 | CHAPTER VI. History of southwest Virginia, 1746-1786, Washington County, 1777-1870 |  |
MEMBERS OF THE COUNTY COURT:
William Preston,
James McGavock,
Arthur Campbell,
John Montgomery,
James McCorkle.
Sheriff, William Preston, appointed by the court.
Deputy Sheriff, William Sayers,
Deputy Clerk, Stephen Trigg,
County-Lieutenant, William Preston.
Attorney-at-Law, Harry Innes.
But little business of importance was transacted at this term of
the court, so far as the records that have been preserved show.
Thus began the first organized government under the Constitution
of Virginia, in Fincastle county.
In the month of September, 1776, that portion of the troops under
the command of Colonel William Russell began their march to the
Great Island of the Holston, at which time Anthony Bledsoe entered
two wagons in the public service, to convey the baggage and provision
of the troops. This circumstance is mentioned, for the reason
that this was the first time, as far as can be ascertained, that
a wagon was taken by the white man, as low down as the Long
Island in Holston.
When Colonel Russell reached the Long Island, he thought it
necessary to erect a fort in a field on the land of John Latham, on
Long Island, which fort was speedily erected and every preparation
made for the coming of the troops under command of Colonel Christian.
A company of militia was enrolled at Black's Fort (now
Abingdon), and taken into the pay of the government, to guard
the new fort, called Fort Patrick Henry, at Long Island, and to
guard the provision and baggage wagons going to and returning
from that fort. By the first day of October, Colonel Christian, with
his entire army of 2,000 men, including about 400 men from North
Carolina under command of Colonel Joseph Williams, Colonel Love
and Major Winston, arrived at Long Island. When the army had
proceeded about six miles beyond Long Island, Colonel Christian
any person or persons who would proceed to the Cherokee towns and
bring him a prisoner, in order to obtain intelligence of the motions
of the enemy; whereupon, Samuel Ewing, John Blankenship and
James McCall undertook the business, and in a few days entered
the town of Toquo, after crossing the Tennessee river, where they
met an Indian man on horseback, whom they permitted to escape,
lest it might occasion a discovery. They next visited the house of a
king's man by the name of Lowry, where they were refused admittance.
They then proceeded to the house of one Davis, from whom
they obtained intelligence of the designs of the enemy, when they
returned to the army and gave a true account of the situation of
affairs in the Indian country, according to their information, and
they were paid by the General Assembly of Virginia the one hundred
pounds, pursuant to the agreement of Colonel Christian.
Upon the receipt of this information, Colonel Christian and his
army proceeded, in a very cautious manner, on their march to the
Tennessee, always encamping, at night, behind breastworks, to prevent
a surprise.
Colonel John Sevier commanded, upon this expedition, a company
of horse, the rest of the army being infantry. Sixteen spies
were sent in advance of the army to the crossing of the French
Broad river, a point where the Indians said the white men should
never cross. After being several days out, Alexander Harlin came
into camp and told Colonel Christian that 3,000 Indian warriors
were awaiting his arrival at the crossing of the French Broad. Colonel
Christian permitted him to go through the camp and to observe
the strength of his army, when he was dismissed by Colonel Christian,
with direction to inform the Indians of his determination to
cross, not only the French Broad, but the Tennessee river, before he
returned. The army continued its march through the wilderness,
under direction of Isaac Thomas, the noted Indian trader and friend
of Nancy Ward, as pilot. When they approached the crossing of
the French Broad river, a king's man by the name of Fallin
approached the camp with a flag of truce, to which Colonel Christian
paid no attention, permitting Fallin to pass through the camp unmolested,
that he might observe the strength of Christian's army. It is
said that the Indians had gathered on the opposite side of this crossing
determined to defend its passage to the last extremity, when a
the Indians that it was folly to resist the invasion of the whites.
