USA > Virginia > Tazewell County > Tazewell County > History of Tazewell county and southwest Virginia, 1748-1920 > Part 20
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The 7th of May, 1761, was the day selected for the general uprising and for the beginning of what is known in history as Pontiac's War. Pontiac was to make an attack upon Detroit, the capture of that place being considered the most difficult task of the Indians' scheme. An Indian girl, who was deeply infatuated with an English officer at the post, the day before the uprising visited the fort and revealed the plot to Major Gladwyn, the com- mandant. When Pontiac's warriors the following day attempted by treachery to accomplish their design, they found all the soldiers and the citizens under arms and fully prepared to repel any onslaught. A protracted siege followed, but finally had to be abandoned.
At other points the Indians were more successful in the execution of their scheme. On the 16th of May, a band of the Wyandots captured Fort Sandusky, killed all the garrison and burned the fort. A few days later Fort St. Joseph experienced a similar fate at the hands of a number of the Pottawotamie tribe. This was followed by the capture of Fort Mackinaw and nearly all of its defenders were cruelly butchered by the savages. The Indians continued their operations against the forts and settlements until the middle of the summer, by which time they had taken every fort held by the British, except Detroit, Fort Pitt, and Niagara.
For the three years succeeding the surrender of Montreal to the British the war between France and England was continued on the seas, with the British fleets victorious in nearly every engagement. France was so reduced in men and resources that she was forced to come to very humiliating terms; and on the 10th of February, 1763, a treaty of peace was negotiated at Paris between the bellig- erent nations. By this treaty France surrendered to Great Britain all of the territory claimed by the French east of the Mississippi,
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from its source to the river Iberville, and thicnce through Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain to the Gulf of Mexico. In the same treaty Spain, with whom England had also been engaged in war, ceded East and West Florida to Great Britain; and, in lieu of this cession, France was forced to cede to Spain all of that extensive and magnificent territory west of the Mississippi, then known as the Province of Louisiana. Thus was France deprived of all her possessions in the New World; and thus was concluded one of the most important wars in the world's history.
The French and Indian War is worthy of much consideration and study by all persons who are interested in the formation and development of our splendid American Republic. This war not only caused extensive and important changes in the map of the world, but exercised a mighty influence upon its social, political economic, and religious thought. During its progress a momentous struggle was going on in Europe between the Protestant and Cath- olic monarchs. Frederick the Great, of Prussia, was standing almost alone as the defender of Protestanism against the combined forces of France, Austria, Bavaria, and the other Catholic countries of the Continent. Bancroft says: "Among the rulers of the European Continent, Frederick, with but four millions of subjects, stood forth alone, 'the unshaken bulwark of Protestantism and freedom of thought.'" It is known that after George Washington's withdrawal from the service of Great Britain in 1761, in his retirement at Mount Vernon, he kept in his library a bust of Frederick, whose devoted struggles for political and religious freedom he watched with the keenest interest and profoundest sympathy. And up in New Eng- land, the stern Calvinists were constantly sending up petitions to Almighty God for the success and preservation of the King of Prussia in his heroic struggle against the Papacy.
To the Americans this war was one of vital import, in that it directed the attention of the colonies to the fact that, if they became united in sympathy and purpose, they need be no longer dependent upon Great Britain for protection against either domestic or foreign foes. Could the mother country have foreseen that the first volley fired in the war, at the command of George Washington, was the beginning of a revolution in American thought and purpose, which in a few years would constrain the colonies to proclaim their inde- pendence, England would not have been so eager to expel the French and Spaniards from the North American Continent.
In 1742, Baron Montesquieu, the distinguished French jurist
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and philosopher, gave notice to the intellectual world that "a free, prosperous and great people was forming in the forests of America, which England had sent forth her sons to inhabit." Jaques Turgot, a distinguished son of France, when only twenty-three years old, in 1750, made accurate prophesy as to what would transpire in America before the close of the eighteenth century, when he ex- claimed to the assembled clergy of France: "Vast regions of America! Equality keeps from them both luxury and want, and preserves to them purity and simplicity with freedom. Europe herself will find there the perfection of her political societies, and the surest support of her well being. Colonies are like fruits, which cling to the tree only till they ripen: Carthage declared itself free as soon as it could take care of itself ; so likewise will America."
