COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 75 Stanwix, two treaties at Greenville, two Chief Logans and a number of Indian towns by the name of Chillicothe and Piqua. The first Ohio company has been called the Virginia Land Company and the Ohio Land Company of Virginia. The latter is the more nearly correct, but the name used in the original document was simply "The Ohio Company." It is true that the members were "mostly prominent Virginians," but the lands that they proposed to settle were in the valley of the Ohio. The name was therefore natural and appropriate. To this company in 1748 the King of England granted 200,000 acres of land, to be taken on the south side of the Ohio River, "between the Kiskiminites Creek and Buffalo Creek and between Yellow Creek and Cross Creek on the north side" of the river ; or in any other portion of the territory west of the Alleghany Mountains. The condition attached to this grant provided that within seven years the company should settle 100 families on these lands and build a fort. On compliance with this requirement the company was to receive 300,000 acres additional. In 1750 the company employed Christopher Gist, an experienced surveyor and woodsman, a native of Maryland and a resident of North Carolina, to "explore and examine" the country west of the Alleghany Mountains, especially the lands on the Ohio River ; to note the soil, the rivers and the mountains ; to observe the number, character and attitude of the Indian nations inhabiting these lands. Christopher Gist received his instructions from the Ohio Company September 11, 1750, and set out upon his journey October 31, from "Colonel Thomas Cresap's at Old Town on the Potomack in Maryland" and proceeded westward. On November 19, he reached Shannopin's Town, which occupied a site now within the present corporate limits of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 21 Here he rested four days, procured corn for his horses, measured the width of the Ohio at this point and started again on his westward journey. On November 25th, he reached Logstown, where he learned that George Croghan and Andrew Montour had preceded him about a week on an "embassy from Pennsylvania to the Indians." Here he found the inhabitants apprehensive lest his purpose might be to form a settlement on the Indian lands, and they warned him that if such was his mission he would never return. He quieted them by pretending that the president of Virginia had sent him with a message from the King of England to the Indians and that he wished to see Andrew Montour, the interpreter. The next day he met Barney Curran, a trader, who with a few followers accompanied him. On November 27th, he crossed the western boundary of Pennsylvania, entered what afterward became Columbiana County, Ohio, and traveled westward to a point a little southeast of Lisbon. Here he was delayed a day by heavy rains. He then advanced six miles through good land and six miles farther through land much broken. His provisions running out, he killed a deer. The next day he crossed a branch of Beaver Creek, near what is now the northwest corner of Wayne Township, Columbiana County, where he and one of Curran's men killed twelve turkeys. December 1st, he reached a point near Hanoverton, Columbiana County, and the day following a point near the Village of Bayard. Thence he proceeded to a camp site near Oneida, Carroll County, on a branch of the Tuscarawas now known as the Big Sandy, and continued down that stream. Gist now had with him ten followers. December 7th, he arrived at the junction of the Big Sandy and the Tuscarawas, a little above the present Village of Bolivar. On the 9th he went down the Tuscarawas to Margaret's Creek, named for Mar- 21 - In this narrative the author has drawn chiefly from "Christopher Gist's Journals," by William M. Darlington. 76 - HISTORY OF OHIO garet Montour, the daughter of Madam Montour. 22 He crossed this stream near the site of the present Village of Strasburg. Margaret's Creek was afterward called Sugar Creek. It empties into the Tuscarawas near Dover. On December 11, he reached a point in Buck's Township, Tuscarawas County, and on the 12th crossed into what is now Coshocton County, where, on the 14th he arrived at Muskingum, a town of the Wyandots, or Old Wyandot Town, as it is written on some maps. This was an important Indian town on the Tuscarawas about a mile from its junction with the Walhondoning to form the Muskingum. Here Gist and his companions were delighted to see a British flag floating above "the King's House and at George Croghan's." They were told that the French had captured a number of British traders and carried them to a fort on Lake Erie, and that Croghan 23 had called the remaining men in his employ to assemble here to consider what should be done under the circumstances. On December 18th, Gist acquainted Croghan and Montour 24 with the nature of his mission and his views in regard to the regulation of trade with the Indians. He found them interested and in hearty accord with his suggestions. He passed very pleasantly the six days following, and made in his "Journal" the simple entry—"Nothing remarkable." The reader can not fail to note that the Indians in the Ohio country at this time were much more friendly to the British than to the French. The expedition of Celeron with a strong force of armed men constantly on the guard to save their scalps and prevent acts of treachery, and the peaceful progress of Gist through the wilderness with only a few attendants and received everywhere with kindly greetings by the children of the forest present a striking and significant contrast. On Christmas Day, Christopher Gist, who appears to have been a devout member of the Church of England, concluded to read prayers for the spiritual benefit of himself and others in this Indian town who might wish to attend the service. He announced his intention to some of the white men and suggested that they invite others to attend. They did so, but reported that they found the whites indifferent or entertaining diverse religious opinions and that they did not care to be present at the services. He was about to drop the matter when Thomas Burney, the blacksmith of the village, persuaded some of the white men to attend. Montour invited a number of "the well disposed Indians" who came freely to hear. When all had assembled, Gist addressed them as follows : "Gentlemen : I have no Design or Intention to give Offense to any particular Sectary or Religion, but as our King indulges Us all in a Liberty of Conscience and hinders none of You in the Exercise of your religious Worship, so it would be unjust in You to endeavor to stop the Propagation of His ; the Doctrines of Salvation, Faith and good Works, is what I only propose to treat of, as I find it extracted from the Homilies of the Church of England." 25 22 - Madam Montour was born in Canada about the year 1684. She was the daughter of a French gentleman by the name of Montour, and a Huron Indian woman. She was captured by Indians of the Five Nations when she was ten years old, and grew up to womanhood with them. She married Carrondawana, a famous chief of the Oneidas. She had two daughters, and one son, Andrew, possessed great influence with the Indians, served faithfully the British interests and lived to an advanced age. For a sketch of her life see Darlington's "Christopher Gist's Journals," pp. 152-158. 23 - George Croghan, Indian agent, came from Ireland to America in 1746. Died in Pennsylvania in 1782. 24 - Andrew Montour, Indian interpreter, son of "Madam Montour." For sketch of his life, see Darlington, "Christopher Gist's Journals," pp. 159-175. 25 - This and other excerpts from Gist's "Journal," except as otherwise indicated, are quoted literally, without change of punctuation or capitalization, from Darlington's copy of the text. COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 77 He then read to them and Montour interpreted for the benefit of the Indian auditors, who seemed to be well pleased, and after the services came to Gist, thanked him, asked him to live permanently with them and gave him the name Annosanah, borne by a very good man who had formerly lived with them. Their King said that this must always be his name. In answer, Gist cordially thanked them for their kindness, but added that he did not know whether his governor would permit him to live with them and if he did the French would probably come and carry him away as they did the British traders. In reply they said that he might "bring great guns and make a fort ; that they had now left the French and were very desirous of being instructed in the principles of Christianity" ; that they were very fond of him and wished him "to marry them after the Christian manner and baptise the children" ; that "they would never desire to return to the French or suffer them or their priests to come near them, for they loved the English, but had seen little religion among them." Some of their chiefs and leading men, thinking him a minister of the Gospel, asked him to baptize their children. He explained through Montour, the interpreter, that he could not do this, but held out the hope that the King of England would send to them a minister who would perform this sacred service. One of the Indians brought him a book, which was "contrived for them by the French" with a device for marking the days of the week. "by moving a pin every morning." By the aid of this the Indian was able to keep an "account of the time" and to observe the Sabbath day. Thus ended the first Protestant religious service held within the limits of Ohio fifty-three years before those limits were established by the entrance of the state into the Union. The day after Christmas a woman who had a long time been a prisoner, had deserted and had been retaken, was cruelly put to death. Gist describes this shocking affair as follows : "They carried her without the Town & let her loose, and when she attempted to run away, the Persons appointed for that Purpose pursued her, & struck Her on the Ear, on the right Side of her head, which beat her flat on her Face on the Ground ; they then stuck her several Times through the Back with a Dart, to the Heart, scalped Her & threw the Scalp in the Air, and another cut off her Head : There the dismal Spectacle lay till the Evening, and then Barney Curran desired Leave to Bury Her, which He and his Men and some of the Indians did just at dark." For Gist and his companions the week following this tragic incident was without noteworthy occurrence. On January 4, 1751, news was brought to the town that the Ottawas near Lake Erie were firmly attached to the French interests. It was expected, however, that the Wyandots would unite in opposition to the French, join their brethren and establish a strong fort in the English interest on the Tuscarawas. On January 9th, while Gist and his party were preparing to continue the journey, two traders from Pickawillany came into town and brought the news that another English trader had been captured and carried away by the French and that three French soldiers had deserted to the English, who with difficulty prevented the Indians from killing them and ordered them to be sent to George Croghan. Three days later was the time set by the Wyandot King of this town for a meeting of the council in his house. Some of the great leaders expected did not arrive, and some of those who came "being a little disordered by liquor," no business was transacted. The following day (January 13th) no business was done, possibly because the Indians in attendance had not yet sufficiently "sobered up." No explanation is recorded for this delay. On January. 