USA > Ohio > Ohio annals : Historic events in the Tuscarawas and Muskingum Valleys, and in other portions of the state of Ohio > Part 17
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with the hostile tribes, he removed from Girty's Point near the present Napoleon, in Henry County, Ohio, to near Malden, in Canada. He became nearly blind, and took but little part in the war of 1812, and died in Canada in 1818, being over seventy years of age. He left a family, with a name execrated wherever he was known, and yet Jonathan Alder, who was captured by the Indians, and who knew Simon Girty, says this of him : "I knew Simon Girty to purchase, at his own expense, several boys who were pris- oners, and take them to the British and have then educated. He was certainly a friend to many prisoners."
Of the brother, Joseph Girty, we have no precise account, other than an attempt to cut off the ears of a prisoner named Oliver M. Spencer.
George Girty led the Indians in their attack on Fort Henry, at Wheeling, in 1782. Other accounts say it was James Girty who commanded the savages there.
CHAPTER X.
TRADITIONS OF THE SENECAS.
The Senecas and Hurons, or Wyandots, originated along the St. Lawrence, where they lived peaceably for a great many years, but were embroiled in war by a Seneca lady, who refused a Wyandot for husband, on the ground that he had taken no scalps in his time. To gain her affections he laid in ambush, killed her brother, and threw his scalp in her lap. Instead of winning her, the two tribes were compelled to take up the hatchet against each other. The Wyandots moved away; the Senecas followed, and wherever they met both were decimated. Through three generations they and their descendants fought, whipping each other along the lakes, over western New York, north- ern Pennsylvania and Ohio. At length the war ceased, from fear of extermination only; the Wyandots settling in the northwest, while the Senecas settled down in the north- east-both owing allegiance to the Iroquois confederacy. Such is the tradition.
A LEGEND OF SLAUGHTER AT THE SENECA CAPITAL.
A legend exists of a fearful fight that took place between the Senecas and Wyandots, on their return from Braddock's defeat, in 1755. They had fought side by side against the English army, but no sooner had they dispersed toward their homes, than the old unsettled feud between them was
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renewed. The Senecas took the trail by Beaver, Mingo bottom, and west to Tuscarawas. The Wyandots took the upper trail, striking the ridge between the heads of the Elk Eye Creek (Muskingum) and the Hioga (Cuyahoga), where they camped. It was but a day's journey across the present Stark County, to reach their enemies at the Seneca capital. The warriors there suspected their design, and sent out Ogista, an old sachem, who met the Wyandots on the war-path, stealthily approaching the capital. He sent. back a runner to give warning of their coming, and, trust- ing to his age for protection, boldly penetrated into the midst of the enemy, as a peacemaker. The Senecas, upon being apprised of their proximity, sallied out to fight, but were stopped by Ogista, who was returning with an agree- ment, made by him and the opposing chief, to the effect that each tribe should piek twenty warriors, willing to suffer death by single combat. When all were slain, they were to be covered, hatchet in hand, in one grave, and henceforth neither Seneca or Wyandot ever again to raise a bloody hand against the other.
Forty braves were soon selected, and each twenty being surrounded, the tribal war-dances were danced, and the death lamentations sung, when the way being cleared, the carnage commenced, which ended as night intervened, there being one martyr left, with none to strike him down. He was the son of Ogista, who had proposed the sacrifice. The aged man received his weapon, and with it cleaved off the head of his offspring, when the bands gathered the dead into a heap, laying their forty hatchets by their sides, and having raised a mound of earth over them, all repaired to the Seneca capital, closing the fearful scene with a feast, in memoriam of the compact thus sealed with blood, that the hatchet was then forever buried between the Wyandots and Senecas. Twenty-four years afterward, Fort Laurens was erected in sight of the mound. A friendly Delaware, at the fort, was asked by the commander to explain its origin. He related the above legend. In January, 1779,
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the fort was invested by one hundred and eighty Wyandots, Mingoes (Senecas), and Monsies, led by John Montour. Under the impression that the Indians had moved off, a squad of seventeen soldiers went out behind the mound to catch the horses and gather wood. They never returned to the fort-having been ambushed and killed by a party of Wyandot and Seneca warriors, who were worshipping the Great Spirit at the grave of their ancestors and rela- tives.
SKETCH OF CHIEF SHINGASK, OR BOCKONGAHELAS- LEGEND OF HECKEWELDER'S LOVE.
