History of Summit County, with an outline sketch of Ohio, Part 38

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Baskin & Battey
Number of Pages: 1104

USA > Ohio > Summit County > History of Summit County, with an outline sketch of Ohio > Part 38

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" Ne-gau nis-sau-ne-gau nissau Kitchi-mau-li-sau-negau nissau"- (I will kill-I will kill The white man-I will kill)-

before they started on those expeditions, of which we read in histories. In 1759, there lived in Cumberland County, Penn., a family named Campbell, consisting of the father and a bright little girl, about seven years old, named Mary. Residing in the same house was an- other family named Stuart, consisting of the husband and wife, and four or five children, one of these being an infant. One day, when the men were absent, Mrs. Stuart left her children in charge of the little girl Mary, and went a mile or two distant to the house of a neighbor. In her absence. a small band of Delaware In- dians took possession of the cabin, and made all the children prisoners, much to the conster- nation of little Mary, who was old enough to know that some awful calamity was pending. The Indians, knowing that the adult members of the families were not far away, made prep- arations to receive them. As Mrs. Stuart, on her return, approached the house, she heard the children screaming, and hurried forward, but was instantly made prisoner by the savages, who then thought it best not to await the re- turn of the men, but, with their prisoners, started for their camp in Armstrong County. They soon became tired of carrying the in- fant, which was fretful, and one of them finally took it, and, in the presence of its shrieking mother, dashed its brains out against a tree, and cast its quivering body in the bushes. The

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Indians pushed on rapidly, urging their weary and agonized prisoners to their best pace, and carrying those that finally gave out. A little boy about seven years old, named Sammy, was carried upon the back of one of the Indians until the latter was tired. On the third day, this Indian fell behind the others, and when he again appeared, the little boy was missing, while at his belt Mrs. Stuart recognized the eurly locks of her little Sammy. The poor mother and her children were hurried on until at last, weary and footsore, they reached the Indian village. Here they were soon separated, and one or more of them was adopted by the Indians. The following year, Netawatwees, the chief of this band, removed with his followers and prisoners to their village at the " Big Falls" of the Cuyahoga, now in Summit County, Ohio. Mary had been adopted by the chief, and was treated with uniform kindness, occupying a position of cquality with the Indian children. Here the prisoners remained until 1764, when they were delivered to Col. Boquet, at his fort in Tuscarawas County, and soon afterward were returned to their friends in Pennsylvania. It is very probable that other white prisoners from the Indian villages in Summit County were delivered up at this treaty. Col. Boquet had come out with an army of 1,500 men. The appearance of this force awed the Indians, and they sued for peace in the most abject manner, delivering up at the same time, some 300 white captives. Fathers, brothers and husbands had come out in hopes of finding their lost friends, and when the captives were given up the scene beggars description. "There were seen," says a writer in the Historical Record, "fathers and mothers recognizing and clasping their once captive little ones ; husbands hung around their newly-recovered wives ; brothers and sis- ters met after long separation, scarcely able to speak the same language, or to realize that they were children of the same parents ! In the interviews, there was inexpressible joy and rapture ; while, in some cases, feelings of a very different character were manifested by looks or language. Many were flying from place to place, making eager inquiries after relatives not found, trembling to receive answers to their questions, distracted with doubts, hopes and fears ; distressed and grieved on obtaining no information about the friends they sought, and, in some cases, petrified into living monuments

of horror and woe on learning their unhappy fate." " In many cases," Albach says, " strong attachments had grown up between the savages and their captives, so that they were reluctantly surrendered, some even not without tears, ac- companied with some token of remembrance." The girl, Mary Campbell, and Mrs. Stuart and her children, were the first white persons known to have lived in what is now Summit County.

