Lafayette Daily Courier
Wednesday, November 9, 1859
OLD SETTLERS
"On a balmy evening in June, in 1835, I strolled from the cabin of my
brother-in-law where I was stopping for the night, to enjoy a quiet
moonlight ramble through the verdant valley which surrounded his humble
mansion, which stood about midway between the Wabash river and the
Indian creek hills, which lifted their elevated heads several hundred
feet above the bottom lands beneath.
With difficulty I climbed to the top of one of the peaks of this
romantic range of hills. The scene which surrounded me was sublime and
picturesque beyond description. Before me, in the distance, lay the
Wabash river, rolling its silver current along the northern edge of the
Wea plain, which was besprinkled with garlands of wild flowers of every
rich and varigated tint. Hawthorns and wild plum bushes, overspread
with wild honeysuckle and grapevine arbors, grew in clusters along the
river banks, as if in love with it placid, laughing waters that flashed
and danced in the moonlight. I stood spellbound, gazing upon the lovely
prospect and listening to the many voices that came floating down the
prairie and river for miles distant, then reverberating and dying away
in echoes amidst the surrounding hills. The talk and laughter of
children, bleating of sheep, barking of dogs, and gabble of geese, for
three or four miles off, came echoing around me with a clear, distinct
and witching cadence.
While thus encanted [sic] with the lovely scenery which sorrounded [sic]
me, and just as I repeated in an audible voice, "If there is an Elysium
on earth, it is this--it is this," a fox darted through the thicket,
down a dark ravine, barking as it went. In a few moments back it came
at full speed, and passed over the hill near where I stood. I heard a
confused cracking of bushes, rattling of stones, and gnashing of teeth,
with a loud boo-boo-oh from the ravine the fox had just left. Instantly
I felt the peril of my position--my hair stood on end as the fearful
truth flashed upon my mind that the fox had started up a gang of wild
hogs. I ran a few yards and sprang up a large log, which at first
seemed to promise me safety, but which I soon abandoned when I
discovered that I could be approached from the upper side of the hill,
where the log rode but a few feet from the ground. I sprang off and ran
for an oak tree that stood on the very summit of the hill, gathering
from the ground, as I ran, a sugar-tree limb as thick as my arm, and
about eight feet long. On reaching the tree, I found I could not climb
it. Instantly I threw my back against the trunk of the tree, and faced
my dreadful adversaries, who, by this time were close to me. I waved my
club, and yelled and screamed through very fright. They made a furious
onslaught--my waving bludgeon and violent gestures repelled them; they
renewed the attack again and again--my whirling, well-aimed club beat
back the foremost. A panorama of terrors passed through my mind, but
Harpies, Faries, and the Gogon terrors of the fabled Medusa's head,
encircled with hissing snakes, would be desirable, compared with the
horrible thought of being devoured alive by a gang of furious wild hogs,
that would, probably, in a few seconds, rend me into a thousand pieces,
crush every bone, and consume every vestige of my mutilated body, and
every shred of my garments, so that none would ever know when or how I
left the world.
A super-human strength seemed to nerve my arm as I plied my bludgeon,
and yelled and hallooed at the top of my voice, which echoed wildly
among the surrounding hills. During a slight pause in the combat, I
heard my brother-in-law's voice, as he ran to the rescue, crying,
"What's the matter?--what's the matter?" By the time he reached the
foot of the hill, my bristly adversaries, hearing his voice in their
rear, showed signs of retreating, but one old sow, who appeared to be
leader of the gang, and had in her several of the devils or evil spirits
that entered into her ancestors in the time of our Saviour, was for
keeping up the siege, which she actually did, until my brother-in-law
got within a few rods with his gun, when she turned her head to one
side, listened, heard his foot-falls as he ascended the hill, then
raised her head, snorted a retreat, and with her devil-possessed
comrades darted off down the dark ravine, and I felt as if an Andes has
been lifted from my breast." INCOG