USA > Virginia > Augusta County > Augusta County > Annals of Augusta county, Virginia, from 1726 to 1871 > Part 22
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57
Moffett and his party desisted from the pursuit, and collecting the stolen property and removing to a distance, spent the night. Early the next morning they began their homeward journey. The Indians, however, rallied, and getting ahead of the whites souglit to ambush them in a narrow pass. In this they failed, as also in another at-
195
ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.
tempt of the same kind, in a laurel thicket. They then fell to the rear and followed the whites for several days ; but being foiled in all their schemes, they turned off to an unprotected settlement, which was assailed in their usual manner. The Augusta men reached home un- hurt, except one, who was wounded in the mountain pass, and was carried on a litter. The loss of the Indians was six killed and several badly wounded.
Such is the account given in the memoir of Mrs. Trimble.
In Collins' History of Kentucky (volume II, page 767), we find a sketch of Captain James Trimble, which gives a different version of the affair. The writer of this account states that the prisoners were captured by a party of nine Indians, led by a half-breed nained Dick- son ; that immediately after the capture, James Trimble was adopted as a son by Dickson ; that Captain Moffett raised a party of eighteen men, and overtook the Indians near the present White Sulphur Springs; and that at the first fire all the Indians were killed, except Dickson, who escaped.
The late John A. Trimble, of Ohio, a son of Captain James Trimble, in one of his numerous and interesting communications to the Hillsboro Gazette, gave a third account of the affair. Describing a trip he made on horseback from Mossy Creek, in Augusta county, to his home in Ohio, probably in 1827, Mr. Trimble said :
" I was soon in the wild pass of the North Mountain, and ap- proaching Buffalo Gap, in the vicinity of the early home of my father, when I overtook a venerable old gentleman on horseback, who gave me his name, William Kincaid, * and inquired my name and residence. He said the name was familiar ; he had known a Captain James Trimble who was a native of Augusta. When informed that he was my father, the old gentlemen was startled ; he stopped his horse and shook hands most cordially. 'Is it possible !' he exclaimed. 'Why, I was a young man of eighteen when your father was a prisoner, with his sister, young Mrs. Edmondson, afterwards Estill, and I was one of the twelve men who went with Colonel George Moffett in pursuit, and rescued the prisoners away across the Alleghanies. Why, it seems as fresh to my memory as of yesterday, and we are now within a few miles of where your grandfather was killed and his house pillaged by Dickson and his ferocious band of Shawnees. But we had our revenge, and Dickson, their leader, with a boy, were the only ones who es- caped from our rifles, for we took them completely by surprise, feast-
* This was a different person from the William Kincaid mentioned elsewhere. The person encountered by Mr. Trimble, continued to live in Augusta and died here in 1827. The other removed to Kentucky, and died there in 1820.
196
ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.
ing and sleeping around their campfire.'" Mr. Kincaid said that " at one time Colonel Moffett seemed discouraged, having lost the trail, when, fortunately, one of the men found the blue-worsted garter of Mrs. Edmondson hanging on a bush, where she had placed it while traveling at night."
Kincaid and James Trimble were both members of Captain George Mathews' company at Point Pleasant, in 1774.
We may add that a family of "Edmistons" lived in the county as early as 1746, but we have no information other than the above that Kitty Moffett was the widow of oue of them when she married Benjamin Estill.
We have still another account of the killing of John Trimble and capture of his son and step-daughter, embraced in a letter written by Mr. John A. Trimble, March 28, 1843.
In this letter Mr. Trimble gives the date as 1770, an error of six years, his grandfather having been killed in 1764 .* He says his father, James Trimble, and a negro boy named Adam, while plowing corn, were surprised by a party of Indians and made prisoners. [It is probable that the negro was plowing for wheat, as James Trimble was too young at the time to hold the plow, being only eight years old, and the season (October) was too late for corn.] The alarm was given at the house by the horses running off, and, suspecting the cause, the father, John Trimble, proceeded with his gun to reconnoitre. The Indians, having secured the prisoners and left them in charge of several lads, started to the house. On the way they encountered John Trimble in a strip of woods, and shot and scalped him. His wife es- caped from the dwelling and concealed herself near enough to witness the plundering and burning of the premises. Mrs. Estill (so called here by Mr. Trimble) was enceinte, and being unable to fly was made prisoner. Nothing is said in reference to Mr. Estill.
