The history of Madison County, Ohio, Part 23

Author: Brown, Robert C; W.H. Beers & Co., pub
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, W.H. Beers & co.
Number of Pages: 1180

USA > Ohio > Madison County > The history of Madison County, Ohio > Part 23

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Implements, known as "fleshers " and " skinners," chisel-formed, commonly called " celts," were probably used as aids in peeling the skins of animals from the meat and bones. For the purpose of cutting tools for wood, they were not sufficiently hard, and do not show such use, excepting in a few flint chisels. They may have been applied as coal scrapers where

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wood had been burned ; but this could not have been a general thing with- out destroying the perfect edge most of them now exhibit. The grooved axes were much better adapted to this purpose.

Stone pestles are not plentiful in this portion of the State, while stone mortars are rare, indicating that they were made of wood, which is lighter and more easily transported. Most of the pestles are short, with a wide base, tapering toward the top. They were probably used with one hand, and moved about in the mortar in a circle. The long, round instrument usually called a pestle does not appear to be fitted for crushing seeds and grain by pounding or turning in the mortar. It was probably used as a rolling-pin, perhaps on a board or leveled log, but not upon stone. It is seldom found smooth or polished, and varies from seven to thirteen inches in length. In outline they taper toward each end, which is generally smooth, and circular in form, as though it had been twirled in an upright position.

There is almost an endless variety of perforated plates, thread-sizers, shuttles, etc. They are usually made of striped slate, most of which have tapering holes through them flatwise, the use of which has been much discussed. They are generally symmetrical, the material fine-grained, and their proportions graceful, as though their principal use was that of orna- mentation, as many of them may well have been worn suspended as beads or ornaments. Some partake of the character of badges or ensigns of authority, while others, if strung together on thongs or belts, would serve as a coat of mail, protecting the breast or back against the arrows of an enemy. A number of them would serve to size and twist twine or coarse thread made of bark, rawhide or sinew. The most common theory regarding their use is, however, lacking one important feature. None of them show signs of wear by use. The edges of the holes through them are sharp and perfect, and this objection applies equally well to their use as suspended ornaments. Some of them are shuttle- form, through which coarse thread might have been passed for weaving rude cloth of bark or of fibrous plants. There are also double-ended and pointed ones, with a cross seetion, about the middle of which is a circle and through which is a perforation.

A great variety of wands or badges of distinction are found. They are nearly all fabricated from striped and variegated slate, highly finished, very symmetrical and elegant in proportion, evidently designed to be orna- mental. The material is compact and fine-grained, but the eyes or holes for handles or staves are quite small, seldom half an inch in diameter. Their edges are not sharp but rounded, and the body is thin. usually less than one-fourth of an inch in thickness. The form of badges known as " double-crescents " are the most elegant and expensive of any yet brought to notice. They were probably used to indicate the highest rank or office, and the single crescent, perhaps, signified a rank next below the double. In the collection of John B. Matson, of Richland County, there is a rough-hewn double-crescent in process of construction, the horns of which turn inward, while in nearly or quite all the finished ones the points turn outward. The finish around the bore of all winged badges and the crescents is the same, and the size of the bore in either is from two-fifths to three-fifths of an inch. On one side of all is a narrow ridge; on the other a flat band lengthwise, like a ridge that has been ground down to a width of

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one to two tenths of an inch. Badges and crescents are invariably made of banded slate, generally of a greenish shade of color. The other forms of wands or badges, such as those with symmetrical wings or blades, are also made of green striped slate, highly polished, with a bore of about one-half inch in diameter, apparently to insert a light wooden rod or staff. They were probably emblems of distinction but not ornaments, and as nothing like them is known among the modern tribes in form or use, they have been attributed to the Mound Builders.

In addition to stone ornaments, the pre-historic man seems to have had a penchant, like his savage successors, to bedaub his body with various col- ors, derived from different colored minerals. These compounds were mixed in hollowed stones or diminutive mortars-"paint cups "-in which the mineral mass of colored clay was reduced to powder and prepared for appli- cation to the body. Such paint cups are not common in this State; in fact, they are quite rare, but one being known to exist-that in the collec- tion of Dr. Craig, of Mansfield, Richland County.

