USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > Centennial history of Cincinnati and representative citizens, Vol. I, Pt. 1 > Part 14
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In the meantime Colonel Brodhead had been placed in command of the department and at the end of May, hearing that Fort Laurens was to be attacked "when the strawberries are ripe," he reinforced it, but in August concluded to aban- don the post. Fort Randolph, at the mouth of the Kanawha, had been abandoned in June, which left Fort Henry at Wheeling the most advanced post.
In July Colonel Rogers' party of Kentuckians who were bringing up supplies from New Or- leans had been attacked by Indians under Girty and Elliott on the Ohio, near the Licking, and had been practically annihilated. It was during this same summer that Col. John Bowman crossed the Ohio, near the Licking, with three hundred Kentucky volunteers, with whom he made a dash up the Scioto. Valley and attacked the Shawanee town, near the modern Chilli- cothe. Although he burned some houses and se- cured some plunder, he retreated without accom- plishing any great result.
In May, 1779, an expedition of Colonel Byrd's at the head of a large party of whites and Indi- ans captured two small stockades on the Licking and then retreated rapidly to Detroit. One of the reasons given for his retreat is that he was shocked at the barbarity of his Indian allies. The generally accepted reason is that the Indians refused to take the chances of a pitched battle and following their usual procedure insisted upon retiring before the Kentuckians could re- cover from their surprise. This expedition was one of the most extensive ones planned during the war and could have anniliilated every settlement between the Ohio and Cumberland Gap. Clark gathered together a thousand men and swept north through the Miami Valley in an assault upon the Shawanee town at Pickaway. This and many other towns and the crops around them were completely destroyed. A similar expedi- tion from Pittsburg under General Brodhead burned the crops and villages of the upper Mus- kingum.
THE SPANISH CLAIMS.
It was at this time that the Spanish claims afterwards urged with more force than justice. took their origin. Spain had declared war upon England in 1779 and thereupon the English at Detroit, under command of a garrulous and bust- ling soldier of twenty-five years' service, Patt Sinclair, proposed to sweep clean that "nest of tares," the Spanishi post, St. Louis. .
St. Louis was now a town of about one hun-
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dred and twenty houses, mainly of stone and con- tained, a population of about eight hundred whites, mainly French, and one hundred and fifty negroes. On May 26, 1780, a force of about nine hundred Indians fell upon some farmers who were without the stockade. No assault, however, on the post followed, as the savages were unwilling, as usual, to attack a fortified place which had been forewarned. The attack- ing party withdrew after killing a small party of whites and taking about eighteen prisoners.
The Spaniards planned an expedition against the deserted English post of St. Joseph, which was on the south bank of the river St. Joseph, a mile or so west of the present city of Niles, Michigan. After Pontiac's War, the fort had been abandoned, although the place continued to be occupied as a trading post. In 1780 it contained eight houses and seven shanties and a population of forty-five French persons and four Pawnee slaves.
Spain had already seized the English posts at Natchez and Baton Rouge and Mobile, which, with St. Louis, gave her the practical control of the lower Mississippi Valley. She now thought of establishing herself in the Northwest, which would place her in a position to make a trade with England for Gibraltar, a serious thorn in the side of his most Catholic majesty. As a're- sult, in January, 1781, an expedition of Spaniards and Indians made a winter journey of four hun- dred miles to capture the deserted post of St. Joseph. The march north ward through the snow was a fatiguing one, but it and its result were the occasion of the most elaborate claims on the part of the Spanish. There were at the post no English and but few French except trappers, but the commander, in the name of the King of Spain, took possession of the place and its de- pendencies and of the river of Illinois. The re- port of this expedition seems to have been held back until March, 1782, when the matter of boundaries was being discussed between France, Spain, England and America. This wonderful victory was used in support of the Spanish claim at the treaty of Paris to all the lands west of the line drawn southward through what is now Ohio,, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Ala- bama and Mississippi which, in addition to large parts of the States mentioned, would have given to Spain all of Michigan, Indiana, Illi- nois and Wisconsin. Fortunately, however, the Mississippi River boundary was insisted upon by the American commissioners and finally retained by them at the treaty of Paris.
THE MASSACRE OF THE MORAVIANS.
