The Attack on Merrill's Cabin

It seems that all the recent talk about the “war on women” has led both sides of the political spectrum to debate what a courageous woman actually looks like.  One side believes a courageous woman is one who demands that public tax dollars should pay for her contraceptives; the other side believes a courageous woman is one who overcomes significant obstacles in her formative years to become successful in later life.  I believe we find incredible examples of courageous women in the stories of the early settlement of our country.  Here is one author’s account of how and why women displayed courage in the face of great opposition, including death.

A similar development was silently wrought in the female character.  Women who, in 1773, terror stricken by the Indian attack near Cumberland Gap, demanded the retreat of the first emigrants to Kentucky, in later years stood unswerving amid the vicissitudes that made death, wounds, and captivity the almost daily fate of their sex.  So accustomed did they become to the violent form of death that, as Judge Hall relates on one occasion, when a young man died the natural way, the woman of the station sat up all night, gazing at the remains as an object of beauty.  The matrons of the frontier, in time, seemed to lose all womanish fears and weaknesses, and emulated the dexterity of their fathers, brothers and husbands in the use of the gun and ax in defense of their homes and children. ¹

One such example is found in Wither’s “Chronicles of Border Warfare.”  Although there is some debate as to when this incident occurred (Perrin’s account says the summer of 1787, Wither’s account say winter of 1791), the essential elements of the store are exactly the same and should be accepted as factual.

On the 24th of December 1791, a party of savages attacked the house of John Merril, in Nelson county [Kentucky]. Mr. Merril, alarmed by the barking of the dogs, hastened to the door to learn the cause.––On opening it, he was fired at by two Indians and his leg and arm were both broken.  The savages then ran forward to enter the house, but before they could do this, the door was closed and secured by Mrs. Merril and her daughter.  After a fruitless attempt to force it open, they commenced hewing off a part of it with their tomahawks, and when a passage was thus opened, one of them attempted to enter through it.  The heroic Mrs. Merril, in the midst of her screaming and affrighted children, and her groaning suffering husband, seized an axe, gave the ruffian a fatal blow, and instantly drew him into the house.  Supposing that their end was now nearly attained, the others pressed forward to gain admittance through the same aperture.  Four of them were in like manner despatched [sic] by Mrs. Merril, before their comrades were aware that any opposition was making in the house.  Discovering their mistake the survivors retired for awhile, and returning, two of them endeavored to gain admittance by climbing to the top of the house, and descending in the chimney, while the third was to exert himself at the door.  Satisfied from the noise on the top of the house, of the object of the Indians, Mr. Merril directed his little son to rip open a bed and cast its contents on the fire.  This produced the desired effect.––The smoke and heat occasioned by the burning of the feathers brought the two Indians down, rather unpleasantly; and Mr. Merril somewhat recovered, exerted every faculty, and with a billet of wood soon despatched [sic] those half smothered devils.  Mrs. Merril was all this while busily engaged in defending the door against the efforts of the only remaining savage, whom she at length wounded so severely with the axe, that he was glad to get off alive.

A prisoner, who escaped from the Indians soon after the happening of this transaction, reported that the wounded savage was the only one, of a party of eight, who returned to their towns; that on being asked by some one, “what news,”––he replied, “bad news for poor Indian, me lose a son, me lose a brother,––the squaws have taken the breech clout, and fight worse than the Long Knives.” ²

No, I can’t see courageous womanhood as exercising the “right” to murder an unborn baby or demanding that the taxpayer provide free contraceptives.  True courageous womanhood is seen here in this story, a woman risking her all to save her own.  God give us more women like this!

Christ, not man, is King!

Dale

1)   W.H. Perrin, et al, Kentucky: A History Of The State (Louisville, KY: F.A. Battey & Company, 1887), p. 204-5.

2)   Alexander Scott Withers, Chronicles of Border Warfare (Cincinnati, OH: Stewart & Kidd Company, 1912), p. 405-6.