2 White Guy Active Shooters disguised as Indian
Sad. His compadre shot up, bloodied up, staring lifeless at nothing. The campfire still crackling.
Lying there dead mostly maybe out of stupidity, his partner still staring, as if transfixed by whatever is hereafter.
And he, dying himself, sits there bleeding, admitting they were both wrong to do what they did.
Not looking up, just sitting in his ongoing wound.
Just sitting, looking down, talking mostly to himself, while the posse that killed them stood holding their muskets above and around him listened.
Shame -- that's what Jack London portrays as the result of arrogance. That's what his people died of in the wilderness. They died of embarrassment, mostly for not foreseeing the folly of their ways which led them to this irretrievably fatal, dying moment.
Is Embarrassment a partner to any of the stages of dying?
Everybody healthy stands there, looking at you - looking at you falling apart. They don't mean to make that contrast. It just is.
But more particularly,
what led him and his fellow partner in crime to dress up as Indian and take a shot at some people?
Did it just start as drunken fun?
There's only one report of them shooting at anyone.
But that's all it took for the locals to inform the Virginia Regiment to go after them.
And for all the locals knew, it was Indians, not white men who shot at them.
I sometimes wonder if Disney's colorful, corny characters describe the frontier more closely than today's modern dark, black Gothic approach.
And so there the man sits with the posse standing over him.
The capture and killing of the two men occurred here on the date of 10 April 1758, reported by Lt Baker at Patterson's Fort to Colonel George Washington sitting at Fort Loudoun Winchester VA.
Patterson's Fort is 18 miles north of Winchester VA, to the west of the "main road", now Route 11.
The Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia), 27 April 1758, stated,
"The Persons proved to be the famous Jacob [John] Lane, killed on the Spot, and James Cox, who, tho’ mortally wounded,
lived long enough to tell the Soldiers they had done their Duty, and that Lane and himself deserved what they had met with.
They were both painted and dressed so like Indians, even to the Cut of their Hair, that their most intimate Acquaintances could not distinguish them."
The posse that killed him are still standing over him, watching him.
He's still alive, draining out his hourglass; embarrassment and pain giving way to waiting for the inevitable.
The campfire still crackling, reflecting its flicker on all the faces dead, dying and alive.
Then the posse goes into action taking the dying man to Bell's Fort, where the dying man may have said more.
The newspaper writer goes to motive:
“It is not easy to assign the Reasons that induced those unhappy Persons, who had acquired great Reputation by their signal Services, to act in the Manner they did."
Motive and Reputation are mentioned in that quote.
What reputation did they have?
That might mean they were famous from their run in with Indians last Nov 1757. The two had killed a few of the Indians. But one of them got taken prisoner, yet escaped later. This was widely reported in the newspapers last year.
Samuel Kercheval goes further, though, to assign motive, on page 114, A history of the valley of Virginia by Kercheval, Samuel, Publication date 1833
About the year 1758
there were two white men
who disguised themselves
in the habit of Indians,
and appeared in the neighborhood of the present site of Martinsburg.
They were pursued and killed, supposing them to be Indians.
It was no uncommon thing for unprincipled scoundrels to act in this manner. Their object was to frighten people to leave their homes, in
order that they might rob and plunder them of their most valuable articles. The Indians were frequently charged with outrages they never committed.We don't know if that was their motive to rob. We only know of them shooting at people once. That could mean it was just a one time thing, maybe getting drunk that night. Or maybe that was their intent to scare people and rob but at the first reported incident of a shooting they got stopped cold because the locals immediately appealed to the Virginia Regiment to track these "Indians" down.
This new incident of 10 April 1758, though, was high profile. Not just high profile for being again in the Newspapers.
It was high profile with the head of the Virginia Regiment and the leader of Virginia.
Our Colonel George Washington, overall head of both the 1st Virginia Regiment and the recently created 2nd Virginia Regiment, writes of this incident.
He held a court of enquiry to see if the leader of the posse acted in a correct manner.
The court of enquiry was to find out why the two offenders were killed instead of taken prisoner.
