50 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY our hearts. We accepted the invitation, and promised to obey him. What the Seneca nation promises they faithfully perform. When you refused obedience to that King he commanded us to assist his beloved men in making you sober. In obeying him we did no more than yourselves had bid us to promise. We were deceived, but your people, teaching us to confide in that King, had helped to deceive us, and we now appeal to your heart. Is all the blame ours?" Could anything be more logical than the above pages of oration would have been no more convincing. Here is a bit of eloquence from Red Jacket. "We stand on a small island, in the bosom of the great waters. We are encircled, we are encompassed. The Evil Spirit rides upon the blast and the waters are disturbed. They rise, they pre '' upon us, and the waters once settled over us, we disappear forever. Who, then, lives to mourn us? None. What marks our extinction? Nothing. We are mingled with the common elements." Tecumstha in 1810 made a speech in regard to the red men's common occupancy of the land which would not be a bad argument at the present day, but je have not space to multiply examples. Jefferson County is interested in the account of the last fight between the Wyandots or Hurons, and their old enemies, the Iroquois. They had fought together at Braddock's defeat in 1755, and on the homeward route the Senecas followed the trail via Mingo and west to the Tuscarawas. The Wyandots kept to the north, striking the ridge between the heads of Elk Eye Creek (Muskingum) and the Seneca capital in Tuscarawas. They tried to steal a march on the town, but the Senecas were alert, and sent Ogista, an old chief, out to meet them. He went boldly into their camp, and made an agreement that in lieu of a general battle each tribe should pick twenty warriors, willing to suffer death by single combat. When all were slain they were to be covered, hatchet in hand, in one grave, and henceforth neither Seneca nor Wyandot were ever again to raise a bloody hand against the other. Forty braves were soon selected, the war dance enacted in all its details, and the carnage began. By nightfall but one warrior, a son of Ogista, was left, with none of the enemy to strike him down. His father took his weapon, and with it cleaved the head of his offspring. The dead were gathered into a heap wiR1 their tomahawks by their sides, and a mound of earth raised over them, (this reads like a performance of the Mound Builders) when all repaired to the Seneca capital and closed the proceedings with "a grand feast, as a memorial of the compact that the hatchet was to be buried forever between these two tribes. Fort Laurens was afterwards erected near here, in 1779, and was shortly after besieged by 184 Wyandots, Senecas and Mingoes. Supposing the Indians had left, a party of seventeen soldiers went out to catch horses acid gather wood. They were ambushed and all killed by the Indians, who were performing religious or funeral rites at the grave of their relatives. Indian respect for old age, in fact fiti any elderly person was carried to an- extreme. " The aged," they say, "have lived through the whole period of our lives, and long before we were born. They have pot only all the knowledge which we possess, but a great deal more. We, therefore, must submit our limited views to their experience." While traveling the eldest always took the lead, even in the case of children, and if accosted on the way nobody presumes -to reply except the eldest, whom they call the speaker. As an illustration of how far this rule was carried an incident is related of a party of Christian Indians near Philadelphia being permitted to return to their homes in the interior, peace having been concluded with some warring tribes. They had to cut a path through the wilderness which they did with great amount of labor and delay, and finally oame to a very steep mountain through which no passage could be found above or below. They had been following the lead of several old men who undertook to be their guides. There seemed to be no alternative but to go back and take another road, which would involve a journey of nearly one hundred miles. It occurred to the missionary PAGE - 51 - VARIOUS SECENSE PAGE - 52 - BLANK AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 53 that there was an Indian named David with them who was acquainted with that part of the country and might be able to pilot them out of their difficulty. The supposition proved correct. David knew a good road along which the party might easily pass, but not having been questioned on the subject, he had hitherto kept silent, and followed with the rest, although he knew all the time they were going wrong. He now led them back six miles where they found an easy way through the mountain and pursued their journey. There was also a strong filial affection it being considered the bounden duty of parents to care for their children until they were old enough to care for themselves, an obligation that was to be returned by the children when their parents grew old. In fact the old were treated very much as children, and even in' hunting parties the aged were placed where the game would pass by so they would be in at the death. Zeisberger says : "I am freed declare that among all the Indian nations that I have become acquainted with, if any one should kill an old man or woman, for no other cause than that of having become burdensome to society, it would be considered as an unpardonable crime ; the general indignation would be excited, and the Murderer instantly put to death. I cannot conceive any act that would produce such an universal horror and detestation. Such is the veneration which is everywhere felt for old age." To have one's children taken captive by the Indians was regarded as the most cruel fate possible, but unless children were killed in an attack on a settlement or put out of the way on the homeward march they were usually adopted into one of the tribes. The horrible tortures of children which are related as part of the history of the Orient especially had no counterpart among the earlier American savages. It is a well known fact that after living a few years with the Indians, white children were most loath to return to their former homes, and force was necessary to compel them to do so. And it must be remembered, not as a justification but an explanation, that it was a cardinal rule of the frontiersman to which of course there were notable exceptions, that an Indian had no rights which a white man was bound to respect. They reverenced the graves of their dead which the whites ruthlessly desecrated. Their women were regarded as the property of every dissolute white man whose basest passions were excited. No consideration was shown their homes or their families, and as for shooting an Indian, that attracted about as much attention as shooting a bear or a wolf. Is it surprising that under such provocations the untutored savage engaged in reprisals that make the blood run cold? Even a civilized Christian would hardly be expected to maintain git equable poise under such conditions. The Indians were not without a yude code of laws for the punishment of crime. Theft was punished by double restitution, treason, which consisted in revealing the secrets of the medicine preparations, '.agwell as giving information or assistance to the enemy, was punished by death. Witchcraft was punished by death by stabbing, burning, or with the tomahawk. Probably the latest instance of this punishment in Ohio was that of Leatherlips, a chief who was tomahawked in Franklin County on June 1, 1810. For adultery a woman had her hair cropped for first offense, and for persistency in the practice her left ear was cut off. Outlawry was •recognized, and it was not only permissible but the duty of any member of the tribe to kill any one who had been declared an outlaw. Reverence for the aged and care for The children was carried beyond the grave. It is hardly necessary to repeat what everybody knows that with the warrior were buried his weapons, with the hunter his instruments of the chase, his cooking utensils and food, with the women their kettles and cooking apparatus, and with all tobacco, as felicity in this world or the next without tobacco was unthinkable. Among the Iroquois and others the dead were 54 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY placed on scaffolds, and evidence of this practice is yet visible to the traveler on the Columbia River. Ten days were usually allowed for decomposition before final burial, so there was no danger of an Indian being buried alive. In presenting a brief review of the better side of the Indian character, it must be borne in mind that he was after all a savage with all the traits that might be expected from such. This is nowhere more markedly exhibited in his religion if his system of mythology can be called such. We have already mentioned that the monotheistic, spiritual idea of a Great Sprit, as betrayed in the later tribes and which has been extensively adopted in romance and poetry was an assimilation from the missionaries, a habit in which the Indian is particularly apt. Nobody has made a more thorough study of this subject than Parkman, and his conclusions are worthy of credence. To the Indian the material world was sentient and intelligent. Birds, beasts, and reptiles have ears for human prayers, and are endowed with an influence on human destiny. A mysterious and inexplicable power resides in inanimate things. They, too, can listen to the voice of man, and influence his life for evil or for good. Lakes, rivers, waterfalls are sometimes the dwelling-place of spirits ; but more frequently they are themselves living beings, to be propitiated by prayers and offerings. The lake has a soul ; and so has the river, and the cataract. Each can hear the words of men, and each can be pleased and offended. Through all the works of nature or of man, nothing exists, however ,seemingly trivial, that may not be endowed for blessing or for bane. A belief prevailed that men owed their first parentage to beasts, birds or ptiles, as bears, wolves, tortoises or cranes, and the names of the totemic clans, borrowed in nearly every case from animals, are the reflection of this idea. Were the Indians the first Darwinians? Consequently an Indian hunter was always anxious to propitiate the animals he sought to kill. He had often been known to address a wounded bear in a long harangue of apology. Bones of the beavers were treated with special tenderness, and carefully kept from the dogs, lest the spirit of the dead beaver, or his surviving brethren should take offense. This feeling extended to inanimate things. The Hurons in order to propitiate their fishing nets and ,persuade them to bring in good draughts, married them every year to two young girls with a more formal ceremony than was observed in human wedlock. So must the fin also be propitiated, and to this end they were addressed every evenino. from the fishing camps, the speaker exhorting then to take courage and allow themselves to be caught, assuring them that the utmost respect should be shown to their bones. --A rather slender consolation, one would think. The harangue took place after sup per, and during is delivery the remainder of the party were required to lie on their backs, silent and motionless, around the fire. Beyond the material world the Indian believed in supernatural existences known among the Algonquins as Manitous and among the Iroquois and Hurons as Okies or Otkons. In these were included all forms of supernatural beings, possibly excepting