USA > West Virginia > History and government of West Virginia > Part 5
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4. The Deckers Attempt a Settlement on Monon- gahela River .- The first attempt at a settleinent on the Monongahela was made in 1758. In that year
76 HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF WEST VIRGINIA.
Thomas Decker and others began a settlement at the mouth of Decker's Creek which empties into the Monongahela near the present site of Morgantown. Here the winter was spent, but the next year a band of Delaware and Mingo warriors attacked the settle- ment and put nearly all the inhabitants to death.
5. Adventurers from Fort Pitt in the West Vir- ginia Wilderness .- In the year 1761, William Chil- ders, John Lindsey, John Pringle and Samuel Pringle left Fort Pitt, and, ascending the Monongahela river, passed over to the Youghiogheny, where they spent the winter. The next spring the Pringle brothers, having separated from the others, journeyed eastward until they reached the Looney Creek settlement, now in Grant county, and then the most western outpost of civilization. Again entering the wilderness, they made their homes in the glades of what is now Pres- ton county until 1764, when they were employed as hunters by John Simpson, a trapper from the South Branch of the Potomac. At the Horseshoe Bend of Cheat river, a dispute arose and a separation took place.
6. The First Cabin Where Clarksburg Now Stands .- Simpson passed over the mountains and crossed Tygart's Valley river at the mouth of Plea- sant Creek, now in Taylor county, and then journeyed over to another stream, to which he gave the name of Simpson's creek. Farther on he came upon another stream, a tributary of the West Fork of the Mononga- hela, on which he bestowed the name of Elk Creek, and at the mouth of which he reared his cabin and here
AN ERA OF PEACE; PIONEER SETTLEMENTS. 77
continued to reside, until permanent settlements began to be made around him. Simpson's cabin was the first home of civilized man on the present site of Clarksburg.
7. The Pringles on Buckhannon River .- The Pringles also reached Tygart's Valley river up which they proceeded to the mouth of the Buckhannon river,
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ABODE OF THE PRINGLE BROTHERS.
and thence up that stream until they came to the mouth of Turkey Run, three miles below the present town of Buckhannon, in Upshur county. Here they halted and took up their abode in the cavity of a large syca- more tree. They continued their solitary residence at this place until 1767, when John left his brother and made a journey to the South Branch for ammunition,
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78 HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT OF WEST VIRGINIA.
and when he returned he brought news of the close of the French and Indian War nearly five years before. Both now went to the South Branch and brought a number of settlers to the valley of Buckhannon river.
8. The First English Expedition Descends the Ohio .- Early in 1765, the first English expedition descended the Ohio river. It was commanded by Colonel George Crogan, of Pennsylvania, and was sent out for the purpose of exploring the country ad- jacent to the Ohio river, and of conciliating the In- dian nations which had hitherto taken part with the French. On the 15th day of May, 1765, the expedi- tion left Fort Pitt with two batteaux. On the 17th they passed the present site of Wheeling, and on the 22d they were at the mouth of the Great Kanawha. The voyage continued to the Falls of the Ohio, and Crogan, having accomplished the object of his mission, returned by way of the Great Lakes to Niagara.
9. A Definite Boundary Line between the In- dians and Virginia .- A definite boundary line was now sought by both the Indians and the Virginians. Governor John Blair, in his message to the House of Burgesses of Virginia, May 31st, 1768, said: "A set of men regardless of the laws of natural justice, and in contempt of royal proclamation, have dared to settle themselves upon the lands near Cheat river, which are the property of the Indians." The same year the Six Nations, in an address to Colonel Crogan, said of these lands, "It is time enough to settle them when you have purchased them and the country be- comes yours."
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AN ERA OF PEACE; PIONEER SETTLEMENTS.
10. Treaty of Fort Stanwix. - A request went over-sea, and the British government ordered Sir William Johnson, its Superintendent of Indian Af- fairs, to at once complete the purchase of the lands from the Alleghanies to the Ohio river. Upon receipt of these instructions, Colonel Johnson gave notice of a Congress to be held at Fort Stanwix, now Rome, New York. The Governments of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and also the Six Na- tions, were requested to send representatives. This was done, and the delegates assembled on October 24th, 1768, Sir William Johnson presiding.
