USA > West Virginia > Hampshire County > History of Hampshire County, West Virginia : from its earliest settlement to the present > Part 4
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Many people, both in America and England, saw, in 1774, that a revolution was at hand. The thirteen colonies. were arriving very near the formation of a confederacy whose avowed purpose was resistance to Great Britain. Massachusetts had raised ninety thousand dollars to buy powder and arms; Connecticut provided for military stores and had proposed to issue seventy thousand dollars in paper money. In fact, preparations for war with England were going steadily forward, although hostilities had not begun. Great Britain was getting ready to meet the rebellious colonies, either by strategy or force, or both. Overtures had been made by the Americans to the Canadians to join them in a common struggle for liberty. Canada belonged to Great Britain, having been taken by conquest from France in the French and Indian war. Great Britain's first move was regarding Canada; not only to prevent that country from joining the Americans, but to use Canada as a menace and a weapon against them. England's plan was deeply laid. It was largely the work of Thurlow and Wedderburn. The Canadians were to be granted full religious liberty and a large share of political liberty in order to gain their friend- ship. They were mostly Catholics, and with them En- gland, on account of her trouble with her thirteen colonies, took the first step in Catholic emancipation. Having won the Canadians to her side, Great Britain intended to set up a separate empire there, and expected to use this Canadian empire as a constant threat against the colonies. It was thought that the colonists would cling to England through fear of Canada.
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HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE.
The plan having been matured, its execution was at- tempted at once. The first step was the emancipation of the Canadian Catholics. The next step was the passage of the Quebec Act, by which the province of Quebec was ex- tended southward to take in western Pennsylvania and all the country belonging to England north and west of the Ohio river. The king of England had already forbidden the planting of settlements between the Ohio river and the Alleghany mountains in West Virginia; so the Quebec Act was intended to shut the English colonies out of the west and confine them east of the Alleghany mountains. Had this plan been carried into execution as intended, it would have curtailed the colonies, at least Pennsylvania and Vir- ginia, and prevented their growth westward. The country beyond the Ohio would have become Canadian in its laws and people; and Great Britain would have had two empires in America, one Catholic and the other Protestant; or, at least, one composed of the thirteen colonies, and the other of Canada extended southward and westward, and it was intended that these empires should restrain, check and threaten each other, thus holding both loyal to and depend- ent upon Great Britain.
Some time before the passage of the Quebec Act a move- ment was on foot to establish a new province called Van- dalia, west of the Alleghanies, including the greater part of West Virginia and a portion of Kentucky. Benjamin Franklin and George Washington were interested in it. The capital was to be at the mouth of the Kanawha. The province was never formed. Great Britain was not in- clined to create states west of the mountains at a time when efforts were being made to confine the settlements east of that range. To have had West Virginia and a portion of Kentucky neutral ground, and vacant, between the empire of Canada and the empire of the thirteen colonies, would have pleased the authors of the Quebec Act. But acts of parliament and proclamations by the king had little effect
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THE DUNMORE WAR.
on the pioneers who pushed into the wilderness of the west to find new homes.
