24 - HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY.

CHAPTER III.

ADVENT OF THE WHITE MAN.

La Salle Upon the Ohio Two Hundred Years Ago—Possibility of His Having Explored the Muskingum—The Griffin on Lake Erie—French Trading Stations—Routes Through the Wilderness—The Sandusky River—The English Supersede the French--Interest in the West Exhibited by Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, in 1710—The Transmontane Order Founded—Licenses Issued for Trading with the Indians, by the Governor of Pennsylvania, in 1740—Systematic Exploration of the Ohio Valley by Celeron de Bienville—Fort Sandusky Built by the French—Pickawillamy. the First Building Erected by the English in Ohio—Organization of the Colonial Ohio Land Company, in Virginia, in '748—Preparation Made to Establish a Colony—French Resistance—War of Britain Against the French and Indians—Its Results—Franklin's Plans for Western Settlements—Pontiac's War—Fort Sandusky Destroyed—Probable Effect of this Event Upon Lower Sandusky—Immense Schemes for Western Colonization—Colonel Boquet Wins a Bloodless Victory on the Upper Muskingum—Hostility of the Shawnees—Logan—Lord Dunmore's War—The Battle of Point Pleasant—An Event of Immeasurable Importance in the West—General George Roger Clarke's Conquest of the Northwest—Value of His Foresight and Decisive Action—His Services Unappreciated—Miscellaneous Military Invasions—The Establishment of the Moravian Missions on the Muskingum—The Massacre—Crawford's Campaign Against Sandusky.

THE adventurous La Salle, there is every reason to believe, was the first white man who trod the soil of the destined State of Ohio, and the first whose eyes beheld the beautiful river. With a few followers and led by Indian guides he penetrated the vast country of the powerful Iroquois until, as Parkman says, he reached "at a point six or seven leagues from Lake Erie, a branch of the Ohio, which he descended to the main stream," and so went onward as far as the "falls," or the site of Louisville. His men abandoning him there, he retraced his way alone This, according to the best authorities, was in the winter of 1669-70, over two hundred years ago. Indeed, there is some reason to believe that he made his way from Lake Erie to the Ohio by the Cuyahoga, the Tuscarawas and Muskingum, though the preponderance of evidence points to the Alleghany as the route followed. Ten years later La Salle unfurled the first sail ever set to the breeze upon Lake Erie, and upon the Griffin, a schooner of forty-five tons burden, made

HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY - 25

the voyage to Lake Huron. In 1682 he reached the Mississippi, descended to its mouth, and there solemnly proclaimed possession of the vast valley in the name of his king.

It is known that the Sandusky was a water route of travel for the early French traders and explorers from Canada to the Mississippi. They ascended the stream from the bay to the mouth of Little Sandusky, thence up that creek four miles to a portage, thence across the portage, about a quarter of a league to the Little Scioto, thence to the Scioto and the Ohio. "Ascending the Sandusky," writes William Walter to Mr. Butterfield, "to the mouth of the west branch, known as Little Sandusky, with a bark or light wooden canoe, you could in a good stage of water ascend that tributary four or five miles further; thence east across to the Little Scioto is about four miles further. This was the portage." Colonel James Smith estimates the distance, when he crossed, to be one-half mile. This was in the spring of 1757. The Sandusky and Scioto was the path of travel of the northern Indians, when on excursions south in to Kentucky, and also the highways of the Shawnees to Detroit. In early history the term Sandusky is applied to the whole region which casts its waters into the bay. The origin of the name is given in another chapter.

Governor Alexander Spotswood, of Virginia, became interested in the Western country early in the eighteenth century; engaged in exploring the Alleghanies in 1710; discovered a passage through them in 1714, and entered with great ardor upon the scheme of taking practical possession of the Ohio Valley. He founded the Transmontane order, whose knights were decorated with a golden horseshoe bearing the legend "Sic jurat transcendere mantes," and urged upon the British Sovereign the importance of securing a foothold in the West before the French had gained too powerful an ascendancy. His suggestions were not regarded, and many years later the British Government had cause to remember with regret the wise policy they had neglected to act upon. Although no systematic plan of exploration or settlement was followed, individuals from time to time passed the great barrier and visited the valley of the la belle riviere. There have been handed down certain vague traditions that the English had trading posts on the Ohio as early as 1730, and it is known positively that they had soon after that time. In 1744 the Governor of Pennsylvania issued licenses for trading with the Indians as far west as the Father of Waters. John Howard had descended the Ohio in 1742 and been captured on the Mississippi by the French; and six years later Conrad Weiser, acting in behalf of the English, visited the Shawnees at Logstown (below the site of Pittsburgh,) bearing gifts with which to win their favor. About the same time George Crogan and Andrew Montour, the half-breed son of a Seneca chief, bore liberal presents to the Miamis, in return for which the Indians allowed the whites to establish a trading post and build a stockade at the mouth of Loramie Creek on the Great Miami (within the present county of Shelby). The fort, built in 1751, which was called Pickawillamy, has been cited by some writers as the first English settlement in Ohio. The building, which was undoubtedly the first erected by the British on the soil of the State, was destroyed in June, 1752, by a force of French and Indians.

