THE CURTAIN RISES - 75 In the center of the city there is a much greater depth of sand than in the outskirts where the clay is near the surface or comes to the top. This clay is sticky and hard. It is unpleasant for the gardener to work in, but marvellously fertile. Cleveland is rapidly losing the reason for its title "The Forest City" as the trees which once made travel along its streets so great a delight give way to wider pavements and the conveniences of a concrete and motor age; but it has become a city where few homes are without their growing flowers and shrubs, and it is ringed around with truck gardens ministering to an age which makes a religion of green vegetables. This down town sand seems to be part of an ancient river valley. For if Lake Erie was larger than it is now when the glacier melted—and it is, indeed, considered by geologists "a mere glacial pool"—there was a time before the glacier when there was no Lake Erie at all. There was, however, a river. It was a sort of greater St. Lawrence, probably draining through the lower part of the Grand River Valley in Ontario at its extreme western end. The bowl now occupied by Lake Erie was then a shallow valley, with the river along somewhere near the middle. The river bed was very much below the present bottom of Lake Erie, and so were the beds of the various rivers flowing into it. The original rocky bed of the Cuyahoga, for example, is about two hundred feet below the present river bottom. When the glacier came along it froze all these rivers and filled their gorges with rocks, boulders, gravel and all sorts of glacial debris. As it melted and receded, it left the whole surface of the country higher than it had been before, and it left behind it great masses of water, seeking outlets where they could find them. Geologists have given names to the lake at its various stages. According to W. M. Gregory in Orth's "History of Cleveland" : "Lake Maumee was formed at the end of the Erie ice lobe in the northwestern part of Ohio. The Maumee beaches and the old lake plains are distinct surface features between Cleveland and Toledo. In Cleveland, this old Maumee beach 76 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS is two hundred feet above Lake Erie and as this lake formed an embayment in the Cuyahoga Valley, its branches are found along its sides as far south as Boston. "The highway from Brooklyn to Willow is just above the crest of the Maumee beach and on the eastern side of the valley are many ridges and terraces which belong to the Lake Maumee level. Lake Maumee drained to the south by a river which occupied the present Maumee Valley, but when the ice lobe uncovered a lower outlet which was to the north in Michigan, the lake was lowered thirty feet and its successor was called Lake Whittlesey. "Lake Whittlesey was nearly twice the present area of Lake Erie and it drained to the north across Michigan into Lake Chicago, which stood at the end of the Michigan ice lobe and was the predecessor of Lake Michigan. The beaches of Lake Whittlesey extend from Buffalo nearly to Fort Wayne, then northward to Ann Arbor and into the Saginaw Valley. In this city the Denison Avenue ridge indicates where this lake stood. The extensive sand and gravel beaches extending from south of Harvard Street to the Fairmount reservoir were formed during the time that Lake Whittlesey existed at this level. The regularity of these beaches attracted the attention of Col. Charles Whittlesey, who retraced them some distance westward from this city and this ancient glacial lake was named Whittlesey' after this Cleveland man who was one of the earliest investigators of the history of the Great Lakes." The next stage was called Lake Algonquin, some fifty feet lower than Lake Whittlesey. The ridge upon which Euclid Avenue rides is part of this beach. After this, according to Gregory, the continued melting opened lower outlets to the north, and the smaller glacial lakes united into one called Lake Algonquin which drained through Lake Nipissing into Lake Ontario and so into the St. Lawrence. Then the Niagara gorge began to be cut. The superficial glacial debris along this path must have been a little softer and more easily dislodged than that packed into the ancient channel through the valley of the Grand. When the glacier THE CURTAIN RISES - 77 had retreated far enough and the level of the lake had become low enough, it began to drain through the Niagara channel instead of through the older ones. The age of the Niagara River is estimated by experts as about 25,000 years. The length of time since Northern Ohio began to emerge from under the water in something like its present shore line must be about the same. Ellsworth Huntington in "The New Continent" ( Chronicles of America, Vol. I), says that on account of the rich soil the prairies which extend from Western Ohio to the Missouri River and northward into Canada fast became the "most steadily prosperous part of America," and that the "surpassing richness" is due to the glaciation. This authority also lays much stress on the influence of climate on the power of a people. He says that the white race is physically at its best in an average temperature night and day of from 50 to 73 degree F., with air neither extremely moist nor extremely dry. Not only seasonal changes are good for people's energy, he maintains, but changes from night to day. The best climate in which to get work done is that not much below 32 degrees F. on a winter night and not much above 80 degrees on a summer day, with storms bringing daily changes frequent at all seasons. All races are at their best in climates like this, because all have the same blood temperature, though negroes stand long heat better than other races—probably because they have darkened their skins through the centuries to resist excessive sunlight. Long heat is bad for the whole human race, however, and so is long cold. The best mental work is done at a temperature not much above 40 degrees F. for day or night. Huntington concludes that the north central part of the United States is more fortunate than any other part of the earth. In the heart of this climatic section for energy, in the heart of this glaciated section for soil, set amid woods and waters, lies Cleveland. No wonder its early settlers had high hopes for its future. 