Washington County, Ohio - Three Flags in the West, 1902

French Explorations and Establishment of Frontier Forts - Arms of -f^E\KiNG of France - French and English Character Contrasted - -French a^d Indian War - Pontiac's Rebellion - The Revolutionary War in the West - Massacre OF Gnadenhutten. - Note.

In the year 1540, Jacques Cartier raised a white cross crowned with the ficitr dc lis of Ftancc upon an improvised altar of crossed canoe pacldles at OndDec, bearing the inscription ' Franciscus primus, Dei gratia, Fraiicoriim Rex Regnat," and formally took possession of a new continent. Two centuries later, in the dawn of early morning. Bii-itish soldiers wrested from the betrayed ]\Iontcalm the mist-enshrouded height where that emblazoned cross had stood and N'ew France fell - "amid the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin."

All the American Indians soon found, as the Iroquois had, that nothing would do but these newly-come Frenchmen must run about over all the country. Each river must 'be ascended, the portages traversed and lakes crossed. Every hint of further rivers and lakes resulted forthwith in a thousand questions if not in the immediate formation of an exploring expedition.

And yet there was method in the madness of this running about. In the first place log forts were founded at various points, and when tlie world came to know e\'en a fraction as ntuch as the French did about the West, it found that these forts were situated at the most strategic points on the continent. For instance, there was Fort Frontenac, near the narrowing of Lake Ontario into the St. Lawrence. This fort commanded that river. Then there was Fort Niagara, which commanded the route to Lake Erie. There was Fort Detroit, which commanded all access from Lake Erie to lakes Huron, Michigan and Superior. There were forts La Boeuf, Venango and Duquesne to hold the Ohio, Fort Sandusky to hold the Sandusky River, Fort Miami at the head of the rapids on the Miami-of-the-Lakes to hold that river, and the portage to the Wabash, and \''incennes and Kaskaskia in the Illinois country.

The Indians did not object to these forts, because they found that they were really no forts at all, but rather depots and warehouses for the great fur trade, where their stacks of beautiful otter and sable and beaver skins could be exchanged for such splendid colored ribbons and tinkling bells and powder and lead and whiskey! Each fort became a trading post where the Indians gathered frequently for entertainments of various character.

ernor of Xew France, as he surx-eyed with heaving breast the vast domains of the Mississippi Valley, comprising four milHon square miles of delectable land, and fancied the mighty empire it would some day sustain - outrivaling the dreams of a "Grand INIonarque."' Picture, if you can, the great hopes of the builder of Quebec Avho could see the infant city holding in ' fee all the great system of lakes besides whose sea-outlet it stood - the Gibraltar of the new continent. Fancy the assemblies of notables which met when a returned Jesuit or forgotten courcur de bois came hurrying down the Ottawa in his canoe and reported the finding of a mighty river, yet unchronicled, filled with thousands of beaver and otter; a new bright gem in the Bourbon crown.

And so, we may suppose, such assemblies referred mockingly to the stolid Englishmen living along the Atlantic seaboard to the South. How the French must have scorned England's conception of America! Long after the French had passed from Quebec to the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi to the Gulf of IMexico, the English had a boat built at home which could be taken apart on the upper waters of the James River, carried across the mountains on wagons to be put together on the shores of the Pacific Sea ! How- the French must have laughed when they heard of this ; we can imagine them drinking hilariously to the portable boat stranded in the Alleghany forests three thousand miles from its destination !

And so it was that the w-ily emissaries of the Bourbon throne incorporated the fast-filling hunting grounds of the Iroquois with New France. It was an easily acquired country since they . brought nothing into it that was not wanted, and took nothing away - but furs ! Though of these furs thev were mighty particular respecting the number and the quality, and especially that traders from tlie English settlements over the mountains should not come and get them.

mountains! If Cabot and Drake discovered the continent, did they not discover its interior as truly as its seaboard? Moreover, the English had by treaty acquired certain rights from the Iroquois w'hich held good, they maintained, wherever the'Iroquois had carried their irresistible conquests from Labrador to the Everglades of Florida. And who could then say that this did not hold good beyond the Alleghanies, where the Iroquois for so long had been the acknowledgeld masters?

Thus it was that slowly, naturally and wiith the certainty of doom itself, there drew on the terrible war which decided whether the destiny of the new continent should be placed in the hands of a Teuton or a Gaelic civilization - whether Providence should hold the descendants of the founders of Jamestown or of Quebec responsible for its mighty part in the history^ of human affairs. This war has received the vague name of the French and Indian War. By this is meant tlie war England and her colonists in America fought against the French and Indians.

It is remarkable enough that this war, which was to settle so much, began fr^jm a spark struck in the West. The explanation of this is found in the fact that a great expanse of forest separated the English settlements on the Atlantic seaboard and the great line of French settlements, 3,000 leagues in length, which stretched from the* mouth of the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. The nearest points of contact were in Virginia and Pennsylvania, for here the rivalry of French and English traders had been most intense.

Virginians found it a very acceptable part to play - this trying the test case with France to decide who was the real master of the land over the mountains. In 1749 a company of Viriginian gentlemen received from the King of England a royal charter granting them possession of 200,000 acres of the Black Forest between the Monongahela and Kanawha rivers.

Looking back through the years, it i seem very strange that the governors of ^ France never anticipated a clash witl on the Ohio and prepared for it. but that, of all the West, Lake Eri Riz'cr zi'ere the least kiwz\.vi This can be understood from romantic story of French explj

On a wild October da the altar at Quebec and c tinent stood on Blount fully westward. Beliiii world throbbing with air, west passage t(i China him shimmered two wa As we know thei,-rt' now t St. Lawrence, the Vesten

It was a strange Hgir>v Algonquins to induce,S3ar^-^^^klie tide of French trade and exfiloratii lii^^^^Kie Ottawa rather than up the tift. LawrCTW^HKy this France lost, we are (bl^l, the Hudson _.Valley - the key to the" Eas^n half of the continent - but gained the Gr^t*-"Lal^^s- This tide of trappers, merchants,^*'^^*ts, and adventurers went up the Westerjr'firer, acros^into Georgian Bay, through the- lakes, down the Wisconsin, Illinois and ' Mississippi. Some few braved the dangers o^ traveling in the domains of the Iroquois and went up the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario, than across to Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay. The important result was that Lake Erie was the last of all the Great Lakes to be discovered and the country south of it was the last to be explored and claimed by the French. Lakes Ontario and Huron were discovered in 1615, Lake Superior in 1629, Lake Michigan in 1634. Lake Erie was not discovered until 1669 - half a century after the two lakes which it joins. And then for a hundred years it was a mystery. Champlain drew it on his map as a widened river, and other maps of the day make it a brook, river, strait or lake, as their authors fancied. One drew it as a river, and, in perplexity over its outlet, ran it into the Susqueiina and down into Chesapeake Bay. And map of Celeron, in 1750, is writsouthern shore of Lake Erie - almost unknown."

