USA > West Virginia > History of West Virginia > Part 9
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AT the beginning of the Revolution but two of the present counties of West Virginia had an existence. These were Berkeley and Hampshire. In 1775, the former extended from the Blue Ridge to the Ohio, while the latter stretched away from the North Moun- tain to the same western limit. South of Hampshire lay Augusta county, reaching from the Blue Ridge to the Ohio, and including all the territory between the Little and Great Kanawha rivers, while all that part of the State lying south of the latter was included within the bounds of Fincastle county. The settlements southward at that time were confined chiefly to the Greenbrier valley, with a few outposts along the river and the Upper Kanawha. In that part of Berkeley and Hampshire lying east of the Alleghenies there was a numerous population, more than fifty years having elapsed since the first pioneer came to that region. On the banks of the upper Ohio, and in the valleys of the Monongahela, Tygart's and Cheat rivers, many daring adventurers had reared their cabin homes, and all that region extending westward from the mountains to the Ohio was known as the District of West Au- gusta, the boundaries of which, as defined in 1776, in-
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cluded all the territory north of Middle Island creek, and lying west and south of the Monongahela to the Ohio.
The dwellers here were of that hardy race cradled in the hot-beds of savage warfare and inured to the perils of the wilderness, and when the Revolution came, no- where could there be found more patriotic and deter- mined spirits than the frontiersmen of West Augusta. They were ready at the first drum-tap of that struggle, and no sooner did they learn of the stirring scenes in Massachusetts, than hundreds of them hastened to- gether in mass convention at Pittsburg-then believed to be within the confines of Virginia-and after resolv- ing to pledge their lives to the cause of American lib- erty, chose John Harvie and John Nevill to represent them in the Virginia convention. That body convened March 20, 1775, and on the following day "a letter from the inhabitants of that part of Virginia which lies westward of the Allegheny mountains, desiring that John Harvie and John Nevill, Esqs., may be admitted to this convention, being read, upon motion they were admitted to seats."
On the 16th of May ensuing these Virginia frontiers- men a second time assembled at Pittsburg, and the fol- lowing gentlemen were chosen an executive committee for the West Augusta District: George Crogan, John Campbell, Edward Ward, Thomas Smallman, John Cannon, John McCulloch, William Gee, George Val- landingham, John Gibson, Dorsey Penticost, Edward Cook, William Crawford, Devereux Smith, John An- derson, David Rogers, Jacob Van Matre, Hy. Enoch, James Ennis, George Wilson, W. Vance, David Shep- herd, William Elliott, Richmond Willis, Samuel Sam- ple, John Ormsbey, Richard McMaher, John Nevill and 9
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John Swearingen. The duty of the committee was "to secure arms and ammunition not employed in actual service, or private property, and to have them repaired and put into the hands of such captains of independent companies as may make application for them." They at once raised £15, and transmitted it to Robert Car- ter Nicholas, to be used in defraying the expenses of the Virginia deputies while attending the Continental Congress.
A series of resolutions was then adopted, one of which was as follows: "Resolved unanimously, That this body have the highest sense of the spirited behav- ior of their brethren in New England, and do most cordially approve of their opposing the invaders of American rights and privileges to the utmost extreme, and that each member of this committee respectively will animate and encourage their neighborhood to follow the brave example."
The convention before adjournment proceeded to elect John Harvie and George Rodes to represent them in the Continental Congress for the ensuing year. These were the first members of an American Con- gress ever chosen from the country west of the Alle- gheny mountains. They were furnished with instruc- tions by which they were requested to complain on be- half of the people : "First, of having had to supply the soldiers in the last Indian war with their provisions, and thereby having brought themselves well-nigh to suffering ; second, that the garrison maintained there had to be supported by the inhabitants ; and third, that this country, adjoining the Indian territory and Province of Quebec, is exposed to the inroads of the savages
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and the militia of that province " (American Archives, Vol. III., Fourth Series).
THE QUEBEC ACT.
