USA > Kansas > Wyandotte County > History of Wyandotte County, Kansas, and its people, Vol. I > Part 7
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An unmarked grave on the side of the hill in Gibbs and Payne's addition to Argentine, now Kansas City, Kansas, near the old house in which he spent his last years in sorrow and remorse, is the final resting place of the Shawnee Prophet. It frequently has been sought, but in vain, by a few of the Prophet's descendants from the Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, who have adopted Prophet as the family name. Charles Blue Jacket, the last of the Shawnee chiefs to bear the name, located the grave in 1897, when he was induced by Mr. E. F. Heisler, editor of the Weekly Sun in Kansas City, Kansas, to come from his home in the Indian Territory for that purpose. Chief Blue Jacket told stories and related ineidents concerning the Prophet and the mysterious power he exercised over the Indians. The chief, then tottering with age, pointed out the place where stood the house in which the Prophet spent his last days and in which he died. A chill damp wind swept down the Kansas river valley on the day of that visit. Chief Blue Jacket returned to his people and died with pneumonia within a week.
THE GREAT CHIEF, BLUE JACKET.
An interesting sketch of the old chief Blue Jacket and his descend- ants was written, in 1877, by Thomas Larsh, of Ohio, a personal friend of the family and a missionary among the Indians in the early part of the nineteenth century. A part of the information was supplied by Mrs. Sally Gore of Blue Jacket, Indian Territory, a daughter of the Reverend Charles Blue Jacket, the last chief to bear the illustrious name. It was published in the Kansas Historical Society's Collection, as follows:
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"It seems to have dropped out of the memory of the present generation of men, if indeed it was ever generally known, that Chief Blue Jacket was a white man. He was a Virginian by birth, one of a numerous family of brothers and sisters, many of whom settled in Ohio and Kentucky at an early day, and many descendants of whom still reside in this state (Ohio). His name was Marmaduke Van Swerangen. I cannot now recall the given name of his father, of the place of his nativity, except that it was in western Virginia. He had brothers, John, Vance, Thomas, Joseph, Steel and Charles, and one sister, Sarah, and perhaps more. Marmaduke was captured by the Shawnee Indians when out with a younger brother
Carlton-Rose
CIIIEF CHIARLES BLUE JACKET. LAST OF A GREAT FAMILY OF WARRIORS.
on a hunting expedition, sometime during the Revolutionary war. He was abont seventeen years of age when taken. He was a stout, healthy, well-developed, active youth, and became a model of manly activity, strength and symmetry when of full age. He and a younger brother were together when captured, and he agreed to go with his captors and become naturalized among them, provided they would allow his brother to return home in safety. This proposal was agreed to by his captors, and carried out in good faith by both parties.
"When captured Marmaduke, or Duke as he was familiarly called, was dressed in a blue linsey blouse, or hunting-shirt, from which garment he took his Indian name of Blue Jacket. During his boyhood he had formed a strong taste or predilection for the free savage life as exemplified in the habits and eustoms of the wild American Indian, and frequently expressed his determination that when he attained manhood he would take up his abode with some Indian tribe.
"I am not able to fix the exact date of this transaction except by approxi- mating it by reference to other events. It is traditionally understood that Mar- maduke was taken by the Indians about three years before the marriage of his sister, Sarah, who was the grandmother of the writer of this article, and she was married in the year 1781. Although we have no positive information of the fact,
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traditional or otherwise, yet it is believed that the band or tribe with which Blue Jacket took up his residence lived at that time on the Scioto river, somewhere between Chillicothe and Circleville.
"After arriving at his new adopted home, Marmaduke, or Blue Jacket, entered with such alacrity and cheerfulness into all the habits, sports and labors of his associates that he soon became very popular among them. So much was this the case that before he was twenty-five years of age he was chosen chief of his tribe and as such took part in all the councils and campaigns of his time. He took a wife of the Shawnees, and reared several children, but only one son. This son was called Jim Blue Jacket, and was rather a dissipated, wild and reckless fellow, who was quite well known on upper Miami river during and after the War of 1812. He left a family of several children, sons and daughters, who are now living in Kansas, with one of whom, Charles Blue Jacket, the writer of this has long kept up a correspondence.