The comparative rarity of aboriginal smoking pipes is easily explained by the fact that they were not discarded as were weapons when those by whom they were fashioned entered upon the iron age. The advances of the whites in no way lessened the demand for pipes, nor did the whites substi- tute a better implement. The pipes were retained and used until worn out or broken, save the few that were buried with their dead owners, and what was the ultimate fate of these' can only be conjectured. In very few instances does an Indian grave contain a pipe, and if the practice of bury- ing the pipe with its owner was a common one, it is probable that the graves were opened and robbed of this coveted article by members of the same or some other tribe.

It only remains to notice the "flints," in addition to which a few other archæological relics of minor importance are found about the country, but none of sufficient import to merit mention, or to throw additional light on the lost tribes of America. Arrow and spear heads and other similar pieces of flaked flints are the most abundant of any aboriginal relics in the United States. They are chiefly made of hard and brittle silicious mate- rials : are easily damaged in hitting any object at which they are aimed, hence many of them bear marks of violent use. Perfect specimens are, however, by no means rare. The art of arrow-making survives to the pres- ent day among certain Indian tribes, from whom is learned the manner of producing them.

A classification of arrow-heads is rarely attempted by archaeologists, as the styles are almost as numerous as their makers. In general, they are all the same in outline, mostly leaf-shaped, varying according to the taste of their manufacturers, and their number, we might say, is infinite. They may have been made by chipping-probably most of them were-and some may have been ground.

Spear-heads exhibit as large a variety as arrow-heads, and, like the lat- ter, were inserted in wooden handles of various lengths, though in many tribes they were fastened by thongs of untanned leather or sinews.

Their modes of manufacture were generally the same. Sometimes tribes contained arrow-makers, whose business was to make these imple- ments, selling them to or exchanging them with their neighbors for wam-

HENRY ALDER. [DECEASED]

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pum or peltries. When the Indian desired an arrow or spear head, he could buy one of the arrow-maker or make one himself. The common method was to take a chipping implement, generally made of the pointed rods of a deer's horn, from eight to sixteen inches in length, or of slender, short pieces of the same material, bound with sinews to wooden sticks resembling arrow-shafts. The arrow-maker held in his left hand the flake of flint or obsidian on which he intended to operate, and pressing the point of the tool against its edge, detached scale after scale, with much ingenuity, until the flake assumed the desired form.

Beginning in the southern portion of Madison County, we find a chain of mounds extending to its northern limits, although with no apparent con- nection in location or size. It is, however, evident that all excepting one belong to the sepulchral order of mounds. as their construction is exactly alike. The largest of the burial mounds is located upon the estate of John Dun, in Oak Run Township, on an elevation overlooking the beautiful val- ley of Deer Creek. It is about two hundred and forty feet around the base, and twelve feet in height, circular in form and gradually tapering toward the summit. In January, 1881, it was opened to a depth of six or eight feet by Mathew Rea and Thomas Roby, who found the remains of two skel- etons, the skulls being the only portions in a fair state of preservation. Noth- ing else was discovered here, the different layers of burnt clay, charcoal and ashes, being the same as in all sepulchral mounds. This mound has, doubt- less, been several feet higher than it is to-day, and the view to be obtained from its summit is such an excellent one, that it is probable it was also used as a mound of observation.

There are two small mounds in Union Township, northwest of the Dun Mound-one on the land of Addison Chrisman, and one still further up on the land of Charles Baker. The former is located in a cultivated field on northeast side of the pike, but the plow has so nearly obliterated all evi- dences of this once sacred spot, that little remains to attract the attention of the casual observer. The mound on the Baker land is in the timber, also on the northeast side of the pike. Neither of these mounds have ever been large, not more than from three to five feet in height, and thirty-five feet in diameter. With the exception of the common evidences peculiar to bur- ial mounds, nothing has been discovered in either. The cause of this was, perhaps, the absence of care in opening them, or that atmospheric influences had completely destroyed whatever remains may have been buried therein, their diminutive size affording little or no protection against the ravages of time.

Southeast of the mound in Oak Run Township, on the land of Stephen Anderson, in Pleasant Township, is the remains of what was once a burial mound. It evidently was about the same size as the Dun Mound. but for many years the leveling process has gone on until its once beautiful sym- metrical proportions have disappeared. Located in a cultivated field on the east bank of Deer Creek, it now appears as a large hillock sloping gradually in every direction. We understand there is a small mound on the estate of Frank Hicks, near the western line of Pleasant Township.

