CHAPTER 22
The Tracy Family History
the Proctor Line
In the historic Richmond Cemetery in Richmond, KY, there
stands a 22-foot monument to Captain James Estill. At the base of the monument
there is a relief which depicts a scene from one of the famous battles on the
Kentucky frontier. In the relief a fallen Captain Estill is depicted with an
Indian about to scalp him. If you look closely at the upper right hand corner
you can make out the figure of Joseph Proctor aiming his rifle at the Indian.
Joseph Proctor did indeed kill the Indian before he could scalp Captain Estill.
The Proctor Clan
You will remember that I started the Tracy Family History by
telling you that Thomas Moon was my 3rd great grandfather. His wife was Lusany
Proctor. Lusany's father was Benjamin Proctor, my 4th great grandfather. His
father was Nicholas Proctor Senior, who would have been my 5th great
grandfather. It is believed that Nicholas was married twice. More information
comes later.
Nicholas had 8 sons and one daughter. It is believed that
there was one more son, of which there is no record, because family tradition
says there were 9 sons.
The 9 known children are as follows:
Reuben
Joseph
Nicholas Junior
James
Little Page
Benjamin
John
Elizabeth
William
Our Proctors came from Brunswick County,
Virginia to Rowan County, North Carolina around 1760-1762. But the story of our
Proctors is not about the years they spent in Virginia or North Carolina. The
real story is the years they spent fighting Indians in "that dark and bloody
ground" known as Kentucky.
However, to understand the story of our Proctors you first
must understand the history of Kentucky. And to understand the history of
Kentucky you must first know the story of Daniel Boone, for the lives of our
Proctors and Daniel Boone would be intertwined for many years.
In 1763, the French and Indian War ended. The French gave to
England their claim to the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains to the
Mississippi River. From the Mississippi westward the land was given to Spain.
There lay a natural barrier between the Southern colonies and
the Kentucky. That barrier was the Appalachian Mountains. The British passed a
law forbidding the white colonists to cross these mountains and settle in the
Kentucky. The land that lay west of this mountain range was designated as
“Indian Territory.”
The law was ignored. Occasionally small bands of "long
hunters," including Daniel Boone, would find their way through the Cumberland
Gap and hunt in this Indian Territory. The "long hunters" found this land of
Kentucky to be amazingly fertile and filled with game.
Strangely, the Indians did not live in the Kentucky. Various
tribes lived to the North and South. They would enter the Kentucky only to hunt
game and do war with their traditional enemies, the other tribes.
There are many good quality photos of the Cumberland Gap. I
have chosen this old, blurry, one from the book, The Woods-McAfee Memorial, by
Rev. Neander Woods, published 1905. The author is an eminent
genealogist/historian. He is also one of our people.
In April of 1775, Daniel Boone, with a
party of pioneers, started constructing Fort Boonesborough. (Reconstructed, it
lies just a few miles Southeast of present day Lexington.) A month later there
were four small settlements in central Kentucky with a smattering of settlers to
the north and east. All total there were about 300 settlers in the Kentucky.
Within a few weeks, the Revolutionary War would begin. The
British decided to pressure the colonies by fighting the war on two fronts. Lord
Germain ordered British commanders in America to arm the Indians and set them
against the Western settlements. At very little expense they gave the Indians
military supplies and provided them with leadership. The war on the frontier
would not be between organized armies but would pit the Indians against the
white man for years to come.
In January 1778, 30 men made their way from Fort
Boonesborough to the Lower Blue Licks to make salt. Salt was essential for
preserving meat and the settlers could not survive without this precious
element. It was a long process to boil down the spring water to make salt. It
would take at least a month. To make a long story short, the Indians captured
almost all of the white men including Daniel Boone. They were kept prisoners in
the Indian camp.
In June, Daniel Boone learned that the Indians, under
Frenchmen trained by and loyal to England, planned to attack Fort Boonesborough.
Boone escaped and made his way back to the Fort and warned the settlers of the
impending attack.
The capture of these salt makers left the three small
garrisons of Boonesborough, Harrodsburg, and Logan's Station desperately short
of manpower. Sometime between the settlers going to the salt licks and Daniel
Boone's famous escape, a small band of volunteers, Virginia militia, made their
way to Fort Boonesborough to reinforce the garrison.
It is at this point that the story of our Proctors begins.
The governor of Virginia, Patrick Henry, sends this military force. At that
time, Virginia considered its territory to extend westward as far as the eye
could see, then into infinity, and beyond. Thus, Kentucky was considered
Virginia territory.
Among the military force were Nicholas Proctor, Sr., and his
5 eldest sons. This was in March 1778. This would have included my 4th great
grandfather, Benjamin. They came through the Cumberland Gap, which was then
merely a deer trail.