During and after the Revolution, the Indians of the Cuyahoga Valley were very troublesome to the Pennsylvania pioneers. The details of their savage barbarity would sicken the heart. All along the Ohio River, on both sides, the Indians and borderers met in terrific conflicts, which resulted in the death or captivity of one of the parties. Almost the entire half of the last century was a succession of border wars. So dreadful and frequent became the attacks of the savages that many expeditions were sent to reduce their villages and slaughter the peo- ple or drive them far off into the forest. Young men on the border were trained to the one pur- suit of killing Indians, and the names of Poe. Kenton, Wetzel, Brady and a host of others will ever bear a prominent place on the page of the American border wars. The daring and intrepidity of many of these Indian slayers were astonishing. They seemed to delight in the awful work and courted death and torture with a reckless courage that arouses the keen- est interest of those who read of their exploits. Hundreds of Indians were killed without any pretext, save the sport afforded the intrepid borderers, or to avenge wrongs done by the savages. Horse-stealing became a great pas- time, in which the borderers and their savage foes freely indulged ; and many of the fierce personal conflicts. read of all over the country. were occasioned by lawless incursions of this character. Small armies were sent at various times to different portions of Ohio to defeat the Indians or treat with them for peace. Among these were the expeditions of Cols. Bradstreet and Boquet, in 1764, by which com- parative peace was secured until 1774, when a border war again slowly broke out. About

this time, several unfortunate attacks on the Indians were made, in one of which the inof- fensive relatives of Logan, the Mingo chief. were ruthlessly murdered by a small command under Col. Michael Cresap. This barbarous act precipitated events, and the Indians, roused

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for vengeance, began scouring the border to murder and pillage. The utmost terror, gloom and consternation pervaded all the frontier set- tlements. Gen. McIntosh conducted an expe- dition against the Indians in 1778, and Col. John Bowman the following year. Col. G. R. Clarke marched against them in 1780; Gen. Daniel Broadhead in 1781 ; Col. Lowry the same year ; Col. Williamson in 1782; Col. Crawford the same year ; Gen. Clarke again in 1782; Col. Benj. Logan in 1786 ; and, besides these, there were many others. It became the practice on the border to organize small com- panies of " rangers," who, when the savages swept down upon some family and either killed or captured the members, would hastily assem- ble and pursue the enemy, to chastise them and recover the captives. A noted leader of these rangers, in Western Pennsylvania, was Capt. Samuel Brady. He was a man of pro- digious size, strength, endurance, activity and courage, and became known to all the Northern Indians, who made desperate attempts to either capture or kill him. A few years previous to this, his father and brother had been killed by the Indians, and he is said to have taken a solemn vow to devote his future life to revenge. The following is quoted from Howe's " Histori- cal Collection :" "Brady's residence was on Chartier Creek, on the south side of the Ohio, and being a man of herculean strength, activity and courage, he was generally selected as the leader of the hardy borderers in all their in- cursions into the Indian Territory north of the river. In about the year 1780, a large party of warriors from the falls of the Cuyahoga and the adjacent country had made an inroad on the south side of the Ohio, in the lower part of what is now Washington County, on what was then known as the settlement of 'Catfish Camp,' after an old Indian of that name who had lived there when the whites first came into the Monongahela Valley. This party had mur- dered several families, and with the 'plunder' had recrossed the Ohio before effectual pur- suit could be made. Brady immediately se- lected a few chosen rangers of known courage and activity, perhaps twelve or fifteen or more in number, and hastened on after the Indians, who, having one or two days the start, could not be overtaken in time to prevent their re- turn to their villages. Near the spot where the town of Ravenna now stands, the Indians

