USA > Ohio > Greene County > History of Greene County, together with historic notes on the northwest and the state of Ohio > Part 16
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"The forcible removal of the missionaries and of the Moravian
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Indians from the Muskingum to the Sandusky by Elliott, an emissary of the British, in September, 1781, and the murder of ninety-four of them, who, in February, 1782, had returned to gather the corn they had raised the previous season, terminated Moravian missions for many years on the Upper Muskingum. Until 1786 there were none within the present limits of Ohio. During said year Rev. John Heckewelder, and others, established a mission on the Cuyahoga River, twelve miles from its mouth, which was composed mainly of those who had formerly lived on the Muskingum, and who spent the past few years at Gnadenhütten, on Huron River, thirty miles north of Detroit. This mission station on the Cuyahoga, known in Mora- vian history. as 'Pilgrim's Rest,' was abandoned in 1790, the members returning to the vicinity of Detroit, and ultimately locating near the river Thames, where they built the town of Fairfield.
" The subsequent history of Moravian missionary effort in Ohio belongs to territorial and later times, but I may be permitted to say that Revs. Heckewelder and Edwards, in 1798, again established a mission at the Muskingum, upon the site of Gnadenhütten; and in the autumn of said year their fellow-laborers, Revs. Zeisberger and Mortimer, established another upon the Shonbrun tract, and named it Goshen. It was situated seven miles from Gnadenhütten, where the venerated Zeisberger labored until his death, in 1808, and where he and Edwards are buried. The Muskingum Moravian mission stations were finally brought to a close in the year 1823, the general government having purchased at that time all the interests previously acquired by the Moravians.
"Rev. John Heckewelder was conspicuously identified' with our Pre-territorial, our Territorial and State history, and has been called one of the founders of Ohio. He was a man of talents, of character and integrity, and was one of the Associate Judges of Tuscarawas county in 1808, 1809, 1810, when he finally left Ohio, and returned to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he died January 31, 1823, having passed into the closing months of his eightieth year. His influence as a philanthropist, philosopher, pioneer, teacher, author, diplomatist, statesman, ambassador, jurist, and as a Christian missionary, was invaluable.
SUBSEQUENT MILITARY MOVEMENTS UPON OHIO SOIL.
" For the purpose of subjugating the hostile Wyandots, Delawares and Shawanese, who were unreconciled to English rule, and who had
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outraged humanity by their brutality toward the frontier settlers, having barbarously murdered many of them and carried their wives and children into captivity, General Gage, commander-in-chief of the British troops in North America, decided, in 1764, to organize two armies, to be commanded respectively by Colonels Bradstreet and Bouquet.
COLONEL BRADSTREET'S EXPEDITION.
"In pursuance of this purpose, Colonel Bradstreet, with a force of twelve hundred men, in August sailed up Lake Erie, by way of San- dusky Bay, to Detroit, which had been besieged by Pontiac for many months, confining the garrison to their ramparts. After relieving Detroit, he returned by way of Sandusky Bay to Niagara. Israel Putnam, who figures in our Revolutionary history as a Major-General, and as one of the most distinguished men of those 'stirring times,' served as Major, commanding a battalion of provincial troops in the Bradstreet expedition.
COLONEL BOUQUET'S EXPEDITION.
"Colonel Bouquet's army of fifteen hundred men, composed .of two hundred Virginians, seven hundred Pennsylvanians and six hundred English regulars belonging to the Forty-second and Sixtieth regi- ments, was organized at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, arrived at 'Fort Pitt' September 17, and marched from thence for the Upper Muskingum River (now called Tuscarawas) October 3, reaching said stream on the 15th of said month, at a point within the present limits of Tuscarawas county, and proceeded at once to erect a temporary fort. 'Here,' (says the historian of the expedition) 'Indian chiefs and warriors of the Senecas, Delawares, Shawanese, and others, numbering in all nearly fifty, met Colonel Bouquet, October 17, and sued for peace in the most abject manner. Turtle-Heart, Custaloga, Beaver, and another . chief or two, were the speakers, who, in their harangues, vehemently accompanied with wild gesticulations, asserted that they had been unable to restrain their young men, who had participated with those of other tribes in the acts of barbarity charged, and generally palliated the conduct of the Indians towards the white settlers.' They pledged themselves, however, in conclusion, to restore all captives, which had been previously demanded of them by Colonel Bouquet, who had doubtless authoritatively charged home upon them their perfidy and cruel barbarities, their violated engagements, their treachery and
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brutal murders of traders and frontiersmen, their unfaithfulness to all promises they had made, their untrustworthiness, their baseness generally, concluding with the affirmation that their crimes merited the severest punishment.
