Edward Ellis - Wyoming

The eighteen prisoners were driven forward until this celebrated boulder was reached, which has been known ever since by the ominous name of "Queen Esther's Rock."

Here the captives were ranged in a circle around the stone, while the queen, with a death-maul and hatchet, proceeded to wreak vengeance upon her victims for the death of her son, killed by a scouting party, a short time before the battle.

One after another, the white men were seated upon the rock, and held by two strong warriors, while the terrible Katharine Montour chanted a wild dirge, and, raising the death-maul in both hands, dealt the single blow that was all sufficient.

Occasionally she varied the dreadful ceremony by using a keen-edged hatchet with her muscular arm, which was as effective as the death-maul wielded by both hands.

The work went on until eleven victims had been sacrificed, when one of the men, Lebbeus Hammond, was roused by the sight of his own brother, who was placed upon the rock, and tightly grasped by two warriors.

It was impossible to do anything for him, but Lebbeus whispered to Joseph Elliott:

" Let's try it! "

On the instant, they wrenched themselves loose from their captors, and bounded down the river bank.

They expected to be shot, and they preferred such a death to that which awaited them if they remained.

But the very audacity of the attempt, like that of Fred Godfrey, threw the Indians into confusion for the moment, and instead of firing they broke into pursuit, without discharging a weapon.

Fortunately for the fugitives, instead of keeping together they diverged, Hammond heading up the river. The warriors must have concluded that they were making for Forty Fort, and shaped their course with the purpose of shutting them off. The fort lay to the south and below, and, understanding the aim of the Indians, Hammond turned more directly up the river.

He was fleet-footed, and ran as never before; but, while straining every nerve, he caught his foot in a root, and was thrown headlong down the bank, rolling all in a heap underneath the bushy top of a fallen tree.

He started to scramble to his feet, when, like a flash, it occurred to him that there was no safer course than to stay where he was.

Only a few seconds passed, when the Indians approached and began hunting for him. How they failed to discover the young man passes comprehension, and it was only another of the several wonderful escapes which marked the massacre of Wyoming.

The savages peered here and there, drawing the bushes aside, and looking among the old logs. The poor fellow heard their stealthy footsteps all around him, and caught glimpses of their coppery faces, smeared with paint, as they uttered some exclamation and almost stepped upon him in his concealment.

Once he was sure he was detected, and he held his breath, fearful that the throbbing of his heart would betray him; but the red men moved away, and shortly after returned to Queen Esther's Rock to help in the executions going on there.

Hammond stayed where he was until all was still, when he crept cautiously out, and, swimming the river, made his way to the fort at Wilkesbarre, where, to his amazement, he found his companion in flight.

The escape of this patriot was no less extraordinary than that of Hammond.

He had also swum the river to the bar on the lower point of Monocacy Island, going almost the entire distance under water. Whenever he threw up his head for a breath of fresh air he was fired upon, and he received a bad wound in the shoulder.

Although suffering severely from it, he persevered and soon reached the opposite side, where he found a horse wandering loose and without bridle or saddle.

With little effort Elliott succeeded in catching him, and with a bridle improvised from the bark of a hickory sapling, he rode the animal to Wilkesbarre, where the wound was dressed by a surgeon.

The next morning he went down the river with his wife and child in a canoe managed by a boy, and joined his friends at Catawissa.

Both Hammond and Elliott lived many years afterward, and are still remembered by some of the old settlers in Wyoming Valley.

In the mean time the little party consisting of Maggie and Eva Brainerd, Aunt Peggy, and the servant Gravity Gimp, and the eccentric New Englander Habakkuk McEwen, were improving to the utmost the advantage gained by reaching the eastern bank of the Susquehanna.

"I don't want to go away without papa," said Eva, as she looked longingly across the river, where the massacre was going on, as shown in the smoke of burning buildings, the crack of the rifles, the whoop of the Indians, the shouts of fugitives, and the flight of settlers, including women and children, who flocked to the river.

Despite the danger, Maggie shared with her sister the most tender solicitude for her parent.

"Perhaps he is among them," said she, in a lower voice, to Gravity.

"There's no telling where anybody is," replied the New Englander, "but I notice that the Tories and Injins right across from us are watching our movements pretty sharp, and it won't do for us to loaf about here many days, if we expect to get out with our lives."

"What a pity that Jake Golcher was not shot when we had the chance!" exclaimed Aunt Peggy.

"We're likely to get dat same chance agin," said Gimp, impressively, "and de next time de one dat don't took it has got to be shot for him."

"If we could do Richard any good," added Aunt Peggy, more thoughtfully, "we ought to wait here; but can we?"

McEwen, who was growing uneasy over this delay, shook his head.

"If anybody can show me the way by which we can help him I'm willing to stay, but the woods are full of people fleeing, and the savages are after 'em. I've no doubt a lot are in Forty Fort, where they'll be safe if they've enough to keep the Injins back. There's only one thing left for us to do, and that's to run."

He looked inquiringly at Maggie, and the brave girl, with a breaking heart, stifled her anguish and nodded her head to signify that she was ready.

As courageous as the Roman maiden of old, she could walk straight along the line of duty, even though it led over red-hot plow-shares.

Poor Eva put her hands to her face, and the tears streamed through her fingers, but she, too, had something of the high courage of her sister, and when the latter placed her arm about her and drew her head over upon her shoulder, the little girl sobbed for a few minutes only, and then cheered up and bent to her task.

"Where do you go?" asked Maggie of Habakkuk.

"I think there is an old trail leading through the mountains and wilderness to Stroudsburg, ain't there, Gimp?"

"Dar am," was the response, "and I've been over it twice, so dat I knows de way."

"Does it lead through the 'Shades of Death?'"

"It am."

"It's a long road to Stroudsburg, for I came from out that way, and it'll be a powerful hard tramp, but I don't think we can do any better. These Iroquois have had a taste of victory, and they'll never stop, so long as there's a chance to get any more. They'll trail us all day to-morrow, and it's my opinion we ain't goin' to get to Stroudsburg in a hurry, either."

"Den let's be off," added Gravity, who could not fail to see the necessity for such promptness.

"If papa comes across the river," said Eva, who threatened to yield again; "won't he cross higher up?"

It struck all that there was some reason in this suggestion, which was acted upon without delay.

They made their way up the western shore until some distance above Monocacy Island, every eye and ear on the alert.

They saw plenty of fugitives, some on horseback, some wounded, all scared half out of their senses, and striving to get as far from the valley as possible.