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WILLIAM FRANKLIN, Governor of New Jersey. FREDERICK SMYTH, Chief Justice of New Jersey. THOMAS WALKER, Commissioner for Virginia. RICHARD PETERS, ) of the Council of Pennsyl- JAMES TILGHMAN, vania."
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Thus the title to a large area of country, of which the territory now embraced within the confines of West Virginia formed a part, passed from the Six Nations and vested in the King of England. But the Shawnees, Delawares, Mingoes and other tribes on and north of the Ohio, claimed that a part of the territory thus ceded belonged to them, and refusing to yield it to the Eng- lish, continued to dispute its possession through all the years from the treaty of Fort Stanwix to that of Green- ville, in 1795. 1
THE MISSISSIPPI COMPANY.
It was at this time that an effort was made to estab- lish a landed corporation west of the mountains on a scale more extensive than any that had as yet been contemplated. What is now West Virginia was in- cluded in the sought for grant. The scheme failed, but through no fault of the would-be incorporators.
In December, 1768, Arthur Lee, late commissioner
* The mark of his nation.
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to the Court of France, from the United Colonies of North America, presented a petition to the King of England in Council, praying in the following words, on behalf of himself and forty-nine other gentlemen : " That your majesty would grant to his petitioners, to be fifty in number, by the name of the Mississippi Company, two millions and five hundred thousand acres of land, in one or more surveys, to be located and laid off between the thirty-eighth and forty-second degrees of north latitude, the Allegany mountain to the eastward, and thence westward to the dividing line (the running of which your majesty has been lately pleased to order), and that your petitioners shall have liberty of holding these lands twelve years or any greater number that your majesty shall approve (after the survey of them be made and returned), clear of all imposition money, quit-rents or taxes ; and that your petitioners shall be obliged to seat the said lands within twelve years, with two hundred families at least, if not interrupted by the savages, or some foreign enemy, and return the survey thereof to such office as your majesty shall be pleased to direct, otherwise to forfeit the grant."
The petition is yet preserved in the British archives, and on the back are the following indorsements :
" 16th December, 176S, read and referred to a Committee."
"9th March, 1769, read by the Committee and referred to the Board of Trade."
If any further action was ever taken regarding it, no record of it has been found by the author.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE WAR ON THE BORDERS.
Pontiac's Conspiracy-Destruction of the Settlements in the Greenbrier Valley in 1763-Colonel Boquet's Treaty with the Indians-Colonel George Cro- gan's Descent of the Ohio-Washington's Journey to the Ohio in 1770.
THE French army was gone. But around the northern lakes dwelt many of the French who, smart- ing under the defeat which their arms had sustained, encouraged the savages to continue their barbarous warfare along the whole English frontier. To these forest warriors the French declared that their father, the King of France, had been sleeping, but would soon come with a powerful army to assist his children-the red men-in driving their enemies-the English-be- yond the mountains. Thus influenced, nearly every tribe from New England to the western extremity of Lake Superior combined in a conspiracy, which, had it been entirely successful, would have resulted in the reduction of every English post on the frontier. Pon- tiac, chief of the Ottawas, and the most distinguished warrior whose name appears in Indian annals, was at the head of this conspiracy. He began the arrange- ment of his plans in 1762. The following year every English outpost was simultaneously attacked, and only Forts Niagara, Pitt and Detroit sustained the shock ; Mackinaw, St. Joseph, Miami, Sandusky, Presqu' Isle, Venango and La Boeuf falling into the hands of the savages. At the same time the Delawares, Senecas
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and Shawanees carried destruction and death along the English border.
