William Ingles

William Ingles (1729 – September, 1782), also spelled Inglis, Ingliss, Engels, or English, was a colonist and soldier in colonial Virginia. He participated in the Sandy Creek Expedition and was a signatory of the Fincastle Resolutions. He was eventually promoted to colonel in the Virginia Regiment. His wife, Mary Draper Ingles, was captured by Shawnee warriors and held captive for months before escaping and walking several hundred miles to her settlement. William's sons, Thomas and George, were also held captive, although William was able to ransom his son Thomas in 1768. William Ingles established Ingles Ferry in southwestern Virginia.

Birth, family and early life

William Ingles was born in Dublin, Ireland (some sources say London, England) in 1729, to Thomas Inglis. Historian John P. Hale, a descendant, reports that William had two brothers, Matthew and John. John was killed by Indians at Fort Vause in 1756. One source says that Matthew eventually became a sailor, never married and died at sea, while Matthew's nephew John Ingles wrote that, after escaping from Indian captivity, he died at Ingles Ferry.

William's father Thomas was a wealthy merchant who owned a large, importing wholesale business and traded abroad with his own ships. Records show that Thomas and his sons were apparently imprisoned after a political dispute, but by the fall of 1744 all of them had crossed the Atlantic and journeyed to Augusta County, Virginia. Thomas's brothers John and William came with him to Virginia.

In November, 1746, "Thomas English" and "William English" are listed as members of a road construction crew in Augusta County, on the road "from the Ridge above Tobias Bright’s that parts the waters of New River from the branches of Roan Oak to the lower ford of Catabo Creek." In 1749, William Ingles went to Burke's Garden to build a house with his uncle, John Ingles. In March, 1753, Thomas Ingles and his son William were listed in the Augusta County court records as workers on a road construction crew.

Draper's Meadow massacre, 1755

William Ingles was among the founders of Draper's Meadow (present day Blacksburg, Virginia) in 1748. The Ingles and the Draper families established the settlement with Colonel James Patton. William built and operated Ingles Mill, one of the first mills in western Virginia, at Draper's Meadow in 1750, when he was only 21 years old. He married Mary Draper in 1750,

On 30 July (or 8 July, according to John P. Hale ) 1755, Shawnee warriors attacked Drapers Meadow, killing Eleanor Draper and her granddaughter, as well as Colonel James Patton and another neighbor, Caspar Barger. Shawnee warriors captured Mary as well as her two sons, Betty Draper, and a neighbor, Henry Leonard. William Ingles and John Draper were harvesting wheat in the fields until they saw the smoke from the burning cabins, but they arrived too late to help. William was pursued by Indians, but tripped and fell in the forest, and the Shawnee warriors ran past him without seeing him. Dinwiddie and Colonel George Washington, then commander of the Virginia Regiment, used information provided by Mary Ingles to plan an attack on Lower Shawneetown, a community where Mary Ingles was held captive for about two weeks.

In February, 1756, William Ingles joined a force of 220 militia and 130 Cherokee warriors as a lieutenant on the Sandy Creek Expedition to attack Lower Shawneetown in Ohio. On 25 June, the same day that William and Mary left Fort Vause, 25 French soldiers and 205 Miami, Ottawa and Shawnee warriors under the command of François-Marie Picoté de Belestre attacked the fort. William's brother Matthew Ingles fought hand-to-hand until his rifle broke, then with a frying pan handle, killing two of his attackers. He was taken prisoner by the Shawnee, but years later was released or escaped.

Rescue of Thomas Ingles

William and Mary lived briefly in Bedford County, Virginia, before moving to a site on the New River where in 1756, William purchased 900 acres of land that had been part of the German Schwarzenau Brethren community known as Dunkard's Bottom, Virginia. He and Mary established a farm and assisted in the construction of a small fort there, probably no more than a blockhouse, which was later named Fort Frederick. They had four more children: Mary, Susanna (b. 1759), Rhoda (b. 1762), and John (1766-1836). In 1773 they sold their Draper's Meadow property to William Preston. George's whereabouts were never determined, and he is believed to have died in captivity. One source reports that William met a man named Baker who had been held captive by the Shawnee at Lower Shawneetown, and had known Thomas and his adoptive father. He married Eleanore Grills in 1775 and settled in Burke's Garden, Virginia. In 1782, his wife and three children were kidnapped by Indians. Thomas came to rescue them and in the ensuing altercation, the two older children were killed. Eleanore was tomahawked but survived. Thomas rescued her and their youngest daughter. In 1762 he established Ingles Ferry, and, realizing the value of the ferry, purchased the land from Dr. Thomas Walker. In 1766 he applied for a license to operate an ordinary (tavern) there. Construction of the Ingles Ferry Hill Tavern and blacksmith shop on the Pulaski County side of the river was completed in 1772. Ingles was in charge of improving and maintaining the road leading to and from Ingles Ferry, known at the time as Ingles Ferry Road or English Ferry Road. and ten slaves, who ran his ferry, worked in his mills or in domestic capacities.

