36
Determined if possible to achieve the independence of his nation, and to rid her of those whom he considered her oppressors, he formed the scheme of uniting in hostility against the United States, all the tribes dwelling east of the Mississippi river. In the prosecution of this purpose, he travelled from Mackinaw to Georgia,[4]and with wonderful adroitness practised on the different feelings of his red brethren. Assuming at times the character of a prophet, he wrought powerfully on their credulity and superstition.––Again, depending on the force of oratory, the witchery of his eloquence drew many [33] to his standard. But all was in vain––His plans were entirely frustrated. He had brought none of his auxiliaries into the field; and was totally unprepared for hostilities, when his brother, the celebrated Shawanese prophet, by a premature attack on the army under Gen. Harrison, at an inauspicious moment, precipitated him into a war with the United States.
Foiled by this means, Tecumseh joined the standard of Great Britain in the war of 1812; and as a Brigadier General in her army, lost his life, bravely supporting the cause which he had espoused. He deserved a better fate; and but for prejudice which is so apt to dim the eye and distort the object, Tecumseh would, most probably, be deemed a martyr for his country, and associated in the mind with the heroes of Marathon and Thermopylæ.
To contemplate the Indian character, in a religious point of view, is less gratifying than to consider it in regard to the lesser morals. At the period of the settlement of Western Virginia, excepting the Moravians, and a few others who had been induced by the zeal and exertions of Roman catholic missionaries to wear the cross, the Indians north west of the Ohio river, were truly heathens. They believed indeed in a First Cause, and worshiped the Good Spirit; but they were ignorant of the great truths of Christianity, and their devotions were but superstitious acts of blind reverence. In this situation they remain37generally at the present day, notwithstanding the many laudable endeavors which have been made to christianize them.
Perhaps there was never a tribe in America, but believed in the existence of a Deity; yet were their ideas of the nature and attributes of God, not only obscure, but preposterous and absurd. They believe also in the existence of many inferior deities, whom they suppose to be employed as assistants in managing the affairs of the world, and in inspecting the actions of men. Eagles and Owls are thought by some to have been placed here as observers of the actions of men; and accordingly, when an eagle is seen to soar about them by day, or an owl to perch near them at night, they immediately offer sacrifice, that a good report may be made of them to the Great Spirit.
They are likewise believers in the immortality of the soul; and have such an idea of a future state of existence, as accords with their character and condition here. Strangers to [34] intellectual pleasures, they suppose that their happiness hereafter will consist of mere sensual gratifications; and that when they die, they will be translated to a delightful region, where the flowers never fade, nor the leaves fall from the trees; where the forests abound in game, and the lakes in fish, and where they expect to remain forever, enjoying all the pleasures which delighted them here.[5]
38
In consequence of this belief, when an Indian dies, and is buried, they place in the grave with him, his bow and arrows and such weapons as they use in war, that he may be enabled to procure game and overcome an enemy. And it has been said, that they grieve more for the death of an infant unable to provide for itself in the world of spirits, than for one who had attained manhood and was capable of taking care of himself. An interesting instance of this is given by Major Carver, and furnishes at once, affecting evidence of their incongruous creed and of their parental tenderness. Maj. Carver says:
“Whilst I remained with them, a couple whose tent was near to mine, lost a son about four years old. The parents were so inconsolable for its loss, and so much affected by its death, that they pursued the usual testimonies of grief with such uncommon vigor, as through the weight of sorrow and loss of blood, to occasion the death of the father. The mother, who had been hitherto absorbed in grief, no sooner beheld her husband expire, than she dried up her tears, and appeared cheerful and resigned.
“As I knew not how to account for so extraordinary a transition, I took an opportunity to ask her the reason of it. She replied, that as the child was so young when it died, and unable to support itself in the country of spirits, both she and her husband had been apprehensive that its situation would be far from pleasant; but no sooner did she behold its father depart for the same place, and who not only loved the child with the tenderest affection, but was a good hunter and [35] able to provide plentifully for its support, than she ceased to mourn. She added that she saw no reason to continue her tears, as the child was now happy under the protection of a fond father; and that she had only one wish remaining to be gratified, and that was a wish to be herself with them.”[6]
In relation to the Indian antiquities so frequently met39with in America, much doubt still exists. When and for what purpose many of those vast mounds of earth, so common in the western country, were heaped up, is matter of uncertainty. Mr. Jefferson has pronounced them to be repositories of the dead; and many of them certainly were designed for that purpose; perhaps all with which he had become acquainted previous to the writing of his notes of Virginia. Mr. Jefferson did not deem them worthy the name of monuments. Since the country has been better explored, many have been discovered justly entitled to that appellation, some of which seem to have been constructed for purposes other than inhumation.[7]These are frequently met with in the valley of the Mississippi, and are said to extend into Mexico. The most celebrated works of this class, are believed to be those at Circleville in Ohio, which have so frequently been described, and are justly considered memorials of the labor and perseverance of those by whom they were erected.
