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AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS -59 CHAPTER IV COMING OF THE WHITE MAN Early Settlers, English and French - Different Methods - Story of De-he-wamis - Wars With the Whites. There is a tradition that a party of Europeans were wrecked near the mouths of the Mississippi as early as 1586 and made their way northeastwardly to the Atlantic Coast up the Ohio Valley. If so, they left no record of their wanderings hereabouts, so they may be dismissed from further consideration. When the first English settlers arrived at Jamestown, in 1607, they carried a charter which granted a very indefinite area of lands extending to the South Sea, or the Pacific Ocean, which they supposed lay a short distance west of the Alleghenies, but the struggle for existence kept them too busy, and their numbers were too small to allow any serious attention to their great western territory, of which they knew little and cared less. It was more than a hundred years before they began to wake up to the possibilities of this region, and in the meantime another enterprising nation had gotten ahead of them. In the year 1535, Cartier, a French explorer, ascended the St. Lawrence River, but it was not until 1608, one year after Jamestown, that Sir Samuel Champlain founded the city of Quebec. But the newcomers speedily made up for lost time. There was an essential difference between the English and French methods of settlement. The former were parties of citizens who, for various causes, came to cast their lot in the new world by virtue of grants or charters from the government, but largely independent, self-governing, seeking little assistance from home, and growing up into a collection of separate communities scattered along the coast, having two rather slender bonds of interest, namely, allegiance to the king, and the necessity of common defense. The French, on the contrary, derived everything and every authority from the king. The French soldier and the French priest accompanied the French commandant, who was the Governor, and the colonists, like the French peasants, were simply the base which supported the superstructure. There was one central government which spoke with authority, and the will of the commandant at Quebec was law. This was not the way in which a wilderness could be settled to advantage, and hence it is not surprising that the English settlements grew more rapidly than the French. On the other hand, the concentration of authority, such as had the French, was of inestimable advantage, either in acquiring territory, contending with the savages, or struggling with their white neighbors. These advantages the French were not slow to improve. Scarcely had the palisades been erected at Quebec, when Champlain began his explorations and discovered the lake which bears his name.. Whether they would have reached the Atlantic via the Hudson and made New 60 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY York City a second Paris, had not the unfriendly and powerful Iroquois blocked the way, is a matter of speculation, but as they could not advance in this direction they turned their attention westward. By 1660 they had become familiar with all the great lakes, and their priests, their trappers and their voyageurs, were a familiar sight as far as the west end of Lake Superior, and along the rivers which feed these sheets of water. There is a story that two fur traders in 1654 accompanied a band of Ottawas 500 leagues to the west, returning after two years bringing wonderful stories of that region. It would be foreign to our purpose to tell the travels and discoveries of these and following years, as detailed by Parkman and others they are more romantic and thrilling than the pages of a modern novel, and, it may be added, the accounts are somewhat more instructive. In 1668 numerous missions were established in what are now the states of Michigan and Wisconsin, and the exploration of the Mississippi was broached. There has been some controversy as to who was the real discoverer of the Mississippi. The first record of the river having been seen by a European, was that of a Spanish navigator named Menandez, who entered the mouths but made no exploration of the river. Then came De Soto, who advanced up the river in 1541 and died on its banks, but the stream as a whole was yet unknown save as tales were gathered from the Indians. One idea was that the river flowed southeast into the Atlantic, another that it ran into the Gulf of Mexico, and a third, that it emptied into the Gulf of California. In 1671, a great congress of Indians was held at Sault Ste. Marie, at which an alliance was completed between the French and Northwestern tribes, which opened the way for further explorations. So, on May 13, 1673, Father Marquette, Joliet, and five voyageurs, embarked in two canoes at Mackinac, and crossing Lake Michigan to Green Bay went up Fox River, made a portage to the Wisconsin, and descended to the Mississippi, which they entered on June 17th with a joy, as Marquette says, "which he could not express." They sailed down the great river, stopping at Indian villages, passing the mouths of the Des ' Moines, Illinois, Missouri, "muddy, rushing and noisy," Ohio, and other streams, until they reached the mouth of the Arkansas. They began their return journey on July 17, and reached Green Bay in Sep tember. The course of the river was pretty well determined, but nobody had yet traveled its full length. This was reserved for La Salle, a native of Rouen, in Normandy, where he was born about the year 1635. He came to Canada in 1667, and was there when accounts of Marquette's and Joliet's explorations were received. He had the idea, which had been in men's minds ever since the voyage of Columbus, of finding a way to China via Canada and the South Sea, and, returning to France in 1675, he was warmly received and given the title of Chevalier. In September, 1678, he proceeded to Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, and on November 18th left there in a little brigantine of ten tons, the first vessel of European make in those waters. Nearly a month was con-. sumed in beating up the lake to Niagara River, where the Iroquois had a village, and where La Salle built a fort which became Fort Niagara. On January 26, 1679; at Cayuga Creek, six miles above Niagara Falls, he laid the keel of the first ship to navigate Lake Erie. La