USA > West Virginia > Tucker County > History of Tucker County, West Virginia, from the earliest explorations and settlements to the present time; > Part 2
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
In the course of a few months, a straggler named Simp- son found his way to their camp, and remained with them. By this time, hunters from the South Branch began to hunt frequently in the glades of Preston; and the deserters felt insecure. They determined to move further west. Simp- son agreed to accompany them. The three men broke up their camp near Aurora, and took their way down Horse Shoe Run. At its mouth, they crossed into the Horse Shoe. After they had crossed the river, they fell to quarreling. The two Pringles took sides against Simpson, and drubbed him off to himself. He crossed to the Valley River. Not liking the country, he passed on to Harrison County, and, not far from Clarksburg, built him a camp. He made that locality his permanent home until the country about him
23
JAMES PARSONS.
began to be settled, five or six years later. The Pringles likewise crossed to the Valley River, and ascending it to the mouth of the Buckhannon, passed up that river to the mouth of Turkey Run, in Upshur County, where they made a camp in a hollow sycamore tree.
We have no account of any other persons visiting Tucker for some years. The only occupants were wild animals that filled the woods, or wild Indians who occasionally roamed up and down the valleys. It is possible that Simon Kenton was on the river at the Horse Shoe in the summer of 1771. He had had a fight with a man in Virginia, and thought he had killed him. He fled westward and reached Cheat River. It may have been at the Horse Shoe; but, more probably it was in Preston County. At that time, Kenton was only sixteen years old. He after- wards went to Kentucky and became one of the most illus- trious characters in all border history.
When first visited by white men, there were no Indians who made the territory of Tucker their permanent home. If they came within it at all, it was only to pass through, or to hunt for game. Many people hold quite erroneous ideas concerning the Indians who used to kill people and do all manner of wickedness in West Virginia. Some sup- pose that they lived all over the valleys and mountains like bears and panthers, and in an unguarded moment would run into a settlement, murder all the people they could catch, and then retreat to the woods, and skulk about through the brush like wild animals until a chance came of killing somebody else. This was not the case. No Indians have made Tucker County their home, so far as is known, since before Columbus. Undoubtedly, they once lived here ; but they had long been gone when first the white man
24
HISTORY OF TUCKER COUNTY.
came; and nothing but graves, remnants of arrows and other implements, found scattered about the ground, told that they had ever made this part of the valley of Cheat their home. Nor was the land between the Ohio River and the Alleghany Mountains, now West Virginia, the country of Indians at the coming of the whites. A few scattered lints and two or three little towns were all that our state contained of the living Indian race. But, in earlier times, they had lived here, as their remains now prove; and there is reason for believing that the country was tolerably thickly inhabited. Why they deserted the land, or what became of them, is a question that none now can answer. It is useless to put out theories on the subject. Of all specimens of human weakness, a mere theory, unsupported by evidence, deserves most to be pitied. We know that there was a time when West Virginia and Tucker County had inhabitants, and we know that those inhabitants were Indians; but further than this, nothing is certain. What became of the tribes-whether they departed for a better country, or whether they were exterminated by some stronger nation, or whether some plague carried them off-we do not pre- tend to say. Any opinion on the subject is only guesswork, because no man knows.
It is not theory, however, to say that before West Virginia was inhabited by the Indians, there was another race of people living here. They are called Moundbuilders, because they usually built mounds in countries where they lived. There may have been Indians here before the Moundbuilder came, and there certainly were after he de- parted, but, there is no evidence that the two races occu- pied the same country at the same time. A thousand the- ories are extant concerning the origin and fate of that mys-
25
JAMES PARSONS.
terious race, which built the ten thousand mounds and for- tifications in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys; but, no man knows whence they came, when they came, how long they remained or when or why they left, or whether they were white or black, or what was their religion or their laws, or who they were. However, it is tolerably well established that they ceased to be a people in the United States at least nine hundred years ago. Indeed, from all the evidence in the case, one is nearly obliged to believe that the mounds of the west are as old as the Tower of Babel.
