History of Greene County, Ohio, Part 23

Author: Robinson, George F., 1838-1901
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 934

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prostrated by the invincible Beaver creek champion. Kizer was nearly killed; had to be taken home in a wagon, and kept his bed a long time, so it was reported. This was the most noted fight of the kind that ever came off in this county, and was talked of for years afterward. It ended the fight- ing career of both men. Kizer after this fight quit the practice. And no one would fight Beall.

The account of this fight was obtained by Thomas C. Wright from Col. James Col- lier and Judge Jacob Haine-, who were pres- ent. Mr. Wright does not give the date of the above mentioned fight, for the reason. perhaps, that it was so long after it occurred that the parties who told him could not re- member the exact time. Recently, how- ever, among the old records of the county has been found the indictment, found by the grand jury, and which makes that notorious fight worse than it has been pictured out.

The depositions ci Gen. Benjamin Whiteman. William Taylor and William Morgan, who were eye witnesses, are as fol- lows :

"May 27. A. D. 1800, personally came before me William Taylor. Benjamin Whiteman and William Morgan and made the following cath, to wit: Taylor testifies that he saw Aaron Beall and Benjamin Kizer violently assault and beat each other by fighting. Whiteman testified that he saw the said Aaron Beall violently assault and beat William Kizer. William Morgan testi- fied that he saw the said Aaron Beall after he had assaulted and beaten William Kizer rush through the crowd and pull the above named Benjamin Kizer off a table or bench and violently assault and beat him again. Sworn to before me. John Smith, J. P."

And not only has the above been found.

but also in the original papers of the grand jury which met four months later, Septeni- ber. A. D. 1806, appear four indictments against Aaron Beall for fighting on that day.

ANOTHER ACCOUNT OF OLD CHILLICOTHE.

Three miles north of Nenia, the county seat of Greene county, Ohio, was the old In- dian town of Chillicothe on the Little Mi- ami. Of its history much has been written and much has been lost of its early history. It was one of the most noted towns. his- torically speaking. in the state : made so by the many scenes of suffering by torture of the white race at the hands of savages : the birthplace of the noted chief of the Shawnee tribe of Indians, Tecumseh : the temporary prison of those grand old pioneers from Kentucky. Daniel Boone and Simon Ken- ton and many others less known in history. who were captured and carried there as pris- oners. We read of their sufferings at the hands of their captors, of their courage and escapes and their heroism in behalf of this beautiful land that we call ours, and we ofttimes forget what it cost to reclaim it from a wilderness and the labor it took to make it bloom and blossom as a rose, as we see it to-day.

It is said to have had a population of eleven hundred Indians. About three hun- dred of these were fighting men. The vil- lage was about a quarter of a mile long. the huts being set out irregularly. The location of most of the huts was on the little emi- nence now covered by the school house, frame house, barn and orchard on the left side of the road as we now go from Xenia to Old Town. The commonest Indians had their huts along the creek bank. The coun-

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cil house was near where the school house now ( 1900) stands. It was a long. narrow building, roughly made and hardly water proof. When Girty and the renegade Scotchman, Dixon, came to live with Chief Blackfish, they helped to construct a better council house. Remains of the council house, such as rotten timbers, stood until 1840.

THE SHAWNEE INDIANS.

Among all the Indians, with but few exceptions, there were no Indians that caused as much trouble to the whites as those of the Shawnees. The main village of the Shawnees was at Chillicothe on the Scioto; their second village was our well known Old Chillicothe. War parties were constantly passing from one village to the other, and though the distance was near one hundred miles, the Indians were all such good walk- ers and runners that they traveled the trail with incredible rapidity.

THE ALLIES OF THE SHAW NEES.

