Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Pioneer Recollections of the Early 30's and 40's in Sandusky County, Ohio
Hugh Bowland, Sr., the father of James Bowland, was born in Perry County, Ohio, in 1794, when there were two Indians to every white person in that region. He often played familiarly with the young Indians and learned to talk their language ?uently. At the age of eighteen years he went as a substitute for his uncle, James mccormick, to serve as an American soldier in the war of 1812. He served till the close of' the war. He was one of the first to strike a lick to build Fort Meigs at Perrysburg. He used to relate a tragedy that occurred during that war. It took place near Manhattan, north of Toledo, and illustrates the character of the Indians. An American officer at Manhattan, recently married to a lady in Detroit, wished his wife brought from Detroit to his post at Manhattan. 80 he made a bargain with eight friendly Indians who for a certain reward promised to bring her safely to him. One of the most trusty of the band carried aprivate letter from him to her. She hesitated, but being encouraged by assurances in the letter, entrusted herself into the care of six male Indians and two squaws, and undertook the journey of sixty miles through the wilderness. The Indians treated her very kindly until near the end of their journey, helping her carefully through the tangled forests, and carrying her on a strech er of deer-hide stretched between two poles where the ground was soft and where the water sometimes was knee deep. They camped out three nights. She had a private tent by herself which was as carefully guarded at night, as she was m daytime.
On the last morning of the journey and when they expected in a few hours to reach their destination and re ceive their reward they began to quarrel about the divis ion of the prize money; the one who carried the letter and did the managing claiming more than the rest. They were divided into two factions, and failing to agree, one of the factions tomahawked the woman, and leaving the dead body in possession of the other faction, skulked away into the forest. The four Indians 111 whose care the body was thus left, brought the corpse of the murdered woman into the camp of her husband. The Officer was obliged for his own safety to pay the prize money, but he was so horrified at the sight and so grieved at his irreparable loss that he pined away and died a few months later.
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