USA > Virginia > Augusta County > Augusta County > Annals of Augusta county, Virginia, from 1726 to 1871 > Part 34
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
In 1812, East Florida belonged to Spain .- The United States feared that the country might fall into the hands of Great Britain, and, pursuant to an act of Congress, President Madison appointed General Mathews and Colonel John McKee commissioners to receive the territory, if surrendered voluntarily, or to take it by force if any foreign power attempted to occupy it. The General thought the danger imminent, and co-operating with a filibuster expedition which he had encouraged, deposed the Spanish authorities and erected the United States flag. When the President heard of these things he re- called Mathews, and ordered his successor to restore the country to Spain, if there should be no probability of foreign occupation. The General was again thrown into a rage, and was on his way to rebuke the President, or to administer personal chastisement, it is said, when he died as stated.
His children were four sons and three daughters. One of his sons was an eminent Judge in Louisiana. One of the daughters was the first wife of Andrew Barry, of Staunton ( whose second wife was a daughter of Rev. John McCne). Another daughter was the wife of General Samuel Blackburn, and the third was Mrs. Telfair, whose son, Dr. Isaac Telfair, lived in Staunton many years ago.
After the death of his first wife, Governor Mathews married Mrs. Margaret Reed, of Staunton. They were, however, divorced and she resumed her former name. He married afterwards a Mrs. Flowers of Mississippi.
CAPT. JAMES TATE, killed at Guilford, was one of four brothers who came with their parents from Pennsylvania to Augusta early in the eighteenth century. He lived in the neighborhood of the present village of Greenville. His wife was Sally Hall, a grand-daughter of Archibald and Janet Stuart. His will, dated October 3, 1780, and ad- mitted to record August 21, 1781, directed that his estate should be kept together, for the benefit of his wife and children, till the youngest child should come of age ; and distribution was not made till June 19, 1798. He had two sons, John and Isaac, and three daughters, Polly, Patsy aud Sally. John and Isaac manumitted a negro man left them
312
ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.
by their father. Mrs. Sally Tate, widow of Capt. Tate, contracted a second marriage with Hugh Fulton, and removed with him to the west. Her son, John Tate, died in Missouri, at an advanced age, about 1866 or 1868. A grand-son of this John is the Rev. John C. Tate of Kentucky.
JOHN TATE, brother of Jamies, also lived near Greenville. He represented the county in the House of Delegates at one time, and is said to have voted against the famous resolutions of 1798-'9. His sons went to the west at an early day ; his daughters married, re- spectively, the Rev. John D. Ewing, Jacob Van Lear, Samuel Finley and John Moffett.
WILLIAM TATE, third brother of James, was at the battles of Point Pleasant, Brandywine, and probably others. He removed to Southwest Virginia, and became a general of inilitia. His descendants are numerous.
ROBERT TATE, the youngest brother of James, had three sons and six daughters, and from them the Tates and others of Augusta are descended.
The village of Greenville was doubtless so called by some of the Augusta soldiers who had served under General Nathaniel Greene in the South.
Until Rockbridge county was established, Northi river was the boundary between Augusta and Botetourt. In April. 1772, a child was born seven miles east of the site of Lexington, but on the north side of the stream mentioned, and therefore in Augusta, who became highly distinguished and widely known-ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER. He was a son of William Alexander, who was a son of Archibald (or Ersbel, as he was called), a captain in the Sandy Creek expedition, and first high sheriff of Rockbridge. In his personal recollections, Dr. Alexander mentions as an instance of the privations of the Revo- lutionary war, that his school teacher found it difficult to procure a knife to make and mend the quill pens of his pupils. The teacher to whom he was indebted for his first acquaintance with Latin, was a young Irishman named John Reardon, an "indentured servant," or convict banished to America for crime, and purchased for a term of years, in Philadelphia, by his pupil's father. Reardon enlisted as a soldier in Captain Wallace's company, and was desperately wounded in a battle in North Carolina ; but survived, and returned to school- teaching on Timber Ridge. Young Alexander was further educated at Liberty Hall, under the Rev. William Graham. When not yet twenty years of age, he was licensed as a preacher by Lexington Presbytery, October 1, 1791, at Winchester. He states that among the hearers of his first sermon after he was licensed, was General Daniel Morgan. Returning to Lexington late iu 1791, he stopped in Staunton. " The town," he says, "contained no place of worship but an Episcopal church, which was without a minister. It was pro- posed that I should preach in the little Episcopal church ; to which I
313
ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.
consented with some trepidation ; but when I entered the house in the evening it was crowded, and all the gentry of the town were out, in- cluding Judge Archibald Stuart," [not then Judge,] "who had known me from a child." In course of time Dr. Alexander became President of Hampden-Sidney College. From that position he was transferred to Philadelphia as pastor of a church in that city ; and after a few years was appointed a professor in the Theological Semi- nary at Princeton, New Jersey, where he spent the remainder of his life. He died in 1851. He was a voluminous author. His wife was a daughter of the Rev. Dr. James Waddell.
