Westfall Family History

I. Family Legend and Juriaen van Westvaal
II. The Dutch Discover America
III. Border Feud
IV.  French and Indian War
V. The Family Line
VI. Virginia
VII. Indian Wars in Virginia
VIII. The American Revolution
IX. The Civil War
X. From Then Until Now

Sources

Family Legend and Juriaen van Westvaal

The ancestors of a great many Westfalls in the United States are Juriaen van Westfall and Mary Hansen Westfall who came to America from the Netherlands. “Juriaen” is the seventeenth century Dutch version of the name George.  The “van” simply meant “from.”  In the document telling of his arrival in America he is referred to as Jeuriach Bestvaell van Luyderdorp, which translated to Modern English would be, “George Westfall from Liederdorp”.  Juriaen and Mary were early settlers in the area of present day Kingston, New York.  The names Westfall and Westphal are the most common variations on the original Dutch and German versions of the name. The spelling of Westfall varied during the seventeenth century depending on who wrote it down.  Most common were probably Westvaal and Westfael but in the written records you can also find Westphalen, Van Westphalen and Westvael.   I will use “Westfall” in this manuscript since that is the version that came down to us.

My Grandmother, Osa Westfall Corbett, used to tell me that our Westfall family came to West Virginia from Westphalia, Germany. She believed that one of them was a lord or peer or some similar title. One of the things that inspired me to take up genealogy was her stories of our Westfall and Trowbridge ancestors.  I first set out to document these stories; however, my research soon indicated that, while there are several similarities, the facts did not support the legend.  Over the years I have learned that this is a common problem many family historians encounter.  I told her a couple of times about this, but she always thought my information was incorrect. 

The Netherlands showing the approximate location of Leiderdorp.  The German state of Westfalen shares its border with Belgium and the Netherlands

(click on picture for larger image)

In 1978 she wrote me a letter, part of which read, “Dear Ronnie, Sue & Children, I know I am slow in [answering] your welcome letter & package.  I am not sure you traced the correct Westfalls.  There was no one I knew.  My Great Grandfather came from Westphalia, Germany with 2 brothers.  He stayed in the East & married a Cherokee Indian girl.  His 2 brothers went west.  I don’t recall any more about them.  Great Grandpa’s name was either John or Jonathan, not sure which.  Grandpa Westfall [John H. Westfall] was killed in the Civil War.  His wife & my Grandmother was Lydia.  She had several children.” 

Keep in mind my grandmother's reference to "John or Jonathan," a detail whose significance will become evident later. Also remember that the "West" during the early history of our country was anything west of the Alleghenys and Blue Ridge mountains. The area of Virginia that is now West Virginia would have been considered in the West. Even in the early 1800's the West included Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana.

A year later she wrote concerning the Westfalls,  “My Great Grandfather & 2 brothers came from Westphalia, Germany & my Great Grandfather stayed in Maryland & married a Cherokee Indian.   Great Grandpa’s 2 brothers went west & never was heard from again by any of the family.  Before the 2^nd World War all of us offspring were notified we had an inheritance coming from Westphalia, Germany but the war broke out & the Russians took the country & that did it.  Our Great Grandfather Westfall was a Peer or some thing like that in Germany.”  [Westphalia is in western Germany and was never under the control of the Soviet Union].

In the final letter I received from her on the subject she says, “Grandpa Westfall was born in the east not sure where.  His father came from Westphalia Germany married a Cherokee Indian girl.”

I sensed that Grandma invested a lot of pride in this story and I certainly had no desire to poke holes in it.  Cherished family legends are difficult for a family historian to deal with.  I wanted very much to give her the evidence to turn the legend into fact.  But, the evidence I have found points instead to Juriaen Westfall, a Dutch farmer, as our ancestor.  We Westfall descendents can have as much pride in that story as Grandma had in hers, aristocracy or no. There are parallels in the historical documents that might help explain parts of the legend.  The belief that the Westfalls came from Westphalia, Germany is repeated by several sources dating from about 1890 – 1920.  These sources appear to have relied on interviews of various Westfall families in West Virginia. Interestingly, the German State of Westfallen (Westphalia) borders southeastern Netherlands. It is very likely that the family originated there but came to America after living in the Netherlands for at least a few generations.  One thing for certain, when they first came to this country they were thoroughly Dutch in language, custom and religion.

I leave it up to you to decide for yourself.  My version of the Westfall history has its missing pieces and there is always the possibility that I am wrong and Grandma was right.  Even so, I hope you may learn a little history of the early Westfalls and perhaps a little of early America.  

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On September 12, 1609 the Dutch explorer Henry Hudson, for whom the Hudson River was named, was the first European to discover Manhattan.  The area was not colonized for another twelve years until the Dutch West India Company was formed in 1621.  Three years later the first permanent settlement was made at Fort Orange by Dutch and Walloon (Belgium) families.  The colony was named New Netherlands and encompassed the lower part of present day New York State. The colony was controlled by the Dutch trading company and managed in Amsterdam by a board of directors.  The chief concern of the Dutch West India Company was conquest and trade with the Indians, not colonization and agriculture.  The welfare of the people living in the colony was of secondary importance.  At first the province was a series of trading posts on the Hudson at Fort Orange, Esopus (Kingston) and Manhattan.  These posts engaged mainly in fur trade with the native Americans.

Among the stockholders of the Dutch West India Company was Kiliaen van Rensselaer, a wealthy jeweler in Amsterdam.  He became one of the directors early in the history of the company.  Van Rensselaer was convinced that the reliance on hunting and trading alone would cause loss and damage to the company.  He advocated restricting the fur trade and setting up agricultural communities to help colonize the province.  New Amsterdam would then become a valuable supply station for ships going to the West Indies.

Van Rensselaer and other supporters of this plan drew up an agreement defining the kind of farming colonies they wished to create in New Netherlands.  Those participating in the venture had to be stockholders and were called patroons.  In 1630 and 1631 Van Rensselaer bought lands on the west bank of the upper Hudson River.  He established a colony on his land and named it Rensselaerswyck.  Today the site is the city of Albany, but the name still survives on the opposite bank of the Hudson as the town of Rensselaer.  Some of the land in his farming colony he cultivated for himself through servant farmers.  Other parts he leased to his servants and freemen in the colony.  Van Rensselaer sent farm implements, livestock, building supplies, servants, farmers and merchants to New Netherland at his own expense.  By 1646 there was a population of about one hundred people at Rensselaerswyck.  Van Rensselaer never visited New Netherlands and conducted the affairs of the colony through letters from Amsterdam.  These were often confusing and contradictory.  This distant management resulted in many disputes with his officials and servant farmers, one of whom was Juriaen Westfall.

An amazing amount of information is known about Juriaen Westfall because his name is found in numerous documents of colonial New York.  He arrived in New Netherlands in 1642 aboard the ship De Houttuyn commanded by Adriaen Dircksen Houttuyn. Kiliaen van Rensselaer sent the Rev. Johannes Megapolensis to be the pastor of the Dutch church in Rensselaerswyck. The Reverend carried a letter from Rensselaer about the payment for the passengers on the De Houttuyn.  Listed in this document is “Jeuriach Bestvaell van Luyderdorp” (the modern town of Liederdorp is about twenty miles southwest of Amsterdam near the town of Lieden).  The ship sailed from Holland on June 6 and arrived in Rensselaerswyck on August 11, 1642. Of the twenty-three persons aboard, all except the minister and three families were servants or employees of Van Rensselaer.

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The governor of New Netherlands then was a resident Director General appointed by the Dutch West India Company.  In 1643 the man who held that position started a war between the colonists and the native Americans that lasted two years.  Shortly after Juriaen Westfall’s arrival in the New World he and his companions were forced to defend their new homes against the Indians.  The conflict decimated the province and many farms were destroyed along with badly needed crops.  The war discouraged the settlers and many returned to Holland. In 1645 peace was made with the Indian tribes on Long Island and along the Hudson River.  Shortly after that the Director General was relieved of his post and Peter Stuyvesant was appointed in his place and given charge of all of the Dutch possessions in America.

Stuyvesant arrived in New Amsterdam on May 11, 1647 and quickly began a series of reforms.  Many of his measures were excellent, and he strengthened Dutch power in the region.  Other reforms of his were heavy handed and along with his blunt manner soon made him many enemies.  He tried to regulate the sale of liquor and forbade its sale to the Indians.  His orders to this affect were usually disregarded. He punished those who would not conform to the Dutch Reformed church.  He opposed giving the people a share in the government and instead named a council of nine men to advise him.  These actions made him a very unpopular governor.

A few years after Stuyvesant’s arrival many inhabitants of Rensselaerswyck, including Juriaen, became dissatisfied with their obligations to the patroon Van Rensselaer.  Many of these people removed to the area known then as the Esopus after the Indians who lived there. Today this area encompasses present day Kingston and the town of Esopus in Ulster County, New York.   It is located on the Hudson River about half way between Manhattan and Albany. The founder of the colony at Esopus was Thomas Chambers who, like Juriaen Westfall, was a farmer in the service of Rensselaer.

In September 1654 Juriaen was granted a patent for 32 ½ morgens of land at Esopus.  Three years later all of the settlers at Esopus, worried about another uprising of Indians, left their farms for more protected settlements. Then in 1658 Governor Peter Stuyvesant staked out a site for a fort at Esopus.  The fortification erected was six hundred thirty feet in circumference and contained a guardhouse.  Two dozen soldiers were left to protect the settlers and Juriaen and others returned to their farms.

