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77
WASHINGTON'S FIRST CAMPAIGN.
indicated, that Braddock's defeat became the signal of a gen- eral rising against the colonies.
Our record of the subsequent occurrences of the French and English war, can only be chronological.
On the 17th of April, 1754, while a small party of Vir- ginians were erecting a fort at the forks of the Ohio, Contre- coeur, a French officer, appeared on the Alleghany with sixty batteaux, three hundred canoes and eighteen cannon. En- sign Ward, who, in the absence of Capt. Trent and Lieut. Fraser, was in command of only forty-one men, surrendered to a force of one thousand French and Indians, and was per- mitted to lead his party, with their tools, to Virginia. The French erected Fort Du Quesne at once, and their communi- cation from Lake Erie to the Ohio was complete.
The retreating company fell in with a force of one hun- dred and fifty men, under Col. Washington, who, instead of turning back, resolved to push boldly on, strike the Monon- gahela at the mouth of Redstone, (now Brownsville,) and establish a fort there. Informed by Tanacharison, a friendly Indian chief, otherwise called Half King, that a French party was seeking him, Washington advanced, a skirmish ensued, M. de Junonville, the French commandant, and ten of his men were killed, and twenty-two taken prisoners, one of whom was wounded. One of Col. Washington's men was killed, and two or three wounded. This event occurred on the 28th of May, 1754.
Washington was soon joined by the rest of his regiment (his rank was Lieut. Colonel, but he had succeeded to the command on the death of Col. Joseph Fry,) raising his force to six hundred men. He erected a stockade at Great Meadows, called Fort Necessity, and pushed on towards Fort Du Quesne. The approach of a much superior force
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
under M. de Villiers, brother of Junonville, obliged him to fall back to Fort Necessity. His troops were fatigued, dis- couraged and short of provisions ; and, after a day's fighting, he agreed to give up the fort, and to retire with his arms and baggage. Having retired to Wills creek, Washington's troops assisted in the erection of Fort Cumberland, which now became the frontier post of Virginia.
We need not repeat the tale of Braddock's defeat. It occurred on the 9th of July, 1755. An expedition against Niagara also failed.
Singular as it may seem in this paper age, war was not declared between England and France until May, 1756. This year was also barren of results.
Nothing decisive until 1758. Then, among other tri- umphs of English arms, Fort Du Quesne was abandoned on the approach of Gen. Forbes through Pennsylvania. With the fall of this fort ceased all direct contest in the West. From that time, Canada was the scene of operations, but in 1759, Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Niagara, and at length Quebec itself, yielded to the English; and, on the 8th of September, 1760, Montreal, Detroit, and all Canada were given up by Vaudreuil, the French Governor.
Our statement that Fort Sandusky was built and occupied by the French as early as 1750-1, is now seen to be fully sustained by the journal of Gist, and the essay of Franklin (both contemporary documents) as well as by the opinion of Bancroft. The exact locality of this stockade cannot be ascertained, but the probability is, on a comparison of all the references which have fallen under our notice, that the site was about three miles west of the city of Sandusky, near the village of Venice, on Sandusky Bay. The trail from Fort Du Quesne, afterwards Fort Pitt, and now Pittsburg, to
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AN INDIAN TRAIL.
Detroit, evidently struck Sandusky Bay, near the locality above mentioned, and Fort Sandusky was not probably far from that trail.
All the Revolutionary treaties with the Ohio Indians, as well as the treaties of January 9, 1789, at Fort Harmar, and August 3, 1795, at Greenville, contain grants to the United States of " six miles square upon Sandusky Lake, where the Fort formerly stood." On a map of Ohio, pub- lished in 1803, this tract is clearly delineated as extending from the south shore of Sandusky Bay, and including the locality which we have supposed to be the situation of Fort Sandusky. Parkman, in a chart of "Forts and Settlements in America, A. D. 1763," places nothing within the present limits of the State of Ohio, except Fort Sandusky, which is situated on the Bay or Lake of that name. The allusions to Fort Sandusky imply so distinctly that it was near Lake Erie, or easily accessible therefrom, that the opinion has been expressed, that the Fort was situated on the peninsula north of the Bay ; and Evans' "Map of the British Colo- nies," published in 1755, represents Fort Sandusky on the left side of the outlet of the Bay, and marks a Fort Junan- dat (a probable corruption of Wyandot) near the mouth of the Sandusky River, on the south side. This location of Fort Sandusky, placing it in Danbury township, Ottawa county, is universally contradicted by subsequent charts and descriptions, and we have adopted an opinion in favor of the location on the great northwestern trail. That trail we sup- pose to have struck a point on the Tuscarawas River, near the junction of Sandy creek, on the southern border of Stark county ; thence westward through the southern tier of town- ships in Wayne county, and the towns of Mohican and Ver- million, in Ashland county ; thence turning northwest through
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IIISTORY OF OHIO.
