John See - Narrative Story 1757-1837

1. American Revolutionary War Patriot and Pioneer “John See”
by Alan See

2. Buried in
Indiana
John See
4th great-grandfather
to Alan See
Vertical Tree View - Ancestry
Killed at the Muddy Creek Massacre
in 1763 (near Lewisburg, WV)
Buried in
Iowa
Buried in
Iowa
Buried in
Iowa
Buried in
Iowa
Buried in
Iowa

3. In 1755 war broke out between France and England. The Indians were incited by
the French to wage war on the back-country inhabitants of Virginia. All who were
settled on the Greenbrier (near the present town of Lewisburg, WV) were obliged
to retreat to the older settlements for safety. Beginning in 1762, the settlement
of Greenbrier was renewed. Among the settlers were Frederick See (my 5th great
grandfather), Archibald Clendenin, Joseph Carroll, Felty Yocum, and others with
their families, to some more than a hundred. Two small blockade forts had been
erected as strongholds into which the settlers were to flee at the approach of
danger. One fort stood below the present town of Alderson, WV, and the other at
the juncture of Mill Creek with Muddy Creek. Another house-fort was that of
Archibald Clendenin's, about three and one-half miles southwest of Lewisburg in
what is now the Fort Spring district.
On June 16, 1763, Cornstalk, chief of the Shawnees, assisted by the great War
Chief Puksinwah (the father of Tecumseh), appeared with 60-90 warriors at the
Muddy Creek settlement. They appeared to be friendly, smiling, and courteous,
carrying the game they had procured on the route. The inhabitants, feeling secure
in the belief that the recent hostilities were over, remained outside the fort (as
did the Clendenin group the next day). Preparations were soon underway for a
huge feast, and Frederick See butchered one of his few precious cattle to
supplement the venison and wild game supplied by the Indians.
At a given signal the next day the Shawnees fell upon the settlers, killing and
scalping all but one of the men, plundering and burning their homes, and taking
the women and children prisoners. Leaving a few warriors behind to guard the
terrified, dazed, and anguished group, Chief Cornstalk and his band went some
twenty miles to the Clendenin settlement, again wearing the mask of friendship
to disguise their horrible purpose. Clendenin was a brave man and a hunter of
renown, believing himself to be on good terms with all the Indians, who came to
hunt deer and elk in these savannahs. On this day he had just returned from an
excursion near the spring at Lewisburg and had three fine elk.
The visit from the seemingly friendly Indians and the return of the hunters soon
attracted all 50 or more people to his home, just 20 paces from the safety of the
stockade. The Indians were entertained and feasted on the fruits of Clendenin's
hunt and every other item of provision that could be mustered.
The Muddy Creek Massacre - 1763

