USA > West Virginia > Monroe County > A history of Monroe county, West Virginia > Part 3
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III
EARLY SETTLEMENTS
The Ulstermen-Earliest Comers to Monroe-Resettlement-Pioneers of 1774-Monroe Under Botetourt.
F THE Ulstermen who "peeled and scattered" from their old home in the north of Ireland, between the years 1725 and 1775, a large share came into the middle and upper sections of the Valley of Virginia. The nucleus of their colonization in this quarter was the settle- ment near Staunton by John Lewis and his companions in 1732. Within a dozen years the Valley was occupied from the old line between Augusta and Frederick* to the New River, a distance of 140 miles. It was but another step to push over the mountain rampart west of the Shenandoah Valley, and occupy, one by one, the narrow but fertile valleys beyond.
Thus the early settlers of Monroe were very largely the people from Ulster. Usually there was first a sojourn east of the Alle- ghany, and often it was the children of the immigrant families who were the first to move beyond the mountain barrier.
But not all these early homehunters were Scotch-Irish. Among them were Germans from the families who did so much to occupy the lower part of the Shenandoah and the South Branch of the Po- tomac. As the years roll on the German names become more fre- quent. Restlessness was a trait of the Ulstermen, and in pressing eagerly forward to newer and yet newer places of settlement, they made room for the less nomadic and more persistent German.
To find the name of the very first white settler in Monroe seems hopeless. In 1748 there were seen at the mouth of East River the ruins of a cabin and at the head of a grave the following inscription :
* The north line of Rockingham on the western side of the county is a part of the old Fairfax Line.
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EARLY SETTLEMENT
"Mary Porter was killed by the Indians, May 28, 1742." This spot is just outside the boundary of Old Monroe. Yet it shows that a venturesome landseeker reared his humble cabin 115 miles by air- line distance from the house which John Lewis had built near Staun- ton only ten years earlier. We are thus given a very broad hint as to the speed with which the Ulstermen were spying out the wilder- ness. The bottom-lands of the New were found very attractive, and we have no assurance that some other pioneer did not at nearly the same time attempt a settlement on the Monroe side of the river. Very soon after 1745 the Eckerlin brothers founded their colony of Mahanaim near Radford. They were captured by the Indians and taken to Canada, probably across Monroe soil. These Eckerlins gave name to the Dunkard Bottom on New River.
Doctor Walker, as we have seen, speaks in 1750 of people on the "branches of Greenbrier," although he did not come upon their im- provements. These settlers had located on the grant to the Green- brier Company. Whether any of them except Baughman and Swope were in any portion of the Monroe area outside of Wolf Creek dis- trict, we have no positive knowledge. We do know that in 1751 Thomas Lewis located on Second Creek two surveys of 1000 and 400 acres. At least one of these was the nucleus of the well-known "Lewis place." But for some thirty years after this date no mem- ber of that Lewis family was an actual resident of Monroe.
Although the Greenbrier grant dates from 1749, it does not fol- low that none of the settlers came any earlier. It was a common thing in the early years of Augusta county for a family to locate in advance of the actual visit of the surveyor. This was often with the consent of the holders of the grant. However, it is scarcely prob- able that any of the first influx to the Greenbrier came more than one or two years prior to 1749. The war of 1754 compelled such of them as were not killed or captured to return east of the Alle- ghany.
On that side of the great divide, the original settler on Monroe soil appears to have been James Moss. We are told that in 1760 he built a cabin at Sweet Springs.
In the same year, according to McElheny's narrative, there
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A HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA
was a second attempt to occupy the transalleghany country. In the Greenbrier area, important settlements arose near Lewisburg and on Muddy Creek. James Byrnside came to the sinks of Monroe, and his son John was born near Union in April, 1763. He could not have been the only settler here.
In July, 1763, a fierce and very unexpected attack by the Shaw- nees wiped out this second immigration to the Greenbrier. Seeing his cabin in flames, Byrnside fled to his old home on the Bullpasture River and remained there several years. For six years the country west of the mountains was a solitude.
