Hite is most famous for his assault on the Martinsburg county jail in April 1774 and his rivalry with Adam Stephen.
Though the scheme was clever, a British official feared it may provoke the Cherokees to join an anti-British confederation Indian diplomats were forming at the time.
Hunter was feeling pressure from his own creditors in England and demanded Berkeley County sheriff Adam Stephen to auction off enough of Hite's estate to pay the debt.
Pennsylvania Chronicle, Sep 26—Oct 3, 1772:152, advertisement: On Thursday, the 15th of October next, will be sold by Public Vendue, on the premises {pursuant to a decree of the County Court of Frederick, in the colony of Virginia, for satisfying a debt due from Jacob Hite to Richard and Peter Footman, Francis Richardson, Clement Biddle, and Daniel Wisser} A valuable tract of land, containing 3118 Acres {more or less} with the dwelling-house, stores, and buildings thereon erected, situate in Berkeley County, {formerly part of Frederick County} within 13 miles (21 km) of Winchester, on the great road leading thence from Shweringan's Ferry.
He wrote to his neighbor and friend Horatio Gates that the sale was to take place and threatened to stop it or sue any man who bought his property.
Acting in his authority as a magistrate, Gates allowed Hite to proceed against those persons who were "active in plundering him.
[6] The gang seized the slaves and horses, and also freed Marty Handley, a prisoner for debt, and a runaway servant.
[7] Hite then proceeded into the kitchen where his slaves were and told them to follow the white men in the attack with whatever weapons they had.
But the slaves never had to fight, as the attack was so delayed that Hite directed them south down the Great Wagon Road toward his illegal Cherokee property.
He published a lengthy indictment of Stephen's handling of Hite's debt case with Hunter in the Virginia Gazette on July 6, 1775.
In the piece, Hite accused Stephen of forcibly taking his property to satisfy the debt and getting an injunction from the General Court "to stop whatever monies were in his or his deputy's hands, belonging to me, for the satisfaction of Mr. Hunter's demands against me.
In his piece, Stephen insisted that Hunter had given Hite ample extension of time to pay off the debt and he was simply carrying out his duties as a sheriff.
[10] Dateline, Williamsburg, Aug 30, 1776, passing along news from Mr. William Harrison, that "Captain John Hingston, with a number of settlers, arrived at Licking creed, near the Kentucky...Mr. Harrison likewise informs, that Mr. Jacob Hite, who lately removed from Berkeley county to the neighbourhood of the Cherokee country, with his family and a large parcel of negroes, were murdered at his own house by those savages, with most of his slaves, and his wife and children carried off prisoners; his son, who was in the Cherokee country, was likewise murdered.