Luke Kelley’s Reminiscences #4
Submitted by Bob Davisson
Ironton Register August 24, 1854
This week changes the scene of Mr. Kelley’s reminiscences back into Virginia.
He relates some circumstances connected with Indian wars, occurring under his own eye, which has never found their way into print, and circumstances that occurred on Clinch River in Russell, Va.
We have before mentioned that Luke Kelley was removed into Russell County in 1790, remaining on a Clinch River farm until 1798, when he removed his family to the place where he died at Union Landing. During the residence upon Clinch, John was a boy from 10 to 18 years of age, but he has a distinct recollection of events there occurring.
Settlements had been made on Clinch before the time of Mr. Kelley’s location there, but the settlers had been driven off by Indians. Mr. Kelley and his neighbors made a second settlement on the same ground, and during the Indian troubles which followed, theirs were frontier settlements constantly exposed to attacks by Indians; and the bloody times they had of it. Their cows were frequently shot down, and their horses shot or stolen even when, through fear or weakness, the Indians would make no attack upon dwellings or forts.
From 1791, for four or five years, most of the settlers lived in forts or stockades, and those who neglected this precaution, as some would through daring, were generally massacred by the Indians.
All were compelled to cultivate their land under guard. They could work each one on his own land but a little while at a time, being obliged to guard one another.
No attack was ever made on Mr. Kelley’s own premises unless in the way of shooting cows, horses, hogs, etc., but many of his neighbors suffered the loss of their lives and those of their families.
MARY BUSH
Several families lived in a neighboring fort; the number of men was seven. It was customary to shoot their rifles every morning in times of danger and carefully load anew so there might be no doubt of a sure-fire. One morning when they were reloading, one of the men took out of his pouch a bullet of which the neck had not been cut off and said, “I’ll put this bullet, neck and all, for who knows, but it may kill an Indian!
They had a feeling that Indians were near. Six men went to hoe corn from a quarter to a half mile from the fort, and the one who loaded his gun with the necked bullet went to the mill. The mill was deserted, and whoever wanted went to the mill and ground his own corn.
After the men had gone, a young woman named Mary Bush went out to milk and, on her return towards the fort, Indians fell upon, tomahawked, and scalped her; and then to the number of six attacked the fort. The women inside gave the alarm, and the six men in the field fired off their guns to frighten the Indians.
The man who had gone to the mill heard the reports as he was returning and immediately threw his bags off his horse and put him to his utmost speed for the fort. The Indians had failed to break in at the gate and were trying to cut in at its side when he came in sight. He sang out at the top of his voice to his wife inside, “Elsie, open the gate,” which she did, and he dashed in still on his horse, but before the gate could be closed, the Indians rushed in; the man immediately whirled round, and sure enough, his necked bullet did kill the foremost Indian. The other six men then coming up, the Indians took to the bushes–our notes are at fault here–and whether these Indians were pursued or not, we cannot recollect.
Two years before this, the settlement was attacked, and James Coyle, an uncle, we believe, of Jesse and John Coyle of Franklin Furnace, was killed, and this same Mary Bush mentioned above was taken prisoner together with a brother of hers. The Indians were pursued and overtaken by Big Sandy.
An Indian caught Mary by the hand and told her to run, but she knew that her near friends would not run, so the Indians tomahawked and scalped her. She recovered from being tomahawked and scalped the second time, as before mentioned, on the morning the fort was attacked. She recovered the second time, married, settled on Big Sandy, and raised ten children. She has been at Mr. Kelley’s house at Union Landing.
Each time Mary Bush was scalped, the tomahawk was struck into the side of the head. The first time the top of her scalp was taken off, about the size of a dollar. When a person is scalped, it heals if the person recovers, but without hair, as was the case with Mary Bush. The second scalp from her head was the skin formed over the first wound and a ring of hair around it.
WM. DORTON
On another occasion, six Indians, as it appears, took a view of Luke Kelley’s place but, for some cause, concluded not to make an attack there and passed six miles further down the river. They attacked a house and killed a man, his wife, and six children. The alarm was given, and for safety in getting off, the Indians scattered, taking different routes for Ohio.
Small parties of the whites, two or three in each, pursued. William Dorton, a very expert woodsman noted in frontier affairs, took a young man and struck for the headwaters of the Kentucky river. He expected to intercept one or more of the Indians where Carr’s Fork of Kentucky breaks through the Cumberland Mountains, and the event proved that he judged correctly, for they had watched but a short time when two of the Indians came along down the bed of the stream. Dorton and the young man both fired. Dorton’s shot took effect, but the young man missed his Indian, who took to the bank. Dorton reloaded and shot him.
Dorton laughed at his young companion for missing the Indian when he had good aim but said he would give him another chance at one more of the Indians he was certain of heading over on Sandy. They then crossed over to the Tug Fork of Big Sandy, perhaps some 15 or 20 miles distant, and took ambush.
A little while proved that Dorton had judged correctly again, for another of the same party of Indians came along down the stream. The younger man was eager to shoot at him to redeem his reputation with Dorton for having missed his Indian over on Carr’s Fork.
He blazed away, but, as his unlucky stars would have it, he missed again, and Dorton had to kill this Indian. Before returning home, Dorton killed another of the Indians, making four out of six that Dorton intercepted and shot in the mountains. Another party killed the fifth one out of the six so that only one made good his escape.
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