History of Logan County and Ohio, Part 31

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Battle, J. H; O.L. Baskin & Co
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago, O.L. Baskin
Number of Pages: 798

USA > Ohio > Logan County > History of Logan County and Ohio > Part 31

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HISTORY OF LOGAN COUNTY.

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either to defects of the stone or the un- skillfulness of the maker.

The other axes are as variable in size and shape as in material. Some have cutting edges, others are sharpened to points, and others, still, are blunted until there is almost no distinction to be made between them and the hammers, which are simply ovate stones with shallow grooves cut around them. The term, ' ungrooved ax,' though constantly met with in print, is not often used by the people. Their ideas of an ax imply a handle passing through or lashed to the head. But the relics from the Swiss Lake dwellings show axes passing through their helves. A knotted club has a hole mortised through its heavy end, into the upper part of which an ungrooved ax is fitted, and as every blow on the edge serves to drive the ax more firmly into its handle, the implement or weapon must have been a very efficient one. The term 'skinner,' usu- ally applied to these axes, is probably a mis- nomer.

The most noticeable of the arrow heads is a large flat one, made of flint, that resembles moss agate. It measures four and three- fourths inches by two and one-eighth, and is about one-fourth of an inch in thickness. Its size and regular shape make it conspicuous in the collection, but its full beauty cannot be seen until it is held up against a strong light.

An arrow head of blue and white flint is also worth notice. It measures four inches by one and five-eighths, and is very regularly formed, while the edges are sharp and beauti- fully serrated with notches of about one- twelfth of an inch long. It must have been a very efficient weapon, capable of giving severe wounds. A fine black spear head was unfor- tunately broken into three pieces, and the middle one, about one inch in length, was lost. When entire it measured six inches in length.

The seven pestles, or mullers, show as many

different forms, all well adapted to their pur- pose, which was, doubtless, to grind grain.

The stone described as a " rolling pin " for want of a better name is, perhaps, the poorest specimen in the collection, and the one most liable to be distrusted. Made of mieaceous and crumbling stone, it seems scarcely fit for any use. Its length is nine and three-fourths inches, and its diameter varies from one fourth to one and one-half inches, its general shape being that of a cylinder with rounded ends.

It is by no means clear for what purpose the mass of brown sandstone, which is called " grindstone " in the list, was intended. In shape it rudely approaches the ordinary grind- stone, having a diameter of about six inches, and a thickness of three. On each of its flat sides are two confluent hemi-spherical cavities of about one and one-half inches in diameter. The two pairs of cavities happen to be placed at right angles with each other, though prob- ably by accident. Dr. H. H. Hill, of Cincin- nati, has several similar stones in his collec- tion, and suggests that they were possibly used to round the ends of horn and bone im- plements. This stone was found in Belle- fontaine.

The nine slate ornaments differ entirely in shape and workmanship from the other relies, and seem to have been made by a different race of men. I have called them ornaments because unable to imagine any use to which they could be applied, and yet they seem equally foreign to our ideas of decoration. Four of them are simply oblong slabs, of about four inches in length by two in breadth, and one-fourth of an inch in thickness, pierced with one or two holes each. One is apparently intended to be suspended by one end, as shown by the position of the hole. The other end is shaped somewhat like an arrow-head. Its length is five inches; breadth, one and a half, and thickness, five-sixteenths.

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HISTORY OF LOGAN COUNTY.

Possibly it was a Phallus. A sixth piece is almost semi-circular, being about five inches by two and a half. It seems to be half of the original instrument, which must have had the form of an ancient, double-edged battle-ax. The break has been through the eye, which was bored very truly, the hole being about two inches long by half an inch in diameter." This collection is preserved in the museum of the State Agricultural College by itself, and is very creditable to the county. There are large numbers of these stone relies yet in the county, but they have long ago lost their attraction save for the few to whom they speak a " various language." Among the stone relies to be found here are many of the Indian tribes, who, if the more modern theories are to be accepted, are a far more ancient people. But whether we consider the red Indian the original possessor of this land or the natural successor of the Mound Build- er, his carly history is equally obscure. The Indians were found in full possession of the whole country so far as the earliest white ex- ploters could determine, but the character of their customs and habits of life, and the uncertainty of their vague traditions, have left but little material for the use of the his- torian. The carliest pioneers found this State inhabited by the Iroquois, Delawares, Shaw- unoes, Miamis, Wyandots and Ottawas. These nations were all subject to the warlike Iroquois or Five Nations, and occupied their respective lands subject to the pleasure of their conquerors. The first of these tribes occupied that part of the State cast of the Cuyahoga River, and a line drawn irregularly south from the source of that river to the Ohio. The Wyandots and Ottawas occupied a strip of country forty miles wide lying along the south and west shore of Lake Erie, west of the Cuyahoga River. The rest of the State was divided in latitudinal sections, oreu- piel by the Delawares, Shawanoes and Mi-

