Venango County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (Volume 1), Part 4

Author: Babcock, Charles A.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages:

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Of the fifty-eight linguistic nations, more than one third had ample territories in the States of California or Oregon. These were found by the experts to be parts of the same great nation as others were, near the center, or in extreme eastern parts of the continent. This was demonstrated by reducing to written forms generations later the harsh and gutteral speech of their descendants. The work of John Eliot, the "missionary to the Indians of Massa- chusetts," has been of great assistance in chang- ing spoken words to visible forms. As a part of his movement for the conversion of the Indians and the translation of the Scriptures into their language, he produced nearly forty volumes. He wrote for the great Algonquin

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nation, perhaps the most widely distributed of any. The study given to the many dialects of this nation during the last century shows that Eliot was one of the great philologists of the world. He described correctly the gram- matic correspondences through the many varia- tions of dialect and vocabulary, and revealed the ties which bound many tribes into one great unit. The accuracy of his work of two hun- dred and fifty years ago becomes in these later years the guaranty of the soundness of inves- tigations now covering the continent.

In addition to the great nations, with their detached and distinct provinces, there were a number of small ones containing only one tribe. The area held by each is small and is shown on the map by a little drop of color. These appear in California, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and southward toward Texas. Every colored dot locating a little nation is surrounded by marks of different hues, like diminutive islands in great seas. The study of these small communities has a peculiar sig- nificance. It shows not only their own prog- ress, but also much of the character and condi- tions of the great nations. They are generally known as the Pueblo Indians. The astonishing feature of the few that have been intensively studied is that each has lived its entire national life in one little locality. Several have per- sisted to the present time, bringing their cen- turies of history with them, which are now being used by the ethnologists. From recent researches we know that a number of them lived in their earliest times in the river val- leys of Arizona and New Mexico, where they developed a fine system of agriculture by means of irrigation. Many of their reservoirs and ditches are still traceable. From these early homes they were driven by the incursions of the more savage and larger tribes to the re- cesses and caves in the canyon vales near by. Here they lived for many generations; how long has not yet been determined. As the clouds of war lessened they moved out upon the mesas or highlands. Here they could see the enemy from afar. Here they cultivated their small allotments of land so long that the stone steps and walks leading up from the river valleys were worn into deep paths by the feet of the women carrying water upon their heads for the real "war gardens." Here they were visited by the Spaniards in 1539. Many of their stone dwellings in the cliffs were then in ruins, and were thought to be hundreds of years old. Their approaches were worn away by the elements so that some of them could not be entered; while the ancient buildings in the

valleys were prehistoric heaps of dust and stones. In later times, numbers of them moved from the mesas back to the valleys and again rebuilt their pueblos near the old homes of their race.

In some of their oldest ruins specimens of pottery are found, and are now preserved in the national museum at Washington, which are said by experts to rival in form and color any from Egypt or Greece. These, and other fine art-forms from the oldest times and from the later periods, are not the work of a mythi- cal race which left them and then passed on out of existence, as some do in the romances of the Mound Builders. They lived with their art history, progressively illustrated, ever about them, buried in their ruins and in the dust heaps of their caverns, and it is now being interpreted. They have also the cumulative inheritances of the past in their muscles and nerve centers. Much of their work of the present equals that of the past. Some is thought to be even more excellent.

How much time elapsed while their national life made the round of changes from valley to cliff to mesa, back to valley? A very long period, fifty generations, at least, is the belief of careful investigators. But the larger na- tions, whose members met the early settlers, must have been active throughout this period and before it began; for they forced the changes.

The grouping of the aborigines into the "great nations" was based upon the similarities of their speech. The names of ordinary ob- jects or qualities, the most primary action words with those of direction and extent were found in common use in tribes closely associ- ated and in other groups widely removed. Though there might be variety-almost con- fusion of tongues, those having the common words could so vary them and re-combine them that they understood one another. The wonder is that these changes were real grammatic inflections. The law controlling them was common to all the idioms and was well under- stood. When Eliot first published it as apply- ing to the Algonquin tribes, he was doubted by the English scholars who thought it a dream from the glowing soul of the teacher, that "savages" with no written language could at- tain such accurate speech. But the same rule was found to prevail, elsewhere by the Spanish, the French, the English, the Dutch, the Swedish, the Germans, and others who as mis- sionaries or traders, had penetrated to many parts of the country, among peoples using dif- ferent language forms, but subject to the same

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law of change. Many reports of it were sent to the home governments, showing its preva- lence. It is now accepted by all students of our native tongues.

