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History of Wetzel County, West Virginia
by John C. McEldowney, Jr., 1901

Pages 35-36
OUR EARLY SETTLER.

The earliest white settler along the Ohio river, in Wetzel county,
was Edward Doolin, who came here about the year 1780, and made a
settlement near Doolin's spring, one mile from the mouth of Fishing
creek, on lands now owned by the heirs of Phillip Witten. He there
built two cabins, one for himself and wife and the other for his
negro slave. He owned a large survey of lands lying on both sides of
the stream which still bears his name; lines of hi3 survey are well
established,, and have been familiar to the courts of Wetzel in
divers suits of ejectments.

He had hardly broken the solitude of the vast wilderness, when he was
visited by a tribe of Delaware Indians, who came at night and took
away his negro slave into captivity, and returning at daybreak, and
finding Doolin in his front door yard, shot and scalped him. His
wife, who was still in the cabin lying abed with a newborn babe
beside her, was not molested. Mrs. Doolin was a woman of remarkable
beauty, and the savages, fearing it might prove fatal to compel her
to accompany them while in her delicate state of health, urged her to
remain there for a few days, until she entirely recovered, promising
to return and take her with them to be the wife of their great chief.
This alluring prospect, however, did not seem to have charmed the
white beauty into lingering there.

At that time a blockhouse stood near the present residence of Mrs.
Eliza Martin, in the limits of the present town of New Martinsville.
Its solitary inmate, when these occurrences took place, was a man
named Martin, who heard the report of the firing in the early
morning, in the direction of Doolin's clearing. He made a
reconnaissance and found the body of Doolin lying in front of his
cabin. Entering the house he wrapped Mrs. Doolin in blankets and,
taking the infant in his arms, assisted her to the blockhouse, where
he placed the widow and orphan in a canoe and transported them up the
Ohio to the mouth of Captina creek. He then returned with comrades,
and they buried the body of Doolin in the spot known as Witten's
garden, where his grave is still to be seen. And every spring the
Easter flowers bloomed over the dust of Edward Doolin—the first white
settler of Wetzel, and one of the few white men killed by the Indians
within her borders.

Mrs. Doolin lived near the settlement until her daughter had grown to
be a girl of ten. She then married and went to Kentucky, where her
daughter, after she had grown to be a young lady, married one Daniel
Boone, a descendant of the noted Indian scout, Daniel Boone. Mrs.
Doolin sold this land to the Martins, McEldowneys and Wittens, and
from her or her ancestors have never been heard of since.

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