There’s only so much a boy can learn in a single year of Ohio History, and try as he might, Bill Longman, my eighth grade Ohio History teacher just couldn’t cover it all.
In reality, we were given only a glimpse of the rich panorama that is the Buckeye State, and there is so much more to cover.
Take Anne (sometimes seen as Ann) Bailey for example. I’ll admit, I only learned of her this week.
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For one reason or a thousand, she never came UP in any discussion of Ohio’s colonial history, and that’s a bit of a shame.
She was pretty essential.
Like most famous and successful spies in history, she was a she. Seems the gals have a God given talent for espionage. ( e.g. Rose Greenhow, Mata Hari, Belle Boyd, Josephine Baker, Virginia Hall, Nancy Wake.)
She wasn’t from Ohio at the start. Anne was born in 1742 in the same town that gave us another British Invasion, the Beatles. That’s right, she was from Liverpool.
The British born storyteller and frontier scout served in the American Revolution and the Northwest Indian War; AKA the Battle FOR Ohio, not to be confused with the Battle OF Ohio.
She pulled a Paul Revere before Paul Revere took his ride and went alone in search of a powder supply to arm an endangered settlement near Charleston, WVA.
Referred to as “Mad Anne” by the Shawnee Indians due to her bravery and daring – after all, what sane woman would take the risks? – she arrived in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley when she was about 19. Her folks died in 1760 and in 1765, she married a British soldier by the name of Richard Trotter.
He died in battle during Lord Dunmore’s War on October 10, 1774 at the Battle of Point Pleasant where the colonials faced Cornstalk and his Shawnee tribe.
Her husband’s death was a turning point in her life; leaving her son with a neighbor, she joined the militia and worked as a scout and courier for the Americans against the Redcoats.
In 1788, she remarried.
This time her spouse was a frontiersman and ranger named John Bailey. They were immediately dispatched to Fort Lee where she continued er service for the US military as a patroller of the frontier and acting as a go between for Fort Lee and outlying posts.
In 1791, Anne made a legendary ride of 100 miles from Forth Savannah at Lewisburg (now WVA) for the much-needed powder. Along the way, she earned the title “The White Squaw of Kanawha” from the native tribes of the area.
Her bravery and success are credited as the sole saving factor in Fort Lee’s fight.
Her husband, John, was murdered near Point Pleasant, VA (now WVA) in 1794.
Anne remained in the service of the US until 1795 when the Treaty of Greenville ended the Northwest Indian War.
After her husband’s death and her ‘retirement,’ she traveled, visited friends, and worked as an express rider until after she was 70 years old.
She died at the home of her son in Gallia, Ohio in 1825 at the age of 83.