separated into two parties, one of which went to the north and the other west to the falls of the Cuyahoga .* Brady's men also divided, a part pursuing the northern trail, and a part going with their commander to the Indian vil- lage lying on the river in the present township of Northampton, in Summit County. Although Brady made his approaches with the utmost cantion, the Indians, expecting a pursuit, were on the lookout, and ready to receive him with numbers four times as great. When Brady's men were attacked, it was instantly seen that their only safety was in hasty flight, which, from the ardor of the pursuit, soon became a perfect ront. Brady directed his men to sep- arate, and each one to take care of himself; but the Indians knowing Brady, and having a most inveterate hatred and dread of him, from the numerous chastisements he had given them, left all the others, and, with united strength, pursued him alone. The Cuyahoga makes a wide bend just before entering Sum- mit County, thus forming a peninsula of sev- eral square miles of surface, within which the pursuit was hotly contested. The Indians, by extending their line to the right and left, forced him on to the bank of the stream. Having, in times of peace, often hunted over this ground with the Indians, and knowing every turn of the Cuyahoga as familiarly as the villager knows the streets of his own hamlet, Brady directed his course to the river at a spot where the width of the stream is compressed by the rocky cliffs, into a narrow channel of only twenty-two feet across the top of the chasm, al- though it is considerably wider beneath, near the water, and in height more than twice that number of feet above the current. As he ap- proached the chasm, Brady, knowing that life or death was the issne, concentrated his utmost efforts and leaped the river at a single bound. It so happened that on the opposite side, the leap was favored by a low place, into which he dropped, and, grasping the bushes, he was thus enabled to ascend to the top of the cliff. The

*A celebrated Indian war-path, extending from Sandusky to Beaver (Fort McIntosh), passed through Summit County. This was the trail traversed by the Indians of Northern Ohio, in their expe- ditions against the border settlements in Pennsylvania. The trail crossed the Cuyahoga in Franklin Township, Portage County, at what is called "Standing Stone," and divided at Fish Creek, the northern branch extending across Stow and Northampton Town- ships, to the Indian village in the latter, thence across the river to the Mingo village in Bath, and thence westward, while the southern branch extending somewhat south of west, led to the villages at Cuyahoga Falls, thence on through Portage and Coventry, to the Tuscarawas River and the Delaware village in Coventry.

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HISTORY OF SUMMIT COUNTY.

Indians, who were in close pursuit, were for a few moments lost in wonder and admiration, and before they had recovered their recollection he was half way up the side of the opposite hill, but still within reach of their rifles. They could easily have shot him at any moment be- fore ; but, being bent on taking him alive for torture and to glut their long-delayed revenge, they forbore to use the rifle; but seeing him now likely to escape they all fired upon him, one bullet severely wounding him in the hip, but not so badly as to prevent his progress. The Indians had to make considerable of a cir- cuit before they could cross the river, and by this time Brady had advanced a good distance ahead. His limb was growing stiff from the wound, and, as the Indians were gaining on him, he made for the pond, which now bears his name, and, plunging in, swam under water a considerable distance, and came up under the trunk of a large oak which had fallen into the pond. This, although leaving only a small breathing place to support life, still completely sheltered him from their sight. The Indians, tracing him by blood to the water, made dili- gent search all around the pond; but, finding no sign of his exit, finally came to the conclu- sion that he had sunk and was drowned. As they were at one time standing on the very tree beneath which be was concealed-he, un- derstanding their language, was very glad to hear the result of their deliberations, and after they had gone he emerged from his hiding- place, and, weary, lame and hungry, made good his retreat to his own home. His companions also returned in safety. The chasm across which he leaped is in sight of the bridge, where it crosses the Cuyahoga, and is known in all that region as "Brady's Leap." The pond where he concealed himself is also known as Brady's Pond. Just where he was first at- tacked by the Indians is not definitely known, but it was somewhere in Northampton Town- ship. It is not likely that the Indians, who were expecting an attack, delayed their move- ment upon the rangers until the latter reached their village. It is probable that they were in ambush not far from their village, and the cau- tion of the rangers alone prevented their being caught in the trap. The savages came on in great numbers, and the rangers very likely kept together for several miles, or until they were somewhere in Stow Township, when they sep-

arated, and each man provided for his own safety. Brady, on another occasion very simi- lar to the one above narrated, leaped a stream in Pennsylvania, twenty-three feet wide, and escaped from a large party of Indians, who were almost upon him.