One of the handsomest mounds in Madison County is upon the farm of Isaac Hambleton, on the east side of Little Darby, and abont one mile south- east of Jefferson. It stands in a wheat-field, a few hundred yards from

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the banks of the stream ; is about two hundred feet around the base, and ten feet high. From its summit are growing three trees, two of which are more than fifteen inches in diameter. The base has been very much disfigured by the plow, while the top has been dug into and never filled up. Still following the meanderings of Little Darby northwest of Jefferson we come to four small mounds. The first is on the land of Truman Kimball. on the southwest bank of the stream. It has been opened by William Deardorff, a whole skeleton taken out, and the remains of others discovered. Some dis- tance northwest of this one, but on the opposite bank of Little Darby, are three similar mounds, all being about five feet in height, and thirty-five feet in diameter. These are located on the land of James Dun, and all four mounds are in Jefferson Township. They have been dug into by different par- ties, William Deardorff and Thomas Bates opening two of them. In one was found a copper needle and three slate ornaments nicely polished, with holes drilled through them, by which they were suspended, fastened, or made convenient for whatever use their owners put them to. No other relics were found in these mounds, as far as we have been able to learn. It is said that quite a large mound existed at an early day in the southern portion of Deer Creek Township, but that a Mr. Ewing scraped it down and erected his residence upon its site.

The only other burial mound of which we have any knowledge, is located on the north bank of Big Darby, about one mile northwest of Plain City, and as this territory originally belonged to Madison County, it will be proper to here mention it briefly. It was originally about the same size as the mound on the Hambleton farm in Jefferson Township, but is much smaller to-day. In 1848, a society called " the Rectifiers," was organized in Plain City, the object of which was the improvement or morals, the advancement of education, benevolence and institutions of charity, and the development of archaeological history. In 1850, the society opened this mound, from which they took the remains of some skeletons. The thigh bones were very massive, while the jaw bones were sufficiently large to slip over the face of the ordinary man, demonstrating that the beings to whom they belonged must have been of extraordinary size and proportions. The teeth were found in an almost perfect state of preservation, and belonged to persons of full growth and well-developed maturity. It is not understood that there was anything else of interest found here, but this like all the other burial mounds, bore the same evidences of the pre-historic age.

We now come to the largest mound in Madison County, and one of the largest in Ohio. It is classed under the head of Temple Mounds, is oval in shape, 600 feet around the base, and about twenty-five feet in height. Located upon an elevated ridge in the southeast corner of Monroe Township. on the estate of John Dun, it overlooks the valley formed by the junction of Spring Fork and Little Darby, the view from its summit being a charming one. Like all temple mounds, it has an unfinished appearance, and pre- sents evidences of steps or inclined planes leading to the top. It is the sup- position among archæologists that this class of mounds, which are not num- erous, were surmounted by wooden structures, all traces of which had disap- peared long prior to the coming of the white race. During the pioneer days of Ohio, the vicinity of this mound was a favorite camping ground of the Indians, and it is said that they used the mound for burial purposes. In

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after years, when the whites had possessed and settled upon these lands, the Indians often returned to this spot made sacred as the resting place of their loved ones. Here it was that Tobias Bright shot in cold blood an Indian named Nicholas Monhem, in 1810, which created great excitement among the Indians, almost leading to a collision with the whites. Thus it will be seen that this mound which was constructed by one race, way " back in the by- gone time, lost mid the rubbish of forgotten things," became one of the fav- orite spots of their successors.

From the foregoing the reader can glean the knowledge that Madison County, with its silent monuments everywhere spread before our wondering eyes, like the everlasting rocks that point the geologist to the past history of the globe, can truly lay claim to being called historic ground. Can it be that these people, becoming very numerous, living in affluence upon the golden riches of the soil, vain in their superiority of knowledge, bigoted in their religious superstitions, effeminate and weakened in long security, have met the same fate as the Roman Empire, when barbarians of athletic propor- tions and warlike prowess swept down from the north, laying vandal hands upon accumulations of art gathered in past centuries ? The people were annihilated or driven farther toward the south ; their works, all that could be destroyed, were destroyed, and the country allowed to grow up again in its primitive wildness, furnishing hunting grounds for the American Indians. They in turn were driven out by the more powerful white race who now dwell therein. giving to us Madison County of to-day. with her well-tilled farms, her schools, and churches, her towns and villages, and her railroad and telegraphic communications with every portion of the civilized world.

