USA > Ohio > Ashland County > History of Ashland County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 4
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*Colonel Charles Whittlesey, in a letter addressed to the author, con- ceruing the ancient Eries, aud their final overthrowand dispersion says: "I have made another effort to learn more of the Fries, whom the Iraqaait exterminated betaren 1650 and 1655. The town which was the scene of the final battle, was somewhere in the interior of Ohio, called Komtown - probably near a river- but cannot be identified."
+Mr. Schoolcraft's conjectures concerning the residence of ine Fries on Kelley's Island ap: not regarded as authentic.
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HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY, OHIO.
CHAPTER V. THE WYANDOTS.
The Woundots as Successors of the Eries .- Some Account of their taaguest and Expulsion from the Shores of Lake Huron by the Inquois. - Their occupancy of Michigan and Northern Ohio.
ABOUT the year 1615, while engaged in establishing missions among the Indian tribes of northern New York, Father Sigard visited the Quatoghee or Wyandot nation, then occupying the southern shore, of Lake Huron. At that time they called themselves Yendots, but were called Hurons by the French, because of their location on the shores of that lake. The nation at that time consisted of five confederated tribes or clans, as follows: Ataronch-ronons, four villages; the Attiquenong. nahai, three villages; the Attignaoventan, twelve villages; the Ahrendah-ionons, three villages; and the Tronontate, nine villages. According to Father Gabriel Lallemand, these thirty-one villages occupied a territory of about sixty miles in extent, adjoining the Five Nations, and lying about one hundred miles south of the mouth of the Ottawa, or French river. About that time, Cham- plain, an eminent Frenchman who afterward became governor of Canada, spent some time with the Ahren- dah-ronons, the most northeastern tribe. The Jesuit, Father Sigard, resided with the nation some years, and succeeded in making a favorable impression upon the tribes.
In 1639, the whole nation was scourged by small-pox, and about twelve hundred fell victims to that abhorrent disease. The Jesuit missionaries took advantage of the scourge, to visit every village, to administer to the wants of the afflicted, and baptize their dying children. In their labor of charity and love, they went to almost every cabin, and succeeded in influencing great numbers of Wyandots to unite with the Catholic church. They estimated the number of cabins, at that time, at seven hundred, and the number of families at two thousand, and the whole population at about twelve thousand. The year before the appearance of the small-pox, the Jesuit, Jean de Brebœuf, while a missionary among the Wyandots, near Lake Huron, became acquainted with a remarkable warrior, named Ahasistari, who related to the missionary a singular dream, concerning th : white man's deity, and afterwards became a zealous member of the church. Many other Wyandots followed the example of Ahasistari, and joined the missionaries in the erection of chapels, and in the ceremonies of the church. The Wyandots willingly embraced the doctrines of the Jesuits, and made rapid advancement in civilization; particularly in agriculture, to which they paid a good deal of attention. They were more amiable than the tribes of the Five Nations, and were more readily induced to embrace the tenets of the Catholic church, as expounded by Father Brebœuf and his successors. By the advice and instruction of the missionaries, a number of churches and schools were established, in their most populous villages, and stockades erected to protect them from surprise by the Five Nations. The villages of St. Louis and St. Ignatius were esteemed the most important.
It was the custom of the Wyandots to make annual visits to Quebec, then a small French village, to consult the Jesuit teachers, exchange furs for goods, and renew their devotion to the king of France. They returned by the way of the Ottawa and the rivers that interlock with it .* Their journey was more than sixteen hundred miles, through dense forests, and along shoaly rivers; and all day long the missionaries and the Wyandots were compelled to wade or handle the oar. At night they had no food but a scanty measure of Indian corn mixed with water, and their conch was upon the earth or the rocks ! In this long journey they passed thirty-five water-falls, and carried their canoes upon their shoulders many leagues through the forests, and dragged them by hand through shallows and rapids over sharp stones ; and while thus proceeding on their journey homeward, accompanied by Father Isaac Joques, in August, 1549, a band of Mohawks, whose war parties, fearlessly strolling through the forest, were ever ready to fall suddenly upon their foes, lay in wait for the pilgrims as they as- cended the St. Lawrence. f Ahasistari, the pilot of the pilgrims, landed, and upon examination, declared there were only three canoes, and added there was nothing to fear. The party proceeded, and the Mohawks from their ambush attacked the canoes as they neared the land. Wyandots and Frenchmen alike hastencd to the shore to seek security in the forest. The pious Joques might have easily escaped, but among the wounded were converts who bad not yet been baptized, and car- ing not for his own safety, he proceeded to discharge bis duty to the dying Wyandots. Ahasistari succeeded in gaining a hiding place, but observing Joques to be a captive he hastened to him, saying: "My brother, I made oath to thee that I would share thy fortune, whether death of life; here am I to keep my vow." Joques, Rene Goupil, Ahasistari and other captives were carried through the Mohawk villages, where Goupil was tomahawked and Ahasistari suffered the most horrible tortures, and finally, death by being burned at the stake, while Joques was unexpectedly spared.
