Mathias Harman: Too Soon Gone

Just a few more notes on Henry Harman, Sr., “Old Skygusty,” before I go on to the next generation.  Henry and Nancy, his wife, had nine children:

·      1) Daniel Conrad, born 26 June or January 1760, Abbot’s Creek in Rowan County NC.

·      2) Henry, Jr., born 5 August 1763, New River, Giles County, Virginia.

·      3) Adam, born 3 January 1765.

·      4) George, born 25 January 1767.

·      5) Mathias, born 9 February 1769.

·      6) Hezekiah, born 30 October 1771.

·      7) Elias, born 1780.

·      8) Rhoda, birth date unknown, married William Neel, 1794.

·      9) Louisa, born 1780 (same year as Elias?), married James Davis in 1799.[1]

Henry was described by contemporaries as “very tall, of massive frame and very strongly built.” Apparently, he dressed in the fashion of the day in short pants with silver knee buckles.[2] His wife Nancy must have been a very brave and patient woman to have raised a family in a place where uncertainty for their safety was often the norm. She died in 1808[3] at age 70. After a long life, Henry died in 1822[4] at age 95. They were both buried in the Harman cemetery near their home at Hollybrook, Bland County, Virginia, but Nancy’s grave is not marked. In Henry’s will, he named all his sons and his two sons-in-law.[5]

Mathias Harman, the fifth son of Henry, Sr., and Nancy (Wilburn) Harman, was my fourth great-grandfather. All indications point to the fact that Mathias lived an active and adventurous life, too, but a much shorter life than his father’s.  He and his brother George were the two sons described in an earlier blog as fighting alongside their father against seven Shawnee at Tug River. Mathias was 19 years old at the time. (This is not the same Mathias Harman who led the settlers in a search for Jenny Wiley and established Harman Station near Paintsville, Kentucky. That Mathias was Henry, Sr.’s brother.)

On 25 January 1791, at about age 22, our Mathias married Mary Polly Dunn,[6] daughter of Revolutionary War veteran,  Thomas Dunn[7] and his wife Mary (Tickle) Dunn.[8] Mathias and Mary had five children:

·      1) Daniel, born 4 February 1793.[9]

·      2) Jezareel, born 3 February 1795.[10]

·      3) Henry J., born 22 February 1797,[11] Mary Waggoner Troutman's ancestor.

·      4) Nancy, born 5 October 1801.[12]

·      5) Mary (Polly), birth date unknown.[13]

Through a Virginia land grant, Mathias owned a farm in Smyth County.[14] Tragically, he died in 1802 at age 33 in an accident while riding his horse when the horse ran “between two trees.”[15] At his death, his children ranged in age from about 3 through 10. His third son, Henry, my third great-grandfather, was only five years old. Mathias’ wife, Mary, must have been able to manage the farm fairly well, as it was still in the hands of her descendants in 1924.[16] In 1850, Mary was living with her son, Henry and his children in Smyth County, Virginia. She was 75 years old.[17] She died there in March 1858 at age 83.[17]

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[1] John Newton Harman, Sr., Harman Genealogy (Southern Branch) with Biographical Sketches and Historical Notes, 1700-1924 (Radford, Virginia: Commonwealth Press, Incorporated, 1925), p. 71. The births of Daniel, George, Mathias, Henry, Jr., and two others whose names are illegible, were also recorded in the Harman Bible, pages of which the author has copies. This Bible is stored at The Historical Society of Virginia, Richmond.

[2] John Newton Harman, Sr., Harman Genealogy, p. 70.

[3] U. S., Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970, about Nancy Wilburn; digital image, Ancesty.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 28 April 2014); Vol. 322, SAR membership number 64369.

[4] John Newton Harman, Sr., Harman Genealogy, p. 71.

[5] John Newton Harman, Sr., Harman Genealogy, p. 71. An abstract of the will is also included on page 336.

[6] John Newton Harman, Sr., Harman Genealogy, p. 158.