It is not certain that the Moundbuilders ever lived in Tucker ; but, there is a little ground for attributing to them the small monnd in the Horse Shoe, on the farm of S. B. Wamsley, Esq. The mound in question is about forty feet in circumference and four or five high. It is on the first terrace above the river. It may be the work of Indians; but, it is more probably the remains of the Moundbuilders, who had their center of empire in Ohio, and extended their frontiers over nearly all the land of the Mississippi Valley, east of Texas and Kansas. Nobody knows what the mounds were built for. They were constructed of earth and loose stones, sometimes of sand, and occasionally fragments of wood were found in them. Some of the structures seem to have been used for fortifications, some as churches, or rather temples, and some may have been built as tombs for great men .. But, this is not a settled point. In some of them, altars with charred human bones among ashes have been found. This suggests that the Moundbuilders offered hu- man sacrifice to their idols, as the Mayas and people of Mexico did. Some think it probable that the Mound- builders were originally a colony from Mexico. Skeletons in the mounds have led some persons to conclude that the
26
HISTORY OF TUCKER COUNTY.
mounds were built for tombs. It would be as reasonable to conclude that a stack of hay was built for a rat because a rat's nest was found in it. Yet, doubtless, some mounds are only the huge graves of kings. But, no doubt, very many of the bones and relies found in mounds and hastily attributed to the Moundbuilders, are only the old carcasses of Indians, and Indian whimwhams. It is a known fact that the Indians often buried their dead in the mounds.
Although many of the relics taken from the mounds are counterfeit, yet some are surely genuine. From these we learn that the Moundbuilders were not much larger or much smaller than the average Indians. The accounts of skele- tons of giants thirty feet long, dug out of the ground, are not to be believed. It is doubtful if a race of people, much larger than able-bodied Englishmen of to-day, has ever been in existence.
The mound in the Horse Shoe is known to have been the burial place of human beings; but, it is not known that it was built for that purpose. Ground-hogs that dig their holes in it, used to throw out pieces of human bones. But, this is no evidence that the bones were from the skeletons of Moundbuilders. In fact, there are many reasons for be- lieving that they were Indian bones. An old Indian village stood on the bank of the river, less than a mile above the mound. Indian skeletons have been found in other places about the river, and there is no reason why they may not have buried some in this mound, as they did in other mounds whenever they had an opportunity of doing so. In early days, the river used to wash bones from its bank, where stood the village. Captain Parsons and Samuel Bonnifield once found a jaw bone so large that it could be placed in position on the outside of their faces. A thigh
27
JAMES PARSONS.
bone, also enormous, is reported to have been pulled out of the river bank at the same place. The bone was said to have been so long that when stood on the ground beside a man it reached up under his arms. This magnitude was probably due to excited fancy, like that possessed by the Indian, who returned from traveling and reported that he had seen a race of men whose ears hung down to their hips.
The Moundbuilders must have been an agricultural peo- ple ; because, a population as dense as theirs could not have lived in any other manner. Then, it is probable that the Horse Shoe was, long years ago, farmed something after the manner that it is now. But, the ancient people have left no trace that they had horses, oxen, any iron or steel tools or any kind of machinery, except such as they could make of wood, shells, stone and copper. But, whether or not the river bottom, from the Holly Meadows to St. George, was once a thriving settlement, and corn fields covered it from one end to the other, yet when the first white men vis- ited it, it showed no sign of ever having been tilled. Noth- ing but the little mound, above referred to, is left to tell that the Moundbuilders ever lived; and, this mound is not conclusive evidence of the presence of that ancient race.
But, one thing is certain : Tucker County was once the home of Indians. The Indians of America seem to have belonged to one general race, the same as the people of Eu- rope belong to one. The Indians are divided into numerous tribes, nations, families and confederations. These differ in language and customs. How the Indians got to America is unknown ; and it is only wasting time to offer theories upon the subject. There is about as much reason for believing that the old world was peopled from the new as that the new was colonized from the old. Each continent may have
28
HISTORY OP TUCKER COUNTY.
had a people indigenous to itself. The Esquimaux of Alaska and the Siberians are known to cross and re-cross Behring Strait, and America may have received its inhabitants from Asia in that manner. The islands of Polynesia are known to be sinking. Some of them are believed to have sunken ten thousand feet, so that the islands now above water are only the mountains and table lands of a submerged conti- nent extending from the coast of Asia nearly or quite to that of America. Indians may have come from that continent to America. The Telegraph Plateau, from New Foundland to Ireland, has the appearance of an isthmus that once con- nected Europe and America. It is now under water, but so near the surface that icebergs lodge on it. This may have been the Island of Atlantis that some of the old heathen writers say was swallowed up in an earthquake. If so, the tribes of America may have come from Europe.
