USA > Pennsylvania > Beaver County > History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, and its centennial celebration, Volume I > Part 7
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Much more might be said of these first occupants of our west- ern territory, who have left behind them no memorial except the names of our rivers and creeks, such as Ohio and Allegheny, Beaver (in translation), Conoquenessing, Mahoning, Neshan- nock, and Shenango. Their rude virtues, their glowing elo- quence, their valor, and high endurance might call for more adequate recognition, and their bitter wrongs provoke our la- mentations. Sad indeed was the destiny of these children of the forest, who have vanished like the leaves of the trees that gave them shelter:
Like the dew on the mountain, Like the foam on the river, Like the bubble on the fountain, They are gone and forever!
1 "Their silence, their cunning and stealth, their terrible prowess and merciless cruelty make it no figure of speech to call them the tigers of the human race Tireless, careless of all hardship, they came silently out of unknown forests, robbed and murdered and then disappeared again into the fathomless depths of the woods Wrapped in the mantle of the unknown, appalling by their craft, their ferocity. their fiendish cruelty, they seemed to the white settlers devils, not men."-The Winning of the West, by Theodore Roosevelt, Part I., pp. 109, 110.
? That the Delawares had been engaged in hostilities with the United States is recog- nized in the treaty of Fort McIntosh (January 21, 1785), and also in a supplementary article to that treaty, which provided that the chiefs Kelelamand (called by the whites "Kill-buck ") Koquethagachton (White Eyes) and one or two other Indians of note who took up the hatchet for the United States, should be received back into the Delaware na- tion, and reinstated in all their original rights, without any prejudice.
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History of Beaver County
But sad as it was, it was no less certain and necessary for the progress of humanity, that the savages should surrender the possession of this country to others. It was inevitable that when once the foot of the European had stepped upon the sands of the Atlantic coast of this country it should never rest until it had penetrated to the interior and trod the sands of the Pacific. Whatever view we may take of this occupation of America by the whites, and the dispossession by them of the Indian races who occupied it-whether we regard it, as the Jews did their conquest of Canaan, as "the casting out of the heathen" that a chosen people might take possession of the land, or as the result of the unheeding law of evolution by which humanity is carried onward to its goal, nothing was more certain than that the weak elements of barbarism existing here should be displaced by European civilization, and this great country be opened to the world. And assuredly the march of the advancing column of emigration across this continent was wonderful enough to justify us in speaking of it, with De Tocqueville, as having the solemnity of a providential event, "like a deluge of men rising unabatedly and daily driven onward by the hand of God." I
We may deplore the cruelty and violence by which this occu- pation was accomplished, we may wish that the pacific policy of the Penns had everywhere been shown toward the red man, and the enormous waste that took place avoided, but we cannot regret the result. For, on a grand scale, it is an illustration of "the law of the survival of the fittest." The Indian and the bison were incapable of fulfilling the destinies of this land; it was written in the book of nature and of fate that they had had their day and must cease to be. The future welfare of humanity demanded a nobler breed of men to receive their heritage and bring forth the fruits thereof. These men came. And now the grassy plains where roamed the buffalo are the grazing grounds of uncounted herds of neat cattle; the soil which the Indian only scratched to get enough to support his hand-to-mouth existence is bringing forth harvests that fill the granaries of the world, and where he stuck his squalid tepees are mighty cities and the homes of millions of busy workers.
' Democracy in America, vol. i., p. 430, in the chapter headed "What are the Chances in favor of the Duration of the American Union?" etc.
