History of West Virginia, Old and New - Chapter VII ADVANCE GUARD OF THE TRANS-ALLEGHANY WEST

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From The History of West Virginia,
Old and New, by James Morton Callahan, 1923, 
Vol. I, pg. 66-79

[Transcriber's Note: Footnotes appear at the end of each page in the original book. 
All footnotes are located at the end of this work. vfc]


CHAPTER VII
ADVANCE GUARD OF THE TRANS-ALLEGHANY WEST

The successful outcome of the final English struggle against French
and Indians determined the destiny of the unsettled trans-Alleghany
territory which English frontiersmen desired to occupy, and opened the
way for permanent foundations of a great republic yet unborn. In
the ten years of peace which followed the peace of 1763 and the defeat of
Pontiac, the frontier line of settlements, disregarding the king's procla-
mation of 1763,(1) advanced across the Alleghanies and through the wil-
derness to the Ohio at an estimated average rate of seventeen miles per
year, until temporarily stopped by the Indian attacks of 1774.

The first settlers of trans-Alleghany Virginia came on foot or on
horseback by the trails or roads which usually followed old Indian paths.
For thirty years wagons were not used for travel or transportation across
the mountains. The two or three wagons that found their way into the
region after the close of the Revolutionary war, or soon thereafter, were
taken along by a slow and laborious process.

Two main routes of travel were opened in the contest for control
of the Ohio, but others farther south became important. Some had
already been used by early traders with the Indians.

Possibly as early as 1740 Virginians, Marylanders and Pennsylvanians
opened trade with the Indians of the Monongahela and in beginning
operations they consulted with Indians in regard to the easiest route
and chose the route later known as Nemacolin's path, leading from the
mouth of Wills creek (Cumberland, Maryland) to the "forks of the
Ohio" (Pittsburgh). This route was cleared and marked in 1750 under
the general direction of Colonel Thomas Cresap of Old Town, Maryland,
for the Ohio Company, by Nemacolin, a Delaware Indian residing at
the mouth of Dunlap's creek, which was first known as Nemacolin's creek.

Another early route was Dunlap's path leading from Winchester via
Wills creek to the mouth of Dunlap's creek. From the mouth of Wills
to the top of Laurel Hill, near the Great Rock, it was identical with that
of Nemacolin. By Virginia statute of 1776, it had a temporary legal
existence as a part of the dividing line between the newly created
counties of Monongalia and Youghiogheny, but later it passed into
oblivion.

Another route, originally an Indian trail, much travelled by early
traders and adventurers, and used by Captain Trent in February, 1754,
on his way to the Monongahela, was the road opened by Colonel James
Burd in 1759 from the summit of Laurel Hill to the mouth of Redstone,
to facilitate communications from Virginia and Maryland to Fort Pitt by
use of river transportation. This road may be regarded as the extension
of Braddock's road to the nearest navigable water of the West, and it
probably led to some settlements between 1759 and 1763 in the vicinity
of the newly erected Fort Burd, at Redstone.

While Braddock's road was under construction across the moun-
tains, in June, 1755, another army road was begun by Pennsylvania,
under superintendence of Colonel James Burd and others, on a route
from Shippensburg via Raystown (Bedford) and the old Turkey Foot
settlement to intersect Braddock's at some convenient point-probably
at Great Crossings (Somerfield). At great cost and with much labor
it was opened to the top of the Alleghany mountains about eighteen
miles from Turkey Foot before the arrival of the alarming news of Brad-
dock's defeat and its opening was completed via Dunbar's camp to Union-
town several years after Forbes' expedition of 1758. It was called the
Turkey Foot road or Smith's road.

Forbes' road was constructed in 1758 through Carlisle and Shippens-
burg to Raystown and thence via Ligonier and Hannastown (Greens-
burg) to the present site of Pittsburgh. To connect with it Washington
in the same year cut a direct road from Cumberland to Raystown.

From Bedford on the old Forbes' route, a western branch known as
the Pennsylvania road via Berlin, Connellsville to Uniontown and thence
to Redstone was subsequently established.

Meantime the combination of Braddock's and Dunlap's road became
known as the established Virginia road.

These two roads-the Pennsylvania and the Virginia-were the two
great emigrant and pack horse routes before 1800. They made Red-
stone a notable place for travel and trade principally for points on the
Ohio but also for higher points on the Monongahela in the present limits
of West Virginia. By 1796 the mouth of Dunlap's creek was a great
shipping place for mill stones made on Laurel hill.

