A Woman of Courage on the West Virginia Frontier Read online

  Published by The History Press

  Charleston, SC 29403

  www.historypress.net

  Copyright © 2013 by Robert Thompson

  All rights reserved

  Front cover: Courtesy of the New York Public Library.

  First published 2013

  e-book edition 2013

  Manufactured in the United States

  ISBN 978.1.62584.011.0

  Library of Congress CIP data applied for.

  print edition ISBN 978.1.60949.922.8

  Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  For my mother and father, who always believed in me.

  Contents

  Preface

  Introduction. A Frontier Wedding

  1. Settlers on the Allegheny Plateau

  The Wilderness

  The Politics of Empire

  The Early Settlers of Northwest Virginia

  Life on the Allegheny Frontier

  2. The Native Americans

  A Clash of Cultures

  Warriors, Tactics and Morality

  Anglo-American-Indian Relations and the Allegheny Plateau: Germs, Treaties and Lies

  3. The Raid

  Fear

  Forting Up

  Terror and Tragedy

  The Wyandot Come to Cunningham’s Run

  4. A New World

  The Journey

  The Wyandot

  Village Life

  5. Two Traitors: Simon Girty and Alexander McKee

  Excitement in the Village: Simon Girty Arrives

  Girty and McKee

  6. Homeward Bound

  A Plea and a Ransom

  Kentucky, the Wilderness Road and Home

  Epilogue

  Notes

  Bibliography

  About the Author

  Preface

  Phebe Tucker Cunningham is my fraternal fifth great-grandmother, and I first learned of her story in the early 1980s when reading a series of genealogical monograms written in 1979 by my great-uncle Colvin Snider. I found the story fascinating and one that only grew more so with the passage of time. Then, in May 2012, I had a chance to visit Prickett’s Fort, near Fairmont, West Virginia, the site of Phebe’s marriage to Thomas Cunningham. It was a beautiful, warm spring day, and my visit coincided with a workshop for musicians who played early American instruments sponsored by the Prickett’s Fort Memorial Foundation. As I wandered about the fort’s grounds and listened to the wonderful music being played by those attending the workshop, I found myself imagining what Phebe and Thomas’s wedding must have been like, thinking that it was almost certainly a joyous day. In turn, I also pondered the unforeseen tragedy and challenges that lay ahead for both of them. At that moment, Phebe started to become someone other than just a name on the family tree, and the idea for this book had its genesis.

  Later, as the book was underway, I decided to seek out the location of Phebe and her husband’s frontier Virginia homestead. However, all I had that provided a clue as to its location was a bad Xerox copy of a photo my great-uncle had taken in the 1970s of a monument that marked the farm’s site and a rough description made by another ancestor in a book written in the late nineteenth century. Using those two small pieces of evidence, I turned to a tool of the twenty-first century: satellite imagery. Using a commercial image, I scanned down the road discussed in the book, looking for some sign of the stone marker. As I peered closely at the image, I finally found a small object indicated by its shadow at a curve in the road located about where my ancestor had described. Armed with that evidence and some hope, I set out for West Virginia, where I found the monument exactly where I thought it might be.

  As I stood there, I was overcome by emotion, especially when I touched the sandstone rock on which the memorial plaque rests. The stone came from a cave where Wyandot warriors hid Phebe and her infant son, as friends and neighbors searched in vain for them. I closed my eyes, and I could imagine her kneeling on the cave floor, holding her baby close to her breast as a warrior stood over her, ominously holding a tomahawk at the ready. I also could imagine what she must have been feeling: hope that her people would rescue her mixed with intense fear that her captors might kill her and her little boy before that rescue would come. At that moment, Phebe became a very real person to me and one whose story I was committed to telling.

  I had always found Phebe’s story to be tragic, inspiring and utterly compelling. She was clearly a woman of remarkable courage and determination, and I wanted to share what I could learn about her experience as well as the world that shaped not only her life and but also the lives of everyone who lived on the colonial frontier. Therefore, my approach to this book involved telling Phebe’s story by also painting a broader picture of the people, politics, wars and events that led to the raid on the Cunningham farm and her three years as a member of the Wyandot tribe in central Ohio.

  To make this story complete, however, I also knew that I needed to describe the culture and society of the Native Americans who lived on the Allegheny Plateau and in the great Ohio Country beyond its borders. As I researched and studied these peoples, often referred to as the woodland Indians, I realized what a key element they were in Phebe’s story. While I had some knowledge of the western plains nations, particularly the Comanche, I found these peoples to be very different and the Wyandot, with whom Phebe lived, to be especially remarkable. Of course, most early works on these Native American peoples, including those written as recently as the 1950s, are filled with Euro-centric depictions of their cultures that are, frankly, very racist and highly inaccurate. Luckily, however, there are numerous more recent works by historians, ethnologists and anthropologists that cast a brighter light on these peoples and their lives, providing a far clearer and unbiased view of them and the societies in which they lived.

