History of Ashland County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 7

Author: Hill, George William, b. 1823; Williams Bros
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: [Cleveland] Williams
Number of Pages: 896

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Moravians had passed up the Owl creek, it is not nin- likely he would have so stated. On the contrary, wc find, so late as 1808, that Heckewelder preferred to travel the old Huron trail, on the Block fork.

The Black fork has always been regarded as the main branch or head of the Wallionding, and has been so called by many early writers; and after a careful analysis of the route, it seems probable that they passed up that stream to near the modern site of Greentown. This opinion seems to be confirmed by Mary Heckewelder, daughter of the missionary, John Heckewelder, who was living at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, as late as 1843, and who, according to Perkins, page 253, says: "Our journey was exceedingly tedious and dangerous; some of the canoes sunk, and those that were in them lost all their provisions, and everything they had saved. Those that went by land drove the cattle, a pretty large herd. The savages now drove us along, the missionaries with their families usually in their midst, surrounded by their In- dian converts. The roads were exceedingly bad, leading through a continuation of swamps. We went by land through Goseuchguenk (Coshocton), to the Walholding, and then, partly by water and partly along the banks of the river, to Sandusky creek." The nature of the ground from the Black fork, by the route described, conforms to the idea of Mary Heckewelder.

The company were seven days in traveling the first twenty-five or thirty miles. They reached the branches of the Sandusky on the eleventh of October, twenty days after the storm. A fair estimate of the distance traveled the first seven days, would bring them to the old Huron or Wyandot trail at the mouth of Clear fork, in Hanover township, and the eighth day would place them near the modern site of Greentown, on Armstrong's creek, or the Black fork of the Mohican. The route from thence would conform to the recollection of Mary Heckewelder, being full of ponds, marshes and bogs, and difficult of passage. This was the common route of the Wyandots, and was the favorite route of the Dela- wares as late as the appearance of the white settlers.

Now, if as supposed, che Moravians turned up the Lake fork, when they left the Walhonding, they probably followed the Black fork until they reached the mouth of the Rocky fork, where they struck an ancient trail that fol- lowed that stream by the present site of Mansfield, to the site selected for their village, on the branch of the Sandusky. Regarding both routes as not freed of dith- eulty, and, therefore, unsettled, we resume the thread of our discourse.

A party was sent back to gather the corn yet standing in the fields, and returned with about four hundred bushels. About one hundred and fifty Moravians re- turned in February, 1782, and divided so as to work at the three deserted towns in the cornfield!s. Eliott, Girty, and McKee accused the missionaries of a want of fidelity to the British, and had them removed to Detroit, where they were tried, and acquitted by the testhaony of Captain Pipe, who declared that he believed that they had acted faithfully as neutrals.

Soon after the removal of the Moravians, a number

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HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY, OHIO.

of depredations were committed along the borders of Penalvania, by smali bands of Wyandots, which exas- jezateil the people to madness and revenge. Colonel David Williamson organized a volunteer expedition to es to the Muskingum, with a view of punishing the Moravians, who were charged with harboring and en- vonraging the Wyandots. In a brief time, his irregular forces were ready to march to the villages. In March, 1782, about ninety volunteers, under command of Wil- liamson, assembled in the Mingo bottom, just below the site of Steubenville. They proceeded rapidly to Gnadenkutten, and entered the town, where they found a large body of Indians in a field, getting corn. They told the Indians they had come to take them to Fort l'itt for protection. The Indians were pleased at the prospect of removal, and delivered their arms, which they used in hunting, and commenced to prepare break- fast for the soldiers. An Indian messenger proceeded to Salem, to inform the brethren there, and returned with them. The treacherous soldiers then proceeded to secure the Indians, by binding and confining them in two houses, well guarded. The Salem Indians were also fettered, and divided between the two prison houses, the - males in one, and the females in the other. The number thus confined was about ninety-six, including old men, women, and children. The infuriated soldiers of Williamson then held a council, to determine how the Moravian Indians should be disposed of. After some discussion, Colonel Williamson put the question, whether the Moravian Indians should be taken prisoners to Fort Pitt, or put to death, requesting those who were in favor of saving their lives to step out, and form a second rank. Only eighteen voted for mercy! The balance resolved to murder the Christian Indians in their custody! The soldiers were deaf to all pleas of mercy and protection! The poor Moravians were or- dered to prepare for death. The sound of the Chris- tian's hymn and the Christian's prayer, soon found an echo in the surrounding forest, but no response from the unfeeling bosoms of their determined executioners. With gun, and spear, and tomahawk, and scalping knife, the work of death progressed, in these slaughter-houses, until not a sign or moan was heard, to proclaim the existence of human life within. All were murdered, save two boys, who escaped, as if by miracle, to be wit- nesses, in after times, of the savage cruelty of the sol- diers of Williamson. Of the number killed, between fifty and sixty were women and children, some innocent babes. No resistance was made. The whites finished the tragedy, by setting fire to the town, including the slaughter-houses with the bodies in them, and all were consumed. The people of Schoenbrun, hearing the news of the dreadful tragedy, fled, and saved their lives. This act of inexcusable cruelty and cowardice, shocked the border settlers, and called down upon Williamson and his men the execrations of every humane person in the country. The only excuse offered, in palliation of these wanton murders, was the fact that a few garments, formerly belonging to the settlers, some of them stained with blood, were found in the houses of the Moravians.