11. All West Virginia Ceded to the King of Eng- land .- The right and title of the Indians to the ter- ritory in question was maintained with all the elo- quence of forest orators. The Colonial Commission- ers admitted the same, and tendered a sum of money and goods aggregating in value the sum of ten thou- sand four hundred and sixty pounds, seven shillings and three pence in payment therefor. The offer was accepted and the deed of cession signed and delivered. The territory thus ceded, of which West Virginia was a part, was bounded on the west by a line be- ginning at the mouth of the Tennessee river and run- ning thence with the south bank of the Ohio river to Kittanning, above Fort Pitt.
12. The Original Indiana Territory .- A reserva- tion was made by the Indians at the above treaty to satisfy a claim of an association of Philadelphia mer- chants for goods, which the Indians had destroyed on the Ohio in 1763. At Fort Stanwix, they executed a
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deed in settlement of this claim for all the lands bounded by a line beginning at the mouth of the Little Kanawha river and running thence to Laurel Hill, and thence with said Laurel Hill to the Monongahela river, and thence to the southern boundary line of Pennsyl- vania, thence due north to the Ohio river, and thence with that river to the place of beginning. This land, afterwards known as the Indiana Territory, was the cause of much litigation. A suit was brought against Virginia which finally resulted in the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
13. Homes Established in the Wilderness. - The cession of what is now West Virginia to the English by the treaty of Fort Stanwix, led to a re- newed effort to settle the wilderness west of the mountains. In 1768 Zackwell Morgan and others settled on the Monongahela where Morgantown now stands. In 1769 a number of families again settled in Greenbrier, the distinguished Colonel John Stewart, then a youth of but nineteen years, coming with them. The same year James Clark and John Judy found homes on Big Sandy Creek, now in Preston county, and John Wetzel and the Siverts and Calverts reared their cabins on the highlands in what is now Sand Hill District, Marshall county. The Virginia land office records show how rapidly these West Vir- ginia lands were being appropriated at this time. Twelve settlement rights were issued in 1769, and forty-nine, each for 400 acres, in 1770, on the waters of the Monongahela alone.
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AN ERA OF PEACE; PIONEER SETTLEMENTS.
14. The Mississippi Company .- In 1768, a great corporation made an effort to secure a grant of land in which all of West Virginia west of the mountains was included. In December of the above named year, Arthur Lee, late Commissioner to the Court of France from the United Colonies, presented a petition to the King of England on behalf of himself and forty-nine others, asking that a grant be made to them for 2,500,000 acres of land, to be located be- tween the thirty-eighth and forty-seventh degrees of north latitude, the Alleghany mountains on the east and the Ohio river on the west. This petition, which is still preserved in England, was referred to the Board of Trade, which body appears never to have made a report thereon.
15. George Washington Surveys Lands on the Ohio .- Under the provisions of Governor Dinwiddie's Proclamation of 1754, Virginians serving in the French and Indian War were entitled to patents for western lands. Colonel Washington and his men were among these, and in 1770, he made a journey to the Ohio for the purpose of locating some of the' lands. He left Mount Vernon on the 5th of October . and spent the night of the 9th at Romney, Hamp- shire county. Reaching Pittsburg on the 17th, he, with several others, began the descent of the Ohio river on the 20th. On the last day of October, the party encamped on the site of the present town of Point Pleasant, now in Mason county, and the next day proceeded up the Great Kanawha, for the purpose of examining the lands along that river. A month
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was spent in surveying and in that time more than one hundred thousand acres were surveyed in the valley of the Great Kanawha and on the south bank of the Ohio. When the work was completed all returned home, Washington reaching Mount Vernon on the first day of December.
16. Western Settlement Continued. - In the spring of 1770, Ebenezer Zane and his two brothers, Jonathan and Silas, planted the first corn grown where the city of Wheeling now stands; Joseph Tomlinson reared his cabin on the Grave Creek Flats near the present site of Moundsville, in Mar- shall county; and a daring frontiersman of the name of Tygart, found a home at the mouth of Middle Island creek now in Pleasants county. In 1772, James Booth and John Thomas became the first settlers within the present limits of Marion county, they having established themselves at Booth's creek in that year. In 1773, James and Thomas Parsons came from the South Branch Valley, near where Moorefield, in Hardy county, now stands, and settled at the Horseshoe Bend, now in Tucker county, and the same year, if not earlier, Leonard Morris became the first permanent settler in the Great Kanawha Valley, rearing his cabin near the present site of Brownstown, in Kanawha county.