The language of each of the great nations became a powerful but delicate instrument for the expression of wide ranges of thought and emotion. They all produced great orators, word painters of their hopes. Such power and accuracy of speech require centuries of growth. Their life here goes far back. Take its length as a time measure. Apply it to the past of Europe. It would reach to a period when the home countries of many of the early settlers held hordes of barbarians not touched by the old civilizations, or uplifted by the Morning Star. At present leaders of the natives desire to cease being "wards of the nation" and to become citizens, to emigrate to the United States of America. This is good. Perhaps John Eliot may yet be satisfied.

FRENCH CREEK-THE ALLEGHENY RIVER

Long before the white man had visited this country there was a settlement at Franklin. Its population may have been few and chiefly transient, and yet it was of great significance to the country round it. Here the natural lines of travel meet. It is the confluence of the Riviere aux Boeufs with La Belle Riviére or the O-heeyo as the Indians called the Allegheny, meaning the beautiful river. Down the first stream can come the people who culti- vate the level lands south of Lake Erie, from its headwaters in Pennsylvania and in New York. There are also dwellers in the valleys of Sugar creek, Mill creek, Deer creek, Con- neaut inlet, and on the broad meadows near Meadville and beyond, who are apt to use this crooked scenic little stream, to and from the river, to fish, to hunt, to exchange their corn, beans and tobacco for game or furs, or to talk politics. One of the aboriginal names of French creek was Zynango or tobacco, indicat- ing that this solace was abundant there. This name is justified by a recent incident. On the Heydrick farm near Custaloga's Town a ditch was dug for a mill race. Upon the dirt thrown out strange plants appeared, which were found to be tobacco, an inferior sort with narrow hairy leaves, but the real rank thing, Nicotiana Rustica. The seeds had been buried too deep to grow but deep enough to preserve them. Later the lone fly-fisherman has found this wild tobacco along the hot sands of Riviére aux Boeufs, and with it a cousin, the small. husk tomato, both of no man's care, yet living to-

gether in this valley. The soil and climate were kind to these outcasts.

Both above and below "the point" are a dozen native villages upon the Allegheny, with- in a day's voyage. The streams are full, clear and sparkling, alive with fish, mussels along the shoals, every little tributary a trout stream, with old big ones under the fallen tree trunks and tops, for cunning Indian fingers. In the spring the river banks are a symphony of soft greens, with brilliant passages of flaming flowers, all turning to a riot of reds, yellows and browns in the fall. Then the bank is a great bouquet, reaching from its reflection in the still water round the resting canoe to the blue vault above. There are no such scenes in the Old World.

In the forests are all game from deer to squirrels, from wild turkey to ruffed grouse. There are furs to take from beaver, otter, muskrat, bear, wolf and panther. To get enough of these for his family and a surplus to exchange for the dried succotash, squash and tobacco from the fertile meadows of the nearby valley, or the finer flint knives and arrow points from the west, or the great buffalo skins from the plains for winter, or to supply any of his needs, the red man floats his noiseless craft along the streams first to his game, then to his market. In this, his instinct is as natural and unerring as the way of the squirrel through the woods to the chestnut or hickory. At "Wen- ingo" he may make his exchanges or learn where to make them. Or in company with others he may proceed up a stream or down to enter other waters, inlets, rivers, lakes, to any part of half a continent. Parties of trading hunters were absent from home for months or sometimes even for years.