There is a tradition among the Indians of the north, which if true would furnish a very rational solution to the question, “for what purpose were they constructed?” According to this tradition about “two thousand two hundred years, before Columbus discovered America, the northern nations appointed a prince, and immediately after, repaired to the south and visited theGolden city, the capital of a vast empire. After a time the emperor of the south built many forts throughout his dominions, and extending them northwardly almost penetrated the lake Erie. This produced much excitement. The people of the north, afraid that they would be deprived of the country on the south side of the great lakes, determined to defend it against the infringement of any foreign people; long and bloody wars ensued which lasted about one40hundred years. The people of the north, being more skillful in the use of bows and arrows, and capable of enduring hardships which proved fatal to those of the south, gained the conquest; and all the towns and forts, which had been erected by their enemy, were totally destroyed and left in a heap of ruins.”[8]
The most considerable of those tumuli or sepulchral mounds, which are found in Virginia, is that on the bottoms of Grave creek, near its entrance into the Ohio, about twelve miles below Wheeling, and is the only large one in this section of the country. Its diameter at the base, is said to be one hundred yards, its perpendicular height about eighty feet, and the diameter at its summit, forty-five feet. Trees, of all sizes and of various kinds, are growing on its sides; and fallen [36] and decayed timber, is interspersed among them; a single white oak rises out of a concavity in the centre of its summit.[9]
Near to Cahokia there is a group (of about two hundred) of these mounds, of various dimensions.[10]The largest of these is said to have a base of eight hundred yards circumference, and an altitude of ninety feet. These and the one mentioned as being on Grave creek and many smaller ones in various parts of the country, were no doubt places of inhumation.[11]––Many have been opened, and found to contain human bones promiscuously thrown together. Mr.41Jefferson supposed the one examined by him, (the diameter of whose base was only forty feet and height twelve) to contain the bones of perhaps a thousand human beings, of each sex and of every age. Others have been examined, in which were the skeletons of men of much greater stature, than that of any of the Indians in America, at the time of its discovery, or of those with whom we have since become acquainted.
It is a well known fact, that since the whites became settled in the country, the Indians were in the habit of collecting the bones of their dead and of depositing them in one general cemetery; but the earth and stone used by them, were taken from the adjacent land. This was not invariably the case, with those ancient heaps of earth found in the west. In regard to many of them, this singular circumstance is said to be a fact, that the earth, of which they are composed, is of an altogether different nature, from that around them; and must, in some instances, have been carried a considerable distance. The tellurine structures at Circleville are of this sort; and the material of which they were constructed, is said to be distinctly different, from the earth any where near to them.
The immensity of the size of these and many others, would induce the supposition that they could not have been raised by a race of people as indolent as the Indians have been, ever since a knowledge was had of them. Works, the construction of which would now require the concentrated exertions of at least one thousand men, aided by the mechanical inventions of later days, for several months, could hardly have been erected by persons, so subject to lassitude under labor as they are: unless indeed their population was infinitely greater than we now conceive it to have been. Admitting however, this density of population to have existed, other circumstances would corroborate the belief, that the country once had other inhabitants, than the progenitors of those who have been called, the aborigines of America: one of these circumstances is the uncommon size of many of the skeletons found in the smaller mounds upon the hills.
If the fact be, as it is represented, that the larger skeletons42are invariably found on elevated situations, remote from the larger water courses, it would tend to show that there was a diversity of habit, and admitting their cotemporaneous existence, perhaps no alliance or intercourse between those, whose remains they are, and the persons by whom those large mounds and fortifications were erected, [37] these being found only on plains in the contiguity of large streams or inland lakes; and containing only the bones of individuals of ordinary stature.
Another and stronger evidence that America was occupied by others than the ancestors of the present Indians, is to be found in those antiquities, which demonstrate that iron was once known here, and converted to some of the uses ordinarily made of it.