Prior to the middle of the century the French strenuously reasserted their ownership of the Northwest, and did actually take possession of what is now the northern part of Ohio, building a fort and es-

26 - HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY.

tablishing a trading station at Sandusky. This was probably the first trading station east of the Maumee (Miami of the lake). The French looked upon the English traders with jealousy and made reprisals at every opportunity. The Indians of the Lake basin were loyal to the French while those of the South accepted the friendship of the English. These events forecasted serious trouble and made the establishment of a military post on the lake a measure of expediency. Gist's Diary fixes the time under date of December t 7, 1750. At the village of Muskingum, on the Tuscarawas, he makes the following entry:

Two traders belonging to Mr. Croghan came into town and informed us that two of his people had been taken by forty Frenchmen and twenty Indians who carried them, with seven horse-loads of skins, to a new fort the French were building on one of the branches of Lake Erie. *

The location of Fort Sandusky has been a subject of much dispute. Taylor, in his excellent history of Ohio, concludes that the exact locality cannot be ascertained, but the probability is that the site was about three miles west of the city of Sandusky, near the village of Venice, on Sandusky Bay. The old trail from Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh) to Detroit, struck the bay near this point and the fort was probably near the trail. All the Revolutionary treaties with the Indians, and the treaties of Fort Harmar and Greenville, reserve to the United States "six miles square upon Sandusky Lake, where the fort formerly stood." On a map of Ohio, published in 1803, this tract is delineated as extending from the south shore of the bay, and includes the locality Taylor supposes to have been the location of the fort. In this opinion Parkman, in his "Chart of Forts and Settlements of America, A. D. 1763," agrees; but Evans' map

* Bancroft quotes Gist as saying the captives were taken ' to a new French fort at Sandusky."

of the British Colonies, 1755, places the fort on the peninsula, between the bay and lake, and marks Fort Juandat (probably a corruption of Wyandot) near the mouth of the Sandusky River, on the south side of the bay. This latter place is the same as the Indian village of Sunyendeand, visited by Colonel James Smith in 1757. This village was at the mouth of a small creek, but what creek is not known. Evans' Chart would locate it in the territory now included in this county, but the weight of evidence is against that conclusion. There was another Wyandot village at the source of Cold Creek. Celeron de Bienville made a systematic exploration of the Ohio Valley and formally declared by process verbal the ownership of the soil. On the 16th of August, 1749, he was at the mouth of the Muskingum. This fact was revealed in 1798 by the discovery of a leaden plate which had been buried by him and which set forth that the explorer sent out by the Marquis de la Gallissoniere, Captain General of New France, agreeably to the wishes of His Majesty, Louis XV, had deposited the plate as a monument of the renewal of possession of la riviere

Oyo, otherwise la belle riviere, and all those which empty into it, and of all the lands of both sides even to the sources of the said rivers, and which had been obtained by force of arms and by treaties, especially those of Ryswick, Utrecht, and Aix-la-Chapelle. A similar plate was found in 1846 at the mouth of the Kanawha. They were doubtless deposited at the mouths of all the principal tributaries of the Ohio.

The French had a very just claim to the Ohio Valley, but it was destined that they should not hold it, and already events were shaping which eventually led to the over-throw of their authority and the vesture of title and possession in the English crown.

The Colonial Ohio Land Company was organized in Virginia in 1748, by twelve

HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY - 27

associates, among whom were Thomas Lee, and Lawrence and Augustine, brothers of George Washington. Under their auspices Christopher Gist explored the Ohio as far as the falls, travelling a portion of the time with Croghan and Montour. The company secured a royal grant of half a million acres of land in the Ohio Valley. In 1763 preparations were made to establish a colony. The French exhibited an intention of resistance, and the royal Governor of Virginia sent George Washington, then a young man, to the commander of the French forces to demand their reason for invasion of British territory. Washington received an answer that was both haughty and defiant. Returning to Virginia he made known the failure of his mission. The project of making a settlement was abandoned, and preparations were immediately made for the maintenance of the British claim to the western valley by force of arms. The result was the union of the colonies, the ultimate involvement of England in the war that ensued, the defeat of the French, and the vesture in the British crown of the right and title to Canada and of all the territory east of the Mississippi and south to the Spanish possessions, excepting New Orleans and a small body of land surrounding it. Benjamin Franklin had previously tried to effect a union of the colonies and had been unsuccessful. He had proposed a plan of settlement in 1754, and suggested that two colonies should be located in the West—one upon the Cuyahoga and the other upon the Scioto, "on which," he said, "for forty miles each side of it and quite up to its head is a body of all rich land, the finest spot of its bigness in all North America, and has the peculiar advantage of sea coal in plenty (even above ground in two places) for fuel when the wood shall have been destroyed."

