USA > West Virginia > Randolph County > The history of Randolph County, West Virginia. From its earliest settlement to the present, embracing records of all the leading families, reminiscences and traditions > Part 6
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The custom of the Indians in taking prisoners, and their great exertion to accomplish that purpose, is a difficult thing to explain. Prisoners were of little or no use to them. They did not make slaves of them. If they sometimes received money as ransom for captives the hope of ransom money seems seldom or never to have prompted them to carry prisoners to their towns. They sometimes showed a liking, if not affection, for captives adopted into their tribes and families; but this kindly feeling was shallow and treacherous, and Indians would not hesitate to burn at the stake a cap- tive who had been treated as one of their family for months if they should take it into their heads that revenge for injuries received from others called . for a sacrifice. The Indians followed no rule or precedent as to which of their captives they would kill and which carry to their towns. They some- times killed children and spared adults, and sometimes the reverse.
When the Revolutionary War began the English and the Americans strove to obtain the good will of the western Indians. The Americans sent Simon Girty and James Wood on a peaceful mission to the Ohio tribes in July, 1775. On February 22 of that year Simon Girty had taken the oath of allegiance to the King of England, but when war commenced he took sides with the Americans. In July, 1775, Congress created three Indian depart- ments, that embracing the portions of West Virginia and Pennsylvania west 4
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of the Alleghanies, to be known as the Middle Department. Commissioners were appointed to establish and maintain friendly relations with the Indians. In October of that year delegates from several of the Ohio tribes visited Pittsburg, which, since September before, had been occupied by Captain John Neville and a garrison of one hundred Americans. The Indian dele- gates made a treaty and agreed to remain neutral during the trouble be- tween the colonies and Great Britain.
The British were less humane. Instead of urging the savages to remain neutral, as the Americans had done, they excited the tribes to take up the hatchet against the Americans. The subsequent horrors of the In- dian warfare along the frontier are chargeable to the British, who resorted to "every means which God and nature had placed in their power " to an- noy the Americans. The most industrious of British agents in stirring up the Indians was Henry Hamilton, who in April, 1775, was appointed Lieu- tenant-Governor and Indian agent, with headquarters at Detroit. His sal- ary was one thousand dollars a year. He reached his destination Novem- ber 9, 1775. The Indians flocked to him and importuned him for permission and assistance to attack the settlements. But Hamilton had not yet received instructions from his government, authorizing him to employ Indians, and he did not send them to war at that time. In June, 1776, George Morgan, Indian agent for the Middle Department, held a conference with some of the Ohio tribes and succeeded in keeping them away from Detroit at that time. The suggestion that Indians be employed against the Americans came from Governor Hamilton late in 1776. The proposition was eagerly accepted; and on March 26, 1777, Lord George Germain gave the fatal order that Hamilton assemble all the Indians possible and send them against the frontiers, under the leadership of proper persons who could restrain them. This order was received by Governor Hamilton in June 1777, and before August 1 he had sent out fifteen marauding parties aggregating 289 Indians.
The year 1777 is called in border history the "bloody year of the three sevens." The British sent against the frontiers every Indian who could be prevailed upon to go. Few settlements from New York to Florida escaped. In this State the most harm was done on the Monongahela and along the Ohio in the vicinity of Wheeling. Monongalia County was visited twice by the savages that year, and a number of persons were killed. A party of twenty invaded what is now Randolph county, killed a number of settlers, took several prisoners and made their escape. It was on November 10 of this year that Cornstalk, the Shawnee chief, was assassinated at Point Pleasant by militiamen who assembled there from Greenbrier and else- where for the purpose of marching against the Indian towns. Earlier in the year Cornstalk had come to Fort Randolph, at Point Pleasant, on a visit, and also to inform the commandant of the fort that the British were inciting the Indians to war, and that his own tribe, the Shawnees, would likely be swept along with the current, in spite of his efforts to keep them at home. Under these circumstances the commandant of the fort thought it best to detain Cornstalk as a hostage to insure the neutrality of his tribe. It does not seem that the venerable Chief was unwilling to remain. He wanted peace. Some time after that his son came to see him, and crossed the Ohio, after making his presence known by hallooing from the other side. The next day two of the militiamen crossed the Ohio to hunt and one was killed by an Indian. The other gave the alarm, and the militiamen crossed the river and brought in the body of the dead man. The
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soldiers believed that the Indian who had committed the deed had come the day before with Cornstalk's son, and had lain concealed until an oppor- tunity occurred to kill a man. The soldiers were enraged, and started up the river bank toward the cabin where Cornstalk resided, announcing that they would kill the Indians. There were with Cornstalk his son and another Indian, Red Eagle. A sister of Cornstalk, known as the Granadier Squaw, had lived at the fort some time as interpreter. She hastened to the cabin and urged her brother to make his escape. He might have done so, but refused, and admonished his son to die like a man. The soldiers arrived at that time and fired. All three Indians were killed. The leaders of the men who did it were afterwards given the semblance of a trial in Virginia, and were acquitted.
