USA > West Virginia > History of West Virginia > Part 5
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Long centuries ago a little fleet of coracles bore a tribe of Scots, as the inhabitants of Ireland were then called, from the white cliff walls of County Antrim to the rocky and indented coast of South Argyle, West Scotland. There the little kingdom of "Scots Land," which these Irishmen founded, slumbered in obscurity among the lakes and mountains to the south of Loch Lynn until the thirteenth century, when, under the leadership of McAlpine, it suddenly rose to promi- nence. From that time to the present every student is familiar with the annals of the Scotch-Irish race. He knows how many of its representatives sealed their faith with their blood during the siege of Londonderry and on other fields. High up on the world's temple of fame that race has enshrined many illustrious names. No people in Europe has exhibited more evidences of human greatness, or is more renowned for valorous deeds, than the Scotch-Irish, and the race transplanted to America has lost naught of that which constitutes true nobility, for in every department of learning, of useful service and of heroism, by land or sea, it has lent honor to our national annals.
While these determined people were finding homes in the Upper Valley the lower portion was being oc- cupied by the sturdy ycomanry of Germany. No European nation contributed a better class of emi- grants than these. Arriving first in Pennsylvania, they pressed onward in search of fertile lands. These
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they found in the Shenandoah Valley, and almost the entire region of country from where Harrisonburg now stands to Harper's Ferry was possessed by them before the beginning of the French and Indian war. During that struggle hundreds of them served with Washington, and at its close the bones of many of them lay bleaching on the disastrous field of Monon- gahela. When the Revolution came their sons were ready, and many of them filled the Virginia line in the strife for independence.
But the Scotch-Irish and the Germans were not the only people who found homes in the Shenandoah Val- ley, for in its occupation and settlement there were blended almost all the elements of European civiliza- tion which were transplanted to our shores. Hither came and here met the devoted Huguenot, the pious cavalier of Virginia, the strict Catholic of Maryland, the steady Quaker of Pennsylvania, the Baptists and Presbyterians from New Jersey, the sternly re- ligious Puritans from New England and the Lutherans and Moravians from the banks of the Rhine. For awhile these distinct elements maintained their indi- viduality, but a long series of Indian wars, together with the Revolution, forced them into a united whole, and so complete was the assimilation that instead of a later divergence they have by common interests be- come more firmly bound together. From such an an- cestry have descended a large proportion of the popu- lation of West Virginia.
From 1732 to 1750 many pioneers found homes in the Opequon, Back Creek, Little and Great Cacapon and South Branch valleys. These settlements were made principally within the present limits of Jefferson,
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Berkeley, Morgan and Hampshire counties and were the earliest in West Virginia. Quite a number of those who settled on Opequon, now in Berkeley and Jefferson, were Quakers, and to them is due the credit of having established the first religious organization, not only in West Virginia, but west of the Blue Ridge. That they had regular meetings here as early as 1738 is proven conclusively by a letter written by Thomas Chauckley on the 21st of May of that year and ad- dressed to "The Friends of the Monthly Meeting at Opequon."
After stating that he was unable to visit them be- cause of his great age, he continues: "I desire that you be very careful-being far and back inhabitants- to keep a friendly correspondence with the native In- dians, giving them no occasion of offence, they being a cruel and merciless enemy when they think they are wronged or defrauded of their rights, as woeful ex- perience hath taught in Carolina, Virginia and Mary- land, and especially in New England. ... Therefore, my counsel and Christian advice to you is, my dear friends, that the most reputable do with speed en- deavor to agree with and purchase your lands of the native Indians or inhabitants. ... Consider you are in the province of Virginia, holding what rights you have under that government ; and the Virginians have made an agreement with the nations to go as far as the mountains and no farther, and you are over and be- yond the mountains, therefore out of that agreement, by which you lie open to the insults and incursions of the southern Indians, who have destroyed many of the inhabitants of Carolina and Virginia." (Chauckley's Letter in " History of the Valley.")
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A century and a half have passed away since the first white men found homes in West Virginia. It is not a long time; yet, when they came, Washington was an infant in his mother's arms; no Englishman had been on the banks of the Ohio; no white man had found a home within the present confines of Georgia; New Hampshire was a part of Massachusetts; the French had a cordon of forts extending from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi, and savage tribes roamed over all the country from the Blue Ridge to the Pacific. It was five years before the founding of Richmond, twenty-three years before the French and Indian war, and forty-three years before the Revolution. Truly this is the old part of West Virginia.
