USA > Ohio > History of Ohio; the rise and progress of an American state, Volume One > Part 22
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32
slipped away; and each carrying only a blanket and a tomahawk, they followed stealthily, amid the trees and brush, up the southern bank of the Ohio. There were no roads, no guides, they knew neither routes, distance or points of compass. They must keep the Ohio in sight till they reached the Great Kanawha. Hundreds of miles of wilderness lay between them and their destination, and this interval was inhabited only by savage Indians and wild beasts. Never was such a journey undertaken and traveled. They slowly crept through the forests, waded the creeks or picked their way across on rocks and fallen trees. At times they had to make long detours, to cross streams or evade Indian paths in which they might be discovered. Without means of securing game, they subsisted on walnuts, hickory-nuts, wild grapes, paw-paws, and berries; often their meals were solely made of bark, leaves and shrubs. Their clothes were worn to shreds and their faces became thin and wan with hunger. But on they toiled by day, sleeping, one hardly imagines how, at night. After passing the point opposite the mouth of the Scioto, the scene of their captivity, they found an old Indian pony, strayed from his owner. This wandering "critter" was a valuable find. They could now take turns riding, and still make progress while resting their weary bodies. After many days, they reached the Big Sandy River, now the dividing line between West Virginia and Kentucky. This they attempted to cross by leading the "critter" over the driftwood that clogged the stream. But the pony's feet slipped between the logs, leaving him astride some tree trunks, from which predicament the helpless
322
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
women could not extricate him. He was left to his fate, while feeble, footsore and well nigh famished the fugitives pushed on afoot. They reached the Great Kanawha and turned inland from the Ohio. Their steps were directed homeward but many a long mile was yet to be traversed and the home-stretch was to be the supreme test of their courage and endurance.
Lack of food and exposure "turned the head" of the old Dutch woman and in a fit of mental aberration, she viciously attacked Mary Ingles and but for the great tact and sprightliness of the latter, the assault might have ended in a tragedy. The mental balance of the Dutch woman returned and together the journey was resumed. But the weather was growing cold; they had long since worn out their moccasins; their clothes were in tatters and rags. At night they lay down under shelving rocks or in hollow logs, or on leaves and moss. But "they walked, climbed, crept and crawled through brush and thorn, vines and briars, over and around huge rocks, clambered under or over fallen timber and over slippery banks;" scaled hills and followed rushing torrents and tortuous ways:
"What will not woman, gentle woman, dare, When strong affection stirs her spirit up?"
Again the old Dutch woman lapsed into a crazed fever and threatened to kill Mrs. Ingles with canni- balistic intent. The latter, humoring the insanity of her companion, proposed "to draw cuts" to decide who should be sacrificed to become the food of the other. The lot fell to Mrs. Ingles; she tried to escape by promising the Dutch woman large rewards wher they would have reached their journey's end. But
323
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
with the crazed and famished Dutch woman, the pangs of present hunger were more potent than the hope of future gain and she undertook then and there to kill her victim. She violently seized Mrs. Ingles and the contest became a struggle for life or death. But Mary Ingles, younger and more active, succeeded in eluding the grasp of her murderous adversary. She fled, though almost dead from exhaustion, leaving the older woman to her fate. She pursued her journey until finally she reached a settler's cabin, the sight of whose inmates so overwhelmed her with emotions of joy and relief that she fainted and fell insensible upon the ground. She was tenderly raised and con- veyed to the cabin and there slowly nursed and fed until strength returned and she could be carried on horseback to her home or rather the desolate site of her former habitation. She had not seen a fire or tasted food, save nuts, berries and roots, or known shelter for forty days. Yet mirabile dictu, she had in that time traveled more than seven hundred miles, through a howling wilderness. We can not give all the details of the dangers and hardships and perilous incidents through which this woman passed. Six years later Mrs. Bettie Draper, who had lived all that time among the Shawnees, mostly in the villages on the Scioto, was ransomed by her husband. As to he children of Mary Ingles; the little baby born during her mother's flight and left at the Big Bone Lick, was lever more heard from. Little George perished in aptivity about the time of Mrs. Draper's ransom. "homas, after a captivity of over twelve years, was iscovered in a Shawnee village on the Scioto, by a
B
eCI
324
RISE AND PROGRESS OF AN AMERICAN STATE
trading friend of his parents and finally ransomed at a cost of some two hundred and fifty dollars. He knew no parents but the Indian captors who had adopted him. He knew no language but the Indian tongue. He was loth to leave his wigwam home and indeed attempted to escape from his ransomer and flee back to his savage friends and playmates. After his restor- ation to his parents and reconciliation to his new life, he had a most remarkable career, becoming personally known to or associated with many distinguished contemporaries, among whom were Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Patrick Henry, William Wirt and others equally prominent. Such, all too briefly told, is the story of Mary Ingles, who died at Ingles' Ferry in 1815, in her eighty-fourth year, retaining to the last, her marvelous physical vigor and strength of mind. Only two years before her death, she attended a religious meeting, thirty miles from home, to which she went and from which she returned, on horseback. "Her step was then still elastic, her figure erect, and her complexion florid and healthy, though her hair was white as snow."