amis, proceeding west of the Iroquois terri- tory in the order named. The Shawan- oes, or Shawnees, occupied the site of Logan County. They occupied the coun- try contiguous to the Wyadots, extending in a strip some fifty miles wide from about the middle of the Wyandot coun- try on each side of the Mad River, and continuing in that course to the Ohio. The nation was divided into several tribes with villages, on the Scioto, Mad and Great Miami Rivers, and on the upper waters of the Miami of the Lake, being, as Col. Johnston terms it, "in the light of tenants-at-will under the Wyandots." They were the de- voted friends and allies of the latter tribe, though on good terms with no others save when warring with the whites.

The earliest French geographers place the home of the Shawanoes in the basin of the Cumberland River. About 1672, it is said, they migrated to South Carolina to escape the fury of the all-conquering Iroquois. In 1698, however, having obtained consent of the powers in Pennsylvania, a part of the Nation settled on the banks of the Susquehanna, where they attracted other tribes of their Na- tion, until 1732 their braves numbered fully one-half of the fighting Indians in that sec- tion of the country. In 1151, feeling more able to cope with their old enemy, they re- turned to the valley of the Ohio and located just below the mouth of the Scioto River. The larger part of the Nation soon after crossed over into this State, taking up their abode in the unoccupied valley of the Scioto. Heretofore, though bearing the name of a quarrelsome and warlike people. among the natives, they were chiefly known to white ex- plorers as a "restless nation of wanderers." From this period forward, however, they turned upon the whites, and during the sixty years of blood that pioneered the way of civ- ilization in Ohio, they were foremost with the

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HISTORY OF LOGAN COUNTY.

scalping-knife and fire-brand. Under the leadership of Black-hoof they aided in de- feating Braddock in 1784, and in the following year, emboldened by success, they carried their savage slaughter as far east as the Blue Ridge. To make head against this tide of savage war, Maj. Lewis was sent with a party of troops, in January of 1:56, to attack the upper Shawanoese towns. situated on the Ohio, three miles above the mouth of the Great Kanawha. The towns were destroyed but the Indians maintaining an undaunted front, and boldly attacking the troops, barely failed of success. During the carly part of the war between the French and English, the greater part of the Shawanoe nation under Black-hoof, was won over to the cause of the English, and were engaged in a bloody battle fought on the site of Piqua, Miami County. On this occa- sion, the Miamis, Wyandots, Ottawas, and other northern tribes, adhered to the French, made a stand here and fortified-the Canadian traders and French assisting. The Delawares, Shawanoes, and other tribes, adhering to the English interest with the English traders, at- tacked the French and their Indian supporters. The siege after continuing a week, and entail- ing great loss upon the attacking party, was finally given up. Soon after the contest, how- ever, the Miamis having lost all their proper- ty outside of the fort, with their allies left this part of the country, and the Shawanoes taking their place called the village whichi occupied the site of Piqua, "Chillicothe," after the tribe of that name, and another village located three miles north of this point they named Piqua, from the name of a tribe of their nation.

The treaty which ended the war between the French and English was ratified at Paris in February, 1:63. In the meanwhile the In- dians who had changed their allegiance from the French to the English, found small reason to congratulate themselves on the change.

Their principal ground of complaint had been, that their former allies took forcible posses- sion of their lands, and used whisky as a means of securing the advantage in every transaction. In these respects they soon learned that the English were not better than the French, while in other respects they were much less friendly. The latter were a merry, easy-going race, fond of gaiety, delighting in adventure, and easily affiliating with the sav- ages. The English, on the contrary, absorbed only in the pursuit of gain, and making no at- tempt to conceal their contempt for their ignorance, treated the savages with such arro- gance as to give rise to a wide-spread feeling of discontent. . Notwithstanding the treaty, the French traders did not hesitate to foster this feeling and urge the malcontents to rise on the English. The tribes were thus " fit for stratagems and spoils," when Pontiac, in the fall of 1162, broached his plan of a war of extermination against the English, from De- troit to Niagara. The Shawanoes entered into his plan with great zest, and it was through their influence that a number of the western tribes were induced to join the con- federaey. On the 25th of April following the treaty of peace between the French and Eng- lish, the representatives of the confederated tribes, met to arrange the final plans for the new war. On the first of the following month the struggle for Indian independence was be- gun at Detroit; and one after another of the frontier posts from the first point of attack to the Fort at Niagara were swept with the besom of destruction. Everywhere the Shaw- anoes were prominent in the bloody work, and under such leaders as Black-hoof and Blue Jacket, achieved a. wide-spread reputa- tion for warlike prowess. But Fort Pitt and the post at Detroit still held out, and ere they could be reduced the forees of Gen. Brad- street and Col. Boquet put an end to the con- federacy, the Shawanoes and Delawares being