McCulloch's path, an early Indian and traders' trail westward from
Winchester and Moorefield passed up Patterson's creek through Green-
land Gap; crossed the Alleghenies at Mount Storm (in Grant county,
West Virginia), led across Maryland on the general route of the North-
western turnpike to the Little Yough near the route of the B. & O. rail-
way, across the Big Yough, through Herrington and Murley's Glades,
via the Crab Orchard across the Pennsylvania line into Fayette county
east of the summit of Laurel hill which it crossed at Wymp's Gap,
thence (passing slightly north of Morris' Cross Roads) to McCulloch's
old camp on the Monongahela between the mouth of Cheat and Neal's
Perry. This trail was known to the people of the South Branch as
early as 1756. One branch of it reached Cheat river at Dunkard's Bot-
tom (three miles from Kingwood, Preston county), at which the first
permanent settlement was made in 1766. By 1784, this path eastward
from Dunkard's Bottom had become somewhat overgrown with briers,
but a new road from a lower point on Cheat (at Ice's Ferry near the
Pennsylvania line) ascended the Laurel hill north of Cheat, connected
with the main McCulloch path at the ford at James Spurgeon's on Sandy
creek (New Bruceton, Preston county), thence continued northeastward
via the crossing of the Youghiogheny (about fifteen miles from Spur-
geon's), and to Braddock's road. Branching from the McCulloch trail
at or near the present town of German, in Grant county, a path crossed
the Allegheny mountain, or more properly the Backbone mountain,
near the Fairfax stone, thence reaching Cheat river at Horseshoe bend,
in Tucker county. This has been called the Horseshoe trail. William
Mayo knew of that trail as early as 1736, and probably followed it to
the waters of Cheat river. During the French and Indian war an escaped
prisoner, who was making his way home from Ohio, fell on the trail at
the Horseshoe bend, and followed it to the South Branch. Following
his directions, settlers took their way to Cheat river in 1766 and 1769
and located permanently. This was the trail followed by Simpson and
the Pringle brothers, the deserters from Fort Pitt, when they made their
way to the site of Buckhannon and Clarksburg, an account of which
is found in Withers' Border Warfare. The path crossed Tygart's river
below Philippi and passed near Clarksburg. It was of great import-
ance in the early years of the settlement of the present counties of
Tucker, Barbour, Harrison and Upshur.

Twenty miles south of the Fairfax stone, the Shawnee (or Seneca)
trail from the upper waters of the South Branch crossed the Alle-
ghanies to the waters of Cheat near the site of Harmon, thence passing
across the branches of Cheat above the mouth of Horse Camp creek,
near Elkins and Beverly and near Huttonsville. It was much used
by early settlers and became important for a century as the chief high-
way between the South Branch and Tygart's valley. Over it, travelled
hundreds of pack horses loaded with salt, iron, and other merchandise,
and many droves of cattle fattened for the eastern market. In the
Civil War it furnished an avenue of escape for a detachment of Con-
federates cut off from General Garnett's army at the battle of Rich
mountain, five miles west of Beverly, in 1861, and it was used by Imboden
and Jones in driving eastward the horses and cattle captured in their
great raid of 1863. Fifteen miles farther south the Fishinghawk trail
crossed the Allegheny mountain above the Sinks of Gauley, and crossing
Cheat river at the mouth of Fishinghawk creek, entered Tygart valley
at Beverly. The Tygart family fled east by that trail at the time of the
massacre on the site of Beverly in 1754.

Some fifteen miles further south another trail crossed the Alleghenies
from the head of the North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac
to the waters of the Greenbrier river. It crossed the summit of the
main Allegheny mountain in Pocahontas on the route of the later Staun-
ton and Parkersburg turnpike, and passed near the flint mines at Crab
Bottom, in Highland county, Virginia, and Indians who went there for
flint no doubt made use of that path both east and west. It was much
used by early settlers in Greenbrier and Pocahontas counties.

Further south, connecting the Greenbrier valley with the East was
another trail. Over it marched the army led by General Lewis to Point
Pleasant in 1774. Many of the settlers in the Kanawha valley reached
the western country over that trail. It was also one of the highways to
Kentucky. In addition to the principal paths connecting the frontiers
with the East there were trails from settlement to settlement and from
house to house. Paths led also to hunting camps and elsewhere. So
numerous were these trails that a missionary who visited the settlements
of northern and central West Virginia about the close of the Revolu-
tionary war complained that it was with the greatest difficulty he could
get through the country at all.

In the new advance across the mountains, the Scotch-Irish pioneers
were especially prominent. They were the flying column of the nation,
both in gaining possession of the Ohio valley and finally in enforcing
the demand for the entire Mississippi valley. They had a long training
for their appointed mission. The society of pioneers which formed in
the beginning of the eighteenth century in the great valley of Pennsyl-
vania and its lateral extensions was the nursery of the American back-
woodsmen. By 1730 the tide of pioneers began to ascend the Shenandoah
from which it occupied Piedmont; and then, receiving new recruits
from the East, they passed over the mountains to the West; and with
the wall of the Alleghenies between themselves and the East, and with
a new fire, the fire of militant expansion, put into their veins by the cross-
ing, they found new problems which aroused new ambitions.

The Scotch-Irish immigration westward across Pennsylvania from
the Susquehanna began somewhat later after a closer local acquaintance
with the German element. York county was erected 1749, the first county
west of the Susquehanna. Its first election precipitated a riot between
the German and Irish factions. This was followed by a proprietary
order preventing the further sales of York county land to the progressive
Irish. Thus a large number of the latter were encouraged to push north-
westward to the north or Kittatinny valley, a region which in 1750
way formed into Cumberland county, from which by later immigration
were formed several counties including Bedford in 1771, Franklin in
1784, and Mifflin in 1789. Those who remained behind in old York
county to participate in continued political controversy were finally,
in 1800, after a decade of bitter strife and contention, separated from
the stubborn German section of the county by the formation of Adams
county in which the happy Irish faction predominated. But as early
as 1757 the progressive Scotch-Irish began to move farther west and
were supplanted by the thrifty Germans who followed closely upon their
heels.