" We also learn from the official account of the expedition that, by arrangement, Colonel Bouquet met them again on the 20th of Octo- ber, when, after reiterating the charges, against them, he notified them that many of the friends and relatives of those that had been massacred or captured by them accompanied the expedition, and that they would not consent to a peace with them until full satisfaction was rendered, by the restoration of all captives under their control, or by making satisfactory arrangements for their return to their homes and friends at the earliest practical period. Moreover, he emphat- ically impressed upon them that his army would not leave their country until they had fully complied with every condition contained in any treaty or arrangement he would make with them, because their oft-time violated obligations, their repeated acts of perfidy, their general faithlessness, their oft-told falsehoods, their forfeited honor in numerous cases, had rendered them so infamous as to be wholly untrustworthy.
"'The temper of the foregoing address,' says a writer in the Histor- ical Record, ' was such as to extort a promise from those chiefs to secure the restoration promptly of all whites held in captivity by their people.' And it was then and there agreed that they would meet again in twelve days, at the junction of the Tuscarawas and White- woman (now called Walhonding) Rivers, when and where the Indians were to 'surrender all the prisoners now held by them, whether they were men, women or children; whether they were English, French, African or American ; or whether they were adopted, or married, or living in any other condition among them.'
" In pursuance of the above agreement, Colonel Bouquet, on the 25th of October, reached the 'Forks of the Muskingum' (now Cos- hocton), and then and there made preparation for the reception of the prisoners. The Indians, realizing the necessity of keeping faith with the stern and determined commander of such a large army, brought in, from day to day, numerous captives, so that when the general meeting was held, on the 9th of November (being some days later than the time first agreed upon), two hundred and six captives were delivered, and pledges given that about one hundred more, still held by the Shawanese, and whom it was impracticable to have present on so short a notice, would be surrendered during the next spring. Hos-
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tages were taken for the fulfillment of this part of the arrangement (for it was not a formal treaty), which (although some of the hos- tages escaped) secured the delivery of the additional captives, num- bering about one hundred, at 'Fort Pitt,' on the 9th of the following May.
"The scene at the surrender of the prisoners, in the midst of this far-off, western wilderness, far beyond the limits of the white settle- ments, was one that human language is too feeble to portray-which the pen of the historian and of the ready writer could not adequately describe-which the genius of the painter would utterly fail to pre- sent on canvas-which the skill of the renowned sculptor would be unable fully to exhibit in marble, and which could not fail to have stimulated into the most lively exercise all the variety of human pas- sions, and, exceptionally, all the tender and sympathetic feelings of the human heart !
""'There were seen,' said the aforenamed authority, 'fathers and mothers recognizing and clasping their once captive little ones, lius- bands hung around the newly-recovered wives ; brothers and sisters met, after long separation, scarcely able to speak the same language, or to realize that they were children of the same parents! In those interviews there was inexpressible joy and rapture, while, in some cases, feelings of a very different character were manifested by looks or language. Many were flying from place to place, making eager inquiries after relatives not found, trembling to receive answers to their questions, distracted with doubts, hopes and fears ; distressed and grieved on obtaining no information about the friends they sought, and, in some cases, petrified into living monuments of horror and woe on learning their unhappy fate!
" Among the captives brought into camp was a woman with a babe, a few months old, at her breast. One of the Virginia Volunteers soon recognized her as his wife who had been taken by the Indians about six months before. She was immediately delivered to her happy luis- band. IIe flew with her to his tent and clothed her and his child with proper apparel. But their joy, after their first transports, was soon checked by the reflection that another dear child, about two years old, taken captive at the same time with the mother, and separ- ated from her, was still missing, although many children had been brought in. A few days afterwards a number of other prisoners were brought to the camp, among whom were several more children. The woman was sent for, and one, supposed to be hers, was presented to her. At first sight she was uncertain, but, viewing the child with
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great earnestness, she soon recollected its features, and was so over- come with joy that, literally forgetting her nursing babe, she dropped it from her arms, and, catching up the new-found child, in an ecstacy pressed it to her bosom, and, bursting into tears, carried it off, unable to speak for joy, while the father, taking up the infant its mother had dropped, followed her in no less transport of affection and gratitude.
