The Triumphant Trials, Toils, and Tribulations of Revolutionary Pioneer Mother, Elizabeth Conway - A Biography To Show The Human Portrait Of This Heroine Of The Western Frontier.

(Paper given by Virginia Walton Brooks (Mrs. Berry B. Brooks, Jr.) at the April meeting of the Memphis Genealogical Society, Ansearchin News, Vol. X, January 1963.

Elizabeth Bridgewater Conway was native Virginian of English parentage.  About 1750-52, she became the wife of John Conway, Sr., a Latin scholar and teacher, who had emigrated from his Dublin, Ireland home to Virginia.  His teaching profession caused them to establish several homes in Virginia and Kentucky.  Their family Bible owned by Mrs. Berry B. Brooks, a descendent records the names and births of nine of their children.  Family tradition tells us that they lived in Spotsylvania County, Va.  From the war and pension records of their sons we learn that each of them was born, or enlisted for military service in a different Virginia county.  The birth dates of their five daughters and four sons ranged from January 11, 1753 to June 25, 1775, a span of 22 years of childbearing.  Yet this sturdy mother lived an additional 34 years, dying July 30, 1809.
	Being the mother of nine children involved a busy life of domesticity, plus the fact they made frequent changes in home and locale.  It can be assumed the income of a Latin teacher was not a lucrative one, and was inadequate for such a large and growing family.  Thus adding extra burdens upon the mother to clothe and feed her family properly.
	John Conway, Jr. stated on his pension application, that he was born in Henrico County, Virginia on August 10, 1758.  Joseph Conway, the fourth son and ancestor of Mrs. Brooks, was born in Greenbrier County, Virginia (now West Virginia) December 14, 1763.  Jesse Conway enlisted from Red Island, in Montgomery Co. Virginia and Samuel the eldest son, also enlisted from southwest Virginia.  John Conway, Jr. was the first of his family to become a “Pioneer of the West”.  He served under Capt. William Harrod’s Company in the western country (later Kentucky) in 1777.  He returned to Virginia to induce his family to move into the undeveloped frontier of the west.  The Conways had moved from Henrico County into western Virginia, beyond the Allegheny Mountains, then onward to reside in the vast wilderness of what we know as Kentucky in 1779.
	These freedom-loving Virginians were weary, weary, worn pioneers as they trudged the long and uninhabited trails of the buffalo into the fertile valley of the Ohio River.  They moved under the constant threat of surprise attack by stealthy savages as they followed the buffalo tracks, on their exploration of the wilds of the aboriginal terrain to Bourbon County, Kentucky, the far western country.  This perilous, arduous trek was hardest on the younger children and courageous mother, who was responsible for their well being along the long trail through the wilderness.  They had to provide their own food and shelter along the extended journey into the unknown.  The youngest children were four-year-old Sarah and nine year old Nancy.  Joseph was sixteen, Jesse was eighteen, John, Jr. was twenty-one and Samuel was twenty-three.  The sons had been brought up on the use of arms and the pursuit of game.  There were militia posted at different garrisons to guard the frontier settlements.  The Conway’s destination was Ruddle’s Station on the upper waters of Licking River, in the present county of Bourbon, in Kentucky.  A crude log cabin was engaged while soldiery as a militiaman of frontier western country.  He broke the land, planted the crops and protected the fort.  These frontiersmen and women came in their strength and determination with ax and rifle to conquer a wilderness.  In that early settlement the pioneers were harassed by the Indians who robbed the settlers of their peltry, furs, horses and crops.  The Conways were in the wilds, far beyond succor or relief.  With frontier-pushing energy they were brought into contact with the savage Indians who represented a figure of terror and possible sudden death.  The hard-pressed settlement and outpost was under constant threat of annihilation.
	Ruddle’s Station was known as Hinkson’s Station, located on the east bank of South Licking on the buffalo trace, which ran to the Blue Licks.
	Here Elizabeth Conway labored under the most harrowing, uncertain, and trying conditions in her new home in the far wilderness, away from family, friends and adequate protection from the Indians and without the necessities of life.  To all this was added the constant threat of swift and deadly attack by Indians and crop failure, with its resulting starvation.  It was necessary for her to uphold the spirit of her entire family and make the best of her hazardous lot in life on the frontier.  Elizabeth and John gave their children the elements of a plain English education, plus a knowledge of Latin.  Thus the Kentuckian Conways became Indian fighters and frontiersmen.  These brave frontierswomen, Elizabeth and her young daughters were ever alert to the dangers of the wrath of the red men on the warpath, devastating frontier settlements.  They must bear their share of the responsibility to defend their home and lives from Indian raids and attacks.  The father and four sons had enlisted in the militia to help fight the bloodthirsty Indians who preyed on the settlements.
	Early in the spring of 1780, the danger of marauding Indians became so great that these migratory families were obligated to leave their own roughhewn log homes to move into the fort for protection.  While the women-folk and children remained within the fort, the men went out daily to work, clearing the land and planting the crops.  Alternating this work with acting in the capacity of guards, having their guns read to protect the workers against an Indian attack.
	Ruddle’s Station and the Conway family, had escaped the terror of a devastating Indian raid until a peaceful Sunday morning, on that fateful day, June 19, 1780, when Elizabeth and John Conway’s youngest son was scalped by marauding Indians sent by the British.  There was no forewarning that this was not to be like any other Sunday at the fort.
	Early in the morning Joseph Conway and two of his young boy companions left the fort early to drive in the cows for milking.  The cows were found grazing on the opposite side of the nearby river, which was but a shallow stream at this point.  The boys started driving the cows back toward the fort, but when they reached the river, they caught a large loggerhead turtle, and carried it back to the sandy beach to entertain themselves by teasing it with a willow twig to make it snap at them.  Some of the men from the fort were down at the edge of the water on the near side of the stream washing their hands and faces for breakfast.  An Indian, lying concealed in the bushes near where the boys were playing with the turtle, fired on Joseph Conway, wounding him in the side and then rushed out on him and tore off his scalp, broke his skull with his deadly tomahawk, and left the defenseless youngster for dead.  His two young teenage friends managed to escape a similar fate and saved themselves.  It was done so quickly that the men on the opposite bank of the shallow stream were unable to give any assistance.  The alarm was given at the fort; the men hurried out with their guns and scoured the woods, but found no trace of the Indian or his comrades.  Swiftly, suddenly and without warning the stealthy red men had attacked 16 year old Joseph with agile and cruel blows in all his native savagery.
After the ravaging disaster of this inhumane attack, young Joseph was rescued, revived and in time recovered from the point of death.  Joseph’s head bled alarmingly.  The wound in his side was slight compared with the scalping of the head.  Back at the fort, Joseph’s mutilated scalp wounds were treated with an application of wads of cobwebs made into a poultice to stanch the blood.  Eve though considered unhygienic now; it saved the youngster’s life.  Of necessity Elizabeth Conway was well-versed in and heavily dependent upon homemade remedies.  In this emergency the life of her youngest son was at stake.  Anxiety, grief and fear were coupled with terror as her son’s life lingered at death’s door.  He required constant care and attention as he began consciousness and strength.  The fort was thus alerted to further attack to follow this display of brutal brazen and barbaric attack upon a defenseless lad.  They were aware that the heathen Indian had been a scout for the British and was furnished with firearms and ammunition by the British to raid and attack the frontier settlers.
The frontiersmen and women had not recovered from the shock of the scalping of Joseph, when on June 22, 1780 Captain Henry Bird, Englishman, attacked Ruddle's Station with British, Canadian and Indian army troops with deadly assault.  Bravely the men fought to hold back the assault of British soldiers and red hordes sent down upon them by Lord Henry Hamilton at Detroit, the French-Canadian city far to the north.  They were equipped with cannon, having cut a road through the wilderness forest for hauling the cannon.  The fort was proof only against cannon rifle balls and quite inadequate against cannon attack.  Surrender was inevitable.  The British commander, Captain Henry Bird, promised protection and safe transport to Detroit to all the dwellers in the fort at Ruddle’s Station on condition that the British would take complete command of the prisoners, which comprised the men of the garrison, their courageous wives and helpless children, including Joseph who was scalped three day previous.  It will ever by a blot on the record and integrity of Captain Bird, that he broke his solemn word and turned the prisoners over to the frenzied red men, who proceeded to march the helpless victims over 160 miles to Detroit, with vengeful inhumanity and cruelty.  British indifference had amounted to connivance to the capture and handling of the prisoners of Ruddle’s Station.
	Although the life of Joseph Conway was held in the balance following his brush with death only three days previously, no consideration was shown for his desperate condition.  During the confusion and trouble of this perilous journey to Detroit, no effort could be made to dress Joseph’s scalp wounds, and the weather being hot, green flies and creepers made their appearance.  A kind old lady, Mrs. Weisman, among the captives, picked out the loathsome insects and dressed the boy’s scalp and continued to help wait on him until the wound healed.  On this long march there were many terrible incidents of cruelty and ruthlessness by the conquerors.  History tells us more of Joseph Conway on this merciless march – “He was forced to march barefooted, his feet bleeding at almost every step, with the Indians, from the Ohio River to Detroit.  The blood flowed down his back from the raw and unhealed wound in the head.  From which the scalp was taken.  Still he was able to trudge on amidst pain and suffering by his barbarous captors.  A white women, who was also a captive, with the characteristic sympathy and kindness which belongs to her sec, gave Captain Conway a handkerchief, which she tied with womanly tenderness around his bleeding head to protect the gaping wounds from the weather.  It was a most humane act and relieved his sufferings greatly during that long, tiresome and tedious march.”  (From Darby’s “Personal Recollections”)
	An aunt of the author, Miss Gladys Walton, attorney at law, of St. Louis, Missouri, writes, “one of my earliest recollections is that my mother, Louisa Conway Walton, showing me a picture of her grandfather, Joseph Conway, and pointing out particularly the wig that he wore because of his bald and scarred head from the scalping”.  (Excerpts from an address she gave July 11, 1934 to the members of the St. Louis Round Table.)  I quote further from Gladys Walton, “Between this pioneering Joseph Conway of Virginia and Kentucky, believe it are but two links – my mother and her father”.
	Elizabeth Bridgewater Conway, her husband John, her sons, John, Jr. and Joseph, and their three youngest daughters, Elizabeth Conway Daugherty, young bride of William Daugherty, she age twenty, Nancy age ten and Sarah aged 5 years were brutally forced to march along the tortuous journey northward as British captives under Indian command for the British, as prisoners of war, defenders of the fort at Ruddle’s Station.  Never were defenseless human beings treated with less humanity consideration, courtesy, nor less protection to their lives' safety as prisoners of war than these pioneers, especially the women and children captives.
	By intent and malice the British placed these savages in complete charge of marching the white prisoners to deliver them to the British authority in Detroit at a distance that challenged the durability and stamina of every person on the march.  These captives were miserable to the last degree.  The old, the ill, the weak and the very young were required to keep the same pace as the men in the conquered party.  Some were wantonly massacred by the Indian guards when they grew faint and weary and fell by the wayside.  There were no facilities for feeding the captives and no shelter for the many night stops along the way.
	Every member of the Conway family, mother, father, two sons, even scalped Joseph and the three daughters, not only survived the march but also survived the four years of cruel and miserable captivity in the cold north country.  After this death march to Detroit, the city of the bitter cold weathers, began their long ordeal of suffering and waiting, before finally being released.  Here they were confined for four years of agony, privation, hardships and without adequate shelter, food or clothing or consideration.
	Five year old Sarah was separated from her parents and “adopted” by an Indian and his squaw as their own child.  They never saw her during their captivity.  This added heavily to the heartaches and hardships of their confinement.  Nine years after their march to Detroit, after the Conways had returned to Kentucky, they were able to get a trace of the whereabouts of their baby girl.  John Conway searched and finally found her, now a girl of fourteen, who had endured nine years of life as an Indian.  By paying a heavy ransom to her captors, or foster parents of the red race, he was able to return his youngest child to her home in Kentucky, thus the long search and suspense was ended happily.
	Through prayer and the will of God, Elizabeth Bridgewater Conway, her husband John and their captive children survived the rigors and exposure and indignities of prison life for four years of severe Michigan winters as prisoners of war.  The entire family was help captive for four years except Sarah until June 1, 1784, when they were released to find their way back to Kentucky, on their own power, as best they might, dependent upon their own resourceful guidance to survive the long journey back to the western country, far to the south.    
	During their four years confinement Elizabeth Bridgewater Conway had suffered the same privations as the soldiers who were actually enlisted in the militia.  These persons were regarded as prisoners of war, both by the civil and military authorities.  The fact that she was able and capable of giving material aid in the protection of the fort is evidenced by the fact that she was strong enough to withstand all the hardships of the journey to Detroit, caring for her young ones, her loved ones, and along the trail to see that they did not fall by the way and get tomahawked by their wild savage captors in charge of the march north.  Those who had not kept pace were slaughtered brutally. Besides being a patriot, defender of the fort, and prisoner of war for four years, she rendered material aid for the cause of independence by furnishing clothing and food to her menfolk and those within the Ruddle’s Station settlement.  She had urged her husband and four sons to give service in the militia to protect their freedom and win independence from England and King George III.  As she could give when Ruddle’s Station was attacked by the British and Indians.  She and her family had pledged their strength, support and allegiance to the rebellious colonies against the British.  During the four years of brutal captivity in Detroit she had resisted and repulsed the proffered alternative of siding with the captors, the British and fighting on their side.  Truly she was a loyal heroine, revolutionary mother, pioneer of the west, who contributed her strength and endurance toward the development, protection and conquest of the new western frontier.  For this service the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution gave service to Elizabeth Bridgewater Conway, a patriot, defender of the fort and prisoner of war.
	Again, I quote from Darby’s “Personal Recollections”, Captain Joseph Conway, his suffering at the hands of the Indians, Page 81-82:
	“The incredible sufferings, privations, hardships and exposure which Captain Joseph Conway was made to endure during his captivity are beyond precedent, and can hardly be described and but for his vigorous constitution he must have sunk under them.  On the bleak shores of the Canadian frontier he was detained four years as a prisoner, with no human habitation to protect him from the severity of the weather, and made to endure and to bear all the privations incident to that barbarous condition of life.”
	Without their beloved Sarah, the six Conways trekked on foot back to the Licking River, Kentucky, after their release from Detroit.  They covered the tiresome journey south by August 1784.  What rejoicing and thanksgiving greeted their return as hopes of their survival had vanished with the passing years of the war.  Wit the encouragement and aid of friends and comports, the Conways set out once again to build a home and make a new life on the frontier, now won form the British, even though not entirely free from Indian threats and the wilderness itself.
	Upon Joseph Conway’s return to Licking River he went out on Harmer’s campaigns against the Indians.  I quote further from Darby’s “Personal Recollections”.  “He fought under General Harmer, and was in the battle which marked his defeat.  Once when the Indians were in hot pursuit he dodged behind a tree and turned and fired and again loaded his gun as he ran, and in this manner killed seven Indians.  He also fought under Gen. Wayne, and shared in his victories.  The horrors of the border war he witnesses in common with his associated, but he was shot three times.  He was tomahawked by the savages and scalped three times.”
	Thus a few hundred bold hunters, woodsmen and fighters had held on to western outposts of the great western regions to preserve the Mississippi River basin from the continued British rule.  Otherwise this Canadian line would have been established on the Appalachian crest.  Before George Rogers Clark’s great victory of the Revolution, in his conquest, the southern border of Canada was the Ohio River.

