#chief cornstalk

Point Pleasant, WV, last year x

"STAIRS INTO THE ATTIC" Imagine climbing up the old rickety creaky stairs into the attic and going into the far corner and wiping off the dust on the big camelback trunk. Upon opening the trunk that emits a musty smell, there are old letters where the writing looks a little bit like chicken scratch from the old days. We read about lost loves, lost lives, lost crops, the joyous wedding of a daughter, how much butter she was able to churn this year, the three-year-old that died from licking the spoon that was used to make lye soap in the yard and the baby thought it was cake batter, how much cotton was sold at the market, how the mama had to run for her life and hide in the cornfields with her babies to protect them from Indian raids…

These people were real, they had real lives, real joys, real sorrows. Somehow the breath of their life is in the old letter not wanting to be forgotten. Their blood passes through your veins adding to the uniqueness that makes you who you are. Upon realization of this, you realize they are not forgotten.  

Doris Miller (1903-1993), a longtime educator, historian, writer, and poet operating in the area of Huntington, West Virginia, composed this biography of Aracoma, a well-known Native American figure who lived in present-day Logan, West Virginia. This is Part 2 of her composition. The father whose death was mentioned by Aracoma was the noted Shawnee sachem, Cornstalk, leader at the Battle of…

I know, right? Why WOULD a half-starved, probably petite* teenage girl be scared upon waking up in a strange building in a land she’s never been to before and seeing a strange, enormous** man walking toward her? I’m as confused as you are, man.

*I think women were typically about five feet tall back then. Correct me if I’m wrong. And since Sarah’s apparently eternally fifteen, she might not have even been fully grown.