Session of Virginia Council of State, 10 November 1778
Session of Virginia Council of State
Tuesday November 10th 1778.
| present | |
| His Excellency; | |
| John Page | David Jameson |
| Dudley Digges | James Madison |
| Thomas Walker | And |
| Nathaniel Harrison | Bolling Stark |
| Esquires. | |
The Board taking into consideration the perilous Situation of the People of Monongalia County,1 Advised the Governor that orders be given to convey 130 Rifles belonging to the public at Fredericksburg, to that County addressed to the Care of the County Lieutenant2 with Directions to sell them for their value to such of the Inhabitants who from their particular Situation & Circumstances are most in want of Arms & who are most likely to make proper use of them: That he pay to John Pierce DuVall Esquire3 two hundred & forty pounds for transporting the said Arms & one thousand pounds powder out of the money arising from the Sale of the said Arms according to contract entered into with Colonel Gaddis of Monongalia,4 & it was accordingly Ordered by the Governor.
Adjourned till tomorrow 10 oClock
Signed John Page
Dudley Digges
Thos Walker
Nathl Harrison
David Jameson
James Madison
Bolling Stark
1. Indian incursions were frequent in Monongalia County during the Revolutionary War. In the summer of 1778, a large body of Indians penetrated to Cobun’s Creek and burned a fort near Morgantown. Another raid later, near Statler’s Fort on the Monongahela River, left eighteen dead (Samuel T. Wiley, History of Monongalia County, West Virginia … [Kingwood, W.Va., 1883], pp. 55–71, passim, esp. pp. 59–62). Immediately following a treaty made at Fort Pitt in September 1778 with the Delaware tribe of Indians, General Lachlan McIntosh led troops through their territory in order to build and garrison Fort McIntosh, thirty miles below Fort Pitt, and Fort Laurens on the Tuscarawas River in hostile Indian country (below, Henry to Laurens, 23 Nov. 1778, n. 7; Max Savelle, George Morgan: Colony Builder [New York, 1932], pp. 157–59).
2. The acting county lieutenant of Monongalia was Colonel Daniel McFarland (1731–1817). He was born in Worcester, Mass., spent much of the prime of his life in fighting Indians on the Virginia frontier, and died in Washington County, Pa. (Ross B. Johnston, ed., West Virginians in the American Revolution, p. 189).
3. John Pierce DuVall (ca. 1751–1792) was a member of the House of Delegates from Monongalia County between 1777 and 1779, and a state senator from his district between 1780 and 1791. He also served for several years as a state commissary of provisions, as county lieutenant of Monongalia and Harrison counties, successively, and as a trustee of Randolph Academy (Journals of the Council of State, III, 6, 335, 355, 470; Calendar of Virginia State Papers, IV, 177, 410; V, 414; , XII, 639).
4. Militia of Monongalia County, led by Colonel Thomas Gaddis (1742–1834), garrisoned Fort Liberty (the present town of West Liberty, Ohio County, W. Va.) during the last four months of 1776, and shared in the McIntosh and William Crawford campaigns against the western Indians in 1778 and 1782, respectively. Gaddis, a resident of Uniontown, lived in a portion of Monongalia County which, in 1784, would be relinquished by Virginia to Pennsylvania and become a part of its Westmoreland County. In 1794, as a distiller, Gaddis participated in the Whiskey Rebellion (Journals of the Council of State, I, 348; John H. Gwathmey, Historical Register of Virginians in the Revolution, p. 293; H. R. McIlwaine, ed., Official Letters of Virginia Governors, I, 109 n.).