USA > Virginia > Augusta County > Augusta County > Annals of Augusta county, Virginia, from 1726 to 1871 > Part 35
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as 1769, he went from the Holston on a hunting expedition to Ken- tncky. In command of a military force he went down the Holston and built a fort for the protection of the frontier, which was called "Fort Knox," and the settlement thereabout grew into the city of Knoxville. He was a soldier in the Revolution, and a member of the Kentucky Legislature from 1795 to 1800. In Kentucky he was known as General Knox. He captured his old sweetheart at last, marrying her after the death of General Logan. He survived till 1822, and she till 1825. It was he who led the party of Augusta emigrants, as just related.
Wallace Estill, of Irish descent, was born in New Jersey in 1707. His first wife was Marcy Bowdy. After the birth of five children he removed with his family to Augusta county, between 1744 and 1747, and a sixth child was born here.
Benjamin Estill, the second son of Wallace and Marcy, was born September 20, 1735, married, in Augusta, Kitty Moffett, was a justice of the peace in 1764, and afterwards removed to the Holston. His sons were Captain John M. Estill, of Long Glade, Augusta county, and Judge Benjamin Estill, of Southwest Virginia.
Wallace Estill married a second time Mary Ann Campbell, of Augusta. By this marriage he had nine children, among them, James, born November 9, 1750, and Samuel, born September 10, 1755.
James Estill married in Augusta, Rachel Wright, and removed to Greenbrier. Before the year 1780, he removed from Greenbrier to Kentucky, and settled at Estill's Station, in the present county of Madison. In 1781 one of his arms was broken by the rifle-shot of an Indian, and before he had fully recovered from the injury he was engaged in a memorable conflict with the savages and lost his life. At the head of about twenty-five men, in March, 1782, he pursued the same number of Wyandotts across the Kentucky river into what is now Montgomery county. The battle was fought on the site of the town of Mount Sterling, and is known as the " Battle of Little Mountain," or " Estill's Defeat." During the battle, which was unusually pro- tracted, a panic seized a part of the whites and they deserted their comrades. The loss of the Indians was greater than that of the whites, but they held the field and the victory was conceded to them. The battle-field has been surveyed and platted at least three times in as many law-suits about land locations, and almost every incident of the fight noted on the surveys. On one of the maps a spot is indicated as the place where Captain Estill fell. The depositions in the suits, taken while the survivors of the battle lived, give a minute history of
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the affair and the transactions of several following days. A county in Kentucky was called for Captain Estill. (Collins' History of Ken- tucky, Volume II, pages 168, 636).
Samuel Estill, younger brother of James, married Jane Tess, and also went to Kentucky. He was celebrated in his youth as an Indian fighter, and for his great size in his latter years. At the time of his death he weighed 412 pounds.
Colonel William Whitley was born in that part of Augusta which now constitutes Rockbridge county, August 14, 1749. He married Esther Fuller, and in 1775 removed to Kentucky, taking with him little more than his gun, axe and kettle. His brother-in-law, George Clark, accompanied him, and in the wilderness they met seven other men who joined them. He became a famous Indian fighter and during his life was engaged in seventeen battles with the savages. His last expedition of this kind was against the Indians sonth of the Tennessee river. It is known as the "Nickajack Expedition," from the name of the principal town against which it was directed. The number of whites engaged (chiefly Tennesseeans) was from five hundred to seven hundred, and the Indians were ronted with great slaughter. In 1813 Colonel Whitley, then in the sixty-fifth year of lis age, volunteered under Governor Shelby, and fell at the battle of the Thames, October 5th. He was selected by Colonel Richard M. Jolinson to command a "forlorn hope" of twenty men, nearly all of whom were killed. It is believed by many persons that Whitley, and not Colonel Johnson, killed Tecumseh, the celebrated Indian chief, in that battle. Whitley county, Kentucky, was called for him. (Collins' History of Kentucky ).
James Robertson and his son, also named James, came to America from Coleraine, North Ireland, in 1737, and settled in Augusta coun- ty. James, the younger, died in 1754, and his will is recorded in Will Book No. 2, page 72. It is dated September 11, 1751, and was proved in court November 20, 1754. The testator left his real estate to his sons George and Alexander. His personal estate footed up £63, 3S., about $210. The real estate consisted of 274 acres, conveyed by John Lewis to James Robertson, February 18, 1743, lying on Lewis' creek, "in the Manor of Beverley," adjoining the lands of the Rev. John Craig and others, being a part of 2,071 acres conveyed to Colonel Lewis by William Beverley by deed dated February 22, 1738. It lay between Staunton and Mr. Craig's residence, which was about five miles from town.