certain diminutive fairies or hobgoblins, and certain giants, and monsters which appeared under various figures, grotesque and horrible in the Indian legends: 'There was little stretch of the imagination here. In nearly every case, when they revealed themselves to mortal sight they bore the semblance of beasts, reptiles, birds 'Or shapes unusual or distorted. Other, mentions without local habitation, good- and evil, countless in number and indefinite in attributes, filled the world and controlled human destinies of men. These beings also appear in the shape of animals, sometimes of human beings, but more frequently of , stones, which when broken are found-full of living blood and flesh. Each Indian had his guardian manitou, to whom he looked for counsel, guidance, and protection, and these spiritual allies AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 55 are obtained by a process not unknown among more civilized communities. At the age of fourteen or fifteen, the Indian boy blackens his face, retires to some solitary place and remains for days without food. His sleep is haunted by visions, and the form which first or most often appears is that of his guardian manitou ; a beast, a bird, a fish, a serpent, or some other object, animate or inanimate. An eagle or a bear is the vision of a destined warrior ; a wolf, of a successful hunter, while a serpent foreshadows the future medicine man, or according to others, portends disaster. The youth henceforth wears about his person the object revealed in his dreams, or some portion of it-as a bone, a feather, a snake skin, or a tuft of hair. This in the modern language of the tribes is his "medicine." To it the wearer uses a sort of worship, propitiates it with offerings of tobacco, thanks it in prosperity, and upbraids it in disaster. If his medicine fails to bring the desired success he will sometimes discard it and adopt another. The superstition now becomes mere fetich worship, since the Indian regards the mysterious object which he carries about him rather as an embodiment than as a representative of a supernatural power. Besides the beings already mentioned there were others more or less shadowy. The Algonquins had what they called Manabozho, Messon, Michabou; Nanabush or Great Hare, who was king of all the animal kings. According to the most current belief his father was the West Wind, and his mother a great granddaughter of the Moon. Sometimes he is a wolf, a bird, or a gigantic hare, surrounded by a retinue of quadrupeds; sometimes he, appears in human shape, of majestic stature and of great endowments, a mighty magician, a destroyer of serpents and evil manitous ; sometimes he is a vain, and treacherous imp, full of childish whims and petty trickery, the butt and victim of men, beasts and spirits. Although it does not appear that he was an object of worship, yet tradition declared him to be the chief of the manitous, or the "Great Spirit." He was said to have restored the world, submerged by a deluge. He was hunting in company with his brother, a wolf, when the latter fell through the ice of a frozen lake and was devoured by serpents. Manabozho, intent on revenge, changed himself into the stump of a tree, and thus surprised and slew the king of the serpents as he basked with his followers in the sun. The other serpents, who were all manitous, in their rage caused the waters of the lake to deluge the earth. Manabozho climbed a tree, which in answer to his entreaties, grew as the flood rose around it, and thus saved him from destruction. Submerged to the neck he looked abroad over the waters and at length saw a loon or great northern diver, (which formerly was known on the Ohio) to whom he appealed for aid in the task of restoring the world. The loon dived in search of a little mud, as material for reconstruction, but could not reach the bottom. A musk-rat made the same attempt, Out soon reappeared floating on his back, apparently dead. Manabozho, however, on searching his paws, discovered in one of them a particle of the desired mud, and of this, together with the body of the loon, created the world anew. In some other traditions Manabozho appears, not as the restorer, but as the creator of the world, forming mankind from the carcases of beasts, birds and fishes (Darwinism again). Other accounts represent him as marrying a female musk-rat by whom he became the progenitor of the human race. The Algonquins had traces of a vague belief in a shadowy spirit under the name of Atahocan, others saw a supreme being in the Sun, while others believed in a personal devil, who, however, was not as bad as his wife who was the cause of death, and who was driven away from the sick by yelling, drumming, etc. The Iroquois and Hurons had a tradition that while the earth was a waste of waters there was, a heaven with lakes, streams, plains and forests inhabited by animals, spirits and human beings. Here a female 56 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY spirit was chasing a bear, which slipping through a hole fell down to earth. Her dog followed, when she herself, struck with despair, jumped after them. Others declare that she was thrown out of heaven by her husband for an amour with a man; while others believed that she fell in the attempt to gather for her husband the medicinal leaves of a certain tree. The animals swimming in the watery waste below, saw her falling, and hastily met in council to determine what should be done. The ease was referred to the beaver who turned it over to the tortoise, who thereupon called on the other animals to dive, bring up the mud and place it on his back. Thus was formed a floating island on which. Ataensic (the spirit) fell, and where she was delivered of a daughter who in turn bore two boys named Taouscaron and Jouskeha. They came to blows, and J ouskeha killed his brother with a staghorn. The back of the tortoise grew into a world full of verdure and life, ruled by Jouskeha and his grandmother. He was the Sun and she the Moon. He is beneficent and she is malignant. They had a bark house. at the end of the earth, and graced the Indian feasts and dances with their presence. The early writers call Jouskeha the Creator of the world. The Iroquois also had a Mars or god of war. The flesh of animals and of captive enemies was burned in his honor. Like Jouskeha, he was identified with the sun, and maybe regarded as the same being under different attributes. There was another superhuman personage, a deified hero. He was Taounyawatha, or Hiawatha, said to he a divinely appointed messenger, who made his abode on earth for the instructions of the race, and whose counterpart was found in the traditions of several primitive races. Parkman thinks that the primitive Indian's idea of a Supreme Being was no higher than could have been expected. The moment he began to clothe it with attributes, it became finite, and commonly ridiculous. In the primitive Indian's conception of a God the moral had no part. The good spirit is the spirit that gives good luck, and ministers to the necessities and desires of mankind; the evil spirit is simply a malicious agent of disease, death and mischances. In no Indian language could the early missionaries find a word to express the idea of God. Manitou and Oki meant anything endowed with supernatural powers, from a snake skin, or a greasy Indian conjurer, up to Manabozho and Jouskeha. The priests were forced to use a circumlocution, " The Great Chief of Men," or "He who lives in the Sky." Yet the idea that e h race of animals had its archetype or e f would easily suggest the existence of a supreme chief of the spirits or of the human race. The Jesuit missionaries seized this advantage. "If each sort of animal has its king," they urged, ," so, too, have men; and as man is above all the animals, so. is the spirit that rules over men the master of all the other spirits." The Indian mind readily accepted the idea, and tribes in no sense Christian, quickly rose to the belief in one controlling spirit. The Great Spirit became a distinct existence, a pervading power in the universe, and a dispenser of justice. Many tribes began to pray to him, though still clinging obstinately to their ancient superstitions ; and with some as the heathen portion of the Iroquois, he was clothed with the attributes of moral good. The primitive Indian believed in the future state, if not the immortality 4 the soul, but he did not always believe in a state of future reward and punishmelt. Nor, when such a belief existed, was the good to be rewarded a moral good, or the evil to be punished, a moral evil. Skilful hunters, brave warriors, etc., went after death to the happy hunting grounds, while the slothful, th6 cowardly and the weak were doomed to eat serpents and ashes in the dreary regions of mist and darkness. In the general belief, however, there was but one land of shades for all alike. The spirits, in form and feature as they had been in life, wended their way through dark AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 57 forests to the villages of the dead, subsisting on bark and rotten wood. On arriving they sat all day in the crouching posture of the sick, and, when night came, hunted the shades of animals, with the shades of bows and arrows, among the shades of trees and rocks ; for all things, animate and inanimate, were alike immortal, and all passed together to the gloomy country of the dead. Among the Hurons there were those who held that departed spirits pursued their journey through the sky, along the Milky Way, while the souls of dogs were consigned to another route, known as the Way of the Dogs." At intervals of ten years the Hurons and some other tribes collected the bones of their dead and deposited them with great ceremony in a common place of burial. The whole nation was sometimes assembled on such occasions, and hundreds of corpses were buried in one pit. From this time the immortality of the soul began. They took wing, as some affirmed, in the shape of pigeons, while others declared that they journeyed on foot and in their own likeness, to the land of shades, bearing with them ghosts of the wampum belts, beaver skins, bows, arrows, pipes, kettles, beads and rings, buried with them in the common ave. But the spirits of the old and of the children, too feeble for the march, were reed to stay behind, lingering near their arthly villages, where the living often earl the shutting of their invisible cabin doors, and the weak voices of disembodied children driving birds from their cornfields. The Indian land of souls was not always a region of shadows and gloom. The Hurons sometimes represented the souls of their dead—those of their dogs included— as dancing joyously in the presence of Ataentsic and Jouskeha. According to some Algonquin traditions, heaven was a scene of endless festivity, the ghosts dancing to the sound of the rattle and the drum, and greeting with hospitable welcome the occasional visitor from the living world ; for the spirit land was not far off, and roving hunters (alias AEneas) sometimes passed its confines unawares. Generally, however, the spirits on their journey heavenward were beset with difficulties and perils. There was a swift river which must be crossed on a log that shook beneath their feet, while a ferocious dog opposed their passage, and drove many into the abyss. The river was full of sturgeon and other fish, which the ghosts speared for their subsistence. Beyond, was a narrow path, with moving rocks, which, like those which threatened the Argonauts, each instant crashed together, grinding to atoms the less nimble of the pilgrims who tried the passage. A person named