Historical collections of Coshocton County, Ohio

Preface

The tastes of the preparer of this volume disposed him to undertake it; a residence in Coshocton of twenty years, and peculiar relations and associations of favorable sort, gave him, as friends claimed, at least a certain fitness to do it ; and the Centennial year seemed to be the proper occasion. Amid illhealth and other hindrances wholly unanticipated when the work was begun, the book has been written. If it does not meet all expectations, it is hoped it will not disappoint any reasonable ones. It could scarcely be expected that a work of the sort should be entirely free from errors, but great care has been taken to make it at least correct as far as it goes. Of course, in the line of personal history, regard must be had to the limits and scope of the work. It only purj)ort8 to be a panorama — not a series of finished portraits, with every shadow and light. Mere mention of every person and thing not amiss in such a volume would indefinitely extend it and add to cost. To those who have kindly assisted in its preparation, I shall ever feel grateful ; and I can confidently say that if there had been on the part of some others such help as those kind friends rendered, and as a little public spirit, local fame and denominational interest might well prompt, the book would be a better one. As it is, I respectfully submit it as at least an honest endeavor to put in convenient and permanent form something of the record of a locality of classic (American) interest, and to trace the steps whereby we have reached our

present position as a county.

WM. E. HUNT, (iii)

CORKECn'IONS AND ADDITIONS.

Page 7, read capital for capitol.

" 17, county foi' country.

- 80, Ilesket for Herkett. '* 85, Micajah for Michael.

" 41, Weatherwax for Weatherwut.

" 42, Ireland for Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio. '' 59, through for though, and insert in third paragraph after railroads, ''have been projected."

- 79, strike out statement that C. 0. Leonard was

in partnership with J. D. Nicholas.

"'■ 81, read James tor Jones ^

" 99, Assignee's for Sheriff's.

'^ 104, McNary for McNarry.

" 105, read E. T. Dudley.

" 108, Brelsford for Bretsford.

'' 114, Joseph for Isaac.

" 128, William K. for Wm. N.

" 138, Thompson for Thomas.

'' 240, found for founded.

" 261, in notice of Charles S. Barnes, wheiu^e tor when.

To list of earliest settlers in Perry township, add Joseph Mills, coming in 1828, and dying in his 87th year, in 1876; and the father of J. S. McVey. of W&U honding. Urns; resident in the township. - To the listOt Jefferson township, add Henry Metham, father (.f Col. Pren Metham, settling in 1814

To the list of families on page 80, add the M illiaras

family. , , ,

To list of I'hysicians on page 118, add J. K. Gamble, of New Castle, removing from county in 1876.

Chapter I. Pages

Territorial Limits and Subdivisions of the County — Date of Organization of County — Names and Date of Organization of Townships, Villages, etc... 1-5

Chapter II

Indian Occupancy, and Early Military Expeditions — The Pre- Historic Race — The French Rule — The Delawares — Their Towns in Coshocton County — Netawatwees, or King Newcomer — Killbuck, White Eyes, etc., etc. — Boquet's Expedition — The Coshocton Camjjaign — The Revolutionary War — The Character of Indians, and subsequent whereabouts 6-15

Chapter XIX

Miscellaneous Matters — 1. The Pre-IIistoric Race. 2. Ancient Burial Grounds. 3. Meaning of the names Muskingum, Tuscarawas, and Walhonding. 4. Prose Legend of the Walhonding. 5. Heckwelder's Famous Ride. 6. Temperance Crusade among the Indians. 7. The Gnadenhutten Massacre. 8. Curious Stories Touching Captives Reclaimed by Boquet. 9. Description of the Hunting-Shirt. 10. The Houses and Furniture of the Pioneers in Coshocton County. 11. Louis Philippe at Coshocton. 12. How to Raise a Large Family. 13. Indian Stories. 14. Backwoods Sports 159-177

Chapter XX

Miscellaneous Matters — 1. The Killing of Cartmill, the Post Boy. 2. Shocking Murders in Coshocton County. 3. Col-