The surrender of Cornwallis took place October 19, 1781. This surrender concluded the war in the East and the treaty of peace was finally signed September 3, 1783. In the West, however, the war continued and during the year 1782 occurred some of the most horrible episodes in the his- tory of Indian warfare. The villages planted by the Moravian missionaries on the banks of the Tuscarawas River in 1782 are regarded by Mr. King in his history of Ohio as fairly en- titled to rank as the first settlements in Ohio. Many white people, of course, had lived in the country before that time and many a white child had been born there, but history does not know them and they made no permanent impression upon the land. For this reason Marietta's claim as the earliest settlement in Ohio is without foundation, and the very terms of the grant to the Ohio Company in July, 1787, as well as the ordinance of 1785, providing for the surveys and disposals of Western lands, excepted and re- served the Moravian villages and the land sur- rounding them, ten thousand acres in all, for the Christian Indians who formerly settled there. The title was vested in the Moravian Brethren at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and the gift was subsequently enlarged to twelve thousand acres. In 1823 this was all reconveyed to the United States with the exception of the church yards, cemeteries and some special leases.
The Moravians or United Brethren were a sect who took as their guide the "Daily Word" composed of texts from the Gospel for cach day's meditation and who submitted to lot all questions of difference. They were bound to bear all things for conscience' sake and relied for their defense not upon arms but upon prayer and re- monstrance. Military duty and the taking of oaths in court were contrary to their tenets. Their religion was not dogmatic but included all who' believed in the Christian Church. Foreign mis- sions had been adopted by them as their vocation. They came in 1735 to Georgia but were obliged to leave that colony because of the border wars with the Spaniards requiring every man in the colony to bear arins. They fled to Pennsylvania where Bethlehem on the Lehigh became the cen-' ter of their system and still remains so. Their first mission was established by Zinzendorf in 1741 among the Mohicans near the boundary be- tween New York and Connecticut. They were obliged to flee from this point and finally settled twenty miles above Bethlehem and called their
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colony Gnadenhütten (Tents of Grace). Here their teachings took a great hold upon the Dela- wares and as a result, as they and the Shawanees were gradually pushed westward, the mission- aries headed by Zeisberger accompanied them.
Zeisberger by his wonderful preaching and vivid word pictures painted in the Indians' own language made a wonderful impression on the Delaware Indians. The wave of religious en- thusiasm swept over the nation converting many of the Indian chiefs to the new belief. Finally Zeisberger and five Indian families, twenty-eight in all, arrived May 3, 1772, at a new settlement in Ohio on the Tuscarawas River. This settle- ment was called Shoenbrun, from a beautiful spring at its site and was about two miles south- cast of the present town of New Philadelphia.
In August the missionaries Ettwein and Heck- ewelder arrived with about two hundred and fifty Christian Indians from the Allegheny and the Susquehanna and a second colony was established about ten miles below the first which was re- served by the Delawares. As the second was taken by the Mohicans, they called it Gnaden- hütten from their old home on the Lehigh.
Here the Moravians and the Indians lived in peace and amity. Churches and schools were built and farms and shops inaugurated as well. As a result the Indians prospered mightily in their contact with civilization. More warlike In- dians naturally looked upon them with scorn but as their homes were always open to the wanderer and were always well supplied with food they finally won the respect of their savage neighbors. The population of the Moravian villages at the close of 1775 was 414 persons.