	The land he conquered was settled by Canadian governed from Detroit.  It had been conquered from the French only fifteen years before.  Clark added this territory to the new nation.  From the British empire and hostile Indian hordes, Clark took over a quarter of a million square miles of the most fertile and habitable land on the North American continent; the Ohio Valley to the father of waters, the mighty Mississippi, he gas us Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and the northeast tip of Minnesota, 245,000 square miles.  He stretched the United States to the Mississippi River for the victorious thirteen original colonies.
	For the next twenty-five years Elizabeth Bridgewater Conway led a less hazardous though active and useful life from 1784 until her death, July 10, 1809.  Her husband, John Conway, St. had died May 3, 1801 in Campbell County, Kentucky.  Thus we have followed the trails, tribulations, service and the sufferings of the Conway family in their share of winning freedom for the colonies from the yoke of Great Britain, and in the opening up and developing of the frontier.  Elizabeth Bridgewater Conway, John Conway, Sr. and Joseph Conway have been accredited by the DAR for their service as patriots, defenders of the fort and as prisoners of war for four years.  The war records of the other three sons have been recognized as well.  Samuel, the eldest son, was engaged in the manufacture of gunpowder for the army.  All five of the Conway men served as militiamen in fighting and protecting the frontier western country, in the service of their country. 
	We leave Elizabeth and John to their reward, and take up the life of their youngest son, Joseph.  Ripley’s “Believe It or Not” gave an illustrated account of his Indian tortures:  “Captain Joseph Conway, St. Louis, Missouri, Scalped three times, tomahawked three times, shot three times, left for dead three time, recovered and died at the age of 70”.  From Darby’s “Personal Recollections” we gleam, “Captain Joseph Conway was one of the pioneers of the west.  He came to Louisiana during the Spanish times, and settled in Bonhomme, St. Louis district, in the year 1796, on the piece of land granted to him that same year by Zenon Trudeau, at the time lieutenant governor of Upper Louisiana.  Capt. Conway came to Kentucky in early youth and as soon as he was able to bear arms he took an active and distinguished part in the Indian wars which accompanied the early settlements of that state.  Young, brave, and daring, he was associated with Daniel Boone and many of the bold spirits of that time in almost all of their hazardous and dangerous enterprises.  Boone came to this country and got his grant of land about the same time that Capt. Conway obtained his.  He improved his farm, and cultivated and lived on it for more than thirty years, and up to the time of his death, which occurred on the 27th of December, 1830.  “Often when I was a boy, when he would come into the house, would I in my boyish curiosity creep around his chair to get a good look at the back of his head, to see where the Indians had taken off the scalps from his head.  Capt. Conway was, in fact, one of the bravest and noblest men that ever lived in the State of Missouri, and of the strictest integrity.  He left a name and a fame that commanded the respect and affectionate regard of all who knew him during life.  He raised a large family, several of his sons having been honored with positions of public trust, such as judge of the county court, sheriff of St. Louis County, and member of the Legislature, discharging the duties of the various offices they filled with honor and credit to themselves and to the entire satisfaction of the public.”
	In 1776 Kentucky was organized as a separate county of Virginia.  In 1780 it was divided into three counties.  In 1787 John Conway is witness to a deed in Bourbon County, Virginia (later Kentucky).  On Jun 1, 1792, Kentucky was admitted as the 15th state of the union.  Since these recollections were written at a later date than their occurrence, the reference is made to their location identification at the time of the account given.  In fact these so-called peregrinating pioneers may have lived in the various counties of Virginia, yet never left home!  Let us consider the formation of counties.  York County, Virginia, of 1634 was the parent of all the counties in which the John Conway, St. family lived, from York down to Greenbrier, erected thus:  King William, 1801; Spotsylvania, 1720; Shenandoah, 1722; Caroline, 1727; August, 1738; Montgomery, 1776; Greenbrier 1777.  In reality since Joseph Conway was born December 14, 1763, he was born in Augusta County, that became Montgomery County in 1776 and Greenbrier County in 1777.  Now Greenbrier is in West Virginia.  Since John Conway is said to have lived in Henrico, according to records, in 1758, 1763-4, perhaps his land extended into Henrico.  From the August 3, 1779, Montgomery County, Virginia Court:  “Thomas Conway, sum 100 lbs. And his securities in sum of 50 each.  John Conway, 50 lbs. Engaged in late Insurrection of this country”.  Thomas and John Conway signed.  Then John Conway and family leave for Kentucky, joining a party of migrators who left Virginia, and journeyed toward the western country.
On February 22, 1792 in Bourbon County, Kentucky, Joseph Conway married Elizabeth Caldwell, with the consent of her father, Samuel.  She was born September 1, 1773 in Virginia, died September 30, 1821 in St. Louis County, Missouri, and is buried in the family burial ground near their homestead.  She lies at rest beside her husband and her family on a hilltop, beneath sheltering trees, north of their home, on part of the 400 acres of original land grant that Joseph received in 1798.  This valuable land is now located on the city limits of the metropolis of St. Louis.  This Creve Coeur Lake Settlement is now known as Chesterfield, Bonhomme Township, St. Louis County, Missouri.  The old pioneer home still stands at what is now the corner of Conway and White Roads.  On September 20, 1959, the Lucy Jefferson Lewis Chapter, N.S.A.R. of New Madrid, Missouri, marked the grave of Captain Joseph Conway as a Revolutionary soldier and patriot.  The ceremony was attended by many of his proud descendants.  April 6, 1813 Joseph Conway was again called into the service of his country.  This time he was called into the active service of the United States, by His Excellency, Benjamin Howard, Governor of the Territory of Missouri.  Again he was facing the British against his homeland.  He served in the Infantry with the rank of Captain in the War of 1812.  At the age of 49 years he had served in two wars against England, fighting for his young country with vigor and strength.
The challenge to explore the Pacific northwest followed after President Thomas Jefferson bought the huge Louisiana Territory from Napoleon in 1803.  President Jefferson tendered to Captain Joseph Conway the command of what we know as the Lewis and Clark Expedition, but he declined the appointment, and the honor went to Lewis and Clark.  Joseph Conway felt that his first responsibility was his family and their welfare, so he did not undertake the 1,600 miles exploration up the Missouri River to its source, across the Rockies, with the descents to the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean.  Joseph Conway was on hand to give his blessings and good wishes to the small army detachment of thirty-one men in the Lewis and Clark Expedition that afternoon of May 14, 1804.  The “robust, healthy, hardy young men of the Corps of Discovery” set out in a keelboat and two pirogues, not to return until September 1806.  For five months the party had outfitted at Wood River, fifteen miles north of St. Louis, where the shifting Mississippi River then received the Missouri River.  Everyone was eager to learn the results of the exploration of the Louisiana Territory, but Joseph Conway felt he owed his first duty to his young family of five children, that was to increase to ten.  Already he had had far more than his share of adventures.
The Conways were staunch Presbyterians.  Joseph Conway gave the land, diagonally across the road from his home, and assisted in furnishing the funds, materials, and construction labor for the erection of Bonhomme Presbyterian Church, which stands to this day.  It is said to be one of the oldest and may contend it is the oldest Protestant Church built west of the Mississippi River.  Built of sturdy stone, it stands proudly today as a landmark and monument to the Christian principles of the founding Conway Family.
	The fourth son of Joseph and Elizabeth Conway was Samuel Conway, born July 25, 1799 and died October 28, 1870, married October 28, 1824, Mourning Baxter, born January 17, 1804 in Madison County, Kentucky, died April 29, 1845 in Missouri.  She was the daughter of Green Berry Baxter and Elizabeth Jones of Madison County, Ky. who came to the Territory of Missouri between 1810-1814.  Samuel Conway and his brother, Joseph, Jr., both served as sheriff of St. Louis County Court; held a seat in the General Assembly of Missouri and were Deacons in Bonhomme Presbyterian Church, founded by his father and uncle [sic].  During the War between the States the following incident is related of him.  The story goes that Samuel Conway had the keys to the Bonhomme Church and wouldn’t let the Yankee soldiers in when they wanted to have services.  The soldiers had to threaten to shoot Mr. Conway before he would yield the keys.  It delights the loyal Sourthern heart of the author to know her paternal great grandfather, Samuel Conway, was a “Southern Sympathizer”.  Samuel Conway was twelve years old when the New Madrid, Missouri, earthquake of 1811 occurred in which houses in the vicinity of his home were knocked down and the whole country shook from the shock of the quivers that tore the earth asunder and formed Reelfoot Lake in western Tennessee.  Samuel and Mourning Conway were parents of nine children.
	Samuel Conway died of typhoid fever in the only illness of his life.  He lived in changing time in his young nation as is evidenced by the following calculations.  Samuel Conway, born July 25, 1799, native born Missourian of Anglo-Saxon parentage, was born in a Kingdom -- Spain (in 1800 Spain returned the territory to France).  He was reared in an Empire – France (France sold the entire Louisiana Territory to the United States in 1803).  He was educated and spent his childhood in a Territory (in 1803 St. Louis became the capital of the Upper Louisiana Territory).  He attained manhood in this Missouri Territory (became Missouri Territory in 1812).  He became a citizen of a state, Missouri (Missouri, the 24th state, came into the Union as a slave state on August 10, 1821; Missouri did not secede from the Union in 1861).  All of this, yet Samuel Conway never traveled more than 100 miles from where he was born.  He lived out his life on his father’s original land grand farm in Bonhomme District, at Chesterfield, in the Creve Coeur Lake Settlement, St. Louis County, Missouri, where he first saw the light of day.  Here he died on October 28, 1870 when typhoid fever took his sturdy life with the only illness he had ever experienced in his many years on earth.  He was in his 68th year.
	Samuel and Mourning Baxter Conway were the parents of Louisa Conway, born April 24, 1840 on the ancestral place of her father, Samuel Conway.  She died June 30, 1895 in St. Louis, Missouri and is buried in Bellefontain.  She attended Lindenwood College, St. Charles, Missouri, 1855-57.  The Herbarium she created while a student there is preserved to this day by her descendant, the author.  The Sibleys founded this “Female Academy” in 1827, situated on 138 acres of the highest elevation in the extreme western part of St. Charles, Missouri, then the capital of the new state.  From this high vantage point above the Missouri River a beautiful view was commended of the rolling country side from the Linden shaded Campus.  On September 3, 1861 Louisa Conway became the bride of Frederick Bates Walton, grandson of Governor Frederick Bates, of Missouri, for whom he was named.  His mother, Emily Caroline Bates, wife of Robert Alfred Walton, had cone back to her ancestral home, “Thornhill”, in St. Louis County, Missouri, to have her first child, the eldest of eight children.  To follow prideful tradition Louisa Conway Walton went to “Thornhill” to give birth to her eldest surviving son, Allen Walton, one of nine children.  Allan Walton was born March 4, 1864 and died May 6, 1919 in Blytheville, Arkansas.  He was a world traveler and adventurer.  On October 21, 1903 he married the beauteous Virginia Warren Field, of Jonesboro, Arkansas, on her twenty-first birthday.  From Jonesboro they went to Blytheville, Arkansas, to make their home.  Here he was successfully established in the wholesale grocery business and was a leader in his community.  Allan and Virginia Field Walton were the parents of Virginia Field Walton, Born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and reared in Blytheville, Arkansas.  She attended the Alma Mater of her paternal grandmother, Louis Conway, Lindenwood College in St. Charles, Missouri.  From these sturdy ancestors she derived the stamina to lead an adventurous life of world travel and jet circumnavigations.  April 27, 1929 in Blytheville, Arkansas, Virginia Field Walton became the bride of Berry Boswell Brooks, Jr. of Memphis, Tennessee, a renowned sportsman, big game hunter, and world traveler.  They were the parents of Virginia Walton Brooks, born June 4, 1933 in Memphis, Tennessee.  June 29, 1957 Virginia Brooks became the wife of Allen Martin of Katonah, New York.  They are the parents of Ann Field Martin, born April 1, 1959.
	From Elizabeth Bridgewater Conway, Revolutionary Pioneer, Mother and Heroine, we trace through four generations of Conways down through four direct generations to complete eight generations to the youngest descendant, four year old Ann Field Martin, her great, great, great, great, greatgrandaughter.

