The History of Tuscarawas County, Ohio, Part 25

Author: Warner, Beers & Co.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1017

USA > Ohio > Tuscarawas County > The History of Tuscarawas County, Ohio > Part 25

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Arrow and spear heads are the most abundant aboriginal relics to be found. They are chiefly made of hard and brittle silicious material, and are conse- quently easily damaged by the use for which they were evidently intended. A classification of arrow heads would be impossible. They are innumerable in shape and size. The art of arrow-making survives to the present day among certain Indian tribes, whose arrow-makers manufacture and well, or exchange the little weapons to their companions.

INDIANS.

After the departure or extinction of the Mound-Builders, many centuries ago, it is not known that the valley of the Muskingum was occupied until about 200 years ago, or if so, by what tribes. The Indian tribes that in- habited the American Continent were very few, wholly inadequate to occupy the entire territory. Constant wars prevented any considerable numerical increase, so that as time rolled on additional hunting grounds were unneces- sary. In 1650, the earliest date of any authentic Indian history, the Erie nation dwelled in what is now the northern part of Ohio, and was the only tribe that had a permanent residence within the bounds of what now consti- tutes the State. The Eries were a member of the Iroquois family. Soon after, their domains were invaded by the Five Nations, and most of them were

Digitized by Google

Henry Masken

Digitized by Google

Digitized by

Google

245

HISTORY OF TUSCARAWAS COUNTY.

killed and the residue incorporated with the conquerors or other tribes to which they fled for refuge. The Shawanees are believed to have crossed the Ohio during the first half of the seventeenth century, and settled in the Scioto Valley. They were probably driven from what is now Kentucky by the Cher- okees and Chickasaws. The Shawanees, too, were dispossessed of their Ohio homes and dispersed by the Five Nations in the seventeenth century; and in 1700 all this territory was derelict or occupied by the remnant of defeated tribes, permitted to remain by yielding tribute to their conquerors.

In 1750, the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanees, Ottawas, and perhaps other tribes, dwelt in the State. The scope of their possessions corresponded some- what with the various river systems. To the Delawares belonged the Muskin- gum Valley. The Shawanees were their neighbors on the west, in the Scioto Valley, and the Wyandots on the north, and these two tribes frequently camped and roamed over the Delaware grounds.

Heckewelder, in his history of Indian Nations, preserves a Delaware tra- dition that the Lenni Lenape, from which nation the Delawares sprang, resided many hundred years ago west of the Mississippi, and by a slow emigration ad- vanced eastward; that at the Allegheny River they encountered the Allegewi, a nation of giants, and with the aid of the Iroquois, also emigrating from the west, defeated them; that proceeding eastward, they settled on the Dela- ware, Hudson, Susquehanna and Potomac Rivers. The Lenape, or Delawares, thus seated on the Atlantic, divided themselves into three tribes, known as the Turkey, the Turtle and the Wolf, or Muncey tribes.

The Delawares, when first known to the whites, were in subjection to the Iroquois or Five Nations, doubtless by conquest, though a Delaware tradition ascribes their reduction to strategem and treachery. They inhabited a portion of New Jersey territory, and the eastern part of Pennsylvania. To so degrad- ing a state of vassalage were they reduced by the Five Nations, that the right to the soil they occupied was denied, and they were called women, and were deemed incapable of carrying on war or contracting sales of land. Neverthe- less, they exercised this latter prerogative with the whites, and thereby greatly incensed the Iroquois against them. Many of the Delawares retired to the Susquehanna and Allegheny Valleys, and between 1740 and 1750 began to settle on the Tuscarawas and Muskingum, having obtained from the Wyandots or Hurons, their ancient allies and uncles, who claimed the possession of Eastern Ohio, the grant of an unoccupied tract of land on the Muskingum. Here they flourished and became a very powerful tribe, released for a time from troublesome relations with the Iroquois. From 1765 to 1795 they were in the height of their influence.

Within the limits of what is now Tuscarawas County were several im- portant Indian towns. On the southwest side of the Tuscarawas, near what is now Bolivar, was the Indian village of Tuscarawas, the first capital of the Delawares in the valley. At the mouth of Stillwater was Three Legs Town, and on the site of Newcomerstown was Gekelemukpechunk, the next capital. In 1775, the capital was removed farther down the river to Goshackgunk 0

Digitized by Google

246

HISTORY OF TUSCARAWAS COUNTY.

