USA > Ohio > Seneca County > History of Seneca County, from the close of the revolutionary war to July, 1880 > Part 13
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About that time two young ladies came to my aunt. Mrs. Culver, from New York on a visit. They were sisters : Mariah Hunt, the oldest, and the younger, Sylvia Ann Hunt. daughters of her sister. While here, the two Mr. Wrights made their acquaintance and married them. John Wright married Mariah, and Samuel Wright married Sylvia Ann. Samuel and his wife did not live very happily ; some young merchant from Tiffin became too intimate in the family. and in some way a divorce was brought about. Wright went away. Soon after this occurrence, Mr. Rufus W. Reid. from Tiffin, married Mrs. Wright. Reid was at that time engaged very largely in the mercantile business and the produce trade. He built a large warehouse near the depot of the Mad River & Lake Erie Railroad. then in Fort Ball. The building is now occupied by Mr. Solomon Konp, as a door, sash and blind factory.
Mr. Reid was the rival of Mr. R. W. Shawhan, not only in the mer- cantile business, but also in the various conflicts in the establishment of banks in Tiffin, each striving to become master of the situation. One succeeded, and the other went down. Reid failed in business, and giving himself up to his appetite for strong drink, lived a very hard life up to his death. Mrs. Reid is still living in Cincinnati.
Those that knew Mr. Reid well must acknowledge that with all his fanlts, and before he fell, he possessed business qualities of the highest order, combined with a wonderful degree of perseverance. He was gentlemanly and courteous, highly intelligent and accomplished, pos- sessed of a rare memory, and as the presiding officer of a lodge of F. & A. M. he had scarcely his superior in any quality that properly belongs to that station-except virtue.
How truly the words of the poet may be applied to him :-
" Pity he loved an adventurer's life's variety ! He was so great a loss to good society."
But, to let Mr. Harris proceed.
When I was abont eleven years old, I had to go with my uncle, John Har- ris, to the mill at Monroeville. This was the 'nearest mill to our home, and about thirty miles away. We could not get across the river with a team. so we hanled our corn to the shore of the river. and unloaded it there. Then x
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we took our team home, and loading our corn into a dug-ont-a canoe made ont of a log -- we hanled it across and unloaded it on the other shore. Then we borrowed a yoke of oxen from Mr. Spirer, and a cart from Crow. (we did not say " Mister " to an Indian, and loaded np our corn aml started. The next night we stopped with a man by the name of Nichols, near Bellevue. and in the evening of the second day we reached Monroeville. There were a great many customers ahead of us, and there was no prospeet for us to get in for about a week : so we started for Cold Creek mills, which were eleven miles northwest from here. They had just commenced dressing the mill- stones when we arrived. and after waiting two days at Cold Creek, we started home with our grist. At Cohl Creek we bought a bushel of peaches, which were then, and especially with us in the woods. a great variety. Afterwards they grew almost spontaneously, and produced abundantly. until within about fifteen years ago. Now it is seklom that a crop of them can be raised in this county. The first night on the way home we reached Dr. Stephen- son's. The next day our provisions gave out. We came to a fire in the woods where a man had been chopping, and being very hungry. we looked around amongst the logs for provisions that the wood-chopper might have hidden somewhere, and found raw pork and bread. We divided even with the man, and putting his half back where it was, made way with ours, and drove on. When we got home we were gone nearly a week.
The only place where we could get fruit at that time was at Whitecker's. below Fremont ahont two miles. Mrs. Whitecker was a widow and a cap- tive of the Senecas, and she received this place by the treaty. One time her son James stalled with his wagon near our house, and he had to abandon it. When he left he told me to tell the Seneras that the wagon belonged to him, and then they would not touch it.
Some time after we arrived here, I went up the river with Hiram Pike. who wanted to get a pair of shoes he had up there to get mended. We came to a little clearing of about two arres. in the midst of which was a cabin. Here the shoemaker lived. His name was Johnson, and his cabin the only one on the right bank of the river from the reservation far up towards the town of MeCutchenville. It was situated where Jefferson and Perry streets cross. The first log heap that was burnt on the Tiffin side. was where the Commercial Bank now is, next lot north of the court house.
Mr. Erastus Bowe lived near the old fort, on the west bank, and David Smith lived in a cabin, somewhere near or at the place where the Ohio stove works now are. Up the hill, near where MeNeal's store now stands, there was an old Indian cabin, into which Mr. Agrren Iugraham soon after moved. Close by this cabin Mr. Milton Me Neal soon after built his store, and he was the first merchant on that side of the river.
