CHAPTER XXVIII HAIR BUYING HAMILTON, THE HAIR BUYER-ENGLISH AND INDIAN SAVAGERY-SCALPS, WAR TROPHIES-STANDARDS OF THE TIME. Much has been written in denunciation of Hamilton the Hair Buyer. Vials of contempt and loathing have been poured upon him and he has been annointed as the Devil's Own. On the other hand Butterfield has leaned over backward in an effort to be just and claimed Hamilton bought only the scalps of the combatants and did not send the savages against the women, children and non-combatants. Data can be offered pro and con. Common sense applied to consideration of human nature will take us farther than futile balancing of point against point where the last point can never be found. In 1776 England and America were as near the standards of medieval times as to modern humanitarianism. Much of the latter is a veneer of hypocrisy. Every mob shows the latent underlying cruelty of man. The World War mocked civilization. Our record with our Indians is a perpetual shame to America, so is our record with the negro. The fact is that contact with savages and savagery arouses the thinly buried savage in us. War strips aside disguises. Our record in the Philippines was as bad as Spain's in Cuba. Actions must be judged according to the standards of their time. In 1776 England allowed her own people to rot in debtor's - 251 - 252 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO prisons, was utterly indifferent to the fate of the debtor's family, pursued an utterly callous attitude toward the poor, inflicted the death penalty for many minor offenses, still buried the suicide with a stake through his remains at the crossroads; she was but thirty years removed from Butcher Cumberland and the hideous harrowings that followed Culloden in 1745. England could not be expected by her own code to be more tender to American rebels than she was to Scottish and Irish ones or had been to English ones in Monmouth's time. It is to be remembered that London papers had boasted the heads of John Adams and John Hancock would adorn the gates to London. English and French had used savages for a hundred years in their American warfare. The Colonials were no strangers to the practice and a bounty on Indians was by no mean unknown in times past. The American under Washington had considered the employment of Indians in the war. Washington himself had Indian allies in his first battle with Jumonville. It is not recorded that he prevented them from scalping the French dead. In fact, it would have been impossible. The Indian did not submit to such supervision. Military necessity dictated the use of the Indian due to his essential value as a scout and guide. His propensities could not be controlled. Where one side used him the other took to it much as poison gas was forced on the Allies in the World War. The use of the Indian by the British was the fruit of a natural alliance. The Indian was dependent upon his fur trade for a livelihood. The old arts of Indian life had been undermined by the traders long prior to the Revolution. The stone arrowhead maker could not compete with the steel tools of the trader nor would the squaw spend laborious hours over turkey and goose feather petticoats when her brave could bring her gaudy prints from the trader. So the indigenous to the Indian slowly perished and he became dependent upon the trader for necessities and luxuries. HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 253 The Americans could not handle the fur trade in the Revolution. The English sea power made trading precarious. America could not use or market the furs. The Indian must turn to the English who had supplies more than ever since his fur trade was curtailed. The American could not subsidize the Indian, he could not supply American wants. Prestige, tradition, power were all with the British. The Indian could not understand the idea of independence and despised the flounderings of the Colonials. They were his natural enemies and coveted his land. His contacts with them were irritating. They insulted and wronged him at every turn. Scalps were his war trophies. They were easier to handle than prisoners. They could be transported at a minimum of effort and fed alike his blood thirst and his covetousness. The British could not control his war activities nor his methods. They could, however, have refrained from subsidizing the Indian and urging him to depredations. The British could have paid enough more for captives than scalps to put a premium on the former. Sometimes individual British officers did so. In general the demands upon the British officers in command were so heavy, due to the losses of the Indians from the Americans that a continual bickering existed over money between Haldimand at Quebec and the British at the western posts. The Indians cost the British enormous sums. Captives were bound to perish under the conditions of the war trail. British officers could refuse payment for scalps only at the risk of alienating their savage allies. Nor could they be critical concerning the age or sex since the savage saw no distinction. It is doubtful if the dried horrors presented for bounties could be distinguished in all cases, man from woman. Certainly the non-combatant could not be told from the combatant and Butterfield's usually sound sense ignores this commonsense fact. 254 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO Standards of the time, military necessity and the savagery of war accounted for the practice of taking scalps and paying bounties for them. Rebels were regarded in the same category as outlaws according to strict interpretations of old but still existant laws. Enforcement of such laws were mitigated by the American power for reprisal rather than by dictates of humanity prevalent at the time. Where the Americans had no power of reprisal the savage code of war dominated. British officers might temper the wind according to their inclination but could not ordain its blowing. They were caught between the orders of a far away haughty, arrogant, indifferent war office and the customs of their savage allies. The English have given the world some of its finest types like Sir Philip Sidney, the Black Prince. It also has given in later times Bill Sikes, Squeers, Scrooge, Qui1p, Uriah Heap, etc. These latter creatures of fancy are conceded true to life. Both the Sidney and the Bill Sikes types were found at British army posts. CHAPTER XXIX THE CAMPAIGN OF 1782 AN IMPORTANT YEAR-ISOLATED OCCURRENCES-IMPORTANCE OF CAMPAIGN -GIRTY AND ELLIOTT-CHRISTIAN INDIANS-THE MASSACRE. 1782 was the most tragic if not the most important year in the Trans-montaine Revolution. In all the awful horrors of Gnadenhutten, the burning of Crawford, the massacre at Blue Licks Crossing, and in the dramatic events of the siege of Wheeling, Bryant's Station, the great war council at Wapatomica, the escape of John Slover, Clark's last expedition into Ohio, and other equally interesting happenings, West Central Ohio had either an important part through its inhabitants or else the events actually occurred within the territory of these twenty-two counties. Often treated as isolated occurrences there was a close bond of cause and effect between all these happenings. For more than 100 years it was the fashion of historians to regard the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in October, 1781, as the practical end of the Revolution. So it was in the Eastern half which historically was long sufficient to itself. But as the West grows in magnitude and the center of things American shifts over the mountains, then the Western half of the Revolution assumes greater importance and significance, a significance which will continue to grow with time until it is ultimately perceived that if Saratoga determined that the United States should be an independent power, then the events west of the mountains which decided the destiny of the Northwest Territory, in so doing, decided that - 255 - 256 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO America should not simply be a power, but a great and continental power and that the destiny of America was separate and distinct from Europe, to be formed into a new shape, not a copy of Eurasian ideals but a new and hitherto missing third of the earth's whole pattern. Nor were the military movements of 1782 so trivial in numbers judged by the standards of the time. Historical significance resides not in mere numbers or in bloody casualties but in ultimate consequences. East of mountains history has deigned from the beginning to devote space to Bennington which determined Saratoga, to King's Mountain which was vital in the Southern campaign, and to Cowpens, the cleanest cut field victory of the Revolution. Yet the numbers engaged at Bennington, King's Mountain and Cowpens in each instance were but little more than 1,000 on each side. Beginning with 1780 military operations in the West were reaching or exceeding such a scale. Unfortunately for the fame of those participating, these movements in the West were of a militia nature and not formally listed as of the Continental Army nor with regular enlistments or muster rolls. The British at the opening of 1782 were still hopeful of retaining the Northwest Territory either as crown lands or preferable as an Indian buffer state which would harass and bar the march of Americans westward, a hope which in spite of major defeat they realized in a minor way for thirty significant years, for the harassment of the American frontier under British tutelage did not wholly stop until the death of Tecumseh at the River Thames in 1813. Nor was the British hope vain as to holding the land at the peace treaty which was in the making after Cornwallis's surrender. Save for the far distant southwest corner around Vincennes and Kaskaskia, they held through their Indian allies 95 per cent of the land in the Northwest Territory. They had blocked Clark all through 1781. HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 257 The last campaign of the American Revolution was destined to be fought west of the mountains and while all its events would not be adequately known at the Peace convention in Paris, the last campaign of the Revolution was to close with the Americans striking the last blow in the still disputed battle for the West. At the first sight Gnadenhutten may seem to have little connection with West Central Ohio. It lies in Eastern Ohio. But the train of circumstances which constitute the campaign of 1782 and which ended in West Central Ohio began at Gnadenhutten. To understand this the tale must retrace itself into 1781 when the Christian Indians at Schoenbrunn and Gnadenhutten had been forcibly removed into the undisputed British territory and