Draper's Meadow massacre was a Colonial and Pre-Columbian engagement fought in Virginia, 1755.
In the summer of 1755, a violent raid struck the frontier community of Draper's Meadow, located in what would eventually become Blacksburg in southwest Virginia. A band of Shawnee fighters descended on the settlement, leaving at least four dead, an infant among them, and dragging away five others as prisoners. Those taken were marched to Lower Shawneetown, a Shawnee settlement across the border in Kentucky. Among the captives was Mary Draper Ingles, who would eventually break free and make her way back home, traveling on foot through untamed wilderness for the entire journey. Much about the raid remains murky to this day, even the exact date it occurred, yet it endures as one of the more compelling tales woven into Virginia's early history.
Governor Robert Dinwiddie granted a 7,500 acre (30 km2) parcel to Colonel James Patton on 20 June 1753, land that would come to be called Draper's Meadow. Patton, once an Irish sea captain before turning to land speculation, held a tract with clear natural boundaries: Tom's Creek marked its northern edge, Stroubles Creek ran along the south, and the Mississippi watershed, corresponding to what is now U.S. Route 460, defined the eastern limit. To the west the property extended toward the New River.
By early 1754, Patton had divided the land into 17 subdivisions and sold them to 18 settlers. Among these were John Draper and William Ingles, though the Draper family's presence there actually predated the sale, with a homestead already established as far back as 1746. Ingles, for his part, began working the land after his marriage to Mary Draper Ingles in 1750.
Today the site of this settlement lies within the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. When the attack occurred, roughly twenty people lived in the community, drawn largely from Pennsylvania and tracing their heritage to Irish and Germanic roots. Their ranks included both those who owned their land outright and others who farmed as tenants.
Visitors to the Virginia Tech campus can find a marker near the Duck Pond that commemorates the massacre.
This page covers Draper's Meadow massacre. A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
The account on this page is written by Aubrey Research from cited sources. Wikipedia is cited as a reference; its text is not reproduced. Wikipedia source.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the US, drawing on NRHP records, battlefield archives, census history and geological data to tell the full story of a place.