Letters from William Haymond to His Nephew, Luther Haymond, Recalling the Settlement of Western Virginia and Conflict with Native Americans between 1773 and 1794

In a series of eight letters written from William Haymond (1771-1848) to his nephew Luther Haymond between February and June of 1842, William Haymond provides a personal glimpse of a young man's life on the Virginia frontier between 1773 and 1794. Hunting excursions and encounters with Native Americans dominate Haymond's letters. Frontiersmen and Native Americans in the Ohio River Valley both lived by hunting and farming, and white hunting excursions into land claimed by Native Americans frequently led to conflict.²

Forced from their homes and hunting grounds during the French and Indian War (1754-1763), the Ohio country Indians (Delaware, Shawnee, Mingo, and Cherokee) suffered from population loss due to battle, disease, and starvation. Political and generational conflict divided tribal members. Even worse, the British victory over the French in the Ohio River Valley left Native Americans with an advancing frontier line and no competing empire for political bargaining.³ Virginians crossed the mountains at the first opportunity, leading many Native Americans to unite under Pontiac, an Ottawan chief, in an attempt to turn back encroaching English settlers.

Pontiac's Rebellion led British officials to issue the Royal Proclamation of 1763, drawing a boundary line between Native Americans and Europeans at the crest of the Appalachian Mountains, and declaring that "the several nations or tribes of Indians, with whom we are connected, and who live under our protection, should not be molested or disturbed in the possession of such parts of our dominions and territories as, not having been ceded to, or purchased by us, are reserved to them."⁴ Reaction from the Americans was swift and angry; they had no intention of allowing an arbitrary "boundary line" to stop them from moving westward.

In 1768, Cherokee leaders under the Treaty of Hard Labor ceded lands to the British along a boundary line that ended at the intersection of the Kanawha and Ohio Rivers. That same year, the Iroquois, in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, signed a "Line of Property" that extended the boundary established by the Proclamation of 1763 to include most of present-day West Virginia. However, they did not own much of the land they ceded to the British, and the formal treaty did not include the consent of the Delaware, Shawnee, Mingo, or Cherokee. As a result, the tribes lost their traditional hunting ground, and the only thing that stood between them and the American frontiersmen was the Ohio River. Natives still felt threatened on the west side of the river and resented any additional encroachment on their hunting grounds. When Virginia surveyors began moving west of the Kanawha River, the Shawnee were determined to turn back those who had little respect for the law, and no respect for treaties. At the same time, Virginia settlers claimed land to the east banks of the Ohio River and "held it with their muskets."⁵

By 1774, on the eve of the American Revolution, historian R. Douglas Hurt maintains that there were approximately fifty thousand whites living in the Trans-Appalachian frontier, and that the principal enemy of the Ohio Country Indians was the "relentlessly westward-moving Americans."⁶ Hatred ran deep on both sides as white/Indian encounters increased on the Virginia frontier. In May of 1774, family members of Chief Logan, a Mingo, were lured across the river where they were murdered. In retribution, Logan attacked frontier settlers along the Ohio. In Shawnee villages, the young men called for war while their chief, Cornstalk, urged reconciliation. Logan's raids led Lord Dunmore to send the Virginia militia to the mouth of the Kanawha River to build a fort and to strike at the Shawnee, most of whom wanted peace. As a result, Cornstalk and one thousand Shawnee warriors attacked the militia in what became the Battle of Point Pleasant on October 10, 1774. Cornstalk was driven back and Lord Dunmore pursued him, set up a temporary camp, and made preparations for a truce. In the meantime, Colonel Andrew Lewis also crossed...