Ohio annals : Historic events in the Tuscarawas and Muskingum Valleys, and in other portions of the state of Ohio, Part 7

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 7


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"Sunday, October 14, 1764 .- The army remained in camp, and two men who had been dispatched with let-


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ters returned and reported that within a few miles of this place they had been made prisoners by the Delawares, and carried to one of their towns sixteen miles distant, where they were kept until the savages, knowing of the arrival of the army here, set them at liberty, ordering them to acquaint Colonel Boquet that the head men of the Dela- wares and Shawanese were coming as soon as possible to treat for peace with him.


" Monday, October 15, 1764 .- The army moved two miles and forty perches further down the Muskingum, to camp number thirteen, situated on a very high bank, with the river at the foot of it, which is upward of one hundred yards wide at this place, with fine level country at some distance from its banks, producing stately tim- ber free from underwood and plenty of food for cattle. Six Indians came to inform the colonel that all their chiefs had assembled about eight miles from the camp, and were ready to treat with him of peace, which they were earn- estly desirous of obtaining. He returned for answer that he would meet them next day in a bower at some dis- tance from .camp. In the meantime he ordered a small stockaded fort to be built to hold provisions for the troops on their return, and to lighten their convoy, as several large bodies of Indians were within a few miles of the camp, whose former instances of treachery -although they now declared they came for peace-made it prudent to trust nothing to their intentions.


" Wednesday, October 17, 1764 .- The colonel, with most of the regular troops, Virginia volunteers and Lighthorse, marched from the camp to the bower erected for the con- gress, and soon after the troops were stationed so as to appear to the best advantage. The Indians arrived and were conducted to the bower. Being seated, they began in a short time to smoke their pipes-the calumet-agree- ably to their custom. This ceremony over, they laid down their pipes and opened their pouches wherein were their strings and belts of wampum.


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" The Indians present were Seneca Chief Kiyastrula, with fifteen warriors, Custaloga, chief of the Wolf-Delaware tribe, Beaver, chief of the Turkey tribe, with twenty warriors, Shawanese Chief Keiffiwautchtha, a chief and six warriors."


Kiyafhuta, Turtle Heart, Custaloga, and Beaver were the speakers. The general substance of what they had to offer consisted in excuses for their late treachery and misconduct, throwing the blame on the rashness of their young men and the nations living to the westward of them-suing for peace in the most abject manner, and promising severally to de- liver up all their prisoners. After they had concluded the colonel promised to give them an answer the next day, and the army returned to camp. The badness of the weather however prevented his meeting them until the 20th, when he spoke to them.


The boldness with which Colonel Boquet spoke excited the chiefs, but remembering how terribly he had chastised them at the battle of Bushy Run a year previous, they succumbed at once, and the two Delaware chiefs delivered eighteen white prisoners, and eighty-three small sticks expressing the number of other prisoners they still held, and promised to bring them in as soon as possible. Keiffiwautchtha, the Shawanese deputy, promised on behalf of his nation to sub- mit to Colonel Boquet's terms. Kiyafhuta addressed the several tribes before their departure, exhorting them to be strong in complying with their engagements, that they might wipe away the reproach of their former breach of faith, and convince the English that they could speak the truth, adding that he would conduct the army to the place appointed for receiving the prisoners. [It will be recol- lected that the stockade built at camp number thirteen, was two miles and forty perches down the river from the Indian town of Tuscarawas, which was near the present site of Bolivar. The bower at which this Indian congress was held was further down the river, and must have been in or near the edge of the Dover plains, that at this spot was consummated an agreement which resulted in the restora-


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tion of all the white prisoners held by the Delawares and other tribes in the valley, makes the plains of the Tusca- rawas memorable in history.]


" Monday, 22 .- The army, attended by the Indian depu- ties, marched nine miles to camp number fourteen, and crossed Margret's Creek, about fifty feet wide." [The route of this day's march was in a south-west direction from the site of Fort Laurens to Margret's Creek, which is now Sugar Creek, which was crossed in the vicinity of the mouth of what is known as Broad Run, about one mile south of the town of Strasburg; thence up the valley of the latter stream to the place of encampment, which was in the vicinity of the present village of Winfield, in the north-west corner of Dover township.]