m peculiar to the French to ^n of a land by burying leaden which their professions of sovncised, at the mouths of its rivhas been an immemorial custom, been done in recait times in the Pacean. La Salle buried a leaden plate le mouth of the Mississippi in 1682, claimpossession of that river and all streams ptying into it and all lands drained by them, now, more plates were needed. And so ch led the /^Celeron de Bienville, a gallant chevalier of St. Louis, departed from Quebec in the fall of the same year with a detachment of eight subaltern officers, six cadets, an armorer, 20 soldiers, 180 Canadians, 30 friendly Iroquois and 25 Abenakis with a load of leaden plates to be buried at the mouths of all the rivers in the Central West. Two plates were buried in what we now call the Alleghany River and one at the mouth of Wheeling Creek, the Muskingum (Washington County), Great Kanawha and Miami rivers. (See Note.) At the burial of each plate a given formality was observed. The detachment was drawn up in battle array. The leader cried in a loud voice "Vive le Roi," and proclaimed that possession was taken in the name of the King. In each instance, the Anns of tlie King, stamped upon a sheet of tin, were affixed to the nearest tree, and a process verbal was drawn up and signed by the officers. Each plate bore the following inscription :

"In the year 1749, of the reign of Louis the XV, King of France, We, Celeron, commander of a detachment sent by IMonsieur the ]\Iarquis de la Galissoniere, Governor General of New France, to re-establish tranquility in some Indian villages of these cantons, have buried (here a space \Vas left for the date of and place of burial) this plate of lead near the river Ohio otherwise Belle Riviere as a monument of the renewal of possession we have taken of the said river Ohio, and of all those which empty into it, and of all lands on both sides as far as the sources of said rivers; as enjoyed by the Kings of France yppeced--4 ing, and as they have there maintainwl tkemselves by arms and treaties, especially^-^ose of Ryswick, Utrecht and Aix-la-Chapejwe."

Ah! but leaden bullets were more 4ieeded in the West than leaden plates ! This Celeron found out before he had gone a dozen leagues. Hostile Senecas dug up his first plate and hurried with it to the English at Albany. At Logstown. near the present city of Pittsburg, he found some detested English traders, and a strong anti-French influence. He drove off the intruders with a sharp letter to their governor, but here his Iroquois and Abenakis Indians deserted him, and, on their way north, tore from the trees tlie Anns of the King. Celeron hurried homeward by the shortest route - up the Miami River and down the Maumee and through the lakes - and rendered his alarming report. It was decided immediately to fortify Celeron's route. The enteq^rising successor of Galissoniere - Governor Duquesne - sent a detachment from Quebec with orders to proceed to Lake Erie and begin the building of a line of forts down the Ohio frontier, from Lake Erie to the Ohio River. This party, under the command of j\I. Marin, landed near the present site of Erie, Pennsylvania, and raised a fort.

The ruins of this fort in the ^^'est are still perceptible within the limits of the city of Erie. It was a strong work built (if chestnut logs. 15 feet high and 120 feet square, with a lalock house on each side. It had a gate to the southward and one to the northw ard, but no port holes. It was first called Fort Duquesne, but later was named Fort Presque Isle from the promontory which juts out into tiie lake. From Fort Presque Isle IM. :\[arin hewed a road southward, a distance of 13 miles, 21 feet in width, to the Riviere aux Boeufs - river of Buffaloes - later named French Creek by Washington. This was the first white man's road - military or oihcrwise - ever made in the Central West. It was built in 1753 and though it has not been used over its entire length since that day it marks, <((i|,.a general way, the important route from the tant route from the lakes to the Alleghany arat Ohio rivers, which became early in the *" the great thoroughfare for freight

Fitf'S dil^ke of seven miles out of the city of rench road of a century and a lain road south. At that disicity the newl hi'ghway leaves oute, but the latter can be difficulty until it meets the Erie-Waterford plank road.

At the eA of this road was erected Fort La Boeuf oi#the north bank of the West Fork of Riviere aTix Boeufs, at the intersection of High and Water streets in what is now the town of Waterford, Pennsylvania. Being an inland fort it was not ranked or fortified as a first-class one; yet as a trading fort, it was of much importance in the chain from Oucbec to the Ohio.

Late in the summer of 1753, M. Marin sent 50 men to erect a third fort in the chain from Lake Erie just below' the junction of French Creek and the Alleghany River, on the present site of Franklin. Pennsylvania. Possession Avas taken of the site by Capt. Chabert de Joncaire who spent the winter in a trader's hut, having been opposed by Indians who said that the land was theirs, and that they would not have them build upon it. In the spring, ho>Ae\er, machinery for a sawmill was brought froni Canada and oak and chestnut trees were cut down and sawn into timbers for a new fort which was completed in April. It was not an elaborate work but answered its purpose as an entrepot for goods going down to Fort Duquesne. It was named Fort Machault from Jean Baptiste Machault, a celebrated P'rench iinancier and politician and favorite of La Pompadour. The fort was a parallelogram about 75 by 105 feet with bastions in the form of polygons at the) four angles. The gate fronted the river. It contained a magazine protected by three feet of earth and five Iwrracks two stories high furnished with stone chimneys. The soldiers' barracks consisted of 44 buildings built around the fort on the north and east sides.

Thus, strong in her resources of military and civil centralization, France moved swiftly into the West at last. In this, her superiority over the English colonies was as marked as her success in winning her way into the good graces of the Indians.

