Not feeling safe, the Whitley and Benjamin Logan families moved to the protection of Fort Harrod, near present-day Harrodsburg, Kentucky. In this period, Whitley saw the body of William Ray, who had been scalped by Indians. Many years later, when dictating his memoir to his son-in-law, Phillip Soublett, Whitley said that Ray's body was the first he had seen scalped. He was horrified and considered the Indians brutal for what he considered mutilation. During the Revolutionary War in 1779, Whitley discovered the mutilated bodies of the Starnese family near Blue Lick (south of Boonesborough, Kentucky) and documented the find. There was continued warfare with Cherokee in the region during the revolution.