Ohio annals : Historic events in the Tuscarawas and Muskingum Valleys, and in other portions of the state of Ohio, Part 11

Author: Mitchener, Charles Hallowell, ed
Publication date: 1876
Publisher: Dayton, Ohio : Thomas W. Odell
Number of Pages: 380


USA > Ohio > Ohio annals : Historic events in the Tuscarawas and Muskingum Valleys, and in other portions of the state of Ohio > Part 11


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his scalp. Mrs. Smiek, somewhat used to the rough edge of border life, arose, took Cornstalk into another room and showed him Glikhican, whom she had been hiding from his enemies for some days, and her husband intending to send him to Fort Pitt as a place of safety, but all the paths were filled with hostile Indian bands going to and returning from war, and hence he had to be hid. Cornstalk, who was an old acquaintance of the Delaware, after some talk, told her he would see the chief safely on his way. So, taking a woman's gown and bonnet of that day, he gave them to Glikhican, told him to put them on and follow. He shook the lady by the hand and left. That evening he abruptly appeared again, and told her he had sent Glikhican out of danger by a guard of his own warriors, and now, having saved his life, and perhaps hers, he affectionately asked her to leave the mission and go with him to his town on the Scioto and become his wife, as he had little doubt but that her husband was captured or killed. The woman arose within her, and yet artfully concealing her indignation, she begged a short time to make up her mind, and with a little flirtation on her part to please the chief, left him alone; in a few moments he was asleep from the fatigues of the day. But not her. She dispatched a runner to Salem, where Smiek had gone for a three days' visit, telling him to hasten and bring back her husband, or Cornstalk would take her off-being then in their house. Smiek set out and reached his home before Cornstalk awoke that night. As soon as the great chief became aware of his return he became much dejected, but frankly told the missionary of his new born love for the white woman, and then in a manly way dis- avowed any intention of offense in proposing to her to be- come the wife of a chief. Smiek, in a true Christian spirit, took him by the hand and leading him to her presence, Cornstalk made the same disavowal to her, and taking from his plume an eagle feather placed it on her head, declaring that he now adopted Mr. Smiek into his nation as a brother, and Mrs. Smick as a sister. He then hastily bid them an


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adieu, and was soon off with his warriors on their journey. Ile was killed the same summer, as elsewhere related, but before going to the fatal Point Pleasant, he had again visited sister Smick and her husband at Gnadenhutten.


SKETCH OF FORT LAURENS ON THE TUSCARAWAS- NAMES OF OTHER FORTS IN OHIO, &c., &c.


N. 20° W


a


CULTIVATEL)


6


SPRING


)


C


WOODS


FIELD


130 ft


OHIO


CANAL


TUSCARAWAS R.


1


a-gateway ten feet wide. b b b b-bastions.


Through the kindness of President Whittlesy, of the Northern Ohio Historical Society, I am enabled to produce the above plan of Fort Laurens, one mile south of Bolivar, Tuscarawas county, surveyed by Charles Whittlesy, January, 1850.


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CLEVELAND, OHIO, March 24, 1875.


C. H. MITCHENER, EsQ., New Philadelphia, Ohio:


DEAR SIR :- When I made the accompanying plan of Fort Laurens in January, 1850, that part of the parapet in the cultivated ground was nearly obliterated, but the outline was traceable. The two eastern bastions were very much destroyed by the construction of the Ohio Canal, but the southern curtain, and most of the south-western bastion was then quite perfect along the edge of the woods. Here the base of the parapet was seven feet broad, its height four and a half feet, and the depth of the ditch two and one-half feet, with a breadth of eight feet. It was a regularly laid out work, though small, and was probably picketed along the inner edge of the ditch, connecting the earthwork and stockade.


The ground is an alluvial plain, elevated about twenty feet above the water of the Tuscarawas, and the soil dry and gravelly.


Across the bottom land east of the river is a bluff much higher than the fort, within easy cannon range. It was evidently built for defense against Indians, or parties without artillery.


With this description I trust the engraving will be un- derstood. CHARLES WHITTLESY.


