USA > Ohio > History of Ohio; the rise and progress of an American state, Volume One > Part 15
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The Nicolas conspiracy naturally intensified the situation in the Ohio country, and George Croghan conveyed to the colonial council at Philadelphia the information that some of the Indian tribes along the shore of Lake Erie, having lost all amity for the French, desired an English alliance. George Croghan, whose name we have just mentioned, will demand our further acquaintance. He was a product of Ireland, educated it Dublin, and well suited by the Irish alertness of nind and pugnacity of temperament to push his way n the wilderness of the New World. While a young
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man, indeed almost a boy, he emigrated (1741) to Pennsylvania and at the time of which we are speaking, lived near the present site of Harrisburg. His daring courage and trading instinct carried him with his pack horses and followers, of whom he employed a number, among the Indians of the Sandusky, the Lake Erie region, and the Indian settlements on the interior streams of Ohio. He readily acquired the Indian languages, became a great trader,-"the king of the traders"-a favorite interpreter and through the introduction of Weiser to the council of Pennsyl- vania as "faithful and prudent," was employed by the colony as an "official almoner to the tribes of the Lake Shore region." He won the confidence of the tribesmen and no one was more popular among the backwoods merchants, being known as "the idol of the Irish traders." He established trading posts not only at Logstown, but at the mouth of the Cuyahoga, on the Muskingum, and elsewhere. He became most influential in the political transactions between the English and the Indians. It was in the trading house or store of Croghan that Weiser lodged during his stay at Logstown. On learning the situation in the Ohio country, the Pennsylvania council voted a thou- sand pounds ($5,000) as a fund for the purchase of presents to placate the Indian tribes, at the same time inviting the southern provinces to cooperate in the tribal pacification. Virginia responded with an ap- propriation of two hundred pounds. Croghan was dispatched as a forerunner to announce the coming of Weiser, the appointed embassador of peace, and dispenser of the influence.
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In the summer of 1748 Weiser set out from his home, Womelsdorf, Pa., for the Ohio country. It was the first embassy from the colonists to the tribes beyond the Alleghanies. Weiser kept a daily journal of his mission, one of the rare records of those primitive times. He was some forty days on the journey. He reached the Allegheny, then called the Ohio, at Char- tier's Old Town, the trading post of Peter Chartier, "the French-Shawnee half-breed." Here Weiser left his horses and hiring a canoe "went by water" to Logstown, stopping on the way at the Delaware village, near the river forks, known as Shannopin's Town, from a Delaware chief of that name; and at a Seneca settlement, "where an old Seneka woman Reigns with great authority." She was the noted Queen Aliquippa, a Delaware sachem. She dined Weiser and his escort at her house. At both the villages named, where stops were made, Weiser says, "they received us by firing a great many guns." They were honored by a salute of "about one hundred guns" great joy appearing in the countenances of the Indians, on their arrival at Logstown, called by the French Chiningu, or Shenango. It was located on the Ohio about eighteen miles below the juncture of the rivers Allegheny and Monongahela and was one of the most important Indian trading centers in that part of the country, having a mixed community of several tribes, chiefly Iroquois, Mohican and Shawnee. Many chiefs frequen- ted Logstown or made it at times a temporary residence. Among those who usually resided there was a Seneca chief of great celebrity, being the head sachem of the ragments of the tribes which had migrated from the
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Iroquois nations to the Ohio. He was Tanacharison, generally called the Half King because while presiding over his many tribal subjects he was still subordinate to the Iroquois Confederacy. Logstown was the scene of many conspicuous incidents, in the history of frontier days, and we shall hear much of it in the recital of subsequent events, for the village being on the border line between the red and the white peoples was the common center for commercial activity and political intrigue.
At Logstown, Weiser met Andrew Montour, a renowned and romantic character, being the son of an Oneida chief called Carondawana, or Big Tree, and a famous half-breed beauty, Catherine Montour, the daughter of a distinguished French resident of Canada-none other than the Count de Frontenac, says Buell, in his life of William Johnson-and of an Indian Squaw of the Huron nation. Madam Mon- tour, brilliant and tactful, was a prominent and attractive figure, tradition says not only in the society circles of Philadelphia, but in the councils between the colonists, the French and the tribes, over the latter of which she exerted great influence, as she spoke not only French and English but also several Indian languages. Catherine Montour, it is claimed, lived among the Miamis in her youth. Her children and grandchildren figured prominently in the early Indian history of Ohio and Pennsylvania. French Margaret who lived at, and gave her name to-according to Evan's map of 1755-the town on the Big Hocking (site of Lancaster, Fairfield County) and later lived at French Margaret's Town, near mouth of Lycoming
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Creek-is generally supposed to have been a daughter of Catherine Montour. Esther Montour,-"Queen Esther, the most infamous of all the Montours"-the "fiend of Wyoming," was a daughter of French Mar- garet and hence a grand-daughter of Madam Montour. Madam Montour had two sons, Louis, said to have been killed in the French and Indian War, and Andrew.
