Showing posts with label Lyman Draper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lyman Draper. Show all posts

Sowing the seeds of war: The Yellow Creek Massacre and the Battle of Point Pleasant

   Today, my ongoing research into the origins of the Battle of Point Pleasant and John Sevier's role in it takes me to the reminiscences of Judge Henry Jolly. In 1849, a man named S. P. Hildreth interviewed Jolly on Lyman Draper's behalf for Draper's ongoing research into the border wars of the Old Southwest. In Hildreth's recorded transcript of the interview, Jolly recalled his memories of the "Yellow Creek Massacre," an event which ultimately led Lord Dunmore to bring the might of the Virginia militia to bear upon the native people of the region. *

   The broad brushstrokes of history have judged that Dunmore's overwhelming victory over Chief Cornstalk's Indian alliance in the 1774 Battle of Point Pleasant came as a consequence of depredations perpetrated by a "Savage Empire." A careful examination of Jolly's recollections, however, reveals the root cause of the conflict -- a cause bathed in the blood of vengeance.

   The Mingo Indian chief known to the white people as "John Logan" sought revenge for the brutal murder of his family by white settlers at Yellow Creek on April 30, 1774. Jolly, a respected jurist, was sixteen years old at the time of the massacre, yet at the age of 75, he recalled the savage incident which led to the Battle of Point Pleasant in striking detail:

   In the Spring of the year 1774 a party of Indians encamped on the Northwest of the Ohio, near the mouth of Yellow Creek. A party of whites called Greathouse’s party, lay on the opposite side of the river. The Indians came over to the white party—I think five men, one woman and an infant babe. The whites gave them rum, which three of them drank, and in a short time became very drunk. The other two men and the woman refused. The sober Indians were challenged to shoot at a mark, to which they agreed, and as soon as they emptied their guns, the whites shot them down. The woman attempted to escape by flight, but was also shot down. She lived long enough, however, to beg mercy for her babe, telling them that it was a kin to themselves. They had a man in the cabin, prepared with a tomahawk for the purpose of killing the three drunk Indians, which was immediately done. The party of men, women &c moved off for the interior settlements, and came to Catfish Camp on the evening of the next day, where they tarried until the next day. I very well recollect my mother, feeding and dressing the babe, chirping to the little innocent, and it smiling, however, they took it away, and talked of sending it to its supposed father, Col. Geo. [John] Gibson of Carlisle (Pa.) who was then [and] had been for several years a trader amongst the Indians. 

An illustration depicting the Yellow Creek Massacre.
Image credit: West Virginia Encyclopedia.

   The remainder of the party, at the mouth of Yellow Creek, finding that their friends on the opposite side of the river was massacred, the[y] attempted to escape by descending the Ohio, and in order to avoid being discovered by the whites, passed on the west side of Wheeling Island, and landed at pipe creek, a small stream that empties into the Ohio a few miles below Graves Creek, where they were overtaken by Cresap with a party of men from Wheeling. They I believe carried him in a litter from Wheeling to Redstone. I saw the party on the return from their victorious campaign.

   The Indians had for some time before this event thought themselves intruded upon by the Long Knife, as they called the Virginians at that time, and many of them were for war—however the[y] called a Council, in which Logan acted a conspicuous part. He admitted their ground of complaint, but at the same time reminded them of some aggressions on the part of the Indians, and that by a war, they could but harass and distress the frontier settlements for a short time, that the Long Knife would come like the trees in the woods, and that ultimately, they would be drove from their good land that they now possessed. He therefore strongly recommended peace. To him they all agreed, grounded the hatchet, every thing wore a tranquil appearance, when behold, in came the fugitives from Yellow Creek; Logan’s father, Brother and sister murdered. What is to be done now? Logan has lost three of his nearest and dearest relations, the consequence is that this same Logan, who a few days before was so pacific, raises the hatchet, with a declaration, that he will not ground it, until he has taken ten for one, which I believe he completely fulfilled, by taking thirty scalps and prisoners in the summer of 74. The above has often been told to me by sundry persons who was at the Indian town, at the time of the Council alluded to, and also when the remains of the party came in from Yellow Creek; Thomas Nicholson has told me the above and much more, another person (whose name I cannot recollect) told me that he was at the towns when the Yellow Creek Indians came it, that there was a very Great lamentation by all the Indians of that places, some friendly Indian advised him to leave the Indian Settlement, which he did.