17. The Church of England in West Virginia .- The Church of England was the established Church of Virginia before the Revolutionary War, the Colony being divided into parishes, usually, though not always, identical with the counties in which they
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AN ERA OF PEACE; PIONEER SETTLEMENTS.
were situated. In 1738, Frederick county was formed from Augusta, and Frederick Parish-like the county of the same name-embraced all of what is now
RUINS OF OLD TRINITY CHURCH, NORBORNE PARISH. NEAR CHARLESTOWN, JEFFERSON COUNTY.
Jefferson, Berkeley and Hampshire counties in West Virginia. In 1769, Norborne Parish was formed from that of Frederick, within which Morgan Morgan had established the first Church in West Virginia at what is now the little town of Bunker Hill, in Berkeley county. Soon after, other churches were established at Shepherdstown and Charlestown in what is now Jefferson county. Hampshire Parish was formed in 1753, and Hardy Parish taken from it in 1785. Thus it is seen that the established Church of England and Virginia, was organized in West Vir- ginia many years before the war for Independence. But there was toleration, and various denominations had reared churches and gathered congregations in these parishes long before the Revolution.
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18. The Proposed Province of Vandalia. - As early as 1756, Governor Dinwiddie urged upon the English Government the necessity of founding a new province with an independent government in the Ohio Valley. And in the years following, many statesmen, among them Lord Halifax, strongly supported the plan. The efforts of the Mississippi Company as well as those of the Ohio Company had failed, but in 1773, another effort was made. A petition signed by many eminent Virginians, went over-sea praying for the formation of a separate gov- ernment for a province to be known as "VANDALIA," of which George Mercer was to be Governor and the seat of government was to be located at the mouth of the Great Kanawha river. But the renewal of the Indian wars, together with the Revolution, put an end to all these plans. Had it not been so, it is probable that there would have been an independent govern- ment in West Virginia nearly a century before it came.
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CHAPTER VIII.
LORD DUNMORE'S WAR-THE BATTLE OF POINT PLEASANT.
From 1773 to 1775.
1. The Era of Peace Ended .- The treaty which had remained unbroken since 1764, was now to be violated on the part of the English. In 1774, several Indians were killed on the South Branch of the Poto- mac, and Bald Eagle, a chieftain known along the whole frontier, was murdered while descending the river in his canoe. A German family by the name of Stroud had settled on Gauley river, and, in the absence of the husband, the wife and children were murdered by the Indians. At this time a chief known as Captain Bull, together with a few other Indians, resided at what is now known as Bulltown in Braxton county. They were believed by many to be friendly to the whites, but the trail of those who wrought ruin at the Stroud home, led toward Bulltown, and suspicion fell on its inhabitants. Five men followed the trail and it afterward appeared that they murdered every inhabitant at Bulltown and threw their bodies into the Little Kanawha river.
2. Murder of Logan's Family .- On the 16th of April, 1774, a large canoe filled with white men from Pittsburg, was attacked by Indians near Wheel-
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ing, and one of the men in it killed. The people living in the vicinity now assembled at Wheeling Creek and issued a declaration of war. Logan was a distinguished chieftain of the Mingo tribe, which had its home on what is now called Mingo Bottom, near the present site of Steubenville, Ohio. On the 30th of April, 1774, a body of twenty or thirty inen from Wheeling ascended the Ohio to the mouth of Yellow Creek, where, on the West Virginia side, under cir- cumstances of great perfidy, they murdered ten In- dians, among whom was the family of Logan. This exasperated the Indians to such an extent that war was inevitable, and the storm burst with all its fury on the Virginia frontier. Bands of savages scoured the present State of West Virginia, laying waste the settle- inents. Men, women and children fell victims to sav- age fury. Infants' brains were dashed out against trees and bodies were left to decay in the summer sun or to become food for wild beasts and birds of prey. It was a reign of terror along the whole western border.
3. Expedition of Colonel Angus McDonald .- Tidings of war were carried to Williamsburg, then the capital of Virginia, and Governor Dunmore ordered Colonel Angus McDonald to collect the set- tlers on the Upper Potomac river and in the vicinity of Wheeling and to organize a force sufficient to stay the tide of blood until a larger ariny could be col- lected in the Shenandoah Valley and east of the Blue Ridge. Colonel McDonald obeyed the summons and hastened to Wheeling, where he established his head- quarters. Captain Michael Cresap, of Maryland,
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THE BATTLE OF POINT PLEASANT.
entered the Virginia service and with a small force joined McDonald, the ranking officer of the expe- dition. In June, four hundred men began the invasion of the Indian country. The troops descended the Ohio to the mouth of Captina creek, where the march into the wilderness began. Far in the interior of what is now the State of Ohio, the Indian towns were burned and the cornfields laid waste. Then the expedition returned to Wheeling, having three captive chiefs. But the war on the frontier continued.
