224 - HISTORY OF WYANDOT COUNTY.
CHAPTER II
INDIAN OCCUPANCY.
(FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL TO 1782.)
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS-LEGENDARY ACCOUNTS CONCERNING THE DELA-
WARE AND IROQUOIS INDIANS-THEIR WARS-THE IROQUOIS FINALLY VIC-
TORIOUS-THE SHAWANESE THE ERIES-THE HURON-IROQUOIS, OR WYAN-
DOTS--CARTIER DISCOVERS THE LATTER ON THE SHORES OF LAKE HURON
IN 1535-CHAMPLAIN'S OPERATIONS.-THE FRENCH AND HURONS DEFEAT
THE FIVE NATIONS-THE, LATTER BIDE THEIR TIME, AND FINALLY TOTAL-
LY DEFEAT AND DISPERSE THE HURONS-UNDER FRENCH PROTECTION, THE
HURONS ARE AGAIN ASSEMBLED NEAR DETROIT-THEIR CHARACTERISTICS
IN A SAVAGE STATE-THEIR WARS-THEY OCCUPY THE SANDUSKY COUN-
TRY-AS ALLIES OF THE BRITISH, THEY COMMIT MANY ATROCITIES ON THE
AMERICAN FRONTIER SETTLEMENTS-THE AMERICANS RETALIATE BY
SENDING VARIOUS EXPEDITIONS INTO THE INDIAN COUNTRY.
PROBABLY no county, in the State of Ohio is richer in historical data concerning its aboriginal inhabitants than this, and to none were left so many landmarks indicating the life, habits and characteristics of its former occupants the Indians. Here, within its borders, the brave but unfortunate Colonel Crawford fought his last battle, and suffered a death which will render his name conspicuous for all time in American annals; and here the Wyandots (who owned the land, who roamed at will beneath its forest shades, who chased the wild game through 'its tangled thickets, and who, under the fostering care of Christian ministers, had made many advances toward civilization) remained until within the memory of many now living--until they were the last of the Ohio tribes to be removed to new homes beyond the Missouri. For these reasons, therefore, no further apology is deemed necessary in explanation of the large amount of space which is here devoted to the Indians, and to their occupancy of this and adjacent regions.
Respecting the early history of the tribes once the claimants and occupants of these regions, the most rational and lucid accounts are obtained from the journals of the Jesuit and Moravian Missionaries, men who, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, penetrated into this territory far in advance of the boldest hunters and trappers, They were informed by the old men of the Delawares (the Lenni-Lenape, or original people, as they called themselves) that many centuries previous, their ancestors dwelt far away in the western wilds of the American Continent, but emigrating eastwardly, arrived after. many years on the west bank of the "Namoesi Sipu" (the Mississippi), or river of fish, where they fell in with the Mengwes (Iroquois), who had also emigrated from a distant country in the direction of the setting sun, and approached this river somewhat nearer its source. The spies of the Lenape reported the country on the east of the Mississippi to be inhabited by a powerful nation, dwelling in large towns erected upon the shores of their principal streams.
This people bore the name of Allegewi. They were tall and strong, some were of gigantic size, and from them were derived the names of the
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HISTORY OF WYANDOT COUNTY. - 227
Allegheny River and Mountains. Their towns were defended by regular fortifications or intrenchments of earth, vestiges of which are yet seen in a or less degree of preservation throughout the Mississippi and Ohio and in the regions of the great lakes. The Lenape requested permission to establish themselves in their vicinity, a request which was refused, but leave was given them to pass the river and seek a country farther Jo the eastward. But while the Lenape were crossing the river, the Allegewi, becoming alarmed at their number, assailed and destroyed many of those who had reached the eastern shore, and threatened a like fate to others should they attempt the passage of the stream. Frenzied at the loss they had sustained, the Lenape eagerly accepted the proposition from the Mengwes, who had hitherto been spectators only of their enterprise, to conquer and divide the country of the Allegewi. A war of many years' du ration was waged by the combined nations, marked by great havoc and loss of life on both sides, which finally resulted in the conquest and expulsion of the Allegewi, who fled by the way of the Mississippi River, never to return. Their country was apportioned among the conquerors-the Mengwes or Iroquois choosing the neighborhood of the great lakes, and the Lennape or Delawares possessing themselves of the lands to the southward.
Many ages after, during which the victors lived together in great harmony, the enterprising hunters of the Lenape tribes crossed the Alleghany Mountains and discovered the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers and the bays into which they flowed. Exploring the Sheyichbi country (New Jersey), they arrived on the Hudson River, to which they subsequently gave the name of the Mohicannittuck. Returning to their nation after a long absence, they reported their discoveries, describing the country they had visited as abounding in game and fruits, fish and fowl, and destitute of inhabitants. Concluding this to be the country destined for them by the Great Spirit, the Lenape proceeded to establish themselves upon the principal rivers of the east, making the Delaware, to which they gave the name of Lenape Wihittuck (the river of the Lenape) the center of their possessions.
All of the Lenape Nation, however, who crossed to the east side of the Mississippi, did not move toward the Atlantic coast, apart remaining behind to assist that portion of their people who, frightened by the reception which the Allegewi had given to their countrymen, fled far to the west of the Namoesi Sipu. Finally the Lenape became divided into three great bodies. The larger half of all settled on the Atlantic and the great rivers which flow into it. The other half was separated into two parts; the stronger continued beyond the Mississippi, the other remained on the eastern bank.
