USA > Virginia > Highland County > Highland County > A history of Highland County, Virginia > Part 3
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History of Highland County
streams was for a long while spoken of as the "Pastures." But during the first twenty years of settlement, the Bullpas- ture was called Newfoundland Creek and also Clover Creek. Back Creek appears to have been so named from its position against the Alleghany Front. Jackson's River received its name from the pioneer Jackson, as did also Jack Mountain, which for many years was called Jackson's Mountain. The name of a pioneer will cling even to a knob, a spring, or a field, although of the man himself the recollection is hazy.
Why one stream was called a creek, another a run, another a branch, another a fork, and still another a draft seems some- what puzzling, and is not wholly accounted for by European usage. A creek in the British Isles is a tidal inlet and not a running stream. The settlers of the mountains gave new uses to old words, and without any attempt at uniformity of prac- tice.
Since the period of settlement there have been some changes in names and some losses. The South Branch above Forks of Waters was at first Crabapple Fork. Straight Creek was Straight Fork, doubtless because it has the same general direction as the main stream below. Bolar Run was formerly Wilson's Mill Run, and Benson's Run was Anglen's Run. Above McDowell, the surveyor's book tells of Mount's Run, Ferguson's Run, Bardie Run, Jordan's Run, and Carlile's Run. In 1768, "the Beaverdam" was a well-known landmark on lower Straight Creek, and about 1790 we find mention in Crab- bottom of the "Fallen Timber" and the "Bearwallow."
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History of Highland County
CHAPTER II
WHILE THE INDIAN WAS HERE
Highland once only a Hunting Ground - Small Indian Population - The Shaw- nees - Their Habits and Customs - Method of Warfare - What they Taught the Whites.
N 1727 that portion of Virginia lying west of the Blue Ridge I was well-nigh uninhabited. In the lower valley of the South Branch was a clan of the Shawnees, about 150 strong. In what is now Berkeley County were a few of the Tuscaroras. The weak tribe of the Senedoes, dwelling near the forks of the Shenandoah, had just been crushed by enemies more powerful.
To the red man, the Valley of Virginia was a hunting ground. It was also a great military highway. Up and down the watercourses and along the ridges lay Indian war trails, over which Cherokees and Catawbas from the South marched against or fled before the Mingoes and other tribes of the North. The territory covered by the states of West Virginia and Kentucky was an extension of this great game preserve, from which the tribes claiming its ownership drew large sup- plies of food. To attract the buffalo, the deer, and the elk, the lowlands of the Shenandoah were kept in the condition of a prairie. This was accomplished by burning the grass at the end of each hunting season. On the bottom lands of the Cow- pasture and Jackson's River basins were similar yet narrower belts of these pasture lands.
When the white settlement of the United States began, the native population of our great country is supposed to have been less than 400,000; not one-fifth of the present population of Virginia alone. The whole Shawnee tribe, which committed so much havoc between 1754 and 1815, counted only a thou- sand souls.
Yet the smallness of the Indian tribes does not point to a recent arrival in America. Neither is it any proof whatever
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that they had always been so small, or that the Valley of Virginia had never been fully occupied by them. Clear evi- dence to the contrary lies in the rings of earth which mark the sites of ancient villages, in the burial mounds, and in the arrowheads so plentifully found in many localities. Good material for the stone arrowheads was not particularly abun- dant. The weapons themselves require time, skill, and pa- tience to fashion into shape, and they would not be used waste- fully. Their comparative abundance points to very many centuries of occupation. Still further evidence is found in the game pastures, of which mention has been made. The entire Alleghany region takes naturally to a forest covering. The damage wrought by a chance fire is in the ordinary course of events soon repaired. But the Appalachian prairies of two centuries ago covered in the aggregate a large area. They indicate numerous village openings, such as the Indians re- quired for their limited agriculture. They further indicate the persistent enlargement of these openings through the girdling of the forest trees, and the systematic burning of the grass each fall.
