History of West Virginia, Old and New - Chapter IX 
NEW CALL OF THE FRONTIER: AWAKENING OF THE WEST

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Submitted by Valerie Crook, <vfcrook @earthlink.net>

From The History of West Virginia,
Old and New, by James Morton Callahan, 1923, 
Vol. I, pg. 94-

[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 IX
NEW CALL OF THE FRONTIER: AWAKENING OF THE WEST

At the close of the Revolution, Washington, the prophet of the West,
who had been interested in the trans-Allegheny region for more than
three decades, again directed his attention to the region beyond the
Alleghenies and to the problems of the West. He became a promoter
of expansion of internal improvements, recognizing that the awaken-
ing and encouragement of the West was the hope of the East. In-
stead of resting peacefully in slippers and armchair before a Mount
Vernon fireplace, after retirement from the honors with which he had
been loaded, he promptly decided to make a journey into the western
wilds, partly to look after his neglected farms in western Pennsylvania
and partly to obtain information in regard to the best possible routes
for communication between East and West. The leader of the ragged
armies became a leader in facing the problems of expansion and unifica-
tion. His anxious eyes were looking at the doors of the Allegheny
wall and specially to the waterways which might be utilized in secur-
ing a commercial union of the East with the West. While contemplat-
ing national problems, he had the spirit of the West, which he desired to
open to the flood-tides of pioneers and to weld to the East by the bands
of commerce.

He still had faith in the trans-Allegheny region in which he had
learned his earliest lessons in war-first as commander of the Virginia
expedition of 1754, next in the march with "Bulldog" Braddock in
1755, and finally as leader of the vanguard of Forbes' army to the
capture of Fort Duquesne. To him it was no encumbrance. To study
its problems and to render additional aid in awakening it from the
sleep of ages, he made his last ride over the Alleghenies-a remarkable
ride which involved many inconveniences and hardships, including one
night in the rain amid the Alleghenies 300 miles from home and with
only a cloak for a cover. His diary of this trip and its affiliated cor-
respondence reflect the enterprising heart of the man who first saw
the light of a better day for America, and show he was the greatest
man in America. Leaving his home on September 1, 1784, a day after
Lafayette had completed a two weeks' visit with him, he traveled via
Leesburg and Smickers' Gap to the Shenandoah, thence via Charles-
town, Back creek (near Martinsburg), Bath (Berkeley Springs) and
Old Town to Cumberland, thence over the worn path of Braddock's
road to Simpson's (near Connellsville) and thence northwest to his
lands on a branch of Chartiers creek (north of Washington, Pennsyl-
vania).

At Bath he was shown a model of Rumsey's new steamboat con-
structed for sending rapid current and from it he obtained a new idea
of revolutionizing the trade of the West and the awakening of America.

As he crossed the Alleghenies, which he hoped to annihilate more
effectively than Braddock's road had done, he saw evidence of the great
migration which had just begun.

At Simpsons where still stands the old mill which may be regarded
as a monument to the unknown Washington who dreamed of the new
America, he received an odd Scotch-Irish delegation of rough frontiers-
men who had squatted on his rich land in western Pennsylvania and
against them he became plaintiff in suits. This is an interesting specific
instance of a western contest for squatter's rights and tomahawk claims.

Here he learned for the first time that the survey of the Mason and
Dixon line westward from the corner of Maryland had left the mouth
of Cheat river in Pennsylvania thus disappointing his plans for an all
Virginia route to the Ohio via Cheat, the West Fork and Monongahela
and the Little Kanawha.

On September 22, after spending several days in the neighborhood
of Washington, Pennsylvania, Washington started on his return trip.
Stopping at Beasontown (Uniontown) to engage an attorney to prosecute
his suit, he learned that the West Fork of the Monongahela had its
headwaters very near to the waters of the Little Kanawha, and that
Cheat river was navigable to Dunkard's bottom from which a road was
already marked across the mountain to the Potomac with a view to
obtain further information in regard to waterway route he sent his
baggage back by the old route and decided to return part of the way
by an unknown route, southward via Pt. Marion, Pennsylvania, and
across the dividing ridge toward the site of Morgantown.

At the surveyor's office at the house of John Pierpont (about four
miles from Morgantown) he stayed all night, and sent for Zackwell
Morgan from whom he received information in regard to three routes
east of the Potomac. Here also he met Albert Gallatin who possibly
received from him the first inspiration for a system of internal im-
provements.

After leaving Pierponts he crossed Cheat at Ice's Ferry (the old
McCulloch's landing), followed the "New road" eastward over Laurel
Hill to Bruceton, thence southward and eastward to the North Branch,
crossing the Yongh near the site of Webster Switch on the B. and O.
railroad where a bridge was later erected on the old pioneer "Moore-
field Road."(1) From the North Branch he continued southeastward
to the upper waters of the South Branch (above Moorefield) and thence
through Brook's Gap to Staunton, thence eastward and northeastward
to his home. Immediately upon his return to Mount Vernon he drew
a plan for commercial union of the Monongahela with Virginia by the
Potomac river route. Referring to certain objections of Philadelphia
merchants Washington said that there were in western Pennsylvania
100,000 inhabitants, many of whom thought of demanding separation
from Pennsylvania in case the most practical water communication with
the sea board should be kept closed on account of selfish interests, and
that they had a right to demand that Pennsylvania should open the
communication which would benefit them most. In presenting the whole
plan to Governor Harrison on October 10, 1784, he also referred to the
unfortunate jealousy of the Potomac region felt by the James river
region.

Largely as a result of Washington's efforts Virginia and Maryland
in 1785 authorized the formation of a company to open the navigation
of the Potomac and to construct a highway from the uttermost western
waters, and requested Pennsylvania to improve the navigation of any
stream in her territory which was found to be the best avenue between
the Potomac and the Ohio. Washington was selected as the president
of the Potomac Company which was organized in the same year, and
he selected Mr. Rumsey as superintendent of its construction which was
soon begun. Considering the spirit of emigration and other signs of a
new awakening, he wrote Richard Henry Lee (on December 14, 1785)
suggesting the wisdom of congressional action to have the western waters
explored and chartered and to mark a smooth road to the West to make
easy the way "before we make any stir about the navigation of the
Mississippi."

Other phases of the awakening of the West which were important
events in the early development of western Virginia, or events in west-
ern Virginia in which western Virginia felt a live interest, arid in which
Washington's influence and service were also of great use were:

(1) State cessions of trans-Ohio territory to the national government;

(2) Organization of the northwest territory in 1787;

(3) Efforts at adjustment of the Indian problem in the new territory, finally
resulting in the Wayne's victory of 1794 and the treaty of Greenville in 1795;

(4) Provision in the Jay's treaty of 1794 for withdrawal of the British from
Detroit and other frontier posts;

(5) Negotiating on the question of the navigation of the lower Mississippi,
resulting in the temporary adjustment of 1795 with Spain-an adjustment which
prepared the way for the later permanent adjustment by the acquisition of
Louisiana;

(6) The establishment of a post office at Morgantown and Wheeling in 1794,
and of mail boats on the Ohio in 1795;

(7) The opening of Zanes' Trace as a direct mail route from Wheeling via
Zanesville, Lancaster and Chillicothe to the northern bank of the Ohio opposite
Limestone (Maysville) Ky. in 1796; and

(8) The admission of Kentucky and Tennessee as states-(Kentucky in 1792,
and Tennessee in 1796);

Western Virginia had a special interest in the Indian question
which was the storm center of western politics for over a decade after.
the close of the Revolution. The territory east of the Ohio was still
not entirely free from danger of Indian raids after the treaty of Fort
Mclntosh negotiated in 1785, the expedition of George Rogers dark
up the Wabash in 1786, the Harmar expedition of 1787-88, and the
treaty of Port Harmar in 1789. It could not feel sure of complete
safety until the Indians who swarmed the valley of the Wabash could
be confined to that valley. With a view to greater security for the entire
Ohio frontier, President Washington, in 1791, authorized an expedi-
tion which, starting from the mouth of the Kentucky river, pushed
through woods of the Indiana country and attacked the Weas towns
(near the site of Lafayette, Indiana), and destroyed the growing corn
at Ouiatanon. Soon thereafter, in October, 1791, he authorized an
expedition which advanced northward from Cincinnati under command
of St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory-an expedition which
terminated in an inglorious defeat, resulting in new Indian raids and
bold demands for retention of the land north of the Ohio and west of
the Muskingum.

Finally Washington appointed to the command on the Ohio the
famous General Anthony Wayne, who promptly began the active prepara-
tion of a new army at Fort Washington (Cincinnati), in 1793 (after
failure of negotiations) moved northward into the Indian country and
built Port Greenville, and in the summer of 1794 advanced again,
erected Fort Defiance, and defeated the Indians who attacked him at
Fallen Timbers on the Maumee. The result of this expedition, and of
Wayne's victory, was the Treaty of Greenville of 1795, which, together
with the surrender of the British posts at Detroit and at other points
along the Canadian boundary, gave the hope of permanent security to
the upper Ohio region.