The Shawnees were assisted by the Mi- amis, the Wyandots and the Delawares. Thus any army attacking would have large numbers to contend with. When General Harmar with his army invaded Ohio. Chief Blackfish, with his three hundred, was aided by the Miamis and by the combined forces Harmar was defeated. Blackfish's band was present and took part in St. Clair's de- feat. These two victories gave the Indians great courage and they became very in- solent. The renegade, Simon Girty, and the Scotch devil. Dixon. did all in their power to excite the hostility of the Old! Chillicothe Indians. When Old Chillicothe

on the Scioto was destroyed and the corn burnt, what few of the natives that were left made their way to Old Chillicothe on the Little Miami river, which became a regular rendezvous for villains, both white and red. In order to save the frontier front utter destruction. General Clarke was dis- patched from Fort Washington with a large body of men. He reached our Old Chilli- cothe at daybreak, posted his one cannon on the hill northwest of Old Town, and while the cannon knocked over the huts his men charged the natives. Old Chillicothe was entirely destroyed. the lodges burned. the corn cut down and most of the Indians killed. Some say that Blackfish, the chief, fell in this fight, but this is a mistake.

BLACKFISH, CHIEF OF THE SHAWNEES.

James Collier. one of the early pioneers of Xenia and of Greene county, gives the following story of Blackfish :

In all histories of the predatory excur- signs of the Shawnees to Kentucky stands somewhat prominent the name and exploits of Blackfish. a noted chief of that tribe. The position that this chief held among the once powerful Shawnees has caused the question of the time and place of his death to be discussed to some extent by western analysts.

The fact that Old Town was the resi- dence of Blackfish gives this question a local interest. Several writers have asserted that he was killed in 1779 while resisting the at- tack of Colonel Bowman and a company of Kentuckians upon Old Town, the first in- cursion of the settlers south of the Ohio upon the Shawnee towns in this region to punish the Indians for their murders and robberies in Kentucky. Blackfish was not

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killed then. Some years since the late Col. James Collier gave us the following par- ticulars relative to the death of Blackfish :

The evidence upon which Mr. Collier founded his statement he conceived to be such as to place the truth of it beyond dis- pute. In June, 1788, a party of Shawnee Indians under the command of Blackfish munde a marauding expedition to Kentucky, and at the headwaters of Paint Lick creek. then in Madison county, they made an at- tack upon the house of a man named Joseph Stinson. It was Sabbath morning and Stin- son's boy, who lived from home, had re- turned about sunrise. When near the house he gave a shout tor arouse the family that they might let him in, and as his sister opened the door for that purpose the Indians rushed in after the boy and shot at Stinson and his wife, who were in bed, mortally wounding the latter and severely wounding the former in the thigh. Stinson jumped from the bed, grappled the leader of the party and threw him, but his wound had so weakened hin that the Indian turned on him. At this instant the boy grasped his father's gun, which frightened the party, some seven or eight in number, and they fled for the door, assisted in their exit by Polly. Stinson's daughter, who violently pushed the last ones upon those ahead and sent them pell mell out of the cabin and barred the entrance.

Polly then turned and with a butcher knife stabbed the Indian who was killing her father. AAt the first blow the Indian raised his arm and knocked her across the room, but she gathered again and gave him a stab that proved fatal. This Indian was Blackfish himself. In the fright of the moment, Jane, another daughter of Stin- son, about fourteen years of age. jumped

through the window and was captured by those on the outside. She remained a pris- oner among the Indians until 1797, when her liberation was affected at Detroit, and she returned to her friends in Kentucky.

The testimony on which Mr. Collier made this statement was this: In 1796 he was in Kentucky in the region where this outrage tock place, and previous to his visit Charles, a son of Capt. Israel Hart, had re- turned from his captivity among the In- dlians. He, together with a negro boy, had been captured in 1787, and Charles said he was adopted by Blackfish as his son, who told him that his white father, Captain Hart, was killed. Charles told Mr. Collier that he accompanied Blackfish in 1788 and was in the camp when Jane Stinson was brought in. Jane immediately recognized him but he said he denied knowing her, and was vio- Iently grieved at the death of his adopted father. Jane told him that his own father was living, a fact he did not fully believe until about the time of his return to Ken-, tucky in 1796.

Mr. Collier the same year, but previous to his visit to Kentucky, while down on the Auglaize searching for horses, saw the negro boy who had been captured at the same time as Charles Hart. Mr. Collier says he had a long talk with him, and he stated substantially in regard to Blackfish's death as was stated by Charles Hart after- ward.