References:
Draper Manuscripts, State Historical Society of Wisconsin
Encyclopedia of History of St. Louis, Missouri
A History Of Missouri, by Louis Houck, 1908, Vols. 2&3
Letters of Henry Clay Ogle, Paris, Ky. 1903 & 1912
Annals of Southwest Virginia (1929) L.P. Summers
Lost Links, Francis & Moore (12 Bible records & Wills)

Authors note: The Author (address:  Epping Forest Manor, 3661 James Road, Memphis, Tenn.) welcomes additions or corrections to the first generation of Elizabeth Bridgewater Conway and her husband, John Conway, Sr. The proof of their parentage is lacking.  In 1947 Julia S. Ardery (Mrs. Em. B.) of Paris, Kentucky questioned the authenticity of the Ogle’s letters statement that (continued on bottom of page 110) Not provided by contributor, mb.

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Letters of Henry C. Ogle

Henry C. Ogle, Sr. was the son of Jesse and Elizabeth Conway Ogle.  Elizabeth was the daughter of John and Anna Sutton Conway, Jr. and John, Jr. the son of John and Elizabeth Bridgewater Conway.  These letters have proven to be an invaluable resource for genealogists and historians.  Most of the letters were written to George Pohlman, Jr. who was married to another Conway descendant.  There is, however, a letter written to Dr. Samuel Conway, another great-grandson of John and Elizabeth Conway.  Also included, is a letter written by George Pohlman to the Wisconsin State Library summarizing information he had collected from various sources but referring to the letters of Mr. Ogle.
 	The reader is encouraged to read all of the letters in their entirety.  Although some of the information may seem repetitive, new facts are frequently added in the different writings.  Also, there are some inconsistencies among the letters so a complete reading is necessary to avoid erroneous conclusions.  The letters presented were written between 1903 to 1917.  Researchers have since been able to clarify facts and add new information.  
 	The letters were originally handwritten by Mr. Ogle and have been transcribed here from typed copies that were generously passed along by Mrs. Millie Belew; who, in turn, received them from a Conway family researcher.  Although spelling and typing errors have been corrected, proper names remain as they appeared.  The grammar and content has not been changed.  The reader will also note that terms which are considered “politically incorrect” now but which were acceptable in the early 1900s have not been altered.  To change the grammar and language of these letters would negate the original tone of the writers.  
										Sherida Dougherty.

Source: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, WI.
Author/Creator: Conway family.
Title: Letters, 1834-1912.
Quantity: 0.1 c.f. (1 folder)
Summary: Letters from various members of the Conway family on the genealogy of the Conways of Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri. Family members fought in the Revolution and traveled with Daniel Boone in Kentucky. The letters include correspondence between George Pohlman and Conway descendant Henry Ogle.
RLIN Number: WIHV00-A484
Location: Archives Main Stacks
Call Number: SC 1307
Shelf Location: MAD 4 /14/SC 1307

Letter of Henry C. Ogle to Dr. Samuel Conway of La Monte, Missouri
		
			Paris, Ky. 
					Jan. 2, 1903
Dear Sir: 
 	The history of the Conway family as related to me by my mother and my Uncle Nathaniel Conway begins as far as I can trace it with our Great grandfather John Conway, who came to Virginia when a young man from near Dublin, Ireland.  This was probably about 1730 to 1735.  He had a good education and devoted all his early life to teaching.  His wife, Elizabeth, whom he married in Virginia, was a lady of English birth, whose maiden name was Bridgewater.  They were the parents of ten children – four sons and six daughters.  The sons were Samuel – the eldest – next Jesse – John and Joseph, he being the youngest of the boys.  Of the daughters I can now remember the names of only three of them, Elizabeth, Dulcenea and Sally, she was the youngest of all the children.  John was born in 1758, was my grandfather and Joseph was yours.  Joseph, from incidents which I will hereafter relate, was born about 1765 (1763) and Sallie in 1774.  I do not know the ages of the others.  Of the daughters, two of them whose names I have forgotten, married brothers named Long.  Elizabeth married William Daugherty, another whose name I have forgotten married John Daugherty, brother of William (this name is pronounced as if spelled Dority).  Dulcinea married Basil Wells.  Sallie, ----- Underwood.  The first five sisters married in Virginia.  Sallie married in Kentucky.  Samuel’s wife was a Miss Clemons.  John’s a Miss Sutton (Anna).  Joseph’s a Miss Caldwell.  The last two brothers were married in Kentucky, but I do not know whether Samuel was married in Virginia or Kentucky.  Of Jesse I know but little, except that he was a soldier in the Revolutionary War, and was in the Battle of Eutaw Springs, The Cowpens, besides other minor engagements, and after the war left Virginia moving to Indiana or Illinois, I have forgotten which state. 
 	I leaned this some ten years ago from a letter written me by a cousin, T.J. Underwood of Sangamon Co. Ill.  Mr. Underwood is a grandson of our great aunt Sally.  I do not remember whether my mother or my uncle every told me about our great grandfather having any brothers besides himself coming with him to Va. But I am under the belief that he had.  I met with an old gentleman of this name in Knox Co. Mo. Some 27 years ago – John Conway.  He said that he was born in Eastern Ohio, but his father died when he was a small child, but his mother always told him his father came from Va.  He had a married daughter living in the neighborhood with whom I became acquainted and she bore a striking resemblance to a Mrs. Bates whom I met in St. Louis Co, Mo. in 1875.  I have now forgotten whether she was your sister or your cousin.  I think it quite likely that this old gentleman must have been a grandson of a brother to your great grandfather.  But I have strayed from my story. 
 	I will now take up the history of Samuel.  He too was in the Revolutionary Service, but not as a soldier.  He manufactured gunpowder for the army.  Prior to the Revolution he was a soldier procured by Virginia against the Indians, commonly known as Dunmore’s War, and was in the sanguinary battle of Point Pleasant, where the whites were commanded by Col. Lewis and the Indians by Cornplanter (see Colonial History).  After the Revolution he came to Kentucky, first settling in Bourbon Co. but after a few years, when wild game became scarce, he moved and settled on Main Licking River, about 40 miles south of Cincinnati, in what is now Pendleton Co.  That portion of Ky. was at that time and for many years afterwards a veritable “Hunters Paradise”.  The land with the exception of the wide river bottoms, is very broken and for many years after the settling of Ky. remained a dense almost impenetrable wilderness.  Again in 1818, he sold out and moved to northeast Mo. settling in Marion Co.  I don’t think he ever had but two sons, one named Ben and the other Sineon (Simeon) who died some 35 years ago in Lewis Co. Mo. And Benjamin died without children.  I have met with a son of Sineon’s, Prof. D.M. Conway, at this time in chare of a high school in Shelbyville, Mo. but afterwards went down, I think to some school in southwest Mo.  There were several daughters, the descendants of three of them now living in Pendleton Co. Ky.  Husband of one of the daughters was Smith (so you see we have the honor to be related to the great Smith family.)  Another to Mr. Beckett, another to Mr. Brownfield – this name in olden times was called Brumfield. 
 	John Daugherty and his family also moved to Ky. settling near Paris about 1810, but afterwards sold out and moved to Mo., I don’t know where. 
 	Of the two sisters who married the two Long brothers, I know nothing more of their history, nor of Dulcinea and her Husband Basil Wells. 
 	I will now take up the history of John, Joseph, Elizabeth, Sally and their parents and their removal to Ky.  John first came in 1777 as one of a company of soldiers sent out by the garrison of Va. To guard the settlers about Boone’s Fort, or as it was commonly known as Boonesboro. This is in the present Co. of Madison on the Ky. River.  He remained a year during which the fort was twice attacked by Indians and during on of these attacks besieged eight or ten days.  In fact partied of Indians were frequently skulking about the country adjacent to the fort, watching for a chance to kill the whites, and many were waylaid and murdered.  He returned to Va.  in 1778 and in a short time afterward, probably 1779 he came to Ky. accompanied by his father and mother, his sister Elizabeth and her husband, Wm. Daugherty and one child, Joseph, and Sally. Also several other families. They settled about ten miles north of Paris, in the neighborhood of what was called Riddle’s Station.  It was really a stockade or fort, built for the purpose of sheltering the settlers from attack by the Indians.  Early in the spring of 1780 a number of the families in the neighborhood moved into the fort, also into another called Martin’s six or eight miles south of Riddle’s.  The men would go out during the day to work, clearing land, breaking and preparing for planting their crops, and while some of them would be at this work others would be on guard around them with their guns to protect them against the Indians.  Oh! but the early settlers of Ky. had terrible times.  I enclose rough pencil sketch of fort and surroundings.  In June 1780, one Sunday morning, three boys, Joseph Conway being one of them, were sent out early to drive in the cows for milking, they were found on the west side of the river, they started them back, but on crossing the river, which was a shallow ripple, they caught a large Logger head turtle and carried it back to the sandy beach on the west side and began to tease it with willow twigs, watching it snap at them.  Some men from the fort were down at the edge of the water on the east side washing their hands and faces for breakfast.  An Indian lying concealed in the bushes fired on Joseph, wounding him in the side, then rushed out on him, knocked him down, and tore off his scalp, then vanished from sight in the thick bushes.  It was done so quickly that the men on the other side could give no assistance.  The alarm was given at the fort, the men rushed out with their guns and scoured the woods, but could find no trace of the Indian or any of his comrades.  They carried the wounded boy into the fort.  The wound from his head bled alarmingly.   Finally an old lady named Wiseman succeeded, by using cobwebs, in stanching the blood.  The wound in his side was a slight one, the bullet glancing off from his ribs.  His head was bandaged the best they could.  Two or three days afterwards the inmates of the fort were terribly alarmed one morning by hearing the report of a cannon near them, and were soon surprised by the appearance of a large force of British and Indians, several hundred.  All were under the command of Col. Byrd of the British Army.  They had come from Detroit which was then a British possession.  They brought cannon with the, cutting a road through the forest and hauling them.  They demanded the surrender of the fort, promising in the name of the English King to protect the inmates against the cruelty of the Indians.  The walls of the fort, while proof against the common rifle balls, were not sufficient to resist cannon.  Col. John Hinkston, the commander of the fort, agreed to surrender.  The gates were opened, the Indians rushed in and at once commenced pillaging the fort of everything they could find in cooking utensils, bed clothing and the like.  It was with the utmost difficulty that the British soldiers could prevent the Indians from wreaking their fury on the women and children.  They would jerk the feather and straw ticks off the beds, empty them to get the ticking.  While at their work they came to the bed where the wounded boy lay, and it happened to be the very Indian, as was learned afterwards, who had wounded him.  He instantly raised his tomahawk to complete his work, but the English soldiers jerked him away.  After robbing the fort of everything of value, they next put their prisoners under guard and then went on and capture Martin’s Fort.  It was the intention, it was said, to go to all the other forts to capture them in the same manner, with their cannon, but the British commander was so shocked by the terrible barbarities of the Indians that he refused to go any farther, and started back toward Detroit.  Many shocking cruelties were enacted by the Indians.  A number of very old men and women, too feeble to travel as fast as their captors wanted, were tomahawked and scalped.  My grandfather says that one of the men named Riddle had a stone bruise on his foot and limped badly, said he saw him lie down to drink at a spring, and while down an Indian drove his tomahawk into his brain and jerk off his scalp.  A few minutes later the Indian passed him and the other prisoners and shook his poor victim’s bloody scalp at them as a warning of what would be their fate unless they hurried along.  Many of the little boys would be so tired, when they came to a log they would climb up and roll over.  One woman had a sick baby which kept crying.  In passing along the bank of the river, an Indian jerked the baby from her arms and threw it far out into deep water.  She tried to rush after in after it, but they caught and held her and she was compelled to witness the dying struggles of her child.  At night the men prisoners were confined by driving stakes cross wise over their arms and legs, first extending them their full length, then passing a thong around their necks and tying this to another stake.  The night after their capture a very heavy rain fell. Grandfather says they had not protection, the their faces and while bodies were thoroughly drenched.  The rains raised the river very high.  In crossing Main Licking in canoes two old ladies, a Mrs. Spears and Mrs. Eustin and a little child were drowned.  During the confusion and trouble of the march, no effort could be made to dress the scalp wound on Joseph’s head, and the weather being hot, green flies made their appearance, and afterwards creepers. The same old lad Wiseman – who first stanched the blood, now again came in as a good Samaritan and picked the loathsome insects and dressed the boy’s head and continued to wait on him until the wound finally healed.  Let the memory of this old woman never be forgotten by the descendants of Joseph Conway.  One other incident I remember – Sally, then a little girl of six years, wore a nice little sunbonnet when capture, of which she was very proud.  In crossing the river, one of the Indians jerked it off and threw it into the river.  Another incident, some Indian squaws accompanied their husbands.  On the first night during the heavy rains, these squaws came to our great grandmother and threw some blankets over her and the other women to try to shield them from the storm.  When they reached Detroit, the prisoners were divided out among their captors, several small children separated from their parents and scattered out among the different tribes of Indians.  Sally was adopted by an old Indian and his wife who had no children.  All of the family four years after their capture were released and got back to Kentucky except Sally. Nine years after, a white man who had been among the prisoners, (a half grown boy when captured) managed to get away from them and returned to Ky. and told my grandfather where his sister was.  He went back and found her about forty miles west of Detroit.  At this time peace had been made with the Indians.  He bought his sister from the old Indian by the payment of forty silver brooches.  I have the story of her ransom in minutely written account from my kinsman, Mr. Underwood.  It is a very affecting story. 
 	The men prisoners, after a while, were allowed to liberty of the town and to work for any of the citizens who would employ them.  Detroit was quite a trading place then, the whites were a mixed race of French and English.  The country all south of it was a very heavy forest, and in winter next to the town for some half mile or so covered with water some three or four feet deep.  This was crossed by a causeway.  My grandfather, Mr. Daugherty and Joseph would frequently go out in the forest during the winter to chop wood for the citizens – would also go out and kill hogs for them, they fattened on acorns and hickory nuts and would soon become wild and had to be hunted with dogs and shot.  On one occasion, while returning at night on the causeway, they met a drunken Indian whom they gathered in their arms and pitched out onto the thin ice and left him breaking through and floundering in the water.  In what manner they traveled to get home I do not remember that my uncle ever told me.  William Daugherty after his return to Ky. remained a few years in Bourbon Co. then went to Pendleton Co. in the same neighborhood where Samuel Conway settled, and remained there until his death.  One of his sons, Jesse, born while he and his wife were prisoners in Detroit, was a gallant soldier in the war of 1812, and others of his sons and daughters have in the past been people of the best standing in the community where they lived, also grand children and great grand children.  Our great grandfather died shortly after his return to Ky. but his wife lived a long time after, dying about 1808 at my grandfather’s from a cancer on her forehead.  Aunt Sally after her return, also make her home with my grandfather until her marriage with Mr. Underwood.  My mother says he was a worthless kind of man and after about two years of marriage went off and left his wife and infant son, Rueben.  She then returned to my grandfather’s house, where she made her home until Reuben was grown and married.  She then lived with him.  He moved to Illinois about 1830 and settled in Sangamon Co.  He died about 1840 but his mother lived five years longer. 
 	Joseph grew up to full manhood and for a number of years engaged as a spy to watch the Indians.  Altho peace was made wit England in 1783, the Indians would still make raids into Ky. stealing horses and murdering settlers.  The house of a settler named Shanks, living in Bourbon Co. was attacked in Feb. 1787, and the house was burned to the ground and all the family killed except on daughter, a widow Gillespie and her son.  Your grandfather was at the house in the early part of the night, but he left shortly after dark.  The attack was made about 10 o’clock.  If you could manage to get hold of any of the histories of Ky. you will find a full account of this tragedy under the History of Bourbon Co.  A party was hastily organized the next day to pursue them, a light snow fell and they had no trouble following them, your grandfather was one of the party.  The over took them on the Licking Hills.  Two of the Indians dropped behind and showed themselves and kept jumping from tree to tree, it was supposed to make the whites think there was a number of them.  Your grandfather rushed up within shooting distance of them and got behind a tree.  Putting his hat on a stick he slowly and cautiously poked it around the tree.  The Indians thinking it was his head fired.  He then rushed them and succeeded in killing one of the Indians.  The other, with the rest escaped, he was a little too fast.  When the Indians attacked the house, which was a double cabin, they managed to break into one of the rooms where a couple of grown sisters were weaving, and tried to carry them off.  One of them defended herself with a knife which she used about her work on the loom, and killed one of the Indians.  They then killed her and took the other girl captive.  When they found the whites on their pursuit and about to overtake them, they sank their tomahawk into her head. 
 	Your grandfather, after his marriage, I don’t know what year he was married, settled on a fine farm on Cooper’s Run in Bourbon Co. but afterwards, about 1797 or 1798 removed to Mo. then called Louisiana Territory in 1803, the government made arrangements to send out two exploring companies to go across the great plain, the Rocky Mts.   to the Pacific Ocean.  These companies fitted up at St. Louis, and began the trip in 1804.  The command of one of these companies was tendered by President Jefferson to your grandfather, but he declined to take it because of his limited education.  Captain Clark commanded one of the companies and Capt. Lewis the other.  The latter was a nephew of Jefferson.  Some time when you are in a bookstore get a copy of the book called “The Lewis-Clark Expedition”.  No more interesting book was ever published.  I have heard my mother speak of seeing you grandfather once when she was a girl.  He was on a visit to my grandfather’s.  She said he took her on his lap and put her hand on his head to feel the place where the Indians scalped him.  I have also heard her speak of one of your uncles coming on a visit to Ky. when she was about grown – Walter Conway.  He spent some time at the home of my grandfather, and on his return one of my uncles accompanied him to his home in Mo.  Your father told me when I was at his house in 1875 that he had a very vivid recollection of my uncle’s visit.  Your father and my Uncle Nat Conway very much resembled each other, and seemed a good deal alike in disposition.  I had two other uncles besides Uncle Nat, William and John, or as he was commonly called Jack.  Both of them died before I was born.  Uncle Jack was killed in his own home by lightening in 1833 while upstairs trying to close a window in a heavy storm.  He was the grandfather of young Mr. Conway whom you met in Kansas City. 
 	I have given you a long and rambling sketch of the family history and could tell you much more, but wont just now.  I am so nervous that I never use a pen in writing.  You can perhaps decipher my letter.  At you leisure you can get some one to give you a typewritten copy.  I will write you again and give you names of younger branches of the family.				
							Yours truly, Henry C. Ogle, Sr. 

