History of The Middle New River Settlements - Chapter IV Part A



Chapter IV Part A
1775-1794

Mitchell Clay (Note: Richard Bailey, son of the elder Richard, the
Settler, made about 1790 the first settlement at the mouth of Widemouth
Creek on Bluestone, a few miles above where Clay settled in 1775.) settled
on the Clover Bottom tract of land hereinbefore referred to in the year of
1775. Save one, this was the first white settlement made within what is
now the present territorial limits of Mercer County. Andrew Culbertson's
settlement on Culbertson's Bottom, which was once a part of the territory
of Mercer County, was made twenty years prior to that of Clay on the
Clover Bottom. Clay and his family remained on this land undisturbed for a
period of about eight years, but were finally attacked by the Indians,
part of the family killed, and one captured, a full account of which will
be given herein later on.

In the year 1775 Mathew French and his family, from the county of
Culpeper, Virginia, settled on Wolf Creek, about six miles from its mouth,
now in Giles County, on what is known as the Boyd farm.

Settlements were made by the Bromfields on New River about the mouth of
Big Stony Creek, in 1776, and the same year by the Hatfields on said
Creek, on what is now known as the David J. L. Snidow place, where the
Hatfields erected a fort. On Lick Branch, flowing into Big Stony Creek
from the north. In the early days, there was a deer lick, and on an
occasion it happened that a Bromfield and Hatfield went the same night to
watch this lick, neither knowing that the other was there, or to be there.
One took the other for a bear moving around in the brush and shot and
killed him.

On the 20th day of January, 1775, the Freemen of Fincastle County
assembled at Lead Mines, and made a declaration which was the precursor of
that of July 4th, 1776, made by the congress at Philadelphia. This
declaration of the Fincastle men foreshadowing American independence was
the first one made in America, and it so fully breathes the spirit of
independence and freedom that it is here inserted in full:

"In obedience to the resolves of the Continental Congress a meeting of the
freeholders of Fincastle County, in Virginia, was held on the 20th day of
January, 1775, and who, after approving of the association formed by that
august body in behalf of all the colonies, and subscribing thereto,
proceeded to the election of a committee, to see the same carried
punctually into execution, when the following gentlemen were nominated:

The Reverend Charles Cummings, Colonel William Preston, Colonel William
Christian, Captain Stephen Trigg, Major Arthur Campbell, Major William
Ingles, Captain Walter Crockett, Captain John Montgomery, Captain James
McGavock, Captain William Campbell, Captain Thomas Madison, Captain Evan
Shelby and Lieutenant William Edmondson. After the election, the committee
made choice of Colonel William Christian for their chairman, and appointed
Mr. David Campbell to be clerk.

The following address was then unanimously agreed to by the people of the
County and is as follows:

To the Honourable Peyton Randolph, Esquire, Richard Henry Lee, George
Washington, Patrick Henry, Junior, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison and
Edmund Pendleton, Esquires, the delegates from this colony who attended
the Continental Congress held at Philadelphia: Gentlemen: Had it not been
for our remote situation, and Indian war which we were lately engaged in,
to chastise these cruel and savage people for the many murders and
depredations they have committed amongst us, now happily terminated under
the auspices of our present worthy Governor, his Excellency, the Right
Honourable Earl of Dunmore, we should have before this time made known to
you our thankfulness for the very important services you have rendered to
your country, in conjunction with the worthy delegates from the other
provinces. Your noble efforts for reconciling the mother country and the
colonies, on rational and constitutional principles, and your pasifick,
steady and uniform conduct in that arduous work, immortalize you in the
annals of your country. We heartily concur in your resolutions and shall,
in every instance, strictly and invariably adhere thereto.

We assure you, gentlemen, and all our countrymen, that we are a people
whose hearts overflow with love and duty to our lawful Sovereign, George
the Third, whose illustrious House for several successive reigns have been
the guardians of the Civil and religious rights and liberties of British
subjects, as settled at the glorious revolution; that we are willing to
risk our lives in the service of his Majesty for the support of the
Protestant Religion, and the rights and liberties of his subjects, as they
have been established by compact, Law and Ancient Charters. We are
heartily grieved at the differences which now subsist between the parent
state and the colonies, and most urgently wish to see harmony restored on
an equitable basis, and by the most lenient measures that can be devised
by the heart of man. Many of us and our forefathers left our native land,
considering it as a Kingdom subjected to inordinate power; we crossed the
Atlantic and explored this then wilderness, bordering on many Natives or
Savages and surrounded by mountains almost inaccessible to any but those
various Savages, who have insistantly been committing depredations on us
since our first settling the Country. These fatigues and dangers were
patiently encountered, supported by the pleasing hope of enjoying these
rights and liberties which had been granted to Virginians, and denied us
in our native country, and of transmitting them inviolate to our
posterity; but even to this remote region the hand of enmity and
unconstitutional power hath proceeded us to strip of that liberty and
property with which God, Nature, and the Rights of Humanity have visited
us. We are ready and willing to contribute all in our power for the
support of his Majesty's Government if applied to considerately, and when
grants are made by our own Representatives, but cannot think of submitting
our liberty or property to the power of a venal British Parliament, or the
will of a greedy ministry.

We by no means desire to shake off our duty or allegiance to our lawful
Sovereign, but on the contrary shall ever glory in being the royal
subjects of the Protestant Prince, descended from such illustrious
progenitors, so long as we can enjoy the free exercise of our religion as
Protestants, and of our liberties and properties as British subjects. But
if no pacific measures shall be proposed or adopted by Great Britain, and
our enemies will attempt to dragoon us out of these inestimable privileges
which we are entitled to as subjects, and to reduce us to a state of
slavery, we declare that we are deliberately determined never to surrender
them to any power upon earth but at the expense of our lives.

These are real though unpolished sentiments of liberty, and in them we are
resolved to live or die."

We are, gentlemen, with the most perfect esteem and regard,

Your most obedient servants,"'

From the American Archives, 4th Series, 1st Volume, page 1166.

The men who made and promulgated this declaration were then, and
afterwards became among the most distinguished citizens who crossed the
Alleghanies, and were first and foremost in fomenting and sustaining our
glorious revolution. Evidence is not wanting that between 1755 and 1758
some of these men, viz., the Crocketts, McGavocks and others, among them
the Grahams, Tates and Sawyers had located in the section of country now
in Pulaski and Wythe counties, but on account of Indian incursions were
driven back into the Rockbridge country from whence they came, and that
later they came again and remained permanently. It is generally understood
that the Crocketts, McGavocks, Grahams and Sawyers were all of Scotch-
Irish extraction. Among these people were found the bravest and most
valiant soldiers in all our wars.

In October, 1776, the general assembly of Virginia by an act abolished the
county of Fincastle, and out of its territory created the counties of
Kentucky, Washington and Montgomery. The following is the boundary lines
of said counties as given in said act, viz:

"That from and after the last day of December next ensuing, the said
county of Fincastle shall be divided into three counties: that is to say,
all that part thereof which lies to the south and westward of a line
beginning on the Ohio at the mouth of the Great Sandy Creek and running up
said creek and the main line beginning at the Cumberland Mountain where
the line of north or northeasternly branch thereof to the Great Laurel
Ridge or Cumberland Mountain thence, south-westardly along the said
mountains to the line of North Carolina, shall be one district County
called and known by the name of Kentucky: And all of that part of the
County of Fincastle included in the line beginning at the Cumberland
Mountain where the line of Kentucky County intersects the North Carolina
line to the top of Iron Mountain, thence along the same eastwardly to the
source of the South Fork of the Holstein River: thence, westwardly along
the highest part of the highlands, ridges and mountains that divide the
waters of the Tennessee from those of the Great Kanawha to the most
easterly source of the Clinch River: thence westwardly along the top of
the mountains that divide the waters of the Clinch from those of the Great
Kanawha and Sandy Creek to the line of Kentucky County, thence along the
same to the beginning, shall be one other district County and called and
known by the name of Washington, and all the residue of the County of
Fincastle, shall be one other distinct County and shall be called and
known by the name of Montgomery.

The Justices to meet and hold Court for Kentucky County at Harrodsburg:
Washington at Black's fort: for Montgomery at Fort Chiswell."

The Representatives of Fincastle County in the Convention which assembled
at Williamsburg, and which adopted the first republican constitution ever
adopted in America, were Arthur Campbell and William Russel. Arthur
Campbell was born in the valley of Virginia and William Russell in
Culpeper County, Virginia, the latter in 1748 and died in Fayette County,
Kentucky, July 23, 1825. He was a captain at the battle of Point Pleasant,
member of the Virginia legislature of 1789, member of the Kentucky
legislature from the foundation of the State to 1808, again in 1823,
colonel of the Seventh United States Infantry in1811, and commanded on the
frontiers of Indiana, Illinois and Missouri.

