Heirs Were Hunted Up

It's often luck of the draw, as to whose exploits are retained in written records. The Oklahoma Historical Society preserved issues of the Fallis, Oklahoma Gazette. An institution digitized them; newspapers.com indexed them. Read Finding Everett: Fallis has not always been a ghost town. Given that civilization departed, I feel fortunate that Fallis society columns are even available to researchers.

Images enlarge when clicked.

Front page of the 7 November 1913 issue several times made specific reference (left) to my direct ancestors. Grandfather Roy David Hardesty (1891-1970) dined with his grandfather James Lewis 'Jim' Hyde (1834-1917).

One hundred and six years ago, this week.

'Hyde,' that's a surname to retain in this accounting. As in Hyde Park, New York.

The Gazette observed Roy's father, Oliver Ellsworth 'O. E.' Hardesty (c1867-1943), took dinner that Sunday with men friends. Roy's sister Hallie Hardesty (1893-1980) is twice mentioned: she associated with an aunt Guffey .... and a Calla Guffy.

Hallie had returned from visiting 'Mrs. G. W. Guffey' at Shawnee, Oklahoma. Cassandra Ann (Hyde) Guffey (1857-1934), also seen as 'Cassa' and 'Cassie,' was sister to Roy and Hallie's mother, Addie May (Hyde) Hardesty (1870-1938), who, for all I know, had her own dinner plans ... obliging Roy and husband O. E. to find their supper elsewhere.

Having returned from Shawnee, Hallie, who would be in her parents' household until the close of 1914, is reported – with sister Gertrude – as hostessing 'Calla Guffy' as a guest for three nights. Ila Calla Guffey (b1896) was maternal first cousin to Roy, Hallie and Gertrude (right). Calla's mother, Mary Ann 'Annie' (Hyde) Guffey (1864-1953), was sister to Cassie and Addie May; all were daughters of Jim Hyde and the former Mary Ann Pace (1837-1910).

We can almost pivot from Guffeys: Addie May (Hyde) Hardesty's sisters married Guffey men in Nemaha County, Kansas; born in Ohio and Iowa, they may not have even known they were first cousins, once removed.

I say 'almost' because figuring out how all these Guffeys were related took me to a most interesting transcript. (Graphics below depict family relationships.)

I like that the document is called "A True Statement." As to exploits circuitously appearing online, Ila Faye (Murphy) Combs mailed photocopy of a hand-written document before her 2012 death.* Alice Gleason Gould apparently transcribed the True Statement ... along with bits of Combs' 1980s correspondence ... and posted text to ancestry.com in 2008. "Enclosed is my grandmother's statement regarding ... the Hyde Park fable," wrote Combs. "My cousin found the story in his mother's papers. As you can see, it was deteriorating with age ..." And, indeed, Gould's text lurches around gaps. "We don't know when grandma wrote the story, but it must have been in the late 1940's," continued Combs.

'Grandma' was Annie (Hyde) Guffey, mother to our Calla. "In a nutshell, I believe ... grandma was saying that the Hyde Park land had been rented or leased by the state for New York for 100 years. Its hard to tell, but I think she believed that – in the 86 years that the land had been leased – the rent had amounted to 20 million dollars."

I realized the Hyde Park Fable deserved looking into.

"Near 1907, a man in a New York government office found on record the unclaimed Hyde Park estate deeded to Jacob Scott by his father who sailed across the waters to America to see his son Jacob Scott, but failed to find him, and bought this land Hyde Park 86 years before the Heirs were hunted up. This New York man married one of the cousins. They looked for all of the heirs and found them and had all of them make an affidavit that they were legal heirs of Jacob Scott and send the affidavits to them."

"Grandmother ... lived in our home most of the time that I was growing up," wrote Combs. "I have been intrigued by the tale since I was a little girl." Understandably, revelation of her grandmother's True Statement has spurred effort to run our Scott ancestry. I can say "our" because Annie, in the now-deteriorated document, identified her mother: Mary Ann (Pace) Hyde. She is my 2x great-grandmother. Dead forty months, she'd been wife to Jim Hyde, with whom my grandfather was reported as taking Sunday supper in 1913.