REV. GIDEON BLACKBURN, D. D., was (according to Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit) born in Augusta county, August 27, 1772. His father removing to East Tennessee, the son was placed under the instruction of the Rev. Dr. Doak. He was licensed as a preacher by Abingdon Presbytery in 1792 or 1795 (it is uncertain which). With his Bible, hymn-book, knapsack and rifle, he plunged into the wilderness of Tennessee, and made his first preaching station at a fort built for the protection of the frontier. He soon attracted attention as an unusually eloquent preacher. He also engaged in teaching at various places. From 1827 to 1830 he was president of Centre College, Kentucky. In 1833 he removed to Illinois, and established a theological seminary at Carlinsville, which bore his name. He died at Carlinsville August 23, 1838. He was a nephew of General Samuel Blackburn.
The Rev. Dr. GEORGE A. BAXTER, D. D., was born in 1771, in Rockingham, then Augusta. His parents were natives of Ireland, and, on coming to the Valley, settled near Mossy Creek. He was educated at Liberty Hall, of which he became rector in 1798. After- wards, for many years, he was president of Washington College and pastor of Lexington and New Monmouth congregations. During the last ten years of his life he was a professor in Union Theological Seminary, Prince Edward county. He was an able and eloquent preacher, but never appeared as an author. His wife was a daughter of Colonel William Fleming, of Botetourt. Dr. Baxter's death oc. curred April 24, 1841. His son, Sidney S. Baxter, was long Attorney- General of Virginia previous to 1850.
Rev. SAMUEL DOAK, D. D., was born in Augusta county, in August, 1749. He graduated at Princeton in 1775, and was licensed as a preacher by Hanover Presbytery, October 31, 1777. His wife was Hester Montgomery, sister of the Rev. John Montgomery. After
314
ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.
preaching for some time in Washington county, Virginia, he removed to East Tennessee, then a part of North Carolina, where, with other settlers, he had now and then to take arms against the Indians. He founded Washington College, Tennessee, and was distinguished as a preacher and teacher. His death occurred December 12, 1830.
The Rev. JOHN POAGE CAMPBELL was born in Augusta, 1767, and when about fourteen years of age removed with his father to Kentucky. He subsequently studied with the Rev. Archibald Scott, in his native county, and graduated at Hampden-Sidney College in 1790. Having been licensed to preach in 1792, he was for a time as- sociated with the Rev. William Graham as pastor of Lexington and other congregations. In 1795 he removed to Kentucky, and on the 4th of November, 1814, died near Chillicothe, Ohio. Dr. Dwight, of Vale College, pronounced Mr Campbell "a remarkably accomplished scholar and divine."
Among the officers furnished by Augusta county to the regular army was John Steele, of the Middlebrook neighborhood. He first appears in an ancient pay-roll as Ensign commanding a detachment of Virginia and North Carolina troops. On May 22, 1778, he was com- missioned 2nd Lieutenant in Capt. Curtis Kindall's company of the regiment then styled the First Virginia, commanded by Col. William Davies; and his name appears in muster-rolls for April, May, August and September, 1779. In April, 1782, he was summoned to appear before a Court of Inquiry, at "Cumberland Old Courthouse," to answer the charges of going to a distant part of the country while on furlough, and failing to report for duty at Staunton when ordered. A copy of his defence was lately found among a batch of old papers. He stated that he had been partially disabled by a wound, received in 1774, and by illness while a prisoner at Charleston, S. C., and there- fore leave of absence was granted him. At the suggestion of Col. Davies, he undertook to do duty as a recruiting officer ; and, thinking he might be more successful in a remote part of the country than elsewhere, he went to Kentucky. But the money furnished to him was so worthless that no one would take it, and he did not succeed in his mission. Col. Febiger issued an order, November 7, 1781, for him to report at Staunton, but it did not reach him till February 7, 1782, and then he was unavoidably hindered from obeying immediately. He was unanimously acquitted.