All forts built between 1783 and 1795 (a period in which the com-
munities were frequently troubled by wandering bands of Indians)
were built on the Kanawha or near the mouth of the Little Kanawha.
Those on the Kanawha were:

	Fort Tackett, erected after 1783, one-half mile below the mouth of Coal river
in Jefferson district, Kanawha county;
	Fort Lee, erected in 1788 on the site of the present city of Charleston;
	Fort Cooper, erected in 1792, eight miles from the mouth of the Kanawha in
what is now Cooper district, Kanawha county.
	Near the month of the Kanawha, opposite the foot of Six-Mile Island in the
Ohio river, now in Robinson district, Mason county, Fort Robinson was constructed
in 1794.

Those near the mouth of the Little Kanawha were:

	Fort Neal (Neal's Station) erected after 1783, one mile from the mouth of the
Little Kanawha, nearly opposite the city of Parkersburg;
	Fort Belleville built in 1785-86 by Captain Joseph Wood and ten men hired
in Pittsburgh as laborers for a year, on the site of the present village of Belle-
ville, in Harris district, Wood county;
	Fort Flinn, built in 1785 at the mouth of Lee creek in Harris district, Wood
county.

The spirit of the new era of nationality and expansion was felt in
the older communities. Although western development was retarded
for a time by the conditions of the critical period preceding the adop-
tion of a new constitution, and for a time thereafter by the fear of
Indian attacks on the western frontier, there was a steady growth in
the older settlements and an increasing movement to form new settle-
ments.

In the region which now constitutes the eastern panhandle, Middle-
town was established in 1787 and Drakesville in 1791. The increase of
settlement in Hampshire county is indicated by the establishment of
new towns: Watsontown in 1787, and Springfield (at Cross Roads) in
1790. In 1786 the new county of Hardy was formed with the county
seat at Moorefield which had been established on the land of Conrad
Moore in 1777.

In 1793 the alarm created by prowling bands along the upper
Kanawha and lower New was quieted by the organization of a company
of men under Captain Hugh Caperton of the Greenbrier section to
proceed to the Elk and to scout the country to the Ohio. After 1795
settlers from Greenbrier and the Kanawha began to occupy new lands
in the region which in 1818 was formed into the new county of
Nicholas (formed from Kanawha, Greenbrier and Randolph).

In Fayette near Montgomery a large tract of land was secured by
Henry Montgomery after his service in the Point Pleasant campaign
and was used by him as a stock farm. In the vicinity of Ansted the
earliest settlers were Baptist squatters who arrived about 1790. At
Sewell, Peter Bowyer settled in 1798 and established a ferry.

The Bullett lands including the site of Charleston were purchased
in 1788 by George Clendenin of Greenbrier who brought with him sev-
eral daring pioneers. Fort Clendenin was built in 1788. Attack upon
it by Indians in 1791 was the occasion of the famous historic ride of
"Mad Anne Bailey" up New river to Fort Union to secure needed
supplies.

Of all the celebrated characters of pioneer times, there were none more re-
markable than Anne Bailey, the pioneer heroine of the Great Kanawha valley. Her
maiden name was Hennis and she was born in Liverpool, England, in the year
1742. When she was in her nineteenth year, her parents both having died; she
crossed the ocean to find relatives of the name of Bell, then (1761) residing near
Staunton, Virginia. Here soon after (1765) she wedded Richard Trotter, a dis-
tinguished frontiersman and a survivor of Braddock's defeat.

A cabin was reared near where Swope's Depot on the Chesapeake and Ohio
Railway now stands, and there in 1767 a son, William, was born. The year 1774
brought with it Dunmore's War, and Richard Trotter enlisted in General Lewis'
army and at the battle of Point Pleasant, October 10, 1774, yielded up his life
in an attempt to plant civilization on the banks of the Ohio.

From the moment the widow heard of her husband's death, a strange, wild
fancy seemed to possess her, and she resolved to avenge his death. Leaving her
little son to the care of a neighbor, Mrs. Moses Mann, she at once entered upon
a career which has no parallel in Virginia annals. Clad in the costume of the
border, she hastened away to the recruiting stations, where she urged enlistments
with all the earnestness which her zeal and heroism inspired. Then she became
a nurse, a messenger, a scout, and for eleven years she fearlessly dashed along
the whole western border, going wherever her services required, and thus the wilder-
ness road from Staunton to Point Pleasant was all familiar to her.

November 3, 1785, at Lewisburg, in Greenbrier county, she was married a
second time, her husband being John Bailey, a distinguished frontiersman from
the Eoanoke river. Fort Lee was erected by the Clendenins on the present site of
the city of Charleston in 1788-89 and to it John Bailey and his heroic bride at
once removed.

In 1791, the fort was besieged by a large body of Indians, and to the terror
of the garrison, it was found that the supply of powder in the magazine was almost
exhausted. A hundred miles of wilderness lay between Fort Lee and Lewisburg,
the only place from which a supply of powder could come. Colonel George Clen-
denin, the commandant at Fort Lee, asked for volunteers to go to Lewisburg,
but not a soldier in that garrison would brave the task. Then was heard in a
female voice the words "I will go," and every inmate of the fort recognized
the voice of Anne Bailey.

The fleetest horse in the stockade was brought out and the daring rider mounted
and disappeared in the forest. Onward she sped. Darkness and day were one to
her. It was a ride for life and there could be no stop. Lewisburg was reached;
there was but a short delay, and she was returning with two horses laden with
powder. The garrison in Fort Lee welcomed her return, and she entered it, as she
had left it, under a shower of balls. The men thus supplied, sallied forth and
forced the savages to raise the siege.

At Clendenin in 1789 the first court of the newly formed county was
held. By act of 1794 Charleston became a town. Below Charleston on
the Kanawha settlements were retarded. On December 12, 1791, Daniel
Boone (then a resident of the Kanawha) writing briefly concerning
conditions in the Valley said: "From the Pint (Point Pleasant) to
Alke (Elk) 60 miles; no inhabitants; from Aike to the Bote Yards
(mouth of Kelley's creek), 20 miles; all inhabited."(2) In 1788 at the
mouth of Coal river, Lewis Tackett, who came with the Clendenins,
erected a fort-the only one between Fort Donnally and Point Pleasant.
In the same year his fort was destroyed by a band of Shawnees from
the Scioto. Not until twelve years later Stephen Teays came from
Virginia and established below Coalsmouth a ferry and an inn for
travellers between the East and the Ohio valley.

After 1794 settlements along the Kanawha above Coalsmouth de-
veloped rapidly. From the region at the mouth Mason county was
formed in 1804. The new county was long retarded in development.
Point Pleasant which was first settled in 1774 on lands surveyed by
Washington four years earlier, did not grow for many years. Residents
had a superstition that the cruel murder of Cornstalk in 1777 had caused
a curse to rest upon the place.

Following the Revolution, settlers in the region now included in
Mercer and McDowell counties had experiences with the Indians which
did not encourage the expansion of their settlements. Their difficulties
are illustrated by the following incidents:

Starting on the fall hunt with his sons on November 12, 1788, Captain Henry
Harman, who, after a stay near Salem, North Carolina, had settled in New river
valley in 1758 and later on Kimberling creek, met a party of Indians who fired
on him on the right bank of Tug Fork of Sandy in the present McDowell county
and after a bloody fight was compelled to return. In 1789 other raiding parties
came up Dry Fork of Big Sandy and attacked the settlers. In the fall of that
year a body of them came into the Bluestone and Clinch settlements, crossed East
river mountain to the waters of Clear fork of Wolf creek and. after depreda-
tions returned via Flat Top mountain and North Fork of Tug Fork, carrying a
Mrs. Wiley to the Indian town of Chillicothe where she remained until September,
1792, when she returned home via the Kanawha and New rivers. In 1790 another
marauding party entered Bluestone and upper Clinch settlements and stole many
horses. In the spring of 1791, while Andrew Davidson had left his settlement at the
head of East River (nearly one-half mile from the east limits of Bluefields) to visit at
Smithfield (Drapers Meadows) from whence his father had moved about ten years
earlier; Indians captured his wife and children and took them to their town in
Ohio where the children were shot. On the route (near Logan court house) Mrs.
Davidson gave birth to a child which the Indians drowned the following day. She
remained in captivity till after Wayne's victory at Fallen Timbers. In 1792 while
with a party of militia in pursuit of a band, of Indians who had stolen horses in
Bluestone and upper Clinch settlements, Samuel Lusk was captured in an attack
on a creek flowing into the Guyandotte and taken to the Ohio town (Chillicothe).
While the Indians were on their fall hunt in the region of the lakes in September
he escaped with Mrs. Wiley in a light canoe down the Scioto and up the southern
bank of the Ohio opposite to Gallipolis where a few French lived with whom they
took refuge. They feared to follow up Big Sandy or the Guyandotte. Lusk de-
cided to take no risks by attempt to return through Virginia mountains. He se-
cured passage on a. passing push-boat bound for Pittsburgh. Thence he went to
Philadelphia where he found Major Joseph Cloyd of Back creek with whom he re-
turned home-about one month after his escape from Chillicothe. Mrs. Wiley declined
to go via Philadelphia and a few days after his departure started on her tiresome trip
up the Kanawha and New to the home of her husband's people at Wiley's Falls in
(now) Giles county. Richard Bailey a revolutionary soldier who had moved from
(now) Franklin county (then Bedford county) and settled in 1780 at Beaver Pond
Spring a branch of Bluestone, now in Mercer county and built "Davidson-Bailey
Fort" discovered in March that Indians had stolen his boy's calf (March, 1793).
Major Robert Crockett military commander of Wythe county then at the head of
Clinch, gathered a party (including Lusk) and followed the Indians and overtook
them at their camp on the island at the mouth of Island creek (opposite Logan)
attacked the camp which rapidly dispersed (March 15) leaving their stolen horses
behind them.

