The difficulty of procuring bread stuffs for their families, their contiguity to an Indian village, and the fact that an Indian war path passed near their dwellings, soon determined them to retrace their steps.[15] Before they carried this determination into effect, the family of Files became the victims of savage cruelty. At a time when all the family were at their cabin, except an elder son, they were discovered by a party of Indians, supposed to be returning from the South Branch, who inhumanly butchered them all.[16] Young Files being not far from the house and hearing the uproar, approached until he saw, too distinctly, the deeds of death which were doing; and feeling the utter impossibility of affording relief to his own, resolved if he could, to effect the safety of Tygart's family. This was done and the country abandoned by them.
Not long after this, Doctor Thomas Eckarly and his two brothers came from Pennsylvania and camped at the mouth of a creek, emptying into the Monongahela, 8 or 10 miles below Morgantown; they were Dunkards, and from that circumstance, the watercourse on which they fixed themselves for a while, has been called Dunkard's creek. While their camp continued at this place, these men were engaged in exploring the country; and ultimately settled on Cheat river, at the Dunkard bottom. Here they erected a cabin for their dwelling, and made such improvements as enabled them to raise the first year, a crop of corn sufficient for their use, and some culinary vegetables: their guns supplied them with an abundance of meat, of a flavor as delicious as the refined palate of a modern epicure could well wish. Their clothes were made chiefly of the skins of animals, and were easily procured: and although calculated to give a grotesque appearance to a fine gentleman in a city drawing room; yet were they particularly suited to their situation, and afforded them comfort.
Here they spent some years entirely unmolested by the Indians, although a destructive war was then raging, and prosecuted with cruelty, along the whole extent of our frontier. At length to obtain an additional supply of ammunition, salt and shirting, Doctor Eckarly left Cheat, with a pack of furs and skins, to visit a trading post on the Shenandoah. On his return, he stopped at Fort Pleasant, on the South Branch; and having communicated to its inhabitants the place of his residence, and the length of time he had been living there, he was charged with being in confederacy with the Indians, and probably at that instant a spy, examining the condition of the fort. In vain the Doctor protested his innocence and the fact that he had not even seen an Indian in the country; the suffering condition [59] of the border settlements, rendered his account, in their opinion improbable, and he was put in confinement.