Clarke County AlArchives History - Books .....In The War Of 1812 1923 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/al/alfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com June 13, 2007, 12:07 am Book Title: History Of Clarke County IN THE WAR OF 1812 John Hoven, son of Benjamin Hoven, was born in South Carolina in 1794, and at the age of eighteen served as a soldier in the War of 1812. Benjamin Hoven moved to what is now Baldwin County in the early days of the nineteenth century. He and his family, including his son John, were in Fort Mims at its downfall. History is silent, so far as we know, as to what happened to the Hoven family on that day of bloodshed and death, but tradition says that Benjamin Hoven and all of his family, except John and, perhaps, a daughter, perished there on that memorable day in August, 1813. The following story was handed down from John Hoven to his son, William Hoven, and from William Hoven to his son, W. Henly Hoven, who lives near this place, and from him to the writer: On the day of that sanguinary conflict between the Indians and the occupants of Fort Mims, John Hoven and four other men, who had been in the thickest of the fight for hours, seeing that further resistance was without hope, and meant sure death, procured an ax and cut a hole through the back wall of the fort and made their escape. The fort was built by standing timbers on end in the ground, and all the men had to do was to cut away one or two of these timbers. These five men made their escape through this hole, as others did, as we shall see. A young woman who, according to Mr. Hoven's memory of the story, was a sister of his grandfather, John Hoven, made her escape through the opening in the wall, and when she reached the outside of the fort, she spied an officer's horse with saddle and bridle on, and she straightway proceeded to catch the horse, mount him, and make good her escape. She sat in the saddle while the noble horse swam the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers and landed her safe and sound at Old St Stephens. Another woman passed out through this hole in the wall, was shot in one of her legs, and she backed up against the wall of the fort, and in a few minutes her husband came out, and seeing his wife standing there, told her to follow him. She informed him that she was wounded and could not walk. The brave and true husband said, "Then, I will stand and we will die together." It was late in the evening when John Hoven and the other four men made their escape. They at once proceeded to the river, perhaps below the Cut-Off, and, arriving at its bank, made ready to plunge in, when one of the five halted and began to cry and bemoan his predicament, saying he could not swim, and imploring the other men not to leave him. One of the men ripped out a big knife and told the disconsolate one to shut up his mouth and get into the water, else he would murder him. The man, preferring a watery grave to death by cold steel, plunged into the river and was the first man to land on the west bank of the river. When the men got out on the bank they heard Indians talking, so they put back for the east bank, and when they reached the east bank again they saw an Indian standing on the bluff with a gun, so they slipped back into the river and swam back. They swam the river seven times, the last time, discovering a dense canebrake, they proceeded to it and spent the night there. Next morning, feeling themselves fairly safe, they began to wend their way to Mobile. They were four days reaching Mobile. One of the men had all of his clothes torn from him, leaving nothing but a shire collar on his neck. One of the men happened to have two shirts on; he pulled one of them off and gave it to the man, who put it on, and went into the city thus thinly clad. Shortly after this John Hoven came to Clarke County, married, and settled some miles north of Jackson, and lived there, as an unpretentious farmer, until his death a short while before the Civil War. He was twice married. William Hoven was his son by his first wife, and King Hoven was his son by his second wife. William Hoven died more than thirty years ago. King Hoven is now living about three miles northwest of Jackson. John Hoven's second wife drew a pension on account of his service in the War of 1812. In the eighties she drew her first pension, getting at the same time a back pension amounting to more than a thousand dollars. She continued to draw a pension quarterly until her death, which occurred a few years later. Mrs. William Murray, who died a few months ago at the age of eighty years, was a daughter of John Hoven. The victory of the Indians over the whites at Fort Mims stimulated them, and they soon began to give trouble to the whites in Clarke County, as the massacre at Fort Sinquefield evidences. A full account of this massacre is found in Pickett's History, and in order that the reader may get an intelligent idea of this conflict, we reproduce the account below: Additional Comments: Extracted from: HISTORY OF CLARKE COUNTY BY JOHN SIMPSON GRAHAM Press of BIRMINGHAM PRINTING COMPANY Birmingham, Ala. 1923 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/al/clarke/history/1923/historyo/inwarof190gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/alfiles/ File size: 5.5 Kb