Salle returned to Frontenac for supplies, but the Ontario barque was wrecked and most of the supplies lost. However, on August 7th, the new vessel was launched and named the Griffin. It had a stormy voyage across Lake Huron, but reached Mackinac on Au- gust 27th. Here La Salle built a fort and trading-house, and then went to Green Bay, where the ship was loaded with furs and sent back. She was never heard of again, having doubtless foundered during a storm on Lake Huron. La Salle descended the Illinois River to Lake Peoria, where he built a fort called Creve Coeur, or Broken AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 61 Heart, having probably heard of the loss of the Griffin and being greatly depressed. His supplies gave out, and the following spring he sent his companion, Father Hennepin, on an exploring tour up the Mississippi, while he should return east for men and supplies. Tonti, his lieutenant, was to remain with a small force and hold the fort. La Salle started back across the country in March, 1680, with a few attendants, and reached Frontenac, where he found his creditors had seized all his property. But he succeeded in getting both men and supplies, and started back by the middle of the summer. He found the fort deserted, Tonti having become alarmed by the Indians and returned to the lakes. La Salle went back to Mackinac, where he met Tonti. Hennepin had in the meantime gone up the Mississippi to the falls which he named St. Anthony, where is now the thriving city of Minneapolis. He returned in November, 1680, having made an interesting visit to the Sioux, with whom the whites were destined to become too well acquainted in after years. In August, 1681, La Salle started on his third journey to the Mississippi via Lake Michigan and the Chicago River. His party consisted of twenty-three Frenchmen and thirty-one Indians, men, women and children. They left the present site of Chicago about January 5, 1682, and reached the Mississippi on the 6th of February. They resumed their journey on the 13th, and reached the mouth of the great river on April 6th. Thus the whole river had now been traversed from end to end of its navigable waters, although its exact sources were not fully traced until a comparatively recent day. The explorers traversed the three great channels into the Gulf and, erecting a column surmounted by a cross, affixed the arms of France, with the following inscription: LOUIS THE GREAT, KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE, REIGNING APRIL 9, 1682. Thus was this great Mississippi Valley which stretched from the Alleghenies to the Rockies and from the Lakes to the Gulf, formally claimed by the King of France. Having already possessed the country north of the lakes and about the mouths of the St. Lawrence, he practically controlled the continent, save the fringe of English settlements along the Atlantic Coast and the Spanish possessions in Mexico and on the Pacific Coast. In 1688 there were in all this vast region less than 12,000 Europeans, but this did not prevent the French from making good their claims by the construction of a chain of forts from Quebec to the mouths of the Mississippi. It will be noted that up to this time communication between the extremities of this magnificent territorial empire had been mainly via the Great Lakes, which furnished a natural water communication westward at all seasons of the year and were comparatively safe from the dreaded Iroquois. From the lakes south they had three routes, from Mackinac and Green Bay, Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, and the Maumee and Illinois. Now they began to turn their attention to a fourth, the upper Ohio, which was called by the Indians O-hee-yah, or Beautiful River, the French calling it La Belle Riviere, a name well deserved to the present time, but which industrial progress and destruction of forests threaten to make a misnomer. Detroit was founded in 1700, and trading-houses were said to have been established along the Ohio by 1730. Most of the Indians were bought over, and even the Iroquois were induced to be neutral. But the English were beginning to wake up. As we have seen, the charter of the Jamestown colony extended to the Pacific, never acknowledged. A council of the Iroand the next step was to extinguish the Indian titles, for French supremacy was quois, who claimed the Ohio country by right of conquest, was held at Lancaster, Pa., in 1744, at which a treaty was made, somewhat indefinite in terms, but which was claimed to cede their western possessions to the English, and they proceeded 62 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY to act on that basis. On October 7, 1748, England and France, who had been at war, made a treaty of peace at Aix La Chapelle, but it left the Ohio country still an unsettled question. That same year, Thomas Lee, a member of the Virginia Council, associated with himself thirteen others, including Lawrence and Augustine, brothers of George Washington, forming what was called the Ohio Company. The object was to carry on the Indian trade on a large scale. A few English traders had already ventured into this section, but the amount of their traffic was trifling. Lands were to be taken between the Monongahela and Kanawha Rivers, on the south side of the Ohio, but the company was to have the privilege of locating lands on the north side if deemed necessary. Christopher Gist was employed as surveyor, and came as far as the Miami Indians, 200 miles into Ohio. The Indians had been invited to Logstown to form a treaty, without which operations could not be carried on, and notwithstanding the machinations of the French and hostile traders, this was accomplished on June 13, 1752. In the debates attending this treaty, the Indians repudiated the idea that they had ever consented to sell their lands. Shortly after the treaty, Mr. Gist laid off a town and fort at Chartiers Creek, below Pittsburgh, and the company assessed itself four hundred pounds for constructing the fort. Mr. Gist, with eleven families, settled in the Monongahela Valley, and goods for trading arrived from England but were disposed of before reaching the Ohio. War between the French and English breaking out again, operations were suspended. Efforts were made during a number of years to take up the lands or obtain reimbursement for money expended, but without success. An attempt was then made to merge it with a rival organization, but