William D. Sherwood entered six hundred and forty acres of land. incluid- ing the farms afterwards owned by the Rev. John Sonder and the Stoners. Sherwood built a cabin at the Sonder place. There was no other house on the army road between the Sherwood cabin and Fort Seneca. Sherwood's wife died in this cabin, and was buried in the graveyard that was situated Intween the depot of the B. & O. Railroad in Tiffin, and the late residence of Mrs. Joseph Walker on the hill, and where Mr. Francis Wagner now lives. All traces of the graveyard are gone. Mr. Sherwood's son was here
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a few years ago, looking for his mother's grave, but confl fluid no trace of it .. Phineas Frary, another old settler, married a Miss Cochran. 1. M. C'onrtright married a sister of Mrs. Frary, and settled up the river somewhere south of Tiffin. Mrs. Harriet Segur was one of the Cochran girls. She is still living on her farm, on the reservation. The council-house used to stand on that place. This was made of three lengths of logs, cornered as usual. and where the logs came together at the ends, they were flattened and laid on top of each other. The roof was made of bark, with a hole left in the middle to let the smoke ont.
I knew all the Indians on the reserve, and was well acquainted with Crow. He was stolen by the Wyandots on the Loyal Hannah in Pennsylvania, and given to the Senecas, who adopted him. Crow was abont two or three years old when he was taken away. The parents were away from home at the time, and the other children ont after berries. The savages got away with the child unobserved.
When Crow's father came to hunt him up, he stopped at Crow's and sent for my grandfather to come and interpret the conversation. Crow could not talk English. So I went along and heard all that was said. Mr. Jacob Knisely came on horseback to look for his son. He stated all about the manner of the stealing of his son, and said he had now visited all the lodges of the other tribes without success. My grandfather had been with the Sen- ccas so much that he spoke their language quite fluently. He was one of the few who made their escape at the massacre of Wyoming.
They talked n long time. Crow did not want to talk : denied every recol- Ivetion of his white ancestry, and often refused to give any answer. Finally Mr. Kuisely said to him. " If you are my son. then your name is JJacob." With this, Crow jumped up and said. "That is my name. and I am your son: I recollect that, but I kept it all to myself for fear that somebody would claim me and take me away." Crow then sent up to the Wyandots and had his foster-mother come down, who corroborated Mr. Knisely's version of the stealing of his child. She was a very old squaw, and stayed several days. and as long as Mr. Knisely stayed, to satisfy herself that Crow would not go back with his father. Mr. Knisely tried every way to indnee his son to go back with him to Pennsylvania : he said that his wife had been sick some time ; that she had mourned for her lost child some fifty years. and would be willing to die if she could only once more see her dear boy. The scene was very affecting : but Crow was immovable. He said he'had now a family of his own to look after and could not go, but promised to visit his parents some other time. He langhed heartily over the idea as to how he would look dressed up like a white man. Mr. Kuisely left one morning, and Crow accompanied his father as far as Bellevne, where they stayed together all night. Crow returned next day, and when the Indians started for their new homes in the West he went with them. He never went to see his parents at all. Crow got his share in the treaties with the Wyandots, as well as with the Senecas, and became quite well off. Crow's first wife was a full blood Indian : his second wife was a daughter of William Spicer. White Crow was his oldest son, who came back here on a visit in 1852, and stayed with me one night. He had just then been at Dayton, Ohio, where he left his second son at school, and where his oldest son was also securing an ednica-
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tion. Tears came into his eyes when he looked at the old reservation, and lie regretted that he had ever left.
When the Senecas were paid off. Crow received for his improvements nine hundred and fifty dollars, and another Indian paid him fifty dollars on an old debt. Martin Lane was an interpreter for the Senecas, and went with them to the west, and returned here.
It is a most remarkable fact, that while it is very hard to make a civilized man out of a savage, the civilized man takes to savage life like a fish to water.
Col. Mellvain was the chief agent for the Senecas, and often stopped with Lane at the Spicer place. The Senecas were very slow getting ready to go. Finally they got their things on the wagons and started. Spicer was dead before they left here.
Crow died at his new home, of -cholera. White Crow got rich, and adopted the name of his grandfather Knisely.
