Popenoe/Popnoe/Poppino

       & Allied Families

Home    

The Morgans, Martins and Popenos: Virginia and Kentucky

Now we will look at the Morgan family into which both Nancy Popeno and Harry Martin married.

In 1766, Thomas and Johanna Morgan were granted a deed of land along Sleepy Creek in Hampshire County, Virginia.[1]  It was on the road (now Route 9) from Alexandria to Bath (now Berkeley Springs, WV) which George Washington and others took to partake of the curative waters.  It is believed by some (though without any evidence) that Thomas and Johanna came from Bucks County, Pennsylvania and that Thomas was related to Daniel Boone’s mother, Sarah Morgan. Another possibility, is that our Thomas was the Thomas Morgan who arrived in the Shenandoah Valley (perhaps from Chester County, PA) by 1741 when he bought land near Berryville.[2]  That Thomas was a blacksmith. He sold the land in 1749 and it was surveyed in 1751 by George Washington for Lord Fairfax. Like many others, he probably went east of the mountains during the French and Indian War. Afterwards, when the western areas were safer, he may have moved west, as did many of his neighbors, settling at Sleepy Creek.

This theory is supported by the record of an Alexandria-Fairfax militia company, paid off in 1759.[3]  Among the members: Charles Martin and Jesse Martin, Ensigns; plus Joseph Martin, William Jackson and Thomas Morgan. These are all common names but their juxtaposition leads me to believe that our Martins, Morgan and Jackson all knew each other in Fairfax County (where John Evans also lived) during the French and Indian War if not before.  In 1780, Jesse Martin, then of Ohio County, VA received a land bounty certificate for his service in 1758.

Thomas and Johanna’s son, John Morgan, born in 1748, married Martha Constant.  Her father, John Constant, was the son of John and Susannah Constant who lived in St. George Parish, Baltimore Co, MD as early as 1722.[4]  Constant had been a marker for George Washington on some of his early surveys for Lord Fairfax in western Virginia[5] and served under him in the Virginia Militia in 1756.[6]  As you will later see, the Constants and Morgans were ancestors of most of the present-day Popenoes.

 
In 1775, Daniel Boone had cut the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap in Southwest Virginia and on into Kentucky (then a part of Virginia) where he founded Boonesborough.  The following year, John Strode went out to Kentucky from Virginia and marked and improved some land several miles northwest of what is now Winchester, KY.  In 1779, the Virginia Legislature authorized a commission to be held at Boonesborough to hear proof and issue certificates to rightful land claimants.  Accordingly, Strode organized a small group of men to go back with him so that he could claim his land and they could also claim some of their own.  They started from Shepherdstown, Virginia, went down the Valley of Virginia to the Gap and then took the Wilderness Road to Boonesborough.[7]  John Constant Jr. was in that group and when he returned he persuaded many of his family to go back with him.  Accordingly, in 1780, he returned with his brother-in-law John Morgan, along with Morgan’s eleven-year old son, Evan Morgan. They took up residence at the station started by John Strode, whose son was to marry another of Constant’s daughters.[8]  While there, Strode’s Station came under siege by Indians and the Morgans had their first taste of Indian fighting.  John Morgan served 27 days in the local militia.[9]  In 1783 he served for 32 days in a militia ranger company, together with Peter and John Popeno.[10]

In 1784, John Morgan bought land near Constants Station (about a mile north of Strode’s) and built his house there. In 1785, he returned to Virginia to get the rest of the family. John and Martha sold their 592 acres,[11]  packed up their seven children (from Evan, 16, to William, 1) and returned to Kentucky where they lived for the next 12 years or so.

While he was gone there was another attack. Many years later one of the participants, William Clinkenbeard, told this story:[12]

"Capt. John Constant’s house was No. 6, on the south side of Strode’s Station—and that said Constant got wounded, his leg broken by Indians….House was between Strode’s and the lane….Then there was another house near, John Morgan that married Constant’s sister….When the children were killed only three families lived there, Constant, Parvin and Stamper….

