USA > Pennsylvania > Beaver County > History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, and its centennial celebration, Volume I > Part 6
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The character of Logan, as exhibited by these diarists, is far from being attractive, but, while he had no doubt the vice of drunkenness, which was all too common among both the Indians and the whites, he is not to be judged too harshly. The infor- mation concerning him which McClure received at Pittsburg, we believe to have been totally erroneous. He was highly es- teemed by Conrad Weiser, an officer for government in the Indian department, his father, Shikellimy, the representative of the Six Nations, on the Susquehanna, was a reputable chief, and with the son, enjoyed the favor and confidence of the Pennsylvania authorities for years, and the assertion that he was ferocious (previous to the murder of his relatives) is contradicted by all the testimonies of those who knew him. Judge William Brown, of Mifflin County, said of him, "Logan was the best specimen of humanity I ever met with, either white or red." As to his part in the French wars, all the authorities that we have seen agree with Drake, who says:
For magnanimity in war, and greatness of soul in peace, few, if any, in any nation, ever surpassed Logan. He took no part in the French wars which ended in 1760, except that of peace-maker; was always acknow- ledged the friend of the white people, until the year 1774, when his brother and several others of his family were murdered. [The italics are ours.] 2
The picture given us by McClure of Logan's mental and spiritual condition-his self-accusation at least-is, allowing for his Indian education, not more awful than may be found par- alleled in many books of Christian biography and autobiography
1 See below, p. 28.
2 Book V., p. 41.
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(e. g., David Brainerd's Memoirs, the journals of Pusey, Carey, and many others). The feelings of deep melancholy which it depicts seem to have often afflicted him, especially after the massacre of his relatives, and his bloody reprisals, following that dread- ful outrage; events belonging to a period later than that in which he was seen by McClure. This is said to have been the case in the letter written by the Moravian missionary Heckewelder, re- ferred to above and which we give in a note below.1
It may be proper to mention briefly others of the individual chiefs who were of note among the tribes who lived in this region.
With the Delawares, when they came to the Ohio, were "three mighty men" of the tribe, the three brothers, Amockwi (spelled also Tamaqui), or The Beaver, Shingiss, and Pisquetu- man. At the date of Washington's visit to Logstown, 1753, on his way to Venango, Shingiss was living at the mouth of Char- tier's Creek, and he was at that time the chief sachem, or "king" of the Delawares. In his journal, Washington makes this men- tion of him:
About two miles from this [i. e., the head of the Ohio], on the southeast side of the river, at the place where the Ohio Company intended to erect
1 Heckewelder's letter, which was published in the American Pioneer, vol. i., No. I., page 22, reads, in part, as follows:
"Logan was the second son of Shikellimus, a celebrated chief of the Cayuga nation. About the year 1772, Logan was introduced to me, by an Indian friend
as a friend to the white people. In the course of conversation, I thought him a man of superior talents than Indians generally were. The subject turning on vice and immorality, he confessed his too great share of this, especially his fondness for liquor. He exclaimed against the white people for imposing liquors upon the Indians; he otherwise admired their ingenuity; spoke of gentlemen, but observed the Indians unfortunately had but few of these as their neighbors, &c. He spoke of his friendship to the white people, wished always to be a neighbor to them; intended to settle on the Ohio below Big Beaver, was (to the best of my recollection) then encamped at the mouth of this river, (Beaver,) urged me to pay him a visit, &c. Note .- I was then living at the Moravian town on this river, in the neighborhood of Cuscuskee. In April, 1773, when on my passage down the Ohio for Muskinghum, I called at Logan's settlement, where I received every civility I could expect from such of the family as were at home.
"Indian reports concerning Logan, after the death of his family, ran to this; that he exerted himself during the Shawanese war, (then so called) to take all the revenge he could, declaring that he had lost all confidence in the white people. At the time of the negotiation, he declared his reluctance in laying down the hatchet, not having (in his opinion) yet taken ample satisfaction; yet, for the sake of the nation, he would do it. His expressions, from time to time, denoted a deep melancholy. Life (said he) had become a torment to him: he knew no more what pleasure was: he thought it had been better if he had never existed, &c. &c. Report further states, that he became in some measure delirious, declared he would kill himself, went to Detroit, drank very freely, and did not seem to care what he did, and what became of himself. In this condition he left Detroit, and on his way between that place and Miami was murdered. In October, 1781, (while as prisoner on my way to Detroit,) I was shown the spot where this should have happened."
