History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources, Part 24

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company
Number of Pages: 1164

USA > Illinois > Vermilion County > History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources > Part 24

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§ The name by which the Indians called the governor of Canada.

219

FRENCH TRADERS KILLED.

sides against us ; that he would not be responsible for the good dispositions these Indians seem to entertain, inasmuch as the Miamis are their near relatives. On the one hand, Mr. de Jon- caire* repeats that the Indians of the beautiful rivert are all English, for whom alone they work; that all are resolved to sustain each other ; and that not a party of Indians go to the beautiful river but leave some [of their numbers] there to increase the rebel forces. On the other hand, "Mr. de St. Ange, commandant of the post of Vincennes, writes to M. des Ligneris [at Oniatanon] to use all means to protect himself from the storm which is ready to burst on the French ; that he is busy securing himself against the fury of our enemies."

"The Pianguichias, who are at war with the Chaouanons, ac- cording to the report rendered by Mr. St. Clin, have declared entirely against us. They killed on Christmas five Frenchmen at the Ver- milion. Mr. des Ligneris, who was aware of this attack, sent off a detachment to secure the effects of the Frenchmen from being plun- dered ; but when this detachment arrived at the Vermilion, the Piankashaws had decamped. The bodies of the Frenchmen were found on the ice.+

" M. des Ligneris was assured that the Piankashaws had commit- ted this act because four men of their nation had been killed by the French at the Illinois, and four others had been taken and put in irons. It is said that these cight men were going to fight the Chick- asaws, and had, without distrusting anything, entered the quarters of the French, who killed them. It is also reported that the French- men had recourse to this extreme measure because a Frenchman and

* A French half-breed having great influence over the Indians, and whom the French authorities had sent into Ohio to conciliate the Indians.

+ The Ohio.

# Col. Croghan's Journal, before quoted, gives the key to the aboriginal name of this stream. On the 22d of June, 1765, he makes the following entry: " We passed through a part of the same meadow mentioned yesterday; then came to a high wood- land and arrived at Vermilion River, so called from a fine red earth found there by the Indians, with which they paint themselves. About a half a mile from where we crossed this river there is a village of Piankashaws, distinguished by the addition of the name of the river " (that is, the Piankashaws of the Vermilion, or the Vermilions, as they were sometimes called). The red earth or red chalk, known under the provincial name of red keel, is abundant everywhere along the bluffs of the Vermilion, in the shales that overlay the outcropping coal. The annual fires frequently ignited the coal thus exposed, and would burn the shale above, turn it red and render it friable. Carpen- ters used it to chalk their lines, and the successive generation of boys have gathered it by the pocketful. Those acquainted with the passion of the Indian for paint, particu- larly red, will understand the importance which the Indians would attach to it. Hence, as noted by Croghan, they called the river after the name of this red earth. Vermilion is the French word conveying the same idea, and it is a comcidence merely that Ver- milion in French has the same meaning as this word in English On the map in "Volney's View of the Soil and Climate of the United States," Phila. ed. 1804, it is called Red River. The Miami Indian name of the Vermilion was Piankashair, as ap- pears from Gen. Putnam's manuscript Journal of the treaty at Vincennes in 1792

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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

two slaves had been killed a few days before by another party of Piankashaws, and that the Indians in question had no knowledge of that circumstance. The capture of four English traders by M. de Celoron's order last year has not prevented other Englishmen going to trade at the Vermilion River, where the Rev. Father la Richardie wintered. "*

The memoir continues: "On the 19th of October the Pianka- shaws had killed two more Frenehmen, who were constructing pirogues lower down than the Post of Vincenne. Two days after- ward the Piankashaws killed two slaves in sight of Fort Vincenne. The murder of these nine Frenchmen and these two slaves is but too certain. A squaw, the widow of one of the Frenchmen who had been killed at the Vermilion, has reported that the Pianguichias, Illinois and Osages were to assemble at the prairies of -, the place where Messrs. de Villiers and de Noyelle attacked the Foxes about twenty years ago, and when they had built a fort to secure their families, they were to make a general attack on all the French. " The Miamis of Rock Rivert have scalped two soldiers belong- ing to Mr. Villiers' fort.# This blow was struck last fall. Finally, the English have paid the Miamis for the scalps of the two soldiers belonging to Mr. de Villiers' garrison. To add to the misfortunes, M. des Ligneris has learned that the commandant of the Illinois at Fort Charters would not permit Sieurs Delisle and Fonblanche, who had contracted with the king to supply the Miamis, Ouyaton- ons, and even Detroit with provisions from the Illinois, to purchase any provisions for the subsistence of the garrisons of those posts, on the ground that an increased arrival of troops and families would consume the stock at the Illinois. Famine is not the sole scourge we experience ; the smallpox commits ravages; it begins to reach Detroit. It were desirable that it should break out and spread gen- erally throughout the localities inhabited by our rebels. It would be fully as good as an army."

