USA > Ohio > Pioneer history : being an account of the first examinations of the Ohio valley, and the early settlement of the Northwest territory ; chiefly from original manuscripts > Part 8
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Fathers - You have, after all that has happened, received all the several tribes in this country for your children. We from St. Joseph seem to be the last of your children that came to you to beg mercy. We are no more than wild creatures to you, fathers, in understanding ; therefore we re- quest you to forgive the past follies of our young people, and receive us for your children. Since you have thrown down our former father on his back, we have been wander- ing in the dark, like blind people. Now you have dis- persed all this darkness, which hung over the heads of the several tribes, and have accepted them for your children, we hope you will let us partake with them the light, that our women and children may enjoy peace. We beg you to forget all that is past. By this belt we remove all evil thoughts from your hearts. [A belt.]
"They added further : Fathers-When we formerly came to visit our fathers, the French, they always sent us home joyful, and we hope you, fathers, will have pity on our women and young men who are in great want of ne- cessaries, and not let us go home to our towns ashamed.
" Colonels Campbell and Croghan made them a favorable answer, and added presents of powder, lead, vermillion, clothing, and two kegs of rum, ending the interview with these remarks :
" Children -I take this opportunity to tell you that your fathers, the English, are gone down the Ohio from Fort Pitt, 6
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COLONEL CROGHAN'S REPORT.
to take possession of the Illinois, and desire you may ac- quaint all your people of it on your return home ; and like- wise desire you to stop your ears against the whistling of bad birds, (meaning the French,) and mind nothing but your hunting, to support your families, that your women and children may enjoy the blessings of peace.
" 26th. I left Detroit and arrived, October 3d, at Niag- ara. Here I met some Senecas with whom I had a meeting, and informed them of my transactions with the several na- tions ; and desired them to inform their people of it on their return home, which they promised me they would.
" October 11th. Set off from Niagara, and arrived the 17th at Ontario, where I met the Bunt and several sachems of the Onondagas, with whom I had a meeting, and in- formed them what had passed between me and the western nations.
" 19th. I set off from Ontario, and arrived at Fort Stan- wix the 21st."
At the close of the journal is annexed the report of his proceedings, and his views of the ultimate results of the connection just forme " between the Indians and their new fathers, the English.
" Sir-Having now returned from the services I was sent upon by his Excellency General Gage, namely, the obtain- ing the Indians' consent to our possessing the important posts at the Illinois, I present your honor with a journal of my transactions with the several nations and tribes in that country, for your perusal.
" In the situation I was placed at Weotonan, with great numbers of Indians about me, and no necessaries, such as paper and ink, I had it not in my power to take down all the speeches made by the Indian nations, nor what I said to them, in so particular a manner as I could wish ; but hope
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COLONEL CROGHAN'S REPORT.
the heads of them, as I have taken them down, will meet your approbation.
" In the course of this tour through the Indian country, I made it my study to converse in private with Pondiac and several of the chiefs of the several nations, as often as op- portunity served, in order to find out their sentiments of the French and English. Pondiac is a shrewd, sensible Indian, of few words, and commands more respect among his own nation than any Indian I ever saw, could do among his own tribe. He and all the principal men of those nations seem at present to be convinced that the French had a view of interest in stirring up the late difference between his ma- jesty's subjects and them, and call it a beaver war; for neither Pondiac, nor any of the Indians I met with, ever pretended to deny that the French were at the bottom of the whole, and constantly supplied them with every neces- sary they wanted, as far as in their power. And notwith- standing they are at present convinced that it was for their own interest, yet it has not changed the Indians' affection for them. They have been bred up together like children in that country, and the French have always adopted the Indian customs and manners, treated them civilly, and supplied their necessities, generally, by which means they gained the hearts of the Indians, and commanded their ser- vices, and enjoyed the benefits of a very advantageous fur trade. They well know if they had not taken these mea- sures they could not enjoy these advantages.
"The French have in a manner taught the Indians in that country to hate the English, by representing them in the worst light they could, on all occasions; in particular they have made the Indians there believe, lately, that the English would take their country from them, and bring the Cherokees there to settle and enslave them; which report they easily gave credit to, as the southern Indians had lately commenced a war against them. I had great difficulty in removing this suspicion, and convincing them of the falsity
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COLONEL CROGHAN'S REPORT.
of the report, which I flatter myself I have done in a great measure.