The peace concluded by the treaty of Paris in February, 1763, was only a fancied settlement of difficulties in the Northwest. For a few months war clouds shifted from the zenith and left a clear sky just long enough for the frontier farmer to plant his crop in the hope of harvesting in security; and for the industrious trader to begin his journey from village to village. But a storm of terrible fury was gathering on the horizon all around.

The Northwestern Indians submitted sullenly to the British arms. They remained jealous of encroachments, and having been accustomed to receiving splendid presents from the French, they soon began to cherish those bitter feelings of resentment which neglect always inspires. The organization of the Ohio Land Company, the multiplication of grants to settlers by the Government of Virginia, the outrages of the English soldiery which displaced the gay French garrisons in the Northwestern forts, all contributed to bring on the war which is known in history as "Pontiac's Conspiracy." The Ottawa chief, Pontiac, was the soul of a formidable conspiracy which exploded in the spring of 1763, spreading desolation and death throughout the whole Northwest. He was a chief of great genius and possessing qualities unsurpassed by the most distinguished of his race.* There is something lofty in the proud speech addressed to the English traders who came to his camp for purposes of business:

Englishmen ! Although you have conquered the French, you have not yet conquered us. We are not your slaves. These lakes, these woods, these mountains were left to us by our ancestors. They are our inheritance, and we will part with them to none. Your Nation supposes that we, like the white people, cannot live without bread, pork and beef, But you ought to know that the Great Spirit and Master of Life has provided food for us on these lakes and in these mountains.+

*Taylor's History of Ohio.

+Writings of Perkins.

28 - HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY.

Bancroft styles Pontiac the colossal chief, whose "name still hovers over the Northwest, as the hero who devised and conducted a great but unavailing struggle with destiny for the independence of his race." He had taken a conspicuous part in the French war, having been in command of the Indian forces in the defence of Fort Duquesne and at Braddock's defeat. By some historians he is given the title of emperor. Like Tecumseh, a half century later, Pontiac appealed to superstition to reach the Indian heart. He aroused the tribes from the Carolinas to Lake Michigan by interpreting the voice of the Great Spirit as saying to them:. "Why do you suffer these dogs in the red clothing to enter your country and take the land I have given you? Drive them out! Drive them ! When you are in distress I will help you."

By incessant work and unsurpassed genius, Pontiac secretly formed a league which was to environ and enfeeble the garrisons, and by stratagem and force simultaneously to destroy them. The frontiers were then to be swept by a general massacre.

"At last the day came; traders everywhere were seized, their goods taken from them, and more than one hundred put to death. Nine British forts yielded instantly, and the savages drank,—' scooped up in the hollow of joined hands '—the blood of many a Briton. The border streams of Pennsylvania and Virginia ran red again. We hear,' says a letter from Fort Pitt, ` of scalpings every hour.' In western Virginia more than twenty thousand people were driven from their homes. Detroit was besieged by Pontiac himself, after a vain effort to take it by stratagem, and for many months that siege was continued in a manner and with a perseverance unexampled among the Indians. It was the 8th of May when Detroit was first attacked, and on the 3d of the following November it was still in danger. As late as March of the next year the inhabitants were still sleeping in their clothes, expecting an alarm every night."*

The destruction of Fort Sandusky and the consequent destruction of the neighboring Wyandot village, come within our legitimate field, for although the fort was beyond the east line of this county, and the village probably was, the burning of both had the effect of giving Lower Sandusky greater importance in Indian affairs. The destruction of the fort left no foreign military station nearer than Detroit, which gave to the Indians here confidence of greater security, for although in after years they received at the British headquarters pay for furs, bounty for scalps, and ransom for prisoners, they never ceased to entertain a lurking suspicion of the white men. The destruction of the village on the bay had the effect of concentrating the population about the headwaters of navigation, a place more difficult for white expeditions to approach, superior for agriculture, nearer the centre of tribal dominion, and in almost every respectt better adapted for an Indian stronghold than any other point in the lake basin. Colonel Smith's narrative speaks of visiting the "Little Lake," giving that locality considerable importance. After its destruction it was never rebuilt, and Lower Sandusky is next described* as the home of the great war chief Tarhe, the Crane.

From the report of Ensign Paully of the garrison, there has been compiled by Parkman and Bancroft detailed accounts of the siege of the fort.

On the 16th of May (1763), Fort Sandusky was approached by a party of Indians, principally from the Wyandot village. Ensign Paully was informed that seven Indians were waiting at the gate to speak with him. They proved to be four Hurons or Wyan-

* Perkins's Annals of the West.
*By Heckewelder in 1782.

