http://www.wycoreport.com/county_history/aracoma-boling-baker-stori...
Also in 1792, the white renegade Boling Baker, husband of the Shawnee Indian princess Aracoma, left his Indian village at “The Islands” (Logan) and made a trip into the settlements of the New River Valley, probably taking some Indian braves with him. Boling Baker supposedly told a pitiful story to the settlers about his escape from the Indians, and winning their confidence, he was able to steal some horses from the settlements.
The settlers, organized under the leadership of William Madison and John Breckenridge, made chase of Baker and his Indians. In their pursuit the Madison-Breckenridge expedition passed the towering, shaft-like rock formation now known as Castle Rock which stands in the middle of Pineville.
Proceeding on to the Shawnee Indian village at “The Islands” (Logan), Madison and Breckenridge orchestrated their attack on the Indians from two sides. Cecile Goodall, author of “The Making of Logan,” in The West Virginia Review, October 1933, stated that “the fight lasted three days and many of the Indians were killed. Twenty of them escaped and more were captured, among them, Aracoma, who was grievously wounded.”
Other accounts agree the battle lasted three hours, not three days. No white settlers were killed. This episode of conflict between the Indians and the settlers became known as the “Battle of the Islands.”
Tradition says that Aracoma, daughter of the great Shawnee Indian chief Cornstalk, made the following appeal as she lay dying:
“My name is Aracoma and I am the last of a mighty line. My father was a great chief and a friend of your people, and was murdered in cold blood by your people when he had come to them as friend to give them warning. I am the wife of a paleface who came across the great waters to make war on my people, but came to us and became one of us. A great plague many moons ago carried off my children, with a large number of my people, and they lay buried just over the bend of the river. Bury me with them with my face toward the setting sun, that I may see my people in their march toward the happy hunting ground. For your kindness, I warn you to make haste in returning to your homes for my people are still powerful and will return to avenge my death.”
What became of Boling Baker, Aracoma’s husband, who was absent from the village during the “Battle of the Islands,” was not determined. (Robert Y. Spence’s Land of Guyandot (1976) cites the Logan County tradition that the battle in which Aracoma was killed occurred in 1780. Wyoming County historian G.P. Goode, though relying heavily on G.T. Swain’s History of Logan County for detail, believed the event happened later, basing his opinion on Col. Robert Crockett’s Virginia Calendar Papers and the opinions of historians Bicknell and Johnston. Much of the Aracoma story has been based on legend and tradition.)