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History of Beaver County
FRENCH AND ENGLISH CLAIMS TO THE OHIO VALLEY
But the character of the future inhabitants of this region was not settled with the triumph of European civilization over the native barbarism. It remained to be decided which of two great types of that civilization should predominate here. Two great nations had all along been contending for the mastery of the vast domain that lay within the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. Great Britain and France asserted counter-claims to this territory based on priority of discovery and occupancy, or on purchase from the Indians dwelling in it,1 and a war resulted "which extended its ravages from the banks of the Ohio to the shores of the Ganges." It was here in the Beaver and Ohio valleys, in fact, that these great world powers first began to clash.2 But the brewing of the storm was long and gradual. For more than a hundred years the English colonists were con- tent to confine their activities east of the Alleghenies, leaving the exploration of the country beyond to adventurous traders. These were often depraved men, even criminals and transported convicts, who did much to bring the name "English" into con- tempt; though others were ultimately of great use to the au- thorities on account of their knowledge of the Indian character and country. The French colonists, on the other hand were not, in general, an agricultural people, like the English, but rather sought to acquire territory for trading, military, and missionary purposes.3 They had therefore pushed forward into the wilder- ness and established relations with the Indians in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys sometime before the English had begun to per- ceive the importance of winning a foot-hold in that great seat
1 The French title to the Valley of the Mississippi rested upon the fact of the explora - tions of Marquette and La Salle; upon the fact of occupation, and upon their construction of the treaties of Ryswick, Utrecht, and Aix-la-chapelle. The English claims to the same region were based on the fact of a prior occupation of the coast; on an opposite construction of the same treaties, and on alleged cession of the rights of the Indians. See Western Annals, p. 93.
It is on the discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi by La Salle in 1682 that the French claim of the territory at the head of the Ohio is properly based, since the best historians reject the testimony for his having discovered the Allegheny and the upper Ohio in 1669.
2 The first actual bloodshed in this contest was in the skirmish which Washington had with Jumonville's party. "This obscure skirmish," says Parkman, "began the war which set the world on fire." But it will be remembered that five years before this event took place De Celeron, in the name of the French king, had ordered the English flag hauled down at Logstown, and had driven away the English traders from that place. This was within the present limits of Beaver County. (See De Celeron's Journal, Fort Pitt, p. 29.)
3 Parkman's Conspiracy of Pontiac, vol. i., pp. 49-50.
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History of Beaver County
of future empire. A French trader named James Le Tort is thought to have been on the Ohio, i. e., the Allegheny River, as early as 1720.1 La Force and others soon followed him, and, in 1727, the authorities at Montreal sent an agent named Joncaire to the Ohio to establish the French interest there.2 Joncaire came annually thereafter with others, among them a gunsmith, who mended the guns and tomahawks of the Indians gratis, and some of the Shawanese chiefs were persuaded by them to visit the French Governor at Montreal. Another man, who, though he went out as an English trader, became an agent of the French on the Ohio, was Peter Chartier. He is said to have had at first a trading station at the head of the Ohio near the mouth of Char- tier's Creek, which was probably named for him. In 1745 he declared for the French, and induced the Shawanese to forsake the English. He was afterwards rewarded with a commission in the French service, under which he committed many acts of violence.
The English traders were, however, not long in following the French. It is supposed that some were on the banks of the Ohio as early as 1730. Probably as early as 1748, George Cro- ghan had a trading-post at Sawkunk, at the mouth of the Big Beaver Creek.3 In the same year Conrad Weiser was sent to the Indians at Logstown on the Ohio, as the representative of the Province of Pennsylvania, to treat with them, and to give
1 The Allegheny River, as previously stated, was not at this time distinguished from the Ohio; the stream in its whole length, above, as well as below its confluence with the Monongahela, being called the "Ohio."
' Joncaire had been adopted as a son by the Seneca nation, and was called by the Indians Cahictodo. He is supposed by some to have been "the French gentleman" mentioned by Mr. Logan in his address to the Pennsylvania Supreme Council, August 4, 1731, from which we quote on page 45. (See Col. Rec. vol. iii., pp. 401, 402.) Washington's Journal of 1753 mentions him as "a man of note in the army." He had a commanding influence over the Indians, and discharged his mission to the Ohio with much ability.