Letter of Henry C. Ogle to George Pohlman
  
			Chicago, Ill. 
			July 2, 1912 
Mr. Geo. Pohlman Jr.
Macon, Missouri 
	My friend and kinsman Mr. Charles Conway of this city handed me the enclosed letter with the request that I answer it.  I am perhaps more familiar with the genealogy of the Conway Family from whom I am a descendant on my mother’s side than any of the other kin.  In fact I undertook some 20 years ago to get up a History of the family and have it published in Book Form, but had to abandon it, partly from want of mean together with such poor encouragement on the part of other descendants from my ancestors. 
 	The first of the name came to America from whom I am descendant and of whom I have many accurate accounts listing was John Conway.  He came from near Dublin, Ireland when a young man, and located in Virginia.  I have not been able to learn what county, but think not far from Richmond.  He was well educated and devoted all the early part of his life to the business of teaching. 
 	His wife, Elizabeth, whom he married in Virginia was a lady of English birth whose maiden name was Bridgewater.  They were the parents of 10 children, 4 sons and 6 daughters.  The sons were Samuel, Jesse, John and Joseph.  Samuel was the oldest son Joseph the youngest.  Of the daughters 2 of them married brothers named Long, 2 others married brothers named Daugherty.  One of them married a Wells and the youngest, Sarah (or as she was always called, Sally) married Underwood. 
 	The first five of them married in Virginia, the last (Sally) married in Ky.  She was the youngest of all the family.  Samuel was married in Virginia to a Miss Clemmon.  Jesse also married in Virginia but do not know the name of the family into whom he married.  John and Joseph both married in Ky.  The former to Miss Sutton and the latter to Miss Caldwell.  I am descendant from John. 
 	I don’t know anything of the two Long brothers or there subsequent history.  I have it that Jesse Conway moved direct from Virginia to Ill. and settled in Green Co. 
 	John was the first to come to Ky.  This was in 1777.  He came here as one of a company of soldiers sent out by the Governor of Virginia to the defense of the Fort of Boonesborough, but in 1778 he returned to Virginia.  In 1779 he, together with his father, mother, his brother Joseph, sister Elizabeth, then the wife of Joseph Daugherty and his youngest sister Dally together with a number of other emigrants all moved to Ky.  The Indians becoming so troublesome the settler moved into the fort for protection.  In June 1780, this fort was besieged by a force of British soldiers, some 200 in number and 5 to 600 Indians and compelled to surrender.  All the inmates taken to Detroit then a British Post. 
	They were held 4 years and then released.  One of these, Sallie, became separated from the others and remained prisoner among the Indians till she was fifteen years old.  None of the family knew where she was until after Wayne’s Defeat of the Indians.  A white man coming back to Ky. from captivity among the Indians told her father where she was and he went and brought her home, but he had to buy her from them.  I enclose letter giving you account of this story, written to me in 1888 by her grandson Tho. J. Underwood.  Be sure to return it to me as I value it highly.  You can however have a copy of it taken and return.  It is a very affecting story and I can hardly keep from crying whenever I read it.  After her return home she married Mr. Underwood, but he proved to be a man of worthless character, who after the marriage, deserted her, leaving an infant boy whom she named Reuben. 
 	She lived with my grandfather.  After the death of her father, until her son was grown and married.  My mother always spoke in such endearing language of her.  She said her mother’s health broke down after the birth of her last child and was never to do any housework.  Aunt Sally Underwood took charge of the family and was second mother to her and all her brothers and sisters. 
 	Joseph Conway the youngest brother, in 1798 left Ky. and went to Missouri, settling in St. Louis Co. some 20 miles west of the city.  His was a remarkable history indeed.  My cousin Thomas Underwood has gotten hold of the right story about the scalping Joseph.  After the surrender of the Fort the captors all started with their prisoners toward Detroit.  One of them whose name was Riddle could not keep up in the march because of lameness from a stone bruise and he was the man tomahawked and scalped by the Indians and left for dead.  Several days before the fort was attacked, Joseph, then a boy of 15 or 16 together with 2 other boys about the same age went out early in the morning to drive in the cows to be milked. 
 	The crossed to the west side of the river, found the cows and started them across the river (South Licking) but spied on the ripple a large logger head turtle, caught it, carried it back to the sandy beach on the other side and were having sport with it by poking willow twigs toward its head watching it snap at them.  An Indian lying concealed in the thick fringe of willow bushes along the bank shot at Joseph giving him a slight wound in the side, but instantly rushed out and with his tomahawk knocked him senseless and then cut and tore off his scalp.  It was done in full view of several men of the Fort who were down at the river washing their hands and faces for breakfast, but done so quickly that the Indian got away before they could get to the scene.  The alarm was given at the Fort and the men rushed out with their guns and scoured the woods for the Indian but he escaped all pursuit.  The poor boy was carried back to the fort but still breathing.  The wound on his head bled dreadfully but finally an old lady Wiseman succeeded in stopping the flow of blood by the application of cobwebs to the wound.  The wounds were bandaged and the boy put to bed.  In this wounded condition he was captured and taken to Detroit.  While on the march the weather was very hot and the wound neglected and fly blown.  This same old woman dressed the wounds, picking out the “creepers” and finally bot him well.  He lived to a very old age.  I heard my mother tell of her Uncle Joseph visiting my grandfather once from Missouri and his taking her on his lap and having her feel the top of his head where the scalp was taken. 
 	Samuel Conway, William Daugherty and Wells the last tow of his brothers-in-law came to Ky. after the Revolution and first settled in Bourbon Co. but moved from there shortly afterward and settled in Pendleton Co. 
 	Get a pocket map of Ky. where all counties are laid off.  Look first for Bourbon Co.  You will see on the map a stream running through Paris called Stoner.  Another through Millersburg marked Hinkston and where the two streams join you will see Riddle’s Mills.  3 Miles below this junction on the East Bank of the stream, which takes the name of South Licking was the site of Riddle’s Fort.  In the olden times it was called Riddle’s Fort.  At the time of its capture Capt. Isaac Riddle was in command of the soldiers in the Fort assisted by Capt. John Hinkston.  5 miles below this is Cynthiana was the county seat of Harrison County.  18 miles further down where South Licking forms a junction with Main Licking you will find Falmouth the County seat of Pendleton County.  10 miles further down you will find a town marked Butler and near this at the mouth of a creek which comes from the west and empties into the River called Grassy Creek is where Uncle Samuel Conway lived together with his brothers-in-law Joseph and William Daugherty, Wells and his wife’s family, the Clemons and several families who came from Virginia.  Of his history from 1818 you know what this is.  I have often heard my mother and Uncle Nat Conway visiting at my grandfather’s house in Bourbon Co. and what a jolly old man he was.  In fact I could write many pages telling of the varied experiences and incidents connected with his life and others of the old pioneers as often related by my mother and my uncle around the fireside during the long winter nights. 
 	I remember of my mother speaking of seeing 2 of the children of her Uncle Samuel who visited by gr. father.  One a son named Benjamin and a sister, a widow then, Polly Brownfield.  She also said there was one son named Simeon and 2 daughters that she remembered one of whom married a Smith, another a Becket, both of whom lived in Pendleton County.  I have Samuel C. Smith, gr. son of the old man.  Also a Mrs. -----, I have forgotten her name, a daughter of Mrs. Becket. 
 	My grandfather had 6 children, 3 daughters and 3 sons William, John and Nathaniel S., Polly, Anna, and Elizabeth.  Polly was the oldest child of the family.  Nathaniel S. the youngest.  He was always called Nat, (Uncle Nat).  He died in 1878.  Uncle William died in 1832, Uncle Jack in 1833, Aunt Polly some time about 1824.  My mother died in 1872.  She remained a widow a long time.  My father, Jesse Ogle, died in Harrison Co. Ky. in Dec. 1839 when I was only 11 months old.  He was twice married.  One of his sons by his first wife (Jesse) named for his father born in 1820, moved to Ralls Co. Missouri in 1846.  He died there in 1870.  His youngest son, Robert A. Ogle, was born in 1863, now lives there and is a member of a manufacturing firm, “The Ogle Construction Co.”   He is president of the firm. 
 	My home is Paris, Ky. Bourbon County.  I came here the 19th day of June on a visit to him and 2 of my cousins, Thomas and Charles Conway.  They are the grandsons of my Uncle William Conway.  Thomas and Charles are first cousins, Henry R. & James W. Conway being brothers and my first cousins.  Of all the children of my grandfather that is the first generation of grandchildren, 29 in all, only 2 of us living, myself born in 1839 and my cousin James M. Conway born in 1843.  He lives in the old house built by my grandfather in 1825 and my Uncle Nat in 1878. 
 	My cousin James M. Conway (as fine a man as ever lived) says he will never leave it until carried out to be buried and says he wants it to always remain in the hands of his children and grandchildren.  I am writing this week to him asking him to send me his photograph, copy of a photograph of his house which he had taken many years ago.  Will send it to you. 
 	I am a widower, my wife died the 4th April, 1911.  We were married September 1st 1864.  I have 2 children, a son,  Henry Conway Ogle and a daughter Virginia Ogle. 
 	Harry has one child only, a boy, Thornton Buckner Ogle, 9 years old or will be day after tomorrow (Independence Day). 
 	My daughter is the wife of Gilbert M. Thompson.  They have three children.  Virginia 9, Paul Stuart 7 and a dear little granddaughter 5 years old.  Both my children live in Paris.  My son is a traveling salesman for a wholesale grocery in Lexington.  My son-in-law travels for sale of wire fencing, manufactured at Pittsburgh by the American Fence Co. 
 	Would be pleased to have you write me often and when you first write me ask your wife’s father to give me a full list of the names of this great gr. father Samuel Conway, his grandchildren and all the other descendants as far as he knows, their names and Post Office addresses.  If I should get all the names of the descendants of the first Conway who came from Ireland together with their P.O. addresses it would fill a big book.  To give you some idea of how the descendants multiply here’s one example.  My Aunt Polly in 1806 married Henry Overby.  They had 7 sons and one daughter.  John Overby her first son had one son names Henry T.  He had one son named John.  John’s daughter, Idelia, married a Mr. Kane and they had 3 children.  These are the gr.-gr.-gr.-grandchldren of Polly and Polly herself the gr. daughter of John my gr.-father and the gr.-gr.-gr.-gr.-grand children of John the first immigrant to America. 
 	I have written you a long and I fear a tiresome letter, but I could tell you much more if you wanted to hear it.  If there is any part of it you want to preserve I suggest that you have a typewritten copy taken from it.  I have a full list of all the children and grand children of my gr. father and many of the names of their gr. children and gr. grand children.  Also the names of all the children of my great Uncle Joseph of St. Louis Co.  Also several of his gr. children.  I have several cousins of the same generation as Charles J. in Clay Co. Mo. Salina and Pettus.  Some in Kansas City.  I expect to visit some of them before returning to Ky. 
	I am enclosing you my photograph. 
 		Yours very truly, Henry C. Ogle, Sr. 