   Could any person of common rationality, believe for a moment, that the Indians came to Yellow Creek with hostile intention, or that they had any suspicion of the whites, having any hostile intentions against them? Would five men have crossed the river, three of them in a short time dead drunk, the other two discharging their guns, putting themselves entirely at the mercy of the whites, or would they have brought over a squaw, with an infant papoose, if they had not reposed the utmost confidence in the friendship of the whites? Every person who is acquainted with Indians knows better, and it was the belief of the inhabitants who were capable of reasoning on the subject, that all the depredations committed on the frontiers was by Logan and his party, as a retaliation, for the murder of Logan’s friends at Yellow Creek—I mean all the depredations committed in the year 1774.


   Jolly's memory of the Yellow Creek Massacre and the events that followed failed to recall the details of the savage attack on Logan's kin. Others would testify to witnessing a horrific scene in which members of the Greathouse party not only kidnapped a young child and brutally murdered all the natives, but they also mutilated their bodies and disemboweled Logan's pregnant sister. They then scalped and impaled her unborn child on a stake. During the slaughter, one of the attackers cruelly bragged, "Many a deer have I served in this way."

   In his grief, Logan called out to the men whom he accused of murdering his family:

   "What did you kill my people on Yellow Creek for. The white People killed my kin at Coneestoga a great while ago, & I though[t nothing of that]. But you killed my kin again on Yellow Creek, and took m[y cousin prisoner] then I thought I must kill too; and I have been three time[s to war since but] the Indians is not Angry only myself."

Captain Joh[n Logan] July 21st. Day.


   The Yellow Creek Massacre ended all hope Chief Cornstalk had for a peaceful coexistence with the settlers as Logan sought revenge for the brutal slayings. Logan later lamented:

   "I appeal to any white man to say if he ever entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if he ever came cold and naked and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace.... There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This has called on me for revenge. I have sought it; I have killed many; I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice in the beams of peace."



Photographic reproduction of a print depicting John Logan (1725-1780), a chief of the Mingo tribe.
Image credit: Ohio History Central.



   In a letter to Colonel William Preston, Major Arthur Campbell urgently pleaded for military intervention. In his letter, Campbell communicated the frequency of Logan's vengeance-fueled assault on the settlers. "So many attacks in so short a time, give the inhabitants very alarming apprehensions," he wrote.

   Lord Dunmore answered Campbell's call for reinforcements and exacted his own form of revenge for Logan's personal pursuit of justice, ultimately defeating Cornstalk's Indian warriors at the Battle of Point Pleasant. Although Logan did not participate in the battle itself, he did continue to fight against the Americans in the Revolutionary War. He escaped death until 1780, when ironically, a member of his own family, a nephew, murdered Logan near present-day Detroit, Michigan.


PREVIOUS POSTS:



SELECTED SOURCES:

  • "Reminiscences of Judge Henry Jolly," Draper Manuscripts, 6NN22-24, cited in Reuben Gold Thwaites and Louise Phelps Kellogg, Documentary History of Dunmore's War, 1774. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society, 1905, pp. 9-14.
  • Colin G. Calloway. The Shawnees and the War for America. New York: Viking, 2007, pp. 51-52.



NOTES:

* According to Thwaites' Documentary History of Dunmore's War, 9n16: “The following was sent to Dr. Draper in 1849, by S. P. Hildreth, who had an interview with Judge Jolly. The latter was sixteen years of age at the time of these occurrences, and recollected them well. There has been much controversy over these incidents; for the statements of other contemporaries, see Sappington, in Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia (ed. of 1825), pp. 336-339; Tomlinson, in Jacob’s Cresap, pp. 133-137; George Rogers Clark’s letter, ibid., pp. 154-158; Washington-Crawford Letters, pp. 86, 87; and N. Y. Colon. Docs., viii, pp. 463-465.—Ed.”




 

Gordon Belt is an information professional, archives advocate, public historian, and author of The History Press book, John Sevier: Tennessee's First Hero, which examines the life of Tennessee's first governor, John Sevier, through the lens of history and memory. On The Posterity Project, Gordon offers reflections on archives, public history, and memory from his home state of Tennessee.
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Joseph Martin versus John Sevier

   As I began compiling research notes for my book, John Sevier: Tennessee's First Hero, I came to know some colorful characters who interacted with Sevier as he established his reputation as a leader among the nation's earliest pioneers. One character that captured my attention during this period of writing and research was Joseph Martin.

