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The Virginians were very sensible that some form of assent by the Ohio Indians was indispensable. Great efforts were therefore made to procure it, and at length representatives of the western tribes were assembled at Logstown, seventeen miles below Pittsburgh, on the 9th of June, 1752.
This was a favorable moment for the designs of the English colonists, since the savages, even to the remote Twightwees, were then inimical to the French and favorably disposed towards the English, but the Virginia commissioners, Messrs. Fry, Lomax and Patton, had no easy task. They produced the Lancaster Treaty, and insisted upon the right of the crown, under its grant, to sell the western lands ; but " No," the chiefs said, " they had not heard of any sale west of the warriors' road, which ran at the foot of the Alleghany ridge." The commissioners then offered goods for a ratification of the Lancaster treaty ; spoke of the proposed settlement by the Ohio Company ; and used all their persuasions to secure the land wanted. Upon the 11th of June, the Indians replied. They recognized the treaty of Lancaster, and the authority of the Six Nations to make it, but denied that they had any knowledge of the western lands being conveyed to the Eng- lish by said deed ; and declined, upon the wholec having any thing to do with the treaty of 1744. There willing to give special permission to erect a fort at the .k of the Ohio, " as the French have already struck the Twigtwees," but the Virginians wanted much more, and finally, by the influence
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
of Montour, the interpreter, who was probably bribed, the Indians united, on the 13th of June, in signing a deed con- firming the Lancaster treaty in its full extent, and consenting to a settlement southeast of the Ohio.
The dissatisfaction of the Ohio savages with the proceed- ings at Logstown, is very apparent from the fact that in September, 1753, William Fairfax met their deputies at Winchester, Virginia, where he concluded a treaty, with the particulars of which we are unacquainted, but on which, it is stated, was an endorsement that he had not dared to mention to them either the Lancaster or Logstown treaty ; a sad com- mentary upon the modes taken to obtain those grants.
All attempts to secure any practical results from those treaties were postponed by the outbreak and continuance of hostilities, and it was not until after the pacification of 1765, that the occupation of the lands west of the Alleghanies, otherwise than by the Indians, was agitated in any consider- able degree.
The royal proclamation of October 7, 1763, our readers have not forgotten, forbade all private settlement or purchase of lands west of the Alleghanies, but as soon as peace was restored by the treaty of German Flats, settlers crossed the mountains and took possession of lands in Western Virginia and along the Monongahela. The Indians remonstrated- the authorities issued proclamations warning off intruders- orders were forwarded by Gen. Gage to the garrison of Fort Pitt to dislodge the settlers at Redstone, but all was ineffec- tual. The adventurous spirits of the frontier were not alone in their designs upon the wilderness. The old Ohio Com- pany sought a perfection of their grant-the Virginia volun- teers of 1754, who had enlisted under a proclamation offering liberal bounties of lands, were also clamorous-individual
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TREATY OF FORT STANWIX.
grants were urged-Sir William Johnson was ambitious of being the governor of an armed colony south of the Ohio, upon the model proposed by Franklin in 1754, and the plan of another company, led by Thomas Walpole, a London banker of eminence, was submitted to the English ministry.