4. An old woman of the settlement with a very sore leg had heard that the Indians could perform a cure for an ulcer. She showed it to one near her and
asked if he could heal it. His answer was to bury his tomahawk in her brain and raise a fearful war cry. On this signal, the massacre began. Too late,
Clendenin with a child in his arms started for the brush but was felled in his tracks. Again, every man (but Conrad Yocum) was killed and the women and
children were held captive.
Conrad Yocum, suspicious of the Indians' apparent friendship when they arrived, took his horse out under the pretext of hobbling it at some distance from
the house. Hearing the reports of gunshots and outcries from the house, he was alarmed. He mounted his horse and rode to Lewisburg. Thinking he
might have been mistaken, he rode back to confirm what he had thought was happening. As he neared the settlement a number of Indians fired at him.
They all missed, fortunately, and he fled to the fort on Jackson River, spreading the alarm as he rode.
But the people refused to believe this warning and were massacred in turn by the pursuing Indians, who continued their raid to Carr's Creek in Rockbridge
County. The Indians destroyed the settlement, and then herded their prisoners, including Mrs. Clendenin, her baby, and two small children, westward to
Muddy Creek. They joined the warriors and captives there to await the return of the party that had gone into Rockbridge County. Mrs. Clendenin, driven
to despair by the cruel and unprovoked murder of her husband, boldly charged her captors with perfidy and treachery. She never ceased to revile them
even though they flaunted the bloody scalp of her husband in her face and raised tomahawks threateningly over her head.
When all were reassembled at Muddy Creek, the party set out for Ohio. They were traversing Kenny's Knob, the Indians in front and behind the prisoners,
when Mrs. Clendenin slipped into a thicket unnoticed. Her escape was revealed when her baby, handed to another woman in the group, began to cry.
Though pursued, she managed to elude her captors and returned that night to the scene of the massacre.
She covered her husband's body with brush and rails to protect it from animals, and spent the night in an adjacent field of corn. Agitated and fearful
though she was, she regained her composure and strength, resumed her flight and reached safety at the fort on Jackson River. The two older children of
Archibald Clendenin were later restored to their mother. The baby's head was bashed against a tree upon discovery by the Indians of its mother's escape.
The destination of the Shawnees was Old Town near the present city of Chillicothe, Ohio on the banks of the Scioto River. The captives, forced along at
the tireless pace of the warriors, tried valiantly to keep up. It was well understood that any who fell behind, any crying baby, would be ruthlessly killed.
The trek was long and grueling, a distance of one hundred sixty-five miles over some of the most rugged terrain east of the Mississippi River. Two
mountain ranges had to be crossed, the Blue Ridge and the Allegheny, as well as rivers and streams.
Catherine See (wife of Fredrick See who had just been killed), keenly aware that her younger children would soon be exhausted by the hardships of the
journey, resolved to save them from an inevitable fate. One of the warriors rode along the trudging line of one hundred fifty women and children carrying
the loot from the raids. His mount was a horse belonging to her husband, Frederick. It was on about the third day of the march that Catherine requested
that he give up the horse so that her children might ride. When he angrily refused her request, she seized a pine knot from the ground and knocked him
from the horse.
He sprang up brandishing his tomahawk, and would have killed her in an instant, but for the interference of the other Indians. They admired her courage,
and gave her the name "fighting squaw." She was permitted to keep the horse and use it for her family.
John’s mother “Fighting Squaw”
or Women!

5. The weary prisoners and their captors at length arrived at Old Town. One can imagine the excitement on the return
of the victorious chief and his band. The inhabitants must have poured out of their dwellings at the sound of the
signal shot and the peculiar whoop announcing the return of the raiders. The usual ceremonies for the occasion
included examination of all the utensils, tools, guns, clothing and animals seized from the settlements, plus the ritual
known as running the gauntlet. Squaws and boys armed with clubs and switches lined up in facing rows, and the
prisoners were required to run between the lines to be struck by the Indians' implements. Some threw dirt or
rubbish in the faces of their victims. The speed with which the line was passed determined the injuries inflicted; the
faster one could run the less damage was done.
Catherine See's turn came. She was now about 48 years old, and had spent the last 25 years on the frontier, where
to remain alive was to become tough and mentally alert. The story of her triumph in getting her horse had no
doubt spread through the village, and the crowd of Indians were eager to see the "fighting squaw" undergo this
test. To their astonishment, Catherine suddenly seized the club of the nearest tormentor and swung it lustily,
overcoming and scattering the group of Indians.
Division of the spoils and the fate of prisoners was decided by the general council, as was customary. Catherine's
older daughter (Elizabeth See) was given to the chief's son, Elinipsico, for his wife. She could not have been more
than fourteen years old. Where the older boys were placed is not known, but Catherine and her younger daughter
were placed with an Indian family. All were under shelter except little John (he was about 6 years old at the time),
who had to stay outside with the dogs. The sudden addition of one hundred fifty people to the village must have
strained the housing situation.
One day most of the tribe left the village for some special purpose. Catherine was left behind in charge of an aged
squaw who was subject to seizures of some kind. When the old woman had one of her attacks she fell into the fire.
Catherine calmly placed her foot on the old woman's head and held it there until she died. When the Indians
returned, they accepted whatever Catherine chose to tell them about the incident, because the old squaw's
condition was generally known. There was one less in the wigwam now, and John could sleep inside. He was later
adopted by an Indian family, as were the Brown and Zane children.
Simon Kenton was not the only person to “run the gauntlet”

