(Look Back with Bob Enoch - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

The early history of Belleville by Minnie Kendall Lowther, continues

Another Colony Here

In the spring of 1785, a party of hunters and trappers originally from Pennsylvania, who had been sojourning in the Wheeling vicinity, moved on to this section and took possession of an old abandoned Indian improvement of about twenty acres, above the mouth of Lee Creek, and erected a station house here, and began the cultivation of corn. This was known as Flinn Station, as Mr. Flinn, a widower, and his two sons, Thomas and James Flinn, were among the party. Mr. Parchment, his wife and two sons, Josiah and John Parchment, John Barnett, son-in-law of Mr. Flinn; and John McCussack, a single man, were among the party, whose chief occupation was hunting and trapping. In 1787, the Flinn Station colony moved down to Belleville, for safety against the Indians, who were stealing horses and otherwise troublesome.

Hildreth, in his history says that James Parchment, a young man who left the garrison at Belleville during the autumn of 1790 for the purpose of hunting deer on a branch of Lee Creek, was shot and scalped by a party of nine Indians, about a mile back from the station. John Coleman was a witness to the horror but was powerless to do anything. This was the first tragedy recorded in the settlement and shed its gloom over all.

Stephen Sherrod was surprised and captured by a party of ten Indians, while in the forest cutting an oxgard [a long pointed stick used to prod oxen or cattle]. His wife, who was milking the cows but a short distance away, was seized by two Indians, but she resisted with such force that she was knocked down, by one Indian, while the other proceeded to take her scalp. Her screams however, brought Peter Anderson from the garrison, and he shot one Indian in the arm, and they hastily retreated. Mrs. Sherrod lay unconscious for a long time but someone immediately set out in a canoe for Marietta, returning about forty hours later with Dr. John True, who administered to her comforts and she finally recovered.

The garrison at this time had but five men, and there was no one to go in pursuit of the foe. They [the Indians] securely bound Stephen Sherrod and crossed the Ohio at the narrows above Belleville on a raft with their prisoner; and continued up the valley of the Big Hocking until nightfall – five walking before, and five after the prisoner, who was placed under the weight of a sapling for the night, surrounded by the Indians. But when all were fast asleep, Sherrod released his hands; slowly worked his body from beneath the sapling; and made his escape down the valley, wading and swimming until he reached the opposite shore. He finally aroused the sleeping garrison, early the next morning and brought them to his rescue with a boat. John Coleman was later killed while a member of a hunting party in Jackson County.

During the summer of 1791, a small garrison of Virginia troops under Colonel Clendennin, we are told, were stationed at Belleville, and another at Neal’s Station, for the protection of these frontier settlements and as a check to Indian depredations. But a new era dawned after the treaty of General Wayne in 1795, [ending the Indian wars].

Joseph Wood Weds

James Pewthewer, a member of the Scotch immigrant party to Belleville, had a charming daughter and about 1791 or 92, Joseph Wood claimed Miss Margaret Pewthewer as his bride. It seems as there were no ministers in the Belleville Colony, and Farmers Castle at Belpre was the Gretna Green for lovers. General Benjamin Tupper, justice of the peace, is said to have performed the ceremony at the “Castle.” So, shortly after this important affair, Joseph Wood withdrew to Marietta, where he became judge of the courts and otherwise prominent, and where he died leaving at least one daughter, Miss Agnes Wood

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Bob Enoch is president of the Wood County Historical and Preservation Society. If you have comments or questions about Look Back items, please contact him at: roberteenoch@gmail.com, or by mail at WCHPS, PO Box 565, Parkersburg, WV 26102.