Ample warning was given by other great men as to what results would follow the French and Indian War. Just at the beginning of the struggle, David Hume, England's "great master of historic style," and who exposed "the hollowness of the prevailing systems of thought in Europe," speaking of America, said: "The seeds of many a noble state have been sown in climates kept desolate by the wild manners of the ancient inhabitants, and an asylum is secured in that solitary world for liberty and science."
In 1760 an interesting interview took place between Lord Cam- den, attorney general for Great Britain, and Benjamin Franklin, who was visiting England in the interest of the colonies. Camden observed: "For all what Americans say of your loyalty, and not- withstanding your boasted affection, you will one day set up for independence." To this Dr. Franklin replied: "No such idea is entertained by the Americans, or ever will be, unless you grossly abuse them." Camden promptly rejoined: "Very true; that I see will happen, and will produce the event."
Dr. Franklin was loyal to the mother country, just as he was true to everything he ever espoused, but he spake truly when he gave notice that he and his fellow-Americans would not submit to further gross oppressions from the British Government. And Lord Camden was equally as sincere when he announced his conviction that such abuses would come during the reign of George III .; and that the American colonies would declare and win their independ- ence. Just after the treaty of peace was made at Paris, in 1763, Vergennes, the French ambassador at Constantinople, declared: "The consequences of the entire cession of Canada are obvious. I am persuaded England will ere long repent of having removed the
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only check that could keep her colonies in awe. They stand no longer in need of her protection; she will call on them to contri- bute towards supporting the burdens they have helped bring on her ; and they will answer by striking off all dependence."
The French and Indian War was an important event for the Americans, in that it was a training school for a number of the men who became famous as leaders and officers of the armies that won independence for the colonies. It also prepared a number for direct- ing the civil affairs of the United Colonies when the struggle for escape from British misrule was inaugurated. George Washington, Horatio Gates, Andrew Lewis and Daniel Morgan, from Virginia; and John Armstrong and Hugh Mercer from Pennsylvania, were with Braddock when he met defeat and death on the Monongahela. The Virginia and Pennsylvania volunteers, under the leadership of Washington and Armstrong, saved the panic-stricken army from total annihilation by the blood-thirty Indians. Israel Putman, of Connecticut, John Stark, of New Hampshire, and Philip Schuyler, of New York, were equally as conspicuous and useful in the cam- paigns conducted by the British armies in Western New York and in Canada. And Francis Marion and William Moultrie, two of the most gallant and efficient generals of the Revolutionary War, were with Colonels Grant and Montgomery when those British officers made their invasions of the Cherokee country to bring the Cherokees into submission. These noble patriots and splendid military leaders of the Revolution were products of the French and Indian War. It made them familiar with the tactics and fighting qualities of the British armies; and acquainted them with the methods of the Indians who were the allies of Great Britain.
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CHAPTER IV
DRAPER'S MEADOWS MASSACRE AND OTHER TRAGIC INCIDENTS.
To the pioneer settlers who had already crossed the Alleghanies to build homes, and secure for themselves and their children per- sonal and religious freedom, the French and Indian War was a fearful tragedy. Its effect upon them was more immediate and tell- ing than it was upon the older settlements of the colonies, or the powerful European nations that engaged in the war from a desire of conquest and commercial supremacy in North America. For them it introduced the brutal practice of paying a price for each scalp of a white person who was butchered by the Indians. The red men had previously taken the scalps of their dead foes to keep and exhibit as an isignia of valor; but in this cruel war the French paid their savage allies so much for each English scalp they brought in; and the savages reaped a rich harvest from the battle field where Braddock's army was beaten. This caused the British to offer their savage allics a reward for each scalp of their Indian foes that was secured. Perhaps the English were justified in making this cruel reprisal, but they did not stop there in the brutal practice. In the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, the British Government paid their Indians so many shillings for each scalp they secured from the heads of Americans.
