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CHAPTER X

THE FOUNDING OF HARMAN'S STATION

I

HEZEKIAH SELLARDS

Hezekiah Sellards was a Scotch-Irish pioneer in the Upper Shenandoah Valley. He moved into that country from Pennsylvania. He built his cabin twenty miles from the nearest neighbor. He was a typical settler and a genuine frontiersman and backwoodsman. The location of his residence in the valley cannot now be determined with any degree of certainty. It was in the mountains about the sources of the Shenandoah River. It was in the community where many Presbyterians afterward settled. Sellards himself was a Presbyterian of the strictest sort. In company with his neighbors he made annual journeys into forests beyond the New River. The object of the hunter in those days was as much to find desirable place in which to locate when next he determined to move as to secure meat and skins. A more charming country than the western highlands of Virginia would be difficult indeed to find. Sellards and his associates hunted in that region about the head of Wolf Creek, and along Walker's Creek, going sometimes to the Clinch and the Holston. Their choice of locality finally fell upon Walker's Creek and Walker's Mountain. Long before it was safe to do so, perhaps before 1760, a colony of which Sellards was a member and perhaps the leader settled about Walker's Mountain. The date is not definite, but they were beset by Indians for thirty years. In their migration to their new home they drove their flocks and herds before them and carried their wives and children and their household effects upon packhorses.

II

THE WALKER'S CREEK SETTLEMENT

Hezekiah Sellards had a large family, but all his children save four died before they were grown up. Two of his sons, Thomas and Jack, lived on the Buffalo Fork of John's Creek and died there, each at a great age. One daughter married John Borders, a British soldier who served under Cornwallis and was captured at Yorktown. During his service he had come to believe in America and in her cause and had resolved to make this country his home as soon as he could secure his discharge from the army. It is said that he had acquainted his officers of his intention. After the surrender of Cornwallis Borders soon contrived to be released, and he went immediately to the back settlements of Virginia to begin life in his adopted country. There he met and married a daughter of Hezekiah Sellards. He was an excellent man in every respect, so it is said. From his marriage with Miss Sellards

1 Stated on the authority of Adam P. Wiley, also Rev. M. T. Burris. Mr. Burris knew these brothers. He was born and brought up in the Leslie Settlement on John's Creek, and is a descendant of the Pioneer Leslie.

are descended several families living now in Eastern Kentucky, one of the most numerous and respectable being that of Borders.2

The remaining daughter of Hezekiah Sellards was Jean, familiarly called by her family and others Jennie Sellards. Her son informed me that she had black hair through which ran a tinge of auburn in her youth. Others say her hair was coal black, and they saw her many times and had opportunity to know. All agree that she was strong and capable of great exertion and great endurance. Until past middle life she was of fine form and her movements were quick. In her old age she became heavy and slow. She had then, too, heavy overhanging brows. Her eyes were black. She was above medium height. Her face was agreeable and indicated superior intelligence.3

Capt. Matthias Harman lived on Walker's Creek and not a great distance from Hezekiah Sellards. He was familiar with all the country along the frontier and this brought his services into demand by persons seeking new lands suitable for settlements. It is said that in the spring of 1777 he led a number of settlers from Strasburg, Virginia, to Ab's Valley. Thomas and Samuel Wiley were members of this party. They were brothers, recently arrived from the north of Ireland. Samuel Wiley settled in Ab's Valley, but Thomas remained at the home of Captain Harman, of whom he finally purchased a tract of land. This tract of land was on a branch of Walker's Creek immediately north of the residence of Harman. Wiley built a cabin of two rooms with an open space between on his land and cleared a field. He courted Jennie Sellards and met with many a rebuff from her father whose hostility availed nothing, for Jennie looked with favor on the young man and they were married. This was in the year 1779.

It is necessary here to return to the transactions of Matthias Harman.4 Mention has been already made of the colony located by him

2 The descendants of John Border live now mainly in Lawrence and Johnson counties, Kentucky. They are scattered over all the Mississippi Valley. While many of them were farmers, they usually followed commercial life and were very successful. One of his descendants, a Mr. Davis, informed William E. Connelley in November, 1920, at his home, in Louisa, Kentucky, that the wife of Hezekiah Sellards was a Cherokee Indian woman. He could not say whether or not she was a full-blood or part white.

