By Colleen Nelson
Naturalist Arabelle Wheatley stands beside The “Crow Massacre” rock lying sideways along Crow Road. This snapshot was taken in 1979 when Association for Rural Conservation members were documenting historic spots that would be lost if Wheeling Creek were dammed for industrial use.
Crow descendent Gary Murphy doesn’t remember when the big sandstone slab slipped down, or when the names and date were chiseled on it. But he was there when it was moved up the bank to a flat spot as part of a memorial for the three frontier sisters who were massacred here on May 1, 1791.
Historian Andrew Waychoff reports that the raiders are said to have hidden behind it as the sisters walking home after looking in on an ailing neighbor.
This rock was moved in 1993, Gary tells me. “It was paid for by Crown Towing of Washington. Shorty Allison brought his crane and the rock was so big it lay the crane over.”
The extended Crow family, friends and neighbors gathered the next year to remember and plant flags by the plaque that honors Susan, Elizabeth and Catherine. Family history tells us that sister Tena managed to escape and ran home to give warning but no one was captured that day.
It had been nearly 17 years since three members of the Spicer family were murdered on their homestead near big Whitley Creek, Dunkard Township, along with three frontier militiamen.
These killings on June 5, 1774 are reported to be Chief Logan’s first retaliation for the death of his family. Prisoners of war were also taken at the Spicer cabin – 13-year-old Elizabeth and 11-year-old William. According to artfulhistorian.blogspot.com Elizabeth was handed over to Colonel George Wilson later that year on Christmas day in accordance with the treaty Virginia governor Lord Dunmore made with the Mingo to protect British interests on the frontier. But William had been adopted into the tribe and would grow up to fight beside them. As Britain and France vied for territory using indigenous tribes and settlers as proxies and offering bounties for scalps, the Revolutionary War boiled over in the colonies further east. Here in the wildest reaches of western frontier fighting for survival remained a way of life that would only end when the United States asserted itself as a nation and brought home the rule of law.
The attack on the Crow sisters has its own ironic twist. One of the attackers was 28-year-old William Spicer.