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JEFFERSON COUNTY, OHIO - 37 CHAPTER III. BY R. H. TANEYHILL. LOGAN, THE MINGO CHIEFTAIN-HIS PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE-LORD DUNMORE'S WAR - MASSACRES AT CAPTINA AND YELLOW CREEK - LOGAN ON THE WAR PATH-HIS FAMOUS SPEECH -- LAST ACTS IN THE LIFE OF A GREAT INDIAN. WHEN the spring of 1774 opened, we find the Briton firmly established to the Ohio. The red man, always weak and impotent before the power of the intruder and having " no rights that the white man was bound to respect," had been steadily pushed back toward the center of the continent. His villages and hunting grounds, with the home of his family, kindred and people, were now west of the Ohio river. Only wretched fragments of once powerful tribes lingered in the valleys and gorges of the mountains, while here and there up against the settlements or among the settlers a solitary warrior with his family had his cabin. There, linked to the spot of his birth by the holiest affections that move the human heart, he brooded in hopelessness over his wasted heritage and vanquished tribe. Such had been the treatment of the Indian and such was the situation of the races in the spring of 1774. That year had begun with every prospect that peace would be continued, but another act in the bloody drama of settlement had to be played. In its opening scene there appears to view one of the most remarkable men that history furnishes for the esteem and admiration of mankind— Logan the " Mingo Chief." An obscurity that cannot be penetrated covers his youth and early manhood. All that is known about them with certainty, is, that he was born at Shamokin on the Susquehanna in the east central part of Pennsylvania about the year 1730; that he was the second son of Shikellemus, a Cayuga chief; that his father was greatly attache 38 - HISTORY OF THE UPPER OHIO VALLEY. to James Logan, a Christian missionary and government agent at Shamokin, and named his second son after him. The Cayuga tribe, of which Shikellemus was a chief, was one of the Six Nations so famous in American annals. The " Six Nations" .was composed of the following tribes: Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Senecas, Cayugas and Tuscarawas. They were in a state of confederation, and in all their movements and intercourse with the rest of mankind, they acted as a unit. The Indians used the words Iroquois and Mingo to designate the Six Nations—meaning a united people. Mingo was seldom used unless persons belonging to those tribes had fixed residences on the Scioto river, it was then the name universally applied to them. It was in this way that Logan came to be called a Mingo chief. A little before the old French and Indian war, Logan built a cabin on the Kishaquoqullus creek, a branch of the Juniata river, in what is now Mifflin county, Pennsylvania, and took up his residence there. This is the cabin in which he remained an advocate for peace during that terrific struggle between the red and white men, commencing at Fort Necessity and ending at the overthrow of Pontiac. We find him then to be swift in the chase and of powerful endurance— honest, honorable, hospitable and brave, tender of the feelings of others, loving the white people as of his own race, and determined for peace at the suffering of everything but what a good man will meet with indignation and force. It was here that the principal incidents in the life of Logan took place that have been preserved to indicate his character. Soon after Logan had settled on the Juniata, Judge William Brown and some others came to the valley to explore the country. This Judge Brown was for some years a justice of the peace. He afterward represented the people several terms in the legislature and was for many years an associate judge for Mifflin county. He tells us that " one day while exploring he started a bear and separated to get a shot at him. I was going along looking for the bear when I came .suddenly upon a large spring, and being dry, was more rejoiced to find a spring than to have shot a dozen bears. I sat my gun against a bush and went down the bank and laid down to drink. Upon putting my head down, I saw reflected in the water on the opposite side the form of a tall man. I sprang to my rifle when the Indian gave a yell, whether for peace or war, I was not just then sufficient master of my faculties to determine. On seizing my rifle and facing him, he knocked up the pan of his gun, threw out the priming, and extended his open palm toward me in token of friendship. After putting down our guns, we met at the spring and shook hands. This man was Logan, the best specimen of humanity I ever met with, either white or red." The valley of the Juniata abounded with game and Logan supported himself by dressing skins and bartering or selling them to traders or settlers. As the settlements thickened up, tailors made their advent and drove a lively trade in buckskin breeches. One of those " knights JEFFERSON COUNTY, OHIO - 39 of the needle " and Logan had quite a trouble about some wheat. The wheat Logan got from the tailor for some skins was worthless. The miller would not grind it, and the tailor would not make the matter right. So Logan went to his friend, Judge Brown, who was then a justice. He told the justice that the "stuff looked like wheat but it wasn't wheat." "Then it certainly must be cheat," said the justice. "Yes," replied Logan, "that's a very good name for it." Suit was brought and Logan was victor. The Indian has no law in his civil government to enforce the performance of contracts or a remedy for their breach. Honor, and honor only, binds him to fulfill his engagements. So