The Kelley/McClain/Herbert Family at RootsWeb says:
"SHE WAS FULL BLOOD OF THE WOLF CLAN, HER GREAT GRANDFATHER MOYTOY OFT ELLICO, SUPREME CHIEF OF THE CHEROKEE NATION."
And from FindaGrave:
"Nancy Ward (mother of Elizabeth Ward, Josephs' 3rd wife)was born inth e Cherokee town of Chota and was a member of the Wolf Clan. Hermother, w hose actual name is not known, is often called Tame Doe andwas a siste r of Attakullakulla. Her father was probably partDelaware, also known a s the Lenape. Her first husband was theCherokee man Kingfisher. Nanye hi and Kingfisher fought side by sideat the Battle of Taliwa against t he Creeks in 1755. When he waskilled, she took up his rifle and led t he Cherokee to victory. Thiswas the action which, at the age of 18, ga ve her the title of Ghigau.
Nancy Ward and her husband Kingfisher had two children, Catherine andF ivekiller. Nancy then married Bryant Ward, a South Carolina colonistan d Indian trader, and their child was Elizabeth Ward, the Cherokeewife o f General Joseph Martin.
In the Revolutionary War, Ward warned the whites of an impendingattack b y Dragging Canoe, an act that has made her a Patriot for theDaughters o f the American Revolution and the Society of the Sons ofthe American R evolution.
Nancy had the power to spare captives. In 1776, following a Cherokeeat tack on the Fort Watauga settlement on the Watauga River (atpresent da y Elizabethton, Tennessee), she used that power to spare aMrs. William ( Lydia Russell) Bean, whom she took into her house andnursed back to he alth from injuries suffered in the battle.
Mrs. Bean taught Nanyehi her new loom weave technique, revolutionizingt he Cherokee garments, which at the time were a combination of hides,ha ndwoven vegetable fiber cloth, bought from traders. But thisweaving re volution also changed the roles of women in the Cherokeesociety, as th ey took on the weaving and left men to do the planting,which had tradi tionally been a womans' job.
Mrs. Bean also rescued two of her dairy cows from the settlement, andb rought them to Nanyehi. Nanyhi learned to raise the cattle and toeat d airy products, which would sustain the Cherokee when hunting wasbad.
The combination of loom weaving and dairy farming helped transformCher okee society from a communal agricultural society into a societyvery s imilar to that of their European-American neighbors, withfamily plots a nd the need for ever-more labor. Thus some Cherokeeadopted the practic e of chattel slavery. Nanyehi was among the firstCherokee to own Afric an-American slaves."
