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                                                                                                    September 2004

 

Settling Along the Monongahela

In the 18th Century

 An Essay in Historical Genealogy

 

This is a study of the settlement of the area along the Monongahela River in western Virginia that later became Morgantown, with emphasis on the genealogy of a group of early families.  The three most important families--Evans, Martin, and Morgan--are discussed first, followed in alphabetical order by Bowman, Burris, Davis, Dent, Gallatin, Haymond, Judy, Popeno, Prickett, Scott, Snider and Swearingen.

In 1703 my immigrant paternal ancestor, Jean Papineau, a Huguenot refugee, was first recorded managing a leather factory in the Huguenot village of New Oxford, Massachusetts.  He died in New York City where his second son, Peter, was baptized in 1706.  In 1709 his widow Charlotte Bouniot Popino married Samuel Seeley, a fourth-generation colonist in Stamford, Connecticut.   She bore him eight more children.  In 1715, the family moved to the frontier at Goshen, in Orange County, NY  Around 1735, Peter moved to Salem County, New Jersey, where he died in 1755.

His son Peter was probably born around 1737.  In 1772 he settled in northwestern Virginia in what is now Monongalia County.  He married Elizabeth Martin and their first child together, Nancy Popino, was born in 1775.  She was followed by James in 1777 and Peter Jr. after that, probably 1778-9.  Leaving his family behind, Peter went to Kentucky in 1782 or 1783, later to Vincennes, Indiana, and was reportedly killed by Indians in 1790.  Elizabeth's son by an earlier marriage, Harry Martin, also went to Kentucky where, in 1789, he married Sarah Morgan, daughter of  John and Martha Constant Morgan from Hampshire County, Va.  (These Morgans are not known to be related to the Morgans of Monongalia County.)  In 1792 in Kentucky, Nancy Popino married Sarah's brother, Evan Morgan.  By this time the rest of the Popino family was in Kentucky and, in 1799, they moved to Ohio.

In 1820, in an attempt to claim rights to his grandfather's land in Salem County, New Jersey, James Popenoe returned to Monongalia County to look up relatives.  His letter (hereafter called his deposition), which has remained with the family and is attached as Appendix A, is the most valuable single document in sorting out the history of this family at that time.  It shows that Elizabeth Martin Popino's brother was Col. Charles Martin and her sister was Ann Martin Evans (called Nancy in the deposition) wife of Col. John Evans. 

This paper draws heavily on a three-day visit to Morgantown in November 1993 where I researched some of the original records in the Courthouse but spent most of my time at the Regional History Collection at West Virginia University.  That collection includes about three million manuscripts, a number of which are genealogical.  I begin with a review of the history of the area in the last half of the eighteenth century.  Then I look in some detail at the history and genealogies of several families with whom ours had some association.  It is only by looking at others in the community that one can get the whole picture.  Often a study of such people will provide new clues about the original object of one's search. 

A Little History[1]

Before reading the history, get your bearings by studying the maps of the Monongahela River area in the latter half of the 18th Century.[2] The first map shows the larger area.  Note the Monongahela River meeting the Allegheny River at Fort Pitt to form the Ohio River.  Upstream, notice Redstone Old Fort at the end of Braddock's Road.  Farther up, Dunkard Creek and the junction with the Cheat River.  Madison's Landing is an old name for the settlement at the mouth of Decker Creek, which became Morgantown.  Finally, farther upstream, notice Prickett's Fort and Buffalo Creek which will figure frequently in this paper.  

The second map shows the immediate area of our concern and the location of  many of the families discussed herein.  The scale is about 5/8" = 1 mile.   The area below the State line is Monongalia County.  In Pennsylvania, Greene County is on the left side of the river; Fayette County is on the right.  At one time this was all considered Virginia; later it became Bedford County and then Washington County, PA. Charles Martin's homestead was 800 acres on Crooked Run (see Fort Martin), running from the state line down to the river.  Peter Popino's homestead was on the left, between Doll's Run and the headwaters of Scott Run.  The Evans and Burris families were across the river on the flats above Morgantown.   Popino Spring and Popino Run were in this area and as I shall show later, I believe this is where the family lived after Peter went to Kentucky. (The current U.S. Geologic Survey map of Monongalia County calls it Popenoe Run.)

 

During the early part of the 18th Century, colonial settlement was limited to the Atlantic seaboard, east of the Alleghenies and the Blue Ridge.  In 1738 the Virginia Legislature set up Augusta County extending from the Blue Ridge north and west as far as anyone might want to go.  Today its territory is represented by the Shenandoah Valley (then called the Valley of Virginia), over forty counties of West Virginia, and the states of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. 

In 1749 George II chartered the Ohio Company whose founders were American and English capitalists and speculators, including Augustine and Lawrence Washington.  The company was granted 500,000 acres of land on the Ohio between the Monongahela and Kanawha rivers.  (The latter runs through south central West Virginia, by present-day Charleston, and empties into the Ohio at Point Pleasant--about 120 miles from Morgantown.)  The company was charged with settling 100 families and building a fort within seven years--a goal it never achieved.  Prior to this time the only white men to visit the area were traders, who supplied ammunition, rum and other articles of civilization to the Indians in exchange for furs and ginseng.  In 1750-51, the company sent an exploration party headed by Christopher Gist which passed through our area (see map 2).  In 1752 Gist took out a group of eleven families and made a settlement in western Pennsylvania, northeast of the Monongahela.

In the same year, the French began to build a series of  forts to protect their claim to the area west of the Alleghenies.  The Virginia governor responded in 1753 by sending  twenty-one-year-old George Washington to warn the French that they were encroaching on Virginia territory.  He was treated with courtesy but unable to persuade them to retire.   The next year the English began to build a fort at the forks of the Ohio but before it was far along, the French arrived with 1,000 troops, politely evicted the English, and proceeded to build their own fort, Fort Duquesne.  A new English force was dispatched with Lt. Col. Washington as second in command.  In May, 1754, at Great Meadows near Christopher Gist's plantation, they built a small fort, called Fort Necessity.  Washington's force was attacked and beaten by the French, and he returned ignominiously to Williamsburg.   The French burned the cabins of the Gist settlement and the settlers also retreated back across the Alleghenies.  The French and Indian War had begun.

The French were now determined to hold Fort Duquesne and the garrison was strengthened.  Not to be outdone, the English sent over Major General Edward Braddock to lead a major effort to oust them.  Washington was his aid de camp.  During 1755 they built a road following the route earlier taken by Gist (which later became the National Pike and is now Route 40).  On July 9, as they neared Pittsburgh, Braddock's troops were ambushed by the French and their Indian allies, and massacred.  Braddock died and Washington led the retreat of the dispirited survivors.  This defeat again left the frontier unprotected and settlers and traders mostly fled east of the mountains.

In 1758 the English tried again, this time with a very large force of over 7,000 men under Brigadier General John Forbes, with Washington commanding the second division under him.  A fort had already been built at Bedford, Pennsylvania, about forty miles north of Fort Cumberland where Braddock's road began.  A dispute raged over whether the army should build a shorter, new road west from Fort Bedford, or use the existing road to the south.  Virginia interests vied with Philadelphia ones, aware that after the war the road would have great commercial value.  Philadelphia won, and Forbes' road (now Route 30) was cut through from Fort Bedford, with a connection to Braddock's road at Redstone Old Fort (formerly an ancient Indian fort), on the Monongahela river about 40 miles south of Fort Duquesne (i.e., upriver).  On November 25, 1758, Forbes' massive army finally arrved, only to find that the French had the good sense not to fight such a force, and had burned their fort and departed.  Forbes renamed the area Pittsbourgh, after the English prime minister, and ordered the construction of Fort Pitt to defend the frontier.