Twenty million dollars. That is some incentive. "I have been anxious to pass the Scott legend on to you," wrote Combs. "It is said that the Scott's arrived in New York very early. I think the immigrant grandfather's name was John & he was from Scotland?? His land grant was along the Hudson River in Dutchess County & its present day location would be Hyde Park, NY, home of the Roosevelts. When John Scott died, the land was to go to his sons which included Jacob."

And, sure enough, I have a Jacob Scott (perhaps 1778-1824) in my database. As Mary Ann (Pace) Hyde's maternal grandfather. My 4x great-grandfather. Combs' Grandma Annie also identified three Pace siblings already in my files. These are my people.

"The legend claims that a lawyer was commissioned to go back east & check on the situation. Grandmother says he was never heard from again & they suspected that he had been paid off or met foul play. In 1909 the family tried again. I do not know how many of the family members were in on the deal but my great-grandmother Mary Anna (Pace) Hyde obtained an affidavit ..." in what appears to have been the year before her death.

Gould also transcribed the reverse side of Annie (Hyde) Guffey's tattered but True Statement ... as best she could.

"affidavit out at Fallis, Okla. Amanda Pace Lewis at Walnut Iowa. Harvy Pace at Council Bluffs, Iowa"

With "affidavit out at Fallis, Oklahoma," we circle back to the above Fallis Gazette reporting. The Hardestys lived in those specific environs for a brief time. At Finding Everett I describe the end of Gertrude's short life there in 1916. Roy David, my then-unmarried paternal grandfather, carried U.S. mail from Fallis until at least 1917. Great aunts Gertrude and Hallie entertained Calla Guffey, daughter of the True Statement's authoress, at Fallis. In the home that Mary Ann (Pace) Hyde's daughter Addie May (right) shared with O. E. Hardesty. It's exhilarating to think my great-grandmother wanted the unidentified man once holding a "New York government office" to know of our ancestry. (Demonstrable reverence for historic predecessors is scarce, among sub-sequent generations of my Hardesty kinsmen.)

Gould knew – and annotated the True Statement to reflect – Mary Ann (Pace) Hyde's mother was Sophronia (Scott) Pace (1813-1853).† In 1917, and almost assuredly unbeknownst to Combs and Gould, the Springfield Missouri Interstate Historical Society published The Ozark Region, Its History and Its People, Vol. 2. Sophronia is depicted in recountal of a prominent, Aurora, Missouri mine owner. As well as her parents, including her namesake: "Among the first of this energetic family to come to this country was old Jacob Scott, born in 1778 on March 19th, and his good wife Sophronia (Stedman) Scott, born on Christmas day, 1779. This ambitious couple had the strength and hardihood to not only make a success in conquering adversity in the country but also to rear a thriving family ..." which included my 3x great-grandmother, Sophronia (Scott) Pace. "Jacob Scott died after a most useful life on October 24, 1824, and was followed to the other shore by his faithful wife on April 22, 1850, and lies buried at King Hill cemetery, near St. Joseph, Concordia, New York."‡ I felt compelled to get to another shore ... and assert Jacob Scott's paternal ancestry.

I grew reasonably certain of my descent from dispossessed heir, Jacob Scott (1778-1824)! "As we know, Jacob came west," wrote Combs, correct where the above biography is problematic. "It was never explained what happened to Jacob's holdings but the family apparently felt that they had been hoodwinked out of a fortune."

It is time to rectify that injustice.

In 1897 Jim Hyde relied on O. E. Hardesty's father David Hardesty (1836-1903) when he "proved up" forty Oklahoma acres he'd homesteaded. Witness testimony secured title to that land. With an eye to owing a slice of Hyde Park, New York, I launched into my own proofs. When Combs wrote "I just hope some clues can be gleaned to give us something to go on for our research," I knew what she was talking about.

Facts sorta peter out. "Son of [father unknown] and [mother unknown]" is typical, in meager online trees bearing Jacob Scott's profile. Wife Sophronia (Stedman) Scott was likely baptized in the Spring of 1780. At the still-standing First Church of Christ, Congregational meeting house in Farmington, Connecticut. (Thank you Connecticut State Library, for transcribing those records in 1943.) Chalkley does identify a Jacob Scott as an orphan of John; but as the fellow was age sixteen in 1764, I find this Virginian particularly unlikely as candidate for a New York inheritance. That Jacob Scott had a guardian ... and legal representation.

