U.S. Data Repository -- USGenNet Inc. -- Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on the following page: History and Progress of the County of Marion, West Virginia by George A. Dunnington, Publisher 1880 Chapter XI: MURDER OF THE McINTIRES-- END OF INDIAN DEPREDATIONS. A short distance above Worthington, near the mouth of Bingamon creek, occurred the last of the depredations committed by the savages in this immediate neighborhood. In May, 1791, as John McIntire and his wife were returning from a visit, they passed through the yard of Uriah Ashcraft. A few minutes afterwards, Mr. Ashcraft was startled by the growling of one of his dogs, and stepped to the door to see what had aroused him. He had scarcely reached the entrance when he espied an Indian on the outside. Closing the door he ascended the stairs and attempted three times to fire from a window at the redskin, but his gun snapped. He then observed that there were other Indians close at hand, and he raised a loud shout for help, hoping that friends in the vicinity might hear and come to his relief. The Indians presently retreated, and shortly afterwards three brothers of McIntire came up. Ashcraft explained the situation, and the four set out to follow the trail of the savages. About a mile off they found the body of John McIntire, whom the Indians had overtaken, tomahawked, scalped and stripped; and concluding that Mrs. McIntire, whom they knew to have been with her husband, was taken prisoner, they sent to Clarksburg for assistance to follow the murderers and recover the captive. A company of eleven men, led by Col. John Raymond and Col. George Jackson, started shortly afterwards in pursuit of the Indians, and followed the trail to Middle Island creek, where it appeared fresh. Col. Jackson proposed that six men should be chosen, who would strip as light as they could, and go ahead of the horses. William Haymond, of Palatine, who was one of the number, in a letter to Luther Haymond, fifty years afterwards, thus gives an account of what followed. "George Jackson, Benjamin Robinson, N. Carpenter, John Haymond, John Harbert and myself (the sixth,) were those chosen. We stripped ourselves as light as we could, tied handkerchiefs around our heads, and proceeded as fast as we could. The Indians appeared to travel very carelessly, and as it was in May, and the weeds were young and tender, we could follow a man very easily. Arriving on a high bank, Jackson turned around and said, "where do you think they have gone?" With that, he jumped down the bank, and we proceeded down on the beach a short distance, when suddenly we were fired upon by one of the Indians. We started in a run and had gone ten or fifteen yards when the other three fired. John Harbert and brother John caught sight of them first running up the hill and fired at them. Robinson and myself ran and jumped upon the bank where the Indians left their knapsacks, and I fired the third shot, the savages then being about fifty yards distant. * * *. The Indian I shot bled considerable, and we trailed him for about a quarter of a mile, where he had cut a stick, which we supposed was to stop the blood. We followed him for about a mile, but the men thought it dangerous to go farther, thinking he had his gun with him, and would hide and kill one of us, and we returned. * * * The other Indians we did not follow, but on arriving at the place of attack found all their knapsacks, a shot pouch, four hatchets and all their plunder, including the woman's scalp. * * * I have since heard that one of the Cunninghams, who was a prisoner with the Indians at that time, on his return said that an Indian came home and said he had been with three others on Muddy river (West Fork,) and killed a man and a woman; that they were followed; that they fired on the white men; and that the white men fired on them and wounded three, one of whom died after crossing the second ridge at a run). We were on the second ridge and near the second run). If this account be true, and the Indians we followed the same, we must have shot well." After the murder of the McIntires, there were no more massacres by the Indians in this vicinity though it was not until the year 1795 that Indian hostilities ceased altogether in Northwestern Virginia--when the rapid increase of the white population, and the determined measures adopted by the government, soon put an end to the Indian wars, and drove the tribes further west. ----- *It was thus ascertained that Mrs. McIntire had been murdered with her husband, and on the return of the party her body was found near where that of her husband had been.