It was the more southern wholesale Scotch-Irish migration, however,
which carried the Virginia frontier more rapidly toward the Ohio, thus
preparing the way for a larger national history. The advance of the
Virginians into the South Branch country, where Washington became
surveyor of the frontier estates of Lord Fairfax, served to hasten the
final struggle with France beyond the mountains. Looking down the
Monongahela, Virginia saw the gateway of the West and yearned to
possess it. In the crisis resulting from the French advance toward the
gateway, Dinwiddie sent Lord Fairfax's surveyor on the difficult journey
to warn the French against trespass. The encounter which followed
furnished a new opportunity for the Scotch-Irish(2) and began a new
era in American history.

The people were determined to occupy the land without purchase
of Indian titles, and during the peace on the frontier from 1764 to 1774
proceeded first to secure tomahawk rights(3) and soon thereafter to estab-
lish settlement rights-pushing the frontier to the Ohio and into Ken-
tucky. A tomahawk right, respected by the frontiersmen, was often
merged into a settlement right. Although Virginia took no step until
1779 to sell lands in West Virginia, and no titles can be traced beyond
that year, she respected the claims of the earlier settlers and in fact
taxed these settlers on their lands before patents were issued. Pioneers,
in order to hold their 100 acres on a settlement right, erected any kind
of a pole cabin or log cabin near a good spring of water. They could
preempt 100 acres additional if found free of prior claims. Surveys, both
the earlier ones and the later ones, were inaccurate and unsystematic
and laid foundations for many future law suits some of which are still
on the court dockets. In early years, speculators patented large tracts-
10,000 to 500,000 acres-often overlapping scores of farms, but they
could not hold land already occupied, and in many cases the large
tracts were sold for taxes or otherwise transferred to the people in
smaller tracts. These permanent settlements, tentatively beginning as
early as 1764, became especially augmented both in extent and number
from 1772 to 1774, numbering a total population of about 30,000 by
1775. They were seriously affected by the conditions which precipitated
the battle of Point Pleasant in 1774, and by the renewed danger of
Indian attacks beginning about 1777 and continuing in some sections
until the treaty of 1795 following Wayne's victory against the Indians
in northwestern Ohio. Was it any wonder that the Indians fought to
retain a country which they and their fathers had used for a summer
retreat for many generations-a land famous for game and fish and with
abundance of fruits and nuts which could be obtained without toil?

Especially after the treaty of Fort Stanwix(4) the enterprising yeo-
manry actively pushed forward over the mountains to the Greenbrier and
New rivers, to the Monongahela, down the Ohio as far as Grave's creek.
Preparation for settlement further down the Ohio was begun by the
survey of land of George Washington at the mouths of the Kanawhas.
The first settlements made in the District of West Augusta before 1774
were grouped in a circular belt around a large wilderness of heavy forest
land which remained largely unsettled for two decades later. The chief
points of the circle were the Middle New and Greenbrier rivers, thence
westward down the New and Big Kanawha to the Ohio, the Monongahela
with its upper branches (Cheat, Tygart's valley, Buckhannon and West
Fork) and the region around Wheeling and Grave creek on the Ohio.

In 1760 James Moss reared his cabin at Sweet Springs, now in Monroe
county. In 1769 the Woods family settled and built a fort on Rich
creek about four miles east of the site of Peterstown which fourteen
years later became the home of Christian Peters, an American soldier
who served in Lafayette's corps at Yorktown. To the same region in
1770 came the Manns, Cooks, Millers, Alexanders, Nickels, Campbells,
Dunsmores, Hokes, Lakes, Galloways, Sweeneys, Haynes, Erkines,
Grahams, and Hutchinsons-largely from the Virginia valley. Adam
and Jacob Mann (of English origin from Kent) and others built a fort
on Indian creek about ten miles west of the present town of Union;
the Cooks from the valley of Virginia built a few miles from its mouth,
the Keenys later built a fort on Keenys Knobs farther down the river.

By 1769 settlers began to push up the Greenbrier and to form the
more western nuclei of settlements which later contributed to the advance
down the Kanawha, to the Ohio and over the divide to the Monongahela.
A settlement was made at a fort on Wolf creek (Monroe county) and
another farther north (in Greenbrier county) at Fort Spring. In 1769
the first permanent settlement in Greenbrier county was made at Frank-
ford by Colonel John Stuart, Robert McClenachan, Thomas Renick and
William Hamilton followed by others from Augusta county. In the
same year, Thomas Williams settled about two miles south of the site
of Williamsburg and near him William McCoy and William Hughart
established homes. In 1770 on the site of Lewisburg was built the old
Savanna fort which became Fort Union. Later settlements were made
in 1771 at the foot of Hughart's mountain by John Patton and on Cul-
berton's creek by William Blake, in 1772 on Muddy creek by William
McKinney, and in 1773 on Big Clear creek by William McClung (who
patented a large tract on Meadow river) and on the site of Fort Donnally
by Andrew Donnally. In 1774 a settlement was made on the White
Sulphur Springs lands. Farther up the stream by 1773 a settlement
was established at Little Levels (now in Pocahontas) by John McNeil
and others from the lower valley of Virginia.