THE FIVE GREAT NATIONS

Consider the surroundings at this period. To the north and east were the five great tribes, the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida and Mohawk, each near the river or lake of the same name. Their dwelling place, or land which they occupied, included more than one half of the State of New York. This they named their "Long House." It was a stu- pendous structure of cooperative psychology, and is a vivid example of the creative im- agination of these "savages." Its roof was the sky above. Its hundreds of miles of sur- rounding "walls" were pure atmosphere, rein- forced and made visible by their lines of war- riors. Its eastern "gate" opened upon the Hud- son, its western gate upon the Niagara. All

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its "gates" and "walls" were guarded by the "castles" or villages of the different tribes. This confederation is known as the "five great nations" of the early settlers. Bancroft says of them: "The most wonderful proof of the aptitude of the red men for civil organization is found in the perfection to which they carried the federal form of government, excelling the Hellenic councils and leagues in permanency, central vigor, and the singleness of a free union." They were proud of their territory as superior to any other part of the country. The soil was exuberantly fertile. Inside their "Long House," not more than two or three miles apart, were the headwaters of mighty rivers leading out in all directions. Their situation made them the lords of the continent. They must have known their North America well, before they located their Long House, and formed their League of Peace, as they called it. They were great travelers, and could find their way to the most unexpected places. By means of the rivers and lakes whose outlets and affluents they con- nected by "carrying" through forest and plain, they guided the earliest missionaries and ad- venturers to any point east of the Mississippi and even two thousand miles up the Missouri, two hundred years before the wilderness of New York and Pennsylvania had been explored.

But their greatest attainment is probably their highly developed language. Of all the great confederacies, they possessed relatively the largest number of notable orators, masters of speech. Of this language Father Bébeuf said in 1636: "The variety of compounds is very great; it is the key to the secret of their language. They have as many genders as our- selves ; as many numbers as the Greeks." Prof. Max Müller wrote: "To my mind the structure of such a language is quite significant evi- dence that those who worked out such a work of art were powerful reasoners and accurate classifiers." `Mr. Horatio Hale, the eminent Canadian philologist, said : "A complete gram- mar of this speech, as full and minute as the best Sanscrit or Greek grammars, would prob- ably equal and perhaps surpass those gram- mars in extent. The unconscious forces of memory and discrimination required to main- tain this complicated machine and to preserve it constantly exact and in good working order, must be prodigious."

Dr. Beauchamp, the historian of the New York Iroquois, writes of their language : "Dual and plural numbers have proper prefixes in most cases. Local relations are shown by affixed particles. Adjectives may follow sub-

stantives, but more commonly coalesce. Pro- nouns exceed those in European languages, and verbs have three modes. The frequent differences in personal nouns are often due to the dropping of a pronoun or particle, or its addition."

This language was purely a spoken one. The natives knew no writing till after the white men came. The languages of the Indians are unique in the world's history. Of American aboriginal life, its finest flower of expression is the spoken word of the Iroquois. Languages comparable to the Greek or Sanscrit do not spring up like Jonah's gourd. Bancroft, who took fifty years to write and revise his history, speaks of their life as "continuing in our for- ests how many thousands of years, no one knows." Somewhere, these "savages" must have lived and thought and, above all, must have talked, for at least a hundred generations.

MOUND BUILDERS

In quite recent times much has been written about the Mound Builders. They are a sup- posed prehistoric race which has vanished from earth, and therefore may be endowed with any degree of civilization that the purpose of the writer requires. For the culture of the im- agination, they are almost as good as the sunken island of Atlantis, or the inhabitants of Mars. The experts of the United States Bu- reau have been studying intensively the life of our natives for the last forty years. Let us glance at a very few of their conclusions : All the mounds from central Ohio through New York to the Hudson and to the St. Lawrence are believed to be Iroquoian. The artifacts found in them are similar to those of the Iroquoians of historic times. The mounds and earthworks west of the Mississippi and north of Mexico contain only art-forms and imple- ments, with very few exceptions, now found among our native tribes. There was much shifting of boundary lines in the far past.