Ultimately, that part of the Lenape Nation who located on the east side of the Mississippi, became divided into many small tribes, receiving names from their places of residence, or from some circumstance remarkable at the time of its occurrence. Thus originated the Delawares, Shawanese, Nanticokes, Susquehannas, Nishamines, Conoys, Minsis, Abenaquis, Pequots, Narragansetts, Miamis, Illinois, Sauks, Foxes, Menomonees, Chippewas, Ottawas, Pottawatomies, and the Southern Cherokees and Choctaws. According to those who have made a special study of Indian history, all of the tribes above named belonged to the great Algonquin race, and spoke dialects of the Algonquin language, so similar that the members of any tribe could communicate with those of all others without the aid of an interpreter.
For some years the Mengwes (Iroquois), who, as before stated, constituted a separate race, remained near the Great Lakes with their canoes, in
228 - HISTORY OF WYANDOT COUNTY.
readiness to fly should the Allegewi return. The latter failed to appear again, however, and becoming emboldened and their numbers rapidly in. creasing, they stretched themselves eastward along the St. Lawrence, and finally locating, for the most part, in the present State of Now York, became, on the north, immediate neighbors of the Lenape or Algonquin tribes. In the course of time, the Mengwes and Lenape became enemies, and, dreading the power of the Lenape, the Mengwes resolved to involve them in war one Lenape tribe with another--to reduce their strength. They committed murders upon the members of one tribe, and induced the injured party to believe they were perpetrated by another. They stole into the .country of the Delawares, surprised and killed their hunters, and escaped with the plunder.
The nations or tribes of that period had each a particular mark upon its war clubs, which, left beside a murdered person, denoted the aggressor. .The Mengwes committed a murder in the Cherokee country, and left with the dead body a war-club bearing the insignia of the Lenape. The Cherokees in revenge fell upon the latter, and thus commenced a long and bloody war. The treachery and canning of the Mengwes were at length discovered, and the Delaware tribe of the Lenape turned upon them with the determination to utterly extirpate them. They were the more strongly induced to take this resolution, as the man-eating propensities of the Mengwes, according to Heckewelder, had reduced them in the estimation of the Delawares below the rank of human beings.
To this time, each tribe of the Mengwes had acted under the direction of its particular chiefs, and, although the nation could not control the conduct of its members, it was made responsible for their outrages. Pressed by the Lenape, they resolved to form a confederation, which might enable them better to concentrate their forces in war, and to regulate their affairs in peace. Thannawage, an aged Mohawk, was the projector of this alliance. Under his auspices, five nations*-the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas-formed a species of republic, governed by the united councils of their aged and experienced chiefs. The beneficial effects of this confederation early displayed themselves. The Lenape were checked, and the Mengwes, whose warlike disposition soon familiarized them with firearms procured from the Dutch on the Hudson River, were enabled at the same time to contend with their ancient enemies and to resist the French, who now attempted the settlement of Canada, and the extension of their dominion over a large portion of the country lying between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River.
However, becoming hard pressed by the Europeans, the Mengwes, or Five Nations, sought reconciliation with their old enemies, the Lenape; and for this purpose, if the traditions of the Delawares be accredited, they affected one of the most extraordinary strokes of policy which aboriginal history has recorded.
When Indian nations are at war, the mediators between them are the women. However weary of the contest, the men hold it cowardly and disgraceful to seek reconciliation. They deem it inconsistent in a warrior to speak of peace with bloody weapons in his hands. He must maintain a determined courage, and appear at all times as ready and willing to fight as at the commencement of hostilities. With such dispositions, Indian wars
*To these a sixth nation, the Tuscaroras, was added in 1712. This last tribe originally dwelt in the western part of the present state of North Carolina, but having become involved a war with their neighbors, were driven from their country northward, and adopted by the Mengwes or Iroquois confederacy.
HISTORY OF WYANDOT COUNTY. - 229
would never cease if the women did not interfere and persuade the combatants to bury the hatchet and make peace with each other. On such occasions, the women would plead their cause with much eloquence. " Not a warrior," they would say, " but laments the loss of a father, a son, a brother or a friend. And mothers, who have borne with cheerfulness the pangs of childbirth and the anxieties that wait upon the infancy and adolescence of their sons, behold their promised blessings crushed in the field of battle, or perishing at the stake in unutterable torments. In the depths of their grief, they curse their wretched existence, and shudder at the idea of bearing children." They conjured the warriors, therefore, by their suffering wives, their helpless children, their homes and their friends, to interchange forgiveness, to cast away their arms, and, smoking together the pipe of peace, to embrace as friends those whom they had learned to esteem as enemies.
Such prayers thus urged seldom failed of the desired effect. The Mengwes solicited the Lenape to assume the function of peacemakers. " They had reflected," said the Mengwes, " upon the state of the Indian race, and were convinced that no means remained to preserve it unless some magnanimous nation would assume the character of the woman. It could not be given to a weak and contemptible tribe; such would not be listened to; but the Lenape and their- allies would at once possess influence and command respect. " The facts upon which these arguments were founded were known to the Delawares, and in a moment of blind confidence in the sincerity of the Iroquois they acceded to the proposition and assumed the petticoat. This ceremony was performed at Fort Orange (now Albany, N. Y.) amid great rejoicing in 1617, in the presence of the Dutch, whom the Lenape afterward charged with having conspired with the Mengwes for their destruction.
