USA > West Virginia > History of West Virginia > Part 36
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«* * * At the time of which we are speaking, there were quartered in Fort Pleasant, about one and a half miles above the battle ground and within hearing of every gun, a company of regulars, commanded by a British officer named Wagner, who not only refused to march a man out of the fort, but, when the inhabitants seized their rifles and determined to rush to the assist- ance of their brothers, ordered the gates to be closed and suffered none to pass in or out. *
" The Indian chief Kill-buck afterward admitted that, although he had witnessed many sanguinary contests, this was the most so that he had ever experienced for the number of his enemies. Kill-buck was a Shawnee, a savage of strong mental powers, and well acquainted with all the families in the settlement before the war broke out. Colonel Vincent Williams, whose father was inhumanly murdered by Kill-buck, became person- ally acquainted with him many years after, and from him learned the particulars of his father's death, as well as the great heroism manifested by our little band at the battle of the Trough."
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MOOREFIELD, then in Hampshire county, was estab- lished a town by act of Assembly, 1777, on lands the property of Conrad Moore, from whom the town received its name. Garret VanMatre, Abel Randall, Moses Hut- ton, Jacob Read, Jonathan Heath, Daniel McNeil and George Rennick were appointed trustees. By Act of December, 29, 1809, it was made lawful for the free- holders, housekeepers, of the town to elect five fit and able men, inhabitants of the town, to serve as trustees thereof. 1
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RANDOLPH.
Randolph is the largest county in the State, having an area of 1080 square miles. In October, 1786, the General Assembly enacted "That from and after the first day of May, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, the county of Harrison shall be divided into two distinct counties, that is to say, so much of the said county lying on the southeast of the following lines, beginning at the mouth of Sandy creek; thence up Tygart's Valley river, to the mouth of Buckhannon river ; thence up the said river including all the waters thereof ; thence down Elk river, including the waters thereof, to the Greenbrier line, shall be one distinct county, to be called and known by the name of Ran- dolph ; and the residue of the said county shall retain the name of Harrison."
The Act provided that the justices for the new county should meet at the house of Benjamin Wilson, Tygart's Valley, and hold the first court.
EDMUND RANDOLPH, in honor of whom the county was named, was born at Williamsburg, Virginia. He was of distinguished lineage. He was the son of John Randolph, the Attorney-General of the colony, and the grandson of Sir John Randolph, who filled the same office and received the honor of knighthood for ser- vices to the Crown. His mother was Ariana, daughter of Edmund Jennings, Attorney-General of Maryland and Virginia. Educated at William and Mary College, Edmund Randolph entered on the profession of law. In 1775, he entered the Continental Army, for which he was disinherited by his father, who remained loyal to the Crown. By the Virginia Convention of 1776,
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he was appointed first Attorney-General of the Com- monwealth, and in 1779, he was elected a member of the Continental Congress. In 1786, he became Gov- ernor of the State, and in 1787, was a member of the body which framed the Federal Constitution, and the next year a member of the Virginia Convention which ratified that compact. In 1790, he was appointed first Attorney-General of the United States, and in 1794, succeeded Jefferson as Secretary of State. In 1784, he was appointed Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the Order of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Virginia, and in 1786, was elected Grand Master of the same. His name is masonically per- petuated in that of the Richmond Randolph Lodge, No. 19, chartered October 19, 1787.
About the year 1754, David Tygart and a man named Files attempted a settlement within the present limits of the county. Files settled at the mouth of a creek that still bears his name. Tygart selected a spot a few miles farther up the river. The valley in which they settled has since been called Tygart's Valley, and the river which flows through it, Tygart's Valley river.
They found it difficult to procure provisions for their families, and from their contiguity to an Indian villages, did not feel secure. They soon determined to retrace their steps. But before preparations for removal were completed, the family of Files, one son only escaping, were killed by the Indians. This son was near enough to his home to hear distinctly all that happened, and knowing he was utterly powerless to assist his friends there, fled in haste to warn Tygart's family of the dan- ger that threatened them. The country was at once abandoned by them.
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Indian Incursion .- Previous to the war of 1774, the settlers of Tygart's Valley were undisturbed by Indian marauders, yet this happy exemption from sharing the terrible fate of other settlements did not prevent them from using the utmost caution. Spies were regularly employed to watch the Indian war paths beyond the settlement and give warning in case of the approach of the savages. In this capacity William White and Leonard Petro were serving when they were discov- ered by the Indians. (See Calhoun county.)