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dots, and three Chippewas, and as several of them were known to him he ordered them to be admitted without hesitation. Arrived at his quarters two of the treacherous visitors seated themselves on each side of the commandant, while the rest were disposed in various parts of the room. The pipes were lighted and conversation began, when an Indian who stood in the door, made a signal by suddenly raising his head. Upon this the astonished officer was seized, disarmed, and tied by those near him, while at the same moment a confused noise of shrieks and yells, firing of guns, and the hurried tramp of feet sounded from the area without. It soon ceased, however, and as Paully was led from the room he saw the dead body of his sentry, and the parade ground was strewn with the corpses of the murdered garrison. The body of his sergeant lay in the garden where he was planting at the time of the massacre. Some traders who were stationed within or near the pickets were also killed and their stores plundered. At nightfall Paully was conducted to the margin of the lake, where several birch canoes lay in readiness, and as amid thick darkness the party pushed out from shore, the captive saw the fort, lately under his command, bursting on all sides into sheets of flame.

The tragedy at Sandusky did not remain unavenged. On the 26th of July a detachment of two hundred and sixty men, under command of Captain Dalzell, arrived at Sandusky on their coastwise route to Detroit. Thence they marched inland to the Wyandot village, which they burned to the ground, at the same time destroying the adjacent fields of standing corn. After inflicting this inadequate retribution of the scene of May 16, Dalzell steered northward, and under cover of night effected a junction with the Detroit garrison.

George Washington made a journey down the Ohio in 1770. He was accompanied by Dr. Craik, Captain (afterwards Colonel) William Crawford (who was burned to death at the stake within the present limits of Wyandot county in 1782), and several other white men, also by a party of Indians.

Largely through Washington was the interest in the West revived. Immense schemes for settlement and land speculation were projected. A huge company was organized which included the Old Ohio Company and the Walpole scheme as well as recognizing the bounties of the Virginia volunteers in the French war. Doubtless some of these plans for the development of the West would have succeeded had it not been for Indian hostilities upon the border settlements already established, and the probability of a long continuance of the perturbed condition of affairs generally. Colonel Henry Boquet, who had the year before rescued the garrison of Fort Duquesne and dispersed Pontiac's warriors, made a military expedition into the Ohio country in 1764, his purpose being to punish and awe the Indians and recover from them the captives they had taken during the previous years on the Pennsylvania and Virginia borders. He was successful in the accomplishment of each one of his objects. The expedition was directed against the Delawares upon the Muskingum and Tuscarawas. No blood was shed, the Indians assenting to the terms of a treaty prepared by Colonel Boquet, and delivering to him over two hundred prisoners. Upon the 28th of November the army of about fifteen hundred returned to Fort Pitt, which point they had left on October 3d. This expedition for a time tranquilized the Indians of the Ohio country, and the next ten years passed peacefully and without the occurrence of any important event.

But returning to the period from which we retrograded to speak of the Boquet expedition, we find in 1774 that the Shawnees have become bitterly hostile, principally on account of the prospect of losing their land and because of the murder of the kindred of Logan, the famous Mingo, who was now dwelling with them at the Old Chillicothe town on the Scioto (where was afterward the village of Westfall, Pickaway county). Logan had "fully glutted his vengeance" upon the white settlements of the Monongahela country, and numerous atrocities had been committed all along the border. To quell the turbulence that prevailed Lord Dunmore, the then royal Governor of Virginia, organized an army of invasion of the Indian country. He

30 - HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY.

had a desire for military renown and decided to assume personal command of the large division, while he entrusted the other, consisting of about eleven hundred men raised west of the Blue Ridge, to General Andrew Lewis. The forces of the latter were attacked by the Indians on the 10th of October, south of the Ohio, and the ensuing combat, known as the battle of Point Pleasant, was one of the most desperate and bloody in the annals of the West. The contending forces were very nearly equal, it is claimed by most writers, but there is strong probability that the Indians were much weaker in numbers than the army which they assailed. The whites lost half of their officers and fifty-two men killed, while the Indian loss was estimated at two hundred and thirty-three. Lord Dunmore's division passed through a bloodless campaign. They descended the Ohio to the mouth of the Hocking River, and there built Fort Gower. The Governor was here at the time of the battle of Point Pleasant, and had sent messengers to Lewis ordering him to march toward the Scioto towns. Dunmore marched through the territory included in Athens county and onward to the Pickaway (originally Piqua) plains, below the site of Circleville. There he was met by Lewis' decimated division, whom he could hardly keep from falling upon the Indians to avenge the death of their comrades at Point Pleasant. A treaty was held at Camp Charlotte, which was attended and acquiesced in by all of the leading chiefs of the villages except Logan. Lord Dunmore dispatched John Gibson to confer with the haughty Mingo, and his visit elicited the famous speech, which Jefferson pronounced equal in eloquence to any ever made by the great orators of civilized nations.