The Iroquois now assumed the rights of protection and command over the Delawares, but, still dreading their strength, they cunningly involved them again in a war with the Cherokees, promised to fight their battles, led them into an ambush of their foes and deserted them. The Delawares at length comprehended the treachery of their so-called friends of the North, and resolved to resume their arms, and, being still superior in numbers, to crush them. It was too late, however. The Europeans were now making their way into the country in every direction, and gave ample employment to the astonished Lenape.
On the other hand, the Mengwes denied the story told by the Lenape. They always asserted that they had conquered the Delawares by force of arms, and made them a subject people. And though it was said they were unable to detail the circumstance of this conquest, it is more reasonable to suppose it true than that a numerous and warlike people should have voluntarily suffered themselves to be disarmed and enslaved by a shallow artifice, or that, discovering the fraud practiced upon them, they should unresistingly have submitted to its consequences. This conquest was not an empty acquisition to the Mengwes. They claimed dominion over all the lands occupied by the Delawares-from the head-waters of the Delaware and Susquehanna Rivers on the north, to the Potomac on the south, and from the Atlantic Ocean westward to the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers-and their claims were distinctly acknowledged by the early whites when treating for the cession of lands. It is also recorded in history that from about 1617, until the Indian title to the territory just described was extinguished, parties of the Iroquois or Five Nations (afterward known as the Six Nations) occupied and wandered over the country of the Delawares at pleasure True, the cow-
230 - HISTORY OF WYANDOT COUNTY.
ardly Delawares and the perfidious Shawanese always boldly claimed these grounds as their own (except when confronted and rebuked by the chiefs and head men of the Six Nations), yet the proprietaries wisely recognized the claim of the Six Nations, and it was with that great confederation of red men they treated when purchases of territory were made.
The Shawanese came from the South. They were a restless, wandering tribe, and had occupied regions now embraced by the States of Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia and the Carolinas, before locating with their allies, the Delawares, in the province of Pennsylvania, After passing a few decades in that province, they migrated, or rather were driven, westward, and by the middle of the eighteenth century the entire tribe had settled on the Ohio River and its large tributaries.
Meanwhile the Six Nations wore ceding to the Penns the lands occupied by the Delawares in Pennsylvania. Hence the latter were gradually yet peaceably pushed back to the westward by the constantly advancing tide of European emigration, until the beginning of the " Old French and Indian war of 1754-63, when they, together with the Shawanese, Wyandots and other tribes of the great Northwest, became the allies of the French, and for many years thereafter ravaged at frequent intervals the western frontiers of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. Immediately after their defeat at Kittanning by Col. Armstrong in September, 1756, the Delawares fled into Ohio; they refused to settle again on the east of Fort Du Quesne, and seemed quite willing to have that fortress and its French garrison placed between them and the English. However, while extremely careful to maintain their old men, wives and children far to the westward of Fort DuQuesne, afterward Fort Pitt, the Delaware and Shawanese warriors (assisted until 1763 by the French) dominated over all of the country (with the exception of small circles surrounding Forts Pitt and Ligonier) lying immediately west of the Alleghenies, until 1764, when Gen. Henry Boquet, with a strong force of Pennsylvania and Virginia provincials marched into the " Muskingum country." He defeated the savages in several encounters, and caused them to sue for a peace which continued until after the beginning of the war for American independence. The British then rendered their name forever odious by marshaling under their banners the Delawares, Shawanese, Wyandots, Pottawatomies and other Northwestern tribes, besides the Six Nations of New York, whose warriors, after being fully supplied with English munitions of war, were sent forward to massacre, irrespective of age, sex or condition, the unfortunate residents of American border settlements.
Having related thus much of the traditional and authentic history of the Delawares and Shawanese-tribes which many years ago were prominent in the region now embracing Wyandot County-we turn our attention to the " Erigas, "or Eries, and the Huron Iroquois, otherwise known as " Yendots," or Wyandots.
Of the Eries but little is known, and that little consists mainly of a few meager traditions. Indeed, some writers doubt whether such a tribe ever existed on the southern shores of Lake Erie, as claimed. However that may be, it is fair to presume that if such a race did once occupy the lake shore described, they were at the same time occupants of the territory now within the limits of Wyandot County, The early French priests, or missionaries, are quoted as authority for the statements, that about 230 years ago a powerful tribe of savages, termed variously the Eries or " Cat Nation," the Erigas or " Neutral Nation," occupied a wide expanse of country on the
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southern border of Lake Erie, extending from the Niagara River on the east to the Miami River on the west; that they possessed fortified towns, and could muster four thousand warriors or fighting men, famed for their exploits in archery. Finally, however, they became involved in a war with the Iroquois or Five Nations, which continued until the entire tribe of Eries was either killed, adopted into the powerful confederacy of the Five Nations, or driven to other regions far to the westward. This misfortune, we are told, befell the Eries about the year 1656, and it is supposed that from the date last mentioned until the coming of the Wyandots or Huron-Iroquois, the territory lying immediately to the southward of Lake Erie remained as abandoned or neutral ground.