Thus a new war sprang up between the Isendots and the Fire Nations, who had long been jealous of the influ- ence of the Wyandots with the neutral nation, and who had stood in their path to the Illinois and the Mississippi. By frequent surprises by the Mohawks, communication by the Ottawa river with Quebec was cut off, and after re- peated repulses elsewhere, the Wyandotsbecame dispirited in consequence of the loss of so many of their warriors, and abandoned the small villages and concentrated in the large ones. This seemed to exasperate the Fire Vations, and the Il yandots were a doomed race. In 1654 the com- bined forces of the Fire Nations resolved on the destruc- tion of the Iranders, invaded their country and attacked and took the most of their stockaded villages, and massa- cred large numbers of the inhabitants. The attack was renewed the next year, and the Handof nation was com- pletely scattered, some seeking a refuge by the Ottawa. under the walls of Quebec, whither they were pursued
*Bancroft.
+ Father Jeques, in " French Relations."
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HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY, OHIO.
by the relentless Mohawks. Several bands were cap- tured and incorporated in the Fire Nations; a remnant of the nation fled to the country of the Chippewas of Lake Superior. Other bands fled to the upper part of Michigan and other remote quarters. As we have already seen, the Five Nations then opened a war of ex- termination against the Andastes and the Eries. About the year 1671, that part of the Wyandot nation which had taken refuge among the Chippewas, was induced by Father Marquette to return to the Peninsula of Michi- gan, where they united their fortunes with a dispersed remnant of their brethren near Detroit, with perhaps a remnant of the Andastes, and the Eries, who had sought refuge in that quarter.
About the close of the thirty years' war between the French and the Five Nations, when the strength of the latter had been broken, and their incursions into Ohio successfully checked, the Wyandots took quiet possession of the ancient territory of the ill fated Eries, claiming sovereignty over all the country between Lake Erie and the Ohio river. We find the Il'yandots, in 1740. suffi- ciently strong to offer an asylum on the Muskingum to a part of the Delaware nation which had fled from the in- trusions of the white man in Pennsylvania .* The IN'y- andots probably obtained the territory of the Eries through French influence. The W'yandets occupied a commanding influence over the western tribes as late as the treaty of Greenville. Mr. Taylor says the Wyandots dwelt upon the waters of Sandusky and Maumee in 1750. The principal seat of the nation was opposite Detroit, Michigan, and the Ohio settlements were in the nature of colonies from the peninsulas bordering on Lake Hu- ron. The Wyandots unquestionably stood at the head of the Ohio Indians for bravery, intelligence and capa- bility of adopting the laws of civilized life. President Harrison, who was a military officer in the northwest, be- came well acquainted with the Wyandots, declared that neither surprise nor sudden disaster in battle cowed their courage. At the: battle of the rapids of the Miami, where he won a noted battle over the confederated tribes. he says the Wyandots lost thirteen chiefs, notwithstand- ing which, they fought with the niost constant and un- flinching courage. It was one of the characteristics of the Wyandots that they would never be taken in battle. In the appropriate place, it will be seen that they took a leading part, under British influence, in the warlike in- cursions in the eastern and western parts of this county, and aided in the destruction of the property of the early settlers, as well as in menacing their safety.
* Heckewelder.
NOTE .- The reader will remember that after the war of 1812-14 the Wyandots resided on their reservation at Upper Sandusky, occupied in the pursuit of agriculture, and making considerable advancement in education and the arts of civilized life, until 1842-43, when they were assigned a new reservation by the general government, in the territory of Kansas, to which they removed, and where they now reside.
CHARTER VI. THE OTTAWAS.
