Copy of second letter from Adelaide Berry Duncan to her son George. Sept. 17th, 1893 Dear George, In looking over your letter, I find I did not answer all your questions. I don’t know whether your grandfather (John, Jr.) Duncan was much of a woodsman, or not, nor whether he was much of a hunter or not, but I don’t believe he was much of a hunter for I think I would have heard talk of it, if he had been. Your grandmother (Mary “Polly” Laughlin) Duncan’s oldest brother, Johnny Laughlin, was a great hunter. His children used to sit on the woodpile when he went out with his gun, and listen to hear a shot, then each would claim separate parts of the deer, such as the milt, the heart, or the ribs. Isaac King, his son-in-law, told this and said he neglected his cornfield to hunt, like my papa did. I don’t believe your grandfather Duncan did that. (Note: Isaac King married Jane Laughlin and John Laughlin was her uncle, her father being Thomas Laughlin, who was the oldest brother of Mary “Polly,” so there is some question as to which man was the hunter referred to. Violet M. Pilcher, typist of this copy of the letter. I don’t know how long they were in the wilderness, nor whether the family got together in Kentucky or not till after the old folks went back to Virginia. Decatur Dryden’s mother (Sarah Berry who married William Dryden) was the first child my grandmother Berry had after her return from captivity, and it may be he has heard her tell things she certainly heard her mother talk of. (Note: My records indicate other children were born after the captivity previous to the birth of Sarah in 1788. vmp) Before our ancestors moved to Kentucky, they in Virginia had to seek safety in a blockhouse. Your grandmother (Mary “Polly” Laughlin) Duncan told me of this after I was married. She was a little girl and was drinking sweet sap that was dripping from a sugar tree near her father’s house. She had left one shoe and stocking in the house. A runner came galloping by, calling out: “To the blockhouse. The Indians are coming!” Her father (John Laughlin who is referred to as Luke later in the is letter) picked her up, and poor lame man that he was, carried her in his arms. By the time they got pretty near the blockhouse, there was quite a crowd of neighbors, and they stopped to drink at a little stream, and your grandmother’s little tin cup that she had in her hand was all they had to drink out of; only one woman pulled off her shoe and gave her children drinks out of it. I don’t know whether your great-grandfather (Capt. John) Duncan’s family was in the blockhouse or not, but my grandfather and grandmother Berry were, as also Billy King, whose wife was Betty (Elizabeth) Sharp before she married. There were five men killed by the Indians while they were staying in the blockhouse. The men would go out to their fields to get food, and those inside would hear the shooting, and after awhile go out and bring in their slain friends. They tied their feet together, also the hands, and to a pole, then two men would carry them. Your grandmother told of on poor German woman whose son Fritz was all the family she had. He was brought in that way. Your old grandmother would choke and stop, and tears run down her cheeks when she told me of how this poor woman would wring her hands, and say: “Oh, my Fritz, my Fritz!” This Billy King was the one who afterwards held the deed to granfather Berry’s farm. I heard mama say he was as faithful as if grandmother Berry’s children had been his own – never took any advantage of them. Your grandmother told me that one Sunday morning in the blockhouse, he dressed in his clean white flax linen pants and hunting shirt, and laid the corner of his hunting shirt across his knee, and took Isaac, his baby on his knee. The baby had bowel complaint and stained his hunting shirt. He jumped up, and tore around as if the Indians had him, and my grandmother Berry and his wife flew at him and got the baby away and the hunting shirt off him, for he took out his knife and they had work to keep him from cutting off the corner of the shirt that was so badly spoiled. Did any of them think that any of their descendants would write this down more than a hundred years after it occurred? Your grandmother (Duncan) said to me: “Your grandmother (Sarah Berry) was a beautiful woman then.” Isaac King moved to Kentucky, Whitely County, before papa (Lafayette Berry) did, and he lived four miles from where I was raised. I remember when I was a little girl, of riding behind him to Williamsburg (KY) on a big white stable horse. We were going to a Presbyterian preacher, and I was going to ride behind mama, and Ellen Carr behind papa, when he (Isaac King) said: “Put her behind me.” I was so much afraid of him and of the horse too that it was anything but a pleasant ride to me. We crossed the Cumberland River which was pretty full too. Decatur Dryden’s grandmother Dryden was a Berry; (His grandparents were David Dryden and Barbara Berry. vmp) I think my grandfather’s sister, but perhaps a cousin. (more likely to have been cousin. vmp.) Your grandmother Duncan’s mother was (Mary) Polly Price before she was married to that lame weaver, Luke Laughlin. (John Laughlin in our records). She is the only one of your ancestors whose nationality I do not know. When your grandmother (Mary “Polly” Laughlin Duncan) was a little girl, this Polly (her mother) rode a fine young mare that was a great favorite in the family some miles to a neighbor’s, and as she was coming home, a bull was roaming in the woods and took after her. She ran the mare and got home safe and she wanted to keep the mare put up until the bull left, but no, her husband would turn her out, saying the mare could keep out of the bull’s way; but the next day they found the mare dead, gored to death by the bull. I tell this so his great grandsons may know to heed their wives. With much love to all. Mother This information was shared with me by Joe Duncan of Lexington, Ky. Who had copied information in the hands of Miss Mattie R. Davis of Lexington in 1965. Mattie had corresponded in 1927 and 1928 with Laura Duncan, daughter of Adelaide, who had shared copies of the letters. Both Adelaide and her son George were deceased prior to June 1928 and are buried in a Los Angeles, California cemetery. I have inserted some names in parentheses at the time of typing these copies to make it easier to comprehend the identity of the persons written about. Violet M. Pilcher, February 1984 (Break in the continuity of the letters indicated. Pasted to the last paragraph after the signature on page 7 is a fragment of another letter no date, apparently cut from some other letter.) (words barely discernable: “good while ago.” When our ancestors started from Virginia and Tennessee to Kentucky, grandmother Berry’s eldest brother kissed her good-bye and snatched up her oldest child (who was named John for this brother), and said, “Sally. I will keep this child till better times. The Indians shan’t get him.” And I have heard papa and mama say it was four years before she saw her boy. Two of those years were in captivity. // end of page 7 a short page.)