The text of a land grant at Esopus dated March 27, 1657 to the widow of Johan de Hulter describes the land as adjacent to land of Juriaen Westfall. The records also seem to indicate that Juriaen exchanged his servitude to Van Rensselaer for service to Stuyvesant.  In September 1658 Sergeant Andrew Lowrensen sent a report of conditions in Esopus to Governor Stuyvesant.  He wrote, “As to Jurryen Westfalen, he thinks he will come down by the first opportunity and see whether he can agree with your Excellency about the rent of the farm here.  But, the oxen would be of no service to him at present.  He will speak about it more in detail with your Excellency.”

The next spring the sergeant sent another report to Stuyvesant, “George Westphal does his best to plow the land and fence it.  I have lent him 69 pounds of bacon, as he needed provisions.  The oats are in the ground, all which your Honor has sent, the spring wheat came too late and the land is fenced nearly all the way round, the plowing continues since your Honor has sent the oxen.  The oxen, in which your Honor is privately interested, draw well.  He has sold his cows by order of your Honor.  I have delivered the iron and ropes, which your Honor has sent.  No more at present, except to commend your Honor to the protection of the Almighty God.” 

On April 9, 1660 Ensign Dirck Smitt wrote to Stuyvesant’s secretary Van Ruyven with details of a skirmish with the Indians and the disposition of certain farm products.  He wrote, “I beg to inform your Honor, that I have received from Mathias Roeloff’s wife here 20 schepels of wheat for your Honor and from Skipper Vlodder or out of his yacht 145 schepels of spring wheat, of which Jurryen Westphalen, hour Honor’s farmer, has received 50 schepels.”

On August 17, 1659, Juriaen Westfall and twelve others at Esopus sent a petition to Governor Stuyvesant and the Council of New Netherlands asking for a Dutch church to be established in Esopus.  They requested that the Reverend Harmanus Bloem, recently arrived from Holland, be appointed the pastor.  Juriaen and eight others signed the petition with their mark.  Juriaen’s mark is a unique three-pronged fork or trident that is easily distinguished in all the documents he signed.  In response to the petition the church was established and Reverend Bloem was appointed the first regular pastor.  Among those who pledged to support the new minister was Juriaen Westfall and Thomas Chambers.  Chambers seems to have been an important figure in Esopus.  It also appears that he was somehow closely connected to Juriaen Westfall and his family.

Juriaen Westfall and Mary Hansen were married probably about 1655.  Mary (Maretjen) Hansen was the daughter of Hans Jansen of Noordstrandt and was an indentured servant to tavern keeper Phillip Gerritsen. Juriaen and Mary's names are found in church records for the baptisms of their children.  The oldest child was probably daughter Rymerick who married Thomas Quick in 1672.  Assuming that she was no younger than 16 she must have been born about 1656.  Son Abel was baptized in 1661. Dutch children in the colony were baptized shortly after they were born, usually within a few days.

Before many years passed the northern settlement in the Esopus became the village of Wiltwyck. In 1662, a survey was made of the village and the names of property owners entered into the public record.  Thomas Chambers and Juriaen Westfall are listed as proprietors of lots in Wiltwyck.

In 1663 a series of fierce attacks by the Esopus Indians rocked the settlement.  Continued Indian attacks and Stuyvesant's severe inflexibility greatly weakened the colony.  When war broke out between the Dutch and the British, the people of New Amsterdam were ready to welcome British rule.  A stone fort and twenty cannons defended the city of New Amsterdam, but when British warships appeared in the harbor in 1664, the Dutch people refused to resist the invaders. Stuyvesant was forced to surrender without firing a shot, and New Amsterdam became New York.  In December 1666 the new English authorities of the colony listed Juriaen Westfall as a grantee of land in Ulster County, New York.   It was about this time that Wiltwyck became known as Kingston.  The Dutch, however, maintained their customs and religion for many years to come, even after they migrated to Virginia.

If the inhabitants of the Esopus thought that the British had freed them from oppression with the capture of New York, they were soon disillusioned.  In 1667, during the “Mutiny at Esopus” they rebelled against atrocities committed by English soldiers.  Juriaen was among the citizens of Esopus who petitioned British Governor Nicolls for protection and restitution.  This is the last direct mention we have of Juriaen.  His youngest child was baptized in June 1666.  At least one source claims that Juriaen was killed in 1667 near Kingston by Indians while guiding a group of British soldiers sent out against the them.

Thomas Chambers may have come to the aid of the Westfall family after Juriaen’s death. Chambers also came to New Netherland as a farmer for Kiliaen Rennselaer.  He first occupied the land where the city of Troy, New York now stands.  He later became an influential and prosperous citizen of Kingston.  In 1672 British Governor Lovelace rewarded him for his services to the colony.  His estate was named the Manor of Fox Hall and Thomas became the Lord of Fox Hall Manor. It is my guess that he is the source of the family legend that says the immigrant Westfall ancestor was a lord or a peer.  Juriaen and Mary’s son John gave his name as John Westfall of Fox Hall in the Esopus when he married Mary Cool (Cole) in 1683.  This reference seems to indicate that John was either born or grew up at Fox Hall.  It seems probable that Thomas Chambers raised John and perhaps his older sister Rymerick after Juriaen’s death.  Rymerick was apparently the oldest and John was the second eldest child. Ellen (Elajen), the youngest child, was about three years of age when Juriaen died.  As an adult John probably had a clearer memory of Chambers than he did of his father.  As the story was handed down from generation to generation the distinction between his father and his adopted parent was lost.  Eventually the tale became a Westfall Lord or Peer. It is my belief that my grandmother's "great grandpa" named "John or Jonathan" was actually John of Fox Hall Manor, her grandfather, several greats earlier than she imagined. Juriaen's widow Mary remarried to Jacob Jensen (Hansen) some time before 1670. The youngest of the children were probably raised by Mary and Jacob.

Records from the Dutch Reformed Church in Kingston show that Juriaen and Mary’s daughter Rymerick married Thomas Quick at Kingston about 1672. John married Mary Jacobs Cool on January 28, 1683.   Nicholas first married Maria Montagne on April 21, 1701 and then Sarah Vanaken on October 20, 1712.  The three youngest children, Abel Westfall was baptized on September 25, 1661;  Simon Westfall was baptized on September 30, 1663 and married Nelly Quackenbos (Simon and Nelly's first child was baptized in 1694 in Kingston);  Ellen, the youngest child, was baptized on June 27, 1666.

In the decades after Juriaen’s death his children and grandchildren pushed south and west from Kingston and Esopus on the Hudson River along what was known as the Old Mine Road to the Delaware River.  In 1696 John of Fox Hall, his widowed sister Rymerick Quick, and his brothers Nicholas and Simon purchased land in the Machackemech and Minisink.  Their names are documented in the New York deed from the Indians. The area near present day Port Jervis, in Deerpark Township, New York was known as Machackemech, the Indian name meaning "pumpkin field."   Three years later In 1699 John and his family moved from Kingston to Machackemech. He apparently died in present day Deerpark Township, Orange County, New York in about 1725.

Soon after John Westfall and his family removed from Esopus to Machackemech, many Dutch families settled in that area where the borders of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania come together. A few miles south in what today is Sussex County, New Jersey was a large area called the Minisink after the Minsee Indians who headquartered on Minisink Island.  The Minisink (meaning land of the Minsee) were a band of Minsee (or Munsee) Indians and were relatives of the Lenni Lanape and Esopus tribes. The English labeled all of these groups the Delaware Indians. The first settler on Minisink Island was John's son Jurian. Evidence indicates that he was there soon after the birth of his first son John in 1711.  In 1725 Cornelius Low made a survey for the Dutch settlers in the Minisink area.  His survey shows that Jurian Westfall, Mathew Kuykendall (Jurian's brother-in-law, husband of Jannet Westfall), Jacob Kuykendall (husband of Jurian's sister Sarah), and Jan Kortreght owned plots of between 55 and 25 acreas on the Big Minisink Island.  These men also owned town lots of five acreas each in the village of Minisink located on the New Jersey shore across from the island.  At the time the village had a store, a blacksmith shop and a hotel which survived there for several years.  Jurian and his family were on friendly terms with their Minsi neighbors. His sons grew up playing, hunting and fishing with their Indian peers.  Unfortunately, this peaceful coexistence would only last one generation.

The Westfalls and the other Dutch settlers in Machackemech and Minisink still spoke Dutch and church services were in Dutch.  The English, who came to the area, if they didn’t speak Dutch, talked to the Dutch settlers in the Indian tongue, which was the other language most generally used.  In time three Dutch Reformed churches were organized in this area, one at Machackemech in the vicinity of Port Jervis, one in the Minisink settlement, and the other further down at Walpek.  These churches recorded the baptisms of many Westfall children.  Among the early settlers in the Minisink soon after Jurian were Abel, Cornelius and Jacob Westfall, grandsons of Juriaen and Mary.  By 1750 the Westfall clan accounted for a sizeable share of the Dutch population in the area.  This family must have been a closely-knit one.  That fact was demonstrated when several of the Westfalls removed to Virginia.  Second and third cousins settled close to each other even when they came to Virginia from New York and New Jersey many years apart.