PETER PORK.
A man by the name of Benazah Parker lived on the west side of the street, near where Lorenzo Abbott had his store, in the village then called McNutt's Corners, afterwards Swope's Corners, and now Fort Seneca. Parker kept a whisky shop, and often sold whisky to the In- dians in violation of law, and for which he was frequently arrested and fined. Yet he went on in his infamous business. In the night of the 4th of October, 1829, they were having a high time at Parker's. The whole gang was drunk, and Parker administered a mock sacrament to his drunken crowd. Seated about on benches, he passed corn-dodgers to · them for bread, and whisky for wine, accompanied with blasphemous remarks. Pork was there. He was a mean, ill-tempered savage, had committed several murders, and had no redeeming trait about him. Pork asked for whisky, and Parker refusing, he became very angry and ugly. Parker ordered him out, and Pork refusing to go, Parker took a burning stick from the fireplace, and making with that towards Pork, was stabbed by Pork in his side. Pork dropped the knife and ran. - Says Mr. Harris :-
My nucle. Anson Gray, was at Parker's at the time this occurred. He used to drink to excess often at that time, but he afterwards reformed, became highly respectable and wealthy.
Pork got out and ran home, and when he went to bed he stuck his scalping knife into a crack in a log close by his bed, and within reaching distance. His squaw noticed that there was something wrong. and when Pork was sound asleep she took the knife away and put a wooden one in its place.
The neighbors became aroused. and getting a warrant for the arrest of Pork. Judge Jaques Hurtbut, one of the best and most influential of men in
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that vicinity, took with him Jonathan Abbott. Anson Gray. Stephen Ross. Jeremiah Hays, John Harris, Sitas Pike and Heury Yeaky. When they got to Pork's house he jumped out of bed, took hold of the wooden knife. kicked out the lautern, and struck Judge Hurlbut with the wooden knife with such force that he eut his home-made cloth overcoat to the skin. The JJudge called ont. "Boys, he is stabbing me." They had a hard struggle with the villain, but finally subdued him. They put him on a horse, and tied his feet together under the horse, to prevent escape. On the way to Titlin he said to his escort, "To-morrow me die:" thinking that he would be executed. They put him into the old hewed log jail that stood at the south-east corner of the court house yard in Tiffin. Pork was tried, Judge Lane presiding. and was sent to the penitentiary for a term of three years; but when the Senecas left he was pardoned and went with them. The sentence was made light from the fact that Parker had often violated the law. in selling whisky to the Indians. Abel Rawson was proseenting attorney.
Parker lived some fifteen months after he was stabbed, and died from the effects of the wound, as it was supposed.
Some four years after the Senecas went away, Joseph Herrin, a half blood Mohawk, came here on a visit. While here he learned that Pork had killed Joseph Silas, a cousin of his. Herrin said : "This makes three cousins of mine that Pork has killed. and when I come home I kill Pork." He kept his word, and when in 1852 White Crow came here. he said that ". Herrin knocked Pork down, and eut his throat clear off."
Butterfield says that Pork had committed no less than eight murders. He was a Cayuga, a stalwart, brutal monster, and the terror of the neighborhood. He had killed Strong Arm-Teguania-an Indian of his tribe, just before the fatal affray with Parker. Both had been at Lower Sandusky, and returning home drunk, got into a fight with axes. Tequania was badly mangled. Doctor Dresbach, of Tiffin, dressed his wounds, but he died in nine days. Pork also killed "Thomas Brandt's old wife," as she was called, who lived in a cabin by herself. He met her one day, killed her, and covered her remains with brush.
Pork was sentenced for " stabbing with intent to kill," in the Parker case, on the 28th of April, 1830.
Mr. Harris proceeds :
While Mr. Ingraham lived in the old cabin near Me Neal's store, the whole family took sick, and no one was able to help the other. Mrs. Stanley went up and waited on them. One of the Ingraham girls married a Mr. McGee. who afterwards carried on a drug store at Fremont. Melissa married Frank Abbott. the youngest of the Abbott family, who is still living.
Old Mr. Andrew Dukes, also an old settler, had one son. John, and one daughter, Sophia, by his first wife. He married, for his second wife, Mrs. Gittie Swimm, who was a widow, and sister of Mr. Isaac I. Dumond. He lived near the Dukes' burying ground. Dumond married old Mr. Dukes' daughter, Sophia. John Dukes married another sister of Mr. Dumond. So
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father and son married two sisters, and Mr. Dumond was both brother-in-law and son-in-law to Mr. Dukes, and Mr. Dukes was both father-in-law and brother-in-law to Mr. Dumond.
