Massacre of Sybert’s Fort — OccupantsTomahawked by the Indians on April 28, 1758 — Part VI
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This is some small fort to have 60 people inside of it, only to send them out to be massacred!
During the early part of 1758 sixty persons were murdered by Indians in the far west (Augusta County, Virginia). The inhabitants of the surrounding county had taken shelter to hide from the Indians. No Indians having yet appeared, a youth named John Dyer and his sister went outside one day only to be astonished when the full view of forty or fifty Shawnees going towards the fort. As the children rushed to give the alarm, they were captured.
Captain Seybert determined that they could not escape without a vigorous fight, so decided to surrender, despite the objection of some of the people. The gate to the fort was thrown open and money and other articles were given over to the Indians. Afterward, the Indians arranged the people in two rows and tomahawked most of them while others were carried off as slaves.
The only captive to ever be returned was young Dyer. Dyer had been taken to the Indian villages of Logstown, then to Muskingum, and later to Chillicothe where he remained a prisoner for nearly two years. When the Indians left for Fort Pitt, he hid and was able to return home. Source: The Annals of Augusta County Virginia 1726–1871 by Joseph A. Waddel, Preston Register, p. 154–158; Campbell’s History of Virginia, page 500. 1772.
October. The Shawnees Battle at the Head of the Ohio River Despite the end of the French and Indian Wars and local mountain wars with various Indian tribes, the threat of marauding Indians persisted in the far West.
By 1772, the white population had progressively increased across the frontier. One particular story begins with Edward Franklin, who, having received no land from the estate of his father, traveled the Blue Ridge and Allegheny Mountains into a region defined at that time as being in Augusta 8 County (later Botetourt County) where he acquired a land grant in the Alleghany Mountains on “Pine Run.” Like so many others in the region, the Edward Franklin family resided in a log cabin, its location is described in the Minutes of Augusta County when a call was made to residents to build a new road or run. Meanwhile, the Colonial Governor of…