the Christian Indians held as prisoners. This was a cruel but necessary military act on the part of the British since Zeisberger, the Moravian missionary was gathering information among his Indian charges and forwarding it to the Americans. Gnadenhutten was practically a listening post of the Americans among the Ohio Indians. Simon Girty had been transferred from the Mingoes on the Sciota to the Wyandottes upon the Sandusky. The Wyandottes were much more numerous and powerful than the Mingoes. Girty in his raids with the Wyandottes still traversed West Central Ohio territory both going to and returning from Kentucky with prisoners. Girty was never one who exercised a chief's authority but was always the instigator, provocateur or councillor of the Indians, acting as a paid agent of the British and subject to the orders of the commandant of Detroit or McKee the Indian agent. It was Matthew Elliott who handled the transfer of the Moravian Indians to Sandusky in which he was assisted by 250 Wyandottes, Delawares, Muncey's, Tories, French Canadian rangers and Shawnees. It was largely Indians from Delaware, Morrow, Marion, Hardin and Logan counties combined with the Wyan- 258 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO dottes who participated under Captain Elliott and it was Captain Pipe, chief of the Delawares then recently removed from the Tuscarawas country and full of hatred against the missionaries who was chief witness against them at their trial in Detroit before De Peyster. One of the almost perennial starving times of winter in the Indian country beset the Christian Indians, cooped in draughty huts, wading muddy floors, sharing their scanty food with the missionaries, eaten out of substance by the Wyandottes, Simon Girty and his like. They bethought them of the corn left hanging on the stalk at Gnadenhutten and beseeched Pomoacan, the Wyandotte Half King to be allowed to go garner it lest they die. So they set out for their old home for Gnadenhutten and martyrdom. These Christian Indians had been despised by their savage brethren as women, distrusted by the British because of their American missionaries and hated by the American frontiersmen, true to his creed that the only good Indian was a dead one. As peaceful Christians their lot was difficult. Both of the warring sides held to the old adage that he who is not for me is against me. The war parties from the Sandusky and Scioto contemptously quartered themselves upon the Christian Indians while enroute to massacre Americans and the Americans knew it. From the border viewpoint it was not a case of "If thine enemy take thy coat, give him thine garment also," but one of secret abbetting in the border bloodshed. The position of a peaceful neutral is always desperate when between two savage contestants. The war parties, regarding the Christian Indians as traitors, maliciously loved to draw suspicion upon the latter, it at once satisfied their spite and drove the Christian Indians to their side. Gibson at Fort Pitt and De Peyster at Detroit saw the danger, both urged the Christian Indians to take refuge within these posts. The Half King warned of the "Two mighty and angry gods opposite each other with their mouths wide open and you HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 259 are between them." Gibson could not tell the American border-men that he got information from the missionaries and Christian Indians. Spies and Tories abounded. War parties early in 1782 raided the Pennsylvania and Virginia border. A Mrs. Wallace with three children was captured, she was murdered, the cabin burned. Her murderers headed for the Moravian towns and left her blood stained dress among the Christian Indians either as a present or with malice aforethought. It is even possible that young men of the Christian Indians may have sneaked off on these forays. Not every Christian mother and father is followed by their sons and the war path beckoned the adventurous young who might well flinch under the word "Coward" cried out by boastful warriors. By the best evidences obtainable what followed was not ordered by the American authorities. It had more the nature of a mob or vigilante action. Men came into Mingo Bottom (Steubenville) in pairs or small parties. They headed for the Moravian towns being joined enroute by other parties from Washington County, Pennsylvania. David Williamson, a militia captain, was elected commander. On March 7, 1782, they rounded up the Christian Indians, pretended to pity them for their hardships endured from the British and announced they had come to take them to Fort Pitt for protection. The Christian Indians then fed their soon to be assassins. At a council of war one in five favored keeping the American word. The rest divided between setting fire to the guardhouses and burning them alive or tomahawking the prisoners. The latter prevailed. The Indians, now aware of their doom, spent their last evening praying and singing and exhorting each other to put their faith in the Savior of Men. Then they embraced each other, asked forgiveness for offences committed against each other and asked time to prepare to die. On March 8, 1782 was written the most hideous chapter in American history. The Indians had risen during the night to 260 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO the heights of religious exaltation. The eighteen white men who were for mercy withdrew to the opposite bank so as not to be witnesses. Beginning with Abraham, the patriarch of the colony, they were dragged to the slaughter house two by two and there dispatched, being hacked with every weapon handy, clubs, hatchets, spears, knives and mallets. Next the boys were brought forth and butchered and then the women and lastly the small children, coming like the animals into the Ark, two by two. Sixty-four adults and thirty-four children went out on the dark flood magnifying the name of their Lord. Among them was Anna Benigna who had once ridden all night to warn of a proposed Indian attack on Fort Henry. Chiefs and warriors, most illustrous of the Delawares who had laid aside martial glory and become as sheep, perished with the meekness of lambs led to the slaughter. Theirs was a faith greater than that of King David when he babbled spittle down his beard and feigned insanity among his captors or of St. Peter when he swore and denounced his Leader. The border rocked on both sides with the news. The Ohio Indians grew mad with fury over the murder of their relation. The American bordermen rejoiced and exulted. The American authorities washed their hands like Pilate. They denied knowledge of or orders for the massacre. Colonel Gibson at Fort Pitt, who had once wived with Logan's sister, had his life threatened. The authorities showed no disposition to punish the murderers. From the viewpoint of the majority on the border that would have been silly. American historians have sought rather lamely to establish a great sense of moral indignation in border society. Granting that Gnadenhutten was a militia-mob action, American public psychology has never in the immediate vicinity blushed for but rather exulted over its mob murders. The Indians had raided the border, Moravian Indians had been identified among the raiders, the murdered Mrs. Wallace's dress had been found at Gnadenhutten, all Indians HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 261 looked alike and the debt of blood had been paid. This was about the border reaction if the cold truth is told. As evidence of the correctness of this view David Williamson, leader of the mob, was candidate for the command of the next expedition and lost by but five votes to William Crawford where 465 voted. William Crawford, land agent for and in a measure partner of George Washington, accepted Williamson as his second in command. Public opinion in this ballot condoned Williamson for it is likely that the 230 votes he received were direct tributes to his act while of the 235 cast against him, many were influenced by Crawford's standing rather than by being inimical to Williamson. March 8, the day of the massacre, Washington had ordered Irvine to Pitt to take command. He found the border in a frenzy. It looked as though the Americans would be driven back beyond the Laurel Ridge rather than that American control would extend into the Northwest Territory. These constant Indian attacks flowed mainly from the Wyandottes where Simon Girty had so recently located. McKee, Elliott and the Girty's laughed to scorn the news of Cornwallis's surrender. They told the Indians it was a colossal lie invented by the Americans. CHAPTER XXX CRAWFORD INVASION PLANNED-THE MARCH-EQUIPMENT-BRITISH AND INDIAN FORCES-THE RETREAT-CRAWFORD CAPTURED. Irvine called in the militia officers and it was decided that only an invasion of the Indian country would check the outrages, fanned now by the rage over Gnadenhutten. Such was the genesis of the ill fated Crawford expedition which brought the war ultimately to West Central Ohio. Of the details of that march from Mingo Bottom May 25, until its arrival at the Sandusky towns this volume is not concerned, it is outside the province of the work. Butterfield has however given a description of Crawford's volunteers in the "Expedition Against the Sandusky Towns" which merits repetition since it could be applied to any of the forces that operated in the Western half of the Revolution: "The volunteer in his war dress presented a picturesque appearance. His hunting shirt, reaching half way down his thighs, was securely belted at the waist, the bosom serving as a wallet. The belt, tied behind, answered several purposes besides that of holding the wide folds of the shirt together. Within it, on the right side, was suspended his tomahawk, on the left, his scalping knife. He wore moccasins instead of shoes upon his feet. His equippage was very simple. Strapped to his saddle was the indispensable knapsack, made of coarse tow cloth, in which were several small articles, placed there, perhaps, by a loving wife or - 263 - 264 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO a thoughtful mother or sister. From the pommel of his saddle was suspended a canteen—a very useful article as the weather was unusually warm for the season. Flour and bacon constituted his principal food supply. His blanket used as a covering for his saddle, answered also for a bed at night. Of his weapons of defense, the volunteer relied mainly upon his rifle . . . . the volunteers were mostly of Irish or Scotch-Irish descent, young, active and generally spirited . . . . from Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, with a few from the Panhandle in Virginia." Guiding this array were John Slover and Jonathan Zane. Slover