ce called Tygart's [59]
valley, and the east fork of the Monongahela, Tygart's-valley river.

The difficulty of procuring bread stuffs for their families, their
contiguity to an Indian village, and the fact that an Indian war path
passed near their dwellings, soon determined them to retrace their
steps.[15] Before they carried this determination into effect, the
family of Files became the victims of savage cruelty. At a time when
all the family were at their cabin, except an elder son, they were
discovered by a party of Indians, supposed to be returning from the
South Branch, who inhumanly butchered them all.[16] Young Files being
not far from the house and hearing the uproar, approached until he
saw, too distinctly, the deeds of death which were doing; and feeling
the utter impossibility of affording relief to his own, resolved if he
could, to effect the safety of Tygart's family. This was done and the
country abandoned by them.

Not long after this, Doctor Thomas Eckarly and his two brothers came
from Pennsylvania and camped at the mouth of a creek, emptying into
the Monongahela, 8 or 10 miles below Morgantown; they were Dunkards,
and from that circumstance, the watercourse on which they fixed
themselves for a while, has been called Dunkard's creek. While their
camp continued at this place, these men were engaged in exploring the
country; and ultimately settled on Cheat river, at the Dunkard bottom.
Here they erected a cabin for their dwelling, and made such
improvements as enabled them to raise the first year, a crop of corn
sufficient for their use, and some culinary vegetables: their guns
supplied them with an abundance of meat, of a flavor as delicious as
the refined palate of a modern epicure could well wish. Their clothes
were made chiefly of the skins of animals, and were easily procured:
and although calculated to give a grotesque appearance to a fine
gentleman in a city drawing room; yet were they particularly suited to
their situation, and afforded them comfort.

Here they spent some years entirely unmolested by the Indians,
although a destructive war was then raging, and prosecuted with
cruelty, along the whole extent of our frontier. At length to obtain
an additional supply of ammunition, salt and shirting, Doctor Eckarly
left Cheat, with a pack of furs and skins, to visit a trading post on
the Shenandoah. On his return, he stopped at Fort Pleasant, on the
South Branch; and having communicated to its in