OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - HISTORY: Chapter 12a (Abbott, John S. C., 1875) *************************************************************************** OHGENWEB NOTICE: All distribution rights to this electronic data are reserved by the submitter. Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted material will require the permission of the copyright owner. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. *************************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Kay L. Mason keziah63@yahoo.com September 28, 1999 *************************************************************************** Chapter XII Massacre on the Tuscarawas and Defeat on the Sandusky The utter devastation of the valley of the Little Miami, which we des- cribed in the last chapter, took place in the autumn of 1782. Pittsburgh was at this time the headquarters of all the Colonial operations in the western wilderness. As the Indians in Ohio had so generally enlisted under the ban- ners of Great Britain, and were committing such awful cruelties, the Colon- ists had begun to regard an Indian as a foe, to be shot down at sight, making but little discrimination between a friendly and a hostile savage. The tribes on the Maumee and the Sandusky, in the immediate vicinity of Detroit, were prompt in their obedience to the authorities there. But those on the upper branches of the Muskingum river, called Tuscarawas, being near Pittsburgh, were so influence by the friendly treatment they received from the Colonists there, that they persistantly refused all the solicitations of the British agents, and all entreaties of the Indian tribes, to join them in a friendly neutrality, holding constantly amicable relations with the Ameri- cans at Pittsburgh. It will be remembered that White Eyes was one of the leading chiefs of this tribe. These Indians had made decidedly greater advan- ces in the direction of civilization than any of the other tribes. They had three quite important towns, in each of which the Moravian Christians had established quite pleasant missionary stations. They were all situated upon a pleasant tributary of the Muskingum, called Tuscarawas. The first of these villages, Schoenburn, was about two miles south of the present site of New Philadelphia. Seven miles further south was the peaceful little Village of Gnadenhutten, with its Christian preachers, its church, its schools, and its congregation, just emerging from the savage state. Five miles farther down the stream was the little town of Salem, on the western banks, as was also the upper town of Schoenburn. It was with great difficulty, as we have already seen, that these Indians had been enabled to preserve their neutrality, against the powerful influence which was brought to bear upon them. In the Autumn of the year 1781, an En- glish officer from Detroit, Colonel Elliott, accompanied by two chiefs from the Sandusky River, and three hundred of their savage warriors, visited Gnadenhutten to persuade or compel them to join the British alliance. By means of threats and bribes, and actual violence, they succeeded in carrying off most of the able-bodied Indians to the distant home of the hostile tribes on the Sandusky. It was probably hoped that when brought so near the powerful influence of Detroit, they might be led to join the Wyandots in their bloody forays. On the other hand it was feared, that being left so near Pittsburgh, and influenced by their Christian teachers, they might be induced to embark in the cause of the colonists. These tribes were thus compelled to leave their corn in the fields, their potatoes in the ground, and the vegetables in their gardens, while they accompanied their unwelcome visitors in a weary tramp to the distant banks of the Sandusky. The Christian missionaries were also taken prisoners and carried to Detroit. These captive Indians taken from the three villages were most of them Christians. They passed the Winter of 1781 in great destitution and suffer- ing. Early in February, 1782, a hundred and fifty of them, including many women and children, were permitted to return to the Tuscarawas, to gather in the abandoned crop. They divided into three parties, so as to work at the three towns in harvesting the corn. About the time of their arrival, there had been several very atrocious burnings, murderings and scalpings, committed on the upper waters of the Ohio and the Monongahela, by the hostile Indians. The settlers around Pittsburgh believed, or affected to believe, that these depredations had been perpetrated by the Tuscarawas, or by hostile Indians whom they allowed to find shelter in their towns. They knew of the visit which the Wyandots had paid this tribe, but criminally they had not informed themselves of the fidelity with which the Tuscarawas had repelled all the threats and bribes addressed to them. It was therefore decided that these villages were dangerous to the fron- tier settlements, and must be destroyed. A corps of a hundred mounted men was raised to perform the iniquitous and cruel deed. Each man furnished him- self with his own arms, ammunition and provisions, with two horses, one to ride and the other to be led, and to be mounted in case of necessity. The soldiers for this fatal expedition were rendezvoused in what is called the Mingo Bottom, on the west side of the Ohio River, which stream here runs almost directly south. After a rapid march of two days they reached Gnadenhutten late in the af- ternoon of the 5th of March, and encamped at a little distance from the vil- lage, and found most of the Indians gathering corn in the fields on the west banks of the river. Sixteen of Williamson's men crossed the river in a rude boat which they found upon the banks. They went strongly armed. They found the Indians in the field much more numerous than they expected. As usual they had their guns with them for protection and to take game. They