Thomas Ingles

Thomas Ingles (1751 - 1809, sometimes spelled Thomas Inglis or Thomas English) was a Virginia pioneer, frontiersman and soldier. He was the son of William Ingles and Mary Draper Ingles. He, his mother and his younger brother were captured by Shawnee Indians and although his mother escaped, Thomas remained with the Shawnee until age 17, when his father paid a ransom and brought him back to Virginia. He later served in the Virginia militia, reaching the rank of colonel by 1780.

Thomas Ingles
Born1751 (1751)
Draper's Meadow, Virginia, U.S.
Died1809(1809-00-00) (aged 57–58)
Natchez, Mississippi, U.S.
EducationCastle Hill (Virginia)
Known forCaptivity by Native Americans 1755-1768
SpouseEleanore Grills
Parent(s)William Ingles and Mary Draper Ingles
RelativesGeorge (brother), Rhoda (sister), Susannah (sister), John (brother), Mary (sister)
Military career
AllegianceColony of Virginia
Years of service1774, 1777-1782
RankColonel
Unit Virginia Regiment, Fincastle County Militia, Montgomery County militia
Battles/warsBattle of Point Pleasant in Lord Dunmore's War, American Revolutionary War

Early life and captivity
Present-day Stroubles Creek near Blacksburg, Virginia

Ingles was born in 1751 on the Ingles family farm at Draper's Meadow, a pioneer settlement on the banks of Stroubles Creek near modern-day Blacksburg, Virginia.[1]: 116–118  His younger brother George was born there in 1753.[2]

On 30 July (or 8 July, according to John P. Hale[1] and Letitia Preston Floyd[3]: 79–109 [Note 1]), 1755, during the French and Indian War, a band of Shawnee warriors (then allies of the French) raided Draper's Meadow and killed six settlers, including Mary's mother and her infant niece.[6][2] They took five captives, including Mary and her sons George and Thomas, her sister-in-law Bettie Robertson Draper, and her neighbor Henry Lenard (or Leonard).[7][8][9] Thomas's father William was nearly killed but fled into the forest.[10]

Mary and her sons were taken to Lower Shawneetown at the confluence of the Ohio River and the Scioto River, on what is now the Ohio-Kentucky border. Mary was separated from her two sons, and Thomas was taken to Detroit. George was taken to an unknown location and probably died soon afterward.[1] In October, Mary and another woman escaped and walked for 42 days to return to Draper's Meadow.[10]

Ransom and return to Virginia

Between 1756 and 1768, Thomas' father William Ingles made several trips to Ohio to negotiate for the release of his son Thomas.[11] William met a man named Baker who had been held captive by the Shawnee at Lower Shawneetown, and had known Thomas and his adoptive father.[1]: 115 [12]: 86–88  William hired Baker to find Thomas (now living at Pickaway Plains on the upper Scioto River) and bring him back to Ingles Ferry. Baker traveled to the village, located Thomas, and was able to pay a ransom of $150 to bring him back, but during the journey, Thomas ran away and returned to his Shawnee family.[13] In 1768, William Ingles and Baker traveled together to Lower Shawneetown and persuaded Thomas, now 17, to return with them to Virginia.[1]: 116 

After thirteen years among the Shawnee, Thomas had become fully acculturated and spoke only Shawnee, so William sent him for several years of "rehabilitation" and education under Dr. Thomas Walker at Castle Hill, Virginia.[14]: 176 [12][13] Thomas' son Thomas Jr. later wrote that, while at Castle Hill, Thomas Sr. studied violin together with Thomas Jefferson.[15]

Military career
Battle of Point Pleasant

On 7 May, 1774, Thomas Ingles was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Fincastle County Militia[16]: 1  and served under Colonel William Christian in Lord Dunmore's War against the Shawnee.[17]: 281 [18]: 51–52  On 10 October 1774, Ingles and his father William participated in the Battle of Point Pleasant,[19][20]: 69 [21]: 22  although Thomas' son Thomas Jr. later wrote that his father's regiment did not reach the battlefield until after the battle had ended.[15][22]: 722–26  Following the battle, Thomas was stationed in the fort at Point Pleasant (Fort Blair), and took the opportunity to return to his former Shawnee home on the Scioto to visit his adoptive family.[20]: 69  According to his nephew, he "stayed some time with them."[13]