"I first saw Charles at the time the Shawnee nation was removed from Ohio to Kansas under the conduct of the national government, in 1832. He is a well educated, intelligent and highly intellectual gentleman, and in all respects-feature, voice, contour and movement-except as to his darker color, is an exact facsimile of the Van Sweragens. Chartes Blue Jacket has been a visitor at my home in Ohio not above eleven years ago, and exhibits all the attributes of a well-bred polished, self-possessed gentleman.
"Chief Blue Jacket, Wet-yah-pih-ehr-sehn-wah. commanded the allied Indian forces that were defeated by General Wayne in 1794. This defeat was so crushing that the Shawnees sued for peace and never aftrwards as a nation made war ou the whites. His name is signed to the treaty of peace made with the United States by the Wyandottes, Delawares, Shawnees and others, in August, 1795.
"Chief Jim Blue Jacket was a friend of Tecumseh, and one of his bravest war- riors. Ile was in the battle of the Thames, in 1813, when his illustrious leader was słain. Ile was evidently a man of great bravery and ability, and had the full confidence and esteem of the great chief.
"Charles Blue Jacket was born in what is now the state of Michigan, on the banks of the Huron river, in 1816. Late in the year 1832 he came with his people to their new home in what is now the state of Kansas. Ile was educated at a Quaker mission school before coming to Kansas. . At an early day he was con- verted from heathenism to Christianity and united with the Methodist mission. During his long life he was a faithful, consistent, and courageous Christian. No one ever knew a better or more honorable man. His brother Henry was also a member and an official in the Methodist church, but he died at an early age and there is little information concerning him. Charles Blue Jacket moved from Kan- sas to the Indian Territory in 1871, and died there October 29, 1897, aged eighty- one years."
CAPTAIN JOSEPH PARKS.
This, the head Shawnee Indian chief, was born in 1792, probably in Michigan. He knew little of his parents, but according to his own account he lived in the family of General Lewis Cass for some years. It was through the interest General Cass took in the boy that he ob- tained edneational advantages not enjoyed by other youthis of his tribe. General Cass used him as an interpreter when he was in the Indian serv- ice, and the office of tribal interpreter he filled for many years.
In the spring of 1833 Captain Parks was commissioned by the
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United States government with the removal of the Ohio, or Hog Creek band, of the Shawnees to their new home in Kansas. He performed the work in a very satisfactory manner. During the Seminole war in Florida the government recruited two or more companies of Shawnees. Of one company Parks was made captain, and after serving through the campaign with distinction, he returned to his home with all of his men, only one of which was slightly wounded.
Captain Parks was a man of enlture and of general information Ile was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and had been for a number of years. He died April 3, 1859, at the age of sixty- six years, and was buried in the Shawnee Indian cemetery near the old log church in Johnson county. A fine monument bearing Masonic em- blems marks his last resting place. At the time of his death he was a member of the Westport Masonie lodge. Captain Parks once told Joah Spencer, a Methodist missionary, that there was among the Indians an order almost similar to the Masonic order, with grips, signs and pass- word. But among the Indians the lodge selected its own members from the worthy young men of the tribe. Captain Parks had been thus selected for the order. He had no knowledge that he was to be a mem- ber until notified of his election.
Captain Parks owned a fine body of land just inside the Kansas line west of Westport, on which he erected a spacions and attractive home. He was both wealthy and hospitable, and he freely entertained those who came that way.
Among others of the Shawnees who won distinction for meritorious work in aid of civilizing and educating the tribe was Paschal Fish. He was a local preacher and his brother Charles was an interpreter. They would listen to sermons preached by the white men in the missions and translate them for those of the Indians who could not understand English.
CLUNG TO OLD CUSTOMS.
Although noted for courage and prowess and distinguished as war- riors the Shawnees did not follow the warpath so persistently as did the Delawares after they came to Kansas. Yet they pushed their forays out across the plains to the west and the southwest more than a thousand miles. They were reluctant to give up their aneient customs, perhaps more so than any other tribe. Even in their semi-civilized state, with the Christian teachings of the early missionaries, they elung to many ideas of their primitive religion which originally was a form of sun- worship, and, like the Prophet, many of them even despised civilization.