For sometime previous to the commencement of the war, the French and English had been actively competing for the support of the Shawnees and other tribes that inhabited the Ohio Valley. When the Ohio Company sent Christopher Gist on an exploring expedition to the Ohio country in 1750, he was not only instructed to "examine the western country as far as the falls of the Ohio; to look for a large tract of level land; to mark the passes in the mountains ; to trace the courses of the rivers ;" but he was specially directed to ascertain the strength and numbers of the Indians and to secure their friendship for the English. In obedience to these instructions, he crossed the Alleghanies and first visited a small town of friendly Delawares on the east side of the Ohio; and then crossed the river and traveled down to Logstown. It was then occupied by a mixed band of Senecas, Mohicans, Ottawas, and others, with nearly a hundred cabins. These Indians had become very jealous of the known purposes of the Ohio Company, and told Gist: "You have
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come to settle on the Indian lands: You shall never go home safe," though they treated him respectfully as an accredited messenger of the English King. Nothing daunted by this manifestation of anger, Gist traveled on to a village of the Ottawas on Elk's Eye Creek, and found its people warm friends of the French. He then visited the town of the Wyandots at Muskingam and found its hun- dred families about equally divided in sympathy for the French and English. Those who were friends of the English said to Gist: "Come and live with us; bring great guns and make a fort. If the French claim the branches of the lakes, those of the Ohio belong to us and our brothers, the English."
The Shawnees were then located on both sides of the Ohio just below the mouth of the Scioto. When Gist arrived at their towns they made earnest professions of friendship for the Virginians, and expressed deep gratitude for the protection that had been given them by the English against attacks from the Six Nations. After leaving the Shawnee towns, the English envoys next visited the Miamis at their towns on the Miami River. The Miamis were an Algonquian tribe and had the largest and most powerful confederacy in the west. The Virginians and Pennsylvanians were the first white men of the English race to see the splendid country beyond the Scioto. They found the land rich and level, with alternating stretches of magnificent forests of walnut, maple, wild cherry and ash, and beautiful praries carpeted with wild rye, blue grass, and white clover ; and fine herds of deer, elk and buffalo grazing thereon. It was the very kind of country Gist had been directed to search for. and he and his companions rapturously declared that: "nothing is wanting but cultivation to make this a most delightful country."
Christopher Gist and his company remained some days with the various tribes of the Miami Confederacy; and, then, on the 1st day of March, 1751, started for Kentucky, with assurance from the Miamis that they would make no terms with the French, and bearing to the English authorities the message: "Our friendship shall stand like the loftiest mountains." The shrewd agent of the Ohio Company had made arrangements for all the friendly tribes of the West to meet the following summer at Logstown to make a treaty with Virginia. After leaving the Miami towns he descended the Little Miami River and crossed the Ohio into Kentucky at a point about fifteen miles above where Louisville is now situated. Thence, as hereinbefore related, he traveled through Kentucky and South-
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west Virginia, and on to Williamsburg, where he made report of the accomplishments of the expedition to Governor Dinwiddie and the other members of the Ohio Company.
The following year the Ohio Company, with the approval of the General Assembly of Virginia, determined to place a settlement beyond the Alleghany Mountains; and Christopher Gist was sent out by the company to explore the lands southeast of the Ohio, as far as the Kanawha. He found that the Indians had become very suspicious of the intentions of both the French and the English. The natives had begun to realize that the two great European nations, while each was professing great regard for the Indians, were about to engage in a mighty struggle for permanent possession of an extensive and valuable territory to which neither had any just claim of ownership. It had become very evident that France and Great Britain were both maneuvering to get the assistance of the simple natives in a war which was bound to result in robbing the Indians of their lands, no matter whether the French or English were victors. Therefore it is not surprising that a Delaware chief said to Christopher Gist: "Where lie the lands of the Indians? The French claim all on one side of the river and the English on the other." And about the same time another chief, the Half-King, declared: "We see and know that the French design to cheat us out of our lands. We, therefore, desire our brothers of Virginia may build a strong house at the fork of Monongahela."