French and English character nowhere show more plainly than in the nature of their contact with the Indian as each met him along the St. Lawrence, the Alleghany and the Great Lakes. The French came to conciliate the Indians, with no scruples as to how they might accomplish their task. The coureiir-dc-bois threw himself into the spirit of Indian life and very nearly adopted the Indian's ideals. The stolid English trader, keen for a bargain, justly suspicious of his white rival, invariably distant, seldom tried to ingratiate himself into the friendship of the redman. The z'oyagciir flattered, cajoled, entertained in his wild way, . regailed at tables, mingled without stint in Indian customs. Sir Guy Carletnn \Vrites : "France did not depend on the number of her troops, but on the discretion of her officers who learned the language of the natives. * * * * distributed the King's presents, excited no jealousy and gained the affections of an ignorant, credulous but brave people, whose ruling passions are independence, gratitude and revenge." The Englishman little affected the conceits of the red man, seldom opened his heart and was less commonly familiar. He ignored as much as possible Indian habits : the Frenchman feigned all reverence for them, with a care never to rupture their stolid complacency. Tlie English trader dressed like a ranger or trapper, making as little use of Indian dress as practicable. The voyagcur adopted Indian dress commonly, ornamented himself with vermilion and ochre and danced with the aborigines before the fires ; he wore his hair long-crowned with a coronet of feathers ; his hunting frock was trimmed with horsehair fringe and he carried a charmed rattlesnake's tail. "They were the most romantic and poetic characters ever known in American frontier life. Their every movement attracts the rosiest coloring of imagination. We see them gliding along the streams in their long canoes, shapely and serviceable as any water craft that man has ever designed, and yet buoyant and fragile as the windwhirled autumn leaf. We catch afar off the thrilling cadences of their choruses floating over the prairie and marsh, echoing from forest and hill, startling the buffalo from his haunt in the reeds, telling the drowsy denizens of the approach of revelry and whispering to the Indian village of gaudy fabrics, of trinkets and of fire-water." This was not true alone of the French voyagcur, it was more or less true of the French soldier and officer. Such conduct was not unknown among English traders but it must have been comparatively rare. Few men of his race had such a lasting and honorable hold upon the Indian as Sir William Johnson and we cannot be wrong in attributing much of his power (of such momentous value to England through so many vears) to the spirit of comradeship and familiarity which underlay his studied deportment. "Are you ignorant," said the French Governor, Marquis Duquesne, to a deputation of Indians, "of the difference between the King of France and the English ? Look at the forts which the King had built; you will find that under their very \\1alls the beasts of the forests are hunted and slain ; that they are, in fact, fixed in places most frequented by you merely to gratify more conveniently your ne- cessities. The English, on the contrary, no occupy a post, than the woods fall before their hand - the earth is subjected to cultivation - the game disappears - and your people are speedily reduced to combat with starvation." M. Garneau, the French-Canadian historian, frankly acknowledges that the Marquis here accurately described the chief difference between the two civilizations. In 1757 M. Chauvignevie, Jr., a 17-year-old French prisoner among the English, said that at Fort La Boeuf the French plant corn around the fort for the Indians, "whose wives and children come to the fort for it, and get furnished also with clothes at the King's expense."

Horace Walpole, speaking of the French and English ways of seating themselves in America said : "They enslaved, or assisted the wretched nations to butcher one another, instructed them in the use of fire-arms, brandy and the New! Testament, and at last, by scattered extension of forts and colonies, they have met to quarrel for the boundaries of empires, of which they can neither use nor occupy a twentieth part of the included territory." "But," he sneers elsewhere, "tiT do not massacre: we are such good Christians as only to -cheat."

But, while the French moved down the lakes and the Alleghany, and the English came across the mountains, what of the "poor" Indian for whose rich /ands both were so anxious ?

An old Delaware sachem did not miss the mark widely when he asked the pathetic question : "The French claim all the lands on one side of the Ohio, and the English on the other; now where does the Indian's land lie?" Truly, "between their fathers, the French, and their brothers, the English, they were in a fair way of being lovingly shared out of the whole country."

cede to them the land between the Alleghany Mountains. But, as we have seen, the Six Nations had practically given up their Alleghany hunting grounds to the other nations who had swarmed in, - the Delawares (known to the French as the Loups, "wolves") and the Shawanese. So, in a loose way, the confederacy of the Six Nations was friendly to the English, while the actual inhabitants of the land the Six Nations had "sold'.' were hostile to the English and usually friendly to the French. Besides these (the Delaware and Shawanese nations) many fugitives from the Six Nations, especially Senecas, were found aiding the French, as the momentous struggle was precipitated and as Washington, Braddock, Shirley and Montgomery fought in vain at Fort Necessity, Braddock's Field, Niagara and Quebec.

With the fall of Quebec, New France passed away and all French territory west of the Mississippi, save only a fishing station on the island of Newfoundland, came into the possession of the English crowln. But the war which brought all this about was fought entirely in the northeast. Of it the West and its red-skinned inhabitants knewi nothing. Fort Niagara was the most westerly fort which had succumbed to an English army, though Fort Duquesne had been evacuated. The story of successive defeats of the French were, perhaps, hardly heard of in the \\'est. or, if communicated to the faithful Indian allies there, the logical conclusion was not forced upon their attention. So far as they were concerned,. France was never more in the possession of their lakes and forests than then. Was not the blundering Braddock killed and his fine army utterly put to rout? Were not the French forts in the West - Presque Isle,

Venango, La Boeuf. Miami and Detroit, secure? Fort Duquesne could be re-occupied whenever the French would give the signal. The leaden plates of France still reposed at the mouths of the rivers of the West and the Arms of the King of France still rattled in the \vind which swept the land.

Fancy the surprise of the Indians, then, when little parties of red-coat soldiers came into the West and, with quiet insolence, took possession of the French forts and of the Indian's land! And the French moved neither hand nor foot to oppose them, though through so many years they had boasted their proAvess, and though lo Wyandots could have done so successfully. Detroit was surrenderd to a mere corporal's guard, and the lesser forts to a sentry's watch each. It remained for the newcomers to inform the Indians of the events which led to the changing of the flags on these inland fortresses - to tell them that the French annies had been utterly overwhehned, and the French capital captured, and French rule in America at an end.

But these explanations, given glibly, no doubt, by arrogant English officers, were repeated over and over by the Indians, and slowly, before a hundred, yea, a thousand dim fires in the forests. \\<t can believe it was not all plain to them, this sudden conquest of a country where not a battle had been fought for eight years and that battle the greatest victoi-y ever achieved by tlie red man. Perhaps messengers were sent l)ack to the forts to gain casually, additional information concerning this marvelous conquest. French traders as ignorant, or feigning to be, as the Indians, were implored to explain the sudden forgetfulness of the Father" of the Indians.

It was inexplicable. The news spread rapidly: "The French have surrendered our land to the English." Fierce Shawanese around their fires at Chill icothe on the Scioto heard the news, and sullaily passed it on westward to the Miami s, and eastward to the Delawares on the Muskingum. The Senecas on the upper Alleghany heard the news. The Ottawas and Wyandots on Iioth sides of the Detroit River heard it - and before the fires of each of these fierce French-loving Indian nations there was much silence while chieftains pondered, and the few words uttered were stern and cruel.

