Carter Family
Two Carter Boys Taken From Rye Cove
By Emory L. Hamilton
From the unpublished manuscript,
Indian Atrocities Along the Clinch, Powell and
Holston Rivers, page 160-161.
Alexander Barnett, County Lieutenant of
Russell Co., VA, wrote Governor Edmund
Randolph, on May 15, 1788, (1) thusly:
On the 20th of April, a band of Indians
came into the Rye Cove settlement and carried off
three (3) boys, two of the name of Carter, and a
Negro boy belonging to those of the same name,
but did not kill anyone in the settlement.
Immediately upon this he ordered out men from
three companies, under the command of Ensign
Blackmore. A man named Henry Hamlin, living in
the Cove, and much attached to the crown of
Brittain, during the contest, (Revolution) induced
the Rangers to go back telling them the people
wanted men to be stationed instead of them.
In a letter written by Barnett to the
Governor on May 20, 1789, (2) he states that the
Carter boys were returned to their father through
the friendly offices of Governor Simcoe, of South
Carolina, but makes no mention of the Negro boy
being released. The Carter boys had evidently been
taken by the Cherokees.
The two Carter boys who were taken were
Morgan and Elijah, and are said to have been the
sons of Thomas Carter, the builder of Carter's Fort
in Rye Cove. (I. C. Coley, Genealogy of the
Carters of Scott County.)
Col. Joseph Martin, writing to Governor
Edmund Randolph, on the 17th of April, 1788,
states:
Enclosing copies of letters showing the
alarmed state of the frontiers of Washington,
Russell and Hawkins counties, and indeed
throughout the whole of Western North Carolina
and what had been known as (the state of)
Franklin, on account of incursions of the savages.
Along the Holston, and Clinch, in Powell's Valley
and other places, the inhabitants were ready to
leave the country. He, himself had sold his Station
in the latter, and although, through his influence
with the Indians, they had not killed a man,
woman, or child, within the Virginia line for
several years past. Unless something is now done,
they will make a strike upon the settlements. He is
on his way to the Cherokee Nation, and will exert
his powers with them to prevent their threatened
attack.
(1) Virginia State Papers, Vol. IV, page 442.
(2) Ibid, Vol. V, page 4-5
Contact: Rhonda Robertson at: rsr@mounet.com
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John Carter's Family Killed on Clinch
By Emory L. Hamilton
From the unpublished manuscript,
Indian Atrocities Along the Clinch, Powell and
Holston Rivers, pages 158-159.
John Carter, a brother of the Dale Carter,
who was killed at Blackmore's Fort in 1774, had
settled on a 400 acre tract of land on the northwest
side of Clinch River, about 4 miles below
Blackmore's Fort, in Scott Co., in the year 1773.
He had married a daughter of Joseph Blackmore
and had seven children.
On August 27, 1787, Alexander Barnett,
County Lieutenant of Russell Co., VA, wrote the
following to the Governor (1):
That on July 9th last, the Indians had
attacked the frontier, this time killing the wife of
John Carter and six of his children, and at the
same time plundering and setting fire to his
house, thus reducing the bodies of his wife and
children to ashes.
R. M. Addington, History of Scott County,
page 99, says:
In a short time after moving to his farm,
having planted his crop, and completing such
other preparations as were necessary to move
back to the fort, he went out one morning to listen
for his horses and cattle, which had bells on,
intending to collect them up prior to moving back
to Fort Blackmore on the next day. This was
locust year, and he went out early in order to
collect his stock before the locust began their
noises. He had proceeded about sixty yards from
his house when he heard his wife cry out, "Oh
John". Turning he saw eight or nine Indians
entering his house, and at the same time they fired
at him. Realizing his perilous situation, he
thought it best to make his escape and go for
assistance, rather than fight and exasperate the
savages in an unequal contest. Hastening to the
fort, he collected a company and returned to his
house, which he found in flames. With some poles,
his companions succeeded in pulling out of the
burning coals the charred remains of his wife and
six children, which they buried. When they had
done this, they heard a plaintive groaning a little
ways from the house, in the weeds and grass. They
went to the place from whence the sounds came
and found his little daughter, about ten years of
age, with an awful gash across her abdomen and
her entrails falling out. They carried her to the
river and washed her, but she died before they
finished. (Judge Wood and Peter Honeycutt's
Letter, Draper MSS 4 C 27)
(1) Virginia State Papers, Vol. IV, page 335.
