Daniel Cameron (bef. 1764 - 1781)

Descendants

Died 1781 after age 17 in Tucker County, Virginia

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Biography

The Settlements of Tucker County.

In 1781 Virginia had begun issuing patents for land west of the Alleghanies. Before that date the settlers had no legal titles to it, except so much title as a "tomahawk right," or "corn right" might give them.

In April of that year John Minear, Andrew Miller, Salathel Goff, Daniel Cameron and Jacob Cooper went to Clarksburg to meet the land commissioners and obtain patents. While returning and just before crossing the Valley River below Philippi, and half a mile above the mouth of Hacker Creek, they were fired upon by Indians in ambush near the trail. The savages had hung a leather gun-case over the path to attract attention, and it had the desired effect. The men halted and Minear, suspecting the truth, exclaimed, "Indians!" and wheeled his horse in the narrow path. At that moment the Indians fired, and he fell. Cameron and Cooper were also killed. Salathiel Goff and Andrew Miller sprang from their horses and fled, both hotly pursued. Miller ran up the hill, and Goff toward the river.

...

When news of the tragedy reached St. George, David Minear with a dozen men proceeded to the place and buried the dead. Many years afterward some men who were digging in that vicinity exhumed the bones of the three men. A very old man was present who had been acquainted with Minear and Cameron, and he identified the skeletons by the teeth. Minear had two front teeth missing. So had one of the skulls. Cameron chewed tobacco and his teeth were worn short. So were they in one of the skulls. The bones were reinterred in a grave between a white-oak tree and the foot of the hill, and was marked by plain stones. The stump of this tree is yet to be seen. The oak was spared many years after the land about it was cleared, because it marked the graves; and also the spot where the Indians lay in the root-hole when they fired.^[1]

[See accompanying drawing of the scene of the ambush.]

He passed away before 1781.

Sources

1. ↑ Maxwell, Hu. The History of Barbour County, West Virginia. Morgantown, WV.: Acme Publishing Company, 1899. Print.

• https://www.wvgenweb.org/pleasants/obitsi.htm

The Four Goff Brothers of Western Virginia: A New Perspective on Their Lives by Phillip G. Goff, Roy L. Lockhart (pp. 18, 34)

The History of Barbour County, West Virginia: From Its Earliest Exploration to the Present Time by Hu Maxwell (p. 182)