| Notes |
- The story of this historical marker begins with the story of children.
Two young boys, ages about 3 and 5, left their home in Fletching, Sussex, England to embark on an adventure that 300 years later would lead their descendants to this place after countless other journeys in between.
John Linville and his younger brother Thomas Linville sailed to Penn's Colony on one of William Penn's 22 ships in the sailing year of 1682-3 along with their mother Mary (Hart) Linville and probably their father Richard. Richard either died at sea or possibly in an epidemic in southern Jersey shortly after they arrived. Before a year was up, their mother remarried to Thomas Baldwin - the first marriage license issued by Penn's Colony.
The young boys, John and Thomas, grew up along Chester Creek in Pennsylvania in their step-father's household. In those times, few children grew to adulthood in a home with both birth parents. Thomas, the youngest son stayed close to that home base for the next 150 years. Even today some of Thomas's descendants still operate a spectacular home/farm/market just 3 miles up Chester Creek from the original Baldwin-Linville home.
But, older son John, only five when he arrived, was more adventurous. He began an association with the local merchants and Indian traders. In 1715, John at age 36 with a family of at least two sons, Thomas and William, whose life we commemorate today with this marker, joined his half- brother Thomas Baldwin and Baldwin in-laws, the Hendricks, in a new adventure - an Indian trading point along the Conestoga River only 45 miles west, but in those days, completely uncharted county. The move of this group to the west represented the first leg of a movement west which would 100 years later become a rallying cry for all young men to go west.
Two things about this move mark a pattern of human behavior in the colonial period. First, where younger brother Thomas's descendants stayed close to home in Pennsylvania for generations, older brother John's descendants were present in every "first" settlement west along the westward migration all the way to Oregon by 1846. That movement west actually began with a move south along the back side of the Appalachians.
The second pattern is that the move west was not done by isolated families as is so often the impression found in history books, but by groups of interrelated families creating large extended families and the foundation of a community which offered the support necessary to sustain a life on the frontier.
Within 15 years of John Linville's move to Conestoga his sons, Thomas, William and John, Jr. were moving again. This time farther west across the Susquehanna River, having learned the basics of frontier survival from their older relatives in the community. That survival included experience in Indian trading, bartering with neighbors and, for the most part lack of governmental oversight.
Son Thomas Linville built a cabin along the Codorus Creek ( now Adams County, PA), on the other side of the Susquehanna from the Conestoga community before 1730 when Penn's government had already forbidden such moves because of agreements with the Susquehanna Indians. Son William Linville participated in the famous Cresap Affair challenging Maryland's claim to Pennsylvania. Disguising himself as a native American and brandishing a weapon William and a group of several others tried to scare Thomas Cresap off the land which Cresap claimed as Maryland's territory and the Linvilles, Hendricks and others claimed as Pennsylvania's.
Within a year, sometime between 1733 and 1735, William developed a close association with Morgan Bryan?s family, marrying Morgan?s daughter Ellender Bryan and then moved with older brother Thomas Linville and his wife Hannah to an uninhabited 1500 acres of land around what became known as Linville Creek, VA. In the 1730s no more than a handful of families joined them at this place within sight of what would develop into the Great Wagon Road of migration a decade later.
Linville Creek was the furthest point south of European settlement on the back side of the Appalachians in the 1730s. Father-in-law Morgan Bryan was still further north in and around what is now Martinsburg, WA and brother John Linville married into the Stephens family and settled half way between the two in what is now near Stephens City, VA. Sister Ann (Linville) Hendricks was still living back at the Codorus in PA.
Such was the pattern of migration in those days, sending part of the family out along the trial, no more than a few days? distance. This made it possible to move family members up and down that trail in times of need, whether it be emotional, economic or safety.
Again, within 15 years of their settlement of Linville Creek, VA, the brothers were on the move south again along the Indian Trail which was fast becoming the Great Wagon Road. This time they left sister Alice and her new husband, Joseph Bryan (William's wife's brother) in Linville Creek and two other sisters still back in PA.
In 1747-8, William and Ellender Linville established a frontier plantation with their Bryan relatives on both side of the Yadkin River in what would become a hub of an active community in the forks of the Yadkin. What is now Blanket Creek and Lassiter Lake was then called Linville Creek, NC, a major geographic marker for all who passed down the Great Wagon Road.