Contact: Rhonda Robertson at: rsr@mounet.com
Dale Carter Killed At Blackmore's Fort
By Emory L. Hamilton
From the unpublished manuscript,
Indian Atrocities Along the Clinch, Powell and
Holston Rivers, pages 18-19.
On the same day that Colonel Shelby's
Negro girl was captured, Logan, who must have
split his raiding party, sending one part against Ft.
Blackmore which secretly approached the fort and
got within 75 yards before being discovered. Most
of the men were sitting upon some logs which lay
a short distance from the gate. Evidently seeing this
the Indians decided to make a bold push and enter
the fort before the men could recover from their
surprise. Creeping along the river bank, hidden by
the bank and a fringe of brush and trees, they were
just ready to push into the fort when they were
discovered by Dale Carter, who was about fifty-
five steps from the fort and who cried, "Murder!
Murder!"
Upon hearing Carter's alarm, the men ran
towards the fort and succeeded in reaching the gate
before the Indians. Frustrated in their designs of
entering the fort they turned upon Dale Carter. One
Indian shot at him, but missed him; another shot
him through the thigh, inflicting a wound which
rendered him too lame to escape into the fort.
Another Indian ran up to Carter, tomahawked and
scalped him.
In a letter (1) dated October 12, 1774,
from Major Arthur Campbell to Col. William
Preston, he says:
It is remarkable that Captain Shelby's
wench was taken the same day, and about the
same time of day, that this affair happened on
Clinch. So many attacks in so short a time, give
the inhabitants very alarming apprehensions.
Want of ammunition and scarcity of provisions
are again become the general cry. Since I began
this, I am mortified with the sight of a family
flying by. If ammunition does not soon come, I
will have no argument that will have any force to
detain them; and if our army is not able to keep a
garrison at the Falls (Louisville) the ensuing
winter, I expect we shall be troubled with similar
visits the greater part of the coming season.
At a court held for Washington County, on
March 18, 1778, Thomas Carter, brother of Dale,
was appointed Administrator of his estate, with
Richard Stanton and William Houston as his
securities. The estate was appraised by Archibald
Scott, Joseph Butcher, John Carter (another
brother) and Richard Stanton.
The Carter brothers, John, Thomas, and
Dale, had settled on the north side of Clinch river,
near Blackmore's Fort about 1772. Their land
grants were surveyed for them and entered in the
Fincastle Survey Book on March 26, 1774.
Dale Carter was born August 9, 1744, and
was married to Mary Ann Bickley, daughter of
John Bickley of Red Hill, Amherst County, VA
and a sister of Charles Bickley who settled in
Castlewood. There is a tradition that young
Charles Bickley (1759-1839) came to the frontier
to escort his widowed sister back to Amherst
County, but liked the country and decided to stay.
There is no evidence o f his being on the frontier
prior to this date and 15 years would have been a
tender age for a boy to settle at a frontier outpost
without family ties. Dale Carter was a son of
Charles and Lucy Morgan Carter and a direct
descendant of Captain Thomas Carter (1672-1733)
perhaps the first of the line in Virginia.
Capt. Daniel Smith with 26 men went in
pursuit of Indians who killed Carter (Arthur
Campbell to Preston, October 12, 1774, Draper
Mss 3 QQ 18). The next day October 13, 1774,
Daniel Smith wrote Preston of their unsuccessful
pursuit of Indians and mentions petition of lower
settlers that Boone be appointed Captain (Draper
Mss 3 QQ 119).
(1) Draper Mss 3 QQ 118.
Contact: Rhonda Robertson at: rsr@mounet.com
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