He served as a company captain in the Montgomery County, Virginia militia during the American Revolutionary War,[23]: 35  and, according to his son, received a commission as Colonel of Militia from Thomas Jefferson.[15]

Kidnapping of wife and children, 1782

He married Eleanore Grills in 1775 and in 1778 he settled in Wright's Valley, near what is now Bluefield, West Virginia.[24]: 69  In 1780, the family relocated to Burke's Garden, Virginia. In 1782, while Thomas was absent, his wife and three children were kidnapped by Indians, led by Black Wolf.[25]: 14–15 [12]: 86–88 [26]: 96  Thomas and a group of volunteers pursued the Indians who had taken them, and after five days they were able to launch an attack.[24]: 70–71  In the ensuing altercation, the Indians killed the two older children, and Eleanore was tomahawked.[27] Thomas rescued her and their youngest daughter, as well as two of his Black slaves the Indians had also captured. Eleanor survived after several pieces of her fractured skull were removed by a surgeon.[26]: 90–92 [15][12]: 446  She bore five more children after this, including four sons and a daughter, according to her son Thomas Jr.[15]

Later life

Following his father William's death in 1782, Thomas Ingles took over the operation of Ingles Ferry.[28]: 75 [29]: 51  William's will of 6 September 1782, dictates: "Son Thomas a tract of land 1000 [acres] on the Blue Stone, known by the name of Absolem's Valley, and a slave."[30] The 1782 Montgomery County, Virginia Personal Property Tax List shows that he was assessed for taxes on two slaves, 12 horses and 15 cattle.[31]

On 3 August 1786, Thomas served as a commissioner for the State of Franklin,[32]: 346  together with William Cocke, Alexander Outlaw, and Samuel Wear, for the Treaty of Coyatee, in which the State of Franklin forced Corntassel, Hanging Maw, John Watts, and the other Overhill Cherokee leaders to cede to the State of Franklin the remaining land between the boundary set by the Treaty of Dumplin Creek and the Little Tennessee River.[33]: 98 

After 1786 he moved to Tennessee with his wife and children and lived on the Watauga River, at Mossy Creek.[1]: 129  His son Thomas Jr. was born in Grainger County, Tennessee in 1791.[15] He had a home in Nashville, Tennessee in 1798, where he was visited by James Weir, who described him as "a gentleman of distinguished civility."[34]: 57  In February 1800, he relocated to Port Gibson, Mississippi.[15] He died at Natchez, Mississippi in 1809.[1]: 142 

See also

Notes
  1. Evidence supports the July 30 date, as documents confirm that Colonel James Patton, who was killed in the massacre, was in Williamsburg on July 8.[4]: 89  An article in the Virginia Gazette published on 8 August 1755, announced Colonel James Patton's death at Draper's Meadow on "the last day of July."[5]: 19  Preston's Register gives the date unequivocally as 30 July.[6]: 154–55 