while this was in progress the Revolutionary War broke out and extinguished both companies. All persons concerned in the enterprise were losers, although at the beginning it promised good returns. Other companies were formed with the same object, but the tim had not come for settlements in the Ohio territory. The French were not idle while all thi was going on, but kept a close watch on the English and cultivated friendly relations with the Indians. Among other methods of asserting French sovereignty, Gulissoniere, the governor-general of New France, as they called their possessions here, organized an expedition under command of Capt. Louis Celoron de Bienville numbering about three hundred French soldiers, Canadians and friendly Indian This expedition left Canada in July, 1749, and proceeded from the south shore o Lake Erie to the head waters of the Allegheny River, then considered part of th Ohio. The company was provided wit leaden plates, which were buried at differ ent points along the Allegheny and Ohio on which were inscriptions claiming thi territory in the name of the King o France. These plates were 11x 7 1/2 inches The party reached Chautauqua Lake on the 22nd, and paddled down the lake the next day. Early on the morning of th 24th they entered the outlet, a narroi stream meandering through a deep moras bordered by a tall forest. The water bein quite low, in order to lighten the canoe they sent part of their load overland, an encircled the rapids in this way. Some Indians who noticed them fled, and an en bassy was sent after them to reassure them as to the "friendly" object of the exp dition. They entered the Allegheny prop( on the 29th, and buried a plate on the soul bank of the river, opposite the mouth the Chanougon or Conewango, about twelve miles south of the present New York line It will be observed that the French claim both sides of the river. The usual form were observed of drawing up the comma in battle array, proclaiming "Vivo le Roi,” and affixing the royal arms to a neighboring tree. A council was held near here with the Indians, which was not very sat factory, as the Iroquois, or dominating powers were favorable to the English. AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 63 expedition, however, was not interrupted. Nine miles below Rivire aux Boeufs, now known as French Creek, having been so named by Washington in 1753, they came to a large boulder nearly twenty-two feet long by fourteen feet wide, covered with rude Indian inscriptions, which was submerged during high water. It was regarded by the natives as an "Indian God," and held in superstitious reverence. Here a second plate was buried, which has never been found. Water and time have nearly obliterated the figures. Celoron passed a village of Loups at or near the present site of Pittsburgh, which he pronounced the finest on the river. He was now in the Ohio proper, and soon reached Chiningue, afterwards known as Logstown, a place of fifty cabins with its usual mixture of tribes. Colonel Croghan, who was sent to the Ohio Indians by Governor Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, in August, 1749, says in his journal, that "Monsieur Calaroon, with two hundred French soldiers, had passed through Logstown just before his arrival," and was told by the inhabitants that the object of the expedition "was to drive the English away, and by burying iron plates, with inscriptions on them, at the mouth of each remarkable creek, to steal away their country." Celoron found some English traders at Chiningue whom he compelled to leave. He sent a message by them to Governor Hamilton, under date of August 6, 1749, that he was surprised to find English traders on French territory, it being in contravention of solemn treaties, and he hoped the Governor would forbid them trespassing in the future. Celoron also made a speech in which he told the Indians that he was on his way down the Ohio to whip the Twightwees (Miamis) and Wyandots for trading with the English. But the Indians were becoming suspicious and unfriendly. The Iroquois and Abenaki who had accompanied the expedition, refused to proceed farther, and destroyed the plates which, bearing the arms of the French king, had been attached to the trees. The expedition seems to have passed the present site of Steubenville on the 12th, and, as no mention is made of Mingo town, it is presumed it had not been settled, although this is not conclusive, in fact, they may have passed Mingo during the night, as they arrived at the mouth of Wheeling Creek early on the 13th. Here they buried their third plate, the translation of whose inscription may serve as a sample of the whole : "In the year 1749, of the reign of Louis the 15th, King of France, we, Celoron, commander of a detach- ment sent by Monsieur the Marquis de la Gallisoniere, Governor General of New France, to reestablish tranquility in some Indian villages in these cantons, have buried this plate of lead at the mouth and on the north bank of the river Kanououara, which empties into the easterly side of the Ohio river, otherwise Belle Riviere, this 13th day of August, as a monument of the renewal of the possession we have taken of the said river Ohio, and of all those which empty into it, and of all the lands on both sides as far as the sources of the said rivers, as enjoyed, or ought to have been enjoyed, by the Kings of France preceding, as they have there maintained themselves, by arms and by treaties, especially those of Ryswick, Utrecht and Aix la Chapelle," The expedition continued its voyage on the 14th, and arriving at the mouth of the Muskingum the next day, a fourth plate was buried, on the right bank of that river. That plate is now possessed by the Antiquarian Society of Massachusetts. A fifth plate was buried at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, in Virginia, where it was discovered in 1846, The expedition reached the mouth of the Great Miami on August 31st, where the sixth and last plate was buried. This plate has never been discovered. On September 1st, the party started up the Great Miami on its homeward journey. They arrived at the Miami village of Demoiselles on the 13th. This was afterwards known as Laramie's Creek, the earliest English settlement in Ohio. It was destroyed by General Clark in his expedition of 1782. General Wayne rebuilt it several years after. After a week's rest, 64 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY the French burned their canoes and, obtaining ponies, made the portage to the Maumee, and reached the French post of Kiskakon, afterwards Fort Wayne, on the 25th. Here the party divided, one portion going overland to Detroit, while the others descended the river in canoes. Celoron returned to Detroit via Lake Erie, reaching there on November 10th, having made an estimated journey of 1,200 leagues, or 3,600 miles. Nobody knew better than the French that if they wished to hold this valley, they must do more than plant leaden plates and affix the royal arms to trees. A test of strength was at hand, and both sides began making preparations. The French worked industriously to complete their chain of forts from Niagara to the Ohio, and the English began sending out expeditions of observation. Canada had a new governor-general, in the person of Marquis de Duquesne de Menneville, an able commandant, and Robert Dinwiddie a native of Scotland, was governor of Virginia. He had an eye on the Western country, and in 1753 Capt. William Trent was sent on a mission to the French and Indians, and he penetrated as far as Piqua without result. At this time Major George Washington appears on the scene. He was just past twenty-one, and the governor, with an unconscious gift of prophecy, remarked to him, "Faith, you are a brave lad, and if you play your cards well you shall have no cause to repent of your bargain." A commission was issued to Washington to repair to Logstown, on the Ohio, and inform himself where the French forces were posted or building forts, to proceed to such point, deliver a letter of remonstrance from the governor, and demand an answer thereto. He was also to inquire into the strength of the French, what assistance they were likely to get from Canada, and what were their pretensions. Four English traders had already been arrested by the French for carrying on contraband business in the Ohio country, which had been going on more or less ever since 1749. They were sent to France as prisoners, where they were finally released at the intercession of the British ambassador, the two nations being nominally at peace. Washington followed what has since been known as Braddock,s road to the Monongahela Valley and took with him Christopher Gist, Van Braam, a French interpreter, and John Davidson, an Indian interpreter, with four Indian traders. He met the Indian chiefs at Logstown and, accompanied by three of them and a hunter, set out to Fort La Boeuf, now Waterford, Pa., on foot. In his journal he relates the following interesting incident : "I took my necessary papers, pulled off my clothes, and tied myself up in a watch coat. Then I took my gun in hand, and pack on my back, in which were my paper and provisions.. I set out with Mr. Gist fitted in the same manner, on Wednesday, the 26th of December. The day following, just after we had passed a place called Murdering Town, we fell in with a party of French Indians who had lain in wait for us. One of them fired at Mr. Gist or me, not fifteen steps off, but missed. We took the fellow into custody and kept him until about 9 o'clock at night, then let him go, and walked on the remaining part of the night, without making any stops, that we might get the start so far as to be out of their pursuit next day, since we were well assured they would follow our track as soon as it was light. We continued traveling the next day until quite dark, and got to the river, which I expected to have found frozen, but it was not; the ice I suppose had broken up above, for it was driving in vast quantities. There was no way for getting over but on a raft, which we set about building with but one poor hatchet, and finished just before sun-setting. This was a whole day work; we next got it launched, then went aboard and set off, but before we were half over we were jammed in the ice in such a manner that we expected every moment our raft to sink, and ourselves to perish. I put out my setting pole to try to stop the raft, when the rapidity of the stream threw it with so much violence against the pole that it jerked me out into ten feet of water, but I saved myself by catching hold of one of the raft logs. Notwithstanding all our efforts we could not get to shore, but were obliged, as we were near an island, to quit our raft and make for it. The cold was so severe that Mr. Gist had all his fingers and some of his toes frozen,. and the water was so shut up that we found no difficulty in getting off the island in the morning, and went to Mr. Frazier ,s. As we intended to take horses, and it taking some time to find them, I went up to the mouth of the Youghiogheny to visit Queen Aliquippa. I made her a present of a watch, coat and a bottle of rum, the later of which she thought the better present of the two." Washington met the French officers and secretly learned their intentions and designs, and returned to Virginia with a store AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 65 of information that was very valuable to the colonists. The publication of Washington,s journal aroused the colonists to an appreciation of the fact that if they were to secure hold on the Western country, they must be about it. Governor Dinwiddie wrote to the Board of Trade that the French were building a fort at Venango, Pa., and that in March 1,200 or 1,500 troops would be ready to descend the river with their Indian allies. Governor Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, brought the matter before the legislature, but that body did nothing. New York appropriated £5,000 to help Virginia out. The latter colony was alive. The assembly voted £10,000, and six companies of volunteers were raised, Col. Joshua Fry appointed colonel, and Washington lieutenant-colonel. Two five-gun batteries were sent forward, thirty guns, and eighty barrels of gunpowder, had been forwarded from England, and every preparation made for an active campaign. Capt. William Trent had pushed ahead with one company to prepare the road through the wilderness and construct a fort at the forks of the Ohio. Ensign Ward had been sent ahead with men and tools for this purpose, and on the 6th of January, 1754, met Washington and Gist returning from their French expedition. Ward had a force of forty men, and work was proceeding slowly on the fort, when on April 16th, a strong force of French and Indians appeared before the unfinished structure. They had sixty batteaux and three hundred