During some years after the war he was Secretary of Mississippi Territory. His letters show that he was a man of considerable culture.
CHAPTER XII.
EMIGRATION FROM AUGUSTA AND SOME OF THE EMIGRANTS.
Fom the time of the first settlement of Kentucky till near the close of the eighteenth century, the most frequented route of travel from the Eastern and Northern States to Kentucky was called the "Wilderness Road." John Filson, a native of Delaware, and one of the earliest settlers of Kentucky, returned to his former home, in 1786, and kept a journal of the stopping places, and the distances between them. Starting from the "Falls of the Ohio," (Louisville), he men- tions thirty-six places between that point and Staunton. Among the places named are Bardstown, Harrod's Station, Logan's Station, Cum- berland Mountain, Powell's Mountain, Black Horse, Washington Court-house, Head of Holston, Fort Chiswell, New River, Alleghany Mountain, Botetourt Court-house, North Branch of James River, and Staunton. The distance from the Falls of the Ohio to Staunton by this route, as noted by Filson, was five hundred and nine miles. (Life of Filson, by Colonel R. T. Durritt). The trip on horseback must have required considerably more than a month.
In the year 1783 or 1784, a large party of Augusta people, -Allens, Moffetts, Trimbles and others,-removed to Kentucky, going by the route just mentioned. Among the emigrants was Mrs. Jane Allen Trimble, wife of Captain James Trimble, a woman of rare excellence, in whose memoir we find a graphic account of the trip.
Soon after the Revolutionary war, Captain Trimble and others, who had been soldiers, went to Kentucky to locate the land-warrants issued to them for military services. They were delighted with the country, and on their return to Augusta a spirit of emigration was awakened throughout the county. The memoir states that it was in 1784, but other accounts say 1783. In September of one of those years, a company was formed, consisting of eight or ten families, wlio made known that they would meet in Stauntou on the Ist of October, in order to emigrate to Kentucky, and they invited others to join them, either in Staunton or on the route to Abingdon. On the Sab- bath previous to their departure they attended their several churches, and heard their last sermons in Virginia, as they supposed. Mrs.
316
ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.
Trimble, says the memoir, often referred to that day's religious expe- rience as being unusually interesting and impressive. The services she attended were conducted by the Rev. James Waddell, and "the minister spoke of the separation of parents and children, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors, who had been united in sweetest bonds of fellowship, in such a pathetic strain as to make all eyes fill with tears."
"The families met according to agreement, in Staunton, October Ist. All rode upon horses, and upon other horses were placed the farming and cooking utensils, beds and bedding, wearing apparel, pro- visions, and last, but not least, the libraries, consisting of two Bibles,* half a dozen Testaments, the Catechism, the Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church, and the Psalms of David. Each man and boy carried his rifle and ammunition, and each woman her pistol, for their long journey was mostly through a wilderness, and that infested by savages.
"James Trimble's family consisted of a wife and three children, and four colored servants. The eldest child was a daughter by a former marriage. The other two were sons, one three years old and the other eleven months. These the mother carried, one in her lap and the other behind her. Thus equipped, the emigrants took up their line of march, after bidding farewell to their weeping friends. Mrs. Trimble had an uncle and brother, with their families, to accom- pany her.
" By the time the party reached Abingdon, they had increased to three hundred persons, and when they arrived at Bean's Station, a frontier post, they were joined by two hundred more from Carolina. Three-fourths of these were women and children." General James
* Bibles were costly in those days. During colonial times, the printing of the English version in America was prohibited, and a heavy duty was laid on copies imported. The only copies of the Scriptures printed here before the Rev- olution were Eliot's Indian and Luther's German Bibles.
A recent writer remarks that Congress to-day would be rather surprised at a proposition that it should print an edition of the Bible. Yet sucli a proposition was made in a memorial of Dr. Allison, on which a special committee made a re- port in September, 1777. The report of the committee was adverse, chiefly, it would appear, on the ground of expense. The decision was reached "after con- ference with the printers," and the recommendation was made that instead of advancing money for importing type and printing this Bible, the Committee on Commerce should order 20,000 Bibles from Holland, Scotland, or elsewhere. In 1782, Congress was asked to approve an American edition of the Bible, and Wil- liam White and George Duffield, the Chaplains of Congress, made a report re- commending the work.
317
ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.
Knox fell in with them at some point, which is not stated, and at Bean's Station the entire command of their movements was conceded to him.