These articles, doubtless, had been purchased of the lostile Indians, in exchange for provisions, while on their return through the villages. This act of barbarity cannot be justified. It leaves an ineffaceable stain upon the char- acter of the border volunteers of Pennsylvania; and the judgment of the Almighty soon overtook many of the actors in that sanguinary tragedy, on the plains of San- dusky, in the subsequent disaster that overtook Craw- ford and his army.

CHAPTER XI. CRAWFORD'S EXPEDITION.

Expedition of Colonel William Crawford to Upper Sandusky in 1782. - His Disastrous Repulse and Flight .- His Capture, Torture, and Death at the Stake, by Captain Pike .- The Object of the Expedi- tion. - The Route of the Expedition Through the Forests of Ohio.

THE massacre of the Moravian Indians on the Tuscar- awas, intensified the hate of Captain Pipe towards the border settlers, because they were mostly Delawares and his kinsmen. " Although he had opposed the pacific prin- ciples and faith of the Moravian Indians, and had, to some extent, assisted in persecuting and annoying them in consequence of their refusal to go upon the war-path, yet, when they were attacked by the Pennsylvania volun- teers and barbarously slaughtered, his sympathies_ were aroused in their behalf, and he resolved to avenge the death of the inoffensive brethren who had been wantonly murdered by the blood-thirsty rangers of Williamson at Gnadenhutten. The Wyandots, the Shatences, the Ot- tawas, the Miamis, the Mingces, and the Mohegans ralliedi to his support, and the borders of Virginia and Pennsyl- vania were threatened with invasion by the savages of the northwest. Pipe and Half King went from tribe to tribe calling for assistance, and several thousand warriors were collected in the vicinity of Sandusky plains ready to measure arms with the "Long Knives," and go upon the war path to visit summary vengeance upon the whites for the inhuman treatment of the Christian Delow ares.

In the meantime, the border counties of PennysIvania and Virginia became greatly excited over the impending danger of an Indian invasion. Volunteers were invited to join a new expedition then organizing to march into territories of Ohio to attack the new settlement of the Christian Indians on the Sandusky, as well as the Hyan- dot and Delaware towns located thereon. The enterprise was conducted with as much secresy and rapidity as possible, the volunteers furnishing their own outfits, and mostly mounted on horses, were supplied with arms and ammunition by the authorities of Washington county, Pennsylvania.

About the twentieth of May, 1782, the volunteers crossed the Ohio river and rendezvoused at the deserted Mingo village below what is now Steubenville. AAn election for a commanding officer took place. The candidates were Colonel David Williamson and Colonel

HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY, OHIO.

William Crawford, the confidential friend of General Washington. Colonel William Crawford received a ma- jority of the votes, and was declared the commander, although he is said to have accepted the command with much reluctance. Colonel Williamson accompanied the expedition in command of a company of volunteers.

