USA > West Virginia > Braxton County > History of Braxton County and central West Virginia > Part 7
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NUTTER'S FORT.
This was located on the southern bank of Elk creek, two miles from Clarks- burg on the Buckhannon road on the land of Thomas Nutter. It bore a promi- . nent part in the defense of the county, and was a house of refuge for settlers fleeing from a savage foe for many miles around.
POWER'S FORT.
Was on Simpson's ereek, Harrison county, below Bridgeport and was built by John Powers.
RICHARD'S FORT.
This was near the mouth of Syeamore ereek, six miles from Clarksburg on the land of Jaeob Richards.
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WESTFALL'S FORT.
This was a large house enclosed in a stockade, and was built by Jacob Westfall about a quarter of a mile south of Beverly, about the commencement of Dunmore's war.
WEST'S FORT.
This fort was on Hacker's creek near the present town of Jane Lew in Lewis county, and was in a locality that suffered more from Indian raids than any portion of the Virginia frontier.
WILSON'S FORT.
Was built by Colonel Benjamin Wilson in Tygart's Valley, now Randolph county, near the mouth of Chenowith creek, between Beverly and Elkins, and bore a prominent part in the Indian wars.
In addition to the forts mentioned on the east bank of the Ohio river in Harrison county, the United States government built Fort Harmer at the mouth of the Muskingum, now Marietta, in 1786, and a fort built by the settlers at Belpre, opposite Parkersburg, in 1789, called Farmer's Castle, gave additional security to the frontier.
MOUND BUILDERS AND GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS.
The question has been asked in every age of our civilization, "Who were the Mound Builders?" And while volumes have been written and many theories advanced, and after research by men of science and learning, no satisfactory answer has been given, and we know as little now, perhaps, as we did when the first Anglo-Saxon discovered their little mound of earth, save the fact that they were far more numerous in sections where the Indians were known to have their habitations. It may have been that many centuries in the past, a nation civil- ized and learned in many of the arts inhabited this continent. Whether they were the progenitors of the Red Men of America and degenerated into bar- barism, or whether they were driven out of the land by a fierce and more war- like nation, is unknown.
Geologists tell us that great portions of the earth have at different periods becn submerged beneath the waves of the ocean, only to rise up again and be- come exposed to the air, warmth and sunlight of heaven. History informs us that civilization has often been dashed beneath the waves of cruel barbarity, superstition and savagery. In Mexico, the land of the Mound Builder, excava- tions have disclosed the fact that these mounds were not only sepulchres of the dead, but receptacles for many articles indicating a knowledge of the arts. Judging by the amalgamated savagery of the present inhabitants of that coun- try, it is a question whether they possess the moral fibre of civil government and social purity of the ancient Mound Builders.
Some of the mounds are large and pretentious. These might indicate the resting places of great governors or warriors. They may have had their
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Washingtons and Lineolns. They may have built in commemoration of great events; and the little mounds of earth, over which we plow and eultivate the soil, covering those less distinguished, we see the analogy.
How striking it is compared with our own and other eivilized nations. We build monuments, statues and obelisks, on down to the less pretentious humble slab. And alas! how many noble men and women rest beneath the sod in a spot forgotten and unknown.
Whether the Mound Builder was a raee preceding the Indian, of greater intelligence and more skilled in the arts, we know not; but true it is, if the sav- age followed the Mound Builder, he adopted many of his eustoms, for in all the mounds of West Virginia there are found evidences of Indian war-fare- the tomahawk, the flint, the arrowhead and other implements known to have been used by the savage race. -
It is not unreasonable to eonjeeture that if Powhattan-the onee most pow- erful monarch of the Red Man, governing a eonfederaey of tribes extending from the Atlantic for hundreds of miles, eovering the tidewater regions of the Alleghenies, living in two rude palaees decorated with all the art and refinement known to his nation, and within his palaec when he slept, one of his wives standing at the head and one at the foot of his richly furnished eoueh-had died before the advent of the white man that at his tomb would have been erected, within the sound of the breakers of the mighty oeean, a fitting monu- ment, whether of pebbles or of earth, to honor the memory of the great chieftain. When we consider the character of Teeumseh, a great leader of men, a mighty warrior, a man gifted in oratory,-if he and his nation had been undisturbed by a vastly superior raee in numbers, and eivilization, and had been gathered to his fathers in the quietude of his wigwam-who ean say how magnificently grand would have been the monument ereeted to his memory ? But whoever were the Mound Builders, if they were not the Indians, it is evident that they used and buried with their dead, implements such as were later used by the Indians of North America.