[7] U. S. Revolutionary War Rolls, 1775-1783, database Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 28 April 2014), Thos Dunn, Virginia.

[8] U. S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900, database Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 28 April 2014), Thomas Dunn and Mary Fickle [Tickle], 1772.

[8] John Newton Harman, Sr., Harman Genealogy, p. 158.

[10] John Newton Harman, Sr., Harman Genealogy, p. 159.

[11] John Newton Harman, Sr., Harman Genealogy, p. 159.

[12] John Newton Harman, Sr., Harman Genealogy, p. 162.

[13] John Newton Harman, Sr., Harman Genealogy, p. 162.

[14] John Newton Harman, Sr., Harman Genealogy, p. 158.

[15] John Newton Harman, Sr., Harman Genealogy, p. 158.

[16] John Newton Harman, Sr., Harman Genealogy, p. 158.

[17] 1850 U.S. census, Smyth County, Virginia, 60^th district, p. 237 (stamped), dwelling 1108, family 1117, Henry Harman family; digital image, Ancesty.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 28 April 2014); citing NARA microfilm publication M432, roll 976.

[18] Virginia Deaths and Burials Index, 1853-1917, database Ancesty.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 28 April 2014); Mary Harmon.

© 2014, Z. T. Noble.

Henry Harman, Sr., Part 2: The Harmans and Jenny Wiley

About twice a year for many years, my husband and I drove with our children from  Anderson, Indiana to Saltville, Virginia to visit my parents. We took I-74 to Cincinnati, then I-75 to Lexington, Kentucky, and I-64 to the beautiful, green and rolling Mountain Parkway. From the end of the parkway at Salyersville, we took 114 to Prestonsburg, then 23 through Pikeville, and we crossed into Virginia at Jenkins. Every time we traveled this route, I noticed a sign at Prestonsburg for Jenny Wiley State Park. I was always curious about the name. Who was Jenny Wiley and why was a state park named for her? We never stopped to find out, and if we had, I would not have known my link to her, anyway. Finally, in about 2002, when I discovered my ancestral connection to the Harman family, I learned about Jenny Wiley.

In the fall of 1789, a small group of Shawnee attacked Thomas and Jenny Wiley’s cabin on Walker’s Creek in Virginia by mistake. Big mistake. They were seeking revenge for the deaths of some of their people who had been killed by Mathias Harman, son of Heinrich Adam Harman. They murdered three of Jenny’s children and her fifteen-year-old brother, and they took Jenny and her youngest child captive. Thomas was not home at the time, and although he and several other men lead by Mathias Harman and including Henry Harman, Sr. tracked the Shawnee band, they couldn’t overtake them.

The Shawnee took their captives and moved northward into Kentucky toward the Big Sandy, but recent heavy rains had swollen the rivers so wildly that they were unable to cross. They moved southward and found temporary shelter in various places, ending up under a rock bluff where they stayed for several months. Having killed Jenny’s baby, the Shawnee forced her to cook, carry wood, and do other work for them. Finally, after nearly a year as their slave, she escaped, having dreamed that she was not far from home. Following the directions received in her dream, she arrived within about 24 hours at a river bank where she spotted a fort on the other side, just as she had envisioned.

After Jenny managed to get the attention of people at the fort and convince them she was not a decoy to trap them, a man named Skaggs tied together logs to float across the swollen creek to get her. They made it to safety just in time as a party of Shawnee searching for Jenny spotted them. Jenny learned that the fort, called Harman Station, had been built by men led by Mathias and Henry Harman, Sr.

Fearing attack from the Shawnee, the settlers at Harman Station packed up and returned to Walker’s Creek where Jenny was reunited with her husband.

Photo by Z. T. Noble, 2002.

Located near the present town of Paintsville, Kentucky, Harman Station is commemorated by a historical marker. Not far from there near present day Prestonsburg, adventurous hikers can follow the trail that Jenny took seeking freedom from her captors at Jenny Wiley State Park.