6. With the settlements of Muddy Creek and Clendenin's* destroyed by the invasion of the Shawnees, the few remaining settlements were
practically cut off from the east after 1763. The Indians continued the war, and on some of their excursions went to within a few miles of
Staunton, Virginia. Appeals from the border country were, at length, heeded, and the British government ordered Colonel Henri Bouquet to make
an expedition against the Ohio Indians to put an end to these activities and force the return of their captives.
Bouquet's headquarters were at Fort Pitt, one hundred and fifty miles from the Shawnee towns on the Scioto. Here he had assembled his regular
troops, the Royal Americans, and two hundred Virginia Rangers. Many of them were volunteers. For the meeting with the Shawnee chiefs, he
marched down the Ohio River to the forks of the Muskingum where a stockade camp was prepared. In 1763, Bouquet had defeated the Indians at
Bushy Run with a small force of five hundred regulars against a large Indian contingent.
Awed by his former victory and his boldness in penetrating so far into the wilderness, the Indians were ready to make peace and give up their
white prisoners.
With his troops drawn up in battle array, Bouquet met in conference with the Ohio chiefs, where they tendered him an offer of peace. His reply
was, in part, "... and now I am come among you to force you to make atonement for the injuries you have done us. I have brought with me the
relatives of those you have murdered. They are eager for vengeance, and nothing restrains them from taking it but my assurance that this army
shall not leave your country until you have given them ample satisfaction. I give you twelve days from this date to deliver into my hands all
prisoners in your possession, without exception; Englishmen, Frenchmen, and children; whether adopted into your tribe, married, or living among
you under any denomination or pretense whatsoever; and you are to furnish these prisoners with clothing, provisions and horses to carry them to
Fort Pitt. When you have fully complied with terms you may obtain the peace you sue for."
*Spelled Glendenin in some versions of the story, Clendening in others.
On November ninth the Indians delivered two hundred six prisoners at the stockade and on the eighteenth they were taken to Fort Pitt. Another
one hundred remained with the Shawnees to be delivered the following Spring. From a list of prisoners going to Fort Pitt on November 15th,
1764 under the command of Captain Charles Lewis, are found George, Michael and Mary See, and Margaret Yocum.
Bouquet’s Expedition

