USA > Ohio > History of Ohio; the rise and progress of an American state, Volume Two > Part 11
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The brave and magnanimous chief, one of th greatest of his race, thus passed to the happy huntin grounds beyond, the victim of the infamy of his whi assassins whose voluntary guest he was that he mig] befriend them in the impending war. Ellinipsi quickly followed the chief's untimely fate, and w
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shot as he sat upon a stool, the terrified witness of his father's death. Red Hawk attempted to escape up the chimmey but was shot down. Captains Ar- buckle and Stuart gave respectful burial to Cornstalk and those who perished with him. The grave of the illustrious chief is today located in the court house yard at Point Pleasant and is marked by a modest monument of grey limestone upon which is engraved simply the word "Cornstalk." It is a shrine of a noble character, a blameless hero and a patriotic martyr. The historian Lewis notes that Cornstalk was survived by a son, The Wolf, who was one of the Shawnee hostages taken by Dunmore to Williamsburg, and who, after escaping, was connected with some of the events on the border in the early years of the Revolution.
The governor of Virginia, Patrick Henry, offered a reward for the apprehension of the murderers. Sev- eral soldiers were suspected and cited for trial but were acquitted for lack of evidence,-the accused hielding themselves and their accomplices by false testimony or the suppression of the truth. Congress, hrough the agency of Colonel Morgan, made an effort to appease the Shawnees, for the murder of their prave and trusted leader but the offense was too atro- :ious to be condoned and the tribesmen of the slaugh- ered chief justly thirsted for the blood of his slayers.
The murder of Cornstalk was the signal that aroused he Ohio tribes to take up the tomahawk and go upon he warpath. At this time (1777) it must be noted hat in the confines of what later became the State of Ohio, there were no white settlements, deserving
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that designation. The savages, therefore, of the Ohio Confederation precipitated their warfaring bands over the Kentucky and Virginia borders. As one historian says, "It was a year of siege, of struggle and of suffering -but the gloomy months elicited some extraordinary instances of heroism and humanity."
It was the American Revolution in the West. These border incursions are replete with incidents of thrilling interest, but we hasten on to events greater in impor- tance and particularly pertinent to the Ohio country. And before we enter upon this drama of the western Revolution, it is desirable that we acquaint ourselves with the leading dramatis persona, some of whom have already been mentioned.
Foremost among the personages prominent from now on were the Girty Brothers, Simon, James, George and Thomas. They were the sons of Simon Girty, Sr., and for our information relating to this remarkable family, concerning which much has been published, we rely mainly upon the "History of the Girtys," by Consul Wilshire Butterfield, a work of unusual completeness and rare fidelity to historic truth.
Simon Girty, the elder, was a native of Ireland. whence he emigrated, in the second quarter of the eighteenth century, to Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. where he engaged in trading with the Indians, anc married an English girl named Mary Newton. Thei: first child was Thomas, born 1739; the second wa! called Simon after his father, born 1741; the third James, arrived in 1743 and the birth of the fourth George, was in 1745. There were no daughters tradition to the contrary, notwithstanding. The Girt'
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family home, during the advent of the four sons, was at Chamber's Mills, on the Susquehanna, at the mouth of Fishing Creek, not far from the present site of Harrisburg.
The early years of the life of Girty, Sr., at Chambr's Mills and his wanderings therefrom are clouded by tradition and conflicting statements. Certain it is, however that he was of a roving disposition and given to the common vice of his class, intemperane. About the ending of the year 1751, Girty, Sr., was killed "in a drunken frolic" by an Indian named "Tle Fish." One John Turner, who at the time lived wih the family, avenged the killing of Girty by "putting an end to the existence of The Fish." Turner receivel his reward by marrying (1753) the widow of Girty "a woman of unblemished character."
During the vicissitudes of the French and Indian War, the Turner-Girty family became inmates of Fort Granville, on the bank of the Juniata, near present site of Lewistown. Fort Granville in July, 1756, was attacked by a party of twenty-three Frenchmen and one hundred Indians, mainly Delawares, Shawnees and Senecas. The besiegers were successful, the fort was burned and Turner, his wife, son John (Turner) and step-sons Girty, were prisoners in the hands of the savages, who conducted the captive family to Kittan- ning, "there tied Turner to a black post; danced around him; made a great fire; and, having heated gun-barrels redhot, ran them through his body! Having tormented him for three hours, they scalped him alive, and at last held up a boy with a hatchet in his hand to give him the finishing stroke."
