USA > West Virginia > Barbour County > The history of Barbour County, West Virginia, from its earliest exploration and settlement to the present time > Part 3
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EXPLORATIONS WEST OF THE BLUE RIDGE.
somebody wanted it. The surveys were usually made in the crudest man- ner, often without accuracy and without ascertaining whether they over- lapped some earlier claim or not. The foundation was laid for many future law suits, some of which may still be on the court dockets of this State. It is said that there are places in West Virginia where land titles are five deep. Some of them are old colonial grants, stretching perhaps across two or three counties. Others are grants made after Virginia became a mem- ber of the United States. Then follow sales made subsequently by parties having or claiming a right in the land. The laws of West Virginia are such that a settlement of most of these claims is not difficult where the metes and bounds are not in dispute.
After the Revolution Virginia sold its public land usually in the follow- ing manner: A man would buy a warrant, for say ten thousand acres, and was given a certificate authorizing him to locate the land wherever he could find it. He could select part of it here, another part there, or he could sell his warrant, or part of it, to some one else, and the purchaser could locate the land. Land warrants were often sold half dozen times. There were persons who grew wealthy buying warrants for large tracts, from fifty thousand to one hundred thousand acres, and selling their warrants to dif- ferent parties at an advanced price. Nearly all the land in West Virginia west of the Alleghanies, if the title is traced back, will be found to have been obtained originally on these land warrants. The most of the land east of the Alleghanies was originally granted by the King of England to com- panies or individuals. This title is called a "Crown Grant." There are also a few "Crown Grants" west of the Alleghanies, but the most of the land west of the mountains belonged to the State of Virginia at the close of the Revolution. None of it ever belonged to the United States.
CHAPTER II.
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INDIANS AND MOUNDBUILDERS.
Indians enter largely into the early history of the State, and few of the early settlements were exempt from their visitations. Yet, at the time West Virginia first became known to white men, there was not an Indian settlement, village or camp of any considerable consequence within its borders. There were villages in the vicinity of Pittsburg, and thence north- ward to Lake Erie and westward into Ohio: but West Virginia was vacant; it belonged to no tribe and was claimed by none with shadow of title. There were at times, and perhaps at nearly all times, a wigwam here or there within the borders, but it belonged to temporary sojourners, hunters or fish- ermen, who expected to remain only a short time. So far as West Virginia is concerned, the Indians were not dispossessed of it by the white man, and they were never justified in waging war for any wrong done them within this State. The white race simply took land which they found vacant, and dispossessed nobody.
There was a time when West Virginia was occupied by Indians, and they were driven out or exterminated; but it was not done by the white - race, but by other tribes of Indians, who, when they had completed the work of destruction and desolation, did not choose to settle on the land they had made their own by conquest. This war of extermination was waged between the years 1656 and 1672, as nearly as the date could be ascertained by the early historians, who were mostly missionaries among the tribes further north and west. The conquerors were the Mohawks, a fierce and powerful tribe whose place of residence was in western New York, but whose warlike excursions were carried into Massachusetts, Virginia, Penn- sylvania, West Virginia, and even further south. They obtained firearms from the Dutch colonies on the Hudson, and having learned how to use them, they became a nation of conquerors. The only part of their con- quests which comes within the scope of this inquiry was their invasion of West Virginia. A tribe of Indians, believed to be the Hurons, at that time occupied the country from the forks of the Ohio southward along the Monongahela and its tributaries, on the Little Kanawha, on the Great Kanawha and to the Kentucky line. During the sixteen years between 1656 and 1672 the Mohawks overran the country and left it a solitude, ex- tending their conquest to the Guyandotte River. There was scarcely a Huron left to tell the tale in all this State. Genghis Kahn, the Tartar, did not exterminate more completely than did those Mohawks. If there were any Huron refugees who escaped they never returned to their old homes to take up their residence again.
There is abundant[ evidence. all over the State that Indians in consider- able numbers once made their home here. Graveyards tell of those who
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INDIANS AND MOUNDBUILDERS.
