History of Coshocton County, Ohio, its past and present, 1740-1881, Part 41

Author: Hill, Norman Newell, jr., [from old catalog] comp; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-; Graham, A. A., & co., Newark, O., pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Newark, Ohio, A. A. Graham & co.
Number of Pages: 854

USA > Ohio > Coshocton County > History of Coshocton County, Ohio, its past and present, 1740-1881 > Part 41

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Captain Gist, according to his journal, left this Indian town, (where he had tarried a month), January 15, 1751, accompanied by George Croghan and Andrew Montour, who in " Colonel Smith's Captivity among the Indians," (see page 168), are represented as " Messengers, with pres- ents from Governor Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, to the Twightwees, (Miamis).

" We left Muskingham," continues Gist's journal, "Tuesday, January 15, 1751, and went west to the White Woman creek, on which is a small town," where they found Mary Harris, who had given name to the stream from the mouth of the Killback to its junction with the Tuscarawas. The journal of Gist intimates that conversations were had with her, and gives, briefly, a few lead- ing facts in her history. Gist's party remained in " The White Woman's Town " over night only, and on Wednesday, January 16, 1751, (to quote Gist's journal), they " set out southwest twenty- five miles to Licking creek," thus evidently follow- ing a trail which led across the southern portion of the present county of Coshocton. The journal

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kept by Gist describes the land between the White Woman and the Licking creek, and men- tions several salt licks on the north side of the latter. They arrived at the mouth of the Scioto, January 28, 1751. From this point Captain Gist and his company passed down the Ohio and up the Miami valley to Piqua, the chief town of the Pickawillanies, and there hell consultations with certain Indian tribes. From this point Gist passed down the Great Miami river into the Ohio, and down said river to within fifteen miles of the Falls of the Ohio, (now Louisville), then returned, says the author of the Western Annals, " by way of the Kentucky river, and over the highlands of Kentucky to Virginia, arriving there after an ab- sence of seven months, in May, 1751, having vis- ited the Mingoes, Delawares, Wyandots, Shawa- nees and Miamis. He seems also to have per- formed the other duties with which he was charged to the entire satisfaction of the land company, such as exploring the country, exam- ining the lands as to topography and quality, keeping a journal of his adventures, drawing as accurate a plan of the country as his observations would permit, and made full report to the con- trolling board of officers of the aforenamed Ohio Land Company.

In November, 1751, Captain Gist started to ex- plore the country on the southeast side of the Ohio river down as far as to the mouth of Great Kanawha, and continued in that service all win- ter.

In 1752, Captain Gist attended, as an agent of the Ohio Land Company, at a treaty held at Logstown, between some Indian tribes and com- missioners representing the colony of Virginia, which resulted in the formation of a treaty, signed June 13, 1752, by which the Indians stipu- lated that they would not molest any settlements that might be made on the southeast side of the Ohio river. This provision of the treaty was deemed highly favorable to the interests of the land company which Gist served so faithfully and efficiently.

In 1753, Christopher Gist accompanied George Washington as pilot and escort on his mission to the Ohio river, and up the Allegheny river to Venango at the month of French creek, under authority of Governor Dinwiddie, of the colony of

Virginia, he receiving his appointment, however, from George Washington.

On the 17th of February, 1754, Captain Christo- pher Gist and Captain William Trent, and other adventurous frontiersmen, met by appointment at the forks of the Ohio (now Pittsburg), for the purpose of then and there erecting a fort for the protection of the settlers, and in the interest of English as against the French. Captain Gist was also the principal man in projecting the estab- lishment of a town, probably in the interest of the Ohio Land Company, at the mouth of Char- tiers, a few miles below the forks of the Ohio. He is believed to have lived in Virginia, probably not far from the mouth of Wells creck, now Cumberland, Maryland, at the time he entered into the service of the Ohio Land Company, in 1750. He subsequently removed to the Yough- iogheny valley, six miles east of Stuart's crossing (now Connellsville, Fayette county, Pennsyl- vania). From there, he moved down the Yough- iogheny, and located near its mouth. He after- wards lived near to or at the mouth of Chartier's creek, a few miles below the forks of the Ohio (now Pittsburgh).

Captain Gist was a land surveyor, and lived on the frontiers most of his life. He was a man of marked characteristics, distinguished for energy, enterprise, force of character, and possessed the qualities of adaptation to life on the frontiers to a remarkable degree. He largely enjoyed the confidence and friendship of General Wash- ington.

