The Yellow Creek massacre was a killing of several Mingo Indians by Virginian settlers on April 30, 1774. The massacre occurred across from the mouth of the Yellow Creek on the upper Ohio River in the Ohio Country, near the current site of the

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. It was the single most important incident contributing to the outbreak of

Lord Dunmore's War Lord Dunmore's War—or Dunmore's War—was a 1774 conflict between the Colony of Virginia and the Shawnee and Mingo American Indian nations. The Governor of Virginia during the conflict was John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore—Lord Dunmore. He a ...

(May-October 1774). It was carried out by a group led by Jacob Greathouse and

Daniel Greathouse Daniel Greathouse (17521775) was a settler in colonial Virginia. His role in the Yellow Creek massacre in 1774 was instrumental in starting Lord Dunmore's War. Biography Greathouse was born in Frederick County, Maryland, one of 11 children of ...

. The perpetrators were never brought to justice. The ramifications of the massacre proved more severe because Mingo leader Logan maintained friendly relationships with Virginian settlers in the region. Chief Logan was away on a hunt but his wife Mellana, his brother Taylaynee (called John Petty by the Virginian settlers), Taylaynee's son Molnah and their sister Koonay were among those killed in the massacre. Koonay was also the wife of John Gibson, a prominent American trader operating between the Virginian settlers and various Native American groups. At the time of the massacre, these groups were on a trading expedition to the

Shawnee The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...

. The Greathouse group lured the Mingo group under Taylaynee into their camp with a promise of liquor and a chance to play some sport. They then sprung an ambush on the Mingos and massacred them with musket fire. After the killings many of the bodies were mutilated. In a particularly brutal killing, Jacob Greathouse ripped open Koonay's abdomen and removed and scalped her unborn son. The only member of the first group who was not killed was Koonay's two-year-old daughter who was eventually returned to the care of her father, John Gibson, after she had for a time been in the care of

William Crawford William Crawford may refer to: Entertainment * William Broderick Crawford (1911–1986), American film actor * Bill Crawford (cartoonist) (1913–1982), American editorial cartoonist * William L. Crawford (1911–1984), U.S. publisher and editor ...

died of measles in 1775. Jacob Greathouse was killed in the ambush of

William Foreman Captain William Foreman (1726 – September 27, 1777) was a colonial American officer from Hampshire County, Virginia, who was killed during an Indian ambush at the McMechen Narrows on the Ohio River south of Wheeling, Virginia in 1777. Fort Form ...

Company in September 1777. It was Jonathan Greathouse who was killed 1791 while moving his family west. They were abducted by Native Americans on the Ohio River.

References

A Man of Distinction Among Them, Alexander McKee and the Ohio Country Frontier" by Larry L. Nelson, pp. 78-81Alexander Withers, Chronicles of Border Warfare pp 148-150''The History of Yellow Creek''
Lawrence J. Fleenor Jr, Daniel Boone Wilderness Trail, Feb. 2004, retrieved 25 March 2014. {{Native Americans in Ohio Conflicts in 1774 Pre-statehood history of Ohio Native American history of Ohio category:Massacres of Native Americans 1774 in Virginia Massacres in the Thirteen Colonies Massacres in 1774 1774 murders in North America