Why was "Looney's Ferry the very frontier" for a time?
By the early 1750's the Virginia frontier had reached the Holston River. On one of Fry and Jefferson's maps of "the Inhabited part of Virginia," Samuel Stalnaker's settlement on the Holston River is listed as "the limit of white settlement." The Virginia frontier south of Frederick County was included in Augusta County, which was created by an Act of the Virginia Assembly in 1738. White settlers in Augusta County had constantly spread westward during the 1730's to early 1750's until they had reached the Holston River (a distance of over 200 miles).
Beginning as early as 1753, the Indians began terrifying raids on the most exposed parts of the frontier (the Holston and New Rivers). Settlers began abandoning these settlements, fleeing to safer locations in eastern Augusta County and other locations. As the attacks increased and the frontier settlers abandoned their settlements, several forts were built in 1755 to protect settlers in what had been the center of Augusta County -- For Vause on the upper Roanoke River, Fore William on Catawba Creek, and Looney's Fort on the upper James River. The Indian raids during this time initiated the conflict known as the French and Indian Wars (1754-1763).
On June 25, 1756, Fort Vause was completely destroyed by the French and Indians. Now settlers abandoned even more settlements, fleeing (they used the term "flying") to Fort William and Looney's Fort (which were just on the western side of the Blue Ridge Mountains). Many settlers, who had the means to do so, moved east of the Blue Ridge (Bedford County formed in 1754), or to North Carolina, which was so far removed from the Northern Indians (Shawnee, etc.) who were making the attacks that they felt much safer.
In a letter written near the end of June 1756 (after the fall of Fort Vause), Col. John Buchanan wrote to Lt. Gov. Robert Dinwiddie "Looney's Ferry where I have for some time Dwelt which was formerly the center of the county is now the very Frontier." This letter has been erroneously credited to Col. Andrew Lewis in some of the histories (F. B. Kegley's Kegley's Virginia Frontier, Stoner's A Seedbed of the Republic, etc.). The letter has survived, but the name of the writer and the exact date are not part of the letter. The events discussed in the letter, however, make it clear that is was written soon after the fall of Fort Vause. The key to identifying the writer is in the statement "Looney's Ferry where I have for some time Dwelt..." It is known that Col. John Buchanan was forced to abandon his settlement (Anchor and Hope) on Reed Creek about 1755. He settled at Cherry Tree Bottom, which was just across the James River from Looney's Ferry. His wife, Margaret Patton Buchanan, had inherited this land after her father, Col. James Patton, was killed at Draper's Meadows (on a branch of New River) on July 30, 1755.
During the French and Indian Wars the Virginia frontier was constantly shifting. When forts and other important settlements fell, white settlers moved eastwardly to escape the enemy attacks. When forts held, the frontier eased westward again. The frontier settlers were in panic during this time. John Madison, clerk of Augusta County Court described the situation about this time.
Four families on their flight from a branch of New River this minute passed my house, who say that five men were murdered at he house of Ephraim Vause, on Roanoke, since the death of Col. Patton. This shocking to think of the calamity of the poor wretched who live on the Holston an new Rivers, who for upwards of a hundred miles have left their habitations, lost their crops and vast numbers of their stock. Could you see, dear friend, the women who escaped, crying after their murdered husbands, with their helpless children hanging on to them, it could but wound your very soul.
Col. John Buchanan, in the same letter where he mentions Looney's Ferry and Looney's Fort, expressed the desperation of settlers on the frontier when he wrote:
...To Describe the Confusion and Disorder the Poor People on the south side James River were in when they heard Fort Vause was Burned is Impossible (sic) To see the Mothers with a train of helpless children at their heels strag[g]ling through Woods and mountains to escape the fury of those merciless savages to see sundry persons Crawling home with Arows (sic) Sticking in several Parts of their Bodies which with the Cries of Widows and Fatherless Children is real shocking...
Rev. John Craig, according to Foote's Sketches of Virginia, "urged the building [of] forts in convenient neighborhoods, sufficient to hold twenty or thirty families, secure against small arms, and on alarms to flee to these places of refuge..." Looney's Fort, which surrounded Robert and Elizabeth Looney's house, was one of these fortifications. By late June 1756 the western settlements had been abandoned to the point where "Looneys Ferry .. is now the very Frontier." So far as known, Looney's Fort held and by 1758 Fort Fanquier was built, which regained areas that had been abandoned on the Roanoke, New, and Holston Rivers. By 1772 Capt. William Crow operated Crow's Ferry at the former site of Looney's Ferry on the Great Road. Thousands of settlers poured pass this site, heading towards Southwest Virginia and North Carolina. No doubt a few paused to remember that the site at the mouth of Looney's Mill Creek was once "the very Frontier."