Already the premonitory signs of that discontent which developed into the Revolution and American independence were exhibiting themselves, and soon the conflict was begun which riveted the attention of the world upon the colonies. The Revolutionary period was almost barren of events in the West. There was one event, however, of immeasurable importance. The time had come when the destiny of the Great West—of the Northwestern Territory—was to be decided. The man who was to shape its destiny was, in 1774, an officer in Lord Dunmore's army, and in 1776 a pioneer settler in Kentucky—George Rogers Clarke. He was a realization of the ideal soldier--cool, courageous, and sagacious, and at once the most powerful man and the most picturesque character in the whole West. It was his foresight and prompt, efficient action which at the close of the war made the Northwest Territory a portion of the United States instead of leaving it in possession of the British.* He foresaw that even if the colonies should be victorious in the War for Independence they would be confined to the eastern side of the Alleghanies, unless the West was a special field of conquest. After failing to interest the House of Burgesses he made an appeal to Patrick Henry, the Governor of Virginia, and from him he succeeded in obtaining the authority which he needed, viz.: commissions that empowered him to raise seven companies of soldiers, and to seize the British posts in the Northwest In January, 1778, he was at Pittsburg securing provisions and ammunition; in June he was marching through the unbroken forest at the head of a small but valiant army, principally composed of his fellow

*- The cession of that great territory, under the treaty of 1773, was due mainly to the foresight, the courage and endurance of one man, who never received from his country an adequate recognition of his great service."—Hon. James A. Garfield. Address, 1873.

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pioneers from Kentucky. His march was directed towards the Illinois country. His able generalship and courage soon placed the garrisons of Cahokia, Kaskaskia, and St. Vincent in his possession, and his equally great tact enabled him to win over the French inhabitants to the American cause and make of them warm allies. Two other expeditions were made by General Clarke—both against the Indians upon the Miamis—one in 1780 and the other in 1782. Other expeditions into or through Ohio territory were made as follows: by Colonel Bradstreet (simultaneously with Boquet's expedition— 1764) along Lake Erie to Detroit, accompanied by Major Israel Putnam (the Major-General of the Revolution); by Colonel Angus McDonald (just prior to Dunmore's invasion); by General Lachlin McIntosh in 1778 (to the Tuscarawas, where he built the first English fort, with a parapet and stockade, intended as a permanent work, in Ohio); by Colonel John Bowman in 1779; by General Daniel Broadhead in 1781; by Colonel Archibald Lochry in the same year; by Colonel Williamson in 1782; by Colonel Benjamin Logan in 1786; and still others of less importance by Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, Colonel Edwards, and Colonel Todd, at various times during the decade preceding the settlement of the territory.

Another topic to be touched upon briefly in this chapter is of painful and peculiar interest. We have in mind the Moravian missions on the Muskingum, and use the word painful, as the horrible massacre perpetrated there—the blackest stain on Ohio history—comes to mind. We say also a peculiar interest, and that phrase is suggested by the fact that the Moravians had better claims to be considered as settlers than any other dwellers north of the Ohio, prior to the arrival of the New England colony, and howeverinadequate such claims may appear it must at least be admitted that these " monks of Protestantism "* presented to the Western world a phase of civilization and religion which was both picturesque and inspiring.

As early as 176r the Delaware Indians on the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum were visited by a Moravian missionary, the Rev. Christian Frederick Post. In March of the following year John Heckewelder became his companion and assistant. Only a few months, however, were spent in missionary labor, for in the fall the Indians who had first welcomed them, became suspicious that their sojourn there was only a ruse through which a foothold was to be gained leading to settlement, and Post and Heckewelder were obliged to leave the country to save their lives. Not until ten years had passed by was another attempt made by the zealous religionists to plant a mission among the savages. In 1772 Rev. David Zeisberger founded Schoenbrunn (Beautiful Spring) on the west side of the river and near the site of New Philadelphia, Tuscarawas county, and twenty-eight persons located there. Gnadenhutten (Tents of Grace) was established the same year seven miles below Schoenbrunn. The Rev. George Jungman, Rev John Roth and Rev. John Etwin, came out as missionaries from Pennsylvania the same year; and with the last named, immigrated to Zeisberger's Station a large company of converted Indians, bringing with them the implements of industry. Good log huts were built in the regularly laid out village, a large chapel reared in which to hold religious services, the ground tilled, and every measure taken that was considered needful in the formation of a permanent settlement. The simple, quiet life went on very pleasantly, and all was peace and

* Madame de Stael.

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prosperity. Much did the Delaware chiefs and the few traders who visited Schoenbrunn marvel to see so many Indians living together after the manner of the whites, and devoting themselves to agriculture rather than the chase. They had abjured war and all savage customs. New converts were made almost daily, and the pious missionaries felt well rewarded for their patient toil, and gave praise to Him whom they regarded as the prime author of their success. So many accessions were made by the Moravians that in 1776 Zeisberger formed another colony, village or station, near the present town of Coshocton, and gave it the name Lichtenan. In 178o Salem was founded five miles below Gnadenhutten, and the Rev. John Heckewelder became its regular preacher.