had spent six years as a captive among the Miamis and six years among the Shawnees. Slover may have witnessed the battle between the Miamis and Shawnees over the possession of the Miami county, for he was taken captive about 1761. He knew several Indian tongues. Zane was of that family connected with Fort Henry, Zane's Trace and was a brother of Isaac Zane, the white captive of Logan County. The march of Crawford's party was of course known to the Ohio Indians. Spies watched the rendezvous at Mingo Bottoms and runners, after the march crossed the Tuscarawas, carried the news throughout the Indian country. These runners sped to Detroit to invoke aid of De Peyster and came panting down the Mad River through Wapatomica, on to the Mac-a-chack towns and across the divide to the Great Miami where the Shawnees of the Piqua on Mad River and the Chillicothe on the Little Miami had fled to take residence and erect a new Piqua not far from the old Miami Pickawillany, a fact which has bred much confusion among historians who continully fail to follow the shifts of these towns. Piqua (a town that rises from the ashes) had vindicated its name. The Shawnees responded with a war party 200 strong, about all that Clark had left them after a home guard was provided. HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 265 The Delawares had their main towns at this time in Wyandot and Crawford counties but most have ranged down into Morrow, Marion and Delaware counties to Mad River. These were close at hand and were assembled before the Shawnees came in, the latter having to march about 100 miles at most. Arentz Schuyler de Peyster, Torry commander at Detroit, sent two companies of Butler's Rangers, all mounted and bringing two field pieces and a mortar. Warfare west of the mountains was now embracing cavalry, artillery and infantry as Clark's Piqua expedition had first exemplified. The horses were sent round the lake and the rangers took boats to Sandusky River, where they picked up their horses. They started for Sandusky, Tuesday, June 4, 1782. Capt. Matthew Elliott, the renegade, pushed ahead. Simon Girty must have been in the Sandusky towns. Elliott in full British uniform took command of all the Indians, Crawford at about this hour had hit the old Wyandotte village eight miles above which the Indians had deserted. Captain Caldwell, commanding the rangers, next reached Sandusky town, and took command of the whole British-Indian force, having Elliott over the Indians. There were about 300 Wyandottes, 200 Delawares, two companies of white rangers to face Crawford's 480 men while 200 Shawnees were rapidly approaching from the south. Additional rangers under Alexander McKee accompanied by James Girty were coming up. The battle opened on June 4th at Battle Island, a grove of trees near three miles northeast of Upper Sandusky of today. The Shawnees came in on the fifth of June. These latter with the rangers and their artillery were too many for Crawford. Zane had previous to the battle councilled retreat for he foresaw the Indian concentration. Night of the fifth came on and the retreat got under way. In the dark the commands scattered and Crawford fell into the hands of the Delawares, and most of the losses to the Americans were inflicted by the Shawnees and the Delawares who jointly obtained most of the captives. 266 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO On the afternoon of June 6th Williamson, who was a good soldier, beat off the pursuit in a battle on the Olentangy, formerly the Whetstone in Crawford County. The last shot in the pursuit was fired near the present Crestline. The Shawnees, however, hung on the trail of the stragglers and picked up John Slover and a party as far away as Wayne County. Slover was destined for the Shawnee towns on Mad River in Logan County. Doctor Knight, captured with Crawford by the Delawares, was for some unexplained reason assigned to be sent to the same Shawnee towns where Major John McClellan, fourth in command, William Harrison, husband of Sarah Crawford, the colonel's oldest daughter and rated the most beautiful girl in Western Pennsylvania, and William Crawford, Crawford's nephew, had already been taken by other Shawnee bands. Doctor Knight was taken across the northwest corner of Marion County along the Indian trail which ran from Captain Pipe's town on the Tymochtee on into Hardin county. On a spot below the present Kenton, Hardin, County, Knight, on the morning of June 13, 1782, made his escape from the Delaware Indian, Tutelu, who had him in charge. Knight travelled east into Marion County and eventually made his escape bearing the first authentic account as to what had happened to Colonel Crawford at Pipe's hands and also that the remaining Moravian Christian Indians had taken up the hatchet and vowed no American caught in the future should escape torture. CHAPTER XXXI THE GREAT COUNCIL AT WAPATOMICA LAST FLARES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION-CAPTIVES KILLED-ELLIOTT AND GIRTY ATTENDS COUNCIL-IMPORTANCE OF COUNCIL. Slover came into Wapatomica which stood a few miles down Mad River from the present Zanesfield. Following the burning of Piqua on Mad River two years before this town seems to have become the Shawnee capital. It was soon to be the point of assemblage of one of the greatest Indian councils ever held in America and one that had far reaching effects, for the Indians enraptured by their victory over Crawford and enraged by the Gnadenhutten massacre, were in a mood to strike one more desperate blow for the establishment of the Indian line at the Ohio River and so constitute the Indian buffer state. Around this Wapatomica therefore was to wheel the last flares of the American Revolution and the final phase of that conflict was planned upon that hill and perhaps in that circle which can still be discerned upon the prow of the promontory jutting out into the valley. For what went on in Wapatomica that June and July of 1782, history is almost solely dependent upon John Slover and one other witness both of whom left narratives. Slover was present when the Indians planned the later famed siege of Fort Henry at Wheeling, the assemblage of warriors for which purpose made possible the later invasion of Kentucky with the siege of Bryant's Station, Holder's defeat and the battle of Blue Lick's Crossing, - 267 - 268 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO which in turn drew Clark into West Central Ohio there to strike at Piqua on the Big Miami, the last effective blow in the American Revolution, thus ending that memorable conflict on land ill West Central Ohio. Wapatomica that summer became a Gethsemane of the American pioneer. At least 20 men were in the space of a few weeks either executed or there sentenced to death. The account of Abel Janning in Vol. 8, Ohio A. & H. Collections gives the martrydom of James Whartt, a Quaker, while Butterfield says, Ex. to Sandusky Towns, p. 353: "About this time twelve men were brought in from Kentucky, three of whom were burned at Wapatomica, the remainder were distributed to other towns and shared, as Slover was informed by the Indians, the same fate." It indicates that fact that many captures escape record that Kentucky annals of this period make no mention of this affair, just as Mary Kennedy and her seven children who came in 1778 to this same Wapatomica leave no record in Kentucky. Many a cabin and many a river flat boat party fell with none to tell the tale which was not to be wondered at when such an affair as Ruddell's Station could cause so little comment. Previous to Slover's coming the officers of Crawford's party, McClelland, Harrison and young Crawford had perished. Slover and his two companions were destined to be condemned. Butterfield who examined the Slover and Knight narratives carefully tells what happened, it is a typical Wapatomica scene and doubtless its counterpart had often occurred at every Indian town in West Central Ohio. Butterfield says, p. 344: "The inhabitants of the village (the upper town) . . . - came out with clubs and tomahawks—struck, beat and abused the three captives greatly. They seized one of Slover's companions, the oldest one, stripped him naked, and with coal and water, painted him black. The unfortunate man seemed to surmise that this was the sign he was to be burnt, and shed tears. He asked Slover the mean- HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 269 ing of his being blacked; but the Indians, in their own language, forbade him telling the man what was intended. They assured the latter, speaking English to him, that he was not to be hurt. "A runner had been sent to Wapatomica, to acquaint them with the arrival of the prisoners and prepare them for the frolic; and, on the approach of the captives, the inhabitants came out with guns, clubs, and tomahawks. The three were told they had to run to the council-house, about three hundred yards distant. The man who was painted black was about twenty yards in advance of the other two in running the gauntlet. They made him their principal object; men, women and children beating him, and those who had guns firing loads of powder into his flesh as he ran naked, putting the muzzles of their guns up to his body; shouting, halooing and beating their drums in the meantime. "The unhappy man had reached the door of the council-house, beaten and wounded in a shocking manner. Slover and his companion, having already arrived there had a full view of the spectacle—a most horrid one. They had cut him with their tomahawks, shot his body black, and burnt it into holes with loads of powder blown into it. A large wadding had made a wound in his shoulder whence the blood gushed very freely. "The unfortunate man, agreeable to the declarations of the savages when he first set out, had reason to think himself secure when the door of the council-house was reached. This seemed to be his hope; for, coming up with great struggling and endeavor, he laid hold of the door, but was pulled back and drawn away by the enemy. Finding that no mercy was intended, he attempted several times to snatch or lay hold of some of their tomahawks, but being weak could not effect it. "Slover saw him bore off; and the Indians were a long time beating, wounding, pursuing, and killing him ! The same evening saw the dead body close by the council-house. It was cruelly mangled; the blood mingled with the powder was rendered black. He saw, also, the same evening, the body after it had been cut 270 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO in pieces—the limbs and head about two hundred yards on the outside of the town, stuck on poles." (Note by the editor: Lest Butterfield's account seem to justify any and all future