A HORRIBLE DEATH.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3974, 10 December 1873, Page 3

A HORRIBLE DEATH.

An Ohio paper tells a very strange and startling story of the revelation made by a Btroke of lightning a few days since. The Stroke, it eeerac, prostrated a splendid grove of oaks in the Miami Valley. Among them was one which was re .t asunder from top to bot toco, and, according to the narrator, the fragments, in falling apart, disgorged & gaunt skeleton, yellow with age, which instantly fell to pieceß, and was scattered over several feet of the surrounding pasturage. With the remains were aleo found a few buttons of ancient pattern, and a leather pocketbook, in good preservation. This pocketbook told the sad and tragic story of the disentombed skeleton. It contained papers which were brown and discolored, and covered with rude pencilling*, scarcely legible, but enough could be deciphered to show that they had been written by a soldier in the revolutionary army, a man, in fact, who had been an aid and com pauion of General Washington. His name was Roger Yaudenburg, and he held the rank of captain. After participating in the priva. tions of Valley Forge and in the retreat across the Jerseys, and serving a br«ef time at West Point, he marched with St Clair against the North- western Indians. On November 3, 1761, he was wounded and captured by the redskins. He subsequently e»caped, however, and heing hard pressed by bis savage foes, he took refuge in this oak tree. The hollcw afforded a convenient retreat, and he allowed himself to drop into it. Then, too late, he found that he bad miscalculated the depth of the hollow, and there was no escape. The reznaining hours of his life were spent in writing a diary, the entries of which show a terrible record of human suffering, and during a period of eleven days he painfully described his sensations as he felt himself slowly starving to death.