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Never shall we forget the first of those visits made by Mrs. Croly to our then "almost out of town" home in 116th street, where our house, pleasantly overlooking the East River, was clothed with trees and vines. The Catawbas on a large trellis, trained in stories with upright canes, excited her admiration, and she assured us that she had "never seen nor eaten anybody's grapes with such delight."
"He'll be the envy of every warrior in the tribe when he vaunts himself at the Catawbas' council fire." I let it rest a while at that, casting about for words to shape a hungrier question. "Have you no news?" I asked, at length. "Little or none," he answered shortly. "But you have had some word some news from Appleby Hundred?" I stammered feebly.
The Governor next sent messengers to the Catawbas, Cherokees, Chickasaws, and Iroquois of the Ohio, inviting them to take up the hatchet against the French, "who, under pretence of embracing you, mean to squeeze you to death."
Various Indian tribes, the Catawbas, the Cherokees, and the Shawnese hunted not far away, and although they were often on friendly terms with the whites, and came to the settlement to trade, sometimes they put on their war paint, and descended on the small frontier homes with full fury.
The treaty with the Catawbas was made at the Catawba Town, presumably the village opposite the mouth of Sugaw Creek, in York County, South Carolina, on February 20-21, 1756; that with the Cherokees on Broad River, North Carolina, March 13-17.
At the same time the governor of Virginia secured the friendship and alliance of the Cherokees and Catawbas, two powerful nations adjoining to that colony, who were able to bring three thousand fighting men into the field.
The Carolineans had foolishly entertained hopes of the friendship of the Congarees, the Catawbas and Cherokees; but they soon found that they had also joined in the conspiracy, and declared for war. It was computed that the southern division of the enemy consisted of above six thousand bowmen, and the northern of between six hundred and a thousand.
With commendable energy and expedition Dinwiddie and Dobbs, acting in concert, initiated steps for keeping the engagements conjointly made by the two colonies with the Cherokees and the Catawbas in the spring and summer of 1756. Enlisting sixty men, "most of them Artificers, with Tools and Provisions," Major Andrew Lewis proceeded in the late spring to Echota in the Cherokee country.
The Cherokees now own in Haywood county, a tract of seventy-two thousand acres of land, well adapted in the vallies for farming, and on the mountains for wild game and sports of the chase. Qualla Town, their metropolis, is chiefly inhabited by the former sovereigns of the country, among whom are a few Catawbas.
"My father befriended him in the plague of '60, and was never sorry for it, as I believe." Then I would ask if these Catawbas had ranged themselves on the patriot side, a question which led the young militia captain to give me the news at large while his borderers were breaking camp and making their hasty preparations for the day's march.
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