The Capture of Jane Whittaker and Polly Alley By Emory L.
Hamilton
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From the unpublished manuscript, Indian Atrocities Along the
Clinch, Powell and Holston Rivers, pages 46-51.
This story has become the most widely known of any Indian story
in Southwest Virginia. It was told around so many firesides that it has almost
taken on the aspect of a folk tale. No doubt it is true for the names used in
the tale are those of pioneer settlers of the area, while I have not been able
to find any supporting documentary evidence to confirm it. There were, however,
many Indian killings and captures on the frontier that never found their way
into official documents.
Charles B. Coale, an early newspaper writer for an Abingdon
paper was perhaps the first to bring this story into print in his book "Wilburn
Waters", and he gives no authority for his source. It is from the above book
that this version is taken, with footnotes added.
During the spring of 1777 - several years before the capture and
murder of the Livingston family on the North Fork of Holston, the same
half-breed Benge and a savage white man by the name of Hargus, crossed the range
of hills north of Clinch at High Knob, and made their way to Bluegrass Fort (1)
on Stoney Creek, which is not far from what is known as Osborne's Ford (2), in
Scott County. The white man Hargus had been living in the neighborhood, but had
absconded to the Indians to evade punishment for crime, and became an inhuman
persecutor of his race.
The Indians having cautiously and stealthily approached the
river down Stoney Creek, and fearing they might be discovered, crossed some
distance below and came up in the rear of a high cliff south of and opposite the
fort, concealing their main body in some bushes at the base, in order to command
a view of the fort, they sent one of their number to the summit of the cliff to
spy out the condition of the fort and to act as a decoy. He ascended in the
night, and climbed a tall cedar (3) with thick foliage at the top, on the very
verge of the precipe, and just at break of day began to gobble like a wild
turkey. This imitation was so well executed it would have been successful but
for the warnings of an old Indian fighter present by the name of Matthew Gray
(4). Hearing what they supposed to be a turkey, and desiring him for breakfast,
some of the younger members of the company proposed to go up the cliff and shoot
him, but Gray told them if they wanted to keep their scalps on their heads they
had better let that turkey alone, and if they would follow his directions he
would give them an Indian for breakfast.
Having promised to obey his instructions, he took several of
them with them to a branch which he knew to be in full view of the Indians, and
told them to wash and dabble in the stream to divert the attention of the enemy
for half an hour, while he went to look for the turkey; which still continued to
gobble at short intervals. Gray having borrowed an extra rifle from David Cox,
(5) crouched below the bank of the stream, an in this manner followed its course
to where it emptied into the river half a mile below, at a place known as
Shallow Shoals. Here he took the timber, eluding the vigilance of the Indians by
getting into their rear. He then crept cautiously up the ridge, guided by the
gobbling of the Indian in the top of a cedar on the cliff. Getting within about
seventy-five yards of the tree, and waiting until his turkeyship had finished an
extra big gobble, he drew a bead upon him and put a ball in his head. With a
yell and spring the Indian went crashing through the tree tops and over the
precipe, a mangled mass of flesh and bones.
Then commenced a race for life. Gray had played a desperate
game, and nothing but his fleetness and his knowledge of savage craft could save
him. He knew that the Indians in ambush would go to their companion on hearing
the report of the rifle, and that they were not more than two hundred yards
away. He did his best running and dodging, but they were so close upon him that
he would have been captured or killed, had not the men of the fort rushed out to
his rescue.
The Indians finding that they had been discovered, and that they
were not strong enough to attack or besiege the fort, started in the direction
of Castle's Woods. The persons at Bluegrass knowing that the settlement at
Castle's Woods was not aware that the Indians were in the vicinity, determined
to warn them, but the difficulty was how this was to be done, and who would be
bold enough to undertake it, as the Indians were between the two forts. When a
volunteer for the perilous expedition was called for, Matthew Gray, who but an
hour before had made such a narrow escape, boldly offered his services, and,
getting the fastest horse and two rifles, started out through the almost
unbroken forest. Moving cautiously along the trail, he came near Ivy Spring,
about two miles from the fort, when he saw signs that satisfied him that the
Indians had halted at the spring. There was no way to flank them, and he must
make a perilous dash or fail in his mission of mercy. Being an old Indian
fighter, he knew that they seldom put out pickets. The trail making a short
curve near the spring, he at once formed the plan of riding quietly up to the
curve, and then, with a shot and a yell, to dash through them. This he did, and
before they had sufficiently recovered from their surprise to give him a parting
volley, he was out of reach. He arrived at the settlement in safety, and thus in
all probability saved the lives of all the settlers. The Indians, however,
captured two women on the way - Polly Alley (6) at Osborne's Ford, as they went
up the river and Jane Whittaker near Castle's Woods.
