f with the utmost speed.

At the usual period of leaving the forts and returning to their farms,
the inhabitants withdrew from Buchannon and went to their respective
homes. Soon after, a party of savages came to the house of Charles
Furrenash, and made prisoners of Mrs. Furrenash and her four children,
and despoiled their dwelling. Mrs. Furrenash, being a delicate and
weakly woman, and unable to endure the fatigue of travelling far on
foot, was murdered on Hughes' river. Three of the children were
afterwards redeemed and came back,--the fourth was never more heard
of. In a few days after, the husband and father returned from
Winchester (where he had been for salt) and instead of the welcome
greeting of an affectionate wife, and the pleasing prattle of his
innocent children, was saluted with the melancholy intelligence of
their fate. It was enough to make him curse the authors of the
outrage, and swear eternal enmity to the savage race.

The early period in spring at which irruptions were frequently made by
the savages upon the frontier, had induced a belief, that if the
Moravian Indians did not participate in the bloody deeds of their red
bretren, yet that they afforded to them shelter and protection from
the inclemency of winter, and thus enabled them, by their greater
proximity to the white settlements, to commence depredations earlier
than they otherwise could. The consequence of this belief was, the
engendering in the minds of many, a spirit of hostility towards those
Indians; occasionally threatening a serious result to them. Reports
too, were in circulation, proceeding from restored captives, at war
with the general pacific profession of the Moravians, and which,
whether true or false, served to heighten the acrimony of feeling
towards them, until the militia of a portion of the frontier came to
the determination of breaking up the villages on the Muskingum.[16] To
[230] carry this determination into effect, a body of troops,
commanded by Col. David Williamson, set out for those towns, in the
latter part of the year 1781. Not deeming it necessary to use the fire
and sword, to accomplish the desired object, Col. Williamson resolved
on endeavoring to prevail on them to move farther off; and if he
failed in this, to make prisoners of them all, and take them to Fort
Pitt. Upon his arrival at their towns, they were found to be nearly
deserted, a few Indians only, remaining in them. These were made
prisoners and taken