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HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 59 CHAPTER II. THE DAYS OF INDIAN OCCUPANCY. There has been a great deal of controversy concerning the origin of the aboriginal races of America known to us as Indians—so misnamed by Christopher Columbus and his contemporaries because they were taken to be natives of India. The Indians are now generally believed by the best authorities to be descended from the races of Asia. One authority says of them: " They are now generally believed to be a Mongolian people separated from Asia by the comparatively recent subsidence of the 'Pacific continent.' " Another authority says : "By some ethnologists the American Indians are considered an aboriginal or single stock; by others a mixture of Mongolian, Polynesian and Caucasian types; and by others as derived from the grafting of Old World races on a true American race." Some authorities think the ancestors of the Indians may have drifted across the Pacific from Asia, or entered this continent by way of Behring strait. Be that as it may be. Where he came from or how he got here are hardly questions for such a review as this. The Indian, once dominant throughout this region, is gone. Of whatever original ethnological stock, his was an arrested and non-progressive race and in the struggle with the white man and the latter's civilization he was worsted and required to withdraw. As Cowen's "Ethnological History of Ohio" (1903— Ohio Centennial Anniversary Celebration) says, "those who preceded the present occupants were the mere caretakers for the real possessors whose coming these broad savannas, far reaching forests and teeming hills plainly foreshadowed as the future domain of a mighty empire. They left nothing 60 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY behind them which in the slightest degree influenced the character, laws or customs of the present occupants. . . . The history of these people, though interesting in itself, is a thing apart from our history. True, they occupied the territory, but they never possessed it in any true sense of possession. It is only by agricultural labor that man can be said to appropriate or possess the soil, and the Indian lived by the products of the chase. He was marked for destruction by his fixed and ineradicable prejudices, his fierce and ungovernable passions, his vices, and still more perhaps by his savage virtues. The coming of the white man with his peculiar civilization was the death knell of the Indian, for it had come to be an axiom of that civilization that barbarism has no rights which it is bound to respect, and that axiom was the rule and guide of the white man's conquest. So that the Indian has gone the way of the mastodon, the cliff dweller and the mound builder. He has sped away like a bird on the wing, leaving behind him no memorials of his passage save his dishonored graves and his musical names which linger on mountain, lake and river to tell the story of his sojourn and his exit." THE MELANCHOLY MUSINGS OF SPRAGUE. To that generation in Ohio, now fast passing, that "grew up" on the McGuffey Readers, the melancholy musings of Sprague readily will recur : "Not many generations ago where you now sit encircled by all that exalts and embellishes civilized life, the rank thistle nodded in the wind and the wild fox dug his hole unscared. Here lived and loved another race of beings. Beneath the same sun that rolls over your head, the Indian hunter pursued the panting deer; gazing on the same moon that smiles for you, the Indian lover wooed his dusky mate. Here the wigwam blaze beamed on the tender and helpless and the council fire glared on the wise and daring. Now they dipped their noble limbs in your sedgy lakes, now they paddled their light canoes along your rocky shores. Here they warred; the echoing whoop, the bloody HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 61 grapple, the defying death song, all were here ; and when the tiger strife was over, here curled the smoke of peace. * * * As a race they have withered from the land. Their arrows are broken, their springs are dried up, their cabins are in the dust. Their council fire has long since gone out on the shore, and their war cry is fast fading to the untrodden west. Slowly and sadly they climb the distant mountains and read their doom in the setting sun. They are shrinking before the mighty tide which is pressing them away; they must soon hear the roar of the last wave which will settle over them forever. Ages hence the inquisitive white man, as he stands beside some growing city, will ponder on the structure of their disturbed remains and wonder to what manner of persons they belonged. They will live only in the songs and chronicles of their exterminators. Let these be faithful to their rude virtues as men and pay due tribute to their unhappy fate as a people." The fact ought not to be overlooked, however, in any sentimental retrospection regarding the long departed redskin of the Midwest country or in any review of the period of his stormy conflicts, his defeats and his gradual extinction, that his was not the type of the Indians of Longfellow, mellowed and humanized by stately meter, nor of the gentlemen redskins of Cooper's fabrications. Here was the real Indian, bitter, cruel, vindictive—a barrier to the progress of civilization and the enemy of peaceful society. Yet, in the language of Elmore Barce (" The Land of the Miamis"), there is something of pathos in the Indian's complete obliteration. "Thus vanishes the red men," says he. "In their day, however, they had been the undoubted lords of the plain, following their long trails in single file over the great prairies and camping with their dogs, women and children in the pleasant groves and along the many streams. They were savages and left no enduring temple or lofty fane behind them, but their names still cling to many streams, groves and towns and a few facts gleaned from their history cannot fail to be of interest to us who inherit their ancient patrimony." 62 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY THE STRUGGLE FOR RACIAL SUPREMACY. Though long gone from the haunts he once dominated hereabout, the Indian left many memories—not all of which are bad. His was a distinctive part in the history of the region now comprised within the confines of Auglaize county and his memory is perpetuated in our geographical nomenclature. Here was long his favorite hunting ground. It hardly could have been otherwise. As fair a land as the sun shines on, it occupies the summit of the divide which separates the waters of the North and the waters of the South, and thus the Indian—with a narrow and not toilsome portage—could paddle his canoe north to the Lakes or south to the Ohio and profit by the rich hunting in between. And thus he came to establish his villages here. Here on the banks of the beautiful Auglaize, where the white man's county seat later was erected, the warlike Shawnees established their great council house and here the mighty of all the Midwest tribes were wont to foregather in fateful deliberation. When the white man came with desire in his heart to possess these lands, this divide and the waterways leading both to the north and to the south made this the inevitable battle ground and trampling armies—the armies of the white man and the armies of the red man—here contended for years in the racial struggle for supremacy. And the white man won, for his was the greater need; he had given hostage to posterity and must not fail. Then came the final act, the red man's acceptance of the terms of dispossession, and here again Auglaize county became historic ground, for it was within the confines of what is now this county that the treaties were negotiated which gave to our common domain the remaining fragment of land claimed by the Indians in Ohio (save certain reservations), lands which now form the greater and richer part of Indiana and lands which form much of the state of Illinois. No wonder successive generations of school children in this rich domain during the hundred years and more since then have HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 63 been taught to honor the name of St. Marys town, for it was here that this domain was opened to the uses of civilization. BRIEF REVIEW OF THE INDIAN WARS. Over this divide and through these divergent valleys the French soldiers with their Indian allies marched from the north against the English (who had come up from the Ohio) and their Indian allies gathered at the English trading post and fort at the mouth of the Pickawillany (Loramie) creek, a few miles north of the present city of Piqua, then the head of low water transport for supplies up the Miami, and the battle of Pickawillany with the destruction of that fort by the French in 1752 precipitated the French and Indian war which was not terminated until ten years later, when, by the treaty of Paris, in 1763, the English claim to all lands east of the Mississippi was confirmed. Even prior to this the French had a line of posts and forts down these waterways, two of which—Ft. Auglaize, just above the present city of Wapakoneta, then the head of transport on the Auglaize river, and the other at St. Marys, then the head of transport on the river of that name—were within the confines of what is now Auglaize county. Historic ground, indeed! It was the French who thus named our two chief streams, St. Marys in honor of their sainted patroness and the Au (eau) Glaize for its then crystalline clearness, "glassy water." Francis Duchouquet was in charge of the trading post at Ft. Auglaize and his name was honored when later the permanent settlers established place names hereabout and is thus perpetuated in the name of the county's central township. A contemporary map of the Wayne campaign along the Maumee in 1794 gives the name of Grand Glaize to the Auglaize river. According to the reminiscences of Col. John Johnston, the old Indian agent at Piqua, the Shawnee name of the St. Marys river was "Cokotheke sepe," or Kettle river. On Hough's map it is marked "Ke-ke-ong-se-pe." The Miami name of the river, according to Dunn, is "Mah-may-i-wah-se-pe-way," or 64 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY Sturgeon creek, the reference being to the fact that the sturgeon formerly resorted to the Maumee and its tributaries in great numbers in the spawning season. The Miami Indians were in possession here at the beginning of historic times in this region, later holding peaceful possession alongside the Wyandots and the Ottawas to the north and with friendly intercourse with the Delawares and the Pottawattomies to the west. With the establishment of white settlements in the Sciota valley the Shawnees were driven from their chillicothe, or village, in what is now Ross county and settled on the beautiful hunting grounds on the Mad river and on the Little Miami, in what is now Clark and Greene counties, establishing along the latter stream a new chillicothe at the point now called Oldtown, in the near vicinity of the city of Xenia, and it was here that the great Tecumseh and his brother, the Prophet, were born and reared. When presently routed from that point the Shawnees came farther north and settled in the Piqua country, whence in 1782 they were driven by Gen. George Rogers Clark, the man who gave to America the great Northwest Territory, who destroyed not only their village there but proceeded on up the creek (Pickawillany, or Loramie) and destroyed the trading post that had been established there at the head of high water transport by the French trader Peter Loramie in 1769. Loramie, it is narrated, hated the Americans with an implacable hatred and from his post at the point which still bears his name, in Shelby county, just over the southern border of Auglaize county, had been inciting the Indians, whose friendship he had gained, to incursions against the settlers who then were beginning to come in from the south. It is said that Loramie, thus dispossessed and with his trading post laid in ashes, emigrated with that detachment of the Shawnees which first sought settlement at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers, where most of the rest of the nation eventually joined them. For further details concerning Loramies and Pickawillany the reader is referred to interesting reviews along those lines carried in Vols. VIII and XVII of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications. HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 65 There has been some confusion over the Indian name, Piqua, which, like many other names, was used in a sort of general way and was applied (like "chillicothe," or village) to more than one locality. It is said that the word signifies "a man formed out of ashes," and tradition has it that in a far away time the braves of the Shawnees were seated around their campfire when a great puffing was observed among the ashes and suddenly a full grown man stepped forth—the first of the Piqua tribe—a sort of phoenix of another mythology. It is said that the first Piqua was located at the mouth of the Sciota river, and when the Shawnees were driven thence up into the Mad River country they established another Piqua in these latter hunting grounds. Driven from there they established their last Piqua in what is now Miami county, and this name was adopted by the whites when formal settlement was effected there. A third Piqua farther up the Sciota gave to Pickaway county its name, the French spelling of the name being changed to conform to the American notion. Driven from Piqua, the Shawnees again took up their march and it was then they came into possession in what is now Auglaize county, establishing their new chillicothe or piqua at the site of the old Wyandot village, Wapakoneta, at the head of navigation on the Auglaize, and there erected their council house. Quaskey (Blackhoof) was then their chief. And here these "Arabs of the wilderness" remained until 1832, a tenure of just one-half a century, when they ceded away their claim to their last reservation and were transported beyond the Mississippi. But during that half century much history was made and the territory now comprised within the confines of Auglaize county was the scene of many a stirring incident. COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF THE SHAWNEES From an illuminating monograph on the history of the Shawnee tribe of Indians prepared by C. C. Royce, of the bureau of ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, to be read at the approaching centennial anniversary of the victory of Gen. (4) 66 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY George Rogers Clark over that unfortunate people" in 1880 much interesting information is gained regarding the people who held until 1831 the lands comprising much of what is now Auglaize county. "The Shawnees were the Bedouins, and I may almost say the Ishmaelites of the North American tribes," Mr. Royce stated in his introduction and then his paper continued as follows: "As wanderers they were without rivals among their race, and as fomentors of discord and war between themselves and their neighbors their genius was marked. Their original home is not, with any great measure of certainty, known. It is altogether improbable that it ever will be. Many theories on the subject have been already advanced, each with a greater or less degree of plausibility. More doubtless will, from time to time, be offered but, after all, the general public will be restricted to a choice of probabilities and each must accept for himself that which to his mind shall seem most satisfactory