canoes, with a formidable train of artillery. Ward was summoned to surrender, and as resistance was futile he submitted, on condition that he be allowed to go back home with sufficient supplies to carry him out of the wilderness. This was granted, and Ward went up the Monongahela to meet Washington. This is considered the beginning of the French and Indian War, which for six years bathed the frontiers in blood and ended with the extinction of the French power east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio. Colonel Washington left Alexandria on April 2nd with two companies and reached Wills Creek, where Cumberland now stands, on the 17th. Had he been earlier he could not have changed the result on the Ohio, as the French had a thousand men and would have annihilated his command. As he was preparing to resume his march, he learned of the affair at the Forks, and, on consultation with his officers, it was decided to send back to Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland for reinforcements. Another company having joined him, he advanced with his small force towards the mouth of Redstone and sat down to wait for further help. He reached Little Meadows on May 9th, where he learned that the captured fort, which had been strengthened and named Fort Duquesne by the French, had been reinforced by 800 men. He moved on to the Youghiogheny, reaching there on May 18, and six or eight days later received a message from Half King that the French were moving to attack him. As his force was totally inadequate to meet the enemy in the open field, he selected a favorable spot, known as Great Meadows, where he cleared away the underbrush and threw up a temporary fortification which he is said to have called a charming field for an encounter. From Mr. Gist and some friendly Indians Washington learned that an advance force of about fifty Frenchmen were within a few miles of his encampment. He determined to lose no time waiting for the others to come up. Capt. Adam Stephens had been detached with seventy-five men to watch them, and Washington, with a party of about forty, started out before daylight on the morning of the 28th, and about dawn the foes discovered each other. The French seized their arms and Washington opened fire. In the conflict, the French commander, M. Jumonville, was slain, with ten of his men, and twenty-two were captured. Washington had one killed and three wounded. Thus ended Washington's first battle. When intelligence of this affair reached Contrecoeur at Fort Duquesne, he prepared to move in force on Washington’s 66 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY little army. The latter were not idle. Expresses were sent back for reinforcements and artillery, and the fortifications were strengthened. Gist was sent back to have Pennsylvanians bring up the artillery, but he was unsuccessful. On June 10th he was joined by Captain Mackay with a company of South Carolina troops, whom he placed in command of the fort, and with his Virginia troops, the swivels, a few wagons and stores, he started for Redstone. It is seen how the brunt of this expedition fell upon the Virginia troops ; if they had been properly supported by the other colonies, subsequent history would have been different, Washington would have been victorious, and there would have been no Braddock disaster. For the time being, French concentration was to win against Anglo-Saxon disintegration. But we are anticipating. While cutting the road to Redstone, under Gist's superintendence, Washington kept his scouts well forward and knew what was going on among the enemy. He learned that on June 28th, a French and Indian force aggregating eight hundred to one thousand men had left Fort Duquesne, under command of M. Coulon de Villiers, half brother of Jumonville, bent on exterminating their foes. They proceeded up the Monongahela in large canoes, reaching the mouth of Redstone a few miles above Pittsburgh, where they encamped. Washington called a council of war, in which it was decided to fall back on Great Meadows, and, if possible, retreat over the mountains. On arriving there they concluded that would be impossible, so they decided to remain. Villiers supposed Washington was retreating homeward and was about to return to Fort Duquesne, when he was apprised by a deserter of the conditions at Great Meadows. He put the traitor under guard, with promise of reward or death as his story should prove true or false, and pushed ahead. On July 3d the enemy appeared, and opened fire on the fort at range. Washington formed his men outside in hope of drawing his foes from the woods, but this not succeeding he withdrew into the fort. The defenders had only a few worn-out horses and provisions for four or five days. Surrounded by a numerous enemy, it was only a question of time when they must surrender at discretion. It was a rainy day, but desultory firing was kept up, with little effect. In the evening, the French asked for a parley, but Washington fearing some trick, declined, when the request was repeated with a guarantee of safety for the messenger. Captain Van Braam was sent three times before the French offered terms acceptable to Washington, who was already exhibiting his qualities as a strategist. Finally, by agreement, the garrison marched out of the fort with the honors of war, taking all they possessed except artillery, and started for home. It was not a very promising Fourth of July, but nobody then suspected the future significance of that date. It is said that Indians attacked the colonists on the homeward route and plundered their baggage, whereupon Washington ordered everything to be destroyed except what the men carried on their backs. The French destroyed Fort Necessity, as Washington's intrenchments were called, and went back to Fort Duquesne, burning Gist's home and, as de Villiers said, "destroyed all the settlements they found." Gist returned with Washington. .He was one of the most noted pioneers of that day, being a native of England and studying for the Anglican priesthood, but becoming a surveyor, a settler, and what we would call a promoter. He died in the South, about 1770. The events just related brought matters to a crisis, and although war had not been formally declared between France and England, the British government decided to take a hand. On February 20, 1755, Edward Braddock, an English 'officer, with two regiments, not a very large force to subdue