3 Rev. M. T. Burris says "she was rather dark skinned, dark hair and heavy eye bones." He also says that Thomas Lewis, a pioneer in the Big Sandy Valley who knew Mrs. Wiley well, told him that she "had dark hair, rather heavy eyebones, and dark eyebrows." Joseph Kelley was also a pioneer in the Big Sandy Valley and knew Mrs. Wiley well; he told Mr. Burris that she had dark hair. Mr. Burris says that her brothers, Thomas and Jack Sellards, had black or dark hair. Mr. Burris did not know Mrs. Wiley. Adam P. Wiley was dark of skin, and his hair was black. Mrs. Susan Joynes Connelly, knew Mrs. Wiley well; she said that Mrs. Wiley had very dark hair, was tall, handsome of form and face until old age made her heavy and slow, very intelligent, kindly disposition but firm and determined, and a devout and earnest Christian.

+ Matthias Harman was born in or near Strasburg, Virginia, about the year 1732. His father, Heinrich Herrmann, came from Prussia to Pennsylvania, and from thence to the vicinity of Strasburg while yet a young man. Matthias Harman and his brothers, of whom he had several, early became hunters and ranged the woods far and near. They joined every expedition into the wilderness made up in their community, and it is said that their father also joined these expeditions, whether for hunting, exploration, or for war. The Harmans bore the Indian a bitter hatred and believed in his extermination. There came to America also, two brothers, of Heinrich Herrmann, Adam and Jacob, but they came at a later date. These three brothers and their families were among the first settlers at Draper's Meadows in 1748. Michael Steiner or Stoner, (afterwards a pioneer in Kentucky, and for whom Stoner Creek, in Bourbon County, was named,) was a cousin to Matthias Harman, and was also an early settler at Draper's Meadows. It is said that Casper Mansker, the famous pioneer of Tennessee, was in some degree related to the Harmans. These men were called Dutchmen by the early settlers. They were all explorers of the wilderness, and hunting became a passion with them. Matthias Harman became infatuated with the life of the

in the vicinity of Ab's Valley. He founded a number of such settlements in the country west of the New River. It had been for thirty years his intention to form a settlement at the mouth of John's Creek on the Louisa River when the attitude of the Indians would permit him to do so with safety. The Indian tribes beyond the Ohio and the Cherokees living along the Little Tennessee had all to be taken into account. Some vagrant bands of Cherokees lived also along the Ohio River at the time. Harman was infatuated with the Louisa River country because game was more plentiful there than in any other region of which he knew. The great Indian trails between the Ohio River Indians and the Cherokees and other Southern tribes lay up the Big Sandy, which accounts for the fact that the Indians roamed that country several years after they had disappeared from all other parts of Kentucky. For this colony Harman had enlisted a number of his oldtime associates and companions in wilderness exploration. In 1787 he believed it safe to establish his settlement, and it was agreed that it should be made in the winter of 1787-88.5

Harman's father was yet living. He always went with the other pioneers to hunt in the Big Sandy Valley. Except for a few years during the Revolution this hunt had been made annually for twentyfive years and perhaps longer. As the hunters would not return when they went out in the fall of 1787, and as Harman, senior, was now too old to go with the colony and was desirous of making a hunt with his woodsman and the dangers of the frontier. In woodcraft and Indian warfare it is doubtful if he ever had a superior. He was one of the men employed to guide the Sandy Creek Voyage, and tradition says that if General Lewis had been governed by his judgment the expedition would not have failed at its purpose. He and his Dutch companions and relatives slew about forty Cherokees who were returning home from assisting the English against Fort De Quesne in 1758, so tradition in the Harman family says, and they justified their action by affirming that the Indians had stolen horses and cattle from the settlers along their route. Tradition in the Big Sandy Valley said that Michael Stoner and Casper Mansker were with Harman in this foray, and that the party received pay from the colony of Virginia for the scalps of the Indians slain and that it amounted to a considerable sum per man.

These Germans and explorers with whom they were associated became familiar with every part of the Big Sandy Valley soon after settling at Draper's Meadows. They built a lodge or hunter's cabin on the Louisa River just below the mouth of John's Creek about the year 1755, and they went there to hunt the deer, elk, buffalo, bear, beaver, and other game animals and birds every year. Matthias Harman appears to have been the leader. Associated with him were Henry Skaggs and James Skaggs, famous hunters and explorers.