Awaiting the cessation of dangers from Indians the beginning of
development along the Big Sandy was delayed for two decades after the
surveys made by George Washington along the Tug. In February, 1789,
however, the advance guard began to arrive from the East and at-
tempted the first settlement at the junction of the Tug and the Sandy
on the Vancouver tract 40 miles from any other settlement. Here on
an original survey made by Washington for John Fry about 1770, 10
men under Charles Vancouver built a fort, raised some vegetables and
deadened about 18 acres, but the appropriation of their horses by the
Indians prevented the completion of their plans to raise a crop. Soon
thereafter a second settlement was attempted near the mouth of Pigeon.
The earliest settlement in the present limits of Mingo county was made
at the mouth of Gilbert on the Guyandotte after 1795 by French
peasants under a man named Swan whose purpose was to start a vine-
yard there, followed by another on the Tug (at the mouth of Pond
creek) by the Leslies, but all the inhabitants of these places were driven
away by Indians. Provision for protection of later settlers along the
waters of Big Sandy was made by the construction of blockhouses in
1790, after which the Indians ceased to give trouble in that region,
although they stole horses in the Scioto valley as late as 1802. The
Leslies who returned in 1791 and located at John creek were the earliest
permanent settlers in the Sandy valley. They were soon followed by
many others including the Marcums on Mill creek (near Cassville).

Into the old District of West Augusta settlers came in large numbers
after the Revolution. Both in the Monongahela country and along the
upper Ohio stockade forts and block houses were built for protection,
and roads which began to emerge frequently followed the tops of ridges
in order to avoid Indian ambushes in the hollows. In 1785 by an act
of the legislature, Morgantown was established as a town on fifty acres
of land belonging to Zackwell Morgan and vested in five trustees with
power to lay out lots for sale and to locate streets. To stimulate the
growth of the town the act of incorporation required every purchaser
of a lot to erect upon it in four years a house at least eighteen feet
square with a chimney of stone or brick. In 1788 an extension of three
years was allowed on account of Indian hostilities, and in 1792 a further
extension was granted because of difficulty of procuring building ma-
terials. The final Indian attack in this vicinity occurred on the site of
Blacksville in 1791. Along the eastern border in spite of the Indian
attacks on the settlement at Dunkard Bottom in 1778 and 1788 new
clearings prepared the way for the later county of Preston. Near the
Maryland boundary in 1784 Francis and William Deakins selected
numerous choice tracts of land. By 1786 new pioneers located at
Brandonville and in the vicinity of Aurora. In 1787 at Salem a Ger-
man settlement was made. Settlements were increased in 1789 by ar-
rivals from the South Branch and later by immigrants from Ireland
and Pennsylvania. From 1785 the pioneer clearings slowly widened
into farms. In 1784 Monongalia was divided by the legislature, and
Harrison county was erected from that part south of a line drawn from
Ford Fork on the Maryland boundary to the headwaters of Big Sandy,
thence down the Big Sandy and Tygart's to the West Fork, thence up
West Fork to Bingamon creek and up Bingamon to the Ohio county
boundary. To the new county was refunded her proportion of the cost
of erecting the public buildings in Monongalia. The county seat was
located at Clarksburg which, although a mere group of log cabins in
1781, was becoming a settled community and in 1785 it had several
stores and was incorporated as a town. In 1788, and at other dates, it
was visited by Bishop Francis Asbury who in his official capacity had
journeyed horseback from North Carolina via Greenbrier county and
Tygart's valley. In 1790 it had primitive roads connecting it with both
East and West.

Midway between Morgantown and Clarksburg the basis for the later
county of Marion was laid by the arrival of many families who settled
in the vicinity of the site of Fairmont and at other points. At the head
of West Fork the first settlement on the site of Weston was made by
Henry Flesher who in 1784, after an attack by a party of Indians,
discreetly took refuge for a time at the settlement made by Thomas
Hughes and others on Hacker's creek.

Few actual settlements were made in the upper part of the West
Pork valley until after the treaty of Greenville in 1795. Colonel Jack-
son was the first to enter this field. He secured a large boundary of
land where Jacksonville now stands, in Lewis county; also a smaller
tract at the forks of the river. In 1797 he settled four families by the
name of Collins on his larger tract, giving each fifty acres of choice
land. They were to remain until the colony was permanent and open
a "Bridle Path" to the Flesher settlement, at Weston. These settlers
were hardy and gave their names to the township known as "Collins
Settlement." The Collins were afterwards followed by the Bennetts:

William, Joseph, Abram and Jacob, who came over the Seneca Trail
from the Upper Potomac. The Bennetts were fruit growers and propa-
gated trees from seed brought from the Potomac. They left numerous
descendants in the country.

Among the early pioneers who found their way into Northwestern Virginia
after the close of the war of 1776 was Henry McWhorter. He was born in Orange
County, New York, November 33th. 1760. His father, a linen-weaver by trade,
hailed from Northern Ireland and settled in New York after the close of the French
and Indian war.

Early in life he married a Miss Fields, and soon afterwards, with her and one
or two children, sought a home in the wilds of Northwestern Virginia, settling on
McKensies Run, a branch of Hackers Creek, in Harrison county, in 1784. Here he
erected his cabin and cleared land, but three years later moved to near West's Fort,
where "Jane Lew" now stands, and on the south bank of the murkey Hackers
Creek, within a few hundred yards east of West's Fort, built a house of hewn logs,
where he resided for 37 years. This house-18 1/2 feet by 24 feet, of most sub-
stantial construction, of pioneer characteristics, with fireplace 6 feet 10 inches wide
and 3 feet 6 inches high-is the oldest house in the historic Hackers Creek Valley,
if not in Central West Virginia.

After settling here McWhorter experienced many privations from Indian war-
fare, and underwent all the horrors and hardships of pioneer life upon the border.

Being a millwright by trade he erected near his residence, on the banks of the
creek, the first mill in what are now Lewis and Upshur Counties. To this mill came
the settlers from a radius of many miles to get their corn ground, and to this
mill came the settlers from the Buckhannon settlement, following the blazed path
leading through the wilderness from one settlement to the other. And it is a tra-
ditional fact that no customer of his ever returned home "hungry and cold." It
is still related of him that at one time the settlements were suffering from a scarcity
of breadstuff, and parties came from distant settlements and offered him over $1.00
per bushel for all the corn stored in his mill, which offer he refused, giving as his
reason that if he did so his neighbors would suffer.

He made frequent trips to Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh) in flat boats, via the
West Fork and Monongahela rivers, exchanging furs, jerked venison, etc., for am-
munition and other home necessities.

On one of these trips he was accompanied by Jesse Hughes, the most noted
Indian scout and fighter in Western Virginia (of whom local tradition says "he
spared neither age nor sex when on an Indian Killing").

The earlier settlement on the Buckhannon was broken up in 1782
by Indians who also destroyed the fort.

The first settlement in the present limits of Barbour was probably
made in 1780 two miles northwest of Philippi-soon followed by other
scattered settlements, for which there were many grants of land, espe-
cially in 1786-88 and thereafter. As early as 1787, when the Randolph
county court ordered the survey of a road from Beverly to Sandy creek,
Daniel Booth probably lived near the site of Philippi, but the original
owner of the land on which the town stands was William Anglin who
probably settled there as, early as 1783. The place was called Anglin's
Ford in 1789 when the Randolph court ordered the survey of the road
to connect it with Jonas Friend's (the site of Elkins). The place was
later called Booth's Ferry, named for Mr. Booth, who, about 1800,
established or owned the old ferry which was not abandoned until after
the completion of the wooden bridge at Philippi in 1852.