One of the noted war chiefs of the Delawares was Shin- gask, alias Sach-gants-chillas, or Bockongahelas, and called by Judge Burnett, in his notes, Buckingelas, and by other writers, Bockingilla. In 1758, Post met him at Kuskuskee, his town, below Pittsburgh, and took dinner with him. HIe was so noted, and had committed so many depredations on the border, that the Pennsylvania government offered seven hundred dollars for his head. Fearing capture, he retired west to the " Tuscarawas town," where Heckewelder found him in 1762, a chief, instigating the Indians against the English, and the foremost man to prevent Post and Heckewelder from making a permanent settlement. He entered heartily into Pontiac's conspiracy, and led his war- riors-the Turtle tribe of Delawares-in person against Fort Pitt. After the fall of Pontiac he retired to the Mi- ami and Sandusky country, and, in after years, continually annoyed the missionaries. In 1781 he came to Gnaden- hutten with his warriors, and demanded the surrender of Killbuck and other converted chiefs. Receiving reply that; they had gone to Fort Pitt, he had the town searched from house to house, and made a speech exhorting the converts to remove with him to his own country. On their
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refusal he proceeded to Salem, made a like speech, but not onceeeding, abandoned the valley. The Christian Indians, having treated him to a feast at each town, and shown him the greatest respect, he told them that if any one said he was hostile to the believing Indians they should set it down as a lie, and call the man who so represented him a liar. In Wayne's campaign of 1793, he led his warriors in the last battle, and having many wounded, he applied to the British commander at Fort Miami, near by, for shelter to his wounded men; which being refused, he denounced the British as liars, and urged the Indians to make peace. It. is said that it was through his influence that the Greenville treaty was consummated, in 1795. He died at his town, Wapakonneta, in 1804, nearly one hundred years of age. Thornhaler, in his life of Heckewelder, tells us that the young missionary came to the Tuscarawas, as much to study Indian character as to aid in the mission enterprise with Post. He was young, ardent, adventuresome, and soon after Post left for Pennsylvania he felt the loneliness of his hut and solitary life-there being no habitation nearer than Thomas Calhoon's trading-house, a mile distant, to reach which he had to wade the river, and in doing which he contracted a fever that would have carried him off but for Calhoon, who had him taken to his trading-house, and cared for.
Among the visitors often at the trader's store was the wife of Shingask, chief at the Tuscarawas town. She was a white captive, of great beauty in her youth, and had been educated before becoming a prisoner, and wife of the chief. She, as a matter of course, sympathized with and ministered to the sick man, of her own color and race, and in that way gratitude appeared, and affection responded to it, in all probability. The biographer says that one day, after Heck- ewelder had gone back to his cabin, Calhoon sent for him, and, on coming over, he was told that a woman had re- quested him (Calhoon) to bring the missionary away from his hut, as a plot was in existence to scalp him that night.
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On the following morning Calhoon sent two men over to the house, who returned, saying that the house had been broken into the night previous, and plundered. Hecke- welder never slept there again, but remained with Calhoon. The wife of Shingask soon died at Tuscarawas, and Ilecke- welder afterward published a glowing account of the funeral ceremonies : for synopsis of which see article on Post's mis- sion in a former chapter.
The legend is that the wife of Shingask was the same per- son who saved Heckewelder's life by notifying Calhoun of the plot, and that Shingask suspecting her as the informer, and tender friend of Heckewekdler, had her put out of the way by the poison of the may-apple, and the imposing funeral ceremony was gotten up to ward off suspicion of having killed the queen. The lady reader will probably infer that the young missionary would not have taken such pains to give in his history such a detailed statement of the funeral, unless there was some matter of the heart connected therewith, on his part.
Heckewelder, soon after being advised by the friendly Indians that he would lose his life in case he remained, speedily returned to Bethlehem, and did not marry for eighteen years after.
DELAWARE BARONS AND LORDS OF THE FOREST.
The Delawares took possession of the ancient seat of power, Tnscarawas, and used it as their capital, conjointly with such Senecas as remained in the valley. Afterward the Delaware capital was removed down to Gekelemnkpe- chuk, near the present New Comerstown, and from there to Goshockgunk.
The chiefs, Beaver, White Eyes, Pipe, Custaloga, Neta- watwes, and others, had their hamlets, or " country seats," stationed along the river and its branches, within a day's call
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of the ancient capital; they nevertheless were frequenters thereat, and with Shingask, alias Bockingahelas, as chief ruler at the capital, they there concerted war and peace measures, so far as the same affected the three tribes desig- nated Turtle, Turkey, and Wolf tribes, as well as the subor- dinated warriors of other tribes owing fealty to the Dela- wares.
