Noble County, Ohio - The Dawn of Westekn Civilization, 1887

The Dawn of Westekn Civilization

First White Men m the West - Unimportant Results from Spanish Explorations - The Lake Region Explored in 1678 - Joliet and Marquette - Chevalier La Sai.lb the First White Man in the Ohio Valley - Account of his Journey - Probable Exploration of the Muskingum - Their Missionaries and Traders - Englishmen in the Ohio Valley, 1730-1751 - The Ohio Land Company of Virginia - Its Unsuccessfui^ Attempt to Found a Settlement - Christopher Gist's Journey, 1750 - George Washington at Venango, 1753 - Colonel Bouquet's Military Expedition, 1764 - George Washington on the Ohio, 1770 - The Massacre OF Indians at Yellow Creek, 1774 - The County of Illinois - The Moravian Settlements on the Tuscarawas - The Massacre at Gnadenhutten, 1782 - Conflicting Claims as to the Ownership of the West - State Claims Ceded - Important Treaties with the Indians.

NEAR the thirty-fourth parallel of north latitude, in the year 1541, Ferdinand de Soto and his companions reached and discovered the Mississippi River. This was doubtless the first expedition ever made by white men into the great central valley of North America. But the visionary and imaginative Spaniards wast^ their efforts in a vain search for El Dorados, or the fountain of perpetual youth; and, apart from the establishment of the first settlement in the United States at St. Augustine, in 1565. Their discoveries and explorations, from the beginning to near the close of the sixteenth century, w6*q. barren of important results in the history of this country.

But there was a nation which looked with practical gaze upon the newly-discovered world and sought to make at least a part of it their own. The French were among the earliest adventurers in the new land, and their efforts to explore and colonize it were most active and energetic. But it was not until near the middle of the seventeenth century that the French were led to explore the region of the great lakes, and then religious zeal was the only inspiration of the explorers. Lake Superior was visited in 1641 by Charles Raymbault, the first of the missionary explorers of the Northwest. During the next thirty years, the Jesuits continued their explorations with great diligence and activity, establish-

Joliet and Marquette, the former a Quebec merchant, and the latter a Jesuit missionary, in 1673 explored the country about the northern lakes, passed from Green Bay up the Fox and down the Wisconsin Kiver into the Mississippi, and explored, that river as far as the mouth of the Arkansas, returning by the Illinois and Chicago rivers to Lake Michigan.

It is the unanimous opinion of the chief historians of the country that Kobert Chevalier La Salle was the first white man to explore the beautiful stream now known as the Ohio, and the first to tread the soil of the great State named from the river. The earliest explorers of the Mississippi region considered the Ohio and Wabash as one stream, and gave the name Ouabache to both.

La Salle was born in France in 1635, and educated for the priesthood; but his adventurous spirit would not brook the seclusion of the cloister. He came to Canada in 1666 and plunged boldly into the wilderness to make a name as an explorer. Soon after we find him among the Seneca Indians of New York, seeking a guide to lead him into the country of the Delawares. Successful in his quest - having obtained a Shawnee prisoner by gifts to the Senecas - he set out upon his hazardous expedition. As the records of three years of his wanderings are lost to the world, there is no direct evidence as to the route which he took to reach and explore the Ohio River.

Several Ohio writers have asserted, with some showing of probability, that after proceeding up Lake Erie to the mouth of the Cuyahoga he followed that river to the portage and reached the Ohio by the Tuscarawas and the Muskingum. It is generally agreed that the time of his journey was the winter of 1669-70. Others maintain that La Salle crossed Lake Erie to the Maumee, and came to the Ohio by that stream and the Miami. But the weight of historical evidence supports the generally accepted and more probable theory that he journeyed from the Seneca country to the Allegheny, and down that river to the Ohio, whence he explored its chief tributaries. Hence, although he may not have reached the Ohio by way of the Muskingum, it is very likely that he explored the latter stream during some part of his three years of wandering.

In 1679, La Salle, who was then at the French post of Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, built and launched upon Lake Erie the Griffin, a bark of sixty ton's burden, the first vessel that ever navigated the waters of the lake; sailed across Lakes Erie and Huron to the Straits of Mackinac, and thence to Green Bay. From this point he sent back the Griffin with a cargo of furs, and, accompanied by Father Louis Hennepin (a Franciscan monk) and fourteen other men, journeyed farther into the wild and unknown region. They proceeded in canoes by way of the St. Joseph, Kankakee and Illinois rivers to Peoria Lake, in the vicinity of which La Salle erected a fort and trading station. Then, leaving his lieutenant, Monsieur Tonti,and some of the men in charge of the station, he returned to Mackinac, where the Jesuits had a missionary settlement, and sj)ent some months voyaging between that j)oint and Fort Frontenac.

