The ancestor of the McNeel relationship in our county

 

John McNeel, the ancestor of the McNeel relationship in our county, appears to have been the first to occupy the Little Levels by permanent settlement. He was a native of Frederick County, Virginia, but passed much of his early life in or near Cumberland, Maryland. 

 

He seems to have been fond of athletics, and in a pugilistic contest his antagonist was so badly

knocked out as to be regarded fatally injured. 

 

To avoid arrest and trial for murder, he refugeed. He followed the trend of the Alleghanies.

 

A long while was spent in their gloomy solitudes, and his sufferings of mind

and body can not be even imagined by any of us.  Finally, going deeper and deeper into the wilderness,

he came at last in view of the Levels, about 1765   .As he overlooked this section from some neighbor-region. An extensive, wooded plain, bordered by mountain ranges of unsurpassed beauty, and very fertile. He decided , as every thing looked so much like the old home scenery, to settle here ; and chose a site for his cabin near the present home occupied by Hon. M. J. McNeel . 

 

Traces of this cabin have been seen by many persons yet living, between the gate on the

public road and his residence. If the spot could be identified , it would be well to mark it with a piece of the marble recently found in such fabulous quantities close by.

 

Here the solitary man brooded over his supposed guilt, prayed with his broken heart for pardon, and hunted for his food, subsisting almost entirely upon venison and trout. One day while hunting he met Charles and Edward Kinnison, from his old home, who had come out here prospecting for a situation . 

 

He learned from them that the person he boxed with was not dead, not even seriously hurt. This was indeed good news, and then and there he felt free from all bloody stain , and he could return without fear of molestation. 

 

John McNeel insisted upon his friends to share his cabin with him. He assisted them in making a selection for a home adjoining his tract. The three then set out on their return to the lower Valley of Virginia. 

 

While on this visit home John McNeel married Martha Davis, who was born in Wales in 1740 , and soon after their marriage they came out to the Levels .

 

 A few acres were soon cleared off, and plenty to subsist upon was raised . 

 

Mr McNeel seemed deeply impressed with a sense of gratitude to God for his providential care, after all his wanderings and fears to permit the lines to fall to him in such a pleasant, wealthy place. that he built a house for worship, the White Pole Church. 

 

In a few years the Dunmore war opened up. The three friends, -McNeel and two Kinnisons,-went into

camp at Lewisburg, and joined the expedition to Point Pleasant, October 10, 1784. They survived that eventful and important contest, came back, but not to remain very long. 

 

They went across the eastern mountains and enlisted in some company that went from

Frederick County, served during the Revolution, and- then took up the peaceful tenor of their lives where they had left off.