The editor of the Pioneer discredits the accounts of Logan's excessive intemperance, revengefulness, and death in a drunken frolic, saying:
" We have and shall publish in the Pioneer, some evidence which runs in favor of his death by disease, at old Chillicothe, on the banks of the Scioto river, fifteen miles from this city, the place of his residence, and, as we believe, the very spot where his celebrated speech was delivered, and where the Logan Historical Society intend to erect a monument to the memory of his worth, inscribed with the speech, so that in future ages our sons, from imperishable marble, may learn something of the native eloquence of this new world."
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a fort, lives Shingiss, the king of the Delawares. We called upon him to invite him to a council at Logstown.
Three years after this date Shingiss removed to the Delaware town on the Allegheny River known as "Old Kittanning," and later to Sawkunk. Shingiss was the most formidable warrior of the Delawares. The Moravian historian, Heckewelder, says of him:
Were all his war exploits on record they would form an interesting document, though a shocking one. Conococheago, Big Cove, Shearman's Valley and other settlements along the frontier felt his strong arm suffi- ciently to know that he was a bloody warrior, cruel in his treatment, relentless in his fury. His person was small, but in point of courage, activity and savage prowess, he was said to have never been exceeded by any one.
Christian Frederick Post was sent, in 1758, from the Penn- sylvania authorities to the Delaware, Shawanese, and Mingo Indians settled on the Ohio, to try to prevail on them to with- draw from the French interest. In his journal of this trip he makes interesting mention of Shingiss. On July 28, 1758, he set out with him and twenty others from Sawkunk I (Beaver)
1 The Delawares, as stated above, had a town at the mouth of the Beaver, where King Beaver and Shingiss were at this time. We learn of their intention to remove about a year later to Kuskuskee from a letter written by Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh Mercer * to Mr. Richard Peters, secretary of the Council. In this letter, which is dated at Pittsburg, March 1, 1759, Mercer says:
"The Delawares at the Mouth of the Beaver Creek intend to remove to Kuskusky, they pretend at our request; but rather in my Opinion, thro' Diffidence of us, or to get out of the Way of Blows, if any are going, for depend upon it they are desirous of fighting neither on the side of the English nor French but would gladly see both dislodged from this Place. It is true the Old thinking part of the Tribe incline to us, while the Young Villains who have swilled so much of our Blood, and grown rich by the plunder of the Frontiers, have still some French Poison lurking in their Veins, that might perhaps break out at a Con- venient Opportunity."-(Col. Rec., vol. viii., p. 305.)
This intention of the Delawares had been intimated in a speech of King Beaver, made at a conference at Fort Pitt with Mercer, to whom he said:
"The Six Nations and you desire that I would sit down and smoke my pipe at Kuskusky. I tell you this that you may think no ill of my removing from Sacunk to Kuskusky, for it is at the great desire of my brothers, the English, and my uncles, the Six Nations: and there I shall always hear your words." (Id., p. 307.)
To which Mercer replied :
"It is not the desire of the English that you should move from Sacunk to Kuskusky. General Forbes, in his Letter, mentioned your sitting down and smoaking your Pipe at Kuskusky, hecause he had heard of no other Great Delaware Town. Your Brothers, the English, desire to see you live in Peace and Happiness, either at Sacunk, Kuskusky, or whereever you think proper and by no means intend to Limit you to one Place or another." -(Id., p. 309.)
The Delawares and Shawanese not long afterwards removed from Kittanning, Sawkunk, and Kuskuskee to the Muskingum and Scioto.
* Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh Mercer, afterwards General Mercer, was killed at Princeton, January 3, 1777.
