— by Marcia Hartman
Note: This story originally appeared in the March 2021 edition, Volume 6 Issue 6 of The Crossroads magazine, part of The Journal and the Noble County Leader, www.journal-leader.com. Copyright Southeast Publications, Caldwell, Ohio. It is reprinted with permission.
Preview: We talk about taking a leap when someone tries a risky venture. Not many take a leap like Sam McColloch did in 1777! Just one of several adventures across the river in Wheeling.
McColloch’s Leap
In 1777, Samuel McColloch (1752-1782) was a major in the local militia and commander of Fort Van Meter located about seven miles north of Wheeling near what is now Clinton, West Virginia — a few miles northeast of Oglebay Park. Samuel served in the militia alongside his brother John. In 1770, the McCollochs emigrated from land they owned on the South Potomac, near where Moorefield, West Virginia is today, and settled on Short Creek where Fort Van Meter was built. The family is thought to have been somewhat more educated than most other early settlers. McColloch served different positions in government during his life and was third in command of the nine militia companies in the Ohio County Militia. (Interestingly, one of the McCollochs’ sisters married Col. Ebenezer Zane, making her a sister-in-law to Betty Zane, who is credited with saving Fort Henry during a later Indian attack.)
On September 1, 1777, a messenger brought the soldiers at Fort Van Meter an urgent plea for help from Fort Henry. Fort Henry was located in the area near Main and 11th Streets in present-day downtown Wheeling. The fort protected the 25 or so cabins that were the beginning of Wheeling. Normally, there would have been around 40 soldiers in Fort Henry, but only 16 were there on this day because a number had been lost in recent battles with the Indians. Major McColloch learned of the situation at Fort Henry no later than 10:00 a.m. and, although many say he rode to the rescue with 30 or 40 men, it’s doubtful he had time that day to find so many. More likely he hurried to Wheeling with two other men as historian Joe Roxby reports. McColloch wanted to respond quickly because he knew his sister Elizabeth and brother John were trapped at Fort Henry. Fourteen additional reinforcements from Cross Creek, under leadership of a Capt. VanSwearingen, also arrived that day and fought their way into Fort Henry without loss of any men.
It was said there were 300 Indians attacking Fort Henry. Shawnee, Wyandot, and Iroquois were the tribes in the Ohio Valley that were battling with settlers at the time. According to local historian Alan Fitzpatrick, this “raid was a Wyandot affair, led by Dunquat the Half King and War Chief. He had his scouts arrive beforehand and stay hidden….[and] Dunquat posted warriors on Wheeling Hill” to keep watch for other soldiers who might arrive.
Major McColloch and his soldiers planned to approach the fort quietly and then put on a final burst of speed and shoot any Indians who tried to interfere. McColloch was in the lead but found his plan stymied as he was surrounded by Indians who were trying to pull him out of the saddle. It was concerning to him that they did not shoot him when they were close enough to easily do so. He knew they wanted to take him alive and probably torture him to death for the psychological advantage they would gain from inflicting such a death on an important militia commander. This possibly gave McColloch the impetus to break free. He headed at a gallop towards Wheeling Hill to escape.
McColloch was riding a powerful brown gelding, but the seven-mile gallop to Wheeling had tired the animal. The Indians were on foot but were gaining on the horse and rider as McColloch reached the steep summit of the hill along where the National Road was eventually constructed just below the highest level of the hill that is now known as Mt. Wood. Accounts vary as to the height of the hill at the point where McColloch was forced to stop but is generally thought to be 300 feet. The Indians chasing McColloch were 50 yards away as he crested the hill, and suddenly, more appeared on the trail coming from the north, while others came from the woods to the west. McCulloch was cut off in all directions save the precipice to the east. He took what he thought would be a chance – if not to survive, at least a chance for a quicker death. So he forced his horse off the precipice. The cliff was perpendicular at first, but amazingly, the horse landed on smooth rock and was able to slide and scramble the rest of the way down.
The Indians were reportedly watching from the top of the hill and were astonished to see McCollough and his horse emerge from the woods at the bottom, turn right and trot down Wheeling Creek – essentially unscathed. McColloch rode away and back to Fort VanMeter. Some accounts say the Indians spontaneously erupted in cheers after witnessing the feat he and his horse were able to achieve. Reportedly, they did not attack Fort Henry after this, although they burned some cabins and killed some cattle.