Before proceeding to a narrative of the events of the Dunmore war, it is not out of place to inquire concerning Governor Dunmore and whether, from his past acts and general character, he would be likely to conspire with the British and the Indians to destroy the western settlements of Virginia. Whether the British were capable of an act so savage and unjust as inciting savages to barrass the western frontier of their own colonies is not a matter for controversy. It is a fact that they did do it during the Revolutionary war. Whether they had adopted this policy so early as 1774, and whether Governor Dunmore was a party to the scheme, is not so certain. Therefore let us ask, who was Dunmore? He was a needy, rapacious Scotch earl, of the House of Murray, who came to America to amass a fortune and who at once set about the accom- plishment of his object with little regard for the rights of others or the laws of the country. He was governor of New York a short time; and, although poor when he came, he was the owner of fifty thousand acres of land when he left; and was preparing to decide, in his own court, in his own favor, a large and unfounded claim which he had pre- ferred against the lieutenant-governor. When he assumed the office of governor of Virginia his greed for land and for money knew no bounds. He recognized® no law which did not suit his purpose. He paid no attention to positive instructions from the crown, which forbade him to meddle with lands in the west. These lands were known to be beyond the borders of Virginia, as fixed by the treaties of Fort Stanwix and Lochaber, and therefore were not in his jurisdiction. He had soon acquired two large tracts in southern Illinois, and also held lands where Louisville, Kentucky, now stands, and in Kentucky opposite Cincin- nati. Nor did his greed for wealth and power stop with appropriating wild lands to his own use; but, without any
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warrant in law, and in violation of all justice, he extended the boundaries of Virginia northward to include much of western Pennsylvania, Pittsburg in particular; and he made that the county seat of Augusta county, and moved. the court from Staunton to that place. He even changed the name Fort Pitt to Fort Dunmore. He appointed forty- two justices of the peace. Another appointment of his as lieutenant of militia was Simon Girty, afterwards notori- ous and infamous as a deserter and a leader of Indians in their war against the frontiers. He appointed John Con- nolly, a physician and adventurer, commandant of Fort Pitt and its dependencies, which were supposed to include all the western country. Connolly was a willing tool of Dunmore in many a questionable transaction. Court was held at Fort Pitt until the spring of 1776. The name of Pittsburg first occurs in the court records on August 20, 1776. When Connolly received his appointment he issued a proclamation, setting forth his authority. The Pennsyl- vanians resisted Dunmore's usurpation, and arrested Con- nolly. The Virginia authorities arrested some of the Pennsylvania officers, and there was confusion, almost an- archy, so long as Dunmore was governor.
Dunmore had trouble elsewhere. His domineering con- duct, and his support of some of Great Britain's oppres- sive measures, caused him to be hated by the Virginians, and led to armed resistance. Thereupon he threatened to make Virginia a solitude, using these words: "I do enjoin the magistrates and all loyal subjects to repair to my as- sistance, or I shall consider the whole country in rebellion, and myself at liberty to annoy it by every possible means, and I shall not hesitate at reducing houses to ashes, and spreading devastation wherever I can reach. With a small body of troops and arms, I could raise such a force from among Indians, negroes and other persons as would soon reduce the refractory people of the colony to obedience." The patriots of Virginia finally rose in arms
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THE DUNMORE WAR.
and drove Governor Dunmore from the country. Some of these events occurred after the Dunmore war, but they serve to sho v what kind of man the governor was.
Perhaps the strongest argument against the claim that Dunmore was in league with Indians, backed by Great Britain, to push back the frontier of Virginia to the Alle- ghanies, is the fact that Dunmore at that time was reach- ing out for linds, for himself, in Illinois, Kentucky and Ohio; and hi; land grabbing would have been cut off in that quarter had the plan of limiting Virginia to the Alle- ghanies been successful. He could not have carried out his schemes of acquiring possessions in the west, had the Quebec Act been sustained. Dunmore did more to nullify the Quebec Act than any one else. He exerted every en- ergy to exten 1 and maintain the Virginia frontier as far west as possible. By this he opposed and circumvented the efforts of Great Britain to shut Virginia off from the west. He and the government at home did not work together, nor agree on the frontier policy; and, in the absence of direct proof sustaining the charge that he was in conspiracy with the British government and the In- dians to assail the western frontier, the doubt as to his guilt on the charge must remain in his favor.
From the time of the treaty made by General Bouquet with the Indians, 1764, to the year 1773, there was peace on the frontiers. War did not break out in 1773, but murders were committed by Indians which excited the frontier settlements, and were the first in a series which led to war. The Indians did not comply with the terms of the treaty with General Bouquet. They had agreed to give up all prisoners. It was subsequently ascertained that they had not done so. Some captives were still held in bondage. But this in itself did not lead to the war of 1774. The frontiers, since Bouquet's treaty, had been pushed to the Ohio river, in West Virginia, and into Ken- tucky. Although Indians had no right by occupation to
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HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE.
