Ohio annals : Historic events in the Tuscarawas and Muskingum Valleys, and in other portions of the state of Ohio, Part 4

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 4


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Mr. Pierre Margry, of Paris, said to be a descendant of La Salle, has unpublished maps and documents of the great explorer, which have been given to the United States, and will soon be published according to a plan which originated with the Historical Society of Northern Ohio, of which Charles Whittlesy, Esq., is president, and who has published a letter to him from Mr. Margry, containing an extract of one of La Salle's unpublished letters indicating the Maumee and Miami as the route he took to reach the Ohio in 1669. The original extract in French was sent to F. Parkman, Esq., of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, author of the publication called " Discovery of the Great West," and who had therein described the Alleghany as the natural route from the Sena- cas-Onondaga-country to the Shawanese country by way of the Ohio.


In a late letter by the writer of this article to Mr. Park- man, the route by Cuyahoga, Tuscarawas, and Muskingum, was suggested as the probable one taken, and an opinion asked of him. His answer is subjoined :


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"JAMAICA PLAIN, August 4, 1875. "C. H. MITCHENER, EsQ., New Philadelphia, Ohio :


" Dear Sir: Returning home yesterday, after an absence of several weeks, I found your letter of July 23.


" In the obscurity which covers La Salle's movements after he left the Lulpitians in 1669, it is not possible to state any thing with confidence as to the course he took to reach the Ohio. The only account that seems to me to deserve to be admitted as evidence is that contained in the unpublished memoir of 1678, of which I have given an account in the ' Discovery of the Great West.' On page 20, note, I have printed the only passage which throws any light on the matter. By this it appears that he went by way of Onon- daga, whence he seems to have reached and descended the Alleghany.


" What he may afterward have done is at present a mat- ter of conjecture. The extract of one of his letters to which you allude,-meaning as I infer the passage sent by Mr. Margry to Colonel Whittlesy,-is too obscure and self-con- tradictory to afford safe ground for any conclusion. It is, moreover, without date.


"I have some hope that I may hereafter find the means of answering your questions more satisfactory.


"Yours Respectfully, F. PARKMAN."


From the above Mr. Parkman adheres to his published theory, though not confidently. From the Onondaga coun- try in New York, the seat of ancient power of the Five or Six Nations, to the Shawanee country of Ohio, is about five hundred miles by way of the Cuyahoga, Tuscarawas, and Muskingum; by way of the Alleghany, including the mean- derings of the Ohio, over six hundred miles, and by way of the Maumee portage over seven hundred miles. In going south or west the Indians took the shortest route, as did the mound builders before them, and the buffaloes before them.


La Salle, in the absence of positive proof to the contrary, may be considered as following the old trails, when he ex- plored the Ohio two hundred years ago.


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OHIO AS PART OF FRANCE.


As early as 1535 the territory called New France, em- bracing about all the land west of the Ohio, was roamed over by the Jesuits, gaining the friendship of the Indians, and planting the catholic cross in the name of the Holy Father. Such was their success, that in one hundred years their beads and rosaries became as potent to the red man as they have to his white brother in all lands.


In 1713, by the treaty of Utrecht, Louisiana belonged to France, and extended from the gulf to the northern lakes.


In 1748 the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle quieted French title for a time to this great area, and her forts erected at Niagara in 1726, and at Presqueisle, (signifying peninsula, at the present Erie, Pennsylvania,) and at Le Boeuf, (signify- ing place of buffaloes, Erie County, Pennsylvania,) frowned upon all trespassers from the dominions of his Britanic ma- jesty in the East. 827450


In 1749 some traders found on the Ohio buried a leaden plate, which they stole and sent to the colonial authorities, containing this inscription in French :


Literal Translation .- " In the year 1749, reign of Louis XV., King of France, we, Celeron, commandant of a detach- ment sent by monsieur, the marquis of Galissoniere, com- mander-in-chief of New France, to establish tranquility in certain villages of these cantons, have buried this plate at the confluence of the Ohio and of Po-ra-Da-Koin, this 29th of July, near the river Ohio, otherwise Beautiful River, as a monument of renewal of possession which we have taken of the said river, and of all its tributaries, and of all the land on both sides, as far as to the sources of said rivers,- inasmuch as the preceding kings of France have enjoyed (this possession), and have maintained it by their arms and by treaties, especially by those of Riswick, Utrecht, and Aix-la-Chapelle."