After White's return in the autumn of 1777, the set- tlers, accustomed to enjoy quiet during the cold sea- sons, somewhat relaxed their vigilance and began to consider themselves secure for the winter. The fol- lowing shows how sadly they were made to see their mistake.
"A party of twenty Indians designing to commit some depredations during the fall, had nearly reached the upper end of Tygart's Valley, when the snow, which inspired the inhabitants with confidence in their security, began falling. Fearful of laying themselves open to detection if they proceeded farther at that time, and anxious to enact some mischief before they returned home, they remained concealed about ten miles from the settlements, until the snow disappeared. On the . 15th of December, they came to the house of Darby Connoly, at the upper extremity of the Valley, and killed him, his wife and several children, and took three others prisoners. Proceeding to the next house, they killed John Stewart, his wife and child, and took Miss Hamilton into captivity. They then immediately changed their direction, and with great dispatch began the jour- ney home, with the captives and plunder.
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"In the course of the evening after these outrages were committed, John Hadden, passing the house of Connoly, saw a tame elk lying dead in the yard. This, and the death-like stillness that was all around, excited his fear that all was not right. Entering the house he saw the awful desolation. Seeing that the bloody work had been but recently done, he hastened to alarm the neighborhood, and sent an express to Captain Ben- jamin Wilson, living twenty miles farther down the Valley, with the intelligence. With great promptitude, Captain Wilson went through the settlement, exerting himself to procure as many volunteers as would justify going in pursuit of the aggressors. So indefatigable was he in accomplishing his purpose, that, on the day after the murders were perpetrated, he appeared on the theatre of their exhibition with thirty men, prepared to take the trail and push forward in pursuit of the sav- ages. For five days they followed through cold and wet. At this time many of the men expressed a deter- mination to return. They had suffered much, travelled far, and yet saw no prospect of overtaking the enemy. It is not strange that they became dispirited. In order to expedite their progress, the numerous water-courses which lay across their path, swollen to an unusual height and width, were passed without any preparation to avoid getting wet ; in consequence, after crossing one of them, they were compelled to travel with icicles hanging from their clothes. They suffered much, too, for want of provisions. The short time afforded for preparation had not admitted of their taking with them as much as they supposed would be required, and they had already been on the chase longer than was anticipated. With great difficulty Captain Wilson prevailed on them to
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continue the pursuit one day longer, hoping the Indians would be compelled to halt in order to hunt for food. Not yet being sensible that they had gained upon the enemy, the men positively refused to go farther, and returned to their homes."
LIEUTENANT JOHN WHITE, of Tygart's Valley, was killed by the Indians in 1778. A party of them lying in ambush fired at him as he was riding by, wounding his horse so that he threw his rider, whom they then tomahawked and scalped. Captain Wilson, with his usual promptitude, again went in pursuit of the Indians. But the wily savages returning by another way than the one he took, escaped him.
Beverly, the county seat, was established by legisla- tive enactment December 16, 1790, on lands the prop- erty of James Westfall. John Wilson, Jacob Westfall, Sylvester Ward, Thomas Phillips, Hezekiah Rosecrouts, William Wormesley and Valentine Stalnaker, were ap- pointed trustees. January 26, 1811, the freeholders of Beverly were directed to elect five fit and able men, freeholders and inhabitants of the town, to be trustees thereof. By Act of Assembly, January 17, 1848, the town was incorporated under the name of the "Borough of Beverly."
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PENDLETON.
Pendleton county was formed from Augusta, Hardy and Rockingham, December 4, 1787, when the General Assembly enacted "That from and after the first of May next, all those parts of the counties of Augusta, Hardy and Rockingham, within the following bounds : beginning on the line of Rockingham county on the North Mountain, opposite to Charles Wilson's on the South Fork; thence a straight line to the Clay Lick on the North Fork ; thence to the top of the Alleghenies and along the same and the east side of the Green- brier waters to the southwest fountain of the South Branch; and thence between the same and the waters of James river, along the dividing ridge to the said North Mountain, and with the top of the same to the beginning shall form one distinct and new county, and be called and known by the name of Pendleton."
The justices were directed to hold the first court for the new county at the house of Zariah Stratton.
