When Mitchell Clay settled on the Clover Bottom land in 1775, he was the second settler in what is now Mercer County WV. MItchell and his family remained on this land undisturbed for a period of about 8 years, but were finally attacked by Indians. In the month of August 1783, after Mitchell had harvested his crop of small grain and desiring to get on with the benefits of the pastures for his cattle off the ground on which his crop had grown, he placed 2 of his sons, Bartley & Ezekiel, to build a fence around ths tacks of grain, while he went out in the search of game. His older sons seem to have been away from home. It was in the afternoon, while these 2 young men were at work, and the older daughter with some of the younger girls were at the river washing, that a marauding party of 11 Indians crept up to the edge of the field and shot Bartley dead. The discharge of the gun alarmed the girls at the river, and they started on a run for the house, the pathway leading directly by where Bartley had been killed. An Indian attempted to scalp the young man, and at the same time to capture the older girl, Tabitha, who undertook to defend the body of her dea brother, and prevent his being scalped, and in the struggle with the Indian, she reached for his knife, which hung in his belt and missing it, the Indian drew it and stabbed her repeatedly until he had practically cut her to pieces before killing her. The small girls during the melee, escaped to the house, and the brother Ezekiel, a lad of some 16 years being captured by another Indian. About the time the attack was made by the Indians, a man by the name of Liggon Blankenship called at the Clay cabin, and when Phoebe discovered her daughter in the struggle with the Indian, begged Blankenship to go and shoot the Indian and save her child, instead thereof he took to his heels and ran to the New River settlement and reported that Clay and all of his family hada been killed by the Indians. The Indians after securing the scalp of the young man, Bartley, and his sister Tabitha, with their prisoner Ezekiel, left the scene. So soon as Phoebe Clay ascertained that the Indians had departed, she took her children and carried the bodies of her dead ones to the house and placing them on a bed, left the cabin with her children and made her way through the wild woods, 6miles to the house of James Bailey, who lived at a place on Bush Creek waters and was the Clays nearest neighbor. Mitchell, upon arriving home at dusk supposed that all of his family had been killed or were captives, immediately left the cabin for the New River settlements. As he traveled he discovered that the Indians were at his rear and he left the path in order to evade them. The Indians stole a number of horses and immediately began their retreat to the Ohio River. Information was conveyed to the various neighborhoods and a party of men under Captain Matthew Farley went to the Clay cabin and buried the bodies of Bartley and Tabitha. The pursuit then began. The Indians were caught in what is now Boone County WV near Pond Fork. 2 Indians were killed outright with the other fleeing down the river. The white people recovered their horses but not Ezekiel, who was taken to the Indian town of Chillicothe and burned at the stake.