HARD HICKORY
Was a large, noble looking man, and nearly half white, about six feet high, had little chin whiskers, was very straight and muscular, spoke English well, and was highly respected. He had a large nose, and was about fifty years old when they left.
GOOD HUNTER
Was of medium height, had a melancholy look, most always drooped his head, walking or sitting, but had a sharp eye, and was considered smart. He was a full-blood Seneca, a little gray, about fifty years old, and took the place of Seneca John after he was killed.
SENECA JOHN
Was a splendid looking Indian, strictly honest, as many of the Senecas were, was very straight, square-shouldered, and had a frank, open, noble look. He carried a silver ring in his nose, and one in each ear. He wore a fur hat and broadcloth coat, cut Indian fashion, with a belt, and a silver band three inches wide on each upper arm. He was a stylish man, and of commanding bearing. He lived near Green Springs when he was executed, then about thirty-eight years old.
SENECA STEEL.
Was a small Indian, very active, but there was nothing otherwise un- common about him. Seneca John, Comstock and Coonstick were his brothers.
Mr. Montgomery preached Spicer's funeral sermon. George Herri.1, a half Mohawk, was interpreter, and gave the sermon in the Indian, sentence by sentence. (Slow preaching.)
One of Spicer's boys, Small Cloud, was a fine looking fellow, a half blood. He married Crow's daughter by his first wife. Little Town Spicer had three or four wives. Both these Spicer boys went west with the Senecas.
Whenever an Indian was buried they built a pen of poles about three feet high around the grave, and laid poles over the top. Before they left they carried these pens away and threw the poles over the bank.
Crow was a great deer hunter, and shot many a fine buck after night.
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He would then carry a pole seven feet long, pointed at the end, with a fork at the upper end. A piece of bark, about fifteen inches wide and two feet long, was fastened to the fork so as to make the bottom level and the other end sticking up along the pole, like a letter 1 .. A candle was put into the bottom part, and Crow holding this over his head, was in the shade, but could see objects far off. The deer would look at the light, and not notice Crow in the dark. As soon as Crow saw a deer he would stick the pole in the soft ground, and make sure of his game. This was called "fire hunting," and Crow would always travel along the edge of the river, where the deer would come down to drink and find " salt licks,"
The Indians made their wax candles by using cotton rags for wicks. and pouring the melted wax into dry stocks of the wild parsnip, which they used as candle-moulds. They had another light for house use, made of strips of fat pork, which were dried in the chimneys, fastened to a stick so that they hung straight down. When dry and hard, these were stuck into a hole bored into a chip, for a candle stick, and then lit, making as good a light as a candle. The name for a candle was " gigh-di-tagua."
There was a great deal of sickness amongst the Senecas in 1822, and many died. They believed themselves bewitched, and holding a coun. cil on the subject, condemned four poor old squaws to be tomahawked for witchcraft. Next day, these squaws went to Lower Sandusky and bought whisky. When they came back they got drunk, and when in that condition they said they were ready, and told the executioner to "cut away." One Indian killed them all. His name was Jim Sky.
Says Mr. Harris :-
A few days after the execution some of the Indians brought the toma- hawk to my grandfather's shop, to have it put into better shape. It was a "pipe tomahawk." Soon after a young Indian came in and saw the toma- hawk laying on the bench, when he broke out in a horrible oath, and told me to lay it away. for that had killed his mamma. He then cried aloud a long time. His name was Good Spring.
Seneca Joseph had an old squaw living with him who was suspected of being a witch. She was very sick, and Mrs. Stanley used to go over to see her often. One day, when she came there the old squaw was dead, and all drawn np crooked : so they made a crooked grave to fit her. They laid bark on the bottom, wrapped her in a blanket, put her in aud covered her with bark. and then filled up the grave with dirt.
One of the Shippey girls came to our house one day on horseback; having heard some wolves howl, she was afraid to go home alone, and some of our folks had to go with her. She afterwards married John Rickets, and Mr. Rezin Rickets, iu Hopewell township, is a son of William Rickets, brother to John.
