Murder Branch Massacre
Ralph Morgan had been born in Frederick
County, Virginia, and came to Kentucky with his father and uncle in 1779.
They settled at Strode's Station, largely because its builder had been their
neighbor in the adjoining Virginia County of Berke (now in West Virginia).
The Morgans had gone first to Boonesborough, built by their cousin, Daniel
Boone, whose mother was a sister of the father of Gen. Daniel Morgan of the
Revolution.
Morgan's Station was about two miles east of Mt. Sterling on
Slate Creek. Morgan offered settlers land at one dollar an acre
and the first who came unpacked their horses on February 10, 1789.
They were Tom Montgomery, Silas Hart, George Naylor, Robert Doughert,
Peter and William Hanks, and a little later, James Dougles and John
Holmes.
Initially, three cabins were built with each facing the others,
so that they could protect their neighbor’s doorways with rifle fire against
Indian attack. They planted corn and left the area for Strode's Station,
with a plan to come back on June 1st. The settlers returned and by June
3rd had built three more cabins and then stockaded the station for
protection.
The settlers had planted their corn too late, and an early
Fall frost killed it, causing them all to leave save the two brothers, John and
James Wade. James was employed by Morgan as a spy or scout to keep watch
for Indians. John Luster was induced to stay with them for awhile but got
uneasy about Indians and left.
Come Spring, other settlements began to
spring up. Peter Harper and his nephew George Harper and settled about
four miles from Morgan's, building cabins and planting corn. Peter was
half Shawnee, his mother having been captured and compelled to live with an
Indian. The Harpers settled at Boonesborough, but Peter went to Strode's
when it was first settled, and was finally killed near his station in
Montgomery, some say by Indians, but othes say by Col. James McMillan, because
he mistook him for an Indian. He never married and at the time of his
death had been living with his mother on Howard's Upper Creek in Clark.
A
week or two before Harper moved into his station, John Wade had been fired on by
Indians and his clothing, knife, and rifle hit eleven times but he was untouched
and made it inside.
Fear of an Indian uprising seemed to have kept
Morgan's Station left to the care of the Wade brothers. When they went to
harvest the second crop of corn that Fall, they found that the buffaloes, who
would not eat the corn, had rolled much of it down by wallowing in the ground
made soft by plowing and tilling. The bears liked the sweet corn and had
eaten what they buffalo had trmapled or buried.
On March 2, 1791 John
Wade was killed within two or three hundred yards of the Beaver Ford, which was
about a mile below. The next Sunday, a man named Reynolds was killed near
Morgan's Station, being shot by a bullet from the gun which John Wade had
carried when he was killed.
But that was about it, and the next year
Morgan's Station's palisade/stockade had been cut down and used for firewood as
the Indians had been so quiet.
A residient at Morgan's, Harry Martin,
had had a run-in with a Cherokee chieftain over some matter. The Cherokee
wished Martin dead, but could not convince any of his tribe to attack the
station, so he went north into Ohio to gather some assistance from the Shawnee
with the promise of easy plunder.
On April 1, 1793, John Wade (Jr) had
gone to Harry Martin's cabin in Morgan's Station to collect money due him for
corn that Martin had bought, when the Indian Alarm was raised. Wade ran
out, followed by Martin, who had snatched up his gun from the wall.
The
Becraft men and Andy Duncan had been out working in the corn fields, and were
racing back for the safety of the Station. Abraham Becraft, the father,
who, being close to the woods, jumped over the fence and made his escape
unnoticed by the Indians chasing the others.
Wade and Martin ran out of
the gate, to give them cover fire. Martin, seeing two or three Indians in
pursuit ran past his fleeing neighbors, while the Whites took refuge in one of
the three blockhouses, their having left the guns in the corn
fields.
Wade Jr, ran into the nearest blockhouse and spied out the loop
hole. He saw an Indian, in advance, carrying a beautifully finished rifle
in one hand, the polished brass on the butt glittering as it caught the rays of
the sun, and in the other a shining tomahawk, brandishing over his head.
Suddenly he dropped to one knee and took a shot at Martin running at
him.
Some 10 or 15 steps behind followed 30 or 40 Indians, all spread out
in a line and making towards the Station. Martin, startled on seeing how
many there were, stopped and turned around, running with the Becrafts and
Duncan.
Shots erupted from the Station, doing nothing. The
ineffective fire emboldened the Indians, who let out a yell and ran on.
Young for some reason bolted out of the blockhouse door. As he past, his
wife grabbed him, and he tripped and fell, Wade thinking him shot. But
Young got up, ran out, and had his hat shot off of his head by the
Indians. He grabbed Andy Duncan and the two spritied off around the
Station for help (later saying that 150-200 Indians had
attacked).
Indians fired at Young and Duncan, but they escaped to
Troutman's Station, and Young went to raise the alarm and gather more men, his
now saying that there were only 30 Indians as the men of Troutman's were
hesistant to rush out at 150-200 Indians and leave their station unprotected.
Meanwhile back at the stockadeless cabins and blockhouses at Morgan's
Station, a general panic spread in seconds, and the settlers ran out, every man
and woman for themselves in all directions.
As the Indians
had not yet gained the unfortified Morgan's Station, settlers had a few seconds
to run away.
