HERE ARE A FEW MORE FACTS FROM LUKE KELLEY
Luke Kelley’s Reminiscences #6
Submitted by Bob Davisson
Ironton Register August 31, 1854
We again change the scene of Mr. Kelley’s reminiscences back upon Clinch River, in Russell [County], Va., and give, as having occurred under his own eye, in time of Indian wars.
Among Mr. Kelley’s near neighbors was a young man named Long, who served as a spy. One afternoon Long started out to “spy” for Indians and took another young man named Friley [also Fraley, Froelich]. They went out some eight or ten miles and camped for the night. In the morning, Long said he had just been dreaming “a dreadful dream”–that they were “going to meet Indians,” etc.
They proceeded along the path cautiously, Long ahead but had gone a short distance before Long received a shot in the breast from an Indian ambuscade. Long fell, and an Indian sprung out at him, but Long presenting his rifle, the Indian took to a tree but, in doing so, exposed himself to Friley, who shot him; five other Indians then appeared, and Friley took to his heels, but finding that he was not immediately pursued he stopped to reload and heard the report of Long’s rifle, also the rifles of the Indians.
He escaped into the settlements, and a party going out after Long found him scalped and dead; also, they found the Indian that Friley had shot, and it appeared that Long had shot him the second time. By the side of the Indian was his rifle and powder horn engraved, “Captain Bench [a.k.a. Benge].”
A returned prisoner related that Captain Bench had left the Indian towns with five young Indians to teach them the art of war and the paths to the settlements, that the five young Indians returned; also that the reason for their shooting their guns, reports of which Friley heard just after he heard the report of Long’s rifle, was because their captain had been killed, it being the custom of the Indians to shoot off all their guns in case of a like circumstance or a defeat.
Mrs. Gilmore, the wife of a Scotsman, a neighbor of Mr. Kelley’s, was taken prisoner by the Indians and was gone for five years. When she returned, she was almost naked, so much so that when she came to the settlements, she was compelled to conceal herself in the bushes and call the women to bring her clothes before she could appear.
She was so altered that her husband and children scarcely knew her. She, at one time, was stripped naked by the Indians and compelled to run the gauntlet, and while running, the Indians beat her with clubs, and one threw a buckhorn which knocked one of her eyes out. She said she did not mind the being stripped nor the blows upon her bare back, but the loss of her eye by the buckhorn was exceedingly painful.
Another little circumstance. Mr. Kelley relates that a young friend of his, Alex McFarland, went to assist a family that was moving from North Carolina into Kentucky; while out, he met an Indian, and both “treed.” Neither could get a shot at the other.
After a long while, McFarland adopted an expedient to get a shot at the Indian, though a dangerous one. He had heard it said if one situated as he was jumped clear from the tree, the Indian would jump out also. McFarland did so, and sure enough, the Indian did jump out–both fired, McFarland’s ball killing the Indian and the Indian’s ball passing through McFarland’s clothes.
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