atrocities against the Indians it is well to remember that the London papers had boasted that the heads of John Hancock and John Adams would adorn the gates of London. The veneer that separated the civilized and the savage was exceedingly thin in the times of the American Revolution—and since.) Butterfield continued : "The same evening Slover saw the bodies of three others at Wapatomica, in the same black and mangled condition. These, he was told had been put to death the same day and just before his arrival. One of these was William Harrison, the son-in-law of Crawford; another, young John Crawford, a nephew, Slover recognized the visage of Harrison and recognized his clothing, and that of young Crawford, in the town. The Indians brought two horses to him, and asked him if he knew them. He said they were those of Harrison and Crawford- The savages replied they were. "The third body, Slover could not recognize, but he believed is to be Major John McClelland, the fourth in command of the expedition. The next day the bodies were dragged to the outside of the town and their corpses given to the dogs, except their limbs and heads, which were stuck on poles." William Harrison was "One of the first men in the western country" in position, a lawyer, a former sheriff of Yohogania County, Virginia, ex-member of the Virginia House of Delegates. He had served as major and lieutenant-colonel of a militia regiment under McIntosh. He was well educated, high minded, able, active, public spirited, prudent, of good sense of dignified and sedate manners and highly respected. He had been killed by being tied to the stake, powder fired into his body for an hour and then quartered. HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 271 Major McClelland had been a lieutenant-colonel in the Fourth battalion in Westmoreland County. He bore the reputation of being brave, efficient, experienced and was highly rated as a citizen. Young William Crawford was a son of Valentine Crawford, only brother of Col. Crawford. Young Crawford was a lieutenant and his company had led the advance on the march. No stone, not a line, no token of remembrance marks the grave of these three officers of the American Revolution. Their scattered dust has reposed for 150 years on the hill slopes at Wapatomica, Logan County, nor the State of Ohio, nor the United States has seen fit to remember them by any marker however humble. Their souls with possibly one hundred other frontier martyrs have passed into the oblivion which the West has rewarded those who trod out and marked with their life blood the first paths of empire. Wapatomica is a spot unspoiled. Perhaps the names of these early martyrs would prefer to sleep where the day comes and goes in silence, where the only salute on Memorial Days is some chance thunder of heaven's artillery and the only funeral chant is the plaintive piping of wild birds. Wapatomica on a summer day hears no sound save where there comes from the surrounding hills that border Mad River's upper waters the clear clean challenge of "Bob White," fit symbol of the yeoman breed. It is a revielle that awakens memories but never the tortured dead. Returning to Butterfield: "The surviving companion of Slover, shortly after, was sent to another town, to be, as the latter presumed, either burnt or executed . . . . in the evening the Indians assembled in the council-house. "It was a large building about fifty yards in length and about twenty-five yards wide. Its height was about sixteen feet. It was built with split poles covered with bark. The first thing done upon the assembly of the savages was the examination of Slover. 272 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO This was done in their own tongue as he spoke the Miamis, Shawawanees and Delaware, especially the first two, fluently. They interrogated him . . . . he told them Cornwallis had surrendered. "The next day Captain Matthew Elliott, with James Girty came to the council . . . . the former assured the Indians that Slover had lied, that Cornwallis was not taken . . . . the Indians give full credit (to Elliott) . . . . later behavior to Slover . . . . Girty . . . . informed them that (Slover) had said he intended to take first opportunity to take scalp and run off. . . . another man came (to Slover) and pretended he wanted to get away. Slover . . . . said nothing. Nevertheless it was reported he had consented. He was invited every night to the war dance . . . . but declined participating." This council then in session at Wapatomica grew into one of the greatest Indian congresses in American history so far as consequences and deliberations were concerned. It lasted fifteen days with 50 to 100 participating in the sessions. There were present chiefs and renowned warriors from the Shawnees, Wyandots, Delawares, Mingoes, Monsey's Ottawas, Chippewas and part of the Cherokees. The Miamis are not mentioned. The strange silence that concerns the Miamis since the destruction of Pickawillany by the Shawnees had not as yet lifted. Perhaps they still sulked in their tents. Alexander McKee, who resided nearby at a place called McKee's town, came on the third day, Wapatomica was surrounded by Indian towns, more than half a dozen being in a few miles radius. Logan county as the rooftop of Ohio was a high and dry winter home for the Indians. McKee had a hewn log house with shingle roof as befitted the British deputy Indian agent. He wore gold laced clothes as became his standing and official position. Slover he ignored. The latter had seen McKee in the first town he had passed through, probably the present Zanesfield which lies between Wapatomica and Crawford's battle HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 273 ground. Simon Girty had come in with the Mingoes or more probably the Wyandottes, his later assignment. George Girty who had taken a conspicuous part at Crawford's Defeat, was there. Captain John Snake, had requested De Peyster to keep Captain Caldwell and his rangers at Lower Sandusky town for ten days and then send him and his rangers to Wapatomica. This eventuated. Snake was a Shawnee chief. His request together with the choice of Wapatomica for the council seat would indicate either that the Shawnees originated the idea of the council or were recognized as the leaders in resistance to the Americans. Plainly the council would seem to have grown out of the Indian hopes raised to the zenith after Crawford's defeat. McKee's was the weighty voice at the council. He was the money bag, the war chest, the voice of England. Finally De Peyster sent a proxy, a warrior who had borne him a message and received a reply. Next to the last day this speech of De Peyster's was delivered : My children : Provisions are scarce . . . . we are obliged to maintain prisoners . . . . some run away . . . . with tidings . . . . when any of your people fall into the hands of the rebels, they show no mercy, why then should you take prisoners ? Take no more prisoners, my children, of any sort, man, woman or child." This indiscriminate death sentence emanated from the British and was provoked by like American practice. The American frontiersmen did not maintain any prison stockades. The only good Indian was a dead one. The Indian tortured part of his prisoners and adopted the rest. The American method as exemplified at Gnadenhutten and repeated on a smaller scale countless times was more thorough but more humane. It killed all Indians quickly. The Indians at Wapatomica voted to take no more prisoners and if tribes not present took prisoners the tribes assembled would take away the prisoners and put them to death. Slover heard plans laid against Louisville, Wheeling and the Kentucky 274 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO settlements. A guardian angel of a squaw kept him from one council at which his death was probably decreed. It was at this, time the twelve men were brought in from Kentucky and sentenced. The council then broke up. It is doubtful if an Ohio legislature ever surpassed this Indian council in ability, energy, grasp of the military objectives, in high resolve, fierce patriotism, unflinching determination and statesmanlike conception of necessity for quick action if the tribal boundaries were to be maintained and the extent of the Indian state affirmed. At this council were planned those last acts in the drama of 1782, the siege of Wheeling and the invasion of Kentucky which led to Blue Lick's Crossing. Before following Slover there is another witness who should be quoted: Abel Janney left a diary relating he was captured March 12, 1782 on the Ohio side opposite the Great Kanawha. Janney was taken to an Indian town whose name he does not mention- It must have been Wapatomica for he met William Harrison and talked to him previous to his martrydom. Janney declared Harrison resigned to his death, fervent in his prayers, and that he sent word to his wife and children to lead a more circumspect life thereafter. Janney's is the sole account of the death of James Whart, a Quaker, a sober, solid man. "They led him up to a large stake, near a large fire . . . . scalped him . . . . cut off his nose that it hung below his lower lip - - . . cut off his ears . . . . took bark shovels and threw hot embers of fire on his head . . . . others burning him with fire brands." This either at Wapatomica or a town three miles distant. Janney is not precise. He escaped while the Indians were on the Blue Licks expedition. CHAPTER XXXII END OF 1782 CAMPAIGN IRVINE'S PLAN—McKEE AND CALDWELL—BETTY ZANE—THE BATTLE. Early in July Caldwell reinforced by Captain Adam Bradt with forty more rangers and with 300 Indians started for Fort Henry (Wheeling). A few days out runners overtook him with the word George Rogers Clark was marching to avenge Crawford. A false report that created history. Clark actually in 1782 had offered to resign over reflections made on the handlings of money in the West. The squabbles that were to poison his after life were beginning. He had been given further powers and prepared for an anticipated attack on Fort Nelson (Louisville). He built four armed galleys to patrol the Ohio near the mouth of the Miami. These were really warships, one completed at the time Caldwell started for Wheeling had a seventy-three foot keel, bullet-proof gunwales and was to carry a six-pounder, two four-pounders and a two-pounder- It could carry 110 men and was the first of the river gunboats. Clark was having trouble with the older Kentucky settlements who worried about invasions while the forces were farther west. De Peyster was so certain Clark was coming up the Wabash, closing in from the south while Crawford came from the east that he hesitated to spare Caldwell for Crawford's