Frederick Ice

CHAPTER 7

For a while we began to think there would be no children for Nelley and me. Then finally Andrew came along, born Oct. 16, 1757 [died 1858]; Magdalene, born Feb. 16, 1760 [died young]; Frederick, born July 9, 1762 [died 1788]; Abram, born Nov. 7, 1765 [died 1790]; and David Adam, born Aug. 5, 1767 [died 1851]. I mention that my son, John, never married. He was killed at Pine Grove, [W] VA, in 1786, in a skirmish with the Indians.

Other families moved into our area during this time. They were good people, most of them. If there was a bad apple in the barrel, we encouraged them to move on. Not everybody can deal with living on the frontier. You have to be able to trust people, and each one has to pull their own load. There just isn't time to be fussing and feuding. Life is too short.

By George Washington's direction, a string of forts were built. Fort Sellers was just to the south and west of us, maybe 3 miles. Fort Ashby was straight south about 4 miles. That brought more people and soldiers and more civilization. We were glad for the protection, but began to feel crowded with all the people.

As I look back, Nelley and I have had a happy life. But I am a restless person. Along about 1765 or 66, I just couldn't go on the way things had gotten to be. Now, if you counted, I will be 84 next year, but you wouldn't know it. The good Lord gave me an amazing body and I have taken good care of it. I learned a lot from the Indians about roots and berries and herbs and things like that. And I already knew a lot from the Old Country. I am as good as any doctor you can find.

Some talked of the country father west from here, over on the Cheat River, just below the Pennsylvania line. You would think the land was so rich that things just grew themselves over there and you didn't even have to work. That's silly. But I had to go see.

The crops were all in and work was mostly done until spring came. I waited for the right time. Then I sprung my idea.

"Nelley, we've a fine place here, but it's getting too crowded. What say we move on to the Cheat River over near the Pennsylvania border?"

Nelley took it better than I expected.

"Frederick, you know my home is with you. Whatever you think best. Should we just travel over and take a look?"

That was what I wanted to hear. We took horses, packed the saddlebags with things we would need, and away we went. We found a thriving settlement already there. A few houses and some good people.

For a while we went over into Pennsylvania and lived in one of the Indian villages, just north of where the Cheat River flows into the Monongahela River. But as winter ended, we talked of going back across Mason & Dixson's Line into Virginia. Mason & Dixon had surveyed the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland back around 1763 to 1767. The Line went all the way to the Ohio River and was the official Pennsylvania border.

We bought several hundred acres of land just east of where Morgantown is now. We got a clear title to it. That's important. Then we built a house near the Cheat River and Andrew came and ran a ferry boat for several years. David Adam was the last of our children, born Aug. 5, 1767. I can't believe that I was 84 when he was born! He was the first white child born west of the Alleghenys as far as we knew. We had a most wonderful family.

By now all of our children were here with us. Can you believe that Indian Billy is 32? He married Margaret Higginbotham in 1763. They have a son, William, and daughter, Margaret, and another son, Thomas. [Editor's note: Indian Billy was married twice more and had a total of 16 children.]

We built our houses out of logs; a double chimney; real glass windows; and boards sawed at a saw mill for partitions and doors. We had the best of everything. There were men at the Ferry [Ice's Ferry was just east of Morgantown on the Cheat River near where I68 crosses now] who could split as straight a slab as the old sawmill could saw. The houses all had puncheon floors, split out of logs with an ax, and fastened to the sleepers with wooden pins. We built them to last.

We began calling it Ice's Ferry, and the name stuck. We had apples and peaches in plenty. There was a good deal of cleared land, which all belonged to me. We had good fences and we were better fixed to live than back at Patterson Creek. [Where Frederick lived is now covered over by Cheat Lake.]

But when the boys married, they decided to move to Buffalo Creek, near where Barrackville later stood. They wanted to take up land for themselves and work it. Nelley and I did not want them to go to Buffalo Creek at all. They were leaving as good a home as there was in America, and I said they were worse than the Prodigal Son. But there was no talking with them. William, Andrew, Abram, and Adam scorned their father's heritage and concluded to hew out a living for themselves in a new place on their own land.
Well, what could I do? I bought from the Indians four 200 acre tracts of land, paying $15.00 for each tract [in the money of the day], for our four sons. This land consisted of ground from Barrackville to Barnesville and a part of the Dakota mines.

In the Fall of 1784, General George Washington came through, planning a canal of some kind to run over from Maryland and connect the rivers. He wrote about this in his diary. By then Major Livingston had bought most of our land back at Patterson Creek. We had many memories, but our new home was the best. I mention that my handwriting came from Germany, and when I signed deeds back in Hampshire County, they thought I was writing Jice instead of Ice. Some we signed Iaac.

Here's what George Washington wrote in his diary. "The Road from Morgan Town or Monongahela Ct. House is said to be good at this Ferry - distance abt. 6 miles - the dissent [descent] of the hill to the river is rather steep and bad - and the assent from it, on the north side is steep also, though short, and may be rendered much better from the Ferry, the Laurel Hill is assendibly and easy, almost imperceptible slope to it's summit thro' dry white Oak Land - along the top of it the Road continues some distance, but is not so good, as the soil is richer, deeper and more stony, which inconveniences (For good Roads) also attends the dissent on the East side, tho' it is regular and in places, steep. After crossing this hill, the Road is very good to the Ford of Sandy Creek at one, James Spurgeons, about 15 miles from Ice's Ferry. From Spurgeons to one, Lemons, is reckoned 9 miles. From Lemons to the entrance of the Youghigany Glades is estimated 9 miles more, thro' a deep, rich soil. At the entrance of the above glades, I lodged this night (Sept. 25th) with no other shelter or cover than my cloak, and was unlucky enough to have a heavy shower of rain."

[Note: It is evident that Washington visited Ice's Ferry in the forenoon of Sept. 25, 1784, and that he did not spend the night there since he says he spent the night in the open 33 miles from the Ferry.]

[Notes by R. D. Ice.

John Ice never married. He was killed by Indians in the fall of 1896 near Pine Grove in Wetzel County. John's land went to Indian Billy.

Indian Billy was to marry three times and to have sixteen children. Most of the Ices in West Virginia are descendants of one of his children. My line comes through his son William Jr.