Finding the fort at Castle's Woods fully prepared for their
reception, the band had to abandon their murderous purpose and pass on with
their captives, without permitting themselves to be seen. Reaching Guess'
Station (7) they remained part of the night, but finding it well prepared for
defense, they continued their journey to the Breaks (8) where the Russell and
Pound Forks of Big Sandy pass through the Cumberlands. Here, tradition says,
they tarried half a day, and loaded themselves with silver ore. This tradition
has led some to suppose that this was the place where Sol Mullins (9), the noted
maker of spurious coin, obtained his metal, as he long inhabited that region.
After this they traveled every day, resting at night, until they
reached the Ohio at the mouth of Sandy. Crossing the river on a raft of logs
with their prisoners, who suffered more than can be described or conceived on
the long march, they reached their destination at Sandusky. The two young women
were closely confined for some time after their arrival, though they were
eventually stripped and painted and allowed the liberty of the village, closely
watched for a month or more, but seeing they made no attempt to escape, the
Indians abated their vigilance. Observing this the girls determined to make an
attempt to escape. Having been permitted to wander about at pleasure from time
to time and punctually returning at night, the Indians were thrown off their
guard. Having wandered one day from the village farther than usual, and being in
a dense forest, they started out on the long journey home. After traveling all
night, they found themselves only about eight miles from the village, and
finding a hollow log, they crept into it, with the determination of remaining
concealed during the day. They had been in it but a few minutes when Hargus and
two or three Indians came along in pursuit and sat down upon it, and the girls
heard them form their plans for the next day's search. Returning late in the
afternoon, having lost the trail, the Indians sat down upon the same log to
rest, and again the occupants beneath them heard their plans for pursuit. These
were, that a party should pass down each of two rivers which had their sources
near their village and emptying into the Ohio. They became very much enraged at
having been baffled by two inexperienced girls, and threatened their victims
with all kinds of torture should they be recaptured. Hargus, more furious than
the Indians themselves, striking his tomahawk into the log to emphasize his
threats, and finding it return a hollow sound, declared the girls might be in
it, as they had been traced thus far, where the trail was lost, and sent one of
the savages to the end of the log to see. The savage went and looked, but seeing
that a spider had stretched its web across the aperture, he made no further
examination. This web, which had probably not been there an hour, saved them
from recapture, and it may be from a cruel death.
After the Indians left, the girls, having heard their plans,
left the log and resumed their weary journey, taking a leading ridge which ran
at right angle with the Ohio and led them to it not far from opposite the mouth
of Sandy. They could hear the yells of the Indians in pursuit each day and night
until they reached the river, when, from a high promontory they had the
satisfaction of seeing their pursuers give up the chase and turn back toward
their village. They had nothing to eat for three long days and nights but a
partially devoured squirrel from which they had frightened a hawk, and on the
night of the third day after the Indians had relinquished the pursuit, they
ventured to the river, where they were fortunate enough the next day to see a
flat-boat with white men in it descending the stream, who, on being hailed, took
them aboard, set them across the mouth of Sandy, and furnished them with a
sufficiency of bread and dried venison to last them two weeks, and a blanket
each, in which time they expected to make their way back to one of the
settlements on the Clinch. They took their course up Sandy on the same trail
they had gone down some months before, but in one of the rapid and dangerous
crossings of that stream, they lost all their provisions as well as blankets.
This, though a great calamity, did not discourage them, but pushing on, with the
blessings of kindred, friends and home in view, they found their way through
Pound Gap (10) and reached Guess' Station about the middle of September, having
been on the journey about a month, after encountering hardships and dangers
under which many of the sterner sex of the present day would give way.
(1) A seldom used name for Blackmore's Fort
(2) The present Dungannon in Scott Co., VA
(3) Cedar trees still grow on the precipe today
(4) The Grays were early settlers on the Clinch River
(5) David Cox settled at the mouth of Stoney Creek where he died February 28,
1828, aged about 80 years.
(6) Thought to be the daughter of James Alley, Sr., who along with his brother,
James, lived in that area.
(7) An early name for Coeburn, VA. The writer has been unable to find any data
on this Station and the above remark is the only known source that gives in
inkling that it was manned for defense. The log remains and chimney stones were
still on the spot in 1838, but the purpose of this station is unknown, as is the
name of the builder, and for whom it was named. The fort was in operation in
1780.
(8) The Breaks, now the Breaks Interstate Park, was one of the familiar warpaths
used by the Shawnee Indians in attacking the Clinch settlements.
(9) Sol Mullins was an early settlers in now Dickenson Co., VA convicted for
counterfeiting coins
(10) The pass through Cumberland Mountain from Wise Co., VA, into Letcher Co.,
KY and in frontier days a well known Indian war path. The earliest name for it
was "Sounding Gap."
