on Bunker’s bottom. They killed his mother and two or three others, and
took the wife and her child prisoners. On their way home, coming near
Pricket’s fort, they bound Mrs. Morgan to a bush, and went in quest
of a horse for her to ride, leaving the child with her. She succeeded
in untying with her teeth the bands which confined her, and wandered
all that day and part of the next, before she came within sight of the
fort. Here she was kindly treated, and in a few days sent home.”
Early in March, 1781, a party of Indians came to the house of Capt.
John Thomas, on one of the branches of the Monongahela. He was a pious
man, and was engaged in family worship, surrounded by his wife and
seven children, when the Indians approached his cabin. Anticipating no
attack, he had not secured his house so well as was his custom, for
the season had not advanced sufficiently to cause alarm. He had just
repeated a line of the hymn
“Go worship at Immanuel’s feet,”
when the savages fired; the Christian father fell dead, and the
murderers forcing the door, entered and commenced the work of death.
Mrs. Thomas implored their mercy, but the tomahawk did its work, till
the mother and six children lay weltering in blood by the side of the
slaughtered father. They then proceeded to scalp the fallen and plunder
the house, and departed, taking with them one little boy, a prisoner.
“Elizabeth Juggins, whose father had been murdered the preceding year
in that neighborhood, was at the house when the Indians came; but as
soon as she heard the report of the gun and saw Capt. Thomas fall,
she threw herself under the bed, and escaped the observation of the
savages. After they had completed the work of blood and left the
house, fearing that they might be lingering near, she remained in that
concealment till the house was found to be on fire. When she crawled
forth from her asylum, Mrs. Thomas was still alive, though unable to
move, and casting a pitying glance towards her murdered infant, asked
that it might be handed to her. On seeing Miss Juggins about to leave
the house, she exclaimed ‘Oh Betsey, don’t leave us!’ Still anxious for
her own safety, the girl rushed out, and taking refuge for the night
between two logs, in the morning early spread the alarm. When the scene
of these enormities was visited, Mrs. Thomas was found in the yard,
much mangled by the tomahawk and considerably torn by hogs; she had
perhaps, in the struggle of death, thrown herself out at the door. The
house, with Capt. Thomas and the children, was a heap of ashes.”
On the 29th of June, 1785, the house of Mr. Scott, a citizen of
Washington County, Virginia, was attacked, and he and four children
butchered on the spot. He and the family had retired, except Mrs.
Scott, who was undressing, when the painted savages rushed in and
commenced the work of death. “Scott being awake, jumped up, but was
immediately fired at; he forced his way through the midst of the enemy
and got out of the door, but fell; an Indian seized Mrs. Scott, and
ordered her not to move from a particular spot; others stabbed and cut
the throats of the three younger children in their bed, and afterwards
lifting them up, dashed them upon the floor, near the mother. The
eldest, a beautiful girl eight years old, sprang out of bed, ran to
her parent, and in the most plaintive accents cried ‘O, mamma, mamma!
save me!’ The mother, in the deepest anguish of spirit, and with a
flood of tears, entreated the savages to spare her child; but with
brutal ferocity they tomahawked and stabbed her in the mother’s arms.
Near Scott’s dwelling lived another family of the name of Ball: the
Indians attacked them at the same time; the door being shut, they fired
into the house through an opening between two logs, and killed a young
lad; they then tried to force the door, but a surviving brother fired
through and drove them off; the rest of the family ran out of the house
and escaped. In Scott’s house were four good rifles, well loaded, and a
good deal of clothing and furniture, part of which belonged to people
that had left it on their way to Kentucky. The Indians, thirteen in
number, loaded themselves with the plunder, then speedily made off, and
continued travelling all night. Next morning their chief allotted to
each man his share, and detached nine of the party to steal horses from
the inhabitants at Clinch river.
