THE THREE SEE BROTHERS

The brothers, George, Michael and John See left records which prove that each took part in the defense of their country against both the Indians and the English and helped to establish American independence.

GEORGE SEE (1749-1854) SON OF FREDERICK SEE

The resettlement of Greenbrier County after Six years of devastation started again in 1769 when Colonel John Stuart, among others, came from Augusta County to Frankford. The Sees and other displaced families returned about the same time to their original holdings.

In the Spring of 1774 the Assembly of Williamsburg, then the capital of our government, received intelligence of the hostile appearance of the Indians who had fallen upon the settlements and traders and were making other arrangements for war. General Andrew Lewis and his brother, Colonel Charles Lewis, delegates respectively from Botetourt and Augusta counties, were in command of their county militias at the time. At once they sent couriers to the frontier settlements requesting each to put themselves in a position of defense. General Lewis ordered Colonel Stuart to send out scouts along the Indian trails to protect the late settlements and to report on war plans.

It is to be remembered that relations between the American colonies and the British government were fast approaching the breaking point. John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, was the last royal governor of Virginia. His domineering conduct and his support of some of Great Britain's oppressive measures, caused him to be hated by the Virginians. Finally, the indignation of the people compelled the reluctant governor to take up arms to suppress the very savages he was thought to have encouraged and incited to hostility by his intrigues, with the idea of distracting the colonists' attention from the real issues of the times.

Arrangements were made to carry out an expedition against the Shawnees and the other tribes of the northern confederacy lead by the crafty and able Chief Cornstalk. Briefly, the plan was for Lord Dunmore to lead an army of volunteer militia from the counties of Frederick, Shenandoah and the settlements toward Fort Pitt, while General Lewis was to command a southern division of like troops collected from Augusta, Botetourt and the counties south of the Blue Ridge.

While Dunmore was to proceed down the Ohio River, General Lewis was to advance along the Kanawha and the whole army assemble at the mouth of the Great Kanawha on the Ohio on the first of October 1774.

General Lewis' army of eleven hundred men assembled in Greenbrier at Camp Union (Lewisburg) about the fourth of September. On the eleventh the march to the Point (Point Pleasant) began. It was a distance of one hundred sixty miles through a trackless forest, rugged and mountainous and progress was both slow and difficult. Captain Mathew Arbuckle, a famous hunter and Indian fighter, was their guide. After nineteen days, the Ohio was reached and the army went into encampment on the point of land between the two rivers. Provisions and ammunition transported by pack animals and droves of cattle arrived soon afterward. Among the volunteers from Greenbrier to join with Captain Arbuckle were two young men, George and Michael See, who as young lads, had been held prisoners by the Shawnees for a year and a half. They were useful as scouts, knowing full well the Indians' tactics.

None will suppose that Colonel Lewis had a contemptible army to do with, who has any knowledge of their previous exploits. It was chiefly the Shawnees, who in the nineteen years preceding the Battle at Point Pleasant, had consistently defeated all troops sent against them. Afterwards the defeats at Blue Licks and of General Harmar and Wayne were due chiefly to the Shawnees.

Colonel John Stuart's, Memoirs of Indian Wars, states that-

"Of all the Indians, the Shawnees were the most bloody and terrible, holding all other men, Indians as well as whites, in contempt as warriors, in comparison with themselves. This opinion made them more restless and fierce than any other savages; and they boasted that they had killed ten times as many white people as any other Indians did. They were a well-informed, active and ingenious people-were assuming and imperious in the presence of others not their own nation, and sometimes very cruel."

October first arrived but no Lord Dunmore and his army. It developed that he had changed his plan and sent word to General Lewis by three men, one time Indian traders, to proceed to the Shawnee village where he would join Lewis and his forces. The envoys from Dunmore arrived on the ninth of October and Lewis found their talk very suspicious of conspiracy. A McCullough stated that but recently, he had left the Shawnee towns and gone to Dunmore's camp.

Next morning, two young men from Lewis' camp set out very early to hunt deer. Two or three miles up the Ohio they unexpectedly stumbled upon a large encampment of Indians. The Indians fired on discovering the hunters, killing one. The other fled and reported to General Lewis that he had seen "a body of Indians covering four acres of ground as closely as they could stand by the side of each other." At once the army was activated. Immediately two detachments under the oldest captains were ordered out, Augusta troops under Colonel Charles Lewis and Botetourt under Colonel William Fleming. They advanced in two lines four hundred yards from the camp in sight of the camp guards. The Indians fired the first volley, killing the two scouts in front of the two lines.