This story was told in Harman Genealogy, by John Newton Harman, Sr.; in White Squaw: The True Story of Jennie Wiley, a young adult novel by Arville Wheeler; and in Dark Hills to Westward: The Saga of Jenny Wiley, a novel by Kentucky lawyer, author and environmentalist, Harry M. Caudill. 

(c) 2014, Z. T. Noble

Henry Harman, Sr.: Old Skygusty

Heinrich Adam Harman’s second son, Henry, is the next one in the line of descent of the Clint and Mary Troutman family from “the elder Herrman." For a quick review, here’s that line of descent again:

Heinrich Adam Hermann

(Adam Harman)

|

Henry Harman, Sr.

|

Mathias Harman

|

Henry Harman

|

Anna F. Harman

(married Jacob Waggoner)

|

Eli Waggoner

|

Mary Waggoner

(married Clint Troutman)

|

Verne Troutman

|

Zola Troutman

(married Myron Noble)

To distinguish this particular Henry Harman from many others of the same name, he is often called Henry, Sr., in records. Those Germans had a naming tradition that fosters frustration for genealogy researchers. Every generation was named for selected people in previous generations until, I suppose, if they had enough children, they ran out of names. Then maybe a child got an original name. The first child was to be named for the father’s father. Since Heinrich Adam Harman named his firstborn son Adam, that was likely his father’s name. The second son was named Heinrich, the English version of which is Henry, so if Adam followed tradition, that was likely his wife’s father’s name. Or did he break tradition and name his first two sons after himself?

Following tradition, the third son was to be named for the father, but Adam’s third son was named George, so it appears that Adam didn’t follow tradition very closely. The next generation didn’t follow tradition, specifically, either, it seems. They appear to have named their sons after their father and brothers. Adam’s other sons were named Daniel, Mathias, Valentine, and Jacob, and for the next two or three generations, at least, the Harmans gave their sons those same names. When you search for any of those names, you will have to sort through a myriad of men with the same name to find the one you seek.

Tradition holds that our Henry was born on the Isle of Man in 1726 while the family was en route from Germany to the Colonies.[1] Henry’s life was surely filled with the adventurous spirit of his father, and though we know little about his mother Louisa Katrina, she must have supported the adventure, as well. Henry certainly learned the ways of the long hunter, men who spent months in the wilderness, hunting and trapping, to bring back a stash of furs to sell and trade. Although the elder Adam’s two sons were not named with him in stories about his rescue of Mary Draper Ingles, family tradition holds that Adam and Henry were the two sons accompanying their father when he found Mary near his hunting cabin in 1755 ( see Adam Harman: Pioneer on the New River, 1745 )[2]

During the time termed “Indian depredations” along the New River, at the start of the French and Indian War, many of the settlers fled to safer places in North Carolina. Some of the Harmans moved to the area around Old Salem where the Moravians lived. In that area in 1758, Henry married Anna Nancy Wilburn.[3] Their first child, Daniel Conrad, was born there in 1760.[4] The second son, Henry, Jr., was reportedly born on the New River in 1763,[5] yet the Moravians recorded this child’s baptism in North Carolina at age one, on 22 April 1764.[6]
 

Henry, Sr., made return forays into Virginia, which apparently sometimes included his young family, but his primary home seems to have been in Rowan County North Carolina until about 1776.[7] Records referring to him can be found there from 1758 until about 1775.[8] In Virginia, records show he owned land in Tazewell and surrounding counties from 1754, until he moved to Bland County in about 1755 where he had a large estate near High Rock.[9] In about 1790, he moved to Hollybrook in the same county,[10]  and that’s where he is buried.

Near this location, Henry Harman, Sr. built a home at Hollybrook, Bland County, Virginia. His grave marker lies at the base of tree in the center of the photo. Photographed in May 2002 by Z. T. Noble.

