Lb^i^:^^-^,^.sj2sj:.^ HISTORY OF TAZEWELL COUNTY AND SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA 1748-1920 BY WM. C. PENDLETON With Illustralions 1920 W. C. Hill Printing Company Richmond, Va. Copyright, 1920, By William C. Pendleton DEC -3 192-0 ©C(.A601791 ~ f DEDICATED To the memory of my. beloved son James French Pendleton He ivas pure in heart, faithful in service, and the embodiment of truth "W^C^^ Lv., fP^.^>«hami|/ "■■s^, ^^# ^^^^' Executive Committee, Tazewell Historical Society, A. St.Clair, President. ^o^en Wm,^ -%;# C^ J 1/ HT i/ • ee^^"" Executive Committee, Tazewell Historical Society, Jno. S. Bottimore, Secretary. PREFACE When I was first requested by certain gentlemen, wlio are descendants of the pioneer settlers of the Clinch Valley, to write a history of Tazewell Countj^, it was intended to be a purely local history. But, after giving the proposition careful deliberation, 1 conceived the scheme which has made it a history of the Settle- ment, Development, and Civilization of Southwest Virginia, with Tazewell County as the central figure. The reason for the adoption of this plan will be obvious to every person who is sufficiently interested to read the volume, for the histor}" of the entire South- west Virginia, Tazewell Count}' included, is. practically, identical. And their history is intimately identified with that of Virginia and of the Nation, as the people who have lived in this region have had much to do with forming and developing the political thought and social character of the State and Nation. In executing this plan, I have separated the book into six distinctly marked Periods, and they are as follows: 1. The Aboriginal Period, which is devoted to that branch of the human family that occupied or roamed over this section of the continent before men of the white race came here to make their homes. And in this Period the origin of the American Indians, together with their social organizations, tribal relations, religious characteristics, et cet., are discussed. 2. The Period of Discover}' and Colonization, in which the Spanish Discoveries and Conquests, the French Discoveries and Settlements, and the English Discoveries and the Settlement at Jamestown in 1607, are concisely narrated. 3. The Pioneer Period. This is the most extended Period of the book; and is used to tell who the pioneers were, from whence they came, how they got here, and how they wrought mightily to reclaim this wonderful country from a wilderness waste. The Period begins with the first settlements made west of the Blue Ridge Mountains in 1732, and terminates with the creation of Tazewell County in 1799, thus comprising the settlements made in the Shen- andoah, Roanoke, New River, Holston, and Clinch valleys, and Kentucky. X P R E F A C E 4. The Ante-JJtIlum, or Formative, Period, which begins with tlie organization of Tazewell County in 1800, and concludes with the commencement of the Civil War in 18G1. Of the various events mentioned in tliis Period, the one which treats of the forming and developing of the political, social, and industrial tliouglit and char- acter of tlie people is, possibly, the most interesting. 5. The War and Reconstruction Period, wliicli embraces tlie eventful years 1861-1869. In this Period I relate and discuss the potential causes tliat provoked the Civil War. Detailed accounts of the four raids made by Federal soldiers into and through Taze- well County, and the battles these raids occasioned, are herein written into liistory for the first time. 6. The Post-Bellum. or Development, Period tells, in brief form, about the immense development of the mineral, agricultural, and otlier natural resources of Tazewell County and adjacent sections of Soutliwest Virginia and Soutliern West Virginia. In ^prosecuting this work my chief aim has been directed to gathering and preserving, in the form of written history, many interesting events connected with the performances of the pioneer settlers of the Clinch Valley and Southwest Virginia, that have been handed down by reasonable tradition, or are to be found in authentic records. But I have found it very difficult to select from the great mass of available material only that which I deemed the most important and essential for the proper accomplishment of my task. To that end. I have earnestly examined the records of Taze- well Countv, and of other counties with wliich Tazewell was civilly connected before it was organized as a distinct county. I lia\e also acquired many facts from the valuable archives, of manuscript or printed form, tliat are deposited in the Virginia State Library, and have carefully studied many local and general histories that are recognized as reliable sources of information. My cordial thanks are due, and are hereby given, to the Presi- dent and Secretary, and to the Executive Committee of the Taze- well Historical Society; and to the following named gentlemen, who became my financial backers and made it possible to procure the publication of my manuscript in Ixwk form : S. C. Graham, A. St.Clair, R. O. Crockett. .T. W. Cliapman, W. T. Tliompson, Jno. S. Bottimore. Jno. P. Gose. R. jM. Lawson, H. P. Brittain, H. G. McCall, H. G. Peerv, Chas. R. Brown, PREFACE xi Wm. E. Peery, A. S. Higginbothara, W. O. Barns, W. T. Gillespie, Geo. R. McCall, G. S. Thompson, A. S. Greever, Barnes Gillespie, E. L. Greever, C. H. Peery, J. D. Peery, Henry A. Bowen, Henry S. Bowen, J. Ed. Peery, R. C. Chapman, C. B. Neel, Jeff Ward, A. G. Riser, J. A. Greever, H. W. Pobst, O. E. Hopkins, C. P. Harman, B. I. Payne, Jno. H. Thompson, J. G. Barns, W. R. Bowen. S. S. F. Harman, M. J. Hankins. I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to certain gentlemen who have given me valuable assistance, in various ways, in the prosecution of my work — Mr. E. G. Swem, who was for years and until recently tlie popular and most capable Assistant Librarian of the Virginia State Library, and Mr. Morgan P. Robinson, the l^olite and efficient Archivist of the Library. These two gentlemen responded so generously to every call I made upon them for assist- ance or information, tliat I can hardly estimate the extent of my obligation to them. I am also heavily indebted to Messrs. H. P. Brittain, County Treasurer; A. S. Greever, Superintendent of County Schools; S. M. Graham, A. St.Clair, C. H. Peery and Jno. S. Bottimore for helping to gather material used in mv work; and to Messrs. W. O. Barns, Wm. E. Peery and Henry A. Bowen for special substantial favors. The history has been arranged in as nearly chronological order as it was possible for me to jilace it. It is hardly necessary for me to say that it has been truly a labor of love to write about the deeds and accomplishments of the splendid men and women who were the pioneer settlers of the Clinch Valley and other sections of Soutliwest Virginia. And it has been a pleasant task to compile and relate the waj's and means that have been used by their descend- ants and successors to bring this section of Virginia to its present social and industrial high position. My earnest hope and desire is, that its people shall continue to advance on 'these lines until they have attained the most exalted stage of Cliristian civilization and human freedom. Wm. C. Pendleton. J2ine 1st, 1920. Note — The book has been j^ublished under very trying circum- stances, produced, in the main, by unsettled labor conditions. Tliis xii PREFACE has not only occasioned delay in gettinj;' tlie history ready for publi- cation, but is, possibly, responsible for most of the typographical and mechanical errors that appear on its pages. These will be easily detected and corrected by the careful and intelligent reader. There is, however, one error in a date to whieli special attention is called. It occurs in the sketch of Captain Henry Bowen, Taze- well's most distinguished son, on page 636. He was born December 26th, 1811, and not in "1815" as appears in the sketch. The lines that immediately follow the incorrect date in the sketch fully expose and correct the error. CONTENTS ABORIGINAL PERIOD. Page I. Origin of the Red men; their distribution, civilization, character, etc. 3-14 II. Nations and tribes north of Mexico 15-57 III. The Indians; their civilization, government, manners, and religion - 58-69 PERIOD OF DISCOVERY AND COLONIZATION. I. Spanish and French discoveries and conquests - - - 73-84 II. French discoveries and settlements 85-98 III. Birth of American Nation — English Settlement at James- town - -- - 99-129 IV. From death of James I to 1676.-.- -- - 130-137 V. Bacon's Rebellion and discovery of Shenandoah Valley — 138-151 PIONEER PERIOD. I. Settlement of Shenandoah and Roanoke Valleys - 155-170 II. The Walker and Gist expeditions 171-185 III. French and Indian war -- - - -186-203 IV. Drapers Meadows Massacre and other Tragic Incidents. .-204-217 V. Holston Valley invaded by Indians — The Sandy expedi- tion - --- - 218-223 VI. Why settlements delayed in Clinch Valley- -- 224-230 VII. The Tazewell Pioneer settlers- - 231-270 VIII. Frontiers of Fincastle County invaded by Indians - 271-289 IX. Fincastle men called for Ohio expedition — Indians invade Clinch and Holston settlements—- - -- 290-310 X. Battle of Point Pleasant — Kentucky opened for settle- ment ----- - 311-334 XI. The Revolutionary War- --- 335-352 XII. First Constitutional Convention — Declares United Col- onies free and independent States — Declaration of Rights and Constitution adopted -- - 353-360 XIII. Kentucky, Washington and Montgomery counties are formed - - 361-369 XIV. Clark's expedition to Illinois, and Battle of King's Moun- tain -- 370-397 xiv CONTENTS APPENDICES— PIONEER PERIOD. Page A— Sketches of Pioneer Families - - -401-433 B — Massacres by Indians - 434-468 ANTE-BELLUM, OR FORMATIVE, PERIOD. I. Organization of Tazewell County 471-485 II. Boundries and Topography of Tazewell County 486-495 III. Interesting- sections of county — The head of Clinch Valley 496-516 IV. Development of political, social, and industrial character of its people - - - 517-529 V. The roads of Tazewell County — Growth in population and wealth, etc - 530-546 VI. The origin and descent of Tazewell County 547-560 WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION PERIOD. 1. Principal causes of the Civil War 563-598 II. The Harper's Ferry Insurrection - — - -585-592 III. The Presidental election of 1860 - - 593-598 IV. Virginia holds convention and secedes from Union 599-605 V. What Tazewell did in the war 606-637 Appendix to War and Reconsti-uction Period 638-654 POST BELLUM, OR DEVELOPMENT, PERIOD. I. County recovers from effects of Civil War 657-664 II. Piosperity returns to Tazewell County.- - 665-672 Appendix — List of m.en from Tazewell County in World War 1914 — ai-my and navy 673-684 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page Osceola, Indian Chief Sequoya, Chei'okee Indian -.- "'" Tecumseh, Shawnee Chief-.. • Plum Creek Valley, Tazewell County, Va ."...7 55 Jamestown Tower Site of Thomas Witten's Cabin...- ------ Campbell House at Royal Oak 2qfi Thomas Witten's Fort.r. " ttlr' John Witten's Cabin. William Wynne's Fort 2^q Rees Bcwen Homestead-.. " ^f.„ Statue of General Andrew Lewis 3Qg Old Powder Magazine at Williamburg. 35^ "Colonel Wilkinson Witten ,^0 Samuel Cecil "' ' J^^ Rees T. Bowen.. "" """ fl William Moore. ZZZZ '""' 415 Oscar Moore, Jr., on "Rose" ..^ Major David Peery "" ' ,7^ *^ — . 419 Residence of Major Harvey George Peery....... ' 42i Residence of Major David Peery "" 433 Colonel Archibald Thompson.. 425 First Brick House Erected in Tazewell County 43I Site of Major John Taylor's Cabin-.... .on Apple Tree in Abb's Valley 1^. Rock Under Which Martha Evans Hid. 453 Squire Thomas Peery and Son. .gg Colonel Henry Bowen . „ First Plat of Town of Tazewell, Va.. ' """ " 474 Court House at Tazewell, Va... '" " " '" ^g^ Residence of Colonel Wilk Witten 49. Residence of Samuel Cecil " .q„ Mill in Plum Creek Gap.. "" '" ^^^ Grounds of Tazewell County Fair Association Z^'Z' 497 Tov/n of Tazewell, Section L. ^gg To\\Ti of Tazewell, Section II '" .qq Gap at Burke's Garden ' 5O2 Rev. John J. Greever g^o Floyd Estate in Burke's Garden Z'ZZ 505 Site of James Burke's Cabin... cinfl Colonel Peter Litz- - "" " ""■■ " Tl^ ^^.- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page ,, ^ 508 Captain George G. Gose --- ^^^ Major Otis Cakhvell Charles Fitzgerald Tii^'any - - Walnut Log from Tazewell County, Va.-- - ^^^ Loom and Wheels ^^^ Plum Creek Gap Residence of Colonel Harvey George --- - - -- ^^^ "Hubble Hill" ^gg Main Street, Tazewell, Va.-- - - " Dorset Lambs from Tazewell County, Va.--- • »^^ John Warfield Johnston - " ^^^ High School at Tazewell, Va - Major Rufus Brittain--- ^^^ William P. Cecil , , „ 1 bUU Judge Samuel L. Graham - -- ^^^ Captain William E. Peery -- - - Walnut Tree at Wm. E. Peery's -- ^^^ Captain Charles A. Fudge - - - — - " ■ Dr. John S. Pendleton and Wm. C. Pendleton - - "^^ Home of Mrs. Henry S. Bowen - - ■• Colonel Andrew J. May ^^^ Captain David G. Savers -■ ^^^ Major Thomas P. Bowen -- - - - - Colonel William L. Graham ^^^ Colonel Robert Smith - - - - „ oob Captam Henry Bowen ^^^ Colonel Joseph Harrison - - Colonel Titus V. Williams " ^^^ Colonel Edwin Houston Harman— - Captain D. B. Baldwin- ^^^ Captain John H. Whitley - - " ■ Captain Jonathan Hankms - - ^^^ Captain James S. Peery - - - " ^^^ Captain A. J. Tynes- - ^^^ Captain John Thom.pson ^^^ Captain James P. Whitman ■ ■ -- Residence of Thomas Witten, third ^^^ Doctor George Ben Johnston - Doctor Samuel Cecil Bowen -- ^^^ "An Old Virginia Road" The Aboriginal Period Which Treats of the Origin of the American Indians, their Forms of Government, Civilization, Religion, etc. History of Tazewell County and Southwest Virginia ABORIGINAL PERIOD CHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF THE RED MEN, THEIR DISTRIBUTION, CIVILIZATION, CHARACTER, ETC. There is one thing connected with the discovery of America which has been settled beyond dispute by historians ; and that is that the American aborigines received their name from Christopher Columbus. When the great navigator started out from Palos with his three little ships^ manned with one hundred and twenty men, his main purpose was to travel to India by sailing a westward course. After a trying and thrilling voyage of seventy-one days, on the 12th of October, 1192, Columbus landed on one of the Bahamas, took possession of the island for Spain, and named it San Salvador. He there found a tribe of natives whom he called Indians, believ- ing he had reached the shores of the Asiatic Continent and had landed upon the eastern coast of India. Much has been surmised and a vast deal written about the origin of the Red Men who were the primitive inhabitants of the American Continent. All historians have agreed that they are one of the older races of mankind, but whether they are indigenous to this continent, or are the descendants of an Asiatic race is still not only a matter of dispute but seems likely to remain for all future time an unsolved problem. Some of the most profound and ardent students of mankind have confidently asserted that the American Indians are a distinct variety of the human race. Among these are Blumenbach, the eminent German naturalist, and Samuel George Morton, the dis- tinguished American ethnologist. On the other hand quite a number of able and celebrated ethnologists, philologists and anthropologists have asserted with equal positiveness that the Indians of both North and South America are descendants of the Mongolian family and came here from Asia. But when they reached this continent or by what route they traveled is completely enveloped in mystery. [3] 4 History of Tazewell County Dr. Robert Brown, wlio lias been regarded as one of the most aecom- plished, as he is one of the latest writers on the subject, in his "Races of Mankind" expresses firm conviction that the American race is of Asiatic origin. He sa3's: "Not only are the Western Indians in appearance very like their nearest neighbors, the Northeastern Asiatics, but in language and tradition, it is confidently affirmed there is a blending of the people. The Eskimo, on the American, and tlic Tchuktcliis, on the Asiatic side understand each other perfectly." Modern anthropologists, who uphold the tlieory of Asiatic origin, are of opinion that the ancestors of the greater part of the American race came here from Japan, the Kuriles and the regions thereabout. Baron Humboldt, one of the greatest scientists the world has ever produced, after traveling extensively in South America, Mexico, Cuba and parts of the United States, said this about the aboriginal inhabitants: "The Indians of New Spain bear a general resemblance to those who inhabit Canada, Florida, Peru and Brazil. We think we per- ceive them all to be descended from the same stock, notwithstanding the prodigious diversity of their languages. In a portrait drawn by Volney of the Canadians we recognize the tribe scattered over the Savannahs of the Apure and the Caroney. The same style of features exists in both Americas." It is a notable fact that tlie Mongolian cast of feature is most pronounced in the Indian tribes nearest the Mongol coasts, that is on our Pacific coast; and becomes less distinct as we trace the tribes eastward to the shores of the Atlantic. And it is a generally accepted historic fact that the tribes on the eastern seaboard gave as one of their traditions that their ancestors came from the West, while the Western tribes claimed that their progenitors came from regions still further West. Though there were at the period about which Humboldt was writing hundreds of tribes among the American Indians, all of them bore a striking similarity of physical structure, personal characteristics, and languages. This similarity of lan- guages led Albert Gallatin to say: "Amidst that great diversity of American languages, considered only in reference to their voc^abularies. the similarity of their struc- and Southwest Virginia 5 ture and grammatical forms has been observed and pointed out by the American philologists. The result api)ears to confirm the opinions already entertained by Ponceau^ Mr. Pickering and others; and to prove that all the languages, not only of our own Indians, l)ut of the native inhabitants of America, from the Arctic Ocean to Cape Horn, have, as far as they have been investigated, a distinct character common to all, and apparently differing from any of those of the other continents with which we are most familiar." That all the Indians of both American continents were of common origin is indicated not only by similarity of the structure and grammatical forms of tlieir languages, but by the strong resemblance of their physical characteristics. These have been described as follows : "A square head, with low but broad forehead, the back of the head flattened, full face and powerful jaws; cheek-bones prominent, lips full, eyes dark and deeply set; the hair long, not absolutely straight, but wavy, something like a horse's mane, and like that, of a glossy hue; little or no beard, where it does appear carefully eradi- cated with tweezers ; color of the skin reddish or copper, height of the men about the average, but looking taller from tlieir erect pos- ture and slender figure; the women rather shorter and more inclined to obesity, but many of tliem with symmetrical figure and pleasing countenance; liands and feet of both men and women small." Though the learned men who have carefully studied and investi- gated the aborigines of America have differed sharply as to how this peculiar race originated, some holding that it was indigenous and others that it was of Mongolian descent, all such ethnologists and philologists have agreed that it had a common origin. Therefore it has been a matter of surprise to those who have been interested investigators of its history to find that but three of the many nations of the American race had attained any considerable degree of civil- ization when they first became known to 'the white men. When Hernando Cortes, in 1519, with his cruelly avaricious but desperately courageous band of Spaniards, invaded Mexico, he found there a large and intelligent nation, ruled over by an emperor, living in walled cities, with sumj^tuous residences, splendid palaces, and magnificent temples. This jjeoplc, called the Aztecs, had a code of fixed laws, and were skilled in some of the arts and sciences, 6 History of Tazewell County especially asti-onomy. They were excellent argiculturists, engaged extensively in mining the precious metals, and exhibited mucli skill in the manufacture of both useful and ornamental articles. His- torians, from what they deem satisfactory record and traditional evidence, affirm that the Aztecs wandered into Mexico in the twelftli century, and succeeded the Toltecs, another tribe of the mysterious American race. The Toltecs are said to have entered Mexico in tlie seventh century. Both of these tribes or families had come from the same hive in the North, just as the Saxons, Danes, and Normans, successively, journeyed from Scandinavia and ultimately landed in England. The Toltecs, the predecessors of the Aztecs, judging from the monuments and other indicia the}' left beliind them in Mexico, and the immense architectural remains of the temples they built in Central America, were more advanced in civilization than were their successors, the Aztecs. The Toltecs were so skilled in architecture that the name Toltec has been pronounced the synonym of architect. They were skillful agriculturists and introduced maize and cotton into Mexico. In making record of events they used hieroglyphics, and left ample monuments to prove that they were skilled in the arts and sciences. They knew how to fuse metals, to cut and polish the hardest stones, to manufacture earthenware, and weave many kinds of fabrics. It is an astonishing fact that they had knowledge of the causes of eclipses, made wonderful sun-dials, had a simple system of notation, and measured time by a solar year of 365 days. The Toltecs were a people of a gentle, peaceful disposition, but very industrious and enterprising. Their laws were simple but justly administered, and their religion was of a mild form. Why and when they left Mexico has not been definitely settled; but it seems certain that they migrated to Central America, perhaps impelled by the nomadic instincts inherited from their Asiatic progenitors. In the matter of religion the Aztecs were very much fiercer and more barbarous in their practices than their predecessors, the Toltecs. They believed in one supreme creator and ruler of the miiverse, but this sublime faith was strangely mingled with a belief that hundreds of inferior divinities existed under the control of the supreme divinity. Not only were the Aztecs heathenisli, but they \\ere cannibalistic in the practice of their religious ceremonies; and they were the only family of the American race who offered up and Southwest Virginia 7 human sacrifices. It is related by historians that in the immediate years preceding the Spanish invasion and conquest of Mexico, the Aztecs sacrificed twenty thousand human beings annually upon their altars. The sacrificial ceremonies were performed by their priests on the summits of their temples, and in the presence of vast throngs of worshipers. A victim was bound to the sacrificial stone, the breast was cut open and the heai-t torn out. This vital organ of the human sacrifice was either placed before an image of their gods, or, after being cut into small pieces and mingled with maiz, was distributed to the assembled worshipers to eat. It was a kind of sacramental ceremony. This strange admixture of a high con- ception of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe and a sanguinary superstition which induced them to sacrifice human beings to their plural gods puts the Aztecs in a distinct class among the numerous tribes of the American race called Indians. THE CONQUEST OF PERU BY PIZARRO. Peru, now one of tlie Latin Republics of South America, was enjoying its second phase of civilization when Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish adventurer, in 1531, invaded that country with his reckless band of freebooters. There were only one hundred and eighty men in his expeditionary force, of whom twenty-seven were cavalry. Pizarro had been incited to make the daring attempt to conquer a native empire from knowledge of what Cortes had accom- plished in Mexico. He had accompanied Balboa when he crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513, and was with that cavalier when he first viewed from a mountain top the great ocean which he named the South Sea, but which Magellan a few years later called the Pacific. Pizarro's ambition had also been greatly excited by rumors that came to him of a wonderful country still further South, where silver and gold were found in as great abundance as iron in Spain. Inspired by these reports, with a small company of followers, he made a visit to Peru in 1526 for the purpose of spying out that country; and had returned to Panama with satisfactory evidence that the immense wealth of the land in precious metals had not been exaggerated. The generous natives, who had never seen a white man until Pizzarro and his companions visited them in an assumed friendly way, gave him valuable and beautiful ornaments made from gold and silver; and also liberal specimens of fine cloth, of brilliant 8 History of Tazewell County hue, made from the wool of llamas and alpacas. Very soon after this visit of discovery Pizarro traveled to Spain and exhibited these sjiecimcns to Charles V. and his ministers; and revealed to them what he had seen of the enormous wealth in the land of the Incas. The Spanish monarch and Iiis court were so deeply impressed witli the glowing representations of Pizarro, he was invested with num- erous honorable titles, among them being that of governor and cap- tain general of Peru. Having so successfully accomplished his mission to the Spanish Court, the first governor of Peru returned to Panama, accompanied by a band of adventurers who had been lured to his banner by reports of the large quantities of gold and silver possessed by the Incas and their people. At Panama the intrepid adventurer gathered together one hundred and eighty men, twenty- seven horses for his cavalry, and a fairly good equipment of arms and ammunition. These were gotten aboard three small vessels, and the eventful expedition to the country of the Peruvians was started. Upon arrival in Peru with his small but well equipped force of soldiers, the Spanish conquerer promptlv revealed his treacherous nature to the people he had visited a few years prev- iously with seeming friendly intention. He proceeded to torture, kill, and rob the natives until he succeeded in crushing the spirit of the nation. Thus was the splendid empire of the Incas brought under Spanish rule, as had been that of Montezuma in Mexico by the ruthless conquest of Hernando Cortes. The ci\ilization of the Peruvians in many respects was of a higher tyi)e than was that of the Aztecs. Prom traditions of tlie aboriginal inhabitants it is known that Manco, the first Inca, with his wife. Mama Oella, mysteriously appeared to the superstitious natives on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Maneo told the astonished natives that he and his wife were children of the Sun, and declared that they had been sent by their god Ita (the Sun) to instruct and rule the people who dwelt in that regiou. They accepted his state- ments as true, and willingly became his subjects. Manco kept his word by instructing the people in agriculture and the arts. He gave them a pure religion and established an excellent social and national organization. Mama Oella taught the women to spin, weave and sew, and trained them in what is now called domestic science. Investigators and historians are conviiued that Manco and his wife were white persons. That they could have reached a country so rciiKitc. s('));if;il((l l)\ broad oceans lli;il no luai'iiicr iiad I lieu i'vcv and Southwest Virginia 9 crossed from the continents where the white races lived, seems not only improbable but impossible. If, however, the traditions of the aborigines are substantially true as to the appearance of Manco and Mama Oella, they were of a race entirely different from the natives, and must have been white. The simple and superstitious natives were even disposed to believe that Pizarro and his cutthroat band were children of the gods, because of their personal appearance. The government which Manco established was in the nature of a mild but positive despotism. It constituted the Inca head of the priesthood, gave him authority to impose taxes and made him the absolute source of all governmental power. His empire was divided into four very extensive provinces, each of these being presided over by a viceroy or governor. The nation was further divided into departments of ten thousand inhabitants, and each of the depart- ments had a governor. In fact, the subdivisions were so extended as to embrace within the least departments as few as ten persons. There was also an advanced agrarian principle engrafted upon the government which Manco founded. No private ownership of land was permitted. All the lands were allotted each year, one-third of the territory of the empire being set apart for the Sun, the Inca, and the people, respectively. The lands allotted to the Sun were for the support of the temples of this god, to defray the expenses of tlie costly religious ceremonials and maintain the multitude of priests w^ho had charge of tlie temples and conducted the ceremonies. Those lands set apart for the Inca were to support his royal state and household, and defray the general expenses of the government. The remaining third of the lands was apportioned, per capita, in equal shares among all the people. The allotments made to heads of families were apportioned according to the number of persons in each family. It is stated tliat this system of annual distribution developed such excellent agricultural methods that the soil was made more productive instead of depleting its fertility. The sandy lands along the seacoast. that originally were of no agricultural value, were transformed into productive fields and rich pastures. This was accomplished by a system of artificial irrigation of such magni- tude as the world has never seen equaled. Water was conveyed from mountain lakes and streams to the sandy waste lands by the use of aqueducts, and distributed through canals sitnilar to those used by the ancient Egyptians, and like those now employed in the arid spclions of the United Slates east of the Rocky Mountains. 10 History of Tazewell County Several of tlie Peruvian aqueduets were between four hundred and five hundred miles long. The ruins of some of them still attest the marvelous skill and energy of the people who constructed them without the aid of iron or steel tools or machinery of any kind. How they performed such stupendous tasks is likely to remain as great mystery as the building of the Egyptian pyramids. The religion of the Peruvians, though of pagan form, was of a higher type than that of most heathen nations. They worshipped, as did the Aztecs and as still do the unconverted tribes of North America, a Great Spirit, whom they adored as the Author and Ruler of the Universe. He, they piously believed could not be symbolized by an image nor be made to dwell in a temple erected by mortal men. They also believed in the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body after death. Like the Aztecs, however, they worshipped secondary gods, of whom they recognized the Sun as chief. That the Peruvians had some very skillful goldsmiths and silver- smiths was attested by the many beautiful ornan\ents they made from the precious metals to adorn their palaces and temples. Many of these ornaments were exquisitely designed representations of human and other forms, and of plants, all fashioned with accuracy as to form and feature. They also had highly skilled cutters and polishers of i^recious stones, and used them to fashion images of brilliantly colored birds, serpents, lizards and other things, the stones being cut and arranged with as much skill as the most accom- plished artists of Paris and Amsterdam have ever exhibited. Previous to the advent of the Incas there was another large and highly civilized nation that occupied Peru. Historians and ethnol- ogists have never found the name of this people, know nothing of their origin, and have to rest satisfied with referring to them as the pre-incarial nation, or nations. They had a civilization, a language, and a religion that were different from those of the incarial nation. That they lived in large cities is proven by the splendid architec- tural remains, sculptures, carvings and other sjjecimens of art that have been viewed with amazement by archeologists who explored the ruins of these ancient cities. The most diligent efforts of scientific investigators have failed to disclose from what regions these pre- incarial nations came and from which race of mankind they sprang. Therefore they will have to be classed as a })rehistoric race, just and Southwest Virginia 11 as have been the cave-dwellers of the Rocky Mountains and the mound-builders of the Mississippi Valley. The Mexican and Peruvian aborigines, like the ancient Egypt- ians, made use of hieroglyphics instead of letters to record events and give expression to their languages. It is what has been termed picture writing, and the pictures used were representations of natural or artificial objects — such as celestial bodies, animals, fishes, reptiles, flowers, plants, the human form, works of art, and a num- erous variety of things. Among the Aztecs the women as well as the men were taught the art of reading and writing the hiero- glyphics. The women were also instructed in ciphering, singing and dancing, and even taught the secrets of astronomy and astrology. Their method of writing was so crude and grotesque and the system of notation so imperfect as to make them very inadequate for prac- tical purposes. When it is known that the Mexican and Peruvian Indians acquired so many of the elements of civilization, it is hard to under- stand why their attainments were not extended to some of the many other tribes of their race that occupied or roamed over all sections of the North and South American continents. The various tribes, especially the Toltecs, who inhabited Central America, were evidently a useful connecting link for vmiting the civilizations of Mexico and Peru; and it is probable that the Central American tribes imparted more than they received from their kindred nations of the Northern and Southern continents. The civilizations of these three great nations of the American aborigines, the Toltecs, the Aztecs and the Peruvians, partook more of the nature of a refined barbarism than of the type of civilization that developed in Europe after the Christian era began; and they were very deficient in intellectual and moral force. There were several potential causes for these deficiences. One of these was the forms of their religions, which were fundamentally mythological and consequently active breeders of superstition. The religions of the native Mexicans and Peruvians were intensely superstitious; and conspired to make them seclusive or hermit nations, similar to Japan before its policy of isolation was destroyed by Commodore Perry in 1853. Another reason for the restriction of the civilization of the Mexicans and Peruvians to their own nations was their failure to invent and make use of an alphabet, and their resultant inability 12 History of Tazewell County to express tliemselves with words or a phonetic written language. Without an alphabet and a written language they could make no satisfactory record of important events that occurred in tlieir national life ; and; therefore, could not communicate what they had accunui- lated to neighboring tribes, or even transmit it to their own posterity, except by tradition. Another very substantial reason why the Mexicans and Peru- vians did not reacli a higher standard of civilization, nor impart what tliey had to other tribes of their race, was that they had no monetary system, no medium of exchange in the shape of metallic tokens that represented specific and intrinsic values. The vast quantities of silver and gold these })eoples had accumulated during the centuries that preceded the Spanish conquests were used almost exclusively for ornamentation of their temples and palaces, for making images of their gods, and for ornaments for tlieir persons. The Peruvians had no knowledge whatever of money and no medium of exchange; but the Aztecs had a kind of currency which they used in connection with their barter transactions. It consisted of small pieces of tin stamped with a character like a T, bags of cacao (chocolate seeds), valued according to the size of the bags; and small transparent quills filled with gold dust. This currency sys- tem was not superior to that of the North American tribes who used shells and beads, called wampum, for money; and was no better than the coon-skin currency of the pioneer settlers of this country. Neither of the nations had any knowledge of numerals or figures for keeping accounts and business transactions, nor did they have a system of weights and measures. The highest forms of civilization that existed among the nations of the Old World were developed by the peoples that were imbued with a spirit of commercialism; and who possessed the requisites for conducting business transactions, tiiat is a written language, a monetary system and a knoNvledge of numerals. All historians who have studied and written about the ancient nations of the world have agreed that the Phoenecians were the first to become noted as a great commercial and maritime people, and to engage extensively in foreign commerce. At a very early period their trade in manu- factured articles and other products extended over the best known parts of the continents of Asia, Africa and Europe. It is conceded that the Phoenecians were tlie first nation that invented and made practical use of an alphabet, which was destined to become the and Southwest Virginia 13 model for all European and American alphabets. Being the first to have an alphabet, the Phoenecians were the first nation to have a written language and a literature. These acquisitions served to stimulate invention, give impulse to industry and generate a com- mercial spirit, thereby supplying the most essential factors for tlic building of a high and progressive civilization. The aboriginal inhabitants of Mexico and Peru did not have these indispensibles. Consequently the form of civilization they acquired was very imper- fect. It was purely instinctive, the outcome of natural impulse, rather than the evolvement of mental ])n)ces.se.s; and tended to make these greatest nations of the American Indians physically and mentally weak. Three thousand years before tlie Spaniards invaded Mexico and Peru the Phoenecians had established intimate commercial rela- tions with the Iberians and Celts who then inhabited Spain, A num- ber of colonies from Phoenecia were established on the seacoast of Iberia, now Spain. Thus there was infused into the inhabitants of Spain the elements of civilization that had made the Phoenecians rank first among the nations of ancient times. At the time Columbus became the discoverer of America, Spain was the leading com- mercial and maritime nation of Europe, and was the greatest mili- tary and naval power of the world. In addition to that which Spain had procured from the Phoenecians, she had received from the Arabs what are known by the distinctive name of Arabic Numerals, the nine figures or digits and the zero that have been used for cen- turies by nearly all civilized nations in their arithmetical calcu- lations. The civilization of the Spaniards was of a very strong type, having been created by the intellectual development of its people, while that of the three greatest nations of the American race was superficial and weak, of spontaneous or instinctive growth. When these two entirely different forms of civilization met in mental and physical conflict the stronger, with its higher developed mental faculties, and trained soldiers, who were armed with cannon, guns. and swords and spears of tempered and polished steel, easily defeated the weaker people, burdened with pagan superstition and who were fighting with the same simple weapons their ancestors had used many centuries before. It will not be amiss for the writer to here make known his reason for so freely discussing the types of civilization that existed among 14 History of Tazewell County the aborigines of Mexico and Peru when in their zenith. This has been done with a view of directing equal attention to the best forms of civilization that were found among some of the leading tribes of Indians who inhabited the North American Continent previous to its discovery and settlement by men of the white race. This will give opportunit}', by comparison, to analyze and exemplify the wonderful accomplishments of the pioneer settlers, and the steady progress made by their descendants since Tazewell Coimty became an organized society. CHAPTER II. NATIONS AND TRIBES NORTH OF MEXICO. Philologists and historians have^ without a dissenting voice, agreed that the North American Indians were divided into a number of distinct families; and that each of these families was subdivided into numerous subordinate tribes. Every subordinate tribe had its own dialect; and it is known that more than five hundred different dialects were used by the aborigines. There were also many differ- ences in traditions, habits, and social forms among the numerous tribes. THE ESKIMO. So far as has been ascertained, the Eskimo ever since their tribal or family organizations were established have inhabited the Arctic regions of the North American Continent. They have had very sparse settlements above the sixtieth parallel of latitude, are scattered across the continent from Labrador to Alaska, and even extending to Siberia. The Eskimo also inhabit the Asiatic side of Behring's Strait; and the people on both sides of the strait are pronouncedly Mongolian in feature. Being the only family common to both continents, they are claimed by many ethnologists to be an indisputable link connecting the Mongols of Asia and the Indians of America. The Eskimo are of medium stature but are very strong, and have great powers of endurance. Their skin is of a light brownish or yellow color and tinted with red on the exposed parts. They have small, well formed hands and feet, and their eyes, like nearly all the American tribes, have a Mongolian character, which confirms most ethnologists in the belief that they are of Asiatic origin. Their permanent settlements are so located as to be near the best hunting and fishing grounds. In summer time they hunt caribou, musk-ox. and different kinds of birds; and in the winter they subsist mainly on fish and sea mammals, principally the seal that abound in the Arctic regions. The Eskimo are of a very peacable disposition, are very truthful. and remarkably honest, but are extremely lax in their practices of sexual morality. Their dwellings in the summer are made of deer or seal skins stretched over poles, and in the winter they make shal- f 15 1 iO History of Tazewell County low excavations iii tlie earth and use either wood or whale ribs for a framework, which they cover with turf. Alany of their winter huts are built with snow. Tlie social organization of this peculiar people is very loose, the village bemg the largest unit, while in matters of government each settlement is independent, a pure form of local self-govern- ment. There are no chiefs as found with the tribes of the American natives who lived south of the Eskimo. The men give their time to hunting and hshing, and the women perform all the hard labor. Though they are without anything like culture or education, they are said to be good draftsmen and carvers, and the people about Behring Strait do some painting. The Eskimo have a strange religion. They believe that spirits exist in animals and even in inanimate objects. Their chief deity is an old woman who lives in the ocean and who controls storms and causes the seals to visit or stay away, as she may direct, from the shores these sea animals frequent. Many other ridiculous beliefs are held in connection with this old woman of the sea. The larger portion of the Eskimo of Greenland and Labrador have been converted to Christianity by Moravian and Danish missionaries; and Russian missionaries for over a century have been working among the natives of Alaska. The Eskimo have been of great ser- vice to all explorers of the Artie regions. Recent estimates of the number of Eskimo living in North America place them at nearly thirty thousand. THE ALGONQUIAN FAMII'Y. When the Europeans first discovered the North American Con- tinent and began to explore and make settlements on its coasts the Algonquians were one of the most prominent and powerful families of the red men. They occupied and roamed over an extensive terri- tory south of that inhabited by the Eskimo, including the greater part of Canada and nearly all that portion of the United States which lies north of tlic thirty-seventh parallel of latitude. Their territory is said to have reached from the eastern shore of New- fomidland to the Rocky Mountains, and fi-om Churchill River, in British North America, to Pamlico Sound. The population of the various tribes or nations of this family of the aborigines has been estimated in the aggregate at a quarter of a million when they first became known to men of the white race. Among the tribes of the and Southwest Virginia 17 Algonquians were the Shawnees, and also all the tribes that occupied Virginia east of the Blue Ridge Mountains^ inchiding those of the Powhatan Confederacy. Most of the Algonquian tribes were of an exceedingly nomadic disposition; and were constantly moving from one hunting ground and river to others to indulge their passionate fondness for hunting and fishing, as well as to make sure of their supplies of food. The Shawnees were the most ardent rovers of the various Algonquian tribes ; and, consequently, gave very little attention to agriculture or home-building. It is said thai when the French and other Europeans began to settle in and about the territory of the Algonquians that this large family of the American race had already begun to decline in numbers ; and was being greatly reduced by deadly diseases that practically wiped out entire subordinate tribes. This family of the aborigines is also reputed to have suffered more than any of their kindred nations from contact with the white mtn. They were easily duped and debauched by the unscrupulous white traders who gave them "fire- water" in exchange for their furs and lands. THE HUKON-IROQUOIS NATION. A great nation known as the Huron-Iroquois inhabited territory within the bounds of that occupied by the Algonquian tribes when America was discovered by Columbus. It was a confederation of tribes of Algonquian origin. In the zenith of their power the Hurons exercised dominion over territory that extended from Georgian Bay and Lake Huron to Lakes Erie and Ontario, and south of these lakes extended on down to the Upper Oliio Valley, and eastward to the Sorell River. The Huron-Iroquois Confederacy originally was composed of the following tribes, the Hurons (afterwards known as the Wyan- dots) who lived north of Lake Erie; the Eries and Andestas, who resided south of that lake; the Tuscaroras who went from North Carolina and rejoined their kindred in the north; the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas and Mohawks. The last mentioned five tribes constituted what was known as the Five Nations of New York, and later called the Six Nations after the TuSicaroras joined them in 1712. The Six Nations occupied the central and western sections of the State of New York, and had an estimated population of fifteen thousand. They were pronounced one of the most intelligent, enter- TH.