At the same time settlers began to venture down the Kanawha. In
1770 the land around the site of Montgomery was originally taken up
by Levi Morris who later came by mule from Alexandria, Virginia, and
built the first house there. In 1773 the big bottom survey on which
Charleston now stands, was located by Colonel Thomas Bullitt. In
the same year Walter Kelly from North Carolina invaded the trackless
forest which lay between Camp Union and the mouth of the Kanawha
and made the first family settlement in the Kanawha valley (at the
mouth of Kelly's creek). In 1774, on the site of Old Brownstown (now
Marmet) on the Kanawha, Leonard Morris made a permanent settlement.
The same year settlements were made at the mouth of the Kanawha
(on the site of Point Pleasant), on lands surveyed by George Wash-
ington in 1770. Kelly's place became the point of embarkation for
later home-seekers and travelers from the East and was often called the
"Boat Yards."

Even earlier the pioneer settlers were penetrating into the wilds
drained by the Monongahela. By 1772 nearly all the land in Tygart's
valley was located-although few patents were obtained for it until ten
or fifteen years later. Two forts were built (at Beverly and near Hut-
tonsville) in 1774. In 1764 at the mouth of Turkey creek on Buck-
hannon river a forest camp was established by the Pringles and others
who had deserted from garrison duty at Fort Pitt and after roaming
through Maryland went west down Horseshoe to Cheat thence over
the divide to Tygart's valley. To this camp came prospective settlers
who by 1769 brought their families to the Buckhannon valley and made
several settlements which were followed by others at Booth's creek in
1770 and at Simpson's creek and Hacker's creek in 1772. In 1764 John
Simpson, a trapper from the South Branch established his cabin op-
posite the mouth of Elk creek on the site of Clarksburg, around which
settlers began to locate lands in 1772.

In 1772, Col. William Lowther and his brother-in-law. Jesse and
Elias Hughes, starting from the present site of Clarksburg (to which
they recently moved from the South Branch) followed the West Fork
of the Monongahela to its head waters near the present site of Weston
and crossing the divide followed Sand creek to the Little Kanawha and
proceeded to name the tributary streams, including the Hughes river.
Early in 1773 Lowther built below the site of West Milford a cabin
which was still standing in 1908, and there lie lived until his death in
1814. Jesse Hughes, who had married Miss Grace Tanner (a sister of
one of the pioneer settlers of Roane county) settled on Hacker's creek.

About 1772 or perhaps a year later, Captain James Parsons taking
his brother, Thomas, with him left Moorefield and passed over the Alle-
gheny and Backbone mountains to Cheat by the Horse Shoe trail (pass-
ing near the Fairfax stone)(5) and selected at Horse Shoe some lands for
which they later obtained patents. Later in crossing back and forth on
their fine horses while locating and surveying their lands they stra-
tegically reversed the shoes on their horses in order to elude any strag-
gling bands of Indians who might be tempted to steal a horse to ride.

In 1774 a colony from Moorefield led by John Mhiear built a fort on
the Horse Shoe and cleared some land. In 1776 Minear removed to
St. George where he built a mill. In that year he carried on pack horses
across the mountains the irons for the saw-mill. These families were
long prominent in the history of the region which later became Tucker
county.

By 1766 pioneer settlers reached the middle Monongahela region
now included in Monongalia county. In 1767 the first permanent settle-
ment at Morgantown was made by Zachwell Morgan and others and from
this point David Morgan emigrated up the river to lands now included
in the bounds of Marion county, in which several settlements were made
by 1772. About the same time settlements were made at various points
in the territory now included in Preston county; in 1769 on the waters
of Big Sandy near the sites of Clifton Mills and Bruceton, in 1770 on
the Sandy creek Glades and east of Cheat (the Walls settlement) and
in 1770-73 at Dunkard Bottom by hunters from the South Branch who
led the way for permanent Virginia settlers.

The earliest known settlement of Wheeling was made in 1769 by
Col. Ebenezer Zane and two brothers, who leaving the South Branch
near the present site of Moorefield, followed the trail frequented by
Indians and traders from Cumberland to Redstone fort, the present
site of Brownsville, Pennsylvania, and there, learning of a beautiful
and fertile country bordering the waters of the Ohio, crossed the inter-
vening country to the head-waters of the stream now known as Wheel-
ing creek, and travelled along its banks to its confluence with the Ohio.
Here they marked out a claim on the island in three divisions including
nearly all of the present site of Wheeling and built a rude cabin.(6) In
the following spring Colonel Zane brought his family from the South

Branch via Redstone fort from which they floated down the Monongahela
and the Ohio in canoes and pirogues. With him came Isaac Williams
and domestic servants and laborers who had charge of the live stock.
In 1770 other families from the South Branch joined the settlement
including Col. David Shepherd, John Wetzel and the McCullochs. Con-
stantly recurring warfare with the Indians checked the growth of the
settlement, which in 1782 consisted of a fort and a few log cabins sur-
rounding it. Its early history was made up of almost continuous strug-
gles against the efforts of the savages to destroy it.

These settlements augmented by new arrivals in 1774 constituted
an advance guard through which the Indians must penetrate to reach
the interior in which new accessions were arriving from Maryland,
Pennsylvania, and Virginia. By their position they also became a ren-
dezvous for pioneer speculators who were engaged in entering lands on
the borders of Kentucky and Ohio. In 1774 protection against hostile
Indians was provided by the construction of .Fort Fincastle which at the
formation of Ohio county in 1776 was changed to Fort Henry in honor
of the new governor of Virginia.

