I TELL STORIES

CHAPTER 1

THE "HAIR BUYER" WOOS AN ALLY

Wrinkled leaves of summer littered the ground, their bright reds and yellows of a few weeks earlier now reduced to an ordinary brown. Large patches of green ferns and scattered groves of hemlocks provided the last semblance of color, taking a prominent place in the forests prepared for winter snowfalls.

In amongst the wild cover, white men hurried to complete harvests from fields, some bearing their first cultivated crops. In mounds heaped between burn-scarred stumps, potatoes had to be dug and stored underground near the cabin; buckwheat cut, the kernels to be stored for later trips to the grist mill,

Hunting wild game to supplement the season's planted harvest took more importance. Cautious settlers thought it better to live off the land now while a hunter could still move about easily. Their fields’ harvest had to be saved for those days when neither man mor animal would venture the heavy drifts of snow.

Not far from every farmer’s daily concern in 1777, the revolution for independence had taken a grim turn for the isolated settlements on the Allegheny Mountains. British politicians were frustrated that their superior troops could not force an American surrender. Despite winning many battles, the British could not deliver that final, decisive stroke that would break the rebel spirit and determination.

In parliament, debate raged over employing a new ally in the struggle. In a letter written during July of 1775, the Earl of Dartmouth wrote to Colonel Guy Johnson, a Tory in the New York assembly, "It is therefore His Majesty's pleasure that you do lose no time in taking such steps as may induce them (Indians) to take up the hatchet against His Majesty's rebellious subjects in America, and to engage them in His Majesty's service upon such plan as shall be suggested to you by General Gage to who this letter is sent accompanied with a large assortement (sic) of goods for presents to them upon this important occasion."1