Lord Dunmore's War/Daniel Boone

Lord Dunmore's War

Cornelius served in the militia during Lord Dunmore's War on the Shawnee Indians in 1774.
Virginia The New Dominion , a History From 1607 to the Present by Virginius Dabney  
Relations with the Indians in the area had been relatively peaceful for several years. Then in 1773 and 1774 several particularly brutal Indian murders of white settlers, including women and children, occurred. The whites struck back. This involved the wiping out of the entire family of the famous Cayuga Chief Logan, although Logan himself survived.

Relations with the Indians had become so tense, and there was so much violence along the frontier that Governor Dunmore ordered Col. Andrew Lewis in 1774 to raise a thousand men from the Valley and southwest and march to the Ohio River for a confrontation withe the redskins. Dunmore said he would raise an equal number from the colony's northern counties and join him. "Dunmore's War" had begun.

Andrew Lewis was the son of John Lewis, a Scotch-Irishman who had fled from Ireland to Augusta County after slaying his Irish landlord in self-defense. Andrew Lewis was a hard-fighting frontiersman, over six feet tall, strongly knit and an ideal leader for this type of warfare.

The men of the Valley and southwest came for the most part from modest homes. The regions beyond the mountains did not lend themselves to tobacco growing--hemp was the principal crop there at the period--so that slaves were nothing like so necessary or so numerous as in Piedmont and Tidewater Virginia. Mansions such as Lee's Stratford were non-existent. "Not half the homes had kitchen utensils, only about a third had beds, and only one family in six had chairs or tables. A few of these semi-frontiersmen evidenced a fondness for fine clothes although buckskin and coarse cloth made up the usual attire."

Over 800 of these rugged frontiersmen who had staked out their claims in the wilderness and were ready to fight to protect them, met at Camp Union, on the site of today's Lewisburg, West Virginia, under the command of Col. Andrew Lewis and on call of Gov. Dunmore. Known to the Shawnees as "the Long Knives," they marched in 19 days 160 miles over mountains, through forests and across rivers to Point Pleasant at the confluence of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers. There were 11 companies from Augusta County, 7 from Fincastle, 8 from Botetourt County and the rest scattered.

At Point Pleasant the hardy backwoodsmen with the deadly rifles met the Shawnee wariors under the great Chief Cornstalk. In an all day battle on Oct. 10, 1774, the "Long Knives," led by the intrepid and resourceful Col. Andrew Lewis, defeated the Shawnees. Both sides sustained heavy losses, but the Indians were driven across the Ohio.

It was one of the most decisive victories for the whites in the annals of Indian warfare, since the frontier was thereby stabilized for some 3 years, enabling the Americans to concentrate against the British instead of the Indians. The victory also had the effect not only of virtually eliminating the royal Proclamation Line of 1763 but also the Quebec Act of 1774, both of which were intended seriously to hamper Virginia 's penetration of the western region.
 
Cornelius Roberts was a member of Capt. David Looney's Company, one of the 7 companies from Fincastle County. Below are listed some of the men who served in this Company, the length of days they were part of the company, and the amount paid them.

Soldiers of Fincastle County Virginia 1774 by Mary Kegley
Capt. David Looney's Company NameServed for…Paid Pounds, Shillings, PenceDaniel Boone, Lieut40 daysPaid 15-0-0Jno. Anderson, Ensign61 daysPaid 18-6-0David Cox35 daysPaid 18-6-0Enoch Osborne35 daysPaid 4-7-6Joseph Blackmore42 daysPaid 3-3-0Edward Boackmore39 daysPaid 2-18-6Samuel Cowan40 daysPaid 3-0-0Israel Boone40 daysPaid 3-0-0Jno. Anderson36 daysPaid 2-14-0David Cowan40 daysPaid 3-0-0James Anderson40 daysPaid 3-0-0William Roberts49 daysPaid 3-13-6David Roberts49 daysPaid 3-13-6Henry Roberts35 daysPaid 2-12-6William Anderson25 daysPaid 1-17-6Jno. Cox Senr.24 daysPaid 1-16-0James Ward35 daysPaid 2-12-6Ephraim Osborn35 daysPaid 2-12-6Edward Williams35 daysPaid 2-12-6Stephen Osborne35 daysPaid 2-12-6Isaac Veaver35 daysPaid 2-12-6Thomas Hash35 daysPaid 2-12-6William Vaughan35 daysPaid 2-12-6Ezekiel Young35 daysPaid 2-12-6John Colin35 daysPaid 2-12-6Deswell Rogers29 daysPaid 2-3-6Jno Rice29 daysPaid 2-3-6James Walling29 daysPaid 2-3-6Joseph Walling29 daysPaid 2-3-6George Jones29 daysPaid 2-3-6Micajah Bunch29 daysPaid 2-3-6Thomas Walling29 daysPaid 2-3-6William Roberts29 daysPaid 2-3-6Cornelius Roberts29 daysPaid 2-3-6

If the men met at Camp Union and marched 19 days to Point Pleasant, fought a one day battle, and then marched back to Camp Union, they would have been involved at least 39 or 40 days in the expedition. Most of the men served 39 or more days indicating that was their participation in Dunmore's War. However, Cornelius served only 29 days. A number of the others in the company also served less than 39 days. It is not certain whether this means they did not participate in the battle. It might mean that they traveled on their own to the battle site.

