A Woman of Courage on the West Virginia Frontier

by Robert N. Thompson

  Part of this work also involved the ransoming and exchange of American captives, like Phebe, who were adopted and living with the various nations. This is an area of the Girty legend where, perhaps, he was most vilified and wrongly so. Throughout the American Revolution and the frontier conflicts that followed, both McKee and Girty made substantial efforts on behalf of captives, saving men from torture and death while ensuring the return of women and children to their families. However, in Girty’s case, all the good he might have done was overshadowed by one event, and sadly, the version of what happened in that case was also exaggerated and stretched by Americans of the time to match the Girty of legend and not the real man.

  The case referred to here is that of Colonel William Crawford, which occurred in June 1782 in the wake of the Gnadenhutten massacre. Crawford, the land speculator friend of Washington and Dunmore’s War associate of Simon Girty, was given a force of 480 men and ordered by Generals Hand and Irvine to penetrate the Ohio Country, where he was to destroy the “Indian town and settlement at Sandusky.” Interestingly, Crawford competed for command of the expedition with the same Colonel Williamson who had perpetrated the atrocities at Gnadenhutten. But in the end, General Irvine preferred Crawford, who was considered the more experienced officer.254

  Crawford’s force left Mingo Bottom on May 25 and made slow progress across Ohio. However, their approach was far from stealthy, and Girty and his Indian allies were aware of the column and its intended target. They amassed hundreds of Wyandot, Delaware and Shawnee warriors, and on June 4, as Crawford’s men approached the Wyandot town near the Sandusky, the Americans were attacked by this combined force. A running battle ensued that lasted over two days, with disastrous results for the Americans. While they would claim only 50 dead, British sources reported more than 250 Americans dead or captured. However, worst of all for Colonel Crawford, the Delawares captured him as he attempted to lead the shattered remnants of his command away in retreat.255

  Two days later, Girty learned that the Delawares had taken a “big captain” prisoner and that they intended to burn him in retaliation for the massacre of their people at Gnadenhutten. Girty assumed they had captured Williamson, but when he arrived at the Delaware village, he discovered that William Crawford was actually the man taken prisoner. At this point, popular legend and more recent histories diverge as to Girty’s role in Crawford’s fate. The old legends are that Girty laughed at Crawford and cheered the Indians on as they brutally tortured him and finally burned him alive at the stake. These stories all insist that Girty did little or nothing to defend his old comrade and prevent his death.256 However, recent historians have provided a version that seems far more credible given Girty’s other attempts to save American captives.

  Girty tried to tell the Delaware leaders that Crawford was not Williamson and he should not be punished for Gnadenhutten, but they would not listen. Instead, they told him they would march Crawford to the village of Captain Pipe the next morning, where he would be tried for his crimes. On learning this news, Girty went to see Crawford and explain the situation to him. An American captive, Elizabeth Turner, was present at Girty’s first meeting with Crawford, and she said that after Girty told the horrified Crawford that he would be tried for the Gnadenhutten massacre, Crawford begged Girty to help him and offered to reveal military intelligence information in return for his safety. Girty then proposed an escape plan, but Crawford said he did not have the strength to make the attempt.257

  The next day, Crawford was marched to Captain Pipe’s village to stand trial, arriving there to find a large, angry crowd awaiting him. When the trial began, Girty acted as Crawford’s interpreter and spokesman as they listened to the Delaware chiefs angrily blaming Crawford for the massacre of their people. One of these chiefs, Wingenund, later told a missionary of the anger he expressed at Crawford’s trial, saying, “These Indians believed all their teachers had told them, of what was written in the Book, and strove to act according! It was on account of the Great Book you have, that these Indians trusted so much to what you told them! We knew you better than they did! We often warned them to beware of you and your pretended friendship: but they would not believe us! They believed nothing but good of you, and for this they paid with their lives!”258

  With Girty’s help, Crawford told the chiefs that he was not involved in what happened at Gnadenhutten and sincerely regretted what had been done there by the American militia under Williamson. The chiefs appeared to listen intently, but then some damning testimony was offered by Captain Pipe’s elderly sister-in-law, a woman named Micheykapeeci. To Crawford’s great misfortune, she was the woman who had survived General Hand’s attack on the abandoned village during the Squaw Campaign, and she had seen Crawford among the American officers that day. Far worse, she accused him of being in command of the men who had killed Captain Pipe’s brother and mother that fateful morning. Hearing this, Captain Pipe immediately condemned Crawford to death by fire.

