William Wiley was a 18th Century settler on the Virginia frontier who some had described as an Indian spy and scout. He was born in 1740 in Greenbrier County, Virginia now called Monroe County, West Virginia. Today few remnants of William Wiley's life remains. The home were he lived on the New River in Monroe County, West Virignia is a pile of bricks in undeveloped forest land just around two bends of the river from the state line at Glen Lyn, Virginia, according to local descendant Charlie Wiley who's been there. William's brother's house across the river on the other bank is a little more than a brick chimney. The nearby location of William's family cemetery and his grave pictured in the book "A New River Heritage" could not be located and has probably surrendered itself to the West Virginia wilderness. His father Robert was an immigrant from Armagh, Ireland who wasted little time traversing the Blue Ridge Mountains to settle on the Virginia frontier which is now West Virginia. William's first marriage is unknown. When he was 44 he met a 29-year-old woman named Happy and were married 24 May 1784 in Greenbrier County, Virginia by Rev. John Alderson Jr. Happy was the 6th child of fellow settlers James Gatliff and Martha M. Ferris. Happy was the nickname for Keren-Happuch, her rare name comes from the Bible (identified as the third and youngest daughter of Job as recorded in Job 42:14). This is the only place in the Bible where the name Keren-Happuch appears and thus it is the correct spelling of her name. There was a story circulating that Happy was an Indian and that her mother was a full-blooded Shawnee Indian named Winoma. Specifically ``The Wiley - Thompson - Monroe - Caperton Legacy´´ on pages 118-125 of Volume 1. This information came to the author from a woman named Tennys Wiley Cheatwoo. Research gives no indication that this is true. Research by Gore Family researcher and descendant James Lewis Gore of Valdosta, Georgia concurs. He also allegedly confronted her while she ws alive and she admited to probagating a lie, according to Gore.
Prior to the arrival of European settlers around 1740, Greenbrier County, like most of West Virginia, was used as a hunting grounds by the Shawnee and Cherokee Nations. This land, which they called Can-tuc-kee, was thought to be inhabited by ghosts of Azgens, a white people from an eastern sea who were said to be killed off by the Shawnee's ancestors. According to the legend, the area was owned by the bones and ghosts of the Azgens, who would permit responsible hunting.
Shawnee leaders were alarmed by the arrival of the European settlers. In the first place, they viewed the white settlements as violating the Azgen taboo. Second, they feared for the loss of their hunting lands, which they viewed as being vital to their survival. Last and not least, they correctly suspected that it was only a matter of time before the white settlers would cross the river and invade their homelands in present-day Ohio. Tension between the settlers and the Indians were high. An Incident in 1783 by William Wiley and his neigbors became part of history.
The Mitchell/Phoebe Clay family lived peacefully on the Bluestone River at Clover Bottom until August of 1783, when a party of eleven Shawnee Indians raided their homestead while Mitchell and his older sons, David, Charles and Mitchell, Jr. were hunting. Phoebe was at home with her youngest children. Sons Ezekiel and Bartley were in the bottom by the river putting rails around haystacks. Daughter Tabitha and some of the younger daughters were washing clothes in the river. The Shawnee Indian group raced across the river, shot and killed Bartley and subdued Ezekiel. The children, who were by the river, ran from the river toward the cabin. Tabitha, one of the older daughters, was helping the younger children when she saw Ezekiel in a struggle and the Indians scalping Bartley. Tabitha ran to support Ezekiel, and was stabbed to death by the Indian. He scalped her too.
A neighbor, Ligon Blankenship, unobserved by the Indians, was passing by and saw what was happening and helped to secure the cabin, where Phoebe and the rest of the Clay children had taken refuge. His presence may also have caused an early retreat of the Indian party. Unfortunately, retreating Indians abducted Ezekiel Clay and carried him off to the Shawnee Indian village at Pickaway Plains near the present day city of Chillicothe, Ohio some 233 miles away.
Once the Indians had left, Phoebe and the children traveled from their cabin to the home of their neighbor James Bailey until Mitchell Clay and his sons returned to find the bodies of the murdered Bartley and Tabitha. They buried them and assembled a posse to intercept the Indians.
Those in the party under the command of Captain Matthew Farley included: Charles Clay, Mitchell Clay, James Bailey, Edward Hale, William Wiley, and his two brothers James and Andrew Wiley, about 40 total.