"Albach says that 'in many cases strong attachments had grown up between the savages and their captives, so that they were reluctantly surrendered, some even not without tears, accompanied with some token of remembrance.'
"Colonel Bouquet, having accomplished his purpose, broke up his camp at the ' Forks of the Muskingum' on the 18th of November, and, after a march of ten days, arrived at ' Fort Pitt.' His expedition was generally regarded as pre-eminently successful. IIis large army of well-equipped soldiers, led by a determined commander, struck terror into the hearts of the savages. They saw that resistance would be vain, and hence readily yielded to the conditions submitted to them. The results secured were the restoration to their frends of more than three hundred captives, a treaty of peace the next year, made with Sir William Johnson at the German Flats, and comparative exemption in the entire northwest, for about ten years, from the horrors of Indian warfare.
" The success of Colonel Bouquet's expedition secured him imme- diate promotion to a Brigadier-Generalship, and he was also highly complimented by the Legislative Assembly of Pennsylvania ; also by the House of Burgesses of Virginia, and by his Majesty's Council of the same Colony, as well as by Governor Fauquier.
"General Henry Bouquet was a native of Rolle, a small town in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland, near the borders of Lake Geneva. He was born in 1719, and died at Pensacola, Florida, late in the year 1765. He was a man of sense and of science, of education, of ability and talents. He was subordinate in the Forbes expedition against Fort Du Quesne, in 1758. General Bouquet had a command while yet a very young man, in the army of the King of Sardinia, and passed through several of 'the memorable and ably conducted campaigns that monarch sustained against the combined forces of France and Spain.'
AN ACT OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT.
"It may not be generally known, and yet be a fact worth recording, that the British Parliament, in the year 1774, passed an act making
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the Ohio River the southwestern boundary of Canada, and the Mis- sissippi River its western boundary, thereby attaching the northwest to the province of Quebec, as it was called, thus placing the territory that now constitutes the State of Ohio under the local administration of said province. Some historians have 1766 as the time of the afore- said parliamentary enactment, but I think they are in error as to date.
" For ten years after the celebrated Bouquet expedition, the settlers on the western frontiers of the colonies of Virginia and Pennsylvania enjoyed comparative immunity from the marauding excursions and murderous raids of the western savages, and from the barbarities previously and subsequently practiced by the Ohio Indians. That decade of peace, however, may be fairly judged to have been more the wholesome result of the instructive lessons taught by Colonel Bouquet and of his large, well-equipped and formidable army than of the action of the English Parliament above named (even if said act was passed in 1766), or of any other cause or com- bination of causes whatever. When the army of the gallant Bouquet started on its long western march 'the wilderness was ringing. with the war-whoop of the savage, and the frontiers were red with blood '-when the return march was ordered the signs of the times were auspicious, promising a long season of peace and quietude to the courageous frontiersmen of those 'heroic times,' and those hopeful indications were, in a good degree, realized during the halcyon . years of the succeeding decade.
COLONEL M'DONALD'S EXPEDITION.
"As has been already intimated, the ten years that immediately followed the Bouquet expedition (from 1764 to 1774), was a period of comparative peace on both sides of the Ohio river. What might be appropriately called ' a state of war' between the Ohio Indians and the Western frontiersmen did not exist at any time during that decade. It is true some outrages were perpetrated by the Indians that pro- voked some acts of retaliation on the part of the whites during ' those piping times of peace;' but, taken all in all, those ten years may be properly styled the halcyon decade of the latter half of the eigh- teenth century, as between the civilized white men east of the Ohio and the savage red inen west of it.
" While, however, it was yet early spring-time, in 1774, rumors of threatened horse-stealing raids, and of contemplated hostile visits by the Indians into the frontier settlements, were rife. The border set-
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tlers were in a painful state of distrust, of doubt, uncertainty and apprehension, which culminated in fully arousing the partially smoth. ered hostility mutually cherished by the two hostile races towards each other.
