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[Illustration: "You were never meant for the frontier."]
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A VIRGINIA SCOUT
By
HUGH PENDEXTER
Author of
Kings of the Missouri, Etc.
Frontispiece by
D. C. Hutchison
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1920
The Ridgway Company
Copyright 1922
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Printed in the United States of America
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
To
Faunce Pendexter
My Son and Best of Seven-Year-Old Scouts
This Story Is Lovingly Dedicated
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Three Travelers 1
II Indian-Haters 23
III Over the Mountains 55
IV I Report to My Superiors 81
V Love Comes a Cropper 106
VI The Pack-Horse-Man's Medicine 133
VII Lost Sister 167
VIII In Abb's Valley 193
IX Dale Escapes 229
X Our Medicine Grows Stronger 265
XI Back to the Blue Wall 289
XII The Shadows Vanish 311
XIII Peace Comes to the Clearing 352
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Virginia Scout
CHAPTER I
THREE TRAVELERS
It was good to rest in the seclusion of my hollow sycamore. It was
pleasant to know that in the early morning my horse would soon cover the
four miles separating me from the soil of Virginia. As a surveyor, and now
as a messenger between Fort Pitt and His Lordship, the Earl of Dunmore,
our royal governor, I had utilized this unique shelter more than once when
breaking my journey at the junction of the Monongahela and the Cheat.
I had come to look upon it with something of affection. It was one of my
wilderness homes. It was roughly circular and a good eight feet in
diameter, and never yet had I been disturbed while occupying it.
During the night I heard the diabolic screech of a loon somewhere down the
river, while closer by rose the pathetic song of the whippoorwill. Strange
contrasts and each very welcome in my ears. I was awake with the first
rays of the sun mottling the bark and mold before the low entrance to my
retreat. The rippling melody of a mocking-bird deluged the thicket.
Honey-bees hovered and buzzed about my tree, perhaps investigating it with
the idea of moving in and using it for a storehouse. The Indians called
them the "white man's flies," and believed they heralded the coming of
permanent settlements. I hoped the augury was a true one, but there were
times when I doubted.
Making sure that the priming of my long Deckhard rifle was dry, I crawled
out into the thicket and stood erect. As far as the eye could roam
stretched the rich bottom-lands and the low ridges, covered with the
primeval growths of giant walnuts, maples, oaks and hickory. Small wonder
that the heart of the homeseeker should covet such a country.
Groves of beeches, less desired by settlers, were noisy with satisfied
squirrels. From river to ridge the air was alive with orioles and
cardinals and red-starts. And could I have stood at the western rim of my
vision I would have beheld the panorama repeated, only even richer and
more delectable; for there was nothing but the ancient forest between me
and the lonely Mississippi.
Birds and song and the soft June air and the mystery of the Kentucky
country tugging at my heartstrings. I felt the call very strong as I stood
there in the thicket, and gladly would I have traveled West to the richest
game-region ever visited by white men. From some who had made the trip I
had heard wonderful stories of Nature's prodigality. There were roads made
through tangled thickets by immense herds of buffaloes smashing their way
five abreast. Deer were too innumerable to estimate. To perch a turkey
merely required that one step a rod or two from the cabin door. Only the
serious nature of my business, resulting from the very serious nature of
the times, held me back.
On this particular morning when the summer was in full tide of song and
scents and pleasing vistas, I was bringing important despatches to
Governor Dunmore. The long-looked-for Indian war was upon us. From the
back-country to the seaboard Virginians knew this year of 1774 was to
figure prominently in our destiny.
In the preceding spring we realized it was only a question of time when we
must "fort" ourselves, or abandon the back-country, thereby losing crops
and cabins. When young James Boone and Henry Russell were killed by
Indians in Powell's Valley in the fall of 1773, all hope of a friendly
penetration of the western country died. Ever since Colonel Bouquet's
treaty with the Ohio tribes on the collapse of Pontiac's War the frontier
had suffered from many small raids, but there had been no organized
warfare.
During those ten years much blood had been spilled and many cabins burned,
but the red opposition had not been sufficient to stop the backwoodsmen
from crowding into the Alleghanies. And only a general war could prevent
them from overflowing down into the bottoms of the Ohio. The killing of
friendly Shawnees at Pipe Creek below the mouth of the Little Kanawha in
April, followed three days later by the cruel slaughter of John Logan's
relatives and friends at Baker's groggery opposite Yellow Creek, had
touched off the powder.
