USA > West Virginia > Summers County > History of Summers County from the earliest settlement to the present time > Part 43
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
he has been engaged principally in the real estate business. He is an active politician, takes great interest in the conventions and elections in his county, he being an old-school Republican, but is never a candidate for office. One time he was the chairman of the Republican county committee, and has been one of the leaders in the councils of that party. In 1904 he took an active part with the old-time branch of the party in the county troubles.
Irvin Maxwell, the lawyer, was admitted to practice in this State and county in 1906. in the town of his birth. He is a gradu- ate of the law school at Washington and Lee University. His home is in Hinton. Robt. H. Maxwell is one of the leading citizens of Avis; has been mayor of that city, member of the city council several terms, and is now a member of that body. He is an enter- prising and useful citizen. It was largely through his efforts that the dyke improvements have been secured to prevent the overflow from floods in that municipality. He has been successful in his business affairs and is independent.
The ancestors of R. H. Maxwell are among the original pioneer settlers west of the Allegheny Mountains in the New River Valley.
Captain Maxwell was one of the commanders who fought the Indians in 1782, in the Holstine River settlements in Abb's Val- ley, and was in command in the Indian troubles in the Ingles set- tlements of the Upper New River.
This Captain Thomas Maxwell, with Samuel Ferguson and the Peerys. were in the battle of the Alamance. They came from the Valley of Virginia. Two of the daughters of Captain Maxwell were killed by the Indians at the time of the Ingles settlement troubles. Robert H. Maxwell's father's name was Mathias, who married Juliet Brown, of Mercer County-the same family of Browns as Mrs. J. M. Carden and Mrs. Margaret Bray, wife of Dr. Thomas Bray. A brother of Mr. Maxwell, J. A. Maxwell. now resides in Portsmouth, Ohio. He was a soldier in the United States Army during the Civil War in the same company as his brother. Another brother, John, was a member of the St. Louis Cavalry in the United States Army. The father of Mathias Max- well was William Maxwell. The Maxwells are directly connected with the Clays, who first settled in the Clover Bottom, on the Big Bluestone, Tabitha Clay, who was killed by the Indians at that place, being a direct blood connection of Robert H. Maxwell. The Maxwells, Clays, Browns and Jordans were related from the first pioneer, Mitchell Clay, who raised thirteen children.
The Maxwells were early settlers in the Upper New River Val-
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
ley, and were attacked by the Indians in 1782. Captain Thomas Maxwell was the leader of fifteen or twenty men, with another force of five or six men with John Hix, whose descendants live in this county, which he had gotten together, who pursued a parcel of Indians in 1782 who had attacked the Ingles settlement on New River. They pursued the Indians for five days, and finally discov- ered them in a gap of Sandy Ridge, which divides the waters of Sandy and Clinch Rivers. This gap since that time is known as Maxwell's Gap, a short distance west of Abb's Valley. Captain Maxwell divided his company, he taking a part of his men to the flank of the Indians, while Ingles remained with the other portion in the rear, the fight to be made at daylight the next morning. Unfortunately, Maxwell. in order to escape detection, bore too far away, and was not in position to make the attack at the appointed time. Ingles, having waited beyond the hour agreed upon, seeing the Indians begin to move, began the attack. The Indians there- upon began to tomahawk the prisoners. Mr. Ingles reached his wife just as she had received a terrible blow on the head. They had already tomahawked his daughter, five years old, and his son William, three years old. In their retreat the Indians passed be- low Captain Maxwell and the party, fired upon them, and killed Captain Maxwell. The wounded little girl died, but the mother recovered. This gap on the Sandy is known to this day as Max- well's Gap.
We have no direct history of the Maxwells and their descend- ants from that day to the present, except in a general way. That Maxwell's ancestors were Indian fighters and scouts and soldiers in the Revolution there is no doubt. The Maxwells, Browns, Pearis and Jordans are related through the descendants of this original settler, Mitchell Clay. Captain John Maxwell was also of the same family. Two of his daughters were captured by the Indians near the Clinch about 1782. Captain James Maxwell was also another one of these pioneer soldiers and Indian fighters. The battle of the Alamance was fought in 1772, in which Thomas Maxwell took a part. The Maxwells were Scotch-Irish.
Mitchell Clay settled on the Clover Bottom tract of land in 1775. This was the first white settlement made in the present ter- ritorial limits of Mercer County. Andrew Culbertson settled Crump's Bottom twenty years prior to the settlement of the Clover Bottom. Clay and his family remained on this land undisturbed for a period of eight years, and were finally attacked by the Indians, and a part of his family killed and one captured.