4. Governor Dunmore Hastens to Collect an Army .- To meet the gen- eral uprising of the united tribes north of the Ohio, Vir- ginia made ready for war and the din of preparation re- sounded along her borders. Lord Dunmore left Williams- burg, and passing over the Blue Ridge, assisted in mustering an army. A force of two thousand three hundred veteran troops 1 LORD DUNMORE. was collected in two divisions called the northern and south- ern wings, to march by different routes, but to be re- united on the banks of the Ohio.
*John Murray, fourth Earl of Dunmore, and the last royal Governor of Virginia, was born in 1732. He was appointed Gov- ernor of New York in January. 1770, and of Virginia in July, 1771, and arrived in the latter Colony in 1772. In the summer of the ensuing year, he visited the frontiers of the Colony and spent some time at Pittsburg. Indian hostilities were renewed in 1774,
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5. The Southern Wing of the Army .- The south- ern division numbering eleven hundred men, under the command of General Andrew Lewis, was divided into two regiments, commanded by Colonel William Fleming, of Botetourt county, and Colonel Charles Lewis, of Augusta county. The troops gathered at Camp Union, afterward Fort Savannah, and now Lewisburg, the seat of justice of Greenbrier county. The last to arrive were two companies, one from Bed- ford and a second from Washington county, the latter under the command of Captain Evan Shelby, after- ward a governor of Kentucky.
6. Westward March of the Southern Division .- On the 6th of September, 1774, Colonel Charles Lewis left camp at the head of six hundred Augusta county troops, who were to proceed to the mouth of Elk river and on the land on which Charleston, the capital of West Virginia, now stands, construct canoes in which to transport the army supplies to the mouth of the Great Kanawha river. Major Thomas Posey, the Commissary-General, and Jacob Warwick, the butcher, had charge of the supplies and had with them four hundred pack-horses, one hundred and eight head of beef cattle and fifty-four thousand pounds of flour ground on mills in the Shenandoah Valley. On the 12th of September, General Lewis left Captain
and that year is famous as that of "Dunmore's War." He was the only royal Governor that ever led a military expedition into the Ohio Valley. Dunmore was loyal to the British cause and was driven from Virginia in 1775 by the Revolutionary patriots. He escaped in a British man-of-war. In 1786 he was appointed Gov- ernor of Bermuda, and died at Ramsgate, England, in May, 1809.
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THE BATTLE OF POINT PLEASANT.
Anthony Bledsoe with the sick at Camp Union, and with the remainder of the army numbering five hun- dred and fifty men, struck the tents and took up the line of march through the wilderness. The advance was overtaken at the mouth of Elk river, now Charles- ton, and here those who had fallen sick were left in care of Captain Slaughter, and the army thus re- united proceeded down the north side of the Great Kanawha to its junction with the Ohio, where it arrived on the 6th of October.
7. The Northern Wing of the Army .- The north- ern wing, commanded by Governor Dunmore in per- son, and numbering twelve hundred men, was col- lected chiefly from the counties of Frederick, Berke- ley, Hampshire and in what is now Jefferson. Three of the companies had served with McDonald and on their return enlisted in Dummore's army. The west- ward march began by way of Potomac Gap, and on reaching the Monongahela river, the force was divided, Colonel William Crawford with five hundred men, proceeding overland with the cattle, while Governor Dunmore with seven hundred men de- scended the river by way of Fort Pitt. Both columns reached Wheeling-then Fort Fincastle-on the 30th of September. The combined forces at once de- scended the Ohio to the mouth of Hockhocking river, where they halted and built Fort Gower, the first structure of its kind reared by Englishinen in Ohio.
8. General Lewis' Army at the Mouth of the Great Kanawha .- The spot on which the army en- camped at the junction of the Great Kanawha and
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Ohio, was the triangular point between the two rivers. The site was one of awe-inspiring grandeur. Here were seen hills, valleys, plains and promontories, all - covered with gigantic forests, the growth of centuries, standing in their native majesty, unsubdued by the hand of man. There were no marks of industry nor of the exercise of those arts which minister to the comfort and convenience of man. Here Nature had for ages held undisputed sway in a land inhabited only by the enemies of civilization. To this spot the Virginians gave the name of Camp Point Pleasant, from which that of the town has been derived. Thus the first week in October, the two wings of the army lay upon the Ohio, but separated by a distance of more than sixty miles.
