OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Tidbits of Ohio -- Part 33A ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES(tm) NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm All documents placed in the USGenWeb Archives remain the property of the contributors, who retain publication rights in accordance with US Copyright Laws and Regulations. In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, these documents may be used by anyone for their personal research. They may be used by non-commercial entities so long as all notices and submitter information is included. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit. Any other use, including copying files to other sites, requires permission from the contributors PRIOR to uploading to the other sites. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgenwebarchives.org ************************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374 April 14, 2005 ************************************************************************** Historical Collections of Ohio And Then They Went West. Know Your Ohio. by Darlene E. Kelley Tid Bits - Part 33 A notes by S. Kelly +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ part 33A. Story Told by Judge Welsh. Green Spring is a well known sulpher spring in the township of Green Creek, on the edge of Sandusky and Seneca counties, Ohio. The county line runs along a principal street in the villiage. The spring is large enough to become at once a small river and to run a mill. A more quiet place for rest, yet within easy reach of business, cannot well be found. A most comfortable, roomy hotel is close by the spring, surrounded by a grove of trees, where, in former times, the Indians had a corn field. In September, 1817, General Cass and Duncan McArthur negotiated at the foot of Maumee Rapids a treaty with the Wyandots, Senecas, Delawares, Shawnees, Potawatomies, Ottawas and Chippewas, by which all their lands in Ohio were ceded to the United States. There was granted, however, to the chiefs of the Senecas, thirty thousand acres lying on the east of Sandusky River, and in 1818, ten thousand acres more were granted. The whole tract was called the Seneca Reservation, and gave the name to Seneca county. In 1831, these lands were ceded to the United States and the Indians were removed west. The springs were on the edge of this Reservation, and the Indians were familiar with their medicinal qualities before the whites were. There are some traditional stories of the Indians in connection with the springs of little value. The whites, however, settled early near them, and were well acquainted with the Indians, and there were old pioneers in the vicinity who knew them well. One of the most intelligent men of the vicinity is ; Judge Hugh Welch, who lived in the Seneca county part of Green Springs, a brother-in-law of General William H. Gibson, of Tiffin. A tall, erect, fine old gentlemen, born in 1801 in Little Beaver, Beaver county, Pennsylvania. In 1815, two brothers came west and selected land in Bronson, four miles west of Norwalk. Hugh returned to Pennsylvania, thence again to Ohio the next year, when he found one hundred Indians encamped on or near the Vermillion River engaged in trapping and making sugar. The follwing is his narritive: " My brother Thomas had, the first season, shot fifty deer and trapped one hundred and thirty coons. The Indians were Senecas with some Oneidas, and encamped just where th trail crossed the river. I came on the trail, starting from the Portage on the Cuyahoga, coming to Norwalk, and they were close to it. I think the trail ran a little south of Berea and the towns along the railroad, I think it ran through Townsend. The underbrush and small timber were cut out so that wagons could pass. It was made by some branch of the army in 1812. A regular Indian trail was beaten by travel in single file. They all traveled the same path. I have traveled a hundred and fifty miles in Michigan where the path was beaten down like a sheep path. The Indians were mixed a good deal -- Senecas, Oneidas, Mohawks, and Wyandots. They did not speak alike, but could understand each other. Their languages were very different. For instance the Wyandots called tobacco ha-mah-mah; the Senecas and Mohawls, mah. The Mowhawks called a knife, winnasrah, accenting the last syliable, while the Senecas accented the one before it. I settled in Eden, Seneca county, in 1819; my nearest neighbors were Indians for twenty miles. The Indians of that county were Senecas and a few Mohawks; they lived in their villages. Quite a number had shanties of twelve foot poles, they were notched at the corners like a corn crib and covered with bark. Some poles placed standing would be cut on the inside by a wedge shaped cut as the eaves, so that the top would bend to form a slanting roof, which was completed with bark. They lived in them winter and summer, except when hunting. They went off to make sugar, to trap and to hunt deer. There was an abundant game on the Reserve--- deer, bears wolves. Game was more plenty there than further west, where there were more Indians. Most all the Indians had ponies, There were many. I never knew of any buffalo in this vicinity or any beaver or prairie wolves. I think there were beavers but very scarce. There were many wolves. The Indians lived much on venison. They killed all they could during the winter. They jerked the meat, that is, laid it on poles over the fire as the deer got in condition, say May or June. The deer became poor when the snow was on the ground. The Indians