CHAPTER VI.
THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR.
The French in America-The Claims of the two Nations to the Ohio Valley- The Ohio Land Company-The Men Composing it-Its Grant for all the Lands lying between the Monongahela and Great Kanawha Rivers-Christopher Gist, its Agent and Explorer, sent to the Ohio-The New Province of " Van- dalia "-Other Land Companies-The French Expedition to the Ohio- They Bury Leaden Plates at the Mouths of the Principal Tributaries-Notice of one Deposited at the Mouth of the Great Kanawha-Governor Dinwiddie sends Washington with despatches to the French Commander-The English attempt the Erection of a Fort at the Forks of the Ohio-The French build Fort DuQuesne-Washington's March to the West-Erection and Surrender of Fort Necessity-General Braddock arrives in Virginia-His March into the Wilderness-His disastrous Defeat at the Battle of Monongahela-The Big Sandy Expedition of 1756-Campaign of General Forbes-France loses her Sovereignty in America.
WHILE Spain was reaping a golden harvest in Mexico and Peru, and England was planting agricul- tural states along the Atlantic coast, France was found- ing settlements on the banks of the St. Lawrence and around the Great Lakes. Her tradesmen and mission- aries journeyed side by side, and wherever the beauti- ful Fleur-de-lis-emblem of France-was planted, there too was reared the Cross-emblem of the faith of those who thus dared the perils of the wilderness. It was a curious combination of Church and State, of commerce and religion. But Canada was the child of the Church, and her first explorers were the heralds of the Cross. Champlain, the founder of Quebec, was accustomed to say that " The saving of a soul is worth more than the conquest of an empire ; " and such was the faith of the men who first bore the standard of
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civilization to the Mississippi valley and the distant shores of Lake Superior. As the years sped away, these enthusiasts labored on in an effort to secure the accomplishment of their cherished object-the con- version of Canada. The raging tempest, the rigors of an Arctic winter, hunger, the tomahawk, nor fear of death, deterred them from the prosecution of their self-imposed task-that of saving Canada for the Church. Such were the first white men within the present limits of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Missouri. Such, too, were they who first descended the Mississippi and saw the mouth of the Ohio, the discovery of which, according to the recognized law of nations, entitled their country to the possession of the valley drained by that river. When an hundred years had passed away, these pious zea- lots had made themselves acquainted with all the country from the Lakes on the north to the Gulf on the south, and from the Alleghenies on the east to the Lake of the Woods on the west, and had won thereto a title based upon the right of discovery-a right all nations had agreed to award each other. They drew maps of all this region, which, together with Canada, was called New France. The eastern boundary was indicated by the crest of the Allegheny mountains and what is now West Virginia was then a part of New France, and within the jurisdiction of the court of Versailles.
But another nation beyond the sea laid claim to the Ohio valley. England claimed it as part of Virginia, basing her title to the same upon the discoveries of John and Sebastian Cabot, who sailed along the Virginia coast in 1498. She also set up another claim
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-priority of discovery-a claim utterly absurd and entirely untenable. It was based upon a tradition which related that a man of the name of John Howard and his son, about the year 1720, reached the South Branch of the Potomac, crossed the mountain, and on the banks of the Ohio constructed a frail bark in which he descended that river and the Mississippi to New Orleans, where they were apprehended by the French and sent to France. There, nothing criminal appearing against them, they were discharged and crossed over to England.