Andrew Montour, whose Indian name was Sattelihu, had the dash of a French cavalier and the penchant of the Indian for gawdy ornamentation, his attire being described as "a coat of fine cloth of cinnamon color, a black neck-tie with silver spangles, a red satin waist- coat, trousers over which hangs his shirt, shoes and stockings, a hat and brass ornaments something like the handle of a basket suspended from his ears." He spoke fluently the Iroquois and other tongues. Though partially of French extraction, his sympathies and efforts were for the English, and between them and the Six Nations, he had already rendered effective service.
At Logstown, Weiser, assisted by Montour and Croghan, paved the way for Indian propitiation by extending to the various tribesmen, in the neighbor- hood and across the Ohio, invitations to the village, where on their arrival they were treated to drams of rum and rolls of tobacco. Councils were held with chiefs or representatives of the Wyandots, Senecas, Shawnees, Twightwees, Onondagas, Delawares, Onei- das, Mohawks, Cayugas, Mohicans and many others. The Indian orators delivered their speeches, reciting their grievances and demands. To these Weiser replied, extolling the power and advocating the pro-
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tection of the English and deprecating the ability of the French to advance the interests of the tribesmen. At these councils the liquids flowed freely and Weiser delivered the goods, blankets, articles of clothing, weapons, trinkets, etc., with which he had been pro- vided, distributing these articles among the tribal delegates with proper discrimination. He also secretly estimated-that he might report the same to the Eng- lish authorities-the number of warriors the different tribes could muster. It was in the Autumn of 1748, that Conrad Weiser, with Croghan and Montour as his associates, had conducted in a highly successful manner, the first mission of the English to the Ohio Indians.
While Weiser, Croghan and Montour were executing the purposes of their Pennsylvania embassy in the Indian councils at Logstown on the banks of the Ohio, another project, of greater importance and extent, having for its object the occupation of the Trans-Ohio country, was in progress. It was the organization (in 1748) of the "Ohio Company," sometimes known as "The Ohio Land Company." The initiators and charter members were John Hanbury, a Quaker mer- chant in London; Thomas Lee, member of the Virginia Colonial Council and a judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature; Colonel Thomas Cressap, Lawrence Washington, Augustus Washington, George Fairfax and others, "all of his Majesty's Colony of Virginia."
These enterprising gentlemen petitioned the king "that his Majesty will be graciously pleased to en- courage their undertaking by giving instructions to the Governor of Virginia to grant to them and such
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others as they shall admit as their associates a tract of 500,000 acres of land betwixt Romanettes and Buffalo's Creek on the south side of the River Aligane (Allegheny), otherwise the Ohio, and betwixt the two Creeks and the Yellow Creek on the north side of the River or in such other parts of the west of the said mountains as shall be adjudged most proper by the petitioners for that purpose, etc." This land lay, in modern geography, in the Ohio valley between the Monongahela and Kanawha Rivers. The land might be chosen on either side of the Ohio. A portion the company proposed to secure was in the present Jeffer- son and Columbiana Counties of Ohio and Brooke County of West Virginia. The conditions of the grant were that two hundred thousand acres were to be taken up at once; one hundred families were to be "seated" within seven years and a fort was to be built by the grantees as a protection against hostile Indians.
The King readily assented to this scheme, as it was represented to him by the Lords of Trade and Planta- tions, having in charge all matters pertaining to the Colonies in America, "that the settlement of the country lying to the westward of the Great Mountains . n the Colony of Virginia, which is the center of all his Majesty's provinces, will be for his Majesty's nterests and advantage, inasmuch as his Majesty's ubjects will be thereby enabled to cultivate a friend- hip and carry on a more extensive commerce with the lations of Indians inhabiting those parts, and such ettlement may likewise be a proper step toward isappointing and checking the encroachments of
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the French by interrupting part of the communication from their lodgments upon Great Lakes to the River Mississippi, by means of which communication his Majesty's plantations there are exposed to their incur- sions and those of the Indian nations in their interest." In plain terms this Ohio grant severed the chain of the French claim uniting the St. Lawrence with the Mississippi. This location was further selected, "that water communications between the heads of the Potomac and the Ohio might be available for trans- portation." The Royal government gave the Ohio Company its charter in 1749 and the governor of Virginia was ordered to make the grant to the Company.
