Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1910-03-03
General Darke's Burial Place.


EDITOR REolsTER-On July Il, 1909, ]
applied to the Quatermaster-General oi
the War Department for tombstones for
the grave of General William Darke and
Captain Joseph Darke, his son, who lie
buried side by side in the old Enge grave
yard near Shenandoah Junction, w. Va,
on the 400-acre farm which Melchor En-
gle bought OF Lord Fairfax in 1850. To-
day received notice thatthe tombstones.
40 inches long, II inches wide and
inches thick, with the name, rank and
age inscribed thereon, will be shipped
and freight paid.
II is curious and interesting TO follow
these applications concerning old SOL
diers. The names of those in the Civil
War are found in the Pension Office lists,
but Revolutionary soldiers are referred to
the librarian Of the Congressional Libra
ry, who looks through old histories and
cites passages and mention of old SOL
diers in those histories, which is accepted
as proof OF service. When several tfous-
and are filed, all are sent TO the coHtrac-
tor at Boston, who ships the finished
stones to the nearest railroad station.
The Engle burying ground is the old
est graveyard in West Virginia. The
West Virginia Historical Society removed
the tombstone OF Catharne Boerlin,
marked 1907, from here to the State Mu-
scum at Charleston, and replaced ii with
marble stone, believing it to be the oldest
tombstone in the State Tradition says
that the first persons buried here were
killed by skulking Indians, who shot two
settlers as they stepped outside the fort
near by. A fort was built around the
spring on the John Link farm, 100 yards
distant. The dead were buried at night
near by.
The Encyclopedia Americna says that
General William Darke was born in Penn
sylvania in 1876 and died in Virginia in
1901. AT the age OF nineteen years he
served with the Virginians in the battle Of
Braddock's defeat and afterwards in the
War OF the American Revolution. Al
General St. Clair's defeat by the Indians,
November, 1871, on the Maumee river,
he commanded the left wing OF the
American army and made two gallant
and successful charges with the bayonei
with the Jefferson and Berkeley regiment.
In the second charge his youngest son,
Captain Joseph Drake, fell mortally
wounded. His father paused but mo-
ment over him, then rushed on with re-
doubledenergy against the savagefoe. This
was the last successful battle OF the In
dians, for General Wayne defeated them
a few years later. General Darke was
captured at Germantown, but was ex-
changed, and was with Washington al the
surrender Of CORVALLIS at Yorktown.
He was often in the Virginia Legislature,
member of the convention in 1888,
and voted for the federal constitution.
He was also a trustee of the town oi
Charles Town.
The earliest settlers in the Shenandoah
Valley came in l727, and the first boy ba-
bieS had time to grow 10 manhood and 10
use the flintlock rifle before the Indians
began to give trouble. This twenty years
of peace gave the settlers good time to
build stone houses and log cabins with
loop-holes. In 1850 the Indians with
drew west OF the mountains by promise
offree guns and ammunition. The French
then began the contest for the possession
OF America, in which the English finally
triumphed. The Indian parties came
across the mountains and their work was
so bloody that Col. George Washington
built Fort Loudoun at Winchester, and
mounted dozen cannon on its parapets,
which held the Indians in terror. A for
midable fortress in that day now afemale
seminary.
A new history of the Valley by Gordon
Smyth brings up these old historical
points. Our county lay first in the Val
| ley and the old Pack Horse Ford near
Shepherdstown. where our first settlers
crossed the Potomac, makes it very in
teresting TO US Jeffersonians.
That no trees larger than a mans arm
grew in Jefferson in 1870, and that the
first settlers wenton TO Winchester, where