Adam Poe

Adam Poe (born Summer 1747/1749 – died September 23, 1838) was an American frontier scout, militia officer, and Indian spy active along the upper Ohio River during the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Together with his older brother Andrew Poe, he gained widespread fame on the Pennsylvania and Virginia frontier for his military service and his role in a celebrated hand-to-hand engagement with a Wyandot raiding party in September 1781, an encounter that became one of the most-retold episodes of frontier combat in early American history.

Poe was born in Frederick County, Maryland, the son of George Jacob Poe (anglicized from the German Pfau), a Palatine German immigrant who arrived in America around 1742–1746 and established flour mills on the Antietam Creek. In 1772 Adam followed his brother Andrew west to the Pennsylvania frontier, settling near Harmon's Creek in present-day Washington County. He volunteered for frontier militia service in 1776 and served in a succession of Pennsylvania militia companies through 1783, operating primarily as a scout and Indian spy warning isolated settler communities of Native American raids along the upper Ohio Valley.

The engagement for which Poe is best remembered occurred on September 30, 1781, near the mouth of Tomlinson's Run on the upper Ohio River, when Adam and Andrew, pursuing a Wyandot raiding party that had killed a settler and taken a prisoner, became embroiled in a desperate hand-to-hand fight; Adam is credited with killing the war party's imposing leader, known as Bigfoot, after his brother Andrew was severely wounded. Six of the raiding party's seven warriors were killed in the engagement, which was reported up the chain of command to General William Irvine and, ultimately, George Washington.

After further militia service, including a tradition of renewed service in the War of 1812, Poe moved successively through Beaver, Washington, Columbiana, Wayne, and Medina counties before settling in Stark County, Ohio, where he died in 1838. He was the great-grandfather of both Orlando Metcalfe Poe, a U.S. Army engineer who served as Sherman's chief engineer during the March to the Sea and later designed the Poe Lock at the Soo Locks, and the painter Andrew Jackson Poe. Theodore Roosevelt recounted Adam and Andrew's exploits in volume II of The Winning of the West (1889–1896), cementing the episode's place in frontier historiography.

Early life

Adam Poe was born 1749 in Frederick County, Maryland, the son of George Jacob Poe (anglicized from the German Pfau, which means peacock), an immigrant from the Palatinate region of the Rhine River who arrived in America around 1742–1746 with his wife, Maria Catharina Memminger, and at least one child, and subsequently purchased land on the Antietam River where he established flour mills.

George Jacob Pfau was born October 13, 1715 in Billigheim-Ingenheim, Germersheim, Lower Palatinate, Germany, George Jacob Poe's surname was an anglicization of the German Pfau, a naming pattern that is also reflected in the very distantly related Poe family line that produced the writer Edgar Allan Poe.

In accordance with the English custom of primogeniture, the eldest son George Jacob Poe Jr. inherited the family estate. Andrew Poe, the eldest of the younger sons, departed Maryland for the frontier around 1764, settling near Harmon's Creek in what is now Washington County, Pennsylvania, after honing his skills as a woodsman near Fort Pitt at the close of the French and Indian War. On October 12, 1777, Adam married Elizabeth Matthews, who was the widow of a man named Cochran who apparently had been killed by Indians.

Background The Wyandot people—an Iroquoian nation also known as the Huron—had allied with the British during the Revolution and conducted extensive raids into Pennsylvania, northwestern Virginia, and Kentucky, often alongside their Shawnee allies. By 1781, at the climax of the Revolution, such raids were nearly constant. In the fall of 1781, a Wyandot war party of seven warriors crossed the Ohio River, killed an elderly settler, and took a carpenter named William Jackson prisoner, prompting local militia to organize a pursuit.

Pursuit and battle Adam and Andrew Poe, along with a posseman named John Cherry and several others, assembled and pursued the raiding party. Adam, suspecting ambush, separated from the main group and approached the river under cover of tall grass. He discovered the Wyandot war party sheltering beneath the river bank beside their raft. The war party included a warrior of exceptional size known as Bigfoot (Marmaduke), described in accounts as a prominent Wyandot chieftain of imposing physical stature. Adam opened fire on the group and attacked; in the close-quarters struggle that followed he is recorded to have dropped his rifle and engaged the warriors with his fists. Andrew arrived and became embroiled in his own desperate hand-to-hand fight with Bigfoot in and along the river, sustaining severe injuries including a tomahawk blow that cut through his wrist and permanently disabled most of the fingers on his right hand, as well as a gunshot wound.

Outcome Six of the seven Wyandot warriors were killed; one escaped with a wounded hand. Adam is credited with shooting four members of the raiding party including Bigfoot; Andrew killed one and John Cherry killed one before Cherry himself was mortally wounded.

Interim period and moves In 1785 Adam was elected Captain of a company under Colonel Marshall with the mission of defending the frontier. He subsequently served under Colonels Baird and David Williamson until 1794. He then moved to Little Beaver, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, where he stayed until 1801. He then lived in Washington County, Pennsylvania from 1801-1803 and then moved to Columbiana County, Ohio, where he lived until 1813-1814. He then moved to Wayne County, Ohio, living there until 1831, when he moved to Harrisville Township, Medina County, Ohio.

Adam Poe was also the great-grandfather of the painter Andrew Jackson Poe (1851 – 1920), making Orlando M. Poe and Andrew Jackson Poe second cousins descended from a common great-grandfather.

Theodore Roosevelt recounted the exploits of Adam and Andrew Poe in volume II of The Winning of the West (1889-1896).