The convention wished it to be represented to Con- gress that they were "adjoining the Province of Que- bec." So they were. In 1763, at the close of the French and Indian war, the English Parliament passed an act which disfranchised the Catholics of Canada and cut off the revenues of their church. This law con- tinued in force until October, 1774, when Parliament, having received intelligence of the "Boston Tea Party," and fearing that the Canadians would unite with her now disaffected colonies, enacted what is known as "The Quebec Act." By it the boundaries of that province were extended to the Ohio and Mis- sissippi rivers; the old French laws were restored in all judicial proceedings, and to the Catholics were se- cured the enjoyment of all their lands and revenues. Thus it is seen that the present State of Ohio was made a part of Quebec, and the inhabitants of the District of West Augusta were correct in their repre- sentations to Congress that the Ohio was all that sep- arated them from Quebec.
TORY INSURRECTION WITHIN THE STATE.
Notwithstanding the ardent patriotism exhibited by the West Virginia pioneers, who for eight long years warred alike against the savage from the wilderness and the Briton from the sea, there were some among them who adhered to the royal cause. Of these the leaders appear to have been John Claypole, a Scot by birth, and his two sons, who resided within the present
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limits of Hardy county. At the time it was currently believed that the latter went to North Carolina, where Lord Conwallis gave to each a commission as captain in the British service, and sent to their father a colo- nel's commission in the same. Such was their influ- ence that they succeeded in drawing over to the British cause a considerable number of people residing on Lost river and the south branch of the Potomac, then in Hampshire county, now in Hardy. The subjoined account of their operations and suppression is from Kercheval's " History of the Valley of Virginia :"
" They first manifested symptoms of rebellion by re- fusing to pay their taxes and to furnish their quota of men to serve in the militia. The sheriffs, or collectors of the revenue, complained to Colonel Van Matre, of the county of Hampshire, that they were resisted in their attempts to discharge their official duties, when the colonel ordered a captain and thirty men to their aid. The insurgents armed themselves and deter- mined to resist. Among them was John Brake, a German of considerable wealth, who resided about fifteen miles above Moorefield, on the South fork of the South Branch, and whose house became the place of rendezvous for the insurgents. When the sheriff. went up with the militia posse, fifty men appeared in arms. The posse and the tories unexpectedly met in the public road. Thirty-five of the latter broke and ran about one hundred yards, and then formed, while fif- teen stood firm. The captain of the guard called for a parley, when a conversation took place, in which this dangerous proceeding on the part of the tories was pointed out, with the terrible consequences which must inevitably follow. It is said that had a pistol been
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fired, a dreadful scene of carnage would have ensued. The two parties, however, parted without bloodshed. But instead of the tory party retiring to their respec- tive homes and attending to their domestic duties, the spirit of insurrection increased. They began to organize, appointed officers, and made John Claypole their commander-in-chief, with intention of marching off in a body to Cornwallis, in the event of his advanc- ing into the valley or near it.
"Several expresses were sent to Colonel Smith, requesting the aid of the militia, in the counties imme- diately adjoining, to quell this rebellion. He addressed letters to the commanding officers of Berkeley and Shenandoah, beat up volunteers in Frederick, and in a few days an army of four hundred, rank and file, were well mounted and equipped. General Morgan, who 'after the defeat of Tarleton and some other military services, had obtained leave of absence from the army, and was reposing on his farm-Saratoga-in Frederick, and whose name was a host in itself, was solicited to take the command, with which he readily complied. About the 18th or 20th of June the army marched from Winchester, and in two days arrived in the neighbor- hood of this tory section of Hardy county. They halted at Claypole's house and took him prisoner. Several young men fled ; among them William Baker. As he ran across Claypole's meadow he was hailed and ordered to surrender ; but disregarding the command Captain Abraham Byrd, of Shenandoah county, an excellent marksman, raised his rifle, fired, and wounded him in the leg. He fell and several of Morgan's men went to him to see the result. As the poor fellow begged for mercy he was taken to the house, and his
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wound dressed by the surgeon of the regiment. He recovered and is still living (1833). They took from Claypole provisions for themselves and horses, Colonel Smith, who was second in command, giving him a certificate for their value.
