USA > New Jersey > Monmouth County > Shrewsbury > A history of Seventh Day Baptists in West Virginia : including the Woodbridgetown and Salemville churches in Pennsylvania and the Shrewsbury church in New Jersey > Part 6
USA > Pennsylvania > Bedford County > Salemville > A history of Seventh Day Baptists in West Virginia : including the Woodbridgetown and Salemville churches in Pennsylvania and the Shrewsbury church in New Jersey > Part 6
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42
This church gives us no record of its history from that time until the 13th of May, 1792, nearly three years afterward. In the meantime, they had in all probability gone in a very leisurely manner, through Pennsylvania, stopping at various places with friends and acquaintances, and possibly some of their number settling in the southwestern part of the present county of Fayette, Pennsylvania, in the vicinity of the Woodbridgetown Seventh Day Baptist Church of that county. Thence they crossed over the Cheat River into western Virginia, some settling for the time being on White Day Creek in Monongalia County, and later the most of them making their way across the Monongahela, following up the West Fork of that river, thence up the Ten Mile Creek branch of the West Fork River to the head waters of the Middle Fork of Ten Mile Creek. Here lay a tract of land which had been surveyed on the 20th of January, 1786, for Joseph Swearingen, the son of
I. This discovery was made by James E. Robinson about the year 1885.
2. This deed relinquished certain claims set up by the Indians subsequent to the Treaty of Lancaster, under date of July, 1744.
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SEVENTH DAY BAPTISTS IN WEST VIRGINIA
Catharine Swearingen,1 whose husband, John Swearingen, had been adjudged owner of this land by the commissioners appointed for adjusting the claims to unpatented lands in the District of West Augusta, comprising the counties of Monon- galia, Yohogania, and Ohio2 and who had issued to John
I. Catharine Swearingen was registered as a slave holder from Spring Hill Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, prior to 1803, in conformity with the requirements of a law passed in 1780. Ellis, History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, p. 128.
2. In October, 1776, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia fixed the boundaries of the District of West Augusta as follows :-
"Beginning on the Allegheny Mountain, between the heads of Potowmack, Cheat, and Greenbrier rivers [said to be Haystack Knob, now at the north-east corner of Pocahontas County] thence along the ridge of mountains which divides the waters of Cheat River from those of Greenbrier, and that branch of the Monongahela River, called the Tyger's [Tygart's] Valley River to Monongahela River, thence up the said river and the West Fork thereof, to Bingerman's [ Bingamon ] creek, on the north-west side of said fork, thence up the said creek to the head thereof, thence in a direct line to the head of Middle Island Creek, a branch of the Ohio, and thence to the Ohio, including all the said waters of said creek, in the aforesaid district of West Augusta, all that territory lying to the northward of said boundary, and to the westward of the States of Pennsylvania and Maryland, shall be deemed, and is hereby declared, to be within the DISTRICT OF WEST AUGUSTA.". . History of Monongalia County, West Virginia. By Samuel T. Willey, Kingwood, W. Va. 1883. Pp. 47-48.
By the same act which created the District of West Augusta, the boundaries of the counties of Ohio, Yohogania, and Monongalia, were fixed as follows :-
"And to render the benefits of government, and the administration of justice, more easy and convenient to the people within the said district [West Augusta] :-
"Be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid, That from and after the 8th day of November [1776] next ensuing, all that part of said district [of West Augusta] lying within the following lines; to wit, Beginning at the mouth of Cross Creek, thence up the same to the head thereof, thence eastwardly to the nearest part of the ridge which dividss the waters of the Ohio from those of the Monongahela, thence along the said ridge to the line which divides the county of Augusta from the said district, thence with the said boundary to the Ohio, thence up the same to the beginning, shall be one distinct county, and be called and known by the name of OHIO;
"And all that part of the said district [of West Augusta] lying to the north- ward of the following lines; vis., Beginning at the mouth of Cross Creek, and running up its several courses to the head thereof, thence south-eastwardly to the nearest part of the aforesaid dividing ridge between the waters of the Monongahela and the Ohio, thence along the said ridge to the head of Ten Mile Creek, thence east to the road leading from Cat Fish Camp to Red Stone Old Fort, thence along the said road to the Monongahela River, thence crossing the said river to the said fort, thence along Dunlap's old road to Braddock's road, and with the same to the meridian of the head fountain of Potowmack, shall be one other distinct county, and be called and known by the name of YOHOGANIA COUNTY;
"And all that part of the said district [of West Augusta] lying to the north- ward of the county of Augusta, to the westward of the meridian of the head fountain of the Potomack, to the southward of the county of Yohogania, and to the eastward of the county of Ohio shall be one other distinct county, and shall be called and known by the name of the county of MONONGALIA." Ibidem, pp. 50-51.
