THE PIKE COUNTY LINVILLES come down in a direct line of descent from the founders of Bryan's Station, scene of
the memorable Indian siege in August, 1782, when the women of the stockade, led by Jemima Johnson, went out to
the savage-haunted spring for water. The Linville family was closely related with the Boones and Bryans of early
Kentucky and North Carolina. They lived in the Boone and Bryan settlement on the Yadkin. In many a tragic Indian
encounter they were with the Boones and Bryans. They were intermarried with both families.
John Linville, early kinsman of the Pike county Linville of that name, fell with his father, William Linville,
in an Indian attack in the Blue Ridge Mountains, ten miles below Linville Falls, in 1766. Nancy, known also as
Ann (Anne) Linville, a sister of John, married George Boone, son of Squire and Sarah (Morgan) Boone and a brother
of Daniel Boone. They were children of William and Elinor or Ellender (Bryan) Linville, members of the Linville
and Bryan families who came early from Virginia to Yadkin. More of the Linville story will be released in another
chapter.
Bryan's Station was settled in March, 1776, by William Bryan and his three brothers, Joseph, Morgan and James.
William Bryan was a brother-in-law of Daniel Boone, having married Daniel's sister, Mary Boone, in Rowan county,
North Carolina, and was an uncle of Rebecca Bryan Boone, the wife of Daniel. It is both claimed and disputed that
Mary Boone was twice married; one claim being that she was married to James Lewis, ancestor of the Pike county
Lewises, before she was married to William Bryan. The founders of Bryan's were sons of Morgan and Martha (Strode)
Bryan.
In 1776, the Bryan brothers staked a settlement 16 miles north of Daniel Boone's fort at Boonesborough, on the
north fork of the Elkhorn, five miles northeast of present Lexington, in Fayette county, Kentucky; here they cleared
60 acres, planted the ground to corn, and leaving two men to look after the crop returned to North Carolina, expecting
to take their families out the following fall; but the Cherokees, warring against the Virginia and North and South
Carolina frontiers, prevented them from returning to Kentucky until April 1779.
At Bryan's, in 1779, Colonel William Bryan and his Brothers erected a small fort, put in a corn crop, and again
returned to North Carolina to get their families, leaving several, including Colonel Samuel Bryan and William Grant,
with their respective families, to protect the fort. One of Colonel Samuel Bryan's daughters married Morgan Linville,
a brother of John, Nancy and Mayhew or Jayhew Linville, the latter name being found repeated in the name of the
paternal grandfather of Ross and Glenn Linville of Pittsfield. William Grant, another left in charge at Bryan's,
was also a brother-in-law of Daniel Boone, he having married Elizabeth, a sister of Daniel. James Thompson, great
grandfather of the present writer, was a frequent visitor in the Grant home and was reputed to have courted Betsy
Grant, Elizabeth Boone's daughter. He and Joseph Boone, a son of Edward and Mary (Bryan) Boone, were both wounded
in St. Clair's defeat, in the wild Ohio county, in 1795, and, for three days, concealed in a thicket, nursed each
other's wounds until finally rescued by an expedition from old Fort Jefferson.
In the summer of 1779, William Bryan and his brothers, Joseph, Morgan and James and their family and a number of
their neighbors all emigrated from the Yadkin to Kentucky and settled at Bryan's Station. Collins' History of Kentucky,
Volume 2, Page 168, says: "Bryan's Station, about five miles northeast of Lexington, was settled by the Bryans
in 1779. In 1781, Bryan's Station was much harassed by small parties of Indians. This was a frontier post and greatly
exposed to the hostilities of the savages. It was settled in 1779 by four brothers from North Carolina, one of
whom, William, had married a sister of Daniel Boone."
