John Tunnicliff - Peculiar Exigencies

Peculiar Exigencies

Other adventurers had already occupied claims in the vicinity, and it doubtless required no small degree of fortitude and courage to endure the privations and dangers incident to frontier life; and especially when we take into consideration the peculiar exigencies of the times. The French and English nations were at this time contending for the mastery of the continent. England occupied the Atlantic slope, while Canada was in the possession of France, who were making vigorous efforts to control the western lakes and rivers south to the mouth of the Mississippi, and thus confine the English to the Atlantic coast. The French had vast hordes of Indian allies, who were constantly on the alert to perpetrate acts of hostility on their forest. Frontier settlements were frequently destroyed, and isolated cabins and unprotected families fell into the hands of the savages who burned their homes to the ground.

Mr. Tunnicliff had frequently been apprised of the danger that surrounded him, and resolved to leave until the close of the French and Indian War. His family treasures and belongings were buried in the forest, and he returned to his family in England. Soon after his departure, his estate buildings were burned by the Indians, and in consequence of this circumstance he remained in England several years, during which time he sold his estate there, bestowing, according to the English custom of primogeniture, a large portion of his property upon his eldest son, John, Jr., who had arrived at the years of manhood, and preferred to remain in the land of his birth. Mr. Tunnicliff had three sons and two daughters. The two younger sons were at this time lads of twelve and fourteen years, and the eldest daughter sixteen.