LOGAN.
Logan was formed in 1824, from Giles, Kanawha, Cabell, and
Tazewell, and named from the Mingo chief. It is about 70 miles
long, with a mean width of 35 miles. It is watered by Guyandotte,
Tug Fork of Big Sandy, and branches of the Great Kanawha.
The surface is generally mountainous, and the soil adapted to grazing.
It is one of the largest, wildest, and most sparsely inhabited
counties in the state, with a population of less than 2 persons to a
square mile. Pop. in 1840, whites 4,159, slaves 150; total, 4,309.
Lawnsville, or Logan C. H., is 351 miles west of Richmond, in
a fertile bottom in a bend of the river Guyandotte, surrounded by
mountains abounding in stone-coal and iron ore. It was laid off
in 1827, and contains a few dwellings only.
The destruction of the Roanoke settlement in the spring of 1757, by a party of
Shawnees, gave rise to a campaign into this region of country, called by the old settlers
"the Sandy creek voyage." This expedition was for the purpose of punishing the Indians,
and to establish a military post at the mouth of the Great Sandy, to counteract
the influence of the French at Gallipolis with the Indians. It was composed of four
companies, under the command of Andrew Lewis. The captains were Audley Paul,
Wm. Preston, (ancestor of the late Gov. P.,) Wm. Hogg, and John Alexander, father of
Archibald Alexander, D. D., president of Princeton Theological Seminary. The party
were ordered, by a messenger from Gov. Fauquier, to return. They had then penetrated
nearly to the Ohio, without accomplishing any of the objects of their expedition. When
the army on their return arrived at the Burning spring, in the present limits of this
county, they had suffered much from extreme cold, as well as hunger: their fear of
alarming the Indians having prevented them from either hunting or kindling fires.
Some buffalo hides, which they had left at the spring on their way down, were cut into
tuggs or long thongs, and eaten by the troops, after having been exposed to the heat from
the flame of the spring. Hence they called the stream near by, now dividing Kentucky
from Virginia, Tugg River, which name it yet bears. Several who detached
themselves from the main body, to hunt their way home, perished. The main body, under
Col. Lewis, reached home after much suffering; the strings of their moccasins, the
belts of their hunting-shirts, and the flaps of their shot-pouches, having been all the food
they had eaten for several days.