To aid that portion of the western Indians who had joined the American Colonies, as well as to punish those who were continually raiding on the Ohio, and killing the settlers of western Pennsylvania and Virginia, under the instigation of the British at Detroit, Congress, by resolution, early in 1778, appropriated $900,000 to fit out an expedition intended to penetrate the Indian country. General Wash- ington appointed General Lachlan McIntosh, to command the expedition, which rendezvoused at Fort Pitt. From that point it cut a road to the mouth of Beaver River, and built Fort McIntosh. While there the General was advised by Heckewelder's Moravian Indian spies, that the western


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warriors and hostile Shawanese and Delawares intended to oppose his march west and give him battle at Sugar Creek, near the present town of Dover, Tuscarawas county. He received this word on the 3d of November, 1778, and on the 5th his army was on the march to the Tuscarawas, which by reason of numerous obstacles, such as bad roads, poor horses, &c., he did not reach for fourteen days. In a letter written by him to General Washington in April, 1779, giving an account of what he had done, he details all his troubles about Fort Laurens. Extract :


" CAMP (PITTSBURGH), April 27, 1779.


"SIR: In obedience to your Excellency's desire, I am to inform you of the situation of the several posts west of the mountains, and will add the reasons for establishing them, which may enable you to judge the better of their propriety.


" When I went there first I found Fort Pitt on the fork of the Ohio, Fort Randolph at the point or mouth of Great Kenhawa, three hundred miles down the Ohio River, and Fort Hand on the Kiskiminatis, fixed stations and garri- soned by Continental troops; and they are still kept up, as there is an independent company raised upon the applica- tion of Colonel George Morgan for the sole purpose of maintaining each, and would not weaken the force I had to carry on the expedition. Besides these there were thirty or forty other little stations or forts, at different times garri- soned by militia, between Wheeling and Pittsburgh, upon the waters of the Monongahela, the Kiskiminatis, and in the interior parts of the settlements, which were frequently altered, kept, or evacuated, according to the humors, fears, or interest of the people of most influence, which Gen- eral Hand was obliged to comply with, as his chief de- pendence was upon militia. Those I endeavored to break up as soon as I could, without giving too much offense to people whose assistance I so much required, as they were very expensive and of little service, and for that end author- ized the lieutenants of Monongahela and Ohio counties to


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raise a ranging company jointly, of one captain, one lieu- tenant, one ensign, three sergeants, three corporals, and fifty-four privates, to scout continually the Ohio River front Beaver Creek downward, where the Indians usually crossed to annoy these two counties, and would secure them equally alike; and the lieutenant of Westmoreland County to raise two such companies to secure their frontiers and protect them from scalping parties of the Mingoes or northern In- dians, which would render their little force useless and keep our regulars entire for other occasions.


"I found, also, upon inquiry, a number of stores or mag- azines of provisions, built at public expense by our pur- chasing commissary, at great distances, difficult of access, and scattered throughout all the counties, which required a number of men at each for commissaries, coopers, packers, guards, &c. These I also discharged and gave the stores up, as, by the report of a court of inquiry, all the provis- ions in them which were intended for an expedition proved to be spoiled and altogether useless through neglect, and in place of them I had one general storehouse built by a fatigue party, in the fork of the Monongahela River, where all loads from over the mountains are now discharged with- out crossing any considerable branch of any river, and can be carried from thence at any season, either by land or water, to Big Beaver Creek, to which place I opened a road and built a strong post with barracks and stores, by fatigues of whole line upon the Indian shore of the Ohio River, for the reception of all our stores, clear of all ferries and in- eumbrances while our troops and supplies were coming up, and in case I was disappointed in both. I had many rea- sons to apprehend it would secure a footing so far ad- vanced into the enemies' country, and enable me to be better prepared for another attempt, and show them we were in earnest.


" So late as the 3d of November, Mr. Lockhart appeared at Beaver with the cattle extremely poor, after driving then four or five hundred miles, meeting with many obstacles,


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and could not slaughter them for want of salt. The same day I received a message from the savages, reproaching our tardiness, and threatening that all their nations would join to oppose my progress to Detroit at Sugar Creek, a few miles below Tuscarawas, where they intended giving me battle.


" Immediately upon this intelligence I ordered twelve hundred men to be ready to march, though we had but four weeks' flour, which Mr. Lockhart fortunately brought with him, and left Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell with the rest of the troops at Beaver, to escort and send after me the long- looked for supplies, so repeatedly promised by our deputy quartermaster-general, Mr. Steel, when they arrived, and in the meantime to finish the fort and stores.


