History of Charleston and Kanawha County, West Virginia and representative citizens, Part 4

Author: Laidley, William Sydney, 1839-1917. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Chicago, Ill., Richmond-Arnold publishing co
Number of Pages: 1066

USA > West Virginia > Kanawha County > Charleston > History of Charleston and Kanawha County, West Virginia and representative citizens > Part 4

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Paint Creek was so named because the In- dians painted some trees on this creek to mark their course and trail from the Kanawha to the New river higher up, it being a better route, a shorter and better road way to travel. No one has ever said they saw any of these painted trees, but it has always been called "Paint Creek."

Briar Creek of Coal River. This creek heads up against the head of Lewis Creek and Davis Creek and joins Bull Creek, and then runs westward to Coal River and contains about 6,000 acres of excellent block coal, and with a branch railroad is hauled down to the Coal River road and thence to the main line of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad.

The Briar Creek tract was owned before the war by Edward Kenna, the father of the late United States senator, and was sold by the court and purchased by Mr. D. W. Emmons of Huntington, and to which he added by pur- chases, and he sold it to Judge J. B. C. Drew, and by the judge to a New York Syndicate, who have built the railroad on the creek and opened up the mines and are shipping coal. It it a most excellent tract of land of coal and timber.

ELK

Campbello

Witches

Kellyp

Hughes

Bell

Tens

KANAWHA

Gauley

Fields

Falls

Slaughline

Paint

new

KANAWHA VALLEY FROM GAULEY TO ELK, SHOWING LOCATION OF STREAMS

CHAPTER III

NATIVE RACES

The Aborigines-Obscurity of Their Origin and History-Exterminated by the Indians-Their Mounds and Other Relics-The Indians-Speculations as to Their Origin-Their Charac- ter-Their Cruelty and Treachery-Their Claims to the Land Based on Might-Some Indian Atrocities-Battle of Point Pleasant, 1774-Death of Cornstalk-More Atrocities -More about Cornstalk; his Character and Manner of Death-Character of Indian War- fare-Petition of. Settlers of Great Kanawha River, 1781-Campbell's Creek Indian Legend-Death of Cojen, a Too Inquisitive Settler-Mysterious Savage Rites.

THE ABORIGINES

They are defined to be the earliest known in- habitants of a country. There were some peo- ple in the country, supposed, if not known, to have been a different grade of humanity from those known as Indians.

Perhaps we should only consider the inhabi- tants of the Kanawha Valley, as the Aborigines of Kanawha. We are confident that there were such, but whether they came from the East, or from the West, or elsewhere, we do not know. The subject grows on us as we con- template it, and with all that has been learned or written of the Aborigines, there is but little really known and much that has hardly been guessed at yet. It has been supposed by some that they came by way of the Bering Strait from Asia; some say they came from Egypt, and settled in Central America, then came up through Mexico and spread all over the west and came eastward; and in the course of time, the Indians came from some where and the latter were the stronger, and you know what that meant to the Aborigines. They did not seem to be greatly superior in intelligence and not at all in power and in endurance, for when the white man came, he found the Indian and did not find the others.

Some writers insist that they were only a different variety of Indians. There is evidence

of a race of people having inhabited the Kana- wha that were different from the Indian, and the difference seems to have been that they left monuments of a character that Indians made no attempt to construct.

The Indians did nothing that looked like work and these said monuments required a great deal of manual labor. The building of mounds of earth was one of their laborious works, and yet they have been called "Indian Mounds."

There were in the Kanawha Valley many mounds, and works of such-like formation, indicating the former existence of large num- bers of these people. Stone walls, like some grade of fortifications, and other classes of earth-work, stone works and a different sort of work which seems un-Indian, have been found. In all these works there seems to have been no metallic instruments used, and none found, and in the case of the find of a wooden carved figure from wood, it seems a mystery how it was made, by whom and where made. This figure was found in a crevice of the rock in the hills some twelve miles above Charleston in the vi- cinity of Lewiston, by Master Frank McConi- hay, and it was deposited in the rooms of the Historical Society, where it can be seen. Dr. Hale wrote an account of the wooden figure and he did not tell us much about it, except that

HISTORY OF KANAWHA COUNTY

it did not seem to have been the work of such Indians as the white man learned about in later years.

