USA > West Virginia > Braxton County > History of Braxton County and central West Virginia > Part 8
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over the route, and more than one hundred wagons, besides several heavy can- non. Although the road was a good one, yet for twenty-five years not a wagon loaded with merchandise passed over it. Traders still packed on horses. In 1784 the people on the Monongahela, in Pennsylvania, paid five cents a pound to have their merchandise carried from Philadelphia, and in 1789 they paid four cents for carrying from Carlisle to Uniontown. Packing was a trade. There were those who followed it for a living. Wages paid the packhorse driver were fifteen dollars per month, and men were scarce at that price. In 1789 the first wagon loaded with merchandise reached the Monongahela River, passing over the Braddock road. It was driven by John Hayden, and hauled two thousand pounds from Hagerstown to Brownsville, and was drawn by four horses. One month was consumed in making the trip, and the freight bill was sixty dollars. This was cheaper than packing on horses.
Prior to the time the first wagonload of merchandise reached the western waters, a movement had been set on foot for opening a canal along the bank of the Potomac from Alexandra, in Virginia, to a point on the North Branch of the Potomac near where the Northwestern pike crosses that stream at Gor- mania, in Grant County, West Virginia. Thence a road was to be made across the mountain, thirty or more miles, to Cheat River, and a canal constructed down that stream to a point where it could be navigated, or, if more practi- cable, the road was to be made from the North Branch to the nearest navigable point on the Monongahela. The prime mover in this scheme was George Wash- ington. He had thought over it for years, and in 1775 he was about to take steps to organize a company to build the canal when the Revolutionary War began, and he could do nothing further till the war closed. As soon as peace was established he took up again the canal scheme. He believed that easy and adequate communication should be opened between the Atlantic Coast and the great valleys west of the Alleghanics; because, if those valleys remained cut off from the East by the mountain barriers, the settlers who were flocking there by thousands, would seek an outlet for trade down the Ohio and Mississ- ippi. and their commercial interests would lead to political ties which would bind them to the Spanish colonies in the Mississippi Valley, and gradually they would become indifferent to the Atlantic Coast States. Washington believed that the people west of the mountains should be bound to the East by commerce and community of interest, or they would set up an independent republic, and enter into an alliance or union with the Spanish. He therefore urged that two canals be built, one by way of the Potomac and the Monongahela; the other by way of the James and the Kanawha. In 1784, the year after pcace was signed with England, he crossed the Alleghanies, and visited the Monongahela, on a tour of observation, as well as to look after large tracts of land which he owned in the West. On his return he ascended Cheat River and crossed the mountains to Staunton. The wisdom of America's greatest man is shown no more in his success in war and his foresight in politics than in his wonderful grasp and understanding of the laws governing trade, and the effects of geography on the future history of a country.
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SETTLEMENTS AND MASSACRES.
The nearest neighbors of the emigrants who lived on the South Branch, on the one side, at the mouth of the Youghiogheny, in Pennsylvania, on the other, while southward there were two white men living in the present territory of Pocahontas county, and a settlement still further south in Greenbrier county. It is stated by Withers, the earliest historian, that an Indian village was near the settlement. This was doubtless a mistake. No Indian town is known to have been in that part of West Virginia at the time under consideration. Bull- town, on the Little Kanawha, in the present county of Braxton, about fifty miles from this settlement, was probably meant. It was near enough to be considered dangerously near; but, fortunately, the village was not there at that time. It was not founded until about twelve years afterwards, when a Delaware chief, Bull, with five families came there and settled. They were from Orange county, New York, and were living in New York as late as 1764, at which time Bull was arrested, charged with taking part in Pontiac's conspiracy, was carried to New York City and subsequently was released, and he moved with his fam- ilies to Bulltown, and remained about five years. The settlers from Hacker's Creek, in Lewis county, destroyed the town in 1772. It is further stated by Withers that an Indian trail passed near the settlement. This was, no doubt the path up the Little Kanawha and down the North Fork of the Potomac, or that branch called the Shawnee Trail, which led into Pendleton county.
MAD ANN.