This Newspapers, Pennsylvania Gazette 27 April 1758 and Maryland Gazette reprinted this on 4 May 1758, describes why the leader of the posse, Ensign Colby Chew of the Virginia Regiment, killed the two men instead of taking them prisoner:
About a Mile from thence he saw two Men at a Fire;
he advanced within a few Yards of them,
and intended to have made them Prisoners,
but one of his Soldiers firing,
discovered him to the Men;
who immediately endeavoured to lay hold of their Guns.
Mr Chew then, fearing
that some of his Party might lose their Lives,
fired upon them,
and his Men followed his Example so effectually, that scarce one Bullet missed the Object it was aimed at.
Colonel George Washington, while preparing for the Forbes Expedition and handling the Cherokee allies at Fort Loudoun, writes on 17 April 1758 of the findings of the court of enquiry to President John Blair, acting as the leader of Virginia until a new Governor and Lt Gov are assigned.
The Proceedings of an examining Court of Officers on that occasion (which are herewith sent) will bring your Honor acquainted with the circumstances.
I caused a very strict enquiry
to be made into the conduct of Mr Chew,
that equal justice
might be done to the dead
and to the living;
and it appeared, that Mr Chew had acted with great spirit and activity in pursuing the tracts of those People, and that in shooting them (altho’ it was unlucky in the event) he had done nothing that was not strictly warrantable;
Lane & Cox appearing both in dress, disguise, and Behaviour, to be no other than Indians
Twenty Five Year old Colonel George Washington wrote that.
That's it.
That's our lead story.
Compiled, authored by Jim Moyer 4/19/2022, updated 4/20/2022
Sources for the above are listed below.
Sources are listed for where and when this happened.
Sources are listed on who those 2 white men were.
Skip around at your leisure.
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Sources:
Locations:
Who were the the Active Shooters?
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John Lane
James Cox
Last November in 1757 Cox and Lane had an incident with the Indians and was reported in the newspapers.
That might be why it was said they were famous.
The last newspaper account says Lane dug up one of the dead indians, scalped him, and took his match coat.
It looks like from mid November 1757 to mid April 1758 John Lane living in the woods.
James Cox "came in,' according to Robert McKenzie of the Virginia Regiment.
A Party of 8 Indians fell upon two Hunters abt Sunsett. They fired 4 Shot at the Enemy but upon seeing the rest (three only being seen at first) they run off two different Ways both untouchd. One is come in the other missing —I shall endeavor to know what is become of him in the Morng—The man missing is Lane, the other Cox.
Source:
Saturday Night [November 1757] Robert McKenzie to Robert Stewart
Robert Stewart writes to Col Geroge Washington 24 Nov 1757 and includes Robt McKenzie's letter aove:
On 8 Dec. 1757 the Maryland Gazette (Annapolis) reported,
“that on Friday the 25th of November, as one Cox, and another Man, were hunting for Deer, on the Virginia Side of Patowmack, a little above the Mouth of Conococheague, they discovered Three Indians sitting on a Log, and agreed each to Fire at his Man, which they did, and kill’d them both on the Spot, but the other made off immediately,
and soon returned with 6 or 7 more Indians, when a Skirmish ensued, in which Cox and his Companion, Fired, one of them 4 Times, and the other 5, and mortally wounded one Indian, but were at last separated, and
one of them made his Escape, [Cox]
but the other was taken Prisoner. [Lane]
The Indians burnt the Bodies of the Two Dead Indians, and carried off their Prisoner, and the Wounded Indian, who Died on the Way, and they buried him.
The Second Night after, the Prisoner made his Escape,
and came back the same Road, and got safe in;
but on his Way, when he came to the Indian’s Grave,
he dug his Body up,
and scalp’d him,
with a sharp Stone;
for he was deprived of his Knife and every Weapon of Defence by the Indians, when he was taken Prisoner.”
If Robert Stewart’s letter to GW enclosing McKenzie’s letter is correctly dated this incident must have occurred a week earlier than the newspaper account indicates.
The Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia), 2 Mar. 1758, provided other details:
“This Mr John Lane . . .
was taken Prisoner
by the Indians last November
(after he and one Cox had killed Two of them)
stripped Naked,
Pinioned,
and had a Halter tied about his Neck,
on which the Indians lay down,
when they went to Sleep,
but cut himself loose with a broken Piece of Bottle,
which he had found on General Braddock’s Road,
and concealed under his Arm;
and on his Return,
dug up an Indian which they had buried,
took away his Match-coat, and scalped him with a broken Stone.”
The same item appears in the Maryland Gazette (Annapolis), 16 Feb. 1758.
The hunters John Lane and James Cox were shot and killed in April 1758 by a detachment of the Virginia Regiment when the two hunters were disguised as Indians (see James Baker to GW, 10 April 1758, and GW to John Blair, 17 April 1758).
Source:
The source letters are below
The SOURCE LETTERS:
To George Washington
from James Baker,
10 April 1758
From James Baker Patterson’s April 10th 1758.
Sir Yesterday in the afternoon as Mr Miller & 2 or 3 Countrymen more was riding from hear to [Aaron]Jenkins’s [not William Jenkins who carried the mail] about 4 Miles from this, they were fired at by Cocks & Lane who was lying under the fence, the Countrymen came in on a full gallop and inform’d me that they were fired on by some Indians.
I immediately sent out Lieut. Weedon with a Command of Men who followed their Tracts ’till dark, returning home
I sent Ensign Chew out again this Morning to Reconniter on the other side the Mountain where he fell on their Tracts, and after pursuing them about 10 Miles he found a Beef that they had killed and cut out the Toungue and part of the hind Quarters
he continued following them about a Mile further and discovered a smoke in the hollow of a Mountain coming nigh
perceived them Bacueing their Meet
[Barbecuing their meat]
{they being acquipt every way like Indians and as he had followed their Tracts from pretty near the place where Lieut. Weedon left them last Night
had great reason to believe they were Enemy)
and imediately fired on them.
Lane was killed Dead
and Cocks Mortally wounded,
they brought to Bells Fort,
where he left him with a Serjt &
⟨mutilated⟩ Men,
he confes’d it was their own fault & blame know one else but themselves for the Accident.1
I am Sir Your mo. Obt Servt
J. Baker ALS, DLC:GW.
Founders Online footnotes
1. GW’s court of inquiry absolved Ens. Colby Chew of all blame in the incident. See GW to John Blair, 17 April 1758.
Bell’s fort was a few miles west of Patterson’s fort, and both were north of Winchester and west of the main road.
Printed in the Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia), 27 April 1758, as an
“Extract of a Letter from a Gentleman in Winchester, dated April 18, 1758,”
was the following item:
“A very unlucky Accident lately happened in this Neighbourhood. On Sunday, the 9th Instant, David Miller, a Countryman, was fired at from behind some Rocks near the House of Aaron Jenkins [not William Jenkins who carried the mail] , about 18 Miles from Winchester; some of the Country People going out afterwards, saw two Men, painted and dressed like Indians, who, on perceivi⟨n⟩g them, ran off with great Precipitation.
The Neighbours being greatly alarmed at this, went to Pattison’s Fort [Patterson's Fort] , to inform the commanding Officer therewith, on which Ensign Coleby Chew was ordered out with a Party of Men; he soon fell upon their Tracks, and continued on them till he had crossed the North Mountain, where he found a Beef, with Part of the hind Quarters taken off, and the Tongue cut out in the Indian Manner: About a Mile from thence he saw two Men at a Fire; he advanced within a few Yards of them, and intended to have made them Prisoners, but one of his Soldiers firing, discovered him to the Men; who immediately endeavoured to lay hold of their Guns. Mr. Chew then, fearing that some of his Party might lose their Lives, fired upon them, and his Men followed his Example so effectually, that scarce one Bullet missed the Object it was aimed at.
The Persons proved to be the famous Jacob [John] Lane, killed on the Spot, and James Cox, who, tho’ mortally wounded, lived long enough to tell the Soldiers they had done their Duty, and that Lane and himself deserved what they had met with.
They were both painted and dressed so like Indians, even to the Cut of their Hair, that their most intimate Acquaintances could not distinguish them.
