some time before this, on Muddy
creek in Pennsylvania. On the 10th of May as the Reverend John Corbly,
his wife and five children were going to meeting, (Mr. Corbly being a
short distance behind) they were attacked by a party of savages
waylaying the road. The shrieks of Mrs. Corbly and the children, drew
the husband and father to the fatal spot. As he was approaching, his
wife called to him, "to fly," He knew that it was impossible for him
to contend successfully against the fearful odds opposed to him, and
supposing that his family would be carried away as prisoners, and that
he would be enabled either to recover them by raising a company and
pursuing the savages, or to ransom them, if conducted to the Indian
towns, he complied with her wish, and got safely off, though pursued
by one of the savages. But it was not their intention to carry them
into captivity. They delighted too much, to look upon the lifeblood
flowing from the heart; and accordingly shed it most profusely. The
infant in its mother's arms was the first on whom their savage fury
fell,--it was tomahawked and scalped. The mother then received several
severe blows, but not falling, was shot through the body, by the
savage who chased her husband; and then scalped. Into the brains of a
little son, six years old, their hatchets were sunk to the heft. Two
little girls, of two and four years of age, were tomahawked and
scalped. The eldest child, also a daughter, had attempted to escape by
concealing herself in a hollow log, a few rods from the scene of
action. From her hiding place, she beheld all that was done, and when
the bleeding scalp was torn from the head of her last little sister, &
she beheld the savages retiring from the desolation which they had
wrought, she crawled forth from concealment. It was too soon. One of
the savages yet lingered near, to feast to satiety on the horrid
spectacle. His eyes caught a glimpse of her as she crept from the log,
and his tomahawk and scalping knife became red with her blood.

When Mr. Corbly returned, all his hopes vanished. Which ever way he
turned, the mangled body of some one of his family was presented to
his view. His soul sickened at the contemplation of the scene, and he
fainted and fell. When he had revived, he was cheered with the hope
that some of [256] them might yet survive. Two of his daughters had
manifested symptoms of returning life, and with care and attention
were restored to him.

Thus far in the