either knew before, or soon ascertained, that the Tuscarawas were annoyed and not a little exasperated by their compulsory visit to the Sandusky. The whites ap- proached them kindly, sympathized with them in their wrongs, and told them they had come as friends to protect them. They assured them that it had come to their knowledge that the British at Detroit, with their Indian allies, were about to repeat the outrage, and with still greater indignities; and that they therefore had been sent by the friends of the Tuscarawas at Fort Pitt to convey them to Pittsburgh, where they would find ample protection. The simple-hearted Indians had no reason to disbelieve this statement. Many of them had previously visited the fort, where they had always been received with the greatest kindness. Under these circumstances, the Indians at once placed themselves under the protection of the their newly-arrived friends. One of their number was dis- patched down the river to inform the Indians there of the arrangement, and to request them to repair immediately to Gnadenhutten. Colonel Williamson and his perfidious crew accompanied their duped victims across the river. Here without difficulty they obtained possession of their guns, and then having decoyed them into two houses, shut them in, and carefully guarded them as prisoners. They then sent a party of armed men down the river to the Salem Village. The Indians brethren, and were met on the road. The same vile arts which already had been so successfully practiced, were again adopting to disarm and decoy their victims. They soon found themselves prisoners; the men shut up in one house, the women and children in another. The whole body of these miscreants, acting upon their own responsibility, without any gov- ernmental authority, then met, officers and men, in a council of war, to decide upon the fate of their captives. Colonel Williamson then put the question whether they should be carried as prisoners to Fort Pitt, of be put to death. He requested all who were in favor of sparing their lives to step out from the general ranks, and form a second line. There were only eighteen to be found who were in favor of that little mercy. The remainder, eighty- two in number, clamored for immediate death. In a very interesting history of the Moravian Mission there, written by James Patrict, Esq., of New Philadelphia, we find the following graphic account of the horrible scene which ensued: "in the majority, which was large, no sympathy was manifested. They re- solved to Murder - for no other word can express the act - the whole of the Christian Indians in their custody. Among these were several who had con- tributed to aid the missionaries in the work of conversion and civilization. Two of these had emigrated from New Jersey, after the death of their spirit- ual paston, the Rev. David Brainerd. One woman, who could speak good English, knelt before the commander and begged his protection. The supplication was unavailing. They were ordered to prepare for death. But the warning had been anticipated. Their firm belief in their new creed was shown forth in this sad hour of their tribulation, by religious exercises of preparation. The orisons of these devoted people were already ascending to the Throne of the Most High. The sound of the Christian's hymns and the Christian's prayer found in the echo in the surrounding woods, but no responsive feeling in the bosom of their executioners. With gun, and spear, and tomahawk, and scalping knife, the work of death progressed in these slaughter-houses, till not a sigh or moan was heard to proclaim the existance of human life within. All perished save two. Two Indian boys escaped as if by a miracle, to be wit- nesses in after times of the savage cruelty of the white man towards their unfortunate race." After committing this barbaric act, when the gory bodies of the slain lay in heaps in the dwellings where they had been slaughtered, Williamson and his gang of assassins set fire to the buildings. The roaring conflagration consuming these huts of massive logs became the funeral pyle of the dead, consuming flesh and bones ,so that no marks of the atrocious deed remained but undistinguishable ashes. The wretches then commenced their march up the river to Schoenburn to perpetrate the same enormities there. But the news of their fiend-like deed had preceded them, and the Indians in precipitate flight had escaped beyond pursuit. These savage white men took their revenge by plundering and des- troying the village. Thus the fruits of ten years' labor of Christian mis- sionaries was brought to a cruel end. The precepts of Christianity inculcated by these disciples of Jesus had ennobled many of their natures, and prepared them, we trust, for the companionship of angels in Heaven. Dr. Doddridge touchingly writes: "They anticipated their doom, and had commenced their devotions with hymns, prayers, and exhortations to each other to place a firm reliance upon the mercy of the Savior of men. When their fate was announced to them, these devoted people embraced and kissed each other, and bedewing each other's faces and bosoms with their tears, asked pardon of the brothers and the sis- ters for any offense they might have committed through life. Thus at peace with God and each other, they replied to those who, impatient for the slaugh- ter, demanded whether they were ready to die, "that having commenced their souls to God, they were ready to die." The whole number slain amounted to ninety-six. Of these, sixty-two were grown persons, of whom one-third were women. The remaining thirty-four were children. A few of the men who were supposed to be warriors, were taken from the slaughter houses and had their skulls split open with a tomahawk in the field. These generally knelt down and submitted to the execution without resistance. One only attempted to escape; five bullest were immediately shot through his body, and he