" Tuesday, 23 .- The army marched sixteen miles one- quarter and seventy-seven perches further to camp number fifteen, and halted there one day." [The route of this day's march was up the Broad Run valley to the head of that stream, where a dividing ridge was crossed in section four, range three, in Sugar Creek township, bringing the army again into the Sugar Creek valley; thence south along the east side of Sugar Creek through Auburn and Bucks town- ships, passing near to the present site of Ragersville. In the south-western part of Bucks township crossed Sugar Creek; thence over the dividing ridge between the waters of that stream and White Eyes Creek; thence down the valley of White Eyes Creek to a point south of the present village of Chili, in Coshocton County, where camp number fifteen was located.]


"Thursday, 25 .- The army marched six miles one half and sixteen perches to camp number sixteen, situated in the forks of the Muskingum." [This being near the present site of Coshocton. Before leaving the encampment where the congress was held, Boquet was informed that there were several marauding bands of Indians along the river valley, and who would likely ambuscade him if he marched down the valley past Three Legstown, at the mouth of Stillwater,


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and New Comerstown. Hence the route taken as above described.]


" This place (forks of Muskingum) was fixed upon instead of Wakatomica as the most central and convenient place to receive the prisoners, for the principal Indian towns lay around them from seven to twenty miles distant, except the lower Shawnee town situated on the Scioto River about eighty miles, so that from this place the army had it in their power to awe all the enemies' settlements, and destroy their towns, if they should not punctually fulfil the engage- ments they had entered into. Four redoubts were built here opposite the four angles of the camp. The ground in front was cleared, a storehouse for the provisions was erected, and likewise a house to receive and treat peace with the Indians when they returned. Three houses were separate apartments for the captives of the respective prov- inces, and proper officers to take charge of them, with a matron to take charge of women and children, so that with the officers' mess-houses, ovens, &c., this camp had the ap- pearance of a little town in which the greatest order and regularity was observed.


"Sunday, October 27, 1764 .- A messenger arrived from King Custaloga informing them that he was on his way with the prisoners, and also a messenger from the lower Shawanese towns of the like import. The colonel having reason to suspect the latter nation's backwardness sent one of their own people desiring them to be punctual as to the time fixed-to provide a sufficient quantity of provisions to subsist the prisoners -to bring the letters wrote them last winter by the French commander at Fort Charles, which some of their people had stopped ever since, adding that as their nation had expressed some uneasiness at our not shaking hands with them, they were to know that the English never took their enemies by the hand before peace was concluded.


"The day following the Shawanese messenger returned, saying that when he had proceeded as far as Wakatomica, the chief of the town had undertook to proceed with the


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message himself, and desired the other to return and ac- quaint the English that all the prisoners were ready, and he was going to the lower towns to hasten them.


" Monday, October 28, 1764 .- Peter, the Caughnawaga chief and twenty Indians arrived from Sandusky with a letter from Colonel Bradstreet. The Caughnawagas re- ported that the Indians on the lakes had delivered but few of their prisoners; that the Ottowas had killed a great part of theirs, and the other nations had done the same, or had kept them. From this time to November 9 was chiefly spent in sending and receiving messages to and from the Indian towns relative to the prisoners who were now com- ing into camp in small parties. The colonel kept so steadily to this article of having every prisoner delivered, that when the Delaware kings (Beaver and Custaloga) had brought in all theirs except twelve, which they promised to bring in a few days, he refused to shake hands or have the least talk with them while a single captive remained among them. By the 9th of November most of the prisoners had arrived that could be expected this season, amounting to two hull- dred and six, besides about one hundred more remaining in possession of the Shawanese, which they promised to deliver in the following spring. Everything being now settled with the Indians the army decamped on Sunday, the 18th of November, from the forks of Muskingum, and marched for Fort Pitt, [up the Tuscarawas valley to its pro- vision stockade, near the present town of Bolivar; thence by way of Sandy valley and Yellow Creek to the Ohio, and up to Fort Pitt,] where it arrived on the 28th of November. The regular troops were sent to garrison the different points of communication, and the provincial troops, with the cap- tives to their several provinces. Here ended the first armed expedition that had ever penetrated the Tuscarawas val- ley, and as the chronicler says, notwithstanding the diffi- culties attending it, the troops were never in want of any necessaries, continuing perfectly healthy during the whole campaign, in which no life was lost, except one soldier killed at the Muskingum.