A remarkable female character penetrated the forests of West Virginia, and aided the natives in their warfare with the Indians. This eccentric person lived in this section of the country towards the latter part of the 17th century. Her name was Ann Bailey. She was born in Liverpool, and had been the wife of an English soldier. She generally went by the cognomen of Mad Ann. Dur- ing the wars with the Indians, she very often acted as a messenger, and con- veyed letters from the fort, at Covington, to Point Pleasant. On these occasions she was mounted on a favorite horse of great sagacity, and rode like a man, with a rifle over her shoulder, and a tomahawk and a butcher's knife in her belt. At night she slept in the woods. Her custom was to let her horse go free, and then walk some distance back on his trail, to escape being discovered by the Indians. After the Indian wars she spent some time in hunting. She pursued and shot deer and bears with the skill of a backwoodsman. She was a short, stout woman, very masculine and coarse in her appearance, and seldom or never wore a gown, but usually had on a petticoat, with a man's coat over it, and buckskin breeches. The services she rendered in the wars with the Indians, endeared her to the people. Mad Ann, and her black pony Liverpool, were always welcome at every house. Often, she gathered the honest, simple-hearted mountaineers around, and related her adventures and trials, while the sym- pathetic tear would course down their cheeks. She was profane, often became
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intoxicated, and could box with the skill of one of the fancy. Mad Ann possessed considerable intelligence, and could read and write. She died in Ohio many years since.
INDIANS.
It has been generally supposed that western Virginia was a savage empire when the white man first entered its wilderness and penetrated its forests, but early historians tell us that it was a wilderness in solitude. It is said that be- tween the years 1656 and 1672, there was a war of extermination waged by the Mohawks, a fierce, warlike race, whose home was in western New York. They had obtained firearms from the white settlers by the use of which they became a nation of conquerors. Having driven out and exterminated a race supposed to have been the Hurons, they abandoned the territory which they had con- quered. and on the approach of the white race into western Virginia, they met only roving bands of warriors and hunters from the different tribes whose towns were principally in Ohio.
Picturesque and lonely must have been the solitude where the buffalo, the deer and the elk browsed amid the abundance of the rich valleys and the winter fern of the lofty peaks, whilst the savage and vulturous panther, wolf and cata- mount, feroeious and predatory in their nature, made the forest hideous with their midnight shrieks. All these things, we presume, had a fascination which nothing else could give to the frontiersman whose native cunning and trusty rifle gave inspiration to their onward conquests. The cruelty of the savage, and the intense suffering of the people who were unfortunate enough to fall within their power, is too revolting to be minutely related.
The Virginia frontiersmen in 1774 were dwelling upon the borderland of a savage empire, the boundary of which they had been forcing back for many years. By the treaty of Albany in 1720, the Blue Ridge was agreed upon as the boundary line between the possessions of White and Red men. In 1744, by that of Lancaster, this was made an imaginary line extending from the Po- tomac through the sites of the present cities of Martinsburg, Winchester and Staunton, in the Shenandoah Valley. At the treaty of Fort Stanwix-now Rome, New York, between the English representative, Sir William Johnson and the Six Nations-Cayugas, Onondagas, Onedias, Senecas, Mohawks and Tuscaroras-the Ohio was made the bondary, the title to all the region east of that river being transferred to the King of England.
From it, the tribes that onee dwelt therein had previously removed. The Kanawhas had gone from the upper tributaries of the river which bears their name, to join their kinsmen, the Iroquois in New York; the Shawnees had abandoned the Indian Old Fields of the valley of the South of the Potomac; the Cherokees who claimed all the region between the Great Kanawha and the Big Sandy rivers, had never occupied it. The Indian Nations who were to be history makers in their wars with the Virginians, were dwellers in the Ohio
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Wilderness. These were as follows: Miamis, Ottawas, Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots and Mingoes.
The Miamis were a powerful nation whose habitat was in the region drained by the great Miami and Maumee rivers. Their ancient name was "Twightwee," and they claimed to be the original proprietors of the lands they occupied- that they had always had them. They were the only Indians that ever waged successful war with the Six Nations. This ended in 1702 by a council between the two belligerant powers. (Journal of Capt. William Trent.)