Randolph county was formed from Harrison county in 1787 by act
of October, 1786. At that time it included half of Barbour, half of
Upshur, much of Webster and all of Tucker. At its first county court
held in 1787 a county seat contest between the people of Leading creek
and the people of the vicinity of the later town of Beverly was decided
in favor of Beverly. In 1788 plans were adopted for a court house
which was not completed until ten years later and was not used after
1803. In December, 1790, Beverly was established as a town, by the
Virginia assembly, on lands owned by James Westfall.

In 1787 and 1789 these Cheat settlements were again invaded by the
Indians. Among the most prominent men of the county after Capt.
James Parsons and John Minear was the industrious James Goff who
settled on Cheat near the Preston county line by 1786 and at one time
owned the greater part of the land from the Minear claim to Rowles-
burg. Others prominent were the Dumires who settled in the eastern
part of the county above the upper tributaries of Horse Shoe run and
the Losh family, one of whom built a grist mill on Horse Shoe run
at an early date.

Perhaps one of the most prominent men in the community was
Samuel Bonnifield, who, after the Revolution, in which he served,
crossed the Alleghenies from Maryland and settled on Cheat two miles
from St. George, and in 1796 became justice of the peace in Randolph
county-an office which he held continuously for fifty years except dur-
ing his period of four terms as sheriff. He died on Horseshoe Run four
miles from St. George, in February, 1848, at the advanced age of 96.
His house, built in 1823, was still standing a few years ago and was
used as a stable.

In the region of the upper Ohio the large advance guard of pioneers
of 1785-87 was followed by a cessation of land entries until 1795 when
entries were redoubled in number by a " new irruption." West Liberty
was incorporated as a town in 1787. It was the county seat of Ohio
county until Brooke county was formed in 1797. Wheeling, which was
laid out into town lots in 1793, established as a town by legislative act
in 1795, became the county seat in 1797.

To the settlements farther up the river to which new home seekers
had come in 1774-76 (largely from New England), several patents were
located from 1785 to 1787. After 1787 there was a cessation of entries
until 1795, after which the advance guard was augmented rapidly.
Charleston (later Wellsburg) which was laid out in 1790 and estab-
lished by act of legislature in 1791, became the county seat of the new
county of Brooke at its formation in 1797. In the region now included
in Hancock county the earliest settlement was made about 1776 by Mr.
Holliday at Holliday's Cove. In 1783 and thereafter other settlements
were begun by soldiers of the Revolution. In 1783 George Chapman
located 1,000 acres including the site of New Cumberland. After 1790
and especially after 1795 arrivals increased. In 1800 Hugh Pugh lo-
cated 400 acres including the site of Fairview.

Below Wheeling creek settlements, now included within the limits
of Marshall county were made in 1785, 1790 and thereafter. In 1798
Elizabeth (now Moundsville) was laid out on Tomlinson's land fac-
ing the ferry across the Ohio which was established in the same year.
In the territory later included in Wetzel county the first clearing was
made by Edward Doolin, who about 1780, patented and entered upon
lands at the mouth of Fishing creek including the site of New Martins-
ville. After his death, resulting from an Indian attack upon his home
in 1784, part of his land was bought by Presley Martin who was soon
followed by Friend Cox. The settlement received few accessions for the
next decade and grew very slowly thereafter.

The region of western Virginia about the mouth of the Little
Kanawha secured few settlers before 1785, but its unbroken solitudes
became more and more tempting in the decade which followed. In
1783 several tomahawk or preemption claims to rich bottom lands on
the Virginia side of the Ohio were made by Robert Thomton, Samuel
and Joseph Tomlinson (and their sister Rebecca) three Briscoe brothers,
and others. The lands on the site of Parkersburg which were claimed by
Robert Thompson on the basis of a tomahawk entry made ten years
earlier, were confirmed to him by the land commissioner. In the same
year they were assigned to Alexander Parker (of Greene county,
Pennsylvania) who in 1784 received a patent from Governor Beverly
Randolph of Virginia. At the death of Parker in 1800 these lands
descended to his daughter whose title was disputed by John Stokely
and others.

One of the first permanent settlers at the mouth of the Little Kana-
wha was Captain James Neal of Greene county, Pennsylvania, who first
arrived in 1783 as deputy surveyor of Samuel Hanway of Monongalia
(to survey the entry of Alexander Parker on the site of Parkersburg).
He brought others with him by flatboat in 1785 and on the south side
of the river erected Neal's station, the first block house in the vicinity
which served as a place of protection for both settlers and travelers.
Two years later he brought his family.(3) Later he became a justice of
the peace with authority to perform the rites of marriage. He and his
son-in-law, Hugh Phelps, were among the most prominent of the early
residents. Although security was increased by the erection of Fort
Harmar on the site of Marietta in 1786 and Farmer's Castle at Belpre
in 1789 the station was threatened in 1790 by Indian bands who con-
tinued to invade the Little Kanawha region.

At the site of Williamston on which the Tomlinson brothers (Samuel
and Joseph) made a tomahawk entry in 1770, the first permanent settle-
ment was made in March, 1787, by Isaac Williams, an experienced
frontiersman,(4) following the establishment of Fort Harmar directly
across the Ohio at the mouth of the Muskingum in 1786. It was made on
a wilderness farm of 400 acres of land preempted and partially improved
in 1783 by the Tomlinson brothers for their sister, Mrs. Rebecca Martin,
whom Williams married in 1775 at Grave creek where she had been
housekeeper for her brothers since the death of her first husband in
1771. The new settlement soon became a noted and interesting place
and here Williams remained until his death thirty years later. By 1789
it was connected with Clarksburg and the East by a trail cleared by
Capt. Nicholas Carpenter and sons who drove cattle over it to Marietta (5)
and were killed on it by the Indians in 1791.

The interior regions now included in Ritchie county (formed from
Harrison, Lewis and Wood in 1843) were first opened to the notice of
settlers in 1789 by the construction of a state road from Clarksburg
to Marietta which for nearly forty years was an important thoroughfare
to the Ohio. It was still almost an unbroken wilderness for another
decade. The first cabin home in its limits was built as early as 1800
by John Bunnell on the site of Pennsboro. In 1795, Mrs. Maley of
Philadelphia exchanged her dowry for 1,000 acres near tlie site of
Harrisonville, but although she promptly started with her husband
on the long journey she turned aside to the upper Shenandoah from
which she moved to Ritchie in 1803.

Part of the bottom lands below the mouth of the Little Kanawha
first located in 1771 by George Washington were included in the survey
of a tract located in 1782 by William Tilton and Company, a mercan-
tile firm of Philadelphia who in 1785 employed Joseph Wood of Pitts-
burgh to act as agent for the colonization and sale of the lands. A large
tract at the site of Belleville was selected as a place to begin settlement.
In the fall of 1785 Wood freighted a boat with cattle and utensils to
begin the new settlement and left Pittsburgh, November 28, with Tilton
and four Scotch families-landing at the site of Belleville on De-
cember 16, 1785. Here they completed the erection of a block-house
early in January, 1786. Mr. Wood then laid out the new town of Belle-
ville, donating a lot to each actual settler. One hundred acres were
cleared the first year. When Tilton returned to Philadelphia in the
spring of 1786 Wood was left in charge as sole agent of the company
and manager of the settlement. He continued to make improvements
and provide good defenses. New families arrived in 1787 and also a
company of hunters from Lee creek where they had erected "Flinn's
station." In 1790 Wood married one of the earlier emigrants, the
marriage being performed at Belpre because no one in Belleville had
authority to officiate at the wedding. A year later he moved to Marietta
where he later filled many important offices. In 1796 Belleville re-
ceived a new stimulus by the addition of Connecticut emigrants led
by George D. Avery who for several years thereafter conducted a
merchandise business there in connection with shipbuilding.