South of Wheeling, a settlement begun at Grave creek in 1770, re-
ceived new accessions in 1772.

Northward, in the territory included in Brooke a few settlers ar-
rived in 1772, followed by others in 1774. Farther south, around the
mouth of the Little Kanawha, many tomahawk rights were marked and
several settlements begun between 1772 and 1776. The number of settle-
ments in that vicinity was much increased in 1774 and 1775.

While the Monongahela and Ohio settlements rapidly increased,
the boundary between Virginia and Pennsylvania was still unsettled.
Beyond the western line of Maryland, where Virginia's and Pennsyl-
vania's possessions came in contact, a bitter dispute arose, almost
leading to open hostilities between the people of the two states. Virginia
wanted Pittsburgh, and boldly and stubbornly set up a claim to the
territory at least as far north as the fortieth degree of latitude. This
would have given Virginia part of Fayette and Greene counties in
Pennsylvania. The line to thirty-nine degrees, originally claimed by
Penn as the southern boundary of his grant would have given him a
large part of the Monongahela region which is now included in West
Virginia. In September, 1767, the surveyors of the Mason and Dixon
line, who had been accompanied by an escort of the Six Nations until
they reached Petersburg, Pennsylvania, continued westward from that
point alone beyond the western limit of Maryland marking the northern
boundary of what is now Preston and Monongalia counties. They were
threatened and finally stopped near Mt. Morris on Dunkard creek, at
the crossing of the Warrior branch of the Great Catawba war path, by
the Delawares and Shawnees who claimed to be tenants of the country.
The survey was not finally completed until seventeen years later.

In 1773 Governor Dunmore of Virginia sent Dr. John Connolly to
Fort Pitt to resist occupation by Pennsylvania which had just estab-
lished courts at Hanna's Town (near Greensburg) with determination
to exercise jurisdiction over the lower Monongahela valley. He soon
occupied Fort Pitt, changed the name to Fort Dunmore, and established
a rival court and rival magistrates precipitating the bitter struggle
which'was stopped only by the Revolution.

Lord Dunmore's war was the inevitable culmination of a long series
of mutual grievances and outrages between the Indians of the Ohio
valley and the Scotch-Irish and German frontiersmen of western Virginia
and Pennsylvania who had, with migratory instinct after the close of
the French and Indian war and the smothering of Pontiac's conspiracy-
and in spite of the policy of the English government-relentlessly pushed
westward, converting aboriginal hunting grounds first into their own
game forests and then into virgin farms. Although the native title to
lands eastward from the Ohio to the mountains was quieted in 1768
by the treaty of Fort Stanwix, and reinforced in 1770 by the treaty of
Lochaber with the southern Indians whose boundary was then fixed at
the Kentucky river, many of the Indians denied the validity of the
cessions.

Year by year the exasperation of the borderers, planted firmly among
the Alleghenies, grew greater, and the tale of wrongs they had to
avenge, grew longer. The savages grew continually more hostile, and
in the fall of 1773 their attacks became so frequent that it was evident
that a general outbreak was at hand. The Shawnees located on the
Scioto were the leaders in all these outrages; but the outlaw bands,
such as the Mingoes and the Cherokees, were as bad, and were joined
by parties of Wyandottes and Delawares, as well as various Miami and
Wabash tribes.

The spring of 1774 opened with everything ripe for an explosion.
Borderers were anxious for a war. Early in the spring, when the hostile
Shawnees began their outrages, Lord Dunmore's lieutenant (Dr. Con-
nolly), issued an open letter commanding the backwoodsmen to hold
themselves in readiness to repel an attack by the Indians. All the bor-
derers instantly prepared for war, and were anxious to find an oppor-
tunity to fight. Cresap (7) and others near Wheeling regard Connolly's
letter as a declaration of war. "Cresap's war" was the result.

Border warfare was precipitated by an attack on Indians at the
mouth of Captina creek and a general fight of Indians and whites at
a rum dispensary opposite the mouth of Yellow creek-resulting in
the death of almost all the members of Chief Logan's family. Lord
Dunmore, although lie acted with discretion, was ambitious for glory
and properly thought that a war against the Indians would prove a
political measure to distract attention from the growing difficulties
between the mother country and the colonies.

Later, when the Indians rose to avenge the murder of Logan's fam-
ily in "Cresap's war," Dunmore himself prepared for the attack.
Apprized by messengers from Cresap and Connolly that the frontier
settlers were alarmed at the situation he promptly sent a defensive and
punitive force of upper Potomae settlers (about 400 in number) under
Major Angus McDonald(8) who hastened to Wheeling, erected Fort
Fincastle, and after descending the Ohio in canoes and boats to the
mouth of Captina creek invaded the Shawnee country and destroyed
their towns and cornfields as far as Wappatomica (on the Muskingum)
near the site of Coshocton.

The little army suffered many hardships, and encountered many
perils. At times their only sustenance consisted of weeds and one ear
of corn a day. The soldiers returned in a few weeks without serious
loss. This forceful invasion of the Indian country was sufficient declara-
tion of war, and produced a general combination of the various Indian
tribes northwest of the Ohio.

