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Email dated 2/17/2000

subscribe    I only meant to unsubscribe from my office

-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Hunsecker <jcss@networksplus.net>
To: HUNSUCKER-L@rootsweb.com <HUNSUCKER-L@rootsweb.com>
Date: Tuesday, February 15, 2000 1:37 PM
Subject: Re: [HUNSUCKER-L] unsuscribe

UNSUBSCRIBE

THANK YOU

"Charles T. Ingram MD" wrote:

unsuscribe

Adrianne wrote:

-----Original Message-----
From: Dick Erickson [mailto:erickd@gdinet.com]
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2000 5:21 PM
To: PAFAYETT-L@rootsweb.com
Subject: INDIAN ATTACK

     Way back in the early days of our family's history there was an
Indian massacre in which John Hunsaker Jr., his wife and baby were
killed and his sons Isaac and Jacob carried off by the Indians.

     This information has come from a number of sources; two published
histories, John Sr.'s bible, correspondence with family members, land
records, and information from genealogists.

     When our ancestors were living south of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania,
near what is now Leitersburg, Maryland, they become associated with the
family of Andrew and Catherine Huber, who probably were members of the same
group of Dunkards as our ancestors.  In 1769 Jacob, Andrew Jr., and George
Huber migrated westward to what is now Springhill Township, Fayette
County, Pennsylvania.  John Hunsaker Jr., must of gone with the Hubers,
Alex Clegg may also have been in their group.  Andrew Huber Jr., and John
Hunsaker Jr., jointly acquired a piece of land in Menallen Township for 168
pounds from John Walter on November 25, 1775.  In 1780 they assigned this
land to Henry Hoover.  Both young men received city lots in Beeson's Town, now
Uniontown, on July 4, 1776, The rest of the Huber family, including daughter
Elizabeth, arrived in Fayette in 1775, John Jr., and Elizabeth were married
in about 1778 and immediately began a family; Isaac born April 8, 1779,
Catherine 1781, Jacob April 18, 1784 and three sons whose names and birth
dates are unknown, and Nicholas born 1792.  Our knowledge of the three
unnamed sons comes from the first US Census on 1790 which listed John Jr. and
Elizabeth as having one daughter and five sons and john Sr.'s bible which
say John Jr., had six sons.

     The family leader, John Sr., the only son of our original immigrant ancestor 
Hartman, and the rest of his group arrived in 1784, John Jr., bought 200 acres
of land on June 4, 1784 for a hundred pounds which he sold to his father on
February 24, 1790 for 270 pounds.

     Jacob Huber and Alex Clegg had acquired land, two pieces almost
joining each other, just barely in Pennsylvania, two or three miles west of
what is now Blacksville, in what was then called the Batelle District and is
now Wayne Township, Greene County.  Here Clegg had cleared some land and
built a cabin.  Whether they knew it or not, this area was athwart the
main trail the Indians used when they went on the war path and left their
camps along the  Ohio River to raid the white settlements west of present day
Morgantown, West Virginia.

     Anyway, on the fateful day of April 18, 1792 according to John
Sr.'s bible, John Jr., wife Elizabeth, baby Nicholas, sons Isaac & Jacob, who
at ages 13 & 8, were considered old enough to do a man's work went to the
area to help Clegg work his land.  Daughter Catherine was left in Springhill
with relatives.

     The men and boys were working in a cornfield and the women and
children of beyond the cabin when an Indian war party came along and attacked
them.

    John Jr., was wounded and quickly captured.  Clegg and Isaac and
Jacob ran for the cabin, Clegg entered the cabin, where his daughter Susan
was, and tried to defend it but when the Indians set fire to it he
surrendered rather than be burned with the cabin.  Isaac and Jacob ran on a ways to
where their mother and baby were, but upon reaching the spot found other
Indians had already captured them and were lying in wait for the two boys.
Margaret Clegg, upon seeing the attack, hid in some bushes but was
eventually discovered by the Indians and tried to run away from them.  One
Indian pursued her, but being out-distanced by the fleet footed
Margaret, took a shot on the fly and wounded her in the shoulder.  Eventually she
made her way two or three miles to Baldwin's Blockhouse at what is now
Blacksville, West Virginia.  Somewhere in this wild melee was the other Clegg
daughter, Peggy, but none of the sources know what happened to her other
than she was taken prisoner along with her sister and father.