9. The Battle of Point Pleasant .- When General Lewis reached the mouth of the Great Kanawha, he was very much disappointed at not meeting Governor Dunmore. But messengers arrived with dispatches which gave information of the movements of that official and contained an order for the southern wing of the army to meet the northern wing at the Shawnee towns on the Sciota, far out in the Ohio
wilderness. But Lewis' men were much fatigued with a march of one hundred and sixty miles; pens had to be built for the cattle and the commander replied to the Governor's message, informing him of these facts, but stated that he would join him as soon as all of the food supply and powder should reach Point Pleasant. This was on the Sth of October and on the 9th-Sunday-the Chaplain preached the first
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THE BATTLE OF POINT PLEASANT.
sermon ever delivered at the mouth of the Great Kanawha river.
10 .- The Battle Day .- Early on the morning of the Ioth of October, two soldiers, Robertson and Hickman, went up the Ohio in quest of deer, and, when about three miles from camp, near the mouth of Oldtown creek they discovered a large body of Indians just arising from their encampment. The
Gr. Kanawha
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Crooked
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a*
OHIO RIVER ..
PLAN OF BATTLE OF POINT PLEASANT .*
soldiers were fired upon and Hickman was killed, but Robertson ran into camp and informed General Lewis that he had seen a body of Indians covering four acres of ground. Within an hour after their presence
* In this plan of the Battle of Point Pleasant, a, represents the point at which the battle began and where Colonel Charles Lewis was mortally wounded; 6, the line of battle as it was, at mid-day; c, is the spot on which Cornstalk was afterwards buried, the same being now within the court-house enclosure and about fifty feet from the rear entrance of the court-house; d, the site on which Fort Randolph was erected immediately after the battle.
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had been made known, a general engagement began, the battle-line extending from the bank of the Ohio to that of the Kanawha and distant half a mile from the point.
11. A Bloody Field. - Colonel Charles Lewis, brother of General Lewis, led the advance and fell mortally wounded at the first volley. His troops
BATTLE OF POINT PLEASANT.
wavered under an incessant fire, but Colonel Fleming advanced along the bank of the Ohio, and, although he was severely wounded, he remained at the head of the column and thus checked the Indian advance. The struggle continued with unabated fury until late in the afternoon, when General Lewis, seeing the impracticability of dislodging the Indians by the most vigorous attack, detached three companies with orders to proceed up the Kanawha river about half a mile
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THE BATTLE OF POINT PLEASANT.
and then under cover of the banks of Crooked creek, attack the Indians in the rear. This movement secured for the Virginians a complete victory. The Indians finding themselves thus attacked, gave way and about sun-down commenced a precipitate retreat across the Ohio river toward their towns on the Scioto. The victory was dearly bought. Of the Virginians, seventy-five were killed and one hundred and forty were wounded.
12. The Indian Army .- The loss of the Indians could never be ascertained, nor could the number engaged be known. Their army was composed of warriors from the different nations north of the Ohio and comprised the flower of the Shawnee, Delaware, Mingo, Wyandotte and Cayuga tribes, led on by their respective chiefs at the head of whom was Cornstalk, king of the Northern Confederacy. Never, perhaps, did men exhibit a more conclusive evidence of bravery in making a charge and fortitude in with- standing one, than did these undisciplined soldiers of the forest on the field at Point Pleasant. The voice of Cornstalk could be heard above the din and roar of the battle.
13. The Virginia Army North of the Ohio .- Col- onel Fleming was left in command at Camp Point Pleasant on the site of which he reared the walls of Fort Randolph, and the place was never afterward deserted. General Lewis, with a force of one thousand men, each with ten days' supply of flour, crossed the Ohio, and on the evening of the 17th of October encamped on the opposite side. On the following
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morning, under the guidance of Captain Arbuckle, they began the march toward the Indian towns on the Sciota. Meanwhile Governor Dunmore advanced toward the same point, and when the southern wing had marched eighty miles through an unbroken forest, Governor Dunmore informed the commander that a treaty had been concluded with the Indians. General Lewis marched his army back to Point Pleasant, where it arrived October 28th. Leaving Captain Rus- sell with a garrison of fifty men at this place, it con- tinued its march to Fort Savannah, where it was dis- banded in November. The northern division of the army returned by way of Wheeling. Thus ended Dunmore's war.
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