BROTHER & 5 CHILDREN MURDERED! TOLD BY GHOST OF JENNY WILEY

Jenny Wiley is a name that is very well known in Appalachian folklore and her story while shocking, is unfortunately true. On October 1, 1789, on Walker’s Creek, Bland County, Virginia, the Wiley cabin was attacked by a mixed-tribe band of Native Americans. Jenny’s brother and three of her children were immediately killed, and she was taken captive along with her infant child. She was held as a slave for about eleven months and during her captivity, her infant child as well as another child born while in captivity, were murdered, bringing the total of her murdered children to five.  

Jenny Wiley reunited with her husband Tom Wiley, a Revolutionary War veteran, and the two of them had five more children of which many thousands of people today are descended from. The following is a monologue performed by actor Shannon Daniels, of the Jenny Wiley Theatre, which she portrays herself as the ghost of Jenny Wiley who shares her story with anyone who will listen. The script below is almost entirely unedited and uses language common in Appalachia including improper grammar, but we wanted to bring the story to you exactly how it is performed. The author of this monologue is unknown at this time and when they are identified we will amend this article to include the information of the author. Also, at the end of this article you will see a link to a video of the performance by the actor. 

This story is not politically correct in our modern world but it sheds some light onto the feelings of many of our pioneer ancestors struggles. Conflicts always have multiple sides and this monologue does a good job of mentioning that, while also describing the heart aches of a mother in her situation. We hope that you enjoy this tragic story of American pioneer history and now onto the monologue…

It wasn’t until I returned to Walker’s Creek that I realized I had grown afraid of the quiet. Nights after my return I wasn’t never visited by sleep on account of the silence. Weren’t no night owls calling out to each other. No, weren’t no restful sounds of children sleeping nearby. There weren’t no footsteps moving quietly through the dark. Even Thomas laying next to me, tried to keep as still as he could, straining his ears, holding his breath as tight as he was holding on to me. We tried to close our eyes to an empty cabin, but our ears kept us awake. Listening to the silence, listening for the others to return, rifles at the ready by our bedside one next to each of us in case they ever did. Also, we was listening for the ghosts, hoping they would visit us again soon. That’s right, this here is a ghost story, all of it, even the parts that ain’t got no ghosts in them. And like most ghost stories, this one ain’t easy to listen to. But unlike other stories, you may have been told this one is true. And I need to tell you my story. I need to tell you the truth so that you don’t spend those sleepless nights scared and listening to strange sounds in the darkness like me and my husband done since I come back. It’s the only way I can move on.

See, we’ve been settling on this land for I reckon it’s been a while now. Us Wiley’s and Borders and Sellards and Skaggs and families with other names you might recognize if you spend enough time around these parts. We’ve built cabins, grown ginseng, we’ve cared for our children all up and down these hills, all throughout the banks of the river for generations.

I don’t want to be tied to this river no more. I can’t be. I reckon I ought to tell you why. When I think about the day, the others attacked my home. It’s the sounds I remember the most. Thomas had left for the trading post that morning and the air was just buzzing with noise.

The creaking of the loom as I weaved winter clothing. And old hound, he’s barking at a squirrel. My brother Batt, he’s chopping wood nearby. Oh, and the children, they’re running around screaming. Little baby Tommy, he’s crying. He’s upset from all the commotion.

A horse approaching. Hooves pounding their weight fast up to my front door. John Borders gasping for air like the old hound does in the hot sun. I heard him, “they’s coming”. His horse seems like he’s trying to catch his breath same as this man riding it. It was like night owls was calling out to each other, only it was day light. “Lucky I escaped with my life.” My brother’s axe dropping in the ground, the sound of his footsteps moving quickly through the tall grass over to us. “Take the children and run”. Even after he’s gone I can still hear John Borders breathing heavy from fear, but the sound that pounds in my ears, the loudest of them all is the baby I’ve got. He’s growing inside me, he’s kicking up a storm like he knows danger’s on its way. But the sun sets in the time it takes for me to get my children ready to stay with their relations down the river. That sky was on fire when I heard a sound, still echoes in my mind the very instant I try to drift off to sleep each night. The door of the cabin flies open, the blood red sky blazes behind those red skin savages. That’s when I first see them, the others and then, everything goes quiet. I know that they were screaming something at me and whooping their war cries. I know that my 15-year-old brother Batt called out for mercy before they slit his throat and took his scalp clean off his head but I couldn’t hear nothing. The blood rushed to my ears as fast and frightening as the river does when the ice melts. Even the baby inside me stopped kicking. It fell quiet, he held his breathe. 

One of them held a knife to my throat. My children, they were made to stand on one side of the room. They were choking back tears, they were just trying to be brave for their momma. I know that they was asking me questions, the pounding in my skull had calmed down some and I could hear the way that they was speaking. He meant that they was looking for someone. Something, the truth I reckon, maybe they was looking for someone who done them wrong but I didn’t know what they was looking for. I couldn’t understand who they was looking for and him, when I couldn’t answer, he took a tomahawk to my oldest son, Hezekiah. He was named for my father. His sisters had to watch their brothers scalp get torn clean off his head. It was one of the last things each of them saw. The others asked me again and again. I couldn’t answer. So again they took one of my children from me and then a third. But when they tried to take little baby Tommy I would not let them. I tried to fight. I tried to grab my baby and just hold him close to me so that we could die together, but they grabbed me hard and tied my arms behind my back. And so me, my little baby Tommy and little baby I had growing inside me, keeping real quiet so as not to be found out by those mean men who came to do us harm, we became their prisoners.

