The Packs

The progenitors of this family now in this section of the country 
were on the New River, about the mouth of Indian Creek, as early 
as 1763. Pack,Swope and Pittman, hunters, discovering Indian 
signs, started, one for the Jackson's River, and the other for 
the Catawba settlements, to warn the people, but the Indians had 
traveled faster than the hunters and the warning did not reach 
them. The given name of this hunter, Pack, is not obtainable; it 
is probable that he was the ancestor of the Samuel who was
born in Augusta, in 1760, as members of this family, soon after 
1764, are found along the New River between the mouth of the 
Greenbrier and Indian Creek. A history of this family, from the 
Pack MSS., is interesting and is here inserted:

A Mr. Pack and several sons came to Jamestown, from England, 
with the early settlers on the James. Owing to the hardships 
encountered there they went back to England; later, however, 
three of the sons returned to this country; two of them went 
to the South, and the other remained in Virginia. There were 
born to the last mentioned Pack two sons, one of whom
was named Samuel, who was born in 1760, in Augusta County. 
He had seven sons, whose names were: John, Matthew, Samuel, 
Bartley, Lowe, William and Anderson; the daughters were: Betsey, 
who married Jacob Dickinson; Polly, who married Joe Lively, and 
Jennie, who married Jonah Morriss.

John and Bartley settled at Pack's Ferry, now Summers County; 
Matthew died on the west side of the New river, opposite Pack's 
Ferry; Samuel settled on Glade Creek, in what is now Raleigh 
County; Lowe lived on Brush Creek, in what is now Monroe County; 
William went West; Polly Lively and Betsey
Dickinson lived in Monroe; Jennie Morriss moved to Missouri.

John, the son of the above named Anderson Pack, was taken 
prisoner on Flat Top Mountain during the Civil War, and Colonel 
Hayes, afterward President of the United States, claimed 
relationship with John and told him that his wife's mother was a 
Pack (this was Jennie, who married Jonah Morriss), and
by reason of this John was allowed the privilege of the camp.
John Pack, who lived at Pack's Ferry, had great trouble with the 
Indians; he frequently had to plow with his rifle strapped to 
his shoulder. After friendly relations were secured with the 
Indians, an old Indian came to John Pack's house one day and told 
him that on one occasion he conceived the idea to steal two of 
John's little girls, and when he saw them coming
he hid in an old stump to capture them as they came by, but 
that they were in the course of a foot race when they came up, 
and they passed so quickly that he could not catch them.

Alderman Pack, an ancestor of the above mentioned Packs, was a 
member of Parliament during Cromwell's time, and he moved that 
body to confer the title of Protector on Cromwell. There is 
authority for saying that a Mr.Pack, an English General, who 
fought in the Peninsula Campaign and in France and Portugal 
against Napoleon, was one of the ancestors of the
Packs who came to America and settled on New River. Mrs. 
Emily Landgraff,who lived near Pack's Ferry, said that she had 
seen her grandfather,Samuel Pack, the first Samuel, and that he 
was an old gentleman of the English type, who dressed in the 
frock coat and knee breeches peculiar to the eighteenth century 
and that he wore a cue.

The aforesaid John Pack, who married Jane Hutchinson, was the 
father of the following named children: Samuel, who married 
Harriet French; Rebecca,who married Robert Dunlap; Archibald, 
who married Patsey Peck; Polly, who married Richard Shanklin; 
Rufus, who married Catharine Peters, and Julia, who married 
Elliott Vawter.

Samuel Pack and his wife, Harriet French Pack, who was a 
daughter of Captain David French, had four sons and one daughter; 
the sons were: Captain John A., who married Miss Mary Gooch; 
Allen C., who married Miss Sue Lugar; Samuel, who married Miss 
Sallie Douthat; Charles D., who died unmarried; the daughter, 
Minerva, married Dr. John W. Easley. Samuel Pack,
who married Harriet French, was a lawyer by profession, and 
long practiced in Giles and adjoining counties.