"Constant had been over in Madison County and given one dollar for a quart of blue grass seed to sow in his pasture, it was the first blue grass seed I ever saw on this side of the (Kentucky) River. Constant was out in his, and Stamper in his cornfield ploughing—some of the other children had the measles, and these two had been sent to the mouth of the lane…..one hundred and twenty or thirty yards from the house to break some spice bushes—these two poor children looked dreadful. I think they were tomahawked, pretty much cut their heads off.

"Mrs. Constant ran to the door to see (it was warm weather, I suppose it was open) and a bullett struck the cheek of the door, it or the end of a log right at the end of the door, saw the bullett hole many a time. Old dady Stamper heard the noise and got in. Constant might also have gotten in without hurt but he couldn’t get two other of Parvin’s children that were with him in the field to take the alarm and run. The house was a new log house on uneven ground and hadn’t been underpined all along. Constant came along under the lower side of the house and his wife took up a puncheon and let him up from under the floor."

Probably around 1786, Harry Martin, aged 19, left Morgantown and went to Kentucky. Perhaps he went to join Peter Popeno, back from his land claim in Indiana. At any rate, he went to the Strodes Station area where he met the Morgans.  In 1789 he married John and Martha’s daughter, Sarah.[13]

Around 1787, there had been an Indian attack on a settler’s house, the men had pursued them and caught one, perhaps wounding him.  They put him on John Morgan’s crippled mare to take him back.  Young Evan Morgan got mad the farther the Indian rode and swore if they didn’t take him off he would shoot him. They took him off.[14]  In 1790, Evan, then 21, was a member of General Harmer’s expedition across the Ohio to destroy the Indian villages around what is now Xenia. The expedition was badly defeated.

After Peter Popeno was killed in 1790, the rest of the Popeno family packed up and moved to Kentucky, leaving behind 500 acres of land that was no doubt rented out.  Elizabeth and her three children may have lived with Harry and Sarah Martin.  Before long, young Nancy Popeno caught the eye of Evan Morgan.  They were married 24 March 1792 when Nancy was 16 and already pregnant.[15]  Evan had just turned 23.  Nancy was to give birth to 14 children.

John Wade, who had been Elizabeth Popeno’s neighbor in Morgantown, later told this story about the Martins who were living in Morgan’s Station when it was attacked April 1, 1793.[16]  He went into Harry Martin’s house, "Mrs. Martin handed me a chair….I was just about to sit down when the alarm was raised, and we both ran out. Martin delayed to jerk down his gun, and I got out first….The moment we went out, we saw the Indians, but Martin thinking there were but 2 or 3, ran with all his might in that direction, with his gun in hand, to relieve the pursued.  I called for them all to go into the Block House….I now looked out through a port hole, and saw an Indian in advance, carrying a beautifully finished rifle in one hand, the polished brass on the butt glittering as it caught the rays of the sun, and in the other a shining tomahawk, brandished over his head.  Suddenly he fell on one knee and aimed a fire at Martin, running straight ahead within four rods [66 feet] of him.  I wouldn’t have wished a prettier shot than a man so running.  Some 10 or 15 steps behind followed 30 or 40 Indians, all spread out in a line, and making towards the Station.  Martin, startled on seeing how many there were, had turned back, and was running with the Becrafts and Duncan before them.

"….Women in those times wore nothing but a petticoat over their shift, and a handkerchief round their necks. Martin came along in the juncture of general flight, took out his butcher knife and cut loose his wife’s petticoat then picked up his oldest child, and pointing to the younger, told his wife to take it up and follow him. Wheeling a little to the left as they went out on the lower side, they soon got out of sight."

Harry Martin later fought in the Battle of Fallen Timbers, General Wayne’s final victory over the Indians in 1794 [17]   and he was a captain in the Greene County (OH) Third Brigade in the War of 1812.[18]

Letter from Evan’s daughter Lucy:

…my father and uncle Harry Martin both fought and chased Indians through Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio and many is the stories I have heard them tell of the narrow escapes they had. They were both good soldiers as ever lived and was always ready for a fight in war…. they both enlisted as guard the frontiers of Ohio for one year and my brother Henry was not of age and could not enlist but never stopped begging Father to let him go in his place….Henry said he would rather do that than take care of the family. But Father enlisted for thirty days as a scout.[19]