In June 1763, the French and Indian War had ended for the French, but not for the Indians of the Great Lakes region. Dissatisfied with the English now controlling all the former French lands in North America, the Ottawa chief Pontiac united many of the tribes and launched an assault on the settlers of Western Virginia. Many settlers were caught off guard, believing that peace now existed between whites and Indians. That belief would cost many of them their lives.
The following accounts, drawn from Wills De Hass’s 1851 History of the Early Settlements and Indian Wars of Western Virginia, record some of the brutal raids that marked the beginning of Pontiac’s Rebellion. In 1764, a party of eighteen Delaware Indians crossed the mountains and struck near Furman’s Fort, about a mile above Hanging Rock on the South Branch. William Furman and Nimrod Ashby had gone out from the fort to watch a deer lick in the Jersey mountains. The Indians discovered and killed them both, then passed on into Frederick County, where they divided into two parties.
One party of eight moved toward the Cedar Creek settlements. The other ten attacked the people in the neighborhood of Major John White’s residence, where a stockade had been erected. The settlers had taken the alarm and were making their way to this fort when the Indians fell upon them. David Jones and his wife were killed, along with some of Mrs.
Thomas’s family, and one of her daughters was carried off. An old man named Lloyd, his wife, and several of his children were killed. Esther Lloyd, their thirteen-year-old daughter, received three tomahawk wounds in the head, was scalped, and was left for dead. Henry Clawson and two of his sons were killed, and his wife and four daughters were taken.
The youngest daughter was about two years old, and as she slowed the mother’s travel, the Indians dashed her brains out against a tree in the presence of her anguished parents. Mrs. Thomas was taken toward the Wappatomaka, but the river was high, and the Indians encamped near Furman’s Ford for the night. The next morning, a party of white men fired their guns at the ford, alarming the Indians.
As they hurried across the river, they assisted all their female prisoners except Mrs. Thomas, who, being stout and strong, was left to struggle for herself. The current proved too strong, and she floated downstream, but lodged against a rock, crawled onto it, and saved herself from drowning. The other party of eight Indians committed several murders on Cedar Creek, likely killing a Mr.
Lyle, a Mr. Butler, and others. Mr. Ellis Thomas, the husband of the woman just described, had already been killed the preceding harvest.
This party took off two female prisoners but was pursued by white men, overtaken in the South Branch Mountain, and fired upon. One Indian was killed; the others fled, leaving their guns, prisoners, and plunder behind. That same year, 1764, a party of eight Indians, accompanied by a white man named Abraham Mitchell, killed George Miller, his wife, and two children within two miles of Strasburg. The same day they killed John Dellinger and took his wife and her infant child prisoner.
While crossing Sandy Ridge west of the Capon River, the child had its brains beaten out against a tree. Again a party of white men pursued, overtook the raiders in the South Branch mountains, and killed one. The rest fled, abandoning everything. In the latter part of 1765, the Indians appeared near Woodstock, where they killed George Sigler, an old man who, with some women and children, was making his way to the fort.
Shortly before this, two Indians had been discovered lurking near Mill Creek. Matthias Painter, John Painter, and William Moore armed themselves and went in pursuit. As they approached a large fallen pine with a bushy top, Matthias warned the others that the Indians might be concealed beneath it. He had scarcely spoken before one of them rose and fired.
The ball grazed John Painter’s temple. Moore and Painter fired at the same instant, one ball passing through the Indian’s body, and he fell, supposedly dead. The other Indian fled, and though the whites pursued, he was too fast for them. When they returned to the pine tree, the supposed dead Indian had vanished, taking both guns and a large pack of skins.
They followed his trail until he climbed into a sinkhole and began firing at them. He had poured gunpowder on dry leaves, filled his mouth with bullets, and used a self-priming musket that allowed him to load and fire with astonishing speed. He fired at least thirty times before Moore got an opportunity and shot him through the head. Moore and Painter long disputed which of them had given the Indian his first wound; Painter ultimately yielded, and Moore received the bounty allowed by law for Indian scalps.
The Indian who had escaped unfortunately met a young woman named Sethan on horseback near the present town of New Market. He tore her from the horse and forced her off with him. After traveling about twenty miles, the captive is supposed to have broken down from fatigue, and the Indian beat her to death with a heavy pine knot. Her screams were heard by people living over a mile away, who the next day found her stripped and lying in her blood.
Elsewhere in the region, the three Eckerly brothers, members of the Christian sect called Dunkers, had settled on Cheat River in 1755. Dr. Thomas Eckerly and his brothers built a cabin and occupied their quiet possessions undisturbed for years. When the elder brother went east to trade, he stopped at Fort Pleasant on his return.
Because many border men harbored suspicion toward the Dunkers, he was detained on a charge of being in alliance with the Indians. It was decided to send a guard with him; if their suspicions proved correct, he was to be brought back and dealt with accordingly. When the escort reached the cabin, they found that the destroyer had been there. Nothing remained but the half-consumed bodies of the unfortunate brothers.
A few years later, several settlers on the Monongahela near the mouth of Decker’s Creek were cut off by a party of Delawares, including Thomas Decker, after whom the creek is named. Two or three settlers escaped, and one made his way to Redstone Old Fort to give the alarm. The commandant, Captain Paul, sent word to Fort Pitt, and Colonel Gibson, leaving his garrison under a subordinate, hurried down the river hoping to intercept the Indians. He failed, but instead came upon a small party of Mingoes encamped on Cross Creek.
Little Eagle, a distinguished chief, commanded the party. Seeing the whites at the same time Gibson saw him, Little Eagle gave a fearful whoop and fired at Gibson. The ball passed through Gibson’s coat without injuring him. With the quickness of a tiger, Gibson sprang upon his foe and severed the chief’s head from his body with one sweep of his sword.