even a savage empire, landed in Chesapeake Bay. He had been appointed commander-in-chief of all the British forces in America, colonial and otherwise, and at his request a conference of colonial AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 67 governors was held at Alexandria, Va., at which were planned three separate expeditions against the French. It looked as though the much needed concentration of British strength was at last to be accomplished. He took personal charge of the expedition to Fort Duquesne, and the mournful details of that disastrous venture are too well known to need repetition here. They are familiar to every schoolboy. Braddock was a brave soldier, and in a different field might have made a different reputation. But he had a contempt for his provincial associates and still more for his foe. He would listen to no suggestions from Washington, who was his aide, and in command of the provincials, and considered the practice of sheltering behind trees, as practiced by whites as well as Indians in frontier warfare, as simple cowardice. He is said to have been shot by one of his own soldiers, having with his sword cut down a provincial who was behind a tree, and not until then were the remnant able to take any steps towards saving themselves. On the night of that mournful July 9th, Washington gathered up the scattered fragments of the little army, and conducted its retreat in such good order that he was not followed. The body of Braddock was taken along, and on the 15th it was buried by torchlight, Washington reading the burial office. Although one or two local expeditions checked the ravages of the savages, yet Braddock's defeat left the French in complete possession of the Ohio Valley, which, however, they were only to hold for a little over three years longer. William Pitt became prime minister of Great Britain in 1757, and his vigor and ability soon made themselves manifest in American affairs. Early in 1758 an English fleet of one hundred and fifty sail with 12,000 troops arrived, and with 20,000 men furnished by the colonies, and the forces already in the country, there was an aggregate of 50,000 men, the largest army yet seen in the New World. Three simultaneous expeditions were planned, one against Louisburg, on the island of Cape Breton, another against Ticonderoga and Crown Point in New York, and a third against Fort Duquesne. The first expedition captured Louisburg, the second was repulsed, but subsequently captured Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario where Kingston now stands, and General Forbes started from Philadelphia for Fort Duquesne, being joined en route by Washington with six Virginia regiments, making a force of 7,000 men. They left Carlisle in July, but roads had to be cut across the mountains, and progress was slow. Major Grant, who, with a small force, pushed ahead of the main army, met with a misfortune almost equal to that of Braddock, but fortunately there were reserves behind, as was not the case with Braddock's expedition. The main army moved steadily forward, and as it approached Fort Duquesne Indian runners reported that "they were as numerous as the trees in the woods." This so frightened the French that they burned the fort, including their magazines and barracks, and took to their boats, " some up the Allegheny and some down the Ohio. Washington took charge of the abandoned and destroyed fort on November 25, 1758, and proceeded to reconstruct it under the name of Fort Pitt, England's new premier, who in a single year had reversed the entire situation. A portion of the retreating French halted at Venango until the summer of 1759, when the fall of Niagara made their position untenable, and they left the valley forever. The Anglo- Saxon had come this time to stay. The following year General Moncton made a treaty with the Indians at Fort Pitt,' obtaining their consent to build military posts in the wilderness. Quebec had already fallen, and the capture of Montreal in 1761, and the treaty of Paris in 1763, ended forever the dream of a great French empire in America. It may be worth while to make a diversion here from the general history of this section to note what may be termed the first recorded incident in Jefferson County, 68 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY certainly the first in which a white person was the leading figure. In the spring of 1755, during an Indian raid in eastern Pennsylvania a family named Jemison residing on Marsh Creek near Philadelphia had their home destroyed and the entire family were captured. The father and mother, with other relatives, were massacred by the redskins, but their daughter Mary was car to Fort Duquesne, where she was given to Seneca squaws. She was thirteen years ge at this time. The next day they started in a canoe down the river for their home at Mingo town. It will be remembered that Celoron does not mention Mingo in his journey down the Ohio in 1749, so the presumption is that the place was occupied by the Indians some time between that date and 1755, although this is not conclusive. She gives the following account of her journey down the Ohio : "On the way we passed a Shawnee town, where I saw a number of heads, arms, legs and other fragments of the bodies of some white people who had just been burned. The parts that remained were hanging on a pole, which was supported at each end by a crotch stuck in the ground, and were roasted as black as a coal. The fire was yet burning, and the whole appearance afforded a spectacle so shocking that even to this day (1824) the blood almost curdles in my veins when I think of it. At night we arrived at a small Seneca Indian town at the mouth of a small river, which was called by the Indians Shenanje (Cross Creek) about eighty miles from the fort, where the two squaws to whom I belonged, resided; there we landed. Having made fast to the shore the squaws left me in their canoe while they went to their wigwam in the town and returned with a suit of Indian clothing, all new and very clean and nice. My clothes, though whole and good when I was taken were now torn in pieces, so that I was almost naked. They first undressed 'ire and threw my rags into the river, then washed me clean and dressed me in the new suit they had just brought, in complete Indian style, and then led me home and seated me in the center of their wigwam. I had been in that situation but a few minutes before all the