The First Anna Alice

                 I have recalled that Miss Sampselle is not the first girl in our family to be named Anna Alice.

                   Margaret Lynn Lewis, was the daughter of the Laird o f Loch Lynn, and wife of John Lewis, born 1678, died 1762, who slew the Irish Lord, settled Augusta County, Virginia, located the town of Staunton, and furnished five sons to fight the battles of the American Revolution.  He first introduced red clover in that section. The tribe of Indians, known as the Mingos, had never seen any but the white or indigenous variety before, so said that the Indian blood shed by John Lewis and his followers had caused the change of color.

                     "The mystery men of our nation declare that the blood you have shed has fallen so fast and freely the white clover flowers have grown red, And that never will safety be with us, 'till you are a prisoner or dead".

                     Before the Revolutionary War, an Indian Chief, came to ask John Lewis for his daughter, Anna Alice Lewis, to be a squaw for his son,  Omayah, who had often played with the Lewis boys and girls.  John Lewis feared to offend him, so had Anna Alice play on the spinet for him, to show how worthless she would be as a squaw. The Chief said, "Fingers heap quick. They be good to gut fish!" So John Lewis positively refused the offer.

                     Later on a picnic, Omayah asked Anna Alice to cross a stream to look for Good Luck Plant, when suddenly a group of Indians swooped down on them, kidnapped her, and rapidly carried her away.  Her brothers  followed them for four days and four nights without food or rest, and then gave her up as lost.

                     Mad Mary Greenlee said that if John Lewis would lend her his swiftest horse, she would bring her back. John Lewis had little faith in her ability although he knew that Indians will not harm a mad person.  But to comfort the weeping mother, he let her have his best horse. Nothing was heard of her for weeks and weeks but at last one day, they heard her hallooing on the edge of the clearing, and there was Mad Mary Greenlee, riding the horse, and little Anna Alice was riding behind her. She would tell them nothing of the rescue, and after eating and sleeping, wandered away again.

                   Anna Alice said the Indians had named her "White Dove" and that they permitted Mad Mary Greenlee to come and go as she pleased in their camp, so one night she slipped "White Dove" away and they had hidden in a great hole under the earth.  It was like a marble palace under the ground, with silver walls and pearly floors, with galleries and statues and fountains, and in some places they could see the stars and moon through the holes in the roof. They had nothing to eat but dried haws and chinquapins which had been stored there in huge piles, and they drank from the brooks flowing underground. The family thought that the terrors of being a prisoner of the Indians, and away from her family had affected Anna Alice's mind, and discouraged her talking about it, hoping that she would forget it.

                 Years later when Mammoth Cave in Kentucky was discovered by white men, the Lewis descendants realized that it was in it, that "White Dove" had been hidden from the Indians, and Mad Mary Greenlee,  who alone knew of it, had kept the secret well.

This true story is quoted from Peyton's History of Augusta County, Virginia, whose author was the uncle of Sue Peyton Kent, who married Fontaine Broun, Sr., of Charleston, W.Va.

                     With love to my loved ones,      Aff.,                         Mama and Sister.