Transcript:The Raid on the Wilson Family, 1763

Mrs. Margaret Hanna, of Greenbrier county, who died in 1878, at the age of eighty-seven years, left an account of the assault by Indians upon the Wilson family in July, 1763, written by her at the dictation of her father, Colonel John Wilson. (See "The Wilsons.") This manuscript having come into the hands of Dr. John ^. Hale, was pubHshed by him in The Kanawha Gazette, of December 27, 1887, and we extract from it as follows. The scene of the occurrence was in the present county of Highland, near Stony Run church :

"Just at this time the Wilsons were erecting a new and larger log- house than the original cabin that had hitherto served them.

"John had gone to Dickinson's Fort, not far away, to get some help for the house-raising next day ; while William, Jr. (called Thomas by others), had gone to a little mill, about a mile distant, to get some meal ground for the house raising party.

"Two of the sisters, Margaret and Elizabeth, were out on the river bank washing flax-tow ; Mrs. Wilson, who was in feeble health, had walked out to where they were at work; an Irishman had a loom in the yard and was weaving; two of the sisters, Susan and Barbara, were in the cabin ironing the family clothes, and the father, with some other men, were at work on the new house logs, when the attack was made.

" In returning from the Fort, John encountered the Indians suddenly, in a turn of the road. They fired on him, and a ball passed through his clothes just under his arm, cutting the gusset of his shirt. He wheeled his horse quickly and fled back to the Fort to get immediate help, to go to the rescue of the family, and about twenty returned with him.

"The Indians had passed on to the cabin. The girls at the river, washing, saw them coming and started to run, and at the same time tried to help their mother away, but she told them to go and save themselves and leave her. In passing, an Indian threw a tomahawk at the old lady, and severely wounded her in the wrist as she threw up her hand to save her face. The Indians did not pursue them, but hurried on to the cabin. They fired at the Irish weaver, but he escaped with a flesh wound in his shoulder.

" As they entered the cabin, one of the girls, Barbara, ran out and was knocked down and her skull probably fractured, but she was not scalped. The girl remaining in the cabin, Susan, closed the door, and when an Indian put his hand in to try to open it, she mashed and burned his fingers with a hot smoothing iron.

" By this time, the father and his men from the new house founda- tion came up, and attacked the Indians with hand-spikes and foot-adze; the latter, in ihe hands of Mr. Wilson, and drove them off.

" When John and his party arrived it was dark, and they were unable to see what mischief had been done. They ascended an elevated point near by, to see if they could discover any fire-light or other evidences of life about the cabin.

"Seeing none, they concluded or feared that the family had all been destroyed. In nearing the cabin other dangers suggested themselves, the family had several fierce dogs, which had been trained to great watchfulness, some were taught to sleep at the back door of the cabin, and some at the front, so as to give warning of approaches from either direction; it also occurred to them that if any of the family survived, they would have sentries stationed out to watch for a possible return of the Indians during the night, and that these sentries might fire on them. In the uncertainties, John Wilson himself took the lead, cautiously approached the cabin, and succeeded in reaching it without accident or alarm.

"Upon entering the cabin he was rejoiced to find his father and sister Susan present and unharmed, but was at the same time pained to find his sister Barbara badly wounded, and his mother, two sisters, his brother William and the Irish weaver all missing, and their fates unknown.

" At early dawn next morning, John and his party started out to search for the missing ones. He tracked his mother by her blood about a mile up the river, to where she had alternately walked and crawled, proba- bly not knowing whither she went. When found she was entirely out of her mind and did not recognize her son and friends, supposing them to be Indians still pursuing her; she rallied however, and lived for many years afterward.

"William, Jr., though he usually wore moccasins, had on the day before put on a pair of shoes. Going toward the mill the searchers found by his shoe-tracks where he had attempted to run when the Indians discovered him — where he had slipped and fallen and been captured by them — where, further along, they had tied him to a tree, and afterwards loosened him again, and taken him off with them. His father always thought that if he had had on moccasins instead of shoes he would have escaped and avoided capture. His pursuers were con- fident that he had made his shoe-track ' sign ' as conspicuous as possi- ble, so as to enable them to follow the trail, but they never overtook him, and he was carried off to the Indian towns beyond the Ohio. " A returned prisoner reported to the family, some time after, that she had seen him at the Chilicothe towns, but was not allowed to talk with him. She said he had been adopted by a widow who had lost a son, and was kindly treated. He never got home, but died in cap- tivity."

Another account, by John W. Stephenson, Esq., of Bath, a descendant of Colonel John Wilson, is as follows :

"John Wilson, on the day of the raid, was returning from Staunton, where he had been to get nails to be used in putting up the new house, and had purchased a new hat. When the Indians shot at him his hat fell off, and he stopped his horse and picked it up. The Indians were so close he could hear their peculiar grunt of satisfaction, thinking they had killed him. He went to a stockade fort, near where Williamsville now is, and got the men to return with him that night. One of the men was David Gwin,then about eighteen years of age. He was afterwards a captain in the Revolution, one of the largest land owners of Bath county, and grandfather of the Rev. Daniel W. Gwin, D. D., of Ken- tucky, a distinguished Baptist minister."

Mr. Stephenson states that the son of William Wilson, who was car- ried off by the Indians, was named Thomas.

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Categories: Early Settlers of Old Augusta | Indian Raids of the Tapestry