During the time of the occupancy of their Kansas lands only a few white men, aside from the missionary workers, came to live among the Shawnees, and they only because of some connection with the Indians ;
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so they were practically left to enjoy their freedom. The earliest of these comers were the Choutean brothers, three Frenchmen, who estab- lished trading posts among the Shawnees and Delawares in 1828 and 1829. Samuel Conatzer eame in 1844 and a nephew of Davy Crockett in 1847. At different times a few other white men drifted into their country, but it was not until the fifties that the tide of white emigration from the east began to flow in.
FAREWELL TO KANSAS.
But the reign of the Shawnees was soon to end. The emigration from the east and south in 1854 and the beginning of the struggle be- tween the Free State and Pro-slavery forees caused the Indians to dis- pose of their Kansas lands, except 200,000 acres divided among the indi- viduals of the tribe who desired to remain and who were so far advanced in civilization as to engage in the white man's method of farming. In 1869 the remnant of the tribe moved to the Cherokee country in the Indian Territory. The old missions, famous as the first Christian edu- cational institutions in Kansas, were closed or converted into houses of worship for the white people. The Indians were gone, never to return.
CHAPTER IV.
. THE DELAWARES.
THEIR WARS ON THE PAWNEES-AS IRVING SAW THEM-CIVILIZA- TION'S ADVANCE AGENTS-VISITED BY PARKMAN-NOT GIVEN ALONE TO FIGHTING-THE DELAWARE CHIEFS-THE DEATH OF CHIEF KETCHUM- THE LAST OF A NOBLE RACE-THE TREATY OF 1866.
William Penn found the Delaware Indians dwelling peacefully in the valley of the Delaware river, and their couneil fires blazed on the site of Philadelphia. He cultivated their acquaintance and purchased much of their lands. They called themselves Lenni Lenape (Original Men, of Pre-eminent Men.) The French called them Loups (wolves).
In 1726 the Delawares refused to join the Iroquois in a war against the English. Finally they were driven west of the Allegheny moun- tains. That was the beginning of their migrations. Near the elose of the Revolution a large number of the Delawares were massacred by Americans. - The remnant of the tribe dwelt temporarily in Ohio, and in 1818 migrated to southwest Missouri, for twelve years occupying lands near Springfield and along the James Fork of White river.
The coming of the Delawares to Kansas was in 1829. Their new reservation, which they occupied for thirty-eight years, not only ineluded nearly all of Wyandotte county but stretched beyond into Kansas with an outlet to the Rocky mountains. This was their dwelling place until 1867 when they gave up their lands and went to the Indian Territory - to live among the Cherokees.
THEIR WARS ON THE PAWNEES.
At one time, when the Delawares refused to join the Iroquois in a war against the English, they were stigmatized as "women," the infer- ence being that they were too cowardly to fight. But that is not their record in Kansas. They indeed were quite warlike and it is written that there was not one coward among them. From their reservation here at the mouth of the Kansas river they went out to war against all the tribes on the plains and even beyond the Rocky mountains. An
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instance which serves to illustrate their fighting qualities is diselosed in the burning, in 1832, of the Great Pawnee village on the Republican river and of the exodus shortly after, of the remnant of the Pawnees to another reservation. Commenting on the Delawares William Elsey Connelley, the Kansas writer of history, says: "Think of the audacity of this little nation of Delawares! There could not have been then more than five hundred warriors in all the tribe-perhaps not so many. When Pike visited this Pawnee village and made the inhabitants haul down the Spanish flag and put the American flag in its place, he esti- mated that there were more than six thousand Pawnees living there, having more than two thousand warriors engaged with other tribes in fierce wars; and larger villages were not far away. But their famous village was burned, Pike or no Pike, flag or no flag, by these fierce child- ren of the Turtle, a portion of whom were living then in what is now Wyandotte county. The secretary of the State Historical Society has celebrated, on the site, the raising of the American flag on Kansas soil. Ile should inscribe on his monument, there erected, that the great vil- lage was destroyed by a little band of warriors living at the month of the Kansas river. Indian annals do not record the account of a more daring deed."
AS IRVING SAW THEM.
