McKee, George Wilson. The McKees of Virginia and Kentucky (1891). Downloaded from archive.org 4 Aug 2022.
Kerr's Creek or Carr's creek...
Starting at page 35
He [Robert McKee] intended that the proud and
sensitive woman should always feel that she was
dependent on no one. She was Rosannah
Cunningham, his second wife.
His first wife was Jane Logan, who was
killed by the Shawnee Indians on Kerr's
Creek, Rockbridge county, Va., July 17, 1733.
The various accounts of this massacre are, of
course, mere matters of tradition, as the
people, at that time, were abundantly occupied
in struggling with Nature and defending
themselves against the savages ; leaving little
opportunity for any contemporary written
records to be kept. The date of the tragedy is
even variously stated, some chroniclers assert-
ing that it occurred in 1704. I will give here
all the information concerning it that 1 have
been able to collect.
Mr. Waddell, in his "Annals of Au-
gusta County, Va.," quotes the Rev. Samuel
Brown, of Bath county. Says Mr. Waddell :
"Withers makes no mention of either of the
massacres of Kerr's Creek. Stuart merely
alludes to the first, in 1763, writing the
name, however. "Carr's" instead of "Kerr's."
For the only detailed account of these trage-
dies we are indebted to the Rev. Samuel
Brown, of Bath county, who collected the in-
cidents from descendants of the sufferers
many years ago.
" The settlement on Kerr's (Creek.'" says Mr.
Brown, "was made by white people soon after
the grant of land to Borden in 1736. The
families located there consisting of Cunning-
hams, McKees, Hamiltons, Gilmore's, Logan's,
Irvin's, and others, thought themselves safe
from the dangers of more exposed parts of the
country. :::
" Leaving the site of
old Millborough, the savages passed over Mill
Mountain at a low place still called the 'In-
dian Trail." Coming on the waters of Brat
ton's Run, they crossed the North Mountain-
where it is now crossed by the road Leading
from Lexington to the Rockbridge Alum
Springs, and where there is a large heap of
stones, supposed to have been piled up by In-
dians. From this point they had a full view
of the peaceful valley of Kerr's Creek. Has-
tening down the mountain, they began the
work of indiscriminate slaughter. Coming
first to the house of Charles Dougherty, he
and his whole family were murdered. They
next came to the house of Jacob Cunning-
ham, who was from home, but his wife was
killed, and his daughter, about ten years of
age, scalped and left for dead. She revived,
was carried off as a prisoner in the second in-
vasion, was redeemed, and lived for forty
years afterwards, but finally died from the ef-
fects of the scalping. The Indians then pro-
ceeded to the house of Thomas Gilmore, and
he and his wife were killed, the other mem-
bers of the family escaping at that time. The
house of Robert Hamilton came next. This
family consisted of ten persons, and one half
of them were slain. By this time the alarm
had spread through the neighborhood, and
the inhabitants were flying in every direction.
For some reason the main body of the Indians
went no further. Perhaps they were sated
with blood and plunder; most probably they
feared to remain longer with so small a band.
A single Indian pursued John McKee and his
wife as they were flying from their house. By
the entreaty of his wife, McKee did not wait
for her, and she was overtaken and killed. He
escaped. His six children had been sent to
the house of a friend on Timber Ridge, on ac-
count of some uneasiness, caused probably by
the report about the Naked Man.
[There are different stories related about the McKee killing]