Soon thereafter Dunmore raised an army of two wings or divisions(9)
each 1,500 strong, one to advance under Dunmore over a northern route
via Fort Pitt and to descend the Ohio to the mouth of the Kanawha
to meet the other, an army composed of backwoodsmen under Gen.
Andrew Lewis, which was instructed to rendezvous at Fort Union and
march down the Kanawha.

The backwoodsmen of the Alleghenies felt that the quarrel was their
own and were eager to fight. They were not uniformed save that they
all wore the garb of the frontier hunter; most of them were armed with
good rifles and all were skillful woodsmen, and although they were
utterly undisciplined they were magnificent individual fighters.

On September 8th with 1,110 men Lewis advanced on a fatiguing
march, making his road as he went, from Camp Union, guided by Capt.
Mathew Arbuckle (an experienced frontiersman) along the trail via
Muddy creek, Keeny's Knob, Rich creek, Gauley, Twenty Mile, Bell
creek and Kelley's creek to the Kanawha (September 21) which was
followed to its mouth (some in canoes and some by trail).

It was a distance of one hundred and sixty miles from Camp Union
to their destination at the mouth of the Kanawha. The regiments passed
through a trackless forest so rugged and mountainous as to render their
progress extremely tedious and laborious. They marched in long files
through "the deep and gloomy wood" with scouts or spies thrown out,
in front and on the flanks, while axmen went in advance to clear a
trail over which they would drive the beef cattle, and the pack-horses,
laden with provisions, blankets and ammunition. They struck out
straight through the dense wilderness, making their road as they went.
On September 21st they reached the Kanawha at the mouth of Elk
creek (present site of Charleston). Here they halted and built dug-
out canoes for baggage transportation upon the river. A portion of the
army proceeded down the Kanawha, while the other section marched
along the Indian trail, which followed the base of the hills, instead
of the river bank, as it was thus easier to cross the heads of the creeks
and ravines. Their long and weary tramp was ended October 6, when
they camped on the high triangular point of land jutting out on the
north side of the Kanawha river where it empties into the Ohio.

At his camp, at Point Pleasant, General Lewis anxiously awaited
Dunmore, whom he expected to join him, but who meantime had de-
cided to march direct to the Scioto to a point not far from the Indian
town of Chillicothe near the Pickaway plains.

While the backwoods general was mustering his "unruly and turbu-
lent host of skilled riflemen" the Earl of Dunmore had led his own
levies, some fifteen hundred strong, through the mountains at the Poto-
mac Gap to Fort Pitt. Here he changed his plans and decided not to
attempt uniting with Lewis at Point Pleasant. Taking as scouts George
Rogers dark, Michael Cresap, Simon Kenton and Simon Girty, he
descended the Ohio river with a flotilla of a hundred canoes, besides
keel boats and pirogues, to the mouth of the Hockhocking, where he
built and garrisoned a small stockade, naming it Fort Gower. Thence
he proceeded up the Hockhocking to the falls, moved overland to the
Scioto, finally halting on the north bank of the Sippo creek four miles
from its mouth to the Scioto, and about the same distance east of Old
Chillicothe, now Westfall, Pickaway county. He entrenched himself in a
fortified camp, with breastworks of fallen trees, so constructed as to
embrace about twelve acres of ground.

Finally on October 9th General Lewis received through messenger
(Simon Girty and others) Dunmore's orders to cross the Ohio to meet
him before the Indian towns near the Pickaway plains. Although deeply
displeased at this change in the campaign, he arranged to break camp
that he might set out the next morning in accordance with his superior's
orders. He had with him about eleven hundred men. His plans, how-
ever, were rudely forestalled.

During the night Chief Cornstalk-who, after an unsuccessful at-
tempt to prevent the war, was now determined to bring it to a successful
issue, and who, seeing his foes divided, had determined to strike first
the division that would least expect the blow-ferried across the Ohio on
improvised rafts a few miles above Lewis' camp his 1,000 braves, picked
warriors from between the Ohio and the Great Lakes. Before daylight
the alarm was given in the camp and the drums beat to arms. General
Lewis, thinking he had only a scouting party to meet, ordered out
Col. Charles Lewis and Colonel Fleming each with 150 men. Later, when
the ringing sound of the rifles announced that the attack was serious,
Colonel Field was at once dispatched to the front with 200 men just
in time to sustain the line which, with the wounding of Lewis and Flem-
ing, had given way except in a few places. He renewed the attack,
which after his death was continued by Capt. Evan Shelby. The fight
was a succession of single combats. The hostile lines although over
a mile in length were never more than twenty yards apart. Through-
out the action the whites opposite Cornstalk could hear him cheering
his braves to be strong. Shortly after noon the Indians began to fall
back and by one o'clock the action had ceased except the skirmishing
which continued until sunset. Although the Indians had reached a
position rendered strong by underbrush, many fallen logs and steep
banks, under cover of the darkness they slipped away and made a skill-
ful retreat. The whites, though the victors, had suffered more than
their foes and had won the battle only because it was against the entire
policy of Indian warfare to suffer a severe loss, even if a victory could
be saved thereby.