" We were fourteen days upon our march, about seventy miles, to Tuscarawas, as our horses and cattle tired every four or five miles from our first setting out, and were met there only by some Cochecking Delawares and Moravians (Indians), who informed me that the Chippewas and Otta- was refused to join the other Indians, upon which their hearts failed them, and none came to oppose our march. But unfortunately a letter by express from Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, a little afterward, informed me that no supplies came yet, and we had very little to expect during the win- ter, nor could he get the staff to account for, or give any reasons for their neglect and deficiencies, which disappointed all my flattering prospects and schemes, and left me no other alternative than either to march back as I came without effecting any valuable purpose, for which the world would justly reflect upon me after so much expense, and confirm the savages in the opinion the enemy inculcates of our weakness, and unite all of them to a man against us, or to build a strong stockade fort upon the Muskingum, and leave as many men as our provisions would allow to secure it until the next season, and to serve as a bridle upon the savages in the heart of their own country; which last I chose, with the unanimous approbation of my principal offi-


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cers, and we were employed upon it while our provisions lasted.


" I have the honor to be your Excellency's most obedient and humble servant, LACHLAN MCINTOSH."


Doctor Philip Dodridge, in his "Notes," published about 1824, says :


"Some time after the completion of the fort the general returned with his army to Fort Pitt, leaving Colonel John Gibson, with a command of one hundred and fifty men to protect the fort until spring. The Indians were soon acquainted with the existence of the fort. The first annoy- ance the garrison received from the Indians was some time in the month of January. In the night time they caught most of the horses belonging to the fort, and, taking them off some distance in the woods, they took off their bells and formed an ambuscade by the side of a path, leading through high grass of a prairie at a little distance from the fort. In the morning the Indians rattled the horse bells at the further end of the line of the ambuscade. The plan succeeded. A fatigue of sixteen men went out for the horses and fell into the snare. Fourteen were killed on the spot, two were taken prisoners, one of whom was given up at the close of the war, the other was never afterward heard of.


" General Benjamin Biggs, then a captain in the fort, be- ing officer of the day, requested leave of the colonel to go out with the fatigue party which fell into the ambuscade. 'No,' said the colonel, 'this fatigue party does not belong to a captain's command. When I shall have occasion to employ one of that number I shall be thankful for your service, at present you must attend to your duty in the fort. On what trivial circumstances do life and death sometimes depend.


" In the evening of the day of the ambuscade the whole Indian army, in full war dress and painted, marched in single file through a prairie in view of the fort. Their number, as counted from one of the bastions, was eight


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hundred and forty-seven. They then took up their encamp- ment on an elevated piece of ground at a small distance from the fort, on the opposite side of the river. From this camp they frequently held conversations with the people of our garrison. In these conversations they seemed to de- plore the long continuance of the war and hoped for peace, but were much exasperated at the Americans for attempt- ing to penetrate so far into their country. This great body of Indians continued the investment of the fort as long as they could obtain subsistence, which was about six weeks.


"An old Indian of the name of John Thompson, who was with the American army in the fort, frequently went out among the Indians during their stay at their encamp- ment, with the mutual consent of both parties. A short time before the Indians left the place they sent word to Col. Gibson by the Indian that they were desirous of peace, and if he would send them a barrel of flour they would send in their proposals the next day, but although the colonel com- plied with their request, they marched off without fulfill- ing their engagement.


"The commander, supposing the whole number of the Indians had gone off, gave permission to Colonel Clark, of the Pennsylvania line, to escort the invalids, to the number of eleven or twelve, to Fort McIntosh. The whole number of this detachment was fifteen. The wary Indians had left a party behind for the purpose of doing mischief. These attacked this party of invalids and their escort about three miles from the fort, and killed the whole of them, with the exception of four, among whom was the captain, who ran back to the fort. On the same day a detachment went out from the fort, brought in the dead, and buried them with the honors of war in front of the fort gate.


" In three or four days after this disaster a relief of seven hundred men, under General McIntosh, arrived at the fort with a supply of provisions, a great part of which was lost by an untoward accident. When the relief had reached within a hundred yards of the fort, the garrison gave them


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a salute of a general discharge of musketry, at the report of which the pack-horses took fright, broke loose, and scat- tered the provisions in every direction through the woods, so that the greater part of it could never be recovered again.