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Border Feud

Not long after the Westfalls settled in Minisink they were involved in the “border war” between New York and New Jersey.  Details of those events are found in petitions, legal actions and lawsuits filed in New York and New Jersey by the Westfalls and their antagonists.  Without a doubt the originators of these documents deliberately portrayed themselves as blameless victims and their enemies as cruel villains. As always is the case, the truth lay somewhere in-between. We should be thankful for these records, however, because they preserve for us a picture of the Westfalls during their time in the Minisink.

The original survey of the line dividing New York and New Jersey was both inaccurate and incomplete.  Some settlers in this area occupied lands granted to them by New York and others by New Jersey resulting in overlapping claims. Neighbors living close together believed they were residents of New York or New Jersey depending on what was most beneficial to them.  New Jersey drew its border ten miles north of where it is today, which put Machackemech in New Jersey. A majority of the Westfalls claimed their land was in New Jersey and their neighbors, the Swartwouts and Westbrooks, claimed to be in New York.  Violence erupted when these families harvested grain from land the others believed was theirs.  The feud further escalated when the authorities from one province or the other sent constables to arrest citizens who felt the constables lacked the authority to do so.  In 1720 this dispute between the Westfalls and the Swartwouts was brought to the attention of the governments of New York and New Jersey.  For awhile it appeared that the dispute was settled through compromise but it erupted again in 1743, apparently because, after more than twenty years, the boundary dispute between New York and New Jersey was still unsettled.

In 1743 Soloman Davis, a New Jersey Justice of the Peace was arrested on a warrant out of Orange County, New York.   He was accused of acting illegally as a Justice within the jurisdiction of New York.  To gain his freedom he paid a fine of forty pounds and was forced to give his bond (paid bail).  This incident was triggered by a warrant issued by Davis for the arrest of a man who claimed to be a resident of New York.

Not long after the first incident, New Jersey Justice of the Peace Abraham Vanaken, husband of Margaret Westfall, issued a warrant for the arrest of Johannes Westbrook and another man for breaking into a house at night. The Constable of Morris County and his deputies executed the warrant and arrested the vandals. The two were jailed in New Jersey but were soon released when a deal was made between the New Jersey Attorney General and an official from New York.  The agreement was for people of the Minisink area to sign statements declaring that they lived in either New Jersey or New York.  These people would then be subject only to the authorities in province of their choice.  However, not long after, the Deputy Sheriff of Orange County apprehended Justice Vanaken because Westbrook was suing him for false arrest. Vanaken was taken to a jail in New York where he was kept for nearly a month. The Constable and his assistants, including Jurian Westfall, were also arrested because of Westbrook’s suit and forced to pay a settlement.  In a related instance another New Jersey constable had his horse shot out from under him by a New York posse.  He was stripped of his belongings and hauled off to a New York Jail where he was confined for a considerable amount of time.

After these incidents, the Governor of New Jersey ordered an investigation of the boundary disputes.  This apparently came to nothing.  Ten years later the same problem arose again.

In August of 1754 Samuel Finch, one of the Constables of the precinct of Minisink in Orange County, New York was working in his shop. Cornelius Westfall, Solomon Cartwright, Peter Westfall, Jacobus Westfall and Jurian Westfall came to arrest him under a warrant issued by a New Jersey Justice of the Peace.  When Finch refused to go, the men dragged him from his shop a quarter mile through bushes and swamps, seriously injuring him.  Another man who was a Justice of the Peace in Orange County somehow rescued Finch before he was jailed in Sussex County, New Jersey.  Samuel Finch subsequently filed a suit in New York against the Westfalls and Cartwright.

The following year, after the death of Cornelius, the Westfalls and others attempted to reclaim the land of Philip Swartwout, son of Jacob Swartwout also deceased.  Jacob Swartwout was one of the original men involved in the dispute more than thirty years before.  Petrus Smoke, the Sheriff of Sussex County, New Jersey and eleven other men including Jurian, Simon and Jacob Westfall came to Philip Swartwout and evicted him and his family from their home.  Swartwout claimed that the men turned out his cattle, household furniture and everything else belonging to him.  The family was allowed to live in a small kitchen on the property.  To avoid the jail in Sussex County, Philip was forced to sign a lease for a portion of his property.  Payment was to be a share of crops harvested in the lower section of the plantation.  This situation continued for the next four years.  In 1759 Swartwout and others petitioned the President of the King’s Council of New York for relief.  The President ordered the Sheriff of Orange County, New York to raise a posse to arrest the Westfalls and their allies and bring them to the New York City jail until the case could be heard in a New York court.  On November 11, 1759 the Sheriff put Philip Swartwout back in possession of his house and land.  He found no opposition and no one there except for an unidentified woman and five children whom he evicted.  The feud did not end there.

In February 1761 Nathaniel Westfall and three other men again arrested the beleaguered Philip and took him to the jail in Sussex County, New Jersey.  He was forced to post a bond of sixteen hundred pounds to ensure that he appeared in the next session of the Sussex County court.  The reason for this action was a lawsuit filed by Jacob Westfall, Simon Westfall and Deborah Davis.  I suspect these three were heirs of the deceased Cornelius.  This act by the Westfalls caused Cadwallader Colden, President of the King’s Council in New York to write to Governor Boone of New Jersey demanding that action be taken against the New Jersey men.  This is the last of the events described in the Archives of the State of New Jersey that I have found so we do not know how the dispute ended.  The border between New York and New Jersey was finally settled in 1772.  Westfall land in Machackemech ended up in Orange County, New York but those in Minisink remained in Sussex County, New Jersey.

In 1758 the Governor of New Jersey, Francis Bernard, described in a letter attacks by Indians in his province in June.  A band of Indians were sighted crossing the Delaware River into New Jersey from Pennsylvania.  Several New Jersey soldiers and settlers went to look for them.  When they could not find the Indians they split into two groups.  One group of five men walked into an ambush set by seventeen Indians.  Both sides immediately began firing their muskets. Two settlers died instantly and one was wounded.  Hearing the gunfire, the other party of men rushed to help.  After the fight was over one Indian was dead and at least three others wounded.

A week later a party of twenty Indians attacked the house of Abraham Cortrecht and killed two people.   The next day a band of thirty Indians attacked the house of Jurian Westfall. Inside were fifteen men, most of them New York soldiers.  Seven people were killed and four children were taken.  The survivors took refuge in the cellar of the house and finally drove off the raiders.  During the attack, one Indian charged toward a boy with a gun.  The boy held his fire until the last minute, then shot the Indian and ran away.  Later, when the boy told his story a group of men with dogs went to look for the Indian.  They found him buried under a pile of stones.  The dead man was recognized as being a famous Delaware Indian leader named John Armstrong. 

Stone house in the Minisink area probably built in the 1780's as a fort against Indian attacks.  The Westfalls probably lived in one similar to this one.
(click on picture for larger image)

The Family Line

Jurien Westfall’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren continued to push back the frontiers of America.  At least one branch of the family moved west into Pennsylvania.  Others, including ours, moved to Virginia.  As the family grew the records containing their names become more difficult to sort out.  There were several Cornelius, John and Jacob Westfalls in Virginia before 1850.  My research and that of others has identified thirty-four Johns, twenty Jacobs and thirteen Cornelius Westfalls born before 1850.  The 1850 census was the first to list by name all persons living in a household.  Before that time, from the 1780’s through 1840 only the head of the house was listed by name on tax and census rolls.  We will probably never be able to identify the pedigree of all of these families.  Lucky for us, ours left a number of civil records in Virginia and were also the subjects of articles in various West Virginia local histories.  Before our ancestors are lost in the crowd let’s review our line.

Juriaen Westfall who married Mary Hansen was the immigrant ancestor.  He was born probably around 1620 in the Netherlands and died about 1669 in Kingston, New York.   Juriaen and Mary had six children.

John Westfall of Foxhall Manor was probably the oldest son, born about 1659-60 in Esopus (Kingston), New York.  His wife was Mary Jacobs Cool (or Cole).  They had twelve children all born in Kingston between 1684 and 1709.  John purchased land in Machackemech (near present day Port Jervis, New York) in 1699 and was one of the first of the Dutch settlers into the area near the Delaware River. He died there in 1725.

Abel Westfall was born probably in January 1696.  He was the seventh of John and Mary’s twelve children.  He married Anne Bogard, daughter of Cornelius and Eva Hornbeck Bogard probably in Kingston around 1717.  He and Anne had eight children born between 1719 and 1739.  Abel first settled in the Minisink area of New Jersey but went to Augusta County, the northern neck of Virginia around 1748.  He died in 1755 in Hampshire County, Virginia.

Cornelius Westfall was the second of Abel and Anne’s eight children and the oldest son.   He was born probably in September or October 1721.  Cornelius married his first cousin Elizabeth Westfall, daughter of Jacob and Margaret Duytscher Westfall.  She too was the granddaughter of John of Foxhall Manor.  Cornelius and Elizabeth had eight children all born in the Minisink area of New Jersey between 1748 and 1769.  Cornelius remained in New Jersey when his father Abel and brother John removed to Virginia.  Cornelius brought his family to Virginia much later, around 1774.  Elizabeth had a sister Eleanor.  There is some evidence that after Elizabeth died Cornelius married her sister Eleanor, the widow of David Cole.  Cornelius died in Hampshire County, Virginia about November 1782.

