Clinch Valley News

TAZEWELL COUNTY IN HISTORY

(By L. L. Dickenson)

Residents of the upper Clinch Valley section who now enjoy an environment of comfort, culture and refinement hardly realize the high price in pioneer hardships and danger that their forefathers paid in laying its foundation.

Obsessed with the desire to establish themselves in a setting of their own creation, the glowing description brought back to them by hunters and trappers visiting the section, was a deciding factor in making this their choice where the land was bountifully supplied with game to sustain them while they were about the tasks of home building and land clearing. Their scouts, the hunters, saw little evidence of Indians since though allied their trade in winter, while the Cherokees were in the South awaiting the hunting season and the Shawnees were housed up in the Ohio country villages also marking time until venturing to the great hunting. In addition to the labor, solitude and lack of society, these hardy pioneers were faced with the hazard of Indian outrages, which soon began, largely by the work of British agents working among them, especially the Northern tribe. With two wars going at the same time, the men of the settlement were faced with a grave problem of supplying manpower to the Revolutionary forces and at the same time have the war whoop of the Indians ringing in their ears at home.

Tazewell county by virtue of accessibility was the greatest sufferer from these savages. Bickley's History of the county relates a score of tragic incidents taking place in a period of some fifteen years, ending only with the formation of the United States and its support in defense of the area.

The plan of operations employed by the Indians were that they would lurk about the community spying out the absence of the men folk attack the unprotected family and kill, scalp and sometimes take prisoners to sell into bondage in Canada, drive away the livestock and burn the buildings.

Some thrilling stories are told of prisoners who were held in the tribe or sold into slavery, who eventually made their escape and were reunited with their families notable the Moore and Davidson families.

Among the first Tazewell families to feel the hand of the savage was the Evans' who came to Tazewell from Amherst county in 1773. They had lived here for about 3 years when John Evans, the patriarch of the family was captured and taken into Canada but managed to escape in about 12 months. In the summer of 1779 Jesse Evans' family was the object of attack. Jesse, a son of John, left home one morning accompanied by some neighbors to do some work at a distance from his home, leaving Mrs. Evans and their five children without protection. While Mrs. Evans and their eldest daughter was in the house weaving, the smaller ones went out to play in the garden. Sometime later, Mrs. Evans heard a startled cry from the children and went to the door to see about 6 or 8 Indians killing and scalping them. She hastily closed and bolted the door and had hardly done so, when one of the Indians pushed a gun barrel through a small hole by the door preparing to use it as a pry to open the door, but Mrs. Evans quickly took hold and was able to pull the implement far enough into the room to destroy the leverage. She immediately began to call for her husband, as if he was near. The Indians then withdrew. She quietly kept her post expecting a second attack. A man came to the door, but her relief was shortlived, for when she told him her woeful story, he took to flight. Left alone she decided she would go to Major John Taylor's, a distance of about two miles. Soon after she left her husband returned without observing anything unusual, went into the house and sat down and read for awhile. Becoming impatient by their absence went to the garden, thinking he would find them gathering vegetables. Upon discovery of the bodies he hastened to the Taylor home. Early the next morning a party accompanied Evans on his sad mission to bury the dead and found 4 year old Mary near the spring, with her scalp hanging down over her face. It seems her injury was less serious than the other sustained, and after regaining consciousness, survived the night. She recovered, married and raised a large family. After the harrowing experience the Evans' moved to Tennessee. A sequel was related a few years ago by the late C. F. Kitts, who with his son and family were in route to Missouri when they stopped at a filling station in Evansville, Ind and while waiting to be served a lady drove up, saw the Tazewell tag on the Kitts automobile, and fell into conversation with the elder Kitts in which she told him that her great-great grandfather had once lived in Tazewell, where he was among the earlier settlers and that he built the first home on the land now occupied by the city of Evansville and that the village which was started was named Evansville in his honor.