George Michael Bedinger: a Kentucky Pioneer

Gc 929.2 B3901d 1914129 REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY GC 3 1833 01203 7666 929.2 B3901D Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center http://www.archive.org/details/georgemichaelbedOOdand George Michael Bedinger: A Kentucky Pioneer By Danske Dandridê ^GgOCb THE MICHIE COMPANY, PRINTERS Charlottesville, Virginia 1909 1914129 „ .-î." .*• ~-.' -•-I ...;.!-• V' • v^^î-':--^"^:- "••'*>• .;:ii/^'-u'-^^-k T ftu Major George Michael Bedinge Copyright 1909 BY DanskE Dandridge TO ALI. THE DDSCKNDANTS OF THE PATRIOT, GEOKCE MlCHAEt< BEDINGER, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK. CONTENTS ^^^'^ CHAPTER . Introduction ^ I. Birth of George; Michmsl Be:dingi<r— Family History 3 II. Early Days in Mecklenburg ... 7 III. The Beginning oe the Revolution . 11 IV. Major G. M. Bedinger in the Revolu- 99 TION -- V. First Visit to Kentucky 35 VI. Life at Boonesboro' 46 VII. Bowman's Campaign 54 VIII. Major BivDinger RivTurns to Civiliza- tion 67 IX. The End of the Revolution ... 78 X. More Adventures in Kentucky . 88 XL The Second Green River Expedition 98 102 XII. The Third Trip to GrEEn RivER . XIII. A Terrible Experience 113 XIV. Home Again 126 XV. The Attack at Sandy Creek . .133 XVI. Major Bj'Dinger in St. Clair's Cam- paign 138 XVII. Early Days in Kentucky 161 WtJlT ai sit IV CONTRNTS XVIII. Letters from Home — Life in Ken- tucky 169 XIX. Family Happenings—Michaee Bedin- GER in Congress 179 XX. The Meeting at Stinson's Spring . 188 XXI. Old Age and Retirement 193 Appendix A. , 216 Appendix B. .228 Major George Michael Bedinger A Kentucky Pioneer INTRODUCTION Thy spirit, Independence, let me share. Lord of the Lion heart and Eagle eye; Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare, Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky. AMONG the papers left by George Michael Bedin- ger of Kentucky, I have fotind this scrap of verse, written, I believe, by his younger brother Daniel. It may be taken as the motto of his adventurous life, and his constant inspiration. This dearly loved brother, Daniel, died in 1818, many years before the death of "Michael," as his family always called Major Bedinger. Daniel was a poet, and he accumulated and absorbed great store of books, wrote much for the periodicals of the day, and lived in ease and prosperity in the town of Norfolk, Virginia, then the home of some of the most cultured gentlemen of the day. Michael, on the contrary, was a frontiersman, an explorer, and a brave soldier, as well as a statesman and a patriot. The bond of affection between him and his brothers was an unusually strong one. Henry, the eldest of the family, was a man of af- fairs, an active, enterprising, and withal a dignified gentleman, honored and respected by all who knew him, watching carefully over the interests of the younger members of the family, of whom he was the acknowledged head. All three of these brothers had 2 GEORGE MICHAEL BEDINGER fought in the Revolution, and were among the bravest of the brave. Two of them were members of the Society of the Cincinnati, and all were officers. I have written this simple account of the life of Michael lledinjêr to endeavor to draw closer the bond which unites the descendants of these brothers; and also because his example must be an inspiration to all who read it. Such were his fidelity to duty, his noble unselfishness of character, and his courage and tender- ness, that no one, I hope and believe, can help derivmg benefit from an acquaintance with him. Therefore, I have endeavored to produce the living man, just as he was, as I have failed to discover an act of his life that one of his descendants could wish to conceal. I desire to express most heartfelt thanks to all who have so kindly aided me in my task. To Mrs. Frances Gibson and her daughter, Miss Zan Gibson, of Charles Town, W. Va. ; to Mrs. Asa Lewis and her brother, of Asheville, N. C. ; to Mr. Henry B. Davenport, of Clay County, W. Va. ; to Miss Olivia Bedinger, of Bakers- field, California; to Miss Virginia Lucas; Mr. Henry B. Swearingen; Mrs. Woodford; Miss Franklin, of Chillicothe, Ohio; and to Miss Lucy Bittinger of Sewickley, Pa., I desire particularly to give expression to my gratitude for their valuable aid in furnishing nie with letters, pai)ers, and information. I am also largely indebted to the labors of the late Dr. Lyman Draper, of Wisconsin, whose manuscripts in the His- torical Library at Madison have been of great value; and to I'ro lessor Reuben C. Thwaites; and to the assistants in the Congressional Library, I also desire to return cordial thanks for all their kind assislnncc. Slicflicrdstnu'u, JV. Va., December 