While this was going on, the young Indians were amusing them- selves by throwing their tomahawks at the tree to which James Trimble was tied, often just missing his head.
* Statements on preceding pages show that the author was sorely perplexed in regard to dates. From as full investigation as he can make, he thinks it probable that the second Kerr's Creek massacre occurred in October, 1764. He is satisfied that Alexander Crawford and John Trimble were killed in that month. Crawford owned a large amount of personal property, and his representative would naturally qualify as soon as possible to take care of the estate .- His administrator qualified at November court, 1764, as did Trimble's administrator. At first view it seems unaccountable that war parties of Indians should invade the settlements at the very time that Bouquet was on the march to assail their towns ; but probably small parties of raiders came with the hope of inducing Bouquet to turn back for the defence of the frontiers.
-
197
ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.
The account given by Mr. Trimble in this letter, of the retreat of the Indians, the pursuit by Captain Moffett, and the rescue of the prisoners, is substantially the same as that given by the Rev. Dr. Trimble. He, however, says nothing about "a cave in the North Mountain," or any other parties of Indians, and says the number of men with Moffett was fifteen or twenty. The number of Indians he puts at eight or nine.
Dickson is said to have been a renegade half-blood Indian, who was well-known to the white settlers, among whom he had lived for several years. When hostilities broke out he joined a band of Shaw- nees, and became a formidable leader. He had often been at John Trimble's house, and after scalping Trimble, exhibited the trophy to the boy James, saying : "Jim, here's the old man's scalp. Do you know it ? If you stay with me, I will make a good Indian of you ; but if you try to run off. I will have your scalp." He treated Mrs. Estill with respect, walking constantly by her side as she rode on a horse through the passes of the mountains. Mrs. Estill's first child was born a few weeks after her return.
The negro boy Adam was a native African of recent importation, and spoke but little English. Mr. Trimble often heard him, in his old age, relate the incidents of his captivity. During the retreat of the Indians, Adam one day stirred up a "yellow jacket's nest," just as the sparsely-clad savages were filing along, and some of them were as- sailed and stung by the insects. This so pleased the simple-minded negro that he was about to repeat the act, when the Indian boys ad- ministered to him a sound beating.
Just before the arrival of the whites at the Indian camp, Dick- son sent James Trimble to the spring for water, which, being some- what muddy when presented, was thrown in the face of the boy, who was threatened with the tomahawk, and ordered to bring another sup- ply. He returned to the spring, and while waiting for the water to clear was startled by the report of rifles. Surmising that rescuers were at hand, he ran in the direction of the sound and placed himself among his friends.
At the moment of the firing, Dickson was standing by Mrs. Estill, leaning on his gun, and giving directions about ruffling a shirt she was making for him. She sprang to her feet and ran towards the whites, taking the precaution to snatch up a tin vessel and cover her head with it. Dickson pursued her, and hurling his tomahawk, knocked the vessel off without injury to her person. He almost im- mediately confronted Captain Moffett, at whom he fired, but missed, and then turned and fled, making good his escape. Moffett's gun was empty.
198
ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.
Adam had concealed himself during the firing behind a tree, and being mistaken for an Indian was shot at by one of the white men and wounded slightly in the arm.
Mr. Trimble states that, except Dickson, all the Indians fell at the first fire, either killed or mortally wounded. Dickson followed the whites on their return, and fired upon and wounded one of them, named Russell, who was carried home on a litter. Russell en- countered Dickson at the battle of Point Pleasant, and killed him in a hand-to-hand conflict.
It is said that the whole number of prisoners carried off by the Indians and rescued as described was six or eight ; but who they were, besides those mentioned, is not stated.
In the meanwhile a general war between the whites and Indians was raging. Colonel Bouquet defeated the latter, Angust 6, 1763, at Bushy Run, in western Pennsylvania. This battle was the most pro- tracted and decisive conflict of that era between Indians and white men. It lasted two days. Bouquet displayed great military skill, and, unlike Braddock, adapted his tactics to the mode of Indian war- fare. Afterwards, while commanding at Fort Pitt, he issued a procla- mation forbidding any British subject from settling or hunting west of the Alleghany mountains without written permission. But the war continued, and in the summer of 1764, Bouquet organized, in Penn- sylvania, an expedition against the Indian settlements west of the Ohio river.