and convincing. "First—In the year 1608, Capt. John Smith, of the Jamestown colony, in Virginia, proceeded upon an exploring expedition up the Chesapeake Bay. In the course of this expedition he encountered and held communication with numerous tribes of Indians then occupying the shores of the bay and its immediate vicinity. All these Indians lived in continual dread of a tribe known to them by the name of `Massawomekes.' In the language of Smith: 'Beyond the mountains whence is the head of the river Patawomeke (Potomac), the savages report, inhabit their most mortal enemies, the Massawomekes, upon a great salt water, which by all liklihood is either some part of Canada ; some great lake or some inlet of some sea that falleth into the South Sea. These Massawomekes are a great nation and very populous.' Smith further relates that the other tribes, especially the Pottawomekes, the Patuxents, the Sasquesahannocks and the Tockwoughes, were continually tormented by them, corn- complained bitterly of their cruelty and were very importunate with him that he should free them from their assaults. HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 67 This Smith determined to do, and, had not his project been vetoed by the Colonial Council, the history and identity of this people would not now, in all liklihood, be enshrouded in such a mantle of doubt. "He did, in fact, encounter seven canoes full of them at the head of Chesapeake Bay, with whom he had a conference by signs, and remarks that their implements of war and other utensils showed them to be greatly superior to the Virginia Indians, as also their dexterity in their small boats made of the bark of trees, sewed with bark and well `luted' with gum, gave evidence that they lived upon some great water. When they departed for their homes, the Massawomekes went by the way of what Smith denominates Willoughbys river, and which his map and description show to be the modern Bush river which is on the west side of the bay and trends in a northwest direction. The map accompanying the London edition of 1629 of Smith's Travels located the Massawomekes on the south shore of a supposed large body of water in a northwest direction, and distant from the headwaters of the Patawomeke (Potomac) river some twenty-five leagues. This, making reasonable allowance for the discrepancies in topography, places them without doubt along the south shore of Lake Erie, with an eastern limit not remote from the present city of Erie, Pa., and extending thence westward. "I am aware that at least two eminent authorities (Gallatin and Bancroft), whom it would almost seem the height of presumption for me to dispute, have assumed that the Massawomekes and the Five Nations were identical. The more closely I have examined the evidence, the more throughly am I convinced of their error in this assumption. At that date the most westerly of the Five Nations—the Seneca—was not in possession of the country west of the Genesee river. Extending from that neighborhood westward to and beyond the Niagara river and along the southeast shore of Lake Erie, the country was occupied by a numerous nation known to history as the Attiwandaronk or Neutral nation, whose power was broken and the tribes destroyed or dispersed by the Five 68 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY Nations, but not until 1651, more than forty years subsequent to Smith's observations. To reach the country of the Five Nations from Chesapeake Bay, an almost due north course, or that of the Susquehanna river, would have been the natural and most convenient route to pursue. A route leading beyond the mountains, in which the Potomac river had its sources, would have been neither a natural nor convenient one for reaching the shores of Lake Ontario and vicinity, then the country of the Five Nations. It is highly improbable that war parties of this great Iroquois confederacy should have followed such a route in the face of the fact that the only tribes living along the line of the more direct route held them in great fear and would gladly have allowed them to pass without molestation. "I assume, then, that the villages of the Massawomekes occupied the south and southwest shore of Lake Erie and that they controlled the intermediate country to the Alleghany mountains as a hunting range, frequently extending their war and predatory excursions to the territory of the tribes east of the mountains and along the upper portion of Chesapeake bay. "Second—From the accounts of early French travelers and the relations of the Jesuit missionaries, we are advised of the existence during the first half of the Seventeenth century of a nation of Indians who were called by the Hurons, Eries ;' by the Five Nations, Rique,' and by the French, the ' Chat' or ' Cat' nation. According to Sagard's History of Canada, published in 1636, the name of Chat or Cat is thus accounted for: ' There is in this vast region a country which we call the Cat Nation, by reason of their cats, a sort of small wolf or leopard found there, from the skins of which the natives make robes, bordered and ornamented with tails.' This nation occupied a tract of country on the south shore of Lake Erie, identical with that to which I have assigned the Massawomekes of Smith. They were visited as early as 1626, according to the Jesuit relations, by two missionaries, Lagard and d' Allyon, who made an unsuccessful attempt to establish a HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 69 mission among them; or did the Jesuits, with the constant zeal and persistence so characteristic of them, ever succeed in obtaining a foothold with the tribe. At this time and for many years thereafter they are spoken of as very numerous and powerful. A war having broken out between them and the Five Nations, the Eries were utterly overthrown and dispersed about the year 1655. From this date we find no mention of their existence as a nation. "Schoolcraft, in his bulky and ill-assorted work on the History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes, adopts the theory that the Eries and Neuters were one and the same people. That he is certainly mistaken, I hardly think there is room for reasonable doubt. The evidence of his error is abundant in the Jesuit relations, but I have only space to cite the testimony of Father Brebouf, who visited the Neutral nation in 1640 and remarked that only four towns of the latter nation lay east of the Niagara river, ranging from east to west, toward the Erielhonous or Chats. Also in speaking of the Niagara river he says : 'It falls into Lake Erie or of the Cat tribe, and then it enters the Neutral grounds.' Bressani, who spent some years in the country, also in his 'Breve Relatione,' as is remarked by Shea, places the Neuters north of Lake Erie and the Eries south. "Third—Cadwallader Colden published the History of the Five Nations in London in 1747. He begins with the traditional period of their history. Tradition, with Indians as with white people, is often utterly unreliable and not infrequently totally incredible. The traditions of the events immediately preceding European settlement, from the recentness of their occurrence and their consequent freshness in the Indian mind, notwithstanding the average tendency to exaggeration and boastfulness, may however, be esteemed as not wholly unworthy of confidence in the general facts related, regardless of their highly colored details. These traditions all concur in the assertion that the Five Nations, a short time previous to the French settlement in Canada, lived near the present site of Montreal; that as a result of a war 70 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY with the Adirondacks they were forced to leave their own country and fly to the banks of the lakes on which they subsequently lived, where the war was at intervals renewed and was still in progress at the time of the French occupation of Canada. Here they applied themselves to increasing their proficiency in the use of arms, and in order to raise the spirits of their people the sachems, "turned them against the Satanas, a less warlike nation that then lived on the banks of the lakes and who in the course of a few years were subdued and driven out of their country.' "Colden doubtless borrows this relation form the account of Bacquerville de la Potherie, who was in Canada several years anterior to 1700 and whose history of America was published about 1720. Charlevoix also has a similar relation. Both these authors, doubtless, as Judge Force has remarked, borrowed from the narrative of Nicholas Perot, who lived among the Indians for more than thirty years subsequent to 1665 and who enjoyed their confidence to an unusual degree. He relates that the Iroquois had their original home about Montreal and Three Rivers; that they fled from the Algonquins to Lake Erie, where lived the Chaouanous, who waged war against them and drove them to the shores of Lake Ontario. That after many years of war against the Chaouanous and their allies they withdrew to Carolina, where they now are. That the Iroquois (Five Nations) after being obliged to quit Lake Erie withdrew to Lake Ontario, and that after having chased the Chaouanous and their allies toward Carolina they have ever since remained there in that vicinity. Here then, we have in the earliest history of the country the names of three tribes or nations who, by the accounts of different and widely separated travelers, occupied the same region of the territory, viz. : "First—The `Massawomekes' of Smith, who lived upon some great lake beyond the mountains in which the Potomac river has its sources, and which Smith's map shows to be in the location of Lake Erie. HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 71 "Second—The Eries,' or ' Chats,' of the Jesuit relations, who occupied the entire south shore of Lake Erie, and "Third—The Satanas' of Colden (who in the vocabulary preceding his work gives the name as the equivalent of Shaonous) and the " Chanouanous' of Perot who lived on Lake Erie and, from the text of the narrative, evidently on the south shore to the west of the Five Nations. "By all the accounts given of these people, they were, comparatively speaking, very numerous and powerful. Each occupied and controlled a large region of territory in the same general locality; each had, as far as history and tradition can throw any light upon the subject, long been the occupant thereof. The fact that neither of these authorities speaks of more than one nation occupying this region of country and neither seems to have had any knowledge or tradition of any other nation having done so, coupled with the improbability that three numerous and warlike nations should, within the historic period, have occupied so limited a region as the south shore of Lake Erie—and one which by water communication would have been so easily accessible for each to the other— without any account or tradition having survived of their intercourse, conflicts and destruction of one another, to my mind is little less than convincing evidence of the fact that three such distinct nations never had a cotemporaneous existence, and that the Massawomekes, Eries and Satanas, or Chaouanous, were one and the same people. "I am aware that the Chaouanous, or Shawnees as we now denominate them, speak the Algonquin tongue and that the Eries have ever been linguistically classed as of Iroquois stock, but of the latter fact there seems to be no more convincing proof than a passage in the Jesuit relations of 1648, asserting that the Cat nation have a number of permanent towns * * * 'and they have the same language with our Hurons.' The Jesuits never • succeeded in establishing a mission among the Eries, their intercourse with them was almost nothing, and they have left us no vocabularies by which their linguistic stock can be determined. I regard therefore 72 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY the single volunteer remark as to their having the same language with the Hurons as having less weight in the scale of probabilities than the accumulated evidence of their identity with the Massawomekes and Chaounous. "Their identity having been assumed and the Eries having, by all accounts, been conquered and dispersed about 1655, it remains to trace the remnant in their wanderings across the face of the country. This is perhaps the most difficult and most unsatisfactory task that enters into the consideration of the subject. I coult not, even were it desirable, in the space allotted to such a communication, give more than a few of the most general facts. To do otherwise would occupy much more time and space than my present object would justify or require. At this point I may remark that there is a manuscrpt map still in existence in Holland which accompanied a report made to the States General in 1614 or 1616, of the discoveries in New Netherlands, upon which a nation of Indians called Sawwoaneu' is marked as living on the east bank of the Delaware river. De Laet also, in the Leyden edition of his history, published in 1640, enumerates the Sawanoos' as one of the tribes then inhabiting the Delaware river. "It is of course impossible at this late day, in the absence of further data, to determine whether this tribe, which seems to have been known on the Delaware for more than a quarter of a century, bears any relationship to the modern Shawnees. It is not impossible that in the course of the conflicts between the Satanas' and the Five Nations a body of the former may have become segregated from their friends and have terminated their wanderings by a settlement on the Delaware. The probabilities seem to be unfavorable to this hypothesis. The solution is more likely to be found in the fact that the word Sawanoo' signified southern. The Delaware river was at that date known as South river, and Sawanoo' or Southern may have been a sort of general term applied to Indians residing on that river. "The Eries after their overthrow do not again appear in the contemporary relations or maps under that name except HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 73 as a destroyed nation. Their former location is shown on De l' Isle's maps of 1700 and 1703, Senex's map of 1710 and numerous others. The survivors being driven from their ancient homes, their villages and property destroyed, and deprived of the lake as a principal source of food supply, were forced to resort to the chase more exclusively as a means of subsistence. These things would have a tendency to divide the tribe into small hunting parties and to encourage the wandering propensities so often remarked of the Shawnees. In 1669 we find La Salle, who was at that time among the Iroquois at the head of Lake Ontario, projecting a voyage of discovery down the Ohio river, acknowledging the welcome present from the Iroquois of a Shawanee prisoner, who told him that the Ohio would be reached in six weeks and that he would guide him to it. This would indicate that the Shawnees or a portion of them at that date were familiar with the Ohio country and probably residents of it. "Marquette, who was at La Pointe on Lake Superior in 1670, writes that the Illinois have given him information of a nation called Chaouanous' living thirty days journey to the southeast of their country. In the Jesuit relations of 1671-72 the name of Chaouanong' appears as another name for `Ontouagannha,' which is said in the relations of 1661-62 to mean 'where they do not know how to speak,' but their location is not given. De 1' Isle's map of 1700, however, places the Ontouagannha ' on the headwaters of the Santee and the Great Pedee rivers in South Caroline, and the same location is marked on Senex's map of ten years later as occupied by the villages of Chaouanous.