defeat. Irvine at Fort Pitt planned to send 1,000 men from the east to co-operate with Clark- It was this news which recalled Caldwell and Bradt to Wapatomica. The Indians had spied the rowed - 275 - 276 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO gun galley at the mouth of the Licking and feared a fresh invasion. McKee exerted himself to gather in warriors from all the tribes at the council. He collected 1,400 which he dispatched down to the former Piqua on Mad River to pitch camp and await Clark behind this naturally strong position which as has been said was the best north of the Ohio River. Not all were stationed at Piqua as feeding such a large number was a problem. McKee had 1,100 at Piqua, 300 in a day's march, these together with 300 rangers should have made 1,700 as McKee boasted, the largest army assembled west of the mountains during the Revolution. The fact that such a large army, doubtless with the Sandusky artillery, waited for Clark to come showed that the offensive following the Battle of Piqua in 1780 had passed to the Americans. Clark did not come. The Indians melted away after their fashion. The Shawnees were the first to go, perhaps they were so bitterly disappointed over the failure of Clark to keep his supposed rendezvous with death. James Girty followed the Shawnees. The Wyandottes were perhaps puffed with the battle on the Sandusky Plains. They and the rangers under Caldwell together with Simon and George Girty started for the Ohio to locate Clark or gather intelligence of his movements- It was a scout in force. It was high time Clark was located. McKee must have had fears that Clark marching up the Wabash would descend upon Detroit while so many rangers were absent. McKee and Caldwell crossed the Ohio near Eagles Creek. Their march had most certainly been down the old war trail from Piqua on Mad River to Chillicothe on the Little Miami and thence south through Clinton County. They ventured down as far as Bryant's Station, Fayette County, Kentucky. It differed from Bird's invasion in that it took no artillery and had but a total of 300 men with no expectations of conquest but rather harassment, spoilage and scouting. Following the Battle of Piqua, Kentucky HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 277 had rapidly put down roots and probably had 20,000 people at this time. Kentucky was safe from actual conquest. Whether it was Caldwell and McKee's forces that defeated Capt. John Holder on August 10 cannot be said positively. Caldwell and McKee doubtless threw out scouting parties to gather information and locate Clark. Two boys were captured near Hoy's Station ten miles southwest of Boonesborough. Holder started from his station two miles from Boonesborough, gathering men until he had seventeen. He came up with the Indians at the Upper Blue Licks Crossing and attacked. Soon outnumbered and about to be overpowered he hurriedly retreated, losing four men. Seeing that the Indians had retreated toward the Blue Licks and that Caldwell and McKee were thereabouts in force and that the Indian party appeared to be increasing, it is logical that Holder had hit the invading main force. Four days later the British-Indian force besieged Bryan's Station on the road between Lexington and the present Maysville and the first station south of the ill-fated Ruddell's and Martin's stations. Bryant's had forty cabins and a palisade- Two men on fast horses got away for Lexington. Had the Indians come a few hours later all the men would have been gone, marching down to Hoy's Station at the news of the outrages which had aroused Holder. The couriers taking the five miles to Lexington on the dead run found all the Lexington men already left for Hoy's Station. McKee by bad timing had lost Bryan's and Lexington when they were in his hand. The consequences of these two unprotected garrisons falling into the hands of Indians sworn to take no prisoners are hideous to contemplate. The couriers spurred out after the Lexington men and halted them with the news of the hovering death. There sixteen horsemen and about forty footmen in the party were joined by volunteers from Boonesborough, then the whole force strained desperately to get to Bryan's and came up panting in the hot August sun about 2 p. m. 278 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO Meanwhile the militia at Bryan's about to march at Hoy's had hit the Indians and retreated into the station in early morning. Girty and a large party of Indians lay hidden about the too distant spring of the garrison, ready to sally forth from ambush if the garrison charged forth in pursuit of the initial attacking party. The fort lacked water sufficient for a siege. The women were dragooned into taking their buckets and going for water as usual, the men maintaining the Indians would not betray their presence for the sake of a few scalps when it was evidently planned to rush the gates from the ambush once the fighting should start in the open. The women naturally argued the men should go for the water. The men countered that such an unusual proceeding would betray their knowledge of the ambush. Braver than Betty Zane's dash for powder at Wheeling in the coming month, the women of Bryan's took their buckets and leisurely filled them in point blank fire of hundreds of rifles and under the very poised tomahawk. Probably no stage has ever seen such consummate easy acting by so many amateurs at one time. The watering of Bryan's Station by forty fearless women is the greatest act of mass heroism in the history of American woman. Then Tomlinson and Bell had mounted their horses and achieved their feat of running the gauntlet on horseback. Next thirteen active young men went out opposite the ambuscade to start a brisk fire and draw forth the charge of those hidden by the spring. Thinking the garrison was engaged outside the walls on the far side the ambush was sprung in the face of the concealed riflemen awaiting the charge. Into these sulking Indians nursing their wounds, was now marching in the afternoon the relief party from Lexington. The Indians were ready with a fresh ambuscade. One hundred acres of corn lined the road from Lexington. Down this narrow lane of green walls came the Lexington horsemen at the gallop. All was quiet about the fort. They swung into the corn with the HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 279 footmen behind. The Indians poured in a summer blizzard of leaden sleet. The Kentuckians lay low on their horses, maddened by the thunder burst these shot through the lane like arrows, flinging a cloud of black dust to mingle with gunpowder in one enveloping concealing cloud lit only by the yellow lightening of spitting rifles. The footmen rushed to the aid of their brothers, coming pell-mell through the corn upon the Indian line. The Indian rifles were empty but flinging aside their useless guns the latter charged tomahawk in hand. The corn field became a whirl of threshing, dodging runners. The footmen holding their fire, kept the Indians at bay in an individualistic, each for himself free for all. All but six made the cane brake or the road to Lexington. The Indians could have taken the latter defenseless town but returned to the vain siege of Bryan's Station. That night the Indians decamped and retreated slowly leaving a broad careless trail to the Lower Blue Licks Crossing. Meanwhile the alarm had spread. Boone, Levi and John Todd, Stephen Trigg, Silas Harlan, Hugh McGary with Captain Bulger and Captain Gordon came rushing in pursuit with their militia, totaling 182 according to George Rogers Clark, and 166 according to Marshall, Kentucky historian. Ben Logan farther back was gathering up the main body of Kentuckians. These caught the Indians at Blue Licks Crossing, the Indians nonchalantly loitering up the opposite slope in plain view. The officers gathered for consultation. Boone as most experienced was asked his opinion. He advised caution, to either await Logan or divide and take the enemy in the rear which was possible due to a bend in the river. At any rate he advised the ground ahead should be scouted before they crossed the main body. McGary broke the impasse with a whoop of "All who are not cowards will follow me" and spurred for the opposite shore. The slope was nearly barren. Two ravines headed together back from the river. The whole force came tumultously into this death trap where the Indians waited. That is one version. There are at 280 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO least four. Other versions, notably one by Daniel Boone, states that they halted on the opposite shore, formed lines of battle, after which the enemy broke the line. Governor Morehead, of Kentucky, in 1840 gave a version in which he claimed spies were sent out and the march made to the ravines where the battle took place. Some accounts credit Robert Patterson, founder of Dayton, Lexington and Cincinnati, with covering the flight at the ford in company with a man named Netherland who had crossed on horseback and turned to bring his rifle to bear on the pursuing Indians. Collins, Vol. 2, p. 195, related that Patterson was fleeing on foot half way to the river spent from exertions and weak from former wounds and about to be killed when Aaron Reynolds gave him the latter's horse on which Patterson escaped and afterward gave Reynolds 200 acres in reward. The fact that this expedition was organized in West Central Ohio, led by a citizen of that territory, McKee and that some of the later founders of West Central Ohio participated makes it as much Ohio history as Kentucky's. It was the greatest disaster encountered by Kentucky in the field during the Revolution. The loss in killed was more than seventy. Ruddell's and Martin's stations had surpassed this more than five fold in prisoners but those lost were among the brightest names in Kentucky. McKee and Caldwell fell back slowly to Wapatomica. Two battles had been fought, one in June with Crawford, and one in August with the Kentuckians. Two minor engagements, Holder's Defeat, August 10, and Estill's Defeat, March 22, 1782, had been Indian victories. Naturally the Indians were in high feather. There were phases about Estill's Defeat that were particularly flattering to their prowess. Twenty-five Kentuckians had fought twenty-five Wyandottes in Montgomery County, Kentucky, and had been thoroughly threshed. (See Collins, Vol. 2, p. 635.) Some other accounts say the Wyandotte chief waited until Estill attempted flanking tactics and when the white line spread HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 281 rushed the center and broke it, using in miniature Napoleon's tactics at Austerlitz. At any rate 1782 saw the Wyandottes taking the lead