“It is not easy to assign the Reasons that induced those unhappy Persons, who had acquired great Reputation by their signal Services, to act in the Manner they did.
An authentick Enquiry has been made by a Court of Officers into Ensign Chew’s Conduct on this Occasion, when Matters appeared much to his Honour and Credit.”
This letter also appeared in the 4 May 1758 edition of the Maryland Gazette (Annapolis).
For an earlier incident involving the two hunters Cox and Lane, see Robert McKenzie to Robert Stewart, November 1757, Enclosure I in Stewart to GW, 24 Nov. 1757.
Source:
From George Washington
to John Blair,
17 April 1758
To John Blair To the President.
Honble Sir.
Fort Loud[oun] the 17th Aprl 1758.
An unlucky, but unavoidable accident happened in the neighbourhood of Pattersons fort the other day.
The Proceedings of an examining Court of Officers
on that occasion (which are herewith sent)
will bring your Honor acquainted with the circumstances.
I caused a very strict enquiry
to be made into the conduct of Mr Chew,
that equal justice might be done
to the dead and to the living;
and it appeared, that Mr Chew
had acted with great spirit and activity
in pursuing the tracts of those People,
and that in shooting them
(altho’ it was unlucky in the event)
he had done nothing that was not strictly warrantable;
Lane & Cox appearing both in dress, disguise, and Behaviour, to be no other than Indians.
I think it encumbent on me to be informed by Your Honor, how the Regiment under my command, is to be furnished with Tents, ammunition, cartridge-paper, and many other requisites that may be wanted in the course of the campaign. We expect it is here to be furnished with all those articles, from His Majesty’s Stores; but it is necessary for me to learn this from Your Honor. Captn Joshua Lewis, of the Virginia Regiment, has applied to me for leave to resign, urging as a reason, that his interest lies in the navy, and if longer neglected, it may be very detrimental to him: He has therefore, obtained my consent to do so, and my promise of mentioning the thing to your Honor.
Captn Lt Thomas Bullett will in this event, by seniority, succeed to his Company, which, with the Death of Lt Milner, and the removal of Mr Wm Henry Fairfax to the northward, cause two or three vacancies (to be filled up, I hope, by the volunteers who have served for that purpose) and some promotions of Ensigns, to Lieutenants; which will require at least half a dozen blank commissions. I therefore beg the favor of your Honor, to send them to me; and you may depend, that in filling them, I shall have strict regard to justice, and will act conformably to the rules of the army. I have at this time, four or five blank commissions of Governor Dinwiddie’s signing, but they are now useless.
The last Assembly in their Supply Bill, provided for a Chaplain to our Regiment; for whom I had often very unsuccessfully applied to Governor Dinwiddie.5 I now flatter myself, that your Honor will be pleased to appoint a sober, serious man for this Duty. Common decency, Sir, in a camp calls for the services of a Divine; and which ought not to be dispensed with, altho’ the world should be so uncharitable as to think us void of Religion, & incapable of good Instructions.
I now enclose a monthly Return for march;6 and am, Honble Sir, Your most obedient, Humble Servant, G:W.
Honble John Blair Esqre
LB, DLC:GW.
Founders Online Footnotes
1. See James Baker to GW, 10 April.
2. For an account of how Ens. Colby Chew’s party of soldiers from the Virginia Regiment shot and killed two hunters named John Lane and James Cox when they were disguised as Indians, see ibid. and note 1 of that document. Colby Chew was himself killed in September 1758 during the battle between Major James Grant’s detachment and the French and Indians near Fort Duquesne. The proceedings of the court of inquiry have not been found.
3. Joshua Lewis joined the Virginia forces in 1754 and became a captain in GW’s regiment in September 1755. GW sent Lewis and his company to Maidstone on the Potomac north and east of Winchester in June 1757 to relieve Robert Stewart and his company. On 3 Aug. 1757 he ordered Lewis to move his company from Maidstone to Patterson’s fort and to place detachments in several small forts nearby. In his letter to GW, 11 May 1758, Blair refers to the “resignation” of Lewis.