Mifflin, Franklin and Plymouth townships, of Richland county, crossing the Black Fork of the Walhonding or Whitewoman River twice ; still more northwardly through the townships of New Haven, Greenfield, Peru and Ridgefield, of Huron county, striking across a bend in the Huron River ; and so through Erie county northwestwardly in the direction of De- troit.
CHAPTER VII.
A PICTURE OF OHIO ONE HUNDRED YEARS SINCE.
IT is in our power, by transcribing freely from a Narrative of the Captivity of Col. James Smith among the Ohio Indians, between May, 1755, and April, 1759, to present a picture of the wilderness and its savage occupants, which, bearing intrinsic evidence of faithful accuracy, is also corroborated by the public and private character of the writer.
Col. James Smith was a native of Pennsylvania, and after his return from Indian captivity, was entrusted, in 1763, with the command of a company of riflemen. He trained his men in the Indian tactics and discipline, and directed them to assume the dress of warriors, and to paint their faces red and black, so that in appearance they were hardly distinguish- able from the enemy. Some of his exploits in the defence of the Pennsylvania border are less creditable to him than his services in the war of the Revolution. He lived until the year 1812, and is the author of a Treatise on the Indian mode of warfare. In Kentucky, where he spent the latter part of his life, he was much respected, and several times elected to the Legislature.
The first edition of Smith's Journal was published in Lexington, Kentucky, by John Bradford, in 1799.1 Samuel G. Drake, the Indian antiquarian and author, accompanies
1) Sec a volume entitled "Indian Captivities, or Life in the Wigwam ; " by S. G. Drake, author of the "Book of the Indians; " Derby & Miller, publish- crs, Auburn, N. Y
(81)
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
its republication in 1851 by a tribute to Smith as “an exemplary Christian and unwavering patriot."
In the spring of 1755, James Smith, then eighteen years of age, was captured by three Indians, (two Delawares and one Canasatauga,) about four or five miles above Bedford, in Western Pennsylvania. He was immediately led to the banks of the Alleghany River, opposite Fort Du Quesne, where he was compelled to run the gauntlet between two long ranks of Indians, each stationed about two or three rods apart. His treatment was not severe, until near the end of the lines, when he was felled by a blow from a stick or tomahawk han- dle, and, on attempting to rise, was blinded by sand thrown into his eyes. The blows continued until he became insensi- ble, and when he recovered his consciousness, he found him- self within the fort, much bruised, and under the charge of a French physician.
While yet unrecovered from his wounds, Smith was a wit- ness of the French exultation and the Indian orgies over the disastrous defeat of Braddock. A few days afterwards, his Indian captors placed him in a canoe, and ascended the Alle- ghany River to an Indian town on the north side of the river, about forty' miles above Fort Du Quesne. Here they remained three weeks, when the party proceeded to a village on the west branch of the Muskingum, about twenty miles above the forks. This village was called Tullihas, and was . inhabited by Delawares, Caughnewagas and Mohicans.2 The
2) Heckewelder, in his History of the Indian Nations (p. 77), says that the Cochnewago Indians were a remnant of the Mohicans of New England, who had fled to the shores of the St. Lawrence, where they incorporated themselves with the Iroquois, and became a mixed race, of course under French influence. A number of the Mohicans from Connecticut emigrated to Ohio in 1762, and their chief was " Mohican John," whose village was on the trail from Sandusky to Fort Pitt, near the township of Mohican, in Ashland county, according to our reckoning.
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OHIO ONE HUNDRED YEARS SINCE.
soil between the Alleghany and Muskingum rivers, on the route here designated, is described as "chiefly black oak and white oak land, which appeared generally to be good wheat land, chiefly second and third rate, intermixed with some rich bottoms."