Cruel words grew to angry threats. By what right the chieftains asked, could the French surrender the Black Forest to the English? When did the French come to own the land anyway. They were the guests, the friends of the Indian - not his conquerors. The French built forts it was true, but they were for the Indian as well as for the French, and were forts in name only and the more of them the merrier! But now a conqueror had come, telling the Indian the land was no longer his, but belonged to the British King.

Threats soon grew into visible form. Where it started is not surely known - some say from the Senecas on the upper Alleghany - but soon a fearful "Bloody Belt" went on a journey with its terrible summons to war. It passed to the Delawares and to the Shawanese and Miamis and Wyandots, and where it went the death halloo sounded through the forests. The call was to the Indians of the Black Forest to rise and cast out the English from the land. If the French could not have it. certainly no one else should. The dogs of war were loosened. The young warriors of the Alleghany, and Muskingum, and Scioto, and Miami, and Detroit danced merrily before the fires, and the old men sang their half-forgotten war chants.

The terrible war which now burst over the West has never been paralleled by savages the world over in point of swift success. This mav be attributed to the fact that a leader was found in Pontiac, a chieftain in the Ottawa nation, who, for daring and intelligence, was never matched by a man of his race. He had the courage of sweeping and patriotic convictions. He saw in the English occupation of ', the land the doom of the red man. Indeed, he must have seen it before, but if so he had not an opportunity to put his convictions to a public test. Tiie Indian was becoming a changed man. The implements and utensils of the white man were adopted by the red. The independent forest arts of theif fathers were beginning to be forgotten. Kettles and blankets and powder and lead were taking the place of the wooden bowls and fur robes and swift flint-heads. In another generation the art of making a living for himself in the forest would be forgotten by the Indian, and he would henceforth be absolutely dependent upon the foreigner. All this Pontiac saw. He felt commissioned to lead a return to nature. The arts of the white man must be discarded and the Indians must come back to their primitive mode of living in dependence upon their own skill and ingenuity.

And so Pontiac waged a religious war. At a great convention of the savages he told them that a Delaware Indian had, whilclost in the forests, been guided into a path which led to the home of the Great Spirit, and, on coming there, had been upbraided by the Master of Life himself for the degenerate state to which his race was falling. The forest arts of their fathers must be encouraged and relied up. The utensils of the white man must be banished from the wigwams. Bows and arrows and tomahawks and stone hatchets should not be discarded. Otherwise the Great Spirit would take away their land from them and give it to others. And so, much of the fury which accompanied the war was a sort of religious frenzy. "The Master of Life himself has stirred us up,"' said the warriors.

Pontiac's plot - undoubtedly the most comprehensive military campaign ever conceived in a red man's brain - was discovered by the British at Fort Miami, on the Maumee River, in March, 1763, four years after the fall of Quebec. There the "Bloody Belt"' was found and secured before it could be forwarded to the Wabash with its murderous message. By threats and warnings the untutored English officers thought to quell the disturbance. Amherst, His Majesty's commanding general in America, haughtily condemned the signs of revolution as "unwarranted."" ^Moreover, he gave his officers in the West authority to declare to the Indian chieftains that if they should conspire they would in his eyes make "a contemptible figure!" Time passed and the garrisons breathed easily as quiet reigned. It was but the lull before the storm. On the 7th of May, Pontiac, who led his Ottawas at Braddock's depot, appeared before, Detroit - the metropolis of the northwest - with 300 warriors. The watchfulness of the brave Major Gladwin, a welltrained pupili in that school on Braddock's Road, and the failure of Pontiac to capture the fort by strategy, though his warriors were admitted within its walls and had shortened guns concealed beneath their blankets, was the dramatic beginning of a reign of terror and a war of devastation all the way from Sault St. Marie to even beyond the crest of the AIleghanies. Pontiac immediately invested Detroit and throughout the Black Forest his faithful allies did their Ottawa chieftain's will. On the i6th of May, Fort Sandusky was surrounded by Indians seemingly friendly. The British commander permitted seven to enter. As thev sat smoking, by the turn of a head the signal was given and the commander was a prisoner. As he was hurried out of the fort he saw, here one dead soldier, there another - victims of the massacre. Nine days later a band of Indians appeared before the fort at the mouth of the St. Joseph. "We are come to see our relatives," they said, "and wished the garrison good morning." Within two minutes after their entrance, the commanding officer and three men were prisoners and II others were murdered. Two days later the commander of Fort Miami, on the Maumee River, came, at an Indian mother's pitiful plea, to the Indian village to bleed a sick child. He was shot in his tracks. Four days later the commander of Fort Ouatianon, on the Wabash, was inveigled into an Indian cabin and captured, the fort surrendering forthwith. Two days later Indians gathered at Fort MichiHmackinac to engage in a game of lacrosse. At the height of the contest, the ball was thrown near a gate of the fort. In the twinkling of an eye the commanding officer who stood watching the game was seized, and tlie Indians, snatching tomahawks from under the Ijlankets of the squaws who were standing in proper position, entered the fort and killed 15 soldiers outright and took the remainder of the garrison prisoners. Sixteen days later Fort La Boeuf, on French Creek, where Washington delivered his message to the haughty St. Pierre a decade before, was attacked by an overwihelming army of savages. Keeping the enemy ofif until midnight, the garrison made safe its escape, unknown to the exultant besiegers who had already fired one corner bastion, and fled down the river to Fort Pitt. On their way they passed the smoldering ruins of Fort Venango. Two days later Fort Presque Isle was attacked. In two days the commander senseless with terror struck his ilag. The same day Fort Ligonier. in the foothills of the Alleghanies, was invested by a besieging army.

Thus the campaigii of Pontiac, prosecuted with such swiftness and such success, bade fair to end in triumph. "We hate the English," the Indians sent word to the French on the Mississippi, "and wish to kill them. We are all united : the war is our war, and we will continue it for seven \ears. The English shall never come into the West!"