-2 18 History of Tazewell County prising and warlike aboriginal nations that occupied the north- eastern portion of the continent. Their villages were of respectable size and character, and each tribe was divided into farailieSj and governed by sachems or chiefs. All matters that affected the general interests of the confederated tribes were considered and settled by a conference of all the chiefs of the confederacy. When the English colonists in 1776 revolted against the British Government, and while the war of the Revolution was in progress, the Iroquois became the allies of the British. They were influenced to pursue this course by the very unjust and cruel treatment they had received from the colonists. Led by Joseph Brant, the Mohawk chief, and Red Jacket, chief of the Senecas, the Iroquois inflicted some terrible blows upon the white settlements and ga^e much valuable assistance to the British armies that the American colonies were struggling against. Toward the close of the eighteenth century most of the Iroquois tribes sold their lands in New York and gradually moved away. The Mohawks settled in Canada, and were afterwards joined there by a part of the Tuscaroras and pai'ts of other tribes. Other por- tions of the several tribes eventually moved to western reservations or to Canada. A part of the Senacas went to the Indian Territory, now the State of Oklahoma. In 1917 there were 435 Senecas in that State under Federal Supervision. There were about 5,500 Iroquois living as an independent community in New York State in the year 1890. The report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1916, shows that the number of Indians then living in New York was 6,245, of whom 5,585 were under supervision of the New York Agency of the Federal Government. South of the country inhabited by the Alogonquian tribes were the Cherokees. This nation and that of the Shawnees had so much to do with the history of the pioneer settlers of Southwest Virginia, and of Tazewell County, that it will be necessary for tlie writer to give these two more particular attention than any of tlie tribes mentioned. For this reason, tliat which shall be written about the Clierokees and Shawnees will be put in the closing chapters of the Aboriginal Period. THE MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY. In the country which now constitutes the extreme Southern States of the United States east of the Mississippi River, dwelt the and Southwest Virginia 19 Muskhogean family of the North American Indians. The principal tribes of this family were: the Creeks, the Choctaws, the Chickasaw- and the Seminoles. Although members of the same family, there were many distinct dissimilarities in both their physical and mental characteristics. All of the tribes were fond of agriculture, and they all lived in villages of comfortable log houses. Their villages that were exposed to attack from an enemy were protected by pali- sades. They were all brave warriors, but the Choctaws were dis- posed to fight entirely in self-defense, while the Creeks and the Chickasaws were inclined to engage in offensive wars. The Creeks and the Choctaws, each, had a confederacy, with smaller tribes attached thereto. These confederacies were political organizations erected on kinship, real or fictitious, and the principal object of the confederation was mutual defense. The Muskhogean people num- bered 50,000 when first known to the white men. THE CREEKS. Of tlie four tribes of the Muskhogean family, the Creeks have been regarded as the leader. Their name was given them by the English on account of the numerous small streams of water in the country they occupied. They first came in contact with the white race when De Soto invaded their country in 154<0. At that time they held the greater portion of Alabama and Georgia, and had their chief villages on the Coosa, Tallapoosa, Flint and Chatta- hoocha rivers. The Creeks became treaty allies of the English colonists in the Apalachee wars of 1703-08, and from that time were the faithful friends of the colonists of South Carolina and Georgia, with two exceptions, but were bitter foes of the Spaniards. They were allies of the British Government in the Revolutionary War. In 1790 they made a treaty of peace with the United States, but in 1812 were seduced by England's emissaries, broke the treaty and committed a number of bloody outrages upon the white inhabitants of Georgia, Alabama and Florida. The British sent Tecumseh, the celebrated Shawnee chief, in the spring of 1812 from Ohio to the Creeks and other Indian tribes of the South to enlist their support in the war against the United States. Tecumseh used his savage eloquence with telling effect, reminding his kindred of the South of the seizing of their lands by the whites, called attention to the con- tinued encroachments of the pale faces and to the diminution and probable destruction of the Indian race. The Creeks and Seminoles 20 History of Tazewell County were infuriated by Tecumseh's appeals, and in September, 1812, began war against the white inhabitants of the South. They were soon overawed by General Andrew Jackson, who marched against them with twenty-five hundred Tennessee volunteers. Incited by British agents, the Indians renewed their war against the whites in 1813. About four hundred inhabitants in the most exposed situa- tions on the Alabama River gathered at Fort Mimms for protection. The Indians made a surprise attack upon the fort at noon on the 30th of August, 1813. There were about six hundred warriors who were led by their chief, Weatherford. The whites were driven into the houses, the torch was applied to the buildings, and most of those who escaped the flames became victims of the tomahawk. Only seventeen persons escaped to carry tlie news of the frightful disaster to other stations. General Jackson and other military leaders began ruthless war against the Creeks, desolated their country and killed two thousand of their warriors. After two years of desultory war the Indians were brought into subjection, but continued to give trouble to the white people of the surrounding country until they were removed to the Indian Territory in 183(i. At the time of their removal they numbered 24.591'. The Creek Nation is now a part of the Five Civilized Tribes in Oklahoma; and in lOUi the nation numbered 18,774. Of these ll,9(i5 are Creeks by blood, while 6,809 are freedmen. descendants of the negro slaves the Creeks took with tfiem when they were s<'nt to the Indian Territory. THE CHOCTAWS. When first known to Europeans the Choctaws were occupying Middle and Southern Mississippi, and their territory extended at one time east of the Tombigbee River, as far as Dallas County. Georgia. Tlu meaning of the name Choctaw is unknown, but is believed to signify a sej^aration, that is, sejiaration from the Creeks and Seminoles who were once united with the Choctaws as one tribe. As before stated, they were a branch of the Muskhogean family, and were the leading agriculturists of the Southern Indians. The Choctaws were a very brave people, but their devotion to agri- culture seems to have led tliem to go to war in most instances on the defensive. From the narratives of De Soto's expendition, it is known tliat the Spanish explorer came in contact with tlie Choctaws and Southwest Virginia 21 in 154-0. He had several very fierce encounters with these Indians and found them splendid fighters. About the year 1700 the Choctaws became very friendly with the French, who were then settling colonies at Mobile, and New- Orleans. Although they were of their own kindred the Choctaws were constantly engaged in war with the Creeks and Chickasaws. In 1786 they acknowledged their allegiance to the United States; and rendered the Government very efficient service in the war with England in 1812, and also in the Creek war. Although they were given special privileges by Georgia, that State going so far as to invest them with citizenship, they gradually emigrated beyond the Mississippi River and finally settled in the Indian Territory. In the Civil War they cast their fortune with the Confederate States, but after that war was ended renewed their allegiance to the United States. They are now one of the principal nations of the American natives living in Oklahoma, and one of the members of the Five Civilized Tribes Confederation of that State. According to the 1916 report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, the Choctaw Nation numbers 26,828. They are divided as follows: By blood 17,488; by intermarriage 1,651; Mississippi Choctaw 1,660; freed- men 6,029, the latter, as in the case of the Creeks, being the descend- ants of slaves owned by the Choctaws at the close of the Civil War. THE CHICKASAWS. From their traditions we learn tiiat the Chickasaws were closely related to the Choctaws both by blood and language. Notwith- standing this fact, the two tribes were very hostile and were con- stantly engaged in armed conflict. According to their traditions the Chickasaws and Choctaws came originally from the West, and settled east of the Mississippi River. Fernando De Soto and his ill-fated followers found them there in 154'0 and passed the winter of 1510-11 in the country of these Indians. The Spaniards had many encounters with them and greatly terrorized the poor natives ; but in the spring of 1511 the Chickasaws inflicted a very heavy blow to De Soto and his followers. The Spaniards undertook to force the natives to accompany their expedition as guides and baggage- carriers. They refused to be thus enslaved, burnt Ue Soto's camp and their own villages, and concealed themselves in impenetrable swamps. Forty of tlie Spaniards perished in the conflagration and a large part of their baggage was destroyed. 22 History of Tazewell County The Chickasaws were from the earliest times noted for their courage and independent spirit ; and were almost incessantly fighting- some of the neighboring tribes. They had wars with the Choctaws, the Creeks^ the Cherokees^ the Shawnees, and even with the Iroquois. The latter once invaded their territory and the invading band was almost destroyed. The Chickasaws were always the bitter foe of the French^ this feeling of enmity being encouraged by the Englisli traders and intensified by an alliance of the French with the Choc- taws. In 1736 the)^ defeated the P'rench in several battles, and successfully resisted an attempt to conquer them in 1739-40. In 1786 the United States established friendly relations with the Chickasaws by a treaty, wliich is known as the tx*eaty of Hope- well; and they gave valuable assistance to the white inhabitants in the Creek War of 1813-14. Early in the nineteenth century the Chickasaws ceded a part of their territory in considel*ation of certain annuities provided for them by the Federal Government, and a por- tion of the tribe moved to Arkansas. In 1832-34 the remainder, numbering about 3,600 ceded the 6,642,000 acres which they still claimed east of the Mississippi, removed to the Indian Territory, and became incorporated with the Choctaw Nation. By a treaty made in 1855 their lands were separated from those of the Chocr- taws, and they acquired thereby their present very valuable holdings in Oklahoma. In tlie war between the States, 1861-65, the Chicka- saw Nation gave its support to the Confederate Government, as they owned a number of negro slaves and were in entire sympathy with the Soutliern people. The tribe is now one of the Five Civilized Tribes Confederation in Oklahoma. Thej'^ numbered 10,966 in 1916, divided as follows : By blood 5,659 ; by intermarriage 645 ; f reed- men, 4,662. The freedmen are the descendants of the slaves held by the Chickasaws when slavery was abolished b}' President Lin- coln. THE SEMINOLES. There were several small tribes that were offshoots of the larger tribes of the Muskhogean family; but the Seminole is the only tribe, in addition to the three already mentioned, that is of sufficient his- toric importance to be considered by the writer. The Seminoles were originally a vagrant branch of the Creeks, and the name, Seminole, signifies wild or reckless. Thej'^ moved from the Lower Creek towns on the Chattahoochee River to Florida after the Apala- and Southwest Virginia 23 chee tribe, also a branch of the Muskhogean family, was driven from that country. The Apalachees were friendly to the Spaniards ; and the English Government of Carolina sent an expedition against the Spaniards and Appalachees in 1703. The army of Governor Moore was composed of one company of white soldiers and one thousand Indian allies, mostly Creeks. They invaded the Apala- chee's country and destroyed their towns, fields and orange groves, killed 200 of the Apalachee warriors and made captives of 1,400 of the tribe, who were made slaves. The following year the English and Indians made a second invasion and totally destroyed the Apala- chee tribe in Florida. The Seminole branch of the Creeks took possession of the territory formerly occupied by the Apalachee tribe. While Florida remained under Spanish rule, the Seminoles were very hostile to the United States. They were identified with the Creeks in support of the British in the Revolutionary War and the war with England in 1812. Still later, through British influence, they gave the Federal Government a great deal of trouble. This was during the first administration of President Monroe. The Seminoles began to make violent attacks upon the white settlers in Florida ; and General Andrew Jackson, who had already become famous as an Indian fighter, was sent there with general and ample powers to suppress the hostiles. British emissaries were going among the Indians, and were inciting them to the commission of frightful outrages upon the whites. With an army composed of eight hundred regulars, one thousand Georgia militia, the same number of Tennessee volunteers, and fifteen hundred friendly Cre»^k Indians, General Jackson entered upon his task of crushing the Seminole uprising. He accomplished his purpose so effectually that Spain abandoned its claim to the territory, and in 1823 ceded Florida to the United States. In 1832 the United States made a treaty with a part of the Seminole chiefs, which provided for the removal of the whole tribe to a section west of the Mississippi. Osceola, one of the chiefs of the tribe, and who afterwards became famous, persuaded his people to repudiate the treaty and refuse to vacate their homes in Floridci. This provoked a war with the United States which lasted for eigh- teen years. Tliough but a very small band of the Seminoles, lead by the fearless Osceola, were engaged in it. the war cost the United States thousands of lives and twenty millions of dollars. At the conclusion of the war, Osceola having finally been made a captive, 24 History of Tazewell Coiint>' the greater part of the tribe was h>eated on a reservation on the borders of Arkansas. The story of the long eonfinement of Oseeola in the ohl fort at St. Augustine, and his refusal to go out with the other Indians who made their escape, is full of pathos and romance. In the re])ort of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the year 191(5, it is stated that 571- Seminolcs still live in Florida. The men are rejjorted to be splendid s]iecimens of physical manhood by persons frcMu this section of Virginia who make visits in the winter The above is a portrait of Osceola, ami is made from a print fur- nished the author by the Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution. In 18B5 he was trenclierously seined by General .Tesup, and made a prisoner, while holding a conference under a flag of truce. Broken in spirit from brooding over the manner in which he had been betrayed, he died a prisoner in Fori iMouUrie, Florida, in .Taiuiary, 1.S.S8. to the Land of Flowers. From the same report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs it is h arjied that the Seminoles exist as a separate nation in Oklahoma, aiul is a member of the confederacy of the Five Civilized Tribes. They number^ 3^127 souls, of whom 98() are called freedmen. bein"- the descendants of former negro slaves. THK SIOI A OR SIOUN 1-AMII,V. When the Europeans began lo j)]aiit colonies on the eastern coasts of the North American Coidinenl there were several large and powerful nations of the American aborigines then oceiipving Ihal portion of llic f iiilcl Sl.-itcs wliicli lies \vve i>^ :i jturtriiit owertown. In 1718 the Shawnees on the Ohio, by estimate, had 1()2 warriors or about six hundred persons in that division. A few years later their kindred left the Susquehanna in Pennsylvania and joined them in the Ohio Valley. The two divisions, one formerly located on the Savannah River, and the other in the Cumberland Basin of Tennessee, were united into one tribe for the first time after they became known in history. Following their reunion on the Ohio River, the history of the Shawnee tribe became a part of the eventful history oi that ])ortion of Vii'ginia lying west of the Blue Ridge Mountains and south of the Ohio River; and also of the splendid Northwestern domain, extend- ing nortli to the Lakes and westward to the Mississi])))!. wliich was presented to the United States by Virginia in 178.'}. From the middle of the eighteenth century until the treaty of Greenville, made in 1795. the Shawnees were almost constantly hos- tile to either the English or the Americans. In 1754 what has always been called the I'rencli and Indian War by historians was begun. The Shawnees in that war were most efficient allies of the French, who were engaged in a mighty struggle with the English for supremacy in North America. They were the most vital force of the French army that gave such a humiliating defeat to the British army, commanded by General Braddock, in a battle fought near Fort Du Quesne on June 19th. 1755. George Washington pai- ticipated in the battle as aide-de-camp to General Braddock; and he was singled out by a Shawnee chief and his band of warriors as a special target for their rifles. They fired a number of volleys at the intrepid young Virginian, killed iwo horses under him and put four bullets through his coat, but Washington made a marvelous 46 History of Tazewell County escape from death to afterwards beeome the beloved "Father of his Country." Tlic Frencli and Indian War was not finally concluded on land until 17()0; and the Shawnees were hostile to the English all through the protracted conflict. After France, in 1763, ceded her entire possessions in North America east of the Mississippi, save New Orleans, to the English, the Indian tribes of the North, including the Shawnees, ceased for a brief period making attacks upon the English colonies. But the acquisition of New France by Great Britain gave only temporary rest to the western frontiers of Vir- ginia. Reckless frontiersmen, both from Virginia and Pennsylvania, persisted in committing outrageous depredations upon the Indians who lived in the Ohio Valley; and the pioneer settlers continued to invade and appropriate the hunting grounds of the natives. The treaty of Fort Stanwix, in 1768, and that of Lochaber, in 1770, had accorded the red men lawful possession of all the lands in Virginia beyond the Cumberland Mountains and north of the Ohio River. Encroachments by the white men and reprisals on the part of the exasperated red men finally brought on the war called ETunmore's War. It was almost exclusively a war between the Shawnees and the Virginians who lived west of the Blue Ridge and Alleghany Mountains, and was of short duration. There was but one battle and it was fought at Po int Pleasa nt, where the Ohio and the Kanawha rivers come togethgl*. The Virginians were commanded by Colonel Andrew Lewis, and one company was composed of pioneer settlers from the Clinch Valley, who were under the com- mand of CajDtain William Russell. A little less than two years after the battle at Point Pleasant the momentous struggle between the American colonists and the mother country began, and the British Government experienced very little difficulty in enlisting the support of the Shawnees against tlie colonies. During the Revolutionary period, and for some years thereafter, these Indians were the implacable foes of the Virginians ; and wrought bloody havoc upon the settlers in the Clinch Valley and in Kentucky. Nearly all the expeditions sent by the Americans across the Ohio while the Revolution was in progress were directed against the Shawnees. With British guidance and support they made stubborn resistance to the Americans, but finally were driven from the Scioto Valley and retired to the head of the Miami River, from which region the Miami tribe had withdrawn a few years and Southwest Virginia 47 previous. After the Revolution was over, having lost the support of the British, a large band of the Shawnees joined the Cherokees and Creeks in the South, these two tribes then being very hostile to the Americans. Anotlier small band united with a part of the Delawares and accepted an invitation from the Spaniards to settle at a point near Cape Girardeau, Missouri, between the Mississippi and Whitewater rivers. Those who remained in Ohio continued to give the American Government much trouble through the years 1791-92-93. In 1791 General Arthur St. Clair, then governor of the Northwestern Territory, found it necessary to undertake an expedition with the intention of destroying tlie Indian villages on the Miami. On the ith of November, 1791, he came in contact witli the hostiles at a point about fifteen miles from their villages. The Indians had a large force and gave General St. Clair a crushing and humiliating defeat. The American loss in the engagement was thirty-eight officers and five hundred and ninety-three men killed, and twenty-one officers and two hundred and forty-two men wounded. This frightfid reverse was a severe shock to both the Government and the American people. General St. Clair, who had made a bril- liant record in the Revolution, was so humiliated by his terrible defeat that he resigned as governor of the Territory. General Anthony Wayne M^as appointed to the vacancy caused by the resig- nation of St. Clair. In Augnist, 179'i, "Mad Anthony," at the head of three thousand men, marched against the Indians on the Miami. On the 14th of the month he arrived with his army at the Rapids, and made an ineffectual effort to negotiate a peace with the Indians. They were so inflated with their success over General St. Clair that they rejected General Wayne's proposition with contempt. On the morning of the 20th the Americans made a rapid advance upon the Indians and soon routed and put them to flight. For three days General Wayne kept his men busily engaged destroying the houses and corn fields of the enemy in that vicinity, and a few days later he proceeded to lay waste their entire territory. Wayne's signal victory so thoroughly cowed the Indians that he had no difficulty in making a satisfactory treaty with them in 1795, by which they were forced to surrender their lands on the Miami and retire to the headwaters of Anglaize River, still further to the northwest. The more hostile part of the tribe left Ohio, crossed the Mississippi and joined their kindred who had settled at Cape Girardeu, in Missouri. 48 History of Tazewell County Tlu' Sliawiu'cs still luUl llif position of leading tribe of the American aborigines inhabiting the country between the Ohio and the Wabash. Tecumseh was their chief ^ and he waSj beyond a doubt^ the greatest leader the tribe had ever produced. He had a brother^ Tenskawatawa, who was called the Prophet, and who pretended to be in communication with the spirit-world and to receive reve- lations therefrom. The Prophet secux*ed the confidence of the superstitious members of his own and of neighboring tribes, and gathei'ed a large number of followers in his village at the mouth of the Tippecanoe Iliver. Tecumseh and his brother had originated a plan for uniting all the tribes of the Northwestern Territory in a desperate effort to tlu-ow back the invading white settlers, and pre- vent further encroachments upon the territory of the Indians. In September, 1809, General Harrison, then governor of the Indiana Territory, gathered the chiefs of several tribes togetiier and purchased from them three million acres of land. Tecumseh not only refused to sign the treaty, but declared he would kill any of the chiefs who affixed their names to the paper. He was encouraged in this course of resistance by the British, as England was then involved in a controversy with United States which eventuated in the War of 1812. In 1811 Tecumseh, at the instigation of the British Government, made a visit to the Cherokees and other Southern tribes to enlist their support of his aimounced purpose to drive back the white settlers, who seemed determined to keep driving the Indians further and still further west. Demands had already been made by Tecumseh and the leaders of other tribes for an abrogation of the Fort Wayne treaty and a relinquishment of the lands ceded thereby to the United States. This demand was promptly rejected by Governor Harrison. Every movement of Tecumseh and the Prophet showed that hostilities could not be avoided by the Americans, and tlie Government ordered Cxeneral Harrison to take immediate steps for the protection of the frontiers from attack. He promptly assembled a force of three thousand men, composed of regulars and militia, at Vincennes; and marched into the Indians' country. On the (ith of November he appeared before the town of the Prophet, and on the following mornmg, tlie 7th of November, 1811, the celebrated battle of Tippecanoe was fought and a glorious victory was won by the Americans. After destroying the town of the Pi-ophet, General Harrison marched his and Soutliwest Virginia 49 victorious army back to Vinceimes. Tlif power of the Prophet was broken, and the Indians submissively' sued for peace. Upon his return fron\ the South, Tecuraseh found all his plans had been wrecked by the premature battle of Tippecanoe; and he remained in comparative seclusion until the breaking out of the War of 1812. He then gathered his forces, some two thousand in number, and joined the British army in Canada. There he was received most cordiaJlv anil was distinctlv honored bv being made Above is shown n portrait of Tecumseh (properly Tihfniitlii or Tecumtha, meanint;- "Crouchiuij; I'aiitlier" and "Shooting Star"). He was born in 1768 at the Shawnee viUage of Piqua, about six miles south- west of the present city of Springfiekl, Ohio. The portrait is made from a print furnished the author hy the Bureau of Elhnology ; and Tecumseh is dressed in his uniform of a Pritish hrlgadier general. He was killed at the battle of the Tlianies on Octoher .'ith. 1813. The shot that killed Tecumseh was fired by Ptichard Mentor Johnson, a native Virginian, but then a resident of Kentuckv. He was Vice-President of the United States 1837-1841. a brigadier general in the British army. He proved himself a most valuable ally of the British, and fought gallantly at Frenchtown, The Raisin, Fort Meigs, and Fort Stephenson. After Ctmnnodore Perry defeated tiie British on Lake Erie, Tecumseh covered tl)e retreat of General Proctor very effectively, but insisted when the army arrived at the Thames that the British general should make a stand at that river. This was done, and on the 5th of October, 1813, the battle of the Thames was fought, resulting in the over- whelming defeat of the allied English and Indian forces by' the T.H.-4 50 History of Tazewell County .Americans, who were under the command of General William Henry Harrison. Tecumseh had a presentiment that he would be killed in the battle. This caused him to discard his general's uniform and to array himself in the deerskin dress of an Indian chief. The presen- timent came true, and Tecumseh, the greatest Indian character in American history, fell in front of his warriors while urging them on to battle with the Americans. The war spii-it of the Shawnees, and other Northwestern tribes who had come under his influence, was completely crushed by the death of Tecumseh; and very soon thereafter most of the tribes accepted the terms of peace offered by General Harrison. The division of the Shawnee tribe which had settled some twenty years previously in Missouri did not participate in the War of 1812; and in 1825 they, sold their lands in Missouri and moved to a reserva- tion in Kansas. ,In 1831 the small band who had remained in Ohio sold their lands and joined those who had migrated to Kansas. The mixed band of Shawnees and Senecas at Louiston, Ohio, also moved to Kansas about the same time. About the year 184)5 the larger part of the tribe left Kansas and settled on the Canadian River in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) where they are known as the "Absentee Shawnees." In 1867 that part of the tribe that was living with the Senecas moved from Kansas to the Indian Territory, and they are now known as the "Eastern Shawnees." The main body of the tribe in 1869, by an intertribal agreement, was incor- porated with the Cherokee Nation, with whom they are now residing in the State of Oklahoma. In 1910 the Eastern Shawnees numbered 107; the Absentee Shawnees 481 ; and those who became a part of the Cherokee Nation were about 800, making a total of about 14<00 for the entire tribe in Oklahoma. The latest estimates given in the 1916 report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs show that the Eastern Shawnees numbered 152, of whom only 4 are full blood, 26 one-half blood or more, and 122 less than half blood. From this same report it is seen that the number of Absentee Shawnees is 569, of whom 472 are full blood, 80 are half blood, or more; and 17 less than half blood. The 800 Shawnees who were incorporated with the Chero- kees in 1869 seem to liave lost their identity as a tribe, and from intermarriage or adoption are now regarded as Cherokees. The latest Government estimate places the entire Shawnee popu- and Southwest Virginia 51 lation in Oklahoma at 3,752. Of these 2,746 speak the English language, 2,535 read and write the English language, 3,031 wear citizen's clothing, 3,053 are citizens of the United States, and 816 are voters. These things show that the once fierce wandering tribe is beginning to yield to the force of European civilization, and is gradually becoming absorbed by the American Nation. This happy result has come from proper treatment of the nomads by the Govern- ment, and is largely due to supplying them with schools. VIRGINIA INDIANS THE PAMUNKEYS. It may be said that too much space and effort have been given to the Aboriginal Period of a history that was intended primarily to be local in character. However, my work will be incomplete if no mention is made of the tribes that were living in Virginia east of the Blue Ridge when the English settlement was made at Jamestown. Captain John Smith, who was undoubtedly the most important figure and character among the first settlers at Jamestown, is con- sidered by all historians very accurate in what he wrote about those portions of Virginia of which he had knowledge. He states that there were forty-three tribes in that part of the present Common- wealth that lies east of the Blue Ridge. Of these numerous tribes there are now only remnants of three left in the State, the Pamunkey, the Chickahominy, and the Mattapony; and none of the members of these tribes are of full blood. The scholarly men who have investigated the origin and names of the various tribes of the American race say that the name Pamun- key is derived from pain, which means sloping, or slanting; and anki, which means hill, or rising upland. This refers to a tract of land in what is now King William County, Virginia, beginning at the junction of the Pamunkey and Mattapony rivers. There is a sloping hill or rising upland on this tract, and from this the Pamunkeys received their tribal name. CajDtain Smith said: "Where the river is di voided the country is called Pamunke." At the time the settlement was made at Jamestown, in 1607, the Pamunkey Indians were the leading tribe of the Powhatan Confed- eracy ; and they were then living about the j unction of the Pamunkey and Mattapony rivers in the present King William County. Cap- tain Smith then estimated their number at nearly 300 warriors or a total of 1,000 persons. Their principal town, which was destroyed 52 Iliytoi-}' of Tazewell County by the Englisli colonists in 1(525. was near the present West Point. Virginia, at the junction of the two rivers. In 1722 they numbered about two hundred, and in 1781, Thomas Jefferson estimated tliem at about sixty persons of tolerably pure blood. They were very liostile to tlie English colonists after the death of Powhatan, until the death of their chief Opechancanough. and their frequent conflicts with the white men greatly reduced tlieir numbers. But in 1(551 they assisted the English in repelling an invasion made by the tribes from the mountains ; and in this war lost their chief. Totopotomoi, and (me hundred of their warriors. In 1675, their queen, who bore the title of "Queen Anne," widow of Totopotomoi, aided Governor Berkeley against the rebels in Bacon's rebellion. For this service the Indian queen received special recog- nition from the English Government. In 1722 they numbered onl}- about 200, and by a treaty were put upon a reservation of three hundred acres in a bend of the Pamunkey River in King William County, opposite the historic place known as White House. They still occupy this same reservation and maintain their tribal organi- zation under State supervision. The population is entirely of mixed blood and numbers about one hundred and fifty of both sexes. They live chiefly by hunting and fishing, but engage in farming in a sniall way. THE CHICKAIIOMINY INDIANS. The Chickahominy tribe was one of the strongest and most important in Virginia when the settlement was made at Jamestown in 1607. It was connected with the Powhatan Confederacy, but was not as much subject to the control of the so-called emperor as were the other tribes that reco'gnized him as their ruler. They were living on the Chickahominy River when the colony was planted at Jamestown, and the tribe then had about 250 warriors, or, perhaps, some nine hundred persons of all ages and sexes. As early as 1613 they formed an alliance with the English settlers and assumed the name of Tassantessus, or Englishmen. There is now a band of mixed blood, numbering about 225 persons, who are the descendants of the ancient tribe, but with no regular tribal organization. They live on a reservation on both sides of the Chickahominy River in the coun- ties of New Kent and Charles City; and are intimately associated with the Pamunkey and Mattapony tribes. Their principal pursuits are Iiunting and fishing. and Southwest Virp;inia 53 THE MATTAFONY. Tliere was a small tribe living on the river which is now called Mattapony. in Virginia. This tribe had the same name as the river upon which they lived. Captain John Smitli on his map gave the name "Mattapanient" to the town in which they lived, and it was located in the iipj^er part of the present James City County, near the mouth of Chickahominy River. It was a very small tribe but a member of the Powhatan Confederac}'. In 1608, the year after the settlement at Jamestown, the tribe had only thirty men, or a total of perhaps one hundred persons. In 1781, according to Jefferson, they numbered only fifteen or twenty and were largely of negro blood. According to the last census there were about fifty persons of mixed blood living on a small State reservation on the south side of the Mattapony River, in King William County. They are closely related to the Pamunkey tribe, whose reservation is only ten miles distant. THK INDIANS IN TAZEWELL COUNTY. In that Chapter of his history entitled "Introduction To Indian Wars of Tazewell," Bickley says: "I have thought proper to trace the history of the Indians, who have, since 1539, inhabited Southwestern Virginia. These have been the Xualans, Shawnees, and Cherokees, the latter of whom will not be noticed at length. History, indeed, throws but little light on this interesting subject, yet, I imagine, more than is gen- erally supposed." Dr. Bickley permitted his imagination to get away with him when he asserted that a mythical tribe ^called Xualans and the Shaw- nees, in succession, inhabited Southwest Virginia since 1539, until the coming here of the whites. He also drew largely on his imagin- ation by asserting that De Soto with his band of explorers visited the Upper Holston and Clinch Valley regions, that is, "the counties of Tazewell and Washington, Va., as early as 1540." The Bureau of American Ethnology, which, in the Handbook of American Indians, gives the names of the hundreds of tribes and thousands of subordinate tribes that inhabited the North American Continent during tlie many centuries preceding the coming of the white men to the continent, makes no mention of the Xualans. The Handbook 54 History of Tazewell County is compiled from the investigations made by numbers of the most learned and diligent ethnologists, archaeologists, and investigators of the Indian race, and none of these found any traces of the so-called Xualan tribe. Bancroft, the diligent researcher and America's greatest historian, says not one word about the Xualans. There is no existing reliable evidence to prove that a tribe called Xualans ever inhabited Southwest Virginia. Nor is there anything to show that any part of Tazewell County was occupied at any time by any portion of either the Cherokee or Shawnee tribes for other purposes than hunting grounds. The Cherokees were chiefly an agricultural people, and they built their permanent homes in a milder climate, where the land was easier cleared of the forests and the soil more easily tilled than in this section of Virginia. When the first settlers came to the Clinch Valley they found the whole region a dense forest, abounding in trees that were of five hundred or a thousand years' growth. No marks were discovered on the soil showing that it had ever been cultivated by the Indians, and no implements, even of the rudest kind, have been found here that wert used by the aborigines for agricultural purposes. To support his claim that an extinct tribe called the Xualans, once occupied the Clinch Valley, Bickley says: that traces of many forts and towns were to be seen in 1852 in Southwest Virginia. He says: "These cannot be Cherokee forts, though they captured the Xualans, and hence became masters of the country, for they do not build forts in the same manner; beside, the trees growing on some of them, prove, beyond doubt, that they have been evacuated three hundred years. That they were towns as well as forts, is proven by the existence of many fragments of earthenware, etc., found on or around them, and from their shape and general location they were certainl}' forts." "They were circular, var3'ing in size from three hundred to six hundred feet in diameter. An embankment of earth was thrown up some five or six feet, and, perhaps, this mounted by palisades. A few of these towns or forts were built of stone and sometimes trenches surrounded them. A stone fort of great size, stood in Abb's Valley, in Tazewell County, Virginia, and has but lately been removed. * * * The remains of a remarkable fort are to be seen on the lands of Mr. Crockett, near Jeffersonville, having evident and Southwest Virginia 55 traces of trenches, and something like a drawbridge. This fort has been evacuated, judging from the timber on it, over two hundred years." These forts or fortifications were either built by the Cherokees or some one of the tribes that contested with them the right to use the Clinch Valley as a hunting ground. More than two hundred years before the time Bickley was engaged in writing the history of Tazewell County, the Iroquois had driven the Cherokees from their hunting grounds in what is now known as Southwest Virginia; and the Northern Indians held dominion over this territory for many years. In fact, they claimed it by right of conquest until they ceded it to Great Britain by the treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768. Both the CheVokees and the Iroquois built just such fortifications as Bickley describes and of which there were remains seen in 1852. The Cherokees built similar forts in Ohio before they migrated to the South; and the Iroquois built them in New York. The prehistoric remains mentioned by Bickley were, no doubt, originally fortifica- tions constructed by hunting parties of one or the other of these tribes, while they were hunting here in the summer or fall season. In the eighteenth century the Cherokees and Shawnees asserted very fiercely rival claims to the Clinch Valley; and, no doubt, had many bloody encounters over the question as to who should occupy it. The last encounter between these two tribes took place in 1768; and the battle was fought on the top of Rich Mountain just west of Plum Creek Gap, and about three miles southwest of the town of Tazewell. Tradition says that about two hundred Cherokee warriors participated in the battle, and the inference is that the Shawnees had a superior force, as they were the attacking party. On the occasion of this battle the Cherokees protected their position on the top of the mountain with a temporary breastwork or fort. Bickley says: "It consisted of a simple embankment, about three or four feet high, running east and west along the top of the moun- tain about eighty yards, and then turning off at right angles to the north or down the mountain side. The Shawanoes commenced the ascent of the mountain before night of the first day, but finding their enemies so strongly fortified, withdrew and posted themselves in a position to commence the attack early the following morning." The emergency fort built by the Cherokees on the top of Rich Mountain was so similar in feature to the for t in A bb's Valley and 56 Histor\' of Tazewell Countv the one on Mr. Crockett's plaee near .letler.sonville, that it warrants the belief that these two were also emergency forts, that they were built by the Cherokees to protect themselves against a superior foe, and not for permanent occupation. This was the last battle between the Indians that took place in Tazewell, and the last in which the Cherokees and Shawnees were engaged as foes. Though the battle was fought one hundred and fifty years ago, traces of the breast- works, hastily erected by the Cherokees, are still plainly discern- Tlie nbove scene is u historic one. It, is made from a photograph of Phim Creek Valley, as it now appears, Miiere the first settlements were made in Tazewell County. The camera was placed a short distance north of the residence of the late T. E. George; and Thomas Witten, the first settler, built his cabin in 1767 about half a mile west of the hay rick shown in the picture. Looking southward. Rich Mountain is seen ; and the little black cross marks "Battle Knob", where the Chero- kees and Shawnees fought their last battle in 1768. Some two miles west of Rattle Knob can be seen "Morris' Knol)", which has an elevation of 4,510 feet above sea level. The view from IVIon-is' ICnob is one of the grandest on the North American Continenr. ib!e. This strongly substantiates the theory lliat the forts mentioned by Biekley were built for emergency defence by either the Chero- kees or the Iroquois, wlio, no doubt, engaged in frequent encounters for tlic possession of the splendid hunting grounds in the Clinch V^alley region. ]3ickley says: "Both parties were well armed and the contest nearly c(iual. the Shawanees having most mvn. while the Cherokees had tlie advantage of the breastworks. Through the long day the liattlc r;igc(l with iin.