Colonel George Croghan, who accompanied Captain Gist from "Muskingum," an Indian town situated on the northern bank of the Tus- carawas river, near the Forks of the Muskingum (now Coshocton), to the Miami Indians, in 1751, was a native of Ireland and educated in Dublin. While yet a young man he emigrated to America, locating at Pennsboro', on the west bank of the Susquehanna, near Harrisburg In 1745-6, he was engaged as an Indian trader along the shores of Lake Erie, west of the Cuyahoga river. While thus engaged he learned several Indian languages, and acquired much influence with the savages. Having obtained the confidence of several Indian tribes to a great extent, the government of the

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colony of Pennsylvania employed him as an agent, or messenger, to the Indians in the Ohio valley, to secure and maintain peaceful relations with them, and to operate generally among them in the interest of Pennsylvania.

"Colonel Croghan served as a Captain in Gen- eral Braddock's expedition, in 1755, and during the next year was engaged in the defense of the Western frontier. Late in the year 1756, Sir William Johnson appointed him deputy Indian agent for the Pennsylvania and Ohio Indians. In 1760 he was at the council held by General Moncton, at Fort Pitt, and the same year accom- Major Rogers to Detroit.

"In 1763, Col. Croghan was sent to England to consult with the ministry as to the boundary line with the Indians, and to arrange for future trade among them." In 1765, he negotiated a treaty of peace with certain western tribes, and and in the succeeding year he located four miles above Fort Pitt. In 1768 he took an active part at the treaty of Fort Stanwix. Until the begin- ing of the Revolutionary war, Col. Croghan con- tinued to render valuable services in pacifying the Indians, and conciliating them to the British interests. In the boundary controversy between Pennsylvania and Virginia, in 1774-5, he favored the clains of Virginia.

When the troubles with Great Britain began in 1775, Col. Croghan took strong grounds in favor of the colonies, but his zeal in behalf of his adopted country gradually abated, and in 1778, he was charged publicly, not only of having aban- doned the American cause and given "aid and comfort" to the British, but was posted in a proclamation, issued by the highest authority of the colony, as "an enemy to the liberties of America."

Col. George Croghan was "a man of affairs," and displayed conspiciously many of the highest traits of a first-class frontiersman. He died at Passayunk, Pennsylvania, in August, 1782.

Andrew Montour who, as co-commissioner with Colonel Croghan, in behalf of the colony of Pennsyl- vania, accompanied Christopher Gist from Mus- kingum to the Piqua towns on the Great Miami, in 1751, was a noted character in his day, and exerted a great influence over the Senecas, Dela-

wares and Shawanees. He acted as an interpre- ter for many years, being sometimes in the ser- vice of Pennsylvania, and sometimes serving Virginia in that capacity. It is also said in Cap- tain Trent's journal (page 103), that he also offi- ciated as a spy among the Indians on various Occasions.

Andrew Montour was a son of the celebrated Canadian half-breed, known as Catharine Mon- tour. Colonel Stone, in his life of Brant (vol. 1, page 340,) gives her history as follows :

" She was a native of Canada, a half breed, her father having been one of the early French Gov- ernors-probably Count Frontenac, as he must have been in the government of that country about the time of her birth. During the wars between the Six Nations and the French and Hurons, Catharine, when about ten years of age, was made a captive, taken into the Seneca coun- try, adopted and reared as one of their own children. When arrived at a suitable age, she was married to one of the distinguished chiefs of her tribe, who signalized himself in the wars of the Six Nations against the Catawbas, then a great nation living southwestward of Virginia. She had several children by this chieftain, who fell in battle about 1750, after which she did not marry again. She is said to have been a hand- some woman when young, genteel and of polite address, notwithstanding her Indian associations. It was frequently her lot to accompany the Six Nations to Philadelphia and other places in Pennsylvania, where treaties were holden; and from her character and manners, she was greatly caressed by the American ladies, particularly in Philadelphia, where she was invited by the ladies of the best circles, and entertained at their houses."

She resided at one time at the junction of the Tiogaand Susquehanna rivers, where was a build- ing she occupied known as "Queen Esther's Castle." Her principal residence, however, was at Catharine's Town, at the head of Seneca Lake.