THE HURONS OR WYANDOTS.
The first European to make mention of the tribe of Indians, since known to history as the Wyandots, was the celebrated French navigator and explorer Jacques Cartier, who in the summer of 1535, sailed up the St. Lawrence River to a place called by him Mont Royal (afterward changed by the English to Montreal), and formally took possession of all the country round about (in the name of King Francis the First), under the title of New France. Soon after, Cartier and his men extended their explorations along the Huron Lake, where, on its southern shores, they suddenly dis covered themselves to be intruders upon the territory of a powerful tribe of savages, who called themselves, as did the New York Iroquois, Ontwaonwes, meaning "real men," but known in French and English history as the Huron-Iroquois, or more commonly the Hurons from their proximity to the lake of that name. The immediate territory occupied by them (lying about 100 miles south of the mouth of the Ottawa or French River), was only about sixty miles in extent, yet, according to French writers, they then had twenty-five towns, and were about 30,000 in number.
The Hurons, like all untutored aboriginal tribes, were chiefly employed in pursuits of the chase and warring with their no less savage neighbors. Yet it cannot be said of them, as of the Five Nations, that they were particularly a warlike and vindictive people. However, they could not for a moment tolerate a tribal insult. Though they were, without a doubt, Mengwes or Iroquois Indians, possessing many characteristics in common with their New York brethren, yet they were sworn enemies, and their tribal and personal vindictiveness was proverbial among all Indians. As the New York Iroquois was a confederation of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas, so the Huron-Iroquois was a league of the Hurons proper, and various tribes of the Algonquin race, and long before Cartier navigated the waters of the St. Lawrence these leagues and confederations of red men had waged wars of extermination against each other. Cartier made some attempts at colonization along the St. Lawrence, but in 1543 the few French settlements had all been abandoned and for more than half a century thereafter, the disturbed condition of France entirely prevented its people from utilizing his discoveries.
In 1603, however, Samuel de Champlain, another distinguished French mariner and explorer, led an expedition to Quebec, made a permanent settlement there, and, in fact, founded the colony of Canada. From Quebec and from Mont Royal, which was soon after established, the adventurous French explorers, fur traders, voyageurs and missionaries, pushed rapidly into the Western wilderness, and as early as 1615 , Champlain himself visited the Hurons on the shores of Lake Manitouline. Quite as early, too,
232 - HISTORY OF WYANDOT COUNTY.
priests of the Recollet or Franciscan order, established missions in the same locality.
As before indicated, the Hurons had been reared to hate the very name of the Iroquois-their Southern brethren-and from the remotest period of their tribal existence, the defiant warwhoop, sounded by either of the belligerents, was sufficient for the commencement of another bloody chapter in the unwritten history of their career. The Hurons, therefore, hailed the arrival of Champlain with delight. They considered the brave bearing, and improved weapons of the French soldiery (added to their numerical strength, and their perfect acquaintance with the nature of the territory of their mortal enemies), would be a force sufficiently effective for the annihilation of the vindictive Iroquois. Terms of alliance with the French were soon proposed by the Hurons to Champlain, who. not willing that his power should be unknown and unfelt in the Western wilds, and particularly that his dusky neighbors should be acquainted with the fact that opposition to his policy meant that they had in their own midst an enemy of terrific vengeance, whom it was always better to placate than offend, terms of alliance were at once consummated, by which, either in times of war or peace, the Hurons and French were to act as one people.
Very naturally the Southern Iroquois, or Five Nations, looked upon the French settlements on their Northern border with deep aversion. Already the Dutch had established themselves at New Amsterdam (New York) and along the Hudson River, the Swedes were occupying the Lower Delaware Valley, the English were making settlements at Plymouth Rock, and Salem, and Dorchester in New England, also in Virginia, and now the French encroachments upon the north aroused all their slumbering suspicions as to the final result, if foreign peoples were permitted to invade their territory, curtail their hunting. grounds, and thus trifle with their hitherto unlimited authority. Therefore, the ever alert and fiery Monawks soon found an occasion for taking up the tomahawk against the French and the Hurons. Their example became infectious, and. soon the whole confederation-the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas-took the war-path against their enemies in the North. Advised of the approach of the Iroquois, Champlain made choice of his battle-field on the lake, which still bears his name, and with his own ships, surrounded by a fleet of bark canoes bearing his Huron allies, he met the enemy in mid-lake. Of course the advantages were all with the French, for water is never the selected battle-field of the Indian and bows and arrows were no match for musketry, and after a short, though stubbornly contested fight, the Iroquois gave way, and rowed their light, birch-bark canoes almost with the bounding of the doer to the shore from which they had embarked, hotly pursued by the equally light canoes of the Hurons. By the time they had reached the shore, the panic was complete. The forest offered them no encouragement to make a stand, so on they went, followed by the musketry of the French and the victorious whoop of the Hurons, till further pursuit was useless, and the chase was abandoned.