CHAPTER XIV. CAPTURE OF FORT DUQUESNE
T HE Shawnees now "took up the hatchet" and went upon the warpath with great vigor and fierceness. They were bold and cruel warriors and from their settlements on the banks of the Scioto and Miami rivers, they would cross the Ohio, ascend the valleys of the Great Kanawha and the Big Sandy, penetrate the mountain regions of western Virginia, advancing even a distance of five hundred miles to the dividing summits from whose elevations they would descend upon the English settlements situated on the tributaries of the Atlantic rivers. For it must be borne in mind that at this time, the outbreak of the French and Indian War, the English western settlements had but sparsely reached the sources of the Potomac, the Shenandoah, James or Roanoke rivers, and these regions were exposed during the continuation of the war to the frequent invasions of the hostile Indians northwest of the Ohio River. In these expeditions, many of which are related in detail in Kercheval's history of the Virginia Valley, the savage warriors from Ohio spread consternation, through their acts of rapine and murder, along the paths they followed.
In the fall of 1757, a band of the Shawnees from their Scioto towns proceeded to the headwaters of the Roanoke and exterminated an entire white settle- ment. To punish the perpetrators of this assault and prevent further raids of a similar nature, Governor Dinwiddie placed Colonel Andrew Lewis, of Bote- court County, at the head of a body of Virginia troops, with instructions to proceed to the Ohio River, cross over to the Scioto towns, chastise the Shawnees and
328
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
on his return build a fort on the Virginia side, at the mouth of the Big Sandy. Colonel Lewis, a brave and energetic soldier, who served under Braddock and was one of the few officers that escaped from the Monongahela carnage, promptly proceeded from Salem, across New River, to the Big Sandy, down the course of which he followed to its mouth at the Ohio. But the time was ill-chosen, and the conditions unpropitious. It was late in the fall (1757), sufficient provisions had not been provided; hunger and want fell upon the soldiers, which the wild game of the woods could not entirely dispel; the little army exhausted and dis- couraged was compelled to trudge slowly back amid the snow and cold of winter. Nothing had been accomplished and the fruitless and hazardous march and counter-march through the mountains was after- wards known as the "Sandy Creek Voyage."
While the Ohio Shawnees, undaunted and revengeful, abetted, aided, and often accompanied by French- Canadian officers, were continuing their irruptive raids from southern Ohio into Virginia, the Delawares, from eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, were conduct- ing similar inroads upon the Pennsylvania frontier.
One of the most interesting and faithful records of the Indian situation in the Ohio country, during the period of the French and Indian war is obtained from a very complete account of the captivity of Captain James Smith, written by himself. This frontier hero and author, well versed in woodcraft and inured to all the hardships of Indian warfare, was a native of Pennsylvania. At the age of eighteen, while engaged as one of the tree-fellers in opening the wagon road for
329
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
Braddock's expedition, he was waylaid by Delaware and Canasatauga-as Smith in his journal spells Conestoga-Indians and carried prisoner to Fort Duquesne, at which point he witnessed the sortie of the French and Indians to entrap Braddock, and where he also saw their return with the bloody spoils of the victory and massacre. His captivity continued for five years, during which he passed through what he styled, as the title of his account, "Remarkable Occur- rences," all of which he subsequently related in an autobiographical work published in 1799.
