Cherokee attacks on Massanutten and Short Mountain?
The Cherokee came to help the Forbes Expedition. They were promised presents in Winchester Virginia. There were none. For 3 days they gave speeches about their displeasure. This unnerved Captain George Mercer, aide de camp to Colonel George Washington. Some of the Cherokees vowed they would take horses and presents on their own if Virginia did not follow through on their promises.
We believe these attacks were by our Cherokee allies.
"The Indians here behave with the greatest Insolence, I do not know what to think of them.
I have just recieved an Account from Massinuttin (a very thick Settlement about 40 Miles from hence)
that on tuesday last [27 June] nine People were kill’d & six carried away;
I fear the Cherokees did that Misschief.
My Indians are very restless . . .”
John Hite writes about that attack also. And Kercheval writes about that attack too.
See all those references to that attack below.
Read about the other attack on Short Mountain below also.
These attacks were promised by the Cherokee.
The promise or threat was made in Winchester on 26 April 1757 to our Captain George Mercer.
. . . and if he did not get it [the presents promised]
when he came here,
he would turn back
and take every thing
from the Inhabitants as they went along,
and maybe,
said he,
scalp some of them too,
for he said if they had stayed at home and hunted,
they could buy as much Goods as they wanted with their Skins .
Clement Read, a County Lieutenant in Lunenburg County promised presents could be found in Winchester to take the heat off of him and his family. They felt terrified. Imagine a 1950s movie of a Motorcycle gang taking over your house.
The Cherokee’s threat becomes a reality in 1758. The Cherokee on their way home take horses from the inhabitants. A posse forms to hunt the Cherokee offenders down. The killings that happen from this, spark a chain of events leading to the Anglo Cherokee War.
Fast forward to June 1758, we believe the 2 attacks were caused by Cherokee in Massanutten and Short Mountain on their circuitous way back home.
Those 2 attacks are discussed in letters of the time referenced below.
That's it.
That's our lead story.
More detail?
Skip around.
Read bits and pieces at your leisure.
Compiled and Authored by Jim Moyer March and April of 2022, updated April 17, 2022, updated 5/5/2024
Table of Contents
Promises Broken And Threats Kept
The 2 attacks we think were caused by Cherokee in Massanutten and Short Mountain. They are examples of a promise and a threat by the Cherokee at Fort Loudoun Winchester VA last year in April 1757.
Read about all those speeches by the 148 Cherokee at Fort Loudoun in April 1757. The speeches sound as noble and insightful as a Greek Tragedy of Ancient Greece. Those speeches are alluded to and partially quoted in this story. "A Storm is Coming - Mercer writes about it"
Read that the Great Men of Virginia are Liars.
Read about the Cherokee being promised presents in Williamsburg and at Clement Read's place in old Lunenburg County.
Then Clement Read had promised the presents would be offered in Winchester, even though Clement Read admitted to Dinwiddie he only promised that to lessen tensions mounting at his place.
Read about the Catawba coming and how most Indians did not want noisy White Men on any of their war parties.
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Attack on Massanutten
in June 1758
John Hite writes about that attack
He lived near the Opequon, writes a letter 2 July 1758 to Colonel George Washington of an attack in this area.
"Our In habitants is all Fled from Messenuting [Massanutten]
and we are Generally in Great Fair of the Enemy upon us at Some Quarter or other and as we have No other Dependens for any Intilegance But the Ranging Company, and that Being Weakend by Party Stationed at Fort Loudoun I hope therefore you will Think it Reasonably to alter that Property So that Those Rangers May be Restord to their former Duty to the Sattisfaction of our Inhabetants in General.1
I am Sir with Regard your Sincear friend and Hum. Servt"
By the way, and you know we have to go down this rabbit hole.
You know who this John Hite is?
You've seen his place. It still stands. South of Winchester on Route 11, before you reach Stephens City, stands his house near the Opequon creek. The architect designer of his place also designed Abrams Delight. John Hite's place is called "Springdale."
John Hite is the eldest son of Jost Hite.