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for Kuskuskee, and he writes of this interview with the redoubt- able chieftain as follows:
On the road Shingas addressed himself to me and asked if I did not think, that, if he came to the English, they would hang him, as they had offered a great reward for his head. He spoke in a very soft and easy manner. I told him that was a great while ago, it was all forgotten and wiped clean away; that the English would receive him very kindly. Then Daniel [Shamokin Daniel, in league with the French] interrupted me, and said to Shingas: "Do not believe him, he tells nothing but idle lying stories. Wherefore did the English hire one thousand two hundred Indians to kill us?" I protested it was false. He said: "G-d d-n you for a fool; did you not see that woman lying in the road that was killed by the Indians that the English hired?" I said, "Brother, do you consider how many thousand Indians the French have hired to kill the English, and how many they have killed along the frontiers." Then Daniel said, "D-n you, why do not you and the French fight on the sea? You come here only to cheat the poor Indians and take their lands from them." Then Shingas told him to be still, for he did not know what he said. We arrived at Kushkushkee before night, and I in- formed Pisquetumen of Daniel's behavior, at which he appeared sorry.
29th-I dined with Shingas. He told me, though the English had set a great price on his head, he had never thought to revenge himself, but was always very kind to any prisoners that were brought in; and that he assured the governor he would do all in his power to bring about an established peace, and wished he could be certain of the English being in earnest.
On the first of September following, Shingiss, King Beaver, and Pisquetuman (the three brothers), with Delaware George, made a speech to Post in which they said in part that they were informed by some of the greatest of the traders, some of the justices of the peace, and by the French that
the English intend to destroy us, and take our lands from us; but that they (the French) are only come to defend us and our lands. But the land is ours, and not theirs; therefore we say, if you will be at peace with us, we will send the French home. It is you that have begun the war, and it is necessary that you hold fast and be not discouraged in the work of peace. We love you more than you love us; for when we take any prisoners from you, we treat them as our own children. We are poor, and yet we clothe them as well as we can, though you see our children are as naked as at the first. By this you may see that our hearts are better than yours. It is plain that you white people are the cause of this war. Why do not you and the French fight in the old country and on the sea? Why do you come to fight on our land? This makes every- body believe you want to take the land from us by force and settle it.
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The good man Post, who was Christian in character as well as in name, answered them as adroitly as he could, but the In- dians had rather the best of him in the argument. After Brad- dock's defeat, in which he fought with the French, Shingiss raided the country as far east as the Delaware River, striking Reading and Bethlehem, and threatening Easton. On his return to the Ohio he brought with him one hundred captives and a great quantity of plunder. It would seem that on account of this savage work Shingiss was deposed from his position as "king" when the English got control of the country, and that his brother Amockwi,-The Beaver,-succeeded him as the head of the Dela- wares. Amockwi had always excelled as a councilor, attending all the treaties held between the Delawares and the whites. Speeches of his preserved in the journal of Colonel Bouquet's expedition against the Ohio Indians in 1764, and in the records of conferences with the Indians in which he took a leading part, such as that of George Croghan, deputy to Sir William John- son, His Majesty's Superintendent of Indian Affairs, at Fort Pitt in July, 1759,1 and that of General Stanwix, at Fort Pitt, in October, 1759,2 all show him to have been an astute politician and an eloquent speaker. His last public appearance was at the treaty of Lancaster, in 1762, and he died and was buried a few years later on the Muskingum, near where the Tuscarawas trail crossed that stream-a point near the present town of New Philadelphia.3 Pisquetuman, the third brother mentioned above, was also a chief of some note.
Another chief of the Delaware tribe, perhaps the ablest captain and councilor of them all, was Koquethagachton, or " White Eyes." In 1762 he had his lodge at the mouth of the Beaver. Here he was visited by Heckewelder, the Moravian missionary, in the spring of that year, when the latter was on his way to the Tuscarawas.4 White Eyes was ever faithful to the Americans. In both Dunmore's War and the War of the Revolution, he strove to keep the Delawares neutral, and failing in this in the latter contest, and being compelled to take sides, he declared for the colonists, and joined General Lachlan McIntosh's com- mand in 1778, with a colonel's commission. He was a warm friend of the Moravian mission to his people. Heckewelder says
