The Captives of Abb's Valley Revised and Annotated

Originally published in 1854 by a Presbyterian minister from West Virginia, the Captives of Abb's Valley relates the harrowing and tragic tale of James Moore Brown's mother--the murders of her parents and siblings, and her kidnapping, exile, and eventual rescue.The purpose of this edition is 1) to re-introduce to the modern reader, as an historical artifact, one of the few books written by a nineteenth-century Presbyterian minister from West Virginia, and 2) to "resurrect" the history, context, and culture of the early Presbyterian pioneers by means of an easy-to-read, entertaining (though tragic) story, thus making the history of Presbyterianism come alive in the mind of the modern reader.This edition of the Captive of Abb's Valley was revised and edited as a companion and supplement to the book Presbyterianism in West Virginia: A History (New Martinsville WV: ReformingWV Publications, 2019) by the Rev. Dr. Dennis Eldon Bills, a Presbyterian minister and eighth-generation West Virginian.