"A classic of West Virginia history." -West Virginia History On View, WVU
"With all the interest of an epic, a picture of the heroic age of a most important section of the great west." -Weekly National Intelligencer, July 26, 1851
"Filled to repletion with the stirring adventures and harrowing sufferings of the oft-smitten Border." - Our Western Border in Early Pioneer Days (1886)
"It is such an absorbingly interesting book that one can scarcely lay it down." -Beckley Post-Herald, Dec. 4, 1956
"Dr. Wills DeHass, prominent as a writer on historical and archaeological subjects...was a member of the historical societies of Virginia, New York, Maryland, Wisconsin, and Illinois." -NY Times, Jan. 26, 1910
How did earlier West Virginia pioneers survive the frequent and brutal raids on their homesteads at a time when that wilderness frontier served as the western border of the United States? What was it about these hardy pioneers that set them apart from other Americans who were too afraid to settle in this wild and dangerous frontier?
In 1851, West Virginia local historian Dr. Wills DeHass (1837-1910) would write the definitive story of these heroic early pioneers of West Virginia in his groundbreaking book titled " History of the Early Settlement and Indian Wars of Western Virginia."
In introducing one especially famous and heroic dweller of the West Virginia frontier, Lewis Wetzel, DeHass writes:
"Who in the west, has not heard of Wetzelthe daring borderer,the brave and successful Indian hunter; the Boone of North-Western Virginia? Within the recollection of many of our readers, Lewis Wetzel was regarded by many of the settlers in the neighborhood of Wheeling, as the right arm of their defence. His presence was considered as a tower of strength to the infant settlements, and an object of terror to the fierce and restless savages who prowled about and depredated upon our frontier homes. The memory of Wetzel should be embalmed in the hearts of the people of Western Virginia; for his efforts in defence of their forefathers, were without a parallel in border warfare. Among the foremost and most devoted, he plunged into the fearful strife which a bloody and relentless foe waged against the feeble colonists. He threw into the common treasury a soul as heroic, as adventurous, as full of energy, and exhaustless of resources, as ever animated the human breast. Bold, wary and active, he stood without an equal in the pursuit to which he had committed himself, mind and body. No man on the western frontier was more dreaded by the enemy, and none did more to beat him back into the heart of the forest, and reclaim the expanseless domain which we now enjoy."
About the author:
Dr. Wills DeHass was born in Washington, Pennsylvania July 4, 1837 and died Jan. 24, 1910. He was the son of General Charles DeHass and Myra Wills, who were among the oldest settlers in Washington County, his father being a Revolutionary soldier. He entered Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, where he was graduated with high honors. After leaving college, he went to Wellsburg, Ohio where he took up the practice of medicine, and later went to Missouri. He was married to Miss Amanda Hoblitzell in 1836 at Moundsville, West Virginia. On the breaking out of the Civil War, Dr. DeHass helped to organize the Seventy-seventh Ohio United States volunteer infantry of which he was made lieutenant colonel, and engaged in all the battles of this regiment. After the war he turned his attention to literature and wrote a history of West Virginia, which is now one of the textbooks used in the schools of that state. He became interested in the Indian Mounds in Ohio, West Virginia and Eastern Ohio, and many of the relics found by him are now in the Smithsonian Institution, Washington.