Chronicles of border warfare

This is a 1971 reprint edition of the 1895 edition of "Chronicles of Border Warfare." The modern title page and verso have been relocated to the end of the text.

The 1895 edition includes and expands on the original 1831 edition. Throughout this text, the pagination of the original edition is indicated by brackets, such as [54].

Capitalization standards for the time (i.e. "fort Morgan," "mrs. Pindall," "Ohio river") have been preserved.

Variable hyphenation has been preserved.

Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

Author's punctuation style has been preserved.

Typographical problems have been corrected as listed in the Transcriber's Note at the end of the text.

Passages in italics are indicated by underscores.

CHRONICLES OF BORDER WARFARE

[Illustration]

CHRONICLES OF BORDER WARFARE

OR, A

History of the Settlement by the Whites, of North-Western Virginia, and of the Indian Wars and Massacres in that section of the State

WITH

REFLECTIONS, ANECDOTES, &c.

BY

ALEXANDER SCOTT WITHERS

A New Edition

EDITED AND ANNOTATED BY

REUBEN GOLD THWAITES

Secretary of the Wisconsin Historical Society, editor of "Wisconsin Historical Collections," and author of "The Colonies, 1492-1750," "Historic Waterways," "Story of Wisconsin," etc.

With the addition of a Memoir of the Author, and several Illustrative Notes.

BY THE LATE

LYMAN COPELAND DRAPER

Author of "King's Mountain and Its Heroes," "Autograph Collections of the Signers," etc.

CINCINNATI THE ROBERT CLARKE COMPANY 1895

Copyright, 1895

By REUBEN GOLD THWAITES

All rights reserved

CONTENTS.

Portrait of the Author Frontispiece.

PAGE

Editor's Preface v

Memoir of the Author, by Lyman C. Draper viii

Original Title-page (photographic fac-simile) xiii

Original Copyright Notice xiv

Original Advertisement xv

Original Table of Contents (with pagination revised) xvii

Author's Text (with editorial notes) 1

Index, by the Editor 431

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

It is sixty-four years since the original edition of Withers's Chronicles of Border Warfare was given to the public. The author was a faithful recorder of local tradition. Among his neighbors were sons and grandsons of the earlier border heroes, and not a few actual participants in the later wars. He had access, however, to few contemporary documents. He does not appear to have searched for them, for there existed among the pioneer historians of the West a respect for tradition as the prime source of information, which does not now obtain; to-day, we desire first to see the documents of a period, and care little for reminiscence, save when it fills a gap in or illumines the formal record. The weakness of the traditional method is well exemplified in Withers's work. His treatment of many of the larger events on the border may now be regarded as little else than a thread on which to hang annotations; but in most of the local happenings which are here recorded he will always, doubtless, remain a leading authority--for his informants possessed full knowledge of what occurred within their own horizon, although having distorted notions regarding affairs beyond it.

The Chronicles had been about seven years upon the market, when a New York youth, inspired by the pages of Doddridge, Flint, and Withers, with a fervid love for border history, entered upon the task of collecting documents and traditions with which to correct and amplify the lurid story which these authors had outlined. In the prosecution of this undertaking, Lyman C. Draper became so absorbed with the passion of collecting that he found little opportunity for literary effort, and in time his early facility in this direction became dulled. He was the most successful of collectors of materials for Western history, and as such did a work which must earn for him the lasting gratitude of American historical students; but unfortunately he did little more than collect and investigate, and the idea which to the last strongly possessed him, of writing a series of biographies of trans-Alleghany pioneers, was never realized. He died August 26, 1891, having accomplished wondrous deeds for the Wisconsin Historical Society, of which he was practically the founder, and for thirty-three years the main stay; in the broader domain of historical scholarship, however, he had failed to reach his goal. His great collection of manuscripts and notes, he willed to his Society, which has had them carefully classified and conveniently bound--a lasting treasure for historians of the West and Southwest, for the important frontier period between about 1740 and 1816.