The Comer Family Story

Records indicate the Comer family came to the United States in 1737 on the Snow Ship Molly. This is an artist's rendering of the Snow Ship Molly

The Comers were Swiss-German. The Snow Ship Molly sailed out of Amsterdam and arrived in the US at Philadelphia.

The following is a copy of the actual signatures of the passenger list:

Like many German-Americans, the Comer's lived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where many of the German Amish still live today. After a short time the Comers immigrated to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. After several generations, a Martin Comer moved to Scott County Indiana. Martin Comer was my Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather. 

His son Isaac Comer married my Great Great Great Great Grandmother Martha Richey. The Richeys were known in that area for being both victims and survivors of a famous Indian Massacre called the Pigeon Roost Massacre. Historical sources indicate the following account of the massacre and how my particular ancestor escaped.

Ten or twelve warriors, nearly all of whom were Shawnees, attacked the Pigeon Roost settlement about sunset, and in the space of about one hour, they killed one man, five women and sixteen children.

My ancestors Dr. John Richey and Sichey Collings were the first couple married in Scott Co. in 1810. They lived in the area of the settlement to the southwest. Dr. John was working in the field when he heard shots and saw smoke rising from the homes of the settlement. Realizing what was happening; he took Sichey upon his back and fled through the cornfield. They hid in the woods until dark and then laboriously made their way to Zebulon's blockhouse the following morning. Sichey delivered their first child shortly after the massacre.

The Indians managed to steal and carry away captive a little girl, Ginsey McCoy, three years of age. She was a relative of Mrs. Jeremiah Payne, and at the time, was making her home with Mrs. Payne. Some fifteen years later she was reported seen with the Indians along the Kankakee River. These Indians migrated to Kansas where Rev. Isaac McCoy, uncle of Ginsey, was doing missionary work there among the Indians; here he found the lost child. Through the years she had remembered her name, but she now was the wife of an Indian chief with a family. Rev. McCoy persuaded her to return on a visit to Indiana... Not being contented away from her (Indian) family, she returned to her tribe and children and spent the remainder of her life with them.

After the time of the Pigeon Roost Massacre, many of the settlers on the northern and western frontiers of Clark, Jefferson, Harrison, and Knox counties lived in a state of alarm until the close of the war in 1815. Mr. Zebulon Collings, who had the blockhouse within five or six miles of the Pigeon Roost settlement says: 'The manner in which I used to work in those perilous times was as follows: On all occasions I carried my rifle, tomahawk, and butcher knife, with a loaded pistol in my belt. When I went to plow, I laid my gun on the plowed ground and stuck up a stick by it for a mark so I could get to it quickly in case it was wanted. I had two good dogs. I took one into the house, leaving the other out. The one outside was expected to give the alarm, which would cause the one inside to bark. I would then be awakened, and my guns were always loaded. I kept my horses in a stable close to the house, which had a porthole so that I could shoot to the stable door. During the two years, I never went from home with any certainty of returning - not knowing the minute I might receive a ball from an unknown hand; but in the midst of all these dangers, God, who never sleeps nor slumbers, has kept me." 

In 1904 the State of Indiana erected a monument as a lasting memorial to the massacred pioneers.