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/IEC.2ACE/1124.2 Message Board Post: The Preston County Journal. Kingwood, West Virginia Thursday, May 12, 1892. Vol. XXV--No. 35. Whole No. 1344. Page 1, Column 7 MURDER OF THE GREENS. AN ACCOUNT OF THE KILLING OF JOHN GREEN. His Hired Man and Little Child by Indians--The Capture of Mrs. Green and Her Daughters, Sarah and Elizabeth--A Letter from the Hon. J. C. McGrew to Jesse Johnson, Esq. Sometime about the year 1784 a man by the name of Green, with a wife and several children, located on what afterwards became known as "Green's Run," about one and a half miles from where Kingwood now stands, on land afterwards owned by Samuel R. Trowbridge, where he lived many years and where he died. The land at this date, 1892, is owned by John H. Brown. Two or three years after Green made his settlement there, a number of Miami Indians from west of the Ohio river made an incursion into the neighborhood where Green and a few other white men had made a small settlement, the object of the Indians being, as tradition informs us, to kill one William Morgan, who had located south of Morgan's Run, near the present site of Kingwood, in revenge for their defeat sometime before by one James Morgan when they had attacked a young settlement at the mouth of Decker's Creek, where Morgantown now stands. The tradition is that Morgan, in this fight, killed a number of Indians, and that he skinned one of them, tanned the skin, and made a "shot pouch" out of the leather. This coming to the knowledge of the Indians through white traders, and supposing that William Morgan was a kinsman of their enemy James Morgan, whom they feared again to attack, they determined to kill William Morgan. The expedition sent for this purpose consisted of six Indian warriors of the Miami tribe. They crossed the Ohio river at the mouth of Fishing creek and passing up that stream and down Indian creek, crossed the Monongahela at or near the mouth of White Day, then traveled eastward evidently intending to strike the headwaters of Morgan's Run and follow that stream down to where William Morgan had located; but by mistake they fell upon the waters of Green's Run, and followed down that stream until they came to Green's cabin high up on the south bank, and closely resembling the location of William Morgan's cabin on the hill side south of Morgan's Run. The morning the Indians came upon Green's place Green and his wife and children were in the cabin, but a hired man by the name of Lewis was splitting rails in the woods some distance from the house and had Green's rifle with him. The Indians approached him stealthily through the woods, shot and killed him, and then rushed upon the cabin where Green and his wife and children were. Having no defensive weapons, Green, after defending his family and himself as best he could, was soon overpowered and killed. One of the children, a little girl, tried to escape by running, but was fired upon by one of the Indians and shot through one of her hands. The Indians supposing that she was dead, as she had fallen to the ground when shot, did her no further injury. She had sufficient presence of mind to lie still where she had fallen, and tradition is that as she fell she placed her wounded hand over her face, and that just as the Indians were leaving one of them walked up and looked at her, and seeing her face and head covered with blood left without scalping her. As soon as the Indians had taken their hasty departure she made her way to Cheat river opposite Butler's fort and was taken across the river and cared for by Thomas Butler. When she grew up to womanhood she married a man by the name of Friend. The Indians took Mrs. Green and her two girls, Sarah and Elizabeth, prisoners and killed a younger child that they could not carry away conveniently in their hasty retreat beyond the Ohio river, which they crossed at the mouth of Fishing creek, now in Wetzel county, W. Va. I do not know how long Mrs. Green and her two daughters were prisoners with the Indians, but it must have been a number of years, and I presume up to 1794. After her liberation Mrs. Green married a man by the name of Moore and had by him a son and two daughters. Col. Moore, of Preston county was her grandson. Moore died leaving her a widow a second time, and she afterwards married a man by the name of Spurgin and had a daughter by him. She and her three husbands are buried on the Green farm not far from where Green and Lewis were killed. Her daughter Elizabeth Green was sold by the Indians to a man by the name of King, and her daughter Sarah Green was sold by the Indians to a man by the name of! Sauerhaver. King and Sauerhaver were Indian traders and lived with the Indians. After the defeat of the Miami Indians by General Wayne in 1794, King traded his wife to one of Wayne's soldiers by the name of Andrew Johnson, who brought her home and married her, and by her had several children who grew to be men and women, viz: Jessie, Isaac[,] William Green, Sarah and Rebecca. Therefore, Andrew Johnson was your grandfather and Elizabeth Green was your grandmother. I have seen them both; they were quite aged at the time, and were then living in the house in which Chas. C. Craig now lives. Sauerhaver brought his wife Sarah back to this neighborhood at one time, sold her interest in her father's (the Green) farm, and returned to the Indians taking his wife with him. Miss Spurgin and one of the Miss Moores married brothers by the name of Ruble, and the other Miss Moore married a man by the name of Trowbridge. J. C. McGREW. TO MR. JESSE JOHNSON. Kingwood, April 23, 1892.