More confusion

I'm still excited to have pinned the date down, but now in addition to the questions of exactly where the Colemans' cabin was and whether it was a "double" log-house or a single one, etc., I've got the date mess.

Conditions in September change pretty fast, and the fourteen day difference between my original September 4 supposition and the real September 18 date is going to impact the descriptions, if not the story itself. For example, the corn might have been harvested, and the fall foliage is going to be much advanced. The weather will probably be colder for the captives, too, although neither of the narrators mentioned it, so I've assumed that was not a primary concern. But regardless, I've got the September 24th hurricane coming right along.

I had originally thought the cabin was on the west side of the Shawangunk Kill, but the tulipwood shed, called the "shack" by the Harris Family who recently owned the property, was on the east side until they moved it across the kill. Had the shed been previously moved the other way? Or was it always on the east side? Or was it the only building to avoid being burned because it was on the other side and away from the house?

Also, there is confusion in my mind between the terms "log-house" and log cabin. Although I realize they are different now, I assumed they were the same back in 1757. But now my research seems to indicate that even back then "log cabins" were associated with Delaware and with the Frontier, while log-houses were more substantial. So perhaps my view of the families and their social and financial status needs to be changed. I can't locate the drawing I saw that showed the Colemans' house and children playing among stumps in the front yard, and it may have been totally a figment of someone's 19th century imagination anyway. But recently I found a drawing of a contemporary double log-house in Pennsylvania, which shows a good sized house. If the Colemans lived in such a house, my initial descriptions must change and the scenes inside have to take that into account. A double log-house would probably have had two front doors and perhaps a huge double-faced interior fireplace.

I've been trying to find a motivation for the Indian attack and also for their capturing the family rather than just killing everyone outright, even for bothering to take Mrs. Coleman along, although she was obviously not in good condition to be traveling. And I think perhaps I've found that in the John Armstrong raid on the Indian village at Kittaning, now about a week before the Coleman raid. Were the Indians trying to "replace" lost members of their tribe? If so, then the accounts that indicate they just took the captives so they could kill them later make less sense than the rumors that they took them, or most of them, to Ohio. It also makes more sense as to why they let Peter Nell protect Mrs. Coleman.

I would like to be able to present the Indian side of this story or at least show some sensible motivation for their actions. Revenge is always a motive, of course, and maybe they did just want to kill torture and kill everyone. It's always easier to present the "villains" as all evil, but the fact that they let Mrs. Coleman ride a horse rather than just killing her outright has always made me wonder. Someone there had some compassion. Why?

A writer always has to ask of each character, especially the major ones, "What is the motivation?" And while my desire is to create a novel out of this barebones story, I want to be as faithful to the facts as I can be, and that includes the underlying truths as well as the more obvious ones like the date.