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In this same year, the French becoming alarmed at the boldness of English traders from the eastern colonies, in venturing into the Ohio country, sent armed forces thereto to drive them back, and in January, 1750, the Pennsyl- vania colonial governor informed the council that the past summer a French captain, Celeron, with three hundred French and some Indians, had entered the Ohio valley to reprove the Indians for their friendship to the English, and for suffering the English to trade with them.


JOURNAL OF CHRISTOPHER GIST'S TRIP DOWN THE TUSCARAWAS-SEVENTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY.


The English colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia had licensed traders to traverse this French territory, four of whom had been seized as early as 1749 as trespassers, and were carried as prisoners from the banks of the Ohio into Canada, under charges of tampering with the Indians and endeavoring to seduce them to convey to the English rights in land for powder, lead, and whisky.


Under a deed obtained by the colonies of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland from some Iroquois chiefs for "all the land beyond the mountains," twelve Virginians, among whom was George Washington, in the year 1748, procured from the king of England, through the governor of Virginia, a grant for half a million acres of land, on both sides of the Ohio River, and between the Monongahela and Kenawha rivers. Of this grant, two hundred thousand acres was to be located at once, one hundred families to be put thereon in seven years, and a fort built sufficient to protect them. The company was called the "Ohio Land Company." They immediately sent out a surveyor, by the name of Christo- pher Gist, to explore the country, and find the best land. He left the Potomac River, in Maryland, in October, 1750, crossed the Ohio near Pittsburg; thence to the mouth of


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Beaver River; thence crossed the country and reached the Tuscarawas River on the 5th of December, at a point oppo- site the present town of Bolivar. On the 7th he crossed over to an Indian village, and found the Indians in the French interest. Following the river south, he reached another Indian town on the 14th, near the junction of the Tusca- rawas and White Woman. This town contained about one hundred families, a portion in the French, and a portion in the English interest. Here he met Andrew Montour, a half breed, and George Croghan, an English trader, who had his head-quarters at this town. In his journal, Gist says:


" When we came in sight of the town we perceived English colors hoisted on the king's (chief's) house, and at George Croghan's. Upon inquiring the reason, I was in- formed that the French had lately taken several English traders, and that Mr. Croghan had ordered all the white men to come into this town, and had sent runners to the traders of the lower towns, and that the Indians had sent to their people to come and counsel about it.


" Monday, December 17 .- Two traders, belonging to Mr. Croghan, came into town and informed us that ten of his people had been taken by forty Frenchmen and twenty Indians, who had carried them with seven horse loads of skins to a new fort the French were building on one of the branches of Lake Eric.


" Tuesday, 18 .- I acquainted Mr. Croghan and Mr. Mon- tour of my business with the Indians, and talked much of a regulation of trade, with which they were pleased, and treated me very well.


" Tuesday, 25 .- This being Christmas day, I intended to . read prayers, but after inviting some of the white men, they informed each other of my intention, and being of several persuasions, and few of them inclined to hear 'any good, they refused to come; but one Thomas Burney, a black- smith, who is settled there, went about and talked to them, and then several of the well-disposed Indians came freely, being invited by Andrew Montour. The Indians seemed


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to be well pleased, and came up to me and returned me their thanks, and then invited me to live among them. They were desirons of being instructed in the principles of Christianity ; that they liked me very well, and wanted me to marry them after the Christian manner, and baptize their children, and then they said they would never desire to re- turn to the French, or suffer them or their priests to come near them more, for they loved the English, but had seen little religion among them.


