704 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



MR. CATLIN'S CHILDHOOD. 



George Catlin's childhood was filled with stories of Indians and In- 

 dian life. 



Referring to the Indian adventures of his maternal grandparents and 

 of bi%mother, describing the u Wyoming massacre" in 1778, he writes: 



The Indians, watching the movements of the white men from the mountain tops, 

 descended into the valley, and at a favorable spot, where the soldiers were to pass, 

 laid secreted in ambush on both sides of the road, and in an instant rush, at the sound 

 of the war-whoop, sprang upon the whites with tomahawks and scalping-knivesin hand, 

 and destroyed them all, with the exception of a very few, who saved their lives by 

 swimming the river. 



Amongst the latter was my grandfather on my mother's side, from whom I have 

 often had the most thrilling descriptions. After this victory the Indians marched 

 down the valley and took possession of the fort containing the women and children, 

 and to whom not one of the husbands returned at that time. Amongst the prisoners 

 thus taken in the fort was my graudmother, aud also my mother, who was then a 

 child only seven years old. 



During the first fifteen years of his boyhood George lived much with 

 nature, aud became an accomplished hunter and sportsman. He says : 



In my early youth I was influenced by two predominant and inveterate propensi- 

 ties, viz, for hunting and fishing. My father and mother had great difficulty in turn- 

 ing my attention from these to books. 



His only education was that usual for the sons of persons of means in 

 the colonies, but it was supervised by the counsel of his judicious father 

 and added to by the constant care of his mother, from whom, unques- 

 tionably, he received his artistic taste and love of nature. 



Of the story of his boyhood days nothing is preserved save a few 

 notes in his own publications, but iu the surroundings of his youth we 

 see the begiuning of the germ that developed into the future Indian 

 enthusiast. His early life in New York and in the Valley of Wyoming 

 was filled with legends and traditions of the red men. Long winter 

 nights were spent by the fireside with sturdy pioneers, whose conver- 

 sation was of midnight raids and assaults by day. 



Hospitality was the watchword of Putnam Oatlin, and the traveling 

 stranger was welcomed with open hand to the family table. 



Revolutionary soldiers, Indian fighters, trappers, hunters, and ex- 

 plorers were constant guests, and the young George, with hungering 

 mind, eagerly caught up the stories and preserved traditions. Coupled 

 with this were days spent in the harvest-fields, where the noonday's 

 rest was the time for stories of the early settlement, which will account 

 for the sturdy desire for Indian adventure which later years satisfied. 



His description of his boyhood home from his tenth to his twentieth 

 year best expresses one reason for the acquirement of his desire for 

 romantic life and research amongst the Indians: 



My father's plantation (farm) in the picturesque little valley of the Ocquago, on 

 the banks of the Susquehanna river, hemmed in with huge mountains ou either side, 

 * * * though not the place of my nativity, was the tapis on which my boyish days 

 were spent, and rife with legends of Indian lore. 