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Of George Robertson, the older son of James, we have little infor- mation ; Alexander Robertson, the second son, was born November 22, 1748, about a mile from Staunton, it is said, but the distance was probably three or four miles. He married Margaret Robinson, Au- gust 18, 1773, in Bedford county. She was born April 13, 1755, on the Roanoke river, then in Augusta, now in Montgomery county, and is described as a woman of extraordinary intellect and exemplary Christian character. She died at the residence of her son-in-law, ex- Governor Robert P. Letcher, in Frankfort, Kentucky, June 13, 1846, in her 92d year.
In Angust, 1777, George Robertson resided in Botetourt, and Alexander in Montgomery. On the roth of that month, George and his wife, Jane, conveyed their one-half of the Augusta farm to Alexander, in consideration of {100 ; and on the 12th, Alexander and wife conveyed the whole tract to Joseph Bell.
In 1779, Alexander Robertson removed with his family to Ken- tucky, and settled in Mercer county, where he built " the first fine house in Kentucky." He is said to have been a man of strong mind, sterling moral qualities, and very popular. He was a member of the State Convention of 1788, at Richmond, (Kentucky being then a part of Virginia), and a member from Kentucky of the Virginia Legislature the ensuing winter. He died in 1802.
George Robertson, son of Alexander, was born in Mercer county, November 18, 1790. He was educated at various Kentucky schools, and finally studied law. When just nineteen years of age, he married Eleanor Bainbridge, who was under sixteen, and set up house-keeping in a "buckeye house " of two rooms. Four persons began married life in this house and while occupying it were successively elected to Congress,-John Boyle, Samuel McKee, George Robertson and Robert P. Letcher. Robertson resigned in his third term, 1821-'23. He was Chief Justice of Kentucky from December 24, 1829, till April 7, 1843 ; and again a Judge of the Court of Appeals from 1864 to 1871, when he resigned. His standing is indicated by the offices tendered to him. In 1824, he was offered, but declined, the mission to Columbia, South America, and in 1828, the mission to Peru. He four times declined seats in the Federal Cabinet, and twice a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States. Robertson county, Kentucky, was called for him. (Collins' History of Kentucky, volume 2, page 687. ) He died May 16, 1874.
In Collins' History of Kentucky we find some account of a Wil- liam Poage, who is believed to have been the son of Robert, one of the first Justices of Augusta county.
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In company with Daniel Boone, Richard Galloway and John Bar- ney Stagner, William Poage and his family settled at Boonesborough, Kentucky, about September, 1775. In February, 1776, he removed his family to the fort at Harrodsburg, and in the spring of that year cleared ground and planted corn two miles from the fort. He had great mechanical skill, and during more than two years made all the wooden vessels used by the people in the fort. He also made the wood-work of the first plow used in Kentucky, and the first loom on which weaving was done in that State.
On September 1, 1778, a company of sixteen men, including Poage, going to Logan's station, was fired upon by a party of Indians in ambush near where Danville now stands. Poage was wounded by three balls, but his companions escaped unhurt. The next day two parties were sent in search of the wounded man, who had clung to his horse till he came to a canebrake, where he hid until he heard his friends passing near. They carried him to an abandoned cabin near the site of Danville, and stopped there for the night. The Indians tracked them to the place, surrounded the cabin and waited till morning to make an attack. But the whites discovered them in time, sallied out, and killed four of the savages, one of whom had Poage's gun. Poage was sup- ported on a horse and thus reached home, but died the next day. The recaptured gun was given to Poage's son, then twelve years of age, afterwards General Robert Poage, of Mason county, Kentucky.
The maiden name of William Poage's wife was Ann Kennedy. She is presumed to have been a native of Augusta county. In 1750, Joseph Kennedy bought a lot in Staunton, and the deed-books show that he owned various tracts of land in the county. One of the spurs of the Blue Ridge is still called Kennedy's mountain. In 1784, a citi- zen of the county, named Matthew Kennedy, died intestate, and he may have been Mrs. Poage's father or brother. A prominent item of the inventory of his estate is " 30 pair of spectacles," which is sugges- tive of Moses Primrose and his famous speculation ; but the deceased was probably a merchant or peddler, as the list embraces also pins, needles, scissors, brass thimbles, razors, inkhorns, snuff-boxes, etc. His library consisted of a Bible, Confession of Faith, Boston's Four-fold State and Hervey's Meditations. The administrator's sale occurred on October 7, 1784, and one of the principal purchasers was a Martha Kennedy, but who she was does not appear.
