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     ILLINOIS COUNTY ORGANIZED - The year of Boone's escape saw the organization of a new county, which included the land surrounding the Scioto licks.  The war with England was in progress, and some far-seeing member of the Virginia House of Burgesses felt that the time had come for Virginia to reassert her claim to the Ohio country.  The simplest way of doing this was to carve a new county out of the western part of the old county of Botetourt, already mentioned.  It was bounded on the north by the great lakes, on the east by Pennsylvania, on the south by the Ohio river, and on the west by the Mississippi river, and was named Illinois.  John Todd was appointed its first lieutenant and civil commandant.  He served until his death, which occurred at the battle of Blue Licks in 1782.  This was a shrewd move on the part of Virginia, for, when the Revolution ended, England surrendered its claim to the Ohio valley, leaving Virginia in undisputed possession of the greater part of it.

     JONATHAN ALDER - The wars and revolutions of the whites, however, great in results, affected the Indian inhabitants of Ohio but slightly at the time.  They still roamed at will through its forests, hunted the buffalo, made salt at the Scioto licks, went on their regular manhunts into the mountains and brought back white captives.  Among the latter was Johnathan Alder, who was captured in 1782, when a lad of nine years.  He was out in the woods in company with an older brother, David, looking for a mare and colt that had strayed away, when the Indians surprised them, killed his brother and took him prisoner.  The same band had captured other prisoners in the same neighborhood, among whom were a Mrs. Martin and her four-year-old daughter.  The latter failed to keep up with her captors in their rapid march down to the Ohio, and they killed and scalped her.  Alder  remained with the Indians until 1795, but it was ten years later before he returned to his kindred in Virginia.  In after life he wrote an account of his sojourn among the Indians, in which they may be found the following reference to a visit to the Scioto licks:  It was now better than a year after I was taken prisoner, when the Indians started off to the Scioto salt springs, near Chillicothe, to make salt, and took me along with them.  Here I got to see Mrs. Martin, who was taken prisoner at the same time I was, and this was the first time I had seen her since we were separated at the council house.  When she saw me she came smiling, and asked if it was me.  I told her it was.  She asked me how I had been.  I told her I had been very unwell, for I had the fever and ague for a long time.  So she took me off to a log, and there we sat down, and she combed my head and asked me a great many questions about how I lived, and if I did not want to see my mother and little brothers.  I told her that I should be glad to see them, but never expected to again.  She then pulled out some pieces of her daughter's scalp that she said were some trimmings they had trimmed off the night after she was killed, and that she meant to keep them as long as she lived.  She then talked and cried about her family, that was all destroyed and gone, except the remaining bits of her daughter's scalp.  We stayed here a considerable time, and meanwhile took many a cry together, and when we parted again took our last and final farewell, for I never saw her again.