" On the 16th of April, 1774, a large canoe, owned by William Butler, a well-known and leading merchant or trader of Pittsburgh, with a number of white men in it, was attacked by three Indians (sup- posed Cherokees), while it was floating down the Ohio River, near Wheeling, and one of the men was killed. This outrage soon became known, and was followed at once by wild, but generally believed rumors of further contemplated Indian atrocities. It will readily be seen how news of such an outrage, with the accompanying and prob. ably exaggerated reports, would fall upon the ears of the already highly excited and inflammable frontiersmen, many of whom had, probably, for good cause, been long nursing their hatred of the Indian. The outrage, as might have been expected, was promptly succeeded by retaliation, for it was only a few days thereafter when a number of Indians that were going down the Ohio river in a boat were killed by some white men who alleged the murder of one of Butler's men as the provocation and their justification. It has been often asserted and extensively published, that Captain Michael Cresap, of border and revolutionary fame, had command of the murderers of these friendly Indians. I do not think the charge clearly established, but whatever may be the fact on that point, it is probable that the atrocity was per- petrated at the instigation of Dr. John Connolly, who was at this time commandant, under Virginia authority, at the 'Forks of the Ohio;' the fort at that time being called Fort Dunmore, in honor of the usurping Governor of Virginia. The frontiersmen about Wheeling being generally Virginians and Marylanders, naturally and easily became victims of the malign influence of the artful, designing Con- nolly, a tool of Dunmore's, who was always ready to do his bidding. Captain Cresap recognized Connolly's authority, and was in corre- spondence with him. Connolly sent an express to Cresap, which reached him April 21st, informing him 'that war was inevitable; that the savages would strike as soon as the season permitted.' This mes- sage, says Brantz Mayer, was the 'signal for open hostilities against the Indians, and resulted in a solemn and formal declaration of war on the 26th of April, and that very night two scalps were brought into camp.' Upon the receipt of the letter from Connolly, on the 21st, 'a council was called at Wheeling, of not only the military there then,
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but all the neighboring Indian traders were also summoned for con- sultation on the important occasion, resulting as above indicated.'
" The settlers at and in the vicinity of Wheeling, and along the Ohio River, were doubtless inveigled into the commission of hostile acts towards the Indians by the inflammatory appeals to them by Connolly, whose influence over them was of vicious tendency. He was an ambitious intriguer, a mere instrument in the hands of Dun- more ; and the war of 1774 is fairly traceable, to a large extent, to his intrigues, exciting appeals and machinations.
" Brantz Mayer says that '.the day after the declaration of war by Cresap and his men, under the warning authority of Connolly's mes- sage, some canoes filled with Indians were descried on the river, keep- ing under cover of the island, to screen themselves from view. They were immediately pursued and overtaken fifteen miles below, at or near the mouth of Captina creek, where a battle ensued, in which an Indian was taken prisoner, a few were wounded on both sides, and perhaps, one slain. On examination, the canoes were found to contain a considerable quantity of ammunition and warlike stores, showing that they were " on the war-path " in earnest.' Captain Cresap is gen- erally supposed to have commanded the pursuing party, but his biographer, Rev. John J. Jacob, emphatically declares that he was not present. This affair occurred April 27th.
"On the 30th of April, a force of twenty or thirty men, led by Captain Daniel Greathouse, went up the Ohio river to the mouth of Yellow creek, above the present city of Steubenville, and there, accompanied by circumstances of great perfidy and atrocity, murdered ten Indians, some of whom were the kindred of Logan, the celebrated Mingo Chief. This act was the more dastardly because committed against men, women and children who were known to cherish no hos- tile purposes toward the whites! After these occurrences, it was manifest to the most hopeful friends of peace that an Indian war was inevitable! As might have been anticipated, the savages at once furiously took the war-path ! Parties of them, with murder in their hearts, scoured the country east of the Ohio river, and made hostile raids into the settlements and laid them waste! Men, women and children were murdered, and scalped; the brains of infants were dashed out against the trees, and their bodies were left exposed, to be devoured by birds of prey and by the wild beasts of the forest ! Ter- ror, gloom, excitement, consternation pervaded all the border settle- ments !
