USA > Ohio > History of Ohio; the rise and progress of an American state, Volume One > Part 16
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
Darby, Deer and Paint Creeks," and these are all "longlegs for their size."
After the exchange of the usual courtesies with the people of "Sinhioto" Celoron's fleet passed on to the mouth of the Great Miami, named by the explorers "Riviere a la Roche." The sixth and last "nota bene" was here sunk and the bark gondolas of the little navy turned their prows northward and ascended the Miami, to the mouth of Pickawillany Creek, later known as Loramie Creek, then the site of Pickawillany stockade and the village of a Piankashaw band of Miami Indians, whose chief, because of his unusually gawdy dress, was known to the French as "La Demoi- selle." The English called him "Old Britain," as he was friendly to the British.
Pickawillany, spelled Piqualline and Pickwaylinee, and otherwise, and also called on Evans' map of 1755, "Tawixwti Town, or Picque Town," was built, according to Mr. Hanna, at the suggestion of the Shawnees and with their help for their friends and allies, the Twightwees or Miamis, whom about 1747 deserted the French interests and abandoned their former town, Kiskakon. Mr. Hanna further informs us that "the town of the Miamis or Twightwees was called by the Shawnees Pkiwileni (i.e., dust or ashes people), a name given also to many of their own towns which were settled by the Pkiwi or Pequa clan-more familiar in the common form of Piqua or Pickaway.'
Pickawillany, at the time of our discussion, was no1 only a trading post but was an important trail cente: in the western Ohio country. One trail, as we have seen, led from it, northwest, to Kiskakon, thence on to
227
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
Detroit; another led south along the east banks of the Big Miami to the Ohio; a third extended southeast to the Indian village of Maguck (Mecacheek) on the Scioto, at the mouth of the Big Darby, near present site of Circleville. From this latter point, trails respectively went south along the east side of the Scioto to Lower Shawnee Town (Portsmouth) on the Ohio; north along the Whetstone and Sandusky to Fort Sandusky; from Maguck, also, there was a famous trail cut, through French Margaret's Town, at the headwaters of the Big Hocking and thence through Wauketaumeka, on the Muskingum, to Cancake, whence two trails led to the Ohio at Logstown; one by way of Newcomers- town and the other by way of Tuscarawas Town on the river of that name at the mouth of Margaret's Creek; at the latter point there met two trails from Lake Erie, one from Forts Sandusky and Junundat and one from the mouth of the Cuyahoga. For com- plete discussion and description of these trails and their branches and minor divergencies and other Indian routes not mentioned, we refer the reader to the writings on "The Indian Thoroughfares" by Professor Archer B. Hulbert in the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society publications and that author's volumes on "Historic Highways;" also the elaborate tudy on this subject by Mr. Hanna in "The Wilder- less Trail."
At Pickawillany Celoron's company remained a week o recruit, if possible win over the Piankashaws, and o prepare for the continuance of the journey. The rench voyagers extended to Demoiselle and his sub- ects much French palaver and more substantial
h on
228
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
persuasion in the shape of fire-water and gun-powder to wean him from the British influences. But the spirituous arguments of the French were not, according to the annalists of those times, so strong as those of the English; a mink's skin would purchase the same quan- tity of rum that a beaver's skin would procure of whiskey. Mink's skins were more common and cheaper than the beaver pelt; the French sold whiskey, the English rum; hence the Indian trade followed the cheaper channel; moreover the Indian preferred rum as upon that beverage he could more readily get drunk and the redman's most ecstatic enjoyment was the sensation of intoxication.
There was much feasting and revelry during the sojourn at Pickawillany, but with poor results to the cause of France. Here Celoron burned his birch canoes and obtaining some ponies set out across the portage to the Maumee. The distance was some seventy-five miles. They reached Kiskakon, juncture of St. Joseph and St. Marys Rivers, an Indian village of an Ottawa band, presided over by a chief the French called "Pied Froid" or cold foot. He may have received the designation because he wavered in his allegiance between the English and the French. Here was the French post, Miami, under command of De Raymond. From this point Celoron and some members of his company proceeded overland to Detroit; the remain- ing portion secured pirogues and canoes and descended the Maumee to the Lake. Here the Detroit party duly arrived and after some delay, as the Indian con- tingent "were overcome by a drunken debauch on the whiteman's fire-water," the expedition coasting along
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OF AN AMERICAN STATE
the north shore of Erie and the south shore of Ontario, arrived with their badly shattered canoes, October Ioth, at Montreal.