" Wednesday, 26 .- This day a woman that had long been a prisoner and had deserted, being retaken and brought into town on Christmas eve, was put to death in the following manner: They carried her without the town and let her loose; and when she attempted to run away, the persons appointed for that purpose pursued her and struck her on the ear on the right side of the head, which bent her flat on her face to the ground. They then struck her several times through the back with a dart to the heart; scalped her, and threw the scalp in the air, and another cut off her head. Thus the dismal spectacle lay until evening, and then Barney Curran desired leave to bury her, which he and his men and some of the Indians did just at dark.


" Friday, January 14, 1751 .- One Taaf, an Indian trader, came to town from near Lake Erie, and informed us that the Wyandots had advised him to keep clear of the Ottowas, (a nation firmly attached to the French, living near the lakes,) and told him that the branches of the lakes were ยท claimed by the French, but that all the branches of the Ohio belonged to them and their brethren, the English, and that the French had no business there, and that it was expected that the other part of the Wyandots would desert the French and come over to the English interest, and join their breth- ren on the Elk Eye (Muskingum) creek, and build a strong fort and town there.


"Wednesday, 9 .- This day two traders came into town from among the Pequantices (a tribe of the Twig Twees), and brought news that another English trader was taken pris-


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oner by the French, and that three French soldiers had deserted and come over to the English, and surrendered themselves to some of the traders of the Picktown (Pipe- town), and that the Indians would have put them to death to revenge their taking our traders ; but as the French had surrendered themselves to the English, they would not let the Indians hurt them, but had ordered them to be sent under the care of three of our traders, and delivered at this town to George Croghan.


"Saturday, 12 .- Proposed a council; postponed; Indians drunk.


" Monday, 14 .- This day George Croghan, by the assist- ance of Andrew Montour, acquainted the king and council of this nation (presenting them with four strings of wam- pum) that their roggony (father) had sent, under the care of the governor of Virginia, their brother, a large present of goods, which were now landed safe in Virginia, and that the governor had sent me to invite them to come and see him, and partake of their father's charity to all his children on the branches of the Ohio. In answer to which one of the chiefs stood up and said that their king and all of them thanked their brother, the governor of Virginia, for his care, and me for bringing them the news; but that they could not give an answer until they had a full or general council of the several Indian nations, which could not be until next spring; and so the king and council, shaking hands with us, we took our leave.


"Tuesday, 15 .- We left Muskingum and went west five miles to the White Woman Creek, on which is a small town. This white woman was taken away from New England when she was not above ten years old by the French Indians. She is now upward of fifty ; has an Indian husband and several children. Her name is Mary Harris. She still remembers that they used to be very religious in New England; and wonders how the white men can be so wicked as she has seen them in these woods.


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" Wednesday, 16 .- Set out south-west twenty-five miles to Licking creek. The land from Muskingum is rich and broken. Upon the north side of Licking creek, about six miles from its mouth, were several salt licks or ponds formed by little streams or drains of water, clear, but of a bluish color and salt taste. The traders and Indians boil their meat in this water, which, if proper care is not taken, will sometimes make it too salt to eat.


"Saturday, 19 .- Arrived at Hockhocking, a small town of Delawares.


"Sunday, 20 .- Traveled twenty miles south-west to Ma- guck, another small Delaware town near the Scioto."


After exploring the Scioto bottoms, Gist and his party proceeded to Shawnee town, at the mouth of this stream.


" Here we arrived on the 28th, and fired our guns to alarm the traders, who came and ferried us over the Ohio. This town is situated on both sides of the river, and contains about three hundred men. They are great friends to the English interest. In the evening a proper officer made a public proclamation, that all the Indian marriages were dis- solved, and a public feast was to be held for three succeed- ing days, in which the women, as their custom was, were to choose again their husbands. The next morning early the Indians breakfasted, and afterward spent the day in dancing until evening; when a plentiful feast was prepared. After feasting they spent the night in dancing. The same way they spent the two next days until evening. The men dancing by themselves, and the women in turns, around fires, and dancing in their manner and in the form of the figure eight, about sixty or seventy of them at a time. The women, the whole time they danced, sung a song in their language, the chorus of which was :


" I am not afraid of my husband, I will choose what man I please."


