As I have
mentioned, I am descended from three sisters: Cynthia, Susannah, and Esther
Stephenson (sometimes spelled Stinson), who were the daughters of Elizabeth
Whitley and Robert Stephenson. Elizabeth
was the eldest of the 11 children of William Whitley and his wife Esther Gill
Fullen.
 |
| William Whitley portrait from pioneertimesusa.com |
William Whitley was born in 1749 in what is now Rockbridge County, Virginia, the son of Scots-Irish immigrants, Solomon and Elizabeth (Barnett) Whitley. William married Esther in 1771 and soon began talking about moving west. Like my other ancestor, Jacob Castle, William Whitley explored Kentucky as a longhunter. As related in the Draper manuscripts, William returned from one of these trips and told Esther, “…we could get our living there with less hard work than we have here.” The intrepid Esther answered, “Then Billy, if I were you I’d go and see.” In November of 1775 they headed for the land that William had staked in Kentucky. Esther rode a horse with her 3-year-old daughter Elizabeth tied to her back and her 1-year-old daughter Isabella riding in her lap.
 |
| Longhunter's camp at Fort Boonesborough |
Many of the
early years in Kentucky were spent fighting Indians. In fact, the Whitley family spent much of
that time living within stockades and forts with other settlers. In the late
1770s William fought with George Rogers Clark’s forces against Indians in the
Northwest Territories. According to some
reports, a scalping he saw in these early years incited a sense of outrage
against Indian brutality in Whitley that remained for the rest of his
life.
 |
| Reconstructed Fort Boonesborough |
Esther also
did her part to defend her family and friends against the natives. She is mentioned several times in the Draper
manuscripts regarding the siege of Logan’s Fort by Shawnees in 1777. She and another woman, Jane Menifee, took
their turns with the men shooting from the stockade wall. On another day, caught outside the fort by
attackers, Esther calmly stopped to pick up her hat before hightailing it back
to safety. In August 1777, after attacks
had begun to wane, the men of the fort were having a friendly shooting
match. William encouraged Esther to take
her shot—which was dead center—and the men continued to compete well after
dark, trying to best her effort. (Which they did not.)
 |
| Stockade at Fort Boonesborough |
In the 1780s
the Whitleys finally began to build their home in Kentucky that would become
known as the “Guardian of the Wilderness Road.”
It was the first brick home built in Kentucky and included William’s
initials (WW) and Esther’s initials (EW) built into the brickwork on the front
and back of the house. The estate was
called “Sportsman’s Hill,” and included a circular clay horseracing track. In opposition to the British racing rules,
races at Sportsman’s Hill were run counterclockwise. Sportsman’s Hill became a centerpiece of Kentucky
society; for example, the Whitleys hosted a celebration on the 4th
of July in 1812 that fed and entertained 1000 visitors. While not a fort, as
such, the house was definitely secure against attack and included a secret
hiding place in the upper story. The
house still stands near Crab Orchard, Kentucky, as the William Whitley House
State Historic Site. I have visited the
house twice, and upon one occasion was shown William Whitley’s famous longrifle
that will figure into…the rest of the story.
A wonderful video of the house’s interior is available for viewing at the Pioneer Times USA website.
 |
| William Whitley House |
In 1813,
when he was 63 years old, William volunteered for the War of 1812 with the
Kentucky Mounted Infantry. When I read
this for the first time, my thought was, “Boy, I bet his wife was mad when her
63-year-old husband ran off to fight Indians!”
That was before I knew Esther.
Not only did she encourage William to join up, she sent him with a
special long-barreled rifle that she had commissioned to be built for him,
carved with both of their initials.
William carried that rifle into the Battle of the Thames in Ontario,
Canada, against forces led by the famous Shawnee leader, Tecumseh. When the smoke cleared, both Whitley and
Tecumseh were dead. Credit for killing
Tecumseh was given to Richard Johnson, who later became Vice President of the
U.S., but others gave the kill to William Whitley (and some to his rifle,
wielded by another.) The rifle and
William’s powder horn were returned to Esther.
 |
| Depiction of the Battle of the Thames from the collection of the Library of Congress |
Membership
in the Daughters of the American Revolution has been given the descendants of
William Whitley, including myself, based on his service under Benjamin Logan at
Logan’s Fort. Here’s the great thing,
though: Female descendants of the Whitleys may
also enter the DAR based on the service of Esther Whitley! Esther’s contribution to the fight for
independence was “molding bullets.” Not
many females have been accepted as patriot ancestors for membership in the DAR;
I would love to one day have matching certificates on my wall, the one for
William that I now have and another for Esther.
 |
| Quilt celebrating famous women of Kentucky at the Kentucky Historical Society Museum Frankfort, KY |
One can’t
help but have feelings about one’s ancestors, even when those ancestors were
never known personally. I have mixed
feelings about William Whitley. Of
course, I grew up in Oklahoma, where most of us are sympathetic to the plight
of native Americans--pushed off the land that was coveted by the settlers. I’m an admirer of Tecumseh. By all accounts, he was a brave and
intelligent man who saw the great advantage of the tribes working together to
repel the invaders of their homelands. I
like William, too. In a time when women
were often treated as inferior to men, William Whitley considered his wife an
equal, and she obviously loved and admired him.
What I
really think is interesting is the comparison between my two ancestors, one on
my father’s and one on my mother’s side of the family: Jacob Castle and William Whitley. (See my post, “Jacob Castle the
Longhunter.”) Both of the men were
explorers who loved the virgin land of Kentucky. For Jacob that included an admiration for the
ways of the native Americans, and a love of Cherokee and Shawnee maidens. In fact, some have even said that Jacob’s
first wife, Sowege or Gliding Swan, was a Shawnee of the same clan as
Tecumseh. You couldn’t make this stuff
up!
