Born about 1766, probably in Hardy County (although possibly in Berkeley County) in the part of Virginia that is now West Virginia, Elizabeth Zane later lived in the town of Wheeling, which was founded in 1769 by her older brothers Ebenezer, Jonathan, and Silas. In September 1782, according to legend, she had just returned from Philadelphia, where she had been attending school, when the settlement was attacked by Indians. All the inhabitants crowded into Fort Henry but did not have time to secure a supply of powder from the magazine in Colonel Ebenezer Zane╒s fortified house some 40 or 50 yards from the fort.
When the powder in the fort ran dangerously low, Betty Zane volunteered to fetch more from her brother╒s house. To objections that a man could run faster, she is supposed to have replied ╥You have not one man to spare; a woman will not be missed in the defense of the fort╙ and ╥ ╒Tis better a maid than a man should die.╙ The gates were unbarred and she dashed for the house. The attackers, amazed and perhaps amused, shouted ╥Squaw, squaw,╙ and did not fire. When she reappeared from the house with a supply of powder, however, they realized what she was about and opened fire. Although her clothes were pierced, no bullet struck her, and she regained the fort safely. The powder she brought enabled the fort to hold out until relief arrived. The tale is not well attested and is the subject of conflicting testimony, but it is nonetheless fixed in legend.
It was first published in Chronicles of Border Warfare, 1831, by Alexander S. Withers and was later the central incident in the novel Betty Zane, 1903, by Zane Grey, a descendant of the subject╒s. Little is known of Betty Zane╒s later life. She married and moved to Martins Ferry, Ohio, where she died about 1831.
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