In 1769 there was a third and permanent occupation of the Great Levels around Lewisburg. The resettlement of Monroe must have taken place quite as early. The repeated depopulations of the land beyond the Alleghany had thrown a cloud over the claiins of the Loyal and Greenbrier land companies, and it was not until 1773 that the Virginia Council enabled settlers to again take claims under the Loyal Company. As a result of the new rule, the surveyor of Bote- tourt came in the spring of 1774, and made 54 surveys in Monroe. The Estills were already here, having come in 1773. Probably some others of the men in whose name these surveys were made had arrived still earlier. Byrnside may have returned in 1769 or 1770. Of the 54 tracts just alluded to, 30 are described as on Indian and Hans creeks, nine on Wolf, five on New River, four each on Second Creek and Greenbrier River, and two on Brush Creek. There is no mention as yet of surveys in the fertile tableland of the Sinks. It was the bottoms and the coves with running water that always had the strongest appeal to the immigrants.
The surveys along Indian Creek extend from the mouth nearly to the source. The preference given to this locality was not acci- dental. From Covington all the way to the mouth of this stream was an Indian trail, as good as the bridlepaths by which the settlers came to the mouth of Dunlap. Another circumstance was that Byrnside had spread the news of this promised land among his friends on the Cowpasture and Bullpasture. Among the settlers from that quarter were the Estills, Bensons, Kincaids, Blantons, Laffertys, Meeks, and Raneys. His own survey near the site of Union was
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EARLY SETTLEMENT
bordered by those of Henry Kountz, James Alexander, John Cantly, William Hawkins, James Handley, Robert Noel, Nimrod Tackett, Thomas Stuart, Thomas Johnson, and Erwin Benson.
The outbreak of the Dunmore war in the summer of 1774 found a chain of settlement all the way from Sweet Springs to Gap Mills and the head of Indian, and thence down Indian to its mouth. Other settlers were on Wolf Creek and on the bottoms along the New and Greenbrier in that portion of Old Monroe that became a part of Summers. By this time there must have been people in the south of the county and in the Sinks, but our positive knowledge of them is meager.
Until just after the resettlement in 1769, Old Monroe was a part of Augusta county. When this political division was created, it was defined as including all Virginia west of the Blue Ridge and south of a line drawn from the northwest corner of what is now Greene county to the Fairfax stone, which was set up in 1736 at the southern end of the westernmost line of Maryland.
The first county taken from Augusta was Botetourt, which be- came effective January 31, 1770. The dividing line ran from the Blue Ridge to the source of Kerr's Creek, and was thence a straight course running north 55 degrees west to the Ohio. It crossed the Greenbrier a few miles south of Marlinton and touched the Ohio a little below Parkersburg. But west of the Alleghany the courts of Augusta and Botetourt do not seem to have taken steps to put this line into effect.
Within three years Fincastle county was carved out of Botetourt. The line between the two ran all the way from the mouth of the Great Kanawha to the Blue Ridge. It came up New River to the mouth of Culbertson Creek, and then took a direct course to where the Catawba road crossed the divide between New River and the north fork of Roanoke. This left a corner of Monroe in the new county. William Woods, of Rich Creek, writing his will in April, 1775, speaks of himself as a resident of Fincastle county.
But Fincastle had only a brief existence. In 1776 it was blotted out by being divided into Montgomery, Washington, and Kentucky.
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A HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA
For 30 years it was Montgomery county that the New River sep- arated from Old Monroe.
In the court proceedings under Botetourt and Fincastle there is very slight mention of settlers who can be identified as belonging in Monroe. Yet by 1775 there were 2552 tithables in Botetourt, in- dicating a population of at least 10,000. The levy was $1870.73. The rates which tavern-keepers might not exceed were these: Warm "diet" 16 2-3 cents; cold diet, 101/2; grain, per gallon, 81/2; pasture or hay for 24 hours, 101/2; lodging, with good bed and clean sheets, 8 1-3; the same, two or more in the bed, 51/2; whiskey or continental rum, per gallon, $1.00; West India rum, $1.67; good cider, bottled, 66 2-3 cents; the same, unbottled, 41 cents.
The first mention of a county road is in June, 1774, when the court of Botetourt directed Thomas Lewis, James Mayes, and John Robeson to view a way from Warm Springs to Sweet Springs. At the same time, John Archer, Matthew Bracken (Bratton?), and Thomas Mc- were directed to view a way from Captain John Stuart's to Second Creek gap, and James Estill, William Hutchin- son, and David Frazer were to view from the head of Hans to Pine Spring.