In January, 1682, La Salle set out on a grand voyage to discover the mouth of the Mississippi. By way of Lake Michigan, the Chicago and Illinois rivers, he reached the great river and descended it as far as the site of New Orleans. There, on the 9th of April, with due solmenities, in the name of Louis, king of France, he took ix>ssession of " the country of Louisiana, all its seas, harbors, ports, Imys, adjacent straits, . . . nations, people, provinces, cities, towns, villages, mines, minerals, fisheries, streams and rivers," from the Gulf to the sources of the Mississippi.

After this expedition the great voyageur returned to his native land and induced his government to fit out an expedition for the purpose of planting a colony on the Mississippi. Sailing from France in 1685, he reached the Gulf of Mexico, but failed to discover the mouth of the Father of Waters. Landing within the present State of Texas, he explored the adjacent region some distance westward and northward. La Salle was murdered in March, 1687, by two of his own men. Thus perished one of the bravest and most gallant of the explorers of the New World. His scheme of colonization was a failure; but upon the strength of his action in taking possession of

As early as 1688 France had established military posts at Frontenac, Niagara, Mackinac, and on the Illinois River, and before 1750 French settlements were established at several points on the great lakes and in the Mississippi Valley. But of the Ohio Valley, from the death of La Salle to near the middle of the eighteenth century, there is little authentic history except that furnished by the journals of the Jesuit missionaries, who traversed the country along the Wabash and Maumee and the IlUnoisJounding missions and preaching to the Indians. Soon after the missionaries began their labors the French traders established posts, and to some extent explored the country. They had a trading-post at or near the mouth of the Maumee as early as 1680, and traveled back and forth from Canada to the Mississippi ; later they traveled to that stream by way of the Maumee, the Wabash and the Ohio, and from Presque Isle, on Lake Erie, by way of the Allegheny (which was long known as the Ohio), and the Ohio.

The entire region west of the Alleghenies was little known to the English prior to 1740, when English traders began to supersede ^ the French. The colonial governments of Virginia and Pennsylvania especially encouraged and fostered the commerce between the whites and the Indians. In this Virginia took the lead. Governor Spotswoixl was an enthusiast upon the subject, and after exploring and finding a practical passage through the Alleghenies in 1714 he entered eagerly upon the project of taking possession of the country beyond them. He urged upon the British government the importance of obtaining such a foothold in the West as to be able to resist the growth of French influence. One romantic feature of his work was the founding of the Transmontane order of knights, with the motto, Sicjnvat transeendere uumten. Though no systematic settlement or exploration resulted, yet from time to time adventurers reached La Belle Riviere - the Beautiful River - as the French called the Ohio. Had Governor Spotswood's advice been heeded, the long and bloody French and Indian w^ar (1754-63) might not have been necessary to dislodge the French from the West. English traders visited the Ohio l)etween 1730 and 1740, and were licensed by the government of Pennsylvania to trade as far west as the Mississippi in 1744. John Howard descended the Ohio in 1742, and was captured on the Mississippi by the French. In 1748 Conrad Weiser. acting for the English, visited Logstown, a Shawnee town on the Ohio, a short distance from Pittsburgh, bearing gifts to gain the favor of the savages. Soon after, the renowned pioneer, George Croghan, accompanied by Andrew Montour, a Seneca half-breed, journeyed Westward into the country of the Miamis, w^on the favor of the tribes by gifts, and in 1751 erected a stockade on the great Miami within the present limits of

Shelby County, Ohio. This station, which was called Pickawillamy, was destroyed by the French and Indians in June of the following year. It was doubtless the first structure erected by the hands of Englishmen within the limits of the State.

Prior to 1750 the French established a trading-station and built a fort at Sandusky, and made a systematic exploration of the Ohio and its tributaries. The exi)edition for this purpose was sent out by the Marquis de la Galissoniere, captain-general of New France, and was led by Celeron de Bienville. In 1798 a leaden plate was found at the mouth of the Muskingum, which bore an inscription of which the following is a translation :

" In the year of 1749, of the reign of Louis XV of France, we, Celeron, commandant of a detachment sent by the Marquis de la Galissoniere, captain-general of New France, in order to establish tranquillity among some villages of savages of these parts, have buried this plate at the mouth of the river Chi-no-da-hich-e-tha, the 18th of August, near the river Ohio, otherwise Beautiful River, as a monument of renewal of possession which we have taken of the said river Ohio, and of all those which empty themselves into it, and of all the lands of both sides, even to the sources of said rivers, as have enjoyed or ought to have enjoyed the preceding kings of France, and that they have maintained themselves there by force of arms and by treaties, especially by those of Ryswick, of Utrecht and of Aix-la-Chapelle." Another plate bearing a similar inscription was

