USA > Ohio > Contributions to the early history of the North-west, including the Moravian missions in Ohio > Part 2
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34 EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTH-WEST. - the white man, whose voice they could dis- tinctly hear from their position, was trying to console her with the promise of kind usage, and an adoption into the tribe.
The young man could hardly restrain his rage, but was for firing and rushing instantly upon the foe. Wetzel, more cautious, told him to wait till daylight appeared, when they could make the attack with a better chance of success, and of also killing the whole party ; while, if they attacked in the dark, a part of them would certainly escape.
SKILLFUL AND SUCCESSFUL ATTACK.
With the earliest dawn the Indians arose and prepared to depart. The young man se- lecting the white renegade, and Wetzel one of the stoutest Indians, they both fired at the same instant, each killing his man. His com- panion rushed forward, knife in hand, to release the young woman, while Wetzel reloaded his piece, and pushed in pursuit of the two Indians
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SKILLFUL AND SUCCESSFUL ATTACK.
who had taken to the woods till they could discover the number of their enemies. When he found he was seen by the savages, Wetzel discharged his rifle at random, in order to draw them from their cover. 1657261
Directly they heard the report and found themselves unhurt, they rushed upon him be- fore he could again reload, thinking on an easy 1 conquest. Taking to his heels, he loaded his gun as he ran, unnoticed by his pursuers, and suddenly wheeling about discharged its con- tents through the body of his nearest and unsuspecting enemy. The remaining Indian, seeing the fate of his companion, and that his antagonist's gun was now certainly empty, rushed forward with all energy, the prospect of revenge fairly before him. Wetzel led him on, dodging from tree to tree, till his rifle was again ready, when, suddenly facing about, he shot his remaining enemy dead at his feet. After taking their scalps and recovering the lost plunder, · Wetzel and his friend returned
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EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTH-WEST.
with their rescued captive unharmed to the settlements.
DEATH OF WETZEL. -
Like honest Joshua Fleehart, after the peace of 1795, the country becoming filled with new settlers, Wetzel pushed for the distant frontiers on the Mississippi, where he could trap the beaver, hunt the buffalo and the deer, and occa- sionally shoot an Indian, whom he mortally hated. He died, as he had always lived, "a free man of the forest."
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OLD FORT M'INTOSH.
CHAPTER III.
BORDER SETTLEMENTS.
OLD FORT M'INTOSH.
AT the close of the foregoing narrative, the boat had reached the mouth of Beaver River, where I disembarked at a spot called "the Point," about a mile from Beavertown, the county seat of Beaver county, Pennsylvania. It stands near the site of old Fort M'Intosh, on an elevated alluvion of several square miles in extent, composed of clay, gravel, and large bowlders of sand rock, thrown up by the river in ancient ages, but which has subsequently retreated to its present bed, some eighty or one hundred feet below the surface of the plain. This elevated alluvion was once doubtless the bed of the Ohio. It is now covered with a fertile soil, and was clothed with forest trees at
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EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTH-WEST.
the period of the erection of Fort M'Intosh, which was built in the year 1778, by a military force from the garrison at Fort Pitt, under the command of General M'Intosh. It stood near the verge of the plain, commanding a view of the Ohio River and the mouth of Beaver. The walls of the fort formed a square, covering . about half an acre of ground, regularly stock- aded, and built of timber from the adjacent
· forest. Here were four bastions mounted with field pieces, from four to nine pounders, one in each bastion, and two in the center of the fort. A covered way led down to the river for the supply of water for the troops, and to protect them from the attacks of the Indians. Fort M'Intosh was twenty-eight miles below Fort Pitt, and was a rallying point for the borderers when assembling for a foray against the Indian towns on the Muskingum and Scioto Rivers, and also for the pursuit of war parties when returning from their depredations on the white settlements. I love to linger round these an-
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OLD FORT M'INTOSH.
cient relics of by-gone days, and call up the shades of the departed warriors who once trav- ersed these forests, and to ruminate on the deeds, both of the battle and the chase, that excited the admiration and the praise of their cotemporaries. In those days every hunter was also a warrior. Their neighborhood was a fa- vorite haunt with the savage, both on account of the abundance of fish found below the falls of the Beaver, and for the fine hunting grounds in the vicinity. It was also geographically favor- able for ingress to the white settlements on the Monongahela and intermediate country; the Ohio here taking a wide sweep to the north- west, formed a semi-circle or peninsula, to which this was the gate. It is now equally favorable to the pursuits of civilization, and the names and the feats of the borderers are already swal- lowed up in the vortex of commercial and agri- cultural avocations. Two canals and a railroad center at this place, and already several large and bustling villages have sprung up on the
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EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTH-WEST.