(Coshocton). Shingash, or Bockongahelas, was one of the noted war chiefs of the Delawares. He resided at Tuscarawas town, near the site of Bolivar. He had formerly dwelt in Pennsylvania, and there acquired such a notoriety from his depredations that a large reward was offered for his head; in conse- quence, he wisely retired to the Tuscarawas. He was wounded in the last battle with Gen. Wayne's army, and died at his town, Wapakonneta, in 1804.

Netawatmes was chief of the Turtle tribe at Gekelemukpechunk, and it was he who removed the capital to Goshackgunk. He was a firm advocate of peace measures, a warm friend of the colonies in the Revolutionary struggle, and strongly attached to the cause of the Moravian missions. He had been a signer of a treaty held at Conestago, Penn., in 1718. When he first came to Ohio, he settled on the Cuyahoga, but afterward removed to the Tnscarawas. He died at an advanced age, in 1776, at Fort Pitt, while attending a peace conference held there.

White Eyes or Coquethegechton succeeded Netawatmes. He was a mighty chief among the Delawares, and an unwavering advocate of pence. On the breaking-out of the Revolution, the Delawares on the Muskingum were di- vided into peace and war parties. White Eyes and Killbuck favored peace with the colonies, while Captain Pipe, chief of the Wolf tribe, advocated the cause of war under the banners of the British. The position of the peace party was peculiarly trying. The other tribes of Ohio took up arms in behalf of England and taunted the friendly Delawares with cowardice and weakness. White Eyes, at a congress of Indians at Pittsburg, in 1775, openly espoused the canse of the Americans, which, says Heckewelder, so chagrined a number of Senecas who were present that they thought proper to offer a check to his pro- ceedings by giving him, in a haughty tone, a hint, intended to remind him that the Delaware nation was subordinate to the Six Nations Capt. White Eyes, long since tired of this language, with his usual spirit and in an air of dis- dain, rose and replied that he well knew that the Six Nations considered his nation as a conquered people, and their inferiors. " You say, " said he, " that you had conquered me ; that you had cut off my legs ; had put a petticoat on me, giving me a hoe and corn-pounder in my hands, saying, 'Now, woman, your business henceforward shall be to plant and hoe corn, and pound the same for bread for us men and warriors.' Look, continued White Eyes, at my legs! if, as you say, you had cut them off, they have grown again to their . proper size! the petticoat I have thrown away and put on my proper dress! the corn-hoe and pounder I have exchanged for these fire-arms, and I declare that I am a man!" Then waving his hand in the direction of the Allegheny River, he exclaimed, "And all the country on the other side of the river is mine!" This bold address drew the lines between the two parties of the Delawares. Many of those who favored England, and wished to maintain friendship with the Five Nations, withdrew from the Turtle tribe, joined the Muncey's and re- tired nearer Lake Erie. The record made by White Eyes shows him to have been " a man of high character and clear mind, of courage such as became the leader of a race whose most common virtues were those of the wild men, and

Digitized by Google

247

HISTORY OF TUSCARAWAS COUNTY.

of a forbearance and kindness as unusual as fearlessness was frequent among his people. It was the all-absorbing purpose of his life to reclaim the Indian from barbarism and elevate him to an equality with the white man. Hence he earnestly seconded the efforts and labors of the Moravian missionaries made in behalf of the red men." Gen. McIntosh in 1778 made a requisition upon the Delaware council for two Captains and sixty warriors, and White Eyes joined his command. He died of small-pox November 10, 1778, while guid- ing Gen. McIntosh and his army to Fort Laurens. The death of White Eyes caused deep sorrow throughout the Indian country, and many embassies were sent from the West to condole with the Delawares.

Gelelemend, or Killbnek, was then installed chief of the Turtle tribe. He became a devoted adherent of the Americans, receiving the rank of Colonel. He bore an irreproachable character, lived an exemplary, useful life, and was a wise, sagacious chief. He was born in 1737, in what is now Northampton County, Penn., and died at Goshen, Tuscarawas Co., Ohio, in 1811.