Although bands of Cherokee, Catawba, and Mingo warriors fought in the great Valley, it was the Shawanogi with whom the early settlers were most in contact. In the mouth of the white man, the tribal name-which means "a Southern peo- ple"-became Shawanoes or Shawnees. These Indians were of Algonkin stock and were therefore related to the tribes of New England and the Middle States. A very restless nation, they had pushed southward and westward.
In mental attributes and in general ability the Shawnees stood above the average of the Indian race. In the person of Tecumseh they gave the world one of the ablest red men known to history. According to the Indian standard they were generous livers and their women were superior house- keepers. They could very often converse in several tongues, and before they were pushed out of the Alleghany region they could generally talk with the white pioneer. The Shawnee was active, sensible, manly, and high-spirited. He was cheer- ful and full of jokes and laughter, yet few natives could match
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History of Highland County
him in deceit and treachery. He despised the prowess of other Indians, and it became his boast that he killed or carried into captivity ten white persons for every warrior that he lost.
We can better understand the life of the old American frontier if we look into the habits and customs of the red man and his ways of thinking.
It is not correct to suppose the Indian had a weak sense of inhabitiveness. His roving was only because of the pressure of hostile tribes. Each tribe claimed a quite well-defined terri- tory, and for another people to disregard the boundary line was a cause of war. The individual Indian would make a long and even dangerous journey for no other purpose than to see the locality where his tribe used to live, and to gaze upon the graves of his forefathers. And yet he had no knowledge of territorial citizenship. A Shawnee was a Shawnee, whether dwelling on the banks of the Potomac or the Ohio. He could hardly comprehend how the white man could call himself a Virginian in one place, and become a Marylander simply by moving across a river. Consequently there was no such thing among the Indians as individual ownership of the soil. The right of a family to its cabin site and its truck patch was re- spected by the rest of the tribe, yet only so long as the family used the ground. The land of the tribe was considered to be- long to the tribe as a people, and in Indian usage none of it could be sold except by the tribe.
Neither did the Indian count relationship as we do. A tribe was composed of clans, each with its distinctive name. The members of a clan considered themselves as brothers and sisters, and the Indian could no more marry within his own clan than he could marry his blood sister. In Indian usage the clan was therefore the only family recognized. An injury to any member of the clan was held to be an injury to one's own brother or sister, and any warrior believed it his duty to avenge the wrong. And as the Indian meted out redress against the people of his own color, so did he mete it out upon the white man. Because the members of any Indian clan were brothers, he thought all whites speaking the same tongue were
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History of Highland County
brothers to one another. He could not at first comprehend customs that were unlike his own.
The individual families of a tribe lived only in villages and never in isolated homes. A limited agriculture was carried on in the open space around each village. But as subsistence was mainly upon game and fish, a tribe required a very large area from which to draw its support. So the Indian never butch- ered game out of sheer wantonness, after the manner of some people who style themselves civilized.
A Shawnee hut was circular in form. It was made by fas- tening long poles together above and covering this frame- work with bark. The only openings were a passage for the inmates and another for the smoke. The art of weaving was unknown to this tribe. Clothing was of skins tanned by a simple process. Until the white trader came, the only weapons or other implements were of stone or bone. There were bas- kets and pottery, yet the latter was not fireproof, water being boiled by dropping hot stones into a vessel.
Custom took the place of law and was rigidly enforced. An offense against custom was punished by a boycott, and this answered every purpose. Government was nearly a pure dem- ocracy ; in other words, there was neither a true monarchy or aristocracy, but a government by the people themselves. Mat- ters of public interest were settled in a council, where there was a very general right to speak and vote. The speeches were often eloquent, yet the long-winded orator was not tolerated. Men of address and daring were influential, as they are in every form of society, and without uncommon ability no per- son might be a chief or military leader.
In common with all unenlightened people, the Indian was a believer in witchcraft and a slave to superstition. But in his own way and to the extent of the light given him, he was religious. After death he believed the soul of the warrior took its flight to a happy hunting ground beyond the setting sun. Here it followed the chase without limit of days. But no coward and no deformed person might enter this abode of bliss. Therefore he despised the coward and mutilated the slain enemy.
