Todd Pack

Jenny Wiley is a sort of legendary figure in Kentucky. In the 1780s, she lived on what was then the frontier of Virginia, near the present-day town of Bland. One afternoon, while her husband was away, a group of Native Americans attacked her home, killed her children and took her prisoner. They carried her hundreds of miles across rough terrain to a camp in present-day Eastern Kentucky. Several months later, she escaped. I think everyone in that corner of the state knows the story, or a story, about Jenny Wiley. If nothing else, people know her as the namesake of a Kentucky state. Several years ago, I found out that I’m distantly related to her. I wanted to know more about her, but there are so many versions of the story that it was hard separating fact from fiction. I thought, if I’m struggling with this, I’ll bet other people are, too, so I thought I’d pull my research together into a book. The book is basically a guide to the stories of Jenny Wiley. A lot of the material I found when researching her life was undocumented, which was really frustrating, so I documented everything. I tell readers exactly where to find the information. I also tried to put Jenny’s story into context. The attack on her family didn’t happen in a vacuum. So, I talk about the conflict at the time between the former Europeans and the Native Americans. A lot of the stories I read lauded the “Indian fighters” for fending off the vicious “savages,” but I think the book shows there were atrocities committed by both sites, and I think that helps explain what happened to Jenny’s family.

My desk is messy. When I'm working on a project, the notes and reference material just pile up. Now that The Stories of Jenny Wiley is finished, I'm tidying up some, but my desk's natural state is messy.