banks of the Beaver-Bridgewater, about a mile from the mouth, near the lower bridge, and Brighton and Fallstown, five miles up at the falls of the Beaver. These will shortly be towns of great manufacturing importance, from the double advantage of one of the finest water privileges in the State, and the immense de- posits of coal found in the adjacent hills. A bed of cannel coal, lately opened, is said to be twelve feet in thickness.
BRADY'S HILL.
At eleven, A. M., I took a seat in the mail coach for Poland, in Trumbull county; Ohio, thirty-eight miles northerly from Beavertown. Directly on leaving Bridgewater, and crossing a small stream on a neat bridge, we began to ascend a long, steep hill, called "Brady's Hill." It took its name from an interesting border adventure which occurred near its base, "in early times," about the year 1777.
Captain Samuel Brady was one of that band
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BRADY'S HILL.
of brave men, who, in the trying days of the Revolutionary war, lived on the western borders of Pennsylvania, exposed to all the horrors and dangers of Indian warfare. He held a commis- sion from the Congress of the United States, and for a part of the time commanded a company of rangers, who traversed the country below Pitts- burg, bordering the Ohio River. He was born, as I learn from one of his sons, in Shippensburg, Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, in the year 1758, and must have removed when quite young across the mountains into the valley of the Monongahela to have become so thoroughly versed in woodcraft and Indian adventures. He was over six feet in hight, remarkably erect, and active in his movements, with light blue eyes, fair skin, and dark hair.
In personal and hand-to-hand conflict with the Indians he is said to have exceeded any other man west of the mountains excepting Daniel Boone. Several interesting sketches were published in the Blairsville Recorder, a year or
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EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTH-WEST.
two since, detailing some of his adventures, which in the hands of a Weems would make a most interesting volume. At the period of this event, Captain Brady lived on Chartier Creek, about twelve miles below Pittsburg, a stream much better known, however, to pilots and keel- boat men of modern days, by the significant name of "Shirtee." He had become a bold and vigorous backwoodsman, inured to all the toils and hardships of a borderer's life, and very ob- ! noxious to the savages from his numerous suc-
cessful attacks on their war parties, and from shooting them in his hunting excursions when- ever they crossed his path or came within reach - of his rifle. He was in fact that which many of the early borderers were, "an Indian hater." His hatred was not without cause-his father, one brother, wife, and two or three children having been slain by the savages. s. This class of men seem to have been more numerous in the region of the Monongahela than in any other portion of the frontiers, which doubtless
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TRAPPING EXCURSION.
arose from the slaughter at Braddock's defeat, and the numerous murders and attacks on de- fenseless families that followed that defeat for many years. Brady was also a very successful trapper and hunter, and took more beaver than any of the Indians themselves.
TRAPPING EXCURSION.
In one of his adventurous trapping excur- sions on the waters of the Beaver, or Mahon- ing, which so greatly abounded in the animals of this species in early days that it took its " name from this fact, it so happened that the Indians surprised him in his camp and took him prisoner. To have shot or tomahawked him on the spot would have been but a small gratification to that of satiating their revenge by burning him at a slow fire after having run the gantlet in presence of all the Indians of their village. He was therefore taken alive to their encampment, on the right bank of the Beaver, about two miles from its mouth. After
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EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTH-WEST.
the usual exultations and rejoicings at the cap- ture of a noted enemy, and the ceremony of the gantlet was gone through with, a fire was prepared by which Brady was placed, stripped naked, and his arms unbound. Around him the Indians formed a large circle of men, women, and children, dancing, and yelling, and uttering all manner of threats and abuse, that their small knowledge of the English language could afford, previous to tying him to the stake. Brady looked on these preparations for death, and on his savage foes, with a firm countenance and a steady eye, meeting all their threats with a truly-savage fortitude.