General Knox organized the unincumbered horsemen, of whom there were not more than twenty, in two companies, one to go in front and the other in the rear, with the women and children and pack- horses in the middle. There was no road, and the trail being wide enough for only one horse, the emigrants went in single file, forming a line of nearly a mile long. At the eastern base of Clinch Mountain there was the first indication of Indians prowling near them. Clinch river was swollen by recent rains, and in crossing it Mrs. Trimble and her children came near losing their lives. A Mrs. Ervin carried two negro children in a wallet thrown across her horse, and these were washed off by the current, but rescued by a Mr. Wilson.
A party of eight horsemen overtook the emigrants at Clinch river, and preceded them on the route. Measles broke out, and there was scarcely a family in the train that had not a patient to nurse ; but, notwithstanding their exposure to rain during several days, no death occurred.
Between Clinch river and Cumberland Gap, the emigrants came upon the remains of the eight horsemen who had passed on before them. They had been tomahawked, scalped and stripped by Indians, and some of the bodies had been partly devoured by wolves. General Knox and his party paused long enough to bury the remains of the unfortunate men. During the night which followed, there were un- mistakable signs of Indians near the camp. The savages hooted and howled like wolves and owls till after midnight, and made an unsuc- cessful attempt to stampede the horses. The next morning the Indians were seen on the hills, and their signal guns were distinctly heard. A night or two afterwards, when the camp fires were extinguished, and nothing was heard but the sound of the falling rain and the occasional tramp of a horse, a sentinel discovered an Indian within twenty feet of him, and fired his gun. This alarmed the camp, and in a few minutes the whole party was under arms. No attack was made, however. In the morning Indian tracks were distinct and numerous, and some of them were sprinkled with blood, showing that the sentinel had fired with effect.
An attack by the Indians was confidently expected at the narrow pass of Cumberland Gap, and every precaution was taken. Discon- certed in their plans, the Indians made no assault. At every river to
318
ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.
be crossed the utmost caution was observed to guard against surprise, and the Indians finally abandoned the pursuit.
The emigrants arrived at Crab Orchard, Kentucky, the first of November. This was the frontier post on the northeast border, from which emigrants branched off to their respective destinations. Here General Knox took leave of the party in an eloquent address, which was responded to appropriately by Captain Trimble.
Mrs. Trimble removed to Ohio with her children after her hns- band's death, and afterwards made several trips on horseback to Vir- ginia. One trip, made in 1811, was accomplished in two weeks. The child who rode behind her on her journey to Kentucky, was Allen, who for four years was Governor of Ohio. She survived till 1849.
Now let us follow the fortunes of some of the other emigrants from Augusta.
General Benjamin Logan's parents were natives of Ireland, but married in Pennsylvania. Soon after their marriage they removed to Augusta county, and here, in 1743, their son, Benjamin, was born. The Rev. John Craig's record shows that Benjamin, son of David Logan1, was baptized May 3, 1743. When young Logan was fourteen years of age his father died, and according to the law of primogeniture then in force, he inherited all the real estate which had been acquired. Upon coming of age, however, he refused to appropriate the land to himself, and after providing a home for his mother and her younger children, went to the Holston. His wife was Anne Montgomery. He was a sergeant in Colonel Henry Bouquet's expedition in 1764, and was with Dunmore in his expedition of 1774. He was one of the people of the Holston settlement who signed the " call " to the Rev. Charles Cummings to become their pastor, in 1773. In 1775 he went to Kentucky, with only two or three slaves, and established Logan's Fort, near the site of the present town of Stanford, Lincoln county. His family removed to Kentucky in 1776. In May, 1777, the fort was invested, for several weeks, by a hundred Indians. As the am- munition of the small garrison was becoming exhausted, Logan, with two companions, repaired for a supply to the Holston settlement and returned in ten days. In 1779 he was second in command of an expe- dition against the Indian town of Chillicothe, which terminated rather disastrously. He was in full march to reinforce the whites at the Blue Licks, in 1782, when that fatal battle occurred, but could only receive and protect the fugitives from the field. He was a member of the Keutncky Conventions of 1792 and 1799, and repeatedly a member
·
319
ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.
of the State Legislature. Logan county, Kentucky, was called for him. (Collins' History of Kentucky, Volume II, page 482.)