Brother Thomas Linville and his family established a similar family enclave along Belews Creek to the northeast of here, before the Moravian claim was established. Brother John moved even farther to the south to the mouth of the Tyger River, SC, originally called Linville River.
Sisters Alice (Linville) Bryan and Ann (Linville) Hendricks and their families eventually joined the Yadkin enclave 10 years later, at the same time the Boone family caught up with the now thriving community in the forks of the Yadkin. It was Alice's step-daughter, Rebecca Bryan who became Daniel Boone?s wife and William Linville's daughter who married Daniel's brother George.
No matter how convoluted the intermarriages between the Linvilles, Bryans, Boones and Hendricks were, the message of that association was clear. When living on the frontier, you needed the relationships in an extended family to sustain you and the tutelage of survival skills for the younger generation was dependent on the successful older generation which had already been tested in that survival. The Daniel Boone generation had been preceded by 40 years of experience in forging a survival on the frontier and the skills became part of those families legacy to the next generation.
The Rowan County records convey the evidence of William Linville's activities in this early community from hunting wolves to speculating in Lord Granville Grants. Three of those grants - the ones encompassing Tanglewood Park, were his first plantation. A cabin he built, already referred to as old in 1757 when he sold it to John Johnson, stood somewhere near this spot along Linville's Run (now called Johnson's Creek). William then established a plantation directly across the Yadkin, surrounding himself with his in-laws and his sisters' children.
The record is unclear as to William's activities during the skirmishes of the French and Indian War which caused families to move up and down the Great Wagon Road for safety. Both of this brothers John and Thomas died before the end of that period. His wife Ellender and sister Alice outlived all their siblings, and followed the trail to Kentucky laid out by Daniel Boone and others in the extended family.
Sometime in the late summer of 1766, William, along with son John Linville and another young man went up into the mountains 70 miles west of here to hunt and fish. What happened on that trip became immortalize in two ways. The first report came in the South Carolina Gazette in Sept, 1766,
One William Linville, his son and another young man, who had gone over the mountains at the head of the Yadkin River to hunt, were there surprised by some Indians. The father and son were both killed on the spot, the other young man got off though much wounded and arrived at his settlement.
Something about the incident left an indelible imprint in the community, for sometime in the next 20 years, the location of the event became known as Linville River and later Linville Gorge and falls and much later, Linville Falls Wilderness Area.
The scant report of the event was considerably embellished and the details written down for history one hundred years later when Lyman Draper, a famous 19th century historian sought out the descendants of the early migrating families to record their experiences. In an interview with William Linville's grandson, Capt. Samuel Boone, son of his daughter Nancy, reported that William had had a premonition about his death:
The elder Linville aroused the young men just before morning, and bid them hasten away, or they would be massacred by the Indians.... "I have just dreamed that the Indians came up and massacred us. The circumstance was so vividly infused in my mind that I feel this it is a warning. So you escape and save yourselves. I am too feeble to make the attempt." The words had scarcely died upon his lips, and before the young men had time to make the least movement, when the Indians...now fired a volley and shot - killing the two Linvilles.
The story goes on to tell of the surviving, but wounded, young man's attempt to get back to the Linville household for help, eventually reaching son-in-law George Boone who, with others, including probably Daniel Boone, according to the interview, went out to bury the bodies. Local residents near Linville Falls, point to a spot ten miles above the falls where William is buried.
His widow, two remaining sons and grandchildren remained here on the Yadkin until others in the extended family encouraged them to join the settlement of Kentucky, which they did by 1792.
Today, none of William's known descendants still live in the area but hundreds of his brother Thomas's still do and thousands of their descendants live along each stop of the westward movement. The area which commemorates the "Linville Affair" in the Blue Ridge mountains remains a active recreation area, available for many others to pursue some of the same activities in the wilderness that marked most of William's live. But nothing marks his presence at this place where he established an active participation in the early development of the forks of the Yadkin.
This beautiful park remains a fitting memorial for all the families who preserved and cared for it, making it a place of joy, leisure and recreation for thousands. Today we add the Linville name to that list of families by placing this marker recognizing William and his families place in this important first settlement in western North Carolina.
Alice Eichholz, Ph.D., C.G.
24 Oct 1998
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1677 - Aft 1739 (63 years)