But Fort Detroit and Fort Pitt stood firm. For months Pontiac beleaguered the Northern fortress, gaining advantages whenever the garrison attacked him, but unable to reduce the fort. All summer long the eyes of the world wtere upon Detroit - and the gallant defense of Fort Pitt, was comparatively forgotten. But the maintenance of this strategic point was of incalculable importance to the West. The garrison felt this. And here, if anywhere, was courage shown in battle. Here, if ever, brave men faced fearful odds

In planning his campaign, Pontiac delegated the Shawanese and Delawares to carry Fort Pitt. If they could not do it, he might be assured that the position was impregnable. They were his most reliable warriors, and, once given the task of carrying out the second most important coup of their great leader's plan, could be trusted to use any alternative savage lust could suggest, or trick savage cunning could invent in order to accomplish their portion of the terrible conquest of the West. The defense of Detroit was brave; but Detroit was on the great water highway east and west. SuccofT \\'tas possible, in fact probable, in time; if not, there was a way of escape. At Fort Pitt neither could be expected. Moreover the fort had never been completed. On three sides the flood tides of the rivers had injured it. Ecuyer, its valiant defender, threw up a rough 'rampart of logs and palisaded the interior. And in this fragile fortress, hardly worthy of the name, behind which lay the darkling Alleghanies and about which loomed the Black Forest, were gathered some 600 souls, a larger community, probably, than the total population of Detroit. And around on every side were gathered the lines of ochred warriors preparing for another charge! even to the very blood-bespatered walls. The garrison might well have believed itself beyond the reach of succor, if, indeed, succor could avail before need of it had vanished. The bones of Braddock's 700 slain lay scattered about the forests only seven miles away. How could another army come even that far? Little wonder that the Shawanese and Delawares were already flushed with victory as they renewted their unavailing attacks.

But Braddock made a death-bed prophecy. Before he died he said : "We shall later knowin how to deal with them another time." And the British did ; for an army from Philadelphia relieved Fort Pitt. \\'hile General Bradstreet was moving by water to Detroit anil, with much bungling, reasserting English authority along the lake shore, an intrepid successor of the headstrong Braddock was doing, with greatest credit to himself and the brave men who constituted his army, what Braddock failed to do.

This notable expedition was put under the command of General Forbes' efficient officer, Col. Henry Bouquet, who had a good sevenyears' record as an Indian fighter and w'as more crafty than many a redskin.

Bouquet marched westward from Philadelphia over Forbes" old road and at Bushy Run fought one of the decisive battles of America. From this hard-fought field he marched to Fort Pitt.

The year following Bouquet led across the Ohio the first English army that ever crossed into what is now Ohio and on the upper Muskingum he brought the Delawares to terms and ended then and there Pontiac's dream of an Indian empire.

History was making fast in the West when the Revolutionary struggle reached the crisis in 1775 at Concord and Lexington. South of the Ohio River, Virginia's new empire w&s filling with the conquerors of the W^est. The IMississippi Valley counted a population of 13,- 000, 3,000 being the population of New Orleans. St. Louis, in Spanish possession, was carrying on a brisk trade with the Indians on the Missouri. Viincennes, the British port on the Wabash, had a population of 400 whites. Detroit, the metropolis of the West, numbered 1,500 inhabitants, more than double the number in the dashing days of Gladwin only a decade before. The British flag also flew at Kaskaskia, on the Mississippi, and at Sandusky. This fringe of British forts on the North were separated ifrom the AmeS'ican metropolis of the West, Pittsburg, and from the first fortresses built in Kentucky, by leagues of forests, dark as v.hen Bouquet pierced them, and filled with sullen Indian nations awed for the time being by Dunmore's invasion, but silently abiding their time to avenge themseh-es for the loss of the meadow lands of Kcii-ta-Kcc.

Such was the condition of afifairs when, in April, 1775, the open struggle for independence of the American colonies was roughly precipitated at Lexington. It might seem to the casual observer that the colonists who were now hastening by way of the Wilderness Road or the Ohio River into the Virginian Kentucky could not feel the intense jealousy for American interests which was felt by the patriots in the East. On the very contrary, there is evidence that these first pioneers into the West had a profound knowledge of the situation and a sympathy for the struggling patriots which was enhanced, even, by the distance which separated them and the hardships they had endured. Not a few of them too had known personally of the plundering British officials and the obnoxious taxes. It is the proud boast of Kentuckians that in the center of their beautiful blue-grass country was erectetl the first monument to the first dead of the Revolution. A party of pioneers heard the news of the battle of Lexington while sitting about their camp fire. Long into the night the Tough men told and retold the electrifying news and before morning named the new settlement they were to make, "Lexington," in honor of New England's dead!

It was not at all evident at first what tiie war was going to amount to in the West. Scarcely more was known in the West of the Revolutionary War than had been known two decades before of the French and Indian War. But at the outset it was plain that there was to be a tremendous struggle on both sides to gain the allegiance, as the British desired, of the Indian nations which lay between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes. For two years the struggle in the East went on, engrossing the entire attention of both combataiits. Dm-ing 1776 and 1777 the history of the West is merely the continuation of the bloody story of the years which led up to

Diip.more's campaign. Slowly the Indians forgot Lewis' crushing victory at Point Pleasant and tlieir solemn pledges at Camp Charlotte, and were raiding the feeble Kentucky posts with undiminished relish, or giving the "Long Knives" of the Monongahela country plenty of provocation for the barbarities of they are known tO' have been guilty.

And so. early in the struggle, far-sighted ones saw signs cf the grow'ing despicable alliance of the savages to British interests, and before the bloody year of 1778 opened, it Avas only a question of how much England wanted of the savage allies who' were crowded about their forts along the lakes. It is a terrible blot on the history of British rule in America that when led to the same bitter trough, English officers in the West used every means of retaliation for the use of which they so roundly condemned French officials a quarter- of a century before. American officers employed Indians as guides and scouts and were guilty of provoking inter-tribal war, but they did not pay Indians for bringing in British scalps, or praise them for their murderous successes and equip them for further service. As a brave American officer said, "Let this reproach remain on them" - and the people of the West will never forget the reproach nor forgive! They remember and always will the burning wiords of Washington written more than 10 years after the close of the Revolution, "All the difficulties we encounter ii<ith the Indians, their hostilities, the murder of helpless -women and children along ail our frontiers results from the conduct of the agents of Great Britain in this country." Around the hearths of hundreds of homes of descendants of the pioneers in the West will be found today memories of the inhuman barbarities of British officers during the Revolution, which will never be forgotten and which will never fail to prejudice generation.s yet unborn. The reproach unll remain on them !

