We "ran at a smart rate, through the woods, for about 15 miles, and that night we slept on the Alegheny [sic] Mountain without fire," James Smith wrote in his journal of the day in 1755 when he was taken captive by Indians.

He fared better than his fellow road-cutting crew member, who was shot and scalped during the ambush.

Smith was held for four years, and the journal he kept throughout that time provided inspiration for three paintings by Chas Fagan that show the European Colonist -- dressed and body-painted like the Northeastern province Indians he lived among -- hunting in a forest, smoking a bear out of a honey tree and writing in his journal before an expansive and unsettled vista of rolling mountains.

They're exemplary of the realism and research that enliven each of the 63 artworks in "Portraits of the Eastern Frontier: Featuring Robert Griffing, John Buxton and Chas Fagan" at the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art at Ligonier Valley.

The exhibition is among four signature events planned to celebrate the area's heritage and commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Fort Ligonier during the French and Indian War. It has wide-eyed appeal for children and teens who will enjoy seeing the Indians, soldiers and settlers they've read about brought to life in full -- and authentic -- dress (check out the tattoos and piercings). But the artists' commitment to historical accuracy and their technical proficiency make this a rewarding show for adults as well.

Janet Bucciarelli, museum coordinator and exhibition curator, has supplemented the nationally prominent artists with three others to round out the show's sense of time and of place.

All of the artists have Western Pennsylvania roots, and Griffing, Buxton and J.A. Cooper are also historical re-enactors of the periods they paint.

Griffing's interest in the Eastern Woodlands Indians he impeccably depicts can be traced to childhood discoveries of artifacts while playing. The artist, who lives in Gibsonia and in Tucson, Ariz., is collected internationally and acclaimed by several Native American groups which have exhibited his work. The National Park Service commissioned two Griffing paintings for the new Fort Necessity cyclorama.

While many of Griffing's scenes are naturalistic and straightforward, the light entering from the background of the classically composed "The Tattoo" is effectively rendered in impressionistic strokes. "Thundering Water" combines Romantic aspects of "the noble savage" theme with a favorite Hudson River School subject, Niagara Falls.

Buxton, like Griffing, a commercial artist for three decades, exhibits the most works, including "He Returns Victorious," George Washington arriving on horseback at sunlit Mount Vernon, and French and Indian militia grouping in the hills above Fort Ligonier on "October 12, 1758."

Fagan, a Ligonier native who lives in Charlotte, N.C., is uncommonly adept in two and three dimension, as evidenced by a portrait of a young Washington projected from a plaster mask cast much later and a bronze sculpture of an Indian balanced upon a rock fishing. His commissions include the official White House portrait of first lady Barbara Bush and a life-sized sculpture of President Ronald Reagan for the U.S. Capitol. Remarkably, he is self taught as an artist, having earned his Yale degree in Russian and East European Studies.

Ligonier resident Cooper, a descendent of author James Fenimore Cooper, is also self-taught. A geneticist by training, she left the scientific world to study and paint mid-18th century life. Rita Kambic Halderman paints Western Pennsylvania landscapes, unsullied by people or development, that are suggestive of an earlier time.

Finally, Mark Seraly, a dermatologist whose avocation has blossomed into a second career, pays homage to Native Americans in bronze.