Legends and Tales of the American West

by Richard Erdoes

  But it was his great jump, “Brady’s Leap,” which became his most famous exploit. In company with a party of rangers, the intrepid colonel was hot on the trail of a war party of Sandusky Indians. He overtook them, and his men had slaughtered most of the band when all of a sudden the pursuers became the pursued. It seemed as if the whole Sandusky tribe was upon them. Having become separated from his men, Brady was making a run for his life, a mob of tomahawk-swinging braves after him, eager for his scalp. Without warning he found himself face-to-face with a gaping abyss—the Cuyahoga River, flanked on both sides by towering cliffs. The air was already filled with the triumphant howls of the Indians, who were feeling sure of capturing their prey. Brady seemed lost. Behind him the merciless foe, before him the fatal gorge. Capture meant death by torture. In the words of a nineteenth-century writer:

  Yet how could one man bridge the chasm more than twenty-five feet wide? But there is no other way of escape from the yelling fiends, and summoning all his courage, with one mighty leap he bounds over the yawning gulf. Convulsively his hands clutch at the bushes growing on the bluff he had gained; but they give way; down, down, he slips almost his own height; but the iron nerves do not fail him, the sinewy hands grasp still other supports, and he continues his flight. The savages stand on the other bank, for a moment motionless with astonishment; quickly recovering themselves, three or four fire at him, hitting him in the leg.

  Limping badly from his wound, Brady knew that it was only a matter of time until his pursuers would find a ford across the river and catch up with him. Outrunning them was now out of the question. He managed to reach a lake, known ever since as Brady’s Lake, well before them and without hesitation plunged into the water, swimming into a cluster of waterlilies, where he lay completely submerged, breathing through a hollow reed that protruded but a bare inch above the surface.

  The Indians followed his bloody tracks to the water’s edge where they ended. They carefully searched all around the lake, but could find no footprints emerging from it. They concluded that, weakened by loss of blood, their prey had drowned. They gave up the hunt and went back to their village. After dark, when they were long gone, Brady rose from his underwater refuge and joined the survivors of his party.

  Later the Indians went back to the place of his great leap and concluded that no man of flesh and blood could have jumped over this frightful abyss. Only a sorcerer could have done so, one with the power of turning himself into a bird. “He no man,” they said. “He no jump across the river; he wild turkey,” the war party’s leader exclaimed. “Brady made damn good jump! Indian not try.”

  To propitiate the spirit of the jumper, the Sanduskies carved upon the rock on the far side, upon which Brady had landed, the likeness of a wild turkey’s foot. In 1856, as the rock was to be quarried, a Pittsburgh judge obtained permission to chisel the carving out of the cliff in order to preserve it. On this occasion the distance over which Brady had leapt was measured at twenty-seven and a half feet, and the height from the cliff’s top down to the river at forty feet. Later, legends made Leaping Sam’s jump thirty-five feet in length over a hundred-foot-deep chasm.

  In 1786 Samuel Brady celebrated his wedding to Miss Drusilla Swearingen, the daughter of one of Washington’s more prominent officers, who objected strenuously to the marriage, looking upon the suitor as an uncouth backwoodsman. But Drusilla, romantically enamored of the gallant Samuel, eloped with him, and the two of them lived happily ever after. Brady’s jumping days, however, were over. For the rest of his life he limped and was slow afoot, the result of the ball, still carried in his leg, a painful reminder of his big leap. Long hours spent underwater, hiding in the lake that bore his name, had impaired his hearing, leaving him almost deaf. Long years of living in the woods under the most trying circumstances had ruined his health. He died, comparatively young, in 1800, in West Liberty, West Virginia, survived by the legend of his great leap.

  The Warrior Woman

  The strange creature of whom we write was born in Liverpool, about 1750. Her maiden name was Hennis, her husband being Richard Trotter. Together with other adventurous spirits of the time, she and her husband emigrated to America, and, as if by instinct, sought the perils and excitement of border life. Trotter was an Indian fighter. He became a volunteer in Dunmore’s War, and was killed in the bloody Battle of Point Pleasant. From that day his widow led that strange career which spread her name far and wide through the border settlements, and which will perpetuate it so long as the stories of the border struggle are read among men.

