Sam's Point, or the Big Nose of Aioskawasting
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For a time he was watched closely; but eventually was regarded as fully adopted into the tribe, and was suffered to go where he pleased. After some time had elapsed, the band again encamped by a lake, when Daniel discovered the little wall of stones he helped build when he was first captured. His love for his white friends had not diminished, nor had his desire to return to them abated. He would have made his escape from his captors long before, only that he did not know which way to go. Here was a discovery that made plain the way to home and friends.
Waiting a favorable opportunity he set out on his journey, reaching the residence of his father safely after an absence of three years, where he was received by the family as one raised from the grave.
Elizabeth Gonsalus, another relative of Samuel, was captured by savages when she was seven years of age. She was carrying a pail from her father's house to a field near by. Her way led through bars; the rails were all down but the upper one; and as she stopped to pass under this, she was caught by a painted Indian. He so terrified her by threats that she could not give an alarm, and conveyed her to his party encamped near by. In company with other captives she was taken several days' march in a southwest course over the mountains and along the banks of the rivers until they reached a town in interior Pennsylvania. Here she remained a prisoner twenty years. Her disappearance from home had been so sudden and mysterious, that her friends were in deep distress as to her probable fate. Had she wandered into the woods and perished? Such instances were comparatively frequent. Had she been killed and devoured by wild beasts? Such a fate was by no means uncommon in a country abounding with wild animals. Or, worse than all, had she been carried off to become the unwilling slave of a brutal savage? These questions had been asked for twenty long years. Her father inclined to the theory that she had been captured by the savages, and continued, year after year, to make inquiries of those who had been among the Indians, in the almost despairing hope that he would yet find tidings of his lost laughter.
At last he heard of a white woman who was with a clan near Harrisburgh, the circumstances of whose capture led him to suspect she might be the one long sought. He lost no time in searching for the clan, with whom he had the good fortune to send the white woman. Twenty years of a life of servitude, with brutal treatment, had so changed her appearance that he could race no resemblance in her to the little girl he had lost so long before. He listened to her story, some particulars of which led the father to claim her and carry her back to his home. She had entirely forgotten the names of her family. When taken to the house in which she was born, she went directly to the bars where she was taken prisoner by the Indian. The shock and fright of her capture twenty years before had fixed the locality so firmly in her memory, that she pointed out the place where the Indian seized her, and gave some of the details attending her capture. There was no longer any doubt-the lost one was restored to the fold.
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