The Piankashaws, now completely estranged from the French, withdrew, almost in a body, from the Wabash, and retired to the Big Miami, whither a number of Miamis and other Indians had,

* Father Justinian de la Richardie came to Canada (according to the Liste Crono- logique, No. 429) in 1716. He served many years in the Huron country, and also in the Illinois, and died in February, 1758. Biographical note of the editor of Paris Documents : Col. Hist. of New York, vol. 9. p. 88. The time when and the place at which this missionary was stationed on the Vermilion River is not given. The date was before 1750, as is evident from the text. The place was probably at the large Piankashaw town where the traders were killed.

t The Big Miami River of Ohio, on which stream, near the mouth of Loramies Creek, the Miamis had an extensive village, hereafter referred to.

# Ft. Wayne, where Mr. Villiers was then stationed in charge of Fort Miamis.

221

PICKAWILLANY.

some years previous, established a village, to be nearer the English traders. The village was called Pickawillany, or Picktown. To the English and Iroquois it was known as the Tawixtwi Town, or Miamitown. It was located at the mouth of what has since been called Loramie's creek. The stream derived this name from the fact that a Frenchman of that name, subsequent to the events here nar- rated, had a trading-house at this place. The town was visited in 1751 by Christopher Gist, who gives the following description of it :* "The Twightee town is situated on the northwest side of the Big Min e ami River, about one hundred and fifty miles from its month. It consists of four hundred families, and is daily increasing. It is accounted one of the strongest Indian towns in this part of the con- tinent. The Twightees are a very numerous people, consisting of many different tribes under the same form of government. Each tribe has a particular chief, or king, one of which is chosen indiffer- ently out of any tribe to rule the whole nation, and is vested with greater authority than any of the others. They have but lately traded with the English. They formerly lived on the farther side of the Wabash, and were in the French interests, who supplied them with some few 'trifles at a most exorbitant price. They have now revolted from them and left their former habitations for the sake of trading with the English, and notwithstanding all the artifices the French have used, they have not been able to recall them." George Croghan and Mr. Montour, agents in the English interests, were in the town at the time of Gist's visit, doing what they could to inten- sify the animosity of the inhabitants against the French. Speeches were made and presents exchanged to cement the friendship with the English. While these conferences were going on, a deputation of Indians in the French interests arrived, with soft words and valu- able presents, marching into the village under French colors. The deputation was admitted to the council-house, that they might make the object of their visit known. The Piankashaw chief, or king, "Old Britton," as he was called, on account of his attachment for the English, had both the British and French flags hoisted from the council-house. The old chief refused the brandy, tobacco and other presents sent to him from the French king. In reply to the speeches of the French ambassadors he said that the road to the French had been made foul and bloody by them; that he had cleared a road to our brothers, the English, and that the French had made that bad. The French flag was taken down, and the emissaries

* Christopher Gist's Journal.

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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

of that people, with their presents, returned to the French post from whence they came.

When negotiations failed to win the Miamis back to French authority, force was resorted to. On the 21st of June, 1752, a party of two hundred and forty French and Indians appeared before Pick- awillany, surprised the Indians in their corn-fields, approaching so suddenly that the white men who were in their houses had great difficulty in reaching the fort. They killed one Englishman and fourteen Miamis. captured the stockade fort. killed the old Pianka- shaw king, and put his body in a kettle. boiled it and ate it up in retaliation for his people having killed the French traders on the Vermilion River and at Vincennes. * "Thus," says the eloquent historian, George Bancroft, "on the alluvial lands of western Ohio began the contest that was to scatter death broadcast through the world."+

# The account of the affair at Pickawillany is summarized from the Journal of Capt. Wm. Trent and other papers contained in a valuable book edited by A. T. Goodman, secretary of the Western Reserve Historical Society, and published by Robert Clarke & Co., 1871, entitled "Journal of Captain Trent."

