History of Belmont and Jefferson Counties, Ohio, and incidentially historical collection pertaining to border warfare and the early settlement of the adjacent portion of the Ohio Valley, Part 28

Author: Caldwell, J. A. (John Alexander) 1n; Newton, J. H., ed; Ohio Genealogical Society. 1n
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Wheeling, W. Va. : Historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 728

USA > Ohio > Jefferson County > History of Belmont and Jefferson Counties, Ohio, and incidentially historical collection pertaining to border warfare and the early settlement of the adjacent portion of the Ohio Valley > Part 28
USA > Ohio > Belmont County > History of Belmont and Jefferson Counties, Ohio, and incidentially historical collection pertaining to border warfare and the early settlement of the adjacent portion of the Ohio Valley > Part 28

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As the bulk of this testimony has no bearing upon the authorship of the celebrated speech, we shall only remark, that while it disapproves entirely the charge against Cresap, as to any participation in the outrage at Yellow creek, it seems to implicate him in the killing of other Indians lower down the Ohio. But as to the matter most material to Mr. Jefferson's reputation, it settles beyond controversy, that such a speech was taken from Logan to Lord Dunmore. This was enough to acquit the author of the " Notes on Virginia " of all unfairness in the matter.

In this connection we give the following documents and let- ters from the

APPENDIX TO JEFFERSON'S NOTES ON VIRGINIA, RELATIVE TO THE MURDER OF LOGAN'S FAMILY.

A Letter to Governor Henry, of Maryland.

PHILADELPHIA, December 31st, 1797.

DEAR SIR :- Mr. Tazewell has communicated to me the en- quiries you have been so kind as to make, relative to a passage in the Notes on Virginia, which has lately excited some news- paper publications. I feel, with great sensibility, the interest you take in this business, and with pleasure, go into explana- tions with one whose objects I know to be truth and justice alone. Had Mr. Martin thought proper to suggest to me, that doubts might be entertained of the transaction respecting Lo-

gan, as stated in the Notes on Virginia, and to enquire on what grounds the statement was founded, I should have felt myself obliged by the enquiry, have informed him candidly of the grounds, and cordially have cooperated in every means of in- vestigating the fact, and correcting whatsoever in it should be found to have been erroneous. But he chose to step at onee into the newspapers, and in his publications there and the letters he wrote to me, adopted a style which forbade the re- spect of an answer. Sensible, however, that no act of his eould absolve me from the justice due to others, as soon as I found that the story of Logan could be doubted, I determined to in- quire into it as accurately as the testimony remaining, after a lapse of twenty odd years, would permit; and that the result should be made known, either in the first new edition which should be printed in the Notes on Virginia, or by publishing an appendix. I thought that so far as that work had eontrib- uted to impeach the memory of Cresap, by handing on an erroneous charge, it was proper it should be made the vehicle of retribution. Not that I was at all the author of the injury. I had only concurred, with thousands and thousands of others, in believing a transaction on authority which merited respect. For the story of Logan is only repeated in the Notes on Vir- ginia, precisely as it had been current for more than a dozen years before they were published. When Lord Dunmore re- turned from the expedition against the Indians, in 1774, he and his officers brought the speech of Logan, and related the circumstances connected with it. These were so affecting, and the speech itself so fine a morsel of eloquence, that it became the theme of every conversation, in Williamsburgh particu- larly, and generally, indeed, wheresoever any of the officers resided or resorted. I learned it in Williamsburgh; I believe at Lord Dunmore's; and I find in my pocket-book of that year (1774) an entry of the narrative, as taken from the mouth of some person, whose name, however, is not noted, nor recollected, precisely in the words stated in the Notes on Virginia. The speech was published in the Virginia Gazette of that time (I have it myself in the volume of Gazettes of that year) and though in a style by no means elegant, yet it was so admired that it flew through all the public papers of the continent, and through the magazines and other periodical publications of Great Britian; and those who were boys at that day will now attest that the specch of Logan used to be given them as a school exercise for repetition.

