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Sarah Elizabeth Ware was born between 1718 and 1726 in Virginia to Peter Ware and Judith Scott. She was baptized at St. Peter's Parish[1] in New Kent, VA.
In 1746, Sarah married William Todd Livingston. Together, they had 7 children.
After the death of his brother John and other family in King & Queen, Virginia, William bundled Sarah and their children into wagons and headed for the frontier of North Carolina in 1762. He purchased land from John Howard, an inn holder, in Rowan County (316 acres on the north bank of the Yadkin River below Mill Creek, Mulberry Fields and another 40 acres on the Yadkin River at the foot of Brushy Mountain, near Main Mountain). In 1770, William sold said land to John Payne of Goochland County, Virginia, for 160 pounds of Virginia money. At that time, the land had grown to 800 acres on both sides of the Yadkin River, and 400 acres in another tract at the same place.
By then, William & Sarah's sons were growing up and it appears that William sent John and William, Jr., his two oldest boys ahead to purchase land in Virginia at Moccasin Gap. According to Addington (History of Scott County), John Livingston was the first owner of land in Moccasin Gap, and transferred his holdings over to his father in 1774. The same year, another son, Samuel Livingston, settled at the head of Little Moccasin Creek. This was the entrance to the Wilderness Road, often called the Kentucky Trace, which the settlers took into the rich lands of Kentucky.
In 1770, Peter Livingston, another son of William and Sarah's, settled on the north fork of the Holston at the mouth of Livingston's Creek. Fort Blackmore was built to protect the colonists and the Indians, led by Logan and Benge started moving in on the settlers, killing whole families and stealing slaves. In 1777, the Indians stepped up their activities and captured two children at Fort Blackmore and in another raid the same year they captured a woman and her five children. These attacks continued long after William died in 1778 with terrible effects on his family.
After her husband's death, Sarah continued living on the farm with her sons, Peter and Henry, and their families.
In 1794, Benge, the half-breed Indian, attacked the Livingstons to steal their negroes and plunder their home. The account of the attack, given by Elizabeth (Head) Livingston, wife of Peter, has been printed in several books. Sarah lost her life 4 days after being tomahawked on April 6, 1794.
The following is an excerpt from the book "Benge!" written by Dr. Lawrence J. Fleenor, Jr.
April 6, 1794 - The first light of false dawn found Chief Bob Benge of the Chickamauga Cherokee and six warriors resting behind the brow a little hill to the rear of the home of William Todd Livingston. Actually, William Todd had died in 1776 and the plantation was occupied by his widow, Sarah, and two of their sons, Peter and Henry, and their families. In 1784 "certain heirs" had relinquished land of the estate to Peter and in 1786 the son, Samuel, had sold his part of the estate to his brother, Henry, for 65 pounds of sterling. Their brother, William, had gotten land in 1787 across Fugate's Gap from the home place, on Big Moccasin Creek near Fort Houston. Peter and Henry(Harry) were lieutenants in the Holston Militia. A little before ten in the morning Peter and Henry left their houses to go to a barn that was at some distance away. Sarah was working in her garden. Henry's new wife of only three weeks, Susannah, who was called "Sukey", was in an outbuilding with some of Peter and Elizabeth's children. Also within the farm yard were Elizabeth's sister, Sukey, a "wench" with her child, a Negro man belonging to Edward Callihan, and a Negro boy aged eight. Elizabeth, along with her children, aged ten and two and a suckling infant were in the house.
Elizabeth was alarmed by a dog's barking and saw seven frightfully painted Indians come running through the farm yard, and she barred the door to the cabin shut. The Indians tried unsuccessfully to knock the door down, and failing that Benge demanded that she open it. When she did not do so, they fired twice at it, with one ball piercing the door, but doing no damage. Elizabeth then took her husband's double triggered rifle down, and for a time fumbled with the mechanism before she, too, fired blindly through the door. The Indians backed off a little and then set fire to an adjoining old house. After enduring the smoke as long as she and her children could, Elizabeth opened the door and came out. The Indians thought that a man had fired the shot from within the house and were afraid to enter it, and let it burn down instead. Elizabeth was glad to see her possessions go up in smoke rather than to see the Indians have them.
Benge and his war party tomahawked Sarah in her garden. She took four days to die. Also tomahawked were one white child and two colored; one of whom was killed but the other recovered. The Indians rounded up the remainder, which were Elizabeth, the three children who had been with her in the house, Susannah, two Negro men, and one colored woman.
Elizabeth handed her infant to her ten year old, and whispered for her to take it and her two year old to their nearest neighbors, John and Rachael Russell. Rachael was the sister of Vincent Hobbs, Jr. It seemns that the Indians were content to allow the children to slip off. It was so uncharacteristic of all of the past behavior of Benge and his braves. Likely Cavett's station was on their mind. If they had not saved the white children there, then perhaps they could save these. On the other hand, they had just tomahawked three children in the yard of their home.