14, the King and his council met and were told by Croghan and Montour that their father, the King of England, had sent, 78 - HISTORY OF OHIO under the care of "the governor of Virginia, their brother," large quantities of goods which were to be presented to them, and that Gist had come to ask them to visit the governor and "partake of their Father's Charity to all his Children on the Branches of the Ohio." The King and his assembled chieftains thanked the governor of Virginia and his messenger, Christopher Gist, but explained that a definite answer to the invitation could not be given until the following spring, when a full representation of the allied nations could be had in council. After this announcement and a cordial farewell, Gist and his companions parted from their red brethren, and on the morning of the following day left the town and proceeded by easy stages. Here is the entry in Gist's "Journal" for January 15: "We left Muskingum, and went W 5 M, to White Woman's Creek, on which is a small Town ; this White Woman was taken away from New England, when she was not above ten Years old by the French Indians ; She is now upwards of fifty, and has an Indian Husband and several children—Her name is Mary Harris, she still remembers they used to be very religious in New England, and wonders how the White Men can be so wicked as she has seen them in these Woods." Around Mary Harris, who lived for a short time on White Woman's Creek, a tissue of legendary romance was woven and repeated in various phrase until it was written in all seriousness as an authenticated incident in our pioneer history. The plausible form in which it was thus presented was as follows. The foregoing quotation from Gist's "Journal" is given, and the following paragraph is added : "Her husband, Eagle Feather, brought home another white woman as a wife, whom Mary called the "newcomer." Jealousies arose and finally Eagle Feather was found with his head split open and the tomahawk remaining in his skull ; but the Newcomer had fled. She was overtaken and brought back and killed by the Indians, December 26, 1750, while Gist was in White Woman's Town. The place where she was captured was afterward called Newcomerstown." This story is completely discredited by a number of self-evident and established facts. No Indian chief by the name of Eagle Feather is mentioned by Gist or any other writer before 1876 when the "legend" appeared in print. There is no evidence that the Indian husband of Mary Harris met a death, tragic or otherwise, in the village on White Woman's Creek. In describing the death of the woman captive on December 26, 1750, Gist does not state that she was a white woman. Had she been a white woman he and others of his party would certainly have made some effort to save her life. It is rather remarkable that they did not do so, even if the victim was an Indian woman. It is to be remembered, however, that to the Indians was usually conceded the prerogative of inflicting upon their own people punishment for offenses. Gist wrote that the woman executed had for a "long time" been a prisoner. The "legend" clearly conveys the thought that the "newcomer" fled promptly after the killing of Eagle Feather, was overtaken and killed in White Woman's Town, without any intervening period of imprisonment. Gist records that the execution took place at "Musgingum," not at "White Woman's Town." This "legend" has been reproduced and garnished with varied details. It is presented here in its simplest and most plausible form. In the "Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly" for July, 1924, Mr. George F. Smythe completely refutes this "legend," which on its face is so highly improbable, and gives the true history of ,Mary Harris. This harmonizes with the brief record that Gist has left of her and shows conclusively that the story of the "newcomer" and "Eagle Feather" is a myth. On January 16, Gist and his party resumed their march in a southwesterly direction through what is now Coshocton County, passing near the site of Dresden, Muskingum County, thence to Clay Lick Station, COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 79 Licking County, thence (January 17) through the southern part of that county to the "Great Buffalo Swamp," now Buckeye Lake. On January 19 the party reached Hockhockin, now Lancaster, Fairfield County, which was then a small town containing only "four or five families of Delaware Indians." It must be remembered that this journey was performed in midwinter, when forests and plains were covered with snow. As Gist gradually moved southward the "snow began to grow thin and the weather warmer." On the 20th, he reached the Village of Moguck, in the midst of the Pickaway Plains, in Pickaway County, Pickaway Township. Here he lingered for three days. On January 24, he left Moguck and journeyed to Harrickintom's Town, located on the Scioto a little below the present site of Chillicothe. Continuing, he came to Salt Creek at its confluence with the Scioto, and exploring this stream for a mile he found a rich salt lick where British traders had been making supplies of salt for their own use. On January 27th, Gist reached the small Delaware town on the Scioto, in what is now Clay Township, Scioto County, where dwelt at this time the famous chieftain, Windaughalah. He entertained them kindly and "ordered a negro man that belonged to him" to feed their horses. Here on the following day they attended an Indian council and were assured of the cordial "good will and love" of this Delaware town, which was the last of that tribe to the westward. On January 29th, Gist and his party arrived at the mouth of the Scioto opposite Shannoah Town, or Lower Shawnee Town, situated on both sides of the Ohio River, about 40 cabins south and 100 north of it. The larger portion of the town was on the site of what is now Alexandria, opposite Portsmouth. The travelers were here received with every manifestation of sincere friendship. The Shawnees were cordially devoted to the British interests. "They are great friends of the English," wrote Gist in his "Journal," "who once protected them from the fury of the Six Nations, which they gratefully remembered." On the following day they were conducted to the council which was held in "a kind of State House" about ninety feet long roofed with bark. Here Croghan delivered a number of speeches from the governor of Pennsylvania, and warned his hearers against the French who were capturing British traders, building a fort on the southern shore of Lake Erie and threatening to make war against the Wyandots, Delawares and Shawnees. Montour followed with a speech in which he explained that the King of Great Britain had sent them, through the governor of Virginia, large quantities of presents and that Gist had come to invite them to a meeting at Logstown the coming summer, where these evidences of the King's favor would be distributed among them. In the absence of their King, who was ill, "Big Hannaona, their speaker," arose and assured the visitors that the Shawnees would be glad to meet the governor of Virginia at Logstown the coming spring, and expressed the hope that the friendship between them and the British might "last as long as the sun shines or the moon gives light." After the conclusion of the council there was much talk among the Indians in favor of providing a guard for Gist and his party on the long journey to Pickawillany, but no action was taken in regard to the matter. From January 31st to February 11th, Gist and his companions remained in Shannoah Town, where they were the continued objects of kindly attention and marked favors. While here they witnessed a "very extraordinary kind of festival," which Gist described as follows : "In the evening a proper officer made public proclamation that all the Indian marriages were dissolved, and a public feast was to be held for the three succeeding days after, in which the women (as their custom was) were again to choose their husbands. The next morning early the Indians breakfasted, and after spent the 80 - HISTORY OF OHIO day in dancing till the evening, when a plentiful feast was prepared ; after feasting, they spent the night in dancing. "The same way they passed the two next days till the evening, the men dancing by themselves and then the women in turns round the fires, and dancing in their manner in the form of the figure 8, and about 60 or 70 of them at a time. The women, the whole time they danced, sung a song in their language, the chorus of which was, I am not afraid of my husband ; I will choose what man I please, singing those lines alternately. "The third day in the evening the men, being about 100 in number, danced in a long string, following one another, sometimes at length, at other times in a figure 8 quite round the fort, and in and out of the long house, where they held their councils, the women standing together as the men danced by them ; and as any of the women liked a man passing by, she stepped in and joined in the dance, taking hold of the man's stroud, whom she choose and then continued in the dance till the rest of the women stepped in and made their choice in the same manner ; after which the dance ended and they all retired to consummate." 26 On February 12th, Gist set out on his journey for Pickawillany. Following is the entry in his "Journal" : "Having left my Boy to take care of my Horses in the Shannoah Town & supplied myself with a fresh Horse to ride, I set out with my old company viz George Croghan, Andrew Montour, Robert Kallandar, and a servant to carry our provisions &c N W ten M." If the courses and distances entered in Gist's "Journal" are correct, his journey from February 12th to 15th must have taken him through what are now the counties of Scioto, Adams, Highland, Fayette, Madison, Clark and Champaign and to West Liberty in Logan County—a distance of about 140 miles. There he crossed the Mad River, which he supposed to be the Little Miami, and proceeded to Pickawillany or Twixtwee Town, on the Great Miami at the mouth of Loramie Creek. Reaching a point opposite the town February 17th, his party made known their presence by firing a salute which was at once answered. They were invited to cross the river, which they did, and were received with great rejoicing by the Indians and the English traders. Gist here inserts in his "Journal" a description of the country recently explored, as it appeared in the early part of the year 1751 : "All the Way from Shannoah Town to this Place (except the first 20 M which is broken) is fine, rich level land, well timbered with large Walnut, Ash, Sugar Trees, Cherry &c ; it is well watered with a great Number of little Streams or Rivulets, and full of beautiful natural Meadows, covered with wild Rye, Blue Grass and Clover, and abounds with Turkeys, Deer, Elks and most sorts of Game, particularly Buffaloes, thirty or forty of which are frequently seen feeding in one meadow. In short it wants Nothing but Cultivation to make it a most delightful Country.