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The Indian commonly had but one wife. His children, who were treated with kindness, belonged to the clan of the mother, and were under the authority of the chief of that clan. Hence the father had no particular authority over his own children, although he exercised a control over the children of his own sisters.
The red man has been called lazy because his wife cared for the truck patch as well as the cabin. This charge is not altogether just. Custom had brought about a rigid subdivision of labor. The Indian was a huntsman and only incidentally an agriculturist. The braves spent many toilsome hours in making their weapons and in stalking game. In pursuing wild animals or in following the warpath, supple limbs are required, and supple limbs do not go with hard, continuous labor.
The Indian had a keen sense of direction in finding his way through an unbroken forest, yet during the centuries of his control, he had established a network of foot paths with the help of his stone tomahawk. In Highland his paths often fol- lowed the streams, travel thus being easier and game more plentiful. And as the rivers of this region usually run parallel with the mountain ridges, oftentimes no more than a slight divide parting the waters of two diverging streams, a succes- sion of watercourses in one practically continuous valley thus marks the line of the natural highway. But in crossing from one valley to another, the Indian preferred following a ridge. It was easier than to thread a narrow, rocky gorge with its danger of ambuscade.
Among the whites the Indian was silent, generally sus- picious, and always observant. Among his own kind he was social and talkative. He had no fixed hours for his meals and was a great eater, though able on occasion to go without food a long while. He discovered the tobacco plant, but not the filthy practices of chewing and snuff-dipping. He smoked a pipe, yet not habitually. Smoking was with him a means of communion with the Great Spirit. It was also a form of oath. A treaty between tribes was made valid through a mutual smoking of the "pipe of peace."
The Indian had no written language except the embryotic
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History of Highland County
form of picture writing. In making marks on a stone, in carving a horn spoon, or in weaving a basket, there was al- ways ornamentation, and this was never without a purpose. Every form of decoration conveyed some particular story.
The red American had his games of skill or chance, and he had his secret societies. He also possessed a large fund of folk-lore and of tribal history, this being handed down from father to son in the form of oral tradition. His keen sense of humor is shown in such proverbs as the following :
No Indian ever sold his daughter for a name.
A squaw's tongue runs faster than the wind's legs.
The Indian scalps his enemy; the paleface skins his friends.
Before the paleface came, there was no poison in the Indian's corn.
There will be hungry palefaces so long as there is any Indian land to swallow.
There are three things it takes a strong man to hold; a young warrier, a wild horse, and a handsome squaw.
As a fighting man, the Indian was superior to any barba- rous race of the Eastern Hemisphere. His fewness of num- bers, his primitive commissariat, and his wilderness country caused his warfare to be of the guerilla type. Having to econ- omize his strength he thought it foolhardy to fight in the open. When he fought a white army, it was usually with inferior numbers, and even then he won many victories.
To gain his end in time of war he used craft without stint, yet he was true to the promise he gave in time of peace. Sev- eral frontiersmen had his consent to settle and hunt on the Monongahela. In 1774, Governor Dunmore sent a messenger to warn them back. An Indian gave him this reply: "Tell your king he damn liar. Indian no kill these men." The frontiersmen remained where they were and in safety through- out the war which followed.
In war the Indian was cruel, yet no more so than the re- ligious zealots of Europe in the preceding century. Those men skinned, burned, and disemboweled heretics in the hid- eous belief that they were saving their souls. In his own way the Indian was no less logical. He sought to injure his foe beyond any chance of recovery. The wounded enemy who
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History of Highland County
fell into his power was given no opportunity to get well, so that he might fight him again. The Indian warrior scalped and mutilated, to preserve on the one hand a trophy of his victory, and on the other hand to fulfill his belief that no man may enter the future world who is disfigured in body or limb. He killed the wife, so that she might not bear any more chil- dren. He killed the boys, because they might grow into aveng- ing warriors. He killed the girls, because they would become the mothers of still other warriors. Finally, he burned the house, sparing nothing that was of no use to him.