While remaining at Tullihas, Smith describes the manner of his adoption by the Indians and other ceremonies, which we prefer to give in his own words :
" The day after my arrival at the aforesaid town, a num- ber of Indians collected about me, and one of them began to pull the hair out of my head. He had some ashes on a piece of bark, in which he frequently dipped his fingers in order to take the firmer hold, and so he went on, as if he had been plucking a turkey, until he had all the hair clean out of my head, except a small spot about three or four inches square on my crown. This they cut off with a pair of scissors, ex- cepting threc locks, which they dressed up in their own mode. Two of these they wrapped round with a narrow beaded garter, made by themselves for that purpose, and the other they plaited at full length, and then stuck it full of silver brooches. After this they bored my nose and cars, and fixed me off with car-rings and nosc-jewels. Then they ordered me to strip off my clothes and put on a breech-clout, which I did. They then painted my head, face and body, in various colors. They put a large belt of wampum on my neck, and silver bands on my hands and right arm ; and so an old Chief led me out on the street, and gave the alarm halloo, coo-wigh, several times, repeated quick ; and on this, all that were in the town came running and stood round the old Chief, who held me by the hand in the midst. As I at that time knew nothing of their mode of adoption, and had seen them put to death all they had taken, and as I never
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
could find that they saved a man alive at Braddock's defeat, I made no doubt but they were about putting me to death in some cruel manner. The old Chief holding me by the hand, made a long speech, very loud, and when he had done, he handed me to three young squaws, who led me by the hand down the bank, into the river, until the water was up to our middle. The squaws then made signs to me to plunge my- self into the water, but I did not understand them. I thought the result of the council was that I should be drowned, and that these young ladies were to be the executioners. They all three laid violent hold of me, and I for some time opposed them with all my might, which occasioned loud laughter by the multitude that were on the bank of the river. At length one of the squaws made out to speak a little English (for I believe they began to be afraid of me) and said 'No hurt you.' On this I gave myself up to their ladyships, who were as good as their word ; for though they plunged me under water, and washed and rubbed me severely, yet I could not say they hurt me much.
" These young women then led me up to the council house, where some of the tribe were ready with new clothes for me. They gave me a new ruffled shirt, which I put on, also a pair of leggins done off with ribbons and beads, likewise a pair of moccasins, and garters dressed with beads, porcupine quills and red hair-also a tinsel-laced cappo. They again painted my head and face with various colors, and tied a bunch of red feathers to one of those locks they had left on the crown of my head, which stood up five or six inches. They seated me on a bear-skin and gave me a pipe, toma- hawk and polecat-skin pouch, which had been skinned pocket- fashion, and contained tobacco, killegenico, or dry sumach leaves, which they mix with their tobacco ; also spunk, flint
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OHIO ONE HUNDRED YEARS SINCE.
and steel. When I was thus seated, the Indians came in, dressed and painted in their grandest manner. As they came in, they took their seats, and for a considerable time there was a profound silence-every one was smoking; but not a word was spoken among them. At length one of the Chiefs made a speech, which was delivered to me by an in- terpreter, and was as followeth : 'My son, you are now flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. By the ceremony which was performed this day, every drop of white blood was washed out of your veins ; you are taken into the Caughne- wago nation and initiated into a war-like tribe ; you are adopted into a great family, and now received with great seriousness and solemnity in the room and place of a great man. After what has passed this day, you are now one of us by an old strong law and custom. My son, you have now nothing to fear-we are now under the same obligations to love, support and defend you that we are to love and defend one another ; therefore you are to consider yourself as one of our people.' At this time I did not believe this fine speech, especially that of the white blood being washed out of me ; but since that time I have found that there was much sincerity in said speech ; for, from that day, I never knew them to make any distinction between me and themselves, in any respect whatever, until I left them. If they had plenty of clothing, I had plenty ; if we were scarce, we all shared one fate.
"After this ceremony was over, I was introduced to my new kin, and told that I was to attend a feast that evening, which I did. And as the custom was, they gave me also a bowl and wooden spoon, which I carried with me to the place, where there was a number of large brass kettles, full of boiled venison and green corn ; every one advanced with
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
his bowl and spoon, and had his share given him. After this, one of the chiefs made a short speech, and then we began to eat.
