Historical Sketches of Pocahontas County ~ 1901
By William T. Price
April 1828 – The county is laid off into three districts. The upper end as low down as Sitlington Creek, then down to the mouth of Beaver Lick Creek, then to the lower end of the county.
June Term of Court, 1829 – County levy $341.37. Six hundred and eighty-one tithables at 50 cents each. Wolf scalps, eleven old ones at $8 each, and four young ones at $4 each = $104, or nearly one- third of the expenses of the county. The wolves seemed to have taken up the greater part of the page space in the early history of our county, and to have taken a very large part of the revenue. That the citizens had these destructive creatures on the run is apparent from the records. The price upon their heads rises by stages – $4, $6, $8, $10, $12 – and finally reaches the princely sum of $15, at which price two were proved in 1855.
CAPTAIN JAMES EWING
The Ewing family of Pocahontas County and vicinity was founded by James Ewing, born near Londonderry, Ireland, of Scotch parents, about 1720. He came to Virginia as a young man, and there married Margaret Sargent, of Irish birth, who bore him five children: Jennie, who married Clendennin, Susan who married Moses Moore, Elizabeth who married George Dougherty, John and William. John was born in 1747. At the time of the Clendennin massacre in Greenbrier County, John, a mere lad, was taken prisoner by the Indians, and carried into the Ohio country. There he was adopted into an Indian tribe, baptized according to Indian custom, and given an Indian name. But given an Indian name. But John’s Scotch-Irish blood was not easily converted to Indian, and when a returning party of warriors brought back as a curiosity an English bible, he explained to them that it was the word of God. The Indians asked whether his God was an Indian or a white man, and when John answered that he was a white man, they would no longer listen to his reading the book.
John learned the Indian tongue, but he never loved the Indian. In his old age, at the mention of the word “Indian” in his presence, he would always say, “Curse and confound the Indian.”
He was released from captivity under a treaty with the Indians, probably in 1764, and delivered to the whites at Fort Pitt, from which point he made his way back to his old Virginia home. In 1774 he married Ann Smith, Irish. They had eleven children …. The children of these gave John a list of grandchildren numbering sixty-five…
John’s living descendants are legion. They may be found in nearly every western state, and counted among the successful farmers, business men and professional men of the country…
