Tag Archives: West Virginia Women

Aracoma (Part 4)

04 Sunday Dec 2022

Posted by in 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 4 of her composition.

One other detail of the legend, not generally known but occasionally heard, is the story that Aracoma was Cornstalk’s daughter by adoption, that her mother was a sister of Cornstalk who had married Chief Logan and died soon after Aracoma’s birth. For this reason, the infant was taken into the lodge of Chief Cornstalk, where there were squaws to rear her, and this kinship by marriage and common interest in Aracoma was the secret of the alliance between the two famous Indian leaders who joined forces at the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774. There is nothing in Aracoma’s dying words to refute this claim—she still would have considered Cornstalk her father and have been the last of his line, through a niece. But Logan’s words do carry a refutation.

At the time Logan made this speech under the Circleville Elm, and it was written down to be dispatched to Lord Dunmore at Camp Charlotte, where peace was being negotiated, he could not have said, “There runs not a drop of my blood in any living creature” if Aracoma had been his daughter.

Some historians have discounted Logan’s speech, but it is fully in keeping with the man pictured by his contemporaries in the Horn Papers and other sourcebooks of American history. Scottish Lord Dunmore must have [p. 10] accepted it as authentic, when it was brought to him wrapped in a wampum belt by a man he had sent to fetch Logan.

Logan had been friendly to white settlers of Virginia and Pennsylvania. As a boy, he lived in the home of James Logan, former secretary of William Penn, who educated the youth, a son of a friendly Indian chief. Thereafter Logan bore the name of his foster-father instead of Tahgahinte, his Indian name. Chief Logan remained friendly to the settlers until his family was treacherously murdered by white men. Later it was established that Colonel Cresap was not a party to the deed, though Logan thought so for a long time.

Colonel Madison who led the Virginians against Aracoma’s settlement, is said to have been a son-in-law of Colonel William Preston, a noted Virginia surveyor. Some of the earliest land surveys in present Logan County were recorded in names of members of the Preston, Madison and Breckenridge families, and it is quite likely others went to men who served under Madison and Breckenridge of the Battle of the Island, or members of their families. So the Legend of Aracoma came into the Guyandotte Valley in the memories of the white settlers who came first after her, and in their imaginations.

Another reason for discounting the story that Aracoma was the daughter of Logan is her name. Cornflower seems the logical name of a daughter of Cornstalk.

The residents of the Guyandotte Valley have treasured their legend and have honored the name of Aracoma in many ways. In the early 1800s, the town which grew up in the area of Aracoma’s settlement and grave was known as Lawnsville. During the 1850s, Thomas Dunn English, a physician and poet who was the first mayor of the town, insisted on changing the name to Aracoma, which it remained until its incorporation as a city in 1907. The change then may have been due to men’s custom of referring to the town as “Logan Courthouse” rather than by its true name. Since that time, the name of Aracoma has been given to a smaller community in the county.

When Logan County observed its Centennial in 1952, Thomas Patterson, the author of American Primitive and other well known plays, was commissioned to write a drama based on the legend of Princess Aracoma. The pageant was produced on successive days of the celebration and was considered one of the highlights. [p. 11]

Source: West Virginia Women, Richwood, WV: Jim Comstock (1974), p. 11.

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

Aracoma (Part 3)

03 Saturday Dec 2022

Posted by in American Revolutionary War, Guyandotte River, Logan, Man, Montgomery County, 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 3 of her composition.

Aracoma has been described as an Indian maiden of exceptional grace and beauty. Perhaps the Virginians she impressed deeply in her dying hours may have believed she had great beauty in youth. Boling Baker is said to have had a fine physique and courageous bearing, which would have given his Indian captors reason for adopting him into the tribe. He is given credit for artful courtship of his love, and it seems likely he must have been skillful to win her away from other suitors the sachem’s daughter must have had.

The long history of their wedding, an elaborate ceremony her father accompanied them to the Guyandotte to perform, is less credible, but not impossible. More stress has been given to Aracoma’s royal estate than Indian customs warranted, but the English settlers had their own traditions of royal pomp and ceremony as patterns to draw from.

The carefree life credited to the Indians in the Guyandotte valley before 1776 reflects the wishful thinking of people whose own lives were filled with toil. Certainly the Indians must have lived stremuous lives, though they may have had an interlude of unusual peace and happiness before family life was saddened by the scourge which overtook them in 1776.

According to the story-tellers, Aracoma and Boling Baker had six children. Their names were Waulalisippi, or Laughing Waters, Snow Lily, Raindrop, Running Deer, Little Black Bear and Blue Feather.