Such were the conflicting claims of the two nations. Neither occupied the land, yet both were determined to possess it. The courts of London and Versailles watched with a jealous eye the acts of each other, and it became evident that the final struggle for territorial supremacy in America was near at hand. Thus stood matters in the year 1748. Both nations had been engaged in the War of the Austrian Succession, and the truce secured by the terms of the treaty of Aix-la- Chapelle, afforded both an opportunity to push their schemes of colonization into the Ohio valley. Britain was ably seconded by her Virginia colonists. That province bounded its ancient domain by Lake Erie and, to secure the Ohio valley to the English world, Thomas Lee, President of the Council of Virginia, and his associates proposed a colony beyond the Alleghenies. "The country west of the Great Mountains is the centre of the British dominions," wrote Lord Halifax, and he and other courtiers were so elated with the hope of possessing it by colonizing it that, through the favor of Henry Pelham and the Board of Trade, they obtained, in March, 1749, instructions from George II.,
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to the Governor of Virginia, to grant to a corporation designated as "The Ohio Land Company," five hun- dred thousand acres of land between the Monongahela and Great Kanawha rivers. The company was com- posed of twelve members, all of whom were residents of Virginia or Maryland, except John Hanbury, a merchant of London. Among the former were Law- rence and Augustine Washington-brothers of George Washington-George Mason, John Mercer and Robert Dinwiddie, Surveyor-General of the Southern Colo- nies and Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia. Promi- nent among the Maryland representatives was Colonel Thomas Cresap. They were to pay no quit-rents for ten years, to colonize within seven years at least one hundred families, to survey at once at least two-fifths of their lands, and at their own expense to build and garrison a fort.
The company hastened to call Christopher Gist, a distinguished surveyor, from his home on the Yadkin river in North Carolina, and sent him to the west to explore their lands. Gist repaired to Wills' creek, now Cumberland City, Maryland, and on the 31 st of Octo- ber, 1750, set out on his journey. Passing over the mountains he reached the Allegheny river, which he crossed a few miles above the present site of Pittsburg, and pressing on reached Logstown, the home of Tannacharison, a Mingo chieftain, called the Half King of the Six Nations. Continuing his journey westward, he reached the Ottawa and Wyandotte towns, near the present site of Zanesville, Ohio, where he met George Croghan, Indian agent for Pennsylvania, with whom he visited the Indian town of Pequa. From there Croghan returned home and Gist proceeded down the Miami to
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its mouth, and thence descended the Ohio to within a few miles of the falls. Returning to the mouth of the Great Kanawha he made thorough exploration of the lands of his employers north of that river, and returned to Virginia in May, 1751. He was probably the first Englishman ever in that part of West Virginia lying between the Monongahela and the Great Kanawha rivers.
John Hanbury, the English representative of the company, was a wealthy and influential merchant of London and very popular with the planters of Virginia, with whose consignments and mercantile affairs he was largely intrusted. He died in Coggeshall, in Essex, England, June 22, 1758.
The company at once established a depot of supplies at Wills' creek, and began the erection of a fort at the forks of the Ohio, but the beginning of hostilities pre- vented them from surveying their lands and founding a colony thereon. Their failure to comply with these conditions of their grant rendered void their title, and John Mercer, the author of "Mercer's Abridgement of the Laws of Virginia," and a member of the com- pany, drew up, in 1760, a memorial to the King asking for such instructions to the government in Virginia as would enable the corporation to secure the object of its creation, and Colonel George Mercer, son of John, went to England as the agent of the company. But owing to conflicting interests of private individuals in Virginia, claims of officers and soldiers under Dinwid- die's proclamation, and the schemes and application of the proprietors of the grant to Thomas Walpole, a London banker, and others, known as "Walpole's Grant," Mercer's efforts proved futile, and he at last
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agreed to merge the interests of the Ohio Company into those of Walpole's or the "Grand Company," on condition of securing to the former two shares of the latter or one thirty-sixth of the whole.
Later on a petition was sent over sea from Virginia praying for the formation of a separate government , for that portion of Virginia lying between the Alle- gheny mountains and the Ohio, including the territory now composing the State of West Virginia. On the 2d day of December, 1773, George Mercer, who was still in London, addressed a letter to George W. Fair- fax, which is still preserved, and from which it is learned that the new province was to be called "Van- dalia," the seat of government of which was to be at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, and George Mercer to be the first governor. That Washington was ap- prised of this scheme is apparent from the advertise- ment for the sale of his lands on the Ohio and Great Kanawha rivers, which appeared in the Virginia Ga- zette in 1773, from which the following is an extract :
"And it may not be amiss, further to observe that if the scheme for establishing a new government on the Ohio, in the manner talked of, should ever be effected, these must be the most valuable lands in it, not only on account of the goodness of the soil and other advantages above mentioned, but from their contiguity to the seat of the government which, it is more than probable, will be fixed at the mouth of the Great Kanawha."
The Revolution put an end to all these negotiations, and had it not been so, it is probable that there would have been an independent government in what is now West Virginia more than a century before it came.