78 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS To sum up briefly the course of nature before there was recorded history : First there was a great river to the north of Ohio, with the Cuyahoga flowing out to it. The rivers and all the land were much lower than they are now, and nearer the ancient underlying rock. Next there was a glacier covering all this region and running down through southwestern Ohio into Kentucky. Its line is marked, roughly, by the cities of Winchester, Chilicothe, Lancaster, Newark, Danville, Millersburg, Canton and New Lisbon, all of which are at or near its southern edge. After the glacier were great waters. After the waters were forests. In the forests, finally, lived men. Of these men we know little, but one race at least, has left mounds by which its presence has been made known, its ability along certain lines manifested. After the Mound Builders came Indians, and with Indians is approached the period of recorded history. CHAPTER VI HERE COME THE INDIANS ! Between the guesses and deductions, which are the best candle-power historians can provide to light up little patches here and there in the darkness of prehistoric times, and the comparatively bright periods in which records were made and kept, there lies a twilight of legend and tradition. In such a twilight dwells the history of the American Indian. Neither he nor anyone else knows where he came from. The traditions handed down by the most intelligent of the red men seldom seem to go back more than three or four generations. There is the interesting instance of De Soto to illustrate this point, told by M. F. Force : "It is hard to imagine anything calculated to make a deeper and more lasting impression on them than the sudden appearance among them of an army of strange beings of a different color; bearded, wearing garments and armor of unheard-of color and material; mounted on animals that were beyond all experience ; armed with thunder and lightning, striding across the continent with a thousand manacled prisoners as slaves, destroying their strongest towns and laying waste their country, and finally wasting away and driven down the river to the great sea, helpless, fugitives. Yet when Europeans next visited the country, a century and a half later, they found not a vesture of a tradition of De Soto." A people always on the move, living very close to the edge of hunger and cold, staying long enough in one place to grow and harvest a little grain, to dry a little fish and deer meat, then to move on and on and always on, coming back if weather and enemies permit to grow a little more grain, but never having enough to live comfortably through a winter, always in danger of arrows and epidemics, is not apt to be - 79 - 80 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS very good at records. The old folk may remember a very bad winter, or a very good hunting year, or a devastating battle, but that's about all. A few scattered reminiscences get passed down from grandfather to grandchild, but there is no real leisure to indulge in what might be called mental pleasures. Bits of saga relating special deeds of valor or cunning doubtless were chanted over and over while baskets were being woven or while pots were baking in rude kilns or while hides were being cured. But the grandsires died early and the children grew up soon and the tribe kept moving on and on and always on. The wolf of hunger howled near the tepee and sickness stalked always in the shadows, and today was like yesterday and tomorrow except for a different camping place near a different stream. But all streams were much alike and all years were much alike. As there was no ability nor imagination to make a better future, so there was not much use mulling over the past. The days were as they were, and so the seasons. Any romantic ideas that the Indians led carefree and happy lives is easily dispelled by reading the accounts of those who lived near them. The Jesuit Relations—yearly reports about life in New France made by educated men to their superiors—and the accounts written by the Moravian missionaries of Ohio and Michigan tell the same story of poverty and discomfort. The savages were always in search of greener fields farther away and seldom found them. The idea of building better lives by staying put and developing a good territory had broken into few of those hard black heads. When it had, that tribe prospered and advanced. As to the general distribution and movement of the tribes in the days of the early explorers, Force writes : "The Indians often changed their place of residence. In their continued warfare, entire tribes were not infrequently exterminated. Jaques Cartier found the Iroquois at Montreal in 1535. Champlain found them between Lakes Ontario and Champlain in 1612. After the destruction of the Eries in 1655, the tract now the State of Ohio was uninhabited until THE CURTAIN RISES - 81 the next century. The nations known as the Ohio Indians moved into it after 1700. "The Miami Confederacy, inhabiting the southern shore of Lake Michigan, extended southeasterly to the Wabash. The Illinois Confederacy extended down the eastern shore of the Mississippi to within about eighty miles of the Ohio. Hunting parties of the Chickasaws roamed up the eastern shore of the Mississippi to about where Memphis now stands. The Cherokees occupied the slopes and valleys of the mountains about the borders of what is now East Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia. The great basin, bounded north by Lake Erie, the Miamis, and the Illinois, west by the Mississippi, east by the Alleghanies, and south by the headwaters of the streams that flow into the Gulf of Mexico, seems to have been uninhabited except by bands of Shawnees and scarcely visited except by war parties of the Five Nations. "In the next half century, the first half of the eighteenth, various tribes pressed into what is now Ohio, across all its borders. Champlain, in 1609, found on the eastern shore of Lake Huron a tribe called by the Five Nations `Quatoghies,' but to which the French gave the name Huron. In some of the earlier Relations they are called 'Hurons ou Ouendats.' Ouendat appears to be the name by which they called themselves. About 1650 the Five Nations nearly destroyed the Hurons or Wendats, and drove the remnant to seek shelter near the 'western extremity, among the tribes inhabiting the borders of Lake Superior. Afterward, threatened with war by the Sioux, in 1670 they gathered under the protection of the French, about Michilimackinac, and gradually shifted down to Detroit. In the early part of the eighteenth century, under the name of Wyandots (the English spelling of the name which the French spelled Ouendat) a portion of them extended their settlements into the northwestern part of Ohio, and became permanently fixed there." "Parties of Cherokees often penetrated north of the Ohio, between 1700 and 1750, and later a party of them settled among the Wyandots, in the neighborhood of Sandusky. 