Cornelius Westfall was the sixth child of Cornelius and Elizabeth Westfall.  He apparently married first in Harrison County, Virginia to a lady whose name so far is unknown.  He married second Elizabeth Helmick in Randolph County on January 13, 1796.  They had five children that we know of.  There are several West Virginia local histories that name Cornelius and identify his children.  Cornelius was denied a pension as a veteran of the Revolutionary War.

John H. Westfall was the forth child of Cornelius and Elizabeth.  He was born in 1806 in Harrison County, Virginia and died in Upshur County on May 1, 1870.  John first married Elizabeth Allman about 1830 and they had nine children.  Elizabeth apparently died about 1850.  John married second Lydia Wilson Smith, the widow of Solomon T. Smith and the mother of five Smith children. Lydia died in 1907.  She was the source of the family legends that my grandmother passed on to me.  My grandmother was about ten years old when her grandmother Lydia died.

Nathaniel Jonathan Westfall was the first of five children born to John and Lydia.  He was born on Christmas day, 1851.  Nathaniel married Luvenia Margaret Trowbridge on June 20, 1880 on horse back in Lewis County, West Virginia.  They had seven children.

Osa B. Westfall was the forth child and third daughter born to Nathaniel and Luvenia.  She was born on March 13, 1897 in Lewis County, West Virginia and died on July 15, 1992 in Fort Smith, Arkansas.  She married Arthur Edmond Corbett on September 12, 1919 in Cumberland, Maryland and had six children.  She was my beloved grandmother.

Virginia

Apparently one of the first of the Westfall clan to remove to Virginia was Jacob and his wife Judith (Hornbeck), son of Jurian Westfall and grandson of John of Fox Hall.  He was in Virginia as early as 1739. Our ancestor Abel Westfall, Jacob's uncle and the son of John of Foxhall Manor, was in Virginia by 1747.  He appears in various records under the aliases of Abram and Abraham.  In the baptismal records for his children, his given name is listed as Abel except for his daughter Elizabeth when it is given as Abraham.  Abel was granted 400 acres in the Northern Neck of Virginia on the Great South Branch of the Potomac on October 6, 1748 by Lord Fairfax.  The estate was located about eleven miles south of present day Moorefield in Hardy County, West Virginia.  Jacob Westfall received a similar grant a few days later, also for four hundred acres.  The following is an extract of the deed from Lord Fairfax of Virginia to Abel Westfall, dated October 6, 1748.

"The Right Honorable Thomas Lord Fairfax ... proprietor of the Northern Neck of Virginia ... in consideration of [compensation] to me paid and for the annual rent hereafter reserved I have given, granted ... unto Abel Westfall - of the County of Augusta - [a tract of land] upon the South Fork of the Wapacome or Great South Branch of Potomach River and bounded by a survey made by McJames Genn as follows ... [description of survey] containing four hundred acres together with all rights ... to him the said Abel Westfall - his heirs and assigns forever ... paying to me, my heirs or assigns ... Proprietors of the said Northern Neck yearly and every year on the Feast Day of St. Michael the Archangel the Fee Rent of one shilling Sterling Money for every fifty acres of land hereby granted ... Provided that if the said Abel Westfall ... [does not pay the annual rent for two whole years, it will be lawfull for me or my heirs, etc.] to re-enter and hold the [land] as if this grant had never passed. Given in my office in the County of Fairfax within my said Proprietary under my hand and seal, dated this the sixth day of October ... A.D. One thousand seven hundred and forty eight."

George Washington started his adult life as a surveyor in Virginia.  Sometime after Abel Westfall was granted his four hundred acres on the South Branch of the Potomac, Washington surveyed the land for him and other Dutch settlers in the area.  During the night his tent blew down and he was perhaps in a less than congenial mood when he entered in his diary the next day that the locals behaved worse than a pack of wild Indians. They could not speak English, and the men, women and children crowded around him laughing, giggling and getting in his line of sight, causing him delays in completing his work. These comments by Washington are very interesting because they show that when the Westfalls and their relatives first came to Virginia, they were still very much Dutch.

Abel purchased some adjoining  property in 1755.  He was added to the Augusta County tax lists on August 28, 1750.  The will of John Bogard, a relative of Abel’s wife Ann, was recorded in Augusta County on September 4, 1746; the executor was Abel Westfall and Abel's daughter Lea served as a witness.

Jacob purchased additional property in 1761 which he subsequently conveyed to Peter Reeve of Philadelphia on December 5, 1764. This property of 190 acres was on Diamond Lick of Looney's Creek in Hampshire County. The 1764 deed of release is from "Jacob Westfall & his wife Judith" to Peter Reeve.  This document seems to positively identify this Jacob as the Westfall who married Judith Hornbeck and was the son of Jurien Westfall and grandson of John Westfall of Fox Hall Manor.

On August 26, 1766 in Augusta County court, Jacob and Hannah Conrad requested that John Westfall, son of Abel, give an account of the estate of John Bogard.  Abel apparently had died while administering Bogard’s estate and John was the administrator of his father’s estate. When this situation arose it was common for the heirs of the first deceased to request a legal accounting of the estate.  An inventory was recorded February 14, 1758 and the sale bill was recorded November 15, 1759.  According to court testimony, Abel died in 1755 making a deathbed oral will leaving a portion of his estate to his son John who had helped him secure the settlement.  However, a high court ruling in 1793 declared that since Abel died without a will his eldest son Cornelius was the legal heir.  There seems to be some confusion among Westfall researchers about the meaning of the ruling on an appeal, part of the law suit brought by Jacob Westfall against John Singleton.  Jacob was an attempting to recover land John Westfall sold to Singleton's father.  The ruling of the court is as follows:

Part of 12CC270-271, page 227: Jacob Westfall vs. John Singleton, Appeal from the High Court of Chancery.

     "Sometime in the year of 1749, Lord Fairfax by a public advertisement invited settlers to that part of the northern neck where the land in question was, promising to make rights to such as would settle there. A man of the name of Vanderpool, having previously made a settlement upon the tract in dispute, he about this time sold the same to Abel Westfall who took possession and continued to hold it until the year of 1755 when he died intestate, leaving two sons, Cornelius, his eldest, and John. Lord Fairfax having granted a very large tract of country (including within it the land in question) to Bryant Martin, received a reconveyance of it and laid off the whole as a Manor.

     "In the year of 1770 upon the application of the settlers, he, by a writing under his hand, agreed to convey to them their respective settlements for their lives, renewable forever, reserving an annual rent, which agreement was proved and recorded. Cornelius Westfall who at the time of his father's death and long after lived in the state of New Jersey, removed to this Commonwealth and took possession of the land in question about the year of 1773, and continued to hold it until his death in 1782, having by his will devised it to his two sons, Isaac and Zachariah, who afterwards conveyed the same to Jacob Westfall, the Plaintiff. Cornelius paid rent for this land for some years, though Lord Fairfax had refused to convey it to him.

     "The defendant [John Singleton] who claimed under a purchase from John Westfall, the younger son of Abel Westfall, by the defendant's father, and a deed in consequence thereof from Lord Fairfax in the year of 1773 and the defendant states in his answer that it was customary in that part of the country, for persons having made settlement rights to transfer the same by deathbed donation which were always considered valid. That Abel Westfall made such a disposition of this land in question to his son, John, who had shared with him his toil and danger of making this settlement; that the defendant and his father held possession until 1774 when Cornelius Westfall took possession. There is some evidence proving a custom similar to that mentioned in the answer. The defendant having recovered the land in ejectment, this bill was filed, praying for an injunction and conveyance. This Chancellor dismissed the bill being of the opinion that the equity therein stated was neither admitted by the answer nor established by the evidence. If Lord Fairfax had not originally invited settlement on his lands on the South Branch by a promise of making them titles, he was nevertheless bound by his advertisement of the 5th of August 1749 to grant title to all persons settled thereon. That Abel Westfall being at that time settled on the land in disputation, was a purchaser from Vanderpool, the original settler, was entitled to a grant thereof from Lord Fairfax in the usual terms of granting his lands; and Abel Westfall dying as untitled in the year of 1755 without making a will or other disposition of it, his equitable interest therein descended to Cornelius Westfall, his eldest son and heir at law (in possession of the land)."
Fall Term, 1793

This document makes it clear that Abel’s son Cornelius Westfall, our ancestor, did not move to Virginia for another nineteen years after the death of his father. In 1761 he leased the 400-acre Northern Neck plantation to his brother John.  Cornelius' youngest child was baptized in one of the Dutch churches in the Minisink area in February 1769. In 1774 Cornelius took possession of his father's land after John had transferred at least a portion of the Northern Neck land to the Singleton family.  After the death of Cornelius litigation resulted when Cornelius' oldest son Jacob sued John Singleton for Singleton's land, which Jacob claimed was left to him and his brothers by their father Cornelius.  The suit apparently ended in 1793 with the ruling from the Virginia High Court of Chancery on an appeal (of an earlier ruling). The court declared that since Abel left no written will, Cornelius was the rightful heir tp the estate. This seems to imply that John Westfall had no right to sell Singleton the land.  The high court ruling did not directly address the issue of ownership, it mainly ruled on Cornelius' legal status as Abel's heir. 