"Suppose a father had a little son whom he loved and indulged while young, but, growing up to be a youth, began to think of having some help from him ; and making- up a small pack, he bid him carry it for him. The boy cheerfully takes this pack up, following his father with it. The father finding the boy wiilling and obedient, continues in this way: and as the boy grows stronger, so the father makes the pack in proportion larger; yet as long as the boy is able to cari-y the pack, he does so without grumbling. At length, however, the boy having arrived at manhood, while the father is making up the pack for him. in comes a person of an evil disposition, and. learning wdio was to be the cairrier of the pack, advises the father to make it heavier, for surely the son is able to carry a larger pack. The father listening rather to the bad adviser than consulting his own judgment and the feelings of tenderness, follows the advice of the hardhearted adviser, and makes up a heavy load for his son to carry. The son, now grown up, examining the weight of the load he is to carry, addresses the father in these words : 'Dear father, this pack is too heavy for me to carry, do' pray lighten it ; I am willing to do what I can. but am unable to carry this load.' The father's heart having by this time become hardened, and the bad adviser calling to him, 'Whip him if he disobeys,' and he refusing to carry the pack, the father orders his son to take up the pack and carry it off or he will whip him, and already takes up a stick to beat him. 'So,' says the son, 'am I to be served thus for not doing what I am unable to do? Well, if entreaties avail nothing with you, father, land it is to be decided by blow's, whether qr not I am able to carry a pack so heavy, then I have no other choice left me, but that of resisting your unreasonable demand by my strength, and thus, by striking each other. learn who is the strongest.' " in the struggle that was opening. Impossil^le as sucli a course would have been to men who loved war better than peace, certain tribes promised to maintain neutrality. In a fewmonths, however, most of the nations were in open or secret alliance with B'ritish officers. Even the better element of the Delaware nation, led by Captain White Eyes, eventually sacrificed their lives in attempting to play the impossible role. England was always handicapped in her use of the American Indian because of the want of men who could successfully exert control over him. Even when the forts of the French in the West passed into British possession, Frenchmen were retained in control since no Englishman could so well rule the savages who made the forts their rendezvous. The beginning of the successful employment of the Indians against the growing Virginian empire south of the Ohio and against the multiplying cabins and forts of the "Long Knives" may loosely be said to have begun in the spring of 1778, when three Northem renegades Simon Girty, Matthew Elliott and Alexander McKee eluded the Continental general. Hand, at Pittsburg, and took service under Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton at Detroit. Bred to Imrder warfare and well known among the Indians from the Susquehanna to the Missouri, these tliree men were the "most effective tools for the purpose of border warfare" that the British could have secured. Hamilton immediately began to plan the invasion of Pennsylvania and the conquest of Pittsburg. The campaign was condemned by his superiors in the East and was forgotten by its originator wlien the news of a bold invasion of his own territory bv a Virginian army suddenly reached his ears!

The Transylvania Company, which had erected a proprietary government south of the Ohio, came suddenly to an end when the Kentuckians elected George Rogers Clarke and Gabriel John Jones members of the Virginian Assembly, as the assembly erected the county of Kentucky out of the land purchased by Henderson at Fort Watauga in 1775. Upon bringing this about, Clarke, a native r,f X'irginia and a hero of Dunmore's ^\"ar, returned to Kentucky nourishing greater plans. With clear eyes he saw the increasing affiliation of Indian and British interests meant that England, even though she might be unsuccessful in the East, could keep up an intemiinable and disastrous warfare "along the rear of the colonies" so long as she held forts on the Northern edge of the Black Forest. Clarke sent spies northward who gained information confirming his suspicions and then he "hurried eastward with his bold plan of conquering the "strongholds of British and Indian barbarity," Kaskaskia, Vincennes and Detroit. He came at a fortunate time. The colonies were rejoicing over the first great victory of the early war, Saratoga. Hope, everywhere, was high. From Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia, Clarke received two orders, one to attack the British post Kaskaskia. He at once set out for Pittsburg, to raise, in the West (where both Dunmore and Lewis raised their armies) troops for the most brilliant military achievement in Western history. Descending the Ohio to Kentucky, where he received re-inforcements, Clarke marched silently through the forests with 135 chosen men to Kaskaskia. which he took in utter surprise July 4, 1778.* "Keep on with youi; merriment," he said to revellers whom he surprised at a dance, "but remember you dance under Virginia, not under Great Britain." Clarke brought the news of the recently made alliance between France and the United States into the Illinois country and used it with telling effect. A French priest at Vincennes ran up a Virginian flag over that fort, telling the inhabitants and the Indians that their "French Father" had come to life. In October Virginia incorporated the "County of Illinois" within her Western empire - the first portion of the land north of the Ohio River to come under the administration of one of the States of the Union.

neighborhood of the British fort at Sandusky - possibly to counteract the rumored attempt to invade Pennsylvania by Hamilton at Detroit. Troops and supplies were to be assembled at Fort Pitt wihere the famous route of Bouquet \\>«s to be followed toward the lakes. The expedition was put in charge of Gen. Lachlan Mcintosh. Distressing delays made the half-hearted Indians who were to guide the army staff and iMcIntosh started before his stores arrived, fearing longer delay would alienate his friendly Indians, among whom was the Delawiaire, White Eyes, now turned from a neutral course. At the mouth of the Beaver River, Mcintosh built the fort which bore his name - the first fort built by the Americans on the Northern side of the Ohio. Advancing westward over Bouquet's track with 1,200 men he reached the Muskingum (Tuscarawas) River in 14 days, arriving November 19, 1778. The result of this attempted invasion is best described perhaps bv General Mcintosh himself in a letter written to General Washington the year following :

"A letter by express from Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, a little afterward, informed me that no supplies came yet, and w:e had very little to expect during the winter, nor could he get the staff to account for, or give any reasons for their neglect and deficiencies, which disappointed all my flattering prospects and schemes, and left me no other alternative than either to march back as I came without effecting any valuable purpose, for which the world would justly reflect upon me after so much expense, and confirm the savages in the opinion the enemy inculcates of! our weakness, and unite all of them to a man "against us, or to build a strong stockade fort upon the Muskingum, and leave as many men as our provisions would allow to secure it until the next season, and to serve as a bridle upon the savages in the heart of their o^\in country : which last I chose with the unanimous approbation of my principal officers and we were employed upon it while our provisions lasted."

But Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton, learning of Clarke's seizure of Kaskaskia and the treachery of the fickle inhabitants of Vincennes, set about to reconquer Illinois. Departing from Detroit on a beautiful October day the expedition descended the Detroit River and entered the Maumee. The weather changed and it was 71 days before the American captain Helm at Vincennes surrendered his wretched fort, and became a prisoner of war. Hamilton was unable to push oni to Kaskaskia because of the lack of provisions, and sat down to watch the winter out where he was. Thus the spectacular year of 1778 closed - Clarke at Kaskaskia watching his antagonist feasting at Vincennes; Mcintosh's little guard at Fort Laurens undergoing continual harrassing and siege. In the East the evacuation of Philadelphia, the battle of Monmouth and the terrible \\'yoming Massacre were the events of the year.