Mrs. Poage was married four times. Her first husband was a Wilson, and Poage was the second. After the death of the latter, she married Joseph Lindsey, who was killed at the battle of Blue Licks,
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in 1782, and finally she married James McGinty. She was a woman of rare energy and ingenuity. Collins says she brought the first spin- ning-wheel to Kentucky, and made the first linen manufactured in that country, from the lint of nettles, and the first linsey from nettle- lint and buffalo wool.
In 1779, three men with their families removed from Augusta county, (the part now known as the Pastures), to Kentucky. They were Samuel Stevenson, John Gay and a Mr. Dunlap. The wives of Stevenson and Dunlap were sisters of Gay. Other persons of the Scotch-Irish stock, their neighbors and friends, went with them. Stev- enson had a grant from the State of Virginia of several thousand acres of land in what is now Woodford county. On arriving in the promised land, the country was so wild and the savages so hostile that the new- comers sought safety at a rude fort on the site of Lexington, and re- mained there for several years. Finally they made clearings about nine miles from the fort, and built their log cabins. Stevenson set apart two acres for a meeting-house and grave-yard ; and as soon as they had provided necessary shelter, the people erected a house "set apart for the worship of God." The Trimbles, Allens and others from Augusta, joined them. The meeting-house was called Pisgah, and is said to have been the first church established in Kentucky. The Kentucky Academy was soon founded at Pisgah, General Washington and John Adams contributing to it each a $100 ; but in 1798, the Acad- emy and Transylvania Seminary united to form Transylvania Univer- sity, at Lexington. Nearly all the present members of the old church are descendants of the original families, and own the lands which their ancestors won. For more than a hundred years the doors of Pisgah church have not been closed on Sunday. Samuel Stevenson died in 1825, aged 82 .*
Among the natives of Augusta county who achieved distinction abroad, General John Sevier, of Tennessee, is entitled to a prominent place.
The grandfather of John Sevier, or Xavier as originally written, was a native of France and a Huguenot. On the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he fled to London, and became a prosperous mer- chant there. His son Valentine came to America, and settled in our Valley, in the year 1740, it is said. Various deeds of record show that he " took up," or otherwise acquired, several tracts of land in Augusta. In 1753 he and his wife, Joannah, conveyed to Andrew
* From a sketch of Pisgah church published in the Louisville Courier-Jour- nal.
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Bird a tract lying between Limestone Ridge and Smith's Creek, now in Rockingham county. Peter Scholl was one of the witnesses to the deed. Some ten years afterward he appears to have left the county temporarily, as, in 1763, he sold a variety of personal property to Andrew Bird, and described himself in the bill of sale as a farmer of Frederick county. He, however, did not remain away long, and in October, 1765, being then a resident of Augusta, conveyed to George Shumaker 310 acres lying " on the south side of the North river of the Shandore, adjoining Benjamin Borden's land." Among the wit- nesses to this deed was John Grattan. On the 17th of October, 1769, he conveyed to Thomas Reeves two tracts, one of them, 304 acres, on the northwest side of Long Meadow.
It is probable that in the fall of 1769, Valentine Sevier went to the Holston, along with the Campbells, Logan, Knox and others. The Campbells settled in what is now Washington county, Virginia, but Sevier went on into East Tennessee, then a part of North Carolina.
John Sevier, son of Valentine, was born in 1745, and probably on Smith's Creek. He was sent to school in Fredericksburg, but, ac- cording to his biographer, was married when only seventeen years of age. In the new settlement on the Holston he soon acquired promi- neuce. He was better educated than most of the people, and a fluent and effective speaker. It is said that he took part in the battle of Point Pleasant, October 10, 1774, but in what capacity is not known, probably as an officer in Captain Evan Shelby's company .* In 1777 he was appointed judge and administered all the functions of govern- ment in "Washington District," as the region where he lived was called. As Colonel of the mountain men, he commanded in many fights with the Indians. At the head of a regiment hastily raised by him he helped to win the battle of King's Mountain, on the 7th of October, 1780. Thus two Augusta-born men, Sevier and Campbell, were leaders in that celebrated engagement.
The people of the district west of the mountains complained that they were neglected by North Carolina, and a few years after the Revolutionary war undertook, in an irregular way, to constitute a State government and apply for admission into the Union. Sevier was a leader in the movement. They called the new State Franklin. One of the first acts of the Territorial Convention or Legislature was in regard to the currency. As there was little money in the country,
* It was his brother Valentine who was at Point Pleasant.