***
Henry C. Ogle to George Pohlman

						Paris, Ky. 
					Sept. 5, 1912 
 Dear Mr. Pohlman: 
 	I will now after so long a time write in answer to your letters of July and August.  This I ought to have done at an earlier date.  I had to give over my intended trip to see my nephew, W.H. Tyler, in Topeka, Kansas.  I wanted on my return to stop at Kansas City to see my cousin Galen L.Conway and Joseph T. Conway – also to stop both at Marshall, Lamonte and Liberty to see other Conway kin.  I have another cousin on my father’s side, Thos. H. Jones in Lucerne, Putnam County, who I had purposed to visit, then to come to your house in Macon, thence to Hannibal, Mo., to see some more nephews, Jesse and Will Ogden. 
 	Macon is not an unknown city to me.  I have been there perhaps a half dozen times from 1876 to 80, I was acquainted with some people who had gone there from Hanover County, Ky., the same county where I was raised.  Among them I remember a lawyer, Judge John Henry.  Have also been in Moberly and in “Old Bloomington” the ancient County Seat of Macon. 
 	I returned from Chicago on the 30th July.  Since this I have been spending most of my time with my nephews and nieces in Robertson County, Ky. and about ten days with my first cousin, James M. Conway, near Millersburg, and twelve miles N.E. of Paris.  He is the only one of my first cousins now living, and the youngest one – is 69 years old.  He owns part of the old home of my grandfather, John Conway.  The house is one of the oldest in Nickalas [sic] County built in a period between 1790 and 1800.  The main part is a two story hewed log structure 20 ft. square and 20 ft. high, with a one story log room on each end; one of these rooms – 12 x 20 – built for a bedroom.  The other 20 x 20 for a kitchen.  Between the kitchen and the central room is a huge stone chimney 6 ft. thick, 10 ft. wide, with double fire places – one in the family room 4 ft wide and in the kitchen 6 ft. wide.  From this description you may know that the people in olden time wanted plenty of room. 
 	The farm upon which the house stands is a part of a 400 acre tract that was patented by my gr. father by the state of Virginia in 1786.  I am sending you a copy of the old patent deed.  I wish you could see the original – it is written on parchment and has attached to it the signature of the Governor of Virginia, signed by himself, the justly celebrated Patrick Henry. 
 	In this house your wife’s ancestor, Samuel Conway, has often been a guest also his daughter Polly Brumfield and one of his sons, Benjamin.  I have often heard both my mother and Uncle Nat Conway speak of his visiting at my gr father’s.  Both of them said he was a jolly old man, fond of joking.  His brother Joseph, too, visited there once after his removal to Mo.  My mother says she will remember him taking her on his lap and telling her to put her hand on the top of his head and to feel the bald place where the Indian scalped him. 
This house has also had an honored guest, the celebrated Simon Kenton, the last time in 1827.  If you are in any manner familiar with the history of Kentucky in her first settlement you will know at once the part he filled in the first settlement of the state. 
 	Now I will take up another subject.  (In one of the letters you wrote Charles J. Conway.  You gave him the names of the different brothers and sisters as copied from the old Bible of Samuel Conway, now in the possession Mr. Miller.  You give the names of four sons and five daughters.)  Both my mother and Uncle Nat Conway always told me there were six daughters.  My mother has often told me their names as well as the names of their husbands – but I can just now remember the names of only three of them.  The youngest daughter as well as the youngest child was Sara (but always called Sally), Elizabeth and Dulcinea.  Two of the daughters married brothers in Virginia named Long.  Two others brothers named Daugherty.  Elizabeth was the wife of Joseph Daugherty, and ------ the wife of John Daugherty.  Another of the daughters married Basil Well.  Am under the impression, but not sure that this was Dulcinea.  All these marriages were formed in Virginia.  Sally married in Kentucky to Mr. Underwood.  Samuel and Jesse were both married in Virginia, or at last I think this was the case. 
 	Joseph and John married in Kentucky.  John’s wife was Anna Sutton, born in Culpepper County, Virginia 1766.  They were married in Bourbon County, Ky. 1790.  Joseph Conway’s wife was Elizabeth Caldwell born in Virginia 1773.  They were married in Bourbon County – 1791.  
	Now I suppose you have the names of all of Samuel Conway’s children as well as most of his gr. and great grandchildren.  It has been my good fortune to meet with and become acquainted with two of his grandsons, one of them Samuel Conway Smith whom I saw at the house of his son Jay smith in McKinneysburg, Pendleton County, Ky. in 1872.  The old gentleman was then 65 years old, and a firm old man.  The other gr son was Marion Conway, who from 1876 to 77 was living in Shelbyville, Missouri, as superintendent of the High School.  If I mistake not he signed his name D.M. Conway.  I took dinner with him one day.  He was raised in Marion County.  Told me his father’s name, but I have now forgotten it.  He had in his possession and which he showed me his grandfather’s old Deer Gun, a Rifle of Large bore. 
 	Samuel was a soldier in the War of the Revolution, also a soldier under Col. Lewis in what was known as Dunmore’s War against the Indians.  Was in the noted Battle of Point Pleasant, a sanguinary affair fought in 1774.  A part of the time during the Revolution he was in the Service of the Government manufacturing powder for the army.  After the war closed he moved to Kentucky, and first settled in Bourbon County.  He was very fond of deer and turkey hunting and when these disappeared from Bourbon as a consequence of the thick settlement of this section, he went further North, and took up land in Pendleton County about 50 miles North of where he first settled.  The land in this part of Kentucky was more broken and hilly and not so fertile as Bourbon, and for many years was thinly settled, - most of it a vast forest, and for this reason a “Hunter’s Paradise”.  The old man was the owner of a very large bottom farm on Main Licking River.  If you will examine any large map of Kentucky where the counties are shown see Grassy Creek marked in Pendleton County, right where it empties into Licking is where Samuel Conway lived.  I have heard Uncle Nat tell of many happenings in that neighborhood as related to him by Uncle Sam as he always called him.  One of them was quite amusing.  A nephew of his, a young Daugherty, when about 19 went from Bourbon Co. to Pendleton to visit him and hunt deer.  The day following his arrival Uncle Sam gave him his Deer gun and to go out in the edge of his bottom cornfield next to the timber and watch for deer.  In about an hour he came funning back to the house, almost breathless and said he had shot at some kind of a wild animal, he did not know what it was, only it looked like an old “Nigger” running along trying to pull up his “britches”.  Said it jumped on a log and he shot at it but then dropped his bun and took to his heels.  His uncle and one of his boys went back with him and found the gun also the strange animal that he had shot, which proved to be a large Black Bear, he had killed it. 
  
(Part of the letter is missing here) 
  
…in readiness for the Tories”.  He is mistaken in the name, it should have been Jesse.  I know but little of his history except what I learned through this letter of Mr. Underwood.  Mention is also made of him in a letter which I am enclosing you, written by my grandfather Conway to his nephew Joe Conway of St. Louis, letter dated 1834. 
 	Now as to the history of the other members of the family, this is so closely connected that it is a hard matter to tell them separately.  To begin, however, John Conway, my gr father was the first to come to Kentucky.  This was in 1777.  He was one of a company sent out by the Governor of Virginia to help garrison the fort at Boonesborough.  He stayed here a year and then returned to Virginia.  The next year (1779) he returned to Kentucky with a number of emigrants, among whom was my great gr father and his wife, his daughter Elizabeth and her husband Joseph Daugherty, his son Joseph – then a boy of 14 – and his daughter Sallie a little girl of 5 years.  The Indians being so troublesome then, all the settlers would stay in one body in stations or forts for mutual protection.  The Conway family went to Riddle’s Station.  This was located on the East bank of South Licking River – about 9 miles North of Paris. – See map of Kentucky.  While the able bodied men and boys would be at work clearing the land and cutting it in crops of corn and vegetables during the day – another body would stay outside of these with their guns to guard the workers against the Indians.  At night all of them wold return to the fort for safety.  About the 10th of June 1780 – Joseph Conway the youngest son, and two other boys about his age were sent out early in the morning (it was on Sunday) to drive in the cows to be milked.  They had gone over to the West side of the river, where was a large densely timbered bottom, they found them, and started them back across the stream.  The water was low and on the ripple in crossing they caught sight of a large logger head turtle in the shallow water.  They grabbed it and carried it back to a sandy beach near the bank on the west side, and boys like commenced to tease it by poking willow twigs at it, and watch it snap them.  An Indian lying in ambush among the thick bushes on the bank fired on them, the bullet striking Joseph in the side, slightly wounding him but instantly rushed down on him struck him with tomahawk and scalped him and immediately disappeared in the bushes.  The deed was done in full view of a number of men who were down on the river on the side opposite washing their hands and faces getting ready for breakfast.  The alarm was given at the fort, and the men rushed out with their guns and scoured the woods, but could see no more Indians.  They carried the boy to the fort.  He was unconscious but still breathing.  The wound on his head where he had been scalped bled dreadfully, but finally an old lady named Wiseman stopped the bleeding by applying cob-webs.  The wounds were all bandaged and the boy put to bed, and by evening recovered conscious.  About ten days after, a large force of British and Indians, some 6 or 700 in all mostly Indians, surprised the Fort one morning about daybreak, and commenced an attack on it.  The men inside returned fire, and kept them at bay until they brought into action a cannon.  They then displayed a white flag.  The British officers, Col. Bird and McKee who were in command of the force, promised Capt. Riddle and Hinkston the officers in command of the fort that if they surrendered the fort without further resistance that he would promise them in the name of the British Government that the lives of all the inmates would be spared, and that they should be protected against vengeance of his Indian Allies – Said that unless they did surrender they would batter down the wooden walls of their fort with his cannon  (He had three of these with him) and then turn them over to the fury of the Indians.  On the solemn pledge of the British Officers that all their lives should be spared – they agreed to surrender.  As soon as the gates were opened the Indians rushed in, and in spite of all the British soldiers could do to restrain them, they murdered a number of the wounded men, also commenced taking anything they could see in the shape of wearing apparel and bed clothing.  They would grab the feather beds, rip them open and empty the feathers to get the ticking.  They came to the bed where the wounded boy Joseph Conway lay with his head bandaged, and an Indian raised the tomahawk to kill him, but one of the British soldiers forced him away.  They would grab the little children and take them away from their parents, many of them never again to be seen.  Among them was little Sallie, their youngest child, then 6 years old – but enough of this frightful story. 
 	In all there was some 200 persons captured and carried off as possessions from this fort, and on the day following they captured another fort – Martins about 7 miles S.E. of this, in which were some 100 persons.  All were taken to Detroit then a British Post, and kept prisoners for four years.  Joseph was taken along with the others.  During the march the wound on his head was neglected, the weather being hot, the “creepers” got in the wounds, but the same old lady Mrs. Wiseman picked them out and washed the wound till finally cured and healed up.  On the march when any of the prisoners would become exhausted so that they could not travel fast enough to suit their guards they would tomahawk and scalp them.  The incident related by Mr. Underwood about the man with the stone bruise being tomahawked and scalped because he could not keep up was true, but he was mistaken in the name.  He says it was Joseph Conway, instead of this his name was Riddle.  My grandfather says he saw Riddle kneel down at a spring to get a drink, and while he was down he saw an Indian in the act of striking him with his murderous weapon.  A few minutes after, the Indian passed him and others with Riddle’s bloody scalp, and shook it in their faces, warning them that would be their fate unless they kept up.  I never heard that Riddle recovered, but it is possible that he did. 
 	I am preparing for the press in my rude way the full story of the British invasion of Ky. in June 1780 – and when I can get the story ready, will have it published.  I could tell you of many such scenes as here related.  Mr. Underwood is again mistaken as to the age of his grandmother when captured – He says 3 years. 
 	I don’t know whether he is now living.  I shall write this week to him or some member of his family.  His mother lived at my grandfather’s from the time of her return after her ransom, till her marriage.  Her husband proved to be a worthless man, and deserted her shortly after the birth of her first and only child, a son, Reuben Underwood.  She continued to live with my grandfather till her son was grown and married.  My grandmother Conway had very feeble health after the birth of her last child, Uncle Nat and Aunt Sally Underwood was a mother and housekeeper to her nephews and nieces while small.  My mother and my Uncle always spoke of her in endearing terms. 
 	Joseph Daugherty and his wife Elizabeth, after their return from captivity stayed a short time in Bourbon County, but when Uncle Sam moved to Pendleton County he went with him and settled in the same neighborhood, where he remained till his death.  I have seen and formed the acquaintance of two or three of his grandsons.  He has numerous descendants living in that county today, all of them people of thrift and honesty.  Some of them Doctors, Lawyers and Politicians. 
 	Joseph Conway the youngest brother after his removal to Missouri became a man of note there when in 1803 or 04 the expedition was formed to explore the Louisiana Purchase, commonly known as the Lewis & Clark Expedition.  President Jefferson offered the command of one of these companies to Uncle Joe, but he had to decline from want of sufficient education for the purpose.  Two of his sons, Samuel and Joseph, for many years served as Sheriff of St. Louis County, and in 1857 Joseph was County Judge.  I visited him in the summer of 187_.  His brother, Samuel, was not then living.  One of Samuel’s sons, E. Virgil Conway, is a man of fine education, and when Missouri held her last Constitutional Convention in 1874, he was one of the delegates representing St. Francios County. 
 	I am enclosing you a letter received from him in 1879, also letters from his cousin, Dr. Samuel Conway of Lamonte, Pettus County.  I also enclose another letter – precious relic which I value very highly from my grandfather to his nephew, Joseph Conway, father of Dr. Sam Conway.  You will see that the name of your wife’s ancestor has been kept alive in the families of his brothers and sisters.  I had a first cousin died in Nickolas [sic] County, Ky. 12 years ago named Samuel F. Conway.  He has a nephew at Liberty, Missouri, his brother’s son Samuel Conway, a man about 50 years of age and a bachelor I think. 
 	Now my friend, I think I have told you the whole story.  If there is anything more you would like to know, write me and I will tell you. 
	One thing has always been a source of anxiety with me to solve, and that was whether my great uncle had any brothers or sisters who came to this country with him.  While in Chicago I went to one of her large libraries, Ewburry Library and spent nearly two days looking through the Books on Genealogy and found two large volumes on the Conways in America.  Many of them settled in Virginia from 1610 to 1750.  It told all their names and with whom they intermarried, but could find none who married with Bridgewater.  Most of these families were from Ireland, some of them from England and many of them of titled birth.  I find that the mother of President Madison was Nelly Conway. 
 	When you write me in answer to this send me a copy of the names in that old Bible – not only of the name and date of the different ones of the Conways, but also if there are nay of the marriages recorded in your Uncle Sam’s family, I would like to have them. That is his own marriage as well as those of his children.  Please return me the letter of Thomas J. Underwood, but keep a copy of it. 
 	I suggest too, that such parts of this long letter as you want to preserve that you copy on a typewriter. 
									