These rock walls and monuments and this wooden figure, all indicate that they were the work of a labor-loving people, whom for that and other reasons, have been called "Aborig- ines" and that they inhabited the Kanawha some centuries ago. The Indians did not leave word nor did the Aborigines communicate any decided information on the subject of their origin, or any other information reliable. At- kinson in his history devotes Chapter Ten to this subject. He says the subject is too large to discuss in a county history, but that volumes on volumes have been written, facts collected from all over the world to prove that North America was known to have been inhabited ages before Columbus found it, a prehistoric nation was here.

He then gives an account of the ancient rock wall on Loup Creek, about thirty-two miles above Charleston, and says the wall extended along the mountain for near two miles. The whole length of wall amounts to three or more miles. It was some six or seven feet high and about two feet thick at the base. One tree grew up in the wall, which indicated that the wall had been aban- doned over four hundred years ago, or longer.

There is another such wall on Paint Creek. At Clifton, Dego, or Pratt, as it is now called, there are evidences of an ancient city. On some of these places there stood trees at least five hundred years old.

At Sattes, opposite the mouth of Coal River, there have been found evidence of a very large city, much larger than Charles- ton. There are also carved stones found in different places on the river. Earth works or fortifications are also found in several places, both on Kanawha river and on Coal river. Mounds have been found every where; some have been opened and nothing found that furnished any thing definite as to their dates of erection or con- struction or of the people who made them.

A few years ago, a Mr. Norris, an expert on such things, came to this county and

made a pretty thorough examination of its ancient land marks; he made a report to

the government of the United States.

Dr. Hale wrote considerably on the "History and Mystery of Kanawha Valley."

All these things go to show that the val- ley was at some time inhabited by a people that were different from the Indians. I

Probably no country contains more evi- dence of these mysterious people or peoples, though perhaps no country having so much, has done so little to gather the facts and the relics together and make a presentation thereof.

There is an imprint made in coal, as if a man had placed his foot in the soft coal while it was warm and soft, and the im- press left was the exact shape of the human foot. It looks as though it had been made in coal tar which afterwards hardened, leaving the track of the human foot.

THE INDIANS

When Columbus landed on San Salvador, he was lost, and he supposed that he had reached some part of India, so he called the natives "Indians," and no one suggest- ing any more appropriate name, the name remained.

As no one could tell anything about the natives, it would seem that they were lost also, and as there had been in past ages a report that ten tribes of Israelites were lost, some have concluded that the people found by Columbus in America were the descendants of those so-called lost Jews. The Jews were once called "God's peculiar people :" those Indians are sufficiently peculiar for all purposes, but we doubt that they ever were Jews or the peculiar people of Almighty God. We have too much re- spect for the Hebrews to associate them with the Indians; there is no similarity whatever.

There has been much written about the Indians of America, perhaps more written than about any other people, as a people ; -who they were, from whence they came, what were their numbers, etc., are ques- tions that have not yet been determined,

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but what they have done has filled almost all of the books that have been written about them.

They are divided into many tribes and they have been almost all over North America, South America, Central America, Mexico and else where, not always exactly alike in manners and habits, but "Indians" all the same, natives of America-Mr. Lo, the poor Indian.

The Indian men are all well developed specimens of manhood, tall, straight, stout fellows ; which fact comes because had they not been vigorous they would never have been able to withstand the hardships of their mode of life, while young-"Survival of the fittest."

Ordinarily they are said to be silent, quiet people, except when they imbibe too freely of spirituous liquors, when they be- come excited-they then are noisy, rude. infernal fiends.

Indians do not work, and cannot be made to engage in manual labor, and they are pronounced the most lazy, indolent beings on earth and prefer to die rather than work ; they become active when aroused by war or the chase. Mr. Lo becomes pre- sistently active, when seeking the life of a man or an animal, and perhaps equally ac- tive when he is seeking to save his own.

They seem to enjoy inflicting the most brutal tortures that they can devise, when they have time and opportunity to so pun- ish their enemies and have them in their power. So compared with burning at the stake, the tomahawk was an instrument of mercy.