Colonel William Christian was the Representative of Fincastle County in
the year of 1776, in the House of Delegates.

In the year of 1776 John McComas and Thomas H. Napier with their families
came from western Maryland and settled on the New River below the mouth of
Walker's Creek, but subsequently removed to the neighborhood of where
Pearisburg, Virginia, is now situated, and they, together with the Hall's,
built Fort Branch on the land lately owned by Charles D. French, Esq.

Peter's Mountain was named for Peter Wright, an old backwoodsman who about
1776 explored and hunted along the valleys at its northern base, as well
as along the valley at the base of East River Mountain, in which latter
valley the present city of Bluefield, West Virginia, is located and this
valley is still called Wright's valley, for the same Peter Wright.

John Alderson, senior, born in England, came to New Jersey about 1737 and
married Miss Curtis. Mr. Alderson became a Baptist minister, and finally
removed to Rockingham County, Virginia. He had a son John, who also became
a Baptist minister, and who married Miss Carroll of Rockingham County.
John Alderson, Junior, visited the Greenbrier section of country in 1775,
and selected a body of land on the Greenbrier river, which he had
surveyed, covering the site of the present town of Alderson in Monroe
County. He returned to Rockingham, and in 1777 removed to his land on the
Greenbrier and built his cabin where the Alderson Hotel now stands. He was
a man of great intelligence and indomitable will and energy, and was the
first Baptist preacher who carried the Gospel into that region; he
organized the Greenbrier Baptist Church in 1781 and through his
instrumentality a number of other churches and the Greenbrier Association
were organized. His life was a long and useful one, and made an impression
on the people in the section in which he lived that will be felt by
generations yet unborn.

On the west bank of the Greenbrier River in the now county of Summers, in
the year of 1777 lived Colonel James Graham with his family. One night in
the early autumn of that year after the family had retired, a knock was
heard at the door, and a voice called in broken English "open door" saying
at the same time by way of assurance, "Me no Injun." At the time there was
in the house only Colonel Graham and his wife, their children, Elizabeth
and a young brother occupied an attached cabin off from the main building.
Being refused admittance,the Indians withdrew a short distance and began
firing through the door with their rifles, and finally discovered in the
detached cabin the presence of the two children, they fired through the
clapboards and shattered the little boy's leg with a rifle ball, and
proceeding into the house, they took both children, and started off
seemingly well satisfied with their success, and went into camp a short
distance away. The next morning the little boy being unable to travel they
dashed his brains out against a tree. The little girl, Elizabeth, only
about eight years old was carried by them into captivity, where she
remained about eight years, and was finally ransomed by her father in
1785. She came home and married a man by the name of Stodghill, and lived
to a ripe old age. The name Stodghill is called by the people of Monroe
and Greenbrier Valley, "Sturgeon."

The Legislature of Virginia in October, 1777, created the County of
Greenbrier, the act to take effect March first, 1778, which act reads as
follows; "That from and after the first day of March next ensuing, the
said county and parish of Botetourt, shall be divided by a line beginning
on the top of the ridge which divides the eastern from the western waters,
where the line between Augusta and Botetourt crosses the same, and
running, thence the same course continued N. 55 W. to the Ohio, thence
beginning at the said ridge at the said line of Botetourt and Augusta,
running along the top of said ridge, passing the Sweet Springs to the top
of Peter's Mountain, thence along the said mountain to the line of
Montgomery County, thence along the same mountain to the Kanawha or New
River, thence down the said river to the Ohio,."

Colonel William Preston some time previous to the month of August, 1774,
removed from his estate at Greenfield, near Amsterdam on the James, to
Draper's Meadow, the name of which as before stated, he changed to
Smithfield. There came with him or shortly thereafter, a young man by the
name of Joseph Cloyd, the son of David Cloyd, whose wife and son John were
murdered by the Indians in March 1764, about five miles west of the
present town of Fincastle, Virginia. As stated in a letter from Mrs.
Elizabeth Campbell Adams, of Radford, Virginia, to the author, the maiden
name of the wife of David Cloyd, was Miss Margaret Campbell. It had been
stated by writers, and perhaps believed by his family that Joseph Cloyd
settled on Back Creek in what is now the County of Pulaski, Virginia,
about the year of 1775. This is believed to be a mistake as to the year,
as the declaration of the Fincastle men was made on the 20th day of
January, 1775, and Mr. Cloyd would certainly have been at that meeting
unless sick or absent from the country, and it is most likely therefore
that had Mr. Cloyd been at home or at the residence of Colonel William
Preston he would have been among the men who signed that declaration. The
absence of his name indicates in the absence of explanation that he did
not settle so early as 1775 on Back Creek, as has been stated.

Mr. Cloyd became one of the most highly honored citizens of the county,
both in civic and military affairs. He left behind him wealthy, highly
honored, and respected descendants. A full sketch of Joseph Cloyd and his
civil and military record will be given in the appendix to be added to
this work.

From the date of the building of Fort Chiswell by Colonel William Byrd in
1758 and from 1759 and after, on and along the upper waters of the New
River and on the Holstein, settlements were made by the McGavocks,
Campbells, McFarlands, Howes, Hoges, and others, but of which little has
been or will be said in this work, as being beyond its scope, and beside
this, the history of this people has been so fully, clearly and
interestingly presented by Mr. Summers in his "His. of South western
Virginia and of Washington County," that he has left little, if anything,
additional to be related. The chief reason for mentioning Mr. Joseph Cloyd
is, their history would not be complete without that of Mr. Cloyd.

After the battle of Point Pleasant the Virginia government built Fort
Randolph at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, and there established a
military post, in command of which was Captain McKee. In the month of May,
1778, a force of some two hundred Indians attacked this fort, but were
finally beaten off by the garrison and compelled to withdraw. The Indians
proceeded up the Kanawha and Captain McKee being satisfied from the
direction taken by them, that their objective point was the Greenbrier
settlements, called for volunteers to go immediately to the settlements
and warn the settlers of the approach of the Indians. Phillip Hammond and
John Pryor at once volunteered, and being rigged out as Indian Scouts,
they reached the settlement safely, and their timely notice, no doubt,
saved a terrible massacre.

Before passing to the attack on Donnally's Fort attention will be called
to the dangerous situation along the borer in the year of 1777. Outrages
and murders were committed by the Indians upon the white settlers in many
places, and the people found it necessary to flee to the forts for safety.
Along the middle settlements on New River from Barger's Fort on Tom's
Creek to Donnally's Fort on Rader's Run, and Cook's Fort on Indian Creek
the settlers were kept huddled in the forts during almost the whole
summer. At Barger's Fort Captain John Floyd was in command of the
military, Christian Snidow at the Snidow and Lybrook Fort at the mouth of
Sinking Creek, Captain Thomas Burke at Hatfield's Fort on Big Stony Creek,
Captain Michael Woods at Woods' Fort, Captain John Lucas at Fort Field on
Culbertson's Bottom. In these Forts or some of them were John Lybrook,
John Chapman, Isaac Chapman and others and some of these people were with
Captain John Lucas scouting along the New River about Culbertson's Bottom,
and stationed at Farley's Fort and Fort Field.

Donnally's Fort was situated about ten miles west of the present town of
Lewisburg, on Rader's Run. As soon as the intelligence of the approach of
the Indians was given to Donnally by the two scouts he had all the
neighbors advised of it, and in the course of the night they gathered into
the Fort about twenty one men. He also dispatched a messenger to Captain
John Stuart at the fort at Lewisburg advising him of the advance of the
Indians. Full preparation was made to resist the attack, which was begun
the next morning at an early hour. Captain Stuart with Colonel Samuel
Lewis went with sixty men to the relief of Donnally and succeeded in
entering the fort without loss. During the attack four of the whites were
killed, viz: Pritcher before the attack commenced, James Burns and
Alexander Ochiltree as they were coming to the house early in the morning
and James Graham while in the fort. Seventeen of the Indians lay dead in
the yard, and others of their slain were carried off by them. Until the
arrival of Stuart and Lewis, there were twenty one men in the fort which
was augmented by their force to eighty seven, while the Indian army
exceeded two hundred. The Indians failing in the attack withdrew and
retreated. While this attack upon Donnally's Fort was being threatened and
made, a number of men gathered at Jarrett's and Keeney's Fort, made up in
part of men from Captain Joseph Renfroe's company from Bedford County,
among them Josiah Meadows who makes a full statement in regard thereto in
his declaration for a pension before the County court of Giles County in
the year of 1832.

