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Facts and Events
| Name |
Jared Sluss |
| Gender |
Male |
| Marriage |
|
to Unknown |
James Sluss (1832 - 1911) to brother John Sluss (1834 - 1911)
"I visited the site and area where the Sluss family was massacred. The date not definitely known but is belieced to be Aug. 2nd, 1769 at Sharon Springs, about two miles from Ceres, Va. I saw the graves of the two Sluss men that was buried at Sharon Lutheran Church Cemetery. The Church is 140 years old - also saw the graves of Mary Sluss Criggar, the baby that was left alive in the trundle bed at the time of the massacre at Kimberly Church at Black Lick. Also the grave of Polly Ann Sluss Sharitz at St. John Lutheran Church at Wytheville, Va. (Elizabeth Sluss Groseclose - at Sharon Lutheran Church, Ceres, Va.) Susan Sluss presumably by the marriage was buried near Kingsport, Tenn. It seems that Jared's first children were married and away from home at the time of massacre, which accounted for the small number of the family that were killed, The mother and 3 of the children were killed" (part of letter missing).
22:35, 7 September 2007 (EDT)~
James Sluss (1832 - 1911) to Rev. C. W. Cassell, Rural Retreat, Va. - Sep. 04, 1897
"My father, Henry Sluss, was out in the fields with his father, Jared Sluss, when the Indians came to the house. The Indians had been there and killed the mother and 2 of his sisters and one brother. They missed getting the baby Mary, who lived and married Michael Criggar who died at Black Lick at the age of 103 years. My father, Henry Sluss died here at mud Fork at the age of 90 and was buried at Tip Top, Va. Uncle Frederick moved to Missouri, Uncle David lived in Scott County, Va. John was killed accidentally from a falling tree. Our Aunt Polly Ann Sluss married a Sharitz. Susan married W. M. Ketron and was buried near Kingsport, Tenn. Our Grandmother was named Anna. Grandfather Jared Sluss and my grandmother were direct descendants from Germany, when they arrived at Sharon Springs where my father Henry was born. From Sharon Springs they moved to Wythe County, Va."
22:35, 7 September 2007 (EDT)~
The Massacre of the Sluss Family (Southwest Virginia Enterprise): Interesting Paper Tells of Massacre Which Occurred at Sharon Springs, in 1774.
"Through the courtesy of our townsman, Mr. R. P. Johnson we are able to give the readers of the Southwest Virginia, one of the descendants, on the massacre of the Sluss family.
According to the tradition a number of the Sluss family were members of the St. Paul's Lutheran Church on the Lee Highway west of Wytheville and they would walk from Ceres for the 11 o'clock sermon and back home that afternoon. The women of the family would accompany the men when they attended service, making the trip across the mountains on foot.
The massacre of the Sluss family occured at Sharon Springs in what was then Fincastle County(now Bland)near the present village of Ceres, Virginia, August 02, 1774, the year of the Indian uprising known as "Lord Dunmore's War" and just two months prior to the famous battle of Point Pleasant.
it was common knowledge among the settlers of this section of Southwest Virginia that Indians, particulary the Cherokees and Shawnees, had been on the war path since early spring and were commiting depredations along the Ohio and Kanawha rivers and that scattered bands were gradualy making their way up New River and across the Alleghany montains toward the fertile valley where game was to be found in abundance, massacreing all with whom they came in contant.
Warning of the close prozimity of marauking savages had repeatedly sent the pioneers scurrying with their families to the protection of a blockhouse fort surrounded bu dugouts or frifle pits, (constructed by them for just such an emergency) only to learn after days of self imprisonment that the rumors were wit
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