fell dead. One would have thought that the atrocious massacre would have satiated the revengeful spirits of those American Colonists who had perpetrated it; but it seems only to have stimulated their appetite for blood. It will be remembered that more than one-half of the Indians from these Moravian settle- ments, on the Tuscarawas, were in a sort of captivity to the British savages far away on the banks of the Sandusky. The Indians also from Schoenburn, the upper Moravian town, had escaped and fled to join their companions on these remote waters. Immediately an expedition was fitted out to pursue and destroy them, together with the whole body of hostile Wyandots in the Valley of the Sandusky. Four hundred and eighty volunteers were immediately raised for a rapid and secret march to the Sandusky towns. Every man was to furnish him- self with arms, the very best horses that could be procured, and every ne- cessary outfit excepting ammunition, which was furnished to them by the Lieutenant Colonel of Washington County, Pennsylvania. Thus this movement assumed much more the character of a governmental expedition than did the former. Indeed an assault upon the Wyandots of Sandusky, who were the active allies of Great Britain, was a legitimate operation. And it was not unnatural for them to assume that the Tuscarawas had voluntarily gone to join them in their merciless warfare against the colonists. The little but very efficient army mustered at an old Indian town on the west side of the Ohio River, about seventy-five miles below Fort Pitt, and very near the present site of Steubenville. This town was the central one of a little cluster of Indian villages, belonging to the Mingo Tribe, of which the celebrated Logan was chief. There is quite a remarkable spring there, which still retains the name of Logan's Spring. The following anecdote re- specting this distinguished chieftain, is related by William Brown, one of the pioneer settlers in that region. It is worthy of record here, as illu- strative of the region, of the chief, and of the times. The first time I ever saw that spring, my brother, a man by the name of James Reed and myself, had wandered out of the valley in search of land; and finding it very good we were looking about for springs. About a mile from this we started a bear and separated to get a shot at him. I was traveling along, looking about on the rising ground for the bear, when I came suddenly upon the spring. Being dry and more rejoiced to find a spring than to have killed a dozen bears, I set down my rifle against a bush, and rushed down the bank and laid down to drink. Upon putting my head down I saw reflected in the water on the opposite side, the shadow of a tall Indian. I sprang for my rifle, when the Indian gave a yell, whether for peace or war, I was not just then sufficient master of my faculties to determine. Upon my seizing my rifle and facing him, he knocked up the pan of his gun, threw out the pri- ming and extended his open palm in token of friendship. After putting down our guns we met at the spring, and shook hands. This was Logan, the best speciman of humanity I ever met with, either white or red. He could speak a little English, and told me there was another white hunter a little way down the stream, and offered to guide me to his camp. Mr. Brown soon visited Logan at his lodge. Here the chief and a white man named Maclay amused themselves in the customary sport of the frontier in shooting at a mark, upon the wager of one dollar a shot. The white man beat, and Logan lost five dollars. He went into the lodge and brought out five deer skins, which were valued at a dollar-a-piece, and gave them in payment of his forfeiture. Mr. Maclay declined receiving them, saying: "I am your guest. We have shot merely for amusement. I did not come here to plunder you. We wished to try our skill, and the bet was merely nominal." The proud chief straightened himself up and said: "No! me bet to make you shoot your best. Me gentleman, if me beat me take your dollar." Mr. Maclay found himself obliged to take the skins. And Logan would not even accept from him the present of a horn of powder, lest it should detract from the honest fulfillment of his engagement. Mr. Brown who relates this anecdotes - and who subsequently became a dis- tinguished citizen of that region, as Judge Brown - had a daughter, Mrs. Norris. She relates the following interesting incident in reference to this remarkable Indian chieftain. Mrs. Norris had a little sister who was just beginning to learn to walk. But there were no shoes for the child, and far away in their wilderness home none could be purchased. Logan was one day at the hut an honored guest, and as he, with a smile, watched the toddling steps of the barefooted child, who knew and loved him, he begged Mrs. Brown to let the little girl go up with him and spend the day at his cabin. The child whom he had often caressed, threw her little arms around his neck, and was all ready to go. But the cautious mother was alarmed at the proposition. She knew the sensitiveness of Logan's feelings, and how deeply he would be wounded by the slightest intimation that they distrusted his fidelity. She therefore with assumed cheerfulness, but with real reluctance, consented to the arrangement. The hours of the day wore away very slowly to her, and the sun was setting, and yet her little one had not been brought back. Just then she saw the noble chief coming down the path with the child fondly folded in his arms. He placed her on the floor at the door, and the little one trotted to her moth- er in great glee, pointing to a beautiful pair of ornamented moccasins, on her little feet, which the chief had made for her with her own hands. This was Logan, the friend of the white man. We have before alluded to the circumstances which led Logan to raise his arm against his former friends. A gentleman, Judge Henry Jolly, of Washington