either West Virginia or Kentucky, and although they had given up by treaty any right which they claimed, they yet looked with anger upon the planting of settlements in those countries. The first act of hostility was committed in 1773, not in West Virginia, but further south. A party of emigrants. under the leadership of a son of Daniel Boone, were on their way to Kentucky when they were set upon and several were killed, including young Boone. There can be no doubt that this attack was made to pre- vent or hinder the colonization of Kentucky. Soon after this, a white man killed an Indian at a horse race. This is said to have been the first Indian blood shed on the frontier of Virginia by a white man since Pontiac's war. In February 1774 the Indians killed six white men and two negroes; and in the same month, on the Ohio, they seized a trading canne. killed the men in charge and carried the goods to the Shawnee towns. Then the white men began to kill also. In March, on the Ohio, a fight occurred be- tween settlers and Indians, in which one was killed on each side. and five canoes were taken from the Indians. John Connolly wrote from Pittsburg on April 21, to the people of Wheeling to be on their guard, as the Indians were preparing for war. On April 26, two Indians were killed on the Ohio. On April 30, nine Indians were killed on the same river near Steubenville. On May 1, another Indian was Killed. About the same time an old Indian named Bald Eagle was killed on the Monongahela river; and an Indian camp on the Little Kanawha, in the present county of Braxton, was broken up, and the natives were murdered. A party of white men with Governor Dun- more's permission destroyed an Indian village on the Muskingum river. The frontiers were alarmed. Forts were built in which the inhabitants could find shelter from attacks. Expresses were sent to Williamsburg entreating assistance. The Virginia assembly in May discussed the dangers from Indians on the frontier, and intimated that
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the militia should be called out. Governor Dunmore ordered out the militia of the frontier counties. He then proceeded in person to Pittsburg, partly to look after his lands, and partly to take chargeof the campaign against the Indians. The Delawares and Six Nations renewed their treaty of peace in September, but the Shawnees, the most powerful and warlike tribe in Ohio, did not. This tribe had been sullen and unfriendly at Bouquet's treaty, and had remained sour ever since. Nearly all the captives yet in the hands of the Indians were held by this fierce tribe, which defied the white man and despised treaties. These savages were ruled by Cornstalk, an able and no doubt a good man, opposed to war, but when carried into it by the headstrong rashness of his tribe, none fought more bravely than he. The Shawnees were the chief fighters on the Indian side in the Dunmore war, and they were the chief sufferers.
After arranging his business at Pittsburg, Governor Dunmore descended the Ohio river with twelve hundred men. Daniel Morgan, with a company from the valley of Virginia, was with him. A second army was being organized in the southwestern part of Virginia, and Dun- more's instructions were that this army, after marching down the Great Kanawha, should join him on the Ohio where he promised to wait. The Governor failed to keep his promise, but crossed into Ohio and marched against the Shawnee towns which he found deserted. He built a fort and sat down to wait.
In the meantime the army was collecting which was to descend the Kanawha. General Andrew Lewis was com- mander. The pioneers on the Greenbrier and New River formed a not inconsiderable part of the army which ren- dezvoused on the site of Lewisburg in Greenbrier county. In this army were fifty men from the Watauga, among whom were Evan Shelby, James Robertson and Valentine Sevier, names famous in history. Perhaps an army com-
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posed of better fighting material than that assembled for the march to Ohio, never took the field anywhere. The distance from Lewisburg to the mouth of the Great Kanawha was about one hundred and sixty miles. At that time there was not so much as a trail, if an old Indian path, hard to find, is excepted. At the mouth of Elk river the army made canoes and embarking in them, proceeded to Point Pleasant, the mouth of the Kanawha, which they reached October 6, 1774. A halt was here made. Four days later the Indian army under Cornstalk arrived, about one thousand in number. The Virginians were encamped on the narrow point of land formed by the meeting of the Kanawha and Ohio. The Indians crossed the Ohio the evening before, or during the night, and went into camp on the West Virginia side, and about two miles from the Virginians. The were discovered at daybreak, October 10, by two young men who were hunting. The Indians fired and killed one of them; the other escaped and carried the news to the army.
This was the first intelligence the Virginians had that the Indians had come down from their towns in Ohio to give battle. By what means the savages had received in- telligence of the advance of the army in time to collect their forces and meet it before the Ohio river was crossed, has never been ascertained; but it is probable that Indian scouts had watched the progress of General Lewis from the time he took up his march from Greenbrier. Cornstalk laid well his plans for the destruction of the Virginian army at Point Pleasant. He formed his line across the neck of land, from the Ohio to the Kanawha, and enclosed the Virginians between his line and the two rivers. He posted detachments on the farther banks of the Ohio and the Kanawha to cut off General Lewis should he attempt to retreat across either river. Cornstalk meant not only to defeat the army, but to destroy it. The Virginians numbered eleven hundred.