But the year 1779 was to witness as brilliant a military achievement in the West as the East was to witness in the capture of Stony Point. This was the recapture of Vincennes by Clarke. Joined by an experienced adventurer. Col. Francis Vigo, formerly of the Spanish service, Clarke was persuaded that he must capture Hamilton or Hamilton would capture him. Accordingly, on the 5th of February, Clarke set out for Vincennes with 170 trusty men. In 12 days they reached the Embarras River, which was crosed on the 2 1st with great bravery, the men wading in the water to their shoulders. On the 25th, Hamilton, the most surprised man in the world, was compelled to surrender. \\'ithin two weeks he was on his way to Virginia where, being found guilty of buying Virginian scalps of the Indians, he wtis imprisoned but was exchanged the year following.

In July, while returning from New Orleans with supplies. Colonel Rogers and party of Kentuckians were overwhelmed by Indians under Girty and Elliott on the Ohio River. In a terrible running battle, 60 Kentuckians were killed. The sad news spread quickly throughout Kentucky and a thousand tongues called loudly for revenge. In response Major Bowman led 300 volunteers up the Scioto Valley and attacked the Shawanese capital. There was bungling somewhere and a retreat was ordered before victory was achieved.

During this summer the conqueror of Illinois expected to complete his triumph by the capture of Detroit. A messenger from Thomas Jefferson, Governor of Virginia, brought tidings that troops for this expedition would be forthcoming from Virginia and Kentucky and wloukl rendezvous at Vincennes in July. When the time came, Clarke found only a few soldiers from Kentucky and none at all from Virginia. The Detroit expedition fell through because of Virginia's poverty in money and in men, though artillery, ammunition and tools had been secured for the campaign from Fort Pitt, at W'ashington's command. But with masterly foresight Governor Jefferson secured the establishment of a fort on the Mississippi River in the Illinois country. During this summer the little garrison which General Mcintosh left buried in the Black Forest at Fort Laurens fled back o\-er the "Great Trail" to Pittsburg. Nowhere north of the Ohio were the scenes, frequently enacted in Kentucky, reproduced so vividly as at little Fort Laurens on the upper ]\Iuskingum. At one time 14 of the garrison were decoyed and slaughtered. At another time an army numbering 700 warriors invested the little half- forgotten fortress and its intrepid defenders. A slight embankment may be seen today near Bolivar, Ohio, which marks one side of the first fort erected in w'hat is now Ohio, those near the lake shore excepted. Thus closed the year 1779 - Clarke again in possession of Vincennes, as well as Kaskaskia and Cahokia, but disappointed in the failure of the Detroit expedition ; Hamilton languishing in a Virginia dungeon, 1,200 miles from his capita'1-fort, Detroit ; Fort Laurens abandoned, and the Kentucky country covered with gloom over Rogers' ten^ible loss and Bowman's inglorious retreat from the valley of the Scioto. On the other hand, the East was glorying in "Mad Anthony''

Four expeditions set forth in 1780, all of them singular in character and noteworthy. The year before, 1779, Spain had declared war upon England. The new commander at Detroit took immediate occasion to regain control of the Mississippi by attacking the Spanish town of St. Louis. This expedition, under Captain Sinclair, descended the Mississippi from Prairie du Chien. The attack on St. Louis did not succeed, but six whites were killed and 18 taken prisoners.

At the time of Bowman's expedition against the Shawanese, the year previous, a British oificer. Colonel Bird, had assembled a noteworthy array at Sandusky preparatory to the invasion of Kentucky. News of the Kentucky raid up the Scioto Valley set Bird's Indians to "cooking and counselling'' again, instead of acting. This year Bird's invasion materialized and the fate of the Kentucky settlements trembletl in the balance. The invading army of 600 Indians and Canadians was armed with two pieces of artillery. There is little doubt that this army could have battered down everv' "station" in Kentucky and swept victoriously through the new settlements. Ruddles' station on the Licking was first menaced and surrendered quickly. Martin's fort also capitulated. But here Bird paused in his conquest and withdrew northward, the barbarit- of the Indian allies, for once, at least, shocking a British commander. The real secret of the abrupt retreat lay no doubt in the fact that the increasing immigration had brought such vast num,bers of people into Kentucky that Bird feared to penetrate further into the land for fear of a surprise. The gross carelessness of the newly arrived inhabitants in not taking the precaution to build proper defenses against the Indians undoubtedly appeared to the British commander as a sign of strength and fortitude which he did not have the courage to put to the test. As a matter of fact, he could probably have

In turn Kentucky sent an immense army north of the Ohio in retaliation, a thousand men volunteering under Clarke, the hero of Vincennes. A large Indian army was routed near the Shawanese town, Pickaway. Many towns with standing crops were burned. A similar expedition from Pittsburg under General Brodhead burned crops and villages on the upper Muskingum.

In retaliation for the attack on St. Louis, the Spanish commander at that point sent an expedition against the deserted British post of St. Joseph. Upon declaring war against England in the year previous, Spain had occupied Natchez, Baton Rouge and INIobile. which, with St. Louis, gave her coniiiiand of the Mississippi. But His Catholic Majesty was building other Spani.sh castles in America. He desired the conquest of the British Northwest to ofYset the British capture of Gibraltar. This "capture" of St. Joseph led to an amusing but ominous claim on the part of Spain at the Treaty of Paris when, with it for a pretext," the Spanish crown clahned all lands west of a line drawn from St. Joseph southward through what is now Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi ! The Mississippi River boundary was, Jiowever. stoutly contended for and obtained by the American commissioners.

In this year the first "gunboat" to ply Western waters was built under direction of Brigadier-General Clarke. It was a galley armed with light artillery. This queer looking craft soon fell into disuse, though it became a terror to the Indians wdio continually infested the lower Ohio. It was relished little better by the militia, who disliked service on water. But it stands as a typical illustration of the enterprise and devotion of the ''Father of Kentucky" to the cause for which he had done so much.

French and American troops at Yorktown to the melancholy tune - "The \\'orld's Turned Upside Down." The Treaty of Paris was not signed until 1783, and in the meantime the bloodiest year of all the war, 1782, was adding its horrors to all that have gone before.

While the East was rejoicing", the Central West saw the terrible massacre of Gnadenhutten, the more terrible because committed by white men. themselves.

Half a decade before the Revolutionary War, the heroic Moravian missionary, David Zeisberger, had located three Christian Indian to\Vais on the upper Muskingum in what once was Washington county. To these towns a number of Christian Indians had been deported from their former homes in Pennsylvania by the Moravian Church. Tliroughout the war the situation of these towns was most desperate, located as they were in the center of the forests between Fort Pitt and Fort Detroit and near the bloody "Great Trail," the highway through the Central West. Before long, the Delawares, among 'whom the Christian Indians were permitted to settle, became affiliated with the British or Americans. The Moravians still attempted the impossible role of neutrality.