The first positive mention of a constable is May 13, 1773, when William Blanton was appointed to succeed Archibald . Handley. The same day John Vanbibber was appointed to take the list of tithables for the "Western Waters." Philip Love had a part of his precinct, seemingly the portion south of New River. One year later Boude Estill was chosen to return a list of the tithables on the "sinkhole lands on Greenbrier, Second Creek, Indian, Wolf and Hans creeks, and their branches, from the mouth of Muddy to the mouth of Greenbrier, New River to the mouth of Indian, and their waters."
IV
THREE WARS WITH THE INDIANS
French and Indian War-Pontiac War-The Clendennin Massacre-The Point Pleasant Campaign-Local Incidents.
NDIAN disturbances checkered the history of this region for a third of a century. Those which took place prior to the Revolution are mentioned in the present chap- ter.
Until the breaking out of the French and Indian war in 1754, the Augusta settlements had not been seriously disturbed by the red men. The latter continued to follow their trails through the white settlements. This was either to hunt the wild game or to pass through to attack some distant hostile tribe. It was an established custom among themselves for any hungry Indian to receive as ample entertainment as possible in the hut of any other Indian. They thought the same rule should be in force among the white men, and so they visited the cabins of the settlers to get something to eat. But the pioneers did not take kindly to this usage. From their point of view, the redskin was an uninvited and quite unwelcome guest, whom nevertheless, it was good policy to treat well. Doctor Walker, when he visited Jackson's River in 1750, says the settlers would prosper much better but for the amount of foodstuffs consumed by the In- dians, "much to their prejudice."
That the red men would nearly eat the paleface out of house and home was not all. The roving bands considered that all ani- mals running at large were wild, and therefore common property. So they helped themselves to the horses, cattle, and hogs found on the range. The two races not liking one another, and differing rad- ically in the way they looked upon various matters, the relations between them could not be cordial. Neither paleface nor redskin was always discreet. Occasionally there was a worse depredation
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A HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA
than the plundering of the livestock on the range, and several mur- ders had been committed. It is significant that while the Indians became sufficiently familiar with common English words to make themselves understood, their acquaintance with the white man's "cuss words" and his terms of insult and abuse was quite extensive. And this was in spite of the fact that the Indian languages were des- titute of profanity.
For more than twenty years the settlements spread rapidly and with little let or hindrance. But in 1754 they began to suffer in consequence of the rivalry between England and France for posses- sion of the transalleghany country. The French displayed much the more tact in their dealings with the native, and they generally won him to their side. The easy victory of these allies over the army under Braddock left the whole inland frontier of the colonies open to the raids of the tribesmen. There were no adequate meas- ures for defense on the part of England and her colonies. The fron- tiersmen had to look out for themselves as best they could. The service rendered by the militia companies was very undependable.
The disgraceful rout of the army under Braddock took place in July, 1754. The Indians immediately undertook to push back the encroaching settlements. During this year and the next the Green- brier was visited by the storm. In a letter to Andrew Lewis, Gov- ernor Dinwiddie says he is "sorry for the death of 13 of our subjects at Greenbrier, victims of the barbarous Indians." Writing twelve days later to Lieutenant John McNeill, a resident of the Greenbrier valley, he is surprised that the "59 people in Fort Greenbrier at time of Indian attack did not resist." He thinks they could not have been properly armed.
