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- SPENCER RECORDS, OHIO VALLEY FRONTIER 1766-1795 Spencer Records' Memoir of the Ohio Valley Frontier 1766-1795 Contributed by NAOMI MULLENDORE HOUGHAM Edited by DONALD F. CARMONY Reprinted from Indiana Magazine of History Volume LV, December, 1959
Spencer Records' Memoir of the Ohio Valley Frontier, 1766-1795
The narrative which follows is principally a memoir of frontier life in western Pennsylvania and the Licking Valley of Kentucky. A son of Josiah Records and Susanna Tully Records, Spencer Records was born December 11, 1762, in Sussex County, Delaware, of English ancestry. Three years later the family left Delaware and, after a brief sojourn near Hagerstown, Maryland, followed Braddock's Trail into western Pennsylvania, settling in 1766 near Dunbar's Creek at the foot of Laurel Mountain. T
In 1783, when Spencer Records became twenty-one years of age, his family migrated to the Licking Valley of Kentucky. The remainder and bulk of the narrative is largely concerned with frontier beginnings and early developments in the Licking Valley during the ensuing decade. Life in Kentucky was much the same as it had been in western Pennsylvania-- the same harsh struggle for food, shelter, and clothing, as well as continued conflict with the Indians. The residents of this valley remained vulnerable to Indian attack from north of the Ohio--the "Indian side" of the river, as Spencer Records termed it--from the end of the Revolution almost until 1794 when General Anthony Wayne defeated the Indians at Fallen Timbers in northwestern Ohio.
Although political developments were important in Ken- tucky during the 1780's and the early 1790's, Records almost completely ignores them. Kentucky became a state in 1792, he correctly observes, but he adds nothing to indicate that it had been a county of Virginia, nothing of the various conven- tions leading to statehood, and nothing of the so-called Spanish Conspiracy. Neither are the problems of the naviga- tion of the Mississippi and Spanish control of its exit mentioned.
Spencer Records was about eighty years of age when his memoir was composed, apparently in 1842. The events and incidents which he relates had nearly all occurred fifty to seventy years earlier. Meanwhile, he had lived in Ken- tucky while it continued to gain in population and resources during the last half of the 1790's; then he had lived for two decades in Ohio (1801-1821); thereafter he had resided near Columbus in Bartholomew County, Indiana, for two more decades. Family correspondence and tradition indicate that the narrative was rewritten and copied by a neighbor, James Clarke, who polished its grammar and form. During the 1860's the memoir was acquired by Lyman C. Draper, and it is now included in the Draper Collection of the State His- torical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, and is published here with the society's permission. A different and less complete version appeared in the Indiana Magazine of History, XV (September, 1919), 201-232.
About two-thirds of the way through his memoir, Spencer Records mentions his marriage to Elizabeth Ellrod in Ken- tucky in 1790; and he completes the vital statistics of his family with evident pride near the end of the narrative. Here and elsewhere Records gives testimony to his being of the Regular Baptist persuasion. Several episodes in his story illustrate his literal predestinarian views.
Introductory.
I have written the following narrative, partly for my own satisfaction and amusement, and partly for the informa- tion of my children, as by it they may become acquainted with some things, they would otherwise be ignorant of.
I have written it briefly, stating every thing in as few words as possible; which will take less writing and reading, and will probably be better understood.
October 8th 1842-- Spencer Records.
A narrative of Captain Spencer Records _______________________________
Spencer Record son of Josiah Records and Susanna Tully his wife, was born on the 11th day of December 1762 in Sussex County, State of Delaware. My father and mother were both descendants of English ancestors.--
I shall in the first place, give a brief account of my father Josiah Records, which will serve as an introduction to my own. Josiah Records son of John Records and Ann Callaway his wife, was born on the first day of May old style 2 in the year 1741 in Sussex County, State of Delaware. In 1765 my father with his family, his mother, sister Susanna and his two brother-in-laws, James Quoturmos and James Finch with others, embarked on board of a sloop in the Nanticoke river, descended it to its mouth in the Chesapeake Bay, thence to the mouth of the Potomac, and up that river to Georgetown, and having landed there, proceeded on to Antetom creek near Hagarstown, and there wintered.
In the spring of 1766 my father and his two brother-in- laws crossed the Alleghany mountains, and took up land near the foot of Laurel Hill, and near Dunbar's creek, so called, from the circumstance of Col. [Thomas] Dunbar having en- camped thereon, with the rear of Braddock's army, at the _____________________
Josiah Records was born May 12, 1741 according to the present- day New Style calendar.
After clearing ground, planting it in corn, and working it, they returned back, and in the fall [1766] moved over the mountains. My father hired Peter Melot with his cart and three horses to move him, and took my uncle Quoturmos' blacksmith tools in the cart, all but the anvil; it was heavy and had to be left.
General Edward Braddock's defeat in battle against the French and Indians in 1755, as he neared the forks of the Ohio where Pittsbur now stands, was a major disaster for the English and Colonials during the Last French and Indian War, 1754-1763. Braddock, fatally wounded in the battle, died several days later as his forces retreated eastward over the road they had recently opened on their westward march. This road, known as Braddock's Road, was opened from Cumberland, Maryland, to within sight of the forks of the Ohio.
Presumably the settlement near Dunbar Creek, close to the foot of Laurel Mountain, where the Records family settled.
1772. Six years of happy days had passed away, my father having sold his plantation, bought land about fourteen miles from Fort Pitt, on the north fork of Robertson's run.
1779. This winter my father was elected Captain, and received his commission from the governor of Virginia, which at that time claimed jurisdiction over all that part of Penn- sylvania laying west of Laurel-hill, which claim they held until the year 1782.
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1762 - Yes, date unknown