It was not till about thirteen or fourteen years after the newspaper publications that the Notes on Virginia were pub- lished in America. Combating, in these, the contumelious theory of certain European writers, whose celebrity gave cur- rency and weight to their opinions, that our country, from the combined effects of soil and climate, degenerated animal na- ture, in the general, and particularly the moral faeulties of man, I considered the speech of Logan as an apt proof of the contrary, and used it as such; and I copied, verbatim, the nar- rative I had taken down in 1774, and the speech as it had been given us in a better translation by Lord Dunmore. I knew nothing of the Cresaps, and could not possibly have a motive to do them an injury with design. I repeated what thousands had done before, on as good authority as we have for most of the facts we learn through life, and such as, to this moment, I have seen no reason to doubt. That any body questioned it, was never suspeeted by me, till I saw the letter of Mr. Martin in the Baltimore paper. I endeavored then to recollect who among my cotemporaries, of the same circle of society, and con- sequently of the same recollections, might still be alive. Three and twenty years of death and dispersion had left very few. I remembered, however, that Gen. Gibson was still living, and knew that he had been the translator of the speech. I wrote to him immediately. He, in answer, declares to me, that he was the very person sent by Lord Dunmore to the Indian town ; that, after he had delivered his message there Logan took him out to a neighboring wood, sat down with him, and rehearsing, with tears, the catastrophe of his family, gave him that speech for Lord Dunmore; that he carried it to Lord Dunmore; trans- lated it for him ; has turned to it in the Encyclopedia, as taken from the Notes on Virginia, and finds that it was his transla- tion I had used, with only two or three verbal variations of no importance. These, I suppose, had arisen in the course of suc- cessive copies. I cite Gen. Gibson's letter by memory, not having it with me; but I am sure I cite it substantially right. It establishes, unquestionably, that the speech of Logan is genuinc, and, that being established, it is Logan himself who is author of all the important facts. "Col. Cresap," says he, "in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs

HISTORY OF BELMONT AND JEFFERSON COUNTIES, OHIO.

not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature." The person and the fact, in all its material circumstances, are here given by Logan himself. Gen. Gibson, indeed, says that the title was mistaken; that Cresap was a captain, and not a colonel. This was Logan's mistake. He also observes that it was on the Ohio, and not on the Kanawha itself, that his family was killed. This is an error which has crept into the tradi- tionary account; but surely of little moment in the moral view of the subject. The material question is: Was Logan's family murdered, and by whom? That it was murdered has not, I believe, been denied; that it was by one of the Cresaps, Logan affirms. This is a question which concerns the memories of Logan and Cresap; to the issue of which I am as indifferent as if I had never heard the name of either. I have begun and shall continue to inquire into the evidence additional to Logan's, on which the fact was founded. Little, indeed, can now be heard of, and that little dispersed and distant. If it shall appear on inquiry that Logan has been wrong in charging Cresap with the murder of his family, I will do justice to the memory of Cresap, as far as I have contributed to the injury, by believing and repeating what others had believed and repeated before me. If, on the other hand, I find that Logan was right in his charge, I will vindicate, as far as my suffrage may go, the truth of a chief, whose talents and misfortunes have attached to him the respect and commiseration of the world.

"I have gone, my dear sir, into this lengthy detail to satisfy a mind, in the candor and rectitude of which I have the high- est confidence. So far as you may incline to use the communi- cation for rectifying the judgments of those who are willing to see things truly as they are, you are free to use it. But I pray that no confidence which you may repose in any one, may induce you to let it go out of your hands, so as to get into a newspaper. Against a contest in that field I am entirely decided. I feel extraordinary gratification, indeed, in address- ing this letter to you, with whom shades of difference in politi- cal sentiment have not prevented the interchange of good opinion, nor cut off the friendly offices of society and good corres- pondence. This political tolerance is the more valued by me, who considers social harmony as the first of human felicities, and the happiest moments, those which are given to the effu- sions of the heart. Accept them sincerely, I pray you, from one who has the honor to be, with sentiments of high respect and attachment.

Dear Sir,

Your most obedient and most humble servant, THOMAS JEFFERSON.