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THE WHITE PRISONERS RECOVERED BY COLONEL BOQUET.


The scene of the delivery of these captives to Colonel Boquet is thus narrated by one who was present: " Among them were many who had been seized when very young, and had grown up in the wigwam of the savage. They had contracted the wild habits of their captors, learned their language and forgotten their own, and were bound to them by ties of the strongest affection. Many a mother found a lost child; many were unable to designate their children. There were to be seen husbands hanging round the neeks of their newly recovered wives. There were to be seen sisters and brothers unexpectedly coming together after long years of separation. And there were others fly- ing from place to place, inquiring after relatives not found; trembling to receive an answer to questions; distracted with doubts, hopes, and fears on obtaining no account of those they sought for; or stiffened into living monuments of horror and woe on learning their unhappy fate. Among the captives brought in was a woman with a babe three months old. One of the soldiers recognized her as his wife, who had been taken by the Indians six months before. They rushed into each other's arms, and he took her and the child to his tent and had them clothed. But there was still another child missing, and on more children being brought in the woman was sent for. Among them she recognized her own, and was so overcome with joy, that, forgetting her sucking child, she dropped it from her arms, and catching up the other run off with it, unable to give utterance to her joy. The father soon followed her with the babe she had let fall, in no less transport of affection."


The separation between the Indians and their prisoners was equally affecting, and there were as many tears shed by the sons of the forest at the parting, as there were by the


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captives at meeting their relatives. Mr. Hutchins relates that the Indians visited them from day to day, brought them food and presents, and bestowed upon them all the marks of the most tender affection. Some even followed the army on its return, and employed themselves in hunt- ing and bringing in provisions for the captives on the way. A young chief had formed such an attachment to a young woman among the captives, that he persisted in following her, and afterward paid the penalty of his life for his attach- ment. Nor was the affection of some of the captive women less strong for the red man. One female who had been cap- tured at the age of fourteen, had become the wife of an Indian, and the mother of several children. When told her that she was to be delivered up to her parents, her grief knew no bounds. "Can I," said she, "enter my parents' dwelling? Will they be kind to my children ? No, no; I will not leave my husband;" and she darted off into the woods and was seen no more.


Among the captive children surrendered to Colonel Bo- quet, was one whom no one claimed, and whose after his- tory is full of romance. In 1756, the wife and child of a Mr. John Grey, living near Carlisle, had been taken by the Indians. Grey died, and by his will gave to his wife one- half his farm and to his daughter the other half, in case they should ever return from captivity. The mother got away from the savages, returned home, and finding her husband's will, proved it and took possession of the farm. In 1764-5, when Colonel Boquet returned with his cap- tives, Mrs. Grey repaired to Philadelphia to search among them for her daughter. Failing to recognize her little Jane, some one induced her to claim the girl before spoken of, for the purpose of holding the other half of the farn. She did so, and brought up the strange child as her own daughter, carefully keeping the secret. The girl grew up as the daughter of John Grey, married a man named Gillespie, and took possession of the farm, which afterward passed through different hands up to the year 1789, when


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some of the collateral heirs of John Grey, obtaining in- formation about the spurious Jane Grey, commenced suits to recover the land, being four hundred acres of the best land in Mifflin County, Pennsylvania. A legal contest en- sued, which lasted in one phase or another for forty-four years, and in 1833 the case was finally disposed of, against the identity of the adopted child, and the property reverted to the heirs of the sisters and brothers of the original John Grey. The above facts are gathered from Sherman Day's History of Pennsylvania.


Of the captives released from bondage in the Tuscarawas valley one hundred and eleven years ago, thirty-two men and boys and fifty-eight females belonged to Virginia, and forty-nine men and boys and sixty-seven females be- longed to Pennsylvania. Many of the men took to the woods for a living, and became scouts for Washington's army in the revolution. And as the boys grew up they in turn became scouts and pioneered the way for St. Clair in '91, Wayne in '94, and General Harrison in 1812, in their campaigns against the Indians. Thus did their captivity in this valley have its compensations, for by it they learned the Indian mode of warfare, became familiar with their war-paths and strong-holds, and after assisting to drive out the descendants of their captors, these descendants of the captives, many of them, took up their abode in the Tusca- rawas valley, and their posterity are now among its.hon- ored citizens in the fourth generation; and as they pursue their daily avocations at the plow or in the workshop, they have little conception of the fact that there is not a cross- ing place or fishing spot along our river, or a spring among its valleys, or a lookout on the hill-tops, that has not been made saered by the captivity of their ancestors and the death-screams of white men and women under the toma- hawk, scalping-knife, and faggot of the then merciless savages.