Learning, of this movement, the Shawnee and Delaware Indians removed their women and children far westward, so as to interpose a wilderness between them and the anticipated army of invasion. Even while the army was on the march, war parties of Indians, as late as October, continued their depredations on the frontier.
Besides a small number of regular soldiers, Bouquet had, at first, a considerable body of Pennsylvania militia ; but many of the latter deserted, and he then, on his own responsibility, wrote to Col. Andrew Lewis, requesting reinforcements. It is said that he set a high value on Augusta riflemen. Two companies, of a hundred men each, were speedily raised, one commanded by Charles Lewis and the other by Alexander McClanahan. John McClanahan, brother of Alexander, was one of the lieutenants .* These companies joined Bouquet at Fort Pitt, and early in October, the command, increased to 1,500 men, pro-
* As late as 1779, John McClanahan heing then dead, his infant son was allowed two thousand acres of bounty land for his father's services in the expedi- tion. The Virginia Assembly refused to make the usual appropriation of money for paying the men, and they were finally paid by Pennsylvania.
199
ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.
ceeded to the Ohio country. To the Augusta companies the places of honor were assigned, one of them going in advance and the other bringing up the rear. "The woodsmen of Virginia," says Parkman, " veteran hunters and Indian-fighters, were thrown far out in front and on either flank, scouring the forest to detect any sign of a lurking ambuscade." With the army went many persons who had lost wives, children and friends, to search the wilderness for the captives.
The Indians were effectually intimidated, and on November 9th, Bouquet concluded a treaty of peace with the Shawnees and Delawares, one of the stipulations being that all white people detained by the Indians should be given up. The Shawnees submitted sullenly to the terms. Captives in the near villages were surrendered at once, and promise was given of the restoration of others in the spring. A party of the Virginians obtained permission to go to remote Shawnee towns, in the hope of recovering captive relatives, and they returned to Fort Pitt during the winter, bringing nine persons, all children and old women. A hundred more captives were delivered at Fort Pitt in the spring of 1765. The whole number of white people recovered is said to have been two hundred and six. Of these, ninety were Virginians, thirty-two men and fifty-eight women and children .*
"The arrival of the lost ones," says Bancroft, "formed the lovliest scene ever witnessed in the wilderness. Mothers recognized their once lost babes ; sisters and brothers, scarcely able to recover the accent of their native tongue, learned to know that they were children of the same parents.
" How does humanity abound in affections ! Whom the Indians spared they loved. They had not taken the little ones and the cap- tives into their wigwams without receiving them into their hearts, and adopting them into their tribes and families. To part with them now was anguish to the red men. As the English returned to Pitts- burg, they followed to hunt for them and bring them provisions. A young Mingo would not be torn from a young woman of Virginia, whom he had taken as his wife. Some of the children who had been carried away young had learned to love their savage friends, and wept at leaving them. Some of the captives would not come of them- selves, and were not brought away but in bonds. Some who were not permitted to remain, clung to their dusky lovers at parting ; others more faithful still, invented means to escape, and fly back to their places in the wigwams of their chosen warriors."t
* The Indians east of the Mississippi were not in the habit of violating their female captives. It was otherwise with the western Indians.
t When the army, on its homeward march, reached the town of Carlisle, (Pa.) those who had been unable to follow the expedition came hither in
200
ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.
The story of one returned captive is too interesting to be omitted :
A little girl named Betsy Henry, while living with her family in Pennsylvania, was captured by Indians and taken west of the Ohio river, at what date is not known. Afterward her mother and brothers removed to Augusta county and settled on a farm near the present station of Spotswood, Valley Railroad. When the Henrys came to Augusta no one can tell. A William Henry was living in the county in 1750, when he became guardian of one James McCord. This is the earliest mention of the name Henry in the records of the county. James Henry resided here in 1759, and in that year conveyed 200 acres of land in Borden's tract to Robert Telford. There is no deed on record to show when he acquired the land.
