CHAPTER I - Settlement.
Page 8
Character of the Settlers. - Assassination of Captain Zebulon King - Famine. - Abundance of food - Two boys killed at Neal's Station - Mill on Little Hocking

CHARACTER OF SETTLERS

ASSASSINATION OF CAPTAIN ZEBULON KING

    Soon after the pioneers had commenced laboring on their lands their ardor was for a while paralized, and their hope of undisturbed and quiet possession of their new hope of undisturbed and quiet possession of their new homes greatly weakened, by the murder of Capt King by the Indians.  His land lay in the middle settlement and while he was busily engaged in chopping on May 1st he was shot and scalped by two Indians.  It was thought at the time they were Indians who had escaped from confinement in Fort Harmar, where they had been detained since the outrage, at Duncan's Falls the previous summer.
     Captain King was from Rhode Island, where his family yet remained.  He intended to move them after he had prepared a house and raised a crop for their support.  He had been an officer in the United States Army and was a most excellent man.  His loss was deeply felt and lamented by all his fellow pioneers.

FAMINE

ABUNDANCE OF FOOD

TWO BOYS KILLED AT NEAL'S STATION

     In August the settlement was alarmed by the killing of two boys by the Indians, at Neils Station, a small stockade on the Little Kanawha a mile from its mouth and in the immediate vicinity of Belpre.  It was alarming as it manifested the hostility of the Indians, who might at any time fall upon and kill the inhabitants when they least expected it, and for which they were not prepared, as they pretended to be at peace with the whites.  The boys were twelve and fifteen years of age, and belonged to a German family that lived in the small cabin about forty rods above Neils blockhouse.  They had been down to the Station, Saturday afternoon, and just at night, on their way home, went into the edge of the woods on the outside of a corn field to look for the cows.  The Indians were lying in ambush near the path and killed them with tomahawks without firing a gun.  The goodies were not found until the next morning, but as they did not come home, their parents were fearful of their fate.  That night the Indians attempted to set fire to the block house by inclosing a brand of fire in dry poplar bark and pushing it through a port hole.  It was discovered and extinguished by a woman who lay in bed near the port hole, before it communicated to the house.  In the morning the alarm was given, and a party of armed men went out from Belpre and assisted in burying the two boys.  The Indians departed without doing any other damage.

MILL ON LITTLE HOCKING