"From Claypole's the army moved up Lost river, and some young men in advance took a man named Mathias Wilkins prisoner, placed a rope around his neck and threatened to hang him. Colonel Smith rode up, saw what was going on, and ordered them instantly to desist. They also caught a man named John Payne, and branded him on the posteriors with a red hot spade, telling him they would make him a Freemason. Claypole solemnly promised to be of good behavior, gave bail and was set at liberty.
"The army thence crossed the South Branch mountain. On or near the summit they saw a small cabin, which had probably been erected by some hunters. General Morgan ordered it to be surrounded, observing, 'It is probable some of the tories are now in it.' As the men approached the cabin, ten or a dozen fellows ran out and fled. An elderly man, named Mace, and two of his sons were among them. Old Mace finding himself pretty closely pursued, surrendered. One of the pursuers was Captain William Snickers, an aide-de-camp of Morgan, who being mounted on a fine horse was soon alongside of him. One of Mace's sons looking round at this instant, and seeing Snickers aiming a blow with a drawn sword at his · father, drew up his gun and fired at him. The ball passed through the crest of his horse's neck ; he fell and threw the rider over his head. Snickers was at first thought by his friends to be killed, and in the
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excitement of the moment, an Irishman, half drunk, who had been with Morgan for some time as a waiter, and had seen much tory blood shed in the Carolinas, ran up to Mace, the prisoner, with a cocked pistol in his hand, and shot the poor man, who fell and immedi- ately expired. Captain Snickers soon recovered from the bruises received in his fall, as did the horse also from the wound in his neck.
"The army proceeded on to pay their respects to Mr. John Brake, an old German, who had a fine farm with extensive meadows, a mill, large distillery, and many fat hogs and cattle. He was an exception in his polit- ical course to his countrymen, as they were almost to a man true whigs and friends to their country. Brake, as before observed, had joined the tory band, and his house was their place of rendezvous, where they feasted on the best he had. All this appearing unquestionable, Morgan marched his army to his residence, there halted and spent two days and nights with his reluctant host. His troops lived on the best that his fine farm, mill and distillery afforded, feasting on his pigs, fatted calves, young beeves, lambs and poultry, while their horses fared no less luxuriously upon his fine unmown meadows and oat-fields. As Brake had entertained and feasted the tories Morgan concluded that he should feast them in turn.
"The third day, in the morning, the army moved on down the river, passed by Moorefield and returned to Winchester, where it was disbanded, after a service of only about eight or ten days. Thus was this tory insurrection crushed in the bud. The parties them- selves became ashamed of their conduct, and in some degree to atone for it and wipe off the stain, several
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of the young men volunteered their services and marched to aid in the capture of Cornwallis."
Major-General Daniel Morgan, who commanded the army that quelled the insurrection, was born in New Jersey in 1736. His military history is familiar to every reader. Early in life he removed to Frederick, now Clark county, Virginia. In 1775, he joined Braddock's expedition as a teamster, and was wounded in the battle of Monongahela. At the outbreak of the Revolution, he left his farm in Virginia, and at the
head of his famous corps of riflemen, marched to Bos- ton, accomplishing a journey of six hundred miles in three weeks. In 1775, he accompanied Arnold on his expedition to Quebec, and was taken prisoner in the attack on that city. He was released at the close of 1776, and immediately appointed colonel of a rifle regiment, in which capacity he served in his native State in 1776-77. He with his command took a con- spicuous part in the battle of Bemus Heights. In 1780 he was made Brigadier-General and transferred to the Southern army. January 17, 1781, witnessed his great victory at the Cowpens. At the close of the war he returned to his estate, Saratoga-name given in memory of the victory at that place-near Winchester. In 1794, he commanded a Virginia regiment in the expedition that suppressed the whiskey insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, after which, in 1795, he was elected to Congress and served two terms. In 1800, he removed to Winchester, where he died two years later. Around him, beneath the clods of the valley, and among the Hampshire hills, moulder in the dust the remains of those whom he led to battle, and who filled the ranks of the renowned Rifle regiment.