Contents. vii ored People in Coshocton County. 4. Fires in Roscoe — An Incident and a Joke. 5. A Bundle of First Things. 6. Relics and Curiosities in Personal Possession. 7. Coshocton Wags in Early Days. 8. The Treasury Robbery. 9. Humors of the Crusade 178-191

CHAPTER XXI. The Churches — General Statements — Detailed Accounts of

the Baptist,JChristian, Catholic, and Lutheran Churches 192-204

Chapter XXII

The Churches — Detailed Accounts of the Methodist Episcoj^al, Methodist (Protestant), Presbyterian, United Presbyterian, Protestant Episcopal, Christian Union Churches, etc 205-2.31

Chapter XXIII

Brief Biographical Sketches — Charles Williams. Thomas L. Rue. James Renfrew. Abraham Sells. Dr. Samuel Lee.-

. James Robinson. Thomas Darling. Benjamin Ricketts. John Carhart. James Le Retilley. Thomas Johnson. Joseph Burns. John Burns. John Johnson. Wm. K. Johnson. Robert Hay. John Elliott. Taliaffero Vickers. Wm. Brown. Alexander Renfrew. Eli Nichols. Nathaniel Conklin. G. W. Silliman. Robert M. Lamb. David Spangler. Peter Humrickhouse. Arnold Medberry. Matthew Scott. John Lockard. Sharon Williams. Isaac Darling. Matthew Trimble. William Pancake. Reuben Whittaker. James W. Pigman. Samuel Brillhart. Matthew Ferguson. John C. Tidball. Joseph B. Crowley. Clark Johns. C. C. Nichols. Wm. B. Glover. Joel Clark Glover. Thomas Carroll, Jr. Robert S. McCormick. Asa G. Dimmock. M. C. McFarland. Samuel Ketchum. Samuel Morrison. John Morgan. Charles S. Barnes. Wm. Henderson. Geo. Darling. Samuel Squire. Nicholas Bassett. W. H. Vickers. Thompson Carnahan 232-264

\Many scores of skefehes, scarcely less hrief than many of these, will be found in other parts of this worJ:.^

HISTORICAL COLLECTION^

COSHOCTON COUNTY

Chapter I

TERRITORIAT. LIMITS AXD STBDIVISIi VS OF THE COUNTRY.

The territory embraced in what is now the State of Ohio (and even a large territory adjacent *) was at one time divided into only three counties — viz.: Washington, Hamilton, and Wayne. The boundaries of Washington county, as constituted in 1788, were as follows : " Beginning on the bank of the Ohio river, where the western boundary line of Pennsylvania crosses it, and running with that line to Lake En 3 ; thence aloTig the southern shore of said lake to the mouth of the Cuyahoga river ; thence up said river to the portage between it and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum river ; thence down that branch to the forks at the crossing above Fort Laurens (near the present town of Bolivar) ; thence with a line to be drawn westerly to the portage of that branch of the Big Miami on which the fort stood that was taken by the French in 1752, until it meets the road from the Lower Shawneetown to Sandusky ; thence south to the Scioto river ; thence with that river to its mouth, and thence up the Ohio river to the place of beginning."

Out of this territory nearl}^ thirty counties as they now exist have been erected. The northern central part of Washington county was, in 1804, erected into Muskingum

* Including parts of what are now the States of Indiana and Illinois, and most of Michigan and Wisconsin.

