Town, Cumberland and Baltimore, to exchange the products of the wilderness for salt, iron, lead and powder.1 With these brief sketches of the land and inhabitants of that part of the North American wilderness which was most closely connected with Maryland just before the revolution, I shall proceed to delineate the deeds and career of some individuals whose names are linked with our state's story by romantic incidents which I believe have been and continue to be inaccurately recorded by American historians. 1 See Rev. Dr. Doddridge's Notes on the Settlement and the Indian Wars of the Western Parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania, from 1763 to 1783, Wellsburg, Va., 1824; — and Loudon's Indian Wars, Carlisle, Pa., 1808. TA-GAH-JUTE, OR LOGAN AND CRESAP. THE father of Captain Michael Cresap who has been portrayed as the instigator if not one of the chief actors in the alleged murder of the Indian Logan's family in the early part of 1774,— emigrated from Yorkshire, England, to America, when he was about fifteen years of age. We know nothing of his intervening career until fifteen years after, when he married a Miss Johnson, and settled either at or near Havre de Grace, on the Susquehannah. He was emphatically, a poor man; so poor, indeed, according to the family legends, that being involved in debt to the extent of nine pounds, currency, he was obliged soon after his inopportune marriage, to depart for the south in order to improve his fortune. He left his young wife in Maryland, and hastening to Virginia mac. became acquainted with the Washington family, and rented from it a good farm, with the intention of removing finally to the flourishing colony. But on returning to Maryland he found that he had become a father, and that his resolute wife was loth to quit the Susquehannah for the PotoAccordingly, like a docile husband, he submitted to her whim, and contriving to free himself from debt, removed still higher up on the river to Wright's ferry, opposite the town of Columbia, where he obtained a Maryland title for five hundred acres of land. Unfortunately, however, for the settler, this was disputed ground, and as it was soon claimed under a Pennsylvania title a border war occurred, in which Cresap espoused the cause of Lord Baltimore with as much zeal as the Pennsylvanians sustained that of Penn. His enemies regarding him as a powerful foe, seem to have resorted to the basest means to rid themselves of his presence. An Indian was hired to assassinate him in his own house; yet, won by his kindness and hospitality, the savage disclosed the plot and was pardoned for the meditated crime. At length, however, a regular battle took place between the factionists, and Cresap's party having wounded several of Penn's partizans gained the day and kept the field. Nevertheless, the Pennsylvania warriors soon rallied their discomfited forces and besieged the fort in which the Marylander had entrenched himself. But the stalwart Cresap held out bravely against all comers, though he was singled as the special victim of the assailants. Nevertheless, in time, he deemed it advisable to seek aid from his neighbors; and as his eldest boy, Daniel, was at this time, about ten years old, he dispatched the young forester in the night to obtain the required succor. The frontier stripling, apt as he already was in the ways of the wilderness, could not, however, elude the vigilant besiegers, and being taken captive, endeavored to destroy the hostile clan while assembled around the fire, by casting therein its whole stock of powder which he found tied up in a handkerchief. Fortunately for the party, he was detected in time to escape the disastrous explosion. If the young Cresap was unable to blow up his father's assailants, the elder was well nigh doomed to the fate his son had designed for the followers of Penn. The besiegers finding that they could not dislodge the stubborn Yorkshireman from his lair, determined to set fire to the roof and thus to roast him out of his fortress! No terms of capitulation were offered; and as Cresap disdained to ask his life at their hands, he rushed to the door, and wounding the sentinel, escaped to his boat. But here, surrounded by superior numbers, he was seized, overpowered, bound, and thrown into the skiff. Nevertheless, as his captors were conveying him across the Susquehannah in the dark, he contrived, notwithstanding his ligatures, to elbow one of the guard into the water. The Pennites, in the darkness, mistaking their companion for Cresap, beset him, forthwith, with oars and poles, nor was it until the lusty cries and rich brogue of the unfortunate Irishman undeceived them, that he was relieved from the beating and the bath. Passing through Columbia to Lancaster, Cresap was heavily manacled; but even then, lifting his arms as soon as the work was done, |