4. Lt. Nathaniel Milner died in the fall of 1757 or winter of 1758 after a long absence from the Regiment due to illness. Dinwiddie sent a lieutenant’s commission in the Virginia Regiment to William Henry Fairfax in September 1757, but Fairfax never took up the commission (see William Henry Fairfax to GW, 9 Dec. 1757, and GW to Fairfax, 23 April 1758).
5. GW was referring to “An Act for augmenting the forces in the pay of this Colony to two thousand men; and for other purposes therein mentioned” (7 Hening 163–69), passed in the session of the legislature which sat from 30 Mar. to 12 April 1758. See GW to Andrew Lewis, 21 April 1758, n.1. GW had long urged the appointment of a chaplain to serve in his regiment, and although the wording of the act seems to indicate that the chaplaincy was authorized only for the new 2d Virginia Regiment, the 1st Virginia Regiment apparently had a chaplain for a time (see GW to Bouquet, 3 July [first letter], n.1, and James Glen to GW, 19 July, n.4).
6. The return of the Virginia Regiment for March 1758 has not been found.
Source
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Facebook post
24 April 1758
Sunday Word 1
Sad. His compadre shot up, bloodied up, staring lifeless at nothing. The campfire still crackling. Lying there dead mostly maybe out of stupidity. And he, dying himself, sits there bleeding, admitting they were both wrong to do what they did. Not looking up, just sitting in his ongoing wound. Just sitting, looking down, talking mostly to himself, while the posse that killed them stood holding their muskets above and around him listened. Dying of embarrassment -- that's what Jack London said what his people died of in the wilderness. They died of embarrassment, mostly for not foreseeing the folly of their ways which led them to this irretrievably fatal, dying moment.
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Embarrassment.
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Is embarrassment partner to any of the stages of dying?
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And more particularly, what led him and his fellow partner in crime to dress up as Indian and go shooting up the whole area?
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Did it just start as drunken fun?
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And then it just got progressively more exhilarating to amp up the danger?
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A thing started has to run its course?
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Like one of the laws of inertia, once in motion an object stays in motion?
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I sometimes wonder if Disney's colorful, corny characters describe the frontier more closely than today's modern dark, black Gothic approach.
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The man said what he said.
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He admitted: What he and his mate did were wrong.
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The newspapers stated,
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"The Persons proved to be the famous Jacob [John] Lane, killed on the Spot, and James Cox, who, tho’ mortally wounded, lived long enough to tell the Soldiers they had done their Duty, and that Lane and himself deserved what they had met with. They were both painted and dressed so like Indians, even to the Cut of their Hair, that their most intimate Acquaintances could not distinguish them."
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The posse that killed him are still standing over him, watching him.
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He's still alive, draining out his hourglass; embarrassment and pain giving way to waiting for the inevitable.
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The campfire still crackling reflecting its flicker on all the faces dead, dying and alive.
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The newspaper writer goes to motive:
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“It is not easy to assign the Reasons that induced those unhappy Persons, who had acquired great Reputation by their signal Services, to act in the Manner they did."
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This incident was high profile. Not just high profile in the Newspapers.
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Our Colonel George Washington writes of this incident.
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He held a court of enquiry to see if the leader of the posse acted in a correct manner because he and his men did the killing.
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He writes of this to President John Blair, acting as the leader of Virginia until a new Governor and Lt Gov are assigned.
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That's it.
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That's our lead story.
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Compiled, authored by Jim Moyer 4/19/2022, updated 4/20/2022
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Sources for the above are listed below.
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Sources are listed for where and when this happened.
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Sources are listed on who those 2 white men were.
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Skip around at your leisure.
More thoughts and notes
Local historian, Neil Thorne has claimed a white man sought vengeance against those white settlers who had chastised him of theft and so he had persuaded Indians to attack and kill them people. This is a 1764 incident in what is now Shenandoah County.
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This example of these 2 guys pretending to be Indians and the report that Dinwiddie thinks the white guy Pearis did the killings in Lunenburg and not the allied Cherokee are examples to say the whites used the natural prejudice to hide their nefarious acts behind.