Oscotarach, or Head Piercer, dwelt in a bark house beside the path, and it was his office to remove the brains from the heads of all who went by, as a necessary preparation for immortality. According to some, the brain was afterwards restored to its owner. Dreams were a universal oracle. They revealed to the sleeper his guardian spirit, taught him the cure of his disease, warned him against sorcerers, guided him to his enemy or haunts of game, and unfolded the book of the future. Their behests must be obeyed to the letter—a source of endless misery and abomination. There were professional dreamers and professional interpreters of dreams. The Hurons and Iroquois had a dream feast, which was a scene of frenzy, where the actors counterfeited. madness and the town became worse than a lunatic asylum. Each person pretended to have dreamed of something necessary to his welfare, and rushed from place to place demanding of all he met to guess his secret requirement and satisfy it. Surrounded by such a cloud of demons and spirits, the Indian lived in perpetual fear. The turning of a leaf, the crawling of an insect, the cry of a bird, the creaking of a bough, was to him a signal of weal or woe. Every community swarmed with sorcerers, medicine men and diviners, whose functions were often united in the same person. The sorcerer, by charms, 58 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY magic songs, feasts, beating of drums, etc., had power over the spirits and could call to him the souls of his enemies. They came in the form of stones, and he chopped and bruised them with his hatchet ; blood and flesh issued forth, and the intended victim, however distant, languished and died Like his old world counterpart, he made images of those he wished to destroy, and, muttering incantations, punctured them with an awl, whereupon the persons represented sickened and pined away. The Indian doctor in place of natural remedies relied on dreams, beating of drums, songs, magic feasts and dances and howling to drive the female demon from hislutient. The prophet or divines through the flights of birds and movements of fire and water read the secrets of the future. Among the Algonquins, a small conical lodge was made by planting poles in a circle, lashing the tops together seven feet from the ground, and closely covering them with hides.: The prophet crawled in and closed the aperture after him. 'He then beat his drums and sang magic songs to summon the spirits, whose weak, shrill voices were heard mingled with his sonorous chanting, while at intervals the juggler paused to interpret their communications to the crowd. During the affair, the lodge swayed to and fro with a violence, to astonish the beholder, and the whole transaction was such as to give valuable pointers to modern spiritualistic demonstrators. The sorcerers, medicine men and diviners did not usually exercise the functions of priest, in fact the Indians, strictly speaking, had no priesthood. Each man sacrificed for himself to the powers he wished to propitiate. The most common offering was tobacco thrown into fire or water. Scraps of meat were sometimes burned to the miniatus, and, on a few rare occasions of public solemnity, a white dog, the mystic animal of many tribes, was tied to the end of an upright pole, as a sacrifice to some superior spirit, or to the Sun, with which the superior spirits were constantly confounded by the primitive Indian. Since Christianity has modilled his religious ideas, it has been, and still is, the practice to sacrifice dogs to the Great Spirit. Space prevents even a reference to the numerous mystic ceremonies, extravagant, disgusting, designed for the cure of the sick and the general weal. The details can be found in any Indian work. If children were seen in their play imitating any of these mysteries, they were rebuked and punished. Secret magical societies existed, and still exist in the West, which were greatly feared and respected. Indian tales must not be told in summer because the spirits are awake and, hearing what is said of them, may be offended ; but in winter they are fast sealed up in snow and ice. The Indian, although a child of nature, knew nothing, of her laws. If the wind blew, it was because the water lizard, which makes the wind, had crawled out of his pond. If the lightning was sharp and frequent, it was because the young of the thunder bird were restless in their nests. If the corn failed, the corn spirit was angry, and if the beavers were shy, it was because they had taken offense at seeing the bones of one of their number thrown to a dog. As Parkman says, in summing up, the Indian's gods were no whit better than himself. Even when he borrows from Christianity the idea of a Supreme and Universal Spirit, his tendency is to reduce Him to a local habitation and bodily shape, and this tendency disappears only in tribes that have been long in contact with civilized white men. The primitive Indian, yielding his untutored homage to one All-pervading and Omnipotent Spirit, is a dream of poets, rhetoricians and sentimentalists. AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS -59 CHAPTER IV COMING OF THE WHITE MAN Early Settlers, English and French - Different Methods - Story of De-he-wamis - Wars With the Whites. There is a tradition that a party of Europeans were wrecked near the mouths of the Mississippi as early as 1586 and made their way northeastwardly to the Atlantic Coast up the Ohio Valley. If so, they left no record of their wanderings hereabouts, so they may be dismissed from further consideration. When the first English settlers arrived at Jamestown, in 1607, they carried a charter which granted a very indefinite area of lands extending to the South Sea, or the Pacific Ocean, which they supposed lay a short distance west of the Alleghenies, but the struggle for existence kept them too busy, and their numbers were too small to allow any serious attention to their great western territory, of which they knew little and cared less. It was more than a hundred years before they began to wake up to the possibilities of this region, and in the meantime another enterprising nation had gotten ahead of them. In the year 1535, Cartier, a French explorer, ascended the St. Lawrence River, but it was not until 1608, one year after Jamestown, that Sir Samuel Champlain founded the city of Quebec. But the newcomers speedily made up for lost time. There was an essential difference between the English and French methods of settlement. The former were parties of citizens who, for various causes, came to cast their lot in the new world by virtue of grants or charters from the government, but largely independent, self-governing, seeking little assistance from home, and growing up into a collection of separate communities scattered along the coast, having two rather slender bonds of interest, namely, allegiance to the king, and the necessity of common defense. The French, on the contrary, derived everything and every authority from the king. The French soldier and the French priest accompanied the French commandant, who was the Governor, and the colonists, like the French peasants, were simply the base which supported the superstructure. There was one central government which spoke with authority, and the will of the commandant at Quebec was law. This was not the way in which a wilderness could be settled to advantage, and hence it is not surprising that the English settlements grew more rapidly than the French. On the other hand, the concentration of authority, such as had the French, was of inestimable advantage, either in acquiring territory, contending with the savages, or struggling with their white neighbors. These advantages the French were not slow to improve. Scarcely had the palisades been erected at Quebec, when Champlain began his explorations and discovered the lake which bears his name.. Whether they would have reached the Atlantic via the Hudson and made New 60 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY York City a second Paris, had not the unfriendly and powerful Iroquois blocked the way, is a matter of speculation, but as they could not advance in this direction they turned their attention westward. By 1660 they had become familiar with all the great lakes, and their priests, their trappers and their voyageurs, were a familiar sight as far as the west end of Lake Superior, and along the rivers which feed these sheets of water. There is a story that two fur traders in 1654 accompanied a band of Ottawas 500 leagues to the west, returning after two years bringing wonderful stories of that region. It would be foreign to our purpose to tell the travels and discoveries of these and following years, as detailed by Parkman and others they are more romantic and thrilling than the pages of a modern novel, and, it may be added, the accounts are somewhat more instructive. In 1668 numerous missions were established in what are now the states of Michigan and Wisconsin, and the exploration of the Mississippi was broached. There has been some controversy as to who was the real discoverer of the Mississippi. The first record of the river having been seen by a European, was that of a Spanish navigator named Menandez, who entered the mouths but made no exploration of the river. Then came De Soto, who advanced up the river in 1541 and died on its banks, but the stream as a whole was yet unknown save as tales were gathered from the Indians. One idea was that the river flowed southeast into the Atlantic, another that it ran into the Gulf of Mexico, and a third, that it emptied into the Gulf of California. In 1671, a great congress of Indians was held at Sault Ste. Marie, at which an alliance was completed between the French and Northwestern tribes, which opened the way for further explorations. So, on May 13, 1673, Father Marquette, Joliet, and five voyageurs, embarked in two canoes at Mackinac, and crossing Lake Michigan to Green Bay went up Fox River, made a portage to the Wisconsin, and descended to the Mississippi, which they entered on June 17th with a joy, as Marquette says, "which he could not express." They sailed down the great river, stopping at Indian villages, passing the mouths of the Des ' Moines, Illinois, Missouri, "muddy, rushing and noisy," Ohio, and other streams, until they reached the mouth of the Arkansas. They began their return journey on July 17, and reached Green Bay in Sep tember. The course of the river was pretty well determined, but nobody had yet traveled its full length. This was reserved for La Salle, a native of Rouen, in Normandy, where he was born about the year 1635. He came to Canada in 1667, and was there when accounts of Marquette's and Joliet's explorations were received. He had the idea, which had been in men's minds ever since the voyage of Columbus, of finding a way to China via Canada and the South Sea, and, returning to France in 1675, he was warmly received and given the title of Chevalier. In September, 1678, he proceeded to Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, and on November 18th left there in a little brigantine of ten tons, the first vessel of European make in those waters. Nearly a month was con-. sumed in beating up the lake to Niagara River, where the Iroquois had a village, and where La Salle built a fort which became Fort Niagara. On January 26, 1679; at Cayuga Creek, six miles above Niagara Falls, he laid the keel of the first ship to navigate Lake Erie. La Salle returned to Frontenac for supplies, but the Ontario barque was wrecked and most of the supplies lost. However, on August 7th, the new vessel was launched and named the Griffin. It had a stormy