William Logan, oldest son of General Logan, born where Har- rodsburg now stands, December 8, 1776, is said to have been the first white child born in Kentucky. He became a Judge of the Kentucky Court of Appeals and a Senator in the Congress of the United States. His death occurred August 8, 1822. (Collins, Volume II, page 713.)
In the year 1768 William Montgomery resided in Augusta county, but in what neighborhood we do not know. On the 14th of May of that year he received from Michael Malls a deed for 470 acres of land lying on "the mountain between the South Fork and the South Branch of Potowmack." He may have been, and probably was, an uncle of the Rev. John Montgomery and of the Rev. Dr. Doak's wife.
On the 15th of August, 1769, William Montgomery and Jean, his wife, conveyed the tract of 470 acres to Adam Harpole in consider- ation of £82 ($273.331/3), and soon thereafter removed with the Campbells, Logans, and others to the Holston, now Washington county. In the new settlement young Benjamin Logan wooed and married Montgomery's daughter Anne. As stated, Logan moved to Kentucky and soon became famous there. His father-in-law with his family, including the family of Montgomery's son-in-law, Joseph Russell, followed Logan to Kentucky in 1779 and made a settlement twelve miles from "Logan's Fort." Early one morning in March, 1780, Montgomery, on going to the door of his cabin, was shot and killed by Indians, as was a negro boy by his side. Mrs. Montgomery and her youngest child were at Logan's, and her sons Thomas and Robert, were absent " spying." Her daughter Jane managed to close the door and keep out the savages, while William, a brother of Jane, who lived in an adjoining cabin, firing his gun through an opening, killed one Indian and wounded another. John, another brother, was shot dead in his bed. While this was going on, Betsy Montgomery, some twelve years of age, climbed out of a chimney and fled to Pettit's Station, two and a half miles off, with the news of the assault. Though pursued by an Indian, she arrived in safety. All the sur- vivors of the family then at home, except young William and Jane Montgomery, were marched off by the Indians as prisoners. The savage who had pursued Betsy returned after his comrades had left and was shot by William from his cabin.
From Pettit's the news was speeded to Logan's Fort. There the horn was sounded, and a band of twelve or fifteen men was soon on the trail of the Indians. A negro girl found by the pursuers, toma-
320
ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.
hawked, scalped and left for dead, sprang to her feet and survived her wounds. The Indians fled when overtaken, but not without heavy loss. A touching incident occurred at the moment of the assault. One of the Russell girls hearing Logan's voice exclaimed : " There's Uncle Ben !" and instantly an Indian despatched her with his toma- hawk. (Collins' History of Kentucky.)
The Jane Montgomery mentioned became the wife of General Casey, of Kentucky, and was the grandmother of the famous humorist " Mark Twain." (Green).
Jane Logan, the oldest daughter of General Benjamin Logan, was the wife of Colonel John Allen.
John Allen was born in what is now Rockbridge county, Decem- 30, 1772. His father, James Allen, emigrated to Kentucky in 1780, and settled near the present town of Danville, but afterwards removed to the vicinity of Bardstown. In this town young Allen went to school and acquired some classical learning. Coming to Virginia, he assisted in surveying a tract of land in Rockbridge, and was examined as a witness in court in a suit about the land. Judge Archibald Stuart, of Staunton, then a practicing lawyer, was employed in the case, and being pleased with the young man's intelligence, sought his acquaint- ance. The result was that Allen came to Staunton in 1791, and spent four years in Judge Stuart's office. He returned to Kentucky in 1795, and immediately entered upon a brilliant career. As a lawyer, he ranked with the first men of his profession. At the beginning of the war of 1812, he raised a regiment of riflemen, and was killed at the battle of the River Raisen, January 22, 1813. Allen county, Ken- tucky, was called for him. (See Collins' History of Kentucky).
A family named Knox, of Irish birth, settled in Augusta county at an early day. The first guardian's bond recorded in the county was that of James Knox, guardian of Jenny Usher, executed February 11, 1746, ("New Style.") The sureties were John Brown and Andrew Pickens. On the 13th of August, 1769, Knox conveyed to Patrick Miller 160 acres of land lying on Cowpasture river, and this and other circumstances indicate that the family lived in the part of Angusta which is now embraced in Bath county. The death of James Knox occurred in 1772. In his will he mentions his wife Jean, and among his other children his son James. The younger James Knox seems to have been one of the first persons who removed from the more thickly settled part of the county to the Holston. There is a tradition that he was disappointed in a love affair, having been rejected as a suitor by Anne Montgomery, who married Benjamin Logan. As early
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.