" It will require some time, and a very even conduct in those that are to reside in their country, before we can ex- pect to rival the French in their affections. All Indians are jealous, and from their high notions of liberty, hate power. Those nations are jealous and prejudiced against us, so that the greatest care will be necessary to convince them of our honest intentions by our actions.
" The French sold them goods much dearer than the English traders do at present. In that point we have the advantage over the French, but they made that up in large presents to them, for their services, which they wanted, to support their interest in the country; and although we want none of their services, yet they will expect favors, and if refused, take it in a bad light, and very likely think it done to distress them, for some particular advantage we want to gain over them. They are by no means so sensible a people as the Six Nations, or other tribes this way ; and the French, for their own advantage, have learned them a bad custom ; for, by all I could learn, they seldom made them any general present, but as it were fed them with necessa- ries just as they wanted, tribe by tribe, and never sent them away empty, which will make it difficult and troublesome to the gentlemen that are to command in their country, for some time, to please them and preserve peace, as they are a rash, inconsiderate people, and do not look on themselves as under any obligation to us, but rather think we are obliged to them for letting us reside in their country.
" As far as I can judge of their sentiments, by the several conversations I have had with them, they will expect some satisfaction made them by us, for any posts that may be established in their country for trade. But you will be in- formed better by themselves next spring, as Pondiac and some chiefs of every nation in that country, intend to pay you a visit.
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COLONEL CROGHAN'S REPORT.
" The several nations on the Ouabache and towards the Illinois, St. Josephs, Chicago, La Baye, Saginaw, and other places, have applied for traders to be sent to their settle- ments. As it was not in the power of any officer to permit traders to go from Detroit, or Michillimackinac, either Eng- lish or French, I am of opinion the Indians will be sup- plied chiefly this year from the Illinois, which is all French property ; and if trading posts are not established at pro- per places in that country soon, the French must carry the best part of the trade over the Mississippi. This they are determined to do, if they can; for I have been informed that they are preparing to build a strong trading fort, on the other side of the Mississippi, about sixty miles above Fort Chartres, and have this summer, in a private manner, tranported twenty-six pieces of small cannon up the river for that purpose.
" I am with great esteem and regard, your honor's most obedient, and most humble servant,
"GEO. CROGHAN.
"To the Honorable Sir William Johnson, General, his Majesty's sole agent for Indian affairs."
This letter has no date, but was probably written soon after Colonel Croghan's arrival at Fort Stanwix, which was October 21st, 1765; as it is attached to his Journal of transactions.
N. B. The above journal is copied from an original manuscript, among Colonel Morgan's papers, and not from Butler's History of Kentucky, which had not been seen by the writer at that time.
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SETTLEMENT OF THE MONONGAHELA AND OHIO.
1
CHAPTER V.
Period of settlements on the Monongahela and at Wheeling, Virginia .- Trade with the Indians .- Hostile attitude of the whites .- Indian depredations .- Expedition planned, for invading the Indian country, called "Dunmore's war."- Battle at the mouth of Kenawha .- Dunmore lands at Big Hock- hocking .- Marches to the Indian towns .- They sue for peace .- Eloquence of Cornstalk, the Indian chief .- Dunmore returns to Fort Pitt .- Arrives in Williamsburgh .- Congratulatory addresses .- The people oppose his mea- sures .- Leaves the colony and goes to Florida.
AFTER the treaty with the Indians, in 1765, the country on the Monongahela and on the Ohio rivers, some distance below, began to be settled, as it enjoyed comparative secu- rity from Indian depredations. In the year 1767, a settle- ment at Red Stone, Old Fort, was begun. In 1770, Wheel- ing was settled by a number of men from the south branch of the Potomac, among whom was Ebenezer, Silas and Jonathan Zane, with Colonel Shepherd, all prominent men in the colonization and establishment of that place. Soon after which, locations were made on Buffalo and Short Creek, above Wheeling, where thet own of Wellsburgh now stands, then called " Buffalo," and afterwards Charleston.