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the act prescribed that a pound of sugar should pass for a shilling, the skin of a raccoon or a fox for a shilling and threepence, a beaver, deer or otter skin for six shillings, etc. The salaries of all public officers were to be paid in this kind of currency. But even a portion of this currency was counterfeited, bundles of supposed otter skins turning out to be skins of raccoons with otter tails attached to them.
Sevier was made Governor of Franklin. All connection with North Carolina was renounced. The people proposed to join the Union as a State, if admitted by Congress ; otherwise they would set up as one of the independent nations of the world.
The Rev. Samuel Houston, a native of Rockbridge, who returned to his native county and spent a long life there, was then residing in East Tennessee, and actively participated in the political movements mentioned. Very likely at his instigation, the Rev. William Graham, of Liberty Hall, Lexington, an able but visionary man, undertook to write a constitution for the State of Franklin, contemplating a sort of theocratic government. Neither he nor Mr. Houston gained popu- larity thereby, and both were burnt in effigy by a mob in Frank- lin.
North Carolina, however, asserted her lawful jurisdiction over the territory, and for a time something like civil war existed. In the meanwhile the Indians became hostile, but Sevier, with his usual promptness and skill, at the head of one hundred and sixty men, at- tacked three Indian towns and arrested the trouble. But North Caro- lina was too strong for Franklin, and triumphed in the contest. Sevier was declared a traitor, and a warrant for his arrest was issued. He continued to show himself in the settlements, and even appeared at a militia muster at Jonesboro. That night, however, he was seized and hurried to jail at Morganton, in North Carolina. When brought out for trial, he was rescued by friends in a crowded court- room, and departed for his home. Among the spectators of the scene was Andrew Jackson, then a youth of twenty-one.
The next year Sevier was elected to the North Carolina Senate, took his seat, was formally pardoned, and, in 1790, was elected to Con- gress. When Tennessee became a State, in 1796, he was elected the first Governor, and held the office for three consecutive terins. In 1803, he was again elected Governor, and again served for three terms. From 1811 to 1815, he was a member of the United States House of Representatives. While acting as United States Commissioner to set- tle the boundary line between Georgia, and the territory oft he Creek Indians, he died in Georgia, in 1815.
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A monument has been erected to Sevier in Nashville, and his re- mains were lately brought from Georgia and interred there. He has been described as " a man of dauntless courage and iron will, quick to think, quick to act, and a natural-born ruler of men." His nephew, Ambrose H. Sevier, was United States Senator from Arkansas, from 1836 to 1848. The Lieutenant Sevier who was married in Staunton, in 1807, was his son.
A brief account of the sufferings of the Moore family has a place here, because of the connection of the sufferers and their descendants with Augusta county.
Capt. James Moore's first home was near the Natural Bridge. His wife was Martha Poage, and his eldest sister, Mary, was the second wife of Maj. Alexander Stuart. His cousin, Samuel Walker, made an excursion to the South-western part of Virginia, to gather ginseng and on returning gave such an account of the country as induced Cap- tain Moore to go and see for himself. Accompanied by a hired man named John Simpson, he went to what is now Tazewell county, and made rough improvements in Abb's Valley. In the fall of 1775, he removed his family to the new home.
The Moores appear to have lived in security till September, 1784, when a party of three Indians captured Capt. Moore's son James, then fourteen years of age, and carried him off. The leader of the Indians was a chief called Black Wolf, and one of the others was his son. Young Moore was taken to Ohio, afterwards to Michigan, and finally was sold to a white family near Detroit.
In July, 1786, a party of Shawnees led by Black Wolf came into Abb's Valley, on the 14th. They found Capt. Moore salting his stock near the dwelling, and shot him down. Then rushing to the house they killed two of the Moore children, William and Rebecca, and John Simpson, who was confined to the house by sickness. Two other white men were in a harvest field, and fled. The other mem- bers of the family were made prisoners,-Mrs. Moore, her children- John, Jane, Mary and Peggy,-and Martha Evans, who had lately come from Augusta. At the time of her capture Mary Moore was nine years old.
As usual, the Indians beat a rapid retreat. Finding the boy, John, feeble and an incumbrance, he was tomahawked and scalped ; and two days later the infant, Peggy, was brained against a tree.
On arriving at one of their towns on the Sciota, the Indians heard that some of their warriors had lately been killed by the whites in
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Kentucky, and resolved that two of their prisoners should be burned at the stake in retaliation. The victims selected were Mrs. Moore and her daughter, Jane, who was about sixteen years of age.
