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That Dark and Bloody River

Page 116

by Allan Eckert


  54. This meeting was on the site of present Point State Park—familiarly called Golden Triangle Park—within present Pittsburgh, and not at the site of present Aliquippa, 17 miles downstream on the left bank of the Ohio, where some accounts have placed it. It was evidently soon after Céloron’s passage that Aliquippa moved her village to the latter site, possibly because of the periodical flooding that occurred at the “point” where the village was first situated, but more likely to be closer to Logstown.

  55. The reason why no lead plate was buried at this important confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela remains a matter of conjecture. The best guess seems to be that Céloron was anxious to reach Logstown, where he believed the majority of Indians who had been fleeing before him had gathered.

  56. The party of Caughnawagas and Abnakis that abandoned the expedition here returned upstream on the Allegheny, pausing at each place where the territorial ceremony had been performed and ripping down the tin sheets bearing the coat-of-arms of France that had been tacked to trees. Not having the tools to do so, however, they did not unearth and carry away the lead plates.

  57. This was present Wheeling Creek at the site of present Wheeling, W.Va. On what basis de Léry designated it as the Kanououara (pronounced Kan-uh-WAHR-uh) is unknown, though its pronunciation is curiously close to Kanawha. The original spelling of the Indian name was shown in the early documents as Welling. The evolution from Weiling to Wheeling was evidently merely a matter of a phonetic spelling that gradually supplanted the original spelling. To avoid confusion, however, today’s accepted spelling of Wheeling will be used throughout. This is another of the plates that has never been recovered, though local historians at Wheeling believe—despite extensive filling that has occurred over the years—that it is still buried somewhere beneath where the old Baltimore and Ohio Railroad depot stood, not far from the present Civic Center.

  58. This is the site of present Marietta, O. The Céloron party landed and camped where, just over 40 years later, Fort Harmar would be built. Forty-nine years later that plate was discovered (on August 2, 1798) by two boys swimming and playing at the mouth of the Muskingum. Seeing it projecting from an eroded bank above them, they dislodged it with a branch. They took it home and, caring little about the letters engraved on it in a foreign language, began melting it down to make bullets. News of the find reached a local historian, who rushed to their home and rescued what remained of it, though a large portion had already been melted away. It subsequently came into the hands of historian Caleb Atwater who, recognizing its significance, sent it to the Governor of New York, DeWitt Clinton. The governor, in turn, donated it to the Antiquarian Society of Massachusetts. It is now part of the collection of the American Antiquarian Society.

  59. Whichever spelling might be correct, this is a name whose derivation has not been satisfactorily ascertained. The stream was the present Great Kanawha River, which empties into the Ohio River where the city of Point Pleasant, W.Va., is now situated.

  60. It was 97 years later, in September 1846, when a young boy who was digging worms for bait unearthed this plate and turned it over to his uncle, Col. John Beale. It created quite a sensation, and Beale showed it to Virginia legislator James M. Laidley, who borrowed it and took it with him to Richmond. There, without permission, he gave it to the Virginia Historical Society. When protests were lodged by the family of the boy who found it, two copies were made of the plate, and the original was returned to the boy. It remained with him some years until he was offered a very high payment for it. He agreed to sell; the prospective buyer took the plate with him and promised to return shortly with the money but never did. Of the two copies that were made, one is preserved in the collection of the Virginia Historical Society and the other is in the French National Archives.

  61. The designation Great Miami River exists today. The mouth of this stream presently demarks the boundary line between Ohio and Indiana. The city of Cincinnati is just a few miles to the east of this river’s mouth. On a high bench directly over the river to the east is the present Shawnee Lookout County Park, which the author had the honor of naming.

  62. This was another of the lead plates deposited by Céloron that have never been recovered, so far as is known.

  63. The author has been unable to discover any literal translation of the chief’s name, linemakemi (pronounced You-nuh-MOCK-uh-mee.) The French designation, Demoiselle, is Damselfly, which some of the English distorted to Dragonfly when they were not referring to him as Old Britain.

  64. There were two Indians at this time who were known to the British as Half King. One was the Wyandot, Monakaduto, who was among the most powerful leaders in the tribe and who was also known by the name Zhausshotoh. The other was a Seneca chief named Tannacharison.