(3)
49
IVESTERN VIRGINIA
BRAVER
calleque Pittsburgh
VASTYORELARD
BLUTCOCK
...
CAMBRIA
NO
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.00D
BITOBIK
VIRT
WEST .. AIDOLPE
VIRGINIA
MAP
SHOWING DISTRICT OF WEST AUGUSTA AND THE COUNTIES OF
HIGHLAST
CABCETAS
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MONONGALIA, OHIO, AND YOHOGANIA AS ESTABLISHED BYTHE GENERAL ASSEMBLY IN 1776 DRAWN FROM AVAILABLE DATA, BY CORLISS F RANDOLPH, 1905 = OLD BOUNDARIES
....... AND .-.- = PRESENT BOUNDARIES.
YOHOGANIA PENNSYLVANIA
OHIO
... ESTAUG
MONONGALIP
DAI DAID
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SEVENTH DAY BAPTISTS IN WEST VIRGINIA
Swearingen a certificate of right of residence.1 Of this tract of four hundred acres, two hundred and fifty-six acres, extend- ing for a mile and a half along the valley and embracing the most of the present village of Salem,? was sold in turn by Catharine Swearingen on the 26th of November, 1790, to Samuel Fitz Randolph of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, who bonded himself in the sum of one hundred and thirty-two pounds, ten shillings, and five pence, Virginia money, for its payment.3
Samuel Fitz Randolph, himself a Seventh Day Baptist of Puritan descent, had formerly resided in the town of Piscataway, Middlesex County, New Jersey, where he was born in October, 1738. After service in the Revolutionary War as ensign in the Second Regiment of Militia of Sussex County, New Jersey, he had become interested in lands in Pennsylvania. This was probably due to the influence of Major Benjamin Stites of Redstone, Fayette County, Pennsyl- vania, who in the winter of 1786, visited New York, where Congress was at that time in session, for the purpose of pur- chasing a tract of land lying between the two Miamis in Ohio.
. "We, the Commissioners for adjusting the claims of unpatented lands in the counties of Monongalia, Yohogania, & Ohio, hereby certify that John Swear- ingen, Sen'r., is entitled to four hundred acres of land in Monongalia County, on Ten Mile Creek, a branch of the West Fork, at Nicholas Carpenter's Camp, in the right of residing & making corn in said county before the year 1778.
"Given under our hands, at Colo. John Evans's, this 25th day of April, 1781. "Teste. WM. MCCLEERY, Cl'k.
"JOHN P. DUVALL, "JAMES NEAL, "WM. HAYMOND."
"Memorandum.
"This certificate cannot be entered with the Surveyor after the 14th day of July, 1781."
"Entered May the Ist., 1781."
2. Settlement had been made at New Salem, under the name of Carpenter's Camp, (and near by it was Hezekiah Davisson's) as early as 1772. Clearly, Davis- son's settlement was made merely for entry or pre-emption rights, as he entered several thousands of acres of land in that vicinity. Carpenter entered but a few hundreds.
3. The tract of land sold to Samuel Fitz Randolph was surveyed January 20, 1786, for Joseph Swearingen, heir of John Swearingen.