The mother and daughter were tied to stakes in the presence of Miss Evans and Mary, and tortured with splinters and fire-brands till death released them from suffering. An old squaw, touched with some feeling of humanity, shortened Mrs. Moore's agony by despatch- ing her with a hatchiet.
Mary Moore remained a prisoner about three years. She carried with her from home two copies of the New Testament, one of which was taken from her by the young savages; the other she retained during her captivity, an old Indian often making her read to him, that he might hear "the book talk." She fell into the hands of white people who were more cruel to her than the Indians. Her brother James heard through Indians of the fate of his father's family, and that Mary was not far from him. He managed to communicate with her, and after a while to see her. He found her almost naked, having on only a few rags.
Thomas Evans, a brother of Martha, went in search of the cap- tives, and found them. They were ransomed, and in October, 1787, were restored to relatives in the Valley. They first rested on their return at the house of William McPheeters, ten miles southwest of Staunton.
James Moore, Jr., returned to Abb's Valley, and lived there till his death, in 1848, a highly respectable citizen. Mary Moore became the wife of the Rev. Samuel Brown, long pastor ot New Providence church, Rockbridge. Five of her sons were Presbyterian ministers, one of them, the Rev. Samuel Brown, Jr., whose narrative of the Kerr's Creek massacres we have quoted, and another, the Rev. William Brown, for many years pastor of Augusta church.
The REV. JAMES WADDELL was born in July, 1739, either in County Down, Ireland, or on the long passage across the Atlantic. His father was Thomas Waddell, who, it is believed, was a son of William Waddell, one of the prisoners captured at Bothwell Bridge, in 1679, as mentioned in a previous note. Thomas Waddell settled in Eastern Pennsylvania, near the Delaware State line. His youngest so11, James, had his left hand nearly severed from the wrist during his early boyhood, by an axe wielded by an older brother, who was cut- ting into a hollow tree in pursuit of a hare ; and although the hand,
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upon being bandaged, adhered to the arm, it was permanently dis- abled. He was educated at the school of the Rev. Dr. Finley, at Not- tingham, Pennsylvania, then one of the most celebrated schools in the colonies, and finally became an assistant teacher. Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, was one of his pupils. When nineteen or twenty years old, in 1758 or 1759, young Waddell was proceeding on horse- back to South Carolina, to engage in teaching, but on arriving in Han- over county he was prevailed npon by the Rev. Samuel Davies to re- main in Virginia. His first employment was as a teacher with the Rev. John Todd, of Louisa county, with whom he also studied theology. While he was teaching in Louisa it is said that several of the young Lewises, of Augusta, were amongst his pupils. He was licensed as a preacher by Hanover Presbytery in 1761, and after preaching at vari- ous places, including Hat Creek, in Campbell, he settled in Lancaster county, where there was a considerable congregation of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. His preaching soon attracted much attention. An aged man named Irvin, son of the first white settler in Campbell, many years ago wrote a history of Hat Creek church. After speaking of several other ministers who had preached at Hat Creek, the writer, alluding to Mr. Waddell, says : "And an eloquent one he was. It was said forty years back, [probably about 1800], that of all the preachers who had preached at Hat Creek, none was so much of an orator as Mr. Waddell." Colonel James Gordon, of Lancaster, kept a diary which, in part, has been preserved, and in it alludesto the sen- sation in that county caused by the young preacher. In Lancaster Mr. Waddell married a daughter of Colonel Gordon. Soon after the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, his health being impaired by the climate of the lower country, he purchased and removed to the Springhill estate, in Augusta. While living in Augusta he preached regularly at Tinkling Spring and occasionally in Staunton. He took an active part during and after the war in the movement in favor of religious liberty, and is said to have written one of the memorials of Hanover Presbytery to the Legislature on that subject. After the war he removed to an estate near the present town of Gordonsville, and there he spent the last twenty years of his life. During this period he was totally blind from cataract for several years, but partially re- covered his sight after undergoing a surgical operation. He continued to preach while blind, chiefly in a log ineeting-house he had built on his own land. He also often preached by invitation in the former parish churches of the establishment. Bishop Meade quotes from the parish records his formal invitations to fill such pulpits. Carlisle Col- lege, Pennsylvania, conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. His death occurred in September, 1805. He was buried on his planta- tion, and, by his direction, his remains were borne to the grave by his colored male slaves. Before his death he destroyed all his manuscripts, except a few fragments. His powers of oratory were testified to, not only by Mr. Wirt, but by Governor Barbour, Judge Stuart, the Rev. Dr. Baxter, the Rev. Dr. Alexander, and many others. The ornate style of Mr. Wirt's account of the "Blind Preacher " has caused many
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