*
died in times of peace. Graves are numerous, sometimes singly, sometimes in large aggregations, indicating that a village was near by. ,Flint arrow- heads are found everywhere, but are more numerous on river bottoms and on level land near springs, where villages and camps would most likely be located. The houses of the tribesmen were built of the most flimsy mate- rial, and no traces of them are found, except fireplaces, which may occa- sionally be located on account of charcoal and ashes which remain till the present day and may be unearthed a foot or more below the surface of the ground. Round those fires, if the imagination may take the place of his- torical records, sat the wild huntsmen after the chase was over; and while they cooked their venison they talked of the past and planned for the future, but how long ago no man knows.
As to who occupied the country before the Hurons, or how long the Hurons held it, history is silent. There is not a legend or tradition coming down to us that is worthy of credence. There was an ancient race here which built mounds, and the evidence found in the mounds is tolerably con- clusive that the people who built them were here long before any Indians with which we are acquainted. But the concensus of opinion among schol- ars of today is that the Indians and Moundbuilders were the same people. All positive evidence points to that conclusion, while all negative evidence gives way upon being investigated. If the theory of some writers were sub- stantiated, namely, that the Moundbuilders were related to the peoples who built the pyramids in Mexico and Central America it would still show the Moundbuilders to have been Indians; for, notwithstanding marked differ- ences in industry, civilization and languages, the Aztecs and Mayas of Mexico were and are Indians as truly as the Turk is a Mongolian. The limits of this work will not permit an extended discussion of the puzzling question of the origin of the Indians. It is a question which history has not answered, and perhaps never will answer. If the answer ever is given it will probably be by geology, for history cannot reach so far into the past. The favorite conclusion of most authors formerly was that America was peopled from Asia by way of Berings Strait. It could have been done. But the hypothesis is as reasonable that Asia was peopled by emigrants from America who crossed Berings Strait. It is the same distance across, going west or coming east; and there is no historical evidence that America was not peopled first; or that both the old world and the new were not peo- pled at the same time, or that each was not peopled independently of the other. Since the dawn of history, and as far back into prehistoric times as the analysis of languages can throw any light, all great migrations have been westward. No westward migration would have given America its in- habitants from Asia; but a migration from the west would have peopled Asia from America. As a matter of fact, Berings Strait is so narrow that the tribes on either side can cross to the other at pleasure, and with less difficulty than the Amazon river can be crossed near its mouth. It was long the opinion of ethnologists that a comparison of the grammatical construc- tion of a large number of the Indian languages would reveal characteristics showing that all had a common origin. But the study has been barren of results up to the present time. The language of the Indians is a puzzle, unless it be accepted as truc that there is no common thread through all leading to one source. There were eight Indian languages east of the Mis- sissippi at the coming of the Europeans.
The fact is so well established that it admits of no doubt that America
27
INDIANS AND MOUNDBUILDERS.
was occupied by man long before the dawn of history in the old world or the new. Stone hatchets and other implements of war or the chase, now found buried in the gravel left by ice sheets which covered the Ohio and the Upper Mississippi Valleys show that men were there at a time which, at the lowest estimate, was thousands of years before the date given in chronology for the creation of Adam. America had people who were no doubt coeval with the prehistoric savages who fought tigers and hyenas in the caves of England and France. It is, therefore, an idle waste of time to seek in recorded history for clews to the origin of America's first people. It would be as profitable to inquire whether the oak tree originated in the old world or the new.