82 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS "The Eries, so called by the Hurons, were called Rique by the Iroquois, and 'Nation du Chat' by the French. "In a list of tribes living south of the St. Lawrence and the Lakes, the Eries are mentioned, and in the Relation of 1641 they are named as neighbors of the Neutral Nation. "The French called the Eries the Cat Nation 'because there is in their country a prodigious number of wild cats, two or three times as large as our tame cats, but having a beautiful and precious fur, from the skins of which the natives make robes, bordered and ornamented with the tails.' In 1654, says Force, war broke out between the Eries and the Five Nations. The Iroquois invaded Erie territory. The Eries constructed a wooden fort in which they took refuge; but the Iroquois carried it by storm. "With this the Eries disappear. They are afterward mentioned only as a destroyed people. Most of the captives taken by the Iroquois were tortured and burned; but some were adopted and became members of the Five Nations." These are confusing paragraphs to read—but not more confusing than the lines of Indian movement which seem to have woven and interwoven unceasingly. It seems clear that among the tribes was one called Erie which gave its name to the lake. These people have also been called Erigas, Riques and Irri-Ronons. James H. Kennedy says the latter is "a powerful and warlike name" and means "Cats." They were visited by Father La Roche Daillon in 1626 and were swept from earth by the Iroquois about 1650. There was also a Neutral Nation which has sometimes been confused with the Eries. But according to Whittlesey "Their fate was alike, but they were not even allies. The Eries, under the name Erigas, remained a long time in Ohio, having been driven from the Genesee River, past Buffalo, to the heads of the Scioto. They were originally of the Iroquois stock, speaking a dialect of the same language. As usual, when people of the same lineage become enemies, their hatred is more fierce and lasting than where there is no community of blood." The Eries had been for a time the Clevelanders of the THE CURTAIN RISES - 83 seventeenth century. How did those Clevelanders live? Father Paul le Jeune tells pretty completely in his report to his superior in France, finished and sent off on August 7th, 1634. Publication of these Jesuit Relations was begun by The Burrows Brothers Company of Cleveland in 1894, and once started, the scope of their work was soon enlarged. It became "The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents" with an introduction by Reuben Gold Thwaites, in 73 volumes, gotten out during the years 1896-1901. The original French is accompanied by an English translation. In 1925 Edna Kenton chose some of the most interesting of these documents and made a single volume of them. It is from this volume that the excerpts given here are gratefully taken. The Hurons with whom le Jeune cast his lot were similar to our Eries in character and customs, so although the winters he speaks of are colder than ours, the general tenor of life among the people was doubtless about the same. One may observe, also, that in spite of the difficulties and discomforts of the Indian life, Father le Jeune has not forgotten how to smile. His story calls to mind Stewart Edward White's dictum that the French pioneers were never such great fighters nor such hard workers as the English, "but they have laughed in farther places." In this part of his Relation, the missionary is giving pointers to "Those in whom God inspires the thought and desire to cross over the seas, in order to seek and instruct the Savages." "It is for their sake that I will pen this chapter, so that they may not forget to fortify themselves with the weapons necessary for the combat, especially with patience of iron or bronze, or rather with a patience entirely of gold, in order to bear bravely and lovingly the great trials that must be endured among these people. Let us begin by speaking of the house they will have to live in. "In order to have some conception of the beauty of this edifice, its construction must be described. I shall speak from knowledge, for I have often helped to build it. Now, 84 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS when we have arrived at the place where we were to camp, the women, armed with axes, went here and there in the great forests, cutting the framework of the hostelry where we were to lodge; the men, meantime, having drawn the plan thereof, cleared away the snow with their snowshoes. "Imagine now a great ring or square in the snow, two, three or four feet deep according to the weather or the place where they encamp. This depth of snow makes a white wall for us which surrounds us on all sides, except the end where it is broken through to form the door. The framework having been brought, which consists of twenty or thirty poles, according to the size of the cabin, it is planted, not upon the ground, but upon the snow; then they throw upon these poles, which converge a little at the top, two or three rolls of bark sewed together, beginning at the bottom, and behold, the house is made. The ground inside, as well as the wall of snow which extends all around the cabin, is covered with little branches of fir; and, as a finishing touch, a wretched skin is fastened to two poles to serve as a door, the door posts being the snow itself. Now let us examine in detail all the comforts of this elegant mansion. "You cannot stand upright in this house, as much on account of its low roof as the suffocating smoke; and consequently you must always lie down, or sit flat upon the ground, the usual posture of the Savages. When you go out, the