Probably the most accurate and complete account of McFarland’s Defeat comes from Charles Robert Baugh, who heard it from his grandmother many years before he related it to the Lexington Herald newspaper, where it was published on January 20, 1907.

Following is an excerpt from that article. You can read a transcript of the entire article HERE: McFarland Defeat – Lexington Herald

“The first I ever heard about McFarland’s Defeat was from my grandmother years ago. It took place even before her day and time, but not so long before but that she had heard it discussed by parties well acquainted with the facts — possibly some who had visited the place the day after and had seen the awful evidence of the massacre.

“It took place about four miles to the northeast of London, the capital of Laurel County, in a narrow valley not over a mile long and drained by a branch of Big Raccoon Creek, ever since called McFarland’s Branch.

“McFarland was a hunter, a woodsman and a man experienced in Indian warfare. He was well acquainted with the winding path made by Boone, and had tasted the dangers of the dark woods on either side. Many descendants of the venturesome and hardy English colonists of Virginia and the Carolinas heard the call of the wild and the west and came to cast their fortunes with the new settlements beyond the Cumberlands.

“For the sake of company and for safety sake they traveled together and engaged a pilot like McFarland to take them through the Wilderness. At this time McFarland was leading a company of 28 besides himself.

“Knowing the dangers of the journey the company had, under the advice of McFarland, arranged a plan of action in case of an attack. At the appearance of the enemy it was agreed that the men should each seek the shelter of a tree and fight the Indians Indian fashion. The women and children were to push forward with the packhorses, leaving the men untrammeled.

“If the emigrants were victorious they could soon overtake the noncombatants. If the battle went against the whites the women would have some show of escaping by being out of sight.

“The little company passed where most of McNitt’s company had found their graves by the Trace side only four years before. Perhaps some friend or a relative had fallen here, and when McFarland pointed out the spot a shudder, a chill, passed over some of the timid — a premonition.

“Six miles beyond they passed down into the little valley. It was late in the afternoon. John Wood’s sheltering blockhouse was five miles away. The whoop of the Indians hidden by the trees was followed by a deadly fire.

“There were stout hearted women in the company. They had severed ties at the old home and willingly undertook the hazardous journey to find a new one. They had agreed to the plan arranged for them and had thought themselves equal to it, but when the test came they found the task too great.

“Their feet refused to carry them forward. Terror struck the company, terror and grim dispair. The women and children clung to their protectors who could neither protect nor save themselves. Without the shelter of a tree the men, women and children were at the mercy of those who never knew mercy.

“McFarland had no women folks, and he was able to get to a tree. From behind it he shot the leader of the Indians, who as he fell took off part of McFarland’s shot pouch with a last bullet.

McFarland was able to make his escape and went to John Woods’ blockhouse for help.

“It was sometime before McFarland could convince Woods who he was and how he came to be there. Then he was admitted, and soon the story of the massacre was told. After a consultation, made short for fear that the Indians had followed and would overwhelm them, Woods and McFarland left the blockhouse and hurried through the darkness over the long 30 miles that lay between them and Captain Whitley’s Station near where the town of Crab Orchard, Lincoln County, now is.

“Next day with assistance from Whitley’s they returned to the scene of the massacre. They found the bodies of the entire company and the body of the Chief that McFarland had killed. Upon examination they found that the Chief was a white renegade with a painted face and an Indian dress.

“It appeared at first that McFarland was the only survivor but a cry attracted them to a spot a little aside, and there they found a second survivor, a puny girl baby, and a third, a faithful dog that had lain huddled against her and kept her from freezing by warmth of his body.

“The mother and father and all the others sleep by the [Boone] Trace side where they fell. The child and her protector were taken to Captain Whitley’s. What became of the child I never heard.”

The rescue party also found a second little girl, Betsey Drake, who had been abandoned by her parents at Drake’s Defeat in March, 1793, and who had been taken by the Indians. She had escaped at the beginning of the McFarland battle and had been wandering alone in the wilderness until found by the Whitley party.

Both girls were taken to the Whitley home and eventually returned to their families.

Russell Dyche’s History of Laurel County, Kentucky (1954) also has a detailed account of McFarland’s Defeat. Read it HERE: McFarland Defeat – by Russell Dyche

Danna Estridge, Guest Blogger

U.S. Post Office Department records indicate that the first mail service to Kentucky was scheduled for October 18, 1792, but existing records do not show whether or not mail was delivered in Kentucky at that time.

Official records do show that on August 20, 1792, Thomas Barbee was granted a commission as postmaster at Danville, Kentucky, but the date the post office opened there is uncertain.

However, on March 21, 1793, “postrider” Thomas Ross, the first known mail carrier to travel the postal route established in the fall of 1792, was on his way from Holston, Tennessee, to Danville, Kentucky, accompanied by two other men, the Rev. Joseph Brown and a Colonel Friley.

An account of the fateful events of that journey were detailed in a narrative by the Rev. Joseph Brown on March 30, 1858. Brown’s account was printed in the Banner of Peace newspaper, published on August 5, 1858 in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Rev. Brown tells how he went to East Tennessee on business in the winter of 1793 and on his return joined a company with Colonel Robert Hayne, a brother-in-law of Gen. Jackson, and others.