The number of Indians inhabiting a given territory was surprisingly small. They could hardly be said to occupy the land. They had settle- ments here and there. Of the number of Hurons in the limits of this State before the Mohawk invasion, there is no record and no estimate. Probably not more than the present number of inhabitants in the State capital, Charleston. This will appear reasonable when it is stated that, according to the missionary census, in 1640, the total number of Indians in the terri- tory east of the Mississippi, north of the Gulf of Mexico and south of the St. Lawrence river, was less than one-fourth of the present population of the Stateof West Virginia. The total number is placed at 180,000. Nearly all the Indians who were concerned in the border wars in West Virginia lived in Ohio. There were many villages in that State, and it was densely populated in comparison with some of the others; yet there were not, per- haps, fifteen thousand Indians in Ohio, and they could not put three thous- and warriors in the field. The army which General Forbes led against Fort Duquesne (Pittsburg) in 1758 was probably larger than could have been mustered by the Indians of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois combined, and the number did not exceed six thousand. The Indians were able to harrass the frontier of West Virginia for a quarter of a century by prowling about in sinall bands and striking the defenseless. Had they organized an army and fought pitched battle they would have been subdued in a few months.
While the Indians roamed over the whole country, hunting and fishing, they yet had paths which they followed when going on long journeys. Those paths were not made with tools, but were simply the result of walk- ing upon them for generations. They nearly always followed the best grades to be found, and modern road-makers have profited by the skill of savages in selecting the most practicable routes. Those paths led long dis tances, and in one general direction, unvarying from beginning to end, showing that they were not made at haphazzard, but with design. Thus, crossing West Virginia, the Catawba warpath led from New York to Georgia. It entered West Virginia from Fayette County, Pennsylvania, crossed Cheat River at the mouth of Grassy Run, passed in a direction south by south- west through the State, and reached the headwaters of the Holsten River in Virginia, and thence continued through North Carolina, South Carolina and it is said reached Georgia. The path was well defined when the country was first settled, but at the present time few traces of it remain. It was never an Indian thoroughfare after white men had planted settlements in West Virginia, for the reason that the Indian tribes of Pennsylvania and New York had enough war on hand to keep them busy without making long excursions to the south. It is not recorded that any Indian ever came over this trail to attack the frontiers of West Virginia. The early settlements
28
INDIANS AND MOUNDBUILDERS.
in Pennsylvania to the north of us cut off incursions from that quarter. A second path, called by the early settlers Warrior Branch, was a branch of the Catawba path. That is, they formed one path southward from New York to southern Pennsylvania, where they separated, and the Warrior Branch crossed Cheat River at McFarland's, took a southwesterly direction through the State and entered southern Ohio and passed into Kentucky. Neither was this trail much used in attacking the early settlements in this State. It is highly probable that both this and the Catawba path were fol- lowed by the Mohawks in their wars against the Hurons in West Virginia, but there is no positive proof that such was the case. Indian villages were always on or near large trails, and by following these and their branches the invaders would be led directly to the homes of the native tribe which they were bent on exterminating.
There were other trails in the State, some of them apparently very old, as if they had been used for many generations. There was one, sometimes called the Eastern Path, which came from Ohio, crossed the northern part of West Virginia, through Preston and Monongalia Counties, and continued eastward to the South Branch of the Potomac. This path was made long before the Ohio Indians had any occasion to wage war upon white settlers, but it was used in their attacks upon the frontiers. Over it the Indians traveled who harrassed the settlements on the South Branch; and later, those on the Monongahela and Cheat Rivers. The settlers whose homes happened to lie near this trail were in constant danger of attack. During the Indian wars, after 1776, it was the custom for scouts to watch some of the leading trails near the crossing of the Ohio, and when a party of Indians were advancing to outrun them and report the danger in time for the set- tlers to take refuge in forts. Many massacres were averted in this way. There was a trail leading from the Ohio River up the Little Kanawha, to and across the Alleghanies, passing through Randolph County.
The arms and ammunition with which the Indians fought the pioneers of this State were obtained from white traders; or, as from 1776 to 1783 or later, were often supplied by British agents. The worst depredations which West Virginia suffered from the Indians were committed with arms and ammunition obtained from the British in Canada. This was during the Revolutionary War, when the British made allies of the Indians and urged them to harrass the western frontiers, while the British regular army fought the Colonial army in the eastern States.
CHAPTER III,
THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR.
