Young. John McDowell and eight of his men were killed by Indians in
1742. Among the members of his company was his venerable father
Ephraim McDowell. In 1763 the Indians attacked a peaceful settlement
and carried off a number of captives. After traveling some distance
and feeling safe from pursuit they demanded that their captives should
sing for their entertainment, and it was a Scotswoman, Mrs. Gilmore,
who struck up Rouse's version of the one hundred and thirty-seventh
psalm:

"By Babel's streams we sat and wept,
When Zion we thought on,
In midst thereof we hanged our harps
The willow tree thereon.

"For there a song required they,
Who did us captive bring;
Our spoilers called for mirth, and said:
'A song of Zion sing.'"

In the following year Colonel Henry Bouquet led a strong force against
the Indians west of the Ohio, and compelled them to desist from their
predatory warfare, and deliver up the captives they had taken. One of
his companies was made up of men from the Central Valley of Virginia,
largely composed of Scots or men of Ulster Scot descent, and commanded
by Alexander McClanahan, a good Galloway surname. Ten years later
occurred the battle of Point Pleasant when men of the same race under
the command of Andrew Lewis defeated the Shawnee Indians.

In January 1775, the freeholders of Fincastle presented an address to
the Continental Congress, declaring their purpose to resist the