away from the Shawnees who were either bled white or a bit cowed after the Battle of Piqua. Elated with these two victories of August 10 and August 19, Captain Brandt with forty rangers and 250 Indians left Wapatomica to take up the interrupted attack on Wheeling. De Peyster's orders to refrain from further incursions came too late- At this siege, September 11, 1782, there occurred the famed exploit of Betty Zane carrying the powder from Colonel Zane's cabin 100 yards to the depleted fort. As usual the attack made without cannon failed. At this time Col. Arthur Campbell wrote east that Clark had become a sot, Logan was a dull body and the rest of the Kentucky leaders who had participated at Blue Licks lacked either experience or capacity. Clark was under fire from Virginia. Gov. Benjamin Harrison rebuked him that he had not built additional forts to prevent such invasions. Clark did not seem to possess the fire of 1778-980. Nevertheless he gave up 3,500 acres of his own land to buy flour for a punitive expedition into the Shawnee country in West Central Ohio, but the man who had a thousand men across the Ohio a month after the fall of Ruddell Station in 1780, did not get a like force together in 1782 until ten weeks after Blue Licks. The rendezvous was Bryan's Station and Fort Nelson. Clark started November 4 with 1,050 mounted men. He came up the Little Miami following his road of 1780 until near Lebanon when he headed over to the Big Miami. The new location of the Shawnees, the Piqua, on the Great Miami, was reached November 10. The bird had flown. The Shawnees had retreated over to the later Wapakoneta in Shelby County. Clark burned the Piqua towns, and sent Ben Logan to burn Loramie's, the station of a French trader-priest at the portage of the Great Miami and the Maumee. Clark lay about the 282 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO Shawnee towns four days but could not bring the Indians to battle. His fame was greater among the Indians than among the Kentuckians. McKee tried in vain to gather the Shawnees and Wyandottes to battle. Crawford and Todd were one thing, Clark was another entirely. They had tasted his medicine at Piqua in 1780- The weather threatening, Clark retired, having closed the 1782 campaign with America on the offensive and their prestige retrieved. This was Clark's last effective expedition. CHAPTER XXXIII POST REVOLUTION AND LOGAN'S CAMPAIGN COUNCIL AT DETROIT-INDIANS CONTINUE TO RAID-BRITISH FUR PROFITS - EMIGRATION-LOGAN MEETS LITTLE OPPOSITION. As late as May, 1783, Simon Girty was raiding the Pennsylvania frontier. He might be said to have struck the last blow in the Revolution. Girty heard the cannon at Fort Pitt firing in celebration of peace at the very moment he was taking scalps five miles from Pittsburgh. De Peyster called eleven Indian tribes into council in Detroit in July, 1783, these included the Indians of West Central Ohio. Simon Girty, acting as interpreter, told them the war was over. One more act bound him to West Central Ohio history at this period. On April 1, 1780, Catherine Malott, a sixteen-year-old girl, daughter of Peter Malott of Maryland, had been captured from a flat boat on the Ohio River by the Monsey clan of the Delawares and eventually carried into the country between the headwaters of the Scioto and Mad River. The war was over. Simon Girty, seeking excitement and Catherine Malott among the savages found both and started his own private war in Canada in August, 1784. Catherine Malott spent her days of captivity probably in the vicinity of Delaware, Ohio, possibly at Pluggy's Town. One hundred and fifty years after the event historians are still fighting as to how much Clark's victories counted at the Paris peace table. Hinsdale made a case for the extension of the - 283 - 284 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO original colonial charters over the mountains and westward as being the legal ground of the award of the Northwest Territory to the United States. That was a tactful position to take and one that saved the British "Face." That it would have counted in the event of absolute British possession is not believable. The Northwest Territory had become the battleground in the West. The American commissioners were aware of at least a portion of the American advances. Benjamin Franklin was fairly familiar with the natural resources of the country which lay due west of his state, Pennsylvania, and upon which Pennsylvania had so long drawn for trade. Franklin had been active in land speculations in the country adjacent. Massachusetts had a shadowy claim under a colonial charter and John Adams was a Yankee. But to John Jay's aggressive insistence and persistence goes the major credit for the capitalization of what Clark had wrought west of the mountains. Clark and Jay won the Northwest Territory and a continental basis of empire for the United States. That award of sovereignty was a most momentous one to the history of this country, this hemisphere and this world. The history of the Revolution west of the mountains had ridden on two wheels, one of which turned round about Kentucky and the other revolved about Detroit. West Central Ohio was the spot where these two wheels of fate meshed together or rather through West Central Ohio thrust back and forth the piston or cam which connected the two wheels. That West Central Ohio lay athwart a natural road of empire and that Detroit was the strategic key of the Northwest was to be attested again in the War of 1812. Nor did it wait that long for further proof. The war of defense waged by the Ohio Indian from Braddock's defeat in 1755 to the River Thames in 1813 did not cease with the Treaty of Paris. This stretch of fifty-eight years was marked by interludes. But even these never saw the tomahawk entirely buried or the scalping knife totally sheathed. 1783 to HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 285 1790 were years of peace yet 1,500 Kentuckians were killed by Indians in that period. (Report to Secretary of War.) Indians from West Central Ohio continued to raid Kentucky up until 1792 but in comparatively small bands. Meanwhile the territory of these twenty-two counties along with surrounding areas had been the bone of contention between the now independent states, between the states and the Confederation and between the national government and the Indian tribes. The Shawnees of West Central Ohio, "First on the war path and last at a treaty" remained aloof from the treaty of Fort McIntosh and refused to attend the council called by Clark at Fort Finney, mouth of the Great Miami, 1785. Finally an ultimatum, peace or war in fifteen days brought in Chief Moluntha and 150 warriors and their families. Moluntha came down from Mac-a-chack in Logan County beating a drum and singing but steadfastly refused to give hostages: "We are Shawnees, our words are to be believed. When we say a thing we stand to it. God gave us this country. We do not understand measuring out lands. It is all ours." Clark spurned their wampum, brushed it from the table, stepped upon it, saying "Peace or war . . . . make your choice . . . . the destruction of your women and children rests with you . . . . make your choice." January 31, 1786 the Indians agreed to take the territory west of the Big Miami to the Wabash. The Shawnees went home to West Central Ohio and repudiated the treaty as obtained by force. Simon Girty and Captain Caldwell had been among the Miamis telling them war would start in the spring. Joseph Brant went to England in 1786 to protest against the cession of the Indian lands to America. The tribes were taught by England to hold together and not sign piecemeal. Englishmen seeking to hold the fur trade still subsidized the Indian outrages. The British were drawing half a million a year in furs out of the Northwest Territory and delivering a quarter million in sup- 286 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO plies to the Indians in return. McKee was still employed with the Detroit Indians, Simon Girty kept up British contact with the Ohio and Wabash tribes and Joseph Brant after going from the Iroquois as special messenger to their old enemies the Cherokees and Creeks in the interest of Indian unification, later went to England to plead the Indian cause. The stage was getting set for the resumption of warfare west of the mountains with the Indians backed and supplied by the British and the stakes the Northwest Territory, whether it would remain an Indian state to all purposes a buffer one between America and Canada with its fur wealth flowing to London. The British refused to yield the army posts through which they subsidized the Indians. The British maintained the Americans had not kept the provisions of the peace treaty concerning payment of British debts and that they could not treat with individual states since they had made the treaty with the national union. On pretexts such as these Haldiman refused to yield the posts to Baron Steuben in August, 1783, or to Col. William Hull in July, 1784. The British refused New York and Vermont governors similar demands. Meanwhile the tide of western immigration down the Ohio and over the Wilderness Road rushed in a torrent of nearly a thousand a month. Regular lines of transportation were opened between Pittsburgh and Louisville by 1786. This rush for the south shore of the Ohio did not wholly respect the Indian side. As early as 1779 squatters were settling the north shore from Fort McIntosh down to the Muskingdom. The later settlement at Marietta was merely an organized moving into what was already a movement working up river valleys. The New Englanders seeing a rich prize lying loose with the Indian power apparently scotched or broken, prepared with keen Yankee acquitiveness to cash in on the fighting and explorations of the Virginians, Kentuckians and Pennsylvanians- HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 287 The vaunted entry of the New Englanders into Ohio was not coming of Pilgrim Fathers but an emigration of land grabbers, muscling in with superior guile, organization, money and political influence among the poorer individualists of the frontier. It was an exploitation of other people's risks, daring, self denials and dangers. Marietta's significance lies only in that it attests the time when Ohio was opened for comparatively safe settlement on a profitable basis along its eastern fringe. By this time the Indian outrages were shifting their heaviest weight from Ohio proper and it was the Indiana Indians who were beginning to attack Kentucky, much more fiercely than had been their previous custom. This was due to the series of campaigns and treaties which had thrust back the Ohio tribes until they were crowded wholly into West Central Ohio, northwestern Ohio and over the Indiana line into that later state. Moreover the Kentucky settlements immediately south of Ohio were by 1786 grown strong and the Indian had come to acquiesce in that fact and save for small, sporadic raiding parties, these sections were not molested as formerly. Louisville and Maysville sections bore the brunt. A band of Chickamauga Indians had moved north of the Ohio into ground abandoned by the Shawnees and were harassing the Ohio River border. Clark, by now more or less addicted to drink, had still enough of his former prestige to be again chosen to punish the Wabash Indians. The task of chastising the Shawnees after their repudiation of the Fort Finney treaty fell to Col. Ben Logan, second in command to both Bowman and Clark in their previous invasions. Logan did not follow the Bowman-Clark route up the Little Miami but rendevouzed at Maysville and came straight north along the old Indian trail through Brown, Highland, Clinton into Greene, hitting the main trail to the Logan County towns at Chillicothe north of Xenia. 