"Among other transactions which took place about this time was that of gathering up the remains of the fourteen men, who had fallen in the ambuscade during the winter, for interment, and which could not be done during the in- vestment of the place by the Indians. They were found mostly devoured by the wolves. The fatigue party dug a pit large enough to contain the remains of all of them, and after depositing them in the pit, merely covering them with a little earth, with a view to have revenge on the wolves for devouring their companions, they covered the pit with slender sticks, rotten wood, and bits of bark, not of sufficient strength to bear the weight of a wolf. On the top of this covering they placed a piece of meat as a bait for the wolves. The next morning seven of them were found in the pit; they were shot, and the pit filled up.


" For about two weeks before the relief arrived, the gar- rison had been put on the short allowance of half a pound of sour flour, and an equal weight of stinking meat for every two days. The greater part of the last week they had nothing to subsist on but such roots as they could find in the woods and prairies, and raw hides. Two men lost their lives by eating wild parsnip roots by mistake. Four more nearly shared the same fate, but were saved by medi- cal aid.


"On the evening of the arrival of the relief, two days' rations were issued to each man in the fort. These rations were intended as their allowance during their march to Fort McIntosh, but many of the men, supposing them to have been back rations, cat up the whole of their allowance be- fore the next morning. In consequence of this imprudence in eating immoderately, after such extreme starvation from the want of provisions, about forty of the men became faint and sick during the first day's march. On the second day,


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however, the sufferers were met by a great number of their friends from the settlements to which they belonged, by whom they were amply supplied with provisions."


Major Varnum, sometimes called Vernon, succeeded Colonel Gibson in command at Fort Laurens, and so re- mained until the abandonment of the works. General McIntosh was relieved at Fort Pitt and Fort McIntosh, and succeeded by Colonel Gibson, who was succeeded by Colonel Brodhead, who, on the 15th of April, 1779, wrote Governor Reed, of Pennsylvania, from Fort Pitt, that his forces " have been divided-one hundred at Fort Laurens, twenty- five at Wheeling, twenty-five at Holliday's Cove, &c."


On the 16th of May he wrote General Armstrong, ridicul- ing McIntosh for having erected Fort McIntosh at Beaver, and although he was then silent as to Fort Laurens, what- ever criticism attached to the one attached to the other, for Laurens was only an out-post to Fort McIntosh.


May 22, 1779, Colonel Brodhead wrote to Colonel George Morgan that he "had got a small supply of salt meat at Carlisle, and sent it to Fort Laurens, otherwise the fort would have had to be abandoned at once."


May 30, 1779, he wrote to Major Frederick Varnum at Fort Laurens, "that Moses Killbuck had just come in from Fort Laurens and told him that the garrison was without subsistence, and the men so low from starvation that many could not keep their feet."


May 31, 1779, he wrote to Colonel Lochry that "Fort Laurens is threatened by a considerable force," and he called for recruits and horses to relieve the fort.


The fort was soon after threatened by about one hundred and ninety British Indians and a few British soldiers, said to be under the leadership of Simon Girty, but the enemy moved off toward the Ohio without making an attack. Had the attack been made at that time, there could have been no other result than surrender and massacre.


August 1, 1779, Colonel Brodhead wrote to Ensign John Beck, then at Fort Laurens, that he "has notice of two


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squads of Indians, twenty in each squad, going toward the Tuscarawas, and he hopes that the soldiers coming in from Fort Laurens will meet and scourge them."


August 4, 1779, he wrote to General Washington that he " has just learned of two soldiers being killed at Fort Laurens."


These were probably the two referred to by Heckewelder, who, in his narrative, says that in the summer of 1779 the commander at Fort Laurens sent a Mr. Sample, his com- missary, with a squad of men to the forks of the Muskin- gum to purchase corn, and such provisions as could be obtained from the mission at Lichtenau (two miles below the Coshocton of this day), and from the friendly Delawares at Goshocking (Coshocton), where their capital was located. Sample pitched his tent on the opposite side of the river from the Indian village, leaving one soldier to guard his camp and horses, and crossed over to the town. In a short time the scalp yell was heard across the river, and hurrying to the river bank they saw hostile Indians going off with the horses and the scalp of Sample's soldier. On the next day another soldier was fired at and wounded. The Dela- ware chiefs sent out a force and recovered Sample's horses, and he returned to Fort Laurens with some provisions.


