Earliest Records of Fluharty's by Rick Toothman

Noah, age 10, was indentured to Conrad Hogmire in 1759; James age 10, was indentured to Joesph Pritchard in 1761; and Massy, age 13 was indentured to Joseph Beall Jr. in 1770. Stephen was ordered to be indentured in 1767, but the record book which would have had his indenturement is missing. However, the date indicates that he lied about his age in his pension, which makes him born about 1746. He was under 21, and surely significantly under 21, in 1767, else they'd never have bothered taking him into custody and getting a master for him, as he could only be bound until his 21st birthday. Order of birth is probably Noah 1749; James 1751; Stephen c1753/54; and Massy, 25 Dec 1756 [26 Dec 1755 per records of his family, but the indenturement order is more likely to be correct].
However, again, the records do not say explicitly that these boys were brothers, and none of them mention the parents. James' indenturement calls him "orphan." I have found no trace of anyone named Fluharty in Fredrick County records prior to Noah's indenturement, and while it's possible there were several different poor families of this name who all had sons bound to the trades in this period, it's much more likely that the 4 boys come out of the same family, and that their father, at least, was dead by 1759. (Court records are nearly all lost for the period 1755-1758, so some of this remains hazy.)
Given the history, it's quite possible that the father or both parents, was killed by Indians. It's also quite possible that some or all of the children might have been prisoners amoung the Indians for a time. There are continuing, and highly improbale, legends of Indian blood in some of the descending Fluharty lines. An Ester Flaugherty was one of the prisoners released by the Delawares in 1764, though she evidently belongs to the family of the name who are mentioned in Kercheval's History of the Valley of Virginia; she's probably the Flaugharty that married Walter Denny. They may be connected to our Fluhartys, but they're not our direct line, it would appear. Kercheval has very little to say of them. A Patrick Flaugherty receipted Ester in 1764, probably at Fort Pitt, and there was a James Flaugherty not James (1751-1822) Fluharty, in Hampshire County, WV, who was probably of this family as well.