when an execution was formally made out and handed to Logan to give to a constable, he was perplexed. " How will this bit of paper get my money," he asked the justice. Brown explained. Logan laughed and exclaimed " Law good; law make rogues pay." To Logan everything noble in human nature was concentrated in the word gentlemen. See his nice sense of honor and his appreciation of a gentleman in the following incident: "Judge Brown and his friend, Samuel Maclay, one day visited Logan at his cabin. The greater part of the afternoon was spent by Logan and Maclay shooting at a mark at a dollar a shot. Logan was beaten four or five shots. When his guest was about to leave he went into his cabin and brought as many dear-skins as he had lost shots and offered them to Maclay. ' No, John,' said Maclay, ' we only shot for fun.' Logan drew himself up to his full height, and exclaimed as he struck his breast: ' Me gentlemen, me bet to make you shoot your best—me take your dollar if me beat.' Maclay took the skins, and they parted in the utmost good humor." Another incident in Logan's life occurred while he lived on the Juniata, which illustrates the nobleness of his nature very finely. Judge Brown was away from home and Logan happened to go over to his cabin. Mrs. Brown had a little daughter just beginning to walk, and she remarked in Logan's presence that she wished she had a pair of shoes for her. When he was about to leave he asked Mrs. Brown fo let the little girl go and spend the day with him. It was a strange request, and coming from a savage, it was apalling to the mother. But she feared to refuse. Tediously, indeed, did the hours of that day pass away, and the feelings of the mother can not be described. Many times she looked up the path to Logan's cabin to see if her little girl was coming, but no one was to be seen. Just as the sun was setting, Logan came in sight, bearing his precious charge on his shoulders. Soon the little girl trotted across the floor to its mother's arms, having on a pair of neat fitting mocasins made by Logan. Shikellemus died just after the close of Pontiac's war and Logan succeeded him as a chief of the Cayugas. The civil polity of the Indian does not require a chief to live with his tribe, but he may reside wherever it suits him. By so doing, he forfeits none of the dignities of his station, nor does it lessen him in the respect and confidence of his people. Logan never lived with his tribe and was never married. In 1769 Logan left his cabin on the Juniata and settled on the Alle- 40 - HISTORY OF THE UPPER OHIO VALLEY. gheny. He stayed here only a short time and then moved to Mingo Bottom, a few miles below the present city of Steubenville. However, hunting-camps were kept up by him at several points on the Ohio and its tributary streams. While he lived at Mingo Bottom an Indian council determined on war. Logan hearing of it, by a speech of great eloquence and wisdom led them to bury the hatchet. The chief points of his speech were that the war would be wrong and that they now had the best hunting grounds in the world, and, if they went to war, they would lose them. In 1772, he fixed his home on the Scioto, on the present site of the village of Westfall, Pickaway Co., Ohio. That spot was his home until death, and it was there that he delivered his speech to Gen. Gibson at the close of the Dunmore war. He continued his hunting camps at the points previously used by him for that purpose, the principal one at Mingo Botton. In 1772 the Rev. John Heckewelder had a long conversation with Logan at his camp on Beaver river. He told that gentleman that he intended to fix his permanent home on the Ohio, and live among the white people; that whisky was his curse and that of his people, and faulted the whites for bringing it among them. He expressed great admiration for the better class of white men, but said: " Unfortunately we have only a few of them for neighbors." Dunmore's Way.—Cornstalk, the great Shawnee chief, told the exact truth when he said: " It was forced on the Indians for the whites began it, and that the red men would have deserved the contempt of mankind if he had not tried to avenge the murders of Captina and Yellow creek." But what caused those murders to be committed? What are the facts? Let us see. Dunmore, then governor of Virginia, was a warm royalist, and was fully apprised of the state of the border. He knew, moreover, that the impending struggle between the colonies and the mother country was rapidly approaching a crisis. And it is charged that he projected a plot to embitter the Indians against the whites as much as possible, and thereby to do service for his king. And all the facts seem to justify the charge. But whether he be guilty or not, it is certain that in January, 1774, he appointed one Dr. John Connelly, commandant general of Wagusta, which that part of Virginia west of the mountains and north of the Kanawha, was then called. That shortly after the doctor had assumed the duties of his office he, by agents, circulated throughout Wagusta, hideous stories of murders, massacres, burnings and robberies committed by the Indians along the Ohio border. That Capt. Michael Cresap and Gen. George Rogers Clarke, who were at the mouth of the Kanawha ready to start with a colony to Kentucky, heard these stories and believing them, abandoned their expedition and moved up the river to Wheeling for safety. That the doctor, having stirred the whites of Wagusta up to the greatest excitement, invited some Indian chiefs to visit him at Pittsburgh. That they came and he entertained them with generous hospitality, but while so doing he sends a letter to Capt. Cresap at Wheeling, telling him that the