Ashland County, Ohio - Chapter 4: The Fries or the Cat Nation, 1880

The Aborigines of Northern Ohio. - Their Antiquity. - They X'ieid to the Encroachments of the Whites. - The Eastern nnd Western Tribes arrayed against eaeh other. - The Eries. - They give their Name to the Lake North of Ohio. - Their Works and their Character as a Nation. - Vanquished by the Iroquois. - Does a Remnant of the Tribe still exist?

Two hundred years ago the territory composing the State of Ohio was unexplored by the white man. The Indian tiibes were the undisputed lords of the soil, and dwelt along its rivers and streams and fertile valleys. Although the children of the forest possessed no written records, tradition assures us that their history teemed with tragic events. We have no means of determining when the red man took possession of the lake shore, and the valleys of the Miami; the Muskingum and the Ohio. That they roamed over the hills, amid the valleys, and rowed their birch canoes upon the beautiful rivers of this State, ages before the arrival of the white man in this region, is undisputed.

Upon the appearance of the European upon the eastern shores of New England, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New York, and New Jersey, and his attempt to take possession of the territories inhabited by the Indian tribes, jealousies and collisions soon sprang up and culminated in a fierce and bloody border war, in which many of the most powerful Indian tribes were severely chastised, and broken in strength and numbers, and finally compelled to seek new hunting-grounds in the west.

The rivalry between Great Britain and France in establishing colonies in North America, resulted in arraying the Indian tribes of the west against those of the east, and contributed to their dispersion and final extinction in many of the older States. The tribes recognized as the original proprietors of the soil on the south shores of Lake Erie, enter chiefly into a history of the territory composing Ashland county. It is generally conceded that the Cat Nation , or Fries , sometimes called in die early annals of the country, the Kahkivahs, were once the lords of the soil of all Northern Ohio, and inhabited this region. It is the opinion of the early Jesuit missionaries, as well as of Mr. Bancroft, that the Cat , or Erie nation suggested the name of Erie, to the beautiful lake that fringes the northern border of the State. The chief seat of their power seems to have been located near the southeastern shore of Lake Erie; while the tribe had a wide range extending from the Miami of the lake to the Allegheny in western Pennsylvania, and south to central Ohio. They dc not seem to have been a war-like race, but from the strength of the tribe, constituted a sort of human wall to break the incursions of the Sioux and Illinois from the west, as well as the expeditions of the Five Nations , occupying northern New York and a part of northern Pennsylvania. Occupying a sort of middle ground, and being one cf the most powerful tribes in the confederacy, known as the neutral nation, they excited the jealousy and revenge of the Five Nations , and finally fell before the victorious M,>fiawks. The de- tails of the struggle that led to their conquest are very , obscure.'* The r.ames of the leading-men, and the ex- ] act strength of the nation on the battle-field, are all buried in uncertainty. We are indebted to the early Jesuit missionaries for all the information we possess concerning the Erics.

The Canadian shores of the lake were first visited by those self-sacrificing Christian messengers, with a view of propagating the tenets of the Catholic church, and the spread of French authority among the red men of the Canadian forests. They penetrated almost ever)' portion of that region, pushing their enterprise west to Wisconsin, over the wild prairies of Illinois, to the Mississippi, to central Ohio, along the Muskingum, the Scioto, the Miami, into the wilds of Indiana to Vincennes, as well as northern New York.

The first mention of the Erics is by Father Le Moyne and Claude Dablon, in 1657, who were then missionaries among the Mohawks and Senecas of northern New York, by whom it is stated that the savage tribes composing the Five Nations were carrying on a war of extermination against the Erics , bringing back great numbers of prisoners to the villages to be delivered to the flames, or adopted into the Five Nations. This war of extermination was continued by the savage Mohawks, and their confederates, until the broken and vanquished Fries were driven back to Kelley's Island and subjugated and their way opened to the Miarnis, the Illinois , and the Sioux. These authorities inform us that the Mohawks were furnished arms and ammunition to accomplish the ruin of the Fries by the British colonists, in the hope cf breaking French influence among the tribes of the West. The Five Nations, according to Schoolcraft, made war upon the neutral nation, west of them, composed probably of the Hurons, the Ottawas, a remnant of the Allegjians, the Andasies or Kahwahs, and the Erics-, and, after the conquest cf the Hurons, or Wyandots, then established on the borders of Lake Huron, the Five Nations invaded the Andastes and the Fries in 1655, and, after they had been forced westward to their stronghold on Kelley's Island, the relentless Iroquois, known as the Five Nations, followed them thence and laid siege, using their canoes as scaling ladders, and, leaping down like tigers among the defenders, butchered them without mercy, t