After Braddock's defeat, the Indian captors conveyed Smith to their towns in the Ohio country; first to one called Tillihas, on the west branch of the Muskingum. This village was inhabited by the Delawares, Caugh- nawagas and Mohicans. Here amid grotesque and painful ceremonies he was adopted into the Caugh- nawaga tribe, a remnant of "an ancient tribe of the Mohawks in the interest of the French." And now during the entire period of the French and Indian War, with his fellow tribesmen, he was wandering about through the wilderness and Indian settlements of Ohio, and his life and experiences afford graphic descriptions, not only of the character and habits of the red men, but also offer glimpses of the movements of the tribes relative to the war then being waged east and south of the Ohio River. One of Smith's portrayals is that of a war dance, in a Muskingum River town, by Captain "Pluggy" a Mohawk chief, and his band, "who were to start next day to war, to the frontier of Virginia." After picturing the dance, Smith adds, "The next morning the company all collected at one
330
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
place, with their heads and faces painted with various colors, and packs upon their backs; they marched off all silent, except the commander, who, in the front sang the "traveling song." Just as the last warriors in the departing line passed the end of the town, they began to fire their guns in their slow manner, from the front to the rear, which discharge was accompanied with shouts and yells from all quarters. Later, Smith notes the return of Pluggy and his warriors, and reports, "They brought with them a considerable number of scalps and prisoners from the south branch of the Potomac."
Smith, with his band of Indian brothers, was contin- ually on the move; now on the Ohio, then the Mus- kingum, and in turn on the Cuyahoga, the Sandusky, the Scioto, on the shores of Erie, the banks of the Big Beaver, Maumee and Olentangy; and he visited the towns or temporary camps of the Ottawas, Wyan- dots, Caughnawagas, Ojibways, Mohawks, Delawares, Pottawattomies and others, for at this time straggling parties of many tribes, both east and west of Ohio were drifting about, driven from place to place, by the disturbing elements of the war. Smith does not distinctly mention the Miamis and the Shawnees, though he must have seen more or less of those prom- inent Ohio nations. While in the winter camp or. Lake Erie, betwixt Canesadooharie Creek, later Black River, and the Cuyahoga, he writes, "The hunters held a council and concluded that they must have horses to carry their loads, and they would go to wai even in this inclement season, in order to bring ir horses. Then they began to go through their commor
331
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
ceremony. They sung their war songs and danced their war dances. And when they were equipped they went off singing their marching songs and firing their guns. Our camp appeared to be rejoicing; but I was grieved to think that some innocent persons would be murdered not thinking of danger. * Some- time in February, the warriors returned, who had taken two scalps and six horses from the frontiers of Pennsylvania." This was in 1756. Again he says, "We arrived safe at Sunyendeand, which was a Wyan- dot town, that lay upon a small creek which empties into the Little Lake below the mouth of Sandusky." Here he found French traders, "Who purchased our skins and furs, and we all got new clothes, paint, tobac- co, etc." In June, (1756) the Indians of this neighbor- hood, "were all engaged in preparing to go to war against the frontiers of Virginia; when they were equipped, they went through their ceremonies, sung their war songs, etc. They all marched off, from fifteen to sixty years of age; and some boys only twelve years old, were equipped with their bows and arrows and went to war; so that none were left in the town but squaws and children, except myself, one very old man, and another about sixty years of age, who was lame. The Indians were then in great hope that they would drive all the Virginians over the lake, which is all the name they know for the sea. They had some cause for his hope, because at this time, the Americans were iltogether unacquainted with war of any kind, and con- equently very unfit to stand their hand with subtile nemies as the Indians were. The two old Indians sked me if I did not think that the Indians and
332
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
French would subdue all America, except New Eng- land, which they said they had tried in old times. I told them I thought not; they said they had already drove them all out of the mountains, and had chiefly laid waste the great valley betwixt the North and South mountain, from Potomack to James River, which is a considerable part of the best land in Virginia, Mary- land, and Pennsylvania, and that the white people appeared to them like fools; they could neither guard against surprise, run or fight." Later, a part of these warriors came in, from different places in Augusta County, (Virginia) where they had "struck," bringing in with them "a considerable number of scalps, prisoners, horses and other plunder."