The Notes on Virginia were written, in Virginia, in the years 1781 and 1782, in answer to certain queries proposed to me by Mons. de Marbois, then secretary of the French legation in the United States; and a manuscript copy was delivered to him. A few copies, with some additions, were afterwards, in 1784, printed in Paris, and given to particular friends. In speaking of the animals of America, the theory of M. de Buffon, the Abbe Raynal, and others presented itself to consideration, They have supposed there is something in the soil, climate and other circumstanees of America which occasions animal nature to degenerate, not excepting even the man, native or adoptive, physical or moral. This theory, so unfounded and degrading to one-third of the globe, was called to the bar of fact and rea- son. Among other proofs adduced in contradiction of this hypothesis, the speech of Logan, an Indian chief, delivered to Lord Dunmore in 1774, was produced as a specimen of the tal- ents of the aboriginals of this country, and particularly of their eloquence; and it was believed that Europe had never produced anything superior to this morsel of eloquence. In order to make it intelligible to the reader, the transaction, on which it was founded, was stated, as it had been generally re- lated in America at the time, and as I had heard it myself, in the circle of Lord Dunmore and the officers who accompanied him; and the speech itself was given as it had, ten years before the printing of that book, circulated in the newspapers through all the then colonies, through the magazines of Great Britain, and periodical publications of Europe. For three and twenty years it passed uncontradicted; nor was it ever suspected that it even admitted contradiction. In 1797, however, for the first time, not only the whole transaction respecting Logan was affirmed in the public papers to be false, but the speech itself suggested to be a forgery, and even a forgery of mine, to aid me in proving that the man of America was equal in body and in mind to the man of Europe. But wherefore the forgery; whether Logan's or mine, it would still have been American, I should indeed consult my own fame if the suggestion, that

this speech is mine, were suffered to be believed. He would have a just right to be proud who could with truth claim that composition. But it is none of minc, and I yield it to whom it is due.

On seeing, then, that this transaction was brought into ques- tion, I thought it my duty to make particular inquiry into its foundation. It was the more my duty, as it was alleged that, by ascribing to an individual therein named, a participation in the murder of Logan's family, I had done an injury to his character which it had not deserved. I had no knowledge per- sonally of that individual. I had no reason to aim an injury at him. I only repeated what I had heard from others, and what thousands had heard and believed as well as myself; and which no one, indeed, till then, had been known to question. Twenty-three years had now elapsed since the transaction took place. Many of those acquainted with it were dead, and the living dispersed to very distant parts of the earth. Few of them were even known to me. To those, however, of whom I knew, I made application by letter; and some others, moved by a regard for truth and justice, were kind enough to come forward, of themselves, with their testimony. These fragments of evidence, the small remains of a mighty mass which time has consumed, are here presented to the public in the form of letters, certificates, or affidavits, as they came to me. I have rejected none of these forms, nor required other solemnities from those whose motives and characters were pledges of their truth. Historical transactions are deemed to be well vouched by the simple declarations of those who have borne a part in them, and especially of persons having no interest to falsify or disfigure them. The world will now see whether they, or I, have injured Cresap by believing Logan's charge against him; and they will decide between Logan and Cresap, whether Cresap was innocent and Logan a calumniator ?

In order that the reader may have a clear conception of the transactions, to which the different parts of the following decla- rations refer, he must take notice that they establish four dif- ferent murders. 1. Of two Indians, a little above Wheeling. 2. Of others at Grave Creek,* among whom were some of Lo- gan's relations. 3. The massacre at Baker's bottom, on the Ohio, opposite the mouth of Yellow creek, where were other relations of Logan. 4. Of those killed at the same place, coming in canoes to the relief of their friends. I place the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, against certain paragraphs of the evidence, to indicate the particular murder to which the paragraph relates, and pre- sent also a small sketch or map of the principal scenes of these butcheries, for their more ready comprehension.

Extract of a letter from the honorable Judge Innes, of Frankfort in Kentucky, to Thomas Jefferson, dated Kentucky, near Frankfort, March 2d, 1799.

I recollect to have seen Logan's speech in 1775, in one of the public prints. That Logan conceived Cresap to be the author of the murder at Yellow creek, it is in my power to give, per- haps, a more particular information, than any other person you can apply to.

In 1774, I lived in Fincastle county, now divided into Wash- ington, Montgomery and part of Wythe. Being intimate in Colonel Preston's family, I happened in July to be at his house, when an express was sent to him as the county lieutenant, re- questing a guard of the militia to be ordered out for the pro- tection of the inhabitants residing low down on the north fork of Holston river. The express brought with him a war club, and a note which was left tied to it at the house of one Robert- son, whose family were cut off by the Indians, and gave rise for the application to Colonel Preston, of which the following is a copy, then taken by me in my memorandum book :

" CAPTAIN CRESAP :- What did you kill my people on Yellow creek for? The white people killed my kin at Conestoga, a great while ago ; and I thought nothing of that. But you kill- ed my kin again, on Yellow creek, and took my cousin prisoner. Then I thought I must kill too ; and I have been three times to war since ; but the Indians are not angry, only myself.