   As a longrifleman, frontiersman, soldier, Indian agent, and legislator, Joseph Martin occupied an important role in the settlement of the Trans-Appalachian West. He established the only station between the start of the Wilderness Road in Virginia and Crab Orchard on the edge of the Kentucky settlement and defended the station from attacks by the Cherokees, allowing settlers safe passage through the Cumberland Gap. In 1777, Virginia Governor Patrick Henry appointed Martin as an agent and superintendent of Cherokee Indian affairs. In this role, he took up residence with the native population and negotiated periods of peace between advancing settlers and the established Cherokee Nation. In 1780, Martin famously kept the Cherokees at peace as John Sevier and his Overmountain Men assembled a frontier army to defeat British Major Patrick Ferguson's Torries at the Battle of King's Mountain.

Portrait of General Joseph Martin (1740–1808)
of the Continental Army.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
   From childhood through adolescence and into adulthood, Martin charted an unconventional path through the wilderness. Born of an affluent family near Charlottesville, Virginia in 1740, as a young boy, Martin set out on his own. Martin and his childhood friend Thomas Sumter, ran away from home seeking a life of adventure. As a young man, he developed natural instincts as a pioneer and explorer, spending six to eight months out of the year on the extreme frontier hunting and trading for peltry among the Indians. Although he commanded a company against the Cherokees in several engagements, he remained among the tribes once peace had been settled. He even married the niece of Nancy Ward, the "Beloved Woman of the Cherokees" and a respected negotiator in her own right.

   Although Martin served in his role as peacemaker with honor and distinction, a few nineteenth century chroniclers of early American history questioned Martin's loyalties. Through their writings they revealed a suspicion felt by some of John Sevier's loyal followers toward General Joseph Martin.

   One particular episode documented by these early historians bears witness to this mistrust, as Sevier rallied his fellow citizens in 1784 to establish an independent State of Franklin. Martin's loyalties were devoted to the parent state of North Carolina, and his election as brigadier-general of the militia of Washington District placed him into direct conflict with Franklin's elected leader. Over the course of four years, Franklin remained bitterly divided and governed in chaos by dueling authorities. By July of 1788, North Carolina Governor Samuel Johnston ordered Martin to arrest Sevier for treason and encroachment on Indian lands, which further inflamed Sevier's loyal followers.

   The late-nineteenth century North Carolina historian Stephen Beauregard Weeks recorded an incident that took place during this period of unrest. Weeks described a scene that rightfully belongs in a movie script. According to the respected scholar, Sevier's followers attempted to assassinate Martin in a preemptive strike against the frontier diplomat. In his biographical essay, "General Joseph Martin and the War of the Revolution in the West," Weeks wrote:

   "The efforts of Martin to protect the rights of the Indians brought down the wrath of the Sevier party upon him, and in this generation that of Sevier’s worshipers. These men, short-sighted and incapable of seeing the question in its broader relations, said that Martin was a friend to the Indians and therefore no better than they. So a party of some fifty men gathered and traveled some 30 miles with the intention of killing him. When they reached the Holston they halted and sent eight or ten forward to reconnoiter. Col. Martin had in the meantime learned their purpose. He went out to meet them heavily armed, demanded their business, and said he would shoot down the first man who moved his gun. They protested that they had no hostile intentions. He finally invited them into the house; they went in and drank, sent for their comrades who had been left behind, and the whole affair, owing to his courage and presence of mind, ended in a frolic instead of a tragedy."

    "I have no idea that Sevier was in any way responsible for this attempt, but Martin’s firmness in the matter of Franklin, plus the fact that they represented opposite sides on the question of Indian encroachments, widened the breach that had already begun between these two patriots and which seems to have continued through the remainder of their career. This hostility was not peculiar to Martin and Sevier by any means. All of these leaders, as Roosevelt points out, show more or less of the same spirit, and it was a natural one. There seems to have been no hard feeling on Martin’s part. He writes Sevier in October, 1788, and says: ‘Our Interest are or ought to be so jointly Concerned that the strictest friendship Should Subsist, which is my Earnest Desire.’ But this was not the case and the charges of conspiracy which Sevier propagated kept them apart."

