Memories_Part_1_page

The Ballengee brothers took part in the Revolutionary War (1775-1783). Data recorded in Virginia is proof that Isaac received pay for the use of horses. Also, Isaac was awarded a "Hand patent" in 1787. The awarded patent was for "210 acres on Sheep's Rock Branch in Greenbrier County, now Summers County. Swema, Virginia Index reveals that this patent is found in Book 2 page 25, the patent having been given by the Commonwealth of Virginia. These land patents were given as an award for service with the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War."1

After the war, in 1785, Isaac built a large sturdy home of logs with no windows on his island for safety from Indian attack. The home was used for over a hundred years, until 1900.

Isaac died in 1792 leaving no will. The property went to Jean. She then willed it to all the children equally. Her will was probated after her death in 1803.

Other settlers living in the area were Alderson, Bryan, Campbell, Hinton and Meadows. Records indicate that three of the Ballengee siblings married Meadows. Florence married John Meadows on November 8, 1803 in a double wedding. My great, great, grandfather Henry Ballengee and Rachel Farley being the other couple. Later, in 1806 George Ballengee married Anne Meadows. And, in 1814 Isaac II married Polly Meadows.

According to the 1800 census the United States of America contained just over 5 million people. Nearly 1 million of them were African slaves. The land was still untamed. Only here and there were strips of cultivated soil. Over two thirds of the people lived within 50 miles of tidewater. The entire population west of the Allegheny Mountains including slaves was less than 500 thousand. Two wagon roads crossed the Alleghenies in Pennsylvania. Another went through southwestern Virginia running to the Holston River to Knoxville, Tennessee.3 It took three weeks to travel from Philadelphia to Nashville. Henry Adams tells of the discomfort along the way, " . . . [the inns] are the most desolate and beggarly imaginable; bare, bleak, and dirty walls, one or two old broken chairs and a bench form all the furniture. The white females seldom make their appearance. At supper you sit down to a meal the very sight of which is sufficient to deaden the most eager appetite, and you are surrounded by half-a-dozen dirty, half-naked blacks, male and female, whom any man of common scent might smell a quarter of a mile off. The house itself is raised upon props four or five feet, and the space below is left open for the hogs, with whose charming vocal performance the wearied traveler is serenaded the whole night long."3

This country grew as the population increased slowly despite the hardships. Diseases such as typhoid, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and rheumatic fever consumed the nation's people. With lack of sanitation every so often yellow fever swept away crowds of victims and drove the rest of the panic stricken from the towns into the hills. The country still grew, expanding along the rivers westward.

My great-great grandfather Henry Ballengee sold his share of the family property to one of the Hintons. The two family's names worked the land until the mid 1800's. John Hinton and Isaac Ballengee III sold the

property, which encompasses the present town of Hinton, at public auction for $3,600 to the C&O Railway Company in November 1871.2 Taking a look at a map of the southern West Virginia area you will be able to locate some familiar names: names like Alderson and Meadow Bridge.

In early 1810 Henry and Rachel (Farley) Ballengee traveled down (north) the Kanawha River. They had to bypass the Kanawha Falls located 40 miles above where it is joined by the Elke River.

With all their belongings anchored to a river raft they continue their journey down the Kanawha to the Ohio, down the Ohio to the Mississippi; then, made their way up the Mississippi to the Missouri River, and up the Missouri to the junction of the Osage River with the Missouri River. There, Henry established and operated a ferry service on the Osage River.

When Henry and Rachel Ballengee arrived in Missouri the state was in dispute over the slave question. Part of Missouri wanted to be a free state and other parts wanted to keep slavery. This division continued right through the Civil War. The Missouri Compromise brought the state into the Union as a slave state in 1821. Henry and Rachel had four children during those years. They had two sons, AG Ballengee and my great grandfather James McMullen Ballengee, and two girls, Emily and Rachel. Emily worked many years on the Osage River. Great grandfather James M. Ballengee traveled much and followed many trades.