They had traversed "over twelve hundred leagues" or some three thousand miles. Celoron had faithfully discharged his errand. The Ohio Valley had certainly been placarded as the property of France, and due warning had been given all English intruders to "keep off" the domain of his Majesty King Louis. But Celoron in his diary was compelled to admit "that the nations (Indians) of these countries (traversed) are very ill disposed towards the French and are devoted entirely to the English." This circuit of Celoron's seemed therefore little else than a vain but glorious travesty, a pleasing comedy, a passing show in the trappings of mock war, amid the wild scenery of a savage inhabited country. It was evident that it would require lead in some more forceful form than buried inscriptions to exclude the undaunted colonists.
The Celoron "claiming with confidence" expedition attracted the attention of the Virginians and Pennsyl- vanians. The news of the approach of the French flotilla caused the governor of Pennsylvania to dis- patch George Croghan to the Ohio country to check- mate Celoron's enterprise and secure the Indians to the interests of the English. Croghan reached Logs- town the last of August (1749) only about two weeks after Celoron had stopped there on his way down the river. Croghan inquired of the Logstown people, the object of Celoron's expedition, which had just pre- ceded him. He was told that "it was to drive the English away and by burying iron plates with inscrip-
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
tions on them at the mouth of each remarkable creek, to steal away their country." In the summer of the following year (1750) Conrad Weiser reported to the governor of Pennsylvania that the French agent Joncaire, also called Jean Coeur, was on his way to the Ohio with a large quantity of valuable presents for the Indians and bearing orders from the governor of Canada to drive out all English traders. Governor Hamilton immediately detailed Croghan and Montour to hasten to the Indians on the Miamis and renew with them the "chain of friendship" and deliver to them presents as evidence of continued English pro- tection. At Logstown on their way into Ohio, Croghan and Montour were advised by the Indian chiefs there present that "their Brothers, the English, ought to have a fort on their river to secure trade, as they expected war with the French in the Spring." Croghan and Montour soon reached the village of the Wyandots and Mingoes, "on the Muskingum." This Indian settlement which was called Wyandot Town, or on Mitchell's map (1755) "Owandot's Town," was at the forks of the Tuscarawas and Mohican, present site of Coshocton. The population consisted of about one hundred Indian families or five hundred people, who were almost equally divided in their sympathies and adherence between the French and the English. This communal diversity of allegiance was not infre- quent in the Ohio Indian villages, which French and English traders had for many years been visiting, not only to purchase peltries but influence the natives in behalf of the Canadian or the colonial interests as the case might be. The Indians naturally through fear
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OF AN AMERICAN STATE
or policy, hesitated or vacillated and their settlements were thus often disturbed by the conflicting claimants. At Wyandot Town, Croghan had a trading house and on his arrival with Montour he at once called in the traders in his employ, who were scattered through the country thereabouts. Upon their appearance, he hoisted the English flag over his house and that of the village sachem. This he did to encourage the English sentiment among the Indians and to intimidate the French who recently had captured, in the vicinity, three English traders, carrying them to Detroit. While Croghan and Montour were thus busying them- selves at Wyandot Town, there arrived the agent of the Ohio Land Company, then on his journey of exploration. This agent was Christopher Gist, an intrepid woodsman, experienced in all phases of frontier life. His home, at this time, was on the Yadkin near the boundary line of Virginia and North Carolina.
CHAPTER X. JOURNEY OF CHRISTOPHER GIST
EVANS' OHIO MAP.
The section covering Ohio taken from the map of Lewis Evans, first published in Philadelphia in 1755. The complete map presents the Middle British Colonies in America including the French possessions north of the Ohio River. A reproduction engraved from a photograph made for the History of Ohio from the original map in the Congressional Library, Washington, D. C.
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O HRISTOPHER GIST was of English descent, born in Maryland, of which colony his father, Richard Gist, had surveyed the western shore besides aiding in laying out the town of Baltimore. In early life Christopher removed to the Yadkin River, at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, near the present site of Wilkesbarre, North Carolina. Gist was shrewd and sagacious, a professional surveyor, becoming unusually experienced in woodcraft and all phases of pioneer and Indian life. He was gifted with common-sense and cool-headedness; a great wood tramper and an Indian trader of what Parkman calls "the better stamp." The governing committee of the Ohio Company wisely chose him as their agent to explore the country from which they might select their land. His instructions were to go to the west- ward of the Great Mountains, in order to search out and discover lands upon the River Ohio as low down as the great falls thereof. He was to observe the ways and passes through the mountains, take an exact account of the soil, quality and product of the land, width and depth of the rivers; observe what nations of Indians inhabit there, their strength and numbers, with whom they trade and in what commodities they deal; when he found a large quantity of good, level land, such as he thought would suit the company, he was to measure it, take the courses of the river and mountains on which it binds, etc. He was to draw a good plan of the country through which he passed and keep an exact and complete journal of all his pro- ceedings and make a true report thereof to the Ohio Company. He was allowed a woodsman or two for
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
the service of the expedition and with these he set out on horseback, October 31 (1750), starting from Colonel Thomas Cresap's at Old Town on the Potomac River, some fourteen miles east of Cumberland, Mary- land. Following an Indian trail, he struck into the wilderness, passed the Juniata, crossed the ridges of the Alleghany, arrived at Shannopin's Town, leaving which he followed the Ohio River to Logstown. He found here "scarce anybody but a parcel of reprobate Indian traders, the chiefs of the Indians being out hunting;" he was also informed that George Croghan and Andrew Montour, who were sent upon an embassy from Penn- sylvania to the Indians, "were passed about a week before me." His next stop was at the mouth of Beaver Creek, at which was then located the Indian village known as Shingiss Town, residence of King Beaver and his brother and successor, the Delaware war chief Shingiss often spelled Shingas.