` In 1672 Father Marquette in passing down the Mississippi river remarks upon reaching the mouth of the Ohio that ' This river comes from the country on the east inhabited by the people called Chaouanous in such numbers that they reckon as many as twenty-three villages in one district and fifteen in another lying quite near each other. They are by no means warlike and are the people the Iroquois go far to seek in order to wage an unprovoked war upon them.' 74 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY "In 1680, as related by Father Membre in his account of the adventures of La Salle's party at Fort Crevecoeur, the `Illinois,' who were allies of the Chaouanous,' were warned by one of the latter tribe who was returning home from a trip to the 'Illinois' country but turned back to advise them of the discovery of an Iroquois army that had already entered their territory. During the same year a Chaouenou' chief who had 150 warriors and lived on a great river emptying into the Ohio, sent to La Salle to form an alliance. On the map accompanying Marquette's journal ;published in 1681, the Chaounous' are placed on the Ohio river near the Mississippi, while on his original manuscript map—a fac simile of which will be found in French's Historical Collections of Louisiana— they are located in black, unexplored region a long distance to the east of the Mississippi, probably meant to be in the neighborhood of the Ohio river, although that river is not laid down upon the map, and its course was not definitely known to Marquette. "In 1682 M. de La Salle, after exploring the Mississippi river to the gulf, formally took possession of the country from the mouth of the river to the Ohio, on the eastern side, with the consent of the Chaouanous," Chichachas' and other people dwelling therein. At page 502 of the third volume of Margry it is recorded that `Joutel, the companion of La Salle, in his last voyage says, in speaking of the Shawanoes in Illinois : They have been there only since they were drawn thither by M. de La Salle ; formerly they lived on the borders of Virginia and the English colonies.' Father Gravier led an expedition down the Mississippi to its mouth in the year 1700. He speaks of the Ohio river as having three branches, one coming from the northeast called the St. Joseph or Ouibachie, the second from the country of the Iroquois called the Ohio, the third on which the Chaouanoua' live coming from the south-southwest. This later was evidently the Tennessee. On De l' Isle's map of 1700 previously alluded to, the Outonigauha' are placed on the headwaters of the great rivers of South Carolina and the Chiononons' on the Tennessee river HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 75 near its mouth. It appears, however, from the report of an investigating committee of the Pennsylvannia Assembly made in 1755 that at least a portion of this band of the Shawnees or Outonigauha' living in South Carolina, who had been made uneasy by their neighbors, came with about sixty families to Conestoga about the year 1698 by leave of the Sesquehanna Indians who then lived there. A few of the band had about four years previously, at the solicitation of the `Minsis,' been allowed to settle on the Delaware river among the latter. Other straggling parties continued from time to time for a number of years to join their brethren in Pennsylvania until they finally became among the most numerous and powerful tribes in the states. "In 1700 William Penn visited the chiefs of the band at Conestoga and in the same year the Council of Maryland resolved 'that the friendship of the Susquehannock and Shawnee Indians be secured by making a treaty with them, they seeming to be of considerable moment and not to be slighted.' The map of North America by John Senex in 1710 indicates a village of Chaouanous' on the headwaters of South Carolina, but apparently places the main body along the upper waters of the Tennessee river, a short distance west of the Appalachian mountains. This would make them very close neighbors of the Cherokees and probably places them too high up the river. Ten years later (1720) a map of the north parts of America, by H. Moll, does not indicate the presence of any `Chaouanous' on the Tennessee river, but shows their former territory to be occupied by the Charakeys.' This corresponds with the statement in Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee that M. Charleville, a French trader near New Orleans, came among the Shawnees then (1714) inhabiting the country upon the Cumberland river and traded with them, and that about this period the Cherokees and Chickasaws expelled them from their numerous villages upon the lower Cumberland (there denominated the Sault) river, the designation of `Savannah Old Settlement,' indicating the probable abandonment at least several years previously of the last Shawnee 76 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY village in the Cumberland and Tennessee valleys, in their gradual withdrawal to the north side of the Ohio river. "As late as 1764, however, according to Ramsey, a straggling band of them moved from Green river in Kentucky, where they had been residing (though as I surmise, only temporarily), to the Wabash country. It seems also that at some period anterior to 1740 a band of Chaouanous,' wanderers in all liklihood from the Cumberland and Tennessee country, had lived for a time within two leagues from the fort at Mobile, Ala., for in that year M. de Bienville, the commandant assigned the place, which had been abandoned by them, to the use of some fugitive Taensas.' Another band, probably an offshoot from those who had wandered from South Carolina, found a home at the place now known as Oldtown, Alleghany county, Maryland, a few miles below the Cumberland on the Potomac river, and in 1738 we find by reference to Vol. I, Page 63, of the Virginia State Papers, that 'the king of the Shawanese living at Alleghany sends friendly messages to Governor Gooch * desires peace,' etc. This is likely the same band that in 1701 concluded a treaty with William Penn at Philadelphia and is referred to in the preamble to the treaty as inhabiting in and about the northern parts of the River Potomac. The nucleus for the Shawnee village which long occupied the neighborhood of Winchester, Va., is likely traceable to this band. "But I have already far exceeded the proper limits of such an article and am yet more than a century behind in my story. I can give but the merest outline of their subsequent history. I shall be unable to consider and discuss the probabilities of their identity with the 'Savannah' Indians and their former residence on the Savannah river in Georgia ; the story of their chief, Blackhoof, relative to their home on the Suwanee river in Florida ; their asserted consanguinity with the Sacs and Foxes, or any other of the numerous suggestions and theories concerning their origin and primal abode. Between the date of the ejection of the western portion of the Shawnees from the valleys of the Cumberland and the Ten- HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 77 nesssee rivers and the middle of the Eighteenth century their appearance in history is rare. They were doubtless scattered in several bands along the Ohio river and in the interior of what are now the states of Ohio and Indiana. The oldest map on which I have noticed the location of the Shawnees within the limits of Ohio is that of Emanuel Bowen, published in London in 1752, which places a ' village d' Chouanou' on the north side of the Ohio river about midway between the mouths of the Kanawha and Sciota. "That branch of the tribe living in Pennsylvania had in the meantime become decidedly the most numerous and ima part of that of the state in which they lived and need not portant portion of the Shawnee people. Their history is here be recited. It is sufficient to state the fact that owing to the aggressiveness and encroachments of the increasing white population they were gradually crowded from their lands and homes until about the year 1750, when they began their migrations to the west of the Ohio river, and within a few years had united with their western brethren and were quite numerous in the Muskingum and Sciota Valleys. They sided actively with the French in the war of 1755, aided materially in the defeat of Braddock and were a terror to the border settlements of Pennsylvania and Virginia. In 1756 an expedition under Major Lewis against the upper town on the Ohio river, three miles above the mouth of the Kanawha, was a failure. In 1764 Colonel Boquet's expedition on the Muskingum resulted in securing temporary peace with them. In 1774 Colonel McDonald destroyed their town of Wappatomica, a few miles above Zanesville. In the same year they received a severe blow in the defeat at Point Pleasant. In 1779 Colonel Bowman's expedition destroyed the Shawnee village or chillicothe (Oldtown) on the Little Miami river three miles north of Xenia. "In 1780 Gen. George Rogers Clark burnt the Piqua town on Mad river, the centennial anniversary of which is responsible for this lengthy disquisition. In 1782 General Clark repeated his expedition and destroyed the upper and 78 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY lower Piqua towns on the Great Miami within the present limits of Miami county. In 1786 Colonel Logan destroyed the Mackacheek towns in Logan county. In 1790 the Shawnees suffered from the expedition of General Harmar, but had a share with the Miamis in his final defeat. In 1791 they glutted their vengeance at the cruel defeat of St. Clair and in 1794 were among those who were made to feel the power of the Federal troops at Fallen Timbers, under General Wayne, which brought the peace of 1795. In the meantime the Shawnees had been parties to a treaty of peace with the United States in 1786 at the mouth of the Great Miami, but it failed of its object. As a result of Wayne's victory came the treaty of Greenville in 1795, participated in by the Shawnees and eleven other tribes, whereby all the territory south and east of a line beginning at the mouth of the Cuyahoga river, thence up the same to the portage leading to the Tuscarawas river, down the Tuscarawas to the crossing above Ft. Laurens thence westerly to Loramie's store on the Great Miami, thence to Ft. Recovery (the place of St. Clair's defeat) and thence southwesterly to the Ohio river, opposite the mouth of the Kentucky river, was ceded to the United States. This tract comprised about two-thirds of the area of Ohio and a portion of Indiana. July 4, 1805, the Shawnees were again parties to a treaty wherein was ceded to the United States a large tract of country lying north and west of the Greenville treaty line and east of a north-and-south line 120 miles west of the Pennsylvania boundary. By treaty of November 25, 1808, in conjunction with other tribes, they ceded the right of way for two roads, one running from Ft. Meigs, on the Maumee, to the Western Reserve, and the other from Fremont south to the Greenville treaty line. "Prior to the War of 1812 the Shawnees had become hostile to the United States. The great Tecumseh and his scheming brother, The Prophet, with their allies, were defeated by Harrison at Tippecanoe in 1811 and the Indian alliance was finally broken and dissolved by the death in 1813 of Tecumseh HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 79 at the battle of the Thames. By the treaty of 1817 the Wyandots, Pottawattomies and other tribes made a cession to the United States (in which the Shawnees concurred) of almost the entire Indian territory within the present limits of Ohio. Out of this cession the United States in turn granted them sundry small reservations upon which to live. Among these reservations there were for the Shawnees a tract ten miles square, with Wapakoneta as the center ; a tract adjoining the above of twenty-five square miles on Hog creek, as well as a tract of forty-eight square miles surrounding Lewistown for the mixed Senecas and Shawnees. The treaty of 1818 added twenty square miles to the reserve at Wapakoneta and fourteen square miles to the one at Lewistown. "By the treaty of July 20, 1831, the Lewistown Reserve was ceded to the United States and those at Wapakoneta and Hog creek were ceded on the 8th of the succeeding month, by which transaction the last vestige of Shawnee right or claims to lands in Ohio became extinguished and they agreed to move west of the Mississippi river. With this end in view a tract of 60,000 acres of land was granted to the Lewistown band of mixed Senecas and Shawnees, which was subsequently selected in the northeast corner of Indian Territory, to which they removed and where, with some subsequent modifications of boundaries, they now (1880) reside. "It is necessary here to state that a band of Shawnees some years prior to 1793, becoming dissatisfied with the encroachments of the white settlers, removed west of the Mississippi river and in that year were, in conjunction with certain Delawares who accompanied them, granted a tract of land by Baron de Carondelet, the French governor. The Delawares having in 1815 abandoned this region, the Shawnees, in 1825, ceded the land to the United States and accepted in lieu thereof, for the accommodation of themselves and such of their brethren as should remove from Ohio, a tract in the eastern part of the present state of Kansas, 100 x 25 miles in extent, and removed thereto. To this reservation the 80 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY Wapakoneta and Hog Creek band of Shawnees, after the treaty of 1831, moved and the principal part of the tribe became again reunited. "By the treaty of 1854 the Kansas Shawnees ceded to the United States all of their reservation but 200,000 acres, within which allotments of land in severalty were made to the individuals of the tribe, who from time to time with the consent of the Secretary of the Interior, sold the same, and under the provisions of an agreement entered into in 1869 with the Cherokees they removed to the country of the latter and merged their tribal existence with them. A number of the Kansas Shawnees who, just prior to and during the late rebellion, wandered off to Texas and Mexico, returned after the war and were provided with a home in the Indian Territory alongside of the Pottawattomies and are known as `Absentee Shawnees.' These, together with those confederated with the Senecas in the northeastern part of Indian Territory, are all of the once numerous and powerful 'Massawomekes' now left to maintain the tribal name of Shawnee." CONFIRMED BY OLD OFFICIAL REPORTS. Corroborative of Mr. Royce's opinion of the Ishmaelitish tendencies of the Shawnees, their hand against every man and every man's hand against them, it is set out in the official report of Antoine Gamelin, the special envoy of Major Hamtramck, commandant at Vincennes, sent out in the spring of 1788, following the establishment of the laws governing the Territory Northwest of the Ohio, to sound out the intentions of the Indians, that after a powwow at the Miami town with the chiefs of the Miamis, the Shawnees and the Delawares "the great chief told me that he was pleased with the speech (offering peace) and that he soon would give me an answer. In a private discourse with him he told me not to mind what the Shawnees would tell me, they having a bad heart and being the perturbators of all the nations. He said the Miamis had a bad name on account of the mischief done on the River HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 81 Ohio but, he told