The boundaries were as follows: "Beginning at a poplar on the north bank of said [Ten Mile] Creek, and running thence S 3 W, 105 poles crossing the creek to a poplar; S 46 W, 140 [poles] to a gum; N 50 W, 148 [poles]to a white oak; S 79 W, 232 [poles] to a poplar; N 20 W, 86 [poles] crossing the creek to a hickory; N 70 E, 88 [poles] to a white oak; N 84 E, 396 to the beginning. Variation 30 min. east."
51
Sum
S 46 W 140
N50W 148
White Oak
Poplar
Poplar
579 W 232
98402N
Hickory
N70E88
Poplar
N84E396
White Oak
SURVEYOR'S MAP OF LAND AT NEW SALEM, VIRGINIA, SOLD TO SAMUEL FITZ RANDOLPH. FROM SURVEY MADE JANUARY 20, 1786.
WESTERN VIRGINIA
-0
S3W105
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SEVENTH DAY BAPTISTS IN WEST VIRGINIA
He interested John Cleves Symmes,1 a representative in Congress from New Jersey, whose aid he solicited in his efforts to effect his proposed purchase.2 Symmes became so favour- ably impressed with the reports of this country, that he visited it himself and purchased a million acres of land lying between the Great and Little Miamis.3 Symmes soon afterard sold ten thousand (10,000) acres to Major Stites, who led the first party, some eighteen or twenty in number, to settle at the mouth of the Little Miami, in November, 1788.+ Other parties followed, starting a movement from New York, New Jersey, and New England, by way of the Redstone Country, to this section.5 It was this movement which drew the little Church of Shrewsbury into its current and carried it along as far as the Redstone Country, whence it was deflected south into Virginia.
Sometime before the departure of the church from Shrewsbury, Samuel Fitz Randolph had purchased of Mary Hodgson three hundred acres of land situated on Yellow Creek of Armstrong Township of Westmoreland County, Pennsyl- vania. This purchase was effected on the 16th of April, 1785, and the land lay a little to the north .of Redstone. On November 21, 1785, he purchased eight hundred acres of land to be selected by himself from a tract of five thousand acres owned by Robert Martin, situated in the town of Northumberland in the county of Northumberland, Pennsyl- vania. The Northumberland tract, from the description contained in the deed, evidently was entirely virgin forest ; while upon the three hundred acres in the south-western part of the state, had been built a dwelling house and several farm buildings, and the land was at least partly under cultivation. Here he went to make his home sometime between November 21, 1785, and November 26, 1790. At the time of his purchase
I. John [Cleves(?) ] Symes made an entry settlement on the Cheat River in 1774, but afterward assigned the claim.
2. John Cleves Symes was appointed a judge of one of the courts of the North-West Territory, January 6, 1787. He was again appointed to a similar position, August 20, 1789. Cf. Burnet's Notes on the Early Settlement of the North-Western Territory. pp. 38 and 40.
3. He first applied for two million (2,000,000) acres. Cf. ibidem, p. 490.
4. For the essential documents in this grant, cf. ibidem, pp. 481-496.
5. The Redstone Country was a general name for what is now the south- western corner of Pennsylvania, and the northern part of West Virginia. Redstone, proper, corresponds to what is now Brownsville, Pennsylvania.
HOME OF JESSE FITZ RANDOLPH, AT NEW SALEM. (Son of Samuel Fits Randolph ). ( From a photograph taken in 1900).
.
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WVESTERN VIRGINIA
of the land at New Salem, he was beyond question a resident of Fayette County, Pennsylvania.
Although the Six Nations had formally relinquished all claim to western Virginia in 1768, they continued their depredations until the summer of 1795. It appears that immigration from New York, New Jersey, and the south- western part of Pennsylvania, into western Virginia and Ohio, had excited anew the jealousy of the Indians, who became more than ordinarily troublesome in the fall of 1791. Accordingly three detachments of soldiers, aggregating nearly five hundred regulars, were sent to the defence of these settlers.
