39 2 The Winning of the West 



dians; and as the latter grew bolder they menaced 

 the forts themselves and harried the troops who 

 convoyed provisions to them. Of the innumerable 

 tragedies which occurred, the record of a few has 

 by chance been preserved. One may be worth giv 

 ing merely as a sample of many others. On the Vir 

 ginian side of the Ohio lived a pioneer farmer of 

 some note, named Van Swearingen. 22 One day his 

 son crossed the river to hunt with a party of stran 

 gers. Near a "waste cabbin," the deserted log hut 

 of some reckless adventurer, an Indian war-band 

 came on them unawares, slew three, and carried off 

 the young man. His father did not know whether 

 they had killed him or not. He could find no trace 

 of him, and he wrote to the commander of the near 

 est fort, begging him to try to get news from the In 

 dian villages as to whether his son were alive or 

 dead, and to employ for the purpose any friendly 

 Indian or white scout, at whatever price was set he 

 would pay it "to the utmost farthing." He could 

 give no clew to the Indians who had done the deed ; 

 all he could say was that a few days before, one of 

 these war parties, while driving off a number of 

 horses, was overtaken by the riflemen of the neigh 

 borhood and scattered, after a fight in which one 

 white man and two red men were killed. 



The old frontiersman never found his son ; doubt 

 less the boy was slain ; but his fate, like the fate of 

 hundreds of others, was swallowed up in the gloomy 



M State Dept. MSS., No. 150, Vol. II, Van Swearingen to 

 William Butler, Washington County, Sept. 29, 1787. 



