Following Phebe’s return, she and Thomas decided not to remain on the farm with Edward and Sarah. Given the tragedy that had occurred there, perhaps they thought it best to find a new home where they could begin a second life together. So they found land south of Clarksburg in what is now Lewis County, West Virginia, built a new cabin and got on with their lives as best they could. Between 1789 and 1797, they would have seven more children, and during this time, they would take an increasing interest in religious life.
Thomas had the opportunity to hear Francis Asbury give a sermon in Clarksburg and decided to dedicate his life to working as a lay minister of the Methodist Church. He and Phebe organized Methodist classes at their home and provided valuable assistance to the various Methodist circuit riders who worked along the frontier.272
In 1807, they moved again, this time to a farm on the South Fork of the Hughes River, a few miles above Smithville in what is today Ritchie County, West Virginia. Phebe and Thomas again established Methodist classes in their home and organized what would become the genesis of a new Methodist unit, which served as the foundation for a new church: the Hardman Chapel, which was built in the 1860s. In 1810, their oldest son, William, would become a Methodist minister and move to Ohio. Seven years later, Thomas ended his career as a lay minister and was formally ordained as a Methodist minister in Zanesville, Ohio. Working under the leadership of the famous Methodist circuit rider Peter Cartwright, Thomas spent his last years serving the people of the Hughes River region. He died at age seventy on June 3, 1826.
Plaque placed on the monument at Phebe Tucker Cunningham’s grave by the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1978. Photo by the author.
With Thomas’s passing, Phebe’s daughter, Rachel, and her family came to live with her on the Hughes River homestead until Rachel’s husband, Isaac Collins, moved the entire family to a new farm on Leading Creek, a few hundred yards upstream from its junction with Seth Fork.273 Here, Phebe would live to the age of eighty-four, telling the story of her captivity to her grandchildren and becoming the respected and beloved matriarch of her community. After her death in 1845, she was buried in the Snider-Gainer cemetery in Freed, West Virginia, and she is still considered the most famous resident of that area.
Years later, her bravery would be formally recognized, first in 1914 with a monument erected at her grave and again in 1978 with a plaque placed there by the Daughters of the American Revolution. However, perhaps more importantly, she remains a remarkable example of courage, love and fortitude to her descendants and now, hopefully, to all who hear her story.