On the hillside, in sight of the old Buttonwood, venerable head- 

 stones, on some of which the inscriptions are nearly obliterated, mark 

 the graves of himself and his family, and Phineas Arms, another vic- 

 tim of the same massacre. 



The Pringle Sycamoke 



A tree that for many years recalled to memory the earliest white 

 settlers of West Virginia, was the famous Pringle Sycamore, which 

 stood about three miles north of the present city of Buckhannon in 

 that State, at the mouth of a stream known as Turkey Run. 



The two brothers, Samuel and John Pringle, deserted from the 

 British forces at Fort Pitt, in 1761. Their chief concern being how 

 to escape arrest, they camped with two comrades, first in the wild 

 country about the Monongahela River, then near the borders of the 

 Youghioghney. In 1762, they arrived at a settlement in Looney 

 Creek, but there two of the party were arrested. The Pringles, fortu- 

 nate enough to get away, continued their travels, finally reaching the 

 Buckhannon River, and finding, on its bank the old sycamore in whose 

 hollow trunk they proceeded to make their home. 'The cavity meas- 

 ured eleven feet, inside, and in this palatial retreat the fugitives lived 

 for over two years until the late of autumn of 1767. 



Then they faced starvation, only two charges of powder remain- 

 ing. John journeyed back, across the mountains in search of more 

 ammunition, and learned that peace had been made with the French 

 and Indians. No longer fearing arrest, the two brothers left the 

 old tree which had sheltered them in such friendly fashion, and 

 returned to their former haunts on the Wappatomaka River, the south 

 branch of the Potomac. s 



In the fall of 1768, Samuel led a party of colonists back to the 

 banks of the Buckhannon, where, the next spring they cleared land, 

 planted and built their cabins. The first crops were destroyed by 

 buffalos, and it was not till 1770 that the pioneer settlement was 

 really established. One of their number was Jesse Hughes, who 

 became a renowned scout and Indian fighter. 



It is an interesting fact that a man named William Pringle, living 

 in Philadelphia, was the father of two sons named John and Samuel, 

 bom in 1728 and 1731. It is quite possible that the two boys were the 

 future tenants of the hollow sycamore. 



The old tree fell about a century ago, but the stump remained as 

 late as 1848. It disappeared, but a second tree sprang up from its 

 roots, and flourished till a flood carried it away in 1880. 



But there was still life and enterprise in the roots of the Pringle 

 Sycamore. "As if reluctant to fail to mark the site of the first primi- 

 tive home of the white man in that region," says L. V. McWhorter, 

 the historian, "the roots shot forth a second sprout and this grew 

 into a bushy tree." And by a singular coincidence — "It has a cavity- 



35 