cold, the snow, and the danger of getting lost in these great woods drive you in again more quickly than the wind, and keep you a prisoner in a dungeon which has neither lock nor key. "This prison, in addition to the uncomfortable position that one must occupy upon a bed of earth, has four other great discomforts—cold, heat, smoke and dogs. As to cold, you have the snow at your head with only a pine branch between, often nothing but your hat, and the winds are free to enter at a thousand places. For do not imagine that these pieces of bark are joined as paper is glued and fitted to a window frame; even if there were only the opening at the top, which serves at once as a window and chimney, the coldest winter in France could come in there every day without THE CURTAIN RISES - 85 trouble. When I lay down at night I could study through this opening both the Stars and the Moon as easily as if I had been in the open fields. "Nevertheless the cold did not annoy me so much as the heat from the fire. A little place like their cabins is easily heated by a good fire, which sometimes roasted and boiled me on all sides, for the cabin was so narrow that I could not protect myself against the heat. You cannot move to right or left, for the Savages, your neighbors, are at your elbows; you cannot withdraw to the rear, for you encounter the wall of snow, or the bark of the cabin which shuts you in. I did not know what position to take. Had I stretched myself out, the place was so narrow that my legs would have been halfway in the fire ; to roll myself in a ball, and crouch down that way, was a position I could not retain as long as they could ; my clothes were all scorched and burned. You will ask me perhaps if the snow at our backs did not melt under so much heat. I answer 'no' ; that if sometimes the heat softened it in the least, the cold immediately turned it into ice. I will say, however, that both the cold and the heat are endurable, and that some remedy may be found for these two evils. "But as to the smoke, I confess to you that it is martyrdom. It almost killed me, and made me weep continually, though I had neither grief nor sadness in my heart. It sometimes grounded all of us who were in the cabin; that is, it caused us to place our mouths against the earth in order to breathe; as it were to eat the earth, so as not to eat the smoke. I have sometimes remained several hours in that position, especially during the most severe cold and when it snowed ; for it was then the smoke assailed us with the greatest fury. How bitter is this drink ! How strong its odor ! How hurtful to the eyes its fumes !" "As to the dogs, which I have mentioned as one of the discomforts of the Savages' houses, I do not know that I ought to blame them, for they have sometimes rendered me good service. These poor beasts, not being able to live outdoors, came and lay down upon my shoulders, sometimes upon my feet, and as I had only one blanket to serve both as cov- 86 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS ering and mattress, I was not sorry for this protection, willingly restoring to them a part of the heat I drew from them. These animals, being famished, as they have nothing to eat any more than we do, do nothing but run to and fro gnawing at everything in the cabin. They have often upset for me my bark dish, and all it contained, in my gown ; there was not one of us who did not hold his plate down with both hands on the ground, which served as table, seat and bed both to men and dogs. "I have said enough about the inconvenience of the Savages' houses, let us speak of their food. "When I first went away with them, as they salt neither their soup nor their meat, and as filth itself presides over their cooking, I could not eat their mixtures, and contented myself with a few sea biscuit and smoked eel ; until at last my host took me to task because I ate so little, saying that I would starve myself before the famine overtook us. Meanwhile our Savages had feasts every day, so that in a very short time we found ourselves without bread, without flour, without eels, and without any means of helping ourselves. As to the chase, the snows not being deep in comparison with those of other years, they could not take the Elk, and so brought back only some Beavers and Porcupines, but in so small a number and so seldom that they kept us from dying rather than helped us to live. "We usually had something to eat once in two days—indeed, we very often had a Beaver in the morning, and in the evening of the next day a Porcupine as big as a sucking pig. This was not much for nineteen of us, but this little sufficed to keep us alive. When I could have, toward the end of our supply of food, the skin of an eel for my day's fare, I considered that I had breakfasted, dined and supped well. "At first I had used one of these skins to patch the cloth gown that I wore, as I forgot to bring some pieces with me; but, when I was so sorely pressed with hunger I ate my pieces; and if my gown had been made of the same stuff, I assure you I would have brought it back home much shorter than it was. Indeed, I ate old Moose skins, which are much THE CURTAIN RISES - 87 tougher than those of the eel. I went about the woods biting the ends of the branches and gnawing the more tender bark. "Our neighboring Savages suffered still more than we did, some of them coming to see us, and telling us that their comrades had died of hunger. * * * "On one occasion in particular, I saw them almost falling into a state of despair. When they reach this point, they play, so to speak, at 'Save himself who can' ; throwing away their bark and baggage, deserting each other, and abandoning all interest in the common welfare, each one strives to find something for himself. Then the children, women and for that matter all those who can not hunt die of cold and hunger." "I fell sick. Being very thirsty one day, I asked for a little water; they said there was none, and that they would give me some melted snow. As this drink was bad for my disease, I made my host understand that I had seen a lake not far from there, and that I would like very much to have some of that water. He pretended not to hear, because the road was somewhat bad, and it happened thus not only this time, but at any place where the river or brook was a little distance from our cabin. We