Frontier Currents -- part 2

... continued from part 1 ...

The second chapter of my class project tells the story of the Blackley's in present-day Rural Retreat, Virginia preceding, during, and immediately following the Revolutionary War. Their oldest daughter, Sarah, is the focus in telling, not only her story, but the story of her family and her country at that significant time. The chapter is incomplete, but contains enough information about the family that I'm posting it unfinished and will post the finished work whenever it is available:

Chapter 1

Sarah's Story: Building a family and a nation

In hunting frock, and Indian sandals trim,

O'er lengthening wastes, with nimble steps he ran

Nor was Appollo's dart more sure in aim;

Than in his skilled hand, the deadly gun. (1)

In 1910 Azariah Williams, grandson of Sarah Blackley Williams, recounted stories Sarah had told him of her life growing up in southwest Virginia in the last quarter of the 18th century. One of the stories was of an incident that occurred when she was about seventeen years old and underscores the hostility that remained between settlers and Indians following the Revolutionary War. She was on an overnight excursion in the wilderness with her brother and a neighbor when they came upon two Indians camped by a stream. They (presumably the brother and neighbor) killed the Indians and took their guns and blankets. The motive for the killings is unstated, but at best, they must have felt the Indian men posed a threat and, at worst, they felt they needed no justification to kill Indians. Sarah's attitude in telling the story is missing from Mr. Williams' account. Whether she expressed remorse, pride or indifference is unknown. However, even without benefit of motive and emotion, the story lends insight into the mores of a time long past and raises questions about the influences of pioneer life. (2)
 

Sarah was born at a time of great importance in our nation's history. Her parents, Charles and Margaret Blackley, were living in Fincastle County in the colony of Virginia when she was born on January 5, 1775. Peace negotiations at Camp Charlotte had concluded only two and a half months earlier bringing to a close a year of heightened Indian hostilities known as Dunmore's War. The new fort on her grandfather Davies' property served as a visual reminder of the past year's tensions. Although the population of the area had grown considerably over the past decade, it remained a colonial frontier and, as such, the people were required to be self-reliant. They joined their fellow colonists throughout America in opposition to recent Royal actions designed to undermine their rights, but the immediate threat presented by Dunmore's War had prevented them from actively participating in the First Continental Congress held in Philadelphia three months earlier. In answer to the resolves of that Congress, a committee of freeholders from Fincastle County met and declared their commitment to defend the free exercise of their religion and their liberties as British Subjects, at the expense of our lives. Sarah was only two weeks old, but events were already in motion that would change the course of American history and would engage her family and neighbors during her formative years. (3) 

As colonists from Massachusetts to Charles Town grew more determined to oppose the restrictions imposed upon them, the routines of daily life continued in the Blackley household and on neighboring farms of the Holston River Valley. After spending the past summer evacuated to inland areas or garrisoned in the Davies' fort, neighbors had returned to their farms and were enjoying the remaining weeks of winter. Though many of us today look upon winter as a gloomy time of year and yearn for the long, warm days of summer, winter on the colonial frontier was greatly anticipated for the rest it offered. As winter's cold descended into the valley, Indians headed to winter camps bringing a temporary cessation to the aggression between settlers and Indians. For several weeks, settlers could relax their guard and focus on seasonal chores. For the Blackley's, it meant they could enjoy the first few months of their daughter's life on their farm without an immediate threat of attack. (4)

In addition to their new daughter, Margaret and Charles had two, small sons. James, the oldest, is presumed to have been between four and six years old when Sarah was born, while Alexander was twenty-one months. As is the case with most young siblings, they must have been curious about this tiny creature who nursed at their mother's breast. They may have felt pangs of jealousy for the attention she received and wished she would disappear. Or, perhaps, they tried to play with her only to return to the rough and tumble play common to frontier sons when they discovered she did little more than eat and sleep. Whatever their reactions to their little sister, her arrival represented a marked change to their familiar world. Other changes, that they could not yet understand, would also alter that world. In courthouses, churches and taverns throughout the colonies currents of change were advancing which would profoundly affect James, Alexander, Sarah and thousands of children throughout America. (5)
 

At one meeting house, Richmond’s St. John’s Church, about 250 miles away, Patrick Henry gave an impassioned speech in late March. He urged his fellow colonial delegates to adopt a posture of defense and concluded his speech with words that would be remembered and quoted by generations to come, I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! By a narrow margin, his resolution was passed and Virginia joined the American rebellion. Within a month of that speech, shots were fired on Lexington Green in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and, by the middle of June, the Second Continental Congress had convened and appointed George Washington as commander-in-chief of a Continental Congress. The next seven years would be years of warfare in the American colonies. (6)

...to be continued in part 3 ...

Endnotes

1. Doddridge, Rev. Dr. Joseph, "An Ellegy on his Family's Vault". An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and other Printed Ephemera. Digital Image. Library of Congress, American Memory. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem : 2006, stanza 11.

2. Azariah William's quote regarding Sarah's trip through the wilderness:

when she was 17 years old she traveled on foot with her brother and a neighboring man seventy miles through the Virginia wilderness, and they had to camp one night on the way. About sundown they halted at a creek to camp and the men noticed smoke coming through the break and they started to reconnoiter to see who was there and saw two Indians, and they deliberately raised their guns and fixed on the Indians, killing one Indian and wounding the other, and then rushed on the crippled one and finished him with their tomahawks; then got their guns and blankets and took them home and hid them for a time and afterward got them and sold them.

Williams, Sidelights on the Williams Family History, 41-42.
3. Sarah's bith date and location from: Williams, Carl, Sidelights on the Williams Family History, 41.

Governor Dunmore's peace treaty with the Shawnee was completed on 18 October, 1774: Martin, Barry, Stuart, "Dunmore's War, 1774", (Master's Thesis, Univesity of Washington, 1962), 96-97.

Captain Robert Doak, in a letter dated 12 July, 1774 refers to a fort built on James Davis' property. This most likely referred to James Davis, Sr., Margaret Blackley's father, but may have referred to a brother or grandfather.

The people were all in Garison from Fort Chiswell to the Head of Holston &  in great Confusion. They are feld from the Rich Valley & Walkers Creek. Some are Building forts they have Begun to build at my Father's, James Davis' & Gasper Kinders.

Pendleton, William C., History of Tazwell County & Southwest Virginia 1748-1920. (Richmond, Virginia: W. C. Hill Printing Company, 1920), 278.

Date and location of First Continental Congress from: "Prelude to Revolution 1763 to 1775:, The History Place: The American Revolution. Online: < http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/revolution/index.html > [3 May 2006].

Fincastle freeholders met 20 January, 1775 to address the resolves of the First Continental Congress: Lewis Preston Summers, History of Southwest Virginia and Washington County, 1746-1786, (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1966), 203.

4. Doddridge, Rev. Dr. Joseph, Notes on the Settlements and Indian Wars of Western Parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania from 1763 to 1783, inclusive. (Wellbaugh, Virginia: Printed by the Office of the Gazette for the author, 1824), 265-266.

5. James Blackley's birth date is unknown, but presumed to be sometime between 1768 and 1772. Alexander was born 3 April 1773 in Virginia: Perry, Gregory M, The Charles Blackley family in Knox County, Tennessee. (Decorah, Iowa: Amundsen Publishing Company, 1991), 8 and 11.

Families of the American backcountry tended to favor parenting practices that raised strongly independent, fiercely courageous sons. David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed. (New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 687-690.

6. "Prelude to Revolution 1763 to 1775".