HISTORY OF THE MORRIS GIRLS

BY PAUL JONES SUMMERS

1915

Rewritten by Kimmy Dickerson (5^th great granddaughter of Henry Morris)

Thursday July 29, 1915

Mr. George Alderson has undertaken the work of erecting a monument in the court house lot at Summersville, Nicholas county, West Virginia, and also headstones at the graves of Peggy and Betsy Morris, who were killed by an Indian and a white man supposed to be Simon Girty, and as I am (P.J.Summers) a great grandson of Henry Morris and have been requested to write a history and how they were killed, I?ll try to write it, as near as possible, as my parents have told it to me.)

The above named girls were daughters of Henry Morris, deceased, who was the first settler on Peter?s Creek. He built his house in the bottom about one forth of a mile above the mouth of Line Creek, now Nicholas county. Just how long Morris had been here before his daughters were killed I am not able to say, but it must have been several years, for there were several settlers in the neighborhood at that time. About the Fall of 1790 or 1791 a man came to Henry Morris? house and told Morris that his name was Allen and that he wanted to stay all winter with him and hunt. He said he had been with the Indians and had learned to be a good hunter. So Morris told him he might stay. There were all kinds of game there at that time, such as bear, deer, elk, and buffalo and small game. So they hunted together that winter and killed quite a lot of bears and deer and other game. Now, Morris had a good bear dog at that time and they had caught several bears with him that winter. Morris had had this dog with him when he was scouting for Indians while in the Kanawha Valley and the dog had learned the scent of an Indian from anything else. When he got the scent of an Indian he would run around Morris with his hair raised as if he were afraid.

About the last of March or the first of April Henry Morris went down to the Kanawha Valley on business and to visit his people. While down there he was telling his friends about the man Allen staying all winter with him, and of what a good hunter he was, and also that he had said he had been with the Indians and had learned to hunt from them. A man was standing by and he asked Morris what kind of looking man Allen was. Morris told him as near as he could and the man said: "From what you say about him, he is Simon Girty." "I reckon not," Morris said. But the man told Morris just what kind of looking man Girty was, and Morris said if the man had been looking right at Allen he could not have described him better. The man also told Morris that he had been acquainted with Girty before he deserted the whites. He said Girty had a scar on one side of his head just about the edge of his hair, and he told which side of the head the scar was on. He told Morris to notice when he went home and see if the scar were there. When Morris returned home it was late in the evening. Just as soon as he looked at the man who had spent the winter with him he saw that he was Girty. He said, "I guess your name is Simon Girty." But Girty denied it, so Morris stepped up to him and pushed his hair up and there was the scar, just as the man had described it, and the side on which he had said it was. Morris said to him: "You are Girty and you need not deny it any longer. I am going to kill you." Girty began to cry and beg for his life; said he was not Girty and that he would leave next morning: But Morris was for killing him anyway, for he had heard how Girty had killed so many women and children, and Morris hated him worse than a rattlesnake. Morris? wife spoke up and said not to kill him, that it might not be Girty and that he said he would leave in the morning. So Morris decided not to kill him, but he sat on the side of his bed all night with his gun in his hand.

The next morning after they had breakfast, while Mrs. Morris was fixing up Girty?s clothes, Morris took his gun and stepped out on the place. The mad spell had worn off him and he didn?t care to be there when Girty left. When Girty started he tried to take Morris? bear dog with him, but the girls called him back two or three times. Girty cursed them and called them bad names, saying he would pay them for it. One of the girls was then twelve and the other fourteen years of age. So Girty left. He had not been gone more than a few minutes until Capt. Geo Fitzwater came in. About thirty minutes later, while Mrs. Morris was telling him of the man who had spent the winter with them being Simon Girty and all that had taken place. Girty returned and stepped up into the door with three big hickory withes in his hand. Fitzwater sprang to his feet with his gun in his hand (people in those days always carried their guns with them where ever they went) and said: "What do you mean by coming here with those withes?" "I brought them to lead that dog away with me," replied Girty. "No," said Fitzwater, "You came here to whip this family to death. Now you get away from here, and quick, for if Morris were here he would kill you: I wouldn?t stop much to do it myself." So Girty went away, mad.

About two or three weeks after Girty left Henry Morris went over to Tommy Smith?s mill, which was Twenty Mile Creek not far from what is now known as the Acil Hughes place. As he was returning in the evening, when he had got about to the head of Line Creek, his dog, Watch, began to run around him with his hair raised, growling as he was in the habit of doing when Indians were close. Morris knew by this that there were Indians near, so he kept a close look out for them all the way down Line Creek, but did not see them. But he knew by the action of his dog that they followed him very closely. It seemed that they were afraid to rush on Morris, for he was very quick with his gun (as Girty knew since he had hunted with him the winter before). Morris had learned to load his rifle as he ran. When he got to the forks of Line Creek he went on down to the mouth of the creek and up Peter?s Creek to his house. The Indian and Girty went across the ridge between Line Creek and Peter?s Creek and came into the bottom above Morris? house. When Morris got home he found there John Young, who, I think, was a brother-in-law of Henry Morris. Morris asked his wife where the girls were. She replied that they were up in the bottom after the calves. At that time they ranged both cows and calves; the calves one way from the farm, the cows the other. When hunting time came they would first bring the calves and then the cows. Morris said: "Indians followed me close from Twenty Mile." "I reckon not, Henry," she replied. "Yes they did, for Watch never lies." Morris asked Young if he had a good load in his gun, and he said he had. "Morris said, ?I?ve got a small load in my gun I had in for a squirrel. I?ll shoot it out and put in a good load and we?ll go after the girls." So he stepped out into the yard abd shot the load from his gun. The smoke had scarcely gone any distance from his gun when they heard the girls begin to scream. Morris called to Young to run and they both struck out. Morris beat Young to the first girl by about one hundred yards, and he hadhis gun loaded when he got there. I think this one was Peggy. He found her tomahawked and scalped and with her back broken, but she was not dead and was able to talk

