Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1889-08-11
BORDER HER0lNES.
THRILLING STORIES OF THEIR DEEDS WITH
THBAX AND OTHER WEAPONS.
How Strength, Agility and Bravery Have Saved
Their Lives and Those Of Their
Families.

CltulttetOis ~ VAL JOT. ". l. IUNt <dutSittctfs
Here. in West Virginia, where one is con-
versing daily with the grandchildren of the
pioneers, and where the mountain folks
have changed only slightly from primitive
ways, the tales of border traffic and warfare
by which these valleys were wrested from
the red men seem very near and real. In
listening to stories of that skirnish-line of
civilization which pressed over the crest of
the AlleghAnies about the middle of the
last century, one is struck with the heroic
part which women played, and the nerve
and endurance they showed
SOME FEATs BY WOMEN.
When the first commissioner went to the
frontier near James River Gap, TO confirm
the title to "corn-right" lands, he found
no less than thirty cabins, which had been
built by young unmarried woman
named Mulhollin, who claimed and was
allowed the land arOnnd each of them.
She had dressed herself in mems clothes
ard done all the work herself.
The very first women west of the Ale
ghenies were Mrs. John Draper and her
daughter Mary who became the wife Of
William Ipgles). when about 1748, sew
eral families moved just over the crest of
the low Allegheny divide, where now
stands Blacksburg, Va, and made settle
meut called Draper's Meadows.
Having no sister, Mary Mrs. Ingles)
had played altogether with her brother
and grown up like boy. she could run
as well as he. She could stand and jump
straight up nearly as high as her mead;
could leap into the saddle unsided; could
stand on the floor and jump over a chair
back, and 50 on. This agility and strength
stood her in good stead when, in 1755, she,
with other women and children, were cap
tured by the Shawnees, and the Indians
began O hasty retreat to thei homes
beyond the Ohio. On the night of the
third day out Mrs. IDgles gave birth to
an infant daughter, but this fact caused no
delay, which would have meant the death
of both mother and child, for the next
morning she was able to ride on. At the
Shawnee town the prisoners were divided
up and scattered, but Mrs. Iugles and her
babs were kept there, where she made her
self so useful that after few weeks she
was taken along with company of Shaw
uees to help make salt at the Big Bone
Lick, south of the Ohio. Thus she was the
first white woman 10 enter Kentucky, long
sntedating the arrival there of Mrs. Daniel
Boone, who is usually given that distinc'
ton.
A PERIL0Us ESCAPE.
From here she resolved to escape, and
abandoning her babe 10 the Indians start
ed with an old Dutch woman who had
more recently been brought to the Lick.
With nothing TO eat but berries, roots and
mussels, with no weapon OF defense, nor
any protection from the weather beyond
their ragged clothes, bsrefOoted and guild
ed only by Mrs. Inglea' hope of recogniz-
ing again the mouth of large river
which she had descended all the way
from her home, the two women forced
their way eastward along the forest
bank of the Ohio. At last hope became
Certainty, for the picture of the river mouth
printed en- her memory did not fail her. 1t
was the Great Kanawha, and it's sources
were the streams which flowed through
Diapers meadows They turned up it's
course, but were often interrupted By
large streams, which they were obliged to
ascend for miles before they could cross
and retrace their channels to the main
river that was their only guide. AS they
got up TO where the mountains are high
and close together, great cliffs, bordering
what is now the canon of the New, down
which the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
makes its adventurous way, they we're Of
ten obliged to scale their heights, only to
find q worse one just ahead. The old
woman nearly gave out, became quarrel
some, and finally attempted to Kill her
companion for food, MIS- lngles only es-
Gaping after a frigntful encounter.
Through such almost superhumsn trials
did she persist, until at last che came to
her home. She had travelled in forty days
probably 500 miles.
Had this simply been a story of human
maintenance under dreadful circumstan-
ces, it could be matched by many another
woman's story of that period; but it
amounted to a most valuable exploration
since, until then, nobody knew that their
waters gathered into great river, or emp
tied into the Ohio, nor what was the
Ohio's lower course, nor that aaline
springs existed in the western valleys.
When Mrs. IDgles stopped near
where Charleston, the capital of West Vir-
ginia, now stands, and made salt for her
captors in her own kettles, she was laying
the foundation of the long race of Kama wha
salt-mskers and one OF the most extensive
local industries in the West. This woman
lived to be very old and saw turnpike stages
and steamboats, affording q quick passage
over the route she had travelled 30 YEARLY,
which became one of the main avenues Of
emigration, and gives to-day the shortest
railway route between Chicago and the sea
board.
FEMALE BRAVERY.
It was in the defense of their own
cabin, when surprised, however, that
these frontier women sometimes exhibited
the most extraordinary evidences of nerve
and ability. One such cass was an at
tack in 1878 upon a Dunkard family In
the northern part of what is now West
Virginia, named Bogarth. Mrs. BOgarth
and two men were alone in the house, the
children being out at play. Suddenly one
of the little ones ran in crying: ugly
red man comingW Upon hearing this
one of the two men went 10 the door, where
he received a CHANGING shot in the breast
that caused him to fall back. The Indian
who shot him sprsng in Immediately after,
and graphing with the other white man
was quickly thrown upon the bed and held
down, while the man called to Mrs. b.
garth to give him knife. Not finding
one at hand, she seized an ak and at ore
blow let out the brains of the prostrate
savage. At that instant second Indian
antarinn The dnnr shnt dead the man en-