' George Croghan was an Irishman, from Dublin, who first settled upon the Susquehanna five miles west of Harrisburg, and engaged in the Indian trade. He had acquired the lan- guages of several of their nations, and had great influence over them. He became a cap- tain in the provincial service, and deputy superintendent of Indian affairs under Sir William Johnson, Croghan had a trading-house at Logstown and one at the mouth of the Beaver, and finally settled near Pittsburg. He was illiterate but a man of great force of character. Gist, in his first journal (November 25, 1750), says of him, "Enquired [at Logstown] for Croghan, who is a meer Idol among his Countrymen the Irish Traders." Croghan, with the heroic Captain Jack and a number of others, visited the camp of Braddock, after he had crossed the mountains from Cumberland, and offered his services and those of his party, as scouts and guides. See his "Statement," in History of Braddock's Expedition, by Win- throp Sargent, p. 407. A full account of his life and varied services will be found in Christo- pher Gist's Journals, by William M. Darlington, p. 176, et seq.
Davi
this monat I dear A Note and Startyly fondale with you! the great date you have Justan in the Death of y.den flammen gives its CApng, & d. far away If we Must Submit J'adoreny it is Not in wigpower to pay the Lost Filet of speed
that There "With been out of home Samen ghost tun . À MA Alo X Contorno Aco : Fogher
Letter from George Croghan to Thomas Wharton. Photographic reproduction of original in possession of Carnegie Library. Pittsburg.
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History of Beaver County
them the large present of goods which had been promised them the previous autumn. The latter were carried by George Cro- ghan with his pack-horses. Weiser arrived at Logstown on the evening of August 27, 1748, and was joyfully received by the Indians. Long speeches were made by Weiser and Andrew Montour, an Indian interpreter, to the representatives of the different tribes, consisting of Mohawks, Senecas, Oneidas, Dela- wares, Shawanese, and Wyandots, and after the Indian orators had responded the present was divided and distributed, and the conference ended with great satisfaction to both parties.
THE OHIO COMPANY
Hitherto, the trade of the English with the western Indians had been for the most part in the hands of the Pennsylvanians. But now the Virginians wished to engage in this profitable busi- ness also. Accordingly, after Weiser's conference with the Indians at Logstown had prepared the way for more friendly in- tercourse, a large land company was organized in Virginia which was called the Ohio Company. At the head of this company was Colonel Thomas Lee, and with him were associated twelve others from Virginia and Maryland, and a merchant of London named Hanbury. Lawrence and Augustine Washington, two half-brothers of George Washington, were also among the first who engaged in this enterprise. In 1748, a petition was presented to the king for a grant of land beyond the mountains, which was approved, and five hundred thousand acres of land were assigned to the company, two hundred thousand of which were to be located at once. The lands were to be taken chiefly on the south side of the Ohio, between the Monongahela and the Kanawha rivers, with the privilege of locating also on the north of the Ohio, if it should be found necessary. The two hundred thou- sand acres were to be held for ten years free from quit-rent or any tax to the king, on condition that the company should, at their own expense, seat one hundred families on the lands within seven years, and build a fort and maintain a garrison sufficient to protect the settlement. The company began at once to carry out their plans. They ordered from London a cargo suited to the Indian trade, and dispatched Mr. Christopher Gist on an explor- ing expedition, to examine the quality of the lands and draw a
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History of Beaver County
plan of the country. Gist made two trips through the region,1 and finding that it would be necessary to win the friendship of the Indians therein, he, as agent of the Ohio Company, and Colonel Joshua Fry, Lunsford Lomax, and James Patton, on the part of Virginia, made a treaty with them at Logstown in the summer of 1752. In this treaty the Indians pledged themselves not to molest any settlements of the company on the southeast side of the river, and gave them permission to build two forts there. Soon after the treaty was made, Mr. Gist was appointed the company's surveyor, and instructed to lay off a town and fort at the mouth of Shurtee's (Chartier's) Creek. This seems not to have been erected, as in his journal of his visit to Venango, Washington speaks of the "fort which the Ohio Company in- tended to lay off there." The goods which had come over from England were never taken farther into the interior than Will's Creek (now Cumberland, Md.), where they were sold to traders and Indians, who received them at that post. The Ohio Com- pany was in operation for about four years, and was a losing venture for everybody connected with it.