Harvey, in his History of Pennsylvania, says a great num- ber of the restored prisoners were sent to Carlisle, Penn-


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sylvania, and Colonel Boquet advertised for those who had lost children to come and reclaim them. One old woman who had lost a child, and failing to recognize it among the returned captives, was lamenting her loss and wringing her hands, telling Colonel Boquet how she had years previous sung a little hymn to her daughter, who was so fond of it. The colonel told her to sing it then, which she did as follows :


" Alone, yet not alone am I, Though in this solitude so drear ; I feel my Savior always nigh, He comes my every hour to cheer."


She had no sooner concluded, than her long-lost daughter, who had failed to know her mother by sight but remem- bering the hymn, rushed into her mother's arms.


Colonel Boquet's success in conquering the Indians made him a brigadier-general, but he died in 1766, at Pensacola, of fever.


CHAPTER V.


THE GERMANS SETTLE ON THE TUSCARAWAS, 1771-2.


David Zeisberger, who had been preaching to "Lo" for over thirty years in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and New York, suffering great privations, but meeting with some success, became convinced that his converts, to be held faithful, must be removed beyond the evil influences and tempta- tions of the white man's vices. The pious German had established a mission on the Alleghany, where he preached to the sons of the forest every day, and had made such a favorable impression on the chiefs of the "Delawares, that Netawatwes, Pakaake, and Weldpachtschiechen, who ranged from the Susquehanna to the Alleghany, granted us"-says he in his journal -"a portion of land on the Muskingum River, where we might pursue our mission without molestation. When we settled there we found that their promise was fulfilled, and we met with no hinder- ance in our work. Not long after this Netawatwes with his tribe removed to Goschackgunk. Ile then ceded to us all the lands in the vicinity of Gekelemukpechunk, in order that we might live separately and apart, and enlarge our settlement. Soon after this Netawatwes requested us to re- move to a place close to Goschackgunk, so that his people might have a better opportunity to hear the word of God."


The above is an extract from Zeisberger's unpublished diary, which makes nearly one thousand pages, and is now in the possession of Julius Dexter, Esq., of Cincinnati, who, in making the translation, says "the diary is written in a crabbed German text."


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John Heckewelder, the master mind of the two, though not so devont as Zeisberger, in his narrative, says that they made a settlement on Beaver Creek in April, 1770, where the Indians came to hear preaching, and among others who became converts, was a great Indian orator named Glik- hican. He was the counselor of Pakaukee-called by Zies- berger Pakaake-chief of the tribe, and his conversion so astounded the other Indians that they called a council, and while discussing the question, messengers arrived from Gekelemukpechunk-and which signifies in English "Still- water"-with a large black belt of wampum. They brought a message from the Muskingum chiefs to the missionaries at Beaver, stating that a disease had carried off great num- bers of Delawares; that it was brought upon them by witch- craft ; that the only cure for the contagion was Christianity; that to get rid of the disease, small-pox, it was necessary. to become Christians, which they intended to do, and if the missionaries would come to the Muskingum and preach they would be well received, and such Indians as would not embrace their religion should be treated as common enemies. The missionaries however did not go until another invitation was extended to them, with the assurance that they should have all the land they wanted, and which should never be sold from under their feet, as the Iroquois had done to the Delawares.


Zeisberger's first visit to the valley was in March, 1771. From Fort Pitt west was the great trail made by the buffa- loes first, and used by the mound builders next, then by the later races of Indians in going to and returning from the Sandusky country and lakes. Zeisberger followed this trail almost due west until he came to the Tuscarawas River, where he left it at the crossing place-near Bolivar of this day-and following the meanderings of the river south and south-eastwardly he reached in about fifteen miles a big spring, three miles from the present New Philadelphia. Along a bluff about twenty feet high, of gravel and sand, which had been the ancient east shore of the river, he found


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- the remains of three ancient earth-works or forts of the mound builders, and opposite thereto in the bottom some fields partially covered by the forest, yet sufficiently visible to satisfy him that they had been once utilized by the ancient race. One was surrounded by a ditch several feet in depth and width, and the excavated earth forming an embankment five to ten feet high, and faint traces of which are yet discernible on the west side of the Tuscarawas. On the north is a mound covering a half to one acre, and ten or more feet high, once used as a sacrificial, or burial place.