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THE DUNMORE WAR.
When the news of the advance of the Indian army reached General Lewis, he prepared for battle, and sent three hundred men to the front to meet the enemy, The fight began at sunrise. . Both armies were soon engaged over a line a mile long. Both fought from behind trees, logs and whatever would offer protection. The lines were always near each other; sometimes twenty yards, some- times less; occasionally near enough to use the tomahawk. The battle was remarkable for its obstinacy. It raged six hours, almost hand to hand. Then the Indians fell back a short distance and took up a strong position, and all efforts to dislodge them by attacks in front failed. Corn- stalk was along his whole line, and above the din of battle his powerful voice could be heard: "Be strong! Be strong!" The loss was heavy among the Virginians, and perhaps equally heavy among the Indians. Late in the afternoon General Lewis discovered a way to attack the Indians in flank. Å small stream with high banks empties into the Kanawha at that point, and he sent a detachment up this stream, the movement being concealed from the Indians, and when an advantageous point was reached, the soldiers emerged and attacked the Indians. Taken by surprise, the savages retreated. This movement decided the day in favor of the Virginians. The Indians fled a short distance up the Ohio and crossed to the western side, the most of them on logs and rude rafts, probably the same on which they had crossed the stream before the battle. The Vir- ginians lost sixty men killed and ninety-six wounded. The loss of the Indians was not ascertained. They left thirty-three dead on the field, and were seen to throw others into the Ohio river. All their wounded were car- ried off,
The battle of Point Pleasant was the most stubbornly contested of all frontier battles with the Indians; but it was by no means the bloodiest. Several others could be named in which the loss of life was much greater; notably
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Braddock's defeat, and the defeat of General St. Clair. The battle of Point Pleasant was also remarkable from the number of the men who took part in it who aftewards became noted. Among them may may be mentioned Isaac Shelby, the first governor of Kentucky; William Campbell, the hero of King's mountain, and who died on the battle field of Eutaw Springs; Colonel John Steele, afterward governor of Mississippi; George Mathews, afterward gov- ernor of Georgia; Colonel William Fleming, governor of Virginia, and many others. Nearly all the men who were in that battle and afterward returned to their homes, were subsequently soldiers of the American army in the war for independence.
The day following the battle, Colonial Christian arrived with three hundred soldiers from Fincastle. Fort Ran- dolph was built at Point Pleasant; and after leaving a gar- rison there, General Lewis crossed the Ohio and marched nearly a hundred miles to the Scioto river to join Governor Dunmore. Before he arrived at Fort Charlotte, where Dunmore was, he received a message from the governor, ordering him to stop, and giving as a reason that he was about to negotiate a treaty with the Indians. General Lewis and his men refused at first to obey this order. They had no love for Dunmore, and they did not regard him as a friend of Virginia. Not until a second express arrived did General Lewis obey.
After the fight at Point Pleasant, Cornstalk, Logan and Red Eagle, the three principal chiefs who had taken part in the battle, retreated to their towns with their tribesmen. Seeing that pursuit was swift and vigorous, Cornstalk called a council and asked what should be done. No one had any advice to offer. He then proposed to kill the old men, women and children; and the warriors then should go out to meet the invaders and fight till every Indian had met his death on the field of battle. No reply was made to this proposition. Thereupon Cornstalk said that since
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THE DUNMORE WAR.
his men would not fight, he would go and make peace; and he did so. Thus ended the war. Governor Dunmore had led an army of Virginia into Ohio, and assumed and exercised authority there, thus setting aside and nullify- ing the act of parliament which extended the jurisdiction of Quebec to the Ohio river.
CHAPTER V.