Just as the sun came up terrific firing began-thus the famous Battle of Point Pleasant was to go down into history as one of the most important frontier engagements. Colonel Stuart declared "this battle was in fact, the beginning of the Revolutionary War."

The battle raged all day with every inch of ground contested, finally in hand-to-hand combat. Night came and still both armies held, although victorious the Virginians could neither advance or retire, fearing an ambush or night attack which the Indians' actions seemed to warrant. Under this pretense they had retreated across the river in the darkness taking their dead with them.

The victory was decisive but it was costly. The Virginians' loss was fifty three men killed, a total of one hundred and forty killed and wounded, nearly one fifth of the troops. Colonel Charles Lewis was mortally wounded in the first round of fire. Ten or more other officers lost their lives. Graphic accounts of the battle as given by participants are found in Mrs. Livia Simpson-Poffenbarger's book, the Battle of Point Pleasant.

After burial of the Virginia dead, General Lewis order entrenchments to be made around the camp and leaving a garrison, marched the army across the Ohio River to the Shawnee towns. Here Dunmore was already negotiating.

Dunmore's conduct through the entire maneuver was suspicious of connivance with the Indians and incensed the troops who wanted to continue the war to the extermination of the Indians. In fact, it is stated, they would have killed Dunmore, but for his bodyguard of fifty men.

Many of the officers and men in this initial Revolutionary conflict were soon in the colonial armies. George and Michael See were with Captain Mathew Arbuckle's "borderers" defending the frontier and their younger brother John was in the Continental Line with George Washington and General Wayne.

References to George See are rather meager. In a suit, Levicy vs. Morris (Chalkley vol. 21, p. 98) he deposed in Kanawha that he came to the county as a soldier under Mathew Arbuckle and that John Morris was with him. This is evidence that he was in the battle at Point Pleasant. On Christmas Day, 1777, he was married to Martha George in Greenbrier by the Rev. John Alderson.

His name is on the Greenbrier County tax lists 1783-1786. During 1797, George See and his wife Martha made several deeds to lands below Elk River in Kanawha County. Ten years later (1807) deeds for three pieces of land were made, one for two hundred acres to his nephew, Frederick See, son of his brother Michael.

The most interesting of all data relating to George See is to be found in a Grant displayed in the Greenbrier County Museum, Lewisburg, West Virginia. It is a Land Office Treasury Warrant issued by Henry Lee, Esquire, Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia for four hundred and sixty four acres of land in Greenbrier County on the west side of Muddy Creek, joining the lands of Peter Shoemaker and John Wilson and including a survey made for Frederick See in the year 1751. It was issued in Richmond, Virginia, September, seventeenth, 1792.

Two years later (1794), Peter Shoemaker, "attorney in fact" for George See and Patty, his wife, sold 365 acres of the land granted George See by patent, to Jacob Hockman for the "sum of Five Shillings current Money of Virginia." This deed also is on exhibit. The description of the land expressed "by poles and degrees" also depends upon certain sycamores, sugar maples, white oak, and hickory trees. A deed to Peter Cline for the other hundred acres is recorded at Greenbrier Court House.

From 1795-1797 George See was in Kanawha County, where he served on the grand jury; was appointed to committee to make new road on south side of Kanawha; directed to cut and clear a wagon road; six months later was cited for failure in duty as a surveyor. Refers in a deed to himself March 12, 1808 as 'late of Kanawha County." Evidently the time that he moved to Kentucky probably on the Big Sandy River to be joined later by his brother, John See.

The next record of George finds him in Missouri, November 23, 1832, D. F. F., p. 6a. Deed recites that George See then lived in Ralls County, Missouri.

The data which follows was taken from papers on file in the pension claim R-9361 based on the military service of the only George See that is found in the Revolutionary War record of the Veterans Administration. "George See applied for pension February 12, 1835, at which time he was seventy nine years of age and was living in Marion County, Missouri. He alleged that while living in Greenbrier County, Virginia, he served in the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774 under Captain Mathew Arbuckle. He also alleged that he enlisted in 1776 and served one year in Captain Arbuckle's Virginia company.