While Forbes army was marching over the mountains the English negotiated with the Indians the Treaty of Easton whereby all land west of the mountains was barred to settlers and reserved for the Indians.  At later Indian conferences at Fort Pitt the English promise was reaffirmed.  A few settlers were allowed only around Fort Pitt and Fort Ligonier to raise food for the garrisons.  Nevertheless, with the new security, hardy souls began drifting in, often claiming to be hunters but at the same time blazing trees to mark land claims and sometimes building log cabins.  Col. Bouquet, the commander at Fort Pitt, ordered them out and frequently burned their cabins but to little avail.  The Indians protested to him and he protested to the governor about these "vagabonds".  In October 1761 he declared in a formal proclamation that "this is therefore to forbid any of his majesty's subjects to settle or hunt west of the Allegheny mountains on any pretense whatsoever." 

In 1763 the French and Indian War was formally settled by the Treaty of Paris.  This gave the English clear claim to the Ohio valley.  To maintain the policy of keeping settlers out and reserving the land for the Indians, King George issued the Proclamation of 1763 which restated the previous policy.  The proclamation line ran along the Allegheny divide from Canada south.  It was as ineffectual as it was sweeping.  Forbes road (for Pennsylvanians) and Braddock's road (for Virginians) were the two principal arteries in the American colonies puncturing the line and Redstone where they met was close both to Fort Pitt and what later became Monongalia County.  So this area saw the major push of settlers across the mountains. 

The term roads might lead us to think of something more substantial than actually existed. They frequently ran along the tops of hills where the visibility was better to ward off attack.  Veech reports[3]  that, with the exception of the army roads, none of the streams was bridged and a five degree grade was not thought of.  They were mere paths through the woods, and among the laurels and rocks of the mountains.  . "The writer has seen as many as thirty pack horses in a caravan, pass through Uniontown in a day....they were freighted with salt, sugar kettles, bar iron, nail rods, dry goods, glass, kegs of rum, powder, lead, etc...A good horse carried from two hundred to three hundred pounds, besides provisions and feed.....A bear skin to each horse was an indispensable accompaniment, for a bed to the drivers, and to protect the cargo from rain....Emigrants would have their little all swung across one, two, or more horses, according to their abundance, surmounted by their wives and children...."

The French and Indian War was followed almost immediately by an Indian war called Pontiac's War, which dragged on until 1765, causing further hardship along the frontier and delaying significant immigration.  The continued warfare between the Indians defending their territory and the colonists encroaching on it, led both the Indian leaders and the English to look for a negotiated solution.  All Indians recognized that formal Indian title to the land between the Alleghenies and the Ohio belonged to the Iroquois, centered in western New York.  However, the land had never been occupied by them, and was used as a hunting ground by many tribes. Some Shawnee, Delaware, and Mingo probably lived there, though they were mainly located across the Ohio River.  This land also provided a barrier between the Iroquois and the Cherokee, with whom they were frequently at war. 

In 1768 delegates from the Iroquois Six Nations met with Sir William Johnson, the Crown's Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and delegates from Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey at Fort Stanwyx (now Rome, NY). The Iroquois, in a great sell-out of the other tribes, agreed to sell to His Majesty's Government (i.e., the colonies) not only the area around and below Fort Pitt, but also the Cherokee and Shawnee hunting lands below the Ohio in the lower valleys of the Cumberland and the Tennessee.  From this the Iroquois hoped to gain temporary relief from colonial pressures against their own lands, and in this they were successful.  The Proclamation Line was officially changed by the Treaty of Fort Stanwyx to run just north of Fort Pitt to the Ohio River, down the River to just below the Kanawha River, and then southeasterly back to the original line.  Western Virginia was officially open for business.

Now let's look at what had been happening along the Monongahela up to this time.  In 1754 Samuel Eckerly (or Eckerlin) with his two brothers and a few others came from eastern Cheat River, 8 or 10 miles downriver from present-day Morgantown.  They were Dunkards (something like Mennonites, opposed to war, and probably settling there to avoid conscription). They called the creek Dunkard Creek.  They built a cabin near there and lived at peace and unseen for a year or two.  Finally in 1757, running out of salt and ammunition, Samuel Eckerly headed east for a supply.  On his way home he was stopped and accused of being a spy for Indians.  He protested his innocence and said he had never even seen an Indian but his story about living on the Monongahela was not believed. Finally he was sent back under guard to ascertain the truth of his claims.  When the group arrived, they found the ashes and the scalped bodies of most of the community lying in the yards.  Thus ended the first attempt to settle the area. 

In the fall of 1758 in a second attempt, a small party led by Tobias Decker and including some of the men who had been in Eckerly's guard, settled on the Monongahela at Deckers Creek which runs along the south end of present day Morgantown.  The following year, Indians attacked the settlement, killed eight of the settlers, and the rest fled.  During and after this period various traders came and went in the area, but there are virtually no records of  settlers prior to 1766, since settlement was illegal.  Jacob Prickett operated a trading post as early as 1759 near the site of the later Prickett's Fort.  (Prickett's Fort has been recreated and a visit will give a good idea of life there in the 1770s and 1780s.)

Joseph Doddridge who came as a very small boy with his father to western Pennsylvania described first hand some of the hardships of the new settlers:[4]  "Some of the early settlers took the precaution to come over the mountains in the spring, leaving their families behind to raise a crop of corn, and then return to bring them out in the fall....Others, especially those whose families were small, brought  them with them in the spring.  My father took the latter course....The Indian meal which he brought over the mountains was expended six weeks too soon, so for that length of time we had to live without bread.  I remember how narrowly the children watched the growth of the potato tops, pumpkin and squash vines....How delicious was the taste of young potatoes when we got them."

From the Treaty of Fort Stanwyx until 1774 the frontier was fairly peaceful.  When the peace was broken it tended to be by whites killing Indians for no good reason.  As Withers says:[5] "Man is at all times the creature of circumstances.  Cut off from intercourse with his fellow men, and divested of the conveniences of life, he will readily relapse into a state of nature.  Placed in contiguity with the barbarous and the vicious; his manners will become rude, his morals perverted....Such was really the situation of  those who made the first establishments in North Western Virginia.  And when it is considered, that they were, mostly, men from the humble walks of life; comparatively illiterate and unrefined; without civil or religious institutions, and with a love of liberty, bordering on its extreme; their more enlightened descendants cannot but feel surprise, that their derilection from propriety had not been greater; their virtue less."

Dale Van Every puts it this way:[6] "Every man, woman, and child on the frontier burned with hatred for all Indians and with scorn for all government....They were rude, vulgar, violent, bitter, cruel, remorseless.  They were men able to sleep soundly nights while knowing any dawn might find Indians breaking down the cabin door.  They were women who saw husband and children axed in the dooryard and the next day moved in with another frontiersman and began raising another frontier family.  They were children who learned how to rip off a scalp at an age other children were learning to read." 

One of the first atrocities was the murder of Bald Eagle, a friendly old Indian chief who was on intimate terms with many early settlers with whom he hunted, fished and visited.  Bald Eagle was killed by three local men who set him afloat on the Monongahela in a canoe with a piece of corn bread stuffed in his mouth.  This murder was regarded by both whites and Indians as a great outrage.  A worse atrocity occured soon after.  A group of 32 men under command of Daniel Whitehouse gathered at Baker's cabin across the Ohio river from an Indian encampment about 40 miles south of Wheeling..  Baker was in the habit of selling rum to the Indians and when several of them came over to buy rum they were treated in friendly fashion and gotten as drunk as possible, then set upon, killed and scalped.  Other Indians who came across to see what happened to their friends were similarly killed.  In all, about a dozen peaceful Indians were killed, including most of the family of Chief Logan, a well-known Indian who had been a great friend of the whites. He swore revenge.  The settlers in the area, knowing that the Indians would now make war upon them, moved into the forts or moved out of the area, and a message was sent to Williamsburg warning that an Indian war was about to begin. 