CHAPTER II.

THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS-THEIR LIFE, LANGUAGE, PLACES OF ABODE AND CHARACTER-THIE' MEDICINE MAN-THE INDIAN SQUAW-MARRIAGE AND SOCIAL RELATIONS-RELIGIOUS BELIEF-ORIGINAL OHIO TRIBES-MIAMI CONFEDERACY-SIX NATIONS-LOCATION OF TRIBES AND THEIR STRENGTII-INDIAN WARS AND EXPEDITIONS-SITES OF VILLAGES -VICTORIES AND DEFEATS-FINAL DEFEAT OF THE INDIANS -LEADING CHIEFS -SIMON GIRTY -PEACE OF 1795- TECUMSEH AND THE WAR OF 1812-SUBSEQUENT TREATIES-INDIAN RESERVATIONS-EXTINCTION OF INDIAN TITLE IN OHIO-RESUME FROM 1754 TO 1794-MADISON COUNTY AS A IIUNTING GROUND-INDIAN CAMPING PLACES, BURYING-GROUNDS AND RELICS -CAPTAIN JOHN.

THE history of the North American Indians has been gathered, princi- pally, from the traditions handed down by the leading men of that race, though much of it has been established as authentic and reliable. Their origin is involved in complete obscurity, but, that they are one of the oldest races of mankind, cannot be doubted. " They belong to the Ganowa- nian, or Bow-and-Arrow family of men. Some races cultivate the soil, others have herds and flocks, others build cities and ships." To the American Indian the chase was his sole delight ; to smite with his arrow the denizen of the forest and make war upon his enemies, his chief aim in life. He could live happily, only, among vast hunting-grounds of forest, hill and river, filled with the game which unaided nature supplied. To glide up and down the streams and mighty rivers in his frail canoe was a favorite past- time. Nature was his teacher and the forest his home. His religious be- lief centered upon the theory, that at death he would be transferred to just such a paradise of the chase as in life he considered necessary to true hap- piness. This heaven of his imagination he called " the happy hunting ground," and truly it was a beautiful and poetic theory of immortality, one well suited to the child of Nature.

The character of the Indians was largely the result of their lives. They judged and lived by what the senses dictated. They had names and words for what they could hear, sec, feel, taste and smell, but had no conception of abstract ideas until they learned such from the whites ; hence their language was very symbolical. They could see the sun in his bright- ness, and feel his heat; hence they compared the actions of a good man to the glory of the sun, and his fervent energy to the heat of that body. The moon in her brightness, the wind in its fury, the clouds in their majesty, or in their slow graceful motion through a lazy atmosphere : the grace and flight of the deer ; the strength and fury of the bear ; the rush or ripple of water as it coursed along the bed of a river, all gave them words whose musi- cal expressiveness are a wonder and a marvel to this day. The Wyandots

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looked upon the beautiful river that borders the southern shores of this State and exclaimed " O-he-zuh !" great, grand and fair to look upon, while the Shawnees called it " Kis-ke-pi-la Sepe," Eagle River. They gazed upon the placid waters of the stream bordering the western line of Indiana and ejaculated, " Wa-ba," a summer cloud moving swiftly ; on a river flowing into Lake Erie and said, " Cuy-o-ga," crooked; and so on through their entire vocabulary, each name expressive of a meaning, full and admirably adapted to the object.

The Indians did not occupy the ancient earthworks, nor did they con- struct such. They were found as they are now-a hunter race, wholly averse to labor. Their abodes were in rock shelters, in caves, or in tom- porary sheds of bark and boughs, or skins, easily moved from place to place, which they called their wigwams. Like most savage races, their habits arc unchangeable, and although they partially adopted from the whites some customs in dress, and the erection of cabins, yet the efforts of the white race, during three centuries, have failed to make little, if any, impresssion upon them. In peace the Indian was unsocial, solitary and gloomy, yet at times gave way to pleasure and merriment ; in war, he was fierce, vindictive revengeful and unforgiving. He recognized no law save his own will, and to curb that will, or to thwart his passions or purposes by civil authority was intolerable. The most striking characteristic of the race was a certain sense of personal independence and freedom from restraint. On the war- rath they followed a chieftain whom they chose to lead them, or else one who won his position and right to command by being the most cunning in savage strategy, foremost in danger and bravest in battle. The prophet and physician of the tribe was the Medicine Man, whose office was self-con- stituted. He claimed his authority from the Great Spirit, and as no man gave it none could take it away, his influence depending upon himself and the voluntary respect of the nation.