Following the Indians they took the old Indian trail from the Bluestone across Flat Top Mountain and down the divide between the Guyandotte and Coal Rivers. Along the top of Cherry Pond Mountain the Indians split into two separate groups. The pursuit party overtook one of the groups where the Indians camped for the night. At day break, a large Indian arose and walked out a short distance, approaching Edward Hale, by whom he was shot and killed, and without another moment the attack began. Two of the Indians were killed outright, and one that was wounded attempted to escape to the hill, and in his broken English begged for his life, but Charles Clay, whose brother and sister had just been killed by them, and another brother in captivity, refused him quarter and killed him on the spot. The remaining Indians fled down the river.
Mitchell Clay, Jr., was then quite a boy, and when the attack began one large Indian rushed down toward him. Young Clay had a large rifle gun, much too heavy for a boy of his size to handle, and firing at the Indian he missed him. The Indian wheeled, and attempted to run off, but was allegedly killed by William Wiley coming to his aid.
The place where this fight occurred is in Boone County, WV, at the head of a little bottom of the Pond fork, on west side thereof, about one-half mile above the junction of the Pond with the West fork of Coal River, and on the farm formerly owned by the late Mr. L. D. Coon, who a few years ago in plowing near the base of the hill where the fight took place, found an Indian hatchet.
The spot where this battle was fought is well marked by a large pile of heavy stones, carried by the Indians from the adjacent mountain side, and piled over the bodies of their dead comrades, according to the history book. The white people recovered their horses, but not the kidnapped boy Ezekiel Clay, who was carried by the hunting party of Indians that went down the West Fork instead. The posse never caught up to that group. After the battle with the Indians both Edward Hale and William Wiley took from the backs of the two dead Indians strips of their hides, which they converted into razor straps and which remained in their families for many years, as an family artifact of the battle. Wiley Family lore has it that they use to display the straps above the fireplace. They were lost allegedly during a house fire. The posse could not locate the second group of Indians and returned home. Mitchell decided to go to the Indian village near Chollicothe, Ohio (some 233 miles away) and try to ransom Ezekiel, according to the history book. James Bailey and James Moore went with him. When they reached the Indian village he was too late. The Indians had burned the boy at the stake. He saw the smoke from the stake which was still burning. Mitchell left his two companions outside the village and went in alone. He met with the Chief and was granted permission to take Ezekiel's body home. With the loan of a horse from the Chief, he brought Ezekiel's body home and buried him on the hill behind the cabin with the other two children. Phoebe could not bring herself to return to the homesite after the massacre and the family moved to a place on the New River. A historical marker about the incident is located on U.S. Route 19, just north of the intersection with Route 10, near Kegley, WV. The marker reads: "Here Mitchell Clay settled in 1775. Eight years later, Indians killed two of his children and captured his son, Ezekiel. Pursuers killed several of the Indians, but the boy was taken into Ohio and burned at the stake." A grave marker just feet away remembers the two girls who were killed. The marker reads: "In memory of Bartley and Tabitha Clay, massacred by Shawnee Indians, Aug. 1783, children of Mitchell and Phoebe Clay, first settlers of Mercer County. The marker was erected August 14, 1937 on exact cite of the graves."
Wiley and the other settlers had continual challenges from the Shawnee Indians. According to the History of Summers County from the earliest settlement to the present time by James Henry Miller Page 450 a daughter-in-law of Samuel Peck said her father-in-law along with William Wiley and Charles Gatliff (William's brother-in-law) were Indian spies and scouts. She describes how the group lived in a fort or stockade style community on Gatliff or Calloway Barker's farm. At one time the settlers were driven from this fort by the Indians, the fort burned, and all their property destroyed. This collaborates a story Wiley's descendant Sandra Horvath of Beckley, West Virginia who recounts a story passed down through her family about an incident where Indians captured the settlers' women while the men were hunting. William and the other men were allegedly able to rescue them unharmed. It did not go so well for the Indians. William died about 1810. He is buried at Wiley Cemetery on the west bank of the New River in Giles County, Virginia on the West Virginia border.
Sources: Chalkley´s Records of Augusta County , Virginia , Volume 2, page 140 McDaniel vs Gatlive, A History of Monroe County, West Virginia by Oren Frederic Morton, published 1916, page 345, item entitled ``Gatliff:´ also p408, p419. The Holy Bible Job 42:13-14 lists the name of children from whom our ancestors took "Happy" Gatliff's real name, A History of Monroe County, West Virginia by Oren F. Morton, published 1916, page 408 & page 419, A New River Heritage by William Sanders Volume II p 326. A History of the Middle New River Settlements and Contiguous Territory by David E Johnston 1906, the History of Summers County from the earliest settlement to the present time by James Henry Miller Page 450 mentions Wiley as an Indian Spy and scout.
http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/59991790/person/30054547335/mediax/1?pgnum=1&pg=0&pgpl=pid%7CpgNum