Other companies whose object was to colonize the West, such as the Loyal Company and the Greenbriar Company, were formed in Virginia about this time which were equally short- lived with the Ohio Company. But the tide could not be stayed. Many other English traders and adventurers began to enter the region around the head of the Ohio about the year 1748 and onwards, and, as on account of their having a shorter and cheaper carriage for their goods than the French, they were able to undersell the latter, the Indians were gradually drawn to favor the English.2 These various advances of their com- petitors were not unperceived by the authorities at Montreal, nor regarded by them with indifference. They saw that if the English once established themselves upon the Ohio, they would not only interfere with the French making any settlements there, but would ultimately threaten the settlements already made by them south and north of the mouth of that river, on the Missis- sippi. Vaudreuil, the French governor of Louisiana, had seen
1 See Christopher Gist's Journals, by William M. Darlington, J. R. Weldin & Co., Pitts- burg, 1893.
2 See Celeron's Journal in Fort Pitt (Darlington), p. 60; also, Life of DeWitt Clinton, 1849, P. 226.
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History of Beaver County
the danger from the English encroachments, and in 1744 had written home about it, and, in 1749, Gallissonière, then governor of Canada, was also alarmed and led to take measures that would show the French in formal possession of the Ohio River and all the country adjacent to it. For this purpose an expedi- tion was sent out in the summer of 1749, under the command of Louis Bienville de Celeron, to publish notices of the French king's claim of title to this region. Carrying out his instructions, Celeron passed down the Allegheny and Ohio, planting crosses and posts bearing devices representing the royal arms of France, and nailing the same on trees, and burying at all important places, such as the mouths of the largest streams, leaden plates on which were stamped inscriptions in old French setting forth the claims of the French king to the region roundabout. Several of these plates have since been found, one at the "Forks of the Ohio," one at the mouth of French Creek on the Allegheny, one at Point Pleasant, on the Ohio, and one at the mouth of the Muskingum. We give on the opposite page a reproduction of the plate found at the mouth of the Big Kanawha, copied from Craig's The Olden Time.1
The result of Celeron's expedition was far from satisfactory, as he himself confesses in his journal.2 His manner toward the Indians whom he met had been very overbearing, and he alien- ated rather than conciliated them. The English traders whom he had driven away returned soon after his departure, and found the Indians more than ever disposed to side with them and the provincial government. To remove the ill effects of Celeron's visit, the Frenchman Joncaire came the following year to the
1 The following is a translation of the inscription on this plate, nearly literal:
"In the year 1749, in the reign of Louis XV, King of France, we, Celeron, commandant of a detachment sent by the Marquis de La Gallissonière, commandant General of New France, to re-establish tranquility in some Indian towns in these departments, have buried this plate at the mouth of the river Chinodahichetha, this 18th day of August, near the river Ohio, otherwise called Beautiful River, as a memorial of the resumption of possession we have made of the said river Ohio, and all those that fall into it, and of all the lands on both sides up to the sources of the said rivers, the same as the preceeding kings of France have enjoyed or were entitled to enjoy, and as they are established by arms and by treaties, especially by those of Ryswick, Utrecht and Aix-la-chapelle."
This plate was about 9 x 12 inches, and near an eighth of an inch thick. The whole inscription was stamped, except the date and place of burial, which were cut in with a knife in spaces left blank for them. The French lilies were also stamped in in several places. On the back of two of those found was stamped the name of the maker, thus: "Paul La Brosse, Fecit." The one here reproduced was picked out of the bank at the junction of the Kanawha and the Ohio by a little son of J. W. Beale, Esq., while playing on the margin of the river.
2 Fort Pitt (Darlington), p. 60.
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History of Beaver County
Ohio, and met with no better success. But notwithstanding these partial failures, the French had gotten much in advance of the English in the effort to occupy the great inland empire west of the Allegheny Mountains, and had already, despite the opposition of the Indians, built several forts, as at Erie and Venango, to defend their interests, and were planning to build other forts on the Ohio.
