Home > Family History > Mary Mills

• Name: Mary Mills
• Born: 1754 in Orange County, Virginia
• Father: William Mills, Jr.
• Mother:
• Married: 1773 in Orange County, Virginia
• Spouse: James Stepp, Jr.
• Children:
• John Stepp III
• Mourning Stepp
• Died: 1835 in (now Henderson County), Buncombe County, North Carolina
• Buried: Red Hill Stepp Cemetery, Dana, Henderson County, North Carolina

Sources:

• "Friday, [September] 29th [1780]. We then, at that early hour, moved on three miles to one James Step's plantation, and halted. This man has been very unfortunate in his family; his wife, who is a very decent woman, was caught by the Indians about a twelvemonth past. They scalped and tomahawked her several times in the head, treated the infant she had in her arms in a most inhuman and savage manner. They mashed its head in such a manner that its recovery is truly astonishing; but what this poor, unhappy woman seems most to regret is the loss of her oldest son, whom the savages took, and she now remains in a state of uncertainty, not having heard fgrom him since.

  Saturday, 30th. Lay at James Step's with an expectation of intercepting Col. Clarke on his return to the mountains; but he was prudent enough to take another route."

  — p. 509 "Appendix: Diary of Lieut. Anthony Allaire, of Ferguson's Corps., Memorandum of ocurrences during the campaign of 1780" in "King's Mountain and its heroes: history of the Battle of King's Mountain, October 7th, 1780, and the events which led to it" by Lyman Copeland Draper, P.G. Thomson, 1881. https://archive.org/details/DiaryOfLieut.AnthonyAllaireOfFergusonsCorps.MemorandumOfOccurrences/page/n25/mode/2up
• "The story of Mary Stepp has been handed down for almost two hundred years, Mary Mills Stepp and her children were in their cabin on Green River. Indians surrounded the cabin, broke in and seized the infant child and dashed its head against the chimney. Mary shot one of the Indians, but could not prevent them from taking her oldest son with them." pp. 251–252, The Heritage of Henderson County North Carolina, Volume I, 1985, Ed. G. A. Jones, Hunter Publishing Company, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/83061990/mary-stepp
• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Mills-1712
• https://www.blueridgenow.com/story/news/2008/05/12/separating-fact-from-fiction-in-the-stepp-legend/28061535007/