Each chief, having a town, had also his hunting and fish- ing grounds, and to which he and his retainers repaired in the game and fishing seasons to enjoy life free from care. They also had their annual hunts, when all the elaus joined and ranged in common, in pursuit of pleasure, concentrating at a given place or stream, and dividing the product accord- ing to rank and station, and it is worthy of remembrance that before the white man came into the valley, these barons and lords of the American forest, were but little behind the Scottish, Irish, and English gentry of coincident time in Europe, in all the essentials of dignity, self-respect, and honor, as they understood the terms.
Heckewelder was at the " Tuscarawas capital," in 1762, and has preserved their manners and customs, of which a portion are here given.
INDIAN FOOD AND COOKERY-1762.
HIeckewelder says at that time their principal food con- sisted of game, fish, corn, potatoes, beans, pumpkins, cucum- bers, squashes, melons, cabbages, and turnips, roots of plants, fruits, nuts, and berries.
They take but two meals a day. The hunters or fishermen never go out in the middle of the day, except it be cloudy. Their custom is to go out on an empty stomach as a stimu- lant to exertion in shooting game or catching fish.
They make a pottage of corn, dry pumpkins, beans, and chestnuts, and fresh or dried meats, pounded, all sweetened
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with maple sugar or molasses, and well boiled. They also make a good dish of pounded corn and chestnuts, shell- barks and hickory nut kernels, boiled, covering the pots with large pumpkin, cabbage, or other leaves.
They make excellent preserves from cranberries and crab apples, with maple sugar.
Their bread is of two kinds; one made of green, and the other of dry corn. If dry, it is sifted after pounding, kneaded, shaped into cakes six inches in diameter, one inch thick, and baked on clean dry ashes, of dry oak barks. If green, it is mashed, put in broad green corn blades, filled in with a ladle, well wrapped up and baked in ashes.
They make warrior's bread by parching corn, sifting it, pounding into flour, and mixing sugar. A table-spoonful with cold or boiling water is a meal, as it swells in the stomach, and if more than two spoonsful is taken, it is dan- gerous. Its lightness enables the warrior to go on long journeys and carry his bread with him. Their meat is eaten boiled in pots, or roasted on wooden spits or coals. .
INDIAN DRESS AND ORNAMENTS AT THE CAPITAL.
The Indians make beaver and raccoon-skin blankets. Also frocks, shirts, petticoats, leggings, and shoes of deer, bear and other skins. If cold, the fur is placed next to the body : if warm, outside.
With the large rib bones of the elk and buffalo they shave the hair off such skins as they dressed, which was done as clean as with a knife. They also made blankets of feathers of the turkey and goose, which the women arranged inter- woven together with thread or twine made from the rind of the wild hemp and nettles.
The dress of the men consists of blankets, plain or ruffled shirts, leggings and moccasins (moxens). The women make petticoats of cloth, red, blue, or black, when it can be had
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of traders ; they adorn with ribbons, beads, silver broaches, arm spangles, round buckles, little thimble-like bells around the ankles to make a noise and attract attention. They paint with vermillion, but not so as to offend their husbands ; the loose women and prostitutes paint their faces deeply scarlet.
The men paint their thighs, legs, breasts, and faces, and to appear well, spend some times a whole day in decorating themselves for a night frolic. They pluck out their beards and hair on the head (except a tuft on the crown) with tweezers made of muscle shells, or brass wire. The Indians would all be bearded like white men were it not for their pulling out custom.
INDIAN COURTING IN THE VALLEYS.
An aged Indian, who for many years had spent much of his time among the whites, speaking of marriage to Heck- ewelder, said : "Indian, when he see industrious squaw which he like, he go to him," (they had no feminine gender in their vocabulary,) " place his two forefingers close aside each other-make him look like one-look squaw in the face, see him smile, which is all, and he say, 'Yes;' so he take him home. No danger he be cross; no, no. Squaw know too well what Indian do if he (she) cross. Throw him (her) away, and take another; squaw have to eat meat- no husband, no meat. Squaw do everything to please hus- band; he do same to please squaw ; live happy."
INDIAN MARRIAGES.
An Indian takes a wife on trial. He builds a house, and provides provisions. She agrees to cook and raise corn and vegetables, while he hunts or fishes. If both perform these duties, they are man and wife. If not, they separate. The
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woman's labor is light in the house. She has but one pot to clean, and no scrubbing to do, and but little to wash, and that not often. They cut wood, till the ground, sow and reap, pound the corn, bake bread in the ashes, and cook the meat or fish in the pot. If on a journey, the wife carries the baggage, and Heckewelder says he never heard of a wife complaining, for she says the husband must avoid hard labor and stiffening of muscles if he expects to be an expert hunter, so as to provide her meat to eat and furs to wear. The Indian loves to see his wife well clothed, and hence he gives her all the skins he takes. The more he does for her, the more he is esteemed by the community. In selling her furs, if she finds anything at the trader's store which she thinks would please the husband, she buys it for him, even should it take all she has to pay therefor.