On the twenty-fifth of May the army, numbering about four hundred and eighty men, departed for the Sandusky, following the Williamson trail, and on the fourth day reached Shoenbrun, on the Tuscarawas, then the Muskingum, and found sufficient corn in the field for their horses. They continued down the Tuscarawas, and, on the thirtieth, discovered, a few hundred yards in advance, two Indians skulking through the forest, appar- rently watching the movements of the troops. They were fired at but escaped. The soldiers were thrown into a fever of excitement and confusion over the cir- cuinstance, and expected an ambush and attack; and Colonel Crawford is said to have expressed apprehen- sions of the worst consequences, from the evident want of discipline and subordination on the part of the rangers, and afterwards lost all confidence in their cour- age and capacity to cope with any considerable force of Indians. He, as an experienced soldier, was impressed with the fact that the two Indians were acting as spies, and had stealthily followed him from the Ohio river, and were fully aware of his destination and the number of troops composing the expedition, all of which had doubt- less been communicated to the villages in their advance, and to Pipe and Half King. Colonel Crawford found ail the Indian villages on his route deserted, and the im- pression prevalent that no quarter was to be given to an Indian, whether man, woman, or child.

On his route from the Tuscarawas, he passed through White Eyes plains, across the north part of Holmes and the south part of Wayne counties, and over the townships of Lake and Green, in Ashland county, near the present residences of Warring Wolf, David Hunter, Thomas and Benjamin McGuire, north of Alexander Rice, George Guthrie and old Greentown, to the Rocky fork, and up it to where Mansfield now is; thence to Spring mills, and thence to near Pipestown, where they found the Mora- vian huts or cabins on the sixth of June, deserted, and nothing but desolation to mark the spot. The site was surrounded by tall grass, and the remains of a few huts were seen. It was well-for the human tigers that had feasted on Christian blood at Gnadenhutten, intended to

make a dash at the towns of the Moravian Delawares and Wyandots upon the Sandusky, where no Indian was to be spared -- friend or foe-every red man was to die! This, then, might be considered a second Moravian campaign, as its object was to finish the sanguinary work of murder and plunder commenced on the Tuscarawas. Having had a taste of blood and plunder, there, without risk and loss, they had entered upon the new campaign with high hopes of easily extirpating the Delawares and il'yandots.

Finding the Moravian village deserted, the officers called a hait, and held a council, in which the propriety of advancing was fully discussed. Some desired to turn

back, as their horses were much wearied by the long and toilsome journey, and needed rest and proper forage. It was finally decided that the army should advance one day further, and, if an enemy could not be discovered, to retreat. The army was again put in motion, and, having crossed the Sandusky, advanced about one mile west to a point about three miles north of Upper San- dusky, where the guard, about two o'clock, was attacked and driven in by the Indians, who were discovered in large numbers in the high grass with which the plain was covered. The Indians attempted to take a piece of woods to conceal themselves behind the trees, but were pre- vented by the rapid movements of Colonel Crawford's forces, and the battle conimienced by heavy firing from both sides. The Indians were driven from the timber, and the battle continued with incessant and heavy firing until dark, when both armies kindled large fires along the line of battle to prevent surprise, and rested on their arms during the night. In the morning the battle was not renewed, but the Indians were seer. during the day in large numbers traversing the plains in various directions. A council of officers was held, and a speedy retreat re- solved on as the only means of saving the army. Cap- tain Williamson proposed to take one hundred and fifty men and march directly to Upper Sandusky. The prop- osition was rejected. under the belief that it would weak- en the forces so as to allow them to be cut off in detail, and result in the capture of an empty town. During the day, the dead (three in number) were buried, and ar- rangements for carrying the wounded were made. At it given signal the retreat was to commence in the evening, after dark. The route is not clearly pointed out, but seems to have been in the direction of Upper Sandusky, the only open point in the Indian lines. The forces moved forward, but were soon thrown into great con- fusion by an attack by the Indians. While some three hundred men moved forward as directed, Captain Williamson, with about forty men, seems to have separ- ated from the main body and broken through the Indian lines under a severe fire, with some loss, and, on the second day, overtook the army on its retreat. The main army probably passed through Upper Sandusky without pursuit, and then, wheeling to the left, kept up the stream a short distance, crossed over, and continued to retreat in an easterly direction until it again struck the trail by which it had advanced, and followed the same with as much rapidity as possible to the Tuscarawas, and thence to the Ohio river, pursued by the Indians, who cut off all the stragglers found on the route. When the retreat com. menced, a large number of soldiers believing it to be safer to separate from the main army, scattered over the plains, and were all captured or killed by the Indians. Colonel Crawford having delayed while the troops were passing. in search of his son and other relatives, was joined by Dr. Knight, the surgeon, and failing to meet or hear of the young men, and, having no confidence in the cour- age of the army, Fe, Dr. Knight, and two others, changed their course northward, guided by the north star, and continued to travel in that direction for nearly an hom, and then, turning cast, soon crossed the San-

HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY, OHIO.

