e difficulty in fixing on the precise time
when these occurrences happened. Col. Ebenezer Zane says that
they took place in the latter part of April, and that the
affair at Captina preceded the one at Yellow creek a few days.
John Sappington, who was of the party at Baker's, and is said
to be the one who killed Logan's brother, says, the murders at
that place occurred on the 24th of May, and that the skirmish
at Captina was on the day before (23rd May.) Col. Andrew
Swearingen, a presbyterian gentleman of much respectability,
one of the early settlers near the Ohio above Wheeling, and
afterwards intimate with those engaged at both places, says
that the disturbance opposite Yellow creek preceded the
engagement [113] at Captina, and that the latter, as was then
generally understood, was caused by the conduct of the Indians,
who had been at Yellow creek and were descending the river,
exasperated at the murder of their friends at Baker's. Mr.
Benjamin Tomlinson, who was the brother-in-law of Baker and
living with him at the time, says that this circumstance
happened in May, but is silent as to the one at Captina. These
gentlemen all agree in the fact that Logan's people were
murdered at Baker's. Indeed Logan himself charges it as having
been done there. The statement of Sappington, that the murders
were caused by the abusive epithets of Logan's brother and his
taking the hat and coat of Baker's brother in law is confirmed
by Col. Swearingen and others; who also say that for some days
previous, the neighborhood generally had been engaged in
preparing to leave the country, in consequence of the menacing
conduct of the Indians.
------
_Comment by R. G. T._--The date is now well established--April
30. Withers is altogether too lenient, in his treatment of the
whites engaged in this wretched massacre. Logan, encamped at
the mouth of Yellow River, on the Ohio side, was a peaceful,
inoffensive Indian, against whom no man harbored a suspicion;
he was made a victim of race hatred, in a time of great popular
excitement. Joshua Baker, who was settled opposite him on
Baker's Bottom, in Virginia, kept a low grog-shop tavern, and
had recently been warned not to sell more liquor to
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