2 Historical Collections of Coshocton Cotmty.

county, and in 1811, by the Legislature then in session at Zanesville, the northern part of Muskingum county was set off under the name of Coshocton * county ; Guernsey, Tuscarawa^, Knox, and Licking having all been previously organized. As originally constituted, Coshocton county embraced a considerable part of what is now Holmes, extending to the Greenville treaty line, six miles north of Millersburg; but that county having been organized in 1824, the limits of Coshocton county were iixed as they now are. Prior to the adoption of the present State Constitution, in 1851, there was considerable agitation about a new county to be formed out of parts of Guernsey, Tuscarawas, and Coshocton, with New Comerstown as the county-seat. There was also a movement contemplating a county, with Walhonding as the county-seat. But that instrument rendered such movements hopeless. The territory embraced in Coshocton county is part of that designated as L'nited States Military Land District — so called from the fact that Congress, in 1798, appropriated it to satisfy certain claims of the officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary "War. These lands were surveyed into townships five miles square, and these again into quart^ townships, containing four thousand acres, and subsequently some of these into forty lots, of one hundred acres each, for the accommodation of soldiers or others holding warrants for that number of acres. What land was not required for the satisfaction of the military warrants was subsequently sold by act of Congress, under the designation of Congress land. Twenty-two and a fraction of these original townships were embraced within the limits of Coshocton county as finally fixed in 1824. Owing to the inconvenience arising from the intermediate rivers, part of Tuscarawas township was attached to the one west of it.f As the population of the

* The name is unquestionably a modification of the name of the old Indian town at the forks of the Muskingum — Goschachgunk — as somewhat variously spelled according to sound by the old chroniclers in different languages. Ditierent and quite contradictory definitions of the name have been given.

t After the Ohio canal was made, and before the bridges were built.

Territorial Limits and Subdivisions. 3

townships warranted, they were named (having been previously designated as yet in all conveyances by numbers), and elections for justices of the peace and other ofiicers ordered by the county authorities.

The townships first organized were Tuscarawas, Washington, JN'ew Castle, and Franklin, in 1811. The territory adjacent embraced in originally surve3'ed townships was connected with these for purposes of government and taxation, and afterward set off and organized as population might require. Oxford was thus set off in the fall of 1811, and Linton in 1812. Perry township was organized in 1817; the election for officers was appointed to be held in April, at the house of Elias James. Mill Creek was organized in July of the same year, and the election held at the house of John P. Wilson. Pike was organized in August, 1818, the election being at the house of James Bryan. The next township organized was White Eyes, in 1823 ; then followed Tiverton and Monroe and Keene the next year. Bedford was organized in 1825, and Bethlehem and Jefferson in 1826; Crawford, Virginia, and Jackson in 1828, and Clark in 1829. Adams township was organized in 1832, and Lafayette (the last) in 1835.

There are in the county at this writing one incorporated village — Coshocton — and the following other villages, viz.: Roscoe, Warsaw, West Carlisle, West Bedford, Jacobsport, New Castle, Walhonding, East Union, Keene, New Bedford, Bakersville, Chili, Canal Lewisville, Spring Mountain, New Princeton, West Lafayette, Linton Mills, Mohawk Village, Plainfield, Evansburg, Orange, Bloomfield, Moscow, and Avondale.

Coshocton was laid out in 1802, by Ebenezer Buckingham and John Matthews, who called it Tuscaraw^as. In 1811 it became the county seat, and its name was changed to Coshocton. At that time a number of blocks of town lots at the southern end were vacated and laid out into what were designated as south out-lots, answering to those called east out-lots, being east of the present Fifth street. The to"wn plat embraced a territory about three-quarters of a mile square. The first addition to the town plat was

4 Historical Collections of Coshocton Co7inty.

Lamb's — a strip of several subdivided acres on the northeast, in 1837. For more than thirty years there was no further addition. Then, just east of Lamb's, Dr. S. 11. Lee's addition was made. In 1869, the corporation limits were extended so as to include these additions; also the ground of the Agricultural Society, still further east, subdivided at a later day, and that included in John Burt's subdivision and Rickett's subdivision, together with adjoining tracts, making the village plat embrace territory a mile and a half square. The iirst subdivision was the " county commissioners'." The original proprietors of the tow^n donated the square south of the present public square to " the public ;'' but when the town was made a county seat, on petition of the proprietors, and subject to the approval of the lot-holders of the town, the Legislature authorized the county commissioners to subdivide that square and sell the lots, and use the proceeds for the erection of public buildings.'^ The next subdivision was De La Mater's ; and the principal ones of later date are James M. Burt's, Williams', John Burt's, Spangler's, Johnson's, Triplett's, Agricultural Society's, Steel Works, and Riekett's.