1 1, i(ô8. CHAPTER I Birth of George Michael Bedinger—Family History GEORGE Michael Bedinger was born of German parents on the 10th of December, 1756. His parents, at the time of his birth, lived on their planta- tion in what is now York County, Pennsylvania. He was the third child of Henry Bedinger, and his wife, Magdalene von Schlegel. The oldest son, Henry, was born in 1753. Next came Elizabeth, born in 1755. There were seven other children : Christian and Chris- tina, probably twins, born between the years 1756 and 1760, both of whom died in infancy; Daniel, born in 1761; Jacob, born in 1766; Sarah, born in 1768, and Solomon, the youngest, born in 1770. Elizabeth, the eldest daughter, married Abel Mor- gan, a son of Richard ap Morgan, a gentleman whose family came from Wales to America in the seven- teenth century. Richard Morgan, who belonged to an ancient family of Welsh gentlemen, was one of the first settlers in the neighborhood of Mecklenburg, now called Shepherdstown, a village on the banks of the Potomac, in JefTerson County, West Virginia. Abel Morgan, the husband of Elizabeth, was a physi- cian, and during the Revolution he acted as surgeon to the 8th Pennsylvania. His name is on the list of pris- oners confined on the prison ship Jersey, ofif the Long Island coast. He died early, very probably from the effects of this confinement, and left his widow with five children to rear to maturity. Anna-Maria, called Mary in her father's will, married Colonel Abraham Morgan, a grandson of Richard 4 GEORGE MICHAEIv BEDINGER ap Morgan. He died in Kentucky, leaving many descendants in that State, and some in Mississippi and Tennessee. Sarah, the youngest daughter, married Benoni Swearingen, a friend and comrade-in-arms of the Bedinger brothers. Adam Biidinger, the grandfather of George Michael, emigrated from Alsace to America, possibly by the advice of his friend. Dr. Muhlenberg, a noted Luth- eran divine of the day. Adam, with his wife, and several children, sailed from Rotterdam, in the good ship Samuel, in the summer of 1737, and landed at Philadelphia on the thirtieth of August of that year. Henry, the third son of Adam and his wife, Anna Margarethe Hansknecht, was born in the village of Dorschel or Durstle, as it is variously spelt on maps of Alsace, in the year 1729. Adam appears to have been a man of substance. He took up a large and fertile tract of land on the Cone- wago, in York County, Pennsylvania, and prospered greatly thereon. He married three times and had, in all, ten children. He belonged to a very old family which has givei) the name of Biidingen to two villages in Alsace, and one in Hesse-Cassel. At least one branch of this family was noble. In German works on genealogy we read that "Ludwig of the elder line of the house of Isenberg, who died in 1360, received by his marriage with Hedwig, heiress of the last Dynast, i. e.. Ruler or Chief of Biidingen, the succession into the 'immediate' estates of Biidingen in the Wesseren, which was raised in 1442 to a County." This branch of the Isenberg family is still called Isenberg-Biidingen. Henry Bedinger, the elder brother of George Michael, had an old family seal in his pos- GEORGE MICHAEL BEDINGER 5 session; and his only living grandchild, Mrs. Frances Gibson, of Charles Town, West Virginia, remembers having often played with it when she was a child. This seal bore the arms of Biidingen, a griffin rampant, and, for a crest, the helmet of a knight. The present family of Isenberg-Biidingen quarters this coat of arms with that of the Isenbergs, as any one interested in such matters can find in the pages of the Deutsche Adds Lexicon. The old seal remained in the posses- sion of the family for many years, until the death of Henry Bedinger Davenport, when, on the breaking up of his establishment, it was lost, stolen, or destroyed. The sons of Adam, after their marriages, he estab- lished on plantations near his own. Many reports of the fertility of the Valley of the Shenandoah had reached I'ennsylvania in the latter half of the eighteenth century, and it Is not impossible that settlers emigrated to this part of Virginia even before Governor Spottswood made his memorable ex- cursion to the summit of the Blue Ridge in 1714. The only records th^ first settlers in the Valley have left behind them are found on nearly illegible tomb- stones. By the middle of the century, however, crowds of emigrants from the west eastward, instead of from the east, westward, were, for a time, the order of the day, and the beautiful Valley of Virginia was largely settled by German emigrants from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland.

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