An act of vengeance: Researcher finds mass murder plot in 1764 attack
By JOSETTE KEELOR The Winchester Star
Apr 15, 2022 Updated Apr 17, 2022
Historian Neil Thorne, of Strasburg, poses beside the preserved 1739 Miller family Bible on display at the Strasburg Museum. Thorne has further researched the 1764 massacre in Strasburg that killed six members of the Miller and Dellinger families. The attackers killed the Millers’ cat and set its body on top of a burning coal placed on the Bible in I Samuel. The weight and blood from the cat prevented the Bible from being destroyed, leading Thorne to conclude that the mastermind behind the attacks was sending a message.Rich Cooley/For The Star
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In 1764, four members of the Miller family, of the Clary community in Shenandoah County, were brutally murdered by Native Americans while their youngest, 3-year-old Maria, ran four miles to get help.
This story is connected with one of the key artifacts at the Strasburg Museum — the Miller Family Bible, which has been part of the museum's exhibits for decades and was restored in 2019.
Now, research by local historian Neil Thorne has revealed that the massacre by eight members of a nearby Lenape Native American tribe and one white man was anything but typical. Instead, Thorne says, it was the work of a vengeful frontier trader who also traded with the Lenape and plotted the attack on the Millers as well as the Dellinger family living nearby. He enlisted the help of the tribe to make it look like a massacre by Native Americans. Not truly the “Indian attack” it has been called for 258 years, Thorne said, it was instead “a premeditated mass murder that would leave six local citizens dead.”
A story unfolds Thorne recently presented the results of his research to members of the Strasburg Museum at their annual meeting in what Hope Brim, secretary and publicity chairperson of the Strasburg Museum, said was probably the best presentation that they’d ever heard at one of their meetings.
Though he finished his research about three years ago, Thorne said the COVID-19 pandemic put his presentation on hold for more than two years.
The history was always there, told through the testimonies of two local residents and a newspaper report from immediately after the attacks. But it was inevitably lost to time through retellings.
“It’s been like a game of telephone,” Thorne said. “Each time the story’s told, it changes. So I went back to the original sources, the primary sources.”
At dawn on Aug. 22, 1764, the eight Lenape lay in wait near the Dellinger homestead, one mile west of the new town of Strasburg, Thorne’s video explains. They were brought there by the trader Abraham Mitchell.
John Dellinger, 34, stepped from his cabin to begin morning chores and was immediately killed.
His wife, Rachel, and infant were taken captive by the attackers, who next targeted the Millers, who lived in Clary, about three miles north of town.
There, Johann George Miller, 57, his wife, Mary, and their two middle children, 10-year-old Anna and 6-year-old Johannes, were spreading flax in the field.
Johann George Jr., 19, was away in Alexandria apprenticing in the saddlery trade, and Maria, 3, was sick in the family cabin.
From her window, Maria watched as her family was slaughtered. She made her escape out the back and followed a path that Thorne said her father taught her: Run toward the mountain, follow the water, head for the fort.
Arriving first at Benjamin Stickley’s, she found no one at home, so she continued following the water to Bowman’s Fort.
There she found 17-year-old Abraham Bowman. He listened, noting her tattered and filthy clothes from her four-mile run. Then, rifle in hand, he rode off on horseback to assist the Millers.
To the north, 25-year-old Thomas Newell heard the gunshots and ran to their aid, narrowly missing the attackers who Thorne said would have killed him too.
Newell arrived first, finding the Millers dead. Once Bowman arrived from the south, the two hurried to get help at Major Stephen’s Fort and from Fry’s Rangers, who sent out the alarm across the frontier.
A group formed and a pursuit began before dawn the following day.
As the Lenape fled, they decided that the Dellinger infant was slowing their escape, so they killed him at Sandy Ridge.
But the militia and Rangers caught up with them in the South Branch Mountains. They killed one of the Lenape, causing the others to flee, and they freed Rachel Dellinger.
This all happened as the French and Indian War was ending, and attacks had been occurring around the region with enough regularity that Miller had taught his children where to run for help in just such a situation.
