This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/AEC.2ACE/608.1 Message Board Post: From the Marshall Co. website: MASSACRE OF CAPTAIN FOREMAN & TWENTY-ONE MEN The ambuscade and massacre in the cornfield near Fort Henry on the morning of September the first, 1777, was followed by another about four weeks later at the foot of McMechen's Bottom, a few miles below Wheeling, in which twenty-two men were killed, one captured and several wounded by Indians. Early in September a company of militia arrived from Hampshire County, Virginia, under command of Captain William Foreman, to join the forces under General Hand in an expedition against the Indians, which had been contemplated. Scouting parties had been kept out to watch the paths of the Indians from the first alarm and were kept in the forest after the attack, watching every part of the country then inhabited as they were suspicious that Indians would appear again somewhere that autumn. On September the twenty-fifth, Captain Foreman, with twenty-four men, Captain Ogle, with ten men, and John Lynn, with nine men, were sent by Colonel Shepherd on a scouting expedition to Captina. The party arrived at the Flats of Grave Creek, twelve miles below Wheeling, and halted. The settlement had been abandoned in August when General Hand sent out the first alarm. The party found no canoes in which to cross the river and encamped for the night. Captain Foreman was in command of the party! of scouts. He was a brave man but had no knowledge of Indian warfare and did not care to be advised by those who had. His men built a large fire and lay down about it for the night, although John Lynn, one of the most reliable scouts in the Middle Department of the West, cautioned Foreman of the danger of it. Lynn with his men went some distance from the fire and lay down in the darkness of the forest to sleep. Late in the after part of the night Lynn, being awake, heard a noise at the river, which he said sounded 1-ke launching a raft in the river somewhere near the mouth of Little Grave Creek, but on the opposite side of the river, and related the incident to Captain Foreman in the morning, but the Captain paid no attention to it. Lynn felt assured that Indians were lurking somewhere near and had been watching the movements of the party of scouts under Foreman, although he had seen nothing to clearly indicate their presence in the neighborhood, and spoke of his suspicion ! that it was possible that they were lurking somewhere near, while at the camp on Monday morning. Sounds to a man like him meant a great deal, while to other and untrained cars, they meant nothing at all. Being unable to cross the river for want of canoes, Captain Foreman decided to abandon the expedition and return to Wheeling. The entire party marched up the trail towards Wheeling until it reached a point near the foot of the Narrows about two miles above the mouth of Little Grave Creek when it halted and a controversy took place regarding the route from there to Wheeling. Lynn again called attention to the danger of lurking Indians and the danger of an attack by them. He insisted that the party return to Wheeling by taking the route over the hill and avoid the bottom, giving as a reason that he believed that there were Indians near and that they had watched the party from the opposite side of the river and that the noise which he heard in the night was made by launching a raft to cross the river and if that be the case, that they would most likely attack them somewhere along the bottom. Foreman did not understand the danger or was unwilling to heed the advice of a backwoodsman, a scout and hunter, and insisted on following the trail along the bottom near the river. There was quite a long controve! rsy over the matter and John Harkness, a relative of the Tomlinson family, and one of the party, said that at times it ran high, but Foreman would not heed the advice of Lynn and take the route over the hill. Foreman and Ogle started up along the trail and Lynn and his scouts took the route over the hill or rather along the side of it, and followed along the side of the hill facing the river. Captain Foreman and Captain Ogle followed the path that lead up the river bottom without anything occurring to attract their attention until they reached a point where the bottom begins to widen, when one of the men picked an Indian ornament in the path. Immediately the men gathered about him to examine the ornament and while their attention was attracted by it two lines of Indians, one concealed under the river bank and the other in a sink at the foot of the hill, hidden from view by bushes and weeds, fired upon them and kept up the firing several minutes. Captain Foreman and twenty-one of his men were killed and one cap- tured and several wounded. Among the slain were two sons of Captain Foreman. The men fled for their lives and several sought safety by ascending the hill. Robert Harkness caught hold of a