Addie Honors Sotha Hickman -Our Great-Great Grandfather!

Yes and many others we have not mentioned.   Levi Douglass was a step-brother to Sotha Hickman.

They came together to (West) Virginia in 1771.  They were very close, closer maybe than a lot of brothers!  In memory of my husband's ancestor I am going to post some of the material I have found regarding him.  Sotha was my husband's, Clifford Hickman,  great-great-grandfather!

Sotha Hickman, was born June 10, 1748 on Sugar Land Bottom on the Potomac River, near Rockville in the county of Montgomery, Maryland, according to his own sworn declaration.  He died in Harrison County, Virginia  (Now West Virginia) at his home on Elk Creek, called, "Quiet Dell" March 26, 1834.  He was buried in the Haymond Cemetery, which is located on Zack's Run, near his home.   Sotha thought of this location as a quiet dell and so that his how the town got it's name.   Zack's Run was named after his son Zachariah. 

December of 1771, he came to the area of what is now Harrison County, West Virginia, in the company of his stepbrother, Levi Douglass, and three others with the intention of finding land for permanent settlements.  They made their camp on Ann Moores Run in Clark District, and remained all winter, as there was a bountiful supply of game.  They were fortunate to have the friendship of an Indian who hunted with them.

In the spring of 1772 they selected lands on which to establish homes.  Sotha choose 400 acres overlooking Elk Creek, where Elk View Cemetery is now located in Clarksburg, W. Va. The 400 acres adjoined that of Thomas Nutter, on whose land Nutter's Fort was erected.   Later Sotha acquired one thousand acres on Elk Creek, by right of preemption included his settlement made in 1773 and adjoining land of Matthew Nutter, which includes the present site of Quiet Dell.  He brought his family out from the east the following year, and his son Arthur was born in Nutter's Fort on February 7, 1773.  Sotha boasted that this son was the first white child born in Harrison County that he raised the first crop of corn and owned the first rooster.

Forts, blockhouses and stockades were very necessary for the survival of settlers.  There was danger and unrest because of the French and Indian Wars.  Later the British kept the Indians stirred up against the settlers. 

A fort, such as Nutter's Fort, is described as the strongest structure, since it combined the best features of blockhouses and stockades.  It was rectangular in shape, with sides composed partly of cabins, connected to each other with palisades to form a stockade wall.  The doors of the cabins opened onto a common court.  Heavy gates in the wall let the occupants out or in.  Some forts had two storied blockhouses at each corner with holes in the top wall to be used to fire on the enemy in any direction.  Stockade and cabin walls also contained portholes.  Settlers inside were generally safe, as Indians did not often openly attack a fort, and seldom-captured one.  But they lay in wait on the outside and settlers were often attacked with rifles, tomahawks and knives when they ventured outside.

As a rule from, winter until spring families could live in their cabins with relative security. The woods without foliage made it difficult for Indians to ambush.  They were scantily dressed to face winter elements, and snow made it easy for pioneers to tract them.  However, at the return of spring the Indians began their massacres, and settlers once more fled to the fort for the summer.  In order to cultivate their small crops close by the fort, they left their sanctuary in companies, each man with a weapon.  Inside the fort women and children looked out through the openings at the valleys, hills, and woods and longed to be in their homes.  Nights could be monotonously long and dreadful sounding, filled with the shrieks and cries of birds and animals, and the voices of Indians answering one another.

It is understandable why Sotha, like other pioneers in the area, had little use for Indians, and quite often Sotha expressed his feeling with  "Dod blast their yaller hides!"    This is somewhat surprising thought considering when he first came he seem to have an Indian friend that helped him learn how to survive in this land.

The frontier exploits of Sotha Hickman, Levi Douglass and others are recounted numerous times in various historical works.  Once while Sotha and Levi Douglass were captured on the Little Kanawah River, while trapping for beaver and taken to their settlement on the Scioto River in Ohio. Here they were held for the fate meted out to those who come into Indian hunting grounds.  A Great celebration was held, with much dancing and drinking, in preparation of the usual execution of the white prisoners.  They left an old man in charge to guard the prisoners while they celebrated.  The old Indian fell asleep, and Sotha and Levi quietly armed and equipped themselves and fled.  They were fearful of being recaptured so they traveled only at night and had no food for four days. They reached the Ohio River made a safe crossing and soon reached the Hughes River familiar ground.  Once there they had the good fortune to kill a bear and they ate so much it made them sick.  Some say that they!
 were the first white discoverers of oil in West Virginia, for they drank of the Indian or Rock oil found floating on the Hughes River.  This induced vomiting and did soothe their stomachs.

On another occasion Sotha was with a party fishing on the West Fork River.  He had caught a nice string of fish.  He was carrying a fagot when he saw two guns flash.  He doused the fagot in the water as he prepared to flee.  However, Sotha stopped to grab up his catch before hurrying to the safety of the fort.