Governor Dunmore took charge of the ensuing war himself and it is known in history as Dunmore's War.  Lord Dunmore was an avaricious land speculator and was widely disliked in Virginia.  He directed General Anthony Lewis, in southwestern Virginia, to raise an army of eleven hundred men and lead them through the trackless forests down the Kanawha river to its juncture with the Ohio at Point Pleasant.  Gov. Dunmore, himself, raised an army in the north (possibly including Peter Popeno[7]) which he planned to take down the Ohio river to join Lewis.   However, when Lewis reached Point Pleasant--before Dunmore's force arrived--he was attacked by the Shawnee Chief Cornstalk with forces of  comparable strength. A day-long battle took place between the Indians and the colonials.  Although the colonials probably lost about as many men as the Indians, maybe more, Cornstalk concluded that he might have won the battle but he couldn't win the war.  A few days later, Dunmore negotiated the treaty of Camp Charlotte which brought an end to the hostilities and a return of prisoners.  Doddridge says[8] that it was a general belief among our officers that Dunmore, while at Wheeling, received word from London about the probability of war between England and America and he therefore wanted the colonials to bear the brunt of the battle and to make an easy peace with the Indians.

Beginning in 1770 and continuing into the revolutionary period, a number of forts had been built in the area; several of them by men discussed in this paper.  Among them:  Fort Statler on Dunkard Creek near Dolls Run (1770), Fort Martin on Crooked Run (1773),  Fort Harrison at the source of Crooked Run, Fort Burris on the flats above Morgantown (1766), Fort Morgan in Morgantown (1772), Fort Prickett, a few miles farther south (1774) and Fort Swearingen northeast of the mouth of Cheat.  Some forts were little more that fortified residences; others consisted of many houses surrounded by a palisade wall with blockhouses on the corners.  A good fort was pretty impregnable to an enemy without cannons unless they could starve it out or burn it down.

The fort was more than a place of refuge.  It was the social hub of the area surrounding it, serving roughly the same function as a feudal castle in the middle ages.  It was often at the fort that the young couples danced and courted, where marriages were performed and funerals were held, where land claims were settled and justice meted out.  Youths talked about "going forting" which often meant getting drunk and chasing girls.  The fort was also the economic hub of the region.  Here the trader set up shop, and supplies, ammunition and clothing were dispensed at what was a combination general store and community center.  Families generally went to the forts in the summer when the Indians were most active, driving their cattle, chickens and turkeys, and carrying their clothes and household supplies.  A few cabins were available but many people lived in the open or in little huts made of logs and bark.

In 1775 the Treaty of Pittsburgh was signed under which the local Indians agreed to take no part in the approaching war with Great Britain.  Soon, however, the English, operating out of Detroit, were promising Indians that if they supported the Tory cause, the colonials would be kept out of Indian lands when the war was over.  Throughout the revolution many Indian tribes--particularly those closest to Detroit--joined the English in making war on the frontier.  The Delawares, located nearest the frontier, tried to remain neutral but they could not stop the others from coming through on raids. The national government was too weak to send its armies to fight them.  It was up to the frontier settlers, with their militias, to defend themselves. 

In December 1776, a letter was received from Virginia Governor Patrick Henry advising every possible preparation in anticipation of probable Indian attacks in the spring.  On January 28 and 29, 1777, a "council of war" was held by county lieutenants and officers of the three Virginia counties in the area.  Col. Zackquill Morgan, Major John Evans, and Captain Charles Martin were on the select council (steering committee).  The place selected for the powder magazine was the house of John Swearingen.

English agents working with their Indian allies made 1777 so horrible for the frontier people that it was remembered as the "Bloody Year of the Three Sevens."  The Indians, with an unusually large and powerful force, struck simultaneously against many of the settlements.  Peter Popeno was called up for militia duty at Prickett's Fort from April 15 to June 12, 1777, serving under Lt. Morgan Morgan in Captain William Haymond's company.  Through the summer and fall, the Popeno family was living in Fort Martin and it was there that James Popeno and Presley Martin were born.

Conditions at the time can be seen from this communication to Col. Zackquill Morgan, July 20, 1777:[10]  "I am now at Garard's Fort with 12 men only, and am intirely without Ammunition, and also without my full Quota of men.  I hope you will send by Van Swearingen Some Ammunition and flint and as the Time is So Hazardous I hope the men may be ordered to Come here Immediately, as the People are much put to it to get their Harvest up the creek, and it is not in my power to go on a scout with so few men and leave men to guard the people....P.S. Sir: I am under the necessity to acquaint you that men is very unwilling to go out from any of the stations on a scout without flour and as there is none to be had at any of the Mills here for want of water, I should take it as a favor if you would give an order for a Thousand or fifteen hundred pounds of flour from  Either Wilsons or Hardens Mills, as I see no way of doing without."

The Indians weren't the only enemy.  Substantial numbers of local people had Tory sympathies.  Col. Morgan, during the summer of 1777, took an active part in uncovering and destroying a Tory conspiracy.  On August 29 he wrote to General Hand at Fort Pitt:[11] "It is with the utmost anxiety that I now inform you that our march is retarded for some time against the natural enemies of our country. A few days ago the most horrid conspiracy appeared.  Numbers of the inhabitants of the country have joined in a plot...to join the English and the Indians....We have taken numbers who confess that they have sworn allegiance to the King of Great Britain & that some of the leading men at Fort Pitt are to be their rulers and heads....I am now at Minor's Fort (Fort Statler) with 500 men and am determined to purge the country before I disband...." 

Towards the end of October Col. Morgan and four associates were crossing the river with a Tory prisoner, when the prisoner fell or was pushed out of the boat and was drowned.  A coroner's inquest determined that Morgan had murdered him by throwing him out of the boat and he was ordered to Williamsburg for trial.  He was strongly supported by his friends. Most of the militia captains resigned and declared that they would not go on an expedition without Col. Morgan.  Major James Chew in a letter to General Hand said: "I know the people there well and am sensible that it is not in the Power of any other Man but Col. Morgan to march them."  Needless to say, in Williamsburg, Morgan was acquitted.

Indian attacks continued in 1778.  In January, Col. George Rogers Clark visited Kern's Fort and Prickett's Fort recruiting men for a campaign against the Indians and British in the lower Ohio valley.  It is said that he recruited sixty-six men from Coon's and Prickett's Forts and about twenty men from Kern's Fort.  He marched with them to Fort Redstone, where boats were constructed for the voyage down the river.  This was the famous expedition to Kaskasia and Vincennes (Indiana) which made Clark's reputation.  (Peter and John Popino later served under Clark in 1783 when they were in Kentucky.) 

On April 18, John Evans wrote to General Hand:[12] "The Indians on the 15th instant on the Monongahela, Above the Mouth of Cheat River, Killed and took ten persons, belonging to Maj'r Martin's Fort, and took at least 20 horses, on 16th Burned a Fort that was evacuated 3 miles from the magazine at my house; killed Seven Sheep and skined them and took 15 horses, which leaves our part of the Country in such a situation that the forts are all a Breaking  the Inhabitants all seem Determined to moove to some place of Safety, for my part I shall be Oblige to follow them, and leve the Provision to the mercy of the enemy   Without some other method can Speedily take place, our Country is in such confusion at this time that the Militia Will not be Redused to their Duty.  I have made bold to Detain part of a Company of the hamshire Militia to guard the provision till I Receive orders from your honour....P.S.  We are Distitu[t]e of Ammunition and beggs your Honour to Assist us with that article if in your power, as its impossible We can Defend our Selves without Ammunition."