It is said that Baker became despondent and bitter after the death of his children and during the hardships undergone by the colony after disease had reduced its strength. Doubtless the ones who added this detail had seen similar results in other men’s lives. They deduce that it was his desire to recoup the fortunes of the tribe that led him to attempt a bold exploit which resulted in disaster for his settlement.

Legendary history tells us that in the spring of 1780, a stranger appeared at a white settlement on Bluestone River, a man with a woe-begone countenance who recited sorrowful accounts of hardships he had undergone as a captive among the Indians in Ohio. He stayed for several days, familiarizing himself with everything about the settlement, then departed for the east (he said) in the hope of being reunited with his aged parents. The man was Boling Baker, who merely circled back to Flat Top Mountain, where he had left a band of his braves. On a dark rainy night in April, they stole quietly into the settlement and left with every horse there without disturbing a single sleeper.

The outraged settlers realized their recent visitor must have led the raid. Without horses to follow, they could only send for help from the mounted guard at Montgomery, seat of government for Montgomery County, Virginia, in which this entire area was then located. Colonel William Ingles, sheriff of the county, dispatched Colonel Madison and a deputy sheriff, John Breckenridge, with [p. 10] the party which massacred Aracoma’s village a few days later. Her paleface husband was one of the party absent on a hunt that day.

Little is known of Boling Baker after the death of Aracoma. It is said that for many a year afterward, men could read a couplet carved on beech trees in the area: ‘Boling Baker—his hand and knife, He can’t find a horse to save his life.’ Whether the words were carved by Baker or were a gibe directed at him by another, none can say.

The story is told that years later, an aged stranger came wandering up the Guyandotte River, asking questions of those he met. After standing a long time weeping on the mountainside opposite the island where Aracoma had lived, he went on past Horsepen Creek and eventually found lodging for a night in a home near Man. That night he told briefly some of the experiences of his life, which later were recognized to match the known story of Boling Baker. Next morning he was found dead in bed.

Source: West Virginia Women, Richwood, WV: Jim Comstock (1974), p. 10-11.

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

Aracoma (Part 1)

11 Friday Nov 2022

Posted by in Huntington, 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 1 of her composition.

West Virginians can lay claim to one of America’s most romantic legends, the story of Aracoma which has grown in Logan County around the meager authentic details of an incident in the history of the region which occurred some 200 years ago.

It is a legend of romance and tragedy about an Indian Princess who lies buried in the city of Logan. The story tells of her love for a white man taken captive by her tribe, of their happy life together as leaders of a settlement of her people on the Guyandotte River until tragedy wiped out their children and many others of their tribe, and of his depredations which led to her death.

Legends are stories built by folklore on a foundation of historic fact. Folklore is history preserved by tradition by people searching for the heroic. Such is the Logan County legend, a story of a courageous woman whose death brought her to the attention of ancestors of many of the people now living in Logan County, with details added by the romantic imaginations of residents of the region who have preserved and added to the legend.

Aracoma, an Indian word said to mean “corn blossom,” was the name given Colonel (later General) William Madison by a dying Indian woman who appeared to be the leader of a settlement of Indians located on the island where Logan High School now stands. She had been mortally wounded in combat between her people and a party of 90 Virginians led by Colonel Madison, in which all of the Indians were massacred except some braves strong and fast enough to escape when they saw the tide of battle had turned against them and a party of hunters absent when the Virginians made their surprise attack.

In later accounts, Aracoma was described as a woman of dignity and courage who appeared to be about 40 years old. The Virginians had been reared in a culture that still remembered the old chivalric tradition of reverence for women. They quickly forgot their animosity in concern for this woman of noble bearing, and treated their wounded captive with compassion and respect.

Tradition says that for several hours the woman resisted every effort to get her to talk. She lay with closed eyes, stoically awaiting her fate. Then, apparently realizing her life was ebbing away and there was no hope for recapture by her people she asked for their leader.

“My name is Aracoma and I am the last of a mighty line,” she told Colonel Madison. “My father was a great chief and friend of your people. He was murdered in cold blood by your people when he had come to them as a friend to give them warning. I am the wife of a paleface who came across the great waters to make war on our people, but came to us instead and was made one of us. Many moons since, a great plague carried off my children with a great number of my people and they lie buried just above the bend of the river. Bury me with them with my face toward the setting sun that I may see my people in their march toward the happy hunting grounds. For your kindness, I warn you to make haste in returning to your homes, for my people are still powerful and will return to avenge my death.”

It was told that the battle occurred in the afternoon of a spring day in 1780 and that Aracoma died before daybreak of the following morning. After burying her in the place and manner she had requested, the Virginians soon departed to return to their homes.

This story of Aracoma’s death differed but slightly in detail as it was repeated around countless firesides for a century before the late Henry Clay Ragland wrote it into the History of Logan County. It seems to be a reasonably accurate account, authenticated by certain details of historic record.