-ib.-itcd \ igor. and when nijilil closed in. l>()lh and Southwest Virginia 57 parties built fires and camped on the ground. During the night the Cherokees sent to Butler and Carr for powder and lead, which they furnished. When the sun rose the following morning the battle was renewed with the same spirit in which it had been fought the jDrevious day. In a few hours, however, the Shawanees were com- pelled to retire. The loss on both sides was great, considering the numbers engaged. A large pit was opened and a common grave received those who had fallen in this last battle fought between red men in this section." Dr. Bickley further states that he received an account of the battle from a person wlio received it from Carr, an eye- witness. Dr. Bickley was misinformed as to who furnished powder and lead to the Cherokees after their ammunition became exhausted. Thomas Witten was then living with his family at the Crabapple Orchard; and he was the man who supplied the Indians with powder and lead. This statement is made from substantial traditions that have come down through three several branches of Thomas Witten's descendants. Samuel Cecil was a grandson of Thomas Witten. the pioneer settler, and was born in 1788 at a point within less than a mile of where his grandfather lived. He was told by his grandfather, and by his mother, who was Nancy Witten previous to her marriage with William Cecil, that Thomas Witten gave the powder to the Indians. Samuel Cecil was the grandfather of the author, and I received this information through him. Judge Samuel C. Graham's grandfather was William Witten, a grandson of Thomas Witten, and Judge Graham got a similar account through his grandfather. John S. Bottimore is a grandson of Thomas Witten 3rd, who was a grandson of Thomas Witten, the iirst settler ; and Mr. Bottimore has received the same tradition from his grandfather. Carr was a professional hunter and trapper, still lingering in the Clinch Valley, and may. possibly, have witnessed the battle between the Indians. 58 History of Tazewell County CHAPTER III. THE INDIANS, THEIR CIVILIZATION, GOVERNMENT, MANNERS AND RELIGION. The civilization of the aboriginal inhabitants of the North American Continent was not only very crude but very diverse from that which was brought here by the Europeans. Man, wherever he has been found, even in the wildest forms of life, has disclosed a sociable nature, and a disposition to have a home somewhere, of some kind. This natural love of man for society and companionship caused the North American aborigines to have both families and communities. As a natural sequence, every Indian community had its social organization and a form of government. The Handbook of American Indians, issued by the Bureau of American Ethnology, has this to say about the social and other organizations of the aboriginal inhabitants : "The known units of the social and political organization of the North American Indians are the family, the clan or gens, the phra:try, the tribe, and the confederacy. Of these, the tribe and the confederation are the only units completely organized. The structures of only two or three confederations are known, and that of the Iroquois is the type example. The confederation of the tribes was not usual, because the union of several tribes brought together many conflicting interests which could not be adjusted without sacrifices that appeared to overbalance the benefits of per- manent confederation, and because statesmanship of the needed breadth and astuteness was usualh' wanting. Hence tribal govern- ment remains as the prevailing type of social organization in this area. In most tribes the military' were carefully discriminated from the civil functions. The civil government was lodged in a chosen bod)' of men usually called chiefs, of whom there were commonly several grades. Usually the chiefs were organized in a council exercising legislative, judicial, and executive functions in matters pertaining to the welfare of the tribe. The civil chief was not by virtue of his office a military' leader. Among the Iroquois the civil chief in order to go to war had to resign his civil function dur- ing his absence on the warpath." and Southwest Virginia 59 Every structural unit which composed the tribal organization was invested with and exercised authority to hold councils for the consideration and determination of its own affairs. They had family councils, clan councils, tribal councils, and confederation councils, each of them exercising a separate and independent juris- diction. Sometimes the Indians held grand councils, at wliich ques- tions of vital interest to the tribe were considered and determined. A grand council was comjDosed of the chiefs and sub-chiefs, the matrons, and the head-warriors of the tribe. With a very few exceptions the chiefs of the various tribes were merely the leaders and not the rulers. Most of the chiefs were elective and were chosen because of some particular qualification, such as coui'age and skill in war, oratorical powers, wisdom in council, and so forth. The Indians had no written language, and, therefore, could and did not have any written code of laws. Their forms of government were the outgrowth of their instincts and wants as individuals and communities; and were conducted with as little restraint upon personal liberty as possible. Savage opinion sanctioned no laws that restricted the exercise of their passions and restrained personal freedom. Their simple forms of government were established upon the basal concept "that freedom is the law of nature." A historian has said: "The most striking characteristic of the race was a certain sense of personal independence, wilfulness of action, freedom from restraint." Consequently slavery was unknown among the aboriginal tribes who occupied the regions east of the Mississippi. A mild form of bondage, however, did exist with the primitive tribes that inhabited the region that bordered on the Upper Pacific Coast. With the exception of this area, no traces of real slavery have been found among the Indians who lived north of Mexico. The early French and Spanish historians fell into the error of using the terms "slave" and "prisoner" interchangeably, thereby leaving the impression that certain of the tribes of whom they were writing did make slaves of their enemies, those who were made prisoners in the inter-tribal wars. It is true that the men, women, and children wlio were made captives were always con- sidered spoils of war, but they were not enslaved. They were either killed or adopted into an Indian family, the institution of adoption being very general among the numerous tribes. "When a sufficient number of prisoners had been tortured and killed to glut the savage passions of the conquerors, the rest of the captives were 60 History of Tazewell County adopted, after certain preliminaries^ into the several genteS;, eacli newly adopted member taking the place of a lost husband, wife, son, or daughter, and being invested M'ith the latter's rights, privileges, and duties." The chief motive of the red men for the exercise of the custom of adoption was to replace the losses their tribes suffered in men killed in battle, and women and children who were killed or captured by their enemies. This was done to keep the tribes from dwindling away, as did most of the Virginia tribes that the white men found east of the Blue Ridge. The custom was also used by the Indians toward their white captives. John Sailing, who was made a prisoner in 1726 bj' a Cherokee hunting party, at or near the Lick where the city of Roanoke is now located, was afterwards captured from the Cherokees by the Illinois Indians, and adopted b}' a squaw of that tribe, to take the place of her son who had been killed in battle. Thomas Ingles, who was captured when a small boy at the Draper's Meadows massacre in 1755, was adopted into a Shawnee family in Ohio. He lived with the Indian family for thirteen years, and became so attached to his Indian father, mother, sisters, brothers, and little squaw sweethearts that he refused to leave them when his white father sent a man by the name of Baker to Ohio to ransom and bring him home. James and Polly Moore, and Martha Evans, vdio are known in history as the "Captives of Abb's Valley," after they were taken to the Shawnee towns in Ohio were similarly adopted. They were so kindly treated by those who made them members of their families that they always spoke in affectionate terms of the Indians after their return from captivity. Bickley says: When Martha Evans and Polly Moore were among the French, they fared much worse than among the Indians. The French had plenty, but were miserly and seemed to care little for their wants. The Indians had little, but would divide that little to the last particle." INDIAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS. After stating that the Indians had no written language and no code of laws, it may seem paradoxical to say that they had systems of education. Yet they did educate their young with as much care along certain lines as any civilized nation gives to the training of its children. The Indian children were instructed in vocational or economic pursuits, such as hunting, fishing, handicraft, agriculture and Southwest Virginia 61 and household work. And in some of tlie tribes they were taught oratory, art, customs, etiquette, social obligations, and tribal lore. The red men had a system that in modern parlance would be called kindergarten. At a very tender age the children were put to work at serious business, the girls to household duties and the boys to learn the most important pursuits followed by the men. The children were supplied with appropriate toys or models, which they were required to use as patterns for fashioning similar articles ; and, unconsciously, they would develop into basket-makers, weavers, potters, water-carriers, cooks, archers, stone-workers, and agricul- turists. The range of instruction was regulated by the pursuits and customs of the tril)e to which the children belonged. When the aborigines came into intimate contact with the white men, the Spaniards, the French, the English, the Dutch, and the Swedes, a new era of secular and industrial education was intro- duced among the Indians. Christian missionaries commenced their work in Florida, in Canada, in the Mississippi Valley, in Virginia, in New England, in New York, and in New Jersey. The main pur- pose of the missionaries was to convert the heathen natives to Christianity. Though tliey failed to accomplish much in that direc- tion, they did succeed in infusing into the Indians many of the industrial processes of the Europeans... From the colonists of the (litt'erent nationalities that made settlements in North America the red men obtained and learned how to use firearms, metal tools, and domestic animals- -horses, sheep, cattle, goats, hogs, and poultry. Possession of these caused a gradual change to take place in the Indian system of education. One of the objects in colonizing Vir- ginia, mentioned in the charter of 1606 and repeated in that of 1621, was "to bring the infidels and savages to human civility and a settled and quiet government." Henrico College, which was founded in 1618, was intended to be used as much for the education of Indian youths as for the whites. In 1619 the council of Jamestown declared its desire and purpose to educate the Indian children in religion, a civil course of life, and in some useful trade. But the benevolent professions and intentions of the early settlers at Jamestown were destroyed by greed; and a cruel policy of extermination of the natives was substituted for that of education and regeneration of the poor "infidels and savages." The pioneers who settled beyond the mountains in Virginia imbibed this spirit of extermination from the inhabitants who lived east of 62 History of Tazewell County the Blue Ridge, and drove tlic natives from the country they had so long loved and occupied as hunting grounds. After the government of the United States was organized, va- rious Christian organizations estal)lislied secular day and boarding- schools among the Indians. The Roman Catholics, Moravians, and Friends were the pioneers in this work. Later on the Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and other less prominent denominations also took up the work. When the War Department was created in 1789, Indian aifairs were committed to that depart- ment of the Federal Government, and remained there until 1849, when the Indian Bureau was transferred to the Department of the Interior. General Knox, Secretary of War under Washington's adminis- tration, made an urgent appeal for industrial education of the Indians ; and President Washington united with Knox in the recom- mendation. It seems that the Knox plan was adopted on a small scale; and, in a message to Congress in 1 80 1^ President Adams men- tioned the sviccess of the effort "to introduce among the Indians the implements and practices of husbandry and the household arts." In 1819 Congress made its first appropriation of |h 0,000 for Indian education, and proyided that superintendents and agents to distri- bute and apply the money should be nominated by the President. In the year 1825 there w6re" 23 Indian schools receiving govern- ment aid. The first contract school was established on the Tulalip reservation, in the State of Washington, in 1869, but not until 1873 were government schools proper provided. The Handbook of American Indians, edited by Frederick Webb Hodge, saj^s: "In the beginning there were only day schools, later boarding schools on the l-eservations, and finally boarding schools remote from them. The training in all the schools was desigiied to bring the Indians nearer to civilized life, with a view to ultimate citizenship by enabling them to assimilate the speech, industrial life, family organ- ization, social manners and customs, civil government, knowledge, modes of thinking, and ethical standards of the whites." More than three centuries have passed since the benignant promise of bringing "the infidels and savages to human civility and a settled and quiet government" was written into the first char- ter for Virginia issued by James I ; and the promise is now being successfully carried out by the Federal Government. This is accom- plished through government schools for the Indians. The scheme and Southwest Virginia 63 being used by the Indian Office is "to teach the pupils English, arithmetic, geography, and United States history, and also to train them in farming and the care of stock and in trade as well as gym- nastics." For this training, day, boarding, and training schools are maintained, numbering in the aggregate 253, with 2,300 em- ployees, and an annual expenditure of $5,000,000. INDIAN MARRIAGE CUSTOMS. There was much diversity in the marriage customs of the aboriginal tribes of North America. Though they were so com- pletely removed from what is known as refined civilization, their marital practices were of unusual merit, much superior to those of other barbarian nations. Whilst polygamy was permissible with a few of the tribes, monogamy was almost the universal practice with the nations who inhabited that part of the continent east of the Mississippi. The clan or gentile systems prevailed among all these tribes. These systems were adopted to prevent the physical and mental deterioration of a tribe which would follow the repeated marriage of those who were of near kinship. When a youthful Indian wanted to get married he would seek a girl who was a competent housewife, and the girl would select for her mate one who was a skilled hunter. Courtship in all the tribes of the Algonquian family were practically conducted alike. The parents of the young couple would generally arrange the marriage, though the young men in some instances were allowed to conduct their own courtship. Among the Delawares the mother would take the presents of game killed by her son to the parents of the girl and receive gifts in return from them. Then, a conference would take place between the relations of the young lovers, and, if a mar- riage was agreed upon, the exchange of presents would be continued for some time. It is more than probable that all these rude cere- monials were merely formal ; and that the lovers had frequent happy meetings before and while their relations were arranging for the marriage. Marriages among the Iroquois were arranged by the mothers without the knowledge and consent of the young folks. Though the marriage bond was loose, adultery was held to be a serious crime. Divorce was easily effected, but was not considered creditable. A husband could put away his wife whenever he found fault with her, and a wife could separate from her husband with like ease. If the 64 History of Tazewell Couiit}'^ divorcees had children^ the offsjiring went with the wife. Divorces were not as common among the savages as they are now among the English-speaking nations, the American Nation in particular, which boasts of superior Christian civilization. Like all other races the Indians had both happy and unhappy marriages. Infidelities of a husband sometimes drove his faithful wife to suicide; and the faithless wife was without protection, and if her husband insulted or disfigured her, or even killed her, no protest was made by her relations or other members of the tribe. AMUSEMENTS. The primitive Indians were of sombre mien and sedate manner, but they had their amusements just as the white races have always had theirs. The dance was almost universal with the American tribes. Their dances were mostly' ceremonial, of religion and of war, but they also had the social dance. When not engaged in hunt- ing or on the warpath, much of their time was occupied with danc- ing, gaming and story-telling. P'rom Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the border of the plains, the great athletic game was the ball play, now adopted among the civilized games under the name of lacrosse. Athletes were regularly trained for this game, both for tribal and intertribal contests. Roosevelt, who got his information from John Eartram, the great American botanist who visited the Cherokees in 1773, says this about the game: "The Cherokees were a bright, intelligent race, better fitted to 'follow the white man's road' than any other Indians. Like their neighbors they were exceedingly fond of games of chance and skill, as well as of athletic sports. One of the most striking of their national amusements was the kind of ball play from which we derive the game of lacrosse. The implements consisted of ball stijcks or rackets, two feet long, strung with raw-hide webbing, and of a deer-skin ball, stuffed with hair, so as to be solid, and about the size of a base ball. Sometimes the game was played by fixed numbers, sometimes b}^ all the young men of a village; and there were often tournaments between different towns and even different tribes. The contests excited the most intense interest, were waged with desperate resolution, and were jjrecedcd by solemn dances. "The Cherokees were likewise very fond of dances. Sometimes these were comic or lascivious, sometimes they were religious in and Southwest Virginia 65 their nature, or were undertaken prior to starting on the war-trail. Often the" dances of the young men and maidens were very pictur- esque. The girls, dressed in white, with silver bracelets and gorgets, and a profusion of gay ribbons, danced in a circle in two ranks ; the young warriors, clad in their battle finery, danced in a i-ing around them ; all moving in rythmic step, as they kept time to the antiphonal chanting and singing, the young men and girls responding alter- nately to each other." The warriors and boys of nearly all the tribes amused themselves at target practice with arrows, knives, or hatchets, thrown from the hand, and with both the bow and rifle. Games resembling dice and hunt-the-button were played by both sexes, most generally in the wigwams during the long winter nights. The women had special games, such as shinny, football, and the deer-foot game. Football was not played by the Rugby Rules, but the main object was to keep the ball in the air as long as possible by kicking it upward. The deer-foot game was played with a num- ber of perforated bones that were taken from a deer's foot. They were strung upon a beaded cord, with a needle at one end of the cord. The bones were tossed in such a way as to catch a particular one upon the end of the needle. The children also had ample amuse- ments. They had target shooting, stilts, slings and tops for the boys, and buckskin dolls and playing house for the girls, with "Wolf" or "catcher", and several forfeit plays, including a breath holding test. RELIGION OF THE INDIANS. "The fool hath said in his heart. There is no God." This emphatic proclamation by the Psalmist of the mental deficiency of the atheist was not and is not applicable to the North American Indians. They did not strive through mental processes to establish the existence of a first Great Cause, or a self-existent Supreme Being; but with simple, child-like faith they believed that an invis- ible Almighty Person controlled the heavens and the earth. To him they directed their spiritual thoughts as the source of all power, and they worshipped him as the Great Spirit. They believed that this Great Spirit entered into, directed and dominated everything throughout the Universe; and that he was present everywhere, all the time ; ruling the elements, protecting and caring for the obedient and good, and punishing the disobedient and wicked. Though the traditions of none of the Indian tribes or families T.H.-5 66 History of Tazewell County tell of any direct revelation made to men by the Great Spirit, their faith was as strong in the existence of a Supreme Being and a future life for man after death as is that held by any of the races who worship the God of Abraham, or the God Man, Jesus Christ. To the Indians the mysteries of Life and Light were emblems of Life Eternal. In an address delivered at Boston on the 4th of July, 1825, Charles Sprague, in protraying the characteristics of the North American Indians, thus eloquently spoke of their religious instincts : "Here, too, they worshipped, and from many a dark bosom went up a fervent prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not written his laws for them on tables of stone, but he had traced them on the tables of their hearts. The poor child of nature knew not the God of Revelation, but the God of the universe he acknowledged in everything around. He beheld him in the star that sank in beauty behind his lonely dwelling; in the sacred orb that flamed on him from his midday throne ; in the flower that snapped in the morning breeze ; in the lofty pine that defied a thousand whirlwinds ; in the timid warbler that never left its native grove ; in the fearless eagle, whose untired pinion was wet in clouds; in the worm that crawled at his feet; and in his own matchless form, glowing with a spark of that light, to whose mysterious source he bent in humble though blind adoration." Moralists and scientists have tried in vain to fathom the depths of the moral and religious tenets of tlie untutored American aborig- ines. These simple children of nature, who wei'e as ferocious as the beasts of the jungle when grappling with their foes, in the presence of the God whom they worshipped were as humble and reverent as the most cultured and devout expositors of the enlightened religions of the world. The moral law was given to the Israelites by direct revelation from Jehovah; and was transmitted through his son, Jesus Christ, to the Gentile nations. It was given to the Indians by the inspiration or visitation of the Holy Spirit; and this was why the wild red men of the American forests and plains recognized God's presence in every grandly mysterious or beautiful thing in nature. It was a faith that emanates from the contact of spirit with spirit, the spirit of the Living God touching and enlivening tlie spirit of the creature, man. Truly has it been written: "God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform." and Southwest Virginia 67 The religious concepts of the North American tribes were more materialistic than rationalistic. They tried to reach the super- natural through the natural, impelled to this by a belief that there is a magic or inherent power in natural objects more potent than the natural powers of man. This idea of a magic power is a funda- mental concept of all the Indian tribes; and they believe that the strange power exists in visible and invisible objects, in animals, men, spirits, deities, and so forth. The Algonquian tribes called it vianito, or manitou; with the Sioux tribes it is known as wakanda; and the Iroquois call it orenda. The aborigines used the word manito to express the unknown powers of life and of the universe. In the vocabulary of the white man manito means spirit — either good, bad, or indifferent. To the Indians the name also signifies, god, or devil, guardian spirit, and so forth. Most of the tribes believed in tutelary or patron spirits- — a belief which strongly resembles the Christian concept of guardian angel. The manito of the individual Indian is supposed to invest him with magic power, and with it abilities to become a successful hunter, warrior, priest, or to imbue him with power to acquire wealth and success in winning the love of women. And the means used by the red men to control or influence the powers of nature were very much like those adopted by the white races. One of these was the use of charms, as still employed by superstitious and ignorant white persons. Another medium was prayer, which the Indian either directed to his individual protecting spirit, or to the supreme powers of nature. They also used ceremonial songs of a peculiar rhythm when making appeals to the supernatural, just as the Jews sing psalms and the Christians sing hymns and anthems in their services. Among the Indians generally there was a strong conviction that if the supernatural powers were offended by the sin or sins of a particular individual, the powers could be propitiated by punish- ment of the offender. This was accomplished by driving the offend- ing individual from the tribe, by killing him, or the appeasement could be effected by a milder form of punishment. The milder form was most generally used. The Indians believe that disease is caused by the presence of a material evil object in the body of the diseased person, or is due to absence of the soul from the body. Such a belief will not appear so unreasonable when we remember that Christ healed maniacs and 68 History of Tazewell County epileptics by casting out tlie devils that were in the poor unfortu- nates. In their efforts to cure diseases, the Indians employ their medicine-men, who claim to procure their powers for healing from or through their guardian spirits. The medicine-man, or shaman works himself into a state of excitement by singing, by using a drum and rattle, and by dancing. The Indians, who are very superstitious, also believe in witchcraft, and that hostile shamans can bring disease to the bodies of their enemies, and may even abduct their souls. So believing, the aborigines made witchcraft a great crime; and punished the witch, but not more severely than did the Puritan fanatics of New Ensrland. The Indians as a race have rejected the great spiritual verities that Christ planted in his Church nineteen hundred years ago. Why have they refused to accept a religion that is so exalted in its purity, and that awakens not only the holiest emotions but is pillared on the prof oundest reason of which man is capable of exercising ? Why do the red men scornfully turn awaj^ from a religion that teaches the highest moral standards, and that is filled with the elemental principles of truth, justice, charity and righteousness? There is not much trouble in finding an answer to these questions. The white men came among the Indians professing to have a religion that haS been revealed to them by the Great Spirit. They tendered the simple natives the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Golden Rule as divine revelations to men. These the white men professed to believe and to practice. Naturally the aborigines made the practices of the so-called Christians the touchstone by which to test not only the sincerity of the white man's pi'ofessions, but to fathom the quality of the new religion that was brought from beyond the seas. The Spanish discoverers and conquerors, and the French and English colonists, each and all, came to the New World proclaiming their desire and purpose to convert the heathen natives to Christianity. But the great human passions — greed of gold, and lust of pleasure in its most sensuous forms — not only caused them to desecrate the holy banner they bore aloft, but to violate every precept of the Decalogue, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Golden Rule. They murdered and robbed the Indians, destroyed and drove them from their homes, and dishonored their women. Their crimes were not confined to the poor natives ; but they oppressed, killed and robbed each other; frequently assigning their fanatical religious and Southwest Virginia 69 beliefs as a justification for committing the vilest crimes against men and women of their own race. Menendez, the SiDanish brute, massacred the entire colony of French Huguenots on the St. John's River in Florida, offering as an excuse for the crime that they were Protestants, or heretics ; the Cavaliers of the Anglican Church in Vir- ginia outlawed the dissenters, the Baptists and Presbyterians, and drove them from the colony to North Carolina and Maryland; and the Puritan Calvinists of Massachusetts and the other New England colonies organized at Boston a military force which was sent to Nova Scotia to destroy the homes and drive into exile the French inhabitants of Acadia. Bancroft saj's: "Seven thousand of these banished people were driven on board ships and scattered among the English colonies from New Hampshire to Georgia ; one thousand to South Carolina alone." Their houses and barns were destroyed with the torch, and large numbers of cattle, hogs, sheep, and horses were forcibly taken and divided as spoils among the English officers. The annals of the human race record no fouler crime than the one which the men of England and New England committed upon the defenceless French inhabitants of Acadia, who were made objects of cruel vengeance, because as they declared: "We have been true to our religion, and true to ourselves." The Christian religion is pure and holy, and should be accejDted by all men ; but is it any wonder that the North American Indians rejected, and still reject it, after witnessing its perverted exemplification by the brutal white men who claimed to be Christians.^ Period of Discovery and Colonization Relating the Discoveries and Conquests of the Spaniards, and the Discoveries and Settle- ments of the French and English in America. PERIOD OF DISCOVERY AND COLONIZATION CHAPTER I. SPANISH AND FRENCH DISCOVERIES AND CONQUESTS. In the preparation of a purely local history much trouble is experienced by a writer in selecting, from many collated facts, the things most important and only essential as a prelude to the dis- cussion of the particular subject of which he intends to write. This difficulty has confronted the writer while preparing to write the Pioneer Period of Tazewell County. Most of the local historians of this country have considered it necessary to introduce in the opening chapters of their books a considerable amount of informa- tion about the first discoveries of the North American Continent; and also to write much of the performances of the first settlers on its shores. Our historians in Virginia, both State and local, have followed this course with such thoroughness and so admirably that it seemed useless for another to repeat what they have already done so well. But I have found it necessary to enlarge upon the plan outlined in my "Announcement" and have added another Period, which I will call "The Period of Discovery and Colonization." This will be seen to be an important necessary link to connect the Aboriginal with the Pioneer Period. As to those who have been reputed the very first discoverers of the New World, there is as mucli of fable as of reasonable fact. It has been claimed, and generally accepted as true, that the first white men who ever caught sight of the Western Continent were with a Norse navigator who had the name of Herjulfson. He was sail- ing from Iceland to Greenland A. D. 986, was caught in a storm, and was driven westward to Newfoundland or Labrador. Herjulf- son saw the shores of a new country but made no attempt to go on shore. Upon his return to Greenland, he and his companions told wonderful stories of the new land they had seen in the west. E. Benjamin Andrews in his history of the United States says: "It is a pleasing narrative, that of Lief Ericson's sail in 1000-1001 to Helluland, Markland, and at last to Vineland, and of the subse- quent tours of Thorwald Ericson in 1002, Thorfinn Karlsefue, 1007-1009, and of Helge and Finnborge in 1011 to points still farther away. Such voyages probably occurred. As is well known. 