The Wild West of Yester-Year
Anne Bailey
By Rachel Kovaciny
Today, the idea of
Virginia having ever been part of the American frontier
seems silly. When we think about the history of our country,
Virginia definitely springs to mind, but as an important
setting for major Revolutionary War and Civil War battles.
It’s a state we might associate with colonists and statesmen
and great military generals. But frontiersmen and
frontierswomen? Not really.
However, during the
early days of our country, much of Virginia remained a
frontier. When American colonists talked about moving to The
West to build their homes where the countryside was wild and
free, they meant what is now western Virginia and West
Virginia. Although I wouldn’t exactly call it the Wild West,
it’s still part of the history of our nation’s westward
expansion. And it was still plenty wild in the mid-1700s. In
fact, it was so wild, no one seems to have raised any
eyebrows at a woman named Anne Bailey joining the militia to
replace her deceased husband and serving as a scout and
courier for the military. Or, if they did, they didn’t raise
them very high, at least not in her presence.
Born Anne Hennis in
Liverpool, England, Anne received a formal education, an
oddity for girls at the time. After her parents died in her
late teens, Anne sailed westward to see what the American
colonies were like. She settled with relatives near
Staunton, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley. There, Anne
married Richard Trotter in 1765, ten years before the
American Revolution.
Richard Trotter was
an experienced and respected frontiersman and former soldier
who had served under General George Washington during the
French and Indian War. Together, they had a son named
William. The Staunton area was on the frontier, with English
settlers moving out into lands inhabited by native tribes
such as the Shawnee. Skirmishes between the two groups led
to a militia being formed to protect the settlers, a militia
Richard Trotter joined. In 1774, he died in the Battle of
Point Pleasant against the Shawnee.
Anne entrusted their
young son to a neighboring friend and took her husband’s
place in the militia. She did not disguise herself as a man,
but simply stepped into her husband’s spot and performed his
military duties. She wore a skirt and petticoats, with
buckskin leggings underneath them, and a man’s boots, coat,
and hat. Equipped with a rifle and a hunting knife, Anne
worked as a courier by delivering messages for the Virginia
militia during the American Revolution, and scouted for the
military. And she served as a recruiter for the
revolutionary cause, stopping at farms and taverns along her
route to encourage men to join the new American Army.
After the
Revolution, Anne remarried to another scout, John Bailey,
and they moved to a far-flung frontier settlement called
Clendenin’s Settlement (now Charleston, West Virginia). This
settlement had grown up around Fort Lee, a military outpost
that Anne famously saved.
This heroic action
saved the fort and its inhabitants, and it earned Anne
Bailey folk hero status immediately. Legends and myths grew
up around her, such as a tale about her military scouting
days in which the Shawnee gave her the nickname “Mad Anne.”
The legend says some native warriors had nearly caught her,
but she turned her horse loose to let her pursuers capture
it, hid inside a hollow log to escape them, then sneaked
into their camp to get her horse once night fell. As she
rode her horse away from them, she let loose with a series
of triumphant yells and whoops that made the Shawnee
warriors think she had either gone mad or that her ghost
came to reclaim her horse.
We also tend not to
think of Ohio as the frontier, but once Virginia got more or
less civilized, pioneers pushed farther west into Ohio, and
eventually into what we now think of as the American West. ♦