From this point Gist struck into the interior of what was to be the State of Ohio; passing west, near the present town of New Lisbon, thence Oneida (Carroll County) on to an Ottawa town near the junction of the Big Sandy and the Tuscarawas, close to the present site of Bolivar. The Tuscarawas is called by Gist the "Elk's Eye" Creek, Elk's Eye being the English for Mooskingung or Muskingum, so called by the Indians because the elks were not only plentiful on the river banks, but so tame the Indians could approach them near enough to see into their eyes. On the fourteenth (December) he entered the Wyandot Town "of Mus- kingum." On his approach he was delighted to see "the English colors hoisted on the King's house and at
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George Croghan's." Here he remained about a month until January 15 (1751). His journal during this delay is unusually explicit and interesting. He was well received by the Indians whose sympathy was mainly with the English. "If the French claim the rivers which run into the lakes," said they, "those which run into the Ohio belong to us and to our Brothers the English." They urged Gist to settle at their town and build a fort there. On Christmas Day, Gist held religious services in the presence of a few traders and "several of the well-disposed Indians who came freely." He treated of the "doctrine of Salvation-Faith, and good works as extracted from the Homilies of the Church of England," which he read to them in the best manner he could, while the interpreter (Montour) told the Indians what he read. He reports in his diary "the Indians seemed well pleased and came to me and returned thanks and gave me a name in their language, Annosanah; the interpreter told me this was the name of a good man who formerly had lived among them." This no doubt, says Darlington, the annotator of Gist's journal, was the first Protestant religious service ever held within the limits of the present State of Ohio. Here Gist also beheld the horrible tortures, mutilation and killing of a white woman, "who had been a long time prisoner, and had deserted and been retaken." Gist relates the harrow- ing details. Councils were held with the Indians in the Wyandot King's house, in which Croghan, Montour and Gist advocated the cause of the English and invited the tribes to be represented at a gathering to be held at Logstown the next spring (1752). Leaving
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this Muskingum town, the party, now including Croghan and Montour, proceeded to the White Woman's Creek, also called the Walkending-now Walhonding,-on which was a small town, called "White Woman's," because in that village there lived Mary Harris.
As Mary Harris is reputed to be the first white woman who became resident in Ohio, of whom acces- sible records make note, her history or rather story, as the facts are not fully authenticated, is deserving of brief relation. It is claimed by some chroniclers that she was the May Harris known to have been stolen in her infancy, by the Indians from Deerfield, Massachusetts, in 1704. When twenty-five or thirty years old (1730-1740), she was living in the Indian villages on the Muskingum. Here she became the wife of Eagle Feather, a prominent warrior and chief, whom she admired and dutifully served, often accom- panying him in his buffalo and bear hunts and "when- ever he went off with a war party to take a few scalps, she mixed his paint and laid it on and plumed him for the wars. She was especially careful to polish with soap-stone his little hatchet, admonishing him not to return without some good, long-haired scalps for the wigwam parlor ornaments and chignons, such as were worn by the first class Indian ladies along the Killbuck and the Walhonding." So noted did she become that the Indian village of her chief was named "The White Woman's Town, " and the river upon which it was located, from thence to the forks of the Muskin- gum, was called in her honor "The White Woman's Creek." It is so designated on the maps of Mitchell and of Evans.