Memorial to General Joseph Martin
and settlers at Martin's Station, Virginia.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
    Weeks' anecdote revealed one of the most bitter rivalries that existed on America's first frontier. While Martin respected Sevier and sought his friendship, even against ten-to-one odds, he held no fear of "Nolichucky Jack" or his followers.

   Joseph Martin died in 1808 in relative obscurity. Despite his reputation as a diplomat and keen negotiator, coupled with his honorable service as a soldier and legislator, posterity neglected to preserve the memory of Martin's accomplishments. Martin's close ties with the Cherokees led many of his compatriots to mistrust him, and over time, Sevier's legend overshadowed Martin in the annals of history.

   Long after his death, the nineteenth-century antiquarian Lyman Draper attempted to resurrect Martin's reputation by establishing a friendship and correspondence with Martin's son, William, a pioneer in his own right. Draper's exchange of letters with Colonel William Martin documented both Joseph Martin's own life and the congenial bond formed between the son of this early frontiersman and the eager young historian.

   Draper, a prolific collector of manuscripts and gifted interviewer, never published his planned series of biographies of the border heroes he idolized, and thus Joseph Martin eluded public memory. His legacy remained buried within the pages of history as merely a footnote to the larger narrative devoted to the celebrated and revered John Sevier and his fellow Overmountain Men.


SELECTED SOURCES:

  • Stephen Beauregard Weeks. "General Joseph Martin and the War of the Revolution in the West." American Historical Association. Annual Report for the year 1893. Washington, 1894.
  • "Joseph Martin" in Biographical History of North Carolina From Colonial Times to the Present, Volume II, pp. 240-249. 
  • William Allen Pusey. "The Location of Martin's Station, Virginia." Mississippi Valley Historical Review. Vol. 15, No. 3, Dec., 1928.
  • Josephine L. Harper. Guide to the Draper Manuscripts. Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1983, pp. 215-216. 
 


 

Gordon Belt is an information professional, archives advocate, public historian, and author of The History Press book, John Sevier: Tennessee's First Hero, which examines the life of Tennessee's first governor, John Sevier, through the lens of history and memory. On The Posterity Project, Gordon offers reflections on archives, public history, and memory from his home state of Tennessee.
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Archival records help tell the story of the Cumberland Settlements

Nashville author and historical researcher Paul Clements recently published an important book on the early settlement of Middle Tennessee entitled, Chronicles of the Cumberland Settlements. I was lucky enough to secure a copy of Paul's book during the annual meeting of the Society of Tennessee Archivists last fall in Knoxville. I also had the opportunity to introduce Paul during a recent workshop at the Tennessee State Library and Archives where he talked about his research and the interesting stories found in the letters and diaries of those who lived in the Cumberland Settlements at the very beginning of white settlement in the region.

Enjoying tales of early Tennessee history from Paul Clements' new book, Chronicles of the Cumberland Settlements, during a recent lecture at Tennessee State Library and Archives. Author photo.


Chronicles of the Cumberland Settlements is a massive volume -- 785 pages documenting life on the Tennessee frontier through the original records, and through accounts told by direct descendants and participants in the events of the region. For anyone with an interest in this time period in Tennessee's early history, it's a book that deserves a place in your own library as a valuable reference resource, and a chronicle of the important stories told of this time.

Clements dedicates his book to Lyman Draper, a man who played a significant role in chronicling the story of John Sevier's life -- a subject of deep personal interest here on The Posterity Project. In much the same way that Draper meticulously documented his research, Paul Clements has spent the better part of a decade documenting life on the Cumberland Settlements, and correcting the historical record where he found it in error.

The Nashville City Paper recently published a lengthy article about Paul Clements' work and his book. In the piece, reporter Bill Carey noted that "Clements just moved the understanding of Nashville’s early history forward one very large step. He did this the old-fashioned way — by staring at microfilm for more than a decade in places such as the Metro Nashville Archives and the Tennessee State Library and Archives."

And in a November 2012 article published by The Nashville Retrospect, John Egerton called Chronicles of the Cumberland "a first-person drama, lifted directly from the diaries and letters of people who lived through those perilous times" and "from the writings of second or third parties -- like Lyman Draper -- who went to extraordinary lengths to rescue eyewitness stories from oblivion."

For me, this is the strength of his book. Utilizing the early records contained on microfilm and in the original letters written in the time period, Paul Clements makes the Cumberland Settlements come alive, and shatters several long-held myths along the way. A true friend of the archives, and board member of TSLAFriends, the Friends organization of the Tennessee State Library and Archives, Paul Clements has brought the pages of history to life through this important volume.

