More Indian Stories: How Skaggs Hole Got its Name

In present-day Dickenson County, Virginia there is a deep spot in the Russell Fork called Skaggs Hole.  The CSX railroad has a bridge over the Russell Fork and a tunnel through the mountain at Skaggs Hole.

A correspondent forwarded a story about Skaggs Hole told by a James Sifers in 1940 in "Pioneer Recollections of Southwest Virginia" by Elihu Jasper Sutherland and Hetty Swindall Sutherland.  I think this James Sifers was the James Colley Sifers born in 1861 and died in Dickenson County in 1948.  Here's what he had to say about Skaggs Hole:

"I've heard Grandpa Jim Colley and the old man Ame Willis talk about how Skaggs Hole got its name. It seems that a man by the name of Skaggs lived at Abingdon - they called it "Wolf Hills" then - in Indian times. The Indians attacked that settlement and captured one of Skaggs daughters. They carried her over Sandy Ridge and down by Skaggs Hole and up Skaggs Branch to the top of Cumberland Mountain, and camped that night under a cliff just down on the Kentucky side below Bluehead Knob. The old man Skaggs and some of his neighbors followed Indians to Skaggs Branch where they stopped, and the old man Skaggs said he wasn't going any further, as the Indians had too much lead of them, and they could not overtake the savages. But a young man in the company - I don't remember his name - said he was going on to rescue the girl. After the other whites had left early the next morning, this young man went to the top of the mountains and saw smoke rising a little distance down that mountain-side. He scouted around above them, and saw that they had the girl with them.All of them were asleep, being tired out from their long walk from Abingdon. When he located the girl, he slipped in among the sleeping Indians and aroused her, and they slipped out of camp, coming over the mountain to Skaggs Hole. Here they heard the Indians coming after them, and they quickly climbed up the cliff on the river bank, and hid in a little cave. The Indians traced them to the foot of the cliff, but lost their trail there. Some of them went up the river and some down the river, but none of them thought about looking up in the cave. The man and girl heard the savages hunting all about them nearly all day, but they never did find them. They spent the night there in the cave and early next morning started for home. It is said the girl had a baby about nine months later, but the old man Skaggs did not scold his daughter. I've heard it said that this Skaggs went later to what is West Virginia, where he owned much land. There were some law-suits over it, and some of Old Georgie Reed's children got a lot of money out of this heirship land. Georgie Reed used to live in the South of the Mountain."

 The "Old Georgie Reed" referred to by James Sifers was the George Reed who married Nancy Scaggs, the daughter of Joseph Scaggs and Martha Seagraves. Who was "Old Man Skaggs?"