References
  1. John P. Hale, Trans-Allegheny pioneers: historical sketches of the first white settlements west of the Alleghenies, Cincinnati: The Graphic Press, 1886.
  2. Duvall, James. The Context of Captivity: Mary Ingles at Big Bone Lick (PDF). Paper presented at Northern Kentucky History Day, 2009.
  3. Floyd, Letitia Preston, "Memoirs of Letitia Preston Floyd, written Feb. 22, 1843 to her son Benjamin Rush Floyd," transcribed from the original by Jim Glanville and Ryan Mays; in Smithfield Review, vol. 20, 2016
  4. Richard Osborn, "William Preston and the American Revolution." Journal of Backcountry Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, July 2010
  5. Ryan S. Mays, "The Draper's Meadows Settlement (1746-1756)," Part II, The Smithfield Review, Volume 19, 2015
  6. "A Register of the Persons Who Have Been Either Killed, Wounded, or Taken Prisoners by the Enemy, in Augusta County, as also such as Have Made Their Escape". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. Vol. II. Richmond, Virginia: Virginia Historical Society. June 1895.
  7. Brown, Ellen Apperson. "What Really Happened at Drapers Meadows? The Evolution of a Frontier Legend" (PDF). Virginia History Exchange.
  8. Cummings, Kathy. "Walking in Their Footsteps: The Journey of Mary Ingles". Pioneer Times.
  9. Jennings, Gary (August 1968). "An Indian Captivity". American Heritage Magazine. Vol. 19, no. 5.
  10. Ingles, John (1824). The Narrative of Col. John Ingles Relating to Mary Ingles and the Escape from Big Bone Lick (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-03-13. Retrieved 2014-04-03.
  11. "Thomas Ingles," Bluestone National Park Service, US National Park Service, February 8, 2021
  12. Pendleton, William Cecil. History of Tazewell County and Southwest Virginia: 1748-1920. W. C. Hill printing Company, 1920; pp 443-447
  13. Ian K. Steele, Setting All the Captives Free: Capture, Adjustment, and Recollection in Allegheny Country, Vol. 71 of McGill-Queen's Native and Northern Series; McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 2013. ISBN 0773589899
  14. Alexander Canaday McLeod, "A Man for All Regions: Dr. Thomas Walker of Castle Hill." The Filson Club History Quarterly, Vol. 71, No. 2, April 1997; pp. 169-201
  15. "Data for a Memoir of Thomas Ingles of Augusta, Kentucky," transcribed by James Duvall, M. A. Boone County Public Library Burlington, Kentucky from a copy owned by Patty Hons, Lawrenceburg, Indiana, 2008
  16. G. Lee McClain, ed. Military History of Kentucky, Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of Kentucky, Kentucky State Journal. Frankfort, KY, July 1939
  17. Mary B. Kegley, Revolutionary War Pension Applications of Southwest Virginia Soldiers. Kegley Books, Wytheville, VA, 1997.
  18. Woods, Edgar. Albemarle County in Virginia: Giving Some Account of what it was by Nature, of what it was Made by Man, and of Some of the Men who Made it. Michie Company, printers, 1901.
  19. John D. Sinks, "Proving Service at the Battle of Point Pleasant for Sons of the American Revolution," National Society, Sons of the American Revolution, 28 July 2015
  20. Simpson-Poffenbarger, Livia Nye. The Battle of Point Pleasant: A Battle of the Revolution, October 10th 1774: Biographical Sketches of the Men who Participated. State Gazette, 1909.
  21. Winkler, John F. Point Pleasant 1774: Prelude to the American Revolution. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.
  22. John. R. Thompson, ed., "The Ingles Family, or, An Incident in Border Life," in Southern Literary Messenger, vol 19, 1853.
  23. Roberts, R. A. "Montgomery County’s Revolutionary Heritage (Continued)." The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 47(1), 1939; pp 32–40
  24. Johnston, David Emmons. A History of Middle New River Settlements and Contiguous Territory. Standard Ptg. & Publishing Company, 1906.
  25. Bruce, Thomas. Southwest Virginia and Shenandoah Valley: An Inquiry Into the Causes of the Rapid Growth and Wonderful Development of Southwest Virginia and Shenandoah Valley, with a History of the Norfolk and Western and Shenandoah Valley Railroads. Hill Publishing Company, 1891.
  26. John P. Hale, History Of The Great Kanawha Valley, With Family History And Biographical Sketches. A Statement Of Its Natural Resources, Industrial Growth And Commercial Advantages, Vol. 1, Brant, Fuller & Co. Madison, WI., 1891
  27. Peyton, John Lewis (1882). History of Augusta County, Virginia. Samuel M. Yost & Son. pp. 212–14.
  28. "Montgomery County Reconnaissance Level Survey," Vol 1, July 1986, Historic Sites Survey: Virginia Division of Historic Landmarks
  29. Kegley, Frederick Bittle., Kegley, Mary B. Early Adventurers on the Western Waters: The New River of Virginia in pioneer days, 1745-1800. Green Publishers, 1980.
  30. "William Inglis," Montgomery County, Virginia, November 1782; Virginia, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1652-1900
  31. 1782 Montgomery County, Virginia Personal Property Tax List
  32. Ramsey, James Gettys McGready. The Annals of Tennessee: To the End of the Eighteenth Century, Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1860.
  33. Williams, Samuel Cole. History of the Lost State of Franklin. Watauga Press, Johnson City, TN, 1924.
  34. Rothert, Otto Arthur. A History of Muhlenberg County. J.P. Morton, 1913.
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