Around 1742, and possibly at the cathedral end of Duke Street, Liverpool, a girl was born to the Hennis family. Her father in early life had been wounded at the battle of Blenheim, while serving under Marlborough and she was christened Anne after Queen Anne. When she was five years of age her mother took her to London to visit relatives, and while there witnessed the execution on the 9th of April 1747 of Lord Lovat on a charge of treason after participating in the Jacobite Uprising. Anne had a formal education learning to read and write but following the death of her parents in 1760, and to escape poverty, in 1761 she crossed the Atlantic to join her relatives, the Bells, who had emigrated to the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia some years before. She payed for her passage by putting herself into servitude for several years. Having settled in the Shenandoah Valley, she married the British soldier and frontiersman Richard Trotter in 1765, with whom she had a son, William.
As more and more people moved West, fights broke out between settlers and the Native Americans who already lived in the area resulting in the Governor of Virginia organising a border militia to help calm the area. Richard Trotter joined the Virginia militia and fought in Lord Dunsmore's War, a conflict between the colony and the Shawnee and Mingo native peoples. The battle of Point Pleasant in 1774 was called the first battle of the American Revolution by some, and this conflict prevented the Native Americans from becoming allies to the British. Although the settlers won the battle, there were massive casualties on both sides including Richard who was killed.
This event would change Anne's life completely. In 1785 after eleven years of widowhood she vowed to avenge his death on the Indian race and agreed a plan with a Mrs. Moses Mann, then residing in Augusta, but afterward in Bath county. Mrs Mann approved of Anne's idea and agreed to give a home to Anne's orphan son William. Anne joined the Virginia militia to become a skilled frontier scout, horsewoman, hunter, messenger and storyteller. Carrying hatchet, knife and long rifle and clad in a mixture of men's and women's clothing, buckskin leggings and a man's coat and hat, but still wearing petticoats, she became known as 'Mad Anne'. Once the war for independence began, Anne Hennis Trotter served as a recruiter, messenger, and spy for the continental army. She rode from one recruiting station to another, making appeals to all she met to volunteer their services to the militia in order to keep the women and children of the border safe, to fight for freedom from the Indians, and later the British. Also nicknamed the 'white squaw of the Kanawha' she also was said to have learned to drink and swear like a man. She operated as a frontier scout and secret courier between the forts of the Continental Army and actively recruited settlers for the cause. Many tales of her adventures (both real and imaginary) were widely circulated around Kanawha County,where she resided, and far further afield.
On her rides she often came across a group of Shawnee Indians. In one such encounter, Anne was being chased by them and about to be caught when she jumped off her horse and hid in a log. Though they looked everywhere for her and even stopped to rest on the log, they could not find her. They gave up and stole her horse. After they left, Anne came out of the log and during the night crept into their camp and retrieved her horse. When she was far enough away, she began to scream and shriek at the top of her voice. The Shawnee thought she was possessed and could not be injured by a bullet or arrow. After this event, they saw her often, but they feared her and only watched her from afar, making her relatively safe living in the woods.
After several years living on her own, Anne met John Bailey, a member of a legendary group of frontier scouts called the Rangers, who were defending the Roanoke and Catawba settlements from Indian attacks. He seemed to enjoy Anne's rough ways, and they were married on the 3rd of November, 1785 when they relocated to Clendenin's Settlement, now Charleston, West Virginia. The settlement was home to Fort Lee to which they were both posted. Here they both continued to patrol the frontier against Indian incursion and act as messengers between Fort Lee and the other frontier posts.
In 1791, when Fort Lee was under attack by Native Americans, and supplies, especially gunpowder, were running low, Anne Bailey made a daring ride as she traveled by horseback 100 miles to Fort Savannah in order to secure supplies. She made the 200 mile round trip in three days, returning with gunpowder. For her bravery Anne was given the horse that had carried her away and brought her safely back. The animal, said to have been a beautiful black, sporting white feet and a blazed face, was named 'Liverpool', in honor of her birthplace. Anne Bailey was forty-nine years old when she made this famous ride and is credited with having saved Fort Lee and its defenders. Anne and John remained posted to Fort Lee after the battle and the subsequent signing of the Treaty of Greenville with the Indian nation was to end the Northwest Indian War.
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| A statue of 'Mad Anne' Bailey along the Ohio River. |
Following John Bailey's death in 1802, Anne gave up her home and lived in the wilderness for over 20 years. She visited friends occasionally, but often slept outside and often in a cave near Thirteen Mile Creek known locally as 'Anne Bailey's Cave' due too the frequency of her stays. Her son William, now a grown man, had married Mary Cooper in 1800 and Anne now in her late fifties, went to live with them in 1802 but, not happy to be tied to one place, she still travelled a lot and visited friends in the territories. A few years after her husband's death, she traveled to Alabama, apparently to visit her stepson, Abram Bailey. In 1818, she moved with William across the Ohio River to Gallia County, Ohio with Anne reluctantly leaving her beloved Virginia so she could live near him. Instead of asking her to stay with his family, William built her a cabin nearby so she would still feel independent. Anne carried on travelling extensively until dying suddenly of 'old age' at Gallipolis, Ohio on the 22nd of November 1825 aged 83, while sleeping with her two little grandchildren She was buried in the Trotter Graveyard near her son's home and her remains rested there for seventy-six years.in Harrison, Ohio before being later moved to a grave in Tu-Endie-Wei Park, Point Pleasant back in her beloved State of Virginia.
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| Plaque on her former house near to Fallen Springs, Virginia |
In 1823, Ann Bailey was interviewed by Anne Royall, a local reporter. When speaking of her adventures and bravery she said, "I always carried an ax and auger, and I could chop as well as any man. . . . I trusted in the Almighty. . . . I knew I could only be killed once, and I had to die sometime."
see also:- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2021/06/a-liverpool-exemplar-joseph-williamson.html
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