Volume 18 , Issue 27

Walking With Sweet Silly Sadie

I know my human has been a little distracted this last week, 'cause during my Doctor Vet annual wellness checkup, we found out this eleven year old Pug has the beginning of cataracts in both of my eyes. I Know some humans use seeing eye dogs to get around. I guess this "Sweet Silly Sadie" is going to use NW Okie as her seeing eye human.

This weeks OkieLegacy Ezine/Tabloid is a mixture of the Warwick family lineage of NW Okie, and how much she has compiled over the years. Plus other items from the 1912 Republican & Progressive Bull-Moose split and Pres. Teddy Roosevelt's campaign fora third term as President.

Major Jacob Warwick (1743-1826)
From the Historical Sketches of Pocahontas County, West Virginia, by William T. Price, page 234, we found this Warwick legacy of Jacob Warwick, who is the 6th Great Uncle of NW (Linda Mcgill Wagner).

The compiler of these memorials, deeply impressed that something should be attempted to perpetuate the memory of these persons (Jacob Warwick and Mary Vance, his wife) had availed himself of such facilities as had been in reach. He was largely indebted to John Warwick, Esq., Judge James W. Warwick, and Mrs. Elizabeth McLaughlin for the information from which these sketches were compiled. All these persons have since died, at a very advance age. This article first appeared in the "Southern Historical Magazine for August, 1892. Mrs. McLaughlin, a daughter of William Sharp, lived with Mrs. Warwick at intervals, as a friend and visitor in the family, and for whom Mrs. Warwick manifested special attachment.

The father of Jacob Warwick came to Augusta County, from Williamsburg, Virginia, during colonial times, between 1740-50. William Warwick was a Lieutenant in the service of the British Crown, and was employed in surveying and locating land grants in Pocahontas County, which County included territory of which States have since been formed. Lieutenant Warwick located and occupied the Dunmore property for his own use. He married Elizabeth Anne Dunlap, near Middlebrook. He was one of the English entry whose families settled in Virginia in consequence of political reverses in England, and whose history was so graphically given in Thackeray's Virginians.

After operating extensively in lands; and securing the Dunmore property in his own name, Lieutenant Warwick concluded to visit England. He never returned, and being heard of no more, he was given up fro dead. Meanwhile, Mrs. Warwick settled on the Dunmore property, had it secured by deed to Jacob and afterwards married Robert Sitlington, but remained at Dunmore a number of years after her second marriage. Jacob Warwick seemed to have remembered but little of his own father, and always cherished the highest filial regard for Mr. Sitlington. When Jacob attained his majority, Mr. Sitlington moved to his own property near old Millboro, the estate now occupied by Mrs. Dickinson, daughter of the later Andres Sitlington. Upon her decease, Mrs. Sithointon left a bequest of one thousand dollars to Windy Cove Church the annual interest of which was to be paid to the pastor of that congregation. For a long while it was managed by the Messrs Sloan. In the hands of Stephen Porter it was finally lost through financial failure.

Upon reading legal age and coming into possession of his estate, Jacob Warwick was married and settled at Dunmore. When it was decided that Lieutenant Warwick was dead, the grandfather of David Bell, of Fishersville, Virginia, was appointed guardian of Jacob Warwick. William and James Bell were the sons of this guardian, and James Bell was the father of William A. Bell and David Bell well remembered citizens of Augusta County.