EDMUND PENDLETON, in honor of whom the county was named, was born in Caroline county, in 1741, and early in life entered upon the study of law. He was the president of the Virginia Convention of 1775, and also of that of 1778, which ratified the Federal Consti- tution. He was twice a member of Congress and was long president of the Virginia Court of Appeals. Upon the organization of the Federal Government, he was selected by Congress as District Judge for Virginia but declined the appointment. He died at Richmond, in 1803.
Seybert's Fort .- Twelve miles west from the present town of Franklin stood a small frontier post known as
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Fort Seybert. It was a rude structure, but with the inmates well armed it would have proven strong enough to resist an attack of the Indians. Like other structures of its kind, it was a place of refuge for the settlers around its walls. Into it they fled at the approach of the savage foe, and here they remained in safety during periods when the Indians were most troublesome. In May, 1758, when between thirty and forty persons were within the enclosure, it was attacked by a party of Shawnees under the blood-thirsty chief, Kill-buck. The following account is given by De Hass :-
" Finding neither threatening words nor bullets of any avail, the cunning savages, after two days' trial, resorted to strategy, and, unhappily, with most fatal success. They made various propositions to the besieged to give up, and their lives should be spared ; if not, the siege should be continued and every soul massacred.
" The promise of safety lured the unfortunate victims from their duty, and they yielded quiet possession of the fort. There were about thirty persons at the time in the fort and these the savages proceeded to secure. Instantly the whites realized the horror of their situa- tion and saw the inevitable doom which awaited them. In a moment of false security they trusted the promise of the savages and now were about to pay the penalty with their lives. Of the whole number all were massacred but eleven."
The horrible scene was witnessed by a youth named James Dyer, who was carried to the Indian towns on the Sciota, and escaped after two years' captivity.
It is stated by Kercheval that a son of Captain Sey- bert, having killed two Indians, had his gun raised to
SEYBERT'S FORT.
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present it at Kill-buck, when his father seized it, saying they would have to surrender to save their lives. Im- mediately after the surrender, Kill-buck saluted the Commander by a stroke in the mouth with his toma -. hawk. Young Seybert was among those taken off prisoners. When he told Kill-buck he had raised his gun to kill him, the savage replied, "If you had killed me you would have saved the fort; for if I had fallen my warriors would have given up the siege in despair."
Of the fate of the eleven prisoners, nothing satisfac- tory is known except concerning James Dyer. He was the father of Zebulon Dyer, who was afterward clerk of Pendleton county.
Franklin, the county seat, was established a town by Act of December 19, 1794, on forty-six and one-half acres of land, the property of Francis Evick. William M'Coy, James Patterson, Joseph Johnson, John Roberts, Joseph Arbaugh, James Dyer, Sr., John Hopkins, Jacob Conrad, Peter Hull and Oliver M'Coy were appointed trustees. January 10, 1814, the General Assembly enacted that " The freeholders of the said town shall meet and elect five fit and able men, being freehold- ers and inhabitants of the said town, to be trustees thereof."
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KANAWHA.
Kanawha was formed in 1789, from Greenbrier and Montgomery, and named from its principal river. Its present area is 980 square miles. Here, as elsewhere throughout the State, the first lands surveyed were patented largely by soldiers, who received them as bounties under Dinwiddie's proclamation of 1754, for services in the French and Indian War.
The first attempt at a settlement within the present limits of the county, or on the lower course of the New River -- Kanawha, was that of Walter Kelly in 1774. It appears that he came from North Carolina to the Virginia frontier, and not content to remain in Green- brier, then the most western outpost of civilization, pushed out into the wilderness, and at the mouth of what has ever since been known as Kelly's creek-a stream falling into the Kanawha twenty miles above Charleston -- reared his cabin. Sadly was he made to pay for his temerity. Shortly after his settlement the scouts sent out from Greenbrier learned that the sav- ages were preparing for hostilities. A messenger was at once sent to warn Kelly of his danger. The follow- ing, subjoined from Wither's "Chronicles of Border Warfare," tells the story of his fate.
" When the express arrived at the cabin of Walter Kelly, twenty miles below the falls, Captain John Field, of Culpeper, who had been in active service during the French and Indian War, and was then engaged in making surveys, was there with a young Scotchman and a negro woman. Kelly, with great prudence, directly sent his family to Greenbrier, under the care of a younger brother. But Captain Field, considering
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the apprehension as groundless, determined on re- maining with Kelly, who from prudential motives did not wish to subject himself to observation by mingling with others. Left with no persons but the Scot and the negro, they were not long permitted to doubt the reality of those dangers of which they had been forewarned by Captain Stuart.