  65. This trading house was established at the site of present Cumberland, Md.

  66. Pronunciations of these names: Pimoacan is Pim-OH-uh-can; Moluntha is Mo-LUN-tha; Orontony is O-RON-tun-nee; Tarhe is TAR-hee.

  67. The site of present Fort Wayne, Ind. The Maumee River was called by some tribes the Omee. Many of the early traders referred to it as the Miami-of-the-Lake, since it flows northeastward to empty into Lake Erie, near present Toledo, O.

  68. This little fort—pronounced My-AM-mees, not My-AM-miss—should not be confused with the later Fort Miamis built by the French at the foot of the Maumee Rapids, or with the Fort Miami built by the British only a stone’s throw from the ruins of the latter Fort Miamis just prior to the War of 1812.

  69. The Miamis called this same river Weotowesipi.

  70. Their cabin was close to present Marlinton, seat of Pocahontas Co., W.Va.

  71. Gov. Clinton in New York, learning of Pennsylvania’s reason for not erecting such a fort, appealed to his own Assembly for the means to help Pennsylvania but, to Clinton’s anger and frustration, his appeal was rejected.

  72. This stream was named Beef River by the French because of the large herd of woods bison observed there by the Céloron expedition when it passed in 1749. Later, the stream was renamed and became the present French Creek, with the present city of Franklin, Pa., now at its mouth, where Venango had been situated.

  73. Stephen Sewell was slain in the area of the New River now known as the Sandstone Falls, about midway between the present towns of Brooks and Meadow Creek. The large hill rising some 3,000 feet from the east side of the river at that point today bears the name of Big Sewell Mountain.

  74. A full account of the attack on Pickawillany, the death of linemakemi and the destruction of the village will be found in the author’s Wilderness Empire (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969; New York: Bantam, 1971).

  75. Michikiniqua is pronounced Mish-ee-KIN-ee-kwa. The town of Kekionga, pronounced Keck-ee-ONG-uh, was established on the site of present Fort Wayne, Ind.

  76. Gist’s new post and cabin were located just a few miles northeast of present Uniontown, Pa., southeast of the old Mount Braddock Mansion. Inconclusive evidence indicates that Gist actually did start to lay out a settlement at the mouth of Chartier’s Creek, site of present McKee’s Rocks, but if he did, it was never finished, and Washington, when he was there the following year, made no mention of it in his journal.

  77. The new Sinioto was established on the site of the present city of Portsmouth, O. Though reestablished, Sinioto never quite regained the size and importance it had enjoyed previously.

  78. The grandfather of the Marquis de Duquesne, Adm. Abraham Duquesne, who died in 1688, had been one of France’s greatest naval leaders.

  79. John Fraser’s trading post, converted to a fort, was called by many Fort Venango, after the Indian village located there, but the official designation of the fort, when it was improved, was Ft. Machault.

  80. Fraser’s cabin was situated at the mouth of Turtle Creek, on the site of present Braddock, Pa., just over five miles below the mouth of the Youghiogheny.

  81. Gov. Dinwiddie’s commission to George Washington is as follows: “To George Washington, Esq., o
ne of the Adjutant-Generals of the troops and forces in the Colony of Virginia: I, reposing especial trust and confidence in the ability, conduct, and fidelity of you, the said George Washington, have appointed you my express messenger; and you are hereby authorized and empowered to proceed hence, with all convenient and possible dispatch, to the post or place on the river Ohio, where the French have lately erected a fort or forts, or where the commandant of the French forces resides, in order to deliver my letter and message to him; and after waiting not exceeding one week for an answer, you are to take your leave and return immediately back. To this commission I have set my hand, and caused the great seal of this Dominion to be affixed, at the city of Williamsburg, the seat of my government, this thirteenth day of October, in the twenty-seventh year of the reign of his Majesty, George the Second, King of Great Britain, etc., etc. Annoque Domini, 1753. Robert Dinwiddie”

  82. Washington had, in addition to Gist and Monakaduto, enlisted the service of his fencing instructor, Jacob van Braam, as a French interpreter. At Will’s Creek Station he hired trader John Davidson as Indian interpreter and four other men as helpers—Henry Steward, Barnaby (Barney) Curran, John McGuire and William Jenkins—plus bringing along two of his own Negro slaves.