Andrew Montour had a brother named Henry, who was an intelligent Indian, and frequently in employ of the colonial governors. Andrew Mon- tour enjoyed, to a large extent, the confidence of those he served in the various positions of agent, messenger, guide and commissioner. His mother,

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it is said, exerted a controling influence among the Indians for many years, as did also her son Andrew. In the Life and Times of Rev. David Zeisberger, mention is made of a sister of Andrew Montour, who was a convert to Moravianism, at New Salem mission.

Captain William Trent was one of the carly- time white men that followed an Indian trail through the present county of Coshocton, in 1752, spending one night at least in the Indian village he called " Muskingum," where, his journal says, they met some white men from " Hockhoeken," which he characterizes as " a small place contain- ing a few Delaware families, where the French at one time had a trading post, called 'Margaret's Fort,' probably on some very old maps called ' French Margaret's Town.' "

Captain Trent was a sort of messenger appoint- ed by Governor Dinwiddie, of the colony of Vir- ginia, to bear presents to the Indians at Logstown (near the forks of the Ohio), and to the Twightwees or Miamis. He left Logstown on his mission, June 21, 1752, and on the 29th of the same month, his journal says," we got to Muskingum, 150 miles from the Logstown." In a foot note in Captain Trent's journal, page 85, " Muskingum " is repre- sented to be a " Mingo town, on the north bank of the Tusearawas, five miles east of the mouth of White Woman's ereck, in what is now Coshocton county. In 1751, it contained about 100 families." (This is probably adopting Captain Gist's estimate, who was there in said year). "The distance from Logstown to Muskingum by the Indian trail was 122 miles."

Captain William Trent was a native of Lancas- ter county, Pennsylvania, born about the year 1715. His father was distinguished in the civil history of that colony, holding many positions of trust and profit. William Trent entered the ser- vice of Pennsylvania at an early day. In June 1746, Governor Thomas appointed him captain of one of four companies, raised in Pennsylvania, for an intended expedition against Canada. During that year he was stationed, under orders of Governor Clinton, of New York, at Saratoga, where his eommand did garrison and seouting duty for over a year. He rendered efficient services and received the thanks of the legisla-

ture for the courage and patriotism he dis- played.

On the 10th of March, 1749, Captain Trent was appointed a justice of the peace of the court of com- mon pleas and general sessions of Cumberland county, and served in that capacity for several years. During this year he was also employed as messenger to the Ohio Indians, to carry mes- sages and presents to the principal nations.

In 1750, Captain Trent formed a partnership with the celebrated George Croghan, his brother- in-law, to engage in the Indian trade. This firm continued in existenee more than six years, and its members acquired great influence with the savages. In the extent of its operations it was unequalled in the West.

In 1752, Captain Trent was employed by the Governor of Virginia, as an agent of that colony, to attend the Commissioners at Logstown, in their council with the Ohio tribes. While the conference was in progress he was dispatched with messages and presents to the Miamis, and it was in the execution of that trust that he passed through the territory that now constitutes Coshocton county, tarrying over night in the In- dian village he called "Muskingum," five miles up the Tuscarawas from its mouth. He also rendered some services for Governor Dinwiddie in 1753, in the matter of selecting a site for a fort at the forks of the Ohio.

Captain Trent was present at the convocation for treaty-making purposes, held at Winchester, Virginia, September, 1753. In pursuance of the provisions of a treaty there formed, a large quan- tity of amunition and other goods were ordered for the Delaware and Miami tribes. Three com- missioners were appointed to convey these pres- ents to the Ohio, for distribution there, according to the terms of the treaty, and these commis- sioners turned out to be William Trent, Andrew Montour, and Christopher Gist.

Early in the year, 1754, Governor Dinwiddie commissioned Captain Trent to raise one hundred men for immediate service on the frontier. Be- fore the expiration of a month the men were enlisted, and placed in camp at the mouth of Redstone creek. While here he was directed by the Governor to procced at once to the forks of the Ohio, and build a fort there. This he pro-

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ceeded to do, and the work was commenced on the 17th of February, 1754.

Captain Trent entered the service of Pennsyl- vania in 1755, he having been appointed by the Governor a member of the proprietary and Governor's council.

Early in the year 1757, Capt. Trent again entered into the service of Virginia. In June he was at Winchester raising men for the army. A month later, at the request of Col. George Croghan, he acted as his secretary at the council with the Indians at Easton, Pennsylvania.

In 1758 Capt. Trent accompanied Gen. Forbes' expedition against Fort Du Quesne, and by his thorough knowledge of the country through which the army passed, was enabled to render important services.