Shell heaps have also been examined. These are very instructive. They are common along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. In New Eng- land are heaps covering thirty acres twelve to fifteen feet deep. In Alaska is one formation consisting of three distinct formations ; lower one of shells only : next one containing shells and fish bones ; while the top layer has greater quantities than the others, of animal bones split to get the marrow and of kitchen uten- sils of the historic period. Dr. Dall estimates that this heap required three thousand years for its formation. Along all the rivers flowing

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toward the Gulf are deposits of mussel and snail shells mixed with kitchen refuse. These increase in thickness toward the south. One of them in Florida has been examined by Moore and Wyman, who estimate that the minimum time required for its formation is one thousand years. In these piles of rubbish are no buried civilizations. No lost arts have been dug out of the Mounds. The most complex "works" of the mound builders, one of them four square miles in extent and others still greater, are as trifles compared with the "Long House," home of a perfect federation, placed in the one spot where the waterways of an empire arise. The Indians themselves are the prehistoric race.

REMAINS OF INDIAN OCCUPATION AT FRANKLIN

Many years before the Rivière aux Boeufs is mentioned in history, there was an Indian town at its confluence with La Belle Rivière. This is proved beyond doubt by a considerable shell heap or kitchen midden at Franklin. Dr. J. R. Borland, in a former history of Venango County, thus describes it :

"At Franklin a very interesting deposit of prehistoric remains exists which extends along the west bank of the Allegheny from the mouth of French creek to a ravine a few rods above the old tollgate house. The deposit consists of broken pottery, broken bones of animals and birds, mussel shells, arrow heads, flint flakes, charred corncobs and charcoal from wood used in cooking, one pipe with a bird's head carved on it, wrought of soapstone, sev- eral flint knives, and many arrow heads, which from the abundance of flint flakes, must have been manufactured on the spot. The frag- ments found would indicate that there must have been two or more kinds of vessels used by them, one for cooking, something like our old fashioned dinner pots, with flaring tops. An- other kind of closer texture and finer workman- ship, were probably used for drinking cups and mess dishes. Some of these vessels show con- siderable skill in ornamentation, some bear in- dentations as though they had been molded in a basket. The deposit is on the second bottom or river bluff, some twelve or fifteen feet above high water, in a sandy loam and washed down by heavy rains. It embraces about an acre and lies from twelve to eighteen inches below the surface.'

This is a typical kitchen midden with con- tents similar to scores of others that have been examined in widely separated parts of the country. The shells would vary according to the locality, and the kitchen utensils would

differ among the nations. The writer saw a good sized collection of articles like those found in this deposit, a number of years ago, which had been gathered near the mouths of creeks entering the Allegheny above Oil City. The collector scratched the surface of the ground, and in a few years the results were surprising. Such formations are better evi- dence of ancient occupancy than any tradition or even written history can be. Empty shells, split bones, pieces of pottery, flint knives and arrow heads, charred corncobs, charcoal and carved tobacco pipes, do not assemble them- selves in extensive collections by any law of nature.

Dr. Borland estimates that this deposit in- dicates that Franklin was occupied at least five hundred years back of historical times. It is likely that during this period the "outlook" was prepared which is described by Rev. S. J. M. Eaton, the erudite and eloquent author of a late history of our county. He locates it upon the high bluff overlooking Franklin. "There was a pit, in form like an inverted cone or like the den of an ant lion. It was regularly formed, some eight feet in diameter and six to eight feet deep, lined with stones neatly laid and forming a symmetrical wall. These stones were brought from a distance and were quite uniform in size. The point could not have been better chosen for an outlook on the river or creek." This outlook with a few watchers posted in the forests, would readily detect the approach of an enemy from any direction. The place was an important strategic point. The elevated observatory means war. So do the quantities of flint flakes found, which in- dicate that the knives and arrow heads were made by the many preparing together, instead of the usual way of each hunter by himself. The broken pottery tells us that the place was the home of some who were here; though all our aborigines made pottery they did not carry it while hunting, or on the war path. War parties were frequent here. It was the center of tribes hostile to one another till they were subdued by the "six nations," as the League was called after the Tuscarora joined the "five." This League conquered the related Iroquoian Eries, or Cat tribe, and drove them to the hills of southern Chautauqua and Cattaraugus coun- ties, except a few which it adopted. It also reduced to subjection all the tribes of Pennsyl- vania. During this period of conquest Frank- lin was a frequent rendezvous of war parties, but was afterwards an Indian town in the Seneca country dressed in feathers for a cen- tury before the historian's quill touched her.