The Mingo village in Bath was no doubt often visited by Logan, the famous Indian chief. He was the son of Shikellimus, a Cay- uga chief, who dwelt at Shamokin, Penn., in 1742. The father was a personal friend of James Logan, the Secretary of the Province, in whose honor the son was named. They came to Ohio about 1772, locating at Mingo Bot- tom, near Steubenville. Here it was that, about 1774, at the breaking-out of Lord Dun- more's war, Logan's relatives were murdered. This roused him to vengeance, and he began an indiscriminate and extensive slaughter of all the whites he met. Within six or eight months, Logan alone murdered twenty or thirty persons. The following speech, though im- proved by Jefferson and others, was delivered by Logan to John Gibson, an interpreter, who had been sent out by Lord Dunmore to the Indian towns. According to Gibson, Logan asked him to walk out in the woods, and when the two had reached a lonely copse and had sat down, Logan, with many tears, delivered his celebrated speech :

I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he en- tered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said: "Logan is the friend of white men." I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Col. Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.

Mr. Jefferson says: "I may challenge the whole orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, and of any more eminent orator, if Europe has fur- nished any more eminent, to produce a single passage superior to the speech of Logan, the

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Mingo chief." It is considered a masterpiece of Indian eloquence. Logan is said to have been one of the noblest specimens of humanity, of any race, that ever lived. He was, as he said, the friend of the whites ; but the deliberate murder of his relatives inflamed his savage nature, and he " fully glutted his vengeance." He had a high sense of honor, and when trusted would die sooner than betray the trust. He undoubtedly visited the Mingo village in Bath. At the mouth of Yellow Creek, in Northampton, is an extensive Indian cemetery, which prob- ably belonged to the Mingoes. This creek was named for the one down the river from Steu- benville, at which was the Mingo village, where Logan's relations were murdered .*

The Delaware villages in Summit County, about the time of Lord Dunmore's war, were well populated ; though the larger villages of this tribe, in Eastern Ohio, were on the Mus- kingum. In the wars between Great Britain and France for an extension of territory in America, great efforts were made by both na tions to secure the Indians as allies, for thereby a dreaded and powerful weapon could be wielded. Sometimes the French were success- ful, and then the English pioneers in Pennsyl- vania and Virginia experienced the horrors of barbarous border wars. At other times, the English succeeded and the French were made to suffer in a like manner. Many times tribes of Indians remained neutral, while the French and English were struggling for the mastery ; or perhaps portions of some tribe would en- gage in the wars, while others would proclaim their neutrality and remain at peace, cultivat- ing their fields and engaging in the chase. After the murder of the relatives of Logan, several weeks were spent by the hostile Indian tribes to effect a confederation of all the Ohio Indians, for the bloody purpose of an extermi- nating and universal border war against the American settlers. The Senecas and Shawa- nese were eager for hostilities to begin ; but the Delawares refused to join the confederation as a nation, though many of her young men were induced to take up the hatchet. They could not endure the derisive title-Showon-

* This is not positively known to the writer, though there are numerous evidences to indicate its truth. No one in the county who was interviewed could tell why Yellow Creek was thus named, but from the fact that, after the murder of Logan's relatives, the Mingoes, or at least a large band of them, located in Bath near this stream, it seems highly probable that the stream received its name as stated in the text.

noks, or white people-which their war-like neighbors threw in their faces. The Delaware bands in Summit County remained at peace, though beyond a doubt many of their young men joined the tide of hostilities. The neu- trality of the Delawares, no doubt shortened the war and prevented a concentration of the hostile Indian forces. Just before the Revolu- tion, when it was seen that war was inevitable, great efforts were made by both the British and the Americans to secure the assistance of the Indians. It was estimated that the Indians in New York, Ohio, and near the lakes, could bring 10,000 warriors into the field ; and, it was plainly apparent that this large force might turn the pending crisis either way. The English, through their artful emissaries, made great efforts to effect an alliance, and were gen- erally successful. Four out of the six tribes of the Six Nations joined the British ; but, a majority of the Delawares and a numerous party of the Shawanese were for neutrality. At the Pittsburgh conference, Capt. White Eyes, a distinguished Delaware chief, boldly advo- cated the American cause, much to the annoy- ance of the Senecas, who were for war in the interest of the British. The Wolf faction of the Delawares, under Newalike and Capt. Pipe, withdrew toward Lake Erie to join the British ; but Netawatwees, the Delaware chief, one of whose villages was at Cuyahoga Falls, sustained the view of Capt. White Eyes, as did also Big Cat, Capt. John, Killbuck and others. These chiefs sent embassies to all the hostile tribes, exhorting them not to take up the hatchet or to join either side. It will thus be seen that the powerful Delaware tribe was the only one in Ohio, which, as a nation, refused to take up the hatchet. In New York, the friendship of the Oneidas and Tuscaroras was secured. However, the Delawares were afterward swept into the vortex of war, but not until after the French alliance had been consummated, where- by much of the horror on the border was pre- vented. By 1777, the hostile Indians had be- gun their work in earnest, and the white settlers sought the protection of the forts, or fled to the colonies in the East. Numerous war parties of savages, under their chiefs, or the white rene- gades, Girty, McKee, Elliott, and others of their ilk, conducted their dreadful expeditions with such malignant ferocity as to cast gloom and terror over the frontier settlements. The Otta-