The greatest number of mounds have been found in Randolph county on the Tygart's Valley river, a region noted as a favorite hunting ground, and on the South Branch of the Potomae where the Indians dwelt in great numbers. The streams of this region abounded with fish and eels in countless millions. The West Fork and its tributaries were famous for fish and game. Near the city of Clarksburg, many Indian trinkets and war implements have been dis- covered. One of these articles, now in the hands of a eitizen of that town, is a fish hook made of bone. It is very hard and smooth, and thought to be made from the shank of a deer. But in every section of the country where eondi- tions were favorable for hunting wild game, collecting together in towns or cultivating the rich bottom lands, there are found the mounds and the greatest evidenee left by the Red Men of the forest, showing their habits of savagery, civilization and warfare.
In Braxton County, on Laurel fork of Grannie's ereek, there is a mound situated on a beautiful flat about two hundred yards west of the ereek. The
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mound is about forty-five feet in diameter at the base, and from eight to ten feet high. Originally, it must have been much higher. It has been there over four hundred years from its own record, and how many hundred years more, we have no knowledge. Over fifty years ago, Henry A. Baxter, who cleared the land around the mound, built a dwelling house and lived there for several years, cut a large chestnut tree which stood on top of the mound. This tree was per- fectly sound, and showed by its growth that it was over three hundred and fifty years old. Mr. Baxter worked it up into fence rails, the first cut of which made one hundred and four rails. Mr. Baxter said that its circumference was so great that he had to chop clear around the tree in order to get it down, it being too large to be felled with an ordinary saw. He brought a cedar sprout from Parkersburg during the Civil war, and planted it where the chestnut tree stood. This cedar is now a tree of considerable size.
There is a mound on Duck creek, at the Mollohan farm, which is sixty feet or more in diameter at the base. It seems to have worn down in height, owing perhaps to the quality of the soil, or it may not have been built in proportion to the mound found on Laurel fork.
There is a mound on the farm of the late Felix Sutton at the head of Grannie's creek. This mound is situated on a flat, north of the creek about one hundred and fifty yards. It is twenty-five feet in diameter, and two and a half feet high. In exploring the mound, we found a little stratum of white clay one inch thick which had been placed at the surface of the ground. Immediately below this stratum there was a little dark earth or mold, evidently the decom- posed substance of some human body. We found nothing in this excavation in addition to that described, except a piece of broken flint and a lump of shining metal or substance called "fool's gold." There is a whitewash bank, as we used to term it, where the family of my father and his neighbors obtained clay with which to whitewash their houses. The clay found in this burial place was evidently taken from this bank which is near the mound. We have often plowed over this spot of ground in working the field surrounding it, and have discov- ered many flints and arrowheads.
There is a large mound situated on the waters of Kanawha run, not far from the mouth of Holly river, similar in size to the mound on Laurel fork. There have been many flints and arrowheads found in the location of this mound.
It is evident from the vast number of mounds scattered over the State, and usually located on the most fertile lands or flats suitable for cultivation and for camps or villages, that many years, or perhaps many centuries, before West Virginia was settled by white people, great numbers of Indians inhabited this region. They were known to cultivate corn, squashes and other vegetables in Ohio and other western states, and it is not improbable, and most reasonable to suppose, that the Indians did not live on wild game alone, but cultivated some of the richest spots of land. From the growth of the timber near these mounds, it is evident that they were built centuries ago. Near the mound on the Sutton farm, was a giant poplar tree which stood for many years after all the timber
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around it had fallen and deeayed. The fact that the pioneers found only a few Indians in West Virginia, is no evidence that at the time the mounds were built, there were not numerous settlements and vast numbers of Red Men, or some prehistorie raee, reveling in the luxuries that West Virginia has ever so boun- tifully bestowed on her inhabitants.
