they thought) he got up, staggering to the foot of the 
hill where we had barricaded ourselves. The Indians still continued to 
pour their fire upon us, not a man durst venture forth to bring the poor 
soldier up the hill, who by this time had become insensible. He paid no 
attention to our calls, but wandered a little further on to where the 
Indians had gone. We afterwards found him a corpse under an old 
tree. For my own part I had much to do to regain the top of_the hill, 
being hard pressed by several of the Indians, and in my flight scrambling 
through the bushes, I left both my shoes in their hands, a loss I did not 
much regret. As soon as we arrived at our breastwork they began to 
fire very heavily upon us, which we immediately returned. Our work 
being very open and inadequate, we had several men killed. The Indians 
left us near dawn. We were detained in this place, which we called 
“Lover's Leap,” for twenty-four days, as we could not get a reinforce- 
ment of batteaux to carry us off to Niagara. It was here that I first 
entered upon duty as private soldier. After we had quitted this position, 
we marched over the carrying place at the Falls just three days after the 
Indians had defeated our troops in a rencontre. We saw about eighty 
dead bodies, unburied, scalped and sadly mangled. When at Niagara, I 
determined not to attempt fortune longer in the woods, and resolved to 
go to New York, where after residing some time with my uncle, I pro- 
ceeded to join the 42nd Regiment, in which corps I had obtained ,an 
Ensigncy, at the time when they were preparing for an expedition against 
the Shawanese and Delaware Indians to the westward, under General 
Bouquet. 
NOTE: 
By Thomas Rutherford, of Farrington, Roxburghshire, Scotland. 
The subject of the preceding was my father. He was born at Scarborough, in 
Yorkshire, 1746. His father having died at Barbadoes while he was yet an infant, he 
was sent to Scotland to the care of his grandfather, Sir John Rutherford, who had 
settled there, having amassed a considerable fortune by commerce, besides being 
proprietor of a large tract of land which still bears his name, “ Rutherford County.” 