Harry Martin ran to his cabin unharmed by Indian fire, and
gathered up his family. As they ran out of his cabin, he took out his
butcher knife and cut off his wife's "petticoat" (skirt) so that she could run
faster. He snatched up his older child, pointed to the younger for his
wife to snatch up, and off they ran. An Indian ball intended for Martin
struck and killed a neighbor girl, one of the Becrafts, that was running beside
him. The ball hit her in the left hip and spun her around, dropping
her. They made the hill above Slate Creek. During the night, he left his
wife in the woods near Montgomery's Station while he went in and borrowed
clothes for her.
Wade Jr and Baker ran out of the blockhouse, a step or
two in the lead. The leading Indians were but ten steps off, and poured a
fire at them, Wade later counting nine in a stump he passed by. With
Whites scattering everywhere, the Indians split off and chased after their own
prey, two turnng to pursuit Wade and Baker, but being outdistanced, turned and
ran back. Baker was a "big fat Dutchman," but outpaced the two warriors.
Little did they know that a ball had struck his leg, glancing upwards, and
tearing and ripping flesh at it went, then shattered his knee.
By 8
o'clock or so, the next morning, April 2, the militia had been assembled to the
tune of 150 men, and under the command of Captain Enoch Smith, rode off toward
Morgan's. When they had gotten to about five miles, just above the head of
Little Slate Creek, they found Mrs. Becraft and her baby of 6 or 8 months old
tomahawked and dead. The Indians had stripped her down to her shift to
make her walk faster. But they had pushed her too hard the night before
and in the morning when she could not keep the pace, she was killed a quater of
mile past the Indians night camp.
About seven miles father on, on Beaver
Creek, they had killed a son of Robert Craig, four or five years old. The
next nine Whites were about 5 miles farther. Two of them that were
tomahawked, scalped, and left for dead survived: Mrs. Robert Craig who lived for
seven days, and Betty Becraft, daughter of the woman first killed, who recovered
entirely. The other seven that were killed were Mrs. Craig's infant boy, a
little boy of Joe Young's, two children of Baker's, and the remaining three
children of Abraham Becraft, between the girl killed at the Station and the
infant killed with his wife.
After about 25 miles of pursuit, the
Indians appeared to be gaining and going so fast that Enoch Smith said it was
not worth while to go any farther. They had carried off all the moveable
plunder such as furniture, beds, clothing, bed-ticks, etc. And every horse
except Wade's.
What was awkward, the Indians merely cut loose and
dumped. And to confuse pursuers, five warriors had each taken a female
prisoner and had headed off for the Ohio River by a different route, their to
rendezvous and meet up later on the other side. The women taken were Clarinda
Allington, Baker's wife, a sister of Apsey Robinson, Baker's daughter, Joe
Young's wife, and Rachael Becraft. The women were kept on Little Sandy 32 days
before they were carried over the Ohio, the Indians waiting to catch horses that
were running loose in the mountains.
Besides the women, there
was only one other prisoner, Ben, a son of Abraham Becraft, about 14 years of
age, who went on with the Indians. They carried him with themselves on a
horse and took him almost directly to Detroit, scarcely stopping at their
towns. There they sold him to a Scotchman, who put him in a store, gave
him a pretty good slight at writing, and made such an improvement on him as you
never saw put on anyone. He had been gone only about 20 months when at
Wayne's Treaty, they had to go get him and dress him up. He came back with
no Indian paint and he was nicely dressed. But he soon got to be a Becraft
again.
At Wayne's Treaty they could get no Indian who could give
any account of such a girl as Baker's daughter and she never returned. All the
others were then given up except Clarinda Allington and they said her husband
would have to gie her up, as she was in the Cherokee Nation. Before Wayne's
Treaty Joe Young had hunted everywhere for his wife. Clarinda Allington stayed
with the Cherokees six or seven years and until she had three children, John,
Sally, and William, when she got permission to come and see her brothers. Her
husband, a Cherokee chieftain named Tuscarigo, sent a little negro boy along, 16
or 17 years old, to take care of the children. She had promised to return to her
Cherokee home, but refused, and left her children with he brothe Jacob and gave
him the little negro boy to pay for raising them. She again married, soon after
she returned, a great deal worse husband than the Indian had made. He moved to
Ohio and there died; and she then married a more trifling man, if possible, than
ever, so her brother David told me.
"She said her chief was not all
Indian. He had been in charge of the attack. Sometime after this an
Indian came to Mr. Sterling and was about there drinking and reveling. He
said the Cherokee had died. Clarinda was his only wife, and that John, as
eldest son, was heir to his office as chief and to all that he had, and wanted
to take him home with him. But the Allingtons wouldn't consent to
it. This was while John was at William McCormick's, where he had been
bound out to learn the tanning business. His sister Sally had married a
very good looking young man, a tanner, and when John had served his time out, he
joined with his brother-in-law and they moved and set themselves up in the
tanning business on the Big Sandy. John later went south to wind up his father's
business, and I cannot find whether he remained with the Cherokees or
not.
"William was bound to Col. Tom Dye Owings to learn the black-smith
business and worked here at the Furnace, but ran away before his time was out
and went to his brother's on the Big Sandy. He complained that he wasn't
learning anything at his trade and only made to do drudgery or other
work."
In a statement given Shane by a Mrs. Pierce (who came as a child
to Cutwright's Station in Clark, in the corner of that county where it joins
Bourbon and Fayette), she says that seven Indians came to Mr. Sterling at the
time of an election, and, that when they saw one of Clarissa Allington's Indian
sons they called out, "Cherokee John." (You will notice that she calls her
Clarissa.) Mrs. Pierce was the daughter of John Reid, who first built a mill
where Thatcher's Mill stood until recently, on Stoner, in Bourbon just over the
Clark line.