Volume 14 , Issue 30

Pendleton County, (West) Virginia - Period of Indian War

This week we discover more about the History of Pendleton County, (West) Virginia, written in the early 1900's by Oren Frederick Morton. This week we take on more of the history of the "Period of Indian War" in that region. I know we have talked about Virginia and the Indian Wars in the colonies before, because back then Virginia and West Virginia were not divided into two states and one in the same.

Oren Frederick Morton through his documents and records tells us the History of Pendleton County, West Virginia, in Chapter VI, "Period of Indian War" that Jefferson states the Indian claims in the valley of Virginia were purchased "in the most unexceptionable manner."

The few Shawnee and Tuscarora tribesmen were at peace with the whites until 1754. To that date the Shawnees remained on the South Branch. They often visited the homes of the settlers and in this way learned to speak English quite well. When the Shawnees appeared at a house they expected something to eat and were not backward in letting the fact be known. The Indian was himself very hospitable. He therefore expected something set before him, just as he was won't to provide the best he had when a stranger came to his own cabin. To boil their venison a hunting party would sometimes borrow a kettle, but they would bring some meat in return for its use.

The feeling between the settler and the native was not cordial, though. The former would sooner do without the visits of the red man. The latter was not al all pleased with the persistent pressure of the tide of colonial settlement.

Chief of the little band of Shawnees, Killbuck, was an Indian of much ability and strong mental power. Peter Casey, a pioneer of Hampshire, once promised him a pistole if he would catch his run away slave. The chief found and brought back the negro, but Casey quarreled about the reward, knocked down the Indian with his cane, and went back on his word. When Killbuck in his old age was visited by a son of Casey, he did not forget to tell the son that he ought to pay his father's debt.

We know that the English and French were rivals in America. They had already fought three colonial wars, and a life and death struggle for supremacy was now on the point of breaking out. The weak, scattered settlements of the French beyond the Alleghanies were let alone by the Indians was because of the difference in habits between the French and English pioneer. The French came not to clear the land but to trade for furs, and made himself a native when among the Indians, and if a trapper he took an Indian wife. The hunting ground were let alone and the Indian was benefited by the articles he received in return for his pelts.

But the English colonist had his own wife, and he felled the trees and cleared the ground as he came along. The game was scared away and the Indian had to fall back before him. The Englishman did not go to the same pains to win and keep the will of the red man. Thus the Frenchman had much the greater influence.

In the fall of 1753 the Shawnees on the South Branch were visited by Indians from the Ohio river, who urged them to move out to their country. The invitation was accepted and the removal took place abruptly the following spring. The Shawnees now sided with the french and with dire result to the border settlements. By the defeat of Braddock in 1755, the frontiers of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia were left totally exposed, and during the next four years the entire line was harassed by raiding parties of the enemy. Sometimes the Indians acted alone, and sometimes they were accompanied by French soldiers. The damage inflicted was very great and it was done by a comparatively small number of warriors. To make matters worse white miscreants would disguise themselves as Indians and commit depredations on their own account.

For aiding and abetting the Shawnees and trying to mislead the Cherokees, one Hugh McNamara was committed in April, 1753. Only a few months after the defeat of Braddock Washington reports 71 persons killed or missing within a few days and crowds of fugitives flying throughout he Blue Ridge.

It was in 1756 Virginia appropriated money for the building of 23 forts, comprising a chain extending from the great Cacapon in Hampshire to the Mayo in Halifax.

Washington was sent to the frontier with his headquarters at Winchester. He was not given enough troops to cover his line of defense and his men of one county were not willing to aid in protecting another. His letters give a vivid idea of the distressful times and show his irritation in having too weak a force. Washington writes under date of 15 April 1756:, "All my ideal hopes of raising number of men to search the adjacent mountains have vanished into nothing."

A week later Washington writes, "I am too little acquainted with pathetic language to attempt a description of the people's distresses." Two days later he adds, "Not an hour, nay, scarcely a minute passes that does not produce fresh alarms and melancholy accounts." In another letter Washington states, "The deplorable situation of these people is no more to be described than is my anxiety and uneasiness for their relief. Desolation and murder still increase."

On September 28, 1757, Washington writes these words, "The inhabitants of this valuable and very fertile valley are terrified beyond expression."

By 1757 there were 1873 tithables in Augusta. The following year (1758) the number had fallen to 1386, showing that the rangers who had been sent to watch the frontier, many of the people had fled to places of greater safety.

It was 1756 that three bloody battles were fought i Hampshire and on January 4 of that same year WAshington thus writes of the weak settlements in Pendleton, "I have now ordered Capt. Waggoner with 60 men to build and garrison two others (forts) at places I have pointed out high up the South branch." August 16, Washington makes this further report, "We have built some forts and altered others as far south on the Potomac as settlers have been molested; and there only remains one body of inhabitants at a place called Upper Tract who need a guard. Thither I have ordered a party."

In February of 1757, Jacob Peterson, living on North Mill Creek near the Grant line lost six children by capture, one of them soon a afterward escaping. On May 16, 1757 the Indians killed Michael Freeze and his wife, who lived close to Upper Tract. On March 19, 1758 there was bother and more destructive raid upon the Upper Tract settlement. Peter Moser, who lived opposite the mouth of Mallow's Run, was Shot dead while unloading corn at his crib. Nicholas Frank and John Conrad were also killed, George Moser and Adam Harper were wounded, and John Cunningham and two other persons were captured. These casualties happened the same day, though it is not certain that all of them took place at Upper Tract.