There has been much wasted mercy be- spoken for the Indians and attempts made to justify his cause. Some claim for him great nobility of character and all that, but we are like those that have had the most to do with him, and believe that there is but one good Indian, and that is the dead one. As for his cause, he has none ; he claims the earth but with no more right to any part of it than any one else, except to that part which he has actual possession of and which he has appropriated. One tribe recognizes

no right in another tribe, it is purely a ques- tion of might, and where he pretends to sell and dispose of a territory, he would in a short while claim to own it again, no bar- gain or treaty in real estate amounts to any thing with him; his title he gets by his tomahawk and his gun.

In so far as the record goes, we see noth- ing recorded of him but his lust for blood and his inordinate desire to kill, and it seems that there is no discrimination in the object of his merciless blood-thirsty desire ; he kills children, women and men, without any other excuse, whatever, (when it is not revenge,) than his natural in-born brutal- ity. Neither has he that brave noble soul that some would ascribe to him; he sulks in the dark, in hidden ways, until he finds his victim is unprotected and unable to re- sist; then the brave Indian shows his infer- nal nobility. There is no brute, unless when suffering hunger, that shows as much cruelty to its victims as does the Indian.

There may have been an exception here and there, but they are so few, that his brutality might always be relied on. There have been some attempts made to show that a lone family of white persons were permitted to live for awhile when In- dians knew of their existence, but it was so opposed by all Indian-nature that it cannot carry conviction to the mind of persons who had any conception of his wild, savage- beast-like love of blood.

Many are the occasions recorded where he would go to a house as a friend, beg something to eat, or help of some kind and then murder the entire unprotected family, as soon as he could learn that his own danger was not immediate.

When the French and Indian war began, about 1754, when the claim of the French to the Ohio and Mississippi Valley was be- ing set up against the English claim to the same country, the Indians were induced to leave the country east of the Alleghanies and move to Ohio and make their homes in Ohio.

For some cause the southern side of the Ohio river had been abandoned by Indians

HISTORY OF KANAWHA COUNTY

either the "Six nations" had driven out the other Indians, or by some means it had been abandoned so that all that part of Vir- ginia, now in West Virginia and Ken- tucky was not inhabited by the savages, but they lived in Oho, where the "woods were full of them."

The settlement of the country could never have been made if it had had to be made through treaty or purchase; this would have been the proper way to do it and it would have been cheaper, but it was impossible. Every tribe and every Indian would have had to be purchased, and pur- chased every few weeks, and then the white purchaser would have had to kill him or be killed by him.

But we propose to deal only with Kana- wha's transactions and this was consider- able, in so far as the Indians were con- cerned. How it was, that with all the coun- try north of the Ohio river, they did not have sufficient territory on which to roam and hunt, no one could comprehend unless it was that the kind of game they wished for was not found, except on the south side of the Ohio. These Indians were continu- ally coming from Ohio, in squads into Vir- ginia, and by hiding and skulking would find opportunities to destroy a settler's family or a part of it and take prisoners the other. They would then put off back into Ohio and either burn their prisoners or hold them with hope of reward to re- lease them.

In 1771 there were some hunters en- camped near the mouth of Elk river, on Two Mile creek of Elk river. Simon Ken- ton was one of them, and Yeager and Strader were his companions. Probably these were at that time the only persons located west of Greenbrier. These men were attacked by a squad of Indians. Yeager was killed and Strader and Ken- ton were wounded, and compelled to leave.

Walter Kelly settled on the Kanawha, at Kelly's Creek in 1772 and he was com- pelled to send back his family to Green brier, while he remained, to be killed in I773.

The German, Mr. Shroud, attempted a settlement on Gauley, and he and his en- tire family were murdered and his home destroyed.

John Flinn settled on Cabin Creek, and he was killed. There were Indians in Giles county killing and capturing settlers in 1774. Miss McKinsie was captured on New river and held for about eighteen years.

BATTLE OF POINT PLEASANT-1774

This brought down the war by Indians to the fall of 1774, when Captain Stewart sent Hammond and Pryor to notify the settlers in Kanawha valley of the general uprising of the Indians and the impending danger. General Andrew Lewis marched to the Ohio river. There has been so much written of the battle of Point Pleasant that those wishing to learn of it more fully should read the book entitled "The Dun- more War," by R. G. Thwaites, which gives more information than has hereto- fore been written on the subject. Besides there is also in Atkinson's "History of Kanawha." Hale's "Trans-Alleghenies," an account by Dr. J. P. Hale, another in "Wither's Border Warfare," Mrs. Poffen- berger's account of its Anniversary, Mrs. D. A. McCullock's account, "The Dunmore War," by E. O. Randall, an article on the National Character of said battle, by V. A. Lewis, and other accounts too numerous to mention.

