Davidson Family

Andrew Davidson's Family Killed
                      By Emory L. Hamilton
                                
     From the unpublished manuscript,
Indian Atrocities Along the Clinch, Powell and
Holston Rivers, pages 207-209.

     On August 23, 1786, the court of
Montgomery Co., VA, appointed George Peery, a
Captain of militia to replace Captain James Moore
who had been killed by the Indians on July 14,
1786. At the same time Joseph Davidson was
appointed a Lieutenant in the same company and
Andrew Davidson was appointed Ensign.
     Pendleton, History of Tazewell County,
records the following story of the massacre of the
Andrew Davidson family:
     In the spring of 1791, Andrew Davidson
was living at the head spring of East River, about
a half mile below the eastern limits of the city of
Bluefield, West Virginia. In addition to himself,
his family consisted of his wife Rebecca, his three
small children, two girls and a boy, and a
"bound" boy and girl named Broomfield. The
bound children were very young, between seven
and ten years old, and were more in the nature of
proteges than servants. Mrs. Davidson was a
granddaughter of James Burk from whom Burk's
Garden received its name. Mr. Davidson had gone
on a business trip to Smithfield, formerly
Draper's Meadows and now Blacksburg, Virginia.
It was the sugar making season, and a few days
after her husbands departure for Smithfield, Mrs.
Davidson was busily occupied gathering sugar
water from sugar trees close to the house. While
she was thus engaged, several Indians, who could
speak English, came upon the scene. They told her
that  she and her children must go with them to
their towns in Ohio. She was in a delicate
condition, and unfit to undertake the long and
fatiguing trip she was required to make.
     The Indians went into the house and took
such plunder as they wished to carry away, set fire
to the cabin, and began their homeward journey
with their six prisoners. When they arrived at a
point near where Logan Courthouse, West
Virginia, is located, Mrs. Davidson gave birth to
a child. After allowing the mother a rest of two
hours, the march to Ohio resumed. The birth of
the child must have been premature, as it was
drowned next day by the Indians on account of its
feeble condition.
     Mrs. Davidson and the captive children
were treated with such leniency while they were
making the journey, that she became hopeful they
would be kindly treated after their arrival at the
Indian towns. In this, however, she was sadly
disappointed.  Soon after their arrival at their
towns, the Indians tied the two daughters of Mrs.
Davidson to trees, and shot them to death in the
presence of their mother. Her son was given to an
old squaw for adoption. While crossing a river the
old squaw upset her canoe, and the boy, who was
with her, was drowned. What became of the
Broomfield children was never known, and it is
possible they shared the same fate of the girls who
were shot.
     Mrs. Davidson was sold to a Frenchman,
in Canada, in whose family she remained a
servant until she was found and rescued by her
husband in the fall of 1794. Two years after her
capture Mr. Davidson made an unsuccessful trip 
to the Shawnee towns in search of his wife. On his
second trip in 1794, he received information from
an old Indian as to her whereabouts, and was
guided by the Indians to Canada. He stopped one
day at a farm house to get dinner, and what
followed is thus related by Dr. Bickley: (1) "When
he got into the Canada settlement, he stopped at
the house of a wealthy French farmer, to get a
meals victuals, and to inquire the way to some
place where he had heard she was. He noticed a
woman passing him, as he entered the house, but
merely bowed to her and went in. Asking for
dinner, he seated himself, and was, perhaps,
running over in his mind, the chances of finding
his wife, when again the woman entered. She laid
down her wood, and looked at the stranger
steadily for a moment, when she turned to her
mistress and said: 'I know that man!' 
     'Well, who is he?,' said the French lady.
     'It is my husband!. Andrew Davidson, I
am your wife!'
     Mr. Davidson could scarcely believe his
senses. When he last saw her, she was a fine,
healthy looking woman; her hair was black as
coal, but now her head was gray, and she looked
many years older than she should have looked. Yet
it was her, though he declared nothing but her
voice seemed to say she was Rebecca Davdison.
Soon the French gentleman returned, and being a
humane man, gave up Rebecca to her husband,
also a considerable sum of money, and next
morning sent them on their way rejoicing. The
happily reunited husband and wife returned as
quickly as possible to the vicinity of their former
home, and settled at the mouth of Abb's Valley on
a farm which was owned some ten years ago
(1910) by A. C. Davidson. They were so fortunate
as to have and raise another family of children,
and a number of their descendants are now living
in Tazewell County, Virginia, and Mercer County,
West Virginia.