The new settlers on Ten Mile Creek built for themselves a block-house within the limits of the present village of Salem, and protected themselves as best they could against unexpected attacks of the savages. They were, however, outside of the usual trails of the Indians, who seemed disposed to follow the larger water courses; and as Salem is at the crown of the water-shed which sends its waters on the one hand west directly into the Ohio, and on the other hand east into the waters of the Monongahela, it does not seem to have been threatened by large bodies of Indians, except on rare occasions. Twice, however, our colonists were in great peril. Once was on the occasion of a trip made by Nicholas Carpenter from the Redstone Country to Marietta with a drove of cattle, when a band of Indians who had crossed the Ohio from the mouth of the Little Kanawha and were moving towards the settlements on the West Fork River, on striking the trail of Carpenter's cattle, were drawn aside from the real purpose of their expedition. This was in September, 1791. The other occasion was in July, 1794, when there were two attacks made upon the settlement of the West Fork River. Soon after this time, General Wayne advanced upon the Indians' country, his force being augmented from time to time by volunteers from among the settlers, among whom were included some from the New Salem settlement, as previously recorded.
In the summer of 1795, occurred the last invasion of this country by the Indians, when they murders. three or four victims, took three prisoners, and returned to their towns in time to surrender their captives to General Wayne. Wayne's
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SEVENTH DAY BAPTISTS IN WEST VIRGINIA
treaty with the Indians at Greenville on August 3, 1795, forever freed north-western Virginia from Indian terrors.
When it is remembered that this part of north-western Virginia was the theatre of the action of the celebrated Indian chief Tecumseh, who is said to have been born on Hackers Creek near the mouth of Jesse's Run, only twenty or thirty miles distant from the Ten Mile settlement ; that here was the scene of the activities of Logan and Girty ; that Cornstalk, the renowned king of the Northern Confederacy of Indians, conducted many of his bloody campaigns in this region; and when we remember, too, that New Salem was but a short distance from the scenes of such wanton murders of friendly Indians by cruel white men, as the murder of Logan's family by Daniel Greathouse and Joshua Baker;1 of the Bald Eagle by Jacob Scott, William Hacker, and Elijah Runner ; and that of Captain Bull, the Delaware chief of the Indian village of Bulltown, on the Little Kanawha, by William White, William Hacker, and probably Jesse Hughes, John Cutright, and others ; not to mention still others equally well known in the annals of border warfare, we can appreciate to a slight extent, at least, the dangers with which this country abounded at the time when the settlement was made at Nicholas Carpenter's Camp on Ten Mile Creek. The new settlers were by no means strangers, however, to the perils and treacherous methods of Indian warfare. Their former homes in New Jersey had been situated almost literally upon the very battlefields of the Revolution, where the Indians had sustained their well-earned reputation for the violation of all the laws of warfare among civilised nations.
Although the new-comers built a blockhouse-the common type of fort for protection against the Indians,-there is no available evidence that the Indians did their new pale-face neighbours any harm. On the other hand, the evidence all seems to be to the contrary. Dr. Isaiah Bee of Princeton, West Virginia, a great-grandson of both the William Davises who emigrated from Shrewsbury, says that his great-grand- father, William Davis, called "Greenbrier Billy," from Greenbrier Run the name of the stream on which he settled in
I. This murder was long ascribed to Michael Cresap, who it is now known, was innocent of the charge.
A WEST VIRGINIA HOME OF THE MIDDLE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
( The Home of Jepthah F. Randolph, 1847-1874). ( After a pencil sketch by Corliss F. Randolph).