During pre-Revolutionary War days, Henry served as leader of a “company of ‘Regulators’ of North Carolina in 1770-1771, who arose against the unjust laws of England in armed resistance. He was a member of the Committee of Safety of Rowan County, North Carolina in 1774-1775. Having become a resident of Montgomery County, Virginia in 1776, he served throughout the Revolution as a frontier Indian fighter in southwest Virginia.”[11] On his tombstone are the words, “Pvt Capt A Osborne’s Regt. Revolutionary War.”[12]

Henry Harman's grave marker, Harman Cemetery, Hollybrook, Bland County, Virginia.  Photographed May 2002 by Z. T. Noble.

Henry Harman’s Indian fighting prowess became legendary on 12 November 1788, near the Tug River in what is now McDowell County, West Virginia. On that day, he and his sons Mathias and George and their friend George Draper loaded their equipment on pack horses and set out with their bear dog into disputed territory hunting bear. Being late in the year, they didn’t expect to encounter Indians. As they prepared their camp, each attending to his specific chores, the two sons loaded their guns and set out to explore the area around their camp. Before long, George returned to report a smoldering campfire not far away. Henry quizzed his son about what he had seen, and from the report, he determined that at least five to seven Indians could be within a short distance.[13]

To avoid a confrontation, they decided the best thing to do was to pack up and head for home as quickly and quietly as possible, so they alerted Mathias. As the men packed their gear, Henry noticed that Draper was trembling and tried to calm him. The two older men took the lead, followed by the pack horses, and then Henry’s two sons. On the way, Draper spotted Indians behind a log. When the bear dog ran up to the log, he quickly turned tail and retreated to his master. Henry realized that meant danger, so he joined his sons.  Suddenly, gun shots exploded from behind the log and smoke engulfed it. Draper fled. Seven Shawnee, four armed with guns and the others with bows, arrows and clubs, surrounded Henry, George, and Mathias, who formed a triangle with their backs to each other to fight them off. George and Henry fired first wounding two of their foes.[14]

George struggled with another attacker, and with Mathias’ help, stabbed him. Henry was shot twice with arrows, one in the elbow, which pierced an artery, and one in his side, which lodged against a rib, but he was able to raise his gun as if to fire. When he did, the Indians fell back a short distance. Mathias then shot and killed the one who appeared to be their leader. With two of their number dead and two wounded, the Shawnee fled, passing Draper hiding behind a log. Draper then slipped off to the settlement to report the others killed. George and Mathias stopped the bleeding of their father’s wound, and offered him his pipe for a smoke while they assessed the damages. The villagers found them alive and well. Through the following years, George re-told this story, blow by blow, to his descendants.[15]
 

A marker commemorating this battle stands in Gary Lions Park on highway 103, near the intersection of highway 116,  close to Welch, West Virginia. A distant Harman cousin helped me find it in 2008.

Battle of Tug River Monument, McDowell County, WV. Photo June 2008, by Z. T. Noble.

Photographed by Z. T. Noble, June 2008.

Henry’s stamina in this battle earned him the respect of his opponents, who dubbed his “Skygusta,” which translates roughly into brave warrior. Through the years, this nickname stuck among his white friends as well. People called him “Old Skygusty.” A small unincorporated town in West Virginia near the battle site is named Skygusty, and at least one of his descendants, Jim Connell (see Adam Harman: Pioneer on the New River, 1745), uses the name on his license plate.

---

[1] John Newton Harman,  Sr., Harman Genealogy (Southern Branch) with Biographical Sketches and Historical Notes, 1700-1924 (Radford, Va.: Commonwealth Press, Inc., 1925), p. 50, 69, 71.

[2] Harman, Harman Genealogy, p. 71.

[3] U. S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900, database Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com : accessed 14 April 2014), citing Henry Harman and Anna Nancy Wilburn, 1758.

[4]  Harman, Harman Genealogy, p. 69.

[5] Harman, Harman Genealogy, p. 69.

[6] Adelaide L. Fries, Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, Vol. I, 1752-1771 (Raleigh, N.C.: Edwards and Broughton Printing, Co., 1922), p. 286; Harman, Harman Genealogy, p. 320-1; Mary B. Kegley and F. B. Kegley, Early Adventures on the Western Waters, Vol. 1 (Orange, Va.: Green Publishers, Inc., 1980), p. 223.