had to drink this snow melted in a kettle whose copper was less thick than the dirt; if anyone wishes to know how bitter this drink is, let him take some from a kettle just out of the smoke and taste it." Le Jeune characteristically fails to mention anything he himself did under reversed circumstances; tender care of the sick Indian was one of the normal jobs of the missionaries. He is simply explaining to the men expecting to come from France just what they may expect in the new life. That this story of life among the Indians is by no means an isolated case is supported by a sort of little essay by Father. Francois de Crepieul, written in 1697, on "The Life of a Montagnaix Missionary; Presented to his Successors in the Montagnaix Mission for their Instruction and Greater Consolation." In this description all the discomforts mentioned by le Jeune are repeated, and worse, and more of them, and 88 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS all are assumed as the natural course of events in "these holy but arduous Missions." Before the Indians were able to get kettles from the Europeans they cooked by putting stones hot from the fire into the bark dish containing meat and water. When one stone cooled they changed it for a hotter one. The dogs, we gather from one of these sources, served not only as blankets to ward off cold, but their coats were the only napkins or towels on which hands could be wiped. Sometimes, as Cleveland pioneers relate, they were eaten. Another of those little essays common in the Relations is entitled : "Of Meats and Other Dishes which the Savages Eat, Their Seasoning, and Their Drinks." It runs thus : "Among the terrestrial animals they have the Elk, which is here generally called the Moose; Castors, which the English call Beavers ; Caribou, by some called the Wild Ass; they also have Bears, Badgers, Porcupines, Foxes, Hares, Whistler or Nightingale (the hoary marmot)—this is an animal larger than a Hare; they also eat Martens, and three kinds of squirrels. "As to Birds, they have Bustards, white and gray Geese, several species of Ducks, Teals, Ospreys and several kinds of divers. These are all river birds. They also catch Partridges or gray Hazel-hens, Woodcocks and Snipe of many kinds, Turtle Doves, etc. "As to fish, they catch, in the season, different kinds of Salmon, Seals, Pike, Carp and Sturgeon of various sorts; Whitefish, Goldfish, Barbels, Eels, Lampreys, Smelt, Turtles, and others. "They eat, besides some small ground fruits, such as raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, nuts which have very little meat, hazelnuts, wild apples sweeter than those of France but much smaller; cherries, of which the flesh and pit together are not larger than the pit of the Bigarreau cherry in France. They have also other small wild fruits of different kinds, in some places wild grapes; in short, all the fruits which they have (except strawberries and raspberries which THE CURTAIN RISES - 89 they have in abundance) are not worth one single species of the most ordinary fruits of Europe. "They eat, besides, roots, such as bulbs of the red lily; a root which had a taste of liquorice; another that our French people call 'rosary' because it is distinguished by tubers in the form of beads, and some others, not very numerous. "When they are pressed by famine, they eat the shavings or bark of a certain tree, which they call Michtan, which they split in the Spring to get from it a juice, sweet as honey or as sugar; I have been told of this by several, but they do not enjoy much of it, so scanty is the flow." On this point the narrator falls back on hearsay, and has apparently confused the scanty amount of syrup which comes out of a great quantity of boiled sap with the quantity of the sap itself. Northern Ohio people know full well how abundant is the juice of Michtan, the sugar tree, and anyone who has ever boiled it down for himself or had an opportunity to observe the process knows how many gallons of sap it takes to get a pint of good pancake syrup for next winter. Going on with the essay : "Besides, they get from our French people galette, or sea biscuit, bread, prunes, peas, roots, figs and the like. You have here the food of these poor people. "As to their drinks, they make none, either from roots or fruits, being satisfied with pure water. It is true that the broth in which they have cooked the meat, and another broth which they make of the ground and broken bones of the Elk serve as beverages. A certain peasant said in France that if he were King, he would drink nothing but Grease; the Savages do drink it often, and even bite into it, when it is hard, as we would bite into an apple. When they have cooked a very fat Bear, or two or three Beavers, in a kettle, you will see them skin off the grease from the broth with a large wooden spoon, and taste this liquor as if what they had were the sweetest Parochimel. Sometimes they fill with it a large bark dish, and it goes the rounds of the guests at the feast, each one drinking with pleasure. "Also they do not mix their eating and drinking as we 90 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS do; but they first distribute the meat or other dishes ; then having eaten what they want, they divide the broth, or it is put in a certain place and each one goes and drinks as he likes. "Let us say, in concluding this subject, that with all their animals, birds and fish, the Savages are almost always hungry; the reason for this is, that the birds and fish are migratory, going and returning at certain times. Besides, they are not very great hunters, and they are still poorer managers; for what they kill in one day is not seen the next, except the Elk and eels, which they dry when they have them in great abundance. So that during the months of September and October, they live for the most part on fresh eels; in November and December and often in January, they eat smoked eels; some Porcupines, which they take during the lighter snowfalls, as also a few Beavers, if they find them. When the heavy snows come, they eat Moose meat; they dry it to live on the rest of the time until September; and with this they have a few birds, bears, beavers, which they take in the spring and during the summer. Now if the hunt for all these animals does not succeed they suffer greatly." From this tale of the life