The worst attack of the war occurred that year in the settlement where Dolls Run empties into Dunkard Creek.  An estimated one hundred Indians lay in ambush on both sides of the path, waiting the return of the men to Fort Statler from their work in the fields.  The Indians opened fire and eighteen settlers were killed.  The rest fled to the fort about a mile away.

Raids continued in 1779 with a number of events involving people with whom we are concerned.  One which has been told and retold is of David Morgan, Zackquill's brother, then an old man of 58.  He and his family were forted in Prickett's Fort.  David had been ill and dreamed that he saw his two children Stephen, 16, and Sarah, 12, running around in their cabin yard with blood streaming from wounds where their scalps had been.  He awoke, learned that his children had earlier slipped out of the fort, and so, with his rifle, did likewise and headed alone for their cabin. He found the children happily working in the fields, but when he went to talk to them he spied two Indians approaching from the direction of the house.  Morgan quietly told them to run and warn the fort and that he would stay and fight them.  Morgan took cover behind a fence while the Indians took cover behind trees.  He was aware of the odds against him, not a shot could be wasted, and he was determined not to fire until he could decoy the Indians into open ground.  He selected a route to run and they ran after him, separating  so that they would be on either side of him.  He got behind a sapling too small to cover him, and from this selected a large oak and ran to it in a way that invited the larger Indian to reach the small sapling he had just abandoned at the same time he reached the oak.  The sapling being too small to protect him, the Indian threw himself on the ground with only his shoulder exposed.  Morgan fired at the shoulder and the bullet entered the shoulder and ranged through his body to his hip.  The Indian threw himself on his back and stabbed himself twice through the heart.  Morgan looked around and found the other Indian taking aim at him.  He ran a zig zag course and while looking back ran into a small bush that threw him off course just as the Indian fired.  Each now had an empty gun, but the Indian still had a tomahawk and scalping knife.  They engaged in hand to hand fighting which ended when Morgan was able to stab the Indian with his own knife.  Figuring the Indian would die of his wounds, Morgan, who was wounded himself, returned to the fort.  When he related the adventure to the occupants, a number of the men returned to the scene of the battle.  They found the second Indian still alive, scalped him,  then skinned him, tanned his skin and converted the leather into saddle seats, shot pouches and belts.[13]

In June, a party of thirteen Indians appeared at Fort Martin.  Most of the men had gone out early to work on their farms, the women were milking the cows outside the gate, and the men who were left were loitering around when the Indians rushed forward.  Three men were killed and seven people were captured.  The Indians imprisoned their captives in a nearby house and watched for a chance to capture the fort.  But the settlers were now on their guard and mounted watch the remainder of the day and during the night.  The dogs were shut out at night and upon the approach of the Indians, barked freely.  Thus frustrated, the Indians took their prisoners and moved off with them to their own towns.[14]

In August, two daughters of Captain David Scott, Fannie and Phoebe, going to Scott's Meadow Run (now Dent's Run) with dinner for the mowers, were captured by a party of Indians.  The younger was killed by the path but the older girl was slain some distance away and her body not immediately found.  Captain Scott, thinking she might have been captured and that he might ransom her back, went to Fort Pitt where he employed a friendly Indian to search for her and if possible to ransom her.[15]

There was a frequent menace of famine in the area.  Sometimes the militia which came to the Monongahela from the East were compelled to return because of lack of food.  In the summer of 1779, Col. Evans was requested by Col. Broadhead, then commandant at Fort Pitt, to send militia against the Tuscarawas on the Muskingum River.  This order was soon countermanded because of the shortage of provisions and the constant Indian menace in Monongalia.  In March 1780, notifying Col. Evans that he could not help feed the men who were to be ordered to forts on the frontier, he asked Evans to hasten the planting of crops and to draft the militia for two months service at Fort Henry (Wheeling).  This order, too, was countermanded later due to lack of provisions. 

These were some of the hardships of the settlers along the Monongahela during the years leading up to and during the Revolution.  But, according to Dale Van Every, these settlers had a significance for our new nation beyond those in any other area:[16]

"These first few anarchic backwoodsmen, pushing in against unimaginable odds along the wooded banks of the Monongahela, were now making history in their turn.  They were taking the destiny of a continent out of the custody of world powers, ministries, military commanders, and imperial administrators and placing it in the keeping of individual men who would determine for themselves by their own devices and according to their own lights what that future was to be.... 

"It was not the actual crossing of the mountains that was in itself so important.  Given the increase in white population on the seaboard, that crossing was bound to come sooner or later. It was the timing that was important....But ten short years were to elapse between that summer of 1766 and the fateful July of 1776.  By then a few of these interlopers along the Monongahela had tightened their grasp on the Forks of the Ohio and a few others like them, making a second crossing of the mountains at Cumberland Gap, were defiantly planting their stockade poles as far to the west as Kentucky.  The advance of these irrepressible people across the mountains, an advance as outspokenly condemned by a majority of their own countrymen as by Indians or imperial authorities, fixed the main course of our country's history to this day.  Had they waited for an ever so slightly more propitious moment to make their venture the independence so narrowly won by patriot armies, with the calculating support of France and Spain, must have been an independence limited to the Atlantic seaboard.  Had it not been for the existence of these few forest-girt stockades and corn patches west of the mountains, the Ohio Valley must at the end of the Revolution have remained at the disposal of England, Spain, and France.  These rude and uncouth Frontier People...were carrying a flag of which no one had yet dreamed."

Now let us move away from the battles and wars and look at some of the political and legal developments that were taking place.  Up until the late 1760s, land ownership was pretty vague since it was illegal to be there in the first place.  The first method of marking ownership was called a tomahawk right, which was made by deadening a few trees and marking the bark of one or more of them with the initials of the claimant. These rights were not legally binding but were often bought and sold.  If someone wished to settle on land which had been marked but not   developed he would often pay something for it rather than get into a fight.  While land was the object of every new settler, it wasn't regarded as very valuable or long lasting.  After a few crops it would lose fertility and the settler would often move on. 

In 1777, soon after the Declaration of Independence, the Virginia general assembly passed an act to regularize land usage and titles on the "western waters."  It provided that all persons who had settled on or before June 24, 1778 would be allowed 400 acres for each family.  It also permitted settlers to buy an additional 1,000 acres adjoining the 400 through preemption rights.  In 1779 the act was amended to require the settler to live one year on his claim or to raise a crop of corn.  Commissioners were appointed for the purpose of  collecting, adjusting, and determining claims of settlers.  Their decisions led to issuance of a certificate which entitled the settler or his assignee to a warrant for the land and to have a survey made. 

Our knowledge about early settlers and land ownership in Monongalia County is largely derived from the 442-page certificate book written in 1779 to 1781 which recorded the claims made for settlements beginning in 1766.  For 1766 through 1769, there were only 35 claims.  For 1770 there were 91.  For 1771, when Peter and Elizabeth Popeno claimed to have settled, there were 66.  After that the flood began, and for the next five years, 924 claims were made.

Among the early arrivers in the period 1766 to 1769 were the Morgans, Martins and Evans.  Some of their certificates show that they were assignees for people who got there still earlier.  There was a lot of buying and selling of these rights and some people such as Charles Martin and John Dent eventually owned many pieces in various parts of the county.

