(1766-1831)
Heroine of the Virginia frontier during what has been called the last battle of the American Revolution. Schooled in Philadelphia, sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Zane had recently returned to the town of Wheeling in Western Virginia. The town had been founded by her five brothers in 1769. When Zane returned from Philadelphia, she lived with her brother Ebenezer, whose cabin was located near Fort Henry. This garrison had already been used to defend against British and Indian attack in 1777.
One day in September 1782 a group of about 300 Indians and 50 British Rangers were spotted approaching the area. Betty and the rest of the townspeople were quickly herded into the fort as the attack began. Zane tended to the wounded and served food and drink. On the third day morale dwindled among the townsfolk as their supply of gunpowder petered out. Colonel Zane had a keg of gunpowder hidden in his cabin but did not know how to safely retrieve it. Betty Zane volunteered, saying she could run fast enough to make it to the cabin. She told her friends and neighbors that men were needed in the fort and that other women could help care for the wounded if anything happened to her. In the end it was agreed that she could make the attempt, and Zane removed her skirts so she could run faster. After she was let out of the fort she dashed the approximately 50-yard (45-meter) distance to the cabin, surprising enemy forces. On arrival at the cabin, she found the powder keg under the floorboards but realized it was too heavy to carry. She then packed the powder in a carpet that lay nearby. As she ran back to the fort with the powder wrapped in the carpet, she was fired on but arrived at Fort Henry unscathed except for a hole in her clothes where a bullet had grazed her. The townspeople used the new powder to hold off the attackers that night, and by the fourth day the Indians and British gave up and retreated.
Not much else is known about the remainder of her life. It is thought that she died in Ohio. Zane’s story was first recorded in 1831, with the publication of Alexander S. Withers’s Chronicles of Border Warfare. Her story was disputed by the last survivor of the siege at Fort Henry, who claimed Zane did not perform any heroics that day. Zane’s legend later grew thanks to the great-grandson of Colonel Zane, the popular writer Zane Gray, who in 1903 wrote a fictional account of her life and heroics based on the actual events. The novel, called Betty Zane, helped cement a place for Zane in history.