In the spring of 1780, Indians killed a son of Colonel William Bryan (this son was also named William) and in the
same spring killed also old Colonel Richard Callaway, whose two daughters, Elizabeth and Frances, had been captured
by the Indians, along with Daniel Boone's daughter, Jemima, in July, 1776. In May, 1780, Colonel William Bryan
himself was killed by the Indians while out hunting with eleven other men from the station in quest of meat for
their families. The Bryans then left Kentucky in August, 1780, returning to North Carolina, where they stayed until
the Indian troubles had subsided. When Edward Boone (Boone ancestor of the Pike county Elledges and one branch
of the Scholls) was killed and scalped by Indians in October, 1780, a party of men from several Kentucky stations
was formed to bring in Edward's son-in-law, Peter Scholl, brother of Abraham Scholl, pioneer at Griggsville, and
uncle of the Peter Scholl who in 1848 married Eliza Jane Coleman in Pike county, she being buried in Pittsfield
Oakwood (South) cemetery and he in Seaborn burying ground on the north edge of South Prairie in north Pike county.
The foregoing facts relating to the founding of Bryan's are drawn chiefly from Jesse Procter Crump's story of Daniel
Boone, contributed to Mrs. Spraker's wonderful book on the Boone family. Mr. Crump is a descendant of the Scholls.
On the night of August 15, 1782, Bryan's Station was surrounded by a body of hostile Indians, estimated at six
hundred in number, led by the notorious renegade, Simon Girty. As we have seen in the preceding chapter, Bryan's
was one of the few forts erected without a spring or well within its walls. The water supply had to be brought
from a spring some distance from the stockade and at the edge of the thicket which was known to be swarming with
savages in war paint. It was then the women and children went out to the spring in full sight of the savages and
procured enough water to see the garrison through the ensuing siege, the Indians being deceived by the nonchalance
of the women and allowing them to return to the fort in the hope of taking the place by surprise a little later
when the men went out to the fields.
With the clanging of the stockade gates behind the returning heroic women and children, the Indians, realizing
they had been tricked, with a wild whoop began the attack. Says H. Addington Bruce, in a graphic word-picture:
"Out of the cornfield, out of the weeds and grass, sprang the Indians, leaping like panthers up the long hill,
whooping and hallooing, and bearing in their midst the flaming torch, dread instrument of the destruction that
would ensue if they broke through the stockade.
"Nearing the station, the entire mass of Indians converged towards the stockade gate. On they came, rapidly
on, while the settlers, silent as death, grimly set their lips and waited."
There, in that grim line, were Zachariah Allen, Abraham Scholl (then a youth of 18), and one other Pike countian
who is not fully identified but who, in the opinion of Abraham Key Wilson of Lincoln, Nebraska, a descendant of
the Scholls, was probably Matthew or Marshall Key (a relative of Francis Scott Key), who, in 1825, brought his
family from Kentucky to the present Griggsville neighborhood, along with the Abraham Scholls.
Undoubtedly, in one of the rude cabins behind that waiting line was Dinah Boone, destined three days later to give
birth to Jonathan Boone Allen, early Pike county settler and a Pike county soldier in the Black Hawk war. In another
cabin, in a rough-hewn crib, lay the infant son of Jemima Johnson, destined 31 years later to lead the Kentuckians
in that wild charge on the River Thames, when the famous Indian chieftain, Tecumseh, fell; this slumbering infant
at Bryan's, later Colonel Richard M. Johnson, being the hero of a rude couplet once in vogue in many an American
schoolyard, running,
"Rumpsey, Dumpsey, hickory Crumpsey,
Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh."
Continuing his story of the battle, Bruce says:
"Still nearer they came. Then, at a hoarse word of command, a deadly volley flashed from every port-hole.
Casting their rifles aside, and snatching others from the hands of their wives and daughters, the settlers fired
again. Through the smoke could be heard howls of amazement, wrath and pain, and when the air had cleared, not an
Indian was to be seen, save those who had been laid low by the garrison's bullets."