The next year, 1797, while Mr. Collier was on the Little Miami in this county Jim Blue Jacket called upon him, and in the course of the conversation which took place between them Jim told him that he was in the expedition to Kentucky in 1788. and was one of those whom Polly Stinson so violently thrust out of the door, and he

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reaffirmed what Charles Hart and the negro bey had stated, that it was Blackfish who had led the party and who was killed by Polly Stinsen. This fact was not known in Kentucky until the return of Charles Hart. a period of some eight years, and was always suppressed by the Indians, for the reason, as Mr. Collier supposed, that it was a deep disgrace among the Indians to be killed by a woman. There is another fact which we will notice. It has been asserted that Black- fish was the father of Tecumseh. Mr. Col- lier says that in 1812 he met in the army Stephen Riddle, a very intelligent man, who was taken prisoner by the Indians at the de- struction of his father's ( Riddle's) station in Kentucky. He told him that he was almost the constant companion of Tecum- seh while a prisoner and was then informed that Tecumseh's father was killed at the battle of Point Pleasant, at which time Te- cumseh was about two years old. Mr. Col- lier said that Mr. Riddle would have been apt to have obtained correct information upon the subject.

TECUMSEHI'S BIRTHPLACE.

Tecumseh, the great Shawnee and Mi- ami chief, was born, according to Benjamin Kelley, Tecumseh's adopted brother, who was five years in Blackfish's family, near Xenia on Mr. Sexton's lot near a spring. Mr. Thomas Hind, who makes the state- ment that Tecumseh was born on the Sex- ton farm, states as proof that in the year 1821 he met the Rev. Ben Kelley, then a Baptist minister, and who was taken pris- ( ner the same time as Boone, and had it from his own lips that Kelley was five years in Blackfish's family. It is said of Tecum- seh that at the battle of Tippecanoe he had

all the surviving Shawnees in the front ranks for he considered them the bravest of all his men.

TIIE RENEGADE WIIITE MEN.

Of the renegade white men who lived at Old Town it is known that Simon Girty and Dixon died miserable deaths. They cer- tainly Kleserved them. Kenton and Boone, both of whom had been captains at Old Chillicothe, lived to be very old men. hon- ored by all. They are reckoned among the patriots of the country. Simon Kenton's name appears on many of the records of Greene county, Ohio. When the county was first organized, May 10, 1803, he was then a resident of what was then called Mad River township, Greene county, now a part of Logan county, where he died at the ripe old age of eighty-one years. His remains were afterward taken up and removed to Oakdale cemetery, Urbana, Ohio. Simon Kenton had also two brothers, who were with him on the headwaters of Mad river. William and Thomas Kenton. We have now in Xenia a descendant of the old here, Simon Kenton, descended from his brother. Thomas Kenten-Mr. John A. North. Mr. North's grandfather, now deceased, was personally acquainted with his honored old uncle, Simon Kenton, and learned the re- lationship from his own lips.

The old Indian trail between the two Chillicothes was trod by thousands of na- tives. It is said to have passed west of the Old Chillicothe and traversed the plain to Alpha. Here it crossed the hills bordering the river andl stretched away in almost a bee line for the Chillicothe on the Seioto. War parties coming up the trail would give a whoop when about a mile from the village

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to let their squaws know of their coming and their success.

ADVENTURES OF COL. DANIEL BOONE.

The following is taken from the Amer- ican Museum, or Repository, published in Philadelphia, October. 1797, and that part of his adventure which applies to Greene county, Ohio, was written by Boone :

"January 1, 1778, I went with thirty men to the blue lick' on the Licking river to make salt for the different garrisons. Feb- ruary 7, hunting by myself to procure meat for the company. I met a party of one hun- dred and twe hidians and two Frenchmen marching against . Boonsborough. They pursued and took me, and that day I capitu- lated for my men, kiwing they could not escape. They were twenty-seven in num- ber. three having gone with salt. The In- dians according to the capitulation used us generously. They carried us to the Old Chillicothe on the Little Miami river. On the 18th of February we arrived there, after an uncomfortable journey in very severe weather. On the soth of March I and ten of my men were conducted to Detroit. On the 30th we arrived there, and were treated by Governor Hamilton, the British com- mander of the pest, with great humanity. The Indians had such a fondness for me that they refused one hundred pounds ster- ling offered them by the governor if they would leave me with the others, on purpose that he might send me home on my parole. Several English gentlemen there, sensible of my adverse life and fortune, and touched with sympathy, generously offered to supply my wants, which I declined with many thanks, adding that I never expected it would be in my power to recompense such