A glimpse of the rush of pioneer immigrants to the Ohio following
the treaty of Greenville, after Wayne's victory of 1795, the experiences
incident thereto and the conditions along the route between Maryland
and Wheeling and southward along the Ohio, is obtained from a letter
written at Belleville (near the earlier Flinn's station) in Wood county
in November, 1796, by Samuel Alien describing a journey from Alex-
andria via Cumberland to the Ohio via "broadaggs (Braddocks) old
road" undertaken by himself and several other New Englanders under
the management of Mr. Avery who had lots to sell at Belleville. He
states that the fare from New London to Alexandria was $6.00
for each passenger and that freight for goods for sixty cents per cwt.
At Alexandria wagoners were hired to carry the goods across the
mountains to Morgantown on the Monongalia at a cost of "thirty-
two shillings and six pence for each hundred weight of women and
goods."(6) On June 30 the company left Alexandria. The men walked
the entire 300 miles and for three days Mr. Allen carried a very sick
child which without proper medical assistance died (July 14) on the
mountain in Alleghany county, Maryland, and was tenderly laid to rest
in a grave beside those of several strangers who had died crossing the
mountains. Leaving Braddock's road near the Pennsylvania line, the
company reached Morgantown on July 18. They found the river too
low for boats but four days later favored by rains which rapidly raised
the river, part of the company embarked before the arrival of all their
wagons-leaving orders with a local merchant to send their goods. As
soon as the rise in the river would permit, on July 23, Mr. Allen and
two others started by land with the cattle and horses via Wheeling creek
and on August 9 arrived at Belleville. Along the entire route from
Morgantown to Wheeling they found the country settled and a pleasant
road, and saw "beautiful plantations," and "large fields of corn and
grane" but over the large part of the route from Wheeling to Belle-
ville except along the banks of the river they passed through a wilder-.
ness broken only by a blind foot path and in which they found it "very
difficult to get victules to eat." Along the river they found some
inhabitants who had arrived in the spring and had no provisions except
what they had brought with them. At Belleville, the new settlers found
the "country as good as represented and settling very fast." They
found life on the Ohio interesting and were not tempted to return to
New England. They had caught the spirit of the West, and had faith
in the future of their own village from which they could see boats
which passed on the river laden with families hunting new homes.
Mr. Allen's letter to his father (see Chapter X) furnishes a live picture
of local conditions.

In 1796 Erie Bollman who journeyed from Cumberland west over
the Alleghanies spent the first night at West Port (Maryland) and on
the afternoon of the second day passed through the Glades onto which
many hundred head of cattle were driven yearly from South Branch,
etc., for pasturage and after the second night "breakfasted with the
large and attractive family of Tim Friend the noble hunter and dined
at Dunkards Bottom on Cheat, spent the third night with Mr. Zinn
and arrived at Morgantown on the following day." He regarded this
as the nearest point at which to reach the western waters. From the
latter point he travelled via the mouth of George's creek (near Geneva),
through Uniontown, Brownsville and Washington to Pittsburgh.

In October, 1798, Felix Renick with others starting from the South
Branch of the Potomac to visit Marietta on the third night reached
Clarksburg "which was then near the verge of the western settlements
except along the Ohio." West of Clarksburg he spent the night in the
woods but early next morning unexpectedly found a "new improve-
ment" established by a lone man who had settled in the wilderness to
accommodate the travellers at high prices. After two more nights in
the woods he reached his destination.

Settlements along the Little Kanawha were greatly increased by
the tide of new immigration following the treaty of Greenville of 1795.
As danger decreased many new families arrived; the Cooks and Spen-
cers from Connecticut, and the Beesons from Pennsylvania who settled
on the river near the site of Parkersburg; the Hannamans, Creels, Prib-
bles and Kicheloes on the Kanawha; the Beauchamps on the site of
Elizabeth and the Hendersons farther above; the Neals, Phelps, Foleys,
Wolfs and others (including Blennerhassett) below the Kanawha. In
1797, Harman Blennerhassett came via Pittsburgh to Marietta and in
1798 located on the upper half of the island where he could hold his
colored servants as property and at the same time be near intelligent
and educated officers of the American army who had settled at Belpre.
The island first entered by Washington in 1770 and later surveyed in
1784 under a patent issued by Gov. Patrick Henry, had been owned
since 1792 by one Backus. Blennerhassett lived in the old block house
until he completed his mansion in 1800.

By 1798 there were enough settlers to justify steps to secure a new
county by separation from Harrison, and in the following year Wood
was formed with interior boundaries beginning at a point on the Kana-
wha, thirty miles from the Ohio northeast, and extending thence north-
east to the Ohio county line at a point twenty-one miles from the Ohio.
Much contention arose concerning the location of a county seat which
the court was authorized by the assembly to select "at or near the
center of the county as situation or convenience would permit." The
principal claimants or contestants, for the court house were the Spencers
at Vienna and Isaac Williams at the Ferry. Justices of the county
court who met in 1799 at Hugh Phelp's residence fixed the location at
Neal's station. Those who met at Isaac Williams in October, 1800,
ordered the erection of public buildings on lands of Williams, but a
month later by a vote of 10 to 6 adjourned to Hugh Phelp's house at
which they unanimously agreed to erect the court house and whipping
post above the mouth of Little Kanawha at its junction with the Ohio
on lands of John Stokely. The village at that time was called "The
Point" or Stokelyville consisting of a half dozen log cabins. Here
Stokely (whose patent was dated December 8, 1800) laid out a town
which until 1809 was called Newport. On an adjoining part of the
Parker estate which was saved to the Parker heirs (700 acres) the new
town of Parkersburg was laid out.

In 1810 an act was passed establishing Parkersburg adjoining and
including Newport and allowing the seat of justice to be removed to a
proposed brick house. The survey of the town was made by George D.
Avery, a surveyor and lawyer of Belleville. In 1812 or 1813 a contract
waa made for a new two-story court house to be built of brick 40x40.
Trouble resulted at once. Vienna and Munroe or Neals on the south
side continued to assert their claims. Some objected to the extravagance
and others to the location. The Vienna people prepared a petition
to the legislature which proceeded to appoint commissioners (from
Ohio and Mason counties) to decide the contest. The decision was in
favor of the public square in Parkersburg, and there the court house
was erected in 1815 and also the old whipping post.

Above Wood county in the present territory of Pleasants settlements
were made by 1797. In the territory now included in Tyler, the earliest
centers of settlement were at Sistersville which were laid out in 1814
as the county seat and at Middlebourne which was established as a town
in 1813 and has been the county seat since 1816. Sistersville at which
a ferry was established in 1818 was later known as a good boat landing.

Farther up the Little Kanawha in the region of Wirt county the
first settlement was made in 1796 on the site of Elizabeth by William
Beauchamp who was soon followed by others and in 1803 built a grist
mill. The earlier name of Beauchamp's Mills was changed to Eliza-
beth in 1817 in honor of David Beauchamp's wife whose maiden name
was Elizabeth Woodyard.

Eastward and southward in Calhoun (formed from Gilmer in 1856)
in Gilmer (formed from parts of Lewis and Kanawha in 1845) in
Braxton (formed from Lewis, Kanawha and Nicholas in 1836) in
Clay (formed from Braxton and Nicholas in 1858) and in Webster
(formed from Nicholas, Braxton, and Randolph in 1860) development
of settlements was delayed and retarded by location. On a Virginia
map of 1807 no towns are shown between upper Tygart and the mouth
of Elk. In the territory of Roane (formed from parts of Kanawha,
Jackson and Gilmer in 1856) the first settlers, Samuel Tanner and
family, reached Spring creek valley and located in 1812 at the site of
Spencer on lands included in a survey of 6,000 acres patented -by Al-
bert Gallatin in 1787 and later owned by J. P. R. Buerau who located
at Gallipolis with other French colonists in 1791. This settlement was
called Tanner's Cross Roads from 1816 to 1839 after which it bore
the name of New California until 1858 when it was incorporated under
the name of Spencer.

Along the Ohio below Wood county, in the territory now included in
Jackson county (formed from Mason, Kanawha and Wood in 1831),
the first actual settlers were William and Benjamin Hannaman who
arrived in 1796. With them came James McDade, who became an
Indian scout along the Ohio between the two Kanawhas. Others set-
tled in 1800. In 1808 John Nesselroad settled at the mouth of Sand
creek. Among those who came with him was Lawrence Lane who reared
his cabin on the site of Ravenswood-on lands which William Crawford
surveyed for George Washington in 1770 and which were settled by
squatters who were later ejected by the agents of Washington's heirs.
Ravensworth (accidently changed to Ravenswood by the map engraver)
was laid out in 1836 three years after Ripley became the county seat.

About sixteen miles above Point Pleasant on 6,000. acres of the Wash-
ington lands a settlement designed as a Presbyterian colony was begun
in 1798 by Rev. William Graham who for twenty-one years had been
president of the first academy west of the Blue Ridge. The attempt
failed at the death of its leading spirit who died at Richmond a year
later, resulting in the withdrawal of the discouraged colonists. The
place is still known as Graham's Station.

Along the lower Kanawha in the territory which later (1848) formed
Putnam county settlement was delayed until after 1799-although
sites for homes had been selected over twenty years before and George
Washington and his surveyors had visited it in 1770. A settlement
at Red House was made in 1806 but none was made at Winfield until
about 1815.

