Pennsylvania Was The Gateway

Source

Pennsylvania was the gateway and first resting place and the source of Scotch-Irish adventure and enterprise as they moved west and south. The wave of emigration striking the eastern border of Pennsylvania, in a measure deflected southward through Maryland. Virginia, the Carolinas, reaching and crossing the Savannah river... . 

History of Monongalia County

History

Indian Creek was part of the Eastern Trail (Native American) page 25

Page 68, Thomas Pindall

Page 81, Lochrey

Safer After The Point Pleasant Campaign

FLOWERING of the CUMBERLAND:

The land that was to be Kentucky and Tennessee grew somewhat safer after the Point Pleasant Campaign of 1774...

...that marked the end of Dunmore’s War and the defeat of the Shawnee.

Harrodsburg, Kentucky, was founded in that year. Also came the surveyors, locating boundaries for the land warrants Virginia ...

Source

...had used to pay her soldiers in the French and Indian War. Some of these, including several hundred acres for George Rogers Clark,...

...were located on the Middle Cumberland in the neighborhood of French Lick, for at this time most thought all the Cumberland was due west of Virginia instead of North Carolina.

Somewhat Safer After Point Pleasant

Monument At Point Pleasant, West Virginia

From the FLOWERING of the CUMBERLAND by Harriette Simpson Arnow:

"The land that was to be Kentucky and Tennessee grew somewhat safer after the Point Pleasant Campaign of 1774 that marked the end of Dunmore’s War and the defeat of the Shawnee. Harrodsburg, Kentucky, was founded in that year. Also came the surveyors, locating boundaries for the land warrants Virginia had used to pay her soldiers in the French and Indian War. Some of these, including several hundred acres for George Rogers Clark, were located on the Middle Cumberland in the neighborhood of French Lick, for at this time most thought all the Cumberland was due west of Virginia instead of North Carolina."

Cabin Near Shelbyville, Kentucky

Daniel Bedinger, Revolutionary War POW

Project Gutenberg's American Prisoners of the Revolution, by Danske Dandridge:

To The Memory of my Grandfather, Lieutenant Daniel Bedinger, of Bedford, Virginia

 Daniel's father was born in Alsace, and he himself had been brought up in a family where German was the familiar language of the household. It seems that, in some way, probably by using his mother tongue, he had touched the heart of one of the Hessian guards.

In some way Daniel was conveyed to Philadelphia, where he completely collapsed, and was taken to one of the military hospitals.

Here, about the first of January, 1777, his devoted brother, George Michael Bedinger, found him. Major Bedinger's son, Dr. B. F. Bedinger, wrote an account of the meeting of these two brothers for Mrs. H. B. Lee, one of Daniel's daughters, which tells the rest of the story. He said:

"My father went to the hospital in search of his brother, but did not recognize him. On inquiry if there were any (that had been) prisoners there a feeble voice responded, from a little pile of straw and rags in a corner, 'Yes, Michael, there is one.'

"He placed his suffering and beloved charge in the chair...and carried him some miles into the country, where he found a friendly asylum for him in the house of some good Quakers. There he nursed him, and by the aid of the kind owners, who were farmers, gave him nourishing food, until he partially recovered strength.

After Daniel Bedinger returned home he had a relapse...however, recovered, and re-entered the service, where the first duty assigned him was that of acting as one of the guards over the prisoners near Winchester. He afterwards fought with Morgan in the southern campaigns, was in the battle of the Cowpens, and several other engagements, serving until the army was disbanded. He was a Knight of the Order of the Cincinnati.

Lieutenant Bedinger...died in 1818 at his home near Shepherdstown, of a malady which troubled him ever after his confinement as a prisoner in New York. He hated the British with a bitter hatred, which is not to be wondered at.

Daniel Bedinger's entry at Wikitree.

See a YouTube video of Bedinger's experiences by one of his descendants.