In graduating a street in Cincinnati, there was found, twenty-five feet below the surface of the earth, a small horse shoe, in which were several nails. It is said to present the appearance of such erosion as would result from the oxidation of some centuries. It was smaller than would be required for a common mule.[12]
Many are the instances of pieces of timber found, various depths below the surface of the earth, with the marks of the axe palpably visible on them.[13]A sword too, said to have been enclosed in the wood of the roots of a tree not less than five hundred years old, is preserved in Ohio as a curiosity. Many other instances might, if necessary, be adduced to prove, that implements of iron were in use in this country, prior to its occupation by the whites. Now if a people once have the use of that metal, it is far43from probable that it will ever after be lost to them: the essential purposes to which it may be applied, would preserve it to them. The Indians however, ’till taught by the Europeans, had no knowledge of it.
Many of the antiquities discovered in other parts of the country, show that the arts once flourished to an extent beyond what they have ever been known to do among the Indians. The body found in the saltpetre cave of Kentucky, was wrapped in blankets made of linen and interwoven with feathers of the wild turkey, tastefully arranged. It was much smaller than persons of equal age at the present day, and had yellowish hair. In Tennessee many walls of faced stone, and even walled wells have been found in so many places, at such depths and under such circumstances, as to preclude the idea of their having been made by the whites since the discovery by Columbus.
[38] In this state too, have been found burying grounds, in which the skeletons seem all to have been those of pigmies: the graves, in which the bodies had been deposited, were seldom three feet in length; yet the teeth in the skulls prove that they were the bodies of persons of mature age.
Upon the whole there cannot be much doubt, that America was once inhabited by a people, not otherwise allied to the Indians of the present day, than that they were descendants of him, from whom has sprung the whole human family.
44
[39] CHRONICLES
OF
BORDER WARFARE.
CHAPTER I.
At the time when Virginia became known to the whites, it was occupied by many different tribes of Indians, attached to different nations. That portion of the state lying north west of the Blue ridge, and extending to the lakes was possessed by the Massawomees. These were a powerful confederacy, rarely in amity with the tribes east of that range of mountains; but generally harrassing them by frequent hostile irruptions into their country. Of their subsequent history, nothing is now known. They are supposed by some to have been the ancestors of the Six Nations. It is however more probable, that they afterwards became incorporated with these, as did several other tribes of Indians, who used a language so essentially different from that spoken by the Six Nations, as to render the intervention of interpreters necessary between them.
As settlements were extended from the sea shore, the Massawomees gradually retired; and when the white population reached the Blue ridge of mountains, the valley between it and the Alleghany, was entirely uninhabited. This delightful region of country was then only used as a hunting ground, and as a highway for belligerant parties of different nations, in their military expeditions against each other. In consequence of the almost continued hostilities between the northern and southern Indians, these expeditions were very frequent, and tended somewhat to retard the settlement of the valley, and render a residence45in it, for some time, insecure and unpleasant. Between the Alleghany mountains and the Ohio river, within the present limits of Virginia, there were some villages interspersed, inhabited by small numbers of Indians; the most [40] of whom retired north west of that river, as the tide of emigration rolled towards it. Some however remained in the interior, after settlements began to be made in their vicinity.
North of the present boundary of Virginia, and particularly near the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers, and in the circumjacent country the Indians were more numerous, and their villages larger. In 1753, when Gen. Washington visited the French posts on the Ohio, the spot which had been selected by the Ohio company, as the site for a fort, was occupied by Shingess, king of the Delawares; and other parts of the proximate country, were inhabited by Mingoes and Shawanees.[1]When the French were forced to abandon the position, which they had taken at the forks of Ohio, the greater part of the adjacent tribes removed farther west. So that when improvements were begun to be made in the wilderness of North Western Virginia, it had been almost entirely deserted by the natives; and excepting a few straggling hunters and warriors, who occasionally traversed it in quest of game, or of human beings on whom to wreak their vengeance, almost its only tenants were beasts of the forest.
46
In the country north west of the Ohio river, there were many warlike tribes of Indians, strongly imbued with feelings of rancorous hostility to the neighboring colonists. Among the more powerful of these were the Delawares, who resided on branches of Beaver Creek, Cayahoga, and Muskingum; and whose towns contained about six hundred inhabitants––The Shawanees, who to the number of 300, dwelt upon the Scioto and Muskingum––The Chippewas, near Mackinaw, of 400––Cohunnewagos, of 300, and who inhabited near Sandusky––The Wyandots, whose villages were near fort St. Joseph, and embraced a population of 250––The Twightees, near fort Miami, with a like population––The Miamis, on the river Miami, near the fort of that name, reckoning 300 persons––The Pottowatomies of 300, and the Ottawas of 550, in their villages near to forts St. Joseph and Detroit,[2]and of 250, in the towns near Mackinaw. Besides these, there were in the same district of country, others of less note, yet equally inimical to the whites; and who contributed much to the annoyance [41] of the first settlers on the Ohio, and its tributaries.