New life appeared farther up the Kanawha, in the vicinity of Charles-
ton. One of the chief leaders in the early development of this region
was Joseph Ruffner who arrived in 1795 and with penetrating eye saw
a great future for the valley. After the burning of his barns in the
Shenandoah country, he set out to find iron-ore lands. At a point on
the Cow Pasture which may not have been more than twenty miles
from Clifton Forge, he stopped at the house of Col. John Dickinson from
whom he quickly arranged to buy a survey on the Kanawha, includ-
ing the salt spring, for 600 pounds sterling which was about $3,000.
The next spring (1795) he rode out to Kanawha on horseback alone.
From Greenbrier he followed for 100 miles the track along which only
four years before Mad Anne Bailey had run the gauntlet of the Indians
in carrying ammunition to the Clendennin Port. When he reached
Gauley river he found it "booming," but he undertook to cross it and
succeeded. How he did has been told by the devoted antiquarian, John
L. Cole, who got it from the lips of Paddy Huddlestone, Sr., who lived
a few miles below Kanawha Falls, and who witnessed it. Cole, in re-
peating the incident impersonated Huddlestone, who said:

"One day I walked up the river and found Gauley very high; drift
running. I travelled on up stream and when I got about seven miles
from the mouth of Gauley I saw a man on the opposite side of the
river leading his horse down a steep place to the bank of the river.
There was no trail to this point, and I don't know how he got there,
but he looked as if he meant to cross the river, but I didn't think he
would be fool enough to try to ford it, or to swim it with all the load
he had on. I couldn't imagine what he was going to do. But presently
he took a short-handled axe from his saddle and went to work on a dry
chestnut tree that had fallen against the cliff. The trunk he cut into
lengths and split. He then took a rope and tied the pieces to his horse's
tail and dragged them to a place to suit him. Then he took from his
saddle bags some wrought nails and made a raft, which he put into the
water and loaded his things onto it. He tied the raft to his horse's tail
and pushed him into the river, jumped on the raft and started over.
He guided the horse by speaking to him and got over safely. Then he
knocked the raft to pieces, put the nails back in his saddlebags and came
home with me for the night. This man was Joseph Ruffner."

Ruffner's visit to Clendennin's fort was the arrival of a new power
in the Kanawha valley-a power which was to create, to strengthen, to
develop and to abide. He at once saw rich resources of many kinds.
"There were hundreds of acres of the finest saw-mill timber; there
was the land fat with vegetable matter, loose and easily cultivated;
there was the beautiful Kanawha or Woods river, alive with fish, naviga-
ble for large boats, and communicating with a vast system of navigable
streams pouring their water into the Gulf of Mexico; and in spite of
the departure of the elk and buffalo, there were still deer, beaver, otter
and raccoon, and bears enough to bed all the armies of Europe."

With faith in the future of the region he was willing to risk a resi-
dence there and to contribute his money and energy -to assist in im-
provements. Before he left the place he owned everything from Elk
river to the "head of the bottom," about three miles. The bottom
was owned by three of the brothers Clendennin-George, William
and Alexander-from each of whom he received a deed.

In a few days after his purchase Joseph started back to Shenandoah,
and in the autumn of the same year (1795) he removed his family to
Kanawha, excepting his oldest and only married son, David, who re-
mained another year in Shenandoah.

He continued to be land-hungry, even after he had bought the
great bottom, as shown by a deed made to him in 1797 by Wm. T.
Taylor, of Kentucky, for 6,660 acres on Sixteen-mile creek, on the Ohio
river below Point Pleasant.

Whilst waiting for the time when his attention could be somewhat
withdrawn from his farm work, he leased to Elisha Brooks, "a droll
genius," the privilege of making salt from the brine that was wasting .
at the edge of the river, and before the lease expired the proprietor had
ceased his labors.

He died in March, 1803, aged over 63 years. In his own mind his
western career was just beginning, but his unfinished work was left
in able hands. He left four sons. The fourth son, Samuel, was the
only feeble one, and he became so when in infancy he was nearly burnt
to death in his cradle.

The will is dated February 21,1803, less than a month before he died.
His home "plantation" and all his personal property he gives to his
wife until her death, after which Daniel was to become the owner.

In the will he divided the bottom (exclusive of the town) into three
parts. The lower division he gave to David, who then lived upon it;
the middle to Daniel after his mother's death; and the upper division
to Tobias. Joseph, Jr., and Abraham received outlying lands. The
front bottom of the Dickinson survey containing the Salt Spring, was
given to David, Joseph, Tobias, Daniel and Abraham (to all the sons
jointly, except poor Samuel, who was to be taken care of by contribution
from all the rest). To each son was given a lot in Charleston. David
seems to have fallen heir to all the town lots not otherwise disposed of.

South of the Great Kanawha, "the whole country swarmed with
surveyors and speculators" after the news of Wayne's victory and the
treaty of 1795. Even before the certainty of safety from Indians along
the old war paths, the wide wilderness domain between the few scat-
tered settlements invited the enterprise of land speculators of the East
who procured from the Virginia land office at a nominal price, land
warrants for large entries and tracts of lands which were later located
in the unbroken forest under a policy whose methods, resulting in un-
certainty of land titles, long continued to hinder and retard settlements.
Nearly if not quite all the territory south of the Kanawha and the Ohio
to the headwaters of Holston, were entered, surveyed and carried into
grant. Robert Morris surveyed grants for about 8,000,000 acres of land
much of which was patented to him as assignee of Wilson Carey Nicholas
in 1795. The territory comprised within the present counties of Mercer,
Raleigh, Fayette, McDowell, Wyoming, Boone, Logan, Mingo, Wayne,
Cabell, Lincoln, Kanawha and Putnam was almost completely shingled
over with these large grants by the Virginia land office and frequently
they lapped upon each other. Commencing on the East River mountain
on the south side and then again on the north side were grants to Robert
Pollard, one for 50,000 and the other for 75,000 acres, then came the
grant of 80,000 acres to Samuel M. Hopkins, a grant of 50,000 acres to
Robert Young, 40,000 acres to McLaughlin, 170,000 acres to Moore and
Beckley, 35,000 acres to Robert McCullock, 108,000 acres to Rutter and
Etting, 90,000 acres to Welch, 150,000 acres to DeWitt Clinton, 50,000
acres to Dr. John Dillon, 480,000 acres to Robert Morris, 500,000 acres
to the same, 150,000 acres to Robert Pollard, 500,000 acres to Wilson
Carey Nicholas, 300,000 acres to the same, 320,000 acres to Robert
Morris, 57,000 acres to Thomas Wilson, 40,000 acres to George Pickett,
and farther down Sandy, Guyandotte and Coal rivers were large grants
to Elijah Wood, Smith and others.

Peace having been restored along the frontier settlements, and no
further danger being apprehended from the Indians, there was also a
great rush to the most desirable parts of the New river valley and west-
ward by people from eastern Virginia and western North Carolina.
The region along Middle New river settled rapidly, and civilization
advanced by the construction of houses, the opening of roads and the
election of civil officers. The people complained of the inconvenience
of travel to the county seat at Lewisburg. Conditions of growth soon
resulted in a demand for the formation of a new county. In a large
degree this region was settled independently of that covered by Green-
brier. Naturally the two localities came to have divergent views in
local matters. A numerously signed petition of 1790, voicing the people
of the sinks of Monroe, asked for a new county because of the natural
barrier of the Greenbrier river. It stated that the court house was forty
miles from any point on New river. For five years the movement for
separation appeared to lose its energy. It was revived, however, and
finally, through the wire-pulling of John Hutchinson, the legislature on
January 14, 1799, passed an act creating the county of Monroe, named
in honor of James Monroe who several times visited the Red Sulphur
Springs. Hutchinson also lobbied through the assembly a bill to estab-
lish the town of Union, and another to relieve the people of Monroe
from the Greenbrier taxes of 1799 assessed before Monroe was organized.

Union was not yet a town. About a mile north of the site chosen for
the new court house, James Byrnside had made a home in 1762. Nearer
the site of the proposed town James Alexander had built a cabin in 1774.
His farm was chosen for the county seat. At a session of August 21,
1799, the trustees ordered that "the size of buildings on each lot must
be one square log house of the same size of 16x18 feet, two stories high."
There was prompt remonstrance against the choice of county seat. A
petition with many signers condemned it "as being far from the center
thus disregarding the act creating Monroe, and also as illegal, on the
ground that the justices of the new county were appointed and com-
missioned without the consent of the court of Greenbrier." The de-
cision, however, was not changed. Houses were soon begun in the
neighborhood. About a year after it was founded the town had a store,
opened by Richard Shanklin. It tried to obtain the location of the dis-
trict court (for the counties of Greenbrier, Botetourt, Montgomery, Kana-
wha and Monroe) but was not successful.