[7] Harman, Harman Genealogy, p. 69-70.

[8] Harman, Harman Genealogy, p. 70.

[9] Harman, Harman Genealogy, p. 70.

[10] Harman, Harman Genealogy, p. 73.

[11] U.S. Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970, about Henry Harman, Sr., database Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 15 April 2014); SAR membership number 73600, National Society Sons of the American Revolution, Microfilm, 508 rolls.

[12] Harman Cemetery (Hollybrook, Bland County, Virginia); Henry Harman marker;  photographed May 2002 by the researcher.

[13] Harman, Harman Genealogy, p. 76-77.

[14] Harman, Harman Genealogy, p. 78.

[x15] Harman, Harman Genealogy, p. 78-80.

(c) 2014, Z. T. Noble

Adam Harman, Pioneer on the New River, Part 7

This is the final part of the article on Adam Harman, my 6 x great-grandfather, originally published in The Smithfield Review, Vol. 13, 2009. The Harmans came to America from a Moravian tradition in Germany, so they must have felt a kinship with Moravians in North Carolina:

Further records involving Adam Harman can be found at the Moravian settlement in North Carolina. Many Moravian journal entries record the unrest caused by Indian attacks, such as the following involving Adam Harman, referred to here as “the elder Herrman”:

1763, Aug. 22. A man from New River came to the doctor for treatment of a wound received from an Indian. He brought a letter from our friend the elder Herrman, which said that since the last alarm, they had seen no more of the Wild men. They, the Herrmans, had built a fort where they and several other families were living together. They were expecting a guard of 100 men from Virginia.1

1764, Feb. 10. From New River comes our friend, the elder Herrman, and his son, Adam. The rest of their families will follow next week. Herrman says that by spring that there will be no families left on New River, for by the King’s Declaration the land must be returned to the Cherokees.

Feb. 29. The Herrman families, who have been staying at the mill, moved away today. They will settle near our east line.2

Other entries record happier events in the life of Adam Harman and his family:

1764, April 21. Yesterday the elder Herrman and part of his family arrived. Today the rest came, accompanied by many wedding guests, for Daniel Herrman wished to be married to Billy Bughsen’s daughter by Justice Loesch. About forty people had to be cared for in the Tavern tonight, but all went with reasonable quiet.

April 22. Easter Sunday. (The usual services were held). In a separate service the little sons of Adam and Henry Herrman were baptized. The children are the grandsons of our friend, the elder Herrman. Adam’s son, six weeks old, received the name of Valentine; the other a year old, was named Henry.3

The following entry records news of Adam Harman’s death and establishes that he had returned to the New River:

1767, Mar. 2. Captain English from New River, was here, on his way to Georgia. . . . He confirmed the report about the murder [by the Indians on the New River]. He also told us that our old friend Adam Herrman died there four weeks ago.4

These invaluable records left by the Moravians give a glimpse into the difficulties Adam Harman encountered in his efforts to locate his family in a safe place where the happy events such as marriage and baptism could continue unmolested, yet he also returned to the wilderness, which he must have loved, and spent his last days there.

After his father’s death, Adam Harman’s son Henry recorded in his father’s old German Bible, which is now housed at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond, “My father, Adam Herman, died in the fall of the year 1767. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us of all our sins. My Lord Jesus, yours forever. Yours I am in life and in death eternally.”5 This date conflicts with the Moravian records by several months, yet the year is consistent.

