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William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS

LIFE AND DEATH ON BEARGRASS CREEK

Samuel Wells, the great-grandfather of William, moved to Stafford County, Virginia, around 1700. Before his death in 1716, he and his wife, Eleanor Carty Wells, had five children. Charles, his eldest son, married Mary Elizabeth Edwards in 1733 and their eldest son, Samuel, born 6 September 1734, was William's father, who married Ann Farrow. They lived on 220 acres just west of the Potomac Path (U.S. 95) on the south side of Quantico Creek a mile from Dumfries. A signature site in the area was that of slaves pushing hogsheads of tobacco along the rolling roads that converged on Dumfries and led to Quantico Creek, where the casks were conveyed to ships. At the height of its economic power in 1763, the exports and imports at Dumfries rivaled the tonnage at Philadelphia and New York.

William's father, Samuel, was a customer at Daniel Payne's popular emporium. In addition to powder, shot, and farming tools, he ordered "1 mans best Sadle ... Irish Soape ... 1 best Razor & Case ... 1 pack cards, 1 Mans fine hatt ... 1 wine Glass." For Ann he bought a silk handkerchief, worsted hose, and Irish linen. A contentious person, he appeared in court as a plaintiff, defendant, and witness. When he sold his land in 1767 and moved west, he was seven years in arrears on his land taxes. Tobacco is a labor-intensive, soil-depleting crop, and the overuse and erosion of the land silted up the Quantico, which became useless for shipping. Within decades Dumfries became a ghost town, its celebrated brick buildings in ruins.

At the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, King George III issued the royal proclamation that forbade settlements on the west side of the Appalachian watershed and reserved that area for Indians in order to protect the tribes from land-hungry colonists and to preserve the British fur trade. Speculators such as George Washington and the Virginia-based Ohio Land Company could no longer purchase land directly from Indian nations. To proclaim is one thing, however, and to enforce another. Since the British left only a small garrison at Fort Pitt, settlers began to cross the mountains and stake their claims because they saw the area as "a realm beyond law." Washington expressed his views to his land agent William Crawford in 1767: "I can never look upon that proclamation in any other light (but this I say between ourselves) than a temporary expedient to quiet the minds of the Indians. It must fall, of course, in a few years, especially when those Indians consent to our occupying the lands."

THE WELLS FAMILY HEADS WEST

The Treaty of Fort Stanwix of 1768 opened the floodgates to western migration. In the seventeenth century the Iroquois, armed with Dutch and British muskets, had overrun the Ohio Valley, exterminating smaller tribes such as the Eries and driving other nations further west. They, in turn, armed with French muskets, forced the Iroquois back to their homeland in New York. Yet by "Right of Ancient Conquest" the Iroquois sold the Kentucky hunting ground of the Shawnees, who had no say in the treaty, thus beginning a thirty-year war by the Indians in defense of the Ohio River boundary. Samuel Wells seized the opportunity, crossing the Appalachians to settle by Jacobs Creek, a tributary of the Youghiogheny, in present Everson, Pennsylvania. The southwestern portion of the state was also claimed by Virginia in a dispute that lasted until 1780. On a trip to inspect Ohio Valley land with Crawford in the fall of 1770, Washington stayed two nights at Jacobs Creek with John Stephenson, a local leader.

William Wells was born nearby in 1770. The exact date is not known. He would live his first nine years in one of the most hotly contested parts of the country. When the Reverend David McClure visited the area in 1771, he found the Lord's work greatly neglected. The settlers "made the Sabbath a day of recreation, drinking & profanity." He preached at John Stephenson's and noted: "Christmas & New Year holly days, are a season of wild mirth & disorder here." After visiting the home of William Crawford, McClure wrote in Latin: "Holy things are not much observed in his house. He has a virtuous wife, but, alas, he at this time lives in fornication; the scandalous woman, according to what they say, he keeps not far off from his house." Passing through Jacobs Creek two years later, Nicholas Cresswell met Crawford at his mistress's house: "The woman is common to him, his brother, half brother, and his own Son, and is his wife's sister's daughter at the same time. A set of vile brutes."

Samuel Wells and his elder sons took part in the whiskey-drinking, festive, and licentious life that was typical of the Appalachian frontier. Proof can be found in surviving court records: "Upon the information of Joseph Beeler Gent., that a certain Samuel Wells and Johanna Farrow doth at this time and hath for some time past beat wounded and evilly treated Ann the wife of the aforesaid Samuel." Ironically, the signer of this order was William Crawford. Joanna was Samuel's niece and his relationship with her may have been similar to that of Crawford and his mistress. If Samuel beat Ann, chances are Billy Wells often felt the sting of his wrath too. On 28 March 1780 the court "ordered that Saml Wells be summoned to appear before the next Court to answer the Petition of Ann Wells his wife & ... that he be at peace toward sd Ann and all other good subjects of the Commonwealth." By that time, however, Samuel Wells, his long-suffering wife, and their seven children had left for Kentucky.