An old illustration from the book, History of Kentucky, by Lewis Collins,
1882. From the collection of the Filson Club, Louisville, KY. I have seen this
illustration reproduced many times in histories of Daniel Boone. I suspect
that the Filson Club people are our cousins.
Joseph Proctor, undoubtedly with his brothers, formed raiding
parties, crossed the Ohio River and attempted to rescue Daniel Boone and the
other captives. They were unsuccessful. Then Daniel Boone made his famous
escape.
In his pension application, Benjamin Proctor tells of his first meeting
with Daniel Boone:
"When I first came to Boonesboro Col Dan'l Boon was a prisoner in the Townes of
the Shawnee Indians, when Col Calloway commanded in his absence - On learning
that the Indians were making reparations to attack Boonsboro Col Boon made his
escape from them and….gave the alarm and made necessary preparations for the
attack….I was present and heard Boon telling his narrative when he first
arrived."
I have to make two comments:
First, the Proctors and Daniel Boone both lived in Rowan
County, North Carolina, at the same time. It is possible that they knew one
another before their adventures in Kentucky.
Second, when doing research one often finds terrible
spelling. What most people do not know is that prior to the Civil War in 1861,
all spelling was done phonetically. Standardized spelling did not come into
existence until after the Civil War. Prior to 1861, any spelling, no matter how
atrocious, is considered correct.
These intrepid men, the early settlers of
Kentucky, were the first real frontiersmen in America. They never knew or
expected security. Their lives were full of struggle and violence. Their women
were fully as brave and resourceful as the men. Despite all the dangers,
settlers grew in numbers at an amazing rate. But people were killed at an
amazing rate, too.
In six years, 860 men were killed by the Indians. This number does not include
the women and children also killed. Nor does it tell the number of settlers who
were captured by the Indians. The captives would be held for ransom, or
exchanged, or even adopted into the tribe.
Daniel Boone arrived at the Fort Boonesborough on a Saturday,
June 20, 1778, after his escape. He had been held in captivity for four and a
half months.
He found the fort in deplorable condition as far as defending
against an attack. Hastily he set everyone to work putting the fort into shape.
One side of the fort had to be finished in palisades. Two more blockhouses were
erected. The gate had to be made stronger. They started digging a second well.
The land outside had to be cleared to make the Indians a clear target.
The defenders hastily repaired their guns, molded bullets, harvested vegetables,
and stored water.
During the preparations, a few more riflemen came from
Harrodsburg Fort and Logan's Fort. Another settler escaped the Indian camp,
bringing with him news that the Indians delayed their attack for three weeks so
they could send the news of Daniel Boone's escape to the British officers in
Detroit.
The Indian army showed up in front of the fort on the morning
of September 7. Boone estimated the enemy at 444 Indians and 12 French Canadian
leaders. The fort was defended with 30 men and 20 boys old enough to fight, and
a few women and small children.
More reinforcement soldiers from Virginia were already on
their march. They were to arrive at any time. Stalling for time Daniel Boone
entered into negotiations with the Indian chief.
The Indian chief, with British approval, gave liberal
surrender terms. (The Indian chief also happened to be Daniel Boone’s adopted
Indian father.) The settlers would be not be harmed. They would be taken to
Detroit and be given British citizenship and given military rank equal to that
they presently held. There was every reason to believe that the Indians were
truthful about the surrender terms as the salt makers were well treated when
they were captured.
The settlers decided to fight. Daniel Boone knew the chances
of survival better than anyone else. He gave the odds in one sentence; "I'll die
with the rest." If the fort fell, the Indian chief told them what to expect: "I
will put all the other prisoners to death, and reserve the young squaws for
wives."
A recently captured settler had convinced the British
authorities that the three forts had been reinforced with 70 men each. Daniel
Boone made his soldiers appear to be twice what he actually had. The women were
dressed in hats and hunting shirts, given rifles, and walked around the open
gate. Then the women prepared a feast for the Indian negotiators to show what
vast quantities of food they had inside the fort. The Indians fell for the ruse.
Daniel Boone stalled for two days with false negotiations. On
the first day of negotiations the Indians asked for what must be the strangest
terms in the history of warfare. The young Indian braves had heard that Daniel
Boone had a pretty daughter, and asked to look at her. Daniel Boone had his
daughter, Jemima, brought to the gate so the Indians could look at her. Then the
negotiations continued.
During the negotiations Daniel Boone discovered that the
Indian army did not have any cannons. Just one small cannon would have
demolished the walls of the fort.
After a few more days of negotiations, the battle began with
the Indians giving their wild war whoop, which caused the women and children
inside the fort to scream and cry in terror.
The battle was a terrifying ordeal for the settlers. The
Indians attacked day and night, shooting fire arrows into the fort during the
day, and running up to the walls and throwing torches inside during the night.