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How many West Virginia pioneers served in the Virginia State line during this war we do not know. But it is certain that Berkeley, Hampshire, and West Augusta men were on almost every battle-field of the Revolution. The muster rolls of the 2d, 11th, and 15th Virginia regiments, together with that of Mor- gan's Rifle regiment are still extant, and it is safe to say that of the men composing the latter alone, there are descendants in every county of the State. An inspection of these rolls forces the conclusion that the ancestors of nearly every pioneer family of the State were Revolutionary soldiers. When the sound of war had died away, many of these old heroes found homes and lived and died within the present limits of West Virginia. Hundreds of them had marked with their blood the snows of the North, and marched and countermarched through the pestilential swamps of the South. Washington knew their character, and in 1781-one of the darkest periods of the war-when the Pennsylvania and New Jersey lines had mutinied, on being told of the efforts of a pioneer woman on the Virginia frontier to induce her sons to go to battle, he was heard to exclaim, "Leave me but a banner to place on the mountains of Augusta, and I will rally around me the men who will lift our bleeding country from the dust and set her free !"
Greenbriar county was formed in 1777, the gloom- iest for the American cause of all the years of the Revolution. Colonel John Stuart, in a memoir written in 179S, on a fly-leaf of an order-book in the county clerk's office at Lewisburg, thus tells how the people of that county paid their war taxes :
"The paper money used for maintaining our war
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against the British became totally depreciated, and there was not a sufficient quantity of specie in circula- tion to enable the people to pay the revenue tax assessed upon the citizens of the county, wherefore we fell in arrears to the public for four years. But the Assembly taking our remote situation into consider- ation, graciously granted the sum of £5,000 of the said arrears to be applied to the purpose of opening a road from Lewisburg to the Kanawha river. The people, grateful for such indulgences, willingly em- braced the opportunity of such an offer, and every person liable for arrears of taxes agreed to perform labor equivalent on the road, and the people being divided into districts, with each a superintendent, the road was completed in the space of two months, in the year 1786, and thus was a communication by wagons to the navigable waters of the Kanawha first effected, and which will probably be found the nighest and best conveyance from the eastern to the western country that will be known."
But the final scene of the war was enacted. Britain called her shattered regiments home, and the thirteen feeble colonies of 1776, became the recognized nation of 1783. Had Virginia performed her part in the mighty struggle? Let history answer. She was the first to adopt an independent constitution, and the first to recommend a Declaration of Independence. She sent her noble son to become the first among the leaders of the Continental army; her officers and soldiers, whom she kept in the field for eight long years, ever evinced unsurpassed bravery and fortitude. She contributed the eloquence of Henry, the pen, of
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Jefferson, and the sword of Washington. What other American State has such a record?
Of the men composing the Virginia line during that struggle, many hundreds were daring pioneers from „her western frontier. Many of them found graves and crumbled to dust on the hills and in the valleys of West Virginia. Their very names have been con- signed to oblivion, but their memory will live as long as the records of the Revolution are cherished by a free people-free because of the valorous services of these men and their compatriots in arms.
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CHAPTER XI.
MILITARY OPERATIONS ON THE BORDER FROM 1777 TO 1795.
West Virginia at the Close of the Revolution-Western Outposts of Civilization -Forts, Stockades, and Block - Houses-The Indians Besiege Fort Henry- Murder of Cornstalk at Point Pleasant-Attempt to Punish his Murderers- Military. Movements in the Ohio Valley-Expedition of General McIntosh, with Biographical Notice-Fatal Ambuscade at Point Pleasant-Siege of Fort Randolph-General Clarke's Illinois Campaign-Expedition of Colonel Daniel Brodhead-Colonel David Williamson's March to the West and Murder of the Moravian Indians-Colonel William Crawford's Expedition and his Terrible Fate-Campaign of General Harmar-St. Clair's Defeat-Battle of Fallen Timbers-Wayne's Treaty with the Indians.
A GLANCE at that part of Virginia's western domain now included within the limits of West Virginia, at the close of the Revolution, cannot fail to be of interest. In 1784, there were but five counties in all that terri- tory : Hampshire and Berkeley, formed before the war began, and Monongalia, Ohio, and Greenbrier, created during its continuance. The log-cabin of the pioneer dotted the landscape along the banks and in the valleys of the South Branch, Cacapon, and Opequon rivers, and columns of smoke rising above the primeval forest, indicated his place of habitation on the upper tribu- taries of the Monongahela. Other adventurers had pushed farther west, and reared the standard of civili- zation on the banks of the Ohio, while at the same time frontiersmen from Augusta passed over the Alle- ghenies and found homes in the Greenbrier valley and on Muddy creek, Indian creek, and other tributaries .