Dunmore was Mr. Warwick's first home after his marriage. His wife was Miss Vance, daughter of Col. John Vance, of North Carolina. He died on Back Creek, at Mountain Grove, Virginia. Col. Vance's family moved to the vicinity of Vanceburg, Kentucky, except Samuel Vance, Mrs. Warwick, and Mrs. Hamilton. The last named was the mother of Rachel Terrel, of the Warm Springs, and John Hamilton, Esq., of Bath County. Governor Vance, of Ohio, and Senator Zeb Vance, of North Carolina, were of the same family connection. The Vances, originally, from Ooecquon, near Winchester, Virginia.
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Mr. Warwick remained at Dunmore a number of years. His children were all born there. He was industriously and successfully occupied in accumulating lands, and managing large herds of cattle and droves of horses. His possessions on Jacksons River were purchase from a certain Alexander Hall, of North Carolina. Mr. Hall owned from the Byrd place to Warwickton. One of his sons, being charged with horse theft, the penalty being death by hanging, refugees to Bath County. The elder Hall came to Dunmore to see Mr. Warwick, and proposed to sell this land to provide means to send his refugee son to Kentucky so as to elude arrest. Mr. Warwick had sent out one hundred head of cattle to be wintered in the cane brakes. This herd was taken by Hall as part payment for the Jackson River lands. The cattle rated at eight pounds a head (about $0). The Clover Lick from the east avoided hollows and ravines, keeping along high points and crests of ridges, so as to be more secure from ambuscades and Indian attacks. The original way out from Clover Lick, going east, after crossing the Greenbrier near the mouth of Clover Creek avoided Laurel Run, kept along the high point leading down to the river, and passed close by the McCutcheon residence. Mrs. Warwick had the first road cut out, up the Laurel Run, in order to bring the lumber for the new house from Woaoddell's in the Pine Woods, now Greenbank and vicinity. She gave the enterprise her personal attention.

Quite a number of interesting incidents were given by tradition illustrating the character of Mrs. Warwick. While renting Clover Lick, her husband and others were making hay. A shower of rain came up very suddenly and dampened their guns and horse pistols. Late in the afternoon the men fired them off, so as to load them with fresh charges. Someone hearing the report of firearms in quick succession brought word to Mrs. Warwick, at Dunmore, that the Indians were fighting the men at the Lick. She at once mounted a large black stallion, put a colored boy on behind, and went at fall speed and swam the swollen river in her effort to see what happened. This colored boy was old "Ben," sho died at Clover Lick, and was remembered by many of the older citizens.

Upon another occasion, when the Shawnees were returning from one of their raids to the east, forty or fifty of their warriors were sent by Clover Lick with the intention, it is believed, to pillage and burn. A scout from Millboro warned Mr. Warwick of their movements. With about twenty others he waited for them in ambush on the crew of the mountain south of Clover Lick. The fire was very effective, and every man killed or wounded his victim. The Indians in their surprise hastily retreated, and were pursued as far as Elk Water in Randolph County. Upon hearing of the result, Mrs. Warwick at once followed her husband and friends, attended by servants carrying provisions for them. She met them at the Big Spring on their return, and the weary hungry party were greatly refreshed by her thoughtful preparations.

She was eminently pious, and was a member of the Windy Cove Presbyterian Church. She never felt herself more honored than when ministers would visit her home and preach. The visiting minister would receive a nice horse, or something else as valuable, as a token of appreciation. She was conscientiously rigid in her domestic discipline. Her brother once made this remark, "Mary, I used to think you were too strict with your family, and you have been blamed for it. I see now you are right. You have not a child but would knee in the dust to obey you. I let my children have more liberties, and they do not care near so much for me."

The Rev. Aretas Loomis came from Beverly, for a time, every four weeks, and preached at the Warwick residence. She was highly emotional, and during the services often appeared very happy. As to her personal appearance she was toll, slender, and blue eyed, hair slightly tinged with auburn, and lithe and agile in her carriage. So she was distinguished for symmetry of person, beauty of feature, and force of character, all of which she retained even to an advanced age. She was very benevolent, and her kind deeds were done upon the principle of not telling the left hand what the right might be doing. Persons in her empty would always be overpaid. Polly Brown, whose lot it was to support her blind mother, received two bushels of corn every two weeks, and no one knew where the supply came from at the time. A person named Charley Collins, who was renowned as an athlete, and whose name was given to one of the meadows of Clover Lick, did a great deal of clearing. It was reported that he was but poorly paid, but before Mrs. Warwick was done with him his family was doubly paid by the substantial fights dispensed with her open hands.

Among her many other generous deeds, it was told how a rather worthless character, disable by frozen feet, was received into her house, clothed and fed until he could walk. His name was Bosier. This man afterwards died from the effects of burning tree falling on hi, against which he had made a fire, while on his way from Big Spring to Mace's in Mingo Flats. George See, a grandson of Mrs. Warwick, heard his cries and came to him. In his efforts to rescue him, he exerted himself so laboriously that he ws never well afterwards.