  83. Copies of Washington’s journal were soon being reprinted and distributed throughout England, and many newspapers, both in England and America, carried excerpts of it or even the whole text.

  84. At a meeting of the House of Burgesses on February 14, 1754, Dinwiddie was finally allocated £10,000 in Virginia currency for frontier defense. He also, on March 7, offered 20,000 acres of land in the Ohio Valley to be given out as bounties to those who enlisted to serve under Col. Fry, as soon as that area was secured from the French.

  85. Washington was pleased with his promotion, but this turned to anger when he learned that his pay was only half that paid to a regular army officer of the same rank. He threatened to resign but was dissuaded by the wise counsel of the Fairfax family, who had first brought him to the attention of Gov. Dinwiddie.

  86. Fort Machault (often called Fort Venango) was named after the French financial genius and statesman Jean Baptiste Machault D’Arnouville.

  87. There was some friction at this time between Washington and regular army Capt. Mackay, who felt he should be in command, not a militia officer. Washington, however, prevailed.

  88. Although Contrecoeur told the assembled Indians that the French and English were at war—which, in effect, they were—no formal declaration of the French and Indian War was made until May 18, 1756, when England declared war against France. France responded with its own war declaration on the succeeding June 9.

  89. The final battle statistics indicated that Washington had 12 men killed, 43 wounded, 29 missing, 25 deserted and 251 unscathed. The French had 2 killed, 70 wounded.

  90. The mouth of Wolf Creek is at the site of present Narrows, Va., some eight miles south of the West Virginia border. Burke’s settlement was situated on the site of present Burke’s Garden, Tazewell Co., Va.

  91. Tygart’s Valley River empties into the upper Monongahela just above the site of present Fairmont, W.Va.

  92. One rather fanciful account states that the Indian party, after putting the gray-haired head of Barger into a sack, went to the Lybrook cabin on Sinking Creek, found Mrs. Lybrook alone there, handed her the sack and told her to look in the bag and she would find someone she knew. That, of course, presupposes that the Indians knew where the Lybrook cabin was, knew that Mrs. Lybrook was there, and could speak her tongue (or she theirs) well enough to converse with her but for some unfathomable reason were not inclined to take her along with the other prisoners or loot and burn the cabin. The saga of what happened to Mary Draper Ingles after this would make a book in itself. On July 11, two days after Braddock’s defeat and three days after the massacre at Draper’s Meadows, Mary Draper Ingles gave birth to a daughter. Because of her fitness and strength, she came through the birth all right and refused to hand the baby over to the Indians on their demand, knowing they would certainly kill the infant. Impressed at her courage, Black Wolf let her keep the child, but the journey downstream continued. She was taken to Chalahgawtha on the Scioto, where her son Thomas was taken away to Detroit and her son George soon sickened and died. After many weeks of captivity, she and other women were taken to Big Bone Lick in Kentucky, some 20 miles southeast of present Cincinnati, to help make salt from the springs there. She put her baby daughter into the care of another woman, and then she and Hannah Schmidt escaped. Then, under great hardships, without weapons, suitable clothing or food, they headed back toward Draper’s Meadows. They followed the Ohio River (often forced to make long upstream detours at the mouths of streams) up to the Kanawha River, then up the Kanawha to the New River. They were so threatened by hunger that Hannah Schmidt tried to kill Mary Draper to eat her. They fought, and Mary got away and crossed the river. The two women, then on opposite sides of the stream, continued upstream on the New River and eventually made it back to Draper’s Meadows. There Mary, having traveled through the wilderness for some 1,500 miles since her capture, was reunited with her husband, William Ingles. An abbreviated account of her incredible journey and the travail she overcame may be found in Trans-Allegheny Pioneers by John P. Hale (Radford, Va., 1971).

  93. Even Ottawas and Chippewas under Pontiac and Langlade, from as far away as middle and upper Michigan, responded to Contrecoeur’s call and participated in the battle.

