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Aracoma, perhaps meaning ‘‘a corn blossom,’’ was the legendary daughter of Shawnee war leader Cornstalk, famous for his role in the 1774 Battle of Point Pleasant. Aracoma, according to Logan County tradition, married the European-American renegade Boling Baker, thought to have been a deserter from Gen. Edward Braddock’s army that attempted to take Fort Duquesne in July 1755, during the French and Indian War.

Baker and Aracoma moved to what is now called Midelburg Island, in the Guyandotte River at the later site of the city of Logan. They were killed by settlers led by John Breckenridge and William Madison during the Revolutionary War, perhaps in the spring of 1780 after Baker led Indians to steal horses from New River Valley settlers. The story has been made into an outdoor drama, presented annually at Chief Logan State Park. George W. L. Bickley’s 1852 History of the Settlement and Indian Wars of Tazewell County, Virginia includes an early printed version of the legend of Aracoma. It is likely that this story, later used by Henry Clay Ragland in his History of Logan County, was embellished by the poet Thomas Dunn English in the 1850s.

The city of Logan was known as Aracoma for much of its early history, and its most famous hotel in the 20th century was the Aracoma.

This Article was written by Robert Y. Spence

Last Revised on November 21, 2023

Cite This Article

Spence, Robert Y. "Aracoma." e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. 21 November 2023. Web. 27 November 2024.