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This scene, inhuman but not infrequent in the annals of the Indian frontier, was witnessed by the crazed wie, who was compelled, with her four boys-Thomas, Sinon, James and George-and babe John in her arns, to sit upon a log, the horrified spectators of their step-father's agony.
The separation of the family, divided among the In- dan captors, followed the burning of the father. The nother and babe, John, were taken to the wilderness by the savages. In the turn of events, Thomas was escued by white settlers and taken to Fort Pitt, where he became a trader for the ensuing fifteen or wenty years; glimpses are caught of him now and hen as he wanders in his trading business through the Ohio country. The adventures of the other three brothers, Simon, James and George, furnish the mate- rial for many a volume of history, tradition and fiction. Simon was made a prisoner by a party of Delawares, Shawnees and French, finally being delivered to the Senecas, whose language he speedily mastered. James was allotted to the Shawnees, with whom he became thoroughly habituated in speech and manner of life. George was adopted by the Delawares.
This "distribution" of the Girty Brothers, be it remembered, was in the year 1756. Simon Girty, through his ability, bravery and tactful manners, made himself popular and influential not only in the Delaware tribe, but with all the tribesmen with whom he came in contact. He was a trader, an interpreter, a diplo- mat. He spent much of his time at Fort Pitt, taking an interest in public affairs and ingratiating himself in the favor of the white settlers. In the colony
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boundary line dispute he figures as an advocate for Virginia. In the Dunmore War we saw Simon act is a guide and interpreter for the royal governor in is Ohio campaign, and we noted his participation in he treaty proceedings on the Pickaway Plains.
In February, 1775, the Virginia court at "Fort Dunmore" ordered all militia officers should take 'the oath of allegiance, the oath of supremacy, the est oath and the oath of abjuration." Simon Girty, hen a lieutenant in the Pittsburg militia, organized y Connolly, took the prescribed oath, and did sin- erely promise and swear that he would be "faithful nd bear allegiance to his Majesty King George the "hird." "There can be no doubt," remarks Butterfield hat at this time "Girty, notwithstanding there was rouble of a serious nature between the colonies and the hother country, was well-disposed toward the latter."
In the summer of this same year (1775), the Virginia House of Burgesses, distrusting the attitude of Lord )unmore and with the intent of holding the allegiance f the Ohio Indians in conformity with the "Camp Charlotte" agreement, decided to summon the Ohio ndians to a meeting at Pittsburg. One James Wood ras appointed a commissioner to meet the Indians t the proposed conference and Wood was also in- tructed to make an extended trip into the Ohio wilder- ess and invite the Indians to the intended meeting. lirty was chosen as the guide and interpreter for Vood, who kept a most interesting journal of the mbassy, a journal subsequently published, portions f it appearing in Kercheval's "History of the Valley f Virginia."
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They started out in July (1775) and visited the Wyandots on the Sandusky and the towns of the Mingoes, Shawnees and Delawares, including Pluggy's Town on the Scioto, and Goschochgung, then the principal village of the Delawares on the present site of Coshocton. They met several of the chiefs, es- pecially conferring with White Eyes at one of the Moravian towns. In this trip Girty seems to have been friendly to the Virginian cause, at all events not openly loyal to the British. Shortly after the return of Wood and Girty to Pittsburg, Connolly disbanded and discharged his militia and Girty thereby lost his office as lieutenant.
In September of this year Captain John Neville. under orders from Virginia, took possession of the dilapidated Fort Dunmore, built and so-called by Connolly, and restored the same as Fort Pitt. The Indian conference followed, in which the Munseys Shawnees, Mingoes, Wyandots and Ottawas from Ohio agreed to maintain a strict neutrality as between the mother country and the colonies; an agreement, how ever, soon broken by all save the Delawares. On the arrival at Pittsburg of the colonial colonel Georg Mason, in April, 1761, Girty was made one of hi Official interpreters, holding this position three months when he was discharged "for ill behavior." Girt was surely shifting to the side upon which he really belonged.