From the Chapman Ms. in possession of the author it appears that Moredock
O. McKensey, who came from Culpeper County with John and Richard Chapman
and settled at the mouth of Walker's Creek in 1771, had removed in the
spring of 1778 to the mouth of Wolf Creek, on New River, and built his
cabin below and near the spring on the bottom, a few yards south of the
house in which the late Joseph Hare recently resided. McKensey's family
consisted of himself, his wife, his sons Isaac and Henley, and his
daughters Sallie, Elizabeth, Margaret, Mary Ann, a nursing child and a
hired girl--a Miss Estridge a daughter of Richard Estridge. The people who
were beginning settlements had no enclosed boundaries in which to place
their stock, and they belled their horses and turned them out into the
woods. Mr. McKensey had done so with his horses, and on the morning of the
day on which the attack was made upon his family by the Indians, which was
in the month of May of 1778, they could not hear the bells, and supposing
that the horses had attempted to go back to Walker's Creek, the place from
which he had recently removed, he took with him his eldest son, Isaac,
then about twenty years of age, and started to look for the horses.
Henley, the next son, was close by the house, engaged in making hills in
which to plant sweet potatoes. Mr. McKensey and his son went up New River
and when they had reached the top of what is known as Big Hill, near where
Pearisburg station on the line of the Norfolk & Western Railway Company is
now situated, they heard the report of the discharge of a gun in the
direction of their home, and they immediately turned and ran rapidly back,
meeting at Wolf Creek the Estridge girl, who gave them information as to
what had occurred at the house. The Indians lying in wait and watching,
had seen McKensey and his son go away from the house, and waiting long
enough for them to get a sufficient distance not to interfere with their
outrages, began their work by shooting young Henley dead on the spot. They
then rushed to the house, but Mrs. McKensey and her oldest daughter,
Sallie, closed and barred the door. They had no weapons inside save an
axe. One of the Indians pressed against the door until he got his head and
shoulders inside the same, when the daughter, Sallie, with an axe struck
him a blow on the shoulder giving to him a very dangerous wound. In the
meantime another one of the Indians was also pressing against the door,
and it yielded and flew open, and then began a scuffle between the Indian
and Sallie, he attempting to take her as his prisoner. She is said to have
been a most beautiful woman, with long flowing black hair, and it is
supposed that the Indian did not desire to kill her, but to capture her.
She was strong and athletic and succeeded in repeatedly throwing the
Indian to the floor, but he being in nearly a nude condition, she could
not hold him down. In the last struggle she discovered his butcher knife
in the sheathe in his belt and made an attempt to get it, but failing and
the Indian discovering this, he drew the knife and stabbed her through the
heart, and then killed the mother. The small child, Mary Anne, had been
gathered up by the hired girl, Estridge, who had slipped into the shed of
the house, and concealed herself in a large trough made for holding
soap.The child began to fret and cry and the young woman fearing that this
would disclose to the Indians her hiding place, let go the child, and it
ran out into the room, and an Indian caught it by its ankles and feet, and
dashed out its brains against the door facing. The babe though scalped,
was found by the father when he reached the house still alive, and trying
to nurse the breast of its dead mother. The Indians took the two small
girls, Elizabeth and Margaret, aged respectively eight and ten years,
prisoners, and then ransacked the house, taking a gourd filled with sugar
and a large loaf of bread, which had just been baked by the mother, and
departed. As soon as the Indians left Miss Estridge came out from her
hiding place, and ran up the river to Wolf Creek, where she met Mr.
McKensey and his son as hereinbefore related. On this same morning these
Indians had killed Philip Kavanah, and captured Francis Denny, a lad of
about fifteen or sixteen years. The Indians did not fire McKensey's house
for the reason no doubt, that the smoke would attract his attention or
that of some of the settlers in the neighborhood, and cause rapid pursuit
before they had time to get away with their prisoners and booty. Leaving
McKensey's house they dropped down the river a few hundred yards to
Perdue's Mill branch, up which they traveled to its source, crossing over
the divide to the house of Mathew French at the Boyd place on Wolf Creek.
In passing up Perdue's Mill branch the Indians took out their bloody
knives and cut the loaf of bread offering a portion thereof to the little
girls, who refused to take or eat it, until finally an Indian went to the
branch and washed the knife. When they reached the house of French they
found it and the premises deserted, he, having learned that the Indians
were in the neighborhood, had taken his family and fled to the McComas-
Napier-Hall Fort, since known as Fort Branch, situated as hereinbefore
described. Mr. French had left home so hastily as to be unable to take but
little with him, leaving behind all of his house hold furniture, his
horses cattle and other stock. The Indians ripped up his feather beds, and
scattered the feathers, threw down his corn cribs, and turned the stock on
his corn, killed a horse and took off his hide, in which they carried away
his table ware, which consisted of a few pewter plates and cups, and
probably some knives and forks which becoming burdensome to carry, they
buried beside a log on East River Mountain. They did not set fire to
French's house for the same reason that influenced them not to fire
McKensey's house. On leaving French's house they went directly over East
River Mountain, into what is now Mercer County and dropped in at the mouth
of East River, and thence down New River by way of the Bluestone and to
Paint Creek, Kanawha, the Ohio, and on to their towns in the neighborhood
of Detroit and the Lakes. The two McKensey girls remained in captivity for
a period of eighteen years, and were not ransomed, and did not return
until after Wayne's victory in 1794. Their father made two journeys for
them, on the first, he succeeded in getting one of them, but had to make
the second journey before he succeeded in getting the other. Margaret was
transferred by the Shawnees to the Delaware tribe. She was adopted by the
Indian Chief Koothumpum, and her sister Elizabeth in the family of
Petasue, commonly called "Snake."

A few years before Margaret McKensey returned home, a young Indian chief
made love to her and vehemently urged her to consent to marry him, which
she peremptorily refused. The young squaws frequently congratulated her on
her fine offer. She at last became so annoyed by the solicitation of the
young chief that she determined to escape to another village some seventy
miles away, to which her foster sister and brother had removed. Early one
morning she secured a very fine horse and mounted him and pushed off,
making the distance that day. She complained to her foster sister of the
treatment she had received, who replied, "I will defend you with my life."
The young chief, determined not to be defeated in this way, immediately
pursued her and reached the village to which she had fled, the next day in
the afternoon. He soon found her and told her if she did not immediately
consent to become his wife, he would kill her, she refusing, he made a
lunge at her with a long knife, but her sister threw herself between them
and received a slight wound. The girl instantly seized the knife and
wrenching it from his hand, broke the blade and threw it away. A furious
fight ensued between the foster sister and the Indian, the former telling
Margaret to hide herself which she did. The young woman proved too much
for the Indian and gave him a sound whipping, thereupon he departed and
was soon afterwards killed in Wayne's battle with the Indians.

Shortly after the return of Margaret and Elizabeth, the former married a
Mr. Benjamine Hall, and the latter Mr. Jonas Clyburn. Mr. Clyburn with his
family removed to Chicago about the time that that city was being first
laid out. Mr. Hall and his wife lived to old age, dying in Mercer County
and are buried near Princeton. They left numerous and highly respected
descendants among them Mr. David Hall, a lawyer who long practiced his
profession in Mercer and adjoining counties, Mr. Luther Lybrook Chambers,
the present judge of the circuit court of Mercer, McDowell and Monroe
counties and who is the great grandson of the Margaret McKensey captured
by the Indians in 1778. Mr. L. A. Dunn an influential business man of
Bluefield is also a great grandson of Margaret McKensey.

In 1778 Josiah Meadows, herein before referred to, who was the great great
grandfather of Hon. R. G. Meadows of Mercer County, marched with the
expedition of George Rogers Clark to the Illinois country, and then
marched by way of the Falls of the Ohio to his home in Bedford County,
Virginia.

In October of the year of 1778 the Legislature of Virginia created and
erected into the county of Illinois all the northwest territory, being all
the territory north of the Ohio, south of the Great Lakes, and east of the
Mississippi. The county of Illinois continued as a Virginia County until
the Deed of Cession of March, 1784.

Joseph Hare, of North Carolina, and Edward Hale, of Franklin County,
Virginia, came into the New River settlements in 1779, and located about
the mouth of Wolf Creek. Both Hare and Hale had been soldiers in the
American army. Hare was with the patriot army at the battle of Moore's
Creek Bridge, now near Fayetteville, North Carolina, fought on the 27th
day of February, 1776. These two men performed important services in the
years immediately following their settlement, not only in the battles with
the Indians, but also in the battle of Whitsell's Mill and Guilford Court
House, North Carolina, about which services more will be said hereafter.