me, it was not occasioned by his young men but by the Shawnees, his young men having only gone for a hunt." Late figures relating to the Shawnees, who are now incorporated with the Cherokees in Oklahoma, give their total population at about 1,400. When in 1785 Gen. George Rogers Clark and his fellow commissioners met to negotiate a treaty with the Shawnees and other Indians an incident occurred that showed Clark's fearless character and was a striking instance of his ascendancy over the minds of the Indians. It is narrated that the Indians arrived at Ft. Washington (Cincinnati), the treaty point, all in a most friendly manner except the Shawnees, the most conceited and warlike of the aborigines— "the first at the battle and the last at the treaty." Three hundred of their fittest warriors, set off in all their paint and feathers, filed into the council house. Their number and demeanor, so unusual at an occasion of this sort, was altogether unexpected and suspicious. The United States stockade mustered seventy men. In the center of the hall at a little table sat General Clark, the indefatigable scourge of these very mauraders ; Richard Butler, who six years later gave his life in battle with the Indians at the headwaters of the Wabash when St. Clair's force met defeat at the hands of the redskins, and Samuel Parsons, the three commissioners. On the part of the Indians an old council sachem and a war chief took the lead. The latter, a tall, raw-boned fellow with an impudent and a villainous look, made a boisterous and threatening speech which operated effectively upon the passions of the Indians, who set up a prodigious war whoop at every pause. He concluded by presenting a black wampum and a white wampum to signify that they were prepared for either event, war or peace. General Clark, the narrative then goes on to say, exhibited the same unaltering and careless countenance he had shown during the whole scene, his head leaning on his left hand, his elbow resting on the table. He raised his little cane and pushed the sacred wampum off the table with very little (5) 82 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY ceremony. Every Indian at the same time started from seat with one of those sudden, simultaneous and peculiarly savage sounds which startles and disconcerts the stoutest hearts and can neither be described nor forgotten. At this juncture Clark arose and the savage scrutinizing eyes cowered at his glance. He stamped his foot on the prostrate and insulting symbols and ordered the Shawnees to leave the hall. They did so apparently involuntarily and were heard all night debating in the bushes near the fort. The raw-boned chief was for war and the old sachem for peace. The latter prevailed and the next morning they came back and sued for peace. "It must never be forgotten," says the historian, Elmore Barce (" The Land of the Miamis"), "that despite his stoicism in facing danger, his skill in battle, his power to endure privation, and his undoubted valor and bravery, that the Indian was a savage, and entertained the thoughts of a savage. Toward those who, like the French, pampered his appetites and indulged his passions to secure his trade, he entertained no malice. * Thus the British Government, through its duly authorized agents, its governor and army officers, retained the posts belonging to the new republic, encouraged the tribes in their depredations, and defeated the pacific intentions of the American people, and all from the sordid motives of gain. On April 30, 1798, when George Washington was inaugurated as the first President, every savage chieftain along the Wabash, or dwelling at the forks of the Maumee, was engaged in active warfare against the people of the United States, largely through the instrumentality of the British officials. * The star of the Little Turtle was in the ascendant. He was now thirty-eight years of age, and while not a hereditary chieftain of the Miamis, his prowess and cunning had given him fame. The Indians never made a mistake in choosing a military leader. He watched the Americans from the very time of their leaving Fort Washington, and purposed to destroy them at the Indian town. * General William Henry Harrison, who HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 83 was aide to Wayne at the battle of Fallen Timbers, said to him • "General Wayne, I am afraid you will get into the fight yourself, and forget to give me the necessary field orders." "Perhaps I may," replied Wayne, "and if I do, recollect the standing order of the day is, ' Charge the damned rascals with the bayonet' !" A STORY THAT HAS BEEN TOLD AND RETOLD. The historical literature of Ohio is equal in volume and interest to that of any state in the Union. The story of a rich and proud state has been told and retold and many volumes are accessible to the student who would seek to know the whole wondrous tale in full. No detail of this story is more engrossingly interesting than that relating to the Indian wars, and in no section of the state were the incidents of these wars more conclusive than those that had their scene of action in this section of the state. Incidents relating to these actions up to the close of the Revolutionary period have been touched on above. General Harmar's defeat on the Maumee in 1790; St. Clair's defeat at the headwaters of the Wabash, on the western border of this state (Ft. Recovery), in 1791; the ineffectual council with the victorious Indians at the mouth of the' Auglaize (Defiance) in 1792; Wayne's victory at Ft. Recovery in June, 1794, and his conclusive defeat of the Indians at the decisive battle of Fallen Timbers in the following August, which was followed by the erection of a chain of forts controlling the waters north and south of our divide, including that at St. Marys and at Loramie ; the memorable treaty at Greenville in the following year ; Blackhoof's rejection of Tecumseh's confederation proposal at Wapakoneta in 1810 and the overthrow of the Indian confederacy at Tippecanoe in 1811; the War of 1812 and General Harrison's operations at St. Marys and the strengthening of the fort (Barbee) there ; the erection of Ft. Amanda on the Auglaize near what is now the northern border of this county, and of the garrison at Wapakoneta ; the destruction of the 84 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY Shawnee chillicothe (Oldtown) west of St. Marys in 1813; the second treaty of Greenville in 1814; the treaty of the Maumee in 1817, and finally the treaty of St. Marys in 1818, followed by the rapid settlement of this region and the organization of Mercer and Allen counties in 1820, constitute a story that in the full telling would require volumes. Happily, all has been told and the thrilling story is an open page to any who would read. Unhappily, it only can be touched on in such a narrative as that here in hand. The limitations of this work preclude even an exhaustive review. But certain high lights properly may be introduced. In the libraries of many homes in this county and in the school libraries, available to all students, are histories carrying a wealth of information along this line. Local reviews have been written, exhaustive and illuminating, including those of two eminent local school men of another day, Prof. C. W. Williamson and Prof. J. D. Simkins, which twenty years and more ago were widely distributed hereabouts, and Henry Harvey's History of the Shawnees. All these are available and to them the attention of the student is recommended. The following ballad hinging on the disastrous defeat of Gen. Arthur St. Clair's army by the Indians at the headwaters of the Wabash was sung by the pioneers to a plaintive air, the cadence fitting the lines, and printed copies of it long hung on the walls of the log cabins, indicative of the popular grief over an event which certainly retarded for years the advance of settlement in the Middle West. The ballad is an illuminative specimen of the primitive literature of the then frontier country and is printed under the title of SAINCLAIRE'S DEFEAT. 'TWas November the fourth, in the year of ninety-one, We had a sore engagement near to Fort Jefferson; Sainclaire was our commander, which may remembered be, For there we left nine hundred men in the West'n Ter'tory. At Bunker's Hill and Quebec, there many a hero fell, Likewise at Long Island (it is I the truth can tell), But such a dreadful carnage may I never see again As hap'ned near St. Mary's, upon the river plain. HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 85 Our army was attacked just as the day did dawn, And soon were overpowered and driven from the lawn. They killed Major Oldham, Levin and Briggs likewise, And horrid yells of sav'ges resounded through the skies. Major Butler was wounded the very second fire; His manly bosom swell'd with rage when forced to retire; And as he lay in anguish, nor scarcely could he see, Exclaimed, "Ye hounds of hell! Oh revenged will I be." We had not long been broken when General Butler found Himself so badly wounded, was forced to quit the ground; "My God!" says he, "what shall we do? We're wounded every man; Go charge them, valiant heroes, and beat them if you can." He leaned his back against a tree, and there resigned his breath, And like a valiant soldier sunk in the arms of death; When blessed angels did await his spirit to convey, And unto the celestial fields he quickly bent his way. We charged again with courage firm, but soon again gave ground; The war whoop then redoubled, as did the foes around. They killed Major Ferguson, which caused his men to cry, "Our only safety is in flight, or fighting here we die." "Stand to your guns," says valiant Ford; "let's die upon them here, Before we let the sav'ges know we ever harbored fear!" Our cannon balls exhausted and artill'ry men all slain, Obliged were our musketmen the en'my to sustain. Yet three hours more we fought them, and then were forc'd to yield, When three hundred warriors lay stretched upon the field. Says Colonel Gibson to his men, "My boys, be not dismayed, I'm sure that true Virginians were never yet afraid. "Ten thousands deaths I'd rather die than they should gain the field." With that he got a fatal shot, which caused him to yield. Says Major Clarke, "My heroes, I can here no longer stand; We'll strive to form in order, and retreat the best we can." The word "Retreat" being passed around, there was a dismal cry, Then helter-skelter through the woods like wolves and sheep they fly; This well appointed army, who but a day before Defied and braved all danger, had like a cloud passed o'er. Alas, the dying and wounded, how dreadful was the thought! To the tomahawk and scalping knife in mis'ry are brought. Some had a thigh and some an arm broke on the field that day, Who writhed in torments at the stake to close the dire affray. 86 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY To mention our brave officers, is what I wish to do; No sons of Mars e'er fought more brave, or with more courage true. To Captain Bradford I belonged, in his artillery; He fell that day amongst the slain, a valiant man was he. It is proper to note that the balladist assumed a good deal of "poetic license" in setting out some of the incidents of his harrowing narrative. This is particularly true of his description of the manner in which General Butler "unto the celestial fields he quickly bent his way." Simon Girty, of execrable memory, was the leader of the Wyandots. It is narrated that "the Wyandots fought courageously, and none with more bravery than their leader, Simon Girty, who was presented with three of the captured cannon; but the present proved of no value to him, as he could not remove them." Butterfield, the apologist of the Girtys, in his history says that "among those who fought with the savages on that occasion (St. Clair's defeat) were considerable numbers of Canadians, mostly young men, and particularly such as were born of Indian mothers. There were also some refugees present. Girty was not the only one who, on that day, fought against his countrymen. After the action he found General Butler on the field, writhing from the agony of his wounds. The general spoke to him and requested him to end his misery. Girty refused to do this, but turning to one of the Indian warriors, told him the wounded man was a high officer; whereupon the savage planted his tomahawk in his head, and thus terminated his sufferings. His scalp was instantly torn from his crown, his heart taken out and divided into as many pieces as there were tribes engaged in the battle." " `Oh!' said an old squaw who died many years ago on the St. Marys, 'my arm was that night so weary scalping white men,' " says another narrative. Still another narrative has it that General Wilkinson visited the battlefield about three months after the action and reported that "the scene was truly melancholy. In my opinion, those unfortunate men HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 87 who fell into the enemy's hands, with life, were used with the greatest torture—having their limbs torn off ; and the women have been treated with the utmost indecent cruelty, having stakes as thick as a person's arm driven through their bodies. Believing that the whites made war merely to acquire land, the Indians crammed clay and sand into the eyes and down the throats of the dying and the dead." Contemporary accounts have it that there were no fewer than 250 women in the army, following the fortunes of their husbands, of whom fifty-six were killed in battle, and the remainder were made prisoners, except a small number who reached Ft. Washington (Cincinnati). There are many accounts, in the old books, of the days of the Indian wars, but they for the great part are closed to the youngsters of the present generation who perhaps regard the incidents of those days of the winning of the West as a story that has been told. They thus not only are unmindful of but uninformed concerning the terrible price paid for their common heritage in the beautiful lands of Ohio. THE COMING OF THE SHAWNEES TO WAPAKONETA. As has been set out, the Shawnees came to what is now Auglaize county because they had been driven away from their hunting grounds in the Piqua country to the south by General Clark. "As had happened with them throughout their whole history," according to Professor Simkin's comment, "they stopped at the most desirable place until they were driven away. They had no title to or claim on the land in the Auglaize country. The Wyandots seemed to have had the best claim to this region at that time, although they had come as tenants at will under the Miamis, possibly as early as 1700. So the Shawnees remained here as tenants at will under the Wyandots." Quaskey (Blackhoof), then their chief, established his council house at Wapakoneta and there the chief village of the Shawnees became the acknowledged center of the tribe. As hunting centers, villages also were 88 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY created at the old Ottawa town farther down the Auglaize, where Ft. Amanda, at the northern edge, of this county, later was erected, and in the northern edge of the great prairie (Oldtown) now covered by the waters of the Grand Reservoir, west of St. Marys. There no doubt were other centers occupied by portions of the tribe, for their hunting grounds covered all the territory now comprised within the counties of Auglaize, Logan, Shelby, Mercer, VanWert and Allen. "Captain Johnny" and his following had their village on the west bank of Pusheta creek, where that stream enters the Auglaize. Old Chief Quaskey (Blackhoof) had his last camp on the summit of one of the picturesque