Indians JEFFERSON COUNTY, OHIO - 41 meant war, that they were not to be trusted, that he would know about matters in a few days, and that he wanted Cresap in the interval to be on the alert and watch and guard that part of the country. That the doctor loads the chiefs with presents, fills two canoes with stores, ammunition and guns, and the chiefs depart down the Ohio to their homes. Early in the morning the next day after Cresap had received Connelly's letter, the canoes were seen approaching Wheeling island. Unfortunately they take the west channel. The Cresap party make instant pursuit. A life and death chase takes place. The Indians are overtaken at the mouth of Captina, murdered, and their scalps brought back to Wheeling in triumph. The next morning the Cresap party start for Yellow creek. But after going a few miles stop to take refreshments. Here Cresap tells his men that it would be nothing but murder to kill the Indians at Yellow creek as they were surely peaceable, as they had their women and children with them. Following Cresap's advice the party returned to Wheeling.. The next morning Cresap and Gen. George Rogers Clarke, with some others of the party, started for Brownsville. On that very day Logan's kin were murdered at Yellow creek, so that Cresap was fully thirty miles away at the very moment that slaughter was going on. Logan's kindred were murdered on the 24th day of May, 1774, and the second day after the affair at Captina. Mingo Bottom is about thirty miles above Wheeling and on the Ohio side. At this spot Logan and his people were camped. On the opposite side of the river Joshua Baker kept a tavern, a regular backwoods grog shop. The notorious Daniel Greathouse lived in the vicinity of this tavern. He was a blood-thirsty, heartless man, and had been one of Connelly's prime agents in arousing the passions of the whites. For several days he had been collecting men to attack Logan's camp. Having heard of the massacre at Captina, he secreted his men about the tavern, while he himself crossed the river to ascertain the strength of the camp. A squaw, said to be Logan's sister, told him to go away as the men were mad about Captina, and would kill him if they saw him. Being so warned and finding the number of warriors too great for assault he returns. It was the habit of the Indians to come over every day for their whisky, so Greathouse arranges with Baker that he should furnish them with all the liquor they could drink and he would foot the bill, and when the men were well drunken to give him the signal. Greathouse then secretes himself with his comrades. In a short time a number of warriors come over bringing women and children with them. Soon the men are reeling and tumbling about in drunkenness, Baker gives the signal and the work of death begins. Rifles crack, tomahawks crash into the brains of drunken red men, scalping knives drip with the blood of women and children and indiscriminate slaughter dashes out the lives of all the Indians but a little girl. A brother of Logan fell and his sister, whose motherly condition adds horror to the deed, is ripped open and her body stuck up on a pole. The red men at the camp made efforts several times to come to the 42 - HISTORY ON THE UPPER OHIO VALLEY. aid of their friends but are driven back by a deadly fire from the whites, and they leave their dead with their murderers. Logan was on the other side of the river and saw the slaughter of his people, he heard their screams and cries for help but he was powerless. But the spirit of revenge filled his soul. The camp at Mingo Bottom broke up, and the Indians departed for their villages on the Muskingum.  Nothing is again known of Logan until the prejudices and habits of a lifetime are dissipated and he changed from a man of love and peace to one of vengeance and war -- vengeance and war against the whole white race. Putting himself on the war-path he strikes his first blow no one knows where. On the 12th of July he strikes his second at the house of one Robinson, with Robinson and other prisoners and thirteen scalps, Logan and his band hurry back to the Muskingum. Logan saves the life of Robinson by having him adopted into one of the Indian families. He then makes Robinson his secretary. On the 21st of July, Robinson writes the following note at the dictation of Logan: "Captain Cresap: What did you kill my people on Yellow creek for? The white people killed my kin at Conestoga a great while ago, and I thought nothing of that, but you killed my kin again on Yellow creek and took my cousin prisoner. Then I thought I must kill too; and I have been three times to war since; but the Indians are not mad, only myself. " Captain JOHN LOGAN." Logan and his band once more set out from their village, and massacre a family by the name of Roberts, on the Holston, sparing none. Here the above note was left tied to a war-club. It was found by the whites a few days afterward, and this memorable writing went into history. From this note we learn that he charged Capt. Cresap the son, and not Col. Cresap the father, with the murder at Yellow creek. The speech charges the Colonel, but that is only a printer's mistake. From this note we also got these facts, that he knew nothing of the excitement that was stirring the red nations of the west to war, and that he had no part in raising the storm that burst on the settlements soon after. Logan was carrying on a war of his own — with his own hands and those of his faithful band, he was glutting with the blood of the white race, that revenge, which atrocities to his kin had roused in his heart. With this stroke of vengeance his revenge is glutted, and while the Indian warriors are gathering about