Cornelius made his will in Hampshire County, Virginia in February 1781 but it was not probated until March, 1783. It is believed he died about November, 1782. His will names his sons Jacob, Isaac, Zachariah, John and Cornelius. The will seems to indicate that John and Cornelius are no longer living in Hampshire County.  Cornelius names his wife "Magdalene" but the probate record gives her name as Eleanor, thus we can assume her name was probably Eleanor Magdalene Westfall.  It is my belief that she was the sister of Cornelius' first wife Elizabeth Westfall, daughter of Jacob Westfall and Margaret Duytscher. Cornelius only mentions one daughter, Mary.  We know from baptismal records that Cornelius and Elizabeth had at least two other daughters, Anna and Margaret.  They may have died before 1781.  The following is the text of Cornelius' will and the subsequent probate document.

WILL OF CORNELIUS WESTFALL, HAMPSHIRE COUNTY, VA., Dated Feb. 8, 1781; probated, Hampshire Co., Va., March 11, 1783 -
"In the name of God Amen, I Cornelius Westfall of the County of Hampshire and the state of Virginia being very sick and weak but of perfect mind and memory ... do make and ordain this my last Will and Testament... The Worldly Estate which it has pleased God to bless me with in this life, I give ... and dispose of in the following manner... First, I give and bequeath unto my beloved wife, Magdalene Westfall, the privilege of one third of the benefit of my plantation I now dwell on as long as she shall bear the name she is now of. Also, I give and bequeath unto my son, Jacob Westfall, my smooth gun. Thirdly I give and bequeath unto my beloved sons, Isaac Westfall and Zachariah Westfall all my lands and [unreadable] an equal share with the rest of my children of the movable estate except such particulars as I shall hereafter mention. I do not mean for Isaac and Zachariah to hold the land without having it appraised and paying to such as shall be hereafter named in particularly such share of land. Fourth, I give and bequeath unto Jacob Westfall one fifth part of the value of the lands, and to Cornelius Westfall one fifth part of the value of the lands, and unto John Westfall one fifth part of the value of the lands, and my will is if my two sons, Cornelius and John, should not return that their part of the Estate shall fall to Isaac and Zachariah. I give and bequeath unto my daughter, Mary Westfall, a feather bed and furniture, a cow and a calf, her choice of my cattle, two ewes, her choice, and an equal share of the movable estate. Now my desire is to have the rest of the moveable estate appraised and let all my children have an equal part. I do constitute and appoint my friend, Samuel Hornback and my eldest son, Jacob, as my executros of this my Last Will and Testament. In Witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this eighth day of February, one thousand seven hundred and eighty one.

Witnesses present:

Stephen Rudelift
Phineas Wells

[Cornelius signed with his mark]

"At Court held for Hampshire County on the 11th day of March 1783, This Last Will and Testament of Cornelius Westfall deceased was presented in Court by Jacob Westfall one of the Executors herein named and proved by the oaths of Stephen Rudelift and Phineas Wells, and ordered to be recorded. And on the motion of the said Executor, who made it according to law, Certificate is granted him for obtaining a probate thereof in due form, giving security. Where upon, he together with his Security entered into and acknowledged bond in the penalty of .... for his due and faithful Execution of the said Decedent's Estate and performance of his Will. Eleanor Westfall, widow of the said Decedent having declared that she wants naught of anything by the same given or bequeathed to her Lecen an need any benefit or advantage she might claim by the Hereby."

Test. And..wodrow Co. Cur.

Cornelius Westfall's Last Will & Testament
Rec'd and Examined 1783

Our family story speaks of two “brothers” who went west while our Westfall ancestor remained in the east.  Probably this is based on the tale of Cornelius and his father Abel Westfall.  We know that Abel had two sons, John and Cornelius.  It is possible that there was another brother we know nothing about, making up the required three brothers in our story.  Also, during the 1700's several of the Westfall clan went on west to Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. A combination of these facts probably contributed to my grandmother's family legend.

To add more fuel to our legend, we have a few local histories from West Virginia written between 1900 and 1940.  These were stories told to the writers by various Westfall family members.  Several of these stories repeat the belief that the Westfalls were from Westphalia, Germany.  One interesting exception is the story in History of Ritchie County by Minnie Kendall Lowther written around 1910.  In it, she says that the Westfalls were of Irish lineage.  But she also says that they came to Randolph County from New York.  Dr. A.S. Bosworth, author of A History of Randolph County says, “The Westfalls were of German origin and the name was spelled Westphal in the mother tongue.”  W.B. Cutright, author of The History of Upshur County, West Virginia wrote, “Among the pioneers of Randolph, Upshur, Barbour and Harrison Counties is found the German name of Westfall (Westphal), their ancestors came to America from Germany, that portion known as Westfallen, and later known as the district of Westphalia.”   Cutright stated that Cornelius Westfall was among the earliest settlers of Randolph County.  Cutright’s source for this information was Samuel Westfall of Lewis County, West Virginia.  Samuel was the grandson of Cornelius Westfall, son of John H. Westfall and uncle of my grandmother Osa Westfall Corbett. Of course, all of these accounts were mistaken about the origin of the family but they probably were the source of my grandmother's claim that her Westfall ancestors were from Westphalia.

One of the more influential essays of this period on the Westfall family history, I think, was Corinne E. Cutright’s The Westfall Family.  It was published in the Randolph County Historical Society Magazine of History and Biography in 1927.  Some of her claims are wrong but her essay seems to be well researched for the time.  Ms. Cutright states that the first Westfall to arrive in Virginia was John Westfall, grandson of Juriaen and Mary Hansen Westfall.  He came to Augusta County, Virginia from New York in 1747. The place he settled was located in present day Hardy County, West Virginia.  He died there in 1789, forty-two years after he first came to Virginia.  Most of this is true except that John was the son of Abel and great grandson of Juriaen.  John was also the brother of our ancestor, Cornelius. The other mistake is that Jacob Westfall, husband of Judith Hornbeck was probably the first Westfall to come to Virginia, followed within a year or two by John and his father Abel.

During the French and Indian War, settlements in Virginia west of the Alleghenies were frequently attacked and broken up by Indian tribes resisting the relentless push west by white settlers.  In 1753 Robert Files and his family, along with David Tygart, built cabins within three miles of one another, near where the town of Beverly, West Virginia now stands. Unfortunately for them their cabins lay along the Seneca War Trail.  It wasn’t long before the Indians attacked and killed the entire Files family.  Tygart left his name on the valley but took everything else of value back to the South Branch of the Potomac.  Today Tygarts Valley is part of Randolph County, West Virginia.  Settlements did not resume there until after 1763.  Jacob Westfall is usually credited with finding and burying the bones of the Files family twenty years after their tragedy.  This Jacob may have been the son of the early settlers Jacob and Judith Hornbeck Westfall as was James and Joel Westfall who also settled in Tygarts Valley.

After the treaty of Paris ending the French and Indian war, it was illegal for whites to settle anywhere west of the Alleghenies. Dutch and German settlers, unable to read English (or claiming they could not do so) ignored the treaty.  So did the Scotch-Irish, probably because of the example set by their Dutch neighbors, or maybe because of their contempt for the English.  These settlers secured Tomahawk Rights to the land they claimed.  They blazed trees with an axe for boundary markers and then built cabins and settled on the land.  The Indians continued their attacks on these settlers after the French and Indian war.  In 1768 the Iroquois ceded all land between the Alleghenies and the Ohio River with the treaty of Fort Stanwix.  After that settlers came in droves.  By 1775 the population of Virginia west of the Allegheny Mountains reached 30,000.  The settlements followed streams and Indian trails.  By the end of 1772 white settlers had claimed all of the land in Tygarts Valley. 

In 1774 Dumore’s War erupted. This hostility was named for John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, Royal Governor of Virginia.  Lord Dunmore led a series of raids on Indian villages in western Virginia.   Some writers believe the Indian trouble was instigated by Murray to distract the attention of the settlers of Virginia from the growing Revolutionary spirit in the colony. Some considered the campaign the first battle of the American Revolution, though it is hard to understand why.  In reality the war was a result of a coalition of American Indians attempting to check the westward expansion of white settlers.  Dunmore’s War ended the same year it started with the battle of Point Pleasant near the junction of the Ohio and Kanawha rivers. But, scattered Indian attacks continued in western Virginia for another twenty years.

The sons of Jacob and Judith Hornbeck Westfall, Jacob, Joel,  and James came to Tygarts Valley in 1772 from their plantations along the South Branch of the Potomac in present day Hampshire and Hardy Counties.  At the time Virginia was offering 400 acres in the valley, exempt from taxes for fifteen years.  If a settler built a cabin and raised a crop of corn he could claim another 1000 acres. Jacob Westfall was a justice of the peace and a member of the court appointed by the Governor in the organization of Randolph County.  He was elected sheriff by his associate justices of the peace, and was the first sheriff of the county.  In 1790 Jacob was one of the trustees of the town of Beverly.  The first court house of Randolph County was designated on May 29, 1787 in the residence of James Westfall in Beverly. Cornelius Westfall (who was probably the son of John and grandson of Abel) was appointed the second sheriff of Randolph in 1789.