also killed raccon, turkeys, etc. In May they killed deer again, fawns, etc. They made calls for deer; they used to call turkeys with the bone of the wing; they sucked the wind in hiding behind a log. They imitated the hen, which was just like a tame turkey. you would not know the difference. The deer call was something like a hollow reed. It was about three or four inches long, and sounded like a fawn blatting ma-m-a-a-a. A part of wood was taken out, a little thin bit of silver or other metal fastened over the slit or hole in one side, and the sound came out through it, shaking the little plate of metal. They blew to sound the deer whistle. "They had no grain save corn, which they raised in little patches. Some would raise corn on a quarter acre to live on all winter. They usually took off the hull with lye; they used to boil it whole when treated with the lye. Someimes they pounded it and sifted it through a skin with holes punched in it and made bread, and boiled the coarser for hominy. To pound it they would chop a piece of timber off square, say three feet high, burn out the center, and by that and hacking would make a perfect mortar. " For a pestle they used a piece of hard or iron wood rounded at the ends --- made heavy and egg shape at both ends-- and the corn was struck with the smaller end of the pestle. I never saw them use stone pestles. Sqauws did the work. " They generally boiled the corn, especially if they had meat with it. They raised beans and sometimes cooked them with corn. They generally ate one article at a time. " Their corn was with eight rows, long eared and sometimes entirely blue, some almost black, some mixed white, blue and black. It was different from any I ever saw elsewhere. It is raised here now sometimes, the seed having come from the Indians. " They used for cooking copper or brass kettles. Some held ten or fifteen gallons. These were used especially for making sugar, also hominy. " They made sugar a good deal and put it with their corn and bread. They frequently parched corn and pounded it up. They used it if going on an excursion, wetting it and putting sugar with it. " They ate sometimes by themselves, but often the whole crowd together, especially relatives. " In making sugar they used small hatchets. I did not for a long time, see an ax such as we have. " They used when deer went into the river to get rid of mosquitoes to come at night in their canoes with a candle of wax at the bow, and the deer seemed blinded. The Indians could go very close to shoot them. " They used canoes made of elm bark braced with little poles bent in proper shape. Their sugar troughs were of bark, thinner and tied at the ends. " Basswood bark would make as strong a string as hemp by soaking in water for two or three months. I never saw any cooking by dropping hot stones in bark vessels. If they had no kettle they would cook on a forked stick over the fire, eat what was cooked, and then cook again. They could then only roast corn. They were very fond of roasting ears, and ate a great many. " If they were very hungry, they would cook old deer heads, that were anything but savory. " They had a few apples along down by the river. There were trees, but not many, on the Wyandot reservation, planted perhaps a hundred years ago. " I saw little of Wyandots here; never any Shawnees. There were Senecas, and when I first came here, Mowhawks. Some married in other tribes. " The boys used bows and arrows to shoot with. So did I. They pointed them. " When the Indians wanted to shot low; they had there arrows with heavy steel points, bought ready made. They shot squirrels with a blunt wooden point. On the blunt arms they did not generally use feathers, but did always on the sharp. The feathers were put on like a rifle-ball, with a twist. Grown Indians used mostly the rifle, but boys bows and arrows until fifteen to eighteen years of age. " The Indians used to smoke tobacco and the bark of the Wahoo, called by them Cannakanick. They often mixed it with the tobacco. They also smoked the bark of a species of dogwood. We used to in Pennsylvania call it the arrow wood, from the shape of the sprouts. " They used to tan green hides; if dry used to soak them in the water of a running stream; they then stretched it over a smooth log the size of a mans leg, and with a knife blade placed in a curved stick would scrape off all the hair and all the outside skin,which will curl up, then scrape off all the flesh and dry the skin perfectly dry. They then soaked them in deer's brains and warm water, mixed and worked into a suds, one or more days, and then dressed them by rubbing with a stone much like those called axes plowed up in the fields, often pulling the skin. Then they made a hole in the ground eighteen inches in diameter, and suspended the skin on sticks standing up, and smoked them by burning rotten wood until the color suited them. They were then ready for use. " When I first knew the Indians, the men dressed in moccasins, leggins, a calico shirt reaching to the knees or hips, and above a jacket or some garmeut. The principal dress, however, was one of the Canadian blankets, fastened with a belt The arm was protected with deer skin from brush in the woods. They wore bracelets, and ornaments on the breast. " The squaws wore broadcloth large enough to fasten with a belt at the waist. Above that they wore a jacket; they had moccasins and leggins. They wore hats got from the whites, when they could get them, otherwise nothing. Leggins were also worn by the whites. Rattlesakes could not well strike through them. There