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As the maps just mentioned are the standard ones of Ohio at the period in question, and are frequently referred to in our history, a word concerning their origin and authority may be timely at this point. Those who wish to be informed concerning the early maps of America, and especially of Ohio, are referred to the complete and carefully prepared article on "Early Maps of Ohio and the West, " published as tract No. 25 of The Western Reserve and Northern Ohio Historical Society. The author was the scholarly secretary of the Society, Mr. C. C. Baldwin. The earliest maps giving the Ohio country in any detail between the river and Lake Erie, are the maps-in question-of Evans and of Mitchell. Mr. Baldwin fully describes them. Lewis Evans was an American geographer and surveyor, residing in Pennsylvania. He was born about 1700 and died 1756. He was much employed in his profes- sion and published a map of the Middle Colonies with an "Analysis," in 1755. It was engraved by James Turner and printed by B. Franklin and D. Hall in Philadelphia. It was dedicated to Thomas Pownall, born England 1720; secretary to Governor Osborn of New York, 1753; later lieutenant governor of New York; governor of Massachusetts, 1757-60; governor of South Carolina, 1760-61; returned to England and member of Parliament 1768, a great friend of the Americans. In 1776 Pownall published Evans' map with additional matter. In the Appendix to his 'Topographical Description of North America," ac- companying Pownall's edition of Evans' map (1776) s the Journal of Gist (1750). Another map, standard n its time, much printed and used, was Mitchell's.
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John Mitchell was a physician and fellow of the Royal Society. He came from England to Virginia early in the Eighteenth Century as a botanist. He returned to England in 1768. Baldwin says: "Mitchell's large and elaborate map has a certificate from John Pownall, Secretary of the Board of Trade (London, England) and brother of Thomas Pownall, that it was under- taken at his request, composed from drafts, charts and actual surveys, transmitted from the different colonies by the governors thereof." The various editions of the map have no date but that of 1755. This map was used by the Commissioners in making the treaty of peace in 1783 between England and the colonies, by which our country became a nation. The certificate of Pownall and the official use of Mitchell': map, as above noted, seems to have placed it first ir importance and authority among the maps of its period There were many other maps-the products of early cartographers-of the eastern portion of new North America, previous to the maps of Mitchell and Evans but these earlier maps gave little or no information concerning the Ohio (state) section. Subsequent t the two maps mentioned, those of Hutchins were th ones that more particularly pertained to Ohio. Thom as Hutchins, surveyor and engineer and later officia geographer of the United States, was a native (1730 of New Jersey. He served in the French and India War as member of the 60th Royal American regimen and was thereafter influential in Ohio Valley affair until his death in 1789. He rendered special servic as surveyor and geographer during the first settlemer. of Ohio by the Ohio Company of Associates. Th
MITCHELL'S OHIO MAP.
This is the section covering Ohio taken from the map of John Mitchell, representing the French and British posses- sions between the Alleghany Mountains and the Mississippi. This map was drawnin 1755 and printed in London in 1775. This reproduction was engraved for the History of Ohio from a photograph taken from the original map now in the Congressional Library, Washington, D. C. K
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earliest geographical description, with a map, of the country from Fort Pitt to Presque Isle, was made by Hutchins in 1760. He also drew a map of the interior of Ohio covered by Bouquet in the expedition of 1764, which map was published in Philadelphia in 1765 and in London in 1766. Hutchins produced many other early maps of the Ohio country and of Virginia, Penn- sylvania and other western sections of territory.
In Gist's Journal under date of January 15, 1751, he says: "We left Muskingum and went (five miles) to the White Woman's Creek, on which is a small town, this white woman was taken away from New England, when she was not above ten years old, by the French Indians; she is now upwards of fifty, and has an Indian husband and several children- Her name is Mary Harris, she still remembers they used to be very religious in New England and wonders how the white men can be so wicked as she has seen them in these woods."
The narrative as related by several writers, is that Mary Harris became thoroughly wonted to her Indian life and happy with her copper colored husband. All went smoothly in their domestic life until one day, supposed to be a short time before Gist met her as above noted, Eagle Feather returned from a hunt or the war-path beyond the Ohio and brought with him another white woman, a trophy of his expedition, and whom he proposed to install in his wigwam. At once the peace and serenity of that wigwam was tempestu- ously interrupted. This advent of the "new comer," as Mary Harris called the unwelcome rival, was far from hospitable and Eagle Feather encountered a storm
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that the forest warrior could not dispel. He reminded Mary she was his property as well as mate and the gentle custom of Indian domesticity permitted him to kill her at will. Taking his new bride by the hand, he departed for the forest, to await the subsidence of Mary's wrath. Returning at night, when Mary was asleep on her buffalo robe, the double-married warrior, lay down to peaceful slumbers, having assigned the "new comer" to a floor couch in the wigwam corner. On the following morning Eagle Feather was found with his head split open, the tomahawk still remaining in the cleft skull. The "new comer" had fled. Sus- picion rested upon her and the avenging warriors pur- sued. She was overtaken, brought back to the scene of the crime and executed with all the horrible Indian accompaniments. It is supposed that this is the execution that Gist witnessed and describes in his Journal, though he does not couple the execution with the murder of Eagle Feather, whose untimely taking off he does not mention. Each woman charged the crime upon the other, but the flight of the "new comer" was taken as circumstantial evidence to corroborate the accusations of Mary Harris.
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