But the notion that the massacre of Logan's people at Joshua Baker's house
was the cause of the war is erroneous. For any one living in the country
at the time to have believed it would be too ridiculous. That brutal
affair was only one more brand added to a fire which had smoldered for ten
years.
It happened to be the last piece of violence before both red and white
threw aside make-believe and settled down to the ghastly struggle for
supremacy. Hunters bound for Kentucky had suffered none from the Indians
except as they had a brush with small raiding-parties. But when Daniel
Boone undertook to convey his wife and children and the families of his
friends into the wonderland the natives would have none of it. In killing
his son and young Russell, along with several of their companions, the
Indians were merely serving notice of no thoroughfare for home-builders.
So let us remember that Dunmore's War was the inevitable outcome of two
alien races determined on the same prize, with each primed for a
death-struggle by the memories of fearful wrongs. It is useless to argue
which race gave the first cause for retaliation; it had been give and take
between them for many years. Nor should our children's children, because
of any tendency toward ancestor-worship, be allowed to believe that the
whites were invincible and slaughtered more natives than they lost of
their own people.
There were white men as merciless and murderous as any Indians, and some
of these had a rare score of killings to their discredit. Yet in a
man-for-man account the Indians had all the best of it. Veterans of
Braddock's War insisted that the frontier lost fifty whites for each red
man killed. Bouquet and other leaders estimated the ratio in Pontiac's War
to have been ten to one in favor of the Indians.
This reduction proved that the settlers had learned something from the
lessons taught in the old French War. Our people on the border knew all
this and they were confident that in the struggle now upon them they would
bring the count down to one for one.[1] So let the youngsters of the new
day learn the truth; that is, that the backwoodsmen clung to their homes
although suffering most hideously.
Virginia understood she must sustain the full brunt of the war, inasmuch
as she comprised the disputed frontier. It was upon Virginia that the red
hatred centered. I never blamed the Indians for this hate for white cabins
and cleared forests and permanent settlements. Nor should our dislike of
the Indians incite sentimental people, ignorant of the red man's ways and
lacking sympathy with our ambitions, to denounce us as being solely
responsible for the brutal aspects such a struggle will always display.
It should also be remembered that the men of Pennsylvania were chiefly
concerned with trade. Their profits depended upon the natives remaining
undisturbed in their ancient homes. Like the French they would keep the
red man and his forests unchanged.
Naturally they disapproved of any migrations over the mountains; and they
were very disagreeable in expressing their dissatisfaction. We retorted,
overwarmly doubtless, by accusing our northern sister of trading guns and
powder to the Indians for horses stolen from Virginia. There was bad blood
between the two colonies; for history to gloss over the fact is to
perpetrate a lie. Fort Pitt, recently renamed Fort Dunmore by the
commandant, Doctor John Connolly, controlled the approach to the Ohio
country. It was a strong conditional cause of the war, peculiar as the
statement may sound to those born long after the troublesome times of
1774.
Pennsylvania accused our royal governor of being a land-grabber and the
catspaw or partner of land-speculators. His Lordship was interested in
land-speculation and so were many prominent Virginians. It is also true
that claims under Virginia patents would be worthless if Pennsylvania
controlled the junction of the Monongahela and the Alleghany Rivers and
sustained her claims to the surrounding country.
It is another fact that it was the rifles of Virginia which protected that
outlying region, and that many of the settlers in the disputed territory
preferred Virginia control. Every one realized that should our militia
push the Indians back and win a decisive victory our claims would be
immensely strengthened. And through Doctor Connolly we were already
handling affairs at Fort Pitt.
Because of these and other facts there was an excellent chance for an
intercolonial war. I am of the strong opinion that an armed clash between
the hotheads of the two provinces would have resulted if not for the
intervention of the Indian war.
At the beginning of hostilities the Indians proclaimed they would whip
Pennsylvania and would roast Virginians. However, when Benjamin Speare,
his wife and six children were massacred on Dunkard Creek early in June,
with similar bloody murders being perpetrated at Muddy Creek, all on
Pennsylvania soil, by John Logan, the Mingo chief, there was less foolish
talk north of the line.