During the year 1759, Capt. Trent entered the service of Sir William Johnson, England's Indian agent in America In July, 1759, he also acted as assistant to George Croghan, deputy agent, at a treaty made at Fort Pitt, with Ohio Indians. He was also present, in the same capacity, at Gen. Stanwix's conference with the western nations in October. In 1768, Captain Trent attended a council of the English and the Six Nations, Shawanees and Delawares, held at Fort Stanwix, New York.

Captain Trent was loyal to the colonies and warmry advocated the American cause ; and Con- gress gave him a Major's commission to raise a force in Western Pennsylvania. He was pres- ent, bearing the title of major, at the treaty of Fort Pitt, July 6, 1776.

Major Trent was not a learned man, but was esteemed a careful, prudent, and watchful guardian of the interests of his employers. Most of his life was usefully spent in the public service.

The principal facts in the life and history of William Trent, herewith presented, are, for the most part, contained in a biographical sketch of him, prepared and published by the late Alfred T. Goodman, secretary of the Northern Ohio Historical Society .- See pages 57 and 67.

The next white man to press the soil of Coshoe- ton county after Messrs. Gist, Croghan & Co., was probably James Smith.

He was a native of western Pennsylvania, and

was captured near Bedford in that State when about eighteen years of age, by three Indians on a marauding expedition, in the spring of 1755, a short time before the defeat of General Brad- dock. He was taken to the Indian village on the Allegheny, opposite Fort Du Quesne, and com- pelled to run the gauntlet, where he nearly lost his life by a blow from a elub in the hands of a stalwart savage After his recovery and the defeat of General Braddock, he was taken by his captors on a long journey through the forest to the village of Tullihas, on the west branch of the Muskingum (Walhonding), the location of which village was at or near the confluence of the Mo- hican and Owl creek. In this journey they followed the well marked and much traveled Indian trail from Fort Pitt to the Tuscarawas, and down that river to the present site of Co- shocton, thenee up the Walhonding. Tullihas was then occupied by Mohicans, Caryhnewagas and Delawares, the latter predominating. Here he was adopted by the Indians into one of their tribes. The ceremony consisted in first plucking all the hair from his head except the scalp-lock, which they fixed according to their fashion; in boring his ears and nose, and placing ornaments therein; in putting on a breech-clout, and paint- ing his body and face in fantastic colors, and in washing him several times in the river, to wash out all the white blood in his veins. This last ceremony was performed by three young squaws and, as Smith was unacquainted with their usages, he thought they intended to drown him, and resisted at first with all his might, to the great amusement of the multitude on the river bank. One young squaw finally made out to say, " Me no hurt you," and he then gave them the privilege to souse and rub him as they desired. When brought from the river he was allowed other clothes, and in solemn council, in an im- pressive speech, he was admitted to full member- ship in the nation. He says in his journal he always fared the same as the Indians, no excep- tions being made.

James Smith remained in Tullihas until the next October, when he accompanied his adopted brother, Tontileaugo, who had a Wyandot wife on the shores of Lake Erie, on a visit to that nation. He remained among the Indians about four

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years, traversing all parts of northern Ohio, at the end of which time he escaped and made his way to Pennsylvania, where he published a memoir, from which the above facts were taken.

About the time of James Smith's captivity hundreds of other captives were in the hands of the savages. and without doubt scores of them were either retained among the Indians on the Muskingum, or passed through this territory on their way into captivity among the tribes farther west. This must have been the case, for in 1764 Gen. Bouquet, in accordance with a treaty of peace made with the tribes at the Forks of the Muskingum, received from the Indians 206 of these captives, and even then failed to get all that were in the hands of the savages. Many of these captives had been among the Indians many years ; children had been captured who had grown to manhood and womanhood among them.

The next white men in this territory were probably those of Gen. Bouquet's army in 1764. The details of this expedition appear elsewhere in this work. It was, no doubt, the first organ- ized body of troops within the present limits of the county.

In 1773, Rev. David Jones, an eccentric charac- ter better known as " Chaplain Jones," and an In- dian trader named David Duncan passed through this territory. They were traveling eastward from the Shawanee towns on the Scioto, along the Indian trail of the Licking and Muskingum valleys, which had been followed by Christopher Gist.