I'm more certain Sophronia and a young son are anonymously enumerated in the Jacob Scott entry on an Oxford, New York tax list from 1800. From that also-true document, one might appreciate "conquering adversity" lauded in the Aurora miner's hagiography. Scott paid a mere 6¢ tax on his farm and house near the Chenango River: there was no value to his personal estate. Scott's standing seems quite distinct from an international traveler who can pluck up a New World land grant and sail off.

I had been no more successful at fortune hunting than Jim Hyde's daughters. Simply because her meditative countenance seems to convey consternation I have on this matter, I post a c1922 photograph of paternal great-grandmother Addie May (right). In Oklahoma barrenness.

Before I leave final observation to Combs, I must introduce Amanda Jane (Pace) Lewis (1835-1926). Sister to Jim Hyde's wife, Mary Ann (Pace) Hyde, "Aunt Amanda" appears in Guffey's True Statement. She's been challenging to inquire into. After marriage, census records place siblings and various nieces in her household: despite perplexing my research, I admire that Amanda likely knew how (and accessed sufficient resources) to keep family knitted together following loss of a parent. Combs wrote "My great-grandmother Mary Anna (Pace) Hyde obtained an affidavit & sent it to Amanda & Amanda hired their cousin, John Scott, attorney, to see what he could find out. Amanda payed his fee. I guess John Scott came up empty handed as the story ends with him."

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NOTES:

* Combs was no doubt named – in part – for Ila Calla Guffey, seen in the above society page. Combs' mother was born within a year of Hallie Hardesty ... her maiden name was Mabel Hallie Guffey. Hallie (Hardesty) King (1893-1980) and Mabel Hallie (Guffey) Murphy (1892-1969) were likely named for their maternal aunt, Hallie Maud (Hyde, Morrow) Conwell (1876-1959). Jim and Mary Ann (Pace) Hyde gave the name to their youngest surviving daughter.

†  Teetotalism played a role in my last post, I Cannot Enjoy Reading Bad News. I feel compelled to note Sophronia was in 1832 an inaugural member of the Mount Vernon, Illinois Temperance Society. She had married physic Joel Jackson Pace (1813-1846) four months earlier: Pace was the organization's inaugural Secretary. Johnson, who culled Pioneer Association archives, was published in 1893: "As they were all akin to us, I have a mind to [name] the whole outfit."

‡ I found no such cemetery. A King Hill Cemetery is "arguably the second oldest cemetery in St. Joseph," Missouri, reported the St. Joseph News-Press. Find A Grave bears no memorial to Jacob Scott. They also disclose only 58% of King Hill markers have been photographed by volunteers.

Pompey & London - Death in the Wilderness

History has a means of setting up contrasts. In an earlier post I explored tremendous risks for slaves, especially when on the frontier of what is now called Kentucky. Two notable men - both with relatively recent African ancestry - died in a no man's land only a day or so apart. Each embraced initiative when the slave experience tends not to reward such behavior.

These men, one slave, one free and both black, performed diametrically different roles in this event.

London was enslaved. He was the property of Nathaniel Henderson (1736-1794). London probably helped Daniel Boone (1734-1820) in 1775 to cut the Transylvania Path (also called the Wilderness Trace) to a remote, 20,000,000-acre claim made by Tory investors.
In September 1778, Boone had only just fled captivity among Shawnee in what is now Ohio. The talent most responsible for Boone's ability to communicate with his captors belonged to Pompey. Like Jonathan Pointer, Pompey was valued for his ability to speak English. According to Shawnee Heritage, Pompey was born about 1740. By 1755 - sometime after his capture/liberation from slaveholders on the Virginia frontier - this bilingual asset had been adopted into the tribe. Pompey had married and fathered at least one son when he - in the company of over 400 native warriors with at least 40 pack horses, the largest force to invade Kentucky en masse - approached the crude stockade later to be called Boonesborough. That he had attained some status may be inferred by the fact that Pompey bore the war party's flag of truce as braves sallied to the fort, seeking the Americans' surrender.

After negotiations broke down, natives besieged the 40 or so able-bodied defenders and their families. In most accounts, Pompey taunted the trapped pioneers with profanities. As translator, it was Pompey who sent word that fellow warriors had heard of the beauty of Boone's daughter (Boone had used cunning and force to free Jemima after her 1776 capture) and were requesting an opportunity to look upon her. Supposedly desiring to postpone attack, Boone persuaded several women to comply: it was Pompey's voice urging the women to let down their hair. Few remaining accounts declare it, but it is more than likely that the besieged "harbored a great deal of bad feelings about the presence of Pompey." In Anglos' world view, it was certainly out of place that a black man would curse them, let alone call their women to such revealing behavior.