When they reached Knoxville, Tennessee, a Cherokee trader informed them that a large body of Indians was planning to waylay the company going to Nashville and advised Brown and Hayne to go through Kentucky to avoid the ambush, which they did.

Two days into the journey, Brown’s horse came up lame and Brown was compelled to return to Knoxville for a week in order to allow the horse to recover.

At that time the postrider, Thomas Ross, and a Colonel Friley came along, Brown said, “and as they lived in Kentucky concluded if they could go safe I could.” So the next morning the three men set out for Kentucky.

Everything went fine until two o’clock the second afternoon, when on the east side of Little Laurel River they were fired on by a party of Indians. Luckily, the three men escaped unharmed and made a mad dash for the river.

Ross’s horse was faster than Brown’s horse, and Ross was about sixteen feet ahead of Brown when an Indian from behind a tree fired at Ross and shot his horse through the ear.

“She wheeled back and as they fired on Ross and me, Friley said there was twenty or thirty guns fired at us too,” Brown said. “Friley was forty yards behind, but our horse was scared at the screaming of the Indians and the guns and dodging they missed us both.”

Ross and Brown “dashed back and met Friley and we all came in abreast to [a] large fallen tree,” Brown said. “I was on the left and Ross in the middle and as Ross’s mare charged the log her four feet went into the ground so she fell on her breast and then on her side and he went over her head and his gun fell out of his hand.” That was the last Brown saw of Ross.

“Friley hollered to me that he was wounded and for me to charge my horse down the [river] bank or they would have us,” Brown said. “I answered him that I was wounded also and turned my horse toward the river.”

Brown and his horse plunged down the steep bank and into the water. They made it across the river and halfway up the slate bank on the other side, but Brown’s horse fell and Brown jumped off and started to run when he saw Ross’s mare approaching the riverbank. Brown observed that “She had the mail on and his blanket just as he [Ross] left her.”

Brown caught the mare and leaped onto her back. He saw Friley going over the hill more than a hundred yards ahead and Brown rode after him, catching up with him within a quarter of a mile.

Brown and Friley rode about twelve miles to the home of an unnamed Dutchman who took the men in, dressed their wounds and cared for their horses.

A few days later Brown left the Dutchman’s house, determined to get medical aid for his shoulder wound. About a quarter of a mile along the trail, Brown came across Ross’s mare, who had lost the mail and her saddle. Brown put his own saddle on the mare and rode her the forty miles to Crab Orchard, home of William Whitley, where he found a doctor—who happened to be a brother-in-law of Ross.

The doctor “treated me with a great deal of kindness and tenderness for six weeks before I felt able to start home,” Brown said.

A nephew of Colonel Whitley later give Brown “information of judgment of heaven on the very Indians that wounded me.”

Simon Kenton and a company of men tracked the Indians and ambushed them. The men retrieved the mail that Brown left on Ross’ mare and rescued the prisoners that were taken when McFarland was defeated the Tuesday after Brown, Ross and Friley were attacked.

Newspaper accounts reported the attack and Ross’s death, though not in the detail supplied by Brown:

“On the 21st of last month, Thomas Ross (post rider) and two other men on their way from Hawkins court house, in this Territory, to Kentucky, were fired on, near Laurel river by a party of Indians, supposed to be Cherokees, and the white man Ross was killed, the other two men were wounded, but made their escape. These wretches carried their brutality so far as to cut off his head and the flesh from his bones.” March 23, 1793, Knoxville, Tennessee.

“About 3 weeks ago, Thomas Ross, Postrider fell sacrifice to the Indians in the wilderness.” Bowen’s Centinel and Gazette, April 15, 1793, Winchester, Virginia.

You can read Rev. Brown’s entire narrative HERE: Rev Joseph Brown narrative

Next week: McFarland’s Defeat.

Thanks for stopping by!

Danna Estridge, Guest Blogger

Colonel William Whitley, who built the first brick house in Kentucky, “Sportsman Hill,” five miles west of Crab Orchard, was known far and wide as “the guardian of the wilderness.”

Whitley often went to the rescue of those who were attacked along the Boone Trace, and tracked down the raiding parties to recover the stolen goods and rescue captives taken prisoner by the renegades.

The McClure Defeat took place at the head of Skaggs Creek in present-day Laurel County in September or October of 1784.

According to William Whitley’s account, the McClure party was attacked shortly before daybreak. One man was killed and six persons were stabbed. Mr. McClure and several other members of the party were able to escape after firing back at their attackers.

Mrs. McClure and her four children were able to escape and hide in the forest, but one of the children cried, alerting their attackers to her location.

When they found Mrs. McClure, they killed three of her children immediately and took her and her youngest child prisoner. According to some reports, the youngest child survived and was later rescued with Mrs. McClure, but Whitley said the renegades killed this child, also, and his version of the story doesn’t mention rescuing the child.

The raiding party stayed at the McClure’s campsite until after daybreak, when they placed Mrs. McClure on a young horse that had been used as a pack animal but which had never been ridden.