The third day, in the evening, the men, being about one hundred in number, danced in a long string, following one


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another, sometimes at length, at other times in the figure of an eight, quite around the fort, and in and out of the house where they held their councils, and the women, standing together as the men danced by them, and as any of the women liked a man passing by, she stepped in and joined in the dance, taking hold of the man's blanket whom she choose, and then continued in the dance until the rest of the women stepped in and made their choice in the same man- ner, after which the dance ended, and they all retired to . consummate."


Gist and Croghan proceeded on to the falls of the Ohio, and thence returned home by way of North Carolina.


In 1752 he appeared at Logstown, fourteen miles below Pittsburgh, where the English and Indians had met for a " big talk," the English claiming " all the land beyond the mountains," under the Lancaster treaty of 1744, and the Indians claiming that they only ceded their lands to the warrior's road, at the foot of the Alleghanies.


WASHINGTON AND GIST.


In 1753, Colonel George Washington took Mr. Gist with him as a companion, and journeyed on foot to Fort La Bouef (near present city of Erie, Pa.,)-and in his journal, Washington says: "I took my necessary papers, pulled off my clothes, and tied myself up in a watch-coat. Then I took my gun in hand, and pack on my back, in which were my papers and provisions. I set out with Mr. Gist, fitted in the same manner, on Wednesday, the 26th of December. The day following, just after we had passed a place called Murdering Town, we fell in with a party of French Indians who had lain in wait for us. One of them fired at Mr. Gist or me, not fifteen steps off, but missed. We took the fellow into custody and kept him until about nine o'clock at night, then let him go, and walked on the remaining part of the night, without making any stops,


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that we might get the start so far as to be out of reach of their pursuit next day, since we were well assured they would follow our track as soon as it was light. We con- tinued traveling the next day until quite dark, and got to the river, which we expected to have found frozen, but it was not. The ice I suppose had broken up above, for it was driving in vast quantities. There was no way for get- ting over but on a raft, which we set about building with but one poor hatchet, and finished just after sun-setting. This was a whole day's work; we next got it launched, then went aboard and set off, but before we were half over we were jammed in the ice in such a manner that we ex- pected every moment our raft to sink, and ourselves to perish. I put out my setting pole to try to stop the raft, when the rapidity of the stream threw it with so much violence against the pole that it jerked me out into ten feet water, but I saved myself by catching hold of one of the raft logs. Notwithstanding all our efforts we could not get to the shore, but were obliged, as we were near an island, to quit our raft and make for it. The cold was so severe that Mr. Gist had all his fingers and some of his toes frozen, and the water was so shut up that we found no difficulty in getting off the island in the morning, and went to Mr. Frazier's. As we intended to take horses, and it taking some time to find them, I went up to the mouth of Youghiogany to visit Queen Aliquippa. I made her a present of a watch-coat and bottle of rum, the latter of which she thought the better present of the two. Tuesday, January 1st, left Frazier's, and arrived at Mr. Gist's house at Monongahela. The 6th we met seventeen pack-horses with materials and stores for a fort at the forks of the Ohio (now Pittsburg). The day after we met some fami- lies going out to settle, and this day arrived at Wells Creek (now Cumberland) .- [ The above is abridged from Marshall's Life of Washington.]


The effort of this land company, as developed by the trip of Mr. Gist into the Ohio valley, to get a foothold


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west of the Ohio, aroused the French government, and in 1753 that government took the initiative in erecting a line of forts from the lakes to Louisiana, to protect its interests and keep back the English from occupying French terri- tory. Colonel (afterwards General) Washington was dis- patched by the Virginia government to demand informa- tion of the French, as to the object of the French troops which had arrived at Presque Isle on their way to the Ohio. As soon as he returned to Virginia, that colony raised and , sent troops to the Ohio; but before they arrived the French had erected a fort at Logstown, fourteen miles below Pitts- burgh, surprised a block-house of the Ohio company at that place, seized their skins and goods, and killed the English traders except two. The Virginia troops arrived at the junction of rivers above, established a post, but, before finishing it, were surprised and captured by a French force, which immediately erected Fort Duquesne, in 1754, and thus a war was begun between England and France. In 1755, General Braddock was sent out with an English army to recapture the place, but was met by the combined French and Indian forces,-the latter numbering five hun- dred warriors from the Muskingum, Scioto, and Sandusky, -and defeated.


