Coshocton County, Ohio - Chapter 2: Indian Occrpancy, and Early Military Expeditions, 1876

When the English-speaking white man first came into the territory now embraced in Coshocton count}^, it was in the occupancy of tlie Delaware Indiana. It is quite certain that just before them the Shawnee Indians were in the land, retiring, as the Delawares came in, to the more westerly and southerly regions. The French were then claiming dominion of all the Mississippi Valley, and the head of the Muskingum, as an interesting and favored locality, was not unknown to their soldiers, traders, and missionaries. Some have been pleased, without any very clear evidence, to believe t^at the famous French explorer La Salic, more than two hundred years ago, traversed these valleys.

Indefinitely before that period was the pre-historic race, who have left their traces in numerous mounds and circles and grave-yards, proving their number and power, and perplexing the men of subsequent times, concerning which things some statements and speculations will be found in anotber part of this volume.

The Delawares, crowded out by the white settlers about the Delaware river and in Eastern Pennsylvania - their Indian name means ''People from the Sunrise" - found a home to tlieir taste in the beautiful and fertile Tuscarawas, "SValbonding, and Muskingum valleys.

Tlicir language at least will abide in the land as long as the names just mentioned, and also tliose of White Eyes, Mohican, and Killbuck continue to be accepted as the designations of the rivers and creeks to which they are now attached. Within the limits of the county as now bounded, there were, a hundred years ago, at least five considerable Indian towns, the houses being built of bark and limbs and logs, and arranged in lines or on streets. One of these towns was called White E^^es (Koijuethagachton) town, in the neighborhood of Lafa3^ette. Two other towns were located - one three and the other ten miles up the Walhonding - and were called the Monsey towns, the more distant being occupied by a faction of the Delawares under control of Captain Pipe, who became disgusted with the generally peaceful and Christian policy of the nation, and seceded from it, desiring more indulgence for their base and bloody passions. The lower town w\as Wengimunds'.* The fourth town was Goschacbgiink, occupying that part of the present town of Coshocton (a name said to be a modification of the name of the old Indian town) between Third street and the river. This was much the largest town, and for many years was the capital of the Delaware nation, where the grand councils were held and whither the tribes assembled. It was the residence of Il^etawatwees, their great chief, and was often visited by the famous councilors, White Eyes and Killbuck (Gelelemend), as well as the big captains and braves of numerous tribes. The fifth town was situated about two miles below Coshocton on the east side of the Muskingum river (on the farms now in the possession of Samuel Moore and the Tingle heirs), and was called Lichtenau ("Pasture of Light"). It was occupied by Christian Indians under the direction of Rev. David Zeisberger (and afterward Rev. Wm. Edwards in conjunction with him), the famous Moravian missionary.

At the request of Netawatwees, Killbuck, and White Eyes, the town was established in close proximity to the capital (which afterward was sometimes distinguished as "the heathen town "), in hope of its Christian influence thereupon. On the 12th of April, 1776, Zeisberger, with eJohn Ileckewelder as his assistant, at the head of eight families numbering thirty-five persons, encamped on the site of the future town, and began the next morning the work of felling the trees for the houses. The town grew rapidly ; the mission work prospered greatly ; a grandson t»f old Xotawatwecs and many of the liead men at the capitol were baptised into the Christian faith, and became residents of the town. The place soon fitted the name, " a meadow beantifnl by nature, and brightened by the hght of srraee." At one time the Christian Indians from all the Tnscarawas towns were gathered into Lichtenau to escape tlio evil infiuences and persecutions to which they were exposed through the machinations of evil-disposed white men, and, even worse, apostate and bloody-minded Indians. They remained for over a year, then returning to the Tuscarawas valley.

The Indian towns about the forks of the Muskingum were the objective points of two famous military expeditions. The first, both in order of time and importance, has been usually designated as " Boquet's Expedition."