  In this painting, William Crawford burns at the stake as Simon Girty (pictured pointing at Crawford while on a white horse) looks on. Ohio Historical Society.

  Girty leapt to Crawford’s defense, begging for mercy and even offering his horse and other goods in exchange for Crawford’s release to British custody. In fact, Girty argued Crawford’s case so passionately that Captain Pipe finally told him that unless Girty was prepared to take Crawford’s place at the stake, the Delaware chiefs would not hear another word from him. With that, Crawford’s fate was sealed, and he would endure over three hours of cruel torture before the flames finally killed him. Simon Girty could do nothing but stand by and watch, and Elizabeth Turner said she saw tears on his cheek as Crawford was brutally executed.259

  Nevertheless, despite the fact that Phebe almost certainly had heard many horrible tales about Girty, including his supposed complicity in Crawford’s death, she still decided he was her best hope to get home at long last. As it turns out, despite all the grisly legends that painted Girty as cruel and heartless, she could not have asked a more able man for help.

  Chapter 6

  Homeward Bound

  A PLEA AND A RANSOM

  The morning after she heard that Simon Girty was in the village, Phebe kept a close watch for any sign of the man known to her only as a renegade traitor. One can imagine the anxiety she must have felt. This might be her one chance to get home, and if she missed him, if someone interfered with her efforts to speak to him or, more likely, if he was the cruel, heartless man many believed him to be and refused her pleas, all might be lost. Although white visitors were not in the village every day, it is likely that traders, missionaries, or Indian agents were occasional, if not regular, visitors to the village. Therefore, merely looking for a white man might not be enough to help her recognize her potential savior when he arrived. Nevertheless, because of Girty’s fame and legendary status, descriptions of him and his distinctive appearance were common knowledge among frontier settlers. He was said to wear Indian-style deer-hide clothes and carry a silver-mounted pistol and a short dirk, which was a Scottish dagger. However, the most distinguishing characteristic of Girty’s appearance, and the one most often reported in eyewitness accounts of him, was his red bandana. Girty habitually wore this bandana wrapped around his head to hide the scar that ran from his forehead to his left ear, a disfigurement resulting from a saber blow delivered during a fight with the famous Mohawk chief, Joseph Brant.260

  After a while, Phebe saw Girty approach nearby on horseback, and she made a mad dash toward him. As she reached the side of his horse, she called out to him, but he took no notice. Finally, summoning a courage born of desperation, Phebe grabbed hold of his stirrup, which brought Girty to a halt. He looked down and saw a white woman with red hair dressed in Wyandot attire looking up at him imploringly. Phebe quickly told her story, stated her case and begged him to intercede with Darby and the village chiefs on her behalf.

  Girty’s initial response to her pleas was jocular and even somewhat mo
cking. Looking at her, knowing the Wyandot had almost certainly adopted her and being so intimately familiar with their way of life, he told her that she did not seem the worse for her life among them and that she was likely “as well here as back in her own country.”261 His latter comment likely reflects what Girty knew firsthand about how former captives, especially women, were often treated by other whites upon their return from a lengthy captivity with the Indians. He knew some whites would treat Phebe with suspicion. Worse, she would likely be the target of the salacious speculation of others, based upon the mere fact that a young white woman had lived for three years in Wyandot longhouses where, in their minds, she was almost surely subjected to the unrestrained sexual urges of “savage” male warriors.