It is the opinion of those acquainted with border history that the mur- der of Cornstalk brought more suffering upon the West Virginia frontier than any other event of that time. Had he lived, he would perhaps have been able to hold the Shawnees in check. Without the co-operation of that bloodthirsty tribe the border war of the succeeding years would have been different. Four years later Colonel Crawford, who had been taken prisoner, was put to death with extreme torture in revenge for the murder of Cornstalk, as some of the Indians claimed.
Fort Henry was besieged September 1, 1777, by two hundred Indians. General Hand, of Fort Pitt, had been informed that the Indians were pre- paring for an attack in large numbers upon some point of the frontier, and the settlements between Pittsburg and Point Pleasant were placed on their guard. Scouts were sent out to discover the advance of the Indians in time to give the alarm. But the scouts discovered no Indians. It is now known that the savages had advanced in small parties, avoiding trails, and had united near Wheeling, crossed the Ohio a short distance below that place, and on the night of the last day of August approached Fort Henry, and setting ambuscades near it, waited for daylight. Fort Henry was made of logs set on end in the ground, in the manner of pickets, and about seven- teen feet high. There were port holes through which to fire. The garrison consisted of less than forty men, the majority of whom lived in Wheeling and the immediate vicinity. Early in the morning of September 1 the Indians decoyed Captain Samuel Mason with fourteen men into the field some distance from the fort, and killed all but three. Captain Mason alone reached the fort, and two of his men succeeded in hiding, and finally escaped. When the Indians attacked Mason's men, the firing was heard at the fort, together with the yells of the savages. Captain Joseph Ogle with twelve men sallied out to assist Mason. He was surrounded and nine of his men were killed. There were only about a dozen men remaining in the fort to resist the attack of four hundred Indians, flushed with victory. There were perhaps one hundred. women and children in the stockade.
In a short time the Indians advanced against the fort, with drum and fife, and the British flag waving over them. It is not known who was leader. He was a white man, or at least there was a white man among them who seemed to be leader. Many old frontier histories, as well as the testimony of those who were present, united in the assertion that the In- dians at this siege were led by Simon Girty. It is strange that this mistake could have been made, for it was a mistake. Simon Girty was not there. He was at that time, and for nearly five months afterwards, near Fort Pitt. The commander of the Indian army posted himself in the window of a house
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within hearing of the fort, and read the proclamation of Governor Hamil- ton, of Detroit, offering Great Britain's protection in case of surrender, but massacre in case of resistance. Colonel Shepherd, commandant of the fort, replied that the garrison would not surrender. The leader was insisting upon the impossibility of holding out, when his words were cut short by a shot fired at him from the fort. He was not struck. The Indians began the assault with a rush for the fort gate. They tried to break it open; and failing in this, they endeavored to push the posts of the stockade down. They could make no impression on the wall. The fire of the garrison was deadly, and the savages recoiled. They charged again and again, some times trying to break down the walls with battering rams, attempting to set them on fire; and then sending their best marksmen to pick off the garrison by shooting through the port holes. In course of time the deadly aim of those in the fort taught the savages a wholesome caution. Women fought as well as men. The siege continued two nights and two days, but all at- tempts of the Indians to burn the fort or break into it were unavailing. They killed many of the cattle about the settlement, partly for food partly from wantonness. They burned nearly all the houses and barns in Wheel- ing. The savages were preparing for another assault when Colonel Andrew Swearengen, with fourteen men, landed near the fort and gained an en- trance. Shortly afterwards Major Samuel McColloch, at the head of forty men, arrived, and after a severe fight, all reached the fort except McCol- loch, who was cut off, but made his escape. The Indians now despaired of success, and raised the siege. No person in the fort was killed. The loss of the Indians was estimated at forty or fifty.