The first of these blows struck within the present limits of West Virginia was that which resulted in the total destruction of the settlements in the Greenbrier valley and within what is now Greenbrier county. The following detail is taken from Stuart's "Memoirs of the Indian Wars and other Occurrences :"
" The Indians commenced hostilities in 1763, when all the settlements in the Greenbrier valley were to- tally cut off by a party of Indians headed by the Corn- stalk warrior. The chief settlements were on Muddy creek. These Indians, in number about sixty, intro- duced themselves into the people's houses under the mask of friendship and every civility was offered them by the people, providing them victuals and accommo- dations for their entertainment, when, on a sudden, they killed the men and made prisoners of the women and children. Then they passed over into the Levels, where some families were collected at the house of Archibald Clendenin. There were fifty and one hun- dred persons, men, women and children. There the Indians were entertained, as at Muddy creek, in the most hospitable manner. Clendenin having just ar- rived from a hunt with three fat elks, they were plenti- fully feasted. In the meantime an old woman with a sore leg was showing her distress to an Indian, and inquiring if he could administer to her relief; he said he thought he could ; and drawing his tomahawk, in- stantly killed her and all the men almost that were in the house. Conrad Yolkam only escaped by being some distance from the house, when the outcries of the women and children alarmed him. He fled to Jack-
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son's river and alarmed the people, who were unwilling to believe him until the approach of the Indians con- vinced them. All fled before them ; and they pursued to Carr's creek, in Rockbridge county, where many families were killed or taken by them. At Clendenin's a scene of much cruelty was performed; a negro woman, who was endeavoring to escape, killed her own child, who was pursuing her crying, lest she might be discovered by its cries. Mrs. Clendenin did not fail to abuse the Indians with terms of reproach, calling them cowards, although the tomahawk was drawn over her head with threats of instant death, and the scalp of her husband lashed about her jaws. The prisoners were all taken over to Muddy creek, and a party of Indians retained them there till the return of the others from Carr's creek, when the whole were taken off together. On the day they started from the foot of Keeney's Knob, going over the mountain, Mrs. Clendenin gave her infant child to a prisoner woman to carry, as the prisoners were in the centre of the line with the Indians in front and rear, and she escaped into a thicket and concealed herself until they all passed by. The cries of the child soon caused the Indians to inquire for the mother who was missing; and one of them said he would soon 'bring the cow to her calf.' Taking the child by the heels, he beat its brains out against a tree, and throwing the body down in the path, all marched over it until its entrails were trampled out by the horses. She told me she returned that night in the dark to her own house, a distance of more than ten miles, and covered her husband's corpse with rails which lay in the yard where he was killed in endeavor- ing to escape over the fence with one of his children in
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his arms. Then she went to a corn-field, where great fear came upon her, and she imagined she saw a man standing by her within a few steps. The Indians con- tinued the war until 1764, and with much depredation on the frontier inhabitants, making incursions as far as within a few miles of Staunton."
Thus raged the storm until a thousand families on the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania were either murdered or driven from their homes. To stay this tide of blood, Sir Jeffrey Amherst, the English com- mander-in-chief, sent Colonel Henry Boquet with a military force to the frontier. Colonel Boquet was a native of Switzerland, born in the canton of Berne. He was a soldier by birth. His early years were spent in the Scandinavian army, and later he served under the flag of the Dutch Republic. In 1755, he entered the English service with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, in a regiment organized by the Duke of Cumberland, known as the Royal American, and destined for Ameri- can service. He served throughout the war against the French, and at the time he was ordered to the West by Amherst, was stationed at Philadelphia. He marched from that place with a force of five hundred men, and after defeating the Indians in a fiercely con- tested battle at Bushy Run, Pennsylvania, reached Fort Pitt in August, 1764. With his force augmented to fifteen hundred men, he left that place on the third of October, and marching into the Ohio wilderness, proceeded to the forks of the Muskingum, where a treaty was made with the Indians, who there delivered up two hundred and six captives, ninety of whom had been carried away from the frontiers of Virginia and the remainder from Pennsylvania. Boquet's army re-
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turned to Fort Pitt and peace was once more restored along the border.
Early in 1765, the first English expedition descended the Ohio. It was commanded by Colonel George Crogan, of Pennsylvania, and was sent out for the purpose of exploring the country adjacent to the Ohio. river and conciliating the Indian nations which had hitherto taken part with the French. Colonel Crogan was a native of Ireland and was educated in Dublin. Emigrating to America, he settled near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He served as a captain in Braddock's expedition in 1755, and was employed in the defence of the western frontier in 1756, in which year he was made deputy agent for the Ohio Indians by Sir Wil- liam Johnson. On a voyage to Europe, in 1763, he was shipwrecked on the coast of France. In 1766, he settled about four miles above Fort Pitt, where he died in 1782.