1 Hist. Western Penna., Ap. No. XIV.
3 Gist's Fournals, Darlington, p. 142.
2 Id. Ap. No. XV.
4 Heckewelder's Indian Nations, p. 69.
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of him: "He was a Christian in his heart, but did not live to make a public profession of our religion, though it is well known that he persuaded many Indians to embrace it." I
Gratefully the old missionary recalls the devotion shown to himself by this chief, relating the following incident, which we quote in full as showing the better side of the Indian character. He says:
In the year 1777, while the Revolutionary war was raging, and several Indian tribes had enlisted on the British side, and were spreading murder and devastation along our unprotected frontier, I rather rashly determined to take a journey into the country on a visit to my friends. Captain White Eyes, the Indian hero resided at that time at the dis- tance of seventeen miles from the place where I lived. Hearing of my determination, he immediately hurried up to me, with his friend Captain Wingenund and some of his young men, for the purpose of escorting me to Pittsburgh, saying, that he would not suffer me to go, while the San- dusky warriors were out on war excursions without a proper escort and himself at my side. He insisted on accompanying me and we set out together. One day, as we were proceeding along, our spies discovered a suspicious track. White Eyes, who was riding before me, enquired whether I felt afraid? I answered that while he was with me, I enter- tained no fear. On this he immediately replied, "you are right; for until I am laid prostrate at your feet, no one shall hurt you." "And even not then," added Wingenund, who was riding behind me; "before this happens, I must be also overcome, and lay by the side of our friend Koquethagechton." I believed them, and I believe at this day that these great men were sincere, and that if they had been put to the test, they would have shown it, as did another Indian friend by whom my life was saved in the spring of the year 1781. From behind a log in the bushes where he was concealed, he espied a hostile Indian at the very
1 Heckewelder's Indian Nations, p. 70. He also says that White Eyes died at Pittsburg of the smallpox, he thinks, in the year 1780, and a note by his editor places the death of that chief at Fort Laurens in November, 1778. But a manuscript letter from Col. George Morgan to a member of Congress, dated May 12, 1784, would indicate that he had been killed by treachery. In this letter he speaks of George White Eyes, a son of the great chief, then thirteen years of age, who was at that time in the care of Col. Morgan at Princeton, as fol- lows: "Having now entered Virgil and begun Greek, and being the best scholar in his class, he will be prepare to entered College next Fall." He further says: " His father was treacher- ously put to death at the moment of his greatest exertions to save the United States, in whose service he held the commission of a colonel." "I have carefully concealed and shall continue to conceal from young White Eyes the Manner of his Father's death, which I have never mentioned to any one but Mr. Thompson & two or three Members of Con- gress." In view of these statements as to the date of the death of White Eyes it is rather puzzling to find the German traveler Schoepf, quoted on pp. 33-34, speaking of seeing a great chief of that name at Fort Pitt after the Revolution and to learn that Captain White Eyes is mentioned in the supplement to the treaty of Fort McIntosh (1785). In the treaty. however, the Indian name given him is not Koquethagachton, but Wicocalind. Were there two Indian chiefs of prominence of the same name, White Eyes, or is there an error on the part of one or other of the parties quoted above in regard to the death of the chief?
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moment he was leveling his piece at me. Quick as lightning he jumped between us, and exposed his person to the musket shot just about to be fired, when fortunately the aggressor desisted, from fear of hitting the Indian whose body thus effectually protected me, at the_imminent risk of his own life. Captain White Eyes, in the year 1774, saved in the same manner the life of David Duncan, the peace-messenger, whom he was escorting. He rushed, regardless of his own life, up to an inimical Shawanese, who was aiming at our ambassador from behind a bush, and forced him to desist.I
It may not be out of place to give here from an old volume an account of a visit to Killbuck and White Eyes, written by a surgeon who was with the German troops during the Revolution, and who afterwards traveled through the West, spending, on his way, some time at Pittsburg. We translate the following paragraphs :
Several Indian families, of the Delaware tribe, lived, at that time, close to the fort [Fort Pitt]. In the company of one of the officers of the garrison, I visited their chief, Colonel Killbuck. As is known the Indians are exceedingly proud of military titles of honor, and like to hear themselves called "Colonel" and "Captain." The Colonel, whom we found in a dirty and ragged shirt, was yesterday returned from a long hunt, and today was refreshing himself with drink. He spoke broken English, and fetched with pride some letters, which his son and daughter, who are both being brought up in Princeton at the cost of Congress, had written to him.