County, Pennsylvania, was near the place of the atrocious massacre of the Indians by a band of vagabond white men, which roused the vengeance of Logan. He gives the following very interesting account of the meeting of Indians in council, at Mingo, to deli- berate upon the measures to be pursued in relation to that massacre, which took place but seventeen miles farther up the river. The Indians had for some time been aggrieved by the cruelties practiced upon them by the long knives. In the council which was convened, many of them earnestly advocated war. But Logan, who was the principal chief, and who had great influence among them in consequence of his moral worth, his bravery and his intelligence, argued for peace. "I admit," he said, "the justice of our complaints. We have ample cause for war. But let us not forget a few outrages have been inflicted upon them by our people. If we engage in war, we can only harass for a short time the few settlements scattered along the frontier. The Long Knives will come over the mountains upon us, in numbers like the trees of the forest. We shall ultimately be vanquished, and all be driven from our pleasant hunting ground." The Indians, though much exasperated, were influenced by these cogent ar- guments. They all agreed to continue in peace, and to the burial of the tom- ahawk. Just then an Indian runner came in, with the tidings that the massa- cre at the mouth of the Yellow Creek and of the Indians who had been pur- sued, was far more dreadful than they had at first apprehended. Among the number included in the assassination, were the father, brother and sister of Logan. They were the nearest and dearest of his friends. There was no longer any resisting the clamor for war. Logan grew pale. He raised his tomahawk and solemnly declared that he would never lay it down till he had avenged the spirits of his butchered relatives, by the slaughter of ten white men for every one of those who had been slain. He redeemed his pledge. It is said that during that Summer, which was of the year 1774, thirty white men fell pierced by his bullet, or struck down by the arm of Logan. It was from this Logan-town-of-Mingo, that on the twenty-fifth day of March, 1783, the army of nearly five hundred men were ready for the march, for the Valley of the Sandusky. It was a long journey of more than three hundred miles, through an almost pathless wilderness, and a fortnight of very efficient movement was spent in accomplishing it. Colonel Williamson accompanied the expedition as a subordinate officer. Five hundred mounted men, with five hundred pack horses, formed in that day a very imposing army. The narrow Indian trail was often very difficult for a horses foot to tread, and often they advanced very slowly; a long line in single file. They struck first directly across the country west, a distance of about thirty miles to the deserted Moravian villages on the Tuscarawas, following what they called Williamson's trail. There they found in the midst of the awful desolation the ungathered harvest of golden corn still in the fields. Here they encamped for the night, feeding their steeds abundantly with the rich forage. Individuals of their band affixed to the trees the declaration that they were on a march of vengeance; that they should show no quarter; that every Indian man, woman and child they encountered would be put to death. They reached one of the upper branches of the Sandusky River, which stream it will be remembered flows from the south to the north, entering Lake Erie at Sandusky Bay. Their first object was to attack and destroy the Mor- avian village, which had been gathered there, some fifty miles south of the mouth of the river. But the fugitives there had either heard of the march of the army, or from some other unknown cause, had entirely abandoned their village, and retired some thirty or forty miles south to the upper waters of the Scioto. Nothing was found there but desolation. The officers of the in- vading army held a council of war to decide upon the next step best to be pursued. The Valley of the Sandusky was densely populated with Indians. Their warriors were men of renown. They were near Detroit, from which point British officers could send them such supplies and reinforcements as they might need. Among the many villages scattered along the valley there were two quite important Indian towns; the Upper and the Lower Sandusky. The Lower Town was but a few miles above the bay; the Upper Town was about twenty miles farther south. The officers of the expedition began to be very nervous. Their posi- tion was truly alarming. The flight of the Tuscarawas, they then knew not where, indicated that their march was discovered. As no Indians were to be seen, it was apprehended that, guided by British officers, and sustained by British reinforcements, they were assembling in overwhelming numbers farther down the valley. After much deliberation it was decided to continue one day's march farther, towards Upper Sandusky, which they could doubtless reach in that time. Should they find that town also deserted, it would confirm their fears of the general concentration of the foe, upon ground selected by them- selves, and abundantly prepared for battle. Under those circumstances, early the next morning they cautiously recommended their march. About two o'clock their advanced guard entered an extended undulating plain with clusters of forest trees scattered about, and with waving tall grass. Suddenly they were assailed by a very hot fire from an invisible but evidently numerous foe, concealed behind the trees and in the grass. The main body hurried forward to support its advance. It was soon found that all their bravery and skill would be called into requisition, and would be tasked to the utmost to meet the emergency. During all the hours of a long June af- ternoon, the battle raged incessantly till the sun sank beneath the horizon, and night