The Indians of the Northwest having started on the warpath. General Gage, whose headquarters were at Boston, in the spring of 1764, directed Colonel Boquet to organize a corps of fifteen hundred men, and to enter the country of the Delawares and Shawnees at the same time that General Bradstreet was engaged in chastising the Wyandots and Ottawas of Lake Erie, who were then infesting Detroit. As a part of Colonel Boquet's force was composed of militia from Pennsylvania and Virginia, it was slow to assemble. On the 5th of August, the Pennsylvania quota rendezvoused at CarHsle, where three hundred of them deserted. The Virginia quota arrived at Fort Pitt on the 17th 01 September, and uniting with the provincial militia - a part of the Forty-second and Sixtieth regiments - the army moved from Fort Pitt on the 3d of October. When Colonel Boquet was at Fort Loudon in Pennsylvania, between Carlisle and Fort Pitt, urging forward the militia-levies, he received a dispatch from General Bradstreet notifying him of the peace effected at Sandusky. But the Ohio Indians, particularly the Shawnees of the Scioto river, and some of the Delawares of the Muskingum river, still continued their robberies and murders along the frontiers of Pennsylvania ; and so Colonel Boquet determined to proceed with his division, notwithstanding the peace of Gen- era! Bradstreet, which did not inchide the Shawnees and Delawares. From Fort Pitt, Boquet fn'oceeded westward along the Ohio and Little Beaver and across the highlands to the waters of Yellow creek, then to Sandy creek, and along it to a point near the present village of Bolivar. There he erected a stockade and completed his arrangements. The Indians being convinced that they could not succeed in any attempt against him, made a treaty of peace, engaging to restore all their white prisoners. The expedition then passed down the Tuscarawas on the north side, and encamped on the high ground between the rivers near the Indian town at the forks of the Muskingum, and, erecting a stockade, there awaited the arrival of the prisoners. On the 9th of ITovember, two hundred and six captives had been delivered, and on the 18th, the army broke up its cantonment and marched for Fort Pitt, arriving there on the 28th of the same month.

The second expedition is commonly known as the "Coshocton Campaign." It was undertaken in the summer of 1780, and grew out of the deepened feeling of antipathy to the Indians because of some recent depredations and outrages committed upon settlers in Pennsylvania, Western Virginia, and Eastern Ohio. It was also understood that the Delawares, contrary to pledges, were joining the British.

The number of regulars and militia was about eight hundred, under the command of General Broadhead. It marched from Wheeling directly to the Tuscarawas valley. A part of the militia were anxious to go up the river and destroy the Moravian villages, which they regarded as at least shelters and half-way houses for Indian marauders, but they were restrained from executing their project by special exertions of General Broadhead and Colonel Shepherd. They kept on toward Coshocton, and observing some Indian scouts (one of whom was shot) a few miles therefrom, they made a forced march and surprised both Goschachgunk and Lichtenau, capturing, without tiring a gnu, all the Indians then in them. Among those captured in Lichtenau were several Christian Indians from Gnadenlo Historical Collections of Coshocton County.

hutten. These were released promptly by the commander of the expedition, and started in a canoe for their home, but some of the militia followed after and fired at them. Forsaking their canoe, they took to the hills, and all except one, who was wounded, reached their home in safet3\ Sixteen of the other prisoners, having been pointed out by Pekilon, a friendly Delaware chief who was with the army of Broadhead, were doomed to death by a council of war, and having after dark been taken a little waj^s from the town, were speedily dispatched with spear and tomahawk and scalped. Having destroyed the towns, the army, at eleven o'clock the next day, set out on its return. The prisoners (twenty odd in number) were under guard of the militia, and, after marching about half a mile, these commenced to use their knives and tomahawks, slaughtering all of them, except a few women and children, who were taken to Fort Pitt and subsequently exchanged for a like number of white ones. Tradition locates the site of this butcher}' near a spring about three-fourths of a mile east of Coshocton, on a tract of laud now owned by Mrs. S. H. Collier.* Goschachgunk and Lichtenau were both subsequently rebuilt, to some extent, and became for some years the home of more intense haters of the white race, by reason of the associations of the place. But the towns never

* Among the militia of this expedition was tlie famous Indian killer, Lewis Wetzel, from Western Virginia. Just before the exiaedition set out on its return, an Indian chief appeared on the opposite bank of the river proposing " a talk." lie was invited over by General Broadhead, and assured of safety. But while he was talking, Wetzel slipped up behind him, and, drawing a tomahawk which he had concealed in his hunting-shirt, sunk it in the chief sskull, instantly killing him. Legends of Wetzel's shrewdness and courage are abundant, and there is no doubt he was one of the most successful trappers and hunters and Indian fighters of his time. He and his friends had .suffered much at the hands of the Indians. He moved, in 1795, to the frontier, on the Mississippi, tliat he might trap the beaver and hunt the buffalo and deer, and occasionally shoot an Indian. The exploit (not in some lights very creditable, but showing his intense antipathy to the redskins) above mentioned was his only one performed in Coshoaton county as reported by his admirers.