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was, Senecas and Mingoes, of Summit County, were active in the war in the cause of the Brit- ish, and, beyond question, Simon Girty, who became a Seneca by adoption, and George Girty, who became a Delaware, were often at these villages. The Delaware chiefs mentioned above, who advocated neutrality, had been mostly converted by the Moravian missiona- ries. The venerable Netawatwees, chief of the Turtle branch of the Delawares, was among the number. As near as can be learned, it was a band of the Turtle Delawares that had a vil- lage at Cuyahoga Falls ; while, very likely, the band in Coventry was under Capt Pipe, or Kogieschquano-heel, the celebrated Delaware war-chief. It was almost wholly due to the missionaries and their converts that the Dela- ware bands upon the Muskingum refused to take part in the border wars. To these men- these noble missionaries-should be accorded the honor of preventing, in a material degree, many of the direful results of the Indian bor- der wars. Beyond all probability, these mis- sionaries visited the Indian towns, in Summit County, to conduct their good work of spiritual regeneration. Indian villages were strewn all along the valley of the Tuscarawas, and on the portage path in this county. So successful were the missionaries in their efforts to secure peace, that at last the renegades, Girty, McKee and Elliott, complained to the British com- mandant at Detroit, saying that the Moravians not only prevented the Delawares from joining the British, but held constant communication with the Americans on the state of the war. Immediately after the Coshocton campaign, when the peace-chiefs of the Delawares were subordinated to the war-chiefs, Buckongahelas became the controlling power at the head of this nation, and through his influence the In- dians, including many of those who had been converted, took up the hatchet. The Christian Indians were removed to Sandusky ; but a number who afterward returned were cruelly murdered ; but their death was bitterly avenged by the defeat of Crawford, and the awful death of himself and many of his command.

On the 21st of January, 1785, the treaty of Fort McIntosh (Beaver) was effected, by which the boundary line between the United States and the Delaware and Wyandot nations was fixed as follows : To begin at the mouth of the Cuyahoga, thence up said river to the portage

between it and the Tuscarawas ; thence down said branch to the forks above Fort Laurens ; thence west to the portage of the Big Miami ; thence along said portage to the Ome River, and down the southeast side of the river to its month ; thence along the south shore of Lake Erie to the mouth of the Cuyahoga. It will thus be seen that the Delawares and Wyandots were confined to the west side of the Cuyahoga, the summit portage path, and the Tuscarawas ; while the tribes of the Six Nations were east of this dividing line. This boundary was con- firmed by subsequent treaties ; but, in 1805, at Fort Industry, the Delawares, Ottawas, Wyan- dots, Chippewas, Shawanese, Menses and Pot- tawatomies were removed to the western part of the State, and the celebrated Cuyahoga boundary line became a thing of the past. The Senecas relinquished their rights to the land east of the Cuyahoga in 1796. This brings the Indian annals down to the time of the first ap- pearance of white settlers in the county.

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History of Summit County, with an outline sketch of Ohio, Part 38

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848- Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Chicago, Baskin & Battey Number of Pages: 1104

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Baskin & Battey
Number of Pages: 1104