It is useless to speculate on this. It can be proven with equal conclusiveness that the Indians are mixed with Welsh, Japanese, Norwegians, Jews and Carthagenians. It is un- known where they came from or who they were before they came. We take them as we find them.
What tribe inhabited Tucker County is not known. Jef- ferson says that it was the Massawomee. It may have been; and for all the difference, we may consider that it was. They were gone when first the white man came, and nothing but graves and other relics told that they were ever here.
We cannot tell why they departed from this part of the State; but, they all, except a few little towns, left for some country unknown to us. We cannot tell why they aban- doned the country. War may have exterminated them, or they may have gone to occupy a better land. Cusick, an
29
JAMES PARSONS.
educated Indian, wrote a book about the Indians, and said that many tribes wanted the Monongahela valley, and not being able to agree, they held a council and decided that all should leave it. But, this story is not to be credited. Cu- sick did not know any more about it than he had read in books or had fabricated himself. The Indians knew no more of their history than the white people knew-not as much, for that matter.
The Indians who killed people in West Virginia generally came from Ohio; but, some came from Pennsylvania and Indiana. Ohio was full of Indians. They had towns on the Muskingum, Tuscarawas, Hockhocking, Scioto, San- dusky, Maumee, Miami and all through the intervening country. The meanest Indians were those on the Sandusky and Scioto. During the winter they did not often bother the settlements ; because they were too lazy to provide themselves clothes to keep them from freezing in cold weather, and had to lie in their huts by the fire. But, as soon as the spring came and the weather began to get warm, they crawled from their dens, and fixed up their guns, knives and tomahawks for a raid upon the settlements. They traveled about twenty miles a day, unless in a hurry. If they set out from the Scioto River on the first of May, they would reach the Ohio somewhere between Point Pleasant and Wheeling in from four to seven days. They would cross that river on a raft of logs, and if they were aiming for Cheat River they would reach it in from four to seven days longer, provided they did not stop on the way.
When they came into a settlement they would hide in fence corners and in brier thickets until they saw a chance of killing somebody. Then they would leap out and sieze their victim. They sometimes killed and sometimes carried
30
HISTORY OF TUCKER COUNTY.
away as prisoners those whom they could catch. If they carried a prisoner off, they would tie his hands and make him walk between two warriors. If they had plenty to eat, they gave the prisoner plenty; but if their provisions were scarce, they gave him very little. When they got him to Ohio they sometimes turned him loose in a field, and all the Indians got after him with clubs and rocks and pounded him to death. Sometimes they tied him to a tree and burnt him; and sometimes they adopted him into their tribe and treated him well. A prisoner never knew what fate awaited him, and always tried to escape.
But, the Indians always watched so close that a prisoner seldom got away. It was an unlucky thing for a prisoner to try to escape and fail. It made the Indians mad, and they would show little mercy afterwards. Indeed, it was a perilous thing to fall into the hands of the Indians at any- time ; and many people would be killed before taken cap- tive by them. If they got a grudge against a prisoner, he had a poor show of ever getting away. Simon Kenton, who was on Cheat River in 1771, five years before the founding St. George, was once captured by the Indians. He had stolen seventeen of their horses, and when they caught him they put him in a field and three hundred of them tried to pound him to death; but, he whipped them out eight times and got away. They tied him up three times to roast him ; but he still got away and escaped to Kentucky. But, he was more fortunate than the most of prisoners ; and, besides, he was such a terrible fighter that they were afraid of him.
