Legends of the Shawangunk2 JR.pdf - Friends of the Sabbath ...

82 Legends of the Shawangunk.
and enter. To do this the relief party were obliged to pass over an open space exposed to
the shots of the enemy; but the undertaking was accomplished in perfect safety.
Encouraged by this addition to their numbers, the besieged came out, and fought the
Indians from behind trees, buildings, and whatever objects afforded protection, after the
Indian fashion.
In the meantime the Indians entered the church, and amused themselves by throwing
their tomahawk at the numbers, which, according to the custom of the times, were placed
on the panels of the pulpit to designate the psalm or hymn to be sung. These figures
served as targets to throw at. With such force were the missiles sent that two or three
tomahawks were driven entirely through the panels. This injury was never repaired, but
was suffered to remain as a memorial of the past. Two Indians were standing in the
church-door, and Wm. Bodly and Conradt Bevier crept along the fence in the bush to get
a shot at them. Bevier leveled his piece and pulled the trigger, but it unfortunately
snapped. The Indian looked around as though he heard it. Bevier made a second
attempt, and again it snapped. Bodly then fired, and both ran for the fort about
one-fourth of a mile away. The Indians sent some shots after them, one of the balls
cutting a limb from an apple-tree under which Bevier was passing. Bodly’s shot struck in
the door-post, just grazing the crown of the Indian’s head. Long after the war a man by
the name of DeWitt was in the western part of New York and spoke with the Indian who
met with so narrow an escape at the church-door. The Indian, on learning that DeWitt
was from Wawarsing, enquired if he knew who it was that shot at him while standing in
the church-door. DeWitt told him it was William Bodly. The Indian answered—“It was
a good shot. If I ever meet that man I will treat him well.” This incident illustrates a trait
in the character of a “warrior.”
Towards noon, when most of the Indians were in the lower part of the town,
Cornelius Bevier went to water his cattle, accompanied by Jacobus DeWitt. They had
ascended the hill toward the old burying-ground, when they discovered two Indians
walking directly from them in Indian file. Bevier thought he could shoot them both at
once, but just as he got ready to fire, one of them stepped aside. He shot one of the
Indians and then both men ran for the fort. In passing under an apple-tree, DeWitt
stumbled and fell; just at the instant a shot from the surviving Indian passed over his
head. DeWitt ever afterward felt he owed his escape to an interposition of Providence.
The Indian’s body was subsequently found near the place. He had put on new moccasins
and other extra apparel during the period intervening between the time of his receiving
the fatal wound and the moment of his death, as though preparing himself for the final
change that was to transport him to the happy hunting-grounds.
The people at the fort saw an Indian going with a firebrand to set fire to a
dwelling-house occupied by some of the Hornbeck family. Benjamin Hornbeck loaded
one of the long Holland guns, and tried the effect of a shot upon the miscreant. The ball
struck a stone on the hill, and bounded against the Indian