In 1808, a town called New Castle was laid out by Robert Giffin, but does not seem to have come to much. In 1830, John Clark laid out one called West Liberty ; and the new town and the old name became one some time thereafter. In 1816, James Calder laid out Caldersburg. After the Ohio canal was built, Ransom and Swayne made an addition on the north, and the town thus extended was called Moscoe, after a then famous English author, Wm. Roscoe.

Thomas Johnson laid out the town of Plainjield in 1816.

*The ownership of the public square has been much discussed. Originally it was given to " the public." It was never given to the town nor formally to the county, but impliedly in ISll to the latter. The commissioners have controlled it from that time on. They authorized certain citizens of the town to build a school house on the square; they also leased a piece of it to the Presbyterians, and proposed to lease another piece to the Methodists.

Territorial Limits and Subdivisions.

It has been of late supplanted by tlie adjoining village of Jacobsport, laid out by Jacob Waggoner in 1836i

West Bedford was laid ont, in 1817, by Micajah Heaton. Keene was laid ont, in 1820, by James Beal ; Farwell's addition being made in 1839.

Wm. Brown and Wm. Henderson laid out West Carlisle in 1821, and John Gonser, New Bedford, in 1825. Evansburg was laid out, in 1830, by Isaac Evans ; Canal Lewisville, in 1832, by Solomon Vail and T. Butler Lewis ; Warsaiv, in 1834, by Wm. Carhart — additions since by Eldridge and jN". Buckalew ; Chili, in 1834, by John and Samuel Fernsler; Walhonding, in 1841, by Wm. K. Johnson, G. W. Silliman, and T. S. Ilumrickhouse ; Bakersville, in 1848, by John Baker; West Lafayette, in 1850, by Robert Shaw and Wm. Wheeler — Rue's and Ketchum's and James M. Burt's additions made since; and 31ohawk Village, in 1859, by James and William Thompson.

The old-time chronicles tell of Lima, ISTewport, Maysville, Birmingham, Zeno, Providence, ISTew Princeton, Cavallo, and Rochester; but these, and even others, never got beyond the infantile condition, and some of them are now entirely undiscernable by the eye.

Historical Collections of Coshocton County.

Chapter II. Indian Occupancy, And Early Military Expeditions

When the English-speaking white man first came into the territory now embraced in Coshocton county, it was in the occupancy of the Delaware Indians. It is quite certain that just before them the Shawnee Indians were in the land, retiring, as the Delawares came in, to the more westerly and southerly regions. The French were then claiming dominion of all the Mississippi Valley, and the head of the Muskingum, as an interesting and favored localit}', was not unknown to their soldiers, traders, and missionaries. Some have been pleased, without any very clear evidence, to believe that the famous French explorer La Salle, more than two hundred years ago, traversed these valleys.

Indefinitely before that period was the pre-historic race, who have left their traces in numerous mounds and circles and grave-yards, proving their number and power, and perplexing the men of subsequent times, concerning which things some statements and speculations will be found in another part of this volume.

The Delawares, crowded out by the white settlers about the Delaware river and in Eastern Pennsylvania — their Indian name means "People from the Sunrise" — found a homo to their taste in the beautiful and fertile Tuscarawas, Walhonding, and Muskingum valleys.

Their language at least will abide in the land as long as the names just mentioned, and also those of White Eyes, Mohican, and Killbuck continue to be accepted as the designations of the rivers and creeks to which they are now attached. Within the limits of the county as now bounded, there were, a hundred years ago, at least live considerable Indian towns, the houses being built of bark and limbs and logs, and arranged in lines or on streets. One of these

Early Military Expeditions.