"Very soon after Kelly's family had left the cabin, and while yet within hearing of it, a party of Indians approached, unperceived, near to Kelly and Field, who were engaged in drawing leather from a tan-trough in the yard. The first intimation which Field had of their approach, was the discharge of several guns and the fall of Kelly. He then ran briskly toward the house to get possession of a gun, but recollecting that it was › unloaded, he changed his course and sprang into a cornfield, which screened him from the observation of the Indians ; they supposing that he had taken refuge in the cabin, rushed immediately into it. Here they found the Scotchman and the negro woman, the latter of whom they killed, and making a prisoner of the young man, returned and scalped Kelly.
"When Kelly's family reached the Greenbrier settle- ment, they mentioned their fears for the fate of those whom they had left on the Kanawha, not doubting but that the guns which they had heard soon after leaving the cabin, had been discharged at them by Indians. Captain Stuart, with a promptitude which must ever command admiration, exerted himself effectually to raise a volunteer corps, and proceed to the scene of action, with a view of ascertaining whether the Indians had been there; and if they had, and he could meet with them, to endeavor to punish them for the outrage,
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and thus prevent the repetition of similar deeds of violence.
"They had not, however, gone far before they were met by Captain Field, whose appearance of itself fully told the tale of woe. He had run upwards of eighty miles, naked, except his shirt, and without food; his body nearly exhausted with fatigue, anxiety and hun- ger, and his limbs grievously lacerated with briers and brush. Captain Stuart, fearing lest the success of the Indians might induce them to push immediately for the settlements, thought proper to return and prepare for that event."
That Leonard Morris was the first permanent settler within the present limits of Kanawha there seems to be but little doubt. There is no evidence to sustain the claim that others were earlier.
In the Circuit Court of this county, in the year 1815, there was a land case decided in which Lawrence A. Washington was plaintiff and Eli Jarrett and Joseph Fletcher were defendants. In this case Leonard Mor- ris, then in the eighty-sixth year of his age, was a wit- ness. The following is an extract from his deposition taken from the record :-
"And the said Leonard Morris, being produced as a witness for the plaintiff, after being first duly sworn, deposeth and saith : That in the year 1775, this depo- nent was residing on Kanawha river about six miles from Burning Spring Tract. During that year, Messrs. Samuel Lewis, a surveyor, Colonel John Stuart, of Greenbrier, and Thomas Bullitt were on the Kanawha surveying lands, and procured from out of this depo- nent's family, Mungo Price and his son as chain car- riers; that after the party returned from surveying,
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this deponent understood from them that they had surveyed the Burning Spring Tract for the late General George Washington and Andrew Lewis. This deponent, with the exception of some periods when the Indian wars made it hazardous to keep a family on Kanawha, has made it his principal residence since 1775. Sometimes during the Indian troubles, this deponent's family resided altogether in Green- brier." From the foregoing it will be seen that Leon- ard Morris was residing here as early as 1775, and how much earlier cannot now be known. If there was a permanent settlement at any point in the Valley prior to that date, no evidence of it, either recorded or tra- ditional, can now be found.
The First County Court convened at the residence of George Clendenin on the 5th day of October, 1789. The following justices were present: Thomas Lewis, Robert Clendenin, Francis Watkins, Charles McClung, Benjamin Strother, William Clendenin, David Robin- son, George Alderson, Leonard Morris and James VanBibber. Thomas Lewis became the first Sheriff of the county, and William Cavendish the first clerk.
Charleston .- In 1773, Colonel Thomas Bullitt, a soldier of the French and Indian War, received a patent for a tract of 1030 acres of land, including the site of the present city of Charleston. This land he soon after sold to his brother, Judge Cuthbert Bullitt, President of the Court of Appeals of Virginia.
The founders of the city were the Clendenins. The emigrant ancestors of the family in the United States were three brothers, one of whom settled at Baltimore and became the ancestor of the Clendenin family of Maryland ; a second, Archibald, with his family, found
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a home on the Virginia frontier, where himself and family were murdered by the Indians at the time of the destruction of the Greenbrier settlements in 1763. Charles, the third of the brothers, was residing in Augusta county as early as 1752. It is not known at what date he came west of the mountains, but that he was living on Greenbrier river within the limits of Greenbrier county as early as 1780, is a matter of record. He had issue four sons and one daughter- George, William, Robert, Ellen Mary and Alexander.