—The Ohio and all the large branches are said to be full of fine Fish of several Kinds, particularly a Sort of Cat Fish of a prodigious Size; but as I was not there at the proper Season, I had no opportunity of seeing them." After describing the entry of his party into Pickawillany under the British flag, the cordial greeting by the Indian king who invited them to his own house, and the noisy salute by the discharge of firearms, which lasted for "about a quarter of an hour," Gist placed on record his impression of the importance of this Indian town, declaring that it consisted of about 400 families and was daily increasing; that it was accounted "one of the strongest Indian towns in this part of the conti- 26 - Thomas Pownall, "A Topographical Description of such parts of North America as are contained in the (annexed) map of the Middle British Colonies, &c, in North America." Appendix, No. 4, page 16. COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 81 nent"; that the inhabitants, the Twightwees, were believed to be "the most powerful People to the Westward of the English Settlements & much superior to the Six Nations with whom they are now in amity." This estimate is in strong contrast with the statement made by Bonnecamps on the occasion of his visit to the town about eighteen months previously. The Twightwees had formerly been allied with the French interests, but for a few years before this visit they had been thoroughly devoted to the British cause. Gist and his associates promptly after their reception accepted the King's invitation. After some time spent in friendly converse, Montour stated that he and his friends desired to speak with the King and the chiefs of the nation on matters of mutual interest. They were at once invited to the council-house. Here Montour apologized for the late arrival of the party, explaining that they had been delayed by high waters and the transaction of important business with other nations. He delivered to them a message from the Wyandots and Delawares who expressed the hope that their brothers, the Twightwees, would be friendly to the travelers and the English traders. Gist and his associates examined the fort that had been erected at Pickawillany and recommended repairs, which were made by lining the structure with logs. From the 19th to the 22d, there were exchanges of courtesies and favors, the smoking of the calumet, the assembling of foreign tribes of the Twightwee nation, the distribution of presents by Croghan and speeches of amity and loyalty in the council-house. On the 23d, there were rumors of the approach of a large force of French, and the excitement in the town was intense. It developed, however, that only four French Indians were approaching to attend council. On the day following they arrived and were kindly received. After they reached the council-house, Gist and his party were also invited and soon the representatives of these two European nations, historic foes and soon to be again engaged in deadly strife for a continent, sat face to face under their respective colors in the "Long House" at Pickawillany, suitors for the favor of the dusky warriors of the Miami Valley in the race for trade and conquest and power. The council having opened, the French offered their presents, consisting of two "caggs [kegs] of brandy, holding seven quarts each, and about ten pounds of tobacco." The French speaker urged the assembled warriors to forget past differences and come to see their father, the French King, and his officers. At all events, the Indian King was requested not to halt between two opinions but to make a frank statement of his attitude toward the French. The reply to the French speaker was brief and remarkably frank. "We have made a road for our brothers, the English," said he and clearly intimated by word and attitude that the French suit for favor had failed. It was said that the French emissary was so affected that after the council had broken up he wept bitterly—not a common trait of the Indian character to shed tears at reverses of fortune. On the 25th, Gist and his friends were presented a speech from "the Wawaughtanneys and the Piankeshaws (the two tribes of the Twightwees)." A chief, of the former, with "the air and gesture of an orator," assured their English visitors of their friendship and devotion, and expressed the hope that they might live in fraternal regard and love "as people with one head and one heart ought to do." In the midst of his speech he offered the travelers "two bundles of skins to make shoes" for their people. The French desired especially to have the Miamis or Twightwees move farther north that they might be within the influence of Detroit. Celeron, in behalf of his government, had about eighteen months previously urged them to move to Quiskakon. This they had promised to 82 - HISTORY OF OHIO do. The French still desired compliance with this promise. Their emissaries on this occasion were Indians of the Ottawa tribe and they were now urging the Miamis to visit the French officers at the northern fort. On the 26th they received their final answer from the Twightwees. After criticizing the Ottawas for coming on such a mission, "the captain of the warriors" addressed them as the representatives of the French King: "Fathers, You desire that we may speak our Minds from our Hearts, which I am going to do; but I tell you that it is not our Home, . for We made a Road as far as the Sea to the Sun-rising, and have been taken by the Hand by our Brothers, the English, and the six Nations and the Delawares, Shannoahs and Wyandots and we assure you that it is the Road We will go ; and as You threaten Us with War in the Spring, We tell You if You are angry, We are ready to receive You and resolve to die here before we will go to You ; and that You may know that this is our Mind We send You this String of black Wampum." 27 The speaker then addressed the agents of the French personally : "Brothers, the Ottawas, You hear what I say ; tell that to your Fathers, the French, for that is our Mind and we speak it from our Hearts." 28 On the day following the French colors in the town were taken down and the Ottawa emissaries departed. Having thus rather summarily disposed of their unwelcome visitors, the Twightwees devoted a portion of the last day of February to rejoining and an exhibition called "the feather dance" for the special benefit of Gist and his party. On March 1st there were further rejoicing and speeches in the council house. The chief speaker for the Twightwees made a special request to have a blacksmith sent to their village to repair their "guns and hatchets" ; gave again pledges of enduring friendship and assurances that they would attend the general conference at Logstown in the spring as soon as their women had "planted corn" and presented to their guests a bundle of skins from which to make shoes for their long journey. Some days previously, before the French Indians came to the town, articles of "peace and alliance" were drawn up and signed by representatives of Great Britain and the Piankeshaws and the Wawaughtanneys. On the morning of March 2nd the travelers bade farewell to Pickawillany and started on their return journey. On horseback they advanced about thirty-five miles to "Mad Creek," about seven miles west of what is now the City of Springfield, in Bethlehem Township, Clark County, Ohio. Here they separated, Croghan, Montour and Callender proceeding directly to Hockhockin, while Gist directed his course to Shannoah Town, which he reached on the night of March 8th. All of the whites there joined the Indians in extending a cordial and noisy welcome. It was Gist's purpose to extend his journey to the falls of the Ohio, but learning from a Mingo chief that a party of French and Indians were hunting in that vicinity he decided very reluctantly not to go directly to the falls, but to advance cautiously in that direction only so far as it was safe to go. On March 12th, accompanied by his son who had remained at Shannoah Town, he crossed the Ohio River and continued his journey into the territory farther south. We shall not follow him through the region now occupied by the states of Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia. Suffice it to say 27 - As reported in Gist's "Journal." 28 - Ibid. COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 83 that he finally reached his home on the Yadkin River, near the present Town of Wilkesbarre, in Wilkes County, North Carolina, on May 18, 1751. He found that the Indians had killed five persons near this place the previous winter and frightened his "family away to Roanoke," about thirty-five miles distant. Here he arrived the day following and found his wife and children safe and in good health. Gist, Croghan and Montour, in the long tour through the Ohio country, had certain definite objects in view. They wished to cultivate friendly relations with the Indians, not for social and humanitarian purposes, though they and their associates doubtless, on general principles, desired to "live peaceably with all men." The gathering of Indian scalps had no attraction for them ; they were not Indian "hunters" or "fighters." They belonged to a type quite different from Wetzel, or even the more humane Kenton ; nor were they soldiers of fortune with no established allegiance except to adventure and wanderlust. Their ulterior motives were not of a sinister character. Both wished to persuade the various tribes that they visited to meet at Logstown the coming spring and they were in hearty accord with the arrangement to make the Indians liberal presents and to welcome them cordially to the British cause. Croghan was a successful trader and wished Great Britain to enjoy a monopoly of the commerce with the Indians west of the Alleghany Mountains. Gist, as agent and representative of the first Ohio company, was deeply interested in the lands that he was exploring and viewed the country to determine its fitness and availability for future settlement by the whites. This explains why he did not choose direct lines of travel to reach what seemed to be the principal objective points of his journey. He was well satisfied to make extensive detours in order that he might form a more accurate estimate of the lands and navigable rivers of the Ohio Valley. He was not quite frank when he explained at the various Indian councils that he came to invite the natives to the great treaty at Logstown to receive "a large present of goods" from their father, the King of Great Britain, who wished them to partake of his "charity to all of his children on the branches of the Ohio." He was careful not to tell them that he was making a careful examination of their lands, with a view to future occupations by the whites and recording what he saw for his company, whose aim was the early settlement of the wilderness and large profits from the increased value of these lands. That the Indians had been growing apprehensive that the ultimate purpose of both the British and the French was to settle and cultivate their lands was attested in many incidents, among them protests at a number of conferences, including the one at Logstown to which reference has been made. A chief who had been watching the British surveying on the Virginia shore of the Ohio River while the French were solemnly taking possession of the other side is said to have remarked : "The French claim all the land on one side of the Ohio and the English claim all on the other side. Where is the land that belongs to the Indians ?" The expeditions of Celoron and Gist had a tragic sequence. The Indian emissaries of the French whose pleas had been denied at Pickawillany were sent away with a curt message to the governor-general of Canada to the effect that the Twightwees had definitely and unalterably attached themselves to the interests of the British King. The Twightwees, or Miamis, had originally adhered to the French, but British traders undersold their rivals in barter with these Indians and this was probably what first influenced them to change their allegiance. In a treaty at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in July, 1744, they openly threw their influence with the British, although they still 84 - HISTORY OF OHIO maintained trade