		Yours very truly, 
	Henry C. Ogle, Sr. 
  
	Would be glad to have your wife’s photograph together with the Baby if you have one.  Also Mr. & Mrs. Miller.      

***
Letter of Henry C. Ogle to George Pohlman
  
  Paris, Ky.  July 29th 1913 
Dear Mr. Pohlman 
 	After mailing letter to you yesterday I again went down to the Clerk’s office to make another Search of the records – I wanted to ascertain whether my Great Uncles Samuel, Jesse or Joseph Conway had ever owned land in Bourbon county.  I have often heard the story from my mother and uncle Nat Conway that Uncle Samuel first lived in Bourbon Co. after he came from Virginia – but when game became scarce and as he was passionately fond of hunting he left the county and moved to Pendleton Co. which at this time and was for many years afterwards a dense unbroken forest – where Deer Elk Bear and Wild Turkeys were abundant.  The land however in Pendleton County with the exception of the bottoms was poor and hilly and for many years the timbered lands could be bought at prices varying from 50 cents to $1.00 per acre. 
 	I have gotten off my subject I could not find where either Samuel or Joseph had bought land but did find where Jesse in 1792 bought 40 acres.  This located about 7 miles N West of Paris – The grantors being Craig and Johnson the same men from whom Miles W. Conway bought his land.  Although the land he bought lay in another part of the county S.E. from Paris – I don’t know how long Jesse Conway remained here I could not find any record of when he sold the land, but will have the Clerk make another Search. 
 	Now about Benjamin Conway – I remember of my mother telling me of seeing him and his sister Polly Brownfield on a visit at my Grandfathers when they were all young people.  She also told me of Benjamin’s death which as she says was caused by being hurt with a pitchfork while working in his meadow. 
 	I am writing to-day briefly to my cousins Dempsy Conway and Silas Dean Conway of Ill. asking them about their brothers, sisters, fathers and aunts.  They are of the same generation as myself, that is great gr sons of John the first emigrant to America – Your wife’s father Mr. Miller is gr great grandson and your wife a gr gr gr granddaughter of the first Emigrant.  Tell your wife that she is entitled to enrollment among the Daughters of the American Revolution and if she will only write me tracing back the names of her family to Samuel Conway I will take pleasure in writing to the President of the Mo. branch of the order.  The history of Samuel Conway’s connection with the army – I have assisted 3 different ladies to obtain a place in this honored order.  In a former letter you told me Mr. Miller’s descent from Samuel Conway but I have misplaced the letter.  Will you please write it out again? 
 	Tell me what additional facts you have learned from your search of Samuel Conway’s descendants – also from Jesse Conway’s people.   I shall go down to-morrow to pay a visit to my esteemed cousin James M. Conway 12 miles N.E. of Paris in Nicholas Co.  This originally was a part of Bourbon Co.  He lives on the farm and in the old Log house occupied by my Grandfather and where my mother was born and raised.  The same house in which my gr grandfather died in 1801 and also his wife in 1809.  In this house from the time of his return from captivity till her son Reuben was grown and married Aunt Sally Underwood made her home. 						Yours Truly
							H. C. Ogle Sr.

***
Letter of Henry C. Ogle to George Pohlman

	Paris – Oct. 3rd 1913
Dear Mr. Pohlman
	After a long silence I again write. One reason why I have not written sooner was the fact that I wanted to hear from Mr Clark of Falmouth Kentucky – At last he has written I now enclose his answer. After copying what you need from that portion of his Type written letter, you will please return it – but the penciled sheets you will keep.
	I find that 2 of the daughters of Samuel Conway Sr. marrid Smiths  Elizabeth to James, 1808 and Sarah to Wm Smith 1811 – Samuel Conway Jr. to Mollie Gardner  I do not find Benjamins marriage on the list – It is possible that he may have marred in another Co. –
	I have since I last wrote you examined further the marrige record of Bourbon Co. also Deed Books.
	I could not find where Samuel or Joseph Conway had ever bought any land in the county, although both of them lived here at one time. My uncle Nat Conway always told me that his uncles both became dissatisfied living here because game became scarce – that is Deer Elk Bear and wild Turkeys  His uncle Joe moved to Missouri in 1797 – and Samuel Conway to Pendleton Co.  The records show that Jesse Conway at an early date bought 50 acres of land but I could not find when he sold it – and don’t know where he went to after leaving Ky. The marrige records show that in May – 1789 he married Hannah Thorp  Joseph his brother married Elizabeth Caldwell Feb 23rd 1792  John Conway to Ann Sutton Apr. 14th 1790  Sarah Conway to Nathan Underwood Feb 14 – 1793 I have never been able to find anything more of Miles Withers Conway – I know however from history that he was a delegate from Mason Co Ky in 1792 to the Constitutional Convention which met at Danville Ky – when Ky first became a state. Prior to 1790 Mason Co. formed a part of Bourbon. I think it doubtfull too as to whether he ever lived here that is on the land he bought  I think it very probable that he was either a brother of my great grandfather, or else his nephew – His name again appears as one of the Trustees of the town of Washington laid off about 1784 in Mason Co.
	I wish you would again copy that old Family record. Type written from the old Bible – you sent me 2 copies, one for my kinsman J. M. Conway and the other for myself – by some means my copy got so mutilated from frequent handling that the date of the different brths are obliterated. We now have a fairly satisfactory history of Samuel Jesse John and Joseph. Also Sarah and Elizabeth – but – know nothing of the history of the 2 sisters who married the 2 Long Brothers and the one who marred Wells – and the one who married John Dougherty brother of William Dougherty.
	I wish you would again explain Mr Millers descent from Samuel Conway – I cant exactly get that in my head  Is he a grandson, or great grandson of Samuel?
	The letter you received from Mrs. Lyle through her nurse is an interesting one – Mrs Lyle is the daughter of Benjamin Conway – son of Samuel. You also spoke of John Conway of Edinburg Ind. A gr grandson of Samuel Sr.
	Have you heard from any other kinsman to whom you have been writing.
							Yours truly,
								H.C. Ogle Sr. 

***
Letter of Henry C. Ogle to George Pohlman
							
Paris, Ky.  Feb. 9th. 1917 
Dear Mr. Pohlman:- 
 	Today I have received your letter written on the 12th. of January.  From this reading I find that in the long letter mailed you yesterday, I failed to answer several inquiries you made in one of those letters.  This I am returning you with these questions marked. 
 	In answer to query in the 1st paragraph will say that gr. gr. father John Conway, his wife, his daughter, Elizabeth and her husband, William Daugherty, and his sons John and Joseph and youngest child Sarah, all came from Virginia to Ky. in 1779.  My Uncle Nat Conway once told me that they came from near Richmond, Va.  My grandfather was then about 21, Uncle Joe 14, Aunt Sallie 5 or 6.  Don’t know the age of Elizabeth but her first born was less than a year old. 
 	My grandfather John having then first come to Kentucky 2 years prior to this date as one of a company of soldiers sent out by the governor of Va. to help defend the Fort called Boonesboro.  But after serving one year, he returned to Virginia and brought back his father, mother and such other of the family as I have named.  There were a number of other emigrants with them.  I suggest that you write to the County Clerk of Henrico, Virginia and ask him to examine the marriage records and ascertain whether there are any marriages on record there between John Conway and Elizabeth Bridgewater between 1725-1750.  Also Conway to Daugherty, Conway to Clemons, Conway to Wells and Conway to Long.  Of course you must include stamps for answer. 
 	Find out also whether gr. grandfather owned land in Virginia at any time and if he did at what date the conveyance was made to him.  Ascertain also whether John or William Daugherty were landowners.  Or Basil Wells.  The Daughertys must have been of Irish descent judging from the name.  All the early Irish emigrants to Virginia and Pennsylvania were Protestants and most of whom were well educated for that period.  Gr. grandfather all the early part of his life was a schoolteacher. 
 	As to the query about the place of their burial I cannot tell you with any certainty, but it must have been not far from where my gr. father lived as both of them died at his house 40 miles north of Millersburg in this county. 
 	The old man in 1801 and his wife in 1809.  There is on my grandfather’s farm, a graveyard where he and his wife are buried.  His 3 sons and his wife, Nat, William and John Jr. and their wives, also several of his grand children.  Possibly this is the burial place of gr. grandfather and mother. 
 	Samuel Conway and his brother Jesse came to Kentucky after the close of the Revolutionary War.  I am not able to tell you just when but he bought land in Bourbon Co. in 1791.  As to the query whether I know of any member of the Conway family having been enrolled in the order of the D.A.R.  Will say I know of one, Miss Hazel Overby of Paris, Ky.  She is the Great great granddaughter of my grandfather John Conway.  At her request a few years ago I wrote her lineage “Abstract of Title” as you Missouri people say about title to lands.  She told me afterwards that she was enrolled. 
 	I suggest that you write her.  She is a sprightly young lady and good looking and finely educated.  She will tell you about the order. 
 	Address – Miss Hazel Overby – Stenographer 
	Paris, Ky. 
	Her great grandmother was my mother’s sister. 
				Yours truly 
					H.C. Ogle Sr. 

***
Letter of Henry C. Ogle to George Pohlman
  
		Home of J.M. Conway near Millersburg, Ky.
		August 18, 1917 
Mr. George Pohlman, Jr. 
Macon, Mo. 
  
