Bailey, Ann Hennis Trotter

BAILEY, ANN HENNIS TROTTER. (1742–1825). Scout. Born in Liverpool, England, in 1742, Ann Hennis immigrated to Staunton, Virginia, in 1761, marrying Richard Trotter in 1765. In 1774 Trotter volunteered for service in Dunmore's War and was killed in the battle of Point Pleasant on 10 October 1774. Hennis then stepped into her husband's place, gaining a reputation as a tough scout. She served during the Revolution as a spy on the frontier, primarily in the Shenandoah Valley, reporting on the activities of Indians allied with or suspected of being sympathetic to the British. She also gained praise for recruiting men living on the frontier to join the American side of the conflict, if only by forming together in local militia companies. With the war's end, Hennis continued her service as a frontier scout. In 1785 she married John Bailey, who served at Fort Lee (later Charleston, West Virginia). They both continued to serve as scouts from that base. Ann Bailey, as she was now called, became widely known during the Indian siege of Fort Lee in 1791, when she rode through the Indian lines on her horse Liverpool and traveled one hundred miles to Fort Union for gunpowder, returning with the powder just three days after she left. Credited with saving the fort, Bailey became a legendary figure on the frontier. Her services to the military ended with General Anthony Wayne's Treaty of Greenville in 1795. In 1817 she moved with her son to Gallipolis, Ohio, where she died on 22 November 1825.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Simpson-Poffenbarger, Livia Nye. Ann Bailey: Thrilling Adventures of the Heroine of the Kanawha Valley, Truth Stranger Than Fiction as Related by Writers Who Knew the Story. Point Pleasant, W.Va.: L. S. Poffenbarger, 1907.