Matilda and Cornelia had a very good neighbor, Peter Miller. Peter was a strong young man, measuring six feet-two inches in his stockings. He was very kind to them and often helped them in many ways.
Peter had a stepfather, a wicked man, who would invite the Indians to kill white people. The Indians would give him the scalps, which he would sell to the Tories for eight dollars each; nor cared he where they came from – man, woman or child – it mattered not, so great was his lust for wealth and his greed for gold. He was also abusive to his wife, and he hated and feared Peter. He would have been glad to have Peter killed. But for Peter’s superior strength and size he dared not attack him.
One day Peter stood leaning on his hoe, a large clumsy tool, homemade, as were most of the implements used at that time. His stepfather came up with a band of hostile Indians and said to the chief, “Go and make Peter work.” The chief went toward Peter, brandishing his long knife over him, and told him to work. Peter did not look up, nor flinch, but stood still, his eyes cast down, still leaning on his hoe. The chief thrust his knife in a threatening manner as though he would kill Peter. Then Peter raised his great hoe as if to strike, then quickly whirled, jumped the fence and was soon lost in the forest. From there he went and joined the army and fought bravely.
After many days he returned. His mother’s house was large with two doors on one side. His stepfather saw him coming and, feeling that there was not room in the same house for both of them, he started to run out of one door as Peter entered the other with a hatchet in his hand. Peter, seeing his stepfather fleeing before him, as the Philistines before Samson, threw his hatchet with such force that it caught the back of his stepfathers head, fastening a portion of the hair into the side of the door frame. There it stayed for many years, the government keeping the old house for a relic; nor would they allow anyone to withdraw the hatchet.
Peter resumed his normal life with his mother, free from the hatred of the wicked stepfather. He remembered his friends, the Guinals, and frequently visited and helped them. Peter learned to love the mother, Matilda, and told her of his love. Nor was his suit rejected. There was on problem, however. Matilda’s parents were opposed to her marriage. So determined were they to stop the marriage that they shut her up. “But love is stronger than iron bars, and laughs at locksmiths.” So with Peter’s help she escaped and they were happily married.
The little girl, Cornelia, grew up and married a young Englishman named Joseph Robison. They had a son whom they named Joseph, after his father. They still lived in the little Dutch colony, Charleston, Montgomery County, New York. As they spoke the mother tongue, the young Joseph learned to speak Dutch before he learned the English language.
A few years after the war, they moved farther west, leaving about eight hundred acres of rich land with personal property in New York. The heirs were advertised for, but as they did not go back to prove their title, the property was kept for a long time as unclaimed soldier’s property. It was finally disposed of by the government.
“And now on this the 26th day of Oct. 1900, I, Isabella Pratt Robison, grandchild of Joseph Robison junior, great-grandchild of Joseph Robison senior, great-great-grandchild of Matilda and James Albert Guinal, am sitting here, about 2000 miles west of where all these things happened and looking back through all these years, and thinking of the wonderful inventions and the flight of time of the great changes – social, religious and physical – and am wondering what my great-great-grandchildren will be writing about me in one hundred hears hence.”
And now I, Sarah Lucille Keith Allen, a great grandmother, am sitting here near the birthplace of my mother, Isabella Pratt Robison Keith, hoping that my children down through the ages will love and revere their great ancestors.
Sarah Lucille Keith Allen
Dec. 28, 1975
Manti, Sanpete County, Utah
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