Tag Archives: Horsepen Mountain

Aracoma (Part 2)

14 Monday Nov 2022

Posted by in American Revolutionary War, Logan, Native American History, Women's History

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Doris Miller (1903-1993), a longtime educator, historian, writer, and poet operating in the area of Huntington, West Virginia, composed this biography of Aracoma, a well-known Native American figure who lived in present-day Logan, West Virginia. This is Part 2 of her composition.

The father whose death was mentioned by Aracoma was the noted Shawnee sachem, Cornstalk, leader at the Battle of Point Pleasant on October 10, 1774. After the treaty of Camp Charlotte was signed following that battle, Cornstalk appears to have been constant in keeping his promise to be a friend to the border Virginians. The American Revolution was then in progress, and Tory colonists strongly entrenched in Canada were using every influence they could bring to bear on the Indians to persuade them to harry western settlements of the colonies that were banded together in rebellion. In September, 1777, Cornstalk went to Fort Randolph, on the site of Point Pleasant, to warn the commander of the garrison, Colonel Arbuckle, of impending hostitlies from other Shawnees, incited by the British.

As a reward for his warning, Cornstalk was held with two companions as hostages. While Colonel Arbuckle waited for a messenger to reach the governor of Virginia and a reply to be received, two men from the fort crossed the Ohio to hunt venison and were waylaid by hostile Indians. One of the men was killed and scalped. Members of the garrison were so enraged that they killed Cornstalk and his companions in vengeance, defying officers who sought to restrain them from an act in violation of military ethics.

Aracoma’s husband was Boling (or Bowling) Baker, an English soldier who had come to America with General Braddock’s army. Though he had been called a deserter, he may have been captured by Indians lurking along the path of Braddock’s march or in the route which followed the English army’s disastrous engagement with the French and Indians on July 9, 1755.

Apparently Baker had been taken to Cornstalk’s town at Pickaway Plain, near Circleville, O., and had been made a member of the tribe. There he met the sachem’s young daughter and at some later time became her husband. Together they were leaders of the Indian settlement in present Logan County.

In addition to the town located on the island at Logan, the Indians apparently had a camping place on Horsepen Creek where the braves sometimes camped with whatever horses they might possess. The animals could be walled in here by steep mountain sides and with hickory withes wound from tree to tree. Still today Horsepen Creek and Horsepen Mountain bear the names first white settlers gave them for their connections with the earlier inhabitants.

At this time, land-hungry white settlers were pressing continually westward from eastern Virginia. it is said that scouting parties sent out after crops were gathered in the fall of 1779 found Indians encamped with a strong force on Horsepen Fork of Gilbert’s Creek and on Ben Creek and returned home to wait until after spring crops had been planted for another visit. Also, Indian depredations and the occasional massacre of a white settler’s family by stray bands of Indian hunters far from home kept the frontiersmen alert and distrustful of all Indians, however peaceful and friendly.

Tradition says that they Indians on the Guyandotte prospered until 1776, when their settlement was stricken by a great scourge. The pestilence may have been smallpox, measles, dysentery, or even some lighter disorder, for Indians have no immunity built up against diseases which beset the white men. Among the many who died were the children of Aracoma and Boling Baker.

As repeated countless times, the Aracoma legend varies in details. Some begin the story by telling of Boling Baker’s arrival as a captive in the Shawnee village. They say that Aracoma interceded with her father when the young Englishman was about to be made to run the gauntlet, just as Pocahontas protected John Smith. Though doubtless based on surmise, the story could be true, for captives who escaped from the Indian villages in Ohio told of having been forced to run the gauntlet. Some romanticists believe Baker’s love for the Indian maiden began with his gratitude that day, and that also could be true.

Source: West Virginia Women, Richwood, WV: Jim Comstock (1974), p. 7-9.

For more about Doris Miller, go here: https://mds.marshall.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1284&context=sc_finding_aids

Logan County Game Preserve (1927)

06 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by in Logan

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From the Logan Banner of Logan, WV, comes this story about the Logan County Game Preserve dated February 1, 1927:

35,000-ACRE GAME PRESERVE HERE IS FOR BENEFIT OF ALL THE PEOPLE–JOHN ELLIS NEW GAME PROTECTOR

Sport lovers in Logan–and they are legion–recently decided to adopt some method for the protection of game and wild fowls which are being rapidly exterminated in the county; consequently they met and formed a body for the purpose of establishing a game preserve in Logan.