The defeat sustained by the Five Nations on Lake Champlain, at the hands of the French and Hurons, as well as the constantly spreading out of white settlements in New England and New York, caused the terrible Iroquois confederates first mentioned to confine their attention to matters nearer home, and to remain comparatively (though not wholly) peaceable for many years. Meanwhile, or about 1625, there had arrived on the shores of the St. Lawrence a few Jesuits, the vanguard of a host of those fiery
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champions of the cross who were destined, it appears, to crowd aside the more peaceful or more inert Franciscans throughout the whole river and lake region in the North, and substantially to appropriate that missionary ground to themselves. Their course was generally across Canada by land to Lake Manitouline, and thence in canoes through Lakes Huron, Michigan and Superior; for the more convenient route by way of the Niagara River and Lake Erie was guarded by the ferocious Iroquois, whom Champlain, by his ill-advised attack, had made the implacable enemy of the French. During the period referred to, the Jesuit fathers were assiduous in their attention to the Hurons; many of the latter were willingly made converts of the Catholic faith, and also showed a rapid advancement in the ways of civilization, particularly in the cultivation of the soil, and the production of corn, beans, pumpkins, squashes, etc. A number of schools and churches were likewise established at St. Louis, St. Ignatius, and other of their chief towns, and stockades erected to protect them from surprise by the dreaded Iroquois.
The Iroquois, however, were only biding their time. For about two score years had they smarted under the stigma of the defeat received at the hands of Champlain. Another generation of warriors had grown up among them, and the sons were eager seekers of an opportunity by which the shame of the past might be obliterated in the glory of the future. This opportunity was afforded them as early as 1648, when, by a treaty with the Dutch, they became well supplied with firearms, which previous to that time had been denied them by the Dutch authorities. The tireless, irreconcilable, unforgetting and unforgiving Iroquois were now ready for the war-path. The terms of the treaty above mentioned prevented the possibility of a conflict with the Dutch along the Hudson River, and as a similar peaceful state of affairs prevailed between them and the New England colonists, the young and restless warriors of the confederation turned to more remote fields in search of an enemy upon whom to test the virtues of their newly acquired implements of war.
Such an enemy was soon found (if any credence be given to traditional narration in the persons of the Eries, who then inhabited the country lying to the southward of Lake Erie, and as a result, the latter were vanquished and destroyed. Our " Romans of America," the confederated Iroquois, then turned upon their ancient enemy, the Hurons. This war between the Hurons and Iroquois raged for several years, or until about 1659, when the latter invaded the country of the former in great forces, defeated them at every point, massacred large numbers, including several French priests, destroyed their crops and towns, and pursued the panic stricken fugitives to remote quarters. Some of the Hurons sought protection under the walls of Quebec; others made their way to the frozen borders of Hudson's Bay; others again reached in safety the upper part of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan; but the greater portion fled to the Ojibway, or as now termed, Chippewa hunting-grounds, on the southern shore of Lake Superior. The implacable Iroquois even followed the fugitives westward to their now haunts, but the latter, by the help of the Chippewas, were enabled to repulse their arrogant enemies, who thenceforth seldom sought a war. path which led so far to the Northwest.
For a number of years the Hurons, the Ottawawas, or Ottawas, and the Dinondadies -tribes which had been driven from Canada by the fierce Iroquois-led a restless, nomadic life in the Lake Superior region. At length they were visited by Fathers Jacques Marquette and Claude Dablon, who
234 - HISTORY OF WYANDOT COUNTY.
began to organize the Hurons, under their various chiefs, as a permanently established, self-reliant people, and had succeeded in a measure, when a war with the Sioux compelled their removal to Michillimacinac, now known as Mackinaw. The assembling at Mackinaw of the Hurons and other tribes friendly to the French, took place about the year 1671, and there they remained until 1701; when La Motto Cadillac, who had been for several years the commandant at Mackinaw, established a permanent post on the "detroit," or strait, between Lakes Brie and St. Clair, which was at first known as Fort Ponchartrain, but soon after received the appellation of Detroit, which, as post, village and city it has retained to this day. Cadillac immediately made strenuous efforts to induce all the various tribes of the Northwest who were friends of the French to locate around and near Fort Ponehartrain, evidently desirous to have them well in hand, so that the French commanders could more easily lead them on warlike expeditions against the English and Iroquois. The Hurons at Mackinaw (as well as various other tribes) promptly accepted his invitation. At Detroit, they were joined by quite large bands of Hurons and Dinondadies from Charity and Groat Manitouline Islands. Subsequently new tribal compacts were perfected, and the reunited and combined tribes of Hurons and Dinondadies then became known as the Wyandots, meaning " Traders of the West."
The warriors of the various tribes assembled at Fort Ponchartrain usually acted together in their numerous warlike expeditions. Of the conflicts which they waged with other savages, however, there is seldom any record unless they fought in connection with the French. Even in that case the accounts are few and meager. It appears that the Indians in Michigan under French control were almost continually at war with the Iroquois, and, notwithstanding the acknowledged valor and sagacity of the Six Nations, the former (having the support and sometimes the active assistance of the French) were able after 1707 to hold their ground, and to remain in possession of that peninsular throughout the century.
Early in May, 1712, when the warriors at Cadillac's settlement at the "detroit" were nearly all absent hunting, a large body of Outagamie (Fox) and Mascoutin Indians, supposed to be in league with the Iroquois, suddenly appeared before Fort Ponchartrain, erected a breastwork, and made other preparations for an assault. Du Buisson, the commandant, who had only about twenty men with him, sent runners to call in the hunting-parties, and then awaited the assault of his foes. It was made on the 13th of May, and, though temporarily repulsed, there was every prospect that it would be successful on account of the comparatively large numbers of the assailants.
