ADAM FLESHER

HIS STORY

 

Seldom is found the image of a Revolutionary War scout, particularly one who came from the howling wilderness that was western Virginia.  In 1847, Johannes dis DeBarr visited the home of Adam Flesher, the second oldest son of Weston’s first family, Henry and Elizabeth Flesher, and sketched the accompanying picture.  Adam was eighty-two years old at the time!  He died in 1854 at the age of  90..  He was buried in the Riverside Cemetery at Butchersville just off the Old Mill Road north of Weston.

            On Saturday, July 1, 2006, at 1 p.m. the Trans-Allegheny Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, honored his Revolutionary War service under Captain William Lowther during a public dedication ceremony of a commemorative marker at his gravesite.   

            Adam Flesher was twelve in 1774 when his father, Henry Flesher, laid a patent upon four hundred acres along the West Fork River at the mouth of Stone Coal Creek.  This included the lands where much of the town of today’s Weston, including the Weston State Hospital, is located. 

            The fledgling United States, and particularly its western frontier, was in the midst of claiming its independence from England when Henry built his cabin home on his land and moved his family, then consisting of eight children, from Hampshire County to what was then being called Flesher’s Station.  It was a little outpost overlooking what would be known as the Leading Creek Trail (now US 33/119 West) and had been used by the  Indians for eons as they traveled from their towns in the lands west of the Ohio River to the their summer hunting grounds in the Hacker’s Creek watershed and points East.

            At the time the entire Monongahela River basin, including the West Fork River area,  was in crisis.  While the Continental Army was fighting the British along the Atlantic coastland, militiamen were holding the Indians at bay on the west.  Scattered along the western frontier were forts where families sought refuge during times of severe trouble and were guarded by the young men of the community. 

            Here, in what is now Central West Virginia, there were forts every ten or twenty miles – Fort Buckhannon or Bushes Fort, West Fort at Jane Lew, Fort Richards or Lowther’s Fort at West Milford, and Nutter’s Fort where is the town of that name today. 

            In 1777, West’s Fort was burned by the Indians.  The year 1778 remained unsettled with numerous Indian incursions and attacks upon families up and down the frontier.  The settlers along Hacker’s Creek and lower Stone Coal Creek fled to the three remaining forts for safety.  The Fleshers spent some time at Fort Buckhannon and Lowther’s Fort and it was at these forts  that Adam Flesher was among the defenders.  This is the service for which he is being honored with the placement of this Revolutionary War Patriot’s plaque.

            According to an account told by his son Noah and published in the Weston Democrat in 1884, Adam made two six months tours as a scout with Ellis Hughes as they sought to ascertain whether there was danger of the Indians in the area.  .

            In the same story, Noah also tells the story of an run-in Adam and his father, Henry, had with the Indians near the family’s cabin home prior to 1777. 

            The two were working in some timber near what later became the Weston Tanyard and now is known as the John Williams property at 17 Center Avenue.  It looked like rain so Henry started for the house to get the bells for the horses before he turned them loose for the night.  It was common practice to place bells on the livestock in order to locate them in the unfenced woods and meadows around a family’s homestead.

            Adam started unharnessing the horses when he happened to look around and see two Indians.  He jumped in some bushes and made his escape. 

            One of the Indians just about caught Henry as he reached the cabin door.  The Indian knocked him down with his gun but his wife, Elizabeth, had the door open and pulled him in and shut the door, but had not had the time to put the bars across.  The Indian pushed hard against the door, Elizabeth holding it as long as she could.  Henry came to his senses about the time the Indian was making his entrance.  He grabbed at one of the three guns in the nearby rack; it was empty.  He reached for the second; it too was empty.  As he grabbed the third one, which was loaded, Elizabeth exclaimed, “For God sake shoot it!” 

            The Indian became frightened as escaped. 

            The next day the family was rescued by men from West Fort. 

            Adam Flesher married Elizabeth Staats in 1792.  Their marriage is recorded in Harrison County as Lewis was then a part of that county.  Elizabeth was born in 1776; she died in 1869 and was buried beside him.  They were the parents of eleven children:

  1. Henry Flesher m. Mary Allen.  They were the parents of twelve children, many of whom married and reared their families in the Tyler-Pleasant-Wood counties area.
  2. George Adam Flesher married Sallie Connolly.  They relocated at Reedy, Roane County, where they reared three sons, William, Dempsey and John.
  3. Joseph first married Rosanna Hall and had a son Adam who remained in Weston.  Joseph went to Ohio where he married  second Nancy Harford. They moved to Jay County, Indiana, and raised a large family.
  4. Elijah Flesher married Nancy Lewis and remained in Lewis County.  They were the parents of six children, including Ann Olivia who married Dr. Joseph Richard Roach. This couple became the ancestors of more than two hundred progeny still living in the Skin Creek and Stone Coal areas of the county.
  5. Dempsey P. Flesher married Elizabeth Jones and followed his brother George to Reedy.  Flesher’s Chapel, once an Methodist Episcopal meeting house in the area, was built by Dempsey and George.  Dempsey and Elizabeth had four children.
  6. Adam Flesher married Elizabeth Harford.  They too moved to Jay County, Indiana.
  7. Isaac Staats Flesher married Deborah Peterson, daughter of John P. Peterson and Elizabeth Smith and granddaughter of William Peterson and Mary Bennett.  Their numerous progeny are known to have lived in the Ritchie, Wood, and Tyler County areas. 
  8. Noah Flesher was twice married, first to Elizabeth ______ and second to Matilda Jane Bonnett.  He was the father of seven children, many of whom remained in the Weston area.  Noah and Matilda lived in the Turnertown area not far from the Riverside Cemetery where they are both interred.
  9. Elizabeth Flesher married Peter Snyder.  They were the parents of four daughters, one of whom married into the Rastle family and another into the Jarvis family.
  10. Rheuanna Flesher.  Nothing more is know of her.
  11. John B. Flesher married Elizabeth Baird.  They were the parents of at least three sons, including Henry Clay Flesher.  Most of their numerous grandchildren remained in the Lewis County area.         

             

 

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