Sweet Springs was the seat of the district court for a period of eleven
years-a period of discord. Finally by an act of the assembly of Febru-
ary, 1807, Lewisburg became the seat. This removal was a result of
an agitation which arose much earlier. A petition of 1800 requested
that the court be moved to Union on the ground that the proprietor's
tavern is given a monopoly "under the most inconvenient charges and
regulations." Union was represented as in "the heart of a compact and
plentiful settlement rapidly progressing."

In a petition of 1802, the proprietor of Sweet Springs argued that
his court house is of stone, much larger than the one at Union, and with
walls two feet thick; and that his jail had two rooms, whereas the jail
at Union had a single room eighteen feet square. Only two felons have
escaped from his jail. In 1804, there were 419 petitioners asking that
the court remain at Sweet Spring for the reason that its court house
was more commodious than those at Fincastle and Lewisburg.

The Sweet Springs began to attract attention after the arrival of the
Lewises in 1782, although the first building was only a log hut known as
the "wigwam." Early in the nineteenth century the place became
well known and had as guests many prominent men. It is reputed to be
the place where Jerome Bonaparte wooed and won his American wife,
Elizabeth Patterson, whom his despotic brother refused to recognize.

Peterstown began its official existence in 1803 as the result of a peti-
tion by Christian Peters, in which it is stated that an area of eighteen
and one-half acres had been laid off in lots and streets. The earliest
purchaser of a lot was Isaac Dawson in 1807. The place grew and pros-
pered. An important factor in its growth was the fine waterpower on
Rich creek.

The distribution of wealth was very unequal in Monroe. A few fam-
ilies had gradually come into possession of very large areas of the best
farming and grazing lands. A numerous element of the population was
thus squeezed into a condition of tenantry.

Part of Monroe was combined with parts of Montgomery and Taze-
well in 1806.

Coincident with the increase of immigration a "vast throng of people
from the New river valley quickly penetrated the country between the
New river settlements and the Ohio and settled on the Sandy, Guyan-
dotte and Goal waters, even reaching to the Ohio." Among them were
the McComases, Chapmans, Lucases, Smiths, Coopers, Napiers, Hunt-
ers, Adkinses, Acords, Allens, Fryes, Dingesses, Lusks, Shannons,
Baileys, Jarrells, Egglestons, Fergusons, Marcums, Hatfields, Bromfields,
Haldeons, Lamberts, Pauleys, Lawsons, Workmans, Prices, Cookes,
Clays, Godbeys, Huffs, McDonalds, Whites, Farleys, Kezees, Perdues,
Ballards, Barrets, Toneys, Conleys, Stollings, Stratons, Buchanans,
Deskins, and many others who largely peopled and left honored descend-
ants throughout the section.

On the territory later (1847) included in Boone the first settlement
was made in 1798 on Big Coal river near the mouth of White Oak creek,
by Isaac Barker. At that time the nearest neighboring settlement was
that of Leonard Morris at Marmet, and the nearest grist mill was at the
mouth of Gauley. In the decade which followed clearings were made and
homes built in the Coal river valley by many hardy pioneers from Mon-
roe, Greenbrier, Cabell and Kanawha counties and from Virginia and
Pennsylvania.

One of the earliest pioneers of the interior region south of the Kana-
wha was Edward McDonald (great-grandfather of Judge Joseph M.
Sanders) who entered and surveyed the valuable land on Clear Fork
of Guyandotte (in Wyoming county) which David Hughes, the tory,
had pointed out to him for a blanket and a rifle. In 1802, in company
with his son-in-law, Capt. James Shannon, he removed to Guyan-
dotte and took possession of the land. Captain Shannon, who settled a
few miles above the Big Fork of the Guyandotte found Indian wigwams
still standing in the bottoms. In 1812 James Ellison (born at Warford,
1778), a distinguished frontier Baptist preacher, planted the Guyandotte
Baptist church on the site of Oceana.

In Lincoln the first settlers were four men named McComas who
arrived from beyond the mountains in 1799 and after raising a crop of
corn in the fall returned for their families. Near them other cabins
soon appeared. Farther away on Ranger's branch (tributary of Ten
Mile creek) Isaac Hatfield settled in 1800 and was soon followed by
others. Among the early settlers along Trace fork was John Tackett
who arrived with his family in 1801. On the site of the county seat,
David Stephenson erected a cabin in 1802. Near the mouth of Slash
creek on Mud river (twelve miles southeast of Hamlin) Luke Adkins
settled in 1807 and near him several others reared their cabins. In 1811
Richard Parsons led the way through the wilderness to the mouth of
Cobbs run upon which others soon built neighboring cabins.

On the upper streams and tributaries of the Big Sandy valley a
considerable population from North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland
settled before the settlements were made near the mouth. Near the forks
of Big Sandy, Samuel Short reared his cabin (near Cassville) about
1796, followed by others in 1798 and subsequent years. Near the mouth,
Stephen Kelley settled in 1789 followed by a neighbor in 1799, and
others in 1800. On the upper waters of Twelve Pole the first settler
arrived in 1799. On the same stream at the mouth of Lick creek, James
Bias settled in 1802 and was followed by others in 1802 and 1803. Near
the site of Trout's Hill, Jesse Spurlock and Samuel Fergerson built
cabin homes in 1802 and were followed by others in 1802 and 1806.

The present territory of Cabell was settled at a comparatively late
date. The earliest settlements in the territory were located on the Savage
grant made in 1775 to John Savage and fifty-nine other soldiers of
the French "and Indian war on lands surveyed by William Crawford
about 1771 and extending from above the Guyandotte and up the river
for a short distance down the Ohio to the Big Sandy and up the Big
Sandy on both sides. The earlier grant included 28,627 acres. In a
later lawsuit it was stated that in 1775 some of the grantees partitioned(7)
the lands among themselves and after taking possession set up a claim
of exclusive ownership to the allotments which they held, but according
to established tradition there were no settlers on the grant before 1796.
Parts of the grant were occupied by squatters after that date. The first
permanent settlement was made in 1796 at Green Bottom by Thomas
Hannon of Botetourt county. Guyandotte was settled soon thereafter
by Thomas Buffington and others on the Savage grant in 1775. It
became the county seat in 1809 and was made a town by legislative act
in 1810-three years ahead of Barboursville. At Salt Rock on the
Guyandotte, Elisha McComas settled about 1800. Between Guyan-
dotte and Barboursville, at the Shelton place, Edmund McGinnis settled
with his family in 1802. Midway between Barboursville and Guyan-
dotte a settlement was also made by Jacob Hite (grandson of Joist Hite)
who came to the Savage grant in 1808.

The new stimulus to trans-Allegheny road improvement and to other
development, which followed Wayne's victory over the Indians in west-
ern Ohio in 1795 was greatly increased by the admission of Ohio as a
state, and the acquisition of Louisiana in 1803. Visions of a larger life
for the lower Monongahela region followed Gallatin's report of 1806 in
favor of a national road which, over a decade later, was completed from
Cumberland across western Maryland and southwestern Pennsylvania
to Wheeling.

*******************************************************************************

Chapter Footnotes:

(1) Washington followed the "new road to Sandy creek," but instead of fol-
lowing it to its connection with Braddock's Road, east of the winding ridge, he
crossed Sandy creek at James Spurgeons and followed the route of McCulloch's
path southeast across the glades of Sandy and of Yough, upon which Governor
Johnson of Maryland had settled two or three families of Palatines, to Longstons
on the North Branch of the Potomac. At that time a good road from Bunker's
Bottom via Charles Friends was suggested as feasible.

At the same time Maryland was extending a road westward from the mouth of
Savage creek via Friends to connect at the state line with a road which Monongalia
county was extending eastward from Bunker's Bottom. Before 1786 a "state
road" from Winchester via Romney to Morgantown was authorized by act of Vir-
ginia Assembly. Its extension to the Ohio to the mouth of Fishing creek was
authorized in 1786 and to the mouth of Graves creek in 1795.

(2) While acting as Lieutenant-Colonel of the county, Boone, by letter to Gov.
Henry Lee, dated December 12th, 1791, reported the military establishments of
Kanawha as follows:

"For Kanaway county 68 privits Leonard Cuper Captain, at Pint plesent
17 men John Morris junior Insine at the Bote yards 17 men Two spyes or scutes
Will be necessary at the pint to sareh the Banks of the River at the Crosing places.
More would be Wanting if the could be aloude. Thoa Spyes Must be Componsed of
the inhabitenee who Well Know the Woods and waters from the pint to Belleville
60 mildes no inhabitenee also from the pint to Elke 60 mildes no inhabitenee from
Elke to the Bote yeards 20 Mildes all inhabited."

Boone was in the Kanawha Valley as early as 1774. When Lord Dunmore
organized his Shawnee campaign in 1774, he put Boone in command of three
garrisons-Fort Union (now Lewisburg), Donnally Fort, Stewart's Fort-in the
Greenbrier country, to protect the citizens in the rear of Gen. Lewis' army.