The Indian squaw was a degraded creature, a drudge, a beast of bur- den. who did all the hard. slavish labor, while her lord and master followed the chase, or made war upon his enemies. The social principle was, there- fore, correspondingly low, and marriage consisted simply of two persons agreeing to live together. Among some tribes this simple agreement was never broken, while among others the man could put away his wife at will and take another. The Wyandots, Shawnees and Delawares prided then- selves on their virtue and hospitality, and the marriage relations among them, as well as some other tribes, was seldom violated, any variation from it on the part of the female meriting certain death.

The Indians were all believers in one Great Spirit. They firmly be- lieved in his care of the world and of his children, though different theories prevailed among the tribes regarding their creation. This trust often led them into habits of prodigality. They seldom provided for the future, almost literally fulfilling the adage : " Let cach day provide for its own wants." They hunted. fished and idled away their days. Possessed of a boundless inheritance, they allowed the white race to come in and possess their lands and eventually drive them entirely away.

When the white man first came to the territory now embraced within the State of Ohio, he found dwelling here a number of Indian nations, cach composed of several tribes, and each was often at war with the others.

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Many theories have been advanced and much has been written as to what nation originally belonged the soil of Ohio, but the more recent writers lean toward the belief that to the Shawnees may be accorded that honor. It is claimed that the powerful and warlike people who once inhabited the southern shores of Lake Erie, and known in history as the Eries, are identical with the nation later known as the Shawnees.

This tribe is recognized in history as the Bedouins of the North Amer- ican Indians. As fomenters of discord and war between themselves and their neighbors, their genius was marked ; as wanderers, they were without rivals among their race. Capt. John Smith made mention of a tribe that lived on the southern shores of Lake Erie, whom he called "Massawom- ekes," while in the Jesuit Relations they are called " Eries, Cats, or Chats." Cadwallader Colden calls them "Satanas," and Nicholas Perot "Chaoua- nous." This diversity of names does not alter the fact that all of these authorities give the same location and date of occupancy of the tribe about which each wrote; also, that this tribe was conquered and dispersed by the Five Nations of New York, known by the French as Iroquois, and the English as Mingoes, about 1655, is generally admitted by all historians. Nicholas Perot lived among the Indians for more than thirty years subse- quent to 1665, and enjoyed their confidence to a marked degree. He says that the " Chaouanous " were driven from Lake Erie by the Five Nations, who chased them and their allies toward Carolina, where they have since remained, establishing themselves at different points. The survivors of this once powerful nation being driven from their homes and their property destroyed, deprived of the lake as a principal source of food supply, were forced to resort to the chase as a means of subsistence.

We find that as early as 1669, La Salle speaks of the "Shawnees " as being familiar with the country contiguous to the Ohio River. Father Mar- quette, in 1670, makes similar statements as to their location, and in 1672, upon reaching the mouth of the Ohio, on his voyage down the Mississippi, says : " This river comes from the country on the east inhabited by the people called Chaouanous, in such numbers that they reckon as many as twenty-three villages in one district, and fifteen in another, lying quite near each other ; they are by no means warlike, and are the people the Iroquois go far to seek in order to wage an unprovoked war upon them." This would seem to indicate that their warlike spirit had been somewhat crushed by their humiliating defeat some years prior to this time. In 1680, Father Membre, in his account of the adventures of La Salle, speaks of this tribe, and the same year, a chief of the " Chaouanous " who had 150 wrrriors, and lived on a large river emptying into the Ohio, sent to La Salle, to form an alliance with him.

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The history of Madison County, Ohio, Part 23

Author: Brown, Robert C; W.H. Beers & Co., pub Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Chicago, W.H. Beers & co. Number of Pages: 1180

Author: Brown, Robert C; W.H. Beers & Co., pub
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, W.H. Beers & co.
Number of Pages: 1180