Source: Moccasin Tracks & Other Imprints, Dodrill.
Jerry & Benjamin CARPENTER settled on the Elk in the vicinity of the mouth of Holly early in the history of the valley. They were brothers & it is thought that they came from the Greenbrier valley. Jerry had been carried into the region beyond the Ohio by Indians when a small boy. He remained with them until man grown before returning to civilized life. He settled on what was afterwards known as the John P. HOSEY farm & Benjamin, his brother, erected a cabin at the place now occupied by the little town of Palmer.
A man by the name of O'BRIEN blazed a trail from the Ohio by way of the Trace Fork of Steer Creek to the mouth of the Holly. It is not known at what point he settled, but he marked the way because he did not know woodcraft well enough to travel without some other guide besides what nature provided. The CARPENTERs having spent most of their lives in the woods could travel for days in any given direction without either a compass or marks made upon trees with an axe or hunting knife. When they could not see the sun, they traveled in the proper direction by frequent examinations of the moss on the tree trunks near the ground. White men learned from the Indians that the moss grew in the greatest profusion on the side facing the north. It appears that the Indians did not know of the Elk settlement until they found O'BRIEN trail & followed it eastward. They came to the house of Benjamin CARPENTER & finding his wife & small child at home both were tomahawked & scalped. The husband was down under the bank of the river graining a deer skin. He was soon found & shot at by one of the four Indians in the marauding party, but the bullet flew wide of its intended mark. CARPENTER ran to the house for his gun. He reached the door & was in the act of getting his rifle from its rack above the door when he was killed by one of the party concealed in the house by a bullet from his own gun, which the Indian had obtained when the cabin was entered. Nancy, a sister of the brothers, was taken prisoner & the party soon began their homeward journey after the cabin had been set fire.
Some days before the Indians made their appearance, Jerry went to Fork Lick, for the purpose of hunting buffaloes. He killed one & jerked a quanity of the meat. Building a rude boat, using the skin for the purpose, he arrived at the mouth of Holly a short time after the redskins had left. The cabin was still burning & he was horrified to see his sister-in-law, who had been scalped & left for dead, walking in the yard in front of the burning cabin. She was tenderly taken in his strong arms & carried to the boat, but she died before the opposite bank was reached. CARPENTER prepared to follow the Indians & rescue his sister. He was joined in the pursuit by a man by the name of HUGHES, a noted frontier warrior, & another man whose name is unknown. They had no difficulty in taking up the trail & pursuing it at rapid pace. The Indians traveled with leisure because they probably thought that they would not be followed. They were overtaken on Steer creek & completely surprised by a well planned method of attack. CARPENTER had told his companions that the first act of the savages, when they were attacked, would be to kill their prisoner. The attack was stealthily made & 3 of the Indians fell before the unerring aim of the frontier riflemen. The fourth Indian before the reverberations of the rifle reports had died away threw a tomahawk at the captive woman, but she dodged the weill-directed blow. Snatching up another tomahawk he started in pursuit of the fleeing woman, but HUGHES, like an infuriated wild beast sprang after him & buried his hachet in his head before he got in any striking distance. The Indians were not scalped, but CARPENTER cut a strip of skin about 3 inches wide & 2 feet long from the back of one of them, beginning at the base of the skull & including a tuft of hair. This strip was afterwards tanned & used by him for a razor strap. It became an heir-loom in the CARPENTER family. It was in the possession of John L. CARPENTER at the time of the Civil War. William PERRINE carried it off, and, when he was captured by Federal soldiers that gruesome relic of the days of barbarity & savagery was taken away from him, but what disposition was made of it is not known.
When CARPENTER returned home, he was informed that another party of Indians were still on the east side of the Ohio. He took his wife & a scanty supply of necessary articles with him & went up Laurel creek to the mouth of a small run. Here he found a safe retreat under a large, projecting rock. His oldest son, Solomon, was born the first night spent in that strange habitation. This was most probably the first white child born in what is now Webster county. The stream was called Camp run & it still bears that name. It is not known when the CARPENTER family was murdered but it was some years before Dunmore's war, which occurred in 1774.
They settled in the Elk valley soon after the treaty of Fort Stanwix in western New York in 1768, which opened up the region west of the mountains to settlement.
John L., a son of Solomon
CARPENTER, married Nancy PERRINE. They settled at the mouth of Missouri
run where the town of Erbacon is now situated. He became the father of
the following children: Dianah, Joseph, Agnes, Jane, William Hamilton,
Amos, Mary, Catherine & Estelline. John L. was an herb doctor of splendid
ability. He compounded his own medicine from plants & roots obtained
by himself in the woods. He had a good farm & was an exemplary man,
a model farmer, & a law-abiding citizen.