Husky, and pressed forward until daybreak, when their hopes failed and were abandoned. Continuing their join cey on foot they soon fell in with Captain Biggs, who had generously surrendered his horse to a wounded offi- ver, Lieutenant Ashley, and was walking by his side with , ride in his hand and a knapsack on his shoulders. At thice o'clock in the afternoon a heavy rain fell, which compelled them to encamp. They constructed a tem- porary shelter by barking several trees, after the manner of the Indians, and spread the bark over poles. Here they passed the night. In the morning they resumed their route and were 30 fortunate as to find the carcass of a deer neatly sliced and bundled in the skin, and a mile further on fell in with a white man, who had kindled a fire. They breakfasted heartily after the fatigues and abstinence of thirty-six hours, and contin- ned their march. By noon they had reached the path by which the army had marched a few days before, in their advance upon the Indian towns. and some discus- sion took place as to the propriety of taking that route homeward .* Biggs and Knight strenuously insisted upon continuing their course through the woods, and avoiding all paths, but Crawford overruled them, repre- senting that the Indians would not continue the pursuit beyond the plains, which were already far behind. Be- fore they had advanced a mile, a party of Delaware In- dians sprang up near Colonel Crawford and Dr. Knight, who were some distance ahead of their comrades, and or- dered them, in good English, to stop. They surrendered -- the rest fled; but Biggs and Ashley were overtaken and killed the next day. f Crawford and Knight were taken to an Indian encampment near by, where they found nine other prisoners.

On the next morning, all were conducted toward the Tymochtee, by Pipe and Wingenund, Delaware chiefs, except four of them, who were killed and scalped on the way, they being about thirty-three miles from Sandusky, on the trail by which the army had advanced. When they arrived at a Delaware town on the Tymochtee, a few miles northwesterly from the site of Upper San- dusky, preparations were made for the burning of Co !- onel Crawford. In the vicinity the remaining five of the prisoners were tomahawked and scalped by squaws and boys. The relations of Crawford were executed by the Shawnees on the Scioto. Upon the arrival of Colonel Crawford on the Tymochtee, he endeavored to enlist the sympathies of the notorious Simon Girty, who was then living with the Indians, but Girty would not or could not exert any influence in his behalf. Indeed, it is said that Captain Pipe rebuked him for his interference, with a threat of burning him also if he again mentioned the matter. A post about fifteen feet high was set in the ground, where the prisoner was to be burned; and a

large pile of hickory poles, about six yards from it, had been burned in the middle, so as to make a bed of coals and fagots to torture him. When the colonel approached the spot, he was surprised at these preparations, and, Heckewelder says, when Wingenund came up, Crawford addressed him in regard to their intentions, and desired his influence on the ground of a long acquaintance, and warm friendships. Wingenund said he sympathized with him, and admitted the force of his arguments for mercy; but that Captain Pipe could not be appeased for the cruel death of his Moravian kinsmen on the Mus- kingum, and was determined to make a victim of the colonel. When reminded that Colonel Crawford had no part in that dreadful tragedy, he said if they could have captured Williamson he thought the life of Crawford would have been spared. But, as the matter then stood, he could do nothing, and would retire from the spot.