voyage across Lake Huron, but reached Mackinac on Au- gust 27th. Here La Salle built a fort and trading-house, and then went to Green Bay, where the ship was loaded with furs and sent back. She was never heard of again, having doubtless foundered during a storm on Lake Huron. La Salle descended the Illinois River to Lake Peoria, where he built a fort called Creve Coeur, or Broken AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 61 Heart, having probably heard of the loss of the Griffin and being greatly depressed. His supplies gave out, and the following spring he sent his companion, Father Hennepin, on an exploring tour up the Mississippi, while he should return east for men and supplies. Tonti, his lieutenant, was to remain with a small force and hold the fort. La Salle started back across the country in March, 1680, with a few attendants, and reached Frontenac, where he found his creditors had seized all his property. But he succeeded in getting both men and supplies, and started back by the middle of the summer. He found the fort deserted, Tonti having become alarmed by the Indians and returned to the lakes. La Salle went back to Mackinac, where he met Tonti. Hennepin had in the meantime gone up the Mississippi to the falls which he named St. Anthony, where is now the thriving city of Minneapolis. He returned in November, 1680, having made an interesting visit to the Sioux, with whom the whites were destined to become too well acquainted in after years. In August, 1681, La Salle started on his third journey to the Mississippi via Lake Michigan and the Chicago River. His party consisted of twenty-three Frenchmen and thirty-one Indians, men, women and children. They left the present site of Chicago about January 5, 1682, and reached the Mississippi on the 6th of February. They resumed their journey on the 13th, and reached the mouth of the great river on April 6th. Thus the whole river had now been traversed from end to end of its navigable waters, although its exact sources were not fully traced until a comparatively recent day. The explorers traversed the three great channels into the Gulf and, erecting a column surmounted by a cross, affixed the arms of France, with the following inscription: LOUIS THE GREAT, KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE, REIGNING APRIL 9, 1682. Thus was this great Mississippi Valley which stretched from the Alleghenies to the Rockies and from the Lakes to the Gulf, formally claimed by the King of France. Having already possessed the country north of the lakes and about the mouths of the St. Lawrence, he practically controlled the continent, save the fringe of English settlements along the Atlantic Coast and the Spanish possessions in Mexico and on the Pacific Coast. In 1688 there were in all this vast region less than 12,000 Europeans, but this did not prevent the French from making good their claims by the construction of a chain of forts from Quebec to the mouths of the Mississippi. It will be noted that up to this time communication between the extremities of this magnificent territorial empire had been mainly via the Great Lakes, which furnished a natural water communication westward at all seasons of the year and were comparatively safe from the dreaded Iroquois. From the lakes south they had three routes, from Mackinac and Green Bay, Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, and the Maumee and Illinois. Now they began to turn their attention to a fourth, the upper Ohio, which was called by the Indians O-hee-yah, or Beautiful River, the French calling it La Belle Riviere, a name well deserved to the present time, but which industrial progress and destruction of forests threaten to make a misnomer. Detroit was founded in 1700, and trading-houses were said to have been established along the Ohio by 1730. Most of the Indians were bought over, and even the Iroquois were induced to be neutral. But the English were beginning to wake up. As we have seen, the charter of the Jamestown colony extended to the Pacific, never acknowledged. A council of the Iroand the next step was to extinguish the Indian titles, for French supremacy was quois, who claimed the Ohio country by right of conquest, was held at Lancaster, Pa., in 1744, at which a treaty was made, somewhat indefinite in terms, but which was claimed to cede their western possessions to the English, and they proceeded 62 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY to act on that basis. On October 7, 1748, England and France, who had been at war, made a treaty of peace at Aix La Chapelle, but it left the Ohio country still an unsettled question. That same year, Thomas Lee, a member of the Virginia Council, associated with himself thirteen others, including Lawrence and Augustine, brothers of George Washington, forming what was called the Ohio Company. The object was to carry on the Indian trade on a large scale. A few English traders had already ventured into this section, but the amount of their traffic was trifling. Lands were to be taken between the Monongahela and Kanawha Rivers, on the south side of the Ohio, but the company was to have the privilege of locating lands on the north side if deemed necessary. Christopher Gist was employed as surveyor, and came as far as the Miami Indians, 200 miles into Ohio. The Indians had been invited to Logstown to form a treaty, without which operations could not be carried on, and notwithstanding the machinations of the French and hostile traders, this was accomplished on June 13, 1752. In the debates attending this treaty, the Indians repudiated the idea that they had ever consented to sell their lands. Shortly after the treaty, Mr. Gist laid off a town and fort at Chartiers Creek, below Pittsburgh, and the company assessed itself four hundred pounds for constructing the fort. Mr. Gist, with eleven families, settled in the Monongahela Valley, and goods for trading arrived from England but were disposed of before reaching the Ohio. War between the French and English breaking out again, operations were suspended. Efforts were made during a number of years to take up the lands or obtain reimbursement for money expended, but without success. An attempt was then made to merge it with a rival organization, but while this was in progress the Revolutionary War broke out and extinguished both companies. All persons concerned in the enterprise were losers, although at the beginning it promised good returns. Other companies were formed with the same object, but the tim had not come for settlements in the Ohio territory. The French were not idle while all thi was going on, but kept a close watch on the English and cultivated friendly relations with the Indians. Among other methods of asserting French sovereignty, Gulissoniere, the governor-general of New France, as they called their possessions here, organized an expedition under command of Capt. Louis Celoron de Bienville numbering about three hundred French soldiers, Canadians and friendly Indian This expedition left Canada in July, 1749, and proceeded from the south shore o Lake Erie to the head waters of the Allegheny River, then considered part of th Ohio. The company was provided wit leaden plates, which were buried at differ ent points along the Allegheny and Ohio on which were inscriptions claiming thi territory in the name of the King o France. These plates were 11x 7 1/2 inches The party reached Chautauqua Lake on the 22nd, and paddled down the lake the next day. Early on the morning of th 24th they entered the outlet, a narroi stream meandering through a deep moras bordered by a tall forest. The water bein quite low, in order to lighten the canoe they sent part of their load overland, an encircled the rapids in this way. Some Indians who noticed them fled, and an en bassy was sent after them to reassure them as to the "friendly" object of the exp dition. They entered the Allegheny prop( on the 29th, and buried a plate on the soul bank of the river, opposite the mouth the Chanougon or Conewango, about twelve miles south of the present New York line It will be observed that the French claim both sides of the river. The usual form were observed of drawing up the comma in battle array, proclaiming "Vivo le Roi,” and affixing the royal arms to a neighboring tree. A council was held near here with the Indians, which was not very sat factory, as the Iroquois, or dominating powers were favorable to the English. AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 63 expedition, however, was not interrupted. Nine miles below Rivire aux Boeufs, now known as French Creek, having been so named by Washington in 1753, they came to a large boulder nearly twenty-two feet long by fourteen feet wide, covered with rude Indian inscriptions, which was submerged during high water. It was regarded by the natives as an "Indian God," and held in superstitious reverence. Here a second plate was buried, which has never been found. Water and time have nearly obliterated the figures. Celoron passed a village of Loups at or near the present site of Pittsburgh, which he pronounced the finest on the river. He was now in the Ohio proper, and soon reached Chiningue, afterwards known as Logstown, a place of fifty cabins with its usual mixture of tribes. Colonel Croghan, who was sent to the Ohio Indians by Governor Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, in August, 1749, says in his journal, that "Monsieur Calaroon, with two hundred French soldiers, had passed through Logstown just before his arrival," and was told by the inhabitants that the object of the expedition "was to drive the English away, and by burying iron plates, with inscriptions on them, at the mouth of each remarkable creek, to steal away their country." Celoron found some English traders at Chiningue whom he compelled to leave. He sent a message by them to Governor Hamilton, under date of August 6, 1749, that he was surprised to find English traders on French territory, it being in contravention of solemn treaties, and he hoped the Governor would forbid them trespassing in the future. Celoron also made a speech in which he told the Indians that he was on his way down the Ohio to whip the Twightwees (Miamis) and Wyandots for trading with the English. But the Indians were becoming suspicious and unfriendly. The Iroquois and Abenaki who had accompanied the expedition, refused to proceed farther, and destroyed the plates which, bearing the arms of the French king, had been attached to the trees. The expedition seems to have passed the present site of Steubenville on the 12th, and, as no mention is made of Mingo town, it is presumed it had not been settled, although this is not conclusive, in fact, they may have passed Mingo during the night, as they arrived at the mouth of Wheeling Creek early on the 13th. Here they buried their third plate, the translation of whose inscription may serve as a sample of the whole : "In the year 1749, of the reign of Louis the 15th, King of France, we, Celoron, commander of a detach- ment sent by Monsieur the Marquis de la Gallisoniere, Governor General of New France, to reestablish tranquility in some Indian villages in these cantons, have buried this plate of lead at the mouth and on the north bank of the river Kanououara, which empties into the easterly side of the Ohio river, otherwise Belle Riviere, this 13th day of August, as a monument of the renewal of the possession we have taken of the said river Ohio, and of all those which empty into it, and of all the lands on both sides as far as the sources of the said rivers, as enjoyed, or ought to have been enjoyed, by the Kings of France preceding, as they have