The first concerted movement looking toward the establishment of an English colony, in the Ohio Valley was made in 1748, when twelve prominent Virginians, among whom were Robert Dinwiddie, governor of the province, Lawrence and Augustine Washington, brothers of George Washington, and Thomas Lee, president of the council of Virginia, formed an association styled the Ohio Land Company. In 1749 the company received fix)m George II a grant of half a million acres of land, to be located either between the Kanawha and Monongahela rivers, or on the northern bank of the Ohio. One of the conditions of the grant was tdat one hundred families should be settled on the tract within seven years.

De Bienville's expedition was made for the purpose of driving the English out of the Ohio Valley and thwarting the purposes of the Ohio Land Company. To the same end the French built forts at Presque Isle (now Erie, Pa.), at Le Boeuf, on a tributary of the Allegheny, about fifteen miles south of Lake Erie, and at Venango, and sent out a party to destroy the English post on the Maumee.

Meantime, in 1750, the Ohio Land Company sent out Christopher Gist and a surveying party to examine and explore the country in which it was proposed to establish the colony. The party reached the Ohio, opposite the mouth of Beaver Creek, and, after tarrying at Logstown, crossed the country, arriving at the Tuscarawas River, opposite the present town of Bolivar, on the 5th of December. On the 7th Gist crossed the river to an Indian village, whose inliabitants were favorable to the French. Following the river south, on the 14th he reached an Indian town near the junction of the White- woman Creek and the Tuscarawas. The town contained about one hundred families, part of them favorable to the English and part to the French. Here he found Montour and George Croghan, the latter having his headquarters in the town.

"When we came in sight of the town," says Gist, in his journal, " we perceived the English colore hoisted on the king's (chiefs) house, and at George Croghan's. Upon inquiring the reason I was informe<l that the French had lately taken several English traders, and that Mr. Croghan had ordered all the white men to come into this town, and had sent runners to the traders of the lower towns, and that the Indians had sent to their people to come and counsel about it."

Gist tarried among the Indians of the Tuscarawas Valley until the latter part of January, 1751, and during his stay visited the white woman, Mary Harris, who lived among the Indians and had great influence with them. White-woman Creek received its name from her. She was of New England birth, and was captured and taken west when a child. She grew up and married

Gist, accompanied on part of his journey by Croghan, crossed from the Muskingum to Licking Creek, thence to the Scioto, which he explored to its mouth, then journeyed on the Oliio nearly to the falls at Louisville, returning on foot to Virginia through Kentucky.

In 1753 the Virginians opened a road from Will's Creek, near Cumberland, Md., to the Ohio Valley, and made preparations to establisli a colony. The governor sent George Washington, with Christopher Gist as his guide, to the French posts at Venango (now Franklin, Pa.), and Le Boeuf, to demand the reason for the French invasion of British territory. The young Virginian received a defiant answer, and the project of founding a colony was abandoned, as it became evident that war must ensue between the French and the English. The struggle that followed established the British in possession of Canada and all the country east of the Mississippi, excepting the Spanish territory and a small body of land about New Orleans.

In 1764 occurre<l the first English military expedition inio the country northwest of the Ohio. Colonel Henry Bouquet was sent out to punish the Delawares, Shawnees and other Ohio tribes for their depredations and massacres on the Pennsylvania frontiers during the war between the French and the English. With a force numbering fifteen hundred men, three hundred of whom deserted before the expedition was fairly begun, he had marched through Pennsylvania along Braddock's old trail in 1763, conquered the Indians in a two days' fight at Bushy Run and taken the remainder of his army to Fort Pitt. On the 3d of October, 1764, he marched from Fort Pitt with fifteen hundred men on his way into the valleys of the Muskingum and the Tuscarawas. The exj)edition penetrated the Indian country as far as the forks of the Muskingum, where Coshocton now is. No blood was shed, the Indians yielding their assent to the terms of a treaty proposed by Colonel Bouquet, and delivering up the capti ves they then held . Over two ' hundred white prisoners were delivered into the Colonel's charge, and it was stated that more than a hundred more still remained at distant points in j)Ossession of the Shawnees, who promised to deliver them to the English authorities in the following spring. Bouquet's army returned from its bloodless conquest, reaching Fort Pitt on the 28th of November.