           

The life of German immigrant, Heinrich Adam Hermann, better known in historical records as Adam Harman, was a lively and eventful one. Evidence reveals that he took great risks in transporting his family from Germany to the Colonies and then to the wilderness along the New River in Virginia; that he dreamed big and did not always have the ability or means to carry out his dreams; that he was not always a congenial neighbor; that he was a man who showed courage in dangerous times; and that “the brave, tender-hearted, sympathetic, noble Adam Harmon” of John P. Hale’s account could also be a man of violence, if necessary. He was firm in his resolve to help settle the new frontier of Virginia, firm in his resolve to establish a place for his family there. He lived during an age when immigrants, such as he, were hungry for land of their own, and they were willing to risk their lives to obtain it. Adam Harman’s legacy is perhaps best noted in the lives of his descendants, many of whom still live in the Appalachian region of Southwest Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia and North Carolina where their progenitor hunted and farmed and fought to secure a place for them. They have been farmers, preachers, soldiers, teachers, engineers, doctors, lawyers, miners, artists, writers, and more—all the solid citizenry that has made the region the backbone of the United States of America.

Acknowledgements: I owe a special thank you to the National Endowment for the Humanities for a grant I received to attend the Summer Institute for College and University Teachers, "Regional Study and the Liberal Arts: Appalachia Up-Close," at Ferrum College in June 2008. My project for the institute was to research the life of Adam Harman for this manuscript. Thank you, Brenda Wagner King, Wythe County Genealogical Society, for inadvertently helping me find my Harman roots; Vaughn Cassell for meticulously researching the descendants of Adam Harman; Barbara Vines Little for sending me a copy of the Patton and Buchanan survey report so I could see it for myself; Eddie Harman for helping me find Harman landmarks in McDowell County, West Virginia; and Jim Connell, a descendant of Adam Harman living in Giles County at Clovernook, the place where Harman and his two sons rescued Mary Ingles from the elements and from starvation. Jim very graciously gave my mother and me a tour of the area. He showed me the route he thinks Ingles took over the cliffs and the location of the cornfield and the hunting cabin. Thank you, James Alexander Thom for telling me about Jim Connell. Thank you, Herman Schrader and Charlotte Harman Puckett at the Tazewell County Historical Society, and thanks to the people who assisted me at the Virginia Historical Society, the Augusta County Court House, and the Orange County Historical Society. In addition, thank you, Dan Woods, Ferrum College, and Hugh Campbell, Smithfield Review, for suggesting additional sources. And to the other Smithfield Review editors, I humbly thank you for your generous comments, for your attention to details, and for helping shape the manuscript.

---

1 Adelaide L. Fries, Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, Vol. I, 1752-1771 (Raleigh, N.C.: Edwards and Broughton Printing, Co., 1922), p. 274; Harman, Harman Genealogy, p. 320; Kegley and Kegley, Early Adventures, p. 223.

2 Fries, Records of the Moravians, p. 285; Harman, Harman Genealogy, p. 320; Kegley and Kegley, Early Adventures, p. 223.

3 Fries, Records of the Moravians, p. 286; Harman, Harman Genealogy, p. 320-1; Kegley and Kegley, Early Adventures, p. 223.

4 Fries, Records of the Moravians, p. 258; Harman, Harman Genealogy, p. 321; Kegley and Kegley, Early Adventures, p. 223.

5 Harman Family Bible; Harman, Harman Genealogy, p. 70.

© 2014, Z. T. Noble

Adam Harman, Pioneer on the New River, Part 6

The setter's on the New River encountered perilous times when Shawnee warriors attacked their villages during the French and Indian War. Adam Harman's part in protecting his and the other settlers' place in the region was fraught with intrigue and confusion over who was the enemy. Some people didn't distinguish between friendly Cherokee and enemy Shawnee. Some Cherokee didn't always seem friendly, and not all actions of the militia were above board. This is more of Adam Harman's story as first published in The Smithfield Review, Vol. 13, 2009. (For partial citations in endnotes, you can find complete citations in parts of the story published in previous weeks.)

Adam’s wilderness experience and prior examples of risk taking certainly would suggest that he was not hiding from danger. Was he part of the ill-fated Sandy Creek expedition of 1756 led by Andrew Lewis? This expedition set out with objectives to punish the Shawnee for attacks on the settlements and to establish a military presence at the mouth of the Big Sandy. The path this group traveled from Fort Frederick crossed the New River below the Horseshoe[1] and went through Burke’s Garden and on toward the Big Sandy.[2] William Preston kept a journal of the events. He reported bad weather, lack of supplies and disgruntled men who nearly mutinied, and the expedition ended in failure to reach either goal.[3] Without a list of the more than 200 white men on this expedition, we cannot determine positively that Adam Harman was one of them.

