Lewis Wetzel (1763 (reference: C. B. Allman 1931) – 1808) was an American scout, frontiersman, and indian fighter in the United States. Raised in what is now the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia, his exploits once hailed as similar to those of Daniel Boone. Early and family life Possibly born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1752, or on the South Branch of the Potomac River where his parents had moved before 1770, Lewis was the son of Mary Bonnet (1735-1805; daughter of Jean Jacques Bonnet, Flemish Huguenot) and John Wetzel (1733–1786; indentured servant emigrant from Germany's Palatine region or Friedrichstal, Baden, Germany). The Wetzel and Bonnet families moved to the Wheeling Creek area in what is now the northern panhandle of West Virginia by 1770, as had the Zane, McColloch, Eberly, Rosencranz and other pioneer families. Such settlement had been illegal according to a treaty made by the British ending the French and Indian War, but the disputed Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768) (made with the Iroquois, traditional enemies of the Shawnee and other tribes of the areas being ceded) led many pioneers to again try westward settlement. The Wetzel family settled in a fairly isolated location near the Ohio River about 14 miles from Fort Henry (which had been built at the confluence of Wheeling Creek to protect settlers from Indian raids). Despite the hardships of frontier living, several Wetzel children survived to adulthood: Martin (1757–1829), Jacob (1765–1827), John and George (d. 1786), as well as daughters Susannah Wetzel Goodrich (1767–1828) and Christina Wetzel Wolfe (1759–1786). As discussed below, the Wetzels suffered many raids by Native Americans. Raids became particularly severe following the murder of Chief Logan's family near Fort Henry in 1774 (which led to Lord Dunmore's War). The execution of Chief Cornstalk in 1777 at Fort Randolph (at the confluence of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers, modern Point Pleasant, West Virginia) also led to attacks at Fort Henry. The elder John Wetzel, his son George and daughter Christina all died in raids in 1786, before Lewis Wetzel reached age 25, and led to his Indian-fighting career. Lewis Wetzel's older brother, Martin (1757–1829), a friend of Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton, helped his father fight Native Americans in the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774, and defended Fort Henry in 1777 and 1782, although one of his favorite frontier weapons was a tomahawk. His younger brother Jacob Wetzel