hills at what is now the site of the village of St. Johns, old Blackhoof Town, and there he spent his last days and was buried, and the creek which rises there bears his name, Blackhoof creek. "Their name is on your waters, Ye may not wash it out." So numerous, in fact were the Indian villages throughout this region that General Wayne, writing from Grand Glaize in 1794 observed that "the margins of these rivers (the Miamis of the lakes and the Auglaize) appear like one continuous village for a number of miles both above and below this place, nor have I ever before beheld such immense fields of corn in any part of America from Canada to Florida." All contemporary accounts are agreed that the Indians of this region gave much attention to agriculture, one stating that they "had not only much corn, etc., but they also depended largely on the chase. They hesitated about taking the field unless they had large quantities of corn `cached' in their villages. Some of them had extensive orchards and Wayne cut down several thousand peach and apple trees during one of his expeditions." Some idea of the corn raised by the Indians can be had from the statement that at the taking of the Piqua village two hundred acres of corn were destroyed and that ten years later during another military campaign HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 89 in that same region 20,000 bushels were burned. It must be kept in mind, however, that the cultivation of the soil devolved entirely upon the squaws and children. It was beneath the dignity of the "noble redskin" to bemean himself by manual labor. He believed in the trite maxim: "Let the women do the work." THE HOME LIFE OF THE RED MAN. The only manual labor the men ever performed was to make bows and arrows, tomahawks of stone, war clubs and canoes. The latter were either made of logs slowly burned out and then smoothed with sharp shells, or of birch bark, which the women sewed together with long strips of bark of the red elm or basswood and smeared the seams with the gum of the spruce tree to make them water tight. The implements of agriculture originally used by the Indians were the sharpened bones of the larger animals, tortoise shells or flat stones. but after the traders came among them they exchanged furs for hoes and such other implements as might be provided. Not only did the squaws till the soil but they prepared the food and did the cooking, this including the "jerking" of the venison, bear and buffalo meat, drying the wild fruits and pumpkins, husking and storing away the corn and gathering the wood for the fires, besides which the duty of making the wearing apparel, moccasins, baskets, tepees and the like, the making of maple sugar and all domestic labors devolved upon them. The braves amused themselves in fishing, hunting, gambling, fighting a hostile tribe or devoting themselves to their toilets—painting, tatooing or otherwise decorating their bodies. The Indian's religion was a subject of real concern to him and his religious ceremonies "were performed with great earnestness and solemn formality," his various formal dances being designed to secure the favor of the Great Spirit in whatever enterprise he might have afoot. How many aboriginals occupied the territory now comprised within this county when at the height of their tribal 90 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY prosperity is altogether a matter of conjecture, but estimates made long ago place the number at something like 2,000. But evil days came upon them. They fell victims to epidemic disease, their normal birth rate declined and by the time the white man became present here in considerable numbers they had declined to a mere "ragged remnant" of their once proud strength. In his report of the number of Indians under his charge while acting as Indian agent at Piqua in 1819, Col. John Johnston, the agent, made note of the Shawnees then living in their village, the old council town of Wapakoneta, as follows : Men, 265 ; women, 256 ; children, 279, and of the Ottawas along the Auglaize in Ottowa Town (in what is now Logan township, this county) as follows : Men, 85 ; women, 88; children, 54. When in the fall of 1832, following the cession of their reservation hereabout, they started on their long journey to the new lands that were being given them beyond the Mississippi, there were about 1,100 (men, women and children) in the sorrowful cavalcade. In his illuminative monograph on "The Indian Tribes of Ohio—Historically Considered" (1899), Prof. Warren K. Moorehead asks: "What have we remaining of these once powerful tribes? Nothing! Only a few graves and village- sites here and there, or scattered monuments, attest their presence. In the names of our rivers, creeks and townships we have preserved the fact that the Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots, etc., were once here. But in the volumes on Ohio history is our permanent record. It is a sad one ; a record written in blood. Reviewed after the passing of several generations, we can today see that many of the expeditions were wholly unnecessary and barren of results ; that much of the Indian war could have been averted. Had our adventurers, hunters and land grabbers been suppressed ; treaties and boundaries once made respected and such men as Hackewelder and Zeisberger (the Moravians) placed in charge of all the Ohio tribes and given unlimited authority, backed by the powers at Pittsburg or by the general government, I doubt not but that there would have been few wars and far less HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 91 ravaging of the frontiers." Professor Moorehead's computation has it that during the long struggle with the Indians 7,837 Indians and 12,002 whites were killed within Ohio or by war parties sent out from Ohio against the frontiers. THE GENTLE INFLUENCE OF THE QUAKERS. Following the conclusion of the treaty of Greenville (1795), which virtually terminated the old Indian wars, it is narrated that the Shawnees returned to their old time vocations, hunting, trapping and the cultivation of the soil. The French and American traders resumed their business, which for a time had been suspended on account of war and the trade in the scalps of white men ceased. No longer were captives compelled to run the gauntlet or endure torture at the stake. The close of the Greenville treaty indeed seemed to be the beginning of a new era for the Shawnees. Interest was being manifested in their behalf in influential quarters in the East and the older chronicles have it that "the address prepared at a yearly meeting of the Friends (Quakers) of Philadelphia and read to the Indians on the 2d of August by General Wayne had a greater effect on their minds than was generally supposed at the time." Soon after this, according to these narratives, a correspondence between the Shawnees and the Friends of Philadelphia was commenced and was continued until 1802, when a deputation of Shawnees, including Chief Blackhoof, and several Delaware chiefs on their way to Washington, on business connected with Indian affairs, visited Philadelphia to renew their acquaintance with their old friends, the Quakers. The accounts of this visit state that the chiefs were treated with great kindness and that they were furnished with a considerable amount of goods and money adapted to their needs. In the following year the Society of Friends sent missionaries to the Shawnees to teach them agriculture and instruct them in the principles of Christianity. Among the Quakers who thus visited the Shawnee village at Wapakoneta was Henry Harvey, who 92 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY later was to become superintendent of the mission at Wapakoneta and who remained with the Indians there until their dispossession and retirement in 1832. The labors of these first missionaries were continued until the time of the breaking out of the War of 1812, when the thoughts of the red man again reverted to war and the labors of the missionaries were necessarily suspended until the return of peace, after which they were resumed. "About this time" (1819), wrote Henry Harvey in his illuminative History of the Shawnee Indians, "the Friends erected for the Shawnees, at their own expense and with the consent of the Government, a gristmill and a sawmill on the Auglaize river at Wapaughkonetta (old spelling) and made other improvements at that place, such as a dwelling house for a superintendent and family, who were sent out to reside among the Indians, to take charge of the mills and to endeavor to assist and encourage them in commencing the improvement of their land. From the knowledge they soon acquired in the arts of agriculture they learned to raise corn, beans, pumpkins, etc. The corn they had ground at the mill free of toll, which their women soon learned to bake into bread, which they found much easier done than their former method of pounding into hominy. "The expense of erecting the mills, keeping them in repair, paying hands to attend them, as well as every other expense appertaining to the support of this institution for the benefit of the Indians, was all borne by the Society of Friends. The sawmill was used in making boards, in order to assist the Indians in making their houses and furniture for the comfort of their .families. A large amount of expense was incurred by keeping up and supporting this institution in that remote place, it being thirty miles from the 'settlements of white people, as all supplies had to be hauled that distance, over extremely bad roads, and a vast amount fed away to the hungry Indian; notwithstanding which the society continued its labors, although there was much difficulty in obtaining superintendents in that wilderness, who HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 93 were willing to forsake the comforts of life and civil and religious liberty and spend their time in that cold and inhospitable region, and spend such a life as they had then to endure among this rude and savage people. "The Shawnees were very ignorant in regard to building houses, making rails, building fences, etc. Being aware of this the Society employed young white men to assist them in building cabins, making rails and in doing many other things. They were furnished, too, with plow irons which the Friends stocked for them. About this time they received a handsome present in money from a female Friend in England for the purpose of supplying them with farming utensils and other necessary implements of husbandry, as an encouragement to them in their laudable undertaking. This money was judiciously appropriated, which, together with the assistance they received from the Government and by their own industry, they were soon in a way of doing much better for themselves than they had formerly been. Thus encouraged in bettering their education in life, they fast gained in the arts of civilization and in the acquisition of property, and the estimation of its real value after having honestly acquired it. Being gradually furnished with cows, they soon learned the use of them, to the great comfort of themselves and families. They soon learned the use and benefit of oxen and work horses and plowed their corn, thus relieving their women of the intolerable task they had before laid on them, of raising their corn with the hoe, and by that course the women had more time to attend to the care of themselves and families. And, as the men thus made provisions for furnishing food for their families, the women were not behind in their part of the work; and at length these kind-hearted people had begun, under the fostering care of the Government and by the aid of the Society, to realize better days and to find themselves in a situation through which they could look forward with pleasing hope of one day being a prosperous and happy people. 94 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY "They had by two treaties secured an annuity of $3,000 annually, to be paid them at Wapaughkonetta, for the benefit of the whole tribe ; that is, each person to draw his or her portion in money annually, forever. This for many years was honestly paid to them, agreeably to the stipulations of the treaties, while their old and worthy agent remained in charge of their affairs (John Johnston, with headquarters at Piqua, was at that time Indian agent for all the tribes in northwestern Ohio) ; but, as the Government itself passed into new hands, so in like manner those officers who had long managed Indian affairs had to give place to others, who neglected their business, and the poor Indians suffered." THE OLD TRADING POST AT WAPAKONETA. Col. John Johnston, above referred to, formerly agent of Indian affairs in the northwest and later United States commissioner, was born in Ireland in 1775 and was seventeen years of age when he came to America with his parents in 1792, the family locating at Philadelphia. A year later he was appointed to a position in the quartermaster's service in General Wayne's army and presently was given a clerkship in the War Department, where "his deportment and high standing as an accountant in that department led to his appointment as Indian agent at Ft. Wayne." In 1798 he took his station at Ft. Wayne, where he remained for eleven years, or until 1809, when he was transferred to the agency at Piqua, and was thus in charge at that important agency during the period of the War of 1812. In this connection, it is narrated that during this war "the greater number of friendly Indians who had not been influenced by Tecumseh and The Prophet were assembled at Piqua under Colonel Johnston." The tribes which claimed and received protection from the United States were the Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots (in part), Ottawas (in part), a portion of the Senecas, the Muncies and the Mohicans. The number at Piqua has been variously estimated by different writers at from 5,000 to 10,000. HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 95 "The emissaries of Tecumseh entered the camps and sought by every means to win them over, but there was an insurmountable barrier in the presence of Colonel Johnston, whose influence more than counter-balanced all Tecumseh's arguments and the high price offered by the English for American scalps. Knowing that so long as Johnston were alive they could not effect their object, various plots for his assassination were devised. Surrounded by Indians, a price upon his head, rising in the morning with no assurance of living until night, retiring at night expecting to be murdered in bed, he remained at his post, although often warned by the friendly chiefs of certain death and by them advised to seek safety elsewhere. * * * The Indians frequently gave evidence of their fidelity during the war. At the surrender of Detroit the frontier was laid bare to the incursions of the hostile Indians. Ft. Wayne was threatened at a time when there were many women and children there, who would be in danger and also a hindrance to its defense. Colonel Johnston ordered them to be brought to the agency. Logan (not the famous Mingo chief, but a noted chief at Wapakoneta) immediately offered his services and with a party of volunteers—all mounted Indians—started to the fort. Upon arriving there they received their charge and returned with them in safety through a country swarming with painted foes, Logan and his party exercising a gallantry that elicited the highest commendations from the ladies." Colonel Johnston was retained as Indian agent until his displacement during the Jackson administration, after which he spent his time variously with his children at Piqua, Dayton, Cincinnati and