My Dear Sir: 
 	I am here on a visit to my cousin James Conway who owns the old Conway home originally settled by my grandfather, John Conway over 100 years ago.  The house built by him sometime between 1790 and 1800 is still in a fair state of preservation and if kept covered will last at least 100 years more.  In this home your wife’s ancestor Samuel Conway has often been a guest.  Also his brothers Jesse and Joseph & their sister Elizabeth, the wife of Wm. Daugherty.  And in this house my great grandfather John Conway died in 1801 and my great grandmother in 1809.  My mother had a very vivid recollection of her.  She said she died from a cancer on her forehead. 
 	At another time I will tell you more of the history of our ancestors. 
 	I am planning to go on a visit next week to my nephews and nieces in Robertson Co.  This is 12 miles N.E. of this place.  I will remain there until after the 15th Sept. 
 	Would be glad to hear from you.  My address will be Piquia, Robertson Co. Ky. 
 	I am enclosing herein part of a Cynthiana Ky. paper.  In it you will find a very interesting article written by a Mr. McClintok who was raised in this neighborhood.  Show it to the publisher of your county paper. 		
								Yours truly	
									H.C. Ogle Sr. 

Letter of George Pohlman to Wisconsin State Library
  
Macon, Missouri
			August 27, 1917 
Wisconsin State Library 
Madison, Wisconsin 
  
Dear Sir: 
 	I am enclosing certain letters and copies of records of the Conway family.  I have been making inquiry about this family for some years and I have had the benefit of all these records and hundreds of letters, and I feel that I am in position to make some comment on these papers that I am mailing to you in order that you may be understood in case they are ever referred to by one who is not posed on the history of the family. 
 	First the letter of Chas. J. Conway of Chicago, Ill. under the date of February 23rd, 1912, he was at that time Deputy County Clerk of Cook County, Illinois.  He gives a short outlined history of his line of Conways.  In the third paragraph of his letter he says that two of the sons were wounded at the Battle of Ruddle’s Mill and they left Kentucky and all trace of them was lost.  That may have been so in part, but the two brothers that he refers to were Samuel Conway and his brother Jesse Conway. 
 	Samuel Conway settled in Pendleton County, Kentucky at the close of the Revolutionary War and later came to Missouri and finally settled in Marion County, Missouri about the year 1825, about four miles from Hannibal, Missouri, where he died in 1830 and lies buried in the old Bush Family cemetery. 
 	The other brother, Jesse Conway, settled in Madison County, Illinois and has left numerous descendants there.  The Conways of Arkansas are in no way related to our line I have just explained what happened to the two missing brothers. 
 	The John Conway that Chas. Conway mentions in the first paragraph of his letter as being the original emigrant, is the same on mentioned by Mrs. Rhoda Ground in Draper 29 J 18 as John Conoway. 
 	The accompanying record taken from the old Conway Bible now in our possession gives names and dates and births of all the children of John Conway and his wife Elizabeth Bridgewater.  You will note he had a son John Conway, who was also made a prisoner at the Battle of Ruddle’s Mill at the same time his brother Joseph was taken prisoner.  The next list gives the names and dates of birth of the family of Samuel Conway that I mentioned as having lived in Marion County, Missouri.  My wife being a great-great granddaughter of the mentioned Samuel Conway. 
 	In this letter from Henry C. Ogle a Conway descendant through John Conway Jr., being a grandson, this letter dated July 2, 1912, he give a fuller history of the family, giving a good account of the capture of Ruddle’s Mill and the captivity of the Conway family, including Joseph Conway.  At the bottom of page 1 and on page 2 he give an account of the life history of Joseph Conway. 
 	He mentions the fact that two daughters of John Conway and his wife Elizabeth, married brothers named Long, but all trace of them was lost.  I feel certain that the John Long referred to in Draper Mss. 29 J 18 was a son-in-law of John Conway Sr. and that Mrs. Rhoda Ground was a daughter of John Long and a granddaughter of John Conway. Ogle also refers to the captivity of Sarah Conway, the youngest daughter and was seven years old at the time that the fort was taken and her life among the Indians, her subsequent rescue as told by her grandson, Thos. J. Underwood in his letter dated September 17th, 1888 to Henry Ogle of Paris, Ky.  In the letter of July 2nd, 1912 to me Ogle corrects and explains some misstatements in the letter of Thos. J. Underwood.  In that letter Ogle also tells me about the two Conway sisters marrying men named Long.  You can easily connect that with the visit of Reuben and Lawrence Long to Missouri with Joseph Conway in 1796 as told in Draper Mss. 19 J 18.  I feel certain that they were relatives of Conway.  There were also some of the Long and Underwood family in Pike County, Missouri in a very early day. 
 	In the letter of September 5, 1912 to me, H.C. Ogle give a fuller history of the Conway family telling more about Joseph Conway and the capture of Ruddle’s Mill and also about Samuel Conway, the oldest son of the family and told about him and his family.  He mentions “Polly Brumfield”, - this name should be “Polly or Mary Brownfield”.  She was the oldest daughter of Samuel Conway and was the wife of John Brownfield, they lived near Urbana and Champaign, Illinois, and left numerous descendants there.  She was born in April 1785. 
 	Then you will find a copy of an old letter in 1843 from John Conway and his wife Anna Conway to his nephew in St. Louis County, Missouri.  This John Conway was the son of the original emigrant, John Conway, and was born in 1758.  Married to Anna Sutton.  The Joseph Conway to whom the letter was directed was a son of Joseph Conway who came to Missouri in 1796, and was a brother of Samuel Conway who gave Dr. Draper the interview in Draper 24 S 169-176.  On the last page you will find a record of the family of Joseph Conway who was scalped by the Indians and settled in Missouri in 1797. 
 	Also have some more information about John Conway Jr. born in 1758 that I will send later as I cannot get it at the present time. 
 			Respectfully, 
				George Pohlman Jr. 
					320 Lamb Ave. 
					Macon, Missouri
 
***
Letter of Joseph Conway Jr. to his son.

La Monte – January 28, 1881

We left home last Thursday week and are now at La Monte with Sam and Harry for a time. I took a violent cold coming up and have not been able to leave my room since but am better now. My cough has been very severe. Your Mother’s ankle is getting well and she begins to walk about the house without crutch or staff and can wear a slipper. Found our friends here all well, but left Joe’s two youngest sick of colds and bronchitis. There is a good deal of pneumonia here an in the country around. Sam is very busy night and day. He has several patients nine miles southwest whom he has to visit daily and one eleven miles north. A few days before leaving home, I received your letter but could not answer it until now. We feel grateful to you for your kind offer in aid of our efforts again to get a home, but until we can again get a house we cannot use them. I have contracted for the building of a home on the old foundation and after old plan, leaving off west room, storeroom, Willy’s room and washroom, but gain two rooms carrying up back building two stories. This will give us eight rooms, but the rooms in back building to be small only 16 by 16 Ft. I have agreed to pay $1660.00 and do all the hauling and this does not include gutters, mantels and only one coat of paint. I can’t get it up for less than $2000.00 which would be a burden upon us as long as we live if we ever get into it. It is inconvenient and annoying to be without a fixed home but we have so many kind friends who have offered us shelter. We don’t take on so much trouble about matters. I am trying to sell some land – have offered the old mill place at $60.00 and hope when R. Road is completed, I may get it. Willy is at home attending to the farm and the little stock remaining and boards with Ella. Had a letter a day or two since from him – all well there. Had a letter from Nettie also – She came to St. Louis with us and expects to come up this or next week.  
I have read your extract from “Mr. Darby’s Recollections” in reference to my father and regret exceedingly the errors into which he has, as I hope inadvertently, fallen.
It was while collected together in a fort in Kentucky, a sufficient defense against the attack of Indians, called “Ruddles Station” or Fort, that he ventured too far out from the fort that he fell into an ambush selected by the Indians and was shot, tommy-hawked and scalped. The ball entering near the left nipple and passing out near the spine. It was then that he received the only wound that he ever received and was probably insensible to any pain or suffering. 
The shooting was heard in the Fort and he was brought in supposed to be dead and remained insensible several days. It was only inferred that they took more than one scalp from the head from the fact that the whole head was striped and ever after remained bare of hair except a narrow strip extending from the right temple around to the back of the head. The cut in the scull was evidently made with a sharp hatchet or other sharp instrument near the center of the head and was about three inches long, and though one side of the bone was depressed to nearly the thickness of the bone, yet he never suffered from compression on the brain to any serious extent. 
This accident (if there are accidents in providence) saved his life soon after. Six weeks afterwards, the Fort was surrounded and attacked by a small body of English soldiers with one small piece of cannon sent from Detroit to animate and encourage the Indians, who hitherto had failed to capture any of the surrounding Forts upon which they had made attempts. The British Officer in command demanded surrender. They refused. The fight continued and they again pressed upon them to surrender stating that if they did not, the Indians were so numerous that when they did storm and take the Fort, as they could easily do when they should bring their cannon to bear upon its slender stockade defenses, that then they might not be able to restrain their savage ferocity and that then they would all be murdered or made prisoners of the Indians. 
A council was held, a strong party opposed, believing that all would be murdered if they did so, but finally consented to do so on the agreement and stipulation that they were to be held as British prisoners of war and not to fall into the hands of the savages, but be sent to Detroit subject to exchange. Upon these terms the gates were opened and the Indians rushed in and an indiscriminate slaughter commenced and was continued without any interference or attempted restraint by the English until all capable bearing arms were slaughtered and the women and youth and children were parceled out as prisoners among the Indians. 
My father was only fifteen and when the Indian who claimed him was leading him out, noticing the bandages about his head tore them off roughly causing the unhealed wound to bleed so freely that he pushed him away and would not have him and he then ran and took shelter among a squad of British soldiers standing near the gate and was saved. Here the Indians separated from their British allies and hurried across the Ohio River with their prisoners and booty, and the British returned directly to Detroit with their one prisoner only, if I remember correctly. 
My father was placed in one of the wagons belonging to the train and conveyed to Detroit where he was kept a prisoner but treated humanely until the peace of 1781. Some members of the family and other prisoners captured at the same time were afterwards brought in and the British officers would buy them out of sympathy when the Indians would sell them and pay for them in guns, blankets and trinkets, so that when peace was concluded, there was quite a little squad made their way back again to the “Dark and Bloody Ground.” Such prisoners as gave out on the way or could not travel fast enough were dispatched and gotten rid of. 
Soon after his return to Kentucky, he volunteered under General Harmar and was with him in his disasterous defeat and blood retreat, but escaped without injury. He again volunteered and went back under General Wayne (Mad Anthony, as he termed him) and in that expedition, they were entirely successful. Here comes in probably Mr. Darby’s cock and bull story of his Indian killing. On their way out in the last expedition when signs were discovered, scouts were sent out to reconnoiter and report. After proceeding some distance with his party of ten or twelve, my Father and one other were sent a few hundred yards ahead of the rest fearing an ambush. They had not proceeded very far when they discovered seven Indians coming in their direction. They were not able to fight them and too near to retreat and not being seen by the Indians, they hid behind a fallen tree. They changed their course a little and passed them a short distance and suddenly they saw them spring behind a large tree, one in line behind the other. They supposed the Indians had heard the party coming on behind or some noise made by themselves. They waited a while but fearing that if the remainder of their party should come upon them unaware and thus suffer defeat, they concluded to fire upon them and run. So they fired at them and at the report of their guns, every Indian fell flat upon the ground, but almost instantly they were up again and running and from their speed they concluded that not one was injured. They had a fair shot not more than a hundred yards distant and supposed they failed from having contracted buck fever while laying behind the log.
	I have heard my Father in answer to such stories that he had no positive evidence that he ever killed an Indian though he possibly had but more than one companion had been shot down at his side. The other story about his loading and shooting as he ran – had some foundation but it has become mixed and grown with time. In the former campaign under Harmar and in his defeat, my Father and a friend and companion form Kentucky, a man who had left a family behind, became separated from the main force and ran together pursued by three Indians. My Father was young and active and strong and could out-run his companion who was middle aged and heavy. He begged my Father not to leave him. They ran in this way several miles and loaded as they ran and when they found suitable tree, they would halt behind it and fire, the Indians doing the same. In this way they ran and were getting on pretty well for a time, but before them there was a creek and they had no time to hunt for a ford and his companion in crossing fell and got his gun wet and rendered useless and in the fall his belt, to which a pair of Buckskin Leggins, or breeches in two parts was attached and held up, and the leggings became wet and slipped down and hindered his running. My Father advised him to throw away his gun and pouch and hold up his leggings. He did so but was tired and discouraged and could not make much head-way up the long slope. They now discovered that two of the Indians had left their other companions and were circling round to get ahead of them. He then urged my Father to leave him and save himself and gave him a message for his wife if he should escape. My Father tried to encourage him and pointed out a large tree at some distance ahead and told him when he got there to lie flat down behind it until he came up, and he would take a tree and detain the Indians until he could reach the tree. My Father the left his defence and as he ran, got ready his large Butcher Knife and quickly ripped up and relieved him of his hobbles and then they got along pretty well and when they reached the summit of the hill they heard firing and soon came in sight of a relief party who rallied and formed in their retreat to check the pursuit of the Indians and relieve their comrades. They both got back safely and were ever after fast friends.
	Of what Mr. Darby says of my Father in Missouri, I need say nothing only he uses too many and too long adjectives. I don’t recollect that I ever told you any of these stories. You might have heard some of them from your Uncle Sam. I did not intend to write so much when I began and am now tired of it. 
	I hope this may find you all well.
							Your Father
								Joe Conway

	I did not get my letter finished in time to send it off yesterday. This morning received another letter from Willy – our folks well. Mrs. Smith, wife of our Minister, was very low when I left. Willy says she is rather worse and they fear she may not recover – says there is a great deal of pneumonia there and other deseases. Sam’s youngest boy was complaining yesterday and today it has developed into a plain case of Pneumonia. Rev. Wm. Stevenson of Sedalia has been holding a series of evening meetings here for several days and will continue them next week. A pleasant unassuming sensible pious man with no clap-strap or affection about him. Your Ma nor I have been able to go out to hear him preach, but he has stopped two nights with us at Sam’s and we are pleased with him.