Usually, and as to the great mass of them, the Delaware Indians entertained very friendly feelings for the whites. In their old home in Pennsylvania, from the day of Wm. Penn's treaty down, they had received a treatment calculated to produce such feelings, and the iniluenee of the Moravian missions among them was felt unto the same end. Far more Indian blood than white was shed about the forks of the Muskingum, and there is neither dark and bloody battlefield nor site of sickening family massacre within the limits of the county of Coshocton. The numerous bullets found in after' times, in the plowed fields near Coshocton, were doubtless from the volleys fired by the expeditions, or from the rifles of the early settlers, with whom shooting at marks was a grand pastime. At one time seven hundred Indian warriors from the West encamped near the town, many with rifles. Accepting the idea of the poet, that " peace hath her victories as well as war," it may be claimed that one of the grandest of these was won at Goschachgunk, the Delaware capital. When the Kevolutionary War broke out, it was a matter of the utmost importance to the colonists to secure at least the neutrality of the Indian tribes, and efl:brts were accordingly made. Two treaties were made at Pittsburg in successive years - 1775 and 1776 - binding to neutrality the Delawares, and some of the immediately adjacent nations.

At the opening of 1777, the hatchet sent from Detroit (the British headquarters), was accepted by the Shawnees, Wyandots, and Mingoes. Rumor had it that it was also to be sei^t to the Delawares, and if they declined it they were to be treated as common enemies, and at once attacked by the British and their Indian allies. The famous chief Cornstalk himself came to Goschachgunk, reporting that despite his efforts the Shawnees were for war; parties were already out, and ammunition was being forwarded for their use from Detroit. Even a portion of the Delawares had been already pledged to take up arms. At this crisis - so threatening to the colonists - a o-eneral council of the

Delawares mot at tlie capitol, on the 9th of March, 1777. Sonic of the young warriors appeared with plumes and war paint. After earnest discussion and eloquent speeches, especially from White Eyes, it was resolved to decline the hatchet should it he offered. Three times during that summer it was tendered and as often declined. Despite the taunts of their own race - against even a faction of their own nation - rejecting bribes and spurning threats, the [icoplc stood, month after month, as a mighty wall of protection to the western colonists. Looking to the plainly discernible natural consequences of a diff"erent decision in that grand council, it is not without reason that the claim may be made, that one of the grandest victories for the colonists in the American Revolutionary war was won at the Delaware capitol, at the forks of the Muskingum. Subsequentl}', indeed, by the machinations of renegades like Simon Girty (who was several times at the capitol), and the taunts of the tribes, a part of the nation was led to join the British Indians ; but these were too few, and it was too late to do the colonists much harm, especially with the wisest and bravest of the nation committed to peace and friendliness with the Americans. In 1778, the rightful authorities of the nation made a complete treaty of alliance with the commissioners of the United States, therein providing for carrying out a cherished project of White Eyes, that the Delaware nation should be represented in the Colonial Congress, and become, as a Christian Indian state, one of the United States. By the neighboring tribes the Delawares were often taunted with being unduly gentle - " women " - and were alwa^'s remarked upon as having too numy captives ; making exertions to secure a^ such those commonly ai)pointed by other Indians to the tomahawk or stake. On one occasion, as already noticed, at their principal village, there were turned over to Boquet's forces two liundred and six captives, of whom thirty-two men and fifty-eight women and children were from Virginia, and forty-nine men and sixty-eight women and children from Pennsylvania. These were not indeed all captured by the Delawares ; but a large proportion was, and others of them would doubtless have been butchered but for the influence of the Delawares, who would sometimes arrange with the tribes further south and west for their captives. The legend of the Walhonding (White Woman), telling how the captive virgin wildly fled from the camp and threw herself from an uprearing and overhanging rock,* into the seething waters of the storm-swollen river, choosing death rather than captivity, is significant of the horrors attending captivity, even among the Delawares. f It is, however, most likely that she was a captive of the Monsey or Wolf tribe of Delawares, who were, perhaps, the worst representatives of the nation. Experience and tastes no doubt differed among the captives. It is said that some of the captives delivered to Boquet were compelled to go with him, and some escaped after the expedition started toward Fort Pitt, and returned to the free forest life. Simon Girty and two brothers were captured when young, and, having been adopted by the Indians, continued in their preference of Indian life. Despite all that has been said or may be claimed, it is no doubt true that even among the Delawares the savage nature was frequently displayed, especially when in the bad company of other tribes ; and they were not without much blame at the mouths of the whites, for cruelties upon the hapless settlers, whose settlements to the east and south of them they invaded, and who, individually or in small hunting or scouting parties, might fall into their hands.