It is unlikely that Boone - a former Quaker known to be investing in slaves by 1781 - would have thought himself profane when, as a captive earlier in the year, he deprecated treatment he found demeaning. Yale professor John Mack Faragher, quoting a Boone descendant in Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer, has the famous pioneer telling Black Fish, the Shawnee war chief who had adopted him, "When I am at home I don't do this kind of work. I have Niggers to work for me. You and your Squaw calls me your Son, but this don't look like you love me."

It is not reported whether Pompey translated this for Boone.

It is worth noting that slaves confronted by Black Fish that September were armed ... and expected to defend those holding them in servitude. When he is freed in 1782, one of the first actions Monk will take is to produce gunpowder: once he has a vested interest in public safety, Monk takes steps to assure it, even though he also defends men who force his fellows to ceaseless labor, insufficient diets, and inferior clothes and shelter.

It was likely Boone who ordered London to a sentry post at the fort's kitchen when Shawnee warriors began pressing the encircled fort. Accounts differ as to whether the twenty-four-year-old "bravely volunteered" or was "directed by the Commander" to take a tremendous nighttime risk. According to Faragher:

"A small fence that adjoined the back wall of one of the cabins was set afire, and, fearing that it would burn through, several men dug through the cabin floor and London, a slave whose master was away from the settlement, squeezed out and succeeded in pushing the blazing timbers away with a forked stick. As he lay in the dark outside the fort, London saw a Shawnee warrior hidden nearby behind a tree stump. He whispered to the men behind him to pass up a loaded gun, took aim, pulled the trigger; the lock snapped failing to ignite the powder, and the warrior jerked toward the well-known sound, peering into the darkness, without making out the shooter. London cocked and pulled again, and this time the powder in the pan flashed, but the gun failed to fire. Now the Indian saw his attacker clearly, illuminated by the burst of powder, and shot him dead."

In most surviving accounts that mention him, London is lauded for his courage ... and for daring to take aggressive measures while exposed to danger. One assumes London was not provided a faulty firearm, for he defended whoever handed him the gun as well as his own life.

A nearly continuous exchange of vulgar gibes, a practice Americans called 'blackguarding,' went on for days. After some time came an insistent question from defenders: "Where's Pompey?"

Perhaps in broken English, the Shawnee or their French escorts reportedly replied, "Pompey has gone to Chillicothe to fetch more Indians."

No longer hearing the former slave's raucous jeers, 'forters' continued pressing: "Where's Pompey?"

"Pompey has gone to hunt in the woods for some of the white men's roaming pigs," came the reply.

From Faragher:

"Pompey, who took a special pleasure in infuriating the Americans, was one of the most active participants in the blackguarding. He challenged their courage and manhood and dared them to come out and fight or else surrender. But he got carelessly involved with the game, popping up from the bank of the river to hurl repeated insults and fire his gun toward the fort. The men in the bastions answered in kind with words and fire, while others took aim at different spots along the bank where Pompey might next appear. Unable to resist another retort, he jumped up one time too many and took a shot square in the face."

"Where's Pompey?" was the insistent taunt.

According to Caruso in The Appalachian Frontier, one brave yelled: "Pompey ne-pan." (Pompey is asleep.) Another corrected him: "Pompey nee-poo." (Pompey is dead.) "Redskins and settlers chuckled at the play on words," amidst the very real threat of violent death.

The most sober accounts attribute the fatal shot to William Collins, 'a fine marksman.' A few of the more chauvinist reporters give variations of an account where Pompey climbs a tree and fires into the fort. (Boone is shot in the upper shoulder, but I've found no warrior credited with the wound.)

This is from the U.S. Forest Service:

"One of the most harrassing of the sharpshooters was the negro Pompey. He had been industrially sniping from a tall tree, doing his best to pick off people moving within the stockade over which he could fire from his high perch. Finally, the exasperated Daniel Boone loaded his rifle, ole tick-licker, with a heavy charge. At the crack of his rifle Pompey came tumbling out of the tree dead."