KO»-
WEST VIRGINIA IN THE REVOLUTION,
The territory of the present state of West Virginia was not invaded by a British army, except one company of fifty, during the war for American independence. Its remote position made it safe from attack from the east; but this very remoteness rendered it doubly liable to invasion from the west where Great Britain had made allies of the In- dians, and had armed and supplied them, and had sent them against the frontiers from Canada to Florida, with full license to kill man, woman and child. No part of America suffered more from the savages than West Vir- ginia. Great Britain's purpose in employing Indians on the frontiers was to harrass the remote country, and not only keep at home all the inhabitants for defense of their settlements, but also to make it necessary that soldiers be sent to the west who otherwise might be employed in op- posing the British nearer the sea coast. Notwithstanding West Virginia's exposed frontier on the west, it sent many soldiers to the Continental army. West Virginians were on almost every battlefield of the revolution. The portion of the state east of the Alleghanies, now forming Jefferson, Berkeley, Morgan, Hampshire, Hardy, Grant, Mineral and Pendleton counties, was not invaded by Indians during the revolution, and from this region large numbers of sol- diers joined the armies under Washington, Gates, Greene and other patriots.
As early as November 5, 1774, an important meeting was held by West Virginians in which they clearly indi- cated under which banner they would be found fighting,
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WEST VIRGINIA IN THE REVOLUTION. . 61
if Great Britain persisted in her course of oppression. This was the first meeting of the kind west of the Alle- ghanies, and but few similar meetings had then been held anywhere. It occurred during the return of Dunmore's army from Ohio, twenty-five days after the battle of Point Pleasant. The soldiers had heard of the danger of war with England; and, although they were under the command of Dunmore, a royal governor, they were not afraid to let the country know that neither a royal governor nor any one else could swerve them from their duty as patroits and lovers of liberty. The meeting was held at Fort Gower, north of the Ohio river, while on the homeward march from the Indian country. The soldiers passed resolutions which had the right ring. They recited that they were willing and able to bear all hardships of the woods; to get along for weeks without bread or salt, if necessary; to sleep in the open air; to dress in skins if noth- ing else could be had; to march further in a day than any other men in the world; to use the rifle with skill and with bravery. They affirmed their zeal in the cause of right, and promised continued allegiance to the king of England, provided that he would reign over them as a brave and free people. "But," they continued "as attachment to the real interests and just rights of America outweigh every other consideration, we resolve that we will exert every power within us for the defence of American liberty, when regularly called forth by the unanimous voice of our countrymen." It was such spirit as this, manifested on every occasion during the revolution, which prompted Washington in the darkest year of the war to exclaim that, if driven from every point east of the Blue ridge, he would retire west of the mountains and there raise the standard of liberty and bid defiance to the armies of Great Britain.
At two meetings held May 16, 1775, one at Fort Pitt, the other at Hannastown, several West Virginians were present and took part in the proceedings. Resolutions
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HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE.
were passed by which the people west of the mountains pledged their support to the Continental congress, and expressed their purpose of resisting the tyranny of the · mother country. In 1775 a number of men from the valley of the Monongahela joined Washington's army before Boston; but how many and from what part of the valley they came is not known. The number of soldiers who went forward from the eastern part of the state was large.
There were a few persons in West Virginia who ad- hered to the cause of England; and who from time to time gave trouble to the patriots; but the promptness with which their attempted risings were crushed is proof that traitors were in a hopeless minority. The patriots con- sidered them as enemies and dealt harshly with them. There were two attempted uprisings in West Virginia, one in the Monongahela valley, which the inhabitants of that region were able to suppress, the other uprising was on the South branch of the Potomac, in what is now Hardy and Grant counties, and troops were sent from the Shenandoah valley to put it down. In the Monongahela valley several of the tories were arrested and sent to Richmond. It is recorded that the leader was drowned in Cheat river while crossing under guard on his way to Richmond. Two men of the Morgan family were his guard. The boat upset while crossing the river. It was the general impression of the citizens of the community that the upsetting was not accidental. The guards did not want to take the long journey to Richmond while their homes and the homes of their neighbors were exposed to attacks from Indians. The tory uprising on the South branch was much more serious. The first indication of trouble # was given by their refusal to pay their taxes, or to furnish their quota of men for the militia. Complaint was made by the sheriff of Hampshire county, and Colonel Vanmeter with thirty men was sent to enforce the collec- tion of taxes. The tories armed themselves, to the num-
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