University of Virginia Library

Dr. Thomas Eckarly and his two brothers came from Pennsylvania, and camped at
the outh of a creek emptying into the Monongahela eight or ten miles below Morgantown;
they were Dunkards, and from that circumstance the watercourse on which they
fixed themselves for awhile, has been called Dunkard's creek. While their camp continued
at this place, these men were engaged in exploring the country; and ultimately
settled on Cheat River, at the Dunkard bottom. Here they erected a cabin for their
dwelling, and made such improvements as enabled them to raise the first year, a crop
of corn sufficient for their use, and some culinary vegetables: their guns supplied them
with an abundance of meat, of a flavor as delicious as the refined palate of a modern
epicure could well wish. Their clothes were made chiefly of the skins of animals,
and were easily procured; and although calculated to give a grotesque appearance to a
fine gentleman in a city drawing-room, yet were they particularly suited to their situation,
and afforded them comfort.

Here they spent some years entirely unmolested by the Indians, although a destructive
war was then waging, and prosecuted with cruelty, along the whole extent of our
frontier. At length, to obtain an additional supply of ammunition, salt, and shirting,
Dr. Eckarly left Cheat with a pack of furs and skins, to visit a trading-post on the
Shenandoah. On his return he stopped at Fort Pleasant, on the South Branch, and
having communicated to its inhabitants the place of his residence, and the length of time
he had been living there, he was charged with being in confederacy with the Indians,
and probably at that instant a spy, examining the condition of the fort. In vain the
Doctor protested his innocence, and the fact that he had not even seen an Indian in the
country; the suffering condition of the border settlements rendered his account, in their
opinion, improbable, and he was put in confinement.

The society of which Dr. Eckarly was a member, was rather obnoxious to a majority
of the frontier inhabitants. Their intimacy with the Indians, although cultivated with
the most laudable motives, and for noble purposes, yet made them objects at least of
distrust to many. Laboring under these disadvantages, it was with difficulty that Dr.
Eckarly prevailed on the officer of the fort to release him; and when this was done, he
was only permitted to go home under certain conditions—he was to be escorted by a
guard of armed men, who were to carry him back if any discovery were made prejudicial
to him. Upon their arrival at Cheat, the truth of his statement was awfully confirmed.
The first spectacle which presented itself to their view, when the party came
in sight of where the cabin had been, was a heap of ashes. On approaching the ruins,
the half-decayed and mutilated bodies of the poor Dunkards were seen in the yard; the
hoops on which their scalps had been dried were there, and the ruthless hand of desolation
had waved over their little fields. Dr. Eckarly aided in burying the remains of his
unfortunate brothers, and returned to the fort on the South Branch.

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In the fall of 1758, Thomas Decker and some others commenced a settlement on the
Monongahela River, at the mouth of what is now Decker's creek. In the ensuing spring
it was entirely broken up by a party of Delawares and Mingoes, and the greater part of
its inhabitants murdered.

There was at this time, at Brownsville, a fort then known as Redstone Fort, under
the command of Captain Paul. One of Decker's party escaped from the Indians who
destroyed the settlement, and making his way to Fort Redstone, gave to its commander
the melancholy intelligence. The garrison being too weak to admit of sending a detachment
in pursuit, Captain Paul dispatched a runner with the information to Captain
John Gibson, then stationed at Fort Pitt. Leaving the fort under the command of
Lieut. Williamson, Captain Gibson set out with thirty men to intercept the Indians on
their return to their towns.

In consequence of the distance which the pursuers had to go, and the haste with
which the Indians had retreated, the expedition failed in its object; they however
accidentally came on a party of six or seven Mingoes, on the head of Cross creek, in
Ohio, near Steubenville. These had been prowling about the river, below Fort Pitt,
seeking an opportunity of committing depredations. As Captain Gibson passed the
point of a small knoll, just after daybreak, he came unexpectedly upon them. Some of
them were lying down; the others were sitting round a fire, making thongs of green
hides. Kiskepila, or Little Eagle, a Mingo chief, headed the party. So soon as he
discovered Captain Gibson, he raised the war-whoop and fired his rifle; the ball passed
through Gibson's hunting-shirt, and wounded a soldier just behind him. Gibson sprang
forward, and swinging his sword with herculean force, severed the head of Little Eagle
from his body. Two other Indians were shot down, and the remainder escaped to their
towns on the Muskingum.

When the captives who were restored under the treaty of 1763 came in, those who
were at the Mingo towns when the remnant of Kiskepila's party returned, stated that
the Indians represented Gibson as having cut off Little Eagle's head with a long knife.
Several of the white persons were then sacrificed to appease the manes of Kiskepila;
and a war-dance ensued, accompanied with terrific shouts, and bitter denunciations of
revenge on "the big-knife warrior." This name was soon after applied to the Virginia
militia generally; and to this day they are known among the northwestern Indians
as the "Long Knives," or "Big Knife nation."