The Ottawas and their Expulsion by the Iroquois. -- Their Flight to the Upper Lakes .- Their Return to Michigan and Ohio. -- As Confeder- ales of the Hurons or Wyandots.
WHEN the Five Nations had conquered and dispersed the Wyandots in 1655, they immediately assailed the Of- tawas, another branch of the neutral nation occupying the shores and islands on the Ottawa river, in Canada. The invasion was conducted by the relentless Mohawks, with their usual vigor and cruelty, until the unfortunate Ottawas, unaccustomed to war, were compelled to aban- don their homes and seek refuge on the Bay of Saginaw, opposite the territory of Michigan." Here they found the scattered Wyandots, for whom they had borne the strongest attachments; and, uniting with them, removed to the deserts north of Lake Superior in 1665, near the Chippervas, where they were visited by the Jesuit mission- ary, Allouez.
When first visited by the missionaries, about the year 1615, they occupied an island on the Ottawa river, as well as the territory adjacent to the river, and although disposed to be on peaceful terms with their neighbors, they exacted a sort of tribute or toll from all the Indians navigating that river, which seems to have been willingly assented to by the Wyandots and other fur-trading tribes. We may infer, therefore, that they were the original pro. prietors of the islands and the shores of that river. At that time their chief occupation was fishing, hunting, raising corn, and trading with the nations, using the river as a sort of commercial highway. In fact, the early missionaries supposed the term "Ottawa" originally meant in their language, a trader.
About the year 1680, La Salle a distinguished French explorer, visited the Ottawas at the Bay of Saginaw and found them and the Hurons or Wyandots, confederated against the Fire Nations, and engaged in cultivating corn, which was their ordinary food, and fishing upon the borders of the lake. He purchased an abundance of "whitings" and some "trouts" of extraordinary size of them. Father Hennepin, a Franciscan, also visited them at their new home about the same time, and joined them in fishing in the bay, by breaking holes in the ice, and by means of several large stones, sunk nets to catch fish, which he did in great abundance, and adds, "these inade our Indian wheat go down the better, which was our ordinary diet." He also relates that at that time the Ottawas were greatly in dread of the Iroquois or Five Nations, who had a short time before taken an entire family of twelve souls into slavery, and otherwise greatly distressed their people, while others had fled to the French at Quebec for protection and food. It seemed difficult for the Ottawas to escape the raids and malice of the File Nations who sought the fugitives wherever they attempted to conceal themselves. In the year 1701, after the peace between the French and the Fire Nations, a settlement by the French was commenced at Detroit by De la Matte Cadillar, with a Jesuit missionary
" Bancroft.
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HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY, OHIO.
and one hundred Frenchmen. A fort was erected for the protection of the new settlers, and Detroit soon be- rauis the center of trade with the Indians. The Otta- Owe and Wyandots, after a residence of over fifty years m Upper Canada, joined the new settlement by return- ing to its vicinity. The French were ambitious to hold the ascendency over the British in the territories of Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, and to do so, encouraged the Wyando's and Ottawas to pass down the western shores of Lake Erie.
In the year 1750, nearly one hundred and fifty years after the expulsion of the Ottawas from the home of their fathers on the Ottawa river, we find the French en- gaged in constructing a fort at Sandusky. It is not known with certainty how many French occupied the new fort, but their influence was speedily seen on the Indians of Ohio, who were encouraged by presents and jealousy to make savage raids on the border settlements of Pennsylvania and Virginia. The principal settlements of the Ottureas were on the Maumee, along the lake shore, at Plymouth, Huron county, the mouth of Huron river, on the Black river, and a large village at or near Cuyahoga Falls. After the decay of French influence in Canada, when the Ottawas and all the other north- western tribes in Ohio gave in their adhesion to the British, and during the Revolution and the war of 1812- 15, the Ottawas were known by the first settlers of this and the surrounding counties, as "Canada Indians," and were generally adherents of the British cause ; and en- couraged in their predatory incursions on the border set- tlements, by presents in compensation for the scalps they were able to exhibit on their return from their expedi- tions.