While the fight was going on, however, the Wyandots, Ottawa, and Pottawatomie warriors returned, and immediately attacked Du Buisson's assailants. The latter were driven into their own defenses; those defenses were assaulted by the French and their allies, and those in turn were repulsed by the Foxes and Mascoutins., Thus the conflict continued with varying fortunes for no less than nineteen days, when the invaders fled. Several miles north of Detroit they halted, and built a rude fortification, but the French and their allies attacked them with two small pieces of artillery, and routed them after three days more of fighting, when the Wyandots, Pottawatomies and Ottawas massacred eight hundred men, women and children.
In fact, the Fox nation was reported completely destroyed, but this was not the case. Some of its warriors joined the Iroquois, while the main body
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fled to the west side of Lake Michigan, where they were long distinguished for their especial hatred of the French. On the other band, the friendship then cemented between the French and the Wyandots, Pottawatomies and Ottawas, endured through more than half a century of varied fortunes, and was scarcely severed when, throughout Canada and the West, the Gallic flag went down in hopeless defeat before the conquering Britons.
From Detroit the Wyandots gradually extended their hunting-grounds to the southward (the strength of the Iroquois, after a thirty years' war with the French, having been much reduced, and their hostile incursions into the Lake Erie region successfully repelled), and as early as 1725 were in quiet possession of the country about Sandusky Bay, and also claimed ownership to all the lands lying between Lake Erie and the Ohio River. In 1740, they consented to the proposition that a considerable body of Delawares, who had been driven out of Pennsylvania by the Iroquois, should occupy the Muskingum country. Finally, the entire Delaware nation, as well as the major portion of the Shawanese, became established in the present State of Ohio, and in conjunction with the Wyandots (all allies of the French), desolated and laid waste the border settlements of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia for many years.
Our researches have not led us to believe that. the Wyandots were any worse or any better than the average North American savage. They had the usual characteristics of the Indians, both of the Algonquin and Iroquois races, of which races, indeed, during the later years, they were a mixture. Less terrible in battle, less sagacious in council, than the men of the Six Nations, they were, nevertheless, like the rest of their red brethren, brave, hardy and skillful warriors, astute managers so far as their knowledge extended, generally faithful friends, and invariably most implacable enemies Their own time they devoted to war, the chase or idleness, abandoning to the women all the labors which could be imposed upon their weary shoulders.
They lived in the utmost freedom which it is possible to imagine, consistent with any civil or military organization whatever. Their sachems exercised little authority, save to declare war or make peace, to determine on the migrations of the tribes, and to give wise counsels allaying any ill feelings which might exist among the people. There was no positive law compelling obedience.
Even in war there was no way by which the braves could be forced to take the war-path. Any chieftain could drive a stake into the ground, dance the war dance around it, strike the tomahawk into it with a yell of defiance, and call for warriors to go forth against the foe. If his courage or capacity was doubted, he obtained but few followers. If he was of approved valor and skill, a larger number would grasp their weapons in response to his appeal; while if he was a chieftain distinguished far and wide for deeds of blood and craft, the whole nation would spring to arms, and all its villages would resound with the terrific notes of the war song, chanted by hundreds of frenzied braves. Even after they had taken the field (or more properly speaking, the woods) against their enemies, they could not be compelled to fight, except by the fear of being called a " squaw," which, however, to the Indian mind was a very terrible punishment.
With the Indian method of warfare, the American mind is pretty well acquainted, so that we need not give a detailed description of it here. Few have not read how the warriors went forth against their foes, clad chiefly in hideous paint, but armed with tomahawk and scalping-knives, and those
236 - HISTORY OF WYANDOT COUNTY.
who have been sufficiently successful in far catching, carrying also the coveted muskets of the white man; how they made their way with the utmost secrecy through the forest until they reached the vicinity of their enemies, whether red or white; bow, when their unsuspecting victims were wrapped in slumber, the whole crowd of painted demons would burst in among them, using musket, knife and tomahawk with the most furious zeal; and how, when the torch had been applied, men, women and children were stricken down in indiscriminate slaughter by the lured light of their blazing homes.
It is well known, too, that those who escaped immediate death were often reserved for a still more horrible doom; that the fearful sport of running the gauntlet when a hundred weapons were flung by malignant foes at the naked fugitive, was but the preliminary amusement before the awful burning at the stake, accompanied by all the refinements of torment which a baleful ingenuity could invent, yet supported with unsurpassable fortitude by the victim, who often shrieked his defiant death song amid the last convulsions of his tortured frame. Their religion was what might have been expected from their practices-a mass of senseless and brutal superstition and Pere Marquette, the most zealous of missionaries, after several years of labor among the Northwestern 'Indians, could only say that the; Hurons retained a little Christianity."