In 1892 E.K. Westfall of Bushnell, Illinois wrote a letter to his cousin Frank Mills. Elnathan K. Westfall was the grandson of Jacob and Mary King Westfall.  In the letter he describes what he was told by his father about the early days in Randolph County, Virginia. "An interesting item connected with the early history of the Westfalls in the country is the fact of their living on the extreme edge of civilization, in Tygarts Valley, Randolph Co., Virginia, now West Virginia. A chain of Forts four or five miles apart, for the protection of the citizens was built along the valley. In these Forts the whole population lived during the spring and summer months. The farms were worked by parties who were constantly guarded by armed parties. Thus they went from one to another until all was done. In winter they removed to their farms, the Indians not venturing to come across the mountains when snow was on the ground as the settlers could track them back and punish them for their trepidations. Grandfather [Jacob Westfall] was Captain of the Fort where the town of Beverly now stands. I think father [Cornelius] was born in that stockade..."

Jacob and Mary King Westfall left Randolph County, Virginia for Kentucky in 1792. They settled first in Nelson County, Kentucky and then in Hardin County where some of their children were married.  In 1808 Jacob and Mary followed their son Cornelius to Miami County, Ohio and settled near where Dayton is today.  In 1827 the couple moved to Clinton Township, Putnam County, Indiana where Jacob filed for a Rev. War pension.  After Jacob died in Putnam County in 1835, Mary applied for a widow's pension.  She also died in Putnam County, Indiana.  Many of the facts of their lives are documented in the pension applications.

In 1909, Jacob's grandson Jacob Mills wrote to his brother of Frank Mills, "Grandfather Westfall (Jacob) moved to Kentucky sometime in the latter end of the 18th century. Came down the Ohio, out of Monongahela in piroques, with quite a number of followers. They went up the Kentucky river, then Salt river, where they settled. He was made a Justice of the Peace there and held the office long enough to be High Sheriff by virtue of being the oldest justice. He had held the same office in Virginia for the same reason. Must have lived in Kentucky about 20 years - perhaps more. Mother [Janet Westfall Mills] was born in Kentucky. I think they moved from there to Miami Co., Ohio about 1810. Uncle Cornelius [Westfall] had preceded them there. I think he went as a surveyor."

There are other stories of Indians and Westfall relatives told in some of the local histories in West Virginia.  The first has two very different versions, one quite romantic, the other probably closer to the truth.  It concerns William White, the father of Elizabeth White who married Joel Westfall. Joel was a descendant of Jurian the brother of our ancestor Abel Westfall.

One account says she was 102 when she told this story to her great grandson, Joel J. Westfall in 1861. The records indicate that she was probably closer to 82 when she told the story to seven-year-old Joel.  He retold the story often as an adult and it came to rest in Minnie Kendall Lowther’s History of Ritchie County. 

Ms. Lowther’s account says that Elizabeth called her great grandson to her and said that she wished to tell him the story of the life and cruel death of his great grandfather, William White.  She hoped that he would remember what she was about to tell him.  She said, “I was a Wallace, a relative of Sir William Wallace, of Scotland, and I am the wife of William White, the great scout and Indian fighter.”

According to Mrs. White she married the Scottish immigrant William White and, as his bride went to live in a tree house.  In March 1782 William White was captured and scalped by Indians.  Members of his scouting party placed him in a boat to take him to Buckhannon but as they neared the town he died.

William White is mentioned in other sources.  In Samuel Kercheval’s history of the Tygart Valley, Captain White and an Irish companion were incarcerated in jail at Winchester, Virginia charged with murdering two Indians in the glades of the Allegheny Mountains in 1768.  A party of fifty or more indignant citizens, headed by Captain Abraham Fry, rescued the two men.  The act was so popular with the Virginia settlers that the two men were never prosecuted.

In The Border Settlers of Northwestern Virginia From 1768 to 1795, by Lucullus V. McWhorter there is another story about White.  It is not only interesting but it also gives us a picture of life during the early settlement of West Virginia.  This document says that Colonel Henry Fry Westfall heard the story in 1821 and wrote about it many years later.

Soon after the first settlement was made in Tygarts Valley and surrounding areas, small teams of scouts or militias were set up. An officer was appointed to command each company. Each company was required to serve for a period of time and then alternate with another company.  Their duty was to spy on the Indians and report their movements to the settlement.

In the summer of 1770 a small squad of six men was sent out from Randolph County.  Among the six were William White, Paul Shaver and John Cutright.  Paul Shaver told the tale many years later to Henry Westfall.  John Cutright was only a boy at the time but had unlimited courage, probably fueled by immaturity. The scouts followed the Little Kanawha River, meandering through the thick forest, to its conjunction with the Ohio River where Parkersburg, West Virginia is now located.  They then followed the Ohio River down to the mouth of the Great Kanawha River near Point Pleasant. They spent the summer there scouting and spying on the Indians.  In late summer they started their journey home.  They traveled through the unbroken forest in the area of western and central West Virginia until they reached the headwaters of the Little Kanawha without seeing any trace of Indians.  Game was plentiful along the river so they decided to stop a few days and hunt.  They pitched their camp on Stewart’s Creek.  Indian summer was now on and the weather was perfect.  Even though there had been no sign of Indians, they kept watch on the trail that lead up the little river and on over to the settlement on the West Fork. 

One evening, after a full day of successful deer hunting they were sitting around their fire when they heard the call of turkeys going to roost.  Young Cutwright, thinking that turkey would be a nice change to venison, grabbed his gun and told the others he would get one for supper.  He walked briskly towards the turkey calls.  He hadn’t gone far when the birds were answering each other in different directions.  Captain White immediately became suspicious that all was not right.  He called Cutright back to the camp and told him that he would find the roosting place of the turkeys.  He was gone for only a short time when he raced back to the camp with the news that they were nearly surrounded by a band of Indians.  The situation was dangerous and they had to escape immediately before they were attacked.  The Indians had found them because of their campfire, which they hastily dosed.  They quietly stole through the woods away from their camp, then ran over rocks, hills and small streams for about four miles before they halted.  On the summit of a ridge they stopped to see if they had been pursued.  Seeing no further sign of the Indians they continued their journey home.  The story doesn’t say, but I imagine the Indians enjoyed the fruit of the hunt bagged by White’s company.

The final story about White is the romantic one, mostly fiction.  It comes to us from Judge John C. McWhorter in his book The Scout of the Buckongenanon, a historical romance novel of the West Virginia border.  It tells a different story from Mrs. White’s about the death of William White.  It claims that in August 1769 Captain White and Buckongahelas, a powerful Delaware Indian leader met accidentally and entered into a peace pact.

All went well between them until the summer of 1773.  White and his party, on the way from Nutter’s fort to Bush’s fort, were warned by buzzards of a camp nearby.  Capt. White set out to discover what he thought was an Indian camp.  Soon a rifle shot rang out and the men knew it was White’s.  They rushed in the direction where the shot was fired.  Joining White, they cautiously advanced to a thicket, where they found lying on his face, his gun resting across a log, the body of a tall, young Indian, shot through the heart.  It was Mahonegon, son of the old Delaware chief. The face of the young man wore no war paint and he was dressed as a deer hunter.  A deer lick was nearby. He appeared to be watching for deer as evening approached and White had mistakenly thought he was laying in ambush.  White became greatly distressed over the killing and admitted he had made a mistake.

That was the beginning of a nine-year hunt between White and the Delaware chief for one another’s lives and they both had many thrilling escapes.  This went on until the spring of 1792, when White was returning home from a scouting trip.   Suddenly White fell mortally wounded from his horse from a shot fired by the Indian chief.  As the body was carried into the stockade, from the summit of the hills above came the plaintive cry:  “Mahonegon!  Mahonegon!  Mahonegon!”  The chief had avenged the death of his son.

When revolution swept across the American colonies the Westfalls were among the patriots who took up arms against the British.  The war began on April 19, 1775 when the Minutemen of Lexington, Massachusetts returned the fire of British soldiers. It ended in October 1781 with the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown, although a formal treaty was not signed until 1783.

The names of a few Westfalls who fought in the war are preserved because they or their widows applied for pensions many years later.  Those who died in the war or never applied for a pension are now mostly forgotten.   Decades after the War the U.S. Congress approved pensions for needy veterans and their widows.  To receive a pension a veteran had to prove his service. Usually this meant the soldier had to name his unit and commanding officers, describe the campaigns he was a part of and have someone that knew him during the war swear that what he said was the truth.  Once the application was approved he or his widow, under certain circumstances, could draw a pension, usually amounting to less than a hundred dollars a year.  In addition to proof of service, widows had to have been married to the soldier prior to 1794.

One of those we know about was Abraham Westfall from the Minisink settlement of Machackemeck, now Deer Park Township in Orange County, New York.  His father was the Minisink pioneer Peter Westfall killed by Indians in August 1756 at the outbreak of the French and Indian War.  After Peter’s death Abraham's mother took him to live at the home of her parents in Tysebag, across the Delaware River in Pennsylvania.  The next year in August 1757 she married John Lyde who was also from the Minisink settlement.  Twenty years later Abraham joined the New York militia and rose to the rank of Captain.  As the war was ending, Abraham returned to Deer Park to marry young Blandina van Etten, daughter of Anthony van Etten and Anna Decker.  Abraham and his wife moved to Washington County, Pennsylvania in May 1797.  He was the ancestor of Frank Allen Hales of Lakewood, Ohio.  Mr. Hales was one of the first Westfall researchers I ran across and he seemed to have thoroughly researched the Westfall family history.  He compiled his findings in the manuscript Westfall Family Lineage that he completed about 1945. 

