I have a friend who used to microfilm records for the Family History Department.  She ran across a story that touched her so deeply that she made a copy for herself, so she could always remember it.  She gave me a copy of her copy, so I could be touched too.

This record comes from Western Pennsylvania, and is about an attack by the Indians and subsequent capture of Massy Harbison.  Massy was able to escape, and later was asked to record her experience, as a public oath and outrage committed by Indians. 

In the year 1792, there were several attacks being reported in the Pittsburg area, by Indians.  Massy’s home was under protection, but on the night of May 21, Indians broke into her home, dragging her out of bed.  She had a one and a half year old baby she was still nursing, as well as a three year old and a five year old. 

She tried talking to the Indians to calm them down, but they began “flogging” her with whipping sticks.  Her three year old started crying.  One of the Indians picked the child up by his feet and “dashed his brains out against the threshold of the door”; then they scalped him.  Massy gave a terrific scream, and the Indians beat her more.  She tried to collect herself, still holding on to her baby, and noticed two of the Indians were actually white men painted in war paint.

They took her by horseback and canoe to an island in the river.  Her five year old was crying and in shock, so an Indian took a tomahawk and killed him and scalped him.  Again, Massy watched helpless and “in a state of insensibility”.  She wondered why the Indians didn’t kill her too.   

That night, they tied her to a tree.  She was still holding her baby during all this time.  In the morning, having eaten no food, and with little rest, an Indian took her son’s scalp and stretched it over a hoop.  She says, “I meditated revenge!  I attempted to take his tomahawk, which hung by his side and rested on the ground, and had nearly succeeded…when, alas! I was detected”.

Because of the beatings she had received, she was unable to open her mouth, so when they finally gave her a small piece of jerky, she could not eat it.  She was determined to escape.  At nightfall, her guard dozed by her side.  She snored loud to make him think she was in deep sleep and waited.  She had to be careful, so her child wouldn’t cry and wake him up, but she was indeed able to get away.  She nursed her baby for days just to keep him quiet. 

At one point, she heard footsteps along the path and scrambled to hide herself under a tree.  “After the savage had stood and listened with nearly the stillness of death, for two hours, the cries of a night owl, signals which were given to him from his savage companions, induced him to answer, and after he had given a most horrid yell, which was calculated to harrow up my soul, he started and went off to join them.”

She had to hide again, finding a log as protection, only to find “a large heap of rattlesnakes, and the top one was very large and coiled up very near my face…This compelled me to leave this situation, let the consequences be what they might”.

On the sixth day of her captivity and effort to return home, she was exhausted and unable to eat except to suck on grapevine leaves.  She was full of despair.  She came across some white men working on the opposite bank of the river.  She called to them for help, but they were suspicious, thinking maybe Indians were using her as a decoy.  She was able to convince them and they took a boat out to rescue her.

As she was being doctored, they extracted one hundred and fifty thorns in her feet.  Most of the skin had come off her body due to beatings, the rain, and the sun.  She told them about her sons and they were able to find the body of her older son and bring him back to bury.

“Ye mothers, who have never lost a child by an inhuman savage, or endured the almost indescribable misery here related, may nevertheless think a little, (though it be but little) what I endured; and hence now you are enjoying sweet repose, and the comforts of a peaceful and well replenished habitation, sympathize with me a little.”  Massy Harbison

Now, why do I share this story with you?

1)      Keep a journal.  You may not have a story this graphic to tell your descendents, but they will want to know about your life.

2)      Do your genealogy.  There is no telling what interesting documents you will run across.  Incidentally, as far as I can tell, this woman’s work has not been done for her. 

3)      Strong women need to be remembered.