There were likewise the Munsies, dwelling on the north branch of the Susquehanna, and on the Allegheny river––The Senecas, on the waters of the Susquehanna, Ontario and the heads of the Allegheny––The Cayugas, on Cayuga lake, and the Sapoonies, who resided in the neighborhood of the Munsies. In these tribes was an aggregate population of 1,380 souls, and they likewise aided in committing depredations on our frontiers.
Those who ventured to explore and occupy the south western portion of Virginia, found also in its vicinity some powerful and warlike tribes. The Cherokees possessed what was then, the western part of North Carolina and numbered 2,500––The Chicasaws, residing south of the Cherokees, had a population of 750––and the Catawbas, on the Catawba river in South Carolina with only 150 persons. These latter were remarkably adventurous, enterprising and courageous; and notwithstanding their remote situation, and the paucity of their numbers, frequently traversed the valley of Virginia, and even penetrated the country on the north branch of the Susquehanna, and between the Ohio river and lake Erie, to wage war upon the Delawares. Their success in many of these expeditions, is preserved in the traditions of the Delawares, who continue to regard them as having used in these wars, a degree of cunning and stratagem, to which other tribes have never approached.[3]
47
Such were the numbers and positions of many of the proximate Indians about the time settlements were begun to be [42] made on the Monongahela river and its branches. Anterior to this period, adventurers had explored, and established themselves, in various parts of the valley between the Blue ridge and the Alleghany mountain. That section of it, which was included within the limits of the Northern-Neck, was the first to become occupied by the whites. The facilities afforded by the proprietor for obtaining land within his grant, the greater salubrity of climate and fertility of soil near to the Blue ridge, caused the tide of emigration to flow rapidly towards the upper country, and roll even to the base of that mountain. Settlements were soon after extended westwardly across the Shenandoah, and early in the eighteenth century Winchester became a trading post, with sparse improvements in its vicinity.
About this time Thomas Morlin, a pedlar trading from Williamsburg to Winchester, resolved, in conjunction with John Salling a weaver also from Williamsburg, to prosecute an examination of the country, beyond the48limits which had hitherto bounded the exploratory excursions of other adventurers. With this view, they travelled up the valley of the Shenandoah, and crossing James river and some of its branches, proceeded as far as the Roanoke, when Salling was taken captive by a party of Cherokees. Morlin was fortunate enough to elude their pursuit, and effect a safe retreat to Winchester.
Upon the return of the party by whom Salling had been captivated, he was taken to Tennessee where he remained for some years. When on a hunting expedition to the Salt licks of Kentucky, in company with some Cherokees to kill buffalo, they were surprised by a party of Illinois Indians, with whom the Cherokees were then at war, and by them Salling was again taken prisoner. He was then carried to Kaskaskia, when he was adopted into the family of a squaw whose son had been killed in the wars.
While with this nation of Indians, Salling frequently accompanied parties of them on hunting excursions, a considerable distance to the south. On several occasions he went with them below the mouth of the Arkansas, and once to the Gulph of Mexico. In one of those expeditions they met with a party of Spaniards, exploring the country and who needed an interpreter. For this purpose they purchased Salling of his Indian mother for three strands of beads and a Calumet. Salling attended them to the post at Crevecœur; from which [43] place he was conveyed to fort Frontignac: here he was redeemed by the Governor of Canada, who sent him to the Dutch settlement in New York, whence he made his way home after an absence of six years.[4]
49
The emigration from Great Britain to Virginia was then very great, and at the period of Salling’s return to Williamsburg, there were then many adventurers, who had but recently arrived from Scotland and the north of England. Among these adventurers were John Lewis[5]and John50Mackey. Salling’s return excited a considerable and very general interest, and drew around him many, particularly of those who had but lately come to America, and to whom the narrative of one, who had been nearly six years a captive among the Indians, was highly gratifying. Lewis and Mackey listened attentively to the description given of the country in the valley, and pleased with its beauty and fertility as represented by Salling, they prevailed on him to accompany them on a visit to examine it more minutely, and if found correspondent with his description to select in it situations for their future residence.