"The name of one of the chiefs in this town, was Tecany- aterighto, alias Pluggy, and the other Asallecoa, alias Mo- hawk Solomon. As Pluggy and his party were to start the next day to war, to the frontiers of Virginia, the next thing to be performed was the war dance, and their war songs. At their war dance, they had both vocal and instrumental music ; they had a short hollow gum, closed at one end, with water in it, and parchment stretched over the open end thereof, which they beat with one stick, and made a sound nearly like a muffled drum. All those who were going on this expedition, collected together and formed. An old Indian then began to sing, and timed the music by beating on this drum, as the ancients formerly timed their music by beating the tabor. On this, the warriors began to advance, or move forward in concert, like well disciplined troops would march to the fife and drum. Each warrior had a tomahawk, spear, or war-mallet in his hand, and they all moved regu- larly toward the east, or the way they intended to go to war. At length they all stretched their tomahawks toward the Potomac, and giving a hideous shout or yell, they wheeled quick about, and danced in the same manner back. The next was the war song. In performing this, only one sung at a time, in a moving posture, with a tomahawk in his hand, while all the other warriors were engaged in calling aloud, he uh, he uh, which they constantly repeated while the war song was going on. When the warrior that was singing had ended his song, he struck a war-post with his tomahawk, and with a loud voice told what warlike exploits he had done, and what he now intended to do, which were answered by
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OHIO ONE HUNDRED YEARS SINCE.
the other warriors with loud shouts of applause. Some who had not before intended to go to war at this time, were so animated by this performance, that they took up the toma- hawk and sung the war song, which was answered with shouts of joy, as they were then initiated into the present marching company. The next morning this company all collected at one place, with their heads and faces painted with various colors, and packs upon their backs ; they marched off, all silent, except the commander, who, in the front, sung the traveling song, which began in this manner : hoo caughtainteheegana. Just as the rear passed the end of the town, they began to fire in their slow manner, from the front to the rear, which was accompanied with shouts and yells from all quarters.
"This evening I was invited to another sort of dance, which was a kind of promiscuous dance. The young men stood in one rank, and the young women in another, about one rod apart, facing each other. The one that raised the tune, or started the song, held a small gourd or dry shell of a squash in his hand, which contained beads or small stones, which rattled. When he began to sing, he timed the tune with his rattle; both men and women danced and sung together, advancing towards each other, stooping until their heads would be touching together, and then ceased from dancing, with loud shouts, and retreated and formed again, and so repeated the same thing over and over, for three or four hours, without intermission. This exercise appeared to me at first irrational and insipid; but I found that in singing their tunes ya ne no hoo wa ne, &c., like our fa sol la, and though they have no such thing as jingling verse, yet they can intermix sentences with their notes, and say what they please to each other, and carry on the tune in concert.
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
I found that this was a kind of wooing or courting dance, and as they advanced stooping with their heads together, they could say what they pleased in each other's ear, with- out disconcerting their rough music, and the others, or those near, not hear what they said."
Smith describes an expedition, about thirty or forty miles southwardly, to a spot which he supposed to be between the Muskingum, Ohio and Scioto rivers-perhaps in Licking county. It was a buffalo lick, where the Indians killed sev- eral buffalo, and in their small brass kettles made about half a bushel of salt. Here were clear open woods, and thin white oak land, with several paths, like wagon roads, leading to the lick.
Returning to the Indian village on the Muskingum, Smith obtained an English Bible, which Pluggy and his party had brought back among other spoils of an expedition as far as the south branch of the Potomac. He remained at Tullihas until October, when he accompanied his adopted brother, whose name was Tontileaugo, and who had married a Wyandot woman, to Lake Erie. Their route was up the west branch of the Muskingum, through a country which for some distance - was " hilly, but intermixed with large bodies of tolerable rich upland and excellent bottoms." They proceeded to the head waters of the west branch of Muskingum, and thence crossed to the waters of a stream, called by Smith the Cane- sadooharie. This was probably the Black River, which, rising in Ashland, and traversing Medina and Lorain counties, (at least by the course of its east branch,) falls into Lake Erie a few miles north of Elyria.3 If we suppose that Tul- lihas, situated twenty miles above the principal forks of Muskingum, was near the junction of the Vernon and Mo-
3) See Appendix, No. V.