In general, the Delaware Indians entertained very friendly feelings toward the whites. Far more Indian blood than white was shed on the Tuscarawas. Most of the Moravian convents were of this nation. When the Revolutionary war broke out, the colonists wishing to secure the neutrality of the Indians effected two successive treaties in 1775 and 1776, binding the Delawares and some of the adjacent tribes to remain neutral. In 1777, the hatchet sent from the British head-quarters at Detroit was accepted by the Shawnees, Wyandots and Mingoes. A portion of the Delawares pledged themselves to take up arms, and at this crisis a general council of the Delawares met at Goshockgunk, March 9, 1778. Some of the young warriors appeared with plumes and war paint. After earnest discussion and eloquent addresses, especially from White Eyes, it was resolved to decline the hatchet. Three times during the summer it was tendered and as often declined. Friendship for the Americans was maintained despite the taunts of their own race; bribes were rejected and threats spurned. Subsequently, however. through the machinations of Simon Girty and others, a part of the nation was induced to join the British Indians. In 1778, the rightful authorities made a complete treaty of alliance with the United States, therein providing for carrying out a cherished project of White Eyes, that the Delaware Nation should be represented in the Colonial Congress and become as a Christian Indian State one of the United States. Killbuck and other Christian Indians for a time held the nation in check, but, in 1780, Capt. Pipe acquired the ascendancy at the Delaware capital, and carried the people to the British side, and many of them settled farther west. In 1781, Gen. Brodhead made an expedition to the forks of the Muskingum at Coshoc- ton, destroyed the Delaware villages in that vicinity, and killed a number of the Indians. The Delawares were represented at the grand Indian Council on the Maumee in 1793, in which it was declared that a treaty would not be con- summated with the United States unless the Ohio formed the boundary. They participated in the battle in which Gen. Wayne completely repulsed them, and wrested from them and other tribes a final treaty ceding to the United

Digitized by Google

248

HISTORY OF TUSCARAWAS COUNTY.

States two-thirds of the State of Ohio, including Tuscarawas County. By the treaty of 1817, the Delawares were deeded a reservation on the south of the Wyandot reservation, in Marion and Wyandot Counties. They remained here till about 1829, when they ceded it to the United States for $3,000, and were moved west of the Mississippi. Fragments of the nation are yet recog- Dized in Canada and in the Indian Territory, but "its power was broken and the scepter had departed when it was turned away from its loved haunts in the Tuscara was and Walhounding Valleys." Besides the Moravian Indians, a number of Indians remained in Tuscarawas County, engaged in fishing and hunting until some time subsequent to the war of 1812, but the steady encroachments of emigrants on the hunting grounds finally drove the last one away never to return.

Notwithstanding their former associations with the whites, which usually degrade the red man rather than civilize him, the Delawares of the Tus- carawas lived in the rude simplicity and virtue of their pristine times. Their dwellings were substantial structures, usually built of poles. Each chief, at the head of a village, had also his hunting and fishing grounds, to which he and his followers repaired to enjoy the sport so strongly relished by the Indian character. They also had annual hunts, in which all clans joined and ranged in common, dividing the products of the chase according to rank and station.

In regard to food, the Indians were more careful to provide for their future needs than their successors of the West are to day. They cultivated corn, melons, potatoes and other vegetables. Corn was the principal crop. When the season for planting drew near, the women cleared a spot of rich, alluvial soil, and prepared the ground in a rude manner with their hoes. In planting the corn, they followed lines to a certain extent, thus forming rows each way across the field. When the corn began to grow, they cultivated it with wonder- ful industry until it had matured sufficiently for use. Their corn-fields were nearly always in the vicinity of the villages, and sometimes were many acres in extent, and in favorable seasons yielded plentifully. The squaws had entire charge of the work. It was considered beneath the dignity of a brave to do any kind of manual labor, and, when any one of them, or of any of the white men whom they had adopted, did any work, they were severely reprimanded for acting like a squaw. The Indian women raised the corn, dried it, pounded it into meal in a rude stone mortar, or made it into hominy. Corn in one form and another furnished the chief staple of the Indian's food.