In an earnest harangue, he told them it was folly to contend with
the white man. That the Great Spirit intended he should overrun
and occupy all the low lands which should be cultivated. To
the red man he had given the hills and forests, where he might subsist
on game without tilling the soil, which was work fit only for
women. To struggle with the white man was, therefore, to fight
with destiny. The only safety for the Indians lay in a speedy retreat
to their mountain fastnesses."[17]
From some cause the Indians disbanded and dispersed without
offering any resistance to the white men. Colonel Christian and
his army crossed the river and pressed rapidly forward to the Cherokee
towns along the Little Tennessee and Telico, every one of which
was destroyed, except Chota, the home of Nancy Ward, the beloved
woman of the Indian tribe and the friend of the white man; and
Colonel Christian destroyed all grain, cattle and other provisions
found in the nation. When Colonel Christian had destroyed the
towns and property of the Indians and had chastised them as far
as it was possible to do so, he sent out a number of men with flags
of truce, and requested a talk with the Chiefs. A number of them
came in immediately and proposed peace. Colonel Christian told
them he was willing to grant them peace, but not until the tribe was
fully represented, and, thereupon, Colonel Christian fixed a day for
the concluding of peace in the following May, at Long Island in
Holston river, and, in the meantime, hostilities were to cease except
as to two towns on the Tennessee river, where young Moore, who
had been captured at Watauga, had been burned at the stake; which
proposition was accepted. Colonel John Sevier, thereupon, visited
the towns in question and left the same in ashes.
Colonel Christian finding nothing further to engage his attention,
returned with his army to the Long Island in Holston river. This
campaign lasted three months, and but a single white man was
killed. This was a man whose name was Duncan, a soldier under
Captain Jacob Womack. He was killed in an engagement with the
Indians. This man left a wife (she was a cripple), and five small
children, to whom the General Assembly of Virginia, on June 16,
1777, allowed the sum of twenty pounds for their present relief and
years, with directions to Anthony Bledsoe and William Cocke, to lay
out and expend the same for the support and maintenance of Elizabeth
Duncan and her children. Several white men were slightly
wounded by the Indians and by accident, upon this expedition,
among the number being Samuel Douglas, Thomas Berry and
George Berry, Jr.
Upon the return of the army to the Long Island of the Holston,
Colonel Christian reorganized the same, and, for the protection of
the frontiers, left six hundred men at the island under the command
of Colonel Evan Shelby and Major Anthony Bledsoe.
The General Assembly of Virginia directed the Governor and
Council to take such measures for the preservation and disposition
of the horses and provision belonging to the government and in use
upon this expedition as should appear to be most proper and conducive
to the interest of the country. And, by the same act, the
Governor and Council were directed to give instructions to the commanding
officer of the army destined against the Cherokees, to
take such steps, at the end of the campaign, as were thought necessary
for the future safety and protection of the southwestern frontier
of this State. Whereupon the Governor and Council of Virginia
directed Captain Thomas Madison to take the necessary steps to collect
all the cattle and horses on hand upon the return of the army
from this expedition, and to take care of them, whereupon Captain
Madison employed:
William Carmack,
Stephen Richards,
John Fulkerson,
Andrew Greer,
John Nash,
Peter Looney,
John Cox,
Jonathan Drake,
Henry Hickey,
Hugh Blair,
John Delaney,
Matthew Dean,
Cornelius Carmack,
Joseph Greer,
Samuel Looney,
William McBroom,
John Carmack,
Ezekiel Smith,
Isaac Drake,
Benjamin Drake,
to herd and take care of the country cattle, from the 13th day of
November, 1776, to the 11th day of June, 1777. And Colonel
Christian, pursuant to the directions of the Governor and Council,
stationed the six hundred men as above detailed at Long Island,
Fort, about fifty miles from North Fork of the Clinch river, with
eighty men. The rest of the army were mustered out of service.
Captain Martin immediately began the march to the Rye Cove.
Upon this march he had to pass through a very dangerous gap,
called Little Moccasin, where the trail went through a very narrow
and deep gorge of the mountain and where the Indians had
killed a great many white people. When Captain Martin began
the march through the gap, he had his men in fine order and
strung out in single file. Just as the head of the column
emerged from the narrow defile, the whole column was fired upon
by Indians from the top of the ridge, where they were strung out
in a line as long as Captain Martin's. As soon as the Indians
fired, they ran off, having failed to kill any of Martin's men
But one man, James Bunch, a member of Martin's company,
had five balls shot through his flesh, whereby he was rendered
incapable of getting a livelihood by labor, and was allowed by
the General Assembly of Virginia thirty pounds for his present
relief and half pay as a soldier for three years.