of their Huron cousins, that of the Eries, early Clevelanders, may be understood. The picture given above is, in its main outline, that of all the northern tribes. Today's Clevelanders differ less among each other, the humblest from those of the more opulent sections, than the poorest of them differ in comfort and security of life from the richest of the Indians; and they differ less among each other in mental development than the most advanced of the Indian tribes from the least intelligent of our present-day citizens. Then as now, however, it was the better manager who suffered less from famine. There were, though, marked differences in quality among the tribes. If the Eries, as seems likely, were closely related to the Iroquois, they belonged to the group of stronger and wiser red men. For there was a great gap in good sense and in consequent prosperity between the strong and prudent Iroquois and the laziest and slinkiest of the tribes which even THE CURTAIN RISES -91 then were perishing from hunger, pestilence and their own mental inability to cope with those scourges. The Iroquois, contrary to a popular belief, did not go on the warpath for fun, or without great provocation. "Trade and peace we take to be one thing" was the statement of one of their chiefs. But when once driven to fighting by cruelty and injustice they certainly made a competent job of war. Many of the Iroquois built houses of wood. Some of these were quite high and had balconies built around against the walls, not like a second story exactly, but more like a mezzanine. On such a balcony, in measured-off spaces, the families which maintained the fireplaces below kept their individual and family treasures. They planted grain and a few vegetables and lived for periods sometimes as long as ten years in the same place. But whether because they had no proper tools to do weeding with, or because they did not grasp the fact that crops would grow better if weeded, eventually the grass and weeds crowded out the crops and the garbage crowded out comfort, and they had to move, clear land afresh and start all over again. In these later days, we apply often to some unstable person or family the old proverb that "A rolling stone gathers no moss," and we pass the matter off with a smile—even as we pack up for the moving into our own new apartment. But the very grave and fundamental difference between savagery and civilization is the ability to stay put and make a living in one place without being driven out. It was not merely a roving foot that kept the Indian on the move. It was the inability to get along where he was. He did not travel for pleasure or education. He was constantly being evicted. Nature and circumstances were too much for him. Whittlesey sums up the whole matter pretty well when he says:       i "The possession of the soil is evidently due to those who will cultivate it. The earth was not intended as a mere hunting ground for the savage. By his mode of life, he requires about six miles square to support a family. He draws his subsistence from the spontaneous production of nature, al- 92 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS ways exhausting and never adding anything to her resources. Of course the earth cannot in this way fulfill its destiny and support the increasing millions that are incessantly appearing upon it." The Indians were destined, apparently, to move off the continent. The encroachments of the whites hastened the process, but it seems plain that the process was already under way. The manner of extinction of the Eries was more dramatic than that of some tribes. It grew out of a ball game. It was described by Blacksnake, a Seneca chief, and his story was printed in the Buffalo Commercial in July, 1845. In brief, the tale runs thus : When the Eries heard of the confederation of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas, they were a little worried as to the outcome. They felt themselves superior to any one of the tribes, but not able to deal with them united. To find out what they could, they sent a challenge to the Senecas, their nearest neighbors, to send over one hundred of their "most active, athletic young men" to play ball against a similar team of Eries. The challenge was considered and declined. The Eries renewed it the next year with the same result. On the third year it was accepted. The Iroquois chose an experienced chief to lead the party. The young men were bound by strict obedience to him and "to let no provocation, however great, be resented by any act of aggression on their part, but in all respects to acquit themselves worthy the representatives of a great and powerful people, anxious to cultivate peace and friendship with their neighbors. They brought no arms, but each young warrior bore a bat, used to throw or strike a ball, tastefully ornamented, being a hickory stick about five feet long, bent over at one end, and a thong netting wove into the bow." Sportsmen will readily recognize the fascinating game of lacrosse. There was a day of rest before the contest, and then each side laid down its stake of "elegantly wrought belts of wam- THE CURTAIN RISES - 93 pum, costly jewels, silver bands, beautifully ornamented moccasins and other articles of great value." The Iroquois won, though in a sharp contest, against the Eries, and then prepared to leave, in all friendship. The Eries were not satisfied, however, and asked to try a foot race, ten against ten. The Iroquois won this, also. The chief of the Eries, as a last trial of the courage and prowess of his guests, proposed to select ten men, to be matched by an equal number of the Iroquois party, to wrestle, and that the victor should despatch his adversary on the spot, by braining him with a tomahawk, and bearing off his scalp as a trophy. The Iroquois could not very well get out of this, so they agreed, but with a plan on their own side, not to do the killing if they won. The first one threw his man, and stepped back. Then the Erie chief at a single blow brained his beaten subject. The second and third wrestling bouts ended in the same way. The Iroquois sounded the retreat signal and slipped out of sight. The humiliated and weary Eries "knew of no mode of securing peace to themselves but by exterminating all who might oppose them." They decided, therefore, to try to kill off one after another of