+ Old Britton's successor was his son, a young man, whose name was Mu-she- gu-a-nock-que, or "The Turtle." The English, and Indians in their interests, had a very high esteem for the young Piankashaw king. It is said by some writers, and there is much probability of the correctness of their opinion, that the great Miami chief, Little Turtle, was none other than the person here referred to. His age would correspond very well with that of the Piankashaw, and members of one band of the Miami nation frequently took up their abode with other bands or families of their kin- dred.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE WAR FOR THE EMPIRE. ITS LOSS TO THE FRENCH.

THE English not only disputed the right of the French to the fur trade, but denied their title to the valley of the Mississippi, which lay west of their American colonies on the Atlantic coast. The grants from the British crown conveyed to the chartered pro- prietors all of the country lying between certain parallels of latitude, according to the location of the several grants, and extending west- ward to the South Sea, as the Pacific was then called. Seeing the weakness of such a claim to vast tracts of country, npon which no Englishman had ever set his foot, they obtained deeds of cession from the Iroquois Indians, - the dominant tribe east of the Mississip- pi, - who claimed all of the country between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi by conquest from the several Algonquin tribes, who occu- pied it. On the 13th of July, 1701, the sachems of the Five Nations conveyed to William III, King of Great Britain, "their beaver- hunting grounds northwest and west from Albany," including a broad strip on the south side of Lake Erie, all of the present states of Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, and Illinois as far west as the Illi- nois River, claiming " that their ancestors did, more than fourscore years before, totally conquer, subdue and drive the former occupants out of that country, and had peaceable and quiet possession of the same, to hunt beavers in, it being the only chief place for hunting in that part of the world," etc .* The Iroquois, for themselves and heirs, granted the English crown "the whole soil, the lakes, the

* The deed is found in London Documents, vol. 4, p. 908. The boundaries of the grant are indefinite in many respects. Its westward limit, says the deed, "abutts upon the Twichtwichs [Miamis], and is bounded on the right hand by a place called Quadoge." On Eman Bowen's map, which is certainly the most authentic from the British standpoint, is a " pecked line" extending from the mouth of the Illinois river, up that stream, to the Desplaines, thence across the prairies to Lake Michigan at Quadoge or Quadaghe, which is located on the map some distance southeast of Chicago, which is also shown in its correct place, and at or near the mouth of the stream that forms the harbor at Michigan City, formerly known by the French as Riviere du Che- min, or " Trail River," because the great trail from Chicago to Detroit and Ft. Wayne left the lake shore at this place. The " pecked line,"- as Mr. Bowen calls the dotted line which he traces as the boundary of the Iroquois deed of cession,-extends from Michigan City northward through the entire length of Lake Michigan, the Straits of Mackinaw and between the Manitou-lin islands and the main shore in Lake Huron; thence into Canada around the north shore of Lake Nipissing; and thence down the Ottawa River to its confluence with the St. Lawrence.

223

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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

rivers, and all things pertaining to said tract of land. with power to erect forts and castles there." only reserving to the grantors and "their descendants forever the right of hunting upon the same, " in which privilege the grantee " was expected to protect them." The grant of the Iroquois was confirmed to the British crown by deeds of renewal in 1726 and 1744. The reader will have observed. from what has been said in the preceding chapters upon the Illinois and Miamis and Pottawatomies relative to the pretended conquests of the Iroquois, how little merit there was in the claim they set up to the territory in question. Their war parties only raided upon the country, -they never occupied it; their war parties. after doing as much mischief as they could. returned to their own country as rapidly as they came. Still their several deeds to the English crown were a " color of title" on which the latter laid great stress. and paraded at every treaty with other powers, where questions involv- ing the right to this territory were a subject of discussion. *

The war for the fur trade expanded into a struggle for empire that convulsed both continents of America and Europe. The limit assigned this work forbids a notice of the principal occurrences in the progress of the French-Colonial War. as most of the military movements in that contest were outside of the territory we are con- sidering. There were. however, two campaigns conducted by troops recruited in the northwest. and these engagements will be noticed. We believe they have not heretofore been compiled as fully as their importance would seem to demand.

