Polly Tidd
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     This was an affront to the tribe that must not be allowed to go unpunished.  A captive white woman had refused the hand of one of their bravest warriors!  Esther was told to array herself in her best apparel, and innocent of giving any intentional offense, and with not the faintest suspicion of the fate that awaited her, she was led a short distance into the forest where she found the village assembled.  There she was tied to a stake, the wood she had gathered on the previous day was piled about her, and she was told that she must die.
     “Let me first speak to my sister,” were the last audible words she uttered; but the request was not granted, for Polly had been taken away so that the screams of her ill-fated relative could not reach her.
     Some months afterward a young warrior by the name of Wawonda came to the wigwam where Polly lived as a suitor for her hand.   She received him with respectful cordiality, and the next evening he came again, remaining a guest as before, and departing with the dawn.  That day Polly was set at work gathering sticks. As she was thus engaged a friendly squaw approached and inquired if she knew what she was gathering those sticks for.  She replied she did not.  “Did not Wawonda visit the wigwam of the pale-face last night?”  “He did,” was the reply.  “And did he not come the night before?” “Yes,” was Polly's answer. “Well,” continued the woman, “Wawonda wants pale-face to keep his wigwam and dry his venison.  He will come again to-night.  If pale-face accepts him all will be well; if not, tomorrow these sticks will be used to burn her at the stake as was burned her sister Esther for refusing  Wanoni!”  When Wawonda presented himself for the third time at the wigwam of the cap-five, he was accepted as an acknowledged suitor according to the custom of the tribe, and thus was Polly duly installed at the head of the domestic affairs of Wawonda's household.
Years rolled by. Polly had heard naught of her relatives since the day of her capture.  Though living in sight of her native mountains she was for a long time too closely watched for a successful attempt at escape. Two half-breed boys were added to her household, and her time was too fully occupied to think of naught else.  As the white settlers increased in number, the game in the forest diminished, and notwithstanding Wawonda's skill in hunting, the family was often pinched for food.  Polly, therefore, found it necessary, inasmuch as her liege lord felt it was beneath his dignity to engage in manual labor, to go among the white families and do their washing.
     In this way her rounds took her into the vicinity of Newburgh, and now for the first time she seriously considered the purpose of again visiting the scenes of her early home.  At the first opportunity she fled with her two boys across the river, and once more stood at the threshold where she had been born and reared, and where she had taken her last look of her parents.
     But the place had changed, and new faces were at the door.   She inquired after her parents by name, and was told they had died of broken hearts years before.   She sought out the companions of her childhood, but they had grown out of her remembrance; and her most intimate friends could not recognize in her the fresh, romping girl they had known in former years, such ravages a life of drudgery among the Indians had wrought in her frame.  She half regretted leaving her home in the wilderness, and but for the interference of friends would in all probability have returned to her bondage. Wawonda, it is said, used to come down to the river at Newburgh, and sit for hours gazing over at the mountains where his white squaw and half-breed boys resided, but he never dared venture into their vicinity.  As Polly's identity was established beyond cavil, the property of her father was placed in her possession, which was sufficient, with judicious economy, to provide for her wants.
     The two boys grew up tall and slender, but both died before reaching manhood.  Polly lived to a good old age, and often related, to groups of eager friends, the story of her captivity among the Delaware Indians.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
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