The Indians having all fled, Captain Martin proceeded to Rye
Cove, where he remained until the first of May, 1777, when he
was ordered back to the Long Island, where he remained until
the treaty of peace was concluded between the Indians and the
whites on July the first.
In December of the year 1776, the commanding officer at
Fort Patrick Henry dispatched Samuel Newell and another person
to the Cherokee town for the Indian chief, the Raven of
Chote. Upon their return trip they were accompanied by the
Indian chief.
A short time thereafter, in the month of January, 1777,
Samuel Newell was again ordered to the Indian town, Chote,
with letters in regard to a family that had been murdered near
Fort Patrick Henry. While on his way to the town of Toquo,
he was tomahawked by the Indians and scalped, and soon thereafter
died in the town of Chote. His horse, gun, saddle and
bridle, saddle-bags and clothes were carried off by the Indians,
who murdered him.
A number of the citizens of Fincastle county petitioned the
General Assembly of Virginia for compensation for pasturage
expedition, among the number so petitioning being
Amos Eaton,
James Kincannon
David Getgood,
John Beatie,
William Sayers,
Ephraim Dunlop,
John Latham,
Evan Shelby,
Abel Richardson,
James McGavock,
James Aylett,
Robert Barnett,
William Cocke,
The General Assembly of Virginia at its fall session in 1776,
allowed Isaac Thomas, the faithful friend of the white settlers,
one hundred pounds as a reward for the services he had rendered
the settlers by giving them information of the intended incursions
of the Indians, and paid him for the stock and property
lost at the time of the outbreak of the Indian war.
The Governor and Council of Virginia directed that for the
purpose of concluding a treaty of peace between the Indians and
the Commonwealth of Virginia a convention should be held at
the Long Island of Holston, in the month of May, 1777, and
appointed Colonel William Christian, Colonel William Preston
and Major Evan Shelby to act as the Virginia commissioners at
said convention. The Governor and Council of North Carolina
appointed Waightstill Avery, Joseph Winston and Robert
Lanier, commissioners upon the part of North Carolina at said
convention. The commissioners of the two States met the Indian
chiefs, who had been assembled through the efforts of Nathaniel
Gist, at the Long Island in May, 1777, and drafted a treaty,
which treaty was submitted to the Governor and Council of
Virginia on May 28, 1777, at which time the Council entered
the following orders:
"Having referred to the Governor of this board to direct a
treaty begun with the Cherokee Indians in such manner as they
think best,
"Resolved, That the Governor be desired to confer with the
Cherokee chiefs and warriors, from time to time during their
said meeting, on the subject of all disputes now subsisting
between them and this State, and in regard to the treaty of peace
now under consideration, and if he receive any proposals to
the conference to be held at the Great Island on two
days next month, and this board will attend at such conference
as may be appointed, and that Dr. Walker and Colonel Christian
be desired to provide from the public store, or, in their place,
proper presents to be made to the Indians now here and consider
what is necessary to provide for the Indians at the next meeting
at the Great Island.
"Adjourned at 10 o'clock.
"John Page,
"Dudley Diggs,
"John Blair,
Tho. Walker,
Nathaniel Harrison,
David Jamison,
"Bartho Dandridge.
"Colonel William Christian, one of the commissioners appointed
on behalf of this State to form a treaty of peace with
the Cherokee Indians, having attended this board with the proceedings
of himself and the other commissioners at a treaty held
at the Great Island, in consequence of their former instructions,
upon considering the same the board entirely approved thereof,
and think it necessary that the same should be laid before the
General Assembly, which the Governor is desired to do, and Colonel
William Christian having also informed the board that
several of the chiefs and warriors of said nation of Indians will
accompany him to Williamsburg, resolved that they be received
and treated in the most friendly manner and furnished with all
necessaries until the General Assembly shall give further directions
in the matter."
This treaty was not concluded until the first day of July, 1777.