The upper New River Valley, in what is now in part Bland, Wythe, Grayson
and Carroll Counties in Virginia as well as some of the counties on the
North Carolina side, were among the hiding places of the Tories, and they
made frequent uprisings and had to be repressed. Some of these uprisings
took place in the years of 1779-80 and were suppressed by bodies of
militia led by Colonel William Campbell, Major Walter Crockett, Major
Joseph Cloyd and Colonel Benjamin Cleveland, the latter of North Carolina.
The old court records now in the office of the Clerk of the County Court
of Montgomery County, Virginia, abound with instances where numerous
parties were summoned before the court on charges of being engaged in
these uprisings, and were required to give bond and good security to keep
the peace and be of good behavior. Should anyone be curious enough to want
the names of these people they can find the same by reference to records
referred to.

David Johnston with his family came from the county of Culpeper, Virginia,
in 1778, and settled in the New River valley on the plateau between Big
Stony Creek and Little Stony Creek, about one mile from the river, at the
place now known as the John Phlegar farm in the county of Giles.
Johnston's family consisted of himself and wife, two sons, the third son
being then absent in the American army, and five daughters, the eldest of
the daughters, whose name was Sallie, and who had intermarried with Thomas
Marshall, together with her husband, came with the family. David Johnston
was the brother-in-law of John and Richard Chapman who then lived at the
mouth of Walker's Creek, about two miles from where Johnston settled. The
first house built by David Johnston as his new dwelling place, was erected
by him in 1778 and is at this writing, 1905, still standing, forming a
part of the Phlegar mansion house. A few years after the coming of David
Johnston his brother-in-law, Elder James Abbott, a missionary Baptist
minister, came. Johnston was, soon after making of his settlement,
appointed a constable for Montgomery county. He died in 1786, his wife in
1813, and they were both buried on the Phlegar farm.

Thomas Ingles, a son of the Captain William Ingles, one of the Drapers
Meadows settlers, and who was captured and carried away with his mother,
by the Indians in 1755, having returned after thirteen years, and been
sent to school at Doctor Thomas Walker's in Albemarle County, Virginia,
from which place he went with the army of General Lewis to the battle of
Point Pleasant, in which he fought as a Lieutenant in a company belonging
to Colonel William Christian's regiment of Fincastle men. After the battle
young Ingles was in one of the companies left to garrison the fort at
Point Pleasant during the winter following the battle. After receiving his
discharge from the army in 1775 he returned to Albemarle, and married a
Miss Grills. He came back to the New River valley and in 1778 he located
and settled in Wright's Valley, in which the city of Bluefield, West
Virginia is now situated, and about two miles west of said city, at a
spring near the mansion house of the late Captain Rufus A. Hale. Here Mr.
Ingles remained some two years, but finding himself dangerously near the
Indian trail leading from the head of Tug of Sandy southward across East
River Mountain, to the Wolf Creek and Walker's Creek settlements, he
determined to seek a place more remote from Indian lines of travel, and
thence removed to Burke's Garden to a tract of land owned by his father.
He however remained long enough in Wright's Valley to effect in a measure
a change of name to: "English's", as appears from the early land surveys
and grants. His stay in his new home was not long a peaceful one, for in
April, 1782, while he and a negro man were engaged at farm work some
distance from the house, a large party of Indians captured his wife and
children and two negro slaves, and after plundering and firing the house,
they left the premises. Mr. Ingles, discovering the smoke from his burning
house, approached near enough to see that the trouble was caused by
Indians, and that he alone could do nothing, set off in quest of help,
crossing the mountains southward, he fortunately met up with a goodly
number of men assembled for muster and drill at a settlement in Rich
Valley on the north fork of Holstein. A posse of fifteen or twenty men
under the leadership of Captain Maxwell, to whose command was added an
additional force of five or six men, whom John Hix, a neighbor of Mr.
Ingles, had gotten together. This party pursued the Indians and on the
fifth day they were discovered in camp in a gap of the Sandy Ridge which
divides the waters of the Sandy from the Clinch. This gap since that time,
known as Maxwell's Gap, is a short distance west of the west end of Abb's
Valley, and two or three miles north-northwest of the residences of the
late William G. Mustard on the north fork of Clinch River in the county of
Tazewell. Captain Maxwell divided his company, he taking a part, and
moving around their flank so as to get in their front, while Mr. Ingles
remained with the other portion of the company in the rear, and the attack
to be made at daylight the next morning. Unfortunately Maxwell, in order
to escape detection, bore too far away and was not in position to make the
attack at the appointed time. Mr. Ingles after waiting beyond the agreed
hour, and seeing the Indians beginning to stir, began the attack. As soon
as the first shot was fired, some of the Indians began to tomahawk the
prisoners, while others fought and retreated. Mr. Ingles reached his wife
just as she had received a terrible blow on the head. They had already
tomahawked his little daughter Mary, five years old, and his son William,
three years old. The small infant in the arms of the mother was unhurt. In
their retreat, the Indians passed close to Captain Maxwell and his party,
and firing on them killed Captain Maxwell, who was the only one of the
pursuers killed. No dead Indians were found. The little wounded girl died,
but the mother recovered. The above statements are taken from the Harman
MS., which states that Captain Henry Harman was with this Pursuing party.

On September 23, 1779, Mrs. Margaret Pauley and her husband, John Pauley,
together with James Pauley, wife and child, Robert Wallace and wife and
Brice Miller set out from the Greenbrier section to go to Kentucky. They
crossed New River at the Horse Ford near the mouth of Rich Creek and then
down New River and up East River, which was the shortest route to
Cumberland Gap. Each of the men had his rifle. The women on the horses, on
which were packed what household plunder they could carry, were in front,
the men in the rear driving the cattle. About noon of the day referred to,
and when the party had reached a point on East River about one mile below
the mouth of Five Mile Fork thereof, supposed to have been near the upper
end of the old farm of Captain William Smith, they were attacked by five
Indians and a white man by the name of Morgan, who was in company with the
Indians. The first intimation that the party had of the presence of the
savages, was the report of the discharge of a gun. The women, Mrs. John
and James Pauley, were knocked from their horses by the Indians with their
clubs, Wallace and the two children were killed and scalped, and John
Pauley though fatally wounded, escaped and succeeded in reaching Wood's
Fort on rich Creek, where he died in a short time. The Indians took Mrs.
John and James Pauley prisoners, and on leaving the scene of their
atrocities, went up East River to the mouth of the Five Mile Fork, and
thence up the same to the head, across the Bluestone and on to the Ohio,
and to the Indian towns on the Miami. There the two women and the little
boy of Margaret Pauley, born shortly after she reached the Indian towns
remained prisoners for about two years. Finally Mrs. James Pauley escaped,
and Margaret and her child shortly after this were ransomed. Mrs. Pauley's
maiden name was Handley. After the return of Margaret Pauley she married a
Mr. Erskine, and by whom she had a daughter who married Hugh Caperton, who
became a distinguished man, and who was the father of the late United
States Senator Allen T. Caperton, of Monroe County. Adam Caperton, the
father of the said Hugh, was killed in a battle with the Indians at Little
Mountain, or Estill's defeat, near where Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, is now
situated. Captain Estill and six of his men were killed, and seventeen of
the Indians were killed. This battle was fought on the 22nd day of March,
1782.

At the date of the attack on the Pauley party in September, 1779, no
settlements had been made along the East River, in fact none existed
between Wood's Fort on Rich Creek and that of Thomas Ingles in Wright's
Valley. The route being traveled by the Pauley party was along the
hunters' trail leading from New River up East River by the site of the
present city of Bluefield in Mercer County, and across the Bluestone-
Clinch divide to the Clinch, down the same and on by way of Powell's River
to Cumberland Gap. This was the route usually pursued by emigrants from
the Greenbrier-New River section to Kentucky.

John Toney settled at the mouth of East River in the year of 1780, and
gave to his place the name of Montreal and later when the line of the
Norfolk & Western Railroad was being constructed, the contractors engaged
in that part of the work at the mouth of East River, or their employees
called it, "Hell's Gate." It is now known as Glenlyn.

In the year of 1780, or 1781 a family by the name of Christain settled on
the farm formerly owned by Mr. John L. Woolwine on East River, about two
mile above the mouth thereof, and it was this family, or from it that the
name of "Christian's Ridge," was given to the high ridge land lying north
of the place of the settlement.