“The eleventh day after Mrs. Scott’s captivity, the four Indians who
had her in charge stopped at a place of rendezvous to hunt. Three went
out, and the chief being an old man, was left to take care of the
prisoner, who by this time expressed a willingness to proceed to the
Indian towns, which seemed to have the desired effect of loosening her
keeper’s vigilance. In the daytime, as the old man was graning a deer
skin, the captive, pondering on her situation, and anxiously looking
for an opportunity to make her escape, took the resolution, and went
to the Indian carelessly, asking liberty to go a small distance to a
stream of water, to wash the blood off her apron, which had remained
besmeared since the fatal night of the murder of her little daughter.
He said in English--‘Go along;’ she then passed by him, his face being
in a contrary direction from that she was going, and he very busy.
After getting to the water, she went on without delay towards a high,
barren mountain, and travelled until late in the evening, when she came
down into the valley in search of the track she had been taken along,
hoping thereby to find the way back without the risk of being lost and
perishing with hunger in uninhabited parts. That night she made herself
a bed with leaves, and the next day resumed her wanderings. Thus did
the poor woman continue, from day to day, and week to week, wandering
in the trackless wilderness. Finally, on the eleventh of August, she
reached a settlement on Clinch River known as New Garden.
“Mrs. Scott related, that during her wanderings from the 10th of July
to the 11th of August, she had no other means of subsistence than
chewing and swallowing the juice of young cane, sassafras, and some
plants she did not know the name of; that on her journey she saw
buffaloes, elk, deer, and frequently bears and wolves, not one of
which, although some passed very near, offered to do her the least
harm. One day a bear came near her with a young fawn in his mouth, and
on discovering her, dropped his prey and ran off. Hunger prompted her
to try and eat the flesh, but on reflection, she desisted, thinking
the bear might return and devour her; besides, she had an aversion to
raw meat. She long continued in a low state of health, and remained
inconsolable for the loss of her family, particularly bewailing the
cruel death of her little daughter.”
One of the most melancholy occurrences on Wheeling Creek was the murder
of two sisters--the Misses Crow. Three of them left their parents’
house for an evening walk along the shaded banks of a beautiful
stream--the Dunkard, or lower fork of the Creek. “Their walk extended
over a mile, and they were just turning back, when suddenly several
Indians sprang from behind a ledge of rock, and seized all three of the
sisters. They led the captives a short distance up a bank, when a halt
was called, and a parley took place. It seems that some of the Indians
were in favor of immediate slaughter, while others were disposed to
carry them into permanent captivity. Unfortunately the arm of mercy
was powerless. Without a moment’s warning, a fierce looking savage
stepped from the group with elevated tomahawk, and commenced the work
of death. This Indian, said the surviving sister, ‘began to tomahawk
Susan; she dodged her head to one side, the weapon taking effect in
her neck, cutting the large neck vein; the blood gushing out a yard’s
length. The Indian who had her by the hand jumped back to avoid the
blood. The other Indian then began the work of death on my sister Mary.
I gave a sudden jerk and got loose from the one that held me, ran with
all speed and took up a steep bank, gaining the top safely. Just as
I caught hold of a hush to help myself up, the Indian fired, and the
ball passed through the clump of hair on my head, slightly breaking
the skin; the Indian taking round to meet me as I would strike the
path that led homeward. But I ran right from home, and hid myself in
the bushes near the top of the hill. Presently I saw an Indian passing
along the hill below me; I lay still until he was out of sight, and
then made for home.’” This third sister was Christina, afterwards Mrs.
John McBride, of Carlisle, Monroe County, Ohio.
“Early on the morning of the 27th of March, 1789, two Indians appeared
on the premises of Mr. Glass, residing a few miles back of the present
town of Wellsburgh. Mrs. Glass was alone in the house, except an
infant and a small black girl; was engaged in spinning, and had sent
her negro woman to the woods for sugar water. In a few moments she
returned, screaming at the top of her voice, ‘Indians! Indians!’ Mrs.