(1) Bickley, History of Tazewell County, VA,
1853.

Contact: Rhonda Robertson at: rsr@mounet.com

Killing of John Davidson
                      By Emory L. Hamilton
                                
     From the unpublished manuscript,
Indian Atrocities Along the Clinch, Powell and
Holston Rivers, pages 241-242.

     Pendleton, in his History of Tazewell
County, page 235, (1) quoting from Bickley's
History of Tazewell County, 1853, says:
     Sometime in either 1789, or 1790, John
Davidson, a man advanced in years, was killed by
the Indians on Clinch River, half a mile above the
present town of North Tazewell. Mr. Davidson
had been on a business trip to Rockingham Co.,
VA, and was returning to his home when the
murder was committed.
     The circumstances connected with the
tragedy were afterwards made known by white
people who had been in captivity, and who were
told by the Indians, when they were prisoners,
how, and why, Mr. Davidson was killed. He had
stopped at a deserted cabin to feed his horses, and
while thus occupied was shot to death. The
Indians also said that a white renegade was with
them when the deed was done. It seems that the
crime was a double one, as the Indians and their
companion found a considerable amount of specie
in the saddle bags of the old man which was
stolen by the murderers. Bickley says: ' A few
days after, his son, Col. Davidson, became uneasy
on account of his absence, and raising a small
company went in search of him. Luckily, when
they got to the cabin, they found a hat band,
which, being of peculiar structure, was recognized
as that worn by Mr. Davidson. After considerable
search, his body was found stripped of clothing,
and somewhat disfigured by birds. As the Indians
had too long been gone to be overtaken, Mr.
Davidson was taken home and buried.
     Both Pendleton and Bickley are in error on
their date of the killing of John Davidson. A letter
written by Daniel Trigg, to the Governor of
Virginia, under date of April 10, 1793, (2) he
writes:
     Since the 20th of march, they (Indians)
have been constantly hovering over this part of
our frontiers. John Davidson murdered by them,
and a number of horses stolen from Wolf Creek,
Bluestone and Island Creek, for and with all
which they have escaped, with impunity, except
the party entrusted with the care of conveying
away the horses from Island Creek, who have
been pursued, the horses retaken, together with
the arms and blankets of three warriors, who were
killed and scalped by the justly incensed followers
at the mouth of Little Cole.
     The number of Indians concerned in the
murder of Davidson, at the Laurel Fork of Wolf
Creek, was judged about twelve, who carried off
a number of horses from the neighborhood, and
passed with them in daylight through the heart of
the Bluestone settlement.
     From the above letter it can be safely
assumed that John Davidson was killed at some
time between the 20th of March and the 10th of
April, 1793. Also it seems unlikely that Davidson
could have been missing as long as Bickley says,
since the Indians passed through the Bluestone
settlement with stolen horses in open daylight.
Surely the whole countryside must have been
alerted and Trigg says in his letter that he Indians
had been hovering over the frontier since March
20th which conveys the knowledge that the settlers
were aware of their presence.
     Judge Johnson in his History of the New
River Settlements says that John Davidson was
called "Cooper" Davidson, being thusly labeled
because by trade he was a cooper.

(1) Pendleton, History of Tazewell County, page
461.
NOTE: John Davidson had 124 acres surveyed for
him April 3, 1775 in Wright's Valley on Bluestone
Creek.
(2) Calender Virginia State Papers, Vol. V, page
334.

Contact: Rhonda Robertson at: rsr@mounet.com

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