Colonel Killbuck, in the beginning of the troubles, separated himself with several families of his nation, from the rest of his folk, who for the most part allied themselves with the English, and came with them to this place. These were among all the Indians almost the only ones who threw in their lot with the Americans. Their wigwams, which were only for the summer, were constructed of poles and bark; for winter, said they, they would of course, build better ones. There were about a dozen of these wigwams. Their bear-skin beds were spread about the fire which glowed in the center. The meat-pot is never taken from the fire, except to be emptied and filled again, for they eat always without setting any particular hour. On all the sides of the wigwams were hung beans, maize and dried game, which affords their chief entertainment. One of their most important men was Captain Whiteeye, who strutted about in a woolen blanket, with rings in his nose and ears and painted face, ex- cellently and gorgeously apparelled; for he, with a quarter-blood Indian, had had this morning an audience with the commandant. General Irvine had several times, and today again, given them to understand that they have permission to remove from here, because there is now peace and their stay here, for different reasons, is burdensome; they
1 Indian Nations, pp. 279-280.
VOL. I .- 3
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appeared, however, not at all inclined to go, and apprehend, perhaps, not the most friendly reception from their own people. A young, well- built, copper-colored squaw was stamping their corn in a wooden trough in front of one of the wigwams; her whole dress consisted of a tight skirt of blue cloth, without gathers, which scarcely reached to her knees; her black hair hung loose over her shoulders, and her cheeks and fore- head were neatly colored with red paint. She seemed to be very happy in the companionship of her fellow workman, a fresh young fellow, who with a couple of clouts on needful places, was otherwise as naked as the unembarrassed beauty. Other women were busied with weaving baskets, shelling corn, or other work, for the men, as is well known, do not concern themselves with domestic occupations. The surplus of their products, their baskets and straw-work they barter for whiskey. There were among them some countenances that were by no means ugly, and they were not all alike swarthy in color.I
Within the present limits of Beaver County lived at one time also a Delaware (some say Seneca) Indian woman of great in- fluence, known as Queen Aliquippa. Her home was somewhere near the present borough of Aliquippa in this county, named for her, but she afterwards removed to the mouth of the Youghio- gheny, where she was visited by Washington, in 1753. Later she removed to Raystown, now Bedford, Pa., where she died in December, 1754.
We may mention, too, that the Delaware warrior Tingooqua, or Catfish, who had a lodge within the present limits of the borough of Washington, Pa., on the little stream called by the Indians Wissameking (now named Catfish) and from whom that locality was long known in pioneer days as "Catfish Camp," formerly lived at Kuskuskee, the Delaware town above men- tioned. His home was therefore then within the original limits of Beaver County.2
Without anticipating too much what belongs to a later period of our history, we may say here that these Indian tribes which we have described as at one time inhabiting the territory now within the limits of Beaver County, the Delawares, the Shawanese, and the Mingoes, or Ohio River Iroquois, all became during the Revolutionary period the allies of the British; their activity and bitter hostility against the Americans being so great that the border settlements of Pennsylvania and Virginia were by
1 Reise durch einige der mittlern und südlichen Vereinigten Nordamerikanischen Staaten, 1783-1784, by Johann D. Schoepf, Erlangen, 1788, p. 415, et seq.
2 Col. Rec., vol. viii., p. 417.
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their massacres converted into an Aceldama and a Bochim.I Some of the Delawares remained neutral. White Eyes was es- pecially devoted to the American cause, as was also Killbuck, and other sachems. These chiefs made, at Pittsburg, in Sep- tember, 1778, a treaty of alliance with the Americans, although, as we shall see in the succeeding chapter, they were unable, for want of popular support and of power in their government, to restrain the young warriors of their nation from joining in the depredations and massacres committed by the Shawanese and other hostile tribes.2 The most redoubtable, perhaps, of our foes during the Revolution were the Wyandots or Hurons, who lived near Detroit and along the southern shore of Lake Erie, but whose villages were sometimes mixed in with those of the Delawares and Shawanese. There were also the Miamis, living between the Miami and the Wabash rivers, together with irregu- lar bands of Cherokees, Ottawas, Chippewas, etc., who were very troublesome during, and for some years after, the war.
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