The Indians in Tucker had a town in the Horse Shoe, opposite the lower end of Sycamore Island. The traces of the village may still be seen in summer on account of the
31
JAMES PARSONS.
weeds that grow larger there than on the adjacent lands. This is the place that the bones are washed out of the bank. On the other side of the river, one mile above St. George, are numerous Indian graves. It used to be reported that there were five hundred graves within half a mile; but the writer took the pains to count them, and could not find more than forty-six. They are rude heaps of stone, and extend along the side of the hill in an irregular manner. Some of them have been opened. Nothing was ever found in them. They are probably very old. An old account says that a battle was fought there between two tribes of Indi- ans; but there is not a shadow of foundation for the story, except the graves. Why so many Indians should have been buried so near together is hard to account for, unless they were killed in battle, or by some other violent means. But this does not prove that a battle was fought. Probably there was a town near, and this was the graveyard.
The Indians used arrows tipped with flint. Many of these flints are found scattered about the country. Where the Indians got the material from which they made them is now unknown. The making of the arrow points was a pro- fession among the Indians. They had men who made it a business. One of these factories is believed to have been situated on Horse Shoe Run, where R. Maxwell's barn now stands. When the ground was first plowed it was covered with bits of flint and broken points, and everything indi- cated that a shop for manufacturing flint points had form- erly been there.
The French and Indian War closed in 1764. After that, came a wonderful immigration to the West. West Virginia and Kentucky were the main points to which settlers flocked. West Virginia was soon spotted all over with col-
32
HISTORY OF TUCKER COUNTY.
onies. Within six years, settlements were on all the prin- cipal rivers. But none were yet in Tucker. Capt. James Parsons knew of the Horse Shoe Bottom, and was only waiting for a suitable time to lay patents on the lands. Sometime before 1774, probably about 1772, he and his brother Thomas came over to Cheat from Moorefield, to look at the lands and select them favorable places. James chose the Horse Shoe, and Thomas all the land from the" mouth of Horse Shoe Run to the Holly Meadows, exclusive of the Horse Shoe. They afterward obtained patents for these lands; and James bought some other tracts, among which was the farm since owned by the Bonnifields, on Horse Shoe Run. This was originally a " corn right."
These lands were marked out at the time of their selec- tion, but, in 1774, as shall be seen in the next chapter, a colony from the South Branch built a fort in the Horse Shoe, and cleared some of the land. But, in two years, John Minear, leader of the colony, removed to St. George, on land of his own.
When the Parsons brothers were passing back and forth between Moorefield and the Horse Shoe, there was not any particular war between the white people and the Indians. But, the Indians were always ready to kill a man when they could find him by himself in the woods. They would be still more likely to do this if he had a good gun and a horse. These were articles which the Indians always wanted, and they would plunder a man of these whenever they got a good chance. James and Thomas Parsons always rode splendid horses, and the straggling bands of Indians who roamed along Cheat were very anxious to steal them. They would have killed the riders to get the horses.
In this state of affairs it was dangerous for two men to
.
33
JOHN MINEAR.
come alone so far into the wilderness. But, in spite of danger, Captain Parsons and his brother came often while they were surveying and locating their land. They crossed the Backbone and Alleghany mountains near the Fairfax Stone. In order that they might the more successfully elude the Indians, they were accustomed to put the shoes on their horses, toes behind, so that the Indians would be deceived in the direction in which the horses had gone.
On one occasion Captain Parsons had come alone from Moorefield. He had visited his land, and had just crossed the river at the mouth of Horse Shoe Run, when an Indian, hidden in the weeds near by, gobbled like a turkey. The savage probably thought that he could decoy his man within gunshot; but in this he was mistaken. Captain Parsons was too well posted in Indian tricks to be trapped in such a manner. Instead of going to kill the turkey, he put spurs to his horse and reached Moorefield that night, a distance of near seventy miles. The path was through the woods, and crossed the Alleghany Mountains. These were the first locations of lands in Tucker County. The next chapter will relate to the settlement of these lands, and of others taken up near the same time by John Minear, Robert Cun- ningham, Henry Fink and John Goffe.
The first explorers and settlers of the county were the Parsons and Minear families. The main part of the county's history has been enacted by the representatives of one or the other of these. 3
CHAPTER II. JOHN MINEAR.