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HISTORY OF LOGAN COUNTY.

the last to yield. In 1974, the dispute be- tween the authorities of Pennsylvania and Virginia led to the inevitable result of involy- ing the natives. To provoke the latter to as- sault the Pennsylvanians, the partisans of Virginia basely murdered on the soil of the former State a number of Indians, decoyed into the hands of the whites by proffers of friendship and rum. Among the murdered Indians was a relative of the famous Mingo chief, Logan. This cold-blooded butchery provoked the savages into terrible deeds of reprisal, and led to the " Dunmore war." In the summer of 114, an expedition under Col. McDonald marched into the Muskingum country and destroyed the Shawanoese town of Wapaughtomica. Though suing for peace, they were not subdued, and only took advan- tage of the cessation of hostilities to place their non-combatants out of the reach of the whites. In the fall of this year, in company with the Wyandots and Delawares, the Shaw- anoes, under the general command of Corn- stalk, made a furious attack upon a division of Lord Dunmore's army under Gen. Lewis, at Point Pleasant, on the Virginia side of the Ohio. After a bitter and prolonged struggle the Indians retired discomfited, and shortly after sned for peace in earnest. The Revolu- tionary struggle between the Colonies and Great Britain breaking out soon after, no formal treaty arrangements were made.

" At the commencement of the struggle of the American colonies for independence, the scattered settlements west of the Allegheny mountains had little to fear from the hostile armies of Great Britain. Their dread was of a more merciless for. Nor were their fears groundless; for the Indians of the North- west, influenced by British gold, and the machinations of English traders and emissaries, soon gave evidence of hostile intentions. Explanations by the Americans that the ques- tions in dispute could not affect their interests,

were made in vain. It was to no purpose that they were exhorted to take part on neither side. Painted and phmed warriors were early upon the war-path, carrying death and destruction to the dismayed borderers-the direct result of a most ferocious policy inaug- urated by England-letting loose, in the language of Chatham, 'the horrible hell- hounds of savage war,' upon the exposed settlements."

The warfare thus begun was made up, on the side of the savage, of predatory incursions of scalping parties, the tomahawk and scalp- ing-knife sparing neither age or sex, while the torch laid waste the homes of the unfortunate bordermen. As a natural consequence retalia- tory expeditions followed. These were not always successful. At times they were highly disastrous. Occasionally, however, the foe received a merited chastisement.

The centre of British power and influence, in the Northwest, was at Detroit, where Henry Hamilton, a vulgar ruffian, was in command; succeeded, however, before the close of the war, by Arentz Schuyler de Peyster, who, although carrying out the policy of the British government, did so in the spirit of a "high- toned gentleman." Indian depredations re- ecived their inspiration and direction from this point. It was here the Wyandots from the Sandusky were enlisted in the interests of Great Britain. It was here these Indians and the Shawanoese frontier, Scioto and Miami rivers, received aid to murder, pillage ; and destroy on the border settlements of Pennsyl- vania and Virginia. The frontiers of these colonies suffered terribly by this irregular warfare, legitimate, from the stand-point of the savages, but murderous and wanton in its instigators.

In the Spring of 1718, there appeared upon the theater of conflict a new element of des- truction to help on the work of destruction and death-tories, outlaws, and deserters from

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HISTORY OF LOGAN COUNTY.

the States; renegades among the Indians- " of that horrid brood," wrote Hugh H. Brackenridge, of Pittsburg, in 1782, " called refugees whom the Devil has long since marked as his own." By these desperadoes and go-betweens, the hostile tribes were in- flamed to a white-heat of rapacity against the frontier settlements .*