The great range of mountains, the abundant herds of game, buffalo, elk, deer, the bear, raccoon and other smaller game; the salt springs, the sparkling- falls, the boundless number of fish and the shelter of the ivy and the spruee, rendered this a land not to be abandoned even by the untutored savage or the nations preceding them without a cause, and that cause was doubtless a battle- field that reddened the streams and forests of West Virginia with human blood, eenturies before the presence of the white man.
It is not presumed that all Indians were buried in mounds, no more than that all white citizens were buried beneath imposing monuments. What the general mode of burial by the Indians was, we are not fully informed. It is stated somewhere that some tribes placed their infants above the ground on scaffolds built in trees. While in battle or on raids, they disposed of their dead by throwing them in streams or concealing the bodies with brush and leaves. The bodies of those who died in their wigwams were either covered with piles of stone or buried in shallow graves. Some of the older Indians now inhabiting a number of the western states, say that the carly tribes buried their dead by covering the bodies with loose stone. This has often been found to be the ease in West Virginia as many skeletons have been discovered beneath piles of stone. This is more particularly true in a rocky country ; and where the land is free from stone and easy to exeavate, they buried in graves. It may be true that the wild and untutored tribes had no well-established method of disposing of their dead, but were governed by eireumstances most suited to their indolent habits.
OLD CHIMNEY AND MOUND BUILDERS.
Near the Union Mills on the Elk river, when Jordan Cogar was having a well dug, the workmen found a fire-place with a backwall, at a depth of cighteen feet. The land where the well was dug is at the upper end of a narrow bottom. This land had been eleared for over a hundred years, and had been covered by large timber. One of the persons making the discovery, related that on the baekwall there was soot which seemed as fresh as if it had been but recently burned. Many ages must have come and gone since some unknown raee dwelt around that fire-place on the banks of the Elk.
Just below Baker's run, there is a spur of a mountain running down from Poplar Ridge to the Elk river. Near the river, the hill is something like three hundred feet high, and back a half mile from its terminus, there is a very low gap where the Baltimore & Ohio railroad crosses. There are marks in this low gap which show conelusively that the Elk river at one time ran through the gap at this point. Going up the ridge, it rises to a considerable height, and a
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short distance above the first low gap where the railroad crosses, there is another gap which has every appearance that the river at a much earlier period passed through the mountain at that point.
There is a similar appearance to this on the Little Kanawha river just above the falls. The river at one time ran around a high point and came into the present channel of Fall run, about a half mile above its present mouth. The marks are visible and indisputable that the river at some unknown age cut its way through the earth and rocks, and plunged across, making the waterfall which some day may be of great value for its power. In the great floods of 1861 and later, floods ran around the old channel. This break through the hill made the famous Kanawha Falls, where the Haymond mill has so long been located.
We conclude that the fire-place referred to was at the surface, but as the river receded from near its level the land filled up by the slow growth of vege- table matter, and may have been covered at some time by great floods; about that time the river cut its present channel through the mountain and shortened its distance to the sea, for the natural tendency of water courses is to straighten their channels. This, we believe, to be a law in harmony with the law of gray- itation. None who have ever seen the turbulent water where the elevation is great, or from heavy rains, but have observed the movements of the sand and pebbles cutting down the channels of streams, however slow and secmingly im- perceptible the process may be.
The two causes which affect the surface of the earth are the elevating and the depressing forces-fire and water-two all-powerful and [never-ceasing agencies which seem to be in continual warfare to keep an equilibrium between the land and the sea. The whole science of geology rests on certain natural laws. If we could look back to the time when the rivers first began to flow from the Appalachian mountains, we would probably see the Elk river gently flowing down from a plateau just beginning to rise above the surrounding country, and as the mountains grew in height, its elevation became greater and the process of cutting down was increased by its greater velocity. How many thousands of years have gone by since this grand old river flowed through the low gap where it once ran, gcologists can only approximately give an answer. If the process of filling up is as slow as the process of cutting down, the ages must be great since some prehistorie family lived at the fire-place referred to which was buried beneath the solid carth and clay so far beneath the surface.
