“I promised last week to say something about ‘Bloody Run,’ which cuts its way through the hills north of Otway and if the readers of the Times will indulge me, I will conclude my Otway article, with something pertaining to that, and a few anecdotes which I picked up about old Jim Peyton, a whilsom character in those parts.”
“There are many romantic stories connected with the way in which this little stream got its name, and quite awe-inspiring are the suggestions of a time when its pellucid waters were darkened with the crimson hue of blood. Some say that in the early history of the country a terrific massacre of white settlers by the Indians took place at the headwaters. Another story is to the effect, that once upon a time, a hundred or so years ago, a noble son of the forest wooed and won the affections of the beautiful daughter of a white settler; but her paps, with all the perversity of papas since the world began, looked coldly on her suit, and when he came skylarking around the premises with his dress suit on and a large irregular blotch of paint between his shoulder blades, the old gentleman would seek the dog on him and bury the hatchet in his anatomy and otherwise attest his displeasure.”
“So it came about that the dusky lover discontinued his visits to the paternal domicile of his beloved. But she, with that devotion which always crops out in woman’s nature, and Cooper’s novels, would meet him in the wildwood, Essie dear; and one of their principal trysting places was under the spreading branches of a stately beech that stood beside the creek, the name of which gave rise to this interesting tale.”
And here it was one day that the two sat side by side talking of the weather and the spring elections and other things which young and foolish lovers talk about, when the Indian wound his fingers caressingly in her raven locks, and in a moment of entire abstraction, yielding mechanically to a propensity which is said to be strong in the savage breast, he lifted her hair. Then as he turned and saw his Dulcinea with her back hair down, as is frequently the case, all of the passionate love died out of his breast and in a cold and formal manner he completed the job by cutting her throat and tumbling the remains into the creek, which was ever afterwards known as ‘Bloody Run.”
“The Indian bounded off into the depths of the darkling forest, and was never more heard from; but it is asserted that the spirit of the girl frequently returns to the spot of her tragic death, and always assumes the attitude of quest, as if it were searching something it had lost, which is reasonably supposed to be its back hair, that being the only thing which appears from the record to have been entirely missing at the post-mortem.”
“But I put very little confidence in this story. I pin my faith to the legend which is, or has been, for he is dead, related by old Jim Peyton.”
“Jim said that about sixty years ago a hunter encountered a bear in the woods along the banks of the run, and that bruin got him down in the bed of the stream and was about to eat him up when the man’s companion, attracted by the noise of the scuffle, came upon the scene in time to shoot and kill the bear but not before the unfortunate man had received injuries from which he subsequently died.”
“This story is very probably, and, in fact, Jim was in the habit of removing all doubt by producing the bullet with which the bear was killed, which was, indeed, a clincher.”
“By the way, Jim Peyton was, himself, a character of this region, and scarcely less well-known than any bit of the natural scenery of the place. His tragic death, which occurred some two years ago, invests him with additional interest. It is probably better known to the readers of the Times than to myself, how, at the time I speak of, a man by the name of King was deputized to go to Jim’s house and take a step-child to the Infirmary. Jim resented the whole business and when King came into the house to execute his purpose, Peyton reached for a long, old-fashioned rifle that hung over the fireplace; whereupon, King drew his revolver and shot the old fellow through the body. He was taken to Otway, and afterward the County Infirmary, and while the doctors were probing for the ball, poor old Jim’s soul slipped the leashes of the flesh and sailed away to another world. Nothing was ever done with King.”
“Peyton was a sort of lazy fellow that only worked when the exigencies of the larder forced him to it; but he was a persistent and successful hunter. If the neighbors do not wrong his memory, he didn’t at all times confine his hunting expeditions to the daytime, nor his game to that class known in law as ferae naturae. He loved his neighbors, however, and he always showed his affection by carrying his foraging forays into the adjacent territory. On one of these occasions he visited the smoke house of Hamer Caraway, on Beech Fork, about four miles distant from Otway. Jim had a commendable respect for locks and bolts, the forcing of which, to his mind constituted the crime of burglary, and he was on his knees in the act of tearing off the shingles, in order to effect an entrance from the top, when Caraway approached from the rear and emptied the contents of his rifle into the most available part of Jim’s anatomy. Jim worked for JR Walsh all the next day, and with uncomplaining fortitude took his meals from the mantle-piece.”
“As I have said, one of Jim’s most conspicuous characteristic was his laziness, and this disposition almost cost him his life once.”
“He was sledding tankbark from one of the steep hills on Jones’ Run and his wife Elizabeth, or ‘Libben,’ as he called her, was helping him; or rather, Libben was doing the work and Jim was bossing the job. When the sled was loaded, Jim, instead of walking down hill, mounted the load, rough-locked, and prepared to ride. Libben stood on top of the hill and watched him. About half way down the lock gave way and the sled started. Libben began to wring her hands and scream. With one hand grasping a standard of the sled, with the other he waived a graceful adieu to Libben, at the same time calling out at the top of his voice, and with unusual politeness, ‘Farewell, Elizabeth!’ Just then the sled struck a stump and Jim sailed like a bird about thirty feet ahead into some underbrush, where Libben found him, subsequently, with the back breadths of his system pretty well frayed out.”
“Peyton had a son whom he called Andrew Jackson, noted as one of the bravest boys that marched to the front during the dark days of ’61. In the battle in which he was lost, when his regiment was on the run, the last seen of Andrew Jackson, he was standing behind a tree plunking away at the ‘Rebs as unconcernedly as if he were shooting squirrels. His fate, no one ever knew, but the memory of the brave boy almost atones for all the shortcomings of his father.”1