Lewis made choice of, and improved, a spot a few miles below Staunton, on a creek which bears his name––Mackey on the middle branch of the Shenandoah near Buffalo-gap; and Salling in the forks of James river, below the Natural Bridge, where some of his descendants still reside. Thus was effected the first white settlement ever made on the James river, west of the Blue ridge.[6]
In the year 1736, Lewis, being in Williamsburg, met with Benjamin Burden (who had then just come to the country as agent of Lord Fairfax, proprietor of the Northern Neck,) and on whom he prevailed to accompany him home. Burden remained at Lewis’s the greater part of the summer, and on his return to Williamsburg, took with him a buffalo calf, which while hunting with Samuel[7]and Andrew Lewis (elder sons of John) they had caught and afterwards tamed. He presented this calf to Gov. Gooch, who thereupon entered on his journal, [44] an order, authorizing Burden to locate conditionally, any quantity of land not exceeding 500,000 acres on any of the waters of the51Shenandoah, or of James river west of the Blue ridge. The conditions of this grant were, that he should interfere with no previous grants––that he should settle 100 families, in ten years, within its limits; and should have 1000 acres adjoining each cabin which he should cause to be built, with liberty to purchase any greater quantity adjoining, at the rate of fifty pounds per thousand acres. In order to effect a compliance with one of these conditions, Burden visited Great Britain in 1737; and on his return to Virginia brought with him upwards of one hundred families of adventurers, to settle on his grant.[8]Amongst these adventurers were, John Patton, son-in-law to Benjamin Burden, who settled on Catawba, above Pattonsburg[9]––Ephraim52McDowell, who settled at Phoebe’s falls––John, the son of Ephraim,[10]who settled at Fairfield, where Col. James McDowell now lives––Hugh Telford, who settled at the Falling spring, in the forks of James river––Paul Whitley, who settled on Cedar creek, where the Red Mill now is––Archibald Alexander, who settled on the North river, opposite Lexington––Andrew Moore, who settled adjoining Alexander––Sampson Archer, who settled at Gilmore’s spring, east of the Bridge tavern, and Capt. John Matthews, who married Betsy Archer, (the daughter of Sampson) settled where Major Matthews lives, below the Natural bridge.
Among others who came to Virginia at this time, was an Irish girl named Polly Mulhollin. On her arrival she was hired to James Bell to pay her passage; and with whom she remained during the period her servitude was to continue. At its expiration she attired herself in the habit of a man; and with hunting shirt and mocassons, went into Burden’s grant, for the purpose of making improvements and acquiring a title to land. Here she erected thirty cabins, by virtue of which she held one hundred acres adjoining each. When Benjamin Burden the younger, came on to make deeds to those who held cabin rights, he was astonished to see so many in the name of Mulhollin. Investigation led to a discovery of the mystery, to the great mirth of the other claimants. She resumed her christian name and feminine dress, and many of [45] her respectable descendants still reside within the limits of Burden’s grant.[11]
53
When in 1752 Robert Dinwiddie came over as governor of Virginia, he was accompanied by many adventurers; among whom was John Stuart,[12]an intimate friend of Dinwiddie, who had married the widow of John Paul (son of Hugh, bishop of Nottingham.) John Paul, a partizan of the house of Stuart, had perished in the siege of Dalrymple castle in 1745, leaving three children––John, who became a Roman catholic priest and died on the eastern shore of Maryland––Audley, who was for ten years an officer in the British colonial forces,––and Polly, who married Geo. Matthews, afterwards governor of Georgia. Mrs. Paul (formerly Jane Lynn, of the Lynns of Loch-Lynn, a sister to the wife of John Lewis) had issue, by Stuart, John, since known as Col. Stuart of Greenbrier, and Betsy, who became the wife of Col. Richard Woods of Albemarle.
54
The greater part of those, who thus ventured “on the untried being” of a wilderness life, were Scottish presbyterian dissenters; a class of religionists, of all others perhaps, the most remarkable for rigid morality. They brought with them, their religious principles, and sectional prepossessions; and acting upon those principles acquired for their infant colony a moral and devotional character rarely possessed by similar establishments. While these sectional prepossessions, imbibed by their descendants, gave to their religious persuasions, an ascendency in that section of country, which it still retains.