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WESTERN VIRGINIA
Virginia, in contra-distinction from the other William Davis who was called "Jarsey Billy," told him (Dr. Bee) then a lad of eight or nine years, that "an Indian chief said to the people at the fort at New Salem, that they were so careless that they (the Indians) could have killed them all, had they wanted to do so. But as they wore shoes and coats, the Indians knew they were from Pennsylvania or New Jersey and were friends. Had they worn moccasins and hunting shirts, they would not have left one alive in the fort." Dr. Bee further states that he himself remembers an old lady by the name of Childers, nec Richards, of Meat House Fork, saying that she stood on a stump and saw the Indians scalp her father. This incident, together with others recorded by such authorities as Withers in his Chronicles of Border Warfare, and Drake in his Aboriginal Races of North America, shows that the Indians were active in their bloody pursuits in the locality of the Seventh Day Baptists even after their arrival at their new homes. Fear of the Indians caused them all to build their cabins in a cluster near to their blockhouse, and when they went out to labour in their fields, they all went together after the custom prevailing in frontier settlements, taking turns in doing each other's work. There is a tradition that at one time a detachment of soldiers occupied the fort at New Salem in defence of the settlers; al- though this tradition is unsupported by available documentary evidence, it is none the less likely that it is true, as it is an estab- lished fact that the village of New Salem was represented in the company of Captain Coburn, an Indian fighter and scout of local reputation, who it will be remembered fought under General Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers on the Maumee.
Within a few years after the arrival of John Simpson at the mouth of Elk Creek, he was followed by a considerable number of settlers, among whom were many famous Indian fighters. One of these was Daniel Davisson, who held the title for the land upon which the greater part of the city of Clarksburg now stands. His wife was a niece of Aaron Burr, whose political intrigues formed upon the beautiful Island of Blennerhassett in the Ohio River, some eighty miles to the
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SEVENTH DAY BAPTISTS IN WEST VIRGINIA
west of Clarksburg, are so conspicuous in the early history of the Government of the United States.1
Others came attracted by the natural resources of the country. Among these was Nicholas Carpenter from Red- stone, now Brownsville, in the south-western corner of Pennsylvania, where he had extensive grazing lands for cattle. Without disposing of his Redstone lands, he established a home at Clarksburg; and when Harrison County was organised in 1784, he became one of the county's first two coroners, and a member of the first county court. When the town of Clarksburg was established by an act of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, passed in October, 1785, Nicholas Carpenter became one of its first trustees.2
About the time that Nicholas Carpenter came to Clarks- burg, he established a camp fourteen miles west of Clarksburg on the Middle Fork of Ten Mile, which he called Nicholas Carpenter's Camp. Carpenter's name is perpetuated by a tiny stream in the village of Salem, close by the Seventh Day Baptist Church, which to this day is known as Carpenter's Run.
This camp was established probably for hunting and trap- ping, for the country abounded in game, such as buffalo, elk, deer, bear, wolves, wild turkeys, and numerous smaller game,3 also for prospecting and surveying; and as a station on the road to the Ohio River, for Nicholas Carpenter was a trader in cattle and other commodities. In fact it was on one of his trips in driving cattle to Marietta, in September, 1791, that he lost his life at the hands of the Indians who attacked his party and tomahawked both him and his son.
1. Joseph Johnson, a distinguished governor of Virginia, from 1852 to 1856, locally reputed to have been a natural son of Aaron Burr, lived at Bridgeport, five miles east of Clarksburg, whither he removed in company with his mother, from New York, in 1801, until his death on February 27, 1877, in the 92d year of his age.
2. In 1797, the American Gazeteer, published in Boston, by Jedidiah Morse, says that Clarksburg "contains about 40 houses, a court house and jail." Cf. Transallegheny Historical Magasine. Vol. I., No. I, p. 106.
3. "As late as 1825, buffalo were killed near the source of the Tygarts Valley River. In 1843, elk were killed on a branch of the Cheat River, near where the town of Davis now stands; they did not wholly disappear from the present boundaries of West Virginia until some fifteen or twenty years afterward." Transallegheny Historical Magasine. Vol. I., No. 2, p. 200.
