USA > Ohio > History of Ohio; the rise and progress of an American state, Volume Two > Part 5
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evening decamped and took the road for Redstone. It was two days after this that Logan's family was killed, and from the manner in which it was done, it was viewed as a horrible murder by the whole country."
Logan's camp at the mouth of Yellow Creek, was about fifteen miles above the site of Steubenville. Directly opposite across the Ohio, on the Virginia side, located on what was then called "Baker's Bot- tom," was the cabin of Joshua Baker, who kept a trader's store and sold rum to the Indians who consequently were his frequent visitors. Although the Mingo camp had been established for some time, the whites living in the vicinity feared no danger as the Mingoes were peaceable and Logan himself had been friendly to the whites, having taken no part in the French and Indian War; indeed it was simply a hunting camp, occupied by the squaws and families as well as the Indian hunters.
The report of Michael Cresap's two attacks on the Ohio Indians may have induced the fear, as was claimed, among the frontiersmen in Baker's vicinity, that the Indians at Yellow Creek would go on the warpath in retaliation. Under this pretext one Daniel Greathouse gathered a party of some twenty white men for the purpose of attacking the Mingo camp. Fearing to risk an open assault he decided to accom- plish his purpose by treachery. Accordingly he entered their camp under the guise of friendship, and while ascertaining their numbers and defences, invited them, with apparent hospitality, to visit him at Baker's, across the river next day. Early on the morning of April 30, a canoe laden with Mingoes crossed the
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river. The number in the boat varies in different accounts, but there were some seven or eight in all, four or five men unarmed and two or three squaws, one of whom bore a papoose strapped on her back.
On entering Baker's cabin, in accordance with the preconcerted plan, the Greathouse men proceeded to ply the Indian guests with rum, until most of them became excessively drunk. The whites in Baker's cabin were John Sappington, Nathaniel Tomlinson, Edward King, George Cox and one or two others, members of the Greathouse party. One of the Indians, Logan's brother, known as John Petty, took down from their hooks, a military coat and hat, belonging to Baker's brother-in-law, put them on, and strutted about, swearing and saying: "I am a white man," when Sappington irritated, seized his gun and shot him. King, a member of the assaulting party, says one account, stabbed the Indian while in the agonies of death, saying, "Many a deer have I served in this way." At this the other whites murderously assaulted the unresisting savages, shooting or tomahawking in cold blood nearly all of the helpless Indians, not more than one or two escaping.
One of the murdered squaws, as the evidence proves, was the sister of Logan. She had often been to Baker's to get milk for her children, and on this occasion refused to take liquor. When the assault took place she attempted to escape but was shot down; falling she begged, of the miscreant, who was about to brain the little one, "mercy for her babe, telling him that it was a kin to themselves." The dying plea of Logan's sister touched the last remaining spark of
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humanity left in the breast of the assassin and he cut the strap that bound the little one to the mother's back. "They had a man in the cabin prepared with a tomahawk for the purpose of killing the three drunk Indians, which was immediately done;" says the . account, in the Draper Manuscripts, of Henry Jolly, who was a lad of sixteen at the time, living at Catfish Camp, a small settlement on the path from Wheeling to Redstone, and to whose mother the spared babe was brought the next day, that she might care for the little savage waif. "I very well recollect," says Henry Jolly, "my mother, feeding and dressing the babe, chirping to the little innocent and its smiling, however they took it away and talked of sending it to its supposed father, Col. Geo. Gibson of Carlisle, Pa." Jolly meant John Gibson, and not George.
Valentine Crawford wrote Washington, May 7 (1774), only a week after the occurrence, telling of the Greathouse massacre, "they brought away one child, a prisoner, which is now at my brother William Craw- ford's." The little girl papoose, then only a few months old, for whose life the dying mother did not plead in vain, had doubtless been passed on to the Crawfords, on its way to its father, John Gibson, to whom it was duly delivered and by whom it is said to have been raised and educated. This sister of Logan was the Indian wife of John Gibson, a very prominent character in the days of which we now write. He was a Pennsyl- vanian, at this time thirty-five years of age; had served in the army of Forbe's expedition, after which he engaged in the Indian trade. At the outbreak of Pontiac's War he was captured by the Indians and
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ordered to be burned at the stake, but was saved by being adopted by a squaw. He was set at liberty by Bouquet's expedition, and Logan's sister became his Indian wife and mother of his children.
