An Event from The French and Indian War

A few years ago, a woman from West Virginia ordered a cabin kit. She said the Franklin miniature log cabin looked much like an old cabin on her farm. She said her log cabin dated back to the French and Indian War. Her pioneer ancestors had built their log cabin home in a hollow, deep in the Appalachian mountains.

While her family was carving their farm from the wilderness,France and England,Holland and Spain were again at war in Europe. The war (called the Seven Year War in Europe) soon spilled over into North America.

British and Colonial troops started attacking French Canadian forts in the Ohio Valley. The French retaliated by sending war parties into New England and the South.

On one of these raids, the woman told me, a war party came to her ancestors' cabin. The father was away on business. The indians quickly killed the hired hand and ransacked the cabin. The mother and her children (those old enough to travel) were taken captive and led off to Canada. The father, returning home a few hours later, learned what had happened.

Swiftly, he recruited a few woodsmen and they tracked the war party north.

When the mother and children arrived in Canada, a French family paid for their release and brought them into their home. The father, arriving in Canada, learned that his family was safe and sound. He gathered them up and led them back to their mountain home in West Virginia.

Here, the family has continued to reside for over 250 years.