A CAPTIVES TALE: Story of Elizabeth Brownlee Guthrie

Description

This 15-page report of Anna L. Warren and The Westmoreland County Historical Society Research Committee was written in 1977 and reprinted in 2002. It recounts the true story of a young frontier wife and mother who, after witnessing the killing of her husband and young son in July of 1782 by Indians, was taken with her infant daughter to Canada as a captive of the Indians. She was eventually returned during the prisoner exchange following the peace treaties after the Revolution. Much of the research for this paper makes use of depositions taken regarding her eligibility for a Revolutionary War pension. This story of Elizabeth, who died many years after this event in 1842 at the age of 87, is a remarkable one that adds a very personal note to the closing months of the Revolutionary War in Westmoreland County.