squaws in the town came in to see me. I was soon surrounded by them and they immediately set up a most dismal howling, crying bitterly and wringing their hands in all the agonies of grief for a deceased relative. Their tears flowed freely, and they exhibited all the signs of real mourning. At the commencement of this scene one of their number began in a voice somewhat between speaking and singing to recite some words." These were words of mourning for a brother who had been killed in Washington's campaign of 1754 and acceptance of the girl as a sister in his place. Mary Jemison was now formally adopted into the tribe. She was given the name of De-hewamis, or "pretty girl," and lived with the Senecas at Mingo until after the capture of Fort Duquesne by the English. Fort Pitt was visited by her, and she relates her jog at again seeing her own people, but there appears to have been no desire to return to civilization. After living at Mingo for several years, probably until after the massacre of Logan's family in 1774, when Mingo town was deserted by the Senecas, she went with her companions to the Scioto country, and finally, having married an Indian chief, removed to Genesee County, New York, the original home of the tribe, where she lived to be a very old woman. She could have returned to her people after Bouquet's march, but learning that she was to be given up to the whites in accordance with the treaty, escaped into the wilderness with her half-breed children and remained hidden until the search was over. The. Six Nations gave her a large tract of land known as the Garden Tract, which proceeding was afterwards confirmed by the state of New York. In 1824 she related her experiences to a visitor, who made notes of her story, which was afterwards published in book form. As has been observed, although the French never became very good friends with the Iroquois, yet this very fact tended to give them a better standing with the other tribes, who began to depend on them for supplies and ammunition with which to fight their enemies, both white and red. They were also more politic in their dealings with the children of the forest than the English, affiliated with them, constantly gave them presents, catered to their desires, and were in every way more politic than their Anglo-Saxon brethren. The latter as a rule despised the red men, some of whom were proud and as quick to resent an insult as a white Berson. The traders for the most part were a brutal, unscrupulous lot, who lost no opportunity to cheat an Indian, outrage his family,, or AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 69 even kill him in case of necessity. But above all, the great difference was in the character of the settlements and the number of their inhabitants. As has been said, the French sovereignty was largely a loose chain of military posts scattered over an immense territory, with comparatively few regular colonists, probably not over 100,000 all told. Their encroachment on the Indian lands was so trifling as to attract little or no attention. But the Atlantic Coast, from Massachusetts to Georgia inclusive, was now occupied by what was then considered the large population of over a million people. And those people were not content to remain in statu quo. Shiploads were constantly arriving from Europe, and the stream so long kept back by the Appalachian Mountains was beginning to overflow in a steady, resistless torrent. Already the Ohio River was claimed to be the eastern boundary of the Indian country, and as the advantages of the Western wilderness became apparent there was a scarcely concealed determination to go on and possess the whole land. The Indians could not fail to observe this, and when the help of their French allies was withdrawn there was added to their natural hatred of the English the conviction, amounting almost to terror, that if they could not stop this torrent their fate must be the loss of all their homes, if not extermination. So the final termination of the long French War, instead of bringing peace to the Indian country, rather intensified the situation, and when its occupants learned that the King of France had ceded all their lands to the English, without even consulting them, their rage and terror was almost boundless. It is said that great crises always produce great leaders, and Indian history does not seem to prove any exception to the rule. Pontiac, the chief of the Ottawas, is credited with being the author of the most complete and comprehensive combination of American Indians ever attempted, and his plans were worthy of a Caesar or Napoleon. Before the close of 1762 he was sending messengers to the various tribes urging them to unite in one grand effort to drive out the English, the plan being to attack every post in the Western country simultaneously and destroy each, with its occupants, before outside help could arrive. Early in 1763 the conspiracy materialized, Pontiac taking Detroit as his special work. On April 27 he gathered his warriors at the little river Ecorces, a few miles below the fort, and disclosed his plans. A few chiefs were to obtain admittance to the fort by stratagem, seek an audience with the commander, Major Henry Gladwin, and at a signal draw their tomahawks, rush for the officers, and strike them down, while the forces outside, variously estimated at 600 to 2,000, were to rush in and overpower the little garrison of 160 men. The scheme failed, it is said, by the disclosure of a squaw, and Pontiac sat down to a regular siege, of a length unparalleled in Indian warfare, lasting from May 1 to November 1. Appeals for help were sent eastward, and the first expedition for relief was attacked near the mouth of the Detroit River, beaten and scattered. A second expedition reached the fort, but in a sortie on July 31st the English were driven back with terrible slaughter. Another expedition was overwhelmed in a lake storm and seventy soldiers drowned. Of course, the surrounding country was ravaged, and requisitions were made on Canadian farmers for provisions for which Pontiac gave promises to pay drawn on birch bark and signed with the figure of an otter, his totem, which primitive obligations were redeemed. Pontiac is said to have had a commissary and most of the machinery of a regular army. Indian persistence, however, began to wane. Towards the latter part of the summer the tribes began to drop off, and by the middle of October only