All went well with the mission stations until the British, fearing or pretending to fear, that they were performing various services for the Americans, forcibly removed them in September, 1781, to Upper Sandusky. They were sorely distressed by lack of provisions, and in the latter part of the following winter obtained permission to return to their old stations and gather the corn which they had planted the summer before, and to secure if possible any of the valuables they had been obliged to leave behind them when they were hurried away. They came down from Sandusky in February, and March 1 found them busily engaged in plucking the corn which had been left standing during the winter, and packing it for transportation to their famishing brethren. "The weather during the greater part of February," says Doddridge, "had been uncommonly fine, so that the war parties from Sandusky visited the settlements and began depredations earlier than usual. One of the parties fell upon a family named Wallace and murdered all of its members, exhibiting even greater brutalitythan usually characterized their atrocities. The early period at which the fatal visitation was made led to the conclusion that the murderers were either Moravians or that the warriors had their winter quarters at their towns on the Muskingum. In either case the Moravians being at fault, the safety of the pioneer settlements required the destruction of their establishments at that place.* A force of eighty or ninety men was immediately organized, and led by Colonel David Williamson set out for the Muskingum. On their arrival at Gnadenhutten they found the Indians in the fields gathering their corn and with their arms by them as was the common custom, for the purpose of shooting game, and also to guard against attack. The unsuspecting Indians hearing the whites' protestations of peace and good will, and being informed that they had come to remove them to Fort Pitt and place them under the protection of the Americans, gave up their arms and began with all speed to prepare food for the white men and themselves for the proposed journey. A party of men sent out for the purpose soon brought in the Indians from Salem, and with the Gnadenhutten Indians they were placed in block-houses and confined under an armed guard. Colonel Williamson then coolly put the question to his men, should the prisoners be taken to Pittsburg or dispatched. Sixteen or eighteen men only out of the eighty or ninety men leaned toward the side of mercy. The majority were for murdering them and were impatient to begin their hellish work. The Moravians had foreseen their fate as soon as they had been placed in confinement, and in the hour of extremity exhibited the steadfastness of their simple faith by singing the hymns and breathing the

*Notes on the Early Settlement and Indian Wars in Western Virginia and Pennsylvania by Joseph Doddridge.

HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY - 33

prayers that Heckewelder and Zeisberger had taught them. Some of them appealed for mercy when the murderers came among them to begin their work, but the greater number, sustained by their acquired religious faith or natural stoicism, met death with majestic composure. The executioners, with tomahawks, war-clubs, and knives, entering the crowded slaughter-pens struck down the defenceless and innocent captives until_ their arms grew tired, and then their places were taken by others of those white savages who thirsted for blood; and the dreadful carnage went on until ninety-six byes had been taken. Of these sixty-two were grown persons, of whom one-third were women, and the remaining thirty four were children of various ages, from those just entering manhood or womanhood down to babes on their mothers' breasts. Neither the gray hairs of old age nor the mute, appealing innocence of childhood were protection from the fury and the brutality of these fiends in the form of men. Of all these Indians gathered in the block-houses only two escaped. Those at Schoenbrunn fled before the approach of Williamson's men and none of them were taken. This massacre occurred on the 7th of March, 1782, just six years and one month before the landing of the pioneer colony of Ohio at the mouth of the Muskingum.

The wanton butchery of these inoffensive Moravians, more than any other event in Western history, had the effect of making the Indians hostile to the Americans, and, therefore, naturally inclining them to amity with the British. This was an end which the latter people constantly sought to effect by every method of intrigue. There is some reason, too, for the belief that Williamson's men were led to the Moravian towns and incited to the commission of the stupendous massacre through the shrewd wiles of the British. It seems to be authoritatively established that the murderers of the Wallace family retreated by way of Gnadenhutten, and that one of them bartered with an unsuspecting young woman there for food, and in payment gave her a garment which he had stripped from Mrs. Wallace or one of the other victims, and that this garment was seen and recognized by some of the pursuing party as one which had been familiar to them at their homes. This fact may partly explain, but cannot in the slightest measure justify, the murder of ninety-six persons. It is sufficient, at any rate, to suggest the suspicion that to a dark stratagem of the English emissaries in the West, was attributed the foulest deed in the history of the border. The Indians, wrought into frenzied passion, began that malignant, remorseless, and tin_ ceasing raiding of the borders which terrorized the frontiers from Fort Pitt to the falls of the Ohio. Their evil deeds were more numerous than ever before, and their treatment of prisoners more severe. One of the first acts of retaliation upon the Americans, strangely enough, was visited upon Colonel William Crawford, an intimate friend and companion at arms of Colonel Williamson. But the diabolical cruelty that was practiced upon him was only one of the many horrible deeds which were the outgrowth of the white man's crime.