All these thoughts of raids and reprisals, of white striving to outdo red
in cruelty, may seem to harmonize but ill with that soft June morning, the
flight of the red-start, the song of the oriole and the impish chatter of
the squirrels. Beech and oak urged one to rest in the shade; the limpid
waters of the river called for one to strip and bathe.
To heed either invitation incautiously invited the war-ax to be buried in
the head. However, we of the border always had had the Indian trouble, and
each generation had taken its pleasure with a wary eye and ready weapons.
Although the times were very dangerous and I was serving as scout for
thirty-three cents a day I could still enjoy the sweet aromas and
sympathize with the song of birds and yet keep an eye and ear open for
that which concerned my life.
In ascending the Monongahela I had seen many settlers crossing the river
to make the eastern settlements. I was told that a thousand men, women and
children had crossed during the space of twenty-four hours. Down on the
Clinch and Holston the settlers were either "forting" or fleeing.
Much of this retirement was compelled by the sad lack of powder and lead,
even of guns. More than one settler depended entirely upon ax or scythe
for protection. Such were prevented from using the advantage of their
stout walls and could do the foe no mischief until after the door had been
battered down, when of course all the advantage shifted to the side of the
invader.
By this I do not mean to disparage such tools as implements of war. A
sturdy fellow with both hands gripping a scythe can do an amazing amount
of damage at close quarters, as more than one Shawnee war-party has
learned.
Briefly summed up, there were dissensions between some of the colonies
over the land-disputes; sparks were flying between the colonies and the
mother-country; every day brought gruesome news from the back-country;
there was a scarcity of guns and ammunition; militia captains were eagerly
stealing one another's men to fill their quotas.
Yet regardless of all these troubles let it be understood that for once
the borders welcomed war and insisted upon it. As early as March, a month
before the Pipe and Yellow Creek outrages, the Williamsburg _Gazette_
printed an address to Lord Dunmore, stating that "an immediate declaration
of war was necessary, nay inevitable." Not only did the whites want the
war, but the natives also were eager for it.
But enough of whys and wherefores, as they make poor story-telling, and
leave me, Basdel Morris, overlong in quitting the thicket about my tree.
And yet the wise man always looks backward as well as forward when
entering on a trail, and children yet unborn may blaze a better trace if
they understand what lies behind them.
I ate my breakfast there in the thick growth, packing my hungry mouth with
parched corn and topping off with a promise of turkey, once I drew beyond
the danger-belt. Trying to make myself believe my appetite was satisfied,
I began the delicate task of leaving cover without leaving any signs. My
horse was a fourth of a mile from my tree, so that in finding him the
Indians would not find me.
The river sang a drowsy song a short distance from my tree and down a
gentle slope. I knew of a spring beneath its bank, and I was impatient to
taste its cold waters. I moved toward it slowly, determined that if an
Indian ever secured my long black hair it would not be because he caught
me off my guard. With ears and eyes I scouted the river-bank.
The flights and songs of birds and the boisterous chatter of the squirrels
now became so many helps. There were no intruders in the grove of beech.
There was no one between me and the river. At last I passed under some
overhanging boughs and slipped down the bank to the water's edge.
Once more I searched both banks of the river, the Cheat, and then ventured
to drink. Like an animal I drank a swallow, then threw up my head and
glanced about. It took me some time to drink my fill, but I was not
tomahawked while at the spring. At last I was convinced I had the bank to
myself; and satisfied that the screen of overhanging boughs screened me
from any canoe turning a bend up- or down-stream I removed my clothes and
very softly slipped into the water.
There could be no hilarious splashing nor swimming, but the silent
immersion was most refreshing. It was while supine on my back with only my
nose and toes above water that I received my first alarm for that morning.
My position being recumbent I was staring up at the sky and in the
direction of up-stream, and I saw a speck.
It was circling and from the west a smaller speck was hastening eastward.
A third tiny speck showed on the southern skyline. Turkey-buzzards. The
one circling had sighted dead beast or man. The others had seen the
discoverer's maneuvers advertising his good luck; and now each scavenger
in hastening to the feast drew other scavengers after him.