there maintained themselves, by arms and by treaties, especially those of Ryswick, Utrecht and Aix la Chapelle," The expedition continued its voyage on the 14th, and arriving at the mouth of the Muskingum the next day, a fourth plate was buried, on the right bank of that river. That plate is now possessed by the Antiquarian Society of Massachusetts. A fifth plate was buried at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, in Virginia, where it was discovered in 1846, The expedition reached the mouth of the Great Miami on August 31st, where the sixth and last plate was buried. This plate has never been discovered. On September 1st, the party started up the Great Miami on its homeward journey. They arrived at the Miami village of Demoiselles on the 13th. This was afterwards known as Laramie's Creek, the earliest English settlement in Ohio. It was destroyed by General Clark in his expedition of 1782. General Wayne rebuilt it several years after. After a week's rest, 64 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY the French burned their canoes and, obtaining ponies, made the portage to the Maumee, and reached the French post of Kiskakon, afterwards Fort Wayne, on the 25th. Here the party divided, one portion going overland to Detroit, while the others descended the river in canoes. Celoron returned to Detroit via Lake Erie, reaching there on November 10th, having made an estimated journey of 1,200 leagues, or 3,600 miles. Nobody knew better than the French that if they wished to hold this valley, they must do more than plant leaden plates and affix the royal arms to trees. A test of strength was at hand, and both sides began making preparations. The French worked industriously to complete their chain of forts from Niagara to the Ohio, and the English began sending out expeditions of observation. Canada had a new governor-general, in the person of Marquis de Duquesne de Menneville, an able commandant, and Robert Dinwiddie a native of Scotland, was governor of Virginia. He had an eye on the Western country, and in 1753 Capt. William Trent was sent on a mission to the French and Indians, and he penetrated as far as Piqua without result. At this time Major George Washington appears on the scene. He was just past twenty-one, and the governor, with an unconscious gift of prophecy, remarked to him, "Faith, you are a brave lad, and if you play your cards well you shall have no cause to repent of your bargain." A commission was issued to Washington to repair to Logstown, on the Ohio, and inform himself where the French forces were posted or building forts, to proceed to such point, deliver a letter of remonstrance from the governor, and demand an answer thereto. He was also to inquire into the strength of the French, what assistance they were likely to get from Canada, and what were their pretensions. Four English traders had already been arrested by the French for carrying on contraband business in the Ohio country, which had been going on more or less ever since 1749. They were sent to France as prisoners, where they were finally released at the intercession of the British ambassador, the two nations being nominally at peace. Washington followed what has since been known as Braddock,s road to the Monongahela Valley and took with him Christopher Gist, Van Braam, a French interpreter, and John Davidson, an Indian interpreter, with four Indian traders. He met the Indian chiefs at Logstown and, accompanied by three of them and a hunter, set out to Fort La Boeuf, now Waterford, Pa., on foot. In his journal he relates the following interesting incident : "I took my necessary papers, pulled off my clothes, and tied myself up in a watch coat. Then I took my gun in hand, and pack on my back, in which were my paper and provisions.. I set out with Mr. Gist fitted in the same manner, on Wednesday, the 26th of December. The day following, just after we had passed a place called Murdering Town, we fell in with a party of French Indians who had lain in wait for us. One of them fired at Mr. Gist or me, not fifteen steps off, but missed. We took the fellow into custody and kept him until about 9 o'clock at night, then let him go, and walked on the remaining part of the night, without making any stops, that we might get the start so far as to be out of their pursuit next day, since we were well assured they would follow our track as soon as it was light. We continued traveling the next day until quite dark, and got to the river, which I expected to have found frozen, but it was not; the ice I suppose had broken up above, for it was driving in vast quantities. There was no way for getting over but on a raft, which we set about building with but one poor hatchet, and finished just before sun-setting. This was a whole day work; we next got it launched, then went aboard and set off, but before we were half over we were jammed in the ice in such a manner that we expected every moment our raft to sink, and ourselves to perish. I put out my setting pole to try to stop the raft, when the rapidity of the stream threw it with so much violence against the pole that it jerked me out into ten feet of water, but I saved myself by catching hold of one of the raft logs. Notwithstanding all our efforts we could not get to shore, but were obliged, as we were near an island, to quit our raft and make for it. The cold was so severe that Mr. Gist had all his fingers and some of his toes frozen,. and the water was so shut up that we found no difficulty in getting off the island in the morning, and went to Mr. Frazier ,s. As we intended to take horses, and it taking some time to find them, I went up to the mouth of the Youghiogheny to visit Queen Aliquippa. I made her a present of a watch, coat and a bottle of rum, the later of which she thought the better present of the two." Washington met the French officers and secretly learned their intentions and designs, and returned to Virginia with a store AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 65 of information that was very valuable to the colonists. The publication of Washington,s journal aroused the colonists to an appreciation of the fact that if they were to secure hold on the Western country, they must be about it. Governor Dinwiddie wrote to the Board of Trade that the French were building a fort at Venango, Pa., and that in March 1,200 or 1,500 troops would be ready to descend the river with their Indian allies. Governor Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, brought the matter before the legislature, but that body did nothing. New York appropriated £5,000 to help Virginia out. The latter colony was alive. The assembly voted £10,000, and six companies of volunteers were raised, Col. Joshua Fry appointed colonel, and Washington lieutenant-colonel. Two five-gun batteries were sent forward, thirty guns, and eighty barrels of gunpowder, had been forwarded from England, and every preparation made for an active campaign. Capt. William Trent had pushed ahead with one company to prepare the road through the wilderness and construct a fort at the forks of the Ohio. Ensign Ward had been sent ahead with men and tools for this purpose, and on the 6th of January, 1754, met Washington and Gist returning from their French expedition. Ward had a force of forty men, and work was proceeding slowly on the fort, when on April 16th, a strong force of French and Indians appeared before the unfinished structure. They had sixty batteaux and three hundred canoes, with a formidable train of artillery. Ward was summoned to surrender, and as resistance was futile he submitted, on condition that he be allowed to go back home with sufficient supplies to carry him out of the wilderness. This was granted, and Ward went up the Monongahela to meet Washington. This is considered the beginning of the French and Indian War, which for six years bathed the frontiers in blood and ended with the extinction of the French power east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio. Colonel Washington left Alexandria on April 2nd with two companies and reached Wills Creek, where Cumberland now stands, on the 17th. Had he been earlier he could not have changed the result on the Ohio, as the French had a thousand men and would have annihilated his command. As he was preparing to resume his march, he learned of the affair at the Forks, and, on consultation with his officers, it was decided to send back to Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland for reinforcements. Another company having joined him, he advanced with his small force towards the mouth of Redstone and sat down to wait for further help. He reached Little Meadows on May 9th, where he learned that the captured fort, which had been strengthened and named Fort Duquesne by the French, had been reinforced by 800 men. He moved on to the Youghiogheny, reaching there on May 18, and six or eight days later received a message from Half King that the French were moving to attack him. As his force was totally inadequate to meet the enemy in the open field, he selected a favorable spot, known as Great Meadows, where he cleared away the underbrush and threw up a temporary fortification which he is said to have called a charming field for an encounter. From Mr. Gist and some friendly Indians Washington learned that an advance force of about fifty Frenchmen were within a few miles of his encampment. He determined to lose no time waiting for the others to come up. Capt. Adam Stephens had been detached with seventy-five men to watch them, and Washington, with a party of about forty, started out before daylight on the morning of the 28th, and about dawn the foes discovered each other. The French seized their arms and Washington opened fire. In the conflict, the French commander, M. Jumonville, was slain, with ten of his men, and twenty-two were captured. Washington had one killed and three wounded. Thus ended Washington's first battle. When intelligence of this affair reached Contrecoeur at Fort Duquesne, he prepared to move in force on Washington’s 66 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY little army. The latter were not idle. Expresses were sent back for reinforcements and artillery, and the fortifications were strengthened. Gist was sent back to have Pennsylvanians bring up the artillery, but he was unsuccessful. On June 10th he was joined by Captain Mackay with a company of South Carolina troops, whom he placed in command of the fort, and with his Virginia troops, the swivels, a few wagons and stores, he started for Redstone. It is seen how the brunt of this expedition fell upon the Virginia troops ; if they had been properly supported by the other colonies, subsequent history would have been different, Washington would have been victorious, and there would have been no Braddock disaster. For the time being, French concentration was to win against Anglo-Saxon disintegration. But we are anticipating. While cutting the road to Redstone, under Gist's superintendence, Washington kept his scouts well forward and knew what was going on among the enemy. He learned that on June 28th, a French and Indian force aggregating eight hundred to one thousand men had left Fort Duquesne, under command of M. Coulon de Villiers, half brother of Jumonville, bent on exterminating their foes. They proceeded up the Monongahela in large canoes, reaching the mouth of Redstone a few miles above Pittsburgh, where they encamped. Washington called a council of war, in which it was decided to fall back on Great Meadows, and, if possible, retreat over the mountains. On arriving there they concluded that would be impossible, so they decided to remain. Villiers