The county itself was pretty inchoate in the early years.  Pennsylvania and Virginia had long argued about the proper boundary.  The Virginians considered Fort Pitt to be in Augusta county.  In 1767 the surveyors of the Mason-Dixon line had reached a point near Dunkard Creek but then they were stopped by Delawares and Shawnees who claimed to be tenants of the country.  In 1771, Pennsylvania created Bedford County which covered much of the area that was also claimed by Virginia.  During 1774 and 1775 the two states competed for jurisdiction, frequently seizing and jailing each other's magistrates.  In July 1775 the district of West Augusta was separated from Augusta County.  In October 1776, the Virginia legislature formed from that district three counties:  Monongalia, Ohio, and Youghiogheny.  Large parts of these were in what is now Pennsylvania.  On December 8 the voting landholders in Monongalia County met to choose the most convenient place to hold county courts.  Since there were more people in the northern part of the county (now Pennsylvania) they established the location of the courthouse on Theophilus Phillip's plantation below the mouth of the Cheat River (see map 2).  According to tradition, the first clerk of the county was John Evans and the first sheriff was Zackquill Morgan.  From 1776 to 1780 courts were held, senators and delegates to the Virginia legislature chosen and other functions of government exercised by Virginia in what are now Greene, Fayette, Washington, and Allegheny counties in Pennsylvania. 

Finally, in 1779 the two states set up a joint commission to reach an agreement on boundaries.  They agreed to extend the Mason Dixon line due west five degrees of longitude from the Delaware River (which was about 22 miles beyond the point at which the surveyors had stopped), and then run the western boundary of Pennsylvania due north.  This gave Pittsburgh to Pennsylvania but left Virginia with its northern panhandle.  Even this was not easily accepted in the area.  When, in 1782, the Pennsylvania commissioner, with a guard of 100 militiamen, appeared at the mouth of Dunkard Creek to continue the survey, the way was blocked by a mob of about thirty armed horsemen who still held themselves under the jurisdiction of Virginia. When the border was finally determined to the satisfaction of both states, some families moved.  Slavery was not permitted in Pennsylvania, so slave owners moved across the border into Virginia or on to Kentucky.

Finding, by the running of the temporary boundary line in 1782, that the old county seat was located in Pennsylvania, the Virginia legislature on May 23, 1783, authorized the justices of Monongalia County, until the erection of a courthouse, to hold court at the house of Zackquill Morgan, who about the same time obtained a license to keep an ordinary (tavern).  Prior to this, courts were probably held at Col. John Evans' house.

In 1784 a jail and courthouse were erected in what is now central Morgantown.  Evans lived in what was then regarded as an aristocratic mansion--a hewn log house, weather boarded and covered with shingles.  Evans kept the clerk's office in a separate building which burned in 1796 with all the county records.  In 1807, when the court required him to locate his office at the courthouse, he resigned and was succeeded by his son Nimrod, who served until his death in 1828.

The first sheriff of the county after separation of the Pennsylvania portion, was David Scott.  John Dent served 1790-1793.  Among the county justices who served before 1796 were James Scott, David Scott, Dudley Evans, John Dent, and Enoch Evans.

In 1784, immediately upon his retirement from the army, George Washington made his last western trip--a long horseback ride over the Alleghenies to the Monongahela.  He visited his lands north of Washington, Pennsylvania, and returned via the Morgantown area.  At the surveyor's office at the house of John Pierpont, about four miles from Morgantown, he spent the night and interviewed Zackquill Morgan (Pierpont's father-in-law) and David Morgan, Samuel Hanway, and Frederick Ice about various routes to the Potomac.  Here he also met Albert Gallatin, who gave up his bed to him and slept on the floor.  There is a tradition that Washington also slept at Evans' house, though this is not supported by his journal.  Immediately upon his return to Mount Vernon, Washington drew a plan for a commercial connection of the Monongahela with eastern Virginia.  In 1785, Virginia and Pennsylvania authorized the formation of a company to open the navigation of the Potomac and construct a highway from the western waters.  Washington was selected as President of the Potomac Company which was organized in that year.  A canal along the Potomac (of which there are remains in Great Falls, Virginia) was begun, but never completed.  The C and O Canal, which was built later, ran to Cumberland.

Meantime, Zackquill Morgan, with the cooperation of his neighbors, was planning a new county seat town on lands for which he received a patent only a few months before his conference with Washington.  The survey was probably made in 1783 by Major William Haymond.  In October 1785 the legislature established Morgan's Town by an act vesting 50 acres of land, the property of Zackquill Morgan in "Samuel Hanway, John Evans, David Scott, Michael Kerns and James Daugherty gentlemen", as trustees.  The act required each purchaser of a lot to erect on it within four years a house at least eighteen feet square with a stone or brick chimney.  The time of this provision was extended in 1788 for three years in consequence of Indian hostilities and again in 1792 "from the difficulty of procuring material."  Lots were purchased by John Evans and several of his kin, though he continued to live until his death on his farm, Walnut Hill, a mile to the north.

The Evans Family[17]

John Evans' emigrant ancestor was Evan William Powell (or Howell--the names were interchangeable in Wales), born in the Parish of Llanvareth, Merionethshire about 1610.  He came from a well-to-do family, became a Quaker, and decided to move to Pennsylvania for the sake of religious freedom.  In 1683 he purchased a tract of 156 acres there and set sail for America with his family.  He died during the voyage, and his wife and one son died shortly thereafter, leaving only a son, David.   David dropped the name of Powell, retaining only the name Evan with an s added for euphony.  He settled in what is now Radnor, Chester County, PA, and was a man of influence in the community, dying in 1710.  John Evans, his last son, removed to Fairfax County, VA where there was a Quaker colony.  He died in 1747, allegedly from a rattlesnake bite.

He seems to have moved in elite circles, although we know nothing about him.  His will was witnessed by James Hamilton, William Amies and George Wight and stated that if his wife Margaret died, John Summers Senior was to bring up his child John Evans.[18]  A recent map of Fairfax County in 1760 shows lands of James and John Hamilton separated by William Berkeley and adjoining George William Fairfax (Washington’s close friend and husband of Sally Fairfax).[19]  John Hamilton was Deputy Kings Attorney in 1749, the highest paid official in Fairfax County with a salary of 2,000 pounds of tobacco.[20]  James Hamilton was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses for many years prior to 1771 and was a vestryman of Truro Parish (with George Mason) 1749-56 and Church Warden 1750-1.[21]  John Summers Senior was less elite but financially successful.  His major claim to fame was living to the age of 103.  In 1715, he built a cabin—the first in the area now known as Belle Haven, Alexandria, later acquired tobacco warehouses along Hunting Creek, and in the 1730s and 40s acquired about a thousand acres in the area now known as Lincolnia Hills.[22]

The accounting of the estate of John Evans[23] listed among the creditors James Hamilton, John Carlyle, John Dalton, Garrard Alexander, and Edward Washington.  Three of these were justices of Fairfax County:  Girrard Alexander 1742-49, John Carlyle 1749-1762, and James Hamilton 1755-1757.[24]  Col. John  Carlyle and John Dalton were wealthy Fairfax merchants and in the 1750s and 1760s Carlyle bought more than 5,000 acres in the Shenandoah Valley, some in association with George William Fairfax (who was also a judge at the same time as Carlyle).

John Evans’ only child, John Evans, was born in Virginia, December 9, 1737.  His widowed mother saw that he got a good education at the academy in Alexandria.  Lewis says that he studied law with a Mr. Hamilton in Alexandria. This was probably James Hamilton, though it could be John.   About 1757--when he was still very young--he married Ann Martin.[25]  One account says she also went to school in Alexandria and he met her there. Ann was born April 11, 1738 (in Alexandria by one account) and died November 11, 1827.  Lewis speaks of her as a beautiful and intelligent lady.