George, the eldest, was born about the year 1746. He was a distinguished frontiersman, long engaged in the Indian wars, and a soldier in General Lewis' army at the battle of Point Pleasant. In June, 1788, he, with Colonel John Stuart, represented Greenbrier county in the Virginia Convention which ratified the Federal Constitution.
Whilst in Richmond, he met Judge Bullitt, from whom he purchased the lands upon which Charleston now stands, and in the autumn of the last named year, accompanied by his aged father and brothers and sis- ters, removed to the mouth of Elk river, where, the same year, they reared the first structure ever built on the site of the present capital of West Virginia. Within it, Charles Clendenin, the father, died about the year 1790, and was buried near by. When the county was formed, in 1789, George Clendenin fur- nished the blank books, for which the court allowed him nineteen hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco. Here he continued to reside until 1796, when he removed to Marietta, Ohio, where he died in 1797. His wife died at Point Pleasant in 1815. The structure reared by him was long known in pioneer annals as " Clen-
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denin's Fort," and through the efforts of the venerable Dr. John P. Hale a portion of it is still preserved, and now used as a residence. Several daring pioneers accompanied the Clendenins to the Kanawha, among them being Josiah Harrison, Francis Watkins, Charles McClung, John Edwards, Lewis Tackett and Shaderick Harriman. Of the latter, the historian, John P. Hale, in his valuable work, "Trans-Allegheny Pioneers," says: " Shaderick Harriman, then (1794) living at the mouth of Lower Venable Branch, two miles above Charleston, . on the south side, was the last person killed by Indians in the Kanawha Valley."
Charleston, contracted from "Charles' Town," first named in honor of Charles Clendenin, was made a town by legislative enactment December 19, 1794, with Reuben Slaughter, Andrew Donnally, Sr., Leon- ard Morris, George Alderson, Abraham Baker, John Young and William Morris, trustees.
St. Albans, at the mouth of Cole river, is near the site of Tackett's Fort, built by Lewis Tackett, who accompanied the Clendenins to the Valley in 1788. A year later it was attacked by a band of savages. At the time the inmates were Tackett, his son-in-law, daughter and one or two families, nearly all of whom perished at the hands of their barbarous conquerors.
Keziah, the wife of John Young and the daughter of Lewis Tackett, had that day given birth to a son- probably the first white child ever born in the Valley. When the attack began, the father clasped mother and child in his arms, and escaping from the fort, bore his precious burden to the river, where he placed it in a canoe, and pushing into the stream amid a shower of bullets, paddled twelve miles up the river, and late at
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night reached Clendenin's Fort. Neither mother nor child suffered from the exposure. The former lived more than fifty years after the occurrence. The child grew to manhood, and died in Putnam county a few years since, having attained to a great age.
Perhaps the best view of the condition of affairs on the Virginia border a hundred years ago to be had from any official source is found in the reports of George Clendenin and Daniel Boone, who were Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel, respectively, of Ka- nawha county. Both were prominent figures in the military establishment on the border, and both repre- sented Kanawha county in the General Assembly in 1791. Early in the year 1789, it was thought that the Indians were preparing for an incursion into Southwest Virginia, and for the purpose of staying it George Clendenin collected the available military force at the mouth of Elk and hastened to Point Pleasant. In August he transmitted by private carrier his report to the Virginia War Department. It is still preserved among the archives at Richmond, and from it we have the names of the men who accompanied him to Point Pleasant. They were: William Clendenin, Captain ; George Shaw, Lieutenant; Francis Watkins, Ensign ; Shaderick Harrison, Ist Sergeant ; Reuben Slaughter, 2d Sergeant, and twenty-six privates, viz. : John Tolly- purt, William Carroll, William Turrell, Samuel Dunbar, Thomas Shirkey, William Hyllard, John Burns, Nicholas Null, John Cavinder, Isaac Snedicer, Archer Price, Hen- ry Morris, William Miller, Benjamin Morris, Charles Young, John Booker, Levi Morris, William George, James Edgar, Joseph Burwell, Alexander Clendenin, Michael Newhouse, William Boggs, John Moore,
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