AN INDIAN ROMANCE.

Southland Times, Issue 1182, 15 December 1869, Page 3

AN INDIAN ROMANCE.

Thirty-ttree years ago there lived in Lewiston, Logan couuty, Ohio, a farmer by the name of Herris Hopkins, who had a boy between three and four years of age. One day, wben tbe farmer was at work in the field some distance from the farmhouse, the boy started from the bouse across tbe field to see his father* The last seen of the little fellow was when he left the house. Hundreds and thousands of people turned out to search for the lost child. The river waa dragged, _ tbe woods searched, rewards offered, but all to no purpose. After days of weary and anxious search, the little fellow was given up by the parents and sympathising friends. The few Indians living in that neighborhood were friendly and peaceable, and no suspicion ever attached to them, and like all other even stranger circumstances, the affair was forgotten, or only talked of as a mysterious disappearance." The Hopkins family at length left their old home and -settled in Illinois, and, up to ten days ago pone of their old neighbors in Logan County' had expected to see any member of the family again. The astonishment of the old settlers in and about the neighborhood can be conceived when the week -before last ' a tall man, browned by exposure to sun and storm, and speaking the broken English of the half-civilised Indians, made his appearance at Lewiston* and claimed to be the child missed thirty-three years ago. He stated that a Cherokee Indian, wandering through that 'section, had enticed him from the field aa he was going in search of his father* and had. carried him to the far West. The old chief had treated nitn as his own son, and haiving been taken away at >o young an age, the memory of his parents and former life had faded from hitnv Eor thirty odd years he had lived as an Indian, and supposed he was the eon ofthe old chief, who claimed to be hia father. A few months since the old chief, then high in rank in the Cherokee nation, and very advanced in age, found himself upon his death-bed. Shortly before he died, and when he knew that recovery' was hopeless, i he called his adopted son to.his .bed aide, | and informed him who ahd what he waa. As soon as the old chief was dead and | buried, Hopkins came to Logan County in search of his parents, whom he found had moved to Champaign City, Illinois . He, however, remained during last week at Lewiston, to gratify' the curiosity of the old settlers, who had aided in the search for him thirty-three, years ago. His re-appearance has : caused < quite as much excitement in Login County as did his sudden and mysteridus disappearance a third of a century ago. The joy of his parents when he ia restored, to them can only be imagined, but never appreciated, save by those who have been similarly affiicted, and similarly rejoiced.—Sandusky Register.