Greenbrier County, West Virginia - 160th Anniversary Booklet - Part 27 *********************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. *********************************************************************** Historical Booklet - Greenbrier County 160th Anniversary - 1778-1938 Published 1938 Transcribed by Lori Samples THE INDIAN IN GREENBRIER It is an interesting fact that the first white settlers often found their chosen sites littered with flint chips, arrow heads, "cup stones," and other signs of earlier occupation. And yet so puzzling are some of the old records and present evidence that the whole subject of aboriginal occupation of the Greenbrier County region still remains a fresh field of investigation and speculation. The first explorers, traders, and settlers followed the well-marked trails of the Indians. These Indians may in turn have been following the trails of earlier tribes, or Mound Builders, who were probably following trails established by Buffalo or other migrating animals which moved about over this country before the first men of any kind. These trails ran east and west through the passes like those of Caldwell, at Dry Creek, at Anthony, at Mulligans Creek, and other places, and over the uplands they passed sure springs like those at Lewisburg. North and south they either followed streams, which was often difficult, or kept along the uplands, like the route taken through Greenbrier by the modern Seneca Trail. The bitter struggles of our ancestors with the Indians, such as that at Fort Donnally, and the massacres of the Clendennins and others in the Muddy Creek section have made such an impression upon us that we may sometimes forget that those were not resident Indians occupying this region. They were sent here to punish or drive out the white settlers. The absence of Indian names for rivers, mountains, and even settlements, so common in other parts of the United States, serves to remind us that our ancestors found no Indians here when they came. This region was close to the boundary line between the hunting grounds of the Iroquois on the north and the Cherokees on the south, but was pretty well within the former. The Iroquois had not long before taken it by conquest from western and southern claimants, and were leasing hunting rights in it to the Delewares, Shawnees, and Mingos. Although only a hunting ground under the Iroquois, it was well suited to habitation and so was probably a commonly used camping ground, and much fought over by the different hunting groups. And yet the matter cannot be so easily disposed of. Were there never any resident Indians here? Were all these artifacts left here by camps of hunters and not by agricultural Indians or pre-Indian tribes. Arrow heads and flints are numerous in certain places. At Friars hill cup stones are found in too large quantities to have been carried about by hunters or any migrating bands. One or two heavy stone mortars have been found at other places. Early settlers found "savannas" or "old fields," as they called the grassy open places, which must have been cleared by somebody. Would transient hunters have cleared large areas with their stone axes or their few recently purchased European axes, and could they have done so with fire without ruining it as a hunting ground? Might there not have been resident hunter Indians here not long before 1600, or even agriculturalists? A few mounds have been reported in this region, but they are small ones, and only one has been carefully excavated. No village sites have been definitely located, as far as we know, though J. D. Neill's may indicates two somewhere in the county. No signs of the use of corn have been found, and no pieces of pottery, which would have been used by any resident Indians either hunting or agricultural. Large burial mounds and other earth and stone works have been found in Pocahontas County, and extensively further west along New River, but not in Greenbrier. Of course, villages may have been on river banks at favorable places like Caldwell, and then washed away before they were discovered by the first explorers. And they may have been in lowo sinks like those at Lewisburg, where now over fifty feet of soil has been washed down upon the original levels. Again they may have occupied some of the innumerable caverns of this section, no floors of which have as yet been systematically excavated. There is some evidence that the Mound Builders, who may or may not have been close kin to the Indians of our knowledge, and who occupied originally the Ohio and Kanawha River regions, and built mounds and works along New River, were driven east by northern Indians. If so, perhaps they passed through Greenbrier, made a brief stay - long enough to account for our few small mounds and such signs of residents, naturally dropped some equipment along the trails, and went on south, becoming the Mound Builders of Tennessee and North Carolina, the ancestors probably of the Cherokees. The presence of so many cup stones, arrow heads, and other artifacts at Friars Hill is puzzling. The fact that this place was settled in the 1770's would indicate that it was an "old fields" spot, easily taken up for corn cultivation. The use made of the cup stones is unknown, but it has been suggested that they were prepared and left on the field. then the tribe or tribes using them may not have been permanent residents. That may have been a meeting place for intertribal contests, or something of that sort. The many arrow heads and the tradition of small mounds there may have been the natural result of fighting among the contestants. The fact of the mystery of the stones themselves indicates that those Indians and their games or religious rites, or whatever called for for the cup stones, had passed away long before the white people came in contact with them. One historian records that Indians were plentiful in Greenbrier. Probably they were "long-time-transients." Marcellus Zimmerman wrote: "In 1756, when 'Aunt' Rachel Dorman, grandmother of Stephen Dorman, came here from Maryland through the hundreds of miles of forest, a large Indian Village was still standing where Lewisburg now stands. The whites had just forced them to fly, leaving wigwams, provisions and everything behind... Just think of the Aborigines huddled around camp-fires in our streets and yards and gardens. That, though, was a period of history when "History, not wanted yet, Leaned on her elbow watching Time, whose course, Eventful, should supply her with a theme." (The source of this information is not given, and it has not been possible to learn more about "Aunt" Rachel Dorman.) NEXT: THE BROKEN TRAILS