James Estill (9 November 1750–22 March 1782), frontiersman, was born in Augusta County and was the son of Wallace Estill and his third wife, Mary Ann Campbell Estill. Little is known of his early life and education, but he reportedly attended Augusta Academy, which in 1776 was renamed Liberty Hall Academy (later Washington and Lee University). Estill married Rachel Wright in Augusta County about 1772. They had at least four sons and one daughter who survived him.
Soon after his marriage, Estill appears to have moved to an area southwest of Augusta County that in 1772 became Fincastle County. In 1774 he was a private in the county militia, but he did not take part that autumn when some militiamen from Fincastle County fought in the Battle of Point Pleasant. During the next couple of years, Estill participated in several expeditions that explored the frontier as far west as the current states of Kentucky and West Virginia. By 1778 he was living in the newly established Greenbrier County and was instrumental in obtaining lead for the county militia.
Leaving two children in the care of family members, Estill, his wife, and youngest child settled at what became Boonesborough, probably shortly after the Shawnee chief Blackfish abandoned his siege of the settlement in September 1778. Estill's brother, Samuel, also settled there about the same time. When Boonesborough was established as a town in October 1779, Estill was named a trustee. He and other appointees reportedly declined to serve, however, as a result of a land dispute among some of the settlers. On 25 February 1780, Estill received a grant of 1,000 acres of land on Muddy and Otter Creeks in what became part of Lincoln County when it was created later that year. At Estill's Station, he built a small tannery, and he and his brother later founded a second settlement, Estill's New Station, about two miles away. Estill was one of the first justices of the peace of Lincoln County and served until his death. He also may have guided people through the Cumberland Gap en route to Kentucky.
The increasing pace of settlement created an uneasiness among the western tribes that the British exploited during the American Revolution by recruiting and arming Native Americans to raid outlying settlements. In response, about three hundred Kentuckians, including almost sixty men from the Boonesborough region, crossed the Ohio River in May 1779 and attacked the Shawnee town of Chillicothe. They burned part of the town, took some horses, and fatally wounded Blackfish. It is probable that Estill was present and took part in the raid, as his name appeared on its roster several days after the company returned to Boonesborough. In 1780 townspeople petitioned George Rogers Clark, the Virginia militia officer then leading raids against British-controlled outposts, to lead an army against the Shawnee towns. Although Estill is reported to have participated in Clark's strike against Chillicothe and Pickaway that August, he is not mentioned in the surviving campaign records. Estill was active, however, from early in September to late in October as a lieutenant in the county militia.
In 1780 Estill and another man clashed with Indians while patrolling the outskirts of Estill's Station. The following January he became one of the captains for the new Lincoln County militia. That same year, in another skirmish while assisting new European settlers in the region, a rifle shot broke one of his arms. In January 1782, while Estill was still suffering the effects of that wound, the county divided his company, giving command of part of it to another officer. In March, while Estill and his men were away from the settlement, about two dozen Wyandot warriors killed a young girl and captured Monk, a man enslaved by Estill, who exaggerated the settlement's strength, causing the Wyandot to withdraw.
After learning of the attack, Estill led his company in pursuit. On 22 March 1782 they engaged the raiding party in a fight in which the opposing forces were about evenly matched. During the encounter Monk escaped and according to several accounts took charge of the militia's horses. The militiamen, weakened by the flight of several of their number, gave way, and James Estill was among the seven or more men killed. The rest withdrew, leaving their fallen comrades on the battlefield. There was no clear victor, but the militia's retreat combined with the death of its captain was tantamount to a loss. The fight near the site of the later town of Mount Sterling, Kentucky, was also known as the Battle of Little Mountain and as Estill's Defeat.
Estill's estate consisted of Monk and two other male slaves, his 1,000-acre Locust Thicket plantation, and another parcel that he owned in partnership with his brother. Estill County, Kentucky, was named in his honor in 1808. A monument to him is in the Richmond Cemetery in Richmond, Kentucky. A historic marker dedicated to Fort Estill sits near Richmond and another devoted to Estill's Defeat is situated in Mount Sterling, Kentucky.
Sources Consulted:
S. Bassett French MS Biographical Sketches, Accession 21332, Personal Papers Collection, Library of Virginia; numerous references in Lyman Coleman Draper Manuscript Selection, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin, including birth date (13C51 and 13C53), parents' names (13C38), depositions establishing location and date of Estill's Defeat (13C39–48), and circa 1840s map of battleground (3C44–45); family genealogy in John H. Estill, A Family History (1903); family history with marriage year in Alma Lackey Wilson, "Estill Family," Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society 43 (1945): 121–151; accounts of Battle of Little Mountain in Lewis Collins and Richard H. Collins, History of Kentucky, rev. ed. (1874), 2:634–636; Z. F. Smith, History of Kentucky (1886), 189–194; W. H. Perrin, J. H. Battle, and G. C. Kniffin, Kentucky: A History of the State (1887), 180–181, 659; Richard Blackmon, Dark and Bloody Ground: The American Revolution along the Southern Frontier (2012), 222–225; will and estate inventory in Lincoln County, Kentucky, Will Book A & B: 38A, 39–40, Lincoln County Clerk's Office, Stanford, Kentucky.
Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Donald W. Gunter.
How to cite this page:
Donald W. Gunter, "James Estill (1750–1782)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2022 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Estill_James, accessed [today's date]).
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