Before long, they became suspected by both British and Americans. This suspicion gained ground rapidly, but at last, in 1781. 300 warriors under command of Captain Pipe and the British captain Elliott, appeared on. the Muskingum and ordered the removal of the Christian village to the Sandusky River, as a measure of safety. With a broken heart the venerable Zeisberger, now in his 60th year, put himself at the head of his persecuted flock and led them from their homes to the wilderness of the Sandusky.

Here in their new habitation the greatest hardships overtook the Moravians. In the midst of this terrible experience, the missionaries were summoned to Detroit to answer the charges brought against them. In the court martial held there, they were acquitted honorably of all charges, and the British governor treated them with marked kindness. They wer allowed to return to their converts on the Sandusky. When the year of 1782 came, the food supply was exhausted and a party of 100 converts was permitted to return to the Muskingum to gather a crop of corn which had been left standing.

In recounting the awful massacre which followed, one cannot refrain from accepting a charitable explanation of it. Undoubtedly the borderers of the ^Monongahela, alw'ays suffering from the savage inroads of the Ohio Indians, looked with deep suspicion upon this returning band of Indians: and there seems to be little doubt that Indian brigands, through trickerv, succeeded in bringing upon these innocent wayfarers strong circumstantial evidence of participation in the border raids,- by concealing in their Jiomes plunder taken from the borderland. While the Christian Indians were collecting their supply of corn, a posse of enraged borderers appeared among them. Plain evidences of their guilt were found in their homes. The leader of the expedition put the question : "Shall the Moravian Indians be taken prisoners to Pittsburg or be put to death?" A small fraction of the posse favored the former course, but a large proportion voted for the latter. The women and children were placed in one building, the men in another, and the awful tragedy was enacted.

"My armi fails me," said the leader as he knocked his 14th bound victim on the head, "to go on in the same way; I think I have done pretty well." And tliat night, as the moon arose, its weird light shone down upon 96 corpses of murdered Christian Indians - 40 men, 22 women and 34 children - and upon the carnival of bears and panthers, fighting in the ghastly light for the bodies. The Gnadenhutten [Massacre took place [March 8, 1782.

In May, 1782, the atrocities of the British-encouraged savages along the Pennsylvania and Virginian border becoming unbearable, an expedition was raised in the Monongahela country to penetrate to the Indian infested country on the Sandusky River. Volunteers, 400 in number, all mounted, rendezvoused on the Ohio, near Mingo Bottom, and elected as commnader Col. William Crawford, an experienced officer in the Revolutionary War, following his friend Washington faithfully through the hard Long Island and Delaware campaigns. Crawford struck straight through the forests, even avoiding Indian trails, at first, in the hope of taking his foe utterly by surprise. But his wily foe completely outwitted him and the Indians and British new well each day's progress. The battle was fought in a prairie land near the Sandusky River in what is now Crawford County, Ohio and though not a victory for either side, an American retreat was ordered during the night following. Colonel Crawford was captured, among others, and suffered a terrible death at the stake, perhaps the saddest single atrocity committed by the red men in Western history. This gray-haired veteran of the Revolution gave his life to appease the Indians for a massacre of Christian Indians perpetrated by savage borderers from the [Monongahela country the year previous.

Kentucky had witnessed minor activities of the savages during the spring. In August a grand Indian army assembled on the lower Scioto for the purpose of invading Kentucky. The assembly was harangued by Simon dirty and moved southward and invested Bryant's station, one of the strongest forts in Kentucky. After a terrible day during which re-inforcements kept arriving, only to be compelled to fight their way into the fort or flee, Girty attempted to secure capitulation. Outwitted, the renegade resorted to a strategem as cunningly cievised as it w'as terribly successful. In the night the entire Indian army vanished as if panic stricken. Aleat was left upon the spits. Garments lay strewn about the encampment and along the route of the fugitive army. The more experienced of the border army

was soon in full cr}- on the trail scented the deception, but the headstrong hurried onward in the hope of revenge. At the crossing -of the Licking, near the lower Blue Licks, the Indian ambush received the witless pursuers with a frightful burst of flame, and the battle Blue Licks became a running fire, a headlong rout and a massacre.

A thousand men joined Clark for a retaliatory invasion of the North and the usual destruction of villages and crops was accomplished. This may be considered the last military event in the Revolutionary War in the West. And here it is proper to call particular attention to this and the preceding similar invasions from south of the Ohio River.

Though judged by ordinary military stan- -dards the numerous invasions from Virginia and Kentucky amounted to little, such was not the case. The Lidians could ever retreat helter-skelteil into the forests and avoid more than a skirmish with an advancing army. But they could not take their crops and the destruction of every maize and corn field was a victory for tihe invaders as it compelled the Indians to live more largely upon game. As . game grew scarcer the hunters were compelled to go further and further away. Thus by doing nothing more than burning villages and crops, the whites were sure in time of conquering the trans-Ohio land. And this was just what was happening, almost without the knoAvledge of the conquerors of the West. Each invasion which left a smoking land behind it helped to complete the conquest - -though it had retired in disgrace. By this process one valley after another in the

West, north of the Ohio, came out of the sphere of Indian and British influence. Before the end of the Revolutionary War, the Muskingum Valley was practically abandoned by the Delawares. In 1782 Crawford was not opposed until he struck the Sandusky River. The depredations of the Indians on the Ohio continued through the decade 1780- 1790, but were confined almost exclusively to the lower Ohio, or below the mouth of the Scioto. Traveling on the Ohio between the Scioto and the Monongahela was comparatively safe, compared with the dangers between the Scioto and the Wabash. This shows the western movement of the Indians. As will be seen, there was a corresponding northward movement of the tribes. By the end of the decade 1 790-1800, the Scioto and Sandusky valleys were practically abandoned by the Shawanese and Wyandots. And when the final blow was to be struck, it was struck due northwest from the first great battle-field in the west, where the blundering Braddock fell.

The plate buried by Celeron at the mouth of the Muskingum was discovered after the freshet of 1798, projecting from the river bank in front of the spot where the Fort School now stands. Before its value was known, part of its lead had been cut up and molded into bullets. Paul Fearing rescued it and William Woodbridge translated what remained of the inscription. It was sent to Governor DeWitt Clinton who presnted it to the Antiquarian Society of Massachusetts. - Sec Pioneer History. Pas'e 20.