The brothers, Ebenezer, Silas and Jonathan, who settled Wheeling, [95] were also men of enterprise, tempered with prudence, and directed by sound judgment. Ready at all times, to resist and punish the aggression of the Indians, they were scrupulously careful not to provoke them by acts of wanton outrage, such as were then, too frequently committed along the frontier. Col. Ebenezer Zane had been among the first, to explore the country from the South Branch, through the Alleghany glades, and west of them. He was accompanied in that excursion by Isaac Williams, two gentlemen of the name of Robinson and some others; but setting off rather late in the season, and the weather being very severe, they were compelled to return, without having penetrated to the Ohio river. On their way home, such was the extremity of cold, that one of the Robinsons died of its effects. Williams was much frost bitten, and the whole party suffered exceedingly. To the bravery and good conduct of those three brothers, the Wheeling settlement was mainly indebted for its security and preservation, during the war of the revolution. [8] Joseph Tomlinson surveyed a claim at the mouth of Grave Creek, about 1770, but did not settle there until 1772. His cabin was the nucleus of the present Moundsville, W. Va.--R. G. T. [9] John Doddridge settled in Washington county, Pa., on the Ohio River a few miles east of the Pennsylvania-Virginia state line, in 1773; his son, Joseph Doddridge, was the author of _Notes on the Settlements and Indian Wars of the Western Parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania_, 1763-83, a valuable antiquarian work. The names of Greathouse and Baker became execrable through their connection with the massacre of Chief Logan's family, in 1774. Leffler and Biggs attained prominence in border warfare.--R. G. T. [10] "At an early period of our settlements, there was an inferior kind of land title, denominated a tomahawk right. This was made by [97] deadening a few trees near a spring, and marking on one or more of them, the initials of the name of the person, by whom the improvement was made. Rights, acquired in this way, were frequently bought and sold."--_Doddridge's Notes on Western Virginia._