PROF. JAMES E. CADLE, Educator and Superintendent of Schools.
ROBERT H. MAXWELL, Whose Ancestors Were among the First to Settle in This Land.
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ACTOS LENOX AND TILDEN ATAOg
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ATT . LENOX AND ONO .
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
Clay opened up a considerable farm on the Clover Bottoms. In 1783, in the month of August, he and his sons Bartley and Ezekiel were building fence around grain stacks. It was in the afternoon. The boys were at work. The older daughter and some of the young girls were at the river washing. A party of eleven In- dians crept up to the edge of the field and shot Bartley dead. The discharge of the gun alarmed the girls at the river, and they started on a run to the house. An Indian attempted to scalp the young man and at the same time capture the girls. The older girl, Tabi- tha, undertook to defend the body of her dead brother and pre- vent his being scalped, and in the struggle with the Indian she reached for his butcher knife, which hung in his belt, and missing it, the Indian drew it and stabbed her repeatedly. She, however, several times wrung the knife from his hands and cast it aside, but he each time recovered it, and continued cutting her with the knife until he had literally chopped her to pieces before killing her. The small girls, during the melee, escaped to the house, and the small brother, Ezekiel, a lad of sixteen years, was captured by an- other Indian. The house of Mitchell Clay stood on a high point or knoll, three hundred yards due west of the dwelling house now owned by the present occupant. The foundation stones of the old Clay cabin are still there to be seen. About the time the attack was made by the Indians, a man by the name of Liggon Blanken- ship called at the Clay cabin, and when Mrs. Clay discovered her daughter in the struggle with the Indian, begged Blankenship to shoot the Indian and save the child: instead thereof he took to his heels and ran to the New River settlements, and reported that Clay and all his family had been killed. This cowardly behavior of Blankenship has been handed down from generation to genera- tion, and will be to the end of all time. The Indians, securing the scalp of the young man, Bartley, and the sister, Tabitha, with their prisoner, Ezekiel, left. As soon as they left, Mrs. Clay took her children and carried the bodies of the dead ones to the house and placed them on a bed, left the cabin with her children. and made her way through the wild woods six miles to the house of James Bailey, who lived on Brush Creek, near the present New Hope Church, he being the nearest neighbor of the Clays. Mitchell Clay. before the coming of the Indians, had gone into the woods for game, and wounded a deer, followed it until dark, and then re- turned to his home and discovered the horrors committed in his absence. He discovered the dead bodies of his children and other evidences, and supposed all of his family had been killed. He left
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
the cabin for the New River settlements by way of the East River. During the night he discovered the Indians in his road, who fol- lowed him closely until he reached the settlements. They stole a number of horses and immediately retreated west of the Ohio. Information was immediately conveyed to the various neighbor- hoods, and a party of men, under Captain Mathew Farley, among them Charles Clay, Mitchell Clay, Jr., William Wiley, Edward Hale, John French and others, who went to the Clay cabin, buried the bodies of Bartley and Tabitha, and then began a pursuit of the Indians. The Indians took the old trail on the Bluestone, across Flat Top Mountain, down the divide between Guyandotte and Coal, on top of the Cherry Pond Mountain, continuing down the west fork of Coal River. The Indians separated into two squads, one going down Pond Fork. The whites, not suspecting they had separated, seeing the horse tracks, followed on down Pond Fork, until they saw the smoke from the Indians' fires and heard the whistle of a fife. The whites halted in order to confer as to the best method of attack. They decided to divide their party, so as to place a portion of them below the Indians and attack at daylight the next morning, and make the attack from above and below at the same time. The whites crept up as close as they could to the Indians. All was quiet during the night, and just at break of day a large Indian arose from his bed and walked ont a short distance, and was shot and killed, and thereupon began the attack.