Source: West Virginia Women, Richwood, WV: Jim Comstock (1974), p. 6-7.

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

Nancy E. Hatfield Memories, Part 2 (1974)

02 Saturday Jan 2021

Posted by in Big Sandy Valley, Civil War, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Women's History

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Howard B. Lee, former Attorney General of West Virginia, provided this account of Nancy Hatfield (widow of Cap) in the early 1970s:

Our next stop was at the home of Nancy Elizabeth, the same home where I visited with her and Cap during my campaign. For nearly three hours I asked questions and listened to that remarkable woman recount many of her experiences as the wife of America’s most celebrated feudist.

Nancy Elizabeth’s home also held a number of guns, pistols, and other relics of the feud days. But the most interesting item was Cap’s bullet-proof, steel breastplate, designed to cover the entire front half of his body from his beck to his lower abdomen.

“Mrs. Hatfield,” I said, “judging from the three bullet marks on it, this breastplate was a great protection to Cap; but what was to prevent an enemy from shooting him in the back?” Her eyes flashed as she replied: “Mr. Lee, Cap Hatfield never turned his back on an enemy or a friend.”

“I have read two stories, Mrs. Hatfield, each purporting to give the true cause of the feud: One book stated that it was the result of a dispute between a McCoy and a Hatfield over the ownership of a hog. Another book said that it grew out of the seduction of a McCoy girl by Johnson Hatfield, oldest son of Devil Anse. Is either one of these stories true?”

“No, neither story is true,” she replied. “The McCoys lived on the Kentucky side of Tug River, and the Hatfields lived on the West Virginia side. Hogs don’t swim rivers. I never heard the girl story until I read it in a book, written long after the feud was over. Both stories are pure fiction.”

“The truth is,” she continued, “in the fall of 1882, in an election-day fight between Ellison Hatfield, a younger brother of Devil Anse, and three McCoy brothers, Ellison was shot and knifed. He died two days later. In retaliation, Devil Anse and his clan captured and shot the three McCoy brothers. It was these four senseless killings that started the feud.”

In answer to my inquiry, Nancy Elizabeth said: “Yes, there had been ‘bad blood’ between the two families since the Civil War. In that struggle the Hatfields were ‘rebels’,–loyal to their State, Virginia. Devil Anse organized and was the captain of a company of Confederate sympathizers called the ‘Logan Wildcats’. They were recruited for local defense; but they left the county long enough to take part in the battle of Scary, fought along the banks of the Kanawha River, a few miles below Charleston.

“The McCoys, and their mountain neighbors, were pro-Union; and to protect their region against invasion by ‘Virginia rebels’, they organized a military company called ‘Home Guards’. There were occasional border clashes between the two forces, with casualties on both sides. The war ended only seventeen years before the feud began, and the bitterness still existed in the minds of the older generation, and they passed it on to their children. It was the old sectional and political hatreds that sparked the fight between Ellison Hatfield and the McCoy brothers.”

Nancy Elizabeth declined to estimate the number killed on either side of the feud.

“It was a horrible nightmare to me,” she said. “Sometimes, for months, Cap never spent a night in our house. He and Devil Anse, with others, slept in the nearby woods to guard our homes against surprise attacks. At times, too, we women and our children slept in hidden shelters in the forests.

“But these assaults were not one-sided affairs. The Hatfields crossed the Tug and killed McCoys. It was a savage war of extermination, regardless of age or sex. Finally, to get our children to a safer locality, we Hatfields left Tug River, crossed the mountains, and settled here on Island Creek, a tributary of the Guyandotte River.

“No, there was no formal truce ending hostilities. After a decade or more of fighting and killing, both sides grew tired and quit. The McCoys stayed in Kentucky and the Hatfields kept to West Virginia. The feud was really over a long time before either side realized it.

“Yes, Kentucky offered a large reward for the capture of Devil Anse and Cap. The governor of West Virginia refused to extradite them because, said he, ‘their trials in Kentucky would be nothing more than legalized lynchings’. It was then that Kentucky’s governor offered the reward for their capture–‘dead or alive’. Three attempts were made by reward seekers to capture them.

“Dan Cunningham, a Charleston detective, with two Cincinnati detectives, made the first attempt. They came through Kentucky, and crossed Tug River in the night; but the Hatfields soon captured them. A justice of the peace sentenced them to 90 days in Logan County jail for disturbing hte peace. When released, they were told to follow the Guyandotte River to Huntington, a distance of 60 miles, and ‘not to come back’.

“Next, a man named Phillips led two raids from Kentucky into Hatfield territory. In the first, he captured ‘Cottontop’ Mounts, a relative and supporter of the Hatfields, and took him to Pikeville, Kentucky, where he was hanged. But the second foray met with disaster at the ‘Battle of the Grapevine’. Phillips, and some of his followers escaped into Kentucky, but some where buried where they fell.

