Brewer and Indicut Affair--George Belcher
as told to:
Thomas K. Colley
May 16, 1925
Sandlick, Virginia
As I told you some years ago,
I saw the inscription on a beech tree right at the mouth of Lick Creek above Sandlick. It had the letters and figures carved in a bark and when i first saw it, I could make out "D.B., 176-", or words to that effect.
It has been destroyed a few years. The older folks around here always said it was made by Daniel Boone, the old Indian fighter.
I have heard a lot of talk about the Brewer-Indicut trouble.
The old people talked alot about it.
It seems that Brewer and Indicut's wife had an affair, and she told Brewer if he did not kill her husband while on a hunting trip to preist Fork or Abner's Branch, she would have nothing further to do with him. He did kill Indicut near Abner's Gap and was later hung for it at Lebanon.
George Belcher and his son lived on Grassy at the time of the killing, and they helped capture and convict Brewer. The old man George Belcher was a great tracker-for game or man. He was sent for to aid in the investigation and on the way to Abner's Gap, he passed Grandpa Dick Colley's home. Dick went with the Belchers to hunt for the murderer.
They tracked by the shuffled and broken twigs where the hunters had travelled. When they got near the top of the ridge, Brewer shouted: "There he is!" Nobody else could see Indicut's body from that point.
They made some scales and weighed the bullet found in Indicut's body against the bullets in Brewer's shot-pouch and they weighed the same. They thereupon arrrested Brewer and he was tried at Lebanon and convicted of murder. He was said to have finally confessed to the crime and implicated Indicut's wife. Later he was hanged at Lebanon, but she was acquitted, since there was no one left to testify against her.
I believe Grandpa Dick was living in Washington, maybe Russell County, Va when he decided to move to Sand Lick. He came out here and spent a year in a 3-walled hunter's shack. When he moved his family here, he had two children- Uncle Jim and Aunt Mary (Pop).
Grandpa liked to hunt very much, and spent most of his time in the woods. Grandma Crissa and the children did most of the farm work, in addition to the housework.
Source:
" Pioneer Recollections of Southwest Virginia," by Elihu Jasper Sutherland. Page 68. (1984)
The story here told to Thomas Colley by his grandfather is thought to be talking about our George Belcher he was known for his hunting and tracking.
by:Greg Belcher