"CAPTAIN JOUN LOGAN."

With great respect, I am, Dear Sir, Your most obedient servant, HARRY INNES.

" July 21, 1774."

ALLEGHENY COUNTY, SS : STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA :

Before me, the subscriber, a justice of the peace in and for said county, personally appeared John Gibson, Esquire, an asso-

$Mr. Jefferson appears to give the name of Grave Creek to Captina.

HISTORY OF BELMONT AND JEFFERSON COUNTIES, OHIO.

ciate judge of same county, who being duly sworn, deposeth and saith that he traded with the Shawanese and other tribes of In- dians then settled on the Scioto in the year 1773, and in the beginning of the year 1774, and that in the month of April, of the same year, he left the same Indian towns, and came to this place in order to procure some goods and provisions; that he remained here only a few days, and then set out in company with a certain Alexander Blaine and M. Elliot, by water to return to the towns on the Scioto, and that one evening as they were drifting in their canoes near the Long Reach on the Ohio, they were hailed by a number of white men on the south-west shore, who requested them to put ashore, as they had disagree- able news to inform them of; that we then landed on shore, and found amongst the party, a Major Angus McDonald, from West Chester, a Doctor Woods from the same place, and a party as they said of 150 men. We then asked the news. They in- formed us that some of the party who had been taken up, and improving lands near the Big Kanawha river, had seen another party of white men, who informed them that they and some others had fell in with a party of Shawanese, who had been hunting on the south-west side of the Ohio, that they had killed the whole of the Indian party, and that the others had gone across the country to Cheat river with the horses and plunder, the consequence of which, they apprehended, would be an In- dian war, and that they were flying away. On making in- quiry of them when this murder should have happened, we found that it must have been some considerable time before we left the Indian towns, and that there was not the smallest foundation for the report, as there was not a single man of the Shawanese, but what returned from hunting long before this should have happened.

We then informed them that if they would agree to remain at the place we then were, one of us would go to Hockhocking river with some of their party, where we should find some of our people making canoes, and that if we did not find them there, we might conclude that everything was not right. Dr. Wood and another person then proposed going with me; the rest of the party seemed to agree, but said they would send and consult Captain Cresap, who was about two miles from that place. They sent off for him, and during the greater part of the night they behaved in the most disorderly manner, threat- ening to kill us, and saying the damned traders were worse than the Indians and ought to be killed. In the morning Captain Michael Cresap came to the camp. I then gave him the information as above related. They then met in council, and after an hour or more Captain Cresap returned to me, and informed me that he could not prevail on them to adopt the proposal I had made to them, that as he had a great regard for Captain R. Callender, a brother-in-law of mine with whom I was connected in trade, he advised me by no means to think of proceeding any further, as he was convinced the present party would fall on and kill every Indian they met on the river, that for his part he should not continue with them, but go right across the country to Redstone to avoid the consequences. That we then proceeded to Hocking and went up the same to the canoe place, where we found our people at work, and after some days we proceeded to the towns on the Scioto by land. On our arrival there, we heard of the different murders committed by the party on their way up the Ohio.

This deponent further saith that in the year 1774, he accom- panied Lord Dunmore on the expedition against the Shawanese and other Indians on the Scioto, that on their arrival within fifteen miles of the towns, they were met by a flag, and a white man of the name of Elliot, who informed Lord Dunmore that the chiefs of the Shawanese had sent to request his Lordship to halt his army and send in some person who understood their language ; that this deponent, at the request of Lord Dunmore and the whole of the officers with hini, went in; that on his arrival at the towns, Logan, the Indian, came to where this deponent was sitting with the Cornstalk and the other chiefs of the Shawanese, and asked him to walk out with him; that they went into a copse of wood, where they sat down, when Logan, after shedding abundance of tears, delivered to him the speech, nearly as related by Mr. Jefferson in his notes on the State of Virginia; that he, the deponent, told him then that it was not Col. Cresap who had murdered his relations, and that although his son, Captain Michael Cresap, was with the party who killed a Shawanese chief and other Indians, yet he was not present when his relations were killed at Baker's near the mouth of Yellow creek on the Ohio; that this deponent on his return to camp delivered the speech to Lord Dunmore; and that the murders perpetrated as above were considered as ulti-

mately the cause of the war of 1774, commonly called Cresap's war. JOHN GIBSON. Sworn and subscribed the 4th of April, 1800, at Pittsburgh, before me, JER. BAKER."