In the midst of their dancing and rejoicing, the squaw of one of their chiefs came near him with a child in her arms. Quick as thought, and a presence of mind with which few mortals are gifted, he snatched it from her and threw it into the midst of the flames. Horror-struck at the sudden transaction, the Indians simul- taneously rushed to rescue it from the fire. In
- han
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TRAPPING EXCURSION.
the midst of this confusion Brady darted from the circle, overturning all that came in his way, and rushed into the adjacent thickets with the Indians yelling at his heels. He ascended the steep side of the present hill amid the discharge of fifty rifles, and sprung down the opposite declivity into the deep ravines and laurel thick- ets that abound for some miles to the west. His knowledge of the country, and wonderful activity and strength, enabled him to elude his enemies, and reach the settlements on the south side of the Ohio.
He lived many years after this escape, and gratified his hatred by killing numbers of his foes in the several rencounters which ensued. The hill near whose base this adventure was achieved still goes by his name, and the inci- dent is often referred to by the traveler as the coach is slowly dragged up its side. In looking down upon the laurel thickets which still cluster round the rugged cliffs of sand rock, and by their evergreen foliage perpetuate the memory
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EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTH-WEST.
of Brady, I fancied I could still hear the shrill whoop of the savage, as he pursued with des- perate energy his escaping foe.
NEW CONNECTICUT.
After leaving the vicinity of Brady's Hill the road passes over rather a hilly country, which, as we progress northerly, gradually be- comes more level. The whole region is rich in materials for legendary lore, many of which are already lost in the lapse of time and the negligence of oral tradition. I reached Poland that evening. It is a thriving village, located on a small tributary branch of the Mahoning, in the south-east corner of Trumbull county, Ohio. The soil, climate, and face of the coun- try constituting what is called "New Connect- icut," and of which this county forms a part, are as favorable to agriculture as any portion of Ohio. The inhabitants are chiefly from the State of Connecticut-that land of industry and economy.
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NEW CONNECTICUT.
The improvements already made show that a removal to the West has in no way dimin- ished their habits of diligence and love of cul- tivation. Nearly every settler is the owner of , the soil he tills; and in no portion of the United States is there a more uniform equality of prop- erty or union in supporting measures for the promotion of the public weal. School-houses are seen at short intervals along the roads, and well-built churches in the center of every town, showing that the two great pillars of the Re- public-religion and learning-are liberally and carefully sustained.
Most of the counties in New Connecticut are without poor-houses, and in several of them scarcely a single individual is supported at the public charge. After leaving Trumbull county we enter Portage on the west, so named from the circumstance of the grand carrying place, or portage between the waters of Lake Erie and the Muskingum River, being within this county.
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EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTH-WEST.
RAVENNA.
Ravenna is the county seat, and is a beau- tiful village, fast rising into importance. It stands directly on the dividing line between the waters of the Ohio and those of Lake Erie; so that while one portion of the rain which falls within the village runs into the Cuyahoga and is discharged finally into the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, another part falls into the Mahon- ing and finds its way into the Gulf of Mexico. West of Ravenna the country becomes more undulating and studded with low hills, com- posed of gravel, sand, and primitive bowlders, washed into deep hollows, as if some mighty current had swept over it. Many of these concavities are now occupied by beautiful sheets of limpid water, covering several hundred acres. They are generally bordered with low green hills, or grassy slopes, calling to mind the liv- ing simile of a beautiful pearl surrounded by emeralds.
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BRADY'S POND. '
"BRADY'S POND."
1
On the margin of a very fine pond, which lies near the road from Ravenna to the Falls of the Cuyahoga, I stopped a considerable time, searching for shells, and musing on the various events that had transpired on its borders, and to which it had been a silent, but still living, witness in by-gone ages. The shore is covered with fine white sand, sparkling with minute scales of mica. It is called "Brady's Pond," and lies about three miles east of the Falls of the Cuyahoga. It is noted as the scene of a thrilling adventure, in which the man whose name it bears was a principal actor. This pond, with two others adjacent, I am told, will soon be swallowed up in the great reservoir of the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal, lying on the summit between the Mahoning and Cuyahoga. As many private advantages and comforts have to be sacrificed on the altar of public good when necessity requires, so the lovers of leg- 4
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EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTH-WEST.
endary lore, and of places hallowed by striking events, must also give up this pond on similar principles.
"BRADY'S LEAP."
