ance to the poor people that have left their plantations? I wish they had not been seized with such panic as prevented their resisting the few enemies that appeared in your county." At the date of this letter Colonel Patton was in his grave.
Foote's Sketches of Virginia, second series, contain a long account of the circumstances attending the death of Colonel Patton, and of the captivity and escape of Mrs. Mary Ingles. Dr. John P. Hale, of Kanawha, a descendant of Mrs. Ingles, in his work called "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers,"[1] gives a still fuller and, doubtless, more accurate account, and we shall mainly follow the latter.
Thomas Ingles, says Dr. Hale, came from Ireland when a widower, with his three sons, William, Matthew, and John, and settled first in Pennsylvania. According to tradition, he, in 1744, accompanied by his son, William, then a youth, made an excursion into the wilds of Southwest Virginia, going as far as New river. On this occasion, it is supposed, he became acquainted with Colonel James Patton. The latter then or soon afterward held a grant from the British crown of 120,000 acres of land west of the Blue Ridge, at that time Augusta county, but in the present counties of Botetourt, Montgomery, &c. The old town of Pattonsburg, on James river, in Botetourt, was called for him, and the opposite town of Buchanan was so named for his son-in-law, Colonel John Buchanan.
During the same excursion, probably, the Ingleses for the first time encountered the Draper family, who had settled on James river, at Pattonsburg. This family consisted of George Draper, his wife, and his two children, John and Mary. While living at Pattonsburg, George Draper went out hunting, and was never heard of again. About the year 1748 the Ingleses, Drapers, Adam Harman, Henry Leonard and James Burke, removed from James river and settled near the present town of Blacksburg, in Montgomery county, calling the place Draper's Meadows, since known as Smithfield.
In April, 1749, the house of Adam Harman was raided by Indians, but, as far as appears, no murders were perpetrated. This is said to have been the first depredation by Indians on
- ↑ For the opportunity of reading some sheets of this work in advance of its publication, we are indebted to Major Jed. Hotchkiss.