So stunning it almost gives pause for meditation on the implications, is an almost universal allegation that, when the war party withdrew at the end of a 10-day siege, Pompey's body remained on the field of battle. Implied is that, as was custom, native warriors removed all (perhaps 37 bodies) of their fallen comrades, but neglected their adopted African American brother.

Slaves, generally deprived of any advantages to be accrued from formal education, relied on oral accounts as a means of socializing one another to their impoverished condition. It would have been wise for the dominant culture to conclude any account of Pompey's effrontery with his death ... and abandonment by his adopted people. It might serve as a warning to other slaves considering a change of allegiances.

This contemporary, Federal account (unattributed) by the forest service keeps the implied message alive:

"... apparently no Shawnee cared in the least what happened to the black body or the wooly scalp of the Negro slave. Dead or alive, a warrior's honor was safe if he still had his scalp."

It should be noted that Shawnee Heritage declares Pompey not only survived this encounter, but was known to be in Missouri the following year.

By November, 1778, London's owner appealed to the General Assembly of Virginia for compensation for his war-time loss:

"... in defending fort Boon in the County of Kentucky against an attempt of the Indians, your Petitioner had a valuable negro fellow killed - That the said negro was ordered by the Commanding officer to take a gun, and place himself in a dangerous post and to keep watch & fire on the Indians, which he accordingly did and was killed - That if the said negroe had been suffered to remain within his Cabbin, he could not have been hurt, That the loss of so valuable a slave together with the many other losses sustained by your petitioner in that Country distress him very much -"

From a supporting affidavit by W. Buchanan we hear the allegation that London "was worth upwards of Six hundred pounds." Henderson's claim was swiftly rejected.

It seems to me, picking and choosing among extant historical records, that we can believe both Pompey and London were bold ... perhaps to the point of recklessness. Neither seem to have shirked involvement when adventure called. Both expressed commitment to the social fabric webbing them in. In conclusion, I'd like to play a note on that old saw, that 'history is written by the winners.' I think it likely that accounts of Pompey's participation in the Siege at Boonesborough were colored by subsequent generations who sought to preserve a higher status in social order that was based on their skin color. Pompey remains within the folklore as a warning: persons of color should not act rudely. The account of London's behavior plays into a meme later expressed (and presently being discredited); that numbers of slaves so valued their position in southern society that they fought for the Confederacy.

Slave Saves Woods Family c1782, perhaps traumatized

Monk is not the only slave to encounter violence in Anglo struggles to displace Native Americans in the Kentucky District of Virginia, c1782.


From the Campbell County Historical Society: "In 1782 near Crab Orchard an aged, lame slave defended a white woman and her daughter when Shawnees attacked their cabin. The Black man struggled with a warrior who had entered the house before the woman bolted the door. While he held him, the young girl killed the invader with an ax."


There is no mention of the slave's age in the following accounts.

From Lewis Collins' 1877 History of Kentucky:

In the year 1781 or 2, near the Crab Orchard, in Lincoln County, a very singular adventure occurred at the house of a Mr. Woods. One morning he left his family, consisting of a wife, a daughter not yet grown, and a lame negro [sic] man, and rode off to the station near by, not expecting to return till night. Mrs. Woods being a short distance from her cabin, was alarmed by discovering several Indians advancing towards it. She instantly screamed loudly in order to give the alarm, and ran with her utmost speed, in hope of reaching the house before them. In this she succeeded, but before she could close the door, the foremost Indian had forced his way into the house. He was instantly seized by the lame negro man, and after a short scuffle, they both fell with violence, the negro underneath. Mrs. Woods was too busily engaged in keeping the door closed against the party without, to attend to the combatants; but the lame negro, holding the Indian tightly in his arms, called to the young girl to take the axe from under the bed and dispatch him with a blow on the head. She immediately attempted it; but the first attempt was a failure. She repeated the blow and killed him. The other Indians were at the door, endeavoring to force it open with their tomahawks. The negro rose and proposed to Mrs. Woods to let in another, and they would soon dispose of the whole of them in the same way. The cabin was but a short distance from the station, the occupants of which having discovered the perilous situation of the family, fired on the Indians and killed another, when the remainder made their escape.

