History of Crawford County, Ohio, and representative citizens, Part 6

Author: Hopley, John E. (John Edward), 1850-
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Chicago,Ill., Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1302

USA > Ohio > Crawford County > History of Crawford County, Ohio, and representative citizens > Part 6

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

This peace was fairly observed until in 1774, the Wyandots, Shawanese, Delawares and Mingoes made an attack on Point Pleas- ant, where the Kanawha joins the Ohio. They had a force of over a thousand war- riors, under command of Cornstalk. General Lewis was in command of Point Pleasant with 1,100 men. The fight continued all day the English loss being two colonels, five captains, three lieutenants and a hundred soldiers, be- sides a hundred and forty wounded. The In- dian loss must have been severe, as during the

night they retreated across the Ohio river and returned to their homes. Just before the bat- tle they were joined by Simon Girty, who had been a scout for the English. He was an efficient scout, but in some altercation with Gen. Lewis, the latter struck him with a cane over the head, inflicting a deep gash. Girty threatened vengeance, and escaped from the fort, joining the Indians, and in the attack on the fort was as savage and bitter and cruel as any Indian warrior could desire. He remained with his new friends and ever after made his home with the Shawanese, Delawares and Wyandots. He declared he had foresworn his white blood and assumed the garb of the In- dians with their painted flesh and feathered headdress.

After the Americans and English had suc- ceeded in driving out the French in 1763, Eng- land for years pursued an-unjust policy toward the colonies, which eventually culminated in the Revolutionary war. In the east all manu- factures which interfered with England were prohibited or crippled by severe laws. All goods must be bought in England ; all products raised in America must be sold to England alone, and forwarded on English vessels. The English commercial policy also affected the great Northwest, of which Crawford county is a part. The French, by their explorations, and by their trading posts all over this great territory had built up a large business in furs, of which they had a monopoly. The English merchants secured this trade, and it was so vast and profitable they wanted it continued. As a result they petitioned the King and Par- liament : "It does appear to us that the exten- sion of the fur trade depends entirely on the Indians being undisturbed in the possession of their hunting grounds, and that all colonizing does, in its nature, and must, in its conse- quences, operate to the prejudice of that branch of commerce." So George Third is- sued a proclamation declaring the new terri- tory, the Great Northwest from the Ohio to the Lakes and from the Alleghenies to the Mississippi, royal domain, and prohibited fur- ther settlement in this vast territory, or the purchase of any part of it from the Indians. This was in 1774, and the English statesmen, forseeing a coming contest, attached this ter-

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY

ritory to the Province of Quebec, and Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin were a part of Canada.

Eight years later the Province of Quebec was the danger point in the treaty of peace between England and the United States. The American commissioners were Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay and Henry Laurens. Their imperative instructions were that the independence of the United States must be recognized. Other matters were minor. France had been the ally of the United States and the treaty must be satis- factory to that nation. France had received from Spain practically all west of the Missis- sippi river, and desired to have her rights recognized by England. Spain was with France, and the two secretly arranged with England that the north boundary of the United States should be the Ohio river, basing the claim on the ground that the Great North- west was a part of the Province of Quebec, and there was no question that Canada was to remain English territory. In the early part of the treaty, while this agreement was not definitely reached, matters were tending that way. Franklin, as minister to France, con- ducted the earlier negotiations, and later, when John Adams and John Jay arrived, the boundary came up. The English were insist- ent; Vergennes, the French minister, favored the English, until finally Adams and Jay posi- tively declared they would submit to no bound- ary except the lakes. Laurens and Franklin stood by them solidly, and it was over a year before England finally yielded the point, and Ohio and the Great Northwest became a part of the United States. England probably thought the territory of far less importance than it was, having relegated all that vast re- gion to a great hunting ground, with no higher conception of its future use than the protect- ing and raising of fur bearing animals. How different the views of John Jay, who speaking of this territory in Congress in 1777, prophet- ically said: "Extensive wildernesses, now scarcely known or explored, remain yet to be cultivated; and vast lakes and rivers, whose waters have for ages rolled in silence to the ocean, are yet to hear the din of industry, be- come subservient to commerce, and boast de-

lightful villas, gilded spires, and spacious cities rising on their banks."

