U.S. Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ -- USGenNet Inc. -- Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on the following page: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Friend Family ------------------------------------------------------------------- History of Braxton County and Central West Virginia by John Davison Sutton Sutton, West Virginia, January, 1919 Page 378, The Friend Family The first account given of this most numerous and hardy pioneer family, is in Kerchival's History. He says that Israel Friend came from Maryland to the Valley of Virginia in 1730, in company with fifteen others, and it was supposed that they came through the gap at Harpers Ferry. From there, the friends worked their way up the Potomac river and we find them scattered along through the South Branch valley and Randolph county, also as far west as Braxton and Nicholas counties. A lonely Indian warrior, the only one of a northern tribe who escaped with his life in a battle with another tribe of Indians some where on the upper branches of the Potomac, was ferried across the Potomac by a man named Friend who lived on the Maryland side of the river, and to whom the Indian related the incidents of the battle, including an account of the massacre of his comrades. Therefore it is fair to presume that the early settlers of the Friends came to the Potomac Valley from Maryland. The Friends are of German descent. Joseph Friend married the daughter of Joseph and Rachael Skidmore and a sister of Captain John Skidmore. They had a son, Joseph, whose daughter married Wm. Arthur. Joseph Friend had valuable land in what is now Webster county where he resided for many years and died there. Joseph Friend, the progenitor of the Friend family, was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and was Captain of Scouts. Jacob Friend settled in Pendleton county before the Revolutionary war. He married Elizabeth Skidmore, sister of Andrew Skidmore. They had nine children, six boys and three girls. Three of his sons were drafted, and went to Norfolk in the war of 1812. Others of his children settled on the Elk river, near the mouth of Otter. The names of his children were: Andrew P., Jacob, Isreal, Thomas, Jonas, Jonathan, Margaret, Elizabeth and Catherine. ------------------------------------------------------------------- If you've reached this file through a SEARCH, you can access other biographies for Braxton County, WV by going to the following URL: http://www.us-data.org/wv/braxton/bios.html -------------------------------------------------------------------