By this treaty a new boundary line was established between the
settlers and the Indians. The boundaries as fixed by this treaty
extended as far down as the mouth of Cloud's creek. This treaty
was signed by all the Indian chiefs except Dragging Canoe, who
was wounded at the battle of Long Island Flats. He said "that he
would hold fast to the talks of Cameron the British agent and
continue the war as before." While the treaty was being negotiated
two men were murdered on the Clinch river by Dragging
Canoe and some of his men, and conduct of this character was
continued for many years on the part of Dragging Canoe and the
Chickamauga Indians.
While this treaty was being negotiated a great many Indians,
with their squaws and children, had collected and were quartered
in the island, surrounded by a guard to prevent improper intercourse
with the whites, but, notwithstanding this precaution,
some abandoned fellow shot across the river and killed an Indian.
This produced great confusion; the Indians thought they were
betrayed and prepared to fly, and it was with much exertion that
the officers and commissioners pacified and convinced them that
such was not the fact. Afterwards, when the Council met, the
Raven opened the conference on the part of his people by a speech
in which he reverted to the case of the murdered Indian. He
said, "lest that unhappy affair should disturb the harmony and
sincerity that ought to exist at that time between the white and
red brethren, each party ought to view it as having happened so
long ago, that if, when the Indian was buried, an acorn had been
thrown into his grave, it would have sprouted and grown and
become a lofty spreading oak, sufficiently large for them to sit
under its shade and hold their talk.
This speech was thought by many to be equal to anything in
the celebrated speech of Logan.
From the fall of 1775 to the close of the Revolutionary war,
the settlers in this part of Virginia were compelled to occupy
their forts from early spring until late in the fall, as their settlements
were constantly visited by bands of Cherokee and Shawnese
Indians sent upon them by the British agents, but the settlements
enjoyed perfect freedom from the Indians from the first
appearance of winter until the return of spring. During this
interval of time the Indians were deterred from making raids
into the settlements, by the great danger of detection in consequence
of the nakedness of the trees, by the danger of being
traced by their tracks in the snow, and by the suffering produced
by exposure to cold while traveling and lying in wait. The
settlers took advantage of this immunity from attacks by the
Indians, cleared their lands, built their houses and made every
possible preparation for their crops during the coming season.
During the summer of 1776, elections were held throughout
the Commonwealth for members of the House of Delegates and
the Senate under the new Constitution. At this election the following
persons were elected members of the House of Delegates
And the member of the Senate from Botetourt and Fincastle,
that being the Tenth Senatorial District, was Colonel William
Christian.
By an ordinance of the convention of 1775, adopted July 15,
1775, the Western District of Virginia, of which Fincastle county
was a part, was required to furnish sixty-eight expert riflemen
for the regular service.
And by an Act of the Assembly of Virginia adopted in October,
1776, a requisition of seventy-four men was made upon the
authorities of Fincastle county to be officered by a captain appointed
by the Governor.
A First Lieutenant,
A Second Lieutenant,
and an Ensign.
The officers of the company organized in Fincastle county for
the continental service in the year 1776 cannot be ascertained,
save in one instance.
John Buchanan was lieutenant of this company at its organization,
and was a lieutenant in the Seventh Regiment in the fall
of the same year, and remained in the service until killed in the
year 1777.