Although the company originally issued but twenty shares of stock and the lands were never selected or settled as outlined, the managers of the company proceeded in anticipation of its prospects to establish a store at Will's Creek (Cumberland, Md.), to open thence a road across the mountains to the Monongahela at the confluence (Pittsburgh) of which river and the Allegheny they further planned to erect a fort. Two cargoes of goods suitable for the Indian trade were ordered from England and an explorer was secured tc prospect the lands. Thomas Lee, who took the leac in the concerns of the Ohio Company, died almost at the outset, and the chief management fell upor Lawrence Washington, half brother of George.
The Canadians and the colonists were enthused in their respective activities toward the realization of their rival claims to the Ohio country, by the resul of the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle, entered into October
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1748, "for the putting an end to the calamities of War." That treaty terminated what was known as King George's War, waged on the European continent between England, France and other nations. It also involved the English and French in America, in which there was some sea and considerable borderland fight- ing, the colonists taking Louisburg from the French. By the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle, much to the dissatis- faction of the New Englanders, the boundary disputes concerning the French and English possessions in America were left unsettled and for the future action of a joint commission. A sort of ante-bellum statu quo was recognized, which not only permitted the contest for the Ohio country to continue, but increased the efforts of each claimant.
If the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle did not, in any way, allay the rivalry between France and England in America, a treaty made the summer of that same year (1748) at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, had much to do with the situation. This treaty was entered into by commissioners of Pennsylvania and Virginia and repre- sentatives of the Six Nations, Delawares, Shawnees, Nanticokes and Miamis, the latter including Twightwee deputies from Pickawillany. The Miamis expressed themselves as particularly desirous of securing the friendship and alliance of their English brothers and requested that a "road"-friendly relationship-be opened from their Miami towns to the English settle- ments and that many English traders be sent among them. In the signed treaty the Miami chiefs agreed not to injure or defraud any of the subjects of Great Britain, "but at all times readily do justice and perform
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to them [English] all acts and offices of friendship and good will." At the conference, resulting in the above treaty, the Provincial Council report of the proceedings says "the Commissioner gave a handsome entertain- ment to the deputies of the Twightwees and the Indians who conducted them from the Ohio."
The activities of the Pennsylvania and Virginia colonists in the Logstown negotiations and the Ohio Land Company organization thoroughly aroused the French authorities at Quebec. It was their next move and it was promptly made. In the Spring of 1749 Mar- quis de la Gallissoniere, Governor of Canada, directed Captain Bienville de Celoron, a capable and courageous officer, with proper escort to proceed to the Ohio, descend it and by suitable formalities, preëmpt the territory for France and order all intruding English to retire from the French possessions. This expedition of Celoron was conducted with characteristic French theatrical ceremony. The detachment under Celoron consisted of eight subaltern officers, six cadets, an armorer, twenty soldiers, one hundred and eighty Canadians, thirty Iroquois and twenty-five Abenaki Indians. Celoron's chief assistants were De Contre- coeur, and Coulon de Villiers, prominent officers of whom we shall hear more later on. The diplomat of this military company was one Phillipe Thomas Joncaire (John Coeur), Sieur de Chabert, a French officer, resident among the Seneca Indians, to which tribe his mother, it was said, belonged. Joncaire had a trading post at Niagara and commanded large means. He spoke eloquently the dialects of the Iroquois, with whom he exerted a most remarkable
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influence, being given by them the Indian name "Nitachinon." He was a bitter and unscrupulous opponent of the English and a favorite negotiator and interpreter for the French in their dealings with the Indians. The chaplain was Father Pierre Jean de Bonnechamps, who styled himself a "Jesuitte Mathematicien." He was also the sailing master of the expedition; made a map of the course followed and kept a daily record entitled "brief notes of the most important occurrences." The original manu- script of this journal now rests in the Archives of Marine, Paris. It is reproduced in the Jesuit Relations. De Celoron also kept a journal of the entire voyage. Both these reports of Celoron and Bonnechamps have been published and from them we obtain our informa- tion.