While Bouquet was in the Muskingum country Colonel Bradstreet le<l an expedition to the Indian towns along the southern shore of Lake Erie, and was equally successful in his object, gaining the promise of peace without any fighting.

The British took but little advantage of their ascendency in the Northwest. The country was visited by few except Indian traders. The borders of Pennsylvania and Virginia were peopled years before adventurous hunters and trappers (''squat-

The Dawn Of Western Civilization

In 1770 George Washington, Captain William Crawford and Dr. Craik, accompanied by a party of Indians, journeyed down the Ohio as far as the mouth of the Big Kanawha. (Crawford, afterward colonel, was burned at the stake in what is now Wyandot County, in 1782.) The party were at the mouth of the Muskingum on the 27th of October.

In the spring of 1774, on the West Virginia side of the Ohio, there was perpetrated a most cruel and unprovoked murder of Indians by the whites. The massacre took place opposite the mouth of the Yellow Creek, Jefferson County, Ohio. The victims were the kindred of Logan, the talented Mingo chief, renowned for his friendship to the whites. Logan had taken no part in the French and Indian war, except as a peacemaker. At the time of the massacre he was living on Yellow Creek and supporting himself and family by hunting. A party of white men encamped opposite the mouth of the creek, and were visited by six Indians - five men and one woman. The whites, after making some of the Indians drunk, murdered all, not even sparing the woman.

To avenge the death of his relatives, Logan took the warpath, and became the terror of the adventurous squatters of the border. Then, retiring farther into the wilderness, he made his home with the Shawnees - a tribe most hostile to the whites - in the old Indian town of Chillicothe. The Shawnees, doubtless inspired by the influence and example of Logan, renewed their bloody assaults upon the frontier settlements. To quiet the increasing trouble. Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, organized and led an army into the Ohio country. The force was in two divisions, one led by General Alexander Lewis, and the other by Lord Dunmore himself.

General Lewis' division marched by land to the mouth of the Big Kanawha, while Dunmore's force proceeded down the Ohio in boats and canoes. At Point Pleasant, on the 10th of October, 1774, General Lewis' division (the smaller of the two), consisting of about eleven hundred men, was attacked by almost an equal number of Shawnees, under the leadership of Cornstalk. There ensued one of the most hardly contested battles ever fought between the white men and the red on the banks of the Ohio. The Indians retired after losing several of their best warriors. The whites lost over fifty men and several officers. The loss of the Indians was estimated at over two hundred.

Dunmore, instead of landing at the mouth of the Kanawha, as had been his original intention, disembarked at the mouth of the Hocking, where he erected a blockhouse in which to leave his surplus stores while he advanced farther into the enemy's country. Dunmore's division did no fighting, but advanced to within eight miles of the Indian town of Chillicothe, and there was joined b}^

General Lewis and his force. The Indians seemed humbled and sued for peace, and at Camp Charlotte a treaty was held. It was during the negotiation of this treaty that Logan gave utterance to his famous speech, once familiar to every schoolboy, beginning, "I appeal to any white man to say that he ever entered Logan's cabin hungry but I gave him meat," etc. Lord Dunmore returned to Virginia, and in the following year engaged in that rebellion which called for his expulsion in disgrace from the province. Whatever may have been the motives which animated him in his subsequent course, there is no doubt but honorable patriotism and a desire for military renown inspired his western expedition.

Contemporary with Lord Dunmore's expedition Colonel Angus McDonald led a force of four hundred men against the Indian towns on the Muskingum. Wakatomeka, ar Shawnee town of considerable size, stood near the present site of Dresden, Muskingum county. The force was collected at Wheeling, by order of the Earl of Dunmore, some time in June, 1774. It set out for the Indian town, piloted by Jonathan Zane, Thomas Nicholson and Tody Kelley. About six miles from Wakatomeka the militia were met by a band of forty or fifty Indians, who attacked them, killed two soldiers and wounded several others. One Indian was killed and several wounded. On reaching the town Colonel Mc- Donald found it deserted, the Indians having withdrawn to the opposite side of the river. There they attempted to draw the soldiers into an ambuscade, but being unsuccessful, sued for peace. The commander agreed to make peace on condition that their chiefs be given him as hostages. Five chiefs were accordingly delivered up to him. The Indians then representing that they would not make peace unless the chiefs of other towns were present, one of the hostages was released to bring in the others. He did not return, and another chief was sent out, who also failed to come back. The soldiers then moved about a mile and a half up the river to another Indian village, where they had a slight skirmish and killed one Indian. It was discovered while the whites were awaiting the return of the messengers that the Indians were engaged in removing their people and effects from the upper towns. The military then burned the towns and destroyed the cornfields of the Indians, and returned to Virginia with three of the hostages, who were released at the subsequent peace made by Lord Dunmore in the fall of the same year.