Also from New York were Abraham, William and Terry Westfall whose widows applied for pensions based on the service of their husbands.  While stationed with the Air Force near Washington, D.C. I made several trips to the National Archives gathering data for my project.  Unfortunately, I did not have the time to copy the records of all the Westfalls from other family tree branches. But, those records are preserved in the National Archives, available to the public, as are the applications of hundreds of other Revolutionary War veterans.

Three sons of John Westfall of Hardy County distinguished themselves in service to the American cause.  Abel and Cornelius helped to recruit a company of men in Hampshire County in 1776.  Their younger brother Abraham joined that same year as a private.  Abel was commissioned a Captain and served with the 8^th Virginia Regiment during the early part of the war.  Cornelius enlisted as an orderly sergeant and later was commissioned an Ensign. He rose to the grade of Lieutenant.  He served in Abel’s Company of the 8^th Virginia Line under Colonel Peter Muhlenberg and later under Colonel Abraham Bowman from 1776 until 1778. Abraham served in the Virginia Line of regulars for one or two years under Abel’s command. 

Abraham’s widow Massey Harbin Westfall applied for a pension from Knox County, Indiana in April 1843.  Michael Thorn attested to her affidavit that he had known all three Westfall brothers, a year before the Battle of Mommouth on the South Branch of the Potomac.  Cornelius applied for a pension on May 30, 1818 from Knox County, Indiana.  His declaration was made in 1821 while he was living in Green County, Indiana.

Jacob Westfall of Randolph County (husband of Mary King and mentioned above) also served during the War. He was the son of Jacob and Judith Hornbeck Westfall who was the grand nephew of Abel Westfall who settled on the South Branch of the Potomac. His declaration for a pension is preserved in the book, The Border Settlers of Northwestern Virginia, as well as in government archives.  Lieutenant Jacob Westfall entered the service of the United States under Commander in Chief, General George Rodgers Clark in the regiment of Virginia volunteers commanded by Colonel Zachariah Morgan.   Jacob left home in Tygarts Valley on June 20, 1781 and volunteered at Morgantown, Virginia for a term of six months.  Jacob’s regiment marched from Morgantown up the Monongahela a short distance to what was known as the New Store settlement.  There his regiment joined Colonel Crocket’s regiment of regular troops.  General Clark informed the men that their mission was to march to Detroit and take it from the British.  The two regiments obtained boats, took water on board and descended the river to four miles below Fort Pitt.  They remained there for several days collecting provisions then sailed down the Ohio to an island below the mouth of the Little Kanahwa, near present day Wheeling, West Virginia. There they awaited the arrival of Colonel Laughery with reinforcements of two hundred men. 

During the days that followed several men deserted.  General Clark and his officers held a council and abandoned the idea of marching to Detroit. They felt the remaining force of men was insufficient to capture the British stronghold.  General Clark decided to continue down the Ohio to Kentucky, raise an additional force of Kentucky militia, and march out against some of the Indian towns.  An officer was left with a few men to guard some boats of provisions until Colonel Laughery arrived.  In the mean time Colonel Laughery was descending the Ohio River.  About fifteen miles below the mouth of the Miami Indians caught Laughery with his boats between an island and the mainland and the entire detachment was killed or taken prisoner.  General Clark’s force continued down the river to the Falls of the Ohio.  Clark held a council with the Kentucky Militia officers and concluded that it was too late in the year to raise an army, sufficient for a campaign against the Indian towns and allow the Virginia volunteers to return home before winter set in. The volunteers were released and Jacob Westfall returned to Virginia without firing his musket in battle.  Jacob made his declaration for a pension in September 1833 in Montgomery County, Indiana.  At that time he was a resident of Putnam County, Indiana. He died on March 5, 1835 a few months before his eightieth birthday.  His widow, Mary King Westfall, applied for a widow’s pension in November 1838 when she was eighty years old.  Mary died in 1841 in Putnam County, Indiana.

John Westfall of Hampshire County, Virginia enlisted in 1780 as a private in Captain Wallace’s Company under Major Ridley’s, 7^th Virginia Regiment.  John marched to Winchester, Virginia with prisoners from British General Burgoyne’s army.  From there he and his unit went on to Hillsboro, North Carolina.  He missed the pivotal Battle of Guilford Court House because of illness.  His commanding officer was killed in that battle.  John was discharged at Salisbury, North Carolina after serving eighteen months.  He made his declaration for a pension in 1820 from Clarksburg, Virginia when he was sixty years old.  His pension was allowed and he drew eight dollars a month until 1824 when he died at age sixty-four.  John was one of the sons of our ancestors Cornelius and Elizabeth Westfall.

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During the Civil War the Westfalls served in both the Union and Confederate armies and the tragedy of brother against brother and cousin against cousin was literally true.  That struggle not only tore the nation apart but families as well.  The question of slavery was only one issue that inflamed the passions of the war hawks in the North and South.  I don’t know how much an issue slavery was for the Westfalls but John Westfall of Hardy County owned slaves until his death a few years after the Revolutionary War.   He is listed on the tax rolls of Hardy County between the years 1782 through 1787 with three.  He made his will on February 9, 1789.  In it he bequeaths to his wife, Sarah, “My Negro, Jack, and my wench Megigen.”  And to his son Isaac, “my Negro, Tom he paying to each of his brothers one sixth part of the valuation of said Negro.”  Most of John Westfall’s children migrated to Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana.  It is unlikely that they owned slaves much beyond his lifetime.  I can find no record of any other Westfalls owning slaves.  Unlike eastern Virginia and other southern states, the western part of Virginia was unsuited for large cotton plantations and slavery was less of an economic factor. 

The burden of the Civil War seems to have fallen especially heavy on the Westfalls of Braxton County.  Two sons of Joseph W. and Margaret Brown Westfall, Joseph B. and John Westfall served on the Union side and another, James H., on the Confederate.  Joseph joined Company F, 10^th Regiment of West Virginia Infantry and was wounded at Opequon Creek in the Battle of Winchester, Virginia on September 19, 1864.  In that engagement Union troops under General Philip Sheridan defeated Confederate forces commanded by General Jubal Early.  Joseph’s younger brother John enlisted in May 1863 and served in Company D, M Regiment, 1^st West Virginia Infantry.  He was wounded in the thigh and captured by the Confederates at Piedmont, West Virginia in June 1864.  His unit listed him as missing in action in September that year.  John was first hospitalized in Stauton, Virginia.  Then, on October 27, 1864 he was admitted to the hospital in the infamous Andersonville, Georgia Confederate prison.  More than 12,000 captured Union soldiers died from mistreatment, disease and hunger at Andersonville during the Civil War years.  John was fortunate.  He was released from Andersonville in November 1864 when he and other soldiers were exchanged for Confederate prisoners held by the Union Army.  Shortly after his release from prison he was mustered out of the army at Wheeling, West Virginia.  He was only nineteen when he was discharged.  The older brother of Joseph and John, James H. Westfall and three of their cousins, Hiram, George and Jacob enlisted in Company B, 19^th Virginia Cavalry.  The cousins were the sons of Wilson and Elizabeth Westfall. These Westfall families, as are we, were descendants of Cornelius and Elizabeth Westfall who settled in the Northern Neck of Virginia in 1774.

In Gilmer County Adam Simpson Westfall enlisted in the Union Army in 1862 and fought with Company G, 10^th West Virginia Infantry.  He was the son of William L. and Elizabeth Ware Westfall of Lewis and Gilmer counties.  This family was distantly related to our family through John Westfall of Fox Hall Manor.  Unfortunately, I have not found the war record of Adam or the Confederate Westfalls.  They are listed in History of Braxton County and Central West Virginia by John Davison Sutton, but no details of their service is given.

John H. Westfall, my great great grandfather, did not serve or die in the Civil War as my grandmother believed.  He was fifty-five years old at the beginning of the Civil War, rather long in the tooth to be a soldier.  He died in Upshur County on May 1, 1870, five years after the war ended.   Peter Westfall, son of John H. and Elizabeth Allman Westfall and my grandmother's uncle served in the Union Army in Company C, 10th Virginia Infantry according to the inscription on his headstone in the Harrison Grove Cemetery, Murphy's Creek, Lewis County, West Virginia. I have not found his service record.

Our ancestor, John H. (Helmick?) Westfall was born in 1806 in Harrison County, Virginia to Cornelius Westfall and Elizabeth Helmick.  He married Elizabeth Allman in 1830.   A John Westfall of the right age group appears on page 260 of the 1830 census of Lewis County, Virginia with four males and three females in the home.  John H. Westfall appears on page 140 of the 1840 census in Lewis County with four males and four females in the household.  Also listed on this page are his father Cornelius and brother Walter M. Westfall.  On the 1850 Lewis County census John H. Westfall, his wife Elizabeth and their family appear on Page 37, dwelling number 500.  This is the first census to list individual members of a household.  The children ranging in age from eighteen to one years are from the oldest to the youngest, Samuel, Lorenzo Dow, George, Rhuhama, Peter, Harrison, Nancy Jane, Albert and Virginia.  My grandmother was fond of her uncles Dow and Peter.  Living near by was John’s brother Walter.  John last appears on the Virginia census in Randolph County in 1860.  In the household are his second wife Lydia and several children, some of whom were his Smith stepchildren.  John died in Upshur County, West Virginia on May 1, 1870.  