"Upon the representations made to Governor Dunmore of out-
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rages that clearly indicated a hostile disposition of the Indians toward the whites and a determination to make war upon them, that func- tionary promptly commissioned Colonel Angus McDonald, and author- ized him to organize the settlers on the Youghiogheny and Monon- gahela rivers for the defense of the frontiers.
" Lord Dunmore, knowing Michael Cresap to be a man of courage, energy, and force of character, personally tendered him a captain's commission, with a view to the immediate enlistment of a force for co-operation with the troops rapidly organizing by McDonald, west of the Alleghenies. Captain Cresap accepted the commission, and entered upon his duties promptly. Such was his popularity, that more than the required complement of men were recruited in a very short time, and at once marched to join the command of McDonald, the ranking officer of the expedition. The combined forces, number- ing four hundred men, after a dreary march through the wilderness, rendezvoused at Wheeling, some time in June. The invasion of the country of the Ohio Indians was their purpose. In pursuance of their object, they went down the Ohio in boats and canoes to the mouth of the Captina creek, and from thence they pursued their march to the Indian towns at and near the mouth of the Wakatomika creek (now Dresden), a point about equi-distant from the present city of Zanesville and the town of Coshocton, both on the Muskingum River, Jonathan Zane being the chief pilot of the expedition.
"About six miles from Wakatomnika a force of forty or fifty Indians, lying in ambush, gave a skirmish, in which two of McDonald's men were killed and eight or nine wounded, while the Indians lost one or more killed and several wounded. When McDonald arrived at the · chief Wakatomika town he found it evacuated, and the whole Indian force were in ambuscade a short distance from it, which, being discov- ered, the Indians sued for peace. A march to the next village, a mile above the first, was effected, and a small skirmish ensued, in which some blood was shed on both sides. The result was the burning of the town and the destruction of their corn fields. There was the usual perfidy on the part of the Indians, and really nothing substantial was accomplished, when the expedition returned to Wheeling, taking with them three chiefs as captives, or hostages, who were sent to Williamsburg, the seat of the colonial government of Virginia. This expedition was designed only to give temporary protection to the frontier settlers, and was preliminary to the Dunmore expedition to
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the Pickaway Plains, or 'Old Chillicothe,' towns, near the Scioto, later in the year.
"Colonel Angus McDonald was of Scotch parentage, if he was not himself a native of the Highlands of Scotland. He lived near Winchester, Frederick county, Virginia, upon, or near to the pos- sessions early acquired in 'the valley,' and which was then, and is still, known as 'Glengary,' named in honor of the ancestral clan to which the ancient McDonalds belonged in the Highlands of Scot- land. Some of Colonel McDonald's descendants, in the fourth gen- eration, are still living near to, or upon, these domains of the earlier McDonalds.
LORD DUNMORE'S WAR.
" The summer and early autumn of 1774 resounded with the din of preparation for war in various portions of Virginia, having in view the raising of armies, ostensibly for the purpose of subjugating the hostile Ohio Indians. Governor Dunmore organized an army numbering about fifteen hundred men, in the northern counties, prin- cipally in Frederick, Hampshire, Berkley and Dunmore (now Shen- andoah), which assembled on the banks of the Ohio River, above Wheeling ; while, at the same time, by arrangement, General Andrew Lewis raised over a thousand men in the southern counties for the same purpose, which rendezvoused at Camp Union, on the Greenbriar River. The two armies were to form a junction at the mouth of the Kanawha. Bancroft says ' these armies were composed of noble Vir- ginians, who braved danger at the call of a royal governor, and poured out their blood to win the victory for western civilization' Three companies that served in the McDonald expedition to the Muskingum, immediately upon their return in July entered the army of Lord Dunmore, and formed a part of the right wing thereof, which was directly under his immediate command. They were commanded respectively by Captain Michael Cresap, Captain James Wood, and by Captain Daniel Morgan, who all subsequently figured as officers in our Revolutionary war, the last named being the distinguished General Morgan of heroic fame, while Captain James Wood reached high military and civil positions, having served as Governor of Vir- ginia from 1796 to 1799. Among others of the Dunmore army who afterwards attained to more or less distinction as military commanders, and whose names, to the present time, are 'household words' in the West, were Colonel William Crawford, General Simon Kenton, Gen- eral John Gibson, and General George Rogers Clark. Among those
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