20 Legend of Brady's Hill. 



At the period of this adventure he Hved on Chartier Creek, about 

 twelve miles below Fort Pitt ; a stream better known, however, to 

 the pilots and keel-boatmen of modern days, by the significant name of 

 " Shirtee." He died in 1796, soon after the close of the Indian war. 

 A number of articles were published in the " Blairsville Recorder," a 

 year or two since, detailing his adventures, which would make a most 

 interesting volume. His father and a brother were both killed by 

 Indians. I shall have occasion to refer to him again in the course 

 of my visit. 



Legend of Brady's Hill. — I received the particulars of the fol- 

 lowing story from one of the passengers in the coach, who had re- 

 sided in the country several years, and had often heard it related. 

 Samuel Brady, the hero of the following adventure, was over six 

 feet in height, with light blue eyes, fair skin, and dark hair : he 

 was remarkably strait, an athletic, bold, and vigorous backwoods- 

 man, inured to all the toils and hardships of a frontier life, and had 

 become very obnoxious to the Indians, from his numerous success- 

 ful attacks on their war parties, and from shooting them in his hunt- 

 ing excursions, whenever they crossed his path, or came within 

 reach of his rifle ; for he was personally engaged in more hazardous 

 contests with the savages, than any other man west of the moun- 

 tains, excepting Daniel Boone. He was in fact " an Indian hater," 

 as many of the early borderers were. This class of men appear 

 to have been more numerous in this region, than in any other por- 

 tion of the frontiers ; and this doubtless arose from the slaughter 

 at Braddock's defeat, and the numerous murders and attacks on de- 

 fenceless families that for many years followed that disaster. Brady 

 was also a very successful trapper and hunter, and took more bea- 

 vers than any of the Indians themselves. In one of his adventurous 

 trapping excursions, to the waters of the Beaver River, or Maho- 

 ning, which in early days so abounded with the animals of this spe- 

 cies, that it took its name from this fact, it so happened that the In- 

 dians surprised him in his camp, and took him prisoner. To have 

 shot or tomahawked him on the spot, would have been but a small 

 gratification to that of satiating their revenge by burning him at a 

 slow fire, in presence of all the Indians of their village. He was 

 therefore taken alive to their encampment, on the west bank of the 

 Beaver River, about a mile and a half from its mouth. After the 

 usual exultations and rejoicings at the capture of a noted enemy, 

 and causing him to run the gauntlet, a fire was prepared, near which 



