MARTHA OF THE CLINCH VALLEY, VIRGINIA 1756 - 1821
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Monday featured a hot red dawn and an awesome stillness. Before finishing breakfast, the family was already dripping sweat. Sol went to fetch his slaves, and Martha heard his sharp questioning of Bill as to George's whereabouts. From the cabin door, she watched the two of them leaving the yard, disappearing into the tall, green corn. And then, with her peripheral vision, she saw motion which froze her blood. A line of twenty naked, painted red men rose from the bank of Cooper's Run. They were followed by three uniformed British soldiers carrying muskets. Some of the Indians followed Sol, and some headed toward the cabin. Martha could not move fast enough. Desperately, she turned, raised the board on the dirt floor which covered the entry to the root cellar. She slid the three larger Litton boys from the bench where they still sat, munching cornbread, and pushed them through the hole. "Quiet!" she hissed at them. "Don't move! Hide!" She dropped the board into place, crossed the room to pick up the baby and her traveling bag, then felt iron-hard bronze hands grab her. A scream welled from Martha's diaphragm, but she choked on it. Martha was dragged, kicking and struggling, to the yard...
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About the Book
Martha knows better than to move her family from the rugged mountains of Southwest Virginia to the rolling fields of east-central Kentucky in 1779. The American Revolution is far from over, the Indians are wreaking havoc up and down the frontier, and Kentucky is known as "that dark and bloody ground." Nevertheless, Martha's husband, Solomon Litton and her brother, John Dunkin, insist on being among the first to settle near Ruddles and Martins Stations (later Paris, Bourbon County, Kentucky). As a result, Martha and her entire family are captured by the British and Indians in June of 1780, becoming prisoners of war. Along with four hundred other pioneers, they are forced to canoe and walk across Ohio to Detroit. Carrying her two-month-old infant, leading several other children, and separated from her husband, Martha found a way to survive. Those interested in the history of the Clinch River Valley, history of Russell County, Virginia, and history of Bourbon County, Kentucky, or prisoners of war during the American Revolution will find this an absorbing account. This story is built around the genealogy of the Litton family and the Dunkin/Duncan family. Care has been taken to use available historical facts as the basis for this fiction story; long-dead historic characters from the 18th century American frontier have returned to interact within its pages.
About the Author
In the 1970s and 1980s I did family research that led to my ancestor Martha Duncan Sharp Litton. I never expected that digging in libraries and courthouses would yield the shocking information that I discovered.
While there are many recorded stories of the American Revolution, only a few of them mention the women of the time or describe their daily lives. When I found that Martha and her young children in 1780 had been kidnapped by the British and Indians, transported from Kentucky to Canada, and held for years as Prisoners Of War, I HAD to write their story.
Although fictionalized, the story is based solidly on historical fact as well as on the genealogy of the Litton and Duncan families of Southwest Virginia.
Today there are thousands of Americans descended from Martha. This story is for them, with a wish that they take strength and inspiration from it.
There is more information about the author and her other published works at: www.hysterical-fiction.net