  Thenceforth, she followed but one pursuit—that of fighting the Indians. She unsexed herself, wore men’s clothes, and instead of household tasks, she took upon herself the toilsome life of a scout. She became a dead shot with a rifle. She learned to throw the tomahawk with all the accuracy and strength of an Indian warrior. As a hunter, she had no superior on the border. Wherever prizes were offered in contests of rifle shooting, tomahawk throwing, or other athletic sports, she always appeared at the last moment as a contestant, and carried off the prize. She rode a powerful black horse, called Liverpool, after her birthplace. It was the only living creature she loved. Her horse and rifle were her constant companions.

  She spent her time as other scouts, roaming the forests in search of game, or stealthily watching in ambush for some wandering Indian. Among storms of rain and sleet, beset by the rigors of winter, followed by wild beasts, or pursued by Indians, her immense frame of iron strength knew no fatigue, her restless rancor no slumber. As she bestrode her horse, her male attire, her weather-beaten features, her black, wiry hair, cut short in men’s fashion, her cold, gray eyes and grating voice, her rifle easily thrown over her shoulder, revealed the Amazon. No service on behalf of the settlers was too arduous, no mode of injury to the savages too cruel or bloody for her fierce zeal.

  The story of one incident has come down to us. She was making her headquarters at Charleston Fort, in West Virginia, when the fort was besieged by an overwhelming force of Indians. Unable to subdue it by force, the besiegers undertook to reduce it by famine. The brave pioneers defended it resolutely until their hearts were chilled to find the supply of ammunition nearly exhausted. The nearest point from which supplies could be had was more than a hundred miles away. The way lay through dense forests, bottomless morasses, vast ranges of mountains, terrible precipices, and rushing rivers. Worse than all this, the whole country was overrun with war parties of savages. Great as was the peril of the fort, great as was the peril of the journey, this bold woman alone would undertake the task of procuring the supplies. Avoiding all trails, roads, and regular passes, she took her way directly across the mountains of West Virginia for more than a hundred miles.

  Reaching her destination in safety, she procured lead and gun-powder, loaded it on a packhorse, and commenced the fearful return. Followed by raving packs of wolves, at every step beset by hissing serpents which still infested the mountains, discovered and pursued by Indians, hardly daring to sleep a moment, she crossed the mountains by a different route, swam her two beasts across foaming mountain torrents, and, after exposure to every conceivable peril, and escape from all, delivered her precious load to the beleaguered. This service became famous throughout the border. On her return she again took her place among the resolute defenders of the fort, doing guard duty, or sharing in the fray of every attack.

  At some point in her career, this strange, unsexed creature, with her disordered intellect, was actually wooed and won by a man named Bailey, but this marriage made no changes in her life, except that, instead of being known as Mad Ann, she was thereafter Mad Ann Bailey. Her numerous services to the settlers caused her to be as much loved by the whites as she was feared and hated by the Indians. In the later part of her life, when times had become more settled, she used at times to visit the families she had known and served in her earlier years. From such visits she never failed to return laden down with presents.

  The Corcondyle Head

  The vi
llage had been at peace for nearly a dozen years now. The hostile tribes had retreated far back into the wilderness before the onslaught of white settlers. Speckled cattle grazed in the meadows. Corn and rye grew in the fields. The start of an orchard could be discerned. There was a meetinghouse, crude, to be sure, and Preacher Jones, who doubled as schoolmaster. Last but not least, there was the Pig and Whistle tavern, administered by the widow Anderson.

  Goodman Anderson had died a few years since of apoplexy, leaving his wife with five children to care for. The widow had applied to the town council for a permit allowing her to continue in her deceased husband’s footsteps. She pointed out that it was not unheard of for a woman to keep a tavern and that a refusal would force her and her children to become public charges upon their neighbors’ purses. The elders got the point and quickly passed an ordinance that licensed her to carry on in her departed husband’s position as tapster. She and her brood made their home in the tavern’s back rooms, together with a young indentured serving wench. A grizzled odd-job man lived in a nearby barn. The widow provided simple but wholesome fare for weary travelers and served exhilarating, foaming cups of strong waters to the thirsty.