They were also men of industry and enterprise. Hunting, which too frequently occupies the time, of those who make the forest their dwelling place, and abstracts the attention from more important pursuits, was to them a recreation––not the business of life. To improve their condition, by converting the woods into fertile plains, and the wilderness into productive meadows, was their chief object. In the attainment of this, they were eminently successful. Their individual circumstances became prosperous, and the country flourishing.
The habits and manners of the primeval inhabitants of any country, generally give to it a distinctive character, which marks it through after ages. Notwithstanding the influx of strangers, bringing with them prejudices and prepossessions, at variance with those of the community in which they come; [46] yet such is the influence of example, and such the facility with which the mind imbibes the feelings and sentiments of those with whom it associates, that former habits are gradually lost and those which prevail in society, imperceptibly adopted by its new members.
In like manner, the moral and religious habits of those who accompanied Burden to Virginia, were impressed on the country which they settled, and entailed on it that high character for industry, morality and piety, which it still possesses, in an eminent degree.55
At the time of the establishment of this settlement, all that part of Virginia lying west of the Blue ridge mountains, was included in the county of Orange. At the fall session, of the colonial legislature, in 1738, the counties of Frederick and Augusta were formed out of Orange––The country included within the boundaries of the Potomac river, on the north, the Blue ridge, on the east, and a line, to be run from the head spring of Hedgman, to the head spring of Potomac, on the south and west, to be the county of Frederick; the remainder of the state west of the Blue ridge, to the utmost limits of Virginia to constitute Augusta. Within its limits were included, not only a considerable portion of Virginia as she now is, but an extent of territory out of which has been already carved four states, possessing great natural advantages, and the extreme fertility of whose soil, will enable them to support perhaps a more dense population, than any other portion of North America of equal dimensions. As the settlements were extended, subdivisions were made, ’till what was once Augusta county south east of the Ohio river, has been chequered on the map of Virginia, into thirty-three counties with an aggregate population of 289,362.[13]
56
[48] About the year 1749 there was in the county of Frederick, a man subject to lunacy, and who, when laboring under the influence of this disease, would ramble a considerable distance into the neighboring wilderness. In one of these wanderings he came on some of the waters of Greenbrier river. Surprised to see them flowing in a westwardly direction, on his return to Winchester he made known the fact, and that the country abounded very57much with different kinds of Game. In consequence of this information two men, recently from New England, visited the country and took up their residence on the Greenbrier river.
Having erected a cabin and being engaged in making some other improvements, an altercation arose, which caused Stephen Suel,[14]one of them, to forsake the cabin and abide for some time in a hollow tree not far from the improvement, which was still occupied by his old companion. They were thus situated in 1751, when John Lewis, of Augusta and his son Andrew were exploring the country; to whom Suel made known the cause of their living apart, and the great pleasure which he experienced now in their morning salutations, when issuing from their respective habitations; whereas when they slept under the same roof, none of those kindly greetings passed between them. Suel however did not long remain in the vicinity of Martin, the other of the two adventurers; he moved forty miles west of his first improvement, and soon after fell a prey to Indian ferocity. Martin is said to have returned to the settlements.
58
There was no other attempt made by the whites, to improve the Greenbrier country for several years. Lewis and his son thoroughly examined it; and when permission was given to the Greenbrier company (of which John Lewis was a member) to locate 100,000 acres, on the waters of this river, they became agents to make the surveys and locations. The war between France and England in 1754 checked their proceedings; and when they, on the restoration of peace, would have resumed them, they were interdicted by a royal proclamation, issued in 1761, commanding all those who had made settlements on the western waters to remove from them; and those who were engaged in making surveys to desist. Sound policy requiring, that a good understanding should be maintained with the Indians (who claimed the country) to prevent a further cooperation on their part with France.[15]
Previous to the issuing of this proclamation, some families had moved to Greenbrier and made two settlements––the one on Muddy creek, the other in the Big-Levels. These, disregarding the command of his royal majesty and rather regardless of their own safety, remained until they were destroyed by the Indians, in 1763.[16]From this time ’till 1769 Greenbrier was altogether uninhabited. Capt. John Stuart and a few other young men, then began to settle and improve the country; and although attempts were subsequently made by the Indians to exterminate them, yet they ever after continued in possession of it.