7. When the day came for the departure of the captives, scenes of grief and anguish prevailed. Many Indians were reluctant to give up
their beloved adopted children, and many half-savage children clung frantically to their foster parents. Despite Colonel Bouquet's
orders, many of the Indians followed the returning army at a distance. Only a night or two after leaving the Muskingum, little John See
stole away from the encampment and rejoined the Indians. Tradition is that John's uncle, Michael See, gave a trader one hundred
dollars to get him back, and he returned to live with his uncle's family in Hampshire County. John, himself, when visiting relatives on
his way to Indiana, told that when he was a lad his Aunt Barbara used to tell some of the family to watch and follow him on his
excursions into the forest for fear he would return to the Indians.
They were grown and gone to their father's place, on Greenbriar, before I became acquainted with the family, but I have often heard my
mother-in-law say that she never undertook such a task as it was to break in those wild Indian boys, and especially John; it was utterly
impossible, she said, to keep clothes on them; in the summer season she did not attempt it, as it was worse than useless to do so, at
least any more than shirts, and the strongest tow or hemp linen shirt that could be put on them, with the strongest kind of fastenings
that could be applied at wristband and collar, would perhaps in an hour's time be torn off them and thrown by, and they would be
found swimming like wild ducks in the river, or wallowing naked in the sand beaches on the shores; and in their melancholy moments
they would often be heard to exclaim, in all the apparent agonies of distress, "0! my Innies, my Innies!" (meaning Indians.) It took a
number of years to root out this attachment, and indeed it was thought by a part of their friends that some of the boys carried
remnants of it to their graves. And this among many thousands of other similar circumstances is a strong proof of the correctness of the
old adage that "It is easy to make an Indian out of a white man, but hard, if not impossible, to make a white man out of an Indian, or
even to reclaim a white man after being converted into an Indian.
Comments by Felix Renick, husband of Hannah See, about John See and his brother who lived with Michael and Barbara Harness See after
being returned from Indian captivity.
A Trip to the West, 1 American Pioneer 73
Elizabeth, one of Catherine's twin daughters, did not return with the captives. Legend tells that she was the mother of an Indian baby and
remained with the Shawnees. If her birthdate of 1754 is correct, she was only 9 years old at the time of the Muddy Creek Massacre; thus
under 12 when the prisoners were reunited with their families. She may have stayed with the tribe and had a child with her Indian
husband at a later time. The resettlement of Greenbrier County after six years of devastation started again in 1769, when Colonel John
Stuart and others came from Augusta County to Frankford. The Sees and other displaced families returned to their original holdings.
John See rejoins his Indian family

8. In the spring of 1774 the Assembly of Williamsburg, then the capital of our government, received intelligence of the hostile
appearance of the Indians who were attacking the settlements and traders and were making other arrangements for war.
General Andrew Lewis and his brother, Colonel Charles Lewis, delegates respectively from Botetourt and Augusta counties,
were in command of their county militias at the time. At once they sent couriers to the frontier settlements requesting
each to put themselves in a position of defense. General Lewis ordered Colonel Stuart to send out scouts along the Indian
trails to protect the late settlements and to report on war plans.
Relations between the American colonies and the British government were fast approaching the breaking point. John
Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, was the last royal governor of Virginia. His domineering conduct and his support of some of
Britain's oppressive measures caused him to be hated by Virginians. Finally, the indignation of the people compelled the
reluctant governor to take up arms to suppress the very savages he was thought to have encouraged and incited to hostility
by his intrigues, with the idea of distracting the colonists' attention from the real issues of the times.
Arrangements were made to carry out an expedition against the Shawnees and other tribes of the northern confederacy
lead by the crafty and able Chief Cornstalk (Keigh-tu-qua). The plan was for Lord Dunmore to lead an army of volunteer
Militia from the counties of Frederick, Shenandoah and the settlements toward Fort Pitt, while General Lewis was to
command a southern division of like troops collected from Augusta, Botetourt and the counties south of the Blue Ridge.
While Dunmore was to proceed down the Ohio River, General Lewis was to advance along the Kanawha and the whole army
was to assemble at the mouth of the Great Kanawha on the Ohio on 1 October 1774.
General Lewis' army of eleven hundred men assembled in Greenbrier at Camp Union (Lewisburg) about the fourth of
September. On the eleventh the march to Point Pleasant began.
It was a distance of one hundred sixty miles through a trackless forest, rugged and mountainous. Progress was both slow
and difficult. Captain Matthew Arbuckle, a famous hunter and Indian Fighter, was their guide. After nineteen days, the
Ohio was reached and the army went into encampment on the point of land between the two rivers. Provisions and
ammunition transported by pack animals and droves of cattle arrived soon afterward. Among the volunteers from
Greenbrier to join with Captain Arbuckle were two young men, George and Michael See, who as young lads had been held
prisoners by the Shawnees for a year and a half. They were useful as scouts, knowing full well the Indians' tactics.
None who has any knowledge of their previous exploits will suppose that General Lewis had to deal with a contemptible
army. It was chiefly the Shawnees who, in the nineteen years preceding the Battle at Point Pleasant, had consistently
defeated all troops sent against them. Afterwards the defeats at Blue Licks and of Generals Harmar and Wayne were due
chiefly to the Shawnees.
Dunmore’s War