Matthias Harman was called "Tice" or "Tias" Harman by his companions. He was diminutive in size, in height being but little more than five feet, and his weight never exceeded one hundred and twenty pounds. He had an enormous nose and a thin sharp face. He had an abundance of hair of a yellow tinge, beard of a darker hue, blue eyes which anger made green and glittering, and a bearing bold and fearless. He possessed an iron constitution, and could endure more fatigue and privation than any of his associates. He was a dead shot with the long rifle of his day. The Indians believed him in league with the devil or some other malevolent power because of their numbers he killed, his miraculous escapes, and the bitterness and relentless daring of his warfare against them. He was one of the Long Hunters, as were others of the Harmans, and more than once did his journeys into the wilderness carry him to the Mississippi River. He and the other Harmans able to bear arms were in the Virginia service in the War of the Revolution. He is said to have formed the colony which made the first settlement in Ab's Valley. He formed the colony which made the first settlement in Eastern Kentucky and erected the blockhouse. He brought in the settlers who re-built the blockhouse, and for a number of years he lived in the Blockhouse Bottom or its vicinity. In his extreme old age he returned to Virginia and died there. It is said he lived to be ninety-six, but the date or place of his death has not been ascertained.

5 Summers, in his work on Southwestern Virginia, says this was a year later, or in the winter of 1788-89. It may have been. But Adam P. Wiley has been followed here in the matter of dates. If Summers is right, then the hunting party of Harman went out in the fall of 1788.

sons, this year it was arranged that a party would go out for a few weeks prior to the departure to build the fort on the Louisa.5 Where

5a The Louisa River was named by Dr. Thomas Walker on Thursday, the 7th day of June, 1750. The entry in Dr. Walker's Journal describing this event is as follows: "June 7th.-The Creek being fordable, we Crossed it & kept down 12 miles to a River about 100 yards over, which we called Louisa River. The Creek is about 30 yards wide, & part of ye River breaks into ye Creek-making an Island on which we Camped."

In the early days of the settlement of the Big Sandy Valley this stream was known altogether as the Louisa River. As late as 1825 it was generally called the Louisa River. After that time, and to some extent before, the name began to be corrupted to that of Levisa. The name Levisa is now used almost entirely. That the name is a corruption of the true name, Louisa, there is no doubt. It appears that the name Louisa once attached to the whole State of Kentucky, but the extent of the application of this name is not now known. There is reason to believe that as early as 1775 the name Louisa was corrupted to Levisa. Speed, in the Wilderness Road says, "that Felix Walker, with Captain Twetty and six others, left Rutherford, North Carolina, in February, 1775, (according to Felix Walker's narrative, 'to explore the country of Leowvisay, now Kentucky.'" But the u was formerly written v, and it may have been so in this word Leowuisay, an erroneous spelling of Louisa.

The Kentucky River was sometimes called the Louisa River by the pioneers and explorers, and it was called, also, the Cherokee River. In the deed from the Cherokees to Richard Henderson and others, proprietors of the Transylvania Company, conveying the tract of land known as the Great Grant, we find the description of the land beginning as follows: "All that tract, territory, or parcel of land, situated, lying and being in North America, on the Ohio River one of the eastern branches of the Mississippi River, beginning on the said Ohio, at the mouth of Kentucky, Cherokee, or what by the English is called Louisa River." This calling of the Kentucky River by the name Louisa was caused by a misapprehension. It was not certainly known what river had been called Louisa by Dr. Walker, as he traced none of the rivers, which he named, to the Ohio. But that he did not call the Kentucky River Louisa is shown by Lewis Evans's Map, 1775, on which the Louisa River is marked as flowing into the Great Kanawha, and the upper course of the "Tottery or Big Sandy C" is marked "Frederick R." Frederick's River was discovered and named by Dr. Walker on the 2d of June, 1750, five days before he discovered and named the Louisa River, and as it is now known that the Louisa River does not flow into the Great Kanawha, it follows that the west branch of the Big Sandy River was the stream upon which Dr. Walker bestowed the name Louisa.

The late Rev. Zephaniah Meek wrote William E. Connelley from Catlettsburg, Kentucky, November 19, 1895, as follows: "I called on Capt. Owens yesterday formerly of Pike county, and asked him the origin of the name Levisa as applied to the west fork of the Big Sandy. He says that in the early settlement of this part of the State, a French trader by the name of Le Visa came to what is now Louisa, and owing to some experiences of his, that fork came to be called after his name, hence, Americanized Levisa."

There may have been a French trader at the forks of the Big Sandy by the name of Le Visa, but the word of Captain Owens is all the evidence found of that fact. If there was such a trader he was not prominent enough to change the name of a river or to have his name attached to it. The i in French is e in English. Anglicized, the Frenchman's name would have been Levesay or Levesy. Levisa could not have come from it. The explanation of Captain Owens is an improbable one.