59
[49] In the year 1756 settlements were also made on New river and on Holstein.[17]Among the daring adventurers who effected them, were Evan Shelby, William Campbell, William Preston and Daniel Boone, all of whom became distinguished characters in subsequent history. Thomas Walden,[18]who was afterwards killed on Clinch river and from whom the mountain dividing Clinch and Powel rivers derived its name, was likewise one of them. The lands taken up by them, were held as “corn rights” each acquiring a title to an hundred acres of the adjoining land, for every acre planted in corn.
60
Nearly cotemporaneous with these establishments, was that at Galliopolis, on the north western bank of the Ohio, and below Point Pleasant, at the mouth of the Great Kenhawa. This was made by a party of French Jesuits, by whom the Indians were incited to make incursions, and commit the most enormous barbarities on the then frontiers.[19]This place and the mouth of Great Sandy were the chief points of rendezvous for the Ohio Indians. From the former of these places they would ascend the Kenhawa and Greenbrier rivers, and from thence crossing the mountains enter into Augusta; or after having ascended the Kenhawa, go up the New river, from which they would pass over to the James and Roanoke. From the mouth of Great Sandy they would ascend that river, and by the way of Bluestone fall over on the Roanoke and New river. From those two points, expeditions were frequently made by the Indians, which brought desolation and death into the infant settlements of the south west, and retarded their growth very much. In the spring of 1757 nearly the whole Roanoke settlement was destroyed by a party of Shawanees, who had thus made their way to it.
61
That portion of the valley of Virginia in which establishments were thus begun to be made, was at that time one continued forest; overspreading a limestone soil of great fertility; and intersected by rivers affording extensive bottoms of the most productive alluvial land. Indeed few rivers of equal size, are bordered with as wide and fertile levels of this formation of earth, as those which water that section of country: the Roanoke particularly affords large bodies of it, capable of producing in great abundance hemp, tobacco and the different kinds of grain usually grown. In the country generally, every species of vegetable, to which the climate was congenial, grew with great luxuriancy; while the calcareous nature of the soil, adapted it finely to the production of that kind of grain, to which European emigrants were mostly used.
The natural advantages of the country were highly improved by the persevering industry of its inhabitants. Its forests, felled by untiring labor, were quickly reduced to profitable cultivation, and the weeds which spontaneously sprang from the earth, were soon succeeded by the various grasses calculated to furnish the most nutritious food, for the lowing herds with which their farmers were early stocked; these yielded a present profit, and laid the sure foundation [50] of future wealth. Some of the most extensive and successful graziers of Virginia, now inhabit that country; and reap the rich reward of their management62and industry, in the improved and more contiguous market of Richmond.
In the infancy of these establishments, their only market was at Williamsburg. Thither the early settlerspackedtheir butter and poultry, and received in exchange salt, iron, and some of the luxuries of life; their beef and other stock was taken to the same place. In the process of time, as the country east of the Blue ridge became more improved, other markets were opened to them; and the facilities of communication were gradually increased. Their successors have already derived great advantage from those improvements; and the present generation will not only witness their farther extension, but most probably see the country first tenanted by Lewis and his cotemporaries, a great thoroughfare for the produce of several of the western states––a link of communication between the Chesapeak bay and the Gulph of Mexico.
63
[51] CHAPTER II.
The tract of country usually denominated North Western Virginia, includes the counties of Brook, Ohio, Tyler, Wood, Lewis, Randolph, Preston, Harrison and Monongalia, covering an area of 8,887 square miles, and having a population, according to the census of 1830, of 78,510 souls. These counties, with a portion of Pennsylvania then deemed to be within the limits of Virginia, constituted the district of West Augusta; and was the last grand division of the state, to become occupied by the whites. This was perhaps owing to natural causes, as well as to the more immediate proximity of hostile Indians.
The general surface of this district of country is very broken, its hills, though rich, are yet steep and precipitous, and the various streams which flow along their bases, afford but few bottoms; and these of too narrow and contracted dimensions to have attracted the adventurer, when more invited portions of the country, were alike open to his enterprise.––The Alleghany ridge of mountains, over which the eastern emigrant had to pass, presented too, no inconsiderable barrier to its earlier location; while the cold, bleak, inhospitable region, extending from the North Branch to the Cheat and Valley rivers, seemed to threaten an entire seclusion from the eastern settlements, and to render it an isolated spot, not easily connected with any other section of the state.