On the 15th day of May, 1765, the expedition left Fort Pitt and with two batteaux descended the Ohio. On the 17th they passed the present site of Wheeling; on the morning of the 19th they were at the mouth of the Muskingum river, and the same evening en- camped at the mouth of the Little Kanawha river. At six o'clock on the morning of the 20th, the journey was continued to the mouth of the Hockhocking river, where high winds compelled them to encamp. On the 2Ist they were at Letart Falls, where they found buf- falo, bear, deer and other kinds of wild game in such abundance that they killed from their boats as much as was needed. On the 22d they passed the Pomeroy Bend and halted at a place called "Alum Hill," prob- ably West Columbia, now in Mason county, West
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Virginia. Continuing the journey, they proceeded to Little Guyandotte river-now the dividing line between Mason and Cabell counties, West Virginia-where they encamped. Decamping on the morning of the 24th, the batteaux glided onward to the mouth of the Big Guyandotte, and thence to the mouth of the Big Sandy, now the most western point of West Virginia. From here the voyage was continued down the Ohio, and Crogan, having accomplished the object of his mission, returned by way of the lakes to Niagara. His journal has been published as an appendix to Butler's " History of Kentucky," and also in Hildreth's " Pioneer History."
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In the year 1770, George Washington made a jour- ney to the Ohio for the purpose of locating lands awarded by Governor Dinwiddie's proclamation of 1754, to the officers and soldiers who served in the French and Indian war. Accompanied by Dr. James Craik, he left Mount Vernon October 5, 1770. They proceeded by way of Leesburg and on the 9th arrived at Romney, the present seat of justice of Hampshire county. Having purchased some horses here, the journey was continued, and on the 17th they arrived at Fort Pitt, now Pittsburg, of which place Washington says in his journal: "The houses, which are built of logs and arranged in streets, are on the Monongahela river and, I suppose, may be about twenty in number, and inhabited by Indian traders."
On the 20th, accompanied by Captain William Craw- ford, Joseph Nicholson, Robert Bell, William Harrison, Charles Morgan, Daniel Rendon, and a boy of Captain Crawford's, in a large canoe they descended the Ohio. On the 22d, they encamped near the mouth of Cross
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creek, now in Brooke county, West Virginia. The voyage continued, and on the 27th they reached the mouth of the Little Kanawha, passing which they en- camped on the Virginia shore, near the present site of Harris' Ferry, now in Wood county. Proceeding the next morning, near the present site of Belleville, they found Kiyashuta, a chief of the Six Nations, and a hunting party who were encamped here. With these Indians our explorers spent the night. The next day they reached the mouth of Sand creek, now Ra- venswood, in Jackson county. Washington describes the land here and adds : "At the mouth of this creek is the warrior's path to the Cherokee country." On the 30th they were below Letart Falls at the mouth of West creek, now in Mason county, at which place Washington says: "I saw a couple of birds in size between a swan and a goose, and in color somewhat between the two, being darker than the younger swan and of a more sooty color. The cry of these birds was as singular as the birds themselves. I never heard any noise resembling it before." The next day they reached the present site of Point Pleasant, and November Ist proceeded up the Kanawha river for the purpose of examining the lands along that stream. (For further details of the operations about the mouth of the Kanawha river, see " Mason County," elsewhere in this work.) When the work was completed the party ascended the Ohio to Fort Pitt and thence re- turned home. Washington reached Mount Vernon on the Ist day of December, having been absent nine weeks and one day.
Dr. Craik, who accompanied him, was long prom- inent in Virginia ; he was born at Orbigland, Scotland,
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in 1730, and graduated at Edinburgh. Emigrating first to the West Indies and then to Virginia, he practised his profession at Norfolk, Winchester and Alexandria. He filled many positions of trust during the Revolu- tion, serving in 1781, as director of the hospital at Yorktown. After this war he settled near Mount Vernon, where he was long intimate with Washington and one of his attendant physicians during his last illness. He died at "Vancluse," Fairfax county, Vir- ginia, February 6, 1814. George W., a son of Dr. Craik, was the private secretary of Washington during his second presidential term, and the father of the late James Craik, D. D., LL.D., of Louisville, Kentucky, who died June 9. 1881.