relations with the French and manifested a rather friendly attitude toward Celoron on the occasion of his visit in 1749. A brisk trade sprang up with the British and Pickawillany, or Twixtwee Town, as it was also called, became a place of increasing importance. A number of log storehouses were erected in which a lively trade was carried on with the Indians. These buildings had a lower room where firearms, gunpowder, lead, bullets, knives, flints, hatchets, rings, rum, medals, leather, cooking utensils, shirts and other wearing apparel, tobacco, pipes, paints and a variety of trinkets were exchanged for valuable furs, which were transported to the eastern and foreign markets. With the cordial approval of the Indians the British in the autumn of 1750 built a fort in the town, later surrounded it with a wall of split logs enclosing a well to supply water in case of an emergency. The attitude of the Miamis at Pickawillany was highly displeasing to the governor-general of Canada. It was in open violation of the orders that he had sent through Celoron. Not only had the Miamis lavished favors upon the British, but there was now added another serious offense. The fort at Pickawillany had recently been made a refuge for deserters from the French Army. Some of them had arrived there and surrendered themselves. The Miamis wished to put them to death to avenge the death of members of their own nation who had been slain by the French and their allies. The British traders intervened to save the French deserters. The Canadian governor-general did not know this and held the Miamis and their friends, the British, alike guilty of encouraging desertion from the French Army. The Miamis, it was claimed, had murdered "fifteen French traders" in the spring of 1752. The governor-general, his patience exhausted, decided that he could launch open war on the British traders and the Miamis. The summer of 1752 was well advanced. It was June 21st and "the longest day of the year" had dawned brightly. The tree tops of the primeval forest and the shrubbery along the river were vibrant with song. The women were hoeing their corn, which grew luxuriantly in the river valley. The warriors of Pickawillany were absent on the chase, but the great Piankeshaw chieftain, old Britain, King of the Miami Confederacy, was at home in the enjoyment of a day's rest and the contemplation of his prosperous and rapidly growing town. The results of his espousal of the British cause seemed at the dawning of this summer day to confirm the wisdom and statecraft of this wily old monarch of the valleys of the Miamis. Swiftly from the north and silently, like gliding shadows, to the number of 250 and well armed, approached the warrior allies of France under the leadership of Charles Langlade, 29 whose father was 29 - Strangely enough Joseph Tasse, in his "Memoir of Charles de Langlade," says nothing of the attack on Pickawillany, or the Village of the Demoiselle, as the French were wont to call it; while Alfred T. Goodman, in his "Historical Sketch of the English Post at Pickawillany," an interesting chapter in his "Journal of Captain William Trent," makes no mention of Langlade, and states that the attack upon the town was led by Monsieur St. Orr, "afterward distinguished in the French and Indian war." This is evidently a mistake. Langlade thus distinguished himself, but the name St. Orr does not appear in the annals of that war. In the statement of fundamental facts in regard to the attack, Parkman has been followed, while many details have been gleaned from other sources. Without doubt Langlade led the attack. It is worthy of note also that a local historian, who is generally careful in his statements, makes a mistake in declaring Sieur de Joncaire led the attack. (See "Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications," Vol. XVII, p. 23.) Charles Michel de Langlade was born at Mackinaw in 1729; he died at Green Bay in January, 1800. In the Revolution he fought with the British. He has sometimes been called the "Founder and Father of Wisconsin." COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 85 a French trader and whose mother was the daughter of an Ottawa chieftain. About 9 o'clock in the morning women in the cornfields discovered the advancing foe, but before many of them could reach the village they were seized and their screams were hushed. The Indians remaining in the village were completely surprised. Before Old Britain and three of the English traders there at the time could get safely within the enclosure of the fort, the enemy was in their midst dealing out death from their blazing rifles. Fourteen of the Miamis, including Old Britain, fell before the withering fire. About twenty men and boys, including five English traders, got within the walls surrounding the fort and closed the gates. Three of the traders who failed to get within the enclosure barricaded themselves in one of the trading houses a short distance away. And now the siege began at short range. The enemy was soon in the remaining log storehouses, firing at frequent intervals on the fort. The three Englishmen, cooped up in the storehouse, whither they had fled, though armed and well supplied with ammunition, refused to fire on the invaders. Their friends in the fort vainly called upon them to open fire, but they were obdurate. They probably feared to do so lest they might arouse the vengeful ferocity of their savage foes. The firing continued intermittently until the afternoon. The three traders in the storehouse in the meantime had been captured. The besieged now found that their well was dry. Finally the Miamis in the fort agreed to surrender the traders, with the approval of the latter and the understanding that they should not be injured and that the besiegers should release their Indian captives and depart. When the gates to the fort were opened the besiegers stabbed to death an English prisoner who had been wounded, scalped him, took out his heart and ate it. Two of the English traders, Thomas Burney and Andrew McBryer, who had been concealed by their Miami friends, there witnessed from their hiding place the revolting spectacle which they afterward described. A brisk fire was built, the body of Old Britain was boiled and eaten by the victors. The habit of literally feasting on a fallen foe had not departed from the red men. As Parkman observes, "Seventy years of missionaries had not weaned them from cannibalism." Thus passed away Old Britain, one of our early political diplomats, whose career illustrates how dangerous it is to come between "fell incensed and deadly opposites." When Langlade and his savage followers had departed, laden with spoils to the value of £3,000, there was lamentation and woe in Pickawillany. The storehouses had been burned. The chieftain of the Miami Confederacy was dead. The trade with the British, which had become the life of the town, by this sudden blow was destroyed and the inhabitants departed for safety into the recesses of the western wilderness. The town was never rebuilt. The English colonies, when they learned of the disaster, were slow to extend to the Miamis the support that they had a right to expect. Old Britain and his followers had opposed French aggression even to death. The remnant of the Miami nation sought assistance from the British, 30 but with unsatisfactory results, and after disappointing delays they were finally, with evident reluctance, brought into allegiance with the French. 30 - After the destruction of Pickawillany, the returning Miami braves evidently made reprisals, for the following message, with a French Indian scalp and a string of wampum, was sent by two traders to Dinwiddie, governor of Virginia: "Elder brother: This string of wampum assures you that the French king's servants have spilled our blood and eaten the flesh of three of our men. Look upon us and pity us, for we are in great distress. Our chiefs have taken up the hatchet of war. We have killed and eaten ten of the French and two of their negroes. We are your brothers." 86 - HISTORY OF OHIO Langlade took the traders captured at Pickawillany to Duquesne, the governor-general of Canada, "who highly praised the bold leader of the enterprise" and recommended him to the French minister "for such reward as befitted his station." This was the first master stroke of the French policy that was intended to cut off the British from their trade and influence in the Ohio Valley and make the Indians of that region the allies of the French. The failure of the British Government and their colonies in America to adopt a vigorous policy to hold the favor of the Indian population, which was theirs at the time of the expedition of Celeron, was responsible for the reverses that befell British arms in the opening conflicts of the French and Indian war. The attack at Pickawillany kindled the fires of conflict that spread to Europe and brought reinforcements from over the seas to determine whether France or Great Britain should be the dominant power in North America. Langlade, who had pleased his governor-general by a bloody stroke in the Valley of the Great Miami, at the head of his savage horde, repeated this on a larger scale on the banks of the Monongahela, where Braddock's legions were moved down by the deadly fire of an unseen foe. Langlade was then under superior officers, but it was his painted warriors who overwhelmed the British with disaster. This was the French policy that finally roused the British lion and ended the French dream of dominion in America. The destruction of Pickawillany was the first act in the drama that closed on the Heights of Abraham and gave a continent to Anglo-Saxon supremacy. CHAPTER V THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN The American Indian is a subject of perennial interest. His appeal is general. His fame is not limited to the continent of his nativity, to the period of place of his dominion, or to any particular class of readers whose privilege it is to ponder the mystery of his origin, his place in history and the progress of his race toward its poignant and colorful sunset. The average child still asks for a book "with pictures of Indians," or one "that tells about the Indians." To the man or woman of mature years the primitive inhabitant of this goodly land has lost little of his picturesque attractiveness. His place is secure for all time in the romance of the border and the adventurous exploits of the European conquest of this continent—the unvarnished relation of which is unsurpassed by the imaginative creations of the poet and the novelist. The fame of the American Indian has gone to foreign lands. The nations on the other side of the Atlantic have not forgotten him. He has a place in the literature of Spain and France and Great Britain. Some years ago the writer made a short visit to an Indian town in Canada on the St. Lawrence River near the Lachine Rapids. There it was his good fortune to meet the Chief, Big John Canadian, who for years gained fame as a pilot of vessels through the rapids. The Chief in somewhat broken English told of some of his travels beyond the boundaries of his province. The greatest of these, he declared, was his visit to England, where he attended the Victoria Jubilee. He related that when he walked along the streets of London, "The little boys pointed at me and said, ‘There is the fellow what scalfed our grand-papas.' " The fame of his ancestors had preceded him. When the first American troops marched through London on their way to the World war, some of them were not a little surprised to learn of the popular impression that Americans generally had so long been associated in thought