Glass jumped up, and running first to the window and then to the door,
attempted to escape; but an Indian met her and presented his gun; she
caught hold of the muzzle, turned it aside, and begged him not to
kill her. The other Indian in the meantime caught the negro woman and
brought her into the house. They then opened a chest and took out a
small box and some articles of clothing, and without doing any further
damage, departed with their prisoners. After proceeding about a mile
and a half, they halted and held a consultation, as she supposed, to
kill the children; this she understood to be the subject by their
gestures. To one of the Indians who could speak English, she held out
her little boy and begged him not to kill him, as he would make a fine
chief after a while. The Indian made a motion for her to walk on with
the child. The other Indian then struck the negro child with the pipe
end of his tomahawk, which knocked it down, and then, by a blow with
the edge across the back of the neck, despatched it. About four o’clock
they reached the river, a mile above the creek, and carried a canoe
which had been thrown up in some drift wood, into the river. They got
into this canoe and worked it down to the mouth of Rush run, about
five miles; pulled the canoe into the mouth of the stream as far as
they could, and going up the run about a mile, encamped for the night.
The Indians gave the prisoners all their own clothes for covering, and
one of them added his own blanket; shortly before daylight the Indians
got up, and put another blanket over them. The black woman complained
much on account of the loss of her child, and they threatened if she
did not desist, to kill her.
“About sunrise they commenced their march up a very steep hill and at
two o’clock halted on Short creek, about twenty miles from the place
whence they set out in the morning. The spot had been an encampment
shortly before as well as a place of deposit for the plunder which they
had recently taken from the house of Mr. Vanmeter, whose family had
been killed. The plunder was deposited in a sycamore tree. They had
tapped some sugar trees when there before, and now kindled a fire and
put on a brass kettle, with a turkey which they had killed on the way,
to boil in sugar water.
“Mr. Glass was working with a hired man in a field about a quarter of
a mile from the house, when his wife and family were taken, but knew
nothing of the event till noon. After searching about the place, and
going to several families in quest of his family, he went to Well’s
Fort, collected ten men, and that night lodged in a cabin, on the
bottom on which the town of Wellsburg now stands. Next morning they
discovered the place where the Indians had taken the canoe from the
drift, and their tracks at the place of embarkation. Mr. Glass could
distinguish the track of his wife by the print of the high heel of her
shoe. They crossed the river and went down on the other side until
they came near the mouth of Rush run; but discovering no tracks of
the Indians, most of the men concluded they would go to the mouth of
the Muskingum by water, and therefore wished to turn back. Mr. Glass
begged them to go as far as the mouth of Short Creek, which was only
two or three miles; and to this they agreed. When they got to the mouth
of Rush run, they found the canoe of the Indians. This was identified
by a proof which shows the presence of mind of Mrs. Glass. While
passing down the river, one of the Indians threw into the water several
papers which he had taken out of Mr. Glass’s trunk; some of these she
carelessly picked up, and under pretence of giving them to the child
dropped them into the bottom of the canoe. These left no doubt. The
trail of the Indians and their prisoners up the run to their camp, and
then up the river hill, was soon discovered.
“About an hour after the Indians had halted. Glass and his men came
in sight of their camp. The object then was to save the lives of the
prisoners by attacking the Indians so unexpectedly as not to allow time
to kill them. With this view they crept along till they got within
one hundred yards of the camp. Fortunately, Mrs. Glass’s little son
had gone to a sugar tree, but not being able to get the water, his
mother had stepped out to get it for him. The negro woman was sitting
some distance from the two Indians, who were looking attentively at
a scarlet jacket which they had taken some time before. On a sudden
they dropped the jacket, and turned their eyes towards the men, who,
supposing they were discovered, immediately discharged several guns
and rushed upon them at full speed, with an Indian yell. One of the
Indians, it was supposed, was wounded the first fire, as he fell and
dropped his gun and shot pouch. After running about one hundred yards,
a second shot was fired after him, which brought him to his hands and
knees; but there was no time for pursuit, as the Indians had informed
Mrs. Glass that there was another encampment close by. The other Indian
at the first fire, ran a short distance beyond Mrs. Glass, so that she
was in a right line between him and the white men; this artful manœuvre
no doubt saved his life, as his pursuers could not shoot at him without
risking the life of the white woman.”
The party reached Beach Bottom fort that night. Mrs. Glass subsequently
married a Mr. Brown, and was long a resident of Brooke County.