CHAPTER IX.
THE VIRGINIA ARMY IN THE OHIO VALLEY.
Dunmore's War-English Folly-Murder of Logan's Family-Building of Fort Henry-Expedition of Colonel Angus McDonald-Destruction of the Wakatomika Towns-The Virginia Army-General Andrew Lewis' March to the West-Dunmore reaches the Ohio-He builds Fort Gower-Battle of Point Pleasant-Erection of Fort Randolph-The Divisions Reunited- Return of the Army.
THE treaty which had continued inviolate since 1764, was now to be broken on the part of the English. In the early part of 1774,several Indians were murdered on the South Branch of the Potomac, by one Nicholas Harpold and his associates. About the same time Bald Eagle, an Indian chief of considerable notoriety, not only among his own tribe but all along the whole Western frontier, was in the habit of hunting with the English, and on one of his visits to the settlers on the Monongahela was murdered by Jacob Scott, William Hacker, and Elijah Runner, who, reckless of conse- quences, committed the act simply to gratify their thirst for Indian blood.
At this time on the Little Kanawha river, and within the present limits of Braxton county, there resided a few Indians, chief of whom was Captain Bull, from whom the place is still called Bulltown. By many of the settlers on the West Fork of the Monongahela river Captain Bull was regarded as being friendly to the whites, others suspected him of giving information to and probably harboring unfriendly Indians. There was likewise a German family by the name of Stroud
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residing on Gauley river, near its junction with the Great Kanawha.
In the summer of this year, when Mr. Stroud was absent from home, his family were all murdered, his house plundered and his cattle driven off. The trail left by the perpetrators of this outrage led in the direction of Bulltown : this gave rise to the supposi- tion that its inhabitants were the authors of these mur- ders, and several parties resolved to avenge the crime upon them. Five men expressed a determination to proceed in search of the murderers of the Stroud family. They were absent several days, and, upon their return, denied having seen an Indian during their absence. Further development, however, proved that they had murdered every inhabitant-man, woman and child-at Bulltown, and had thrown their bodies in the river that the act might be concealed.
Here was sufficient cause for retaliation, and it came only too soon. On the 16th of April, 1774, a large canoe owned by William Butler, a merchant of Pitts- burg, with several white men in it, was attacked by Indians while it was floating down the Ohio near Wheeling, and one of the men was killed. The truce which had lasted ten years was broken. "The hal- cyon decade of the latter half of the eighteenth cen- tury " had terminated, and forthwith there broke out a savage warfare along the western frontier.
The people in the vicinity of Wheeling, being prin- cipally Virginians and Marylanders, were easily influ- enced by Dunmore's agent, the artful and designing Dr. John Connally, who was then stationed at Pitts- burg. To him more than any one else attaches the responsibility of the bloody scenes which ensued. Lis-
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tening to his intriguing appeals, the settlers congre- gated near the mouth of Wheeling creek, and issued a declaration of war. The next day several canoes filled with Indians descending the river were descried while attempting to pass unseen under cover of Wheeling island. Pursuit was at once made and they were overtaken near the mouth of Captina creek, where a battle was fought; several were wounded on both sides. The Indians fled, leaving the canoes, which were found to contain warlike stores. This oc- currence took place on the 27th of April. Several writers state that the Virginians were commanded by Captain Cresap, but his biographer-Rev. John J. Jacob -declares that he was not present.
April 30th a body of twenty or thirty men ascended the Ohio to the mouth of Yellow creek, above the present site of Steubenville, where, under circumstances of great perfidy, they murdered ten Indians, among whom were the family of Logan, a distinguished Mingo chieftain. The following account is subjoined from an affidavit made by John Sappington, of Madison county, Virginia, February 13, 1800.