KINDNESS TO WIVES.
Heckewelder says : "I have known a man to go forty or fifty miles for a mess of cranberries, to satisfy his wife's longing. In.the year 1762, I was witness to a remarkable instance of the disposition of Indians to indulge their wives. There was a famine in the land, and a sick Indian woman expressed a great desire for a mess of Indian corn. Her husband, having heard that a trader at Lower Sandusky had a little, set off on horseback for that place, one hun- dred miles distant, and returned with as much corn as filled the crown of his hat, for which he gave his horse in ex- change, and came home on foot, bringing his saddle back with him."
QUARRELS WITH WIVES.
It very seldom happens that a man condescends to quarrel with his wife, or abuse her, though she has given him just cause. In such a case the man, without replying, or saying
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a single word, will take his gun and go into the woods, and remain there a week, or perhaps a fortnight, living on the meat he has killed, before he returns home again ; well knowing that he can not inflict a greater punishment on his wife, for her conduct to him, than by absenting himself for awhile-for she is not only kept in suspense, uncertain whether he will return again, but is soon reported as a bad and quarrelsome woman. When he at length does return, she endeavors to let him see by her attentions that she has repented, though neither speak to each other a single word on the subject of what has passed.
THE INDIAN'S HEAVEN.
Heckewelder says that in the year 1792 there was an Indian preacher, from the Cuyahoga, traveling about the valley selling a map, which he said the Great Spirit had directed him to make. It was about fifteen inches long, and the same in breadth, and was drawn on a dressed deer- skin. He held it up while preaching, pointing out the spots, lines, and spaces on it. An inside line was the boundary of a square of eight inches, and at two corners the lines were open about half an inch. Across the lines were others an inch in length, intended to represent a barrier, shutting ingress to the square, except at the place appointed in the south-east corner, which he called the " avenue," leading, as he said, to the Indian heaven, and which had been taken possession of by the white people, wherefore the Great Spirit had ordered another avenue at the north-east corner, to enter which a large ditch, leading to a gulf below, had to be crossed, and it was guarded by the Evil Spirit, on the lookout for Indians, and when one was caught he was taken to the regions of the Evil Spirit, where the ground was parched, trees bore no fruit, and the game was almost starved. Here he transformed men into
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horses, to be ridden by him, and dogs to follow him in his hunts.
On the outside of the interior square was the country given to the Indians to hunt, fish, and dwell on, while in the world. Its eastern side was bounded by the ocean, or great " Salt-water Lake," across which a people of different color had come and taken possession, in the name of friend- ship, of the Indians' country, and of the south-east avenue leading to the beautiful regions destined for Indians when they leave this world.
To regain their hunting grounds, and the avenue to the beautiful regions beyond, they must make sacrifices, and above all abstain from drinking the deadly besan (whisky), which the white strangers had invented and brought with them across the lake. Then the Great Spirit would assist the Indians to drive out their enemies, and recover their heavenly regions.
On the heavenly region part of the map, fat deer and plump turkies were represented to be waiting for the hunt- ers, while in the dreary region they were all skin and bone, scarcely able to move.
The preacher concluded by telling his hearers that the Great Spirit had directed him to prepare a map for every family, provided the price was paid, namely, a buck-skin, or two doe-skins, of the value of one, dollar, for each map .*
SKETCH OF BLACK HOOF-ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SEVEN SCALPS.
Black Hoof, a chief of the Shawanese, was known as a great orator as well as warrior. He had come from Florida when young and taken part in all the Indian wars, particu- larly distingushing himself in taking scalps at Braddock's
* [Note .- It is a curious fact in history that this sharp Indian map seller came, at that early day, from the "western reserve," where the inventive genius of their white successors still predominates.
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defeat. In all the after wars he bore a conspicuous part, and at all the treaties was a principal orator. In 1795 he became satisfied in the uselessness of further strife, and from that time to his death was friendly to the white settlers. He never would assist in the burning of prisoners. It is said he was a man of rigid virtue and lived forty years with one wife. He lived at Wakatomeka, near the present site of Dresden, on the Muskingum, but removed with his tribe about 1817, and died in 1831, at the great age of one hundred and ten years, at Wapakonnetta, in Auglaize County, Ohio.