Yet he often spared his enemy and took him to his own village. The captive was either put to the torture, made a slave, or adopted into the tribe. Adoption was a prerogative of the women, as in the celebrated instance of Pocahontas, and it was often exercised. The custom was thus a ready means of repairing the losses sustained in war. To the adopted cap- tive the Indian was kind. Many a one taken in childhood and afterward returned to his people has still preferred the rude tepee of the native to the cozy cottage of the white man. The freedom of the forest life had more charm than the complex restrictions of civilized society.
The red man was in some degree a teacher to the white. He imparted to the latter his many ways of preparing corn as food. He taught the pioneer how to make deerskin sieves, how to utilize cornhusks, how to recognize medicinal herbs, and how to clear land by deadening the trees. All in all, the experience of the native entered very materially into the mode of life of the white frontiersman. The costume of the latter was an approach to that of the Indian, and sometimes his cabin was no more inviting than the red man's wigwam.
A little to the west of New Hampden is a flint quarry, where the natives used to make their arrowheads. So im- portant to them was such a source of supply that the quarry was sometimes neutral ground, even in time of war.
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History of Highland County
CHAPTER III
THE EUROPEAN FOREFATHERS
Causes of Early Immigration from Europe - Religious Intolerance - European Society - Why England Led in Settling the Colonies - Attitude of Other Countries - Elements appearing in the Immigration - The Scotch-Irish - The Redemptorists and Convicts.
W HEN in 1607 there was an actual beginning of those Thirteen Colonies which grew into the United States of America, Europe had not more than a third of her present population. Even England, now the foremost nation to import grain, was until 1775 feeding her people from her own soil and building her ships from her own forests. The number of peo- ple in Europe was in itself a matter of no importance in caus- ing emigration to America.
Neither was it a pleasure trip to cross the Atlantic. The voyage often consumed more than a hundred days, the speed of the sailing vessel being no greater than that of a man afoot. If the winds were very contrary, the supply of water and pro- visions might fail. Smallpox and other forms of disease were liable to cause havoc in the crowded and untidy ships. There was also the peril of shipwreck, but there was the further peril of capture by pirates. These robbers of the sea very often made good the adage that dead men tell no tales. The passen- ger might congratulate himself if simply his person were put ashore, no matter where the spot might be. Once safely across the ocean, the average immigrant was not at all likely to re- visit his old home.
The prime causes for the settling of America were Religious Intolerance and Economic Oppression.
For fifteen centuries there was practically but one Chris- tian Church in all Europe. The one church upheld the various national governments, and the various national governments upheld the one church. It was the general conviction that
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History of Highland County
unity in religious interest within the state was every whit as essential as unity and vigor in civil authority. So it was thought rightful and proper for the state to crush a new relig- ious sect, just as it would crush a rival to its civil pretensions. Those times were harsh. Since a man could be hanged for stealing a loaf of bread, he might expect to be burned alive for being a heretic.
The Protestant Reformation did not at once break down this deep-seated belief in religious unity. Wherever it pre- vailed it required conformity to its own creed. Nothing short of this could reasonably be expected. But divisions arose among the Reformers. Through the sheer weight of inherited opinion, each sect believed itself wholly in the right. It had the courage of its convictions and it would go to war to de- fend them. Stubborn men finally learned to respect the ad- versary who refused to yield. When this point was reached, a more or less complete form of toleration became an accepted fact. It was then seen that toleration did not bring about the anarchy that was feared.
Even in the British Isles, any sect that found itself in power proceeded to persecute other sects with a bigotry and cruelty which we of this century find it very hard to comprehend. Each sect wished to be let alone, but would not let others alone. But here in America was a wilderness where men who could not agree might still get beyond elbow touch with one another. So the Pilgrims came to Massachusetts, the Bap- tists to Rhode Island, the Quakers to Pennsylvania, the Epis- copalians to New York and the South, and the Presbyterians to the frontier. Nevertheless, two colonies enjoyed religious freedom from the start, and its acceptance by the others was only a question of time. Persecution was indeed brought to America, yet never took deep root and was mild here to what it long continued to be in Europe.
