In 1785, on June 29th, the house of a settler named Scott, in Washington County, Virginia, was attacked.  The Indians, thirteen in number, burst in the door just as the family were going to bed.  Scott was shot; his wife was seized and held motionless, while all her four children were tomahawked, and their throats cut, the blood spouting over her clothes.  The Indians loaded themselves with plunder, and, taking with them the wretched woman, moved off, and travelled all night.  Next morning each man took his share and nine of the party went down to steal horses on the Clinch.  The remaining four roamed off through the woods, and ten days later the woman succeeded in making her escape.  For a month she wandered alone in the forest, living on the young cane and sassafras, until, spent and haggard with the horror and the hardship, she at last reached a small frontier settlement.

At about the same time three girls, sisters, walking together near Wheeling Creek, were pounced upon by a small party of Indians.  After going a short distance the Indians halted, talked together for a few moments, and then without any warning a warrior turned and tomahawked one of the girls.  The second instantly shared the same fate; the third jerked away from the Indian who held her, darted up a bank, and, extraordinary to relate, eluded her pursuer, and reached her home in safety.  Another family named Doolin, suffered in the same year; and there was one singular circumstance connected with their fate.  The Indians came to the door of the cabin in the early morning; as the man rose from bed the Indians fired through the door and shot him in the thigh.  They then burst in, and tomahawked him and two children; yet for reasons unknown they did not harm the woman, nor the child in her arms.

No such mercy was shown by a band of six Indians who attacked the log houses of two settlers, brothers, named Edward and Thomas Cunningham.  The two cabins stood side by side, the chinks between the logs allowing those in one to see what was happening in the other.  One June evening, in 1785, both families were at supper.  Thomas was away.  His wife and four children were sitting at the table when a huge savage slipped in through the open door.  Edward in the adjoining cabin, saw him enter, and seized his rifle.  The Indian fired at him through a chink in the wall, but missed him, and, being afraid to retreat through the door, which would have brought him within range of Edward’s rifle, he seized an axe and began to chop out an opening in the rear wall.  Another Indian made a dash for the door, but was shot down by Edward; however, he managed to get over the fence and out of range.  Meanwhile the mother and her four children remained paralyzed with fear until the Indian inside the room had cut a hole through the wall.  He then turned, brained one of the children with his tomahawk, threw the body out into the yard through the opening, and motioned to her to follow