For the first twenty-five years after settlements were commenced in the present territory of West Virginia there was immunity from Indian depre- dations There was no occasion for trouble. No tribe occupied the South Branch Valley when the first colony was made; and the outposts of the white man could have been pushed across the State until the Ohio River was reached without taking lands claimed or occupied by Indians, except, perhaps, in the case of two or three very small camps; and this most likely would have been done without conflict with the Indians, had not Europeans stirred up those unfortunate children of the forest and sent them against the colonists. This was done by two European nations, first by France, and afterwards by England. There were five Indian wars waged against West Virginia; the War of 1775 and Pontiac's War of 1763, the Dunmore War of 1774 and the Revolutionary War of 1776, and the war which broke out about 1790 and ended in 1795. In the war beginning in 1755 the French incited and assisted the Indians against the English settlements along the whole western border. In the Revolutionary War the British took the place of the French as allies of the Indians, and armed the savages and sent them against the settlers.
It is proper that the causes bringing about the French and Indian War be briefly recited. No State was more deeply concerned than West Virginia. Had the plan which was outlined by the French been successfully executed, West Virginia would have been French instead of English, and the settle- ments by the Virginians would not have been carried west of the Alleghany Mountains. The coast of America, from Maine to Georgia, was colonized by English. The French colonized Canada and Louisiana. About the mid- dle of the eighteenth century the design, which was probably formed long before, of connecting Canada and Louisiana by a chain of forts and settle- ments, began to be put into execution by the King of France. The cordon was to descend the Alleghany River from Lake Erie to the Ohio, down that stream to the Mississippi and thence to New Orleans. The purpose was to confine the English to the strip of country between the Alleghanies and the Atlantic Ocean, which would include New England, the greater part of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Eastern Pennsylvania, the greater part of Maryland, seven eastern counties of West Virginia, Virginia, North Caro- lina, South Carolina and Georgia. The French hoped to hold everything west of the Alleghany Mountains. The immediate territory to be secured was the Ohio Valley. Missionaries of the Catholic Church were the first explorers, not only of the Ohio, but of the Mississippi Valley, almost to the head springs of that river. The French took formal possession of both banks of the Ohio in the summer of 1749, when an expedition under Cap-
30
THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR.
tain Celeron descended that stream and claimed the country in the name of France.
The determination of the Virginians to plant settlements in the Ohio Valley was speedily observed by the French, who set to work to counteract the movement. They began the erection of a fort on one of the upper trib- utaries of the Alleghany River, and no one doubted that they intended to move south as rapidly as they could erect their cordon of forts. Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, decided to send a messenger to the French, who already were in the Ohio Valley, to ask for what purpose they were there, and to inform them that the territory belonged to England. It was a mere diplomatic formality not expected to do any good. This was in the autumn of 1753, and George Washington, then twenty-one years of age, was com- missioned to bear the dispatch to the French commander on the Alleghany River. Washington left Williamsburg, Virginia, November 14, to travel nearly six hundred miles through a wilderness in the dead of winter. When he reached the settlement on the Monongahela where Christopher Gist and twelve families had planted a colony, Mr. Gist accompanied him as a guide. The message was delivered to the French commandant, and the reply having been written, Washington and Gist set out upon their re- turn, on foot. The boast of the French that they would build a fort the next summer on the present site of Pittsburg seemed likely to be carried out. Washington counted two hundred canoes at the French fort on the Alleghany River, and he rightly conjectured that a descent of that stream was contemplated. After many dangers and hardships, Washington reached Williamsburg and delivered to Governor Dinwiddie the reply of the French commandant.
It was now evident that the French intended to resist by force all at- tempts by the English to colonize the Obio Valley, and were resolved to meet force with force. Governor Dinwiddie called the Assembly together, and troops were sent into the Ohio Valley. Early in April, 1754, Ensign Ward, with a small detachment, reached the forks of the Ohio, where Pitts- burg now stands, and commenced the erection of a fort. Here began the conflict which raged for several years along the border. The French soon appeared in the Alleghany with one thousand men and eighteen cannon and gave the English one hour in which to leave. Resistance was out of the question, and Ward retreated. The French built a fort which they called Duquesne, in honor of the Governor of Canada.