During the years that the Wells family lived on Jacobs Creek, hostilities with the Indians were a constant threat. John Murray, earl of Dunmore and governor of Virginia, understood that the frontiersmen were in no mood to obey legal authority: "They do not conceive that Government has any right to forbid their taking possession of a Vast tract of Country, either uninhabited, or which Serves only as a Shelter for a few Scattered Tribes of Indians." Given these attitudes, Dunmore knew that conflict with the Indians, who were more than a few scattered tribes, was inevitable. What was called Lord Dunmore's War began in April 1774 with some wanton killings along the Ohio, including the murder of relatives of the Mingo war leader Logan, who exacted a bloody revenge. In June, Dunmore ordered a two-pronged attack: General Andrew Lewis led the Virginia militia toward the Shawnee villages while Dunmore headed a second force from the Pittsburgh area. Samuel Wells marched with Dunmore in Capt. John Stephenson's company, which encountered sporadic opposition; on one occasion "Saml. Wells ... came nigh getting a shot at an Indian," but he saw no actual combat. The crucial battle took place at Point Pleasant on 10 October 1774 when Cornstalk led several hundred Shawnees on a dawn attack against the Virginians and a fierce, day-long, tree-to-tree fight ensued. Above the fray, Cornstalk exhorted his men to "Be strong! Be strong!" Militarily the battle was a draw, but its long-term consequence, after Cornstalk signed a peace treaty, was the Indians' loss of Kentucky.

In 1775 Samuel formed a ten-man company that canoed down the Ohio to Limestone (Maysville), and then followed a buffalo trace (Ky. Route 68) to present Mays Lick. The men explored the area before choosing a spot by a creek that emptied into the North Fork of the Licking. They built cabins near an old Indian war road before they left. In July 1776 Samuel Wells and his eldest son Sam conducted further explorations. One night Sam heard the voices of Indians on a nearby warpath headed toward Blue Licks, the site of a bloody ambush in 1782.

During the Revolution, Samuel served in the Thirteenth Virginia and was stationed at Fort Pitt. He probably went with Gen. Edward Hand and five hundred mounted men, including Capt. John Stephenson and Col. William Crawford, on an ill-fated expedition derisively known as "the Squaw Campaign," which came upon two small Delaware camps and killed one man, two women, and a boy. Visceral fears bred virulent hatred. Gen. Thomas Gage wrote in 1767 that "all the People of the Frontiers, from Pennsylvania to Virginia inclusive, openly avow, that they will never find a Man guilty of Murther, for killing an Indian." Government policy, however bungled, was not genocidal; but a widely condoned practice among frontiersmen was to kill peaceful Indians to provoke a war of extermination. White Eyes and Cornstalk, Delaware and Shawnee chiefs who wanted peace, were murdered at this time. Many settlers had lost loved ones in Indian raids and everybody wanted tribal lands.

After he returned from his Revolutionary service, Samuel Wells decided to take his family to Kentucky. We can only speculate about the reasons: Pennsylvania was about to win its dispute with Virginia and thus his land title might not be valid; he owned slaves, and Pennsylvania opposed slavery; the local courts had him under scrutiny for the abuse of his wife Ann; the rapid increase of settlers in the area was driving off the game; and finally, no doubt he was hearing praise for the boundless opportunities to be found in Kentucky, the sum of all hopes for land-hungry pioneers. "What a Buzzel is amongst People about Kentucky," one man wrote at the time, "to hear people speak of it one Would think that it was a new found Paradise." Samuel purchased a flatboat in the spring of 1779 and drifted with his family down the Ohio toward an area that would soon prove to be risky enough on its own: a place known as "the Falls."

FLATBOATING DOWN THE OHIO

Samuel and his brother Hayden and their families accompanied William Pope, who testified in 1826 that "he came to Louisville about 22 May 1779 with his family" from Virginia. George Washington's grandmother was a Pope—George was born on Pope's Creek, in Fauquier County—and Pope's wife Penelope was related to Samuel Wells. William Pope traveled to Kentucky with his brother's and sister's families and some single men, including William Oldham and Bland Ballard. A large group made the dangerous trip safer.

Constructing flatboats often required professional help. Usually they were about forty feet long, with a cabin in the back that included a fireplace with a stick-and-clay chimney. A large steering blade pivoted from a sturdy forked stick in the stern, and there were sweeps on the sides. In addition to pioneer families, the boats carried slaves brought from Virginia, as well as a few horses, cows, chickens, and hogs, to say nothing of supplies and prized possessions. Living conditions on board were cramped, dirty, and malodorous. Yet in those days flatboats were an essential means of heading west. "The lowly raft," Dale Van Every wrote, "had become an ark sweeping a whole people into possession of an empire."