“In the burying-ground of New Providence, in Rockbridge County,
Virginia, there is a grave, surpassing in interest all surrounding
graves. It is by the side of the resting-place of the pastor of the
people who worshipped in the neighboring church. Its inhabitant once
walked by his side a cherished one.[18] His deep blue, sunken eye, that
flashed so fiercely in moments of indignation, always beamed sweetly
into her full, jet-black orbs, that could do nothing but smile or
weep. But those smiles and tears charmed equally the savages in the
wilderness, and Christian people of Providence.
“The maiden name of this woman was Mary Moore. The melancholy romance
of her early days, and the Christian excellence of her mature and
closing years, make her memory immortal. The history of the destruction
of the retired dwelling of her father--his murder, with that of two
brothers and a sister on a fair summer’s morning--the captivity of her
mother and herself, with a brother and two sisters, and a hired girl,
the murder of the brother and one sister on the way to the wigwam homes
of their captors--the death by fire and torture of her mother and
remaining sister--the rescue of herself and the hired girl, together
with a brother, the captive of a former year, and their return to their
relatives in Virginia--combines in one story all the events impending
over the emigrant families taking possession of the rivers and valleys
of Western Virginia.”
James Moore, whose father, of Scottish ancestry, had emigrated from
Ireland to Pennsylvania, and thence to Virginia, married Martha Poage,
and Mary, his second daughter, was born in his new home in a valley
on the waters of the Blue Stone, a branch of New River. It was called
“Apps’ Valley,” from Absalom Looney, a hunter, “supposed to be the
first white man who disturbed the solitude, or beheld the beauty of
the narrow low grounds luxuriating in the pea vine and sweet myrrh.
The surrounding and distant scenery partook both of the grand and the
beautiful. To Mr. Moore, the valley was enchanting; and being out of
the track of the savages in their war incursions eastward, it seemed
secure equally from the vexations of the civilized and the savage.
“Mr. Looney, the hunter, built his cabin a mile lower down the creek;
John Poage about two and a half miles above; and a number of cabins
were scattered about as convenience or fancy dictated. Mr. Moore’s
highest expectations in raising stock were realized. Assisted by
Simpson, he soon became possessor of a hundred head of horses, and a
large number of horned cattle, which found pasturage sufficient for
both summer and winter, with little aid or care from man. His dream
of safety was broken. The wily savage discovered the white man’s
track, and the white man’s cabin west of those Alleghanies, which they
resolved should be an everlasting barrier between their homes in Ohio
to which they had fled, and the hated whites who held the corn-fields
and hunting-grounds of their fathers and their race, between those
great mountains and the Atlantic shores.
“To revenge this encroachment, the savages commenced their
depredations, and compelled isolated families, summer after summer, to
betake themselves to forts and stockades for their mutual defence. On
one occasion a number of men being at the house of Mr. John Poage, one
of them, on stepping out after nightfall, observed to his companions
that a good look-out ought to be kept for Indians that night, for he
heard an unusual noise, as of the hooting of owls, which he supposed to
be the signal of Indians approaching the house from different quarters.
About midnight the house was surrounded by savages; but finding the
doors secured and the inmates on the watch, the Indians retired without
committing any depredations. One of the party in the house seized a
gun, not his own, unaware that it was double triggered, pressed the
muzzle through the cracks of the cabin against the body of a savage who
was slily examining the state of things within, and in his eagerness
to discharge the piece broke both the triggers, and the savage
escaped. All was stillness both within and without the house; such was
the nature of savage warfare. Mr. Poage and most of the families now
retired from this advanced position to the more secure neighborhoods in
Rockbridge, Botetourt and Montgomery, while Mr. Moore and a few others
remained.
“Mr. Moore was a man of courage; he loved the solitude and sweetness
of the valley, and would not retreat through any fear of the hostile
Indians. Five children were added to his family in this valley, making
the number nine. Of these Mary, the fifth, was born in the year 1777,
and passed the first nine years of her life in alternate solitude and
alarms. On the 7th of September, 1784, James, then fourteen years of
age, was sent to Poage’s deserted settlement to procure a horse for
the purpose of going to the mill about twelve miles distant, through a
dreary wilderness. He did not return, and the anxious search discovered
trails of savages. In time the hope he had hidden in the woods or fled
to some distant habitation, gave way to the sad conviction that his
fate for life or death had been committed to the hands of barbarians.
