Bledsoe Family

Capture of Captain Abraham Bledsoe's Son
                      By Emory L. Hamilton
                                
     From the unpublished manuscript,
Indian Atrocities Along the Clinch, Powell and
Holston Rivers, pages 91-92.

     Captain Abraham Bledsoe, who was with
Col. Evan Shelby on the Chicamauga Campaign of
1779, had a son captured by the Indians whom
many writers blandly say was the son of Anthony,
or Isaac Bledsoe.
     Thomas Bledsoe, a son of Captain
Abraham, tells of the capture of his brother in his
Revolutionary War pension claim, saying:
     The family (Captain Abraham's) moved to
about seven miles from the Long Island
(Kingsport, TN) on Holston on Reedy Creek, and
at this place his father was living when he entered
the service of the United States in 1778, as well as
he can remember. He again volunteered under the
same Captain to go in pursuit of a party of
Indians, who had broken in on the frontiers, and
had taken away with them, as prisoner, this
applicant's brother; that after pursuing for some
time, they came up with the rear guard of the
Indians, who gave notice to the advance party and
they escaped, taking with them their prisoner, and
he was not heard of until he was exchanged at the
Falls of the Ohio.
     Thomas Bledsoe was slightly in error as to
the year in which his brother was captured, which
is excusable, since he was making a statement from
memory forty or fifty years after the event
happened. He does not give the date when his
brother was released at the Falls of the Ohio, which
is today the site of Louisville, Kentucky. The
actual date of the capture of the Bledsoe boy is
given in a letter written by Col. Arthur Campbell to
Governor Patrick Henry, dated 25th April, 1781,
(1) a few days after the actual happening, wherein
he says:
     The Northward (Shawnee) Indians have
been troubling the people very much this spring,
in small parties; killing and captivating and
wounding. They come up Sandy River generally,
and on the last occasion, penetrated as far as the
settlement on Holston, carrying off a son of
Captain Bledsoe's.
     Abraham Bledsoe settle don the upper part
of Reedy Creek in the year 1772, according to his
land survey, but was certainly in the area earlier
than this date, for on February 14th, 1770, he was
appointed by the Court of Botetourt Co., VA,
"Constable in the precinct he lived in upon Reed
Creek." He later (after 1772), moved to Moccasin
Creek of the North Fork of Holston, where he died
near Moccasin Gap in the summer of 1801. His
wife was named Catherine, and among his children
were: Thomas Bledsoe, born in North Carolina in
1760, and who married on 6 November 1787;
Margaret Eakin; Abraham Bledsoe, Jr., and he was
perhaps the one who was captured by the Indians;
three daughters, Thely who married James Eakin,
brother of Margaret who married Thomas Bledsoe;
Hetty Bittle and Polly Bledsoe.

(1) Calendar VA State Papers, Vol. II, page 72

Contact: Rhonda Robertson at: rsr@mounet.com

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