Biography in Context: Betty Zane Heroine of Fort HenryElizabeth "Betty" Zane was the youngest sister of the Zane brothers, members of Wheeling's founding family. She was about 16 years old when she arrived in Wheeling in 1782, right in the middle of the Indian Wars of the Upper Ohio Valley which took place from 1774 to 1794.
Zane gained fame as a local heroine for her now famous run for gunpowder during the second siege of Fort Henry during the 1782 battle. She ran about 60 yards to her brother Ebenezer's blockhouse and carried back enough powder to enable the fort defenders to hold off the enemy. That act made her a legend in her own time, and the publication of the book Betty Zane by Zane Grey in 1903 gained her national attention.
