On entering the channel to the right of Brunot's island, I could not avoid a sensation of melancholy, from its reminding me of the death of my valued friend George Cochran, esq. of Natchez, who about three years ago was drowned here together with a Mr. M'Farlane of Elizabethtown, by the skiff, in which they were going from the shore to a brig belonging to the latter, being carried by the current {78} against the brig's cable, and overset. In his death, his friends had cause to lament the loss of a warm hearted, benevolent, generous, and properly conducted man in every sense of the word, and the world was deprived of one of those characters, which is occasionally but rarely allowed it, to prevent that general obloquy to which it would otherwise be subjected from the natural depravity of mankind.
I was not acquainted with Mr. M'Farlane, but from the manner in which I have heard him spoken of by those who were, he merited a longer enjoyment of this probationary life. They were found two days after, a few miles below, brought to Pittsburgh, and interred in two adjoining graves, in the burying ground of the new Presbyterian meeting-house.
- [Footnote: affairs, and was listed by Lord Dunmore (1775) as one whose loyalty to the British
could be relied upon. He became, therefore, an object of suspicion to his neighbors, and General Hand, commandant at Fort Pitt, placed him upon parole. The night of March 28, 1778, McKee with Matthew Elliot and Simon Girty, broke his parole and fled to the British at Detroit. There he was rewarded with a captaincy, and employed in leading Indian raiding parties against the American settlements. After Hamilton's capture (1778) he was made Indian agent for the Western department, and throughout the Revolution, and the entire period of Indian wars, his influence with the savages was exerted to maintain their enmity to the Americans. After the battle of Fallen Timbers (1794), Wayne burned the store-house and goods of McKee at the Maumee Rapids, the renegade having himself retired to Detroit, where he received a letter of commendation from the governor-general of Canada, and promotion in the British service. When the latter evacuated Detroit (1796), McKee retired to Sandwich, where he continued his official duties until his death (January 14, 1799). His services had been rewarded by large grants of land on the Canadian side of the Detroit River, upon which his descendants established themselves. His Pittsburg property passed into the hands of a brother, whose descendants were living thereon in 1847.—Ed.]