At Pittsburgh the muddy Monongahela joined the clear waters of the Allegheny to form the Ohio, which meant "the beautiful river," a wide stream whose serpentine course extended for a thousand miles westward before it added its considerable strength to the mighty Mississippi. The river was an essential route settlers took to colonize Kentucky and the Old Northwest. In March 1779 the Ohio had overflowed. This was not unusual in early spring because of heavy rains and melting snow. The extensive bottomlands were inundated, making the river a mile wide in several places, but by early May it had receded within its banks and was running smoothly at a few miles an hour. Billy's older brother Sam was in the advance boat, keeping a lookout in the water and on shore for potential trouble. Submerged trees called sawyers or planters as well as driftwood could damage the bottom of the boat. The islands might have treacherous shoals, sandbars, whirlpools, and eddies, while sudden bends and changes in the current could run a boat aground or leave it stalled in stagnant backwater. To warn the other flatboats about approaching dangers, Sam blew on a conch shell.

Travelers were impressed by the natural beauty of the Ohio, the abundance of wildlife, and the bounteous land. For the first five hundred miles the river—when it wasn't flooded—remained from four hundred to six hundred yards wide; near the Falls (Louisville) it widened to over seven hundred yards. In general, hills close to one bank meant extensive bottomlands on the other, a pattern that alternated over the entire trip. The high hills and tall trees cast long shadows across the water, and the boats moved from sunshine to shade and back again. The frequent sharp bends gave the impression of floating on a series of lovely lakes. Because few pristine forests remain east of the Mississippi, it is now difficult for us to imagine the prodigious size of the trees—many thirty feet in circumference and over one hundred feet tall. Among the papaws and willows lining the banks were huge sycamores with gnarled trunks, peeling white bark, and a hollow core large enough to conceal Indian warriors. The well-watered bottoms were replete with beech trees, as well as maple, plum, cherry, locust, and elm festooned with vines and creepers. On nearby hills stood towering poplar, walnut, chestnut, oak, and hickory trees. In May the pungent odor of wildflowers and grape blossoms permeated the air. A savvy frontiersman could see in these rich bottomlands and forested hills a fortune in cut timber and cleared farmland.

As the Ohio rolled to the southwest, it gathered power and volume from large streams entering from north and south. From the Big Sandy to the mouth of the Kentucky, both on the southern side, travelers entered a hunter's paradise. Fifteen years earlier, George Croghan had written: "The country hereabouts abounds with buffalo, bears, deer, and all sorts of wild game, in such plenty, that we killed out of our boats as much as we wanted." The same bounty existed in 1779. Flocks of ducks, geese, turkeys, partridge, and quail were omnipresent; the waters teemed with catfish weighing up to one hundred pounds, as well as schools of pike, buffalo, sturgeon, perch, and carp, whose backs rippled the surface and slapped the bottom of the boat. Although Shawnee attacks between the Scioto and Big Miami Rivers soon became commonplace, in 1779 flatboats were rare and the Wells flotilla passed that area unscathed.

During the voyage the families had ample time to make new friends and renew old acquaintances. Billy and John Pope were the same age. William Oldham and William Pope were fellow veterans of the Revolution. "Oldham was much attracted to Penelope, the young daughter of his friend, and announced his intention of coming back to claim her for his bride," which he did in 1783 when he was thirty and she was fourteen—a common age for a woman to marry in those days. As we shall see, on 4 November 1791, Billy Wells, then the Miami warrior Blacksnake, and Lieutenant Colonel Oldham, commander of the Kentucky militia, would have a fateful encounter. The end of the trip was signaled by the rumbling of the Falls, a mile-long set of rapids where the river dropped twenty-four feet. Above the rapids, on the Kentucky shore, the boat landed at the mouth of Beargrass Creek, near the newly formed town of Louisville.

GEORGE ROGERS CLARK

George Rogers Clark was the preeminent figure on the Kentucky frontier. His actions had a major influence on events in the Old Northwest and helped shape the life of William Wells. After stopping at the Falls in May 1778 with a force of 150 men, Clark had captured Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes from the British. His conquests in Illinois Territory were short-lived, as Henry Hamilton led a combined force of British regulars, French-Canadian volunteers, and assorted Indian warriors to retake Vincennes. In the winter of 1779 Clark's situation was dire; his only options seemed to be to retreat or wait helplessly for his impending doom. Clark, however, took pride in defying expectations: "I saw the only probability of our maintaining the Country was to take advantage of his [Hamilton's] present weakness, perhaps we might be fortunate: I considered the Inclemency of the season, the badness of the Roads &c&—as an advantage to us, as they would be more off their Guard on all Quarters."

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Excerpted from William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest by William Heath. Copyright © 2015 University of Oklahoma Press. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS.
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