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But the grant to the Ohio Company was not the only cause of alarm to France. Others soon followed. In 1749 a grant of eight hundred thousand acres ex- tending northward from the North Carolina line was made to the Loyal Land Company; and on the 29th of October, 1751, the Greenbrier Company was author- ized to locate one hundred thousand acres on the waters of Greenbrier river. In these transactions the interests of British commerce were considered rather than the articles of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
France determined not to yield before the threaten- ing attitude of her powerful rival, and as a preliminary step in taking formal possession of the Valley of the Ohio, determined to place along that river a number of leaden plates bearing inscriptions asserting her claims to the lands on both sides of that stream even to the source of its tributaries. The command of the expedition sent out to deposit these plates was given to Captain Bienville De Celeron. It consisted of eight subaltern officers, six cadets, an armorer, twenty sol- diers, one hundred and eighty Canadians, fifty-five Indians and Father Bonnecamps, who styled himself the " Jesuitte Mathematicien."
The expedition left Montreal on the 15th of June, 1749, and on the 29th of July reached the Allegheny at the mouth of the Conewago, where the first plate was buried. The journey was continued, and on the 3d day of August the second plate was buried near the mouth of French creek. Thence the voyage was continued down the Ohio; the present boundary line between Ohio and Pennsylvania was passed, and on the 13th the little fleet lay to at the mouth of Wheel- ing creek, which the French called Kanououara, and
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there the third plate was buried. Here the night was spent and on the morning of the 14th the voyage was resumed. The present site of Moundsville was passed. Another night came and went and on the 15th the voyagers went on shore at the mouth of a beautiful river which flowed in from the northwest. It was the Muskingum of the Indians, and the site was that of the present city of Marietta, the oldest Euro- pean settlement in Ohio. Here the fourth plate was buried. Once more the little flotilla launched forth upon the stream, and on the 16th the mouth of the Little Kanawha was passed and Blennerhassett's island-the " Deserted Isle" of after times-was left behind. The night of the 17th was spent in the vicinity of the Pomeroy Bend, and on the morning of the 18th a rain storm drove the canoes ashore at the mouth of the Great Kanawha; and here on that day, on the point on which the town of Point Pleasant now stands, the fifth plate was buried. Here Celeron wrote in his journal : "Enterrée au pied d'un orne, sur la rive me- ridionale de l'Oyo, et la rive orientale de Chinondaista, le 18 Aout, 1749." " Buried at the foot of an elm, on the south bank of the Ohio and on the east bank of the Chinondaista, the 18th day of August, 1749."
This plate was found in 1846, by a son of John Beale, then of Mason county, Virginia, but afterward of Kentucky, and removed from the spot in which it had lain for ninety-seven years. It passed into the possession of James M. Laidley, a member of the General Assembly from Kanawha county, who in IS50 carried it to Richmond, where it is now preserved in the cabinet of the Virginia Historical Society. The fol- lowing is a translation of the inscription which it bears :
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" In the year 1749, reign of Louis XV., King of France, We, Celeron, commandant of a detachment sent by Monsieur the Marquis de la Galissoniere, Commandant General of New France, to re-establish tranquillity in some Indian villages of these cantons, have buried this plate at the mouth of the river Chin- odashichetha the 18th August, near the river Ohio, otherwise Beautiful River, as a monument of renewal of possession, which we have taken of the said river Ohio, and of all those which fall into it, and of all the lands on both sides as far as the sources of said rivers ; the same as were enjoyed, or ought to have been en- joyed by the preceding Kings of France, and that they have maintained it by their arms and by treaties, especially by those of Ryswick, Utrecht and Aix-la- Chapelle."
Heavy rains detained the detachment at Point Pleas- ant two days. Leaving on the 20th the voyage was continued down the Ohio. For many days their canoes floated on beneath the sombre shades of the primeval forests which then overshadowed the river. On the 30th the Great North Bend of the Ohio was passed and they reached the mouth of the Great Miami, where, on the 31st, the sixth and last plate was buried. From here the homeward march was begun, and on the 10th day of November they reached Mont- real, having accomplished a journey of more than twelve hundred leagues.