Log cabin next to the New River, near present-day Radford, Virginia, where William Ingles and his wife Mary lived out their lives. Photo c.1890On 8 May 1779, Lord Henry Hamilton, a British prisoner of war, was being escorted under guard to Williamsburg and spent the night at the home of William and Mary Ingles. In his journal, Hamilton described the Ingles' home: 8th. In the Evening crossed over in a ferry the new river or great Canhawa, and were kindly and hospitably received at the house of Colonel Ingles-- here we rested for an entire day...The Scenery about this house was romantic to a degree, the river very beautyfull, the hills well wooded, the low grounds well improved & well stocked, I thought...Mrs. Ingles had in her early years been carryed off with another young Woman by the Savages...however terror and distress had left so deep an impression on her mind that she appear'd absorbed in a deep melancholy, and left the management of household concerns, & the reception of Strangers to her lovely daughter.

Following William Ingles' death in 1782, his son Thomas Ingles took over the operation of Ingles Ferry.

Legal roles

William Ingles was appointed constable in 1750

Ingles served in the Virginia Militia and commanded a unit of Virginia Rangers in 1763. On 13 September he reported to his commanding officer, William Preston, about a skirmish between Indians and his militiamen, who "all behaved like good soldiers." Several Indians were killed and the colonists captured thirty horses. Ingles sent Preston a shot pouch taken from one of the Indians as a "small trophee of our Victory." Ingles requested permission to continue serving at Fort Hope, even though powder and shot were in short supply. William as a major and commissary Thomas as a lieutenant under Colonel William Christian.

Fincastle Resolutions, 1775

On January 20, 1775, William Ingles was one of the 15 signatories of the Fincastle Resolutions, addressed to Virginia's delegation at the First Continental Congress, which expressed support for Congress's resistance to the Intolerable Acts, issued in 1774 by the British Parliament. thumb

Land dispute

For many years Ingles attempted to patent his claim to his lands along the New River, the Holston River in Burke's Garden, Virginia, and for 1000 acres on the Elkhorn Creek in 1780.

In 1781, Ingles filed a lawsuit claiming that surveys conducted by Patton's son-in-law John Buchanan were illegal, as Buchanan was not licensed by the College of William and Mary, which conducted licensing examinations to certify surveyors. Buchanan's surveys of Ingles' lands would have been rendered null and void if it was revealed that he was unlicensed. Comparisons of Buchanan's and Preston's survey measurements with modern-day measurements show that both Preston and Buchanan underreported the acreage that they surveyed for James Patton, in order to reduce the amount of quitrent Patton owed. It seems likely that Buchanan and Preston used a fraudulent Gunter's chain that was forty percent longer than the legally standardized chain, in order to complete their surveys. The same year, Ingles submitted a petition to the state legislature complaining about the surveying and land speculation practices of his former friend and military comrade William Preston. The lawsuit was as yet unsettled by the date of Ingles' death in 1782.

Other patents were approved in the months following Ingles' death. His son-in-law, Abram Trigg,

Trial, 1780

1814 map of Virginia showing "Inglish Fer[ry]" in the lower left quadrant. In August and September, 1780, 55 men were brought to trial over their alleged Loyalist activities. William Ingles was accused of being one of the leaders of a Tory plot. Preston ordered many of them to pay fines of £100 or join the Continental Army. William Ingles was charged with treason and ordered to put up a bond of £100,000, a massive sum of money for that time. It is unknown if Ingles actually put up a bond or not, but he was not convicted. Soon after this, he resigned from the military, citing "physical infirmity".

Death, 1782

William Ingles died in 1782 (after the date of his will, 5 September) at age 53. Ingles willed the Ingles Ferry, including land on both sides of the New River, to his son John Ingles. The original Ingles Ferry Tavern and a reconstruction of the Ingles home where William ingles died, with a stable and a family cemetery, can be seen at the Ingles Ferry historic Site in Pulaski County, Virginia.