The battle of Point Pleasant was distinctly an American victory,
fought solely by the backwoodsmen, and as purely a soldiers' battle in
which there was no display of generalship except on Cornstalk's part.
It was the most closely contested of any battle fought with the north-
western Indians and the only victory gained over a large body of them
with a force but slightly superior in numbers. Although to call it "the
first battle of the American Revolution" would be inaccurate, it was of
the greatest advantage to the American cause in the struggle for inde-
pendence: for it kept the northwestern Indians quiet for the first two
years of the Revolutionary struggle. It was almost equivalent to the
winning of the Northwest: for if it had not been possible to occupy that
region during the early years of the Revolution, it is not improbable that
the treaty of 1783 might have fixed the western boundary of the United
States at the Alleghenies. It opened an ever-lengthening pathway to
western settlement. "Thenceforward new vigor was infused into the
two chief forces of the country-American expansion and American
nationalism."

Lewis, leaving his sick and wounded in the camp at the Point, and
reinforced by the arrival of the Fincastle men under Colonel Christian
who reached the ground at midnight after the battle, crossed the Ohio
with a thousand men and pushed on to the Pickaway plains. When
but a few miles from Lord Dunmore's encampment he heard that ne-
gotiations for a treaty of peace with the Indians were in progress. His
backwoodsmen, however, flushed with their success and eager for more
bloodshed were with difficulty restrained; but although grumbling
against the earl for sending them back they were finally induced to
march homeward after the treaty at Camp Charlotte.

Lord Dunmore's war was a focal point in western history. In it
fought the daring frontiersmen who had carried American institutions
across the Appalachian barrier, and who later became the rear guard
of the Revolution.

A plan to found a new province in the Ohio valley, first urged by
Dinwiddie as early as 1756, assumed definite shape in 1771 when Thomas
Walpole, Benjamin Franklin and others submitted to the king a peti-
tion for a grant of land including the larger part (forty counties) of
the territory now included in West Virginia and the eastern part of
Kentucky which they proposed to form into a colony under the name
of Vandalia, the capital of which they proposed to locate at the mouth
of the Great Kanawha (now Point Pleasant). The king favored this
project to organize the sparsely settled Virginia hinterland into a four-
teenth colony with a government more dependent upon the crown than
those of the older thirteen, but in 1775 the execution of the draft of the
royal grant was postponed to await the cessation of hostilities which
finally closed only with the complete loss of English jurisdiction between
the Atlantic and the Mississippi.

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Chapter Footnotes:

(1) In the decade between the French and Indian war and the opening of the
Revolution, settlements could be made only in opposition to the policy of the
English government. Although Governor Dinwiddie in 1754 in order to encourage
volunteers to enter military service had set apart 100,000 acres along the Ohio to
be granted to soldiers, George III, desiring that the trans-Allegheny region should
remain a hunting ground for the Indians, or at least expecting to control the
later settlement and government of the territory, on October 7, 1763, issued a
proclamation forbidding the colonists to grant warrants, surveys or patents in
the territory until it could be opened by treaties with the Indians-thus theoretically
extinguishing their titles to lands beyond the proclamation line. Two years later
he directed the governors of Virginia and Pennsylvania to remove by force all
settlers in that region-an order which was never executed in Virginia.

 (2) The Scotch-Irish were proud of their ancestry and desired to be distinguished
from the real Irish. This is illustrated by the following incident:  Joseph and
Samuel McClung had charge of the collection of the tithes on the watershed of
the Greenbrier. In 1775 they posted a list of the men liable for this tax. At that
time Andrew Donally was living in that section, on Sinking Creek. In some way
they had heard a rumor that Donally had changed his name by omitting the O; the
rumor stating that he was a papist and that his name was really O'Donnally. So in
posting the lists they placed the O before his name. Donally's wrath was great.
A verbal apology would not suffice, He compelled these two gentlemen to have
prepared a formal instrument setting out the facts, and apologizing for the insult,
which paper after being witnessed by Wm. Hamilton; Wm. McClennahan, James
Hughart and Richard May (his neighbors) was taken before the May term of the
Botetourt County Court, 1776, where it was proved and in due and solemn form
ordered to be recorded.

(3) From 1766 to 1777 inclusive, 1,197 tomahawk claims were marked within the
limits of the old Monongahela county of the Revolution, and later established
before commissioners. These homestead rights increased from 7 in 1766 and 22 in
1769 to 91 in 1770, 143 in 1772, and 247 in 1773, then decreased to 168 in 1774,
but increased to 227 in 1775.

(4) By the terms of the treaty of Fort Stanwix (now Rome, New York) in 1768
the Six United Nations ceded to the King of England practically all of West
Virginia, except what is known as the "Indiana Cession," a large territory north
of the Little Kanawha (about 4,950 square miles), which they reserved and
granted to Captain William Trent and other Indian traders in consideration of
merchandise taken from them by the Indians on the Ohio in 1763. The General
Assembly of Virginia repudiated the title of the traders who therefore never came
into possession of any part of the cession.

(5) This route was first discovered about 1762-63 by James Parsons in finding
his way eastward across western Virginia from the region beyond the Ohio to
which the Indians had carried him after capturing him at his home near Moore-
field. It was also used about the same time by the two Pringle brothers who after
desertion from Fort Pitt in 1761 had found their way via Geneva, Pennsylvania, to
the Glades of Preston county (near Aurora) and later (feeling insecure from the
visits of an increasing number of hunters from the South Branch) pushed farther
toward the interior (to the Buckhannon river) in company with a straggler named
Simpson who passed on to establish his cabin at the site of the future town of
Clarksburg.