He could remember that when a boy he had bathed in the salt-water on the Florida coast. It is related of him that his scalp string had upon it one hundred and twenty- seven scalps, which he had himself taken during his career.
LEGEND OF THREE LEGS TOWN, ON THE STILL- WATER.
On a dividing ridge in Belmont County issues two little streams-one flowing into the Ohio, called Wheeling Creek, the other taking a north-west direction through parts of Harrison and Tuscarawas counties, and emptying into the Tuscarawas River some six miles south-east of New Phila- delphia. After wandering a hundred miles south, the waters of these Belmont hills again meet at Marietta, and, mixed with those of the Ohio and Muskingum, all join hands, as it were, and go merrily and muddily down the Ohio and Mississippi, until all are lost in the sea. On one of these small streams, called by the Indians Gehelemuk- pechuk, by the whites Stillwater, there was an Indian town called " Three Legs Town," as designated on Bo- quet's map of 1764, and located near its junction with the Tuscarawas.
Tradition says it was so named, after a chief who first resided there by the name of "Three Legs," because of the
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fact that he had an extra leg. His father was said to be the great Shawanese chief Blackhoof, and his mother a Cherokee of great beauty from the south-the climate having imparted to her all the ingredients of beauty inci- dent to southern white women of a later day. Blackhoof had brought her up into the Sciota country, and while out one day gathering wild plums she was attacked by a wounded buffalo, limping ou three legs, but succeeded in escaping from him. In proper time she gave birth to a boy, who, like the beast, had three legs, and when he learned to walk, limped with one leg dangling after him. He was in other respects perfeet-inheriting all the genius of Blackhoof himself. The mother thought the more of him because of his misfortune, and instead of putting the monstrosity out of the way, she gave her life to his nurture and bringing up. On reaching the age of manhood, and being unable to follow the chase or go to war, he was offered a chiefship and privilege to select his place of abode in this valley. He chose the mouth of the Gehelemukpe- chuk (Stillwater), for the reason that immense quantities of fish were caught there-as they are caught there at this day in larger quantities than at other places along the river. Three Legs, being an invalid, could not expect to, nor did he ever, become chief over a large town, but those who had settled near him were old braves who had spent their energies, and sat down at Three Legs town to pass the residue of their lives in fishing, smoking, and giving advice to young warriors.
It happened that after Braddock's defeat, in 1755, a number of the captured English soldiers were brought down by some Shawanese, under Blackhoof, and given over to his son, Three Legs, to be put to death by torture, in their usual mode. The trail from Beaver River, south, passed in sight of the Three Legs town, and hence it was a daily sight to see captives driven or pulled by, on their way to death. Among these was a herculean Highlander, taken at Braddock's fight, who belonged to the Scotch regiment.
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ITis name was Alexander McIntosh, and it is said that he was by blood a relative of Lachlin McIntosh, who became an American general in the revolution, and erected Fort Laurens in 1778.
Young McIntosh, by reason of his great heighth and strength, was reserved from the fiery death of the other prisoners by order of Three Legs, and became his body guard, but was doomed to be a witness to the burning of his fellow prisoners, and told that a similar fate awaited him in case he attempted to escape. The place of burning was at the edge of the plain where a steep bluff bank of rocks ascends some one hundred feet, from the summit of which the whole plain is descernible, forming one of the most picturesque panoramas in the valley. From this emi- nence prisoners doomed to death were thrown, and whether dead or alive when they reached the base of the precipice, the burning was gone through with. McIntosh surveyed the eminence from below, and saw the first prisoner thrown over, who fell with a thud which knocked the life out of him. His body was thrown on a burning pile of wood. The second victim came down upon his feet, hurt, but able to stand. He was tied to a post and a fire built around him. The Scotchman, unable to listen to his moans, darted at the chief, Three Legs, sitting near, smoking his pipe, and with one blow of the fist prostrated him in death, then seizing his tomahawk hanging in the chief's belt, was but a mo- ment dispatching one of the two Indians attending to the fire, and before another minute elapsed he cut the thongs of his burning fellow captive, pulled him from the fire, and ran some little distance with him, but finding the other Indian had ran in an opposite direction he stopped, and loosened the withes around the legs and arms of his com- rade, who at once rose to his feet, and both started up the hill to gain the summit by a circnitous path, in the hope of rescuing their fellow captives. The three savages on the summit, seeing which, and the terrible work of the High- lander below, sprung down from the precipice to the relief of
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