Excerpts from A Chronicle of the See Family and their Kindred by Irene See Brasel (1892 – 1963)

Irene Melba See Brasel was this writer’s 4^th Cousin 3 times removed.  We share Michael Frederic See as a common great-grandfather; Irene’s 3^rd and my 6^th.   The chronicle of the See family that she authored is fascinating, and a scanned, edited version can be found at, http://members.aol.com/hconor2/Brasel.htm , which is authored by Henry M. Connor, Irene’s 4^th Cousin twice removed.  The portions of  her chronicle that I have posted here focuses on the capture of Catherine See and her children by the Shawnee Indians in 1763 and their subsequent rescue.   Catherine See was married to Michael Frederick See and was this writer’s 6^th Great-Grandmother/Larry Hall - 2006

Captured by the Shawnees

"On June 16, 1763, Cornstalk^*, chief of the Shawnees, and sixty warriors suddenly appeared at the settlement at Muddy Creek. They came professing friendship and bringing with them much game which they had procured enroute. The inhabitants feeling secure in the belief that the hostilities (1755-1762) were over remained outside the fort (as did their neighbors the next day at Clendenning's). Preparation for a huge feast was soon underway and Frederick See killed one of his few precious cattle to supplement the venison and wild game supplied by the Indians. ^* Indian name: Keigh~tugh-qua

At a given signal the next day the Shawnees fell upon the settlers, killing and scalping all the men except one, 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 and believed himself to be on good terms with all the Indians, who came to hunt deer and elk in these savannahs. On the day of the massacre, he had just returned from an excursion near the spring of Lewisburg and had three fine elk. The advent of the Indian's friendly visit and the return of the hunters soon attracted all the people, between fifty or a hundred to his home near the stockade being twenty paces apart. The Indians were entertained and feasted on the fruits of Clendenin's hunt and every other item of provision which could be mustered.

An old woman, who was one of the settlement, having a very sore leg and having understood that the Indians could perform the cure of an ulcer, 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. This seemed to be the signal for a general massacre. Too late, Clendenin with one child in his arms, started for the brush but was felled in his tracks. Again, every man was killed (except Conrad Yolkum) and the women and children made captive.

Conrad Yolkum, suspicious of the Indian's professed friendship when they arrived at Clendenin's, took his horse out under the pretext of hobbling it at some distance from the house. Soon afterward, he heard the report of guns and outcries from the house and alarmed, mounted his horse and rode as far as Lewisburg.

Deciding that he must have been mistaken, he rode back to ascertain the truth, but as he neared Clendenin's a number of Indians fired at him. Fortunately all missed, and he fled, going to the fort on Jackson River, spreading the alarm as he went. But the people refused to believe this warning and were massacred at will by the few pursuing Indians, who continued their raid to Carr's Creek in Rockbridge County.

The Indians completely destroyed the settlement and then herded their prisoners, including Mrs. Clendenin and her baby and two small children, westward to Muddy Creek where they joined the captives there and all were kept for several days, awaiting the return of the small Indian band that had gone into Rockbridge county.

Driven to despair by the cruel and unprovoked murder of her husband and friends, Mrs. Clendenin boldly charged the Indians with perfidy and treachery and although the bloody scalp of her husband was flaunted in her face and the tomahawk threateningly raised over her head, she never ceased to revile them.

When the Shawnees were all re-assembled at Muddy Creek, the Indians set out for Ohio. In going over Kenney's Knob, the prisoners were in the center and Indians front and rear, Mrs. Clendenin slipped into a thicket unnoticed. Her escape was revealed when the baby she had handed to one of the women began to cry. Mrs. Clendenin though pursued, managed to elude her foes and returned that night, a distance of ten miles, to the tragic scene of the massacre.

She covered her husband's body with trash and rails and hid in an adjacent cornfield where she spent the night agitated with fear and despondency. Later, as she regained her composure and strength, she resumed her flight and reached the Jackson River fort in safety. Eventually, the two children of Archibald Clendenin's were restored to their mother. Ann Clendenin's grave in the Old Welch graveyard was marked at a ceremony during the 160th Anniversary of Greenbrier County, June 1938.

"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 Indians, tried valiantly to keep up for well they knew it was a matter of life or death; any who weakened and fell behind, any crying babe was ruthlessly killed. The trek ahead was long and grueling, a distance of one hundred sixty five miles as the crow flies, over some of the most rugged terrain east of the Mississippi River. Two mountain ranges lay ahead, the Blue Ridge and the Allegheny, not to mention the streams and rivers to cross.