New York, and his death occurred while on a visit to Washington in February, 1861, he then being past eighty years of age. He had married a sixteen-year-old girl at Philadelphia upon receiving his appointment to the post at Ft. Wayne in 1798 and she accompanied him to his frontier station and remained with him during all the years of hazard in the Indian country. To them were born fifteen children. George C. Johnston, a cousin of the colonel, was 96 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY for years an Indian trader throughout this region, and in January, 1819, was licensed as a regular trader among the Indians and located at Wapakoneta. He straightway gained the confidence of the resident Shawnees and opened a large trade in furs and skins in exchange for the goods which he brought up by way of Cincinnati, up the Miami to Piqua and by pack train thence to Wapakoneta. It is narrated that George Johnston's average trade in furs with the Indians hereabout aggregated as much as $25,000 annually, his furs being sold to the agents of John Jacob Astor at Ft. Wayne. His chief articles of traffic were powder, lead, coffee, sugar, tobacco, knives, blankets, shawls, ribbons and figured fabrics of all kinds, of which the Indians were very fond. The young squaws bought large quantities of trinkets and silver ornaments. The older chronicles have it that the hunting Indians wore leggins and hunting shirts made of dressed deer skins, and heavy moccasins of the same material, while the squaws wore cloth leggins, elaborately trimmed with colored ribbons and porcupine quills, and skirts of cloth covered with silver trinkets. They wore nothing over their heads, while the men generally wore red handkerchiefs over their heads. It is said that Mr. Johnston never dealt in intoxicating liquors, for he believed that much of the trouble with the red man resulted from the use of liquor, and made it a point of honor to deal justly with them in his trading operations. When Johnston located at Wapakoneta all this region was covered with timber save certain sections of natural prairie and small patches along the streams, which were cultivated by the squaws. The only highway that could so be dignified by name was the old Wayne military 'trace" and of white settlers there were very few, the cabin of an occasional "squatter" marking the point of advance of some adventurous spirit into the wilderness. HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 97 THE RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES OF THE SHAWNEES. In the published papers of the Piqua chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution there is a sketch of George C. Johnston, written by Mrs. Louise W. McKinney, who knew well the old trader in the days of his "hale old age" and who lamented that "it is a public misfortune that what he knew, which would be of so much interest and of great value to history, should have been allowed to die with him. He carried volumes of anecdote and Indian reminiscences with him to the tomb." Mrs. McKinney's narrative has it that Johnston spoke the Shawnee tongue with fluency. The Indians gave him the name of Wathe-the-wee-law. He had a wonderful memory and described Indian feasts in an interesting manner, declaring that the Feast of Ingathering was the most solemn and important—similar to one of the old Jewish feasts. It took place when the new corn had sufficiently matured for use and was called by the Shawnees "Na-a-wat-se-we-sa-mon-rie-tau," or Giving-thanks-to-the-Great-Spirit-for-the-new-corn. The custom was rigidly observed and it was unlawful to touch or use the new corn until a part of it had been offered in sacrifice to the Great Spirit. At the ceremony a circle was formed and none but Indians and such white men as may have been adopted into the tribe were admitted. Having formed the circle, the leader, or priest, took two ash sticks and rubbed them together until they ignited and then kindled a small fire in the center of the circle and thereon burned a few ears of corn, at the same time thanking the Great Spirit for the new crop of corn. After having made this offering they were at liberty to gather and use the corn. This ceremony was quite solemn and no dancing or merrymaking was permitted. The next feast was a sort of Feast of Tabernacles and required every man, woman and child to be present. Quantities of venison, bear meat, wild turkey and pheasants were provided for the occasion and while the food was cooking the young warriors and squaws selected a smooth, grassy spot for (6) 98 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY dancing, the dance being executed to the rythmic beating of a tamborine constructed by drawing a specially cured deer skin over a hoop, the "musician" creating the measure to which the Indians responded in a lively dance, marching up and down and occasionally accentuating the measure with an emphatic "he-ha-ho!" The gaily dressed squaws with their showy shawls and gaudy ribbons gave a wildness to the scene that might have challenged the pen of a Cooper. The utmost decorum was observed between the sexes and the exercise would continue until about 3 o'clock, when the great dinner of the feast would be eaten, the national feast of the tribe. Food in large quantities was placed on slips of bark, answering the use of plates, and handed to all present, and it was expected that each should devour all that was placed on his bark plate. Then they quietly separated and returned to their respective wigwams and villages. Not long after taking up his residence among the Indians, Mr. Johnston was invited by the Chief Blackhoof to attend. one of these feasts. George Moffatt, who was with him and who was well versed in Indian customs, instructed Johnston on the etiquette of Indian feasts. He told him to request the Indian who waited on him to put but little food on his bark plate, giving him as an excuse that he had eaten before he left home, for if he failed to eat all the large quantity given him the offense would be unpardonable. At the Warriors' Feast all that was left of the flesh and bones was burned as a sacrifice to the Great Spirit. After the feast the warriors threw down deer and bearskins and sat in a circle, a war post being in the center. One of the warriors arose and stepping briskly forward to the post struck it with his tomahawk and, turning around, exhibited a string of human scalps and recited his warlike achievements in a clear, connected manner. When he had ended he sat down and another took his place, until all had recited their warlike deeds. It is narrated that old Chief Blackhoof had no fewer than 127 scalps on his string. HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 99 THE PASSING OF THE SHAWNEES FROM WAPAKONETA. By the important treaty at the foot of the rapids of the Maumee on September 29, 1817, between Lewis Cass and Duncan McArthur, commissioners on the part of the United States, and the sachems, chiefs and warriors of the Wyandot, Seneca, Delaware, Shawnees, Pottawattomies, Ottawas and Chippewa tribes of Indians, the United States granted "by patent in fee simple to Catewekesa or Blackhoof, Byaseka or Wolf, Pomthe or Walker, Shementoo or Big Snake, Othowakeseka or Yellow Feather, Chakalowah or the Tail's End, Pemthela or John Perry, Wabepee or White Color, chiefs of the Shawnee tribe residing at Wapaghkonetta (sic), and their successors in office, chiefs of the said tribe, residing there, for the use of the persons mentioned in the annexed schedule, a tract of land ten miles square, the center of which shall be the council house at Wapaghkonetta." In addition to this there was granted "by patent in fee simple, to Pectha or Falling Tree and to Onowaskemo or the Resolute Man, chiefs of the Shawnee tribe, residing on Hog creek, and their successors in office, chiefs of the said tribe, residing there, for the use of the persons mentioned in the annexed schedule, a tract of land containing twenty-five square miles, which is to join the tract granted at Wapaghkonetta, and to include the Shawnee settlement on Hog creek, and to be laid off as nearly as possible in a square form." And it was thus that the Shawnees hereabout who there-to-fore had been living here simply as tenants under sufferance of the Wyandots came into formal possession of one hundred square miles of land lying in the very center of what is now Auglaize county, this tract extending north to the site of the present village of Cridersville, east to a point two miles beyond the village of St. Johns, south to a point a half mile below Freyburg and west to a point three miles west of Wapakoneta, besides the tract of twenty-five square miles on Hog creek. By the treaty of St. Marys in the next year the Shawnees were given an additional tract of 12,800 acres ad- 100 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY joining the original tract on the west, this extending their chief reservation to a point about one mile east of the present village of Moulton. Besides this, the descendants of old Chief Logan, heretofore referred to, received 640 acres of land in what is now Logan township and adjoining the Wapakoneta reservation line on the north, in sections 26 and 35 of that township. It is apparent that these supplemental reservations were granted in response to complaints on the part of the Shawnees that they had not been treated with a sufficient measure of generosity in the former treaty. Following the treaty of St. Marys in 1818 and the opening of lands throughout this region to settlement, the influx of settlers was so rapid, public lands eagerly being taken up, that within the next three years formal civic organizations were effected all around the Wapakoneta reservation and the counties of Allen, Hardin, Shelby, Darke, Mercer and Van Wert were erected. Within ten years after the treaty of St. Marys it became apparent to the Government agents that it would become necessary ere long to remove the Indian tribes in Ohio farther west. The older chronicles point out that as early as 1828 petitions were presented to Congress, importuning that body to purchase the Indian reservations of Ohio and to transport the red men to points beyond the Mississippi. The agitation of the purchase was pressed with much energy and in 1831 James Gardner, of Columbus, was appointed by the Government to confer with the Shawnees at Wapakoneta and submit proposals to them for the purchase of their lands. Accordingly, in the summer of that year Gardner sent a message to the chiefs at Wapakoneta announcing to them that he would visit them within a few days thereafter to make proposals to them for the purchase of their lands. In his review of this transaction, Professor Williamson states that "this was the first intimation received by the chiefs from the Government since the lands were ceded to them that such a proposal was contemplated. As may be imagined, the Indians were thrown into a state of great excitement by the HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 101 message." Henry Harvey, the Quaker missionary, who had been laboring with the Shawnees at Wapakoneta since 1819 and whose History of the Shawnees, written years afterward, throws such an illuminating light on the negotiations that followed, was called into a council immediately called by the chiefs and at his advice an emphatic answer was made to Gardner's message advising him not to come to Wapakoneta with any such proposals, as they would not meet him. The story then goes on to say that their reply availed them little. It seems that many of the Indians were in debt to the traders for goods bought and that these traders now were engaged by Gardner in carrying forward his designs. The traders are said to have approached their debtors with demands that were excessive, attempting to coerce them by enforcing payment, and at the same time "offered the chiefs large bribes to use their influence in inducing the nation to sell." CROOKED WORK OF WILY TRADERS. Other concurrent comment on this turn of affairs is that "it did not require a great length of time for the traders to induce certain unsophisticated chiefs to accept their promised bribes. Whilst the agents were engaged in their work of bribery and intimidation, the chiefs received a second communication from Gardner informing them that he would be at Wapakoneta on a certain day and desiring the chiefs to meet him there at the time proposed. At the time appointed the commissioners arrived. Before calling the chiefs together, however, he decided to dispense with the services of every person who might be an impediment in carrying out his designs. Francis Duchouquet, an aged Frenchman, who had been the interpreter in many treaties under Governor Cass and John Johnston, was first made drunk by the traders and then removed by the commissioner. It is needless to say that a man was appointed who was capable of interpreting the negotiations to suit the desires of the commissioner." Henry Harvey's story of the transaction has it that "on 102 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY the opening of the council the commissioner first read a part of his instructions from the President, through the secretary of war, but not all. He then commenced his speech about noon and continued it until evening, without coming to a close, and finished the next morning. In his speech he told the Indians that they were in a deplorable condition, surrounded by, bad white people, and likely soon to be in a much worse condition ; that the white people were now selling them whisky which was ruining them; that the game was nearly gone ; that, worse than all this, the state of Ohio would soon extend her laws over them and, in order that they might know the real condition they would be in, he could tell what those laws would be. He said the laws would compel them to pay tax for the benefit of the white people and allow them no benefit from those laws or from the money thus paid by them; that the laws would compel them to work on the public roads each year; that the laws would be so made that the white people might swear to debts against the Indians and collect them, but that none of them would be allowed to collect a debt by law unless they could prove it by a white man; that white men might turn horses and cattle in their grain fields and destroy it all, but unless they could prove the facts by a white person they would have no remedy; that they might be beaten or killed by white men—no matter how many Indians were injured—unless they could prove it by a white man they had, or would have, no remedy. And many other things he said to them in order, no doubt, to induce them to sell on almost any terms he might wish to offer to them, which, when through with these things, he declared that just in that way Georgia had treated the Cherokees ; and again assured them that, as sure as they remained here, the state of Ohio would do as Georgia had done ; that it was a right which was guaranteed the state by the constitution of the United States and that Congress would not interfere, but leave to the state the right to regulate its own affairs as it might see proper, etc, "After he had thus alarmed them in regard to their present and future condition, in case they adhered to their HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 103 resolution to remain in Ohio, he told them that in case they would now sell their land and go West that their great father, General Jackson, would make them rich. He told them that there was a good, rich country laid off for all the Indians to move to, west of the state of Missouri, which never would be within any state or territory of the United