"Among Johnson's Mohawks, Abraham and Hendrick were the oldest of their tribe, when they died, and neither of them was 70, at their deaths. I saw a sister of theirs in 1765, who appeared to be several years above 70. At Stockbridge, Captain Kunkapot was for many years the oldest man in his tribe."* We have now come to one of the most noted chiefs in Indian story. Logan was called a Mingo + chief, whose father, Shikellimus, was chief of the Cayugas, whom he succeeded. Shikellimus was attached in a remarkable degree to the benevolent James Logan, from which circumstance, it is probable, his son bore his name. The name is still perpetuated among the Indians. For maghanimity in war, and greatness of soul in peace, few, if any, in any nation, ever surpassed Logan. He took no part in the French wars which ended in 1760, except that of a peacemaker; was always acknowledged the friend of the white people, until the year 1774, when his brother and several others of his family were murdered, the particulars of which follow. In the spring of 1774, some Indians robbed the people upon the Ohio River, who were in that country exploring the lands, and preparing for settlements. These land-jobbers were alarmed at this hostile carriage of the Indians, as they considered it, and collected themselves at a place called Wheeling Creek, the site on which Wheeling is now built, and, learning that there were two Indians on the river a little above, one Captain Michael Cresap, belonging to the exploring party, proposed to fall upon and kill them. His advice, although opposed at first, was followed, and a party led by Cresap proceeded and killed the two Indians. The same day, it being reported that some Indians were discovered below Wheeling upon the river, Cresap and his party immediately marched to the place, and at first appeared to show themselves friendly, and suffered the Indians to pass by them unmolested, to encamp still lower down, at the mouth of Grave Creek. Cresap soon followed, attacked and killed several of them, having one of his own men wounded by the fire of the Indians. Here some of the family of Logan were slain. The circumstance of the affair was exceeding aggravating, iuasmuch as the whites pretended no provocation. Soon after this, some other monsters in human shape, at whose head were Daniel Greathouse and one Tomlinson, committed a horrid murder upon a company of Indians about thirty miles above Wheeling. Greathouse resided at the same place, but on he opposite side of the river from the Indian encampment. A party of thirty-two men were collected for this object, who secreted themselves, while Greathouse, under a pretence of friendship, crossed the river and visited them, to ascertain their strength; on counting them, he found they were too numerous for his force in an open attack. These Indians, having heard of the late murder of their relations, had determined to be avenged of the whites, and Greathouse did not know the danger he was in, until a squaw advised him of it, in a friendly caution, "to go home." The sad requital this poor woman met with will presently appear. This abominable fellow invited the Indians to come over the river and drink rum with him; this being a part of his plot to separate them, that they might be the easier destroyed. The opportunity soon offered; a number being collected at a tavern in the white settlement, and considerably intoxicated, were fallen upon, and all murd red, except a little girl. Among the murdered was a brother of Logan, and his sister, whose delicate situation greatly aggravated the horrid crime. The remaining Indians, upon the other side of the river, on hearing the firing, set off two canoes with armed warriors, who, as they approached the shore, were fired upon by the whites, who lay concealed, awaiting their approach. Nothing prevented their taking deadly aim, and many were ki led and wounded, and the rest were obliged to return. This affair took place May 24th, 1774.§ These were the events that led to a horrid Indian * Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc. 3. i. 151. Mengwe, Maquas, Maqua, or Iroquos all mean the same. In the month of April, 1774, a rumor was circulated, that the Indians had stolen several horses from some land-jobbers on the Ohio and Kentucky Rivers; no evidences of the fact having been adduced, lead to the conclusion that the report was false." Doddridge's Notes. 225-6. Facts published in Jefferson's Notes. war, in which many innocent families were sacrificed to satisfy the vengeance of an incensed and injured people. A calm followed these troubles, but it was only such as goes before the storm, and lasted only while the tocsin of war could be sounded among the distant Indians. On the 12 July, 1774, Logan, at the head of a small party of only eight warriors, struck a blow on some inhabitants upon the Muskingum, where no one expected it. He had left the settlements on the Ohio undisturbed, which every one supposed would be the first attacked, in case of war, and hence the reason of his great successes. His first attack was upon three men who were pulling flax in a field. One was shot down, and the two others taken. These were marched into the wilderness, and, as they approached the Indian town, Logan gave the scalp halloo, and they were met by the inhabitants, who conducted them in. Running the gantlet was next to be performed. Logan took no delight in tortures, and he in the most friendly manner instructed one of the captives how to proceed to escape the severities of the gantlet. This same captive, whose name was Robinson, was afterwards sentenced to be burned; but Logan, though not able to rescue him by his eloquence, with his own hand cut the cords that bound him to the stake, and caused him to be adopted into an Indian family. He became afterwards Logan's scribe, and wrote the letter that was tied to a war club, the particulars of which we shall relate farther onward. There was a chief among the Shawanese more renowned as a warrior than even Logan himself at this time. CORNSTOCK * was his name, and to him seems to have fallen the chief direction of the war that was now begun; the causes of which were doubtless owing to the outrages already detailed, committed by Cresap and Greathouse, but there can be but little if any doubt, that the several tribes engaged in it, had each been sufficiently injured to justify their participation also. The history of the murder of Bald Eagle is more than sufficient to account for the part acted by the Delawares. What this man had been in his younger days is unknown to history, but at this time he was an old inoffensive Delaware chief, who wandered harmlessly up and down among the whites, visiting those most frequently who would entertain him best. Having been on a visit to the fort at the mouth of Kanhawa, he was met, as he was ascending alone upon the river in his canoe, by a man, who, it is said, had suffered much from the Indians. It was in the evening, and whether any thing happened to justify violence on the part of either, we have no evidence, but certain it is, the white man killed the chief, and scalped him, and, to give his abominable crime publicity, set the dead body upright in the canoe, and in this manner caused it to drift down the river, where it was beheld by many as it passed them. From the appearance of the old chief, no one suspected he was dead, but very naturally concluded he was upon one of his ordinary visits. The truth of the affair, however, soon got to his nation, and they quickly avowed vengeance for the outrage. † The Virginia legislature was in session when the news of an Indian war was received at the seat of government. Governor Dunmore immediately gave orders for the assembling of 3000 men; one half of whom were to march for the mouth of the great Kanhawa under the command of General Andrew Lewis, and the remainder, under the governor in person, was to proceed to some point on the Ohio, above the former, in order to fall upon the Indian towns between, while the warriors should be drawn off by the approach of Lewis in the opposite direction. He was then to proceed down the Ohio, and form a junction with General Lewis at Point Pleasant, from whence they were to march according to circumstances. Generally written Cornstalk, but in our oldest printed account, it is as in the text. There is no harm in changing the orthography of a word, when we use it for a proper instead of a common substantive. t M'Clung. His rank was that of colonel, but, being commander-in-chief of that division, was properly called general, to distinguish him from his brother, who was also a colonel, and as having the chief command. |