Between 1762 and 1764, John Evans crossed the mountains and secured a tomahawk right to a fertile tract of land on the eastern side of the Monongahela, about a mile north of the mouth of Deckers Creek.  In 1765 he again visited his land and built a cabin and made an improvement on it.  In 1766 he started from his home in Loudon County[26] with his family, consisting of his mother[27], his wife, two children, and a family of Negroes, intending to take them to the new home he had prepared.  Learning that the Indians were still making invasions into that area, he left the family at Fort Cumberland and they stayed there until 1769 when he was able to bring them to their new home.  He called it Walnut Hill and lived there until his death in 1834 at the age of 96.  He also persuaded a gentleman from Loudon County, well-fitted as a teacher, to come out and settle on his farm as a tutor for his children.  (This may have been Samuel Burris whom James Popenoe referred to as an old schoolmaster who taught school near to his father when James was a small boy.)

John Evans was one of the most distinguished men in Monongalia County in both military and civil affairs.  He was long the County Lieutenant, the highest military officer of the county and was actively involved in Dunmore's War, the Revolution, and the border wars that followed.  He was clerk of the County Court from 1776 to 1807, and was one of the Delegates from the county to the Virginia Federal Convention of June 1788 which ratified the Federal Constitution.  He voted nay because there was no Bill of Rights.  He later was a member of the House of Delegates of the General Assembly of Virginia in the years 1791, 1794, and 1800.  In 1833, when he was 95 years of age, the Government granted him a pension of $150 per annum for his services in the Virginia Militia during the Revolutionary War, but he died a year later.  His grave is in Oak Grove Cemetery, Morgantown.

John and Ann Martin Evans had eight children who lived to adulthood.  They were:

            1.  Margaret Evans, born in Loudon County, November 9, 1764, died November 23, 1851.  She married in 1780, Captain John Dent (discussed separately) and raised a family of twelve children.

            2.  Dudley Evans, born March 30, 1766 in Loudon County; died May 4, 1844.

He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates for thirteen years from 1803 to 1816, and in 1812 was designated Colonel of one of two regiments of the Western Virginia Brigade which saw service (including the battle in which Tecumseh was slain) in the Northwestern Army under Maj. Gen. William Henry Harrison. Dudley married, March 24, 1787, Annarah Williams (1766-1844).  They raised a large family in Morgantown:

                        i.  Nancy Evans 1788-1857, m Richard Wells.

                        ii.  John Willliams Evans 1790-1874, m Nancy Wells.

                        iii.  Phebe Evans 1792-1882, m Thomas Wells.

                        iv.  Margaret Evans 1793-1878, m Jacob Miller.

                        v.  James Evans 1796-.

                        vi.  Nimrod Evans 1799-1873, m Betsy Rhea.

                        vii. Rawley Evans 1801-1869, m Clarissa Cox.

                        viii. Cynthia Ann Evans 1804-1869, m Thomas Pratt.

In his will drawn in 1840, Dudley Evans directed that the girls would share silver teaspoons, Cynthia would get his desk, the boys would divide the family property and a few "family slaves"...all other slaves to be freed.

            3.  John Evans Jr., born July 31, 1768 at Fort Cumberland; died May 19, 1849.  Called Captain Jack, at the age of twenty-five he was a captain of a company known as the Monongalia Rangers organized for the defense of the border settlements.  It was for some time stationed at Fort Pawpaw on Pawpaw Creek and later was transferred to Fort Henry at Wheeling.  Later, Captain Jack served as Coroner, Justice of the Peace and twice Sheriff of Monongalia County.  In 1800 he married Gilly Coleman Strother of Culpepper County, and they reared a family of six sons and four daughters: 

                        i.  French Strother Evans b 1801, was adopted by his uncle Nimrod Evans (#4, below) and educated in an eastern city for the law profession, but instead--to Nimrod's great disappointment--he became a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

                        ii.  John Coleman Evans, b 1803, died at New Orleans 1827.

                        iii.  George D. Evans, b 1804, was prominent in business.

                        iv.  Daniel Strother Evans, 1806-1832, commanded a steamboat between Louisville and New Orleans.               

                        v.  James Evans inherited the Evans homestead.  He married Delia Ray in 1843. In 1839-40 he represented the county in the General Assembly; he served as justice of the peace and as a member of the county court and was a member of the Wheeling convention which organized the Restored Government of Virginia in 1861.  He served as a Colonel during the Civil War and participated in the capture of Winchester in 1862.

                        vi.  Lucy Ann Evans 1808-1870, m Nathan Goff, Sr.

                        vii.  Thomas Clare Evans, b 1812, was deputy sheriff under his father 1840-42.

                        viii.  Louisa S. Evans, b 1817, m John H Hoffman.

                        ix.  Margaret Evans, b 1821, m David Clark Chadwick.

            4. Nimrod Evans, January 13, 1770 to February 27, 1828.  He married Elizabeth Strother, a sister of the wife of his brother, Jack, but died without issue.  He succeeded his father as clerk of the county court in 1807 and held the position until he died.  He was known as a polished and courtly gentleman.

            5. Enoch Evans, b. April 23, 1773.  He was for many years a justice of the peace and member of the county court of Monongalia County.  He married a Miss Jenkins and soon thereafter moved to Missouri where he reared a family.

            6. Rawley Evans, b. December 29, 1777, d 1859.  He married Maria Dering and reared a family of three sons and seven daughters.  He was a merchant in Morgantown, served as village trustee in 1816 and as sheriff in 1818 and 1820.

            7. James Evans, April 30, 1782-March 9, 1870.  He was admitted to the bar of Monongalia in July 1803 and moved to Cape Girardeau in the Missouri Territory in 1807 where he served for many years as a circuit judge.  His wife was a sister of U.S. Senator Alexander Buckner of Missouri.  After her death he resigned the judgeship and about 1863 returned to Monongalia County where he died.

            8. Marmaduke Evans, September 7, 1784 to April 10, 1816.  He studied law and began its practice in Morgantown but died early, having never married.

The Evans Family of Pennsylvania[28]       

There was another Evans family, with a John Evans Sr. and Jr. who are sometimes confused with the ones discussed above.  In 1769, John Snider (discussed separately) "piloted out a company to Crooked Run."  Charles Martin, Richard Harrison, and this John Evans, Sr., also appear to have arrived in that year, so they may be part of the group piloted out by Snider.  The Evans father and son had adjoining farms in Greene County at the State line, which were probably opposite the homestead of Charles Martin.  They attended Martin's church in Virginia and are buried in its graveyard.  

John Evans, Sr., 1721-1798, was a grandson of Richard Evans who arrived from Wales in 1674, and settled near Camden, NJ.  John's father, Samuel Evans settled near Hagerstown, Maryland, but came with his son to Crooked Run.  He died there in 1770 at the age of 79.  John Evans, Sr. served in the Revolution in the 2nd Battalion of the Washington County, Pennsylvania militia.   He named in his will the following children:  John Evans, Dorcas Snyder, Sarah Evans, Mary Robins, Samuel Evans, Elizabeth Ashcraft, Jesse Evans, Edward Evans, Rachel Parish, Ellender Evans, William Evans, Nancy Stewart.  According to The Horn Papers, John Evans Jr. was born in New Jersey in 1746, coming to Greene County with his father and grandfather in 1769. He became a wood ranger in 1771.  He had four sons and three daughters and died June 27, 1832. 

The Martin Family[29]

Various previous accounts have given the birthplace of the Martins as Loudon County, VA (created from Fairfax in 1757) because that seems to be where they started from on their way to the Monongahela.  But search of tax, deed and will records in both Loudon and Fairfax County reveals no mention of them.