In the latter part of May, 1753, a large party of French and Indians were at Lake Erie preparing for an expedition that was to be sent down the Ohio for this purpose in the following sum- mer. The Indians sent a message to the invaders warning them not to proceed, but the French despised the warning and kept on. The Indians then held a council at Logstown, and sent a second warning to them, saying:
Your children on the Ohio are alarmed to hear of your coming so far this way. We at first heard that you came to destroy us. Our women left off planting, and our warriors prepared for war. We have since heard that you came to visit us as friends without design to hurt us, but then we wondered that you came with so strong a body. If you have had any cause of complaint you might have spoken to Onas or Corlear, and not come to disturb us here. We have a fire at Logstown, where are the Delawares and Shawanese and Brother Onas; you might have sent deputies there and said openly what you came about, if you had thought amiss of the English being there, and we invite you to do it now before you proceed any further.
The French replied to this message as follows:
I find you come to give me an invitation to your Council Fire with a design, as I suppose, to call me to account for coming here. I must let you know that my heart is good to you; I mean no hurt to you. I am come by the Great King's command to do you, my children, good. You seem to think I carry my hatchet under my coat; I always carry it openly, not to strike you, but those that oppose me. I cannot come to your Council Fire, nor can I return or stay here. I am so heavy a body that the stream will carry me down, and down I shall go unless you pull off my arm. But this I will tell you, I am commanded to build four strong houses, viz., at Weningo [Venango], Mohongialo Forks, Logstown and Beaver Creek, and this I will do. As to what concerns Onas and Assaragoa, I have spoken to them and let them know they must go off the land, and I shall speak to them again. If they will not hear me it is their own fault. I will take them by the arm and throw them over the hills. All the lands and waters on this side Alleghany hills are mine, on the other side theirs. This is agreed on between the two Crowns over the waters. I do not like your selling your land to the English,
.
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Plate T.eft by De Celeron at the Mouth of the Big Kanawha, now Point Pleasant.
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History of Beaver County
they shall draw you into no more foolish bargains. I will take care of your lands for you. The English give you no goods but for land. We give you our goods for nothing.I
This reply shows how the French had mastered the Indians' mode of speech, and that they knew how to play upon their feelings and fears, winning their respect, if not their confidence, by bold and direct expression of their meaning. But the In- dians were not intimidated, and returned the following message:
You say you cannot come to our Council Fire at Logstown, we there- fore now come to you to know what is in your heart. When you tired of Queen Anne's war you plead for peace. You begged to talk with us. You said, "We must all eat with one spoon out of this silver bowl, and all drink out of this silver cup. Let us exchange hatchets. Let us bury our hatchets in this bottomless pit hole." Then we consented to make peace, and you made a solemn declaration, saying, "Whoever shall here- after transgress this peace, let the transgressor be chastised with a rod, even though it be I, your Father. . Now, Father, notwith- standing this solemn declaration of yours, you have whipped several of your children. You know best why. Of late you have chastised the Twightwees very severely without telling us the reason, and now you are come with a strong band on our land, and have contrary to your engagement taken up the hatchet without any previous parley. These things are a breach of the peace, they are contrary to your own declara- tions. Therefore now I come to forbid you. I will strike over all this land with my rod, let it hurt who it will. I tell you in plain words you must go off this land. You say you have a strong body, a strong neck, and a strong voice, that when you speak all the Indians must hear you. It is true you are a strong body and ours is but weak, yet we are not afraid of you. We forbid you to come any further, turn back to the place from whence you came. 2
The plans of the French were never fully carried out, but the boldness and rapidity of their movements in the earlier stages of their contest with the English bade fair to give them complete control over the whole of the Ohio valley.
The secret of this superior celerity of action on the part of the French was that they had but one government in their pos- sessions, while the English had several colonial governments, jealous each of the other, and unwilling to act in concert.
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