  Girty then added that, even if he were disposed to assist her, his saddlebags were simply too small to conceal her. At this last reproach, Phebe fell to her knees beside his horse and repeated her plea for his assistance. Girty could now see she was utterly sincere, and his attitude softened. Earlier historians describe Girty’s change of heart as unusual, with one saying, “He whose heart had long been steeled against every kindly feeling, every sympathetic impression was at length induced to perform an act of generous, disinterested benevolence.”262 In fact, however, this was an act of compassion Girty had often undertaken, and he finally agreed to help Phebe obtain her release from the Wyandot. Based on the various histories of her captivity, the exact sequence of events that followed is somewhat unclear. Nevertheless, Girty most likely spoke to Darby first and requested that the old chief bring Phebe to the upcoming conference on the Maumee.

  The purpose of that October 1788 meeting was for the assembled tribes to reach consensus on whether they would respond to an invitation from the American governor of the newly named Northwest Territories, Arthur St. Clair, and his chief agent, Richard Butler, to conduct negotiations at Fort Harmer for yet another treaty with the American government. The Indians wanted this new treaty to confirm for all time that the Ohio River was to be the perpetual boundary between American settlers and the Indian nations, but St. Clair and Butler had other objectives.

  Major General Arthur St. Clair, American governor of the new Northwest Territory. Facsimile of a pencil drawing from life by Colonel J. Trumbull. Courtesy Butler-Gunsaulus Collection, Box 6 Folder 62, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

  When the Maumee conference began, Girty chose to play an effective but quiet role, concentrating on activities and discussions outside the council house with the many Indian leaders who knew and trusted him. However, those chiefs who pressed for peace with the Americans no matter the price did not trust Girty. They saw him simply as Alexander McKee’s mouthpiece, and they believed McKee was firmly aligned with Joseph Brant and the Mohawks, who argued for war. The Indians finally resolved to go to Fort Harmer, but as the chiefs traveled to the fort, word came from St. Clair that the American position would be that previous treaties remained in force, all of which served to blur the Ohio River boundary. Therefore, the sole American objective of the Fort Harmer meeting would be to achieve a treaty that required even more concessions from the woodland Indians. Upon hearing this, Joseph Brant and his Mohawks, as well as the Delaware, Shawnee, Miami and Kickapoo nations, turned back, refusing to be parties to such an agreement.263

  During the course of the Maumee conference, however, Girty made time to bring Phebe’s case before McKee. As Girty told Phebe’s story to McKee, the British agent realized that she was the wife of a man he knew. As a young man, McKee had done his own share of trading up the Monongahela, visiting many of the settlements along the river, and as a result, he was actually acquainted with Thomas and Edward Cunningham. When he realized this was Thomas’s wife, he quickly agreed to provide whatever goods were required to secure her release.264 Girty then met with Darby and the chiefs from the Wyandot village to negotiate her emancipation into British hands. At first, they protested and were very reluctant to let her go. After all, she was now a valued member of their community and someone seen as an integral part of the fabric of its society. Further, the village would likely view losing Phebe as diminishing the strength and vitality of her Wyandot family’s longhouse, something which could not be allowed to happen. As a result, Girty had to keep increasing his offer for her ransom, and apparently, the negotiations became quite heated. Finally, one of the chiefs, most likely Darby, seized Phebe by the shoulders and shoved her roughly toward Girty. “Take her,” he shouted, and then, referring to the lost warrior she had replaced, “We now have nothing for our flesh and blood.”265

  KENTUCKY, THE WILDERNESS ROAD AND HOME

  Once the Wyandot released her to the British, McKee and Girty told Phebe she was free to return home. However, she had no apparent way to do so. Luckily, there were two men at the conference who had traveled to the Maumee from Kentucky in search of information on family members taken captive by the Indians and were about to return home. Their names were Denton and Long, and McKee and Girty introduced Phebe to them. When she told her story to her granddaughter, Phebe did not say where precisely Denton and Long had traveled from except to say that it was in the “interior” of Kentucky. However, historical records indicate that hundreds of settlers were taken captive in a 1780 attack on Ruddell’s Station, near what is now Cynthiana, Kentucky, and the prisoners listed include people named both Denton and Long. Consequently, the Ruddell’s Station raid was probably the cause of their journey to Ohio, and since the fort there was destroyed in the British attack, they most likely were traveling back to Boonesborough, the bustling center of the Kentucky settler community.266