In September of this year, 1777, Captain William Foreman, of Hamp- shire County, with about twenty men of that county, who had gone to Wheeling to assist in fighting the savages, was ambushed and killed at Grave Creek, below Wheeling, by Indians supposed to have been a portion of those who had besieged Fort Henry.
On March 28, 1778, Simon Girty ran away from Pittsburg in company with Alexander McKee, Robert Surphitt, Matthew Elliott, Higgins and two negroes belonging to McKee. It is misleading to call Girty a deserter, as he was not in the military service. He had formerly been an interpreter in pay, but he was discharged for unbecoming behavior. He had two brothers, James and George, who also joined the British and did service among the Indians; and one brother who remained true to the Amer- icans. Simon Girty reached Detroit in June, 1778, after a loitering journey through the Indian country, during which he busied himself stirring up mischief. He was employed by the British as interpreter at two dollars a day, and was sent by Hamilton to work among the Ohio Indians. His influ- ence for evil was great, and his character shows few redeeming traits.
The year 1778 was one of intense excitement on the frontier. An In- dian force of about two hundred attacked Fort Randolph, at the mouth of the Kanawha, in May, and besieged the place one week. The savages made several attempts to carry it by storm. But they were unsuccessful. They then moved off, up the Kanawha, in the direction of Greenbrier. Two soldiers from Fort Randolph eluded the savages, overtook them within twenty miles of the Greenbrier settlement, passed them that night, and alarmed the people just in time for them to flee to the blockhouses. Don- nally's fort stood within two miles of the present village of Frankfort, in Greenbrier County. Twenty men, with their families, took shelter there.
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At Lewisburg, ten miles distant, perhaps one hundred men had assembled, with their families. The Indians apparently knew which was the weaker fort, and accordingly proceeded against Donnally's, upon which they made an attack at daybreak. One of the men had gone out for kindling wood and had left the gate open. The Indians killed this man and made a rush for the fort and crowded into the yard. While some crawled under the floor, hoping to gain an entrance by that means, others climbed to the roof. Still others began hewing the door, which had been hurriedly closed. All the men in the fort were asleep except one white man and a negro slave. As the savages were forcing open the door, the foremost was killed with a tomahawk by the white man, and the negro discharged a musket loaded with heavy shot into the faces of the Indians. The men in the fort were awakened and fired through the port holes. Seventeen savages were killed in the yard. The others fell back, and contented themselves with firing at longer range. In the afternoon sixty-six men arrived from Lewisburg, and the Indians were forced to raise the siege. Their expedition to Greenbrier had been a more signal failure than the attempt on Fort Randolph.
The country along the Monongahela was invaded three times in the year 1778, and once the following year. Few settlements within one hun- dred miles of the Ohio River escaped. In 1780 Greenbrier was again paid a visit by the savages; and in this year their raids extended eastward into Randolph County, and to Cheat River, in Tucker County, to the very base of the Alleghany Mountains. The Monongahela Valley, as usual, did not escape, and ten settlers were killed.
In this year General George Roger Clark, with a small but excellent army, invaded Illinois to break up the British influence there. He left Captain Helm in charge of Vincennes, Indiana. No sooner had Governor Hamilton heard of the success of Clark than he set out from Detroit to re- establish the British prestige. He took with him thirty-five British regu- lars, forty-four irregulars, seventy militia and sixty Indians. He picked other Indians up on the way, and reached Vincennes December 17. Cap- tain Helm surrendered. Hamilton then dismissed the Indians, ordering them to re-assemble the next spring with large reenforcements. His designs were ambitious, embracing conquests no less extensive than the driving of the Americans out of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, and the capture of Pittsburg. But General Clark destroyed all of these high hopes. Marching in the dead of winter he captured Vincenne's, Feb- ruary 25, 1779, after a severe fight, and released nearly one hundred white prisoners, chastised the Indians, captured stores worth fifty thousand dollars, cleared the whole country of British from the Mississippi to Detroit; and, most important of all, captured Governor Hamilton himself, and sent him in chains to Richmond. This victory secured to the United States the country as far as the Mississippi; and it greatly dampened the ardor of the Indians. They saw for the first time that the British were not able to pro- tect them.