If Adam left, stayed or was a part of the Sandy Creek campaign is in question, but he was certainly in the area by 1758 when he served as one of thirty-five men accompanying Captain Robert Wade from Fort Mayo to the New River.[4] Captain Wade’s trip resulted from a series of actions to quell the Shawnee terror strikes against the English settlements. First, the governors of Virginia and of North and South Carolina realized the importance of establishing good relations with their neighbors, the Cherokee and Catawba, long-time enemies of the Shawnee. The governors wanted cooperation from the Indians in building forts. Thus in December 1755, Governor Dinwiddie sent Robert Byrd and Peter Randolph to meet with the Cherokee and ask their cooperation in building a fort on the Holston and New Rivers. In return the Cherokee could recover the deserted lands and preserve grain left behind when the settlers fled.[5] Governor Dinwiddie also asked the Cherokee to send warriors to help protect the Virginia frontier, but the Cherokee did not want to leave their villages unprotected. They wanted assurance that the forts would protect their women and children as well as the white settlers. To assuage their fears, Governor Dinwiddie offered to build forts for the Cherokee. To accomplish this, he sent Andrew Lewis with a group of men to Chota to build a fort, which they completed by July 1756, but because the governors never sent soldiers to man the fort, the Indians tore it down fearing that their enemies would take control of it.[6]

When the Cherokee finally sent a contingent of warriors into Virginia in 1757 to help fight the French and Shawnee, the warriors became impatient with delays and inaction, and many of them left. Later, Governor Dinwiddie appealed for more help from the Cherokee, so more warriors were sent in early 1758. Then in May, a large group of Cherokee returning home led by Moytoy of Settico decided to “recover” horses they had lost doing battle with the French by taking them from setters along their route. Their action offended the settlers who pursued the Indians, and a battle ensued. To get revenge for their losses, the Cherokee attacked and killed nineteen whites in North Carolina. Both whites and Cherokee were confused about whom they could trust and tensions escalated.[7]

            At this point, Captain Wade’s group, which included Adam Harmon, was sent to hunt down enemy Indians, but the march served only to increase tension and add to the confusion on whom to trust. On August 12, 1758, Captain Wade left Fort Mayo and set out in search of Shawnee or renegade Cherokee. John Echols’ account of this incident describes it vividly, spelling quirks and all:

Next morning being Wednesday the 16th. Inst, we Sent our Spyes and hunters to Spy for Enemy Signs, & to hunt for provisions. But the body of the Company Tarryed there. . . . Next morning Thursday the 17th Inst, we sent out hunters as usual, & in the afternoon some of them came in & informed us that they had seen signs of Indians at Drapers' Meadow. . . but one of our men not coming in that night disappointed us—next morning Being Fryday the 18th. Inst. Some of the men were sent to Look for the man that was Lost—& the Rest remained there. . . . The Capt. and Wm. Hall and Adam Hermon, and two or three more went off & Left the men under my Command and ordered that we should be in Readyness for a march as soon as he returned—Soon after the Captain was Gone, the man that was Lost Came in. . . .  But when the Captain came to the place where the sign was Seen, he Tels us that he saw a Shoe track among them, which caused them to believe that it had been white men after their horses—So the Captain nor none of the men, that was with him returned that night, But went a hunting—Next morning being Saturday 19th Inst. the Captain not coming gave us a great deal of Uneasyness. . . . I ordered the men to keep a Verry Sharp Look out, and Likewise to be in order to march next morning, by SunRise,—I was Determined to stay that night & if the Capt: did not come, to march off after him—Soon after we had come to a conclusion about it Some of the men Spyed five Indians Very near to us. . . . I was a Lying down in the house when I heard the news—I Rased up and presented my Gun at one of the Indians, But I heard some of our Company that was in another house, Cry out, Don't Shoot—