On the first of June, (1757) the warriors were pre- paring to go to war, in the "Wiandot, Pottowatomy, and Ottawa towns;" also "a great many Jibeways (Ojibways) come down from the upper lakes; and after singing their war songs and going through their common ceremonies, they marched off against the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, in their usual manner, singing the traveling song, slow firing, &c. About the middle of June the Indians were al- most all gone to war, from sixteen to sixty; yet Tecaughretanego remained in town with me. Though he had formerly, when they were at war with the southern nations, been a great warrior, and an eminent counsellor; and I think as clear and as able a reasoner upon any subject that he had an op. portunity of being acquainted with, as I ever knew yet he had all along been against this war, and hac strenuously opposed it in council. He said if the
333
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
English and French had a quarrel let them fight their own battles themselves; it is not our business to inter- meddle therewith. Some time in August the warriors returned, and brought in with them a great many scalps, prisoners, horses and plunder; and the common report among the young warriors, was, that they would entirely subdue Tulhasaga, that is the English or it might be literally rendered the Morning Light in- habitants," that is, the invaders from the East.
These citations from Captain Smith's account are quoted as truthfully reflecting the attitude and the actions of the Ohio Indians during this war period, by one who may be regarded as a faithful reporter at the front.
In July (1757) De Vaudreuil wrote the royal author- ities at Versailles, "The English are making every effort to conclude peace with the nations on the Beautiful River and its environs, to whom they had sent messages everywhere to induce them to remain quiet." About this same time, Washington, who a few weeks after Braddock's defeat was appointed commander-in-chief of the Virginia forces, wrote from Fort Loudoun to a relative in London: "experience has convinced every thinking man in this colony, that we must bid adieu to peace and safety whilst the French are allowed to possess the Ohio and to practice their arts among the numerous tribes of Indian nations that inhabit those regions, and that it must be attended with an expense infinitely greater to defend our posses- sions, as they ought to be defended against the Skulking enemy, than to remove the cause of our groundless fears, by the reduction of Fort Duquesne."
334
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
Meanwhile the Long House became divided. Hither- to a compact enemy of the French, its members now fell apart. The Senecas, Onondagas and Cayugas, doubting the final success of the English, threw off (1757) the disguise of friendship they had professed for the latter and sent messages to the French declaring for peace with them and agreeing to remain neutral between the contending powers. The Tuscarawas and Oneidas seemed to occupy a wavering position but were found mainly on the English side; the Mohawks alone remained firm in their attachment to the British interests. They of all the Six Nations retained the most implacable hatred of the French. Associated with the nations of the Long House, were the tribes known as the Nanticokes and the Conoys, living mainly on the rivers of their respective names. These two tribes were conquered subjects of the Iroquois and in obedience to the divided allegiance of their masters, they too were vacillating in their fealty to the English influence, the Conoys prefering however to follow the lead of the Mohawks. Such in substance was the situation in the Indian country of, and contiguous to, the trans-Alleghanies at the close of the year 1757. The French held the key to the Ohio country, with the allegiance of the Ohio tribes and the partial neu- trality of the Six Nations. The English colonies were discouraged and divided in their efforts. The mother country was engrossed in her European troubles. As Parkman puts it, "the war kindled in the American forest was now raging in full conflagration among the kingdoms of Europe; and in the midst stood Frederick of Prussia, a veritable fire-king." But the gage of
335
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
battle from the date of the declaration of war, May, 1756, to the spring of 1758, two years had been against the English-Prussian alliance in Europe while delay and defeat were the portion of the English in America.