Extract of a letter from Col. Ebenezer Zane, to the Honorable John Brown, one of the Senators in Congress from Kentucky, dated Wheeling, Feb. 4th, 1800.

I was myself, with many others, in the practice of making improvements on lands upon the Ohio, for the purpose of acquiring rights to the same. Being on the Ohio at the mouth of Sandy creek, in company with many others, news circulated that the Indians had robbed some of the land jobbers. This news induced the people generally to ascend the Ohio. I was among the number. On our arrival at Wheeling, being in- formed that there were two Indians with some traders near and above Wheeling, a proposition was made by the then Captain, Michacl Cresap, to way-lay and kill the Indians upon the river. This measure I opposed with much violence, alledging that the killing of those Indians might involve the country in a war. But the opposite party prevailed, and proceeded up the Ohio with Captain Cresap at their head.

In a short time the party returned, and also the traders, in a canoe; but there were no Indians in the company. I inquired what had become of the Indians, and was informed by the traders and Cresap's party that they had fallen overboard. I examined the canoe, and saw much fresh blood and some bullet holes in the canoe. This fully convinced me that the party had killed the two Indians and thrown them into the river.

On the afternoon of the day this action happened, a report prevailed that there was a camp or party of Indians on the Ohio below and near Wheeling. In consequence of this informa- tion, Captain Cresap with his party, joined by a number of recruits, proceeded immediately down the Ohio for the purpose, as was then generally understood, of destroying the Indians above mentioned. On the succeeding day, Captain Cresap and his party returned to Whecling, and it was generally reported by the party that they had killed a number of Indians. Of the truth of this report I had no doubt, as one of Cresap's party was badly wounded, and the party had a fresh scalp and a quantity of property, which they called Indian plunder. At the time of the last mentioned transaction, it was generally reported that the party of Indians down the Ohio were Logan and his family ; but I have reason to believe that this report was unfounded.

Within a few days after the transaction above mentioned, a party of Indians were killed at Yellow creek. But I must do the memory of Captain Cresap the justice to say that I do not believe that he was present at the killing of the Indians at Yellow creck. But there is not the least doubt in my mind, that the massacre of Yellow creek was brought on by the two transactions first stated.

All the transactions, which I have related, happened in the latter end of April, 1774: and there can scarcely be a doubt that they were the cause of the war which immediately fol- lowed, commonly called Dunmore's war.

I am with mnuch esteem, yours, &c., EBENEZER ZANE.

The Certificate of William Huston, of Washington county, in the State of Pennsylvania, communicated by David Riddick, Esquire, Prothonotary of Washington county, Pennsylvania, who in the letter inclosing it, says: " Mr. William Huston is a man of established reputation in point of integrity."

I, William Huston, of Washington county, in the State of Pennsylvania, do hereby certify to whom it may concern, that in the year 1774, I resided at Catfish's camp, on the main path from Wheeling to Redstone; that Michael Cresap, who resided on or near the Potomac river, on his way up from the river Ohio, at the head of a party of armed men, lay some time at my cabin.

I had previously heard the report of Mr. Cresap having killed some Indians, said to be the relations of Logan, an Indian chief. In a variety of conversations with several of Cresap's party, they boasted of the deed; and that in the presence of their chief. They acknowledged that they had fired first on the Indians. They had with them one man on a litter, who was in the skirmish.

I do further certify that, from what I learned from the party themselves, I then formed the opinion, and have not had any reason to change the opinion since, that the killing, on the part of the whites, was what I deem the grossest murder. I fur- ther certify that some of the party, who afterwards killed some

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History of Belmont and Jefferson Counties, Ohio, and incidentially historical collection pertaining to border warfare and the early settlement of the adjacent portion of the Ohio Valley, Part 28

Author: Caldwell, J. A. (John Alexander) 1n; Newton, J. H., ed; Ohio Genealogical Society. 1n Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Wheeling, W. Va. : Historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 728

Author: Caldwell, J. A. (John Alexander) 1n; Newton, J. H., ed; Ohio Genealogical Society. 1n
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Wheeling, W. Va. : Historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 728