They were a warlike people, and were much of the time in broils with their neighbors. In 1763, they removed from Piqua, their chief town, the site of which is now in Miami county, Ohio, to the Miami of the Lakes.
The Shawnees were the most remarkable of all the people inhabiting the region cast of the Mississippi. Thirty-one of them were present at the treaty with William Penn at Shackamaxon in 1682. Soon thereafter, they fell under the rule of the Six Nations, and henceforth, for more than half a century they existed in branches in various regions. Some of them occupied the Lower Shenandoah Valley where they had a town at "Shawnee Springs" now Win- chester, Virginia; at one time the hunting grounds of the principal part of them were in Kentucky; thence they removed to the valleys of the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers, but were forced by the Cherokees to abandon this region ; and four hundred of them, in 1678, found a home on the Mobile river, in New Spain ; where, in 1745, they had four hundred and fifty warriors. Four hundred more leaving the Mississippi Valley, settled on the Congaree river in South Carolina. Seventy families later, removed from here to the valley of the Sus- quehanna in Pennsylvania; others followed, and in 1732 there were seven hun- dred and fifty Shawnee warriors on that river. But now there was to be a gath- ering of all the Shawnee people. Their future home was to be on the Scioto, where, on the Pickaway Plains, the "Wilderness Garden" of the valley of that river, their principal towns were located. Here prior to 1760, the nation was completely reunited. It was composed of four tribes or branches-the Piqua, men born in ashes; the Kiskapoke, men of war; the Mequaeheke, the fat men ; and the Chilicothe, dwellers in a permanent home. They could put into the field a thousand warriors. Because of their past wanderings, they have been called the "Bedouins of the American Wilderness;" and bceause of their braverv and heroism in defending their wilderness home against the advance of white invaders, they won the proud title of "Spartans of their Raee." ("Hist. of the Shawnce Indians" by Henry Harvey.)
"Of all the Indains, the Shawnees were the most bloody and terrible, (they) holding all other men, Indians as well as Whites in contempt as warriors in comparison with themselves. This opinion made them more restless and fierce than any other savages; and they boasted that they had killed ten times as many white people as had any other nation. They were a well formed, active and ingenious people,-were assuming and imperious in the presence of others
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not of their own nation, and were sometimes very cruel." ("Memoirs of the Indian Wars and Other Occurrences" by Capt. John Stuart.)
The Delaware Nation consisted of five tribal organizations. They, like the Shawnees, were one of the parties to the treaty with William Penn in 1682. They onee occupied New Jersey and both sides of the Delaware river front which they derived their English name. From here they were driven by the Six Nations, and took refuge in the valley of the Susquehanna, then in that of the Monongahela, and finally, abont 1760, in the Ohio Wilderness, where they established themselves in the valley of the Muskingum and Tuscarawas rivers and their tributaries. Here, in 1770, they had their densest population, though: they were really in possession of the eastern half of the present state of Ohio. They had now reached their highest degree of greatness, and could put in the field six hundred and fifty warriors. In history, tradition and fiction, the Delawares have been accorded a high rank among the Indians of North Amer- ica. ("History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations" by John Heckewelder.)
The Wyandot Nation had its chief towns in the valley of the Sandusky river, in what is now Wyandot county; but they were spread out over the whole region from Lake Erie to the Ohio river, with' villages along the Hoek- ing and other adjacent streams. By the French they were called Hurous, and sometimes Guyandots. They were of the Iroquois linguistic stock. It was a common saying along the border that a "Wyandot will not be taken alive." ("Indian Nations" by Heckewelder.)
The tribe of Mingoes of the Ohio Wilderness, was a small organization of the Senecas, one of the Six Nations of New York. When first known to the Whites, they oceupied the Mingo Bottom and all the region round about the present city of Steubenville in eastern Ohio; but later gave place to the Dela- wares, and removed to the upper waters of the Scioto, where they built their towns on the lands on which Columbus, the capital city of Ohio now stands. (Ohio Archaeological and Historieal Society Publications.)