For a taste of what you'll find in Paul Clements' book, I would encourage you to read the Nashville City Paper article mentioned in this story. It includes several anecdotes and stories from the book, and describes Paul's work at the Metro Archives and TSLA to uncover this important place in Tennessee history.


 

Gordon Belt is an information professional, archives advocate, public historian, and author of The History Press book, John Sevier: Tennessee's First Hero, which examines the life of Tennessee's first governor, John Sevier, through the lens of history and memory. On The Posterity Project, Gordon offers reflections on archives, public history, and memory from his home state of Tennessee.
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Another case of "research rapture"

As a researcher of early Tennessee history, I find it hard not to have empathy for Lyman Draper.

Lyman Copeland Draper from a daguerreotype
portrait made about 1855.
Image credit: Wisconsin Historical Society.
Lyman Copeland Draper (1815-1891) was the secretary of the Wisconsin Historical Society, and the man most responsible for preserving the memory of the early settlers of the Trans-Appalachian West.

A librarian and historian, Lyman Draper corresponded with the early settlers of the region and their descendants in an effort to "rescue from oblivion the memory of its early pioneers and to obtain and preserve narratives of their exploits."‎

He spent many long hours writing letters to the aging pioneers seeking their reminiscences and made many research trips to the South to chronicle these stories. Immediately following the Civil War, Draper's proclivity to collect manuscripts and notes saved many of these legendary tales from certain destruction, as Union forces burned courthouses and destroyed documents and artifacts held in southern repositories.

Lyman Draper had high ambitions to become a popular writer and to publish the biographies of these heroes of the Western border lands. Although Lyman Draper published ten volumes of historical notes for the Wisconsin Historical Society as well as a volume about the Battle of King's Mountain, which featured many of the people who were also early settlers, he never finished his biographies. Draper biographer William Hesseltine noted that "All his life Draper was planning to write books, but some psychological quirk made it impossible for him ever to realize his dreams."

What was this "psychological quirk" that prevented Lyman Draper from fulfilling his ambitions? After reading David Ferriero's blog, AOTUS: Collector in Chief, I think I may have stumbled upon a possible reason for Draper's lack of published material. I believe that Lyman Draper suffered from a condition called "research rapture."

In a recent blog post, the National Archives chief shared a link to an op-ed piece by Sean Pidgeon in which he defines "research rapture" as...

"A state of enthusiasm or exaltation arising from the exhaustive study of a topic or period of history; the delightful but dangerous condition of becoming repeatedly sidetracked in following intriguing threads of information, or constantly searching for one more elusive fact."

It can surely be said that Lyman Draper succumbed to "research rapture" many times in his effort to chronicle the lives of the early settlers of the Southwest Territory. This feeling of empathy for Lyman Draper's condition came over me time and again as I studied the Lyman Copeland Draper Papers on microfilm at the Tennessee State Library and Archives. It's easy to see how Lyman Draper could find himself within the throes of "research rapture," captivated by the amazing frontier tales found in this collection.

Anyone who has taken on the task of writing history invariably reaches a point in the search for information when the amount of material is so overwhelming it becomes mesmerizing. In my own research of John Sevier, I have compiled an immense bibliography of primary and secondary sources and have read many accounts of John Sevier's life. I know exactly how Lyman Draper must have felt while corresponding with John Sevier's contemporaries as he was trying to gather every scrap of information that he could in order to preserve the memory of this important time and place in our nation's history.

I know through first-hand experience how easily distracted one can get when you begin researching a subject where one source leads to another, and yet another. Sometimes you can lose sight of the fact that the intended purpose of your research is to ultimately write a work of scholarship. Thankfully, my publishing contract with The History Press puts me on a specific time table for the completion of my book, John Sevier: Tennessee's First Hero, so I don't plan to fully give in to "research rapture" anytime soon. But my empathy for Lyman Draper will remain.


Selected Sources:



Gordon Belt is the Director of Public Services for the Tennessee State Library & Archives, and past president of the Society of Tennessee Archivists. On The Posterity Project, Gordon blogs about archives, local history, genealogy, and social media advocacy for archives and cultural heritage organizations. His forthcoming book, John Sevier: Tennessee's First Hero, examines the life of Tennessee's first governor, John Sevier, through the lens of history and memory.
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