supposed Washington was retreating homeward and was about to return to Fort Duquesne, when he was apprised by a deserter of the conditions at Great Meadows. He put the traitor under guard, with promise of reward or death as his story should prove true or false, and pushed ahead. On July 3d the enemy appeared, and opened fire on the fort at range. Washington formed his men outside in hope of drawing his foes from the woods, but this not succeeding he withdrew into the fort. The defenders had only a few worn-out horses and provisions for four or five days. Surrounded by a numerous enemy, it was only a question of time when they must surrender at discretion. It was a rainy day, but desultory firing was kept up, with little effect. In the evening, the French asked for a parley, but Washington fearing some trick, declined, when the request was repeated with a guarantee of safety for the messenger. Captain Van Braam was sent three times before the French offered terms acceptable to Washington, who was already exhibiting his qualities as a strategist. Finally, by agreement, the garrison marched out of the fort with the honors of war, taking all they possessed except artillery, and started for home. It was not a very promising Fourth of July, but nobody then suspected the future significance of that date. It is said that Indians attacked the colonists on the homeward route and plundered their baggage, whereupon Washington ordered everything to be destroyed except what the men carried on their backs. The French destroyed Fort Necessity, as Washington's intrenchments were called, and went back to Fort Duquesne, burning Gist's home and, as de Villiers said, "destroyed all the settlements they found." Gist returned with Washington. .He was one of the most noted pioneers of that day, being a native of England and studying for the Anglican priesthood, but becoming a surveyor, a settler, and what we would call a promoter. He died in the South, about 1770. The events just related brought matters to a crisis, and although war had not been formally declared between France and England, the British government decided to take a hand. On February 20, 1755, Edward Braddock, an English 'officer, with two regiments, not a very large force to subdue even a savage empire, landed in Chesapeake Bay. He had been appointed commander-in-chief of all the British forces in America, colonial and otherwise, and at his request a conference of colonial AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 67 governors was held at Alexandria, Va., at which were planned three separate expeditions against the French. It looked as though the much needed concentration of British strength was at last to be accomplished. He took personal charge of the expedition to Fort Duquesne, and the mournful details of that disastrous venture are too well known to need repetition here. They are familiar to every schoolboy. Braddock was a brave soldier, and in a different field might have made a different reputation. But he had a contempt for his provincial associates and still more for his foe. He would listen to no suggestions from Washington, who was his aide, and in command of the provincials, and considered the practice of sheltering behind trees, as practiced by whites as well as Indians in frontier warfare, as simple cowardice. He is said to have been shot by one of his own soldiers, having with his sword cut down a provincial who was behind a tree, and not until then were the remnant able to take any steps towards saving themselves. On the night of that mournful July 9th, Washington gathered up the scattered fragments of the little army, and conducted its retreat in such good order that he was not followed. The body of Braddock was taken along, and on the 15th it was buried by torchlight, Washington reading the burial office. Although one or two local expeditions checked the ravages of the savages, yet Braddock's defeat left the French in complete possession of the Ohio Valley, which, however, they were only to hold for a little over three years longer. William Pitt became prime minister of Great Britain in 1757, and his vigor and ability soon made themselves manifest in American affairs. Early in 1758 an English fleet of one hundred and fifty sail with 12,000 troops arrived, and with 20,000 men furnished by the colonies, and the forces already in the country, there was an aggregate of 50,000 men, the largest army yet seen in the New World. Three simultaneous expeditions were planned, one against Louisburg, on the island of Cape Breton, another against Ticonderoga and Crown Point in New York, and a third against Fort Duquesne. The first expedition captured Louisburg, the second was repulsed, but subsequently captured Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario where Kingston now stands, and General Forbes started from Philadelphia for Fort Duquesne, being joined en route by Washington with six Virginia regiments, making a force of 7,000 men. They left Carlisle in July, but roads had to be cut across the mountains, and progress was slow. Major Grant, who, with a small force, pushed ahead of the main army, met with a misfortune almost equal to that of Braddock, but fortunately there were reserves behind, as was not the case with Braddock's expedition. The main army moved steadily forward, and as it approached Fort Duquesne Indian runners reported that "they were as numerous as the trees in the woods." This so frightened the French that they burned the fort, including their magazines and barracks, and took to their boats, " some up the Allegheny and some down the Ohio. Washington took charge of the abandoned and destroyed fort on November 25, 1758, and proceeded to reconstruct it under the name of Fort Pitt, England's new premier, who in a single year had reversed the entire situation. A portion of the retreating French halted at Venango until the summer of 1759, when the fall of Niagara made their position untenable, and they left the valley forever. The Anglo- Saxon had come this time to stay. The following year General Moncton made a treaty with the Indians at Fort Pitt,' obtaining their consent to build military posts in the wilderness. Quebec had already fallen, and the capture of Montreal in 1761, and the treaty of Paris in 1763, ended forever the dream of a great French empire in America. It may be worth while to make a diversion here from the general history of this section to note what may be termed the first recorded incident in Jefferson County, 68 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY certainly the first in which a white person was the leading figure. In the spring of 1755, during an Indian raid in eastern Pennsylvania a family named Jemison residing on Marsh Creek near Philadelphia had their home destroyed and the entire family were captured. The father and mother, with other relatives, were massacred by the redskins, but their daughter Mary was car to Fort Duquesne, where she was given to Seneca squaws. She was thirteen years ge at this time. The next day they started in a canoe down the river for their home at Mingo town. It will be remembered that Celoron does not mention Mingo in his journey down the Ohio in 1749, so the presumption is that the place was occupied by the Indians some time between that date and 1755, although this is not conclusive. She gives the following account of her journey down the Ohio : "On the way we passed a Shawnee town, where I saw a number of heads, arms, legs and other fragments of the bodies of some white people who had just been burned. The parts that remained were hanging on a pole, which was supported at each end by a crotch stuck in the ground, and were roasted as black as a coal. The fire was yet burning, and the whole appearance afforded a spectacle so shocking that even to this day (1824) the blood almost curdles in my veins when I think of it. At night we arrived at a small Seneca Indian town at the mouth of a small river, which was called by the Indians Shenanje (Cross Creek) about eighty miles from the fort, where the two squaws to whom I belonged, resided; there we landed. Having made fast to the shore the squaws left me in their canoe while they went to their wigwam in the town and returned with a suit of Indian clothing, all new and very clean and nice. My clothes, though whole and good when I was taken were now torn in pieces, so that I was almost naked. They first undressed 'ire and threw my rags into the river, then washed me clean and dressed me in the new suit they had just brought, in complete Indian style, and then led me home and seated me in the center of their wigwam. I had been in that situation but a few minutes before all the squaws in the town came in to see me. I was soon surrounded by them and they immediately set up a most dismal howling, crying bitterly and wringing their hands in all the agonies of grief for a deceased relative. Their tears flowed freely, and they exhibited all the signs of real mourning. At the commencement of this scene one of their number began in a voice somewhat between speaking and singing to recite some words." These were words of mourning for a brother who had been killed in Washington's campaign of 1754 and acceptance of the girl as a sister in his place. Mary Jemison was now formally adopted into the tribe. She was given the name of De-hewamis, or "pretty girl," and lived with the Senecas at Mingo until after the capture of Fort Duquesne by the English. Fort Pitt was visited by her, and she relates her jog at again seeing her own people, but there appears to have been no desire to return to civilization. After living at Mingo for several years, probably until after the massacre of Logan's family in 1774, when Mingo town was deserted by the Senecas, she went with her companions to the Scioto country, and finally, having married an Indian chief, removed to Genesee County, New York, the original home of the tribe, where she lived to be a very old woman. She could have returned to her people after Bouquet's march, but learning that she was to be given up to the whites in accordance with the treaty, escaped into the wilderness with her half-breed children and remained hidden until the search was over. The. Six Nations gave her a large tract of land known as the Garden Tract, which proceeding was afterwards confirmed by the state of New York. In 1824 she related her experiences to a visitor, who made notes of her story, which was afterwards published in book form. As has been observed, although the French never became very good friends with the Iroquois, yet this very fact tended to give them a better standing with the other tribes, who began to depend on them for supplies and ammunition with which to fight their enemies, both white and red. They were also more politic in their dealings with the children of the forest than the English, affiliated with them, constantly gave them presents, catered to their desires, and were in every way more politic than their Anglo-Saxon brethren. The latter as a rule despised the red men, some of whom were proud and as quick to resent an insult as a white Berson. The traders for the most part were a brutal, unscrupulous lot, who lost no opportunity to cheat an Indian, outrage his family,, or AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 69 even kill him in case of necessity. But above all, the great difference was in the character of the settlements and the number of their inhabitants. As has been said, the French sovereignty was largely a loose chain of military posts scattered over an immense territory, with comparatively few regular colonists, probably not over 100,000 all told. Their