1 7:3 1 74 History of Tazewell County Helluland has been interpreted to be Newfoundland; Markland^ Nova Scotia ; and Vineland^ the country bordering Mount Hope Bay in Bristol^ R. I. These identifications are possibly fcorrect, and even if they are mistaken, Vineland may still have been somewhere upon the coast of what is now the United States." As these stories are said to have been taken from Icelandic manuscripts of the fourteenth century, without anj^ substantial supporting evidence being found on this continent, there is grave doubt whether the sea-rovers from the North ever made any pro- longed stay on American soil. Therefore it is claimed that Christ- opher Columbus should be accorded the honor of being the first discoverer of America. Columbus made his first voyage of discovery in 1492, and landed on the island he named San Salvador on the 12th of October of that year. Before returning to Spain he dis- covered Cuba and Hayti and built a fort on the latter island. In 1493 he made a second voyage from Spain, starting out from Cadiz. This expedition was not completed until 1496, and during its prog- ress he discovered the Lesser Antilles, Porto Rico, and Jamaica. In a third voyage, made in 1498-1500, he found Trinidad and reached the mainland of South America at the mouth of the Orinoco River. On his second voyage he had established a colonj^ in Hayti and appointed his brother governor. Upon his return from the South American coast he found the colony in Hayti in a badly dis- organized condition. He was attempting to restore order when he was seized by Francisco de Bobadilla, who had been sent from Spain to investigate charges of maladministration against Columbus. The great navigator was put in chains and sent back to Spain but the king repudiated the act of Bobadilla, set Columbus free, and started him on his fourth voyage in search of the Indies. This voyage resulted in nothing more than explorations along the southern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Disappointed with the results of his last undertaking, he returned to Spain and found that Queen Isabella, his great friend and patron, was dead. Friendless and neglected, he died May 20th, 1505, and became famous to future generations. It is a remarkable fact that Columbus never placed his feet on the North American Continent. He died without knowing that he had discovered a new continent, and claimed till the last that he had reached the coast of India. Columbus had, he believed, accom- plished the chief purpose of his perilous voj^ages, that is, gained access to the rich treasures of the Indies. He was a devout Catholic and Southwest Virginia 75 and a cordial hater of the Turk, whom he wished to drive from Europe and the Holy Land. John Fiske in his very interesting book, "Old Virginia And Her Neighbors", says: "The relief of the church from threatening dangers was in those days the noblest and most sacred function of wealth. When Colum- bus aimed his prow westward from the Canaries, in quest of Asia, its precious stones, its silk stuffs, its rich shawls and rugs, its corals and dye-woods, its aromatic spices, he expected to acquire vast wealth for the sovereigns who employed him and no mean fortune for himself. In all negotiations he insisted upon a good round per- centage, and could no more be induced to budge from his price than the old Roman Sybyl with her books. Of petty self-seeking and avarice there was no more in this than in commercial transactions generally. The wealth thus sought by Columbus was not so much an end as a means. His spirit was that of a Crusader, and his aim was not to discover a New World (an idea which seemed never to have once entered his head), but to acquire the means for driving the Turk from Europe and setting free the Holy SejDulchre. Had he been told upon his melancholy death-bed that instead of finding a quick way to Cathay he had only discovered a New World, it would probably have added fresh bitterness to his death." At the time Columbus was preparing for a second voyage to the New World, Amerigo Vespucci, a native of Florence, was at the head of a Florentine mercantile firm in Seville. He was a naval astronomer of considerable attainments; and, having heard of the wonderful discoveries made by Columbus, he became very eager to enter the field of discovery. On the 20th of May, 1499, he sailed with an exploring expedition, commanded by the Spanish Admiral Hojeda, from Cadiz. This expedition first landed on what is now the Venezuelan coast of South America. He made explorations in the Bay of Paria, which lies between the Island of Trinidad and the mainland, and he also sailed several hundred miles along the South American coast. Admiral Hojeda returned to Spain with his squadron in the early autumn of the same year. Another expedition was promptly fitted out, and Vespucci, in December, started on his second voyage. This time his only accom- plishment was the discoverj'^ of gi'oups of small islands on the south of the Gulf of Mexico. After his return to Spain from the second voyage, Emanuel, King of Portugal, persuaded Vespucci to quit 76 History of Tazewell County the service of Spain and enter that of Portugal; and he made two voyages, beginning the first on the 10th of May, 1501, and the second on the 10th of May, 1503. The chief purpose of the Floren- tine was to sail westward with a view of discovering a passage to Malaca, which was then the extreme point on the Malay coast that had been reached by European navigators. His fleet for the last voyage consisted of six ships, but one of these was lost in a storm. After encountering and escaping many perils, Vespucci at last reached safety with his five vessels in what is now called "All Saints Bay" on the coast of Brazil. Then it was that the Florentine realized that he had discovered a new continent, and upon his return to Europe he so reported. Columbus having made the mis- take of claiming to have reached India when he landed on the South American coast; and the Cabots having announced that they had reached the continent of Asia on their several voyages to the coasts of North America, it was reserved for Amerigo Vespucci to first make known to Europe the fact that the continent which the Norse- men, and Columbus, and the Cabots had repeatedly visited was not a part of Asia, but was a newly discovered and distinct continent. It was, therefore, very natural that when Amerigo published a narrative of his V03'ages the new continent should be given his name, America, as an honor justly due him. There has been much adverse criticism of the Florentine, because of the belief that he cunningly appropriated an honor that belonged of right to Christ- opher Colimibus. It was also charged by his enemies and detractors that he was a man of inferior ability, with very limited knowledge of the sciences necessary to make him a successful navigator. Baron Humboldt and other distinguished scientists, who made investiga- tions, defended him against these aspersions; and assert that it was his excellent knowledge of various branches of science that caused his selection as naval astronomer for the several expeditions he con- ducted or accompanied across the Atlantic. It is also a notable fact that Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci were intimate friends after they had each made voyages, tliough Columbus dis- puted until the day of his death that a new continent had been dis- covered. The discovery of America not only created intense interest among the scientific and scholarly men of the Old World, but excited in the countries of Western Europe an unusual spirit of and Southwest Virginia 77 enterprise and adventure. This was especially manifest in Spain, occasioned, no doubt, by the fact that the discovery had been accom- plished with the liberal aid and patronage of Spanish sovereigns. Within the space of ten years after the death of Columbus the larger islands of the West Indies had been explored and Spanish colonies established upon them. The first continental colony planted by the Spaniards was on the Isthmus of Darien in 1510, and three years later the governor of that colony, Vasco Nunez De Balboa, made his way across the Isthmus and discovered the mighty ocean that covers about two-fifths of the entire surface of the world. There was a succession of explorations and colonizations made by other Spaniards in ensuing years. Juan Ponce De Leon started out from Porto Rico, of which island he was governor, in 1512 in search of a mythical fountain of youth, which was believed to be located somewhere in the Bahamas. Being an old man, he was ambitious to be made young again; and was foolish enough to have faith in the fabulous tales he had heard about this fountain of youth. Having failed to find the fountain in the Bahamas, he sailed toward the coast of Florida, and on Easter Sunday, the 27th of March, he looked upon an unknown beautiful shore. A few days later a land- ing was made a short distance north of where the city of St. Augus- tine was started about a half a century later. Ponce De Leon was so charmed with the many beautiful flowers that abound in that land, he named the countrj- Florida, the "Land of Flowers." Aftr wards the King of Spain made Ponce De Leon governor of Florida ; but he did not return to the new province until the year 1521. Upon his arrival he found the natives in a very hostile mood. Short! after they had landed the Spaniards were furiously attacked by the Indians^ and a number of the white men were killed. Th remainder fled to their ships, taking with them their leader who had been mortally wounded with an arrow. Ponce De Leon was carried back to Cuba, where he died from the wound. In the year 1517 Fernandez De Cordova discovered Yucatan and the Bay of Campeachy. His company was attacked by the natives and he received a mortal wound. The following year Gri- jalva, assisted by Cordova's pilot, made extensive explorations of the coast of Mexico; and in 1519 Hernando Cortes began his famous conquest of the Aztec empire. The next discovery of importance was made by Fernando De Magellan, the famous Portuguese navigator. He had petitioned the 78 History of Tazewell County King of Portugal in vain for ships to make a voyage in search of a southwest passage to Asia. The court of Portugal gave such deep offense to Magellan that he traveled to Spain, accompanied by his countrymen, Ruy Falero, who was an excellent geographer and astronomer. He succeeded in interesting Charles V., King of Spain, in his plans for seeking a southwest passage, and procured ample assistance from that monarch. Magellan sailed in September, 1517, with five ships and two hundred and thirty-six men. Heading direct for the South American coast, he arrived safely at the mouth of the La Plata River. Thence he sailed along the coast of Pata- gonia, passed through the strait which has since borne his name, entered the southern Pacific Ocean, giving it that name on account of the beautiful weather which prevailed when he sailed into its waters. He then started out to complete his voyage around the world; but was prevented from accomplishing in person his ardent desire by his unfortunate death, which occurred on one of the Philippine Islands in a fight with the natives, in April, 1521. A new captain took charge of his ship and carried it back to Spain by way of the Cape of Good Hope, arriving at home in September, 1522. Thus was completed the first voyage around the world. In the year 1520 a very disgraceful expedition was undertaken by Lucas Vasquez De Ayllon, who had become very rich as a Spanish judge in San Domingo. The object of this expedition was to kidnap the natives from the Bahamas to be used as slaves by De Ayllon and other unscrupulous planters on their plantations in San Domingo. De Ayllon sailed with two vessels for his proposed destination, but a storm drove them out of their course and onto the coast of South Carolina. The ships were sailed into St. Helena Sound, and their anchors lowered at the mouth of the Combahee River. De Ayllon gave the name Chicora to the country, and called the river the Jordan. The natives were exceedingly timid but kind and friendly to the strange visitors, and gave them presents of their simple food, and rude trinkets. Their curiosity was aroused, and a sufficient number to crowd the ships were lured on board, when the brutal commander of the expedition ordered the anchors to be weighed and started on the return voyage with his slaves to San Domingo. A heavy storm was encountered, one of the ships found- ered, and the poor creatures, who had been imprisoned under the hatches of the ship, were rescued by death from the horrible fate that awaited them as slaves in San Domingo. This was the first and Southwest Virginia 79 effort of the Spaniards to make slaves of the Indians. The dis, covery of Chieora was reported to Charles V., King of Spain^ and he appointed De Ayllon governor of the newly discovered country, granting him the right to make conquest thereof. De Ayllon returned with a small fleet to his province in 1525, but his best ship was grounded in the Jordan when he entered that river. The Indians recalled the cruel outrages they had suffered on the previous visit of the Spaniards, their timidity was replaced with desperate courage, and they made a furious attack upon the occupants of the grounded ship, killing a number of the invaders. The survivors were glad to escape with their lives, and hastily started back to San Domingo. De Ayllon was greatly humiliated by the failure of his expedition, and he was ruined in fortune and favor with the Spanish Government. Pamphilo de Narvaez was appointed governor of Florida in the year 1526 by Charles V., King of Spain, with the privilege of con- quest, as had been given Cortes, Pizarro and other Spanish adven- turers who brought expeditions to America. A very extensive terri- tory both east and west of the Mississippi was included in his com- mission. He went to Florida with three hundred soldiers, of whom forty were cavalrymen. The object of the expedition was more for hunting gold than for colonization. In some way the natives found out the motive of the invaders, and practiced a shrewd deception upon them. The Indians exhibited small gold trinkets and pointed to the North. This greatly excited the avaricious Spaniards, who inferred that the natives were telling them that there were rich gold fields and large cities in the North, like those Cortes had found in Mexico, and Pizarro in Peru. The Spaniards started out through the dense forests in search of the great wealth they believed would be found in the North. Instead of finding cities and gold, they came to impenetrable swamps and encountered small bands of savages who lived in squalid villages consisting of a few rude huts. After many days travel in what is now Georgia and Alabama, they were so fatigued and scant of food that they determined to return to their ships on the coast; and finally arrived at St. Marks harbor. But the ships they expected to find were not there. Desperately situated, the remnant of the band built some small boats, which they entered, and started out with the hope of reaching a Spanish settlement in Mexico. Storms came upon them, they were driven out of sight of land and then thrown back upon the coast. Some were drowned, 80 History of Tazewell County others were killed by the Indians, and some were starved to death. The boat in which Narvaez was traveling was sunk near the mouth of the Mississippi and he perished there. Only four of the entire expeditionary force succeeded in reaching Mexico; and they wan- dered across the continent to the village of San Miguel on the Pacific Coast. From that place they ultimately found their way to Mexico. One of the most distinguished Spanish cavaliers who accom- panied Pizarro to Peru was P^erdinand De Soto. He was of noble birtli. was an intimate friend of Pizarro, and had returned from Peru to Spain with vast wealth he had gathered in the land of the Incas. His great popularity in Spain made it easy for him to secure an appointment as governor both of Cuba and Florida, with ample authority granted for making conquest of the Land of Flowers. A very large number of wealthy and high-born Spaniards made eager application for enlistment under De Soto to accompany him on his expedition to Florida. From the numerous applicants he carefully selected six hundred, whom he considered the most gallant and bes, fitted for the service and hardships he knew would have to be endured. These cavaliers were splendidly equipped with flie finest suits of armor, made after the pattern of those worn by knights in the days of chivalry. Careful preparations were made to have this excel in splendor all other expeditions that had gone from Spain to make conquests in the New World. Arms in abundance and large stores of supplies of the first quality were assembled; trained artisans, with ample tools for forges and work-shops were added; and bloodhounds to chase down the fleeing natives and chains to bind them when made captives were also made part of the equip- ment. A herd of swine, to be fattened on the corn of the natives and the acorns and nuts that grew in the vast forests that were to be explored, was also provided. Twelve priests of the Holy Cath- olic Church were enlisted to look after the spiritual welfare of the gay cavaliers, and to make converts to Christianity of the heathen natives. It is possible these priests were sent by the Spanish Inqui- sition, lience the trained bloodhounds to chase the poor Indians and the shackles to bind them with when made captives. A year was occupied by De Soto in extensive preparation for his wonderful expedition of discover}' and conquest. In the spring of 1539 his squadron of ten vessels sailed from the harbor of San Lucar with his eager and impatient six hundred followers aboard. It required but a few weeks to make the voyage to Havana. There and Southwest Virginia 81 he left his wife in charge of his own and the island's affairs until he could return with greatly added Avealth and glory from his explo- ration of Florida. He sailed from Havana after a brief stay there, and in the early part of June sailed into Tampa Bay. A number of Cubans had joined the expedition, but a part of these were so terrified by the awful gloom of the forests and swamps they saw in Florida that they separated from De Soto and returned to Cuba. De Soto and his intrepid followers made but little delay in begin- ning what proved a disastrous march into the interior in search of the mystic El Dorado they confidently hoped to reach. The months of July, August and September were fully occupied with an ener- getic march toward the North. The explorers struggled through almost impenetrable swamps^ swam rivers and had frequent encoun- ters with the Indians, whom De Soto found were much bolder and more effective fighters than the aborigines he had helped to conquer in Peru. In the month of October they reached Flint River in Georgia, and there came in contact with the Appalachian Indians, with whose several tribes they were to have many experiences in the future. De Soto concluded to winter there; and, having done this, in the early spring of 1540 the march was resumed and was turned into an almost senseless wandering over the territory now constituting the States of South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, east of the Mississippi River; and Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma on the west of the river. In the sjDring of 1541 the Indian giiides brought the Spaniards to the Mississippi; and the great "Father of Waters" was revealed for the first time to white men, as De Soto and his followers gazed upon it. In the latter part of May the Spaniards crossed the Mis- sissippi. They began their roving journey over the territory west of the river and did not return to its western banks in the neighbor- hood of Natchez until 1542. The spirit of the ambitious leader was completely crushed. He was stricken with a malignant fever which soon caused his death, and he was buried in the great river which has ever since been historically and dramatically associated with tlie name of De Soto. Previous to his death, De Soto had selected as his successor Moscoso, one of his most trusted lieutenants. Under his leadership the depleted band of ragged and starving adventurers resumed their journey in search of the riches for which they had already expended two years of fruitless endeavor. They wandered back in a west- wardly course until they came to the upper waters of Red River on T,H.-6 82 History of Tazewell County the northern borders of Texas. Then they turned northward and wandered through the territory occupied by the Pawnee and Comanche tribes of Indians, still hunting for gold. At last they came to such rugged and barren mountains, and were so discouraged that they turned back and again came to the Mississippi River, a short distance above the mouth of Red River. Overcome with despair, the remnant of De Soto's gay band of cavaliers decided to build boats and travel down the Mississippi to the Gulf, and then try to reach a Spanish settlement in Mexico. In pursuance of this resolution, they cut trees from the forests, and sawed them into lumber, built forges and turned all the iron and steel they had, including the fetters of the captive natives, into nails and other iron pieces necessary for the construction of their boats. In this way they succeeded in making seven brigantines and on the 2nd day of July, 1543, they began their voyage down the river. Seven- teen days were necessary to reach the Gulf. They then headed their boats westward', and in fifty-five days after entering the Gulf they came to the Spanish settlement at the mouth of the River of Palms. More than twenty years passed away after the disastrous De Soto expedition before Spain made another attempt to plant a colony in Florida. In 1565 an enterprise for that purpose was entrusted to Pedro Menendez de Aviles, a soldier of notorious criminal char- acter and vicious disposition. At that time Philip II. was King of Spain, having succeeded his father. Emperor Charles V. Philip had adopted his father's policies for the government of his kingdom and empire, the chief of which policies were the maintenance and exten- sion of absolute rule throughout his dominions and a zealous support and propagation of the Catholic religion. Like his father, he was an ambitious despot and fanatical supporter of the Spanish Inquisi- tion. He hated the Protestants and was anxious to destroy a colony of French Huguenots who made a settlement in Florida on the St. Johns River, about thirty-five miles above its mouth. This settle- ment was within the limits of the territory claimed by Spain. In fact, Spain asserted title to all of North America, by virtue of a bull issued by the Pope of Rome, who assumed to exercise temporal as well as spiritual power over the entire world. Philip was deter- mined to apply not only his principle of absolutism to his American dominions, Ibut to enforce the decrees of the Inquisition here as well as in Spain. Hence the selection of the brutal fanatic Menendez, who was given a commission to explore and make conquest of and Southwest Virginia 83 Florida and establish a colony there. In compensation for his base performances, Menendez was to receive an annual salary of two thousand dollars and two hundred and twenty-five square miles of land to be located in proximity to the colony. The spirit of adven- ture and the hunger for gold were still rampant in Spain, and with very little trouble Menendez assembled twenty-five hundred persons, many of whom were married men with families, that were eager to accompany the expedition. He started out from Spain with hia large fleet in July, 1565, reached Porto Rico early in the month of August, and on the 28th day of the same month arrived on the Florida coast. It was St. Augustine's day when the coast came in view, but a landing was not efi'ected until the 2nd of September. When a location for the colony had been selected, the Spanish leader named it St. Augustine, in honor of the Saint of that name. This was the first permanent settlement made by people of the white race within the present bounds of the United States. It was destined to become one of the most historic spots in our land. Subsequent to its founding, the place was the scene of many tragic events. The French and hostile Indians repeatedly attacked it; in 1586 it was captured and pillaged by England's most renowned sea-rover, Sir Francis Drake, and by pirates in 1665. Frequent assaults were also made by the English and Huguenot colonists of the Carolinas. Great Britain acquired St. Augustine under a treaty with Spain in 1763, and made use of it as an important military station during the Revolutionary War. It was afterwards possessed by Spain, and in 1819 was ceded to the United States. With but little delay after making a landing and starting his colony, Menendez began to execute his plans for the destruction of the French heretics. The Huguenots thought the Spaniards would bring their vessels up the St. Johns and make an attack; and com- mitted the serious mistake of sending their few ships and nearly all their men down the river to anticipate the enemy by making an attack upon them. After the French got their ships out on the sea •a very heavy storm burst upon them; their ships were driven on the coast, and all but two of the vessels were dashed to pieces. Most of the men, however, reached the shore in safety. Menendez, having found out the unprotected condition of the Protestant colony, gathered his forces together, and made a secret and rapid march through the swamps, fell upon the surprised and helpless colony and slaughtered men, women and children without mercy. About two hundred persons were slain by the Spanish butchers, only a 84 History of Tazewell County few members of tlu; colony escaping, among these their leader, Laudonniere, Then Menendez turned his attention to the men who had escaped when tlieir vessels were wrecked. They were induced to surrender to the Spaniards, with assurance tliat they would be humanely treated and their lives protected. Immediately after their surrender, each captive had his hands bound behind him and two prisoners were then tied together. They were then marched toward St. Augustine; and as they approached the Spanish fort a trumpet was sounded. Tliis was a signal for their slaughter; and the seven hundred unhappy prisoners were killed by the cut-throat minions of Menendez. With this terrible tragedy and the permanent establishment of the colony at St. Augustine, the period of Spanish voyage and discovery as to the North American Continent seems to have been terminated. Spain does not now own or exercise control over a foot of land in either of the Americas. This looks like retributive justice visited upon the Spanish Nation for the bar- barous cruelties practiced upon the aboriginal inhabitants and the Protestants who came from France and other countries of P'uropc that thej' might enjoy religious freedom in the New World. and Southwest Virginia 85 CHAPTER II. FRENCH DISCOVEHIES AND SETTLEMENTS. The discoveries made by Coliindius and other navigators aroused great interest in France. John Cabot's discovery of Newfoundland attracted the attention of tlie fishermen of Normandy and Brittany. They had heard of tlie wonderful fishing banks found about the shores of Newfoundland, where the schools of cod and other vari- ties of fishes were so great that it was difficult to steer a ship through them; and in 1540 these fishermen began to sail across the ocean to try the fishing grounds that are still famous. An adven- turous Frenchman by the name of Denys made a map of the Gulf of St. Lawi-ence in the year 1506, a hundred years before the English settlement was made at Jamestown. In 1518 P'rancis I., King of France, became interested in the colonization of the New World; and six years later, in 1524, a voyage of discovery was started out with John Verrazzano, a native of Florence, in command. The object of this expedition was to search for a northwest passage to Asia. Verrazzano began his voyage in January, 1524-, with a fleet of four vessels. Three of the ships were so badly damaged in a storm that they were compelled to return to France, but the determined navigator continued the voyage in his remaining vessel, the Dolphin. After a very rough and dan- gerous voyage of fifty days' duration, on the 7th of March the mariner came in sight of land near Wilmington, North Carolina. He changed his course south and hunted for a good harbor. Finding none, he returned northward and anchored for a few days at a point between the mouth of Cape Fear River and Pamlico Sound. Verraz- zano and his crew went on shore and met some of the native inhabi- tants, who were found to be of a kind and peaceable disposition. After a few days' stay at that place, he again sailed northward, exploring the coast, and entered the harbor of New York. Thence he sailed to the present port of Newport, Rhode Island, and made a stay of fifteen days, viewing and outlining the coast thereabout. Leaving Newport, he continued his course along and up the coast of New England, passed to the east of Nova Scotia, and. arrived at Newfoundland in the latter part of May. In July he returned to France and upon his arrival at home published an account of his discoveries which caused much excitement among his countrymen. 86 History of Tazewell County The entire country whose seacoast he liad explored and mapped was claimed by right of discover}'^ to belong to France. On account of the distracted condition of the country, not until ten years after the Verrazzano expedition did any French explorers again visit America. In 1634 Chabot, Admiral of France, succeeded in awakening the interest of Francis I. in a scheme for exploring and colonizing the New World. James Cartier, a trained mariner of St. Malo, in Brittany, was selected to conduct the expedition. With two ships he left the harbor of St, Malo in April, and reached the shores of Newfoundland in May. Without delay he sailed around the island, crossed the Gulf of St. Lawrence and anchored in a bay, which he called Bay of Chaleurs. Failing to find the westward passage, that all the voyagers had sought without avail, he then sailed along the coast as far as the inlet of Gaspe; and there, upon a point of land, raised a cross with a shield and the lilies of France thereon. This was to notify other nations that the discoverer had taken possession of the country for France. In August, Cartier left the Bay of Gaspe and discovered the St. Law- rence River. On the ninth of August he started back to France and arrived safely at St. Malo. The report of his discoveries made him popular and famous in his country. Friends of Cartier urged the king to give tlie discoverer another commission and provide him with ships to make a second voyage. A new commission was given him, and three ships were furnished by the king. A number of the young nobles became volunteers to accompany Cartier on this voyage. The company sailed for the New World in May, 1535, and after a difficult and stormy voyage arrived on the coast. The gulf Cartier had discovered on his first voyage was given the name of St. Lawrence, in honor of the Saint of that name. Afterwards the same name was given to the great river which is by far the largest body of fresh water in the world. The St. Lawrence River, under the name of St. Louis, has its source in the same extensive plateau which starts the Father of Waters on its lengthy journey to the Gulf of Mexico and the Red River of the North towards Hudson Bay, It is 2,200 miles from its source to where the river enters the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The St. Louis River flows into Lake Superior and goes on through a succession of lakes — Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario — until its mighty volume pours out of Ontario and becomes the won- derful St. Lawrence River. It is four hundred miles from where and Southwest Virginia 87 tiie St. Lawrence issues from Lake Ontario to the splendid gulf that bears the same name. After entering the river Cartier sailed up stream to an island, afterwards called Orleans. There he came in contact with a tribe of Indians of the Algonquian family. From these natives he received the information that farther up the river there was an Indian town on the Island of Hochelaga. This excited his curiosity, he sailed up the river in a small boat, and found a beautiful native village nestling at the foot of a hill. He climbed the hill, and the view from its summit was so mag-nificent that he immediately called the place Mont-Real. Upon this site the splendid city of Montreal now stands. Returning to his ships, Cartier and his men passed an unpleasant winter where they were anchored. In the spring a cross was put up on a point of land, bearing the emblem and the arms of France, and with an inscription declaring that the country was a possession of Francis I. The name of New France was given to the country. Cartier then sailed for home, and on the 6th of July arrived at St. Malo. His report of the character of the St. Lawrence regions, the very cold climate and failure to find any indi- cations of silver and gold, discouraged the people of France from further early attempts to plant a colony there. After a lapse of four years, under the title of viceroy and lieu- tenant general of New France, in 1540, Francis de la Roque, Lord of Roberval, was commissioned by the King of France to establish a colony, with regal authority in land, territories, and islands that were bordering on the St. Lawrence. He selected Cartier, who was familiar with the country, to take charge of the expedition as captain general and chief pilot. Cartier started out from St. Malo in the spring of 1541; he made a safe voyage to the St. Lawrence and built a fort near the site of Quebec. There the colonists remained through the winter, and nothing of moment having been accom- plished, Cartier with his ships and men returned to France. About the time of his depai'ture, Roberval arrived upon the scene with a number of colonists. He did notliing more than to verify the reports of former discoverers, and returned to France. The repeated unsuccessful attempts to found colonies on the St. Lawrence so discouraged the French Government that a period of fifty years elapsed from the failure of Roberval before another effort of importance was made by the French to plant a colony in America. There were, however, several private enterprises that tried to make settlements in Florida and Carolina. The most 88 History of Tazewell County notable of these was conceived by Admiral Coligny, the Protestant admiral of Finance. He resolved to do something for the persecuted Huguenots of his country. In 1562 he secured from his sovereign^ Charles IX., the privilege of planting a Protestant colony in America. He selected John Ribault, a practical seaman, to take charge of the Huguenot expedition. It started from France in February and first touched on the Florida coast, and entered the St. Johns River. Thence the ships were sailed up the coast until they arrived at Port Royal on the Carolina coast. It was determined to make a settlement there, the colonists were landed on the island and a fort was erected. In honor of Charles IX. the place was called Carolina. A century afterward the English adopted the name and gave it to all the country which lies between the Savannah River and the southern boundar}^ of Virginia. Ribault returned to France for more supplies and colonists, leaving twenty-six men in the fort as a garrison. He failed to return with reinforcements and supplies, and in the spring the dissatisfied men of the garrison united and killed their captain, who was trying to hold them at the post. The mutineers constructed a rough boat they thought would prove sea- worthy and made a desperate attemjit to cross the ocean with the hope of getting back to France. They were tossed about on the sea for many weeks, and when nearly dead from starvation were rescued by an English ship and taken to the coast of France. Two years later Coligny, who was still hopeful of establishing a Protestant colony in America, started out another expedition in charge of Laudonniere. The colonists located on the banks of the St. John's River in Florida, fifteen miles west of St. Augustine. This colony was afterwards brutally destroyed by Menendez, the Spaniard, as has been related in a previous chapter. Again, in 1598, the government of France decided to assert its claims of. discovery by colonization. The Marquis of La Roche, under a commission from the king, undertook to locate a colony on Sable Island, Nova Scotia. The site was most unfavorable and the colonists were chiefly criminals, who had been turned out of prisons upon promise of enduring the hardships of a settlement in North- eastern America. After establishing the settlement. La Roche returned to France to get additional supplies and more emigrants, but he died shortly after arriving home. He had left about forty criminals at the settlement on Sable Isiaiul. They suffered frightful hardships on the gloomy island for seven years, but were at last rescued by some ])assitig ships and conveyed to France. and Southwest Virginia 89 The time it seems had arrived when France was to plant a suc- cessful and permanent colony in the northeastern section of America. In the year 1603 the King of France gave a commission to De Monts which granted him sovereign control of that part of the continent which lies between the latitude of Philadelphia and one degree north of Montreal. In the spring of 1604 he came to America with a number of colonists to take possession of the magnifi- cent domain that had been given him by liis generous monarch. He reached the coast of Nova Scotia, and the captain of one of his ships, whose name was Poutrincourt, was so delighted with a harbor he discovered on the west coast that he requested the privilege of locating there with his family. His request was granted and he was given the harbor and many acres of land adjacent thereto. De Monts, with the remainder of the colony, crossed the Bay of Fundy, and built a fort at the mouth of the St. Croix River. In the spring of 1605 De Monts and his colony returned to the harbor where Poutrincourt had located. At that place, on the 14th of November, 1605, the first permanent French settlement on American soil was established. The fort and harbor were named Port Royal and the country was called Acadia. They are now called Annapolis. In 1603, two years before the settlement was made at Port Royal by De Monts, the most noted and successful of all the French explorers, Samuel Champlain, made a voyage of exploration to the St. Lawrence country. He was the son of a sea cajDtain, was a trained soldier, and had on one occasion accompanied a Sj^anish expedition to the West Indies. A company of Rouen merchants had become impressed with the idea that great wealth could be won from the fur trade of the St. Lawrence regions ; and they employed Champlain to go to that country and establish a trading-post for them. He made the trip and chose as a site for the post and fort the locality where the great city of Quebec was afterwards built. Champlain returned to France in the autumn of 1603, made report to his employers, and his choice for the site of the trading-post was accepted. He made a second trip to the St. Lawrence for the mer- chants in 1608, and in July of that year laid the foundation for the city of Quebec. The next year he explored the great lake which bears his name and that will make him famous as long as civilization stands. Later on the intrepid explorer began to investigate the entire lake regions of the North and even extended his travels into the great unknown West. He died at Quebec in 1635. 90 History of Tazewell County ENGLISH DISCOVERIES AND SETTLEMENTS. The discovery of the New World by Columbus excited as intense interest in England as it had provoked in Continental Europe. A Venetian by the name of John Cabot was then residing in Bristol. He was an accomplished navigator and was seized with a desire to make a voyage to the newly discovered continent. On the 5th of March, 1496, he was commissioned by Henry VII., King of England, to make explorations in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans under the English flag. The commission empowered Cabot and his three sons, or either of them, to sail east, west or north, with authority to take possession, in the name of the King of England, of all continents or islands he, or they, might discover. John Cabot had been a sailor from his boyhood, and was a man of adventurous disposition and daring spirit. In May, 1497, with a fleet of five vessels, he sailed from Bristol on a voyage of discovery in the Atlantic Ocean, accompanied by his three sons, Ludivico, Sebastiano, and Sanzio. On the 24th of June he came in sight of the mainland of the North American Continent at a point somewhere on the coast of Labrador. It was on St. John's Day when he sighted land, and was thirteen months and one week previous to the day on which Columbus first discovered the mainland of the American Continent at the mouth of the Orinoco River, South America. This is why many writers have insisted that John Cabot was the first discoverer of the American Continent. Cabot, however, was as much in error as to the character of his discovery as was the illustrious Genoese navigator. Columbus thought he had certainly reached India when he landed on the eastern shores of America, and that by traveling a westerly overland course the Ganges could be reached. Cabot believed the land he discovered was the eastern shore of the Asiatic Continent and was a part of the dominion of the Cham of Tartary. He explored the shore lines for several hundred miles. Finding no people inhabiting the land when he went on shore, he raised the English flag and took possession of the country in the name of Henry VII., King of England. After making such investigations as he thought necessary to determine the character and extent of the country, Cabot sailed for England, and arrived at Bristol, after a voyage that covered a little more than three months. The people of Bristol received him with jojous acclaim, and Henry VII. not only made him a very liberal donation of money, but urged the suc- cessful navigator to make a second voyage. Subsequently, another and Southwest^Virginia 91 fleet was provided and a new commission^ with far more liberal provisions, was given him, but, for some reason that has not been explained, John Cabot never made a second voyage. He disap- peared from public notice; and where and when he died history does not record. In May, 1498, the same month in which Columbus started on his third voyage to discover the mainland of America, Sebastian Cabot, second son of John, sailed from Bristol with two ships on another exploring expedition. His company was composed largely of young English volunteers, the expense of the expedition being borne chiefly by young Cabot; and his object was to discover a northwest passage to Cathay and Japan. The ^'oyag•e was uneventful until he arrived west of Greenland, in July, wliere icebergs were so thick and dan- gerous that the bold navigator was forced to change his course. He first went ashore at a point near where his father had landed the year previous. From that place he directed his course south- ward and crossed the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In succession the coast lines of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Maine were explored; and he then sailed along the Atlantic coast from Maine to a point as far south as Cape Hatteras. All the country which bordered on the Atlantic coast as far as Cabot navigated was formally claimed by him for the Crown of England. For some reason the discoveries of the Cabots were not utilized by Henry VII. It has been sug^ gested by a few historians that the repeated failures to discover a passage to the Indies and inability to find gold and other precious metals, in part, made the English Government lose interest in the New World. Others have accounted for the strange neglect by citing the fact that Henry VII. was a devout Catholic and was unwilling to contravene the wishes and decrees of the Pope of Rome. At that time all the Catholic monarchs of Europe accorded the Pope as full power and authority in temporal matters as they did in spiritual affairs. The Pope, who was especially favorable to Spain, because it was the most zealous friend of the Church of all the Catholic countries, had published a bull which gave Spain first and complete title to all of North America, and practically all of South America. No matter what was the cause, the King of England withdrew his attention from America and made no further effort to assert title to any part of the New World by right of discovery. At his death he was succeeded as monarch by his son, Henry VIII., and one of the earliest acts of the young king was to surrender to his father-in-law, the King of Spain, the services of Sebastian Cabot. 92 History of Tazewell County During the reign of Henr}- VIII.