Lying near the base of the Freeport coal measures, there is what is termed a black flint, a very hard substance, and this rock is harder for the river to cut down than ordinary rocks. This flint outerops at Queen Shoals in Clay county, and at some points south of that on the New river, but the New river has cut a decper channel through this formation than has the Elk. In speaking to a geologist about this flint formation, he claims that the New river is a much older stream than the Elk. Reasonable as this appears, we conclude that there may be additional agencies, the New river being much the larger of the two streams, with a heavier body of water and perhaps a coarser sand, thus cutting faster
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than the Elk. If in the course of time, the Appalachian mountains should rise to a greater height, it is not improbable that many streams might change their courses or that new ones might be formed.
Near MeNutt switch on the B. and O. railroad, there is an anticlinical for- mation. The rock which the stream is trying to wear down, is so very hard that the flat lands and bottoms have been formed above this narrow passage, and in time, if the present process of wearing away continues, this rock may lie at the base of the low gap in the Bison range, and Grannie's ereck may flow either into Salt Lick or Cedar creek, as these low gaps are wearing down much faster than the rocks below. Hence we conclude that there have been many changes in the streams and the elevation underlying them.
If an anticlinical formation would cross Salt Lick and Cedar creeks, thence crossing Steer creek, continuing to cut off the headwaters of the West fork and minor streams, and terminate somewhere at the Ohio river north of Point Pleasant, Granny's creek, Salt Lick and Cedar creek would form the headwaters of a new river which would flow into the Ohio somewhere above Point Pleasant ; or we might imagine an anticlinical formation southeast of the head of the Elk, cutting off parts of the waters of the Greenbrier, the Gauley and the head- waters of Birch, crossing the Elk between Sutton and Clay Courthouse, con- tinuing west, dividing the waters of the Two Sandys, Poca and the minor streams, and terminating at the Great Kanawha above Point Pleasant, forming a new river. Thus we can see how it is possible for one river to be older than another though the elevations guiding them to their outlet might be a million or ten million years in forming. Considering these natural changes, great changes may also have taken place in the different prehistoric nations which may have dwelt amid the mountains and along the stream of our rivers.
Whether a nation more warlike drove out a weaker nation of a different peo- ple, or whether the same people continued in the long lapse of years to inhabit the land, alternately lapsing into barbarism, then rising to a greater degree of civilization, the evidenee disclosed by the different mounds scattered throughout the Mississippi Valley tends to the latter conclusion. However, the final and conclusive proof must be revealed by discoveries yet to be made.
Various views are entertained as to the birthplace of man. Some writers claim that America was first his home; others, that it was the Jewish tribe that once possessed our land. Some think that wild tribes from India drove out the more pastoral people who were acquainted with many of the arts.
The works of Chambers, Hardesty, Taylor, Squier, McLean, Dickinson and others which we have examined, are all forced to incline to one conclusion- that a prehistoric race occupied this country in the ages of the unknown past, and the disclosures tend to link the Indian very closely with a prehistoric, an- cestry, with customs and habits identical.
Chambers, in his work published sixty-eight years ago, observed that the Red Man in America was becoming extinct. This prediction is being rapidly fulfilled.
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CLIFF DWELLERS.
If the Mohawks, in their fierce savagery, exterminated the various Indian tribes of West Virginia, is it not also probable that age after age witnessed con- test after contest, war and extermination amongst the nations that dwelt in America? The Mound Builders of West Virginia, whether they were Indians centuries prior to the knowledge of the present age, or whether they were a people further advanced in the arts and possessed a higher degree of civilization and pastoral pursuits, which may seem probable, though the ages have rolled on, covering more deeply and obscurely the mysteries of the past, may there not, after all, be an analogy between the obscurity of the Mound Builders and the Cliff Dwellers ?
There may be some reason for the belief that these people, driven from the Mississippi Valley, by more warlike people found temporary shelter, at least, in the great canons, gorges and cliffs cut out by the river of that wonderful coun- try where they dwelt. The advent of the Cliff Dwellers to their lofty abode in the cliffs, their departure or their nationality is as much a mystery as the nativ- ity or the advent of the savage. What may seem to be retributive justice, is that the savage is now being driven and cxterminated near the beautiful gorges and valleys where the Cliff Dwellers built their temples to the sun, before their final extermination.
