school at Mr. Waller's, and where the children were collecting for that
purpose, excited general sympathy. As their teacher had not arrived,
they were at play in the yard, and seeing the negroes approach, she ran
up on a dirt chimney, (such as are common to log houses,) and remained
there unnoticed during the massacre of the eleven that were killed at
this place. She remained on her hiding place till just before the
arrival of a party, who were in pursuit of the murderers, when she came
down and fled to a swamp, where, a mere child as she was, with the
horrors of the late scene before her, she lay concealed until the next
day, when seeing a party go up to the house, she came up, and on being
asked how she escaped, replied with the utmost simplicity, "The Lord
helped her." She was taken up behind a gentleman of the party, and
returned to the arms of her weeping mother. Miss Whitehead concealed
herself between the bed and the mat that supported it, while they
murdered her sister in the same room, without discovering her. She was
afterwards carried off, and concealed for protection by a slave of the
family, who gave evidence against several of them on their trial. Mrs.
Nathaniel Francis, while concealed in a closet heard their blows, and
the shrieks of the victims of these ruthless savages; they then entered
the closet where she was concealed, and went out without discovering
her. While in this hiding place, she heard two of her women in a quarrel
about the division of her clothes. Mr. John T. Baron, discovering them
approaching his house, told his wife to make her escape, and scorning to
fly, fell fighting on his own threshold. After firing his rifle, he
discharged his gun at them, and then broke it over the villain who first
approached him, but he was overpowered, and slain. His bravery, however,
saved from the hands of these monsters, his lovely and amiable wife, who
will long lament a husband so deserving of her love. As directed by him,
she attempted to escape through the garden, when she was caught and held
by one of her servant girls, but another coming to her rescue, she fled