288 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO Logan's forces met little opposition since most of the warriors had been drawn to the Wabash to oppose Clark's last and abortive expedition. Logan and Clark's forces were drafted men, unwilling to serve outside their territory, torn by jealousies and dissensions among their leaders, poorly supported by the national government. Clark by this time was getting unpopular in Central Kentucky due to his western operations. Logan's march from Greene County was up through Clark, probably touching Piqua on Mad River, thence northward through the present Urbana onto West Liberty where the Mac-achack towns were located. His raiding and burnings included Wapatomica, Zanesfield and surrounding Indian towns which were very numerous in Logan County. Dramatic and tragic touches marked the campaign such as the murder of Chief Moluntha and the capture of young Spemica Lawba (High Horn) later to be known as Captain John Logan. The indirect consequences were more important. The Shawnees had again been punished for their perfidy or patriotism according to the viewpoint. Fort Finney had the pressure of the Miami tribes relaxed and the way was cleared for the Symmes Purchase which otherwise would not have been either possible or desirable. With the Symmes Purchase settlement took its first firm step into West Central Ohio. Hitherto the white man had come as explorer, spy, emissary, captive or invader. Now the way was cleared for his actual settlement. Logan's expedition is therefore of importance since it marked the end of a period, the next era was to be less dramatic, more permanent, more profitable and less heroic. Before leaving Logan the death of Moluntha should be touched upon. He had several wives, one the sister of Cornstalk, called the Grenadier Squaw, her town having stood on Scippo Creek in Pickaway County in 1774. She had a daughter named Fanny. Another may have been the sister of Tecumseh. Accounts of the Logan expedition are a bit hazy. Captain John HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 289 Logan, the boy captive is said to have been the son of Tecumseh's sister, while other accounts appear to make him son of the chief. Since Moluntha had three squaws, Young Logan may have been a son of Moluntha Tecumseh's sister. The most detailed account of the expedition is given in Howe's History of Ohio, Vol. 2, p. 98, by Gen. William Lytle, a participant. McClung, in his Western Adventures, chronicles the death of Moluntha in some detail. The Draper manuscript quotes Henry Hall who was also out with Bowman in 1779. Some of the Draper manuscript is quoted in Vol. 22, p. 520, Ohio A. and H. Collections. Col. Robert Patterson, founder of Dayton, commanded one wing according to Lytle, and Col. Thomas Kennedy the right wing, Col. Daniel Boone and Major Simon Kenton the advance and Colonel Trotter the rear. The Draper manuscript states the chief officers under Logan were Colonels James Garrad, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Kennedy and Hugh McGary. It lists Captain Irvine as killed while pursuing an Indian with a broken thigh, Rhody Stafford, shot while stalking the same Indian in the tall grass. Stafford died at Maysville on the return. William Rout was wounded. The Draper manuscript then says: "Moluntha's town was about a mile from Mac-a-chack at the head of the prairie. There was Moluntha and his queen and several others, some fifteen or twenty prisoners, one or two of whom were white girls. One of these was badly cut by one of the colonels mistaking her for an Indian (Ed's note: interesting as showing they were killing Indian girls). After the prisoners had been taken an hour, McGary went to Moluntha, who had about his person a good many trinkets and jewelry and asked, "Do you remember the Blue Licks defeat?" "Yah, I do," replied Moluntha—upon which McGary cursed him and snatched a squaw's hatchet from the queen (Ed's note: this was the Grenadier Squaw, six feet high) and with two blows killed Moluntha. "Don't recollect about McGary cutting the queen's fingers off. McGary was much blamed. It had been 290 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO strictly ordered that no prisoner, having surrendered, should be injured. No recollection about McGary justifying himself for the act." "Next day went and took McKee's Town, six or seven miles off—it was deserted; and burned these and some half dozen on the Big Miami (Ed's note: Solomon's Town, Lewistown, etc.). At McKee's—his (McKee's) house was hewed log, had windows and a porch, this with his hay, etc., were burned. The fighting was confined to Mac-a-chack and the killing of Moluntha at his own town. At McKee's Town killed some hogs and beef cattle. All the towns were burned. Rendevouzed at Limestone or Maysville and there on return disbanded. The fight at Meckacheck was on the 17th Oct. and on the 17th left the towns on their return." McClung who talked personally to many Kentuckians who participated in these expeditions but who embellishes a bit says, p. 118: "Moluntha came out to meet them, fantistically dressed in an old cocked hat, set jauntily upon one side of his head, and a fine shawl thrown over his shoulders. He carried an enormons pipe in one hand, and a tobacco pouch in the other, and strutted with the air of an old French beau to smoke the pipe of peace with his enemies, whom he found himself unable to meet in the field. "Nothing could be more striking than the fearless confidence with which he walked through the foremost ranks of the Kentuckians, evidently highly pleased with his own appearance, and enjoying the admiration, which he doubted not that his cocked hat and splendid shawl inspired. Many of the Kentuckians were highly amused at the mixture of dandyism and gallantry which the poor old man exhibited, and shook hands with him very cordially. Unfortunately he at length approached Major McGary, whose temper, never particularly sweet, was as much inflamed by the sight of an Indian as that of a wild bull by the waving of a red flag (Ed's note: McGary had lost a step son, William Ray, see Collins, Vol. 2, p. 612, who relates: "The detachment HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 291 moved with great rapidity, and soon reached the neighborhood of the sugar camp . . . . near it they discovered the mangled remains of William Ray, at the sight of. which, McGary turned pale, and was near falling from his horse in a fainting fit." Such scenes together with the upbraiding he had borne after causing the bull charge at Blue Licks and his always uncontrollable temper explain what followed). It happened, unfortunately, too, that Molutha had been one of the chiefs who had commanded at the Blue Licks, a disaster which McGary had not yet forgotten (Ed.'s note: McClung is probably mistaken in this last. Moluntha was a Shawnee and the Shawnees had not gone to Blue Licks. It was the Wyandottes and Moluntha would scarcely have led the Wyandottes. Moreover, he was old according to all accounts and his presence showed he had not the agility to flee, neither had he gone on the war path to the Wabash. His presence at the Fort Finney treaty, his cunning repudiation of its terms, his nonchalance under the fact of capture and his attempt to again make friends shows more of the diplomat than fighting chief. The Kentuckians could not know what Indians were at Blue Licks and naturally assumed it was their old foes, the Shawnees. When McGary asked about Blue Licks, Moluntha probably not fully understanding the full import of the question, may have merely repeated the known phrase "Blue Licks" which was enough for McGary to put in a few "Blue Licks" of his own.) McClung continued: "Instead of giving Moluntha his hand as the others had done, McGary scowled at the old man and asked him if he recollected the Blue Licks. Moluntha smiled and merely repeated the word 'Blue Licks' when McGary instantly drew his tomahawk and cleft him to the brain. The old man received the blow without flinching for a second, and fell dead at the feet of his destroyer. Great excitement instantly prevailed in the army; some called it a ruthless murder, and others swore he had done right; that the Indian was not to be re- 292 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO garded as a human being but ought to be shot down as a wolf whenever and wherever he appeared. McGary himself raved like a madman at the reproach of his countrymen, and declared, with many bitter oaths, that he would not only kill every Indian whom he met, whether in peace or war, at church or market, but that he would as equally and readily tomahawk the man who blamed him for his act." General Lytle, who was then sixteen years old, claimed in his account that he had interposed his arm between McGary and the tomahawk and nearly had it broken. That the axe was seized from the hands of the Grenadier Squaw and that Lytle drew his knife to kill McGary and that previously Logan had caught McGary's eye and said "Colonel McGary, you must not molest these prisoners," and drew the reply : "I will see to that." That Logan would warn McGary, the other reply insolently, and that McGary would rave like a madman is consistent with the characters of both. Whether a sixteen year old boy would draw knife on his superior officer and not be punished is inconceivable in any other society than the American frontier. The whole incident is worth space not for itself but for the sidelights thrown upon discipline, treatment of captives, insubordination of officers and men in all frontier expeditions. McGary was tried when the troops returned to Kentucky. His acquittal was a foregone conclusion. Whether he said what McClung puts in his mouth, that statement covered the frontier creed of the majority- Jonathan Alder who was captive among the Shawnees has told of their wanderings and starvings that winter, their corn gone, their cabins destroyed. Like a pack of wolves they wandered about Hardin and Logan counties, eating paw-paws in the late fall, lean raccoons in winter and must have passed a horribly destitute period without clothing, furs, arms, or equipment to hunt or covering to keep warm. They must have been reduced to unwonted humility for next year in 1787 they sent word to the Kentuckians they were not HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 293 responsible for the outrages and that it was the Chickamaugas clan on Paint Creek, whereupon Colonel Robert Todd led an expedition to Paint Creek in Ross County in punishment of these Cherokees.  