Two of the Indians were killed and one was wounded and at- tempted to escape, and in his broken English begged for his life, but Charles Clay, whose brother and sister had been killed by them, and had another brother in captivity, refused him quarter, and killed him instantly. The remaining Indians fled down the river. Mitchell Clay, Jr., was then a boy of sixteen. When the attack began, a large Indian rushed toward him. Clay had a large rifle gun, too heavy for him to use, and missed the Indian when he fired at him. The Indian wheeled and attempted to run off, but was killed by another of the party. This fight occurred in what is now Boone County, at the head of Little Bottom on Pond Fork on Coon's farm. The spot where this battle was fought is marked by a pile of heavy stones, carried by the Indians from the mountain and piled over the bodies of their dead comrades. The whites re- covered their horses, but did not recover Ezekiel Clay, and the Indians carried him on to Chillicothe and burned him at the stake. Both Edward Hale and William Wiley took from the backs of two dead Indians strips of their hides, which they converted into
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
razor straps, which remained in their families for many years as souvenirs of this battle. After this Indian trouble Mitchell Clay moved to New River and bought the land now owned by J. Rolly Johnson, who recently owned some land in the Pipestem District, which he sold to the French Brothers. The house built by Clay remains, with the port-holes to be seen.
Mitchell Clay married Phoebe Belcher and raised fourteen chil- dren. One of his daughters, Mary, married William Stuart, and the Clays and Stewarts now form a large part of the population of Wyoming County, especially the descendants of William Stew- art. The courteous clerk of the county court of that county, A. M. Stewart, is a descendant of this William Clay and of this daughter of Mitchell Clay. Mitchell Clay died on New River in 1812, having sold his Clover Bottom tract to Hugh Innes and his son-in-law, Colonel Pearis.
Mr. Maxwell has held important positions in the management of the Republican party and policies in Summers County. As stated, he was once chairman of the County Committee, and man- aged the affairs of the party throughout that campaign. As is customary in these days, it is understood that the chairman of the party organization handles and controls largely the campaign funds. Maxwell did what few chairmen do, as far as our observation ex- tends. All of the campaign contributions were placed by him in bank and checked out, and vouchers kept therefor as disbursements were made, no contention being made that he had pocketed any of the funds, and his manner of doing this business was such that he could not be charged with maladministration. He was the first mayor of the city of Avis, elected at its incorporation. He was largely instrumental in securing the separation of the two cities, the citizens of Avis being dissatisfied with the management of affairs under the charter which consolidated the two towns. He was selected by the citizens of that city as their representative ; went to Charleston, stayed throughout the session of the Legis- lature, securing the passage of the bill known as "The City of Hinton Divorce Bill." In the election of 1904 he did not stand with the regular organization of the party so far as it stood by the nominations of his party for judge of the circuit court, and he was an earnest, active and influential supporter and advocate of the Democratic candidate for judge of the Circuit Court for the Ninth Judicial Circuit, devoting his time and influence, without money. price or compensation of any character. In his political actions. as in other matters, he is bold, aggressive, and makes no secret of the
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
position taken by him. In the famous Thompson and Fowler fac- tional controversy many years ago, he was an active adherent of the destinies of the Fowler contention and adherents. At one time he was offered a large sum of money for his support by a repre- sentative of the Standard Oil Co. to take a different position in one of those factional fights, but he was as firm as the Rock of Gibraltar.
R. H. Maxwell's grandfather's language was distinctly broken and showed the Scotch accent very perceptibly. Robert H. Max- well is the only representative of these old settlers now living in this county, and, as stated before, is a man of character, sober, industrious and enterprising. In politics, as in other matters, he stands up for his principles, and has been from the foundation of . the Republican party an ardent and faithful Republican, without seeking office or political preferment, and an earnest fighter for his political principles-fights straight from the shoulder without hypocrisy or deceit, and without money and without price. He goes into any cause earnestly, without false representation as to the position which he occupies. At one time he was chairman and made a successful chairman of his party organization in this county. If he is for a party, man or principle, he will be found advocating the same openly and above board. He now holds the office of commissioner of school lands by appointment.
THE SWOPE FAMILY.