States, where there was plenty of buffalo, elk and deer and where they could live well without working at all. He also told them that if they would sell their land in Ohio the Government would give them in exchange 100,000 acres of good land adjoining the tract of fifty miles square which was ceded to their brethren, the Shawnees of Missouri, by Governor Clark at St. Louis in 1825, and on which they were living, and which they should hold forever; that as their friends, the Quakers, had erected a gristmill and sawmill at Wapakoneta for them, free of cost to the Government, the United States would build at its own expense good mills in their new country and pay the Indians in cash the amount of what good men may adjudge their improvements to be worth in order to enable them to make improvements at their new homes and that the Government would give them guns to kill the game on the prairies, also tools of every description to work with," and much more along this line, concluding by declaring "that he would leave them and return in about four weeks, when they could return their answer." IDLE, DISSIPATED FELLOWS WIN THE DAY. "The Shawnees were much divided about selling," continues Mr. Harvey's account. "Those who had made the greatest advancement in improvement were all opposed to the idea of leaving their homes, but such as were idle, dissipated fellows urged the measure. These, backed by the traders with bribes, outnumbered the others and word was conveyed by a few of the chiefs to the commissioner to come on and close the contract. * * * He accordingly attended and on the chiefs again assembling he renewed the same offer 104 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY as before and urged them strongly to sell. * On the day following the close of Gardner's address, Wayweleapy (Willipie), the Shawnee orator, replied to them * * * that the Shawnees had agreed to sell their land if he would give to them for it what he had offered them and in addition would pay their debts, which was common in Indian treaties. The commissioner informed the Indians that he would have a clause in the treaty binding the Government to pay all their debts. * * * He then told the chiefs that he had the treaty all drawn up in order, but that it was very long and as it then was late in the day there would not be time to read it over, and asked them to come forward and sign it. They hesitated for a long time and appeared to fear that all was not right, or he would have read to them the treaty before asking them to sign it, but at length they signed the instrument." This was on August 8, 1831, and the "articles of agreement and convention made and concluded at Wapaghkonnetta" were signed by James B. Gardner, commissioner on the part of the United States, and John McElvain, Indian agent, on the one part, and the "principal chiefs, head men and warriors of the tribe of Shawnee Indians residing at Wapaghkonnetta and Hog creek" on the second part, the Government thus agreeing "to cause the said tribe or band of Shawnees, consisting of about four hundred souls, to be removed, in a convenient and suitable manner, to the western side of the Mississippi river, and will grant by patent in fee simple to them and their heirs forever, as long as they shall exist as a nation and remain upon the same, a tract of land to contain 100,000 acres, to be located, under the direction of the President of the United States, within the tract of land equal to fifty miles square which was granted to the Shawnee Indians of the state of Missouri," etc., also to defray the expenses of removal, to supply them with provisions to support them for one year after their arrival at their new residence, to erect a sawmill and gristmill and a blacksmith shop for them and to advance to them the sum of $13,000 for improve- HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 105 ment purposes, the same "to be reimbursed from the sale of the lands herein ceded by them to the United States," and much more in formal treaty fashion, including the promise on the part of the Government to give to the Shawnees at their new home certain quantities of farming and domestic gear, twenty-five rifle guns and tools of a proper variety, besides which "it is understood by the present contracting parties that any claims which Francis Duchouquet may have under former treaties to a section or any quantity of the lands herein ceded to the United States are not to be prejudiced by the present compact, but to remain as valid as before," and also "at the request of the chiefs there is granted to Joseph Parks, a quarter-blooded Shawnee, one sectiton of land, to contain 640 acres, at the old town near Wapaghkonnetta, in consideration of his constant friendship and many charitable and valuable services towards the said Shawnees; and at the request of the chiefs it is also stipulated that the price of an average section of the lands herein ceded shall be reserved in the hands of the Government to be paid to their friends, the Shawnees who now reside on the River Huron in the Territory of Michigan, for the purpose of bearing their expense should they ever wish to follow the Shawnees of Wapaghkonnetta and Hog creek to their new residence west of the Mississippi." The narrative then goes on to say that at the conclusion of the negotiations and signing of the treaty, Henry Harvey, by direction of the chiefs, requested the commissioner to furnish him a copy of the treaty. On the day following, Gardner, while in a drunken condition, prepared an extract from the treaty, purporting to be a true copy of the instrument, and which was so illegibly written that Harvey remarks, "I could make no sense out of it." Mr. Harvey's account also has it that the subsequent transactions relating to the settlement of the claims of the traders, the aggregate of bills against the Indians approved by Gardner amounting to $20,000, took place "when nearly all the parties were in a state of intoxication, except some of those wily traders who 106 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY had now got their large and no doubt unjust demands secured, and who, lest their deeds should some day come to light, burnt up all their books and fortified their claims behind the certificates of the Indians and these drunken Government officers, and that, too, out of the Shawnees' money and without their consent." INDIANS APPEAL TO FRIENDS. It then appears that the Indians presently became convinced that they had not been treated fairly and they appealed to the yearly meeting of the Society of Friends, then being held at Richmond, Ind., and a deputation from that body was instructed to proceed to Wapakoneta to investigate the transaction. This committee recommended that a petition be presented to Congress asking an additional compensation for the Indians and four chiefs, John Perry (then head chief), Waywealeapy, Blackhoof and Spybuck, together with Francis Duchouquet and Joseph Parks, as interpreters, and Henry Harvey and David Bailey, on the part of the Society of Friends, started for Washington. The deputation left Wapakoneta about the first of December. At Cumberland Francis Duchouquet, the old French trader and faithful interpreter at numerous treaty councils, was taken ill and was unable to proceed farther. He was left in the care of friends, but before the return of the deputation he died and was buried in a graveyard near that city. This deputation was unsuccessful in its efforts to interest the executive department in the claims of the Indians and then, through Representative Joseph Vance, afterward Governor of Ohio, had the matter laid before the proper committee of Congress, which, as Mr. Harvey's narrative sets out, presently reported a bill in favor of the petitioners for $30,000, to be paid in fifteen equal annual installments. "The bill presented by the chiefs called for $100,000," says Mr. Harvey, "but the committee fearing that if they reported an allowance for that amount that it would be vetoed by the HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 107 President, it was afterward reduced to $30,000 and became a law. A bill was afterward passed in 1853 allowing the Shawnees an additional amount for their lands of $66,000. Thus, after a delay of more than twenty years the Government complied with the demands of justice so far as to grant the amount demanded by the Shawnees and Society of Friends on their behalf demanded for them in 1832. This satisfied the Indians, and the Government was none the loser, as the interest at 5 per cent would overreach the debt in that time." Mr. Harvey's story then goes on to say that "at the conclusion of the treaty at Wapaghkonnetta, Gardner informed the Indians that he would remove them early in the next spring to their new homes, and as they had a large number of cattle and hogs, besides a great deal of other property, that they could not take with them to their new homes, that they had better sell all except what would do them through the winter and settle up their affairs; that in the spring their money for their improvements and their annuity of $3,000 would be paid them as they would be about to start west. They took the advice of the commissioner and sold about 200 head of cattle, about 1,200 head of hogs and many other things and with the proceeds purchased clothing, some wagons, guns, provisions and the like, and many of them settled up their debts with their white neighbors so as to be in readiness to leave early in the spring following. But instead of receiving their money and starting on their journey early in the spring, as they expected, they did not receive any of their money until fall and did not start on their journey until the 20th of the next November. The Indians through their improvidence began to suffer greatly for want of food before spring. Many of them were at the point of starvation before relief could be obtained from the Society of Friends and from the Government. Henry Harvey went a distance of over eighty miles over exceedingly bad roads to Waynesville on the Miami river and begged a load of provisions for the children and old people." 108 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY It was in October that Gardner and the Indian agent, McElvain, appeared to pay the Indians their annuity, the money being brought up from Piqua, on horseback, in wooden kegs, and paid out from Gardner's headquarters in the woods at the northeastern edge of the village. It is narrated that among the visiting Indians present at the gathering was a Miami with a string of scalps which he asserted were scalps of white persons. "Being short of money to purchase firewater for the festal occasion, he made numerous efforts to sell the scalps. His persistence so enraged the Shawnees that he was killed on the night following—his body being found the next morning on the bank of the mill race in the rear of the building known at the present time as Taeusch's store." It is said that after receiving their annuity the Indians entered upon a round of festivities and dissipation that lasted in most instances until their money was spent. During the summer the Indians had leveled the graves of their dead, in accordance with aboriginal custom, and had destroyed or buried the property they could not sell. On November 20, 1832, under the direction of David Robb and D. M. Workman, Government agents, they started on their 800-mile journey to the lands beyond the Mississippi, the old Indians and children riding in wagons, the women on horseback and the men and larger boys on foot. By Christmas they had reached the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers and immediately began the erection of cabins and the establishment of themselves on their new reservation. It is said that the Shawnees and Senecas who made the winter journey numbered about 1,100. They were joined the next spring by the Hog creek tribe under the direction of Joseph Parks. The next year (1833), Henry Harvey and other Quakers visited them and obtained permission to establish schools and continue the work of the mission, and Mr. Harvey remained with them until 1842, when he and his family returned to Ohio. And it was thus that the Indian departed and the white man came into full possession at Wapakoneta, the village HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 109 which sixteen years later became the seat of justice in and for Auglaize county, which was erected by an act of the Legislature in the year 1848. A WORD REGARDING SOME OF THE OLD INDIAN CHIEFS. One of the earliest recorded bits of reminiscence regarding the old Indian village at Wapakoneta is that written by Judge Burnet, of Cincinnati, who ;during territorial days rode a circuit which extended from the Ohio river to Detroit, which city at that time was the seat of justice for Wayne county, an indefinite expanse covering the upper part of the then Northwest Territory. As noted in Henry Howe's Historical Collections, "the jaunts between these remote places, through a wilderness, were attended with fatigue, exposure and hazard and were usually performed on horseback, in parties of two or three or more. On one of these occasions, while halting at Wapakoneta, Judge Burnet witnessed a game of ball among the people, of which he has given this interesting narrative : "Blue Jacket, the war chief, who commanded the Shawnees in the battle of 1794 at Maumee, resided in the village but was absent. We were, however, received with kindness by the old village chief, Buckingelas. When we went to his lodge he was giving audience to a deputation of chiefs from some western tribes. We took seats at his request until the conference was finished and the strings of wampum were disposed of. He gave us no intimation of the subject matter of the conference and of course we could not, with propriety, ask for it. In a little time he called in some of his young men and requested them to get up a game of football for our amusement. A purse of trinkets was soon made up and the whole village, male and female, were on the lawn. At these games the men played against the women and * * * the party which succeeded in driving the ball through the stakes at the goal of their opponents were proclaimed victors and received the purse. * * * The parties seemed to be 110 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY fairly matched as to numbers, having about a hundred on a side. The game lasted more than an hour with great animation, and was finally decided in favor of the ladies by the power of an herculean squaw who got the ball and in spite of the men who seized her to shake it from her uplifted hand, held it firmly, dragging them along till she was sufficiently near the goal to throw it through the stakes. * * * When the contending parties had retired from the field of strife it was pleasant to see the feelings of exultation depicted in the faces of the victors, whose joy was manifestly enhanced by the fact that their victory was won in the presence of white men, whom they supposed to be highly distinguished and of great power in their nation. This was a natural conclusion for them to draw, as they knew we were journeying to Detroit for the purpose of holding the general court, which they supposed controlled and governed the nation. We spent the night very pleasantly among them and in the morning resumed our journey." Concerning the origin of the place name, Wapakoneta, Mr. Howe's "Collections" state that "Col. John Johnston, agent among the Indians, appointed by Jefferson, thus wrote me in 1846: `Wapagh-ko-netta—this is the true Indian orthography. It was named after an Indian chief long since dead, but who survived for years