XIV.

ANN BAILEY.

The account of the first settlement of Gallipolis, Ohio, forms a curious piece of pioneer history. When the disturbances of the French Revolution had driven many families from their native country, an office was opened in Paris for the sale of American lands owned by the “Scioto Company,” and situated on the west bank of the Ohio river, above the mouth of the Big Scioto in the Northwest Territory. A general prospectus was issued, setting forth that the company owned a million of acres; the advantages to the emigrant and ultimate value of the land, were glowingly painted, and hundreds rushed to the agents to purchase estates which might be acquired at a very moderate price. Some five or six hundred emigrants, in eluding doctors, lawyers, officers, merchants, manufacturers, mechanics, farmers, gardeners, etc., with their deeds in their hands, and eager with hope and expectation, sailed in February, 1790, from Havre de Grace, five ships being chartered to convey them to Alexandria, Virginia. They were received with a warm and hospitable welcome by the inhabitants of that town, supplied with portions of their stores, and taught all that was necessary to learn as to the manner of living in the new country.[28]

From a correspondence opened with the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, the emigrants learned that the Scioto Company had failed in their engagements to government, and that the lands purchased from the Treasury Board had reverted and been sold in 1787 to the agents for the directors of the Ohio Company, pursuant to an act of Congress passed the July preceding. This was the first knowledge they had of their true situation, and the imposition practised on them. A general meeting was called, and a committee appointed to go to New York and demand indemnification of the acting agent for the Scioto Company, while another committee was to appeal to President Washington for a redress of their grievances. The result of the application to the agent of the Scioto Company was the promise that other lands should be secured to the emigrants in fulfilment of the engagements entered into, and that the site of Gallipolis should be surveyed into lots, houses erected, with defences against the Indians, and wagons and supplies provided to convey the colonists to Ohio. Notwithstanding this flattering report of their committee, many of them had no hope that the promises would be fulfilled, and removed to New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. As soon as wagons could be procured, the others left Alexandria and passed through Winchester to Brownsville on the Monongahela, where they were detained, as boats were not in readiness to proceed. They had shanties to lodge in, but the fall rains had set in, and they suffered many privations. Their voyage further was not a pleasant one, the river being low, and shoals frequent; but after a weary progress they reached the place of destination, in October, 1790, and landed with great joy. Surveyors had been sent to lay out the town, and workmen to build houses, and the first tree had been cut down on the 8th of June, by Col. Robert Safford. Four rows of twenty cabins, each with a door, windows, and wooden chimney, were put up, and as a better sort of habitation for those of the superior class, two rows of huts of hewn logs, a story and a half in height. Block-houses two stories high were also erected, with a high stockade fence, forming a sufficient fortification against attack. In one of the better cabins was a room used for a ball-room and council chamber. As soon as the quarters of each family were assigned, their massive chests were opened and relieved of the ponderous contents, which were distributed in the community.

They entered upon the new mode of life with cheerfulness and a social spirit; they had soirées, music, and dancing regularly; some had mingled in the higher circles abroad and had cultivated literary tastes, and there were scientific men who had spent years of study in the first European institutions. Few of them had ever wielded an axe, but they did not shrink from severe labor; they cleared the forest, prepared the soil for cultivation, and soon changed the wilderness to a land of more inviting aspect. A corps of hunters brought in regular supplies of game, and flour and grain were procured from Western Pennsylvania. From the commencement of the settlement service was performed by a Catholic priest, which was regularly attended by the emigrants. In a short time different branches of business were commenced, retail stores opened, and manufactures offered for sale and carried to other places.

In the spring of 1791, a party was sent out to explore the lands from Gallipolis to the confluence of the Big Scioto with the Ohio. A keel-boat was chartered and a crew obtained, with hunters, spies, and scouts, making a formidable appearance with their camp equipage and war accoutrements, while the colonists assembled to bid them adieu. They reached the mouth of the Big Scioto by the aid of poles, pikes, &c., ascended it about a mile, and encamped near the site of the court-house in Portsmouth. The country was then explored, and the lands examined along the banks of the river; the hunters bringing in abundance of deer, turkeys, and other game. On their return to Gallipolis, their report was joyfully received, and hope was entertained that the Scioto company would yet put the colonists in possession of the lands they had purchased.