In 1758 Gen. Forbes. with about six thousand troops, advanced against Fort Du Quesne.+ In mid-September the British troops had only reached Loyal-hannon.+ where they raised a fort. . Intelli- gence had been received that Fort Du Quesne was defended by but eight hundred men. of whom three hundred were Indians, "§ and Major Grant. commanding eight hundred Highlanders and a com- pany of Virginians, was sent toward the French fort. On the third

* The Iroquois themselves,- as appears from an English memoir on the Indian trade, and contained among the London Documents, vol. 7, p. 18,-never supposed they had actually conveyed their right of dominion to these lands. Indeed, it appears that the Indians generally could not comprehend the purport of a deed or grant in the sense that the Europeans attach to these formidable instruments. The idea of an absolute, fee-simple right of an individual. or of a body of persons, to exclusively own real estate against the right of others even to enter upon it, to hunt or cut a shrub, was beyond the power of an Indian to comprehend. From long habit and the owner- ship (not only of land but many articles of domestic use) by the tribe or village of property in common, they could not understand how it could be held otherwise.

t At the present site of Pittsburgh, Pa.

# Loyal-hannon, afterward Fort Ligonier. was situated on the east side of Loyal- hannon Creek, Westmoreland county, Pa .. and was about forty-five miles from Fort Du Quesne; ride Pennsylvania Archives, XII, 389.

§ Bancroft, vol. iv, p. 311.

225

DEFEAT OF THE ENGLISH.

day's march Grant had arrived within two miles of Fort Du Quesne. Leaving his baggage there, he took position on a hill, a quarter of a mile from the fort, and encamped."

Grant, who was not aware that the garrison had been reinforced by the arrival of Mons. Aubry, commandant at Fort Chartes, witle four hundred men from the Illinois country, determined on an am- buscade. At break of day Major Lewis was sent, with four hundred men, to lie in ambush a mile and a half from the main body, on the path on which they left their baggage, imagining the French would send a force to attack the baggage guard and seize it. Four hundred men were po-ted along the hill facing the fort to cover the retreat of MacDonald's company, which marched with drums beating toward the fort, in order to draw a party out of it, as Major Grant had rea- son to believe there were, including Indians, only two hundred mem within it.+

M. de Ligneris, commandant at Fort Du Quesne, at once assent- bled seven or eight hundred men, and gave the command to M. Aubry.# The French sallied out of the fort, and the Indians, who had crossed the river to keep out of the way of the British, returned and made a flank movement. Aubry, by a rapid movement, attacked the different divisions of the English, and completely routed and dispersed them. The force under Major Lewis was compelled to give way. Being flanked, a number were driven into the river, most of whom were drowned. The English lost two hundred and seventy killed, forty-two wounded, and several prisoners ; among the latter was Grant.

On the 22d of September M. Aubry left Fort Du Quesne, with a force of six hundred French and Indians, intending to reconnoitre the position of the English at Loyal-hannon.

" He found a little camp in front of some intrenchments which would cover a body of two thousand men. The advance guard of the French detachment having been discovered, the English sent a captain and fifty men to reconnoitre, who fell in with the detach- ment and were entirely defeated. In following the fugitives the French fell upon this camp, and surprised and dispersed it.

" The fugitives scarcely gained the principal intrenchment, whiche M. Aubry held in blockade two days. He killed two hundred horses and cattle." The French returned to Fort Dn Quesne mounted.§ "The English lost in the engagement one hundred and fifty meu,

* The hill has ever since borne Grant's name.

+ Craig's History of Pittsburgh, p. 74.

# Garneau's History of Canada, Bell's translation, vol. 2, p. 214.

§ Pouchot's Memoir, p. 130.

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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

killed, wounded and missing. The French loss was two killed and seven wounded."

The Louisiana detachment, which took the principal part in both of these battles, was recruited from the French posts in " The Illi- nois." and consisted of soldiers taken from the garrison in that terri- tory, and the coureurs des bois, traders and settlers in their respective neighborhoods. It was the first battalion ever raised within the limits of the present states of Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. After the action of Loyal-hannon. "the Louisiana detachment, as well as those from Detroit, returned home."#

Soon after their departure, and on the 24th of November. the French abandoned Fort Du Quesne. 'Pouchot says : " It came to pass that by blundering at Fort Du Quesne the French were obliged to abandon it for want of provisions." This may have been the true reason for the abandonment. but doubtless the near approach of a large English army, commanded by Gen. Forbes, had no small influence in accelerating their movements. The fort was a mere stockade, of small dimensions, and not suited to resist the attacks of artillery. +

Having burnt the stockade and storehouses, the garrison sepa- rated. One hundred retired to Presque Isle. by land. Two hundred, by way of the Alleghany. went to Venango. The remaining hun- dred descended the Ohio. About forty miles above its confluence with the Mississippi, and on a beautiful eminence on the north bank of the river. they erected a fort and named it Fort Massac. in honor of the commander, M. Massac, who superintended its construction. This was the last fort erected by the French on the Ohio, and it was occupied by a garrison of French troops until the evacuation of the country under the stipulations of the treaty of Paris. Such was the origin of Fort Massac. divested of the romance which fable has thrown around its name."+

* Letter of Marquis Montcalm: Paris Documents. vol. 10. p. 901.