were many snakes in Huron county; it was not uncommon to hear them hiss when we went to hitch a chain to a log. The Indians were fond of paints, using them especially in their war dances; for red they used blood root; for yellow some other root, the name of which I do not remember; for black they used coal, or some other black substances mixed with grease or oil. " They used as games: running, wrestling and running hosres. I never saw them play ball much. The Wyandots' graves at Upper Sandusky were like the whites. The Mohawks alon Honey Creek made holes, laying down poles or slabs, making a kind of box in which the body was placed and then covered. The Sauks, Foxes and Potawatomies buried by setting the body on the ground and building a pen around of sticks or logs. I think the bodies lay heads to the east. I never saw Senacas bury." +++++++++++++++++++ "Mohawktown was four miles southeast of Tiffin, or Honey Creek, about three fourths of a mile from Sandusky River. Among the Mohawks were the Brants; Thomas, who was Captain on the American side in te war of 1812, and his brothers Powles and Isaac. They all fought on the American side. Van Metre, a principal chief, white, captured when a child, married their sister, and lived there also. The Brants were all large stout men. I knew well, Charlieu, who was an uncle to the Brants. The whites calle it Chario, the Indians Challieu, giving the french sound. Both acceted the last syllable. I knew Charlieu well. In the spring of 1819, he had a little shanty adjoining his neighbor. I then visited Mowhawktown. He was six foot high, well built, straight, then an old man. He was sulky and little inclined to talk with any, especially with whites. I often tried to talk with him, but could not. He lay in his bunk of skins smoking. He was dressed in perfect Indian fashion. He got his blanket from the British and every year a present. He was a very prominent Indian, but I never heard him called Captain. It was said his pouch for his red paint, was made of a child's leg. I think it was a deerskin. Once a year he went to Malden. He had no wife or child, and was not much liked. Even his nephew did not speak well of him. They say he was too much Brittish. At one time I attended a Wyandot war dance with Isaac Brant. The young men were very fierce and acted as if in war, and scalping and killing. It was in a large tent put up with bark poles. Their tents were small, not over twelve to fifteen or sixteen feet, except the council houses, which were long. That of the Wyandots of Upper Sandusky were perhaps forty by twenty feet. The Indian geographical names were nearly descriptive. For instance, Tyamochtee means " a circle round a plain." I have this from Walker, the Indian interpreter. This stream is a branch of the Sandusky, a half or three quarters of a mile north of Negrotown. Negrotown is eight miles north of Upper Sandusky. During the early settlements slaves ran away from Kentucky and went among the Indians, and when I came here most of the inhabitants of that place were black. The Indians pronounced " Sam-dous-ke." I remember when we lived in Huron county my father spoke of the Cuyahoga, pronouncing as we do now. Isaac Brant ( a very jolly fellow ) corrected him, saying Chris a-wauga, and after that he called my father by that name. The Indians had generally but one name. I don't know that I ever saw any medicine men, or knew any to follow that profession. The Indians since I came took the lives of one or two for witchcraft. I heard, but did not know of it personally. This was among the Wyandots. The fall of 1824, I went with my father-in-law, Colonel Gibson ( father of General William H. Gibson ), to Fort Wayne, where the Indians were to receive annuities. On the nortwest sideof Coldwater River, in Michigan, we passed a grave of a chief buried lying down with poles notched over him. When we reached the other bank ( Coldwater ) a Frenchman told us the story. The Potawatomies or Ottawas ( the two nations were much mixed ) lost a young chief. A council decided a woman had bewitched him. She hearing of it, started off on a pony, but the Indians sent after her, and caught her near the Frenchman's home. Seeing escape impossible, she sat down on a log covering her head with her hands and a Indian coming behind her split her head with a hatchet. She simply exclaimed waugh ( oh ), and died. In Fort Wayne, a Potawatomie, or Tawa, was killed. The Shawnees and Delawares did not like them and had been drinking. One of the latter said," I will go out and kill that man," pointing to the old half breed acros the street sitting on a log. The other said " If you are a man you will do it." He went out and the half breed buried his face in his hands intending apparently to keep still and let the Indian handle his weapons around him, but the Indian burid his knife in the heart of the half breed. The murderer was arrested and his relatives were there with their ponies decorated with bells, etc., and to buy him off. Willaim Walker was a leader among the Wyandots. He was a white captive when a child, and lived at Upper Sandusky. he married a half blood squaw, named Rankin, who was one of the most intelligent woman on the Reservation. Walker educated his boys and girls well. He was wealthy. His son William was a government interpreter. The old gentleman was then eighty or ninety. I have heard young William Walker sing Indian songs. He has translated one wriien by himself into English. I will quote it in my continuation --- ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Continued in part 33 B.