In the summer of this year (1776) Colonel Morgan in the continued effort to restrain the Ohio Indian from allying themselves with the British, held a counc: at Fort Pitt. At this conference were present, Kia
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shuta, the Mingo chief, Captain Pipe, the Delaware, The Shade, a Shawnee chief, and Shegenaba, a son of Pontiac. The latter was the recipient of a present from Colonel Morgan for saving the life of an Olio white settler. Shegenaba, who at this time resided on the Maumee, declined to accede to Hamilton's summons to report at Detroit and prepare for tle warpath against the Americans. It was about this time, however, that the Ohio Indians, in spite of thelr previous professions of neutrality, began to display increased enmity towards the border whites and to commit open acts of hostility. Before the close of this year the Mingoes, living at Pluggy's Town or the Scioto, were guilty of a number of depredations across the Ohio, between the mouths of Captina Creek and the Great Kanawha.
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CHAPTER VIII. FIRST SIEGE OF FORT HENRY
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B OTH the Continental Congress and the Vir- ginia legislature realized by this time that great danger threatened the western settle- ments. The House of Burgesses resolved hat the garrisons at Fort Pitt and Fort Randolph hould be augmented and that Fort Fincastle, at the houth of the Wheeling River, should be repaired, occu- ied by a small force and its name changed to Fort [enry, in honor of the patriot Patrick, who had been hosen governor of Virginia after the treacherous ight of Lord Dunmore.
Henry Hamilton at Detroit had already been busy reparing to arm the savages of the northwest and end them under command of British officers "to take a diversion and excite an alarm on the frontiers f Virginia and Pennsylvania," as expressed by Ger- tain, but in the words of Chatham "to let loose the orrible hell-hounds of savage war."
In the spring of this year (1777) before Hamilton ad received positive orders to arm the Indians, arrodsburg, Boonesborough and Logan's Fort had 1 been attacked by Ohio Indians, chiefly the fierce hawnees, the dominating tribe in, what was to be, entral and southern Ohio. Their towns were numer- vis, several of the chief ones being known as "Chilli- othe," a word said to mean, "the place where the people live," or a village. The ones which will figure niefly in our history as designated by Prof. R. W. [cFarland, in the publications of the Ohio State rchæological and Historical Society, are: the (1) Chillicothe on the Great Miami, on the present site Piqua; (2) Chillicothe, often called "Old Chillicothe"
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located about three miles north of Xenia; (3) Chilli- cothe, also often called "Old Chillicothe," on the west bank of the Scioto, at present location of village of Westfall-the Chillicothe spoken of in connection with Dunmore's War; (4) Chillicothe, now called Hopetown, -often designated as "Old Town"-three miles north of modern Chillicothe, present county seat of Ross county; this county seat Chillicothe does not figure in the Indian historic list; (5) Chillicothe, now Frank- fort, Ross county, likewise frequently called "Olc Town." All these five historic Chillicothes were Shawnee villages and the indiscriminate use of the name has led to great confusion and many misstate ments by historical writers. These Chillicothes, witl many neighboring villages bearing other names, wer the centers of Indian activity during the Revolution ary period of Ohio history.
During the summer of 1777-known as the "blood. year of the three sevens"-the Mingoes, Wyandots Shawnees and a few Delawares, under the directio: of Hamilton at Detroit, planned a campaign for th capture of Fort Henry. The leaders and many follow ers set out from Detroit. At Goschochgung, (Cos hocton) they were re-enforced, says Butterfield, b some Senecas, Ottawas, Chippewas, Pottawattomie and by "a few French Canadians."
This hostile array, consisting of near four hundre savages, with some Detroit Rangers flying the Britis colors. all well supplied with arms and ammunitio from Hamilton, crossed the Ohio and on the mornin of September first appeared before the bastions ( Fort Henry. Many alleged authorities state th
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savage army was under guidance, if not the command, of Simon Girty. The testimony on this point is very conflicting. Abraham Rogers, an inmate of the Fort it the time of the siege and "a distinguished actor in he scene, " in a newspaper account, published in 1833, peaks of the attacking body of Indians as consisting of about 500 men "commanded by the infamous Simon Girty." Lewis in his "History of West Virginia" places Girty in command of the besiegers. On the ontrary McKnight in "Our Western Border, " states 'the official records at Fort Pitt show that he (Girty vas then at that post and serving in the patriot ranks, " nd he adds the Moravian records confirm this, "and f this beleaguering force was commanded by a Girty t all, it must have been by George or James Girty, who were then living among the savages, the former being a leader of some influence." Butterfield declares jirty was not with the attacking party. The better vidence is in favor of Girty's absence. Indeed many eatures of this siege are obscured, by unsupported raditions and contradictory accounts. Not a few of hese perplexing anacronisms arise from the fact that he writers confuse the two sieges of Fort Henry- he one in September, 1777, and the one in September, 782-sieges similar in the main, but differing in many triking incidents. There was another "siege"-so- alled-in 1781 but it was unimportant and of no istorical value. From the superabundant literature n the subject, we endeavor briefly to extract the more mportant facts concerning the siege of 1777.
