"That part of the narrative which led to the capture (Oliver E.Spencer) begins the afternoon of the third of July, 1792. Little Oliver is one of a party setting out from Columbia in a fine eight oared barge rowed by soldiers. Their destination was Fort Washinton and their purpose to celebrate our independence. The next day passed gloriously, with artillery salutes, speeches,and toasts. At dusk the scene was enlivened by fireworks,followed by an 'agreeable and sprightly ball'. Making the most of so rare an occasion, the Spencers spent the next two days at the settlement; and at that point little Oliver, not quite twelve, became 'restless and uneasy' and determined to go home. 'Reaching the bank in front of the fort about three o'clock onthe afternoon of the seventh, I found a canoe with four persons on board bound for Columbia, just about to push off from th eshore. Discovering one of them to be an acquaintance I hailed them, requesting them to take me on board; which request, after a few moments consultation, they complied with. The canoe, which was small, narrow, and quite unsteady, had proceeded only a few rods above the mouth of Deer Creek when one of the men, much intoxicated, having made several lurches on both sides, at length tumbling overboard and nearly oversettingus, after a fewawkward flounces reached the shore. Not knowing how to swim and being afraid to continue in the canoe, I prevailed on the remaining men to set me on shore; when, after a few minutes,leaving the drunken man sitting on the bank we proceeded toward Columbia. In the bow of the canoe stood Mr. Jacob Light, who with a pole aided in propelling it; in the stern, a stranger, aswarthy, athletic man, with thick, black, bushy hair, sat with apaddle which he sometimes used as an oar and at others as a rudder; and in the bottom of its center sat Mrs. Coleman, then an old woman of sixty. For myself, I walked along the beach a little below the canoe, now listening to the merry conversation of my companions and now amusing myslef by skimmming small flatstones over the surface of the water. About a mile above the mouth of Deer Creek a canoe which we had discovered some time before descending the middle of the river, having on board some market people and a woman whose child cried loudly and incessantly, passed us, and elicited from the old lady, as is common in such cases, some remarks of the government of children. We had rounded the point of a small cove less than a mile below the foot of the island and proceeded a few hundred yards along the close willows, here bordering the beach at about two rods distance from the waer, when the stranger in the stern of the canoe, looking back and discovering the drunken man staggering along the shore nearly a mile below us, remarked with an oath that he would be 'bait for the Indians'. Scarcely had he spoken and resumed his labor, . . .I saw Mr. Light spring suddenly into the river the stranger at the stern falling overtoward the shore. In the next moment, hearing the sharp crack of two rifles in instant succession and looking toward the willows about two rods above me. I saw through the thick smoke of their guns two Indians, with faces black as midnight, rushing toward the canoe. One Indian was now within two feet of me; in his right hand was the unlifted tomahawk and in his left the naked scalping knife. . .I ran toward the water, hoping to reach the canoe and push out into the river he passed above me down to the shore, near which I arrived just at the moment when, striking his tomahawk into the head of the unfortunate stranger,seizing him by the hair, passing his knife quickly around his scalp and tearing it violently off, he held it up for a moment with fiendish exultation. . .I next attempt to run down the river in the vain hope of escaping; but I had not proceeded tensteps when the other Indian, discovering my design, easily headed me. . .he extended his hand to me in token of peace (this probably occurred below the hill where Kemper Lane and Columbia Parkway now meet). I had time only to cast a brief glance at the shocking scene before me; to see Mr. Light, who, although wounded in the left arm, was with his right swimming out into the river, about a hundred yards from shore; the dead body of the stranger lying just in the edge of the water; Mrs.Coleman about two roads out in the river, her clothes spread over the water and with her head near the surface, apparently floating, and the desolate canoe slowly descending with the current, when the Indians who had taken me prisoner and who still held my hand led me off; and followed by his companion,whose tomahawk was extended almost over my head, soon began to climb the high hill bortdering the Ohio. "The ensuing days were days of bitter suffering for the young captive". Desperate with homesickness he tried to escape during the night, and almost lost his life in consequence. For his infuriated captor was prevented from shooting him only by the quick intervention of the second Indian, Wawpawmawquaq. His saviour now bought Oliver and sometime later adopted him as his son. But that flight north was a horror for the boy. He was whipped, tied up atnight, hustled at a rapid pace through rough country until his feet were two swollen masses of sores. Dysentery sapped his strength to the point that only fear of immediate death kept himgoing. In Nov, Colonel Spencer in Columbia heard news of hisson. Captain William Wells, a prisoner at large among theIndians, reported to the commanding officer at post Vincennesthat he had seen Oliver among the Shawnees at the mouth of theAuglaize (Definace, OH). During the period of his captivity,young Spencer was treated with decency by most of the Indiansand with maternal affection by Cooh-Coo-Cheeh, Wawpawmawquaw'smother. Two other unpleasant incidents are worth noting. The notorious James Girty, on learning that Spencer was redeemed and about to start for home, threatened to notch his ears, as a mark of his captivity. The other incident occurred at the beginning of his return journey. At a Wyandot encampment Colonel Elliott who had been ordered to give Oliver safe conduct, left him with the Indians, who proceeded to get half drunk and start their usualy horseplay. A Wyandot boy of fourteen challenged Spencer to a wrestling match. Much against his wish he finally acceptedthe challenge and in the ensuing bout worsted his adversary. As Spencer walked away, the boy stabbed him in the back, inflicting a wound an inch wide and three inches deep. The day after the stabbing, two squaws took him by canoe from the mouth of the Maumee to Detroit. There he was courteously received by the British commanding officer, Colonel England; and there his wound healed as they waited for the ice to clear from Lake Erie. In late March, they went to Queenstown and then to Fort Niagara,where he spent a few days. He met Thomas Morris, of Canadaigua with whom he traveled with to New Jersey, where he was joyfully received into the family of his sister, Mrs. Halstead. For little more than a year Oliver remained in Elizabethtown, NJ, where he was put to school. In the Autumn of 1794 he set out on the last leg of his return, by horseback to Pittsburgh, thenceby flatboat down the Ohio River. It was middle October when heat last reached his father's house in Columbia, two years and three months after his capture. Eventually he reachedElizabethtown, "and became a distinguished personage, as President of the Miami Exporting Company, (Capital $500,000) andas a Minister of the Gospel in the Methodist Church". He had an active part in Business, Church, and City Gov't. He was on first City Council in 1845. He served as Recorder 1815-1816. Hewas Senior Director of a religious organization: Miami District Bible Society, Western Navigation Bible and Tract Society. He was Vice-President of Hamilton County Bible Society; a Director of Cincinnati Savings Institution, and a Director in CincinnatiEquitable Insurance Company. He was a Trustee of the Medical College of OH. Ref: Descendants of Jonas Halsted