The flotilla, consisting of twenty birch bark canoes. embarked from La Chine on June 15, 1749. It formed a bizarre but picturesque outfit, the French soldiers and Canadians, in their gay costumes and semi-medieval armour, the half naked, copper-skinned savages with their barbarian weapons, the flying banners of France, all crowded in the frail white birch canoes, that floated on the blue waters of the river like tiny paper shells, filled with variegated and animated figures; it must have seemed like a tableau vivant rather than an army going forth to wrest an empire from the indomitable English. The little fleet pushed its way up the St. Lawrence, across Ontario to Niagara, around the oaring falls of which they shouldered their canoes, e-embarking on the waters of Lake Erie. They crept long the lake shore to the mouth of Chautauqua
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Creek, which they ascended, partly by portages, to the lake of that name; "Chatakouin," Celoron calls it, which they paddled to its outlet in Conewango Creek, Chanongon, in Celoron's journal, and "Kananougon" on Bonnechamps' map, which skurried the little fleet into the broader current of the Allegheny. They had reached the Ohio. At this point, now known as Warren (Pa.), a halt was made and at "the foot of a red oak on the south bank of the river Oyo (Ohio) at the confluence of the Chanongon," writes Celoron, "I buried a plate of lead." This plate, one of several similarly interred, was some eleven inches long and seven wide, on which was engraved in French an inscrip- tion which translated reads as follows:
"In the year 1749, of the reign of Louis the 15th, King of France, we Celoron, commander of a detachment sent by Monsieur the Marquis de la Galissoniere, Governor General of New France, to reestablish tranquillity in some Indian Villages of these cantons, have buried this Plate of Lead at the confluence of the Ohio and the Chautauqua, this 29th day of July, near the River Ohio, otherwise Belle Riviere, as a monument of the renewal of the possession we have taken of the said River Ohio, and of all those which empty into it, and of all the lands on both sides as far as the sources of the said rivers, as enjoyed or ought to have been enjoyed by the kings of France preceding, and as they have there maintained themselves by arms and by treaties, especially those of Ryswick, Utrecht and Aix la Chapelle."
As an additional clincher, a tin sheet was tacked upon the tree setting forth a "Proces verbal," bearing the arms of France and certifying that a plate had been there buried, etc. This proces verbal was worded thus :
"In the year 1749 we, Celoron, Chevalier of the Royal and military order of St. Louis, commander of a detachment sent by order of the Marquis of Galissoniere, Governor General of Canada to the Ohio, in presence of the principal officers of our detach-
CELORON'S LEAD PLATE.
Lead plate of Celoron, claiming French possession of the Ohio country. This plate was buried at the mouth of the Muskingum River by Celeron in 1749. It was dis- covered in 1798 and after passing through the possession of Caleb Atwater, became the property of the Antiquarian Society of Massachusetts, which society still retains it.
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Creek, which they ascended, partly by portager, he he f I C 4? " Celoron calle o
dtuom odf is beingd asw stslq -INT Vitroo aidO ont
into
bad reach A pomi, now know
nở AT the foot Warren
a red ook c south bank of the river Oyo (C at the wordflo ner of the Chanongon," writes Celon "I buried a plate of lead. " This plare, one of ser similarly interred, was come eleven inches long seven wide, on which was engraved in French an inn tion which thuulated mads as follows:
"TH the pear xgạo of the reign of Louis the rath; K Franco, we Ceipron, commander of a detachment sent by Mo The Mammuis de & Galiisoniere, Governor General of New to rertablub tranquillity in some Indian Villages of these to havo buried this Plate of Lead at the conduence of the Oh thu Chautauqua, this zoth day of July, near the River otherwise Bille Riviere, as & monument of the renewal .. possession we have taken of the evid River Ohio, and of al which empty into it, and of all the lands ou both sides the sources of the said rivers, we enjoyed or oupsit to bavi enjoyed by the kings of Prince probeding, and as they have maintained them elves hy um and by treaties, capeciau of Ryswsdl, Utroebb aret Ain la Chapelle."
As an additional elineber, a Lin sheet was to upon the tree settiry forth a "Proces verbal." the arms of France and certifying that a play been there boned BIE. This proces verbal was thus:
Tầm the pray chào me, Cakcomm. Chevalier of the R tilllory neder of St. Louis, commander of a delerbem order uif the Marquis of Gafadiete, Governor General of L to the Ohio, in presento of Wtw imacipal officere of our
ROY
NT CENTRAL
FRETAB LER E VILLAGES AVONS
RIVIERE
POVR
POSSES
SOYROKU IVEN ONT
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OF AN AMERICAN STATE
ment, have buried (Here was inserted the place of deposit) a leaden plate, and in the same place have affixed to a tree the Arms of the King. In testimony whereof we have drawn up and signed, with the officers the present Process verbal, at our camp, the (day of the month) 1749."