On the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, the Wyandots and their neighbors at first saw no reason to take any hand in the contest. In the east the British had secured the assistance of the Six Nations, the Mo- hawks being then the chief tribe, but by 1777 the English had succeeded in enlisting the Wyandots and other Ohio tribes on their side, and under British pay they made onslaughts on the western borders of the colony, attack- ing the' settlers in Pennsylvania and Virginia. Many joined the British army, and a number of Wyandots joined the army of Gen. Bur- goyne, in New York state, but did little be- yond burning a few houses of settlers, steal- ing their stock and murdering a number of the pioneers. In an excursion with Burgoyne into New Hampshire, a number of Wyandots were killed, and they blamed the British Gen- eral for the loss, claiming the warriors were needlessly sacrificed. This, and the fact that Burgoyne endeavored to restrain their ferocity and cruelty, disgusted the Wyandots, and most . of them returned to their home on the San- dusky; but still under the pay of the English, continued to harass the frontier, destroying, burning and murdering. The English had a trading-post at the Indian village of Sandusky, where settlement was made, and at this point nearly all the Indian tribes were paid for the scalps taken.

Their first expedition was in 1777. The renegade Girty was thoroughly conversant with affairs along the Ohio river, and at his suggestion five hundred warriors, Delawares, Wyandots and Shawanese, started on an ex- pedition against Fort Henry, near where Wheeling now is, on the Ohio river. The British had supplied them with arms and am- munition, and the Indians made their way through the dense forests, along their trails, crossed the Ohio and surrounded the fort with its garrison of forty men, and a number of women and children. Col. David Shep- pard was in command, and rumors had reached the fort that five hundred warriors had started from the Sandusky region on some murdering expedition, destination unknown On the evening of September 26, 1771, settlers

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

reported Indians in war paint had been seen lurking in the neighborhood. Cabins were abandoned, and all sought safety in the fort. Col. Sheppard sent out two men to recon- noitre; one was killed and the other returned to the fort wounded; the Colonel then sent out fourteen men, and as they were proceeding cautiously down the river they fell into an ambush, and eleven were instantly killed, the others escaping in the dense forest. Hearing the firing, the Colonel sent twelve more men to relieve the imperiled party; eight of these were promptly killed. The fighting force in the fort was now reduced to a dozen men. The Indians made constant attacks, but were as constantly driven back. It was during this engagement that, when the powder gave out, Elizabeth Zane bravely went to the storehouse, sixty yards away, and brought back the powder in safety. She volunteered for this service, saying that no man could be spared for this perilous trip under the direct fire of the enemy. Night coming on, the Indians re- tired until morning. During the night a dozen men arrived from a neighboring settlement, and succeeded in gaining entrance to the fort. In the morning forty more rangers arrived, and the Indians, now regarded it as useless to continue their assault on the fort. They therefore destroyed everything they could, set fire to the houses, and killed or carried off three hundred head of cattle. They had killed twenty-one men, with several others wounded. Their own loss, however, was over a hundred. They returned to Sandusky with twenty-one scalps for which cash was paid by the British agent.

While the Wyandots were allies of the Eng- lish, as well as the other tribes of Ohio, on an eastern branch of the Muskingum in Tuscara- was county were several hundred Moravian Indians, of the Delaware tribe, who con- stantly refused to take part in the war; they had become Christian Indians, had three set- tlements in Tuscarawas county, and had cleared considerable land, devoted their time ,mostly to farming and kept up constant busi- ness relations with the Americans at Pittsburg, about sixty miles distant, which was the head- quarters of the American forces in the west. They refused all the overtures and bribes of the British. Finally, in the fall of 1781, Col.

Elliott, of the British forces, who was sta- tioned at Upper Sandusky, took with him two chiefs and three hundred warriors, and marched to the Moravian settlements, their route being through Crawford, crossing the Sandusky at a point one mile south of the Tod township line, and passing through Bucy- rus township in the direction of New Win- chester and in a southeasterly direction toward the Kilbuck in Holmes county and on to the Tuscarawas settlements. The three Moravian towns, all on the Tuscarawas river, were Schönbrunn, two miles south of the present town of New Philadelphia, seven miles fur- ther south was Gnadenhütten and five miles further Salem.