***
Notes of Henry C. Ogle?

COPY: Original copy written in longhand on foolscrap paper sent from Covington, Ky., by letter to Mrs. Fannie Daugherty, DeMossville, Pendleton Co., Ky., March 7, 1894. Later part of this history was destroyed by fire. [Possibly written by Henry Ogle]

	John Conway emigrated from Ireland to Virginia in 1730.
	He was married in Virginia to Elizabeth Bridgewater, an English woman. He was the father of ten children, four sons and six daughters. The sons were names; Samuel, John, Jessie and Joseph. The daughters were; Elizabeth, Polly, Sallie, Dulcinea and the two other names forgotten. Samuel married Miss Clemens. He lived at the mouth of Harris Creek in Pendleton County in 1818. From there he moved to Marion Co., Mo. Jessie settled in Kenton Co., Ky. But in 1809 moved to Illinois Joseph married Miss Caldwell of Bourbon Co., Ky. He moved from there to St. Louis C., Mo. Then called the Spanish Territory, in 1798. John married Miss Aulck Shelton [Anna Sutton] of Bourbon Co., Ky. He lived in Nicholas Co., Ky. Till his death in 1836. He had three sons and two daughters. John, William and Nathel [Nathaniel] S. Conway were the sons. The girls were Elizabeth and Polly.
	Elizabeth married Jesse Ogle of Harrison County.
	She died 1872.
	She left three children; Sarah, Elizabeth and Henry C. Sarah married Mr. A. F. Tyler. She and her husband are both dead. Elizabeth married her first cousin, N. Perry Overbay. He died in 1875. Polly Conway married Henry Overbay of Nicholas Co. in 1806. She was the mother of one daughter and six sons. The daughter was called Elizabeth. The sons were; John E., Harvey H., Richard M., Beverly William, James and N. Perry Overbay.
	Referring to John Conway, and the grandfather, and the first named. His daughter Dulcinea married a Mr. Long of Va. Another sister (name not known) married his brother. Another (name not known) married Basil Wells. His daughter Elizabeth married William Daugherty of Va. William Daugherty was born in Ireland near the city of Dublin. He afterward moved to Ky. And lived and died in Pendleton Co. The other sister Polly Conway married Joseph Daugherty, a brother or William. He moved from Va. To Ky. Settled first in Bourbon County. From there in about 1810 or 19 he moved to the west.
	William Daugherty, who lived in Pendleton Co., was the father of three sons; Jonathan, Josepj and Jesse. Jesse married Betsy Overbay of Nicholas Co., a sister to the Henry Overbay, who married the daughter of his uncle John Conway. He had two sons and two daughters, Elizabeth and Eva. Joseph was born in Pendleton Co. in 1837. He lived in Pendleton Co. until 1872 when he moved to Grant Co., where he died in 1875.
	John Daugherty was born in 1819 (?)
	He married Emily Race in 1840, He died in 1872. Elizabeth married he_ cousin, John Daugherty. She had four children, two girls and two boys. She and her husband both died in 1851.
	Eva married William Frakes. She had two boys and two girls; Henry, Mary, Eliza and Joseph.

***
Pension of Jesse Conway, Madison County, Illinois, W10674.

On this fifth day of September personally appeared before the County Commissioners Court for Madison County, now sitting Jesse Conway; a resident of the County of Madison and State of Illinois age seventy one years, who being first duly sworn according to law, doth on his oath, make the following declaration in order to obtain the benefits of the provision made by the act of Congress passed June 7, 1832.

That he enlisted in the army of the United States in the year 1777 with William Buchanan and served in the Regiment commanded by Colonel Boon of the Virginia line of State troops under the following named officers.

He declares that he enlisted under Captain William Buchanan and was commanded by him, and Lieutenant Ephraim Drake at Reed Island in the State of Virginia in the spring of 1777, and in June marched under the command of Colonel Bowman to Boonsburough where he was under the command of Colonel Boon, and was in the service eighteen months in the fall of 1778, the fort was besieged by the Indians who kept up the siege for nine days and nights, when they were compelled to retire with great loss. Soon, after this he was discharged and returned home to Reed Island and in the spring or the spring of 1779 he returned to Harrodsburgh and enlisted again in the company commanded by Captain Isaac Riddle. Lieutenant Jasper Cassner (the ensign’s name is not recollected), and Colonel Bowman, and stationed at a fort on Licking River and served till the 24th of June 1780 when the fort was taken and the whole garrison made prisoners and the fort was burnt by the British and Indians. The British were commanded by Captain Bird. He with the other prisoners were taken to Detroit and kept there till the general peace was made when they were sent to fort Pitt and there discharged in the year 1784 having been four years prisoners. He declares he served more than two years in the war of the Revolution.

He hereby relinquishes every claim whatever to a pension or an annuity except the present and he declares that his name is not on the pension roll of any agency of any State.

Sworn to and subscribed}				         his
The day and year aforesaid}				Jesse X Conway		
							        Mark

Included with the pension was a copy of a marriage certificate of Jesse Conway and Margaret Renfro dated November 7, 1825, Madison County, Illinois. Jesse Conway died October 9, 1840 in Greene County, Illinois.

***
Pension of John Conway, Jr., Nicholas County, Kentucky, W8622

On the 13th day of February 1834 personally appeared before me, John McClintock, one of the Justices of the County Court in and for the County of Nicholas, aforesaid, John Conway, a resident of the said county of Nicholas and State of Kentucky, aged 75 years on the 10th day of August last, who being first duly sworn according to law, doth on his oath make the following declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the Act of Congress passed June 7, 1832. 
That he entered the service of the United States under the following named officer and served as herein stated: 
That in the month of April or May 1776, he entered the service as an enlisted soldier in the company commanded by Captain James Newell and was marched to Chegels lead mines in Montgomery County, Virginia to guard said mines against the tories and Indians and served out the full term of 6 months, the period for which he enlisted and was honorably discharged at said mines in Montgomery County, Va. 
And that he again entered the service for the term of 18 months in the month of May 1777 as an enlisted soldier under Captain William Buchannon, Col. John Bowman, and was marched to Boonesboro in the State of Kentucky where he served out the above term of eighteen months, guarding said fort, during which term the British and Indians besieged the said fort for nine days and nights; when they abandoned the siege Capt. Boone was there as one of the commanders. He further states that after his discharge at Boonesboro, he still remained in Kentucky and in April 1779 he went with Captain Isaac Ruddle and settled Ruddle's Station on the south fork of Licking River and continued then acting as a guard and Indian spy for Ruddle's Station until the 24th of June 1780, when after a severe battle with the British and Indians we were compelled to surrender, the British being about 300 and the Indians about 700 strong and armed with artillery; that he was marched by the British and Indians, with the other prisoners they had taken at Ruddle's and Martin's Stations to Detroit, and was kept there as a prisoner until the fall of 1784. When he was liberated, he returned to Kentucky. 
And he further states that in the fall of 1787 he volunteered in the company of Captain William McConnell, Benjamin Logan's Campaign against the Piqua town of Indians on the head of Mad River in the State of Ohio, that they fought the Indians, defeated them, and took some prisoners, and this campaign he served the period of 50 or 60 days. He further states that he lost his discharge when taken prisoner by the Indians who robbed him of everything. 
He states that he has not any documenting evidence of his services, nor does he know of any person livig by whom he could prove his service, except his brother Jesse, who if living, resides in the State of Illinois. He hereby relinquishes every claim to a pension annunity except the present and declares that his name if not on the pension roll of any agency in any state. 

[Included with the pension application is a series of questions by the Justice and two pages from the family Bible giving dates of birth of John and Anna (Sutton) Conway and their children.]

State of Kentucky, County of Harrison.
On this day personally appeared before me, Joseph Boyd, one of the Justices of the Peace within and for the County of Harrison, aforesaid, Ann Mary Spears, aged 72 years, who being duly sworn according to law, on her oath states that she was living in Captain Isaac Ruddle's Station when it was taken by the British and Indians on the 24th day of June 1780 and was together with John Conway taken prisoners by them, and carried to Detroit, where the said Conway and herself were kept as prisoners until the first day of June 1784 when they were liberated. Subscribed and sworn to on the 24th day of April 1834. 

Ann Mary (X) Spears.

***
The Burton Collection of the Public Library.
C. M. Burton				   Detroit, Michigan				       G. B. Krum
Consulting Librarian									       Librarian in
											       Charge
Mr. George Pohlman							       December 19, 1922
320 Lamb Ave.
Macon, Missouri.

Dear Sir,
	Inclosed are copies from our ledgers, as referred to by Mr. Burton, of John Conway’s accounts. We have not the corresponding journal for the posting of entries in the Askin Ledger and so cannot itemize the “Sundries” mentioned.
	A search for later entries has given no information as to the length of his stay in Detroit, nor have we a personal account of Thomas Smith that would give the corresponding debit of his credit “By Profit and Loss” to John Conway the date of closing his account.
	Mr. Askin’s credit for “2 pettiaugers at 200 livres and saw and files” returned might imply that Mr. Conway left in the summer of 1784.
	Mr. Burton’s reference V. 945, page 228 of the manuscripts relates to another prisoner, Thomas Martin.
									Respectfully yours
										L. Oughtred Woltz, Archivist
											Per E. D.
	L.O.W./D
		Enclosure

From the Ledger of John Askin of Detroit

1783				Dr.
Aug. 11	233 To Sundries		2”	12”
October 22	332 “ Nails &c			7”	
Nov. 27	373 “ unpaid on ratteen			14”

1784		To a pair of temple spectacles 13 Sept.
			1781 Leg. A, folio 82		2”
February 7	452 To Sundries		2”	14”
		18	461 To Do		11”	14”
		28	467 T 10 lb. sugar		1”
Mar. 9		479 To 1 pair womens shoes & 1 paper pins			16”  6
		19		487 To 33 lb. sugar		22”	17”  9”
		30		495 To an Adze		1”	6”    8”
April 7		505 To 4 1/8 Lb. Tobacco		1”	14”
		21		515 Sundries		1”	25”		29   2
						Bal. Settled 19 May.
May 19		539 To Do		2”	17   6	2    17
June 8		558 To Cash					4    17
									L36    5
1784				Cr.
June 2d.		545 By 2 pettiaugers       at 200		26	13   4
		8		--7 By a saw & file ret’d		9	12
									L36   5  4

From the Ledger of Thomas Smith of Detroit
Mr. Conway, a prisoner from Kentucky taken by the Indians.

1783				Dr.
Jan. 16		To 8 ¼ Lb. Tallow		1”	8”   10
				15 lb. Pork 30/  2 pr. Buckles            24/		2”	14”
		23		To 3 yards of flannel                           8/		1”	4”
Feb. 28		To cash paid wheeler		1”	4”
						                 L6”  10”  10”
						N. Y. CY.
				Per Contra	Cr.
				By Profit & Loss		6”	10”   10”

***
Lyman Copeland Draper’s Interview with Samuel Conway
Draper Manuscript Collection, 24S:169-171

From Samuel Conway, St. Louis Co., MO, born in St. Louis Co. – in 1799.

Ruddell’s Station Taken, 1780. – Joseph Conway (informant’s father) was born in Greenbriar Co., Va, in 1763 – Early moved to Kentucky with his father’s, Samuel Conway’s family, and settled in Ruddell’s Station. Henry Groff, one Purseley and others also resided there. About 200 Indians came and attacked the fort – found one side of the fort unfinished; and the whites hastened and finished it, putting up pickets; and that evening the Indians made a violent attack, and whites returned the fire; none were injured in the fort, and not certain that they killed any Indians. Next morning the Indians had retired, and the whites found many articles which they had dropped. The Indians continued to hover around for a couple of weeks altogether, and then retired.
	Joseph Conway and two others went out about a mile and a half reconnoitering,  when Conway was shot by a party of their Indians, and wounded in the left side, and was caught and tomahawked, breaking his skull, and scalped, and left for dead. The others escaped unharmed. The reports of the guns were heard at the fort, and a party went out and met the two fugitives returning, who reported that Conway was killed; they went on, and brought in Conway, who was gradually recovering, when the ndians sent to Detroit for reinforcements and cannon.
	Two weeks after Conway was wounded, Colonel Bird and party appeared, with cannon. They first fired a cannon shot and missed; then a second shot, which knocked out one of the corners of a block-house, and then the inmates concluded the British and Indians could take the place, and listened to terms.
	The British pledged protection to the prisoners and their property, and were not to be surrendered to the Indians; but no effort was made by the British to fulfill their pledge.
	Conway with his head bandaged was taken by an old Indian and his son, who were really kind to him; they also took an unmarried sister of Conway’s, older than he was, who dressed his head. Before leaving Ruddell's, one Indian tore off the bandage from Conway’s head, but he was repelled by the old Indian and his son as interfering with their prisoner. They were taken direct to Detroit, and turned over to the British there, and remained there four years. Conway was placed in the hospital, and when recovered, was placed on the limits, and permitted to work as he could get employment. The rest of the Conway family, father, mother and two daughters, with their son and daughter already there, all got together at Detroit.
	Joseph Conway returned to Licking River and went out on Harmar’s and Wayne’s campaigns. [The rest of the narrative deals with Joseph Conway’s life in Missouri.]