At the outbreak of the war the Moravians were invited to attend the council of the Eastern and Western Indians at Pittsburg but Zeisberger de- clined. At the council the division among the Delawares part of whom were inclined toward the King and part towards the colonists was ap- parent. They were asked by the commissioners of Congress to remain neutral which they had said they would do. In the discussion however there had been much feeling. Captain White Eves would not conceal his affection for the Americans and was reminded by one of the speakers of the Six Nations that the Delawares were a subject race and not worthy of consider- ation. White Eyes retorted with a claim of ownership by his people of the lands west of the Alleglieny. This defiant speech was used after- wards by Captain Pipe to the injury of the Amer- icans. Ile pretended to believe that it would
bring down the resentment of the Six Nations upon the Delawares and in this way he brought about a division among his people into a war and a peace party. The Moravians insisted upon re- maining neutral but the English at Detroit sus- pected them of giving the news to Fort Pitt and in 1781, McKee, Elliott and Captain Pipe with three hundred warriors ordered the Chris- tian villages moved to the Sandusky River. Here the greatest hardships overtook them and their leaders were summoned to Detroit to respond to the charge of giving information to the Ameri- cans. They freed themselves from this charge and were treated by the English with great con- sideration and allowed to return to their homes on the Sandusky but in March, 1782, the teach- ers were ordered back to Detroit where they established a new settlement near the present city of Mount Clemens. The bitter winter had brought intense suffering to those who remained in the settlement and when the spring came their pro- visions had become exhausted and one hundred of them were permitted to return to their old villages in February, 1782, to save the corn which . | had been left standing. Strangely enough the American border settlers always viewed the Mo- ravian Indians with suspicion. It is probable that many of the outrages committed by the warlike Indians had been attributed to these innocent converts and it is suggested that at this time sus- picion was diverted to these returning wayfarers by concealing in their homes plunder which had been taken in raids upon the border land. What -* ever the excuse is, when the party had about finished its work on the 7th of March and were about to return, a barbarous band of about ninety borderers commanded by a wretch called Col. David Williamson came upon them and under pretense of escorting them to Pittsburg secured from them their hatchets, pocket knives and everything in the shape of weapons. After this they were overpowered and shut up in two houses, the men in one and the women and chil- dren in another. Thereupon Williamson left it to the vote of his men whether he should take them as prisoners to Pittsburg or to put them to death. Out of the ninety white men but eighteen voted against this basest act of treachery. The Indian prisoners penned up as they were like sheep and ninety-six in number were slaughtered without any possible excuse or means of dt- fense. "My arm fails me," said Williamson as lie struck the life from his fourteenth bound vic- tini "to go on the same way: I think 1 have done pretty well." At the conclusion the ninety-
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six corpses of murdered Christian Indians, forty men, twenty-two women and thirty-four children were left to be fought over by the bears and panthers. This massacre of Indians by whites is justly regarded as one of the most barbarous epi- sodes in the history of Ohio. Not without prov- ocation therefore was much of .the barbarism of the so-called savages which soon found an opportunity to repay this outrage.
THE BURNING OF CRAWFORD.
In May of the same year an expedition started to punish the British-inspired Indians for their raids on the Pennsylvania and Virginia borders. Four hundred volunteers assembled near the present site of Steubenville to attack the Indians at Sandusky. According to the Moravian ac- counts the purpose of this expedition was to de- stroy the remaining Christian Indians but this is disputed by other narrators. This expedition was commanded by Col. William Crawford, who was elected by five majority over the fellow Williamson whose hands were still stained with the blood of the Moravians.
Crawford was a friend of Washington and had been with him at the time of Braddock's defeat and afterwards in Forbes' army. He also sur- veyed Washington's lands on the Ohio and was with him in his trip down that river and the Great Kanawha in 1770. He served under Washing- ton on Long Island and at Delaware, Trenton and Princeton.
