The following information was assembled from numerous sources and cannot be used directly as proof of Qualifying Service or Lineage.
It is considered a research aid and is intended to assist in locating sources that can be used as proof.
Author: C. Robert Wetzel, Jr.
Captain John Wetzel was born in Holland in 1733 and immigrated to America in 1747. He married Mary Bonnet in 1756. The best known of their children was Lewis Wetzel, the legendary Indian fighter. But it was their son Martin Wetzel from whom my family descended. John moved his family from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to Big Wheeling Creek along the Ohio River in 1764 and hence was one of the earliest families to settle there.
Martin Wetzel was born in Rockingham County, Virginia, in 1757 and died in 1829 at his home place on Big Wheeling Creek, Marshall County, West Virginia. He is buried in the McCreary Cemetery, near Limestone, West Virginia.
Both John and Martin fought in the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774, a battle which some would like to claim as the first battle of the Revolutionary War. (See my presentation to the District Meeting of the SAR on September 18, 2014.)
During the Revolutionary War, John received the title of captain as the leader of a company of rangers on the frontier of the Monongahela and Ohio Counties in Virginia (now West Virginia). In 1786 John and his son George were killed by Indians two miles up the Ohio River from Fish Creek, West Virginia. A historical marker on West Virginia Highway 2 identifies the place.
John and Martin helped defend Fort Henry, Wheeling, during both the attacks of September 1, 1777 and September 11, 1782. The latter attack has been called the last battle of the Revolutionary War and was the scene of Betty Zane’s famous dash for powder to save the fort.
On Martin Wetzel’s grave is a Revolutionary War Veterans emblem placed there by the Daughters of the American Revolution. He fought with the Virginia Rangers against the British and Indians in border warfare. At the age of 20 he was under the command of Major Samuel McColloch, who made the famous leap with his horse over a cliff near Wheeling to escape some Indians.
Prepared by C. Robert Wetzel, Jr. from an unpublished manuscript entitled “The Wetzel Family History” by Charles R. Wetzel, Sr.
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Additional Information:
Note Rockingham Co, founded 1778 from portion of Augusta Co