From History and genealogies of the families of Miller, Woods, Harris, Wallace, Maupin, Oldham, Kavanaugh, and Brown (illustrated): with interspersions of notes of the families of Dabney, Reid, Martin, Broaddus, Gentry, Jarman, Jameson, Ballard, Mullins, Michie, Moberley, Covington, Browning, Duncan, Yancey, and others, by Wm. Harris Miller, Richmond, Ky.  (1907)


(Pages 195-196)
Michael Woods, born perhaps about 1746, married Hannah Wallace, a daughter of Andrew Wallace and Margaret Woods. In about the year 1780, he emigrated with his family to Kentucky, and first stopped at Crab Orchard Station, where he was living in 1781-2, when the incident or adventure occured at his house as narrated in Collins' History of Kentucky, and also described by the Tattler further on in this chapter. He afterwards moved to Madison County, Kentucky, and entered, surveyed, and patented 1000 acres of land in Madison County, on Muddy Creek, adjoining of James Bridges' settlement and pre-emption claim on the lower side.


Michael & Hannah bore a son John Woods. John married his first wife, Mary H. (or Polly) Thomas, on July 2, 1812, in Madison County, Ky. Their first child was ...


"Elizabeth Woods, born April 23, 1813, near Milford or old town, in Madison County, Ky. She married Edward C. Boggs, Sept. 19, 1833. Their home was on the Big Hill Road, near the south eastern limits of the city of Richmond, Ky. where they died. 

"Mrs. Boggs has many times heard her father tell the true story of an incident related in Collins' History. One night, most likely in the spring of 1782, the Indians made a raid on the Station at Crab Orchard and stole all the horses. The next day all the men in and about the fort went in pursuit, leaving only a negro with a lame hand at Mr. [Michael] Woods' cabin and a white man sickly in another cabin close by. The children had been going to and from the spring all morning and had noticed nothing suspicious, except their sagacious dog would walk slowly in the spring path and look towards the spring and growl, but never bark. Towards dinner time, Polly Woods, then seventeen years old, had gone with her little brother, John to a knoll, not far from the house to gather salad, and the negro man, was in the yard playing on a buffalo robe with little Betsy Woods.

Suddenly, Polly saw a huge Indian stealing up the spring path with his body bent, and on tiptoe leading a band of warriors, and she at once gave the alarm, at the top of her voice. The negro ran to the house in an instant to shut the door, but the Indian leader rushed in the door at the same time and there they clinched in a tremendous struggle, the negro being as good a wrestler as the Indian. During the scuffle at the door, little Betsy though only three years old, slipped in between them. In a minute or two they had gotten inside and Mrs. Woods, the mother of the family had secured the door. In one corner stood a rifle and the struggle was for the gun, the Indian forgetting to use his knife and tomahawk, which hung in his belt, but jabbering all the time to his companions out side who were trying to break down the door with their war clubs. Mrs. Woods ran for a knife near by, but seeing it was of no use, seized the broad axe and hewed the Indian down. Utterly cutting him to pieces before they could stop her. Meanwhile Polly had rushed with her little brother to the house of the sick neighbor, who though hardly able to move, seized his rifle and shot one of the Indians out side. The savages then beat a hasty retreat, taking the dead body of their comrade with them.

They had been concealed near the spring, and seized their opportunity to slaughter the family, but failed. By the continual practice the sagacity of the lower animals in the old days was almost perfectly developed. The intelligent dog mentioned above was a very valuable animal. On one occasion William Woods with his twelve-year-old brother John, had gone to the salt works on Goose Creek, for salt, accompanied by this dog, on their return they had stopped for the night and had lighted a fire when this old dog looked back in the direction they had come and growled, but knew better than to bark knowing that Indians were about, William scattered the fire and came to the station, that night before stopping. A day or two after several men were killed in the same place by Indians.

This slave is not portrayed as lame:
From the Virginia Gazette and Weekly Advertiser (Nicolson & Prentis), Richmond, December 6, 1783:
BEDFORD COUNTY, Nov. 20, 1783. CAME to my house on the 12th inst. a negro man who says his name is DAVID, and that he is free; he brought with him a discharge and pass from Colonel William Davis, dated at Charlestown the 24th of June last, but since has confessed he is a slave, and that he belongs to Michael Woods, living at the Crab orchard in Kentucky. He is about twenty five years of age, five feet ten inches high, well proportioned sensible, and active. Should the said negro remain at my house, the owner may get him, by applying to me, living at the head of Black water. THOMAS ARTHUR.

What if David, traumatized by the invasion of the frontier cabin, sought to return to civilization?