Indian Captivity Stories of the Walker, Cowan, and Handley Families
William M. Willis, January 2007 (under development)
This article is concerned with Indian Captivity Stories that are told by the descendants of certain 18th century Scot-Irish families who settled on the Virginia frontier, and in Blount County, TN. The first of these families, the Walkers, settled in the Castles Woods area in modern Russell County Virginia, about 1770.
The following "Indian Captivity Stories" all deal with a relative small set of early Scot Irish settlers using the surnames "Walker", "Cowan", and Handley. These families located in Blount County TN shortly after the Revolution. However, there were two separate lines of Cowans in this area, and at least three lines of Walkers. Some of these lines of Cowans and Walkers had their own independent experiences with Native American's; many of those experience included the death and/or capture of one or more members of their family. These families have passed down oral traditions that deal with these events.
Their stories mostly deal with captivity or death of women from these families. Our records for these stories vary in quality. Only one record is a first person account by a contemporary of one of the captives. One record relates what one of the captives told his son. Most of the others are are told by more distantly related relatives, beginning around 1880.
Because these stories deal with a set of inter-related families there is a tendency for some elements of these stories to be attached to different persons. As a result, sorting out which events happened to which participants, is often difficult, and has led to considerable confusion about the family relationships. Some of the sources for these stories have attempted to "make sense of the incomprehensible", and drawn conclusions about the identity of their ancestors that in many cases are not factual. One of the consequences of this is that those trying to use these stories to flesh out the story of their ancestors, are often left with mistaken understandings of the relationships described in these stories.
There is a core element of truth in all of these stories, but they vary widely in their overall accuracy and reliability as sources of genealogical information. The following tabulation examines some of these stories in tablular format. This is intended to permit people to easily compare the various stories, and allow them to get some idea of whatever distortions the stories convey. Each of these stories were related by people who were simply doing the best they could to untangle the information in their possession. There purpose was primarily to relate details as they understood them. Along the way, they attempted to resolve any inconsistencies as best they could. Some of these stories have been embellished to a greater or lesser extent, but I assume all of the original sources were basically honest in relating the stories---that is, if they added something, it was only to "make sense of the incomprehensible".
These stories vary greatly in terms of specific events, time, place, and people. As a simplification, the stories can be divided into two groups, those dealing with Ann Walker Cowan, and those dealing with Mary Walker Cowan.