"Who did this?" Morris asked. " A red man killed me and the man that stayed at our house last winter killed Betsey," answered Peggy. Morris asked her which way the Indian went. She told him and he started after the Indian but Peggy begged him not to leave her. Morris picked her up two or three times and laid her down again and started after the Indian, but she called him back and begged him not to leave her. Finally Morris said, "Let me go and kill the nasty old Indian." So she said that he might go. He ran the way Peggy said the Indian had gone and finally saw him. He was getting sight on him and was just about to pull the trigger when the Indian jumped over the bank of the vreek behind some laurel. Morris said if he had been a few seconds earlier he would have gotten him. He went back to the girl and he and Young looked and found the other girl. She was dead when found. She was scalped and stabbed four times with a big butcher knife. The knife had gone entirely through her body three times making seven places. This is the one murdered by Girty. The girl that Morris got to first had outrun the Indian for fifty or sixty rods and would have gotten away, but she was tripped by a grapevine or her dress caught a snag and threw her down. Morris and Young carried the two girls to the house which was distant seventy-five or one hundred rods. I can show the very spot where Peggy was found. About dark one of the murderers howled like a wolf on the south side of the creek and the other on the north side. The howling kept going up the creek and getting nearer the same pint until they got up to about where John R, Neil now lives. Then it all ceased. The girl that was alive when found died at about the middle of that night. The next day the neighbors gathered up and burried the two girls in the same grave, not far from Morris? house. Today there is a large dogwood standing at the head of the grave. The land is now owned by Mr. Harrison Heil. Their grave is in the bottom about two hundred yards south of the turnpike road. They were killed up in the bottom on the farm on which W. H. Summers now lives. The day after the girls were burried Morris and his family and all the settlers went into the fort that they had built on the farm where A, P, Keenan now lives; a few years ago it was known as the Randolph mansion farm. A day or so later all of them joined this was the second or third time Morris? had to leave Peter?s creek on account of the Indians. The militia of Greenbrier was then raised. It was two weeks or more before they were ready to start on the trail of the Indian and Girty. There were about one hundred men in the company. Morris went along and they trailed them up Peter?s creek to the mouth of Jerry?s fork where Walter Rader now lives and up Jerry?s fork over on to Robinson fork of Twenty Mile. There they found a spot where it seemed from the signs Girty and the Indian had camped a week or more. They had killed a buffalo and had made a perfect path from their camp out the divide between Twenty Mile and Line creek to the mill path where they had been watching for Morris. The militia trailed Girty and the Indian from their camp on Robinson?s fork of Twenty Mile through to Elk River, which they had crossed a place afterward known as little goose island, Because the trail was so old the men had to travel very slowly. Morris was an expert on trailing Indians; wherever he saw a rock turned over or a weed tramped down he would call to the men and say "This is the way they went."So they trailed the murderers through to the Little Kanawha river and down its course to a Little Indian village called Bulltown. There they found an Indian squaw, seventy or eighty years old, who could talk some English. She told Morris and the malitia that Simon Girty had come and got one of their warriers and had then gone and killed the girls. She said it was awfully bad and that the Indians had all gone across the Ohio river, leaving her there to die. The men did not believe her. They scouted about in the woods two or three days and found several small squads of Indians. However, they were on the lookout and were always running. Morris got a shot at one as he ran and wounded him. They tracked him some distance by the blood but never got him. So they had to give up the hunt and go back home. Morris and the settlers brought their families back to Peter?s creek shortly after that. They were never again molested by the Indians. About ten years after these happenings an Indian came up the Kanawha river on his way to Lewisburg on some business. He stopped at a place where there was a logrolling, quite a number of the neighbors having gathered in for it. As was usual they had whiskey, and the men gave some of it to the old Indian. He finally got pretty full and began telling his war tales. He told about a killing "an old pale face up the river here." That man was Kelly who was killed at the mouth of the creek now called after him Kelley?s creek. He also told how he and Simon Girty had killed the two Morris girls up the river. He said one of them ran so fast she would have got away if she had not been tripped by a grapevine and thrown down. He mocked them, showing how they threw up their hands and dodged when he went to scalp them. He showed with his hands how they did, and said that those of the Morris girls were the only red scalps he had ever got. (The Morris girls had deep red hair.)