towns was called White Eyes (Kognethagachton) town, in the neighborhood of Lafayette. Two other towns were located — one three and the other ten miles up the Walhonding — and were called the Monsey towns, the more distant being occupied b}- a faction of the Delawares under control of Captain Pipe, who became disgusted with the generally peaceful and Christian policy of the nation, and seceded from it, desiring more indulgence for their base and bloody passions. The lower town was Wengimunds'.* The fourth town was Goschachgiink, occupying that part of the presenf town of Coshocton (a name said to be a modification of the name of the old Indian town) between Third street and the river. This was much the largest town, and for many years was the capitol of the Delaware nation, where the grand councils were held and whither the tribes assembled. It was the residence of Netawatwees, their great chief, and was often visited by the famous councilors, White Ej^es and Killbuck (Gelelemend), as well as the big captains and braves of numerous tribes. The fifth town was situated about two miles below Coshocton on the east side of the Muskingum river (on the farms now in the possession of Samuel Moore and the Tingle heirs), and was called Lichtenau ("Pasture of Light"). It was occupied by Christian Indians under the direction of Rev. David Zeisberger (and afterward Pev. Wm. Edwards in conjunction with him), the famous Moravian missionary.

At the request of Netawatwees, Killbuck, and White Eyes, the town was established in close proximity to the capitol (which afterward was sometimes distinguished as "the heathen town "), in hope of its Christian influence thereupon. On the 12th of April, 1776, Zeisberger, with John Heckewelder as his assistant, at the head of eight families numbering thirty-five persons, encamped on the site of the future town, and began the next morning the work of felling the trees for the houses. The town grew rapidly ; the mission work prospered greatly ; a grandson

* There was also a small Shawnee town in Washington township on the Wakatoniica.

of old Netawatwees and many of the head men at the capitol were baptised into the Christian faith, and became residents of the town. The place soon fitted the name, " a meadow beautiful by nature, and brightened bj' the light of grace." At one time the Christian Indians from all the Tuscarawas towns were gathered into Lichteuau to escape the evil influences and persecutions to which they were exposed through the machinations of evil-disposed \vhite men, and, even worse, apostate and bloody-minded Indians. They remained for over a year, then returning to the Tuscarawas valley.

The Indian towns about the forks of the Muskingum were the objective points of two famous military expeditions. The first, both in order of time and importance, has been usually designated as " Boquet's Expedition."

The Indians of the Northwest having started on the warpath, General Gage, whose headquarters were at Boston, in the spring of 1764, directed Colonel Boquet to organize a corps of fifteen hundred men, and to enter the countrj' of the Delawares and Shawmees at the same time that General Bradstreet was engaged in chastising the "Wyandots and Ottawas of Lake Erie, who were then infesting Detroit. As a part of Colonel Boquet's force was composed of militia from Pennsylvania and Virginia, it was slow^ to assemble. On the 5th of August, the Pennsylvania quota rendezvoused at Carlisle, where three hundred of them deserted. The Virginia quota arrived at Fort Pitt on the 17th of September, and uniting with the provincial militia — a part of the Forty-second and Sixtieth regiments — the army moved from Fort Pitt on the 3d of October. When Colonel Boquet was at Fort Loudon in Pennsylvania, between Carlisle and Fort Pitt, urging forward the militia-levies, he received a dispatch from General Bradstreet notifying him of the peace eftected at Sandusky. But the Ohio Indians, particularly the Shawnecs of the Scioto river, and some of the Delawares of the Muskingum river, still continued their robberies and murders along the frontiers of Pennsylvania; and so Colonel Boquet determined to proceed with his division, notwithstanding the peace of Gen-

Early Military Expeditions.

era! Bradstreet, which did not include the Shawnees and Delawares. From Fort Pitt, Boquet proceeded westward along the Ohio and Little Beaver and across the highlands to the waters of Yellow creek, then to Sandy creek, and along it to a point near the present village of Bolivar. There he erected a stockade and completed his arrangements. The Indians being convinced that they could not succeed in any attempt against him, made a treaty of peace, engaging to restore all their white prisoners. The expedition then passed down the Tuscarawas on the north side, and encamped on the high ground between the rivers near the Indian town at the forks of the Muskii^gum, and, erecting a stockade, there awaited the arrival of the prisoners. On the 9th of November, two hundred and six captives had been delivered, and on the 18th, the army broke up its cantonment and marched for Fort Pitt, arriving there on the 28th of the same month.