The first of these letters seems to refer to the massacre at the fort of Henry Baughman, which stood on the south bank of the Greenbrier, between Alderson and the mouth of Wolf. According to what is known as the Preston register, this tragedy took place August 12, 1755. The document enumerates the following victims : Henry Baughman, John Couse and his father-in-law, Walter Fish- paugh, George White, old Christopher, Mrs. Consler, and an old man, his wife, and a schoolmaster. Scarcely any particulars of the
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THREE WARS WITH THE INDIANS
event have been preserved. A vestige of tradition relates that all the people in the fort were killed except one small girl, whose name was lost and who married a man living in what is now Summers county. And yet we have documentary evidence that the killing of Baughman was witnessed by Valentine and Mathias Yoakum, Naph- thalim Gregory, Robert Allen, and William Elliott. The Yoak- ums find mention again in the Clendennin massacre, eight years later. The other men were settlers on Jackson's River, and appear to have been at the fort in the capacity of militia. The invoicing of the Baughman estate was witnessed by John Gay, John Warwick, Hugh Young and wife, John Meek, a settler, and Lawrence Henseman (Hinchman?). Fishpaugh's name appears to survive in Fishbock's Hill, just above the mouth of Wolf. The site of the stockade could be easily traced eighty years later, and seems to be the same spot which was described to the writer by the venerable George Alder- son. It is now overgrown with timber. It is worthy of remark that in all the annals of Old Monroe there is no mention of a more serious affair than the capture and destruction of Baughman's fort. The Indians rarely undertook an open assault on any stockade, and the most probable explanation of their success here is either a strate- gem on their part or carelessness on the part of the inmates. The heedlessness often displayed by the frontiersmen in time of peril is almost unaccountable.
The raid into the Greenbrier was a thorough piece of work. The infant settlements west of the Alleghany Front were utterly wiped out and the wilderness resumed its reign.
One of the very earliest settlers of Monroe was Joseph Swope, who visited this region about 1751. Instead of following the Indian trail down Indian Creek, he turned to the right and studied the landscape from the knobs which have since borne his name. In the valley of Wolf Creek he was observed by Indians, and being sus- picious of their intentions he concealed himself in a hollow poplar. This tree stood until 1860. The inroads of decay having rendered it unsafe it was cut down. A year or two after this visit, Swope returned with his wife and infant son, and built a cabin not far from the tree. Here his second son Michael was born, September 29,
-
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A HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA
1753. It is claimed for him that he was the first white male to be a native of Monroe, but that a girl was born somewhat earlier. This other birth was probably at the Baughman fort.
Young Joseph was stolen by the Shawnees in 1756, adopted by a squaw said to be the mother of Cornstalk, and held in the tribe nine years. An Indian boy played a practical joke on the captive by scenting him with skunk perfume. The young Indian was too large for Joseph to overcome in a fight, and by way of revenge young Swope put several grains of powder into some kindling which the other boy was blowing into a flame. The eyes of the Indian were put out. The captive was sentenced to die, but the interces- sion of his foster mother saved his life. Long after his return, and probably in time of peace, six braves came into his house, and with- out a word made a clean sweep of all the eatables on the table. They then grunted their thanks and went away, but soon brought back a large buck by way of recompense.
We have given the Swope narrative according to the form in which it was published some years ago. It presents some difficul- ties. There were settlers on the Greenbrier for at least two years previous to 1751, and they were living at peace with the natives. The valley was already blanketed with a huge land grant which cov- ered such spots as were most inviting to the settler. We find no record until 1774 of any survey in Swope's name, although he could have been living on his land for five years prior to that date. The statement that the original house of the pioneer Swope is yet stand- ing is quite incredible. It is too substantial a dwelling for that early time. Burning the round-log cabins of the detested paleface was a feature of the Indian raids, and it was carried out with all the thoroughness possible. Not only was the Greenbrier valley de- serted for several years before the Clendennin massacre took place, but we are assured by so good an authority as Colonel Stuart that it was also deserted from 1763 to 1769. After the Baughman mas- sacre Swope must have refugeed east of the Alleghany Front and lived there until the permanent resettlement. The house referred to cannot be of earlier date than the time of the Revolution.
In 1759 there was a collapse of the French power in America,
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THREE WARS WITH THE INDIANS
and at first the Indians were inclined to accept the situation. In 1760, or perhaps a year or two later, about 20 families had settled on the Great Levels and on Muddy Creek and a few others within the Monroe area.
But the Indians soon became greatly incensed at the arrogant and untactful behavior of the British officials with whom they came in touch. Under Pontiac, one of the ablest men the red race has pro- duced, several of the tribes confederated and planned a desperate blow with their 9000 warriors. To Cornstalk, a Shawnee leader, was assigned the destruction of the new settlements on the Green- brier. The story of this raid belongs properly to the county of Greenbrier, and yet it has some bearing on the history of Monroe.