This state of quiet continued, with little or no interruption on the part of the Indians, until the year 1774. A free and social intercourse was kept up between the red men and the white-the former often visiting their settlements, and num- erous traders of the latter frequenting the Indian towns with goods, in exchange for peltries. This friendly feeling would have probably continued for some time longer, but for the depredations committed by the whites on the Indians; it being the opinion of nearly all the writers of early western history that the Indians were not the first aggressors, but
87
EXPEDITION AGAINST THE INDIANS.
that it arose out of the unprovoked attack made on the family and connections of Logan, a celebrated Mingo chief, at Baker's station, opposite the mouth of Yellow creek-a place about midway between Wheeling and Fort Pitt. This murderous outrage, with several others that followed, at the instigation of Doctor Connolly, was fully avenged by Logan the summer after, in the numerous fatal attacks on the whites of western Virginia, as he acknowledges, in his celebrated speech to Lord Dunmore, in October following.
These repeated assaults of the Indians on the frontiers induced the governor of Virginia and the House of Burgesses to plan an expedition into the Indian country, on the Scioto river, as the only effectual mode of checking these maraud- ing parties, chiefly fitted out at the towns in that vicinity. The army was to consist of three thousand men, and as a portion of it marched through a district of country which for a number of years was attached to Washington county, and as it is the only instance of any considerable body of men in hostile array passing over this portion of Ohio, an account of that campaign will be given, so far as its obscure history can be traced.
The troops were assembled in two divisions: one at Camp Union, now Lewisburgh, in Greenbrier county, under General Andrew Lewis; the other at Pittsburgh, under the command of Governor Dunmore, in person-a proof of his bravery and desire of military fame. Few men, situated, like him, at the head of a rich and powerful colony, with all the comforts and luxuries of life around him, would leave them to traverse a wilderness, the distance of more than five hundred miles, into an enemy's country, for the love of glory. However much we may censure his subsequent conduct, he deserves unlimited praise for his great personal sacrifices in defence of the people under his government.
The division of General Lewis marched by land to the mouth of the Big Kenawha, while the other descended the Ohio river, in canoes and other craft, to the same point,
.
88
EXPEDITION AGAINST THE INDIANS.
where they were to unite their forces and march to the In- dian towns. Lewis reached his destination on the 6th of October,* and on the 10th of October was fought one of the longest and hardest contested battles ever enacted on the borders of the Ohio, between the red men and the white. The numbers engaged on each side were nearly equal- eleven hundred Virginians, and one thousand Indians, chiefly Shawanees, under the command of Cornstalk.
For reasons, no doubt satisfactory to himself, Governor Dunmore landed his division at the mouth of the Big Hock- hocking, instead of the Kenawha, a point but little, if any, further from the Indian towns, and commenced cutting away the forest trees and erecting a fortified camp of con- siderable extent. He also built a strong block-house, in which to deposit the surplus stores of provisions and ammu- nition in a place of safety, during the absence of the troops in their march to the Scioto. While occupied here with these preparations, he sent notice to General Lewis of the alteration in his plan, by Simon Girty, one of his principal guides, and a man named Parchment,t with orders for him to cross the Ohio and join him near the Indian towns. This order was received the evening before the battle, or the 9th day of October.
Within a few days after the battle, the troops under Gen- eral Lewis crossed the Ohio, and proceeded by the way of the Salt Licks, now Jackson, to join the division of Lord Dunmore, at or near old Chillicothe.
In the mean time his lordship, after leaving a strong guard to protect the stores at Fort Gower, as he called the block-house built at the mouth of Hockhocking, proceeded up the river to near the falls, where he left that stream and marched across the country to attack the Indian towns. In
* Various dates have been given; we follow the contemporary accounts, those of persons present, in Am. Archives, 4th Series, I, 774, &c.
+ History of Backwoods.
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CONDUCT OF DUNMORE.
the course of the third day, he was met by a noted Indian trader, named Elliot, bearing a white flag, with proposals of peace, and requesting him to withdraw his troops and appoint commissioners to meet their chiefs at Fort Pitt and agree on the terms of a treaty. This the Governor declined, but said he was willing to make peace, and as he was al- ready so near their towns, and the chiefs already near him, it was better to hold a treaty at this time, than at a future day. He then selected a spot where he would encamp and attend to their propositions. Orders were sent to General Lewis to halt his troops and proceed no further in the di- rection of the Indian towns, as he had concluded an armis- tice, and was about to arrange the terms of a treaty.