While the Ottawa nation seems to have been almost entirely destitute of great war chiefs and leaders, it must be admitted that in what may properly be termed "In- dian diplomacy," it ranked as a nation or tribe with most of the Ohio Indians. In the history of Ohio, it is no- ticeable that the British and French often employed Ot- tawa emissaries to influence the other tribes to join their cause, and frequently with considerable success. As a people, the Ottawas were without true courage, and relied upon their cunning and dissemblance for success. The Wyandots were a frank, brave and fearless people, while the Ottawas were timid, treacherous and uncertain, as enemies or friends.
The only really great man ever produced among the Ottawas was the gallant war-chief, Pontiac, who was supposed to be the son of an Ojibwva woman, while his father was an Ottarea .* It is not known with certainty, whether Pontiac was born during the residence of his tribe near the upper lakes, or after his people had settled on the Maumee, in Ohio. Pontiac was a strong friend of the French; and when their colonists were contend- ing for the occupation of Michigan, the valleys of Ohio, the Wabash, and the Miami, he rallied the red men of the forest against the British, and fought with distin- gutshed courage, side by side with the French. Watch-
ful, fearless, indomitable, he was ever on the alert to foil the advance of the "Long-knives," the Pennsylvanians and the "Red coats" aiding their advance into these territories.
When, in 1760, Canada surrendered to the English, by the French governor, Vaudrueil, Major Robert Rog- ers, a native of New Hampshire, and an associate of Putnam and Stark, was ordered to take possession of the western forts. * He left Montreal with two hundred rangers, well trained as hunters and woodsmen, amied like Indians, with hatchet, gun, and knife. He em- barked at Presque Isle, up Lake Erie, in fifteen whale boats; and when, from bad weather, he was compelled to put into the mouth of the Geauga, or Grand, river, Ohio, he met an embassy of Ottawas, who told him the chief or king was a short distance away, coming, and desired him to halt for a talk. The request was com. plied with, and Pontiac met him; and, after the first salutation, demanded to know his business in his coun- try, and wished to know how it happened that he dared to enter it without his leave ? When Major Rogers told him he had no desire to injure the Indians, but came to remove the French out of the country, Pontiac told him he stood in his path, and would give him a final answer the next day. The next day, Pontiac agreed that Rogers might proceed, accompanied by himself and the Ottawas, as a guard, on his journey to remove the French. To carry out this agreement, he sent one hundred warriors, with bags of parched corn and other necessaries, to pro- tect, and assist in driving, one hundred cattle, which Rogers had brought for the use of the detachment from Fort DuQuesne; at the same time, dispatching messages to the several Indian towns on the south side of Lake Erie, to inform them that Rogers had his consent to come into the country. Pontiac constantly accompa- nied the Major, until the expedition arrived at Detroit, and was the means of preserving the detachment from the fury of the Indians, who had assembled at the north of the strait, to cut the expedition off. Rogers regarded Pontiac as an, extraordinary mar, possessing great strength of judgment and a wonderful thirst for know !- edge. He was desirous of learning how the English manafactured cloth, iron, guns, and other things pecu- liar to civilized life; and even expressed a strong desire to visit England.
The Indians in northwestern Ohio, Indiana and Michigan submitted sullenly to British dominion. The French were unable to cope with the English, and the Indians were forced to submit to their new masters, al- though strongly attached to and sympathizing with their fallen friends, the French. The fierce hatred of Pontiac had not been subdued, and regarding the British as in- truders into his country, he silently awaited a suitable opportunity to strike a fatal blow at the new invaders. He nursed his aversions towards the British, and cited his Indian allies in the west to the eneroachments of the English ermigrants from Pennsylvania and Virginia, and the pretended grants of his territory to the newcomers.
*Perkins il, 223.
*Roger's Journal.
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HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY, OHIO.
The English failed to keep their engagements with the Indians, and this aided in fanning the flames of dis- affection until it reached the height of an insurrection. Pontiac was at the head of the great conspiracy. He was a chief of great genius, possessing qualities only equaled by the most distinguished of his race, such as Tecumseh, King Philip, Powhatan, Cornstalk and Logan. He proceeded from tribe to tribe, organizing his grand conspiracy, and seemed to wield the power of an em- peror among his people. He had fought in behalf of the French in the Acadian war of 17.47, at Braddock's defeat 1755, and at the surrender of Fort DuQuesne, and he claimed to speak by the inspiration of the Great Spirit, who he declared had "told him not to suffer those dogs in red clothing to enter his country and take the land given him." "Drive them from it ! Drive them! When you are in distress, I will help you, said the Great Spirit."