This tale is pretty exciting, so I was eager to see where it happened. You can find the historical marker for the Leap along Route 40 – near the intersection with Stone Boulevard. At that intersection, there’s a large statue representing a “Mingo” Indian. In 1928, the Kiwanis Club and George W. Lutz, an important businessman and philanthropist, presented the statue to the City of Wheeling. The plaque reads, “The Mingo, the original inhabitant of this valley, extends greetings and peace to all wayfarers.” (However, the name Mingo is considered to be an English name for people who were part of the Seneca Indians and not a name they would call themselves. See the sidebar below for the Indian point of view about all this warfare that McColloch was facing.) The site of the Leap is just a half a block past the statue, but you can’t park there. If you head down the road over the Indian’s left shoulder, you’ll find a few parking spaces.
My husband and I walked to the marker, looked over the edge of McColloch’s Leap, and simultaneously said, “No Way!” It was hard to take a photograph to adequately show the steepness of this drop because of all the small trees and brush in the way. You would think those trees would have impaled the horse before he ever got to any place on the hill with enough of a grade to make sliding possible – and even though the vegetation impeded the view, it didn’t look like that sort of hillside was anywhere close! My next thought was, “Were any witnesses to this ever interviewed!?”
An investigation was called for. Comments on the Emerging Revolutionary War Era website by an individual who identified as a geologist suggested the hill was different then. The commenter reported the hill was 200, not 300 feet, and composed of material that would weather and erode easily. This individual felt there would have been a relatively small, sheer drop over a level of sandstone with the rest of the hill being comprised of softer pieces of material at a less dramatic angle, so a well-conditioned horse could slide down it. This individual thought some of the lower slope may have later been cut away to be used as fill for the industrial park across the creek. It still would have been quite the feat – but the McCollochs were known as accomplished horsemen and could possibly have pulled it off. This viewpoint appears to be corroborated by some 1888 and 1889 pictures the Ohio County Public Library has in its archives. You can see along the top of the 1889 photo that the leap would have been straight down at first – but then both photos look to me to show a more gradual slope after the initial drop. With the vegetation on the hill today, it’s hard to tell if that slope still exists although the historians associated with the library believe it does resemble the slope as it was in the 1880s and that it was not carved up for fill or any other projects.
But – what about the trees? The 1880s photos show the hillside as pretty bare of brush and trees. Not sure why. This was some decades after the National Road was built – and that’s up towards the top of the hill so construction wouldn’t affect the whole hillside. You’d think if trees can grow now, there would have been trees in 1777. Local historians Alan Fitzpatrick and Joe Roxby thought the topography of the hill would have been about the same in 1777, but both offered opinions that there would have been old growth forests on the hill at that time. Oh, Of course! The trees were big and shaded the hill, so there was little undergrowth. If you avoided the big trees, it would be possible to slide to the bottom of the slope. There’s agreement a horse could stick out its front legs and tuck its rear legs under and accomplish a somewhat controlled slide.
But getting really suspicious, how do we know McColloch didn’t make this up? Who would have seen this other than the Indians, and did anyone talk to them? According to Alan Fitzpatrick, people in Fort Henry had seen McColloch ride off and get to the bottom of the hill — so they knew he made an initial escape, and we know he survived. However, I thought it unlikely that anyone interviewed hostile Indians to get confirmation of the actual leap, and it’s not clear if anyone ever did. Lyman Draper (1815 – 1891) was a historian who planned to write a book about the area and interviewed people who were alive at the time of the leap to determine whether it was Samuel or John who leapt, as there were varying accounts. He determined it indeed was Samuel, but I’m not clear about whether he gathered any eye witness reports.
Some say the death of Sam McColloch is evidence of his feat. In 1782, John and Samuel were outside of Fort Van Meter on a scouting mission when they were attacked by Indians. John escaped and got back to the fort and safety, but saw the Indians fatally shoot Sam. Sam’s horse bolted from the scene and followed John back to the fort and safety. A party of soldiers went out the next day to find Sam’s body, which was recovered and buried beside the fort. His body had been mutilated because the Indians removed his heart. It was presumed they had shared and eaten small pieces of it, and later an Indian did confirm this. This was not a common thing for the Indians to do but was known to be a ceremony reserved for the bodies of people respected for showing great courage. Had these Indians seen the leap?!
And how about that horse!? I didn’t see any account that gave us a name for the horse, but reportedly John kept and treated the brave animal very well. It’s said he had a peaceful death at age 34.
If you are looking for something to do, take a trip to look over the edge of the hill and let us know what you think! As for me, maybe we can’t conclusively prove the story of the Leap, but neither can we disprove it, and I like the idea of this legend. We all like to have heroes, and it draws us together to share these stirring historical legends. We’ve got a couple of other visits for you along the National Road in Wheeling with their own interesting stories. After you visit all these sites, consider stopping off at the Wheeling Brewing Company (2247 Market St.) for a stein of their award-winning McColloch’s Wheat Ale and ponder this history.
Sources:
“A Tale of Three Sams” by Joe Roxby from Legendary Locals of Wheeling by Duffy and Carney (Arcadia 2012)
“Pioneer Life in the West” on Ohio County Public Library’s website.
That Dark and Bloody River: Chronicles of the Ohio River Valley by Allan Eckert
Emerging Revolutionary War Era website, “McCulloch’s Leap” Phil Greenwalt and comments
wvculture.org – contemporaneous account of Sam’s death by Narcissa Doddridge
Richard Klein and Alan Cooper, Wheeling Intelligencer article – 1977.
The Heroic age: More tales of Wheeling’s frontier Era, by William Hinton and Joseph Roxby.
Comments from Alan Fitzpatrick, Joe Roxby, and Sean Duffy, local history specialists with the Ohio County Public Library.
Many thanks to these helpers!!!
The Indians’ Point of View
— By Alan Fitzpatrick, author and historian
The conflict between Native tribes living in the Ohio Country and colonial settlers trespassing on their lands had complicated, deep roots. At the end of Pontiac’s Uprising, British authorities issued the Proclamation of 1763 in America which banned settlement west of the crest of Alleghenies in an attempt to address Native complaints. However, the law could not be enforced in the wilderness. So, in 1768, Sir William Johnson, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs in North America for the British Crown arranged a land deal with the Iroquois Six Nations Confederacy to resolve the issue once and for all, with unforeseen consequences.
The Iroquois agreed to sell the land between the Ohio River and the previous boundary line of 1763 which they claimed ownership to, dating back to the mid-1600 Beaver Wars. It did not matter to Johnson that the Iroquois had never lived on the land in question. Furthermore, the Shawnee, Wyandot, Delaware, and Ohio Valley Seneca called Mingo by the English, who were actually living on the land were not invited to attend the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, thus making the land sale fraudulent. Immediately, Pennsylvania and Virginia opened the newly-acquired territory for settlement. Settlers began pouring in, stoking outrage among the Native tribes.
With the outbreak of the American Revolution west of the mountains in 1777, the King of England, George III, ordered the British garrisons at Fort Detroit and Fort Niagara to arm and supply the angry, disgruntled Natives who were determined to seek revenge for the injustices committed against them. The British promised that they would help the tribes of the Ohio Country regain their lost lands if their warriors attacked the frontier settlements, like Fort Henry and others in the Wheeling area, to drive the Americans back over the mountains.
Don’t miss Alan’s LWB Livestream: “The Untold Story of Isaac Zane, White Eagle of the Wyandot” recorded on May 4 at noon on Lunch With Books at the Ohio County Public Library’s Facebook and YouTube channels.
Next Stop: Mt. Wood Castle
When you are at McColloch’s Leap, look up to the higher summit of the hill. You’ll see a cement structure that is covered with bright neon-colored graffiti. This unfinished structure is known informally as the Mt. Wood Castle. There are a lot of rumors about it, but a good account is included on archivingwheeling.org, written by Miranda Heitz. Here’s the story:
Dr. Andrew J. Harness was a local physician with a too-tender heart. He had a practice downtown, but in 1921, he and his wife Mabel purchased several lots at the top of the hill in an area then known as the Charles Landmeyer Addition. It’s not entirely certain, but is generally believed, he planned to build a combination house and medical clinic. Construction began, and the concrete foundation you see was all that got finished.