She had a difficult time riding the horse through the thick underbrush and was battered and bruised by the experience.

Word of the defeat reached Sportsman Hill during Whitley’s absence, but his wife, Esther, sent for him and in the meantime raised a company of twenty-one men “true as steel” to accompany Whitley to pursue the renegades.

Whitley reported that his company caught up with the raiding party on the second night of their pursuit, about two hours before sunset.

The raiding party had apparently not traveled that day because they “had been busily engaged in dividing the plunder.” They were dressed in the clothing they had taken from the McClure party when Whitley and his men overtook them.

Whitley’s men fired on the raiding party, killing two, which enabled them to rescue Mrs. McClure and an African American woman who had also been taken prisoner.

Mrs. McClure told Whitley that “about a half hour before we fired on them one of the Indians had on a pair of shoe boots and was dancing merrily.”

Whitley said that if the dancer had waited a few moments longer “he would have got our music.” [Gunfire.]

Whitley stated that there were seven Indians in the raiding party. Whitley and his men recovered sixteen horses and “a great quantity of property,” which they later returned to the rightful owners.

The Indians also had six scalps stretched on hoops, and they forced Mrs. McClure to cook in sight of the scalps, some of which no doubt belonged to her murdered children.

Whitley took Mrs. McClure and the unnamed African American woman back to Sportsman Hill, where Mrs. McClure was eventually reunited with her husband.

Next week I will relate the story of the first postman, Thomas Ross, who was killed in Laurel County in March 1793 by a raiding party.

Thanks for stopping by.

Danna Estridge, guest blogger

The Moore Defeat took place near Raccoon Creek in what would later become Laurel County, Kentucky, but which at the time was still part of Virginia.

Because of the similarity in dates, and because the written report of the escape of a woman and her youngest child by hiding in a hollow tree at the Moore Defeat is almost identical with legends of the McNitt Defeat, the two events have at times been confused and some of the details of one may have been attributed to the other.

Two notable contemporary reports do exist, and they give details which seem to be the most reliable.

General James Taylor told of the experience of Mrs. Taylor as she came to Kentucky through the Wilderness with another group in the company of her stepfather, Captain J. R. Farrar, in the fall of 1784.

Taylor’s statement, made in October, 1838, at Newport, Kentucky, follows:

“About the middle of the Wilderness they were overtaken by a party of 12 or 15 persons after they had taken up camp. This party appeared to be determined to go on further to encamp. They were advised to encamp with the large party on account of safety. They, however, pushed on and encamped about one mile in advance. The Indians that night rushed them, killed and scalped the greater part of the party. There was a man and wife who had two children. The woman came to the camp they had passed in the course of the night with an infant in her arms. The other child was killed. The husband took that end of the road leading to Kentucky, and each thought the other and children were killed. The wife with the infant came with the party and found her husband. Mrs. T. was horror-struck the next day when they came up to the massacred camp. The dead were buried as well as they could under the circumstances of the case.”

General Taylor also stated that Mrs. Taylor was then with her former husband, Major David Leitch, and that they were of a large party including the Reverend Augustine Eastin, who had married her elder sister, and that the massacred party “had retired to rest without stationing a single sentinel to guard their camp, or warn them of the approach of an enemy.”

Colonel William Whitley, of near Crab Orchard, known as “the guardian of the Wilderness,” told of his part in hunting down those responsible for the murders in his narrative recorded in the Draper Manuscripts [spelling, punctuation and capitalization are his]:

[He begins by saying that ten days after the McClure Defeat in 1784] “Moores Defeat came on about 2 miles on the other side of Raccoon Creek in the Wilderness. They killed nine persons. Word came I raised 30 men & persude after them attackers & got a head of them before I ever look for there trail knowing the course they would go (as I did the other times). We Examined the War paths & found I was before them.

“We met them on the last Warpath Early in the day. We came Within Ten steps of them before they discovered us in the Cane Breake. We discovered each other about the same time. they were all on horse back drest in whites clothes. I judged they would be so drest and on horseback. There was 20 Indians and on horses of the best Quality. I had ordered my men for 10 to flank on the right & 10 on the left & those who had the most Indifferent horses to lite & fight on foot. I flanked to the left. Nathan McClure & Andrew Kenneady commanded the foot. Nathan Farris commanded the right wing. after I had got out a piece I saw two Indians & ran the about 200 paces. I lit from my horse within 20 yards shot at them. they both fell. One recovered & ran to the cane. I did not get him but learned from the Indians he died of the wound.

“These were Cherokees going to the Shawness. This party was commanded by Fool Warrior. The Indian had Killd some persons and we got 8 scalpts, 28 horses, 50 dollars cash, a great many goods. This was a very wealthy Company.

“Thomas Kennady & Nathan Farris Cought one of the Indians & Tomahawked him to death without a shot With his own Tomahawk.”

There you have it. The Moore Defeat. Next week I will give you the particulars of the McClure Defeat, mentioned above by William Whitley, which took place in September of 1784.

Thanks for stopping by!

Danna Estridge, Guest Blogger