The Indians made back packs with their plunder, and the party started off. Benge and his captives crossed the North Fork of the Holston and marched westward to just east of Hiltons. This was a circuitous route, but the direct passage throug Fugate Gap would have lead them by Houston's Fort on Big Moccasin Creek, where William Livingstonlived, and where there may have been a militia garrison. Anyway, Benge wanted to raid the homes of James and Abraham Fulkerson near Hiltons. Perhaps the reason was that James was a Major of the 2nd Battalion, 70th Regiment, of the Holston Militia. He had fought at King's Mountain. Five of his sons were either already officers in the militia, or were soon to become so. Perhaps the Fulkersons had been involved in the attacks on the Cherokee towns? Benge's plans were thwarted when the Indians discovered a large party of settlers gathered there for a house raising. Benge could not turn loose of his dream of attacking the Fulkerson home. He waited and watched for a while before he could make his peace with his disappointment before he and his party sneaked by quietly and crossed Clinch Mountain by Hamilton Gap. They made about eight miles that day before camping on Copper Creek.
When Henry and Peter Livingstonsaw the smoke from their burning home, they hurried back and discovered the disaster. The plan to mousetrap Benge that had been organized by Vincent Hobbs, Jr., after Benge's raid of the year before was set in motion. Runners were sent to Copper Creek and collected the militia from Dorton's Fort where Benge's mother had lived with her second husband, William Dorton, Sr., and then went on to the forts at Castlewood. This Russell County Militia included Benge's half brother, William Dorgon, Jr. Some time earlier he had Benge in his rifle sights, and had not shot him, and had to explain to his neighbors that he had not done so because he was Bob Benge's half brother. The Russell County militia's rold was to rush westward past Gist's Station through Pound Gap to the fords on the upper Kentucky River, near present Whitesburg, and to wait in ambush for the war party to pass.
The Livingston brothers joined a militia party lead by an officer named Headand started in direct pursuit of Benge, while a dispatch rider named John Henderson started off for Yoakum's Station. At the same time, a larger party of North Fork militiamen from Benham's Fort including Job Hobbs, a brother of Vincent, started the fifty mile trek to Yoakum's Station.
Before daylight on the seventh, John Henderson rode up to the garrison at Yoakum's Station and alerted the rangers. Court was being held, so many of the militiamen from Turkey Cove were already there. After day break the Benge party left their camp at Copper Creek and started up Copper Ridge, which they descended by way of their secret hideaway cove by the waterfall on Benge's Creek and started down stream, taking care to wade the creek so as to leave no trail. By noon they were crossing the Clinch at McLean's Fish Dam and headed towards the head of Big Stony Creek.
No one would have known where they had passed but for a little girl. Eliza Jane Addington lived on the Clinch near the mouth of Benge's Creek. She saw a wet moccasin print on a stone in the creek and alerted the militia. The Headparty had been scouring the countryside looking for some sign to indicate which way Benge had gone. The process of putting them onto the trail took much of the remainder of the day.
The hard marching party of militiamen from Benham's Fort arrived at Yoakum's Station and coordinated their plans with the Lee County militia.
Benge pushed his party hard, putting distance between them and their expected pursuers. As they passed through the gap in Stone Mountain that Big Stony Creek had carved out on the southern flank of Powell Mountain, they entered the first of several mountain passes that their planned retreat was expected to carry them through. Not till twenty miles had been covered, much of it up the south side of Powell Mountain, did he allow his exhausted party to stop for the night. Camp Rock was the likely site of their camp. It is an outcropping of sandstone with numerous rock houses underneath its ledges. It forms the spine of Powell Mountain at the very site where the old Indian trail connecting the Cherokee in the Smokies with the Shawnee in the Ohio crosses over the divide. The springs that form the head of Big Stony Creek are near by. Benge's Indians felt that they were out of the hornet's nest they had stirred up, and did not even bother to put out either a back spy or sentries.
Either late on the seventh or early on the eighth, Vincent Hobbs, Jr., and a party of militia consisting of men from both the Benham's Fort party and from the Lee County Militia left Yoakum's Station and started for the two passes in Cumberland Mountain that he had found the year before. The party consisted of Vincent Hobbs, Jr. and his brothers Job and Absolum, James Huff, John Benbever, Adam Ely, Samuel Livingston, George Yokum, ____ Dotson, and five others. They followed the Powell River upstream and took its middle fork through Big Stone Gap in Cumberland Mountain to what is now the town of Appalachia.