At the sound of the firing in Baker's cabin, Indians from the Mingo camp, in two canoes, hastened across the river to learn the nature of the disturbance. They were received by the party of Greathouse, arranged along the river bank and concealed by the underbrush, with a deadly fire, which killed two Indians in the first canoe. The second canoe turned and fled. Two other canoes carrying eighteen armed savages, then pushed out from the Mingo camp and crossed the river to avenge the slaughtered tribesmen. They were unable to land, however, being driven back with the loss of one man. The Greathouse murdering ruffians had wrought their insatiable work and quickly withdrew to the settlement known as Catfish Camp, carrying their only prisoner, the Indian babe whose life they had spared.
That Logan's sister was killed at Baker's there is little if any doubt and the evidence is conclusive that the Indian, donning the military coat, and killed by Sappington, was the brother of the Mingo chief, indeed Sappington himself made written testimony to that fact, his statement being published in Jefferson's Virginia Notes. But that there were other relatives of Logan among the slain there is no evidence of any value. Various authorities assert that his father and his mother and children were victims of the massacre. His father died and was buried at Shamokin, by the Moravians in 1749; his mother if still living, in 1774,
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may have been with her son but we fail to find mention of her, anywhere, in connection with Ohio; it is not known that Logan had any children in Ohio, certainly he had none in the party at Baker's; in speaking of his "children" in his famous speech he meant the people of his tribe.
Concerning Logan's family it is pertinent to here state that his father, Shikellimus or Shikellamy,- according to the Draper Manuscripts-had five sons; the youngest died in 1729 at Shamokin. One son was Sayughtowa, but known to the English as "James Logan," being so named from James Logan who was at one time Secretary to William Penn and who later (1736-38) governed the Province of Pennsylvania as president of the council. He was a great friend of the In- dians and won the esteem and friendship of Shikellamy. Shikellamy's fourth son "bore the dolorous name of 'Unhappy Jake'" and was killed (1744) by the Catawbas in some tribal warfare. The third son of Shikellamy was Sagogeghyata; known to the English as “John Petty" or "John Petty Shikelimo, " having been named after a trader well known as John Petty. The eldest son of Shikellamy was our hero John Logan, born in the Oneida County of New York about 1710-known to fame as simply Logan-also named from the James Logan mentioned above. His Cayuga Indian name was as we have previously noted, Tahgahjute. Another Indian name-probably the Delaware-ascribed to him was "Tachnechdorus"-"the branching out of the forest." Indeed Indian legend gives him other na- tive names applied to him by the different Ohio tribes among whom he was well known.
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Of the sisters of Logan, according to the testi- mony of the Draper Manuscripts, not so much is known. The eldest married, in 1731, an Indian named Cajadis, who had more than local renown as a mighty hunter. He died in 1747. Another sister, who lived among the Conestoga Indians, fell, in 1763, "a sacrifice to the wild ferocity of the Paxton rioters." The name of the alleged sister killed at Baker's is not given in any of the accounts. But that a sister of Logan was one of the victims of the Baker slaughter is asserted by nearly all authorities, including some contemporary narrators, who describe that event. Many of these chroniclers claim, with much corroborative evidence, that this unfortunate sister of Logan was the Indian wife of General John Gibson and that he was the father of her child which was the only being spared the toma- hawk of the assailants at Baker's cabin.
Logan had two wives, the first being a Cayuga woman whom he married in Pennsylvania and who bore him children. This wife died in the year 1747 and the children are said to have passed to the care of their aunt living among the Conestoga Indians. After the death of his first wife Logan soon married a Shawnee squaw, reputed to have been of unusual intelligence and one who spoke English. From this marriage there were no children. This wife was probably living in Ohio with Logan at the time of the Baker cabin massacre but she certainly was not one of the victims. In view of the facts as presented above there is great exaggera- tion in the statement by Doddridge, in his "Indian Wars," published in 1824, to the effect that "the massacre of the Indians at Captina and Yellow Creeks,
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comprehended the whole of the family of the famous but unfortunate Logan." That erroneous assertion has had widespread repetition among writers.