In 1753 the French advanced southward from Can- ada, building a cordon of forts extending from Lake Erie to the Ohio. The first of these structures was located at Presqu' Isle, now Erie; the second at Le Boeuf, now Waterford ; and the third at Venango, now
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Franklin. To stay these movements, the Governor of Virginia determined first to resort to diplomacy. Major George Washington, then but twenty-one years of age, was summoned to Williamsburg and intrusted with the hazardous mission of carrying messages to the French authorities on the Upper Ohio. He chose as his companions, Christopher Gist, Jacob Van Braam, a French interpreter, John Davidson, an Indian inter- preter, William Jenkins, Henry Stewart, Barnaby Currien and John McGuire, and at once proceeded to the Ohio valley. On the 4th day of December he reached Venango, the most southern outpost of France. Here he learned that the headquarters of the French commander were at Le Boeuf, and pressing on to that place, he met a courteous reception from Le Gardeur de St. Pierre, to whom he delivered Dinwiddie's mes- sage. St. Pierre promised to forward it to the Gover- nor-General of Canada, but stated that his orders were to hold possession of the Ohio valley, and that he would do so to the best of his ability. Washington's first public service was performed, and he retraced his steps over the bleak and leafless Alleghenies to the English border.
Virginia prepared for war. A company of West Virginia pioneers was speedly collected in the Hamp- shire Hills and under the command of Captain William Trent crossed the mountains, and in January, 1754, began the erection of a fort at the forks of the Ohio. The work was continued until the 16th of April, when a large force of French and Indians having descended the Allegheny appeared on the scene. Contrecour, the French commander, sent a summons to surrender. Resistance was vain. Captain Trent
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obeyed the summons and marched up the Monon- gahela. The French completed the work and be- stowed upon it the name of Fort Du Quesne in honor of the Marquis de Du Quesne de Menneville, who be- came Governor-General of Canada in 1752.
Meanwhile, Washington was advancing to the west with two companies from lower Virginia, and another collected in the vicinity of Harper's Ferry, under the command of Captain Adam. Stephen. When he heard of the disaster at the forks of the Ohio, he halted and built Fort Necessity. The French advanced to the attack and the first engagement took place be- tween the van-guard of the two armies on the 28th of May. The French loss was ten killed and twenty-two prisoners ; among the former was M. Jumonville, the commander, and among the latter M. La Force. Captain Thomas Cresap conducted the prisoners to Williamsburg. Here La Force succeeded in escaping from prison, but was apprehended by a backwoodsman in New Kent county, who refused the valuable bribe, offered by La Force for his release. The French came on in strong force, attacked the English and on the Fourth day of July, 1754, Washington .surrendered Fort Necessity and in great discomfiture began the march to Wills' creek.
The year 1754 closed with the French in complete possession of the Ohio valley. But a war was begun which, in its results, was to change the geography of a continent and exert a powerful influence in moulding the destinies of nations. Both nations speedily mustered veteran regiments fresh from the battle-fields of the Old World, and transferred them to the wilds of North America. In midwinter, General Edward
GENERAL BRADDOCK.
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Braddock sailed from the harbor of Cork with two regiments destined for Virginia, and on the 20th of February, 1755, cast anchor in Chesapeake bay. About the same time a French fleet sailed from the harbor of Brest, freighted with munitions of war. But two of their ships, "The Lys" and "The Alcide," were captured off the banks of Newfoundland by a British fleet commanded by Admiral Boscawen.
The troops which came with Braddock were the 44th and 48th Royal Infantry Regiments, commanded respectively by Sir Peter Halkett and Colonel Thomas Dunbar. From Alexandria they proceeded up the Potomac, passing through the present counties of Jefferson, Berkeley and Morgan, West Virginia, their route lying near the present site of Martinsburg ; they continued the march to Fort Cumberland, previously known as Wills' creek-now Cumberland City, Mary- land-which had been erected in the autumn of 1754, by Colonel Ennes, commanding a detachment of South Carolina and New York troops. Here about one thousand Virginians, principally from the Shenandoah valley, joined Braddock and on the 8th of June the army began its march into the wilderness, its object being the reduction of Fort Du Quesne. Soon the command was divided: the general advanced with twelve hundred chosen men and Sir Peter Halkett, as brigadier, Lieutenant-Colonel Gage-afterward General Gage of the Revolution-Lieutenant-Colonel Burton and Major Sparks, leaving Colonel Dunbar with the heavy artillery and baggage to follow on as rapidly as possible.
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