Jane (Logan) McKee (1730 - 1763)

Born 1730 in Cumberland, Adams, Pennsylvania

Ancestors

Wife of John McKee Sr. — married 29 Jan 1744 in Cumberland, Adams, Pennsylvania

Descendants

Died 17 Jul 1763 at about age 33 in Kerrs Creek, Rockbridge Co., Virginia

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Biography

"The McKees of Virginia and Kentucky" written in 1891 by George Wilson McKee. contains the family Bible records of John McKee on p. 124.

John McKee, born in 1707. John McKee married first Jane Logan 29 January 1744 children: Mary b. 11 June 1746 Miriam b. 27 September 1747 William b. 18 February 1750 d. 28 July 1752 James Logan b. 14 March 1752 Robert b. 4 March 1754 John b. 17 December 1756 d. 24 August 1761 William b. 28 February 1759 David b. 25 December 1760 Jane Logan died 17 July 1763. Married second Rosannah Cunningham 12 December 1765. Child: John b. 27 October 1771

McKee, George Wilson, "The McKees of Virginia and Kentucky", Pittsburgh, PA: L.B. Richards, 1891, p. 124.

First wife, Jane Logan was killed in an Indian attack in Kerrs Creek, Rockbridge Co. Virginia.

Fifty-five-year-old John McKee and his pregnant wife Jenny didn't go to Cunningham's after the initial warnings of Indian attacks. They sent their children to safety at Timber Ridge before the attack, planning to join them later. When the attack came, John and heavily pregnant Jenny ran for the woods, but when Jenny faltered McKee kept running. An Indian stopped to knock Jenny in the head with the blunt end of his tomahawk and continued after McKee who made "a short angle" in a thicket and zigzagged through the trees until he found a hiding place. Still conscious, Jenny crawled into a sink hole and bound her head with a handkerchief before dying unscalped.

Children Listed in Findagrave.com

1. Mary McKee Weir 1746–1822
2. Miriam McKee McKee 1747–1797
3. William McKee 1750–1752
4. James Logan McKee 1752–1832
5. Robert McKee 1754–1812
6. John McKee 1756–1761
7. William McKee 1759–1835

Sources

• https://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:Jane_Logan_%282%29
• https://longmorgan.blogspot.com/2019/04/jane-logan-mckee.html
• Source: P1QX-RV (LDS)
• http://www.irafears.com/allindividuals/pafg462.htm#11227
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/38021211/jane-mckee McKee Cemetery in Rockbridge Co., Virginia.
• Family source

According to the Annals of Augusta County, Virginia, from 1726 to 1871, by Joseph A. Waddell,1902, pages 172, 211-12, "Leaving the site of old Millborough, the savages passed over Mill mountain at a low place still called the "Indian Trail." Coming on the waters of Bratton's Run, they crossed the North Mountain, where it is now crossed by the road leading from Lexington to the Rockbridge Alum Springs, and where there is a large heap of stones, supposed to have been piled up by Indians. From this point they had a full view of the peaceful valley of Kerr's creek. Hastening down the mountain, they began the work of indiscriminate slaughter...." They visit and demise the families of Charles Daugherty, Jacob Cunningham,Thomas Gilmore, Robert Hamilton then to the McKees. "A single Indian pursued John McKee and his wife as they were flying from their house. By the entreaty of his wife, McKee did not wait for her, and she was overtaken and killed. He escaped. His six children had been sent to the home of a friend on Timber Ridge, on account of some uneasiness, caused probably by the report about the naked man."

Oren F. Morton's A History of Rockbridge Co., VA, 1920, page 70-71 says "Meanwhile the house of John McKee was attacked and Mrs. McKee was killed. There are differing accounts of this incident. According to Alexander Bane. Mr. McKee started with his wife and a dog to reach a wooded hill. Their children were at Timber Ridge. Because of her condition, Mrs. McKee was unable to walk fast, and she insisted that her husband should go on and effect his own escape. Before doing so, he hid her in a sinkhole filled with bushes and weeds, but the barking dog betrayed the place of concealment. After the redskins had gone on, she was taken to the house, where she soon died. This statement is challenged by the author of The McKees of Virqinia and Kentucky. He construes it as a reflection on John McKee's courage and his duty to his wife. He says that some of the settlers did not like this pioneer for his bluntness and that they set afloat a garbled version of the facts. The author of the hook prefers to believe that John McKee had gone to a neighbor's to look after some sick children, and finding on his return that his wife was scalped, he took her to the house. Be this as it may, the murder could not have occurred in the first raid, as some statements affirm. The family Bible gives July 17, 1763, as the date of Mrs. McKee's death. We must now return to the assemblage at Big Spring. A number of the people of the valley were attending a meeting at Timber Ridge, the day being Sunday. Those gathered at Cunningham's were in a field, saddling their horses in great haste, in order to join their friends at the meeting house. The secreted foe seized the coveted moment to cut them off from the block house. The scene which followed was witnessed by Mrs. Dale from a covert on a high point. When the alarm reached her she mounted a stallion colt that had never been ridden, but which proved as gentle as could be desired. The foe was gaining on her, and she dropped her baby into a field of rye. In some manner she afterwards eluded the pursuers, but was too late to reach the blockhouse. A relief party found the baby lying unhurt where it had been left. Such is the story, but it is more probable that the mother recovered the child herself after the raiders had gone away."