the Ohio to meet the army of the white men approaching it, he is wandering the woods, absorbed in a struggle with his feelings. A few days before the battle of Point Pleasant, a Mr. Poole, who lived near Wheeling, encountered Logan in the woods seated on a log near his cabin. Logan asked him: " Brother, do you know me, me John Logan." Poole replied " that he did not." Logan then asked, " You our brother." " Yes, said Poole. Logan arose and catching Poole in his arms hugged him warmly. Poole asked him 'why he was so sad. He said, " Your white brothers killed my kin at Yellow creek and me sorry," then burst into tears. Poole took him to his cabin and JEFFERSON COUNTY, OHIO - 43 gave him something to eat. As Logan was about to leave he gave Poole a pipe and a flint, and then started for Captina. This incident is of priceless value to the good name of Logan, he was about to face the greatest trial of his life, the warriors of his people who had risen to avenge his wrongs, were about to meet the whites in battle. How should Logan act? He was at peace himself with the white man, for his revenge was satisfied, but to fail to act with his people would have been dishonorable and mean. He strikes the line of honor and pursues it. He embraces Poole with the affection of a brother, and then gives him the symbol of his love and then throws the hazard of his life with his people. At the battle of Point Pleasant he was in joint command with Cornstalk. And that deadliest, fiercest and hardest contested field ever struggled for between the white and red man, fully vindicates his genius as a captain. The Indians were defeated and fled in confusion to their towns on the Scioto, followed closely by the army of Dunmore. The Indians sue for peace, and the treaty at Camp Charlotte soon followed. Logan did not attend the council of his people and refused to have anything to do with the treaty. Why Logan pursued the course he did is obvious from what has been said. He had done nothing toward waging the war. He had not aided to arouse the tribes to arms, or assisted to combine them for battle, and he had taken a part at Point Pleasant only to save himself from dishonor. The deeds he had done were personal acts, and for them he took the responsibility entirely on himself. What he had done he had done, and the whites might make the most of them. Dunmore, however, not knowing the character of this wonderful man, or the motives that moved him, or pretending, for a purpose, to doubt the stability of a treaty with which so great a chief would have nothing to do, to give a show of sincerity to his own desires, sends three of his officers to find out if possible the feelings of Logan. They find him at his cabin, but he refuses to converse with them. He surveys them for a few minutes and then asks Gen. Gibson, who was one of the three, to walk to the woods with him. They seat themselves on a log and there, after rehearsing his wrongs and what he had done to avenge them — sometimes crying as if his heart would break -- Logan delivers to Gen. Gibson, the manuscript of the speech that has given immortality to his name. Over a hundred years have passed since this speech was translated into every leading language in Christendom, and now it is everywhere regarded as a gem of oratory. But the speech as so translated and as so highly esteemed for its oratory, is not after all the speech of Logan — It is simply Mr. Jefferson's version of it. That great man in his effort to add to its beauty, has broken its fair proportions, and in trying to purify its diction, has lessened its sublimity and force. And if we had only his version of the speech, criticism and candor would force us to say, too much polish for an Indian orator. Mr. Jefferson should have kept in mind what he well knew, that oratory is a native product, and cannot be tampered with. True oratory comes only 44 - HISTORY OF THE UPPER OHIO VALLEY. from one whose feelings are stirred to their profoundest depths by the subject he is discussing, and when it does come it is like lava bursting from the crater, hot and glowing with the fires that are burning at its source. Fortunately, however, the first printed copy ever made of the speech has been preserved, and as the original manuscript has been lost, this copy is the next best evidence of the speech. It is as follows: " I appeal to any white man to say that he ever entered Logan's cabin, but I gave him meat; that he ever came naked but I clothed him. In the course of the last war Logan remained in his cabin an advocate for peace. I had such affection for the white people, that I was pointed at by the rest of my nation. I should have even lived with them, had it not been for Col. Cresap, who last spring cut off— in cold blood all the relations of Logan, not sparing women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any human creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many and fully glutted my revenge. I am glad that there is a prospect of peace on account of the nation; but I beg you will not entertain a thought that anything I have said proceeds from fear. Logan disdains the thought. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan. No one." The following is Mr. Jefferson's version: " I appeal to any white man to say if he ever entered Logan's cabin hungry and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war Logan remained idle in his cabin an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites that my countrymen pointed as they passed and said ' Logan is the friend of white men.' I had even thought to have lived with you but for the injuries of one man. Col. Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There is not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country I rejoice at the beams of peace — but do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one." By comparing these two versions, we find that every sentence of the original has been altered in the common version, except three; that one sentence has been added which does not appear in the original; and that every change has injured the speech. Some of the sentences in. Mr. Jefferson's version are made stiff and unwieldy by a too rigid adherence to old-time grammatical nicety. Take this sentence as an instance: " I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man." Does not that smack too much of the school for Logan? The grammar kills the eloquence of the expression. It also changes the address from the third to the second person without any reason for it and thus breaks the harmony that runs through the whole of the original. Then again; the takes out the word revenge JEFFERSON COUNTY, OHIO - 45 and inserts the word vengeance in the expression " and fully glutted my revenge." He is trying to show that raw head and bloody bones," called tautology, so horrible to university men, and a pretty mess he has made of it. The word vengeance in that place does not express Logan's thought at all. Logan meant that his desire to do hurt to the whites was " fully glutted." Vengeance represents an act induced by a passion and not the passion itself. It is sometimes so used, but it is an error of language. Again: " For my country I rejoice at the beams of peace." Logan had no country, but he had a nation. The figure " beams of peace " is elegant but entirely too gossamer for an orator gushing forth his overcharged feelings. Besides, Logan at the time he delivered his speech to Gibson did not know that a treaty of peace had been signed. Peace was only in prospect so far as he knew, and that prospective peace made him glad for the sake of the nation. " Never felt fear." Logan never used those words or even expressed such a thought. It is not like him. His whole life controverts its use for it is bombastical and egotistical. Under the circumstances it were nothing more than silly bravado. It moreover mars the grandeur and sublimity of the concluding sentences in which he reveals with such pathos the hopeless wretchedness that had settled on his life. There is not a doubt that Logan could speak English well, but it is as equally certain that he did not usually do so. Nor could he read or write a single word. These facts raise quite an interesting question how did his speech get composed? The reader will remember that the note tied to a war club and addressed to Capt. Cresap, was written by Robinson at Logan's dictation. Robinson also tells us that he had to write it over three times before it suited Logan. The similarity in the construction of the sentences and the sameness of style in that note and in the speech, if we had no other evidence, are sufficient to prove that they are the product of the same mind. But fortunately for the speech we have the testimony of an eye witness to the fact. Mr. Jacob Davis, late of Bartholomew Co., Ind., tells us that he was with his father on a trading expedition at Loganstown when the speech was delivered to Gibson, and that he saw a trader there write it for Logan, and at his dictation. So the author of the speech is placed beyond doubt or cavil. Logan's life after the Dunmore war was one of sorrow and gloom. All the objects of his love had passed away by the murders that brought it on, and having no one to love or to share his troubles with him, life became a burden. He sought to lessen that burden by intoxicating drinks, and much of his subsequent life was spent under their influence. In the year 1775 the celebrated Simon Kenton built his last cabin for him. Logan in return, in 1778, when Kenton was a prisoner in the hands of the Shawnees, and had been condemned to be burnt at a stake, saved the life of that great borderer by the interposition of his powerful influence in his behalf. During the Revolutionary war there was a reign of terror through- 46 - HISTORY OF THE UPPER OHIO VALLEY. out the pioneer border. Logan took no part in any of its bloody scenes, but remained at home and whenever opportunity offered he never failed to save the lives of the prisoners that were being constantly brought in. Logan was tall of stature and of great muscular development. His appearance at once attracted attention and commanded respect. He talked but little, but when he did it was right to the point and carried conviction by its force and candor. His religious opinions were the same as those universally entertained by the red man. But we might be sure that so profound a thinker as he was, would produce some new thought concerning spiritual being, and he did. He believed that he had two souls, the one good and the other bad; that when his good soul was in the ascendant he could do nothing but good; but when his bad soul had the control he wished to do nothing but kill. These ideas of a dualism of souls in each individual, and referring all acts according to their quality to the one or the other of these souls, are both new and strange., In 1779 Logan visited Detroit, and while there indulged in some terrible fits of intoxication, and in them did many things he would not have done had he been sober. As he was returning homeward, and only a little way from Detroit, he was murdered by an Indian, whom he had insulted at that place. Logan was seated at a camp fire with his blanket thrown over his head and his elbows resting on his knees. The Indian approached him stealthily and buried his tomahawk in his brains. And so perished John Logan the Mingo Chief.