57
MAP OF THE
VILLAGE OF
NEW SALEM
GRAVEYARD
AS LAID OUT BY SAMUEL F. RANDOLPH (Chartered in 1794)
( A RESTORATION. BY CORLISS F. RANDOLPH 1902 )
CHURCH
BACK STREET
MAIN
STREET
O R
STATE ROAD
HOME OF SAMUEL F. RANDOLPH
BLOCK HOUSE
MAIDEN LANE
FRONT STREET
i
WESTERN VIRGINIA
-
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SEVENTH DAY BAPTISTS IN WEST VIRGINIA
Carpenter established his camp on the tract of land which, as has been pointed out, was conveyed by the heirs of Joseph Swearingen to' Samuel Fitz Randolph on the 26th of November, 1790. Samuel Fitz Randolph continued as a resident of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, where he remained an active member of the Seventh Day Baptist Church of Woodbridgetown, Pennsylvania, of which church he and his wife were two of the four constituent members at its first organisation November 8, 1789; and did not remove to his new home in Virginia, until, according to the records of that church, after May 10, 1792.
Samuel Fitz Randolph laid out a part of his land purchased from Joseph and Catharine Swearingen into streets and lots in the form of a town. The town was somewhat in the form of a sort of truncated triangle, with its base to the west, and its apex to the eastward. The town contained five streets,-a main street running nearly east and west, with two others parallel to it, and two shorter streets at the west end of the town running parallel to each other and at right angles to the main street. The lots were divided into two classes: "in" lots and "out" lots, the former fronting on the streets, the latter bordering on the boundaries of the town away from the streets.
A block-house was erected near the centre of the town, where the inhabitants could take refuge in times of danger from the Indians.
The church and graveyard were located on the hillside at the northern terminus of the longer ,cross street, which was the further west, but a few rods from the home of the founder, Samuel Fitz Randolph.
The town was established by an act of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, as appears from the following extract from its Session Laws for 1794; vis.,
"CHAPTER 44 .- AN ACT FOR ESTABLISHING SEVERAL TOWNS. "Passed December 19, 1794.
"BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY, That the lots and streets as the same are already laid off on the lands of Samuel Fitz Randolph, in the County of Harrison, shall be, and are hereby estab- lished a town, by the name of 'New Salem,' and John Patterson, John Davis, Samuel Lippincott, James Davis, Zebulon Maxson, Benjamin Thorp, Thomas Clayton, William Davis, Jacob Davis, George Jackson,
£
A LOG SCHOOL HOUSE. (After a photograph taken in 1882).
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and John Haymond, gentlemen, constituted and appointed trustees thereof."
"Sec. 9 .- The trustees of the said towns, respectively, or a majority of them, are empowered to make such rules and orders for the regular building of houses therein as to them shall seem best, and to settle and dietermine all disputes concerning the bounds of the said lots.
"Sec. 10 .- If the purchaser of any lot in either of the said towns, shall fail to build thereon within the time limited for that purpose by their respective deeds of conveyance, the trustees of the said town may thereupon enter into such lot, and sell the same again, and apply the money for the benefit of the inhabitants of the said town.
"Sec. II .- In case of the death, resignation, or removal out of the county of one or more of the trustees of the said towns respectively, the vacancy thereby occasioned shall be supplied by the remaining trustees or a majority of them; and the person so elected, shall have the same power and authority as if he had been particularly named in this act."
"COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA :-
"I, D. Q. EGGLESTON, Secretary of the Commonwealth of Virginia, certify that the foregoing is a true copy of an Act passed by the General Assembly of Virginia, December 19, 1794, entitled An Act For Establishing Several Towns, of record in this office.
"Given under my hand, at Richmond, this 5th day of December, 1902, A. D.
"D. Q. EGGLESTON, "Secretary of the Commonwealth."
Of the foregoing trustees, William Davis, John Davis, Jacob Davis, Zebulon Maxson, and Benjamin Thorp, were of those who in September, 1789, had set out from their homes in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, "in order to settle in the State of Virginia."
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