Another prevalent error is the statement that Logan was not a chief. The Pennsylvania Archives are indis- putable authority for the fact that after the death of his father, Shikellamy, Logan was raised by the Grand Council of Onondaga to the dignity of "Sachem or chief of the Shamokin Indians." Later he became "one of the ten Sachems of the Cayugas." He was known subsequently as a Mingo chief, as upon his removal (1772) to Ohio he made his home with, found his following among, and was regarded as a leader of, the Mingo branch of the Cayugas.
Another historical point at issue concerns the partic- ipation of Captain Michael Cresap in the tragic scene at Baker's. His leadership in the preceding events, which without doubt provoked the Baker Bottom tragedy, led to the general rumor and belief that it was Cresap's party which was guilty of the foul and bloody deed and Cresap was charged with the killing of Logan's relations, and Logan's subsequent note and speech so condemned him. But the attestation of persons who were actually present and of others who had knowledge from partic- ipants, as appears in the Draper Manuscripts, and the statements and affidavits published by Jefferson in his Virginia Notes, clearly establishes an alibi for Michael Cresap. No one of the Greathouse party testifies that Cresap was present. On the contrary Charles Polke, who lived sixteen miles from Baker's and at whose house, the Greathouse party or a portion of it, gathered, made deposition that "Capt. Michael Cresap was not
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of the party:" Harry Innes declared in writing that Baker told him "Captain Michael Cresap was not in the party;" Sappington in a written declaration, to which he was "ready to be qualified at any time," stated "I am intimately acquainted with Cresap and know he had no hand in that transaction. He told me himself afterwards at Redstone old fort, that the day before Logan's people were killed, he, with a small party had an engagement with a party of Indians on Capteener [Captina] about 44 miles lower down. I knew likewise that he was generally blamed for it, and believed by all who were not acquainted with the circumstances, to have been the perpetrator of it. I know that he despised and hated Greathouse ever afterwards on account of it." This from John Sap- pington, who acknowledged to the killing of Logan's brother.
The Indians of the Yellow Creek Camp, who had been repulsed in their attempted attack on the Great- house party, fled down the river. Consternation and fright swept over the neighborhood; the Indians were aroused and the settlers alarmed. The narrative of Henry Jolly, relates that just before the Baker tragedy, the Indians were in a great commotion over the white aggressions. Many of them were for war, "however they called a council in which Logan acted a conspicu- ous part, but at the same time reminded them of some aggression on the part of the Indians and that by a war, they could but harass and distress the frontier settlements for a short time, that the Long Knife would come like the trees in the woods and that ulti- mately they would be drove from their good land that
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they now possessed; he therefore strongly recommended peace, to him they all agreed, grounded the hatchet, everything wore a tranquil appearance when behold, in come the fugitives from Yellow Creek; Logan's father (?), brother and sister murdered; what is to be done now; Logan has lost three of his nearest and dearest relations, the consequence is that the same Logan, who a few days before was so pacific, raises the hatchet, with a declaration, that he will not ground it, until he has taken ten for one, which I believe he com- pletely fulfilled by taking thirty scalps and prisoners the summer of '74."
The scenes at this council were reported to Jolly by eye witnesses. In July of this year one William Robin- son, was captured on the Monongahela, while working in the field, by a band of Indians, at the head of which was Logan. In his statement published in the Vir- ginia Notes, Robinson relates that "Logan spoke English well and manifested a friendly disposition to the subscriber," Robinson; "that in these conversa- tions he always charged Capt. Michael Cresap with the murder of his family." After a week's journey they arrived at the Mingo Town and Logan rescued Robinson from the fate of being burned at the stake, adopted him in place of the brother killed at Yellow Creek. "That about three days after this Logan brought him a piece of paper and told him he must write a letter for him, which he [Logan] meant to carry and leave in some house where he should kill somebody." Robinson making ink with water and gunpowder and using an eagle quill for a pen at Logan's direction wrote a note, the exact wording of which Robinson, at the
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time of his declaration (February, 1800), could not remember, but recalled the substance, to which note he signed Logan's name. Logan took the note and tying it to a war club, caused it to be left at the house of one Roberts, where a massacre occurred some weeks later, un- doubtedly at the instigation of Logan. That note read: "Captain Cresap, what did you kill my people on Yel- low Creek for? The white people killed my kin, at Cone- stoga, a great while ago; and I thought nothing of that. But you killed my kin again on Yellow Creek and took my cousin prisoner. Then I thought I must kill too; and I have been three times to war since; but the Indians are not angry, only myself. Captain John Logan."
