Beadle's Dime Novels No. 85: The Fugitives

About this issue

Beadle's Dime Novels issue containing two serials set during frontier conflicts. The featured story, "The Fugitives: or, The Quaker Scout of Wyoming" by Edward S. Ellis, depicts the Wyoming Valley massacre of 1778. The narrative opens with settler Gershom Smithson fleeing battle on a captured horse, warning fugitives of approaching Indian forces under British command. Smithson kills a pursuing Delaware warrior, returns home to retrieve his wife Jerusha and infant, and deposits them on his horse for escape to Stroudsburg. He then departs alone to assist neighbors, the Abingdons. The text provides historical context regarding the valley's vulnerability and Congressional military response. A second installment, "Red Plume: The Renegade" by J. Stanley Henderson, advertises an adventure narrative set in Blackfeet country featuring both Indigenous and white characters amid frontier romance and conflict.