John Todd At Point Pleasant

Monument At Point Pleasant (West Virginia)

John Todd's Record Book:

"He [John Todd] served as aid to Gen. Lewis at the battle of Point Pleasant and in the campaign of 1774 against the Scioto towns."

Battle Of Point Pleasant

The Battle of Point Pleasant: a battle of the Revolution, October 10th 1774 ...:

It was this blood that fought the battle of King's Mountain, which victory gave the patriots the courage that is always in hope; it was the winning force at Cowpens, at Guilford, where Rev. Samuel Houston discharged his rifle fourteen times, once for each ten minutes of the battle. These brave hearts were in every battle of the Revolution, from Point Pleasant in 1774 to the victory of Wayne at the Maumee Rapids twenty years later, for the War of Independence continued in the Ohio Country after the treaty of peace.


Also see another Point Pleasant blog post at Relatively Fiction.  Detour Through History also has this  and this.

History Of The Battle Of Point Pleasant

The chief event of Lord Dunsmore's War....

Jim's Photo - Point Pleasant Battle Scene - 10 Oct 1774

Accounts of the Battle of Point Pleasant from its History ..., by Virgil Anson Lewis:

"...on a sudden the enemy lurking behind bushes and trees gave the Augusta line a heavy fire... . This attack was attended with the death of some of our bravest officers and men also with the deaths of a great number of the enemy."

A separate account:

"During this time which was till after twelve o'clock the action continued extremely hot. The close under-wood, many steep banks and logs greatly favored their retreat; and the bravest of their men made the best use of them whilst others were throwing their dead into the Ohio and carrying off their wounded."

At The Confluence

At The Confluence Of The Ohio And Kanawha Rivers

History of the Battle of Point Pleasant ... :

Scarcely had the storms of winter subsided when there was an army of surveyors and land-jobbers on the Ohio. In January of this year, William Preston, Surveyor-general, of Fincastle county, which then included all the territory south of the Ohio below the mouth of the Great Kanawha, gave notice to officers and soldiers who claimed land under his Majesty's proclamation of the 7th of October 1763, and who had obtained warrants for the same from the Earl of Dunmore, to meet his deputy surveyors at the mouth of the Great Kanawha river, on the ensuing 14th of April, that their lands might be located. 

Lord Dunmore

History of the Battle of Point Pleasant ...The Chief Event of Lord Dunmore's War :

John, Earl Dunmore, Viscount Fincastle, Baron Murray Of Blair, Of Moulin, And Of Tillymott

Boone And Ammunition

From DANIEL BOONE by John Bakeless (1939):

Mentioned in the Daniel Boone book was a CLENDENIN, which was the name of Fannie (Clendenin) Trousdale's first husband*. The book refers to a Colonel William [or George] Clendenin who complained (on May 26, 1792) that Daniel Boone, in his capacity as "quartermaster" for the Kanawha County (now WVa) militia, failed to deliver powder and he (Clendenin, who was also a representative in the Assembly) had to buy it at his own expense.

*(Mary) Fannie Clendennin's 1st husband was a Lieutenant from North Carolina who moved to Tennessee; don't know if there was any relationship to the West Virginia Clendennins.  I'm her descendant from her 2nd marriage

More about the West Virginia Clendennins:

Source

From this source:

While this disaster was occurring, Boone was again sitting in the legislature at Richmond, where he represented Kanawha County from October 17th to December 20th. It was voted to send ammunition for the militia on the Monongahela and the Kanawha, who were to be called out for the defense of the frontier.
Before leaving Richmond, Boone wrote as follows to the governor:

"Monday 13th Dec 1791
" Sir as sum purson Must Carry out the armantstion [ammunition] to Red Stone [Brownsville, Pa.,] if your Exclency should have thought me a proper purson I would undertake it on conditions I have the apintment to vitel the company at Kanhowway [Kanawha] so that I Could take Down the flowre as I paste that place I am your Excelenceys most obedent omble servant   "Da l Boone." 