Aside from the noteworthy and successful expedition pf General George Kogers Clark, mentioned more fully below, although several invasions of the western country were planned or made during the revolutionary period, there were few important events transpiring in what was afterwards the Northwest territory from 1775 to 1783.

headquarters at Fort Pitt. He held the position until sometime in 1779, and by his treatment of the savages did much to win their friendship and respect. In June, 1776, Colonel Morgan sent William Wilson into the Indian country to make arrangements for a treaty. Colonel Morgan accompanied him as far as Pluggystown, then returned to Fort Pitt. Wilson visited Coshocton and other Indian towns, journeyed to Detroit, and returned by way of Coshocton.

In 1778 a fort was erected at the mouth of Big Beaver, and named Fort Mcintosh. In the fall of the same year General Mcintosh marched from that fort into the Indian country, meeting with no opposition, and on the bank of the Tuscarawas, near the mouth of Sandy Creek, erected Fort Laurens, which he garrisoned with 150 men under the command of Colonel John Gibson, Fort Laurens was the first English fortification worthy of the name in Ohio. No good resulted from planting this post in the heart of the Indian country. The Shawnees and Wyandots besieged it for several weeks, killed several soldiers and caused the rest much privation. The distance of the post from supplies and the hostility of the Indians caused the fort to be abandoned in August, 1779.

Among later expeditions into the Ohio country were those of Colonel John Bowman, in 1779; General Daniel Brodhead, 1781; Colonel Archibald Lochery, 1781 ; Colonel Williamson, 1782 ; Colonel William Crawford, into the Sandusky country, where he was captured and

The most illustrious military achievement in all the annals of the west was that of Colonel (afterward General) George Rogers Clark. His heroic exploit was the chief agency in securing to the United States the territory of the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys, and but for it the Ohio and not the Mississippi would have been the boundary of our western possessions at the conclusion of the peace of 1783. As Garfield expressed it, " the cession of that great territory under the treaty of 1783 was due mainly to the foresight, the courage and endurance of one man, who never received from his country an adequate recognition of his great services."

General Clark has receivetl scant honor from the historians. Some American writers of considerable note have even written what purported to be "histories of the United States" in which his name was not even mentioned ! But in the West his name and his fame will be jierpetual.

George Rogers Clark was a native of Virginia, and a pioneer settler of Kentucky. His wisdom and foresight led him to consider that the territory of the West as well as that of the East should be wrested from the control of the British. Accordingly, he sought authority from the House of Burgesses of Virginia to enable him to fit out and lead an expedition against the distant military posts of that nation. The Burgesses hesitating, and attempting to put him oflf by excuses, he appealed in person to Patrick Henry, the governor of the province, and from him received authority to raise seven companies for the purpose of taking the British posts in the Northwest. In the winter of 1778 he gathered ammunition and military stores at Pittsburgh and Wheeling; in the spring proceeded down the Ohio to the Falls, and thence, with the small but valiant army of hardy Kentuckians and Virginians, he marched into the wilderness of the Illinois country and soon had the important British posts of Kaskaskia and Vincennes in his possessio.n. With consummate tact he won the French inhabitants of the western posts over to the American side, and also concluded treaties of peace with several of the western tribes of Indians. Subsequently - in 1780 and 1872 - General Clark led expeditions against the Miami Indians.

It was on the strength of his conquest that Virginia in 1778 organized the whole region from her w^estern boundaries to the Mississippi into the county of Illinois, and held courts at Vincennes in 1779. Colonel John Todd was Virginia's county lieutenant or commander-in-chief for Illinois County, and established local governments in most of the western settlements. Virginia continued to exercise authority - or, at least, a show of authority - over this vast region until 1784, when she yielded all of her claims to territory in the Northwest to the general government.

travels and explorations in the West let us briefly tell the story of the Moravian missionaries and the sad fate of the settlements founded by them.