I crawled ashore and hurriedly began slipping into my few garments. I drew
on my breeches and paused for a moment to part the shrubbery and stare
into the sky. I was startled to observe the buzzards--there were three of
them now--were much nearer, as if following something. I pulled on my
leggings and finished fitting my moccasins carefully about the ankles to
keep out all dust and dirt and took my second look.
The buzzards were five, and in making their wide circles they had again
cut down the distance. Then it dawned upon me that they were following
something in the river. I watched the bend, the buzzards ever circling
nearer, their numbers continually being augmented by fresh arrivals. At
last it came in sight--a canoe containing one man.
Hastily drying my hands on my hunting-shirt, I picked up my rifle and drew
a bead on the distant figure. The man was an Indian and was allowing the
canoe to drift. But why should the turkey-buzzards follow him? As I
pondered over this problem and waited to learn whether he be friendly or
hostile, there came the _spang_ of a rifle from my side of the river and
above me.
A second shot quickly followed and I thought the figure in the canoe
lurched to one side a bit. Still there was no attempt made to use the
paddle. The shrill ear-splitting scream of a panther rang out, and this
like the two shots was on my side of the river. That the Indian made no
move to escape was inexplicable unless the first shot had killed him
outright.
The canoe was deflected toward my hiding-place, and I expected to hear
another brace of shots from above me. But there was no more shooting, and
the canoe swung in close enough for me to observe the Indian was holding
something between his teeth. I now recognized him as a friendly native, a
Delaware; and anxious to protect him from those lurking on the bank I
showed myself and softly called:
"Bald Eagle is in danger! Paddle in here."
He paid no attention to my greeting, although the canoe continued its
approach until it grounded against the bank. I slipped down to the water
to urge him to come ashore and take cover. He was a well-known chief, and
for years very friendly to the whites. The thing he held in his mouth was
a piece of journey-cake, only he was not eating it as I had first
supposed. As I gained the canoe I noticed a paddle placed across it so as
to support his back, and another so braced as to prop up his head.
The man was dead. There was a hideous wound at the back of his head. He
had been struck down with an ax. While I was weighing this gruesome
discovery the scream of the panther rang out again and close by, and the
bushes parted and I wheeled in time to strike up a double-barrel rifle a
young man was aiming at the chief.
"You've fired at him twice already, Shelby Cousin," I angrily rebuked.
"Isn't that about enough?"
"Nothin' ain't 'nough till I git his sculp," was the grim reply; and
Cousin, scarcely more than a boy, endeavored to knock my rifle aside. "At
least you ought to kill before you scalp," I said.
His lips parted and his eyes screwed up into a perplexed frown and he
dropped the butt of his rifle to the ground. Holding the barrels with both
hands, he stared down at the dead man.
"Some one bu'sted him with a' ax most vastly," he muttered. "An' me
wastin' two shoots o' powder on the skunk!"
"Without bothering to notice the turkey-buzzards that have been following
him down the river," I said.
He looked sheepish and defended himself:
"The cover was too thick to see anything overhead."
"He was a friend to the whites. He has been murdered. His killer struck
him down from behind. As if murder wasn't bad enough, his killer tried to
make a joke of it by stuffing journey-cake in his mouth. The cake alone
would tell every red who sees him that a white man killed him."
"Only trouble with the joke is that there ain't a couple o' him," hissed
young Cousin. "But the fellor who played this joke owes me two shoots of
powder. I 'low he'll pay me."
"You know who he is?"
"Seen Lige Runner up along. I 'low it will be him. Him an' me look on
Injuns just the same way."
"It's fellows like him and Joshua Baker and Daniel Greathouse who bring
trouble to the settlements," I said.
His face was as hard as a mask of stone as he looked at me. His eyes,
which should have glowed with the amiable fires of youth, were as
implacably baleful as those of a mad wolf.
"You don't go for to figger me in with Baker an' Greathouse?" he fiercely
demanded.
"I know your story. It wouldn't be just to rank you with them."
"Mebbe it's my story what turns other men ag'in' these critters," he
coldly suggested. "There was a time when I had a daddy. He talked like you
do. He called some o' the red devils his friends. He believed in 'em, too.
Cornstalk, the Shawnee devil, was his good friend.
"Daddy an' mammy 'lowed we could live on Keeney's Knob till all git-out
bu'sted up an' never have no trouble with friendly Injuns. That was ten
years ago. I was eight years old. Then Cornstalk made his last visit.