Five days later the contract was awarded to him; and we find among his papers receipts, obtained at several places on his way home, for the lead and flints which he was to deliver to the various military centers.
But the following May, Colonel George Clendennin sharply complains to the governor that the ammunition and rations which Boone was to have supplied to Captain Caperton's rangers had not yet been delivered, and that Clendennin was forced to purchase these supplies from others. It does not appear from the records how this matter was settled; but as there seems to have been no official inquiry, the non-delivery was probably the result of a misunderstanding.

Compatriots In Dunmore's War

From The Kentuckians by Janet Holt Giles:

"Seemed like by 1774, the year of Dunmore's War, there was a wild craze in everybody to go to Kentucky."

Harrod's Fort In Kentucky

"It was Jim Herrod himself came out to welcome us.  Like I said, I'd seen him around during Dunsmore's War, but I didn't to say know him. ....I've seen you somewheres, he said to me then.  At Point Pleasant, I told him.  He laughed.  Why sure, I recollect now.  You was with Evan Shelby's company.  You from Sapling Grove?  The Watauga."

The Execution Of John Brown

On Dec 2 , 1859, John Brown was executed for leading the raid on the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia).  One person in Brown's network of abolitionists was Dr. Alexander Ross.  See Dr. Ross's work with John Brown here.

From Dr. Ross's book:

Brown was accompanied by no ministers, he desiring no religious services either in the jail or on the scaffold.

On reaching the field where the gallows was erected, the prisoner said, " Why, are none but military allowed in the inclosure ? I am sorry citizens have been kept out." On reaching the gallows, he observed Mr. Hunter and Mayor Green standing near, to whom he said, " Gentlemen, good-by !" his voice not faltering.

Included in the Ross books is the poem, John Brown Of Osawatomie, by John Greenleaf Whittier.

A YouTube presentation from the John Brown Museum in Osawatomie, Kansas.

A Canadian Abolitionist In John Brown's Circle

From John Brown's Target Of Harper's Ferry

In the Recollections and experiences of an abolitionist, from 1855 to 1865, by Alexander Milton Ross, Dr. Ross recounted his dealings with the famous abolitionist, John Brown, including the telegram and letter transcribed below:

"I received a telegram from Boston informing me that Capt. John Brown, of Kansas, would meet me in Cleveland in a day or two, and that he desired to confer with me on a subject of importance, connected with the Anti-slavery cause."

A letter to Dr. Ross from the same John Brown:

CHAMBERSBURG, PENN., 

October 6th, 1859. 

DEAR FRIEND, 

I shall move about the last of this month. 

Can you help the cause in the way promised ? 

Address your reply to Isaac Smith, Chambers- 

burg, Penn. ****** 

Your friend, 

JOHN BROWN. 

Dr. Ross positioned himself in Richmond, Virginia, awaiting the outcome of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry:

That John Brown had struck a blow that resounded throughout the Slave States was evident, from the number of telegraph despatches from all the Slave States, offering aid to crush the invasion. 

The experience of other compatriots of John Brown.

Did John Brown Plan His Harper's Ferry In Detroit?

 From the History of the Twenty-Fourth Michigan of the Iron Brigade (known as the Detroit and Wayne County Regiment) was published in 1891, was an account of John Brown's arrival in Detroit with 14 slaves from Missouri.  It is asserted that John Brown, Frederick Douglass and several others met at 185 East Congress Street in what seemed to be a planning session for Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry (Douglass did not endorse Brown's plan -- see Michigan Historical Marker):

The History of Detroit: a chronicle... (1912) identified additional planners, including William Webb (see Webbs in the 1861 Detroit Directory) at whose house Brown and the others met:

From the History of Detroit and Michigan (1884):

185 Congress East, Detroit, Michigan

Google Maps - 185 E. Congress, Detroit, Michigan

 The ill-fated raid by John Brown upon Harper's Ferry did have roots in Detroit.  During our travels an Iowa connection to John Brown was also discovered.