General Edward Hand at this time, as previously oted, was commandant at Fort Pitt while Colonel
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George Morgan was the Indian agent located at the same post. The other stockades in the vicinity in- cluding Fort Henry were mostly self-garrisoned by the neighboring settlers.
Fort Henry stood upon the Virginia bank of the Ohio River about a quarter of a mile above the mouth of Wheeling Creek. The fort enclosed over half an acre of ground and was a parallelogram of square oak pickets, ten or twelve feet high and pointed at the top, with bastions and sentry boxes at the corners. Inside were log barracks, a storehouse, a well, and cabins for families, the captain's or commandant's house having two stories, "with the top adapted so as to work one small cannon." Back of the fort and be- tween it and a rising hill, the land had been cleared and twenty-five or thirty log cabins erected by the settlers; one of these cabins was the home of Colone Ebenezer Zane. Colonel David Shepherd was ir command of the fort with a little force variously stated to be from twelve to two score men; one who claimed to be of the number, said, "the little garrisor who were able to bear arms did not exceed fifteen ir number and of those several were between the ages of twelve and eighteen, but they were sharp-shooters.'
On the morning of September Ist, concealed partly by a river fog and partly by the brush and tall corn the Indians crossed the Wheeling Creek in their advance upon the fort. Captains Samuel Mason and Joseph Ogle (or Ogal) who with two small companies of som twenty each, had previously arrived from Fort Pitt having been warned of the proposed attack, salliec forth to meet the invaders. The brave defenders fel
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into an ambuscade and were nearly all shot down amid the blood-curdling yells of the "screeching, murdering demons." Captains Mason and Ogle, both badly wounded, regained the fort, the garrison of which was now reduced to only ten or twelve men and boys.
The Indians gloatingly demanded, in the name of Hamilton and the British government, an immediate ;urrender but the "little Spartan band" returned word that they would all perish rather than yield hemselves to the besiegers. The infuriated assailants hereupon made a desperate assault "to force the gates ind try the strength of the pickets by a united effort." They were repulsed and the unerring fire from the portholes held them at bay. The siege was stubbornly rotracted from early morning till ten or eleven o'clock t night, the ensuing hours of which were made hideous nd fearful by the yells of the tribesmen and firing f guns and the hurling of fire brands, at the stockade. Tot a man in the fort was killed but the loss on the art of the Indians was great, being variously esti- lated from twenty to one hundred, the exact number eing unknown, as their dead, after the manner of ne Indians, were carried off or concealed.
The bravery and coolness of the fort inmates were nsurpassed; the courage and determination of the omen being no less conspicuous than that displayed y the men. Mrs. Elizabeth Zane, wife of Ebenezer nd sister of the Mccullough brothers, "rendered uch actual service to the men by running bullets, itting patches, making cartridges, cheering and en- uraging by her presence, exhortations, and assistance,
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the sometimes almost exhausted efforts of the brave defenders of the fort."
The succeeding day the persistent but somewhat discouraged redmen prepared to renew the attack, when Colonel Andrew Swearingen with a force of some twenty armed men arrived from Holliday's neighboring stockade and succeeded in entering the fort. And now the heroic and master event of the siege was enacted. A few hours after the entry o: Swearingen's band, Major Samuel Mccullough, fre quently spelled McCulloch,-"whose daring achieve ments in Indian warfare fill the pages of history"- "at the head of forty gallant mounted men from Shor Creek, put in an appearance, and made an impetuou rush for the great gate, which was joyfully throw open to admit them."