To the student of Indian history it will seem superfluous to attempt to justify or extenuate the conduct of these tribes, but the majority of the readers of to-day are not versed in the history of the North American Indian. Popular resentment point to the ex- parte statements in regard to the Western tribes as a true account of their whole race, ignoring the fatal effect that one hundred years contact with civilization has wrought. The whites found the Indians possessing this land with all "the divine right" of Kings; their rulers, descending from a race of kings whose dynasties were old before that of the proudest white monarch began, made treaties, formed alliances, oppressed the weak, respeet- ed the powerful, and determined the differences by war in right king-like fashion. But they were more than kings; in the cool recesses of the woods they had their homes, and here beyond the reach of the luxuries and vices of a corrupt civilization, " the wigwam blaze beamed on the tender and helpless, and the council fire glared on the wise and daring." The whites found these Western kings accessible, ready to make commercial treaties, and willing to make reasonable grants of land. The early traders, left alone and unprotected among these people, supported themselves upon their bounty, received their daughters as wives, and grew rich upon their trade, and yet for these gifts the red savages received at the hands of the white barbarians nothing but the basest treachery and ingratitude. As the

* Butterfield's "Crawford's Campaign against Sandusky, 1782.17

country was explored, and the white popula- tion increased, the right of the Indians dropped out of sight and his existence was acknow}- edged only as an awkward obstacle in the way of accomplishing the greedy designs of the whites. Just preceding the breaking out of the war of the Revolution, Royal Gover- nors and public officials rioted in greedy land-speculations that depended for their value upon the extermination of the In- dians. The natives were not blind to this policy, and expostulated with their white "Protectors."-Said they, "where shall we go? You drive us farther and farther West; by and by you will want all the land," and history has verified their desponding prediction.

In all the early wars, the Indians were used by the one faction or the other as a "cats- paw," and were the greatest sufferers in a contest in which the success of either party was alike inimical to them. Outraged and betrayed thus on all hands, they were readily enlisted against the dominant party, whether French, English or American, and in this attitude fell readily into the plans of the British, at Detroit, at the beginning of the war between the Colonies and England. The Shawanoes were especially accessible to British influence. Their leaders, who were counted among the most intellectual and ablest chieftains of the Ohio tribes, had long ago fathomed the policy of the colonial powers, and had felt the pres- sure which was destined to drive them from their hunting-ground. They were, therefore, bitterly hostile toward the frontier settlers of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and had lent their heartiest co-operation to the various efforts made by the Indians to resist the encroach- ments of the whites. In the end they had suffered the loss of several villages, many braves, and had endured innumerable pri- vations, and now that the aid of the British promised an opportunity for revenge and the hope of staying the progress of the settlements,

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HISTORY OF LOGAN COUNTY.

they eagerly entered into the alliance. The nation was early on the war-path, and signal- ized their attacks by their terrible success. In one of their raids into Kentucky the Shaw- anoes captured Daniel Boone with twenty- seven others, and brought them to their village of Old Chillicothe, situated on the Little Miami, about three miles north of Xenia (this village was named after the one on the Piqua plains, which ocenpied the site of Westfall, Pickaway County, and was burned by Lord Dunmore in 1174). Hamilton, who was in command at Detroit at that time, persuaded the nation to bring Boone to him, and offered his captors a large ransom, which they persistently refused, and bringing him back to their town adopted him into a family, and did their utmost to make him contented. "Hle mingled with their sports, shot, fished, hunted and swam with them, and had become deeply ingratiated in their favor, when, on the 18th of June, they took him to assist them in making salt in the Seinto Valley, at the old salt wells, near or at the present town of Jackson, in the county of that name. They remained a few days, and when he returned to old Chillicothe, his heart was agonized by the sight of 150 war- riors, armed, painted and equipped in all the paraphernalia of savage splendor, ready to start on an expedition against Boonesborough. To avert the cruel blow that was about to fall upon his friends, he alone, on the morning of the 16th of June, escaped from his Indian com- panions, and arrived in time to foil the plans of the enemy, and not only saved the borough, which he Himself had founded, but probably all the frontier parts of Kentucky, from de- vastation."