^ there were sundry attempts made by English mariners to discover the mythical northwestern passage to Asia. When the strangely constituted English monarch repudiated his Spanish wife, Catharine of Aragon, and abandoned the Roman Church, he entered his country as a vigorous rival of Spain for control of the New World. Then came the incipient move- ment to crown England "Mistress of the Seas" and make her supreme in the commerce of the M'orld. Upon the accession of Edward VI. to the throne of his father, Henry VIII., there was an added impulse to the maritime spirit of England, and that spirit was more thoroughly aroused by the recall from Spain of the venerable navigator, Sebastian Cabot. For "good service done and to be done" he was made grand pilot. But Cabot seems to have lost interest in the Western Hemisphere and directed his energies to establishing trade relations with China and with the theretofore unknown country of the Muscovites. It was an English ship that entered the icy harbor of Archangel in 1553 and disclosed Russia to Southern and Western Europe. Though Sebastian Cabot did so much for England as a discoverer, and continued her faithful servant until he reached an extremely old age, like that of his father, his death was obscure; and his burial place is not only unmarked, but, to the shame of the country he served so well, is actually unknown. After the death of Edward VI. his half-sister, known in history as "Bloody Mary", became Queen of England. In 1554 she married Philip, son of Charles V., heir to the Spanish throne, much against the will of her ministers and the Protestant element of the Nation. Queen Mary was the daughter of Catharine of Aragon, a devout Catholic and fierce supporter of tlie Papacy; and an intolerant foe of Protestanism. The barbarous persecutions of Protestants that disgraced the latter part of her reign were not sufficient, howevei*, to completely check the growing passion of Englishmen for mari- time adventure. Upon her death, in November, 1558, her half- sister, Elizabeth, the great "Virgin Queen," ascended the English throne. Her reign was a long one, lasting nearly forty-five years; and in accomplishment was, possibly, the most noted and splendid England has ever known. During the Elizabethan Period the litera- ture of the world was enriched by the productions of Shakespeare, Spencer, Bacon, and other brilliant and profound English writers. Martin Frobisher and Francis Drake created a new spirit of mari- time enterprise, and laid a foundation for building the wonderful and Southwest Virginia 93 commercial and naval power England has ever since enjoyed. The greed of gold, that had given inspiration to all the former explorers of America, still existed and manifested itself in the performances of Frobisher and Drake, but it was under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth that Englishmen first made earnest effort to establish colonies in America. While Drake was occui^ied with his daring naval adventures, whicli Bancroft says "were but a career of splendid piracy against a nation with which his sovereign and his country professed to be at peace," Sir Humphre}' Gilbert was maturing plans for planting colonies in North America. He was a half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh by his mother's side, and it is said bore a striking resem- blance to him in character. In June, 1578, Gilbert obtained letters patent from Queen Elizabeth, investing him, his heirs, and assigns with authority to discover, occupy and possess such remote "heathen lands not actually possessed of any Christian prince or people as should seem good to liim or them." He succeeded in enlisting quite a large company of young men, among them Walter Raleigh ; and, largely at his own expense, made preparation for a voyage to America. After he had ass'-Uibled his ships and companj^, dissensions arose, which caused a good many of the men to withdraw from the expedition. But, with a reduced number of ships and men, Gilbert persisted in his enterprise; and on the 19th of November, 1578, he sailed from England, accompanied by Raleigh, for the New World. In the way of accomplishments the expedition was a complete failure, as no report of where it went and what it did is found in history. Gilbert returned with his fleet to England in the summer of 1679. Undaunted by the failure of his first undertaking he launched a second expedition, assisted again by Walter Raleigh. The queen tried to dissuade him from the second voyage, but failing in that effort, commanded Raleigh, who had become a favorite of Elizabeth, to not accompany his brother. However, she sent Gilbert a letter on the ev^e of his departure, in which she wished him "as good hap and safety to his ship as if she herself were there in person." The fleet, consisting of five ships, sailed from Plymouth on the 11th of June, 1583; but on the 13th one of the vessels, that had been built and equipped at Raleigh's expense, deserted and returned to port. Gilbert proceeded with his voj'age, and on the 5th of August landed on the coast of Newfoundland. He took formal possession of the country for his sovereign; and some of his men 94 History of Tazewell County found in the adjacent hills pieces of mica which a mineralogist, who was in the company, pronounced silver. The crews of the ships became insurbordinate and one of the vessels was so unfit that it had to be abandoned. Samples of the supposed silver ore were taken aboard, and, with his three remaining ships, Gilbert started southward to make further explorations; but a storm was encoun- tered and the largest ship was lost near Cape Breton. It was then determined to return to England, with what was left of the fleet, as speedily as possible. At midnight, on September the 9th, a raging storm came upon the two little vessels, and the Squirrel, on which Gilbert was sailing, suddenly went down and he and his crew perished. Walter Raleigh then resolved to accomplish that which his gal- lant brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, had striven so hard to do but had so unfortunately failed to perform. He obtained from Queen Elizabeth a patent which was more ample in its provisions than the one which had been issued to Sir Humphrey Gilbert. It constituted Raleigh lord proprietor of an extensive region in the New World. He concluded to profit by the failure of those explorers who had vainly sought a northwest passage to Asia, or to make settlements in the northern section of the continent. His scheme was to seek the more congenial clime of the South Atlantic coast, and there plant a colony. In pursuance of this plan, he fitted out two ships with ample crews and provisions and placed them under the com- mand of Philip Amidas and Arthur Barlow. On the 27th of April. 1584, they started on an exploring voyage to the southern mainland of the North American Continent. They sailed over the same cir- cuitous route that had been used by Columbus and other explorers — that is, by way of the Canaries and the West Indies. A short stop was made at the West India Islands, and, then, the expedition sailed northward. In due time, on the 4th of July, 1584, it reached the Carolina coast, where explorations were made for a distance of a hundred miles or more along the shores ; and on the 1 3th of July the ships were anchored in a small convenient harbor. After piously returning thanks to Almighty God for the safe voyage and their happy arrival on the delightful coast, the commanders and their men went on shore and took possession of the country for and in the name of the Queen of England. This occurred on the Island of Wocoken, since known in history as Roanoke Island. It was midsummer and the Englishmen were completely enraptured with the luxuriant and gorgeous vegetation, the excellent wild fruits, and Southwest Virginia 95 and the salubrious climate. Amidas and Barlow explored the island, which is twelve miles long, to the northern end. There they found, as reported by them, an Indian "village of nine houses, built of Cedar, and fortified round about with sharpe trees to keep out their enemies, and the entrance to it made like a turne pike very artificially." This evidently was a village fortified with a stockade of similar character to those found by De Soto among the Choctaws and Chickasaws while he was exploring in their regions. After the commanders of Raleigh's ships had explored Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds and Roanoke Island, and had gathered from the Indians such information as could be obtained about the interior country, the homeward voyage was begun. They took with them to England two of the Indian chiefs, Manteo and Wanchese. Upon their arrival in England, Amidas and Barlow gave such highly colored descriptions of the land they had seen that the people of the country again became greatly interested in America. Queen Elizabeth was so gratified with the success of the expedition and charmed by the reported beauties of the newly discovered land, she named the coxintry Virginia, to commemorate her virgin life. On account of his great service to the English Nation and Crown, Raleigh was knighted by Queen Elizabeth; and he was also honored by being elected to Parliament as the representative of the county of Devon. In the spring of 1585 the then Sir Walter Raleigh deter- mined to send out a colony for settlement in the territory of which he was lord proprietor. One hundred or more men were selected for the company of settlers; and these were placed in charge of Richard Lane, who had been selected for governor of the colony. The expedition sailed from Plymouth in April and was escorted by seven armed ships under the command of Raleigh's coujsin. Sir Richard Grenville. The reason, no doubt, for this protective escort was, that trouble was then brewing between Spain and England, which culminated in a declaration of war between the two nations in July following. The colonists arrived safely at their selected destination, but a series of blunders and misfortunes made this first attempt to plant an English colony on the South Atlantic coast a deplorable failure. Lane and Grenville, accompanied by Thomas Cavendish, the distinguished navigator, and Hariot, historian of the expedition, went ashore and made an excursion of eight days among the Indians and along the coast. The excursionists were most hospitably treated by the natives; but while the party was visiting an Indian town a silver cup was stolen from them, and this 96 History of Tazewell County trivial incident was treated so unwisely by Grenville that it was, possibly, the primal cause of the disasters that finally broke up the colony. The Indians were slow about restoring the cup to its owner, and Grenville, either from revenge or to intimidate the Indians, had the village of the natives burned and their growing corn desti-oyed. Shortly after this the colony was located on Roanoke Island, and Grenville sailed with his ships for England. The climate agreed with the men and the health of the colony was excellent, but its first year was uneventful, though Lane explored the country a short distance to the south, and he sailed as far north as Elizabeth River where it coiuiects with Hampton Roads. The colonists had been chiefly engaged in a mad hunt for gold when their first year spent at Roanoke Island had expired. They had grown weary while looking for supplies from England. About this time Sir Francis Drake, who was returning from one of his piratical excursions to the Spanish Main, entered Roanoke Inlet with his fleet of twenty-three ships. The colonists made piteous appeals to Drake to take them to England and he complied with their request. In a little over two weeks after the departure of the colonists, Sir Richard Grenville appeared on the coast with three ships and an abundance of supplies. He made a vain search for the colony, and, having no knowledge of its departure, left fifteen men on the Island of Roanoke to hold its possession, and sailed back to England. This practically ended the first effort to form a perma-- nent English colony in America. Sir Walter Raleigh was so much encouraged by the reports of Hariot, the historian of his first expedition, as to the fertility and beauty of his province, that he resolutely set to work to gather a new colony for starting and developing an agricultural community in Virginia. Therefore, in selecting emigrants he chose men who had wives and families. John White was apjiointed governor of the new colony, and Raleigh directed that the settlement should be made on Chesapeake Bay, where it was known ample harbors could be found. The company sailed from England in April, 1587, in a fleet prepared at the expense of Raleigh, and reached the coast of North Carolina in July. Search was made for the fifteen men Grenville had left there as a garrison. The houses were tenantless, the fort had been destroyed by the Indians, and human bones were lying around, indicating the fate of the fifteen men who composed the garrison. The order of Raleigh for locating the colony at a designated point on the Chesapeake Bay was brought to naught by and Southwest Virginia 97 the conduct of Fernando^ the naval officer of tlie expedition. He refused to join White in exploring the coasts^, and sailed for the West Indies, leaving only one vessel with the colony. Lane, the governor of the first colony, had built a fort, with a group of dwell- ing houses about it, at the northern end of Roanoke Island. White and his company availed themselves of these buildings, that had been occupied by the fifteen unfortunate men Grenville had left on the island as a guard. The Roanoke Indians had become very suspicious and jealous of the white men. Manteo, one of the chiefs that had accompanied Lane to England, remained friendly; and as a matter of policy Raleigh had him invested with the title of an English baron, as the Lord of Roanoke. This, however, did not pacify the unfriendly natives, nor delay the disasters that followed; and repeated difficul- ties and bloody encounters occurred between the Indians and the colonists. Conditions became so alarming that White determined to go to England to procure succor in the waj^ of men and much needed supplies. Before he started on this mission, his daughter, Eleanor Dare, wife of Ananias Dare, gave birth to a daughter, on the 18th of August, 1587. She was the first child born of English parents on the American Continent, and she was named Virginia. About ten days after this interesting event Governor White embarked on his journey to England, little thinking that he would never again see his daughter and grandchild, or any member of the colony he was leaving in Virginia. At the time of White's departure the colony was composed of eighty-nine men, seventeen women, and two children, all of whom disappeared during the governor's absence. When he arrived in England he found intense excitement prevailing, occasioned by a threatened invasion from Spain. King Philip was then building a large fleet, which he was pleased to call the "Invinc- ible Armada", to be used for crushing the English navy and trans- porting the Spanish army to England; and which was to destroy Protestantism and dethrone Queen P],lizabeth. All the noted mili- tary and naval leaders, among them Sir Walter Raleigh, were busily occupied with preparation to repel the intended Spanish invasion. But Raleigh found time and occasion to provide Wliite with two ships and supplies for relief of the Roanoke colony. A company of men was gathered and were started out with the two ships on a relief voyage, but while en route became engaged with hostile ships in a bloody engagement. The ships were boarded by the enemy T.H.-7 98 History of Tazewell County and robbed of all their supplies. This forced the expedition to return to England. The unfortunate circumstance prevented the sending of any succor for the Roanoke colonists until after the destruction of the Invincible Armada was accomplished by Eng- land's great sea-kings^ Drake, Hawkins, Winter, Frobisher and Howard. i It was in August, 1587, that White parted from the Roanoke colony and went to England to crave assistance. The prolonged Spanish-English War prevented him from returning to the colony until March, 1591, and he was forced to travel there as a passenger on a West Indian vessel. When he landed at Roanoke Island, it was nearly four years after the birth of his grandchild; but he did not find little Virginia Dare and her mother there, or any member of the colony, to give him welcome. On his departure for England he had directed that if anything occurred during his absence making it necessary for the colonists to move to some other spot, a record should be left by carving on a tree the name of the place to which they had removed; and if they were in distress, a cross was to be added to the inscription. The grief-stricken man found grass growing in the fort, and the houses grouped about it were tenantless. On the bark of a large tree standing near the fort he found the word "Croatan" carved, but no cross. Croatan was the name of a neigh- boring island where an Indian settlement^ known to White, was located. In response to his entreaties, the captain of the ship consented to take him to Croatan Island, where White hoped to find the entire body of colonists. A violent storm was encountered, like those that frequently come about Cape Hatteras. The ship was tossed about on the sea for several days, and the captain, despite the pleadings of his unhappy passenger, turned the prow of his ship toward the east and sailed for England. This was the last opportunity White had to seek his missing loved ones. Ever since, the fate of Virginia Dare, of her mother, and the Roanoke colony has been a topic for mucli speculation. Sir Walter Raleigh made five attempts to ascertain the fate of the colony but failed to find even a trace of it. He had already spent forty thousand pounds, the bulk of his fortune, in vain efforts to establish colonies in Virginia. Discouraged by these failures, he transferred his patent to a company of merchants and capitalists, some of whom were afterwards identified with the settlement of Jamestown. and Southwest Virginia 99 CHx\PTER III. BIKTII OF AMKRICAN NATION ENGLISH SETTLEMENT AT JAMESTOWN. There are few things in history so edifying and pleasing to the investigating human mind as the birth of a nation. That great Semitic family known as the Hebrews, of which the Chaldean patriarch, Abraham, was the progenitor, for nearly four thousand years has been a fruitful source of pleasure and profit to students of mankind, though the Hebrews no longer exist as a nation. No matter when or where a Jew is met or seen by men of intelligence, he is quickly associated with the pledge given by the Great Jehovah to Abraham, then old and childless, that his seed should become a great nation, and as such inherit the Land of Canaan. When Romulus and Remus, the twin sons of a Vestal Virgin, began to build a rude wall around their little town on the Tiber, 753 years before the Christian era, they never dreamed that they were laying the foundation of what would become known in history as the "Eternal City". Nor is it probable that they had the re- motest idea that from the small community of refugee murderers and slaves they gathered witliin the walls of their citadel, a mighty nation would be evolved and a splendid empire created, to stand for centuries as the sovereign master of the then known world. No epoch in the written or traditional history of our Sphere has been more potent in shaping the destiny of the human race than the birth of the marvelous American Nation. The small com- pany of Englishmen who, at the beginning of the seventeenth cen- tury, originated a crude plan for planting an English colony in Virginia, never imagined that from such a small business venture there would issue a great nation of one hundred million people. But within a period of three centuries following the settlement at James- town, the magic, giant nation was in existence, and is still here, growing and taking on new form and feature. It is a strangely composite nation, the offspring of mingled nationalities and races. The intermixing of Teutons, Celts, Latins, Greeks, Franks, Huns, Slavs, Bulgars,. Tui-ks, Armenians, Jews, and other races and nations, representing the continents of Asia, Africa and Europe, is producing that peculiar type of man, the American. Even the aboriginal race of the North American Continent seems destined to gradually disappear in this mixing process, not by extermination of 100 History of Tazewell County the Indians as decreed by the pioneer settlers, but by benevolent absori)ti()ii. In the coming centuries the most astute etimologists will find themselves hopelessly entangled and puzzled when they try to trace the origin of the Americans. It will be impossible to find a common paternity for this conglomerate race, except by turning back to the primal origin of man. This is truly a novel method for nation making; and one may well inquire. What will be the ultimate outcome or product.'' Will the American Nation be welded into a homogeneous race, in which the altruistic spirit will be so dominant as to bring to pass the Utopian hope for the perfec- tion of human laws and the complete establishing of the brotherhood of man.^ Shall this Nation be a city set upon a hill, a beacon to illumine the way for other peoples as they press forward to the goal of national excellence? Or shall there be a realization of the gloomy apprehensions expressed by certain learned men of Eurojie more than a hundred years ago, that the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus and the finding of a new ocean route to Asia by Vasco da Gama may prove a curse rather than a blessing to mankind ? At the beginning of the seventeentli century events that materially aH'ected the colonization of America by the English people began to occur. The protracted war with Spain had come to a conclusion, witli complete satisfaction to England, and with the Spanish power, both on land and sea, very greatly impaired, if not broken. Elizabeth Tudor. England's great queen, passed away in lt)08, after a magnificent reign of nearly forty-five years. She was succeeded on the throne by King James of Scotland, who, as James I., became sovereign of England, Scotland and Ireland. Scarcely had King James mounted the English throne, when a foul conspiracy, lead by Robert Cecil and Henry Howard, was formed to excite the animosity of the king against Sir Walter Raleigh. The conspirators were successful in their malignant designs ; Raleigh was arrested for an old trumped-up offence, w^as confined in the Tower, and after a season was beheaded by the order of the crafty and vain little Scotchman, the unworthy successor of the great Virgin Queen. No blacker crime tarnishes the reign of any of the cruel or dissolute monarchs of England than the vicious murder of Sir Walter Raleigh, who was undeniably the Father of Virginia. But other strong men were destined to take up the work which Raleigh had so heroically begun of founding a mighty nation in the Western Hemisphere. The Earl of Southampton was released from the Tower of London and Southwest Virginia 101 about the same time Sir Walter Raleigh had entered its gloomy portals as a prisoner. Southampton had been connected with Essex's rebellion in 1600, and had narrowly escaped death, though the noble Essex was, on the 25th of February, 1601, beheaded for liis foolhardy-effort to excite an insurrection against Queen Eliza- beth, whom he had for years served so faitlifully and gallantly. Southampton had become greatly interested in making a settle- ment in Virginia, and began to formulate plans for this undertaking. In 1602, though then confined in the Tower, he sent Bartholomew Gosnold, on a voyage of exploration to Virginia. Its territorial limits then extended north as far as the St. Lawrence River. Gosnold, with this, his first, expedition, merely visited that portion of the territory then known as North Virginia, now the present New England. In 1603, a company of Bristol merchants dispatched Martin Pring on a trading expedition to North Virginia; and about the same time, Bartholomew Gilbert, son of Sir Humphrey' Gilbert and the nephew of Sir Walter Raleigh, made a voyage to the Chesa- peake Bay. While coasting along its shores, young Gilbert and some of his companions were killed by the Indians. Another expedi- tion under command of Captain George Weymouth, and of which the Earl of Southampton and Sir Ferdinando Gorges were patrons, visited the present New England, then North Virginia, in 1605. He spent a month exploring and investigating that region, and then returned to England, taking with him five Indians, members of a tribe with whom a profitable trade had been opened. Upon his arrival at home, Weymouth made a report so favorable as to the commercial value of the country that renewed interest in America was aroused. This was the last voyage of exploration or prepara- tion made by Englishmen prior to the planting of the colony at Jamestown. Bartholomew Gosnold, who had been very much pleased with the soil, climate and apparently valuable resources of that part of the North American Continent he had visited, went actively to work to procure aid from other prominent men of his country for estab- lishing a colony in Virginia. After a time, he succeeded in getting Edward Maria Wingfield, a merchant, Robert Hunt, a clergyman, and John Smith, a soldier of fortune, in sympathy with his views as to the proposed enterprise. He next secured the influence of Sir 102 History of Tazewell County Ferdinando Gorges^ who was a man of large wealtli, aild Sir John Popham^ Chief Justice of England^ to obtain from King James a patent^ autliorizing a company to settle a plantation in Virginia. On the memorable 10th of April, 1606, King James I. issued patent letters to certain of his subjects empowering them to enter and possess all tliat region of North America lying between the thirty-fourth and forty-fifth parallels of latitude, and extending -i.aiid from the Atlantic coast one liundred miles. The territory granted by tlie jjatent stretched northward from the mouth of Cape Fear River to the dividing line between the State of Vermont and Canada, and it was set apart for occupation by two rival companies. These companies were called, respectively, The London Company, and The Plymouth Company; and they were proprietary associa- tions, each member thereof being invested with a joint and several proprietary interest in the domain granted their respective com- panies. The names of but four men were mentioned in the charter of the London Company, as follows: Rev. Richard Hakluyt, Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, and Captain Edward Maria Wingfield. Tliis company was assigned the soutliern zone of the territory for the establishing of its settlements. The Plymouth Company was authorized to locate its colony in the northern zone. Raleigh Gilbert, William Parker, Thomas Hanham, and George Popham were the four persons named in the charter of the Northern Company. The first colony was to confine its settlements to the territory between the thirty-fourth and tlie thirty-eighth degrees of latitude; and the second colony was to occupy the territory between the forty-first and the forty-fifth degrees, thus leaving a strip of three degrees width open to both colonies, upon certain conditions. There was a provision in the patent pi'ohibiting either company from making a settlement within a hundred miles of any other settlement already established by a rival company. This plan virtuall}' divided the granted territory into three zones, the middle one being made neutral. As the subsequent doings of the Plymouth Company will have but little connection with the history of Tazewell County, which I am writing, I will confine myself to a brief recital of the perform- ances of the London Company. The charter members of the London Company, and the associate shareholders of that proprietary body, fitted out three small vessels to be used for transporting a number of colonists to Virginia. Cap- and Southwest Virginia 103 tain Christopher Newport, one of England's most skillful sailors and esteemed naval officers, was selected for commander of the expedition. Spain, though terribl}^ weakened by her disastrous wars, still asserted ownership of all the region embraced in the then defined bounds of Virginia ; and resented the announced purpose of England to make encroachments upon that territory. Zuniga, the Spanish ambassador to England, having heard rumors of the plans that were being matured by prominent Englishmen, to establish colonies in Virginia, forwarded a dispatch to his sovereign, Philip III, warn- ing him of "an unpalitable scheme" of the English, "to send five or six hundred men, private individuals of tliis kingdom, to people Virginia in the Indies, close to Florida." Sir John Popham, Lord Chief Justice of England, was known to be one of the promoters of the movement for sending "people to Virginia;" and it appears that the Spanisli ambassador made complaint to Popham about the threatened encroachments upon the American dominion of his sovereign. Zuniga reported that, in reply to his protests, the Lord Chief Justice lightly declared, that the object of the undertaking to establish a Virginia colony was to relieve England of a lot of thieves and worthless fellows, and probably get them drowned in the sea. These incidents occurred a short time previous to the issuance of the letters patent to the two companies. The seemingly jocular reply of Chief Justice Popham to the protest of the representative of Spain may have been intended to be taken seriously, as the majority of the men who came with the first band of colonists to Jamestown were so worthless tliat England could well afford to be rid of them. It is truly astonishing that tlie intelligent men who promoted the London Company undertook to establish a successful colony with such indifferent material; and it is no wonder that disasters which threatened the life of the enterprise were encoun- tered from the very beginning. No women and children accom- panied tlie colonists, and they brought with them no domestic animals or fowls. Evidently it was more of a treasure-hunting adventure than an agricultural and home-making enterprise. This conclusion is supported by the fact that while the charter gave the company authority to own and operate mines, it contained a provision which required payment to the king of one-fifth of all the gold and silver and one-fifteenth of all tlic copper that was found and mined. An impression then prc\'ailcd in England that the precious metals, 104 History of Tazewell County though undeveloped, were as abundant in Virginia as the Spaniards had found them in Mexico and Peru. There was an absurd belief existing over there that nature furnished such abundant supplies of food over here, that men could live luxuriouslj' without toiling. A poem written by Michael Drayton, afterwards poet laureate of England, addressed as a farewell message to the London Company's colonists, gave expression to tlie ridiculous fancy of these Englisli- men. Thus spoke the poet in three of the stanzas: "And cheerfully at sea Success you still entice. To get the pearl and gold. And ours to hold Virginia, Earth's only paradise! "Where nature hath in store Fowl, venison, and fish ; And the fruitfull'st soil Without your toil. Three harvests more. All greater than your wish. "And the ambitious vine Crowns with his purple mass The cedar reaching high To kiss the sky. The cypress, pine. And useful sassafras." The charter which King James issued to each of the American colonies was ^'ery ample in its provisions for their government. A Royal Council, consisting of thirteen members, and appointed by the king, was placed in general control of the two companies ; and the local management of each colony was fixed with a local council also of thirteen members. The members of the local councils were appointed by the Royal Council, resident in London, and it also selected the presidents of the two local councils for tlie first year. After the first year had exj^ired, the local councils were invested with power to select their own presidents each year, and remove I hem for misconduct or inefficiency. These local councils were authorized to su])ply vacancies in I heir own incmhrrship caused by and Southwest Virginia 105 death, removal, or resignation. A number of other imjjortant powers were given the local councils. Fiske, in his "Old Virginia and Her Neighbors/' says: "Power was given the colonial council to coin money for trade between the colonies and with the natives, to invite and carry over settlers, to drive out intruders, to punish malefactors, and to levy and collect duties upon divers imported goods. All lands within the two colonies were to be held in free and common socage, like the demesnes of the Manor of East Greenwich in the county of Kent; and the settlers and their children forever were to enjoy all the liberties, franchises and immunities enjoyed by Englishmen in Eng- land, a clause which was practically nullified by the failure to pro- vide for popular elections or any expression whatever of public opinion. The authority of the colonial council was supreme within the colonies, but their acts were liable to veto from the Crown." A few days before Christmas, or to be exact as to date, on the 19th of December, 1606. the first colonization expedition of the London Company started from Blackwalls, England; and dropped down the Thames to cross the Atlantic Ocean and settle a colony in Virginia. The fleet consisted of three ships, with the commander, Captain Christopher Newport, sailing on the Susan Constant. The Godspeed was commanded by Bartholomew Gosnold. and the Dis- covert/ by John Ratcliffe. On board the three vessels, besides the crews, were congregated one hundred and five colonists. On account of "unprosperous winds" the little fleet was detained for more than a week in the Downs, off the Southeast coast of the county of Kent, a large natural harbor in which outward and homeward bound ves- sels took refuge to escape dangerous storms, or to await favorable winds. New Year's day, 1607, the fleet got away on its eventful and momentous voyage, which was eventually to terminate at a peninsula on James River, and where the cradle of the American Nation was decreed to be placed. Newport was familiar with the course or route which Columbus and the other first explorers of America had followed ; and sailed his ships by way of the Canaries and West Indies. During the progress of the voyage very serious dissensions arose among some of the leading spirits of the expedition; and tliese troubles were much aggravated when it became known that no one among the company was clothed with sufficient authority to quell the disturbances. King James had placed his instructions for the government of the colony, 106 History of Tazewell County with the names of the men who were to constitute the local council, in a sealed box ; and had given positive orders that the box was not to be opened until the expedition reached its destination. This left the colonists without any designated leader to act when emergencies came. Trouble arose between Edward Wingfield and John Smith, and Wingfield made an accusati(m against Smith of plotting a mutiny. Smith was put in iron fetters, which he was forced to wear until the fleet arrived in Virginia. After a tedious voyage of four months' duration. Captain Newport entered the Chesapeake Bay and landed with a small party at the southern cape, which was named Cape Henry, in honor of the Prince of Wales, eldest son of King James. The northern cape was afterwards named Cape Charles, from the second son of James 1., and whose reign, as Charles I., and as the successor of his father, was the most tragic and eventful in the record of England's mon- archs. Captain Newport took the sealed box on shore with him, and, when opened, the names of the local council were disclosed. Six persons only were named, though the charter had provided for thirteen members of this council. Those appointed were Bartho- lomew Gosnold, John Smith, Edward Wingfield, John Ratcliffe, John Martin and George Kendall. The malignant Wingfield and his associates refused to permit Smith then to act as one of the council, but continued to hold him a prisoner until after their arrival at Jamestown. At Cape Henry the colonists had their first encounter with the Indians. Hon. George Percy, a brother of the Earl of Northumberland, and a member of Newport's landing party, in a graphic account of the occurrences after entering the Chesa- peake thus describes the incident : "At night when we were going aboard, there came the Savages upon all fours, from the Hills like Bears, with their Bowes in their mouths, charged us desperately in the faces, hurt Captain Gabrill Archer, in both his hands, and a sayler in two places of the body very dangerous. After they had spent their Arrows and felt the sharpenesse of our shot, they retired into the woods with great noise, and so left us." These natives belonged to the Chesapeake tribe, and were not a part of the Powhatan Confederacy. According to Jefferson's Notes, published in 1809, their jjrincipal village was located on Lynhaven River, in Princess Anne County, a small stream which flows north- ward inio Chesapeake Bay. Slitli says in liis hislory, Ihal lluy and Southwest Virginia 107 were living on the Elizabeth River, which flows into the Chesapeake below Norfolk. They belonged to the Algonquian family of Indians ; and in 1607 were estimated at one hundred warriors, or about three hundred inhabitants. The tribe disappeared as a distinct nation about the year 1669. The colonists remained for several days in the vicinity of Lyn- haven Bay, and Captain Newport, accompanied by small parties, made short excursions both inland and along the shores. On the 28th of April he launched a shallop and with several companions started out on a trip of investigation. They discovered a point which put them in such "good comfort", that they named it "Cape Comfort". It is now known as Old Point Comfort, is at the entrance to Hampton Roads, and the historic Fort Monroe is located there. On April 30th they brought their ships to "Cape Comfort" an(; continued their explorations from that point, visiting the rude natives and partaking of their hospitality. Before the expedition sailed from England the Royal Council had Rev. Richard Hakluyt prepare lengthy written instructions for the guidance of the officers after their arrival in America. In these instructions the officers were urged to select a site for the permanent settlement that was healthful in its surroundings and that could be easily defended against attacks made by the natives or the Span- iards. It was thought that Spain might possibly resent and resist the planting of an English colony in Virginia. Therefore the instructions to the Local Council, in pai-t, said: "You must take especial care that you choose a seat for habita- tion that shall not be overburthened with woods near your town, for all the men you have shall not be able to cleanse twenty acres a year, besides that it may serve for a covert for your enemies round about. "Neither must you plant in a low or moist place, because it will prove unhealthful. You shall judge of the good air by the people, for some part of that coast where tlie lands are low have their people blear eyed, and with swollen bellies and legs, but if the naturals be strong and clean made it is a true sign of a wholesome soil". On the 13th of May, after a number of locations had been visited and inspected, the leaders chose the little peninsula as the proper spot for permanently establishing the colony. In most respects the site was the very opposite of that which the letter of instructions 108 History of Tazewell County urged the officers to select. It was so low and damp that it was iiecessai'ily a breeder of malaria; and at high tide one half the point of land was covered witli water. There was no running water on or about it, except the river, which was so brackish at higli tide that it was unfit to drink. Possibly it might have been deemed well situated for defence against the Indians, but that was later shown to l)e not true. This peninsula, which is called Jamestown Island, is situated on the nortli side of James River, in James City County, and is thirty-two miles above the mouth of that river. It contains about seventeen hundred acres, and averages two and a half miles in length and three-fourths of a mile in width. On the east, west and south sides it is surrounded by James River, and on the north by Back River, the latter separating the peninsula from the main- land. From its founding, in 1607, until 1698, Jamestown was the seat of the Virginia Colonial Government. In 1698 the government was removed to Williamsburg. As soon as Captain Newport had landed the colonists, the mem- bers of the council, with the exception of John Smith, took the oath of office and organized, electing Edward Wingfield president for the first year. On the following day, it is said, the council put the men to work to build a fort and houses for the settlers. The work accomplished in that direction appears to have been in keeping with the indolent and thriftless character of the greater number of the emigrants. In one of his narratives about the settlement. Captain John Smith said: "When I went first to Virginia, I well remember we did hang an awning which is an old sail to three or four trees to shadow us from the sun; our walls were rails of wood, our seats unhewed trees till we cut planks; our pulpit a bar of wood nailed to two neighboring trees ; in fine weather we shifted into an old rotten tent for we had no better. The best of our houses were of the like curiosity but for the most part, much worse workman-ship that neither could well defend wind or rain." Captain Smith in his narrative said nothing about the fort. It is likely that the experienced soldier was either so amused or disgusted by the thing Wingfield and his associates called a fort that he scorned to men- tion it. Henry Howe, in his History of Virginia, thus speaks of the so-called fort: "The President, who seems to have been a very weak man, and ill suited for his station, was too jealous of his own men to allow exercises at arms or a fortification to be erected; and the only protection provided, was a sort of half -moon formed of the boughs of trees." and Southwest Virginia 109 In the written instructions given b}' the London Council was one which said: "You must observe if you can whether the river on which you plant doth spring out of mountains or out of lakes. If it be out of any lake tiie passage to the other sea will be the more easy." The minds of the best informed men of England, as well as of Continental Europe, still clung to the fatuous belief that the dis- tance from the Atlantic to the other sea (the Pacific Ocean) was not very great; and that a water route across the North American Continent, connecting the two oceans, would surely be found. This was one of the chief motives the English merchants had for identify- ing themselves with exploring expeditions that came to America. All commercial Europe was then eagerly reaching out for the trade of India and other Asiatic countries. In obedience to the instructions of the Royal Council, Captain Newport took prompt steps for exploring the noble James and finding the source of the river. Though the local council, under the control of Wingfield, still refused to allow Captain Smith to enter upon the discharge of his duties as a member of the council, Newport had become impressed with Smith's abilitj', and took him along on the trip up the James. The exploring party, in addition to Newport and Smith, consisted of four other gentlemen, four skilled marines, and fourteen common sailors. Six days were occupied by Newport and his comjjany in making the voyage from Jamestown to the head of tidewater at Richmond. Tliey found an Indian village at the falls of the river, and learned that the name of the village was Powhatan (that is "Falling Waters"). The village consisted of about a dozen houses "pleasantly seated on a hill ', and the buildings were large clan houses, framed with wooden