On the morning of the eighth, Benge allowed his party to rest until the sun was more than an hour high. He no longer felt himself to be in danger, and traveled slowly down the spine of Little Stone Mountain, from where it attached itself to Powell Mountain at High Knob. He became more pleasant, and spoke freely to the prisoners. He told them that he was about to carry them to the Cherokee towns, and that his brother and two other Indians were awaiting them ahead on the trail where they had been raiding the Cumberland in Kentucky. They had several white prisoners and their horses with them, and had been hunting to lay up provisions for the joint party's dash through the central Tennessee settlements to the Chickamauga towns. He asked about Evan Shelby, colonel of the Holston Militia, and said he would return the next summer and carry off his Negroes. He sent two Indians off ahead so that they could hunt and thus provision the main party when it caught up. After having covered only five or six miles, Benge and his party camped near the eastern trail passing through Benge's Gap (not to be confused with the Benge's Gap in Little Black Mountain that is now called "Morris's Gap") and down the Benge's Branch to Prince's Flats, present Norton, and on through Pound Gap to either the head waters of the Kentucky River, present Whitesburg; or on to Elk Horn Creek and passage to the Ohio Shawnee Country by way of the Big Sandy River. The left fork lead down Hoot Owl Hollow where another left hand turn took the trail through Little Stone Gap and across the top of Little Stone Mountain to Ben's Creek and to the bottoms where Callahan Creek joined the Middle Fork of the Powell River before it plunged through the Gap in Cumberland Mountain.
The Hobbs party passed through the gap in Cumberland Mountain (Big Stone Gap) and to the north of it the rangers divided into small parties to look for signs of passage by the Indians. It was here that the militia had expected Benge to follow the route of escape he had used after the Scott massacre of 1782, up Callahan Creek to the Stonega/Eola pass over Black Mountain to the Oven Fork head of the Cumberland River. Most likely, however, he intended to go through the Benge's Gap in Little Black Mountain to the Clover Fork head of Cumberland River to meet with "The Tail". Either route would require him to pass through the river bottoms to the north of Big Stone Gap now occupied by the Town of Appalachia.
Through the gathering dusk of evening, one of the militiamen spied a small wisp of smoke coming from the edge of the laurel from an Indian camp. He crept closer and saw an Indian bending down kindling the fire. The militiaman took careful aim, and mortally wounded the Indian. The bark of the rifle brought the militia to the spot, and the second Indian was soon killed. Upon examining the camp, they discovered that it had been a hunting party sent ahead to provision the following main party. Hobbs and the militia bedded down for the night of the eighth beside the dean Indians.
On the morning of the ninth, the Benge party with its captives set out in single file on the trail that led to Big Stone Gap or alternately to the head of Cumberland River by way of Callahan Creek and Eola, the Cherokee's "Valley of the Whispering Winds". Benge, following his well known custom, was in front preceeded only by Susannah Livingston. Another Indian with Elizabeth Livingston brought up the rear, and the other Indians with their captives were strung out in between.
Unknown to Benge the Head party of Holston Militia with the frantic Livingston brothers among them, was charging after them, only five or ten minutes behind them on the trail. Undoubtedly, the Head partywere encouraged to great efforts because of their having seen the signs left by the Indian's recent passage.
Also unknown to the Indians, the Russell County Militia with Benge's half brother, Captain William Dorton, Jr., had slipped ahead of the colliding enemies only a few miles to the northeast in their passage up Guest's River on their way to head the Indians at the upper Kentucky River fords.
At first light the Hobbs militia had plunged up the trail traveled the day before by Benge's two hunters. They gained altitude on Little Stone Mountain by going up Ben's Branch, traditionally a corruption of "Benge's Branch", on the trail that leads from current Appalachia to Little Stone Gap. Beating the Indians to the gap, Hobbs divided his party into two groups. He sent one group to head the Indians at the pasage down the Benge's Branch at Benge's Rock, at current Norton, in case they took the branch of the trail going to the Kentucky River. For himself and his party, he reserved the ambush on the trail he thought the Indians most likely to take. On the northeastern slope of Little Stone Gap in a side branch off of Hoot Own Hollow he laid his ambush. He strung his men out in single file above the trail with himself and John Benbever on the western side of the ambush. He did this because he expected Benge to be in front and he wanted the war party of Indians to be exactly beside the string of ambushing militiamen before the trap was sprung. John Benbever was the best shot and was the designated shooter to kill Benge. James Huff was the point man on the ambush, being opposite to the end of the Indian party. The site was about five miles from where the Benge party had camped the night before, and was later described as "one of those dark deep mountain passes where the ridge on each side seemed to reach the clouds, and the center of the deep gloomy valley below is covered with large masses of unshaken rocks, filled everywhere with laurel and ivy, with a furous stream, bubbling and rolling in the midst". The climax of the drama was about to erupt.