On reaching the Moravians the Indians urged their brethren to stand by them in their war against the Americans; the English Col- onel offered them presents, but the Moravians stood firm. Failing in peaceful persuasions the Indians insisted they should accompany them to the banks of the Sandusky, claiming they were too near Pittsburg, and the Wyan- dots were afraid they might ally themselves with the detested Americans. Expostulations were useless and the peaceful Moravians were forced to leave their crops ungathered, and accompany their captors in the long and weary march to the banks of the Sandusky. The Moravians were taken to Sandusky and from there their missionaries were sent to Detroit as prisoners. Some writers place the Moravian winter quarters on the river southwest of Bucy- rus, but Butterfield fixes it near the old Indian town, three miles southeast of the present town of Upper Sandusky. Here they passed the winter, suffering great hardships, as the In- dians make no provision for the future, and the addition of several hundred to the Indian villages along the Sandusky was beyond their means of support. After a severe winter a number were allowed to return to their villages to gather the crops of the fall previous. About one hundred and fifty of them, men with their wives and children, made the journey to their former homes, and resumed their work on the clearings, dividing their force so as to look after all three of the villages.

While the Moravians had spent the winter suffering on the banks of the Sandusky the Wyandots had not been idle, but had made

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY

maurading expeditions on the settlers of Penn- sylvania and Virginia, with their usual burn- ing and killing. The settlers of the upper Ohio and the Monongahela determined to admin- ister a lesson that would be a warning to the Indians, and a corps of a hundred mounted men was organized, and under command of Col. Williamson started for the Moravian towns. They knew the Moravians had spent the winter on the Sandusky, the point where all the brutal, murdering expeditions were or- ganized; they knew they had again returned to their villages on the Tuscarawas. In what follows, the most lenient might concede they did not know the peaceful Indians had been taken there against their will, but this is not borne out by history. The rangers under Wil- liamson reached Gnadenhütten after a forced march of two days, and at this village found the Indians gathering corn on the west bank of the Tuscarawas. A boat was secured and sixteen of the men crossed the river, but found more Indians there than they had expected. Then the rangers certainly learned their visit to Sandusky had been an enforced one, for they sympathized with them for the cruel treatment they had received and assured them of their friendship and that they had come to see in what way they could protect the Moravians. They further assured them that another expedition would come from the San- dusky region, and they would again receive the same cruel treatment, and that their friends at Pittsburg had advised them to go to that place where they would receive protection. Knowing the settlers of Pittsburg had always treated them with the greatest friendship, and being Christian Indians, they did not doubt what the men told them, and placed themselves under their protection. The trusting Indians also sent a messenger down the river to the village of Salem to notify the Indians there of the kindness of their new-found friends, urging them to join them at Gnadenhütten. They crossed the river with the rangers and gave their guns into their hands, after which they were ordered into houses and a guard placed around them .. Col. Williamson sent a party of men down the river to the village of Salem, but on the way they met the Salem Moravians coming up the river. to join their brethren at Gnadenhütten. The Salem In-

dians arrived and they, too, were deceived into giving up their arms after which they were imprisoned. Col. Williamson then called a council of war, and put the question for the men to decide, as to whether the Indians should be taken as prisoners to Fort Pitt (Pittsburg) or whether they should be put to death. There were eighteen who favored the minor outrage of carrying them away as prisoners and eighty- two voted for immediate death.

James Patrick, Esq., of New Philadelphia, wrote an interesting history of the Moravian Missions in Tuscarawas county. From this work the following account of the horrible scene is taken: "In the majority, which was large, no sympathy was manifested. They re- solved to murder-for no other word can ex- press the act-the whole of the Christian In- dians in their custody. Among these were several who had contributed to aid the mis- sionaries in the work of conversion and civili- zation. Two of them had emigrated from New Jersey after the death of their spiritual pastor, the Rev. David Brainerd. One woman, who could speak good English, knelt before the commander and begged his protection.

"The supplication was unavailing. They were ordered to prepare for death. But

the warning had been anticipated. Their firm belief in their new creed was shown forth in this sad hour of their tribulation, by relig- ious exercises of preparation. The orisons of these devout people were already ascending to the throne of the Most High. The sound of the Christian's hymn and the Christian's prayer found an echo in the surrounding woods, but no responsive feeling in the bosoms of their executioners. With gun, and spear, and tomahawk and scalping knife, the work of death progressed in these slaughterhouses, till not a sigh or moan was heard to proclaim the existence of human life within. All per- ished save two. Two Indian boys escaped as by a miracle, to be witnesses in after times of the savage cruelty of the white man toward their unfortunate race.

