Nov 17, 2016 - Sale 2432

Sale 2432 - Lot 297

Price Realized: $ 500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
"THEY HAD TAKEN TWO SCALPS AND STRIPT HIM NAKED" (TENNESSEE.) Cuningham, Jane. Letter recalling her Indian-fighting brothers on the Tennessee frontier. Autograph Letter Signed to cousin James Cunningham of Gettysburg, PA. 3 pages,12 x 7 3/4 inches, on one folding sheet plus address panel on blank page (no postal markings); moderate wear, small seal tear in text area. Russellville, Putnam County, IN, 9 October 1848
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Jane Cunningham (1779-1859) was born to Scotch immigrant Paul Cunningham or Conynham in Tennessee; she married David Logan Cunningham and then moved to Indiana by 1817. This letter was apparently in response to a genealogical request, and she provides a detailed account of her father, uncles, and brothers. Most notably, her family suffered in battle against the British and Indians: "My oldest brother John was wounded by the British at a mill called Ramsour's. . . . My father spared no pains in hunting both in among the dead and livieng but never found him till somewhere about day. . . . I can remember of seeing my mother wash and probe into the wound and take bits of bones out." Her brother Alexander fought the Indians on the Tennessee frontier: "He got shot in the head and somehow both parties took the alarm . . . and brother said when he waked up he looked about to see what had become of the men but he could see no liveing man on the ground but himself." Her brother Paul was killed in an Indian skirmish: "My brother was shot in three places, one just above his eye, another in his throat, and another in the left side of his breast. . . . they had taken two scalps and stript him naked and they dident strip any other but him, and the men just gathered them up and threw them into a sinkhole and that was all the honors he receved at his burial."