This bereavement grieved, but did not subdue the heart of the father,
who resolutely, almost stubbornly, maintained his position. After some
time, a letter was received from Kentucky, giving him information
of his lost son, then supposed to be in or near Detroit. Before any
effective steps could be taken for his recovery, another and more
mournful scene was enacted in Apps’ Valley, awfully contrasting with
the grandeur and beauty of surrounding nature, and the domestic peace
and piety of Moore’s dwelling.
“The morning of the 14th July, 1786, a party of Indians came up Sandy
River, crossed over to the head of Clinch, passed near where Tazewell
Court-house now is, murdered a Mr. Davison and wife, and burned their
dwelling, and passed on hastily to Apps’ Valley, before any alarm could
be given. A little spur puts out from the mountain, and gradually
sloping towards the creek, about three hundred yards before it sinks
into the low grounds, divides; at the extremity of one division stood
Moore’s house, and near the other the trough at which he was accustomed
to salt his horses. At the time of the greatest peril all seemed most
secure. It was harvest time; and there were two men assisting Mr. Moore
in his harvest. The guns were discharged on the preceding evening, to
be reloaded some time in the morning. Simpson lay sick in the loft;
the men had repaired early to the wheat-field, to reap till breakfast
time; Moore was engaged in salting his horses; his wife busied in her
domestic concerns, and two of the children at the spring. Suddenly the
savage yell was heard, and two parties rushed from their hiding-places
on the ridge, the one down the slope to the house, and the other
towards Mr. Moore. Two children, Rebecca and William, were shot dead
near the salt block, on their return from the spring, and the third,
Alexander, near the house. Mary rushed in, and the door was shut and
barred against the approaching savages by Mrs. Moore and Martha Ivans,
a member of the family, just in time to present their entrance. Mr.
Moore finding himself intercepted by the Indians at the house, ran on
through the small lot that surrounded it, and on climbing the fence,
paused and turned, and in a moment was pierced with seven bullets.
Springing from the fence, he ran a few paces, fell and expired. The
two men in the harvest-field, seeing the house surrounded by a large
company of savages, fled and escaped unharmed. Martha Ivans seized two
of the guns, and ran upstairs to the sick man, Simpson, calling on him
to shoot through the crevices; but the poor man had already received
his death-wound from a bullet aimed from without. Two stout dogs
defended the door most courageously, till the fiercest was shot. Martha
Ivans and Mary Moore secreted themselves under a part of the floor,
taking with them the infant Margaret; but the sobbings of the alarmed
child forbade concealment. Should Mary place the child upon the floor,
and conceal herself? or share its fate? She could not abandon her
little sister even in that perilous moment, and left her hiding-place
and her companion. The Indians were now cutting at the door and
threatening fire. Mrs. Moore perceiving that her faithful sentinels
were silenced, Simpson expiring, and her husband dead, collected her
four children, and kneeling down, committed them to God; then rose, and
unbarred the door.
“After all resistance had ceased, the Indians, satisfied with the
blood that had been shed, took Mrs. Moore and her four children, John,
Jane, Mary, and Margaret, prisoners; and having plundered to their
satisfaction, set fire to the dwelling. Martha Ivans crept from the
approaching flames, and again concealed herself beneath a log that
lay across the little stream near the dwelling. While catching a few
of the horses, one of the Indians crossed the log under which she was
secreted, and sat down upon the end of it. The girl seeing him handle
the lock of his gun, and supposing he had discovered and was about to
fire upon her, came out, to the great surprise of the savage--for he
had not seen her, and to his great apparent joy delivered herself a
captive. In a short time the Indians were on their march with their
captives to their Shawnee towns in Ohio. The two men who escaped,
hastened to the nearest family, a distance of six miles, and as soon as
possible spread the alarm among the settlements; but before the armed
men could reach the spot, the ruin was complete, and the depredators
far on their way to Ohio.