Note 14 — CHRONICLES OF BORDER WARFARE (continued 2)

Little and Big Sewell mountains, dividing Fayette and Greenbrier counties, seem to perpetuate the name and memory of this early and adventurous pioneer. Col. John Stuart states, that Sewell’s final settlement was forty miles west of his primitive one, and on a creek bearing his name originating in Sewell mountain, and flowing into Gauley. Col. Preston, in his Register, gives September, 1756, as the date of Stephen Sewell’s death by the Indians, and Jackson’s River as the locality.

Mrs. Anne Royall, in Sketches of the History, Life and Manners of the United States, (New Haven, 1826), p. 60, who visited the Greenbrier country in 1824, gives the name of Carver as Sewell’s companion. “These two men,” says Mrs. Royall, “lived in a cave for several years, but at length they disagreed on the score of religion, and occupied different camps. They took care, however, not to stay far from each other, their camps being in sight. Sewell used to relate that he and his friend used to sit up all night without sleep, with their guns cocked, ready to fire at each other. ‘And what could that be for?’ ‘Why, because we couldn’t agree.’ ‘Only two of you, and could you not agree––what did you quarrel about?’ ‘Why, about re-la-gin.’ One of them, it seems, was a Presbyterian, and the other an Episcopalian.”––L. C. D.