The second expedition is commonly known as the "Coshocton Campaign." It was undertaken in the summer of 1780, and grew out of the deepened feeling of antipathy to the Indians because of some recent depredations and outrages committed upon settlers in Pennsylvania, Western Virginia, and Eastern Ohio. It was also understood that the Delawares, contrary to pledges, were joining the British.

The number of regulars and militia was about eight hundred, under the command of General Broadhead. It marched from Wheeling directly to the Tuscarawas valley. A part of the militia were anxious to go up the river and destroy the Moravian villages, which they regarded as at least shelters and half-way houses for Indian marauders, but they were restrained from executing their project by special exertions of General Broadhead and Colonel Shepherd. They kept on toward Coshocton, and observing some Indian scouts (one of whom was shot) a few miles therefrom, they made a forced march and surprised both Gosch'achgunk and Lichtenau, capturing, without firing a gun, all the Indians then in them. Among those captured in Lichtenau were several Christian Indians from Gnadenlo Histo7'ical Collections of Coshocton County.

hutteu. These were released promptly by the conimaiuler of the expedition, and started in a canoe for their home, but some of the militia followed after and fired at them. Forsaking their canoe, they took to the hills, and all except one, wiio was wounded, reached their home in safet}'. Sixteen of the other prisoners, having been pointed out by Pekilon, a friendly DelaAvare chief who was with the army of Broadhead, were doomed to death by a council of war, and having after dark been taken a little ways from the town, were speedily dispatched with spear and tomahawk and scalped. Having destroyed the towns, the army, at eleven o'clock the next day, set out on its return. The prisoners (twenty odd in number) were under guard of the militia, and, after marching about half a mile, these commenced to use their knives and tomahawks, slaughtering all of them, except a few women and children, who were taken to Fort Pitt and subsequently exchanged for a like number of white ones. Tradition locates the site of this butcher}" near a spring about three-fourths of a mile east of Coshocton, on a tract of land now owned by Mrs. S. H. Collier.* Goschachgunk and Lichtenau were both subsequently rebuilt, to some extent, and became for some years the home of more intense haters of the white race, by reason of the associations of the place. But the towns never

* Among the militia of this expedition was the famous Indian killer, Lewis Wetzel, from Western Virginia. Just before t-he expedition set out on its return, an Indian chief appeared on the ojiposite bank of the river proposing " a talk." He was invited over by General Broadhead, and assured of safety. But while he was talking, Wetzel slipped up behind him, and, drawing a tomahawk which he had concealed in his hunting-shirt, sunk it in the chief s skull, instantly killing him. Legends of Wetzel's shrewdness and courage are abundant, and there is no doubt he was one of the most successful trappers and hunters and Indian fighters of his time. He and his friends had suffered much at the hands of the Indians. He moved, in 1795, to the frontier, on the Mississippi, that he might trap the beaver and hunt the buflfalo and deer, and occasionally shoot an Indian. The exploit (not in some lights very creditable, but showing his intense antipathy to the redskins) above mentioned was his only one jierformed in Coshocton county as reported by his admirers.

Early Military Expeditions. ii

again reached the proportions attained before the " Broadhead Campaign."

Usually, and as to the great mass of them, the Delaware Indians entertained very friendly feelings for the whites. In their old home in Pennsylvania, from the day of Wm. Penn's treaty down, they had received a treatment calculated to produce such feelings, and the influenee of the Moravian missions among them was felt unto the same end. Far more Indian blood than white was shed about the forks of the Muskingum, and there is neither dark and bloody battlefield nor site of sickening family massacre within the limits of the county of Coshocton. The numerous bullets found in after times, in the plowed fields near Coshocton, were doubtless from the volleys fired by the expeditions, or from the rifles of the early settlers, with whom shooting at marks was a grand pastime. At one time seven hundred Indian warriors from the West encamped near the town, many with rifles. Accepting the idea of the poet, that " peace hath her victories as well as war," it may be claimed that one of the grandest of these was won at Goschachgunk, the Delaware capital. When the Revolutionary War broke out, it was a matter of the utmost importance to the colonists to secure at least the neutrality of the Indian tribes, and eftbrts w'ere accordingly made. Two treaties were made at Pittsburg in successive 'years — 1775 and 1776 — binding to neutrality the Delawares, and some of the immediately adjacent nations.