"After committing their cruel and cowardly act, the buildings containing the mutilated bodies of the murdered Indians were set on fire, and the flames of the heavy logs soon re- duced to crumbling ashes all that remained of the Christian Indians."

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

Dr. Doddridge pays a beautiful tribute to the Christianity of the Moravians when he writes: "They anticipated their doom, and had commenced their devotions with hymns, prayers and exhortations to each other to place a firm reliance upon the mercy of the Saviour of men. When their fate was announced to them these devoted people embraced and kissed each other, and bedewing each others faces and bosoms with their tears asked pardon of their brothers and sisters for any offense they might have committed through life. Thus, at peace with God, and each other, they replied to those who, impatient for the slaughter, de- manded whether they were ready to die, that 'having commended their souls to God, they were ready to die.'"

Having reduced to ashes all traces of their inhuman act, the men started up the river for Schönbrunn to murder the Moravians there, but the Christian savages had learned of the sad fate of their companions and fled to the forest, and were beyond pursuit. The num- ber murdered was ninety-six; of these sixty- two were grown persons, about forty-two men and twenty women; the remaining thirty-four were children. A few of the men who looked as if they might be warriors were taken from the slaughter house and brained with toma- hawks. Most of these quietly knelt down, and while offering up prayers to God, received the fatal blow. But one attempted to escape, and he soon fell dead with five bullets through his body. These outside dead were placed in the slaughter-houses and burned with the rest.

One hundred and fifty years previous when Menendez murdered the Huguenot Christians on the Atlantic coast he tarried on the site of his crime long enough to lay the foundation of a church to commemorate his act. It was prob- ably through inadvertence Col. Williamson overlooked this beautiful finishing touch of piety !

It was only a part of the Moravians who had been murdered; the larger number were still on the banks of the Sandusky, and to this same retreat fled the fifty Christian Moravians who had escaped from Schonbrunn. Imme- diately on Williamson's return, arrangements were made for a new expedition to go to the fountain-head of all the trouble-the head- quarters on the Sandusky-and administer a

blow that would leave the settlers in peace. The massacre of the Moravians took place May 3, 1702, and on May 7 the decision was reached to attack Upper Sandusky, the seat of the Wyandots, not that the Wyandots alone were guilty of all the murdering and mas- sacreing, butchering and scalping of the un- fortunate settlers and their families, but be- cause Upper Sandusky was the headquarters of the Wyandots, Ottawas, Delawares, and Shawanese, and here was their rendezvous, where they gathered to start on their raids. Volunteers to the number of 480 were secured, all mounted and well armed, all from two or three counties south of Fort Pitt. Monday, May 20, was the time set for their assembling and the place chosen was Mingo Bottom, on the west bank of the Ohio, about seventy-five miles below Pittsburg, and about two miles below the present city of Steubenville. They began assembling on the 21st, and on the 24th the last man had reported. A vote was taken as to who should command the expedition, and Col. William Crawford received 235 votes, and Col. David Williamson, who had com- manded the expedition against the Moravians, 230. Col. Crawford was therefore selected as commander with Col. Williamson as senior major, and second in command. Among the troops was Robert Sherrard, grandfather of Rev. J. H. Sherrard, who was for many years pastor of the Presbyterian church at Bucyrus. Of the troops 320 were from Washington county, Pennsylvania, 130 from Westmore- land county, Pennsylvania, 20 from Ohio county, Virginia, and Io from various local- ities. Besides the two commanding officers there were three other Majors, Gladdis, Mc- Clelland and Bunton, with Daniel Leet as brigade major, and Dr. John Knight as sur- geon. John Slover and Jonathan Zane accom- panied the expedition as guides. There were eighteen companies, the captains, as far as known, being McGeehan, Hoagland, Beeson, Munn, Ross, Ogle, Briggs, Craig, Ritchie, Mil- ler, Bean, and Hood.