unmerited generosity. The Indians left m; men in captivity with the British at Detroit. On the ioth of April they brought me toward Old Chillicothe, where we arrived on the 25th day of the same month. This was a long and fatiguing march through an ex- ceeding fertile country, remarkable for fine springs and streams of water. At Old Chillicothe I spent my time as comfortably as [ could expect : was adopted, according to their custom, into a family, where I be- came a sen, and had a good share in the affection of my new parents, brothers, sis- ters and friends. ] was exceedingly famil- lar and friendly with them, always appear- ing as cheerful and satisfied as possible, and they put great confidence in me. I often went hunting with them, and frequently gained their applause for my activity at our s . ting matches. I was careful not to ex- ceed many of them in shooting, for no peo- ple are more envious than they in this sport. I could observe in their countenances and gestures the greatest expression of joy when they exceeded me, and when the reverse hap- pened, of envy. The Shawnee king took great notice of me and treated me with pro- found respect and entire friendship, often tritsting me to hunt at my liberty. I fre- quently returned with the spoils of the woods, and as often presented some of what I had taken to him, expressive of duty to my sovereign. My food and lodging was in commen with them; not so good, indeed, as I could desire, but necessity made everything acceptable.

"I now began to meditate an escape, but carefully avoided suspicion. Until the 3d day of June I continued at Old Chillicothe and was then taken to the salt springs on the Scioto and kept there for ten days mak- ing salt. During this time I had hunted

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with them and found for a great extent above this river to exceed the soil of Ken- tucky and remarkably well watered. On my return to Old Chillicothe four hundred and fifty of the choicest Indian warriors were ready to march against Boonsborough, painted and armed in a fearful manner. This alarmed me and 1 determined to escape. On the 16th of June, before sun- rise. 1 went off secretly, and reached Boonsborough on the 20th day, a journey of one hundred and sixty miles, during which I only had one meal. 1 found our fortress in a bad state, but we immediately repaired our flanks, gates and posterns and formed a double bastoon, which we com- pleted in ten days. One of my fellow pris- oners, escaping after me, brought advice that on account of my flight the Indians had put off their expedition for three weeks.

"In July. 1779, during my absence, Colonel Bowman, with one hundred and sixty men, went against the Shawnees of Old Chillicothe. He arrived undiscovered, a battle ensued, which lasted until ten in the morning, when Colonel Bowman retreated thirty miles. The Indians collected all their strength and pursued him, when another en - gagement ensued for two hours, not to Colonel Bowman's advantage. Colonel Harrod proposed to mount a number of horses and break the enemy's line, which at this time fought with remarkable fury. This desperate measure had a happy effect and the savages fled on all sides. In these two battles we had nine men killed and one wounded ; enemy's loss uncertain, only two scalps taken. The hostile disposition of the savages caused General Clarke, the com- mandant at the falls of the Ohio, to march with his regiment, and the armed force of the country, against Piqua, the principal

town of the Shawnees, on a branch of the Great Miami, which he finished with great success, took seventeen scalps and burned the town to ashes, with the loss of seven- teen men .*

DAVID LAUGHEAD, SR.

In connection with what Colonel Boone says in regard to this expedition it is of local interest to add the recollection of Da- vid Laughead, who at that time. 1780, was a soldier in the ranks under General Clarke, and was one of the band of Kentuckians who participated in that campaign. This David Laughead was the father of David MI. Laughead, who was the father of David and Joseph Laughead, whom many yet liv- ing in Kenia remember. He died January 29. 1824, at the age of sixty-seven years, and is buried in the old Massies Creek churchyard ( Stevenson's). He says in an- swer to the question, "When did you first see Old Chillicothe on the Little Miami river?" "I was attached to a troop of herses on an expedition from Kentucky un- der General Clarke. We crossed the Ohio river at the mouth of the Licking river Att- gust 2, 1780, and arrived at Old Chillicothe on the 5th day of August. 1780. Previous to leaving Kentucky they had heard of Old Chillicothe on the Little Miami river, of its notoriety as a strong Indian town. He had often heard it spoken of by his neighbors and by his comrades in arms in Kentucky. And what impressed it more lastingly upon his mind was an incident that occurred on this expedition. The night after their ar- rival at Oll Chillicothe, the Indians having fled, they camped on that portion of land between the Little Miami and what is now known as Massies creek. And after their