Heckewelder has written much of their manners and customs. He says " 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 stimulant 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 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.

Digitized by Google

249

HISTORY OF TUSCARAWAS COUNTY.

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 spoonfuls is taken, it is dangerous. 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."

In the spring, they made maple sugar by boiling the sap in large brass or iron kettles, obtained from French or Indian traders. To secure the sap, they used vessels made of elm bark in a very ingenious manner. A sloping notch was cut in the sugar tree, a tomahawk stuck into the wood at the end of the notch, and in the dent thus made a long chip or spile was driven, which conveyed the sap to the bark vessels. The larger trees were usually selected for tapping, as the sap was considered stronger. When the sugar was made, it was generally mixed with bear's oil or fat, forming a sweet mixture, into which they dipped roasted venison. As cleanliness was not proverbial among the Indians, the cultivated taste of a civilized person would not always fancy the mixture, unless driven to it by hunger. The compound was usually pre- served in large bags made of coon skins, or in vessels made of bark.

The Indians, continues Heckewelder," make beaver and raccoon-skin blank- ets; also frocks, shirts, petticoats, leggings and shoes of deer, bear and other skins. If cold, the for 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 of traders; they adorn with ribbons, beads, silver brooches, arm spangles, round buckles, little thimble-like bells around the ankles to make a noise and attract attention. They paint with vermilion, but not so as to offend their husbands. The men paint their thighs, legs, breasts and faces, and, to appear well, sometimes spend a whole day in dec- orating themselves for a night frolic. They pluck out their beards and hair on their 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.

The Indians were always fond of amusements of all kinds. These con- sisted of races, games of balt, throwing the tomahawk, shooting at a mark

Digitized by Google

250

HISTORY OF TUSCARAWAS COUNTY.

with the bow and arrow, or with the rifle after its distribution among them, horse-races, and other sports incidental to savage life. Their powers of en- durance were remarkable, and astonishing accounts are often now told of feats of prowess exhibited by these aborigines. Of the animals hunted by the In. dians, none seems to have elicited their skill more than the bear. To slay one of these beasts was proof of a warrior's prowess, and dangerous encounters often resulted in the hunter's search for such distinction. The vitality of bruin was unequaled among the animals of the forest, and, because of the danger attached to his capture, he was made an object of special hunts and feats of courage."

Digitized by

Google .

251

HISTORY OF TUSCARAWAS COUNTY.

CHAPTER IV.

EARLY MILITARY EXPEDITIONS.

ROGERS' EXPEDITION-BOUQUET'S EXPEDITION-FORT LAURENS.

THE Tuscarawas Valley in the last century, before its occupation by. white men, was visited and crossed by hunters and traders perhaps as frequent- ly as any other portion of Ohio. One of the principal trails from the western Indian country to Fort Pitt and the frontier American settlements was up this valley, and was often traversed by both hostile and friendly bands of savages. Captives were hurridly dragged from their devastated homes through its rich and varied scenery, to more remote Indian villages. The territory of Ohio was claimed by both England and France, and the agents and traders of each, visited the various Indian settlements, intent on forming alliances and com- pacts of treaty, or for the purpose of trafficking with the natives. In 1750, Christopher Gist, a land surveyor, explored the wilds of Ohio, in behalf of the Ohio Company, that contemplated extensive purchases of land in the wilder- ness. Gist reached the Tuscarawas River, or Elk Eye Creek, as it was then known, on the 5th of December, 1750, probably at a point in what is now the southern part of Stark County. In his journal he speaks of the land as broken, and the bottoms on this stream as rather narrow. Passing down the river to a Wyandot village near the present Coshocton, he found George Croghan, an English agent and trader, and also several other white traders. Traders doubtless frequented the Indian villages in the present territory of Tuscarawas County at this time. Heckewelder mentions Thomas Calhoun as a trader near Tuscarora, the site of Bolivar, in 1761.