beams, the roofs and sides being covered with bark. Newport and his companions were kindly treated by these natives, and learned from them that Pow- hatan was the head-chief of a confederacy, consisting of a number of tribes or clans ; and that his principal town and place of residence was called Werowocomoco, which was afterwards found to be sit- uated on the north side of York River in the present county of Gloucester. Upon their return from their trip up the river, Newport and Smith found that during their absence the colonists had been attacked by hostile Indians; and that one Englishman had been killed and eleven wounded. For two weeks or more after this attack the settlers were greatly annoyed by the red men. They 110 History of Tazewell County would conceal themselves in the tall grass near the fort, and with their bows and arrows pick off a white man at every opportunity. Relief was offered by friendly natives of the Powhatan tribe, who made the proffer of an alliance with the Englishmen to drive away the hostiles. The Powhatans also suggested that security could be obtained by cutting and burning tlie grass near tlie fort. This was done, and present relief resulted. The liostiles were not of the Powhatan Confederacy, and it is likely were a band of the Chesa- peake warriors. Captain Smith, who liad waited so patiently for a trial on the charges Wingfield had made against him, demanded that he be given an opj^ortunit}^ to have a hearing before a jury of his peers. Wingfield objected very strenuously to a trial, but it was accorded, and Smith was honorabl)^ acquitted of all the charges. Thereupon, on the 10th of June, he was sworn in as a member of the council and became the most efficient and useful member of that official body. The fort was completed on the 15th, and Captain Newport sailed for England on the 22nd, carrying back on his ships a cargo of sassa- fras and fine wood for wainscoting. At that time sassafras was very much in demand in England for its supposed medicinal quali- ties, and for preparing a pleasant beverage from the bark or roots of the shrub. The beverage was sold at daybreak by venders in the streets of London, under the name of Saloop. When Captain Newport sailed for liome he promised to return to Virginia in twenty weeks. It was found that there was barely enough food on liand, and that of a very poor quality, to sustain tlie colony for fifteen weeks. This made it necessary to put every one on reduced rations until Newport's return. By an order of the London Company all supplies sent over from England, and all produced by the labor of the colonists, were to be kej)t in a common stock, from which each member of the colony was to share equally. This communit)'^ system was to continue for five years ; and the lazy and worthless were put upon the same footing as the industrious and helpful. Under such conditions, it is no wonder that horrible suffering followed and continued until Newport returned -from England with fresh supplies. The most of the settlers were too indolent to avail themselves of the abundant supplies which nature had placed about them. That there was an abundance, which a Trans-Alleghany pioneer would have used to advantage, is shown by Hon. George Percy, one of the gentlemen of the colony. In a letter sent by him to a relative in England, he said : and Southwest Virginia • 111 "This I'iver which we have discovered is one of the famousest Rivers that was ever found by any christian, it ebbes and flowes a hundred and three score miles where ships of great burthen may harbour in safetie. Wheresoever we landed upon this River, we saw the goodliest woods as Beach, Oke, Cedar, Cypress, Walnuts, Sassafras, and Vines in great abundance, which clusters on in many trees, and all the grounds bespread with strawberries, mulberries, Rasberries, and Fruits unknown, there are many branches of this River which runne flowing through the Woods with great plentie of Fish of all kinds, as for Sturgeon, all the World cannot be com- pared to it. There is also a great store of Deer both Red and Fallow. There are Beares, Foxes, Otters, Beavers, Muskrats and wild beasts unknowne." The same gentleman, Mr. Percy, who wrote the above about the famous river and country, was one of the number who endured the terrible sufferings through which the colony passed while New- port was over in England; and he afterwards wrote this about it: "There were never Englishmen left in a foreigne Countrey in such miserie as wee were in this new discovered Virginia. We watched every three nights, lying on the bare ground what weather soever came; and warded all the next day; which brought our men to be most feeble wretches. Our food was but a small Can of Barlie sodden in water to five men a day. Our drink cold water taken out of the River, which was at floud very salt; at a low tide full of slime and filth; which was the destruction of many of our men. Thus we lived for the space of five months in this miserable distresse, not having five able men to man our Bulwarkes upon any occasion. If it had not pleased God to have put a terrour in the Savages hearts, we had all perished by those wild and cruell Pagans, being in that weak estate as we were; our men night and day groan- ing in evei-y corner of the Fort most pitiful to heare. If there were any conscience in men, it would make their harts bleed to heare the pitifuU murmerings and outcries of our sick men without relief, every night and day for tlie space of six weeks; some departing out of the World, many times three or foure in a night; in the morning their bodies being trailed out of their Cabines like Dogges, to be buried. In this sort did I see the mortalitie of divers of our people." This eccentric but graphic account of the miseries of the unfor- tunate colonists shows clearly their unfitness for the work they had been selected to perform. And it emphasizes the hateful greed and 112 History of Tazewell County criminal carelessness of tlie London Company for tlius placing these inca})al)le men in such a deplorable situation. There were but very few of them who had been trained to work in any way, most of them being of the tli"n idle class called gentlemen. They didn't know how to work, and, if they had known how, they were so inadequately supplied with implements and tools for doing agricultural or mechanical labor that they could have accomplished but little. It is not surprising, with so little food, of such a poor quality, and located as they were at a place reeking with miasma, that the colonists became the victims of deadly diseases. In August, Captain Gosnold died from fever, and thereupon the quarrel between Wing- field, president of the council, and Captain Smith was renewed. Shortly thereafter charges were made that Wingfield was con- cealing and taking from the scanty stores various luxuries, including wine and spirits, for the use of himself and friends. This and other unpojDular acts caused the council to depose him, and John Ratcliffe was elected president in his stead. A short time afterwards. Wing- field and Kendall were accused of trying to escape from the colony in a pinnace, and they were removed from the council. This left only three of the council in office, Ratcliffe, Martin and Smith. Though the charter of the London Company authorized and directed them to fill vacancies in the official body, they declined to exercise that power. It seems that Ratcliffe and Martin were both very unpopular with the colonists, and Smith was looked to as the leader and controller of the affairs of the settlement. He accepted the responsibilities of leader, and succeeded in getting affairs in order. The men were put to woi'k, and built more comfortable dwellings; and Smith secured a supply of corn from the Indians, which relieved the people from a continued period of starvation. Being again supplied with ample provisions, the indolent and thriftless remnant of the colony returned to their former habits of idleness and wastefulness. Captain Smith saw that more supplies would have to be secured from the Indians, and he made several trips in the pinnace up the Chickahominy, and possibly the James, and purchased an abundance of corn from the natives. Cold weather came on and supplies of game were obtained. Smith again ascended the Chickahominy, this time chiefly on an exploring expedition, and it was then he was made a captive and was rescued from imminent death by the Indian girl, Pocahontas. He was in captivity some five or six weeks, and upon his release returned to Jamestown. On the day of his return, which was the 8th of January, 1608, Captaia and Southwest Virginia 113 Newport with his relief ship reached the landing at the settlement, bringing what was called the First Supply of men and provisions. Of the 105 colonists Newport left there in June, there were only 38 surviving, sixty-seven had died from disease and want during his absence of six months. The First Supply added 120 to the colony, bringing the entire number up to 158 persons. Smith and Newport realized that the supplies brought over from England, with the corn on hand added, would not be sufficient to feed the colony through the winter; and they determined to try to purchase more corn from Powhatan. A party consisting of Smith, Newport, and others not mentioned, paid a visit to the old Indian chief at his home, Werowo- comoco, where they were cordially received and hospitably enter- tained. The Englishmen, Smith and Newport, succeeded in getting a good supply of corn, exchanging therefor glass beads and other trinkets that struck Powhatan's fancy. In the spring Newport sailed for England again, taking with him Edward Wingfield, the deposed and disgraced first president of the council. Captain Smith spent the summer of 1608 making explorations of the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac, Patapsco, and Susquehanna rivers. During his absence from Jamestown the affairs of the colony again got in a wretched condition, owing, it is said, to the incompetency and unpopularity of Ratcliffe, who was the successor of Wingfield as president of the council. On his return in September, Smith was chosen president of the council, and put things in pretty good shape by the time Newport got back from England with the Second Supply of men and provisions. Newport arrived on the 8th of September, and brought oyer 70 persons. The colony had lost 28 of its members, leaving only 130 of the 158 left by Newport in the spring. With the 70 new arrivals the colony then numbered 200. There were two women in the last company, a Mrs. Forrest and her maid, Anne Burroughs. The maid soon gave up her maidenhood by marrying John Laydon. This was the first recorded English marriage solemnized on the American Continent. Newport on this trip brought instructions from the London Com- pany which proved that its members were not satisfied with the progress of their get-rich-quick scheme. In promoting the Virginia colony they believed they were embarking in a very lucrative enter- prise; but instead it was proving a grave trouble, and a heavy loss as a financial proposition. So, Newport was ordereu to discover a new passage to the South Sea, to find a large lump of gold, to trace the lost Roanoke colony, or not to dare to return to England. When T.H.-8 114 History of Tazewell County Newport sliovved tliese instructions to Captain Smith, the valiant captain very aptly pronounced the London Company a lot of fools. There was another absurd instruction given Newport, which the historian Fisk says: "Was grotesque enough to have emanated from the teeming brain of James I. after a mickle noggin of his native Glenlivat." This I'idiculous instruction was to the effect that Powhatan should be crowned as a king, and be made a vassal of the King of England. Smith and Newport, after preliminary arrangements with the Indian chief, went to Werowocomoco and there, in the chief's wigwam, performed a burlesque coronation cere- mony. They put a scarlet robe on the greasy old man, and placed a tinsel crown on his head. The newly crowned forest monarch sent his old raccoon-skin cloak as a present to his royal brother. King James I. Smith and Newport were very elaborately entertained by King Powhatan. A wonderful masquerading performance that was presented before the English visitors was described as follows by one of the party: "In a fayre playne field they made a fire, before which we sitting upon a mat, suddainiy amongst the woods was heard * * * a hydeous noise and shrieking. * * * Then presently we were pre- sented with this antickej thirtie young women came nearly naked out of the woods, their bodies all painted, some white, some red, some black, some particolour, but all differing; their leader had a fayre payre of buck's horns on her head, and an otter's skin at her girdle, and another at her arm, a quiver of arrows at her back, a bow and arrow in her hand ; the next had in her hand a sword, another a club, * * * all horned alike * * * These fiends with most hellish shouts and cries, rushing from among the trees, cast themselves in a ring about the fire, siging and damicing with most excellent ill varietie; * * * having spent near an houre in this mascarado, as they entered in like manner they departed. Having reaccomodated themselves, they solemnly invited us to their lodg- ' ings, where we were no sooner within the house but all these nymphes more tormented us than ever, with crowdmg, pressing, and hanging about us, most tediously crying. Love you not me'i^ This salutation ended, the feast was set, consistmg of fruit in baskets, fish and flesh in wooden platters; beans and peas there wanted not, nor any salvage dainty their invention could devise. Some attend- ing, others singing and dancing about us; which mirth and banquet being ended, with firebrands for torches they conducted us to our lodguag." ^ and Southwest Virginia 115 These impersonators of the wood nymphs were Pocahontas and other maidens of the tribe. The Indian princess was then just enter- ing her teens; and had no thought at the time she was "Masca- radoing" for the amusement of a company of English adventurers, that she would very soon thereafter become a leading character in a drama, with a continent for its stage and a mighty nation its theme. She saved the life of Captain John Smith by placing her own head upon his to shield him from the impending blows of Indian bludgeons; and helped him save the life of the Jamestown colony when threatened with destruction from starvation and other perils. Nor did the dusky maiden dream when cooing to a pale-faced guest of her father, "Love you not me.^" that in a little while she would be made the bride of a white gentleman and have introduction to proud Albion's nobility and royalty; and would become the historic ancestress of some of Virginia's most distinguished sons, and even of the beautiful wife of a President of the United States. Captain Newport made an ineffectual effort to discover a route to the Salt Sea that was believed to be not far beyond the mountains. Although Smith tried to dissuade him from the attempt he went upon a trip of discovery above the falls of James River, but returned with his party without even reaching the Blue Ridge Mountains. Smith went energetically to work to provide a cargo to send to England, which was composed of tar, pitch, glass and boards; and Newport again started on a home voyage, taking along Ratcliffe, the second deposed president. Captain Smith sent by Newport a letter to the Royal Council in London in which he set forth the mistakes that prevented the success of the colony. In part, he said : "When you send again I introat you to send but 30 carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and diggers up of trees, roots, well provided, rather than 1,000 of such as we have; for except we be able both to lodge them and feed them, the most will consume with want of necessaries before they can be good for anything. » * * "These are the causes that have kept us in Virginia from laying such a foundation as ere this might have given much better content and satisfaction; but as yet you must not look for any profitable returns ; so I humbly rest." Captain Smith had a very quaint style of expressing his views, but he managed to inform the Royal Council that they were respon- lit) History of Tazewell County sible for the ill success of the colony; and also to tell them they should expect no profitable returns from their venture until a change was made in the character of the emigrants that were being sent across the waters to Virginia. He put all the men to work with the assurance that: "He who would not work, might not eat;" and Jamestown began to assume an appearance of life and thrift. We are told that they "digged and planted" twenty or thirty acres in corn, and cultivated it under the instructions of two friendly Indians. This was a pretty big job, especially the digging of thirty acres with hoes; and it shows how impractical and careless the Royal Council had been in not providing horses or oxen to plow and culti- yate the land. At the request of the London Company a new or second cliarter was, on the 23rd of May, 1(509, gi-anted the company, which changed its form of management and made material alterations in the bound- aries of Virginia. The company was changed from a proprietary organization to a corporate body, to be known as the "Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the Citj'^ of London for the First Colony in Virginia." All the power of control which was reserved by the king in the first charter was transferred to the com- pany, and the management of the Virginia Colony was committed to a Supreme Council to be chosen by the shareholders and to reside in England. This Supreme Council had authority to legislate for the colony and to appoint a governor and council to conduct its local affairs. The new charter gave to the corporate body "all those Lands, Countries and Territories situated, lying and being in that part of America called Virginia, from the Point of Land called Cape or Point Comfort, all along the Sea Coast to the Northward 200 miles, and from said Point of Cape Comfort, all along the Sea Coast to the Southward 200 miles, and all that space and circuit of Land, lying from the Sea Coast of the Present aforesaid, up into the land, throughout from Sea to Sea, West and Northwest, and all the islands lying within 100 miles along the coast of both Seas of the Precinct aforesaid." This extended the territory of Virginia to the Pacific Ocean, and to the Great Lakes. LTpon its reorganization the company selected Sir Thomas Smith, a prominent London merchant, for treasurer of the corpora- tion, and Thomas West (Lord Delaware) for governor of Virginia. Smith and Lord Delaware were both men of very fine character, and their appointment to these high executive offices bespoke better and Southwest Virginia 117 days for the Jamestown colony. As soon as the new cliarter was secured steps were taken to organize another expedition; and some 500 persons, men, women, and children, were induced to cross the ocean and become settlers in Virginia. A fleet of nine vessels, with ample supplies, was assembled, and Captain Newport, the able mariner, was placed in charge. He sailed with his fleet from Eng- and in June, 1609. and in August the Third Supply, 300 or more persons, reached Jamestown. The balance of the emigrants were on the ship Sea Venture, along with Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers, wlio were sent out b}' the company to give personal supervision to the colony. Their vessel was separated from the balance of the fleet and was wrecked by a storm on the coast of the Bermuda Islands. This part of the expedition had to remain in the Bermudas for nearly a year. They built small vessels and suc- ceeded in getting to Jamestown on May 10th, 1610. The failure of Gates and Somers to reach Jamestown with the main part of the expedition left the control of the colony in the hands of Captain Smith. He soon found out that the newly arrived emigrants were very much inferior to the former ones, of whose quality he had complained to the London Company. The new- comers were largely of the shiftless vagabond class, whom Smith described as "imruly gallants packed thither by their friends to escape ill destenies." President Smith had never approved of the Jamestown site for the colony, because of its unhealthy, marshy surroundings; and he determined to hunt a better situation. With this end in view, hu sailed up the James to the Indian village called Powhatan, and purchased from the Powhatan tribe a tract of land close to where the city of Richmond now stands. Because of its beautiful and pleasant location he named the place "Nonesuch". While he was returning to Jamestown, Smith was severely injured by the accir dental explosion of a bag of gunpowder. The wounds he received were so severe that he was compelled to go to England for surgical treatment, and early in October he sailed on the home voyage; and this severed finally his official connection with the first Virginia colony. Smith left George Percy in command, but that gallant gentleman did not liave the executive ability or the qualities of leadership needed to control the 500 colonists, most of whom were unruly vagabonds. Trouble arose with the Indians and the red men slew the settlers at every opportunity. The disreputable 118 History of Tazewell County Ratcliffe and thirty of his associates were killed at one time while on a trading visit to the Pamunkey village. When winter came on more cabins were needed, but the men were too worthless to build them, and some of the colonists died from exposure. Then, what was afterwards called "The Starving Time" came on. The supply of food became exhausted, Percy was sick, Smith was in England, and famine, in most horrid form, took pos- session of the settlement. For a short time the people subsisted on herbs and roots. Then they resorted to the horrible practice of cannibalism. A slain Indian was boiled and eaten, and starving men began to cook and eat their own dead. One brute killed his wife, salted her down, and had eaten a part of her body when his fiendish act was discovered, and he was burned at the stake by outraged though starving citizens. McDonald in his "Life in Old Virginia," says: "Smith left in Virginia three ships and seven boats, a supply of commodities ready for trade with the Indians, a goodly supply of corn newly gathered, provisions in store for the colony, three hundred muskets with other arms and ammunition, nets for fishing, tools of all sorts for work, apparel to supply their wants, six mares and a horse, more than five hundred hogs, as many hens and cliickens and some sheep and goats." It is almost incredible that nearly five hundred persons could have been gathered together from any part of the world, and espec- ially from England, as incapable and helpless as these colonists. There were four hundred and ninety persons in the colony when Captain Smith left in October, 1610; and when Gates and Somers arrived in May, IGll, only sixty were left. Vice, sickness, indolence, and famine had accomplished their deadly work; and if relief had been delayed a few days longer there would have been none left to tell the deplorable fate of the settlement. Gates and Somers were struck with horror by the conditions they found, and readily con- sented to take the miserable people back to England. Tearfully the captains realized that Virginia must be abandoned, and they got the people aboard their small vessels, with the intention of sailing to the coast of Newfoundland, to get a supply of fish, and then cross the ocean to England. On the 7th of June they dropped with the tide down James River and spent the night at Mulberry Island The next morning anchors were weighed and the expedition started again on the homeward journey; but at noon, when they were and Southwest Virginia 119 entering Hampton Roads, they discovered in the distance a small boat approaching. It proved to be the longboat of Lord Delaware, who was coming to take up his work as the first governor of Vir- ginia. He had with him three ships well stocked with supplies, and the colonists were easily persuaded to return to Jamestown and resume the effort to make a permanent settlement in Virginia. On the morning of the 8th they were landed at the desolate place so recently deserted; and Lord Delaware fell upon his knees, raised his hands toward heaven and devoutly thanked God for permitting him to reach Virginia in time to save the life of the colony. The first act of Lord Delaware upon landing was to have a religious service held. After a sermon had been preached, the governor read his commission and made a speech to all the people, in which he censured the old settlers for their vanities and idleness, and gave them to understand that under his administration the vicious and slothful would receive no mercy. He put the men to work building new fortifications and repairing the houses, and the little church was made neat and attractive again. A bell was hung at a convenient point, to take the place of a clock, and was rung to regulate the hours of work ; and system and order were established in the settlement. The winter of 1610-11 was in many respects a hard one for the colony, but was not as severe as the previous one. Still, about 150 of the settlers died during the winter, and Lord Delaware's health was so greatly impaired that he was compelled to return to England. For a short time George Percy was again left in command. Captain Newport made another trip to the colony in March, this time bringing 300 emigrants who were more shift- less and worthless than any of the previous supplies. Sir Thomas Gates was appointed deputy governor, but for some reason could not at that time come to Jamestown ; and Sir Thomas Dale, with the title of High Marshal of Virginia, was sent over to take charge. For the next five years Dale ruled the colony. Lord Delaware, the governor, remaining in England during the time. The High Marshal proved himself well suited for the task given him. By his great energy, indomitable will and splendid common sense, he brought order out of chaos, and put the Virginia colony once more on the road to permanency. When he reached Jamestown he found the men idling away their time playing games, instead of planting and cultivating the soil. A severe code of laws was immediately prepared and put in force to stay the idle and vicious dispositions of the men; and a number of offenses were punished with death. A 120 History of Tazewell County plot to overthrow and kill Dale was formed by Jeffrey Abbot and other desperate characters. The plot was discovered and Abbot and four of his companions were executed. In the fall of 1611, six months after Dale took charge, another supply of settlers was brought over, and the colony then numbered about eight hundred persons. A good stock of cows, oxen and goats was also added to the increasing resources of the colony. The idea of expansion from the Jamestown colony followed, and a settlement was made at tlie mouth of James River where the present town of Hampton is now located. This is the oldest continuous settlement, save two, in the United States, St. Augustine, Florida, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. It seems that Sir Thomas Dale thought, as did Captain Smith, that a more favorable site should be selected for the colony. So believ- ing, he selected the Dutch Gap peninsula farther up the James and built a town there. He called the place Henricus, after the then Prince of Wales, and erected fortifications and houses for three hundred persons. Other settlements wei*e made at Bermuda and Shirley Hundreds on James River, and at Dale's Gift near Cape Charles on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. The establishment of these new settlements was "a strong assurance that the colonization of Virginia had become permanent. The London Company applied to King James for a new charter, and on the 12th of March, 1612, it was granted by the king, and is known as the Third Charter. The company wanted to get posses- sion of the Bermuda Islands and to secure for its members fuller and more direct management of the affairs of the corporation ; and these two things as well as many others of importance were secured by the Third Charter. In this same year another important event in the history of Virginia occurred, it being the marriage of John Rolfe, the English gentleman, to Pocahontas, the uneducated Indian girl, the daugliter of Powhatan. Rolfe and his English wife were among the emigrants who were cast on the Bermuda Islands when the Sea Venture was wrecked on the coast of those islands. They came from the Bermudas to Jamestown with Gates and Somers in May, 1610. Soon after they arrived in Virginia, Mrs. Rolfe died; and later on her widowed husband became the lover of the dusky Indian girl, who had been made a captive by Captain Argall and held as such at Jamestown. Rolfe did not wish to marry a heathen; and Pocahontas was baptized into the Christian faith and given the Bible name, Rebekah. The marriage was celebrated in the church and Southwest Virginia 121 at Jamestown, and witnessed by a mixed company of Indians and Englishmen. It is said that Rolfe was the first Englishman who cultivated tobacco for commercial purposes. He and his Indian wife went to England in 1616 in the same vessel with Sir Thomas Dale after he vacated the office of High Marshal of Virginia. Pocahontas became a popular society rage in London, where she was entertained and banqueted by English royalty and nobility. In 1617, when Argall was appointed deputy governor of Virginia, Rolfe was made secretary for the colony. On the eve of his sailing for Vir- ginia, Pocahontas became suddenly ill and died at Gravesend, and was buried in the parish church at that place. She had one child, Thomas Rolfe, who remained in England with an uncle until he attained his manhood. He then came to Virginia and settled per- manently, and became the ancestor of some of the most prominent families in the State. In 1616 George Yeardley was in Virginia as deputy governor, and succeeded Sir Thomas Gates as acting governor; and adminis- tered the affairs of the colony until Captain Samuel Argall was appointed deputy governor in 1617. Argall's -administration was brief and very unsatisfactory. He ruled with as much severity as his predecessor. Dale, but his condu.'t of the office was unscrupulous and dishonest. After serving one year, Argall was recalled by the company, and Lord Delaware was directed to again take personal charge of the colony. Delaware sailed from England in the spring of 1618 to resume his duties as governor. He was accompanied by 200 emigrants and traveled by way of the Azores. While they were making a short stay at St. Michael Island, Lord Delaware and thirty of his companion voyagers became violently ill and died. There was a strong suspicion that they were poisoned by the Span- iards who entertained them at St. Michael's. Up to 1612, no member of the colony was permitted to enjoy private ownership of land. Sir Thomas Dale then became con- vinced that the community system, which had been enforced since the founding of the colony, had proved the principal cause of the suffering from starvation, in that it discouraged the industrious and encouraged the lazy in their indolent habits. Acting upon tb'' belief, he made distribution of small portions of land to each settler to work for his own benefit, but required that a certain portion of the products sliould be turned into a general store to be used for the common benefit in an emeraencv. 122 History of Tazewell County George Yeardley was knighted and appointed governor of Vir- ginia to succeed Lord Delaware. In lol9 the colony had increased to 2.000 persons; and the people demanded that they should be accorded local self-government, and the request was granted. Gov- ernor Yeardley was directed to issue writs for the election of a General Assembly in Virginia. Writs were issued for an election of representatives from eleven local constituencies or boroughs, which were designated as City, Plantation, and Hundred; and each con- stituency was given two representatives, who were called burgesses. This gave the name, House of Burgesses, to the Assembly, whicli name continued in use from 1619 until the Revolutionary War in 1776. The eleven boroughs that sent representatives were James City, Charles City, the City of Henricus, Martin Brandon, Martin's Hundred, Lawne's Plantation, Ward's Plantation, Argall's Gift, Flowerdien Hundred, Smith's Hundred, and Kecoughtan. Soon after- wards the name of Smith's Hundred was changed to Southampton Hundred and Kecoughtan was changed to Hampton. The assembly, in addition to the twenty-two elective members, had an upper house, which was composed of the governor, deputy governor and an assist- ant council, and altogether they constituted a General Assembly. The body was invested with both legislative and judicial functions and had full authority for legislating for the colony ; but its acts had to be approved by the General Court of the London Company before they were enforced. On July the 30th, 1619, the General Assembly of Virginia met for organization and business in the church at Jamestown, and was the first legislature that assembled in the English colonies of America. During the year 1619, other events of importance affecting the future of the colony and Virginia occurred. One of these was the introduction of African slaves, which came soon after the right of local self-government had been accorded the colony, and a short time after the first sitting of the General Assembly. John Rolfe. who was then secretary of the colony, said: "About the last of August there came in a Dutchman of warre that sold us twenty negars." Five years later a census showed that there were only twenty-two negroes in the colony, and the increase of slaves came very slowly in Virginia. The next most important event was the bringing of a ship-load of young women-spinsters, selected with care as to character and in charge of matrons, to become wives for the unmarried men who and Southwest Virginia 123 were greatly in the majority in the colony. These young women were left free to select their own husbands^ and had no trouble finding plenty of suitors; but no accepted suitor could marry his girl until he had paid the company 120 pounds of tobacco to cover the expense of transporting her to Virginia. This matrimonial experiment resulted so happily that the practice of bringing over wives for the bachelors was continued; and the following year "Sixty young maids of virtuous education, young, handsome, and well recommended", were imported. This resulted in the estab- lishing of many pleasant homes, and naturally increased immigra- tion. In 1622 the population had become four thousand, the culti- vation of tobacco had been made an important and profitable industry, domestic ties were strengthened, habits of thrift super- seded the indolent and wasteful customs that had prevailed, and cheerful comfort chased away the gloom and squalor that threatened the life of the colony. Other incidents of importance in this eventful year of the colony occurred. A college was established in Henrico for the purpose of educating and converting the native children to Christianity. King James, through the various Bishops of England, collected a fund of fifteen thousand pounds for endowing the institution; and the London Company donated 10,000 acres of land to enlarge the design of the college by providing for the education of the white children of the colony. Cordial relations had existed between the Indians and colonists for several years previous to 1622. Powhatan died in 1618, and was succeeded as head-chief of the confederacy by his brother Opechancanough. The latter was never friendly to the whites, but had been held in restraint by Powhatan. Early in 1622 Opechan- canough secretly planned the destruction of the colony. He and his people had become very restless and resentful as they witnessed the growing streng-th of the colony and saw the best lands of the Indians appropriated by the white settlers. An Indian chief, to whom the English had given the name of Jack of the Feather, killed one of the colonists, and he was killed by the whites in requital. Opechancanough and his associates then formed a con- spiracy to destroy the entire colony on a certain day. On the 22nd of March, 1622, the Indians made a concerted attack upon the colonists, and killed 347 persons. The red men failed to accom- plish their fell purpose, as two thousand five hundred persons were saved from the general massacre. However, the colonists were so 124 History of Tazewell County fearful of another attack that they abandoned seventy-two of their plantations and huddled together on eight. They also abandoned their college and their infant manufacturing establishments, and confined their cultivation of tlie soil to such a limited area that enoug]) food could not be produced to support the people. Again much sickness and want prevailed in the cokmy. But the London Company came to the partial relief of the colony by sending over supplies of food, and King James sent them a lot of old muskets. In a short while the colonists recovered from their panic, and sent a military expedition of three hundred men to punish the Indians for the brutal massacre of the settlers. The natives fled from their homes on the approach of the avenging expedition, taking with them most of their corn; but the whites destroyed many of their villages and a great deal of their property. At the following ses- sion of the General Assembly a law was enacted which directed that at the beginning of the next July the inhabitants should attack and kill all savages in their respective neighborhoods. Tiiis war of extermination, or driving back of the natives to the wild forests, was continued without intermission until a peace was concluded with the Indians in 1G32. By the provisions of this treaty the whites retained all the habitations and cleared lands they had taken from the natives, who were forced to take refuge in the forests and marshes. In 1623 the London Company realized that the affairs of the colony had not been successfully managed, and sought to correct the management by a reorganization of the corporation. During the sixteen preceding years ten thousand persons had been trans- ported to Virginia and only a little more than two thousand remained after the massacre by the Indians. From a business standpoint the colony had proved a decided failure, as the annual exjDorts amounted to no more than one hundred thousand dollars. King James, who was greatly displeased with the liberal democratic government the company had given the colonists, determined to annul the charter and establish a royal government in Virginia. His plans to this end were carried out through the employment of five commissioners, who were sent to Jamestown to investigate the management of the colony from the time the first settlement was made. These commissioners were appointed b)'^ the king, and were: John Harvey, John Pory, Abraham Piersey, Samuel Matthews and John Jefferson. They were instructed: "To make more particular and diligent inquiry touching divers matters, which concerned the state of Virginia; and and Southwest Virginia 125 in order to facilitate the inquiry, the governor and council of Vir- ginia were ordered to assist the commissioners, in this scrutiny, by all their knowledge and influence." Thus began the artful scheme of the crafty king to take from the Virginia colony its right of self -government. The commissioners, as appointed, came to Jamestown and tried to get the General Assembly to petition the king for a revocation of the charter of the company. Failing to secure the petition from the General Assembly, the commissioners returned to England and made a false and defamatory report as to existing conditions in Vir- ginia. To this report the General Assembly made a spirited denial and drafted a petition to the king in which it was prayed, "that the governors may not have absolute power, and that they might still retain the liberty of popular assemblies, than which, nothing could more conduce to the public satisfaction and public utility." This petition, however, never reached King James, as Mr. Pountis, a member of the Colonial Council, to whose care it was entrusted, died while on his passage to England to deliver it to the king. The king instituted quo warranto proceedings in the King's Bench for the purpose of divesting the London Company of its corporate privi- leges and powers, and for the dissolution of the company. The cause was tried at the Trinit)^ Term of the court in 1624, and all the demands of King James were granted by a decree of Lord Chief Justice Ley, who was a mei'e creature of the king. Dissolu- tion of the company occasioned very little change in the government of the colony. A committee was appointed by the king to exercise the functions previously performed by the London Company. Sir Francis Wyatt was reappointed governor, and he and his council were empowered to govern the colony "as fully and amply as any governor and council resident there, at any time within the space of five years last past". Strange to relate. King James refused to appoint as members of the new council for Virginia any of the extreme partisans of his court faction, but selected men of conserva- tive views for the government of the colony. The dissolution of the London Company did not weaken the colony, but upon the contrary strengthened it by making it more self-reliant and independent in action. Factional fights for its control by antagonistic leaders of the company had been contin- uous from the date of the first settlement at Jamestown ; and the selection of incapable, and in some instances very corrupt, men to administer its affairs had greatly retarded its success. At first the 126 History of Tazewell County colonists were greatly alarmed by the dissolution of the company, fearing that it might take from them their House of Burgesses and deprive them of the already cherished form of representative self- government. The General Assembly was invested with both legisla- tive and judicial authority and had not failed to exercise freely these important functions. Fiske, in "Old Virginia and her Neigh- bors", writes very interestingly a,bout the first American legislative body ; and among other things says : "The place of meeting was the wooden church at Jamestown, 60 feet in length by 20 in width, built in 1619, for Lord Delaware's church had become dilapidated; a solid brick church, 56 by 28, was built there in 1639. From the dijfTerent plantations and hundreds the burgesses came mostly in their barges or sloops to Jamestown. In 1634 the colony was organized into counties and parishes, and the burgesses thenceforth represented counties, but they always kept their old