The tiger in the hitherto amiable Mingo chief had been roused, but that the Indians of Ohio were not all angry, is amply proven by the Moravian records of that time. The spring of 1774 was a turbulent one for all the Ohio tribes. Many inhuman and revolting deeds fill the pages of those bloody days, one being the cruel outrage committed in the murder of Bald Eagle, an aged and inoffensive Delaware chief, "who wandered harmlessly up and down among the whites, visiting those most frequently who would entertain him best." He was ascending alone, upon the Ohio in his canoe, after a visit to the stockade at the mouth of the Kanawha, when he was met by a white man who killed and scalped him and then to add fiendish horror to the abominable crime, set the dead body of the old chief upright in the canoe, and sent it adrift upon the current. The news of this grewsome outrage was soon borne to the Delaware people who vowed vengeance upon the whites.
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A companion crime to the shooting of Bald Eagle was the murder, near the same time, of Silver Heels, one of the favorite chiefs of the Shawnees, among whom he lived on the Muskingum., He was one of the few Shawnees friendly to the whites and had just guided some white traders from the Shawnee country to Pittsburg, when on his return, during his passage through the Ohio woods he was met by a party of whites and foully killed. This incident naturally added to the fury of his tribesmen.
While the Seneca tribe, in the main, was friendly to the whites, those within the borders of Ohio, were stirred by the bloody aggressions of the Virginians. The Shawnees as we have seen, were the most implac- able in their hostility, but the Delawares for the most part remained friendly to the whites, advocating peace rather than retaliatory measures. This attitude brought upon the Delawares the increased hatred of the war- like tribes, especially the Shawnees. Again the friendly association of the Delawares with the Moravians created suspicion and enmity of the other tribes toward the missionary settlements of Gnadenhutten and Schoenbrunn, through whose cleanly and peaceful precincts, bands of tribal warriors marched, threatening vengeance upon the inhabitants who were thereby kept in a perpetual state of alarm. Indeed the non- Moravian Delawares were disposed to cast their lot with the hostile tribes, in opposition to the Delaware Christians, but were held in check mainly by White Eyes, at this time the first captain among the Dela- wares, whose village known as White Eyes' Town was situated on the Tuscarawas, six miles below the Dela-
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ware capital where dwelt Netawatwees, and White Eyes who, says Loskiel, "kept the chiefs and council in awe, and would not suffer them to injure the mis- sionaries, being in his own heart convinced of the truth of the gospel." White Eyes plead for the pro- tection of the Moravian Indians, while Netawatwees, formerly friendly, now sided with the enemies of Zeis- berger's converts; indeed the clash between White Eyes and Netawatwees threatened untold calamities, when peaceful measures prevailed and some Indian Christians were appointed and accepted as arbitrators, to whom the disputants presented their respective opinions. The result was beyond expectations, for Chief Netawatwees not only acknowledged the injustice done to Captain White Eyes, but resumed his former attitude with respect to the believing Indians and their teachers and remained their friend to his death.
It was truly a time that tried the steadfast souls of the Moravians, for their missions were storm centers and their very existence was at stake. War, however, between the Long Knives and the redmen was inevit- able and early in the summer, the Shawnees, the Sene- cas, the Mingoes, recruited by many Delawares, and the Cherokees, were in the field. The "Long Knives" as the Indians called the Virginians were preparing for organized and offensive action.
