Page 213 - People & Places In Time

Archibald Scott was one of the pioneers of that quiet and beautiful little valley that nestles between Powell’s mountain and Waldron’s ridge in Lee county, along which Wallen’s creek winds its noisy and meandering way, and which is now the home of so many prosperous and happy families. This little valley was selected by the first settlers for its fertility, its water facilities, its superior range, romantic surroundings, and remoteness from the usual route of the predatory bands of Indians, who, at that day, occasionally left their towns beyond the Ohio to prey upon the scattered settlers on the Holston. Mr. Scott had married Miss Fanny Dickinson, of. Russell county, many of whose relatives are still living there. Being the daughter of one of the brave and hardy pioneers of Castle’s Woods, she had been reared amid the dangers and excitements of frontier life, and hence was a companion upon whose coolness and fortitude her fearless and enterprising husband could depend in their new home on the verge of civilization. They removed to it in 1782-just nine after Daniel Boone had passed along the same trace with his family on their way to the wilderness beyond the Cumberland, and six years before the Indian. raid on the Livingston family on Hoiston. He located a corn-right to all that valuable tract of 1,000 acres, subsequently owned by Mr. Robert Duff and still in the possession of Mr. Duff’s descendants. Mr. Scott erected his cabin on the head waters of Wallens Creek, near the spot now occupied by the residence of Mr. Thomas D. Duff.
Here, with his wife and little ones, he was living on the rewards of honest toil, and doubtless looking forward with prophetic vision to the day, not far in the future, when that rich and romantic valley, reposing so quiet among the mountains, would teem with wealth and a happy population. He bared his brawny arm and cleared the forest, and for three years his cabin was the home of contentment, plenty and domestic joys. In June 1785, the family, after a day of toil, and partaking of their frugal retired to rest, without a thought, perhaps, of impending danger, and dreaming, perchance, of the luxuriant harvest so soon to be reaped and garnered. That pleasant summer day, as Mr. Scott was toiling amid the growing corn, he was seen and watched by a band of about. twenty Shawnee Indians; who; by some means, had been diverted from their usual route, and having observed the smoke arising from the cabin, were attract- ed towards it, and lay in ambush on the mountainside till night spread her curtain over the valley. When all was quiet, they approached and entered, and the first notice the husband and father had of their presence was the gleam of the tomahawk that killed his bed. The leader of the band was the cruel and notori- ous half-breed Benge, who was killed three years after not many miles from the same place, as he was making his way to Big Stone Gap with the Livingston captives. After scalping Mr. Scott, they murdered and scalped his children, plundered and burned the cabin, took Mrs. Scott prisoner, and started back on their long journey to their towns beyond the Ohio. Her sufferings during this journey over steep mountains and through deep and rapid streams, were inde- scribable. When, faint and weary and foot-sore, she failed to travel as rapidly as her captors desired, they would slap her in the face with the bloody scalps of her husband and children. Being a woman of great strength, activity and nerve, she bore up wonderfully, and even surprised the savages by her endurance.
After traveling about two hundred miles and reaching one of their favorite hunting-grounds in Kentucky, not far from the Ohio, they stopped a few days to rest and hunt. It was decided among them that one of the Indians, when they reached their town on the Miami should have their captive for a wife, and hence he was designated to guard her while the rest were engaged in the hunt. Some hours after they had left, the Indian on guard fell into a profound sleep, seeing which, and making a noise that did not seem to disturb his slumbers, she determined to kill him with his own tomahawk, which lay by his side, and then try to escape. She took the weapon and raised it above his head but being weak and nervous from fatigue and distress of mind, she feared she might not be able to strike a fatal blow and concluded to make an effort to escape. She made her way to a Spring a short distance from the camp, waded along the branch to conceal her trail and was soon safe from the pursuit of her guard in a thick canebrake. Hearing those who were hunting not a great way off she waited until their whooping died in the distance, when she started out on the long and parlous journey toward the Cumberland mountain, the dim outline of which she had seen as she crossed an elevation. For weeks she wandered through the unbroken forest, without food and almost destitute of raiment, subsist- ing on berries, barks and roots, and many days wandering so much out of her way as to make but a mile or two. Finally coming to a river (supposed to be the Kentucky), she found a path on the bank, which she followed. One morning, while following the path up stream, she heard the hunting party meeting her, and seeing a large sycamore near the path she stepped behind it, and fortunately found it hollow where she concealed herself till the Indians had passed. A day or two after this, and before she had reached the waters of the stream, she heard the Indians on her trail with dogs. She crawled into a hollow log that lay across the path, over which some of them jumped their ponies and others passing around the end without discovering her.
After the Indians had disappeared, she followed on very cautiously till she came to where the path forked. This perplexed her somewhat, not knowing which to take. She finally took the left, which seemed to be the plainest, when a bird flew past, touched her shoulder, and lighted in the other path. She kept on, however, but had proceeded but a few steps when the bird repeated its singular action. This led her to stop, and reflect, and coming to the conclusion that the bird was the spirit of one of her murdered children come to guide her through the wilderness, she took the other path, which proved to be the right one, and led her through what is now known as Pound Gap. She eventually made her way into Castle’s Woods, where many of her relatives resided and still reside.
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