Leading the Indians on this occasion was Simon Girty, cruelest of the border scourges, the man who had taunted
and laughed at Captain Crawford as he perished slowly in two hours of terrible torment at the stake forty miles
northeast of the log village of Columbus, Ohio, where at the time dwelt Michael Fisher, Sr., grandfather of the
late Michael Fisher of Bee Creek, in whose home Fisher Petty of Highland was reared.
Girty, gaining a point of vantage, shouted to the little garrison to surrender, attempting to frighten them with
tall tales of iron cannon that were being brought up to batter down the log walls. Cannon, except in the suddenly
abandoned campaign wherein the blockhouses at Ruddle's and Martin's had fallen in the fall of 1780, had not yet
been used against the rude Kentucky stockades, none of which would have stood against even the smallest of such
weapons. The difficulties of the rough wilderness trails had so far prevented the dragging of even small cannon
into the interior regions. There was, however, the constant danger of such weapons being brought against the rude
defenses.
Girty had no sooner finished his shouted threat of cannons than there leaped upon the log parapet in full view
of the amazed attackers a young man with a ready tongue by the name of Aaron Reynolds, great grandfather of Frank
Lindsey of Milton, who, as quoted by Stewart Edward White, let loose upon the renegade the following linguistic
volley:
"You ask if we do not know you, " he shouted. "Know you! Yes, we know you too well. Know Simon Girty!
Yes! He is the renegade, cowardly villain, who loves to murder women and children, especially those of his own
people. Know Simon Girty! Yes! His father was a panther and his dam a wolf. I have a worthless dog that kills lambs.
Instead of shooting him, I have named him Simon Girty. You expect cannon, do you? Cowardly wretches like you would
not dare touch them off if you had them. Even if you could batter down our pickets. I, for one, hold your people
in too much contempt to discharge rifles at them. I have been roasting a number of hickory switches with which
we mean to whip your cut-throats out of the country."
With a laugh he ducked out of sight just in time to escape a hundred bullets from fiends goaded to a frenzy.
Through the night of August 16, the savages assailed fiercely, attempting again and again with blazing arrows and
torches to fire the cabin roofs. Again and again they were repulsed. They knew, too, that Reynolds had spoken the
truth. They knew that the other settlements would be arming and would soon be upon them. The fleetest runners had
been sent out at the first news of Indians secreted in the thickets, and already one small party of horsemen who
had gone out from Lexington had been encountered by a runner and had broken through the Indian investment and reached
the fort. The Indians' first assault having failed, they knew they had shot their bolt and on the morning of August
17 they withdrew, much angered by their failure.
Prior to the attack on Bryan's we find White's hero, Reynolds, the "man with the ready tongue," in the
militia command of one Captain Patterson. In this command he is known as a good-hearted and active fellow but a
"very profane swearing man." There is no information as to how religious Captain Patterson was, but the
backwoods leaders of those days as a rule were not particularly squeamish. Therefore, it must have been a somewhat
aggravated case when at the end of four days Captain Patterson decided to make Reynolds tone down his swearing
or send him home. The captain waited until Reynolds was in full swing, then called him down hard in public. Next
day Reynolds was as bad as ever. Again Captain Patterson enforced military discipline, not only by a more severe
scolding but by promising Reynolds a bottle of rum if "he immediately quit his profanity and swearing."
Four days later, the expedition on which they were engaged having ended, Reynolds demanded his quart. Captain Patterson
was doubtful that Reynolds had abstained from profanity for four full days but Reynolds appealed to the company
which was drawn up at parade. To a man they said they had not heard Reynolds cuss a solitary cuss, since he was
rebuked. "Then," says the chronicler, "the spirits were drank."