  One day there appeared in the village a wandering quack and mountebank, traveling in a creaking wagon drawn by a spavined horse. Perched on the quack’s shoulder was a small monkey beating a drum. The stranger took up his quarters in the tavern and, on the morning after his arrival, nailed a notice to the door reading:

  To be exhibited to the discerning PUBLICK, at the Pig-and-Whistle, by the universally acclaimed DOCTOR HIPPOCRATES SANITARIUS, a curious Creature called a UNICORN, with a Sheep’s body, a bird’s wings, a Lion’s tail, and a head not unlike a STAG’S, adorned by a yard-long HORNE.

  Also a rare TWO-HEADED DOG and the head of a MONSTER never before seen in these parts, called a CORCONDYLE. Like-wise a LIVE monkey who beats the drum and performs diverse comick tricks.

  Also sold, by the aforesaid Doctor Sanitarius, a Sovereign JULEP esteemed in the Whole WORLD, an infallible perfect cure for CONSUMPTIONS, CATARRHS, AND ALL OTHER DISTEMPERS. Also a most excellent elixir and remedy that certainly cures the STONE and saves those that have been designed to be cut for it. It wonderfully dissolves GREAT stones and brings them away. Both remedies cheap at IS 6D per bottle. The curiosities may be seen and examined by the PUBLIK for fifty sents, children under the age of seven GRATIS!

  The unicorn was made up of the stuffed parts of different animals. However, implanted in its forehead was a real narwhal’s horn. The two-headed dog was an outrageous fake. The corcondyle’s head was actually the dried, hollowed-out head of an alligator. The sovereign remedies and juleps were concoctions made of riverwater, honey, pepper, and an inferior brand of Barbados rum. The monkey was indeed very much alive and performed as promised.

  The exhibition was a success. The narwhal’s horn was greatly admired. The two-headed dog was much commented upon. The corcondyle’s head drew forth satisfyingly frightened screams from the children. The monkey, as his kind had never been seen before by the simple pioneers, was the life of the party. Numerous bottles of the sovereign julep and the royal remedy were sold, and a great many bumpers of hot buttered rum quaffed. Somebody said something about a renewed outbreak of Indian trouble, but far away, and therefore nothing to worry about. The happy widow got her cut. The crowd went home. The hired man retired to his barn. The widow, her children, and the serving wench went to bed. To his own chamber went Doctor Sanitarius in the certain hope that the young wench would join him there.

  Sometime after they had fallen asleep, the lusty wench in the doctor’s arms, they were wakened by horrifying war whoops. Rushing to the window, the widow Anderson saw her barn in flames and the village green swarming with howling Indians painted for war, saw her hired man staggering from the burning barn, saw him tomahawked and scalped. She just had time to bar the door, while the quack and the wench closed the window shutters. Some of the Indians had retrieved a large and thick wooden beam from the collapsing barn, losing no time in using it as a battering ram to break the door down. There seemed to be no hope for anybody inside the tavern. After mere minutes the door gave way and more than a dozen savages burst into the taproom, but an apparition, frightful to behold, stopped them in their tracks. Advancing toward them was an evil spirit, half human and half monster, the open maw of its hideous head studded with rows of wicked teeth, emitting blood-curdling growls. On the demon’s shoulder, jumping up and down, perched a hairy little man beating a drum. There was a glimpse of a two-headed wolf terrifying to look at. This was bad medicine, sure death for anyone trying to fight these white man’s monsters. Panic spread among the invaders. They fled in terror, vanishing as suddenly as they had come.

  The settlers emerged in varying states of undress, frantically priming rifles and ramming down leaden balls into barrels, clutching axes and pitchforks, yelling louder than the Indians. They all gathered at the tavern, the first and only building attacked.

  Preacher Jones, clad only in his nightshirt, came running too, fervently praising God for having delivered His children from the heathen fiends. “Glory to the great Jehovah!” he shouted, “who put the fear of God into the red devils! Glory, hallelujah!”