Of Crawford's campaign we shall speak at greater length, because of its relation to the legitimate field of this history. The object of this fated expedition was to destroy the Wyandot and Delaware towns on the Upper Sandusky plains, and to punish these Indians for border depredations. The border had suffered seriously, and when the object was announced volunteers were not found wanting to engage in a work of punishment and revenge. The War Department encouraged the

34 - HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY.

movement in the hope of being able to strike a blow which would silence hostility from this quarter.

On the 20th of May, 1782, the volunteers assembled at a deserted Mingo village on the west bank of the Ohio, seventy-five miles below Pittsburgh, their number being about four hundred and fifty. Here occurred the election of officers. The two candidates for colonel were William Crawford and David Williamson. The latter's recommendation was the murder of the Christian Indians two months before; the former was chosen because of his experience as an Indian fighter in the French war and his activity as a Revolutionary patriot. He was a friend of General Washington, whose acquaintance he made in the French war. It was unfortunate for Crawford, as the sequel shows, that Williamson, whom the Indians hated more than any other white man, was chosen to the position of second in command. On May 25 the army commenced the march in high spirits and sanguine of complete success.

The Indians during this time were not inactive. Williamson had taught them the necessity of wakefulness, and spies daily visited the border hills along the Ohio. Before the organization of the volunteers or, the Ohio side was complete, the whole Indian country, from the falls of the Sandusky far into the Scioto and Miami Valleys was making hurried preparations for war. The objective point of the expedition the Indians did not know, but the warriors of every tribe were in readiness, and swift spies promptly reported the onward march of the mounted volunteers. They read on the trees the inscription left by loungers of the advancing army, "No quarter is to be given to any Indian, whether man, woman, or child." They saw prominently in command the hated Williamson and had no reason to doubtthe terrible and inhuman threat. Every patriotic, more than that, every generous feeling of the red man's heart was aroused. More than their beautiful valley and loved hunting ground was now at stake; upon the issue of the battle hung the lives of their women and innocent children. We do not mean to imply that this threat was authorized by Colonel Crawford, or that in the event of success he would have permitted indiscriminate murder without mercy, as Williamson had at Gnadenhutten, but the Indians had both precedent and threat on which to base premonitions of the terrors of defeat, and their resolve to fight as long as a drop of blood remained to give them strength, is an evidence of real nobility of character.

The northward course of the volunteers after crossing the Muskingum left no doubt as to the destination of the expedition. The Shawnees of the Upper Scioto, the Delawares, and the Wyandots of the whole Sandusky Valley began to concentrate their forces on the plains. Meanwhile the mounted borderers were rapidly approaching, anxious for the fray. The sixth day the old Moravian village on one of the upper branches of the Sandusky was reached, but, as will be seen in a succeeding chapter, the missionary band had been removed in March preceding, and the congregation dispersed by .order of Governor DePeyster, commandant at Detroit. This was a fortunate circumstance, for it was the purpose of the invaders to destroy and plunder this village first. In place of meeting with Indians and plunder they found nothing but vestiges of desolation.

The army next moved to where the town of Sandusky formerly stood, but from which the Indians had lately moved to their new town eighteen miles below. Again disappointed at finding no Indians or plunder, the volunteers became

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anxious to return, giving as a reason that only five days' rations remained and that the horses were jaded ; so a council was held and the officers decided to continue the march one day longer; but just as the council was breaking up a scout reported that the advance guard had met the Indians in considerable numbers. The main line resolutely advanced over the plain covered with high grass, while the advance guard slowly retired before the enemy. The red warriors began to take shelter in an island of wood in the vast expanse of grassy plain. Crawford, seeing the advantage thus being gained by his enemy, ordered his men to dismount, tie their horses and force the Indians from their position, which they did. The Indians continued their fire from the high grass in the prairie. From 4 o'clock until dark the contest was animated. Some of the volunteers ascended into the thick tops of the trees, and from these aimed messengers of death at the enemy sheltering in the grass, while others from behind trees and logs fired at the red warriors when they raised to shoot. The presence of Girty, the white savage, was noticed among the Indians, and Elliott, a runaway Tory of Pennsylvania, who was given a captain's commission in the British army, was seen directing the battle. At night the enemy withdrew, and Crawford's soldiers slept on their arms expecting to resume battle the next morning. The attack was not resumed as was expected, as the Indians seemed to be awaiting reinforcements. In large bodies they traversed the plains in every direction, apparently carrying off their dead.

It was evident to the volunteers that the Indian forces were increasing rapidly and that their position was one of great danger. At nightfall a council was held and a retreat decided upon.