  94. It was soon after Braddock’s defeat that Dr. Daniel Craig of Winchester had occasion to meet and talk with Red Hawk, who described the peculiar circumstance to him. Red Hawk continued to believe it was through intervention of the Great Spirit that Washington escaped, but Dr. Craig surmised, most likely correctly, a defect in the gun. Years later Washington, too, met Red Hawk again and heard the same story from him. Red Hawk at that point viewed Washington with almost reverential awe.

  95. Thomas Faucett was subsequently court-martialed and pled self-defense. He was discharged from the militia but not otherwise punished.

  96. These tortures occurred in the area now occupied by Three Rivers Stadium. Greater details on Braddock’s defeat may be found in numerous sources, including the author’s own work, Wilderness Empire.

  97. Actually, the name Fort Pitt was not officially bestowed on the installation until November 20, 1759, when it was so named after the British prime minister by Gen. John Stanwix; until then it was simply called “the fort” or Mercer’s Fort or sometimes Fort Mercer, after the officer who was directing its reconstruction. However, to simplify matters and avoid confusion, it will be referred to as Fort Pitt from this point forward.

  98. Kiskepila is pronounced Kiss-keh-PEE-luh.

  99. Youghiogheny is often mispronounced YO-high-oh-GAY-nee. The correct pronunciation is YOCK-ee-oh-GAY-nee.

  100. George Croghan, hearing rumors of Pontiac’s plan, wrote to Amherst about them, but Amherst scoffed at the idea of the Indians being any real threat to the British, saying: “I look upon the intelligence you receive of the French stirring up the western Indians of little consequence, as it is not in their power to hurt us.” Amherst also wrote to Sir William Johnson that if the Indians did commit any hostilities, they “must not only expect the severest retaliation, but the destruction of all their nations, for I am firmly resolved, wherever they give me occasion, to extirpate them root and branch.” A little later, becoming somewhat more aware of the seriousness of the situation, Amherst recommended to his field commanders that they attempt to spread smallpox among the Indians by giving them infected blankets as gifts; he also advocated hunting “the vermin” with dogs. Pontiac’s siege against Detroit failed, and though for several years he continued to wander among the tribes trying to get their support for another general attack against the British, it all fell through on April 20, 1769, when Pontiac was assassinated by an Illinois warrior. Full details of Pontiac’s War, the Amherst policies and incidents that caused it and subsequent events ar
e chronicled in the author’s The Conquerors (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970; New York: Bantam, 1981).

  101. The moment it was learned at Fort Pitt that Amherst had been recalled, the commander there, Capt. Simeon Ecuyer, wrote to his superior, Col. Henry Bouquet: “What universal cries of joy and what bumpers of Madeira are drunk to his prompt departure!”

  102. The official list of prisoners liberated by Bouquet in this action, while incomplete, is as follows:

  LIST OF CAPTIVES

  … taken by the Indians and delivered to Col. Bouquet by the Mingoes, Delawares, Shawanese, Wyandots, & Mohicans at Tuscarawas ye Muskingum Novemr 1764. Transmitted to Sir Wm Johnson Bart by Mr. Alexr.McKee Agent for Indn. Affairs, Decr 3d.1764

  [Source: Sir William Johnson Correspondence

  Records of Superintendent’s Office

  RG 10 NAC, 1765 C. 1222 pp 313-314]

  103. Many colonial officials in America were becoming highly disgruntled at English home rule in the colonies, and this seemed to culminate with the Proclamation of 1763, which often stripped them of lands previously granted to them. George Washington, for example, was only one of those who lost vast tracts, he and others being stripped of the 2.5-Million-acre grant he had received in the Ohio River Valley in 1760. In an angry letter to one of the other land speculators, he wrote: “I can never look upon that proclamation in any other light (but I say this between ourselves) than as a temporary expedient to quiet the minds of the Indians.” Benjamin Franklin described the Proclamation as a yoke placed about the neck of the colonists to strangle them solely on the basis of economics, because of the value of the Indian trade. In his 1766 address to the British House of Commons, he said: “The trade with the Indians, though carried on in America, is not an American interest. The people of America are chiefly farmers and planters; scarce anything that they raise or produce is an article of commerce with the Indians. The Indian trade is a British interest: it is carried on with British manufacturers, for the profit of British merchants and manufacturers.”

 

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