Notwithstanding such a fever of land speculation, it was still felt, that a better muniment of title was requisite, than the obsolete pretensions of Lancaster and Logstown, and Gen. Gage having represented very emphatically the grow- ing irritation of the Indians, Sir William Johnson was instructed to negotiate another treaty. Notice was given to the various colonial governments, to the Six Nations, the Delawares, and the Shawanese, and a Congress was ap- pointed to meet at Fort Stanwix, now Rome, New York. It assembled on the 24th of October, 1768, and was atten- ded by representatives from New Jersey, Virginia, and Pennsylvania; by Sir William and his deputies; by the agents of those traders who had suffered in the war of 1763; and by deputies from all of the Six Nations, the Delawares, and the Shawanese. The first point to be settled, was the boundary line, which was to determine the Indian lands of the west from that time forward; and this line the Indians, upon the 1st of November, stated should begin on the Ohio, at the mouth of the Cherokee (or Tennessee) River; thence go up the Ohio and Alleghany to Kittaning: thence across to the Susquehannah, &c .; whereby the whole country south of the Ohio and Alleghany, to which the Six Nations had any claim, was transferred to the British. One deed, for a part of this land, was made on the 3d of November, to Will- iam Trent, attorney for twenty-two traders, whose goods had been destroyed by the Indians in 1763. The tract con- veyed by this, was between the Kenhawa and Monongahela,
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
and was by the traders named Indiana. Two days after- wards, a deed for the remaining western lands was made to the King, and the price agreed on, paid down. There were also given two deeds of lands in Pennsylvania, one to Cro- ghan, and the other to the proprietaries of that colony. These deeds were made upon the express agreement, that no claim should ever be based upon previous treaties, those of Lancaster, Logstown, &c .; and they were signed by the chiefs of the Six Nations, for themselves, their allies and dependents, the Shawanese, Delawares, Mingoes of Ohio, and others; but the Shawanese and Delaware deputies pres- ent, did not sign them.1
" Such," adds Perkins, "was the treaty of Stanwix, whereon rests the title by purchase to Kentucky, Western Virginia, and Pennsylvania. It was a better foundation, perhaps, than that given by previous treaties, but was essen- tially worthless; for the lands conveyed, were not occupied or hunted on by those conveying them. In truth, we can- not doubt that this immense grant was obtained by the influ- ence of Sir William Johnson, in order that the new colony, of which he was to be governor, might be founded there. The fact that such an extent of country was ceded volunta- rily-not after a war, not by hard persuasion, but at once, and willingly,-satisfies us that the whole affair had been previously settled with the New York savages, and that the Ohio Indians had no voice in the matter."
The efforts to organize an immense land company, which should include the old Ohio Company, and the more recent Walpole scheme, besides recognizing the bounties of the Vir- ginia volunteers, were apparently successful by the royal sanction of August 14, 1774, but previously there were
1) Perkins' Writings, vol. ii., p. 232.
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WASHINGTON'S OHIO TOUR.
immense private appropriations of the region south of the Ohio. Prominent among those interested in such specula- tions, was George Washington.2 His impression in favor of the country had been fully confirmed by a trip down the Ohio in 1770, his journal of which affords a glimpse of that beautiful stream, similar to the description of Croghan five years before. Washington was accompanied by Capt. Wil- liam Crawford, whose death at the stake is one of the most appalling traditions of the west. They descended the river to the mouth of the Great Kenhawa, ascending that stream fourteen miles. On his return, after describing the Seneca or Mingo Town, which we have already identified as Logan's residence, Washington makes the following significant ob- servations: "The Indians who reside upon the Ohio, the upper parts of it at least, are composed of Shawanese, Dela- wares, and some of the Mingoes, who, getting but little part of the consideration that was given for the lands eastward of the Ohio, view the settlements of the people upon this river with an uneasy and jealous eye, and do not scruple to say, that they must be compensated for their right, if the people
settle thereon, notwithstanding the cession of the Six Na- tions. On the other hand, the people of Virginia and else- where, are exploring and marking all the lands that are valuable, not only on the Redstone and other waters on the Monongahela, but along the Ohio, as low as the Little Ken- hawa; and by the next summer, I suppose they will get to the Great Kenhawa at least." Well might Washington
2) Sparks' Washington, vol. ii., pp. 346-7. He had patents for 32,373 acres -9,157 on the Ohio, between the Kenhawas, with a river front of 13} miles -23,216 acres on the Great Kenhawa, with a river front of forty miles. Be- sides these lands, he owned, fifteen miles below Wheeling, 587 acres, with a front of two and a half miles. He considered the land worth $3.33 per acre .- Sparks' Washington, xii., 264, 317.
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
make this prediction, for on reaching the mouth of the Ken- hawa, "at the beginning of the bottom above the junction of the rivers, and at the mouth of a branch on the east side (he) marked two maples, an elm and hoop-wood tree, as a corner of soldiers' land, intending to take all the bottom from (thence) to the rapids in the Great Bend, into one survey. (He) also marked at the mouth of another run lower down on the west side, at the lower end of the long bottom, an ash and hoop-wood for the beginning of another of the soldiers' surveys to extend up so as to include all the bottom in a body on the west side." Most certainly, Washington's own example was on the most liberal scale of appropriation.
