The Cold Blooded Murder of John Van Meters Wife, Infant and Fifteen Year old Daughter
“A blood curdling and harrowing incident which occurred during this year, 1782, was the cold blooded murder of the wife, the infant child and a daughter fifteen years of age, all of the family of John Van Meter. The wife and child were butchered in the door of their dwelling. The savages were probably aware of the absence of the husband and father at a house-raising. The girl was engaged in washing clothes at a spring a little distance from the house, and had on a subbonnet, which prevented her from seeing the approach of the stealthy savage who tomahawked her while she was in the act of bending over the spring. When the Indians gathered around her prostate form lying there in the rigidity of death, and gazed upon her mute but lovely countenance, even their stern hearts relented and lamented the sad result, saying, “ She would have made a pretty squaw.” History Wheeling City and Ohio County, West Virginia 1902