(6) It was in December, 1767, that Col. Zane, "who was the first to explore the
country from the South Branch of the Potomac, through the Allegheny glades, to
the Ohio River, set out, on an expedition, thither to make a location. He was
accompanied on that excursion by Isaac Williams, two men named Robinson, and
some others; but setting off rather late in the season, and the weather being very
severe, they were compelled to return without having penetrated to the Ohio river.
While crossing the glades they were overtaken by a violent snow storm. This is
always a cold and stormy region but at this time the snow fell to an unusual
depth, and put a stop to their further progress. It was followed by intensely cold
weather, which, with the great depth of snow, disabled them from supplying the
necessities of their camp by hunting, and they were compelled to subsist upon
the peltries of the animals killed in the early part of their journey. Before they
were able to retrace their steps homeward, they were much reduced in health and
spirits. On the way home, such was the extremity of the cold, that one of the
Robinsons died of its effects, Williams was much frost-bitten, and the whole party
suffered exceedingly."

The succeeding spring, 1768, Col. Zane finally left his home on the South
Branch, with his family and household goods, accompanied by two younger brothers,
some negro slaves and other laborers, to found a new home somewhere in these
Western wilds. Taking the trail of the Indian traders from Ft. Cumberland, his
journey brought him to the waters of the Monongahela, at Redstone Old Fort,
now Brownsville, Pa. Here he remained a year, but not liking the country, nor
the quality of the land in that vicinity, he concluded to make a wider excursion
in search of a more eligible location. Leaving his family at Redstone he pushed
forward through an unbroken wilderness, in company with his brothers Jonathan
and Silas, carrying a pack of meal, which together with the game their guns and
dogs could provide, furnished their meals of subsistence. After many days' journey
they struck the waters of Wheeling Creek. He was accustomed in after years to
describe the impression of this scene as like a vision of Paradise.

They succeeded in ferrying themselves to the other side. Here, on instituting
an examination, they were surprised to find an island, where they had expected to
find a large and compact body of land connected with and forming part of the
western shore. Staking out their claim on it and returning to the eastern side they
marked out other claims to the choicest land, and set about such "improvements"
as would confirm the title until the regular state patent could be obtained. When a
rude cabin had been built, sufficient clearing made, and all the preparations made
for future occupancy, it was determined to leave Silas Zane in charge of their
interests while the others returned to Redstone for the family, household goods,
horses and cattle, with which they were to begin a new life in the wilderness.
Thus, in September, 1769, was laid the foundation of what is now the large, populous
and prosperous city of Wheeling.

(7) Most prominent among the leaders of the whites in this Indian warfare was
Captain Michael Cresap, a Marylander, who removed to the Ohio early in 1774,
and after establishing himself below the Zane settlement (Wheeling) organized a
company of pioneers for protection against the Indians. He was appointed by
Connolly, a captain of the militia of the section in which he resided, and was later
put in command of Fort Fincastle.  He was a fearless and persistent Indian
fighter, and jnst the one to lead retaliatory parties across the Ohio into the
red men's country. As soon as Cresap's band received Connolly's letter they pro-
ceeded to declare war in regular Indian style, calling a council, planting the war
post, etc. What is sometimes known as ''Cresap's war'' ensued. Several Indians
while descending the Ohio in their canoes were killed by Cresap's company. Other
Indians were shot within the Ohio border by intruding and exasperated whites. 
When Logan, chief of the Mingos, established a camp near the mouth of Yellow
creek, about forty miles above Wheeling, it was regarded as a hostile demonstration.
Cresap and his party, at first proposed to attack, but finally decided otherwise.

Logan's people, however, did not escape. Opposite the mouth of Yellow creek
on the Virginia side of the Ohio resided the unscrupulous Daniel Greathouse, and
fellow frontiersmen. They kept a carousing resort, known as Baker's Bottom,
where the Indians were supplied with rnm, at Baker's cabin. On the last day of
April, a party of nine Indians from Logan's camp, on the invitation of Greathouse,
visited Baker's place and while plied with liquor wore set upon and massacred.
The nine included a brother and sister of Logan, the latter being the reputed
squaw of John Gibson. Michael Cresap was not present and had nothing to do
with the deed, but Logan evidently believed him to be the guilty party. Vengeance
and retaliation were resorted to equally by both sides.

(8) The decision to send this force was probably in part the result of the
action of Indians in preventing McDonald from completing a survey of some lands.
The royal authority had promised the Virginian troops a bounty in these western
lands as reward for their services in the French and Indian war. A section had
been allowed them by royal proclamation on the Ohio and Kanawha rivers. When
in the spring of 1774 McDonald and party proceeded to survey these lands they
were driven off by the Indians.

(9) In August the governor began his preparations and the plan for the campaign
agreed upon. An army for offensive operations was called for. Dunmore directed
this army should consist of volunteers and militiamen, chiefly from the countries
west of the Blue Ridge. The northern division, comprehending the troops col-
lected in Frederick, Dunmore (now Shenandoah), and adjacent counties, was to be
commanded by Lord Dunmore in person; the southern division comprising the dif-
ferent companies raised in Botetourt, Augusta and adjoining counties east of the
Blue Ridge, was to be led by General Lewis. The two armies were to proceed
by different routes, unite at the mouth of the Big Kanawha, and from thence cross
the Ohio and penetrate the northwest country, defeat the red men and destroy all
the Indian towns they could reach.