His claim for pension was not allowed, as he failed to furnish proof of the alleged service in accordance with the requirement of the pension law. George See stated in 1835, that his brother, John, who was then living at or near Flat Rock, Indiana, had served with him in the Revolutionary War.

In 1854, one Washington See was living in Marion County, Missouri and one George See acted as witness for him in that year; their relationship to the soldier was not shown." Signed by A. 0 Hillyer, Executive Assistant to the Administrator. (The Washington and George See in the above were likely sons or grandsons of George See.)

Report of U. S. Secretary of the Interior, dated February 16, 1852 on suspended and rejected pension claims showed George See, Palmyra, Marion County, Missouri, suspended for further proof.

The proof which George See needed so badly in 1835 and again in 1852 is now available. Anne Waller Reddy names him on page seventy in West Virginia Revolutionary Ancestry, also Greenbrier Court June tenth, 1782 allowed George Sea's claim for rations. There are two reports on the death of George See, the Revolutionary soldier, one that he died near See's Creek, Marion County, Missouri, near Palmyra. Another source states that he moved to Peoria, Illinois about 1850, with his sons, George and Michael, where he died at the age of one hundred five.

MICHAEL SEE JR. (1751-1792) SON OF FREDERICK SEE

The lives of the two brothers George and Michael See ran parallel. Together they had experienced the massacre on Muddy Creek, Indian captivity, participated in the battle of Point Pleasant, served under Captain Arbuckle in border warfare, established their homes in Greenbrier and later both moved on down the Kanawha Valley.

Michael See, born about 1751 in Hampshire County, Virginia, married Elizabeth Morris in 1776. She was the daughter of William Morris, pioneer of Kanawha, who settled about twenty miles above the present site of Charleston, West Virginia. Elizabeth, born August 8, 1753, is said to have been the widow of John Shull, who left a son John. Proof is unavailable.

In 1777, the Ohio Indians agitated by British agents, again became troublesome. Chief Cornstalk came to the garrison at Point Pleasant to give warning that the tribes planned to join the British as allies. Captain Arbuckle thought it best to detain the chief, his son Elinipisco, Redhawk, a Delaware chief, and another Indian as hostages. Here in November 1777 all were murdered by soldiers of the garrison to avenge the death of a Virginia soldier, one Gilmore, killed while the Indians were prisoners. The Governor of Virginia offered a reward for the arrest of the murderers, but they went unpunished; for this act of treachery, Cornstalk's followers took to the war path to avenge his death.

In July 1778, an Indian band of two hundred warriors crossed the Ohio River and failing in their attack on the garrison at Point Pleasant, set off up the valley toward the Greenbrier region. Captain McKee, in command of the garrison, noting the route taken by the Indians, sent two scouts disguised as Indians, at the risk of their lives, to warn the settlement in Greenbrier. Although the Indians had a two day start, the scouts, Philip Hammond and John Prior, overtook the band about twenty miles north of Lewisburg. Passing on with great speed to Colonel Donnally's, they gave the alarm of the approaching raiders. The aroused settlement fled to Donnally's fort. Dick Pointer, the negro servant of Michael See, was one of the sixty men, women, and children gathered in the stockade. The two young scouts warned Colonel Donnally to store a supply of water. They told of the suffering for water at Point Pleasant in the same emergency. A hogshead of water was secured and placed against the kitchen door of the fort. Early next morning, John Pritchard, a white servant of Donnally's, left the fort leaving the gate ajar. He was tomahawked. The sentinel, William Hughart, saw Indians and spread the alarm. The gate still open, the outer yard was soon full of Indians, who began cutting down the kitchen door. Dick Pointer jumping about with a gun in his hand called, "Massa what must I do?' "Shoot, and quick at the bunch, damn you." Dick obeyed, killing nine Indians with his blunderbuss loaded with a variety of missiles. The recoil laid the negro flat. Hammond fired another shot and the door was closed. The sleeping refugees were now aroused and soon opened fire through the port holes. The battle continued throughout the day. The Indians tried every conceivable way to take the fort. Meanwhile, a relief party of sixty seven from Lewisburg under Captain Johnson started for the Fort and though the Indians opened fire, managed to enter without casualties. By nightfall the Indians withdrew having lost seventeen, while the whites had four killed.