title. At first the governor, council, and burgesses met together in a single assembly, just as in Massachusetts until 1644, just as in England the Lords and Commons usually sat together before 1339. A member of this Virginia parliament must take his breakfast of bacon and hoe-cake betimes, for the meeting was called at the third beat of the drum, one hour after sunrise. The sessions were always opened with prayers, and every absence from this service was punished with a fine of one shilling. The fine for absence during the whole day was half a crown. In the choir of the church sat the governor and council, their coats trimmed with gold lace. By the statute of 1621, passed in this very church, no one was allowed to wear gold lace, except these high officials and the commanders of hundreds, a class of dignitaries who in 1634 were succeeded by the county lieutenants. In the body of the church, facing the choir, sat the burgesses in their best attire, with starched ruffs, and coats of silk or velvet in bright colours. All sat with their hats on, in imitation of the time-honoured custom of the House of Commons, an early illustration of the democratic doctrine, 'I am as good as you'. These burgesses had their speaker, as well as their clerk and sergeant-at-arms. * * * From sweep- ing principles of constitutional law down to the pettiest sumptuary edicts, there was nothing which this little parliament did not super- intend and direct." During the first years of its existence the House of Burgesses. in the exercise of its very ample powers, enacted a number of and Southwest Virginia 127 peculiar laws. Some of these laws were fundamentally sound, some were absurd in their intendment, and others sharply in conflict with the principles of democratic government, toward which the colony, even in its early life, seemed to be traveling. The tax question was then, comparatively, as momentous as it is today with the average citizen and the aspiring politician. One of the first acts of the Gen- eral Assembly, which was passed without a dissenting voice, was a declaration, "that the governor shall not lay any taxes or imposi- tions upon the colony, their lands or commodities, otherway than by the authority of the general assembly, to be levied and employed as the said assembly shall appoint." This was a wise protection of the functions of the legislative branch of the government from encroachments by the executive branch thereof. Moved by a humane and philanthropic spirit, the assembly passed a law looking to the conversion and education of the young savages. The act provided for the procurement from each borough of a cer- tain number of Indian children to be educated "in true religion and a civil course of life; of which children the most towardly boys in wit and graces of nature are to be brought up by them in the first elements of literature, so as to be fitted for the college intended for them, that from thence they may be sent to that work of conversion." This was conforming to the scheme of 1619 for establishing a col- lege in Henrico for the Indians, to which enterprise the Bishops of England had contributed fifteen thousand pounds and the London Company 10,000 acres of land; and was completely at variance with the laws passed by the assembly, after the frightful massacre of 1622, encouraging the extermination of the Indians. Very rigid laws were enacted to prevent drimkenness, forbidding extravagance in dress, and to suppress flirting, the latter being con- sidered a very grave social crime. For the first offence, a drunkard was privately reproved by the minister; the second time he was publicly admonished; for the third offence he was put in irons and made to pay a heavy fine; and for subsequent violations of the statute he was placed at the mercy of the governor and the council, who were to punish him severely in their discretion. Extravagance in dress was made a misdemeanor, for which an unmarried man was taxed for public purposes "according to his own apparel," and a married man "according to his own and his wife's apparel." In these days, when women have acquired the right to vote in many of the States of the Union, with the prospect of soon obtaining the exercise of suffrage in every State, the average male legislator would 128 History of Tazewell County be slow in voting for a measure to regulate the dress of women, but would hastily cast himself in the midst of the great temperance wave that is sweeping over our country and the entire civilized world. The law against flirting declared that "'every minister should give notice in his church that what man or woman soever should use any word or speech tending to a contract of marriage to two several persons at one time * * * as might entangle or breed scruples in their consciences, should for such their offenses either undergo corporal correction (by whipping) or be punished by fine or other- wise, according to the quality of the person so offending." Possibly this law was suited to the times, but it would now be regarded as a disgrace to any civilized community; and the act was particularly obnoxious for the reason that the punishment to be inflicted was measured "according to the quality of the person so offending." The common folks were to be whipped and the gentle people were to be fined. To say anything offensive about the governor or a member of the council was a misdemeanor, for which the offender was placed in the pillory. The planters were not allowed to sell any part of their tobacco crops until they had put aside a certain portion for the minister's salary. There was a law which said "No man shall disparage a mynister whereby the myndes of his parishioners may be alienated from him and his mynistrie prove less effectuall upon payne of seveere censure of the governor and councell." From the class of "mynisters", then inflicted upon the colony it would seem that they were worthy subjects for disparaging remarks. At least the General Assemblj'^ must have thought so, as it was necessary for that august body to give warning to the clergyman by a statute which said: "Mynisters shall not give themselves to excess in drink- ing or ryote, spending their time idelie by day or night jjlaying at dice, cards, or any unlawfull game." Evidently the "mynisters" were more at home in the tavern or at the gambling ta])le than in the pulpit. In recent years there lias been much controversy over the ques- tion of government regulation of the sale of food products and other articles. The General Assembly of the Virginia colony exercised that power without its authority to do so being questioned. A law was made fixing retail prices for wines and other liquors. The preambk of the act said: "Wliereas there hath been great abuse by the unreasonable rates enacted by ordinary keepers, and retaylers of wine and strong waters", and the assembly proceeded to fix and Southwest Virginia 129 maximum prices for these commodities. The penalty for a violation of the law was a fine of double the rate charged by the venders. The House of Burgesses also passed a very stringent law to suppress the speculators^ or as they were then called "forestallers", in foodstuffs and other necessary articles. The act said: "Wliat- soever person or persons shall buy or cause to be bought any mar- chandize^ victualls^ or any other thinge^ comminge by land or water to markett to be sold or make any bargaine, contract or promise for the haveinge or buyinge of the same * * * before the said marchandize^ victualls, or other thinge shall be at the markett readie to be sold; or make any motion by word, letter or message or otherwise to any person or persons for the enhansing of the price or dearer sellinge of any thinge or thinges above mentioned^ or else disswade, move or stirr any person or persons cominge to the mar- kett as aforesaydj shall be deemed and adjudged a forestaller. And if any person or persons shall offend in the thinges before recited and being thereof duly convicted or attaynted shall for his or theire first offence suffer imprisonment by the space of two monthes with- out baile or maineprize, and shall also loose and forfeite the value of the goods so by him or them bought or had as aforesayed; and for the second offence * * * shall suffer imprisonment by the space of one halfe yeare * * * shall loose the double value of all goods * * * soe bought * * * and for the third offence * * * sliall be set on the pilorie * * * and loose and forfeit all the goods and chattels that he or they then have to their owne use^ and also be committed to prison^ there to remayne duringe the Governors pleasure." This act was very drastic but not too severe. It was directed, against monsters concealed in human forms, vampires who dared to call themselves men. but who did not scruple to sacrifice the comfort and life of men, women, and children to gratify their greed of gold. The greatest present menace to the life and happiness of the American people comes from "forestallers" — speculators and extor- tioners — who infest our land, and who are plying their wretched trade, despite any feeble endeavor made by the Federal and State governments to fasten punishment upon them. It would be well for the suffering public if the Old Virginia House of Burgesses could return to exercise its legislative functions and supply the Congress of the United States with quaint but effective laws to suppress the worst of criminals. T.H.-9 130 History of Tazewell County CHAPTER IV. FROM DEATH OF JAMES I TO 1676. On the 27th of March^ 1625^ King James I. died, after an unpopular reign of twenty-two years. He was succeeded by his son, Cliarles I., who had no more regard for the political rights and privileges of the Virginia colonists than he showed for his subjects in England. But the General Assembly, when informed of the death of King James, sent Sir George Yeardley, then a member of the council, as an envoy to England to present their respects to King Charles ; and to give him assurance that the Virginians were satis- fied with the government his father had given them. The request was presented that no change be made in their very liberal form of government; and in 1626 Sir George Yeardley was appointed gov- ernor of Virginia, which satisfied the colonists that their request had been favorably received by their sovereign. All through his reign of twenty-five years, Charles M^as involved in such bitter strife with Parliament and his Scotch and English subjects that he could give but little attention to the Virginia colony. Within a period of twenty years the colony had three forms of government. When the settlement was first made at Jamestown its nature was that of a Proprietary Government, and it so remained until the second charter was obtained in 1609 by the London Com- pany. It then became a Corporation, and continued as such under tlie third charter until the company was dissolved by a decree of the Court of King's Bench in 162'i, when it was made a Royal Province. Soon after ascending the throne, Charles I. appointed William Claiborne secretary of state for the colon}'-, and in Clai- borne's commission designated it "Our Kingdom of Virginia." It may be gratifying to some Virginians of tliis day, wlio are charmed with royalty and the degenerate European nobility, to know that for about a quarter of a century Virginia was recognized as a Kingdom by an English monarch. The administration of justice when the colony was first estab- lished was lodged with the president and council; and after a governor was substituted for the president all judicial authority was vested in the governor and his council. Tliis was a very dangerous power to place with a single man, who might prove himself either a knave or a fool and trample upon justice, ratlier than uphold and vindicate the rights of the people. In 1628-29, commissions were and Southwest Virginia 131 issued to justices or magistrates to hold montlilj^ courts in each of the boroughs or hundreds. These courts were the origin of the old county courts that administered justice in the counties of Virginia until the Constitution of 1870 was put in operation. From "Acts made by the Grand Assemblie Holden at James City the 21st. August, 1633," we find that the colony had then so extended its limits and had become so permanently planted as to require the establishment of a county or shire system of government. Consequently an Act was passed by the "Grand Assemblie", creat- ing eight shires and they were given the following names : James City;, Henrico, Charles City, Elizabeth City, Warwick River, War- rosquyoak, Charles River, Accawmack. These shires were to be organized and governed in the same manner as the shires in Eng- land; and they were subsequently designated and conducted as coun- ties. Their original boundaries cannot be ascertained, despite the most diligent researches of archivists and historians. But their location is known from the counties that now bear the same name, to-wit: James City, Henrico, Charles City, Elizabeth City, Warwick, York (Charles River) arid Accomac. At a Grand Assemblie, Holden at James City, the 2nd daj' of March 1642-3, the following act was passed: "Be it further enacted and confirmed that the plantation and county knowne now by the name of Acomack shall be knowne and called by the county of Northampton. It is likewise enacted and confirmed that Charles River County shall be distinguished by this name (County of York). And that Warwick River shall be called the County of Warwick." From that time all counties in Virginia were created by special acts of the General Assembly^ Early in 1642 Sir William Berkeley was appointed governor of Virginia by Charles I. About the same time the London Company sought to regain control of the colony by a petition directed to Parliament. The General Assembly met and made a strong protest against the restoration of the company, avowing that control by the corporation would be very detrimental to the welfare of the colony. Speaking of the written protest sent by the assembly to the king, Howe, in his History of Virginia, says: "This paper is drawn with great ability, and sets forth the objections to the peti- tion in very strong and striking terms. They enlarge especially upon the wish and the power of the company to monopolize their trade ; the advantage and happiness secured to them by their present form of government, with its annual assemblies and trial by jury; the fact, that a restitution of the power of the company would be an admission of the illegality of the king's authority, and a consequent 132 History of Tazewell ( 'ount v nullification of the grants and commissions; and the impossibility of men, however wise, at such a distance, and unacquainted with the climate or condition of the country, to govern the colony as well as it could be governed by their own Grand Assembly." The king was so favorably impressed with the spirit and force of the i^rotest that he refnsed to consent to any change in the form of government that had brought so much happiness to the colonists. The above shows all that remains of the city of Jamestown — the mined tower of the brick church built in 1639. In Hit! the colony suffered from another massacre by the Indians. Tlic natives had been driven away from their homes on tlie borders of the rivers in the tidewater section, where the lands were fertile and easily tilled, and were forced to struggle for a precarious existence in the highlands, where the soil was thin. They had been greatly reduced in numbers by the policy of extermination which the House of Burgesses had inaugurated shortly after the dreadful massacre of 1622. Those who had fled to the interior for safety had become more skilled in warfare, and were made desperate bv the continued encroachments of the settlers, who were forcing and Southwest Virginia 133 them still further away from the homes they and their fathers had occupied so happily for many years. Opechancanough^ Powhatan's brother and successor, had grown so old that he had to be carried about on a litter, and he was so weak tliat he could not raise liis eyelids without assistance; but his mental faculties were so well preserved that he was able to gather all the tribes of the confederacy together, without being discovered, and make a concerted attack on the colonists. On the 18th of April, IGl^, the day appointed for the massacre, the Indians made their attack on the frontier settle- ments and killed three hundred persons. Owing to their greatly reduced number of warriors and the increased number of the colonists, the strength of the hostile Indians was soon broken. Recalling the terrible reprisals tlie whites had made upon them fol- lowing the massacre of 1622, the natives fled in dismay to the rernote thick forests. Opechancanough was made a captive by Sir William Berkeley, who had run the Indians down with a squadron of cavalry. The old chief was imprisoned at Jamestown, where he was brutally murdered by a cowardly soldier who was guarding him. Soon after this deplorable incident Governor Berkeley sailed for England, where he remained for a year, and upon his return to Jamestown he negotiated a treaty in 1646 with Necotowance, who had succeeded Opechancanough as chief of the remnant of the Powhatan Confed- eracy. The Indians made a complete submission to the whites and ceded such lands as were demanded. From that time, being at peace with the natives, with an abundance of fertile lands, and free markets for their tobacco, the colony was very prosperous and grew rapidly. Their ports were visited by the ships of tlie leading com- mercial nations, and historians say that, "At Christmas 1648, there were trading in Virginia ten ships from London, two from Bristol, twelve Hollanders and seven from New England." The number of the colonists had grown to twenty thousand, but they were so much occupied with their own affairs that they could give but little attention to the bitter and bloody struggles that were taking place in England between the royalists and the Parliament. But when Charles I. was beheaded, in 1649, the Virginia Govern- ment recognized his son Charles II. as their sovereign; and "Vir- ginia was whole for monarchy, and the last country belonging to England that submitted to obedience to the commonwealth." Being struck with horror at the monstrous crime of the Parliament that had beheaded tlieir king, numbers of the nobility, gentry, and clergy fled from England and found generous welcome and safe asylum 134 History of Tazewell County in Vix-ginia, "Tlie mansion and the purse of Berkeley were open to all, and at the hosj)itable dwellings that were scattered along the rivers and among the wilds of Virginia, the Cavaliers, exiles like their monarch, met in frequent groups to recount their toils, to sigh over defeats, and to nourish loyalty and hope." Thus were tlie English Cavaliers introduced into Tidewater Virginia in such numbers as to win for the State in coming years the name of Land of the Cavaliers. Sir William Berkeley, in recognition of his loyalty, was recom- missioned governor b)^ Charles II. The fidelity of the Virginians to the royal cause was resented by Parliament; and the Council of State, of which Oliver Cromwell was the leading spirit, was ordered to take steps for bringing the rebellious colonies into obedience to the authority of the new republican English Government. Parlia- ment passed a law to j^revent foreign ships entering and trading at any of the ports "in Barbadoes, Antigua, Bermudas and Vir- ginia." This law would have practically destroyed the foreign trade of the colony ; but it M'as found so damaging to commerce that it was repealed before the authority of the Parliament was acknowledged in Virginia. The Virginians were so confident of their ability to defy the authority of Parliament that Governor Berkeley, speaking for the colonists, wrote to Charles II., then in exile at Breda, inviting him to come to Virginia and establish his Kingdom in America. Parliament determined to bring into subjection the colonies that were adhering to the royalists. A large fleet and a considerable number of soldiers were sent out to make the rebellious colonists acknowledge allegiance to the Commonwealth. The fleet sailed fii'st to Barbadoes and Antigua, and after bringing those two colonies into submission, unannounced, arrived at and anchored before Jamestown. Anticipating such a movement, Governor Berke- ley and the colonists had made preparations to resist the Common- wealth's military and naval expedition; but the commissioners sent by Parliament along with the fleet offered such fair and liberal terms that the Virginians accepted the proposed articles of surrender. So far as self-government was concerned the colony was placed in a better situation than it had ever occupied under the royal govern- ments. Sir William Berkeley, who remained a royalist in heart, declined to hold the governorship under the Parliament, and Richard Bennett, a Roundhead, and who was one of tiie Virginia Council, was elected and Southwest Virginia 135 governor. A council was also elected by the assembly^ with powers to conform to any instructions they might receive from the Parlia- ment. Bennett's conduct of the government was so honest and liberal that it was approved by both the colonists and the Parlia- ment; and when he retired from office in 1655, Edward Diggs was elected his successor. It is a notable fact that Cromwell never made any ajDpointments of officers for Virginia during his protec- torate; but encouraged the colony to become as nearly self-govern- ing as possible. On the 20th of April, 1653, Oliver Cromwell dissolved, or rather dispersed with his soldiers, the notorious Rump Parliament, and thence forward he became supreme ruler of England until his death in 1658. He grasped power and ignored the exasperating- assumptions of Parliaments, only because he sought to promote in the speediest and surest way the prosperity, happiness and glory of his country. Under his administration as Lord Protector, he proved himself England's greatest ruler. His home policies were liberal and just, ever looking to the elevation of the masses, while his foreign policies were of such a nature as to secure for England a more commanding position among other nations than she had ever occupied. Virginia, and all the English colonies in America, made wonderful progress under Cromwell's liberal and able rule. He died on September the 3rd, 1658, and was succeeded as Lord Protector by his son, Richard. The General Assembly of Virginia, after maturely considering the matter, recognized Richard Cromwell as their ruler. He was a man of mediocre intellect, idolent by nature, and entirely unqualified to occupy the position his father had filled with such distinction. During his feeble administration, which was for a little more than seven months, Virginia was left free to conduct her own affairs. The General Assembly had elected Samuel Matthews governor in 1658, and he died shortly after Richard Cromwell was removed as Lord Protector. Sir William Berkeley was re-elected governor in 1660, and the General Assembly by enactment declared "that the supreme power of the government of this country shall be resident in the assembly ; and all writs shall issue in its name until there shall arrive from England a commission, which the assembly itself shall adjudge to be lawful." This action was taken to prevent the governor from assuming authority to control the conduct of the General Assembly as Governor Matthews had previously attempted. After the death of Cromwell the desire of the Englisli people 136 History of Tazewdl County for a settled government lead to the restoration of the House of Stuart; and Charles II. returned to England, landing- at Dover on the 2(jtl) of May,. UifiO. He ascended the throne amid tlie joyful acclamations of the royalists, and for twenty-five years the profligate monarch gave his country the most disgraceful government it ever had to endure. Virginia promptly after the restoration announced allegiance to the new king; and one of his first acts in connection with the colony was to give recognition to Sir William Berkeley by re-appointing him govei-nor. Berkeley made himself as abnoxious to the colonists during his second term of ofiice as he had been popular with them when first serving as governor. It was largely due to his arbitrary and haughty conduct' that Bacon's Rebellion was brought about in 1676, which occurred just one hundred years before the Revolution. In fact, the more appropriate name for the uprising of Nathaniel Bacon and his fellow-colonists against the oppressions of the royal and local government is revolution. It was essentially a revolt against the despotic course of King Charles, supplemented by that of the local government. Virginia had reached a stage where she was content to have the protection but not the despotic control of England. Parliament had. by its commissioners, pledged a preservation of all the privileges and immunities the colony had acquired under the protectorates of Oliver Cromwell and his son Richard. There were a number of grievances that aroused popular discontent. One was the enactment of a navigation law which prohibited the colonists from trading with foreign countries, and requiring them to confine their trade exclusively to England. The object of this law was to enrich the English merchants and increase the revenues of the king, at the expense of the colony. This was an early manifestation of Eng- land's insatiable commercial greed; and it is as pronounced today as it was when Charles II. had his mean navigation act foisted upon the American colonies. A remonstrance against the outrageous measure was prepared and dispatched to King Charles. Failing to secure a repeal of the obnoxious measure, the colonists had the will and courage to trade with all foreign ships and merchants who were willing to take the risk of having their cargoes captured on the high seas by English cruisers. There were other grievances whic-h were even more potential for inciting revolt against the English and the Colonial govern- ments. These were burdensome and unequal taxation and arbitrary restrictions of the righi of siiffragr. The taxes were so le\ied as and Southwest Virginia 137 to bear heavily upon the poorer members of the colony; and by an act of the House of Burgesses, passed in 1670, the rights of suffrage and of membership in the legislature were restricted to freeholders. Speaking of these unjust and oppressive laws, Howe, in his inter- esting History of Virginia, says: "But these evils in domestic legislation were trivial, compared with those produced by the criminal prodigality of Charles, who wantonly made exorbitant grants to his favorites of large tracts of lands, without a knowledge of localities, and consequently without regard to the claims or even the settlements of others. To cap the climax of royal munificence, the gay monarcli, in, perhaps, a merry mood, granted to Lords Culpeper and Arlington the whole colony of Virginia, for thirty-one years, with privileges effectually royal as far as the colony was concerned, only reserving some mark of homage to himself. This might be considered at court, perhaps, as a small bounty to a favorite, but was taken in a very serious light by the forty thousand people thus unceremoniously transferred. The Assembly in its extravagance, only took from them a great proportion of their profits; but the king was filching their capital, their lands, and their homes, which they had inherited from their fathers, or laboriously acquired by their own strenuous exertion." 138 History of Tazewell County CHAPTER V. bacon's rebellion, and discovery of SHENANDOAH VALLEY. Nathaniel Bacon, then about twenty-eight years old, was living on his plantation on the James, near Curl's Wharf. He was an Englishman by birth and raising, had been educated as a lawyer, and had emigrated with his young wife to Virginia a few j^ears previous ; and had shown sueh talent that he had already been made a member of the Colonial Council. Bacon was a man of resolute purpose, fine personal appearance, and of republican convictions. The Susquehannock Indians, from Maryland and Delaware, who were of the Iroquoian stock, had been making incursions into Vir*- ginia and attacking exposed settlements. This had made Bacon very hostile to the Indians, and in a moment of anger he had declared: "If the redskins meddle with me, damn my blood but I'll •harry them, commission or no commission." Governor Berkeley' on the other hand was anxious to stay at peace with the Indians, and had announced that he would not give a commission to any one to march with an armed force against the savages. In May, 1676, tlie Indians made an attack upon Bacon's upper plantation, where Richmond is now located, and killed his overseer and one of his servants. When it became known at Curl's Wharf, the planters in the vicinity armed themselves and offered to accompany Bacon on an expedition against the Indians. He dispatched a messenger to Berkeley and requested a commission to lead the expeditionary force, and received from the governor an evasive answer. Bacon sent him a courteous note, thanking him for the commission, and without delay started with a mounted force of the planters to make war on the redskins. They had marched but a few miles when they were overtaken by a messenger with a proclamation from Governor Berkeley, commanding the party to disperse. A few of the men obeyed, but Bacon and the others continued tlieir march, came upon the Indians, and gave them a severe defeat. In tlie meantime Berkeley had started with a troop of cavalry in jDursuit of tlie Bacon party, but the governor was recalled to Jamestown by intelligence that the planters of the York peninsula were in revolt. Upon liis return to Jamestown, the governor dissolved the House of Burgesses, then in session, and issued writs for the election of a new assembly. Bacon became a candidate to rejircscnt and Southwest Virginia 139 Henrico County^ and he was elected by a heavy majority^ the people being in sympathy with his views on the several vital ques- tions then engaging the attention of the colony. When the time came for the assembling of the House of BurgesseS;, Bacon, with thirty followers, journeyed to Jamestown; and upon his arrival he was arrested by orders of the governor and taken before that digni- tary, who rebuked and then pardoned the yovmg rebel. In a spirit of compromise, Bacon was reluctantly induced to admit at the bar of the assembly that he had acted illegally in marching against the Indians without a commission from the governor ; wliei-eupon, Berke- ley extended his forgiveness to Bacon and all the men who had accompanied him on his expedition against the Indians. The General Assembly had not been long in session until a struggle began between that bod}^ and the governor, the latter demanding that the assembly confine its legislation exclusively to Indian affairs. But the assembly, defiantly and resolutely, went to work to relieve the people from the evils that had been oppressing them. They restored universal suffrage; repealed an odious law which exempted councillors and their families and the families of clergymen fi'om taxation; abolished trade monopolies; made pro- vision for a general insj)ection of jjublic expenses and the careful auditing of public accounts, and enacted a number of other reform measures. Nathaniel Bacon had been an active worker for reform legisla- tion, and had also made insistent application for a commission to resume hostilities against the unfriendly Indians, who continued to make depredations upon the outlying settlements. Tliese acts of the young patriot so angered Governor Berkeley that he not only refused to give Bacon a commission but made secret plans for his arrest and trial upon a charge of treason. Friends warned Bacon that his life would be endangered if he remained longer at James- town, and he secretly left that place in the night time. He repaired to his plantation at Curl's Wharf and organized a force of six hundred men. With this small but resolute band of followers he marched upon Jamestown; and on the afternoon of a sultry day in June halted his men on the green in front of the State House. With a small detail of soldiers he advanced to the door of the building in which the governor and council and the burgesses were then sitting. The governor, in a towering rage, presented himself at the door, and pulling open his lace shirt front to bare his bosom, cried out to Bacon: "Here I am! Shoot me! 'Fore God. a fair 140 History of Tazewell Count}' mark, a fair mark — shoot!" Bacon stood calm, and politely replied: "No, may it please your honor, we have not come to hurt a hair on j'our head or of any man's. We are come for a commission to save our lives from the Indians, which you have so often promised, and now we will have it before we go." It seems that Bacon's calmness was self-enforced, for as soon as Berkelej' retired with his council for a conference, the angry young rebel declared he would kill them all if the commission demanded was not forthcoming. His squad of ^s()]dicrs pointed their guns at the windows and shouted: "We will have it! We will have it!" In response to the cry of the soldiers, one of the members of the assembly waved from a window "a pacific handkercher" and called out, "You shall have it." The General Assembly prepared and gave Bacon a commission as general of an army, and also addressed a memorial to the king, setting forth the wrongs Bacon and his adherents were seeking to get rid of, and heartily commending the intrepid young patriot for the valuable services he had rendered the colony. On the following day the governor was constrained to affix his ajDproving signature to the commission and also to the memorial to the king. Governor Berkeley promptly issued a proclamation declaring Bacon and his associates rebels and traitors. He then went to Gloucester County, where he expected to find sufficient loyal senti- ment among the people to enable liim to cope with and suppress the Bacon rebellion. He found the sentiment in Gloucester as pronounced for the rebels as it was at Jamestown' and in other localities of the colony. The infuriated old man made his escape across Chesapeake Bay to Accomac. wliere he was protected by loyal supporters. When Bacon heard of the harsh proclamation of the governor, he was severely shocked by its accusations as to the purposes of himself and his followers. "It vexed him to the heart to think that while he was hunting Indian wolves, tigers and foxes, which daily destroyed our harmless sheep and lambs that he and those with him should be pursued with a full cry, as a more savage or a no less ravenous beast." He quit his hunt for the "Indian wolves" and hastily marched his men to Middle Plantation, the point where the historic city of Williamsburg was afterward located. One of his first acts was the issuance of a manifesto in reply to Berkeley's proclamation. Though written in the peculiarly stilted and obscure style then used by even the most highly educated men, it is an eloquent and fervid defence of the young leader and his com- and Southwest Virginia 141 panions against tlie acrimonious attacks of Governor Berkley. P'rom the original manuscript, which is still preserved in the British State Paper office, the following is quoted: "If virtue be a sin, if piety be guilt, all the principles of morality, goodness and justice be perverted, we must confess that those who are now Rebels may be in danger of those high imputa- tions. Those loud and several bulls would affright innocents, and render the defence of our brethren and the inquiry into our sad and heavy oppressions Treason. But if there be (as sure there is) a just God to appeal to, if religion and justice be a sanctuary here, if to plead the cause of the oppressed, if sincerely to aim at his Majesty's honour and the public good without any reservation or by-interest, if to stand in the gap after so much blood of our dear brethren bought and sold, if after the loss of a great part of his Majesty's colony deserted and dispeopled freely with our lives and estates to endeavour to save the remainders, be treason — God Almighty judge and let guilty die. But since we cannot in our hearts find one single spot of rebellion or treason, or that we have in any manner aimed at subverting the settled government or attempting of the person of any. either magistrate or private man. notwithstanding the several reproaches and threats of some who for sinister ends were disaffected to us and censured our innocent and honest designs, and since all people in all places where we have yet been can attest our civil, quiet, peaceable behaviour, far different from that of rebellious and tumultuous persons, let Truth be bold and all the world know the real foundations of pretended quiet. We appeal to the country itself, what and of what nature their oppressions have been, or by what cabal and mystery the designs of many of those whom we call great men have transacted and carried on. But let us trace these men in authority and favour to whose hands the dispensation of the country's wealth has been committed." This splendid protest of Nathaniel Bacon against the assump- tions and oppressions of a profligate king remained a glowing spark on the plains of Williamsburg for one hundred years ; and then burst forth into a consuming flame when George Mason presented to the Virginia fathers the greatest charter of human liberty ever penned by man, the Virginia Bill of Rights. Bacon sounded the first aeolian notes for American freedom ; and Mason and Jefferson caught up the strain, and in glorious, swelling, undying tones chanted it to an enslaved world. 142 History of Tazewell County The manifesto of Bacon was a protest against the oppressive and corrupt acts of the men in authority whom lie designated as "juggling parisites whose tottering fortunes liave been repaired at the public cliarge." Grave accusations were made against the official and personal conduct of Sir William Berkeley. He was charged with levying unjust taxes upon the common people for the benefit of his private favorites and for other sinister ends ; with failure to protect the colony by fortifications, and neglecting to advance its commercial interests. And he was also accused of bringing "the majesty of justice" into contempt by placing in judicial positions men who were "scandalous and ignorant fav- ourites." Another serious accusation was. that the governor had monopolized the beaver trade, and for the purpose of "that unjust gain," had "bartered and sold his Majesty's country and the lives of his loyal subjects to the barbarous heathen." The manifesto named nineteen of the most ])rominent men of the colony as Berke- ley's "wicked and pernicious councellors, aiders and assisters against the commonality in these our cruel commotions." Some of the names mentioned were those of Sir Henry Chicheley, Richard Lee, Robert Beverly and Nicholas Spencer. The paper closed with a demand that all the persons mentioned be arrested and placed in confinement at the Middle Plantation until further orders. On accoimt of their ajiparent truth, these charges were very galling to Berkeley, and sharpened his appetite for revenge upon his accusers. After he had promulgated his manifesto. Bacon called a con- vention of the most notable men identified with the rebellion to formulate plans for making it efTf'ective. The meeting was held at the Middle Plantation on the 3rd of August. 