“This was the last attempt of the reward seekers. However, Kentucky never withdrew the reward offer, and that is why Devil Anse and Cap were always alarmed and on the alert.”

Source: West Virginia Women (Richwood, WV: Jim Comstock, 1974), p. 151-152

Nancy E. Hatfield Memories, Part 1 (1974)

28 Monday Dec 2020

Posted by in Cemeteries, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Logan, Women's History

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Howard B. Lee, former Attorney General of West Virginia, provided this account of Nancy Hatfield (widow of Cap) in the early 1970s:

HATFIELD WOMEN.

Over the years, much has been written about the male members of the Hatfield clan who took part in that early orgy of blood-letting–the Hatfield-McCoy feud. But nothing has been said concerning the indomitable wives of that stalwart breed of men.

My purpose is to pay a richly deserved tribute to one of those pioneer women–the late Nancy Elizabeth, wife of William Anderson Hatfield, common known “Cap,” second son of Devil Anse, and the most deadly killer of the feud.

More than 30 years have passed since I last talked with her; but I still regard Nancy Elizabeth Hatfield as the most remarkable and unforgettable woman of the mountains.

In the spring of 1924, I was a candidate in the primary election for the Republican nomination for attorney general, and I wanted the Hatfield influence. Devil Anse had died in 1921, and his mantle of leadership of the clan had fallen to his oldest living son, Cap–a power in Logan County politics.

I had met Cap, casually, in 1912, but I had not seen him since that meeting. But his sister, Mrs. Betty Caldwell, and her husband, lived in my county of Mercer, and were among my political supporters. To pave the way for my later meeting with Cap, I had Mrs. Caldwell write and ask him to support me.

Later, when campaigning in the City of Logan, I engaged a taxi to take me the few miles up Island Creek to Cap’s home. The car stopped suddenly and the driver pointed to a comfortable-looking farm house on the other side of the creek and said:

“That’s Cap’s home, and that’s Cap out there by the barn.”

I told him to return for me in two hours.

Cap saw me get out of the car, and, as I crossed the creek on an old-fashioned footlog. I saw him fold his arms across his chest and slip his right hand under his coat. Later, I noticed a large pistol holstered under his left arm. Even in that late day, Cap took no chances with strangers. When I got within speaking distance, I told him my name, and that I had come to solicit his support in my campaign for attorney general. He gave me a hearty handclasp, and said:

“My sister, Mrs. Caldwell, wrote us about you. But, let’s go to the house, my wife is the politician in our family.”

Cap was reluctant to commit himself “so early.” But Nancy Elizabeth thought otherwise. Finally, Cap agreed to support me; and, with that point settled, we visited until my taxi returned.

Meanwhile, with Cap’s approval, Nancy Elizabeth gave me the accompanying, heretofore unpublished photograph of the Devil Anse Clan. In 1963 I rephotographed it and sent a print to Willis Hatfield (number 22 in picture), only survivor of Devil Anse, who made the identification. Nancy Elizabeth is number 16, and the baby in her lap is her son, Robert Elliott, born April 29, 1897. Therefore, the photograph must have been made late in 1897, or early in 1898.

A few months after Cap’s death (August 22, 1930), the West Virginia newspaper publishers and editors held their annual convention in Logan. I was invited to address the group at a morning session. That same day, Sheriff Joe Hatfield and his brother, Tennis, younger brothers of Cap, gave an ox-roast dinner for the visiting newsmen and their guests. The picnic was held on a narrow strip of bottom land, on Island Creek, a half-mile below the old home of Devil Anse.

I ate lunch with Nancy Elizabeth and her sister-in-law, Betty Caldwell. After lunch, at the suggestion of Mrs. Caldwell, we three drove up the creek to the old home of her father–Devil Anse. It was a large, two-story, frame structure (since destroyed by fire, then occupied by Tennis Hatfield, youngest son of Devil Anse).

The most interesting feature in the old home was Devil Anse’s gun-room. Hanging along its walls were a dozen, or more, high-powered rifles, and a number of large caliber pistols, ranging from teh earliest to the latest models. “The older guns,” said Nancy Elizabeth, “were used in the feud.”

As we returned, we stopped at the family cemetery that clings uncertainly to the steep mountainside, overlooking the picnic grounds. There, among the mountains he loved and ruled, old Devil Anse found peace. A life-size statue of the old man, carved in Italy (from a photograph) of the finest Carrara marble, stands in majestic solitude above his grave. On its four-foot high granite base are carved the names of his wife and their thirteen children.

Source: West Virginia Women (Richwood, WV: Jim Comstock, 1974), p. 149-151