It should also be remembered, that Mrs. Warwick, in her old age, gathered the first Sabbath School ever taught in Pocahontas County. In the summer her servants would lift her on her horse, and she would then ride about four miles to a school house near where the Josiah Friel cabin stood, now in the possession of Giles Sharp. The exercises would begin at about nine o'clock. There was no prayer, no singing; but she would read the bible, talk a great deal, and five good advice. The scholars would read their bibles with her. The exercises would close at two int he afternoon. After this continuous session of fiver hours Mrs. Warwick would be so exhausted as to require assistance to arise and mount her horse.It was her custom to go to William Sharp's, dine and rest awhile, and then go home later in the day. To use the language of one of her scholars, the late Mrs. Elizabeth McLaughlin, who died near Huntersville in 1895, aged over ninety years, "She would give such good advice. If all would do as she told hem, how well it might have been. She was the best woman to raise girls I ever saw, if they would take her advice how to act and how to do. She has talked to me for hours, and its often thrown up to me that old Mrs. Warwick made me proud because I tried to do as she advised me."

The school was mainly made up of Josiah Brown's family, John Sharp's, William Sharp's and Jeremiah Friel's. The lamented Methodist preacher, Rev. James E. Moore, once belonged to her Sabbath school, and received from her his earliest religious instructions. By common consent it was agreed that he did more for his church than any two mindsets who had ever preached in this region.

Not a great while before her death, during one of Mr. Loomis' ministerial visits, she received the communion. Upon receiving the elements, her emotions became so great that her husband and children, fearing results, carrie her to her own room. For four weeks she was helpless from nervous prostration. All her children from Bath and Pocahontas were sent for. She died at the ripe age of eighty years, in 1823, at Clover Lick, and there she was buried. There were no services of any kind in connection with her burial.

Jacob Warwick was one of the persons who made permanent settlements in what was then Pocahontas and Bath counties, Virginia and West Virginia.

It had been already stated that he commenced his business life at Dunmore; purchased Clover Lick, where he resided for a time; then moved to his immense possessions on Jacksons River, and then returned to Clover Lick. In addition to these estates he acquired some equally as valuable. He endowed his seven children with ample legacies, and besides bequeathed a competency to ten or fifteen grandchildren.

Mr. Warwick was an alert and successful Indian fighter, and had a series of conflicts, narrowly escaping with his life on several occasions; yet he was never sure of killing but one Indian. Parties now living remember seeing a tree on the lands of John Warwick, near Greenback, where Jacob Warwick killed that Indian in single combat. It always grieved him that he had done it. Not very far from this place is the laurel thicket where Colonel Washington was killed in 1861.

Upon a subsequent occasion MR. Warwick went to Randolph County. It was night when he returned. His horse shied at something in the road, which he at once recognized as the fresh husks of roasting ear. The presence of Indians was at once suspected, and upon approaching the house cautiously hit was found that the row of cabins were burned and the premises ransacked. In their glee, the Indians had caught the chickens, picked all their feathers off and let them go. The place had been left in the care of a closed man named Sam and Greenbrier Ben, aged ten and twelve years. Sam made good his escape to the woods, but Ben hid in a hemp patch so near the cabin that when it was burned he could hardly keep still, his buckskin breeches were so hot. From his retreat Ben saw the Indians pick the chickens, leaving their tails and topknots, and laugh at their grotesque appearance. He saw them run the wagon into the fire, after the cabin near the spring had become a smoldering heap of coals. This wagon was the first that ever crossed the Alleghenies. It was brought from Mountain Grove, up Little Back Creek, about three miles above where the Hunersville road first crossed the stream going east; then across Knapps Spur, along by Harper's Mill; then straight across to Thorny Creek, through the Lightner place, past Bethel Church, to the Sunders place on Thorny Creek; thence up the ridge to the top, and then along down to the Knapp place on the Greenbrier River; thence to Clover Lick.

The most memorable event of his life was his being in the expedition to Point Pleasant, under General Andrew Lewis. The march from Lewisburg to Point Pleasant, one hundred and sixty miles, took nineteen days. It was most probable that he was in the company commanded by Captain Mathews. This conflict with the Indians was themes decisive that had yet occurred. It was fought on Monday morning, 10 October 1774. It was a matter of regret that the recorded history of this battle does not accord full justice to the memory of a very deserving person. It was conceded by all, so far as there was any record, that up to the time when there occurred a lull in the battle the advantage was with the Indians. The question arises, why should a warrior as skillful as Cornstalk call a halt in the full tine of success, and suddenly cease firing and pressing upon a receding foe, with victory just in his grasp?

