During our visit to the Tu-Endie-Wei State Park in Point Pleasant, West Virginia (July 2019), we came across the grave site of Anne Bailey, also known as "Mad Ann Bailey".
You can find out more information about the park and the location, on the blog post we did about the Tu-Endie-Wei State Park, but here is some more information about Ann.
Ann Bailey (1742 – November 22, 1825) was a British-born American story teller and frontier scout who served in the fights of the American Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War. Her single-person ride in search of an urgently needed powder supply for the endangered Clendenin's Settlement (present-day Charleston, West Virginia) was used as the template for Charles Robb's 1861 poem "Anne Bailey's Ride". She is known as the Heroine of the Kanawha Valley.
After her husband's death, Ann resolved to avenge him and left her son with a neighbor, Mrs. Moses Mann before adopting male clothing and taking up a rifle and tomahawk. She soon became a hunter, frontier scout, messenger, spy, and Indian (Native American) fighter. She earned her nickname "Mad Ann" because of her temper.
In 1791, when she was 49-years-old, the people of Fort Lee were warned that a large force of Indians was going to attack. When the defenders found that their supply of gunpowder was running low, Ann volunteered to ride for help. She made her way 100 miles through the forest to Savannah at present-day Lewisburg, West Virginia and returned in three days with gunpowder. She is credited with saving Fort Lee and for her bravery, she was given the beautiful black horse that had carried her on her ride. She named him Liverpool, after her birthplace. She remained on duty until 1795 when the Treaty of Greenville, Ohio ended the Northwest Indian War.
After her husband, John Bailey, died in 1794, she went to live with her son, William, along the Kanawha River in Ohio. In 1818 they moved to Gallipolis, Ohio where she taught school. She died there on November 22, 1825, at age 83. She was buried in the Trotter Graveyard near her son’s home, and her remains rested there for 76 years. However, in October 1901, her remains were re-interred in Monument Park (Tu-Endie-Wei State Park) in Point Pleasant, West Virginia
If you would like to see some video footage from her grave site, we have some in our video about the park.
If you have visited the park and payed your respects to "Mad Ann", please let us know about your experiences down in the comments section below. We would love to hear about them.
