Tom Quick the Indian Slayer - The Indian Assassin - A Tale of Retribution

The destruction of the whites at Milford had been planned, and the Indians were secretly watching an opportunity to put their plan into execution. Unsuspecting of this treachery, the Quicks went about their work and lands unarmed. One day, the elder Quick, his son Tom, and, as one author says, his brother, and another author, his brother-in-law, Solomon Decker, went up the river, which was then frozen, being in the winter time, to cut hoop-poles for their use. They were unarmed and were soon engaged in that occupation. As they were at that work, they proceeded around a ridge near the bank, and were there discovered by a party of Indians in ambush, a little below where the stream Van de Mark empties into the Delaware. When the Quicks came near enough in their work, the Indians fired a volley and a ball from a rifle, fired by an Indian by the name of Muswink or Modeline, mortally wounded Tom’s father.

The only hope of the party was to fly, and they started and attempted to carry their father with them. He told them that, as he was dying, to leave him and try and escape to save the family. They then left him and made for an escape, which was across the Delaware, on the ice, in full view of the Indians, who were well used to sharp shooting. They were good runners, but before they had reached the middle of the river the Indians appeared on the bank, yelling like demons. Tom and his brother (or brother-in-law) after leaving the father, had sought the cover of an over-hanging rock and were some distance away before the Indians could get a shot, and by running in an oblique direction and then in a zig-zag direction, keeping far apart, the shots of the Indians did not have any effect, except a ball hit Tom on his heel and knocked his foot from under him and he fell. Then the Indians set up a terrific yell. But Tom was soon on his feet and running. Both parties escaped; and finding that they were not pursued, turned cautiously back to see what became of their father. They heard the scalping war-whoop and saw the rejoicing of the Indians over his prostrate form. It was at this moment that Tom, rendered almost frantic at what he saw, resolved that he would avenge the death of his father. After the Indians had departed, they gathered up the remains of their father and gave them a Christian burial, and when all that was mortal of the elder Quick was consigned to the earth, Tom, taking his knife in his right hand and his rifle in his left, looking up to Heaven, exclaimed:
“By the point of the knife in my right hand and the deadly bullet in my left; By Heaven and all that there is in it and by earth and all that there is on it; By the love I bore my father; here on this grave I swear eternal vengeance against the whole Indian race.

I swear to kill all and spare none; the old man with his silver hair; the lisping babe without teeth; the mother quick with child and the maiden in the bloom of youth shall die. A voice from my father’s grave cries, ‘Revenge! Eternal Revenge!'”