enveloped the field. Both parties slept upon their arms. The scene presented during the night was very picturesque, and would have been beautiful ahd not the circumstances rendered it awful. Each party built along its line large camp fires to reveal the approach of any foe, while both of them retired to sleep at a distance from the fires, that they might not be surprised by a night attack. The next day the battle was not renewed by either party. The Indians seemed to be busy in removing their dead and caring of their wounded. They were also probably awaiting the arrival of large reinforcements hurrying to them from the lower part of the river. It was very apparent that every hour the Indians were increasing in number. Anxiously the colonial officers held a council of war. The prevailing voice was for a precipitate retreat. Colonial Williamson urged that he should be permitted to take a hundred and fifty picked men, advance rapidly down the valley to Lower Sandusky, the principal Indian town, and utterly destroy it. But Colonel Crawford replied: "I have no doubt but that you might reach the town. You would, however, find nothing there but empty wigwams. Having taken away so many of our best men, you would leave the rest of us to be destroyed by the host of Indians now surrounding us. On your return they would attack and destroy you. They care nothing about defending their towns. Their wives, children and property, have been removed from them long ago. Our lives and luggage are what they want. If they can get us divided they will soon have them." The shrewd savages, or, more probably, their still shrewder British offi- cers, perceived indications of preparations for a retreat. The wounded were to be removed on litters. The dead were buried, and large fires were built over their graves to prevent the savages from discovering or dishonoring their remains. About sundown, the Indians renewed the battle with great fury. They surrounded the army on all sided, excepting that leading down the val- ley. It was their evident intention to drive their foes in the direction of Lower Sandusky, as they would thus encounter the powerful band hurrying up the river, and would be placed between two fires. The next morning the retreat commenced. The troops were so hemming in that they could only retire by the road which the savages left open for them. But after marching about a mile in that direction, they wheeled about, and, by a circuitous route, gained the trail along which they had advanced. With very rapid steps they continued their flight during the day, being but slight- ly annoyed by attacks from the Indians. The savages followed them, however, occasionally firing shots at their rear guard, by which several men were seriously wounded. Night again came. The colonists built their camp fires, took their suppers, picketed their horses, and resigned themselves to repose without any moles- tation. It is said that the post of honor in a retreat is the rear, where the foe is generally encountered, to be driven back. Colonel Crawford was, however, leading the main body, when he learned that his son, his son-in-law, and two nephews, were missing. He accordingly halted, and allowed the long line of the army to pass him as he searched the ranks to find his lost friends. They were not to be found. His weary horse then gave out, and he, being unable to keep up with the rest of the troops, was left behind. He was soon joined by six others of the in- evitable stragglers of an army on the retreat, one of whom was severely wounded. But Indian bands were now coming down upon their trail from various directions, so that they were in immenent danger of being cut off. As night came, this little band, in great exhaustion, encamped together. The next morning, while their more fortunate companions were rapidly re- treating, they were attacked by a party of Indians, who killed four of their number, and took Colonel Crawford and Dr. Knight prisoners. They were imme- diately taken to an Indian encampment, where they found nine others of their party in the hands of the savages. All the nine prisoners, including Colonel Crawford's son and son-in-law, were tomahawked and scalped. The colonel and the doctor, being deemed more conspicuous captives, were reserved for a more dreadful fate. The former was to be burned on the spot; the latter, firmly bound, was entrusted to the care of one powerful Indian, who was to convey him to an important Indian town, forty miles distant, where he was to be burned for the amusement of the savages there. Just before the execution of Crawford, a distinguished Wyandot chief, by the name of Wingenund held a short interview with him. He had known the pri- soner before, had visited at his house, and had been on friendly terms with him. The chief had retired to his cabin that he might not witness the horri- ble execution of his former friend. But the colonel sent for him, with the vague hope that he might be saved by his intercession. The Wyandot chief greatly agitated, entered the cabin of the doomed man, and inquired, with much embarrassment: "Are you Colonel Crawford?" "I am," was the reply. "Ah? indeed, indeed!" said the chief, sadly, "and is it so?" The colonel added, "Do you not recollect the friendship which has always existed between us?" "Yes," was the reply, "I remember all this. We have often drank together, and you have ever been kind to me." "Then I hope the same friendship still continues," added the colonel. "It would, of course," said the chief, "if you were where you ought to be and not here." "And why not here?" Colonel Crawford inquired. "I hope you would not de- sert a friend in time of need! Now is the time for you to exert yourself in my behalf, as I should do for you, were you in my place." "Colonel Crawford," Wingenund replied, very solemnly, "You have placed yourself in a situation which puts it out of my power, and also of that of any of your