The Indians fired thousands of bullets at the fort. Most
would hit the walls and fall to the ground. At night the women would rush out of
the fort, grab the spent bullets from the ground, and mold them into new
bullets. They even melted down their pewter kitchen ware to mold bullets.
At one point, there were so many fires inside the fort that
it was said you could literally see a pin anywhere. It was at this moment, when
the fort seemed totally on fire, with the women and children screaming with
terror, that a settler who had been trapped outside the fort at the time of the
attack thought that the fort had fallen. Upon seeing this disaster he rushed to
Logan's Fort with the news.
The enemy tried digging a tunnel underneath the fort. But
rains would come at the right time putting out the fires and causing the wet
ground to collapse the tunnel.
The rains, which always came at the right time for the
Americans and the wrong time for the Indians, convinced the Indians that the
Great White Spirit favored the other side. The Indians do not fight against the
Great White Spirit.
The battle would last for 10 days, 9 days, or some say 11
days. The confusion was so great that none of the defenders could remember for
sure. Finally, the Indians had enough. Attacking a fort over clear ground
against riflemen who could bark a squirrel was not the Indian way of fighting.
(When hunting squirrel it was important that the bullet not go through the skin
so as to ruin the pelt. So the rifleman would shoot the bark next to the
squirrel which would stun the animal and cause it to fall to the ground.)
Digging tunnels, also, was not an Indian tactic.
What saved the defenders is the fact that it rained every
night of the siege, which put out the fires. As the battle ended, the settlers
figured they could have lasted one more day, two at the most.
If the fort had fallen, then the other, smaller, less
defended forts would also have fallen, and America would have been out of the
Kentucky. The successful defense of Fort Boonesborough, by our Proctors, would
assure that the American settlers were in the Kentucky permanently.
It was one of the most famous Indian battles in American
history.
As we shall see, in the future generations, their story yet
to be told, these frontiers settlers were strongly intermarried.
Nicholas Proctor tells us that two defenders
inside the fort were killed and four were wounded. Apparently all of our
Proctors survived the battle with minor, if any, wounds.
To this day the battle is known as the "Great Siege."
In the history of the Indian battles on the Kentucky frontier, forts would fall,
there would be massacres, and hundreds of settlers, men, women, and children
would be taken into Indian captivity living in near starvation until their
release years later.
In Anne Crabb's book on the famous siege of Fort
Boonesborough, And the Battle Began Like Claps of Thunder, she lists 13 of our
Proctors as being present:
Benjamine, age about 25? (actually he was 18)
Elizabeth, age about 10
James, age about 20?
John, age about 20? (10?)
Joseph, age about 30? (34)
Littlepage, age about 25? (18)
Nannie, age 34?
Nicholas Sr., age about 54?
Nicholas Jr., age about 30?
Polly, age 19?
Reuben, age about 30 (24)
William, age 5
Mary Ann, age 1
(There were 10 Boone’s.)
It is believed that this is the first time our Proctors had
been into the Kentucky, then still Virginia Territory. More than 20% of
the inhabitants of the fort were our Proctors. This does not include our people
who were intermarried and carried different names. So, our people may have made
up more than 20% of the defenders.
What brought our Proctors to Kentucky was land, lots of free
land. Virginia provided that if a person went to Kentucky for the purpose of
settling, built a cabin, raised 10 acres of corn within one year, then they
would receive 400 acres of free land. That was a lot of land for one family.
Also, at this time in history everyone and I mean everyone,
was involved in land speculation. Our people intended to use part of the land
grant for their own farm, then subdivide and sell off the rest.
It didn't really bother the Indians when the "Long Hunters"
came into the Kentucky to hunt. This involved very few whites and really didn't
interfere with the Indians way of life. What bothered the Indians was when the
white men went back to their homes, gathered their families, returned to the
Kentucky and started settling the land. The Indians now realized that the white
men were intending taking over their land permanently.
Family tradition tells us that our Proctors came to Kentucky
in company with the Horn family. Again, family tradition tells us that both
families took part in the "Great Siege." There was also intermarriage between
these two families.
What was life like at Fort Boonesborough? Nicholas Proctor tells us, "The people
in Boonesborough lived in friendship and harmony and what one had they nearly
all had, and what one knew, they mainly all knew and in a word they were a large
family."
The Indian wars would continue until 1794 and it is believed
that our Proctors were in the thick of it until the very end.
The reconstructed Fort Boonesborough is about a quarter of a
mile from the original site. If you wish to visit you can go to their web site
for information.
www.parks.ky.gov/findparks/recparks/fb/
(Sometimes spelled Fort Boones Boro and Fort Boonesboro.)
Note: The story of this Proctor family continues on the next chapter.
My family history web site has 79 chapters. If you would like to
know more about the other chapters then go to my
Home Page
www.thetracyfamilyhistory.net