Had it not been for this, no troops could have been safely detached for a flank movement. Flank movements were only a good policy for those who were pressing the enemy, and not for the retreating party. When Cornstalk ceased to press, the victory was decided in favor of the Virginians, and lost to him. Had the battle been lost to our people and the army sacrificed, unspeakable disasters would have befallen all settlements west of the Blue ridge mountains; the Revolution would have been deferred for all time, possibly, and the whole history of america far different from what had been.

How was that lull in the battle to be accounted for, which resulted in victory to the Virginians? Dr. Foote said, in his account, which is one of themes minute and extended of all in reach of the writer, "towards evening, Lewis seeing no signs of retreat or cessation of battle, dispatched Captains Shelby, Mathews, and Stewart, at their request, to attack the enemy in their rear. Going up the Kanawha, under the cover of the banks of Crooked Creek, they got to the rear of the Indians unobserved, and made a rapid attack. Alarmed by this unload for assault, and thinking the reinforcements of Colonel Christian were approaching, before whose arrival they had striven hard to end the battle, the savages became dispirited, gave way, and by sunset had recrossed the Ohio. Colonel Christian entered the camp about midnight, and found all in readiness for a renewed attack.

Colonel Kercheval, who claims to have derived his information from Joseph Mayse and Andrew Reed, of Bath County, stated on their authority "that about two o'clock in the afternoon Colonel Christian arrived on the field with about five hundred men, the battle was still raging. The reinforcements decided the issue almost immediately. The Indians fell back about two miles, but such was their persevering spirit, though fairly beaten, the contes was not closed until the setting of the sun, when they relinquished the field.

There were persons recently living in Bath almost in speaking distance of the residence where Joseph Mayse lived and died, who were certain that Mr. Mayse gave the credit of that cessation in battle and falling back two miles on the part of the Indians, to Jacob Warwick and the persons with him. According to Judge Warwick's statement, Mr. Mayse's statement was emphatically confirmed by Major Charles Cameron, a lieutenant in the battle. Mr. Mayse often repeated the fact that Jacob Warwick, an obscure price in the ranks, was detailed with a number of others, perhaps fifty or sixty in all, to bring in a supply of meat, that rations might be supplied for a forced march to the Indian towns, as Governor Dunmore had so treacherously given orders. These persons crossed the Kanawha about daybreak, and while at work in the hunting grounds and slaughter pens, they heard the firing beyond the limits of the camp, and so far up the Ohio they supposed it to be a salute to Governor Dunmore, who was expected at any time by the soldiers generally. But the firing continuing too long for this, it was surmised the troops were putting their arms in order for the contemplated march over the Ohio. Finally they suspected it was a battle. Mr. Warwick was one of the first to ascertain this to be so, and immediately rallied the butchers and hunters, in order to return to camp and join the battle. This was noticed by the enemy, and Cornstalk was of the option that Colonel Christian was at hand. He ceased in the reach of victory, and took measures to withdraw from the field, unobserved by our exhausted troops. For nearly two hours they had been falling back, and when the flank movement was made to communicate with the hunters, supposed to be Colonel Christian's advance to join them. What fighting occurred afterwards was with the rear guard of Cornstalk's retreating army of demoralized braves.

If all this be true, and considering the sources of information, the write of this book saw no reason to doubt its authenticity in the main, it illustrates how important results were sometimes made to depend, in the providence of God, upon fidelity to duty on the part of the most obscure, and it brings to light the leadings of God's hand in human affairs.

The reputed hero of Point Pleasant appears in bronze, an honored member of the group wherein stand Henry, Jefferson and Marshall, while the humble man whose hand turned the fortunes of that most eventful day sleeps in his obscure grave on the west bank of Jacksons River, six miles from the Warm Springs. Were it the grave of Campbell's "Last Man," it could not be in much less frequented place.

Major Warwick's sons and daughters were all born at Dunmore, Pocahontas County. The eldest daughter, Rachel, remembered when the settlers would fly to the fort near her home, when she was a little girl. The fort was near the spot now occupied by Colonel Pritchard's mill.

Good Night! Good Luck!
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