When we speak of a period in the past that is prehistoric and obscure, we associate the time with the biblical chronology of a few thousand years ; but when we consider that the word "day" with reference to the creation means an age or a period of time divided into six parts, there can be no discord in relation to science and the Bible. The truth of the Bible as revealed to man has in all the ages of enlightenment been proven by science and discovery. He who would close his eyes to science would be less able to defend the truths of the Bible.
In the limited space which we have to devote to this topic, we quote briefly from the pen of such authorities as Dr. Lund, Prof. McLean and others, whose investigations have led them back to the darker ages of the world from dis- coveries of human skulls and other parts of the human anatomy, fixing a period as far back as eighty thousand years, and no author gives man's existance in America as less than ten thousand years, or eight thousand years before the birth of Christ.
Geologists go down into the bosom of the earth, and read there the language so plainly written upon the fossils and the rocks with the same accuracy that we estimate the ages of the forest trees by their growth, or the nationality of men by the shape of their skulls.
EARLY SETTLEMENTS AND INDIAN TROUBLES.
Nearly thirty years elapsed after settlements were planted on the upper waters of the Potomac before the tide of emigration gained sufficient force to cross the Alleghenies and take possession of the valleys of the west. The country
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beyond the mountains, when spoken of by the Virginians, was called "the waters of the Mississippi," because the streams having their sources on the western slope flowed into the Mississippi River, while those rising eastward of the summit found their way into the Atlantic Ocean. It was usual, from about 1760 to 1780 for the Virginia records to distinguish between the eastern and western country by calling the former "Hampshire County," and the latter "the waters of the Mississippi," because Hampshire included the most important settlements between the Valley of Virginia and the summit of the Alleghenies, and did not include any country on the western slope, except about eighty square miles in the present county of Tucker. Hunters and explorers crossed the mountains occasionally from very early times, and the country westward gradually be- came known. The purpose of this chapter is to mention the routes by which the early settlers and explorers found their way over the Alleghenies to the upper valleys of the Cheat River and the Monongahela, particularly that section now included in Randolph and Tucker counties. The subject has been much neglected by writers who have pretended to cover the field, they having given their attention to the great highway to the west, from Cumberland to Pittsburg, and losing sight of the fact that there were other paths, which were of no small importance although now almost forgotten. Before proceeding to a considera- tion of some of them, a brief history will be given of the highway from Cumber- land west, by which settlers of the lower Monongahela found their way across the mountains.
About the year 1750 the Ohio Company, a wealthy corporation engaged in trading with Indians, and also dealing in lands west of Laurel Hill, employed Colonel Thomas Cresap, who lived fifteen miles east of Cumberland, to survey a path by which traders could carry their goods to the Ohio River. The com- pany had a store and a fort at Cumberland, then called Will's Creek. Colonel Cresap offered a reward to the Indian who would mark the best route for a path from Cumberland to the site of Pittsburg. An Indian named Nemacolin received the reward, and a path was marked. Part of the way it followed a buffalo trail by which those animals had crossed the mountains for ages. Traders with their packhorses traveled the path from that time, if indeed, they had not been traveling it, or one similar to it, for years. Traders by the hun- dred, and packhorses by the thousand, had made their way to the Ohio before that time. In 1748 three hundred English traders crossed the Alleghenies, some by way of the Kanawha, others by Cumberland, and others by still other routes. In 1749 the French explorer, Celeron, met a company of six traders in Ohio, with fifty horses loaded with furs, bound for Philadelphia. The Nemacolin trail was widened into a wagon road as far as the Monongahela in 1754, by George Washington. This was the first wagon road made from the Atlantic slope over the mountains to the Mississippi basin. The next year, 1755, Brad. dock, with his army, widened the road and completed it within nine miles of Pittsburg. He was defeated and the road remained unfinished. The National Road now follows nearly the route of that road. Braddock took 1500 horses
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