Shawnee Indian Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

May 29, 1778, Dick Pointer, Black Slave, Helps Save Some 60 Settlers in Greenbrier Valley

On May 29, 1778, Dick Pointer, a black slave, helped save some 60 settlers in the Greenbrier Valley. Warned of an impending Shawnee Indian attack, settlers had taken shelter at Fort Donnally near Lewisburg. The Shawnee arrived the next morning.

Pointer and a white settler named Philip Hammond were the first to hear the alarm. The Shawnee warriors tried to use tomahawks to break through a door at the fort. However, Pointer and Hammond had braced the door using a large barrel or “hogshead” of water. Pointer grabbed a musket, began firing at the attackers, and awoke the fort’s sleeping inhabitants. Pointer and the other settlers successfully fought off the attack, and the Shawnee retreated at dark.

For his bravery, Pointer was granted a life lease to a piece of land. In 1795—17 years after the attack—grateful friends petitioned the Virginia General Assembly for Pointer’s freedom but were refused. He was finally purchased and freed six years later. He died in 1827. He was about 87 years old.

Dick Pointer’s musket and a door from Fort Donnally can be seen in the West Virginia State Museum.

May 29, 1778, Dick Pointer, Black Slave, Helps Save Some 60 Settlers in Greenbrier Valley

Dick Pointer’s musket and a door from Fort Donnally can be seen in the West Virginia State Museum.

Captive Pioneer Mary Lewis Born: August 26, 1763

Mary Lewis was born in New Jersey on August 26, 1763. After marrying Joseph Kinnan, she moved to Randolph County in 1787 and settled in the Tygart Valley.

Four years later, Shawnee raiders entered their home and killed Joseph and a neighbor child. Mary Kinnan fled the house with her young daughter, but a pursuing Indian killed the child and captured her.

It’s believed Mary was taken to the Buckhannon River, then down the Little Kanawha to the Ohio River, and eventually to a village near Fort Wayne, Indiana. She was sold several times before becoming the property of an Indian woman and settling about 20 miles from Detroit.

Nearly two years later, Mary Kinnan slipped an Indian trader a note, which found its way to her old childhood community in New Jersey. In 1794, she was rescued by her brother and brought back to New Jersey, where she lived the rest of her days, dying in 1848 at age 84.

Despite having lived in our region for only four years, Mary Kinnan’s harrowing experience has been a staple of West Virginia history books.

Greenville Treaty Ends Indian Threat to Western Va: August 3, 1795

On August 3, 1795, the United States and several Indian tribes signed the Treaty of Greenville. Although the treaty was signed in western Ohio, it had a major impact on the region that would later become West Virginia.

Under the terms of the treaty, the Indians ceded to the United States about two-thirds of present Ohio. By pushing the tribes west, it ended the threat of Indian attacks on the Western Virginia frontier.

For decades, Indians and pioneers had had continual conflicts on the Western Virginia frontier, with the violence peaking in 1774 and again during the Revolutionary War. Although Indian attacks waned in the years following the Revolution, there were still sporadic conflicts. The Treaty of Greenville brought peace to Western Virginia and sparked an influx of new settlement, while depriving Indians of even more of their ancestral land.

The treaty didn’t assure peace in Ohio, though, and places further west. Settlers immediately poured into territory promised to the tribes. Also, some Indian leaders, such as Tecumseh, refused to sign the treaty and began putting up long-term resistance.