  Denton and Long offered Phebe the use of a horse as well as their protection and companionship during the trip to Kentucky. From there, they suggested she might be able to join a caravan headed east, back to the settlements on the Holston River in what is now southwestern Virginia. Having no other options, Phebe readily agreed, and the trio set out for Kentucky. Once they arrived in Boonesborough several weeks later, Phebe immediately sought out information regarding any groups heading east across the mountains to Virginia. These journeys were quite dangerous, and people seldom made the trip except in large, defensible groups and only during certain periods of the year when Indian ambushes were least likely to occur. She learned that one party was about to make the trip, and she traveled to their assembly point, where she arranged to accompany them. However, just as they were about to leave, news arrived that another caravan, one larger than theirs, had been wiped out by an Indian attack. The group cancelled their plans, but Phebe simply refused to give up. She had made it this far, and nothing was going to deter her from getting home as soon as possible. Without any hesitation, she began searching for another caravan, now more determined than ever to find her way one step closer to home.267

  After a few days passed, she found another party about to make the journey that was either braver than the others or perhaps more foolhardy. In any case, they agreed to have Phebe make the trip in their company and even provided her with a horse. The mount was apparently the property of a man from the Holston River settlements who had come to Kentucky to hunt buffalo, lost his horse and had to return home before recovering the animal. Luckily for Phebe, she would now be able to return it to him and not have to walk over the mountains to Virginia.

  The journey down the famous Wilderness Road to Virginia was not an easy one. From the area around Boonesborough, the road went south to Big Hill and on to Hazel Patch, wandering from there through the rugged country of eastern Kentucky, crossing the Laurel and Rockcastle Rivers. Fifteen miles from the Cumberland Gap, it cut through the Cumberland River gorge in Pine Mountain and then worked its way along the famous passage, which was a deep cut in the high walls of the Cumberland Mountains that separate Virginia and east Tennessee from Kentucky. Once past the gap, the road wound one hundred miles through the hills and valleys drained by the Clinch and Powell Rivers until it passed through Moccasin Gap in Clinch Mountain and arrived in the
Holston Valley.268 Although the path was wide enough for a wagon to pass, it was still narrow, winding and rugged in most places, and the dangers of traveling it included not only Indian raiders but also a growing number of robbers and highwaymen brave enough to risk the Indians while stealing from settlers and traders alike. Moreover, it was now approaching the onset of winter, and the higher passes had already experienced their first snowfalls.

  Map of the famous Wilderness Road between Virginia to the Kentucky frontier. Drawn by the author.

  After weeks of arduous travel, Phebe’s caravan arrived in the Holston Valley. After resting a few days, she found transportation and began her trip down the Shenandoah Valley. Again, Phebe never mentioned what means of transport she found, but most likely she accompanied a trader making his way back to the mercantile centers in Staunton or Winchester. Once she made her way from the Holston settlements down the Shenandoah, she had only one more leg of her journey before her, the one over the Alleghenies to the upper Monongahela. Here, it is very likely that Phebe sought the aid of men who had done business with Thomas for years and, through them, found someone heading for the plateau beyond the mountains. Within days, she climbed the Alleghenies and finally reached the upper Monongahela Valley. Without so much as a pause for rest, she made straight for their homestead along Cunningham’s Run, arriving to a joyous reunion with Edward and Sarah at their newly rebuilt home. However, Thomas was not there.269

  This 1872 drawing depicts the rugged terrain along the Wilderness Road as it passed through the Cumberland Gap. Library of Congress.