It was now announced that a hostile band of Indians had been prowling in the neighborhood; one emigrant was killed and two were taken prisoners, while several horses and cattle were carried off. A defensive force was organized, and on application to the Secretary of War, assistance was sent. Few further depredations, however, were committed by the Indians, though they came occasionally to peep at the dances of the colonists, and the settlement continued for so long a time to enjoy immunity from attack, that it was supposed that the savages entertained unusually friendly feelings towards the French. After the victories of Gen. Wayne and the establishment of peace, a free intercourse was maintained between the residents at Gallipolis and the colonists from Massachusetts living at Marietta. The former soon became convinced that the agents of the Scioto Company could never secure them in the possession of their lands, and after some further endeavors to procure redress by prosecuting their claims, they were obliged to give up the hope of having their rights conceded. In a negotiation afterwards with the Ohio Company, many of the settlers were disappointed, and feeling themselves deceived, left the settlement, reducing the numbers of those remaining to about three hundred. A petition to Congress for an appropriation of lands for their benefit, presented by M. Gervais, resulted in the grant of twenty thousand acres, to be equally divided among the French emigrants living at Gallipolis at a certain time, under conditions that secured their settling there for some years. Other grants were afterwards made to other colonists opposite and below the mouth of Little Sandy River in Kentucky. Improvements in the lands went on: apple and peach orchards were planted, and the cider and brandy manufactured became a source of revenue. New emigrants came in, and in 1803, Gallia county was erected, Gallipolis being the county seat.

So interesting and romantic is the story of this settlement by the French, that no apology will be necessary for connecting the narrative with a brief notice of a remarkable woman, remembered by all the old inhabitants of Gallipolis, and throughout Western Virginia, and known by name to almost every child in the country. She was sometimes called “Mad Ann,” and was a terror to refractory urchins. Her maiden name was Hennis. She was born at Liverpool, married Richard Trotter at the age of thirty, and came with him to the American colonies; both, on account of poverty, being “sold out” to service, according to custom, for the payment of the passage money, to a gentleman in Augusta county, Virginia. Having served him faithfully for the stipulated time, they became settlers.

The frontier having suffered much from Indian attacks, in the summer of 1774, Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, collected forces for an expedition against the Indian towns on the Scioto. Gen. Lewis, who had signalized himself in the field of Braddock’s defeat, was ordered to march with his division to the junction of the Great Kanawha with the Ohio. Richard Trotter was a volunteer in his force. Lewis halted on the ground now occupied by the village of Point Pleasant, to await further communications from the commander-in-chief; but before his men could erect defences, except a few fallen trees, the scouts came into camp with intelligence that an army of Indian warriors was in their immediate vicinity. The troops were put in battle array, and in a very short time, on the morning of the 10th of October, a general engagement took place, in which the Virginians suffered great loss, though the Indians retreated. Among those engaged in this memorable battle, we find the names of Shelby, Sevier, and James Robertson.

Trotter was killed in this battle. From the period of his death, a strange and wild spirit seemed to possess the widow, who frequently expressed her hatred of the Indians, and her determination to have revenge. The opinion entertained by her neighbors that her intellects were somewhat disordered, was confirmed by her entire abandonment of all feminine employments. She no longer sewed, spun, or attended to household or garden concerns, but practised with the rifle, slung the tomahawk, and rode about the country attending every muster of soldiers. She even in part discarded female attire, and was seen clad in a hunting-shirt and moccasins, wearing her knife and tomahawk, and carrying her gun. Her manly spirit and resolve to avenge the death of her husband did not prevent her contracting a second alliance, and it was as Ann Bailey that, several years afterwards, she followed a body of soldiers sent to garrison a fort on the Great Kanawha, where Charleston is now located. The men often practised shooting at a target, and Ann, ambitious to display her skill, would contend with the best marksmen and sometimes carry off the prize. At parade she handled fire-arms with the expertness of a warrior, and the rifle was her constant companion. Howe, in his historical work on Virginia, mentions that she frequently acted as a messenger, carrying letters from the fort to Point Pleasant, and that she generally rode on horseback, with a rifle over her shoulder, and a knife and tomahawk in her belt. At night she would encamp in the woods, letting her horse go free, and then walking back some distance on the trail to escape discovery by the vigilant savages.

Marauding parties of Indians were often seen in the valley of the Kanawha, and the Virginians doubted not their intention of making a desperate effort to dislodge them from this favorite hunting-ground. A runner was sent from Capt. Arbuckle, at Point Pleasant, to Capt. Clendenin, the commander of the garrison, with information that a hundred or more Indian warriors had been seen the day previous crossing the Ohio at Racoon Island, some ten miles below. It was supposed their design was to attack the fort at Charleston, or at Big Levels, in Greenbrier county. All the inhabitants around were immediately gathered into the fort.