At the instant of the approach of Major McCul lough's cavalcade, the Indian besiegers reappeare and made a precipitate dash to forestall the entranc of the relief party to the fort. All the Short Cree horsemen, however, succeeded in entering the stockade except the gallant major, who, anxious for the safet of his men, held back until his own chance of entr was entirely cut off. Finding himself entrapped b the savages, prepared to deal with him without merc" he spurred his horse at full speed in the direction the hill back of the fort and village, hoping to escap to Van Mater's stockade, a few miles distant.
At the brow of the hill he encountered a band Indians returning from a plundering expedition amor the nearby settlements. Thus cornered there was I way of escape unless by a leap over the precipice
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he Wheeling Creek bottom below. It was the only Alternative-that or become the prey of his howling, lemoniac pursuers, facing him on every side, save on he brink of the bluff. It was "death among the rocks nd brambles or by the knife and fagot."
Without a moment's hesitation, the baffled but ndaunted horseman, firmly braced himself in the addle, grasped tightly the bridle reins with his left and and gripping his rifle in the right, forced his nfaltering horse over the yawning brink-"a plunge, crash, crackling timber and tumbling rocks, were ll the wondering savages could see or hear."
The red warriors were stupefied, "the hill," says IcKnight, "where this rash and reckless foe had gone ver was nearly three hundred feet high, and in some laces the slope was almost precipitous; while, there- re, they could not but admire his audacity and re- ice that their most inveterate enemy was finished last, they regretted that he had been so unexpectedly pared their tortures; they crowded to the edge of le cliff; but what was their amazement and disgust see the fiery steed, with the invulnerable major Atting erect upon his back, dashing across the creek hich ran at the base of the hill, and then careering ross the peninsula at a free and rapid stride."
It was one of the most daring feats ever accomplished ad is often cited as the companion piece of the hill- de descent of the intrepid Israel Putnam.
A careful investigation of the facts seems to reveal 1 at Mccullough's feat was a clear leap of some fifty fet from the top of the cliff to a landing on the tree ad brush-clad slope, from which he dashed down a
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steep incline of two hundred and fifty feet to the river bottom. The distance covered by the intrepid horseman in the feat, is therefore stated by some to be two hundred feet, which was the perpendicular height of the cliff, and by others put at three hundred, the incline distance covered by the fearless rider.
The heroic leap of Mccullough was the final in- cident that immortalized the first siege of Fort Henry. It was not characteristic of the Indians to prolong a siege or campaign; the quality of perseverance or per- sistency was strikingly lacking in the savage. They were impatient of quick results and when such were not forthcoming, the enterprise, whatever its nature, was speedily abandoned. The reenforcement of the for by Mccullough's troops completed the discourage ment of the besieging hosts and after firing a few fare well shots at the stockade, "they folded their tents like the Arabs, and quietly stole away." Not, how ever, did they depart, until they had wantonly kille upwards of three hundred head of cattle, horses an hogs belonging to the Wheeling settlers and not unt. they had burned most of the cabins that were locate in the vicinity of the fort to which the distresse families had fled for protection.
The Ohio tribesmen mostly returned to their wig wam or cabin centers, but some fifty or more Wyandot under the leadership of their chief, called the Ha King, returned to the vicinity of Fort Henry in th latter part of September with intent to commit furthe depredations. A company of twenty-five fronti volunteers under Captain William Foreman, who can to the defense of the fort, was ambuscaded and al
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ncluding the captain and his two sons, were mercilessly laughtered. It was a sanguinary epilogue to the Fort Henry siege and the culminating outrage commit- ed by the Ohio savages in the dreadful months of he year 1777.
The tragic fate of the gallant Foreman and his arty inspired a local poet to celebrate their fame in erse, some of which read :
Beneath the shadow of yon frowning steep The blue Ohio rolled along;
The woods and waves were lulled to sleep By many a sweet bird's soothing song. They came, those men of lion hearts; They came along that pathless shore,
Nor deemed the tomahawks nor darts
Would soon decide their marches o'er.
As leaps the lightning from the cloud, As on their prey the tigers spring, So on them rush'd the savage crowd, The woods with yells unearthly ring. An hundred warriors round them stand. An hundred more rushed down the hill,
To wreak upon that little band
Their demon wrath and thirst to kill.
Not on the squadron cover'd field Amid the bugle's cheering notes,
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