Charles Daugherty

Notes for CHARLES DAUGHERTY:

born ca 1716, Lagan Valley, Donegal, married Rebecca Cunningham(?), and was killed by Indians 17 Jul 1763, on Kerr Creek, Augusta Co., in a raid by Cornstalk's braves, on a Sunday morning when most of the inhabitants were away at church, in what became Rockbridge Co. Charles moved to Augusta Co. with his father from Chester Co., PA, by 1738, and by 1745 settled on Kerr Creek.

In 1763, William's wife Elizabeth was a heroine in the terrible raid by Cornstalk; the Shawnees were seen from Fort Young on Jackson River and an express was sent to William Dougherty's, but he was away from home, so Elizabeth mounted and raced up the Cowpasture valley warning settlers, who fled to the mountains before the Indians arrived. The settlers of Kerr Creek were less fortunate and Charles Dougherty, among others, was killed.

From - Annals of Augusta County, Virginia from 1726 to 1871 by Jos. A Waddell

"The smaller band of Indians made their descent upon Kerr's creek on the 17th of July (1763). Their number was twenty-seven, Robert Irvin having counted them from a bluff near the road at the head of the creek. Some weeks before, two boys, named Telford, reported that when returning from school they had seen a naked man near the path. This report was not much thought of till the massacre, when it was supposed that the man seen by the boys was an Indian spy sent out to reconnoiter....

From this point they had a full view of the peaceful valley of Kerr's creek. Hastening down the mountain, they began the work of indiscriminate slaughter. Coming first to the house of Charles Daugherty, he and his whole family were murdered. They next came to the house of Jacob Cunningham, who was gone from home, but his wife was killed, and his daughter, about ten years of age, scalped and left for dead. She revived, was carried off as prisoner in the second invasion, was redeemed, and lived for forty years afterwards, but finally died from the effects of the scalping. The Indians then proceeded to the house of Thomas Gilmore, and he was and his wife were killed, the other members of the family escaping at that time. The house of Robert Hamilton came next. This family consisted of ten persons, and one-half of them were slain. By this time the alarm had spread through the neighborhood, and the inhabitants were flying in every direction. For some reason the main body of the Indians went no farther..... The people on Kerr's creek had repaired the losses...basically Indians attacked again, only there were more of them. the wife of Thomas Gilmore, standing with her three children over the body of her husband, fought with desperation the Indian who scalped him. She and her son, John, and two daughters, were made prisoners....

An entire family of Daughertys, five Hamiltons, and three Gilmores were slain....Mrs. Gilmore struck up, with plaintive voice, the 127th Psalm of Rouse's version....The Indians then separated into several parties, dividing the prisoners among themselves. Mrs. Gilmore and her son, John, fell to one party and her two daughters to another. The last she ever heard of the latter was their cries as they were torn from her.....the mother and son were also parted, she being sold to French traders and the boy retained by the Shawnees. Finally he was redeemed and brought back by Jacob Warwick to Jackson's river where he remained till his mother's return."

Long before any white man had explored the entire Kentucky area, it was claimed by Virginia as part of her Augusta County. Daniel Boone brought his family to Kentucky in 1773; established the first permanent settlement in Kentucky at Harrodsburg in 1774, and a year later founded Boonesboro. That same year, 1775, John Daugherty, the first of the family in Kentucky, came to the area a few miles from Boonesboro which would become Lincoln County.

witnessed a deed of James Cunningham for 100 acres of land on

Tees Creek of James River, cornering the land of Moses

Cunningham

· Emigration: ABT 1738 Augusta Co., VA

from Chester Co., PA with his father and settled on Kerr Creek

as early as 1745, when he witnessed deeds

3 4

obtained 80-acre patent on a branch of the James River, Kerr

(Cunningham) Creek, between House Mountain and North Mountain;

which was later in Rockbridge Co. 5 3

was reported delinquent on tax levy

sued John Craig in Augusta Co. Neither Charles on Kerr Creek

or his brother William could be served summons. 6 7

sued John Frazier who lived in Rockingham Co., but the papers

were not served because of Indians 8

· Note:

his widow Rebecca was appointed administratrix of his estate;

on 20 Mar 1768 she was summoned to give counter security but

the papers were returned 9

Our part of the Daugherty migration to Kentucky was the second wave, descendants of Charles Daugherty and wife Rebecca in the 1780s, ten years after his brother Michael Daugherty II's sons. After Charles was killed by Indians in Augusta Co., VA in 1763, his widow and children remained there about ten years before some moved west into Kentucky.

Charles and Rebecca's son Cornelius, born ca 1729 probably in Pennsylvania, was a weaver who immigrated with his father and grandfather to Augusta Co. from Chester Co., PA in 1738. Cornelius served in Capt. George Robinson's company of militia in 1742. From 1742-49 Cornelius and his wife (1) Mary Hill lived on Cedar Creek on the North fork of the Roanoke in Augusta Co. They had, according to one book, six sons and six daughters, but not all their names are known; only George H., Noble, Ann, William, Isabel, Christopher, Abraham, Robert, Alexander, and Thomas Daugherty. Mary Hill died and Cornelius married about 1770 (2) Agnes _____. They had William, James Hill, John, and Cornelius R., Jr.

Charles Daugherty had, besides Cornelius, William, Thomas, and David, a son Daniel who in 1779 operated an iron works on Irish Creek of South River, Augusta Co., VA, not far from brother David's Mill Creek farm. Other brothers were Anthony, who died in 1792, Rockbridge Co., VA, and James who acted as Anthony's executor. The first tax list of the new Rockbridge Co. (taken out of Augusta) in 1778 listed James, William, and George Daugherty. In 1782 James, Anthony, William and Thomas were on the list. James started an iron works in Wythe Co., VA 1783-90, and is said to have died there in 1799.

Between 1755 and 1756, CHARLES served in the Augusta Co. militia during the French and Indian war. In Jul 1763, CHARLES was killed by Indians in a raid by Cornstalk's braves on Kerr Creek, on a Sunday morning when most of the