At the opening of 1777, the hatchet sent from Detroit (the British headquarters), was accepted by the Shawnees, Wyandots, and Mingoes. Rumor had it that it was also to be sent to the Delawares, and if they declined it they were to be treated as common enemies, and at once attacked by the British and their Indian allies. The famous chief Cornstalk himself came to Goschachgunk, reporting that despite his eftbrts the Shawnees were for war ; parties were already out, and ammunition was being forwarded for their use from Detroit. Even a portion of the Delawares had been already pledged to take up arras. At this crisis — so threatening to the colonists — a general council of the

Delawares met at the capitol, on tlie 9th of March, 1777. Some of the young warriors appeared with plumes and war paint. After earnest discussion and eloquent speeches, especially from White Eyes, it was resolved to decline the liatchet should it be offered. Three times during that summer, it was tendered and as often declined. Despite the taunts of their own race — against even a faction of their own nation — rejecting bribes and spurning threats, the people stood, month after month, as a mighty wall of protection to the western colonists. Looking to the plainly discernible natural consequences of a different decision in that grand council, it is not without reason that the claim may be n)ade, that one of the grandest victories for the colonists in the American Revolutionary war was won at the Delaware capitol, at the forks of the Muskingum. Subsequently, indeed, by the machinations of renegades like Simon Girty (who was several times at the capitol), and the taunts of tlie tribes, a part of the nation was led to join the British Indians ; but these w^ere too few, and it was too late to do the colonists much harm, especially with the wisest and bravest of the nation committed to peace and friendliness with the Americans. In 1778, the rightful authorities of the nation made a complete treaty of alliance with the commissioners of the United States, therein providing for carrying out a cherished project of White Eyes, that the Delaware nation should be represented in the Colonial Congress, and become, as a Christian Indian state, one of the United States. By the neighboring tribes the Delawares were often tjyinted with being unduly gentle — " women " — and were always remarked upon as having too many captives ; making exertions to secure as such those commonly appointed by other Indians to the tomahawk or stake. On one occasion, as already noticed, at their principal village, there were turned over to Boquet's forces two hundred and six captives, of whom thirty-two men and fifty-eight women and children were from Virginia, and forty-nine men and sixty-eight wouicn and

Early Military Expeditions. 13

children from Pennsylvania. These were not indeed all captured by the Delawares ; but a large proportion was, and others of tliem would doubtless have been butchered but for the influence of the Delawares, who would sometimes arrange with the tribes further south and west for their captives. The legend of the "Walhonding (White Woman), telling how the captive virgin wildly fled from the camp and threw herself from an uprearing and overhanging rock,* into the seething waters of the storm-swollen river, choosing death rather than captivity, is significant of the horrors attending captivity, even among the Delawares. f It is, however, most likely that she was a captive of the Mousey or Wolf tribe of Delawares, who were, perhaps, the worst representatives of the nation. Experience and tastes no doubt differed among the captives. It is said that some of the captives delivered to Boquet were compelled to go with him, and some escaped after the expedition started toward Fort Pitt, and returned to the free forest life. Simon Girty and two brothers were captured when young, and, having been adopted by the Indians, continued in their preference of Indian lifip. Despite all that has been said or may be claimed, it is no doubt true that even among the Delawares the savage nature was frequently displayed, especially when in the bad company of other tribes ; and they were not without much blame at the mouths of the whites, for cruelties upon the hapless settlers, whose settlements to the east and south of them they invaded, and who, individually or in small hunting or scouting parties, might fall into their hands.