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return from Old Piqua, where they had been successful in destroying their town and defeating the Indians, they camped on the north bank of the Little Miami on the 7th day of August, 1780. About fifty men were detailed to cross the river and cut down a lot of corn that they had left standing for their own use on returning. One of the men of this detail had a sore foot and his comrades took him across the river and set him down, and shortly afterward the lame man had to get them to come back and take him across the other part of the river, which circumstance was also remembered, and after their return to Kentucky they were wont to speak of their old camping ground near the Ohl Chillicothe as an island of about three hun- dred acres. General Whiteman also, who had been up in this section of the country as early as 1790, likewise says that he thought it was an island and did not find out his mis . take until after he had become a resident of this county, when, he says, about the year 1800, he was passing up between the two streams, Massies creek and the Little Mi- ami, and discovered that what is now called Massies creek was not a part of the Little Miami but a separate stream. These facts of history, which are of local interest in the life of our subject, David Laughead, were gathered from the old records of Greene county, depositions being taken of the okl pioneers in a case of ejectment where the parties in the case were Peter and Jesse Vandolah vs. Major John Stevenson, David Laughead and others. The point in dispute was the location of the beginning of John Jamison's survey. It is a fact in the history of cur county that the first town in Greene county of which we have any knowledge (though inhabited by savages and had .l

population of eleven hundred) should be near the place where the first entry of land should be made by John Jamison, on the Ist day of August. 1787. on part of mili- tary warrant No. 192, and surveyed for him by Nathaniel Massie on the 20th day of November, 1794, the number of the survey being 387. The starting point of this sur- vey was on the lower end of a small island in the middle of the Little Miami river op- posite the Old Chillicothe, about two hun- dred rods below where Massies creek empties into the Little Miami: original amount, twelve hundred acres. That island can be seen there to-day ( 1900), although the water does not surround the island, yet the old channel is still to be seen, and from the directions given in this case Jamison's survey can be located. The island is about three rods wide and one hundred and fifty rods long.

Later a family by the name of Vandolalı entered four hundred acres of the same tract. The father soon after making his entry became uneasy as to his claim being good. He discovered certain marks that some one had been there before, and meet- ing Major James Galloway one day he told him of his suspicions and asked Mr. Gallo- way's advice as what to do under the cir- cumstances. Mr. Galloway told him that he had recently discovered a law that any one making an entry where some one had pre- viously entered that the latter party could have his claim transferred to some other place. Mr. Vandolah thereupon anthorized Mr. Galloway to do so with his entry. In the meantime it appears the elder Vandolalı knowing the uncertainty of life made a will, willing to his two sons, Peter and Jesse, the aforesaid four hundred acres. In course of time Major Galloway made the asked

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for entry of the Vandolah claim, three and one-half miles northeast, and they immedi- ately removed to their land. Some years after the father died and it appears had failed in life to take his boys into his con- fidence as to his business relations. They remembered the claim where they first had lived, and the father had failed to destroy the will which he had made, and from these facts grew the trouble and the number of suits of ejectments that followed.

SIMON KENTON.

About the year 1777 Colonel Bowman sent Simon Kentin and two other men, Montgomery and Clarke, on a scouting ex- pedition to the old Shawanoes town ( now Old Town) on the Miami. Stealthily ap- proaching the town at night, they observed a number of horses in an inclosure. These at the time were inestimable prizes, and forgetting their mission, they each mounted a horse, and, to cripple all pursuit, tied the others together, and started toward the Ohio. The Indians soon discovered their loss, and started in hot pursuit, and though at a distance, still followed the trail. When Kenton and his party arrived at the banks of the Ohio, they found it so rough that their horses would not venture in. A coun- cil was held, and in view of the great dis- tance between them and their pursuers, it was resolved to remain until sunset, and await the probable abatement of the winkl. On the contrary, however, the gale in- creased, and by night the river was abso- lutely impassable.

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History of Greene County, Ohio, Part 23

Author: Robinson, George F., 1838-1901 Publication date: 1902 Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke Publishing Company Number of Pages: 934

Author: Robinson, George F., 1838-1901
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 934