JOSIAH SILAS MARCUM

Enlisting from Bedford County, he served in Col. Campbell's Virginia Militia Regiment, 1780-81, as a wagon guard at Gen. Gates's retreat, and as a drummer at the Battle of Guiford Court House, North Carolina. Early settler in Tug River Valley, a gunsmith and blacksmith, he later lived in Kentucky and Ohio and was the progenitor of the area Marcum family. Josiah Marcum was a drummer at the Battle of Guiford Courthouse, March 15, 1781. This was a strategic victory for the Americans in North Carolina over the British in that, soon afterwards, the British were obliged to virtually abandon control of the Carolinas.
After the Battle of Cowpens (January 17, 1781), the American commander Nathanael Greene united both wings of his 4,400-man southern army at Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina. There Lord Cornwallis, with a force of 1,900 British veterans, caught up with the Americans, and a battle ensued. American casualties were light; British casualties were heavy. Wishing to avoid another defeat such as the one suffered by General Horatio Gates at Camden, South Carolina, the previous August, Greene withdrew his forces intact.
Declining to pursue the Americans into the backcountry, Cornwallis temporarily retired to Hillsboro, North Carolina. Acknowledging his failure to destroy patriot resistance in the South, Cornwallis abandoned the heart of the state a few weeks later and marched to the coast at Wilmington to recruit and refit his command.

In Bedford County Virginia, January 4th 1776 Josiah Markham was bound to Thomas Markham for apprenticeship.  He was a resident of Bedford County Virginia when he enlisted for service in the Revolutionary War with the Virginia Line. 

According to the History of Wayne County, a book written by Hardesty, the early settlers of Wayne County were Josiah Marcum, Jacob Marcum, William Crum, John Marcum and Moses Marcum.  The first blacksmith shop ever erected was that of Josiah Marcum.  He began business in 1811.  It was located at the base of Bull Mountain, near the river.  The West Virginia Heritage Encyclopedia says, He was an expert gunsmith and blacksmith and acquired the nickname, The Vulcan of the Big Sandy Valley. One of his guns is in the Smithsonian Institute Washington D.C.

The Marcum home place was built in the 1790s on Twelve Pole creek of Dingess Kirk, Breeden, West Virginia.