What seems the most important question to decide is whether it was only a battle between the Indians, on their own account, with the white settlers, or was it, as is be- lieved by many a battle brought on by the English, to have the Indians destroy the Virginians under General Lewis, from the southwest part of Virginia, so that this part of these colony could take no part in the uprising of the Colonies of America against the British government, that was then pending ?

There is much that would lead us to be- lieve that this latter was the case; to give the King of England and the Governor of

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Virginia credit for any foresight of what was coming, and any credit for general- ship, we are forced to believe that this bat- tle was planned, and brought about by Dunmore.

Dunmore was the English Governor of Virginia, and the rebellion of the colonies was impending. He secured the aid of the Indians and provoked a war between them and the Virginians-the "long-knives" as they were called.

He ordered out an army from Augusta and those southern counties on the border, to march to the mouth of the Kanawha river, and promised that he would, with another army, meet them there, and that they would proceed to chastise the Indians in Ohio, and compel them to desist from their further excursions into Virginia and cease their massacre, and the burning and destroying of settlers.

General Lewis was at the Point on time. Dunmore was near but never met Lewis and he let the Indians attack Lewis and they fought all day-October 10, 1774- without his coming to the aid of Lewis.

This battle has been called "Dunmores War," for the reason that it was stirred up by Gov. Dunmore with the Indians, though he did none of the fighting: He pretended to make war on the Indians in Ohio, to punish them for their continued invasions and murders of settlers; he directed Gen- eral Andrew Lewis and his troops to pro- ceed by way of the Kanawha valley to the Ohio river at Point Pleasant where he Gov. Dunmore would join them, but he failed to join and let the Indians attack Lewis unaided.

By those in Lewise's army, this was be- lieved to have been treachery in the first degree, and its purpose to let the Indians cripple or destroy the army from the southwest of Virginia; to make the Indians allies of the English, and to prevent the Virginians from aiding the other colonies in their rebellion.

This raises the question as to whether Dunmore was sincere in his movements in this campaign, or was it only a pretense 4

and fraud and hypocricy on his part and nothing more? We know that there are persons who think that Dunmore was sin- cere at the time and that we condemn him for all that he ever said or did, because he afterwards took the side of the English. That history has spoiled him for always, before and afterwards. But it is the attempt to be ultra- unprejudiced and fair that makes some writers claim so much for Dunmore, more than what he was ever entitled to. They say that after the battle was fought and the campaign ended, the Virginians endorsed his actions and thanked him for his services, that his army before it was disbanded gave to him great praise and thanks, and that the "Virginia Gazette," the "State Courier," the Williamsburg authorities, the William and Mary authori- ties and even the Fincastle County men, all passed resolutions of commendation. All of which we admit there is evidence to support, but it was all a part of the play and a part of the deception that was being played. Dunmore started out to deceive the Virginians, to make them think he was doing his duty to the King and to the Colonies and was playing fair to both. Was he not a treacherous scoundrel all the while ?

Let us look at the other side. In Vir- ginia there were Tories and patriots; some had sense. It was known that the King was disposed to insist on the absolute right of control of the colonies; to dictate to them what they should and should not do, and Parliament and the officials knew and stated that such dictation would not be re- ceived by the colonists.

John Adams said that American Inde- pendence was born in 1760, when Otis re- signed rather than be compelled to enforce obnoxious laws. The Stamp Act was re- pealed in 1766 and the Colonists insisted that taxation without representation would not be endured. Resistance in the Colonies was general in 1772 and cargoes of tea sub- ject to a tax, were destroyed ; the colonies agreed to stand by Massachusetts; con-

HISTORY OF KANAWHA COUNTY

gress was convened and preparations for war were made in every colony, and Vir- ginia had delegates to them all. In 1773 it only required a match to set the world on fire and it was then that King George III sent Dunmore to Virginia. He was haughty and objectionable from the time of his arrival. He sent orders to the Vir- ginia council to pay his secretary's salary but it was not done. Because of the reso- lution of House of Burgesses on the clos- ing of the port of Boston Dunmore pro- rogued the House, so that there was little legislation done thereafter and the conven- tion took the place of the House of Burgesses.