As early as 1768, the Shawanese indicated their jealousy of the settlement of Kentucky-a region which, though often the theatre of desperate conflicts with the Cherokees and Catawbas, whose seats were further south, was still a most desirable range for hunting; and they complained of the frequent voyages of the English down the Ohio River. At a conference with the Ohio tribes, held by George Croghan, at Pittsburgh, in May, 1768, Nymwha, one of the Shawanese chiefs, who submitted so reluctantly to the army of Bouquet, thus expressed himself : "We desired you not to go down this river in the way of the warriors belonging to the foolish nations to the westward ; and told you that the waters of this river, a great way below this place, were colored with blood ; you did not pay any regard to this, but asked us to accompany you in going down, which we did, and we felt the smart of our rashness, and with difficulty returned to our friends, (alluding adroitly to Croghan's unlucky capture at the mouth of the Wabash in 1765.) We see you now about making batteaux, and we make no doubt you intend going down the river again, which we now tell you is disa-
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PROGRESS OF SETTLEMENT.
greeable to all nations of Indians, and now again desire you to sit still at this place.
"They are also uneasy to see that you think yourselves masters of this country because you have taken it from the French, who, you know, had no right to it, as it is the pro- perty of us Indians. We often hear that you intend to fight with the French again ; if you do, we desire you will remove your quarrel out of the country, and carry it over the great waters, where you used to fight, and where we shall neither see or know any thing of it."
Still, at a later period in the conference, when the dissat- isfied speaker was rebuked by the Seneca and Delaware envoys, these bold expressions were materially modified, and the Shawanese envoys desired Croghan to "forget what they first spoke and help them to some council wampum, as they were very poor." Subsequently, as each year increased the European occupation of Kentucky, there can be no doubt of the increased alienation of the fierce denizens of the Scioto.
The peaceful Delawares met the encroachments upon their hunting grounds, by slowly retiring before the advancing column of emigration-concentrating their villages, more and more, within the wilderness north of the Ohio, and it was not until 1774 that the smothered flame of hostility, which had been long kindled among the Shawanese, burst forth. The wanton murders of Logan's family immediately leagued the bands of Mingoes or Senccas with their neighbors on the Scioto, in the work of vengeance. But, until we have recalled some events hitherto omitted, we shall postpone the consideration of the border war of 1774, otherwise called Dunmore's war.
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ec ch 16 b200 1 21/328 CHAPTER XIV.
THE MORAVIAN MISSIONS ON THE MUSKINGUM.
THE most critical period in the history of the American colonies, namely, from 1764 to 1776, was not particularly eventful within the present limits of Ohio. Sandusky was a blackened ruin, and no effort was made by the English to extend their settlements in this region of the West. The contest between the speculators and settlers from Virginia and Pennsylvania on one side, and the Shawanese and Sen- ecas on the other, which interrupted the peace of the Ohio valley in 1774, was confined to the western districts of those colonies, including the hunting grounds of the Indians within the State of Kentucky. The Wyandots and Ottawas were at that time too far removed from the scene of action, and too much under the influence of the English garrison at Detroit, to break the truce concluded by Pontiac on the 27th of August, 1765.
The progress of English emigration, like the French col- onization, seemed to avoid Ohio. There were settlements on the Wabash, sooner than on the Scioto or the Miamis-a circumstance attributable, perhaps, to the vicinity of the Mississippi, and the contrast in number and force of the Del- awares, Wyandots, and Shawanese of Ohio and the unfortu- nate Illinois, whose power had been broken, and their towns desolated in revenge for the assassination of Pontiac. Then the open prairies may have been more attractive than the (186)
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POST'S TUSCARORA MISSION.
heavy forests, which usually intercepted the sun between Lake Erie and the Ohio. Traders of course, found their way along the lake and river coasts, but no stockades were founded, no efforts made by associations or individuals to secure proprietary rights on the northern border of the Ohio River.