9. Colonel John Stuart's, Memoirs of Indian Wars, states that, "Of all the Indians, the Shawnees were the most bloody and terrible, holding all other men, Indians as well as whites,
in contempt as warriors, in comparison with themselves. This opinion made them more restless and fierce than any other savages; and they boasted that they had killed ten
times as many white people as any other Indians did. They were a well-informed, active and ingenious people -- were assuming and imperious in the presence of others not
their own nation, and sometimes very cruel."
October first arrived, but not Lord Dunmore and his army. It developed that he had changed his plan and sent word to General Lewis by three men, one-time Indian traders,
to proceed to the Shawnee village where he would join Lewis and his forces. The envoys from Dunmore arrived on the ninth of October and Lewis found their talk very
suspicious of conspiracy. A McCullough stated that but recently he had left the Shawnee town and gone to Dunmore's camp.
On the morning of October 10th, two young men from Lewis' camp set out very early to hunt deer. Two or three miles up the Ohio they unexpectedly stumbled upon a large
encampment of Indians. Discovering the hunters, the Indians fired on them, killing one. The other fled and reported to General Lewis that he had seen "a body of Indians
covering four acres of ground as closely as they could stand by the side of each other." At once the army was activated. Immediately two detachments under the oldest
captains were ordered out, Augusta troops under Colonel Charles Lewis and Botetourt troops under Colonel William Fleming. They advanced in two lines four hundred yards
from, and in sight of, the camp guards. The Indians fired the first volley, killing the two scouts in front of the lines. Just as the sun came up, terrific firing began. The resulting
famous Battle of Point Pleasant was to go down in history as one of the most important frontier engagements. Colonel Stuart declared, "This battle was in fact, the beginning
of the Revolutionary War."
The battle raged all day with every inch of ground contested, finally in hand-to-hand combat. Night came and still both armies held. Although victorious, the Virginians could
neither advance nor retire, fearing an ambush or night attack. The Indian actions, retreating across the river in the darkness taking their dead with them, seemed to suggest
that possibility. The victory was decisive, but it was costly. The Virginians lost fifty-three* men killed, a total of one hundred and forty killed or wounded, nearly one-fifth of
the troops. Colonel Charles Lewis was mortally wounded in the first round of fire. Ten or more other officers lost their lives. Graphic accounts of the battle as given by the
participants are found in Mrs. Livia Simpson-Poffenbarger's book, The Battle of Point Pleasant.
*Other sources indicate that 46 officers and men died in the battle.
After burial of the Virginia dead, General Lewis ordered entrenchments to be made around the camp, and leaving a garrison to hold the area, moved the army across the Ohio
River to the Shawnee towns. There, Dunmore was already negotiating.
Dunmore's conduct through the entire maneuver was suggestive of connivance with the Indians and incensed the troops, who wanted to continue the war to the
extermination of the Indians. In fact, it is stated, they would have killed Dunmore but for his bodyguard of fifty men.
The importance of the victory is seen in the treaties with the Indian Confederation that followed. Hundreds of white women and children were returned to their families
immediately. All claims to the lands east of the Ohio and to the Kentucky hunting grounds were given up. Relative peace existed along the frontier for more than two years,
allowing the frontier militias to engage in the revolutionary actions in the East. In this period also it was possible for Boone and Harrod to open Kentucky for settlement.
The original fort erected at Point Pleasant, named Fort Blair, was later destroyed. In 1776, John See took part in the construction of Fort Randolph near the same site under
the command of Captain Arbuckle. It was garrisoned at the expense of the colony of Virginia, and later commanded by Captain William McKee. Before July 12, 1779, Fort
Randolph was abandoned, after which it was burned by the Indians. In 1785 a third fort was built on the site. New Fort Randolph was commanded by Colonel Thomas Lewis,
and from that time the white man has resided at Point Pleasant.
Battle of Point Pleasant