Construction was halted in 1925 when the good doctor was arrested, and the city ended up owning the structure. Harness was charged and convicted on two counts of illegal drug sales (morphine and cocaine) and sentenced to 18 months in federal prison. It’s said the doctor was a kindly man, who put his patients ahead of prudence. In this case, he reportedly fell for stories from two individuals about how they desperately needed drugs to relieve pain but had little money to pay for that relief. These “patients” turned out to be federal narcotics agents. At the time, it wasn’t illegal to sell these types of drugs. What was illegal was selling them without paying the required federal taxes.
Harness went off to the pen and was released early — after a year — for his good behavior. He was able to keep his medical license but didn’t return to Wheeling. He and his family relocated to Cabin Creek in Kanawha County, West Virginia. He set up a medical practice there and apparently was successful. It’s said he continued a charitable, caring approach to medicine but didn’t get into further trouble with the law. Later he moved to Florida.
The “Castle” provides probably the best view of the City of Wheeling and is worth a visit. The city would like to see the structure spruced up. Local opinion is reportedly divided with respect to the graffiti, but past attempts to paint over at least some of it quickly failed as the artists soon returned.
One More Stop: Madonna of the Trail
We have one more National Road site for you to visit. Keep going east on Route 40 for several miles until you come to Wheeling Park. Don’t make the mistake of turning in at the main entrance (although it looks like a great park to visit). A short way past the entrance you will find the 18-foot-tall statue of a rifle-toting, determined-looking, pioneer lady who is protecting a small child clinging to her skirts.
The statue called “Madonna of the Trail” dates from a decision made in 1911 by the National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution to mark the Old Trails Road: designated highway routes that follow the trails that were taken by settlers heading west in their Conestoga wagons. At first, the DAR wanted to construct painted mileage markers but then decided on Pioneer Mother statues and commissioned sculptor August Leinbach. He created twelve identical statues that were placed strategically across the entire country. The DAR chairperson at the time, Arlene B. Nichols, was inspired by Portland, Oregon’s 1905 statue commemorating Sacajawea. Leinbach reported he designed the statues while envisioning a woman looking for her husband who she believed to be in danger. Each statue cost $1000.
The National Old Trails Road Association (NOTR) was created to study the trails and select the routes to designate, and guess who was selected to be the head of the NOTR? Then Judge Harry Truman, later our 33rd President. Truman spoke at each of the statue dedications.
The criteria for choosing the sites for the statues were (1) size of the local population, (2) support from the business community, and (3) an active DAR chapter that contributed to the program. Ohio has one of the statues — in Springfield. It’s in a downtown park in Springfield’s business district after being moved from its original location.
The statue installations began in 1928 — which was the year Wheeling dedicated its statue. The Wheeling statue was rededicated in 1979 and restored in 2012. Bethesda, Maryland has the easternmost statue, and Upland, California has the one farthest west. The one strange choice was Springerville, Arizona. The town was the site of an early Mormon settlement, and the explorer Coronado went through in 1540 — but the town did not have a local DAR chapter, which may explain the fact that the Springerville Pioneer Woman now sits in a small space in between a shopping center parking lot and a McDonald’s.
The Wheeling statue is in a lovely location, however, and has been lovingly cared for. It’s worth a stop. And it’s one of the four statues out of the twelve that actually do face west!
Author bio: After a long career as a social worker, Marcia Hartman decided to find a part-time retirement job and has been searching out and writing about the interesting people, places, and history in Southeast Ohio for The Crossroads magazine since its inception. The magazine was launched 5 1/2 years ago under the auspices of The Journal and The Noble County Leader. If you don’t find Crossroads on your newsstand, you can view the online edition at the newspaper’s website: www.journal-leader.com.
Great article. Thanks
I am “an individual who identified as a geologist” and have identified as such by stating my terminal degree and year although I have some education beyond in MIneral Processing Engineering and GIS. I am also one of a party of two, who completed the latest bedrock geologic map of the Wheeling 7.5 Minute quadrangle recently during my 41 1/2 year tenure at the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey co-funded by USGS. I grew up in West Liberty and was a member of the 1968 graduating class at Linsly Military Institute, the last senior class at their Old Main location at Thedah Place.