friends, to do anything for you." "How so?" the colonel inquired. "By joining yourself to that execrable man Williamson and his party - the man who, but the other day, murdered such a number of Moravian Indians, knowing them to be his friends; knowing also that he ran no risk in murder- ing a people who would not fight, and whose only business was praying." "But I assure you, Wingenund," said Crawford, "that had I been with him at the time, this would not have happened. Not I alone, but all your friends, and all good men, whoever they are, reprobate acts of this kind." "That may be," the chief responded; "yet these friends, these good men, did not prevent him from going out again, to kill the remainder of these foolish Moravian Indians. I say foolish, because the whites in preference to us. We had often told them they would one day be so treated by those people who called themselves their friends. We told them that there was no faith to be placed in what the white men said; that their fair promises were only in- tended to allure us, that they might the more easily kill us, as they had done many Indians before these Moravians." "I am sorry," Colonel Crawford added, "to hear you speak thus. As to Williamson's going out again, when it was determined on, I went out with him, to prevent his committing fresh murders." "This," said the chief, "the Indians would not believe were even I to tell them so." "Why," inquired Mr. Crawford, "would they not believe it?" "Because," was the reply. "it would have been entirely out of your power to prevent him from doing whatever he pleased." "Why out of my power?" inquired the colonel. "Have any of the Moravian Indians been killed or hurt since we came out here?" "None," Wingenund answered. "But you first went to their towns on the Sandusky, and, finding them deserted, you turned on your path towards us. If you had been in search of warriors only, your forces on the other side of the Ohio River. They saw you cross the river. They saw where you encamped for the night. They saw you turn off from the direct path here, towards the deserted Moravian towns. They knew that you were going out of your way. Your steps were constantly watched, and you were suffered quietly to proceed, un- til you reached the spot where you were attacked." Colonel Crawford was now in utter despair. He had no additional plea to present. In doleful accents he inquired: "And what do they intend to do with me?" Wingenund replied, "I will tell you with grief. As Williamson, with his whole cowardly host, ran off in the night at the whistling of our warriors' balls, being satisfied that he had now no Moravians to deal with, but men who could fight - and with such he did not wish to have anything to do; I say that, as he has escaped, and the Indians have taken you, they will take revenge on you in his stead." "Is there no possibility," inquired Crawford, in anguish, "of preventing this? Can you devise no way of getting me off? You shall, my friend, be well rewarded if you are instrumental in saving my life." "Had Williamson," the humane and intelligent chief rejoined, "been taken with you, I and some of my friends, by making use of what you have told me, might perhaps have succeeded in saving you. But, as the matter now stands, no man would dare to interfere in your behalf. The King of England himself, were he to come to this spot, with all his wealth and treasure, could not effect this purpose. The blood of the innocent Moravians, more than half of them women and children, cruelly and wantonly murdered, calls loudly for re- venge. The relatives of the slain, who are among us, cry out for vengeance, and stand ready to inflict it. All the nations connected with us cry out re- venge! revenge! The Shawanese, our grand-children, have asked for your fel- low prisoner, Dr. Knight, and on him they will take vengeance. The Moravians whom you went to destroy having fled, instead of avenging their murdered brethren, the offense is become national, and the nation itself is bound to avenge it." "My fate is then fixed," added Colonel Crawford, "and I may prepare to meet death in its most dreadful form." "I am sorry," the chief replied, "that I cannot do anything for you. Had you regarded the Indian principle, that as good and evil cannot dwell together in the same heart, so a good man ought not to go into evil company, you would not now be in this lamentable situation; you see now, when it is too late, and after Williamson has deserted you, what a bad man he must be. No- ting now remains for you but to meet your fate like a brave man. Farewell, Colonel Crawford - they are coming; I will retire to a solitary spot." As the noble chief left the room, with his eyes filled with tears, the savage warriors came in to lead their victim to his execution. The awful scene which ensued is minutely detailed by Dr. Knight, who was compelled to witness it all. It is too revolting to be transferred to these pages. The victim was bound to a stake, and for two hours was exposed to every variety of torture which the most demoniac ingenuity could devise. A throng of sav- ages, men, women and boys were yelling their delight, as they vied with each other in their attempts to inflict the most exquisite torture. At length welcome death came to the relief of the suffered; but not until the mangled remains had lost every vestige of humanity. Simon Girty, the Tory, was present at the execution, and it is said that he seemed to watch the progress of the awful spectacle with as much zest as the most ferocious of the savages. Colonel Crawford, in the extremity of his agony, implored Girty, with whom he was personally acquainted, to shoot him. There are some indications that Girty would have saved the captive if he could; but his savage allies watched him jealously. Had he not assumed to be de- lighted with the execution, he would have drawn down upon his own head the same destruction which the captive was