David Gass

A Patriot of the American Revolution for VIRGINIA with the rank of Captain. DAR Ancestor # A043322

■ALSO SPELLED "GISS", "GUESS" THREE CHILDREN OF CAPT. GASS MARRIED THREE OF THE CHILDREN OF JAMES AND ELEANOR BLACK AND BOTH FAMILIES MIGRATED FROM ALBEMARLE COUNTY, VIRGINIA INTO MADISON CO. KENTUCKY. DANIEL BOONE AND CAPT. DAVID GASS SR. WERE CLOSE FRIENDS. THEY HAD BEEN NEIGHBORS IN PENNSYLVANIA AND LATER MOVED TOGETHER INTO THE KENTUCKY WILDERNESS C. 1773. CAPT. GASS AND HIS FAMILY WERE AT FORT BOONESBOROUGH C. 1775 AND AT THE FORT DURING THE "SEIGE OF BOONESBOROUGH" IN 1778. BY 1780 THEY WERE LIVIING SOUTH OF RICHMOND IN MADISON COUNTY,KENTUCKY AT ESTILL'S STATION (AS WAS ARCHIBALD WOODS, SR.). HERE HIS DAUGHTER, JENNIE, WAS KILLED BY INDIANS IN MARCH OF 1782. DAVID GASS, SR. AND ARCHIBALD WOODS WERE AMONG THE FIRST JUSTICES OF THE COURT WHEN MADISON COUNTY WAS ESTABLISHED IN 1785. DAVID GASS WAS APPOINTED TO THIS POSITION BY PATRICK HENRY.

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David Gass (1732-1806) started to Kentucky with Boone and his party in 1773 from North Carolina, but after a surprise attack by the Indians in which Boone's son was killed, the party turned back to the home of the Gass family at the most western point of civilization. There the Boone family lived in the cabin with the Gass family for two years, or until Boone and his thirty axemen left to cut a path through to the mouth of Otter Creek on the Kentucky River for Richard Henderson and his party in 1773. However, Gass had come with Boone and others to Kentucky during the period of waiting for more settled conditions. Gass and his family lived in Fort Boonesborough three years. There the women molded bullets and carried water during the siege, before moving in 1781 to Estill's Station where they lived five years.

Little Jennie Gass had a strange dream in the early morning of March 20, 1782. She dreamed that God had placed a ladder on which she might climb to heaven. Her dream was so real to her that she ran before breakfast to the cabins of all within the fort to tell them about it. Later in the morning she, with Monk, the Estill slave, and another man, went outside the fort to start a fire for making maple syrup when suddenly they were fallen upon by Indians. The one man out ran them and got within the stockade, but Monk was captured and Jennie was scalped and killed. The Battle of Little Mountain followed this act.
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By 1786 David Gass had moved to the first county seat at Milford: the first court met in his home in 1786 and continued to meet there until a courthouse was provided. David Gass was appointed one of the Judges of the Court of Quarter Sessions by Patrick Henry." Gass died in 1806 leaving two daughters, Mary and Sarah, each of whom married a son of James Black, Sr., a Revolutionary soldier."

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