* * In the following year an expedition was organized to retaliate upon the Shawanoes for these excursions, and in July, 1929, Col. John Bowman, with 150 Kentuckians, marched against the town. The party rendezvoused

at the mouth of the Licking, and at the end of the second night got in sight of the town undiscovered. It was determined to wait until daylight in the morning before they would make the attack ; but by the impru- denee of some of the men, whose curiosity exceeded their judgment, the party was dis- covered by the Indians before the officers and men had arrived at the several positions assigned them. "As soon as the alarm was given, a fire commenced on both sides, and was kept up, while the women and children were seen running from cabin to cabin in the greatest confusion, and collecting in the most central and strongest. At clear daylight it was discovered that Bowman's men were from seventy to 100 yards from the cabins in which the Indians had collected, and which they ap- peared determined to defend. Having no other arms than tomahawks and rifles, it was thought imprudent to attempt to storm strong cabins, well defended by expert warriors. In consequence of the warriors collecting in a few cabins contiguous to each other, the ro- mainder of the town was left unprotected; therefore, while a fire was kept up at the port- holes, which engaged the attention of those within, fire was set to thirty or forty cabins, which were consumed, and a considerable quantity of property, consisting of kettles and blankets, were taken from those cabins. In searching the woods near town, 133 horses were collected.

About 10 o'clock Bowman and his party commenced their march homeward, after hay- ing nine men killed. What loss the Indians sustained was never known, except Blackfish, their principal chief, who was wounded through the knee. The party had not marched more than eight or ten miles on their return home before the Indians appeared in consider- able foree on their rear, and began to press hard upon that quarter. Bowman selected his ground and formed his men in a square,

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HISTORY OF LOGAN COUNTY.

but the Indians declined a close engagement, only keeping up a scattering fire. It was soon discovered that their object was to re- tard their march until they could procure re- inforcements from the neighboring villages."* This maneuver being repeated several times, about 100 of the rangers, mounted on their captured ponies, charged upon the savages, scattering them in every direction and put- ting an end to the attack. This expedition did but little more than to exasperate the sav- ages, and they showed their contempt for the power of the whites by repeated excursions of more or less magnitude during the fall of that year. In the meantime, Gen. George Rodney Clarke, who had emigrated to Ken- tucky, and been engaged two years before in capturing the English and French outposts in Illinois, turned his attention to the marauding Shawanoes and determined to bring them to terms, and on the 2d of August, 1780, took up his march for their towns. In the after- noon of the 6th the expedition reached the site of old Chillicothe, which Bowman had partially burned the year before, without en- countering any force of the enemy. On arriv- ing at this town they found it not only aban- doned, but most of the houses burned down, or burning, having been set on fire that morning. The army encamped on the ground that night, and on the following day cut down several hundred acres of corn, and about four o'clock in the evening, took up their line of march for the Piqua towns, situated about twelve miles above Chillicothe, on the Mad River. The town was built in the manner of French vil- lages, extending along the margin of the river for more than three miles. According to Drake, the biographer of Tecumseh, "the principal part of Piqua stood upon a plain, rising fifteen or twenty feet above the river. On the south, between the village and the river, there was an extensive prairie; on the

northwest, some bold cliff's, terminating near the river, on the west and northwest, level timbered land, while on the opposite side of the stream another prairie, of varying width, stretched back to the high grounds. The river sweeping by in a graceful bend; the pre- cipitous, rocky cliffs; the undulating hills, with their towering trees; the prairies, gar- nished with tall grass and brilliant flowers, combined to render the situation of Piqua both beautiful and picturesque. At the period of its destruction, Piqua was quite populous." There was a rude log hut within its limits, surrounded by pickets, but the Indians, when attacked, feared to enter it, and took post in their houses. The force of Clarke numbered about 1,000 men, and its divisions were commanded by Cols. Logan, Lynn, Floyd, Harrod and Slaughter. The whites came upon the village on the morning of the 8th of August. They had marched most of the night before, and, after a short rest, were on the march by sunrise on the 8th, and arrived in sight of Piqua about two o'clock in the af- ternoon. The Indian road from Chillicothe to Piqua, which the army followed, crossed the river about a quarter of a mile below the town. There were but two avenues by which the town could be reached, viz: from up and down the river. These three avenues of ap- proach were occupied by the different divi- sions of the army, an arrangement which was expected would result in the capture of the entire band, which consisted of Sha- wanoes, Mingoes, Wyandots and Delawares, numbering, it is said, nearly 4,000 warriors. But Col. Logan who had charge of the lower division was delayed, and did not reach its position before the attack commenced, and it is said never saw an Indian during the whole action. The fight was bitterly contested on both sides, but a defection of a large body of Mingoes and the artillery of the whites ron- dered the contest short, and the Indians were

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History of Logan County and Ohio, Part 31

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Battle, J. H; O.L. Baskin & Co Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Chicago, O.L. Baskin Number of Pages: 798

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Battle, J. H; O.L. Baskin & Co
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago, O.L. Baskin
Number of Pages: 798