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OHIO ONE HUNDRED YEARS SINCE.
hican Rivers, on the border of Knox and Coshocton counties, Smith and his companion probably followed what is called on Thayers' Map of Ohio the " Lake fork of the Mohican," until they reached the northern portion of Ashland county, and there struck the headwaters of the Canesadooharie, where, as Smith testifies, they found " a large body of rich, well-lying land ; the timber, ash, walnut, sugartree, buckeye, honey- locust and cherry, intermixed with some oak and hickory." Let us here resume the Narrative :
" On this route we had no horses with us, and when we started from the town, all the pack I carried was a pouch, containing my books, a little dried venison, and my blanket. I had then no gun, but Tontileaugo, who was a first rate hunter, carried a rifle gun, and every day killed deer, rac- coons or bears. We left the meat, excepting a little for present use, and carried the skins with us until we encamped, and then stretched them with elm bark on a frame made with poles stuck in the ground, and tied together with lynn or elm bark ; and when the skins were dried by the fire, we packed them up and carried them with us the next day.
" As Tontileaugo could not speak English, I had to make use of all the Caughnewaga I had learned, even to talk very imperfectly with him ; but I found I learned to talk Indian faster this way than when I had those with me who could speak English.
" As we proceeded down the Canesadooharie waters, our packs increased by the skins that were daily killed, and became so very heavy that we could not march more than eight or ten miles per day. We came to Lake Erie about six miles west of the mouth of Canesadooharie. As the wind was very high the evening we came to the lake, I was sur- prised to hear the roaring of the water, and see the high 4*
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
waves that dashed against the shore like the ocean. We encamped on a run near the lake, and as the wind fell that night, the next morning the surface was only in a moderate motion, and we marched on the sand along the side of the water, frequently resting ourselves as we were heavy laden. I saw on the strand a number of large fish that had been left in flat or hollow places : as the wind fell and the waves aba- ted, they were left without water, or only a small quantity, and numbers of bald and gray eagles, &c., were along the shore devouring them.
" Some time in the afternoon we came to a large camp of Wyandots, at the mouth of Canesadooharie, where Tontil- eaugo's wife was. Here we were kindly received : they gave us a kind of rough brown potatoes, which grew spontaneously, and were called by the Caughnewagas ohnenata. These potatoes peeled, and dipped in raccoon's fat, taste nearly like our sweet potatoes. They also gave us what they called caneheanta, which is a kind of hominy made of green corn, dried, and beans mixed together.
" From the headwaters of Canesadooharie to this place the land is generally good-chiefly first or second rate, and com- paratively little or no third rate. The only refuse is some swamps that appear to be too wet for use, yet I apprehend that a number of them, if drained, would make excellent meadows. The timber is black oak, walnut, hickory, cherry, black ash, white ash, water ash, buckeye, black locust, honey locust, sugar-tree and elm. There is also some land, though comparatively but small, where the timber is chiefly white oak or beech ; this may be called third rate. In the bottoms, and also many places in the uplands, there is a large quantity of wild apple, plum, and red and black haw trees. It appeared to be well watered, and a plenty of meadow ground
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OHIO ONE HUNDRED YEARS SINCE.
intermixed with upland, but no large prairies or glades that I saw or heard of. In this route deer, bear, turkeys and raccoons appeared plenty, but no buffalo, and very little signs of elks.
" We continued our camp at the mouth of Canesadooharie for some time, where we killed some deer and a great many raccoons : the raccoons here were remarkably large and fat. At length we all embarked in a large birch bark canoe. This vessel was about four feet wide and three feet deep, and about five and thirty fect long ; and though it could carry a heavy burden, it was so artfully and curiously constructed that four men could carry it several miles, or from one land- ing place to another, or from the waters of the lake to the waters of the Ohio. We proceeded up Canesadooharie a few miles, and went on shore to hunt ; but to my great sur- prise, they carried the vessel that we all came in up the bank, and inverted it, or turned the bottom up, and conver- ted it into a dwelling house, and kindled a fire before us to warm ourselves by and cook. With our baggage and our- selves in this house, we were very much crowded, yet our little house turned off the rain very well.
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