He is said to have committed some offence, in the upper part of South Carolina, which rendered him obnoxious to the laws of that colony, and to evade the punishment for which, he had fled to the wilderness and taken up his abode in it.
Lewis Wetzel, the son of a German settler on Wheeling Creek, some fourteen miles above its mouth, was born about 1764. He and his brothers Martin, Jacob, John, and George became famous in border warfare after the close of the Revolution; the annals of the frontier abound in tales of their hardy achievements. Martin and Lewis were the heroes of most remarkable escapes from Indian captivity; John was also famous as an Indian fighter; and Jacob’s name will ever be connected with the exploits of that other great border scout, Simon Kenton. But of all the brothers, Lewis achieved the widest celebrity, and two biographies of him have been published: by Cecil B. Hartley (Phila., 1860), and by R. C. V. Meyers (Phila., 1883).––R. G. T.
Now Shenandoah.
The northern wing was composed of men from Frederick, Berkeley, and Dunmore (afterwards Shenandoah) counties, and Col. Adam Stephen was placed in command. With this wing went Lord Dunmore and Major John Connolly. Counting the forces already in the field under Maj. Angus McDonald and Capt. William Crawford, this levy numbered some twelve hundred men. Among them, as scouts, were George Roger Clark, Simon Kenton, and Michael Cresap.––R. G. T.
Lewis was colonel of the militia of Botetourt county. Camp Union (so called because several bodies of troops met there) was on the Big Savannah or Great Levels of Greenbrier River; the town of Lewisburg now occupies the site.
In Dunmore’s letter to Andrew Lewis, dated July 12, he directed him to raise a sufficient body of men, and proceeding to the mouth of the Great Kanawha there erect a fort; if he deemed best he was to cross the Ohio, proceed directly to the Indian towns, and destroy their crops and supplies; in any event he was to keep communication open between Fort Wheeling and Fort Dunmore (Pittsburg). It is evident that his lordship then contemplated no separate expedition of his own, for he talks of sending Major Angus McDonald’s party and a new levy to Lewis’s assistance. But he changed his mind, and August 30 wrote to Lewis directing that the latter meet him at the mouth of the Little Kanawha. Lewis replied through Col. William Preston that it was now too late to change his plans; he should proceed at once with the levy just summoned, to the mouth of the Great Kanawha, and there await further orders.––R. G. T.