The first attempt on the part of the English to occupy the country contiguous to the Ohio river, was made in consequence of the measures adopted by the French to possess themselves of it. France had early become acquainted with the country, so far as to perceive the facility with which her possessions in the north, might, by means of a free communication down the valley of the Mississippi, be connected with those in the south. To preserve this communication uninterrupted, to acquire influence64over the neighboring Indians and to prevent the occupancy and settlement by England of the country west [52] of the Alleghany mountains, the French were early induced to establish trading posts among the Indians on the Ohio, and to obtain and preserve possession of the country by the erection of a chain of forts to extend from Canada to Louisiana.[1]
To counteract those operations of the French, to possess herself of the country, to which she deemed her title to be good, and to enjoy the lucrative traffic which was then to be carried on with the Indians, England gave to an association of gentlemen in Great Britain and Virginia, (under the title of the Ohio Company,) liberty to locate and hold in their own right, 600,000 acres of land within the country then claimed by both England and France. In pursuance of this grant, steps were directly taken to effect those objects, by establishing trading houses among the Indians near the Ohio, and by engaging persons to make such a survey of the country, as would enable the grantees to effect a location of the quantity allowed them, out of the most valuable lands. The company65endeavored to complete their survey with all possible secrecy, and by inducing the Indians to believe their object to be purely commercial, to allay any apprehensions, which might otherwise arise, of an attempt to gain possession of the country.
The attempt to accomplish their purpose of territorial aggrandizement, with secrecy, was fruitless and unavailing.––The Pennsylvania traders, fearful that they would lose the profitable commerce carried on with the Indians, excited their jealousy by acquainting them with the real motive of the company; while the French actually seized, and made prisoners, of their traders, and opened and secured, by detachments of troops stationed at convenient situations, a communication from Presq’ Isle to the Ohio river.
The Ohio company sent a party of men to erect a stockade fort at the confluence of the Monongahela and Alleghany rivers, which had been recommended by General Washington as a suitable position for the erection of fortifications.[2]This party of men was accompanied by a detachment of militia, which had been ordered out by the governor; but before they could effect their object, they were driven off by the French, [53] who immediately took possession of the place, and erected thereon Fort du Quesne. These transactions were immediately succeeded by the war, usually called Braddock’s war, which put an end to the contemplated settlement, and the events of which are, for the most part, matter of general history. It may not however be amiss to relate some incidents connected with this war, which though of minor importance, may yet be interesting to some; and which have escaped the pen of the historian.
In Braddock’s army there were two regiments of volunteer militia from Virginia.[3]One of these was66commanded by Col. Russel of Fairfax; the other by Col. Fry, and was from Shenandoah and James rivers. In this latter regiment there was a company from Culpepper, commanded by Capt. Grant, (afterwards known as a considerable land holder in Kentucky) and of which John Field (who was killed in the battle at Point Pleasant) was a lieutenant. There was likewise in this regiment, a company of riflemen, from Augusta, commanded by Capt. Samuel Lewis, (the eldest son of John Lewis, who, with Mackey and Salling, had been foremost in settling that country) who was afterwards known as Col. Samuel Lewis of Rockingham.[4]In this company was also contained the five brothers of Capt. Lewis. Andrew, afterwards Gen. Lewis of Botetourt––Charles, afterwards Col. Lewis, who was likewise killed at Point Pleasant––William, John and Thomas. Among their compatriots in arms, were the five sons of Capt. John Matthews, (who had accompanied Burden to Virginia) Elihu Barkley, John McDowell,[5]Paul Whitly, James Bell, Patrick Lockard, and a number of others of the first settlers of Augusta, Rockbridge and Rockingham.
From the time the army crossed the Alleghany mountain, its movements were constantly watched by Indian67spies, from Fort du Quesne; and as it approached nearer the point of destination, runners were regularly despatched, to acquaint the garrison with its progress, and manner of marching.––When intelligence was received that Braddock still moved in close order, the Indians laid the plan for surprising him, and carried it into most effectual execution with but little assistance from the French.[6]
[54] At the place where the English crossed the Monongahela river, there are about two acres of bottom land, bounded by the river on the east, and by a ledge of high cliffs on the west. Through these cliffs there is a considerable ravine, formed by the flowing of a small rivulet––On the summit, a wide prospect opens to the west, of a country whose base is level, but surface uneven. On this summit lay the French and Indians concealed by the prairie grass and timber, and from this situation, in almost perfect security, they fired down upon Braddock’s men. The only exposure of the French and Indians, resulted from the circumstance of their having to raise their heads to peep over the verge of the cliff, in order to shoot with more deadly precision. In consequence, all of them who were killed in the early part of the action, were shot through the head.[7]