John Goolman Davidson, an Irishman, born in Dublin, Ireland, a cooper by
trade, from which he was generally called and known as "Cooper Davidson,"
came with his family from that part of the Valley of Virginia now known as
Rockbridge County, and with him came Richard Bailey and his family, from
the Blackwater section, then in Bedford, now in Franklin County, Virginia,
and settled in the year of 1780 at the Beaver Pond Spring, a branch of
Bluestone, now in Mercer County. A fort was built which was called and
known as the "Davidson-Bailey Fort," the marks of the foundation of which
may yet be seen near the residence of Mr. Harvey Bailey just west of the
Beaver Pond Creek. Both Davidson and Bailey had considerable families, the
latter had eight sons and two daughters. Richard Bailey had been a soldier
in the American army. These men as well as their sons and daughters, were
a brave and courageous people, and maintained their position on the border
at the settlement they had made from the day they came in 1780, until the
close of the Indian wars in 1795. Often in battles with the Indians,
frequently compelled to flee for their lives, and shut themselves up in
their strong quarters, and finally loosing Mr. Davidson, whose tragic and
brutal murder by the savages will be hereinafter related. At the time of
the settlement at Beaver Pond Spring by Davidson and Bailey, their nearest
neighbors, were Captain James Moore in Abb's Valley, some twelve miles
away, Mitchell Clay on Clover bottom, about the same distance, a man by
the name of Compton on Clear fork of Wolf Creek, about eight miles away,
and a man by the name of Wright at a place now called Springville, on the
head of the Bluestone about eight miles away.

The American army under Washington, spent the winter of 1779-80 at
Morristown New Jersey, not only suffering from severe cold, but even from
lack of food. The British General Clinton was determined to capture
Charleston, South Carolina, and to that end toward the close of the year
1779, he embarked from New York with 7,500 men, leaving Knyphausen in
command of the city with a small force, for Washington had sent the bulk
of his troops south, and consequently gave the enemy little trouble in the
northern department. The British expedition reached Charleston near the
close of January, 1780. General Benjamin Lincoln was in command of the
Continental troops at Charleston and in the vicinity thereof. On May5th,
1780, Fort Moultrie was surrendered to the British, and on the 12th of
May, General Lincoln surrendered the city of Charleston and his army
numbering 5,000 to be made prisoners of war. This capitulation on the part
of Lincoln left the entire south virtually at the mercy of the British.

General Horatio Gates had been placed in command of the American army in
the southern department and marched rapidly southward until he reached
Camden, South Carolina, where on the 16th of August he met the British
army under Lords Rawdon and Cornwallis, and a fierce conflict ensued, in
which the American army was decisively defeated. Immediately following
organized resistance in the south, American rule ended. General Gates made
his way to Charlotte, North Carolina where he was superseded by General
Nathaniel Greene, one of the best officers and fighters in the American
service. The march of the British army northward into North Carolina not
only encouraged the loyalists in the southern part of the state but they
became very much emboldened in the northern and western part of the state
as well as in the upper New River region in Virginia.

In the latter part of the summer or in the early part of the autumn of
1780 there was a general tory uprising in Surry County, North Carolina,
which was so formidable in its character as to alarm the friends of the
American cause; who not only appealed to the American patriots in North
Carolina, but in Virginia as well, for help. This was truly the crucial
period in this great conflict, the American cause seeming to be at its
lowest ebb. The western borders were harassed by the Indians. The country
north and east of New Jersey was practically in the hands of the British.
General Arnold had betrayed the American cause and agreed to surrender
West Point to the enemies of America. The great body of the American army
had been decisively defeated at Camden. The tories, the friends of the
King, were in high glee and everything looked as if the American cause was
lost. But a brighter day was near at hand, and the tide of affairs was to
turn in favor of the Americans.

Colonel Martin Armstrong, who was in command of the military district in
and around Salem, North Carolina, sent his small son, Thomas T. Armstrong,
then but little above twelve years of age, with an appeal for help to
Major Joseph Cloyd, whose residence was on Back Creek, now in Pulaski
County. To avoid suspicion, and to prevent his son from being intercepted,
knowing that he had to pass the tory settlements to reach Major Cloyd, he
dressed him in a full tory suit, and the manly and brave little fellow
carried the message safely to Major Cloyd (this incident was related to
the author by Mrs. Colonel Napoleon D. French, the grand-daughter of
Colonel Martin Armstrong, and the daughter of Colonel Thomas T. Armstrong,
the lad who carried the message.)

Joseph Cloyd was the Major of the Montgomery County militia of which
William Preston was the Colonel and Commandant. Cloyd was directed to
raise three companies of horsemen forthwith and to proceed to Surry
County, North Carolina, and to aid in suppressing the tories.

Among the companies detailed for this service, was one commanded by
Captain George Pearis, another by Captain Bryant, but the author has been
unable to ascertain the name of the captain who commanded the remaining
company. General Jethro Sumner in a letter to General Gates, dated Camp
McGoon's Creek, October 4, 1780, says "That he encloses a copy of the
letter of Colonel William Preston, of Botetourt, Virginia, dated the 18th
day of September, 1780, stating that a body of horsemen is in that section
moving against the tories on the Yadkin." General Sumner seemed not to
have been aware of the presence of the Virginia troops in that
neighborhood, except through the letter of Colonel Preston, and a
conversation had by him with Colonel Armstrong. In his letter General
Sumner refers to the forks of the Yadkin, and to the Shallow ford thereof,
and states that he suspects the latter point to be the object of the
enemy. This letter also refers to a conversation in which Colonel
Armstrong informs him of the approach of three troops of horsemen from
Virginia. General William Smallwood, writes to General Gates, (Colonial
records in Library of Congress,) from Moravian town, now Salem, under date
of October 16,1780, and states, "But upon return of my scouts last evening
they informed me that the enemy had attempted to cross the Shallow ford
the day before, 17th day of October, 1780, but they were attacked by Major
Cloyd with one hundred and sixty of the Virginia and Carolina militia, and
that fifteen of the tories were found dead and four wounded. (Note: The
tory army numbered 310 and was commanded by Colonel Gideon and Captain
Hezakiah Wright.--"Draper's Heroes of King's Mountain, page 438.")

Captain Pearis received in this battle a very severe wound in the
shoulder, which disabled him for further military duty. In this battle he
killed with his own sword, a man by the name of Burke, his own cousin,
from whom he took his sword and this with his own sword together with his
uniform with the bullet hole in the shoulder thereof, were preserved in
the family until the burning of Princeton, where the same were destroyed
together with the house of Mrs. Louisa A. Pearis, where they had been left
for preservation. These men under Major Cloyd, were minute or emergency
men, and were called out for only three months service, and returned to
their homes about the first of January, 1781. Thomas Farley, who was a
member of Captain Pearis' company, in his sworn application made before
the County Court of Giles County in 1832, for a pension, states his
enlistment was with Captain Pearis on the first of October, 1780, and
gives the details of the march under Major Cloyd to the Shallow ford of
the Yadkin, and of the battle there, and that his captain, Pearis, was
wounded in the battle and that he nursed him after he was wounded.

Captain Henry Patton seems to have succeeded Pearis in command of the
company which he led to the battle of the Shallow ford of the Yadkin.

General Cornwallis with the British was advancing into the very center of
North Carolina, and he had pushed out Major Patrick Ferguson, one of his
lieutenants, toward the western mountains of North Carolina, where he
could rally and get together the tories of that section. Ferguson had
heard of the "Over-Mountain or Backwater men" who occupied the territory
on the head waters of the Holstein, Clinch and the Watauga, and he
determined to bring them to terms if possible. If they would not go to him
and surrender, he would march across the mountain and destroy them.
Ferguson then had in his custody a prisoner by the name Samuel Philips
with whom he agreed if he would carry a message from him to Generals
Seviers and Shelby, two of the leaders of the Over-Mountain men, he would
release him. This message was, "that if they did not desist from their
opposition to the British arms, that he would hang their leaders, and lay
their county waste with fire and sword." Philips true to his word crossed
the mountains, and delivered the message entrusted to him to Shelby at
King's Meadows, now Bristol, Virginia. Shelby was not a man to be alarmed
by such threats, conscious that the Over-Mountain or Back-water men were
an equal match for Ferguson's corps. Shelby mounted his horse, and rode
rapidly some forty miles to the Nollichucky in search of John Sevier, who
was not at home but at Jonesboro, attending the horse races. Shelby pushed
on until he found him, and it is said that they went aside, and sat down
upon a log and talked over the situation fully, and determined that the
better plan was to rally the Over-mountain men both in Virginia and North
Carolina, cross the mountains, and destroy Ferguson and his army.