This is a German ancestry (Schwab or Swab being the original German name for what is now known as Swope). The Swopes were among the first settlers in Monroe County, Jos. Ulrich, or John Ulrich Swope being the ancient and original settler and an- cestor of the family in this region of the country. He was the second son of Yost (Joseph) Swope, and was born in the town of Leiman, in the Duchy of Baden, in 1707. His grandfather was the mayor or burgomaster of that town. His father, Yost Swope, was born in the same town, on the 22d day of February, 1678, and owing to the persecutions of the Lutheran Church, of which he was an active member, he emigrated across the seas and settled in Upper Leacock Township of Lancaster County, Pa. Here he raised a family of five children, all of whom located there except John Ul- rich, or Joseph, as he will hereafter be called. We are not positive as to his first name, whether it is John or Joseph. The family rec- ords show that frequently these Dutch people gave two of their chil-
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
dren the same name, and tradition is that he dropped the name of John and assumed the name of his older brother, and assumed and adopted his father's name of Joseph. The original ancestor wrote his name Swab, and it was Americanized into Swope. This Jo- seph Ulrich left Pennsylvania and emigrated with the German col- ony into the Valley of Virginia, locating in Augusta, near the site of the present Swope Depot on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. It was here that his son Joseph was born, on the 11th day of Au- gust, 1751. He was of a venturesome disposition. and began ex- plorations in the country to the west. In 1750 and 1752, with his trusty flint-lock gun, he followed the Indian trail up Jackson's River to the mouth of Dunlap's Creek, thence up that creek, cross- ing the table-lands into the country where Union is built. There, instead of following the trail down the waters of Indian Creek, he took a due west course and landed on top of those knobs which bear his name to this day-Swope's Knobs-and from there he viewed the country. He descended from this mountain into the Wolf Creek Valley, and was detected by a party of marauding Indians, who followed him, but whom he discovered in time to make preparations for his escape. He headed for a large hollow poplar tree which stood about a third of a mile west of the present site of the Wolf Creek Post Office near the Broad Run Church. He managed to crawl into the hollow of this tree and climbed up the hollow, bracing himself against the sides, and there remained until the Indians gave up the search. He could hear them talking and marching around the tree, but they decided it was impossible for a man to be inside of it. This tree remained standing until 1860, when it became dangerous from decay and was cut down. After the departure of the Indians he came out of his hiding place. and there located a claim to the land round about, and cut his name in a beech trec near the spring on the farm now owned by Mrs. Cornelius Leach, entered his tomahawk or corn title and cut a brush heap at the same place. He then left, and returned in a year or two, and brought his wife and son, Joseph, and built his house a few hundred yards west of what is known as the Connor Spring. In this house he lived, and his son, Michael, after him, who was born there on the 29th of September, 1753. This child was the first white male child born in the territory of Monroe County, if not within the present territorial limits of Southern West Virginia. There is a tradition that there had been a girl born before this date within that territory, but if so, all history thereof is lost. This house built by this pioneer still remains in
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
splendid condition, and it was from this house that his son, Joseph, was stolen by the Shawnee Indians in 1756, at the age of five years, and kept a prisoner with them near Chillicothe, Ohio, for nine years. After formally settling his family in this new home, Joseph, the settler, decided to visit his people in Pennsylvania and look after his interest in his father's estate. On this trip his horse threw him, fractured his leg where it had once been fractured by an Indian bullet, and from this wound he died, and where his place of burial is not one knows.
He was a traveler and hunter, and it was Swope, Pack and Pitman who were hunting down New River near its mouth, and discovered the Indians, who were making for the Jackson's River and the Catawba settlements for the purpose of attacking and destroying them. These hunters separated, one going to one set- tlement and one to another to warn them of the danger, and it was this band of Indians that Captain Paul followed. An account of his fight with them at the mouth of Indian is given elsewhere in this book. The theft of Swope's boy by the Indians embittered him towards that people to such an extent that he never let any opportunity pass to harrass them or to secure a scalp. This son, Joseph, who was taken to the Indian village, was adopted by the queen of the tribe, who was said to have been Cornstalk's mother. He was treated with royalty and saved from death and many hard- ships. An Indian boy one day located a skunk near the camp, and induced his white comrade into making an investigation for game, the result being that he was thoroughly fumigated. Bent on re- venge, and not large enough to whip the Indian, he waited his opportunity, and when the Indian boy started to kindle a fire with steel and flint, Swope placed some powder where the fire would ignite it, and when he got down to blow the smoke into a blaze, the powder ignited and blew out both eyes of the Indian. The Indian tribe took up the matter, and Swope was sentenced to death, and it was here the good offices of the old queen came in. She was a silent spectator to his sentence of death ; then she quietly exercised her authority, took charge of her adopted boy, and told the Indians they had taught him nothing but revenge, and that this boy had a right to resent the treatment of the Indian; so saying, she led him to her wigwam, and the sentence was set aside and his life saved. The boy was returned to his parents by reason of the treaty following the battle of Point Pleasant. He was ex- changed and returned to civilization, recognized by his parents, and became the ancestor of many people now living. This boy
