September
2004
Settling
Along the Monongahela
In
the 18th Century
An Essay in Historical Genealogy
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.
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.
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