10. A memorial service is held each year at Point Pleasant around the anniversary of the Lord Dunsmore war near the site of a statue honoring the great Chief
Cornstalk. Many of the officers and men in this initial Revolutionary conflict were soon in the colonial armies. George (1755 - 1835) and Michael (1751 -
1792) See were with Captain Matthew Arbuckle's "borderers" defending the frontier, and their younger brother, John (1757 - 1837) was in the Continental
Line with George Washington and General Wayne.
John See (1757 - 1837), son of Frederick See.
The third son, and youngest child of Frederick and Catherine See, was born in 1757, in Hampshire County, VA. His early life has already been related. We
know that Greenbrier County was his home in manhood along with his brothers George and Michael. Near the end of the Revolution, on September 3,
1780, he married Margaret Jarrett, the daughter of a neighboring family. They were married by Rev. John Alderson.
From the letter dated January 7, 1994, from Wm. Nugen to Henry M. Conor.
The See family appears to have begun to leave Greenbrier County, WA (WV) in the mid to late 1790's. George See, the brother of John See, was selling 365
acres of land at Muddy Creek, Greenbrier Co. to a Mr. Jacob Hookman in 1794. I recall that Frederick See (father of John, Michael and George) had a land
grant at Muddy Creek of 480 acres in 1751. In 1797, George bought land from a Thomas Davis; Book A202, date August 8. On August 13, 1805, John See
was buying land (30 acres) on Cabin Creek from Nathan and Margaret Huddleston.
John See and nearly all his family left (Kanawha) County about 1818 going to Wayne County, Indiana, later to Henry, Shelby and to Kosciusko counties in that
state. John and Margaret's children were:
George (1781-1839), married Nancy Wilson in 1810;
David (1785-1865) married Leah Jarrett in 1810;
Jarrett (1785) married Florence Graham Garrad
Mary (Polly) ( 1787-1877) married John Nugen
Michael Frederick (1789) married Hannah Nugen
Chas. F.. (born 1790) married Sarah Wilburn;
Elizabeth married Elihu Ellis;
Hannah (1795) married Wesley Prior;
and John Jr., (1798 - 1873)
John See made an application for a pension, which was granted, while living in Henry County, Indiana, in 1832, stating that he was then 75 years old. He had
two brothers and two sisters. His father Frederick See moved from Hampshire County, Virginia, about 1762, to Augusta (now Greenbrier) County, Virginia
(now W. VA,) where he was killed by the Shawnee Indians July 14, 1763, and his wife Catherine and five children carried into captivity, remaining with the
Indians until May 14, 1765, when they were liberated by Col. Bouquet's Expedition.
John's oldest brother Michael, was killed by the Indians at Point Pleasant, Virginia, in May, 1792, and his other brother George left Kanawha County about
1808, and died in Marion County, Missouri, in 1847 at the age of 91.
John See

11. At Valley Forge with Washington

12. Pension Application

14. John See burial site is just outside of Lewisville, Indiana

15. John See burial site is just outside of Lewisville, Indiana
Proof

16. Nugen Farm is just outside Lewisville, IN.

17. “Go West, young man”
Josiah Bushnell Grinnell claimed in his autobiography that
Horace Greeley first addressed the advice to him in 1833,
before sending him off to Illinois to report on the Illinois
Agricultural State Fair. Grinnell reports the full conversation
as:
"Go West, young man, go West. There is health in the country,
and room away from our crowds of idlers and imbeciles."
"That," I said, "is very frank advice, but it is medicine easier
given than taken. It is a wide country, but I do not know just
where to go." "It is all room away from the pavements. ..."
Horace Greeley
John See Jr.’s burial site is just outside of Grinnell, Iowa.
Grinnell, Iowa was founded by J.B. Grinnell in 1854
J.B. Grinnell
The See family continued to push West