By agreement between Shelby and Sevier, the latter was to rally the men of
Washington County, North Carolina, and the former those of Sullivan
County, and who was also to communicate and interest Colonel William
Campbell, of Washington County,Virginia. Sycamore Ford on the Watauga,
about three miles below the present town of Elizabethtown, was agreed upon
as the place, and the 25th of September as the time for the rendezvous of
these troops. Having succeeded in getting together one thousand men, they
assembled as agreed upon at the time and place.

This was the most remarkable gathering of Backwoodsmen that had ever
occurred on the western border. Here was a body of men living as it were,
beyond the confines of civilization, without law, being a law unto
themselves, about to enter into a great campaign, and fight a great
battle, not for revenge, plunder or booty, impelled only by their
patriotism. No executive authority had commanded them to assemble, they
simply obeyed the commands of their local officers. They marched rapidly
across the mountains, passing through Gillespie's gap in Blue Ridge, and
on to the waters flowing south and eastward; and on the seventh day of
October attacked the British forces under Ferguson at King's Mountain, in
South Carolina, and won in less than an hour, a most decisive victory,
which gave cheer and encouragement to the American cause, and made
patriotic hearts throughout the land leap for joy. This was the turning
point in the American revolution. These incidents are embodied herein
because a part of the men who fought this battle on the American side were
Montgomery County men, from the headwaters of the Bluestone and the
Clinch. Montgomery County at that time reached westward to the west end of
Morris' Knob, some eight miles beyond the present Court House of Tazewell
County.

Captain James Moore, from Abb's Valley, the Peery's and others from the
upper waters of the Clinch, went with Lieutenant Reece Bowen's company,
which belonged to Campbell's Washington County regiment. Moore was a
lieutenant in Bowen's company, and when entering into the battle, hearing
the British bugle sound charge, directed his men to dismount and give it
to them Indian fashion--that is, take trees.

The Americans in this battle captured more than six hundred prisoners, and
brought them across the mountains. General Gates, on October 17, 1780,
wrote Colonel William Preston to prepare a stockade at Fort Chiswell in
which to confine these prisoners, but Colonel Preston replied, "that it
was not a safe place; that Montgomery County contained more tories than
any other county in Virginia." A full, complete and connected history of
the battle of King's Mountain, will be found in Draper's "Heroes of King's
Mountain."

On the 17th day of January, 1781, was fought the battle of the Cowpens, in
which General Morgan defeated the British under Tarleton, the latter being
utterly routed and pursued for twenty miles. The Americans loss was but
seventy-two killed and wounded, while that of the British was more than
three hundred, with five hundred prisoners, and an immense amount of
supplies. This victory was a crushing one, and caused considerable
consternation in the camp of Cornwallis, when the news reached him. Morgan
crossed the Broad River with his prisoners, intending to make his way to
Virginia; Cornwallis in the meantime started out in pursuit. He was
confident of heading off the patriot army at the fords of the Catawba, but
reached there two hours after Morgan had crossed. It was late in the
afternoon when he reached the river, and he waited until morning to find
that the fox had gone. A heavy rain had fallen and so raised the stream as
to prevent the British commander from crossing for several hours, during
which Morgan marched rapidly, reached and crossed the Yadkin, where
General Greene joined him, and left his troops at Cheraw under the command
of General Huger. Greene having learned from Morgan that Cornwallis was in
pursuit, he sent orders to Huger to unite with Morgan at Salisbury or
Charlotte. General Greene was making for Virginia, and Cornwallis chased
him for two hundred miles. The pursuer had been held several hours at the
Catawba, but crossing at last he renewed the chase after Morgan, and
reached the bank of the Yadkin February 3rd, as the Americans on the
opposite side were forming in line to continue the march. The Yadkin was
rising rapidly, but the impatient Cornwallis had to linger until the next
day while the Americans leisurely marched off unmolested. They were joined
at Guilford Court House by the troops from the Pedee, but being far
inferior to their pursuers in number, they continued their retreat to the
Dan, which was already rising, and on the 13th of February they crossed
and entered Halifax County, Virginia. When Cornwallis came again in view,
he found himself again stopped by high water. This turn of affairs
disgusted him, and he wheeled about and marched back to Hillsboro, where
he made his headquarters. General Greene rested and recruited his army,
which now aggregated about five thousand men, and he determined to join
battle with Cornwallis.

Before proceeding to relate the movements of the military in the New River
Valley, the names of some of the settlers who came into the valley in 1780
will be mentioned. William Wilburn and David Hughes from North Carolina,
and John and Benjamin White from Amherst County, Virginia, settled on
Sugar Run in 1780, and a little later, probably in the autumn of 1781,
came William Tracy Sarver, James Rowe and others from North Carolina, who
settled in Wolf Creek Valley. These men had gone from Culpeper County to
the Hawe Patch in North Carolina, where it appears they joined themselves
unto the King's men, and in Pyles' defeat on the Haw, on the 25th of
February, 1781, James Rowe received from one of Lee's Legion a sabre wound
which made him lame the rest of his days. The David Hughes referred to was
also a Loyalist, and to escape military service in the American army hid
himself in the wilds of the flatwoods about the head of Pipestem Creek,
and on the waters of the Bluestone and Guyandotte. A high knob situated
about seven miles northeast of Athens in Mercer County, is still called
"Dave's Knob," from this man David Hughes, who had a hiding place on the
top thereof. Hughes was a giant in size and strength and on one of his
expeditions he caught a cub bear which by its outcries, brought its mother
which fiercely attacked Hughes, seizing him by the left arm. He succeeded
in dispatching the bear by striking it with his fist in the ribs. It may
here be added that the New River valley received a large number of
inhabitants in the years of 1775-1782 from North Carolina, a large part of
whom were tories, but from whom have descended a large number of highly
honored and respectable people.

Cornwallis' march into upper Carolina had greatly alarmed the Virginians
and General Greene wrote letters to Governor Jefferson and to the various
commanders of detached bodies of troops in Virginia asking help, and among
those to whom he addressed his urgent appeals were Preston, Sevier, Shelby
and Campbell. Colonel William Preston on February 10, 1781, ordered the
militia of Montgomery County to assemble at the Lead Mines, and on the day
appointed three hundred and fifty men assembled pursuant to the order of
their commander. Major Joseph Cloyd, assembled and led the Middle New
River men. It is to be regretted that the names of the men who went with
Preston and Cloyd have not been preserved. One company went from the
Middle New River valley, which was commanded by Captain Thomas Shannon, of
Walker's Creek, and one of his lieutenants was Alexander Marrs. A few
names only of the privates who went along have been secured. They were
Matthew French, John French, Edward Hale, Joseph Hare, Isaac Cole and
Thomas Farley.

Preston began his march on the 18th day of February and reported to
General Greene on the 28th day of that month, who assigned him to the
command of General Andrew Pickens. On his way to report to Pickens he
seems to have gotten between the American and British outposts, and camped
for the night in close proximity to the British without knowing that they
were near him.

On the second day of March, 1781, Lee's Legion and Preston's men had a
spirited encounter with Tarleton, which General Greene in a dispatch to
General Washington thus notices: "On the Second, Lieutenant Colonel Lee
with a detachment of riflemen attacked the advance of the British army
under Tarleton and killed and wounded thirty of them."

On the sixth of March at Whitsell's (Wetzell's mill), North Carolina,
Williams' men, Pickens and his command, including Lee's Legion and
Preston's Backwoodsmen, met the British and a severe engagement took
place. The Americans were compelled to retreat, and Preston's horse took
fright and ran through a mill pond near the British, threw Preston off and
escaped into the British lines. Colonel Preston, being quite a fleshy man,
found it difficult to keep up with the retreating army, and Major Cloyd
seeing his condition dismounted and gave Preston his horse. On the eve of
going into this battle John French, son of Matthew, and a member of
Captain Shannon's company, was detailed as one of the guards to the wagon
train. So soon as the firing began at the creek French left the train.
Without orders--in fact against orders--and went to the fight, joined
therein and shot one of the enemy. The officer in charge of the wagon
train reported him for disobedience of orders, and demanded that he be
court martialed. Major Cloyd remarked that as French ran not from the
fight, but towards it, if they court martialed him for such a cause, he
would never again draw his sword in behalf of the country.