Crawford and his force proceeded to Upper Sandusky but were unable at first to find any Indians to oppose them. Upon their reaching an Indian trace which ran through a swamp they were attacked by the Indians who were hidden in the tall prairie grass all about them. They were soon compelled to retreat and during the confusion Colonel Crawford became separated from the main force and with a companion Dr. Knight was captured by the Indians and fell into the hands of Captain Pipe. They were taken to the half king's town at Upper Sandusky where Crawford appealed to Simon Girty, whom he had long known and who had often been a guest at his table, to save his life but without avail. Girty, to whom Crawford offered one thousand dollars, pretended however to be impressed. The con- versation was overheard and repeated to the In- dian chiefs who were incensed at it and deter- mined to torture Crawford to death. Nine other prisoners were given over to the squaws and the boys, who tomahawked and scalped them all. The
scalps reeking with blood were dashed in Craw- ford's face. After this they were taken from point to point until they reached the place of ex- ecution. A stake fifteen feet high was driven into the ground and about it at a distance of about six yards was built a fire of small hickory poles about six feet in length. Crawford was stripped naked and ordered to sit down. He was then beaten with sticks until his body was cov- ered with bruises. After this his hands were tied behind his back and a rope extended from the foot of the post. to the bands at his wrists. The rope was long enough to permit him to sit down or to walk around the post once or twice. Crawford asked Girty if they intended to burn him and when Girty responded in the affirmative he replied that he would take it all patiently. About four o'clock in the afternoon of Tuesday, June 11, 1782, the torture itself began. The Indians fired powder into Crawford's bruised body from his feet to his neck; not less than seventy loads were fired at his naked body. They then crowded about him and cut off both his ears. Several Indians would pick up the burning poles and stick the burning ends next to his body already black with the gunpowder. They stood on all sides of him and would meet him with their burning fagots or with wooden shovels full of hot coals, whichever way he moved as he ran around the post. In a short time there was nothing but coals of fire for him to walk upon. Crawford called sev- cral times to Girty asking him to shoot him and end his misery. Girty laughingly replied that he had no gun and by his actions and gestures seemed delighted at the terrible scene. All this took place in the presence of Dr. Knight, to whom Girty stated that he would receive the same treatment within the next two days. At this point Crawford began to pray in a low tone and after suffering in terrible agony for about two hours longer being almost exhausted he lay down upon his stomach in the ashes. Thereupon one of the savages scalped him and threw the scalp into Knight's face taunting him with comments about his great captain. An old squaw there- upon collected a pile of hot coals and laid then upon Crawford's back and wounded head. The excessive pain seemed to arouse him and he got- up on his feet and began to walk about the post apparently insensible however of what was going on about him. At this point Knight was dragged away to prepare for a similar fate. According to Girty's report however "Crawford died like a hero; never changing his countenance tho' they
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scalped him alive and then laid hot ashes on his head; after which they roasted him by a slow fire."' 4
It seems one of the unexplained mysteries of fate that the horrible wretch Simon Girty who was concerned in so many of the outrages upon the white settlers and who was present and con- nived at the burning of Abner Hunt in Hamilton County long after the conclusion of the war, should have been permitted to die a peaceful death in the arms of his wife after having sur- vived until 1808. According to Oliver M. Spen- cer who saw him during his captivity in 1792, Girty's appearance did not belie his character. "His dark shaggy hair, his low forehead, his brows contracted and meeting above his short flat nose, his great sunken eyes averting the in- genuous gaze, his lips thin and compressed and the dark and sinister expression of his counten- ance to me seem the very picture of a villain."
When the manner of Crawford's death be- came known along the border and in army cir- cles, the grief and rage felt on all sides was beyond expression. The English officers as well as the officers of the Continental forces were deeply shocked although they regarded the torture of Crawford as retaliation for the slaughter of the Moravian Indians. Dr.
Knight fortunately escaped from his guard. He subsequently married a daughter of Crawford's half brother and lived at Shelby- ville, Kentucky, until 1838. The spot where Crawford was tortured was a short distance northeast of the town of Crawfordsville in Wyandot County, Ohio,' and is marked by a monument erected there about a quarter of a century ago.
BLUE LICKS.
The news of the cessation of war did not ar- rive in time to avert the unsuccessful attack on Bryan's Station in Kentucky and the battle of Blue Licks which followed. A war party under Caldwell and McKee came upon the station on August 16, 1782. The settlers were in the field at work but the advance party of Indians skulking about was discovered by them. An attack was at once suspected. Bryan's Station had no spring within its walls and it became a matter of importance to pro- vide for water. To send the men to the spring would indicate to the Indians that they had been discovered. Accordingly the women took their pails and buckets and with seeming un- concern talking and laughing as they walked
they went to the spring and procured a suf- ficient supply of water. The Indians fearing that if they attacked the women all chance of surprising the fort would be lost permitted them to go unharmed. Immediately after- wards the attack on the fort began but it was without success. News was sent to Lexington and a relief party under Maj. Levi Todd were able to make their way into the station. The Indians tried to burn the fort during the night but were unsuccessful. In the morning Girty who was with the attacking party tried to frighten them into a surrender with a threat of no quarter in case of an assault. The at- tempt failed and the Indians withdrew after having lost five of their number. But four of the defenders were killed. Among the chil- dren in the station at that time was a babe named Richard Johnson, who thirty years later at the head of the Kentucky riflemen took part in the victory of the Thames and is said to have killed with his own hand the great In- dian chief Tecumseh.