1676, and the con- vention declared the governorship was vacant because of the abdica- tion of Sir William Berkeley, and that the council should fill the vacancy until action could be taken by the king. Five members of the council also issued writs for the election of a new House of Burgesses. An agreement was drawn up which pledged the signers thereof to stand by and with Bacon until all the matters in dispute between Berkeley and the colonists could be pi'esented to and passed upon by King Charles. For a time some of the leaders refused to sign the paper, because they thought Bacon was going too far in his resistance to the authority of the king, though pro- fessions of loyalty to Chai'les II. were prominently set forth in the document. News was then received of renewed hostile attacks by and Southwest Virginia 143 the Indians; and this information removed the reluctance of those who had hesitated in signing the agreement. Bacon took his army across James River and marched to the town of the Appomattox tribe^ then located where Petersburg now stands^ and gave the Indians a crushing defeat. For several weeks the Indians were pursued in different localities^ the white men killings capturing and dispersing them. Bacon then sent an expedition of four armed vessels^ under command of Giles Bland^ to the Eastern Shore to arrest Governor Berkeley; but Bland and his entire party wex-e made captive by Berkeley through the treachery of the captain of one of the vessels. Bland was put in irons and one of the captains hanged, as a warning of Berkeley's intentions to the other leaders of the revolt. Berkeley then gathered an army of one thousand men, composed largely of the indentured servants of the planters who were with Bacon, promising these servants the estates of their masters if he succeeded in repressing the rebellion. With this motley force he sailed up the river and again took possession of Jamestown. At that time Bacon was at West Point with his armj^, and he immediately marched to Jamestown, and after a few days of desultory fighting forced the governor to flee again to Accomac. The town was then burned, Bacon declaring that it should no longer "Harbour the rouges," It was but a brief while thereafter when the rebellion was terminated by the death of Bacon. He had con- tracted the fever while besieging Jamestown, and died at the liome of a friend in Gloucester County. His remains were secretly buried, liis friends fearing that if Berkeley regained power he would take the body from the grave and hang it on a gibbet as Charles II., after his restoration, had treated the remains of Oliver Cromwell. A number of Bacon's followers surrendered, jDlacing themselves at the mercy of Berkeley ; and he lost no time in hunting down those who tried to conceal themselves. Colonel Thomas Hansford was captured by Robert Beverley. Hansford requested that he sliould be "shot like a soldier and not lianged like a dog", but Berkeley was thirsting for vengeance and Hansford was hanged, being made "the first martyr to American liberty." Berkeley then made pro- clamation of a general amnesty to all his enemies who would sur- render tlieir arms and restore the property they had taken from liis partisan supporters. Many of the revolutionists availed them- selves of these terms, only to find that the perfidious governor had taken this course to entrap them. Persecutions and jiroseciitions were begun against the most prominent men of the rebellion. Heavy 144 History of Tazewell County fines were imposed and large estates were confiscated for the pri- vate benefit of the governor and his minions. Twenty-three of the leaders were hanged without jury trials, a military coui't, acting under martial law, imposing the death penalty upon the victims at the dictation of Berkeley. Fortunately, commissioners had been sent from England to investigate the rebellion; and through their effort and at the protest of the General Assembly, Berkeley was prevailed upon to desist from liis prosecution of the offending colonists. The commissioners in their report of the trials that took place after their arrival gave severe condemnation to the governor and his subservient military court. They said: "We also observed some of the royal party, that sat on the bench with us at the trial to be so forward in impeaching, accusing, reviling, the prisoners at the bar, with that inveteracy, as if they had been the worst of witnesses, rather than justices of the commission, both accusing and condemning at the same time. This severe way of proceeding represented to the assembly, they voted an address to the governor, that he would desist from any further sanguinarj'^ punishments, for none could tell when or where it would terminate." Strange to tell, the two great-grandfathers of George Wash- ington were partisans of Governor Berkeley in his vindictive perse*- cutions of the patriots. They were John Washington and Colonel Augustine Warren. One hundred years thereafter George Wash- ington, their great-grandson, became the patriot military leader of the Virginians when they revolted against Governor Dunmore's attempted enforcement of the oppressive and unjust tax laws of George III. The despicable Berkeley was forced to return to England with the commissioners, where he found himself so scorned by his fellow-countrymen that he soon died from humiliation and shame. Some historians have been disposed to condemn Bacon and his associates for making their determined struggle for popular govern- ment, upon the theory that a majority of the wealthiest and most aristocratic citizens of the colony were opposed to the revolutionary movement. These aristocrats were averse to democratic ideas and popular government ; and were worshipers of monarchy and nobility, even when represented by such debased creatures as Charles II. and Sir William Bei-keley. This Cavalier element adhered to the doctrine that "society is most prosperous when a select portion of the community governs the whole." It is the same fatuous doctrine that in these days exudes from the narrow minds of certain political and Southwest Virginia 145 leaders who contend that those whom they call "the best people" shall rule; and that an oligareiiy is preferable to the form of popular government which Thomas Jefit'erson and Abraham Lincoln gave to their country. Made desperate by the oppressions of his people^ heaped upon them by a venal governor^ the young leader may on some occasions liave been too extreme in expression and in action, but his revolt was the first tragic manifestation of a yearning for personal and political freedom in Colonial America. The Bacon rebellion was of brief duration and was confined to a small territory, but its influence was far-reaching in connection with other English colonies in America. A number of persons who were connected with the Virginia rebellion fled to North Carolina to escape the persecutions of Governor Berkeley. They found the condition of affairs in that province very much like they had been in Vii'ginia. An obnoxious navigation act, coupled with excessive taxation, and "denial of a free election of an assembly" brought about an insurrection. It Avas led by John Culpeper, a prominent member of the colony, and he was valuably assisted by the refugees from Virginia. The royalists were as bitterly opposed to popular government in North Carolina as they had been in Virginia. The advocates of self-government were denounced by the royalists as meriting "hanging for endeavoring to set the poor people to plunder the rich." The government was then being conducted by Thomas Miller as president and secretary, and with the added authority of collecting the revenues ; and he had a council, as did the governor of Virginia. One of the counsellors joined in the rebellion, but the others, with Miller, were arrested and imprisoned. Culpeper and his associates refused to submit to the odious acts of Parliament, organized a representative popular government, and established courts of justice. The insurrectionists sent Culpejier and another planter to England to effect a compromise with the projDrietaries of the colony. After fulfilling his mission, Culpeper started to leave England, but was arrested at the instance of Miller. He was acquitted by an English jury for participating in the insurrection; and from that time the North Carolina colonists were left free to conduct their local affairs. The sixty-nine years that intervened between the landing of the colony at Jamestown and the insurrection lead by Nathaniel Bacon were pregnant with incidents that were tinged with romance, pathos, and tragedy. They were an appropriate sequel to the sad story of T.H. — 10 146 History of Tazewell County the lost Roanoke colony and little Virginia Dare. The small com- munitj' that had been planted on the Jamestown peninsula in 1607 had expanded until it occupied nearly the entire Tidewater Virginia. Beautiful estates^ many of them now historic^ were located along the borders of the James, the York and other rivers, and of the numerous inlets that dotted the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. Tlie population had grown to forty thousand souls, and enterprise and abundance had supplanted the slothfulness and destitution which had threatened to destroy the colony during the first years of its existence. The neighboring colonies, Carolina, Maryland, and Penn- sylvania, as well as those more remote. New York, and Massachu- setts, were also prospering and growing to such form as to fore- cast the need of a continental government for all of the colonies. From this time onward, until 1776, the trend of the American com- munities was in the direction of independent republican government. The thirty years following the Bacon rebellion were stamped with full assurance that the Virginia colony had reached a stage of permanency and stability. Many incidents occurred which showed that all the colonies were entering ujDon a period of revolu tion that was to culminate in the formation of a federal government. The year 1710 was an eventful one in the history of Virginia. In the month of June of that year Alexander Spottswood arrived from England to assume charge of the colon}^ as its governor. All historians affirm that he was the best and ablest of the colonial governors. He was descended from an old and distinguished Scottish family, and from his early boyhood had been a soldier in the English army. His valor and ability won for him the rank of colonel at the early age of twenty-eight; and he came to Virginia six years later with a reputation so exalted as to make his reception at Williamsburg, tJien the seat of government, most cordial by the leading citizens of the colony. He brought with him from P^ngland authority from the Parliament to extend to Virginians the privilege or right of habeas corpus, which had previously been denied them, though other Englishmen had enjoyed the sacred right for many yeax's. This one thing made Spottswood very popular with the people. In a short time after his arrival the new governor became involved in quarrels with the burgesses, occasioned by what he believed to be a lack of public spirit on their part and reluctance and Southwest Virginia 147 to provide revenue for the essential needs of the government. They refused to appropriate money to send armed assistance to the Carolina colonists who were hard pressed by the Indians and were appealing for help ; and plead the poverty of the colony as an excuse for their reprehensible conduct. Spottswood was so pro- voked that he sharply called the attention of the burgesses to the fact that they were greedily taking their pay as members of the assembly without enacting any laws that would be helpful to the colon}\ And in an address to the assembly he said: "To be plain with you, the true interest of your country is not what you have troubled your heads about. All your proceedings have been cal- culated to answer the notions of the ignorant populace; and if you can excuse yourselves to them, j^ou matter not how you stand before God, or any others to whom you think you owe not your elections. In fine, I cannot but attribute these miscarriages to the people's mistaken choice of a set of representatives whom Heaven has not * * * endowed with the ordinary qualifications requisite to legislators; and therefore I dissolve you." Commenting on the manner in which Governor Spottswood rebuked the dema- gogues and time-serving politicians of the assembly, the historian Fiske thus writes of the gallant and honorable gentleman: "In spite of this stinging tongue Spottswood was greatly liked and respected for his ability and honesty and his thoroughly good heart. He was a man sound in every fibre, clear-sighted, shrewd, immensely vigorous, and full of public spirit. One day we find him establishing Indian missions, the next he is undertaking to smelt iron and grow native wines ; the next he is sending out ships to exterminate the pirates. For his energy in establishing smelting furnaces he was nicknamed 'The Tubal Cain of Virginia'. For the making of native wines he brougjit over a colony of Germans from the Rhine, and settled them in the new county named for him Spottsylvania, hard by the Rapidan River, where Germanna Ford still preserves a reminiscence of their coming." Spottswood was governor from 1710 to 1723, and his adminis- tration was clean, able, and progressive. He introduced the English postal system into the colony, but for a time was antagonized in this movement by the burgesses. Tliey contended that the postal charges were a tax, and that Parliament had no right to lay such a tax upon the people without their consent, given through their representatives. 148 History of Tazewdl County More than a liundred years had passed since Captain Newport landed the first settlers at Jamestown ; and no concerted effort had been made by individuals or the government to explore and occupy that extensive region belonging to Virginia, lying beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains. The belief was still almost universal in the colony that the coast land from Virginia to Labrador was a narrow strip, like Central America, separating the Atlantic Ocean and the one that was known to wash the western shores of the continent. in the fall of 1(508, at the command of the London Company. Cap- tain Newport made an inefK'ectual effort to reach and pass over the mountains, with the confident hope of finding a "salt sea" not far beyond the Blue Ridge. From that time to the coming of Spotts- wood the settlers were content to confine themselves to the tidewater section, where there was an abundance of everything necessary for their comfort, and where their tobacco crops could be used as money in all commercial transactions. The settlements had been extended far enough to bring the mountains in view, but a strip of forest fifty miles wide still intervened between the frontier and the Blue Ridge. In 171b" the stalwart and energetic Spottswood determined to explore the region west of the mountains; and for that purpose organized an expedition composed of a number of gcjitlemen who were eager to accompany the governor. They took along a number of negro servants and some Indian guides, and a train of pack- horses laden with supplies, including an abundance of native and imported wines and liquors. The gay Cavaliers assembled at Germanna, and traveled thence up the Rapi)ahannock River and its tributaries until the mountains wei*e reached. They crossed the Blue Ridge at Swift Run Gap, and entered the great Shenandoah Valley a short distance north of Port Republic, a locality that was afterwards to be made famous by Stonewall Jackson, the greatest military leader America has ever produced, in his brilliant cam- paigns against the Federal armies. Spottswood and his company discovered a beautiful stream flowing down the valley and he named it the Euphrates, wliich was soon changed to the more appi'opriate name of Shenandoah. The party crossed the river at a very deep ford, on the ()tli of September, and, on the western bank of the stream, Governor Spottswood formally took jwssession of the country for George I., King of England. After remaining a few days in the splendid country, which no white man had ever visited before, the governor started back to Williamsburg and arrived there after an absence of eight weeks. and Southwest Virginia 149 John Fontaine, who was a member of the party, kept a diary from which there has been preserved a jjartial account of the expedition. He said that the governor had no graving irons and could not grave anytliing on stone, but Mr. Fontaine said: "I graved my name on a tree by the riverside, and the Governor buried a bottle with a paper enclosed, on wliich lie writ that lie took pos- session of this place in the name of the King George P'irst of Kng- land. * * * We had a good dinner (on the Gth) and after it we got the men together and loaded all their arms, and we drank the King's health in champagne and fired a volley, the Princesse's health in Burgundy and fired a volley, and all the rest of the royal family in claret and fired a volley. We drank the Governor's health and fired another volley. We had several sorts of liquors, viz: Virginia red wine and white wine, Irish usquebaugh, brandy, shrub, two sorts of rum, champagne, canary, cherry punch, cider &c." The diarist also relates that bears, deer, and turkeys were abundant, and in the Valley the foot-prints of elk and buffalo were seen in many places. Governor Spottswood was so delighted with the outcome of his exploring expedition that, upon his return to Williamsburg, he established an Order which he named "Knights of the Golden Horse- shoe." From a letter written by Rev. Hugh Jones, who was then rector of Bmton Church, we learn the reason for the name given the Order. Rev. Jones says: "For this expedition they were obliged to provide a great quantity of horse shoes, things seldom used in the lower parts of the country, where there are few stones, upon which account the governor upon their return presented each of his companions with a golden horse shoe, some of whicli I have seen, studded with valuable stones, resembling the heads of nails, with this inscription * * * Sic juvat transcendere monies. This he instituted to encourage gentlemen to venture backwards and make discovei-ies and new settlements, an}' gentleman being- entitled to wear this golden shoe that can prove he drank his Majesty's health upon Moimt George." It seems that a party climbed the highest peak that they could find and that S^jottswood cut the name of George I. on the summit. In letters which he wrote to the Lords of Trade in London, Spotts- wood disclosed that the object of his expedition across the moun- tains was not for pleasure, nor for the discovery of new territory, but was for a military and commercial purpose; arid to prevent the French from coming down from the Lake Country and encroach- 150 History of Tazewell County ing upon the dominions of Virginia as defined by the several cliar- ters given the London Company. After referring to the fact that the French had in recent years built forts in places that threatened the i^ossessions of England, he stated, "that the Brittish Planta- tions are in a manner Surrounded by their Commerce w'th the numerous Nations of Indians seated on both sides of tlie Lakes ; they may not only Engross the Whole Skin Trade, but may, when they please, Send out Bodys of Indians on the back of these Plan- tations as may greatly distress his Maj'ty's subjects here, And should they multiply their settlem'ts along these Lakes, so as to join their Dominions of Canada to their new Colony of Louisiana, they might even possess themselves of any of these plantations they pleased. Nature, 'tis true, has formed a Barrier for us by that long Chain of Mountains w'ch run from the back of South Carolina as far as New York, and w'ch are only passable in some few places, but even that Natural Defence may prove rather destruc- tive to us, if they are not possessed by us before they are known to them. To prevent the dangers W'ch Threaten his Maj'ty's Domin- ions here from the growing power of these Neighbours, nothing seems to me of more consequence than that now while the Nations are at peace, and while the Fi'cnch are yet uncapable of possessing all that vast Tract W'ch lies on the back of these Plantations, W^e should attempt to make some settlements on ye Lakes, and at the same time possess ourselves of those passes of the great Mountains, W'ch are necessary to preserve a Communication with such Settle- ments." I ! Though he made such intelligent suggestions as to how the French could be prevented from doing what they afterwards tried to do, and partially accomplished, he remained very ignorant of the physical structure and extent of the regions north and west of the Shenandoah Valley. In another letter addressed to the Lords of Trade, dated August 14, 1718, he said: "The chief aim of my expedition over the great mountains in 1716, was to satisfye myself whether it was practicable to come at the lakes. Having on that occasion found an easy passage over tliat great ridge of mountains W'ch before were judged unpassable, I also discovered, by relation of Indians who frequent those parts, that from the pass where I was it is but three days' march to a great nation of Indians living on a river W'ch discharges itself in the Lake Erie, that from ye western side of one of the small moun- tains W^'ch I saw, that lake is very visible, and cannot, therefore, and Southwest Virginia 151 be above five days march from the pass afore-mentioned, and that the way thither is also very practicable, the mountains to the west- ward of the great ridge being smaller than those I passed on the eastern side. W'ch shews how easy a matter it is to gain possession of those lakes." Spottswood became involved in a quarrel with Dr. James Blair, who was President of William and Mary College. Blair's influence was very great w ith the English Court, and he procured the removal of Spottswood as governor in 1722. The deposed governor had become so deeply attached to Virginia that he made it his future permanent home. He continued to act as postmaster-general for the American colonies, and by 1738 had a regular mail route estab- lished that extended from New England to Williamsburg; and in-eg-ular mails were sent by riders on south to the Carolinas. In 1740 Spottswood died at his estate of "Temple Farm" at Yorktown. The surrender of Lord Cornwallis was negotiated in the house where the valiant and noble gentleman died. I i. Pioneer Period Embracing Discovery and Settlement of the Shenan- doah, Roanoke, New River, Holston and Chnch Vallevs and Kentuckv. PIONEER PERIOD CHAPTER I. SETTLEMKNT OF SHENANDOAH AND ROANOKE VALLEYS. Events that seem of little iinportanee at the time of their occurrence are sometimes followed by consequences of such magni- tude as to greatly affect the character and material welfare of a nation. The discovery of the Shenandoah Valley by Governor Spottswood was an event of this kind. His expedition across the Blue Ridge, so far as he was concerned, was executed for jDurely military and commercial purposes. It was certainly nothing moi-e than a pleasure-seeking excursion on the part of Robert Beverly, Colonel Robertson, and the other Virginia gentlemen who accom- jjanied the governor, judging from the account of the expedition related by John Fontaine in his diar)'. The handsome jewel Spotts- wood gave to each member of his illustrious Order of "Knights of the Golden Horseshoe," bore the inscription: "Sic jurat trans- cendere monies," which translated means: "Thus it is a pleasure to cross the mountains." When Spottswood buried a bottle on the bank of the beautiful Shenandoah, with a paper in the bottle declaring that the river and newly discovered territory were the possessions of King George I., neither the governor nor any one of his gallant companions took thought that the seed of Euroj^ean civilization was being planted in the strange, vast wilderness lying beyond the Blue Ridge ^fountains. Nor could they foresee that this seed of civilization would quickly germinate, and its rich harvest be scattered broadcast, northward to the lakes, and westward until it reached the distant shores of the great 'salt sea," which the London Comj^any ordered Captain Newport to seek and find. Spottswood's expedition was the fore- runner of the pioneer movement that brouglit the first settlers to the Clinch Valley and all parts of Southwest Virginia. Writing about this wonderful western movement, Fiske, the delightful historian, says : "This development occurred in a way even far-seeing men could not have predicted. It introduced into Virginia a new set of people, new forms of religion, new habits of life. It affected all the (155) 15() History of Tazewell County colonics south of Pennsylvania most profoundly, and did more than anything else to determine the character of all the states afterwards founded west of the Alleghanies and south of the latitude of middle Illinois. Until recent years, little has been written about the com- ing of the so-called Scotch-Irish to America, and yet it is an event of scarcely less importance than the exodus of English Puritans to New England and that of English Cavaliers to Virginia. It is impossible to understand the drift which American history, social and political, has taken since the time of Andrew Jackson, without studying the early life of the Scotch-Irish population of the Alle- gliany regions, the pioneers of the American backwoods. I do not mean to be understood as saying that the whole of that population at the time of our Revolutionary War was Scotch-Irish, for there was a considerable German element in it, besides an infusion of English moving inward from the coast. But the Scotch-Irish ele- ment was moi'e numerous and far more important than all the others." A very large portion of the pioneer settlers in Tazewell wei-e of the Scotch-Irish blood, therefore it is proper to inquire at this stage of my work: Who were these peculiar people, with a com- pound name, and from whence did they come.^' Fiske very con- cisely and splendidly gives the desired information by saying: "The answer carries us back to the year 1611, when James I. began peopling Ulster with colonists from Scotland and the north of England. The plan was to put into Ireland a Protestant population that might ultimately outnumber the Catholics and become the controlling element in the country. The settlers were picked men and women of the most excellent sort. By the middle of the seventeenth century there were 300,000 of them in Ulster. That province had been the most neglected part of the island, a wilderness of bogs and fens ; they transformed it into a garden. They also established manufactures of woolens and linens which have ever since been famous throughout the world. ]?y the begin- ning of the eighteenth century their numbers had risen to nearly a million. Their social condition was not that of peasants; they were intelligent yeomanry and artisans. In a doiiuncnt signed in 1718 by a miscellaneous group of 319 men. only 13 made their mark, while 30(5 wrote their names in full. Nothing like that could lia\ (■ hapj)encd at that time in any other ))art of the British Empire, hardly even in New England. and Southwest Virginia 157 "When these people began commg to America, those families that had been longest in Ireland had dwelt there but for three generations, and confusion of mind seems to lurk in any nomencla- ture which couples them with the true Irish. On the other hand, since love laughs at feuds and schisms, intermarriages between the colonists of Ulster and the native Irish were by no means unusual, and instances occur of Murphys and MacManuses of Presbyterian faith. It was common in Ulster to allude to Presby- terians as Scotch, to Roman Catholics as Irish, and to members of the English Church as Protestants, without much reference to pedigree. From this point of view the term 'Scotch-Irish' may- be defensible, provided we do not let it conceal the fact that the people to whom it is applied are for the most part Lowland Scotch Presbyterians, very slightly hibernicized in blood." In 1698 tlie Phiglish manufacturers became very jealous of the successful Scotch-Irish manufacturers in Ulster, and secured from Parliament legislation that inflicted such damage to the Irish linen and woolen industries that thev had to discharge many of their skilled workmen, who suiiered grievously from lack of employ- ment. And about the same time the English Church inaugurated disgraceful persecutions against all Protestants who dissented to the doctrines of the Established Church. Similar persecutions were being used in Virginia and were continued for a number of years. The Presbyterians were not permitted to have schools • their ministers were not allowed to perform the marriage cere- mony ; and if any persons had the courage to violate the law, the marriage was declared invalid. They were also denied the right to hold liny office higher than constable. There were other despotic and foolish enactments that were a disgrace to the British Govern- ment. Oppressions were heaped upon the Scotch-Irish in Ulster until they became unendurable; and they began to emigrate to America in large numbers about the time Spottswood made his famous exploration of the Shenandoah Valley. This tide of emigration from Ulster continued to flow to America until the Toleration Act for Ireland was enacted by Parliament in 1782. It is known that during one week in 1727 six ship-loads of emigrants from Ulster were landed at Philadelphia ; and that in the two years 1733 and 1734 as many as 30,000 came over to America, seeking religious and political freedom. From carefully prepared estimates it is also known that between the years 1730 and 1770 — a 158 History of Tazewell County period of forty years — half a million of the Scotch-Irish left Ulster and made their future homes among the American colonies. Most of them located in Pennsylvania, where they were given grants of land in the western mountain sections for the purpose of thus making them a strong defence of the frontier against Indian invasion of the older settlements, as well as against the French. The "Knights of the Golden Horseshoe", after their return to Williamsburg from the famous exploring expedition, were loud in their praises of the country beyond the mountains. They spoke in the most glowing terms of its scenic beauty, its fertile soil, and the abundance of big game. Their brilliant descriptions, however, did not induce any of the Virginians then living east of the Blue Ridge to migrate to the Valley, and take the risks and endure tlie hardships of pioneers. They preferred to live in safety, and to enjoy the luxur}^ that had been built upon indentured servitude and slaverj'. Thus was tlie lionor of bringing this magnificent section of America to a high state of civilization given to a hardier and more intelligent class of men, who came from Ulster and Germanv, \ia Pennsvlvania and Maryland. The General Assembly of Virginia at a session "Begun and holden in the Capitol in the City of Williamsburg on the second day of November 1720" passed an act to erect a county to be called Spottsyh ania in honor of Governor Spottswood. The pre- amble of the bill stated: "That the frontiers towards the high mountains are exposed to danger from the Indians and the late settlements of the P'rench to the westward of the said mountains." In the enacting clause, the boundaries of the new county are thus given: "Spottsylvania County bounds upon Snow Creek up to a mill, thence by a southwest line to the river North-Anna, thence up said river as far as convenient, and thence by a line to be run over the high mountains to tlie river on the North-west side thereof, so as to include the northern passage thro' the said mountains, thence down the said river until it comes against the head of the Rappahannock ; thence by a line to the head of Rappahannock river; and down that river to the mouth of Snow Creek; wliich tract of land from the first of May, 1721, shall become a county by the name of Spottsylvania County." The preamble of the act discloses the primary purpose for the creation of the new county. It was another invitation to bold spirits to cross the Blue Ridge Mountains and establish homes and Southwest Virginia 159 and build forts, as did the pioneer settlers of the Clinch Valley; and erect a strong barrier against the Indians who had previously been making bloody attacks upon the frontier settlements east of the mountains. The Virginia colonists did not respond to this second invitation, following Spottswood's discovery of the Vallej^; and no settlements were made there until more than ten years after Spottsylvania County was formed. It appears that the entire Valley between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghany Moun- tains was uninhabited. The aborigines had, though different tribes asserted claim to the territory, set it apart as a hunting ground, just as they had done with all the territory in Virginia west of New River and south of the Ohio. Therefore it became a highway for war parties of hostile tribes as they traveled either north or south to make war on their enemies. The Shawnees, who had settled at the present site of Winchester, Virginia, after their expulsion from South Carolina by the Cherokees in 1690, had joined their kindred either in Pennsylvania or in the Ohio Valley. This is indicated by the fact that the first settlement made in Virginia west of the Blue Ridge was at or near Winchester. Hunters and small exploring parties had, possibly, visited the Valley but no settlements were made there until 1732. Several local historians state, as a fact, that before any settle- ments were made in the Shenandoah Valley, John Marlin, a pedlar, and John Sailing, a we ave r, started out from Winchester to explore the upper country. Waddell, in his Annals of Augusta County, fixes the date of the ISIarlin-Salling exploration at about the year 1726. They traveled up the valley of the Shenandoali to the divide which separates that valley from the James River Valley, and journeyed on until they reached the Roanoke River. There they were discovered and surprised by a hunting party of Cherokee Indians, possibly, about the "Great Lick," where the city of Roanoke is now located. Sailing was captured by the Indians, but JNIarlin escaped. Sailing's experience as a captive was about as thrilling as that of Thomas Ingles, who was captured by the Shawnees at Draper's Meadows in 1755, and James Moore, who was captured by a band of the same tribe in Abb's Valley in 1784. Sailing was taken by the Cherokees to one of their towns in Tennessee. While on a hunting expedition in Kentucky with a party of the Cherokees lie was captured by a band of Illinois Indians, and was taken to Kaskaskia, where he was adopted into the family of an Indian squaw who had lost a son in battle. The 160 History of Tazewell County Illinois Indians sold him to Spanish traders who wanted to use him as an interpreter. They look liim to Canada^ where he was purchased from the Spaniards by the French governor^ and was sent by him to the Dutch settlement at New York. From New York he made his way to Williamsburg^ and from thence to Win- chester, arriving there after an absence of six years. In 1730, John and Isaac Vanmeter, who were German Hugue- nots, and then located in Pennsylvania, procured from Governor Gooch, of Virginia, a grant for 40,000 acres of land to be located in the lower Valley and within the present boundaries of Frederick County, Virginia, and Jeft'erson Coimty, West Virginia. The Van- meters sold, in 1731, their warrant for the 40,000 acres to Joist Hite, also of Pennsylvania. He began to survey and locate valuable tracts of land, and offered extraordinary inducements to immigrants to settle upon the lands. But the strongest inducement was the removal of his own family from Pennsylvania to the Valley. He settled with his family, in 1732, a few miles south of where Win- chester is now located; and this is supposed to be the first per- manent settlement made by a white man in the splendid Valley of Virginia. Waddell says: "Population soon flowed in to take possession of the rich lands offered by Hite; but a controvers}' speedily arose in regard to the proprietor's title. Lord Fairfax claimed Hite's lands as a part of his grant of the 'Northern Neck.' Fairfax entered a caveat against Hite, in 1736, and thereupon Hite brought suit against Fairfax. This suit was not finally decided till 1786, long after the death of all the original parties, when judgment was rendered in favor of Hite and his vendees. The dispute between Fairfax and Hite retarded the settlement of that part of the Valley, and induced immigrants to push their way up the Shenandoah River to regions not implicated in sucli controversies." About the year 1732 Jolin I>ewis, whose descendants after- wards figured so conspicuously in the affairs of Virginia, settled in the Shenandoah Valley. Local historians designate him as the first Mhite settler in tliat region. He became acquainted with John Sailing shortly after the latter returned to Winchester from cap- tivity; and was so pleased witli Sailing's description of tlie Upper Valley that he and John Mackey made a visit to the country under tlie guidance of Sailing; and all three of these men determined to and Southwest Virginia 161 make their homes there. There was an abundance of fertile land with no one claiming ownership to any portion of il^ and Lewis and his companions were free to choose what they wished. John Lew is wa s a native of the county of Donegal, Province of Ulster, Ireland, was of pure Scotch descent, and came to this coun- try from Portugal, first settling with his family in Pennsylvania. He had been forced to leave Ireland on account of killing an Irish landlord from whom he had rented land. The landlord was trying to evict Lewis from his holdings by force and shot into the house, killing a brother of Lewis and severely wounding his wife. There- upon Lewis rushed out of the house, killed the Irish lord, and drove his retainers away. His conduct was fully justified by the authori- ties, but he thought it best to leave the country. When he moved his family to the Shenandoah Valley he brought with him three sons, Thomas, Andrew and William ; and a fourth son, Charles, was born at the new home. Andrew commanded the Virginians at the battle of Point Pleasant, and won distinction as a general in the Revolutionar}' W^ar. Charles commanded a regiment at Point Pleasant, and was killed in the engagement. In his Annals of Augusta county, Waddell says: "Concurrently with the settle- ment of Lewis, or immediately afterward, a flood of immigrants poured into the country. * * * It is believed that all the earliest settlers came from Pennsylvania and up the Valley of the Shenandoah. It was several years before any settlers entered the Valley from the east, and through the gaps in the Blue Ridge." A large majority of the pioneer settlers of the Clinch Valley and of all Southwest Virginia were of the same stock as those who first came to the Shenandoah Valley. In fact, Pennsylvania and Mary- land furnished nearh^ all of them, but many located for a time in the Valley before coming here. These settlers were not by any means all of the Scotch-Irish blood. There was a strong element of Germans among them, who sliared equally with the men from Ulster the glory of making the Shenandoah Valley and Southwest Virginia two of the most noted and delightful sections of the United States. The Scotch and German pioneer settlers were, alike, men of great energy and dauntless courage ; and filled with such intense political and relig- ious convictions tliat they and their descendants have made an indelible impression upon the social, political and moral life of America. Fiske, the historian, says: "Jeflterson is often called the father of modern American democracy ; in a certain sense the T.H.— H 162 History of Tazewell County Shenandoah Valley and adjacent Appalachian regions may be called its cradle. In that rude frontier society, life assumed many new aspects, old customs were forgotten, old distinctions abolished, social equality acquired even more importance than unchecked individualism. The notions, sometimes crude and noxious, some- times just and wholesome, which characterized Jacksonian demo- cracy, flourished greatly on the frontier and have thence been propagated eastward through the older communities, alfecting their legislation and tlieir politics more or less according to frequency of contact and intercourse." This Jeffersonian democracy of the pioneer settlers of the Appalachian regions, including the Clinch Valley, was scattered by their descendants throughout the West and Northwest. And in the middle of the last century it was given added impulse by Abraham Lincoln, who is the only peer of Jeti'er- son, as a leader and teacher of a pure democracy, the world has ever produced. In 1734 an event occurred which greatly accelerated the west- ward movement. This was the creation of a new county to be taken from Spottsylyania. On the 20th of September of that year the General Assembly of Virginia passed an act for that end, and its provisions, in part, were as follows: "Whereas divers inconveniences attend the upper inhabitants of Spottsylvania county, by reason of their great distance from the courthouse, and other places usually appointed for public meetings, Be it therefore enacted, by the Lieutenant Governor, Council and Burgesses of this present General Assembly, and it is hereby enacted, by the authority of the same, that from and immediately after the first day of January, now next ensuing, the said county of Spottsylvania be divided, by the dividing line, between the parish of St. George, and the parish of St. Mark; and that tliat part of tlie county, which is now the pai-ish of St. George, remain, and be called, and known b}' the name of Spottsylvania county ; and that all that territorj' of land adjoining to, and above the said line, bounden southerly by tlie line of Hanover county, northerly by the grant of I^ord Fairfax, and westerly by the utmost limits of Vir- ginia, be thenceforth erected into one distinct county and be called and known by the name of the county of Orange." The county seat was afterwards located at tlie site of the present Orange, Vir- ginia. That the intention of the act was to encourage settlements to and Southwest Virginia 163 the westward of the Shenandoah, called in the act the "Sherrendo" river, is evidenced b}' the recital : "That all inhabitants that shall be settled there after tlie first day of January succeeding shall be free and exempt from the paiment of public, county, and parish levies by the space of three years, from thence next following." This act brouglit into existence tlie largest county that was ever established in the world. In fact, it was extensive enough in terri- tory to be called an empire, but had no white inhabitants, except the few settlers in tlie Shenandoah Vallej^ and a few hundreds east of the Blue Ridge. Its bounds extended as far nortlierly and westerly as the utmost limits of Virginia. The cliarters given by .Tames I. to the London Company fixed the northern limits at the Great Lakes and the western limits at the Pacific Ocean. The British Government grew more restless as the French continued to push south from Canada with their forts and trading posts, locating them on Virginia territory; and the policy of advanc- ing the English settlements as far north and west and as rapidly as possible was adopted. In pursuance of this policy, first sug- gested by Governor Spottswood, the General Assembly of Virginia determined to erect two distinct counties west of the mountains, and to hold out stronger inducements for settlers to locate with their families in the unexplored and indefinite regions. On the 15th of December, 1738, an act was passed by the General Assembly for erecting two new counties west of the Blue Ridge, to be called Frederick, and Augusta, respectively. The title declared it to be: "An Act for erecting two new Counties, and Parislies, and granting certain encouragements to tlie inhabitants thereof;" and the pre- amble declared that, "Wliereas great numbers of people have set- tled tliemselves of late upon the rivers of Sherrendo, Cohongorton, and Opeckon, and the branches thereof, on the northwest of the Blue Ridge mountains, whereby the strength of this colony, and its security upon the frontiers, and his Majesty's revenue of quit- rents are like to be much increased and augmented: For giving encouragement to such as shall think fit to settle there, Be it enacted," etc. After outlining the bounds of the two counties, several impor- tant provisions were incorporated in the enacting clauses. One of these provided that the two new counties should remain attached to Orange County and Saint Mark's parish until it was made known 164 History of Tazewell County to the governor and couneil that there was "a siiffieient number of inhabitants for appointing justiees of the peaee and other officers and erecting courts therein." The act also provided tliat the inliabitants should be exempted from "the payment of all public, county and parish levies for ten years." And it was further pro^ vided that all levies and officers' fees could be paid 'in money, or tobacco at three farthings per pound, without any deduction." The erection of these two counties confined the bounds of Orange County to a comparatively small area east of tlie Blue Ridge. As left by the act, which called Frederi,ck and Augusta into existence, its territory was composed of the_present counties of Orange, Culpeper, Rajjpahannock, Madison^ and Green. All the Virginia territory west of the Blue Ridge, except that portion of the Valley east of Rockingham and Page counties and a small part of the present State of West Virginia, constituted Augusta county. This made the extreme limits of Augusta reach westward to the Pacific Ocean and northward to Canada. Thus did the entire Clinch Valley become a j^art of Augusta County. By the treaty of Paris, negotiated in 1763, the limits of Augusta were reduced so as to embrace only the ])resent State of Virginia west of the Blue Ridge, nearly all of the present Slate of West Virginia, all of Kentucky. Ohio. In