According to the papers of J. H. Perkins, in May, 1763, the great drama commenced. By a simultaneous movement the Indians precipitated themselves upon and captured nearly every settlement from Michilimackinack to Fort Pitt, while the border streams of Virginia and . Pennsylvania again ran red with human gore. The fort at Detroit held out, but was closely beleagured by six hundred Indians led by the indomitable Pontiac. He continued the siege of Detroit until June, when the fort was reinforced, and Pontiac retired to the Maumee in Ohio.
In October a royal proclamation was issued which event- ually pacified the Indian tribes of the leagues. This proclamation prohibited further settlements in the terri- tory until the pleasure of the crown. Pontiac yielded a sullen submission on the Maumee in August, 1765, to General Croghan, and agreed no longer to stand in the path of the English; but denied that by taking posses- sion of the French forts they gained any right to the country. He said the French occupied and lived upon their land by sufferance only. Croghan declared that Pontiac was a "shrewd, sensible Indian, of few words, and commanded more respect among his own nation than any Indian he ever saw." About the year 1769 the great Pontiac disappeared from the Maumee, pro- ceeding to the country of the Illinois, and thence to the French garrison at St. Louis. He was warmly received by St. Ange, then commander of the fort, where he re- mained for two or three days. He appeared in the full uniform of a French officer. Hearing that a number of Indians were assembled on the opposite side of the Mis- sissippi, and drinking and engaged in other amusements, he said he would cross over and see what was going on. St. Ange endeavored to convince him that those Indians were the friends of the British, and might injure him. Pontiac proudly replied, "Captain, I am a man! I know how to fight. I always fought openly. They will not murder me. If any one attacks me as a brave man, I am his match." He crossed the river, found the Indians in a carousal, drank deeply, strode down the village to the adjacent woods, was followed by a Kaskaskie Indian (who had been bribed by an English trader named Will- iamson with a barrel of rum), who stole near him in the forest and buried his tomahawk in his brain.
According to the compilation of Mr. Taylor, Pontiac was buried by his friends, the French officers, with war- like honors, near the fort at St. Louis; and about his grave a great city has risen, and the race whom he hatt.d now tramples over his forgotten grave. After the close of the war of 1812-15 the major part of the Ottawas sought and obtained permission of the British to return to their ancient homes on the Ottawa river, where many of them are yet to be seen. In the proper place it will be shown that the Ottawas were familiar with the terri- tory of this county, and that their great chief, Pontiac, may have traversed it frequently to rouse the Delawares. the Mohegans and the Mingves, against the encroach- ments of the white man.
CHAPTER VIL. THE MOHEGANS.
A Remnant of the Connecticut Mohegans Locate on a Branch of . White Woman's River and give Names to all the Streams Empty- - ing into it from the Northwest .- They Erect a Village Under the Chiefship of Mohegan John, on the Jerome Fork of Mohican.
WHEN the English landed in New England they were heartily welcomed and treated with much consideration and kindness by the native Indians inhabiting her coasts. The English colonists made a show of purchasing the lands of the Indians, closing their purchases and treaties in writing, which the tatives neither understood nor could read. By these repeated contracts and sales. they narrowed the domains of the children of the forest, and thus artfully crowded them into narrow and sterile tongues of land until they feared starvation and exter- mination. Thus, the English villages and settlements drew nearer and nearer their hunting grounds, and the natives were constantly pressed upon and forced back from the homes and graves of their fathers. They re- sisted, but in vain ! Their tribes were broken and scat- tered by the "psalm-singing Puritans," and compelled to seek refuge up the St. Lawrence and among the Fire Nations in northern New York.
The Mohegans of Connecticut, once owning the east- ern part of that State, the most of Rhode Island, and the country between the banks of the Connecticut and the Hudson, fell victims to the avarice of the white set- tlers by being stripped of their lands and driven from their homes. The most of them fed up the St. Law- rence under French protection, where they probably in- corporated themselves with the Iroquois and became a mixed race. From Canada they found an asylum in the wild territories of Ohio by passing the domains of the Five Nations or through Michigan down the western coast of Lake Erie. The precise period of their arrival in Ohio is not known with certainty ; but by reference to Pownall's map, we find that the Mohegans, remnants of the old Connecticut tribe, occupied the west brarch of the Muskingum as early as 1755.
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