Mary Jane Edmondson Spurgeon
BIRTH 1762
Virginia, USA
DEATH 1830 (aged 67–68)
Kingwood, Preston County, West Virginia, USA
BURIAL: Green's Run Cemetery
Kingwood, Preston County, West Virginia, USA
D/O William and Agnes (Holmes) Edmondson
1st W/O John Green m. 1776
M/o Elizabeth, Sarah, Mary and John
2nd W/O John Moore m. 1788
M/O Keziah, Wm. Edmission(33228784), and Hannah
3rd W/O John Spurgeon m. 1791
M/o Lydia
(Taken from the book "INDIAN BLOOD" by Evelyn Guard Olsen – published by McClain printing Company, Parsons, West Virginia . Copyright, 1967 Chapter IX –
THE LAST RAID page 65. Also Wiley's History Book Pages 224 and 225)
"Overshadowing all else in excitement during the year 1788 was the Indian raid occurring near Kingwood. In the coarse of this raid, John Green and his family were innocent victims of another settler's deeds. To the west of Morgan's Run in Monongalia County , Virginia flowed a second stream called Green's Run, where, near the over looking bluff, John Green had built his cabin.
In 1779 David Morgan, whose home was on the Run paralleling Green's Run, had killed two Indians, flayed them and had their skins tanned and made into shop pouches and saddle seats. He had thus shown contempt for the Indians who had lost their lives coming to make an attack on Prickett's Fort, a fort east of the Monongahela River and shelter of the Morgan's during the Revolution.
When they came, the Indians mistook Green's Run for Morgan's Run. When they arrived at the Green's cabin all the family were inside, except eleven year old Sarah or Sally, who had gone out to the spring for water. A Daniel Lewis had been nearby splitting rails, and as protection had had John Green's gun.
The Indians first slew Mr. Lewis. It is told how John stood at the door of his house with an axe in his hands which he wielded mightily against the Indians, but they over powered him and killed him. They then fired at Sally for they had seen her leave the house. They wounded her in the hand or wrist. She fell and threw her bloody hand over her face. While the Indians concentrated on the cabin she crawled into a depression, under a "clay root" where a tree had blown down, and surrounded by laurel and brush, there concealed herself.
A big Indian took the baby by the heels and knocked its head against the chimney. When Sarah dared to come out, she saw her baby brother dead, brained against the cabin's chimney. Her father was where he had fallen in his lost battle, and out in the field was the lifeless body of Mr. Lewis. The Indians took the mother and two daughters captives across the cheat to the Ohio lands. Sally wrapped the buckskin strings of her linen bonnet around her wounded arm and made her way to Butler 's Point. She stood on the bank opposite and waved her red scarf until someone in the fort noticed her and came in a boat across the Cheat and got her.
Some histories state that Mrs. Green was released, but a descendant stated she escaped. Regarding her experiences he said, "Grandmother Green said the Indians would come in with wet moccasins, and have the squaws pull them off. The squaws would get hominy for supper, and then take the deer the men had killed and turned the maw out and empty it into the stew. (In this way Grandmother Green was getting excellent food for the partially digested moss and twigs contained valuable vitamins, but she, imbued with the white man's views, did not conceive the fact,) Sometimes they would cut up a deer whole and put it in the pot. It made her sick, but she had to eat their food.
She lived with them for four years, then escaped. Some traders aided her, they attended an Indian dance, they then gave a quart of rum to the Indian guards and when the Indian were sleeping grandmother escaped. The traders hid her in a hollow log. Over it the searching Indians actually walked looking for her, but failed to discover her hiding place. She said afterwards, her heart beat so loud that she was afraid the Indians would hear it. Traveling early in the morning while the Indians were sleeping, they all succeeded in reaching safety."
After the defeat of the Indians and the treaty of Peace of 1795 was concluded the two daughters of John Green was found, one of the provisions of the treaty being that all prisoners should be set at liberty. The two daughters, married traders. The one, whose husband's name was Sauerhauer, never returned to Preston to live; she chose to stay with the Indians. The other, Elizabeth, became the wife of John King, but as he did not wish to leave the natives, he sold his helpmate to Andrew Johnson. Andrew Johnson took charge of her and her small by the name of John King. As Indian marriages were not recognized as valid, Johnson married Elizabeth Green King according to our laws and returned to this neighborhood. They lived and died in Preston County .
After her escape, Mrs. Green married a man named Moore and had two daughters, Hannah and Keziah (Cissie) Moore and a son William Edmundson Moore. Daughters married respectively, a Ruble and a Jonathan (John) Trowbridge. Mrs. Green later married a Spurgeon and was a leader in the Methodist Church. By Spurgeon, she had one daughter named Lydia, who also married a Ruble. Mrs. Green and all three husbands are buried at Greens run near Kingwood."
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/133540917/mary-jane-spurgeon