Among the participants at the battle of the Blue Licks three days after the assault on Bryan's were both the "profane
swearing man," Reynolds, and his old commander, Captain Patterson, with whom he had clashed on the occasion
which happily culminated when "the spirits were drank." When the rout of the whites began, Captain Patterson
could not find his horse, and, still suffering from unhealed wounds sustained in an earlier engagements with the
Indians, soon became exhausted in trying to escape on foot. Just as he had given up all hope, young Reynolds leaped
his horse over intervening obstacles to his side, dismounted, and without a by-your-leave, bundled the captain
into the saddle. Before Captain Patterson realized what was going on he was dashing into the river, being actually
the last man to cross; some Indians running alongside were shooting at him, but he escaped without another scratch.
Meantime, according to the White narrative, Reynolds, strong and active, ran and dodged and reached the river (Licking
river) safely, but not at the ford. He was forced to plunge in and swim across. On the other side, after outdistancing
his pursuers, he stopped to wring out his buckskin trousers. The narrator suggests that those who have worn buckskin
will appreciate that necessity; buckskin, when wet, being heavy, clammy and stretching absurdly, so that a garment,
too small when dry, when wet has enough material to supply two men and a boy. Just as he was pulling off his wet
trousers and was tangled up in them, he was pounced upon by two Indians and taken prisoner. But Reynolds was not
at the end of his resources. Watching his chance, he knocked down one of his captors and escaped.
Later, Reynolds and Patterson met, and Patterson of course thanked Reynolds earnestly; at the same time asking
rather curiously why he had taken such desperate chances for the sake of a man with whom he had had nothing but
trouble and difficulty. Reynolds according to the narrator replied that ever since Patterson had made him stop
swearing he had felt a strong affection for him and that he had completely reformed not only his actions but his
ways of thinking. To round out the story, Patterson then gave Reynolds a horse and saddle and a "hundred acres
of prime land." This was the first real property the young man had ever owned. "It," says White,
"and his narrow escape steadied him; he settled down and became a strong and devout church member."
Eventually, descendants of both Reynolds and Patterson came to the region that now is Pike and in the cemeteries
in Montezuma township lie descendants of both. The Pattersons came in a very early day to Missouri and were with
Colonel John Shaw, the great Pike county pioneer, in the Indian wars on the Missouri frontier in 1812-15. John
Shaw and John Patterson, kinsman of the Kentucky captain, were among the first to reach the scene of massacre at
James O'Neil's cabin, near the site of present Clarksville, in 1812. It will be remembered that while Shaw, Patterson,
O'Neil and others were building a stockade on the site of present Clarksville, Indians came and murdered, mangled
and scalped O'Neil's family, including his wife and nine children, one, a baby just old enough to toddle, being
baked alive in the Dutch oven in the cabin fireplace. John Patterson was also with Colonel Shaw in the famous battle
of the Sink-Hole in 1814, when occurred the bloody encounter with Black Hawk, so graphically described by John
Shaw in earlier chapters of this history. It will be recalled that John Shaw related that in this battle of the
Sink-Hole John Patterson was shot in the thigh.
The Pattersons, at a later date, settled in Pike county, Illinois. On a stone in Green Pond cemetery, adjacent
to the burying plot of many of Boone kin and Kentucky lineage, in this inscription: "John Patterson, Consort
of Hannah Patterson — Died Oct. 23, 1862 — Age 70 yrs. 6 mos. 16 days." Other Pattersons, Samuel, Stephen
and William, also are buried there.
Stewart Lindsey, son of Robert, who married a daughter of Aaron Reynolds, came to the Boone Allen settlement in
Detroit in early times. Stewart married Mary Hays, and they had ten children, namely, Falissa A., John W., Newton
J., James, Oscar, Mary, Samuel, Robert, Charles and Frank. Only the last three are living; Frank Lindsey lives
in Milton village at the age of 77; Charles, paralyzed, is in Alabama; Robert, 83, is an undertaker in Kansas City,
Mo. They are great grandsons of Aaron Reynolds. Four of Aaron's Pike county great grandsons were soldiers in the
Civil War. Samuel, one of them, was a prisoner at Andersonville, where he contracted a disease that caused his
death.