The outposts were silently withdrawn,and the troops arranged in three parallel lines with the wounded in the centre. At 9 o'clock the retreat began in good order. Scarcely a hundred paces had been traversed, when the report of several shots in the rear had the effect of a lightning shock upon the lines. The shrill voice of a man in front crying out that the design was discovered, and the "savages" would soon be upon them, precipitated a panic. Uproar . and confusion made the command unmanageable. The wounded were abandoned, and straggling parties hurried in every direction. The Indians, abandoning the main body, pursued the stragglers, and few of them escaped. Less than three hundred reached the Ohio, thus making the number killed and captured more than one hundred and fifty, among whom was the commandant. The remnant of the army was conducted back to the frontier by Colonel Williamson.

Colonel Crawford, when flight commenced, tried to seek out from the panic-stricken soldiers his son, son-in-law and two nephews, and for this purpose remained till the last straggler had passed. He met the surgeon, Dr. Knight, but no trace of those for whom he was searching was found. Presently a heavy fire was heard in the distance, accompanied by yells, which indicated a fierce attack. Crawford, out of heart and anticipating the worst, set off with Dr. Knight and two others in a northward direction. After traveling about an hour they turned east, thus avoiding the enemy. They entered the forest arid pushed their course eastward as fast as their horses could travel until morning, when the exhausted animals were abandoned, and the refugees hurried along on foot. Their company was increased to six in the course of the day, by casually meeting Captain Biggs and Lieutenant Ashley, to whom he had given his horse, Ashley being wounded. On the second day they came to the path

36 - HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY.

which the expedition had followed on their advance. Here Crawford insisted on retracing the trail, and the other members of the party reluctantly followed. They had not travelled more than an hour, when a party of Delaware Indians sprang up within twenty yards of Crawford and Knight, who were one hundred and fifty yards in advance of their comrades. The Indians presented their guns, and in good English ordered the fugitives to stop. Crawford and Knight surrendered; the other members of the party escaped, but two of them, Biggs and Ashley, were captured and killed the next day.

It was an unfortunate circumstance for Crawford that he was captured by Delawares, for the disposal of his case thereby fell to Captain Pipe, at whose hands little mercy could be expected. He was taken to Sandusky, where he was permitted an interview with Simon Girty, whom he had known. Girty promised to do all he could to procure his ransom, and it is supposed offered Captain Pipe three hundred and fifty dollars to release the prisoner. The proud Delaware treated the proposition as an insult and threatened Girty with torture should it be renewed.

On the morning of June it, 1782, Crawford was taken to the old town, where he joined his companions in captivity, whose faces had been painted black by Captain Pipe. Pipe, upon Crawford's arrival, painted him also, but was respectful 'and dignified in his manner. The party now proceeded toward Tymochtee, Crawford and Knight in charge of Wingemand and Pipe, the other nine prisoners being sent on ahead. The two in the rear had the horror of seeing the bodies of four of the prisoners in the path, and of witnessing the slaughter of the other five. Now anticipating the worst, Crawford took advantage of an opportunity to make an appeal to Wingemand, whom he hadlong known and frequently drank punch with. The chief told him that nothing could save him ; that he had come with the cowardly Williamson to destroy the defenceless Christian Indians. Crawford tried to convince the chief that he was not responsible for the murder of the Moravians, and would have prevented a repetition of that atrocity. We quote the chief's reply, which shows the intense feeling of the Indian nature:

Had Williamson been taken with you, I and some of my friends, by making use of what you have said, might, perhaps, have saved you; but as the matter now stands no man would dare interfere in your behalf. The King of England himself, were he to come to this spot, with all his wealth and treasure, could not effect this purpose. The blood of the innocent Morivians, more than half of them women and children, cruelly and wantonly murdered, calls for revenge. The relatives of the stain who are among us, cry out and stand ready for revenge. The nation to which they belonged will have revenge, The Shawnees, our grandchildren, have asked for your fellow prisoner (Dr. Knight). On him they will take revenge. All nations connected with us cry out, revenge, revenge. The Moravians whom they came to destroy, having fled instead of avenging their brethren, the offence is become national, and the nation itself is bound to take revenge.

The chief then tried to reconcile Crawford to his fate. When the crowd came to the pile he took an affectionate farewell of his old friend, and hid in the bushes. The fire was lighted, and no words can express the three hours of excruciating torture and pain which ended the ill-fated life. In vain the sufferer appealed to Girty for the mercy of a well aimed bullet, but that monster exulted at his writhing, and-told Knight, the other prisoner, that a piecisely similar fate awaited him. After the last breath of life had passed away in the ascending smoke, Knight was placed in charge of a guide and hurried toward the Shawnee towns on Mad River. He made his escape, however, on the way, and returned to Virginia.

Thus ended the doomed expedition of Crawford. The Wyandots returned to

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their homes on the Sandusky with greater confidence in their own power and ability to resist invasion. The failure of the expedition also preserved to the territory of the Wyandots of Sandusky a superstition that it was to be the inviolable seat of the nation.