Dr. Knight says, when we "went to the fire, the col- onel was stripped naked, ordered to sit down by the fire, and then beat him with sticks and their fists. Presently after, I was treated in the same manner. They then tied a rope to the foot of the post, bound the colonel's hands behind his back, and fastened the rope to the ligature between his wrists. The rope was long enough for him to sit down or walk round the post once or twice, and return the same way. The colonel then called to Girty, and asked if they intended to burn him? Girty answered yes. The colonel said he would take it pa- tiently." Upon this, Captain Pike made a speech to the Indians, about thirty or forty men, and sixty or seventy squaws and boys. At its conclusion, the Indians gave a hideous yell of assent; and the Indian men then took up their guns and fired sixty or seventy loads of powder into the colonel's body, from his feet as far up as his neck. They then crowded about him and mutilated him; and then, three or four Indians by turns, took up the burning pieces of the poles and applied them to his naked body, already blacked with the powder. Some of the squaws took boards and poured burning coals and hot embers on him, so that in a short time he had noth- ing but coals to walk upon. In the midst of these ex- treme tortures, he begged Girty to shoot him-but the hardened wretch derisively replied he had no gun, at the same time turning about to an Indian, laughed heartily, and seemed delighted at the horrid scene. "Colonel Crawford, at this period of his sufferings, besought the Almighty to have mercy on his soul, spoke very low, and bore his torments with the most manly fortitude." He continued to survive under these extreme tortures for over two hours, when an Indian removed the doctor to Captain Pipe's house, about three quarters of a mile from the place of the colonel's execution. The next morning the doctor was untied and painted black, to be taken to a Shartonce town, some forty miles distant, to be burned. He was taken, bound to an Indian post, the spot where the colonel had been burned. and says. "[ saw his bones lying among the remains of the fire almost burned to ashes. I suppose, after he was dead, they laid his body on the fire. The Indians told me that was my big captain, and gave the scalp halloo." On the wa; to

* After a careful analysis of the course of Colonel Crawford and his comrades, we are inclined to believe that this parley took place nearly on the line of the Pittsburgh & Fort Wayne railroad. some two or three miles northwest of Mansfield, a distance of about thirty there of thirty -four miles east of the Sandusky river.

I It is probable that Captain Biggs and Lieutenant Ashley were billed somewhere in the gas part of Milton of the west part of Ment- gomery township, in this county.

HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY, OHIO.

the Shawnee town, through the forest, the doctor made his escape, and finally got safely to Pittsburgh. Thus ended the disastrous campaign of Colonel Crawford. His death was the penalty demanded for the slaughter of the Moraviaus. He is described as an amiable, intelligent, and chivalrous officer; and the intelligence of his death sent a shudder of horror over the border counties of Pennsylvania and Virginia .*

* In a letter addressed to the author, Ilon A. H. Byers, of Wooster, who had a relative in the command of Colonel Crawford, says:

"Crawford's route from Shoenbrun, two miles south of New Philadelphia, to Odell's, o: Mohican John's lake, was nearly west. Mv opinion is that the ex- pedition continued nine or ten mile west, up Sugar creek, the mouth of which inust be very near where Shoenbrun stood, the valley being for that distance nearly east and west, broad and level, and beautiful. The south branch falls in there, having run some distance from the west, not far from the line between Wayne and Holmes counties; thence the army may have passed down the Salt creek to Killbuck, near Holmeville, from thence to Mohican John's Inke; and thence continued more westerly not far from Loudonville, thence up that branch of Mohican, past Greentown. Since writing the foregoing, I have looked at a map, and find my route between Shoenbrun and Odell's lake would be rather muore north than west, but still it seems to me a very probable one. '

The actual route was about one and a half miles north of Loudon- ville, and about one mile north of the Indian village of Greentown, which was notestablished until 1783. In other words, Colonel Craw- ford simply followed the old Huron trail leading from Sandusky to the forks of the Muskingum and Fort Du Quesne.

CHAPTER XII.

THE LEGEND OF "HELLTOWN."

A Legend concerning the Abandonment of "Helltown" in 1782, on the Approach of Crawford's Army, and the Founding of " Green- town" in 1783, by the Lenni-Lenipes or Delawares, by the Aid of a White Tory.

THE precise period of the location of the Delaware and Mingo village of Greentown, on the Black fork, some three miles west of the present village of Perrys- ville, in Green township, cannot be fixed with entire cer. tainty. The location of that village was on the north side of the Black fork or Armstrong's creek, and on the present site of the farm of John Shambaugh. The weight of authority would seem to fix the date of location of the Greentown Indians as early as 1783, one year after Crawford's expedition, and some thirty-five years before the appearance of the white settlers in that region.

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History of Ashland County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 7

Author: Hill, George William, b. 1823; Williams Bros Publication date: 1880 Publisher: [Cleveland] Williams Number of Pages: 896

Author: Hill, George William, b. 1823; Williams Bros
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: [Cleveland] Williams
Number of Pages: 896