The Americans continued their retreat to Guilford Court House, where the
main body of Greene's army had assembled to fight Cornwallis. In the
meantime, Colonel William Campbell with about sixty men had joined General
Greene, and Preston's Montgomery men were placed under his, Campbell's,
command on the extreme left of Greene's army. Colonel Tarleton says, in
his Southern Campaigns pp 241, "That in the battle of Guilford Court House
he held the right of the British army and that his troops were badly hurt
by the Backwoodsmen from Virginia, that they stood behind a fence until
the British Infantry with their bayonets climbed over the same." The
Americans were defeated in this battle, and there were some criticisms as
to the behavior of these Backwoodsmen or militia, and Colonel Preston in a
letter to Governor Jefferson, written on the 10th of April, 1781,
complaining of this criticism, and the injustice to his men, says, "that
part of the men were in one action and all of the men were in two
actions." Judge Schenek, in his "North Carolina 1780-81," credits Colonel
Martin Armstrong with leading a body of Surry County men in the battle of
Guilford Court House.

After the close of this battle the militia returned to their homes, which
were then threatened by Indian incursions, their services being badly
needed along the frontier to suppress the Indian forays and outrages.

To the battle of Yorktown, fought in October, 1781, went Trigg's Battalion
of artillery composed largely of New River Valley men.

The outrages committed by the Indians upon the family of Thomas Ingles in
Burke's Garden in April, 1782, greatly alarmed the settlers along the more
exposed portions of the border, and they pleaded for protection. The
consternation produced along the frontiers from Powell's Valley to New
River was so great that the Governor of Virginia directed Colonel William
Preston to assemble the field officers of Montgomery and Washington
Counties at Lead Mines at once to devise ways and means to protect the
settlers from Indian depredations. The meeting of these officers took
place on the 6th day of July, 1782. In the meantime Colonel Preston had
ordered Major Joseph Cloyd to call out the militia, and to station them at
David Doak's Mill. The field officers present at the July meeting from
Montgomery County were William Preston, Daniel Trigg, Walter Crockett,
John Taylor, Joseph Cloyd and Abraham Trigg; from Washington County,
Arthur Campbell, Aaron Lewis, William Edmiston, James Dysart and Major
Patrick Lockhart, District Commissioner. The board of officers decided
that two hundred men should be drawn out for the defense of the frontiers,
to be disposed of into the following districts in Montgomery County,
namely, "on New River in the neighborhood of Captain Pearis 30 men, Sugar
Run 20, Captain Moore's head of Bluestone 25, head of Clinch 25. In
Washington, at Richlands 20, Castlewoods 30, Rye Cove 20, Powell's Valley
30 men. The distances from Captain Pearis' to Sugar Run 10 miles, to
Captain Moore's, head of Bluestone 30, to Captain Maxwell's, head of
Clinch 16, which is nearest the Washington line, to Richands 24, to
Castlewood's 30, to Rye Cove 28, to Powell's Valley Fort 26 miles, in all
164 miles."

Upon the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, in October, 1781, the
war was regarded at an end. Many of the militia men of Virginia and swarms
of other people soon thereafter, came over the Alleghanies, seeking homes,
and with them for the same purpose, came some of the French and British
soldiers. Vast throngs went to Kentucky. Among those who came in the years
of 1782-3-4 and 5, and located in the New River Valley, and who had been
soldiers in the American army, were John Peters, Christian Peters, Charles
Walker, Isaac Smith and Larkin Stowers, and a little later came Josiah
Meadows, Jacob Meadows, James Emmons, Charles Duncan, John Kirk, Peter
Dingess and Tollison Shuemate. The Peters, Stowers, Walker, Jacob Meadows
and Smith came from Rockingham County, Virginia, Peter Dingess, from
Botetourt County, Josiah Meadows from Bedford, James Emmons and Charles
Duncan from Stokes County, North Carolina, John and Thomas. Kirk, and
Tollison Shuemate from Fauquier County, Virginia. Duncan and Emmons had
first removed from Fauquier County to Stokes County, North Carolina. John
Peters and his brother Christian came in 1783, the former located on the
New River on the farm on which Mr. Charles D. French now resides, and the
latter settled on Rich Creek, where the village of Peterstown is now
situated, and he gave name to that village. Charles Walker settled on New
River, opposite the mouth of Wolf Creek.

Conner, Link and Lugar, who were Hessians--Germans--and who had belonged
to the British army, came during one of the years referred to. John Conner
was a courier or dispatch bearer for Colonel Tarleton, the British
commander on the battlefield of the Cowpens, and had been sent with a
message, became intoxicated on the way, failed to deliver the message, was
court martialed and sentenced to receive, and did receive one hundred
lashes, save one, on his bare back, lived, but fainted under the
operation, though he had been heavily dosed with liquor and powder mixed.
This whipping caused him to let the hated British do their own fighting
thereafter, and thereupon he deserted to the Americans.

Three or four Hessian regiments were surrendered as prisoners of war by
Cornwallis at Yorktown, and for safe keeping were sent into the valley of
Virginia. Finding there a people who had come from their own country,
spoke their own tongue and living in a goodly land, they settled down and
became citizens of the country.

The influx of population of the New River Valley, came principally from
four directions, viz: the Virginia Valley, Piedmont, Virginia, the upper
waters of the James and Roanoke Rivers or their tributaries, and from
North Carolina. From the valley came the Peters, Walkers, Stowers, Smiths;
from the Piedmont, Virginia, the Chapmans, Johnstons, McKensey, Lyttles,
Garrisons, Kirks, Emmons, Duncans and Shuemates; from the waters of the
James and Roanoke Rivers, the Clays, Baileys, Belchers, Shannons and
Whites; from North Carolina, the Harmans, Wilburns, Hughes and Hagers.

It has already been stated that Captain George Pearis settled on the New
River, where Pearisburg station on the line of the Norfolk & Western
Railway is now situated, in the Spring of 1782. (Note: George Pearis
opened the first store in what is now Giles County.) He purchased a tract
of land (204 acres) of Captain William Ingles for seventy pounds sterling.
It is altogether probable that Mrs. Ingels had observed these lands on her
way up New River in November, 1755, after her escape from the Indians, and
had given information thereof to her husband, who in 1780 entered and
surveyed this 204 acre tract, as well, also,the Chapman I. Johnston home
tract, and the tract on which Charles D. French resides.

It has been noted that Mitchell Clay and family settled on the Bluestone
at Clover bottom in the year of 1775, where he opened up a considerable
farm. From the date of his settlement to near the autumn of 1783 he had
not been molested by the savages, as he seems to have lived off their
lines of travel, but his peace was not long to continue.

In the month of August, 1783, after Clay had harvested his crop of small
grain, and desiring to get the benefit of the pastures for his cattle off
the ground on which his crop had grown, he placed two of his sons, Bartley
and Ezekiel, to build a fence around the stacks of grain, while he went
out in the search of game. His older sons seem to have been away from
home. It was in the afternoon, while these two young men were engaged at
their work, and the older daughter with some of the younger girls were at
the river washing, that a marauding party of eleven Indians crept up to
the edge of the field and shot Bartley dead. The discharge of the gun
alarmed the girls at the river, and they started on a run for the house,
the pathway leading directly by where Bartley had been killed. An Indian
attempted to scalp the young man, and at the same time to capture the
older girl Tabitha, who undertook to defend the body of her dead brother,
and prevent his being scalped, and in the struggle with the Indian, she
reached for his butcher knife, which hung in his belt and missing it, the
Indian drew it and stabbed her repeatedly, she however, several times
wringing the knife from his hand cast it aside, but he each time
recovering it continued cutting her with the knife, and stabbing her until
he had literally chopped her to pieces before killing her. The small girls
during the melee, had escaped to the house, and the brother Ezekiel, a lad
of some sixteen years had been captured by another Indian. The house of
Mitchell Clay stood on a high point, or knoll about three hundred yards
nearly due west, from the dwelling house now owned and occupied by Mr.
Daniel Day. The old chimney, or rather the foundation stones of the
chimney of the Clay cabin can still be seen. About the time the attack was
made by the Indian, a man by the name of Liggon Blankenship called at
Clay's cabin, and when Mrs. Clay discovered her daughter in the struggle
with the Indian, begged Blankenship to go and shoot the Indian and save
her child, instead thereof he took to his heels and ran to the New River
settlements and reported that Clay and all of his family had been killed
by the Indians. This cowardly behavior of Blankenship has been handed down
from generation to generation and perhaps will be to the end of time. The
Indians, after securing the scalp of the young man Bartley, and his sister
Tabitha, with their prisoner Ezekiel, left the scene. So soon as Mrs. Clay
ascertained that the Indians had departed, she took her children and
carried the bodies of the dead ones to the house and placing them on a
bed, left the cabin with her children and made her way through the wild
woods six miles to the house of Mr. James Bailey (son of Richard, of
Beaver Pond) who lived at a place on Brush Creek waters about three
fourths of a mile northwest from where New Hope Church now stands, and who
had settled there in 1782, and was then Clay's nearest neighbor. Mr. Clay,
the father, on his hunting expedition had wounded a deer and followed it
until nearly dark, then retraced his steps home, little dreaming of the
horrors that had been enacted there in his absence. When he reached the
house he soon discovered from the dead bodies of his children and other
evidence what had happened, and supposing that all of his family had been
killed or were captives, he immediately left the cabin for the New River
settlements, following a blind path which led from his place to New River
at the mouth of East River. On his way during the night he discovered that
the Indians were in his rear, following him, and he left the path in order
to evade them. He reached the settlements early in the morning, followed
closely by the Indians who stole a number of horses and immediately began
their retreat to the Ohio. Information was immediately conveyed to the
various neighborhoods, and a party of men under Captain Matthew Farley,
among them Charles Clay, Mitchell, Jr., James Bailey, William Wiley,
Edward Hale, Isaac Cole, Joseph Hare, John French and Captain James Moore,
went to the Clay cabin and buried the bodies of Bartley and Tabitha. The
pursuit then began. The Indians taking the old Indian trail from the
Bluestone across Flat Top Mountain, and down the divide between Guyandotte
and Coal river waters along the top of Cherry Pound Mountain, where the
trail separated, one branch thereof continuing down the west fork of the
Coal River, and the other down the Pond fork of the same. When the whites
reached the forks of this path or trail, they discovered that the tracks
of the horses, which the Indians had stolen, led down the Pond fork, and
not suspecting that some of the Indian party had gone down the west fork,
they followed the tracks of the horses. It was late in the evening when
they reached a point near the mouth of Pond fork, and discovered smoke
from fires started by the Indians where they had camped, and heard the
shrill whistle of a fife. The party halted in order to confer as to the
best method of attack. They decided to divide their party so as to place a
portion of them below the Indians, and to attack at daylight the next
morning, and to make this attack from above and below at the same time.
The party crept as close up to where the Indians encamped as they thought
safe to prevent discovery. All was quiet during the night, but just at the
break of day, a large Indian arose from his bed and walked out a short
distance, and approaching Edward Hale, by whom he was shot and killed, and
thereupon the attack began.