the opposing tribes. A large war party started out, but among the Eries was a Seneca woman, early taken prisoner, then wife of an Erie. She slipped off, traveled day and night, got to Lake Ontario, took a canoe she found there, coasted down the open lake and finally reached the mouth of the Oswego River where there were Senecas, and warned them. As a result, the Eries had not one tribe, but five ready to meet them. They fought at a point about half way between the foot of Canandaigua Lake and the Genesee River. The outlet of a small lake was at first between them, but the Eries dashed through and across it and fought with all their vigor on the other side. When they had to give ground, they found another enemy had slipped in behind them. "The Eries had been driven seven times across the stream, and had as often regained their ground; but the eighth time, 94 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS at a given signal from their chiefs, the corps of young warriors in ambush rushed upon the almost exhausted Eries, with a tremendous yell, and at once decided the fortunes of the day. Hundreds, disdaining to fly, were struck down by the war-clubs of the vigorous young warriors, whose thirst for the blood of the enemy knew no bounds. A few of the vanquished Eries escaped, to carry the news to their wives and children and their old men, who remained at home." There is a legend that years after, another war party of Eries went back to Tu-shu-way (Buffalo) hoping to avenge their wrongs. These, too, were defeated, and slain to a man. "Their bones lie bleaching in the sun to the present day, a monument at once of the indomitable courage of the 'terrible Eries' and of their brave conquerors, the Senecas." So passed the tribe which had called this part of the country home, leaving a clear field for the entry of the surveyors from Connecticut, a century and a half later, who were to lay out the wilderness in squares and rectangles. It was not with the Eries, therefore, that Moses Cleaveland had his dealings in regard to the title for these lands, but with the Six Nations, who had claimed it. The Eries, like Moses Cleaveland, came in and out, leaving behind only a reputation and a name. A few of the ancient oaks known to the Eries still stand, and the lake still lies blue beyond the city. But everything else, in these two hundred years, has been changed. No ghostly Erie brave could here recognize his old camp ground. In the days of the survey, the land was as it had been in Erie days. Centuries of Indian occupation made less difference in the face of a landscape than a decade of the outpouring of the white man's energy. CHAPTER VII EARLY EXPLORERS AND SETTLERS Between the Indian settlements of the Eries, who were killed off about the middle of the seventeenth century, and the coming of the Connecticut Land Company with its permanent settlement, at the end of the eighteenth, there are some traces of white men in these parts. In fact, English explorers or French forest runners may have wintered around here somewhere at any time during the seventeenth century. Colonel Whittlesey found certain old trees which had ax marks in them to which he attached much importance. An oak, found in Canfield, Mahoning County, was examined by him in 1840. "The diameter was two feet ten inches when it was felled, and with the exception of a slight rot at the heart, was quite sound. About seven inches from the center were the marks of an ax, perfectly distinct; over which one hundred and sixty layers of annual growth had accumulated. The tree had been dead several years when it was cut down, which was in 1838. When it was about fourteen inches in diameter, an expert chopper, with an ax in perfect order, had cut into the tree nearly to its heart. As it was not otherwise injured, the tree continued to grow; the wound was healed, and no external sign of it remained. When it was felled, the ancient cut was exposed." Colonel Whittlesey then examined a portion of the tree "extending from the outside to the center, on which the ancient and modern marks of the ax are equally plain; the tools being of about the same breadth and in equally good order." One was found in Dilloughby, with ax marks dating back presumably to 1648 ; another one in Newburgh whose marks - 95 - 96 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS count as of 1678; one in Berlin Heights indicating 1612. These steel ax marks could not have been made by the "squaw axes" given the Indians in trade, the latter "were narrow-bitted, made of iron or inferior steel, and were never kept in order by the Indians." It is difficult to be perfectly sure about tree rings. There are slow-growing seasons when the growth is small, the rings fine, close together and hard to count. There are also occasional good seasons when trees start growth twice within a year. It may be impossible to number them to the exact year, but within a few years they may be counted with a reasonable certainty. Such marks do not prove, as some people who like to be definite and romantic about such things would prefer to believe, that La Salle went through here on his famous journey from Creve Coeur on the Illinois River to Quebec in the winter of 1682-83. "There is no proof on which side of Lake Erie he traveled," says Whittlesey. "It is far more probable that he avoided the hostile Iroquois, and bearing northward crossed the Detroit River, where the Indians were friendly to the French. A hasty traveler like him could have left few marks of his ax. There must have been hundreds of trees on the Western Reserve upon which axes had been used, in order to furnish us so many examples after a lapse of two centuries." It seems reasonable to suppose that various parties of traders at various times had passed through here, or stopped for a season, and had thus left their marks without any written records to check them by. Deserters from La Salle's parties took unknown paths. Men going through the forest on the hard business of those days seldom kept diaries. Major Robert Rogers, with his Provincial Rangers, raised in New Hampshire, was here in the fall of 1761, on his way from Fort Niagara to Detroit. He had been sent to take over certain French posts after the French and Indian war. His party camped near the mouth of the Cuyahoga, awaiting good weather, and were visited by an