  As I researched and wrote, I also discovered that finding original primary source material from the eighteenth century is a somewhat daunting task when compared to later periods in American history. However, I found that, while it required more effort than researching events of more recent eras, the results could be very rewarding. Still, once this material was located, I often encountered great disparities between accounts of the same events, and even accurately determining dates was sometimes difficult. In those cases, my approach was, first, to grant extra weight to information agreed on by a majority of sources. Next, I tried to lean toward data provided by a primary source, and then, when all else failed, I attempted to apply large quantities of common sense. I hope the results satisfy you, the reader.

  One important lesson I learned during this process is that no author develops a good product in a vacuum, and I want to acknowledge some people and organizations that were a key part of my work. First, I must thank my commissioning editor at The History Press, J. Banks Smither, who successfully ran my proposal for this book through the publishing gauntlet and then provided invaluable advice and insight as it worked its way toward reality. Further, I want to thank the Prickett’s Fort Memorial Foundation, not only for its tireless efforts in preserving a wonderful re-creation of the fort, but also for its continuing good works in educating the public about the people who lived their lives along colonial Vi
rginia’s frontier. I also wish to acknowledge the excellent work underway to provide online source material and images at the Ohio Historical Society, Virginia Historical Society, Pennsylvania Historical Society, New York Public Library, Library and Archives Canada and the Library of Congress. Without them, this book would not have some of the excellent artwork it now contains.

  In conclusion, I must acknowledge Phebe Tucker Cunningham, who has long been a symbol of courage, determination and love for generations of her descendants and now, through this book, might become an example for thousands more outside our family. My dearest hope is that I have done her justice and honored her memory, as she so richly deserves.

  Introduction

  A Frontier Wedding

  Spring had arrived in all its glory along the banks of the Monongahela River. Filled with the remains of rapidly melting mountain winter snows, the river flowed gently northward through the Allegheny Plateau as wildflowers bloomed, birds sang out announcing their return and the trees of the dense forest surrounding Prickett’s Fort exploded in new, green life.

  It was April 1780. The American Revolution was going into its fifth year, and as yet, the end could not be seen. Many of the local men had served in Monongalia County’s various militia companies, most spending their enlistments patrolling the woods for signs of Indian activity, while a few went east of the Allegheny Mountains to fight the British as members of the Continental army.

  For most residents, the return of spring meant that it was time to begin planting the small fields they had worked to carve out of the forest and start another year of farming in the hopes of harvesting enough for their own subsistence with perhaps a little left over to sell across the mountains in the Shenandoah Valley. However, spring also meant the return of another more deadly kind of activity: Indian raids.

  Attacks on farms and settlements were an unpleasant fact of life on the Virginia frontier, and that was why Prickett’s Fort had been built. Erected in the summer of 1774, the fort was one of many such structures built for the protection of local settlers. Named for the family on whose land it stood, the fort was located on a small hill above the confluence of Prickett’s Creek with the Monongahela. Typically, when militia scouts sighted signs of an Indian raiding party in the vicinity or when raids became either numerous or persistent in nature, settlers would arrive to “fort up” until the danger subsided. However, on this particular April day, while the network of trails leading to the fort saw many local families heading toward it, they were not seeking shelter from Indian attacks. Rather, they were making the trek via horse, mule or on foot for a much more pleasant reason. There was to be a wedding at the fort, providing a much-needed cause for celebration and merrymaking after a long, hard winter.

  Modern re-creation of the site where Phebe and Thomas Cunningham were married in 1780: Prickett’s Fort at Prickett’s Fort State Park, West Virginia. Photo by the author.

  The couple being married was twenty-four-year-old Thomas Cunningham and his bride, nineteen-year-old Phebe Tucker.1 Phebe was born in England in 1761 to John Tucker and his wife, Jane Allen Tucker. Her parents were Scots, and her father was born about 1735, while her mother was born around 1740. Beyond that, little is known about her family history. The Tuckers left England for the colonies in 1774, just before the onset of the war for American independence, and family history documents indicate they traveled directly to the frontier of the upper Monongahela Valley. Phebe, who was later remembered by her granddaughter Leah as being “a tiny women and always very charming,” is described as having been a truly lovely young woman with dark red hair, blue-green eyes and a flawless, pale complexion.2

  However, while little is known about Phebe’s family, the groom and his family have a better-defined history. Thomas Cunningham was born in 1756 in Fairfax County, Virginia, and was the youngest of thirteen children born to Hugh Cunningham and Nancy O’Neil Cunningham. His parents were born in Ireland, and both came to America sometime before their wedding in Fairfax County in 1728. The Cunningham family was part of the Scottish nobility and included men such as Robert Cunningham, the Second Earl of Glencairn, who sat in Parliament in 1489, as well as leaders who fought against the English kings at places such as Flodden Field and Linlithgow. As a result, like many Scots, the Crown eventually exiled the family to Ireland, and in the Cunningham’s case, that exile followed the defeat of the Scottish army during the Second Bishop’s War in 1640.3