It would be foreign to the design of this work to. attempt to give an extended account of all the wars, movements, etc., of the Wyandot Indians, subsequent to their occupation of the Sandusky River country, even if such were possible. They were simply in common with all other tribes in the neighborhood of the great lakes, the friends and allies of the French, the foes of the English and Iroquois, and until the termination of the French power in America, had assisted the troops of that nation to fight many battles. Thus in 1744, when war broke out between France and England, numerous bands of savages from all the Northwestern tribes sought the service of the French. Some of them assailed the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia, while others made their way to Montreal, where they were furnished with arms and ammunition, and were sent forth against the settlers of New York and Now England. In 1745, one of the numerous records made by the Canadian officials states that fifty "Poutewatamies," fifteen "Puans" and ten "Illinois" came to go to war. Another mentions the arrival of thirty-eight "Outawois," seventeen "Sauternes," twenty-four Hurons, and fourteen " Poutewatumies." Similar official memoranda show the sending out (if not less than twenty marauding expeditions against the English colonists in one year, frequent mention being made of the part taken by the Hurons or Wyandots in these bloody raids.
After the close of that war by the treaty of Aix-la Chapelle in 1748, there was comparative quiet among the red men of the Northwest until the opening of the great conflict known in Europe as the seven-years' war, but in America called the " Old French and Indian War." This contest was commenced in the spring of 1754, by a fight between a body of Virginia rangers, under Lieut. Col. George Washington, and a company of French sent out from Fort DuQuesne and continued until toward the close of 1762, when, by a treaty of peace between France and England, the former power gave up all claims to the Northwest Territory, and from that date their authority here ceased forevermore.
Meanwhile, true to their promises and their friendships, the Hurons or Wyandots had participated side by side with the French in numerous conflicts. They assisted to defeat Braddock in front of Fort Du Quesne. Sub-
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sequently. nearly every Wyandot who could lift a tomahawk, went forth upon the war-path against the hapless inhabitants of the Pennsylvania and Virginia frontiers. They served under Montcalm in Canada. Again were they summoned to the defense of Fort DuQuesne when it was threatened by Gen. Forbes' army, and the following year, under D'Aubry, they proceeded to the relief of Fort Niagara. That fortress soon surrendered to the English, however, and a little later the fall of Quebec (at which a large body of the Northwestern Indians was present) virtually decided the fate of Canada and the Northwest. The Indians then began to lose faith in the omnipotence of their French friends, and oar Wyandots, together with other tribes, returned to their homes on the shores of the Great Lakes and rivers of the West. and gloomily awaited the results referred to at the close of the preceding paragraph
When, in 1763, Pontiac, the renowned Ottawa chieftain, marshaled under his leadership the Northwestern tribes for the purpose of overthrowing .British supremacy in that region, the Wyandots joined him. After the siege of Detroit had continued for several weeks, the Wyandots and Pottawatomies made a treaty of peace with Maj. Gladwyn. the besieged English commander, bat when Maj. Rogers and Capt. Dalzell led a party from the fort to attack Pontiac in his camp, the treacherous Wyandots and Pottawatomies fiercely assaulted the flank of the British column. Dalzell was killed, and it was only by the most desperate exertions that his successor, Capt. Grant, with the aid of Maj. Rogers and his American rangers, was able to make good his retreat to the fort, after a fourth of his men were killed or wounded.
The next summer, 1.864, Gen. Bradstreet* occupied Detroit with a considerable force of English, Americans and Iroquois, the appearance of whom. to-ether with Gen. Boquet's successful campaign into the Muskingum Country, doubtless tended to strongly impress the power of England on the hitherto hostile tribes. In 1765, George Croghan, Deputy Superintend. ent of Indian Affairs, under the celebrated Sir William Johnson, baronet, his Majesty's sole agent and Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the Northern Department of North America, etc., etc., etc., held a grand council meeting at Fort Pitt, and also at Detroit, with the Northwestern tribes. They had by that time become thoroughly humbled, and were sincerely desirous of peace and the re-opening of the far trade. After the treaties then made, all these tribes remained steady friends of the British, so long as that nation had any need of their services.
Pontiac himself gave in his submission at another council held in Au. gust of the same year. This celebrated chieftain was murdered by an Illinois Indian near St. Louis, in 1769. The Wyandotts, the Ottawas, and other tribes which had followed his lead, sprang to arms to avenge the murder, and almost exterminated the Illinois. Except this and similar conflicts with neighboring savages, also a slight participation in Dunmore's war, the Wyandotts remained at peace until the out-break of the Revolutionary war.
The British then made strong and, as we shall see, successful efforts to obtain their assistance, and in the summer of 1777, several hundred Wynndots, Ottawas, Pottawatomies, Chippewas, Winnebagoes and others from the region of the Great Lakes, all under Charles do Langdale, a French and
*During the same season, Gen. Bradstreet, with his forces, ascended the Sandusky River as far as it was navigable or boats, where a treaty of peace was signed by the chiefs and head men of the Wyandot nation It is probable that he penetrated as far Inland as the old Indian town of Upper Sandusky, which stood on the right bank of the river, about three miles above the present town of Upper Sandusky. Gen. Israel Putnam. then a Major in command of a battalion of American provincials, was with Bradstreet.
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Indian half-breed, and another French officer, joined the English Army of Gen. Burgoyne. They accompanied him in his invasion of New York, but accomplished little, except to burn some houses and slaughter a few families. Burgoyne made some efforts to restrain their ferocity, which so disgusted them that they nearly or quite all returned home before his surrender to Gen. Gates. They also complained that Burgoyne did not take good care of them, and that over a hundred of their number were needlessly sacrificed at Bennington, Vt.
