Colonel John Butler succeeded, in the spring of 1778, in organiz ing a force of five hundred Indians and six hundred tories, and At Winwith these made his appearance on the Susquehanna. termoot's fort, on the third of July, the colonial militia, in infe rior

numbers, under

progress

in

a

Colonel

Zebulon Butler, opposed his Retreating from thence to

desperate conflict.

Fort Forty, and unable to rally the flying inhabitants to its defense, terms of capitulation were agreed to by which the valley of Wyoming was surrendered to the mercy of savage white

men and half-civilized Indians. Foremost in the frightful orgies which followed, was Catharine Montour, the Queen Esther of the Senecas, a half-breed, who assumed the office of execu tioner, and, using a maul and a tomahawk, passed around the She was a native of Canada, and her

nalized in the wars against the Catawbas.

father one of the French governors, proShe was made a captive Frontenac.

He fell in battle, about the year 1730.

bably during the wars between the Hurons and the French and the Six Nations, and was carried into the

Seneca country, where

she married a young chief who was sig-

Catharine had several children by him, and remained a wjdow. Her superior

mind gave her great ascendancy over the Senecas,

and

among them.

she

was a queen indeed

Lasting, i, 357.

O^ HUDSON'S RIPER.

delibe ring of prisoners, who had been arranged at her bidding, to its her victims murdered and of death chanted the rately song