H.M. Moore was made president of this association and under his direction the work was undertaken in earnest. Up to this time there has been approximately 35,000 acres of mountain land dedicated to this purpose by the owners. The land lies between the waters of Main Island Creek and Guyan river and extends over the Mingo county line into the Horsepen section.

Contrary to an erroneous impression that has gone out over the county this land is not set aside for the purpose of furnishing a hunting ground for members of this Wild Life League of Logan county but will be used for the propagation of game for people of the entire county during the open seasons as defined by the statutes.

John A. Ellis, former circuit clerk, and one of the most ardent lovers of wild life to be found in the county, has been commissioned by the state as local game protector. No better selection could have been made for Mr. Ellis, in addition to being acquainted with the people of the county and all of this section of the state, knows almost every foot of land lying in the preserve and believes in the propagation of game. Mr. Ellis was commissioned January 17, and has already entered upon his duties.

It is the intention of the promoters of the project to stock this preserve with deer, wild turkeys, pheasants, quail, and the streams with various kind of game fish. As soon as this is done the parties behind the movement will ask the state game and fish commission to take over the preserve and maintain it. This proposition will be submitted to the proper state officials when the commission meets the first Thursday in April of the present year.

In Search of Ed Haley 246

20 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by in Ed Haley, Lincoln County Feud

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Meanwhile, Brandon was in contact with Brady Thompson of Stafford, Virginia. Brady, a grandson of Ben Adams, had also seen the Guyandotte Voice newspaper article. He was sure that his grandpa Ben hired Milt and Green to ambush Al Brumfield because his grandmother — Ben’s last wife — had told him so. They shot at Brumfield but accidentally shot his wife, who rode behind him on a mule. They were eventually captured and chopped to death with axes near the mouth of Harts Creek.

It was in the years after the feud that Ben married Brady’s grandmother.

“My grandmother was an Indian,” Brady said. “Some way she said he took them away from some Indians on Horsepen Mountain and brought them over there when she was about fifteen and when she got about eighteen or nineteen year old he married her. His wife had died. He musta been married three or four times ’cause he musta had 25 or 30 kids.”

Brady didn’t seem to think much of his Grandpa Ben, who taught his sons to be “no good.”

“All they ever done is set around and figure out how to get a big war started between the families,” he said. “They’d kill one another.”

Brady said his Grandpa Ben died at his home on main Harts Creek in 1910 and “was buried up there on Trace.”

Brandon asked if there were any pictures of Adams and he said, “I believe old Harve Adams up on Trace before he died, he had Ben’s picture.”

I gave Brady a call to ask him about Ed and he said, “I was about six or eight years old when I seen Ed Haley. They come to my father’s place, my Uncle George’s place. The kids had brought Ed and his wife in that evening on two mules. A bunch of us kids all slept on the floor and they all drunk and played music all night long. I waked up early that morning — a big frost on — and they was still playing music. I thought that was the best music though I ever heard.”

Ed played a lot with Brady’s banjo-picking uncle George Baisden and occasionally at Ewell Mullins’ store on Trace.

Back in Harts, Brandon and Billy drove up Hoover Fork to see Brady’s younger brother, Alvie Thompson. Alvie was a very dedicated Mormon who’d just moved back to Harts Creek from out West.

“Grandpa Ben Adams was a big, tall ruffian — a rough villain,” Alvie said. “He’d beat his wife with a switch when she’d run off.” Ben lived in the head of Trace and operated a dam on Harts Creek.

Alvie remembered Ed Haley as a short, heavy-set man who visited his Uncle George Baisden as late as 1949-50. Gladys Williamson, Alvie’s 78-year-old sister, said Ed brought two of his sons there and he and Uncle George played music out on the porch or under walnut trees near the barn. Alvie’s father Herbert Thompson sometimes joined in with his banjo as did Ella, who played the guitar and banjo. Alvie recalled Ed playing standard tunes like “Arkansas Traveler”, “Sourwood Mountain” and “Sally Goodin”.