It was a sentiment of religious devotion, which first ven- tured within the existing limits of the State of Ohio, and has invested its first permanent settlement with an interest, similar to the Puritan advent in New England, and the Canadian missions of the Jesuits. If the first European settlement was by the French, when they established a fort at Sandusky in 1750, yet, as we have seen, that locality was abandoned by the English after the massacre and con- flagration of 1763, and it was reserved for a few German missionaries to establish a permanent colony on the Mus- kingum. Of course we refer to the Moravians, who have been characterized as "the most remarkable Christian so- ciety that has arisen on the European continent since the cra of the Protestant reformation."
As early as 1761, Charles Frederick Post, the indefatiga- ble and sagacious Moravian, whose success as an ambassador to the Ohio Indians in 1758, has been noticed, penetrated to the Muskingum, and obtained permission from the Dela- wares, who had recently removed thither, to settle on the cast side of the Muskingum, at the junction of its two forks, the Sandy and Tuscarowas. On the spot designated by the Indians, Post built a log cabin, and then returned to Betli- lehem to seek a suitable associate, who might teach the Indi- an children to read and write, while the former preached to the savages. This companion he found in John Heckewel- der, who, at the age of nineteen, was released from an
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
apprenticeship to a cedar cooper, for the purpose of joining Post on his benevolent errand.
In March, 1762, they started on their hazardous journey. Narrowly escaping the snows of the Alleghanies, and the swollen streams, but encouraged by the hospitality of Col. Bouquet and Capt. Hutchins, then stationed at Fort Pitt, the adventurers crossed the Beaver River, assisted by the canoes and services of the Indians residing there, who also gave them some venison and bear's fat-White Eyes, a chief, adding a gift of "a few chickens." Four days after, on the 11th of April, they arrived at their destination, after a pilgrimage of thirty-three days. They entered their cabin "singing a hymn."
Heckewelder, in his memoirs, says that "no one lived near on the same side of the river; but on the other, a mile down the stream, resided a trader, named Thomas Calhoon, a moral and religious man. Farther south was situated the Indian town, called Tuscarora; consisting of about forty wigwams. A mile still farther down the stream, a few fam- ilies had settled; and eight miles above, there was another Indian village." The locality called Tuscarora town, was on the south (or west, according to Heckewelder) side of the river, just above where Fort Laurens was afterwards built, and immediately contiguous to the present village of Bolivar, in Tuscarowas county.
Although the Indians had allowed Post to erect his cabin, during his absence they had become suspicious, fearing that the missionary scheme was a mere pretence, in order to enable the white people to obtain a footing in the Indian country, and that in course of time a fort would be erected. When they observed Post marking out three acres of ground for a corn-field, and beginning to cut down trees, they were alarmed,
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POST'S TUSCARORA MISSION.
and sent him word to appear before them at the council house on the following day, and meanwhile to desist from doing any further work on the premises. On his appearance before them at the time appointed, the speaker, in the name of the council, delivered the following address :
" Brother! Last year you asked our leave to come and live with us, for the purpose of instructing us and our chil- dren ; to which we consented ; and now being come, we are glad to see you.
"Brother! It appears to us that you must since have changed your mind ; for instead of instructing us or our chil- dren, you are cutting down trees on our land; you have marked out a large spot of ground for a plantation, as the white people do every where ; and by and by another and another may come and do the same, and the next thing will be that a fort will be built for the protection of those intru- ders ; and thus our country will be claimed by the white people, and we driven farther back, as has been the case ever since the white people came into this country. Say, do we not speak the truth ?"
In answer to this address, Post said :
" Brothers ! What you say I told you, is true, with regard to my coming to live with you, namely, for the purpose of instructing you ; but it is likewise true that an instructor must have something to live upon, otherwise he cannot do his duty. Now, not wishing to be a burden to you, so as to ask of you provision for my support, knowing that you already have families to provide for, I thought of raising my own bread ; and believed that three acres of ground were little enough for that. You will recollect that I told you last year that I was a messenger from God, and prompted by him to preach and make known his will to the Indians ; that
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
they also by faith might be saved, and become inheritors of his heavenly kingdom. Of your land I do not want a foot, neither will my raising a sufficiency of corn and vegetables for me and my brother to subsist on, give me or any other person a claim to your land."