with the aboriginal inhabitants of this country that they were expected to exhibit Indian and "wild western" characteristics—another evidence that the monarchs of our primeval forests are not forgotten abroad. Volumes have been written on the Indian characteristics. It would seem that nothing new remains to be said in portraiture or analysis. A few quotations must suffice for present introductory purposes. William Jackson Armstrong, in his appreciative and informing sketch of Tecumseh, has said : "Despite libraries for his elucidation and history, the North American savage has remained an enigma. Neither his intellect nor his moral fibre has been fairly appraised. He is without veritable portraiture in literature. No impartial Tacitus has revealed him as he existed in his native woods. Two centuries of close and bloody grapple with him as a troublesome foe, to be exterminated or expelled, have stamped upon the Caucasian brain an image of him without justice or proportion. There has been no perspective, as yet no retrospect, admitting for him an accurate historic estimate. His place has remained unfixed in the scale of the races. In popular fancy the Indian exists in three phases : First, as the fantastically idealized 'Noble Red Man' of the romances of Cooper ; second, as the merciless barbarian brandishing tomahawk and scalping knife against our pioneer progenitors ; and, third, as the - 87 - 88 - HISTORY OF OHIO degenerate and decadent savage of the western plains provoking the sardonic aphorism, 'There is no good Indian but a dead Indian !' " None of these phases touches, save superficially, the denizen of the primeval American woods. Taken together they are but the accidents of his character and career. The Indian of the aboriginal wild is apprehensible only to sympathetic study. Without letters he has left of himself no consistent record. He was the exponent of an unique race. His story should be chanted rather than told. Song, rather than speech, should compass it, and its key should be the plaintive minor of the winds. His own ejaculatory utterance, which was half a poetic silence, should have pictured it for a lasting memory before he passed. It would have been his plea and pathetic defense to mankind. "As has been said, the Indian with his tribes of the western hemisphere at the north is a mystery. He emerges on history a child of Nature, born of the passion of the forest. He was a child, yet more than a child, a child indefinite centuries old. He was brother to the oak, the son of the clouds and winds. In a thousand years, by the subtle law of mimicry in nature, he had taken on the features of his environment. They were reflected in his body and his intellect. He had gathered into himself the elements that encompassed him, a kind of epitome and composite of Nature." Gen. William Henry Harrison, whose contact with the Indians through the earlier and more active part of his career should enable him to speak with authority, in an address before the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio in 1837, "On the Aborigines of the Valley of the Ohio," had much to say about the location and movements of the various tribes but did not devote much space to a discussion of their characteristics. Among other things he said : "An erroneous opinion has prevailed in relation to the character of the Indians of North America. By many, they are supposed to be stoics, who willingly encounter deprivations. The very reverse is the fact; if they belong to either of the classes of philosophers which prevailed in the declining ages of Greece and ROme, it is to that of Epicureans. For no Indian will forego an enjoyment or suffer an inconvenience, if he can avoid it. But under peculiar circumstances : when, for instance, he is stimulated by some strong passion—but even the gratification of this, he is ever ready to postpone, whenever its accomplishment is attended with unlooked for danger, or unexpected hardships. Hence their military operations were always feeble—their expeditions few and far between, and much the greater number abandoned without an efficient stroke, from whim, caprice, or an aversion to encounter difficulties. "But if the Indian will not, like Cato, throw from him 'the pomps and pleasures,' with which his good fortune furnishes him—when evils come which he cannot avoid, when 'the stings and arrows of outrageous fortune' fall thick upon him, then will he call up all the spirit of the man into his bosom, and meet his fate, however, hard, like 'the best Roman of them all.' " General Harrison paid the following tribute to the bravery and moral character of the Indians : "Their bravery has never been questioned, although there was certainly a considerable difference between the several tribes, in this respect. With all but the Wyandots, flight in battle, when meeting with unexpected resistance, or obstacle, brought with it no disgrace. It was considered rather as a principle of tactics. And I think it may be fairly considered as having its source in that peculiar temperament of mind, which they often manifested, of not pressing fortune under any sinister circumstances, but patiently waiting until the chances of a successful issue appeared to be favorable. With the Wyandots it was otherwise. Their youth were taught to consider any thing that had the appearance of an acknowledgment of the superiority of an enemy, as disgraceful. COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 89 In the battle of the Miami Rapids, of thirteen chiefs of that tribe who were present, one only survived,. and he badly wounded. "As regards their moral and intellectual qualities, the difference between the tribes was still greater. The Shawnees, Delawares, and Miamis, were much superior to the other members of the confederacy. I have known individuals among them, of very high order of talents, but these were not generally to be relied upon for sincerity. The Little Turtle, of the Miami tribe, was one of this description, as was the Blue Jacket, a Shawnee chief." Of Indian eloquence much has been written. In his poem, "Red Jacket, the Indian Chief," Fitz Green HaHeck wrote in lines familiar to the schoolboys of forty years ago : "Is strength a monarch's merit, like a whaler's ? Thou art as tall, as sinewy, and as strong As earth's first kings—the Argo's gallant sailors, Heroes in history, and gods in song. "Is eloquence ? Her spell is thine, that reaches The heart, and makes the wisest head its sport ; And there's one rare, strange virtue in thy speeches— The secret of their mastery—they are short." On the same subject Armstrong, in the monograph from which quotation has already been made, records the following judgment : "His mind was a storehouse of nature's scenery, imaginative beyond that of all other human kind, barbarous or civilized. He spoke in symbols. His utterance was an elliptical succession of imposing metaphors, the language of primitive thunderous eloquence, a hieroglyphic imagery, as if one juggled and hurled for phrases rivers, mountains and clouds. 'The very leaves of the forest drop tears of pity upon us as we pass beneath,' said a Delaware chief, speaking of the sorrows of his race. No oratory has surpassed, if equalled, that of the North American Indian. Its preserved but fragmentary remnants, as they have descended from the lips of a hundred chiefs, form an anthology of eloquence unrivalled by the world's conventional classics. As between Cicero and Red Cloud, Red Cloud is the true rhetor. His words are things, rather than phrases." The same writer, in speaking of the responsiveness of the Indian to kindly treatment, says : "His gratitude for justice and favors was inextinguishable. With Penn and his followers he kept inviolable faith—the 'bond perennial and fraternal.' After the lapse of two centuries the beggared remnants of exiled tribes cherish, today, beyond the remote waters of the Missouri and Arkansas, the name of the man and the sect that never did their race a wrong. Measured morally, or as to native mental force, the inhabitants of the American wilderness four centuries ago might well assume to confront the European as his peer." Parkman in his interesting and impressive chapter introductory to "The Conspiracy of Pontiac," sets forth his conception of the Indian character in language to which no brief quotation can do justice. He tells us that "of the Indian character much has been written foolishly, credulously believed. By the rhapsodies of poets, the cant of sentimentalists and the extravagance of some who should have known better, a counterfeit image has been tricked out, which might seek in vain for its likeness through every corner of the habitable earth." In the concluding portion of his estimate Parkman himself in his remarkably lucid style, finds occasion to resort to metaphor. Here is an excerpt : "Some races, like some metals, combine the greatest flexibility with the greatest strength. But the Indian is hewn out of a rock. You can rarely change the form without destruction of the substance. Races of 90 - HISTORY OF OHIO inferior energy have possessed a power of expansion and assimilation to which he is a stranger ; and it is this fixed and rigid quality which has proved his ruin. He will not learn the arts of civilization, and he and his forest must perish together. The stern, unchanging features of his mind excite our admiration from their very unmutability ; and we look with deep interest on the fate of this irreclaimable son of the wilderness, the child who will not be weaned from the breast of his rugged mother. And our interest increases when we discern in the unhappy wanderer the germs of heroic virtues mingled among his vices, —a hand bountiful to bestow as it is rapacious to seize, and even in extremest famine, imparting its last morsel to a fellow-sufferer ; a heart which, strong in friendship as in hate, thinks it not too much to lay down life for its chosen comrade ; a soul true to its own idea of honor, and burning with an unquenchable thirst for greatness and renown. "The imprisoned lion in the showman's cage differs not more widely from the lord of the desert than the beggarly frequenter of frontier garrisons and dramshops differs from the proud denizen of the woods. It is in his native wilds alone that the Indian must be seen and studied." All that has been written about the North American Indian can probably be summed up in the oft repeated sentence, "He was the child of Nature," the result of the environment of centuries in the shadow of the American wilderness. That he was fundamentally a human being, much like his fellows, seems beyond question. With like environment from infancy most of us would probably have been savages. In fact, the lapse of the offspring of cultured white parents to the barbaric state has so often been illustrated, by those who have been captured in early childhood or infancy and brought up among the Indians, that we are prone to conclude that there is something in our nature responsive to the "call of the wild"—to a far off ancestry—that beneath our surface civilization there is an inheritance which, under favorable conditions, results in a reversion to savagery. Fortunately the Indian has not yet "withered from the land." While the number unchanged by contact with the white man is comparatively small, it is still sufficient for purposes of observation and study. In this age of "psycho-analysis" and "nut tests" the mystery that has baffled the anthropologist, the philanthropist and the historian may, perhaps, at last find a satisfactory and definitive solution. THE OHIO COUNTRY-THE LAND AND ITS PEOPLE By H. C. Shetrone, Curator of Archaeology