The Shawnee, valorous as a Spartan, brave as the Belgae, steadfast as the early Roman, proud and defiant as the Germans who had set fire to their camp and perished with their wives and children now had by long attribution come at last to cringing. CHAPTER XXXIV THE SYMMES PURCHASE CINCINNATI THE GATEWAY-FAULTY TITLE-MAJOR STITES-SYMMS' ASSOCIATES. Since Cincinnati and not Marietta is the gateway of West Central Ohio some study of the beginnings of Cincinnati is pertinent. Moreover the. Symmes Purchase as originally made extended into the present limits of West Central Ohio counties. Nature ordained a great city at Cincinnati. Rivers were the roads of the wilderness. The Ohio was the great trunk road westward. The Licking and the Miamis constituted a cross road from the north and south. The Licking tapped the Blue Grass and the Miamis the corn lands of Ohio. Both sections are unsurpassed in United States in an agricultural way. Other streams enter the Ohio between Pittsburgh and the Falls but no two come in opposite each other. John Filson's conception of Losantville or the city opposite the mouth of the Licking has been derided by generations of writers repeating a jibe with parrot laughter but his perception reached nearer to the heart of things than Arthur St. Clair's pretentious classical taste and aristocratic hankerings which substituted "Cincinnati" with almost equally doubtful grammar. Where a great road crosses a granary and one side road, the Miami leads to one of the few portages of the West and that portage hooks into the other great West road, the Great Lakes, there was bound to arise an imperial city- Filson the poet and Robert Patterson, founder of that business breed which has seen - 295 - 296 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO seized and developed, Lexington, Kentucky, Cincinnati and finally, Dayton, united with Mathias Denman, who had a questionable claim to land at the mouth of the Miamis. In the summer of 1788, these three worthies applied for the Cincinnati site. The faulty title of this trio came from the confusion surrounding western lands at that time- Congress had appointed Thomas Jefferson as chairman of a commission to consider the form of government for the West even before the United States had received formal title from Great Britain by treaty. Appointed in October, 1783, Jefferson reported his Ordinance on March 1, 1784, being the same day Virginia had ceded her claims. This Ordinance carried the name "Pelisipia" as a proposed state in what is now southwestern Ohio. It provided for the abolition of slavery in the territory by 1800. The Ordinance passed April 23, 1784. It remained in effect until the passage of the more famous Ordinance of 1787 on July 13 of that year. With the cheerful propensity to appropriate everything in sight not nailed down and clinched, the New Englanders have claimed the credit for the Ordinance of 1787- With characteristic Yankee thrift they brought their political cunning to bear upon its passage and when it was all over had blithely appropriated the ideas of Jefferson, profited by the valor of George Rogers Clark, and on the foundations of these two Virginians, reared the profit making Ohio Company, which was to settle Marietta and with its collection of Yankee settlers ensconced in a small out of the way section of the new state, blandly and forever assume the role of new Pilgrim Fathers, a role which has been apathetically and blindly accepted by undiscriminating ever since. Manassah Cutler was the lobbyist and Rufus Putnam, the leader of this Revolutionary "Bonus" army seeking pensions in the form of land bounties. One look at the profile of Rufus Putnam shows a perfect human wedge built to enter the crack of least resistance. Of the part played around Marietta, by Putnam, Cutler and the Ohio Company there can be no criticism. HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 297 The extension of their claim to being the founders of the western half of the state or the conquerors of any of it must be hotly contesterd in the interest of historical truth. It was from Judge John C. Symmes that Mathias Denman had in 1788 taken his questionable title to what is now Cincinnati. Just as Putnam had been intrigued into Eastern Ohio by the maps of Captain Thomas Hutchins who had explored the Ohio, so Symmes was lured by another and later adventurer to the mouth of the Miamis. Major Benjamin Stites, of the old Redstone fort on the Monongahela, the section which sent out so many western wayfarers for a generation previous to the coming of the New Englanders treading well worn trails, had spied out the resources of the Miami country. Stites, taking a flatboat load of commodities down the Ohio in the spring of 1786 had encountered tale of a Shawnee raid at Maysville, Kentucky. Stites took the leadership of a punitive expedition which penetrated to Old Chillicothe on the Little Miami without results save that Stites and his party crossed over to the Big Miami and returned to its mouth. With the eye of a land speculator, Stites appraised the whole country traversed as worth "A silver dollar the acre." It is said Stites walked all the way on foot to New York where Congress was in session. He visioned a colony and needed capital and political influence. Here is where John Cleves Symmes appeared in the picture. Symmes was son-in-law of Governor Livingstone of New Jersey, had been a delegate to Congress, was a judge and had enough political influence to be made a judge in the new territory. Judge Symmes hurried west, inspected the Miami country in the summer of 1787 and his petition for a grant of land between the two Miamis was presented to Congress, August 29, 1787. Symmes in behalf of himself and his business associates, asked for the lands up the Miamis to a line which should be a continu- 298 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO ation of the western termination of the northern boundary of the grant to the Ohio Company. The petition was referred to the Treasury Board. Symmes must have been of an enthusiastic and optimistic disposition or had abundant faith in his political influence for, he had issued by November of 1787 a prospectus to the public offering land for sale and given a deed for 20,000 acres to Benjamin Stites covering the land at the mouth of the Little Miami. Mathias Denman's grant was opposite the mouth of the Licking, being a 640 acre tract. The Ohio Company had landed its settlers at Marietta on April 7, 1788. Stites and his party landed at the mouth of the Little Miami and began his town of Columbia, November 17, 1788. Seven months separated the beginnings of the first two "Permanent" settlements in Ohio, one is Eastern Ohio, the other in Western Ohio. Henceforth save that the place of government was established at Marietta, there was little or no connection between the development of the two sections of the state. Marietta's claim to the cornerstone of the state of Ohio and its bid for laudation for its "Pilgrim Fathers" rests upon an exaggerated importance attached to the word "Permanent" and to seven months priority in political exploitation of the fruits of the efforts of Boquet, Clark, Dunmore, Lewis, Bowman, Logan, Brodhead, Boone, Kenton and a host of men more concerned with doing and achieving in an adventurous and martial manner than with garnering with political adroitry in fields which others had two-thirds conquered, wholly explored and made known. Both Symmes and the Ohio Company had financial difficulties in meeting their agreements and had to finally accept curtailed tracts, many of the purchasers from Symmes having to re-buy their holdings from the government. Symmes finally getting title to 600,000 acres of which he succeeded in paying for about 300,000 by May, 1792. HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 299 This tract extended a couple of miles north of what is now Lebanon. But as late as January 20, 1797, Symmes was still claiming that Congress would fulfill the contract and offering lands for sale in the original tract. By that time he was getting sadly disappointed, vowing the whites in many instances as worse than Indians and that he had received, the "Blackest-blackest ingratitude." High water had driven Symmes from the site of Cincinnati to more elevated ground at North Bend and the withdrawal of the soldiers to Louisville had left him without protection during most of 1789, a time when Indians threatened the settlement. As the defeats of Harmar and St. Clair and the hard fought campaign of Wayne were to follow these dates, it can be seen that Symmes's fears and his dangers were not imaginary. It cannot be ascertained at this distant date as to whether an astute political hand manipulated the removal of troops or not. The record of those times indicates as much greed, selfishness and cut throat tactics as any time since. The aftermath of the Revolution brought the usual orgy of social looseness and political exploitation such as follows every war. It was the Symmes associations with Jonathan Dayton, Robert Patterson and Israel Ludlow that led these latter into the territory of West Central Ohio and to the founding of Dayton and the running of the Ludlow line. Symmes as the father-in-law of William Henry Harrison and his association with the Harrison line of descent are two interesting side connections. How much William Henry Harrison owed to his marriage, his marital connections with the Livingstones, in promoting his military career is a mooted question. That West Central Ohio was influenced in its development by the military prowess of Harrison at Tippecanoe and in the War of 1812 is an absolute certainty. Just as the Indian attitude in West Central Ohio grew out of the French explorations and the later British occupation plus