The other prime cause for the peopling of America was Economic Oppression.
The long rule of the Roman Empire made Europe thor- oughly acquainted with despotism. When that empire went to pieces, the lawlessness of Western Europe became intol-
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History of Highland County
erable. The masses of the people saw no other recourse than to put themselves under the protection of military chieftains. They had to toil for the support of the leader and his house- hold and to follow him in war. They thus became known as serfs, or villeins, and lived in virtual slavery. The chieftains became the dukes and barons of the Middle Ages. They lived in castles, wore armor in battle, and boasted of their coats of arms. They were proud and overbearing, held labor in con- tempt, and despised the serfs on whose toil they lived. To- ward these peasants there was no thought of social equality or intermarriage.
This structure of society was known as feudalism. It slowly gave way as new monarchies rose here and there out of the wreckage of the old empire. These gained power at the expense of the nobility, until the latter lost their authority as petty rulers, although retaining the ownership of the lands they had controlled. They remained as haughty as ever, and nearly as indifferent to the welfare of the peasants. But the loss of their civil power worked an important change in the relation between noble and peasant. The former became little more than a landlord, to whom the peasant now paid rent in- stead of giving compulsory service. The lot of the peasant was still hard, although he was coming into a higher con- sciousness of his natural rights and was more disposed to act upon them.
But in Europe the area of land was a fixed quantity. The arrogant landlords were virtually reducing the amount. They were inclosing large tracts, so that they might hunt deer and pheasants. This process of inclosure and the growth of popu- lation made the rents too high for comfort. Poverty was spreading, and the yeoman farmer, the natural backbone of society, was being crowded to the wall. He could perceive that the future was with the mass of the people and not with the small privileged class. But he could also perceive that those who control the land control the government and deter- mine the structure of society. Europe would remain aristo- cratic until land monopoly was overthrown, and this result would come only after a long and bitter struggle. The uni-
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History of Highland County
versal tendency of rent is to leave the toiler only enough to enable him to exist. It is rent that determines wages.
In America there was a seemingly boundless amount of wild land. Wild land meant free land, free land meant own- ership, and ownership meant relief from unjust rents. Free access to land meant that direct participation in government would be generally diffused. It further meant that the result- ing society would be democratic rather than aristocratic. It could still further be seen that a higher and more general de- gree of well-being was possible than where privilege was in the saddle and riding rough-shod.
The desire for economic freedom lured men to America even more than the desire for religious freedom.
It is true enough that a varying degree of land monopoly and of aristocratic thought and practice was a share of the baggage brought from Europe. This was inevitable. Human- ity does not progress by leaps but by steps. Yet such weeds could never take firm root in the American soil so long as there was free access to a public domain. Land could not be a dependable source of income unless the owner rolled up his sleeves and went to work. To evade this necessity, the planter imported white servants and soon afterward was purchasing negro slaves. Yet neither indentureship nor slavery could withstand the competitive power of free access to land. Like- wise, the attempted land baronies of Lord Fairfax and others were foredoomed to early failure.
Economic and religious opportunity were thus the two arms of the magnet that drew Europeans to America and made this country great.
It is now in order to ascertain why certain countries estab- lished the American colonies, and why certain other countries furnished many settlers yet established no colonies.
In this movement, England was very far in the lead. This was not merely because she was a seafaring nation and lay nearer the American shore than was the case with continental Europe. England was foremost in breaking the power of feu- dalism and giving the masses of her people a will to assert themselves. Also, the strong religious sects in that country
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History of Highland County
were better able to take care of themselves than was true of other European lands excepting Holland. The spirit of the weaker sects was not broken, and they were not prohibited from leaving the country. Furthermore, the English were brave, sturdy, and venturesome. They were empire-builders by nature and inclination. Different classes of the English were impelled to go to America, and therefore several colonies were founded instead of one colony only.
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