     I Stopt at that and askt them what they were & I beleive they said Cheroke, but Stood in amaise, & Reason they had, for I suppose there was 20 Guns presented at them, we went up to them & Examined them—they said they were Cherokees, I made signs to them to show me their Pass, But they had none,—They had with them 5 head of horse Kind & Skelps, that appeared to be whitemens. . . . Some of the Company insisted to fall upon them and Kill them, for they said they believed they were Shawnees, & that they were Spyes. . . but I said I was determined to keep them till the Capt: came. . . . After Capt: heard the opinion of the people, he past sentence of Death upon them; but there was one Abraham Dunkleberry, hunter that we let off who said they were Cherokees, yet he agreed that they were Rogues. . . . next morning Being Sunday 20th Inst, upon what Dunkleberry had said the Capt: let them have their Guns & let them go off—which displeased some of the Carolina men—so much that they swore if they were not allowed to kill them, they would never go Ranging again, for they said it was to no purpose to Rang after the Enemy, & when they had found them, not to be allowed to kill them. . . .

     Upon consideration of their having no pass, nor white man, & by reason of their steal of horses, they did not appear any waise Like friends, so the Captain told them to be Easy, and after Dunkleberry was gone, we would go after them and Kill them. . . . . the Capts: orders was for 12 of the best men to follow them and Kill them and the remainder of the Company to go to the Dunker Fort which was about half a mile below us. . . . The men that followed them were Adam hermon, Daniel Hermon, Wm. Hall, Ric'd Hall, Jun'r, Tobias Clapp, Philip Clap, Joseph Clapp, Benj. Angel, David Currie, Ric'd Hines, James Lyon & my self—13 of us—We followed them and overtook them at a peach orchard—jest as they were leaving it, we watched our opportunity, and fired at them and followed them up till we Killed 4 of them, and wounded the other—we Skelpt them that we killed, & then followed the other—he bled verry much, he went into the river and to an Island—but we could not find where he went out. . . . Next morning being Monday 21st Inst. we packed up in order to march homeward, for signs of Indians was plenty & we had but little amunition but before we left the fort, we were Sworn—the words of the oath Do not remember exactly, but the Intent of the thing was not to tell that we ever heard them say that they were Cherokees without required to swere—so left the fort and marcht till dark & took up Camp at a Plantation upon a Branch of the Little River. . . . I Rem'n Yrs. &., John Echols.[8]

This incident left the remaining Cherokee warriors in Virginia fearful for a safe return to their homes, so they petitioned Governor Dinwiddie for “promises that their people would not be molested in Virginia.”[9] More misunderstandings on both sides resulted in increasing distrust and hatred between whites and Indians. After these incidents, no further evidence has been found of Adam Harman’s involvement in altercations with Indians.

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1 “CaptainWilliam Preston and the Journal of the Sandy Creek Expedition, 1756,” Draper Manuscripts, IQQ p. 123, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison.

2 Alexander Scott Withers, Chronicles of Border Warfare, edited and annotated by Reuben Gold Thwaites with notes by Lyman Copeland Draper (Cincinnati: Stewart & Kidd Company, 1912), p. 82. The entire text of this book is available on Google Books.

3 “CaptainWilliam Preston,” Draper Manuscripts, IQQ p. 57. Kegley and Kegley, Early Adventures, p. 57.

4 Harman, Harman Genealogy, p. 53; Kegley and Kegley, Early Adventures, p. 60.

5 Kegley and Kegley, Early Adventures, p. 56.

6 Kegley and Kegley, Early Adventures, p. 58.

7 Kegley and Kegley, Early Adventures, p. 59-60.

8 Summers, History of Suthwest Virginia, pp. 63-6. The complete text of John Echol’s journal from Capt. Wade’s march is transcribed in Summer’s History on pages 62-6. A summary of this incident can also be found in Kegley and Kegley, Early Adventures, p. 60.

9 Kegley and Kegley, Early Adventures, p. 61.

© 2014, Z. T. Noble