Based upon the way the men are listed in the company, groups of men from different areas must have signed on at the same time and served the same number of days. Cornelius Roberts is listed next to eight other men who served 29 days. Just before this group of men who served 29 days is another group who served 35 days (except for Edward Morgan who served 21 days). The great majority of the men in this company cannot be identified as settlers of the Elk Creek area of Grayson County. However the men on the list beginning with James Ward and ending with John Collins all served 35 days except for Edward Morgan and all except Charles Roach can be identified as Grayson County/Elk Creek sett1ers. Immediately after this group is the group including Cornelius Roberts who served 29 days, and they also are all from the Grayson County/Elk Creek area. Specifically Wells Ward, probably related to James Ward was on Saddle Creek; the Hash family was on Bridle Creek/ Saddle Creek; William Vaughan was on Elk Creek; Ezekiel Young was on Grassy Creek/Fox Creek; John Collins was on Brush Creek; George Jones was on Knob Fork of Elk Creek. The Walling and the Doswell Rogers family lived close to Cornelius Roberts in Henry Count VA area and were in Elk Creek area They intermarried with the John Roberts and William Roberts families who were probably brothers of Cornelius Roberts. John Rice family married into the Walling family. Isaac Veaver/Weaver is on the tithable list of Cornelius Roberts. A few other scattered names in the Looney Company can be connected with the Grayson County area. The Cox family represented on this list by John Cox, one of the Lieutenants; David Cox; and John Cox Sr. were on the same tithable list as Cornelius Roberts. Enoch Ephraim, and Stephen Osborne lived on Saddle Creek in same area as the Hash family. Members of the Anderson family lived in Grayson County. Nancy Anderson, very likely daughter of one of these families, married Jesse Roberts who was related in some way to Cornelius Roberts.

One other interesting fact about the David Looney Company is that one of the Lieutenants was Daniel Boone. This was the famed Daniel Boone who explored and settled Kentucky, and his son Israel Boone also appears on the list. He lived on the Yadkin River in North Carolina, but he lived in southwest Virginia for a short time on the Clinch River.
The Boone Family, p 570  
The Bryan party numbering 40 men, some of them from the Valley of Virginia and Powell's Valley, were not to be accompanied by their families. But Boone and the other men of the upper Yadkin took with them their wives and children, most of whom sold their farms, as did Boone. Arranging to meet the Bryan contingent in Powell's Valley, Boone's party left for the West on Sept. 25, 1773. Proceeding on their journey they were not molested until the 10th of Oct. 1773 when they were approaching a pass in the mountains called Cumberland Gap; the young men, who were engaged in driving the cattle had fallen in the rear of the main body, were assailed by a party of Indians and six of their number were killed, including James Boone, the eldest son of Daniel Boone. This so discouraged the company that all, except Boone and his family, returned to their former homes, while Boone and his family retraced their steps 40 miles and stopped at Blackmore's Fort on the Clinch River in the southwestern part of Virginia. In the autobiography dictated by Daniel Boone to John Filson and published in 1784, Boone says: "I remained with my family on Clinch until the 6th of June 1774 when I and one Michael Stoner were solicited by Gov. Dunmore of Virginia to go to the falls of the Ohio to conduct into the settlements a number of surveyors that had been sent thither by him some months before. We immediately complied with the Governor 's request, and conducted in the surveyors, completing a tour of 800 miles through many difficulties, in 62 days. Soon after I returned home, I was ordered to take the command of 3 garrisons during the campaign which Gov. Dunmore carried on against the Shawanese Indians; after the conclusion of which, the militia was discharged from each garrison.
 
The facts are that Daniel Boone was a lieutenant in this company and not the captain. Perhaps a "garrison" was a subdivision of the company. Boone and his family lived at or near Blackmore's Fort. On the David Looney List appear the names of Joseph Blackmore and Edward Blackmore.

The presence of Daniel Boone in the company of Cornelius Roberts is particularly interesting since a little over two years later, in 1777, a son was born to Cornelius Roberts and named Daniel Roberts. No facts have been found to show that Cornelius Roberts was related to any Daniel Roberts in Virginia. It seems highly likely that he named his son after Daniel Boone who surely was already a famous and well known person by 1777.

William, David and Henry Roberts were another Roberts family who lived in what is now Scott County Virginia close to the Hawkins County Tennessee line. No relationship has yet been found between them and Cornelius Roberts.

Samuel Cowan and David Cowan are on this list. The Cornelius Roberts family were involved in records with Andrew Cowan in Russell County Virginia.

As the last paragraph from the Virginia history points out, the outcome of the battle of Point Pleasant enabled the settlers to move into southwest Virginia in greater numbers and probably was the main factor in the Virginia Assembly's law which allowed any person who had "bona fide" settled in the area prior to June of 1776 to obtain a warrant for 400 acres.

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