Betsy Henry grew up amongst the Indians and, being treated kindly, became strongly attached to them. This was not uncommon. The Indians, although crnel in war, were not without some good traits, and certainly had the art of winning the love of their juvenile captives. This young girl, on arriving at womanhood, became the wife of a young chief of the Delawares who is said to have been a half- breed French and Indian. We have no particular account of him, but judging from such hints as have come down to us, he was probably an Indian of the same characteristics as Logan and Tecumseh.
At length the time arrived for Betsy Henry's return to civilized life. According to one version of the story, it was after the defeat of the Indians by Wayne, in 1794, that she came with her husband and others to Fort Pitt, -where, by treaty, all white prisoners were to be delivered up,-having lived with the Indians fourteen years. The time, however, must have been twenty-five or thirty years earlier than 1794, and probably was after Bouquet's treaty of 1764-possibly sever- al years after, as some of the captives did not return till 1767. When- ever it was, James Henry, Betsy's brother, was at the rendezvous to numbers, to inquire for the friends they had lost. Among the rest was an old woman, whose daughter had been carried off nine years hefore. In the crowd of female captives, she discovered one in whose wild and swarthy features she dis- covered the altered lineaments of her child ; but the girl, who had almost forgot- ten her native tongue, returned no sign of recognition to her eager words, and the old woman bitterly complained that the daughter whom she had so often sung to sleep on her knees, had forgotten her in her old age. Bouquet suggested an expedient which proves him a man of feeling and perception. "Sing the song that you used to sing to her when a child." The old woman obeyed ; and a sudden start, a look of bewilderment, and a passionate flood of tears, re- moved every doubt, and restored the long-lost daughter to her mother's arms .- Parkman's Conspiracy of Pontiac.
201
ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.
meet her. She refused to leave her Indian associates. Her brother, however, represented that her mother could not die in peace without seeing her, and she finally consented to come on a visit, he promising to take her back. One tradition is that she brought with her a female child six weeks old ; another, that the child was born soon after her return.
James Henry did not comply with his promise, if he made one, and the unfortunate woman grieved till she died. Her husband had not forgotten her. The attachment between them is said to have been mutual and ardent. As she did not return to him, he came in search of her to escort her back to her wilderness home. But her brothers detained her, and the chief left with the declared intention of resigning the office he held in his tribe and returning to reside among the whites. An Indian could give no stronger proof of attachment to his wife. He was not heard of afterwards, and it was suspected that his wife's brothers pursued and killed him. If they did we should not judge their act by our present standard. The dreadful Indian wars had just ended, during which every white man had learned to regard the Indians as foes to be ruthlessly exterminated like wild beasts. When, therefore, the question seemed to be whether a sister or an Indian should be sacrificed, it is not surprising that the latter alternative was chosen.
The child of Betsy Henry, called Sally Henry, was reared by her uncle James. She became the wife of William Alexander, son of the William Alexander who died in 1829, and grandson of Robert Alex- ander, the first classical teacher in the Valley. William Alexander and Sally Henry were married by the Rev. John Brown, November 23, 1793, as shown by the public register of marriages, and of course, therefore, the return of Betsy Henry with her infant was much earlier than 1794. Many of the descendants of William aud Sally Henry Alexander are among the most respectable people of the Valley and elsewliere.
Mrs. Renix,* who was captured on Jackson's river, in 1761, (or 1757,) was not restored to her home till the year 1767. In pur- suance of the terms of Bouquet's treaty, she was brought to Staunton in the year last mentioned. Her daughter died on the Miami ; two of her sons, William and Robert, returned with her ; her son, Joshua, re- mained with the Indians and became a chief of the Miamis. He took an Indian wife, amassed a considerable fortune, and died near Detroit in 1810, according to one account.
* So written by Withers and others, but properly Renick.
202
ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.
According to Dr. Draper, however, he died in 1784 .- It is said that towards the close of the Revolutionary war he visited his relatives in Greenbrier, but refused all their solicitations to remain among them. He left two sons, James and John. James, when a boy, was captured by Gen. Benjamiu Logau, taken to Kentucky, and being treated kindly assumed the name of Logan. He was taught to write, and carved his initials, J. L., on many trees in Olio, after his return there. He was killed in a fight with a party of British Indians, on the banks of the Maumee, in November, 1812.