When the House was so prorogued the mem- bers formed a League to suspend all trade with Great Britain. Patrick Henry made his great speech in which he said "We must fight." Every one had to take sides, war was inevi- table and Dunmore was for his King, and con- sequently against the people. Then Dunmore desired to have a war with the Indians and his avowed but pretended purpose was to go to Ohio and chastize them. Dunmore reached Fort Pitt and met Dr. John Connolly and Simon Girty-"three of a kind."

Green in his History, in speaking of King George III said that "his bribery, his patron- " age, his parliamentary frauds, his perfidy " and his lies had done much to make good " government impossible and to steep public " life deeper in corruption." To this King the colonists were rebels in 1766. He disposed of regiments, commissions and marching of troops in 1774 and the King said in 1774, that "the die was cast, the colonist must triumph or submit." Long instructions were sent to Dun- more. The Indians said that they were ap- pealed to, to unite with the King's troops to fight Boston, and Dunmore said he hoped to be able to collect the Indians, negroes, and others sufficient to subdue the rebellion, and the Eng- lish were furnishing guns for the savages at Detroit. The King directed that the Indians be employed and Connolly was employed and caught with such instructions from Dunmore. Dunmore's purpose was to serve the King; to secure the Indians as allies, who were to aid

the British; to cause a war between the Col- onies. Connolly, a Pennsylvanian, became a staunch Virginian and was a vice-governor under Dunmore. Each and all of them-the King, the Governor, Connolly and Girty-was a Tory of Tories, a liar, a hypocrite and a fraud and doubly dyed in duplicity.

It can be seen that with this purpose and with Connolly and Girty to carry out the same, it was easy to bring on a war. Dunmore him- self did not wish to be in the war, but to let Lewis do the fighting. The Indians did not pretend to attack Dunmore, though perhaps his was the weaker army. He was near to Lewis and had had communication with the In- dians, and Dunmore on the 9th sent Girty to Lewis's camp with a message that he had changed his plans. He could have joined Lewis, could have prevented the battle; could have given the Indians a severe chastisement, but he made no fight, but instead made a treaty of peace-made an ally of the Indians, he knew they were fight- ing on the tenth, and stated to Connolly that "General Lewis was having a warm time of it about this time."

Burke, Withers, Doddridge, Stuart, Lewis and others said and had the belief, that Dun- more's purpose was to break the spirit of the Virginians. With all these facts, how was it possible for anything else to be true than that Dunmore was a treacherous old scoundrel who deserved hanging? It was not necessary to take an army to the Ohio to let the Indians at- tack it. Nor was it requisite that he should go with an army to be near that battle and not as- sist in defending the attack. Neither was it good generalship, nor good anything else to change the plan of the campaign after General Lewis was on the ground and the Governor's own army within a day's march though it did not join him; it was bad faith and treachery to the people of Virginia.

Ordinarily the combination of King George III, Dunmore, Connolly, and Girty would be enough to satisfy anyone that fraud was the main-spring of their action, that nothing would be done in any way to aid the rebellion that was about to break out in open war, but all that was to be done was for the supposed bene-

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fit of the Royal cause of the suppression of the Colonist. Events could mean but one thing, that Dunmore's purpose was to help the Indians and to make of them allies of King George and hence his change of plans was effected purposely in order to cause General Lewis's defeat.

However, as it happened, the Indians were glad to get back into Ohio and to form a treaty with Dunmore, which ended that war.

INDIAN OUTRAGES ON THE KANAWHA

Hughes, a settler on the Kanawha, at Hughes Creek was captured by the Indians and carried into Ohio and held for two years. We notice that this person is sometimes called Robert Hughes and sometimes Edward, and his capture was in 1776. Judge Guthre late of Mason county, was a descendant of Hughes.

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History of Charleston and Kanawha County, West Virginia and representative citizens, Part 4

Author: Laidley, William Sydney, 1839-1917. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1911 Publisher: Chicago, Ill., Richmond-Arnold publishing co Number of Pages: 1066

Author: Laidley, William Sydney, 1839-1917. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Chicago, Ill., Richmond-Arnold publishing co
Number of Pages: 1066