The missionaries of the Moravian Church (a Protestant denomination whoso chief seat was at Bethlehem, Pa.) were most zealous and successful in their efforts to convert the Indians to Christianity. As early as 1761, one of their number, the Rev. Christian Frederick Post visited the Delawares on the Tuscarawas, and built himself a cabin near where the town of .Bolivar now is. Having established friendly relations with the savages, he returned to Bethlehem. In May of the following year he was again at his cabin on the banks of the Tuscarawas, accompanied by another missionary, Rev. John Ileckewelder. They began making a small clearing for the purjxjse of planting a garden. This alarmed the Indians, who feared that the missionaries contemplated taking possession of their lands. A compromise was finally made, the Indians allowing Post and Hecke welder a garden spot fifty paces square. During the summer Post went to Lancaster, leaving Heckewelder at the station to instruct the Indian children. During a portion of the summer Heckewelder lived with Thomas Calhoun, an Indian trader who had his cabin near that which Post had built. He was obliged to hide his books and do all his reading and writing in secret, the Indians having a sui>erstitious fear of reading and writing, thinking when it was going on something was being done to rob them of their lands. In October Heckewelder left the Indian country, on account of rumors of war and uneasiness among the Indian nations.

Though this first attempt to convert the Indians resulted in failure, the zealous Moravians did not abandon the enteq^rise. In 1771 Rev. David Zeisberger visited the Tuscarawas, and in 1772 established a missionary settlement composed of twenty-eight persons and called it Schoenbrunn (Beautiful Spring). Its sight was near the present town of New Philadelphia, Tuscarawas County. Rev. John Roth, Rev. George Jungman and Rev. John Etwin came out from Pennsylvania in the same year, and in the spring of 1773 the settlement of Gnadenhutten (Tents of Grace) was founded on the river seven miles below Schoenbrunn. A town was regularly laid out and a large chapel erected. The converted Indians betook themselves to agricultural pursuits, and led a simple, quiet, peaceful existence. The missionaries' labors were abundantly blessed, and the number | of converts rapidly increased. In the spring of 1776 another Moravian settlement, consisting of eight families, was formed by Revs. Zeisberger and Heckewelder. It was situated about two miles from the present site of Coshocton and was called Lichtenau (Meadows or Fields of Light). In 1776, through the agency of British emissaries, a portion of the converts of Schoenbrunn were induced to desert the settlement, renounce Christianity and join the hostile Indians. Soon after the town was destroyed. In 1780 Lichtenau was abandoned and the settlement of Salem founded, five miles below Gnadenhutten. Meantime, Schoenbrunn had been re-occupied.

The British, having become jealous of the influence which the Moravians were gaining among the Indians, sent a party of Wyandot and Muncie warriors to the settlements. The Indians were led by the chiefs Pipe, Half-King, Wingmund and otherR, and by Captain Elliott and three other white men, one of whom, Kuhn by name, had been adopted into an Indian tribe. and chosen a chief. The missionaries were charged with having held correspondence with the agents of the American colonies then in rebellion against the British. On this slender pretext the three settlements were broken up and all the inhabitants forcibly removed to Sandusky in September, 1781. The missionaries, Zeisberger, Edwards, Heckewelder and Senseman, were subsequently tried at Detroit and found not guilty of the charges made against them.

In the winter following, the Moravian Indians at Sandusky, suffering from the want of sufficient provisions, sought and obtained permission to return to their former homes on the Tuscarawas for the purjwse of gathering some of the corn which they had left standing in the fields at the time of their hurried departure. They reached the Tuscarawas and began their work early in March. Meantime, the winter having been unusually fine, war paities had set out from the Sandusky country earlier than usual, and on one of their incursions had murdered a family named Wallace near the Ohio River, and then fled westward toward the Moravian towns. The murderers arrived at the Tuscarawas, found the Moravians there and told them of the crime they had committed. The Christian Indians, fearing for their own safety, knowing that the whites of the border settlements would likely pursue the hostile warriors, warned the latter to leave their towns. Before they departed, however, they bartered a dress and some other articles which they had taken from the murdered Mrs. Wallace to some young and thoughtless Moravian girls. This circumstance may have led to the massacre which followed, though it is doubtful if the Moravians would have been spared in any event. A force of eighty or ninety men, led by Colonel David Williamson, arrived at Gnadenhutten on the 7th of March, in pursuit of the Sandusky warriors whose outrages had aroused the resentment of the inhabitants of the border. They found the peaceful Indians at work in the fields, picking corn to carry to their starving kindred on the Sandusky, having their arms, according to their usual custom, near at hand. The whites greeted the Indians in a friendly manner, told them they had come on a peaceful errand, to lead them to Fort Pitt and place them under the protection of the Americans. The Indians received this announcement with pleasure, delivered over their arms to the whites and at once began preparing for the journey. A part of Williamson's men went to Salem and brought the Indians from the fields at that place to Gnadenhutten. All were then placed under guard and confined in some of the deserted buildings of the town. The whites now showed their true colors, and instead of using friendly words began taunting the Moravians and calling them thieves and murderers. The Indians protested their innocence and sued for mercy in vain. The question was put whether the cai>tives should be led to Fort Pitt or disi)atched then and there. Only eighteen men out of the eighty or ninety in the party favored the former course. Then, while the Moravians, with childlike faith and touching devotion, were uttering their simple prayers to their Maker and singing the hymns which the noble missionaries had taught them, the dreadful carnage began. Neither age nor sex move<l the heartless whites to feelings of mercy or pity. Like sheep in a pen the helpless Indians were slaughtered by their ruthless captors. The fiendish work ceased only when there were no more victims. Of all that were gathered in the slaughter-pens at Gnadenhutten on that blo(Kl3^ day - March 7, 1782 - only two escaped. Ninetysix lives were taken. Sixty-two of the victims were grown persons, about one-third of them women. The remainder were children and youth of both sexes. The Moravians who were at work in the fields at Schoenbrunn fled at the approach of Williamson's men and escai>ed.