Catherine See, keenly aware that her younger children would soon he exhausted by the hardships of the journey, resolved with a courage born of desperation, to save them from an inevitable fate. One of the warriors rode along the trudging line made up of about one hundred fifty women, young boys and children, many burdened with the loot the Indians had collected. His mount was a horse the property of Frederick See. It was perhaps the third day on the trail that Catherine requested that he give up the horse that her children might ride. This the Indian angrily refused to do. Seizing a pine knot from the ground, Catherine knocked him off the horse. He sprang up brandishing his tomahawk and would have killed her then and there, but for the interference of the other Indians who admired her fearlessness and called her the "fighting squaw." Catherine was permitted to keep the horse and use it for her family.

At length the weary prisoners and their captors reached Old Town across the Ohio River. One can well imagine the excitement that prevailed on the return of the victorious chieftain and his band; the shouting and rejoicing of the inhabitants as a great procession of both sexes and ages doubtless poured out of their dwellings on hearing the signal gun and peculiar whoop announcing the return of the raiders. Then followed the ceremonies usual for the occasion. There were the trophies to see, the utensils, tools, guns, clothing, horses, etc., all seized from the settlements; and the great number of white captives. One ceremony which provided the Indians with entertainment was an ordeal to which nearly every prisoner was subjected; it was to "run the gauntlet." It was done in this manner; a large number of squaws and Indian boys armed with clubs and switches lined up in two rows facing each other, then the prisoners were compelled to run between the lines, while the Indians struck them with their sticks and threw dirt or rubbish in their faces.

Catherine See's turn came. She was now about 48 years of age and had spent the past twenty-five years of her life on the frontier, where to remain alive was to become physically tough and mentally alert. Doubtlessly the story of her triumph in getting her horse had spread through the village and the Indians were eager to see the "fighting squaw" undergo this test. They were not to be disappointed, for to their astonishment, Catherine suddenly seized the club of the nearest Indian and swinging it lustily right and left, soon had the Indians overcome and scattered.

In accordance with Indian custom a general council decided the division of the spoils and the fate of prisoners taken by the tribe. The older daughter, Catherine, was given to the son of Chief Cornstalk for his wife. This girl could hardly have been more than fourteen. How the older boys were placed is unknown and Catherine and the younger girl were taken into some family; at least all were under shelter except little John, who had to stay outside with the Indian dogs. One can imagine that housing was strained by the sudden addition of one hundred fifty prisoners.

It so happened one day that 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. On this day, the old woman had one of these attacks and 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 and heard Catherine's report of the happening (what she chose to tell) she received no blame as the old squaw's condition was generally known. There was one less in the wigwam and John then could sleep inside. Later he was adopted by an Indian family, as were also the Brown and Zane children..."

With the two 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 for relief from the border country at length were heeded and the British government ordered Colonel Henri Bouquet to make an expedition against the Ohio Indians to put an end to these deprecations and force the return of their captives.

Colonel 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 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 - five hundred regulars against a large Indian contingent. The Indians, over-awed by his former victory and by his boldness in penetrating so far into the wilderness, were ready to make peace and give up their white prisoners.

With his army drawn up in battle array, Bouquet met in conference with the Ohio chiefs where they tendered him an offer of peace. His reply was a master stroke.

In part he said . . . "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."   The chief sources for Bouquet's expedition are thirty manuscript volumes in the British Museum which were transcribed for the Canadian Archives in Ottawa. The following is from a photostatic copy of pages 317-318:

List of Prisoners going to Fort Pitt under the command of Capt. Lewis Nov. ye 15th 1764.

Camp at Muskingum Nov. ye 15 1764

Received from Capt. Lewis Durry A. D. Q. M C, the above Sixty Captives which I am to deliver to the commanding officer at Fort Pitt having signed two receipts of this same Tenor and date. - Chas. Lewis

Endorsed: List of Prisoners Sent by Captain Lewis to Fort Pitt the 15th November 1764.

These most certainly are names of Virginia captives. There is Mrs. Gilmore and two children; Margaret Yokeham, the wife of either Felty or Valentine; Peggy Reyneck (Renick); the two See boys and Mary See, which could be Mary Catherine See, the mother or younger sister. The list reveals the physical condition of children; the fact that some either didn't know their own names or the clerk was lax in recording it.

When the day came for the captivated's departure, scenes of grief and anguish prevailed for many Indians refused to give up their beloved adopted children and many half-savage children clung frantically to their foster parents. Despite orders from Colonel Bouquet 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 tells that his Uncle Michael See gave a trader one hundred dollars to get him back. John See returned to Hampshire to live with his uncle's family. He told Nancy Greenlee See when he visited at Point Pleasant in Mason County, Virginia on his way from Kanawha Falls to Indiana about 1825 that when he was a lad returned from the Indians 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. "

Click on http://members.aol.com/hconor2/Brasel.htm to read the entire story and Irene's Chronicle.  The website has family group sheets, maps and photos. Note: The link has changed in the past, so you may want to Google "Irene See Brasel" to find the current link.

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