Fort McIntosh was built in 1778 on the north bank of the Ohio. below the mouth of Beaver, and the headquarters of the army were moved from Pittsburg to that place, October 8, 1778. In the same year Fort Laurens was built on the west bank of the Tuscarawas, below the mouth of Sandy Creek, and Colonel Jolin Gibson was placed in command with 150 men. On March 22, 1779, Captain Bird, a British officer from Detroit, and Simon Girty, with 120 Indians and seven or eight British soldiers, besieged the
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fort and remained before it nearly a month, but failed to take it, although they killed a number of soldiers.
In April, 1781, General Brodhead, with 150 regulars and 150 militia, crossed the Ohio at Wheeling and led an expedition against the Delawares at Coshocton. He killed or captured thirty Indians and destroyed a few towns. He suffered little loss. In 1782 occurred the massacre of the Mora- vian Indians in Ohio. They lived under the care of missionaries, and claimed to be at peace with all men. But articles of clothing were discov- ered among them which were recognized as belonging to white settlers who had been murdered in West Virginia. This confirmed the suspicion that the Moravian Indians, if they did not take part in raids against the settle- ments, had a good understanding with Indians who were engaged in raiding They were therefore put to death. The act was barbarous and inexcusable.
The third and last siege of Wheeling occurred in September 1782. The British planned an attack on Wheeling in July of that year, just after Crawford's defeat which had greatly encouraged the Indians. They had scarcely ended the torture of prisoners who had fallen into their hands, including Colonel Crawford, when they clamored to be led against the settlements. The British were only too willing to assist them; and in July a number of British soldiers and 300 Indians, under command of a white man named Caldwell, moved toward Wheeling. Simon and George Girty were in this force. Before the army had fairly set out, news came that General Clark was invading the Indian country. The army on the march to Wheeling halted. At the same time a rumor was spread that General Irvine was marching toward Canada from Pittsburg.
Re-inforcements for Canada were asked for, and 1400 Indians assembled. Subsequently it was learned that the reports of invasions were unfounded, and the Indian army dispersed. Caldwell with George and Simon Girty and 300 Indians invaded Kentucky and attacked Bryant's station August 14, 1782. The British and Indians did not give up the proposed expedition against Wheeling, and Capt. Pratt with 40 British regulars and 238 Indians marched against the place and attacked it September 11. James Girty was with this expedition but had no command. Simon Girty was never present at any attack on Wheeling.
There were fewer than twenty men in Fort Henry at Wheeling when the Indians appeared. The commandant, Captain Boggs, had gone to warn the neighboring settlements of danger. The whole attacking force marched under the British flag. Just before the attack commenced, a boat, in charge of a man named Sullivan, arrived from Pittsburg, loaded with cannon balls for the garrison at Louisville, Kentucky. Mr. Sullivan and his party seeing the danger, tied the boat and made their way to the fort and assisted in the defense. The besiegers demanded an immediate surren- der, which was not complied with. The attack was delayed till night. The experience gained by the Indians in the war had taught them that little is gained by a wild rush against the walls of a stockade. No doubt Captain Pratt advised them also what course to pursue. When night came they made their assault. More than twenty times did they pile hemp against the walls of the fort and attempt to set the structure on fire. But the hemp was damp and burned slowly. No harm was done. Colonel Zane's cabin stood near the stockade. His house had been burned at the siege in 1777; and when the Indians again appeared he resolved to defend his build- ing. He remained in the cabin with two or three others, among them a negro slave. That night an Indian crawled up with a chunk of fire to burn
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the house, but a shot from the negro's gun crippled him and he gave up his incendiary project. Attempts were made to break down the gates, but they did not succeed. A small cannon mounted on one of the bastions was occa- sionally discharged among the savages, much to their discomfiture. On one occasion when a number of Indians had gathered in a loft of one of the nearest cabins and were dancing and yelling in defiance of the garrison, the cannon was turned on them, and a solid shot cutting one of the joists, pre- cipitated the savages to the floor beneath and put a stop to their revelry.