Duncan was from Shippensburg, Pennsylva- nia, and was on his way to Fort Pitt, probably, for goods. Rev. David Jones was on his return journey to Frechold, Monmouth county, New Jersey, from the Indians on the Scioto, among whom he had been as missionary, by authority of the Philadelphia Baptist association, of which he was a member. He kept a diary of this jour- ney, from which these facts are taken.

This diary shows that he followed the trail that led from the Indian towns on the Scioto to . " Standing Stone" (Lancaster), where, in the lan- guage of the diary, " was an Indian town consist- ing chiefly of Delawares, and which was situated

on a creek called Hock-Hockin. It appears muddy, is not wide, but soon admits of large ca- noes." He did not arrive at Standing Stone un- til nine o'clock at night, and says that his " road was very small and the night dark in this wide wilderness, which made traveling more disagree- able than can be easily expressed."

Wednesday, February 10, 1773. "we set out early in the morning-our course more north- erly than northeast-the land chiefly low and level, and, where our horses broke through the frost, it might be called bad road and good land. No inhabitants by the way. Before night came to a small town consisting of Delawares and Shawanees. About a mile before we came to this town we crossed a clear, large stream called Salt Lick creek (doubtless Licking river, four miles cast of Newark), which empties into the Mus- kingum."

The town above mentioned was doubtless the Indian village situated on the Bowling Green, five miles east of the present site of Newark, Licking county, known as "John Elliott's Wife's Town." The diary continues : " The country here appears calculated for health, fertile and beautiful. The next day after paying a high price for the corn our horses consumed, we started for the Mora- vian towns on the Tuscarawas."

This " Chaplain Jones " was born of Welsh par- ents, on White Clay Creek Hundred, Newcastle county, Delaware, May 12, 1736. He was licensed to preach by the Welsh Tract Church in 1761, and ordained at Freehold, Monmouth county, New Jersey, December 12, 1766, and remained pastor at that place until he started on his mis- sionary tour to the Indians of the northwest.

In 1775, he became pastor of the Great Valley church in Chester county, Pennsylvania, but re- signed the following year on being appointed chaplain of Colonel (afterward General) Arthur St. Clair's regiment, raised for service in the Rev- olution. He was on duty with his regiment at Ticonderoga, and served in two campaigns under Major General Gates. In 1777, he served as brig- ade chaplain under General Wayne. At the close of the war he retired to a farm in Chester county.

In 1789 he again visited the Northwest, and January 30, 1790, preached the first sermon ever

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preached in the Miami country at Columbia, six miles above Cincinnati. He was chaplain in Wayne's army during his campaign against the Indians, and, in 1812, though seventy-six years old, he again entered the army as chaplain, and served under Generals Brown and Wilkinson until the close of the war. This ended his public career. He was afterward a large contributor to the Philadelphia press on public affairs.

He officiated in public for the last time Sep- tember 20, 1817, when he delivered an address at the dedication of the monument erected at Paoli, Chester county, Pennsylvania, commemorative of the Americans who were massaered there in 1777. He died February 20, 1820, in his eighty- fourth year, and was buried near the Great Val- ley Baptist Church.

He is yet remembered by a few of the early pioneers as a kind, companionable gentleman, of rare eccentricities, who always wore a queue, the breeches, the shoe and knee buckles, the cockade and military toggery of high rank chaplain in the service; and as a gentleman of the "Old School."

In 1774, a white trader was murdered by the Indians at the Indian village of White Eyes, in what is now White Eyes township, this county. De Hass gives the following brief account of it:

" In the meantime the Indians were murdering whites whenever opportunity presented. Many of the traders who had penetrated the Indian country, could not retrace their steps in time, and thus fell before the merciless hand of the destroyer. One of these, near the town of White Eyes, the peace chief of the Delawares, was mur- dered, cut to pieces, and the fragments of his body hung upon the bushes. The kindly chief gathered them together and buried them. The hatred of the murderers, however, led them to disinter and disperse the remains of their victim anew; but the kind hearted Delaware chief was as persevering as the hatred of his brethren, and again he collected the scattered limbs and in a secret place hid them."

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History of Coshocton County, Ohio, its past and present, 1740-1881, Part 41

Author: Hill, Norman Newell, jr., [from old catalog] comp; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-; Graham, A. A., & co., Newark, O., pub. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Newark, Ohio, A. A. Graham & co. Number of Pages: 854

Author: Hill, Norman Newell, jr., [from old catalog] comp; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-; Graham, A. A., & co., Newark, O., pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Newark, Ohio, A. A. Graham & co.
Number of Pages: 854