The English were not disposed to submit tamely. Virginia and Penn- sylvania took steps to recover the site at the forks of the Ohio, and to build a fort there. Troops were raised and placed in command of Colonel Fry, while Washington was made lieutenant colonel. The instructions from Governor Dinwiddie were explicit, and directed that all persons, not the subjects of Great Britain, who should attempt to take possession of the Ohio River or any of its tributaries, be killed, destroyed or seized as pris- oners. When the troops under Washington reached the Great Meadows, near the present site of Brownsville, Pennsylvania, it was learned that a party of about fifty French were prowling in the vicinity, and had an- nounced their purpose of attacking the first English they should meet. Washington, at the head of fifty men, left the camp and went in search of the French, came upon their camp early in the morning, fought them a few minutes, killed ten, including the commander, Jumonville, and took twenty- two prisoners, with the loss of one killed and two or three wounded. The
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THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR.
wounded Frenchmen were tomahawked by Indians who accompanied Wash- ington. The prisoners were sent to Williamsburg, and, at the same time, an urgent appeal for more troops was made. It was correctly surmised that as soon as news of the fight reached Fort Duquesne, a large force of French would be sent out to attack the English. Re-enforcements were raised in Virginia and were advanced as far as Winchester; but, with the exception of an independent company from South Carolina, under Captain Mackay, no re-enforcements reached the Great Meadows where the whole force under Colonel Fry amounted to less than four hundred men.
The Indians had been friendly with the settlers on the western border up to this time; but the French having supplied them bountifully with presents, induced them to take up arms against the English, and hencefor- ward the colonists were obliged to fight both the French and the Indians. Of the two, the Indians were the more troublesome. They had a deep- seated hatred for the English, who had dispossessed the tribes east of the Alleghanies of their land, and were now invading the territory west of that range. But it is difficult to see wherein they hoped to better their . condition by assisting the French to gain possession of the country; for the French were as greedy for land as were the English. However, the major- ity of the natives could not reason far enough to see that point; and with- out much investigation they took up arms in aid of the French.
After the brush with Jumonville's party, it was expected that the French in strong force would march from Fort Duquesne to drive back the English. Washington built Fort Necessity about fifty miles west of Cum- berland, Maryland, and prepared for a fight. News was brought to him that large re-enforcements from Canada had reached Fort Duquesne; and within a few days he was told that the French were on the road to meet him. Expected re-enforcements from Virginia had not arrived, and Wash- ington, who had advanced a few miles toward the Ohio, fell back to Fort Necessity. There, on the third of July, 1754, was fought a long and obsti- nate battle. Many Indians were with the French. Washington offered battle in open ground, but the offer was declined, and the English withdrew within the entrenchments. The enemy fought from behind trees, and some climbed to the top of trees in order to get aim at those in the trenches. The French were in superior force and better armed than the English. A rain dampened the ammunition and rendered inany of the guns of the En- glish useless. Washington surrendered upon honorable terms, which per- mitted his soldiers to retain their arms and baggage, but not the artillery. The capitulation occurred July 4, 1754, just twenty-two years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The French and Indians num- bered seven hundred men. Their loss in killed was three or four. The loss of the English was thirty.
When Washington's defeated army retreated from the Ohio Valley, the French were in full possession, and no attempt was made that year to re- new the war in that quarter; but the purpose on the part of the English of driving the French out was not abandoned. It was now understood that nothing less than a general war could settle the question, and both sides prepared for it. It was with some surprise, in January, 1755, that a prop- osition was received from France that the portion of the Ohio Valley be- tween that river and the Alleghanies be abandoned by both the French and the English. The latter, believing that the opportunity had arrived for driving a good bargain, demanded that the French destroy all their forts
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