Post having retired, to give the chiefs and council time to deliberate, was addressed as follows at a second inter- view :
"Brother ! Now as you have spoken more distinctly, we may perhaps be able to give you some advice. You say that you are come at the instigation of the Great Spirit to teach and to preach to us. So also say the priests at Detroit, whom our Father, the French, has sent among his Indian children. Well, this being the case, you, as a preacher want no more land than those do; who are content with a garden lot to plant vegetables and pretty flowers in, such as the French priests also have, and of which the white people are all fond.
"Brother! As you are in the same station and employ with those preachers we allude to, and as we never saw any one of those cut down trees and till the ground to get a live- lihood, we are inclined to think, especially as those men with- out laboring hard look well, that they have to look to another source than that of hard labor for their maintenance. And we think that if, as you say, the Great Spirit urges you to preach to the Indians, he will provide for you in the same manner as he provides for those priests we have seen at Detroit. We are agreed to give you a garden spot, even a larger spot of ground than those have at Detroit-it shall measure fifty steps each way, and if it suits you, you are at liberty to plant therein what you please."
Post agreed, as there was no remedy, and Capt. Pipe
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THE TUSCARORA MISSION.
stepped off the boundaries of the lot, stakes were driven at the corners, and Post told that now he might go on.1
We have given this transaction as narrated by Heckewel- der, and it illustrates the jealousy of the Indians, even towards one who possessed their confidence, whenever the right of their lands was in question.
Next came the danger of starvation. No flour could be procured from Fort Pitt, the reserved stock having been destroyed by an inundation ; a famine prevailed among the Indians, who saved every grain of maize for planting ; pota- toes were also very scarce; although wild ducks were abun- dant, they had no canoe to hunt them ; the wild geese flew near the centre of the river; pheasants and squirrels were worthless in summer; and their food consisted chiefly of fish and the few vegetables of the surrounding forests. They lived mostly on nettles which grew in the bottoms, but they had brought some tea and coffee, their only luxury, although drank without milk or sugar. Upon such a diet, the labor of clearing their little garden, chopping the wood very short, so as to drag or roll it from the enclosure, and of loosening the ground with pickaxes, reduced their strength daily.
" One day," says Heckewelder, " some chiefs came to request my assistance for a few days in making a fence round their land. I gladly accepted the invitation, being desirous of doing anything to secure their good will; and I did my best to be of service to them. At the same time, I was enabled to restore my health and strength ; for as long as I stayed with them, I could eat enough to satisfy the cravings of hunger. Thus I found myself suddenly transferred, as it were, to a land of plenty, and where I had opportunities to cultivate the acquaintance of the Indian
1) Heckewelder's Narrative, p. 98.
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
youth, and to secure the favor of the tribe by my industry. During my stay with them, I received the name of "Pisela- tulpe," Turtle ; by which I was afterwards known among the Delawares."
Late in the summer an Indian conference was to be held at Lancaster, and Post was desired by the Governor of Penn- sylvania to attend and bring with him as many of the Western Delawares as possible, " but above all King Beaver, and the great war-chief Shingask, generally called by the whites, King Shingas. King Beaver, and probably Conecogeauge, or White Eyes, were among those who accompanied Post, but the great war-chief was unwilling to place himself in the power of the Governor of Pennsylvania, who had set a high price on his scalp. It had been arranged at Bethlehem, by the Elders of the Congregation, that if Post returned to Lan- caster, Heckewelder should not remain alone in the wilder- ness ; but the brave youth, unwilling to abandon the enterprise, resolved not to leave the lonely cabin on the Muskingum. In order to bring cedar wood for the purpose of making tubs and like articles for the Indians, and to procure game, a canoe was constructed ; and a number of old sermons and religious books were also left with Heckewelder, although he was cautioned not to read or write in the presence of the Indians, " for," said his more experienced friend, " they are suspicious of those white people whom they see engaged in reading or writing, especially the latter, believing that it concerns them or their territory." With these provisions for the comfort and contentment of his comrade, Post departed, and for a short time, Heckewelder did not lack for food, frequently bringing down five or six wild duck at a shot, and securing them by the aid of his canoe. In respect to his spiritual food, " I kept," he writes, " my books and papers in
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AN INDIAN FUNERAL.
the garret, from a window of which I could see whether any one was approaching the cabin. Here I whiled away many an hour, far from civilization, alone with my books, my thoughts and my God."
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