Source:Doddridge, Joseph. Notes on the Settlement and Indian Wars of the Western Parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania

Bibliographic Citation

Doddridge, Joseph, Narcissa Doddridge, John S. Ritenour, and Wm. T. Lindsey. 1912. Notes on the settlement and Indian wars of the western parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania from 1763 to 1783 inclusive, together with a review of the state of society and manners of the first settlers of the western country. Pittsburgh, PA: [s.n.].

Electronic Source

Google Books 1912 edition

Google Books 1876 Edition

Preface to 1912 edition

p. v and vi

PREFACE.

This is the third printing of " Doddridge's Notes." The first was in 1824, by Mr. Doddridge himself, at the office of the Wells- burg, Va., Gazette. It consisted exclusively of the " Notes." Hon. S. W. Pennypacker, former governor of Pennsylvania, well- known as a lover of old books, says, in a few lines inscribed on the margin of a first copy which he owned, that Dr. Doddridge " folded the paper on which it was printed and tanned the leather with which it was bound."

The second edition, edited by Alfred Williams, of Circleville, O., was printed at Albany, N. Y., in 1876, by Joel Munsell. Miss Narcissa Doddridge had designed personally undertaking this enterprise herself, but death prevented. Her family then took it up, and at their request it was completed under the supervision of Mr. Williams.

Miss Doddridge's memoir of her father embodies much important historical information respecting the foundation of the Episcopal church in Western Virginia and Ohio. The liberty has been exercised of somewhat abridging its unessential fullness for this edition, but it has not been thus deprived in any degree of either interest or value. The elisions have been confined to prolixities in the correspondence of Dr. Doddridge and his friends. The text of Miss Doddridge is practically untouched. The reminiscences of Rev. Thomas Scott in the second edition are omitted from this edition because all the information they contain has been written into the memoir by Miss Doddridge. In addition to the memoir, the 1876 edition contained an appendix comprising a number of sketches bearing on the pioneer life of this region in the closing years of the eighteenth century. These are all preserved in the present publication, excepting three which are of comparative unimportance. Fresh contributions, however, are numerous valuable and enlightening footnotes by the late James Simpson, of Cross Creek, Washington county, and others; a list of the frontier forts of Washington county; a compilation reciting the story of the origin of Logan's " Lament," and detailing concisely the later unhappy career and tragic death of that celebrated Indian; a sketch of the short life and early death of Michael Cresap, and the final enforced withdrawal of Simon Girty, the renegade, from American soil, to die in his old age in poverty, intemperance and obscurity, on the Canadian farm near Detroit with which he had been rewarded by British gratitude for his countless bloody crimes against the white settlers of the western frontier; an account of the noted frontiersman, Capt. Samuel Teter, and his descendants, together with a brief description of the notable brick mansion raised on the site of Fort Teter by Isaac Manchester a hundred years ago on the skirts of civilization, and still preserved near West Middletown in as good condition as when built.

There is also a pertinent statistical table from E. Dana Dur- and, Director of the Census, showing the estimated Indian population of the United States at various periods from 1789 to 1910, inclusive, and how this population is now distributed among the several states. The elegy by Dr. Doddridge in the appendix is preserved merely as an example of early western frontier poetry.

The footnotes in this 1912 edition are all original with it excepting the eleven which Dr. Doddridge himself prepared to accompany the first printing. These eleven are indicated with a bracketed capital D (D). The second edition contained no other footnotes. J. S. R. W. T. L.== Usage Tips ==

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• 6049128