At a meeting of the General Assembly of Virginia, in the fall
of the year 1776, a petition from the inhabitants of the western
parts of Fincastle county was presented to the House and read;
setting forth that they became adventurers in that part of the
county in the year 1774, and were obliged by the incursions of
the Indians to abandon their settlements, after having discovered
and explored the country; that others afterwards became adventurers
and claimed the lands by warrants from Lord Dunmore,
under the royal proclamation of 1763, and a company of men
from North Carolina purchased, or pretended to purchase, from
the Cherokee Indians, all the lands from the southernmost waters
of Cumberland river to the banks of the Louisa river, including
the lands in Powell's Valley, by virtue of which purchase they
styled themselves the absolute proprietors of the new independent
Transylvania; that officers, both civil and military, are appointed,
writs of election issued, assemblies convened, a land office opened,
and lands sold at an exorbitant price, and a system of policy
United Colonies, and that they have the greatest reason to question
the validity of the purchase aforesaid; that they consider
themselves and the said lands to be in the State of Virginia,
whose legislature they acknowledge, and to which State they conceive
they justly belong; that having assembled together after
due notice, they elected two members to represent them in this
House, and hope they may be received as their delegates; that
they are ready and willing, to the utmost of their abilities, to
assist in the support of the present laudable cause, by contributing
their quota of men and moneys, and that in order to preserve
good order, they had, as was done in West Augusta, elected
a committee consisting of twenty-one members, and cheerfully
submitted the case to the House. This petition of the inhabitants
of that part of Fincastle county, now included within the
State of Kentucky, was accompanied by petitions from nearly
all the settlers on the Holston and Clinch rivers, and was presented
to the General Assembly on the eighth day of October,
1776, and the General Assembly on Friday, October 11, 1776,
adopted the following resolutions:
"Resolved, That the inhabitants of the western part of Fincastle
county not being allowed by the law a distinct representation
in the General Assembly, the delegates chosen to represent them
in this House cannot be admitted. At the same time the committee
are of opinion, that the said inhabitants ought to be
formed into a distinct county, in order to entitle them to such
representation and other benefits of government."
The petition for the division of Fincastle county was referred
to a committee of which Carter Braxton was chairman, which
committee, through its chairman, on Tuesday, October 15, 1776,
presented a bill for the division of the county of Fincastle into
two distinct counties, which bill was read the first time and
ordered to be read the second time. On Wednesday, October 16,
1776, this bill was read a second time and was committed to
Thomas Jefferson and the members from Augusta and Botetourt
counties, and on October 17, 1776, Mr. Jefferson, from the committee
to whom the bill for dividing the county of Fincastle into
two distinct counties was committed, reported that the committee
had gone through the bill and made several amendments
at the clerk's table, where the same was again twice read and
agreed to and ordered to be engrossed and read a third time.
And, on Wednesday, October 30, 1776, this bill was ordered to be
committed to Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Simms, Mr. Bullitt and the
members from Fincastle, Augusta and Botetourt counties, and on
November 19, 1776, Mr. Mason and the members from Frederick,
Hampshire and Bedford counties were added to the committee,
to whom the bill for dividing the county of Fincastle into two
distinct counties was committed. And on Monday, November
26, 1776, the bill for dividing the county of Fincastle into three
distinct counties was read a third time, and it was:
"Resolved, That the said bill do pass, and that the title be, an
Act for dividing the county of Fincastle into two distinct counties,
and the parish of Botetourt into four distinct parishes, and
Mr. Arthur Campbell was appointed to carry the same to the
Senate for their concurrence.
In the Senate, several amendments were proposed to the bill
passed by the House, which amendments, being communicated
to the House, were disagreed to, whereupon, the Senate communicated
with the House, through Mr. Ellzey, as follows:
"Mr. Speaker:
"The Senate do insist on the amendments by them proposed
to the bill entitled, An Act for Dividing the County of Fincastle
into three distinct counties, and the parish of Botetourt into four
distinct parishes. And upon the amendments being again read,
it was, by the House of Delegates,
"Resolved, That this House do recede from their disagreement
to the said amendments proposed by the Senate, which
action of the House having been communicated to the Senate, the
Senate insisted on the amendments proposed to the bill by them,
whereupon, the Virginia House of Delegates, on December 6,
1776,
"Resolved, That this House do insist on the disagreement to
said amendments, and that Mr. Campbell do acquaint the Senate
therewith."
Which resolution being communicated to the Senate, the Act
for the dividing of the county of Fincastle into three distinct
counties, and the parish of Botetourt into four distinct parishes,
proposed by them.
This act provided that from and after the 31st day of December,
1776, the county of Fincastle shall be divided into three
distinct counties, to be known by the names of Montgomery,
Washington and Kentucky.
Thus ends the history of Fincastle county, in so far as the
history of that county forms a part of the history of Washington
county.
| CHAPTER VI. History of southwest Virginia, 1746-1786, Washington County, 1777-1870 | |