He is the father-in-law of the Foreman of building Fort Loudoun, Lt. Charles Smith.
Col William Byrd III writes about that attack
"The Indians here behave with the greatest Insolence, I do not know what to think of them.
I have just recieved an Account from Massinuttin (a very thick Settlement about 40 Miles from hence)
that on tuesday last [27 June] nine People were kill’d & six carried away;
I fear the Cherokees did that Misschief.
My Indians are very restless . . .”
Although the dates in this footnote appear to contradict each other.
Kercheval writes about that attack
About the year 1758, a man by the name of John Stone, near what is called the White House, in the Hawksbill settlement, was killed by Indians.
Stone's wife, with her infant child and a son about seven or eight years old, and George Grandstaff, a youth of sixteen years old, were taken off as prisoners.
On the South Branch mountain, the Indians murdered Mrs. Stone and her infant, and took the boy and Grandstaff to their towns.
Grandstaff was about three years a prisoner, and then got home. The little boy, Stone, grew up with the Indians, came home, and after obtaining possession of his father's property, sold it, got the money, returned to the Indians, and was never heard of by his friends afterwards.
The same Indians killed Jacob Holtiman's wife and her children, Holtiman escaping. They plundered old Brewbecker's house, piled up the chairs and spinning wheels, and set them on fire. A young woman who lived with Brewbecker had concealed herself in the garret; and after the Indians left the house, extinguished the fire, and saved the house from burning.
Brewbecker's wife got information that the Indians were coming, and ran off with her children to where several men were at work, who conveyed her across the river to a neighboring house. Mr. John Brewbecker now resides on this farm where this occurrence took place.
Footnote at bottom of this page:
The late Mrs. Rebecca Brinker, one of the daughters of George Bowman, on Cedar Creek, informed the author that she recollected when sixteen families took shelter in her father's house.
The next footnote states:
Mr. Brewbaker resides on the west side of the South fork of the Shenandoah river, on Massanutten creek, in the new county of Page, and has erected a large and elegant brick house on the spot where the Indians plundered his father's dwelling. Rutherford of Rutherford's Rangers writes a letter 28 June 1758 to Colonel George Washington how his company of Rangers is too split up to defend this area while some of his Rangers are being ordered by Colonel George Washington to garrison Fort Loudoun in Winchester VA.
Attack near Short Mountain
Rutherford had under him a man named Samuel Fry (Benjamin Fry's son) who chase after Indian in the Warden's Fort area back to Short Mountain.
Rutherford of Rutherford's Rangers writes a letter 28 June 1758 to Colonel George Washington how his company of Rangers is too split up to defend this area while some of his Rangers are being ordered by Colonel George Washington to garrison Fort Loudoun in Winchester VA.
Rutherford had under him a man named Samuel Fry (Benjamin Fry's son) who chase after Indian in the Warden's Fort area back to Short Mountain. Some of our reenactors of the Virginia Regiment Capt George Mercer Company live on that Short Mountain.
Some of our re-enactors of the
live on that Short Mountain.
Source for this is Baker's French and Indian War in Frederick County, published 2000 by the Winchester Frederick Co Historical Society page 159 there is a section discussing Fry's Fort.
About the same time [previous page states 1758] the Indians forcibly entered the house of Mr. Young, who resided on the farm now owned by William Smith, Esq. not more than a mile from Zane's old iron works, and killed several of his family. They took an infant, dashed its head against a rock, beat out its brains, and left it lying on the ground. Two of Young's daughters, pretty well grown, were carried off prisoners.
Lieutenant Samuel Fry raised a force of between thirty and forty men, pursued, and came in sight of them, unobserved, at the Short mountain, near the Allegany. Fry's party prepared to fire; but unfortunately one of the white girls stepping accidentally before their guns, the intention was frustrated, and Fry being discovered the next moment, he ordered his men to charge. This was no sooner done than the Indians broke and ran off, leaving their guns, prisoners and plunder: the two young females were thus rescued and brought safely home. See more about those Rangers, known as Rutherford's Rangers here.
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