Daddy had just brought in some deer meat. Made a feast for th' bloody
devils.
"I happened to be out in the woods when it was done. Or, happen like, I'd
'a' gone along t'others. There's two things that'll make me hunt Cornstalk
an' his Shawnees to the back-country o' hell--my little sister, an' their
overlookin' to wipe me out."
He turned and stood by the canoe, glaring down at the dead man. All
Virginia was familiar with the terrible story of the Cousin massacre at
Keeney's Knob. Fully as tragic and horrible to me, perhaps, was the
terrible change in the only survivor. He became an Injun-killer as soon as
he was able to handle a rifle; and a Virginia boy of twelve was ashamed
when he failed to bring down his squirrel shot through the head.
At eighteen Cousin was hated and feared by the Ohio tribes. He was not
content to wait for Shawnee and Mingo to cross the river, but made
frequent and extremely hazardous trips into their country. His
panther-scream had rung out more than once near the Scioto villages to
proclaim a kill.
Isaac Crabtree was a killer, but his hate did not make him rash. Jesse
Hughes would have been one of our best border scouts if not for his insane
hatred of Indians. He killed them whenever he met them; nor did he, like
Crabtree, wait until the advantage was all on his side before striking.
William White, William Hacker and John Cutright massacred five inoffensive
Indian families at Bulltown on the Little Kanawha as a reprisal for the
Stroud family, slain on Elk River.
Elijah Runner, who Cousin believed had killed Bald Eagle, was yet another
with an insatiable thirst for red blood. Many others were notorious
Injun-killers. Some were border ruffians; some were driven to the limits
of hate because of scenes they had witnessed or losses they had suffered.
But none was like Shelby Cousin.
Other killers would drink and make merry at times, keeping their hate in
the background until a victim appeared. Young Cousin carried his hate in
his face as well as in his heart at all times. There was nothing on earth,
so far as I ever learned, no friendships, no maiden's smile, which could
divert him from the one consuming passion of his life.
His mention of his sister revealed the deepest depth of his anguish. His
parents were beyond all suffering and the need of pity. His sister, a year
older than he, had been carried off. The pursuers found her clothing by a
creek near the ruined cabin; but it had never been proved that she was
dead. It was this, the uncertainty of her fate, which daily fed the boy's
hate and drove him to the forest, where he sought to learn the truth and
never relinquished an opportunity to take his revenge.
"If Lige Runner done for him he sure did a good job," Cousin muttered. "He
sure did make tomahawk improvements on him."[2]
"You never kill in or near the settlements as some of them do," I said.
His eyes closed and what should have been a rarely handsome boyish face, a
face to stir the heart of any maiden to beating faster, was distorted with
the pain he was keeping clamped down behind his clenched teeth.
"That's only because o' what I seen at Keeney's Knob," he hoarsely
whispered. "When I meet one of 'em in a settlement I skedaddle afore I
lose my grip. I mustn't do anything that'll fetch a parcel of 'em down to
carry off some other feller's little sister. If I know'd she was
dead----"
"If you'd stop killing long enough to question some of the Shawnees you
might learn the truth."
He shook his head slowly, and said:
"I stopped--just afore the killin' at Baker's Bottom. Kept my Injun alive
all night. But he wouldn't tell."
I shuddered at the cold-bloodedness of him.
"You tortured him and perhaps he knew nothing to tell," I said.
"If he didn't know nothin' it was hard luck for him," he quietly agreed.
"But I was sartain from things he had boasted that he was at the Knob that
day. What you goin' to do with this varmint?"
And he nodded toward the dead voyager.
"My business won't allow me to take the time necessary to dig a grave
where his friends can't find him or wild animals dig him out. We'll set
him afloat again and hope he'll journey far down the river before his
friends find him. He was friendly to us----"
"Friendly----" interrupted the boy. "So was Cornstalk friendly!"
I removed the journey-cake from the grinning mouth and placed the rigid
figure in the bottom of the canoe. Before I could push the craft into the
current young Cousin grunted with satisfaction and pointed to two
bullet-holes, close together, just back of the ear.
"Knew I must hit pretty close to where I was shootin'," he muttered as he
made up the bank.