Mr. Marshal of the Buffalo Historical Society in his comments on the journal of Celoron calls attention to the fact that Celoron in his plate speaks of the Alle- gheny as the Ohio or "La Belle Riviere." This the commentor states "is in accordance with the usage of all early French writers since the discovery of the river by La Salle." The same custom prevailed among the Senecas whose territory touched the Allegheny, which they considered "as the Ohio proper," calling it O-hee-yuh, meaning "beautiful river." In the Cayuga and Mohawk dialects the name is O-hee-yo; in the Onondaga and Tuscarawa, O-hee-yee; Oneida, O-hee, all signifying "fine or fair river." It was given other names by other tribes, such as Adigo, Attiga and similarly sounding synonyms.
Having thus literally buried and "nailed down," or more literally speaking tacked up, the title of France, the band of Medieval Gauls and western savages, drawn up in military array, shouted "vives" for their King and then, re-entering their canoes, resumed their ourney. They were now well into the Indian country ind stopped at various villages to meet and placate he aborigines, whom they suavely greeted, making hem presents and pledging them in "Onontio's milk," or French brandy.
As Celoron proceeded cautiously down the river he ent Joncaire ahead, as an avant-coureur to announce he coming of the French and give assurances of the
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friendliness of their approach. They stopped at the village of the mouth of "Riviere aux Boeufs," now French Creek, known to the English as Venango, and later an important point. A few miles below Venango the second plate was buried, with all the French furbelows. Passing the forks or site of Shannopin's Town they rowed on to Chiningu or Logstown. They found the village the largest on the river, with eighty cabins, harboring Iroquois, Shawnees, Loups, even Nippissings, Abenakis and Ottawas. Celoron found here several English traders, whom he ordered away, sending by them to Hamilton, Colonial Governor of Pennsylvania, a letter to the effect that "he was sur- prised to find English traders on French territory, it being in contravention of solemn treaties and hoped the governor would forbid their trespassing in the future." Celoron made a speech to the Logstown Indians but they treated it with contempt as they were friendly to the English. Celoron pushed on, burying a third plate on the north bank of Wheeling Creek at its juncture with the Ohio. At the mouth of the Muskingum, the fourth plate was sunk with cheers, songs and a volley. It was subsequently found and is now in the custody of the Antiquarian Society of-Worcester-Massachusetts. The fifth lead title was buried at "the foot of an elm on the south bank of the Ohio and on the east bank of the Chinon- daista, the eighteenth of August, 1749." The Chinon- daista, "river of the woods," was the Great Kanawha. This plate was also subsequently found. From this point, Joncaire was sent forward "with two chiefs from the Sault St. Louis and two Abenakis," to propitiate
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the inhabitants of "St. Yotoc," a village they were now approaching. As Bonnechamps calls the place "Sinhioto" on his map it is identified as Scioto, the village that was at the mouth of that river, a village known as Shawneetown, though Celoron reports find- ing there representatives of "nearly all nations of the upper country."
This river, generally known as the Scioto, like many rivers in early times, had an embarrassing plurality of Indian names. The centrality of its location and its utility as a waterway between Lake Erie and the Ohio River, gave this river great prominence with many of the tribes, each one of which gave it its own tribal designation. The Wyandot name was Scionto, probably from Oughscanoto, the word for deer, which favorite game of the Indian, frequented in great numbers, the river thus named; the Mohawk word for deer was Oskennonton or Scaento; in Onondaga it was Skanodo. Other forms of the name applied to the Scioto, as noted by Mr. Hanna, included Souyote, Sonnioto, Sonontio, Centioteaux, St. Yotoc, Chianotho and Sikader, "besides the name by which it was desig- nated on Bellin's map of 1744, Chianouske." It was however known chiefly as the Scioto, meaning deer river. Caleb Atwater in his "History of Ohio" (1838) as another unauthenticated version of the origin of the name Scioto, saying the river was so called from the Indian word Seeyo-toh, meaning "great legs;" because of the numerous branches of the Scioto; "on he east the Little Scioto, Olentangy, Gahannah or Big Walnut, Little Walnut and Salt Creeks; on the vest, the Rush Creek, Mill Creek, Boke's Creek,
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