l INTRODUCTORY In attempting to outline the history of the American Indian on Ohio soil, the extent to which the activities of the white man shall be touched upon has to be determined. The histories of the two races during the time of their co-occupation of the territory are in many respects inseparable, and an intelligent conception of the one without at least a basic knowledge of the other is impossible. However, the story of discovery, exploration and settlement of the Ohio country by Europeans, being a matter not only of local and personal interest to citizens of the state, but an important part of our national history as well, is, presumably, familiar to the average reader ; and since this outline is intended primarily for those desiring a brief summary of the more important facts and events pertaining to the original inhabitants, it is deemed unnecessary to relate the story of their white successors, except in so far as may be required to support the structure of the story. The reader's attention is called to the fact that throughout the pages which follow, the name "Ohio," and various other placp-names, are used 1 - In the museum of the Ohio State Archeological and Historical Society. COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 91 irrespective of the fact that in the earlier chapters of the story they did not yet exist as such. This is done to avoid tiresome repetition of words and thus to simplify the language used. In confining our subject as nearly as possible to the State of Ohio, as at present constituted, the term `Ohio country" is correspondingly modified, and. will be thus understood. While in reality comprising the Ohio valley, roughly speaking, it is here used as referring to the territory within the present boundaries of Ohio, and those parts of Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania immediately adjacent thereto. In speaking of the Indian the matter of tense, as between the past and present, presents some difficulties. Many facts and conditions relating thereto lie wholly in the past while others still obtain ; as a rule, however, it is considered advisable to treat the native race as of the past, except where the use of the present tense obviously is required. In this, and in minor particulars, which need not be specified, the reader's indulgence is asked. GEOGRAPHY OF THE TERRITORY In the drama enacted by the Ohio Indians, the stage was not the prescribed platform of the conventional playhouse, but a great open-air amphitheatre, covering hundreds of square miles of territory. This territory, known in the early days as the Ohio Country, was not comprised entirely in what is now the State of Ohio, for it must be remembered that in prehistoric and early historic times there were no political boundaries such as we now recognize. Instead, they were those of nature, rather than of man's convenience, and consisted of rivers, lakes, mountains, and other natural barriers and boundaries. Thus it is seen that topography, rather than imaginary lines was the important factor in outlining the territory and determining the settlement of a given tribe or nation. A glance at the map of the United States shows that the territory comprised therein naturally falls into several divisions or areas, with respect to topography. The country lying east of the Alleghany Mountains and bordering the Atlantic Ocean, is a natural division in itself from which, as we have seen, the colonists were practically a century in making their way across the mountains into the country beyond ; bordering the Gulf of Mexico we have another distinct area, comprising what are known as the Gulf States ; while extending westward from the Alleghanies with Lake Erie on the north and bordering the Ohio River on the south, lies the great Ohio Country, where during the latter half of the eighteenth and the first quarter of the nineteenth centuries, was staged the stirring drama of human life which we are considering. Perhaps no region on the continent was better adapted to human habitation than this Ohio Country, which fact may have had much to do with the keen competition among the native tribes for its possession. The climate was most favorable since man, whether savage, barbarian or civilized, is at his best in a temperate clime. The geography of the region was ideal. There were mountainous sections and level plateaus ; broad valleys and extensive plains ; rich forest and open prairies, each with its own peculiar products of animal, vegetable and mineral wealth. Two great drainage systems—the Ohio River on the south and the Great Lakes on the north— afforded the best of facilities for travel and transportation. Both systems were extensively used in east and west travel by the Indians, and later by white men ; while the numerous rivers tributary thereto—particularly the Miamis, the Scioto and the Muskingum, flowing into the Ohio ; and the Maumee, the Sandusky and the Cuyahoga, discharging their waters into the lake—the headwaters of which were separated only by short portages, furnished natural highways for travel north and south. Both the Ohio River and the Lakes seem to have been looked upon by the Indian as natural boundary lines, 92 - HISTORY OF OHIO and the territory enclosed between them as a distinct section from that to the north or south. In connection with the water highways of the country, there should be mentioned the numerous Indian trails which either supplemented or replaced them. These trails, while not natural highways in the sense that the lakes and rivers were, did follow natural lines of travel, and many of them doubtless were as old as the human occupation of the country itself. They not only traversed those districts devoid of waterways and crossed the portages .between the headwaters of the navigable streams, but often followed the course of the water routes throughout their entire extent. The reason for this is obvious. The streams were not navigable in seasons of extreme drought, while in winter they often were frozen. Besides, some of the tribes preferred land travel, while all of them found it more convenient at times than that by boat or canoe. The Indian trails often followed the high ground through which they passed, later becoming what are known as the "ridge roads" of the present time. The importance o f the trails as f actors in the settlement GOOD-BYE TO THE OLD HUNTING GROUNDS and development of the State of Ohio cannot be over-estimated. In many instances they determined the location of white settlements, forts and military roads, some of them later becoming public highways. Along, these aboriginal trails the native tribes passed to and fro from one location to another, 'whether engaged in warfare, the chase, trade or migration. Later, together with the navigable streams, they served as the means of entrance to the white traders and settlers who pushed their way into the country north and west of the Ohio River. Among the more important of these aboriginal highways was the so-called Great Trail, which was the western extension of the great highway between the Indian country around Delaware and Chesapeake bays, and the forks of the Ohio. Passing westward from Pittsburg this trail traversed Northeastern Ohio to Sandusky Bay, from whence it led around the west end of Lake Erie and northward to Detroit. Later it was the important military highway connecting Fort Pitt, Fort Laurens, Fort Sandusky and Fort Detroit. The most important of the north and south trails of the state was the Scioto trail, between Sandusky Bay on the north and the Ohio , River at the mouth of the Scioto on the south. Ascending the Sandusky River from its mouth, crossing the portage and descending the Scioto, it crossed the Ohio and joined the famous "Warriors' Trail" leading far away into the Indian country of the southland. Other important trails connected the Muskingum towns of the Delawares, the Shawnee towns COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 93 on the Scioto and the Shawnee and Miami towns on the Miamis. Many trails of lesser importance traversed the country in all directions. Toward the west, the Ohio Country extended till it merged with the Mississippi Valley, while its eastern boundary was the Alleghany Mountains, At the "forks of the Ohio," where Pittsburg now stands, was its eastern gateway, through which the native tribes passed in either direction, and which not only served the European explorer and settler for the same purpose but was the scene of many of the early activities which characterized the struggle between the French and the English for the possession of the rich prize lying to the westward. THE DAWN OF OHIO INDIAN HISTORY Intervening between historic and prehistoric times in Ohio, serving as a connecting link between the two, and belonging almost equally to each, is a period of perhaps a century's duration. Looking back through the dim vista of these years, the student of Ohio may discern the shadowy forms of its primitive inhabitants and may even glimpse the outline of important events which transpired in this "forest primeval" before white men had set foot upon its soil. The characters and actions are not clearly defined, and it is only with the advent of European actors upon the stage that we can follow the lines of the drama with exactitude. However, in the same manner that by reading the latter chapters of a book, we are able to gain a more or less exact knowledge of its story, we can formulate a fairly intelligent conception of the life of the Ohio aborigines before the arrival of white men. A few scattered pages of the story here, a sentence or a word there, have been preserved to us, partly through the records and traditions of the Indians themselves and in part through the .mounds and earthworks, the relics of stone and flint, and other remains left behind. The earlier or more remote parts of this period will be accredited to the chapter on archaeology, while those events which appear to belong more properly to the historic period will be referred to briefly at this point. THE IROQUOIAN CONTEST Just previous to exploration by Europeans, the Ohio territory seems to have been occupied by tribes and representatives both of the Algonquian and the Iroquoian families. The dawn of recorded history, however, finds the powerful Iroquois federation, living mostly south of Lake Erie in the present State of New York, waging a determined warfare for its possession, even to the exclusion and annihilation of other tribes of their own family. Having effected the most admirable confederation ever known among the American Indians, and profiting by the advantages accruing to them through the possession of firearms secured from the colonists, the Iroquois, at the height of their power, had become a source of terror to other tribes and nations within reach of their relentless persecutions. About the year 1650 they had almost exterminated the Hurons, themselves an Iroquoian people living north of Lake Erie, and had driven the remnant of those tribes from their settlements. The survivors took refuge with the Huron de Petun, or Tobacco nation, and with the Neutral nation, Iroquoian peoples living to the westward of their territory. After being persecuted for many years and driven from place to place the surviving refugees from the Huron and Tobacco tribes, about 1745, found their way from the vicinity of the Detroit River into Northern Ohio. Here they were destined to retrieve their former prowess and to become one of the leading nations of the Ohid country, under the name of Wyandots. Of then career on Ohio soil we shall learn later. 