Washington Irving gives an interesting aecount of the Delawares in writings of his tour of the prairies in 1832. They were then widely scattered over the plains. Irving says :
"The conversation this evening, among the old huntsmen, turned upon the Delaware tribe, one of whose encampments we had passed in the course of the day; and anecdotes were given of their prowess in war and dexterity in hunting. They used to be deadly foes of the Osages, who stood in great awe of their desperate valor, though they were apt to attribute it to a whimsical canse. 'Look at the Delawares,' would they say, 'dey got short leg-no can run-must stand and fight a great heap.' In fact, the Delawares are rather short-legged, while the Osages are remarkable for length of limb.
"The expeditions of the Delawares, whether war or hunting, are wide and fearless ; a small band of them will penetrate far into these dangerous and hostile wilds, and will push their eneampments even to the Rocky mountains. This daring temper may be in some measure encouraged by one of the superstitions of their creed. They believe that a guardian spirit. in the form of a great eagle, watches over them, hovering in the sky, far out of sight. Sometimes, when well pleased with them, he wheels down into the lower regions, and may be seen circling with widespread wings against the white clouds; at such times the seasons are propi- tious, the corn grows finely, and they have great success in hunting. Sometimes, however, he is angry, and then he vents his rage in the thunder, which is his voice, and the lightning, which is the flashing of his eye, and strikes dead the object of his displeasure.
"The Delawares make sacrifices to this spirit, who occasionally lets drop a
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feather from his wing in token of satisfaction. These feathers render the wearer invisible, and invulnerable. Indeed, the Indians generally consider the feathers of the eagle possessed of occult and sovereign virtues.
"At one time a party of Delawares, in the course of a bold excursion into the Pawnee hunting-grounds, were surrounded on one of the great plains, and nearly destroyed. The remnant took refuge on the summit of one of those isolated and conical hills which rise almost like artificial mounds, from the midst of the prairies. llere the chief warrior, driven almost to despair, sacrificed his horse to the tutelar spirit. Suddenly an enormous eagle, rushing down from the sky, bore off the victim in his talons, and mounting into the air, dropped a quill-feather from his wing. The chief caught it up with joy, bound it to his forehead, and, leading his followers down the hill, cut his way through the enemy with great slaughter, and without any one of his party receiving a wound."
CIVILIZATION'S ADVANCE AGENTS,
First among the advance agents of civilization to come into Wyan dotte county were the Chontean brothers, Frenchmen, who built trading houses in 1828 and 1829 among the Shawnees and Delawares. They were licensed traders. One of the agencies was on the south side of the Kansas river opposite the Indian village of Secondine, afterwards Mun- cie. It was conveniently located for handling the Indian trade from the trails that led out into Kansas territory, and later at the ferry where a military road crossed the Kansas river and led to Fort Leavenworth. It was at Secondine, across the river from the Chontean trading honse, that Moses Grinter, the first white settler, established his residenee. The Reverend Thomas Johnson, a Methodist missionary who established a mission school among the Shawnees in 1829, in May, 1832, crossed the Kansas river and established a Methodist mission school among the Dela- wares near the present village of White Church. He was followed, in 1837, by the Reverend John G. Pratt, who established a Baptist mission among the Delawares which he conducted for many years. He printed hymn books in the language of the Indians and, like Mr. Johnson, was a powerful factor in the education and civilization of the Delawares.
VISITED BY PARKMAN.
Parkman, in his "Oregon Trail," gives us a glimpse of the Dela- wares, their Wyandotte connty reservation and the military road as he saw them in 1846. He writes: "A military road led from this point (the Lower Delaware Crossing, at the lower end on Muncie bottom) to Fort Leavenworth, and for many miles the farms and cabins of the Delawares were scattered at short intervals on either hand. The little rude structures of logs, erected usually on the borders of a tract of woods, made a picturesque feature in the landscape. But the scenery needed no foreign aid. Nature had done enough for it; and the alter- nation of rich green prairies and groves that stood in clusters, or lined
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the banks of the numerous little streams, had all the softened and pol- ished beauty of a region that had been for centuries under the land of man. At that early season, too, it was in the height of its freshness. The woods were flushed with the red buds of the maple; there were frequent flowering shrubs unknown in the east; and the green swells of the prairies were thickly studded with blossoms.