enduring. The spot where Crawford suffered was but a few miles west of Upper Sandusky. The next morning Dr. Knight was placed under the care of his Indian guard, to be conveyed to the Shawanese town where he was to suffer the same death of torture which he had just witnessed. They traveled that day twenty-five miles on foot. The gnats in the night were exceedingly annoying. The doctor persuaded the guide to loosen his bonds, that he might aid in building a fire to keep them off. The Indian complied with the request. Dr. Knight seized a club, and struck him over his head with all his strength, knocking him forward into the fire, but neither killing not stunning him. The Indian, though severely hurt, sprang up, when the doctor seized his gun; but in his agitation he pulled back the cock with such violence as to break it. The Indian, however, expecting instantly to be shot, plunged, with hideous yellings into the woods. Dr. Knight, with the useless gun in his hands to intimidate his guard should he attempt to approach him, made the best of his way towards home. For twenty-one days he continued his flight through the wilderness, ever on the most careful watch lest he should en- counter some wandering bands of his foes. All this time he lived upon roots and berries, with occasionally young and unfledged birds which he found in their nests. About three hundred of the army kept together and were only slightly har- assed, without being seriously attacked. Two hundred broke up in small par- ties, thinking that they could thus more easily conceal their trail and elude their foes. They perished almost to a man. Colonel Williamson reached his home in safety. Colonel Crawford is described by those who know him as a humane and worthy man. He was one of the first emigrants to the west, and wa in the dreadful defeat of Braddock, in his march to Fort Duquesne. Washington commenced him as a brave and active officer. He was an active soldier in the Pontiac War, and accompanied Lord Dunmore in his expedition to the Scioto. It is enough to make one's blood curdle in his veins to think of his awful face. In the month of April a Welsh family, of former opulence, emigrated from Beaufort, North Carolina, to the Ohio Valley. The father of the household was dead. The widowed mother was accompanied on her long journey by two sons and a daughter. The whole party of emigrants who left Beaufort together, large and small, amounted to seventy souls. In a small vessel, they ran along the coast to Alexandria, in Virginia. This was a period when emigration across the mountains was in full flood, and Alexandria was one of the prin- cipal starting points. The road across the mountains was exceedingly rough, being mainly intended for pack horses; still, stout wagons could be dragged along. Here the party took wagons. There were log huts, called taverns, scattered along the route at the distance of fifteen or twenty miles from each other. A day's journey usually extended from tavern to tavern. These log huts could not accomodate with sleeping conveniences a large party. Many would sleep in their wagons, and cook their food on camp fires; but they could generally, at these sta- tions, find corn for their cattle, and meal and game if they needed such supplies. As they toiled along, several of their part became discouraged by the hardships which they encountered. Steep and rocky hills were to be climbed with the greatest difficulty. Mountain torrents were to be forded. Vast mor- asses they waded through - the wheels of their wagons sinking to their hubs in the mire. Some began to doubt whether there were any lovely and fertile valleys beyond the awful barriers of the Alleghenies, and, in great despon- dency, they abandoned the enterprise and returned to Carolina. The mother of this family was aged and infirm. One of her sons, who has given a very graphic description of their adventures, presents the following pleasing picture of a serene old age: "My mother had been weakly on our journey, and at Fredricktown was more seriously ill than I had ever known her before or since. She still lives, a monument of the Lord's mercy, and a bright illustration of the discipline of which the human mind is susceptible. She has been blind about eight years, and to my recollection she never complained of any thing, but trusted all to divine Providence. She now, at the age of ninety-five, waits her change with patience, is little or no trouble to any one, enjoys good health, a serene and sound mind, and the age of dotage seems never to have overtaken her. She never gives unnecessary pain or trouble to any one, and is pleased when, by repeating words which she learned when a girl, she can add to the happiness of the social circle. She has been a woman of strict economy and great industry, but never milked a cow, and perhaps never spun a thread in her life, and scarcely ever cooked, but was a great sewer and knitter. This she does now with great facility, saying that if she could not knit, she would be very unhappy. She is very little of her time without her knitting, except on first days, as she calles the Sabbath. She was always a member of the Society of Friends. She is much delighted with hearing the Word or any religious book read." This pioneer family consisted of the aged mother, two sons - one twenty- one years old, and one eleven - and a sister, twenty-two years old. There also accompanied them a half brother, married, with a family of small chil- dren and a colored servant woman. They soon built their rude cabin, consis- ting of one room, twenty-four by eighteen feet, fronting the north. At one end were placed two beds, and upon shelves made of slim strips of boards, was displayed the household store of dished of pewter and tin. By a short ladder an ascent was made to the loft above. Splitbottom chairs, three-legged stools, a looking glass, eight inches by ten, a spinning wheel, shovel and tongs, with