encroachment on the Indian lands was so trifling as to attract little or no attention. But the Atlantic Coast, from Massachusetts to Georgia inclusive, was now occupied by what was then considered the large population of over a million people. And those people were not content to remain in statu quo. Shiploads were constantly arriving from Europe, and the stream so long kept back by the Appalachian Mountains was beginning to overflow in a steady, resistless torrent. Already the Ohio River was claimed to be the eastern boundary of the Indian country, and as the advantages of the Western wilderness became apparent there was a scarcely concealed determination to go on and possess the whole land. The Indians could not fail to observe this, and when the help of their French allies was withdrawn there was added to their natural hatred of the English the conviction, amounting almost to terror, that if they could not stop this torrent their fate must be the loss of all their homes, if not extermination. So the final termination of the long French War, instead of bringing peace to the Indian country, rather intensified the situation, and when its occupants learned that the King of France had ceded all their lands to the English, without even consulting them, their rage and terror was almost boundless. It is said that great crises always produce great leaders, and Indian history does not seem to prove any exception to the rule. Pontiac, the chief of the Ottawas, is credited with being the author of the most complete and comprehensive combination of American Indians ever attempted, and his plans were worthy of a Caesar or Napoleon. Before the close of 1762 he was sending messengers to the various tribes urging them to unite in one grand effort to drive out the English, the plan being to attack every post in the Western country simultaneously and destroy each, with its occupants, before outside help could arrive. Early in 1763 the conspiracy materialized, Pontiac taking Detroit as his special work. On April 27 he gathered his warriors at the little river Ecorces, a few miles below the fort, and disclosed his plans. A few chiefs were to obtain admittance to the fort by stratagem, seek an audience with the commander, Major Henry Gladwin, and at a signal draw their tomahawks, rush for the officers, and strike them down, while the forces outside, variously estimated at 600 to 2,000, were to rush in and overpower the little garrison of 160 men. The scheme failed, it is said, by the disclosure of a squaw, and Pontiac sat down to a regular siege, of a length unparalleled in Indian warfare, lasting from May 1 to November 1. Appeals for help were sent eastward, and the first expedition for relief was attacked near the mouth of the Detroit River, beaten and scattered. A second expedition reached the fort, but in a sortie on July 31st the English were driven back with terrible slaughter. Another expedition was overwhelmed in a lake storm and seventy soldiers drowned. Of course, the surrounding country was ravaged, and requisitions were made on Canadian farmers for provisions for which Pontiac gave promises to pay drawn on birch bark and signed with the figure of an otter, his totem, which primitive obligations were redeemed. Pontiac is said to have had a commissary and most of the machinery of a regular army. Indian persistence, however, began to wane. Towards the latter part of the summer the tribes began to drop off, and by the middle of October only Pontiac's own tribe, the Ottawas, remained. So, the last of the month, he sullenly raised the siege and retired to the Miami country, where he endeavored without success to stir up the tribes to a renewal of the war. But although the siege of Detroit was 70 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY a failure, marked success had resulted elsewhere. St. Joseph, near the southern end of Lake Michigan, Michillimackinac, at the head of the Peninsula and commanding the straits of that name ; Ouiatenon, on the Wabash; Miami, on the present site of Fort Wayne, Ind. ; Presque Isle, the present site of Erie, Pa. ; Le Boeuf, near the head of the Allegheny River ; Venango, farther south, all fell into the hands of the savages. Fort Niagara, on the east bank of the river of that name, proved too strong for assault, and the attack there was soon abandoned. Ligonier, a small post forty miles southeast of Fort Pitt, was attacked, but held out until relieved by Colonel Bouquet. On May 27th the Indians appeared before Fort Pitt, now considered the Gibraltar of the West. On June 22d they opened fire, "upon every side at once," to which the garrison vigorously replied, shells from the howitzers bursting in the midst of the savages, greatly astounding and confusing them. However, they kept up the contest by every means known to savage warfare. They dug holes in the banks of the rivers for shelter with their knives, and from then on kept up a constant fire on the garrison. A modern army, with knowledge of rifle pits, could have done no better. In the meantime, reinforcements were coming from the East, where the full extent of the border calamities were not yet known. Colonel Bouquet, of the British army, was ordered west, and reached Carlisle, Pa., in June, where he learned of some of the disasters. He forged ahead with five hundred regulars, and relieved Ligonier. On August 5 the army reached Bushy Run, a small stream twenty-five miles from Fort Pitt, where he was fiercely attacked by Indians. By a stratagem the next day he drew the savages into an ambuscade and defeated them badly, although he lost about one hundred and fifty men, nearly one-third of his force. He pushed on to Fort Pitt, which he entered on August 25th, the Indians having given up the siege. Pontiac's grand scheme had not succeeded, but came perilously near it, so far at least as temporary success was concerned. Detroit, Niagara and Pitt remained as oases hundreds of miles apart, while the whole border was exposed to savage raids. Hundreds of settlers flocked to the forts and protected posts, and far into the interior of Pennsylvania the skies were red with the flames of burning cabins, and the ground soaked with the blood of massacred inhabitants. Some of the frontiersmen are said to have continued their flight as far as Philadelphia, but this is probably an exaggeration. The winter of 1763 Was a terrible .one, but in the spring preparations were inaugurated for two strong expeditions into the Indian country to bring the savages to terms. Col. John Bradstreet organized the first at Fort Niagara, and left there in July, 1764, with a force of over one thousand soldiers. As he coasted along the shores of Lae. Erie he made treaties with the several Indian tribes, who were awed at least into a pretense of desiring peace. He reached Dertoit on August 25th, to the great joy of the garrison, which had been isolated for more than a year, and made preparations to retake the posts in the West and Northwest. Colonel Bouquet, in charge of the second expedition, was not ready to leave Fort Pitt until October 3d, when, with a force of one thousand five hundred men, he marched 1into the Ohio country, cutting a highway as he proceeded. Utmost precautions were taken to guard against surprise, and Colonel Bouquet's journal of the march is most interesting. His course was via Logstown, Big and Little Beaver, and thence across the state to the Muskingum. He met numerous Indian delegations on the upper Muskingum, now the Tuscarawas, who made all sorts of excuses for their late treachery, charging it up to the rashness of their young men and the nations living west of them, to which he gave rather indifferent replies. The final gathering was held on the Muskingum near the confluence AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 71 of the Tuscarawas and Walhonding Rivers. Bouquet was in a position here to overawe the tribes and destroy their villages, as he was directly in the center of their country, a fact which they fully realized. He built four temporary redoubts, erected a storehouse and other buildings, so the place presented the appearance of a little town. Here he talked boldly to the Indians, and besides making a treaty of peace demanded the return of all white captives in their hands. This was a slow process, as the captives were scattered all over the country, their possessors did not want to give them up, and the captives themselves, in many cases, were unwilling to return. It was the 18th of November before the work was finally concluded, and two hundred and six men, women and children delivered over to Colonel Bouquet, who on that day started on his return to Fort Pitt, traveling up the Tuscarawas to the site of the present town of Bolivar, thence via Sandy Valley to Yellow Creek, down that stream and up the Ohio to Fort Pitt, where the force arrived on November 28. The only loss in this remarkable expedition was one soldier, killed on the Muskingum. Troops were stationed to guard the lines of communication, and the frontier had a breathing spell. The fruits of Pontiac's victories were all undone, and Pontiac, sullen and revengeful, retired to the Illinois country, where he tried to raise a new outbreak, but his charm was broken. He took to drink, and was assassinated by a Kaskaskia Indian, who buried his tomahawk in his brain. It is said that the murderer was bribed to do the deed by a British officer, the consideration being a barrel of liquor. Pontiac living was harmless, but his death infuriated some of the Western tribes, who carried on a relentless war against the Illinois Indians and, as Parkman says, "Over the grave of Pontiac more blood was poured out in atonement than flowed from the veins of the slaughtered heroes on the corpse of Patroclus." Pontiac was buried on the west side of the Mississippi, near Fort St. Louis. No monument marks his grave. He was a great man and a hero, though a savage. CHAPTER V EXPLORING THE OHIO COUNTRY Croghan's Visit to Mingo—Early Claims—Washington's Visit in 1770—The Logan Massacre—Bloody Reprisals—Dunmore's War and Logan's Last Speech. Having acquired undisputed title to the Western territory, the English authorities were naturally anxious to know something about it, and also follow up the results of Colonel Bouquet's expedition in further conciliating the Indian tribes. Accordingly, early in 1765, Col. George Croghan was sent out from Fort Pitt, leaving there on May 15th with two batteaux, carrying a well equipped party. He was accompanied by deputies of the Senecas, Shawanese and Delawares, and arrived at the mouth of Big Beaver the next day, from which point his diary continues : "About a mile below Beaver Creek we passed an old settlement of the Delawares, where the French in 1756 built a town for that nation. On the north side of the river some of the stone chimneys are yet remaining; here the highlands come close to the banks, and continue so for about five miles, after which we passed several spacious bottoms on each side of the river, and came to Little Beaver Creek, about fifteen miles below Big Beaver Creek. A number of small rivulets fall into the river on either side. From thence we sailed to Yellow Creek, being about fifteen miles from the last mentioned creek; here and these The riiifs turtle Zile Aro the river on each side. From thence we sailed from Yellow Creek, being about fifteen miles from the last-mentioned creek, and there the hills come close to the banks of the river on each side, but where are bottoms (glacial terraces) they are very large and well water, numbers of small rivulets running through them, falling into the Ohio on both sides. We encamped on the river bank, and find a great part of the trees in the bottoms are covered with grape vines. This day we passed by eleven islands, one of which being about seven miles long.