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
took to civilized life after his return, learned to write, and became a prosperous man. On April 3, 1774, he married Catharine Sul- livan, a full-blooded Irish woman. She was a woman of strong character, and led an eventful life, many of the details of which would be interesting to her descendants. She was a fearless pio- neer, capable of defensive as well as offensive warfare for the pro- tection of her family against the wild beasts as well as the savage men. On one occasion six Indians came into her house without saying a word, and sat down at the table and ate all she had pre- pared. With a grunt of thanks they walked over to the woods in the direction of her people. In a few moments she heard the crack of a rifle, and directly the Indians returned, and one was carrying a large buck which they had killed, and delivered it to her. They laid it down by the door, and indicated by signs and grunts that it was to pay for the dinner. This Joseph and his wife, Catharine, raised a family of nine children. George was born August 15. 1776; Margaret, October 20, 1777: Ruth, December, 1778; Joseph, June 20, 1781 ; Jonathan, January 5, 1784; Catharine, February 12, 1786; Eleanor, January 3, 1788; Adam, April 23, 1791, and Mary, March 17, 1793. Joseph settled in the Wolf Creek country and secured a patent to 600 acres of land above where his father en- tered his tomahawk right, and there raised his family in the house built by his father. Of this large family of early settlers and their descendants but few remain in the country of their nativity. George moved to Kentucky; Eleanor married a Burdette and moved to Kentucky : Mary married Thomas Casebolt and settled on Locust Creek, Pocahontas County. She was the mother of Henry Case- bolt, who went to California with the forty-niners and who was the inventor of the cable car. Joseph Swope died March 3, 1819; Catharine, his wife, died March 12, 1820. Michael Swope, brother of Joseph Swope, settled on the head of Hand's Creek, where he raised a large family. He died April 25, 1839. Jonathan Swope. the third son of Joseph and Catharine, first married Frances Legg on the 4th day of January, 1803. They settled on a part of the 600 acre patent. He was a prominent and useful citizen, inheriting the sturdy German traits of his father, with the active determination and push of his Irish mother. The children of Joseph Swope by his first marriage were George W., Lewis C., Elizabeth, Matilda. Catharine and Mary Jane. Lewis C. Swope settled in Madison County, Indiana; Elizabeth married an Argobright and settled at Spencer, in Roane County, West Virginia : Matilda married a Johnston and settled in Towa; Catharine married Griffith Ellis and
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
died near Bluefield. Mary Jane was twice married, her first hus- band being Henry Miller and her second husband, Christian C. McGame. They moved to Greenfield, Indiana, where she died a few years ago. The third daughter married Joseph Craig, of Nicho- las County, and is a literary lady of pronounced ability, she having published a book of poems. George C. Swope married and settled near his father at the site where his great-grandfather cut his name on the beech tree at the Swope Springs. He raised three children, one son and two daughters. His son, Caperton Swope, settled in Boone County, Indiana. His daughter, Elsie, first married Robert Haynes, by whom she had one daughter. Haynes was a brave soldier in the Confederate Army, and was captured and killed with a large number of prisoners in a railroad wreck while being trans- ported to prison. She afterwards married James Alderson, by whom she had one daughter, Elizabeth, now deceased. Her hus- band, James G. Alderson, and one daughter, Abbey, now live at Alderson. Her daughter, Mattie Haynes, married Charles K. Thompson, and they live in Alderson. Amanda Swope married Cornelius Leach, settled on the homestead of her father, and to them were born two boys and three girls. Elmer, the oldest son, after graduating at the University of West Virginia, taught one session as associate principal with William H. Sawyers in the Hin- ton High School. He is now engaged as a draughtsman with one of the large steel bridge concerns near Pittsburg. Arthur, the sec- ond son, married a daughter of J. J. H. Tracy, and is living on the farm since the death of his father. Ada married Dr. De Veber ; Irene married a Mr. Black, and they both live in Monroe County ; Elsie is unmarried and lives with her mother. Cornelius Leach was a prominent citizen of Monroe County, a Confederate soldier who fought through the war and an active Republican politician. He died in 1906. He was a prosperous and enterprising citizen ; four years deputy sheriff under R. T. McNeer, and was six years a member of the county court. He was the first man to insist on and agitate a revision of the tax system of this State, contending that all species of property should be assessed at its true and actual value. George W. Swope bore the distinction of being the best scribe in his county, and one of the best educated men of his day and time. He was for several years a justice of the peace, was a careful farmer, and it was said that he was able to walk out in the night-time and lay his hand on any tool used on his farm. He died in 1871. On January 3, 1850, Jonathan Swope married as his sec- ond wife Susanna Roach, widow of M. Roach, her maiden name
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