For this heroic act, Pointer was given his freedom and the public built a cabin for him on land given by one John Davis. Dick died in 1827 and was buried in Lewisburg Cemetery.

Small parties of Indians visited the Greenbrier section twice after the battle of Donnally's Fort; the last time in 1780. In the years 1783-1786, the three See brothers were still in Greenbrier County (names on Greenbrier Tax List).

A fort had been erected at Point Pleasant just after the battle at the mouth of the Kanawha, called Fort Blair, which was later destroyed. In 1776, Captain Mathew Arbuckle built Fort Randolph near the same site, garrisoned at the expense of the colony of Virginia, and commanded by Captain Arbuckle and later Captain William McKee. Prior to July 12, 1779, Fort Randolph was evacuated after which it was burned by the Indians. In 1785 a third fort was built at the Point on the Ohio River.

New Fort Randolph was commanded by Colonel Thomas Lewis and from that time on the white man has never ceased to reside at Point Pleasant.

Ten years after the Revolution, Indian hostility on the frontier of the young nation still made life for the settlers unsafe. By this time the Sees had joined the tide of westward land-seekers and had moved down the Kanawha Valley and settled on Crooked Creek about a mile above the mouth of the Kanawha River. Michael See and his wife, Elizabeth, and their four children, George, Michael, Frances and Frederick were living at the Fort with other settlers near Point Pleasant.

For several years these pioneers were forced to spend more time in the forts than at their homes. Michael See was a signer of the petition to the Governor of Virginia, September 19, 1791 asking protection for citizens of Greenbrier County against the Indians. (Virginia State Papers) October 3, 1791, John Morris, John Hansford, John Jones, Reuben Slaughter and Michael See were recomended as fit persons to execute the office of Magistrates in Kanawha County.

On May 23, 1792, Michael See was supervising the cultivation of the crops for the settlers at Fort Randolph. A squad of ten soldiers had been sent from the Fort to guard the men while they worked. The day was warm and the soldiers retired to the shade of a tree and engaged in a game of cards to while away the time. A band of Wyandottes slipped up and under their very noses, killed Michael See and Robert St. Clair and took Thomas Northup and a negro boy, Jonathon Pointer, who belonged to Michael, prisoners.

That night at the Fort, Elizabeth See gave birth to a son, Willlam, from whom are descended the Sees of Mason County, West Virginia. Michael See was buried near the Fort. Story tells that in after years the Mason County Courthouse was built with one corner over his grave and another over the grave of Cornstalk, the Shawnee chief killed after the battle of Point Pleasant.

Today a two acre state park Tu-Endie Wei marks the site of the famous battleground. Congress, recognizing the claim that Point Pleasant was the "First Battle of the Revolution" passed a bill in 1908 to aid in the erection of a monument "to Commemorate the Battle of the Revolution fought at this point between Colonial troops and Indians October 10, l774." An eighty-four foot granite shaft stands in the center of the park; the statue of a stern-faced Virginia militia man stands guard at the base. Also within the park is the monument to Chief Cornstalk and one bearing fifty or more names of Revolutionary soldiers buried in Mason County. The name of Michael See is on this monument.

Virginia State Papers Vol. 5, p. 561 gives a letter from George Clendenen to the Governor of Virginia dated May 26, 1792 in which he says: "The Indians are daily committing depradations within this county. On Monday week last, they killed two very Reputable Men to-wit; a certain Mich'l See Esquire, and Mr. Roland St. Clair. At the same time they took a white boy and a negro.

Also from the same papers Vol. 6, p. 238 "Roll of Captain John Morris which was in service from March 15, 1792 to January 1, 1793. Among these soldiers being; Lewis Tackett Jr. and under remarks; "At Michael Lees (Sees) at Point Pleasant till after Lee's death, then at Col. Clendenen's."

It would seem from Clendenen's letter to the Governor that Michael See was killed by the Indians in May 1792 rather than 1791 as it has been generally understood.

On record in Kanawha County Court, Virginia dated April 1, 1793, Deed book A, page 33: Elizabeth See and Leonard Morris appointed administrators of the estate of Michael See, deceased. Gave bond for � l000 with John Reynold surety.