Two of the Indians were killed outright, and one that was wounded
attempted to escape to the hill, and in his broken English begged for his
life, but Charles Clay, whose brother and sister had just been killed by
them, and another brother in captivity, refused him quarter and killed him
on the spot. The remaining Indians fled down the river.

Mitchell Clay, Jr., was then quite a boy, and when the attack began one
large Indian rushed down toward him. Young Clay had a large rifle gun,
much too heavy for a boy of his size to handle, and firing at the Indian
he missed him. The Indian wheeled, and attempted to run off, but was
killed by another of the party.

The place where this fight occurred is in the now county of Boone, at the
head of a little bottom of the Pond fork, on west side thereof, about one-
half mile above the junction of the Pond with the West fork of Coal River,
and on the farm formerly owned by the late Mr. L. D. Coon, who a few years
ago in plowing near the base of the hill where the fight took place, found
an Indian hatchet, which he gave to the author, and which he now has in
his possession. The spot where this battle was fought is well marked by a
large pile of heavy stones, carried by the Indians from the adjacent
mountain side, and piled over the bodies of their dead comrades. The white
people recovered their horses, but not Ezekiel Clay, who was carried by
the hunting party of Indians that went down the West Fork, and with this
party the whites failed to come into contact. They took this unfortunate
boy to their town at Chillicothe, and burned him at the stake. Both Edward
Hale and William Wiley took from the backs of the two dead Indians strips
of their hides, which they converted into razor straps and which remained
in their families for many years, as souvenirs of the battle.

Mitchell Clay and his family removed to New River, and purchased from the
executors of Captain William Ingles a part of the farm which is now owned
by J. Raleigh Johnston, Esq., across the river from the Norfolk & Western
Railway station at Pearisburg, Virginia, and Clay built his house on very
nearly the same spot on which Mr. Johnston's house now stands. This Clay
house was removed several years ago to a point on the same farm, about one-
half mile north of where it originally stood. It still remains, and in the
logs may yet be seen the port holes. A photograph of this house built in
1783, as it now appears will be inserted in the appendix to this work.

Mr. Clay and his wife, whose maiden name was Phoebe Belcher of Bedford,
later Franklin County, Virginia, had fourteen children. His sons were
Henry, Charles, Mitchell, David, William, Bartley, and Ezekiel; his
daughters, Tabitha, Rebecca, who married Colonel George Pearis, Patience,
who married George Chapman, Sallie, who married Captain John Peters,
Obedience, who married John French, Nannie, who married Joseph Hare, Mary,
who married William Stewart, and whose descendants, now compose a large
part of the population of Wyoming County, West Virginia. Mitchell Clay
died on his New River farm in 1812, having sold his Clover bottom tract to
Hugh Innes and to his son-in-law, Colonel Pearis. The facts and
circumstances connected with this Clay tragedy and the battle fought with
the Indians on Coal River is taken from the Clay MSS., written out by
Mitchell C. and John Clay, grandsons of the said Mitchell.

In 1783 Captain George Pearis being out on his farm with his rifle and
near the lower point of the island just north of his house discovered an
Indian standing on the high cliff of rocks opposite the lower point of
said island. He fired at and killed the Indian.

In the spring of 1782, a marauding party of Indians made an incursion into
Abb's Valley, and attacked the house of James Poague, a brother-in-law of
Captain Moore, at night, broke open the door, but finding there were
several men in the house (there were three besides Mr. Poague) they did
not attempt to enter the house, but after watching it for some time went
off; and the next morning killed a young man by the name of Richards, who
had been living for some time at Captain Moore's. This incident is related
by Kercheval, the Historian of the valley. It seems that this party of
Indians on entering the valley divided, a part going to Burke's Garden and
attacking Thomas Ingles' family as hereinbefore related, and another part
the Maxwell's and others.

James Moore, a son of Captain James, and who was only fourteen years of
age, was in September, 1784, captured by three Indians. The boy had been
sent for a horse, by his father, to the plantation of Mr. Poague, which
was now deserted, as Mr. Poague had left some time before. The boy was
taken by the Indians across the Ohio, and remained a prisoner for about
five years, then returned, finding, in fact hearing before he reached
home, that his father's family had been destroyed by the Indians. This
James Moore was the father of the late William T. Moore, of Abb's Valley,
and who lived to about the age of ninety years, one of the most honored
and respected citizens of Tazewell County, Virginia. Before his death he
erected, largely at his own expense in Abb's Valley, near the place where
his grandfather and family were destroyed by the Indians, Moore's Memorial
(Methodist) Church.

Many important events transpired during the years of 1784-5. The border
land or frontier was rapidly filling up with a restless, energetic people,
largely free from governmental restraints, with no other special duties to
perform than that of preparing homes, providing food and clothing and
fighting savages. These people west of the Alleghanies, on the waters of
Wautauga, Holstein and upper New River section, seemingly dissatisfied
with the state governments of North Carolina and Virginia, sought what
they conceived to be better. The people living in Washington, Sullivan and
Greene Counties, North Carolina, set up a new government, created and
organized a new state which they named Franklin. The interests of the
people living in these counties, as well as on the head waters of the
Holstein and upper New River country, were so closely identified, that a
scheme was discussed to enlarge the territory of the new state, and to
make a great independent Commonwealth. Colonel Arthur Campbell, of
Washington County, Virginia, seems to have been at the head of the
movement, and in 1785 he proposed the enlargement of the boundaries of the
new state as follows, viz; "Beginning at a point at the top of the
Alleghany or Appalachian Mountains so as a line drawn due north from
thence will reach the banks of the New River, then called Kanawha, at the
confluence of the little river, which is about one mile above Ingle's
Ferry, down the said river Kanawha to the mouth of Roncevert ( or
Greenbrier ) River, a direct line from thence to the nearest summit of the
Laurel Mountain, and along the highest point of the same to the point
where it is intersected by the parallel of thirty seven degrees north
latitude; west along that latitude to a point where it is met by a
meridian line that passes through the lower part of the Rapids of Ohio;
south along the meridian to Elk Run, a branch of the Tennessee, down said
run to it's mouth, and down the Tennessee to the most southwardly part of
the bend in said river; a line from thence to that branch of the Mobile,
called Donbigbee; down said river Donbigbee to its junction with the
Cossawate River, to the mouth of that branch called the High tower, thence
south to the top of the Appalachian Mountain at its highest land that
divides the stream of the eastern from the western waters; northwardly
along the middle of said heights, and the top of the Appalachian Mountains
to the beginning."