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of New river. Leonard Morris had led the way to the Great Kanawha valley, and reared his cabin about ten miles above where Charleston now stands, where other determined spirits soon came to live beside him. Stockades, forts, and block-houses had been erected in several localities, and in them the pioneers found refuge from the merciless storm of savage warfare. Edwards' Fort stood on the Warm Spring mountain ; Fort Pleasant was situated in the South Branch valley; Fort Frederick was located within the present limits of Berkeley county ; Evan's Fort was situated within two miles of the present site of Martinsburg; Nutter's Fort had been reared near where Clarkesburg now stands; Donnally's Fort was within two miles of the present town of Frankfort, in Greenbrier county ; and Fort Randolph, at the mouth of Great Kanawha, and Fort Henry, on the present site of Wheeling, both reared before the Revolution, were the most western outposts of civilization. These settlements were but spots in an unbroken and almost untrodden wilderness, for no white man had yet found a home in the valleys of the Little Kanawha, Guyandotte, Twelve Pole, or Big Sandy rivers, and from the latter, stretching north- ward to Mason and Dixon's line, a primeval forest overshadowed the landscape. The close of the Revo- lution brought peace and quiet to the dwellers on the Atlantic seaboard, but not to those destined to settle the wilderness. For years they were to withstand the shock of savage warfare waged by a fierce and relent- less foe.
The red men carried on this forest war against the frontiers of America for more than two centuries. Every foot of the soil of Virginia, from Chesapeake
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bay to the Ohio river, they defended with the per- tinacity of veterans. It had been the hunting-ground of their fathers, whose bones were interred in the land according to all the rites and ceremonies of a savage people. No wonder that it required five generations for the combined forces of Great Britain and her American colonies to drive them from it. It was a war of races; and then, as ever, the passive was forced to yield to the active. They were at length driven be- yond the Ohio, but would not give up the struggle. They saw the pioneers cross the Alleghenies, and occupy the hills and vales of West Virginia. A spirit of revenge arose within them, and for thirty-five years after they crossed the Ohio they equipped war-parties and sent them against the Virginia frontier. Every student of pioneer history knows the result. The rifle, the war-club, the scalping-knife, and the torch, each was made to do its work in the tragedy then enacted in the cabin homes and beneath the forest shade in what is now West Virginia.
A connected recital of these barbarities would pre- sent a dreary uniformity of incident, and to enter into a narration of individual efforts and sufferings, of less important triumphs and defeats, would be but to pre- sent a confused mass of rencounters of the rifle and tomahawk, of burnings, murders, captivities, and re- prisal, which confound by their number and weary by their resemblance. To avoid this, we reserve the de- tails, that they may appear under the heads of the respective counties within the present limits of which they occurred, and conclude the present chapter with a review of the principal military movements which
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occurred on the Virginia border in the latter years of the Revolution and after the close of that struggle.
Of the Indians who wrought destruction on the Virginia frontier little is known previous to the year 1764, when all had retreated north of the Ohio, except the Shawnees, who still occupied their town at the mouth of Oldtown creek, on the Ohio, now in Mason county. This they abandoned in 1765. At that time the tribes in what is now Ohio were the Wyandotts- called Hurons by the French-occupying the valley and plains bordering on the Sandusky river ; the Dela- wares, living in the territory drained by the Tuscarawas and Muskingum rivers; the Shawnees, dwelling prin- cipally along the Scioto river, their principal towns being in the vicinity of Chillicothe; the Miamis, chief occupants of the valleys of the Great and Little Miami rivers; the Mingoes, collected in great numbers on the Ohio, near where Steubenville now stands; the Otta- was, living in the valleys of the Sandusky and Maumee rivers, and the Chippewas, confined to the southern shores of Lake Erie. There dwelt the barbarous hordes who frequently warred among themselves, but were united as one common foe opposed to the English. Thence they sent their war-parties, carrying desolation south of the Ohio.
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