Samuel Brady seems to have been as much the hero of the north-east portion of the valley of the Ohio as Daniel Boone was of the south- west; and the country is as full of his hardy adventures and hair-breadth escapes, although he get lacks the industrious pen of a Flint to collect and to clothe them in that fascinating language so peculiar to his style. From un- doubted authority it seems the following inci- dents actually transpired in this vicinity.
Brady's residence was in that part of Penn- sylvania now called Washington county, as noted in the "legend of Brady's Hill;" and being a man of uncommon activity and cour- age, as well as very superior intellectual facul- ties, he' was generally selected as the leader of the hardy borderers in all their forays and pur-
"BRADY'S LEAP." 51
suits into the Indian territories north of the Ohio. On this occasion, which was about the year 1780, a large party of Indian warriors, from the Falls of the. Cuyahoga and adjacent country, had made an inroad on to the south side of the Ohio River, in that part of Wash- ington county then known as the settlement of "Catfish Camp," so called after an old Indian warrior of that name, who lived there when the whites first came into the country, on the Mo- nongahela River. This party had murdered several families, and with the plunder had re- crossed the Ohio before effectual pursuit could be made.
Directly after the alarm was given Brady collected his chosen followers, and hastened on in pursuit; but the Indians having a day or more the start before a sufficient party could be gathered, he was unable to overtake them in time to arrest their return to their villages.
Near the spot where the town of Ravenna now stands the Indians separated into two
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52 EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTH-WEST.
parties; one of which went to the north, and the other west to the Falls of the Cuyahoga. Brady's men also divided; a part pursued the northern trail, and the remainder went with him to the Indian village lying on the river, in the present township of Northampton, in Portage county. Although he made his ap- proaches with the utmost caution, yet the In- dians, expecting a pursuit, were on the look- out, and ready to receive him with numbers fourfold to those of. Brady's party. Their only safety, after a few hasty shots, was in retreat, which soon became, from the ardor of the pur- suit, a perfect flight. Brady directed his men to separate, and each one to take care of him- self. The Indians immediately knew him from his voice; and having a most inveterate hatred of him for his former numerous injuries, left all the other borderers and pursued him with united strength. The Cuyahoga here makes a wide bend to the south, including a large tract of several miles of surface, like a peninsula;
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"BRADY'S LEAP."
within this tract the pursuit was hotly con- tested.
The Indians, by extending their line to the right and left, forced him on to the banks of the stream. Having, in peaceable times, often hunted over this ground with the Indians, and knowing every turn of the Cuyahoga as famil- iarly as the villager the streets of his town, he directed his course for the river at a spot where the whole stream is compressed by the rocky cliffs into a narrow channel of only twenty-two feet across the top of the chasm; although it is considerably wider beneath, and much more than that in hight above the current. Through this pass the water rushes like a race-horse, chafing and roaring at its confinement by the rocky channel. A short distance above, the stream is at least fifty yards wide. Brady, as he approached the chasm, concentrating his mighty powers, knowing that life or death was in the effort, leaped the pass at & bound.
It so happened that a low place in the oppo-
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EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTH-WEST.
site cliff favored the leap, into which he dropped, and, grasping the bushes, helped himself to as- cend to the top of the precipice. The Indians for a few moments were lost in wonder and admiration, and before they had recovered their recollection he was half-way up the side of the opposite hill, but still within reach of rifle-shot. They could have easily shot him before, but being bent on taking him alive for torture, and to glut their long-delayed revenge, they fore- bore the use of the rifle; but now, seeing him likely to escape, they all fired upon him. One shot wounded him severely in the hip, but not so badly as to prevent his progress. The In- dians having to make a considerable circuit before they could cross the river, Brady gained a good distance ahead; but his wound growing stiff, and the enemy now gaining on him, he made for the pond which still bears his name, and, plunging into the water, swam beneath the surface for some distance, till he came up under the trunk of a large oak-tree, which had fallen
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"BRADY'S LEAP."
into the pond. This completely covered him from observation, but furnished a small breath- ing place to support life. The Indians tracked him by the blood to the margin of the water; made diligent search all round the pond; but, finding no signs of his exit, finally came to the conclusion that he had sunk from the quantity of water taken in at the wound. .
