Janet E Rupert

At the end of April, the prowling Indians “stole the Spencer’s horses, two in number, from a shed adjoining their cabin." Then just a few days later on March 4, 1791, they “narrowly escaped the total massacre of their family.” The family had just finished the evening meal, evidently a quiet and civilized event, and they were ready to leave the table. One of Colonel Spencer’s daughters, with exceptional hearing, detected “the almost noiseless tread of approaching footsteps” of Indians sneaking around in moccasins. She looked at the door and saw “the latch gently rising.” The girl “sprang up” and held the latch down until someone barred it.
They put out their fire and other lights and Anne and her daughters leaped under the featherbeds. The three men in the family, meaning Colonel Spencer and the two boys, sprang up to the gun ports upstairs and with a “rifle and two muskets” rotated around the room to the various ports “to impress the Indians with an idea of their strength.”
The Spencers could now all hear the footsteps of the Indians, but they were “indistinctly seen gliding through the darkness.”
The Indians disappeared, and soon the Spencers heard distant gunfire and “the shrill war whoop” of the Indians.”