These Nations of the Ohio Wilderness denied the right of the Six Nations of New York, to convey to the English a title to the hunting grounds south of the Ohio; and they prepared to defend them against their White invaders. They had commingled to some extent from the beginning of their sojourn in Ohio; and this increased as their animosities toward each other were sup- planted by a common fear of the enemy of their raee. They gradually grew stronger in sympathy, and more compact in union as the settlements encroached upon their forest domain. ("History of the Lower Scioto Valley.")
Colonel James Smith, a native of Pennsylvania, was captured by Indians, in 1755, when he was eighteen years old, and detained amongst them five years ; but being adopted into the tribe, was treated with great kindness. He became a prominent citizen of Bourbon county, Kentucky, and in 1899 published an account of his life and travels. He says: "I am of the opinion that from Brad- dock's war until the present time, there never were more than three thousand Indians at any time in arms against us, west of Fort Pitt, and frequently not
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half that number. According to the Indians' own aeeounts, during the whole of Braddoek's war, or from 1755 till 1758, they killed or took fifty of our peo- ple for one that they lost." Afterwards, the frontiersmen, especially the Vir- ginians, learned something of the Indian mode of warfare, and fewer whites and more Indians were killed; yet, even then, the savages elaimed, and Smith believed with good reason, that they killed or took ten of our people for one that they lost. Colonel Smith thinks the Indians displayed admirable skill in warfare.
Kercheval states that the Catawba and Delaware Indians were said to have been engaged in war at the time the Valley was first entered by white people, and that the feud was continued for many years afterwards. Several bloody ยท battles were fought between these tribes on or near the Potomae. One of these occurred at the mouth of Antietam ereek, in 1736, it is believed. "The Dela- wares," says Kereheval, "had penetrated far to the south, committed some acts of outrage on the Catawbas, and on their retreat were overtaken at the mouth of this creek, when a desperate confliet ensued. Every man of the Delaware party was put to death, with the exception of one who eseaped after the battle was over, and every Catawba held up a sealp but one. This was a disgrace not to be borne; and he instantly gave ehase to the fugitive, overtook him at the Susquehanna river, (a distanee little short of one hundred miles), killed and scalped him, and returning showed his sealp to several white people, and ex- ulted in what he had done." Other battles between these tribes oceurred at Painted Roek, on the South Braneh; at Hanging Roek, in Hampshire; and near the site of Franklin, Pendleton county. According to Kereheval, a few Shaw- nee continued to live in the lower valley till 1754, when they removed west of the Alleghany mountain.
According to tradition, a battle between Indians oeeurred on the Cowpas- ture river, near Millborough, Bath county, where there is a small mound sup- posed to cover the remains of the slain. In the spring of 1886 the floods washed away a portion of the mound, and exposed to view five large skeletons in a good state of preservation. Tradition also says that an Indian maiden, from a neigh- boring eminenee, watehed the battle in which her lover was engaged. (Waddell.)
The Indians east of the Mississippi were not in the habit of violating the persons of their female eaptives; it was otherwise with the Western Indians.
Logan was the chief of the Mingos, a part of the Seneeas.
John Haeker located on Hacker's ereek in 1773, from whom the stream took its name.
Tecumseh was killed in 1813, in the battle of the Thames.
Logan and Teeumseh were said to have been born on the West fork waters, and it was also the birth place of Stonewall Jackson, all being eminent warriors.
INDIANS ON SKIDMORE RUN.
About the close of the nineteenth century, Mrs. Eliza Ann Davis, who moved to Skidmore run, eamped a few days under a ledge of roeks about a half mile
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above the mouth of the run, while she repaired a house, which stood near by. Some time after that, her boys wanted some stone to fortify the bank of the run, and in getting some flag stone which had evidently fallen from the over- hanging ledge, they unearthed five human skeletons which were covered about two feet deep with this shelly stone. Three of the skeletons were lying side by side with their heads pointing down stream. Two were lying a little below them with their heads up stream. One of these was a large skeleton and the other a small one, evidently a small woman or girl. The skulls, jawbones and tecth, also some of the other bones were in a fair state of preservation. Evi- dently no white person has been missing or unaccounted for since the first set- tlement of the country which dates back to about 1793.