From same record: Thomas Lewis, Leonard Cooper and John Van Bibber appointed to appraise the said estate of Michael See and make return of the same at the next court. The following return was recorded July 16, 1794, Jn Reynolds Clk.

1 Still and worm appraised 7�10S

1 negro wench 40�

1 negro boy 40�

1 bedsted and counterpin 5�

1 bed 1 counterpin & coverlead 2�

1 cow 1 yearling l8� 5s

1 yearling 15�

1 yearling 15�

Sundry Queensware l�

7 ps old pewter lO�

1 old sett of plow irons 9�

Total � 122 4S

It has been stated that Michael See's widow married Captain John Van Bibber, commissary at Fort Randolph. It is unverified as yet. A marriage license was issued in 1799 in Kanawha County to Thomas Cobbs and Elizabeth See. The Deedbook C p. 331, March 12, 1808 George See and Frederick See to Thomas Cobbs, power of attorney. One can only hazard a guess as to any connection in the above with Michael See's widow.

Several records of the heirs of Michael See are in the County Court, Clerk's Office Kanawha County, Virginia (now West Virginia) to-wit; August 10, 1807, Deed book D. page 311-

George See, Carroll Morris and wife Frances, Michael See, Frederick See and William See, heirs of Michael See, deceased, to Andrew Donnally - 400 acres of land.

December 12, 1814 Deedbook D.p. 328- William See of Mason County, Virginia, 1/5 interest as a child of Michael See, deceased, to James E. Harris - lands.

November 24, 1814 Deedbook D. p. 329-

George See and his wife Polly, of Lynchburg, Virginia, title to lands descended to him and four brothers and sisters from their father, Michael See, deceased, deed to James E. Harris, for 200 acres below mouth of Campbell's Creek.

February 14, 1800

Michael See, orphan of Michael see, deceased, made choice, with approval of counsel, of John Reynolds, as his guardian, who gave bond for $l,000 -- with Edward Graham, surety.

April 14, 1803

Will of William Morris filed in and proved by oaths of Joseph Carroll and Michael See-bond $10,000. Appraisers: John See, Jos. Carroll, Leonard Morris and John Moss.

From the Mumford Reports p. 303

In 1814 Michael See brought a suit in Mason County against- Greenlee, and claimed a tract of 400 acres of land demised (willed) to him by Michael See. This suit was decided in See's favor by the Court of Appeals of Virginia in 1819.

The above recorded transactions indicate that Michael See, Jr. had holdings of at least a thousand acres of land along the Kanawha at the time of his death.

The Revolutionary Service record of Michael See, Jr. was accepted by the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution June 6, 1940. Anne Weller Reddy lists the name of Michael See on page 70 in West Virginia Revolutionary Ancestry. In the Virginia State Library at Richmond, Virginia is an original document, known as Public Service Claims. It states: (in part) "At a Court held for Greenbrier County, June 10, 1782 Present.

Samuel Brown William Ward Michael Woods John Henerson and John Anderson. Gent. The following claims were allowed and Ordered to be Certified To-wit.

To George Sea 74 Rations State 3 14 G.

To Michael Sea 74 Do State 3 14

To John Jones 74 Do State 3 14

To Leonard Morris 74 Do State 3 14

To John Morris 74 Do State 3 14

To William Morris 74 Do State 3 14

To Conrod Yolkcom 140 Do State 7 00

To George Yolkcom 194 Do State 9 14

In the above list all the men were relatives of Michael See (Sea). Besides his brother, the three Morris' and John Jones were brothers-in-law, and Yolkcom boys were cousins.

From Revolutionary Notes and Declarations of Service gathered by Dr. Joseph T. McAllister of Hot Springs in Virginia. Chalkley's vol. 2 p. 487. John Young's Declaration; deposed that Michael See was with him in Virginia Militia.

Two folk-tales declare that Michael, just prior to his death wrote to his sister Elizabeth (Shoemaker) in Fleming County, Kentucky that he was coming to see her with the intention of moving there after harvest. Land where he was, having become valuable, he intended selling for cash and taking up larger holdings in Kentucky. The other relates that Elizabeth had a premonition of her brother Michael's death.