Captian Jacob Seybert

Perhaps it was the tragedy at the Freeze home that led to the commissioning, March 16, 1757, of Jacob Seybert as the first captain of militia for what is now Pendleton county. Captain Seybert had come from Frederick county, Maryland, four years earlier. He was one of seven brothers, natives of the very town in Germany that gave birth to Martin Luther. some of these settled in the Shenandoah valley. Moses Seybert, a brother to the captain, sold the farm he owned and went to Guilford courthouse, North Carolina, about the time the war of the Revolution broke out. he was still there at the time of the battle between Greene and Cornwallis, and the family had to stay in the cellar while bullets were flying. Seybert hurried away and sought a new home in the natural fastness of the Fort Valley within the Massanutten. He thought an armed force not likely to disturb him here.

Fort Upper Tract and Fort Seybert appear to have been built in 1756. One places this fort near the house of John S. Harman, but in view of the killing of Moser this would not seem probable. Another view places it on the very brink of the river a mile above Harman's. This spot is very advantages, being at the angle of a bend in the river and the opposite bank much lower. The river bluff is steep and a ravine affords some protection on two other sides. The enclosed space is however very limited. A building once stood here and the foundation may easily be traced. But it disappeared before the recollection of any person now living. The spot lies a mile south of Upper Tract village and on the west bank of the river.

Fort Seybert stood on what is was the house yard of William C. Miller, who lived a fourth of a mile south of the Fort Seybert post office. There was a circular stockade with a two-storied blockhouse inside. The diameter of the stockade was about 90 feet. According to the practice of the day, the wall was composed of logs set in contact with one another and rising at least ten feet above the ground. There was a heavy gate constructed of puncheons for going in or out. The blockhouse stood near the center of the circle, and was apparently about 21 feet square.

The defense of Fort Upper Tract was in trusted to Capt. James Dunlap, who had commanded a detachment in the Big Sandy expedition. A band of French and Indians appeared in the valley, and on April 27, 1758, they captured and burned the fort and killed 22 persons, including Dunlap himself. The names of the slain were as follows: Captain John Dunlap, josiah Wilson, John Hutchinson, Thomas Caddon, Henry McCullom, John Wright, Thomas Smith, Robert McNulty, William Elliott, Ludwig Falck and wife, Adam Little, Brock, John Ramsay, William Burk, Rooney, William Woods, John McCulley, Thomas Searl, James gill, John Gay, and one person unknown.

Fort Seybert Attack 28 April 1758

The tragedy at Fort Seybert took place on the following day, April 28, 1758. There were survivors to return from captivity and relate the event. The account they gave had been kept very much alive by their descendants in the vicinity. In the course of a century and a half some variations have indeed crept into the narrative.

The attacking party was composed of about 40 Shawnees led by Killbuck. There was a vague statement that one Frenchman was among them. This force was doubtless in contact with the one that wrought the havoc at Fort Upper Tract, it was probable that Killbuck took an independent course in returning to the Indian country. The only mention of Upper Tract in the Fort Seybert narrative was that an express was sent there for aid, but turned back after coming within sight of the telltale column of smoke from the burning buildings.

The number of persons "forting" in the Dyer settlement was perhaps 40. Very few were men, several having gone across the Shenandoah Mountain the day previous. Some of the women of the settlement appear to have been away. There was a fog shrouding the bottom of the South Fork on this fateful morning, and the immediate presence of the enemy was unsuspected.

There is the story about the wife of Peter Hawes going out with a boy named wallace to milk some cows. While following a path toward the post office they were surprised by two Indians and captured. Mrs. Hawes was said to have had a pair of sheep shears in her hand and to have attempted to stage one of the Indians with the shears. It may have been the same one who sought to tease her, and whom Mrs. Hawes pushed over a bank. Reappearing after his tumble, the maddened redskin was about to dispatch the woman, but was prevented by his laughing companion who called him a squaw man.

William Dyer had gone out to hunt and was waylaid near the fort. His flintlock refused to prime and he fell dead pierced by several balls. The presence of the enemy known,Nicholas Seybert, a son of the captain and about fifteen years of age, took his station in the upper room and mortally wounded an Indian who had raised his head from behind the cover of a rock in the direction of the spring.

With the collapse of the French power in America in 1760, the Indian peril became less acute, and although raiding parties came from the Greenbrier and destroyed settlements to within a few miles of Staunton, there was no no explicit account of any further attack upon Pendleton. yet the Indians prolonged the war on their own account. It was 1764 that a respite was given to the frontier. The red men were required to give up their captives, and of the 32 men and 58 women and children thus restored to their Virginia homes, it is more than probable that some belonged in this county. A number of these, taken when quite young and who had nearly or quite lost the recollection of their parental home, were very unwilling to part with their dusky friends and had to be brought away by force.

Sometimes the Indianized person refused to give up the wild life. Isaac Zane, taken when nine years old, lived with the Indians ever after, but never forgot his mother tongue. He married the sister of a Wyandot chief and reared a large family. The boys were true Indians, but the girls married white men and became fine women. Mary painter, taken front he Shenandoah in 1758, at the age of nine, lived with the Indians until 1776. She was found among the Cherokees by a man named Copple, who had likewise been a prisoner. By a well meant deception he induced her to go back with him to her people. She married Copple and they lived a while on the Painter farm near Woodstock, but yielded to the "call of the wild," and end West.

During the ten years of peace there was recorded in the deed book of the county a conveyance of 200,000 acres of land from the Iroquois, Delaware, and Shawnee Indians. The date of the transaction was November 4, 1768, and the tract lay in the angle between the Ohio and Maongahela rivers. Among the signatures were those of governors of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The payment was to be made i blankets, shirts, stocking, ribbon, calico, serge, thread, gartering, strouds and callimoncoe; also in knives, needles, tobacco, tongs, brass kettles, powder, lead, gunflints, vermillion and finally ten dozen jewsharps   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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