William Davis, who is a corrcet and reliable young man, and one of the persons making the discovery, gave us a very minute description of the cir- cumstanee. He said there were some flints, a broken piece of stone or earthen pottery, and two tusks, supposed to be beaver teeth, buried with the skeletons. John Humphreys, who assisted in unearthing the skeletons, sent the tusks which were about two inches in length and of a reddish east, to Washington to have them examined, but received no report. Mr. Humphreys, who was a man of unquestioned truthfulness, says that he found among the bones some human hair, in appearance a dark auburn color. The natural conclusion would be that they were Indians eamping under the rock, and that within the night while they were asleep-and the position in which their skeletons were found would indicate that they had retired-a portion of the overhanging rock be- came detached and fell on them. The rock indicates a slate or flag-like forma- tion. There are two other questions to be considered : Would human hair last a hundred years when buried ? And would it change its cast? If not, it was not the hair of an Indian. If human hair would last for a century in the grave and not change its color, it must have been the hair of a captive. If this theory is correct, it would indicate that there were three Indians and two prisoners, the small skeleton being that of a girl; or the Indians may have had a bunch of scalps. Some historian has said that the Indians usually selected from their prisoners to be tomahawked and scalped those having auburn hair, and those they chose to keep in captivity were brunettes. But however this may be, we are of the opinion from all the circumstances that the skeletons found were those of Indians with one or more captives.
INDIAN SKELETON.
Within the month of February, 1917, while some workmen were digging holes for telephone poles on the side of Chestnut street where Mat James now lives in Skidmore addition, one of the workmen discovered some bones about two feet under the ground, and upon examination they proved to be human remains, partly decayed, supposed to be that of an Indian. There were quite a number of beads and some animal teeth with holes through them, and these doubtless, had been worn on a string around the neck.
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The authorities made no effort to eolleet the bones and trinkets, but in- stead, the town boys gathered the beads and teeth and sold them at about ten eents each. A portion of the skull and jaw bone were given to a dentist, but no effort was made to ascertain the age or sex nor of the number of beads and teeth the savage sported as a neeklaee. It is to be regretted that such eareless indifferenee was manifested by the physicians and authorites of the town. Some seientifie knowledge might have been gained and some human considera- tion shown to the erumbling remains of a human being though he had long been dead.
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CHAPTER V.
State and County Roads; County Towns; Central Counties of the State.
CENTRAL WEST VIRGINIA.
Central West Virginia embraces the counties of Braxton, Lewis, Upshur, Webster, Nicholas, Clay, Roane, Calhoun and Gilmer, and contains 4,100 square miles. This section is penetrated by the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, the Coal & Coke, the West Virginia Midland, the Spruce Lumber railroad, the Buckhan- non & Pickens, the Elk & Little Kanawha, and various lumber railroads.
This central territory is watered principally by the Elk, the Little Kall- awha, the Buckhannon, the Holly, the Gauly, the Big Birch, and Little Birch rivers, the West Fork, Steer Creek. Cedar Creek, Laurel Creek, Buffalo, and many smaller streams. Along the shores and mountain ranges of these streams are some of the finest soils of the state, and on the shores of these streams grow the largest and finest timber of any section of our country. The Bison Range, running for a distance of over ninety miles through the center of its territory, divides its principle streams, and forms its highest elevations. On the north of this divide is the Pittsburgh and Allegheny coal seams, and on the south are the Freeports, the Kanawha & New River coals.
This central region of the state was once referred to as the mountains where the people dwelt in cabins, and grew up without education and refine- ment. Now we pass this on to the mountains beyond us, and when we arrive there, the people will have to discover mountains and a wilderness some place beyond. This region of West Virginia is destined in the future to become valuable as a grazing and agricultural country.
Braxton county is not only the central county, but it is becoming one of the richest oil and gas producing sections of the state. Cropping out from the Bison range and the numerous streams flowing from its summits and under- lying its valleys, are some of the greatest coal deposits of the state. We do not hesitate to give it as our opinion that the valley of the Elk, will in time become the greatest coal producing country in the United States, the Bee Hive of America, when her valleys shall be tapped and her mountains penetrated for the rich and exhaustless deposits.
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