A possible clue is a list of members of an Alexandria-Fairfax militia company during the French and Indian War, paid off at Alexandria Court House in 1758. Charles Martin and Jesse Martin are listed as ensigns.[30]   Charles Martin named a son Jesse; this would presumably be his brother.  In 1780, Jesse Martin, then of Ohio County, VA, received a land bounty certificate for his service in 1758.   Earlier in 1768 a Jesse Martin was listed as a resident of Redstone, south of Pittsburgh in what was later Fayette or Washington Co.  His 1778 disputes with Henry (discussed below) as well as his earlier military connection to Charles would seem to tie him to this family

The other family name was Henry and there was a Henry and Mary Martin who had land surveyed in 1728/9 on the north side of the Rappahannock River. The land was variously in Stafford, Prince William, and finally Fauquier County in subsequent mentions (running up to 1788) and was around Rossers Run, The Great Run, Carters Run, Naked Mountain.[31]  I haven’t found any of these landmarks on my current map, but this would be close enough to Alexandria that it would be reasonable for the children to gravitate there for education or otherwise.  I haven’t pursued this lead; it should be done.  Charles Martin named his only son by Mary Bell, Presley, an old Virginia family name.  My search of Presley genealogies didn’t turn up any Martin connection.  It may have been a Bell connection.

Charles Martin

All the accounts say that he was born about 1715 but this seems early if his sister Ann was born in 1738 and his children were born between about 1764 and 1777 when he would have been 49 to 62.  Also, as noted below, he was charged with assault and battery as late as 1794 when he would have been 79.  Core also questions the birthdate.[32]  I think it is more reasonable to assume a birthdate of around 1735.  This would make him 23 in 1758; a good age for a militia sergeant.

Charles Martin came to the Monongahela around 1767, and built Fort Martin in 1773.  He commanded a regiment of rangers during the Revolution, and served as a commissary for the State in West Augusta.  In 1778 he organized one of the first Methodist churches west of the Alleghenies.  In 1782 he served as a delegate to the Virginia Assembly and was a land commissioner in 1788.  He was a large landowner and one of the prominent leaders of the area.  He died in 1800.

Martin was said to be over six feet tall, of dark complexion, with keen piercing black eyes.  He also seems to have been quick to take offense and take matters into his own hands.  Court records between 1785 and 1799 show the following:[33]

            Charles, James, and William Martin and John Harrison summoned to answer Thomas Laidley on a charge of trespass, assault, battery, and false imprisonment, damages £1000, 1 October 1789.

            Charles Martin summoned to answer Thomas Pindall in a plea of trespass, assault and battery, damages £500, 10 August 1790.  Pindall complained that Martin assaulted him in the town of Morgantown.  Thomas Wilson, attorney for Martin, pleaded Martin not guilty as he (Wilson) knew it was the plaintiff's own wrong that caused the assault.

Charles Martin summoned to answer John Wickwire in a plea of trespass, assault and battery, $500 damage, 17 October 1794.

Some idea of Charles Martin's wealth can be gained by reading his will, written in 1798:   To wife Mary: one half of home tract, bounded by Stuarts Rd. and the State line, during her life, Negro woman Selvey and two of her children called Lucy and Win (Selvey's other children to return to the estate), one third of my personal estate except the Negroes.  After my wife's death Silvy is to be a free woman. To my oldest son Jesse: my Monongahela tract of land (400 a. including mouth of Crooked Run).  To son George: 307 a. on Buffalo Cr. where he now lives and my Negro man Arthur.  To son William: Negro boy Litt.  To son Spencer: 400 a. adj. tract where Spencer now lives and situate on waters of Traverbough.  To dau. Ann Harrison: Negro girl Pegg.  To son Presley: 400 a. where I now live except that belonging to his mother during her life, one Negro boy Abraham and one of the negro girls bequeathed to his mother after her death and any other children of Negro woman Silvey.  Rest of my personal estate to be sold and divided equally among my sons George, Wm., Spencer, Presley, and daus. Elisabeth Randall, Ann Harrison and gson Charles Martin, the son of Jesse Martin.  Exors.: wife, Stephen Gapen, son Presley.

Charles Martin's first wife was Elizabeth Burrows, daughter of John Burrows (Burris) who settled across the river near the Evans family.  They had six children:

            1.  Jesse Martin.  He married Hannah Scott, daughter of Capt. David Scott and they had seven children, two of which were Charles and Nancy, who m Moses Rhodes.  The court records indicate that Jesse was a wild one and had many troubles with the law:[34]

            "Indictment against Jesse Martin for breaking and entering the home of John Leatherberry, 8 April 1797, at the hour of 12 at night with the intent to kill and murder Nancy, wife of said John.  Dunham Donally was in Morgantown with Jesse Martin, yeoman, and they set out to travel to the home of Martin along a road that passed by the house of Leatherberry until they arrived at a stillhouse and distillery.  Martin stopped at the stillhouse and Donally walked on almost to the Leatherberry house when Martin overtook him being then on horseback.  Donally mounted behind Martin and when they neared the Leatherberry house Martin said he had some business with Leatherberry and must stop.  Donally dismounted and took a near road thru the meadow and by taking this shorter way arrived at the house about the same time as Martin.  There he stood, five or six yards from the house, and heard Martin knock on the door and a female voice ask who was there.  Martin answered and the same female voice asked if it was Captain Martin and Jesse answered that it was and the female voice ordered a negro girl to open the door.  The girl refused, saying she was afraid.  Someone then opened the door and the female voice invited Jesse inside and said she thought it was the sheriff as her husband was away from home.  Donally did not see or hear anything more, but walked on his way."

            "Jacob Henthorn, Samuel Crane, Thomas Chipps, Amos Roberts, and Ann Evans, wife of John Evans, summoned to testify on behalf of the Commonwealth against Jesse Martin, indicted for burglary, 18 May 1797.  Upon the information of John Leatherberry, labourer, and Nancy, his wife, Martin was indicted on two counts: 1--breaking and entering with the intent to burglarize the house and murder Nancy.  2--Breaking and entering with the intent to burglarize and to 'ravish and know' Nancy....'We the jury find Jesse Martin the prisoner at the bar not guilty of the first count in this bill of indictment upon the second count we find him guilty and that he hath lands and tenements in the County of Monongalia.'"  Jailer Frederick Reed was paid for maintaining Jesse Martin in jail from 15 May 1797 until 9 June, 25 days @ 25 cents per day.

Jesse Martin was indicted for an assault upon Robert Hawthorn, 18 May and 28 September 1798.  The jury found him guilty and fined him $150. 

17 May 1800.  Henry Dering (a tavern keeper) appeared before the court and said that Jesse Martin came to his house and requested him to send him a pair of pistols.  Jesse said he was determined to kill Thomas Wilson before he, Martin, went to sleep.  Another man said that while standing in Dering's Bar Room in Morgantown, Jesse Martin came riding up to the door there and called him out of the house and asked if he had a pair of pistols.  He replied that he had and Martin said, "I wish you would lend them to me."  Martin said that he would kill Thomas Wilson before he would eat, drink or sleep that night.  When he was refused the pistols, Martin exclaimed, "I have a good rifle at home which I shall make use of for that purpose."  Thomas Wilson told the court that in the city of Richmond during the last session of the assembly (Wilson and John Evans were the two county delegates at that time) Martin told him there were three persons he would kill and scalp and then leave the United States:  that he would kill Wilson and William McCleary (another very prominent citizen and delegate to the assembly two years before) and one other person he did not name and that he kept his gun in good order for that purpose.  He added that the previous April Martin had come to his house, asked him if he recalled what Martin had told him on the Capitol steps at Richmond, and swore again he would kill him.  (The record does not show the result of the case or the issue involved; it would appear to be something that Jesse had gone to Richmond to lobby for and Wilson had opposed him.)