Now, I ain’t never been prejudiced against them others who live among these parts. I got plenty of love in my heart for them savages like the good Lord tells me to have, but we all must endure the dead of winter, we all got hardship ain’t we? My life matters and so did the lives of my murdered children and if they think they’s the only ones been wronged, it’s just plain wrong. As a point of fact I’ll have you know that I’ve got Cherokee blood in my family. I ain’t ashamed of that or nothing, so what makes them think that they can get away with something like this? It has been long enough since our families have settled on these parts, us Wiley’s and Borders and Sellards and Skaggs as well the others living among our families without shame? Without the fear of God? They’ve had plenty of time to get used to the way things are now since we started building up this country so what right did they have to terrorize my family? I ask you that, what right did they have to murder?

They took Tommy from me in the dead of the night while I was sleeping. How I could sleep then I’ll never know. We had been traveling for days and the exhaustion of the journey was (her thought was not spoken). See Tommy was sick, and I was moving too slow on account of his illness and they knew he couldn’t keep up with us on the way through the untamed wilderness. They waited till I slept to take him from me. Whatever reason they had to want to do me wrong I wasn’t guilty of it. It wasn’t me who tricked “em into giving up their land, it wasn’t me who poisoned ‘em with sickness or shot ‘em dead when they didn’t do nothing to deserve it. I’m just a mother. I never knew nothing about what was being done to them others. Even if it were being done to them by members of my own family, being ignorant is something that don’t make a person guilty. Does it? I had plenty of my own to worry about, trying to make sure that my baby’s bellies was full. That they was ready for the winter when it came. What business was mine in the injustice other people suffer. It’s not like me knowing about it was going to make their suffering matter. And it’s not like my children’s murder was going to change the way us folks on Walkers Creek saw them. And we saw them for what they were, unfit for life among the rest of us. I was kept prisoner a long time, all throughout the fall, and after the thaw, and longer when that hard ground froze, and the river became heavy with ice. 

I gave birth to that child I had growing inside me. The one who kept quiet since the day the others came and murdered his brothers and sisters. My child came into this world on the cold floor of a cave and he left it with the icy kiss of a river on his cheek. See, from what I understand, all the children in the tribe are given a test soon after they’s born to see if they can be a warrior. So, my child was placed on a raft and put out into the river. And if he kept quiet, they knew he had a brave heart and could be one of us, a member of the tribe. When I heard that, I knew that my child had hushed up for a reason the night he heard the door of the cabin getting broken in. You see the Lord was telling him, “you keep still, don’t you cry. Your momma’s going to need you to grow up and just be a big strong man and look out for her”. Well, they placed him on a raft, hardly no bigger than he was and once again it was like everything went quiet, even the river seemed to hush up, to make no noise and wake my sleeping baby. My child was quiet. You know why I’m so afraid of the quiet? Because now I know that there’s always something awful about to happen on the other end of silence.

There’s always another door about to get kicked in. There’s always a baby about to start screaming. They drowned him for crying out when he should have stayed quiet. And it is his tears that flow through these hills now and mine too. And all the mothers who’ve lost their children to these hills, all the broken, all the lost, all those who’ve been killed because they’ve been born one way instead of another. All the children’s tears, ours, and the others too, I suppose. We keep doing the same thing to each other. We keep drinking the waters of revenge from a river of tears. That’s why none of us have ever left this place. That’s why the ghosts of my children never sleep. Same as their father and me won’t. 

They done help me escape though. The ghosts of my children. I couldn’t see them. But I could hear them calling out to me, telling me which way to go when I finally got free, and just ran as far, and fast as I could through that forest. “This way”, I heard from across the creek. “Just a little further”, Hezekiah said when I thought I couldn’t go no more. “Stay strong for us, momma”. And word is, news on my return, it made it as far out as Johnson County. Ask anyone traveling along these hills, they’ll tell you the same thing. Mrs. Wiley came back… Mrs. Wiley came back… And since then, I try to keep talking to kind folks such as yourselves, as much as I can. I try to fill the silence. 

People ask me all sorts of questions about them others. They asked if I pray for their salvation. I do. This story is my prayer. I pray that one day the fighting in these hills will come to an end. That day has not come yet. People have a way of killing each other over the strangest reasons. Stolen hogs. Family names. Color of people’s skin. Takes hundreds of years of telling the same story before we realize how silly it all sounds. But I keep on praying. I’m greeted only by that same terrifying silence that keeps me up at night. I reckon it might take a little more than praying to stop this river from overflowing with more tears. I reckon it might do us some good to be kind to one another. To see each other. Listen to everyone’s story. Maybe then we can all sleep a little more soundly at night.

What do I know? I’m just a mother. Well, I reckon that’s all I have to say for today. But I will be back, telling my story again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day, until that raging river of tears falls quiet. Whenever that may be. I hope you all have a good rest of your day.

Be sure to see the video of this performance in the video linked below.

– This article was compiled by, Sue Baber-Castle, Historian & Chief Editor, Family Tree Nuts

– The actor Shannon Daniels can be contacted at: [email protected]

– Contact Family Tree Nuts at: [email protected]