A True Heroin
Posted: June 22, 2026 Filed under: history, Poetry, Uncategorized | Tags: history, John F. Garvin, Mary Jane Garvin, Poetry, Writing to be Read 1 Comment
My mother used to research the genealogy of her family. This is a poem which she uncovered, which was written by one of my ancestors, John F. Garvin, in 1894, in Eustis, Florida. This account of an Indian attack, in which his mother, Mary Jane Garvin killed seventeen of her attackers, is said to appear in the History of the Great West.
A True Heroin
In the far, far west
On the wild frontier,
There a woodsman made his home,
Where the wolf, the bear,
The panther, and the deer,
And the red man used to roam.
There was turkey, too
In the forest new
Which full many a meal supplied
And many a ham
Of their autumn game
Were hung from the beam and dried.
Then the Indians came
With their wheat and rye
Together supplied their bread
In their cabin home
The reds and whites
Alike were lodged and fed.
They worked like bees
And lived in peace
Till the reds to the warpath fled.
The whites they were burning
And killing they knew
They waited their time with dread.
The husband was sick
And in anguish turned
As he heard the war whoop wild
“Oh, what can I do,”
He wildly cried
“To protect my wife and child?”
No time could be lost
She grabbed the ax
As the reds cut the door away
And as in they came
They fell to the floor
As forms of lifeless clay.
Some thought to climb
Down the chimney flu,
But the feather bed put on the fire
So smothered the ones
That were coming down
So that one by one the expired.
When her work was done
Her strength was gone
And fainting she fell to the wall
And only one red man
From the conflict ran
To tell what became of them all.
Calmly their forms were returned
To Earth
But there stood on history’s page
A tale how she rought
with nerve and thought
To keep from the red man’s rage.