The history of the white man's treatment of the red race nowhere exhibits a darker record of heartless cruelty, of preconcerted treachery and wanton, unprovoked murder than is furnished in this story of the massacre of Gnadenhutten. When we read that for scores of years afterw^ard white settlers in various parts of the country lived in constant danger of attacks from the Indians, can we wonder at the fact ? Rather we should wonder, knowing what the nature of the savage was, that there ever again should be peace between the white man and the red.

The close of the Revolutionary War left the western country, from the great lakes on the north to Florida on the south and the Mississi]>pi on the west, in the possession of the United States. Prior to that time the question of the ownership of that vast region was a vexed and much disputed topic, which had given rise to much international controversy. France, making the discoveries of Marquette and La Salle the basis of her title, claimed the whole Mississippi Valley as a part of New France. I^ter, by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, the entire region from the lakes to the gulf became a part of the French province of Louisiana. Not until the treaty of Paris, at the close of the French and Indian war in 1763, did Fnince relinquish her claims to the territory east of the Mississippi and west of the Allegheny mountains.

laid claim to all the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and all the royal charters granted to the several original colonies defined their boundaries as extending from sea to sea. In later yeare one ground of England's claim to the West was a treaty made at Lancaster, Pa., in 1744, between British agents and the Six Nations, by which the latter, who claimed to own all the Ohio Valley, ceded their title to the king. By act of the British Parliament in 1774 the whole of what was afterward the Northwest Territory of the United States was made a part of the Canadian province of Quebec.

On the strength of their charters several of the thirteen original colonies claimed dominion west of the AUeghenies. We have seen that Virginia organized the county of Illinois, including the whole Northwest, in 1778-79. But she began to assert her claims even earlier, organizing the county of Botetourt in 1769, with the Mississippi as its western limit. But her government of the region from 1769 to 1779 existeil rather in name than in fact.

New York was the first of the States to surrender her claims to a part of the West. Under her charter, granted by Charles II in 1664, New York claimed western territory which prior charters had given to Massachusetts and Connecticut. On the 1st of March, 1781, she cede<l to the United States all her right, title and jurisdiction in lands beyond her present western boundaries.

ing her title upon charters issued by King James I in 1606, 1609 and 1612, upon the conquest of the western country by General Clark, and her subsequent exercise of civil authority therein. Nevertheless she s})eedily followed the example set by New York, and on the 1st of March, 1784, conveyed to the United States all her lands northwest of the Ohio, reserving a small tract, known as the Virginia Military District, in Southern Ohio.

Connecticut made, as Chief Justice Chase expressed it, "the last tardy and reluctant sacrifice of State pretensions to the general good," on the 14th of September, 1786, ceiling to Congress all her "right, title, interest, jurisdiction and claim" to ands northwest of the Ohio, with .the exception of the Connecticut Western Reserve; that tract she was allowed to hold and dispose of, and she did not yield her claims of jurisdiction over it until May 30, 1800.

Thus, in a brief time after the territory passed from British to American control, all the various conflicting and embarrassing State claims were amicably adjusted and the way ])repared for stable and effective government in the Northwest.

The close of the Revolution and the treaty of peace left the United Stiites to deal with the Indian question alone, Great Britain even neglecting to make any jM'ovision for the Six Nations, who had steadfastly adhered to her side, and manfully fought for her interests throughout the war. It has sometimes been said that republics are ungrateful. Be that as it may, Avhat ought to be said of the ingratitude of a great kingdom Avhich treats a powerful confederation of people as friends and allies for years, uses them to fight its own battles, then baselj' deserts them? This savage confederacy, consisting of the Mohawks, Onondagas, Senecas, Tuscaroras, Cayugas and Oneidas, for more than a century had claimed the ownership of the Ohio Yalley.