"Encamping near a spring, by the side of a hill, we resumed our journey in the morning, and early in the afternoon were within a few miles of Fort Leavenworth. The road crossed a stream densely bor- dered with trees, and running in the bottom of a deep woody hollow. We were about to descend into it when a wild and confused procession appeared, passing through the water below, and coming up the steep ascent towards us. We stopped to let them pass. They were Dela- wares, just returned from a hunting expedition. All, both men and women, were mounted on horseback, and drove along with them a con- siderable number of paek mules, laden with the furs they had taken, together with the buffalo robes, kettles, and other articles of their travel- ing equipment, which, as well as their clothing and weapons, had a worn and dingy look, as if they had seen hard service of late. At the rear of the party was an old man, who, as he came up, stopped his horse to
speak to us. He rode a tough, shaggy pony, with mane and tail well knotted with burrs, and a rusty Spanish bit in its mouth, to which, by way of reins, was attached a string of rawhide. His saddle, robbed probably from a Mexican, had no covering, being merely a tree of the Spanish form, with a piece of grizzly-bear's skin laid over it, a pair of rude wooden stirrups attached, and, in the absence of girth, a thong of hide passing around the horse's belly. The rider's dark features and keen snaky eve were unequivocally Indian. Ile wore a buckskin frock, which, like his fringed leggings, was well polished and blackened by grease and long service, and an old handkerchief was tied around his head. Resting on the saddle before him lay his rifle, a weapon in the use of which the Delawares are skillful, though, from its weight, the distant prairie Indians are too lazy to carry it.
" 'Who's your chief ?' he immediately inquired.
"Henry Chatillon pointed to us. The old Delaware fixed his eyes intently upon us for a moment, and then sententiously remarked, 'No good ! Too young !' With this flattering comment he left us and rode after his people.
"This tribe, the Delawares, once the peaceful allies of William Penn, the tributaries of the conquering Iroquois, are now the most ad- venturous and dreaded warriors upon the prairies. They make war upon remote tribes, the very names of which were unknown to their fathers in their aneient seats in Pennsylvania, and they push these new quarrels with true Indian rancor, sending out their war parties as far as the Rocky mountains, and into the Mexican territories. Their
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neighbors and former confederates, the Shawnees, who are tolerable farmers, are in a prosperous condition ; but the Delawares dwindle every year, from the number of men lost in their warlike expeditions."
WERE NOT GIVEN ALONE TO FIGHTING.
The Delawares, however, were not given alone to fighting and hunt- ing, as after events disclosed. They were an intelligent people, and their dealings and associations with the whites during the years of their migrations enabled them to acquire ideas of civilization. Like others of the emigrant tribes from the east a large number had embraced the Christian religion. Not a few of the men were Free Masons. If they were brave warriors and good hunters when first they came to Kansas, they were industrious. Through the influence of the early Christian missionaries, the traders and the white settlers they, in time, became good farmers, and they had much to do with the development of agriculture and fruit culture in Wyandotte county.
Major John G. Pratt, the Baptist missionary, was appointed by President Lincoln as agent for the Delawares. He was their trusted friend and counselor. One of his sons married a daughter of Charles Johnnycake, one of the Delaware chiefs. Writing for Andreas' His- tory of Kansas, Major Pratt presents the following interesting account of the Delawares' sojourn of thirty-eight years in Kansas: "That part of Wyandotte county on the north side of the Kansas river was first settled by the Delawares in 1829. They came from Ohio and brought with them a knowledge of agriculture, and many of them habits of indus- try. They opened farms, built houses and ent roads along the ridges and divides ; erected a frame church at what is now the village of White Church. The population of the Delaware tribe when it first settled in Kansas was about 1,000. It was afterwards reduced to 800. This was in consequence of contaet with the wilder tribes, who were as hos- tile to the short-haired Indians as they were to the whites. Still the Delawares would venture ont hunting buffalo and beaver, to be inevi- tably overcome and destroyed. Government finally forbade them leav- ing the reservation. The effect of this order was soon apparent in the steady increase of the tribe, so that when they removed, in 1867, they numbered 1,160."
THE DELAWARE CHIEFS.
Among the ruling chiefs of the Delawares while they were in Wyan- dotte county, were Captain John Ketchum, Captain Anderson, Charles Johnnycake, James Secondine, James Connor and Captain John Con- nor.
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