  By the beginning of the American Revolution in 1775, much of Hugh and Nancy Cunningham’s family had left their home in Shenandoah County, with five of their eight sons heading across the mountains to what was then the Virginia frontier. In 1772, Thomas, along with his older brother, Edward, and Edward’s wife, Sarah, arrived in Monongalia County on the Allegheny Plateau. Edward settled on land located along Shinn’s Run, and Thomas found land nearby along the right-hand fork of Ten Mile Creek. Like most local settlers of the time, both men were active in the militia. During Lord Dunmore’s War against the Shawnee in 1774, Edward was a member of Captain Zackwell Morgan’s company while Thomas enlisted with the company of Captain David Scott, with both units assigned to patrol the area around Fort Pitt. Then, in 1777, Thomas would enlist again, this time as a member of Captain James Booth’s company, where he would serve thirteen months as a “spy” searching the forests for signs of Indian activity.4

  When Thomas and Phebe met is unknown, but their wedding seems to have been a notable occasion for those near Prickett’s Fort. William Haymond, the commander of the fort’s militia company and a justice of the peace for Monongalia County, officiated the wedding.5 Legend has it that the wedding was well attended, with music, dancing and much merriment. Following the ceremony and celebration, Thomas and Phebe returned to Thomas’s farm near Ten Mile Creek to begin their life together. Within a year, their first child, Henry, was born, and three more children soon followed. By 1785, they and Edward’s family had moved to a new farm near Bingamon Creek along Cunningham’s Run, west of the West Fork of the Monongahela, a few miles from the present-day town of Shinnston, West Virginia. There, they built a cabin a few yards from that of Edward and Sarah, worked the land together and supplemented their income by trapping furs.

  This map depicts sites of major events in Phebe Tucker Cunningham’s story. Drawn by the author.

  Farm life on Virginia’s frontier was not easy, to be sure, but it certainly could have been a good one. However, forces created by events beyond Thomas and Phebe’s control would conspire to alter their lives forever. These forces, whose evolution began years before Thomas and Phebe were born, were the product of kings, parliaments, governors, assemblies, generals, soldiers, chiefs, explorers, Jesuit priests, land speculators, trappers, traders, greed, war, ambition and the inevitable collision of European and Native American cultures. Like so many people throughout time, Thomas and Phebe would suddenly become small, unwilling players on history’s stage. The result would be violent, bloody and tragic, as Phebe’s life intersected with the culture of another race and with two men considered by many to be among America’s most infamous traitors. Most of all, however, the events that would follow tell a story of survival, resilience, love and tremendous courage.

  Chapter 1

  Settlers on the Allegheny Plateau

  THE WILDERNESS

  In eighteenth-century Virginia, the Allegheny Mountains stood like a gigantic wall along the Virginia frontier, blocking all but the hardiest trappers and explorers from venturing west of the Shenandoah Valley. This range, which runs roughly from northeast to southwest, consists of a series of steep, parallel ridges and, were it not for a few natural passes, must have seemed almost impenetrable. Rising as high as three thousand feet in places, the Alleghenies acted as a natural sentinel that guarded entry to the Allegheny Plateau beyond.

  The plateau itself stretched northwestward beyond the Ohio River in a broad expanse that paralleled the mountain wall on its eastern boundary. It was a lush region characterized by rolling hills tha
t created numerous narrow valleys, punctuated by hundreds of creeks and rivers. Teeming with fish, these waterways, which all flowed to the Ohio beyond, were also home to numerous species of mammals whose pelts were highly valued in the markets of the eastern seaboard and Europe. Combined with a temperate climate that provided a typical growing season of 153 days and approximately forty-two to sixty-two inches of rainfall per year, the Allegheny Plateau looked like a potential paradise, beckoning European settlers to come and take it.6

  However, one the most remarkable features of the Allegheny Plateau, and one that made a marked first impression on many Europeans, was the forest. The abundant rainfall, temperate climate and fertile soil contributed to the existence of dense, mostly deciduous woodlands in the lower elevations, with great belts of spruce and hemlock in the mountains. This was a primeval landscape unlike anything Europeans had ever seen. Conrad Weiser, a colonial Indian agent who was one of the early whites to arrive on the plateau, wrote, “The wood was so thick, that for a mile at a time we could not find a place of the size of a hand, where the sunshine could penetrate, even in the clearest day.”7 Henry Bouquet, a Swiss-born British officer serving on the frontier, commented that a European “must have lived some time in the vast forest of America; otherwise he will hardly be able to conceive a continuity of woods without end.”8

  The New River cuts through the rugged Allegheny Mountains, which once posed a daunting natural barrier between Virginia and the western frontier on the Allegheny Plateau. Photo by the author.

  Nevertheless, although the prospect of a forest without end might have appeared daunting, the land of the Allegheny Plateau was also capable of providing everything a settler might need in terms of the essentials of life. The forests of the plateau were filled with a wide variety of animal life, including white-tailed deer, elk, black bears, turkeys, mountain lions, beavers, gray wolves and small herds of buffalo. In addition, even without planting a single domestic crop, one could find a veritable bounty of native edible plants, with wild strawberries, chestnuts, walnuts, blackberries, hickory nuts, papaws, plums, grapes and cherries dotting the landscape, as well as a great supply of syrup-producing sugar maples.9