after my intercourse commenced with the Shawonese. The chief was somewhat clubfooted and the word has reference, I think, to that circumstance, although its full import I never could discover. For many years prior to 1829 I had my Indian headquarters at Wapaghkonetta. The business of the agency of the Shawonese, Wyandots, Senecas and Delawares was transacted there.' " Though Colonel Johnston was of course well informed concerning Indian nomenclature and traditions, he perhaps was no better informed than was Henry Harvey, the good Quaker missionary to the Indians at Wapakoneta, who, concerning this matter, says in his notable History of the Shawnees: "This village, I have learned, derived its name from an ancient and distinguished woman of that name, and HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 111 that it is a Shawnee word." Along this same line, Professor Williamson's history (1905) says: "The curiosity of some young gentlemen a few years ago led them to open the grave of Wapakoneta. In it they found beads of porcelain and glass of French manufacture, stone pendants and other fragments of ornaments customarily worn by Indian women. The discoveries seem to indicate that the statements of Harvey are correct." Further comment along this line is made in the chapter relating to the city of Wapakoneta. OLD COUNCIL HOUSE AT WAPAKONETA. Regarding the old council house at Wapakonta, the Indian capital of the Northwest, in which many a momentous council of the mighty of the tribes was held, Professor Simkins remarks that "the many sided character of the Indian might have been seen at these councils—the fidelity of a Logan, the rashness and violence of a Blue Jacket, the fidelity of a Captain Johnny, the frenzied lunacy of The Prophet; the sigentleman of his race, as was Little Turtle ; the ambitious zealot, as was Tecumseh; the heartless renegade, as was Girty, and the lofty honor of a Blackhoof. Here many of the greatest orators of the surrounding nations met to discuss their grievances and here it was, at these assemblies, that Black- hoof's counsels were considered oracles of wisdom and inspiration. It was to this town that Blue Jacket and Little Turtle came for warriors worthy their leadership and here Black- hoof repudiated Tecumseh as a pretender and denounced The Prophet as a fraud. It was Tarhe the Crane that came at last to win Blackhoof to the interest of Tecumseh and failed, and it was Winnemac, the mighty cruel Pottawattomie, that made a final effort to force Blackhoof to place his tribe in the hands of The Prophet and failed likewise." Drake's "Tecumseh," written many years ago, still is regarded as one of the most authoritative utterances along the line of Indian history. Concerning Blue Jacket, or Weyapiersenwah, one of the most noted of the war chiefs of 112 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY the Shawnees, this work has it that in the campaign of General Harmar in 1790 Blue Jacket was associated with Little Turtle, the Miami chief, in the command of the Indians, and in the decisive battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 had chief control of the Indian forces which met defeat at the hands of General Wayne's command In the month of October following this defeat Blue Jacket concurred in the expediency of suing for peace and at the head of a deputation of chiefs was about to bear a flag to General Wayne, then at Greenville, when the mission was arrested by foreign influence, Governor Simcoe, representing the British forces to the north, inviting the chiefs of the combined army to attend a meeting at the mouth of the Detroit at which he urged them to retain their hostile attitude toward the United States, promising them that if they could obtain a cessation of hostilities until the following spring the British would be ready to attack the Americans and by driving them back across the Ohio restore their lands to the Indians. These ineffectual counsels delayed the conclusion of peace until the following summer Blue Jacket was present at the treaty of Greenville and conducted himself with moderation and dignity. He afterward was for some time engaged in the liquor traffic at Wapakoneta and then went West. Concerning old Chief Blackoof, who lived to be 110 years of age and who is buried on the knoll where his last days were spent at the site of the present village of St. Johns east of Wapakoneta in this county, this same authority says that "among the celebrated chiefs of the Shawnees Blackhoof is entitled to high rank." He was born in Florida and migrated with his tribe north when a child, growing up in Pennsylvania from which point the Shawnees presently were pushed over into the Ohio country and moved about until their last stand was made at Wapakoneta. It is said that he was present at the battle which marked Braddock's defeat in 1755 and was engaged in all the wars in Ohio from that time until the treaty of Greenville in 1795, after which he laid down his arms nor ever again could be induced to engage in war with the whites. And thus it was that when in 1810-11 Tecumseh and his brother HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 113 The Prophet were seeking to effect a confederation of the tribes for the purpose of driving the whites out of the land to the Ohio, Blackhoof resisted all the wiles the genius of the one and the cunning of the other could offer "and by prudence and influence kept the greater part of his tribe from joining the standard of Tecumseh or engaging on the side of the British in the late (1812) war with England. In that contest be became the ally of the United States, and although he took no very active part in it he exerted very salutary influence over his tribe." It is said that Blackhoof was opposed to polygamy and to the practice of burning prisoners and he is reported to have lived for forty years with one wife and to have reared a numerous family of children. His death occurred in the summer of 1831 not long after his return from Washington on the mission to secure better terms for the sale of the Shawnee lands here, as narrated above. THE STORY OF POLLY BUTLER Tecumseh, who was slain in the battle of the Thames in October, 1813, was often a visitor to the council house at Wapakoneta and his brother, The Prophet, was for some years in the early '20s a resident there. He went West about 1825 and of his later fate nothing is known with any degree of certainty. It was during the time of the Prophet's ministrations at Wapakoneta and not long after Henry Harvey had been stationed there as superintendent of the Quaker mission that the Polly Butler incident occurred, an incident that has been recited in most of the books relating to Indian lore. Polly Butler was the daughter, by a Shawnee woman, of Richard Butler, one of the earliest of the traders among the Indians of this region and who was second in command at the time of St. Clair's defeat at the headwaters of the Wabash (Ft. Recovery) in 1791, being among those slain in that battle. Polly, who was living with the tribe at Wapakoneta, was accused of bewitching one of the tribe and at night fled for protection to the house of Mr. Harvey. The Prophet was at this time (7) 114 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY "exorcising" a sick man who declared that he was suffering from witchcraft and the blame was laid on Polly, whose death The Prophet and the superstitious Indians demanded. Harvey had been visiting the sick man, carrying him food and comfort, and on one occasion found him lying on his face with his back so lacerated that he was in danger of death from loss of blood. The Prophet was present and when Harvey demanded to know the reason for this brutal treatment of his patient replied that the lacerations were made to extract the "combustible material" the witch had deposited. The good Quaker drove the Prophet out of the house and dressed the sick mans wounds. When it became known that Polly Butler had found refuge in Harvey's house the Prophet and some of his following made a search of the house, but as she had been secreted between two beds they failed to discover her. The chief, Weasecah or Captain Wolf, who was a friend of Harvey, then came to the missionary and accompanied him to the council house where the aroused Indians had gathered to discuss the matter, siding with the Prophet in the demand for the "witch." Harvey told them he had come to intercede for the woman, but seeing that they had determined to follow their own course, he had prepared to offer himself in her stead and that they might do with him as they thought best if only they would spare the woman. At this noble and unexpected announcement Weasecah embraced Harvey "and begged the chiefs not to suffer their friend the Quaker to be harmed, but they were still determined not be submit to the proposition. He then offered his life instead of his friend's. This heroic attitude of the Quaker, with the loyal and brave act of the noble chief, checked the tide of the hostile feeling and for a minute all were in suspense. Then chief after chief, to the number of six or eight, stepped up to Harvey, each offering his hand and saying 'Me Quakelee friend.' Weasecah then argued with them eloquently and at last the whole council offered their hands in friendship, The Prophet only excepted, who sullenly left the council house in defeat. HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 115 The poor woman remained in the Quaker's house for several days and then returned to her people and lived in peace." Wayweleapy (Willipie), who has been mentioned above, was the principal speaker among the Shawnees at the period of their removal from Wapakoneta. Howe's "Collections" state that "he was an eloquent orator—either grave or gay, humorous or severe, as the occasion required. At times his manner was so fascinating, his countenance so full of varied expression and his voice so musical that surveyors and other strangers passing through the country listened to him with delight, although the words fell upon. their, ears in an unknown tongue." Willipie, who shares with Blackhoof the honor of having one of the chief streets in Wapakoneta named for him, was eighty years of age when he went West with his people in 1832 and he died there four years later. There were others of these chiefs of whom the older chronicles speak kindly, including Logan, or Spemica Lawbe, one of the stanchest of the allies of the Americans at several critical junctures, to whom a special reservation of 640 acres of land was granted in the township in this county that bears his name, and after whom one of Wapakoneta 's chief streets is named, as is set out elsewhere ; John Wolf, or Lawatucheh, who has been referred to as "one of the most reliable and upright of the Indians" and who was long a constant aid to Colonel Johnston at the agency here ; Pe-aitch-ta, or Fallen Timber who died but a short time before the Hog Creek Indians were moved West ; Tu-taw, the noted scout and mail carrier during the campaigns of Wayne and Harrison, who did not accompany the Shawnees upon their departure for the West but preferred, to remain here among his white friends, a retainer of Peter Hammel, his last days being spent here in trapping and hunting, his death occurring in his seventy-eight year and his body being given burial in the old Duchouquet graveyard; Bright Horn, or Wa-the-the-we-la, who was one of General Harrison's scouts during the War of 1812 and who died at Wapakoneta in the middle '20s ; big Captain Johnny, another of Harrison's scouts, who had his vil- 116 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY lage on the west bank of Pusheta creek, where it enters the Auglaize, and who died and was buried there about 1819; Peter Cornstalk, who, like Blackhoof, after he had signed the treaty of Greenville was ever a good Indian and who has been referred to as "a man of honor and a true friend of the settlers in the Auglaize country," his home having been on the river about two miles below Wapakoneta until he moved West with his people, and others whose names the student and those curious concerning those days of long ago may find among the names attached to the several treaties negotiated hereabout, but a repetition of which is hardly essential to a review of this character. An anonymous "Historical Jingle" appearing in Prof. J. D. Simkins' "Early History of Auglaize County" (1901) epitomizes very entertainingly and comprehensively the story of the Indians hereabout as follows: THE SHAWNEES AT WAPAKONETA. Astray in the wilderness, driven from home, The Shawnees to Wapakoneta did roam. The banks of Auglaize had hardly been found Till Indian wigwams dotted the ground. Here Wapakoneta, the chief of his tribe. And Logan, the friend of the white man, reside; Blue Jacket, as well as The Turtle so brave, Selected such warriors no other tribe gave. Tecumseh, pretender, was stripped of his mask By Blackhoof, whose judgment then found it no task; The Prophet (the wizard, the brother), bemeaned And by the same oracle proven a fiend. Here Johnny and Brighthorn met Logan, their friend— Not chief of the Mingoes—he had no "revenge"; Here Johnston, the agent, selected the scout Most daring by far of any 'twere out. The hunter, the trapper, the trader met here To deal in the peltry long year after year; When Tarhe (The Crane) of Tecumseh had dreams, To him our old Blackhoof exposed the bad schemes. HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY - 117 Here Winnemac, mighty, cruel Ottawa chief, Did come to appease, but met with much grief; He found he had roused such a terrible band That it soon happened he fell at their hand. Here Roundhead, the warrior, came Prophet to meet, Saying, "If you're from Heaven I'll kneel at your feet," But our chiefs again the illusions dispell, Denouncing the Prophet, the agent of hell. Here Harvey, the Quaker, the witch doth save By offering his life in place to the knave. Here Senecas, Wyandots, Delawares join The Ottawas, Shawnees for Samuel's coin. The fiercest and proudest of Indian bands— Their home was the center of Indian lands; A council was here before a campaign— A council was here when over again. In this capital town for some forty odd years, Our Samuel's Indian business appears; Jefferson, Harrison, Cass inscribe Some letters of note to this powerful tribe. Cincinnati, Detroit, where the courts were held— The judges through here to pass were compelled; When they stopped over night, so pleased were the tribe, The squaws and the bucks gave a dance on the side. We took their last title by fraud and by force And left the whole tribe but little recourse; Wayweleapy, orator, sank in his tears While showing his tribe "There is fraud it appears." A committee was sent the Great Father to see At Washington City and make a last plea; Wayweleapy, Parks, Duchouquet and Buck Joined Blackhoof and Perry to try for good luck. The journey was long and the roads there were none, The weather was cold--but little was done; So civilization had leveled the Old To give to the New a firmer hold. Here witchcraft, polygamy, torture were stayed, By the heart of the Quaker—not av'rice's blade; Here Johnston, the agent, saw two thousand strong Reduced to eight hundred by sickness and wrong. 118 - HISTORY OF AUGLAIZE COUNTY Though their star it had set, they now wind again Near eight hundred miles across the great plain; As gloomy and sad they turn from their home, You'll glorify virtues, their faults will condone. The forest primeval has gone from us now- The trails are all turned by the white man's plow; While our liberty bell was ringing their knell, It proclaimed to Progress that "All is well."