The greater part of the nation was involved ir. the massacre, and a remnant carried tuck with the victors and incoiporated with the conquerers or consigned to the flames, a few escaping to other tribes. This misfortune befell the poor Fries, doubtless because they were at the head of the confederation called the neutral nation. The Fries, being at the head of the neu- i tral nation were seldom engaged in war with their i

Charles Whittlesey, in a letter addressed to the author, concerning the ancient Erics , and their final overthrow and ihspersion savs:

-- [ have made another effort to learn more of the Erics, whom the /ro'/ucis exterminated hetueen .'650 and ifitj- The town which was the scene cf the final battle, was somewhere in the interior of Ohio, called Komtown probably near a river- but cannot be identified.

neighbors of the East or West ; and with the Miarnis on the west, and the Andastes, their kinsmen, on the east, they held sway over the larger portion of Ohio, and pursued the buffalo, the elk, the deer, and other game through otir forests and over the plains undisturbed by foreign foes, until the rage of the bloody Mohawk marked the nation for destruction. Schoolcraft is of the opinion the Fries had developed the laws of civilization so far as to desire peace with the surrounding tribes, and seemed intent on making progress in the arts cf civilized life. After their destruction by the Iroquois, it was found that their intrenchments on Kelley's Island were very strong, and of a character unlike anything found among other tribes. The intrenchments were on the southern shore of the island and were composed of two crescent shaped embankments, and seemed to be intended to inclose and defend their villages. One of them had a front cf four hundred feet, and the other six hundred and fourteen feet on the rocky margin of the lake. Adjacent is a rock thirty-two by twenty -two feet on the surface, on which a great variety of figures are deeply cut. It presents the most extensive and well sculptured inscriptions of the antiquarian period found in America. The characters are pictograpbic and easily interpreted. If his conjectures be correct, the ancienc Fries had made greater progress in recording their history than any of the Indian tribes found in the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi ; and their conquest by the relentless and untamed Mohawks is to be greatly regretted because they came nearer connecting the Indian tribes with the ancient Mound Builders than any of the tribes found within the limits of the State, by the first settlers and missionaries. In visiting the waters emptying into the Muskingum and the Ohio, we have no doubt the ancient Fries made Ashland county a part of the great highway leading to central Ohio. We are led to this conclusion because it was a part of their territory, and because the sides of the stream along which they must have journeyed are dotted with the relics and ruins of ancient stockades and earthworks.

In his history of the condition of the Indian tribes, part second, 86 -7 - he expresses the opinion that the inscriptions found on Kelley's Island allude to the occupation of that basin of the lake by the Fries, the coming of the Wyandots, of the fatal triumph of the Iroquois, and the flight of the people who have left their name to the lake. If such is a correct interpretation of the inscriptions, the Fries were not exterminated, as some suppose, by the Iroquois ; for this record must have been placed there after the conquest. General Lewis Cass, of Michigan, concurs in this opinion, and says the Canadians term the Shawancsc tire "Cat Nation.'' He also expresses the opinion that the A'icka/oos and Cafatolas are remnants of the vanquished Erics. Mr. .Taylor, in his history of Ohio, first part, page 520, says a people who were called Ericri, ns by the Wyandots , and A'ahki 'ca/is by the Iroquois, may have had many other names : from other tribes: and that a remnant of the nation I called the Ca /" or " Erics ," may still be in existence scynewhere among the Indian tribes of the W est.