Leaving the spring, Zeisberger proceeded on to the forks, where Stillwater Creek enters the Tuscarawas; and then followed the river trail to the Indian capital, adjacent to the present New Comerstown. It was nearly a mile square, contained about one hundred log houses, one of which, belonging to the Delaware chief Netawatwes, was shingle roofed, and had board floors, and other indications of par- tial civilization. This is the chief whom Colonel Boquet in his campaign of 1764 deposed from office for not attend- ing the conference (at the forks of the river, the present site of Coshocton), but the chief continued his functions after Boquet returned to Fort Pitt. Zeisberger remained several days with the chief, and having preached in his house, as is said, the first protestant sermon within the north-west territory, again returned to Pennsylvania.


SETTLEMENT AT SCHOENBRUNN-1772-3.


Early in 1772, with a number of Christian Indians, he again visited the Delaware capital, and desired privilege to establish a mission in the valley. The chief Netawatwes and others, were so pleased (and some of whom believed that the small-pox, which had disappeared, was driven away by his sermon the year before) that the " Big Spring" was suggested as the proper locality, and a grant was made to him, for his mission, of all the land between the mouth


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of Stillwater and Old Town. Heckewelder says Tuscarawas means "old town, " but the grant must have extended from the mouth of Old Town Creek, nearly opposite New Phila- delphia, to Stillwater Creek. Boquet says he found an old Indian town callen Tuscarawas at the river crossing, near the present Bolivar, from which some infer that the grant extended to that town, but such was not the fact. The grant however was extended the same year south, so as to include all the land from Stillwater Creek to within three miles of the Delaware capital-adjoining the present New Comerstown. By the two grants they thus obtained posses- sion of nearly all the bottom lands of the valley in Tusca- rawas County.


On the 3d of May, 1772, Zeisberger and twenty-eight per- sons located at "Big Spring," and called it Schoenbrunn, or "Fine Spring." Here, on lands now owned by Elisha Jacobs, and adjacent thereto, owned by Henry Zimmerman, John B. Reed, and Alexander Brown, they set about erect- ing houses, clearing land, planting corn, &c.


Early in the same year a large body of Christian Indians, under charge of Rev. John Etwin, had set out from their settlement on the Susquehanna for the Tuscarawas valley. They numbered nearly three hundred persons, had a large number of horses, some seventy head of cattle, plow-irons, harrow teeth, pick-axes, all kinds of farming utensils and tools, iron pots, brass kettles for boiling maple sugar, and provisions for the whole body. They arrived at the settle- ment on the Big Beaver early in August. Zeisberger had returned from Schoenbrunn to that place to meet them. This whole body of emigrants left the Big Beaver settle- ment on the 5th of August, accompanied by Etwin, Zeis- berger and Heckewelder, and arrived at Schoenbrunn on the 23d of August, 1772. Having decided to make Schoen- brunn a permanent settlement, they sent a delegation to the Indian chiefs at Gekelemukpechunk (in English Still- water), announcing their arrival. The delegation were re- ceived with much friendship by the chiefs in council, and


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a grand feast was prepared, and the event duly celebrated. Heckewelder, in his narrative, states that visitors arrived daily at Schoenbrunn from Stillwater and other valleys to view the new comers, witness them putting up buildings, plowing the ground, &c., but what most excited their curi- osity was the fact of so large a number of Indians living happily together, and devoting themselves to labor in the fields, &c. Encouraged by these friendly visits, the mis- sionaries set to work and built a chapel at Schoenbrunn, of square timber, thirty-six feet by forty feet, shingle roofed, with a cupalo and bell. They also laid out their town regu- larly, with wide streets, and kept the cattle out by good fences, and adopted a set of rules of government, which are here given verbatim from Heckewelder's narrative:




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