August 6, 1779, Colonel Brodhead wrote to General Sulli- van from Fort Pitt, who was then in command in northern Pennsylvania, that he was "daily expecting the garrison from Fort Laurens; when it arrived he would start on his campaign up the Cannewaga," and from the fact that his expedition up the Alleghany did start in a short time, it is certain the garrison left Fort Laurens in August, 1779, but there is no published record of the exact date the fort was abandoned.


From all the facts about this Fort Laurens enterprise, it seems that Varnum's garrison had suffered so many priva- tions that they took what we call at this day " French leave" of the fort, and made their way back to the Ohio as best they could, in their starved condition, after burning


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everything likely to impede their retreat, or that would be of use to the Indians if captured.


But the fort itself was not destroyed. It remained intact as late as 1782, as is learned from the statement of a young · man named Carpenter, who was captured by the Indians in Washington County, Pennsylvania, early that year, and brought by them, with a lot of stolen horses, to one of their camps on the Muskingum, probably Goshocking, as Hecke- welder called it, Goshuckgunk as the Indians called it, and Coshocton as we call it. Carpenter made his escape, and ran for his life up the valley trail, past the burned Salem, Gnadenhutten, and Schoenbrunn towns, and reached Fort Laurens, which he found unoccupied, but in good condition. Thence he made his way east to the Ohio over the big trail, and reached home in the fall of 1782.


Henry Jolly, who was one of the Fort Laurens soldiers, says in a statement he published, that "the army marched with such rapidity from Beaver to the Tuscarawas that the Indians were not aware of its approach until the fort was near completion." This is an error. McIntosh, in his let- ter to Washington, says it took fourteen days to go from Beaver to the Tuscarawas, a distance of seventy miles only, over the great trail, constantly followed by the savages in their raids to and from the Ohio border settlements. An- other trail from the lower towns of the Muskingum mis- sions, Lichtenan, Salem, and Gnadenhutten, passed near what is now Uhrichsville, and connected with the big trail at Painted Post, near midway between the Ohio and Tus- carawas, and over which the Christian Indian runners were constantly traveling to and from Fort Pitt with messages. They were as constantly dodging the hostile warriors along this trail; and, with a knowledge of these facts, to suppose that McIntosh with twelve hundred men, marching five miles a day only, was not observed until he got to the Tuscarawas, and nearly finished his fort, is an absurdity on its face.


Mr. Jolly also says, that soon after Fort Laurens was erected, a large force of Indians invested it before the gar-


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rison were aware of being surrounded by an Indian army. This is a mistake also. McIntosh had called on the Mo- ravian Indians to meet him at Tuscarawas, with two Indian companies from the missions. He says but about two dozen were there whan he arrived. These operated as scouts to watch the enemies' approach, for that is what he wanted with them ; and to suppose that these scouts and the old Indian hunters in McIntosh's army would all lay asleep in the fort, being surrounded, without knowing it until the warriors showed themselves before the fort, is simply ridiculous.


Coincident with McIntosh, the great Delaware chief, White Eyes (and who had been supplanted in the affections of many Delawares by Captain Pipe), had conceived the idea of marching an army to the Tuscarawas and building a fort, to awe Pipe and the British Indians. Squads of hos- tile warriors had come down the Mohican and Walhonding, and ware roaming over and scourging the settlements, as did the squads under Alaric and Attila, two thousand years before, come down from the Black Forest and scourge peo- ple in the declining days of Rome. The Wyandots had an order to bring back to Detroit the scalps of Zeisberger, White Eyes, and Killbuck, and destroy the missions. White Eyes retired to Fort Pitt for safety, and when MeIn- tosh's project was unfolded to him he declared that he would go with the army, and during its march White Eyes died of small-pox, as stated by Heckewelder. Professor DeSchweinitz, in his life of Zeisberger, says White Eyes died November 10, 1778, at "Tuscarawas in the midst of the army of white men." Fort Laurens was erected in close proximity to the ancient Indian town called " Tusca- rawas," which Colonel Boquet found abandoned in 1764, but which had over one hundred lodges or houses then still standing. It had been a seat of the Indian empire, where the chief's of the different nations met and discussed the " public safety," and decided on measures to prevent en- croachments of the whites. The great chief, White Eyes, had orated there against white encroachments in by-gone




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