To really understand the outcrops one is interpreting in a developed area like Wheeling a field geologist has to understand to an extent the history of the area where he or she is working, I do not have an exact reference, but the folklore, or perhaps geo-lore, of not understanding local history is the geologist, who published finding the Smokies had, in reality, been glaciated based on glacial grooves well south of any previously recognized glaciation, only to be proved wrong by another author, who found the logging chains down the mountain.
I have worked extensively in the New River Gorge, the southern coal Fields, and the upper Elk River basin all of which seem relatively pristine to the unschooled, but in reality have been logged bare and mined to the point the coal resources are exhausted and so as to not do something embarrassing I learn the history of any new area. I am, of course familiar with the story as Samuel was the older brother of my immediate ancestor Abraham. I think the nomenclature makes him a 5x great uncle as the difference between Abraham and my father, Gayle once well known in Ohio County is five generations.
As to the “leap” the geomorphic history of this part of the upper Ohio Valley is unique in that the adjacent segment of the river, now known as part of the Ohio but formerly part of the northward flowing Ontario River, has reversed course in the geologically recent past as the result of glaciation. The Ohio is a much larger river system and the stream gradient changed. That in turn resulted in an unusual amount of erosion in places like the cut bank area where the “leap” was reported to have occurred.
Wheeling hill is primarily composed of fresh to brackish water limestones, shales, and includes the Pittsburgh Coal (at the level of the Interstate 70 tunnel), extensive under-clay, and an overlying sandstone. All of these bedrock types are known to weather quickly particularly as they were being rapidly undercut by Wheeling Creek. At the top was possibly a small drop-off at the sandstone level that appears grossly exaggerated by several artists (the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, OK has a McColloch’s leap painting with a cliff), but it could have been covered by loess derived and blown in from continental glaciers to the north that has been observed to the north in Ohio.
My overall visualization of the slope at the time is one of thick coalescing colluvial fans composed of relatively small pieces of soft, flat rocks that would roll or slide under the weight of a horse and rider allowing a controlled slide for a well trained horse. The 1888 photo on the right matches this visualization including the coalescing colluvial fans. I know of what I write as I have slid off of many hard-to-climb Interstate outcrops in my time. After I was done with observations and possibly sample collection I would look for a nice soft fan from some shale outcrop. You get dirty this way and your boots fill up with rock fragments, but it is the easy way down. Trees of any size will not grow on slopes like this as there is little for young tree roots to hold onto and so trees don’t get old enough to develop an extensive root system for water in dry periods and stability. The Wheeling Hill talus slopes were also probably well drained with little residual water by at least one or two sets of valley stress relief fractures. These photos of the slope above is the oldest I have seen although there are two or three copies on-line. If you look closely it and the photo on the left have little overlap. The photo on the right is the northern part of the outcrop while the photo on the left is the southern. The McColloch’s were known to be some of the most accomplished horsemen of the time in the upper Ohio Valley so Samuel McColloch’s “leap” (or long slide) is, at least, credible from the standpoint of regional geomorphology. The 1888 photo shows one long chute in about the right location if the monument is in the right place. I also imagine that Samuel had examined the slope prior to his “leap”. With regard to local historians, whose works I appreciate and own, I still contend the slope today has been substantially altered by the removal of much of the loose material to use as fill to level industrial sites. I do not know the entire industrial history Penninsula area, but I do know the former Blaw-Knox plant was big and made some of the largest Iron castings in the world at the time on the order of tanks for the Army and other heavy equipment as a former classmate from West Liberty Grade School told me about smoothing the sand between castings and drinking large amounts of water and taking frequent breaks as they didn’t want the sand to cool off too much. The Penninsula I recall riding and driving through as a child and teenager was not the original contour and I cannot imagine the early developer leaving all of that wonderful, easily compactible fill material just across the creek… In the 1888 photo on the right was taken prior to the extensive industrialization and you can see what appear to be small borrow pits near the bottom of the slope and, of course, the cut that became McColloch Street.