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Updated: June 29, 2025
John Slover leveled his from behind a tree, to fight; but the leader of the Indians had called: "No shoot, no hurt. Treat good." Therefore he and two others had yielded. James Paull dived aside into the brush and ran. It seemed as though he got away. One of the Indians was an old Miami who had helped to make prisoner of John Slover when a boy twenty-two years before.
This was decidedly an aggravating old man, but John Slover answered not a word. Nevertheless, he was suffering tortures already. He traced the first paling of the air token of dawn; and still the old man did not sleep. There was no chance of escape. Did the fellow intend to talk all night? Ah! He had dropped his pipe; his voice drawled off; he turned upon his side, and snored!
He was John Slover; he spoke three Indian languages Miami, Shawnee and Huron; and when he heard Tutelu's wonderful tale, he laughed. He told the other Indians the truth: that the prisoner was a little doctor and not a warrior only five feet and a half tall and weighing no more than a boy! The Indians laughed long and loud.
"It was this way: Colonel Crawford had four hundred and eighty men under him, with Slover and me acting as guides. This was a large force of men and comprised soldiers from Pitt and the other forts and settlers from all along the river. You see, Crawford wanted to crush the Shawnees at one blow. When we reached the Sandusky River, which we did after an arduous march, not one Indian did we see.
At the outbreak of the Revolution he served fifteen months as a Continental soldier, and when Crawford started against the Sandusky Indians, he went along as a scout. Slover, when captured, was taken round to various Indian towns, and saw a number of his companions, as well as other white prisoners, tomahawked or tortured to death.
Making friends with the latter, he lulled his suspicions, the more easily because the Indian evidently regarded so small a man with contempt; and then, watching his opportunity, he knocked his guard down and ran off into the woods, eventually making his way to the settlements. Another of the captives, Slover by name, made a more remarkable escape. Slover's life history had been curious.
He brought forty warriors with him. They threw the old squaw to one side, and dragged John Slover through the door; tore off all his clothes, painted him black, tied his hands, and triumphantly marched him away, by a rope around his neck. Evidently the council had decided. The old squaw wailed vainly. She had only hastened his doom.
He and James Girty laughed at the story of John Slover. "That is a lie," they said. "He tries to frighten you. The British soldiers have been eating up the Americans. They soon will capture that man Washington. We say so, and we know." Another white Indian reported that Slover had agreed with him to escape. This angered the town, again. A general council was called.
The Indians knew Slover at once, and they bitterly reproached him with having come to betray his friends. At the council held to try him, James Girty urged them to put him to death for his treason. But Slover strongly defended himself, reminding the Indians that they had freely given him up, and had no longer any claim upon him. His words had such weight that the council put off its decision.
But little Doctor Knight the surgeon, Guide John Slover and young James Paull finally turned up, at home, with remarkable stories now to be told. Doctor Knight had been taken, along with his colonel and several comrades. They were eleven in number, prisoners to the Delawares. Captain Pipe had marched them to his own town.
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