The Ohio Company in 1753 built a road by way of Wills Creek into the western valley; and Gist established a settlement with eleven families. He marked out sites for a town and a fort on Shurtces Creek; but the British Government gave no protection to the little colony, and the settlers were forced to flee from the Indians and French in a very short time.
In the meantime, while the Virginians and Pennsylvanias were negotiating with the Indians for the peaceful occupation of the country both north and south of the Ohio, the French pushed on down from the lakes and took possession of the entire region. DuQuesne sent twelve hundred men to occupy the valley of the Ohio. The Delawares, Shawnecs, and Mingoes met in council at Logstown, and started an envoy to Montreal to protest against the invasion of their country by an armed force, but he was turned back at Niagara by the French, who told him it was useless to proceed to Montreal.
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DRAPER'S MEADOWS MASSACRE.
By shrewd management, with bribes, threats, and promises of protecting them in the possession of their lands, the French secured as their allies nearly all of the Indian tribes that were then occupy- ing the Ohio Valley. They proved very efficient and faithful allies ; and were a potential factor in winning the French victory over Braddock. From the date of that disaster to the British arms, the Indians began to send marauding parties to attack the settlers in the Valley of Virginia, the Upper James Valley, the Roanoke Val- ley, and the few settlements that had been made west of the Alle- ghanies in what is now known as Southwest Virginia. In fact the scheme of terrorizing the Virginia frontiers with scalping par- ties was put in motion previous to Braddock's defeat. The first blow that fell upon the pioneers of Southwest Virginia was the attack made by a band of Shawnees on the settlement at Draper's Meadows, at the present site of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, at Blacksburg. This settlement, as previously related, was started in 1748. Dr. John P. Hale, who was a descendant of Mrs. William Ingles, one of the victims of that horrible tragedy, has given a concise and authentic narrative of the incident in his book, the "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers." He thus relates the story as told to him by his ancestors :
"On the 8th of July, 1755, being Sunday, and the day before Braddock's memorable defeat, near Fort DuQuesne, when all was peace, and there was no suspicion of harm or danger, a party of Shawnees from beyond the Ohio, fell upon the Draper's Meadows settlement and killed, wounded or captured every soul there present, as follows :
"Colonel James Patton, Mrs. George Draper, Casper Barrier and a child of John Draper, killed; Mrs. John Draper and James Cull, wounded; Mrs. William Ingles, Mrs. John Draper, Henry Lenard, prisoners.
"Mrs. Draper, being out of doors, a short distance from the house first discovered the enemy approaching, and under circum- stances indicating hostile intent.
"She ran into the house to give the alarm and to get her sleeping infant. Taking the child in her arms she ran out on the opposite side of the house and tried to make her escape. The Indians dis- covered her, however, and fired on her as she ran, breaking her right arm and causing the child to fall. She hastily picked it up again
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with her left hand, and continued her flight. She was soon over- taken, however, and made a prisoner, and the child brained against one of the house logs. The other Indians, meanwhile, were devot- ing their attention to other members of the families and camp, with the results in killed, wounded, and captured, as above stated.
"Colonel James Patton, who had large landed interests hereabout, was here at this time and with him his nephew, William Preston.
"Whether Colonel Patton was only temporarily here, or was then making this his home, I do not know. He had command of the Virginia Militia in this region, and had just bought up a supply of powder and lead for use of the settlements, which, I believe, the Indians secured.
"Early on the morning of the attack, Colonel Patton had sent young Preston over to the house of Mr. Philip Lybrook, on Sinking Creek, to get him to come over and help next day with the harvest, which was ready to be cut, and this fortunate absence doubtless saved young Preston's life.
"Colonel Patton was sitting at a table writing when the attack was made, with his broadsword, which he always kept with him, lying on the table before him. He was a man of large frame (he was six feet four inches in height), and herculean strength. He cut down two of the Indians with his sword, as they rushed upon him, but was, in turn, shot down himself by others out of his reach. He was a widower, sixty-three years of age, and full of health and vigor when he met his untimely death."