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The wolves used to make a fearful howling noise. which they sometimes kept up all night. No one can now imagine what terrible feelings the howl- ing of the wolves would create. on a dark. wintry night, when we were in bed : the wolves howling on the one side, and the Indians keeping up their everlasting tum, tom, tum, on the other, dancing all night.
MOUND BUILDERS.
There were several mounds on the Culver place, and we often plowed np bones and ancient crockery. In 1550 we opened one of these mounds, and found a very large skeleton, with a well shaped skull. and a stone pitcher near the head. The pitcher seemed to have been made of sand and clay. Small vessels of the same material. filled with clam-shells. were placed inside of the elbows. Some of these pitchers would hold half a gallon. We gave them to Gen. Brish. These things were as wonderful to the Indians as to ns.
HORSE-RACE.
Some time after Dortor Dresbach came to Tiffin, he and Mr. Josiah Hedges and their riders came to the Spicer place to have a horse-race. They had a straight track made through Spicer's corn fields. Dresbach had a small gray mare. Hedges' horse was a bay belonging to a friend of his by the name of Connell. MeNeal's clerk rode the Dresbach mare. and Albert Hedges rode the Connell mare. Hedges' bay won.
The same day the Connell horse ran against some body's elese horse, on the same track. At the outcome the bay stopped short and threw Albert HIedges clear over the fence, and he had his ankle dislocated. They came down here to have the race, because they could find no other place so free from stmnps. The track was straight from the bank of the river to the hill where Mr. Toomb's house now stands. This was the first horse-race in Seneca county.
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CHAPTER. VII.
THE SENECA CHIEF PRESENTS THE GOVERNOR OF CANADA WITH 954 AMER- ICAN SCALPS-TALL CHIEF-THE TUQUANIAS-KILLING THE SQUAW OF GEORGE WASHINGTON-JUDGE . HULBURT-CALEB RICE BENJ. CULVER - REV. JAMES B. FINLAY-CAPT. JOSEPH - MRS. INGHAM-CAPT JOSEPH - CAPT. SHERWOOD -SKETCH OF MRS. INGHAM-EARLY MARRIAGES.
T HE Senecas were, at one time in their history, a very powerful race, and about the time of the revolutionary war the most savage and cruel of any of these forest monsters. About the time they took possession of their reservation in Seneca county, there was scarcely anything left of them, and those that did settle here were a mixed rabble of several tribes, half-breeds and captives.
For more than a century this tribe had been in contact with the white race, in peace and in war; and instead of deriving the benefit which naturally ought to have followed, from this intimacy, they deteriorated to more abject barbarism still, and dwindled down to a handful of dirty, stupid, superstitious, worthless rabble. Had not this county once been their home, and been named after them, nobody would care to read or learn anything about them. As it is, the reader would scarce be satisfied. in perusing a history of this county, without having an opportunity to learn all there was of them, and what they were like when they roamed over the ground that contains so many happy homes as now enjoyed by the people here. All these sprung up by magic, as it were, since the last satanic yell of these hell-hounds of the woods died on the desert air.
The manner in which the British government carried on both her wars with the United States, by making these red fiends their allies, and supplying them with everything needful to perpetrate their cruelties upon the white people along the frontier, put that government in a worse light still, looked at from every stand-point that time may justify. For a high-toned, christian people, claiming the mastery of the seas, and upon whose territory the sun never ceases to shine, not only justifying midnight butcheries of her superior enemy by savage warfare, but helping it along and approving these atrocities, calls aloud for universal condemnation.
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The relation of Great Britain with the western savages, and the power this red ally exercised on the western frontier, is clearly shown in a letter that Dr. Franklin furnished the American Remembrancer, an authority which nobody will dispute.
The British government had sent its agents to all the Indian tribes to enlist the savages against the colonists. The Americans sent Benjamin Franklin to Paris to secure, if possible, the aid of France in favor of his countrymen. Dr. Franklin wrote an article for the American Remembrancer, which, in that day, exerted a very powerful influence in both Europe and America. It purported to be a letter from a British officer to the Governor of Canada, accompanying a present of eight packages of scalps of the colonists, which he had received from the chief of the Senecas. As a very important part of the history of the times, the letter should be recorded. It was as follows:
"MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY:
"At the request of the Seneca chief, I hereby send to your Excellency. under the care of James Hoyt, eight packages of scalps, cured, dried. hooped and painted with all the triumphal marks, of which the following is the invoice and explanation:
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