Person talk:Frederick Starnes (2)

From: John Pankow, 22 August 2008, Personal Communication]

Extracted from Source:Starnes and Starnes, 1983:128-129

"Joseph describes the disaster which came to be recorded in Kentucky history as 'Starnes' Defeat'...[there follows the account from his pension application]...

"Joseph made his way back to Boonesborough and told of the horror he had witnessed. Colonel William Whitley set out from the Crab Orchard with a small party to investigate. Joseph does not say so, but he must have guided Colonel Whitley to that remote spot in northern Kentucky. Whitley, whose brick home still stands as a state shrine, dictated his recollections of the event to his son-in-law as follows:

'Starnes defeat was in March [April] 1779. Frederick Starn, Joseph Starn & ________ Starn [Michael Moyer] was killed [at] Blue Lick now Madison County. I Buryed them. Frederick eyes were taken out by the Birds. Joseph Starns foot I could not find the other Starns [Michael Moyer] was cut to pieces he being quite opulent & his heart taken out.'^[1]

"Joseph made his escape down the creek through the cane which was still growing there in 1979 on the south bank two hundred years later. This area is just above the Central Kentucky Wildlife Dam and down the slope from the west end of Place:Pilot Knob Cemetery. Since old cemeteries tend to be located on the sites of the earliest known burials, it is a reasonable speculation that Col. Whitley buried the Starnes there on the knoll, just off the Wilderness Trail."

"Person:George Michael Bedinger (1), in applying for a pension, stated:

'In the spring of 1779 on 1 March he with nine others left his home in Berkley County, and arrived at Boonesborough, KY; on 7 April. They found Capt. John Holden with only about fifteen men under his command and the fort in great distress and imminent danger in consequence of a Mr. Starnes and a party of ten or twelve having left the fort a day or two before their arrival. Nearly all of them fell into the hands of the Indians. One who made his escape got to the fort about two hours after they did and gave information of the defeat of Starns and his party. Fortunately for us, we had missed the path at the time the Indians who killed Capt. Starnes and his party were passing on it, we were in a thick cain brake near to it. We had not traveled more than about half a mile until we got into the path again, and were surprised to see a large trail that had just been made, and from pigeon great toe (as some call it) we were convinced that a number of Indians has passed.' ^[2]

1. ↑ Bayless Hardin, ed., Whitely Papers, Vol. 9, Draper Manuscripts - Kentucky Papers (Register Kentucky State Historical Society, July, 1938), Vol. 36, No., 116, p. 200
2. ↑ John Frederick Dorman, Virginia Revolutionary Pension Applications, Vol. 6, p. 15.