The County Court of Augusta did not meet in October, 1764. At April court, 1765, a vast number of military claims were ordered to be certified-for provisions furnished to the militia, for horses pressed into service, etc. William Christian, William McKamy and others presented claims " for ranging," and Andrew Cowan " for en- listing men to garrison Fort Nelson." The orders are curt and un- satisfactory, giving no clue as to when and where the services were performed.
Almost every neighborhood in the county has traditions in regard to Indian inroads, but all are vague and uncertain as to dates and cir- cumstances. It is related that at one time the Indians came into the Churchville neighborhood, and carried off a boy named McNeer, who lived on Middle river, at the mouth of Jennings' branch. This boy was taken to Georgia, it is said, and lived and died with the Indians, visiting, however, his relations in Augusta repeatedly. A man named Clendenin, who lived near Shutterlee's mill, was shot in the shoulder by an Indian lurking in the tall weeds on the bank of the river, at some time now unknown. The Anderson farm, near Shutterlee's, is known as the " Burnt Cabin place," from the fact that a cabin which stood there was burnt by Indians.
The story of Selim, "the converted Algerine," falls in here ; at least it may be related here as well as elsewhere. It belongs in great part to Augusta county .- For the earlier part of the narrative we are indebted to the Rev. David Rice, a Presbyterian minister who removed from Virginia to Kentucky before the year 1800. Bishop Meade collected the latter part, and preserved the whole in his work called " Old Churches," etc.
About the close of the war between France and England, called in Virginia "Braddock's War" (probably 1759 or 1760), a man named Samuel Givens, an inhabitant of Augusta county, went into the backwoods of the settlement to hunt. He took with him several horses to bring home his meat and skins. As he was one day ranging the woods in search of game, he saw in the top of a fallen tree an
203
ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.
animal, which he supposed to be some kind of wild beast. He was abont to shoot it, but discovered in time that it was a human being. Going np, he found a man in a pitiable condition-emaciated, evident- ly famishing, entirely naked except a few rags tied round his feet, and his body almost covered with scabs. The man could not speak English, and Givens knew no other language. He, however, sup- plied the forlorn creature with food, and when he had acquired suffi- cient strength, after several days, mounted him on one of his horses and took him to Captain Dickinson's, near the Windy Cove. There he was entertained for some months, during which the stranger acquired sufficient knowledge of English to communicate with the hos- pitable people into whose hands he had fallen.
He stated that his name was Selim, a native of Algiers, in Africa, and the son of a wealthy man ; that he had been educated in Constan- tinople, and while returning to Algiers the ship he was aboard of was captured by a Spanish man-of-war. Spain was then in alliance with France, and the Spanish ship falling in with a French vessel, Selim was transferred to the latter and taken to New Orleans. After some time he was sent up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to the Shawnee towns, and left a prisoner with the Indians. A white woman captured on the frontiers of Virginia, was held as a prisoner by the Indians at the same time, and from her Selim learned by signs that she came from the east. He was sufficiently acquainted with geography to know that the English had settlements on the eastern shore of the continent, and inferred that the woman came from one of them. He thereupon resolved to escape, and constantly keeping to the rising sun finally reached the border settlement of Augusta county, in the plight mentioned.
On a court day, Captain Dickinson brought Selim with him to Staunton, where he attracted much attention. Among the throng of people was the Rev. John Craig, who immediately riveted the at- tention of the Algerine. The latter afterwards explained that in a dream a person like Mr. Craig had appeared to him as a teacher or guide, able to impart valnable instruction. He expressed a desire to accompany Mr. Craig to his home, and was kindly taken there. The minister of course sought to impart to the Mohammedan stranger the
truths of the Christian religion, and his efforts were aided by Selim's knowledge of the Greek language, being thus able to read the New Testament in the original tongue. He soon professed conversion, and Mr. Craig, being satisfied of his intelligence and sincerity, publicly baptized him in the Old Stone church. He was afterwards seized with a desire to return to his native land, and his new friends could not dis-
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.