At the news of the attack upon the station, troops gathered from all sides under the County Lieutenant John Todd and Boone, Colonel Trigg and Majors McGarry, Harlan and Lincoln. This party of trained hunters and skilled veterans including in its number the most daring of the Kentucky pioneers hur- ried to Bryan's Station from which point they followed the Indians along the great buffalo trace to the Blue Licks. They overtook the savages on August 19th. Boone, who saw that his party was much outnumbered and to whom as the most experienced Indian fighter present all turned, urged that no attack should be made until reinforcements whichi were coming up under Logan should arrive. The more conservative officers agreed with him but the younger and bolder spirits, headed by Maj. Hugh McGarry, were opposed to delay. Raising the war cry he dashed into the stream separating them from the Indians and called on all who were not cowards to follow him. This left no option to Boone and Todd and the others. All crossed together and formed in the line of battle. The Indians arose on all sides from the long grass and in less than five minutes the attack became a wild rout in which each vied with the other in his efforts to escape. Seventy of the Kentuckians were killed ontright, including Colonel Todd and Lieutenant Trigg and seven were captured and twelve badly wounded. The victors lost
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but one white man and six Indians killed and ten wounded.
In the party was Capt. Robert Patter- son one of the founders of Cincinnati. At the time of the retreat he was not able to get a horse. As he was suffering from an unhealed wound he soon became exhausted. At this moment a young man Aaron Reynolds rode up and dismounting insisted upon Patterson taking his horse. Patterson did so and es- caped unhurt being the last man over the ford. Reynolds swam the river but was captured by two Indians on the other side. He succeeded in escaping however and when Patterson asked him why he had saved his life he answered that it was because Patterson had once re- proved him for swearing. Of the seven whites captured by the Indians four were put to death by torture. Another saved his life by a trick. He was forced to run the gauntlet and had succeeded in reaching the council house when he turned and hurled a powerful Indian to the ground and sticking his head between the legs of another Indian threw him clear over his back. He thereupon jumped upon a log, knocked his heels together and crowed after which he called the Indians a pack of cowards. He was adopted by one of the chiefs in admiration of his strength and courage.
CLARK IN THE MIAMIS.
The disaster of Blue Licks was one of the most severe 'ones suffered in the early history of Kentucky. In retaliation Clark gathered a large body of riflemen and swept up through the Miami valleys to the Indian towns which he ravaged. Although in this as in many other of the expeditions the number of Indians slain was not large, the great loss occasioned by the burning of their growing crops and- supplies drove them more and more to rely upon hunting. As time advanced the hunt- ing fields in the neighborhood of the settle- ments became exhausted and as a necessary consequence the Indians were obliged to move farther away from civilization. In this way these constant raids of Clark and others grad- ually pushed forward the limits of the settle- ments. The battle of the Blue Licks was the last serious conflict in Kentucky and with the attack of Clark which followed the War of the Revolution may be said to have ended in the Northwest.
THE CONCLUSION OF THE WAR.
In the foregoing chapter the effort has been made to trace the course of events in the great Northwest, the great territory lying east of the Mississippi and northwest of the Ohio River, with a view of indicating the basis of the claims made by three great countries to jur- isdiction over the land on which to-day rests the city of Cincinnati. By the supposed con- quests of the occupying Indian nations, the Iroquois or Five Nations, subsequently the Six Nations, claimed ownership of the entire tract. At a very early time this nation came into contact with the French explorers and as a result of their first meeting this power- ful confederacy submitted itself to the protec- tion of the English. The rights such as they are which pertain to discovery, early explora- tion and partial occupation clearly were earned by the French. Prior to the beginning of the eighteenth century the whole region was un- known to the English. In the early part of that century the Virginians in their search for the limits of their chartered rights cast longing eyes to the westward but it was not until the century was half gone that any se- rious effort was made to learn much about the region. At how early a period the French courieurs de bois and the English traders wan- dered through the country of the Miamis and the Illinois it is impossible to state. The knowledge taken back to their homes of the possibility of trade with the Indians aroused the interest of both France and England at about the same time and the expedition of Celoron and that of Gist was the result.
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