Robert Y. Hutton,, of Hillsboro is a prominent funeral director and citizen of
that community. The following is a condensed version of these historic events which happened early in Kentucky's History.
In the summer of 1780, a formidable force consisting of some 600 Indians and Canadians under the command of Colonel Henry Byrd, an officer of the British Army, accompanied by six pieces of artillery, made an incursion into Kentucky for the purpose of destroying the forts at Ruddle's and Martins' Stations.
They did so and the case with which the stations were taken so annoyed the Indians that the pressed Col. Byrd to go forward and then take Bryan’s Station at Lexington.
Byrd declined to do so for several strategic reasons. At this point the Indians separated from Byrd and took with them the whole of the prisoners at Ruddle’s Station.
Mr. Hutton’s great-grandmother, who was only seven years old at the time of her capture, was named Johnson. Her parents, native of Pennsylvania had been killed in the raid.
The remainder of this story is mostly about her life with the Indians and her subsequent escape.
With their captives, the Indians hurried back to the canoes they had left at the forks of Licking, eager apparently to out-distance pursuit of avengers for their destruction of Ruddle’s and Martins’ Stations.
It fell to the lot of Mr. Hutton’s great-grandmother to be the prisoner of an old Wyandotte chief. Upon arrival at their village on the banks of the Little Miami, he had her taken to the river and immersed therein.
She was then rubbed for a long time, and was finally taken back to the old chief, whereupon he went through an adoption ceremony and told her that she was now his daughter, and that every drop of white blood had been washed out of her.
She said that he treated her the same as he did his own children and was always good to her. She lived with the Indians for eight years.
At the age of 15, the Indian custom was to marry their girls. A young buck was picked out for the women, and she was told she must marry him. Revolting this idea, she began to lay a plan whereby she might escape and return to her home.
An Indian squaw, who had taken a liking to her, helped her escape one night and gave her instructions as to how to read the Ohio River. She finally succeeded, making the hazardous trip through the wilds to the mouth of Licking River in four days.
She lived on what wild fruit she could find and became so ravenously hungry that she ate two young blackbirds r aw, which she found in a nest.
The Indians followed her but, being trained in her woodcraft, she was able to elude them. She covered her tracks and threw them off the trail by employment of various subterfuges.
When nearing the Ohio, the Indians were so close to her she hid in a hollow log and stuffed her blanket her and the open end.
There was a crack in the upper side of the log and the Indians passed over the log three times. She was able to count them. There were 17 Indians and a dog. She said her heart beat so loud she was afraid they would hear it.
One Indian took his ramrod and punched into the blankets between her and the end. They did not discover her presence, however, so artfully was she concealed. At length they gave up and went away.
She stayed in the log until she thought it safe. Then, she got out, and, in a short time reached the Ohio River at the mouth of the Licking.
She could not swim, so she went back into the woods and rolled a log into the water, got on it and crossed the Ohio River to the Kentucky side.
She knew that if she followed the Licking River it would take her back to where she came from and, after many days she arrived at a cabin at what is now Poindexter Station.
She was almost dead from hunger and the other hardships she had endured on the trip through the wilderness.
The people who occupied the cabin took her in and cared for her. She remained in Harrison County and later on married John Crawford, by whom she had nine children—six girls and three boys.
Thomas Hutton, one of Bob Hutton’s ancestors, migrated westward from Baltimore about the year 1775, coming down the Ohio River on a flatboat and landing at Limestone, now Maysville.
He subsequently reached the fort at what is now Flemingsburg and enlisted as a soldier to fight the Indians.
Somewhere north of the Ohio his command was defeated and many of his. He was among those taken prisoner by the Indians.
According to his account, the prisoners were marched until nightfall, whereupon camp was pitched. The Redskins felled trees with which a pen was constructed.
In this pen, their clothing having been stripped from them. It was late fall, the weather terribly cold to them in their state of undress, alternately raining and snowing.
Mr. Hutton’s great-grandfather wrote that the only way they kept from freezing to death was by huddling together and, when those on the inside got warm, exchanging with those on the outside.
In this fashion, they survived the night. With the coming of dawn, the Indians gave them back their clothing, and the march was resumed. They were marched to Fort Malden, English fort, and it was said the white men in command were even more brutal than the Indians had been.
Mr. Hutton was held prisoner in this fort with thirty others, for several months, finally receiving his freedom through ransom paid by the government.
He suffered many hardships during his incarceration at Ft. Malden (now Detroit) from beatings and starvation.”
Printed in the Fleming Gazette, Flemingsburg, KY, July 11, 1974.
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