It must be admitted that the Indians had a certain measure of excuse. By a treaty of 1758 the country west of the Alleghanies was set apart to them for a perpetual hunting ground. The settlers who had now come were trespassers, even in the light of their own laws. By a proclamation of the colonial governor the country be- yond the Alleghany was declared not open to settlement. But the American has seldom been scrupulous in observing the treaties be- tween him and the redskin, whenever the latter held possession of desirable land.
Cornstalk suddenly appeared in July, 1763, and with his 60 war- riors blotted out at a single blow the settlement near the mouth of Muddy. Leaving a few of his braves to watch the prisoners, the rest of his band lost no time in proceeding to the house of Archibald Clendennin, Jr., 15 miles away in the direction of Lewisburg. Clen- dennin, who was a constable and leading man in the settlement, had moved here from the lower Cowpasture. He had just brought home three elk. The great animals, together with the novelty of a visit by Indians who were believed to be friendly, soon drew all the neighbors to Clendennin's house. The treacherous guests were given a feast, but at a signal agreed upon they began a massacre. While Mrs. Clendennin was gone to the meat kettle for a fresh supply of food, a woman asked an Indian if he could cure a sore with which she was ailing. He said he could and at once gave a fatal blow with his tomahawk. Clendennin might have saved his own life
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A HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA
had he not taken his baby while the wife went to the kettle. He was killed while mounting a fence to get into a field of tall corn, and sank to the earth with the groan, "Lord have mercy on me." The only man of the settlement who escaped was Conrad Yoakum. His suspicions were aroused in time and he made his way to Jack- son's River, where he told his story to incredulous hearers.
Among the people carried away was Mrs. Clendennin, who spat in a brave's face to provoke him to kill her. But while the squad in charge of the prisoners was crossing Muddy Creek Mountain, the captives occupying the center of the column, she gave her child to another woman, slipped out from the line of march, hid under a rock, and remained there until the sound of the cowbells had grown dim. The screams of her murdered infant failed to bring her from her hiding place. Something moved amid the bushes. She at first believed it an Indian on the watch for her, but it turned out to be a bear and it scampered away. When she got back to the ashes of her home her disordered imagination saw shapes all around her, and after covering the corpse of her husband she concealed herself in a cornfield. She had nothing to eat and almost nothing but an Indian blanket to wear. On Howard Creek she met a party of whites. These had heard all the settlers were dead, and had come to drive away any cattle they might find and collect such personal property as might have escaped the Indians. One of the men was the heir- at-law of the Clendennin property and he was much displased at her escape. Others of the party, less covetous and more humane, gave her some eatables. It took her nine days to get back to her old home near Fort Dickenson, although the airline distance is scarcely above 40 miles. Four of her children were already slain. A son and a daughter were among the prisoners. The former was put to death after the arrival at the Indian town, but though the girl was restored after seven years, she was not at first acknowledged by her mother. A mark on her person established the identity, yet it was long before the parent showed any affection for the daughter.
The double massacre seems to be one of the many instances of pioneer carelessness. It had been only a few days since Mrs. Den- nis, a woman taken from Jackson's River several years before, had
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THREE WARS WITH THE INDIANS
been entertained by the Clendennins. After her escape from the Indian village, she crossed the Ohio on a log, and by the time she reached the Levels she was too weak to travel farther. She had been on her way three weeks, traveling by night. In fact, she passed the Clendennin house unawares, but was found by four men and taken there. After recovering some strength she was escorted to Fort Young on the site of Covington. It would seem as though Mrs. Dennis must have conveyed some intimation as to the feelings of the Indians.
Joseph Swope was much embittered on account of the captivity of his boy. While trapping on New River with Samuel Pack and one Pitman, they found a division in the fresh trail of a large band of Indians, one party going toward Jackson's River, the other to- ward Catawba Creek. To give warning, Pitman set out in the for- mer direction, and the other men in the latter. But the hostiles had too great a start. (The party going to Jackson's River committed some depredations in that valley, but were pursued by Captain Paul and his company. They met Pitman on Indian Creek, almost ex- hausted with running, but he joined the pursuers. Paul followed the Indians to the Ohio, but was not in time to intercept them on the east bank. On his return he suddenly came upon the other band in camp on the New, opposite an island at the mouth of In- dian Creek. A volley killed three of the foe and wounded several. One of the latter jumped into the river to save his scalp by drown- ing. This company was also pursued by Captains Ingles and Har- man. +
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