One of the first acts of the infant Itepublic was the making of a treaty with the Six Nations. Congress appointed Oliver Wolcott, Richard Butler and Arthur Lee as commissioners, and the treaty was concluded at Fort Stanwix, October 22, 1784, Cornplanter and Red Jacket, two of the ablest of the chiefs of the Six Nations, Avere present at the treaty, the former counseling peace and the lat^ ter war. Lafayette, the noble French ally of the Americans, was also present, and warmly urged upon the Indians the importance of making peace with the United States. The most im{)ortant provision of the treaty, so far as the West was concerned, was the surrender by the allied tribes of all claim to lands in the Ohio V^alley.

The treaty of Fort Mcintosh was concluded January 21, 1785, between George Rogers Clark, Richard Butler and Arthur Lee, commissioners of the United States, and representatives of the Indian tribes of the Delawares, Wyandots, OttaAViis and

Chippewas. The treaty provided for the surrender to the United States of all prisonei's then held by the several tribes, and the Indians declared themselves under the pro taction of the United States Government, and of no other power whatever. The third article of the treaty declared :

"The l>oundary line between the United States and the Wyandot and Delaware nations shall begin at the month of the river Cuyahoga and run thence up the said river to the portage between that and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum ; thence down the said branch to the forks at the crossing-place above Fort Laurens; then westwardly to the {x>rtage of the Big Miami, which runs into the Ohio, at the mouth of which bmnch the fort stood which was taken by the French in 1752; then along the said iwrtage to the Great Miami or Ome River,* and down the southeast side of the same to its mouth ; thence along the south shore of Lake Erie to the mouth of Cuyahoga, where it began."

*'Akticle 4th. - The United States allot all the lands within the said lines to the Wyandot and Delaware nations to live and to hunt on, and to such of the Ottawa nation as now live thereon, saving and reserving for the establishment of trading posts six miles square at the mouth of the Miami or Ome River, and the same at the portage of that branch of the Miami which runs into the Ohio, and the same on the I^ke of Sandusky, where the fort formerly stood, and also two miles square on each side of the lower rapids of Sandusky River, which posts and the lands annexed to them shall be to the use and under the government of the United States."

The United States agreed that the Indians might punish as they pleased any person attempting to settle on the reserved land of the Wyandot and Delaware nations. The Indians signing the treaty surrendered all claims to lands east, south and west of the limits specified in the third article. Articles 7 and 8 reserved to the United States the posts of Detroit and Michillimackinac (Macki inac) and small tracts about them. I Article 9th declared that if any In- ' dian should murder or rob any citi- I zen of the United States the tribe to which he belonged should deliver him up to the authorities at the nearest j>ost. The concluding article was as follows:

"Article 10th. - The commissioners of the United Stiites, in pursuance of the humane and liberal views of Congress, upon the treiity's being signed, will direct goods to be distributed among the different tribes for their use and comfort."

The Shawnees, at a treaty held at Fort Finney, at the mouth of the Great Miami, January 31, 1786, surrendered their claims to land in the Ohio Valley. George Rogers Clark, Richard Butler and Samuel II. Parsons were the commissioners who negotiated the treaty. (Genenil Parsons wa^ afterward one of the pioneer settlers at Marietta and one of the territorial judges. He was drowned in the Big Beaver River November 17, 1789.) James Monroe, from Virginia, afterwaiW President of the Unite<l States, accompanied General Butler on his way to Fort Finney as far as Limestone, now Maysville, Ky.,- where they arrived in October, 1785. The party, according to General Butler's journal, stop|>ed at the mouth of the Muskingum and left fixed in a locust tree a letter recommending the building of a fort on the Ohio side.

The terms of the treaty confined the Shawnees to territory west of the Great Miami. They gave hostages for the return of all citizens of the United States then held by them as prisoners, and acknowledged the sovereignty of the American government over all territory ceded by the British. The treaty was soon disregarded by the Shawnees, who began to be dissatisfied with its provisions alriiost as soon as they had yielded their assent to them. Congress now changed its tactics, and instead of assuming that the treaty with Great Britain had made the American government the absolute owner of the Indian lands, began to recognize the Indians' rights to the territory. In July, 1787, $26,000 was appropriated for the purpose of extinguishing Indian titles in the West and making a purchase beyond the limits fixed by the previous treaties. Under this policy the treaty of Fort Harraar (1789), the treaty of Greenville (1795) and others of later date were concluded. The Fort Harmar and Greenville treaties are described in another chapter.