At this crisis the terrible fact was announced that their ammunition was nearly exhausted. It was determined to send immediately to Camp Union, now Lewisburg, for a supply; but few men could be spared from the fort, and none was willing to encounter, with a small party, the perils of a hundred miles’ journey through a trackless forest. Mrs. Bailey heard of the difficulty, and instantly offered her services, saying she would go alone. Her acquaintance with the country, her excellent horsemanship, her perseverance, and fearless spirit, were well known, and the commander of the garrison at length yielded to her solicitation. A good horse was furnished her, with a stock of jerked venison and johnny-cake; she set her face towards Greenbrier, armed with rifle, etc., and resolutely overcoming every obstacle in the ruggedness of the way through the woods, the mountains she had to cross, and the rivers to swim, undaunted by the perils threatening from wild beasts and straggling parties of Indians, she reached Camp Union in safety, delivered her orders, and being provided with a led horse fully laden, as well as her own, set forward on her return.

She used to relate how her trail was followed for hours together by wolves, watching for an opportunity to attack her horses. When night set in she was compelled to make large fires to keep the wild beasts at bay. To protect herself in slumber from the danger of rattlesnakes and copperheads, which infested the wilderness, she had to construct a pioneer bedstead every night, by driving into the ground four forked sticks about three feet high, adjust upon them other sticks to serve as bed rails and slats, and overlay them with a quantity of green boughs, her blanket serving as a musquito bar. Thus she would sleep amidst the howling of wolves, the screaming of panthers, and the buzzing of troublesome insects; at break of day replacing the loads on her horses, and resuming her journey, her simple breakfast being eaten on horseback. She arrived in safety with her supplies at the fort. It is said that the premeditated attack was made the very next day, and that the Indians were repulsed after a severe conflict. Mrs. Bailey was actively employed during the siege, and tradition says, fired several times upon the assailants. She always insisted that she had killed one Indian at least, and thus accomplished her revenge. The commandant has been heard to say that the fort could not have been saved without the timely supply of ammunition, thus giving the credit to Mrs. Bailey’s exploit, which indeed is scarcely paralleled even among the many instances of heroism that abound in the history of the Revolutionary war.

After the troubles with the Indians were over, Mrs. Bailey still retained her singular habits. She spent much of her time in fishing and hunting, and would shoot deer and bears with the expertness of a backwoodsman. In person she was short and stout, and of coarse and masculine appearance, and she seldom wore a full woman’s dress, having on usually a skirt with a man’s coat over it, and buckskin leggins. The services she rendered in the war had greatly endeared her to the people, and her eccentricities were regarded with an indulgence that would not have been extended to one who had no such claims to gratitude. She annually visited many of the people of West Virginia, and received presents in clothing and other articles. Gen. Newsom recollects seeing her in his boyhood, passing from the Kanawha Valley to the counties near the Alleghanies, and returning with her horse laden with gifts from those who remembered her achievement. Thus “Mad Ann” and her black horse, which she called “Liverpool” in honor of her birthplace, were always greeted with a smile of welcome wherever she chose to stop. When her son came to Ohio, where he owned a large body of land, she came with him, and lived a few miles from Gallipolis. Here she was accustomed to wander about the country, received by all as a privileged visitor, and supplied according to her need. She seldom failed, whenever there was a muster of the militia, to attend, armed like a soldier, and march in the ranks. “Not a man of them would have put her out,” said the General, in recounting the narrative. She loved solitude, and spent most of her time alone, but often gathered the neighbors around her to relate the story of her adventures. It must be added that among her masculine habits she had that of drinking occasionally, and that she sometimes exercised her skill in boxing, an accomplishment in which she was well versed. She could read and write, and seems to have possessed an unusual share of intelligence for one of her station in life.

A gentleman residing in Nashville, said he had seen her frequently near Point Pleasant, about the year 1810 or 1811. She called her gun and canoe “Liverpool,” as well as her horse. She often took it upon herself to enforce the keeping of the Sabbath by taking up such boys as she found wandering about on that day, and compelling them to sit around her in a cabin, while she opened school exercises for their instruction, greatly to the terror of the delinquents. The gentleman referred to said he was chased by her some distance on one of these occasions, and though lamed by a bruise on his foot, ran as for dear life, having made his escape by jumping out of the window of the hut where she had imprisoned a number of boys.

Mrs. Bailey’s life was prolonged far beyond the ordinary limits; according to her own account, she numbered several years over a century. Her death took place in 1825. The place of her burial is on a lonely hill near her son’s residence, in the solitude of the woods, unmarked by a headstone. Gen. Newsom suggests that her remains should be removed by the citizens of Virginia to the spot where the fort stood in Charleston, and honored by a suitable monument.