The Williamson expedition against the Mo- ravians was a private affair of the settlers. The expedition against the Wyandots was a government affair, under direction of Gen. Irvine, who commanded the western depart- ment of the United States and Lieut. Rose,

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY

a member of his staff, accompanied the expedi- tion as his representative. The Indians were assisting the English by their constant attacks in the west, necessitating the keeping on the border for protection a large force which otherwise could have been utilized in the war against England. The attack on the Wyan- dot village was in reality an expedition of the Revolutionary war, to destroy a post which for years had been the Indian headquarters of the British government; a place which had been and was the gathering point of all In- dian expeditions against the colonies; the vil- lage where the Indians of northwestern Ohio repaired to receive their arms and ammuni- tion from the British, and to receive pay for services rendered, the pay being based on the number of scalps turned over to the British agent at Upper Sandusky. From these In- dian villages came the stories of cruel deaths inflicted on their unfortunate captives. For, while it seems sickening and saddening that men, women and children were murdered on these expeditions, in many of them a few of the stronger captives were taken back alive, divided among the different villages, and died with all the prolonged agony to the sufferer that devilish ingenuity could devise. But in these tortures the Wyandots took no part; they murdered and scalped their prisoners, but burning at the stake had been abandoned years previous. The Delawares and Shawanese were the torturers.

At Gnadenhütten the vote to murder peace- ful Christian Indians was eighty-two; the vote for mercy being eighteen, and a deed was con- summated so despicable and so dastardly that the civilized world for over a century has blushed with shame that honest, conscientious, law-abiding Christian men should place so foul a stain on civilization. In this every reader of this work will coincide. But who cast those eighty-two votes? Men whose grey-haired fathers had been cruelly murdered; men who had returned to their peaceful homes only to find their wives butchered, almost beyond rec- ognition, and lying weltering in blood, bleed- ing and scalpless, on their hearthstones ; to find even the innocent babes at the mothers' breasts scalped and butchered. While in their minds was the knowledge of the death by the Indians of a father or a son, a brother or a friend,

who had first run the gauntlet, that Indian "free for all" in which every villager took a part; the long line down which the naked cap- tive must pass, starting with the children and squaws with their whips and clubs, administer- ing blows to the flying victim; then past the younger men, and finally brave warriors with knives and tomahawks so skilfully used as to administer blows that would cut and wound but not kill; and on and on, cut, carved and covered with blood, to sink exhausted at the Council-house door. To be cared for? No! This bleeding remnant of a man was some- times scourged and beaten still, and thrown into some guarded hut to await the morrow, when the poor sufferer was dragged forth to furnish what further amusement the strength of his constitution would stand. Commencing at the less vital parts, skilful savages took strips of skin from his legs and arms, and sometimes nearly half the body was laid bare before suffering nature could stand no more and death relieved him of his sufferings. At the stake the fire was fiendishly built so far away that the torture was prolonged for hours, the ears, fingers and toes cut off, the fiends previously pulling the nails out by the roots, yelling with delight at the suffering of the tor- tured victims. Every horror the inventive mind of the savage could think of was practiced .*

*John Leith was a prisoner and storekeeper among the Indians from 1763 until he made his escape in 1791. During the Revolution he kept a store at Upper San- dusky, employed by the British. In his biography, written by his grandson, Judge George W. Leith, is his description of the first "Running of the Gauntlet" he witnessed : "One fine day in early summer a band of warriors came in from the south with a captive, a powerful young Virginian. He had been overpowered and captured in a hand-to-hand struggle. I saw him stripped for the race, and thought him as fine a speci- men of a man as I ever saw. His action was unim- paired, the only wound perceivable being a long gash on the fleshy part of his thigh, which, though consid- erably swelled, did not impede his motion. He was stripped naked and painted black for the race at my store. Two lines of Indians were formed, extending back from the store about two hundred yards. He was marched back through the lines in a sontherly direc- tion, the savages panting and yelling for the onset. Poor fellow! he stepped with the elasticity of a race- horse, confidently believing that if he succeeded in the race his life would be spared. But his doom was sealed, and this was but the opening scene in the hor- rible tragedy. The warriors were armed with guns loaded with powder to be shot into his naked body, the boys were armed with bows and arrows, and the squaws and children with clubs and switches. No one was allowed to strike or shoot until the victim was

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Crawford County, Ohio, and representative citizens, Part 6

Author: Hopley, John E. (John Edward), 1850- Publication date: 1912 Publisher: Chicago,Ill., Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company Number of Pages: 1302

Author: Hopley, John E. (John Edward), 1850-
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Chicago,Ill., Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1302