It can not be doubted that their treatment of Colonel Crawford out in the Wyandot country, when they bound him to a stake, fired numerous charges of powder into his flesh, cut and beat and burned, and by every possible torture put him to a lingering death, was Indian, fiendish. Yet it is to be remembered that the Delaware Indians doing these things Avere confessedly the more bloodyminded part that had tnrned away from those at the forks of the Musking-um and set np their lodges in the Wyandot eonntrv : that they were incited by the Shawnees and "Wyandots, and regarded their work as a retaliation for the bloody massacre of the Christian Indians at Gnadenhiitten, and other outrages that their race had suffered at the hands of those who were crowding them out of the land.

Killbuck ("deer-killer") was the successor of a chief having the same name, whose town was on Killbuck creek, between Millersburg and Wooster, and who died, a very old man, in the Wyandot country, and was often designated Killbuck, Jr. When baptized by the Moravian missionaries he took the name of William Henry. Less shrewd and eloquent, he was a worthy associate and successor of White Eyes. He was even more pronounced in his religious views and less Avavering. Adhering to the fortunes of the Americans and Moravians, he at length (in 1810) died at Goshen, near JSTew Philadelphia.

Killbuck, aided by the other Christian Indians, for a time still held the nation very much in hand ; but by 1780 Captain Pipe got the ascendancy at Goschachgiink, and put the people on the side of the British, setting up a new town in the Seneca country. Killbuck and those who sided with him went over fully to the colonists, and left the forks, never to return. After the massacre at Gnadenhiitten, the few remaining Delawares graduall}^ retired to

* White Eyes (so called from the unusual proportion of white in his eyes) died near Fort Laurens, on the Tuscarawas, on the 10th of November, 1778, of small-pox. General Mcintosh's colonial forces were at that time encamped near by. His death was a marked event of the time. His broad views and truly eloquent expression of them can not be questioned. His fair dealing with the whites, and his earnest and steadfast efforts for the civilization and cliristianization of his race ought not to be forgotten. A successor to the name - perhaps a degenerate .son of this sire - was killed in what is now Columbiana county, in 17'.)7, by a young man named Cari)enter, whom he was, while under the inlluence of tire-water, assailing and threatening.

the West or were taken to Canada; and in 1795 their country, of which Coshocton county forms the central part, and in which was their capitol (removed from New Comerstown), became bv treaty the possession of the United States. Until after the war of 1812, a few straggling members of the nation, especially the Guadenhiitten ones, moved about in the country, hunting, disposing of pelts, or possibly visiting the graves of their ancestors. In 1819 there w^ere eighty Delawares near Sandusky, Ohio, and two thousand three hnndred in ISTorthern Indiana. Fragments of the nation are yet recognized in Canada and in the Indian Territory, but its power was broken and the scepter had departed when it was tnrned away from its loved haunts in the Tuscarawas and "Walholding valleys.*

* The sources of information for the foregoing chapter are mainly Doddridge's Notes, Howe's Historical Collections of Ohio, de Schweinitz's Life and Times of Zeisberger, and Mitchener's Ohio Annals ; in which those interested in Indian history and legends will find much to their taste. See also Chapter XIX, this volume.