Much of Boone 's time while he lived in the Kanawha Valley was spent in
locating and surveying lands. He was familiar with the geography and topography
of the whole country. He had traveled, and hunted, fought and trapped, up and
down all the streams and knew where the good lands lay.

Among other tracts, he located over 200,000 acres in two adjoining surveys be-
ginning where Boone Court House now stands, and running across the waters of
Guyandotte, Twelve Pole and Big Sandy, to the Kentucky line. These surveys
were made in 1795. The surveying party cut their names and the dates on beech
trees at several places on the route.

The following is a copy of an original report of a survey made by Daniel
Boone, at Point Pleasant in 1791:

"June 14th 1791

"Laide of for Willeam Allin ten acres of Land Situate on the South Este Side
of Crucked Crick in the County of Conhawway and Bounded as followeth Viz
Beginning at a rad oke and Hickory thence North 56 West 23 poles to a Stake
thence South 56 Este 23 poles to a Stake thence South 34 West 58 poles to the
Beginning                                                    Daniel Boone."


(3) Other early arrivals were the Coots and Spencers from Connecticut, the
Beesons from Pennsylvania, the Hamamans, Creels, Pribbles and Kincheloes. Some
came from Virginia and Maryland all the way to Redstone on horseback, or over
the state road from Alexandria via Winchester, Romney, Clarksburg to the Ohio
opposite Marietta which was built under authorization of 1789 and some from
Pennsylvania by flatboat.

(4) Isaac Williams was born at Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1737. At the age of
18 he'served in the Braddock campaign as a ranger and spy under the employ of
Virginia. In 1758-67 he hunted on the Missouri river. In 1768 he conducted his
parents from Winchester and settled them on Buffalo creek (now in Brooke county)
near West Liberty. In 1789 he accompanied the Zanes in explorations around
Wheeling, Zacesville and elsewhere. In 1774 he accompanied Governor Dunmore in
the expedition against the Shawnees and was present at the treaty negotiations
near Chillicothe. He died September 25, 1820.

(5) Marietta located at the mouth of the Muskingum, opposite the Williams
settlement, was settled in 1788. At a meeting of the directors of the Ohio Com-
pany, held November 23, 1787, it was resolved to at once establish a settlement of
the lands of the Company in the Northwest Territory. General Rufus Putnam
was chosen superintendent, and early in December, six boat-builders were sent for-
ward to Simrall's Ferry-now West Newton-on the Youghiougheny, under the
command of Major Hatfield White. The party reached its destination in January,
and at once proceeded to build a boat for the use of the Company.

In midwinter the pioneers left their New England homes and began the journey
to others to be found in the Western wilderness. They passed over the Alleghenies
and reached the Youghiougheny about the middle of February. The "Mayflower,"
as the boat was called, which was to transport the settlers to their destination, was
forty-five feet long, twelve feet wide and of fifty tons burthen. All things were in
readiness.  The voyagers embarked at Simrall's Ferry and passed down the
Youghiougheny into the Monongahela; thence into the Ohio, and thence down that
river to the month of the Muskingum, where they arrived April 7th, 1788, and there
made the first permanent settlement of civilized men within the present limits of
Ohio.

From 1790 to 1794 the settlements near the mouth of the Little Kanawha were
much disturbed by Indians. In the autumn of 1790 Jacob Parchment, from the
Belleville garrison, was killed by a band of nine Indians passing, when he was about
a mile from the stockade. During the autumn of this year (1791), James Kelly,
of Belleville, was killed by Indians, while working in the field, and his oldest son,
Joseph, was carried captive to a Shawnee town in Ohio, where he was adopted,
and remained until after the Wayne Treaty of 1795.

In 1791, Capt. Lowther stationed twelve rangers at Neal's Fort; October 4th,
1791, Nicholas Carpenter, with a drove of cattle, was attacked by the Indians, led
by Tecumseh, at a place on what has since been called "Carpenters Run," the
exact spot is said to have been on land now owned by Hon. John Prine Sharp.
Mr. Carpenter was a man of prominence, having served as justice, sheriff of his
county and trustee of Randolph Academy of Clarksburg, but was at the time crippled
from a wound previously received.

In the fall of 1792 the son of Captain James Neal and a man named. William
Triplett were massacred at the mouth of Burning Springs run where they were hunt-
ing buffaloes.

In May, 1792, Moses Hewitt, who had ventured up the ravine from Neal's
Station to hunt his horse was captured about a mile from the station, but
later escaped while his captors were securing honey from a bee tree.

In the spring of 1792, savages appeared near Belleville and captured Stephen
Sherrod who later escaped and returned home safely the following day. In 1793,
Malcom Coleman of Belleville was shot by savages at a hunting camp near Cottage-
ville on Mill Creek. The famous Bird Lockhart while on a deer hunt in the autumn
of 1793 to secure venison for his friends at Williams Station was attacked by two
savages on his return route to the station (Williamstown).

In 1793, the Indians stole three horses near Neal's Station and were pursued
by Capt. Bogard into Ohio and up Raccoon Creek; and in March of that year Capt.
William Lowther reported many crossing the Ohio and said that on the 3rd of that
month they had stolen six horses near Clarksburg, whereupon he pursued them to
Williams Station and with five men additional, there procured, had gone by water
to about four miles below Belleville, and followed them fifty miles into Ohio, where
he retook four of the horses, killed one Indian and wounded another; he sent the
skin of one of their heads, as convincing evidence of their presence.

In 1794, Ensign Bartholomew Jenkins was stationed at Neal's Station. Capt.
Bogard at Newberry, Lieutenant Morgan at Fishing Creek, Lieutenant Evans at
Fish Creek, Ensign Jonathan Coburn at Middle Island and Capt. Morgan, with his
free lance and thirty followers, penetrated beyond the Ohio about two hundred
miles up the Muskingum, destroyed a town, killed one Indian, and brought back
three women and two children. In March of this same year, Joseph Cox was cap-
tured on his way to the mouth of Leading Creek by a party of savages who spared
his life as he played fool and availed himself of the Indians' peculiar consideration
for idiots and lunatics; in the early part of April, possibly by the same party, Paul
Armstrong's wife and three younger children were killed at their home just below
Parkersburg, on the Ohio just above Blennerhassett Island; his sons, Jeremiah,
aged nine years, John, aged eleven years, and an older daughter, Elizabeth, wore
carried captives down and across the river.

(6) Ten years earlier, in 1784, the people on the Monongahela, in Pennsylvania,
paid five cents a pound to have their merchandise carried on pack horse from
Philadelphia, and in 1789 they paid four cents for carrying from Carlisle to Union-
town. Packing by horses was a business which many followed for a living. Wages
paid the packhorse driver were fifteen dollars per month, and men were scarce at
that price. In 1789 the first wagon loaded with merchandise reached the Mononga-
hela River, passing over the Braddock road. It was driven by John Hayden, and
hauled two thousand pounds from Hagerstown to Brownsville, and was drawn by
four horses. One month was consumed in making the trip, and the freight bill
was sixty dollars. This was cheaper than packing on horses.

Probably wagons were used before 1789 for hauling household goods in the long
emigrant trains across the Alleghenies. Boats upon the Monongahela and Ohio
before that year bore abundant evidence that the wagon roads over the moun-
tains were well patronized by wheeled vehicles, as well as by flocks and herds. It
is recorded that from November 13 to December 22, 1785, there passed down the
Ohio 39 boats, with an average of ten persons in each. In the last six months of
1787 a count at the mouth of the Muskingum river, on the Ohio side a short dis-
tance above Parkersburg, showed that 146 boats passed, with 3,196 passengers, 165
wagons, 191 cattle, 245 sheep, and 24 hogs. From November, 1787, to Novem-
ber, 1788, there passed down the Ohio 967 boats, 18,370 people, 7,986 horses, 2,372
cows, 1,110 sheep, and 640 wagons.

(7) The surveyor at this partition probably was Thomas Buffington, of Hamp-
shire county, whose father had purchased the interest of John Savage. It is sup-
posed that when the survey was made there were no white people residing any-
where near the land. It appears that not a single person entitled to a share in the
"Savage Grant" ever took possession of it. Either the soldiers themselves, or
their heirs, sold and assigned to others their interest in the grant.

The partition of 1775 was not satisfactory.  In 1809, a chancery suit was
begun to set it aside. The land was afterwards sold for the United States direct
tax, and the assignees of the claims purchased of the soldiers, desired to set up
and have their rights adjudicated.

By act of January 5, 1810, twenty acres of land on the upper side of the
Guyandotte part of the Savage grant, Military Survey, held by Thos. Buffington,
was condemned and upon it was established the town of Guyandotte.