When the attack was made William Ingles was in a grain field some distance from the house, possibly in the field from which the grain was to be harvested the next day. As soon as he saw the smoke and flames of the buildings, which the Indians had set fire to, he apprehended that something serious had happened, and ran rapidly to the aid of his family. He saw the large number of Indians and realized that it was folly for him, unarmed as he was, to offer resistance, and turned to make his escape; but he had been seen by the Indians and was pursued by two of the warriors. They failed, however, to capture him; and he and John Draper, who was from home when the massacre occurred, went to the settlements farther east to get assistance.
Mrs. Ingles had two small sons, Thomas, who was four years old, and George, three years old, who were also captured. Dr. Hale failed to mention the boys in the above list of captives, but refers to
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them frequently as he proceeds with his narrative. The Indians collected much valuable booty-guns, ammunition, and household goods. These things were packed on some of the horses of the set- tlers, and the women and children were placed on other horses; and the march was then started for the Indian towns. Dr. Hale says :
"About half a mile or mile to the west, on their route, they stopped at the house of Mr. Philip Barger, an old and white haired man, cut his head off, put it in a bag, and took it with them to the house of Philip Lybrook, on Sinking Creek, where they left it, telling Mrs. Lybrook to look in the bag and she would find an acquaintance."
It seems that Philip Lybrook and William Preston had left Lybrook's house, and had taken what was called a "near cut" across the mountains for Draper's Meadows, to help in the harvest field the next day. This saved them from encountering the Indians, and, no doubt, preserved their lives. There is no record of the route fol- lowed by the Indians and their captives, but it is evident that they traveled down New River, as far as the mouth of Indian Creek. There they crossed the river and followed it to the mouth of Blue- stone, passed up that stream a short distance, then proceeded along the route of what afterwards was known as the Giles, Raleigh and Fayette Turnpike to the head of Paint Creek. This stream was fol- lowed to the Kanawha River which they crossed to the northeast side, possibly at Witcher's Creek Shoals.
Dr. Hale says that: "On the night of the third day out, the course of nature, which waits not upon conveniences nor surround- ings, was fulfilled, and Mrs. Ingles, far from human habitation, in the wide forest, unbounded by walls, with only the bosom of mother earth for a couch, and covered by the green trees and the canopy of heaven, with a curtain of darkness around her, gave birth to an infant daughter. * * * Owing to her perfect physical consti- tution, health and training, she was next morning able to travel, and did resume the journey, carrying the little stranger in her arms, on horseback."
Upon arrival at the salt spring, just above the mouth of Camp- bell's Creek, the Indians made a halt of several days to get a supply of game and salt to take to their towns. The pots and kettles that were taken from the houses of the captives were used for boiling the salt water. Mrs. Ingles and the other prisoners did the salt T.H .- 14
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making while the Indians were hunting and killing the fine game that came to the "Lick" for salt.
After resting and hunting several days at the salt spring, the Indians and their captives resumed their journey; and about one month after the Draper's Meadow massaere the party reached the Shawnee town at the mouth of the Scioto River. The marauders were received with much glee by all the members of the tribe, and delight was expressed at the success of the bloody enterprise. All the captives, except Mrs. Ingles and her children, were required to "run the gauntlet." It seems that she had, by tact and intelligent service, seeured the good will of her eaptors. Mrs. Draper, though still suffering from the wound in her arm, was made to endure the agony of the terrible ordeal, as did Henry Lenard and James Cull, the two men captured at Draper's Meadows. It is more than prob- able that these men were killed while passing through the ordeal, as there is no known record of them after the event. A few days afterward, the Indians raiders met for a division and distribution of the spoils, including the captives. The prisoners were alloted to different persons and became widely separated. Mrs. Ingles and her infant remained at the Shawnee town, while her little sons, Thomas and George, were taken to Detroit. George died a short time after he arrived at that place, and Thomas remained with the Indians for thirteen years, when he was at last found by his father and ransomed. As Thomas Ingles was a prominent figure in the pioneer settlement of Tazewell County his interesting life will be given more ample notice in connection therewith.
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