     The Hunsakers, and apparently Clegg and his two daughters, were
then marched westward, slightly south of the Pennsylvania-West Virginia border
seven or eight miles to a ridge between the eastward flowing Dunkard Creek
and the westward flowing Fish Creek.  Apparently John's wound and
Elizabeth carrying the baby were slowing the pace of the march and John and
Elizabeth were told the baby was going to be killed.  They were also told that if
they did not cry out at the death of their infant their lives would be spared.
But, when the Indians killed Nicholas, the parents did cry out and they
were killed, first the mother and then the father.  Isaac and Jacob were
marched with the Indians to Niagara Falls or Quebec, Canada.  During the trip
Isaac was made to carry a heavy pot on his head.  The Indians killed a possum
and stuffed its carcass with pumpkin pulp.  They then hung the animal in a
tree and when the boys wanted to eat they squeezed pumpkin out of the possum
carcass.

     This unpleasant food made Isaac sick.  Upon arriving in Canada,
the boys were turned over to, or sold to, a Chief Walker who apparently
raised them as his sons.

     Clegg and his two daughters, who were also taken captive by the
Indians, apparently were taken to someplace other than where Isaac and
Jacob were taken.  Through the intervention of Simon Girty, the Indian
trader who himself had been captured by the Indians some forty years
previously, the Cleggs were given their freedom in exchange for a rifle and money
which Clegg procured upon his return to civilization and which Girty
took back to the Indians.  This is truly an example of someone keeping his
word.  When Alex Clegg later sold his land it was called "Indian Prisoner".

     Isaac and Jacob lived with the Indians under Chief Walker for seven of eight years. 
As they grew up they were allowed to go hunting on their own.  Over the years they
gradually extended the distances they roamed from camp on these hunting expeditions
until they ranged quite far away and for considerable periods of time.  Eventually they
took advantage of this stratagem to escape from their Indian captors.  Somewhere en
route back to their home the boys became separated and never saw each other
again.  Isaac managed to reach a trading post, apparently just ahead of his former captors,
and hid among bales of furs while the Indians unsuccessfully searched for him.  He then
was able to get a ride in a boat with fur traders who were heading south.  We do not know
any details of Jacob's mnner of escape.

     Isaac apparently got back to Fayette County before Jacob, only to find his
family had left during the winter of 1796-7 to move on westward.
Isaac, then about 20, somehow made his own way through the wilderness to
rejoin his family in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky.  Here he married Perthina
Christina Spikner in about 1800 and had ten children, one of whom he named
Jacob after his lost brother.  Isaac was killed by a falling tree and was
buried at Paradise, Muhlenberg County, Kentucky,  in November 1819.  In the
1978 Hunsaker Family Bulletin there was reproduced a photograph of
Isaac's tombstone within the roots of a giant Beech tree which has grown
over his grave.  Apparently he had trouble with trees.

    Jacob must have arrived back in Fayette after Isaac had left, otherwise it
is presumable Isaac would have taken his younger brother on to Kentucky with
him.  Being younger, Jacob must have assimilated Indian ways more than
Isaac.  Jacob wore a ring in his nose, Indian fashion, and was soon given
the sobriquet  "Indian Jake" which he carried all his life. Perhaps because
of derision of his Indian ways by whites in Springhill, Jacob left Pennsylvania
and migrated to Ohio (Note that at that time  his Uncle Nicholas & family were
residing in Sprillhill Township".  In 1804 in Fairfield County, Ohio he married
Elizabeth Huffman, whose father had been killed while serving with General
"Mad Anthony" Wayne in 1704 in a battle with Indians at Fort Defiance. 
Jacob's descendants today constitute a sizeable number and disprove one
version of Indian Jake's life which says "he went completely Indian and married a
squaw".  Catherine, the daughter who escaped the massacre, eventually married Isaac
Welty and her record ends except we know she died in 1816.

     The place where this massacre occurred is now known as Hunsaker's
Knob.  It lies just east of the village of Hundred, Wetzel County, West
Virginia, on top of the ridge which divided that county from Monongalia County
and between Fish and Dunkard Creek.   The location can be reached by
going north to Hundred, then northeast on State 69 one mile to an unnumbered
road  leading to Wadestown, then two or three miles to the ridge.  Hunsaker Knob
is the highest point on the ridge which is about 1650 feet high.

In the two histories of this portion of West Virginia it is noted that this
was the last massacre of whites by the Indians in West Virginia and ended
a long and bloody period of fighting between the Red Man and the White
settlers.

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