John P. Hale, in his Trans-Allegheny Pioneers says: "The La Visa, or Levisa, fork is said to mean the picture, design, or representation. It was so called by an early French explorer in that region, from Indian pictures or signs, painted on trees, near the head of the stream."

These painted trees were to be found in early times all along the Louisa River from the mouth of Big Paint Creek, where they were most numerous to its head. Christopher Gist was on the Pound River in 1751. The entry in his Journal for Wednesday, April 3, is as follows: to a small Creek on which was a

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large Warriors camp, that would contain 70 to 80 Warriors, their Captains, Name or Title was the Crane, as I knew by his Picture or Arms painted on a tree." Darlington says: "This was on the stream called Indian Creek, the middle fork of the Big Sandy, in Wise County. The Crane was a totem or badge of one of the Miami tribes; also of the Wyandots. A common practice among the Indian tribes, with war parties of a distance from home, was to paint on trees or a rock figures of warriors, prisoners, animals, etc., as intelligible to other Indians as a printed hand bill among the whites." Darlington is in error when he says there was a totem of the Crane among the Wyandots. But they had a chief

the hunters made their camp cannot now be determined. It was not far from the settlements, and it appears to have been near the head waters of both the Tug and Louisa rivers. It is said that about twenty hunters went out in this party. Henry Harman and his sons, Henry Skaggs, James Skaggs, Robert Hawes, some of the Damrons, and a man named Draper are known to have been of the party that went on this preliminary hunt.

As it was the intention of the hunters to remain some time in the woods they built a rough camp in which to sleep and to shelter their trappings in case of rain. The camp must have been near the Indian highway, for one day it was surprised and attacked by a moving band of Indians. Few particulars of this skirmish have been preserved, though the memory of it is widespread. It is said that the previous night had been rainy and the morning cloudy and damp. The men had not gone out early, and that fortunate circumstance saved the camp from destruction, in all probability. The hunters not being beyond hearing of gun-shots returned at once, catching the Indian party in the rear and defeating the savages in a short time. Robert Hawes was wounded

in one of his arms. The Indians were pressing the party at the camp when the other hunters returned. A young Cherokee, son of the chief and leader, was armed with bow and arrows only, but he came near killing Henry Harman and would possibly have done so had not Matthias Harman killed him with a rifle shot. The death of the Indian boy ended the fight. The chief carried the body of his son away with him. Matthias Harman recognized the Cherokee chief as one of the boldest raiders on the Virginia settlements to be found in all the tribes. He stole horses all along the frontier, murdered families, and carried off plunder of all kinds. Harman had followed him often and had met him in many a running fight. A bitter hatred existed between the two men, and the Cherokee had tried to destroy Harman's family several times when Harman was engaged in scouting and was absent from home, but his attempts had never been successful; he had frequently driven off horses and cattle belonging to Harman. It is said that Harman and this chief had been friends at one time, and that they were both guides in the Sandy Creek Voyage."

named Tarhe, or the Crane, who was old enough in 1751 to have led a hunting party or even a war party into the wilderness. He became head chief of the Wyandots on the death of the Half-King.

It is said that Dr. Walker gave this river the name Louisa in honor of Louisa, the wife of the Duke of Cumberland. Louisa is a good old English name. It was in much favor with our ancestors. It should be restored to the river to which Dr. Walker gave it. The Louisa Fork should be called the Louisa River. The Tug Fork should be called the Tug River. The river formed by their junction should be called the Big Sandy River.

The traditionary accounts of this Indian attack vary much. In some of them little of what actually happened can be found. Matthias Harman, a nephew of the fourth generation from his famous uncle, for whom he was named, wrote the following:

"William Harman and Aquilla Harman were once out hunting on a very cold day and the Indians made a raid upon the settlement in the Baptist Valley [and] about this time, or 1780, gave the settlers some trouble. Henry Harman and his three sons, George Harman, Ed. Harman, Tias Harman, and a man by the name of Draper followed him down the Tug Fork of Sandy to what is now Warfield where they found the Indians camped by a log and Harman fired on them. Draper left them.

"The Indians shot the old man Harman in the breast with arrow spikes until he could not stand without leaning against a tree. His son, George, loaded his gun for him. There he stood until he shot six of the Indians dead. The seventh was wounded, ran into the Tug River and drowned himself."

Rev. M. T. Burris included the following account in his manuscript: "Daniel Harman was a brother of Henry, George and Matthias Harman, the great Indian fighters and early explorers of the Tug and Levisa forks of Big Sandy. They had a terrible battle with Indians on Tug River, up near the Va.

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