As to where the bodies of the victims were buried, the traditions do not agree. According to most, they were buried in the cemetery at the Sharon Lutheran Church, just across the hill from the scene of the massacre. But this church was nor organized until a number of years after the tragic event. It is hardly likely that there was a cemetery here before the church was organized. There are no grave markers with inscriptions on them of this early date in this cemetery. There, however, two grave markers bearing the Sluss name, both to boys in their teens. One was to Joel, who died in 1825 and the other to David who died in 1827. This is a whole generation after the massacre. There are a number of graves just east of these and just west of the church that are not marked. Whose they are, no one knows.
Another tradition gives the place of burial as near where they were killed. There is a knoll near there where the land slopes three ways about 200 or 300 yards north of the site of the house that seems to be a suitable place for the burial. It is about 20 or more feet wide and 75 or more feet long. There are several large boulders and numerous field rocks scattered over it. There is a large old locust stump...[but] no plants such as you often find where there are graves out in a field. The rotten remains of a rail fence are scattered over the place, showing that it has been enclosed for some purpose, otherwise most of it could have been cultivated with the adjoining land. This, it seems to me, is the most probable burying ground of the victims of the massacre...
In regard to the number and names of the persons killed and escaped the accounts do not agree. My mother's account is as follows:
Those killed were Christina the second wife of John [Jared?] Sluss, their daughters Katy and Hazel, and their crippled son David. Those who escaped were John, the two sons James and Joel, and four daughters.
The daughter Polly married Daniel Sharitz. She was my great grandmother. She was evelen years old at the time of the tragedy. It was she who, when the Indians were seen, ran from the house to give the alarm to the father and brothers.
Elizabeth married Peter Groseclose Jr., who lived in the neighborhood just west of the Sluss house. I think she was married and living in her own home at the time.
Mary was a baby in the cradle. She in her cradle had been pushed back under the bed, and was not discovered by the Indians. She married Michael Crigger.
The fourth daughter to escape, Susan, must have been married and away from the old home at the time of the massacre. She married a Mr. Katron and moved to Tennessee, northeast of Kingsport. Years ago I visited in the homes of some of her descendants and the cemetery where she was buried. There were no markers with inscriptions to give any information. Her descendants knew little of the story, except that she was from the Sluss family.
The year and the time of year of the massacre varies with the various sources of traditions. Some would set the date early in the 1760s, some in the late 1790s. According to the tradition in our family, our great grandmother Polly Sharitz was eleven years old at the time. She was born in 1775. That would make the date of the massacre 1786. But Aunt Mary Creggar was believed to have been 103 or 104 years olf when she died in 1880. As she was a baby at the time of the massacre that would indicate 1776 or 1777. As to the time of year the traditions vary from late spring to late summer. The date I believe most probable is April of May 1778 or 1779.
I have not given gruesome details of the tragedy as some have attempted to do, and for this reason. There were no living eye witnesses. No one escaped from the house or yard who saw the massacre to give the details of it, or just how it happened. The mother and children were at home as usual, not expecting anything unusual to take place, so could not have put up much of a fight. Polly, the one who escaped to give the alarm, ran when she saw the Indians approaching so could not have given the details of the horrible tragedy. Then the Indians knew they must make quick work of it and get away safely, knowing the men of the family and neighbors would soon hear of the tragedy and would be after them, and that no mercy would be shown them if caught. Almost all the traditions say, "The Indians made a quick and safe getaway."
If now, 175 years or more after the tragedy, the traditions do not agree as to the number killed, or even the number who escaped, or the date of the event, or the place where the victims were buried, how could we be expected to know the details of the tragedy? My mother never gave us children a number of them.
Thanks to Beverly Repass Hoch for providing this material