[Note .- In regard to this defeat, General Morris said it was owing to the want of care and caution in the leaders, who held in great contempt the In- dian mode of fighting. Washington says the dastardly behavior of the regular troops exposed the whole army. In spite of every effort they broke and run like sheep from the Indians. Colonel Burd says the enemy kept behind trees and logs and cut down the troops as fast as they advanced. The colonial soldiers asked to be allowed to take to trees and fight, but General Braddock called them cowards, and struck some who attempted to tree and fight. It is said of two brothers, named Tom and Joseph Faucett, who had spent their lives in Indian fighting, that Braddock struck Joseph Faucett down with his sword, for taking to a tree. Tom Faucett seeing this aimed at and shot Braddock in revenge. Braddock was buried in the middle of the road, and wagons made to pass over it to hide the grave from the Indians, and marks made on trees to enable his friends to tell where he lay. In 1823 some men repairing this road found his bones with his military trappings, which were sent to Peale's museum, Philadelphia.]


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Braddock's defeat assured peace for a time to all the French interests in "New France," west of the Ohio, and opened up the border country of Virginia and Pennsylvania to the murdering incursions of the savages from the west, who penetrated into the heart of cach colony, and carried back to our valleys the scalps of the English colonists by scores during 1755; 1756, and 1757.


In 1758, expeditions were sent out by the colonial gov- ernments of Pennsylvania and Virginia, to recapture Fort Duquesne, and penetrate the Indian territory. In Novem- ber, Colonel Washington, and the force with which he was connected, came near the fort, when it was set fire to, and abandoned by the French, and taken possession of by the English, who rebuilt and named it Fort Pitt, after William Pitt, the great English statesman, by whose statesmanship the war was brought to a conclusion, and France, in 1760, yielded to England as well all of Canada as the territory west of the Ohio.


Thus we are justified in saying that the Ohio Land Com- pany, in sending Mr. Gist down these valleys in 1750, to " find the best lands," was one of the remote causes of that great European war, which ten years later lost France her principal possessions in America, and, at a period still later, procured for the American colonies a general by whose wis- dom England also lost her possessions in the colonies:


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CHAPTER III.


CAPTIVITY OF COLONEL JAMES SMITH, IN THE VALLEYS.


Colonel James Smith, a citizen of Pennsylvania, was sur- prised near Bedford in May, 1755, and taken prisoner by two Delaware Indians. He was lodged at Fort Duquesne at the time of Braddock's defeat, and witnessed barbarities practiced upon prisoners taken in that battle, having himself to run the gauntlet, and submit to tortures more cruel than death itself. He was then taken to an Indian town called Tulhillas, on the White Woman, about twenty miles above the forks (or north of Coshocton), inhabited by Delawares and Mohicans, where he remained some months, and under- went the ceremony of being made an Indian. His account of it and other ceremonies is here given from his published narrative, illustrative of the manners and customs of the inhabitants of this territory one hundred and twenty years ago. He says :


" The day after my arrival at the aforesaid town, a number 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, excepting three locks, which they dressed up in their own mode. Two of these they wrapped around with


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a narrow beaded garter made by themselves for that pur- pose, and the other they plaited at full length, and then stuck it full of silver brooches. After this they bored my nose and ears, and fixed me off with ear-rings and nose jewels; then they ordered me to strip off my clothes and put on a breech-elout, 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 in the street, and gave the alarm halloo, coo-wigh, several times repeated quick ; and on this, all that were in town came running and stood around 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 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 for me to plunge myself into the water, but I did not understand them ;- I thought that 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 mul- titude that were on the bank of the river. At length one of the squaws made out to speak a little English (for I be- lieve they begun 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, I could not say they hurt me much.




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