But although Virginia had two more bloody years of conflict with Native Americans after the 1764 attacks, Thorne said there were no more attacks near Strasburg.
Besides the written accounts, the biggest clue to what happened is in the Miller Family Bible, a 1739 German Folio that survived even though the attackers placed a burning coal on top of it along with the body of the Millers’ newly killed cat.
“The story keeps getting told that they were trying to burn down the Miller house,” Thorne said. “The thing to remember is that these folks were building fires every single day.”
If you don’t want a fire to happen, he said, put a coal on a thick book and then throw a dead cat over it. The weight and blood from the cat served to protect all but a few pages from being destroyed. “The coal in the Bible was not an attempt to burn the cabin,” Thorne said. In fact, he said the cabin didn’t burn down for another 200 years, when it caught fire because of a teenage party in the 1960s. Thorne bases his research, in large part, on an interview that Newell gave in 1833 to Samuel Kercheval for his book, “A History of the Valley of Virginia.”
The coal was placed on the Bible in 2 Samuel, which is “a very dark chapter” containing betrayals and death, Thorne said. Mitchell was sending a message to the neighborhood about why he was upset and why he carried out the attacks, Thorne said. About a year earlier, while visiting Strasburg, Mitchell had been accused of a petty act of theft and publicly punished at Bowman’s Fort. Johann George Miller and John Dellinger (son of prominent local founding citizen Christian Dellinger) were the ones to carry out that punishment.
“This was an act of vengeance,” Thorne said.
Years later After the attacks, Johann George Miller Jr. returned to the valley, fathered several children and lived to age 56 in the Oranda community of Shenandoah County, according to Thorne.
Maria Salome Miller lived to 62, raising several children with her husband, Jacob Moyer, in Botetourt County.
Newell, first to arrive at the Millers', became a prominent Shenandoah County landowner and farmer living to age 93.
Bowman went on to command the 8th Virginia German Regiment during the Revolutionary War after serving under Peter Muhlenberg. His grandson founded the University of Kentucky.
“If Abraham Bowman had run across the group, he would have certainly been killed,” Thorne said, which “would have significantly changed history.”
Mitchell was never arrested.
No authorities looked into who Mitchell was or why he came back to the area in 1764, Thorne said. “He went back to trading,” Thorne said.
There were nine people named Abraham Mitchell living in the colonies at that time, so Thorne has pinpointed the likeliest one as Abraham Mitchell Jr., 28, son of a Quaker hatter and a well-known trader among the Shenandoah Valley, Philadelphia and Fort Pitt, now Pittsburgh. Mitchell Jr. traded mostly with the Delaware (Lenape) Nation living at that time near Fort Pitt, Thorne wrote in his presentation notes. “Abraham Sr., Abraham Mitchell Jr., and his brother Thomas were known on the frontier as ‘the Three Mitchells.’”
A company bearing Mitchell Jr.’s name held land in Hardy County, West Virginia, for a time before he settled in North Carolina.
Local resident Rebecca (Bowman) Brinker, Abraham Bowman’s sister, was integral in detailing Mitchell's connection to the Millers and Dellingers, telling Kercheval in 1833 that she witnessed Mitchell's punishment at Bowman’s Fort in 1763. She didn’t specify what that punishment was, only telling the author that it was inflicted by Johann George Miller and John Dellinger.
“Given Mitchell was accused of theft, and that two carried out the punishment, it can be assumed the punishment was some sort of whipping, flogging, or other physical act,” Thorne told The Daily.
As for Rachel Dellinger, there is no written reference to her after she was rescued. Thorne assumes she returned to Pennsylvania where she had connections, but he hasn’t found any evidence.
Still looking for details on the story, he’s hoping to find the Dellinger Bible, which was referenced on the internet as recently as 1996. He said the Bible could shed light on her maiden name, as well.
Gene Hammond, in his 1987 book, “Shenandoah Valley Pioneer Settlers,” suggests her maiden name was Miller, but Thorne said there are no details and nothing more has been found.
“It leaves a bit of a mystery yet to be solved, that I hope will inspire and encourage others.”
Contact Josette Keelor at jkeelor@nvdaily.com
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