Betty Zane | Page 3

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Etext prepared by Bill Brewer, [email protected]

BETTY ZANE BY ZANE GREY

TO THE BETTY ZANE

CHAPTER OF
THE DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION THIS BOOK IS
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR

NOTE
In a quiet corner of the stately little city of Wheeling, West Va., stands
a monument on which is inscribed:
"By authority of the State of West Virginia to commemorate the siege
of Fort Henry, Sept 11, 1782, the last battle of the American
Revolution, this tablet is here placed."
Had it not been for the heroism of a girl the foregoing inscription

would never have been written, and the city of Wheeling would never
have existed. From time to time I have read short stories and magazine
articles which have been published about Elizabeth Zane and her
famous exploit; but they are unreliable in some particulars, which is
owing, no doubt, to the singularly meagre details available in histories
of our western border.
For a hundred years the stories of Betty and Isaac Zane have been
familiar, oft-repeated tales in my family--tales told with that pardonable
ancestral pride which seems inherent in every one. My grandmother
loved to cluster the children round her and tell them that when she was
a little girl she had knelt at the feet of Betty Zane, and listened to the
old lady as she told of her brother's capture by the Indian Princess, of
the burning of the Fort, and of her own race for life. I knew these
stories by heart when a child.
Two years ago my mother came to me with an old note book which had
been discovered in some rubbish that had been placed in the yard to
burn. The book had probably been hidden in an old picture frame for
many years. It belonged to my great-grandfather, Col. Ebenezer Zane.
From its faded and time-worn pages I have taken the main facts of my
story. My regret is that a worthier pen than mine has not had this
wealth of material.
In this busy progressive age there are no heroes of the kind so dear to
all lovers of chivalry and romance. There are heroes, perhaps, but they
are the patient sad-faced kind, of whom few take cognizance as they
hurry onward. But cannot we all remember some one who suffered
greatly, who accomplished great deeds, who died on the
battlefield--some one around whose name lingers a halo of glory? Few
of us are so unfortunate that we cannot look backward on kith or kin
and thrill with love and reverence as we dream of an act of heroism or
martyrdom which rings down the annals of time like the melody of the
huntsman's horn, as it peals out on a frosty October morn purer and
sweeter with each succeeding note.
If to any of those who have such remembrances, as well as those who
have not, my story gives an hour of pleasure I shall be rewarded.

PROLOGUE
On June 16, 1716, Alexander Spotswood, Governor of the Colony of

Virginia, and a gallant soldier who had served under Marlborough in
the English wars, rode, at the head of a dauntless band of cavaliers,
down the quiet street of quaint old Williamsburg.
The adventurous spirits of this party of men urged them toward the land
of the setting sun, that unknown west far beyond the blue crested
mountains rising so grandly before them.
Months afterward they stood on the western range of the Great North
mountains towering above the picturesque Shenendoah Valley, and
from the summit of one of the loftiest peaks, where, until then, the foot
of a white man had never trod, they viewed the vast expanse of plain
and forest with glistening eyes. Returning to Williamsburg they told of
the wonderful richness of the newly discovered country and thus
opened the way for the venturesome pioneer who