A History of Jonathan Alder: His Captivity and Life with the Indians

A History of Jonathan Alder: His Captivity and Life With the Indians

A HISTORY of JONATHAN ALDER This page intentionally left blank 29 Ahistory of the life and captivity by the Indians of Jonathan Alder, who was born the son of Bartholomew and Hanna Alder on September 17, 1775, in the state of Maryland, not far from Philadelphia (in New Jersey, about eight miles from Philadelphia, September 17, 1773. Howe, Beers).36 When I was two years old, my family removed from there to Wythe County in Virginia. About four years afterwards, my father died, leaving a wife and five children. John, he was only a half-brother (my father had been married before then) and was the oldest. My brother David, and myself, and Mark, and Paul constituted the rest of the family. My father had bought a piece of land and had made some improvements before he died, and had some horses and cattle and other stock. ([His father] purchased a small tract of land, erected a plain log cabin and began to make improvements.l.l.l. He was possessed of several head of horses, cattle and swine, which fed upon the wild grass, herbage, and nuts of the forest and frequently strayed along the mountain valleys. Hill) We lived near a lead mine. I can still recollect going to the mine and watching the miners dig out the ore. There was also a pure stream of water close by. I used to go there with my brother John to see him swim. Another incident that I can still recollect is that the Negroes used to pass our house on Saturday evenings going to see their wives and would return Sunday evenings. I recollect several instances in the fall of the year when they would bring pumpkins with them and would get my mother to bake them for them to eat on their way home. There were a great many other things that I could also remember, all of which I related to my mother when I returned home after an absence of twenty-four years. A great many of these things she had entirely forgotten, but after her mind was a little refreshed, she could recollect and tell me of some that I had forgotten. It was now in the month of May 1781 (March 1782; Howe, Beers) when the leaves were all out and the woods were very thick.37 One pleasant and sunshiny morning, everything looked gay and beautiful and my mother called to my brother David and myself and told us that we must go and hunt a mare and colt that had been missing for 30 A History of Jonathan Alder several days. My brother did not eat but little breakfast and when the meal was over, he seemed to be very much downcast. All the necessary arrangements were made and we started, but little did we think what our sad fate was to be or who would tell the story. We struck out into the woods and after wandering around for some time and not finding the horses, we came to a little brook that was full of willows. David gave me his knife and told me to cut some of them around the bank and he would make a basket when we went home, and while I was busy, he would look for the horses. Then he started oΩ and left me. Now I had cut but a few of the willows till a fright came over me, and I went oΩ and sat down on a log until David called to me and I answered. He told me to come to where he was, so we called back and forth several times before I got to him. When I got there, he had found the mare and colt, but the colt was down and could not get up. It had eaten the plant called “stagger wood”38 that grew in that country. He told me to take the colt by the tail and he would take hold by the neck and see if we could raise it, so we lifted several times, but it was so stupid that it would not try to help itself. We stood and looked at it for some time not knowing what to do and he told me to take hold and we would try it once more, and if it did not help itself, we would go and leave it. We got ready...