I shoved the canoe from shore and called after him: "If you will wait
until I get my horse we might travel together."
He waved his hand in farewell and informed me: "I've got some business
west o' here. It's out o' your path if you're makin' for the Greenbriar."
"But a bit of gossip. I'm just back from Fort Pitt," I said.
He halted and leaned on his rifle and stared at me with lack-luster eyes,
and in a monotonous voice said:
"Ed Sharpe, Dick Stanton, Eph Drake an' Bill Harrel are scoutin' the head
o' Powell's Valley. Wanted me to go but the signs wa'n't promisin' 'nough.
Logan says he'll take ten sculps for one. He still thinks Michael Cresap
led the killin' at Baker's--an' Cresap was at Red Stone when it happened.
Cresap wants to be mighty keerful he don't fall into Logan's hands alive.
"Half the folks on the South Fork o' the Clinch can't raise five shoots o'
powder. Folks on Rye Cove been movin' over to the Holston, leavin' their
cattle behind. Mebbe I'll scout over that way by 'n' by.
"Augusta boys ain't goin' to have any man in their militia company that
stands under six feet in his moccasins. Folks between the heads o'
Bluestone an' Clinch so skeered they prob'ly won't stay to lay by their
corn. Injuns signs up Sandy Creek has made some o' Moccasin an' Copper
Creek folks come off. I 'low that's 'bout all."
"Any signs of the Cherokees coming in?"
"Some says they will. T'others says they won't. Sort o' depends on whether
they can keep Ike Crabtree from killin' of 'em off."
He threw his rifle over his shoulder and with a curt nod turned into the
bushes and followed the bank to find a crossing. He was away on his
fearful business; his youth was hopelessly corroded.
I scouted the spot where I had left my horse and discovered no signs of
Indians. Unspanceling and mounting, I picked up my journey. I was passing
through a mountainous country which contained many large meadows. These
pleasant openings would accommodate many cattle if not for the Indian
danger. They were thick with grass and enough hay could be cured on them
to feed large herds throughout the winter.
The bottom-lands, although smaller, were very rich. Along the hillsides I
had no doubt but that grain could easily be grown. Altogether it was a
most pleasing country if lasting peace ever could come to the border.
While I observed the natural advantages and fancied the glades and bottoms
dotted with happy cabins, I did not forget the dead Delaware floating down
the river, nor ignore the probability of some of his kin discovering the
murder before sundown and taking the path for reprisals.
There was no suggestion of war in the warm sunshine and busy woods-life.
Birds rejoiced in their matings, and the air was most gracious with the
perfume of growing things. The stirring optimism of spring lingered with
me. My heart was warm to rejoin old friends, to enjoy women's company; but
never a moment did I neglect to scrutinize the trace ahead.
The day passed with no hint of danger. I had the world to myself when the
sun was cradled by the western ridges. I found it a wonderful world, and I
believed it was never intended that any race of savages, whites or red,
should hold such fair lands for hunting-preserves only.
That night, according to my custom, I spanceled my horse at a considerable
distance from my camp. I had selected a spot on top of a ridge, where the
maples and walnuts grew thick. I perched a turkey in the gloaming and
roasted him over a small fire. Having eaten, I walked to the edge of the
growth and gazed toward the west. Across the valley a light suddenly
twinkled on the side of a ridge. I first thought that hunters were camping
there; and as the light increased to a bright blaze I decided there was a
large company of them and that they had no fear of Indians.
But as I watched the flames grew higher. What had been a white light
became a ruddy light. The fire spread on both sides. My heart began to
pound and I tilted my head to listen. The distance was too far for me to
hear tell-tale sounds, still I fancied I could hear the yelling of demons
dancing around a burning cabin.
A dead man floating down the river; a boy seeking vengeance somewhere near
the blazing home, and a scout for Virginia traveling toward the
Greenbriar.
-----
[1] It is estimated that the whites lost three to the Indians'
one in Dunmore's War.
[2] Tomahawk improvements. Settlers often took possession by blazing
trees with axes and carving their names thereon. Such entry to land
was not legal, but usually was recognized and later made valid by
legal process. Such was the claim made to the site of modern
Wheeling, West Virginia, by Ebenezer Silas and Jonathan Zane
in 1770.