+ Hildreth's Pioneer History. p. 42.

# Monette's Valley of the Mississippi, vol. 1. p. 317. Gov. Reynolds, who visited the remains of Fort Massac in 1855, thus describes its remains: "The outside walls were one hundred and thirty-five feet square, and at each angle strong bastions were erected. The walls were palisades, with earth between the wood. A large well was sunk in the fortress. and the whole appeared to have been strong and substantial in its day. Three or four acres of gravel walks were made on the north of the fort, on which the soldiers paraded. The walks were made in exact angles, and beautifully graveled with pebbles from the river. The site is one of the most beautiful on La Belle Rivere, and commands a view of the Ohio that is charming and lovely. French genius for the selection of sites for forts is eminently sustained in their choice of Fort Massacre." The Governor states that the fort was first established in 1711, and " was enlarged and made a respectable fortress in 1756." Vide Reynolds' Life and Times, pp. 28, 29. This is, probably. a mistake. There are no records in the French official documents of any military post in that vicinity until the so-called French and Indian war.

227

CHANGE OF WAR-PLAN.

On the day following the evacuation, the English took peaceable possession of the smoking ruins of Fort Du Quesne. They erected a temporary fortification, named it Fort Pitt, in honor of the great English statesman of that name, and leaving two hundred men as a garrison, retired over the mountains.

On the 5th of December, 1758, Thomas Pownall, governor of Massachusetts Bay Province, addressed a memorial to the British Ministry, suggesting that there should be an entire change in the method of carrying on the war. Pownall stated that the French were superior in battles fought in the wilderness ; that Canada never could be conquered by land campaigns: that the proper way to succeed in the reduction of Canada would be to make an attack on Quebee by sea, and thus, by cutting off supplies from the home gov- erument, Canada would be starved out .*

Pitt, if he did not act on the recommendations of Gov. Pownall, at least had similar views, and the next year (1759), in accordance with this plan, Gen. Wolfe made a successful assault on Quebec, and from that time. the supplies and reinforcements from the home gov- ernment being cut off. the cause of the French in Canada became almost hopeless.

During this year the French made every effort to stir up the Indians north of the Ohio to take the tomahawk and scalping-knife in hand, and make one more attempt to preserve the northwest for the joint occupancy of the Gallic and American races. Emissa- ries were sent to Lake Erie, Detroit, Mackinaw, Quiatanon, Vincennes, Kaskaskia and Fort Chartes, loaded with presents and ammunition, for the purpose of collecting all those stragglers who had not enter- prise enough to go voluntarily to the seat of war. Canada was hard pressed for soldiers ; the English navy eut off most of the rein-

* Pownall's Administration of the Colonies, Appendix, p. 57. Thomas Pownall, born in England in 1720, came to America in 1753; was governor of Massachusetts Bay, and subsequently was appointed governor of South Carolina. He was highly edu- cated, and possessed a thorough knowledge of the geography, history and policy of both the French and English colonies in America. His work on the "Administration of the American Colonies " passed through many editions. In 1756 he addressed a memorial to His Highness the Duke of Cumberland, on the conduct of the colonial war, in which he recommended a plan for its further prosecution. The paper is a very able one. Much of it compiled from the official letters of Marquis Vaudreuil, Governor- General of Canada, written between the years 1743 and 1752, showing the policy of the French, and giving a minute description of their settlements, military establishments in the west, their manner of dealing with the Indians, and a description of the river communications of the French between their possessions in Canada and Louisiana. In 1776 he revised Evans' celebrated map of the " Middle British Provinces in America." After his return to England he devoted himself to scientific pursuits. He was a warni friend of the American colonists in the contest with the mother country, and de- nounced the measures of parliament concerning the colonies as harsh and wholly unwarranted, and predicted the result that followed. He died in 1805.

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History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources, Part 24

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903 Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company Number of Pages: 1164

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company
Number of Pages: 1164