94 - HISTORY OF OHIO THE EARLY HISTORIC TRIBES One of the earliest of the Ohio nations of which we have record was the Erie or Cat nation, whose territory lay south of Lake Erie and probably extended over the northern half of the state. The Eries, an Iroquoian people, are said to have taken their name from the abundance of wildcats in their country, the fighting qualities of this animal apparently having been accepted as a symbol of the courage of the people who bore its name. The Eries are believed to have been a populous nation, with more or less fixed habits of life and occupying numerous towns and villages. They were powerful fighters, using almost exclusively the bow and arrow, the latter fitted with poisoned points. The Cat nation, along with the Hurons and other adjacent tribes, apparently had been at war with the Iroquois proper for many years preceding 1.650, always giving a good account of themselves. But the acquisition by the eastern Iroquois of firearms and the effecting of their powerful federation gave them a decided advantage over tribes not possessing these, and in 1653 the Eries succumbed to their more powerful adversaries, The Story of their defeat, which virtually meant the extermination of the great Erie nation, is strikingly told in the Jesuit Relation for 1655-1656. At the time immediately preceding the final struggle it would seem that the two peoples had been at peace for a considerable period. The Eries had despatched to the capital of the Iroquois a delegation of thirty men for the purpose of. renewing the existing peace, but the overture was destined to defeat its own purpose. Through an accident a member of the Seneca tribe of the federated Iroquois was killed by the Erie ambassadors, and in revenge the Senecas put to death all but five of the visiting delegation. The latter nation retaliated by sacking and burning a Seneca town, defeating a war party, and taking captive one of its leading war captains. Thoroughly aroused, the Iroquois began recruitinc, men for a gigantic thrust at the Eries, which cul- minated in an attack by 1,800 picked warriors of the Onondaga tribe upon Rique, one of the principal towns of the Eries, located about where Erie, Pennsylvania, now stands. Although defended by more than 3,000 fighting men, the palisade was carried and the defendants either were massacred or carried into captivity. This defeat, together with minor ones at about the same time completely obliterated the Eries, and thus passed one of the greatest of the Ohio nations of which we have record. Nothing remains as a monument to their erstwhile greatness except their name, as given to the great lake along which their country lay, to the Ohio County of Erie, and to the city and county of the same name in Pennsylvania. THE SHAWNEE The mere mention of the name Shawnee is suggestive of aggressiveness, hostility, restlessness and fearlessness—characteristics of this most typical of the Ohio Indian tribes. The Shawnee, whose tribal territory in Ohio lay principally in the valley of the Scioto, may well be taken as the best type, or representative, of the aborigines of the state, as they Were the most warlike, persistent and consistently hostile of the natives. Perhaps no tribe or nation was the source of more anxiety and perplexity to the whites than were the Shawnee, partly owing to their unremitting hostility and partly to their propensity for migrating from place to place and the consequent uncertainty as to their whereabouts and their affinity and relationship to other tribes. These "aboriginal Arabs of America" appear originally to have had their home in the Cumberland basin of Tennessee, extending thence into South Carolina and adjacent territory. According to the Delawares, they and the Shawnee, COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 95 together with the Nanticoke, originally formed a single nation of the Algonquian family, Just when the. Shawnee made their appearance in Ohio is not known, for although it is generally conceded that the main body of the tribe from the Cumberland valley crossed over into Ohio about 1730, and were joined by their kinsmen from South Carolina several years later, it is certain that the Shawnee were by no means an inconsiderable factor in this territory long bef ore that time. As early as 1669, LaSalle, then preparing to descend the Ohio on his historic tour of exploration, was cautioned by the Iroquois to beware of the hostile Shawnee along the upper reaches of that stream. Further, it is recorded that the Iroquois federation, returning from their victorious conquest of the Illinois in 1690, attacked the Miamis giving as theix reason that the latter had invited the Shawnee into Ohio to make war upon the Iroquois. At any rate, by 1750, we find the two divisions of the Shawnee—that of the Cumberland valley driven northward through conflict with enemies of their own race, and that from Carolina, crowded northward into the Susquehanna valley through conflict with English settlers and their Indian allies—uniting on Ohio soil and taking unto themselves new strength and prestige. From this time on, through the French and Indian war, the Revolutionary war and the War of 1812, we find them a source of great enmity and concern to the Colonists and the settlers of Ohio. During the French and Indian war, particularly in the operations about the forks of the Ohio, the Shawnees, together with the Delawares were extremely hostile to the English and friendly to the French. Throughout the Revolutionary war and during the spectacular post-Revolutionary period, they continued to maintain their reputation for irreconcilable hostility against those of the whites whom they regarded as coveting their lands. As in the earlier war in which they had looked upon the English colonists as the more aggressive in this respect, and as a result had lent their support to the French cause, so now, scenting danger from the American quarter, they sided with the British as the less threatening of the two. Aided and encouraged by the latter, they waged a continual campaign of harassment against the border settlements of the Colonists, particularly those of Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Virginia, just across the Ohio River from their own zealously guarded domain. As a result of expeditions sent against them in retaliation for these raids upon the border, a number of the Shawnee were dislodged from their towns upon the Scioto and for a time took up their abode about the headwaters of the Miami. Although General Wayne's victory over the Ohio tribes at the battle of Fallen Timbers, in 1794, went far toward terminating the depredations of the Shawnee, they were again in evidence as detached bands and individuals, under the leadership of the great Tecumseh, in the War of 1812. The principal chiefs of the Shawnee who figure prominently in the Ohio history of the tribe, were Black Hoof, Cornstalk, Black Fish, Blue Jacket, and Tecumseh. The first named we shall meet as early as the defeat of General Braddock at the forks of the Ohio, in 1755, in which, as a mere youth, he took an active part ; again, at the battle of Point Pleasant, and thence through the post-Revolutionary campaigns and the Treaty of Greenville. Cornstalk we shall encounter as the leader of the allied Indians at the battle of Point Pleasant, while Black Fish will figure most prominently in the raids of the Shawnee against the Kentucky settlements which characterized the closing years of the Revolution, and in connection with the captivity of Daniel Boone. Blue Jacket will appear as the leading spirit in the Indian aggression to the campaigns of Generals Harmar, St. Clair, and Wayne, while Tecumseh will hold the center of the stage in connection with Indian participation in the War of 1812. 96 - HISTORY OF OHIO THE DELAWARES In the Delawares we have an example of a people who could, and did, "come back." Although originally the most important confederacy of the great Iroquoian family, they fell prey to the consuming conquest of the Iroquois and were, about the year 1720, reduced by their conquerors to a state of abject humility. This consisted in assigning to their men and warriors the rank of women, or as the Iroquois expressed it "putting petticoats on the men." This, from the Indian point of view was the most humiliating treatment that could be accorded, and carried with it the depriving of the victims of all rights usually accredited to equals. The Delawares, prior tla their subjection to the Iroquois, held sway in Eastern Pennsylvania, Southeastern New York, and in Delaware and New Jersey. On account of their central location in the Algonquian territory and their position as the nucleus from which the cognate tribes had sprung, they were addressed by others of the Algonquins as "Grandfather," in acknowledgment of their high rank and standing. The name they gave themselves was Lenape, meaning "real men," or native, genuine men—in other words, as a prominent writer has phrased it, "the real thing." One of their best known chiefs of the early period was Temenend, from which the noted Tammany political society takes its name. In common with other tribes of the Eastern country the Delawares early felt the pressure brought against them by the whites, and yielding to a force they could not successfully resist began slowly to push their way to the westward. About the year 1750 they began to cross the river into the Ohio country, and within a few years most of them were located upon the Muskingum and other Eastern Ohio streams. At this point in their history, being strengthened by the acquisition into their ranks of bands of Munsee, Mohican and Tuscarawas, and through proximity to the friendly French, the Delawares not only succeeded in throwing off the dominance of the Iroquois but became one of the strongest opponents of the advance of English settlers. into Ohio. With the exception of the Shawnee, with whom they were in close sympathy, they proved to be the most unruly and troublesome of the resident tribes during the French and Indian war and subsequent campaigns. The history of the Delawares in Ohio centers about two important localities—the forks of the Muskingum, and the Sandusky River, the latter in what is now Wyandot County—where occurred the most stirring events of their career upon Ohio soil. As early as 1750 the Moravian missionaries had been active in their solicitude for the Delawares and had established several mission villages among them during the time of their migration from their, early home to Ohio. In 1772 these missionaries established a mission at the site of the present Town of Gnadenhutten, Tuscarawas County, where Zeisberger, Heckewelder and other noted missionaries succeeded in winning many converts among the natives. In 1782 these mission Indians were for a time absent at Sandusky, and upon returning to harvest their corn were massacred by irresponsible whites in a most brutal manner. This event, as we shall see, was one of the darkest blots on the pages of Ohio history, and a blunder which was destined to be in no small way responsible for another atrocity, the burning of Crawford, the scene of which was laid further north on the Sandusky River. The chiefs of the Delawares who figure most prominently in the Ohio history of the tribe were Captain White Eyes, the faithful friend of the Moravian missionaries and of the American Colonists ; Killbuck, who in later life became a faithful Moravian convert ; Captain Wingenund, noted war chief and prominently connected with the events attending the campaign and burning of Col. William Crawford ; Hopacan, or Captain Pipe, who led the hostile factions of his tribes in COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 97 the interest of the British ; and Buckongahelas, head chief of the western Delawares during the Revolution and the Ohio campaigns which followed. Buckongahelas, although generally favoring the British as against the Americans, was noted for his honorable and humane conduct. He was prominent at the battle of Fallen Timbers, was a signer of the Greenville treaty, and thereafter a staunch friend of the Ohio settlers. THE MIAMIS The Miami Indians, while not native to Ohio soil, at least held the distinction of having been tenants thereof longer than any other of the historic tribes with which settlers of the state came in contact. Like the Shawnee, Delawares, Wyandots and others, the Miamis found their way into the Ohio Country as a result of unsettled conditions following the advent of Europeans into America, with the consequent thrusting . back from the frontiers of the native inhabitants. While the Miamis were not dislodged from their earlier home in Wisconsin directly by the whites, but rather by other Indian tribes of the Northwest, their change of location was indirectly a part of the same great unsettlement which began immediately following the founding of European colonies on the Atlantic Coast and the St. Lawrence River. When first noted, about the year 1660, the Miamis. were resident mainly in Wisconsin, Northern Illinois and. Indiana, one of their principal towns being at the present site of Chicago. From there they soon extended into Western Ohio, probably reaching as far East as the Scioto River. At the beginning of the eighteenth century their territory was described as lying mainly on the St. Joseph, Wabash and Maumee, with one of their most important towns at the head of the latter river. Their principal town on Ohio soil was Pickawillanee, at the juncture of the St. Marys and the Miami rivers, near the present City of Piqua. In all treaty negotiations between the whites and the Indians the Miamis were considered as the original owners of the Western Ohio and the Wabash countries. In tracing the migrations of the .Miamis it is interesting to note the declaration of Little Turtle, the Miami chief, in which he said : "My fathers kindled the first fire at Detroit ; thence they extended their lines to the headwaters of the Scioto ; thence to its mouth ; thence down the Ohio to the Wabash, and thence to Chicago over Lake Michigan." This doubtless is intended to cover the wanderings of the tribe prior to the historic period. The Miamis originally consisted of six bands, of which the Piankashaw and the Wea were the best known. Among their totems were the elk, the crane and the turtle. According to the early explorers the Miamis were physically above the average of their race and in manners were mild, courteous and affable. They lived in huts covered with rush thatches, were industrious and had a considerable agriculture, particularly in maize or Indian corn. Although living. on and adjacent to some of the larger streams of the state, they were land travelers rather. than canoemen. The early history of the Miamis centers about their chief town, Pickawillanee. This town, which has been styled "the Ohio capital of the western savages," was the scene of picturesque events during the years when the French and English each were endeavoring to secure for themselves the rich country lying west of the Scioto. An important trail center, it early became a trading post of no mean pretensions. The resident Miami chief was LaDamoiselle, so called by the French on account of his proclivities for fancy dress and ornament, and known to the English as "Old Britain," in acknowledgment of his loyalty to the British. The Miamis were prominent in all the early Indian wars with the whites. Little Turtle, their most noted chief, will appear frequently and prominently in the pages which follow. 98 - HISTORY OF OHIO THE WYANDOTS In glimpsing the great Iroquoian conquest, we have seen how the tribes of the Huron confederacy, living around Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay, in Ontario, were driven from their homes and almost annihilated. Of the several Huron tribes close kinsmen of the devastating Iroquois, the only one escaping complete demoralization was the Tionontati, or Tobacco tribe, called by the French the Huron de Petun. The fact that they suffered less severely than their associated tribes was due to their location, which was at the extreme west of the territory occupied by the confederacy, and therefore not so easily accessible to their enemies. With the Tobacco tribe, the remnant of the Hurons proper took refuge ; but they were not permitted long to enjoy surcease from persecution, for the invading hosts soon sought them out and succeeded in dislodging them. Together the survivors of the Tobacco tribe and their refugees fled, first to the Island of St. Joseph and thence from place to place, until in 1670 they reached Mackinac straits. From Mackinac they gradually pushed their way southward, a portion of them sojourning at Detroit and others passing into Ohio, where they settled along the south shore of Lake Erie, mainly on and around Sandusky Bay and westward to the Maumee River. After a time bands of the Hurons who had tarried at Detroit joined their kinsmen at Sandusky, and here we find them in 1745, under Chief Nicolas, or Orontony, who was destined to figure largely in the early relations between the Indians and the white men. We shall speak presently of the conspiracy, launched by Nicolas, which marked the first conflict between the French and English interests in their contest to establish themselves on Ohio soil, and which, but for an unforeseen event, might have resulted very seriously, particularly for the French. The Hurons were to find the Ohio country a most grateful contrast to their years of wandering and persecution to the north of Lake Erie, for once firmly established they not only found themselves possessed of new vitality and stamina, but likewise of a new name. The appellation, Huron, first given them by the French as a term of derogation, signified ruffians or uncouth people. In their own language, the Hurons called themselves Wendat, from which is derived the English form Wyandot. Shortly after their arrival in Ohio, they began to be known as Wyandots, which name soon supplanted entirely that of Hurons. From their humble beginnings at settlements on the Sandusky and Maumee, the Wyandots gradually extended their influence and territory until they occupied the greater part of Northern Ohio, corresponding to the country formerly inhabited by the extinct Eries. On the west, they touched hands with the Miamis, and found their way to and even beyond the Muskingum on the east. They extended their activities, far down the Scioto valley and as far south as the valley of the Hocking. In short, they were to become the dominant tribe of the country between the Ohio River and the lakes, and while at no time able to muster more than a few hundred fighting men, their counsel, advice and cooperation was held paramount to that of any other tribe among the Indians of the Northwest territory. The presence of the Delawares and Shawnee in Ohio was entirely with their consent, as most of the territory occupied by these was considered as belonging to the Wyandots. From the Wyandot tribe came one of the greatest of the Ohio chieftains, Tarhe, or as he was called by the English, the Crane. Although for the most part the Wyandots were favorable to the British as against the AMericans in the Indian wars, it is a matter of history that after the signing of the treaty of Greenville, in 1795; Tarhe bent every effort toward securing for the Americans the good will and support of the Indian tribes—his own as well as others. Up to the time of the treaty referred to, no braver warrior ever opposed the advance of white men than Tarhe. COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD - 99 THE MINGOES (SENECAS) Of less general importance and fewer in numbers than any of the tribes previously described, the Mingoes nevertheless, in their brief career upon Ohio soil, left a most interesting and spectacular history. They were a detached band of the Iroquois—mainly Senecas—who just prior to the Revolutionary war had taken up their abode on the Ohio River, their settlement, near the present. City of Steubenville, and consisting of about sixty families, being known as the Mingo town. From there they later found their way Westward and settled in the Wyandot country, upon the headwaters of the Scioto and Sandusky rivers. Here, about the year 1800, they were joined by stragglers from the Cayuga tribe of Iroquois, the affiliated bands thereafter being generally known as the Senecas of the Sandusky. Although few in numbers, these Senecas made themselves widely known in the early wars. Their sojourn in Ohio is commemorated in their name, as given to Seneca County, Ohio. A small band of these Senecas incorporated themselves with a band of Shawnee, at Lewistown, Logan County, from 1817 until 1831. These affiliated bands were known as the "Mixed Senecas and Shawnee," as distinguished from the Senecas of the Sandusky. In addition to the settlements on the Sandusky and at Lewistown the Mingoes had several villages farther south along the Scioto. One of these is recorded as being located in Delaware County, while three are described as existing at the site of Columbus. The late Col. E. L. Taylor, in his "Ohio Indians," mentions these Mingo towns, one of which he says was located just south from where the Ohio penitentiary now stands, while a second stood on the west bank of the river at the site of the city work-house, and the third on the east side of the river south of Greenlawn Avenue. These three towns met a most tragic fate, being destroyed by the whites under Col. William Crawford, in. 1774, as a part of the campaign of Lord Dunmore against the Shawnee and Mingoes. The destruction of these Mingo towns which will be referred to in connection with the Dunmore war, apparently put an end to Mingo communities in the central Scioto valley. It is through Chief Logan, the greatest of the Mingoes, that the tribe is best known. We shall hear also of Logan in considering the Dunmore war. THE OTTAWAS AND OTHERS But for the purpose of introducing their great Chief, Pontiac, one of the most renowned men of his race, it would scarcely be necessary to dwell upon the Ottawa tribe of Indians, in so far as Ohio is concerned. Although a great and powerful people, dwelling principally around Georgian Bay and on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, but few of them chose to make their homes on Ohio soil. • Although an Algonquin people, the Ottawas were firm friends and allies of the Wyandots, and like these latter had been ousted from their tribal homes in Ontario. Those who entered Ohio, later known as the Ottawas of Blanchard Fork of Auglaize River, and the Roche de Boeuf, living on the Maumee, fraternized closely with the Wyandots, the villages of the two tribes often being contiguous. The Ottawas took an active part in the early Indian wars in the Ohio country. They were originally, according to the early French writers, a very uncouth and barbarous people but improved greatly after contact with the Wyandots. They were noted as skilful canoemen and were foremost among the Indian tribes in the matter of trade and barter, whence the name Ottawa, carrying this meaning, bestowed upon them by the French. They gave their name to two rivers—the Ottawa of Canada, and the Ottawa of Ohio, the latter more generally known as the Auglaize. Ottawa County, Ohio, likewise took its name from the tribe.