certain farming implements, completed the furnishing of the domicil. Still it was not rapid work construction the cabin. They had little money, and not much strength. Laborers were not to be had, and they had no money to pay them, could they have been obtained. So the work gradually progressed as best as it could, erecting the chimney, laying the floors and putting in the tables, made of logs split in two through the middle. These puncheons seem to have been of universal use, forming doors by laying the round side of the log upon the ground; making doors by a little shaving off the curved side. It was found in the Spring that the chimney was in danger of toppling over; but they had few tools and little experience, so they braced it as well as they could with poles. The prevailing winds from west to east swept through the crevices of the cabin with one advantage - that of clearing it of smoke. Their sleep was sound and refreshing. Indeed, the nights seemed about a min- ute in length. The beds were of leaves or straw; the blankets, or cadders as they called them, were similar to the rag carpets now used for kitchen floors. "I well remember," says one, "the delight with which we received a new cadder, especially if there were some stripes of bright red." The evenings of the first Winter were rather lonely and dull. They had a few blocks, and having no harvest had nothing about which to busy themselves, as in after winters. Borrowing from a neighbor that wonderful allegory of the Bedford Tinker, the Pilgrim's Progress, they devoured its contents with eagerness. This, added to the Bible, George Fox's Journal, Barkley's Apology, and a few other books of like stamp, constituted their library. Yet there was an influence imparted by the perusal of such volumes, calculated to strengthen the character and form a taste for substantial reading. "Our Sundays, or First Day, as my mother, being one of the Society of Friends, chose to term it, I well remember. On removing to the West we car- ried part of a barrel of flour and a jar of white pure leaf lard, made in Carolina. On Sunday morning, and at NO OTHER TIME, from these materials were made short biscuit for the breakfast, rolled carefully in balls by my sister, and placed around the edge of the skillet and baked before the fire." The pleasure of the gourmand at Delmonico's, or at the tables of kings, was very small compared with that of these hungry, healthy occupants of the lonely cabin. And the reserving of the nicest and best for Sunday by these far-away frontiersmen had a savor or reverence in it that was certainly delightful. The cabin of our settlers was in the midst of a thick forest. Tall trees swayed in the breeze, sometimes threatening to come crashing down upon the cabin. And as the fierce wintry blast swept through their tops, the mournful requiem was often heard, saddening the half-sleepy inmates by its cadence. By degrees, however, the giant trees were prostrated, and the hand of civil- ization and opulence has replaced the old log cabin by the stately mansion of brick. The howl of the panther and the wolf, the approach occasionally of the bear in somewhat unpleasant proximity to the settler's cabin, added much to the disagreeableness of their situation. Smaller animals and venomous re- tiles were quite unwilling to resign possession of the country. Many days were spent in hunting these annoying intruders, and it was only by the com- bined efforts of increasing numbers that their haunts were broken up. The mutual aid required for protection against savage men and savage beasts did much to foster a spirit of harmony and affection among the early pioneers of the West. "The arrival of a bag of meal would make a whole family rejoicingly happy" and grateful then, when a loaded East Indiaman will fail to do it now, and is passed off as a common business transaction, without ever thinking of the Giver - so independent have we become in forty years! Having got out of the wilderness in less time than the children of Israel, we seem to be even more forgetful and unthankful than they. "When Spring was fully come, and our little patch of corn, three acres, put in among the beech roots, which at every step contended with the shovel- plough for the right of soil, and held it too, we enlarged our stock of con- veniences. As soon as bark would run (peel off) we could make ropes and bark boxes. These we stood in great need need of, as such things as bureaus, stands, wardrobes, or even barrels, were not to be had. The manner of making ropes of lime bark was to cut the bark in strips of convenient length, and water-rot it in the same manner as rotting flax or hemp. When this was done, the inside bark would peel off and split up so fine as to make a pretty con- siderably rough and good-for-but-little kind of rope. Of this, however, we were very glad, and let no ship owner with his grass ropes laugh at us. "We made two kinds of boxes for furniture. One kind was of hickory bark with the outside shaved off. This we would take off all round the tree, the size of which would determine the calibre of our box. Into one end we would place a flat piece of bark or puncheon cut round to fit in the bark, which stood on one end the same as when on the tree. "A much finer article was made of slippery elm bark, shaved smooth and with the inside out, bend round and sewed together where the ends of the hoop or main bark lapped over. A bottom was made of the same bark dried flat, and a lid like that of a common band-box, made in the same way. This was the finest furniture in a lady's dressing room, and then, as now, with the fin- est furniture, the sewed side was turned to the wall and the prettiest part to the spectator. "The privations of a pioneer life contract the wants of man almost to to- tal extinction, and allow him means of charity and benevolence. Sufferings ennoble his feelings, and the frequent necessity Continued in Chap12b.txt