"The Rev. Samuel Brown, in his account of the murder of Jane Logan McKee, says: "She besought her husband to leave her to her fate, and make his own escape, if possible. This he refused to do; when she appealed to him for the sake of their children to leave her. If he stayed, being unarmed, they would both be killed; but if he escaped, their young children would still have a protector. Can we conceive of a more trying condition for a husband?"

"Major Geo W McKee, USA, in his account of the McKee family, printed in 1890, vindicates John McKee from the charge of abandoning his wife as related, while he acquits Mr. Brown of any intention to misrepresent. He publishes other traditions in regards to the matter, which give a different version of the story. The family account of the death of Mrs. McKee is that she was "milking cows some little distance from the house and, when she discovered the Indians, gave the alarm in time to have her house closed, then fled in an opposite direction and jumped into a sinkhole. The Indians, who were in pursuit, overtook and tomahawked and scalped her. She lived, however, about two hours and was found and carried into her house before she expired."

Another version of the story, given by an aged citizen of Kerr's Creek, is as follows: "When John McKee first discovered the Indians approaching, he and his wife, followed by their dog, left their house and endeavored to reach a thickly wooded hill near by. They had not gone far before Jane McKee, who was in a delicate condition and soon to become a mother, became exhausted and begged her husband to leave her to her fate and make his own escape. This he refused to do. Seeing, however, near them a sink-hole surrounded by an almost impenetrable thicket of privet and briar bushes, in a hollow in the field, out of view of the Indians, he placed his wife in this and started to give the alarm to the other settlers down the creek. The Indians were about to abandon the pursuit, when one of them, attracted by the barking of the dog, which had remained with her, discovered Jane McKee's hiding place. She was scalped and left for dead."

"Harry Swisher, who owns the old Laird homestead that previously was the McKee farm, says the old log cabin still exists under the clapboards of a renovated 1910 farmhouse. "The logs are huge," Swisher says, spreading his arms to illustrate early log construction. When he and his family remodeled the old house, they discovered the central log portion. With two rooms up and down, a shallow fireplace and a ladder to a loft, the cabin appeared easily fortified. A small window between the floors allows a view of the hillside behind, and Swisher says from the round top of the hill, the entire valley, with Big Spring, is visible. "I remember my dad saying survivors scrambled up that hill where they could see where the Indians were going. They could hide there," Swisher says. Since the house is up a hollow where U.S. 60 now comes from Lexington, Swisher believes the old house could be the McKee home spoken of in the raid stories."

"John and Jane, or "Jennie" (Logan) McKee had six children whom they'd sent to Timber Ridge for safekeeping. When the alarm sounded through the neighborhood, the McKee's fled their home (one account says up a wooded hillside in back, agreeing with Swisher's father's story). One account says their barking dog gave them away, another said a black servant sounded the alarm with her cries of fright. Mrs. McKee could not run quickly (one account says she expected a child) and John had left the house without his gun. As the Indian pursuit neared the McKee's, Jenny begged John to run on. "Otherwise, our children will have no parents." It's said McKee paused, helping his wife to hide in a sink hole on the Hamilton farm. His parting words were "God bless you, Jinney." It's also said as he looked back from his race, he saw the tomahawk fell his wife. With Indians almost close enough to catch him, and encouraged by his wife's sacrifice, he bounded on. When the Indians gave up chasing him, McKee hid until dark when he returned to find his wife. She lay in the sink hole, having survived long enough to wrap her kerchief around her head wound. He buried her where she lay and wrote her name in the family Bible. John McKee lived to rear his motherless children whose descendants were numerous along Kerrs Creek and in westward expansion. Another account, published in "The McKees of Virginia and Kentucky," related John was at a neighbors tending to some sick children. When he returned home, he found his wife killed and scalped." The 2 previous paragraphs are taken from http://www.werelate.org/wiki/The_Kerr%27s_Creek_Massacres_%281759-1763%29 contributed by various researchers. They are leads of interest, 2-2011.

The McKees of Virginia and Kentucky by George Wilson McKee, page 35 - 54, no longer copyrighted at http://www.archive.org/details/mckeesofvirginia00mcke (PDF) has much data on Jane and John, data from the John McKee bible at the time (before 1891) was in the possession of my kin Okelala B. Dunlap, including details of the 1763 massacre.

LDS film #1036714, #21: McKee: Bible records, 1707-1872, Notes Microfilm of 2 page typescript copied from the Quarterly Bulletin of the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society, donated by Mrs. George Hallgren, Potomac, Maryland.Includes Dunlap, Laird and related families. John McKee married Jane Logan in 1744.

Family links: Spouse: John McKee (1707 - 1792)*

Children: Mary McKee Weir (1746 - 1822)* Miram McKee McKee (1747 - 1797)* James Logan McKee (1752 - 1832)* William McKee (1759 - 1835)*

• Calculated relationship

Burial: McKee Cemetery Rockbridge County Virginia, USA Plot: NO KNOWN MARKER

Created by: LSP Record added: Jun 07, 2009 Find A Grave Memorial# 38021211 History passed down to MarjorieReynolds-1