Two other Indians were shot dead; the rest escaped and reported that the white captain had cut off the head of their chief with a long knife. This was the origin of the term “long knives,” applied throughout the war to the Virginians and still remembered by some western tribes. Gibson himself was known as the Long Knife Warrior ever after. In the summer of 1761, around fifty Shawnee warriors erupted into the James River settlements.
On Purgatory Creek they killed Thomas Perry, Joseph Dennis, and a child, taking Dennis’s wife prisoner. They proceeded to the house of Robert Rennick, taking his wife and five children; Rennick himself was absent but would fall at another place. The Indians reached a nearby neighbor where Rennick happened to be, and there killed him and a man named Thomas Smith, capturing Smith’s wife and a girl named Sally Jew. At that moment three men, George Matthews, later distinguished at Point Pleasant and Germantown, and two brothers named Maxwell, rode up to the house.
Seeing the bodies of Smith and Rennick lying in the yard, they wheeled their horses and fled as the Indians fired after them. One Maxwell was slightly wounded in the arm. Mrs. Rennick, after five years of captivity, said the Indians saw the three men approach, and four of them took aim, but the sudden wheeling of the horses saved the riders’ lives.
Twenty Indians were dispatched with the prisoners toward the Ohio, while the rest penetrated deeper to continue their raids. The alarm had spread, and the inhabitants gathered at Paul’s Fort. Leaving five men to guard the fort, a party of twenty-two headed by Matthews went in pursuit. They soon overtook the Indians, and after a severe fight compelled them to give way, but the intense darkness made further pursuit impossible.
Nine Indians and three whites were killed. Mrs. Rennick and two of her sons were ransomed in 1766; one son died in captivity, another intermarried with the Indians and became a chief, and a third settled on the Scioto and founded a respectable family. Hannah Dennis escaped after two years.
During 1763, two Greenbrier settlements, Muddy Creek and Big Levels, were entirely cut off. A party of fifty or sixty Shawnees, supposed to have been headed by Cornstalk, approached under the guise of friendship. Since no recent hostilities had occurred in that region, the inhabitants believed there was no danger and received the Indians warmly. Suddenly the Indians fell upon the men, butchering them all, and took the women and children captive.
They next visited the Levels, where Archibald Clendenin had built a blockhouse sheltering many families. Again the Indians were entertained with hospitality. Clendenin had just brought in three fine elk, upon which the Indians feasted. One of the inmates was a decrepit old woman with an ulcerated limb.
She showed it to an Indian and asked if he could cure it. “Yes,” he replied, and immediately sank his tomahawk into her head. That was the signal, and every man in the house was put to death. The cries of the women and children alarmed a man in the yard, who escaped and reported to the settlement on Jackson’s River, but the people were reluctant to believe him.
Soon they were convinced, as the Indians appeared and massacred many fleeing families without mercy. The prisoners were marched toward the Ohio. Mrs. Clendenin, indignant at the treachery, abused the Indians from the chief down without restraint.
To intimidate her, they slapped the bloody scalp of her dead husband against her face and twirled their tomahawks above her head, but she continued to speak her mind. The day after her capture she saw an opportunity to escape, gave her infant to another woman, and slipped into a thicket. The child began to cry, and one of the Indians, demanding to know where the mother was, seized the infant by the heels and dashed out its brains against a tree. Mrs.
Clendenin returned to her desolate home and secured her husband’s remains from the wild animals. It is also stated that a black woman escaping from the house killed her own child to prevent its cries from revealing her hiding place. In October 1764, a party of forty or fifty Mingo and Delaware Indians crossed the Ohio, ascended the Great Sandy, and came over onto New River. There they separated into two parties, one heading toward Roanoke and Catawba, the other toward Jackson’s River.
Their trail was discovered by three trappers, Swope, Pack, and Pittman, who followed it to the point of division and realized the danger to the settlements. Swope and Pack started for Roanoke; Pittman for Jackson’s River. But the Indians reached the settlements first. The party on Jackson’s River traveled down Dunlap’s Creek and crossed the James River above Fort Young unnoticed.
They met William Carpenter just above his house and killed him, then made prisoners of Carpenter’s son, two small sons of Mr. Brown, and one woman, while others were working in the field. After plundering the house and taking horses, they began a precipitate retreat. The gunshot was heard by those in the field, and Brown carried the alarm to Fort Young and Fort Dinwiddie.
Captain Paul, commanding the latter, started with twenty men in pursuit. On Indian Creek they met Pittman almost exhausted. The pursuit continued, but the Indians escaped. As Paul’s men returned, they accidentally came upon the other party of Indians, who had been to Catawba committing murders.
The Indians were discovered about midnight in camps on the north bank of New River. Most were lying around a small fire wrapped in skins, with three prisoners sitting among them. Paul’s men, unaware that captives were present, fired into their midst, killing three Indians and wounding several others, one of whom drowned himself to preserve his scalp. The rest fled down the river.
Several captives were released and considerable plunder recovered. One of those rescued was Mrs. Gunn, an Englishwoman who had known Captain Paul years before. Recognizing his voice, she called him by name just as one of his men, supposing her to be an Indian, was about to tomahawk her.
She made no resistance. When asked why, she replied, “I had as soon be killed as not. My husband is murdered, my children are slain, my parents are dead. I have not a relation in America.
Everything dear to me here is gone. I have no wishes, no hopes, no fears. I would not have risen to my feet to save my life.
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Such were some of the horrors experienced on the frontier in the early settlements of Western Virginia, as the settlers who believed the war was over discovered that the peace they trusted had never come.
