Deadly Indian Raid at Ritter Park

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More than a score of men, women and children were massacred
on Four Pole Creel, Ritter Park, by a band of Black Shoe
Indians, an off-spring of the Shawnee or Mingo tribe.

A Guyandotte woman, Betty Tackeett, was living with her
parents when she witnessed the scene of the slaughter which
occurred about 1790.

Apparently watching for an opportunity, the Indians band of
Black Shoes swooped down and completly annihilated the
white colony.

Reportedly, children were picked up and swung about, death
coming as their heads struck the trees.

The first white settlers in the Huntington section were Mr. and
Mrs. Ambrose Tackett, their four sons, and daughter,  Betty.
They came from the waters of the Rappahannock in Virginia via
the New River to the creek just east of St. Albans, now known
as Tackett's Creek.

The Tackett family witnesssed the scene immediately after the
attack and saw the bodies scattered about the stockade.

In most instances, the Tacketts's and the Indians had few
difficulties. They were friends with Chief Cornstalk's son,
Elinipsico. The Tacketts frequently traded hogs with the
Indians.

In 1797, Betty Tackett married Ruben Cremeans from what is
now Mason County.

Almost immediately, the Cremeanss took up their abode near
the junction of Mud River and Lower Creek, about one mile
from the present town of Milton.

In 1820 the family moved to Mason County, locating on Knife
Branch of Guyan Creek.

Henderson Cremeans, a son of Reuben and Betty, was born in
1798. He died in 1913, aged 115 years.

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