sapling to aid him in getting up the hill when the bark was knocked into his face by a ballet from the gun of an Indian fired at him. John Collins was shot in the thigh, ! breaking the bone. What the result might have been had not Lynn and his scouts rushed down the hillside yelling and firing their guns, is difficult to conjecture. They frightened the Indians with their noise and they evidently thought that it was a reinforcement coming to the relief of the party which they had attacked, and which caused them to give up pursuit and hasten from the scene of the conflict, and possibly saved the lives of several men. Lynn and his men aided in caring for the wounded. They took Collins to a spring over the hill a short distance and threw their provisions together for him and provided the best they could for his comfort until he could be removed to Wheeling. Some accounts say that he was removed to Wheeling on the following day and others say that it was two days later. R. G. Thwait says that Colonel David Shepherd went down from Wheeling on the fourth day after the occurrence with a force of considerable size after a reinforcement had arrived from Fort Pitt, buried the dead and took care of Collins. The dead were all buried in one grave at the head, of the Narrows where they fell. In the year 1835, money was raised by a Light Horse Company at Elizabethtown, now Moundsville, and a stone was placed at the grave of the heroes. The stone was hard sandstone common in the section of the country and on it was inscribed: THIS HUMBLE STONE IS ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF CAPTAIN FOREMAN AND TWENTY-ONE OF HIS MEN WHO WERE SLAIN BY A BAND OF RUTHLESS SAVAGES, THE ALLIES OF A CIVILIZED NATION OF EUROPE ON THE 26th OF SEPTEMBER, 1777. "So sleep the brave who sunk to rest By all their country's wishes bless'd." The stone stood there forty years and was then removed by order of the county court of Marshall County and placed in Mount Rose Cemetery just north of the city limits of Moundsville. The following was inscribed on the stone when removed: "This monument was originally erected above the Narrows on the Ohio River four miles above Moundsville, on the grounds where the fatal action occurred, with the remains of Capt. Foreman and his fallen men placed here June 1, 1875, by Capt. P. B. Catlett under orders of the county court of Marshall County." REPORT OF LIEUTENANT MILLER AND ENSIGN WILSON "A list of the effects lost, by sundry soldiers of Captain William Foreman's company of Hampshire county volunteers, appraised by Lieutenant Anthony Miller and Ensign David Wilson, officers of said company, being duly qualified for that purpose. £ s. d. 1 Captain William Foreman: rifle-gun, £11, 5s; shot pouch and horn, 10s; pocket compass, 5s; a blanket, £l, 17s, 6d.............................. 15 17 6 2 Edward Peterson: A rifle-gun, £ll, 5s; shot pouch and horn, 10s; blanket, 30s................... 13 5 0 3 Benjamin Powell: A rifle-gun, £12, 10s; a blanket, £l, 17s, 6d; shot pouch and horn, 12s, 6d ............................................ 12 5 0 4 Hambleton Foreman: A rifle-gun, £ll, 5s; a blanket, 30s; shot pouch and horn, 10s.............. 13 5 0 5 James Greene: A rifle-gun, £10; a blanket, 37s, 6d............................................. 11 17 6 6 John Wilson: A rifle-gun, £10; shot pouch and horn, 7s, 6d; blanket, 22s, 9d.................. 11 10 0 7 Jacob Pew: A rifle-gun, 18, 15s; a shot pouch and horn, 7s, 6d; blanket,18s, 9d .................. 10 3 9 8 Isaac Harris: A rifle-gun, £12, 10s; shot pouch and horn, 10s; blanket, 37s, 9d .................... 14 17 6 9 Robert M'Grew: blanket, 22s. 6d..................... 1 2 6 10 Elisha Shriver: A blanket, 22s. 6d ................. 1 2 6 11 Henry Risera: A blanket, 37s. 6d ................... 1 17 6 12 Bartholomew Viney: A blanket, 22s. 6d............... 1 2 6 13 Anthony Miller: A blanket, 22s. 6d ................. 1 2 6 14 John Vincent: A blanket, 30s........................ 1 10 0 15 Solomon Jones: A blanket, 30s....................... 1 10 0 16 William Ingle: A blanket, 22s. 6d .................. 1 2 6 17 Nathan Foreman: A blanket, 22s. 6d ................. 1 2 6 18 Abraham Powell: A blanket, 37s. 6d.................. 1 17 6 19 Samuel Lowery : A blanket, 30s...................... 1 10 0 20 Samuel Johnson: A rifle-gun, £7. 10s.; shot pouch and horn, 10s.; a blanket, 22s, 6d............ 9 2 6 We the subscribers, do certify that the within specified appraisments are just and true to the best of our judgements; and that the several articles were lost in the late unhappy defeat near McMechen's Narrows on the 27th of September, 1777, as witness our hands, this third of October, 1777. (Signed) Anthony Miller, Lieutenant. David Wilson, Ensign. Sworn before me, David Shepherd." NOTE.-- The date on the last line on page 32 and on the stone are both in- correct and should be the 26th and 27th of September, as the above report clearly indicates.