They were at one time standing on the very trunk of the tree beneath which he lay con- cealed. Brady, understanding their language, was very glad to hear the result of their argu- ment; and after they had gone he made good his retreat, lame and hungry, to his home. His followers also all returned in safety. The chasm over which he leaped is in sight of the bridge where we crossed the Cuyahoga, and is known in all that region by the name of "Brady's Leap."
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EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTH-WEST.
CHAPTER IV.
INCIDENTS ON THE BORDER. -
FALLS OF THE CUYAHOGA.
"CUYAHOGA," in the language of the Dela- ware Indians, means "crooked." The Falls are situated on the south bend of the river, in Portage-now Summit-county, thirty miles from Lake Erie. The stream here, making a wide sweep southerly, touches the northern margin of the coal measures, and is said to be the only lake river that has coal on its shores. That portion of it called "the Falls" is more than two miles in extent, and has a descent of nearly two hundred and twenty-five feet from the head to the foot of the rapids. During its passage down this declivity, the water, in various places, falls from ten and fifteen to twenty-two feet at a single leap; at others, it rushes down
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FALLS OF THE CUYAHOGA.
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an inclined plane, strewed with fragments of rocks, so that a continued roar is heard the
whole distance. In the course of ages the 1 water has cut away the rock strata to the depth of nearly two hundred feet.
Immense masses of sand rock still continue to fall, from year to year, as the water under- mines the cliffs, and the wintery frosts loosen them from their beds. In one place a huge mass, of fifty feet in hight and one hundred or more in length, has formed an island, around the sides of which the water rushes and foams with great fury. Several large pines and hem- locks have found a footing on its top and sides, casting a youthful freshness over its hoary front. The margins of the cliffs are 3 lined with beautiful evergreens of several spe- cies. The Falls afford one of the finest natural sections for the geologist. The rock strata, being accessible from the tops of the adjacent hills to the bed of the river, give the order of superposition in a very beautiful manner.
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EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTH-WEST.
Among the series is a thick bed of red sand- stone, very suitable for architectural purposes. The rapid water at the foot of the Falls afforded a favorite and very valuable site for fishing to all the Indians of this vicinity.
INDIAN FISHERIES.
In the Spring of the year the Cuyahoga and other lake streams, especially such as communi- cated with ponds, were literally alive with fish, especially that species known to Western sports- men by the name of white fish. This fish is peculiar to the lakes, and is the coreganus albus of Lesear. The savage of the Atlantic coast was not more favored in this respect than he of the shores of Lake Erie. The fish-spear, plunged at a venture into the water, brought . out two or three fish at each throw.
I have been told by a man, now living in Marietta-Mr. Joseph Kelly-and who was a prisoner when a boy with the Shawnee Indians for several years, that the fish in these streams
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:
JOSEPH KELLY, OR THE LOST SON.
were astonishingly numerous. At the season of fishing-which commenced in April and con- tinued for several weeks-every man, woman, and boy of the whole village were called out. The men were occupied in spearing or taking them with hooks, and the women and boys in cleaning and drying them on frames over a fire of brush-wood, in the same manner that jerked venison is prepared. Having no salt, they re- quired a thorough drying and smoking to pre- serve them from decay, and to supply food during the Summer months when hunting was poor. These fishing grounds were given up with great reluctance by the savages to the more powerful claimants of their "father-land" -- the whites. But might has too often usurped the place of right, in modern as well as in more rude and barbarian times.
JOSEPH KELLY, OR THE LOST SON. 1
Joseph Kelly, the person above referred to, was taken a prisoner by the Shawnee Indians,
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EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTH-WEST.
on the 7th of April, 1791, when only seven years old. He was then living in a garrison at Belleville, thirty miles below Marietta, on the left bank of the Ohio. He had gone out very early in the morning, with his father and another brother, to a field near the walls of the fort, to finish some planting. His father was a man of uncommon muscular power, but con- siderably deaf; so that he was not aware of the approach of the Indians till one of them had seized him, although little Joseph, who was near him, hallooed with all his might. The In- dian who had grasped him around the waist as he was stooping down to his work he instantly pitched, heels over head, for more than two rods, and defended himself so stoutly with his hoe, having no other weapon, that the Indians were obliged to shoot him, although their design evidently was to take him prisoner. In the midst of this struggle and alarm one Indian was killed by a shot from the garrison, which consisted of only five men, with several women
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