  They crowded into the taproom, questioning the widow Anderson, asking what had caused the Indians to flee so abruptly. The good woman asked to be excused for a moment and then disappeared into her bedchamber. She reappeared shortly with the alligator’s head hiding her own, on her shoulder the chattering monkey in a scarlet grenadier’s jacket, wildly beating his drum, under her right arm the two-headed dog.

  “I think it is this which frightened them,” said the widow, her voice coming out in an unearthly fashion from the corcondyle’s maw.

  “Mistress, you are a beauty!” exclaimed Pastor Jones. “This calls for a brimmer of your best!”

  Soon the red-hot, hissing poker was plunged into bumpers of potent rum. The cheering cups were passed around, and toasts were drunk to the resourceful hostess.

  “Let us praise the Lord and get back to bed,” said the scantily attired preacher, “before my freezing arse turns to ice!”

  CHAPTER 3

  Backwoodsmen

  The backwoodsman was but slightly removed from the long hunter. Sometimes he was merely the hunter grown to full manhood, wanting not only to blaze a trail through the wilderness but to make his home there. The typical backwoodsman lived in a stump-dotted clearing of two or three acres, in a rude one-room cabin with an earthen floor, which had just replaced the open-faced lean-to that had been the family’s first shelter. The new cabin usually had a chimney made of mud-daubed sticks that were forever catching fire. He usually had a string bed and a mattress of corncobs, with bear-skins for blankets. He might also have a fireplace made of stone slabs and a chair or two carved from a tree stump. The number of his tools, utensils, and other belongings was limited by what he, his wife, and his horse could carry on their backs—that is, if he had a horse. A dog he had always. Poor beyond a modern American’s imagination, he was a settler, a forerunner of “civilization,” even if he could not sign his name. He might have put his crop in, but still supplemented his diet in large part by hunting.

  Wherever the frontiersman went, the ringing sounds of axes could be heard clearing new ground in the deepest recesses of the primeval forest. Trees were notched and girdled as the frontier advanced by leaps and bounds. The red nomads of the woods more and more often found themselves surprised by surveyors with pole and chain, encounters which led to much bloodshed.

  The pioneer had a voracious appetite for land: “The instant I enter on my own land, the bright idea of property, or exclusive right, of independence, exalts my heart. Precious soil, I say to myself, by what singular custom of law is it that thou wast made to constitute the riches of the freeholder?”

  Oddly enough, once the backwoodsman had got hold of some land, he no longer cared for it. He was almost as footloose as the long hunter had been. He h
ad hardly settled down in one place when his feet itched to move on. Usually, he moved two or three times during his lifetime—always westward. It was time to leave when you could see your nearest neighbor’s chimney smoke. As Daniel Boone said when he left Kentucky for new horizons: “Too many people! Too crowded! Too crowded! I want more elbow room!”

  The backwoodsman was a uniquely American type, rough-hewn, fiercely independent, fond of a rough-and-tumble fight, of politicking, of women, dogs, and hard liquor. He was also a storyteller par excellence, developing in the process a pungent, explosive, and picturesque frontier jargon.

  The Irrepressible Backwoodsman

  and Original Humorist

  Davy Crockett, the irrepressible backwoodsman, who adopted the coonskin cap for his symbol, was a walking bundle of contradictions—a fairy-tale character and a real live historical personality, an innocent child of nature and a wily politician, a semiliterate butcher of the King’s English who penned a quite readable (probably ghostwritten) autobiography, a friend of wild critters who killed forty-seven bears inside of one month, an Indian lover whose rafters were decorated with numerous redskins’ scalps, a buffoon and frontier comedian who died a hero’s death, a one-time Tennesseean who ended his life as a Texican.

  He could play the fiddle, dance the Irish jig, and shoot out a squirrel’s eye at a hundred paces. “The Yaller Blossom of the Forest” was born in Tennessee on August 17, 1786, in a crude cabin near the Nolichucky. His Irish father, John, had fought at King’s Mountain during the War of Independence. He later erected a water mill that was swept away by a flood. His mother, née Rebecca Hawkins, was a right sprightly woman who, so the legend has it, could still in her old age jump a seven-foot fence backward, dance a hole in the puncheon floor, and make love three times a day without flinching. She was one of those frontier women who danced so hard on Sunday nights that Davy had to rake up their toenails on Monday mornings.