Series: 20 U (Volume 20)
Scope and Content Note: Mainly letters, 1890-1891, to Draper concerning the controversial authorship of Alexander S. Withers's Chronicles of Border Warfare (Clarksburg, Virginia, 1831). The manuscripts purportedly written for the volume by Edwin S. Duncan (d. 1858), Alexander Hacker, William Hacker (1770-1826), Jacob Hardman, William Powers (1765-1855), and Hugh Paul Taylor form the central topic. There is no correspondence with Withers's family on the authorship of the book, but only a biographical sketch of Henry H. Withers (1824-1873). Genealogical material is found in many letters, but it is especially extensive for the family of William (b. 1735) and John (1743-1824) Hacker. A few letters concern persons mentioned in the Chronicles: Andrew Lewis (1720-1781), Alexander McNutt (circa 1726-1811) and his brother John, and the Delaware Indian Bald Eagle killed by William Hacker in 1773. Newspaper articles written in the 1880s by William Hacker of Shelbyville, Indiana, luridly detail Indian cruelties in western Virginia, particularly to women and children attacked or captured by parties led by Simon Girty and Leonard Schoolcraft; families discussed in the articles include those of John Bush, John Corbly, Mrs. Thomas Cunningham, Mrs. Margaret Hardman, John Mack, Mrs. James Moore, John Thomas, and Benjamin and William Walker.