embassy from Pontiac, demanding by what right they were there. They quieted THE CURTAIN RISES - 97 the Indians with presents and promises—according to the usual custom—and then proceeded on their way. Less fortunate was the expedition of Major Wilkins in the fall of 1763, and of Colonel Bradstreet in the summer of 1764. Pontiac, after taking many western British forts and slaying their garrisons, was besieging Detroit. Six hundred British regulars, under Major Wilkins, embarked in batteaux at Fort Schlosser on the Niagara for the purpose of proceeding to the relief of the beleaguered fort. They suffered attacks from the Seneca Indians, but finally reached Lake Erie and proceeded as far as the mouth of Rocky River. Here, says Major Moncrief, who was on the expedition, "At 11 o'clock at night they were overtaken by a violent storm which came on suddenly. The whole detachment was in danger of being lost, as every batteau that reached shore was more than half full of water." Colonel Whittlesey pictures the situation, working it out from facts furnished by the historians, and intimate knowledge of the locality and the character of the autumnal storms." "When thus threatened, they doubtless attempted to gain a safe harbor within the mouth of Rocky River. The channel is narrow, and lies immediately in contact with the high and perpendicular cliff forming the terminus of the left bank. The eastern margin of the channel is bounded by a hidden sand bar, covered with a few feet of water, extending at right angles into the lake a number of rods. During a storm the waves sweep over this bar with tremendous force, breaking some sixty to eighty feet in height, against the cliff. A boat, to enter the river at such times, must hug the cliff, amidst the surf, in order to avoid this concealed bar. "An inexperienced pilot would give that surf a wide berth, and, as a consequence, would be stranded on the bar. This, no doubt, was the fate of several of their batteaux; others were probably driven high and dry, on the sandy and marshy beach east of the bar; and others succeeded in reaching a safe harbor within the mouth of the river. Those upon the bar, if they were not at once sunk in the changeable and en- 98 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS gulfing quicksands, would soon be dashed in fragments by the force of the waves. The batteaux were built of light materials, to fit them for two extensive portages, over which they passed, between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. The capacity of each was adapted to the carrying of one hundred men, arms, ammunition, stores, and a small cannon, which was placed upon the bow. Such a craft was ill adapted to resist the forces here acting upon it." Once inside the point, the survivors found their way up a steep path to the oak grove which held the level ground on the height. There they built a fire within a circle of boulders, collected what was left from the wrecks, and stayed three or four days. The boulders, ashes and charcoal have been found, turned up by the plow of Captain Tisdale, who was living on Tisdale's Point in 1859. This place was later known as Eells' Point, after it passed into the ownership of Dan P. Eells. It is now known as Oakwood-on-the-Lake and occupied by many pleasant residences, and still contains oaks from two hundred to four hundred years old. Some arms and clothing were left behind by the expedition, some bodies buried there. Among the traces found were a bayonet, a case knife and the blade of the amputating knife of a surgeon. In 1842 a storm "broke up and disarranged" the sand bar, says Colonel Whittlesey. "Evidences were abundant at that time that one of the sunken barges, which had been engulphed in the quicksands for more than three-fourths of a century, was also broken up. Gun-flints, brass guards of muskets, eroded bayonets and fragments of musket barrels were cast on the shore or were found among the sands in shoal water. The surf also threw high upon the beach the bow-stem of a large boat or batteau. The wood was much chafed and water-soaked. A heavy ring-bolt, perforating it, secured by a nut, was deeply incrusted with rust. A thick coating of aquatic moss or algae invested a portion of the wood, while other portions had evidently been buried in the sand. It remained on the shore for a year or THE CURTAIN RISES - 99 two, when it was burned by fishermen, and I secured the ring-bolt." The tragedy occurred on the night of November seventh. Two Indians arrived in Detroit on November 18, with a letter "one-half wrote in Erse and the other half in English, from Major Moncrief, giving an account of the batteaux being cast away, on the 7th instant, at the highlands, beyond the said point." The survivors, after holding council, decided to go back to Fort Schlosser. Seventy men were lost, and three officers, Lieutenant Davidson, Lieutenant Payne and Dr. Williams, the surgeon whose knife was found. Twenty boats, fifty barrels of provisions, some field pieces and all the ammunition were gone. As a relief expedition, their usefulness had departed. The only sensible thing was to return. The next disaster was that of Colonel Bradstreet, who had advanced against the Indians in the summer of 1764 with a flotilla of batteaux and three thousand men. After what Whittlesey calls "a campaign of varied success" he was returning down the lake with the eleven hundred men left. He left Sandusky Bay on October 18. Stone's Life of Johnson says: "The sequel of the expedition was singularly unfortunate. When a few days out from Sandusky, and about to encamp for the night, Colonel Bradstreet, instead of landing at the mouth of a neighboring river, where the boats could have lain in safety, persisted in disembarking at a spot which it was told him was visited by heavy surfs." This spot is believed to be what is now called Hahn's Grove in Rocky River. "The result of this obstinacy was that a heavy storm arising, twenty-five of the batteaux were lost, together with the field train of six brass cannon. A hundred and fifty men were therefore compelled to make the journey to Niagara on foot, through a wilderness of four hundred miles, filled with savage men and savage beasts, and crossed by deep rivers and fearful morasses. Many perished on the way, and those who finally reached Niagara were spent with fatigue, cold and