Besides the massacres and destruction of crops by Indians, buffaloes also destroyed crops.  During the year 1773, after Sotha had settled with his family, there were so many other settlers that the crops harvested the preceding fall were about one third of what was needed to feed the people.  There was so much suffering among the inhabitants that the year 1773 was called "the starving year." 

Sotha and his family had good reason to fear the Indians one fall night in the year 1779, because his dogs were barking, he knew Indians were in the vicinity.  He sighted them making fire with flint and steel.  Sotha had a shed full of flax that adjoined his cabin, and he feared the Indians were preparing to set fire to it in order to burn the family out of the cabin.  What a great relief it was to see they were only interested in smoking!  When morning came he could hear shots on the other side of Elk creek at the Samuel Cottrill farm so he fled with family to Nutter's Fort a mile away.

The last mischief of the Indians recorded in connection with Sotha was perpetrated in he fall of 1779, at the house of Samuel Cottrill who resided on the east side of Elk Creek, Sotha then lived on the opposite side, near the present Elk View Cemetery.  An Attempt was made to scalp a Cottrill nephew who was feeding some swine.  Sotha hear the "hallowing danger warning" from Cottrills and prepared his home for safety from an attack.  When morning came, the women and children of the area were sent to the fort again.  Sotha choose a place to build his cabin that had a spring under it and if I remember right was built on a bank like for protection.

After the many treaties, Sotha went, with others to Sandusky, Ohio to reclaim members of their community who were held there for exchange.  There were many encounters with Indians, and many, all spine tingling, have been recorded in various West Virginia History and Historical books and folk tales. 

By the time of the Revolutionary War, Sotha was a seasoned, experienced woodsman.  He was skilled in hunting, tracking and detection of the Indians.  In a time when most men on the frontier were able woodsman, the fact that he was chosen as a guide and Indian spy attest to his ability.  He entered the service of the government as a seasoned Indian fighter, well informed in the ways of frontier warfare.

He enlisted under Captain William Lowther, as a private, and served as an Indian spy. He served for fourteen months under Captain Lowther of the Virginia Line, defending settlers against Indians and appears on a payroll record of Captain William Lowther's Company of VA militia for 1774

Sotha is also credited with 132 days service in Lord Dunmore's Ohio expedition in 1774.   Captain Lowther's company was in the battle of Point Pleasant in 1774,  $40 a year.

 He was employed to watch the frontier and protect it from invasion and rampage by the combined Indian and British Canadian troops.  The company ranged the western frontier of the American colonies, from Fort Erie to the southern points.  He had witnessed, and seen the results of savage brutality to women and children- his friends and neighbors had been killed or were captured.  He possessed an intense hatred of the Indians and his efforts to hold off the Indians and English were tireless.  The Allegheny Front and Westward were his field.  Sotha is referred to in some histories as an Indian Spy. Other places Indian Scout.   And was called upon various times to help out in Indian uprisings. The book, Border Warfare, gives several accounts of his endeavors.

After the Revolution and the Indian threats were over, Sotha returned to his family in the Clarksburg Elk Creek Area.  The country was becoming more populated, the frontier was safe, and there was plenty of land for free.  Feeling that the Clarksburg area was becoming crowded, he moved south along Elk Creek and built a large two-story log home.  This is the area he named Quiet Dell.  This home still stood in 1971 being much changed.  It was large for its time being built of hewed logs with a large stone fireplace and chimney.  This house served the Hickman family for three more generations.  The two-story house was the second house built on the site.  Sotha's original cabin was a short distance to the east.

I was disappointed that we did not find time to search for the house to see if it is still standing when Gary took to West Virginia for research in 1996.

Sotha did not own much land in his old age.  His tax receipts show taxes paid on 135 acres in 1818; 104 acres in 1825 and 144 acres in 1830.   He and Elizabeth deeded seventy five acres on Elk Creek to their son, Arthur, (Harrison Co., W. Va., Deed Book #4, p. 599, Feb. 18, 1805.)

Sotha Hickman appeared on July 17, 1832 in open court of Harrison County, at age eight four to apply for a Revolutionary War Pension.  He received one at the rate of $46.66 per annum.  (Certificate #12525 - Act of June 7, 1832, Virginia Agency.)

Sotha Hickman did not leave a will.  Among things listed in an inventory of his estate are two matching chairs and a clock.  (Will book 3, p. 452-455).  Many frontier families did not own a clock.  Elizabeth Davis Hickman died in 1837.

Sotha Hickman died on March 26, 1834, at his home on Elk Creek, Quiet Dell, Harrison County, Virginia, (now West Virginia), having outlived the men who came with him in search of land for a settlement.  His stepbrother, Levi Douglass, 1750-1787, - (DAR Patriot Index). Said Sotha was "of a companionable disposition" and a fine hunter and trapper.  He is buried in Haymond Cemetery, located a mile and a half south, of Quiet Dell, with a marker indicating that he served in the American Revolution.

If you have bothered to read this through,  I thank you and wish you all the best. 

Addie here