"About the year 1775, three German families emigrated and settled near the mouth of Pursley Creek. Two of these, by the name of Sellers, appropriated the lands since owned by John Buchanan and Fordyce Thomas. The other family bore the name of Provator, and improved the tract where Edward Wood and Doc. Huffman live. A year later came Benjamin Pursley, and located the land now owned by George Hoge, Jr., and from him Pursley Creek was named. The family of the elder Sellers consisted of himself, wife, and four sons, Leonard, Jacob, George and John, the latter being demented. They lived in a cabin built for defense, located near a spring below the house of Mr. Buchanan, stil standing. Leonard Sellers* married Mary, the only child of Gasper PROVATOR, with whom the young couple lived. One afternoon in the fall of 1780, or thereabouts, Leonard shouldered his gun, and journyed into the forest for game. Molly, the wife, with her twin children, and her sister-in-law, went out to gather grapes. Molly spred her apron upon the ground, and sat the two children upon it, and while busily engaged gathering clusters, Indians, creeping stealthily, fired or rushed suddenly upon them. Molly instinctively and instantly bounded away, oblivious to everything except the terrible vision of the inhuman savages rushing upon her, and firing after her. Having escaped their deadly clutch, she ran at her utmost speed, not halting till she had reached her own cabin, when some one exclaimed, "Why, Molly, where are your children?" This was the first thought that the terror-stricken mother had, that her babes had been with her in the woods. With a shrek and a bound she flew back over the ground by which she had come, to meet death if she must, only intent on rescuing her little ones. When she reached the spot, she found the children sitting upon the apron as she had left them, but horrible to behold, both scalped. Fearing pursuit the Indians had fled. On approaching the children, one of them looked up and smiled, when it recognized its mother. Folding them to her bosom in the apron as they sat, she hurried home, and upon her arrival, found a huge butcher knife in the folds of the apron, that the savage had dropped. One of the children died, and the other lived to become the wife of Joseph Aukram, and the mother of a family. The sister-in-law, who was with her, was carried away, and was never heard of more. During the first run home the mother saw the bark knocked off a sapling before her by the ball from the Indian's gun, which passed between her body and her arm, but fortunately did not harm her, and when she jumped off the creek bank into the sand she made a greater leap than any man in the settlement was able to do. But the powerful exertion required for the leap, and the running back and forth, together with the shock produced by seeing her poor scalped babes, proved nearly fatal. She was completely broken down, and for over a year was in a very feeble and critical condition, never regaining her natural vigor. So violent was her hatred of the savages ever after, that she not only became much excited whenever she related these incidents, but usually added, "If ever I should see an Indian, no difference where he was, or who, or how friendly he pretended to be, I know I should try to kill him--I know I could not help it." The husband returned at evening, but so horror and grief stricken that he soon sickened and died. Thomas Hoge, who furnished many of the particulars related above, says: "My parents when first married, sixty years ago, settled on Pursley, where John Hoge now lives, on the improvement made by Ben Pursley, for whom both the creek and Ben's Run took their names. Old Molly was a practicing midwife. She also adds that when they settled on Pursley there were but two or three families above them on all the waters of that stream. There were in places two miles or more together of solid woods, without a stick amiss, where deer, wolves and wild turkeys were very plenty, with a sprinkling of bears and rattle-snakes. The deer were very troublesome in pasturing off the young wheat in winter and early spring, and wolves were so bold that it was difficult to raise poultry, lambs, or pigs."
Grace Thomas Haught, 41, of 155 South Morgan Street, Waynesburg, died at 8:50 A. M. Sunday, Nov. 25, 1956, in the Presbyterian Hospital, Pittsburg, after an illness of five weeks. She was born Nov. 3, 1915, at New Freeport, a daughter of Mrs. Maude Thomas Shriver and the late Asa Thomas. Mrs. Haught resided in Waynesburg for the last 20 years. She was a member of the Bethany Methodist Church at Nettle Hill. She was also a member of the Auxiliary to the Waynesburg Loyal Order of Moose Lodge and Fraternal Order of Eagles in Waynesburg. Surviving are her husband, James M. Haught; her mother; a daughter, Mrs. Patricia Lou Swan, of Waynesburg; a son, James William Haught; one grandchild; one sister, Mrs. Mary Ruth Huffman, of Pine Bank; and five brothers, Earl Thomas, of Gratiot, Ohio; Edward W. ; Albert and Ralph Thomas, all of Waynesburg, and Billy Thomas of ??????