The Indians captured the boat with the cannon balls, and decided to use them. They procured a hollow log, plugged one end, and wrapped it with chains stolen from a neighboring blacksmith shop. They loaded the piece with powder and ball, and fired it at the fort. Pieces of the wooden cannon flew in all directions, killing and maiming several Indians, but did not harm the fort. The savages were discouraged, and when a force of seventy men, under Captain Boggs, approached, the Indians fled. They did not, however, leave the country at once, but made an attack on Rice's fort, where they lost four warriors and accomplished nothing.
The siege of Fort Henry is remarkable from the fact that the flag under which the army marched to the attack, and which was shot down during the fight, was the last British flag to float over an army in battle, during the Revolution, within the limits of the United States. West Vir- ginia was never again invaded by a large Indian force, but small parties continued to make incursions till 1795. The war with England closed by a treaty of peace in 1783. In July of that year DePeyster, Governor at Detroit, called the Indians together, told them that the war between Amer- ica and Great Britain was at an end, and dismissed them. After that date the Indians fought on their own account, although the British still held posts in the Northwest, under the excuse that the Americans had not com- plied with the terms of the treaty of peace. It was believed, and not with- out evidence, that the savages were still encouraged by the British, if not directly supplied with arms, to wage war against the frontiers. In the autumn of 1783 there was a large gathering of Indians at Sandusky, where they were harangued by Sir John Johnson, the British Superintendent of Indian affairs. Simon Girty was present and was using his influence for evil. Johnson urged the Indians to further resistance.
In February, 1783, while the English Parliament was discussing the American treaty, about to be ratified, Lord North, who opposed peace on the proposed terms, insisted that the Americans should be shut away from the Great Lakes; the forts in that vicinity should be held, and Can- ada should be extended to the Ohio River. He declared that the Indian allies of Great Britain ought to be cared for, and that their independence ought to be guaranteed by Great Britain. In the autumn of that year, 1783, when the order was given for the evacuation of New York by the British, Lord North, on the petition of merchants and fur traders of Canada, withheld the order for the evacua- tion of the posts about the lakes. On August 8 of that year Baron Steuben, who had been sent for that purpose by the Americans, demanded of Gover- nor Haldimand of Canada, that British forces be withdrawn from the posts in the Northwest. Governor Haldimand replied that he had received no instructions on that subject, and he would not surrender the posts. The British, in 1785, claimed that they continued to hold the posts in Ohio, Indiana and beyond because some of the states, and especially Virginia,
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had not yet opened their courts to British creditors for the collection of debts against Americans incurred before the war. Thus the British continued to occupy posts clearly within the United States, much to the irritation of the American people. The Indians were restless, and the belief was general, and was well founded, that the British were encouraging them to hostility. They became insolent, and invaded the settlements in West Virginia and Kentucky, and in 1790 the United States declared war upon them and took vigorous measures to bring them to terms. General Harmar invaded the country north of the Ohio at the head of a strong force in 1790. He suffered his army to be divided and defeated. The next year General St. Clair led an army into the Indian country, and met with one of the most disastrous defeats in the annals of Indian warfare. He lost nearly eight hundred men in one battle. General Wayne now took charge of the cam- paign in the Indian country. When he began to invade the northern part Ohio, the British about Lake Erie moved south and built a fort on the Maumee River, opposite Perrysville, Ohio. This was in the summer of 1794. The object in building the fort was clearly to encourage the Indians and to insult the Americans. On August 20, 1794, General Wayne found the Indians within two miles of the British fort, prepared for battle. He made an attack on the savages, routed them in a few minutes and drove them. They were crushed and there was no more fight in them for fifteen years.
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