But now a change came over the spirit of the English dream. The king reorganized the cabinet and William Pitt, the brilliant orator and one of England's greatest statesmen, the earl of Chatham, called the Great Commoner and the idol of the people, became secre- tary of State, "with the lead of the House of Commons and full control of the war and foreign affairs." The warrior Frederick upon hearing of Pitt's appointment remarked, "England has been long in labor, and at last she has brought forth a man." The gloomy clouds that had hung over England at once began to roll by. We leave the "Seven Years' War" in Europe and other foreign parts to work out its destiny while we follow the fortunes of the "French and Indian War" in Amer- ica, towards which Pitt turned his heartiest efforts, and his ascendency at once inspired new hope in the American colonists. He promised to send them British troops and to supply their colonial militia with arms, ammunition, tents and provisions at the expense of che mother country. He sent twelve thousand soldiers rom England, which were joined to a colonial force aggregating fifty thousand men, the most formidable army yet seen in the new world. Moreover in the colonies some official changes wrought for better things. The Earl of Loudoun, whom Franklin characterized is a man "entirely made up of indecision, like St. George on the signs, he was always on horseback, ut never rode on," who had been chief in command
eri ge
th
rica
new
th th
336
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
of the British forces in the colonies, and was conspicu- ous for his manifold failures, was withdrawn to give place to Abercrombie. Robert Dinwiddie, governor of Virginia, also yielded his office and sailed for England and says Sparks, "his departure was not regretted" in the colony, for "he failed to win the hearts or command the respect of the people." Dinwiddie was succeeded in the gubernatorial office by Francis Fauquier. The new minster, Pitt, mapped out the warfare in America against France into three simul- taneous campaigns; the first to be against Louisburg, on the island of Cape Breton, the expedition to be under Major-general Jeffrey Amherst; the second against Ticonderoga, "that thorn in the side of the northern colonies, " to be under the command of Major- general James Abercrombie; the third against Fort Duquesne, "the key of the Great West, " the expedition to be led by Brigadier-General John Forbes. General Forbes, whom Pitt had chosen to lead the expedition against the fortress, that Braddock had failed to capture three years before, was a Scotchman admirably fitted by experience and temperament, for the task assignec him. His army was to consist of a battalion of Roya Americans, colonial enlistments in the regular British army and commanded by officers brought from Europe for that purpose; about twelve hundred Scotch High landers; and provincials from Pennsylvania, Mary land, Virginia and North Carolina.
While the British regulars and colonial militi: were being mobilized for the expedition of Forbes the Pennsylvania provincial council determined t make one more earnest effort to secure the neutralit'
337
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
if not the active aid of the Delawares, Shawnees and Mingoes located upon and west of the Ohio River, that those tribes might not thwart or jeopardize the success of the proposed advance on Fort Duquesne. With this object in view, the then governor of Penn- sylvania, William Denny, chose Christian Frederick Post as the messenger to the Ohio Indians. Post is a remarkable character in the Indian history of Ohio, of whom much will be related later on, suffice it to say now, he was a missionary of the Moravian church, residing, at this time, at Bethlehem, Pa., then the chief settlement of the Moravian colony. For many years Post had labored among the Pennsylvania Indians and had made frequent visits to the Iroquois tribes. When summoned on the mission in question he had just returned from a message-bearing visit at Wyoming to Tedyuskung, the Delaware King and Chief who had promised at the Easton treaty meeting the Autumn before, to "halloo" to all the far-Indian tribes, in- cluding those across the Ohio, and bring them to an understanding with the English. On his important errand to the Ohio Indians, Post set out from Phil- adelphia the middle of July (1758). His route lay through the wilderness of northern Pennsylvania to the Ohio River. It was a journey beset with perils on every side and Thwaites in his notes to "Early Western Travels" truly says "Antiquarians and his- orians have alike admired the sublime courage of he man (Post), and the heroic patriotism which made lim capable of advancing into the heart of a hostile ountry, into the very hands of a cruel and treacherous oe." Post kept a complete daily notation of this
Lar
ed ra
338
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
journey, which was partially printed in the Pennsyl- vania Records and was produced (1798) in full in Proud's History of Pennsylvania. The intrepid mes- senger was accompanied by the Indian Chief Pisque- tumen and stops were made at many Indian towns. We cannot closely follow Post's interesting itinerary. At King Beaver's town, a delay of many days was made during which Post was lodged in the king's house and held council with representatives of the tribes, including the chiefs Delaware George and Shingas, "who spoke in a very soft and easy manner."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.