She wrote, “Grandpa Westfall was killed in the Civil War.  His wife and my Grandmother was Lydia.  She had several children: Jane, who married a man named Laurence, I don’t know his first name; Ann married Frank Markley; sons Sam, Dow, Peter and Nathaniel.  Sam and Dow lived in Pikens, W.Va.  Jane lived in a little place near Buckhannon named Lawrence.  Peter lived at a little place Edmondson four miles from our farm and Ann lived on Laurel Creek about three or four miles from us.  Grandma married a man named Smith who had several children.  The only Smiths I knew was Thomas who had several children and McKinley Smith, we called him Uncle Kin.  He had several children also.  Both bought forty acres off each side of Papa’s farm.   He had homesteaded 160 acres so we had forty acres in-between the Smiths.  There were several families of Westfalls in Buckhannon but no relation to us.  We went to Buckhannon in the winter to go to school and to the farm west of Weston through the summer when school was on vacation, as the one room school there [near the farm] was not much of a school and over one mile from the farm.  Before I was born two oil and two gas wells were drilled on our farm.  We lived two miles from Copley and the oil field was called the Copley oil field including ours.  It was in an Irish settlement.  I never knew many of my relatives, so can not say for sure much about them.  I knew Uncle Pete’s family best.”  [Peter was actually the son of John H. and Elizabeth Allman Westfall and Lydia's stepson].

On November 29, 1979 I received another letter from Grandma.  She said, “Papa and Momma were married near Jackson Mills on horse back and all the attendants were on horses.  Papa and Momma went fourteen miles west of Weston and homesteaded a section of land.  Later on they sold forty acres to Tom and forty to McKinley or Kin as we called him.  The homestead was on Cove Lick Creek.  Later on Standard Oil Company put Copley oil field in there and that is where all of us kids were born.  In 1912 they sold their farm and we moved to Akron.”

When Nathaniel Jonathan Westfall, my great-grandfather, was growing up there was still a considerable amount of wilderness in West Virginia.  That fact is hard to imagine in this day and age.  Today wilderness exists in the lower forty-eight states only because of Federal protection and the outlawing of motor vehicles in those areas.  But, after Nathaniel and Luvenia Trowbridge were married they went west to Cove Lick, fourteen miles from Weston in Lewis County and homesteaded 160 acres.  At that time there was not so much as a wagon trail to the property.  Nathaniel and Luvenia built a house and all the furniture in it from logs and raised their family there.  No one alive today seems to know a lot about Nathaniel.  My grandmother never talked much about him to me. We might guess that he and Luvenia had a sense of adventure, and perhaps a sense of humor since they were married on horseback at Jackson Mills, certainly an unconventional ceremony.  They also gave some of their children a letter of the alphabet instead of a middle name and when the children were old enough, told them to pick a middle name they liked using that letter.  Osa B. never chose a middle name and so for her entire life had only an initial.  Her youngest brother was an exception.  He was named Theodore Roosevelt Westfall in honor of the President.

Grandma told me several stories about her family.  The one I remember best concerns an Irish wake.  As she said in her letter above, they lived in a settlement named Copley, largely made up of Irish oil field workers.  When my grandmother was young, one of the Irish clan died, and a wake was held. In those days the dead were not embalmed and the bodies had to be buried quickly.  The wake was held the evening before the burial.  I don’t know if Grandma was there or heard this from her father, but Westfalls were in attendance.  True to form much whiskey was passed around and very late at night most of those at the wake were feeling little pain.  Suddenly the body sat up in the coffin and let out a loud “Hummph!”   Irishmen, and I suppose Westfalls, were bailing out of windows and doors to put as much distance as possible between them and the corpse.  Of course, this was not a case of the dead returning to haunt the living, or to collect his share of the liquor.  It was merely the natural process of decomposition as gas collected in the abdominal cavity and dead muscle tissue contracted.   But, had I been there, I probably would have quickly followed or led everyone to the nearest exit.

Osa B. Westfall was born on March 13, 1897 in Lewis County, West Virginia.  In 1912, at the age of fifteen she moved to Akron, Ohio with her parents.  Her father worked in the rubber factories of Akron and died in 1915 of tuberculosis. I very much regret that we have no first person records of Nathaniel’s life, such as letters or photographs.  The records we do have are his marriage, death, some census records and the memory of him by his daughter Osa.  Land records probably exist, but I have not found them.  

When she was twenty-two Osa met twenty year old Arthur E. Corbett of Akron.  Arthur’s mother, Clara Mae (Fridinger), was very much against the marriage because of their differences in ages, and perhaps because of prejudices many northern Ohioans had for West Virginians who they to be considered "hillbillies."  At that time in Ohio the bride and groom had to be twenty-one to marry without the consent of the parents.  Clara refused to give her consent.  In defiance of her wishes, Osa and Arthur eloped one night and traveled to Cumberland, Maryland where the age of consent was much lower.  Arthur’s mother never seemed to forgive them of this act of rebellion.  Or, perhaps she did.

Both my grandparents told me this story.  During her final years of life, Arthur’s mother lived with and was cared for by Arthur and Osa.  She died in Akron in October 1930.  On the night after her death my grandparents were in bed talking.  A light suddenly appeared at the bedroom door.  They could both clearly see it was Clara.  The apparition approached the bed and tossed a bouquet of roses at Osa and vanished.  The odor of roses filled the room.  Grandma always felt that it was her way of saying she forgave them.  Did this really happen to Grandpa and Grandma Corbett?  I don’t know, perhaps it was a vision brought on by grief.  But, both my grandparents told me the story was true.  This was only one of several similar stories that my grandmother told me when I was living with them as a teenager.

Osa and Arthur had six children.  My mother, Clara Luvenia Corbett, was the oldest born in 1921 in Copley, Ohio and died in an auto accident in Arizona on November 26, 1990.  She was named for both her Corbett and Westfall Grandmothers.  The other children born in Akron were Dorothy Eileen, born in 1923; Elenor Lucille born in 1929; James Arthur, born in 1934; Gerald Lee, born in 1936.  The youngest, Wayne Corbett was born in Copley in 1939 but died as a baby.

Before World War II Osa worked at the Goodyear dirigible hanger in Akron sewing canvas sections that covered the huge dirigible “Akron.”  The immense hangar the ship was built in still stands in the city of Akron.  Grandma told me that the hanger was so large that clouds would form in top of the hanger and at times rain would actually fall from these clouds.  I have since read the same thing in aviation sources.  The dirigible "Akron" was destroyed in a storm shortly before World War II with the loss of life.  In a separate accident Her sister ship, The "Macon", was also destroyed.  Those accidents and the destruction of the German zeppelin Hindenburg at Lakehurst, New Jersey in 1937 brought the era of rigid lighter than air ships to a tragic end. 

Grandpa and Grandma Corbett moved from Copley, Ohio to Arkansas in 1943.  Osa suffered from reoccurring episodes of pneumonia and her doctor recommended they move to a warmer climate.  During World War II while my father was in North Africa my mother took my younger brother Arthur and me to live with our grandparents in Ozone, Arkansas.  I have brief, but vivid memories of that place, even though I was very, very young.  Years later I once amazed my grandmother and mother when I recalled the log house with the stairs with no risers leading to the upper floor.  I used to get out of bed and watch my grandmother through these stairs as she cooked breakfast on a wood stove in the kitchen behind the stairway.

Sunday school classes were conducted in this house for our neighbors since there was no church near to where we lived.  Once, my Uncle Gerry, who was probably about seven or eight at the time, took me up stairs during the classes.  There was a knothole in the floor planking and we could peer through it and see the people below.  Of course this was not enough for Gerry.  We needed something more gratifying to do with a hole in the floor and people directly below.  This part of the upstairs wasn’t used and there was dust on the floor.  We tried to make little piles of dust and push it little by little through the hole.  No one seemed to notice.  I supposed the Sunday school class thought a little wind was blowing dust around.  Well, Gerry had to find something more effective.  Marbles!  That would do the trick.  “Here, Ronnie.  Roll these marbles through the hole!”  It worked.   I don’t remember what the punishment was but we certainly got a reaction.  Grandma told me years later that the whole class broke up laughing when the marbles hit the floor and interrupted the class. 

This house was destroyed by a tornado probably not long after the Sunday school incident.  Luckily, no one was harmed thanks to a premonition my grandmother had.  Grandpa Corbett had returned to Ohio to take care of some business.  That evening, Grandma felt something bad was going to happen.  She asked a neighbor to spend the night, but still she could not sleep.  A fierce storm blew up suddenly and Grandma woke everyone and told them to run to the storm cellar which was a little distance from the house.  The family barely made it to the shelter when twin funnels destroyed the hay shed, barn and house. 

After the war ended my father returned from overseas and he and my mother separated.  My father had custody of my brother and me.  Dad was killed in March 1946 when a train at an unguarded crossing in Lodi, Ohio hit his car.  After his death my Dad’s sister Clara raised us.  In the summer of 1959 I returned to Crawford County, Arkansas to be with my mother and grandparents. I finished high school in Van Buren then went to Oklahoma City to attend a business school.  In 1961 I joined the Air Force.  Grandpa Arthur E. Corbett died in Fort Smith on September 21, 1969 with complications from the sugar diabetes he suffered with for many years.  Grandma Osa Westfall Corbett died on July 15, 1992 at the age of ninety-five.  I miss her dearly.  

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Sources

Ronald N. Wall
Copyright © 1998. All rights reserved.
Revised: April, 2006