AS NEARLY as can now be ascertained, John Minear first visited Tucker County in the year 1773. He was a native of Germany, where he was born about 1730. It has been said that he was a soldier under Frederick the Great ; but the truth of this is not well authenticated. In 1767, he came to America. He was already married, and brought with him a small family, among whom was David Minear, then twelve years of age.
John Minear bought land on the Potomac River, and lived there until 1774. He had heard the reports brought back by Capt. James Parsons, and he determined to visit the new country and see it for himself. Whether any one accompanied him or not, is not stated ; but, probably, he was not alone in his series of explorations, which he made in 1773. He visited the country along Cheat River, from the Holly Meadows to Licking Falls; and, having selected a suitable farm in the Horse Shoe, he returned to the Poto- mac for his family.
So great was his influence, and so general was the desire for emigration, that he found little difficulty in gathering about him quite a company of farmers, willing to risk their fortunes in the new land. He was the leader of the colony, and all placed confidence in his judgment and trust in his bravery. His education was in advance of the farmers of his time ; and, those who came with him looked upon him, not only as a military leader in expected wars with the In- dians, but also as a counselor in civil affairs, in the settle-
35
JOHN MINEAR.
ment of lands and the deeds and rights appertaining thereto. How many came with him is not known. The names of a few survive, and we know that there were others. They did not come merely to explore the country and speculate in lands; but, they brought with them their fami- lies, their household goods, and what movable property they could, and had no other intention than that of making the valley of Cheat their permanent home.
They reached their destination early in 1774, probably in March. They spent the first night in the woods, not far from the crossing at Willow Point. The men at once com- menced work on a fort, which they built as a defense against the Indians. The fort was nothing more than a large log house, with holes left between the logs through which the inmates could shoot at Indians. The building stood on or near the spot where now stands the residence of S. E. Parsons. It was used as a fort and also as a dwell- ing house for all the families. It was made large enough to give room for all. In the daytime, the men went to the woods to clear corn fields, and left the woman and children in the fort. If any alarm was given of Indians, the men would run to the fort, and bar the doors, and watch through the cracks in the walls for the coming of the enemy. They never lay down to sleep without locking the doors to keep the Indians out.
For awhile everything went well in their new home. As the spring came on, the weather got warm and delightful, and the huge oaks and gigantic chestnut trees came out in leaf. The men worked hard, and soon had cleared the logs and trees from several small corn fields, which they planted as soon as the frost was all out of the ground. The settlers sometimes were out of bread and had to live on meat; but,
36
HISTORY OF TUCKER COUNTY.
venison and bear meat were plentiful, and there was no danger of starving. What corn and wheat they had was carried on pack horses from the Potomac River.
Early in the summer, new danger from the Indians began to be feared. Up to this time, there had been no actual hostility, except an occasional murder of an Indian by a white man or of a white man by an Indian. Even this had not disturbed the settlement in the Horse Shoe. But, with the return of the spring, in 1774, a war seemed certain. Along the Ohio, above and below Wheeling, several murders were committed, both by white men and by Indians. Greathouse, a white man, fell upon a camp of Indians a few miles above Wheeling, and killed men and women. This so enraged the Indians that they at once commenced war upon all the settlements west of the Alleghany Mountains. The principal settlements in West Virginia then were on the Monongahela, the Valley River, the West Fork and on the Greenbrier, Kanawha and the Ohio. The small fort in the Horse Shoe cannot be reckoned as a settlement. But the Indians soon found it out. In fact, it was on a famous war path that crossed the river at the mouth of Horse Shoe Run, and the Indians who would walk to and fro along this path must necessarily find the fields.
Early in the summer of 1774, Colonel McDonald, with a few hundred men, marched into Ohio and burnt some In- dian towns on the Muskingum River. Nobody but Indians lived in Ohio then, and they were furious when the white men burnt the towns and cut down all their corn. As soon as McDonald left the country, the Indians hurried across the river, and commenced killing people and burning houses and barns in revenge for the treatment received at his hand. The settlers who lived nearest the Ohio were in the greatest
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.