The militia soon saw the Indian party struggling up the spur of Little Stone Mountain, climbing up out of Hoot Owl Hollow toward Little Stone Gap, burdened by their plunder. Sure enough Benge was in front, preceded only by Susannah Livingston. The two parties came exactly opposite each other, when John Benbever raised his head to see if it was time for him to shoot. Benge spotted him, not forty yards away, and threw off his pack and turned to run back down the trail. Benbever fired at him and missed. Hobbs leveled his twenty pound bear rifle at a break in the trees where Benge must pass, and swinging his flintlock with his quarry and allowing for the two second delay in firing between the time he squeezed the trigger and the time it fired, he shot at the cross in Benge's suspenders as he flashed past the opening. At the moment of the shot, Benge stepped into a hole created by the roots of a tree that had fallen down, and Hobb's one ounce head ball passed through his head. Benge always carried a silver drinking cup on a rawhide string tied around his neck. As he stepped into the hole the cup flew up in front of his head and was splattered with his brains.
The Indian in the rear immediately upon hearing the shooting ordered Elizabeth Livingston to run, and when she turned he tried to tomahawk her. She struggled mightily, defending herself against the blows with her arms, which became badly cut. James Huff rushed toward this struggle, and started to shoot, but another militiaman grabbed his rifle barrel to keep him from shooting Elizabeth. Huff dropped his rifle and took his butcher knife and lunged after the Indian. The Indian tomahawked Elizabeth a glancing blow on the head as she stumbled over a fallen tree, and she fell unconscious. The Indian made a dash for the laurel thicket, and another militiaman discharged his rifle into his back, leaving him to crawl off into the thicket to bleed to death.
The other four Indians succeeded in making their escape into the laurel thicket, taking the Negro man with them. The other prisoners were freed. The militia party laying in ambush on the other branch of the trail heard the gun fire, and increased their vigilance, but the four Indians who had escaped the ambush avoided this second trap, and this half of the Lee militia along with the Head party, came rushing up to the site of the ambush.
Elizabeth was unconscious for about an hour and awakened to find her liberators hovering over her. The victorious militiamen took Benge's silver cup, and drank a toast to their feat. James Huff, being bare foot, was given Benge's fine new moccasins. The Livingston family took Benge's steel ax as a souvenier. Benge's red scalp was lifted from what remained of his skull, later to be sent along with the militia dispatch heralding the event, to the Governor of Virginia. The militia found a sapling on High Knob, probably at Benge's Camp Rock camp site, with thirteen notches in it, with the last being fresh. The Livingstonsreturned home to begin their lives anew.
That night while the four Indians who had escaped the ambush slept in a cave, the Negro man made his escape and returned to his home.
Days later the party of Russell County militia laying in ambush on a ford on the Kentucky River, and which included William Dorton, Jr. discovered the sign of a single Indian having crossed the river. Understanding him to have been the leading scout of the Benge party, they back tracked to a better place for an ambush and waylaid the other three Indians who had escaped the ambush at Little Stone Gap. Two were killed instantly and the remaining Indian was mortally shot and was allowed to crawl off into the cane break to bleed to death, it being deemed imprudent to follow him. Thus, only one Indian from the Livingston raid escaped death.
Later, Col. Campbell of the Holston Militia wrote to the Governor requesting that a company of militia under Captain Lewis be assigned to guard "Mockson Gap", because of intelligence that Benge's uncle, Double Head, and thirty warriors were coming on the war path to take revenge in Virginia. Nothing came of it.
The story ends with a cover letter from Col. Arthur Campbell to the Governor of Virginia, dated April 15, 1794, accompanying his report of the raid based on Elizabeth Livingston's narrative.
"I now send the scalp of Captain Bench that noted murderer, as requested by Lieut. Hobbs, to your excellency, as a proof that he is no more, and of the activity and good conduct of Lieutenant Hobbs, in killing him and relieving the prisoners. Could it be spared from our treasury, I would beg leave to hint that as a present of a neat rifle to Mr. Hobbs would be accepted, as a reward for his late services, and the Executive may rest assured that it would serve as a stimulus for the future exertions against the enemy."
The Governor heeded this advise, and Lieutenant Vincent Hobbs, Jr., became the proud owner of a new silver mounted rifle. "Future exertions" against the Cherokee were never needed, as this was the last Indian raid into Virginia. June 26th Double Head signed a treaty with the United States. Militia Major James Ore destroyed Running Water Town and Nickajack. August 20th General "Mad" Anthony Wayne destroyed the Shawnee at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Having no reasonable alternative, Chief John Watts signed the Treaty of Tellico Block House with the whites on November 8, 1794.
Chief Bob Benge's adult life began and ended with the Great Cherokee War of 1776-1794. Governor Blount of Tennessee claimed that Benge had personally killed between 40 an 50 people. No other person exemplifies the pathos of this chapter in American history better than he and his kin, both white and red. May they all rest in peace.
This biography was auto-generated by a GEDCOM import.[2] It's a rough draft and needs to be edited.
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