Although the Wyandots and their neighbors-the Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottawattomies on the north, and the Delawares and Shawanese on the south-were opposed to taking any further part in the war under the direct command of British officers, and as part of a British Army, yet as it appears, they were not at all averse to making war upon the Americans in their own way, and under the lead of their own chiefs. Hence, late in the fall of 1777, the Wyandot, Delaware and Shawanese warriors appeared in Westmoreland County, Penn., where (many of the arms-bearing population being absent as members of Washington's army) they gathered many scalps. Elated with their success, they crossed the Alleghanies and slaughtered many of the inhabitants of the region now embraced by the counties of Bedford, Blair, Huntingdon and Somerset. Neither age, sex nor condition were spared by the savages, Immediately after the French Government had relinquished control of Canada and the Northwest Territory, the Jesuit missionaries retired to the Canadian aide of the Great Lakes and the river St. Lawrence, hence the Wyandots, thus left without the Christianizing influences of their former teachers, soon relapsed to a degree of barbarity and ferociousness which placed them upon an even footing with their no less savage allies, the Delawares, Shawanese, Mingoes and Miamis. The Six Nations also took the warpath in the interests of the British, and under the lead of the villains Brant, Butler and various tories, committed many murders in the frontier settlements of New York and Pennsylvania, the massacre of the Wyoming settlers and the destruction of Hannastown being among their chief exploits.
These forays and murdering expeditions on the part of the savages under British pay continued until the close of the struggle for American independence. Meanwhile, the Americans were using all the means at hand in the endeavor to defend their border settlements in the interior, while at the same time engaged in fighting the British armies, then desolating their seaport towns. To this end, in 1778, Gen. Lachlin McIntosh, commander of the Western Military Department I with headquarters at Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh), marched forth with about 1,000 men. He was vested with discretionary powers, but it was purposed that he should march his army to Detroit, or at least as far as the Indian towns on the Sandusky River, which seemed to be the general places of rendezvous for the hostile tribes of the Northwest. Gen. McIntosh, however, lacked the qualifications necessary to conduct an Indian warfare successfully, and only proceeded as far as the immediate vicinity of the present town of Bolivar, in Tuscarawas County, Ohio. He there batted, erected Fort Laurens, garrisoned it with 150 men, under the command of Col. John Gibson, returned to Fort Pitt, and soon after resigned his command of the department.
Fort Laurens-named in honor of the then President of the Continental Congress, Henry Laurens-was the first substantially built work erected within the present limits of Ohio. Yet disasters attended it from the beginning. The Indians stole the horses, and drew the garrison into several
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ambuscades, killing fourteen men at one time and eleven at another, besides capturing a number of others. Eight hundred warriors, among them many Wyandots, invested it and kept up the siege for six weeks! The provisions grew short, and when supplies from Fort Pitt had arrived within a hundred yards of the fort, the garrison, in their joyousness, fired a general salute with musketry, which so frightened the loaded packhorses as to produce a general stampede through the woods, scattering the provisions in every direction, so that most of the much-needed supplies were lost. Although it was regarded very- desirable, for various military reasons, to have a garrisoned fort and depot of supplies at a point about equidistant from the forts on the Ohio River and the hostile Indians on the Sandusky Plains, yet so disastrous had been the experiences at Fort Laurens that it was abandoned in August, 1779.
During subsequent years, other expeditions were organized in Pennsylvania and Kentucky for the purpose of chastising with powder and ball the hostile Indians of Ohio. Thus Col. John Bowman took the field with 160 Kentuckians in July, 1779; Col. George Rogers Clark, with about 1,000 Kentuckians, in July, 1780; Gen. Daniel Brodhead, with 300 men from Fort Pitt, in April, 1781; and Col. Archibald Lochry, with about 100 men from Westmoreland County, Penn., in July, 1781. These expeditions were attended with varying success, but as they had in view the punishment of the savages occupying the southern half of the present State, no special significance, as regards the history of Wyandot County, can be attached to their movements.
However, notwithstanding the efforts put forth by the Americans, the savages remained masters of the field in Ohio, the neighborhood of the Great Lakes, and along the River St. Lawrence. The Wyandots of the Sandusky Plains (together with large numbers of the Delawares and Shawanese, who, driven from haunts farther South by the expeditions already mentioned, had established themselves near the Wyandots), fully supplied with war material from the British post at Detroit, still continued their massacres of the inhabitants of the frontier settlements of Pennsylvania. The fiendishness displayed by these savages in their attacks upon isolated white settlements was unbounded, and frequently every member of a family was found slain, scalped, their bodies otherwise horribly mutilated, and their dwelling burned to ashes. The prattling babe, as well as the tottering decrepit grandparents, all, all fell victims to a ferocity of disposition and studied cruelty of purpose that is harrowing to contemplate, even after the lapse of more than one hundred years. At last, stung to desperation by the loss of parents, brothers, sisters, wives and children, at the hands of the savages, the sturdy Scotch-Irish residents of Westmoreland and Washington Counties, Penn., determined upon the organization of a force, under the authority of the military commander of that department, which should proceed to the Sandusky Plains (the rendezvous of all the hostile savages of the Northwest), and give battle to the Indians upon their own ground. This determination resulted in the formation and sending forward of a body of men under Col. William Crawford, whose movements, battles, etc., will be noted in the succeeding chapter.