Early in June, Governor Dunmore planned an expedi- tion against the capital of Cornstalk on the Scioto. A decisive blow would be struck, without delay, at the very heart of the Ohio Confederacy on the Pickaway Plains. For the commander of this campaign, Dun- · more chose Major Angus McDonald, a man of military
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figure and strong personality, born a Scotch High- lander, trained in English warfare, a fugitive from his native land to France, thence an emigrant to Virginia in 1750. He participated in the French and Indian War, from which he retired with the rank of captain and a bounty of 2000 acres of military lands. Mc- Donald was instructed to raise a regiment of four hundred men, proceed to Wheeling and there erect a fort and thence invade the Ohio wilderness and destroy the Shawnee villages on the Scioto. McDonald was the man to promptly and forcefully execute orders. The men were recruited from the Monongahela and Youghiogheny regions and rendezvoused at Wheeling. The stockade was built as directed and named Fort Fincastle, and placed in command of Colonel William Crawford. Among McDonald's captains were Michael Cresap, Sr., one of whose subordinates was George Rogers Clark, and Michael Cresap, Jr., nephew of his namesake. On July 26, with Jonathan Zane as one of the guides, and stocked with seven days' provisions, the little army set out for the enemy's country.
In canoes, the troops descended the Ohio to the mouth of Fish Creek, where they landed on the Ohio banks and began a ninety mile march to Wakotomica -Wapatomica, or Wakatameke and otherwise-as it is differently spelled. The place was derisively called "Vomit Town" by the traders, because its Indian denizens, for years, had been the miserable dupes of medicine prophets who claimed to bring about salva- tion by means of emetics. The name Wakotomica included several small Shawnee towns clustered near together on the Muskingum. It was a tedious tramp
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of many days, in which Indian ambuscades or attacks were momentarily expected. But the enemy did not appear until the invaders were within six miles of the Shawnee center, when some thirty tribal warriors, lying in ambush at the head of a swampy crossing, suddenly opened fire upon the advancing column. The brisk encounter lasted half an hour, when the Indians, doubtless overwhelmed by superior numbers, broke and fled, with four dead and several wounded.
The Virginians had two killed and five disabled, for the care of whom, McDonald left a sufficient force, while he pushed on toward the Muskingum, which he reached at nightfall on the second of August. The Indians ambushed on the opposite side of the river, at what McDonald in his report to Connolly, calls the Snake's Town because there dwelt two Shawnee cap- tains known as John and Thomas Snake. The Indians prepared to receive the enemy and protect the Shawnee settlements. McDonald halted for the night, sending Captain Cresap with his company to another point on the river, where before daylight he made a passage and fell upon the waiting Indians, killing one and wounding many others. The Shawnees asked for a peace parley, requesting time to send for their chiefs, whose authority must be consulted. McDonald demanded hostages as evidence of good faith while negotiations were pending, during which interval the wily savages cleared their villages, packing off their women, children and goods. McDonald enraged at the Indian subterfuge and treachery advanced on to the towns, only to find them abandoned. He then
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burned the five villages, destroyed five hundred bushels of old corn and cut down seventy-five acres of standing maize.
It was not advisable to proceed farther, for the army was destitute of provisions and had to subsist on weeds, one ear of corn each day, and a very scant supply of game. "A small quantity of old corn and one cow were the entire spoils of the villages," writes Abraham Thomas, one of the soldiers in the expedition, as quoted by Dodge in his "Redmen of the Ohio Valley." "These were distributed among the men, the villages burned and the troops commenced their march for the Ohio River, where they expected to meet provisions sent down from Redstone. The men became exceedingly famished on this march, and I myself being young was so weak that I could not longer carry anything on my person. An older brother and one or two others kept encouraging me. One of them had a good stock of tobacco; I saw him take it, and with an earnestness boardering on delirium, I insisted on having some. As I had never used it before, they refused, thinking it would entirely disable me; but as I was so impor- tunate, they at last gave me a small piece; I directly felt myself relieved; they gave me more, and in a short time my strength and spirits returned. I took my arms and baggage, and was able to travel with the rest of them, and was actually the first to reach the Ohio. Here we met the boats, but nothing in them but corn in the ear; every man was soon at work with his tomahawk, crushing it on the stones, and mixing it with water in gourds or leaves fashioned in the shape of cups, while some provident ones enjoyed the aristo-
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cratic luxury of tin cups; but all seemed alike to relish the repast. A party of us crossed the Ohio that day for the settlement, when we came up with a drove of hogs, in tolerable order. We shot one and eat him on the spot, without criticizing with much nicety the mode or manner of preparation. Indeed, the meat itself was so savory and delicious, we thought of little else. In a few days, I returned to my parents, and after a little domestic storming, and much juvenile vaunting of our exploits, settled down to clearing."
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