"Logan's family-if it was his family-was not killed by Cresap, nor with his knowledge, nor by his consent, but by the Greathouses and their associates. They were killed thirty miles above Wheeling, near the mouth of Yellow creek. Logan's camp was on one side of the river Ohio, and the house where the murder was committed opposite to it on the other side. They had encamped there for four or five days, and during that time had lived peaceably and neighborly with the whites on the opposite side, until the very day the affair happened. A little before the period alluded to,
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letters had been received by the inhabitants from a man of great influence in that country, and who was then I believe at Capteener, informing them that war was at hand, and desiring them to be on their guard. In con- sequence of these letters and other rumors of the same import, almost all the inhabitants fled for safety into the settlements. It was at the house of one Baker that the murder was committed. Baker was a man who sold rum, and the Indians had made frequent visits at his house, induced, probably, by their fondness for that liquor. He had been particularly desired by Cresap to remove and take away his rum, and he was actually preparing to move at the time of the murder. The evening before, a squaw came over to Baker's house, and by her crying, seemed to be in great dis- tress. The cause of her uneasiness being asked, she refused to tell ; but getting Baker's wife alone, she told her that the Indians were going to kill her and all her family the next day; that she loved her ; did not wish her to be killed, and therefore told her what was in- tended that she might save herself. In consequence of this information, Baker got a number of men to the amount of twenty-one to come to his house, and they were all there before morning. A council was held, and it was determined that the men should lie con- cealed in the back apartment; that if the Indians did come and behaved themselves peaceably, they should not be molested; but if not, the men were to show themselves and act accordingly. Early in the morning seven Indians-four men and three squaws-came over. Logan's brother was one of them. They immediately got rum, and all except Logan's brother became very much intoxicated. At this time all the men were con-
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cealed except the man of the house, Baker, and two others who stayed out with him. Those Indians came unarmed. After some time Logan's brother took down a coat and hat belonging to Baker's brother-in- law, who lived with him, and put them on, and setting his arms akimbo began to strut about, till at length, coming up to one of the men, he attempted to strike him, saying, 'White man, The white man whom he treated thus kept out of his way for some time, but growing irritated he jumped to his gun and shot the Indian as he was making for the door with the coat and hat on him. The men who lay concealed then rushed out and killed the whole of them, except- ing one child, which I believe is yet alive. But before this happencd, one canoe with two, the other with five Indians, all naked, painted, and armed completely for war, were discovered to start from the shore on which Logan's camp was. Had it not been for this circum- stance, the white men would not have acted as they, did ; but this confirmed what the squaw had told before. The white men having killed as aforesaid the Indians in the house, ranged themselves along the bank of the river to receive the canoes. The canoe with two Indians came near, being the foremost. Our men fired upon them and killed them both. The other canoe then went back. After this two other canoes started, the one containing eleven, the other seven Indians, painted and armed as the first. They attempted to land below our men, but were fired upon, had one killed, and retreated, at the same time firing back."
The war was inevitable, and the storm burst with all its fury on the Virginia frontier. Bands of savages scoured the country east of the Ohio, laying waste the
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settlements. Men, women and children fell victims to savage fury. Infants' brains were dashed out against trees, and bodies left to decay in the summer sun or become the food of wild animals or birds of prey. . It was a reign of terror along the whole western border.
Tidings of the terrible storm were carried to Wil- liamsburg, then Virginia's capital, and Governor Dun- more promptly commissioned Colonel Angus Mc- Donald and ordered him to collect the settlers on the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers and in the vicinity of Wheeling, and organize a force sufficient to stay the tide of blood until a larger army could be col- lected in the Shenandoah valley and east of the Blue Ridge. Colonel McDonald obeyed the summons, and having collected a force of more than one hundred men, proceeded to Wheeling, where he began the erection of Fort Fincastle-afterward Fort Henry. Michael Cresap was one of Maryland's most distin- guished frontiersmen, and Lord Dunmore knowing him to be a man of courage, personally presented him a captain's commission, with the request that he at once enlist a force to co-operate with that rapidly collecting under McDonald west of the Alleghenies. Such was Cresap's popularity that in a very short time he had collected more than the required complement of men, and at once marched west and joined McDonald, the ranking officer of the expedition. Work continued on the fort until the middle of June, when the com- bined forces began the invasion of the Indian country.
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