Pontiac's own tribe, the Ottawas, remained. So, the last of the month, he sullenly raised the siege and retired to the Miami country, where he endeavored without success to stir up the tribes to a renewal of the war. But although the siege of Detroit was 70 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY a failure, marked success had resulted elsewhere. St. Joseph, near the southern end of Lake Michigan, Michillimackinac, at the head of the Peninsula and commanding the straits of that name ; Ouiatenon, on the Wabash; Miami, on the present site of Fort Wayne, Ind. ; Presque Isle, the present site of Erie, Pa. ; Le Boeuf, near the head of the Allegheny River ; Venango, farther south, all fell into the hands of the savages. Fort Niagara, on the east bank of the river of that name, proved too strong for assault, and the attack there was soon abandoned. Ligonier, a small post forty miles southeast of Fort Pitt, was attacked, but held out until relieved by Colonel Bouquet. On May 27th the Indians appeared before Fort Pitt, now considered the Gibraltar of the West. On June 22d they opened fire, "upon every side at once," to which the garrison vigorously replied, shells from the howitzers bursting in the midst of the savages, greatly astounding and confusing them. However, they kept up the contest by every means known to savage warfare. They dug holes in the banks of the rivers for shelter with their knives, and from then on kept up a constant fire on the garrison. A modern army, with knowledge of rifle pits, could have done no better. In the meantime, reinforcements were coming from the East, where the full extent of the border calamities were not yet known. Colonel Bouquet, of the British army, was ordered west, and reached Carlisle, Pa., in June, where he learned of some of the disasters. He forged ahead with five hundred regulars, and relieved Ligonier. On August 5 the army reached Bushy Run, a small stream twenty-five miles from Fort Pitt, where he was fiercely attacked by Indians. By a stratagem the next day he drew the savages into an ambuscade and defeated them badly, although he lost about one hundred and fifty men, nearly one-third of his force. He pushed on to Fort Pitt, which he entered on August 25th, the Indians having given up the siege. Pontiac's grand scheme had not succeeded, but came perilously near it, so far at least as temporary success was concerned. Detroit, Niagara and Pitt remained as oases hundreds of miles apart, while the whole border was exposed to savage raids. Hundreds of settlers flocked to the forts and protected posts, and far into the interior of Pennsylvania the skies were red with the flames of burning cabins, and the ground soaked with the blood of massacred inhabitants. Some of the frontiersmen are said to have continued their flight as far as Philadelphia, but this is probably an exaggeration. The winter of 1763 Was a terrible .one, but in the spring preparations were inaugurated for two strong expeditions into the Indian country to bring the savages to terms. Col. John Bradstreet organized the first at Fort Niagara, and left there in July, 1764, with a force of over one thousand soldiers. As he coasted along the shores of Lae. Erie he made treaties with the several Indian tribes, who were awed at least into a pretense of desiring peace. He reached Dertoit on August 25th, to the great joy of the garrison, which had been isolated for more than a year, and made preparations to retake the posts in the West and Northwest. Colonel Bouquet, in charge of the second expedition, was not ready to leave Fort Pitt until October 3d, when, with a force of one thousand five hundred men, he marched 1into the Ohio country, cutting a highway as he proceeded. Utmost precautions were taken to guard against surprise, and Colonel Bouquet's journal of the march is most interesting. His course was via Logstown, Big and Little Beaver, and thence across the state to the Muskingum. He met numerous Indian delegations on the upper Muskingum, now the Tuscarawas, who made all sorts of excuses for their late treachery, charging it up to the rashness of their young men and the nations living west of them, to which he gave rather indifferent replies. The final gathering was held on the Muskingum near the confluence AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 71 of the Tuscarawas and Walhonding Rivers. Bouquet was in a position here to overawe the tribes and destroy their villages, as he was directly in the center of their country, a fact which they fully realized. He built four temporary redoubts, erected a storehouse and other buildings, so the place presented the appearance of a little town. Here he talked boldly to the Indians, and besides making a treaty of peace demanded the return of all white captives in their hands. This was a slow process, as the captives were scattered all over the country, their possessors did not want to give them up, and the captives themselves, in many cases, were unwilling to return. It was the 18th of November before the work was finally concluded, and two hundred and six men, women and children delivered over to Colonel Bouquet, who on that day started on his return to Fort Pitt, traveling up the Tuscarawas to the site of the present town of Bolivar, thence via Sandy Valley to Yellow Creek, down that stream and up the Ohio to Fort Pitt, where the force arrived on November 28. The only loss in this remarkable expedition was one soldier, killed on the Muskingum. Troops were stationed to guard the lines of communication, and the frontier had a breathing spell. The fruits of Pontiac's victories were all undone, and Pontiac, sullen and revengeful, retired to the Illinois country, where he tried to raise a new outbreak, but his charm was broken. He took to drink, and was assassinated by a Kaskaskia Indian, who buried his tomahawk in his brain. It is said that the murderer was bribed to do the deed by a British officer, the consideration being a barrel of liquor. Pontiac living was harmless, but his death infuriated some of the Western tribes, who carried on a relentless war against the Illinois Indians and, as Parkman says, "Over the grave of Pontiac more blood was poured out in atonement than flowed from the veins of the slaughtered heroes on the corpse of Patroclus." Pontiac was buried on the west side of the Mississippi, near Fort St. Louis. No monument marks his grave. He was a great man and a hero, though a savage.