* *Doubtless Brown's Island, four miles long. For the most part of the way we made this day the banks of the river are high and steep. The course of the Ohio from Fort Pitt- to the mouth of Beaver Creek inclines to the northwest; from thence to the two creeks partly due west." The party seems to have encamped for the night between the foot of Brown's Island and Steubenville, possibly at the Half Moon farm or Holliday's Cove, for the diary continues : "17th. At 6 o 'clock in the morning we embarked, and were delighted with the prospect of a fine open country as we passed down. We came to a place called the Two Creeks (Ohio and Virginia Cross Creek) about fifteen (twenty) miles from Yellow Creek, where we put to shore. Here the Senecas have a village on a high bank on the north side of the river. The chief of this village offered me his service to go with me to the Illinois, which I could not refuse for fear of giving him offense, although I had a sufficient number of deputies with me already. From thence we proceeded down the river, passed many large, rich and fine bottoms, the high lands being at a considerable distance from the river banks until we came to Buffalo Creek, being about ten (five) miles below the Seneca village, and from Buffalo Creek we proceeded down the river to Fat Meat Creek (Grave Creek), about thirty miles. The face of the country appears much like what we met with before; large, rich and well watered bottoms, then succeeded on the hills pinching close on the river; these bottoms on the north side appear rather low, and consequently subject to inundations in the spring of the year, when there never fails to be high freshets in the Ohio, owing to the melting of the snows. This day we passed ten fine islands, though the greatest part of them are smell." Colonel Croghan's account of his visit to the western country, and his return via Detroit and Niagara, is very interesting, but we must return to Jefferson County. - 72 - AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 73 As is well known, the English authorities discouraged settlers from emigrating beyond the. Alleghenies, and at a later date positively prohibited them going north of the Ohio, but that did not prevent numerous pioneer settlements in western Pennsylvania and Virginia, and a few hardy ones had already begun to look over the river where a fertile soil, abundance of game and a wide field offered a tempting opportunity. The late W. H. Hunter, with a great deal of industrious research, has collected and published in the works of the Ohio Archaeological Society, a great deal of information concerning these pioneers that would otherwise have sunk into oblivion, and among other things relates an incident said to have occurred during this year, 1765. Jacob Walker, who had come from Maryland, made a tomahawk claim on the territory now occupied by the city of Steubenville. After aiding a Mr. Greathouse clear three acres of land and plant corn, opposite the site of Steubenville, in Brooke County, Virginia, Walker crossed the river and deadened three trees at a point later known as Marsh's Spring, on North Seventh Street, denoting the centre of the claim. This was the first attempt ever made to settle the west side of the Ohio. The appended sketch of the life of Jacob Walker was written by his great-grandson, the information therein contained being handed down from generation to generation, and its authenticity is not questioned. "In 1765 the site of Steubenville was a dense forest, and game, such as deer, turkeys, hares, and wild hogs, was abundant. Jacob also, during that year, bought of Mr. Greathouse a farm, paying sixteen cents an acre for it, there being four hundred acres, it being the farm now owned by J. J. Walker. They deadened three trees at the spring by his house, which was the transfer. On account of trouble at Richmond, Va., he did not get a deed until 1785. During the summer of 1765 he built a cabin on his farm, it being about half way between the present residence of J. J. Walker and that of his son, W. P. Walker, and that fall he returned to Baltimore and married Margaret Guthrie. In the spring of 1766 he bought a pony, and they started back to his farm, she riding the pony and he walking, bringing all they had with them. They arrived at the cabin in August; he went in and tramped down the weeds and then helped her off the pony, took off the pack saddle and what other few things they had and told her this was her home. He afterwards helped to build Fort Decker in what was later Mahan's orchard, below Mingo. They lived at the fort for seven years during the summer, and on his farm during the winter. As soon as the leaves came in the spring the Indians came also, and when he went out to plow or plant he got two soldiers to come with him from the fort, they hiding at each end of the field to keep the Indians from slipping up and shooting him. He worked all day without speaking to his team above a whisper. During his stay at the fort one day in the fall he came up to his cabin, having a little dog with him he came to the spring first, and the little dog slipped up to the cabin. It came back, and by jumping in front of him and doing everything it could to keep him from going to the cabin, he thought of Indians, and went back to the fort and got some of the soldiers, returning in time to see nine Indians slip away. Another time Captain Buskirk sent his son to mill on horseback with a sack of corn, also having a favorite dog, which followed him. It was a two days' trip, and on his return the dog was not with him his father got very angry, and the son went back to look for the dog, and after he had been gone three days and no word from him, the captain sent Jacob Walker, Mr. Decker, and two soldiers, to see if they could find him. They went from the fort down the Ohio to the mouth of Cross Creek, and up Cross Creek, following the trail, and when they came to the mouth of Scioto Run, where it empties into Cross Creek, they found him; the Indians had lain in ambush and caught him without 74 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY shooting, and had split his head with a tomahawk. The prints of their fingers were plain on his neck where they had choked him to keep him from hollering. They scalped him and took his horse. The party sent out, took him and buried him up on the hill overlooking Cross Creek, on land that was or is owned by Silas McGee. Jacob said, of all the sad sights that he ever saw, that was the saddest. The captain lost his son, horse and dog; the Indians killed his wife and the captain himself later. After Jacob had left the fort and gone out to his farm, during the summer season, the Indians would still come over the river and kill the settlers. At such times Jacob and his wife would take their three children and go away from their cabin. She would take a babe in her arms and sit down in the field, leaving John and Mary at a short distance covered with a quilt Jacob sitting at a short distance with his gun. He was at the building of Fort Steuben he was at the battle between Captain Buskirk and the Indians, and fought on Battle Run, west of Mingo, where Captain Buskirk was killed, in Jefferson County, Ohio. He was at a council of war between Logan and Buskirk. Jacob Walker was appointed constable in 1797, at the first court held in Brooke County. He died about 1830, aged 94 years." With the exception of an individual affray here and there, comparative peace reigned along the border for several years, and in the latter part of 1770 Col. George Washington, who had always taken great interest in the Ohio country, planned a trip to this region for the purpose of inspecting lands, with the view of locating claims at a later date. The Indian title to Kentucky had been extinguished at a convention at Fort Stanwix, N. Y., in 1768, but nothing definite had been accomplished as to Ohio, if we except the somewhat indefinite cession of the Iroquois at Lancaster, Pa. He left Mt. Vernon on October 5, 1770, and arrived at Fort Pitt on the 17th, having had some Indian conferences on the way. On the 20th, with a party of eight white men and some Indians, he left there in two canoes, stopping to inspect lands at different points. On the 22d we find this entry : "As it began to snow about midnight, and continued pretty steadily, it was about half past 7 before we left the encampment. At the distance of about eight miles we came to the mouth of Yellow Creek, opposite, or rather below which, appears to be a long bottom of very good land (Mahan fruit farms), and the ascent to the hills very gradual. About eleven or twelve miles from this, and just above what is called the Long Island (Brown's), which, though so distinguished, is not very remarkable for length, breadth or goodness, comes in on the east side of the river, a small creek, or run,. the name of which I could not learn (King's), and a mile or two below the island on the west side comes in Big Stony (Wills) Creek, not larger in appearance than the other, on neither of which does there seem to be any large bottom or bodies of good land. About seven miles from the last mentioned creek, twenty-eight from our last encampment and about seventy-five from Pittsburgh, we came to the Mingo Town, situated on the west side of the river, a little .above Cross Creek. This place contains about twenty cabins, and seventy inhabitants of the Six Nations. " Had we set off early, and kept constantly at it, we might have reached lower than this place today, as the water in many places ran very swift, in general more so than yesterday. The river from Fort Pitt to Logs-town has some ugly rifts and shoals, which we found somewhat difficult to pass, whether from our inexperience of the channel or not I cannot undertake to say. Fro Logstown to the mouth of Little Beaver Creek is much the same kind of water that is, rapid in some aces, gliding gently along in others and quite still. The water from Little Beaver Creek to Mingo Town in general is swifter' than we found it the preceding day and without any shallows, there being some one part or another always deep, which is a natural consequence, as the river in all the distance from Fort Pitt to this town has not widened at all, nor do the bottoms appear to be any larger. The hills which come close to the river opposite to each bottom are steep, and on the side in view, in many places, rocky and cragged, but said to abound in good land on the , top. These are not a range of hills, but broken and cut in two, as if there were frequent water courses running through, which, however, we did not perceive to be the case. The river abounds in wild geese and several kinds of ducks, but in no great quantity. We killed five wild turkeys today. Upon our arrival at the Mingo Town we received the very disagreeable news of two traders being killed at a town called the Grapevine Town, thirty-eight miles below this, which caused us to hesitate whether we should proceed or wait for further intelligence. " 23d. Several imperfect accounts coming in, agreeing that only one person was killed, and the Indians not supposing it to be done by their people, we resolved to pursue our passage till we could get a more distinct account of this transaction. Accordingly, about 2 o 'clock, we set out with the two Indians, who were to accompany us in our canoe, and after about four miles came to the mouth of a creek (Buffalo) on the east side. The Cross Creeks, as they are called, are not large,