Thornhill Family Among First To Settle In Harrison County (at the mouth of Hacker's Creek)
For those of you that are familiar with the area, the Thornhill property extend from the mouth of Hacker's Creek, along US Route 19 (near Gusman Bridge or Hidden Valley Road ) south to the Vens Run area, near the Harrison / Lewis County line.. This is the area that is on the opposite side of US 19 at the Greystone Lakes area.
The following information was gathered from an article that was published in the Sunday Exponent - Telegram Newspaper at Clarksburg, West Virginia on December 18, 1932. The article was written by Wilbur C. Morrison.
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William Thornhill, who died a bachelor, was the first of the family of that name,
to settle in Harrison County. He is among those that purchased land in the county at prices ridiculously low.
Having heard of the country that flowed with milk and honey, the Thornhill family in London, England,
decided the son William, should come to America with a joint fund of money and purchase an abiding place in
that fair land for them all. So runs the Thornhill legend.
About 1783 or 1784, William Thornhill sailed from London, landed in Philadelphia, Pa., crossed the Allegheny mountains,
penetrated the wilderness of western Virginia, now West Virginia, ran across the Lowther family on Hacker's Creek, Harrison County,
and bought 400 acres from Col. William Lowther, situate on the east side of the West Fork River
at the mouth of Hacker's Creek. The land was a part of the tract taken up by Robert Lowther,
father of Col. Lowther, on which William L. Hughes, a former assessor of the county clerk of Harrison
County, now resides(Article written in 1932)
As shown by records in the office of the county clerk in Clarksburg, Col. Lowther had not yet been married.
The deed recites that William Thornhill paid Col. Lowther 135 pounds in Virginia currency for the 400 acres, the equivalent of less than $500
in present day money (Article written in 1932) of the United States. The deed bears the date of
June 30,1785.
The legend is told that William Thornhill built a log cabin home on the land, and lived and died on the farm. He appears to
to have made good use of the land and accumulated considerable money. In addition to farming, he operated a still house.
Body Found In Trough.
Fifteen or twenty years after he had taken up his abode on Hacker's Creek, William Thornhill's
body was found in a poplar tree trough on his farm. A man named Burnside, a cattle drover on his way to
a Baltimore, Md. market,
ran across Thomas Thornhill Jr., a brother to of William, who had came to this country with his young wife in 1790,
along with the parents and other members of the Thornhill family, first locating at Uniontown, Pa. and then to Hagerstown, Md.
told him about finding the body of William Thornhill, and inquiring whether there was any relationship
between him and the dead man. Burnside gave a description of the dead man who was found in the tree trough, which convinced the family that
it was William Thornhill who had died, and about 1810, the family came to Hacker's Creek and established beyond the
peradventure of
doubt that it was the same man who had came years before as the vanguard of Thornhill.
Clothes Fit...
The identification was completed by the fact that shoes, clothes, and other wearing apparel
of the dead man fitted Thomas, the brother, a fact to which Thomas had called Burnside's attention
when they met at Hagerstown. Thomas Thornhill, the first, father of William proved his inheritance claim to the property and took
possesion of it,
and the family remained there. He and his wife remained on the farm until they died, when it went to heirs.
Seek Pot of Gold...
Many futile searches have been made for a pot of gold William Thornhill is said to have
concealed in rocky cliffs on the farm.
The senior Thomas Thornhill was born in England in 1742 and his wife also a native of that country. He died in 1827 on the farm, aged 85 years.
His wife also died there in 1828. They were buried in the Broad Run cemetery near
Lightburn.
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Webmaster's note: While we are on the subject of a "Pot of Gold"...Once while searching through some deeds in the Harrison County Clerks Office, I ran across a deed in regard to a "Harrison County Gold and Silver Mining Company that had purchased land on Wire's Run. Wire's Run is a small stream (lick) that empties into Hackers Creek in the area of the Thornhill property.
The property was conveyed to the Mining Company by Edmund L Stealey and wife Mary Ann on Jan. 15, 1869. A few days later, the property , 73 1/2 acres on Wire's Run was sold to James H. Freeman on Deed dated January 22, 1869, by R.S. Northcott,, President and William R. Alexander, Secretary.
In Harrison County Deed Book 51, page 416
I wonder if this Mining Company purchase is in anyway connected to the supposed "hidden fortune" of William Thornhill.
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