In 1803 Jesse Martin was summoned to answer James Scott (possibly his brother-in-law) in a plea of slander, for having said that Scott was guilty of perjury in another suit between the two.  David Scott III, Dudley Evans, Richard and Nancy Harrison and Catherine Scott testified for Martin.  The jury found for the plaintiff and awarded him $250 damages.

Jesse also seemed to have a lot of trouble with debt.  In 1797 he was summoned to answer for a debt of £4 to buy fabric.  In March 1798, Robert Scott signed as surety for Jesse on a performance bond.  If Martin failed to satisfy Job West and Phenias Sturgis then an attachment on his property would be made.  In November 1798, one small mare, the property of Jesse Martin, was attached.  Martin made bond, with David Scott (his father-in-law) as surety; to keep his mare until time for public sale or until the debt could be paid.  In other cases, two cows, two oxen, and one cow and 12 sheep belonging to Jesse were attached.  In March 1799 a Negro woman named Odila was attached by virtue of a judgment out of District Court, and Jesse again made bond, with David Scott as surety, to keep his property in his possession until the judgment was paid or until time to deliver the property for public sale.  In August 1799 the goods and property (rye, oats, flax, corn, calfs and cows) of David Camblin were attached by Jesse Martin.  Jesse believed David would remove himself from the property before the 1799 rent for a parcel of land became due. 

In 1787 Jesse Martin petitioned the Virginia General Assembly to establish a ferry across the Monongahela river near the mouth of Crooked Run where the public road leading from the head of Dunkard to Fort Cumberland crossed from his land to the land of James Hoard, and also near the mouth of Robertson Run where the public road from Morgantown to Washington Court House crossed.  The ferries were established in 1792; the fare was 3 pence for man or horse.

On 11 April 1797, James Popeno, attorney in fact for Elizabeth Popeno, transferred to Jesse Martin, for an undisclosed sum of money, 500 acres of land on the head of Scott's Mill Run and Doll Snyder's Run.  Like his father, Jesse collected a lot of land.

            2.  William Martin, lived most of his life in Farmington (near Fairmont in what is now Marion County) on land obtained by his father.  He married Hannah Randall and had three children: 

                        i.  Tapley Martin

                        ii.  Spencer Martin

iii  Nancy Martin.

After Hannah died he married an Everley.

            3.  George Martin, 1765-1827, married Elizabeth Hoard, 1768-1854, daughter of Captain John and Mary Snyder Hoard who lived across the river from the Martins.  George Martin provided the army with provisions during the Revolution.  He also resided at Farmington.  Their children were:[35]

i.                 John H. Martin (1790-1861)

His Children:  Perry Martin, Charles Martin, Malinda Martin, William Martin, Rachel Martin, Jesse V Martin, John J. Martin, and Evans H. Martin.

ii.                Elizabeth Martin (who married her cousin Jesse B Martin, son of Spencer Martin).

iii.               Polly Martin

            4.  Spencer Martin, born March 6, 1772, died near Worthington (also Marion County) February 13, 1849.  He had 17 children by two wives. His first wife was Mary (Polly) Snyder, daughter of John Snider.  Their children were:

                        i.  Dorcas Martin, 1794- , m John Sturm.

                        ii.  Charles Martin, 1796-, m his cousin, Elizabeth Morgan (probably the dau. of David Morgan's son, Morgan Morgan) and moved to Illinois where he died.

                        iii.  John S. Martin, 1798-, married Matilda Bigler and moved to California where he died.

                        iv.  Betsey (or Elizabeth) Martin, 1800-, m Daniel Sturm.

                        v.  Jesse B. Martin, 1802-,  m Elizabeth, daughter of George Martin (#3, above), and lived on Buffalo Creek near Farmington.

                        vi.  Spencer Martin, 1804-, m Sallie Michael. He lived and died in Marion County.

                        vii.  William Martin, 1806-, m Hannah Holbert, removed to Illinois and died there.

Spencer Martin married (second) Margaret Sturm, the daughter of Jacob and Catherine Sturm.  Their children were:

                        viii. Nimrod E Martin, 1809-, married (1) Mary Ann Davis, and (2) Lavinia Lee, widow of James Lee.

                        ix.  George W Martin, 1811-, m Ingabar Sturm.

                        x.  Thornton Martin, 1812-, m Margaret Nutter.

                        xi.  Mary Martin, 1815-, m Dennis Bruneau of Paris, France.

                        xii.  Presley N Martin, 1819-, m Mary Gooseman.

                        xiii.  Rawley E Martin, 1821-1896, m Matilda Parrish.

xiv.  Dorsey S Martin, 1824-, m Rachel H, dau. of John H. Martin (son of George Martin, #3, above).

                        xv.  Nancy Martin, 1827-, m Marcus Millan.

                        xvi.  Matilda C Martin, 1831-, m Joshua C Parrish.

                        xvii.  Marinda Martin, 1836-, m William P Fortney.

            5. Ann (Nancy) Martin, d ca 1848. m Richard Harrison, Jr d 1840.  Richard Harrison, Sr., came about 1769 from Albemarle or Berkeley County.  He built a Fort at the headwater of Crooked Run, about a mile from Charles Martin's Fort.  He served in Dunmore's War and as a captain in George Rogers Clark's campaign to Illinois.  Ann Martin and Richard Harrison, Jr. had ten children:

                        i.  Richard Harrison

                        ii.  William Harrison, m Matilda Everly.

                        iii.  Marjery Harrison, m David Scott, son of Col. James Scott.

                        iv.  Joseph F. Harrison, m. Margaret Reppert.

                        v.  Mariah Harrison, m Isaac Parrish

                        vi.  Elizabeth Louisa Harrison, m Felix S. Martin, son of Presley Martin, and they went to Iowa and then Oregon in 1849.

                        vii.  Matilda Harrison, d in infancy.

                        viii.  Calvin Martin Harrison, unm, went to Keokuk, Iowa, served as deputy sheriff, died of cholera in 1849.

                        ix.  Mahala Harrison 1815-1878, m David Hickman.

                        x.  Julia Ann Harrison 1817-1885, m William S John.

            6.  Elizabeth (Betsy) Martin m Norman Marmaduke Randall.  Children:

                        i.  Mary (Polly) Randall m Bock

                        ii.  Peggy Randall m Bock

                        iii.  Betsy Randall m Bock

                        iv.  William Randall

                        v.  Hannah Randall m Conway

                        vi.  Martin Randall

                        vii.  Millie Randall m Monroe (or Martin)

                        viii.  Nancy Randall m Metz

Charles Martin's second marriage was to Mary Bell.  They had just one child, Presley[36], born in the Fort, September 21, 1777.  Elizabeth Burrows must therefore have died by 1776.  As noted in James Popenoe's deposition, Mary Bell had a severe fever and Elizabeth Martin Popeno suckled Presley for several weeks.

Edward Dulin had made a settlement in Ohio County, VA, along the Ohio river, having three tracts surveyed in 1785.  The land was granted to him in 1787.  Presley Martin was visiting the area when Indians attacked Dulin.  Presley heard the shot that killed Dulin, buried him on the spot and took his widow Susannah and daughter Sarah to safety at Graves Creek.[37]  Presley then purchased the land from Susannah and erected a house on the north forks of Big Fishing Creek and the Ohio River. The nails that he put in the house were made by a blacksmith in Morgantown an