The two divisions were now within a few miles of each other; for Lewis, disregarding the commands of his lord- ship, continued to advance until the Indians, fearful of the destruction of their towns and crops, by the enraged men under his command, again applied to Dunmore, who went in person to Lewis's command, and persuaded him to halt his men and retire. To this, with great reluctance, he finally consented, as it was an abandonment of the sole object of the campaign-the destruction of the crops and towns of the Indians. Dunmore's conduct, at this time, was thought by many to be very strange and mysterious; and his subsequent transactions in Virginia, during the early years of the revolution, seemed to demonstrate and con- firm the suspicions then generated, of his inimical and hos- tile feelings to the inhabitants of Virginia. Mr. Withers, the author of the "Chronicles of Border Warfare," and from whom many of the facts in relation to this campaign are gathered, is fully of the opinion that he was actuated, at this time, by the same spirit which afterwards led him to plot with the Indians to sack and destroy some of the best portions of Virginia. But at this late period, seventy years after the event, to our view, his conduct on this occa- sion wears a very different aspect. The Indians, already
90
DUNMORE'S RETURN.
humbled by their unsuccessful attack on General Lewis, and the loss of many brave warriors, were fearful of total destruction, when the army of Lord Dunmore should be united with the other, as both of them would more than double the number of their own men, who had all been en- gaged in the battle of the 10th of October. Under these alarming prospects, though urged by the heroic Cornstalk to die before the fires of their wigwams, and sacrifice their wives and children, rather than submit to their enemies, yet the majority preferred life with a little disgrace, to the destruction of the nation, and so deputed an agent to sue for peace. When asked by an humble and prostrate foe, what brave man would refuse to him life and peace ? Lord Dunmore was both brave and generous; and if he could bring about a peace, with promised security to the frontier inhabitants from future aggression, it was all he desired, and did not seek the destruction of a brave people because they had been his enemies.
It was during this treaty at Camp Charlotte, within eight miles of the Indian town of Chillicothe, that Logan, through Colonel Gibson, delivered his celebrated speech to Lord Dunmore. The noble minded chief, Cornstalk, who led the Indians at the battle of Point Pleasant, and afterwards in 1777, was basely murdered by the whites at the same place, was present and delivered a speech, which for manly elo- quence, was fully equal to the best speeches of Patrick Henry, or Richard Henry Lee, in their best days ; so says Colonel Benjamin Wilson, who had heard both these cele- brated men. A strong block-house, strengthened with pick- ets, was erected by the men under General Lewis, at the mouth of the Kenawha, and manned with a sufficient gar- rison. This post was kept up during the war of the revolu- tion, and for several years subsequently.
Immediately after the treaty was concluded, that division of the army under Lord Dunmore returned to the mouth of the Hockhocking, by the same route in which it went out.
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HIS PROCLAMATION.
Here the troops were disbanded, and sought their way home to Virginia, west of the Blue Ridge, where the most of them resided, by way of Clarksburgh; while a few, with the Governor, proceeded by water up the Ohio to Fort Pitt, or Fort Dunmore, as Dr. Connolly, a bold, reckless man, ap- pointed to the command of this place, had named it in honor of his patron. This post was forcibly seized upon by Dunmore, the winter preceding, as lying within the boundaries of Virginia; while Pennsylvania, for many years before, considered it as a part of her territory, and Governor Penn had commissioned officers to direct and take charge of the civil affairs.
These conflicting claims caused much difficulty and dis- tress to the well disposed inhabitants, and were not finally adjusted until some years after the flight of Lord Dunmore from the colonial government of Virginia. It is stated by the citizens of Pittsburgh, in their letters of that day, pub- lished in the 1st Vol. Amer. Archives, to Governor Penn and council, that the war of 1774 was brought about through the agency of Dr. Connolly, by a circular letter addressed to the inhabitants and land jobbers on the Ohio, in which he di- rects them to attack and kill the Indians wherever they meet them. This advice they were often too ready to follow.
On the 17th September, 1774, Lord Dunmore, while on his way to the Indian towns, was at Fort Pitt and issued a proclamation, claiming the disputed territory as a part of Virginia, and forbidding the execution of any act of author- ity on behalf of the province of Pennsylvania; and that strict regard be paid to the laws of his majesty's colony of Virginia, under his administration. The proclamation is dated at Fort Dunmore ; thus endeavoring to supplant the rightful name of Fort Pitt, which it had held since 1758. It is probable he left this place soon after, as he must have been at the mouth of Hockhocking by the last of Sep- tember.
On the 12th of November following he was again at Fort
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DUNMORE OPPOSED BY THE PEOPLE.
Pitt, full of his characteristic energy, holding a court on Mr. Scott, one of Governor Penn's justices, for refusing to obey his proclamation of the 17th of September.
On the 4th of December he reached his home at Wil- liamsburgh, Virginia, and under the same notice we learn that, in his treaty with the Indians, they agreed to deliver up all white prisoners, with the horses and other plunder taken from the inhabitants. They also promised not to hunt south of the Ohio, and not to molest any travelers upon that river. (1 Vol. 4th series, Amer. Archives, 1170.)
After the return of Lord Dunmore to his palace at Wil- liamsburgh, congratulatory addresses were showered upon him from various quarters, for his successful campaign against the Indians ; to all which he returned modest and sensible answers. As a specimen of the estimation in which he was held by the people of Virginia, the following resolution was passed by the members of the convention, on the 25th March, 1775, then sitting at Richmond, and composed of the best men in the colony, viz:
" Resolved, unanimously, that the most cordial thanks of the people of the colony are a tribute justly due to our worthy Governor, Lord Dunmore, for his truly noble, wise and spirited conduct, on the late expedition against our Indian enemy ; a conduct which at once evinces his excel- lency's attention to the true interests of this colony, and a zeal in the executive department which no dangers can divert, or difficulties hinder, from achieving the most im- portant services to the people, who have the happiness to live under his administration."
A vote of thanks was also passed to the officers and sol- diers of the expedition: ( Amer. Arch. vol. 2, page 170 and 301, &c.) Before the close of that year, we find him driven forth from the loyal colony of Virginia, and the peo- ple in arms against him, while he is equally inveterate against them. They were both acting from correct and honorable principles; he for the king, his master, whose
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GOES TO FLORIDA.
sovereignty and interest he was sworn to support and de- fend; and they for the protection of their own rights and liberties, which were in danger of being wrested from them. The result is well known to history. Subsequent events proved, that through the agency of Connolly, the arch mover of mischief, attempts were made to organize a con- federacy, composed of tories and Indians, to invade the colony of Virginia, on the north and west, while the Brit- tish troops attacked them on the sea-board, placing them between two fires. The attempt failed; and being driven from his strong hold, near Norfolk, by General Lewis, his former friend, and companion, he shortly after left the coast, and proceeded to Florida, where he was employed by the king, and appointed Governor of New Providence island. We find him engaged in the year 1781, in an enterprise with the Creek Indians, persuading them to attack the Ameri- cans. (Arch. Am., vol. 5.) When or where he died is to us unknown, but that he ranked among the most able, enter- prising, and energetic of the colonial governors at the period of the revolution, there can be no doubt. Twenty years after this period, when the setlers of the Ohio company took possession of their lands at the mouth of the Big Hockhocking, the outlines of Dunmore's camping ground were easily distinguished. A tract containing several acres had the appearance of an old clearing, grown up with stout saplings. In plowing their fields for several years after, mementos of the former occupants were often found, con- sisting of hatchets, gun barrels, knives, swords and bullets, brought to light in the upturned furrow. In one place, several hundred leaden bullets were discovered, lying in a heap, as if they had been buried in a keg or box. A toler- ably perfect sword is now to be seen in the museum of the University, at Athens, Ohio, which was found on the west side of the river, near the roots of a fallen tree.
From the year 1774, to 1794, the Indians, especially the Shawanees, carried on a continual warfare with the settlers
94
FORT RANDOLPH BUILT.
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