The fall of Fort Du Quesne in 1758 terminated French dominion on the Ohio, and the subsequent capitulation of Montreal and Detroit in 1760 gave the entire Northwest into the possession of the English. Maj. Robert Rogers, a native of New Hampshire, was ordered to take possession of the Western forts. On his return from his tour through the West, he passed through the Tuscarawas Valley. With 200 rangers he left Montreal September 13, 1760. While on his way to Detroit, voyaging along the southern coast of Lake Erie, he landed at the mouth of "Chogage River," and was there met by "Ponteack (Pontiac), the king and lord of the country." who demanded to know his busi- ness in the country, and how he dared to enter it without permission. When the object of the expedition was made known they were allowed to pro- ceed. Maj. Robert Rogers remained in and about Detroit until December 23 when he set out for Fort Pitt through Ohio. He proceeded to the Maumee; thence to Lake Sandusky, which he reached January 2, 1761. From that point he followed the Sandusky and Tuscarawas trail to Fort Pitt. Jan-

Digitized by Google

252

HISTORY OF TUSCARAWAS COUNTY.

nary 13, he reached Beaver Town or Tuscarora, situated on the Tuscarawas opposite Sandy Creek, and at this time the residence of the leading Delaware chiefs. Here King Beaver resided in 1760, as did also the great war captain of the Delawares, Shingask. Maj. Rogers, in his journal, quoted in Taylor's History of Ohio, thus describes Beaver Town: "This Indian town stands on good land on the west side of the Maskongam River, and opposite to the town on the east side is a fine river, which discharges itself into it. The latter is about thirty yards wide, and the Maskongam about forty; so that when they both join they make a very fine stream, with a swift current running to the southwest. There are about 3,000 acres of cleared ground round this place. The number of warriors in this town is about 180. All the way from the Lake Sandusky, I found level land and a good coun try; no pine trees of any sort; the timber is white, black and yellow ouk, black and white walnut, cypress, chestnut and locust trees. At this town I staid till the 16th, in the morning, to refresh my party, and procured some corn of the Indians to boil with our venison." He reached Fort Pitt on the 23d, and New York February 14, 1761. The after life of Maj. Rogers was clouded. He possessed a vain, restless, grasping spirit, and doubtful honesty. He was court-martialed six years after his western expedition on a charge of treason, and soon after crossed the Atlantic and entered the military service of the Dey of Algiers. He returned to America, espoused the cause of independence, but was sus- pected of being a British spy, and soon after deserted to the enemy's ranks, receiving for his treachery a Colonel's commission.

BOUQUET'S EXPEDITION.

The Indians of the West had been won to friendship by the conciliatory policy of the French. They viewed with disfavor and suspicion the acquisi- tion of the soil by the English, and bowed with a sullen submission to English rule. Their jealousy and hatred were almost immediately aroused by the en- croachmeuts of English emigrants upon their territory, and the neglect with which they were treated by the English. This widespread feeling culminated in that sanguinary conflict known as "Pontiac's war." That gifted chieftain formed a confederation of Indian tribes, and arranged the plan of simulta- neously attacking all the forts within the Indian territory, by strategem, if possible, and by one fell stroke sweep English rule from the country. So secretly and cunningly was the warfare conducted that in the winter of 1762-63 nine of the twelve English forts fell into the hands of the Indians, and the whites not put to death were carried into captivity. Pontiac himself beleagured Detroit, while the Delawares, Shawanees and Wyandots of Ohio laid siege to Fort Pitt. Other bands of savages, in the meantime, ravaged the frontiers of Pennsylvania, burning houses, murdering settlers and pro- ducing indescribable distress and consternation.

Col. Henry Bouquet was then in command of Philadelphia, and was ordered to march to the relief of Fort Pitt. He was an experienced officer, brave, cautious and sagacious, and proved himself in every way equal to the

Digitized by Google -

253

HISTORY OF TUSCARAWAS COUNTY.

emergency. In the fierce and bloody battle of Bushy Run, he defeated the combined forces of the savages after two days' fighting. They retreated, raised the siege of Fort Pitt, and retired to their homes in Ohio, while Bou- quet marched his shattered forces to Fort Pitt, arriving August 10, 1763. The fugitive settlers then returned home, and it was learned that more than 200 men, women and children were missing, either killed or taken captive.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

The History of Tuscarawas County, Ohio, Part 25

Author: Warner, Beers & Co. Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Number of Pages: 1017

Author: Warner, Beers & Co.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1017