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This last century of prehistoric Franklin was a time of the coming of white settlers to America in great numbers. The world over- sea was scarcely fit for a common man to live in and support a family. Europe had just finished a hundred years' war. Kings and Em- perors arranged conflicts without the knowl- edge or consent of their subjects. Some rulers not having a war of their own lent their armies to their neighbors for a portion of the spoils. In this way, a dozen armies were sent out by one King, during his divine right of oversight of his small realm, not in his own quarrel, but to help his friends. He filled his treasury. This practice was so common that intervening countries which these troops must cross levied a tax upon them equal to that on "herds of driven cattle." Sometimes a thirtieth of the population was lost in a single war; but if territory was added and the treasure aug- mented the ruler became Great. Not only were the subject's bodily activities diverted, but his beliefs must run in grooves. He had no voice or vote in his life's arrangement. He could serve. He was a slave. Hence a tide of emigration flowed to America. Foremost in numbers were the English and the French. Not because their common people had less consideration than the others. They had more, and were therefore better able to get away. In France there was a popular assembly, a Third Estate, which, when it was called sat, and in conjunction with the nobility and the ecclesiastics, the First and Second Estates, took part in legislation. In three hundred and thirty-five years, it had been called ten times. But lately, since the opening of a new continent, its members had been en- couraged by the monarch. In England the commons by various struggles had obtained the command of the public purse; and finally, in the Revolution of 1688, they decided and fixed the kingly succession.

Before the middle of the eighteenth century, there was a line of English colonies along the Atlantic coast from Northern Maine to Florida. Some of these consisted of people selected by leaders in the Old World to make settlements in the New. The members of such colonies were agreed in social and religious aims, and were exclusive for a time. People who differed from them moved West, or, sometimes, into eternity. Their essential personality appears as a compound of theology, conscience and backbone. But they built "school houses like Martello towers along the coast" in Lowell's phrase, and in later times were an important factor in the making of a nation. Virginia was naturally homogeneous. Others contained

diverse elements. But of all the colonies, that founded by William Penn contained the largest number of differing classes. All nations and creeds were alike welcome, and land was as- signed to them for a small quit-rent, or sold at a low price. His charter from Charles II gave him in fee forty thousand square miles of land, in payment of a family debt. But Penn be- lieved that the natives were the real owners and satisfied their claims first, before using or selling any real estate. He called the Indians together and made a famous treaty with them, which secured peace to the colonists for seven- ty-two years. Voltaire characterized this treaty by an immortal sentence: "This was the only treaty between these people and the Christians that was not ratified by an oath and was never broken." This settlement was new in the world's history. It excited the wonder of Europe. The colony, last of them all, soon became first in wealth and in population.

In the meantime the French missionaries and explorers had traversed the country in all directions, enduring incredible hardships, to secure the conversion of the Indians and to claim the territory for France. When col- onization was seriously attempted it was con- ducted on a plan very different from that of the English. The colony was half-military and half-religious. They built garrisoned forts at every prominent point from Quebec to Florida. The feudal system on the plan of Paris was established. By this one of the nobility, who generally had nothing but his sword, or an adventurer who was elevated to the nobility for the purpose, was made the owner of the land, which he was obliged to give up when demanded by the settler on certain conditions. There were, however, restrictions and reserva- tions of tenure. The scouts of the French had explored every waterway and fertile prairie to the Rocky mountains, and had they been accompanied by bands of determined settlers the results might have been different. But the plan, partly ecclesiastic and partly feu- dal. with no choice in either, did not attract them. Between Detroit and Louisiana, and westward, they left only a legacy of names, Joliet, Champlain, Marquette, La Salle, St. Clair. Celoron, St. Louis, Presque Isle and others. In 1749 France determined to fix the eastern boundary of her empire in America. She claimed the valley of the Mississippi, including the Ohio and Allegheny and their tributaries from their sources to the Gulf. Fortresses had been built upon some parts of the line, and if the whole were secured it would confine the English settlements to the Atlantic plain, be-

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Venango County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (Volume 1), Part 4

Author: Babcock, Charles A. Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: Babcock, Charles A.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: